Nintendo's new Switch handheld-hybrid continues favorable momentum for both the Japanese games-maker and retailers like Gamestop.

In its third quarter earnings Gamestop confirmed that the Switch helped drive total net sales for the period ending October 28, 2017 to almost $2 billion. The console had a dramatic effect on the retailer's new hardware sales, which made $309.5 million during the quarter, up 8.8% year-over-year. This growth coincides with sales reports that the Switch was the best-selling console in September and October. In fact, new hardware sales for Gamestop made up 15.6% of total net sales earnings, up 1.1% YoY.

While not explicitly mentioned, it's very likely that the Switch's new hardware sales also helped boost software sales for the retailer, which pulled in over $649 million, up 5.4% year-over-year. By Nintendo's internal estimates the Switch has a software attach rate of 3.6%, meaning most Switch owners have at least 3 games to play on the system. Software is by far and large the lion's earner for Gamestop, accounting for a mighty 32.7% of total net sales earnings.

Games publisher Bluehole has made a tremendously monumentous deal to partner with Chinese titan Tencent in order to publish its game in one of the most lucrative regions in the world.

After much tip-toeing and deliberation, Bluehole has finally teamed up with Tencent to bring PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds to China. The game, which has amassed a considerable following across the globe, represents a massive point for monetization and continued play for years to come. However the last-man-standing shooter won't enter China unaltered, and will need to adhere to strict regulations and legislature to avoid a ban including toning down blood and violence and monitoring for cheaters.

The news was posted by Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad who made the announcement on Twitter.

Earlier this year in May, lead designer for the Civilization franchise Jon Shafer moved to Paradox Development Studios, taking the role of Game Director for the studio's next unannounced title. This move by Shafer has taken quite a turn with Paradox Interactive releasing a statement addressing that Shafer and the studio have parted ways due to "creative differences."

Mattias Lilja, Executive Vice President of Studios at Paradox Interactive has said "Jon is an ambitious person with a lot of drive and passion and he has led some good discussions in our teams over the past few months. However, during the course of these discussions, it has become clear that we want different things creatively and we have therefore taken the mutual decision that it is best to part ways. We wish Jon the very best in the next part of his career and would like to thank him for his efforts during his time with us."

We never knew what Shafer was actually working on at Paradox Interactive as he never gave any details away, but what we do know is that it certainly didn't go as planned.

There's a new line of SSD's about to hit the market from COLORFUL, the new PLUS Series SSD. The COLORFUL Plus Series SSD combines the latest in 3D TLC NAND Flash technology and a new SMI SM2258XT controller that is able to deliver up to 640GB capacity and deliver some great results that we've come to expect from COLORFUL.

COLORFUL have utilized 3D TLC NAND Flash technology for the Plus Series SSD that has enabled the hardware giants to deliver bigger capacities whilst maintaining long lifespans of the SSD. Backed with BGA NAND Flash, the performance and stability of the SSD is also ensured. Combined with developments in 3D NAND technology, this has enabled new 3D NAND Flash specifications that produce non-standard capacities for the Plus Series SSD, this explains the slightly increased capacities of 160GB, 320GB and 640GB.

Below are benchmarks of the 640GB variant, the SL500.

CoolerMaster have released their latest addition to their award-winning lineup, the MasterKeys MK750 mechanical gaming keyboard. Cooler Master placed a clear emphasis on performance with their latest offering, with Cherry MX switches, anodized aluminium body, RGB illumination, four dedicated media keys and a removeable magnetic wristrest.

"We wanted to further raise the bar so we designed a keyboard that harbors all of the fantastic existing features of our MasterKeys Pro line except now we added more elements that are needed for a competitive gaming set up such as dedicated media keys and removable wristrest for comfort," says Bram Rongen, Peripheral Sr. Product Marketing Manager.

Backlight keys are just not enough for the MK750, with Cooler Master including a unique illuminated light bar that enhances the style and gaming experience. Cooler Master didn't stop there with customization, the MK750 comes with nine purple doubleshot PBT gaming keycaps that provide incredible durability. The removable magnetic wristrest provides support that is demanded by intense gaming sessions thanks to its ultra-soft PU leather and memory foam properties.

Earlier this year the state-funded Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects unveiled the Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research - or better known as FEDOR. The robot demonstrated the ability to fire pistols correctly at targets, crawl and even drive a car.

In a tweet from Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Head of the Military-Industrial Commission Dmitry Rogozin said "Robot FEDOR showed the ability to shoot from both hands. Fine motor skills and decision-making algorithms are still being improved."

FEDOR is now having its decision making algorithms upgraded as the robot is destined to orbit the Federatsiya in 2021. Cosmonauts plan to use this very same spacecraft to hopefully carry astronauts to the moon one day, and also aspire to travel to Mars it the FEDOR as well.

Intel has found itself in seriously hot water, issuing a new security alert that management firmware on a bunch of new PC, server, and Internet-of-Things processor platforms are vulnerable to a remote attack.

Mark Ermolov and Maxim Goryachy of Positive Technologies Research found the new vulnerabilities, which could see attackers remotely launching commands on Intel-based computers. We're talking about most desktop and laptop CPUs launched under the Core brand since 2015, and even Xeon and Atom lines of processors.

Intel CPUs Affected By Remote Attack Bugs:

It looks like AMD could have a big surprise moving into the holiday season with a new Radeon drivers teased for December that will include over a dozen new features that will include gameplay capture and so much more.

AMD seems to be calling the new drivers Crimson ReLive Redux with the codename used in full "Crimson ReLive Redux I'm Still CatalystMaker v 2.4" which would be awesome. AMD, please call it that, just to troll everyone - I'm looking at you, Terry.

The new Crimson ReLive Redux drivers will reportedly rock a built-in on-screen display that shows you everything that's going on performance wise. AMD will provide you with a bunch of tools to get the most out of your system, which is perfect for those - like me - who want to know exactly what's going on and be able to record it all for... well, all of you in the world!

We haven't seen any factory overclocked custom Radeon RX Vega graphics cards yet, but with SAPPHIRE and PowerColor close to the launch of some new custom RX Vega graphics cards, we might see PowerColor beat SAPPHIRE to the punch with overclocked RX Vega.

PowerColor's upcoming Radeon RX Vega 64 Red Devil graphics card is rumored to ship with a Vega GPU that clocks at 1607MHz, up from the 1546MHz or so that the reference RX Vega 64 and some third-party cards ship with. This is a 3.9% increase over the reference boost, and 1417MHz at base sees a 13.6% increase over base reference GPU clocks.

There is a better triple-fan cooler on a huge triple-slot graphics card, so we should hopefully expect the coolest Radeon RX Vega 64 yet. ASUS couldn't keep Radeon RX Vega 64 that much cooler with their own ROG Strix Vega 64.

We barely have more than a couple of custom Radeon RX Vega graphics cards, but on the other side of things we can't get enough of the custom Team Green card with EVGA unveiling its new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti KINGPIN Hydro Copper graphics card.

EVGA guarantees that the GPU boost clocks on the GTX 1080 Ti KINGPIN Hydro Copper at 2025MHz, which isn't hard for most custom GTX 1080 Ti cards from EVGA. We have the same 9 thermal sensors, voltage measurement points, and a full cover backplate. Power-wise we have 10+3 phase and 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors - side mounted, which is awesome.

Best of all, EVGA has engineered its ass off with a custom single-slot I/O bracket, making this one of the first - if not the world's only single-slot GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Even with it being a small single-slot card EVGA has included 3 x mini-DP connectors, HDMI, and even DVI.