Latest News - Page 201

"Electronic Arts is excited to announce a partnership with Stability AI to co-develop transformative AI models, tools, and workflows that empower our artists, designers, and developers to reimagine how content is built," the official announcement reads.

As generative AI becomes a core part of workflows everywhere, EA and Stability AI's partnership involves much more than simply leveraging existing generative AI tools to generate art and other assets. EA notes that it already uses AI and machine learning to assist with development tasks such as animation, physics simulation, and pathfinding. EA confirms that the first significant initiative from this new partnership will be to assist in creating Physically Based Rendering (PBR) materials through artist-driven workflows.

PBR materials represent the objects and materials you see in a game, covering real-world things like metal, cloth, and how rain and other elements can affect their appearance and feel. PBR also refers to the ability to create realistic lighting and behavior, and it's one of the key reasons why cutting-edge tech like real-time ray-tracing can dramatically change how a game like Cyberpunk 2077 or EA's own Dragon Age: The Veilguard looks.

Xbox president Sarah Bond lays out the future of Xbox, reiterating Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's comments about game exclusivity: "I have no love for that world."

Xbox is done with exclusives. That felt like a clear observation to most fans when, in February 2024, Microsoft brought four Xbox exclusive games to PlayStation and Nintendo platforms. That Pandora's Box moment has grown, and Xbox opened the gates on its games, breaking down the walls of platform exclusivity for good and all. The plan has worked so far, as Forza Horizon 5 became a big hit on PS5 thanks to stored up FOMO.

So where does that leave Xbox? Prepare for more of the same, just magnified. Executive management re-confirms that exclusives are essentially gone at Microsoft, with Xbox president Sarah Bond going so far as to say that exclusives are "antiquated" in a recent interview with Mashable's Timothy Beck Werth.

Switch 2 owners will have to wait a little while longer before playing Elden Ring.

Nintendo's latest Switch 2 is a new frontier for games that couldn't launch on the original system, games like FromSoftware's ultra-popular Elden Ring. It feels challenging to cram the huge open-world action game into a handheld-native format. Apparently that's the case, as FromSoftware delayed Elden Ring Tarnished Edition from its original 2025 launch into an indefinite 2026 launch.

"While development on Elden Ring Tarnished Edition continues wholeheartedly toward release, we have decided to move the launch to 2026 to allow time for performance adjustments. We apologize to players looking forward to the game and thank you for your patience and support," FromSoftware said in the announcement.

Just as we predicted, Bethesda is re-releasing Fallout 4 to celebrate the game's 10th anniversary.

Today, Bethesda announced the Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, an updated re-release of the original game packed with extra content. It's coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and, for the first time ever, the Nintendo Switch 2.

Similar to the Skyrim Anniversary Edition, the Fallout version will come with the base game alongside all official expansions. Fallout 4's Creation Club is also getting revamped into the newer Creations infrastructure, and the Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition gives players access to 150 player creations. Plus, the game also carries forward Fallout 4's console mod support.

Clippy is back! Well, no, the much-maligned assistant isn't, but a new Windows 11 take on a long line of desktop-based helpers has been revealed by Microsoft: it's called Mico.

Mico is part of Copilot in Windows 11 - the name is a contraction of Microsoft Copilot, as in Mi-Co - and the idea is to have a more humanlike assistant in said long line of helpers (from Rover the Dog of Microsoft Bob fame, through to Clippy, then Cortana in more modern times).

It is, if you like, a face for Copilot. As Microsoft explains: "The new Mico character is expressive, customizable, and warm. This optional visual presence listens, reacts, and even changes colors to reflect your interactions, making voice conversations feel more natural. Mico shows support through animation and expressions, creating a friendly and engaging experience."

In an effort to curb the exponential demands of data centers to power artificial intelligence models, NVIDIA has backed a company that has a solution, and that solution is going off planet.

In a new blog post shared to the NVIDIA website, Team Green explains how it has backed the company Starcloud to create a new AI-equipped satellite that will be launched in low-Earth orbit, and be powered exclusively by the Sun.

Starcloud is a company dedicated to bringing state-of-the-art data centers to outer space, in a bid to solve the growing demand for data centers on Earth, which come with significant downsides such as energy consumption, cooling requirements, and the impact they have on Earth's environment.

Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, has received a record-breaking bonus bordering on the $100 million mark, the same year that Microsoft laid off approximately 15,000 employees.

Nadella was awarded $96.5 million in compensation for the performance of the company, and of that $96.5 million $84 million was in the form of stock awards, while the other $9.5 million was awarded in cash incentives. Nadella takes home $2.5 million from his general salary, which doesn't include his incentives and bonuses.

The massive pay for Nadella comes as Microsoft becomes one of the few companies to reach $1 trillion market cap. Over the past three years, Microsoft's shares have more than doubled, and in 2025 alone, the stock price has increased by 23%.

NVIDIA has been releasing tech demos for its GeForce graphics cards for well over two decades now. The era of 2000 - 2010 is widely considered the golden era for these tech demos, as they demonstrated cutting-edge rendering technologies for lighting, animation, reflections, and the creation of complex 3D worlds. Stuff that brought in-game visuals and fidelity to where we are today.

NVIDIA's latest tech demo and RTX Technology Showcase, called Bonsai Diorama, is in keeping with the spirit of the company's GeForce demos, focusing on cutting-edge rendering and RTX technologies enabled within Unreal Engine 5.6.1. The scene depicts a large bonsai tree on a waterfall-adorned rock floating in the sky, offering an impressive view of the current cutting-edge state and future of real-time graphics.

The scene includes new technology like RTX Mega Geometry for creating complex environments with seemingly infinite geometry, full path-traced nanite meshes with RTX Dynamic Illumination, and DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation for enhanced ray-traced image quality and performance.

It's no secret that Microsoft is currently looking to inject AI tools and features into all areas of its Windows 11 operating system. This includes the PC gaming side of the OS and the Xbox App, which now features a Gaming Copilot chatbot and AI assistant that can be used for information, tips, and even feedback on what you're seeing on-screen.

Still listed as being in Beta, Gaming Copilot is already a staple feature of the Xbox App on PC, with the tool popping up the moment you bring up the Xbox 'Game Bar' overlay. However, it seems that whether you're using it or not, Microsoft is actively recording, capturing, and analyzing screenshots of your PC gaming and sending all the text data to the company for training purposes. That is, Microsoft is reportedly training its Gaming Copilot AI tool with your data and screenshots of your PC gaming.

This training option, which sends your data to Microsoft, is enabled by default, too. This was spotted by ResetEra user 'RedbullCola' (via Wccftech), who noticed that their network traffic was sending "everything I was doing to Microsoft," including data from an unreleased game they were playing that was under NDA at the time.

For those who might need a little history lesson, say, if Battlefield 6 was your first foray into the long-running franchise, Epic Games and the studio's Unreal Engine dates back to the seminal 1998 first-person shooter, Unreal. Released at a time when full 3D graphics were relatively new, it elevated PC gaming with some of the most impressive visuals and smooth FPS gameplay that gamers have ever seen.

At the time, of course, looking back at a PC game that's well over 25 years old means it looks dated when run on a modern PC. This is where NVIDIA's impressive RTX Remix mod tools come in, allowing modders and fans to update classic titles like 1998's Unreal with cutting-edge ray-traced visuals.

UnrealRTX, from modder mstewart401, is an RTX Remix project that has now reached a point where you can play Unreal's entire single-player campaign with path-traced lighting covering everything from global illumination to dynamic shadows, and all of the game's memorable volumetric and emissive light sources.

The PlayStation 6 is expected to release sometime in 2027, and Sony's upcoming console is reportedly less powerful than Microsoft's next-gen Xbox. However, this performance difference comes with a significant price discrepancy.

We already got a hint that Microsoft is planning on making the next-gen Xbox a very premium, even boutique gaming console, with Xbox head Sarah Bond recently stating in an interview with Mashable that the next-gen console will be a "very premium and high-end curated experience." Gamers are already seeing how Xbox is approaching the next-gen console, as evidenced by the company's approach to creating the ROG Xbox Ally.

Notably, the ROG Xbox Ally X is the most expensive Xbox-branded device ever released, with a price tag of $1,000. If this console is representative of what future Xbox-branded devices will be, we could see the next-gen Xbox be more than $1,000, possibly even approaching $1,500.

OLED panel technology is quickly becoming the gold standard for displays used for entertainment. Whether that's gaming on a PC at a high refresh rate at 1440p, 4K, or an ultrawide resolution, or sitting back on a couch playing Ghost of Yotei in 4K on PlayStation 5, OLED displays are a game-changer. From their near infinite contrast levels to color accuracy and response times, OLED panels present a massive step up for getting immersed in games, movies, and everything else.

In recent years, OLED displays using panel technology from companies like Samsung and LG have become increasingly affordable, and this trend is expected to continue. According to a new report (via flatpanelshd), TCL has begun construction on a new multi-billion OLED production facility in Guangzhou, China, for its 8.6-generation OLED technology.

These panels will use a "novel inkjet printing method" for manufacturing, which is a world first. Apparently, this will reduce manufacturing costs by around 20%, delivering high-performance and energy-efficient OLED panels for "tablets, laptops, and monitors."

Valve is expanding Steam with a new store feature designed to make it easier to discover new releases and upcoming games. Launching first as 'Steam Labs Experiment 16,' Personal Calendar is designed to show you recently released and upcoming games, "filtered down to the set of games we think you are most likely to be interested in."

Presented in a date or calendar format, as shown in the screenshot above, it serves as a daily planner or calendar of games to check out, wishlist, and purchase. "This new calendar finds people with similar playtime profiles to you, and then looks at the games those players have been adding to their wishlist," Valve explains.

It works like existing recommendations in Steam, but focuses on using the games you spend the most time playing as the basis for filling out your Personal Calendar. Valve notes that a "few minutes trying out a couple of new games or demos won't have much impact on your recommendations, but sinking a bunch of time into a new favorite will."

Remedy recently warned investors that it will incur a €16 million loss. Now the company's CEO is leaving, and Remedy seeks new leadership as it tackles Max Payne and Control 2.

FBC Firebreak, the latest game from Remedy, was a bust. The shooter sold so poorly that the company issued a tax write-off for the project, which is essentially an acknowledgement of devaluation of a product. Now, little over a week later, Remedy's CEO Tero Virtala is departing after 9 years of leadership.

Remedy issued a press release announcementconfirming the decision was made in mutual agreement between Tero Virtala and Remedy's board of directors.

Sports games and Gearbox's looter-shooter Borderlands 4 help two publishers take over console game sales charts in the US.

Circana's latest games industry data report shows interesting trends for September 2025. According to the latest info from Circana senior director Mat Piscatella, two publishers had more best-selling games on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo than the rest: Take-Two Interactive and Electronic Arts, with EA being the best-selling games publisher of the month.

While it's not surprising that annual games like NBA 2K and EA Sports would show up on the best-sellers list, Take-Two benefitted from the breakout success of Borderlands 4, which was the #1 best-selling game in the US for that month.

EA is reportedly pushing developers to use AI more and more, and it's causing problems with content production.

Electronic Arts has big plans for AI. Last year, the publisher revealed a generative AI chatbot prototype that could change how players interact with games. Users type in what they want to see in the game, and the chatbot renders it in real time, adjusting level design, weapons, and rules. In the presentation, EA said that they had over 100 active AI projects in development.

New reports from Business Insider say that EA is also using AI behind the scenes in the hopes of shaving off costs and automating specific workloads. But the tech is still experimental, and the limits in what it can and can't do haven't properly been tested. New reports suggest that this testing is happening in real-time on active business hours, and is costing the company extra time and money as workers have to solve the problems that AI creates for them.

Nintendo's new Switch 2 console helps spark console sales in the US for the fourth month in a row.

The latest Nintendo console is full steam ahead in the US. According to new data from Circana senior director Mat Piscatella, the Nintendo Switch 2 was the best-selling console in the United States for the fourth month in a row, becoming the top-selling system in terms of revenue and unit sales for the month. Released in between its competitor's mainline consoles, the Switch 2 has rallied the US games console market in a critical period of rising consumer costs from the global economy.

Overall, US consumers spent $324 million on video game hardware in September 2025, up +24% year-over-year. Piscatella also says that the Switch 2's overperformance has helped offset notable dips in current-gen console sales across PS5, Xbox Series, and even the Switch 1.

Battlefield 6 Season 1 is almost upon us, arriving on October 28, and we've been treated to an official trailer showing off some of the new maps, modes of play, vehicles and weapons that are inbound.

As TechRadar noticed, the Battlefield 6 Season 1 Gameplay Trailer has been aired on YouTube via the PlayStation channel, and you can watch it above.

It shows off Blackwell Fields, which will be the first new map to arrive when Season 1 kicks off next week, as part of Rogue Ops, the initial themed update. We also get to see plenty of Eastwood, the second map that'll debut next month (November 18) as part of the California Resistance update.

Ubisoft has openly announced it will offer severance packages for employees that voluntarily separate from its The Division development teams.

Ubisoft just opened up its big new Tencent-backed subsidiary, Vantage Studios. The deal saw Tencent inject $1.2 billion into Ubisoft in exchange for 25% stake in Vantage Studios, which now oversees all of Ubisoft's most valuable properties: Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six. The portfolio has an estimated value in excess of $4 billion.

Shortly after that news spread, and after Ubisoft asked Marc-Alexis Cote to step aside from his role as lead on the Assassin's Creed franchise, Ubisoft is now offering these voluntary layoff packages to Massive Entertainment employees. This segment is responsible for the high-profile The Division series, but the group has taken a hit after two successive back-to-back titles underperformed on the market--Avatar Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws didn't live up to the publisher's sales expectations.

Players are trying to construct Call of Duty-inspired maps within Battlefield 6's Portal Mode, and Electronic Arts (EA) doesn't like that idea at all, with the publisher now writing warning emails to players participating in the creation of these Call of Duty-inspired maps.

EA has fired off an email to a player that recreated Call of Duty's iconic map "Shipment" in Battlefield 6's Portal Mode, and according to the language in the email the player has received an official warning from EA after the publisher reviewed their account and found "inappropriate" content attached to it, specifically pointing out "third party products in Battlefield 6".

The email states the user will still be able to play Battlefield 6, but if they violate any of the game's terms of service again by adding prohibited third-party content to the Portal, restrictions will be placed on their account, or they will be permanently banned from EA games and its services. Currently, it remains unclear whether EA is specifically prohibiting Call of Duty-inspired maps and content from its Portal service or if the same rule applies to all games, meaning players won't be able to reference any other title within the Battlefield 6 Portal.