Latest News - Page 43

Ubisoft has hired 2K Games co-founder Christoph Hartmann to lead the future of big Tom Clancy franchises like The Division.

Some of Ubisoft's biggest franchises will now be overseen by a proven games industry veteran. The company recently restructured into five different segments called Creative Houses, with each overseeing a domain of franchises. Now Ubisoft has found leadership for Creative House 2, which handles Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, The Division, and the recently-acquired March of Giants MOBA.

2K Games co-founder and former president Christoph Hartmann will lead Creative House 2, Ubisoft has announced. Hartmann helped bring to market multiple games in his tenure at 2K including Borderlands, BioShock, XCOM and NBA 2K. Hartmann will now lend that expertise to Ubisoft and its titles.

Sony PlayStation has officially declared AI as one of the core ingredients of its future strategy, with leadership emphasizing its role in improving game development and player experiences, at no cost to the end product or user.

In a recently translated Q&A from a PlayStation internal meeting, CEO Hideaki Nishino described AI as an "important foundational piece" of the company's long-term vision. He noted that AI is already being used to enhance development efficiency by removing repetitive tasks that developers would otherwise have had to complete. Nishino also highlighted PlayStation's global IP library and how an integrated ecosystem leveraging AI will benefit the company.

Sony says its approach to AI is less about cost-cutting and more about accelerating development, while maintaining the exponentially growing standards of game development. A joint response from Nishino and PlayStation studio leadership emphasized that AI is being used to reduce repetitive tasks and enable developers to iterate faster than before, with examples including the development of synthetic assets and placeholder voices. They also mentioned that AI is being used to create more immersive in-game worlds and characters.

Security researchers at LayerX have discovered a new prompt injection technique that tricks AI browsers into revealing saved passwords and login credentials by leading them to believe they are playing a game.

The attack is called BioShocking, named after the 2007 video game BioShock. The game follows a brainwashed character who follows commands after hearing the phrase "Would you kindly?" That is pretty much what's going on here. Essentially, the AI agent believes whatever information it is given, and changing the information changes what it will do.

The attack starts on a malicious webpage designed as a puzzle called Rapture Games, themed after BioShock's underwater world. The puzzle rewards wrong answers, training the agent to accept that 2+2=5 and that incorrect actions are the winning move. Once the agent learns this, its safety protections stop working. The last step of the puzzle tells the agent to navigate to a GitHub repository and copy the login details stored there.

CD Projekt Red has officially confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 has crossed 40 million copies sold, and perhaps surprisingly, it beat The Witcher 3's pace to get there. The studio confirmed the milestone on X, with joint CEO Michał Nowakowski calling it proof of the game's "lasting strength" and teasing that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 is coming this fall.

The number covers the base game plus the Ultimate Edition bundle, and it comes just seven months after CD Projekt announced 35 million, a jump TweakTown covered back in November when the game was also driving a 53% revenue increase for the company. It looks like Cyberpunk 2077 has been on a real redemption arc over the past couple of years.

For comparison, CDPR's older RPG, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, sold around 30 million copies in its first six years on the market. Cyberpunk 2077 has now hit 40 million in that same six-year window, a full 10 million ahead of its own predecessor's pace. That's a really impressive turnaround for a game that launched in December 2020 in decidedly rough shape, got pulled from the PlayStation Store, and became a punchline for months.

A new internal document from Sony outlines how its controversial disc phase-out will affect third-party publishers and partners.

Sony plans to stop physical disc production of new games by January 2028. This means that any game that comes out after that timeframe will be digital-only on PlayStation. But games that had already been released on the market before this cutoff date can still get physical disc releases.

Sony's official messaging to publishers was obtained by Game File's Stephen Totilo, offering more clarification on what to expect. The report states that publishers "will still be able to place re-orders for existing PlayStation disc games," confirming that these specific games can still get printed onto discs even after the January 2028 cutoff. There will be some adjustments to how discs are ordered, Sony says.

Nintendo's latest Q&A with investors shows the company is operating under the assumption that the current component crisis does not abate.

The ongoing chip squeeze has triggered price hikes across nearly all consumer electronics, including consoles from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. Gamers have had to adapt to multiple increases on both PlayStation (two price hikes) and Xbox (three hikes). Nintendo plans to raise the price of its Switch 2 console on September 1, pushing the system from its original tariff-insulated $459 price to a more profit-friendly $499.

In the latest annual shareholders meeting, Nintendo management was specifically asked how skyrocketing chip prices will affect the group's future plans. Company president Shuntaro Furukawa responded by saying that Nintendo is currently outlining its plans and predictions for Fiscal Year 2028 (April 2027 - March 2028) based on the belief that memory and storage could continue increasing in price. This falls in line with Microsoft's own expectations, as Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says chip prices will continue to jump through the end of 2027: "As we plan for the 2027 holiday season, we expect another significant increase, taking us over 5x the prices we paid only two years earlier," Sharma said at the time.

UPDATE: It's been revealed that this messaging is not new, and has been on the PlayStation Direct storefront for over a year.

Sony is limiting orders of the PS5's $80 disc drive to 1 order per person following its controversial decision to kill game discs in 2028.

Sony recently shocked the gaming world by announcing it would stop producing PlayStation game discs for new games by January 2028. The PlayStation community is vexed and incensed like never before--and that's saying a lot after the PS3 woes and the infamous 2011 PSN blackout. This has led to one of the most significant consumer backlashes in the history of the video games industry.

Intel has officially confirmed a price hike on its Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop CPUs, just days after the new pricing quietly showed up on its own product pages. The change was first spotted by X leaker harukaze5719, who noticed that Intel's ARK listings for the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus had jumped without any accompanying announcement.

According to the statement given to Hardwareluxx, Intel says the new pricing reflects current market dynamics, including rising supply chain costs and strong demand for the Core Ultra 200S Plus lineup, and adds that the move is in line with recent price increases across other Intel product families.

The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus launched in March at $299 and now carries a recommended customer price of $339 to $349, depending on the tray or boxed version. The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus moves from its original $199 up to a $219 to $229 range, while the Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus reportedly climbs from $184 to $214. That works out to increases of roughly $30 to $50 per chip.

Microsoft has subtly fired shots at Sony over the company's recent announcement that it will be ending production of physical PlayStation game discs in January 2028, and that all new games released following that date will still come in a plastic case, but instead of a disc, it will be a redeemable code for the title.

As you can probably imagine, PlayStation gamers aren't thrilled about the news, and thousands have even expressed their rejection of the idea in a poll that called for Sony to reconsider its decision. To add more fuel to the fire, the Microsoft-owned GitHub has taken to X to announce, "We heard you. And we agree. In light of recent developments in physical media, GitHub is proud to announce that you can now obtain your public repo on CD-ROM."

"Keep it. Lend it to friends. Pass it on to your children. Your code is physically yours, forever. Until you lose it, let's be real." GitHub explains on the website that it's a burned copy of your own GitHub repo, and that supplies are limited, as only the first 1,000 eligible submissions will receive one. Additionally, burned GitHub CDs are limited to one per person, and availability may be limited by country or region.

Sony's stock went up by as much as 7% following its controversial announcement to stop producing game discs.

Investors may approve of Sony's decision to cut production of new PlayStation game discs by January 2028. Since the company broke the news on July 1, Sony's stock has gone up as much as 7%, trading from 3232 JPY at the lowest point of the day of the announcement to a high of 3486 JPY on July 3. At the time of writing, Sony's stock is currently at 3380 JPY.

Sony justified the market-shaking decision by saying that the "general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs." The move to an all-digital environment will let the platform-holder better serve its users in a way that they prefer, the company says.

Elon Musk is reportedly working on a secretive new AI-powered device from SpaceX, and the way it differentiates itself from current smartphones is already raising more questions than it answers.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, SpaceX has been demoing a sleek, iPhone-like handheld device to investors, featuring a proprietary operating system and AI capabilities powered by Musk's xAI division.

The device, described as "slimmer than an iPhone," was reportedly shown ahead of the company's extremely successful IPO. The leak has already sparked speculation about SpaceX's foray into consumer hardware, following Musk's previous comments denying that SpaceX is developing a smartphone.

Sony is preparing to raise PlayStation Plus prices, a decision that comes only a few days after the company announced it will be discontinuing the production of physical PlayStation game discs.

The company confirmed that new subscribers are already facing higher costs and is exploring ways to increase profitability, including through pricing. In a translated Q&A during a June meeting, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino, along with Hermen Hulst and Lynn Azar, said the company is actively working to improve the balance between the value each PSN subscription tier offers customers and the cost of accessing each tier.

They emphasized that PS Plus remains a key profit driver, with record profitability in FY2025 and 40% of users now in higher-tier subscriptions. The price hikes come as the gaming industry wrestles with rising hardware costs, specifically components such as RAM and storage, which are both being gobbled up by the endless demand from the AI sector.

Philips Evnia has launched its M4 monitor lineup, offering gamers Philips' first triple-mode display system that lets them toggle between 1440p, 1080p, and 720p resolutions in real time, removing the need to swap resolutions and refresh rates within the operating system.

The 27M4N3500PT and 27M4N5500PT models are built around Fast IPS panels and deliver high refresh rates across all modes, but the main value proposition of these monitors is the triple-mode, intended as a solution for gamers who play both slower RPG titles where resolution and image clarity are prioritized, and competitive games where high refresh rate is prioritized over image clarity.

Each monitor supports HDR and maintains a sharp 27-inch screen with minimal input lag - a must for competitive and immersive gaming.

Samsung is reportedly working on a wearable future that lives on your face, which many tech experts have pegged as being the format that will replace the smartphone.

Leaked details of the Galaxy Glasses, including a companion app and integration with existing Galaxy wearables, suggest a seamless ecosystem designed to rival Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, which have become the most popular AI-infused smart glasses.

Leaker SammyGuru showcased the Galaxy Glasses Manager app, revealing a familiar setup process that includes enabling permissions and pairing devices. Once setup is complete, the app shows important status information such as battery levels, software updates, and AI assistance.

The iPhone may have played a major role in the decline of U.S. fertility rates since 2007, according to a new study. A research paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests the device accounted for up to 52% of the drop in births between 2007 and 2011.

The study used Apple's early exclusivity with telecommunications carrier AT&T to examine iPhone-specific data, and compared birth rates in regions with higher AT&T adoption to those with higher Verizon adoption. The researchers found a strong correlation between rising iPhone ownership and declining birth rates, particularly among teens and young adults. However, the paper also notes that older generations had correlating declining birth rates in line with iPhone adoption within those demographics.

Furthermore, the study noted a shift in social behavior as being one of the causes of declining birth rates, pointing to reduced in-person social time and increased pornography consumption due to smartphone adoption. The researchers acknowledge that the iPhone is not the sole cause of the fertility decline, as there are many factors at play, with a main one being that as individuals begin to earn more or become more educated, they tend to have fewer children.

A leaked video is giving us a look at an experimental Windows concept that ditches almost everything familiar about the desktop in favor of Copilot. According to Windows Central, which says its sources confirm the footage is real, the project is codenamed "Aion" and appears to date back to 2024.

The roughly three-minute clip leaked on the Discord server BetaWiki and shows a desktop built on Win3, a stripped-down Windows codebase that runs largely through Microsoft Edge. There's still a taskbar and a Start menu-like launcher, but the whole thing revolves around a multi-modal Copilot input box instead of icons and folders. Ask it to find a file, open an app, or check your schedule, and Copilot handles it. A feature called "Spaces" automatically groups related apps and sites so you can jump back into a task with one click.

Since Aion is web-based, it reportedly can't run traditional Win32 apps natively. Instead, heavier desktop software would stream in through a Windows 365 Cloud PC. Microsoft declined to comment when Windows Central reached out, and it's unclear if this ever moved past an internal concept or hackathon project. From the video examples, however, it does look like the project got fairly deep into development.

Contractually bound to do so, Krafton has agreed to pay developers at Unknown Worlds a bonus worth up to $250 million after management allegedly tried to use ChatGPT to find a way out of the situation.

Thanks to huge sales, Subnautica 2 developers at Unknown Worlds have won their bonus. Bloomberg reports that the fiasco with Krafton has been settled, and the publisher will pay out up to $250 million to the seaworthy game developers as part of contract terms.

As part of the legal settlement, current Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill plans to leave the studio under mutual terms. Krafton had previously fired Gill (and the rest of Unknown Worlds' key management team), which ultimately led to a lawsuit and the eventual payout. In that lawsuit, it was revealed that Krafton's CEO allegedly used ChatGPT in an attempt to find a way out of the bonus situation.

Intel looks like it's cranking output back up on its older Core chips, and DDR4 demand seems to be the reason behind it. According to a Channel Gate report citing the BoBantang WeChat channel, Intel is preparing to boost the supply of 10th, 12th, 13th, and 14th Gen Core desktop processors during Q3 2026, with most of that extra inventory heading to mainland China.

The 10th Gen Comet Lake and 12th Gen Alder Lake chips reportedly get the biggest increase, while 13th and 14th Gen Raptor Lake stock should just stay steadily available rather than ramping dramatically. It is important to add that this comes on top of vendors already restarting DDR4 motherboard production over the past month or so.

The timing lines up with China's 618 shopping festival, after which offline DIY retailers were apparently told to push DDR4 platforms as their main focus, while DDR5 builds get steered toward online retail and internet cafes instead. It is worth flagging that all of this traces back to one regional trade channel, so it's not confirmed by Intel directly yet, though multiple outlets are now reporting the same underlying leak.

South Korea has announced one of the largest semiconductor investments in history. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will jointly invest 800 trillion won, roughly $518 billion, to build four new memory fabrication plants in the country's southwest, with an additional 81 trillion won allocated to a high-bandwidth memory packaging hub in the Chungcheong region.

The announcement was made at a presidential briefing attended by Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung received a deep bow from both executives after they committed to the plan.

The scale goes beyond just the two chipmakers. South Korean technology and energy firms will invest an additional 550 trillion won in new AI data centers over the next decade. Samsung separately published plans to invest 2,100 trillion won through 2040, while SK Group announced 1,400 trillion won earmarked over the same period. Combined, the two memory giants have pledged 3,200 trillion won in total investment, covering both the new southwest cluster and previously announced projects.

Google has launched Nano Banana 2 Lite, the latest addition to its in-house AI image generation lineup. In a blog post on Tuesday, the company said that Nano Banana 2 Lite and Gemini Omni Flash are now available as tools for high-volume, fast-turnaround workflows.

Nano Banana 2 Lite generates images in approximately four seconds and costs $0.034 per 1,000 images. This makes it the fastest and cheapest image model in the Nano Banana family. Google is positioning it as a direct replacement for the original Nano Banana, which has now been designated a legacy model. It sits below Nano Banana 2, which Google describes as the "generalist workhorse" of the lineup, and below Nano Banana Pro for more demanding use cases. All generated content is automatically tagged with Google's SynthID digital watermark.

The model is available through Google AI Studio, the Gemini API, and the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform for developers. On the consumer side, it is accessible through the Gemini app, AI Mode in Google Search, NotebookLM, Google Photos, Stitch, Google Flow, and Google Ads. On Arena's text-to-image leaderboard, Nano Banana 2 Lite currently sits at fifth, behind OpenAI's gpt-image-2, which leads the pack, and Microsoft's MAI-Image-2.5 in fourth.