It appears that Roblox is bigger than Steam, with the platform recording a whopping 47.4 million concurrent users, surpassing Steam's record of 41.2 million. And yes, that's the entirety of Steam, a platform that encompasses nearly every PC game release over the past decade or so.

The 47.4 million figure is also impressive for Roblox, which held a record peak concurrent player count of around a quarter of this heading into 2025. The reason for the explosion in Roblox's popularity can be attributed to two user-created games: Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot. Now, if these are games you haven't heard of, that's probably because Roblox's player base is mainly comprised of gamers under the age of 13.

Of course, this news arrives in light of recent and alarming reports surrounding Roblox's security, privacy, and protection of its underage players.

When Epic first showcased the power of its latest Unreal Engine 5 technology, many were left impressed by how detailed and cinematic games were about to look. From the groundbreaking Lumen and Nanite technology to advanced ray tracing and other innovations, Unreal Engine 5 quickly became the go-to platform for both small and large developers as the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and modern DLSS and neural rendering GeForce RTX-powered generation of gaming began.

Fast forward to 2025, and as we've seen several high-profile Unreal Engine 5-powered games make their way to PC and consoles, there has been a lot of criticism surrounding poor performance and optimization in a range of UE5 games, with issues like stuttering and low frame rate, no matter the GPU it's paired with.

Just to name a few examples, there's STALKER 2, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Black Myth: Wukong, Lords of the Fallen, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Oblivion Remastered, and, more recently, Mafia: The Old Country and the Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater remake, with all titles releasing with notable and game-altering performance issues. And with all of the bad press, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has chimed in to point the finger at game developers.

NVIDIA has just posted its Q2 2025 financial report, with $46.7 billion in revenue over the three-month period, breaking its previous sales record from Q1 2025 with $44.1 billion.

The company posted a press release on its website noting that its quarterly earnings are up 56% from a year ago, as well as no H20 AI GPUs sold to China-based customers in Q2 2025. NVIDIA benefited from a $180 million release of previously reserved H20 chips sitting in inventory, from around $650 million in unrestricted H20 sales to customers outside of China.

NVIDIA expects the next quarter to be even bigger again, once again breaking (even the new Q2 record) in Q3 2025, with the AI GPU leader projecting $54 billion in revenue. That would mean $44B for Q1, $46.7B for Q2, and a big step up to $54B in Q3... GB200 is mass-produced now, and the new Blackwell Ultra GB300 AI servers are now hitting the market... Q3 is going to be massive for NVIDIA.

There have been numerous cases of GPU cables melting on high-end and flagship GeForce RTX Series GPUs, making it somewhat normalized in 2025. And that's in the sense that we've seen enough cases now that it's surprising, and not in the sense that it's a widespread or standard issue. This has led to a shift from the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector that was introduced alongside the GeForce RTX 40 Series to the newer 12V-2x6 connector for the RTX 50 and Radeon RX 9000 Series.

Today's report of a GeForce RTX 5090 failing, a PNY ARGC OC model, wasn't due to an improperly inserted cable or an overheated and melted connector. Instead, one of the GPU's capacitors exploded, and the noise was so loud that it caused the PC user to jump out of their chair.

This report, accompanied by the photos you see, originates from Reddit and the pcmasterrace Subreddit, with RoboDogRush reporting that their GeForce RTX 5090 "exploded" while they were editing a video, not while gaming. This indicates that the GeForce RTX 5090 wasn't being stressed in the same way it would be running DOOM: The Dark Ages in 4K with Path Tracing and an uncapped frame rate.

We've got some full specs leaked on the purported PlayStation 6 handheld from a known leaker, confirming Zen 6 and RDNA 5 cores, PS5 + PS4 backwards compatibility, the tease of a docked mode, and more.

In his latest video leaker Moore's Law is Dead provides a FULL specs leak on the PlayStation "Canis" which is the new PS6 handheld. We can expect around a 135mm2 die fabbed on TSMC's new 3nm process node, 4 x Zen 6c cores and 2 x Zen 6LP cores with 4MB of L3 cache for the Zen 6c CCX.

AMD's new semi-custom Canis APU will feature a 192-bit LPDDR5X-8533 memory interface with support for up to 48GB of RAM, 16 CUs of RDNA 5 integrated GPU clocked at around 1.20GHz in handheld mode, and around 1.65GHz in docked mode. MLID says we can expect to see the PS6 handheld offering both PS5 and PS4 backwards compatibility, noting that there's "no mention of PS3".

FADU has just announced its new Gen6 SSD controller at FMS 2025, offering up to huge 28.5GB/sec read speeds, 6.9 million IOPS, and up to 512GB capacities at less than 9W of power.

Silicon Motion announced the world's first PCIe Gen6 SSD controller with the introduction of its new SM8466 SSD controller last week, a new enterprise Gen6 SSD controller with up to 28GB/sec speeds and 512GB capacities. But now, South Korean manufacturer, FADU, has unveiled its new enterprise-grade Sierra FC6161, a next-gen PCIe Gen6 SSD controller that's capable of 28.5GB/sec speeds and up to 512GB capacities on Gen6 SSDs.

FADU's new Sierra FC6161 Gen6 SSD controller has read and write speeds of up to 28.5GB/sec, which is 500MB/sec more (28GB/sec versus 28.5GB/sec) than the SM8466 Gen6 controller from Silicon Motion, also in up to 512GB capacity. We've got 6.9 million IOPS for random read, and 1 million IOPS for random write, with power consumption at less than 9W.

If you're like us and obsessed with PC hardware, gaming, and what's on the horizon, you probably know the name Kepler_L2. As one of the most trusted and respected leakers of GPU information, if they're posting anything related to specs or hardware, it's worth taking note of. The latest Kepler_L2 drop over on the Anandtech Forums (via Wccftech) offers images of GPU die configurations or block diagrams for AMD's upcoming RDNA 5 or UDNA generation of Radeon graphics.

According to the image, the top RDNA 5 GPU will be a beast, featuring eight shader arrays and 16 shader engines, which deliver a total of 96 Compute Units. This would be AMD's flagship, a GeForce RTX 5090-like alternative, something it has chosen not to offer with its current RDNA 4-powered Radeon RX 9000 Series. There, the flagship Radeon RX 9070 XT features only 64 Compute Units.

The image also offers some insight into the memory configuration for AMD's next-gen flagship RDNA 5 or UDNA GPU, with 16 Unified Memory Controllers delivering a maximum bus or interface size of 512-bit. Now, will all of this hardware make its way into a commercial flagship Radeon RX 10090 XT desktop graphics card built for PC gaming? Or will it be limited to the workstation and AI space?

A pair of Windows 11 security updates rolled out earlier this month (KB5063878 and KB5062660), and they quickly sparked controversy due to reports that they were causing issues with SSDs, leading to outright failure in some cases. With the sources for these claims coming from individuals posting their first-hand accounts of encountering problems online, the reports were alarming and a cause for concern, but also anecdotal.

As we reported last week, a significant number of alleged SSD failures were attributed to Phison controllers. The first case of the issue was reported by an X user who was attempting to update Cyberpunk 2077, which subsequently caused their SSD to disappear from their Windows 11 system. Microsoft's initial response and statement on the issue was that it was investigating the reports, with Phison also responding in kind, adding that it was conducting a thorough review.

And thorough it was, with Phison's Chris Ramseyer confirming in a statement provided to TweakTown that the company "dedicated over 4,500 cumulative testing hours" and "conducted more than 2,200 test cycles" with the reported SSDs and Phison controllers. And after all that, Phison was "unable to reproduce" the reported issues.

Nintendo has formed a new subsidiary to act as a middleman between film studios and the Japanese games company.

Nintendo today announced the formation of Nintendo Stars, a new subsidiary that will oversee licensing of films and movies based on key Nintendo franchises. Big-budget adaptations such as the upcoming Super Mario Bros sequel and The Legend of Zelda movie will be under the purview of Nintendo Stars.

This branch is actually a former company, WarpStar Inc, which previously only handled the licensing of the Kirby IP. WarpStar will still handle Kirby alongside the new film business responsibilities. In fact, it's precisely because of WarpStar's experience in licensing out Kirby for decades that Nintendo assigned this role to the new subsidiary.

Ken Levine and Ghost Story Games today revealed some surprising new tidbits about their new game Judas, and how the sci-fi shooter will go deeper than the BioShock trilogy.

BioShock had some pretty deep moments, especially the second game where you played as a Big Daddy. With his next game Judas, original BioShock series creator Ken Levine wants to amp up the meaningful character interactions and make the experiences more resonant, interesting, and impactful.

In a recent update, Levine briefly outlined Judas' villainy system and gave a bunch of new info about the protagonist and antagonists. The game has three principal characters that players can either make their friends or enemies. The Big 3, as it's called, is made up of a trio of characters with their own interests and motivations.

Gamers in the US are spending more on subscriptions in 2025 than last year, new data from Circana has revealed.

Now that games cost $70 or more, the value proposition of subscriptions like Game Pass and PlayStation Plus start to make more sense. Consumers are spending more on subscriptions, at least in the United States, where these services have generated $3.6 billion in 2025 so far.

According to the latest figures from Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, this year's cumulative subscription revenues are up 19% year-over-year.

Circana's latest games industry report shows the best-selling premium games of July 2025 in the United States, and Xbox had 5 out of the top 10 titles on the list.

Now that Microsoft owns a ton of publishers with mega-hit franchises, including Activision's $35 billion Call of Duty series, it's not uncommon to see Xbox as a kind of permanent fixture on best-sellers lists. That's the case for July's top-selling games in the United States.

Circana senior director Mat Piscatella recently published the US games market's results for July 2025, showing the top 20 best-selling premium games of the month. Microsoft populated 5 out of the top 10 spots with games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4, Call of Duty Black Ops 6, Minecraft, Forza Horizon 5, and Grounded 2, which made its debut in the #8 slot.

Clair Obscur is now a video games franchise that will have multiple chapters, and Expedition 33 was just the beginning of what's to come.

Fans of the breakout RPG hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have something to look forward to. Developer Sandfall Interactive has confirmed that more games are on the way, with Expedition 33 creative director Guillaume Broche clarifying that Clair Obscur is just the moniker, or the name, of the fantasy roleplaying series. The IP itself is becoming bigger than Sandfall had originally anticipated, Broche says, and the studio wants to keep its team relatively small.

"Clair Obscur is the franchise name. Expedition 33 is one of the stories that we want to tell in this franchise. Exactly what it will look like, and what the concept will be...it's still too soon to announce. What is sure is that this is not the end of the Clair Obscur franchise," Broche said in a recent interview with YouTuber MrMattyPlays.

Titan Army is marking Labor Day with sharp monitor deals at Best Buy, live from August 25 through September 1, 2025. Whether you're upgrading a gaming setup or kitting out a work-from-home space, these limited-time offers deliver excellent value and are well worth considering.

The Titan Army P2510S Plus is a 24.5-inch Fast IPS gaming panel built for esports responsiveness and high-fidelity visuals. It runs at QHD 2560x1440 with a 240Hz refresh rate and 1ms response, and supports AMD FreeSync for tear-free motion. Color and HDR are strong for this class, featuring VESA DisplayHDR 500, 400 nits SDR/500 nits HDR, with a wide color gamut including 99% sRGB (1931), 95% DCI-P3 (1976), and 90% Adobe RGB (1976), plus a 123% sRGB color volume.

Key I/O features include 2x HDMI 2.0, 2x DisplayPort 1.4, and a headphone output. You also get an anti-glare coating, low blue light, and DC flicker-free technology, along with an ergonomic stand that supports height, tilt, pivot, and 100x100mm VESA mount. Quality-of-life gaming features include PIP/PBP split screen, a 1:1 pixel mode for clean 1080p rendering, on-screen aim/magnify tools (Hawk-eye/Eagle Eye), and multiple tuned picture presets you can customize and save.

A well-known leaker has chipped in to let us know that the next-gen consoles have a lot of nifty tech in store to facilitate better, smoother-running ray tracing - but that a full implementation of RT is still a long, long way out (unsurprisingly).

This came about thanks to a thread on X which was initially about NVIDIA's RTX Hair technology - for more realistic hair rendering (yes, it still sounds like an April Fool to me, but it isn't, in case there's any doubt) - but the discussion turned to the subject of ray tracing.

Specifically, LeviathanGamer - a well-informed enthusiast with a "passion for how computer architectures work and how video games use them" - started discussing the PS6 and next-gen Xbox and how both are targeting support for path tracing. They noted that AMD is "lagging behind" with this endeavor, before listing the biggest steps forward that Team Red could take in terms of tech that'd bring in better performance for RT.

If AMD's RX 9070 GRE ever gets shipped outside of Asia - it's currently exclusive to that region - we might just get a 16GB flavor of the graphics card, which would be a definite crowd pleaser.

Of course, the RX 7900 GRE graphics card started in Asia only, and was later distributed elsewhere, so it isn't like it's out of the question for the RX 9070 GRE to follow in those footsteps.

The idea that AMD may be planning a variant of the RX 9070 GRE with 16GB of video RAM - currently it has a 12GB VRAM pool - comes from the Board Channels forum over in China (as flagged by VideoCardz).

Microsoft has called an emergency press conference only hours after a group of protesters stormed a building at the company's headquarters.

The emergency press conference was held in the same room where protesters had earlier that day entered without permission, as Microsoft's Vice Chair and President, Brad Smith, addressed a group of reporters to discuss the situation. The press conference was also livestreamed directly to the official Microsoft YouTube channel, and its 15-minute duration can be viewed above.

The protesters that stormed Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, were part of the No Azure for Apartheid group, which entered Microsoft's premises without permission and locked employees out of offices. Smith added that the protesters even planted crude listening devices in the form of smartphones under couches and behind books. The Microsoft vice president stated that the protesters refused to leave, and as a result, the Redmond police were called, and they were removed.

A security researcher has claimed they have discovered significant vulnerabilities within Intel's websites, leading to the exposure of sensitive data on every single employee at the company.

The claims originate from security researcher Eaton Z, who outlined their findings in a blog post. According to the researcher, they discovered a business card portal that failed due to manipulation attempts, which resulted in Eaton being able to access deeper into Intel's database. Eaton writes that they were able to download a file of nearly a gigabyte in size, which contained the personal details of Intel's 270,000 employees.

Notably, Intel recently reduced its headcount size to 75,000, down from 109,800 at the end of 2024. So, if Eaton's reporting is correct, the file contains sensitive data on more than just Intel's employees. The sensitive data included roles at the company, addresses, phone numbers, and managerial positions. Furthermore, the vulnerability wasn't exclusive to one portal, as Eaton says three other Intel websites suffered from the same issue.

ASUS is known for its premium PC gaming products, with the scuttlebutt throughout the industry being that every product the company releases comes with "ROG Tax" in comparison to its competition.

While that company's prices are certainly high compared to the competition, they do make some of the best products gamers can get their hands on, dominating multiple categories with innovative and impressively high-end variations of already established, and sometimes brand new product designs. For example, ASUS managed to squeeze an extra 10% performance out of a GeForce RTX 5090 with its 30th anniversary edition card, which also comes with a unique aesthetic and design language that is unlike any other GPU on the market.

There is also the ROG Azoth Extreme Wireless Gaming Keyboard, which we gave an Editor's Choice Award, and the recently reviewed ROG Strix OLED XG27UCDMG gaming monitor. However, sometimes ASUS decides to create a product solely for style points, and while in most cases, you can find a cheaper alternative that offers the same performance, you can't fault the company for providing a stylistic option. Introducing the ROG Astral RTX 5080 16GB Dhahab CORE.

Here's a stat that might or might not surprise you: Star Citizen, the epic everything space game from veteran designer Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium Games, has now raised over $1 billion in crowdfunding. Development on the game, and its single-player cinematic standalone campaign Squadron 42, began in 2012, with Star Citizen getting its first 'Early Access' release in 2017.

Even though we've been covering the progress of both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 for several years now, according to Chris Roberts, the finish line is in sight. Although Star Citizen 1.0 is on track for a 2027 or 2028 release, gamers can look forward to the launch of the star-studded Squadron 42 sometime in 2026 - next year. It's set to be released alongside the only other billion-dollar juggernaut on the horizon, Grand Theft Auto 6.

"It's Top Gun meeting Star Wars," Chris Roberts said when describing Squadron 42 to French-Canadian outlet LaPresse. Even though GTA 6 is set to launch on May 26, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, Chris Roberts and the team at Cloud Imperium Games probably know enough not to launch Squadron 42 anywhere close to that date.