This year kicked off with a bang, with both Nvidia and AMD launching their new range of graphics cards.<\/p>\n
While this in itself isn’t too surprising, it was how much more these new cards offered over their predecessors that really stood out.<\/p>\n
The fact that a mid-range RX 480 or GTX 1060 could stand toe-to-toe with Nvidia’s flagship GTX 980 was massive news and a graphical leap we haven’t seen in some time.<\/p>\n
More importantly, these cards saw the first steps towards playable 4K gaming and set a benchmark for 2017’s GPUs.<\/p>\n
Not all of the news this year was good – especially when it came to the cost of our favourite hobby in South Africa.<\/p>\n While prices increased across the board (most notably in hardware), nowhere was South Africa’s poor-performing Rand more apparent than in the cost of retail games, which soared past the R1,000 mark.<\/p>\n This resulted in games becoming all but unaffordable for many South Africans, as many chose to wait for sales rather than pay full price.<\/p>\n Arguably the biggest news this year was the announcement of a mid-console cycle refresh.<\/p>\n The Scorpio and Pro both promise 4K gaming in some form or another, but the big news here is how far consoles seemed to fall behind PCs this year.<\/p>\n The gap has never been greater and with new hardware from Nvidia and AMD still coming, this could point to a revised upgrade system for the console manufacturers.<\/p>\n It’s hard to cover everything that happened at this year’s E3, but it’s pretty safe to say that there was something for everyone.<\/p>\n Sony seemed to double-down on nostalgia and familiar franchises with the remake of Final Fantasy VII and God of War 4 being big draws.<\/p>\n Xbox meanwhile recognised that its ecosystem was its greatest asset as it began to release games for both PC and console as part of its Play Anywhere program.<\/p>\n Words cannot describe just how big Pokemon GO was over June\/July 2016.<\/p>\n It seems everyone with a smartphone was out and about catching them all, spawning numerous stories of negligence, law-breaking, and silliness.<\/p>\n Then, just as quickly as it began, the fad died out as interest seemingly waned overnight.<\/p>\n One of the most-hyped and ambitious titles of this generation – what could possibly go wrong.<\/p>\n As it turns out, the game failed to not only deliver on some of its biggest selling points but launched as a broken and buggy mess.<\/p>\n The backlash was severe, resulting in developers Hello Games going dark for months.<\/p>\n It’s only now, nearly 6 months after release that the team has begun patching and implementing new features into the game.<\/p>\n Nintendo is making a new console!<\/p>\n That’s pretty much all we know at this point, but the idea of a home\/portable hybrid is certainly an intriguing one.<\/p>\n Following the Wii U and the enormous success of Pokemon GO, Nintendo feels like its about to cross a gaming rubicon that could determine its fortune as a manufacturer.<\/p>\n Should the Switch perform as well as the Wii or DS, the Big N will be around for a while longer, if not, the company could undergo some serious restructuring.<\/p>\n![\"amd-and-nvidia\"](\"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/AMD-and-Nvidia.jpg\")
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\nGoing past the R1,000 mark<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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\nPro or Scorpio?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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\nE3<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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\nPokemon GO<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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\nNo Man’s Lie<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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\nThe Nintendo Switch<\/strong><\/h3>\n