Latest News - Page 47

Ubisoft's FY26 earnings show the results of the company's costly reorganization efforts, leading to the second consecutive year of annual losses at the company.

French games-maker Ubisoft recently posted its annual report for FY26, confirming a hefty 1.3 billion euro operating loss for the financial year. This is actually a reduction in losses--Ubisoft recorded a 1.46 billion euro loss the year prior in FY25.

The losses were driven by major expenses in Ubisoft's R&D segment, which spent 1.855 billion euros in FY26, of which 75% of that, or 1.402 billion euros, was related to accelerated depreciation of cancelled and delayed game software.

Researcher Andy Nguyen, aka TheFlow, has made it possible to turn a launch-era PlayStation 5 running firmware up to version 6.02 into a Steam Machine-like device running Linux. This setup allows the console to run PC versions of games, as Andy demonstrated by successfully running Grand Theft Auto V: Enhanced Edition.

Following that, the team at Digital Foundry caught wind of the PS5 Linux breakthrough and decided to run a path-tracing test on the system. They tested three titles: Quake II RTX, Portal with RTX, and Cyberpunk 2077 RT Overdrive, each representing a different level of path-tracing load.

Quake II RTX was NVIDIA's first major path-tracing showcase, and even though the game itself is ancient by gaming standards, path tracing breathes new life into its visuals. Portal with RTX was the first game to use NVIDIA's RTX Remix, and Cyberpunk 2077's RT Overdrive mode is the ultimate path-tracing stress test.

Sony has announced a new State of Play showcase for June 2, and the event will highlight both upcoming first-party and third-party PlayStation 5 games.

Sony's new State of Play returns on June 2, 2026 at 2PM PST/5PM EST, offering a full hour of games and content from major developers and publishers.

As per usual, Sony didn't reveal the full lineup of its summer-timed event, but did confirm that Insomniac's new Wolverine game will be front and center with more gameplay footage and info on the visceral adventure, which is due out September 15.

Ubisoft will release multiple AAA games by March 2029, including new titles in its trio of biggest brands.

Ubisoft today announced its earnings results for FY2026, and nestled in the report is an update on its upcoming release plans. The company recently went through a hefty reorganization largely funded by a big $1.2 billion investment from Tencent that resulted in a restructuring of its business into units called Creative Houses.

The biggest of these groups, a subsidiary called Vantage Studios, handles Ubisoft's largest, most prestige brands: Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Ghost Recon. It's now been revealed that Ubisoft plans to have new games in all of these franchises released by March 2029, coinciding with a significant boost in positive free cash flow--a critical metric of success for any company.

Microsoft has hired industry analyst Matthew Ball to help guide its Xbox games division in uncertain waters, especially as the company prepares its revolutionary Project Helix console.

In her quest to overhaul Xbox, Microsoft's new gaming CEO Asha Sharma has made some key hires to help facilitate key shifts at the segment. New reports from The Verge indicate that Xbox has hired games industry analyst Matthew Ball to help lead strategy at the group. Ball is well-known for his work at Epyllion, where has published multiple games industry-oriented reports and briefings.

"Matthew has been partnering with us on strategy since day 10 and will officially start this month, reporting to me," Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is believed to have said in a recent memo.

It's official: Warhorse Studios is indeed developing a new Lord of the Rings game, and the news was confirmed in today's spin-off announcement from Embracer.

The rumors were right, and Kingdom Come developer Warhorse is working on a new RPG set in the Middle-earth franchise. The info was announced by Embracer during its business strategy briefing. Embracer will spin off Fellowship Entertainment, which includes a ton of other IPs like Tomb Raider, Metro, and Dead Island, into a separate standalone group. Warhorse, and the Lord of the Rings franchise as a whole, are both part of this group.

"Warhorse is making a new game set in Middle-earth. The studio celebrated for its extraordinary depth, historical authenticity, and storytelling, is bringing that craft to the greatest fantasy world ever created--an expansive, deep, open-world experience. Warhorse demonstrated with Kingdom Come that they are one of the premiere open-world RPG studios on the planet," Fellowship Entertainment confirmed today.

Sony's upgraded PlayStation Super Spectral Resolution tech is seeing adoption in newer games, and developers are surprised at how easy it is to incorporate the boosted version into their projects.

Sony's new PSSR upgrade is apparently quite optimized and requires little tweaking when added into PS5 Pro titles. In the latest update on the PlayStation Blog, IO Interactive devs discussed their experience with the new PSSR update doing its magic within the new action -based James Bond 007 First Light game. The testimony was interesting and reflective of Sony's developer-first stance, where its hardware--and adjoining software/OS layers--are tailor-made to developer's needs and specifications.

"We integrated upgraded PSSR in about a day and were essentially happy with what we saw straight away. No per-scene tuning, no special-case work - it just held up across the whole game. That's not something we get to say very often about a piece of new tech," said Principal Render Engineer, IO Interactive Jon Rocatis.

AMD has now formally launched its EPYC 8005 "Sorano" server processor family, following a preview at Mobile World Congress 2026 earlier this year. The new series succeeds the EPYC 8004 "Siena" lineup and slots between AMD's flagship EPYC 9005 "Turin" processors and the more affordable EPYC 4005 parts.

One of the most notable things about Sorano is that AMD chose to equip it with full Zen 5 cores, rather than the Zen 5c cores that feature in Turin Dense. Keep in mind that the previous-generation EPYC 8004 "Siena" used Zen 4c, so this is a meaningful architectural step up. The shift to full Zen 5 brings a substantial boost in per-core L3 cache, and all current SKUs now reach up to 4.5 GHz boost, compared to just 3.15 GHz on the previous generation.

The EPYC 8005 lineup comprises 7 SKUs. The stack starts with the entry-level EPYC 8025P at 8 cores and 95W TDP, and steps up through the 16-core 8125P, 24-core 8225P, 32-core 8325P, 48-core 8435P, and 64-core 8535P, all the way to the flagship EPYC 8635P with 84 cores, 168 threads, 384 MB of L3 cache, and a 225W TDP.

Embracer Group is shedding some of the biggest video game companies in the business in a new spin off, leaving the fate of major franchises like Metro, Lord of the Rings, Tomb Raider, and more in the hands of the new separate entity.

It's an end of an era at Embracer Group; the once-mighty Rome of gaming is not splintering up even more, with some of its biggest and most valuable IPs being spun off into a new company. The group has announced that key franchises and game studios will be spun off into an independent company called Fellowship Entertainment.

Fellowship, the so-called "steward" of these legendary series, will be the home of powerhouse IPs and game dev studios alike, from Tomb Raider at Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal, Dead Island from Dambuster, and Metro games from 4A. All future Lord of the Rings games are also covered under the deal under the Middle-earth Enterprises label.

AMD says its Ryzen AI Halo mini-PC will "pay for itself" in just a few months of use and it's coming in June. The compact system, built around the Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 chip and packing 128GB of unified memory, is AMD's direct answer to NVIDIA's DGX Spark that debuted in October 2025.

Priced at $3999, the Halo Box is aimed squarely at local AI development and enterprise workloads that demand high performance and portability. The Ryzen AI Halo is based on AMD's Strix Halo platform and features a powerful integrated RDNA 3.5 GPU, 16 Zen 5 cores, and support for both Windows and Linux.

It's designed to run complex AI models locally without relying on cloud infrastructure, making it ideal for developers and businesses focused on privacy and latency-sensitive applications. AMD claims the system will deliver enough efficiency and performance to offset its cost quickly in real-world use cases.

The memory crisis may finally be on the verge of ending by the second half of 2027, driven by a surge in Chinese manufacturing capacity.

That's at least according to former Samsung Electronics semiconductor division president Kyung Kye-hyun, who spoke at the National Academy of Engineering in Seoul. Kyung pointed to a coming wave of new memory production from China that could alleviate the ongoing shortage and stabilize pricing.

Kyung emphasized that the increase in Chinese manufacturing is expected to flood the market with additional memory chips, potentially lowering prices for consumers. This comes as Samsung and SK Hynix continue to ramp up production to meet surging demand, particularly from AI applications.

Warhorse Studios has confirmed it is working on a new, large-scale Middle-earth RPG, following rumors that the studio was quietly developing such a project.

The Czech developer, best known for Kingdom Come: Deliverance, took to social media to reveal "what we are working on". In an X post from the official Warhorse Studios account, the developer confirmed it was working on a new open-world Middle-earth RPG. Previous rumors pointed to Warhorse Studios quietly working on a new Lord of the Rings game funded by the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, with a $100 million budget.

For those who don't know, Warhorse Studios is owned by the Embracer Group, which also owns the rights to the Lord of the Rings games. So, it makes sense that Warhorse was selected to tackle the mighty task of bringing Middle-earth to life, especially considering the success of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

A Redditor has built one of the most in-your-face PCs that you'll ever see, with the rig being plastered in animated GIFs shown on various displays.

The project is explained in some detail in the Reddit post which was spotted by VideoCardz, and it started out as something considerably less ambitious.

The initial intention was a build with a number of Lian Li screen fans all displaying GIFs, but after finishing that, the Redditor "envisioned something much more ambitious" - and you can see the result in the post above.

Plex is tripling the price of its Lifetime Pass to $750 in July, a $500 increase from the current $250. The company says the increase is necessary to fund future development of its media server software, which allows users to stream content across devices and access premium features, such as remote streaming and offline downloads.

The price hike, effective July 1, 2026, comes just a year after Plex doubled the pass price from $120 to $250. Current Lifetime Pass holders will not see any changes, but new customers have until June 30 to purchase at the lower rate. The company claims the updated pricing reflects the "real, ongoing value" of the software it plans to build and maintain.

Plex has faced criticism for the aggressive price increases, with users calling it a "scam" and "unreasonable." The move also raises questions about the sustainability of lifetime subscription models in the subscription-driven tech landscape. Competitors like Jellyfin and Emby offer similar features with open-source or more flexible pricing models, making them attractive alternatives.

Apple is officially rolling out the red carpet for WWDC 2026, with event invites now going out to media, as individuals have begun sharing screenshots of their WWDC 2026 confirmation on social media.

According to reports from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and other outlets, iOS 27, which is expected to be unveiled at the show, is going to introduce a redesigned Siri interface, along with improved Apple Intelligence features that directly tie into the Siri experience. The WWDC 2026 teaser artwork, as noted by MacDailyNews, subtly hints at the new Siri redesign, suggesting Apple is making a significant shift in how its voice assistant functions and integrates with the OS.

iOS 27 is also pegged to to include standalone Siri app, new editing tools within Apple Photos, and several AI-driven enhancements, such as a new swipe-down-from-the-top gesture that triggers an AI-powered "Search or Ask" bar within the Dynamic Island. Given it's rumored contents, the upcoming update could redefine how users interact with their devices.

GIGABYTE has introduced two groundbreaking 27-inch gaming monitors that bridge the gap between cinematic immersion and competitive performance with MLA+ WOLED and Dual-Mode technology.

The GO27Q24G and G27U deliver next-gen visuals and adaptive performance, targeting gamers who want to experience AAA titles in 4K without compromising on the responsiveness needed for esports. The GO27Q24G is the flagship model, and features a 27-inch MLA+ WOLED panel with LG's HyperNits technology, boosting peak brightness to 1300 nits and offering a 1.5M:1 contrast ratio for cinematic realism.

The MLA+ WOLED is LG's latest OLED tech, with MLA standing for Micro Lens Array, enabling the panel to reach higher brightness levels without compromising panel quality. As for HyperNits, this is simply GIGABYTE's marketing term for increasing panel brightness by 30% when compared to other OLEDs on the market.

MSI has launched the MAG 276QP42 with an eye-popping 425Hz QHD Rapid IPS display and it's quite reasonably priced at below $330. This makes it one of the fastest and most affordable gaming monitors on the market, directly targeting esports and competitive gaming audiences.

The 27-inch monitor features a 2560 x 1440 resolution, a 0.5ms gray-to-gray response time, and 400 nits of typical SDR brightness. It's VESA DisplayHDR 400 certified and supports 8-bit+FRC color, covering 127.5% of the sRGB color space. The panel also delivers 94.3% Adobe RGB and 98.1% DCI-P3, making it a versatile option for both gaming and content creation.

The MAG 276QP42 is positioned to challenge the price-performance balance in the 1440p gaming monitor market. While 400Hz and above panels are typically reserved for the premium tier, this model is attempting to undercut the competition by hundreds of dollars.

Forza Horizon 6 developers have mocked Nintendo's legal stance on Pokémon by including a direct reference to the franchise in the recently released game, seemingly poking fun at the company's long-running and extremely active legal team.

The move, discovered by fans and reported by Insider Gaming, sees a subtle but clear nod to Pokémon in an otherwise unrelated environment, likely as a joke about Nintendo's long history of aggressively policing its intellectual property by filing lawsuits against any party that it believes has infringed on its IP, regardless of the alleged severity.

While Forza Horizon 6's developers haven't commented directly, the in-game reference has already sparked viral reactions online. As for the specific reference, in the above video, we can see a player driving around Forza Horizon 6, and on the radio, we can hear instructions to "grab your camera, and snap 'em all," followed by, "It's like that Japanese collecting game where we were not allowed to name for legal reasons. Exactly." It remains to be seen if Nintendo will set its legal team on Playground Games for the tongue-in-cheek comment.

Back in February 2026, Intel released an introductory video indicating that its next-generation Xe3P architecture would follow the Xe2 architecture. Later, it was reported that Xe3P would not appear in consumer Celestial gaming graphics cards, and Intel canceled the product entirely. Instead, Intel plans to use the architecture in Crescent Island.

Crescent Island is Intel's next data-center GPU, targeting AI inference rather than a consumer Arc graphics card. Intel confirmed the product in October, featuring the Xe3P graphics architecture, 160GB of LPDDR5X memory, and targeting air-cooled data centers and workstations optimized for AI inference workloads.

Now, the upcoming Crescent Island accelerator has appeared in a first PCB leak from YuuKi_AnS, spotted by Wccftech. The leaked PCB gives us a look at the large Xe3P GPU die and its LPDDR5X memory configuration.

Intel's next-generation Nova Lake CPUs have reportedly begun shipping as early engineering samples. Nova Lake CPUs are expected to launch in the second half of this year, with the Nova Lake-S family first to hit shelves. Intel is painting these as a reset rather than a refresh, with bold performance claims that make it the blue team's most aggressive swing at the high-end PC market in years.

Leaker SiliconFly on X reports that Intel is already distributing its first engineering samples to partners, and the chip family is being hailed as a game-changer for both multi-threaded and single-threaded performance. The loudest claim is a 2x gain in multi-core performance alongside roughly 20% better single-core performance, though those figures are unverified and appear tied to early engineering expectations rather than final retail silicon.

Those claims make sense when you look at how far Intel has pushed core counts, cache, and platform redesigns this cycle. Earlier leaks have suggested that Nova Lake CPUs will come in two variants: a single-compute-tile variant with up to 28 cores and a dual-compute-tile variant with a whopping 52 cores. For comparison, AMD's Zen 6 desktop flagship is expected to top out at 24 cores.