We already knew that AMD plans to release FidelityFX Super Resolution, a competitor to Nvidia's DLSS, on June 22nd. And today, IGN received confirmation from Microsoft that AMD's new supersampling tech will support the Xbox Series X/S.

"At Xbox, we’re excited by the potential of AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution technology as another great method for developers to increase framerates and resolution. We will have more to share on this soon," a Microsoft spokesperson told IGN.

The Xbox Series X/S supporting FidelityFX Super Resolution would be beneficial to Microsoft's ninth-generation console owners to achieve higher framerates or resolutions on games running on either console. All without extra performance power being used to achieve these technical enhancements.

This comes as no surprise as Microsoft announced during Game Stack Live that it incorporated the FidelityFX tools into the development kits for Xbox Series X/S. This allowed developers to utilize platform-centric optimizations with AMD FidelityFX directly from the development kits, which helped lay the foundation for FidelityFX Super Resolution support.

FidelityFX Super Resolution is a supersampling tech that will increase both performance and image quality for games that support it. FidelityFX Super Resolution will include four image upscaling modes: Ultra Quality, Quality, Balanced, and Performance. Each of the four focuses more on achieving either higher image quality or increasing the frame rates in games.

Unlike its competition, Nvidia's DLSS, which is an image upscaling technology that uses AI to upscale lower resolution images and make them appear at a higher resolution without requiring a substantial amount of performance, FidelityFX Super Resolution does not require machine learning. Plus it is open-source, meaning it can support AMD graphics cards, in addition to Nvidia GPUs, including the older GTX series.

AMD did demonstrate a test of its FidelityFX Super Resolution using Radeon RX 68000 XT and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU running Gearbox Software's Godfall on the "epic" graphical game setting with ray tracing enabled, which showed some interesting results but should be taken with a grain of salt given they are in-house test results from AMD. Nevertheless, FidelityFX Super Resolution will roll out on June 22nd on desktops and laptops.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

While Virtua Fighter has gotten attention in other games, such as guest characters in Dead or Alive 5 and as minigames in various Yakuza titles, the once-venerated 3D fighter seemed to be forgotten for a very long time. But with Virtua Fighter 5 once again revamped and re-released, does this star of the fighting game world still shine as brightly? Yes... but, speaking as a veteran Virtua Fighter fan, there are a few issues that keep Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown from claiming its crown as an all-time champion.

Considered the granddaddy of 3D fighting games, Virtua Fighter sparked revolutions in visuals and gameplay and, even now, it holds a great deal of respect among fighting game fans. Its simple three-button control scheme and comparatively small character roster hides an incredibly complex and rewarding game--provided you're willing to put in the time to learn and improve at it. Some games in the series--such as the excellent Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution--are known for amazing tutorials and learning tools, along with engaging and replayable single-player modes. Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, however, eschews that to focus on competition, and more specifically, online competition.

Gameplay-wise, Ultimate Showdown will feel very familiar to veteran Virtua Fighter players. The base fighting engine is based around the earlier Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, with all of the moves, characters, and stages carried over from that game. There are a few minuscule changes, such as different colors of hit flashes to indicate normal and counter hits, but the overwhelming majority of the gameplay is unchanged. And that's perfectly fine--VF5FS had some of the best fighting action you could find anywhere, with incredible depth of gameplay that has kept many playing for years on end. What is new, however, are the graphics and music, which have been completely redone in the Dragon Engine that Sega's RGG Studio has been using for its Yakuza series. Character models and stages have been rebuilt from the ground up, and it all shines with a visual polish that has Virtua Fighter looking better than ever.

While Virtua Fighter has gotten attention in other games, such as guest characters in Dead or Alive 5 and as minigames in various Yakuza titles, the once-venerated 3D fighter seemed to be forgotten for a very long time. But with Virtua Fighter 5 once again revamped and re-released, does this star of the fighting game world still shine as brightly? Yes... but, speaking as a veteran Virtua Fighter fan, there are a few issues that keep Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown from claiming its crown as an all-time champion.

Considered the granddaddy of 3D fighting games, Virtua Fighter sparked revolutions in visuals and gameplay and, even now, it holds a great deal of respect among fighting game fans. Its simple three-button control scheme and comparatively small character roster hides an incredibly complex and rewarding game--provided you're willing to put in the time to learn and improve at it. Some games in the series--such as the excellent Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution--are known for amazing tutorials and learning tools, along with engaging and replayable single-player modes. Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown, however, eschews that to focus on competition, and more specifically, online competition.

Gameplay-wise, Ultimate Showdown will feel very familiar to veteran Virtua Fighter players. The base fighting engine is based around the earlier Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, with all of the moves, characters, and stages carried over from that game. There are a few minuscule changes, such as different colors of hit flashes to indicate normal and counter hits, but the overwhelming majority of the gameplay is unchanged. And that's perfectly fine--VF5FS had some of the best fighting action you could find anywhere, with incredible depth of gameplay that has kept many playing for years on end. What is new, however, are the graphics and music, which have been completely redone in the Dragon Engine that Sega's RGG Studio has been using for its Yakuza series. Character models and stages have been rebuilt from the ground up, and it all shines with a visual polish that has Virtua Fighter looking better than ever.

Developer Platinum Games' style is instantly recognizable--flashy, fast-paced action that oozes with personality and flair. World of Demons brings that signature style to Apple Arcade, giving you control of a samurai named Onimaru and thrusting you into, well, a world of demons. That successful Platinum formula translates well to iOS devices, with simple touch controls and quick action that looks and feels great on the smaller screen. There are some issues lying underneath--mostly in the camera system--but those problems aren't enough to derail this otherwise solid action experience.

World of Demons follows Onimaru, a lone samurai fighting against an army of vicious demons called yokai. Our hero is building an army of his own, however, as every enemy he defeats will join him in the fight against the game's main antagonist, the demon king Shuten Doji. Onimaru himself controls exactly like a Platinum Games protagonist, deftly running around stages while slashing with his massive katana. Consecutive presses on the attack button will result in stylish combos, with better rewards given for higher combos at the end of a skirmish. Holding down the button will slow attacks down, making strikes more powerful but making you vulnerable to enemy counterattacks.

The yokai Onimaru battle comes in all shapes and sizes, from small bean farmers to massive pink blobs, each with its own attack abilities. Each yokai is assigned a color (red, blue, or green), with each color having strengths and weaknesses over the other in a rock-paper-scissors system. Defeating a yokai adds it to your collection, and before each chapter you'll be able to equip two yokai for the following mission. Other yokai defeated during the chapter are added to a "deck" and disappear after one use.

Developer Platinum Games' style is instantly recognizable--flashy, fast-paced action that oozes with personality and flair. World of Demons brings that signature style to Apple Arcade, giving you control of a samurai named Onimaru and thrusting you into, well, a world of demons. That successful Platinum formula translates well to iOS devices, with simple touch controls and quick action that looks and feels great on the smaller screen. There are some issues lying underneath--mostly in the camera system--but those problems aren't enough to derail this otherwise solid action experience.

World of Demons follows Onimaru, a lone samurai fighting against an army of vicious demons called yokai. Our hero is building an army of his own, however, as every enemy he defeats will join him in the fight against the game's main antagonist, the demon king Shuten Doji. Onimaru himself controls exactly like a Platinum Games protagonist, deftly running around stages while slashing with his massive katana. Consecutive presses on the attack button will result in stylish combos, with better rewards given for higher combos at the end of a skirmish. Holding down the button will slow attacks down, making strikes more powerful but making you vulnerable to enemy counterattacks.

The yokai Onimaru battle comes in all shapes and sizes, from small bean farmers to massive pink blobs, each with its own attack abilities. Each yokai is assigned a color (red, blue, or green), with each color having strengths and weaknesses over the other in a rock-paper-scissors system. Defeating a yokai adds it to your collection, and before each chapter you'll be able to equip two yokai for the following mission. Other yokai defeated during the chapter are added to a "deck" and disappear after one use.

When I reviewed Miitopia on 3DS in 2017, I wasn’t terribly impressed. The game was dull, simplistic, and felt so random that I barely felt like I was playing it. But, as we’ve learned over the years, games can be improved significantly from their initial launches, and I figured that a Switch remake of Miitopia would be the perfect opportunity for Nintendo to fix the flaws of the 3DS release. Unfortunately, while there are notable improvements, the core game is still the same tiresome, repetitive experience from four years ago.

Miitopia is a game where you take created Mii characters--based on yourself, friends and family, celebrities, fantasy characters, whoever--and “cast” them as player and NPC characters in a simple RPG story. The Dark Lord of Miitopia is ruining the peace and stealing the faces of the populace, so it’s up to you and your merry band of adventurers to gear up and put a stop to his wickedness, with plenty of goofy character interactions and dialogue snippets along the way.

It’s a cute and fun concept, and to Miitopia’s credit, the Switch version of the game features a fully revamped character creator that lets you go all-out with creating incredibly detailed Mii characters by layering different hair, eyes, facial features, and additional shapes. It takes time to make a really impressive Mii, but if you’re willing to put in the effort, you can make some astounding creations. If you don’t have that sort of time, you can use Miis made by other players by entering their Access Code or pick from a selection of currently popular Miis. It’s a bit cumbersome not being able to search in-game for specific characters (it took me far too long to find a good Hank Hill) but with some online sleuthing on social media you should be able to find some good created-character libraries.

When I reviewed Miitopia on 3DS in 2017, I wasn’t terribly impressed. The game was dull, simplistic, and felt so random that I barely felt like I was playing it. But, as we’ve learned over the years, games can be improved significantly from their initial launches, and I figured that a Switch remake of Miitopia would be the perfect opportunity for Nintendo to fix the flaws of the 3DS release. Unfortunately, while there are notable improvements, the core game is still the same tiresome, repetitive experience from four years ago.

Miitopia is a game where you take created Mii characters--based on yourself, friends and family, celebrities, fantasy characters, whoever--and “cast” them as player and NPC characters in a simple RPG story. The Dark Lord of Miitopia is ruining the peace and stealing the faces of the populace, so it’s up to you and your merry band of adventurers to gear up and put a stop to his wickedness, with plenty of goofy character interactions and dialogue snippets along the way.

It’s a cute and fun concept, and to Miitopia’s credit, the Switch version of the game features a fully revamped character creator that lets you go all-out with creating incredibly detailed Mii characters by layering different hair, eyes, facial features, and additional shapes. It takes time to make a really impressive Mii, but if you’re willing to put in the effort, you can make some astounding creations. If you don’t have that sort of time, you can use Miis made by other players by entering their Access Code or pick from a selection of currently popular Miis. It’s a bit cumbersome not being able to search in-game for specific characters (it took me far too long to find a good Hank Hill) but with some online sleuthing on social media you should be able to find some good created-character libraries.

Knockout City's colorful, cartoonish aesthetic plays host to a relatively straightforward game of dodgeball, putting two teams against each other in a war waged with red rubber balls. But once you start factoring in deployable gliders, balls that can trap opponents in cages, and throwing techniques that can bend your shots around corners, Knockout City's identity starts to bubble to the surface. In between the satisfying thunks of direct hits and the grace of each character's movements, Knockout City features a satisfying level of depth that balances its pickup-and-play nature with a compelling competitive element that's difficult to walk away from.

Each of Knockout City's rotating modes rests on the fundamentals of finding a ball and trying to hit opposing players twice with it for a knockout, racking up your team's score in the process. Knockout City makes this both simple and satisfying by automatically targeting enemies for you, but giving you control over the distance and power of each throw. You can take a longer time to charge up for a faster swing of the arm but expose yourself in the process by limiting your movement speed to do so. Judging how much power to put behind a shot and balancing that with the distance between you and another player is critical, and just one of the many micro-decisions you'll need to make during each skirmish.

The balance between the two creates a dynamic that allows Knockout City to be approachable enough for casual play but still retain smaller complexities for competitive play to leverage. And when you start coming up against more savvy foes, additional mechanics start becoming more important. Just like in the real game of dodgeball, you can catch balls tossed your way to avoid taking a hit. In Knockout City, this applies a stacking effect to the ball, causing it to travel faster if thrown again quickly after being caught. You can quickly find yourself in an escalating ping pong match with another player, adjusting to shrinking catch timing windows with each exchange. Without the need to manually target enemies, Knockout City allows you to focus on timing and positioning instead, which makes its fast-paced action more manageable.

Knockout City's colorful, cartoonish aesthetic plays host to a relatively straightforward game of dodgeball, putting two teams against each other in a war waged with red rubber balls. But once you start factoring in deployable gliders, balls that can trap opponents in cages, and throwing techniques that can bend your shots around corners, Knockout City's identity starts to bubble to the surface. In between the satisfying thunks of direct hits and the grace of each character's movements, Knockout City features a satisfying level of depth that balances its pickup-and-play nature with a compelling competitive element that's difficult to walk away from.

Each of Knockout City's rotating modes rests on the fundamentals of finding a ball and trying to hit opposing players twice with it for a knockout, racking up your team's score in the process. Knockout City makes this both simple and satisfying by automatically targeting enemies for you, but giving you control over the distance and power of each throw. You can take a longer time to charge up for a faster swing of the arm but expose yourself in the process by limiting your movement speed to do so. Judging how much power to put behind a shot and balancing that with the distance between you and another player is critical, and just one of the many micro-decisions you'll need to make during each skirmish.

The balance between the two creates a dynamic that allows Knockout City to be approachable enough for casual play but still retain smaller complexities for competitive play to leverage. And when you start coming up against more savvy foes, additional mechanics start becoming more important. Just like in the real game of dodgeball, you can catch balls tossed your way to avoid taking a hit. In Knockout City, this applies a stacking effect to the ball, causing it to travel faster if thrown again quickly after being caught. You can quickly find yourself in an escalating ping pong match with another player, adjusting to shrinking catch timing windows with each exchange. Without the need to manually target enemies, Knockout City allows you to focus on timing and positioning instead, which makes its fast-paced action more manageable.

Jason Kilar isn't planning on leaving WarnerMedia anytime soon, according to a new report from Deadline. The New York Times previously reported that Kilar was negotiating his exit last week.

“My plan and my focus is to remain here in my CEO role at WarnerMedia," Kilar told staff in a town hall, as reported by Deadline. "I am not thinking right now about post-merger. There will be a time to consider that topic in 2022.”

His announcement that he's not leaving comes on the heels of WarnerMedia merging with Discovery to create a new venture. As part of the deal, Discovery CEO David Zaslav will take over the new company as CEO. WarnerMedia’s CEO joined the company in May 2020, just ahead of HBO Max's launch.

To say that Kilar’s time at WarnerMedia has been tumultuous in the industry would be quite the understatement. Just one year into the job, Kilar turned Hollywood on its head by announcing that Warner Bros. 2021 movies will hit HBO Max the same day they were released in theaters. Sitting in the middle of a pandemic with no clear sign as to when things would return to normal, Kilar took the opportunity to lean into the unprecedented. The goal was to scale HBO Max as quickly as possible in 2021, and then return to more normal distribution methods in 2022.

Risky! The move reportedly cost WarnerMedia an additional $200 million in smoothing over talent relations with backend deals. Directors like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve, both who have long relationships with Warner Bros., publicly condemned the move. Theater exhibitors like AMC and Regal admonished the decision. Kilar put everything on the table at a time that allowed for it, and did it with a consumer-first thesis. If people wanted new movies, and they couldn’t necessarily get to a theater, why not make it available for them at home?

It seems to be working. HBO Max saw big subscriber jumps with the release of Wonder Woman 1984, and engagement seemed to increase with every new high profile film, including Zack Snyder’s Justice League and Godzilla vs Kong. The latter film had the “largest domestic box office of any other movie in the last year while also having the largest viewing audience of any other film or show on HBO Max since launched,” according to AT&T’s chief financial officer, Pascal Desroches.

As Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw put it, “Love him or hate him, Kilar had a strategy and a vision. He started to map it out.”

For WarnerMedia, a company in the middle of a less than amicable restructure under AT&T ownership, Kilar is either a breath of fresh air or precisely the issue. Coming from Hulu when it first started, a company smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, Kilar brought a move fast, break things approach to WarnerMedia. The theatrical release model was just the latest thing to break.

Ironically, since then, every major studio has started reworking what a normal theatrical release will look like. Disney is moving films to Disney+ or debuting them simultaneously in theater and on Disney+. Sony has signed a new deal with Netflix. Paramount is working to get its films on Paramount+ faster. Searchlight and 20th Century Studios are making more films directly for Hulu.

Kilar, the prodigal executive brought in to try and fix WarnerMedia’s messy HBO Max strategy, has arguably done what he was hired to do.

Whether or not Kilar stays on board beyond 2022, post-sale and when Zaslav takes over, is the question looming over WarnerMedia.