We’ve previously talked about the father of the video game cartridge here on SSH, but yesterday marked the would-be 100th birthday of the overall ‘vater’ of video games, Ralph BaerWhile we won’t go into an extensive history lesson, German born Ralph came to the US as a teenager and joined the National Radio Institute. Shortly after he was drafted to fight in WW2, serving for military intelligence.After surviving the war and gaining a degree in radio engineering, Baer went on to develop the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey. This machine is largely credited for inspiring Atari’s ‘Pong’He donated many of his plans and prototypes to the Smithsonian in 2006 before passing away in 2014If you look at anything online other than your current main game’s wiki, you know there is quite a crisis going on in eastern Europe.Well, the video game industry isn’t free of this and has taken action along with many other industries in “unplugging” from Russia.After a public call from Ukraine to all game dev companies last week, the following have since banded together in blocking all Russian accounts or transactions: Ubisoft, Take-Two, Rockstar, Activision Blizzard, EA, CD Projeckt Red, Microsoft, Epic, Nintendo, Steam, Sony and othersActions taken by all of these companies do vary, of course. From donations to halting production entirely. Some launcher/marketplace accounts still have access to content already purchased because, let’s face it, the conflict over there isn’t the fault of everyone in Russia. A lot of limited access comes from economic sanctions and access to banks/fundsWe saw this coming! Intel’s Arch Alchemist cards have been pushed back to a May - June releaseWhy? Well, because Intel is putting it’s “finishing touches” on their new Arch Alchemy cardsAccording to sources at Igors Labs via Tom’s Hardware say that we will see qualification samples in the next few weeksIntel is still taking its time because of this anticipated launch. Polishing drivers, etc.This delay in release could mean that the Arch cards could be a heavy contender in the GPU market.
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