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In a new letter to channel partners, Lenovo has stated that the company expects PC price hikes in March amid the memory crunch affecting the industry. The letter, obtained by CRN, notes that Lenovo's North America channel chief, Wade McFarland, mentioned there will be some pricing changes to certain products and configurations that Lenovo offers, which will be communicated later with the exact specification changes. In the letter, Wade McFarland noted that there have been some changes to the ordering policy for the Intelligent Devices Group (IDG), responsible for PCs like desktops, notebooks, and tablets, while the Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) unit responsible for server solutions is also experiencing the same changes. Lenovo's North American president, Ryan McCurdy, noted that "we've absolutely had to adjust and continue to adjust [pricing]. There's no way around it."

However, the company has advised its partners to submit orders while it is still February, as that will lock in the pricing at which Lenovo can supply PCs before the price hike expected in March. "Pricing is influenced by both order timing and fulfillment timing, and Lenovo reviews pricing periodically in response to evolving market conditions," notes Wade McFarland, adding that Lenovo's memory suppliers have been good and that the company has been informed of every pricing change in advance so that it can effectively communicate with its clients and warn them before any changes happen. That way, clients don't experience pricing shocks that may impact their purchasing decisions, as Lenovo sells millions of PCs every month. A slight, unexpected price change may result in a significant change in purchasing decisions, so communication with clients is key.
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It was revealed in a recent leak that the next-gen AMD Zen 6 Ryzen CPUs would be delayed until 2027, and it has now emerged, that the upcoming Intel "Nova Lake-S" Core Ultra Series 4 CPUs may be joining AMD for an early 2027 launch, when previous reports placed the launch in late 2026. The news comes by way of ubiquitous leakers, HXL on X and Golden Pig Upgrade on Weibo, who say that a CES 2027 launch seems likely for both new CPU generations.

Previously, we got a taste of what to expect from Nova Lake-S in a series of leaks and rumors, which pointed to increased NPU performance as well as core counts that range from 12 on the low-end (4 P-cores, 4 E-cores, 4 LP-cores) to 52 on the high-end (16 P-cores, 32 E-cores, 4 LP-cores). Obviously, these are early leaks, and the official launch is still a way out, so dates may still change, but it seems as though the current silicon and DRAM shortages may result in the lengthening of product launch cycles across the PC industry in general—an outcome that was previously predicted.

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It was recently revealed that Xbox Gaming's long-time CEO, Phil Spencer, would be leaving Microsoft after nearly 40 years at the company, with Asha Sharma taking over as CEO of Microsoft Gaming after her role as chief of the company's CoreAI platform. Shortly after the announcement of his departure, Sharma released an internal statement with comments about the future of Xbox Gaming and her views on topics like AI, monetization, and art. In short, Sharma says she wants to prioritize creating "great games" with unforgettable characters, stories that resonate, and creative, innovative gameplay. In the latter part of the statement, she addresses the inevitable questions and concerns about a former AI leader taking over the gaming division. She makes a number of comments about AI and the future of gaming, stating that "As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or floor our ecosystem with soulless AI slop. Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with th e most innovative technology provided by us."

Later, in a statement to Variety, Sharma reinforced these statements, stating that she wants to "earn the right to be trusted by players and developers," and noting that "AI has long been part of gaming and will continue to be." She again emphasized the importance of "deep emotional resonance" in games, and reiterated her stance that she has "no tolerance for bad AI." It's worth noting that CoreAI, the platform Sharma was previously in charge of at Microsoft, is a suite of AI-powered developer tools designed for "the AI era," with a significant focus on agentic AI. If Sharma's statements are to be believed, it seems reasonable to assume we will be seeing more AI trickle into first-party Xbox games, but it may not be the AI-first approach that companies like EA have recently adopted in the name of efficiency.

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In late 2025, ASUS announced the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti Dual Evo graphics cards, which touted a slimmer, shorter design for improved compatibility with small form factor PC builds. Now, it has silently expanded the Dual Evo line with the ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 5070 Evo and Evo OC, both of which stuff an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 12 GB GPU into a package measuring just 229 × 120 × 50 mm. ASUS has not yet publicly announced the GPUs, and they don't seem to be available via retail channels just yet, but the spec sheets and product pages are available in full on the ASUS site. As such, pricing is not yet available at the time of writing.

The OC model steps up the standard boost clock from 2,512 MHz to 2,542 MHz and the OC mode clock speed from 2,542 MHz to 2,572 MHz. Both GPUs feature the same 2.5-slot shroud and cooler design, and it seems unlikely that the OC Edition has any additional changes other than a slight vBIOS tweak to achieve the higher clocks, suggesting that you can likely get similar clock speeds with a bit of tuning in GPU Tweak III. This 2.5-slot design is thicker than the 2.0-slot design of the 5060 series Dual Evo cards, but still notably thinner than most other RTX 5070 models, like the 3.2-slot ROG Strix GeForce RTX 5070. The GPU shroud design is also somewhat more reserved than some of ASUS's recent designs, with just an angular, black, dual-texture shroud housing dual axial fans, while the GPU heat sink has a flow-through design for the rear fan. Much like the 5060 variants of the same series, the PCIe power plug is located almost centrally on the side of the GPU, instead of the traditional rearward position.

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With the launch of Resident Evil Requiem merely a week away, it's expected that gameplay and story leaks would start to show up online and subsequently be shared online. Capcom, however, has taken to social media platform, X, to decry the early gameplay and story leaks, asking players not to share the leaks. The gaming giant says that it wants "everyone to enjoy the game's story and experience as much as possible." Capcom adds that its legal department is working to issue DMCA take-downs of any leaks posted online, "in order to preserve your day-one experience."

The gameplay leaks in question have revealed major plot points and twists, as well as potential endings to the latest installment in the Resident Evil franchise. One Reddit thread—which fortunately is covered with spoiler tags—has collated the vast majority of the leaks, including gameplay footage of part of the game's ending. It's easy to see why a game studio would want to keep a lid on such extensive leaks about a story-driven game. Another post in the subreddit was removed by the moderators, so it looks like Capcom's take-down requests or social media plea has had some effect already.
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Given the similar form factors, it's unsurprising that many gamers turned to their Steam Decks to emulate Nintendo Switch games, but that era seems to be drawing to a close, as RetroDECK, a Linux emulation platform capable of emulating multiple game systems, has just confirmed that it will be removing support for Ryubing, a fork of the now-infamous Ryujinx Switch emulator, from its available emulators. The developer behind the emulator explained in a February 19 blog post that Switch emulation would be removed in a minor update. This comes after support for Ryubing was added in a November update.

The blog mentions two main reasons for the removal of Ryubing, stating that "Switch emulation has consistently been the source of the most issues within the project, generating the highest volume of warnings, bans, toxicity, and support tickets," and adding that the questionable legality of emulators like Ryubing and Nintendo's aggressive protection of its intellectual property exposes the volunteers and community involved in the RetroDECK project to undue legal exposure. As of an upcoming update, indicated in an edit to an old blog post to be 0.10.4b, Switch emulation will be removed from RetroDECK "forever," and discussions about Switch emulation will also be banned from all of RetroDECK's communities and social platforms effective immediately.
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The name synonymous with Xbox—Phil Spencer—is leaving Microsoft after nearly 40 years at the company. He started as an intern back in 1988 and has been with the Xbox team since 2001, helping the project thrive in the following decades. According to the announcement, Microsoft is overhauling its Gaming division with some new names, while the old executive team has left the company. In addition to Phil Spencer, Xbox president Sarah Bond has also left the company. From now on, Asha Sharma, who currently serves as the company chief for the CoreAI product, will be taking on the new role as the CEO of Microsoft Gaming. Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella shared a memo with all Microsoft employees about the status of this update.

Satya NadellaLast year, Phil Spencer made the decision to retire from the company, and since then we've been talking about succession planning. I want to thank Phil for his extraordinary leadership and partnership. Over 38 years at Microsoft, including 12 years leading Gaming, Phil helped transform what we do and how we do it.

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