Blizzard Entertainment is celebrating its 35^th anniversary. The iconic American gaming firm was founded in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse. After a brief flirtation with SNES and Genesis ports, it soon forged its identity and its destiny by rebranding to Blizzard Entertainment and releasing three aces in quick succession: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994), Diablo (1996), and StarCraft (1998). This legendary studio recently became part of Microsoft Gaming, and the youngsters out there probably know it best for the eSports-focused FPS title Overwatch 2.

The early years were rather tumultuous. Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, putting their combined energies, hearts, and minds into this video gaming venture. However, it rapidly shifted names and artistic directions before finding its true path.

The trio of founders began as Silicon & Synapse, Inc., and earned a living crafting ports for the dominant 16-bit consoles of the era. In 1993, original titles like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings were spawned, and the company would rebrand to Chaos Studios, Inc. Then, in 1994, the studio transitioned to Blizzard Entertainment after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates.

1994 wouldn’t be just the year the Blizzard name would be established, its legacy truly began in the same year with the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, which would receive numerous sequels and led to the direct ancestor to the hugely popular World of Warcraft, of course.

Before the year 2000, Blizzard Entertainment would also release the first games from the Diablo and StarCraft stables, too. That’s not all, in the background, the company changed hands yet again, and became part of Vivendi Games in 1998.

The next big event on the business front was the merger with Activision in 2008, with Activision Blizzard becoming independent from Vivendi in 2013. The corporate history story ends, for now, with Blizzard Entertainment existing as part of the Microsoft Gaming division since 2023.

Over the last decade, Blizzard hasn’t released any brand-new IPs. Its business has simply been to continue to pump out new versions/expansions for fan favorites set in the Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch universes. Nevertheless, the studio’s crown jewels retain a devoted following and continue to be celebrated at an annual BlizzCon event.

To mark its 35th anniversary, the studio is in the midst of a social media celebration where "over the next few weeks, each world will showcase what comes next." It has already released some what's next in WoW and Overwatch teasers, with new Hearthstone and Diablo showcases due to be made public over the next few days.

Engineers from Frore Systems have integrated the company's innovative solid-state AirJet cooling system, which provides impressive cooling capabilities despite a lack of moving parts, into an M2-based Apple MacBook Air. With proper cooling, the relatively inexpensive laptop matched the performance of a more expensive MacBook Pro based on the same processor.

The lack of a fan is probably one of the main advantages of Apple's MacBook Air over its more performant siblings, but it also puts the laptop at a disadvantage. Fanless cooling doesn't have moving parts (which is a plus), but it also cannot properly cool down Apple's M1 or M2 processor under high loads, which is why a 13-inch MacBook Air powered by M1 or M2 system-on-chip is slower than 13-inch MacBook Pro based on the same SoC. However, making a MacBook Air run as fast as a 13-inch MacBook Pro is now possible. 

To do so, one needs to cool down M2 using the Frore System's AirJet solid-state active cooling system. It is as efficient as typical cooling systems with fans, yet it is smaller and more reliable, according to a video posted to YouTube by PC World. The AirJet-equipped 15-inch MacBook Air matched the performance of the M2-based MacBook Pro in the Cinebench R23 benchmark, a testament to its AirJet's efficiency in maintaining optimal operating temperatures. 

However, there is a catch. AirJet is a membrane-based cooling system that uses ultrasonic waves to push air through itself to remove heat. Although it does not use a fan, it still needs airflow. As a result, Frore had to alter MacBook Air's design to use its Airjet. The company's specialists added intake vents near the laptop's hinge and repurposed the speaker holes to serve as exhaust outlets. These modifications were crucial to integrating the AirJet in the slim MacBook Air chassis, demonstrating the practicality and adaptability of this cooling technology in real-world applications.

Despite its impressive performance and potential applications, the AirJet is unavailable for consumer purchase. Frore Systems has no plans to release a consumer version of its AirJets or kits for modifying existing devices. The demonstration with the MacBook Air serves primarily as a proof of concept, highlighting AirJet's capabilities. Looking forward, integrating AirJet technology in products from companies like Apple could lead to more efficient use of internal space, paving the way for innovations such as larger batteries or more compact device designs.

An avid reader would ask why Apple does not use AirJet cooling systems itself. There are several possible explanations. Firstly, Frore is a relatively small company whose production volumes may be too low for Apple. Secondly, the AirJet cooling technology is relatively new, and companies like Apple would ensure its reliability first before using it for high-volume devices.

According to Apple's FY23 earnings call, sales of Apple's desktop and laptop computers were down 34% year-over-year in Q4 FY2023. Q4 of FY2022 was the most successful quarter for Macs ever, but this represents the fourth consecutive quarter of YoY declines for Macs. Apple remains optimistic about the future of its PCs as its M3-based lineup looks more competitive (and generally more expensive) than the previous-generation M2-powered family.

Sales of Macs and iPhones Disappoint

Sales of Macs totaled $7.614 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 and $29.357 billion for the whole, year, down nearly 34% and 27% year-over-year, respectively. While the declines look dramatic, fiscal 2022 was a record year for Macs in general as the company sold huge amounts of its high-performance M1 Pro and M1 Max-based MacBook Pro notebooks and Mac Studio desktops. Meanwhile, the company faced major shipments constraints in Q3 FY2022, which is why Q4 FY2022 was the record quarter for Macs ever.  

"In Mac, revenue came in at $7.6 billion, down 34% year-over-year from the prior year's record quarter," said Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, at the earnings call with financial analysts and investors (via SeekingAlpha). "This was due to challenging market conditions, as well as difficult compares against the supply disruptions and subsequent demand recapture we experienced a year ago." 

While comparison with Q4 FY2022 may be a bit off, there is another reason why sales of Macs decline: owners of Apple's PCs who wanted to get an Apple Silicon-based machine have already got one. Given that their M1-based desktops and notebooks are three years old at most, Q3 of calendar 2023 was not their time for an upgrade given mediocre performance difference between M1 and M2-series processors. Apple admits that only half of the Macs last quarter were bought by Mac owners, the rest of sales came from people who were new Apple customers.

"We have great confidence in our Mac line-up and are excited about the recently announced iMac and MacBook Pro powered by our M3 chips," said Cook. "Our installed base is at an all-time high and half of Mac buyers during the quarter were new to the product, driven by MacBook Air." 

Apple's iPad brought in $6.4 billion in revenue in Q4 FY2023, marking a 10% decrease compared to the same period last year. This downturn mirrors the situation seen with Mac sales in Q4 FY2022. Just like Macs, iPads were significantly impacted by supply chain disruptions in the June quarter, which led to an unusual spike in demand in the following September quarter as the pent-up demand was met.

But iPhones and Services Prosper

Apple's iPhone revenue saw an increase in Q4 FY2023, reaching $43.8 billion, a rise from the previous year's $42.6 billion. However, looking at the annual figures, iPhone revenue experienced a decline, falling to $200.6 billion from $205.5 billion the year before. 

While Apple's hardware business was a mixed bag both for Q4 FY2023 and for the whole year, the company's Services business thrived as the company's install base increased to two billion active devices. Revenue from services hit an record high, reaching $22.3 billion in Q4 FY2023 (up a 16% from Q2 FY2022) and 85.2 billion in FY2023 (up 9% from FY2022).

As Apple Increases R&D Spending to $30 Billion

Being the world's largest supplier of consumer electronics by revenue and the world's most valuable public company is a hard job. You not only need to meet customer's expectations, but also exceed those of investors. While Apple generally produces competitive and user-friendly products, it cannot force its customers to upgrade if subsequent models are moderately better than those on the market, especially amid economic downturn. Which is why some may consider Apple's results disappointing.  

But Apple still makes tons of money. The company earned $89.5 billion in Q4 FY2023 and $383.285 billion for the whole year. Despite lower sales, the company upped its research and development spending form $26.251 billion in FY2022 to $29.915 billion in FY2023, which makes the company one of the largest R&D spenders in the world.

Apple's A17 processor was the first chip to use TSMC's N3 (3nm-class) process technology, and this week, the company expanded its N3 lineup with a family of PC-oriented M3 chips for desktop and laptop computers. Analyst Jay Goldberg from Digits to Dollars believes the company spent as much as $1 billion on M3's design and tape-outs alone.

"We have to assume that [M3-series] tape out costs alone for the three [SoCs] has to be close to $1 billion," Goldberg wrote. "Very few companies can afford this large an undertaking."

Apple's M3 family consists of three fairly complex CPUs for now: the 25-billion-transistor M3 that's aimed at entry-level and mainstream desktops, laptops, and high-end tablets; the 37-billion-transistor M3 Pro for performance-mainstream machines; and the M3 Max that packs 92 billion transistors for high-end laptops and entry-level workstations. Each chip is designed to address different computing needs, from everyday tasks to professional coding, heavy engineering simulations, and video production.

Apple's vanilla M3, which comes with eight general-purpose cores and a new built-in GPU, is as complex as AMD's highly praised Phoenix processor (25 billion vs. 25.4 billion), whereas the M3 Pro and M3 Max are considerably more complex.

In fact, with 92 billion MOSFETs inside, the M3 Max is the most complex single-die processor released to date (though, based on what we know about some of the upcoming AI processors, not for long).

Apple used TSMC's N3 fabrication process to increase the economic efficiency of its M3 family, a risky move because the technology is relatively new -- but it looks like it has paid off. As chip detective @Frederic_Orange pointed out, Apple could presumably fit as many as 415 M3 dies on a single 300-mm wafer, which indicates a die size of around 146 mm^2.

By contrast, AMD's Phoenix (which has a similar complexity) has a die size of 178 mm^2. We can only guess whether Apple's M3 is cheaper to make than AMD's Phoenix based on rumors about TSMC's quotes, but smaller chips are typically easier to yield and produce. 

Apple spent $26.251 billion on R&D in 2022, and a significant part of this spending was assigned to chip design. The scale of investment in silicon, in general, and the M3-series SoCs, in particular, indicates that Apple is one of the few companies with the economic capability to undertake such development endeavors. 

Developing complex PC-oriented processors requires extended development cycles, often on the order of years, and intense capital investment. When it comes to an all-new platform — such as the Apple M3 family — the cost of development is staggering, particularly in Apple's case since the company tends to develop as much IP internally as possible. With M3, Apple not only uses its own custom general-purpose cores based on an Arm instruction set architecture but also packs an all-new GPU architecture supporting hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shaders, a new AI NPU, and a new multimedia engine.

When Apple introduced its M3 family of processors this week, it mentioned its GPU Dynamic Caching technology as one of the key advantages of its GPU architecture that allowed it to bring hardware-accelerated ray tracing to its M-series SoCs. Indeed, it looks like Apple has spent years developing this technology and filed the first patent that covers it in early 2020. 

Traditional GPUs operate on static caching mechanisms and fixed memory spaces which sometimes results in inefficient management and retrieval of page table information, underutilization of certain physical memory regions, and limitations of allocated memory for certain workloads. Apple's GPU Dynamic Caching ensures that cache and memory spaces are dynamically assigned based on the actual needs of different tasks and workloads. This adaptability ensures optimized memory usage, preventing wastage of memory resources and allowing tasks to access the memory they need (assuming that there is enough memory for a given task).

Dynamic caching and on-demand memory allocation can significantly benefit things like hardware ray tracing. Ray tracing is a computationally intensive rendering technique that simulates physical behavior of light to generate images. Given the complexity and variability of ray tracing computations, having the flexibility to allocate memory as needed and speed up access to frequently used data can significantly improve performance. What is also crucial for Apple is that its technology also allows to improve performance efficiency and in some cases reduce memory consumption, both of which are important considerations.

In addition to ray tracing, dynamic caching and on-demand memory allocation can benefit memory bandwidth-hungry graphics applications in general, so the technology possibly plays a role in improved performance of Apple M3's GPUs too. Meanwhile, mesh shading also plays a significant role in improving overall performance of Apple's new GPUs.

Apple is poised to refresh its Mac lineup in an upcoming online-only event called 'Scary Fast,' with a focus on introducing new MacBook Pros and iMacs equipped with the latest M3-series processors, reports Bloomberg. The 'Scary Fast' description of the event might indicate that we will be dealing with high-performance M3 Pro and M3 Max processors produced on one of TSMC's N3 process technologies.

In the spotlight are the anticipated MacBook Pros, which are set to undergo significant internal enhancements. These new models are projected to house the advanced M3 Pro and M3 Max processors, marking a rather substantial leap from the previous M2-series. The processors have undergone a rigorous upgrade and gained both general-purpose cores and graphics clusters, as shown in the table.

The iMac is also reportedly slated for an update, marking its first in over 900 days. While the external design is expected to retain its current aesthetics, the internals will see a revamp. The new models are predicted to feature Apple's M3 chip, coupled with improved GPU configurations and a transition to USB-C connectors, signifying a modernization of the iMac’s architecture.

Notably, according to the Bloomberg report, the event holds additional significance as it aligns with the recovery of the personal computing market from the post-pandemic-induced slump. 

Apple's unveiling is also timed to capitalize on the holiday season, a critical period for boosting sales. The company aims to leverage its new offerings to boost sales after declining sales in previous quarters. The refreshed Mac lineup could play a crucial role in driving a resurgence in Apple's Mac revenue streams, supporting its generally high financial performance driven by iPhones.

In addition to the seemingly imminent unveilings, Apple is reported to have a pipeline of future releases, including new MacBook Airs and updated iPads. However, these products are earmarked for launch in subsequent events, extending into 2024 and beyond, indicating a sustained strategy of innovation and product enhancement in Apple's roadmap, according to Bloomberg.

Blizzard is preparing to give away a “custom liquid-cooled PC infused with real human blood.” This gruesomely powerful PC sweepstakes prize is being dangled in front of fans to promote Diablo IV Season of Blood and encourage blood donations to hospitals in the US.

The outlandish reasoning behind Blizzard’s bloody PC sweepstakes is that from Oct 20 to Nov 20, 2023, it will encourage gamers in the US to visit blood donation centers in the US. It is hoped that those donating blood and logging their contribution will exceed 666 quarts (or more) of blood harvested before the time is up. At that point, a sweepstake prize of the liquid-cooled PC with “real human blood” will go live. There are a number of other ‘Blood Harvest’ goals between 0 and 666 quarts, as follows:

220 quarts. All players will receive weapon cosmetics including a Dagger: Bloodpetal Anlace, Axe: Bloodpetal Sever, Necromancer Focus: Bloodpetal Heart, Sword: Bloodpetal Blade, and Druid Staff: Bloodpetal Bludgeon.

440 quarts. All players will receive the Loch Raeth Maor Barbarian Armor Cosmetic plus the weapon cosmetics mentioned previously.

666 quarts. All players will receive the above plus the Vermilion Eye Piebald Mount. Additionally, the headlining sweepstakes to win the custom real human blood-infused PC will unlock (US gamers, aged 18 plus).

Unlocks will occur on Nov 22.

Blood Infused PC Details

Thankfully, we have more details about the PC, beyond its blood infused nature. Blizzard says that the PC is powered by the following potent components:

• Intel Core i9 13900K CPU
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU
• 64 GB of DDR5 RAM
• 3 TB of NVMe M.2 SSD Storage
• EK-Quantum Vector GPU Waterblock
• Case with signature Diablo color palette with custom Season of Blood graphics

Having human blood floating around the liquid cooling loop seems unlikely, even in this already unlikely scenario. We reckon it would be more likely that some dehydrated blood is used as a paint pigment, behind a gloss coating, or something like that. An FAQ about the promotion is available which should clear up all your other questions.

Being one of the founders of Arm, Apple has always had a longstanding relationship with the CPU design company, and its own custom Arm-based SoCs power its smartphones, tablets, PCs, and other electronics. Recently, the two companies extended their license agreement by almost 20 years, till 2040, which is an extremely long period for the high-tech industry. 

"We have entered into a new long-term agreement with Apple that extends beyond 2040, continuing our longstanding relationship of collaboration with Apple and Apple's access to the Arm architecture," a statement by Arm reads.

Apple offers a wide range of products spanning various categories, including high-end devices such as Mac desktops and MacBook laptops, iPhones, iPads, and Apple TV set-top boxes, all of which rely on custom system-on-chips (SoCs) built around specially tailored Arm cores. Furthermore, gadgets like the Apple Watch, AirPods, and Homepod Mini are equipped with system-in-packages (SiPs) that harness Arm technologies too. Apple also incorporates Arm cores in its controllers, such as the T2, W3, U1, and others. In short, all of the products carrying an Apple logo also happen to carry multiple Arm cores. 

Signing a long-term license that spans over 15 years before Arm goes public later this year is certainly Apple's vote of confidence in Arm's technologies. While Arm has hundreds of clients, many of them are industry behemoths like Apple, AMD, Nvidia, and Samsung, it doesn't look like the company has disclosed similar long-term licensing deals with any of them.

Although virtually all of Apple's products rely on the Arm instruction set architecture today, the company has been exploring the RISC-V ISA since at least mid-2021, so the consumer electronics giant is certainly not putting its eggs into one basket. There are many reasons why Apple is interested in RISC-V beyond risk management. Since RISC-V is an open-source ISA, it can be innovated quickly and without informing its original inventors. As a result, if Apple wants to introduce something brand-new and cannot wait for Arm to innovate its ISA, it will have to turn to RISC-V instead.

In addition to licensing Arm's ISA, Apple will also be one of the anchor investors in the upcoming Arm IPO.

Microsoft is still working to receive the required regulatory approvals for its planned Activision-Blizzard acquisition. Despite the fact that other regulators have already approved of Microsoft's proposed $68.7 billion deal, the United Kingdom's CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) has definitively rejected that proposal. In a bid to save its buyout attempt, however, Microsoft has submitted a revised acquisition plan to the CMA. According to the CMA, this new plan is "substantially different" from the one that came before it - in that now, Microsoft is willing to do away with cloud streaming exclusivity of Activision-Blizzard franchises by offloading the rights to competitor Ubisoft.

“To address the concerns about the impact of the proposed acquisition on cloud game streaming raised by the UK Competition and Markets Authority, we are restructuring the transaction to acquire a narrower set of rights,” said Microsoft president Brad Smith. “This includes executing an agreement effective at the closing of our merger that transfers the cloud streaming rights for all current and new Activision Blizzard PC and console games released over the next 15 years to Ubisoft Entertainment SA, a leading global game publisher. The rights will be in perpetuity.”

The CMA's denial stance on the proposed Microsoft acquisition was mostly justified by its belief that Microsoft would be in a too strong of a position within the cloud streaming market were it to be the only platform where gamers could access Activision-Blizzard's catalog. Microsoft's update to the deal, aims to go straight to the heart of the CMA's concerns - there's no grounds for potential cloud gaming dominance being built around exclusivity when you're selling that exclusivity to other parties. Ubisoft (through its Ubisoft Plus subscription service) will control the streaming rights to Activision Blizzard games outside of the EU; Microsoft will be the one to have to go and license titles developed under its own IP from Ubisoft so that they can then be included in Xbox Cloud Gaming.

The CMA further notes that “Ubisoft will also be able, for a fee, to require Microsoft to adapt Activision’s titles to operating systems other than Windows, such as Linux, if it decides to use or license out the cloud streaming rights to Activision’s titles to a cloud gaming service that runs a non-Windows operating system.”

To be fair, streaming Xbox Cloud games through non-Windows operating systems is already possible, with Linux, Steam Deck, and even iOS platforms being able to stream and play Microsoft's X Cloud games catalogue. At the same time, it's strange that the European Union found Microsoft's cloud gaming assurances (which already included multiple cloud streaming licensing deals) sufficient, but not the CMA. In this case, Microsoft will be saddled with both IP development and distribution costs for content developed under Activision-Blizzard's franchises, besides having to lease-back to itself the right to offer those same games through its own streaming service.

The CMA has announced it will be assessing the revised deal over the coming weeks, having settled on October 18th as its deadline - the same deadline that Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard's deal has to either forcibly follow through or fall flat in its face (with the already-taken expenses being written-off).

“This is not a green light. We will carefully and objectively assess the details of the restructured deal and its impact on competition, including in light of third-party comments,” said Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA. “Our goal has not changed – any future decision on this new deal will ensure that the growing cloud gaming market continues to benefit from open and effective competition driving innovation and choice.”

Apple's M3-series system-on-chips is expected to get a major performance upgrade compared to predecessors since they are projected to be made on TSMC's N3 (3 nm-class) fabrication processor and use all-new CPU and GPU microarchitectures. Indeed, the highest-end M3 Ultra will feature 32 CPU cores and an 80-cluster GPU, but the entry-level M3 will retain eight cores, a Bloomberg report suggests.

M3: Up to Eight Cores

Apple's vanilla M1 and M2 SoCs are used for Mac Mini, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13, and iMac systems, which are quite popular. The company's upcoming M3 ix expected to retain eight general-purpose cores (four high-performance and four energy-efficient cores) and an integrated GPU with up to 10 clusters. The first systems on their base are expected to hit the market earlier this year. 

Apple's M3 will reportedly be the first SoCs from the company's third-generation PC processors and will also be the developers N3 chip designed for desktops and laptops. Apparently, the company decided not to increase core count in this SoC compared to M2, perhaps because it wanted to ensure the lowest possible power consumption or was sure that architectural advantages coupled with higher clocks will ensure a noticeable performance boost, or just wanted to maximize yields and keep costs down.

M3 Pro: Up to 14 Cores

The situation will get substantially better with M3 Pro that is projected to get 14 general-purpose cores (eight performance cores, six efficiency cores) in its top-end configuration, but its range-topping GPU will get 20 clusters, up from 19 clusters in M2 Pro. The M3 Pro in its maximum configuration will be more powerful than M2 Max in general-purpose workloads, but the latter will still have an edge in graphics applications.

Apple's M3 Pro and M3 Max-based machine will likely hit the market sometimes in 2024.

M3 Max: Up to 16 cores

When it comes to M3 Max SoC, it is rumored to get 16 general purpose cores (12 performance cores and four energy-efficient cores) as well as up to 40 GPU clusters. Getting four additional high-performance cores is a big deal and will certainly bring substantial benefits to demanding software that M3 Max is architected to run. These will likely end up in high end MacBook Pros, the Mac Studio and Mac Pro.

M3 Ultra Up to 32 Cores

Meanwhile, the M3 Ultra system-in-package consisting of two M3 Max chips will therefore get 32 CPU cores and up to 80 GPU clusters. While 32 cores sounds quite massive when we talk about desktops, workstation-grade processors from AMD and Intel already have 56 – 64 cores and it remains to be seen what they are going to offer when Apple's M3 Ultra-based Mac Studio or Mac Pro systems are available in the second half of 2024. 

While Bloomberg's Mark Gurman tends to be accurate with his reports about future Apple's products, he is still an unofficial source and information from him should be taken with a grain of salt.

The launch of Apple's Mac Pro based on its M2 Ultra processor formally marked the completion of the company's transition from Intel's CPUs to its own system-on-chips, which took about three years. The transition spurred users of Macs to upgrade and encouraged users of Windows to switch to Macs. Roughly half of Apple's PCs bought in Q2 were purchased by new users.

"This past quarter, we were pleased to complete the transition to Apple Silicon for the entire lineup," said Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, at the company's conference call with analysts and investors (via SeekingAlpha). "This transition has driven both strong upgrade activity and a high number of new customers. In fact, almost half of Mac buyers during the quarter were new to the product. We also saw reported customer satisfaction of 96% for Mac in the U.S."

Indeed, the transition to Apple Silicon helped Apple to boost sales of its Mac computers and gain market share. The company controlled 6.3% of the PC market, with 4.077 million Macs sold in Q2 2019. During Q2 2023, the company commanded 8.6% of the PC market, with 5.3 million units sold. Meanwhile, in Q1 2022, the firm owned 9.3% of the desktop and laptop market as it supplied 7.342 million PCs during the quarter, many of which were sold to first-time users, and many were upgrades.

Controlling the hardware and software enables Apple to integrate various special-purpose accelerators into its SoCs and maximize performance in select applications. In addition, it allows it to precisely tailor its software for these SoCs, which promises to reduce the number of glitches and offer decent performance. Finally, it allows the company to maximize its profit margins now that it does not have to pay for CPUs to Intel. Unfortunately, with the transition to its Apple Silicon, Apple no longer supports third-party GPUs with its Mac Pro PCs, which will frustrate users who need high-performance GPUs.

Since the PC market in Q2 2023 was down 13.4% year-over-year in terms of unit shipments, it is not surprising that Macs generated $6.8 billion in revenue for Apple during the quarter, down 7% year-over-year. It is also noteworthy that Apple sold more PC units than it did in Q2 2022, according to IDC. A reason why Apple's Mac revenue was down amid unit sales growth was probably because many first-time users bought inexpensive PCs. In contrast, in Q2 2022, the company finally ramped up sales of its premium M2 Pro and M2 Max-based MacBook Pros.

Also, it is evident that in Q2 2023, Apple's PC business performed better than the PC businesses of Lenovo, Dell, and Acer, at least regarding unit sales growth. Meanwhile, the company expects Mac and iPad revenue to decline in the ongoing quarter.

"We expect the revenue for both Mac and iPad to decline by double digits year-over-year due to difficult compares, particularly on the Mac," said Cook. "For both products, we experienced supply disruptions from factory shutdowns in the June quarter a year ago and were able to fulfill significant pent-up demand in the year-ago September quarter."

Apple's first personal computers based on its next-generation M3 system-on-chip may be unveiled as early as this October, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who tends to have accurate information from Apple's supply chain. If Apple follows its traditional launch patterns, it makes sense to expect the company to reveal inexpensive M3-based laptops and desktops first. Yet, this is speculation at this point. 

Apple has scheduled a launch event in October, and based on past history, the company is set to introduce new Macs there, Bloomberg asserts. Given that Apple has just released numerous new Macs based on M2 Ultra and M2 Max system-on-chips, it is unlikely that the company will refresh its Mac Studio or even MacBook Pro with any new SoCs. Therefore, the company may well introduce new MacBook Air 13, Mac Mini, MacBook Pro 13, or even iMac (which has not yet gotten an M2 treatment) powered by shiny new M3 SoCs. 

Of course, the assumption about the M3 arrival this October could be entirely wrong. Instead, Apple could release an all-new iMac lineup based on M2, M2 Pro, and M2 Ultra SoCs. Yet, being a notebook-centric company, Apple could be more inclined to update its 13-inch laptops with a new SoC. 

An avid reader would probably ask what to expect from Apple's M3, which is rumored to be made on TSMC's N3 (3nm-class) fabrication technology that promises higher performance efficiency and higher transistor density compared to TSMC's N5P production node used for M2. At this point, it is hard to guess the exact improvements, but the company has a number of options, including increased general-purpose core count, enhanced GPU, and additional accelerators, just to name a few.

Keep in mind that the information comes from an unofficial source, and plans tend to change, so while it is logical to expect the arrival of Apple's first M3 machines about 1.5 years after the first M2-based products, it remains to be seen what Apple has to show in October.

Microsoft has announced a new 10-year partnership with Nvidia that will see PC games made by Bethesda and Xbox Game Studios make their way to Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service. The first GeForce Now releases will include Gears 5, which is already available to play on the streaming service, as well as Deathloop, Grounded, and Pentiment, which will debut May 25.

Microsoft said it wanted to expand its gaming capabilities and "empower" users with the ability to play games on whatever device they want, whenever they want. This is a major departure from what we've seen with other large publishers, including Activision Blizzard, which removed its games from the platform due to alleged licensing and/or content distribution concerns.

Ironically, this means the current exile of Activision Blizzard games from the GeForce Now platform will be cut short, as Microsoft is keen on adding all of the previously removed games once the company finishes acquiring Activision Blizzard for $69 billion.

This new partnership with Nvidia will be an awesome deal for GeForce Now subscribers. The platform as a whole has struggled to attract many popular games from various publishers due to the aforementioned content distribution issues. The platform has acquired a relatively large sum of over 1,600 games, but it's still missing popular titles such as Jedi: Survivor, Hogwarts Legacy, Uncharted, Spider-Man: Remastered (and its sequel), Call of Duty, and more.

The new partnership, combined with Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, will inject an abundance of games, old and new, onto the GeForce Now platform. These will include games such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2| Warzone 2.0, World of Warcraft, Diablo IV, StarCraft, Overwatch 2, Halo, and Forza Horizon. We'll also see Bethesda games, such as Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Redfall added, as well as Starfield (when it releases later this year). 

Microsoft said it won't add its entire suite of games in one go; instead, they'll be added gradually as GeForce Now developers need time to optimize games to run on Nvidia's cloud servers. Microsoft also reported that initial versions of newly-added titles will only be supported on Steam and the Epic Game Store until Microsoft and Nvidia add support for the Microsoft store in the coming months.

Microsoft said this is just the first in a series of partnerships to get its games supported on a variety of cloud streaming services. In the future, Microsoft hopes to have its games supported on multiple streaming platforms, including Boosteriod, Ubitus, EE, and Nward.

Blizzard recently released a playable beta of Diablo IV. However, it appears that not everything is sunshine and rainbows in the Sanctuary, though. An alarming amount of user reports have emerged on Reddit and the Blizzard forums, claiming that the beta is bricking the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, one of the best graphics cards.

One Reddit user reported that his Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Vision OC 12G had perished after playing the game for only 20 minutes. According to the Redditor's recount, the cutscene in the chapel was the exact moment his GeForce RTX 3080 Ti went haywire. It didn't take long before other affected users started to pitch in. Another user claims the cutscene also bricked his Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Vision OC 12G. However, users have also experienced crashes during normal gameplay too.

The reported symptoms are identical among the different cases. The system immediately throws a black screen at the user, and the cooling fans on the graphics cards go crazy. Subsequently, no image comes from the graphics card even after a system or several system restarts. However, it's important to note that the issue doesn't affect everyone, though. Some Diablo IV players have reported that while they have suffered crashes from the beta, the graphics cards miraculously survived.

The user feedback on the original Reddit thread shows that most of the bricked GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards are from Gigabyte. There was also a good number of cases from unspecified vendors. However, one GeForce RTX 3080 Ti from EVGA reportedly bit the dust too. Sadly, the issue isn't limited to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, either. One GeForce RTX 3080 owner and one Radeon RX 6900 XT also came forward, reporting their bricked graphics cards.

It's too soon to tell whether Gigabyte's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti or Diablo IV is the culprit behind the bricked graphics cards. However, another GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Vision OC 12G owner reported that Valheim bricked their graphics card. Gigabyte sent the user a replacement but didn't provide any details on what was wrong with the graphics card. So there is seemingly a precedent that something may be wrong with Gigabyte's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards.

Neither Blizzard nor Gigabyte has spoken about the issue. As a stopgap solution, users are recommending their peers cap the frame rate for safe measures. Nvidia GeForce owners can limit the frame rates on their graphics cards through the Nvidia control panel. The "Max Frame Rate" option resides in the "Global Setting" tab right under the "Manage 3D settings" section.

This Diablo IV bricking graphics card issue certainly has that New World-killing GeForce RTX 3090 vibe. Initially, users blamed New World because the open beta didn't have a frame rate limiter, making the GeForce RTX 3090 render the game menu at unnecessary high frame rates until the graphics card ultimately died. However, EVGA later discovered that bad soldering around the graphics card's MOSFET circuits killed the GeForce RTX 3090s, not New World. So it's not impossible to think that a bad batch of GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards may have escaped the factory. 

There's always a certain amount of risk when playing a beta version of an upcoming game. However, it shouldn't kill your graphics card - unless a defect exists that we don't know about, and Diablo IV exposes it.

Intel is expected to unveil the mobile versions of its 13th Generation Core 'Raptor Lake' processors early in 2023, so it is not surprising that their preliminary benchmark results have started to leak. This time around results of Intel's Core i5-1350P CPU ended up in Primate Labs's Geekbench 5 database (via Notebookcheck), revealing performance of the unit in this synthetic benchmark. 

The Core i5-1350P is a 12-core processor packing four high-performance Raptor Cove cores operating at 1.90 GHz – 4.70 GHz as well as eight energy-efficient Gracemont cores. It is designed for 28W base power, but can draw up to 64W under high loads (at least based on what Intel's P-series mobile products are designed for). This CPU is one of the one of those mobile Raptor Lake processors that are not going to get any additional cores, so the performance uplift compared to Alder Lake parts (the model i5-1250P in this case) will be enabled solely by higher turbo clocks and perhaps some additional performance tuning by PC makers. 

When installed into a yet-to-be-announced Acer TravelMate P614-53, the Core i5-1350P generally demonstrated similar results to its predecessor. Of course, since we are talking about laptops, a lot depends on cooling and the power plan that the OEM has used.

The new Core i5-1350P CPU beats its predecessor Core i5-1250P in single-thread integer, float, and crypto workloads albeit by a small margin. It also beats its ancestor in multi-thread, floating point workloads, but fails to defeat it in multi-thread integer and crypto tasks.  

When compared to Apple's M2, the new Core i5-1350P was beaten in single-threaded workloads, but managed to outpace the competitor by ~0.5% in multi-threaded tasks. Meanwhile, Apple's eight-core M1 Pro outperforms Intel's Core i5-1350P in all Geekbench 5 tests. 

Considering the fact that we are dealing with pre-production hardware, we would refrain from making any conclusions about the Core i5-1350P here, but keeping in mind that the new CPU just has higher clocks than its predecessor, we would not expect it to be dramatically faster than the Core i5-1250P in general. Still perhaps some notebook makers can come up with a better cooling system and manage to make it work at  maximum clocks for considerably longer amounts of time, which will have a positive effect on real-world performance (albeit not on performance in Geekbench, which is a synthetic benchmark).

Two weeks ago, we learned that Microsoft is facing heat from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over its proposed deal to acquire Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion. Now it appears that the FTC isn’t the only group looking to throw cold water on this blockbuster deal; a private consumer lawsuit filed in a California federal court also targets Microsoft.

The lawsuit was filed by ten gamers from California, New Jersey, and New Mexico, who allege “the video game industry may lose substantial competition, and Microsoft may have far-outsized market power, with the ability to foreclose rivals, limit output, reduce consumer choice, raise prices, and further inhibit competition.” The lawsuit goes on to decry that lack of competition in the video game industry and states that the Activision Blizzard acquisition is just the latest in a long line of Microsoft takeovers during the past eight years that have been anti-consumer.

The lawsuit points out Microsoft's past acquisitions of Mojang Studios, Playground Games, Obsidian Entertainment, ZeniMax Media, and Rare Ltd. “The proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft is part of a dramatic wave of consolidation and stands to further lessen competition and harm consumers,” the plaintiffs allege. It’s also assumed that software developers in the video game industry might also be negatively affected with “substantially less choice among employers, and Microsoft may have outsized market power in hiring and retaining employees in the video gaming field, which requires specialized talent.”

If these complaints sound familiar, it’s because they basically mirror comments from the FTC. For example, the FTC also lamented that Activision Blizzard remains one of the few independent video game developers worldwide and has a vast and loyal following of gamers. It contends that Microsoft would inevitably erode the quality of games, cut off access to competitors like Sony and Nintendo, raise prices and alter terms regarding access to Activision content.

“Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” said Holly Vedova, FTC Bureau of Competition Director, on Dec. 8. “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”

For its part, Microsoft says that many concerns about its proposal to acquire Activision Blizzard are unfounded and that it has taken steps to address concerns regarding competition in the video game space. 

“We continue to believe that our deal to acquire Activision Blizzard will expand competition and create more opportunities for gamers and game developers,” said Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft. 

Activision Blizzard’s portfolio is huge and includes some of the most popular IP in the video game industry, including Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, StarCraft and World of Warcraft.

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday filed a complaint seeking to block Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard over concerns that it would harm competitors by withholding their access to popular titles, such as Call of Duty. The agency claims that Microsoft has a history of denying competitors access to content it acquired. Microsoft argues that the proposed bid will expand competition.

“Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” said Holly Vedova, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”

The FTC reminds us that when Microsoft took over ZeniMax (the owner of Bethesda Softworks), it assured European antitrust agencies that it would not withhold games from competing console platforms. Yet, sometime after the deal was completed, Starfield and Redfall games were made Microsoft exclusives.

Being a leading independent game publisher, Activision Blizzard currently offers its titles on all platforms, including Microsoft’s Xbox and Windows, Sony’s PlayStation, and Nintendo’s Switch, to name a few. In addition, Activision has some of the world’s most-played titles — including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch — in its stable, so should Microsoft decide to harm its rivals by blocking their access to these games, it will affect hundreds of millions of gamers worldwide.

The FTC is by far not the first agency or organization aiming to block Microsoft’s proposal to take over Activision in a record $68.7 billion deal, which may become the biggest gaming industry transaction ever and one of the largest deals in the history of the high-tech industry. Numerous antitrust authorities are reviewing the proposed bid in-depth. Many companies, including Microsoft’s rival Sony, asserted that Microsoft would make popular titles from Activision Blizzard exclusive to its consoles and cloud gaming platform.

Microsoft itself denies any plans of wrongdoing and argues that the deal will expand competition and create more opportunities for gamers and developers.

“We continue to believe that our deal to acquire Activision Blizzard will expand competition and create more opportunities for gamers and game developers,” said Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft. “We have been committed since Day One to addressing competition concerns, including by offering earlier this week proposed concessions to the FTC. While we believe in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present it in court.”

It is not the first time the FTC has sued to block a large takeover deal. In December 2021, the FTC filed a complaint to block the Nvidia-Arm merger, citing concerns that once Nvidia gains control over Arm, it would withhold certain technologies from rivals to gain an advantage over them. Nvidia called off the proposal in February 2022, citing significant regulatory challenges.

Cloud game streaming services have been quite a popular topic in the game industry in the past 15 – 20 years, as the perspective of playing a high-end game on a mediocre device with a good Internet connection sounds very alluring. But after numerous major game companies have invested hundreds of millions in their cloud gaming platforms, Microsoft says that the technology is still in its infancy and its prime time is nowhere close.

At least, this is what the software giant wrote in response to the U.K.'s Competition and Market Authority this week. Among the significant concerns CMA has regarding Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard are withholding popular games like Call of Duty from competing platforms (namely Sony's PlayStation) and subsequent monopolization of the emerging market of cloud game streaming services. As a result, CMA launched an in-depth investigation of the proposed transaction earlier this month to learn more about the matter.

"This is a new and immature technology which the CMA has recognized faces significant challenges, particularly on mobile devices," Microsoft wrote in its 33-page response to CMA's concerns (via PC Gamer). "Microsoft agree that in future cloud gaming services may mean that hardware distinctions will become less important. However, the reality is that today cloud gaming remains in its infancy and unproven as a consumer proposition."

Back in the 2000s and for the better part of the 2010s, cloud game streaming services suffered from major technology limitations, starting from the imperfection of data centers and servers on the cloud side and a slow Internet connection on the client side. By now, many technological limitations have been largely overcome. Yet, local rendering still provides the best and most consistent visual quality and the lowest input lag, which is particularly important for avid gamers and something most gamers know.

Since Microsoft, Sony, and Nvidia continue to invest hefty sums of money in improving their cloud gaming services and providing an experience that is on par with that offered by local PCs or consoles, cloud gaming services are still not quite there. Meanwhile, they can enable playing PC or console games using smartphones, a type of experience that has not been available before and which is something that numerous companies are putting their money on (e.g., Qualcomm, Razer, and Verizon). But to compete against traditional games, streaming services will need to offer visual quality, latencies, and loading times comparable to those of downloadable titles.

"While this may grow, particularly on mobile devices, adoption is not expected to be rapid as it requires a significant change in consumer behaviour," Microsoft explained. "Gamers care about subject matter, storylines, graphical performance, speed (e.g., loading times and latencies), mechanics, game selection, and game cost. […] Streaming services therefore need to compete effectively with downloadable gaming options across these metrics if they are to grow."

Because cloud game streaming services are not popular among consumers, Microsoft says that it is not in its interest to harm competing for game streaming services or withhold popular Activision Blizzard games from rivals as it is interested in promoting cloud gaming in general.

"Consumer adoption of cloud gaming remains low," Microsoft said. "Harming or degrading rival services would significantly set-back adoption of this technology – protecting market-leading incumbents (i.e., Sony on console, Apple and Google on mobile, as well as Steam on PC). […] Instead, [Microsoft Xbox's] incentive is to encourage the widespread adoption of cloud gaming technologies by as many providers as possible to encourage the major shift in consumer behaviour required for cloud gaming to succeed."

Cloud gaming has the potential to bring games to devices incapable of rendering high-end titles locally, which will expand the global gaming market. Many technologies required for competitive cloud gaming platforms are already here, so the question is when cloud gaming will become a mainstream phenomenon. Yet, keep in mind that right now, Microsoft needs to convince the CMA and other regulators of two things: that they should not be concerned about cloud gaming today as it is an immature technology, but that the proposed takeover of Activision Blizzard will enable Microsoft to increase adoption of the technology.

Apple on Wednesday said that it would start taking pre-orders on its next-generation MacBook Air laptop, starting this Friday, July 8th. And will start actual sales of the systems on July 15th. The new machines will be available this month worldwide, so time will soon tell if the company produced enough PCs to meet initial demand.

Apple and its retail partners will offer the M2 SoC-based system in midnight, starlight, silver, and space gray shades, starting at $1,199 for a machine equipped with 8GB of LPDDR5 memory and 256GB of solid-state storage.

For performance-demanding users, the biggest improvement of the new MacBook Air is of course its M2 SoC featuring four high-performance Avalanche cores operating at up to 3.49GHz and four energy-efficient Blizzard cores, as well as an integrated GPU with up to 10 clusters. The chip can support up to 24GB of RAM, with 100GBps of peak bandwidth, which will improve performance in bandwidth-hungry applications, such as graphics-intensive games. 

The new Apple MacBook Air powered by the eight-core M2 SoC will be the company's most significant redesign of this machine ever (or at least in several years), as it gets a completely new chassis with a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display. The new chassis is a major departure from the wedge-shaped form factor introduced in 2008. The design improves the internal architecture of the machine to allow for higher performance, longer battery life, and enhanced durability due to improved airflow within the case. In addition, the new machine gets an all-new 2560x16640resolution display with up to 500 nits brightness, Display P3 color gamut support and a dynamic refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The new MacBook Air also supports one external display up to 6K resolution at 60Hz. 

Other changes include a new 1080p webcam, a revamped audio subsystem with more speakers and microphones, as well as a 3.5-mm headphone jack that supports high-impedance headphones. As for input/output capabilities, the new MacBook Air features a Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5.0 radio, two Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports, and a MagSafe port for charging. The machine also comes with a 52.6Wh battery, which is comparable to that of 13-inch MacBook Pro. Apple says the battery will last for up to 18 hours.  

Perhaps the biggest surprise about the new MacBook Air is that Apple will start its sales immediately worldwide. Traditionally, Apple debuts its systems first in the US and select Western European countries, leaving other parts of the world for later. This time around the company has apparently managed to produce enough MBA systems for a global launch, which is good news for those planning to buy one.

Apple's first MacBook Air and MacBook Pro systems based on the next-generation M2 processors aren't due to be released until July, but the first benchmark results are already here. However, newly-posted Apple M2 benchmark results show that the new processor doesn't tout explosive gains in general-purpose CPU performance, with a 10% gain in single-threaded and a 16% gain in multi-threaded work. However, according to this leaked benchmark, its GPU is significantly faster than its predecessor — up to 67% faster.

Someone with an Apple M2-based system has submitted CPU benchmarks to Primate Labs's Geekbench 5 database (where BenchLeaks discovered them). Geekbench 5 benchmarks don't reflect real-world performance across a range of applications (cryptography heavily impacts overall GB5 results), but the integer and float benchmark results can help us draw a few preliminary assumptions about what we can expect from the new Apple chips.

Apple's M2 has the same CPU and GPU architectures already used by Apple's A15 SoC for smartphones. Meanwhile, since M2 leverages the performance-optimized N5P fabrication technology, it can run its high-performance Avalanche cores at up to 3.49 GHz, yielding a 10% gain over its predecessor. Apple's high-performance Avalanche cores and energy-efficient Blizzard cores are faster than previous-generation Firestorm and Icestorm cores used for the M1 generation of SoCs, but mainly because of larger clocks, larger caches, and an improved memory subsystem — not as a direct result of significant IPC gains.

In general, Apple's M2 isn't much faster than its predecessor in single-thread workloads, which is surprising. However, Apple's new Avalanche cores are significantly faster in single-thread workloads than Intel's Golden Cove cores (used for Alder Lake CPUs), and this is perhaps what matters most.

As far as multi-thread performance is concerned, the M2 is tangibly faster than the M1, with up to 16% more performance. Part of that is because the A15 Blizzard e-cores have a much more significant improvement than the Avalance p-cores, but higher clocks, enhanced caching algorithms, and a better memory subsystem all factor in. As a result, the M2 approaches Apple's M1 Pro SoC in multi-threaded workloads. Meanwhile, since Intel's 12th Generation Core 'Alder Lake' processors have more cores than Apple's M2, they are significantly faster in GB5's multi-threaded workloads.

But while the M2's performance in general-purpose workloads looks like a mixed bag (we will have to test ourselves before drawing any conclusions here), graphics is where the new SoC shines — our comparison above shows an impressive 67% improvement. It is because Apple has increased the number of GPU clusters in its entry-level SoC. It also uses a new GPU architecture for A15 and M2, a combination that brings a rather dramatic performance enhancement to the chip, at least based on results obtained in Geekbench 5. We can only wonder what to expect from real-world applications, but M2's new memory subsystem will be advantageous here.

Current test results should be considered preliminary and taken with a grain of salt. But generally, it looks like the M2 will not significantly improve single-thread performance. Instead, it will focus on higher performance in multi-threaded CPU workloads and bring an even more considerable boost to GPU-processed tasks.

Apple has sued startup Rivos for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to its latest A15 and M1 system-on-chips. The startup is in stealth mode, but in a year it hired over 40 engineers from Apple and allegedly asked some to take gigabytes of confidential information with them.

Rivos was founded in June 2021 to develop system-on-chips that could rival those used by Apple and other companies. The company allegedly wanted to poach as many Apple employees as possible and so far has hired over 40 engineers from the Cupertino, California-based tech giant, reports Reuters.

Rivos is a startup that operates in stealth mode, so it is unclear what kind of SoCs it intends to develop. Given the nature of A15 and M1, we can speculate that the firm could be looking to the smartphones and PC markets.

According to Apple, at least two of former Apple employees allegedly took thousands of files related to A15 and M1 SoC design and other trade secrets. Rivos allegedly specifically targeted Apple engineers with access to gigabytes of confidential data and asked them to download it to flash drives, reports Bloomberg.

Apple claims that usage of its trade secrets and design of A15 and M1 could significantly accelerate development of Rivos SoCs and provide the company unfair advantages over other processor designers, such as Apple itself. To that end, Apple wants the court to block usage of its highly sensitive proprietary data by Rivos, return its property and award an undisclosed sum in damages.

“Apple has reason to believe that Rivos instructed at least some Apple employees to download and install apps for encrypted communications (e.g., the Signal app) before communicating with them further,” the complaint by Apple reads.

This is not the first time that Apple has sued its former employees. Last year it sued Gerrard Williams III and his colleagues, who founded Nuvia to develop datacenter SoCs with leading performance-per-watt characteristics. The dispute is set to go to trial in October, 2023. Nuvia was eventually sold to Qualcomm, the latter plans to use Nuvia’s CPU designs for it notebook SoCs and officially has no plans to develop datacenter processors.

Apple has begun testing new notebooks and desktops running its next-generation M2 system-on-chips (SoCs), according to developer logs. The company began testing some of these systems quite some time ago, but it is still unclear whether Apple plans to announce them at its upcoming WWDC conference in June and when exactly they are set to be launched. 

Apple is testing at least nine new Macs based on M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, and M2 Ultra SoCs, according to a Bloomberg report. Previous leaks indicated that the M2 family is largely based on Apple's A15 Bionic architectures, so the new report largely confirms this information and sheds some additional light on the specifications of the new processors. 

As it turns out, the new M2 will not get any increase in terms of core count, but will get a GPU with more clusters. The M2 Pro will gain two more energy-efficient cores, whereas the M2 Max will get more energy-efficient cores and a better GPU (see the table below for details). 

Comparison of Apple's SoCs (official and unofficial information)

Since the new SoCs will be made using TSMC's N5P fabrication technology, Apple could not tangibly increase CPU core and GPU cluster counts, so expect moderate performance uplifts from architectural improvements, some performance surges from the increased core/cluster counts, and some additional oomph from higher clocks. 

The list of M2-based systems that Apple is testing includes its new MacBook Air, entry-level MacBook Pro, 14-inch MacBook Pro, 16-inch MacBook Pro, and an all-new Mac Pro. Surprisingly, the list does not include any iMacs. Meanwhile, all these systems have their own launch schedules and windows and therefore will not likely be introduced at the same time.

Apple's rumored M2-based systems

For example, a revamped MacBook Air and probably Mac Mini are expected at WWDC in early June. The MacBook Air is expected to feature an all-new design, so showing it off at the upcoming conference will certainly attract a lot of attention to the event given how popular that model is. Meanwhile, the next-generation Mac Mini has already been listed in Apple Studio Display's firmware as MacMini 10.1 (the current is 9.1), which is a clear indicator that a new model is incoming, reports 9to5Mac. 

Since it takes some time for Apple to adopt its latest microarchitectures to Pro and Max SoCs, do not expect an M2 Pro or M2 Max-based MacBook Pro or Mac Mini to emerge for a while. A reasonable guess would be by the end of the year, but that's pure speculation. Assuming that M2 Max SoC is months off, the M2 Ultra will probably arrive at even later date, so do not expect the new Mac Pro to arrive any time soon.

Like most other companies, Apple does not comment on unreleased products, so we cannot verify whether the unofficial information is correct. But, WWDC is looming and this might be the conference where the company will share the first details about its M2-based PCs.

Four U.S. senators have torpedoed Microsoft’s $69 billion deal for Activision. They believe that the consolidation of the high-tech industry and corporate culture of gender misconduct at Activision could expand by the transaction. Democrat senators think that the planned takeover could undermine employees’ calls for accountability over alleged gender and sexual harassment at the game developer.

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D), Bernie Sanders (I), Cory Booker (D), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D) are distraught with the fact that Robert Kotick, chief exec of Activision, will remain at the helm of the game company until closing in 2023. With the same head, the culture of misconduct will not go away, they assume. Another point they are concerned about is the consolidation of the high-tech industry in general and its impact on the workforce. Given their concerns, they wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in an attempt to block the deal.

“We are deeply concerned about consolidation in the tech industry and its impact on workers,” the letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal reads. “This lack of accountability, despite shareholders, employees, and the public calling for Kotick to be held responsible for the culture he created, would be an unacceptable result of the proposed Microsoft acquisition.”

In their letter to the FTC, the legislators also point out that if completed, the transaction will allow Kotick to continue his work and get a hefty severance package, possibly, everything. At the same time, some 1,800 employees of Activision signed a letter demanding Kotick’s resignation. Microsoft denies that Kotick is en route for a golden parachute.

The senators demand that FTC oppose the deal if it finds that it can worsen the negotiating position between workers and companies (in this case, Microsoft represents both entities).

Microsoft commented on the letter saying that the deal compels both stakeholders and employees but never commented on gender and sexual misconduct.

“This is a compelling transaction for all stakeholders, including employees,” Lisa Tanzi, corporate vice president and general counsel at Microsoft, told the WSJ. “We believe Activision Blizzard will continue making progress [in the misconduct situation], and we are committed to further progress after the deal closes.”

Activision owns popular franchises like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush, available on a wide variety of platforms. Given Microsoft’s global strategy of being multiplatform, relying on the cloud, and selling first-party games for Windows PCs and Xbox consoles, it is not surprising that it wants to get Activision with all of its franchises. The question is whether Microsoft is ready to include Activision’s culture.

Apple is reportedly working on two new system-on-chips for inexpensive and mainstream Macs. The new M2 and M2 Pro SoCs are said to be based on the A15 Bionic architecture and will therefore feature "Avalanche" and "Blizzard" cores as well as enhanced integrated GPU, according to a report.  As ever, rumors and leaks should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Apple's new M2 SoC is said to be codenamed Staten and will feature four high-performance Avalanche cores, four energy-efficient Blizzard cores, and a 10-cluster integrated GPU, reports 9to5Mac citing its own sources. Meanwhile, the rumored M2 Pro chip is said to feature eight Avalanche cores, four Blizzard cores, and an up to 16-cluster GPU. Given the fact that Apple's A15 Bionic is made using TSMC's N5P fabrication process, it is likely that M2-series SoCs will be made using the same node.  

It is noteworthy that at this point Apple reportedly has no plans for M2 Max and M2 Ultra processors for higher-end PCs. This does not look improbable as Avalanche and Blizzard hardly bring significant general-purpose performance improvements compared to Firestorm and Icestorm cores used in M1 processors. 

Comparison of Apple's SoCs based on official and unofficial information

The new M2 SoC is believed to power Apple's new generation Mac Mini desktop PC (J473), whereas the M2 Pro will be the brain of a more powerful Mac Mini desktop (J474) that will sit between the entry-level Mac Mini and the entry-level Mac Studio desktop, so it will be priced accordingly. 

Keeping in mind that current M1 SoCs also power Apple's MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13, it is logical to expect M2 and M2 Pro SoCs to eventually find a home inside laptops, yet the report does not state this directly. 

Apple will host its annual WWDC 2022 conference in May or June, where Bloomberg expects it to introduce new Macs based on Apple Silicon. That said, it is reasonable to expect Apple to introduce its M2 and M2 Pro SoCs as well as computers based on these chips at the event. 

In previous M2 rumors about M2 indicated that the SoCs will leverage architectures used by Apple's next-generation A16 Bionic application processor for smartphones and tablets, which means that the SoCs will be made using TSMC's N4 node. Other rumors seem to confirm that Apple's 2nd Generation M-series SoCs could arrive in 2022 and would be made using an enhanced version of TSMC's N5 node, which means N5P, N4, N4P.  

It is noteworthy that Apple is also said to be working on its M3 family of system-on-chips based on its all-new architectures and made using TSMC's next-generation N3 node. The line-up will include processors codenamed Ibiza, Lobos, and Palma, which probably means M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max SoCs for entry-level, performance, and high-performance systems.

It looks as though Microsoft isn't alone in building out its war chest with game development studios. Microsoft shook the gaming world earlier this month with its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion, and now Sony is making moves of its own, buying Destiny developer Bungie. Compared to the Activision Blizzard purchase, Sony's $3.6 billion outlay for Bungie somewhat seems quaint.

"In SIE, we have found a partner who unconditionally supports us in all we are and who wants to accelerate our vision to create generation-spanning entertainment, all while preserving the creative independence that beats in Bungie's heart," wrote Bungie CEO Pete Parsons. "Like us, SIE believes that game worlds are only the beginning of what our IPs can become. Together, we share a dream of creating and fostering iconic franchises that unite friends around the world, families across generations, and fans across multiple platforms and entertainment mediums."

While it would be easy to speculate that Sony's move to acquire Bungie was a knee-jerk reaction to Microsoft's monster purchase, the truth is that this deal has likely been in the works for quite some time. It just so happens that the timing makes Sony seem like it is playing defense against Microsoft's growing dominance in the game developer realm. 

With that said, Sony intends to maintain Bungie as an "independent, multi-platform studio and publisher." This promise is also laid out in a FAQ that Bungie posted, which explains that "Destiny 2 will stay on all current platforms and expand to new platforms." Destiny 2 is currently playable across Xbox and PlayStation platforms, as well as PC and Google Stadia. 

Bungie also explains that non-PlayStation platforms will not be affected by the announcement, nor will already-announced seasons, events, packs or expansions. In addition, there are no planned changes to the Destiny 2 rollout schedule for content released between now and The Final Shape, which will arrive in 2024. And if you were wondering about cross-play support being altered in any way (for the worse), those concerns are unfounded. "We believe games are best shared with friends, wherever they choose to play, and will continue to invest in new features and platforms," added Bungie.

So, at least where it relates to Destiny 2, gamers don't appear to have anything to worry about. However, the big question is what happens in the post-Destiny 2 phase for Bungie? Sony likely didn't acquire Bungie to play nice with Microsoft and PC platforms forever. Sony's "multi-platform" mantra for Bungie likely will have an expiration date, and we could see its future IP tied exclusively to the PlayStation platform for a competitive advantage.

"Bungie's technical expertise, coupled with their track record of building highly engaged communities, make them a natural fit for collaboration with PlayStation Studios," said PlayStation Studios chief Hermen Hulst. "We are excited to make plans to share skills and expertise, and to unlock the potential in having the brilliant minds at Bungie under the PlayStation roof."

Besides the hugely popular Destiny series, Bungie also created the blockbuster Halo franchise. As you may already know, Bungie was initially known as a developer of Mac games but made the transition to Microsoft's first-generation Xbox console with Halo: Combat Evolved. The studio followed up with Halo 2 and Halo 3 before breaking away from Microsoft to operate as an independent company in 2007 (although Bungie did develop Halo: Reach, which landed in 2010 for Xbox 360).

Do you hear the sound of a thousand screams over at Sony HQ? If you do, it's because Microsoft just announced that it would buy game publishing powerhouse Activision Blizzard for a staggering $68.7 billion ($95/share). To put the acquisition in perspective, Microsoft's largest acquisition to date was LinkedIn, which the company purchased for around $26 billion back in 2016.

With this latest power move in the gaming space, Microsoft will have blockbuster franchises like Call of Duty, Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, Overwatch and countless others under its umbrella. The game studios that will come as part of the deal include Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, Beenox, Demonware, Digital Legends, High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, King, Major League Gaming, Radical Entertainment, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob and Treyarch. 

And as you might expect, with this flood of new games coming into the Microsoft fold, they will end up on Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass. According to Microsoft, Activision Blizzard's back catalog, along with new games, will make their way to the respective subscription games services.

"Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "We're investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all."

"Players everywhere love Activision Blizzard games, and we believe the creative teams have their best work in front of them," added Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming. "Together we will build a future where people can play the games they want, virtually anywhere they want."

News of Microsoft's latest big move comes after Activision Blizzard has been embroiled in a rash of sexual harassment allegations from employees. CEO Bobby Kotick has been on shaky ground with employees and investors following the sexual misconduct allegations at the company, but he is sticking around in his current position following Microsoft's acquisition. 

"For more than 30 years our incredibly talented teams have created some of the most successful games," said Kotick. "The combination of Activision Blizzard's world-class talent and extraordinary franchises with Microsoft's technology, distribution, access to talent, ambitious vision and shared commitment to gaming and inclusion will help ensure our continued success in an increasingly competitive industry."

Microsoft is really stacking the deck when it comes to game studios with its Activision Blizzard move, and this comes on the heels of its $7.5 billion acquisition of Zenimax Media and Bethesda Softworks in 2020. The company has already made it clear that it has no qualms about making future Bethesda IP exclusive to its Xbox console platforms. We feel that the same will hold true for its forthcoming Activision Blizzard titles.

Overwatch players with Nvidia graphics cards got some welcome news today: experimental support for Nvidia Reflex was added to the Public Test Region (PTR) that allows players to test new features before they’re added to the game proper.

Nvidia Reflex debuted in September 2020 in an effort “to optimize every aspect of the rendering pipeline for latency using a combination of SDKs and driver optimizations,” the company said, and give its customers an in-game advantage.

Riot Games and Epic Games quickly added Nvidia Reflex support to Valorant and Fortnite, respectively, and other developers have followed suit. Popular titles such as Call of Duty: Warzone, Apex Legends, and Rainbow Six: Siege all support the technology.

Not all Nvidia Reflex support is created equal, however, and its performance improvements can vary quite a bit based on the system in question as well as the level of support a developer chooses to add to a specific title. It’s not simply a switch to flip.

It’s not clear to what extent Blizzard chose to support Nvidia Reflex in Overwatch. However, Nvidia claims the feature can offer up to a 50% reduction in system latency for the title, but it didn’t share more specific details about the technology’s implementation.

Those details were also missing from Nvidia’s collection of Nvidia Reflex-compatible games, mice, and monitors; it’s nothing but “TBD” across the entire row. More information will probably become available as the technology leaves the PTR.

Blizzard did say in its patch notes that it’s also testing support for the Nvidia Reflex Latency Analyzer, which is supposed to improve input latency measurements, but that feature requires a compatible mouse and monitor as well as an Nvidia GPU.

Nvidia said that Nvidia Reflex can be enabled in the Overwatch PTR by going to Options and then Video settings. The feature should start to reduce system latency right away. Hopefully it makes it that much easier to click on some heads.

UPDATE 9/3/20 11:00am PT: Blizzard has updated their minimum required spec to include 100GB storage space for both SSDs and hard drives. However, they warn players that performance of your hard drive might impact Shadowland’s gaming experience.

Original Article:

In a surprising turn of events, Blizzard has announced that World of Warcraft Shadowlands now requires a 100GB SSD as a minimum requirement, but does this mean you can't run the game with a regular spinning hard drive? A couple of Shadowlands beta testers have reported that running the game on an HDD has not affected their gameplay or performance in any significant way. However, as this expansion is still in beta, this is subject to change.

However, it is probably a good idea to run this game on an SSD anyway (here's our list of Best SSDs). If you look at games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare that don't require an SSD but have very large storage requirements, the game is playable but you will encounter painfully long loading times. You can also possibly encounter "hitching" where the HDD is not fast enough to stream assets in real time.

Buying an SSD shouldn't be a big problem for most users – nearly all new PCs and laptops come with solid state storage. Plus, with the price of SSDs dropping exponentially over the past few years, grabbing a shiny new SSD just for Shadowlands won't break the bank for most budget gamers.

Overall, Shadowlands is looking to be the most demanding World of Warcraft expansion yet, with new Ray Tracing features already in the beta, a new graphics recommendation of GTX 1080 or RX Vega 64, and now a 100GB SSD requirement. I'm sure lots of WoW diehards will be upgrading their PCs to run this new expansion.

Nvidia officially launched its GeForce Now game streaming platform earlier this month. The company promptly had to remove titles published by Activision Blizzard from the service, but it seems like at least some of those games might return to GeForce Now after what Nvidia called a "misunderstanding" between the companies.

Here's what the company told Bloomberg last week:

"Activision Blizzard has been a fantastic partner during the GeForce Now beta, which we took to include the free trial period for our Founders membership. Recognizing the misunderstanding, we removed their games from our service, with hope we can work with them to re-enable these, and more, in the future.”

That statement doesn't exactly inspire confidence in GeForce Now's launch. It would be one thing if Nvidia included access to an indie game during the service's beta. This mixup concerned one of the world's largest video game publishers--Activision Blizzard publishes Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and many other titles--at launch.

Activision Blizzard wasn't the only publisher to pull its titles from GeForce Now after its official debut, either. Companies such as Electronic Arts, Capcom, Rockstar and Square Enix also pulled their games from the service right after it launched. Its game library was one of GeForce Now's selling points; now it's a cause for concern.

But at least it seems like Nvidia's hopeful that it will convince Activision Blizzard (and presumably other publishers) to return to GeForce Now after its launch mixup. We suspect that Nvidia's just hoping it won't end up like Google waiting around for companies to make their games available on its game streaming platform.

Just last week, Nvidia took its GeForce Now game streaming service out of beta, but sadly it doesn't look like it's all fun and games. Multiple parties have slowly been pulling their games from the service. The latest of these parties is Activision Blizzard, whose entire library is being removed from GeForce Now. 

"Per their request, please be advised Activision Blizzard games will be removed from the service," an Nvidia staff member said on the GeForce Now Forum. "While unfortunate, we hope to work together with Activision Blizzard to reenable these games and more in the future."

Activision Blizzard isn't the first to pull its support. Games from Capcom, EA, Konami, Remedy, Rockstar and Square Enix that were available with the beta were not available when the public version launched last week. 

"As we take GeForce Now to the next step in its evolution, we’ve worked with publishers to onboard a robust catalog of your PC games," the Nvidia staff member said. "This means continually adding new games, and on occasion, having to remove games – similar to other digital service providers." 

That basically means that as with any streaming service, like Netflix, content is continuously added but also sometimes removed. 

But unlike other streaming services, you don't pay a big monthly fee for GeForce Now in order access its entire catalog of games. Rather, you take your existing library and play it on GeForce Now by paying a small monthly fee. Essentially, you're only renting the computer power and not the licensing for the game.

Consequently, publishers removing their libraries from GeForce Now support is a particularly sour event for people who may have purchased games with the intent of running them on GeForce Now, since their system doesn't have the gaming capabilities. Such customers now own copies of games that they're unable to play. 

At the time of writing, there is no clear information as to why so many developers have opted out GeForce Now. One would think that by participating, devs have access to a larger group of people, but it appears that something is pushing them away. Reasons could include a problem with user agreements, or some games simply not being ready to properly run on the service yet. 

Regardless, if GeForce Now becomes a service known for having inconsistent game support, there could be dire consequences. Who wants to buy a game if there's a chance that a month from now you won't be able to play it anymore?  For now, we'll hope that Nvidia sorts things out with game studios so that these launch woes don't turn into long-term characteristics.

NZXT has released another game-themed chassis, and this time it's calling fans of Blizzard's competitive shooter, Overwatch.

The H500 Overwatch Edition is a mid-tower case featuring a light-up Overwatch logo on the front panel and the full branding on a side panel. That's about it as far as the custom design goes, however, which we find pretty underwhelming at first glance. 

NZXT previously released themed cases for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) and Fallout 4 as part of its CRFT product line. It also released a PUBG-themed chassis before CRFT debuted. The two CRFT cases were more detailed than the H500 Overwatch Edition launched today, which could be why it's not part of the CRFT line.

Branding aside, the H500 Overwatch Edition features NZXT's proprietary cable management system, a removable bracket for easy installation of various cooling solutions and a tempered glass side panel that offers a peek at your system's internals.

Here's the problem: all of those features can be found in the H500 and the H500i (which adds RGB lighting and fan controls) that preceded the H500 Overwatch Edition. The base H500 starts at $70, the H500i costs $99 and the H500 Overwatch Edition costs $150. It's hard to believe the H500 Overwatch Edition's logos--one of which, to be fair, glows--and orange cable bar justify that price jump. Those on a budget are probably better off buying an H500 and printing a few stickers. 

Still, for diehard Overwatch fans, maybe a couple logos is enough. Those folks can find the H500 Overwatch Edition available for pre-order on NZXT's website. The site lists the price at $170, but a NZXT spokesperson confirmed to Tom's Hardware that it's supposed to be $150. NZXT said the first pre-orders should start to ship "by next Monday [2/25] at the latest."

Blizzard Entertainment is set to launch Battle for Azeroth, the latest expansion for its popular MMORPG saga, World of Warcraft, today. Here’s everything you need to know to be prepared.

Global Launch Schedule

For the first time ever, Blizzard is launching one of its World of Warcraft expansions across the globe at the same time – meaning that all regional servers will go live with Battle for Azeroth at the same moment (hopefully), regardless of your location on the planet. The expansion is scheduled to launch at 3PM PT (or 6PM ET) an August 13 for those living in the continental United States. International servers will also go live at the same time, but it will technically be on August 14 for Europe (CEST), Taiwan (CST), Korea (KST) and ANZ (AEST).

This marks a significant change in how Blizzard has rolled out expansion launches in the past, where it would gradually turn on servers across the world in segments, mostly based on local times and schedules. However, this new method could pose a problem for gamers looking to get in on the action the moment the servers go live – World of Warcraft expansion launches have almost always been met with extended maintenance and connection issues from the massive influx of returning players (or fun-ruining DDOS attackers). Unleashing Battle for Azeroth to the entire planet at the same time may make those issues worse if Blizzard isn’t prepared for the rush.

You can purchase and download Blizzard’s newest World of Warcraft expansion, Battle for Azeroth, at the company’s website, with the Standard Edition priced at $50 and the Digital Deluxe version going for $70.

New PVP Systems

Battle for Azeroth is the usual fare for a World of Warcraft expansion with a plethora of new features, but Blizzard put a laser-like focus on player vs. player (PVP) combat for this Red vs. Blue/Horde vs. Alliance-themed expansion. PVP talents have been completely redesigned, so players are able to choose three talents from a large pool instead of choosing a single talent from three choices in a multi-tiered tree, as was the case in Legion. The new talent pool carries over the special crowd-control breaking abilities (variants of the old PVP trinkets) players have been accustomed to when battling against the Horde or Alliance, so the rework hasn’t completely changed the face of PVP talents as we knew it.

However, the new War Mode is one such feature that complete changes the face of PVP combat in World of Warcraft. The new system gives players the ability to choose whether or not they want to engage in PVP combat on a constant basis. Previously, PVP combat control and interactions were largely determined by the type of realm (server) your character was on. Players on a non-PVP (PVE) server were defaulted to see characters of the opposite faction as neutral, unattackable combatants, but they could enable PVP combat by attacking or by traveling to specific zones designed for it. PVP servers were relegated for hardcore players that didn’t mind the constant threat of attack. Now, War Mode lets you decide exactly how you want to play, and after you hit level 20 you can toggle it on or off by visiting Orgrimmar or Stormwind and setting your preference in the talent pane.

With War Mode enabled, you’ll venture out into Azeroth with other war-minded players looking for PVP combat, but you can still group up with players that choose to keep it off for various activites. When grouping for dungeons and raids with War Mode on, you can still be grouped and summoned by players with War Mode turned off. However, for outdoor activities (world bosses, quests), you will only be able to see other players with the same mode of play as you in the Looking For Group tool.

Previously, the PVP talents would only engage in PVP combat, but War Mode gives you these talents at all times to provide a more consistent experience. Players that rack up a certain number of kills against the opposite faction will gain Assassin status and get a 15 percent damage and healing buff, but other players (of the other faction) will be able to see you on their map and kill you for a bounty (Conquest points and other rewards), the size of which is dependent on how many players an Assassin kills before they too meet their end. There can be three or more Assassins in any of the Azeroth zones at one time.

PVP players will also welcome the arrival of air drops and the Dueler’s Guild. Every now and then a flying machine will make its way across the sky and drop a War Supply Crate somewhere in the zone. Similar to the Gurubashi Arena’s famous chest, players can fight to the death for the crate and claim it for their faction. Once a faction claims the War Supply Crate, anyone from that faction that happens to be in the arena can claim a piece of loot for a short time. The Dueler’s Guild takes its cues from the Brawler’s Guild and gives players a chance to partake in one-on-one duels against players in the same faction at two different arenas (located in Boralus or Zuldazar, the two faction cities of the new expansion).

New PVE Experiences

Players looking to avoid PVP combat still have plenty of opportunity for adventure in Battle for Azeroth, with the Alliance setting sail for the land of Kul Tiras and the Horde arriving on the shores of Zandalar. Both factions have their own story progression, and it seems the Alliance and Horde must quell the fires in their own houses before trying to burn down the other side of the fence.

Kul Tiras is the homeland of Warcraft mainstay Jaina Proudmoore, who returned from a heated hiatus taken at the start of Legion to lead the Aliiance to her now-embattled place of birth. Jaina herself must face the shadows of her past (she may have let her father die at the hands of the Horde and might be viewed as a traitor. It’s complicated.), and you’ll be tasked with uniting the scattered maritime houses across the three zones (Drustvar, Stormsong Valley, and Tiragarde Sound) of Kul Tiras if the Alliance has a chance against the Horde.

Zandalar is the fabled home of the Zandalari, the tribe of trolls most associated with the Horde. However, players will have to execute a prison break and set fire to Stormwind before traveling to three zones of Zandalar (Nazmir, Vol’dun, and Zuldazar) on a quest to unite the trolls of the island under the banner of the Horde. If both of the faction’s story arcs seem similar, that’s because they are nearly identical in size, scope and execution.

The Player versus environment action doesn’t stop there – players can partake in new Island Expeditions or Warfronts if they want to get the feel of the battle without taking on an actual player of the opposite faction. Island Expeditions are special 3-player scenarios that places you on a boat with the goal of looting islands and staying alive. The concept sounds like Sea of Thieves for World of Warcraft, but until we see it in action, we can only speculate what this new PVE scenario will look like.

Warfronts are a new 20-man PVE cooperative mode meant to represent the large-scale war waged in Battle for Azeroth. It’s not a PVP scenario, but it emulates it with gameplay inspired by Warcraft’s real-time strategy roots. You and 19 allies (20 total players) are tasked with creating outposts, gathering resources and training troops to take on your enemies, just like you would in the old Warcraft top-down RTS games. However, unlike the original Warcraft games, you’ll be fighting in first person on the front lines.

A New, Powerful Necklace (For Everyone)

Players of both factions will gain a new artifact item called the Heart of Azeroth, a necklace that will improve over time and likely stay with you until the end of the expansion. This new item is similar to the artifact weapons from Legion in that regard, and it will likely be upgradeable with every major content patch.

The necklace lets you absorb the power of Azerite (the leaky glowing substance pouring out of the planet after Sargeras stabbed it with his giant flame sword at the end of Legion) as you progress through Battle for Azeroth, and it lets you empower special armor (helms, shoulder, or chest) the more power it gets. The Azerite-empowered armors have several rings of talents and abilities, and the more you level your Heart of Azeroth, the further you progress along the rings (and the more abilities and talents you unlock).

Waiting For Uldir

Blizzard also laid out its short term raid content plans, with Uldir being the first of many raids to come. The company stated that Normal and Heroic versions of the eight-boss raid instance would become active on Sept. 4, and that Mythic and Raid Finder Wing 1: Halls of Containment would debut on Sept. 11. The second wing for the Raid Finder difficulty will drop shortly after that on the Sept. 25, and the final wing will be available on Oct. 9.

Do you know someone who goes to watch a movie, gets through about 15 minutes, pauses it to do something else, and then repeats this cycle until the credits roll? It seems like that would get frustrating after a while and completely ruin any sense of immersion the movie was trying to create. I'm the same way about games--it feels strange to play for a few minutes, pause the game, and then come back for another few minutes. Because I often find myself stealing game time away from my actual responsibilities, that means I need something I can play for a little while and then abandon for a bit without having to feel guilty for ruining the pacing of the carefully constructed sequences found in many games.

Enter Overwatch. Blizzard's competitive first-person shooter has become my latest obsession in large part because of my ability to drop into a game, enjoy it, and then wait to queue for another while I do housework or run errands. Overwatch doesn't expect you to sit through 20-minute cutscenes and then make your way through a long level before a surprise boss fight taunts you for thinking you'd be able to leave the game so soon. Nope. Overwatch has me wait a few minutes to find a game, play for five to 20 minutes, and then decide when I'm ready for some more. If I want to play for hours on end, I can. (And have.) If I just want to engage in a little deathmatch before work, well, I can do that too.

Surprisingly Deep

But the on-demand shots of dopamine Overwatch provides aren't its only draw. The game also has a surprising amount of depth: It features 27 heroes (and counting) who all have unique mechanics and must be assembled into six-person teams. (With good synergy--I see you, people who pick Hanzo when we already have a Widowmaker.) Each team is then plopped onto one of 17 maps across four game types, each of which has its own set of rules and win conditions. Where many FPS titles would emphasize learning a gun's spray or becoming familiar with a few different maps, Overwatch requires anyone who takes it seriously to understand an intricate web of mechanics, strategies, and rules.

All that depth feeds perfectly into my addictive personality. It's easy to watch high-level players stream to pick up on how certain heroes should be played, or to see coaches break down what went wrong in someone's previous games by reviewing their VODs. New tools have also debuted to help you analyze your own gameplay with machine learning, for example, or work through various strategies on all of the game's maps. Even when I can't play Overwatch, I can think about it, and that can be a welcome distraction when I'm cleaning the house or running some errands. And, of course, there are always previous Overwatch League matches to watch if I want to see professional gameplay on the big stage.

Gaming With Strangers And Friends

There's also the social aspect. Queuing into games with up to five random people is always a bit of a crapshoot. Just as with any online game, Overwatch has its fair share of trolls, griefers, and plainly unpleasant players. But it also has many people who can be funny or who take the game just as seriously. Playing with friends is even better--now instead of wondering what we should play, we can hop into Overwatch to have a shared experience without competing against each other. (Some people don't handle losses well; at least on Overwatch you're on the same side.) Things can get lonely here in the frozen tundras of upstate New York, so online games help me socialize without freezing my body parts off.

Of course, none of this would matter if Overwatch wasn't fun. Besides the satisfaction of figuring out the game's intricacies, it's also just plain fun to hook someone into Roadhog's scrap gun, click on heads as McCree, or slice the enemy team apart with Genji's katana. Balancing that bloodlust with each mode's objectives--which require you to capture an area, push a payload, or perform some variation of those two--makes everything fast-paced and exciting. Sometimes things can get a little too hectic, and playing with a tilted or toxic teammate can suck the life out of the game, but for the most part Overwatch simultaneously appeals to my desire for action with my love for strategizing.

Last year, Blizzard added a Public Test Realm (PTR) for Warcraft III, and the studio is now using it to its full potential. In addition to more balance changes, the studio is testing some new features that could bring back veterans to the real-time strategy game that debuted in 2002.

When Warcraft III was released, monitors used the 4:3 screen ratio. One of the ways Blizzard is attempting to modernize the game is by testing widescreen support. Specifically, it will add black vertical bars in menus to prevent stretching as well as bookends for the game’s interface. You can see the change for yourself, but be warned that you might have some issues with changing the resolution when playing in fullscreen mode.

In the past, you could play custom games with a maximum of 12 people. Blizzard is testing the ability to double that amount so that matches can hold up to 24 players. This also means that those who want to create their own maps can create larger areas. The game’s World Editor has new limits to map size, objects, and resources so that you can build massive arenas. Warcraft III is bound to feel much bigger after these changes.

For now, this latest version of the PTR is available only for the English version of the game. Blizzard also mentioned that this might be the final iteration of Warcraft III to support the Windows XP OS. You can check out the full details of the update on the game’s forum page.

These changes come in tandem with Blizzard’s announcement of the first Warcraft III Invitational tournament. Fourteen players from around the world will gather at the studio’s headquarters in Irvine, California from February 27 - 28. All of the updates to the game might be a sign of Blizzard’s intention to reveal some information on a potential remaster or sequel, and we’re bound to find out more at the upcoming tournament.

Blizzard Entertainment’s next chapter in the World of Warcraft franchise is now available for pre-order.

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is the latest expansion in the MMORPG saga, with the denizens of the Alliance and Horde set to clash in an epic confrontation that will decide the fate of Azeroth’s future. The new content will increase the level cap to 120 and unlock new Allied Races and locations not previously accessible to players, including Kul Tiras and Zandalar.

The new Allied Races consist of several familiar factions that were introduced in World of Warcraft: Legion, with Highmountain Tauren, Lightforged Draenei, Nightborne, and Void Elves joining the fight for Azeroth after the fall of the Legion. These special subclasses are only accessible to players with a level 110 character after completing specific quests and reputation requirements for the factions that each Allied Race is aligned with. However, Blizzard is giving gamers a head start – pre-ordering Battle For Azeroth will give you early access to the prerequisite quests so you can be ready to create your new character when the expansion arrives. You also get early access to quests that earn a new set of items called Heritage Armor and a Level 110 Character Boost, which you can use to raise a character of your choosing to the current level cap (and catch up on events if you missed out on Legion).

Two versions of the game will be available for purchase – a Standard and Digital Deluxe Edition. The Standard Edition of Battle For Azeroth will include everything we detailed above, and the Digital Deluxe Edition takes it a step further with an Alliance and Horde mount (you get both), a Baby Tortollan companion pet (named Tottle), and items for other Blizzard games, including Overwatch, StarCraft II, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm.

World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is slated to arrive on or before September 21, and it’s now available for pre-order from Blizzard’s website. The Standard Edition goes for $50 and the Digital Deluxe version is priced at $70.

Overwatch just got a sizable update today with the debut of the new Blizzard World map first announced back during BlizzCon in November. The update also includes a meaty chunk of new cosmetic options, with the introduction of over 100 new items for all 26 heroes, including Legendary and Epic skins in addition to sprays, emotes, player icons, and more. If you’ve been looking for a reason to jump back into the game and spend some of that hard-earned cash on some loot boxes, this is surely it.

Blizzard World is one good reason on its own to spend some time within Overwatch, as it brings a theme park-inspired collection of references to other Blizzard games with it. It’s basically an amusement park with fictional themed “areas” based on Blizzard properties from Diablo to StarCraft, and it’s a fun nod to the games you have lying dormant on your Battle.net account, since you’ll probably be spending a lot of your time trying to grab Black Cat D.Va going forward.

That’s right, Black Cat D.Va is but one of the new Legendary skins you can look forward to unlocking in Overwatch, along with some very cool options like Kabuki Hanzo (if you can include “cool” and “Hanzo” in the same sentence), Immortal Orisa, Barbarian Zarya, and Asp Pharah. As far as Epic skins go, you’ve got the zany Caution Junkrat, fiery Hellfire Reaper, and the particularly awesome Carbon Fiber Zenyatta, to boot. Here’s a complete list of the skins you’ll be able to unlock:

Legendary Skins:

• Blackhand Doomfist
• Black Cat D.Va
• Kabuki Hanzo
• Asp Pharah
• Capoeira Lúcio  
• Ecopoint: Antarctica Mei
• Immortal Orisa
• Crusader Reinhardt
• Butcher Roadhog
• Magni Torbjörn
• Nova Widowmaker
• Barbarian Zarya

Epic Skins:

• Caution Junkrat
• Royal McCree
• Hellfire Reaper
• Peacock Symmetra
• Carbon Fiber Zenyatta

Recently, the expansive set of Overwatch League team skins was added to the game as well, which needed to be purchased separately from regular loot boxes. These new cosmetic items can be obtained via regular loot boxes, and will be available from now on outside of any special events. If your wallet hadn’t already been cleaned out from the Winter Wonderland event last month, it may very well be when you get a chance to start nabbing all these new goodies. Overwatch knows how to grab you and keep you interested.

Blizzard is getting into a rather festive mood with the introduction of Overwatch's holiday 2017 Winter Wonderland event. It's that time again, when new wintry skins, holiday-themed game modes, and last year's event items making a grand return.

The main draw here, of course, is the selection of frosty, holiday-themed skins up for grabs. The seven new skins outfit Ana, Roadhog, Junkrat, Hanzo, Bastion, Sombra, and Soldier 76 with a mix of costumes from casual (literally) to majestic.

While most of the heroes have a wintry mix of season-appropriate attire, Junkrat stands out with his sunny "Beachrat" skin, proudly hanging out in the middle of a snowy scene with a dark tan and beach attire. Ana's "Snow Owl" skin is a standout in a different way, with her skin resembling a majestic snowy owl. Hanzo's "Casual" skin is a shout-out to a skin players started requesting ages ago from the Overwatch comics, and Sombra's "Rime" skin gives her a dramatic transformation into a Snow Queen-like figure with a new hairstyle and all. If none of those skins strike your fancy, last year’s items will be up for grabs via loot boxes as well, so you may very well get lucky and snag your favorite skin.

While the skins take center stage, you can't count out the changes to various maps as important additions to the package. The Black Forest map has been winterized properly, and holiday-tinged makeovers have landed in both Hanamura and King's Row. They're perfect for the return of the Mei's Snowball Offensive Brawl from last year's winter event and a new Brawl mode that's Blizzard has described a little like a "boss" encounter. Mei’s Snowball Offensive is a 6v6 snowball fight that gives Mei augmented abilities. Her primary mode of fire can be recharged via snow piles around the map and can take out an enemy immediately with one hit. Her Ultimate move, Blizzard, is overtaken with Flurry instead. This grants Mei an infinite amount of ammo.

Mei's Yeti Hunt charges five different players (all Mei) with the responsibility of defeating one player who’s assigned to be Winston, the "Yeti," all decked out with his appropriate skin. All Meis work together to take down Winston as he collects power-ups to enter Primal Rage mode. All of the  Meis must be eliminated or Winston taken down to name a victor. It's very different from the usual selection of game modes and obviously a change from the competitive nature of the modes, but it's a fun change of pace akin to Lúcioball.

If you’re ready to get into the holiday spirit, Overwatchhas you covered this season. The event will be live from now through January 1.

Blizzard announced the Overwatch League at BlizzCon 2016, but for months afterward, information merely trickled out. The floodgates opened earlier this year, however, and at BlizzCon 2017 the company finally revealed exactly how the first season of the Overwatch League will play out.

We already knew the first season of the Overwatch League would feature 12 teams from around the world: one each from South Korea, the UK, and China, with another nine from the U.S. Each team represents a specific city, much like they would in traditional sports leagues, and will host games in their own arenas during future seasons. (All of the first season's games will be hosted at the new Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles.)

Blizzard had also recently revealed changes to its spectator system—a better third-person camera, team-specific cosmetics, and more—to make Overwatch easier to view. That left just one question: How will the Overwatch League's first season be structured? Now we know.

The 12 teams participating in the first season have been split into two groups, Atlantic and Pacific, and they'll play 20 games within their own group and 20 games without. After the season ends, postseason championships will take the top-performing teams from each group and pit them against each other to determine the best team in the entire league. The season itself will be broken up into four different stages:

• Stage 1: January 10—February 10
• Stage 2: February 21—March 24
• Stage 3: April 4—May 5
• Stage 4: May 16—June 16

Three games of four-map sets will be held from Wednesday-Saturday each week. That's a lot of Overwatch, and even if people simply want to watch the games in which their favorite team is competing, the schedule ought to give them something to watch every week. Building viewership during the first season will be crucial to attracting even more teams and big-ticket sponsors like, say, HP and Intel.

Blizzard also revealed for how much money these teams will be competing. The company plans to pay out $500,000 across all four seasons; $1.3 million during the season placement matches; and $1.7 million during the championship playoffs. (These payouts are split between participating teams based on their performance.) Players will receive at least 50% of these winnings, per the Overwatch League's contract requirements.

As if that wasn't enough, Blizzard also teased a so-called All-Star Weekend that will be held in August. The company said it will reveal more about that event in early 2018. You can learn more about the Overwatch League's first season on the official website. There you'll find information about the participating teams and their rosters, the first season's schedule, and more.

The announcements just kept on rolling out from BlizzCon 2017. StarCraft II is going free-to-play, Heroes of the Storm will get two new heroes, and Hearthstone plans to dazzle players with a new expansion. Blizzard then turned its focus to Overwatch, which is receiving a new support hero and hybrid map, both of which should help the massively popular team-based shooter maintain its momentum ahead of the Overwatch League.

Let's Meet Moira

Perhaps the most welcome announcement was the revelation of Moira, a support hero who steals health from her enemies and gives it to her teammates. Moira is the fifth healer in the game (Symmetra, another support hero, doesn't heal allies), and her addition should be welcomed by those burnt out on DPS heroes like Doomfist. Healing is a big part of Overwatch, but healers make up a small portion of its roster.

Moira also has a unique Dash ability that allows her to teleport short distances. This adds crucial sustainability to the hero—half of Overwatch's healers (Ana, Zenyatta) are relatively immobile, and the game's emphasis on movement favors mobile heroes (Mercy, Lucio) over their slower counterparts. With Moira, Overwatch seems to have aimed to strike a balance with bursts of mobility punctuating longer periods of slow walking.

Finally, Moira's ultimate ability, Coalescence, fires a biotic beam that simultaneously heals allies and damages enemies. It doesn't seem like an easy ultimate to use—most Overwatch players don't stand in a straight line for you to shoot at them—but its utility could prove valuable. Coalescence also pierces barriers, which could help break so-called barrier comps that rely on a bunch of shields that take forever to break.

You can learn more about Moira on the Overwatch website.

Welcome To Blizzard World

Blizzard went a little meta with the new map announcement. Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan said during his speech that there's an amusement park right outside the Overwatch Arena. That segued into the Overwatch team wondering what a Blizzard theme park would be like, and instead of leaving that to idle speculation, the developer actually made a Blizzard World map that pays tribute to its franchises.

Blizzard World is a "hybrid" map. That means one team will attempt to capture a point, or square portion of the map, and then push a payload all the way to the stage's conclusion while the other team tries to stop them. (The "hybrid" bit arises from the map type's similarities to assault maps, where you just have to capture two points, and escort maps that simply require you to push a payload.) Blizzard World will debut in 2018.

Overwatch's tribute to all things Blizzard didn't end with the amusement park. The team also announced that various characters—Roadhog, Widowmaker, Zarya, and others—will receive Blizzard-themed skins. This kind of crossover was previously limited to Heroes of the Storm, where Blizzard liberally borrows from all of its franchises, but now it's headed to Overwatch, as well. The skins will be available in loot boxes next year.

Reinhardt, Reinhardt, Reinhardt!

It's not BlizzCon without a bunch of animated shorts. Overwatch is no exception to this rule, and this year's video focused on Reinhardt, one of the game's tanks. You can watch the crusader's first short below.

World of Warcraft Classic, the official "vanilla" server from Blizzard, is currently in development. The news comes via today's BlizzCon 2017 opening ceremony livestream, where executive producer J. Allen Brack was on hand to give the details.

Blizzard has been clearly been listening to World of Warcraft fans over the years. Access to legacy game content is something they've been clamoring for since the Burning Crusade expansion launched in 2007. It made serious changes to WoWas we knew it, making certain areas inaccessible to players, in addition to other significant alterations. When 2010's Cataclysm expansion debuted, it made further cuts that ensured new players would never truly be able to experience the same WoW that others did back in 2004.

Fans had been working on several solutions for the issue before, creating their own private "vanilla" versions of the game that reflected the way it was before the new expansions released. Blizzard had been shutting these servers down in the name of copyright claims, but it appears there could have been a secondary reason here, because World of Warcraft Classic has been in development for a while now.

There's currently no release date for World of Warcraft Classic, but we'll likely be hearing more about the server as we head into 2018. For veteran WoW players, the seventh complete expansion, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, is on the way as well, which will further explore the lore behind the rivalry of both Horde and Alliance factions.

StarCraft II is becoming a free-to-play title starting November 14, Blizzard revealed during today's BlizzCon 2017 Opening Ceremony.

Blizzard president and co-founder Mike Morhaime was on hand to make the announcement, explaining that the full "StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty" campaign will be available for all players to play for free going forward.

If you already have "Wings of Liberty," he said, you'll get the Zerg-themed campaign "StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm" for free as well. If you're interested in picking up your copy of "StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm," you'll need to log into your Battle.net account to claim it between November 8 and December 8.

In addition, all players will gain access to the full ranked multiplayer ladders and every co-op commander in-game up to level 5. To unlock the multiplayer ladder beyond that, you can earn 10 First Wins of the Day (a win in your first multiplayer match of the day)  in either Unranked or Versus A.I. mode.

There's also some new content coming to StarCraft II in the form of a new co-op mission called “Cart and Parcel,” though there weren't any other details divulged about what it may contain just yet. There should be additional information coming later during a StarCraft II panel later during the show.

After completing the "Wings of Liberty" campaign, if you don't nab "Heart of the Swarm" for free, you can pick it up along with the other single-player campaign content such as "Legacy of the Void" and "Nova Covert Ops" for $15 apiece or bundled together for $40.

There's also a special award coming in for anyone who already purchased any StarCraft II campaign before Oct. 31: a Ghost skin and three new portraits to add to your collection. If you’ve been considering jumping into StarCraft II, now’s a great time to do so.

Blizzard continues to add more characters to its Heroes of the Storm multiplayer online battle arena. At its annual BlizzCon show, the company revealed that Alexstrasza and Hanzo from World of Warcraft and Overwatch, respectively, will join the fight.

The two characters were revealed in the usual Blizzard fashion: a cinematic trailer. Alexstrasza first fought with Hanzo in her human form, but she then transformed into a dragon in an effort to test his skills. Players can use Alexstrasza as a ranged support character, but you can also utilize her dragon form to help your allies in a tough spot. On the field, Hanzo plays the role of a ranged assassin, which allows him to deal damage from a distance. His quick speed also makes him the ideal choice to scout ahead for potential traps and enemies.

The addition of Alexstrasza and Hanzo is the latest in a series of ongoing updates in Heroes of the Storm. The developers recently made major changes with the 2.0 update, and they have even more features to add in the coming months. This include new matchmaking methods, which will use your performance in game to determine your ranking. There are also improvements on the way for the laning system and a reworked stealth mechanic. Players will also get to use voice chat during matches and play with a new camera to get a better view of the battlefield.

These new changes will arrive as part of the 2018 Gameplay Update. However, you can get an early sneak peek at the new content when the developers release it on the game’s Public Test Realm on November 20.

Blizzard announced that HP and Intel have signed a multi-year deal to sponsor the Overwatch League. Intel will also support future Overwatch tournaments, Blizzard said, which means the popular team-based shooter will be backed by one of the industry's biggest companies for a while.

The Overwatch League is Blizzard's attempt to franchise esports to make it more like traditional sports. Companies have purchased slots in specific cities—New York, Los Angeles, and other population centers—where they will host matches and their own local tournaments. Each slot cost a reported $20 million, and spots have been picked up by endemic esports organizations and traditional sports magnates alike.

In exchange for those investments, orgs will split revenues garnered from merchandise sales as well as in-game purchases. Blizzard also built a new esports arena in Los Angeles where the first Overwatch League season will be held. (Future seasons will see teams travel between all of the participating cities.) To say Blizzard and the other companies in the league have made significant investments would be an understatement.

Now HP and Intel will also invest in Overwatch's future as an esport. Games will be played on Omen by HP systems and monitors, with the former being equipped with an Intel Core i7 processor. (Blizzard didn't name a specific model.) Intel's CPUs will also be used in "future Overwatch competitive events." We suspect that's referring to the Overwatch World Cup, which is like the game's Olympics and is played on LAN. Overwatch Contenders is played remotely, but the semifinals and finals could also be part of this deal, as could events that have yet to be revealed.

Blizzard said in a press release:

“We’re thrilled to be joining forces with HP and Intel to ensure that the teams competing professionally in Overwatch are equipped with top-end technology,” said Pete Vlastelica, president & CEO of Blizzard Entertainment’s Major League Gaming division. “Multiyear collaborations such as this illustrate the momentum behind the Overwatch League as well as a long-term commitment by us and our partners in what we see as the future of esports.”

This partnership comes hot on the heels of many Overwatch League announcements. Many of the participating teams have finally revealed their names, logos, and rosters in the last few weeks, and more information is expected to be revealed ahead of BlizzCon 2017, which runs November 3-4. You can find all of the team announcements and other information about the Overwatch League on its official website.

Blizzard also revealed changes to Overwatch itself that should make it easier to watch the game. Spectators have been given a new "smart" third-person camera that automatically frames the action, a top-down view that makes it easier to suss out players' positions on the map, and detailed statistics that can help track teams' performances. Those updates should make broadcasting the fast-paced game a little less hectic.

Other changes will be much more obvious to viewers. Perhaps the most significant is the introduction of in-game "jerseys" that modify each hero's appearance to match their player's team. The game previously relied on simple blue and red coloring to differentiate between teams, but teams would sometimes end up switching colors between maps, which could make it hard to figure out who exactly you were spectating.

Blizzard also changed in-game effects, like the colors of rays and explosions, to match team colors. Each team will also have "home" and "away" colors to make them even easier to differentiate. (Many of the teams use some kind of blue in their color scheme, which could get confusing quickly. Making Overwatch easier to, um, watch is an important step in setting up the Overwatch League and other tournaments for success.

These changes will make their debut at the Overwatch World Cup finals at BlizzCon this weekend. The schedule can be found here.

Hundreds of Overwatch players have been affected by a bug that cost them hundreds of skill rating (SR) and banned them from this competitive season. Blizzard said in a forum post that it's aware of the issue, and in addition to fixing the problem, it plans to un-ban players and restore their SR.

Overwatch players can be divided into two groups. One just wants to play the game casually by going into Quick Play or the Arcade. The other focuses on the title's competitive mode, where they can play more serious matches and work their way up the ranks to show off their skill. For the latter group, losing hundreds of SR and being banned from the competitive mode for a two-month season could kill their passion for the title.

Here's what Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan said in his forum post:

We recently identified a bug that, in extremely rare cases, can cause players to lose their skill rating progress and receive a seasonal ban from Competitive Play without any prior penalties for leaving early or being kicked for inactivity. This bug is a high priority for our team, and we’re working on a fix to prevent further instances of it occurring as we speak.

On the bright side, Kaplan said that fewer than 200 people have been affected by this bug, which means the vast majority of Overwatch players didn't have their SR taken away. The even better news is that the company plans to restore the affected users' SR. Blizzard doesn't usually fiddle with SR when technical problems arise—the company's "solution" is usually to have players just grind out games so they can get back to their proper skill rating.

Kaplan said Blizzard will "continue to monitor for additional occurrences and provide assistance until we can implement a permanent fix." He doesn't know when the fix will go live, but someone from Blizzard will respond in that forum thread when everything is hunky-dory.  In the meantime, at least the company is helping people affected by this bug, instead of just shrugging its shoulders and telling them to play more.

This is yet another thing for the Overwatch team to tackle. Blizzard has been busy. Recently, it's added a new hero, map, and game mode; changed various aspects of the competitive mode; and supported the upcoming Overwatch League with additional teams and a new esports arena in Los Angeles, among other things. All that despite the dev team having to deal with rampant toxicity instead of working on new features.

The Overwatch League draws nigh. Blizzard announced that slots have been purchased for Philadelphia, Dallas, and Houston, bringing the total number of teams participating in the league's first season to 12. The company also revealed that the preseason will start on December 6, with the first legitimate season kicking off on January 10, 2018 and running until June, with championship playoffs and finals taking place in July.

The number of teams participating in the Overwatch League is impressive, especially considering the reported $20 million buy-in price. Even more impressive is the diversity of organizations Blizzard has convinced to invest in the league. Just look at the three slots announced today:

Philadelphia's slot was purchased by Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Philadelphia Flyers and manages "hundreds of stadiums, arenas, and other venues in the U.S., Canada, and Singapore." Details about the Philadelphia team, or who will manage it, were not revealed.

Dallas' slot was purchased by Team EnVyUs, an incumbent esports organization with teams for Overwatch, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and other games. EnVyUs is undefeated in the first season of Overwatch Contenders, the minor league to the Overwatch League's... um, major league. It's also raised a "multi 8-figure investment" from the Hersh Interactive Group backed by oil magnate Ken Hersh.

Houston's slot was purchased by OpTic Gaming, another well-established esports organization with teams in Halo, Call of Duty, and others. OpTic doesn't have an Overwatch team, but its pedigree in other esports and spot in the Overwatch League will allow it to quickly build a roster.

Just to drive the point home: In these cities alone, you have a combination of old money (Comcast Spectacor and the Hersh Interactive Group) with some of the most famous esports organizations (Team EnVyUs and OpTic Gaming) coming together to participate in a totally unproven league. And these cities aren't the exception—the nine other slots have been snapped up by traditional sports orgs and esports mainstays alike.

Perhaps most exciting is the announcement that the preseason will start on December 6. Blizzard has repeatedly said the Overwatch League would debut this year, but the slow pace with which the company released news about the league sparked concerns about its ability to follow through with that promise. Now we know that we'll at least get a taste of what the league has to offer. Blizzard said:

The preseason begins on Wednesday, December 6, 2017 at Blizzard Arena Los Angeles with a series of exhibition matches featuring all of the teams—the world's first chance to see Overwatch League professionals in action. The inaugural season proper kicks off on Wednesday, January 10, 2018 and will continue into June, followed by championship playoffs and finals in July. We look forward to announcing more information about the league's schedule and format in the coming months, including how to get tickets to the preseason and regular-season matches.

It will be interesting to see how these investments pay off. If the reported $20 million buy-in is accurate, Blizzard has amassed $240,000,000 for the Overwatch League's first season. The company has also demonstrated its commitment to the league by building that Blizzard Arena Los Angeles mentioned above, making sure players are fairly compensated, and convincing titans of the entertainment industry to give it a shot.

Welcome to Junkertown! Shortly after its revelation at Gamescom, the latest Overwatch map has been released to the Public Test Region (PTR) where Blizzard tests changes to the game before releasing them to the public. The company also brought new deathmatch modes and balance changes to the base game, so no matter what region you play in, the popular team-based shooter has something new for you this week.

Like we said earlier this month, Junkertown is a new escort map that requires you to push a payload through Junkrat and Roadhog's home town.  The map features many flanking routes and combines some open areas (like one right at the start) with tighter spaces. It's definitely going to take a little while to learn, so heading in to the PTR is the best way to give yourself a leg up over the competition for the map's official debut.

Speaking of official debuts: Just a few weeks after going live on the PTR, Overwatch's new deathmatch modes are now available in all regions. The first mode is a free-for-all in which eight players compete to rack up 20 kills before anyone else. The second mode has two teams of four players race to the 30-kill mark. The former takes place on a new Chateau Guillard map, the second on modified versions of existing maps.

Changes to several heroes also made their debut. Junkrat's been given an extra concussion mine, Roadhog can now walk as he takes a breather, and Orisa's received a larger shield and improved projectile speed. Other changes, like the nerf to D.va's defense matrix and the Mercy rework announced last week, are still being tested in the PTR before they make their official debut and shake up the game's meta.

All of this adds up to a busy week for Overwatch. The second annual Summer Games came to a close, and so did Season 5 of the game's competitive mode. Season 6 will start on August 31—which means there was just a three-day gap in between seasons—and it will bring with it many changes to Overwatch's skill ratings and matchmaking. It will also feature a reduced lifespan of two months instead of the usual three.

Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan announced that big changes are coming to the team-based shooter's Competitive mode. Season 6 will be shorter than its predecessors, change Blizzard's approach to players' skill ratings, and boast improved matchmaking, among other things.

Overwatch has four main game modes. Quick Play offers casual matches where people are likely to just mess around. Arcade hosts numerous game types, like the new deathmatch modes, where victories are rewarded with loot boxes. Competitive lets people strut their stuff and climb the ladder to reach higher and higher ranks. And the Custom mode lets people set up their own servers with pretty much any settings they want.

Competitive is the most serious of the game modes. Blizzard has positioned the mode as the first step on the path to becoming a professional Overwatch player in Overwatch Contenders, the Overwatch World Cup, and the Overwatch League, as well as outside tournaments. Quick Play, Arcade, and Custom games don't really matter in the long term, but many players want to do their best in Competitive matches.

Here's how Competitive mode works now. Blizzard has hosted five different "seasons" that, at least recently, have lasted three months apiece. At the beginning of each season, you play 10 placement matches to determine your skill rating (SR) for the season. You gain more SR for a win and lose some for a loss. Your SR determines your rank, which ranges from Bronze (anything below 1500) and Top 500 (which varies by server).

That's going to change with Season 6. Kaplan said the season will last two months instead of three to make sure people stay engaged throughout the entire season. He also said your starting SR will be more accurate. Blizzard previously gave you a lower SR than you deserved so you could "climb" back to where you should be. Many players have been frustrated by this decision—it's not fun to finish a season in Platinum and get placed in Gold. It also seemed odd to play 10 placement matches only to have your SR determined by Blizzard's whims.

Another controversial decision was an SR "decay" system that penalized players who didn't play a certain number of games each week. Once you reach Diamond, you're expected to play at least seven games a week. If you don't, your SR will drop 50 points a day. Take one trip and you can find yourself 100 SR lower not because you lost a bunch of games, but because Blizzard thought you didn't play enough Overwatch.

Kaplan said in the developer update that Blizzard will change the decay system in Season 6. Players will be required to play five games a week instead of seven, and the rate of decay will be cut down to 25 SR. The shorter season will also reduce the possibility of losing hundreds of SR, so this should mitigate frustrations, and Kaplan said that Blizzard's open to making further changes to this system in the future.

All of this will culminate in better matchmaking at higher ranks. Instead of throwing a Top 500 player into a Master game two ranks underneath them, Overwatch's system will make the Top 500 player wait a little longer in exchange for a fairer match. That should make things more enjoyable for everyone—now you won't have to worry as much about getting stomped on by someone playing a match well below their rank.

Kaplan revealed that other changes will be coming to Season 6 of Overwatch competitive; check out the developer update for more details. The season will kick off on August 31.

Are you ready to escort a cart full of gold, jewelry, and explosives through a post-apocalyptic Australian town? Blizzard seems to you are, because it revealed the latest Overwatch map, and it centers on criminals extraordinaire Junkrat and Roadhog. Welcome to Junkertown.

Overwatch is a game of heroes and places. Players compete to push a payload through a map, take control of a specific point, or assault two locations in the often-infuriating maps that contain two control points. (The opposing team, meanwhile, tries to stop all those things from happening.) Much like releasing a new hero—hello Doomfist!—introducing a new map allows Blizzard to stop Overwatch from becoming too stale.

Blizzard has released several new maps since Overwatch's debut in 2016. Eichenwalde is a hybrid assault/escort map that requires the attacking team to take control of a point before pushing a payload through the remains of a German castle. Horizon Lunar Colony, as its name implies, is a moon base with the dreaded two control points (2CP) objective that often involves several minutes of utter chaos.

The other new maps are found in the deathmatch and team deathmatch game modes currently available in the game's Public Test Region (PTR). Unlike maps in other game modes, these new or modified locations are little more than glorified arenas in which you try to snuff out the life of other players. All of which leaves Junkertown as the first new pure escort map to be revealed since Overwatch came out more than a year ago.

Blizzard published two videos about Junkertown (one is above, one is below). One shows off the locale, and the other centers around Junkrat and Roadhog as they try to get back at an unseen queen who kicked them out of her kingdom. The first is more relevant to how Junkertown will play, but Overwatch is known for its backstory, so the second might appeal to more casual players. (Or just anyone who wants to see Junkrat and Roadhog get up to no good.)

Another video will be released on Wednesday. That one will be an animated short, which Blizzard has used in the past to make people connect to specific heroes, but we don't know anything else about the video. If you're at Gamescom, head over to the Overwatch area to get a quick hands-on with Junkertown before its debut. Blizzard hasn't said when that will be, so you might get a serious leg up over people who aren't at the event.