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Apple is expected to unveil its more powerful M5 Pro and M5 Max processors with the launch of its updated 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros next month, with new rumors suggesting we'll see improved 2.5D advanced packaging that will improve heat dissipation.

The new rumors claim that TSMC's 2.5D advanced packaging will be used versus the company's Integrated Fan-Out (InFO) technology, which will improve heat dissipation and lower resistance. In a new report on Weibo, insider Fixed-focus digital cameras explains: "the advantages of heat dissipation and low resistance are obvious. Although, it is still a 2.5D package, its density is higher than that of Info, making it a very promising direction for Apple this year".

Apple Silicon has been going from stride to stride, with its M5 Pro and M5 Max to offer some serious additional power over the stock M5 chip, and with that... comes improvements to how it is fabbed, as packaging everything onto a monolithic die creates a "hot spot" and that is hard for a single heat pipe that Apple has been trying to dissipate the heat from powerful M5 Pro and M5 Max processors.

It's no secret that AMD's Zen-powered Ryzen CPUs have not only been growing in popularity over the years but have also become the CPU of choice among PC gamers, with processors like AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D outperforming Intel's lineup when it comes to pure gaming performance.

This has been reflected in Valve's monthly Steam Hardware & Software Survey results. As the data here is limited to people who use Steam to play PC games, it reflects current hardware trends amongst gamers. Thanks to the success of AMD Ryzen CPUs over the past couple of years, AMD has been slowly gaining market share in what has traditionally been an Intel-dominated space.

The latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for January 2026 show that Intel remains in the lead with 56.64% CPU market share, followed by AMD at 43.34%. Over the past year, AMD's CPU market share has gained 0.5 to 1.0% each month, but as 2026 kicks off, Intel has surprisingly regained some ground.

Blizzard has just announced that Overwatch 2 is being renamed to a simpler Overwatch, after the headaches and troubles caused over the last four years.

Overwatch 2 still hasn't received its promised PvE mode that was one of the original pillars of making the "sequel" and then killing off the original Overwatch, with Blizzard using its recent Overwatch Spotlight on February 4 to announce the reenergized "Overwatch" without the "2".

Blizzard said: "Overwatch is a living universe that keeps growing, keeps surprising, and keeps bringing players together from around the world. This team is focused on continually delivering these great experiences for years to come. And with that, we realized, Overwatch is a game that transcends any single number. So moving forward, we're dropping the '2,' and continuing simply as Overwatch".

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick expects that Rockstar Games will support the current iteration of GTA Online even after GTA 6 releases in November.

In the latest earnings call for Take-Two's Holiday 2025 results, company CEO Strauss Zelnick was asked specifically what will happen to the version of GTA Online that's attached to GTA V once Rockstar launches GTA VI. Zelnick's response may give indications on Rockstar's plans, or confirm a unique situation of parallel live service content development at the studio.

In the webcast, Zelnick says that he fully expects Rockstar will continue to support GTA Online--that's the current iteration and the current version that's accessed via GTA V--after the release of GTA VI.

Market disruptions have delayed Valve's plans to reveal specifics on its new hardware, leading to an update without the most important info.

Valve has confirmed that it is not yet ready to reveal pricing or a release date for its new Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller hardware trio. The company released a new update that delivered the bad news to players, explaining that unforeseen market shifts like the ongoing global RAM shortage has interrupted Valve's plans.

"When we announced these products in November, we planned on being able to share specific pricing and launch dates by now. But the memory and storage shortages you've likely heard about across the industry have rapidly increased since then. The limited availability and growing prices of these critical components mean we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing (especially around Steam Machine and Steam Frame)," reads the update.

Take-Two's latest results give an updated figure on Rockstar's best-selling franchise, including quarterly performance revenues that contribute to our cumulative tally.

For years now, I've been cataloging how much money that the GTA series has made, using the GTA V's seismic launch as a starting point, Based on the data provided by Take-Two, the Grand Theft Auto franchise has made at least $10.381 billion in net revenue since the launch of Grand Theft Auto V in September 2013.

On a quarterly basis, the GTA franchise did incredibly well throughout the Holiday 2025 period, earning $223.79 million, up 25% year-over-year and 30% quarter-over-quarter. The earnings were likely boosted by heavier GTA Online engagement thanks to Rockstar's successful Safehouse in the Hills GTA Online expansion, as well as the Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus freebies (GTA V still went on to ship 5 million copies digitally and physically through the quarter despite showing up on these services for free).

Take-Two Interactive's new Q3'26 results give an update on franchise sales, and Grand Theft Auto V continues its trend of shipping 5 million copies per quarter throughout the period.

Grand Theft Auto V has made history as one of the most-enduring games of all time, spanning multiple console generations and raking in billions of dollars along the way. Take-Two's latest Holiday 2025 results show that the 12-year-old game has now shipped 225 million copies across the globe, up +5 million from last quarter. Typically, GTA V somehow has been able to ship 5 million copies per quarter for multiple periods in a row throughout its lifetime.

This also means that Rockstar's genre-defining franchise has now sold over 465 million copies, including both mainline numbered releases, spin-offs, and sales of the new GTA remaster trilogy.

The CEO of Take-Two has clarified that Grand Theft Auto 6 won't use generative AI for any of its development.

Chief executive Strauss Zelnick was talking a lot about AI in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz (via Eurogamer), where he enthused about Take-Two being a 'leader in the space'.

Zelnick said:

NVIDIA has said that it's now looking into problems with its GeForce GPUs caused by the most recent update for Windows 11.

Windows Latest reports that the January update for Windows 11 is visiting a bunch of glitches on gamers with NVIDIA graphics cards, which includes nasty instances of screen flickering, and being treated to black screen stalls before the desktop eventually appears on boot (or when games are loading).

There's also evidence of visual corruption in some games (Forza Horizon 5 being an example), and other reports point to stuttering in games, and frame rate drops to the tune of 10 to 20 FPS.

According to new information from the China-based Board Channels forums (via Videocardz), a regular source of gaming GPU news on supply and pricing, AMD is shifting its Radeon GPU focus toward 8GB graphics cards. For the company's new RDNA 4 generation, that's a single model, the mainstream Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB.

At the time of the Radeon RX 9060 XT's launch in 2025, the focus was on the 16GB model, with the 8GB cards primarily reserved for system integrators. This is why our review coverage only includes Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB models, which consistently outperformed NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5060 8GB GPU, especially for 1440p gaming.

This new report mirrors similar reporting on the GeForce RTX 50 Series, where unprecedented DRAM price increases are disrupting the PC gaming GPU market. Specifically, models with 16GB or more of VRAM.

Although AMD's Data Center segment led the company's Q4 2026 revenue by recording a record $5.4 billion, thanks to AMD EPYC processor and AMD Instinct GPU shipments, the company's Client and Gaming segment was not far behind. This covers AMD's consumer market, from Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs to mobile chips and even custom APUs for consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

AMD's Client and Gaming segment recorded $3.1 billion in revenue for Q4 2026, with the Client side of the business recording a record $3.1 billion, up 34% year-over-year. Although the Gaming side's $843 million was lower, it was still up 50% year over year, thanks primarily to "semi-custom revenue" from consoles and gaming hardware, as well as from Radeon GPUs. Interestingly, AMD doesn't highlight or mention the RDNA 4-powered Radeon RX 9000 Series in its report.

For the full 2025 calendar year, Client and Gaming revenue hit a record $14.6 billion, up 51% from 2024. AMD attributes this to strong demand for Ryzen processors, which continue to gain market share at the expense of Intel's consumer-facing CPUs. And yes, even though AMD's big financial success in 2025 was AI, it's good to see Ryzen included in the mix.

Intel is re-entering the memory business, teaming with Japan's SoftBank on a next-generation DRAM bonding technology.

Intel's Next-Generation DRAM Bonding (NGDB) initiative was completed under the Advanced Memory Technology (AMT) program that was managed by the U.S. Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration through the Sandia National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory... some advanced tech then, eh?

The use of ZAM next-generation memory technology allows SoftBank's subsidiary, SAIMEMORY, to sign a collaborative agreement with Intel to advance the commercialization of Z-Angle Memory (ZAM), a next-generation memory technology.

Valve is gearing up to release its new Steam Machine in the weeks and months ahead, with rumors swirling that Half-Life 3 will be a launch title, and now AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su has said Valve is "on-track" to start shipping its Steam Machines "early this year".

During the February 3 earnings call, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su said: "From a product standpoint, Valve is on-track to begin shipping its AMD-powered Steam Machine early this year, and development of Microsoft's next-gen Xbox featuring an AMD semi-custom SoC is progressing well to support a launch in 2027".

It looks like the new AMD chips for Valve's new Steam Machine are coming out the semiconductor ovens at TSMC, and ready to become yet another platform that AMD is providing chips for. Valve has promised its new Steam Machine would be launching in early 2026, and we're right in the middle of that now.

Recent rumors indicate that Intel's next discrete GPU launch will be the workstation-focused Intel Arc Pro B70, which will reportedly ship with 32GB of VRAM sometime in Q1 2026. As a workstation card with a decent chunk of memory, the Intel Arc Pro B70 will undoubtedly be positioned as an affordable AI solution along the lines of the current Intel Arc Pro B60.

For those that need a refresher, the Arc Pro B60 shares the same GPU chip as the gaming-focused Intel Arc B580. Released at the tail end of 2024, the Intel Arc B580, with its second-generation Arc Battlemage architecture, 12GB of VRAM, a $250 price, and performance better than the GeForce RTX 4060, was something of a disruptor. Which is why many have been wanting to see an Intel Arc B770 follow-up, aka Big Battlemage.

The Intel Arc B770, built on the more powerful BMG-31 GPU with 32 Xe Cores and 16GB of VRAM, has been rumored to launch for a while, with the latest reports pointing to a potential Q1 2026 release. Well, it seems that's no longer happening: a new report indicates that the Intel Arc B770 PC gaming graphics card has been canceled due to the memory crisis and the AI boom.

Rockstar Games made history by introducing a paid user-generated economy into FiveM, the online roleplay mod, showing a phase shift in how players can engage with content in a highly specific way. This is the way of the future, as Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick believes UGC is another avenue to explore.

With Rockstar Games essentially opening an official paid mod storefront for FiveM, aka the cfx.re marketplace, it seems clear that more UGC could be on the way at Take-Two.

That certainly seems to be the case, as Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says that there is "more opportunity to come" from user-generated content in the future. How this will take shape remains to be seen, but reports indicate GTA 6 could have some sort of built-in UGC storefront similar to Roblox.

With an MSRP of just $79.99 USD (or $199.95 AUD), the new Logitech G325 LIGHTSPEED Wireless Gaming Headset aims to shake up the affordable headset market. And it will reportedly do so by offering the sort of immersive audio and features you usually find on more premium offerings - like 24-bit audio and high-quality comms.

As for the voice and chat capabilities of the new Logitech G325 LIGHTSPEED, the headset doesn't include a traditional boom microphone. Instead, it features an integrated beamforming microphone with AI-powered noise reduction, delivering a clear, rich voice quality no matter the gaming device it's connected to.

When you pair the integrated mic with the stylish, ultralight 212-gram build, Bluetooth capabilities, and 24 hours of continuous battery life, the Logitech G325 LIGHTSPEED (available in lilac, black, and white) also doubles as a lifestyle headset for on-the-go use.

Xbox recorded a mysterious write-down in its holiday earnings quarter, and it could be related to games missing expectations.

As part of Microsoft's latest Q2 results, company CFO Amy Hood confirmed that the Xbox games division recorded an impairment charge. At the time, we speculated that the charge may have been related to the games that Microsoft had released during the holiday quarter.

Companies typically record these kinds of charges as a way to adjust the value of software; if the game is selling badly, the company usually sees this as a sign it will be worth less than they previously thought. The game is then written-down--sometimes even written off--and it affects earnings as a result.

UPDATE: GTA 6 will not launch on a disc, and will instead ship as a code in a box, Rockstar has confirmed. In the article below, I had assumed Zelnick's references to a physical product for GTA 6 would be a physical disc SKU as per the group's typical releases. That is not the case, and GTA 6 will not be available on disc at launch.

Based on Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick's latest comments, Grand Theft Auto 6 is expected to launch on both physical discs and as a digital download when it releases in November.

Take-Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick has denied recent claims of a digital-only release for GTA 6, telling Variety: "That's not the plan." This indicates that Rockstar Games will indeed have a physical release for GTA 6, which is good news for retailers, because this game has become one of the most anticipated releases in entertainment history.

Nintendo's latest Q3'26 results have unlocked big sales milestones for both hardware and software.

Gaming's biggest companies are starting to report their holiday results, and for Nintendo, sales were good. Over the Holiday 2025 period, the company made new sales records as the Switch lineup officially beat the DS and became the best-selling Nintendo video games hardware of all time.

On the software front, Nintendo likewise broke new ground by announcing it has sold over 1.5 billion games cumulatively on the Switch family of consoles. Based on the data, Nintendo has now sold over 6 billion games across all of its systems, from the earliest NES and Famicom days to the modern Switch 2 era. To be more exact, Nintendo has sold around 6.095 billion games both digitally and physically over the multiple decades that it's been in the interactive entertainment business. Quick math shows that roughly 24.6% of Nintendo's total game sales were made on the Switch platform. That share bumps to 25% if we combine sales made on both the Switch (1,500.16 million) and the Switch 2 (37.93 million).

Nintendo's legacy goes full circle as the Switch becomes the company's best-selling system of all time.

It's official: Nintendo's latest Q3'26 results have made history, confirming that the Switch has outsold the legendary DS to become the best-selling Nintendo video game hardware of all time. The Switch has now sold 155.57 million units, finally breaking the DS' decades-running streak of 154.02 million sales.

The new milestone is a big one for Nintendo, as the Switch line represents the unification of two of the company's most lucrative platforms--handhelds and consoles. Based on our findings, the Switch has generated over $100 billion in revenue for Nintendo across its 8-year lifespan, including both the Switch 1 and Switch 2 generations.