Gaming

An investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has concluded that Microsoft's proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard could lead to higher prices, fewer choices and less innovation.

The UK regulator has been looking into the planned takeover for a number of months, and has now warned that the merger, "could make Microsoft even stronger in cloud gaming, stifling competition in this growing market". The CMA also says there is a risk of, "weakening the important rivalry between Xbox and PlayStation gaming consoles", ultimately harming gamers who cannot afford expensive consoles.

Curved televisions are gimmicky and an overall bad idea. I bought a curved 4K TV several years ago, and while I do like it overall, it has a big negative -- it shows a lot of glare when the sun comes through the windows. Ultimately, the curved aspect doesn't seem to provide much (if any) value over a flat set when sitting on my couch

Where curved displays are wonderful, however, is for computer monitors. When you are sitting closer to a display, such as at a desk, it provides a more immersive experience -- particularly for gaming. Today, YEYIAN unveils its latest curved display. The 34-inch "Sigurd 4000," as it is called, features a 3440x1440 resolution, wide 21:9 aspect ratio, and one millisecond response time.

Anyone with an Xbox Series X or S can expect to see a software update from Microsoft in the near future that will change the way their console uses energy-saving power modes.

The company has announced that it is rolling out an update that should dramatically reduce power consumption when an Xbox is not in use. The update will switch consoles to using Shutdown (energy saving) mode, which Microsoft says can cut power usage by up to 20 times.

Santa Claus is cool and all, but let's be honest, the gifts his elves make are kind of lame. Look, it is 2022, and no kid wants a wooden train, stuffed animal, or baby doll. Santa can keep that crap at the North Pole. Thee days, kids want electronics and hardcore gaming computers.

If you want to impress someone this Christmas, you should buy them a prebuilt gaming PC with a legit gaming card. Don't know which PC to buy? Don't worry -- there are three new "ODACHI" desktops from YEYIAN that are guarantied to "wow" the recipient. They are powered by either an Intel Core i9 13900KF or AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and come with either an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 or 4090.

No matter how much you enjoy gaming, chances are you’ve felt a nagging sense of guilt about playing at one point or another. Maybe it’s the result of having your parents tell you to get outside and play when you were growing up. Or maybe it’s just a societally-induced sense that spending a couple of hours immersed in a virtual world every day might not be the best thing for your mental health.

While there are always risks involved in allowing any hobby to become an obsession, we now know that much of the moral panic around gaming has been overwrought. In fact, a growing body of research shows that gaming can actually be very positive for mental health. It’s also becoming increasingly clear that those effects can also be magnified through the potential of impact games.

There have been numerous compatibility holds put in place that have prevented large swathes of people from upgrading to Windows 11 2022 Update. One of the more recent blocks affected gamers, with Microsoft standing in the way of upgrades because of impaired game performance under Windows 11 22H2.

But now Microsoft has lifted the safeguard holding, meaning that more gamers are able to upgrade to the latest version of Windows 11. Sadly it is not good news for everyone, as the block has only been partially lifted.

Microsoft has started the roll out of the Xbox November update, and this time around it is big news.

Among the new features added with this latest release is the ability to connect to Discord voice channels directly from a console, eliminating the need for a mobile for setup. Other additions include better power options, a new Captures app, and the option to start your live stream directly from your Xbox with Twitch, Lightstream and Streamlabs.

Cast your mind back a month, and you may recall that Microsoft shared something of a surprising tip for gamers -- by disabling some security features of Window 11, it is possible to boost game performance. Well, it seems there is more to this tip than this.

People with systems featuring Intel's Arc discrete GPUs found that disabling the same security settings increased performance quite dramatically. And we are talking about measurable increases of thousands of points in benchmarking tool 3DMark.

Since the release of Window 11 2022 Update, Microsoft has implemented numerous compatibility holds to prevent certain users from upgrading. The latest block is something of a strange one, having been applied to anyone who has previously used the capture feature in the Xbox Game Bar app.

While Microsoft has fixed the issue with the KB5018496 update, this is currently only available in preview and will not get a proper release until later in the month.

Chromebooks sure have come a long way. What was once merely a glorified web browser running atop meager hardware has morphed into a legitimate Windows alternative for home, education, and business use. You can even get Chromebooks with high-quality hardware these days. Thanks to cloud-based video-game-streaming, Chromebooks can serve as gaming computers nowadays too.

Today, Acer launches its first-ever Chromebook designed specifically for gamers. Powered by a 12th Gen Intel Core processor and equipped with at least 8GB of RAM, the 16-inch Acer Chromebook 516 GE should be perfect for game-streaming platforms like NVIDIA GeForce NOW, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Amazon Luna to name a few. And yes, this Chrome OS laptop has an RGB keyboard.

It is not very often we are told to disable security features -- usually, we're enabling options, or leaving things well alone. But now Microsoft has issued some advice about improving game performance in Windows 11, and it involves turning off security features of the operating system.

The somewhat surprising advice comes in a support document entitled Options to Optimize Gaming Performance in Windows 11. Microsoft does point out, however, that this is meant to be done only when gaming, and that security should be re-enabled afterwards.

It is mere days since Microsoft started the rollout of Windows 11 2022 Update, but there are already reports of issues from people who have updated. Some owners of systems with NVIDIA GPUs are reporting a serious reduction in gaming performance after installing the update.

Reddit and Microsoft community forums are littered with complaints from gamers who have installed Windows 11 2022 Update and found that framerates in games have been slashed by over 87 percent in some cases. Major drops in CPU usage are also leading to stuttering game performance.

Over the weekend, a user from the GTAForums leaked 90 videos showing gameplay footage from the yet-to-be-release Grand Theft Auto VI. Someone by the name of teapotuberhacker -- who also claims to be responsible for the recent Uber hack -- shared 3GB of data and said that more could be leaked soon.

GTA developer Rockstar Games has confirmed that the leak is genuine, and the videos are surprisingly revealing. The footage is from a test build of GTA VI comprising "GTA 5 and 6 source code and assets" and shows that there will be multiple playable characters, including a female player.

The developer of the game Domina, Nicholas Gorissen, has received a permanent ban from Valve's Steam platform after publishing an anti trans diatribe in the notes accompanying a game update.

Gorissen, also known as Bignic, used the release notes for an update to his Roman gladiator sim Domina to attack the transgender community. In addition to a general anti-trans rant, he also personally attacked a prominent transgender game streamer. In response, Valve has removed all titles published by his company, Dolphin Barn Incorporated.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) -- the competition regulator in the UK -- has voiced concern about Microsoft's proposed takeover of game publisher Activision Blizzard.

The CMA is worried that the merger of two such huge companies in a $68.7 billion deal "could substantially lessen competition in gaming consoles, multi-game subscription services, and cloud gaming services". Windows 11 maker Microsoft, it almost goes without saying, entirely disagrees, and Phil Spencer, CEO of gaming at the company, has penned a blog post explaining just why this it.