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BioWare is handing off development of its long-running Star Wars The Old Republic MMORPG to another studio so it can narrow its focus on singleplayer RPGs.

After more than a decade of support, BioWare is moving on from its Star Wars MMO. BioWare general manager Gary McKay has confirmed future content development of Star Wars The Old Republic will be handled by Broadsword Online Games, a development team that's handling Ultima Online. This will free BioWare to focus on its core strengths: building singleplayer RPGs.

Sadly, McKay confirms that layoffs will occur as a result of the shift. BioWare's Austin, Texas and Edmonton, Canada-based studios will now be entirely devoted to the company's wholly-owned dual franchises, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The next Dragon Age game, Dreadwolf, is currently set to launch sometime in 2024 at the earliest, whereas the next Mass Effect game is still in pre-production phases.

Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan gives a timeline of when he started to notice strong red flags in regards to the Microsoft-Activision merger.

Sony's Jim Ryan has had strong convictions about the Microsoft purchasing Activision, and believes that Microsoft will withhold access to specific games in an effort to cause anti-competitive harm against PlayStation. This wasn't always the case, though. Emails show that Ryan originally believed the merger "was not an Xbox exclusivity play," however his view changed after a very particular email exchange from August 2022.

During his testimony in the FTC v Microsoft federal hearing, the Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO said that he believes that Microsoft would use Call of Duty to damage PlayStation either with full foreclosure (withholding Call of Duty completely from PlayStation) or partial foreclosure (timed exclusivity on content and game releases).

Alan Wake 2 is due out on October 17, and we already know it's a digital-only game - there won't be a release on a physical disc, and the reason for that is Remedy wants to ensure the game is as good as it can be.

In other words, a disc release would have to be finalized (go gold) in time for manufacturing and packaging, and that'd be problematic in terms of the quality of the finished product.

Eurogamer spoke to Alan Wake 2's creative director, Sam Lake, and game director, Kyle Rowley, at the Summer Games Fest, getting their thoughts on the reasoning behind the digital-only decision.

New internal documents from Microsoft's business leadership shows that Xbox has missed revenue forecasts by over $700 million.

The Microsoft-Activision merger is being challenged in federal courts, (FTC v Microsoft, 3:23-cv-02880-JSC) and a lot of interesting information is being released to the public as a result. Court exhibits have uncovered the dynamics of the Xbox gaming business and the performance expectations from Microsoft's SLT, or Senior Leadership Team. One such metric is Xbox revenues.

The case file exhibit list includes one very illuminating 80-page internal Microsoft document that outlined where Xbox currently is and where it can grow. The slide deck, which was issued during Microsoft's Q3 FY22 (January - March 2023), has assigned an estimated revenue target of $17 billion for the Xbox games division. Actual results were quite different--Xbox made $16.22 billion in FY22, missing the internal target by some $780 million.

Diablo IV will eventually get DirectStorage support on PC, according to a report that cites a developer from the team.

PC Gamer delved into the issue - we already know that DirectStorage files are in the code for the action RPG, thanks to keen-eyed data miners - and came up trumps with a confirmation direct from the horse's mouth.

A member of the Diablo IV team told the gaming website: "MS DirectStorage is currently not enabled, but we are planning on enabling it in the future."

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is expected to be announced alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 5 next month and now both phones continue to leak. Now, a concept based on those leaks imagines just what the Galaxy Z Flip 5's rumored cover display upgrade could mean in use.

Reports have already pointed to the Galaxy Z Flip 5 getting a new 3.4-inch cover display which will make a big difference for those who want to be able to use their phone without opening it up. And a concept shared by Twitter user @Vetrox360 shows what that new display could mean for on-screen navigation, the clock app, and animations.

The concept is based on previous leaks and shows how the clock could be opened on-screen but also minimized into the app's icon when not required.

Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 4 is already one of the best foldable phones around and right now we're getting ready for what comes next. That will be the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, assuming the rumors are correct, and now we've been treated to a new leak that appears to have confirmed what we can look forward to in terms of specifications.

That's because Twitter leaker SnoopyTech has shared details of what is coming up for Samsung's biggest foldable device, and there's plenty to get the teeth into.

The information required jumping through a few hoops but once we decoded the binary the details were revealed.

In a development you can file under 'pointless but hilarious,' a software developer has made their own version of ChatGPT for an extremely old version of Windows.

In fact, as The Register spotted, DialupDotNet made a ChatGPT client for Windows 3.1 - called WinGPT, and written in C - which is very much in keeping with that period in computing history (the early nineties).

Ask WinGPT what's the easiest way to share photos with friends, for example, and the 'chatbot' will happily inform you that the best course of action is to give them the (physical) photos, or post them (on a floppy disk), or put the pics in a scrapbook.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is expected to be announced within the next few weeks and now we've been treated to a first proper look at the specifications that we can expect it to come with once it finally does debut.

The new leak comes via Twitter leaker SnoopyTech and was a somewhat cryptic one - the tweet required decoding, which is a new one on us. Still, the end result was a list of specifications and they make for some interesting reading.

According to the leak, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will come with a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a refresh rate that can vary between 1Hz and 120Hz with a resolution of 2640 x 1080. That display will obviously be on the inside. On the outside, you'll find a 3.4-inch display that should make for some big improvements in terms of usability. The leak suggests that users will be able to check notifications, control music playback, and more.

Long before Apple launched iCloud Photo Library and later iCloud Photos, there was something called 'My Photo Stream.' It was a simple syncing service that uploaded the last 30 days of photos and videos to iCloud over a maximum of 30 days, and it was great. It meant that your photos and videos were backed up to some degree and that they would become available on multiple devices instantly. But now it's going away.

The iCloud Photos service is lightyears ahead of My Photo Stream and Apple knows it. The iCloud option automatically syncs all of your photos and videos no matter how old they are, so you're always sure that your media is with you no matter when it was created or which device you're using. Because of that, Apple's turning off My Photo Stream on July 26 but to get ready it's stopped uploading new content as of June 26. Or yesterday, if you prefer.

That of course means that My Photo Stream users are now no longer sending their photos and videos to the cloud and that means that a solution is required. We'd absolutely suggest that iCloud Photos is the way to go, but you'll only get 5GB of free data storage. From there it's a case of paying for more storage, unfortunately.

Fans of all-in-one computers are set to get three new Apple options according to a new report, and one of them will include a model that's larger than any that came before it.

Writing for his weekly Power On newsletter Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that Apple is working to release two new iMacs with the same 24-inch display as the one that's currently available, but that isn't even the interesting part. Gurman says that Apple is already in the early stages of working on an iMac with a display that is over 30 inches in size.

If the report is accurate, it will mean that Apple is working on its biggest iMac to date, although it isn't clear whether it will carry the iMac Pro branding or just mean that two iMac display sizes will be offered. As for the 24-inch models, the fact that there are two codenames in use inside Apple - J433 and J434 - might suggest that there are M3 and M3 Pro variants in the works.

Apple finally announced the new Vision Pro AR/VR headset at its WWDC 2023 event on June 5, but it isn't going to put it on sale until the first half of 2024. That hasn't stopped the company from starting to plan for what comes next though, with as many as two new models thought to be in the works.

Apple's Vision Pro broke the internet when it was unveiled and not just because it will cost a staggering $3,499 when it does finally go on sale. But it seems that Apple is well aware that the price is a little steep and is already keen to find a way to make it cheaper with a budget version on the horizon. The company is also thought to be working on another version of its high-end model as well, suggesting two products will eventually replace the one that still isn't available to buy.

This is all according to a report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman which claims that new budget and high-end AR/VR headsets are already on the way. In fact, Apple is so keen to get development underway that it's apparently already started to move engineers away from Vision Pro development and onto the two new unannounced projects. Gurman was writing in his weekly Power On newsletter.

Some good news for those living in a broadband dead zone as the US government has announced that it's planning to spend $42 billion across the country's 50 states and territories "to make access to high-speed broadband universal by 2030."

As for areas that will be getting an upgrade, the announcement from the White House notes that it will use the new Federal Communications Commission coverage map detailing gaps in access to broadband. Two of the biggest state in the US, Texas, and California, will receive the most funding - USD 3.1 billion and USD 1.9 billion, respectively.

"It's the biggest investment in high-speed internet ever," President Joe Biden said in a White House address. "Because for today's economy to work for everyone, internet access is just as important as electricity, or water, or other basic services."

Last week MSI announced its line-up of GeForce RTX 4060 graphics cards, with models set to launch this week in the company's well-known Ventux and Gaming product lines. Today, over at Newegg, we've got pricing for three models with retail pages live ahead of launch. These are currently listed as "Out of Stock," though that will change on June 29.

And with three models listed, we have confirmation that pricing for the GeForce RTX 4060 starts at USD 299, with the more premium variants costing USD 329. At least for MSI, we expect other brands to release higher-end variants to target the USD 329 price point.

For MSI, its MSRP model is the MSI GeForce RTX 4060 VENTUS 2X BLACK 8G for USD 299, and the specs listed detail that it features 3072 CUDA Cores and a Boost Clock of 2490 MHz. VENTUS cards from MSI represent the entry-level GPUs from the company and, as we've seen from previous releases, deliver great results with adequate cooling and silent performance. These cards are also smaller than more premium models, and the MSI GeForce RTX 4060 VENTUS 2X BLACK 8G's length of 199 mm is compact.

Ahead of the GeForce RTX 4060 launch this week, we've already seen some early previews showcasing DLSS performance in Cyberpunk 2077 with ray-tracing enabled using the game's hardware-intensive 'RT Ultra' mode.

In addition to some benchmarks we reported on earlier today, veteran tech YouTube channel JayzTwoCents got his hands-on the new ASUS RTX 4060 Dual model to see how it performs with a little tweaking and overclocking.

And the results aren't exactly earth-shattering, even with a noted higher TDP on the ASUS card of up to 130W and a clock speed boost of 100 MHz.In Cyberpunk 2077, with DLSS and the RT Ultra preset selected, we see the frame-rate increase from 80.8 fps to 82.3 fps, which is the sort of overclocking you'd consider negligible at 1.2%.

Microsoft plans to make Xbox the leader in the global games industry in terms of revenues by 2030, and Xbox has already beaten Nintendo revenues for the past two years running.

California District Courts today published a wealth of documents from the FTC v Microsoft federal case exhibit list, and included in packet is a lengthy internal presentation deck from Microsoft's SLT (Senior Leadership Team) that outlines its ambitious plans for Xbox gaming.

According to the document, which was published in June 2022, Microsoft aspires to have the Xbox ecosystem become the top inter-connected video games platform by revenue by the year 2030. "Our ambition is to reach industry leadership, as defined by global revenue, by 2030. This implies doubling our total revenue during that timeframe," reads the slide deck.

Microsoft was considering a massive slate of video games developers and publishers as potential acquisition targets, a new exhibit filing from the FTC v Microsoft federal court case reveals.

Before it settled on trying to buy Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion, Microsoft had over 100 gaming companies on its list for M&A consideration. The list is part of a confidential internal Xbox Game Studios M&A briefing from April 2021 that was published as a public exhibit in the FTC v Microsoft federal preliminary injunction case.

In the slide deck, which is woefully outdated by over 2 years, Microsoft outlines what it considers to be some of the top choices for potential mergers and acquisitions buyouts in April 2021, including Japanese games publisher SEGA, Destiny and Halo developer Bungie, Elden Ring and Dark Souls developer FromSoftware, Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt RED, No Man's Sky developer Hello Games, Hitman developer IO Interactive, Crysis developer Crytek, Warframe developer Digital Extremes, Divinity and Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian, Control and Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment, Dying Light developer Techland, Borderlands developer Gearbox, and many more.

Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer outlines the stark realities of Microsoft's games business, confirming that the Xbox games division is a seperate operating unit with its own budgets, profit and loss accounts, and expectations.

It's a common misconception that because Xbox is part of Microsoft, a tech giant with a $2.45 trillion market capitalization, that the Xbox games division has an unlimited budget and can constantly lose money. This isn't the case. The reality is that the Xbox business is under constant pressure to deliver profits and growth.

In day 2 of the federal FTC v Microsoft case's evidentiary hearing, Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer offers an eye-opening look at Microsoft's gaming business. Typically, Microsoft does not divulge very much information on Xbox outside of a few earnings metrics--hardware, content and services revenue, and if we're lucky, an update on Game Pass subscribers. Spencer's testimony in the hearing sheds light on the stressors in running the Xbox business, and what ultimately led up to the $68.7 billion bid for Activision-Blizzard.

Minecraft is the best-earning Xbox game of all time and delivers considerable profits to Microsoft's games division.

At the recent FTC v Microsoft hearing in federal court, Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer confirmed that Minecraft earns more revenues than any other Xbox game and that it drives "significant profits" for Microsoft.

Considering the breadth of Minecraft's releases and widespread reach on practically every platform where games are made available, this small tidbit isn't exactly a surprise. The game is (and has been) everywhere, including the best-selling Nintendo Switch and the market-leading PlayStation. In a previous interview from March 2023 with Xbox On, Phil Spencer said that Minecraft had 'maybe 120 million MAUs.' Matching that up with previous statements that first-party Xbox games have a total of 150 million monthly active users (MAUs) on all platforms, we can see that Minecraft accounts for almost all of Xbox's current active players.

Further doubt has been cast over whether Intel will manage to head up its future Arrow Lake CPUs with a 40-core flagship.

You may recall that the 40-core chip - theoretically combining 8 performance cores with 32 efficiency cores - was previously rumored, then thought to be canceled, and then the grapevine indicated it might be back in the cards.

However, the latest from a regular hardware leaker on Twitter, Raichu, acknowledges that Intel does indeed have plans for this 40-core beast of a 15th-gen processor, but that it's struggling with realizing them.