NVIDIA accused of gating AI GPU access, Nintendo sues Yuzu maker, MSI Claw pricing revealed

NVIDIA is facing fresh scrutiny over how it treats AI hardware partners who also work with its competitors, according to a Wall Street Journal report cited on Gamers Nexus's HW News roundup. Grok chipmaker CEO Jonathan Ross told the Journal that NVIDIA could act in a retaliatory way toward AI partners who engage with rival GPU suppliers, saying, "A lot of people we meet with say that if NVIDIA were to hear that we were meeting, they would disavow it. The problem is that you have to pay NVIDIA a year in advance, and you may get your hardware in a year or it may take longer," and that the implicit message was, "a shucks, you're buying from someone else, and I guess it's going to take a little longer."

The Journal also reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seeking to raise $7 trillion to reshape the semiconductor landscape, a push Gamers Nexus's HW News host said was no doubt driven at least in part by NVIDIA's dominance of the AI accelerator market. Separately, the same report described Microsoft working with Intel Foundry -- which Intel bills as "the world's first systems foundry for the AI era" -- to manufacture an upcoming chip design on Intel's 18A process, and said companies including Amazon and Google are building their own AI accelerators without explicitly billing themselves as NVIDIA competitors.

Gamers Nexus said the retaliation claims are "unprovable" but "not hard to believe," noting the host had heard from multiple hardware manufacturers, including one case maker with no direct GPU business, that NVIDIA's launch schedule indirectly dictates release timing across the industry.

Nintendo sues Yuzu's maker over Zelda leak

In the same episode, Gamers Nexus covered Nintendo's copyright lawsuit against Tropic Haze LLC, maker of the free Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu. Nintendo's complaint asserts that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was downloaded more than one million times before its official launch, with piracy sites saying illegal copies could be played specifically on Yuzu. Nintendo's filing states, as read on the program: "Yuzu unlawfully circumvents the technological measures on the Nintendo Switch games and allows for the play of encrypted Nintendo Switch games on devices other than a Nintendo Switch... by executing code necessary to defeat Nintendo's many technological measures associated with its games, including code that decrypts the Nintendo Switch video game files immediately before and during runtime using an illegally obtained copy of prod keys that ordinarily are secured on the Nintendo Switch."

Yuzu, developed by the same team behind the Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra, runs on Windows, Linux and Android and was briefly demonstrated running on a Valve Steam Deck before that footage was pulled, according to the program. Nintendo is seeking to hold Tropic Haze "secondarily liable" for infringement committed by users who downloaded Yuzu, along with equitable relief and damages. Gamers Nexus noted that emulation is a legally complicated area and that, historically, small emulator projects tend to fold under the cost of fighting Nintendo regardless of the merits of their case.

MSI lists all three Claw handhelds

MSI's official store fully listed its three-model Claw handheld lineup with prices and specs, though the devices were not yet available for purchase at the time of the report. The cheapest model, the A1M-052US, is priced at $700 and uses an Intel Core Ultra 5 135H processor (1.2 to 4.6 GHz), 512 GB of Gen4x4 2230 SSD storage, 16 GB of LPDDR5-6400 memory, a 1080p 7-inch 120Hz screen and a 53 watt-hour battery -- larger by that measure than the Lenovo Legion Go or Steam Deck OLED, according to the program. The A1M-051US, at $750, steps up to a Core Ultra 7 155H with a roughly 200MHz higher average clock, while the top-end A1M-050US, at $800, adds a 1TB SSD. Gamers Nexus said it was working to obtain a review unit.

US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by Gamers Nexus's HW News program. It restores a story originally published on this site in March 2024; figures are as reported at the time.