Paradox Interactive (Paradox) and Harebrained Schemes (HBS)—developers of the Shadowrun trilogy, BATTLETECH and The Lamplighters League—have decided to part ways on 1 January 2024. The separation is the result of a mutual agreement, stemming from each party's strategic and creative priorities. Paradox will retain ownership of The Lamplighters League and other games developed by the studio. HBS will seek new publishing, partnership, and investment opportunities.

"Paradox has refocused its strategy towards its core niches within strategy and management games with endless qualities," said Charlotta Nilsson, COO of Paradox. "We and HBS' leadership have been discussing what would happen after the release of The Lamplighters League, but a new project or sequel in the same genre was not in line with our portfolio plans. Hence, we believe that a separation would be the best way forward. We're very happy that this talented, gifted studio has the chance to continue and can't wait to see what they will make next."

According to the Nikkei, Microsoft is cutting production for a wide range of its Surface accessories, i.e. keyboards, mice, docking solutions, headsets etc. This is despite the fact that the company has invested heavily into its Surface brand of computers and accessories over the past decade. This is said to be in response to the poor performance of the business unit in Microsoft's last financial report. The Nikkei mentioned that Microsoft is suspending all standalone keyboards in the Surface series and it seems like Microsoft is also looking at calling it quits when it comes to its own branded accessories, or there won't at least be any new models from the company in the foreseeable future.

Microsoft used to be a significant competitor in the keyboard, mouse and webcam market, but with increasing competition from more brands, it seems like the company has been having a hard time making a niche for itself in what can only be said to be a crowded market. Consumer expectations have also changed and most people don't want membrane keyboards any more and are instead buying more expensive mechanical keyboards. Microsoft has also been late to market with many of its Surface computers and have delivered overpriced and underwhelming products, which in turn has led to fewer sales of both the computers and the matching accessories. We'll have to wait and see if Microsoft makes an official announcement as to what will happen to its Surface brand of products, but right now it doesn't look like there's a very bright future for the Surface line of products as a whole.

Valve has posted advance notice that Steam will not officially support macOS versions 10.11 ("El Capitan") and 10.12 ("Sierra") from September 1 2023. After this date "the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of macOS." Valve recommends that users should upgrade to a newer version of macOS, if they intend to continue running Steam and related games and products. The cited reason for ending support is: "core features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of macOS. In addition, future versions of Steam will require macOS feature and security updates only present in macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) and above."

Last week, Valve announced that support for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 operating systems would cease at the very beginning of 2024. It has been a while since older versions of macOS have been declared as unsupported by the Steam Client - Valve announced, way back in late 2018, that it would stop supporting macOS versions 10.7 ("Lion"), 10.8 ("Mountain Lion"), 10.9 ("Mavericks") and 10.10 ("Yosemite") by January 1 2019. Again, an embedding of an iteration of Google Chrome was given as the main reason behind this discontinuation.