The characters in a Lovecraft story are susceptible to… mutation. Minds and bodies are forever altered by exposure to the horrors hiding in the darker corners of the world. It's perhaps no surprise, then, that The Sinking City 2—which just got a world premiere in the latest Xbox Partner Preview broadcast—has undergone its own unexpected change. Where the first game was a detective adventure, with horror bubbling up from its flooded world, its sequel has taken on a darker, more aggressive form. The Sinking City 2 is a true horror game now, with more emphasis on combat, while keeping a Lovecraftian narrative close to its twisted heart.

"The Sinking City is one of our most successful titles, because of our stronger horror genre leanings and the setting," Frogwares Head of Publishing, Sergey Oganesyan tells me. "For us, it was kind of a breakthrough, and we are super excited to work on a full-scale horror game. We have created quite a few detective adventures in the past, so now we're going to mix things up to keep doing what people love from us - meaning story-rich experiences - while still being able to evolve."

Today, during the latest Xbox Partner Preview broadcast—as a surprise for Xbox gamers everywhere—GSC Game World launched the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Legends of the Zone Trilogy for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S (via backwards compatibility). That's right - it's available today! The Legends of the Zone Trilogy bundle—available on the Microsoft Store for $39.99 USD—includes all three iconic games that make up the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Trilogy: Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat—or you can pick up each of the games individually for $19.99 USD each. Every element from the original games has been maintained and faithfully ported to console thanks to the hard work of GSC Game World and their partners at Mataboo. This all makes for a great opportunity for Xbox gamers everywhere to get some foundational knowledge of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s universe in the lead-up to the launch of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, coming day one to Game Pass on September 5, 2024.

But translating these hardcore PC games to an Xbox controller has been no small feat. For a series that is known for blending a variety of genres like horror, first-person shooter, exploration, and immersive sim, it was important for the team to get it right. Speaking with GSC Game World PR Specialist Zakhar Bocharov, we wanted to learn more about what this process was like, bringing these cult-classic, hardcore PC titles to console, and some of the innovative design and UI adjustments the team had to make to bring all three games to Xbox.

Dear stalkers, last year, during Gamescom 2023, we finally had the chance to meet in person. We gathered around the campfire with you to share something valuable that we have been creating for you for all these years—a small part of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. Publicly, for the first time ever. Our one-time initiative then transformed into a journey from campfire to campfire across France, Brazil, Singapore and other countries. Thousands of players were able to play the game themselves and give us the much-needed feedback afterwards. And as true friends always do, you shared your honest thoughts about the game. Both positive and negative, and we are thankful for that. From your insights, we figured out two key points: the one to celebrate and the one to consider seriously.

The first one: the Zone remains the Zone. In its true beauty and after our likeness. The game absolutely feels and plays like S.T.A.L.K.E.R, the atmosphere, hardcore style, harsh and unwelcoming environment are ready to cook, and we can't be more grateful for these words, as they basically sum up both the key intention and the main inspiration for the project from the very beginning at the same time. The second one was: the gear in the backpack should be checked one more time to be completely sure it will not fail us in the most needed moment. On the technical side of things—the game needs more time.

Intel 14th Gen Core CPU series leaks continue to emerge this week—MSI let slip an NDA slide during a livestream a few days ago, and now a retail outlet in the Ukraine has listed six Raptor Lake-S Refresh SKUs on its online store, as spotted by the ever watchful momomo_us. The placeholder product pages that have popped up on Telemart seemingly provide us with yet another look at SKU names, basic specifications, cache sizes, as well as maximum clock speeds. These appear to reaffirm information gleaned from previous leaks regarding 14th generation K and KF models.

Intel's Innovation 2023 event is set to take place on September 19 to 20—where Team Blue is expected to make a big presentation on Raptor Lake Refresh processor ranges (as well as Meteor Lake), so it is somewhat surprising to see retail listings appear well in advance of next month's official announcements, and the anticipated 14th Gen Core K-series product launch in October.

According to the report from Reuters, Acer has apparently continued shipment of computer hardware to Russia, despite the firm supposedly suspending its operations in the country. With the war in Ukraine, on April 8 of, 2022, Acer published a statement: "Due to recent developments, Acer has decided to suspend its business in Russia." However, today Reuters reports that it has gained access to documents/data of customs that confirm that Acer has shipped computer hardware worth at least 70.4 million US Dollars between the period of April 8, 2022, and March 31, 2023.

Interestingly, Acer is a firm headquartered in Taiwan. However, Switzerland-based Acer Sales International SA entity shipped these units to Russia, thus not violating any Taiwanese sanctions to Russia that are in place. When asked about these shipments, Acer in Taiwan responded: "We strictly adhere to applicable international regulations and trade laws regarding exports to Russia." Additionally, the company stated that the Swiss subsidiary "had not shipped any laptops or desktops to Russia since April 8 last year." Still, instead, it had supplied a "limited number of displays and accessories to the Russian market for civilian daily use while ensuring compliance with international sanctions."

The Steam Deck is a hit with enthusiasts who require a gaming fix on the move, and Valve has observed its handheld getting revamped heavily by the modification community - but a new adaptation takes the pint-sized PC onto the real battlefield. The GamingOnLinux site yesterday picked up on emerging details from the Ukraine frontline - TDF Media group has shared photos and videos of an automated gun turret system dubbed "Saber" that can be operated remotely. The Steam Deck has somehow become the preferred control method - its on-screen UI, trackpads, analog sticks and button layout factor into the gun turret's operation. A reader has informed me that Valve's hardware is not officially available for sale in the region, so the military must be sourcing units from a grey/dark market source.

Sergey Mohov, lead gameplay designer at Remedy Entertainment, reposted some of TDF Media's photos on his Twitter account earlier this week, and added that "this automatic turret is the best use of Steam Deck I've seen so far." The Territorial Defense Force organization has described the turret (translated) thusly: "Saber is a Ukrainian automated remote-controlled gun turret designed for stationary installation on static objects or moving vehicles. The Saber system's co-ordination is done via a remote control, camera and monitor - which allows combat from up to 500 m from the rig, while preserving the operator's life. This combat platform can be installed in a stationary (capacity) at checkpoints, border and other zones - it is even able to defeat low-flying enemy drones. The platform is flexible enough to accommodate any light anti-infantry or anti-tank weapon weapon - a good example being a Kalashnikov machine gun."

Detectives, we have arrived! After much anticipation, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened has been released! Enjoy the Lovecraftian madness. We made this game during one heck of a time. We made it while our country is at war. We faced challenges such as constant power outages, irregular work schedules, air raids, evacuations, losing our homes, saying goodbyes to our loved ones (through immigration, or worse), and losing team members so that they could defend our country.

We worked from our homes, our office, and from underground bunkers or train stations. It was an enduring and unending nightmare. But with all this chaos around, working on The Awakened helped us maintain a little sense of normalcy. We truly gave it all - sweat, emotions, and spirit to the development of this game.

According to news agencies residing within Russian territories, it has been widely reported that Cisco has destroyed an inventory of unsold equipment with a total worth of $23.5 million. TASS, a Kremlin-controlled news organization, has made reference to account statements provided by Cisco Systems (the remaining legal entity of the Cisco Group based within the Federation) - it reports that the equipment was "physically destroyed" in January 2023, post a termination of sales in Russia and Belarus. The financial statements outline the liquidation of "primarily spare parts," but the agency claims that Cisco engaged in the destruction of network hardware, demo units and office furniture.

Cisco was one of the first tech companies to withdraw from Russian territories, following the full-scale invasion of the Ukraine. Soon after the beginning of the conflict, Cisco Systems announced the cessation of its business dealings, starting with a stoppage of sales in March 2022. A June deadline was specified for a complete shutdown of operations. The company made a decision by August 2022 to dispose of unsold inventories located within affected territories - the necessary permits for re-export of goods had not been obtained. It is not clear whether U.S. sanctions (against Russia) played a part in influencing the North American tech company's decision to engage in a scorched earth policy and obliterate the physical remnants of stock plus premises in Russia and Belarus.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment, spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud deployments, including dedicated and shared IT environments, increased 16.3% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2022 (4Q22) to $24.1 billion. Spending on cloud infrastructure continues to outgrow the non-cloud segment although the latter had strong growth in 4Q22 as well, increasing 9.4% year over year to $18.7 billion. For the full year, cloud infrastructure grew 19.4% to $87.7 billion, while non-cloud grew 13.6% to $66.7 billion. The market continues to benefit from high demand, large backlogs, rising prices, and an improving infrastructure supply chain.

GSC Game World has released a defiant statement, in the face of threats of ransomed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 data. It provides an update about one of its employee's accounts being compromised by hackers, and as a result of this, the studio is now threatened with blackmail. A statement was posted, March 12, on the GSC Game World's official Twitter account. The developer is urging that fans refrain from sharing leaked material and spoilers, and warns that the final product should not be pre-judged in a harsh light, based on any of the leaked work-in-progress material.

It is not unusual for hacker groups to threaten game developers and publishers. Rockstar Games was the victim of a leak in 2022, when videos of its in-development and upcoming video game Grand Theft Auto 6 were uploaded to forums. The in-game footage was spread across social media and the internet, and shortly thereafter, a hacker wanted to "negotiate a deal" with Rockstar Games. Source code for GTA 5 & 6 was used as leverage.

According to the description of NVIDIA's session for GDC 2023, we will finally get to see S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.

NVIDIA will be holding a session at GDC 2023 on March 23rd together with GSC Game World's 3D Animator, Anton Riabchuk, where it will give an exclusive look at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.

While GSC Game World released a few screenshots as well as an official trailer for the game, GDC 2023 could be the perfect place to show an in-engine gameplay. The description of the GDC session also reveals that GSC Game World is working closely with NVIDIA and the session will also include an introduction to Omniverse Audio2Face AI SDK.

MSI Afterburner is arguably the most popular graphics card overclocking utility that everyone from gamers to professional overclockers swear by. It is used across graphics card brands, and helps you tune up both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. While you enjoy Afterburner with your new-generation GeForce RTX 40-series "Ada" and Radeon RX 7000 series RDNA3 GPUs that were released in 2022, do remember that Afterburner's developer hasn't been paid a penny for it.

MSI Afterburner is developed by Russian national Alexey Nicolaychuk, who goes by the name Unwinder across tech forums. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early-2022, MSI stopped payments to Unwinder citing "political reasons." Unwinder had been independently (read: without payment) supporting Afterburner out of personal interest throughout 2022 in hopes that MSI would figure out a way to pay him. Interestingly, MSI PC hardware continued to be sold in the Russian market throughout 2022. Despite continuing to develop Afterburner throughout 2022 without payment, MSI hasn't resolved its payments. In a community post, Unwinder announced that he is finally calling it quits, and is halting development of the app. This development ensures that the app works reliably with new GPUs as they're being launched, fixes bugs, and patches security issues.

Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended June 30, 2022, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:

• Revenue was $51.9 billion and increased 12% (up 16% in constant currency)
• Operating income was $20.5 billion and increased 8% (up 14% in constant currency)
• Net income was $16.7 billion and increased 2% (up 7% in constant currency)
• Diluted earnings per share was $2.23 and increased 3% (up 8% in constant currency)

"We see real opportunity to help every customer in every industry use digital technology to overcome today's challenges and emerge stronger," said Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. "No company is better positioned than Microsoft to help organizations deliver on their digital imperative - so they can do more with less."

Even as the Russo-Ukrainian war continues grassing with no end in sight, Microsoft has warned that Russia is increasing its cyberwarfare-based attacks against Ukraine and the countries that have vowed to support it against external aggressions. The Redmond-based company says that Russia is increasing the rate and complexity of its attacks not only on government agencies, but also on supporting infrastructures such as think thanks, telecommunications, energy, and defense companies. Even humanitarian groups, which have been tirelessly providing Ukraine's population with the resources needed for bare survival, have been in the sights of the former Soviet Union.

All in all, Microsoft has registered attacks 102 organizations from as many as 42 countries. Microsoft's numbers place around 60% of the attacks against NATO members - with the US being one of the favorite targets. Poland too has been particularly affected, being one of the distribution centers for provisions - and a hub for refugees to leave the embattled country. Despite that, Microsoft says only around 29% of the attacks have been successful - likely a testament to both Russia's technological difficulties and the overall reinforced networks and cybersecurity defenses of NATO countries. Even so, resources spent fighting Russia's attacks have an opportunity cost - they can't be spent elsewhere.

It turns out that Russia was a major supplier of, among many other things, industrial-grade noble gases, which are vital for semiconductor production. Earlier this month, the Russian government announced that it is cutting supply of noble gases to "unfriendly countries" (countries in the US sphere of influence), unless they pay for the merchandise in Russian Rubles, by creating remittance accounts in Russian banks (similar to how it wants these countries to pay for crude oil and natural gas).

Russia and Ukraine were leading global suppliers of industrial noble gases, together making up a third of the noble gas consumed by the semiconductor industry. Much of the heavy industry in Ukraine is either out of service, or committed to the war effort, which lets Russia dictate terms for its supply. Argon, xenon, helium, and neon are the most sought after noble gases in the semiconductor industry. In addition to the inert environment, mixtures of these gases are required by the lasers that perform lithography (etching microscopic circuits on silicon wafer).

Jon Peddie Research reports that the global PC-based graphics processor units (GPU) market reached 96 million units in Q1'22 and PC GPUs shipments decreased 6.2% due to disturbances in China, Ukraine, and the pullback from the lockdown elsewhere. However, the fundamentals of the GPU and PC market are solid over the long term, JPR predicts GPUs will have a compound annual growth rate of 6.3% during 2022-2026 and reach an installed base of 3.3 million units at the end of the forecast period. Over the next five years, the penetration of discrete GPUs (dGPU) in the PC market will grow to reach a level of 46%.

AMD's overall market share percentage from last quarter increased 0.7%, Intel's market share decreased by -2.4%, and Nvidia's market share increased 1.69%, as indicated in the following chart.

Many companies, including Intel and AMD, have stopped product shipments to Russia amidst the war in Ukraine in the past few months. This has left the Russian state without any new processors from the two prominent x86 designers, thus slowing down the country's technological progress. To overcome this issue, it seems like the solution is embedded in the Chinese Zhaoxin x86 CPUs. According to the latest report from Habr, a motherboard designer called Dannie is embedding Chinese Zhaoxin x86 CPUs into motherboards to provide the motherland with an x86-capable processor. More precisely, the company had designed a BX-Z60A micro-ATX motherboard that embeds Zhaoxin's KaiXian KX-6640MA SoC with eight cores based on LuJiaZui microarchitecture. The SoC is clocked at a frequency range of 2.1-2.7 GHz, carries 4 MB of L2 cache, 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0, and has integrated graphics, all in a 25 Watt TDP.

As far as the motherboard is concerned, it supports two DDR4 memory slots, two PCIe x16 connectors, M.2-2280 and M.2-2230 slots, and three SATA III connectors for storage. For I/O you have USB ports, DisplayPort, HDMI, VGA/D-Sub, GbE, 3.5-mm audio, and additional PS/2 ports. This is a pretty decent selection; however, we don't know the pricing structure. A motherboard with KaiXian KX-6640MA SoC like this is certainly not cheap, so we are left to wonder if this will help Russian users deal with the newly imposed restriction on importing US tech.

According to TrendForce research, looking at NAND Flash wafers, the pricing of which more sensitively reflects the market, suppliers are increasingly motivated to cut prices in exchange for sales due to weak retail demand since March and a more conservative outlook for shipments of other end products. The price of NAND Flash wafers is expected to begin falling in May and the supply of NAND Flash will gradually overtake demand in 2H22. The price decline of NAND Flash wafers in 3Q22 may reach 5~10%.

At the same time, TrendForce indicates that February's contamination incident at Kioxia was expected to tighten the market in 2Q22 and 3Q22. However, as a consequence of rising inflation and the war between Russia and Ukraine, market demand for consumer products in the traditional peak season of the second half of the year is trending conservative and the prices of client SSD, eMMC, and UFS in 3Q22 will be flat compared to 2Q22, breaking from the original expectation that prices may rise. In terms of enterprise SSDs, as demand for data centers remains strong, no significant correction in demand has yet been observed. However, as the overall NAND Flash market gradually moves into oversupply, prices will only grow slightly by approximately 0~5% in 3Q22.

Russia has been dealt yet another blow to its technological capabilities, as countries around the world engage in an economic war against the nation following its invasion of Ukraine back in February. The UK government has recently added two major chip-design Russian companies, Baikal Electronics and MCST (Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies) to its sanctioned entity list, meaning that these companies are no longer able to acquire ARM licensing for its homegrown chips. The move is just another in a series of coordinated (and uncoordinated) sanctions.

According to a note provided by the UK government, the aim of the sanctions is to curb Russia's access to devices that could support its war efforts in Ukraine while propping-up the country's degrading technological infrastructure. This effectively shuts the door for Russia to solicit manufacturing from foundries outside its own territory. And even if Russia elected to manufacture its ARM-based designs in-country, thus skirting sanction-respecting foundries, the country's chip manufacturing is currently thought to only be capable of manufacturing chips at a 90 nm process - which the Western world has moved on from since 2006 already.

In light of the Russian military invasion in our neighboring country of Ukraine, until further notice the CD PROJEKT Group has made the decision to halt all sales of our games to Russia and Belarus. Today, we begin working with our partners to suspend digital sales and cease physical stock deliveries of CD PROJEKT Group products, as well as all games distributed on the GOG platform, to the territories of Russia and Belarus.

The entire CD PROJEKT Group stands firm with the people of Ukraine. While we are not a political entity capable of directly influencing state matters, and don't aspire to be one, we do believe that commercial entities, when united, have the power to inspire global change in the hearts and minds of ordinary people. We know that players in Russia and Belarus, individuals who have nothing to do with the invasion of Ukraine, will be impacted by this decision, but with this action we wish to further galvanize the global community to speak about what is going on in the heart of Europe.

To our brothers and sisters fighting for their home country — stay strong!

Unless you have been living under a rock, chances are you are following the news about the Russia-Ukraine war disputes. Not to get too political, we are here to report about your favorite rivals—AMD and Intel—officially stopping the delivery of processors to Russia and Belarus. Firstly, an AMD representative told PCWorld that "Based on sanctions placed on Russia by the United States and other nations, at this time AMD is suspending its sales and distribution of our products into Russia and Belarus. It is all AMD products and products we power (PCs, etc) in Russia and Belarus." Additionally, Intel posted an official quote, which you can find below.

IntelIntel condemns the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and we have suspended all shipments to customers in both Russia and Belarus. Our thoughts are with everyone who has been impacted by this war, including the people of Ukraine and the surrounding countries and all those around the world with family, friends and loved ones in the region.

"We are working to support all of our employees through this difficult situation, especially those with close ties to this region. We have launched an employee donation and matching campaign through the Intel Foundation that has already raised over $1.2 million for relief efforts, and we are proud of the work our teams in surrounding areas including Poland, Germany and Romania are doing to aid refugees. We will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine and the global community in calling for an immediate end to this war and a swift return to peace.

Last week, NVIDIA systems were compromised by the attack of a hacking group called LAPSUS$. It has been a few days since the attack happened, and we managed to see source code of various software leaks through third-party anonymous tipsters and next-generation GPU codenames making an appearance. Today, NVIDIA issues a statement for the German PC enthusiast website Hardwareluxx, and we manage to see it below fully. The key takeaway from this quote is that NVIDIA believes that the compromised files will not impact the company's business in any meaningful manner, and operations continue as usual for NVIDIA's customers. The company's security team is analyzing the situation, and you can check out the complete statement below.

NVIDIA StatementOn February 23, 2022, NVIDIA became aware of a cybersecurity incident which impacted IT resources. Shortly after discovering the incident, we further hardened our network, engaged cybersecurity incident response experts, and notified law enforcement.

We have no evidence of ransomware being deployed on the NVIDIA environment or that this is related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. However, we are aware that the threat actor took employee credentials and some NVIDIA proprietary information from our systems and has begun leaking it online. Our team is working to analyze that information. We do not anticipate any disruption to our business or our ability to serve our customers as a result of the incident.

Security is a continuous process that we take very seriously at NVIDIA - and we invest in the protection and quality of our code and products daily.

Much of the globalized world's logistics is still in disarray from the COVID-19 pandemic, and now, Russia has thrown its weight on the matter through its invasion of Ukraine. As the initial offensive played out in the early hours of February 24th, semiconductor industry analysts turned to the situation with a prying eye - how exactly could this deadlock, and the following political and economical sanctions towards Russia, impact the semiconductor industry? The consensus seems to be a favorable one: not that much.

"The semiconductor industry has a diverse set of suppliers of key materials and gases, so we do not believe there are immediate supply disruption risks related to Russia and Ukraine," said John Neuffer, chief executive and president of the Semiconductor Industry Association. That sentiment was echoed by Intel; a company representative told Bloomberg that the company does not anticipate "(...) any impact on our supply chain. Our strategy of having a diverse, global supply chain minimizes our risk of potential local interruptions."

FSP, one of the world's leading power supply manufacturers, is pleased to announce a newly signed contract with FPS (FSP Power Solutions Gmbh) to market and distribute a range of FSP products across Russia & Ukraine. FPS will officially become the only business partner across Russia & Ukraine for FSP's products. The new agreement will create a solid foundation in Russia & Ukraine and cover product information, warranty, product enquiries, and contact information of the new partner.

FPS and ELKO Group will establish a strategic partnership for the region and have already successfully launched into key markets with the following: Region New Exclusive PSU for Desktop PC - FSP PNR PRO, Retail PSU for Gamers, and Desktop PC Cases & UPS. FPS recognizes a huge potential in the market and plans to implement an aggressive marketing strategy which allows it to reinforce sales in the region.

You've heard of the Petya ransomware by now. The surge, which hit around 64 countries by June 27th, infected an estimated 12,500 computers in Ukraine alone, hitting several critical infrastructures in the country (just goes to show how vulnerable our connected systems are, really.) The number one hit country was indeed Ukraine, but the wave expanded to the Russian Federation, Poland, and eventually hit the USA (the joys of globalization, uh?) But now, some interesting details on the purported ransomware attack have come to light, which shed some mystery over the entire endeavor. Could it be that Petya (which is actually being referred to as NotPetya/SortaPetya/Petna as well, for your reference, since it mostly masquerades as that well-known ransomware) wasn't really a ransomware attack?