Take-Two Interactive has made an offer to buy Gearbox Entertainment for $460 million, and the Embracer Group has accepted the deal.

It's official: Gearbox has a new home. Take-Two Interactive will buy Gearbox for $460 million in stock, the company has announced. Embracer Group had purchased Gearbox for $363 million, with $1 billion worth of bonuses being triggered if certain conditions were met over a period of time (they weren't). Based on the original deal terms, it looks like Embracer actually made a profit from the Gearbox sale.*

Gearbox Entertainment in its entirety is included as part of the deal, and Take-Two will now wholly own the Borderlands, Tiny Tina, and Duke Nukem franchises, along with any IPs that Gearbox owns.

Xbox may not have grown as fast as Microsoft hoped it would, but the business is indeed a profitable and evolving segment within the tech giant.

Over the past few years, Xbox's profitability has come into question. Just how profitable is it to release first-party games onto Xbox Game Pass? How much does cannibalization eat into potential game sales? Xbox is the only member of the big 3 that does not publish profits, which is because gaming is not its own segment--Xbox is part of the Microsoft's More Personal Computing segment, which also includes Windows so it's almost impossible to separate out Xbox profits.

The FTC v Microsoft federal trial also highlighted Xbox's shortcomings when it comes to growth. It's true that Xbox has missed Xbox Game Pass subscriber targets (missed by 44% in 2022) and overall gaming revenue targets (missed by $780 million in 2023), but the games division is still profitable. And, according to Phil Spencer, Xbox is also growing.

One analyst speculates that CD Projekt might want to release two new games by 2027, and the company's pipeline update offers clues on which game could launch first.

The Witcher 4 could be out by 2026, with Sirius, a new singleplayer-multiplayer Witcher game from The Molasses Flood, coming out sometime in 2027. That's what JP Morgan analyst Alexey Philippov asked CD Projekt management in a recent investor's call.

"I have a few questions; the first one is on your incentive program - basically, your new KPIs for the next stage of the incentive program. I think they imply you plan to release one game in 2026 and another game in 2027 - maybe you can comment on whether that's a fair assessment of your plans," Philippov said, as per the transcript.

Huge profit spikes help boost CD Projekt's reserves, giving the company a hefty $326 million stash to fund its myriad new projects.

CD Projekt Group's 2023 financials show interesting results. Cash and cash equivalents are up 20% year-over-year to 1.3 billion PLN, or about $326 million, and its this cache that will help fuel new game development. Breakout success with game sales fueled this jump in profits, with Cyberpunk 2077 reaching 25 million sales and the total franchise generating $750 million in full game sales since 2020.

"The Group's net profit for 2023 was over 480 million PLN (about $120 million), nearly 40% higher than the year before," said CD Projekt Chief Financial Officer Piotr Nielubowicz.

With Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty shipped, most of CD Projekt RED is now focusing on the next big Witcher sequel.

The Witcher 4 now has over 400 developers working on the project, and the game is on track to enter full production this year. Polaris will be the first to enter principal development, with other projects like Sirius from The Molasses Flood opening parallel development alongside Polaris.

"The Polaris team has grown to over 400 developers, reaching its target size for entering the production phase," said CD Projekt joint CEO Michal Nowakowski.

To get the PlayStation 5 Pro Enhanced badge, developers will have to leverage the console's new GPU and PSSR upscaling tech to boost FPS and/or resolution.

Game developers will have to do some work re-tooling their games for Sony's new PlayStation 5 Pro console. Insider Gaming has more PS5 Pro details straight from the developer's portal, revealing the kinds of bonus upgrades that Sony wants developers to target on the new device.

According to the report, the PS5 Pro will have a "Trinity Enhanced" mode that is capable of boosting/tightening frame rates and max resolution. In the documentation, Sony says that ideally devs will use the PS5 Pro to deliver upscaled 4K resolution with PSSR, a steady 60FPS, and raytracing--all at once.

When Apple announced the Apple Vision Pro during the WWDC event in June last year one of the big features it showed off was the spatial video feature that allows people to capture videos and then watch them in 3D on the headset. Later in September, it was confirmed that the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max would be able to capture the videos, as well as the headset itself. However, there was a limitation.

Apple's Camera app does indeed support capturing spatial videos but only at 1080p and 30fps. The limitation was a disappointing one, and with the videos only playing in standard 2D on everything other than the Apple Vision Pro it led some to have to choose which videos to capture in 3D and which to record in the standard 2D but a higher resolution and frame rate. Now, that decision is easier.

The Spatialify app was already capable of recording spatial videos like the official Camera app, but now it's gained additional functionality with a version 1.3 update.

If you own an iPhone you're already familiar with the option to use your passcode to secure it from prying eyes. You can also use Face ID or Touch ID if you prefer to go the biometric route, too. Some apps like banking apps can also give users the chance to protect them using in-app passcodes and biometrics, too. But what if you want to do that with an app that doesn't have the feature built in?

For those apps, App Lock is available in the App Tore and it does exactly what you think it will do based on that name. Once configured, App Lock lets people completely hide apps and lock them behind Face ID or Touch ID. It's all made possible using the Screen Time API to control access to apps so there are no hacks or potential privacy implications here. What's more, users can even choose to have the app disappear from the Home Screen entirely. In fact, the apps will even be hidden from the App Library. too.

Choosing apps to be locked behind biometrics is simple and users can even decide to have entire categories covered, too.

The Apple Vision Pro went on sale in February but only in the United States. We're expecting the company to unveil the headset in new countries later this year and Apple's own website has confirmed that it intends to take the spatial computer global in 2024. However, it hasn't been more specific than that and we still don't know for sure which countries Apple has in mind. However, we have seen various hints.

Recent indications have suggested that Apple has a few countries that it is leaning towards including Australia, Canada, the UK, Japan, and others. Now, there is more indication that Apple is going to launch the Apple Vision Pro in France sooner rather than later.

That's after a WatchGeneration report noted that Apple has been inviting employees from its retail stores in France to a special Apple Vision Pro training program this summer.

Samsung is still working on its in-house Mach-1 AI inferencing chip. CEO Kyung Kye-hyun, who is in charge of the chip business, teased a second-gen Mach-2 AI accelerator in a new Instagram post.

Samsung Electronics CEO Kyung Kye-hyun said: "Client interest in inference-committed Mach-1 is increasing. Some of the clients want to use Mach in large-scale applications with more than 1 trillion parameters, which justifies the faster-than-expected development of Mach-2. We should get down to preparation".

The new Mach-1 AI accelerator was announced at Samsung Electronics' recent shareholder meeting, but few details were released: all we know is that it will be used for AI inferencing and will launch in early 2025. Samsung recently formed a new HBM team focused on increasing productivity and quality to ensure HBM leadership against South Korean rival SK hynix.