Wccftech News, Tips, Tricks, Ideas

Samsung is reported to stick with a dual-chipset launch strategy for its upcoming Galaxy S25 series, where some regions will offer the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, while others will sell the Exynos 2500 variants. The Exynos 2400 provided a slew of surprises as the company significantly improved its current-generation flagship SoC. Next year, Samsung is expected to kick things up a notch and is rumored to leverage its second-generation 3nm process to mass produce the Exynos 2500. This move could give the SoC power efficiency attributes that dwarf Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.

Huawei did not reveal much about the Kirin 9010, but the company could do little when it comes to controlling information after it officially announced the Pura 70 series. Compared to the Kirin 9000S that debuted in the Mate 60 family last year, the Kirin 9010 is a noteworthy upgrade, offering a 12-core configuration, along with other changes, as you will soon find out.

For nearly two years, Microsoft's unprecedented $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard stayed in the news, mostly due to the Windows and Xbox company's battle with certain regulators (chiefly the US FTC and the UK CMA). That came to an end, even though the FTC is still trying to unmake the deal, on October 13, when Microsoft announced the closure of the acquisition.

The PlayStation 5 Pro CPU is unlikely to improve performance in CPU-bound titles and may not even be enough to implement 40 FPS modes that are impossible on the base model.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

iOS 18 will open new doors for the iPhone in terms of utility and possibly UI design changes, which will make it the biggest update Apple has released since the beginning of the platform itself. The company's AI-driven utilities will extend beyond standard features as it is expected to implement the technology on a system level, with various apps gaining improvements. The latest information suggests that the Notes app in iOS 18 will offer Voice Memos and math functionality within the app for convenience and easier access.

Homeworld 3 has suffered a number of delays on its road to launch, but it seems the game is actually sticking to its May release date. In fact, publisher Gearbox is detailing the game’s post-launch content, which will focus on the game’s roguelike-flavored multiplayer mode, War Games, with additional free challenges and three paid DLC content drops which you can acquire via the game’s $20 Year One Pass.

The Qi standard is typically employed when giving a smartphone the ability to top up the battery wirelessly. However, there might be a different way of wirelessly charging future devices that can run Android 15, and that is NFC Wireless Charging support. According to the latest findings, Google is figuring out a way to bring this technology to supported models, bringing in some level of convenience, regardless of whether this approach is inferior to the Qi standard.

After the early access launch trailer, Moon Studios has now released the PC system requirements for the action RPG No Rest for the Wicked. There's a very big difference between minimum and recommended, to say the least.

Black Myth Wukong, the upcoming action RPG from Chinese developer Game Science, has received a PlayStation Store page.

Intel's next-generation Lunar Lake-V "Core Ultra 200V" CPUs are going to feature 8 CPU cores, 8 GPU cores & 32 GB of on-package LPDDR5X memory.

Just as they received the Game of the Year prize at the GDC Awards in San Francisco, the developers of Baldur's Gate 3 announced through Larian CEO Swen Vincke that they wouldn't continue to make a sequel or even DLCs for the acclaimed cRPG.

The official Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut PC system requirements were revealed today, highlighting how the game will run well on a wide range of system specifications as well as making it shine on high-end PCs.

Public Alpha testing for The War Within, the tenth World of Warcraft expansion, is about to begin. Ahead of this important development milestone, Wccftech joined a roundtable Q&A session featuring Blizzard's Michael Bybee (Production Director on all World of Warcraft), Sean McCann (Senior Content Designer), and several colleagues from the press for an hour-long conversation.

The Grand Theft Auto 6 map could be over two times bigger than its predecessor, judging from an ongoing mapping project.

Publisher Bohemia Interactive has had a large impact on PC gaming over the past decade or so, with major genre-defining titles like Arma and DayZ to their name. But did you know Bohemia also has another major game it’s currently supporting that’s never been on PC? Initially released back in 2019, the free-to-play Vigor has attracted over 20 million players on Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch, but it's never been released on PC. Why? Honestly, I don’t know! Obviously, not every game has to come to PC, but Vigor is the type of experience that specifically does well on the platform, so it doesn’t make much sense.

Square Enix has deployed Final Fantasy XVI update 1.31 for PlayStation 5, packing various improvements alongside changes and bug fixes.

11 Bit Studios has become reliable since initially jumping onto the scene with Anomaly: Warzone Earth. The outstanding This War of Mine gave them that broader appeal, followed four years later by Frostpunk. The excellent reception of Frostpunk, critically and commercially, with over three million copies sold, meant a sequel was inevitable. This brings us to Frostpunk 2, which will be released later this year and is currently in an open beta.

Possible specifications of Intel's next-gen Granite Rapids-AP "Xeon 6" CPUs with up to 128 P-Cores have been leaked.

It's unfortunately time for yet another round of layoffs in the gaming industry as Take-Two Interactive announced a 5% reduction of its workforce. This translates to around 600 employees and follows similar reductions announced in the last few months by the likes of Epic Games, Riot Games, Microsoft, Sony, and Electronic Arts, not to mention many other such situations that occurred at smaller studios like Supermassive Games and Hidden Path Entertainment to name a couple.

AI startup TensorWave, believes that AMD's Instinct MI300X accelerator is a far better option than competitors such as NVIDIA's H100.

NVIDIA's Blackwell AI GPUs are expected to lift every other associated segment, including CoWoS (TSMC) & HBM DRAM, as the market expects millions of chips to be shipped by 2025.

Like previous entries in the series, Mortal Kombat 1 is rolling out plenty of DLC fighters, with the game’s first “Kombat Pack” including Omni-Man from Invincible, Quan Chi, Peacemaker from Suicide Squad, Ermac, Homelander from The Boys, and Takahashi Takeda.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that certain first-party Xbox titles would be going multiplatform, including Obsidian’s charming “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” style co-op survival game Grounded. Well, today Grounded: Fully Yoked Edition officially hits PS4, PS5, and Switch. That said, there’s no reason for you Xbox owners to feel left out – the Fully Yoked edition comes with a number of new features, which you’ll be getting right alongside folks on the new platforms. These features include New Game+, queen ants, extra goodies to collect, and more. Sadly, this will be the last major update for Grounded, but it sounds like a meaty one at least. You can check out a trailer for Grounded: Fully Yoked Edition, below.

While many are voicing their doubts regarding the need for the PlayStation 5 Pro, the console is somewhat needed to push visuals and performance forward for current generation games, as the PlayStation 5 having some sort of "untapped" potential is just an internet myth.

Manor Lords is currently the most wishlisted game on Steam ahead of games like Hades II and Black Myth: Wukong, having surpassed two million wishlists earlier this year.

NVIDIA is working with its partners to create a new SFF gaming PC ecosystem which will be driven by "SFF Enthusiast GeForce" GPUs.

While Sony has yet to make any sort of official announcement, rumors about the upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro are coming hot-and-heavy. We recently heard that developers will need to include PS5 Pro compatibility in their games to get certified as soon as this August, and now The Verge has provided some more details about what a game needs to do to earn the “PS5 Pro Enhanced” label.

AMD today announces the launch of its Ryzen PRO 8000 "Hawk Point" Desktop APUs for the business segment, bringing CPU, GPU, & AI leadership to commercial PCs with a strong set of "PRO" technologies.

The Witcher 3 REDkit beta sign-ups have been opened today, allowing users interested in testing the game's official modding tools before release to request early access.

Qualcomm might find it difficult to tame the power consumption of the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, despite the chipset reported on multiple occasions to be mass produced on TSMC’s 3nm ‘N3E’ node. Theoretically, an improved manufacturing process should mean that the flagship SoC will be energy-efficient, but a tipster hints that smartphone makers opting to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in their models will add bigger batteries. Companies may compensate for the silicon’s increased power by incorporating bigger cells to deliver that record runtime.

AMD's Ryzen PRO 8040 APUs debut today, slamming Intel's Core Ultra vPRO in all segments with strong performance & AI capabilities.

A new Fallout 4 NVIDIA DLSS 3.7 mod comparison shared online this week highlights how the new Preset E introduced in the upscaler's latest version can lead to better quality than the often superior DLAA in certain scenarios.

Microcenter's Trade-In system seems to be lowballing users by offering lower value for their GPUs such as the GeForce RTX 4090 with one of our readers receiving less than half the value of the said graphics card.

Horizon Forbidden West AMD FSR 3.1 support is coming, but porting studio Nixxes has said that it's "sort of" waiting on AMD.

Hazelight Studios, the independent game developer based in Stockholm, Sweden, turns 10 this year. As part of the celebration for the upcoming tenth anniversary, the official Twitter account teased that they have 'new (real good) stuff cooking' that will be discussed later this year.

Ubisoft's XDefiant seemed nearly ready to launch six months ago, but the game received a last-minute delay that left many fans puzzled. At the time, Executive Producer Mark Rubin explained:

AMD has teamed up with Vindral to showcase 8K 10-bit HDR live streaming capabilities on its Alveo hardware, bringing high-quality and richer streams to audiences.

Startup, Celestial AI, has developed a new interconnect solution that utilizes DDR5 & HBM memory to increase the efficiency of chiplets with AMD possibly being among the first to use such a design.

Skybound Entertainment has opened a crowdfunding campaign to make a triple-A game based on its Invincible IP. The campaign, available on Republic, is not meant for users but for investors. The minimum amount you can invest is $100, while the maximum is $5 million, which is also the maximum funding goal of the campaign. So far, the campaign is sitting at $450K with 13 days left to invest.

Remember last month's PS5 Pro video from YouTuber Moore's Law is Dead? This video is no longer available following a copyright strike from Sony.

Huawei has discontinued its P-series of flagships by introducing a re-brand of the Pura 70 family, which can mean that the company will put on a positive first impression by bringing an attractive design and notable hardware upgrades to the upcoming models. Naturally, a name change will also pique the interest of potential buyers, resulting in higher sales.

NVIDIA seems to have been shipping A100 "Ampere" GPUs with higher core counts than the original spec in China as per recent retail listings.

NVIDIA's former researcher has made interesting claims about the company's reign within the AI space, stating that its CUDA software ecosystem helped it a lot in securing dominance over the competition.

After over a decade of development, the gorgeous stop-motion narrative adventure Harold Halibut has finally arrived. For the most part, the game doesn’t focus that heavily on puzzles and guides you by the hand through its story, but there still are a few parts in the game where you might find yourself a bit lost.

Apple has been reported on multiple occasions to bring various camera improvements to the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, which includes bringing the tetraprism upgrade to the smaller version and an entirely new Sony sensor for the primary unit. The company also intends to address the lens flare problem on its upcoming premium models, with the latest rumor stating that a special ‘Atomic Layer Deposition’ (ALD) coating will be used to alleviate that effect while improving image quality. Let us take a look at the details.

After over a decade of development, the gorgeous stop-motion narrative adventure Harold Halibut has finally arrived. For the most part, the game doesn’t focus that heavily on puzzles and guides you by the hand through its story, but there still are a few parts in the game where you might find yourself a bit lost.

Moon Studios and Private Division have released the Steam early access launch trailer for No Rest for the Wicked. The game was announced at The Game Awards 2023. The developers described it as a love letter to action RPGs, as well as their attempt to innovate in the genre.

With Top Spin 2K25 now exceedingly close to its April 26 launch date, we were able to pry a few tidbits about the long-awaited fifth installment in the tennis franchise from Game Director Remi Ercolani. In our interview, we received confirmation that, unfortunately, online doubles will not be available at launch.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is not getting a proper remake anytime soon, leaving it to fans of the long-running series to reimagine locations from the iconic game using modern technology.

The PlayStation 5 Pro has yet to be officially unveiled, but it may release as soon as September 2024, judging from a report shared online today.

Gamescom may be the most significant gaming convention and trade show in Europe (and probably the world following the death of E3), but Nintendo is a bit hit-and-miss with their attendance. They skipped 2022, but they were there in 2023, and, in fact, it was rumored they may have shown the Switch 2 for the first time behind closed doors while there. Unfortunately, it seems we won’t be getting a repeat in 2024, as Nintendo has confirmed they’ll be skipping the show in a statement provided to Eurogamer…

Final Fantasy XVI famously didn't meet the sales expectations of Square Enix, though that was partly blamed on slower than anticipated adoption of the PlayStation 5 (the only platform where the game is currently available). However, there is at least one area where the developers reportedly hit their original goals. Speaking to Push Square, Final Fantasy XVI DLC Director Takeo Kujiraoka said:

Overwatch 2, Season 10, entitled “Venture Forth” arrives tomorrow and Blizzard has fully spelled out what it will entail. The season will introduce new drill-wielding, underground burrowing hero Venture, but that’s not all. Players can look forward to the “Mirrorwatch” event, which sees several characters swap alignment from hero to villain, and vice-versa, resulting in new looks and tweaked movesets, the launch of the capture point Clash mode, big changes to how heroes are accessed (they’re all free immediately upon release now), and more. You can check out the Overwatch 2 Season 10 launch trailer, below.

Cliff Bleszinski’ LawBreakers appears to be making a comeback, thanks to a group of modders who have been working hard to restore the game's online features.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

Apple currently leverages TSMC’s 3nm process for several of its chipsets, and the company may stick to this manufacturing process for a few iPhone generations. According to the latest report, the iPhone 17 will not be the first lineup to sport an A-series SoC fabricated on the ultra-advanced 2nm node. This will mean that the A19 Pro that is expected in 2025 will retain the 3nm lithography, but it will not be the same technology, as you will soon find out.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

AMD has added new patches and support for its upcoming RDNA 4 & RDNA 3+ GPUs within the latest Linux graphics drivers.

ASUS has unveiled two new monitors for Pro users under its ProArt Display family with the PA32KCX being the main highlight with its 8K panel & DisplayPort 2.1 support.

VR fans galore as two modders have created a WoW VR mod that adds support for VR to the final patch of World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King.

The full patch notes for the Final Fantasy XVI 1.31 patch going live later this week were shared online, detailing balance changes, quality of life improvements, and more.

iGPUs of Intel's next-generation Arrow Lake-H Laptop & Arrow Lake-S Desktop CPUs, based on the Arc Alchemist architecture, have been tested.

Intel's LGA 4710 socket-based reference platform, Beechnut City, has been picture & is ready to support Xeon 6 Granite Rapids & Sierra Forest CPUs.

EK unveiled several direct die CPU water blocks featuring AMD's Ryzen AM5 and Intel's Core LGA 1700 processors.

iOS 18 is reported to be Apple's biggest update for the iPhone as the company is planning a swarm of new AI-related utilities on a system level. There have been numerous reports highlighting how the iPhone could benefit from generative AI and what advancements it could bring to Siri and Spotlight Search. While the company is gradually expanding its efforts to bring the technology to the older and newer models of the iPhone, a prominent analyst claims that the first wave of AI features will not rely on AI cloud servers on the iPhone.

Fallout 76 for PC and Xbox consoles is now free to grab for Prime Gaming subscribers, who have until May 15 to permanently add the game to their libraries. Do note that the PC version is a Microsoft Store code.

Apple currently sells the M2 Ultra versions of the Mac Studio and Mac Pro. With the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max launched in October 2023, it is strange that the company has yet to launch the M3 Ultra. What is even stranger is that a new report states that the M4 Ultra will power Apple’s workstation hardware, with one of the models launching in the middle of 2025. Does that mean that the M3 Ultra models will not see an announcement? Read on ahead to find out.

It appears that Samsung is going to have a very busy 2024 and early 2024 as well. The company released its Galaxy S24 series earlier this year, and the phones were well received across the globe, but that is not stopping the company from making sure that there are more excellent products heading our way in the coming months, and I cannot wait for the company to show us what they have got for us.

Earlier today, Square Enix released the Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail benchmark. This is par for the course, as the Japanese company has always released benchmarks whenever a new expansion for the popular MMORPG was about to launch.

Jim Keller has an interesting proposition on NVIDIA's Blackwell GPUs, claiming that the firm should've utilized an alternative cost-efficient interconnect method.

The upcoming Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail expansion will receive an official benchmark tool later today, Square Enix has confirmed.

AMD's flagship RDNA 3 GPUs have dropped to their lowest in UK, with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX down to £829 and 7900 XT down to £629.

The Fallout London total conversion mod for Fallout 4 has been delayed once more, though again, it's not really the modding team's fault.

As we wait for the official arrival of the P70 series, Huawei is rumored to introduce the direct successor to the Mate 60 lineup later this year, the Mate 70. The company is said to announce the new models in October, with its highlights being an upgraded Kirin chipset and improved imaging capabilities. Unfortunately, in-depth details of the SoC are yet to be unearthed, but looking at Huawei’s current efforts, it could be its most advanced silicon to date.

Intel's next-gen Arrow Lake-S Desktop "Core Ultra 200" CPUs have been spotted in 24 and 20 core flavors, and also reveal no SMT support.

MSI has silently rolled out support for AMD's next-gen Ryzen 9000 Desktop CPUs for its AM5 motherboards with the AGESA 1.1.7.0 BIOS.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 power connector issues still exist as the repair shop, Northridge Fix, continues to receive hundreds of burnt units.