Activision legal counsel alleges that UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had only spent 4 weeks out of its total 32-week investigation on the Microsoft-Activision merger focusing on potential SLC effects in cloud gaming.

Microsoft has filed an appeal with the intent to quash the CMA's decision to block the Microsoft-Activision merger. Today, lawyers for Activision, Microsoft, and the CMA met with Competition Appeals Tribunal's Justice Marcus Smith to discuss how to best proceed with the appeals process. While Microsoft's full 400-page appeal will not be made public, the Tribunal did publish an application summary that condenses the main points. At the hearing, Activision legal counsel delivered key reasons on why it seeks to intervene in the case--Activision has a stake in the outcome of the merger and can provide relevant information in regards to cloud gaming and the games market as a whole, so it is likely to be able to intervene and add evidence to support Microsoft's case.

During the hearing, Activision's lawyer made specific allegations against the CMA's determination of anti-competitive effects that could arise from the merger. The CMA blocked the merger on grounds that the combination would result in a significant lessening of competition (SLC) in the segment of cloud gaming due to Microsoft's potential ability to foreclose, or take away and prevent, access to Activision-Blizzard games to cloud competitors.

Nintendo has filed a cease-and-desist order that forces Valve to prevent the popular Dolphin emulator from releasing on Steam, and has now issued a statement explaining how the Dolphin emulator is harmful to the company and how emulation harms the games industry as a whole.

Nintendo is one of the most fiercely protective companies on the planet when it comes to IP. We've seen the Japanese company shut down multiple emulation sites through lawsuits, and also impose tight restrictions on YouTube content. Recently, Nintendo has thwarted the release of the popular Wii and GameCube emulator, Dolphin, from releasing on Steam.

"It is with much disappointment that we have to announce that the Dolphin on Steam release has been indefinitely postponed. We were notified by Valve that Nintendo has issued a cease and desist citing the DMCA against Dolphin's Steam page, and have removed Dolphin from Steam until the matter is settled. We are currently investigating our options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future," Dolphin's development team wrote on May 27.

The rumors were right: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is the next first-party PlayStation 5 exclusive making the hop over to PC.

Following Jim Ryan's assertions that PC is a "significant profit contributor" to the PlayStation business, it's no wonder that Sony is continuing its PC gaming efforts. Now Sony has announced the latest first-party game to drop on PC, and it's a big one.

Today Sony and Insomniac Games announced Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is coming to PC on July 26, complete with support for 21:9, 32:9 and up to 48:9 resolutions for triple monitor setups, raytracing, DLSS 3.0, AMD FSR 2.0, and Intel XeSS support--alongside NVIDIA Reflex as well.

NVIDIA has joined the growing club of tech companies that are worth over $1 trillion.

CEO Jensen Huang's personal fortune is also spiraling upwards faster than any other billionaire this year (Image Credit: NVIDIA)

Reuters reports that the company is the first chipmaker to hit this valuation, driven forward by its progress on the AI front, and the fact that artificial intelligence has become such a massive focus for, well, pretty much everyone of late.

The sting in the tail, as Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, points out, is that there will be 'significant pressure' to live up to this valuation, and likely a bit of a rollercoaster ride for the share price to come if NVIDIA stumbles at all.

Microsoft has been boasting about how it has improved various facets of performance in Windows 11, from core parts of the interface to how smoothly gaming mice run.

Microsoft has made a case as to why Windows 11 is a much leaner and faster OS (Image Credit: Microsoft)

This comes courtesy of a Microsoft blog post detailing the 'major strides' taken in the past year to improve performance across a range of fundamentals for Windows 11.

That includes boosting the performance of "frequently used shell interactions like Taskbar, Notifications, and Quick Settings" by up to 15% in some cases.

ADATA unveiled its most powerful Gen 5 SSD that's built with unique cooling technology designed for improved heat dissipation.

ADATA is switching its focus to cooling solutions for its SSDs, and at Computex 2023, the company showcased what it's calling Project NeonStorm, a Silicon Motion SM2508 PCIe Gen5 M.2 SSD controller that pushes 14,000 / 12,000 MB/s read/write performance. While the read-and-write performance is very impressive, it's not what ADATA wants you to focus on.

ADATA has implemented a water cooling + fan solution that the company claims can provide 20% better heat dissipation compared to SSDs without water cooling. This water-cooling design features an extruded aluminum structure that holds in water, while the front/rear fans for heat dissipation. According to ADATA, when the heat rises off the SSD, it first contacts the heat spreader to increase the contact area.

Announced not that long ago, MSI's new SPATIUM M570 Pro series of Gen5 SSDs featuring the cutting-edge PHISON E26 PCIe Gen 5 SSD controller, 3D NAND flash, and custom-tuned active cooling system promised to deliver record-breaking 14 GB/s read speeds.

MSI's SPATIUM M570 Pro series Gen5 SSD.

At Computex 2023, we saw it in action, where the promise of up to 14 GB/s read speeds was not only true - but sitting at exactly 14,520.75 MB/s read (14.5 GB/s) and 12,409.09 MB/s write. That alone is incredible when you factor in that most PCIe Gen5 offerings currently top out at just over 10 GB/s. However, what really grabbed our attention was that the SSD temperature was only 44 degrees Celsius during the benchmark.

How MSI has managed to keep the new SPATIUM M570 Pro cool won't be a mystery once you take a look at its size, as this is a PCIe Gen5 SSD with a custom cooler that is quite large for an SSD - and it even includes a sizable fan.

Look at any high-end GPU release for the past four or five years and have undoubtedly noticed that they got bigger, thicker, and heavier. GPU sag has become such a thing that brackets usually come packed in with brand-new GPU releases as standard.

MSI's new GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim.

This is something that hardware makers have noticed too, and MSI has heard the feedback loud and clear; people would like to see thinner, sleeker, and more GPUs that can fit in smaller form-factor cases and on desks with limited space. And with that in mind, it's creating a new range of GeForce RTX 40 Series cards based on its popular and critically acclaimed Gaming X series, called the Gaming X Slim.

Starting with the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim (which is available first), the new Gaming X Slim range will cover the entire 40 Series line-up - including the GeForce RTX 4080, 4090, 4060 Ti, and the upcoming 4060. All are on track for release this year too, and we had the opportunity to look at the new RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim at Computex 2023.

ZOTAC has shown off its refreshed design on its range of graphics cards at Computex 2023. From the extremely powerful RTX 4090 all the way down to the RTX 4060Ti.

ZOTAC was nice enough to give me a tour of their booth at Computex 2023, which had on display the company's range of graphics cards that have undergone a refreshed visual design. ZOTAC has abandoned the straight edges that it was commonly known for and decided to implement a round-edge design. This design refresh is across the company's range of graphics card offerings, from the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 Amp Extreme Airo to the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Twin Edge OC White.

When I was at the ZOTAC booth, I noticed the new RGB piece on the top of the AMP Extreme models. According to ZOTAC, this new RGB light has a two-tone feature that users are able to customize through ZOTAC's software. More specifically, the Amp Extreme Airo has five different zones of customizable RGB lighting, allowing gamers to personalize their graphics card appearance fully.

When putting together a new PC build for gaming, cable management might be low on your list - but it quickly becomes a genuine hurdle as soon as you connect that first cable from the motherboard to your power supply. From there, things can quickly get out of hand regarding cables, with just about every device requiring some pinned connection to go live.

The AORUS Stealth 500 from GIGABYTE is a gaming PC where you don't see any cables.

At Computex 2023, taking a tour through GIGABYTE's product line-up, we had the opportunity to take a closer look at the company's new concept - the AORUS Stealth 500. Specs-wise, it features all of the components you'd consider standard for a modern gaming rig. A Z690 AORUS ELITE Stealth motherboard, a GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING OC Stealth graphics card, and an RGB-lit and stylish AORUS C500 GLASS chassis.

Looking through the side panel, you'll notice one thing missing - cables. All of these are hidden, including the connector to the custom GeForce RTX 4070, outside of the pump for the AIO CPU cooler. GIGABYTE notes that the Cable Stealth Design isn't simply about delivering a cable-free look that is fantastic to witness in person. It's a system that is designed to simplify cable management and component installation.