The Elder Scrolls Online studio head says Microsoft’s brutal cuts were ‘super emotional… it was awful’

In July this year, Phil Spencer said Microsoft’s gaming business has “never looked stronger” as he simultaneously announced an absolutely brutal round of layoffs. Several studios were closed outright, games were cancelled, and almost everything in Microsoft’s portfolio was touched in some way, with the aftershocks still coming. One of the developers heavily affected was…

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Old School RuneScape says no more Mr Nice Guy, it’s time for permabans and confiscations if you’re caught buying black market gold

Old School RuneScape (OSRS) has a cancer, and that cancer is crime. Or, well, it’s repeated violations of Jagex’s terms of service, anyway. The game is beset by perfidious players who buy in-game gold and items off black market sellers using real-world money, a process called Real World Trading (RWT). Okay, yes, some version of…

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This redditor has discovered a higher-specced engineering sample of the RTX 2080 Ti, with more shaders, ROPS, TMUs, and VRAM than the release version

It’s often surprising to me how different engineering samples can be from the end product that reaches the shelves. As a case in point, redditor Substantial-Mark-959 reports they’ve come into possession of an early engineering sample of the RTX 2080 Ti, and it looks to be of a significantly higher spec than the release card….

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15 ransomware gangs announce mass retirement so they can enjoy ‘golden parachutes’ worth millions and ‘go gentle into that good night’

A collective of 15 ransomware gangs including Scattered Spider, IntelBroker and Lapsus$ have announced a mass retirement from their nefarious activities. They claim their “objectives” have been fulfilled, so it’s time to enjoy their “millions” in “silence”. As spotted by El Reg, the collective posted a message on Breachforums announcing their supposed retirement. “Silence will…

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Nvidia is rumoured to be first in line to use TSMC’s ultra-advanced A16 chip node, although it’s AI GPUs that’ll likely see the benefit first

Somewhat surprisingly, Nvidia doesn’t have much of a track record when it comes to using cutting-edge silicon. But a new report claims that’s about to change dramatically, with Nvidia planning to be the very first to use TSMC’s next-next gen A16 node. Taiwanese outlet CTEE claims that Nvidia will be the first to adopt TSMC’s…

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