Where were you in 1998? Perhaps listening to Cher's Believe, watching Titanic, playing with your Tamagotchi and relaxing on your inflatable couch? Or were you playing the Age of Empires DLC The Rise of Rome? This beloved evolution of the first Age of Empires game has taken on a new form and joined the Definitive Edition era in the Return of Rome DLC for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition.

Yes, you read that correctly, Age of Empires content available in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. Bringing the civilizations and action of ancient worlds to AoE II: DE. Purchasers will be able to switch to Return of Rome in the game's main screen and take on fresh challenges.

According to Ming-Chi Kuo, an industry analyst known for making accurate predictions about Apple, we have some new information regarding Intel's Sapphire Rapids Xeon processors. As Kuo notes, Intel's major Cloud Service Provider (CSP) client, Microsoft, has notified the supply chain that the company is cutting orders of Sapphire Rapids Xeons by 50-70% in the second half of 2023. Interestingly, Intel's supply chain has notified the company to cut chip orders by around 50% amidst weak server demand. This comes straight after Intel's plans to start shipping Sapphire Rapids processors in the second quarter of 2023 and deliver the highly anticipated lineup to customers.

Additionally, Kuo has stated that Intel isn't only competing for clients with AMD but also with Arm-based CPUs. Microsoft also plans to start buying Arm-based server processors made by Ampere Computing in the first half of 2024. This will reduce Microsoft's dependence on x86 architecture and induce higher competition in the market, especially if other CSPs follow.

Samsung Electronics introduced a new free-to-play "Gaming Zone" with Samsung screens in collaboration with Xbox at Microsoft Experience Centers (MEC) in London and New York. In June of 2022, Microsoft's Xbox joined Samsung Gaming Hub, the world's first smart TV platform to include the Xbox App on Smart TVs. With this partnership, Samsung Gaming Hub users are now able to stream over 100 high-quality games through the Xbox App by subscribing to "Xbox Game Pass."

To bring the experience to more gamers, Samsung Electronics has teamed up with Microsoft to introduce a dedicated space where gamers can play their favorite Xbox games on the Samsung Gaming Hub. Multiple Samsung Smart TVs and gaming monitors have been installed in the MEC to provide an exciting and unique gaming experience. The Gaming Zone in both London and New York City across the Microsoft Experience Centers on Regent Street and Fifth Avenue, now have three dedicated gaming areas incorporating a wide range of Samsung gaming screens for everyone to enjoy - either as a seasoned gamer or those new to cloud gaming.

Alphabet Incorporated's Google AI division has today revealed a planned update for its Bard conversational artificial intelligence chatbot. The experimental generative artificial intelligence software application will become capable of assisting people in the writing of computer code - the American multinational technology company hopes that Bard will be of great to help in the area of software development. Paige Bailey, a group product manager at Google Research has introduced the upcoming changes: "Since we launched Bard, our experiment that lets you collaborate with generative AI, coding has been one of the top requests we've received from our users. As a product lead in Google Research - and a passionate engineer who still programs every day - I'm excited that today we're updating Bard to include that capability."

The Bard chatbot was made available, on a trial basis, to users in the USA and UK last month. Google's AI team is reported to be under great pressure to advance the Bard chatbot into a suitably powerful state in order to compete with its closest rival - Microsoft Corporation. The Seattle-based giant has invested heavily into Open AI's industry leading ChatGPT application. Google's latest volley against its rivals shows that Bard's has become very sophisticated - so much so that the app is able to chew through a variety of programming languages. Bailey outlines these features in the company's latest blog: "Starting now, Bard can help with programming and software development tasks, including code generation, debugging and code explanation. We're launching these capabilities in more than 20 programming languages including C++, Go, Java, Javascript, Python and Typescript. And you can easily export Python code to Google Colab - no copy and paste required." Critics of AI-driven large language models have posited that the technology could potentially eliminate humans from the job market - it will be interesting to observe the coder community's reaction to Google marketing of Bard as a helpful tool in software development.

Video game industry expert Jeff Grubb made some interesting remarks during a live recording of his Game Mess Decides podcast - yesterday's episode included plenty of talk about the Xbox and PC platform exclusive Hi-Fi Rush, a rhythm-based action game. The Tango Gameworks developed title was first announced on January 25 of this year, and in an unusual move for Xbox (plus Bethesda Softworks) the colorfully cel-shaded action adventure experience was released worldwide that same day. According to Grubb this obtuse bit of marketing strategy has not paid off well, in pure unit sales figures, from the parent company's perspective: "(Hi-Fi Rush) didn't make the money it needed to make." Bethesda has stated that the game had achieved a maximum player base number in the 2 million range (by March 1) - this likely includes a significant chunk of customers accessing Hi-Fi Rush through the Game Pass subscription service. Exact sales figures for Japanese studio-developed title in terms of digital sales have not been divulged.

Grubb continued his stream of inside knowledge: "Based on what I've heard, it just straight up didn't make the money it needed to make. It got good reviews, and the buzz was good, so where do you put the blame for something like that?" Several online publications and games industry tipsters on social media have since pounced to spread Grubb's words - so much so that it was enough to grab the attention of one Aaron Greenberg, vice president of Xbox Games marketing. In a response to criticisms aimed at the gaming divisions poor marketing effort he stated: "Hi-Fi Rush was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn't be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release." Greenberg was thanked for providing a response, yet hindsight is 20/20 - could a traditional physical release of the game have helped boost paying customer uptake? The sensitive matter of a wider console release is another interesting topic of conversation - Tango Gameworks has multi-platform development experience and Hi-Fi Rush would appear to be a very suitable game for a PlayStation-oriented audience. Microsoft has received criticism for making (over time) its Bethesda game lineup exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem (Game Pass and Windows included).

The Sky UK news network has gathered intel from industry and government sources about an industry event that is due to take place next week at a very famous location - 10 Downing Street - the residence of the UK's Prime Minister. Sky News has been informed that Microsoft has been invited to attend the showcase by the UK Interactive Entertainment (UKIE) industry organization - best described as the main trade body for the nation's games and interactive entertainment sector. The American technology behemoth is expected to display and demonstrate their Xbox gaming product range in front of top politicians and key entertainment industry figures. There is no mention of representatives from Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) being invited to attend in a similar capacity. The timing of this UKIE organized event (to take place on April 26) is highly controversial as it will coincide with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority's statutory deadline to deliver a Phase-2 verdict on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) regulatory body has already delivered a provisional approval of the aforementioned deal, but stated that it required more time to investigate the potential for irregularities in competition within the cloud gaming sector. The Phase-2 verdict, due to be delivered next week, is anticipated to include the antitrust watchdog's finalized judgement on cloud gaming market affairs. Sky's insider sources in the city of London have speculated that Microsoft could face a humiliating situation at the 10 Downing-hosted party, if by coincidence the CMA changes its opinion on the Activision Blizzard takeover bid. If the competition regulator stays consistent with its (earlier) provisional decision, Microsoft could be criticized for its extensive courting of government organizations - not only in the UK, but around the world.

Microsoft released a major update to DirectStorage, the API that promises to reduce game loading times. The new DirectStorage 1.2 adds the ability to speed up game loading for mechanical hard drives, a feature game developers requested from Microsoft. DirectStorage brings much of the storage sub-system secret sauce of consoles over to PC, and consoles have held on to mechanical HDDs as game storage devices longer than mainstream gaming PCs.

HDDs require buffered reads to compensate for the longer seek times, whereas DirectStorage traditionally accesses files in unbuffered mode, which disqualified HDDs for DirectStorage. With this update, HDDs can take advantage of DirectStorage, wherein game data stored on them is directly accessed by GPUs, and compressed game assets are decompressed on the fly through the compute-shader acceleration capabilities of modern GPUs.

According to The Information, Microsoft has been working on creating custom processors for processing AI with a project codenamed Athena. Based on TSMC's 5 nm process, these chips are designed to accelerate AI workloads and scale to hundreds or even thousands of chips. With the boom of Large Language Models (LLMs) that require billions of parameters, training them requires a rapid increase of computational power to a point where companies purchase hundreds of thousands of GPUs from the likes of NVIDIA. However, creating custom processors is a familiar feat for a company like Microsoft. Hyperscalers like AWS, Google, and Meta are already invested in the creation of processors for AI training, and Microsoft is just joining as well.

While we don't have much information about these processors, we know that Microsoft started the project in 2019, and today these processors are in the hands of select employees of Microsoft and OpenAI that work with AI projects and need computational horsepower. Interestingly, some projections assume that if Microsoft could match NVIDIA's GPU performance, the cost would only be a third of NVIDIA's offerings. However, it is challenging to predict that until more information is provided. Microsoft plans to make these chips more widely available as early as next year; however, there is no specific information on when and how, but Azure cloud customers would be the most logical place to start.

Google's business of providing the world's largest search engine is reportedly in jeopardy, as the latest reports indicate that Samsung could replace Google Search with another search engine as a default solution on its mobile devices. Samsung, which sells millions of devices per year, is looking to replace the current search engine, Google Search, in favor of more modern AI-powered models. Currently, Google and Samsung have a contract where Google pays the South Korean giant a sum of three billion US dollars per year to keep its search engine as a default option on Samsung's devices. However, this decision is flexible, as the contract is up for renewal and new terms are being negotiated.

With the release of the ChatGPT and AI-powered search that Microsoft Bing enables, Google is reportedly working hard to keep up and integrate Large Language Models (LLMs) into Search. Google's answer to Microsoft Bing is codenamed Project Magi, an initiative to bring AI-powered search supposedly next month. To emphasize the importance of getting this to production, Google was ready to give up three billion US Dollars of revenue to Samsung for keeping Google Search as a default search engine for 12 years without a doubt. However, with the emergence of better solutions like Microsoft Bing, Samsung is considering replacing it with something else. The deal is still open, terms are still negotiated, and for now there are no official mentions of Bing. As a reminder, Google has a similar agreement with Apple, worth 20 billion US Dollars, and Google Search was valued at 162 billion US Dollars last year.

Earlier this month, AMD wrapped up the launch of its incredible Ryzen 7000X3D processor series, which storms the company's gaming performance competitiveness against Intel back to the top, setting it up for the crucial Spring-Summer season, when PC gamers tend to upgrade and play the latest games. The 3D Vertical Cache memory deployed on the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 7900X3D, and Ryzen 7 7800X3D, supercharges the gaming performance of these processors, and our testing has shown that the 7800X3D is all that an elite gaming PC build needs if all you're doing is playing games with some domestic productivity on the side; whereas the 7950X3D is for those into heavy content creation and application workloads besides gaming, which means AMD levels up to Intel on both fronts.

We have extensively covered the technical aspects of what 3D Vertical Cache is, and how it works, in our reviews of the 7950X3D and 7800X3D. It is a fast 64 MB slice of SRAM cache stacked on top of the 32 MB on-die L3 cache of "Zen 4" chiplets, which extends the L3 cache size to 96 MB. This has a profound impact on gaming workloads, as the CPU cores have more amount of game data at much lower latency than DRAM. As part of our coverage of the Ryzen 7000X3D processor series, we had the opportunity to interview AMD on some of the technical aspects of Ryzen 7000X3D processor series. We also took the opportunity to ask a few general questions about the Ryzen 7000 desktop processor series itself. You can also catch our interview with Robert Hallock, the former technical marketing head, for some additional questions that you may find relevant.

Microsoft has introduced a handy new feature within the Windows 11 File Explorer application - an update was released last week (Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23434), and it adds a Photo Gallery feature layer. It does not look too far removed from the operating system's standard photo/picture viewer, as well as the discontinued (as of 2012) Windows Photo Gallery app - although the latter offered a wide range of image organization, photo editing and photo sharing functionalities.

Microsoft's Amanda Langowski (Head of Insider Program) and Brandon LeBlanc (Senior Program Manager) go into further detail about the latest addition in an official Windows blog: "We are introducing Gallery, a new feature in File Explorer designed to make it easy to access your photo collection. The set of content shown in Gallery is the same as what you'll see in the All Photos view in the Photos app."

Microsoft's Window Defender engineering team has finally found the time to address a long term bug within its anti-malware software - relating to performance issues with Mozilla's Firefox web browser. User feedback stretching back to five years ago indicates extremely sluggish web surfing experiences, caused by a Windows "Anti-malware Service Executable" occupying significant chunks of CPU utilization (more than 30%). The combination of Firefox and Windows Defender running in parallel would guarantee a butting of (software) heads - up until last week's bug fix. A Microsoft issued update has reduced the "MsMpEng.exe" Defender component's CPU usage by a maximum of 75%.

Microsoft and Mozilla developers have collaborated on addressing the disharmonious relationship between Defender and Firefox. A plucky member of the latter's softwareengineering team has been very transparent about the sluggish browser experience. Yannis Juglaret has provided a string of project updates via Mozilla's Bugzilla tracking system - one of his latest entries provide details about the fix: "You may read online that Defender was making too many calls to VirtualProtect, and that global CPU usage will now go down by 75% when browsing with Firefox. This is absolutely wrong! The impact of this fix is that on all computers that rely on Microsoft Defender's Real-time Protection feature (which is enabled by default in Windows), MsMpEng.exe will consume much less CPU than before when monitoring the dynamic behavior of any program through Event Tracing for Windows (ETW). Nothing less, nothing more."

Explore a city turned supernatural in this free update including a new rogue-lite "The Spider's Thread" game mode, more side missions, new enemies, new skills, Photo Mode enhancements and more. Plus, Ghostwire: Tokyo is available now on Xbox Series X|S and Microsoft PC Store. Paranormal forces have taken over Tokyo, with nearly all the human populace vanishing in an instant.

The city's denizens have been replaced by beings from another world - yōkai, evil spirits, myths and urban legends brought to life. But now isn't the time to fear the unknown…face it in Ghostwire: Tokyo, now featuring the all-new Spider's Thread update! The Spider's Thread update, available now for all Ghostwire: Tokyo players, adds a new rogue-lite mode to the game on top of other additions to the base campaign, including new enemies, new skills, new areas to explore, new side missions, extended story cinematics, Photo Mode enhancements and more!

Bethesda tweeted out an information update directed at Xbox Series console owners - and it has caused a stir within the fanbase - Redfall will be locked to "Quality Mode" upon launch in early May. PC gaming enthusiasts will have plenty to laugh about with these newly announced graphical performance restrictions, set for the green team's pair of current generation consoles. The frame rate will be capped at a maximum of 30 frames per second on both Xbox Series X and S, under the "Quality" performance mode. The version tuned for Series X will be able to output at the 4K UHD resolution standard (3840 x 2160), and the pixel count will be reduced for Microsoft's weaker console offering, at 1440p QHD (2560 x 1440).

Bethesda states that a 60 frames per second "Performance Mode" for Xbox Series X|S will be added at a later (unspecified) date, presumably via an online patch issued through Xbox Live. No further details were provided regarding the decision to cap frame rates, all the more strange given that Redfall is due to launch very soon. Arkane Studios (the Austin, TX branch) declared last month that it was also working on a removal of the always online requirement for the game's single player element - again, no time period for release has been established for this reversal. Redfall has attracted mounds of controversy over the past two months - including Sony's attention through litigation.

In the Windows operating system, the Print Screen keyboard command has been resulting in taking a screenshot for more than two decades. However, Microsoft will change the interaction by creating a screenshot in Windows 11 OS. Currently, when you press the Print Screen key, the entire window is captured, and your image gets saved, pasted to the clipboard and, if you have it enabled, the OneDrive folder too. In the latest Windows Insiders Beta Channel, the Windows 11 KB5025310 version is rolling out and changing the screenshot game. Instead of regular shots, pressing the Print Screen key now toggles the Snapping Tool, previously only used when Windows Key, Shift Key, and S key were pressed.

Microsoft is making it seem that the Snapping Tool now becomes the default screenshot tool, which is much more feature-rich compared to the traditional way of taking a screenshot. Of course, making a quick screenshot will still be favored by many. So, Microsoft has left an option to revert the future default setting by going into Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard, where you toggle off the button that says: "Use the Print Screen key to open Snipping Tool."

Who doesn't love more? Introducing the newest expansion to Xbox Elite Series 2 with Xbox Design Lab! There is an innate joy that comes with making something truly yours. Since fulfilling the top fan request last October by adding Xbox Elite Series 2 to Xbox Design Lab, we've been working hard to take things up a notch. We're thrilled to announce that a new range of colors are now available, giving you even more ways to make Xbox Elite Series 2 controllers your own.

You will now have the choice of 16 main colors for your top and back case, 12 colors for the ABXY buttons, 17 different accent colors for the paddles and D-pad, and 25 accent colors for the rest of the controller. With vibrant hues like Garnet Red, Glacier Blue, and Deep Pink, to a stealthier option like the new black-out ABXY buttons, there are literally billions of possibilities for personalizing our most advanced controller. Xbox Elite Series 2 with Xbox Design Lab includes customization options that are unique to the controller; options like adjusting the color of the thumbstick rings and base for a subtle pop of color, or metallic triggers and D-Pads that give the controller a premium feel.

Sony is not happy about the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recent provisional approval of Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and has highlighted the apparent removal of a Microsoft-owned game from being developed on the PlayStation 5. According to legal documents submitted to the UK government, Sony has taken issue with the watchdog's sudden change in opinion - the CMA's position was highly critical at the start of the year - and suspects that Microsoft's expensive PR campaign and submitting of "new evidence" to international competition regulators have influenced a change in direction of rulings. Sony's statement bears down on the unfair nature of the bid's approval: "The CMA's reversal of its position on its consoles theory of harm is surprising, unprecedented, and irrational."

Japan's Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) was the latest anti-trust governing body to give the takeover a thumbs-up, almost two weeks ago - a dramatic turn of events given that it happened on Sony's home turf. The embattled electronics corporation has taken notice of fresh developments in the press, and proceeded to mention controversy surrounding the Redfall platform war. Harvey Smith, the game's creative director, let slip too many details during a promotion tour and seemingly admitted that the higher-ups at Microsoft's Xbox division had decided to can the PlayStation 5 version of Redfall in favor of keeping it exclusive to Xbox, Game Pass and PC. Arkane Studios, as part of the ZeniMax Media Group, was acquired by Microsoft in 2021 - and certain games, already in development, were later released on the PlayStation 5 as timed exclusives, Deathloop being a prime example of this.

Today, I'm excited to share how we are expanding Windows 365—your Windows in the cloud—with Windows 365 Frontline. Now in public preview, Windows 365 Frontline helps organizations meet the needs of their entire workforce. We are also delivering Cloud PCs to more devices than ever, with new LG and Motorola integrations.

"Gartner estimates that there are 2.7 billion frontline workers—more than twice the number of desk-based workers." Organizations face unique challenges to meet their IT and workplace experience needs. Companies must scale technology faster and to a much larger population. Equipping all frontline employees with their own devices is not economically feasible for many organizations, particularly when many only require access while on the job. Frontline workers often share physical PCs or kiosks, which some CIOs have told us pose real security and identity challenges. This can inhibit productivity and put critical information like intellectual property or customer data at risk.

The host and producer, Geoff Keighley, has confirmed that Opening Night Live will be returning this August. Opening Night Live is the pre-show presentation or an opening show for Gamescom, held in Cologne, Germany.

The announcement comes as a welcomed news after E3 2023 cancellation and it appears that Gamescom 2023 will carry on the torch, as the last year show was the first in-person event since 2019. Opening Night Live last year was a big event, going for over two hours and featured more than 35 games. Geoff Keighley briefly tweeted that the show returns live on Tuesday, August 22nd and that he is "excited to be back in Cologne with the fans and industry, streaming video game news directly to you".

Surface products are always designed for versatility - from a laptop with the flexibility of a tablet in the Surface Pro to the Surface Laptop Studio that instantly transitions from powerful laptop to creative canvas, Surface devices let you work the way that best suits your needs. A key part of this versatility is the ability to instantly connect to a desktop setup at home or in the office for expansive work. A single, fast connection that provides access to external monitors and the accessories that customize your office or home workspace helps you to get more done. We are excited to announce the newest Surface Dock, Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock, which extends the support of Thunderbolt 4 connectivity in Surface Pro 9, Surface Laptop 5 and Surface Laptop Studio. The new dock is available for purchase today at Microsoft.com.

Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock is a USB4/Thunderbolt 4 dock that helps maximize workspace, delivers ultra-high speed data transfer and the versatility to connect and charge your most important peripherals. This new accessory also carries forward our continuous commitment to security, sustainability and accessibility.

The new Xbox Wireless Controller - Remix Special Edition is made partly from reclaimed CDs, water jugs… and other controllers' parts. We aspire to create a future of gaming in a world that we want to play in. Earth Day is just around the corner, and it provides all of us with a special opportunity to reflect on how we can improve our impact on the planet. To celebrate this year, we've created an Xbox controller that features recovered plastics with one-third of it made from regrind and reclaimed materials.

Mixing post-consumer recycled resins with regrind consisting of previously molded colored parts creates custom, earth-tone colors with subtle variations, swirling, markings, and texturing - giving each Remix Special Edition controller its own look and feel. We aspire to create a future of gaming in a world that we want to play in. Earth Day is just around the corner, and it provides all of us with a special opportunity to reflect on how we can improve our impact on the planet. To celebrate this year, we've created an Xbox controller that features recovered plastics with one-third of it made from regrind and reclaimed materials.

Microsoft has implemented two new features into its DirectX 12 API - GPU Upload Heaps and Non-Normalized sampling have been added via the latest Agility SDK 1.710.0 preview, and the former looks to be the more intriguing of the pair. The SDK preview is only accessible to developers at the present time, since its official introduction on Friday 31 March. Support has also been initiated via the latest graphics drivers issued by NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD. The Microsoft team has this to say about the preview version of GPU upload heaps feature in DirectX 12: "Historically a GPU's VRAM was inaccessible to the CPU, forcing programs to have to copy large amounts of data to the GPU via the PCI bus. Most modern GPUs have introduced VRAM resizable base address register (BAR) enabling Windows to manage the GPU VRAM in WDDM 2.0 or later."

They continue to describe how the update allows the CPU to gain access to the pool of VRAM on the connected graphics card: "With the VRAM being managed by Windows, D3D now exposes the heap memory access directly to the CPU! This allows both the CPU and GPU to directly access the memory simultaneously, removing the need to copy data from the CPU to the GPU increasing performance in certain scenarios." This GPU optimization could offer many benefits in the context of computer games, since memory requirements continue to grow in line with an increase in visual sophistication and complexity.

Insider sources at Microsoft have spoken of continued efforts to modernize the core of its operating system, with the work-in-progress Windows 12 cited as the ideal candidate for substantial updates. The engineering team is reported to be integrating a modular design, which will allow for a reduced operating system footprint - similar in principle to ChromeOS. According to a Windows Report article the operating system development team is hard at work on a spiritual successor to the abandoned Windows Core OS project. Their newest effort is reported to be called "Windows CorePC" and Microsoft is aiming to hit the same goals it set for its Windows 10X edition, which was cancelled in mid-2021, but they will also target native support for legacy applications on devices that require necessary access.

Windows Core OS was shutdown after years of development and internal testing - it was hoped that a modular Universal Windows Platform-first (UWP-F) operating system would be more lightweight and gain stronger security features, as well as greater access to regular updates. The inside sources stated that Windows Core OS will not be developed any further, at least not for desktop computer purposes. The Microsoft team is anticipating that its new CorePC project will lead onto new configurations of Windows that feature a capability of scaling up and down depending on hardware variations. Windows PCs and devices, in some user case scenarios, do not require full breadth of legacy Win32 application support. CorePC will enable different configurations of Windows to be installed on a custom basis.

Japan's competition regulator, Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), yesterday issued a press release in which it announces an approval of Microsoft's proposed $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard. The JFTC's review has concluded and their members have: "reached the conclusion that the transaction is unlikely to result in substantially restraining competition in any particular fields of trade." This represents another regional victory for Microsoft, and follows last week's approval of the deal by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The JFTC has informed both Microsoft and Activision Blizzard that a cease and desist order will be not be issued, thus completing its investigation.

The timing of this new development is raising eyebrows - in last week's Senate Finance Committee, several US Members of Congress raised concerns about Sony's "monopoly" over the Japanese gaming market. The Japanese government was also accused of being complicit in its inaction and has: "allowed Sony to engage in blatant anti-competitive conduct through exclusive deals and payments to game publishers." Games industry watchdogs have questioned why another rival console and games company, Nintendo, was not brought up as subject matter in the debate. Microsoft has dedicated considerable resources into getting its proposed deal approved by international antitrust watchdogs, and has even offered to expand the Activision Blizzard games library onto Nintendo hardware platforms.

Introducing the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 - Core, now in red and blue. We expanded the core version of the Xbox Elite Series 2 lineup to give gamers more options to play like a pro. Play in style with just the components you need to unleash your best game. The new, vibrant red and blue color schemes of the core version of Xbox Elite Series 2 are sure to make a statement amongst your friends while delivering key performance-focused benefits.

Turn on a dime with adjustable tension thumbsticks where inches are the difference. Make split seconds count with hair trigger locks and stay on target with wrap-around rubberized grips. Enjoy limitless customization with exclusive button mapping options to find your groove. Perfect your game day prep with assignable custom profiles so you can dominate regardless of playbook or sport.