A report from analyst firm Superdata has put in perspective the craze regarding Battle Royale-type games. Fortnite, developed by EPIC, is now estimated to have earned more than $1 billion in revenue since its launch last year. And it all seems to be going uphill - the game earned some $304 million in May alone solely on its in-game microtransactions, a 4% increase over the still impressive $296 million figure in April. Consider that EPIC only added the Battle Royale game mode last September, and the voracious pace of revenue increase becomes obvious - just the months of May and April account for more than half of the $1 billion being reported here.

Make no mistake: like in all things, there will be an inevitable tumble in popularity and revenue as the game ages, even if it has just now entered its fifth season. However, the rhythm at which funds are flowing into EPIC's coffers will surely enable an even bigger, more impressive experience come Fortnite's successor, which you can bet will be ready to pick up the slack once revenue slows down. It becomes hard not to justify developers' options towards developing these kinds of games over others - it really does seem to be this is where most money's at.

EPIC delivered their "The State of Unreal" presentation at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week (which had a great deal much time devoted to raytracing technologies). EPIC Games has been at the forefront of graphics development for some years now. Their engines (alongside a few other key players in the industry) routinely push the boundaries of graphical fidelity. And naturally, something would be amiss if they weren't jumping on the raytracing bandwagon as well with some of the most impressive proof of concept videos I've ever seen in real-time generated graphics. The company took their time, then, to unveil their artistic interpretations of real-time ray tracing, motion capture and real-time facial animation mapping. Cue many videos, after the break.

EPIC Games has made an investment that was both likely and unlikely: the acquisition of Cloudgine, a software company based in Edinburgh, Scotland, that specializes in real-time cloud computing technologies. The company's name has appeared associated with Microsoft's now almost infamous Crackdown 3 project for the Xbox One console, which has been met with delays after delays. The sum for the acquisition hasn't been announced, though EPIC was forthcoming with the intention: they aim to integrate Cloudgine's software and cloud computing solutions on their Unreal engine. The full EPIC press release follows.

Westone, the leader in high performance audio and in-ear monitoring technology, announces the availability of the UM Pro Series headphones. The UM Pro Series 10, 20 and 30 are the next generation of the acclaimed Westone UM Series and bring superior sound for the stage or studio. Each unit is individually hand-crafted in Colorado Springs, USA. The UM Pro 10 is ideal for on-stage monitoring for any level of musician, the UM Pro 20 is ideal for on-stage monitoring for drummers, vocalist and bass players, and the UM Pro 30 is the reference product for on-stage monitoring and home or studio recording.

With Westone True-Fit technology, Westone combines 50+ years experience with in-ear applications that has yielded a low-profile, lightweight, universal earpiece which delivers maximum comfort and in-ear coupling for dynamic music monitoring. UM Pros are meticulously built by a staff of dedicated artisans and lab technicians. Westone's USA products exhibit a level of craftsmanship that truly embodies America's rich history of handmade artistry. The UM Pro exemplifies the best in sound and fit available on the market today.

MSI proudly announced the release of its new EPIC embedded board?MS-98D1. The MS-98D1 is a compact EPIC size embedded board with Intel Atom Dual Core processor for low-power fanless solution. Featuring with dual core, fanless design, rich I/O, and wide input voltage of 9 to 36 VDC, the MS-98D1 is especially ideal for industrial applications that involve control and communications, or any industrial fields that require fanless embedded systems.

The dual Gigabit LAN built-in also benefit the target applications by providing broad-band communication capability that is required by many industrial fields. For some systems that need additional communication or I/O interfaces, the PCI-104 slot of MS-98D1 allows system integrators to stack more modules with no limits, offering more application possibilities with this small board. Moreover, 2 independent displays with VGA, DVI, and Dual LVDS outputs enable the MS-98D1 to be applied for remote monitoring and control systems as well.

MAINGEAR, an award-winning PC system builder of custom desktops, notebooks, and workstations, offers PC gamers and enthusiasts the next generation of NVIDIA architecture that delivers a powerful new graphics solution to redefine smooth, seamless, lifelike gaming on their award-winning desktop systems.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 is the fastest single GPU graphics card on the market today with superior power efficiency that allows for the card to be extremely quiet, along with new key visual technologies as well as added multi-display capabilities. MAINGEAR desktops equipped with the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 graphics card offer the fastest graphics performance to date thanks to NVIDIA's GPU boost technology, which dynamically maximizes clock speeds based on the workload of the program to push performance to new levels and brings out the best in every game. This new generation of NVIDIA graphics provides the best gaming experience possible with maximum detail settings enabled.

MAINGEAR, an award-winning custom PC builder offering custom desktops, custom notebooks, pc and workstations, is excited to announce their next innovation from MAINGEAR EPIC Labs; the MAINGEAR EPIC T1000 CPU thermal solution for their entire desktop lineup.

The MAINGEAR EPIC T100 is an ultra-high performing phase change metal alloy thermal interface material (TIM) offering the most effective solution to transfer heat from the CPU to the heatsink with high bulk conductivity. The MAINGEAR EPIC T1000 deploys into all the surface micro-asperities on the CPU lid and heat sink in a way that traditional paste solutions simply cannot.