Welcome back to another edition of Patch Notes, here on my second (and final) sub-in for its usual author, senior news editor Chris Kerr. This week, we had more layoff news, unfortunately, this time hitting studios like Embracer-owned Crystal Dynamics and Rec Room. Crystal Dynamics, in particular, is suffering its third round of layoffs since being snatched up by Embracer in 2022.Elsewhere, we have some news on Switch 2 development kits, union efforts for many folks working on the Diablo franchise, Atari snatched up a couple of interesting older Ubisoft properties, and we ponder the creative core of  weirdo indie social games.Report: Nintendo reportedly withholds Switch 2 dev kits, directs devs toward OG Switch development insteadVia Game Developer/Digital Foundry // Freshly returned from Gamescom, Digital Foundry senior staff writer and video editor John Linneman spoke with "a lot of developers" that said they're unable to get Switch 2 development kits. The demand is there: plenty of teams want to be crafting games for the Switch 2, but they are reportedly being told to ship for the original Switch and rely on the new console's backward compatibility features.Atari Acquires Ubisoft IP, Including Child of Eden, Grow Home, Cold FearRelated:Via This Week in Video Games // Atari snatched up a number of intriguing Ubisoft properties this week, including the how-on-earth-was-this-a-whole-decade-ago climber Grow Home and its sequel Grow Up, Child of Eden, Cold Fear, and I am Alive. In the post, Atari VP of new business Deborah Papiernik said “Atari has a rich gaming legacy and deep appreciation for these classic titles... We’re excited to see how they’ll evolve and connect with players in fresh, meaningful ways.”Embracer studio Crystal Dynamics is laying off more staffVia Game Developer // As noted above, news of yet another round of layoffs at Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics came in hot this week. Game Developer contributing news editor Diego Arguello writes "This is the third round of layoffs since Embracer Group acquired the studio in 2022. As Embracer issued an absurd number of mass layoffs, project cancellations, and divestments across its portfolio, Crystal Dynamics conducted job cuts in 2023 and early this year.450 Diablo developers vote to unionize under CWAVia  Game Developer // Senior editor Bryant Francis covered the news today with one of my favorite opening lines in Game Developer news history: "The forces of hell are unionizing. Today the Communication Workers of America has announced that over 450 game developers at Blizzard Entertainment who work on the Diablo series have voted to unionize under the CWA."Related:What developers can learn from the indie social co-op games topping the Steam chartsVia Game Developer // In this interview piece from news columnist Nicole Carpenter, the core appeal and breakout success of "weirdo social games" (or, if you please, "friendslop") is examined in great detail by some of the folks working in the genre today.

Developers large and small are reportedly having a hard time getting their hands on development kits for the Nintendo Switch 2. That news comes from the newly-independent Digital Foundry, which discussed the topic on this week's DF Directly Weekly livestream. During the stream, senior staff writer and video editor John Linneman explained that during the team's visit to Gamescom, they spoke with "a lot of developers" that said they're unable to get Switch 2 development kits."So many of them said the same thing," Linneman said in response to a question from the livestream chat. "They want to ship on the Switch 2. They would love to do Switch 2 versions [of their games], but they can't get the hardware." Some of these developers told Digital Foundry that they were told to ship their games on the original Nintendo Switch and rely on the Switch 2's backward compatibility features to be accessible on the new console. As of June 5 2025, the vast majority of Nintendo Switch games are playable on the Nintendo Switch 2 (the major exceptions being the ones relying on custom hardware). However, developing natively for the Switch 2 would help developers optimize their game for the new console's beefier hardware.Writer and video producer Oliver Mackenzie affirmed Linneman's report, saying that there have been "some weird exclusions with some big developers struggling to get kits for games."Related:"There were some weird inclusions as well," he added, explaining that while it's "nice" to see some independent developers have received kits, some triple-A developers aren't "necessarily in the pipeline." (he cited Campfire and No Man's Sky developer Hello Games as an example).Game Developer has reached out to Nintendo for comment and will update this story when a response is issued.

Japan is once again building a landmark high-performance computing system — not simply by chasing speed, but by rethinking how technology can best serve the nation’s most urgent scientific needs. At the FugakuNEXT International Initiative Launch Ceremony held in Tokyo on Aug. 22, leaders from RIKEN, Japan’s top research institute, announced the start of an international collaboration with Fujitsu and NVIDIA to co-design FugakuNEXT, the successor to the world-renowned supercomputer, Fugaku. Awarded early in the process, the contract enables the partners to work side by side in shaping the system’s architecture to address Japan’s most critical research priorities — from earth systems modeling and disaster resilience to drug discovery and advanced manufacturing. More than an upgrade, the effort will highlight Japan’s embrace of modern AI and showcase Japanese innovations that can be harnessed by researchers and enterprises across the globe. The ceremony featured remarks from the initiative’s leaders, RIKEN President Makoto Gonokami and Satoshi Matsuoka, director of the RIKEN Center for Computational Science and one of Japan’s most respected high-performance computing architects. Fujitsu Chief Technology Officer Vivek Mahajan attended, emphasizing the company’s role in advancing Japan’s computing capabilities. Ian Buck, vice president of hyperscale and high-performance computing at NVIDIA, attended in person as well to discuss the collaborative design approach and how the resulting platform will serve as a foundation for innovation well into the next decade. Momentum has been building. When NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang touched down in Tokyo last year, he called on Japan to seize the moment — to put NVIDIA’s latest technologies to work building its own AI, on its own soil, with its own infrastructure. FugakuNEXT answers that call, drawing on NVIDIA’s whole software stack —  from NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries such as NVIDIA cuQuantum for quantum simulation, RAPIDS for data science, NVIDIA TensorRT for high-performance inference and NVIDIA NeMo for large language model development, to other domain-specific software development kits tailored for science and industry. Innovations pioneered on FugakuNEXT could become blueprints for the world. What’s Inside FugakuNEXT will be a hybrid AI-HPC system, combining simulation and AI workloads. It will feature FUJITSU-MONAKA-X CPUs, which can be paired with NVIDIA technologies using NVLink Fusion, new silicon enabling high-bandwidth connections between Fujitsu’s CPUs and NVIDIA’s architecture. The system will be built for speed, scale and efficiency. What It Will Do FugakuNEXT will support a wide range of applications — such as automating hypothesis generation, code creation and experiment simulation. Scientific research: Accelerating simulations with surrogate models and physics-informed neural networks. Manufacturing: Using AI to learn from simulations to generate efficient and aesthetically pleasing designs faster than ever before. Earth systems modeling: aiding disaster preparedness and prediction for earthquakes and severe weather, and more. RIKEN, Fujitsu and NVIDIA will collaborate on software developments, including tools for mixed-precision computing, continuous benchmarking, and performance optimization. FugakuNEXT isn’t just a technical upgrade — it’s a strategic investment in Japan’s future. Backed by Japan’s MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), it will serve universities, government agencies, and industry partners nationwide. It marks the start of a new era in Japanese supercomputing — one built on sovereign infrastructure, global collaboration, and a commitment to scientific leadership. Image courtesy of RIKEN

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Call of Duty is seemingly skipping Nintendo's platform again this year The post <i>Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7</i> Price And Date Info Reportedly Leak With No Switch 2 In Sight appeared first on Kotaku.

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