Silicon Valley Tech News Roundup – December 24th

China to release new legislation with further restrictions on the gaming industry – 12/23

The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), the Chinese gaming regulator, will release the latest round of restrictions to limit the amount of time and money people can spend on video games.

The latest restrictions aim to prevent obsessive gaming behavior and limit in-game purchases by preventing game developers from offering rewards to entice people to excessively play games and top up their in-game accounts with funds. Likewise, the games will have pop-ups to warn players of “irrational” behavior. The National Press and Publication Administration reiterated its ban on “forbidden online game content that endangers national unity” and “endangers national security or harms national reputation and interests.”

The news struck another blow to the gaming industry in China, which has the largest online gaming market in the world. Tencel, the global leader in the gaming market, saw its share price fall by 12.4% following the announcement.

Tencent’s shares tumble following the news about gaming crackdown in China – 12/22

On Friday, the shares of Tencent fell 12.4% following the news about the latest regulations aimed at curbing excessive gaming in China. The company lost $43.5 billion in market value. The shares closed at HK$274, or its lowest value since the end of November 2022.

Tencent is one of the world’s largest gaming companies. It owns WeChat and earned one-fifth of its revenue in the third quarter from the Chinese online gaming market. Vigo Zhang (the Vice President of Tencent) spoke to CNBC about the newest regulation and said: “These new measures do not fundamentally alter the online gaming business model and operations… They clarify the authorities’ support for the online gaming industry, providing instructive guidance encouraging the innovation of high quality games.”

Shares of NetEase and BiliBili also felt the impact and plunged 24.6% and 9.7%, respectively.

The government crackdown on the gaming industry started in 2021 when the authorities stopped the approval of new game releases and expressed concerns over the potential gaming addiction in children under the age of 18. The government restricted online gaming time to three hours per week. In August this year, the government proposed limiting the use of smartphones to two hours per day for children under 18.

Tesla knew about parts failure but blamed it on the customers – 12/20

A report published by Reuters on Wednesday reveals Tesla knew about the high failure rate with certain vehicle parts but blamed it on the customers.

Reuters conducted an investigation that revealed the company claimed customers engaged in “driver abuse” and charged them for repair of parts. Meanwhile, Tesla was internally aware that certain parts had high failure rates and were defective.

One of the examples includes the aft link (a part of the suspension) snapping when the owners drove at low speeds. According to the Reuters investigation, a former Tesla employee claims that between 2016 and 2020, Tesla “resolved” about 400 aft links complaints in China. The company resolved the matter, either through in-warranty repairs, or “goodwill repairs” if the vehicle was out of warranty. Tesla only agreed to a recall after four years and after the Chinese regulators applied pressure to do so. Meanwhile, the company never recalled the part in the United States and Europe.

Tesla and Elon Musk did not reply to requests for comment.

X (former Twitter) experiences global outages – 12/22

X (former Twitter) suffered global outages on Thursday this week. The social media platform was down for over an hour.

According to the data collected by DownDetector, over 47,000 users in the United States could not access X or XPro. Likewise, users in Asia and in the United Kingdom reported they could not view the site. The site displayed a placard saying “Welcome to X”. The timelines also would not refresh for users in the mobile app.

While the media asked the company for comments, it did not provide an update. Normal service resumed after an hour.