Department News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

The Nintendo Switch is already a versatile console - but we always want more. What do you need when you want a bigger screen than your handheld can provide, but don't have access to the full TV experience? The ability to play Nintendo Switch on your iPad or laptop screen, of course. 

Today is Christmas and, as expected, most businesses and governments have shut down for the day and people are enjoying a holiday. Yet artificial intelligence developments have found a way to emerge even today. In a shocking development, the parent company of Paytm, One97 Communication, has fired more than 1000 employees. The underlying reason behind the Paytm layoff is reported to be the AI advancement of the company that has caused a few positions to be surplus to requirements. This and more in today's AI roundup. Let us take a closer look.

 As children around the world eagerly await Santa's arrival on Christmas, the military is closely tracking his every move. Armed with radar, sensors, aircraft and Christmas spirit, the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado is reporting on the movements of Santa's sleigh since his takeoff from the North Pole for parts of the globe where Christmas comes first. Once again it is sharing those details so kids can follow along.

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

Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory is a CRPG set in an Orwellian nightmare, a sci-fi society overrun by bureaucracy. At one point while playing it I tried to get a broken door fixed so I could get through, and after bouncing back and forth between various repair departments I eventually learned there was a final form I needed to fill out, and that form happened to be on the other side of the broken door. When Paranoia was mysteriously removed from sale weeks after its release with no explanation I tried to find out why, a quest that was just as frustrating as my attempt to get past that broken door.

As my esteemed colleague Rich Stanton put it, it has now been [0] days since restricted military documents have been leaked in the War Thunder forums. As reported by Task and Purpose, this latest incident relates to the M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a tracked AIFV that first went into service with the US military in 1981.

The new MMO from several World of Warcraft veterans could have an art style inspired by Arcane, Persona, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Sensitive military documents have once again appeared on the forums of World War 2 massively multiplayer online game War Thunder.

The CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, is officially stepping down from his role later this month, it’s been confirmed. 

AMD has reiterated its commitment to the AM5 socket till 2025 and beyond as it continues to expand its Ryzen Desktop platform in the coming years.

The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

It’s official: The Bobby Kotick era at Activision Blizzard will end on December 29. According to The Verge, Instead of appointing a new replacement, the top Activision Blizzard executives will now report to Microsoft’s game content and studios president Matt Booty. Several more higher-level Activision Blizzard employees will also leave the company in the new year with departures planned through March 2024.

After a 32-year career, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is officially stepping down next week, with his last day at the company being Friday, December 29. Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced a series of key leadership changes as it works to bring Activision Blizzard into Xbox's fold.

Do you want to get the latest gaming industry news straight to your inbox? Sign up for our daily and weekly newsletters here .

It is now official: In a farewell message to employees, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has confirmed that he will be leaving the company.

It was massive news when Microsoft revealed that they had put out a bid to acquire Activision Blizzard. Billions of dollars went into this purchase, and it was anything but easy. There were court cases and battles against the regulators to ensure that this deal would go through. Fortunately for Microsoft, the deal was finalized earlier this year. Since then, we’ve seen Microsoft go into a transitional phase to ensure production could continue while Microsoft took over the reins. Meanwhile, it was noted that Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, would continue staying on until the upcoming year.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is officially resigning from the company after the completion of Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of the gaming developer and publisher. Kotick’s last day is Dec. 29, when Microsoft studio head Matt Booty will take lead of the Activision Blizzard executive leadership team. Kotick led Activision Blizzard for 32 years.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has announced he’s stepping down from his position on December 29. The news comes two months after Microsoft officially completed its acquisition of the developer/publisher. 

Perhaps the most controversial executive in the history of the video game industry is stepping down by the end of the year. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has long been a divisive figure for his aggressive and abrasive style, but his image took an even worse beating when he was personally implicated in the workplace misconduct allegations that roiled Acti-Blizz back in 2021. Despite that, he hung on, negotiating the $69 billion sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft. Throughout the process Microsoft and Xbox boss Phil Spencer have remained mum on what Kotick’s fate may be once the sale was completed.

By Tom Warrenand Ash Parrish

Intel's next-gen discrete & integrated GPUs based on the Battlemage & Celestial architecture for products like Panther Lake & Nova Lake have received HWiNFO support.

It's pretty clear that Sony wasn't a huge fan of Microsoft managing to get its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard over the line. You don't go through the trials and tribulations of a court case if you're fine with something happening, but Sony hasn't been too clear on just how much it thinks the acquisition will affect its own business. Turns out, it's actually worried quite a bit.

Grand Theft Auto has come a long way. In 2025, we will receive Grand Theft Auto VI, but looking back, the overhaul to the gameplay experience came from Grand Theft Auto 3. This was a huge title at release, filled with controversy and players spending countless hours exploring the world or causing havoc. But did you ever wonder why our main protagonist, Claude, had no voice? Fortunately, one developer recently commented on why Rockstar Games felt like keeping this character silent.

California’s Civil Rights Department reached a settlement with Activision Blizzard late last week two years after the state regulator brought a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination, pay inequities and a culture of sexual harassment at the video game company.

Activision Blizzard has agreed to pay more than $54 million (and an additional $47 million for affected employees) to settle a lawsuit filed by California’s Civil Rights Department in 2021. The lawsuit was filed over accusations of sexual and gender harassment, along with discrimination, including pay disparities.

The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

Adobe Inc. walked away from its $20 billion acquisition of startup Figma Inc. after clashing with regulators in Europe and the UK. Adobe will pay Figma a $1 billion termination fee, the companies said in a statement on Monday. They saw “no clear path” to getting regulatory approvals from the European Commission and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority.  

Today, the ABK Workers Alliance published a statement opposing a recent return-to-office mandate that is impacting hundreds of Activision quality assurance (QA) workers. While the company has been allowing hybrid work situations up to this point, the group says that on November 30, QA workers in Minneapolis, Austin, and El Segundo working primarily on Call of Duty were told they must fully return to office five days per week beginning in late January. Activision is offering severance to those who depart from the company as a result of this mandate.

Following allegations of workplace discrimination at Activision Blizzard, the gaming giant has agreed to pay just under $55 million. The settlement with the California Civil Rights Department is still subject to court approval.

California’s Civil Rights Department has reached a settlement with Activision Blizzard that will see the company pay tens of millions of dollars in damages to women for unfair pay and treatment — but, as part of the settlement, the CRD has dismissed its own allegations of a “frat boy” culture of widespread and systemic sexual harassment at the company.

US publishing giant Activision Blizzard has settled the lawsuit brought against it by a California government body.

Rumours abound about the upcoming iPhone 17 Pro Max, which is set to launch in 2025, are now surfacing, and the spotlight is on its potential groundbreaking camera enhancements. While most speculation currently centres on the imminent iPhone 16 that is slated for release in 2024, industry analyst Jeff Pu has recently shed light on the potential camera features of the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Activision Blizzard will pay $54 million to settle a gender discrimination and harassment lawsuit brought against the company in 2021. 

Activision Blizzard King is looking to settle its lawsuit under the California Civil Rights Department.

Researchers have discovered the limits to ChatGPT's ability to provide location-specific information about environmental justice issues, which they said possibly hint at the chatbot's geographic biases. The researchers at Virginia Tech University in the US asked ChatGPT to answer a prompt about the environmental justice issues in each of the 3,108 counties across the states of the country. ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool, developed by OpenAI, that is trained extensively on massive amounts of data in natural language. Such AI tools, also called large language models, can process, manipulate and generate textual responses based on users' requests, or "prompts".

First reported by the New York Times, a major chapter in Activision Blizzard's reckoning over an alleged internal culture of misogyny and harassment has ended. The California Civil Rights Department (formerly the Department of Fair Employment and Housing) has settled with Activision Blizzard for $54 million, dropping its sexual harassment suit.

As reported by VentureBeat, Activision Blizzard has agree to pay a total of roughly $54 million to settle a lawsuit in the state of California. The company was sued by California’s Civil Rights Department (CRD) in 2021 after reports emerged with allegations of widespread and systemic sexual harassment and racial discrimination against employees, and unequal pay for women.

Videogame giant Activision Blizzard is set to pay around $50 million to settle a lawsuit by a California regulator, a US news report said Friday. In 2021, California's Civil Rights Department sued the company, claiming leaders ignored staff complaints involving sexual harassment and discrimination. The lawsuit had a part in spurring Microsoft's acquisition of the company, noted the Wall Street Journal report.

Activision Blizzard will pay nearly $55 million to resolve its legal fight with the state of California over allegations the gaming company permitted a widespread and systemic workplace harassment. The state's lawsuit had alleged the maker of video games including World of Warcraft and Diablo had a ‘frat boy culture” and subjected women to unequal pay, constant sexual harassment, and retaliation. The video games maker will pay approximately $54,875,000 to cover direct relief to workers and litigation costs, the state's Civil Rights Department said in a statement Friday. About $45,750,000 of that money will go to a settlement fund dedicated to compensating workers.

Activision Blizzard will settle allegations that it discriminated against female employees with a payout of over $50 million. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, this will end its lawsuit with the California Civil Rights Department (formally called the Department of Fair Employment and Housing), which launched in 2021.

Do you want to get the latest gaming industry news straight to your inbox? Sign up for our daily and weekly newsletters here .

Do you want to get the latest gaming industry news straight to your inbox? Sign up for our daily and weekly newsletters here .

If you're considering taking a trip to Japan in the coming months and have strong and unresolved feelings about the fate of characters from across Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's Yakuza / Like a Dragon franchises, then boy, do we have the cultural event for Kir-you. Beware of SPOILERS below.

There are so many roguelikes and roguelites now that it's getting harder and harder to stand out, and that's something Have a Nice Death doesn't quite overcome. By and large, this is a perfectly decent side-scrolling action game, but it doesn't reach the upper echelons of this competitive niche.

More than two months after leaving Platinum Games, co-founder and The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya has revealed why he left the studio. In a new interview with IGN, Kamiya told the publication he decided to leave «because I felt that the direction the company was heading in was different from my beliefs as a developer.»

By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.

As most of our readers probably remember all too well, Activision Blizzard experienced a veritable storm in July 2021 when it was sued by California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) for widespread harassment and discrimination against female employees.

The first reviews of Intel's Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" laptops are out and the Arc iGPU seems to be doing well against AMD's RDNA 3 iGPU.

Activision Blizzard will pay a $54 million settlement to end a 2021 sex discrimination lawsuit.

Poco C65 has officially launched in the Indian market, positioning itself as the latest addition in the budget smartphone segment. Boasting an attractive design and robust internals, this smartphone hits the Indian market at a price point below ₹10,000. The POCO C65 sporting a robust MediaTek Helio G85 chipset, the POCO C65 delivers impressive performance. Its sleek and precisely crafted design, featuring a notch-free water-drop design, complements the immersive viewing experience provided by the stunning 6.74-inch HD+ 90Hz display.

Tech companies have pitched artificial intelligence as a powerful tool to address climate change, but first they may need to stop AI from making the problem even worse. 

Tower of Fantasy  is gearing up for its 3.5 update on December 21st, and the team has revealed a new story trailer for the next simulacrum to join the roster –Yan Miao. 

Grand Theft Auto is a massive franchise, and we knew that the next installment would have a ton of attention. After all, it’s been since 2013 that we were dealing with the last new mainline installment for the series. With each new game release, we see Rockstar Games push the envelope. It’s all about making the next game bigger and better, so there is a ton of hype about what exactly we can do in Grand Theft Auto VI. We knew that after the first trailer was released, fans would look for every little detail that they could uncover.

By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.

Baldur's Gate 3 director Swen Vincke has shared his Game Awards acceptance speech in full, after he was cut short at the ceremony last week.

The Yakuza (or Like a Dragon) franchise is known for being a tad wacky, but publisher Sega is bringing the weirdness to the real world by basically hosting a funeral for all the series' dead characters in Tokyo.

A lot of the controllers I've reviewed this year have been super expensive. Don't get me wrong, most of them have been great, but price tags higher than $200 aren't what most players will want to see. Luckily, one brand has stood above the pack in terms of offering value for money in 2023.

In an unexpected turn of events, the eagerly awaited Monday night launch of the U.S. military's covert X-37B robot spaceplane has been postponed for a minimum of 24 hours, according to SpaceX.

Intel's Core Ultra 5 125H "Meteor Lake" CPU benchmarks have been leaked by Lenovo ahead of launch & lost to the AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS.

Sony has finally unveiled the LYT-900 camera sensor. If you have not heard about this sensor, then this is the flagship sensor of the company that has been making rounds in the past, and we are going to start seeing it in flagships that will be released soon.

A federal court jury is poised begin its deliberations in an antitrust trial focused on whether Google's efforts to profit from its app store for Android smartphones have been illegally gouging consumers and stifling innovation.

Cyberpunk 2077 gives you quite a lot of freedom when making your character, giving you one of three backstories to pick which radically alters events in the game. These backstories do much more than simply change the game's opening though, and the recently released Phantom Liberty expansion even alters new details about V based on whether you picked the Corpo, Street Kid, or Nomad lifepaths.

 In the first nine months of 2023, U.S. data breaches increased by 20% compared to the full year 2022, according to a new study that was commissioned by Apple.

Microsoft is bringing on 77 formerly contracted quality assurance workers as full-time employees after negotiations with Communication Workers of America, according to Bloomberg. It’s not unheard of for a major company to make a move like this — Activision Blizzard did it in 2022 — but it is uncommon as the industry deals with a layoff crisis.

A ton of drama unfolded in the technology sector recently, with OpenAI, the hottest startup at this time, had its CEO, Sam Altman, abruptly fired, then reinstated a few days after. Following the Chief Executive’s removal, several OpenAI employees revolted, threatening to join Microsoft if OpenAI’s board remained firm on their decision, but according to the latest report, it was actually a bluff to force the firm to bring back Altman. As it turned out, most OpenAI employees did not want to work for Microsoft, as it would have resulted in the loss of significant perks and other reasons.

An artificial intelligence startup targeting air travel has raised $34 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz to more aggressively pursue deals with the Department of Defense.

Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google have been forced by foreign governments to provide users' data from notifications they get on their devices, according to a US lawmaker, drawing attention to a new privacy concern. 

Fortnite's Chapter 5 Season 1 has officially begun, bringing with it the usual map shakeup, weapons to unlock, and skins to chase. A highlight for PlayStation fans might be the possibility of sneaking about as PlayStation icon Solid Snake himself, although fans were quick to note the legendary mercenary was lacking in the booty department.

Last year, Sony acquired Halo creator and Destiny developer Bungie, but in October, it was hit with mass layoffs. Now, a report from IGN claims that developers within the company fear a Sony takeover and further outsourcing.

We’re now a day away from players being able to jump into the world of Lego Fortnite for the very first time. We still have a ton of questions, but some of them may have been answered thanks to today’s lengthy Lego Fortnite cinematic trailer.

AMD has announced the official launch of its flagship AI GPU accelerator, the MI300X, which offers up to 60% better performance than NVIDIA's H100.

Destiny 2 studio Bungie could reportedly lose its independence under Sony if it fails to meet certain financial goals.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader takes place in a frontier system on the edges of the Imperium of Man, and it dives deep into this small slice of a vast galaxy. Owlcat Games has used the vast and expansive lore of 40K to help make the Koronus Expanse a compelling and fascinating place to explore, but if you’re not familiar with the broader setting, it can be a touch confusing.

It appears that several unidentified governments are monitoring smartphone users by tracking the push notifications that go through Apple's and Google's servers. This alleged warning is coming straight from the U.S. senator, so it definitely is something that one should be worried about, especially if it happens to be true.

One month after a major round of layoffs impacted roughly 100 Bungie employees of 1,200, those remaining at the Destiny developer say the cuts, as well as other cost-cutting measures, came alongside an apparent scramble by studio leadership to avoid a total Sony takeover.

Streaming platform Twitch is departing South Korea.

After Fable 3, developer Lionhead never got to make another mainline Fable game. Its last big project, Fable Legends, was cancelled before it could launch, leaving Lionhead's vision of Albion behind. However, it wasn't always going to be that way, with company co-founder Peter Molyneux revealing that he had thought about doing a proper single-player Fable game after the third one.

EA has laid off an unknown number of employees at UK studio Codemasters to meets its "evolving business needs and priorities."

Final Fantasy 15's director has revealed why he left Square Enix back in 2018.

NVIDIA has released its latest GeForce Game Ready driver which adds support for Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition, further enhancing RTX & DLSS capabilities.