Latest News - Page 285

Samsung Electronics is delaying the completion of its new semiconductor factory in Taylor, Texas, as the company continues to struggle to find customers to use its new chip-making plant on US soil.

The South Korean company will be spending over $37 billion on its semiconductor plant in Texas in the years to come, after Samsung was awarded up to $4.7 billion of funding from the Biden administration and the CHIPS Act. The investment included a fab in Taylor, Texas, which was meant to make cutting-edge chips and be online by 2024... now that has been pushed back until 2026.

A source close to the situation told Nikkei Asia: "The process (of completing the Taylor fab) is delayed because there are no customers. (Samsung) is not in a situation where it can do something, even if it brings equipment in at the moment".

New details on ZeniMax Online's cancelled MMO have surfaced, revealing what could have been Microsoft's own unique answer to Destiny.

Budget cuts, game cancellations, studio closures, and layoffs hit Xbox as Microsoft cuts over 9,000 jobs across the corporation. One of the cancelled games was a promising new MMO project at ZeniMax Online Studios (ZOS) set in a fresh IP, and sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier that this particular game was the apple of Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer's eye during a playtest session.

New reports say that ZeniMax Online's new game, codenamed 'Blackbird,' was a third-person shooter with MMO elements similar to Bungie's Destiny. The game was the beginning of what was hoped to turn into a franchise, set in a new universe with a cyberpunk-ish design described as a sci-fi style with classic noir overtones.

Samsung Foundry is expected to mass-produce its next-generation 1.4nm process node in 2029, a full two years later than the company had originally planned.

In a new report published by ETnews and picked up by insider @Jukanrosleve, we're hearing that Samsung Foundry has officially announced a delay of the mass production of its bleeding-edge 1.4nm process node. We're now to expect a mass production target of 2029, a full two years later than initially planned.

This move is looked at as an attempt to improve profitability by delaying the 1.4nm production, shifting focus to enhancing the completeness of processes 2nm and above by improving their utilization rates. Samsung Electronics announced its changed plans with its partners on July 1 at the "SAFE Forum 2025" event held at the Samsung Financial Campus in Seocho-gu, Seoul.

Reports indicate that ZeniMax Online's cancelled MMORPG codenamed 'Blackbird' was a well-liked superstar among testers and even management.

Yesterday, Microsoft laid off a multitude of workers across all branches of the company, including the Xbox division. Microsoft shuttered The Initiative game studio, cancelled projects, and laid off employees that were part of various teams working on billion-dollar franchises like Candy Crush, Call of Duty, Halo, and Forza.

One of the cancelled games was ZeniMax's new unannounced MMORPG project codenamed 'Blackbird,' which had started development in 2018. Based on recent reports, this cut may have come as a surprise because the game was highly favored by everyone who saw it and/or played it. ZeniMax studio director, Matt Firor, announced he was leaving the company shortly after Microsoft announced its layoffs and cancellations.

AMD's rumored Zen 6 gaming processor could see a flagship offering that would put (yet another) nail in Intel's coffin, with a purported 240MB of L3 cache and up to 7.0GHz CPU clock speeds.

In a new video from leaker Moore's Law is Dead, we're hearing from one of his sources that said it's indeed possible for AMD's new Zen 6 chips to stack multiple layers of V-Cache. MLID's source confirmed 96MB of cache per V-Cache layer, saying that multiple layers being stacked can happen.

The source added that AMD could provide 2-Hi X3D to consumers, where we could see a 12-core, 24-thread Zen 6 processor to consumers with a whopping 240MB of L3 cache. This would not just compete with whatever Intel can muster up with its next-gen gaming CPUs, but utterly destroy it.

Battlefield 6 looks to be in development trouble with a new report suggesting the game has a budget "well north" of $400 million, and super-ambitious targets of over 100 million players.

In a lengthy article posted by Ars Technica, we've got more details about EA's next-gen Battlefield than ever before, which you can read here. The new Battlefield is codenamed Glacier, and seems to be having issues stemming from the top-down vision from leadership, which hardly ever works out.

EA's executive leadership has some lofty goals of wanting to see over 100 million players in the new Battlefield, but the franchise has never even gotten anywhere close to those numbers. One EA employee told Ars: "Obviously, Battlefield has never achieved those numbers before. It's important to understand that over about that same period, 2042 has only gotten 22 million". Even the most successful game in the franchise, Battlefield 1 from 2016, only achieved "maybe 30 million plus".

File this one under 'ludicrous experiments' (as well as improbable ones), but it turns out that if your GPU ever appears in the list of USB media that can be ejected from the taskbar in Windows, you really shouldn't try to do this.

But that's exactly what a foolhardy Redditor did - curious as to what the result would be - and hey, what do you know, but it ended up breaking the system (temporarily).

The first question you're likely to have is: How on earth did this happen in the first place? We've never had the option to eject our GPU like it was a USB stick, either, and apparently this is only served up in a virtual machine.

It was only late last month that playtesters of the new Battlefield game said that a Battle Royale mode was added to the game. Now, the opening for the battle royale mode has leaked online.

Playtesters informed Insider Gaming that the new Battlefield game officially moved from Battlefield Labs and "Pre-Alpha" to just "Alpha," signifying the game is moving along in its development process. The labeling change of the new game came with the inclusion of a Battle Royale mode, which wasn't playable at the time. However, screenshots of the mode were sent to the publication, which reported that the mode consisted of two teams of four in a skirmish in what looked like an abandoned factory.

Other screenshots showed soldiers looting weapons from a hole in the wall, and a team of four players landing with different colored parachutes near high-rise buildings. It was previously reported that Ripple Effect was developing the new BR mode, which is set to be free-to-play.

Samsung's new tri-fold smartphone is expected to enter mass production in September, and a release in Q4 2025 right in time for the holidays.

In a new post by Korean outlet The Bell picked up by insider @Jukanrosleve on X, we're hearing that Samsung will be focusing on small-volume production to gauge market reaction to the tri-fold smartphone. We should expect Samsung to unveil some details about the tri-fold smartphone at its Galaxy Unpacked event in New York on September 9.

Samsung Electronics reportedly shared the mass production plans of its new tri-fold smartphone -- which should be called the Galaxy G Fold -- with its key component partners, and while the production volume for September has not been precisely confirmed, it is reportedly "extremely limited". Samsung has reportedly chosen a strategy of highlighting its technology prowess and brand image versus aggressive mass production.

Helldivers 2 is coming to Xbox Series consoles on a very particular day, further underlining the rivals-and-partners duality of Sony and Microsoft.

Helldivers 2 is the most successful PlayStation live game to date, but it's also coming to Xbox, signalling what could be a slight shift in PlayStation's business model. Helldivers 2 sold over 12 million copies in a matter of months across both PS5 and PC, easily becoming Sony's fastest-selling video game of all time. Now Sony and Helldivers developer Arrowhead are expanding that sales potential to Xbox.

Interestingly enough, Helldivers 2 comes to Xbox on the same day that Gears of War Reloaded will drop on PlayStation--August 26, 2025. This dynamic "trading" of IP releases highlights just how tightly-knit the Big 3 actually are--Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are the Big 3, and they often broker mutualistic software deals, especially in more recent years.

Samsung is preparing to officially unveil the Galaxy Z Fold 7 at its upcoming Unpacked Event scheduled to take place on July 9, but rumors indicate the Z Fold 7 isn't the only phone the South Korean company is set to unveil.

For quite some time, Samsung has been rumored to be working on a tri-fold device that is set to compete with the Huawei Mate XT, the world's first tri-fold smartphone. Samsung's version has been referred to as the Galaxy G Fold, with the "G" being representative of the new hinge system that enables the device to differentiate itself from the competition.

Now, leaked renders of the G Fold have appeared online, with reports stating they are sourced from a beta build of One UI 8. The renders show how the G Fold's orientation will work, along with a triple camera system. Looking at the renders, we can see the G Fold is very similar to the Galaxy Z Fold 7, but comes with an extra third panel attached to one of its sides. The middle panel comes with a selfie camera, the left features the triple camera system, and the right-most panel is the extra panel.

Following the mass Xbox layoffs currently underway at many studios under the Xbox Game Studios banner, rumors began circulating that longtime head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, was stepping down from his role as CEO of Xbox.

The rumors can be traced back to TheGhostofHope, who wrote that Spencer was set to retire from his role as Microsoft Gaming CEO after the launch of the next-generation Xbox console. TheGhostofHope claimed this was an exclusive piece of news, and that Spencer was currently working with Sarah Bond and her team to ensure a smooth transition for her to take over as CEO of Microsoft Gaming once Spencer has officially retired.

The GhostofHope also wrote that it was currently unclear who would take over as President of Xbox when Bond became CEO. However, those rumors have now been put to bed as Kari Perez, head of Xbox communications, provided a statement to The Verge, saying, "Phil is not retiring anytime soon." Microsoft didn't directly comment on the rumors, but Frank Shaw, Microsoft's communications chief, took to X to claim that the rumors were simply made up.

The Stop Killing Games initiative, sparked by Ubisoft's announcement to shut down the servers powering the game The Crew, is 99% of the way to its goal of reaching 1 million signatures.

Ubisoft sparked the Stop Killing Games initiative after it announced it was shutting down the servers to The Crew, rendering the game impossible to play, as The Crew is an online-only game. The initiative is an international consumer rights campaign that calls upon lawmakers in numerous countries to prevent publishers from making it impossible to access online-only games after they have been sold to consumers.

The initiative has so far received 999,000 signatures, meaning it's nearing its goal of 1 million. But that might not be enough to see any meaningful change, as a portion of those signatures will be deemed invalid by the European Commission after they are vetted. Stop Killing Games is aware of this and even wrote, "at least 1.2 - 1.3 million, and ever more buffer to account for invalid signatures!" The initiative has until July 31 to reach its goal.

The shaky-at-best release of MindsEye has caused the studio behind the title, Build a Rocket Boy, to be hit with seemingly sweeping layoffs as numerous employees at the studio are now listing employment availability on LinkedIn.

MindsEye joined the growing number of AAA titles released to extremely poor reception, with many players of the game describing the title as an unfinished mess. These sentiments were even partially echoed by the game's lead actor, Alex Hernandez, who said during a recent interview that he understands gamers' perspective about being upset with the game having unfinished animations.

MindsEye's tragic reception is now being felt by the studio behind the title, Build a Rocket Boy, with countless team members recently taking to social media to say they are facing redundancy as numerous roles at the company are now facing imminent layoffs. It wasn't just players who found MindsEye to be bad, as PlayStation even refunded unhappy buyers of the title through the platform's refund policy.

The director of Marvel Rivals has commented on whether a port of the game for the Nintendo Switch 2 is currently in development.

In a recent interview with Video Gamer, Guangyun Chen, the Marvel Rivals game director, touched on bringing the popular team-based shooter over to Nintendo's new console, with the game director saying that NetEase is still trying to obtain a Nintendo Switch 2 developer kit. This means a port hasn't even begun yet, with Chen explaining that once a Switch 2 developer kit has been obtained, they can evaluate whether Marvel Rivals can run on the Nintendo Switch 2 and then provide a response to fans.

Reports state that Marvel Rivals was tested for the Nintendo Switch, but due to the hardware limitations of the console, the developers of Marvel Rivals decided against releasing a port on the Switch 1, as the in-game performance didn't meet the team's standards.

The entire studio at Romero Games is being laid off as Bethesda cuts funding for the team's new FPS.

Yesterday, Microsoft started the process of laying off 9,000 employees across the entire company. Gaming was affected by the layoffs, with around 50% of Forza developer Turn10's studio let go, and whole studios like The Initiative were shut down. New first-party games were cancelled, including Perfect Dark, Rare's new IP Everwild, and ZeniMax Online's new MMORPG codenamed Blackbird.

Third-party partner deals were also affected. Some, like Romero Games' unannounced FPS, were effectively cancelled. Brenda Romero, the wife of legendary FPS maven John Romero and head of Romero Games, shared the news on Twitter this morning that the first-person shooter project was effectively shut down.

We've again heard from the rumor mill that Apple's first MacBook with an OLED screen will arrive in 2026.

MacRumors picked up the latest speculation in favor of that launch date which comes from an analyst at Omdia, in a press release on the subject of the suppliers for Apple's laptop displays.

Omdia's Linda Lin wrote that:

If you are one to get somewhat spicy over FaceTime, those days are now coming to an end as Apple has updated the feature to automatically stop video and audio if any nudity is detected.

The new stipulations for using FaceTime were discovered in the iOS 26 beta. Apple did mention last month when it unveiled iOS 26 that new features were coming to child accounts, but now it appears some of those features are making their way over to adult accounts as well. 9to5Mac reports that as part of the expansion of features, "Communication Safety expands to intervene when nudity is detected in FaceTime video calls, and to blur out nudity in Shared Albums in Photos."

What happens when FaceTime detects nudity? The video and audio of the call both freeze, and then the app will show the following message: "Audio and video are paused because you may be showing something sensitive. If you feel uncomfortable, you should end the call." There are two options to select from in this screen, "Resume Audio and Video" and "End Call". Presumably, users can simply resume the call and carry out their spicy activity.

Call of Duty: WW2 was added to Xbox Game Pass on June 30, and since then, the player count of the game has increased significantly, but so have the reports of hackers.

Warnings have been issued by multiple players saying that Call of Duty: WW2 is simply not safe to play on PC, as the frequency of hackers has skyrocketed since the game was added to Game Pass. Players have posted clips of seemingly hackers hijacking PCs mid-game, opening up Notepad with a message, and even opening up pornographic videos on a victim's second monitor.

Reports indicate that hackers are taking advantage of Remote Command Execution (RCE) exploits, which enables a bad actor to take control of another player's game, or even their entire PC.

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