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The Elder Scrolls VI will be exclusive to Xbox and PC consoles, Microsoft's gaming chief Phil Spencer has said.

The next Elder Scrolls game isn't coming to PlayStation. Microsoft didn't spend $7.5 billion to buy Bethesda to release games on competing platforms (for perspective, that's roughly 6 months' worth of total Xbox platform revenues). Gaming's largest buyout was made to boost the Xbox ecosystem. It wasn't made to give Sony extra revenues. This means more exclusives that adopt the complete Xbox package--Smart Delivery, Velocity Architecture, cloud saves, Quick Resume, cloud streaming, etc. These things aren't available on competing platforms like PlayStation, for example.

In a recent interview with GQ magazine, Xbox head Phil Spencer indicates The Elder Scrolls VI will join the likes of Starfield as an Xbox and PC exclusive

The PS5 could've had a 16-core CPU...but the GPU would be dramatically smaller.

Sony built the PlayStation 5 around game developer feedback. Devs share what they want with Sony, and then Sony takes that info and makes a console out of it. The PS5 uses a custom 7nm SoC with a 3.8GHz 8-core, 16-thread Zen 2 CPU and 2.3GHz RNDA 2.0 GPU, but at one point developers actually wanted Sony to use a 16-core CPU instead.

In a recent interview with Wired, PS5 architect Mark Cerny said that a portion of devs wanted a monstrous 16-core CPU but changed their mind once they realized that would take a bite out of GPU power.

Game developers originally wanted an NVMe SSD that hit at least 1GB/sec speeds. Sony went above and beyond by delivering 5x that.

In a recent interview with Wired, PlayStation 5 architect Mark Cerny said that developers had modest requests when it came to storage. Most devs wanted a solid state drive in the PS5 that could deliver at least 1GB/sec read speeds, but Sony had other plans with its ultra-fast SSD tech. The PS5 actually delivers 5x the requested performance target that developers requested with up to 5.5GB/sec speeds for uncompressed data (compressed data can be read at 9.9GB/sec thanks to the potent Kraken compression technology used in the PS5).

"Developers asked for an NVMe SSD with at lest a gigabyte a second of read speed. We booked at that and we decided to go for maybe 5x or 10x that speed. It's always good to have a high target there," Cerny said.

The LightSail 2, a small CubeSat fitted with a solar sail spanning 32 square meters (433 square feet), is still sailing through Earth's orbit two and a half years after launch.

LightSail 2 is a crowdfunded project which amassed $7 million and is run by The Planetary Society, a U.S.-based space education and outreach non-profit organization. Much like sails on a boat catch the wind to move them forward, the solar sails are used to catch photons from the sun in space to propel the LightSail 2 forward and demonstrate their viability for space travel.

NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory (IDL) are collaborating to create a power source on the moon that doesn't rely on the Sun.

The duo have issued a request for proposals regarding a nuclear fission power plant, something Rolls Royce is also working on in collaboration with the UK Space Agency.

Innosilicon Technology has just announced its new "high-performance GPU for servers" with the introduction of the Fenghua No.1 graphics card.

There's no detailed specifications of the Innosilicon Technology Fenghua No.1 GPU, but it will pack high-end GDDR6X memory, PCIe 4.0 support, and HDMI 2.1 connectivity with e-DisplayPort 1.4 thrown in. Fenghua No.1 having GDDR6X memory is a big deal as NVIDIA is the only one using it on their highest-end GPUs, while AMD uses regular GDDR6 memory.

We don't know how much GDDR6X memory the Fenghua No.1 GPU will have, nor what bandwidth it'll be cranking along with but we should expect it to be at 21Gbps. Innosilison Technology explains: "It is reported that "Fenghua No. 1" GPU is the industry's first rendering GPU that adopts the world's top GDDR6X high-bandwidth video memory technology and cutting-edge technologies such as Innolink chiplet".

Halo Infinite's controversial progression system is getting overhauled slowly but surely.

Progression is a bit wonky in Halo Infinite, and instead of earning XP from every match, experience points are only rewarded for completing challenges. You couldn't get XP for just completing games. Until now, that is.

343i has made good on its promise to start using fan feedback to quickly adjust and change Halo Infinite's multiplayer. The first big change was giving players a new daily challenge for simply completing a match. Finishing a game will now give you 50 XP...but only once a day (this is a daily challenge and is only offered once a day). 343i has also doubled the duration of XP boosters and they now last 1 hour instead of 30 minutes which makes it even easier to rank up.

Xbox chief Phil Spencer speaks out against Activision-Blizzard's sexual abuse scandal.

Activision could very well find itself out of a platform to sell its games. Both Sony and Microsoft as pressuring the company for answers on its "disturbing" behavior. According to an internal email seen by Bloomberg, Xbox's Phil Spencer outright says Microsoft is currently "re-evaluating all aspects of its relationship" with Activision. If push comes to shove, Microsoft could de-list all Activision games and forfeit millions for the sake of piece of mind (games like Call of Duty rake in tremendous revenues for both Sony and Microsoft every year).

Linking to the explosive Wall Street Journal expose, Spencer outright calls the allegations "horrific" and says he is "disturbed and deeply troubled" by what has happened."This type of behavior has no place in our industry," he said.

DICE's original Battlefront 3 project was never greenlit at Electronic Arts, but the publisher is working on multiple new Star Wars games.

EA hasn't had the best track record with Star Wars games. First it cancelled Project Ragtag and closed down Visceral Games in 2017. Then it cancelled two separate Star Wars games from EA Vancouver: Project Orca, a live-based open-world game, in 2019, and Project Viking, an open-world Battlefront spin-off in 2020. Instead EA Motive released Star Wars Squadrons last year.

At one point most of EA's studios were working on a Star Wars project (except for BioWare, who was knee-deep in Mass Effect Andromeda). DICE wanted to fill the gaps with Battlefront 3 and pitched the project to EA. According to reporter Tom Henderson, EA said no. There's a lot of reasons for this. Disney is apparently charging high licensing fees for EA (Disney collects royalties on all revenues and game sales for licensed Star Wars products), Jedi: Fallen Order's massive success changed how EA sees singleplayer games, upkeeping live games is tough, and making Star Wars games is very hard. Plus EA wants to reserve DICE for Battlefield 2042 and the future of the Battlefield games-as-a-platform service.

Man, you can't even buy DDR5 memory for a new Intel 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPU and Z690 motherboard because there's a global shortage... and now we're hearing about totally next-gen DDR6 RAM.

Samsung teased next-gen DDR6 memory during its Samsung Tech Day 2021 event, teasing that JEDEC still has to formalize the DDR6 standard itself but the company did tease that it will have blistering fast DDR6-12800 RAM. Consider this: DDR5 kicks things off at around DDR5-4800 to DDR5-5200, while DDR4 is found for the most part in the DDR4-3200 standard. DDR4 @ 3200 to DDR6 @ 12800... insanity.

But Samsung wasn't finished there with its DDR6 leg tease at DDR6-12800 speeds but said that we should Samsung to have DDR6 memory at insane overclocked speeds of DDR6-17000. So let's do that comparison once again -- DDR4 @ 3200 through to DDR6 @ 17000. Wowzers.

NVIDIA has exclusivity over Micron's ultra-fast GDDR6X memory which debuted at 19.5Gbps and can crank up to 21Gbps and (a little) beyond, but now Samsung has teased its next-gen GDDR6X+ and totally next-gen GDDR7 memory.

Samsung's new GDDR7 memory was teased at the Samsung Tech Day 2021 event, but no slides or photos from the event have surfaced because it was stated to not do so in Samsung's NDA. ComputerBase covered the event since Samsung executives and engineering teams had some details to share.

The new GDDR7 memory announced only has two details so far: 32Gbps of bandwidth, and a new "real-time error protection feature". That's all we know, so with what we know let's decode some things. Micron has GDDR6X memory which comes in two flavors: 19.5Gbps and 21Gbps for NVIDIA's very fastest GeForce RTX 3080, GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, and flagship GeForce RTX 4090.

Intel may have just launched the new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs but the new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs will launch next year -- and then in 2023 we'll see the 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" CPUs which we have a closer look at right now.

CNET recently walked through Intel's new chipmaking facility in Arizona, where they snapped some beautiful photos of Intel's new 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" mobile processors. Inside of the Intel Fab 42 facility in Chandler, Arizona, CNET snapped some photos of the new Intel Meteor Lake-M processor, which should debut in a couple of years time.

Intel's next-gen Meteor Lake-M should arrive with a 5W to 15W TDP, with multiple tiles on the package with Intel Foveros technology and could have up to 3 tiles. This should be split between the Computer Die (which would be the biggest tile on the photo), the SoC-LP for I/O operations, and then a graphics die. The GPU side of things would see something between 96 and 192 Execution Units (EUs or GPU cores).

343 Industries wants Halo Infinite to last 10 years, promises tons of updates, content, and changes.

Back in March 2019, I predicted Halo Infinite would be a live service game. That turned out to be right. Infinite isn't just a name, it's an adjective. 343i wants to make a never-ending Halo game that evolves over the course of 10 years. Infinite is the last mainline Halo game which makes it more into a platform rather than a sequel.

In a recent interview with Wired, 343i boss Bonnie Ross says that Halo Infinite is "Halo-as-a-service". All Halo games were technically live service games but this time 343i is broken the mold with unprecedented cross-platform play coupled with F2P. There's also a campaign that could easily evolve over time with more content, events, and a lot more. Infinite is set up to become a portal instead of an actual game and Microsoft will have to navigate this potential live service trap very carefully.

A petition to remove Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick from office has amassed more than 16,000 signatures.

The industry is fighting back against Activision's alleged abuse-ridden business. Workers have protested the alleged crimes with walkouts and over 1500 Activision, Blizzard, and King employees have publicly signed a petition calling for Bobby Kotick's resignation.

Now consumers and gamers are pressing the company. Over 16,000 people have signed a new public petition to oust Kotick from the company. The industry is also starting to rally against Activision-Blizzard's alleged abuse. Sony has spoken up about it, and Microsoft may even cut ties with the publisher altogether.

343 Industries has put the finishing touches on Halo Infinite's campaign to meet its December 8 release date.

Halo Infinite has officially gone gold and is now 100% finished and ready to ship to retailers. This is a huge milestone for 343i; after six long years of game development and architecting a brand new Slipspace games engine, Infinite is now ready to be deployed on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

343i has done a fantastic job turning Infinite around. The 2020 campaign reveal showed off lackluster graphics and washed-out effects. All of that has changed and Infinite looks very good in both campaign and multiplayer.

Analysts are starting to downgrade Activision-Blizzard stock due to abuse allegations and ongoing controversy.

Activision-Blizzard is being hit on all sides right now. The company is accused of fostering a frat boy culture where sexual harassment, discrimination, and abuse runs rampant. Every day there's new reports breaking out that adds new volatility to share value. ATVI stock has been crashing for weeks now. At the time of writing Activision stock is at $62.38, the lowest point in the last year.

Analysts are taking note and adjusting their forecasts. J.P. Morgan financial analyst Alexia Quadrani has downgraded Activision stock from overweight to neutral, which essentially means Activision-Blizzard stock ivalue is now seen as in line with expected returns on the market.

Xbox gaming boss Phil Spencer is wary and skeptical of NFTs, sees new digital craze as experimental and potentially exploitative.

Gaming's biggets third-party publishers like Ubisoft, EA, Take-Two, SEGA, and Square Enix are interested in NFTs. None of that will matter if platform-holders don't agree. If Valve or Microsoft block NFTs, then publishers simply won't have a place to distribute or sell their NFT-monetized games. (Valve has already banned all NFT games from Steam).

The reality is NFTs are seen as a get rich quick scheme and regulations and rules haven't been established. No one really knows how to implement NFTs into their games yet. Until that part is figured out, platform-holders like Xbox will scrutinize NFTs; Microsoft's Phil Spencer isn't convinced yet.

4 years later, Assassin's Creed Origins is still a looker. But 8K gaming pushes the game to an entirely new level.

AC Origins is one of the best-looking games in the franchise. The Ptolemaic Egyptian world is replete with brilliant colors and enchanting ancient pyramids, towering plinths and monoliths, and tons of Hellenistic statues. It's one of the best worlds Ubisoft has ever created and it looks absolutely insane in 8K.

YouTuber Digital Dreams is known for pushing games well past their limits on PC and that's exactly what's happened to AC Origins. A new video reveals what future-generation Assassin's Creed games could look like with 8K resolution and RT On. The spellbinding footage was captured on a PC outfitted with GeForce RTX 3090 pumping out crazy 8K resolution at the ultra graphics preset.

SEGA wants to use Microsoft's Azure servers to power its new games-as-a-service initiative. SEGA confirms these games won't be Xbox exclusives.

A bit ago, SEGA confirmed it was negotiating a deal with Microsoft to use Azure to host, deploy, and even develop its most ambitious games. SEGA wants to create a whole new type of game called Super Games, which are huge sprawling live service titles similar to Phantasy Star Online. It wants to have multiple Super Games on the market by 2030; SEGA defines Super Games as large online titles that serve worldwide markets and make $800 million - $1 billion in lifetime revenue.

SEGA needs servers to make this happen. So naturally they teamed up with Microsoft. After all, Phantasy Star Online 2 is already powered by Azure and SEGA wants its future games to also use the potent cloud network. SEGA will spend up to $880 million on the development of its new Super Games.

Rockstar Games has officially apologized for the GTA Definitive Edition remasters and promises that a new update will fix many of the core issues. Definitive Edition owners on PC will also get free copies of the original games.

After 8 days of public ridicule, Rockstar Games has responded to the GTA remaster controversy. The developer admits the Definitive Edition was a faulty product and says they're working on multiple patches for the game to fix "technical issues". No specifics have been confirmed just yet...but let's hope things like atmospheric fog and rain are addressed, as well as the embarrassing character models and glitches.

"The updated versions of these classic games did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect," Rockstar said.