With about a month away from Halo 5's release, 343 Industries has already begun plotting out the next Halo game while fleshing out key details for the next ten years of the franchise's future.

"We do kind of know what's going to happen in the next game pretty well at this point," ex-Bungie alum and 343 exec Frank O'Connor said in an upcoming GoldenJoysticks presentation. "We're doing serious real planning and even some writing on the next game already, and that's a luxury - we've never been in that position before. So we both know at a very high level what's going to happen in, say, ten years from now. But at that very granular level knowing what's going to happen in the next game and that's just been a great feeling for me".

It's worth mentioning that proper development hasn't been initiated, and this is the early planning phase to continue the long-running Reclaimer Saga following Halo 5: Guardians. Even still it would behoove 343i to take caution and not jump the gun too quickly: we've seen what happens when too much is attempted too fast with the catastrophic Master Chief Collection, which is still missing key pieces even today. We can only guess what MCC would be like if 343i hadn't been focusing a huge portion of its assets on Halo 5.

Activison has confirmed that last-gen versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will be missing half of the game upon release, and will only ship with multiplayer. That's right, PS3 and Xbox 360 flavors won't have a campaign.

"The Black Ops 3 PS3 and Xbox 360 versions will feature Multiplayer and Zombies gameplay only, not Campaign," reads the official statement. "The ambitious scope of the 1-4 player coop Campaign design of the PS4, Xbox One and PC versions could not be faithfully recreated on old generation hardware."

But why would Activision cut out such a huge portion of the game? Hasn't Treyarch been responsible for a number of Call of Duty games on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3? Interestingly enough Treyarch is only developing the current-gen versions of Black Ops 3. Instead of having the industry vets handle these ports, Activision hired a Beenox and Mercenary Technology to port to X360/PS3. So now things are making sense, and once again Activision has let an inexperienced dev team handle something important, and they dropped the ball (kind of like Sledgehammer did with Advanced Warfare's singleplayer).

With today's release of the iPhone 6S, iFixit has just completed their thorough analysis of the phone's innards, completely exposing what makes the handheld tick. Their findings confirm and assess the entirety of the iPhone 6S' touted features and reveal some key changes in the new model, including a smaller capacity battery, a heavier display, and a new, bigger SoC with the A9 chip.

One of the first obvious changes in the iPhone 6S teardown was the smaller battery, which is now 1715 mAh compared to the beefier 1810 mAh that powers last year's iPhone 6. Even with this reduction Apple has affirmed the battery life will remain the same. It appears the battery size was cut down a bit to make room for the phone's Tactic Engine, which is fastened below the battery.

In order to maintain the new pressure-sensitive 3D Touch capability, the iPhone 6S has received a boost in capacitive sensors making the display weigh in at 60 grams total. That's 15 grams over the iPhone 6's display, and the same weight as the iPhone 6 Plus' 5.5" display. Other changes in the new Retina HD display include a slight reduction in cables and LCD plate design, but all in all the 3D Touch display seems "pretty visually similar" to past displays.

Sure, Kanye says a lot of stuff and has a few flights of fancy, like when he referred to himself as the new Steve Jobs.So when he announced last month at 2015 Video Music Awards that he was intending to run for the President of the United States in 2020, few took him seriously. But they should, because he insists he is.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, the eccentric artist says he has "I've got five years before I go and run for office and I've got a lot of research to do, I've got a lot of growing up to do". Following an anti-politician pitch that seems to be working for Donald Trump, West goes on to say "I hate politics. I'm not a politician at all. I care about the truth and I just care about human beings. I just want everyone to win, that's all I can say, and I think we can".

If (and this is still a big if) he goes through with his Presidential bid, and if (and this is also a big if) he wins, and if (and this is an equally big one) he's still married to Kim Kardashian, she'd be the First Lady. Let that sink in for a moment. Meanwhile, West's latest album 'SWISH' is due to hit before the end of the year. I'm sure you can't wait.

During the Oculus Connect 2 developer conference in LA, Samsung's VP of Mobile, Peter Koo, announced the new Gear VR headset. The refreshed Gear VR headset has been announced for just $99, a super-cheap entry into the world of VR goodness.

Samsung's new Gear VR is 22% lighter than its predecessor, with the company also improving the touchpad on the side of the headset. They also added a directional pad to the side of the Gear VR that will make navigation through menus much easier. The new Gear VR will work with Samsung's new Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note 5 smartphones, as well as the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge handsets.

The new Gear VR will arrive on Black Friday in the US for $99, where it will hit other markets just after that.

Although Xbox division head Phil Spencer thinks that the divisive console wars bring out the worst in gamers, the team leader for Redmond's gaming sector is very optimistic about the state of console gaming as a whole--and a lot of that has to do with the Xbox One's momentum.

"Gaming is in a healthy spot. You have to earn your customers, but we seem to be doing that," Xbox boss Phil Spencer said in an interview with VentureBeat. Spencer goes on to highlight some of the breakthroughs the Xbox brand has made and how they will open up new doors in the future. "We have a ton of opportunity in front of us. We launched Windows 10 at the end of July, beginning of August, and we've seen very good uptake from the game experiences we have in there. We have a lot more opportunity as we bring more games into that experience as well. I'm not frustrated by it. I'm only frustrated in that there's not more time for us to do more things faster. It takes time to get good things done."

While the PlayStation 4 beats out the Xbox One in terms of raw hardware, the key to the Xbox's potential lies in Microsoft's grand plan. The console is set to be a gateway for cross-platform game streaming, effectively bridging consoles and PC. In just a few months the Xbox One is set to evolve with the power of Windows 10 and manifest Microsoft's plans with features like backward compatibility with 100 Xbox 360 games, a dramatically faster UI, and the seeds for DirectX 12 integration.

The Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics has created an incredible suspension rig that adds a new dimension for VR sim potential.

The array is called the Cable Robot, and is an icosahedron-shaped lightweight carbon-fiber frame that's fully suspended by eight thick cables that allow omni-directional control in midair. Essentially the array can simulate dynamic spatial movement that could bring a whole new level of immersion for amusement park rides, gaming sims, and even cinematic movie experiences.

Users are safely ensconced within the geometric frame while wearing a VR headset, and thanks to the optical tracking system, the rig will actually move and react in accordance to user movements. The eight-cable suspension provides "freely programmable trajectories within six dimensions" and will bank, tilt, and accelerate with a total force of up to 1.5G's.

Today's video games are a joyous din of sound that adds a new level of immersion. In a sense, video games are all about creating a fantasy to trick our senses into experiencing a virtual world. Without the basic framework of sight and sound, the illusion completely breaks down and the game loses a huge portion of its believability.

A silent void might be the future of video games; that is unless voice actors and big publishers can agree on a deal. Video game voice actors are not happy with the current terms of their contracts and have made demands through the SAG-AFTRA union. Sadly nothing's working. "We've been through two rounds of negotiations with our employers, and they've rejected every proposal we've made."

The battle has delivered a behind the curtain look at how the industry works. Voice-over actors don't get royalties if a game is incredibly successful--they're paid a flat fee and that's it. Actors don't get extra pay in vocally stressful roles, and often a stunt coordinator isn't present when the actor is pushed to do stunt-like activities to add realism. Voice actors often don't even know the full depth of what they're getting into when they're hired. Not only have publishers denied the proposals, they've instituted a punishing set of restrictions to add insult to injury.

Said to help deliver "a custom experience" for Chinese users through the implementation of local browsing and search options, Microsoft's partnership with Baidu was announced in September 23 and aims to spread Microsoft throughout this Eastern nation.

This partnership will see Baidu.com become the new Windows Edge browser home page, plus a 'Windows 10 Express' app will be developed in order to help end users install the operating system in the first place. If this wasn't enough to entice users, Baidu will also be offering "Universal Windows Applications for Search, Video, Cloud and Maps for Windows 10" as reported by ZDNet.

Microsoft says that "we remain deeply committed to delivering Bing around the world and we're also committed to offering locally relevant experiences - like Baidu in China - to provide great Windows 10 experiences" when asked about what this partnership will do to its own search engine.

EA has just announced that the open beta for Star Wars: Battlefront will be held from October 8-12 across Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC (via Origin) with offline split-screen co-op included.

Players will only get four days to try the beta, which will offer three different gametypes across a trio of unique environments set in the cinematic universe, complete with Hero and Villain support with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. No details on the beta's matchmaking system have been uncovered so far, and we'll likely have to wait to find out concrete info. The beta will feature three modes including the following:

EA will also test out the Battlefront Companion experience during the beta, which adds a card-based mini-game that unlocks credits that can be used to buy content within the retail game. It looks like EA will launch the companion experience in a web browser format over at the official Star Wars Battlefront website instead of an app.