Latest News - Page 339

Xbox just delivered record Q3 results, and these earnings helped boost the profitability of its home segment.

Microsoft's Q3'FY25 earnings show an uptick in Xbox revenues, with the games division raking in $5.721 billion in the period. This is a new all-time third quarter record for Xbox that pushes cumulative 9-month revenues to nearly $18 billion.

But what about profitability? That's information that we don't get. Microsoft only reports profits of its individual segments, and since Xbox is part of Microsoft's More Personal Computing segment, we don't get actual profit margins for the Xbox division. We can still analyze the full extent in what Microsoft says about gaming, though.

Microsoft's latest Q3 results are in, and it's good news for Xbox.

Today, Microsoft announced its Q3'FY25 earnings results, showing a strong uptick in games earnings during a particularly slow time of the year for gaming. Throughout the Q3 period, which took place from Jan 1 - March 31, 2025, Xbox generated $5.721 billion in total revenue. That makes Q3'25 a record-breaking third quarter for Xbox.

Xbox gaming earnings were up +5% year-over-year, or $270 million, over last year's results, delivering a total of $5.721 billion. Content and services led this increase with a +8% year-over-year jump, driven by growth in Xbox Game Pass, Call of Duty, and Minecraft, two of Microsoft's franchises. There was no other real information about the gaming segment in the reports and we may get more information from Satya Nadella and Microsoft management during the earnings call.

Intel announced the enablement of its high-end 14A process node at its Direct Connect 2025 event this week, where we get some juicy new details on the new semiconductor process node.

Intel's freshly-minted CEO Lip-Bu Tan took the stage to reveal an updated Intel Foundry roadmap, adding new Intel 18A derivatives, and announcing the enablement of its high-end Intel 14A process node. The company says that it's already working with partners and 14A, and that it's sharing early versions of the Product Design Kit (PDK), and that so far, customers are reportedly happy with the implementation of Intel's new 14A process node.

The new Intel 14A process node will feature the company's second-generation PowerVia implementation dubbed PowerDirect, a more power-efficient method that focuses directly on supplying and draining transistor power through specialized contacts. This means that with Intel 14A, the company is effectively two entire generations ahead of semiconductor leader TSMC when it comes to employing backside power delivery (BSPD).

Electronic Arts has unfortunately stopped active development on the EA Sports WRC series.

Yesterday, it was revealed that publisher EA was laying off anywhere from 300 to 400 people (including 100 developers at Respawn) in a bid to cut costs amid significant economic uncertainty. Two projects were also cancelled at Respawn, including a Titanfall game. Now EA is hitting the snooze button on one the more fringe sports franchises under its banner, EA Sports WRC.

"After releasing EA SPORTS WRC in 2023, the 2024 season, including the recently released Hard Chargers Content pack, will be our last expansion," reads the announcement.

NVIDIA has just announced it is giving away DOOM: The Dark Ages Premium Edition with select GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs.

In a new post on its website, NVIDIA confirms that select GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs in both desktop and laptop form will get free copies of DOOM: The Dark Ages. This includes the GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5070 graphics card purchases, or a gaming PC with one of those desktop GPUs inside.

On the laptop side of things, it includes any gaming laptop with the GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU, RTX 5080 Laptop GPU, RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU, or RTX 5070 Laptop GPU. NVIDIA isn't including its mid-range GeForce RTX 5060 Ti or RTX 5060 GPUs in either desktop or laptop form, this is for the higher-end Blackwell GPUs.

Nintendo's new Game-key Cards offer a cost-effective way for partners to publishers to ship physical products that contain digital games, but it's not the best for games preservation.

Nintendo has found a novel way to help contain the rising costs of physical distribution: Delivering a digital game in a physical cartridge. The Switch 2's new Game-key cards don't have the full game on them and instead require gamers to download the game digitally--it's exactly what it sounds like, a game key card.

While this update is great for business (Switch and Switch 2 cartridges are not exactly cheap to produce), it poses a potential threat for games preservation. Digital games are transient and can often be delisted and updated over time. The original experience gets lost to time unless there's a hard copy of the code somewhere--unless someone has backed it up, that launch experience could just vanish.

Krafton, the South Korean company behind megaton success PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), has announced an ambitious plan to make IP the center of a connected gaming ecosystem.

Krafton has plans to make a veritable PUBG network of products, content, and services. This plan, dubbed PUBG 2.0, incorporates key elements of conceptual models like Franchise-as-a-service (FaaS) and Games-as-a-Platform (GaaP), both of which will run alongside and within one another.

The group has three new PUBG-related products in development including an extraction shooter, a new console-oriented battle royale game, and a isometric tactical project.

Sony has revealed the games that PlayStation Plus subscribers will get in May, and they include Balatro, Ark: Survival Ascended, and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun.

If you're signed up to PlayStation Plus you'll get that trio of games from May 6 if you own a PlayStation 5, although those yet to make the leap from the PS4 platform won't be able to play Ark: Survival Ascended (but they'll be fine with the other two games).

Balatro is, of course, a potently compelling twist on poker, and the roguelike deckbuilder established itself as a massive hit last year, coming from out of nowhere to rack up a ton of sales.

Dataminers have discovered a seemingly abandoned multiplayer mode within Assassin's Creed Shadows, with at least three instances of a multiplayer mode recently discovered within the game files.

A new report from Insider Gaming has cited an X post by video game modder Sliderv2, who shared screenshots of elements, or at the very least the mentionings of a multiplayer mode within Assassin's Creed Shadows. More specifically, it appears Ubisoft was working on a Player versus Player (PVP) mode as files with titles such as 'RED_PVP_Maps' and 'RED_PVP_Gym' were discovered. Notably, the codename used by Ubisoft for Assassin's Creed Shadows was "Codename Red".

Furthermore, the multiplayer mode, which currently isn't available in Assassin's Creed Shadows, may not be abandoned at all, as Insider Gaming reported back in October 2024 that it had learned a multiplayer/co-op mode was in development and scheduled to release after the game was made available. It's possible these files aren't permanently abandoned, but just temporarily, while development continues on a multiplayer mode. At the time, the multiplayer mode was codenamed LEAGUE, and details on how it would play weren't obtained by the publication.

Nintendo announced during its Switch 2-dedicated Direct a new feature for both the upcoming console and the original Nintendo Switch, and that feature was Game Share, which enables owners of either console to share a game with other Nintendo Switch devices locally, even if the owner has a single copy.

Nintendo explains Game Share as follows: "play together locally on multiple systems using just one game." Notably, this feature won't work when trying to share Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive titles to the original Nintendo Switch. A basic rule of thumb here is that if the game is compatible with both systems, Game Share will be available.

The feature is locked to local play, meaning users will have to be connected to the same wireless network to be able to share games across systems. Additionally, the Nintendo Switch 2 must be the console to initiate the Game Share feature, meaning the feature cannot be used between two original Nintendo Switch systems. Original Nintendo Switch systems have just received a massive update from Nintendo that has laid the groundwork for GameShare ahead of the official launch of the Switch 2 on June 5, as Nintendo details in its recent patch notes for the console, the following:

Apple's MacBook Air M4 hasn't been around long - it only went on sale early in March - and already you can pick one up for a 15% discount.

This is the MacBook Air 13-inch with M4 processor and of course it's the base model, which normally retails at $999 but can now be had at a few major US retailers for $849. That includes Amazon, Best Buy and B&H as ZDNet flagged up.

Don't forget that you're getting a MacBook which is now equipped with 16GB of RAM (since Apple started upping the entry-level allocation of Unified Memory for Macs in recent history), as well as 256GB of storage.

Two members of Elon Musk's DOGE team were reportedly granted access to highly classified information about the United States government's nuclear weapon stockpile despite having zero experience with handling classified information.

A new NPR report has revealed that 23-year-old former SpaceX intern Luke Farritor and venture capitalist Adam Ramada were granted access to the government's nuclear secrets, with both of the DOGE members having accounts on nuclear networks for at least two weeks. Notably, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy (DOE) initially denied that Farritor and Ramada had access to the network, with the DOE writing, "This reporting is false. No DOGE personnel have accessed these NNSA systems."

However, the DOE released an update on Monday where it said accounts for both of the DOGE members were created on the network, but never used. "DOE is able to confirm that these accounts in question were never activated and have never been accessed," the email statement read. The NPR article cites two sources who declined to be identified, as they are unable to speak about the matter publicly. The publication notes that its sources have access to the same network to which Farritor and Ramada were connected.

Remember Flappy Bird? You probably do, as it was a shock hit out of nowhere back in 2013 - and if you wanted to give it another whirl, it's back in business, albeit with a somewhat controversial twist.

To refresh your memory, the game is a side-scroller where you control a little bird, navigating it between green pipes by tapping the screen to flap (and move upwards).

It was (and is) a tricky game to master, and it proved highly addictive, which became a point of controversy itself, until eventually its creator, Dong Nguyen, ditched the game. (Following a whole bunch of accusations and flak fired at Nguyen - such as frustrated kids breaking their phones - leading him to remark that it "ruined his life" at one point).

Huawei has started delivering its new CloudMatrix 384 AI clusters to customers in China, powered by its Ascend 910C AI chips.

In a new report from the Financial Times, we're learning that 10 different clients have now adopted Huawei's new CloudMatrix 384 AI servers into their data center portfolios. We don't know which Chinese companies are using Huawei's new AI servers, but they are reportedly primary customers of Huawei's product offerings.

Huawei's new CloudMatrix 384 "CM384" AI cluster is powered by 384 Huawei Ascend 910C AI chips connected in an "all-to-all topology" configuration. Huawei is outweighing the architectural flaws of its AI chips by using 5x more of them than NVIDIA uses with GB200 inside of NVL72 servers. This is why the company doesn't care about the costs, performance inefficiency, scalability ratios, and more.

The Taiwanese government is planning to better control exports of its advanced semiconductor process technologies, as well as outbound semiconductor investments according to new reports.

In a new report from the Economic Daily, we're learning that Taiwanese government officials will enforce the "N-1" technology restriction, which will see TSMC banned from exporting its latest production nodes, and it'll also introduce a penalty for violating the N-1 restriction.

Taiwan Premier Cho Jung-tai has said that the new N-1 policy will apply to TSMC's planned production in the United States, with only one generation older allowed to be deployed overseas. However, TSMC's most advanced semiconductor process technology is its current N3P process node, but before the end of the year we'll see TSMC begin fabbing new chips on its N2 process node, which will then become the flagship process node.

Randy Pitchford, the director of Gearbox, the developers of the Borderlands franchise, has put to bed rumors that the rescheduled release date for Borderlands 4 has been influenced by the release dates of other games, particularly Grand Theft Auto 6.

It was only recently that Gearbox announced it will be teaming up with PlayStation for a special showcase of Borderlands 4, and that it will be moving the scheduled release date of the game by 11 days to September 12. The original release date of September 23, and now the switch to the current release date of September 12 has sparked a tyriad of rumors about why Gearbox has decided to release the game early, with many of those rumors and online chatter pointing to Gearbox wanting to dodge the release date of other titles such as Grand Theft Auto 6 to give Borderlands 4 the best chance of commercial success.

However, that simply isn't the case, or at least according to Pitchford, who recently took to X, formerly Twitter, to put the rumors to bed. Pitchford said the new release date for Borderlands 4 has nothing to do with the release date of any other game, and the decision to ship the game early is "100% the result of confidence in the game and development trajectory backed by actual tasks and bug find/fix rates."

CD Projekt Red, the developers behind The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, have revealed more details about the upcoming port to the Nintendo Switch 2, teasing that players will be able to take advantage of the Joy-Con 2 controllers in a way that enables new levels of immersion.

Posted to the Nintendo of America YouTube channel, CD Projekt Red developers shared more details about the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 edition of Cyberpunk 2077, saying that players wanting to experience the game on the go, whether they are returning or new players will feel right at home since the Switch 2 hardware enables this port to be the best handheld version of the game.

For players wondering how the Nintendo Switch 2 port of Cyberpunk 2077 stacks up against console editions of the game, studio engineer Tim Green said last week that the Switch 2 version of Cyberpunk 2077 is a more capable version than what was released on the PS4 and Xbox One. Indicative of that hardware improvement is Cyberpunk 2077's main DLC expansion, Phantom Liberty, not being released on previous gen consoles (PS4 and Xbox One), but being available on the Nintendo Switch 2.

Microsoft has confirmed that an advertisement it released for Copilot+ PCs more than 2 months ago was created using generative AI, subverting the expectations of everyone who has already viewed it.

Microsoft revealed the ad was made with generative AI in a new Microsoft Design post, where it states the Visual Design team at Microsoft was required to create an ad for the company's latest Surface Pro and Surface Laptop for Business Copilot+ PCs, but the challenge was to have it done within a month. In order to overcome this challenge, the team outsourced the work to generative AI, with Microsoft's Windows + Devices Visual Design team explaining in the blog post that by doing this, it enabled them to save "90% of the time and cost it would typically take."

The team stated that it created a script, storyboards, and a pitch deck for the advertisement using unspecified AI tools. Since AI still struggles with human motion, the team combined the AI-generated scenes with some human-created ones to fill in the areas where the AI was lacking. What's interesting is that before Microsoft revealed the ad was created with AI, none of the thousands of people who viewed it suspected it was AI-generated, which is indicative of exponentially improving quality of AI-generated content.

Apple is still hard at work on its new smart glasses codenamed N50, with a new report teasing that the device "isn't close to being ready yet" but the idea is to turn glasses into an Apple Intelligence device.

In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes that Apple's new smart glasses will analyze the surrounding environment, feeding information to the wearer, but Gurman notes that "it will stop well short of true augmented reality". Apple's also developing camera-equipped AirPods that have been long rumored, that "will do much the same thing".

Apple's goal is to make augmented reality glasses that act similar to how the Vision Pro headset works, and it could be one of the biggest projects the company is working on right now.

Waymo and Toyota have just announced that they're exploring a new autonomous vehicle platform and integrated Waymo's self-driving technology into new fleets of "personally owned vehicles" or POVs.

The two companies will combine their respective strengths to develop the new autoonmous vehicle platform, while at the same time Waymo and Toyota will explore how to use Waymo's autonomous technology and Toyota's vehicle expertise to "enhance next-generation personally owned vehicles (POVs).

In a press release released on Waymo's website, the company explains that Toyota has long advanced research and development in support of a zero-traffic-accident vision, guided by a 3-pillar approach that combines people, vehicles, and traffic infrastructure. The company notes that automated safety technologies play a central role, enhanced by the development and global deployment of Toyota Safety Sense (TSS).