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According to economist Dr. Bailey, Nintendo is indeed a competitor in the console market, and her findings poke holes in the FTC's narrowed high-performance market definition.

Economist Dr. Bailey represented defendants Microsoft and Activision in the ongoing FTC v Microsoft federal case. She was examined as a witness, and her testimony poked holes in the Commission's narrow high-performance console market definition, which excluded Nintendo from the Big 3.

In an effort to simplify the console market, the FTC enlisted economist Professor Lee to help identify potential foreclosure risks in a relevant market. This marked was known as the high-performance relevant console market, which removed Nintendo and PCs as competitors against PlayStation and Xbox consoles. This allowed the FTC to isolate their focus on PlayStation vs Xbox with the rationale that these platforms compete more closely with one another than they do with Nintendo, and while that's true on the surface, Dr. Bailey's testimony quickly undermined this assessment.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick regrets not releasing more games onto the Nintendo Switch, says that his decision not to support the Switch was a mistake.

The Nintendo Switch is currently the best-selling console on the market with over 125 million shipments worldwide. Suffice it to say, the Switch is one of the best places you can release a game apart from the revenue-leading PlayStation. That's a big reason why Activision CEO Bobby Kotick thinks it was a bad judgement call to discount Nintendo's transformative handheld-console hybrid.

In the recent FTC v Microsoft federal case, Kotick gave testimony where he confirmed Activision looked at bringing Call of Duty onto the Switch before Nintendo launched its console in 2017. Kotick says that not releasing Call of Duty on the Switch was "bad judgement." This indicates that Activision did, at first, intend to bring Call of Duty on the Switch at launch, but Kotick decided against it once he saw the prototype. Kotick didn't think the Switch was going to be successful.

In the closing arguments of the FTC v Microsoft federal preliminary injunction case, Federal Trade Commission lawyer James Weingarten summarizes the ways in which the Microsoft-Activision merger could harm consumers.

The FTC believes the $68.7 billion Microsoft-Activision merger would harm competition in the video games market across multiple dimensions, including the high-performance console market and the subscription & cloud gaming market.

Throughout the case, we've heard testimony from key witnesses that reveal the various methods, strategies, and scenarios employed by the Xbox games business to gain a competitive edge across all dimensions of the gaming market, and how Xbox plans to use Activision to further its plans to eventually deliver over $32 billion in revenues and become the market leader by 2030.

Starfield made quite the splash in the Xbox 2023 showcase with its graphics and overall presentation, and Todd Howard says a lot of that was because of the new-and-improved Creation Engine 2.

Bethesda Game Studios has been working on the major Creation Engine 2 overhaul for quite some time. Starfield has been in development for 8 years, and during that time, the studio has been iterating on its existing Creation Engine to upgrade it for the new Xbox Series X/S console generation. While most of Starfield's development has been in-house, Microsoft's ATG (Advanced Technology Group) has been assisting Bethesda Game Studios since early 2022, helping with things like console optimization to ensure Starfield looks and runs great on both the Series S and Series X consoles.

In a recent interview with Kinda Funny Gamescast, Todd Howard shared his thoughts on the enhanced games engine and discussed things like volumetric fog and the new global illumination system.

Activision's CEO is a big believer in native mobile gaming, and thinks that phones will eventually be able to play high-end PlayStation 5 quality games.

Over the past two years, Activision's revenues have become mobile-centric. In 2021 and 2022, Activision Blizzard King made most of its revenues from the mobile segment thanks to big successes like Diablo Immortal, Call of Duty Mobile, and of course King's Candy Crush. This push towards mobile will continue with this year's release of Warzone Mobile in the fall.

It shouldn't be much surprise then that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is praising mobile tech. In Day 4 of the recent FTC v Microsoft federal court hearing, Kotick was asked specifically about the merits of native mobile gaming versus streaming, especially in the relation of bringing Activision games like Call of Duty to streaming services.

Activision's executive management stands to receive hefty payouts of millions of dollars if the Microsoft-Activision merger goes through, but Activision CEO Bobby Kotick's company stock portfolio could be worth in excess of $400 million.

In order to secure Activision Blizzard King to fund its mobile gaming and Game Pass ambitions, Microsoft has made an offer to buy 100% of Activision stock at a $95 per share premium. This adds up to a $68.7 billion deal, the largest-ever for Microsoft and the biggest acquisition in video games history (over five times the value of Take-Two's $12.7 billion Zynga buyout).

If Microsoft acquires ABK at $95 per share, there are a number of high-profile Activision executives that will receive big payouts. The company's largest executive shareholder is CEO Bobby Kotick, who currently owns 4,296,550 shares as per 2023's notice of annual meeting of shareholders.

Fallout creator and lead programmer Tim Cain raises his concerns about what Fallout 5's character creation system could be like.

Modern Fallout and Elder Scrolls games have strayed away from the integral RPG-based DNA that once defined the franchises. We've seen Bethesda remove key features like traits and skills from modern Fallout games, and Skyrim, released in 2012, got rid of attributes altogether. This has raised some questions on what RPG elements will be pared back in Fallout 5.

Tim Cain, who helped create the original Fallout game in the late 1990s at Interplay, had some interesting thoughts about what could happen in Fallout 5.

Thanks to the FTC v Microsoft federal court case, gamers now have a better idea of when The Elder Scrolls VI could release.

Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls VI in 2018, way before it was purchased by Microsoft for $7.5 billion. Bethesda's Todd Howard has only let little bits and pieces about Elder Scrolls 6 slip between the cracks, confirming the game is in pre-production and that Starfield is the studio's main focus.

Now Microsoft and Bethesda have inadvertently updated gamers through the recent FTC v Microsoft federal evidentiary hearing. According to transcripts from the hearing, it looks like The Elder Scrolls VI could launch sometime between 2026 and 2028.

AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X3D has been one of the more interesting nuggets from the CPU rumor mill of late, but this processor is no longer a purported piece of hardware - it's really happening, although there's a weighty caveat attached here.

The Ryzen 5 5600X3D will be available from Micro Center only (in the US, and no other regions), and as the tweet carrying the revelation notes, you'll be able to buy it at your 'local' store, which rules out purchasing the chip online. And not everyone lives that near to a Micro Center, of course.

The 5600X3D will carry a price tag of $229, but there will also be a bundle deal. This consists of the 5600X3D and ASUS B550-Plus TUF motherboard along with 16GB of G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 memory, all of which you'll be able to snag for an asking price of $329.

Final Fantasy 16 is a big success for Square Enix, but the game hasn't sold as many copies as Final Fantasy 15. There's some very good reasons why this is the case.

Square Enix has recently announced that Final Fantasy 16 has sold 3 million copies worldwide, a figure that represents combined shipments and digital sales. How do we best gauge this data? We're seeing lots of comparisons of this data to the last mainline game in the series, Final Fantasy 15. This isn't the best comparison, though.

The reality is that the launch conditions between these two games are very different. Final Fantasy 16 released on one platform, the PlayStation 5, whereas Final Fantasy 15 simultaneously launched on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Not only that, but the games released at distinctly different timeframes, with Final Fantasy 16 launching the summer, and Final Fantasy 15 launching during the holidays in 2016, which is the biggest time of the year for video game sales.

NVIDIA's RTX 4060 graphics card is reportedly struggling for sales right out of the gate, or so we hear from sources in Japan and Europe.

For starters, take a look at the above tweet. It shows a shop in the Japanese Akihabara shopping hub that didn't even bother to open for the launch, and a second store that was open for business.

The latter had a launch day queue of... wait for it... one keen gamer. No, technically a single person isn't a queue, but you get the point. The interest level in Japan was pretty low, then, we can guess.

Microsoft has confirmed that Activision will be a limited-integration company if the merger goes through.

Microsoft plans to be mostly hands-off with Activision on a post-merger basis. We've discussed this in previous coverage, but now it's been made official: Activision will have limited integration into Microsoft, meaning the publisher will essentially be its own operational unit outside the purview and control of Xbox Game Studios lead Matt Booty. This is similar to how ZeniMax currently operates.

Microsoft bought ZeniMax in 2021 for $7.5 billion, and the publisher remains in control of specific parts of its business. There's just one decision that no Microsoft-owned developer or publisher can make: Exclusivity. Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer has the final call on which games become exclusive to the Xbox platform.

The official word from Blizzard and Diablo franchise general manager Rod Fergusson is that there's no secret Cow Level in Diablo IV. But then again, he would say that, wouldn't he? Ever since players got their hands-on the latest installment in the long-running action RPG, a dedicated part of the community has been actively going through every inch of the game to try and find the secret level.

So far, it hasn't been found. Still, the general idea is that if both Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 had secret Cow Levels (where you fight a horde of armed cows that moo and drop gold and loot), then odds are there is one in Diablo 4, too, primarily when the game draws most of its inspiration from these two entries. There's an entire Wikipedia page on the history of the secret Cow Level, too, if you need to brush up on your bovine lore.

You can also join in on the hunt over at the D4 - Not Finding A Cow Level Discord, though based on Diablo 4's recent sizable patch, the search looks to have hit a roadblock because many were convinced that the Cow Level is tied to the town of Ked Bardu in the Dry Steppes.

Iranian animation studio Kosar3D is pivoting to video games, specifically a militaristic first-person shooter that news outlet RT (Russia Today) calls "Iran's Call of Duty." A bold statement, and the teaser video for Revenge, which is what the game is called, showcases some decent animation and visual fidelity.

The setting of Revenge deals with an alliance between Iran and Russia against NATO and, by that same token, the US. Kosard3D notes that the game is self-funded and not tied to the Iranian government or military, with the announcement stating that, "In this game, an international UAV force led by Iran has been formed that is responsible for the containment of the US army in World War III."

The RT report adds that Revenge is not about all-out war but "pre-emptive strikes launched on the enemy's soil to thwart the enemy's attacks." With Call of Duty's Modern Warfare entries focusing on the US government and military in conflict with Russia and the Middle East, the narratives often dip their toes into what you'd call pro-US military propaganda - so the comparison makes sense.

Razer has announced a brand-new gaming mouse line to join the likes of its Viper, DeathAdder, Basilisk, and other products, called Razer Cobra. With two models available, a budget-conscious wired Razer Cobra and the premium wireless Razer Cobra Pro, both feature a right-hand symmetrical design and ultra-lightweight builds with hardware designed for gamers.

Specs-wise, you're looking at Razer's high-end Focus Pro 30K Optical Sensor on the Pro, an 8500 DPI Optical Sensor on the non-Pro, and Optical Mouse Switches Gen-3 rated at 90 million clicks for both. The 77-gram Razer Cobra Pro supports Razer HyperSpeed Wireless and also features 11 individually addressable Chroma RGB zones on the underside for a "kaleidoscopic gaming experience." As per the images supplied, we're inclined to agree.

The wired Razer Cobra price point sits at USD 39.99, while the Razer Cobra Pro price point of USD 129.99 is more affordable than the Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro (USD 149.99) and Razer Basilisk V3 Pro (USD 159.99).

During its Q3 2023 Earnings Call, Micron announced that its next generation of memory for GPUs - GDDR7 - is on track for a first-half of 2024 release. "We plan to introduce our next-generation G7 product on our industry-leading 1ß node in the first half of [the] calendar year 2024," Micron writes, though as a financial report, it doesn't delve into specs.

Based on other sources, it's believed that GDDR7 is in the verification stage of development, so the timeline makes sense. We know what to expect compared to the current GDDR6 and GDDR6X memory on high-end AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. AMD's Radeon RX 7900 Series makes use of 20 Gbps GDDR6, while NVIDIA's high-end GeForce RTX 40 Series cards, like the GeForce RTX 4090, make use of 22.4 Gbps GDDR6X.

And with that, the expectation is that GDDR7 speed will hit 36 Gbps, so on a high-end 384-bit memory bus, you're looking at 1.7TB/s of bandwidth. On a more low-end 128-bit, the 36 Gbps can still deliver an impressive 576 GB/s of bandwidth.

Since Sony announced its PlayStation 5 VR successor, the wider VR community has wondered if the VR headset is PC compatible, officially or unofficially. And it's not hard to see why; it features some truly impressive specs alongside an affordable price point. For USD 549, you get a 4K OLED display with a per-eye resolution of 2000 x 2040 pixels with up to 120 Hz support. Not to mention a wide field-of-view (FOV) of 110 degrees.

These are tasty VR headset specs no matter how you slice it, and on top of this, you've got full motion controls and inside-out tracking for room-space VR - features not present in the original PSVR hardware.

There's good news and not-so-good news when it comes to connecting a PSVR 2 headset to your PC and firing up Half-Life: Alyx on Steam - yes, the headset works. But it requires the use of special hardware that hasn't even been invented yet.

Microsoft has tried, and failed, to persuade Activision to bring its billion-dollar franchises over to Game Pass.

Yesterday, we learned that Activision doesn't have a zero tolerance policy on video game subscriptions. Actvision CEO Bobby Kotick testified under oath that publisher could be convinced to bring its games to services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Extra/Premium...provided a high enough "commercial incentive" were offered.

In his testimony, Kotick essentially said that companies like Microsoft and Sony would have to pay an exorbitant fee in order to secure Activision games on these services, especially given the often-cited "cannibalistic effects" of Game Pass (users can choose to subscribe for $10 a month instead of buying a game for $70, potentially leaving lots of money on the table).

Minecraft is much, much more popular on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation than it is on Xbox...and rightly so given the sales differences between these platforms.

Microsoft has already confirmed that Minecraft is Xbox's largest game in terms of revenues, and that it delivers significant profits. What's interesting is how much revenue the game actually makes, and where it actually makes those earnings. While we don't know exact dollar values to Minecraft's mega-hit success, we do know that the game earns a lot more money on practically every platform other than Xbox.

In his testimony in the FTC v Microsoft federal case, Xbox gaming Chief Financial Officer Tim Stuart sheds light on Minecraft's success. In Fiscal Year 2021, Minecraft made 4x more revenue on the Nintendo Switch than it does Xbox. The game also made 2x as much revenue on PlayStation than it did on Xbox.

The ZeniMax acquisition, aka Project Atom, used a specific sliding-scale model to assess the possible risks and downsides of making ZeniMax titles exclusive to the Xbox platform.

Exclusivity is a hot topic in the games industry. On one hand, Sony has used exclusivity as a means to pay developers to skip Xbox, which makes Sony, in the words of Phil Spencer, a "hostile and aggressive competitor". On the other hand, exclusives are advantageous to developers and also offer a way for Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo stand apart. Because they're such powerful tools for platforms and developers, exclusives are a big part of the industry and aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

In regards to ZeniMax and Bethesda game exclusivity, today's testimony in the FTC v Microsoft case highlights what that decision-making process was like inside of Xbox. Testimony revealed that all future ZeniMax games, including sequels and new IPs, appear to be exclusive to Xbox. But how did Microsoft come to that decision?