Rebrand | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Wed, 12 Oct 2022 13:35:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Rebrand | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Square Enix Montréal is now named Studio Onoma https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/joao-silva/square-enix-montreal-is-now-named-studio-onoma/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/joao-silva/square-enix-montreal-is-now-named-studio-onoma/#respond Tue, 11 Oct 2022 11:00:51 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=578100 Considering Square Enix Montréal has been acquired by Embracer Group, it only makes sense to change the studio's name. From now on, the developer will be known as Studio Onoma, but the name change won't take away any of its previous work. For anyone trying to make sense of the new name, it seems related …

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Considering Square Enix Montréal has been acquired by Embracer Group, it only makes sense to change the studio's name. From now on, the developer will be known as Studio Onoma, but the name change won't take away any of its previous work.

For anyone trying to make sense of the new name, it seems related to the Greek language, where Onoma stands for ‘name'. As the studio mentioned, “names offer endless possibilities”. Names are the “beginning of stories”. They “shape identities” and “breathe life into objects, persons, or concepts”. That is, in a way, what video developers do when creating new games.

Back in 2011, Square Enix Montréal was created to develop AAA games, but a change of focus in 2013 led the studio to focus on mobile titles. Since its establishment, the studio has produced multi-platform games like Hitman Go, Lara Croft Go, Deus Ex Go, and mobile games like Hitman: Sniper and Hitman Sniper: The Shadows.

As of now, we know the game studio is working on a mobile game called Tomb Raider Reloaded, scheduled to release later this year. Moreover, the studio is also working on an Untitled Space Invaders game and Avatar Generations, a new mobile game based on Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru says: What kind of games do you expect from Onoma? Do you think the studio will keep focusing on mobile games like it has done up to this point, or will it venture into unfamiliar territory?

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DeepCool rebrands, launches new logo and website https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/dominic-moass/deepcool-rebrands-launches-new-logo-and-website/ https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/dominic-moass/deepcool-rebrands-launches-new-logo-and-website/#respond Mon, 11 Jan 2021 09:15:17 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=500475 Chinese case and cooler manufacturer, DeepCool, has today announced a company rebranding, including a new logo, website and ‘corporate brand identity.' DeepCool says its rebranding ‘reflects a continuous evolution of the organization, its products, and the computer hardware industry as a whole.' With a new logo that DeepCool claims is more suited ‘for the modern age', …

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Chinese case and cooler manufacturer, DeepCool, has today announced a company rebranding, including a new logo, website and ‘corporate brand identity.' DeepCool says its rebranding ‘reflects a continuous evolution of the organization, its products, and the computer hardware industry as a whole.'

With a new logo that DeepCool claims is more suited ‘for the modern age', the company says it has taken inspiration from the ‘spirit' of a building a computer, as the new logo is a collection of several small squares assembled into one cohesive whole – as is shown below.

DeepCool has also relaunched its website, starting with its US regional site: https://us.deepcool.com/. The new design will then gradually roll out to other regions.

We can expect to see all-new DeepCool products launching this year, featuring the new logo and product packaging.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: We've reviewed a number of DeepCool products over the years, and the new logo is certainly a more modern design compared to the last one.

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Intel teases its rebranding ahead of Tiger Lake launch event https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/joao-silva/intel-teases-its-rebranding-ahead-of-tiger-lake-launch-event/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/joao-silva/intel-teases-its-rebranding-ahead-of-tiger-lake-launch-event/#respond Fri, 28 Aug 2020 10:00:08 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=483309 With Intel's Tiger Lake launch event coming up soon, the company is sending out more teasers, with the latest revealing a lot of rebranding...

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Not long ago, Intel started to tease the launch of the Tiger Lake architecture by sending marketing material to selected press members. A month later, the company said that it had “something big to share” on September 2nd, which was later revealed to be the date scheduled for the Intel Tiger Lake launch event. Now, with the launch event coming up, Intel has sent a third part of the invitation to press members, including a package with a headset and an exclusive sneak peek.

As seen on Hassan Mujtaba's Twitter, the package sent by Intel includes a JBL headset, another invitation, and confirms that the company will “debut all-new look and feel”, hinting that Intel's rebrand will be showcased at the event. Following the trend of most big technology brands, Intel's new logos will receive the minimalistic treatment. By the looks of it, it seems that all of Intel's product lines will receive a redesigned logo.

 

Since the first teasers, we've learned a lot about the upcoming architecture, including the introduction of Xe Graphics (LP), Willow Cove core architecture, SuperFin and SuperMIM technologies, and more. Aimed at mobile devices such as the new Lenovo X1, Intel Tiger Lake will rival the AMD Ryzen 4000 series mobile CPUs, but it will initially be available with only 4 cores, with processors featuring up to 8 cores coming at a later date.

KitGuru says: Do you like Intel's new look? Are you excited about the launch of the 11th Gen Core processors?

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Microsoft rebrands Xbox Game Pass amid rumours of Xbox Live Gold going away https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/joao-silva/microsoft-rebrands-xbox-game-pass-amid-rumours-of-xbox-live-gold-going-away/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/joao-silva/microsoft-rebrands-xbox-game-pass-amid-rumours-of-xbox-live-gold-going-away/#respond Mon, 03 Aug 2020 10:27:46 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=479838 Microsoft is trying out new branding for Xbox Game Pass, shortening the name to just ‘Game Pass', with the traditional Xbox symbol in the logo. This new look is already being tested out on Twitter and could lead to Microsoft simply referring to the service as ‘Game Pass' moving forward. As noted by Thurrot, the …

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Microsoft is trying out new branding for Xbox Game Pass, shortening the name to just ‘Game Pass', with the traditional Xbox symbol in the logo. This new look is already being tested out on Twitter and could lead to Microsoft simply referring to the service as ‘Game Pass' moving forward.

As noted by Thurrot, the official Game Pass Twitter accounts tweeted about “trying out a new look”. From now on, it seems that “Xbox Game Pass” and “Xbox Game Pass for PC” will be called “Game Pass” and “Game Pass for PC”. Despite removing the “Xbox” naming from both profile pictures, they still have the Xbox logo and the Twitter accounts still have the old name.

This change in naming seems to be a way of distancing the service from what it once was, a console-exclusive service. This rebranding also came following the removal of the 12-month subscription of the Xbox Live Gold, leading some to believe that we might see the end of Xbox Live Gold when the Xbox Series X launches.

If the Xbox Live Gold service ceases to exist, the Game Pass service might come as a replacement. Game Pass Ultimate already includes the Xbox Live Gold service, besides coming with Game Pass for PC, console and access to xCloud.

Another interesting thing to point out is the free-to-play Halo Infinite’s multiplayer announcement, which might be interpreted as a sign that the Xbox Live Gold service won't be needed for online gaming in Xbox systems anymore.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Are you a subscriber of any Microsoft gaming service? Do you think Game Pass should replace Xbox Live Gold for good? 

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Microsoft’s Xbox Music app to be rebranded as ‘Groove’ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/apps-software/matthew-wilson/microsofts-xbox-music-app-to-be-rebranded-as-groove/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/apps-software/matthew-wilson/microsofts-xbox-music-app-to-be-rebranded-as-groove/#comments Tue, 07 Jul 2015 13:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=257808 A few months back, Microsoft announced that it would be rebranding its Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps for Windows 10, with the former being reborn as ‘Groove', Microsoft's own music streaming service for all Windows 10 devices. These new changes were detailed in a new blog post yesterday. Microsoft will updating the app over …

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A few months back, Microsoft announced that it would be rebranding its Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps for Windows 10, with the former being reborn as ‘Groove', Microsoft's own music streaming service for all Windows 10 devices. These new changes were detailed in a new blog post yesterday.

Microsoft will updating the app over time but for now, it is pretty much the same as the Xbox Music app. The app will feature light and dark themes and feature everything that is currently available in the Windows 10 preview app. Xbox Music was a subscription service with no free tier like Spotify, Groove will operate on the same business model.

Welcome-Screen-for-Groove-1024x599

While in order to use Groove you will need to pay a subscription fee, Microsoft has noted that one of its future updates will allow users to upload their music library to OneDrive and then stream those to their Windows devices for free. However, OneDrive only gives you 15Gb of free space, so if you plan on uploading a lot, then you will also need to pay for Microsoft's cloud storage service.

The Xbox Video app is getting a less blatant relaunch, with the app simply being renamed ‘Movies & TV', with access to everything currently on the Xbox Video store.

KitGuru Says: It seems that Microsoft is looking to offer an alternative to Apple Music by launching Groove, although it won't be much different to Xbox Music for a few months. Did any of you happen to use the Xbox Video or Xbox Music apps? I used the Xbox Video app to rent a movie one time but aside from that, I've not really given them too much attention. 

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Rebadging of graphics adapters: Past, present and future https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/rebadging-of-graphics-adapters-past-present-and-future/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/rebadging-of-graphics-adapters-past-present-and-future/#comments Fri, 19 Jun 2015 22:19:32 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=255490 In the recent years both Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia Corp. sold similar graphics processing units under completely different names, a practice many consider as deceiving. While stagnation in the market of graphics adapters and rebranding of graphics cards is hardly a good thing for the consumer, both GPU developers had serious reasons to delay …

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In the recent years both Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia Corp. sold similar graphics processing units under completely different names, a practice many consider as deceiving. While stagnation in the market of graphics adapters and rebranding of graphics cards is hardly a good thing for the consumer, both GPU developers had serious reasons to delay new products and re-badge the old ones in the last couple of years.

This week AMD introduced its Radeon R7 and R9 300-series graphics cards, which are based on GPUs introduced in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The lineup features no new graphics processors and does not introduce any new features or capabilities. The new boards are faster than previous gen solutions by 5 to 20 per cent in peak scenarios, which is not a significant performance difference, especially considering the fact that the new cards are significantly more expensive than existing AMD Radeon R9 offerings. The enthusiast community was outraged by AMD’s decision to plainly rebrand its old products and AMD’s partners among graphics cards makers were frustrated with the decision as well. But did AMD do anything extraordinary? In fact, not at all.

amd_radeon_r9_390_official
AMD Radeon R9 390X aka AMD Radeon R9 290X with 8GB of memory

Rebadging: The origins

Selling old lamps as new is not something novel for the high-tech industry in general and graphics cards market in particular. When ATI Technologies introduced its Radeon 8500 (R200) in 2001, it rebadged the original Radeon (R100) to Radeon 7200 and Radeon 7500 (which were based on both R100 and RV200). In 2003, the company rebranded its Radeon 8500 to Radeon 9100. Nvidia has made a number of rebadges throughout its history too. For example, the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB (G92) was renamed to GeForce 9800 GTX, whereas the GeForce 8800 GT was renamed to GeForce 9800 GT. Over the years, both companies have rebranded their products in order to integrate them into new lineups or to create “new” solutions for OEMs.

PC makers rebadge their PCs every year and sometimes even more often to show their customers that they have something new to offer. Usually, they force companies like AMD and Nvidia to rebrand their GPUs every year too, which is why we see OEM-only series like GeForce GTX 800M, Radeon HD 8000 and so on.

However, rebranding of high-end graphics cards for gamers in the recent years were conditioned by not only requests from PC OEMs or necessity to unify product lineups.

TSMC, 28nm and 20nm

Because Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s 20nm manufacturing technology was designed primarily for mobile system-on-chips (i.e., for Apple), it is unsuitable for mainstream graphics processing units. As a result, both AMD and Nvidia have to significantly redevelop their roadmaps several years ago (virtually all decisions about the roadmaps were made in ~2011, four years back) in a bid to keep introducing new products, but make them using TSMC’s 28nm fabrication process. In fact, AMD and Nvidia have to offer competitive products made using the same manufacturing technology for four years: from 2012 to 2016, an unprecedented amount of time.

nvidia_geforce_gtx_titan_x_gm200_maxwell
Nvidia GM200: The biggest 28nm GPU ever made

The two leading developers of graphics processing units chose generally similar approaches how to act in the situation when newer process technologies are not available, but little differences had serious impact on actual product lineups.

Nvidia’s approach: Stretch life-cycles, cut-down features

Nvidia’s method to keep the products coming involved stretching life-cycle of its “Kepler” and “Maxwell” architectures, cut-down functionality of “Maxwell” and introduce various bells-and whistles-type hardware and software features that require none innovations when it comes down to silicon, but which have impact on minds of end-users.

The first step in Nvidia’s multi-year strategy was to stretch the lifecycle of its GK104 and GK110 graphics processing units to over two years. The company introduced its GeForce GTX 670, 680, 690 and GTX Titan in 2012 – 2013 period and then launched GeForce GTX 760, 770, 780, 780 Ti and GTX Titan Black based on the same GPUs in mid-2013 and early-2014. To make old products look like new, Nvidia installed new cooling system on the second wave of “Kepler”-based graphics boards as well as introduced GPU Boost 2.0 software features.

nvidia_geforce_gtx_770_2
Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 aka GeForce GTX 680

The second step in the strategy was to shrink transistor count of “Maxwell” GPUs as significantly as possible without sacrificing performance in graphics applications and without eliminating any new GPUs from the roadmap.

Since Nvidia had to stick to TSMC’s 28nm fabrication process in 2014 – 2015 (normally, it would have adopted a newer node during the period), but still had to introduce new products for 2014 – 2016, the company cut-down functionality of “Maxwell” architecture, eliminated a number of HPC [high-performance computing]-related capabilities (e.g., FP64 units, unified virtual memory addressing) and cut-down some other features.

Nvidia successfully rolled out three “Maxwell”-based GPUs in 2014 – 2015 period. The company’s GM107, GM204 and GM200 graphics processors offer great performance in video games and even sport richer graphics functionality than predecessors (at least, Nvidia says so), but lacks a number of innovative technologies, which could be important in the future.

Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 970 and 980 have been on the market for over nine months now and the company does not have any new “Maxwell”-based chips up its sleeve (at least, we have not heard of any). One of the potential problems for Nvidia is that it will have nothing new until its next-generation “Pascal” hits the market in mid-2016. Moreover, as the top-of-the-range GP100 is expected to hit the market first, Nvidia will announce its next-gen GeForce GTX Titan ahead of any GeForce GTX 1800 or GeForce GTX 1700 products.

It remains to be seen whether Nvidia will introduce any new and faster versions of its GM204 and GM200-based products and how it will call them. In general, Nvidia’s positions in the market are rather good. But this market loves new things and product launches actually drive sales, so it is logical for Nvidia to refresh its family this fall.

AMD’s approach: Stretch life-cycles, cut-down the number of chips

In 2011 AMD faced the same challenge as Nvidia: four years without a new process technology ahead. The company also had to stretch lifecycle of its products, but instead of cutting-down features of future chips based on improved versions of GCN architectures, AMD probably decided to cut-down the number of chips it planned to introduce and change its introduction tactics.

Back in 2012 – 2013, AMD Radeon HD 7000-series lineup was among the most comprehensive families of products in the history of both AMD and ATI. While the lower-end parts were rebranded and featured Terascale 2 architecture, the series included GCN-based DirectX 11 hardware for all budgets.

Normally, AMD would introduce a new top-to-bottom lineup with GCN 1.1 architecture in late 2013 (it would consist of “Bonaire”, “Hawaii” and something in between) and then would come up with a new family featuring GCN 1.2 architecture and made using a more advanced process technology in 2015. But since the company had to stretch lifecycles of its products and save tens of millions of dollars on tape-outs of new chips, AMD decided to alter the very tactics of new GPU family roll-outs.

amd_radeon_r9_280
AMD Radeon R9 280X aka Radeon HD 7970

Instead of introducing a new flagship offering and then follow-up with mainstream and entry-level parts based on the same architecture, AMD decided to cease development of low-cost parts and either insert new products into existing families, or introduce all-new families featuring both new and old GPUs.

The company successfully inserted “Bonaire” and “Tonga” graphics processors into its Radeon HD 7000-series and Radeon R9 200-series families, respectively. The generally good lineups just got more comprehensive with new additions.

Unfortunately, with every new top-of-the-range GPU, AMD introduced a brand-new family with a new flagship and a bunch of rebranded products. AMD’s Radeon R9 200-series featured only one new GPU – “Hawaii”. AMD’s Radeon R9 300-series includes no new GPUs because “Fiji” is not formally a part of it. Moreover, since AMD made decision not to invest resources in lower-end GPUs, its Radeon R7 300-series is based on graphics chips released in 2012 and 2013.

Right now AMD is finishing development of its next-generation products that will be made using 16nm FinFET or 14nm FinFET process technologies. We have no idea whether the company will come out with a family of FinFET GPUs a year from now, or will introduce only a flagship and will have to fill the gaps with older GPUs. Considering the fact how expensive FinFET chips are to design, it is unlikely that AMD will be able to roll-out a top-to-bottom family of FinFET GPUs in calendar 2016.

Final words

Even though marketing teams of both AMD and Nvidia introduced rebadged products several times in the recent years, engineering teams of both companies did amazing job. AMD's Radeon Fury X aka “Fiji XT” provides more than two times higher performance than AMD's Radeon HD 7970 aka “Tahiti XT” (the first flagship 28nm GPU from AMD). Nvidia's GeForce GTX Titan X aka GM200 is more than two times faster than the GeForce GTX 680 aka GK104 (the first flagship 28nm GPU from Nvidia). All four aforementioned chips are made using similar 28nm process technologies, but they deliver completely different levels of performance.

Development cycles of hardware are stretching since architectures get more complex. The costs of chip design is skyrocketing because of FinFET process technologies to $100 – $150 million per chip. It is getting extremely hard for chip designers to stay on the leading-edge of technologies.

Since releasing all-new products is getting harder, rebadging is a thing that is getting more tempting than ever these days because companies want to sell new products and a lot of customers want to buy products they consider new.

But all semiconductor companies are in the same boat and have similar problems. If everyone starts to rebrand old products to introduce them as new, there will be a mess in the market, which will deceive a lot of end users and will break their trust.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: The problem looks plain and simple: who needs new lineups if they do not introduce any new products or technologies? When Apple releases a new iPhone, it is a brand-new product with higher performance, newer features and all-new design every two years. When a new graphics card is launched, in many cases users have to investigate whether it is actually new or a rebatched old. That is not a good thing.

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XFX shows off its own R9 390X ahead of official announcement https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/xfx-shows-off-its-own-r9-390x-ahead-of-official-announcement/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/xfx-shows-off-its-own-r9-390x-ahead-of-official-announcement/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2015 13:58:36 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=253256 It looks like AMD is giving its board partners clearance to continue teasing us with the upcoming 300-series of graphics cards. XFX has updated its R9 290X Double Dissipation product page, with images of the upcoming Hawaii-based R9 390X with the double dissipation cooler attached. Images show off the card itself alongside the retail box, …

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It looks like AMD is giving its board partners clearance to continue teasing us with the upcoming 300-series of graphics cards. XFX has updated its R9 290X Double Dissipation product page, with images of the upcoming Hawaii-based R9 390X with the double dissipation cooler attached.

Images show off the card itself alongside the retail box, which confirms that this is indeed the R9 390X. According to what we can see on the box, the card will include 8GB of GDDR5 memory, suggesting that the card will be a rebrand of its older 200-series equivalent.

R9 390X XFX

R9-390X-8DF_2 R9-390X-8DF_3
Click images to enlarge. 

That said, AMD hasn't just been sitting on its ass this whole time waiting to re-launch old cards. It does have its Fiji GPU up its sleeve, which we are expecting to be called ‘Fury', This would essentially be AMD's higher end, Titan-esque GPU equipped with HBM memory.

AMD has not officially revealed its new graphics cards yet but apparently all will be revealed at this year's PC Gaming conference at E3, which is spear-headed by AMD.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: PC builders have been waiting for AMD's latest batch of graphics cards for some time now. AMD has spent weeks teasing its upcoming cards, though rather than holding its reveal at Computex, it decided to hold out until E3, which has never happened before. Are any of you looking forward to seeing what AMD has up its sleeve this year? Planning on upgrading any time soon? 

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