Gaming - Page 63

This is something you don't see every day: an ex-PlayStation 5 APU that comes in the form of the AMD BC250 APU, a cut-down version from the PS5 chip, being sold for around $120. And get this, it's more than capable of gaming, running Cyberpunk 2077 at around 40FPS.

YouTuber "Budget-Builds Official" ordered one of the BC250 boards, arriving as a server-style motherboard that featured power headers, I/O ports, a gigantic passive heatsink, as these BC250 boards were made for PS5-powered crypto-mining rigs.

Inside, the BC250 features a cut-down PS5 APU that is made up from Zen 2 CPU cores and RDNA 2 GPU cores, with 16GB of GDDR6 of unified memory that is split between the CPU and GPU. The YouTuber made a custom system for the BC250 board to be installed into, with a 1000W Corsair PSU, adding a CMOS battery, connecting to external SSD storage, and hooking up a mouse, keyboard, and monitor.

Blizzard is adding new digital money to World of Warcraft that lets players buy decorations and other housing items for real-world money.

World of Warcraft is officially getting a new virtual currency that can be purchased with real money. It's called Hearthsteel, and it's exclusively for WoW's new player housing system. Hearthsteel will become World of Warcraft's second paid currency, with the first being WoW Tokens.

"Hearthsteel is a new virtual currency for World of Warcraft being added in the Midnight expansion. It's purchased with real money using your Battle.net balance and used in turn to buy Housing items from the Battle.net shop and in-game shop,"Blizzard said.

Grand Theft Auto is one of the best-earning video game franchises of all time, and new data shows the series has made at least $10.2 billion since the launch of 2013's GTA V.

Take-Two's latest Q2 results give a quick refresh on the company's biggest games and confirmed some eye-opening numbers: GTA V has sold 220 million copies, and alongside Red Dead Redemption 2, Take-Two Interactive now has 2 of the 5 best-selling games of all time under its belt.

The report also gives a quick refresh on total Grand Theft Auto sales figures, and every quarter we cumulatively run these numbers with GTA V's huge $1.4 billion launch as a starting reference point. According to Take-Two's Q2'26 report, the GTA franchise has made at least $10.221 billion over the last 12 years since Grand Theft Auto V's release.

Nintendo tells investors that sales of its new Switch 2 console should maintain profitability even as individual component costs continue to rise.

Like its forebear, the Switch 2 was sold at a profit at launch. Nintendo management expects the Switch 2 to keep its current sales profitability "for the time being," even as individual parts, chips, and integrated circuits become more expensive.

In a recent Q&A with investors, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa says that the company will offset any rising costs by shaving off costs in other areas, not unlike what Sony did with its multiple PS5 and PS5 Pro hardware revisions. Other factors like further disruptions from tariffs are outside of Nintendo's control, and Furukawa appropriately warns investors of these risks.

Microsoft is officially retiring its free-to-play Halo game into maintenance mode on November 18.

Halo Studios is buckling down to focus on new Halo games, and has decided to move Halo Infinite aside while it works on multiple upcoming projects. The team has confirmed that Halo Infinite's upcoming Operation Infinite update will be the last major update for the free-to-play shooter.

"With multiple Halo titles in development, we'll need our whole team's combined focus to deliver new experiences with the same passion and care that our community has given us. While we remain committed to supporting Halo Infinite on the road ahead, Operation: Infinite is the last major content update currently planned."

AMD's older FX-9590 processor has been put through its paces on Battlefield 6, with a YouTuber trying to run BF6 on two older-gen CPUs: the Intel Core i7-2600K and AMD FX-9590 processors.

AMD released its FX-9590 processor over 10 years ago, with YouTuber "Fully Buffered" using the CPU with an AMD Radeon RX 5700 8GB graphics card in Battlefield 6. First, he tried the Intel Core i7-2600K processor, but the Intel CPU couldn't launch Battlefield 6 because there's no Secure Boot support, but the AMD FX-9590 fired the game out.

Fully Buffered discovered that the AMD FX-9590 + Radeon RX 5700 8GB combo was able to run Battlefield 6 at around 35FPS or so average, while sometimes it was pushing above 40FPS, at the 1080p resolution. CPU utilization

EA going private won't impact the next Mass Effect game, BioWare has confirmed.

BioWare celebrated N7 Day by giving an update on the next Mass Effect project, which still remains in development even as the developer's parent company prepares to go private in a $55 billion leveraged buyout.

Mass Effect executive producer Mike Gamble allays fan fears in the update, saying that the game is still very much in development and has not been cancelled. The studio is locked-in and exclusively focusing on Mass Effect--there won't be any Anthem- or Veilguard-styled interruptions this time--and we did get a bit of new teaser art showing a Krogan Civil War, potentially set after the events of the trilogy.

Mass Effect's Normandy ship is returning alongside the Beachhead Expedition, Hello Games has announced.

Starting today, the iconic SSV Normandy SR1 will swoop into No Man's Sky once again. Hello Games is re-running the Beachhead Expedition to celebrate N7 Day, allowing players to add the Normandy frigate to their fleet. Beachhead's second run will be from today, Nov 7 - Nov 18.

Take-Two Interactive now has 2 out of the top 5 best-selling video games of all time under its belt, and both of the titles are from Rockstar Games.

Take-Two Interactive is a strong force of the games industry, commanding some of the biggest franchises of the planet with Grand Theft Auto and the 2K Basketball series. The publisher's franchise slate is enviable, with annualized sports games churning out consistent revenue while colossal, multi-year releases like Grand Theft Auto V span multiple console generations and rake in over a decade of sales.

This diversified portfolio has given Take-Two a golden strategy for gaming: Sports games rake in thunderous yearly sales and microtransaction earnings, while marquee hits generate millions of sales per quarter (on top of GTA Online cash). When it comes to game sales, Rockstar shines brighter than the rest.

Borderlands 4's issues on PC have stymied sales targets, leading to lower-than-expected performance for the game.

Take-Two's latest Q2'26 earnings digest reveals key details about Borderlands 4's performance, showing that the game could have sold up to 5 million copies at release. Data gleaned from the investor report confirms the total Borderlands franchise has now sold an estimated 99 million copies to date.

Before Borderlands 4's launch, the series was at 94 million, and Gearbox's Randy Pitchford had confidently said that the sequel would push Borderlands franchise past 100 million units. That almost happened. While we technically don't know how many of those 5 million games sold are copies of Borderlands 4, it's likely the fourth installment takes up the vast majority of sales.

GTA 6 has been delayed for the second time, and now Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick explains why.

Yesterday, the most anticipated game in the last decade was delayed. GTA 6 is now launching on November 19, 2026, roughly six months after its original planned summertime release. Rockstar Games explains that they pushed the game back to deliver "the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve," (which is what they said last time), and now executive management delivers similar comments about the industry-defining aspirations of Grand Theft Auto 6.

In a recent Q&A with investors during Take-Two's Q2'26 earnings call, company CEO Strauss Zelnick says that delays are painful but necessary--and that the publisher has never regretted pushing a game back to focus on quality.

Rockstar Games has delayed GTA 6 to holiday 2026, a move that's sure to impact earnings forecasts. The six-month delay coincides with some interesting business moves that will help Rockstar earn in the meantime.

Yesterday, Take-Two and Rockstar Games delivered some bad news: GTA 6 has been delayed by six months, and is now releasing November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The good news? GTA Online is much cheaper to access as a standalone game, and GTA V is also coming to PlayStation Plus this month.

GTA V will be included in PS Plus Extra and Premium later this month, as reported by reliable Dealabs leaker billbil-kun. This will be the second time GTA V has been offered on PS Plus--the first introduction helped Rockstar make $190 million revenue during the holiday 2024 season.

On the heels of Grand Theft Auto 6 being officially delayed for a second time, Take Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has revealed Grand Theft Auto 5 continues to be an endless money cow for the publisher, with the twelve-year-old title now having sold more than 200 million units.

Rockstar Games officially announced that Grand Theft Auto 6 is being delayed to November 19, 2026, from its initial May 25, 2026, release date. The delay of GTA 6 marks the second time the title has been officially delayed from its announced release date.

The delay comes at a time when Rockstar is currently experiencing internal pushback from developers, with one anonymous developer revealing in a post on the GTAForums that morale at the studio has reached "rock bottom" following Rockstar's laying off several veteran developers in what the developers say is an effort to break up unionization.

A verified employee at Rockstar North has shed light on the current situation at the studio in a lengthy post on the GTAForums website, revealing that morale at the studio has hit "rock bottom".

The insight into the happenings at Rockstar comes after the developer officially delayed the release of Grand Theft Auto 6 to November 19, 2026, marking the second delay for the highly anticipated title. Additionally, the employee said the morale at the developer is at "rock bottom" following Rockstar firing between 30 and 40 staff members over what the employee says was "union-busting and nothing else". According to the employee, the staff who were fired were "predominantly from those who were on the Union Organising Committees of each UK studio."

Adding, "Those of us who are lucky and remain for now work in fear! Fearful when talking to each other at the tea prep, fearful that we're next in line and are easily got rid of, too scared to go outside the studio and talk to (or even acknowledge) our colleagues outside protesting in fear of reprisals."

Grand Theft Auto 6 has been officially delayed (again) from May 26, 2026, but will now release on November 19, 2026.

Rockstar took to its official X account to post the news, where the developer explains: "Hi everyone, Grand Theft Auto VI will now release on Thursday, November 19, 2026. We are sorry for adding additional time to what we realize has been a long wait, but these extra months will allow us to finish the game with the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve".

The news will surely send flames across the gaming industry, as GTA 6 had an original release window of Fall 2025, but was later delayed until May 26, 2026.

In what could be one of the most unlikely forms of collaboration, Netflix and A24 have teamed up to create a new TV show based on the video game Overcooked.

A24 has acquired the rights to Overcooked and will be creating a competition reality series alongside Netflix. The series won't be scripted and is said to be similar to Netflix reality shows such as Nailed It! and Floor Is Lava. According to a Deadline report, Overcooked intends to bring high-stakes kitchen challenges and aims to replicate the chaotic nature of the video game.

Gemma Langford, Oli De-Vine, and Phil Duncan from the Overcooked game developer Ghost Town Games and A24 are set to executive produce the show. For those who don't know, Overcooked is a multiplayer game traditionally played between 1 and 4 players.

Activision and Treyarch are scheduled to release Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 on November 14, but ahead of the release, copies of the PS5 version of the game have made it out into the public.

Images of the PS5 version of the game have been shared by the X account "CODIINTEL" and showcase the back and front of the title. Looking at the back of the physical edition, we can see that Black Ops 7 will weigh 166GB on PS5, which is quite substantial when considering the PC version of the game comes in at 116GB, per Activision's official PC specifications. Additionally, the back cover shows there won't be an offline mode for Black Ops 7.

As for the PC version of Black Ops 7, Activision released the specifications for it a few days ago, and we learnt there will be a few security requirements for players using Windows 11. TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot will be mandatory requirements for Black Ops 7, and players that are planning on jumping into the action on day-one should make sure both of these features are enabled in Windows before the game launches.

It was only recently that we heard Apple is currently in discussions with Google to gain access to Gemini and use it to upgrade Siri. Now, a figure has been thrown out, and it isn't small at all.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, a known Apple insider with an impeccable track record of knowing what the Cupertino company is up to before it's public, Apple is preparing to pay Google $1 billion per year for access to Gemini, which will then make the AI responsible for generating summaries and performing other AI-related tasks.

Gurman writes that Apple will use a custom Gemini model and run it on Apple's Private Cloud Compute servers, while also using in-house AI models to power some of Siri's other features. The Bloomberg reporter writes that the Gemini-Siri integration will be powered by a 1.2 trillion parameter model, which drastically exceeds the 150 billion parameter model that is currently powering Apple Intelligence.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is selling so well that the company is upwardly revising its full-year Switch 2 sales forecast to 19 million units, which seems to confirm recent reports of a major surge in production.

Nintendo's Q2 results are in, confirming major milestones for the company: the Switch 2 is the fastest-selling hardware of all time with 10.36 million consoles sold in 4 months on the market. The Switch 2 is selling so well that it's actually beaten the original Switch's 7-month shipments by 2.73 million units--and with 3 months of market sales to spare.

Predictably, Nintendo management were delighted by the results, and Switch 2 sales forecasts were raised by a substantial 4 million units on the confidence of the system's sales overperformance. Nintendo now expects to ship 19 million Switch 2 consoles in FY26, up from 15 million.

Ghost of Yotei was the #2 most-downloaded PlayStation 5 game throughout October, with Battlefield 6's premium version and RedSec battle royale taking the top spots, Sony has confirmed.

The top PlayStation Store downloads of October 2025 have been revealed, showing what the PS ecosystem's 123 million monthly active users are playing. EA's new Battlefield 6 took a commanding spot as the #1 best-selling PS5 game of the month, coinciding with the game appearing at, or near, the #1 top sales position on the public PS Store charts since release. Battlefield 6's free-to-play RedSec battle royale likewise did well, and was the most-downloaded F2P game on the PS Store for October 2025.

Ghost of Yotei took a strong position as the #2 most-downloaded game of the month, which is a good sign for the first-party game, and potentially the PlayStation division's profit margins. While we don't know how well Ghost of Yotei actually sold--we may get that data in a matter of months with Sony's latest Q2 FY25 results--EA did confirm that Battlefield 6 sold 7 million copies on all platforms in 3 days. The majority of these sales are said to be on PC, and it's tough to make any kind of cross-platform approximation.