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Square Enix executives tell investors that the company will continue its current "multi-platform strategy" in the coming years.

Unlike publishers like Take-Two or Electronic Arts, Square Enix is a rather flexible video games company that doesn't feel it has to release every game on every platform. The Japanese publisher has a different definition of multi-platform: Instead of launching its games on every system, Square Enix likely picks the best fit for its games based on a number of factors, including total installed base, mass-market appeal, and of course, which platform-holders would pay a premium.

This often involves signing exclusivity deals that lock Square Enix's heaviest-hitting titles to PlayStation. We've seen a number of recent Square Enix games skip Xbox, including Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which cannot come to Xbox due to the terms of Sony's exclusivity deal, and Final Fantasy 16, which may also be locked to PlayStation in a similar fashion. It's not just PlayStation, though; Square Enix will indeed sign deals with both Nintendo and PlayStation at the same time--Octopath Traveler II, for example, is not available on Xbox.

Square Enix's new action RPG Forspoken appears to be a major flop for the publisher, and the game's poor performance could impact the company's full-year earnings.

The gaming world hasn't been kind to Square Enix's latest game. Billed as a high-fantasy Kid in King Arthur's Court with modern-day pizazz and mystical sorcery, Forspoken's launch was met with ridicule and memes. The in-game dialog was lampooned on social media, and reviews were generally not favorable.

Now Square Enix has pretty much confirmed what we had already guessed: Forspoken is not doing well. Our first clue was when Square Enix dissolved and re-absorbed Luminous Productions, the developer who had made Forspoken.

Microsoft has officially confirmed that its touted 150 million figure is a combination of Nintendo Switch platforms and NVIDIA's GeForce Now streaming service.

Microsoft has made a very compelling pro-merger argument to EU regulators. The company feels that its recent 10-year Call of Duty licensing deals with NVIDIA and Nintendo will promote competition by expanding the $31 billion franchise to platforms and services where it currently is not available. The argument seems like an ace up Microsoft's sleeve and has reportedly swayed European Commission regulators.

As part of a press conference held shortly after its meeting with the EC, Microsoft's Brad Smith introduced a figure that was hard to ignore. Smith asserted that Microsoft's deals with NVIDIA and Nintendo would allow 150 million more people to access Call of Duty. Microsoft even took out a full-page ad in the Financial Times that featured the massive figure.

Video footage of Microsoft's February press conference in Brussels has clarified one of most confusing data points presented in merger communications.

Back in February, Microsoft met with European regulators to present new developments in Activision merger proceedings. Microsoft announced that it had signed 10-year agreements with Nintendo and NVIDIA for Call of Duty. Shortly after its hearing with regulators, Microsoft then held a press conference that presented some interesting and somewhat confusing information.

Microsoft's Brad Smith claimed that Sony's PlayStation conquered its competitors with an 80% share of the European Economic Area (EEA) console market, which includes all European Union countries alongside Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. Microsoft's Xbox, on the other hand, only commanded 20% of this market. There's just one big question: Where is Nintendo? After all, the Switch has sold millions more units than Xbox and the Switch platform has made nearly $67 billion from games, hardware, and services.

Video footage of Microsoft's press conference in Brussels has surfaced, revealing the entirety of what MSFT President Brad Smith said during the event.

February 21 was a big day for the Microsoft-Activision merger. Regulators at the European Commission held a closed-door hearing on the merger, and Microsoft was given time to present new concessions that it had independently created with competitors. That day Microsoft announced that it had signed 10-year agreements to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms and NVIDIA's GeForce Now service, satisfying potential access issues on console and game streaming. This was a master stroke on Microsoft's part, and here's why.

Shortly after the private hearing with the EC, Microsoft held a press conference in Brussels to publicly announce the 10-year deals, reiterate its key points, present some interesting data, and admonish Sony for its unwillingness to deal.

Sony has repeatedly said that Microsoft's 10-year Call of Duty deal is not good for PlayStation, but it can't tell us why because Microsoft has redacted the terms of the confidential business agreement.

Microsoft's 10-year Call of Duty licensing deal is bad for business, or at least that's what Sony is saying. The PlayStation firm, who generated over $24 billion from games in 2022, has said the merger would "irreparably harm" the industry. Sony has said no to Microsoft's Call of Duty deal but it can't tell us exactly how the deal is bad for Sony, or why they won't accept it.

Why? Because the terms of the agreement are protected from the public. In a new statement, Sony says that Microsoft legal counsel redacted specific parts of the agreement. This isn't some nefarious deed on Microsoft's part, though. It's pretty standard that a sensitive agreement would remain private--both Microsoft and Sony have a lot to lose if specific numbers got out.

As Microsoft prepares to spend $68.7 billion to acquire Activision-Blizzard, Sony's management confirms that it has $5 billion left to make strategic investments and acquisitions.

Every four years, Sony's board of directors creates a new Mid-Range Plan that sets a spending budget for the period. Sony's current Mid-Range Plan has authorized the company to spend 2 trillion yen (about $14.6 billion in today's conversion rates) on acquisitions and investments, business expansion, and share buybacks. The coffers haven't run out yet, and Sony still has multiple billions of dollars to spend.

Sony's new president Hiroki Totoki has confirmed that 1.3 trillion yen has been spent so far, leaving 700 billion yen (or about $5.1 billion) that can be spent from April 2023 to March 2024. This remainder does reflect the $3.7 billion that Sony spent to acquire Bungie. Also remember that this value is for all of Sony Corp., and not just PlayStation. However, Totoki does say that he wants to continue making investments in Sony's three entertainment segments, so we could see another gaming acquisition.

Sony Corp.'s new president Hiroki Totoki is confident in the new PSVR2's success, and says there is a "good chance" of the new headset beating the original PSVR's sales.

Sony's new PSVR2 is facing tough challenges. The VR headset launched in an inflation-driven economy with a steep $549 price tag, and also requires a PS5 in order to play, bringing the minimum cost of the PSVR2 experience to $948 before taxes. The PSVR2 may face more prohibitive roadblocks if the games market continues to shrink and contract from economic conditions.

Despite market contractions, Sony management is optimistic on the PSVR2's success. After all, the VR market has expanded thanks a wider spectrum of hardware, from Meta's affordable Quest HMDs to Sony's PSVR offerings all the way to Valve's higher-end Index VR headsets.

Sony believes the PlayStation 5 will sell over 60 million consoles throughout its lifespan.

With 32.1 million shipments to date, the PlayStation 5 is off to a great start considering its supply issues. Sony management expects to at least double that figure in the coming years as the company ramps up production and manufacturing of the system.

Could the PS5 outsell the PS5? It's hard to say, but the PS5 still has not shipped as much as the PS4 did in launch-aligned sales; figures show that the PS4 achieved 37.9 million shipments in its first nine quarters, as compared to the PS5's 32.1 million. Sony hasn't commented on whether or not the PS5 will beat the PS4, but the company is confident its newer PlayStation could beat 60 million sales.

AMD's Ryzen 7000 CPUs had their sales momentum hampered by the cost of upgrading initially, with expensive motherboards being part of the problem right off the bat - but now truly affordable AM5 options are arriving.

Enter stage left the ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2 motherboard, which Newegg is offering for US$125 right now, a US$15 discount on the recommended price (US$140).

We say Newegg is offering it, although at the time of writing, it's still officially on pre-order, but it goes on sale today (March 10), so should be available in a matter of hours (probably by the time you read this).

Fortnite fans hanging on for dear life to outdated versions of Windows, be warned - you'll no longer be able to play the game on anything older than Windows 10.

Epic Games made this change for Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 2, which kicks off today, although the developer had already told us that this would happen at the tail end of last year.

Both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 are officially not supported now, and Epic suggests that users of those operating systems take a different tack to enjoy Fortnite on their PCs - namely streaming.

The PotatoP 'laptop form factor device' is a new project ushering in a portable with a startling amount of battery life - two years of (claimed) longevity, in fact.

And the ultimate aim of this creation is to achieve 'endless' battery life, so you'll never have to plug it into the mains if the inventor manages to pull this off.

Looking at the PotatoP - named playfully after the term 'potato PC' referring to a seriously underpowered computer - rather than a laptop, it appears to be more like a cross between an old Commodore Amiga and a Kindle e-reader (sort of).

NASA has published a new image captured by its famous Hubble Space Telescope, which has been in service for more than 30 years.

Hubble has honed its sensitive instruments on what NASA calls NGC-6530, which is an open cluster that contains several hundred thousand stars. This open cluster is approximately 4350 light-years away from Earth and resides in the constellation Sagittarius. Notably, the image showcases just a portion of NGC-6530, which is sitting within an even larger nebula called the Lagoon Nebula.

The European Space Agency (ESA), which joint-operates Hubble with NASA, explains the Lagoon Nebula is a large interstellar cloud that is made up of gas and dust. The discovery of NGC-6530 came while astronomers were searching the Lagoon Nebula for proplyds, which is a type of protoplanetary disk that forms around a newborn star. Furthermore, newborn stars begin as a convergence of gas and dust that eventually collapses inwards after forming a somewhat of a blob shape.

The International Space Station was potentially on route for a collision course with an Earth-observing satellite, confirms NASA in a new blog post.

The space agency took to its website to give an update on the happenings of the International Space Station (ISS), and according to NASA, there was a risk of collision between the floating laboratory and an Earth-observing satellite. Officials were required to engage thrusters on the Progress 83 resupply vessel at approximately 7:42 am to raise the orbit of the entire outpost in order to prevent any chance for a collision.

NASA writes in its blog post that thrusters were engaged for just over six minutes and that the maneuver won't impact the upcoming departure of the Crew-5 mission. So, whose satellite almost smacked into the ISS? According to reports, the satellite that the ISS had to dodge appears to be an Argentinian Earth-observation satellite that was launched back in 2020. This factoid comes from Sandra Jones of NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Elon Musk finalized his acquisition of Twitter in late October last year, and shortly after Musk became the official owner of Twitter, an internal crisis presented itself.

As previously stated, Musk took over the company in late October, and in the few months that followed, changes to the platform were rolled out that caused many of Twitter's advertisers to either pause or completely pull out their advertising expenditure with the platform. This is notable as 90% of Twitter's revenue was made up of advertiser spending before Musk took control of the company.

According to a newly published report by The Wall Street Journal, which explored Twitter's recent update to investors, more than 70% of Twitter's top advertisers have paused spending with the platform, leading to an immense 40% decline in earnings year-over-year. So, why did this happen? Leading up to the purchase of Twitter, Musk expressed what he wished to do with the platform if he ever gained control of it. The Tesla CEO said that he would open up the platform and support the right to freedom of speech and roll back some of the platform's then-stringent content moderation policies.

Meta, the owner of Facebook, has developed a powerful language model that's its answer to OpenAI's insanely popular ChatGPT.

OpenAI's ChatGPT has paved the way for the popularity of artificial intelligence-powered systems, demonstrating the immense power of language models trained on varying amounts of datasets, each containing gigabytes of data. Following the public release of ChatGPT were announcements from other companies joining the AI race, Google revealed more details about its various AI-projects, while Microsoft rolled out Bing Chat, an AI-powered search engine tool.

Now Meta has thrown its hat into the ring with a new announcement about a language model called LLamA. While Meta's language model isn't publicly available, but users can request access to the download file. According to Meta, the intention behind a semi-public rollout is "further democratizing access" to the AI, which enables developers to identify problems within the AI. Essentially, Meta is soft-rolling out the language model to the AI community so users can troubleshoot it.

Speaking to Newsweek, Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett revealed that he believes the US government is already reverse engineering UFO technology.

Burchett revealed to the publication that he believes alien UFO technology may be "being reverse-engineered right now", but engineers "just don't understand" how it functions. The Congressman goes on to say that the US "recovered a craft at some point, and possible beings." These claims from Burchett come on the heels of four objects being shot down in North American skies in February.

The first object was identified as a Chinese spy balloon, the three remaining as yet to be recovered but are also believed to be types of commercial or research entities, likely balloons of different configurations. The remaining three objects were brought down by US fighter jets over Alaska, Canada, and Lake Huron, Michigan. None of the remaining objects have been officially identified, but officials are inclined to lead with the aforementioned explanation of various man-made research balloons.

Elon Musk has commented on a movie currently in development about his life, business ventures, and eventual takeover of Twitter.

According to a new article published by Variety, Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney will be behind the camera on a new documentary that focuses on the life of Elon Musk. The new movie, which has been in production for a number of months, was announced on Monday by Gibney, and according to the director, it will provide a "definitive and unvarnished examination of multi-billionaire tech entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter". The movie is being produced by Jigsaw Productions, Closer Media, Anonymous Content, and Double Agent.

Musk took to Twitter to comment on the announcement of the new documentary, writing under a post by DogeDesigner, "It's a hit piece". Musk fans quickly rushed to the comment section to propose titles for the documentary, with some suggesting "The Irony Man", a reference to Elon Musk being the real-life Tony Stark, or Iron Man.

Before Bethesda delivered the fully-3D first-person Fallout 3, the Fallout franchise lived in the isometric cRPG space.

Developed by Black Isle Studios, Fallout 2 came out in 1998 for PC. The post-apocalyptic setting, deep RPG mechanics, and biting social satire made it a classic PC game that players repeatedly revisit.

This also means that the Fallout 2 mod community has been thriving for decades, and the latest from modder 'Black_Electric' called Talking Heads Actually Talk (THAT) Mod adds voiced dialog for over 40 NPCs in the game-a passion project born from volunteer work and a cast of professional and non-professional actors.

With the arrival of PCIe Gen 5 SSDs, we've seen a massive boost in read speeds compared to where PCIe Gen tech was only a couple of years ago. As the first PCIe Gen 5 SSDs hit the market with ratings in the impressive 10,000 MB/s range on the high-end, Sabrent is working closely with Phison to develop a new line of PCIe Gen 5 SSDs that can push read speeds up to 14,000 MB/s.

Sabrent is still in the testing and development stage, but it has shared some of the tests it's carried out on its new Sabrent Rocket X5 Gen 5 SSD.

Sabrent has passed the 12,000 MB/s barrier with results from CrystalDiskMark - effectively breaking all current SSD records. It also almost hit 12,000 MB/s write speeds, which is pretty incredible.