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Google's Gemini model broke containment during a cybersecurity test in May, autonomously accessing the internet and hacking into three real companies, marking the first known instance of a Google AI system carrying out such an act on its own. Google didn't disclose the incident publicly until the Wall Street Journal approached the company about it months later.

The test was run by Irregular, an independent firm that conducts cybersecurity evaluations for major AI labs, including Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI. During testing, Gemini was tasked with retrieving information from a fictional company, but that fictional company shared a name with a real business.

Because of an unintended misconfiguration that gave the model internet access it wasn't supposed to have, Gemini treated the real company's systems as fair game. In one case, it guessed its way into a password-protected system through brute force. In the other two, it found exposed login credentials in public online repositories and used them to access two additional companies' systems.

Three of Grand Theft Auto's most beloved 3D-era entries are getting an unofficial second life on hardware Rockstar never targeted. A new homebrew project called the reGTA Collection now lets GTA 3, Vice City, and Liberty City Stories run on the New Nintendo 3DS.

The project comes from modder EpicReds0817, who adapted all three titles using the re3, reVC, and reStories reverse-engineering projects. Each port includes a dedicated lower-screen interface, touch controls, Nintendo-style button prompts, and a touchscreen keyboard for entering cheats, along with a handful of game-specific fixes.

GTA 3 gets a dark-blue lower-screen theme, faster loading, smoother streaming, and fixes for vehicle materials and several crashes. Vice City uses a pink interface, restores particle effects and vehicle highlights, and fixes character models, water seams, and flight-related crashes. Both also carry over their iconic final-mission music, "Push It to the Limit" for GTA 3 and "Self Control" for Vice City.

AMD has published a white paper making aggressive performance claims for its 6th Gen EPYC Venice server CPUs, directly targeting NVIDIA Vera.

In SPECrate 2026 Integer, AMD claims the 256-core EPYC 9996 delivers 2.24 times the platform-level performance of NVIDIA's 88-core Vera system and 1.2 times the per-core performance. At the rack level, modelled within a 100kW power budget, AMD puts the EPYC 9996 at 3.4 times the throughput of a Vera-based platform.

Against Intel's Xeon 6980P, AMD's claims are similarly bold, with gains of 2.4x to 3.7x across enterprise workloads including server-side Java, OpenSSL, MongoDB, Redis, and NGINX, and up to 3.13x in HPC tasks like molecular dynamics and weather forecasting.

While Sony has been doing its best to shut down modding projects, most recently pushing Andy Nguyen to abandon his Linux PS5 work, the modding community isn't backing down. A new emulator called PS5X promises to run PlayStation 5 games on an Xbox Series X, potentially bringing an end to the console wars.

YouTuber Devran Cosmo Uenal ported the open-source KytyPS5 emulator to Microsoft's console through Developer Mode. The current compatible library includes GEX Trilogy, Hellboy: Web of Wyrd, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, and Quake II, with all four accepting Xbox controller input and some producing audio. Uenal posted footage of Quake II running at roughly 25 to 45 FPS.

PS5X is still in the early stages, though. Compatibility is limited, and the creator says a lot of work remains. The main technical hurdle is graphics. KytyPS5 uses Vulkan for rendering on PC, but Xbox does not support Vulkan natively, so the render path has to be translated to DirectX 12. This means progress made on the PC version of the emulator does not carry over automatically to the Xbox port.

PC prices could rise further toward the end of 2026, with Acer Chairman Jason Chen expecting a 5% to 20% increase in the fourth quarter, according to a report from Taiwan's Economic Daily News. The expected increase comes as manufacturers continue to grapple with elevated memory and SSD costs, despite signs of improvement in broader component supply.

According to Chen, the supply situation for key PC components has improved, with both DDR4 and DDR5 memory generally available in sufficient quantities. CPU supply is also broadly stable, although some lower-end processors remain relatively constrained. However, CPU prices have seen hikes throughout the year from both Intel and AMD.

Despite improved availability, prices have not yet fallen, as memory and SSD costs remain elevated and continue to pressure PC manufacturers. Current memory market analysis points to continued cost pressure, with conventional DRAM contract prices expected to rise 13 - 18% quarter over quarter in Q3 2026, while NAND Flash prices could increase by 10 - 15%.

Valve's Steam Frame reservations are already showing up on eBay, with asking prices of around $1,700 to $1,750 for the 256 GB kit and roughly $2,000 for the 1 TB version. Valve charges $1,059 and $1,299, so that works out to a markup of about 65% and 54%.

The listings appeared within hours of Valve's reservation emails going out, and IGN reports that some have already sold. Other outlets describe them purely as asking prices, so it is hard to say how many buyers are actually paying up.

Anyone who does may be in for a nasty surprise. Valve's Limited Drop Program terms say the right to purchase "cannot be substituted, transferred, assigned, bartered, or auctioned." Another clause voids any purchase link that was not obtained through authorized channels. That seems to cover a link bought from a reseller, though it is a reading of the terms and not a statement from Valve, which has not said whether it will enforce any of it. The link also goes to the email tied to the seller's Steam account, and it expires 72 hours after being sent.

AI models are getting so good at finding security vulnerabilities that companies are calling them just as capable as "elite security researchers." Just last week, we covered how security researchers used Anthropic's Claude to help break into OpenAI's systems. As a result, Intel has now suspended its bug bounty program, which once paid human researchers up to $100,000 per vulnerability.

The original program launched as an invite-only initiative before opening to all security researchers in 2018, covering hardware, firmware, software, and open-source projects. In 2020 alone, nearly half of the CVEs Intel addressed, 105 out of 231, came through the bounty program.

The old bounty board split vulnerabilities into four tiers. Tier 1 paid between $2,000 and $100,000, Tier 2 offered $1,000 to $30,000, Tier 3 ranged from $500 to $10,000, and Tier 4 paid between $250 and $5,000. As recently as January 2026, Intel said it was evaluating enhanced bounty criteria. Eight months later, those bounties have gone from evaluation to suspension.

Hideo Kojima shares more details on how the deal with Sony collapsed, confirming that he received no actual reason for PHYSINT's cancellation.

Famous game developer Hideo Kojima is speaking to press to clear up misconceptions on what happened regarding Sony's separation from the PHYSINT project. The game was originally set to be published by PlayStation, however, it was abruptly cancelled, leading to Xbox securing PHYSINT instead. Kojima also today put out a statement clarifying the studio is in a profitable and healthy state.

Now Kojima tells The Washington Post's Gene Park that Sony gave no actual reason as to why they were backing out of the PHYSINT project. "We couldn't understand it," he said, continuing: "This is the biggest selling title I could possibly create. I didn't think PHYSINT would be on the list of being cancelled."

Insomniac has released multiple updates for Wolverine, and the latest makes some big changes to the controversial scent trails that lead players through gameplay, significantly reducing their appearance.

As is usually the case with controversial games, Wolverine is getting updated with player feedback in mind. And it's been loud and clear for Wolverine--for days, the internet was littered with clips and gifs making fun of various features like the scent trails, which basically show players exactly where to go at any given time.

Now Wolverine has been patched and updated to make the scent trails much less noticeable, and Insomniac confirms that it might even give players the option to turn off the trails entirely. "Our team continues to evaluate ways to further improve Senses in the game, including exploring toggleable options for a future update," the studio said in the hotfix changelog.

A new analysis claims Sony's PlayStation 6 could deliver up to 80 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, potentially exceeding NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5080, but the numbers behind the claim don't appear to add up.

GameGPU based its analysis on previously leaked PS6 specifications, including an AMD RDNA 5-based GPU with 54 physical Compute Units (CU), a 160-bit GDDR7 memory interface and a reported 160W power target. Earlier leaks suggested approximately 52 CUs would be active, with GPU clocks between 2.6GHz and 3.0GHz and theoretical FP32 performance of around 34-40 TFLOPS.

GameGPU argues that RDNA 5's improved Dual Issue capabilities could effectively double that figure to 68-80 TFLOPS, placing PS6 above the RTX 5080's 56.3 TFLOPS, and essentially making the GPU within the PS6, on paper, more powerful than an approximately $1,600 - $1,700 discrete graphics card.

Kojima Productions has pushed back against a Bloomberg report from earlier this month, which claimed to explain why PlayStation walked away from Hideo Kojima's upcoming action-espionage game PHYSINT. Kojima Productions has now urged fans to treat the claims "with a dose of skepticism."

Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reported on September 11 that Sony pulled out of backing the development of Hideo Kojima's next title, "PHYSINT," over concerns surrounding its budget, profitability, and exclusivity. The report cited unnamed people familiar with the project and also claimed Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2 failed to meet PlayStation's revenue expectations, while PHYSINT had missed deadlines and was on track to run well over budget. On top of that, current timelines estimate PHYSINT is still years from release.

Kojima Productions responded to those claims in an X post on September 20, saying none of them came from "any official or on-the-record source." The studio said it would not normally address "unsubstantiated speculation," but felt it had to respond because the report had raised questions about its relationship with PlayStation, the commercial performance of the Death Stranding franchise, and PHYSINT's development.

GTA 6 is set to feature Rockstar's most physically diverse NPC population yet, with pedestrians varying significantly more in height and body shape than any previous Rockstar game.

Speaking to IGN, Rockstar studio co-head Rob Nelson explained that the developer has created a new system that enables GTA 6 to have a wide variety of NPCs, and this new system hinges on dynamically retargeting character animations on-the-fly to accommodate different body proportions. In previous games, characters with different builds often shared the same animation sets, limiting how much Rockstar could vary their height and shape.

That becomes particularly important when characters physically interact with objects or the environment within the world, because if the NPC's height exceeded the animations, they wouldn't line up on screen. An animation designed for a 5-foot-6 NPC, for example, may not correctly line up when applied to someone who is 6-foot-2 during a fight, while sitting inside a vehicle, or when interacting with the environment. GTA 6's new system dynamically adjusts those animations to better fit the character performing them, enabling a wider variety of possible NPCs.

An extremely early version of GTA 6's map has been recreated inside GTA 5 using leaked Rockstar development assets, giving players a playable look at how Vice City was taking shape more than a decade ago.

The build reportedly uses material dating back to around 2014/15 that recently surfaced as part of a roughly 192GB archive connected to Rockstar Games' 2022 data breach. Modders have since imported the unfinished map data into GTA 5 on PC, allowing portions of the early environment to be explored.

Unsurprisingly, the result is extremely rough. Streets and terrain use basic placeholder textures, while floating labels mark potential locations and development ideas. The recognizable city area only loosely resembles the modern Vice City Rockstar has shown in official GTA 6 footage, highlighting just how early the leaked material is.

The Last of Us co-creator and former Naughty Dog developer Bruce Straley says mentioning God of War Laufey in a wider discussion about AAA gaming problems was a mistake.

Well-known game dev Bruce Straley was recently caught up in a controversy where it looked like he was poking fun at God of War Laufey, the next major release from Sony Santa Monica. In the latest issue of Edge magazine #428, Straley commented on the wider games industry, ultimately saying that the AAA space needs new innovations, but specifically saying that AAA experiences are "boring" these days. Laufey, a game that already faced steep criticism, was cited shortly after.

Now the ex-Naughty Dog game director clarifies what he meant, saying that it was a mistake to mention Laufey when discussing the AAA space.

A Reddit user says Walmart sold them a fake Ryzen 7 9800X3D inside what looked like a sealed retail box. Posting on r/pcmasterrace as u/quadbow, they explain that they wanted a replacement for their existing 9800X3D, which had memory controller issues. A clerk pulled the sealed box from a display case, and they paid almost $500 for it. At home, the PC wouldn't power on with the new chip. Putting the old 9800X3D back in got it running again right away.

Walmart then refused a refund because the serial number printed on the chip didn't match the one on the box. They compared it with other 9800X3D chips in the display case, and it looked very different. Apparently, the PCB was "more blue," and the text on the lid sat in a different place. They also ran the chip's serial number through AMD's lookup page, which returned no match.

Even though the Redditor says they're pretty sure it's a fake, that's still unconfirmed as of the time of writing. It's one account backed by photos, and neither Walmart nor AMD seems to have commented so far. The post doesn't say what's under the heat spreader either.

Rockstar Games already has another major release on its slate beyond Grand Theft Auto 6, although it isn't an internally developed sequel to GTA or Red Dead Redemption.

Following GTA 6's confirmed November 19, 2026 launch, Rockstar is set to publish Remedy Entertainment's Max Payne 1 & 2 Remake. The project will rebuild both classic Max Payne games as a single title for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S using Remedy's in-house Northlight engine. Rockstar is financing development and will handle publishing and distribution.

Remedy currently lists the Max Payne remake as in development, with the project having entered full production in 2024. Unfortunately, no release date has been announced yet, so it isn't 100% confirmed that Max Payne will be Rockstar's first major release after GTA 6, albeit, given how long it takes to develop a fully fledged entry in either the Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption franchise, it's more than likely the Max Payne remake will be the next title to launch with Rockstar's name attached to it.

The new World of Warcraft Forever beta might be more popular than even Blizzard predicted.

World of Warcraft Forever is the latest gaming craze, and socials are filled with snapshots of starting towns like Deathknell and Shadowglen bristling with active players. The digital world is alive with curiosity and excitement as scores of players jump back in to see the classic MMORPG reborn with modern graphics.

Tons of gamers are jumping into the WoW Forever beta--so many that Blizzard seems to be surprised at the turnout. WoW Classic dev Josh Greenfield says the numbers are crazier than he's ever seen them. "Man, it was hard to sleep last night, I was so excited. Beta has been... crazy. The craziest numbers I've seen in 17 years working at Blizzard and almost 8 years on classic. We've got something really special here."

Generative AI has rapidly become a routine part of game production in Japan. A new industry survey shared at Tokyo Game Show 2026 found that 85.8% of Japanese game developers now use generative AI in their work, up sharply from 51% just a year earlier.

The figures come from a preview of the 2026 CESA Game Industry Report, presented at Tokyo Game Show. Of those surveyed, 63% said they use generative AI daily, while the remaining 22.8% use it only occasionally.

The 2025 survey, which sampled 54 Japanese companies, found that visual asset creation and game engine development were the most common uses of the technology at the time. Although the 2026 preview hasn't yet broken down current use cases in the same detail, developers cited "improved operational efficiency and productivity" as the most anticipated benefit of using generative AI, followed by shorter development cycles and reduced development and operational costs.

Early community tracking data for Valve's newly launched Steam Frame headset shows that securing one early is very difficult. According to the community-run tracker Steam Frame Out, over 40,000 people say they signed up for the Steam Frame, but fewer than 19,000 have confirmed a reservation.

This isn't due to a lack of interest among PC gaming enthusiasts. Instead, this comes from Valve's intentionally cautious approach to hardware manufacturing and initial distribution.

According to the tracking site, only around 19,000 prospective buyers reported receiving a purchase invite during the initial drop. The rest were immediately directed to the backorder queue. This staged rollout stems from Valve's randomized reservation system, which Valve says is designed to manage strict inventory allocation while preventing scalper bots from sweeping up early inventory.

According to Reuters, sources familiar with the matter say CXMT, China's largest DRAM manufacturer, is preparing to enter the NAND flash memory market. This would put CXMT in direct competition with global leaders like Samsung as well as domestic rival YMTC.

CXMT reportedly plans to establish a NAND flash memory research-and-development production line at its new plant in Beijing. The company has also set up a research institute in the Chinese capital, with NAND development listed among its ongoing projects. However, it's not yet clear when the R&D line will begin operating, or whether CXMT intends to move beyond research and trial production into full commercial manufacturing.

CXMT has already discussed its NAND ambitions with potential customers, including a newly established startup that intends to buy CXMT's NAND chips for storage products used in AI systems and supercomputers, according to one source.