Goldman Sachs, Apple's banking partner for its credit card and high-yield savings account, is seemingly having doubts about those products. According to The Wall Street Journal, Goldman is looking to get out of the consumer lending business, which could have implications for Apple Card and the associated savings account.

The report suggests that several senior Goldman executives want the company to ditch its remaining consumer lending products — those it offers with Apple as well as the General Motors credit card. No final decision is said to have been made, though the future of Goldman's consumer products may become a little clearer when the finance company reports its quarterly earnings on Tuesday.

Consumer lending efforts such as Apple Card may have been a mistake for Goldman. The business unit that oversees those and GreenSky (a "buy now, pay later" company Goldman bought for around $2.2 billion last year and is selling at a loss) has lost billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, Goldman has run afoul of regulators. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has investigated Goldman's handling of credit card billing errors and refunds. Unlike with other card programs, Apple Card bills go out at the beginning of each month. That's said to put more pressure on Goldman customer service workers who deal with complaints and billing issues. Issuing bills on a rolling basis may alleviate that strain. However, Goldman has reportedly been unsuccessful in convincing Apple to move to a more typical billing cycle.

If Goldman isn't able to reduce expenses for its credit cards, it may try to sell the Apple and GM partnerships, according to the report. That may prove a difficult prospect, given that customers have deposited billions of dollars into Apple savings accounts. If Goldman manages to get another bank to take over the Apple partnership (including those hefty savings accounts), the Journal noted that the finance company may have to raise expensive emergency funding to cover any shortfall.

Goldman is said to have had talks with American Express about taking over its consumer products. However, Amex reportedly has concerns regarding the Apple Card’s loss rates and other factors Goldman has been attempting to remedy. Amex leaders are also said to have bristled at the fact the Apple Card operates on the Mastercard network.

The biggest acquisition in gaming history and one of the largest in the tech industry is in the books. Twenty months after the deal was announced, Microsoft has bought Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the largest acquisition in the company's history. CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer has asked Activision CEO Bobby Kotick to stay on until the end of 2023, at which point he'll be leaving the company. It's been a long road filled with plenty of twists and turns to get to this point.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) initially blocked the deal in April, though it and the companies agreed to pause Microsoft's appeal to try and resolve the regulator's reservations over the merger's impact on the cloud gaming industry. An appeal tribunal approved a request to delay the proceedings. 

In an attempt to win over the UK regulator, Microsoft agreed to sell the cloud gaming rights for Activision Blizzard titles to Ubisoft. That means that not only should Activision Blizzard's games be on Xbox Game Pass, but they'll land on Ubisoft+ and any other game-streaming service Ubisoft decides to work with. Concerns about competition in the cloud gaming market was the CMA's reasoning for initially blocking Microsoft's takeover of Activision, but the watchdog said in September that the Ubisoft concession "opens the door to the deal being cleared." A few weeks later, the CMA has rubberstamped the merger.

Microsoft also signed 10-year agreements with Nintendo and several cloud-gaming companies to offer its titles on their platforms. Those moves led to the European Union giving the merger the green light. The bloc's competition officials reportedly didn't see anything in the amended merger agreement (with the Ubisoft plan factored in) that would prompt a fresh antitrust investigation. 

The Federal Trade Commission's attempts to stop the deal over competition concerns haven't panned out. The agency sued to block it in December and an evidentiary hearing in that case was slated to take place on August 2nd. The FTC tried to temporarily block the merger with a preliminary injunction ahead of its administrative trial, but a judge denied that effort. 

The FTC still plans to challenge the merger. If that effort is successful, Microsoft could be forced to divest some or all of Activision Blizzard.

But for now, the deal is done. It means, among other things, that Activision Blizzard titles will be available on cloud gaming platforms for the first time since the publisher pulled its titles from GeForce Now in early 2020. Its games will surely join Game Pass in the very near future, including on Xbox Cloud Gaming, and they'll pop up on Ubisoft+ and other platforms Ubisoft works with.

Those waiting for Activision Blizzard's two biggest games of 2023 to hit Game Pass will certainly need to remain patient, though. The publisher has said Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Diablo IV won't hit the service until next year.

Meanwhile, Blizzard games are already coming to Steam rather than being siloed on the Battle.net launcher. We'll probably see them appearing on Xbox's PC app too. For what it's worth, in court filings, Microsoft called Activision's strategy of releasing PC versions of Call of Duty titles exclusively on Battle.net in a bid to grow the platform a "resounding failure."

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One of the key reasons Microsoft gave for pursuing the deal was to accelerate its aim of becoming a major player in the mobile gaming market. With Activision Blizzard pulling in $1.9 billion in mobile revenue in the first six months of 2023 alone, it will achieve that goal practically overnight. 

King, which is behind the hugely successful Candy Crush franchise, generated more revenue ($1.49 billion) than Activision ($1.15 billion) in the first half of this year. Thanks largely to the massive success of Diablo IV, Blizzard brought in the most of the three units during that period with a hair over $1.5 billion. Still, King had 238 million monthly active users as of June 30th, just over twice as many as Activision and Blizzard combined. It recently emerged that Candy Crush Saga has generated over $20 billion in lifetime revenue.

Blizzard has also been making a push into mobile gaming with the likes of Diablo Immortal. Activision, meanwhile, has Call of Duty Mobile in its portfolio and Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is on the way. The company said in its most recent earnings report Call of Duty has around 90 million monthly players, "with over half of all engagement on the mobile platform."

As for exclusivity of future projects, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has promised to "do whatever it takes" to keep shipping Call of Duty games on PlayStation. After months of refusing to do so, Sony eventually signed a 10-year pact just before the initial merger deadline of July 18th to keep that particular franchise on PlayStation, conceding defeat in its efforts to halt the acquisition. However, Microsoft will likely opt to keep other Activision Blizzard games off of PlayStation platforms, as it has done with ZeniMax/Bethesda titles Redfall and Starfield, as well as MachineGames' upcoming Indiana Jones project.

Meanwhile, many observers hope that Microsoft will help stamp out the alleged toxic workplace culture at Activision Blizzard. Earlier this year, Activision Blizzard paid $35 million to settle SEC charges related to how it handled employees' workplace misconduct complaints.

In 2021, the California Civil Rights Department (formerly the Department of Fair Employment and Housing) sued the company and accused it of fostering a "frat boy" culture in which female employees were harassed and discriminated against. Activision Blizzard countersued the CRD in December. The case hasn't been resolved. In fact, the CRD's lawsuit (which, along with other events, sent Activision's stock tumbling) set the ball rolling on Microsoft's acquisition of the company in the first place.

Microsoft owes the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) $28.9 billion in back taxes, not including penalties and interest, at least according to the tax authority. The tech giant has revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it received a series of Notices of Proposed Adjustment (NOPAs) from the IRS for the tax years 2004 to 2013. In its filing, it said that it's been working with the IRS for nearly a decade to address the authority's questions about how it distributed its profits among countries and jurisdictions, and this is the agency's decision after a lengthy investigation. 

To be exact, the IRS audit centered around a practice known as "transfer pricing," which legally allowed companies to allocate profits and expenses between their operations in different regions. Microsoft explained that a lot of large multinational corporations practice this cost-sharing scheme to reflect "the global nature of their business." In its case, its subsidiaries shared in the costs of developing some IPs, which means that they're also entitled to the related profits. As AP notes, though, critics of the regulation argue that companies frequently use it to minimize the taxes they have to pay by reporting lower profits in high tax countries, and vice versa. 

Microsoft explained that the issues raised by the IRS are only relevant to those aforementioned years, because it has since changed its corporate structure and practices. Nevertheless, the IRS believes Microsoft owes $28.9 billion in back taxes. The tech giant disagrees, as expected, and said that newer tax laws could reduce the back taxes it owes from this particular audit by $10 billion. Based on its plan of action shared with the SEC, the company intends to contest the decision to the best of its ability: Microsoft said that it will pursue an appeal within the IRS, which typically takes years to complete, and will even "contest any unresolved issues through the courts" if needed. 

Unity game developer said that John Riccitiello will step down as president and CEO of the company after nine years in leadership, effective immediately. James Whitehurst, who previously served as senior advisor and president at IBM, will fill in as interim CEO. The leadership transition comes during a turbulent time for the company.

Just a month ago, Unity rolled out some significant concessions to its developer pricing model after widespread backlash over its plan to charge developers for game installations. The move will directly impact developers, publishers and distributors. The upheaval of Unity’s business model came at the same time as a series of massive layoffs. In 2023, the company reduced its headcount three times in an attempt to cut costs.

Despite the recent controversy, Unity said it expects third-quarter revenue to fall somewhere between $540 million to $550 million, which is up 67 to 70 percent from last year.

ChatGPT might be powered by homegrown chips in the future, if OpenAI does indeed decide to make its own. According to Reuters, the company is currently exploring the possibility of making its own artificial intelligence chips and has even evaluated a potential acquisition. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman previously blamed GPU shortages for users' concerns regarding the company API's speed and reliability, so he reportedly made acquiring more AI chips a priority. 

In addition to being able to address GPU shortages, OpenAI using its own chips could make costs associated with running its products more manageable. Based on an analysis by Stacy Rasgon from Bernstein Research, each ChatGPT query costs the company around 4 cents. The service reached 100 million monthly users in its first two months, which translates to millions of queries a day, though it did lose users for the first time in July. Rasgon said that if ChatGPT queries reach a tenth of what Google gets, then it would initially need $48.1 billion worth of GPUs and would spend $16 billion a year on chips going forward. 

At the moment, NVIDIA controls the market for chips meant for AI applications — the Microsoft supercomputer OpenAI used to develop its technology, for instance, uses 10,000 NVIDIA GPUs. That's why other companies — bigger players in the tech industry — have chosen to start developing their own. Microsoft, OpenAI's biggest backer, has been working on an AI chip of its own since 2019, according to The Information. The product is codenamed Athena, and OpenAI has reportedly been testing the technology. 

OpenAI has yet to decide whether to push through with its plans, Reuters says. And even if it does choose to move forward, it could take years before it can start using it own chips to power its products. 

Long gone are the days when you needed to swipe a physical credit card, with your phone typically being all you need to complete in-person transactions. PayPal is finally getting on board with the change, announcing that you can now add it and Venmo's credit and debit cards to your Apple Wallet. As part of their motivation for the expansion, the company cites a 2022 Morning Consult survey that found 42 percent of people in the United States have used a mobile wallet.

PayPal has long offered credit cards, while Venmo launched its first in 2020 (and has made sure you know about it anytime you use the app or the company sends you an email). With this further offering, you can pay for in-person transactions with PayPal or Venmo using Touch or Face ID on your iPhone or Apple Watch, as well as use Apple Pay to complete digital purchases on these devices and your iPad or Mac.

Adding a PayPal or Venmo card to your Apple Wallet is the same process as any other card. Visit your Apple Wallet app, choose the option to add a debit or credit card and then scan in or manually enter its details. You can also immediately add your PayPal credit or debit card to your Apple Wallet through PayPal's site. However, the PayPal Business Debit Card and Venmo's credit and debit cards will be available to add through their respective apps "in the coming months." PayPal previously rolled out tap-to-pay support on iPhones and Androids, but it was through the company's apps. 

At dawn on Wednesday, French antitrust authorities conducted a surprise raid on a company in the country that specializes in graphics cards — and according to The Wall Street Journal and Challenges business magazine, that company was NVIDIA. We reached out to NVIDIA for clarification and a spokesperson declined to comment. Here's what we know for sure:

The French Competition Authority conducted a surprise raid early Wednesday morning on "a company suspected of having implemented anticompetitive practices in the graphics cards sector," according to a brief press release from the regulator. The raid was tied to a larger investigation into the health of the cloud computing market, with a focus on identifying whether new companies were being unfairly squeezed out by larger, existing ones. The results of that investigation were published in June and they centered on three "hyperscalers," Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. 

The results read, in part, "The likelihood of a new operator being able to gain market share rapidly appears limited, excluding companies who are already powerful in other digital markets." NVIDIA is not mentioned in the original cloud investigation.

NVIDIA has seen significant financial success this year amid the AI boom. NVIDIA's AI chips and data centers are in high demand, and the company crushed its most recent earnings expectations, pulling in $13.51 billion in the second quarter of 2023, compared with $6.7 billion in 2022.

As the French Competition Authority noted, a raid does not mean the targeted company is guilty of anticompetitive practices — but it's a confident step from the regulatory body.

Apple has quietly launched a new iPhone Wallet feature in beta that lets UK users see their current account balance, along with recent deposits and payments, 9to5Mac has reported. It's powered by the UK's Open Banking API, and follows Apple's purchase of Credit Kudos, a company that uses Open Banking to give users a snapshot of their financial health and creditworthiness. 

The new feature, which also shows users their balances after purchasing something with Apple Pay, arrives as part of the iOS 17.1 developer beta. Users must first authorize it through the Wallet app, then authenticate using their bank's app or website. All banking data will be stored strictly on users' devices and not on Apple's servers. Supported banks in the beta launch include Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS, Monzo and Starling.

The Wallet addition is a rare Apple feature that premieres in a territory outside the US. Apple doesn't even have its Apple Card available in the UK yet, so it's a relatively minor player in the region so far. At the same time, its purchase of Credit Kudos gives it major connections in Open Banking. The latter company's API taps into the UK's open banking platform to analyze bank account data, aiming to help banking providers make faster and better decisions for people seeking loans or other financial services.

Open Banking — which forces the United Kingdom's nine major banks to to release their data in a secure, standardized form — is unique to the region and doesn't exist in the US (though the government is working on it). Europe introduced a similar system called PSD2 back in 2020. The two are similar, so Apple could feasibly bring the same features to Europe, where it effectively dominates smartphone-based payment systems with Apple Wallet. 

Jim Ryan, Sony Interactive Entertainment's (SIE) President and CEO, is stepping down in March 2024. In a post announcing his retirement, the executive said he's been finding it "increasingly difficult" to juggle his home life in the UK and his job that's located in the US. Ryan has been with SIE since 1994, before the first PlayStation was launched worldwide. He helped establish the company's presence in Europe and held several positions before he was eventually named as the CEO of SIE in 2019. 

SIE launched the PlayStation 5 under Ryan's leadership. While the company struggled to produce enough consoles in the height of the pandemic due to component shortages, it was eventually able to increase production and meet demands. In the first quarter of 2023, Sony shipped 3.3 million PS5 units, bringing the total number of consoles sold to 41.7 million. Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida praised Ryan for "overseeing the launch of PlayStation 5 in the midst of the global COVID pandemic," saying that the device is now "on track to become SIE’s most successful console yet."

On April 1, 2024, Hiroki Totoki will step in as interim CEO of SIE, taking on the responsibility on top of his roles as the president, COO and CFO of Sony Group Corporation. The company said that he will work with management to "help define the next chapter of PlayStation's future" and to find the next boss for Sony Interactive Entertainment.

All MGM Resorts hotels and casinos are back up and running as normal, nine days after a cyberattack shut down systems across the company, the company said in an X post on Wednesday. MGM Rewards accounts will be updated "at a later date," and some promotional offers could still be unavailable. This is the biggest system wide restoration the company has experienced since websites went offline, slot machines went down and some transactions became cash only on September 11. 

The ALPHV ransomware group took credit for the attack shortly after systems went offline. The group claimed it used social engineering tactics, or gaining trust from employees to get information, to access systems. Once a group gains access, they usually demand a sum of money in exchange for access or information. 

After the MGM attack went public, reports started surfacing that competitor Caesars Entertainment, which also owns casinos across the Las Vegas strip, recently suffered a similar attack. But unlike MGM, Caesars reportedly paid "tens of millions of dollars" to the hackers that threatened to release company data to avoid damage. Another ransomware group, Scattered Spider, took credit for that attack. Scattered Spider also took credit for the MGM attack, but responsibility is notoriously difficult to verify without security researchers because hackers are motivated to claim as much damage as they can. 

The attacks both started through identity management vendor Okta. MGM and Caesars both use the service, and the company confirmed hackers were able to use its tech as an access vector. The full extent of the damage remains unclear. At least three other Okta clients have been hit by cyberattacks, David Bradbury, chief security officer of the company, told Reuters. 

MGM did not respond to a request for comment on any data leak implications possibly stemming from the attack or whether backend systems such as employee accounts are back up and running.