Now free from Activision's influence, a handful of ex-Blizzard developers join ex-CEO Mike Morhaime to make their own publishing label and game dev studio teams.

Today Blizzard co-founder and ex-CEO Mike Morhaime announced Dreamhaven, an ambitious new publishing label that houses two studios: Moonshot Games and Secret Door. Morhaime and his wife Amy are funding the label themselves, and a number of StarCraft, Warcraft, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm vets have joined their ranks.

Morhaime says the main goal with Dreamhaven is to create a positive workplace that fosters creativity and frees developers from crushing crunch and financial pressures. You know, the exact opposite of what mainstream AAA game dev studios like Blizzard face under billion-dollar publisher rule. Dreamhaven is a haven and a beacon of hope in one, a place where devs can come and make their passions come to life without worry of over-monetization and constant obsession on metrics, service updates, and the other rigors of current Blizzard development.

Fortnite's removal on Google Play and subsequent one-year ban on the App Store has significantly dropped mobile revenues. Luckily console and PC earnings are skyrocketing to help offset these drops.

Fortnite's mobile microtransaction earnings have plummeted. According to SuperData, mobile earnings are down by over 62%, and daily active users are down by a massive 60% on iOS.

Console and PC earnings are on the rise to help equalize this loss. SuperData's report for August 2020 shows a sharp uptick in Fortnite's mTX earnings on these platforms driven by the new Marvel promotion. Fortnite's revenues for August are up 76% month-over-month which SuperData says "more than offsets falling mobile revenues."

Microsoft's new Xbox beta app for Android has an innovative new pre-loading feature that'll save you time and get you right into the game.

Game downloads are a pain and can interrupt your gameplay sessions. Fire up your console, pop in a game, and bam, a multi-GB update--or worse, you find out most of the game isn't even included on the disc. Luckily Microsoft has you covered with a nifty new convenience feature on the Xbox Android app.

The app now lets you download any digital game offered on the Xbox store. With a tap, you can tell your Xbox One or Xbox Series S/X console to download a specific game even if you're away from home. Of course, you have to actually own the game before you can play it. The store will verify ownership in two ways: Digital rights allowance that's tied to your account, and using the disc as DRM.

Space is a strange and beautiful place, and we are yet to discover many of the hidden beauties that are floating around out there in its vastness.

But, every now again, we come across something that we have never seen before. In this instance, we have come across a comet that has its own "Northern Lights". As described by NASA in a recent blog post, data from the Rosetta mission conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA have revealed a new comet titled 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko that has its own far-ultraviolet aurora.

For those that don't know what the Northern or Southern Lights are, NASA explains that these phenomena happen when charged particles from the Sun hit the upper atmosphere. This interaction between the charged particles and the upper atmosphere creates the beautiful shimmers of color we see. These auroras are known to happen in other locations in space such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and even Mars.

HoloLens 2 is getting a significant feature upgrade. Microsoft released a new feature called Azure Object Anchors, which allow the HoloLens 2 to use physical objects to anchor 3D content. Say goodbye to QR code markers.

Azure Object Anchors is Microsoft's third cloud-backed service for Windows Mixed Reality. HoloLens 2 already supported Remote Rendering for streaming high-quality 3D content, and Spatial Anchors, which associates content with spaces.

Object Anchors adds another layer of granularity and allows developers to align content with physical objects. Microsoft said the new service uses the depth and geometry of physical objects to align 3D content, eliminates the need for manual alignment procedures that marker systems require.

First we had GIGABYTE outing the new GeForce RTX 3080 with 20GB, a new RTX 3070 with 16GB, and then the RTX 3060 with 8GB.

Now it's time for GALAX to get onto the "leak" game that NVIDIA doesn't seem to be stopping (free hype and marketing), with a new "internal leaked roadmap". You can see at the top of GALAX's roadmap is the GeForce RTX 3090 -- but right under that is the RTX 3080 20GB, and then RTX 3080 10GB.

We also have a new 'PG142 SKU 0' which should manifest into the GeForce RTX 3070 SUPER or GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. Under that we have the RTX 3070 which is coming in October, and then the RTX 3060 which should roll out with the TU106 GPU.

Facebook last week announced Quest 2 and opened pre-orders for the new device. The company said it was prepared for high demand, but it seems to have underestimated how much people want a Quest 2.

The new Oculus Quest 2 is a spectacular device, and people really want to get their hands-on one. Facebook is selling the XR2-powered standalone headset for an astoundingly low $299, and that entry price seems to have sparked some attention. Quest 2 is supposed to ship on October 13, but if you don't have your order in yet, you're in for a bit of a wait.

Quest 2 is now backordered but just shy of a month in both the United States and Canada. Canadians can expect new orders of either Quest 2 model to arrive on November 10. Americans can get the 256GB model on November 3, but the 64GB version is backordered to November 9. If you live in the UK, you can get your hands-on a 64GB Quest 2 as early as October 20, but the 256GB version won't arrive until November 3.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone Season 6 is right around the corner, with Activision releasing a new cinematic trailer to tease it. Check it out:

Warzone's exciting Verdansk map will be getting a big change, with an underground network of subway tunnels being inserted into the map which will change Warzone up in a big way. There's also some new operators, with the introduction of Nikolai and Farah.

As for the new operators entering the fray in Season 6, we can expect:

GALAX has just unveiled its new custom GeForce RTX 3090 GAMER graphics card, which seems to have been inspired by LEGO. Check it out:

You can see that GALAX GeForce RTX 3090 GAMER edition graphics card is rocking out with a triple-fan cooler, just like most of the custom GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards. But where GALAX is doing it differently with this model, is being heavily inspired by LEGO -- yeah, LEGO bricks.

As VideoCardz points out, with the color and shroud design it also looks like it is some LEGO bricks infused with a Nintendo Switch console. It actually looks great, and I kinda really dig it.

Facebook appears to have quietly acquired a Singapore-based company called Lemnis Technologies for its proprietary varifocal lens technology. The company's founder is now working for Facebook Reality Labs.

According to a report from yivian.com, a Chinese AR/VR news site, Facebook acquired Lemnis Technologies earlier this year. Neither Facebook nor Lemnis Technologies revealed the transaction, but several pieces line up to give credence to the idea.

For starters, Lemnis Technologies' co-founder and CEO, Pierre-Yves Laffont, is now working for Facebook Reality Labs. Laffont's LinkedIn page reveals that his role as CEO at Lemnis ended in January 2020, and he joined Facebook Singapore in February 2020.

Bethesda won't be Microsoft's last purchase, company CEO Satya Nadella says.

Thanks to Game Pass and mobile expansion via Project xCloud, Xbox is quite important to Microsoft's service empire. With the service infrastructure established, Microsoft is aggressively investing in content to help spark digital revenues. Whether it comes from subscriber growth, full game sales, or monetization, Microsoft wants more. The main motivation behind the recent $7.5 billion Bethesda acquisition was to add more value to Game Pass.

Including ZeniMax and its eight studios, Xbox now has 23 first-party teams working on projects to boost Game Pass' value. The plan is to flood Game Pass with a multitude of varied content for subscribers, consumers, and gamers to enjoy, play, and pay for. Even with these impressive numbers, Microsoft says that it's always looking to swell its ranks and embolden its billion-dollar service ecosystem.

Ailing retailer GameStop saw a sharp 23% rise in share value on the back of new business restructuring reports.

Chewy.com co-founder Ryan Cohen has a plan to turn around GameStop's retail business. Instead of focusing so strongly on retail, Cohen advises GameStop to pivot towards ecommerce and become more like Amazon. Sources relayed the plan to Bloomberg, which sees GameStop selling most of its wares digitally via its online storefront.

Investors apparently agree with Cohen's plan. GameStop shares were up 23% to $10.65, the highest point since early 2019. Under his firm RC Ventures, Cohen currently owns 10% stake in GameStop and management is currently hearing out his plan.

Microsoft has no plans to disrupt ZeniMax's development teams, and promises it won't cut any jobs or interrupt development.

Microsoft says it has one clear goal with its recent $7.5 billion acquisition: To make ZeniMax the best it can be. After all, what's good for ZeniMax is now good for Microsoft. To make this happen, Microsoft says they will keep the established structure intact. The service giant plans to largely leave ZeniMax alone in this regard.

There won't be any reductions in dev teams, closing of studios, or immediate cancellations of in-development projects (at least at the beginning, but projects get cancelled all the time in the industry). Xbox's Phil Spencer says ZeniMax's 2,300-person workforce will be empowered, and that Microsoft plans to work individually with studios like Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, and MachineGames to garner feedback and open up resources.

Like a good mentor, Microsoft will show Bethesda how to grow and mature its live service business model, which represents its natural evolution as a games-maker.

Microsoft's recent $7.5 billion Bethesda buyout is a match made in heaven. Microsoft gets much-needed content for Xbox Game Pass, the subscription that's not just a service, but the center of Xbox as a whole. Bethesda gets resources, flexibility, and most importantly, access to Microsoft's potent service framework.

Microsoft doesn't just have a service empire--it has the service empire. Few companies on Earth have a better mastery of digital subscriptions, recurring revenues, and services. Xbox has naturally evolved from a console-first business into a service-first business, and now the Xbox brand is starting to mature. The Xbox LIVE online framework, Windows 10 unification, Project xCloud streaming, and on-demand Game Pass access across PC, consoles, and mobiles--all of this is a result of a service-first ecosystem.

Microsoft isn't playing by Sony's rules any more, and plans to conquer gaming by saturating the market with content. Now its 23 dev teams are ramping up projects to populate its console, PC, and service offerings.

Today Microsoft made a big move against its competitors. It bought Bethesda for $7.5 billion, acquiring titanic IPs like Fallout, Doom, and Elder Scrolls as well as studios like Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, Arkane, and more. This follows two years' worth of acquisitions for its Xbox Game Studios banner, which now sits at 23 studios compared to Sony's 15.

The idea here is Microsoft is buying up studios to add value to its cross-platform Game Pass service. The subscription is now so powerful it's defining the Xbox brand and has convinced Microsoft to pay triple for Bethesda than it did for Minecraft back in 2014. At the time of writing, Xbox Game Pass has more than 15 million paid active subscriptions, and grew nearly 5 million subscribers since April 2020.

I'm knee deep in reviewing NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards, and now the RTX 3090 to have a day one review, but the world hasn't stopped.

We now have some new rumored specs on the AMD's next-gen Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card, where Rogame tweets it will be powered by the Navi 21 GPU and have 16GB of GDDR6 memory. The 16GB of GDDR6 memory is coming from Samsung, and will reportedly be on a 256-bit memory bus.

Not only that, but there is also the Navi 22 GPU that should power a slightly slower card that should materialize into the Radeon RX 6800 XT, or possibly the Radeon RX 6700 XT. This card will reportedly have 12GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit memory bus.

IDC, one of the worlds leading data analysis companies, released its latest forecast for the VR headset industry. The firm believes that the market will suffer a 6% depression on VR headset sales in 2020, but sales will rebound hard with an increase of over 45% next year.

IDC's Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker report highlights the AR and VR industries' state. According to IDC, sales of VR headsets are down this year compared to last. Mid-year sales were affected by supply issues brought on by the manufacturing shutdowns earlier this year. Now that we're approaching the tail end of the year, headset sales are likely to increase.

"We're seeing increased interest in VR from both consumer and commercial buyers," said Tom Mainelli, group vice president, Device & Consumer Research at IDC. "However, a confluence of events made for a tough first half of 2020 in terms of headset unit volumes, even as demand increased. We expect a sizeable increase in shipment volume during the second half of this year as production ramps up, and new products launch into the market, and VR should see a return to robust growth in 2021."

We are all now well aware of the major issues retailers across the world, as well as NVIDIA experienced on the launch of its brand new powerhouse GeForce RTX 3080 graphic card.

It crashed retailer websites worldwide, bought sites like Newegg to their knees with more traffic than the morning of Black Friday, and had inventories evaporate in seconds. NVIDIA has now addressed it in a new Q&A on their website.

NVIDIA starts off by saying: "Last week's GeForce RTX 3080 launch was simultaneously the best GPU launch ever and the most frustrating", adding: "The reception to our NVIDIA Ampere architecture GPUs has been off the charts and driven interest to heights we've never previously experienced. A few examples compared to our previous launch - 4 times the unique visitors to our website, 10 times the peak web requests per second, and more than 15 times the out clicks to partner pages".

Last week,Facebook revealed Quest 2, the company's next standalone VR headset. Facebook is betting big on Quest 2, and the company is making an effort to give you a reason to justify the purchase. Not only is Quest 2 an excellent gaming platform, but Infinite Office will also make it a great productivity tool.

Facebook's Infinite Office is not yet available but got a bit of a preview last week at Facebook Connect. VR companies have always touted the productivity benefits of VR, such as group collaboration and the ability to customize your workspace. Productivity tools were on the roadmap for Oculus products, but the global pandemic and the current work-from-home reality that many of us are living accelerated the rollout.

With Infinite Office, you'll be able to use a Quest 2 headset to do your everyday work. The platform offers a multi-window solution that facilitates multitasking. You can have a browser window open next to a document that you're working on, along with a chat window to keep in contact with co-workers.

UltraLeap announced the availability of the Stereo IR 170 hand tracking module for hardware and software developers. The evaluation kit will enable headset makers to design devices with embedded UltraLeap sensor, and for software developers to prepare for that future.

UltraLeap's hand tracking solution is the evolution of the company's Leap Motion hand tracking peripheral. The Stereo IR 170 offers a wider field of view than the Leap Motion sensor (170-degrees x 170 degrees versus 150-degrees x 120-degrees), and it can see your hands at up to 75cm from the sensor.

UltraLeap's new sensor is also more compact and draws less power than the Leap Motion unit, making it suitable fordirect integration into VR and AR devices.