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Sony Group Corp. CEO Kenichiro Yoshida comments on PlayStation's cloud gaming initiatives, and indicates that its proprietary GT Sophy artificial intelligence could play a larger role in emerging segment.

Although it has become more relevant today thanks to the Microsoft-Activision merger, cloud gaming has actually been around for quite some time. Sony became a pioneer in the tech after purchasing Gaikai for $380 million back in 2012 and then launching its PlayStation Now game streaming service. 11 years later, cloud gaming remains a nascent and substantially small part of the overall video games market (European Commission VP Margrethe Vestager has said cloud represents 1-3% of gaming earnings).

While UK regulators at the CMA believe cloud gaming will grow over time, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida notes that game streaming faces considerable challenges and has a more realistic outlook on the technology.

CD Projekt Group management confirms that R&D on the new Cyberpunk game will begin in 2024.

Last year, CD Projekt announced Project Orion, a fully-fledged sequel to Cyberpunk 2077. Details on the new game are slim, but based on the publisher's new live game services focus, we expect that Orion is in some part a continuation of the Cyberpunk 2077 standalone AAA multiplayer game that CD Projekt had discussed some time ago.

We could be waiting quite some time for the game. Project Orion hasn't begun principal development just yet, and CD Projekt Group is planned to start spending on R&D for the game throughout 2024. This is an early phase of development that's technically pre-production, so the actual game may not release until a few years afterwards.

BioShock creator Ken Levine shares the storytelling process and motivations that he used in order to write the fan-favorite series.

BioShock is known far and wide for its unique story that weaves themes of classism, history, and unchecked tyranny in a fictional underwater city full of art deco beauty. But how exactly did this classical story come to light?

In a recent interview on Colin Moriarty's Sacred Symbols podcast, BioShock creator Ken Levine shared some interesting insight into his core motivations for the games. Levine explores topics like understanding perspectives from a villain's point of view alongside assertions that everything always has to be in service of characters.

Square Enix's developers give new updates on Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2, including what to expect with exploration and overall release date.

In a recent Facebook update, Square Enix has delivered two new small Q&As with key developers of the new Final Fantasy VII Rebirth game that's due out in 2023 on PlayStation 5 consoles.

According to game producer Yoshinori Kitase, one of the main concerns with Rebirth is locking in a release date. The publisher currently plans to release two major AAA Final Fantasy games in 2023, with Final Fantasy XVI on June 22 and Rebirth expected to release sometime in Winter 2023. It's possible that Rebirth is pushed out to early 2024, possibly before Square Enix's fiscal year ends on March 31, or it could even get pushed into Square Enix's next FY23 timeline to help break apart and stagger game sales.

The reports were correct: Asypr has officially cancelled development of KOTOR II's planned DLCs on Nintendo Switch.

One of the biggest selling points of the new KOTOR II re-release on the Nintendo Switch was the promise that missing content would be added back into the game. Back in 2004, KOTOR II launched as an unfinished game with a portion of its gameplay, features, and content left on the cutting room floor so that Obsidian could get the game out to consumers more quickly. This happens very, very often in the video games industry.

Aspyr, who was previously handling the KOTOR Remake, had originally planned to re-incorporate KOTOR II's unreleased content into the 2022 re-release and sell the first complete version of the beloved RPG. The cut features have been identified for many years thanks to the Sith Restoration Project.

With the new Zelda game, Nintendo has created an incredible playground for user-generated content...and it could be the beginning of something interesting for the company.

Gamers are making some really outrageous, elaborate, and often amazing things in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, including airships, gimbal aircraft, and even Tie Fighters straight out of Star Wars. Combined with a world ripe for the picking, the game's new Ultrahand power offers such massive creative freedom and should help extend TotK's overall lifespan for many, many years, but it could also be a magic ticket to a new realm of possibility for Nintendo.

Some of the biggest games on the market rely on what's called user-generated content, or UGC. Both Minecraft and Roblox rely on UGC to promote engagement, sell copies of games, and in Roblox's case, push microtransactions. These games have huge player bases in the millions of users, with 66.1 million people playing Roblox every day.

The U.S. House Oversight Committee has opened a probe into Chair Lina Khan's leadership at the Federal Trade Commission on allegations of "abuses of power."

Today the United States House of Representatives Oversight Committee has announced that it is probing the FTC in order to address allegations made by former Republican FTC Commissioner Christine S. Wilson, who in an Wall Street Journal op-ed said that FTC Chair Lina Khan was "abusing her power" to "achieve desired outcomes."

In a formal letter to the FTC, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer outlines key concerns that lead to questions on whether or not the Federal Trade Commission has become a "rogue agency."

Microsoft and Activision may be ready to take drastic measures in order to merge and become one of the biggest powerhouses in the video games industry.

Microsoft is currently looking at ways to carry on with its $68.7 billion Activision merger without the United Kingdom's approval. The megaton merger was blocked by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, and with the merger's July 14 deadline fast approaching, it's possible that Microsoft and Activision could "close over" and proceed with the merger despite the CMA block.

There are already plans underway to close the deal in the United States despite the FTC's current administrative lawsuit. The FTC would need an injunction from a federal court in order to get the merger blocked, and this could be challenging as the merger has already been approved in the European Union for similar reasons as the FTC's anti-competitive objections.

EA has announced a partnership with Nike Virtual Studios to bring .Swoosh "virtual creations" to future EA Sports games. Now the publisher needs to clarify exactly what is happening before the announcement turns into a full-blown controversy.

Note: Most of this article is speculation based on limited information presented by Nike and Electronic Arts. The actual plan for Nike .Swoosh integration may be different than what is presented here. Speculation is required due to the limited amount of information made available by both companies.

It appears that Electronic Arts will tie its billion-dollar EA Sports brand to a new iteration of the NFT market in some form. Today, EA and Nike announced a partnership to bring .Swoosh digital collectibles into new EA Sports games. So...what are .Swoosh "virtual collectibles?" Most people think these are NFTs, but they resemble a kind of game-less lootbox that you buy with real money instead of cryptocurrency.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is expected to make $1 billion at launch, and is expected to sell at least 25 million copies upon release.

GTA 6 is one of the most anticipated games of the modern era, and Take-Two Interactive has telegraphed a potential Holiday 2024 or early 2025 launch for the crime sim. According to a recent newsletter from games industry expert Joost van Dreunen, initial forecasts for Grand Theft Auto 6 sales are around 25 million.

"Assuming a 2025 launch window, which is optimistic given the publisher's propensity for delays, early estimates expect the new title to sell 25 million units," van Dreunen writes.

Intel could have Beast Lake desktop processors in the pipeline that are hugely clocked up and designed for excellent single-core performance to challenge AMD's 3D V-Cache (X3D) chips in the gaming arena.

Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) makes this claim in a new video (that also discusses Arrow Lake in-depth, which we cover here), and upfront we should note that this rumor needs to be regarded with a lot more skepticism than usual (wheelbarrows full of the stuff, frankly).

MLID tells us that the purported Beast Lake silicon is in early development - it might arrive in 2026, at the earliest - and the leaker isn't even sure if it's a new architecture or just some kind of "side project" we're told.

Intel's Arrow Lake processors are still on track and expected to make a massive impact in terms of performance uplift, headed up by a 40-core flagship, going by some fresh speculation.

Yes, Moore's Law is Dead (MLID), the well-known YouTube leaker who always has plenty to say about Intel and AMD (and NVIDIA), has released another video in which Arrow Lake is one of the topics discussed.

The latest from MLID's sources indicates that Arrow Lake is still on target for an expected launch in Q4 2024 (on both laptop and desktop), and that a previously rumored 40-core CPU is back in the cards.

If it falls under the PC gaming umbrella, then there are at least a dozen or more examples to see at Computex 2023, including gaming keyboards. If I had to choose one that impressed me regarding build quality, style, and feel, it must be Ducky's ProjectD Outlaw 65.

It's not only built like a tank (with the weight to match, seriously, it's probably the heaviest keyboard we've ever picked up) but could even launch with a price point upwards of USD 599 (or somewhere in the region of USD 499). Pricing comes down to its 'spare no expense' construction and full customization. This isn't an off-the-shelf keyboard; it's a DIY kit you'll need to assemble.

DIY mechanical keyboard kits are always more expensive, like buying a car's parts and trying to assemble them. Okay, it's not that drastic. But, the luxury car world has partly inspired Ducky's ProjectD Outlaw 65, and at Computex 2023, we saw all 11 layers of the impressive keyboard on display. Let's break them down.

The emergence of artificial intelligence-powered technologies has certainly been impressive with tools such as ChatGPT, but now we are starting to see AI-powered tools enter into military operations.

The AI we see today is far from perfect, but what we do know for certain is that current-level AI is the worst it's ever going to be and will only be improved from this day forward. An example of AI falling short has come from Col. Tucker "Cinco" Hamilton, head of the US Air Force's AI Test and Operations, who spoke at a conference in London where he explained that during a military simulation, an AI-powered drone was instructed to identify and destroy an enemy surface-to-air missile (SAM).

While at times the AI-powered drone successfully completed its objective, other times it did not and failed in a worrying fashion. According to Hamilton, the AI-powered drone was sometimes instructed by the human operator not to kill the enemy SAM and to simply identify it. However, the drone had other "ideas," as Hamilton explained that despite being given clear instructions, it would still carry out terminating the enemy SAM. Furthermore, when the AI drone was instructed not to kill the enemy SAM, it turned on the human operator, killing them, as the human operator was preventing it from completing its initial objective.

We recently reviewed the new ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz PG27AQN Gaming Monitor, a G-SYNC 1440p display for competitive and esports gamers that delivers impressive results. At Computex 2023, during a tour of NVIDIA's HQ, we saw a new firmware update to the high refresh-rate G-SYNC module found in the display, which reduces motion blur and improves image clarity. NVIDIA G-SYNC Ultra Low Motion Blur 2, or ULMB 2 for short, is impressive.

After a simple firmware update, the new ULMB 2 tech implements a new full refresh rate backlight strobing technique and uses the display's full brightness (in this case, 500 nits) to reduce motion blur and improve things like text clarity pretty dramatically. Due to the nature of the technology, this is one of those things that you need to see in person to get the full effect, and on that front, NVIDIA had two identical ASUS ROG Swift 360Hz PG27AQN displays side-by-side - one with ULMB 2 and one without.

How it works is quite impressive, and even though cranking a display to 500 nits might sound like you'll need to slap on a pair of sunglasses, the full refresh rate backlight strobing means that the backlight is only on when pixels are at their correct color value. As per NVIDIA's announcement, "the idea is to not show the pixels transitioning, and only show them when their color is accurate." For the demo we saw, this meant that perceived brightness was similar to the same display at 50% brightness without ULMB 2.

Capcom's latest public survey saves its best question for the very end: What Resident Evil game do you want remade?

Capcom is on fire right now. The company just recorded its 7th straight consecutive year of operating profit growth and managed to sell 41.7 million games in FY22. Resident Evil 4 is performing strongly with over 4 million units sold worldwide, continuing the long-running success of Capcom's new remake lineup.

Now that RE4 Remake has been delivered, Capcom wants to know where it should go next, and is directly asking fans what Resident Evil games they'd like to see get the remake treatment. There isn't a selection to choose from--Capcom doesn't want to play its hand too early--and fans can freely submit whatever title they want. Do you want to see Code Veronica next? Maybe Resident Evil 5 or 6 as the next remake? Now's your chance to make your voice heard.

Redfall's controversial reception could have been even worse if the game launched with its intended storefront.

A new report from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has illuminated some of the major problems that Arkane faced with Redfall, its latest vampire-themed looter-shooter. The game's trouble story stems from deep alignment and scope issues from the get-go, with many of the original Prey development team leaving en masse as the game suffered an identity crisis that tore Redfall between a singleplayer-driven experience and an online multiplayer shooter.

General games-as-a-service inexperience exacerbated these issues, with Arkane facing the infinite complexities of maintaining a live game both operationally and mechanically. Redfall is something that Arkane's management did want to make, however PR secrecy led to significant short-staffing for a studio that was simply already in over its head when it comes to live service titles.

WhatsApp has grown to become one of the biggest instant messaging platforms on the planet but it's always had one particular problem - there was no real way to sign into an account on multiple devices at the same time. That's changing thanks to companion mode, and now that mode is rolling out on the iPhone.

Companion mode has been available on other platforms for a little while but this is the first time that we've heard of it starting to be added to some people's accounts who use iPhones. According to a WABetaInfo report, some people are now seeing the feature become available after installing the latest version of WhatsApp from the App Store.

WhatsApp first announced companion mode back in April 2023 and it admitted at the time that it was a feature that was highly requested by users. Companion mode allows users to connect up to four additional devices to an account linked to an iPhone.

Unlike its first phone, Nothing is bringing the Phone (2) to the United States and the company will officially announce more details about the phone at some point next month. Now, the company has confirmed a couple of little tidbits of information ahead of time relating to software and the Phone (2) display.

The news came via a series of tweets posted to the social network that confirmed a couple of interesting things, especially for those who thought the Phone (1) was a little on the small side.

Perhaps the most notable part of the tweets was the fact that Nothing will make the Phone (2) as sustainable as possible. To do that it says that it is committed to continuing to offer three years of Android updates as well as four years of security updates - something that should ensure that not only do Phone (2) buyers get new features but that they're also protected in terms of security flaws and whatnot.

Potential buyers of Apple's very best Macs should probably wait a little while before picking up a new one because a new report claims that the company has something new on the horizon.

A new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that Apple is now testing new versions of its Apple silicon with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips in the works. And with WWDC taking place on June 5, we can only imagine that there will be a new high-end Mac or two on the docket.

Apple is already expected to announce the 15-inch MacBook Air during the event on Monday, but Gurman has previously said that several new Macs are on the way. In a new report, Gurman says that Apple is planning two new Macs which are labeled internally as Mac 14,13 and Mac 14,14. Gurman believes that the two Macs are running multiple chips including the M2 Max that was announced in January 2022. The other chip is thought to be another high-end chip, likely to be called the M2 Ultra.