Those antitrust law amendments are turning into a real thorn in Microsoft‘s backside as the company struggles to get its whopping $67.8 billion proposition to buy Activision Blizzard approved. In the latest development from this case, the Xbox team has just withdrawn their claim that the Federal Trade Commission process violates the Constitution.
Meanwhile, AMD is fighting a battle of its own after the latest rendition of the Radeon graphics card flagship — called the RX 7900 XTX — faced the same fate as its Nvidia counterpart RTX 4090, which is to say that it got too hot to function properly. In other news, one actor from The Last of Us cast has just warned fans that the show is going to take certain liberties with the game, so check out all of that in today’s gaming roundup.
Microsoft realizes the last thing they’d want is to pick a fight with the FTC
It’d be absurd to suggest that consolidating Activision could create a vacuum in the gaming industry despite what Sony might claim. Microsoft is still having a difficult time getting the deal approved, though, at least if the FTC has anything to say on the matter. In a recent filing to convince the court that their purchase of Activision would not “stifle competition,” Microsoft had included a point claiming the FTC validation process violates the Constitution, but they quickly retracted that and even offered something in the way of an apology. The last thing they’d want is to pick a fight with the FTC, which could still move to block the acquisition altogether.
AMD confirms some RX 7900 XTXs have a faulty vapor chamber and offers to give you a new one
Just when we were almost convinced to jump on the Nvidia hate wagon and call them out on their ridiculous pricing of the RTX 40 series cards, reports started pouring in about AMD’s new flagship also overheating due to faulty parts. Now, amid all the hype surrounding CES 2023, AMD has confirmed that some RX 7900 XTX cards are indeed causing overheating issues due to not having “enough water” in the vapor chamber. Only reference cards seem to be affected, so you have no cause for concern if you’ve bought a custom. AMD is also offering to give you a brand-new flawless GPU if you call their tech support line.
The Last of Us takes certain liberties with the game’s story, but nothing too serious
The Last of Us on HBO has kept Neil Druckmann on hand to make sure that it doesn’t deviate too much from the source material, but that doesn’t mean the show is going to be a one-to-one adaptation of the 2013 video game. Indeed, according to what Nico Parker (Sarah Miller) has just revealed in a recent interview, there will be incongruities, but nothing remotely lore-breaking. “A lot of the way that we have interpreted the characters just happens to be incredibly similar to the game,” she said. “But there was a sense of freedom with it.”
That’s all for now, but tune back in tomorrow for another roundup of the day’s most important developments in the gaming sphere.
