Microsoft last week quietly reintroduced its $1 first month promotion for new subscribers on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass. This offer was retired back in March of this year, with the company announcing that it would be "evaluating different marketing promotions for new members in the future." Their research has clearly brought them back to square one—it is possible that the Xbox Games division is already reacting to negative feedback following an announcement regarding ongoing subscription and hardware price increases, as well as a decline in new player sign-ups since Spring time.

It should be noted that the console-only Game Pass tier ($11 per month) is not available as part of this 30-day starter promotion. The more expensive Game Pass Ultimate ($17 per month) is the only entry point on Xbox systems—customers are paying for a service that encompasses both console and PC platforms. PC Game Pass defaults to $10 a month, post the $1 introductory period. Microsoft has revised the conversion ratios for upgrades of Xbox Live Gold subscriptions to Game Pass Ultimate—from (the more favorable) 1:1 to 3:2. As an example—according to the new terms—90 remaining days of Xbox Live Gold/PC Game Pass converts to 60 days of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

Last week Bethesda announced AMD as its exclusive partner for Starfield on the PC platform, although the short video presentation did not tease upcoming hardware/software bundles. Details of a Ryzen 7000-series CPUs promotional campaign emerged seven days later thanks to a mini-store page appearing on Newegg's retail site. The Starfield promo was not active at the time, but AMD Taiwan has made it official that the event will be going live on July 11 (at least in that territory).

According to the freshly published event site their offer will be running until September 30, and product serial numbers will not be redeemable after October 28. Eligible hardware includes the aforementioned Ryzen 7000 processor family, as well as Radeon GPUs. Thankfully Team Red has made sure to make a significant number of RDNA 2 models eligible for the Starfield incentive, with the entry point being RX 6600. All discrete RDNA 3 cards qualify—starting with RX 7600 and jumping up to the expensive RX 7900 XT and 7900 XTX GPUs. AMD Taiwan's info graphics show a two tier system—Standard Edition (NT$1990) applies to buyers of Ryzen 5/7 7000 series CPUs or Radeon 6600 through 7600 cards. Premium Edition (NT$2890) will grant a 5-day early access period—exclusive to buyers of Ryzen 9 7000 CPUs or Radeon cards starting at RX 6700.

We're back! What's summer without new game demos to entertain you during those hot days and nights? Starting July 11 and running until July 17, you'll be able to experience over 40 game demos on your Xbox console.

A few things to keep in mind—these demos will only be up on the Xbox Dashboard for a week. Some might be re-published to the Demo channel later, but many will simply disappear at the end of the week, so check them out while you can! The developers would love to hear what you think. Hit them up on social media or through their websites. If you like the game - tell them! If you have constructive criticism, they would love to hear that too.

This July, as part of Disability Pride Month, Team Xbox proudly celebrates players, creators, and community members with disabilities. More than 400 million video game players have disabilities worldwide, and we recognize the incredible contributions the gaming and disability community has made in making Team Xbox, and the broader gaming industry, more inclusive and welcoming for everyone.

Disability Pride holds a special place in my heart, as I am not only a Program Manager on our Gaming Accessibility Team, but also a person with disabilities. Most people wouldn't think of me as having a disability at first glance. In fact, I didn't know I had disabilities until I was in my 20's when I was diagnosed as being neurodiverse. Now I know that I have had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Sensory Processing Disorder since I was a young child. And, as the years have gone by, I've acquired new disabilities due to illness, injury, and trauma. Chronic pain is now part of my life, as is hearing loss, and anxiety and depression related to complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

What do heists, dinosaurs falling out of the skies, and puzzles all have in common? If it is anything other than "games coming to Xbox Game Pass", I would very much like to know! We have games coming soon that we announced during the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase (looking at you, Exoprimal), and we even have a surprise return today with Grand Theft Auto V. Let's get to the games!

Available Today: Grand Theft Auto V (Cloud and Console)
When a young street hustler, a retired bank robber, and a terrifying psychopath find themselves entangled with some of the most frightening and deranged elements of the criminal underworld, the U.S. government, and the entertainment industry, they must pull off a series of dangerous heists to survive in a ruthless city in which they can trust nobody—least of all each other. Includes both the Xbox One and the Xbox Series X|S versions of Grand Theft Auto V.

Microsoft has normally kept its Xbox console sales figures out of public view—many industry experts reckon that this is due to the One and Series generations consistently lagging behind Sony's equivalent PlayStation offerings—but attendees of the BIG Festival in Brazil last week were surprised by "player count" data appearing during an official presentation. An interesting slide was put on display as part of an ID@Xbox Developer Accelerator Program segment—it revealed that the Series X|S consoles have an accumulated userbase of around 21 million, since launching back in November of 2020. Microsoft also emphasized that 48% of its Series S customers are new to the ecosystem.

The older generation also got a mention—with some subtraction (from their grand total of One + Series) the technology giant has divulged that its entire Xbox One lineup (consisting of the original model and S plus X variants) has sold roughly 58 million units since the late 2013. Microsoft has been fairly transparent about its Xbox One generation losing out to Sony's PlayStation 4—the latter has done business in the region of 117.2 million units, and the latest data (again) reaffirms that the PS4 outsold Xbox One by a 2:1 margin. Sales figures for Series X|S seem to be quite healthy—so far—when compared to the predecessor, but PlayStation 5 is still ahead (38.4 million units sold as of March 2023) and Sony is confident that it will sell close to 20 million consoles this fiscal year. Shortages are said to be a thing of the past—production and distribution issues have been resolved and the PS5 can be pumped out at an admirable rate.

Stephen Totilo, a writer for the gaming section of Axios, has uncovered an intriguing tidbit from Microsoft's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) court documents. He injected some humor into this finding and posted on Twitter: "Microsoft's lawyers with some Project Q hype." According to the legal team's footnotes: "Sony is also anticipated to release a handheld version of PlayStation 5 later this year for under $300." The handheld gaming device was first revealed during late May's PlayStation Showcase, but teaser material only revealed a small number of details.

Sony indicated that Project Q will feature a 1920 x 1080 display (with a max. 60 Hz refresh) and in-built WiFi connectivity that allows the user to stream games from a host PlayStation 5 system. Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson has gathered information from company sources since that showcase, and proposed that the device can only sustain 3-4 hour play times. He also proposed that Sony should seriously consider launching the device at a low price of $200, given the handheld's alleged limited function as Remote Play-only. It is odd that Microsoft's legal representatives think that Project Q will act as a highly portable PlayStation 5 console, but they likely did not pay attention to the limited details available to them.

This Barbie is a gamer! Together with Warner Bros. Pictures and Mattel, Xbox is excited to invite fans on a fun, fashionable, and inspirational ride this summer to celebrate the much-anticipated release of the new movie "Barbie," premiering in theaters on July 21. Bringing Barbie's signature flair to our gaming platform, we're honoring all that there is to love about this iconic role model: her persevering optimism, wide-ranging career journey and never-ending capacity for self-discovery. Audiences of "Barbie" will follow the heroine to the furthest reaches of Barbie Land and beyond, and now fans can follow in her high-heeled footsteps with exclusive Forza Horizon 5 in-game content, an inspiring video about careers in gaming with a Barbie touch, the first ever Xbox Barbie dolls, and our most stylish custom Xbox hardware yet.

The highly anticipated film of the summer, BARBIE, comes to the big screen taking audiences to the vibrant world of Barbie Land - where every day is the best day ever! Now, the Horizon Festival will celebrate by giving Forza Horizon 5 players the keys to two stunning cars featured in this bold movie adaptation. Starting June 26, all players will receive the Barbie iconic 1956 Chevrolet Corvette EV and the Ken 2022 GMC HUMMER EV Pickup in their Forza Horizon 5 Message Center. We're also hosting an in-game UGC contest themed around the joy, wonder and adventures of Barbie. Be it a photo, EventLab, or another type of UGC, share your BARBIE content on Twitter or Instagram before July 14, 2023, and include the hashtag #FH5BarbieMovie to be entered for a chance to win an unmissable BARBIE prize pack.

Earlier this week Microsoft revealed its roadmap for the building of a proprietary quantum supercomputer. The company's research department has been making progress with the elusive building blocks of topological qubits over a number of years. Microsoft's VP of advanced quantum development - Krysta Svore - has informed TechCrunch that their team anticipates it taking under ten years to construct and complete a quantum supercomputer utilizing qubits, with a view to perform a reliable one million quantum operations per second. Svore stated: "We think about our roadmap and the time to the quantum supercomputer in terms of years rather than decades."

Majorana-based qubits are extremely difficult to create, but worth the effort due to being inherently stable. Microsoft's quantum team has dedicated itself to hitting a first milestone, with more devices developed and data collected since last year's major breakthrough. Svore reiterates: "Today, we're really at this foundational implementation level...We have noisy intermediate-scale quantum machines. They're built around physical qubits and they're not yet reliable enough to do something practical and advantageous in terms of something useful. For science or for the commercial industry. The next level we need to get to as an industry is the resilient level. We need to be able to operate not just with physical qubits but we need to take those physical qubits and put them into an error-correcting code and use them as a unit to serve as a logical qubit." Svore's team is focusing more on the building of hardware-protected qubits, that are tiny - "smaller than 10 microns on a side" with performance of one qubit operation in less than a microsecond.

According to the Verge, Microsoft is getting ready to hike up the price of its Xbox Series X console come August, but apparently only in some parts of the world. However, the company is also readying a small price increase in its Game Pass pricing as well, that will take effect globally. The Game Pass pricing increase in the US will be a mere US$1 from US$9.99 to US$10.99 a month, whereas the Game Pass Ultimate will see an increase of US$2, from US$14.99 to US$16.99 a month, with European countries seeing the same kind of increase in cost, but in Euro instead of Dollars. The Verge has a list of other regional price increases for the Game Pass for those interested.

As for the Xbox Series X, Europe, Canada and Australia are said to see a hike in pricing, whereas the US, Japan and some South American nations are apparently avoiding a price hike for now. The new pricing will be £479.99 in the UK, €549.99 in most EU countries, C$649.99 in Canada and AU$799.99 in Australia. The new pricing is said to take effect on the first of August. The Xbox Series S will apparently avoid a price hike for now.

TrendForce reports that explosive growth in generative AI applications like chatbots has spurred significant expansion in AI server development in 2023. Major CSPs including Microsoft, Google, AWS, as well as Chinese enterprises like Baidu and ByteDance, have invested heavily in high-end AI servers to continuously train and optimize their AI models. This reliance on high-end AI servers necessitates the use of high-end AI chips, which in turn will not only drive up demand for HBM during 2023~2024, but is also expected to boost growth in advanced packaging capacity by 30~40% in 2024.

TrendForce highlights that to augment the computational efficiency of AI servers and enhance memory transmission bandwidth, leading AI chip makers such as Nvidia, AMD, and Intel have opted to incorporate HBM. Presently, Nvidia's A100 and H100 chips each boast up to 80 GB of HBM2e and HBM3. In its latest integrated CPU and GPU, the Grace Hopper Superchip, Nvidia expanded a single chip's HBM capacity by 20%, hitting a mark of 96 GB. AMD's MI300 also uses HBM3, with the MI300A capacity remaining at 128 GB like its predecessor, while the more advanced MI300X has ramped up to 192 GB, marking a 50% increase. Google is expected to broaden its partnership with Broadcom in late 2023 to produce the AISC AI accelerator chip TPU, which will also incorporate HBM memory, in order to extend AI infrastructure.

Matt Booty - the Head of Microsoft Studios - has been doing a lot of press lately, following the recent Xbox Games Showcase. Previous headlines focused on his declaration that first party development for Xbox One had ceased. The Hollywood Reporter has now cornered him on the subject of a possible Xbox augmented/virtual reality headset, although the interview did begin with a discussion about the company's Starfield IP being a good candidate for a movie or TV series adaptation. Booty swiftly shifted the focus onto current projects: "I don't have anything to share around there on Starfield, but I love your point that the worlds that we create in games, the characters that we create … people build entire digital hobbies around and invest hundreds of hours in (them), so it's cool to see linear media, as we call it, recognize that. We have our Halo TV series with Paramount; we have season one and we're shooting season two now. We've got the Minecraft movie coming up with Jason Momoa. We just recently announced that we've got the Gears of War franchise with Netflix."

Arch rival Sony is already two generations deep into gaming AR/VR headsets, and Microsoft has not produced an answer to PlayStation VR. Things have also gone quiet on the business-focused HoloLens product front. Phil Spencer did hint that the Xbox One X console was powerful enough to run a VR headset, but that was many years ago and he has since stated that leadership is not interested in exploring that market. Booty's response to the Hollywood Reporter's query also repeats his colleague's view: "I think for us, it's just a bit of wait until there's an audience there. We're very fortunate that we have got these big IPs that have turned into ongoing franchises with big communities. We have 10 games that have achieved over 10 million players life-to-date, which is a pretty big accomplishment, but that's the kind of scale that we need to see success for the game and it's just, it's not quite there yet with AR, VR." He claimed that their traditional model has "150 million active players across first-party (titles) every month," with cloud gaming contributing very little to that population: "For us, to be clear, it is a very, very small market. I'm not even sure you would call it a market yet, in fact." This tidbit is very intriguing given the big marketing push behind Xbox Cloud Gaming, and certain regulators deeming Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard a threat to competition within that market.

Microsoft published its Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23481 a few weeks ago. However, the latest build preview came with a big change, primarily targeting the File Explorer. Microsoft's File Explorer for Windows 11 serves as an interactive tool to explore files and access their locations. However, Microsoft developers have released a preview build for insiders that removes some folder options from File Explorer. The following will no longer appear under "Folder Options": Hide Folder Merge conflict; Always show icons, never thumbnails; Display file icon on thumbnails; Display file type information on Folder tips; Hide protected OS files; Show drive letters; Show popup description for Folder and Desktop items; Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color; Use sharing wizard.

The company explains the reason for these changes: "We are removing a handful of old settings under Folder Options in File Explorer as part of an effort to clean up the number of settings for File Explorer. Many of these are legacy settings that have been around for ages and are not being regularly used by people on Windows 11." However, there are some promising signs, as these settings can still be accessed via registry keys. It is not entirely gone, just much more difficult to enable.

Microsoft has announced some major changes for a selection of integrated Windows 11 productivity apps—yesterday's preview piece declared that: "The new Outlook for Windows brings the latest features with a modern and simplified design to your Windows 11 PC. You can tailor it to your style and do more with the new Outlook for Windows! Learn more about the new Outlook for Windows here." Many W11 users are not fans of the current and very neglected set of Mail, Calendar & People applications, but forthcoming updates will provide some joy since the next version of Outlook is set to replace this messy arrangement entirely. A longer and more in-depth Insider article demonstrates the shape of things to come, including a dark mode! A trial version can be accessed via a toggle within the Windows 11 Mail & Calendar app.

Microsoft's roadmap/timeline indicates that new devices running Windows 11 will have the brand new Outlook app pre-installed, starting in early 2024: "The new Outlook for Windows (will be available) as the default mailbox application free for all to use. The Mail and Calendar applications will continue to be available via download in the Microsoft Store through the end of 2024. On existing devices, users can switch to the new Outlook for Windows from a toggle in the Mail and Calendar applications." The company's software engineers are alleged to be working on a project dubbed "Hudson Valley," which is rumored to be the next major version of Windows - aka 12 - arriving September 2024, which coincides with the removal of the improved Outlook app from Microsoft's store. The updated web-based client could be built into Windows 12, and positioned as the default email handling program.

According to main members of the Digital Foundry team, Microsoft had informed them during Xbox Series console preview sessions (prior to the November 2020 launch) that plans for the more powerful variant had changed. Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman and Alex Battaglia discussed this puzzling notion during yesterday's DF Direct Weekly videocast (episode number #116): "Microsoft told us this back when we saw the Series X for the first time that the Series X is their mid-gen refresh. They just decided to do it, ahead of time, I guess you could say...The Series S is what they consider the standard machine and then Series X is, you know, that's getting ahead of the cart there and this is what you might get from a mid-gen console." They compare the current offerings to predecessors, and propose that Microsoft simply "transplanted" and repeated model hierarchy from the past, albeit with a simultaneous launch—Series S is the newer answer to Xbox One S, and Series X is a current-gen equivalent to the One X.

The debate touches upon (Xbox Chief) Phil Spencer's recent declaration that a more powerful Xbox Series console is not necessary, despite Sony allegedly working on a PlayStation 5 "PRO" model. The DF team reckons that game developers are yet to extract the most from current offerings—Battaglia agrees with Spencer's observation and suggests that only a loud minority of hardcore console gamers are demanding more powerful refreshes. Linneman thinks that the Series X is still a "great box" despite headlines focusing on restrictive 30 FPS performance, and its full potential has not been unleashed. Games running on Unreal Engine 5 are still a rarity on home consoles, but the guys acknowledge that AAA development is taking longer and becoming more expensive, so truly next-gen visuals are not arriving soon. Leadbetter estimates that it takes about four years to hash out console hardware, so the current generation's lifespan could be extended if refreshed hardware turns up.

Microsoft has revealed the next set of titles that will be coming to Xbox Game Pass for PC, Cloud, and Xbox Series X/S. The list includes Need for Speed Unbound, The Bookwalker, Bramble: The Mountain King and FIST: Forged in Shadow Torch, and several other titles.

Xbox Game Pass will also be getting new DLCs and game updates, new Ultimate Perks, and new Xbox Game Pass Quests. There is also a list of games that will be leaving the Xbox Game Pass on June 30th.

Celebrate French Aviation with new Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN) cities and the Latécoère 631 The Microsoft Flight Simulator team is delighted to introduce the free City Update II: France, which captures five beautiful cities: Amiens, Angers, Nantes, Nîmes, and Reims; and to celebrate the Paris Air Show, the update also includes the famed Paris-Le Bourget Airport (LFPB) in both standard and festival configurations.

City Update II: France is now available free to all owners of Microsoft Flight Simulator. Ensure that your simulator is updated to version 1.32.7.0, download City Update II, and experience some of the very best sights that France has to offer.

Axios has recently interviewed Microsoft's game studio chief Matt Booty about development strategies for the company's vast array of first party studios (under the banner of Xbox Game Studios). Several of these teams have not yet released any Xbox Series console and Windows PC exclusives, with only a couple of examples newly revealed at last weekend's Xbox Games Showcase. Booty believes that closer collaboration between first party studios will help improve output and quality, with the added benefit of catching up with big rivals—Axios mentions Sony/PlayStation and Nintendo producing a number of excellent games in recent times. The Coalition is mentioned as a prime example of a studio spreading its expert knowledge of Unreal Engine 5 to other parts of the Xbox division.

Booty acknowledges that his company has taken into account that AAA game development is taking longer than before (compared to previous generations...more on that in a bit). He states that the expected norm nowadays for a high-end project will take "four and five and six years" to finish, due to "a longer creation process...(and the) increased complexity of modern games, plus the desire to reach higher technical marks with 4K-compatible graphics and advanced lighting...There are higher expectations. The level of fidelity that we're able to deliver just goes up." Microsoft's management of its game development teams has been called into question following the poor launch state of Redfall (an Arkane/Bethesda production). Booty says that the "house style" is somewhere between the parent group's set of rules and complete creative freedom at each development house: "We optimize for creative output, which can have some pros and cons, sure, but that is the goal."

Polish development studio, People Can Fly, announced yesterday that it has signed a production and publishing agreement with Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios. The teased future title goes under the moniker "Project Maverick," and the company press release reveals a "total production budget for the Game" of $30-50 million. The terms agreed upon include: "The development of the Game by the Company will be performed under the work for hire model, based on the intellectual property rights owned by the Publisher and will be entirely financed by the Publisher when advancing by the Company of the development works under the milestones." Industry insiders reckon there is a good chance that People Can Fly are set to work on Microsoft's Gears IP. The Coalition, an Xbox first party studio (located in Vancouver, Canada) is said to be working on the next mainline Gears title, but a diversified lineup could include more side projects. Splash Damage's Gears Tactics was a previous example of this—a turn-based title that arrived on PC in April 2020, followed by Xbox console versions later that year.

The team has prior experience of developing older Gears of War series entries on Unreal Engine 3—the PC port of the original 2007 game and 2013's spin-off GoW: Judgement (an Xbox 360 exclusive). People Can Fly has had a difficult time lately with the release and support of its online-only cooperative action role-player "Outriders" (with Square Enix), and a terminated Take-Two Interactive publishing deal. Company investor information has recently revealed that Outriders (2021) has not yet become a profitable property for the independent studio: "The Group received no royalties from the publisher (Square Enix) for the period to March 31st 2023, which means that as at the reporting date net proceeds from the sale of Outriders were insufficient to recover the costs and expenses incurred by the publisher to develop, distribute and promote the title." People Can Fly confirms elsewhere in the investment document that Gearbox Publishing holds an exclusive license for Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition (a 2019 remaster of the original 2011 base game).

Xbox Game Pass support is coming to GeForce NOW. Members will soon be able to play supported PC games from the Xbox Game Pass catalog through NVIDIA's cloud gaming servers. Learn more about how support for Game Pass and Microsoft Store will roll out in the coming months. Plus, Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition is the first from the world's most popular real-time strategy franchise to arrive on GeForce NOW.

Announced over the weekend, Game Pass members will soon be able to play supported PC games from the Game Pass catalog with GeForce NOW. We're working closely with Microsoft to enable members to play select PC titles from Microsoft Store, just as they can today on GeForce NOW with their Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect and GOG.com accounts. Members who are subscribed to PC Game Pass or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will be able to stream these select PC titles from the Game Pass library - without downloads or additional purchases for instant gaming from the cloud.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed an injunction earlier this week, in a renewed effort to temporarily block Microsoft's $69 billion bid for full ownership of the Activision Blizzard group. A judge has today granted the regulatory body's request. The court has issued a temporary restraining order—in which it states the legal measure "is necessary to maintain the status quo while the complaint is pending." The FTC proposes that the acquisition has the potential to "substantially lessen competition" within North America's gaming sector. Microsoft and Activision are required to attend a two-day hearing—scheduled for 22 June in San Francisco, California.

The FTC had previously penciled in an August 2 session with an internal administrative judge, following the expiration of Microsoft's proposed deadline (July 18) for the merger. A company spokesperson (commenting to Eurogamer) expressed that leadership was happy about the FTC's decision to bring proceedings forward in time: "Accelerating the legal process in the US will ultimately bring more choice and competition to the gaming market. A temporary restraining order makes sense until we can receive a decision from the Court, which is moving swiftly." The legal document outlines terms including the prevention of "any of their officers, directors, domestic or foreign agents, divisions, subsidiaries, affiliates, partnerships, or joint ventures from closing or consummating, directly or indirectly, the proposed transaction or a substantially similar transaction."

Pursue your dream of an aviation career with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. This brand-new simulator is designed to take advantage of the latest technologies in simulation, cloud, machine learning, graphics and gaming to create the most sophisticated, immersive and awe-inspiring flight simulator of all time. To achieve this unprecedented level of accuracy, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is powered by the significantly evolved Asobo Studio engine.

Available day one on Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Windows 10/11, and Steam. Coming 2024. We look forward to sharing more information about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 in the future.

Today, at the "Data Center and AI Technology Premiere," AMD announced the products, strategy and ecosystem partners that will shape the future of computing, highlighting the next phase of data center innovation. AMD was joined on stage with executives from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Citadel, Hugging Face, Meta, Microsoft Azure and PyTorch to showcase the technological partnerships with industry leaders to bring the next generation of high performance CPU and AI accelerator solutions to market.

"Today, we took another significant step forward in our data center strategy as we expanded our 4th Gen EPYC processor family with new leadership solutions for cloud and technical computing workloads and announced new public instances and internal deployments with the largest cloud providers," said AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "AI is the defining technology shaping the next generation of computing and the largest strategic growth opportunity for AMD. We are laser focused on accelerating the deployment of AMD AI platforms at scale in the data center, led by the launch of our Instinct MI300 accelerators planned for later this year and the growing ecosystem of enterprise-ready AI software optimized for our hardware."

Lenovo, a leading global provider of innovative computing solutions, today announced the coming availability of the ThinkSmart View Plus, a standalone collaboration device certified for Microsoft Teams Display working with Windows 11 devices to enable hybrid work by increasing productivity, flexibility, and collaboration. The Lenovo ThinkSmart View Plus is available from July in select markets worldwide starting from $2,345 USD. Attendees of InfoComm 2023 can visit the Lenovo booth (#3661) for demonstrations of the ThinkSmart View Plus and experience the innovative form factor and features.

The ThinkSmart View Plus is an integrated device with a 27-inch multi-touch display, premium video and audio, and built-in compute for powerful productivity and collaboration. Designed to enhance personal productivity, the ThinkSmart View Plus offers a customized and flexible Microsoft Teams Display experience with added security features, providing access to Teams chat, calendar, and files, while also enabling workers to join meetings through the device.

Watchers of the current Xbox Series have expected Microsoft to eventually issue a mid-life refresh of one of the gaming consoles (preferably the X), given the company's history of releasing upgraded variants of past generation products—with 2017's Scorpio GPU-equipped Xbox One X being a notable example. The company's recent showcase revealed a very minor upgrade for entry level Xbox Series S—the new 1 TB SSD model was presented in a black finish, with no big changes under the hood beyond a bump up in internal storage (from 512 GB), which commands a $50 upcharge from the (now) baseline white model. Bloomberg sought a couple of comments from Xbox chief Phil Spencer post showcase presentation.

When asked about the prospect of a proper hardware upgrade for Xbox Series, his reply included the view that he does not "feel an imperative" for a significant update of the existing Microsoft games console range. He thinks that the current Xbox userbase is satisfied with the status quo: "That's not the feedback we're getting right now. Right now, we're pretty set on the hardware we have." Arch rival Sony is reported to be deep into the development of an alleged "PRO" refresh of its existing PlayStation 5 console, with insider sources claiming that the more powerful variant will arrive in 2024. Spencer could be keeping quiet about his company's potential answer (as a stealth tactic) to any future competitor, but his more immediate goal is to get the Activision Blizzard takeover deal over the finishing line.