The president of Microsoft said he was looking for solutions to try to get British approval for the software giant’s $69 billion (nearly Rs. 5,71,730 crore) acquisition of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard.

British competition authorities blocked the biggest-ever deal in gaming in April, in a shock decision which Microsoft has since appealed. President Brad Smith said he was hopeful the outcome could change.

“I’m in search of solutions,” Microsoft President Brad Smith told the techUK Tech Policy Leadership conference in London on Tuesday.

“If regulators have concerns we want to address them. If there are problems, we want to solve them. If the UK wants to impose regulatory requirements that go beyond those in the EU, we want to find ways to fulfill them.”

He declined to comment on any meeting with the British government following the CMA’s veto on the deal which Smith had previously warned would shake confidence in the UK as a destination for tech businesses.

The EU’s competition authorities approved the deal in May after they accepted remedies put forward by Microsoft that were broadly comparable to those it proposed in the UK.

Microsoft has also appealed the US Federal Trade Commission’s action seeking to block the deal on the grounds that, the agency said, it would suppress competition.

Last month, Microsoft challenged Britain’s decision to block its takeover of Activision Blizzard on the grounds of “fundamental errors” in the assessment of Microsoft’s cloud gaming services. The company confirmed it had filed an appeal against the ruling to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).

It said the CMA’s conclusion that the deal would lead to a substantial lessening of competition in the United Kingdom’s cloud gaming market was wrong, according to the summary.

The tech giant also evaded a potential early legal obstacle in the takeover, when a US judge last month refused to allow gamers in a private suit to preliminarily block the acquisition. 

© Thomson Reuters 2023 

MediaTek Dimensity 9400 SoC, the company’s latest flagship-tier smartphone processor, was launched on Wednesday. The company had previously revealed that the mobile platform would be introduced in October and shared some minor details, and now it has detailed the specifications and the capabilities of the processor. The tech giant claimed that the new system-on-chip (SoC) offers 35 percent faster performance on a single core than its predecessor. The MediaTek Dimensity 9400 SoC competes with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and the Apple A18 series chipsets.

In a press release, the chip maker introduced the new mobile platform. The MediaTek Dimensity 9400 chipset is a fourth-generation flagship processor built with Arm’s v9.2 CPU architecture as well as dedicated GPU and neural processing unit (NPU) architectures. Notably, it is built on TSMC’s second-generation 3nm fabrication process.

Continuing with the tradition of all big core design, it features one Cortex-X925 core with a maximum clock speed of 3.62GHz, three Cortex-X4 cores, and four Cortex-A720 cores. The company claims that the CPU architecture offers 35 percent faster single-core performance and 28 percent faster multi-core performance compared to the Dimensity 9300 SoC. It is also said to offer 40 percent more power efficiency compared to its predecessor.

The MediaTek Dimensity 9400 chipset also integrates the company’s eighth-generation NPU and offers on-device LoRA training, on-device video generation capability, and developer support for Agentic artificial intelligence (AI). The company claimed that the SoC could provide up to 80 percent faster large language model (LLM) prompt performance while maintaining 35 percent more power efficiency than the previous generation.

Coming to the GPU, the mobile platform is integrated with the 12-core Arm Immortalis-G925, which is said to offer 40 percent faster raytracing performance compared to its predecessor. Additionally, MediaTek claimed that it also provides 41 percent peak performance improvement and 44 percent power saving compared to the Dimensity 9300. The chipset also supports HyperEngine technology.

Apart from this, the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 features Imagiq 1090 for on-device image processing. It has some minor improvements as well such as HDR video recording throughout the entire zoom range, improvements in capturing moving objects, and lower power consumption when recording in 4K60 fps videos compared to its predecessor.

Steam Deck OLED, Valve’s updated handheld gaming device, is launching later this week. Ahead of the Steam-powered console’s release, Valve has unveiled release timings. The handheld gaming device will be available to purchase November 16 at 10am PST in the US, Canada, the UK, and Europe via the Steam store. To combat scalpers who purchase newly launched devices in bulk to resell them at a markup, the company has limited purchases so each customer can only buy one model per week. Additionally, the company has announced a limited-edition version, featuring a smoky translucent case, available for $679 (about Rs. 56,500). This is available only in the US and Canada.

The stipulations for getting a Steam Deck OLED remain the same, with Valve demanding that the buyer’s Steam account be in good standing (no bans), and that some form of purchase must be made on that account before November 2023. Given the company only announced this device earlier this month, no newly created bot accounts will be able to swipe them from legitimate customers. It is also worth mentioning that at the same time — 10am PT — players in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong can buy the Steam Deck OLED through its authorised Asian store site Komodo. Just like the limited-edition variant, Valve hopes to experiment with more colourways in the future — who knows, we might get to purchase the cover separately and swap it by ourselves.

Serving as an overhauled version of the Steam Deck, this refresh understandably comes with a 7.4-inch HDR OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate and promises up to 50 percent longer battery life. This is an improvement over the 60Hz 7-inch screen on the base version. The new OLED variant also supports Wi-Fi 6E for faster downloads and adds a larger heatsink and a quieter fan for better heat dissipation across the board. Temperature issues on handheld consoles have been a hot topic for a while, with several modders cutting holes into their Steam Deck case to enable better airflow. Hopefully, this refresh solves some of those problems when playing on higher graphical settings. In general, though, the processor and performance remain the same, albeit the 16GB RAM sees a slight uptick in frequency, going from 5500 MT/s to 6400 MT/s.

It is worth mentioning that the base 256GB Steam Deck with LCD screen is still up for sale, albeit at a lower price tag of $399 (about Rs. 33,200). Meanwhile, the OLED versions start coming with a 512GB NVMe SSD, along with the other improvements that raise the console’s battery life from 2–8 hours to 3–12 hours. Indeed, it all depends upon the in-game settings and what kind of game is running on the Steam Deck. The kit also comes with a carrying case, a 45W power supply with a 2.5-metre-long charging cable, and a Steam profile bundle to customise stuff to your liking. It’s priced at $549 (Rs. 45,700). Then there’s a 1TB Steam Deck OLED variant, which as the name suggests, comes with more storage, a premium anti-glare glass, and a virtual keyboard theme. It costs $649 (Rs. 54,000).

As before, there’s no word on Steam Deck OLED being officially available in India, so your best bet is to overpay for an imported one from online retailers.

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