COVID-19 has brought many industries in the world to an almost standstill as quarantine mechanisms are put in place in both public and private sectors. The economic impact of the - now declared pandemic by the World Health Organization - outbreak will likely be felt for years to come. Thank to that globalization and the interconnectedness of various markets, including the global supply chain.

In light of this, MSI has decided to extend the warranty period for products falling in the categories of desktops, motherboards, AIO computers, PC cases and monitors (this excludes graphics cards and laptops, which are also quite important in the overall companies' outlook). Furthermore, this warranty extension is limited to countries that have been the most affected by the recent outbreak - U.S., Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

The world's largest gathering of video game publishers, developers, gamers, and associated artists, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, won't be held this year, according to an ArsTechnica report citing sources among members of ESA, the show's organizers. At the time of this writing, ESA made no formal announcement from the ESA about the show's fate - whether it's cancelled, delayed, or transformed into an online event like many other trade-shows this year. Most trade-shows scheduled for 2020 have suffered one of these three due to the COVID-19 outbreak that has recently gained "global pandemic" status by the World Health Organization. COVID-19 is a highly contagious respiratory tract infection that has claimed over 3,000 lives globally. This would be the first time that E3 has been cancelled since its debut edition in 1995.

Update Mar 12th: It's official, E3 2020 has been cancelled. "After careful consultation with our member companies regarding the health and safety of everyone in our industry - our fans, our employees, our exhibitors and our longtime E3 partners - we have made the difficult decision to cancel E3 2020, scheduled for June 9-11 in Los Angeles," says organizer ESA in its statement announcing the cancellation

Puro Sound Labs, the world's leading manufacturer of premium, safe-listening headphones today introduced the PuroGamer-featuring studio-grade audio, and volume-limiting-for a safe, immersive gaming experience. The new headphones employ many of the outstanding features that earned Puro Sound Labs numerous awards for their original BT-2200 kid's volume-limited headphones, including high-quality, light weight, construction, plush and comfortable noise-isolating ear-pads, the outstanding clarity of their Puro Balanced Response Curve, and a 85dB volume-limiting filter to prevent hearing damaging volume levels. In addition to the sleek design, the PuroGamer headphones add a high-quality 50 mm graphene driver, an omni-directional, detachable boom microphone, with noise canceling and anti-interference features for a competitive gaming edge. The new PuroGamer headphones will be on sale starting mid-September at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and PuroSound.com for only $79.99.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has now officially classified gaming addiction as a disorder, thus being listed as a mental health condition that is diagnosable. The WHO announced the new disorder today, which is bound to be included in the organization's 11th International Classification of Diseases (ICD) guide, which is due to be published this year.

Despite having its inclusion in the ICD confirmed, gaming addiction as a disorder still doesn't have a finalized transcript. It's still in the draft stages, and at this time, gaming addiction is being described as a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behavior so severe that it takes "precedence over other life interests". From the draft, the WHO is looking at extended diagnosing periods of at least 12 months until it can be confirmed that someone suffers from this disorder, though the diagnosis time frame can be reduced "if symptoms are severe".