Latest News - Page 362

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick reiterates that long development cycles are funded by the company's strong balance sheet.

If GTA 6 releases in 2025 as planned, then it'll have been 12 years in since GTA 5 released in 2013. Why has it taken over a decade? Games are tough to make, but more importantly, the length of development is directly depending on how much funding is available. Rockstar makes tons of revenue every year, and while Rockstar is owned by Take-Two Interactive, Take-Two's royalty-sharing & incentive plans ensure Rockstar have a hefty treasure vault to fund new games--especially something as big as Grand Theft Auto.

In a recent interview with Wall Street Week's David Westin, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick commented on how the company's continued performance growth create a kind of virtuous cycle that enables longer periods of development, presumably for bigger games that could have significant payoffs (like Grand Theft Auto 6).

Ubisoft just made a deal with Tencent to spin off Ubisoft's most valuable franchises to a separate company. Employees are worried about what happens to the existing Ubisoft organization--will more layoffs ensue? Ubisoft management effectively tells workers to hold tight and wait for more info.

Amid many quarters of disappointing results and growing financial pressure, Ubisoft and Tencent have teamed up. Tencent has invested $1.2 billion into a new Ubisoft subsidiary (off-handedly known as"Ubisoft 2") in exchange for 25% of financial stake in the new subsidiary.

Internal memos from Ubisoft's CEO have made employees antsy--those that remain after the culling of jobs as part of Ubisoft's strict cost-cutting plan. People are worried that more layoffs are coming.

Gamers, investors, and users can now see how Ubisoft discussed its new shake-up with employees.

Ubisoft has announced a new mega-deal with Tencent; the Chinese firm invested roughly $1.2 billion into a new Ubisoft subsidiary in exchange for 25% of stake in the group.

The internal memo from Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot regarding that announcement has been acquired by Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson, with the CEO stressing the new business partnership will help boost profits through a new focus reform.

The debut of Windows 11 22H2 introduced the requirement of a Microsoft account for both Windows 11 Home and Pro versions, but users who were particularly annoyed at this requirement and technically inclined enough, discovered a workaround that bypassed the dreaded Microsoft Account.

What is considered to be one of the most popular workarounds is "bypassro," which is a command line prompt that's entered during the setup process that circumvents the requirement of an internet connection to continue the setup process and a Microsoft Account. Unfortunately, this workaround is now being removed by Microsoft, as confirmed in the latest Windows 11 preview build, with Microsoft's reasoning being to "ensure that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account."

As you can probably imagine, this change will be quite annoying for any Windows 11 user who doesn't want a Microsoft Account or an internet connection during setup, but this doesn't mean it's impossible to bypass the requirements. Notably, "bypassro" can be manually re-added in a command line by typing the following, "reg add HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionOOBE /v BypassNRO /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f shutdown /r /t 0".

SpaceX is about to make history by being the company to transport the first astronauts in a polar orbit under the mission "Fram2. The name is a reference to the Norwegian ship "Fram," which did Arctic to Antarctic expeditions during the 1800s and 1900s.

In a similar fashion SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft named "Resilience" will orbit over the both poles in a three to five-day journey. The capsule will be transported to orbit with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, and much like the Inspiration4 mission, the world's first private space mission with no professional astronauts aboard, Crew Dragon will be equipped with a cupola for unparalleled views of Earth.

Crew Dragon will have four soon-to-be astronauts aboard: Malta resident Chun Wang, Vehicle Commander Jannicke Mikkelsen, Pilot Rabea Rogge and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Eric Philips. Wang has funded the mission for an undisclosed amount of money. The goal of the mission is for the four crew members to conduct twenty-two scientific and research experiments, such as sleep research, the world's first X-ray monitoring of bone density in space, world's first mushroom growing in space, glucose monitoring, and more.

The former co-chief operating officer (co-COO) of TSMC, Chiang Shang-yi, has had some fighting words against US chipmaker Intel... and how much he looks down on the company.

Chiang has a position of authority as he worked at TSMC until 2013, and even when he left, he was one of the company's core team members who helped cement the Taiwanese company to become a global contract chip manufacturing leader. Chiang recently attended a book launch in Taiwan this week, meeting with the dean of Taiwan's National Tsing Hua University, and boy he didn't hold back any punches towards Intel.

TSMC's former executive said Intel should get more into mature chip manufacturing processes -- and not bleeding-edge process nodes -- as Intel was too far away from catching up with TSMC. He also added that Intel was the former "king" of the chip industry, but was still a "nobody".

NVIDIA's previous-gen GeForce RTX 3090 is being rebranded, rebadged, and ready to scam unsuspecting PC gamers as the more expensive, and higher-end RTX 4090... oh boy.

This new scam involves polishing the GPU die and re-labeling it using a laser, so that it looks like it's got some official markets on the GPU die from NVIDIA. You've got to hand it to these scammers, they're getting better at what they do, but you can still tell: the capacitor layout surrounding the GPU is obvious, as our friends at Uniko's Hardware said in the above post on X.

Uniko's Hardware posted: "Another fake 4090 that used a 3090 die labbed the die then remark it as 4090 AD102, the MLCC surrounding the die are the layout the 3090 uses" adding "or just check the location of the dots at corners".

Apple's upcoming foldable iPhone Ultra smartphone will reportedly use a liquid metal hinge that will resist deformation, improving durability and help minimize creases in the foldable screen.

In a new post by a Chinese leaker, we're learning that Apple has used a metallic glass (amorphous metal) for the hinge mechanism inside of the foldable iPhone, something we've heard analyst Ming-Chi Kuo refer to Apple's use of "liquid metal" which is a common marketing term for the same thing.

The difference between regular glass and metallic glass is that traditional metals feature a regular, repeating crystalline atomic structure, compared to metallic glass that features a disordered arrangement of atoms that just so happens to be more resistant to bending, deformation, and denting -- perfect for an ultra-premium foldable iPhone.

We all know that the leather jacket that NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang wears is iconic, to say the least, but now he has a new one: gifted to him by a humanoid robot made by 1X Technologies.

Jensen recently visited the 1X Technologies HQ in San Francisco, where the NVIDIA CEO was greeted by a humanoid robot, gifting him one of the very best black leather jackets on the market, custom-made by California-based ERL clothing brand. 1X Technologies might be a name you haven't heard of, but the company has been working on its Neo Gamma humanoid robot, with plans to ship hundreds of thousands of them before the end of 2025.

As for Jensen's new leather jacket, but sports an NVIDIA logo embroidered into the clothing, and I'm sure will join the wardrobe of leather jackets that the NVIDIA CEO has in his house. It looks awesome, and I definitely want one.

AMD's next-generation consumer-focused Zen 6-based "Medusa Range" desktop CPUs, with new leaks teasing that AMD will be using TSMC's bleeding-edge N2X process node that is made for ultra-high clock speeds on CPUs.

In a video posted by leaker Moore's Law is Dead, we're hearing that "Medusa Range" will be AMD's next-gen Zen 6 desktop processor family, made on TSMC's new N2X process node, meaning AMD is skipping over the new N3 process node, and next-gen N2 process nodes, and right into the (warm arms) N2X node.

We are to expect up to dual TSMC N2X-fabbed CCD chiplets (Medusa Range is expected to feature 2 x 12-core Zen 6 CCDs for a total of 24 cores, 48 threads) with CPU clock speeds targeting a juicy and hype-building 6.0GHz+ and over. We should expect a "decent" integrated GPU, while another variant could arrive with weaker or no integrated GPU.

Instagram is rolling out a double-speed toggle for its reels, allowing users to consume short-form content even faster.

According to an Instagram representative, the feature was 'highly requested' by the community and aimed to give users more control over the Reels experience. Reels currently operate at lengths of 15 seconds up to 3 minutes, and the new settings would allow users to long-press on the edge of the screen to double playback speed.

The impact of short-form social media content is a topic of increasing concern, particularly among youths. Reels on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are designed to be short, engaging, and algorithmically driven, and studies have identified detrimental effects on attention spans, cognitive function, and academic performance.

MindsEye, the sci-fi action thriller from the mind of former Rockstar lead Leslie Benzies, has received an official June 10 release date and a 2-minute story trailer to boot.

MindsEye was first revealed at Sony's February State of Play. Featuring a dystopian sci-fi cityscape and high-octane combat, the game stars protagonist Jacob Diaz, an ex-soldier who attempts to navigate through a world fogged by AI, high-tech experimentation, and military corruption.

The game's initial marketing focused on the darker, psychological aspects of the experience. However, the latest story reveal takes a different direction, opting for a faster-paced tone as it shows off the game's world, characters, and narrative.

Razer's new Blade 16 and Blade 18 gaming laptops are now available, with the Blade 16 starting at $2999 packing NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU.

The new Razer Blade 16 gaming laptop can be configured with AMD's new Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix Point" APU with 12 cores and 24 threads of Zen 5 processing power on the CPU side, while configuring it with up to NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU with 24GB of GDDR7 memory.

Razer allows you to configure your new Blade 16 or Blade 18 gaming laptop with NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU, RTX 5080 Laptop GPU, or the flagship RTX 5090 Laptop GPU. The new Blade 16 starts off at $2999 with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 365 APU and the RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU with 12GB GDDR7, also featuring 32GB of RAM and a 1TB Gen4 SSD (which can be boosted up to 64GB of RAM and 2TB SSD for another $800).

Krafton, the team behind inZOI, has come under fire again after it was recently discovered that a bug in the game allowed players to run over children with their cars.

Footage of the bug has appeared on YouTube. It showcases a player accidentally driving into a group of children. One of the NPCs is sent flying across the screen in rag-doll-like fashion, and according to players' accounts, it immediately kills NPCs on impact - regardless of their age.

Given that inZOI holds a 'Teen' rating from the ESRB, the vehicular massacre of children certainly poses some obvious qualms, and the developers have been quick to patch it out in a recent update.

Elon Musk has announced his AI startup company xAi has officially merged with X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter in an all-stock transaction that puts the value of the social platform at $33 billion.

Musk announced the news via his personal X account, where he said the merger values the social media platform, or as he describes the digital town square for the world, at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt), slightly less than the $44 billion he paid for it in 2022.

Additionally, the merger has valued xAI at $80 billion, with Musk saying the future of both companies is "intertwined," and now that the merger has taken place, "We officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent."

Schedule I, the indie-drug dealing sim, has continued its breakout run - continuing to top the charts, and recently, surpassing Marvel Rivals among the most played games on Steam.

At the time of writing, the game holds a peak player count of 234,900 players on SteamDB, enough to pass free-to-play Hero shooter Marvel Rivals, which peaked today at 190,000. Schedule I now lingers behind Monster Hunter: Wilds, which has 275,000 players, and continues to hold its #1 spots for "Trending Games", "Popular Releases", and "Hot Releases".

The indie darling is commonly described as a cartoony video-game equivalent of Breaking Bad, exploding in popularity since its March 24 early-access launch. On day one, the game peaked at 116,000 players, with 4,000 'overwhelmingly positive' reviews. Since then, player counts have effectively doubled, while holding its 95% positive score over 16,000 ratings.

Hopes that Intel may yet release a higher-end Battlemage graphics card - following the success, and positive reception, of the Arc B580 - appear to be fading fast.

Wccftech was on the ball enough to catch an update from a well-known leaker on X which poured cold water on the theories that Intel could still be preparing a beefy Battlemage GPU to take on AMD and NVIDIA.

Specifically, this was the Battlemage BMG-G31 GPU, which has been popping up here and there on the rumor mill for a while - plus the success of the B580 (and B570) might've further buoyed hopes that such a move could be coming from Intel.

Nintendo has revealed that The Legend of Zelda live-action movie is going to be aired in two years' time.

IGN reports that an official release date for the movie - March 26, 2027 - was provided courtesy of the Nintendo Today! app, which itself was only revealed yesterday as part of the Nintendo Direct event.

Unfortunately, we didn't get any other new details on the live-action flick, only the release date.

Since OpenAI rolled out its new image generation feature in ChatGPT thousands of users are taking to social media platforms to share recreations of iconic events in history, movies, TV shows in the art-style of Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli.

The tsunami of Studio Ghibli-style images began when OpenAI launched what it describes as the "most advanced image generator yet," which includes capabilities of producing "precise, accurate, photorealistic outputs." For those who are unfamiliar with Studio Ghibli, the animation studio is behind renowned films such as Spired Away, How's Moving Castle, and My Neighbor Totor, all of which are directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

The new addition to OpenAI's GPT4o model enables users to recreate images in the style of the animation studio, which has been abundantly used to recreate some of the most viral memes ever created on the internet.

We covered Thermal Grizzly's WireView Pro GPU in detail late last year, as it includes internal and external temperature sensors for 12VHPWR 16-pin power connectors. The shift to a new power delivery system and flagship GPUs like the GeForce RTX 4090 and GeForce RTX 5090, which draw up to 450W and 600W on a single cable, led to Thermal Grizzly's developing the device.

An audible alarm not only allows users to monitor a GPU's power draw via the 16-pin power connector but also warns when temperatures reach a certain point to protect the graphics card from damage. Developed in collaboration with Elmor Labs founder and engineer Jon Sandstrom, the new 90-degree WireView Pro GPU offers a different cabled orientation, with the power supply cable router downward for GPUs installed horizontally.

There's also a sensor pin detection system to ensure the power from the power supply is connected correctly. As per the version released last year, an OLED display for real-time monitoring allows users to log and track power usage over time.