PAX East 2019 brought with it some exciting news, and the world of virtual reality no doubt sees this news as the biggest in quite some time. Valve has finally made good on their promises from yesteryear, bringing in personnel to work on both the hardware and software side of the VR market. We first saw a hint of this via a prototype VR HMD late last year, with leaked specs confirming it was Valve's own design going beyond the established competition at the time from HTC Vive and Oculus. Since then, the Vive Pro has come out with an even higher-end version using eye-tracking to target prosumers initially, and also showcasing foveated rendering that will no doubt herald VR getting more mainstream and allowing for a higher graphical fidelity as well.

The so-called Valve Index has been listed on Steam now, with no other information to see than from the image below. We know it is coming in a couple of months, perhaps even during Computex although it is unlikely. It certainly looks similar to the prototype HMD, and presumably retains the 135° field-of-view and 2,880 x 1,600 total resolution. No mention of the Steam Knuckles controller here, but that is no surprise for a teaser. What we can tell is the headset has a physical slider, presumably to assist with pupillary distance calibration, as well as fairly large lenses that extend outwards which may assist with IR-based tracking. There is no mention of HTC anywhere here, and it would be right up Valve's alley to introduce this at a relatively affordable price point to then make up on software and distribution (savings via Steam) instead. Perhaps we will see the long-rumored Half Life VR as a launch title? Time will tell, and this may well be the big boost to gaming VR that is sorely needed.

Bethesda had concerned a few people last year when they had announced most of their new games would be available on the PC platform only via their own store and launcher, at least initially. People were quick to speculate whether this was Bethesda wanting a bigger share of the pie than Steam would allow, which is hilarious in hindsight with everything Epic Game Store related since then, and also whether this was because they were worried that Fallout 76, the first of these games affected by said decision, would have generate refunds galore on Steam as a result of bugs, bugs, and more bugs. Today Bethesda took to social media to make good on their promise, saying that all their upcoming games will be simultaneously available on both Steam and the Bethesda Store, including Rage 2, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot.

Interestingly, it will still be a while before Fallout 76 will make its way on Steam, which does not help its cause as far as far as having a depreciating player base goes. The move in general also plays into the larger dynamics of PC game stores, with game exclusives suddenly becoming a valid point of consideration as the competition from Epic Games heats up. It is also interesting to see how few complaints there are online of how these games are not available on, say, the Epic Games Store, or Discord, or GoG, and points further to the loyalty-factor of the populace complaining about exclusives on PC game stores in 2019.

Randy Pitchford is an interesting character even as game company CEOs go, with a.. checkered history in the last few months that go from funny all the way to controversial at minimum. As the head of Gearbox, he holds a lot of power when it comes to the Borderlands franchise, which itself teased a third numbered entry to be revealed at PAX East later this month. His social media activity has been a prime example of what not to do as a CEO owing to some personal and professional issues alike, which meant that this latest tease not only got people looking at more about the Borderlands franchise, but also his twitter account.

Users dug up an old tweet from December 2018 wherein he claimed he was "excited to support the Epic Games Store", and this was enough to initiate concerns that Borderlands 3 might be an exclusive to the Epic Games Store on the PC platform. Subsequent replies did nothing to quell these concerns, although there was nothing to confirm anything either. This may all be making a mountain out of an imaginary molehill, but it makes sense for Epic Games to go after Borderlands 3 to get more customers on their side- especially knowing that such exclusivity deals could be in the millions of US dollars. We will know more when the game is officially announced, so keep an eye out for that.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Valve had promised continued support to the Steam Link after discontinuing it last year, and most took it to mean basic updates to the hardware device itself at the time. That was 2018, and it is remarkable how the topic of in-house game streaming has come up since. Be it Google's Project Stream which seemingly is leading up to a major announcement by the company at GDC coming up very shortly, or Microsoft introducing their new Wireless Display app for PC game streaming on the XBOX One, as well as bringing its XBOX Live service to mobile platforms on iOS or Android alike, 2019 seems to herald a re-focus into the concept of game streaming whether the infrastructure is ready or not.

Valve for their own part has had their Steam Link be enjoyed by a fairly niche audience, one that shares a more local form of game streaming from a host device to another on the same network. NVIDIA's Shield offered a similar concept, and that too has not really made the news as much as NVIDIA would surely have wanted. This latest news from Valve allows streaming of one's Steam library (games, in particular) to phones, tablets, and TVs with no download or service fees applicable. Interested users can participate in the open beta program by simply downloading the app (Google Play store only for now) or on the Raspberry Pi as has been the case for a few months already. The Steam Link app is compatible with a number of popular Bluetooth controllers, including the Steam Controller, and Valve recommends a 5 GHz network or wired Ethernet for best experience. Looks like the weekend just got busier than I originally planned!

The last time an actual Halo game made its way to PC was 2007 when Halo 2 launched three years after the console version to little fanfare, as it required the Windows Vista operating system. Since then Microsoft has not bothered to release any of the mainstream titles on PC. However, that is no longer the case as Microsoft has announced that they will be bringing Halo: The Master Chief Collection to PC. While some may think it too little too late, considering the Master Chief Collection initially launched nearly five years ago, the fact remains with this release PC gamers now have access to the majority of the series including Halo 1, 2, 3, 4, ODST, and Reach which was just recently added to the collection. The only title missing at this point is Halo 5.

While a typical re-release is possible it appears that is not the direction 343 Industries will take as they recognize that PC gamers are an exacting bunch and as such have brought in help from Ruffian and Splash Damage studios in order to polish the collection ahead of its debut. As of now, you can expect support for 4K resolution, 60 frames per second gameplay, and HDR at least as a minimum along with proper controls. Overall the Master Chief Collection offers a ton of content including 67 campaign missions and 120 multiplayer maps when you include both Horde Survival and Spartan Ops. Pricing and availability currently remain unknown, but at the very least it will be available on Steam meaning it is not a Microsoft Store exclusive. That said, it will still require an Xbox Live account.

Valve's popular "Upcoming Release list" within Steam has become a bit of a hot button topic as the abuse of the feature becomes more widespread. As pointed out by Mike Rose, founder of indie game publisher No More Robots, on Twitter, the system behind the upcoming release list can be easily rigged by developers themselves. For context, the release list is created by Steam when it checks the release date for each title set in the Steam back end. Once it has verified the release date, the system then lists all titles that have been found on a fair number of wish lists, and displays them in the order they will be released. At this time, developers can continuously change the back end release date, thus keeping their games at the top of the list. This makes it easy for already popular titles to remain at the top, soaking up even more views. Meanwhile, if you take a gander at the games store page, you will see the proper release date which differs from the back end date the system currently uses.

Worse yet, there are currently no consequences for developers that are partaking in this practice. While in some ways I can appreciate the devs noticing these loopholes and taking advantage, the fact remains that it hurts the general user base. It also shows another flaw in Valve's various systems, showing how vulnerable they have become in recent years as their omnipotence has been steadily fading. For now, Tom Giardino from Valve's business team has made it clear that they are looking to fix and or resolve the problem, but do not wish to give an ETA for when a said fix would come. This is likely because they don't want to mess with the developers' ability to control their games release timing. It seems Valve can't catch a break between this, the Epic Games Store, and other problems. You can check the thread linked below for a full look into Mike's findings and thoughts on the issue.

We reported earlier this month how Steam users were resorting to review bombing of the previous game entries in the Metro franchise, mostly driven by Deep Silver/Koch Media's decision to take Metro Exodus over to the Epic Games Store for a timed exclusive. 4A developers commented on how this could impact further game development on the PC platform, and that ended up being more kindling to the fire despite some language communication gaps in play. Metro Exodus has since launched, and has been getting reviews from the media and players alike, with the former mostly agreeing it is a good game, but not necessarily as good as the previous entries were. The latter, however, is where things got interesting- especially on Steam.

For those who were able to add the game to their Steam library before it got moved, and there are a lot of those too given Metro Exodus rose to the top spot of best selling titles once that news broke, the game appears to be more than satisfactory at first glance. While many were expecting users to review bomb the title negatively again, the current status of the game on Steam is "Very Positive" as far as user reviews go. Discussions have been mostly on point as well, until you dig deeper. The most helpful reviews, as rated by other Steam users, are really just a dig at the Epic Games Store, with language used that is less mature than the game rating itself. Newer reviews continue to do the same, so perhaps this was an attempt by many to appease the game publisher by leaving positive reviews of the game, but still making it more about the Epic Games store than the game itself. Not the best way to go about things, but it is still better than review bombing the game.

Steam is perhaps most known for their massive video-game library, but they have expanded their product portfolio in the recent years to include software and other video content, including movies that could be rented or even purchased. Valve perhaps wanted to go beyond just being a game storefront, and take in some of that hollywood money as well. Things did not turn out as they expected, however, with the vast majority of end users not using the Steam platform for this venture. It also did not help that movies tend to operate with in a market where Steam does not boast a large market share, and licensing rights meant that the available content was meager at best. Valve tried to work around this by providing a platform for free content as well, but that did not help either.

In a blog post, Valve confirmed that they are making changes to all non-gaming video content on Steam. Indeed, as of the time of this post, there is no more Video section on Steam. They mentioned, and I quote, "In reviewing what Steam users actually watch, it became clear we should focus our effort on offering content that is either directly related to gaming or, is accessory content for games or software sold on Steam". Accordingly, any existing content will be retired in the coming weeks, although owners of previously purchased video content will still find it accessible in their library. With pressure building from competing store fronts, perhaps this renewed focus on video games will be just what Valve, and Steam, want to have.

The drama surrounding Metro Exodus continues unabated. Deep Silver which has ownership over the IP, was the one that decided to pull Metro Exodus from Steam in favor of a 1-year timed exclusivity deal on the Epic Games Store. If you've been following the drama thus far this is all public information. Furthermore, it was speculated that this move was made at the very last minute considering other retailers were originally advertising preorders as being Steam keys for quite some time right up until the news of the digital platform switch broke. Lending more credence to the fact this was a disruptive switch at the last minute is the physical packaging which was not altered for the game's launch and instead has a sticker covering the Steam logo. Truly for such an outstanding game, the mess of its launch should be remembered as a great example of how not to release a game.

"Metro Exodus" is the week's big AAA PC launch, and the latest entry to the post-apocalyptic horror-survival shooter franchise by 4A Games. The Ukrainian studio recently pulled the game from Steam and made it an exclusive with rival DRM platform Epic Games, in pursuit of a higher revenue-share. This invited inexplicable hatred from Steam users, who appear to have review-bombed the game on review ratings aggregator Metacritic.

Metacritic presents averages of reviews by media publications and user-reviews side-by-side. This is vital as it helps uninformed or undecided gamers know if a game is overrated by the media. In case of "Exodus," Much of the 0-rated user-reviews include lines that criticize the game's non-availability on Steam or its withdrawal from the platform. The Metacritic review-bombing is the latest episode in a long saga of animosity between Steam users and "Exodus" developer 4A Games. 4A Games did initially solicit pre-orders for the game on Steam, and abruptly stopped its sales late-January. Those who had pre-ordered would continue to receive the game and its updates. 4A muddied the waters further by responding to initial criticism from Steam users by threatening to desert the PC platform as a whole, inviting more bile from some really angry gamers. The game received "generally positive" reviews from professional game reviewers.

For those who got lucky enough to pre-order Metro Exodus on Steam before its defection to the Epic Games store are now able to pre-load the title in preparation for its launch. It will require 51 GB of storage space, so if your connection is a bit slower, you'll be waiting a while for it to download, which means the Steam pre-load period quite beneficial. For those that bought the title elsewhere and have to go through the Epic Game store, you will have to wait for the official launch since the platform does not currently support preloading of soon to be released games. This will likely make those with slower connections a bit irked since it means they will be waiting even longer to play the title come release day.

The fact Metro Exodus was pulled from Steam but can still be preloaded on the platform, while the Epic Game store will force users to wait will likely just add to the drama and controversy. However, if you step away for a moment and focus on the game itself one thing remains breathtakingly clear, the game is quite astonishing in regards to the graphics, even with RTX disabled. You can take a closer look for yourself in our performance analysis of Metro Exodus.

Denuvo's technology has fallen out of efficacy, at least, with recent game releases sporting the technology being, overall, quickly cracked (some exceptions, that confirm the rule, exist, of course). However, the usual sales pitch of "protecting games' launch windows, where most of the revenue is made" hasn't been reflected on some of the high profile game releases as of late. While the market has kept using Denuvo technology as a DRM ftowards curbing piracy efforts, it seems that the technology's cost-to-profit ratio isn't working out so well for some companies to include it - such as Bandai Namco.

the company has recently launched God Eater 3, which shunned the Denuvo DRM solution in favor of more classic solutions (Steam). Ace Combat 7 still included the protection, and stands uncracked as of yet (12 days and counting). God Eater 3, which launched 4 days later, didn't include the protection, and the company's Jump Force videogame, launched just yesterday, didn't pack Denuvo either. This means that these two latest game releases have already been cracked, while Ace Combat 7 is holding out strong. Perhaps this signals an experiment being taken on at Bandai Namco's headquarters regarding the benefits of Denuvo usage, though it seems that a game like Ace Combat 7, which will likely sell particularly well in the western market compared to the other releases, did justify Denuvo more than the other releases - but only Bandai Namco knows whether this signals a shift in direction or not.

Despite the entire controversy that has been affecting the digital games distribution market in recent times, life is following its usual course over at the not-so-green, not-so-walled garden of Steam. The platform is having another Sale, this time, themed "Lunar New Year". The whole sale has an eastern flavor to it, which isn't that strange to understand.

There are the usual, multi-developer and publishing deals, but Steam has created a whole category for games by Chinese Developers, thus bringing attention (and keeping flavor, of course) with the sale's team. You can grab some nice discounts on West-developed games such as Vampyr, Bioshock Infinite, and some other classics and not so classics, or some particularly interesting East-developed titles. The sale ends on February 11th, and users buying games at a discount can count on another €5 off from their minimum €30 purchases, provided the conditions are met.

We reported yesterday how Metro Exodus unceremoniously left Steam for a year-long exclusivity deal on the Epic Game store, one of many steps that Epic and Tencent are taking to challenge the Goliath of PC gaming storefronts itself. Valve was quick in putting out a rare statement yesterday, which has been updated since to reflect the status of the game on Steam, and it can be seen below verbatim, with THQ Nordic's take on this matter past the break.

Notice: Sales of Metro Exodus have been discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store. The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam. We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.

SteelSeries, the global leader in gaming peripherals, today announced its newest full-size, multi-platform controller, the Stratus Duo. Gamers can swap between the low latency 2.4GHz wireless connection for gaming on Windows, and Bluetooth for mobile gaming on Android, Oculus Go and Samsung VR. Gamers can utilize the Stratus Duo in multiple ways using the 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth and wired connections. With its Bluetooth connection, the Stratus Duo supports Android, Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Go. Gamers no longer need to struggle with awkward touchscreen controls while playing mobile games on their Android devices.

The Stratus Duo allows gamers to enjoy playing on their Android device via Bluetooth or on their PC via the 2.4GHz wireless connection with no additional software needed for setup. "The gaming ecosystem is continuing to evolve and grow beyond PC and consoles to include mobile devices and VR systems," said Tino Solberg, SteelSeries CTO. "The Stratus Duo allows gamers to easily navigate across several platforms through wireless and Bluetooth technology to create a truly seamless experience."

CDKOffers is a new online retailer selling genuine license keys to popular software and games, letting you save over 80% on your software costs for new PC builds. Licenses to popular software such as Windows 10 Pro operating systems and Office 2016 Professional Plus productivity suite are so cheap, that you'd rather buy new keys than hassle porting your old OEM key between motherboards. Globally-valid Windows 10 Pro OEM keys go for as less as USD $14.52, while globally-valid lifetime Office 2016 Professional Plus keys go for $36.87, which is less than half what you'd pay for an annual subscription for Office 365. While you'd on the site, you can also check out their jaw-dropping deals on game keys and in-game credit vouchers, which you can redeem on popular DRM platforms such as Steam, UPlay, Xbox Live, etc.

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The Epic Games Store with its aggressive developer earnings program is drilling away at Steam's already-installed hegemony as the PC gaming platform of choice. A mere 12% royalty for the storefront means much more money goes back to the developers, and the more copies are sold of a given game, the bigger the profit will become. This is why some games have already even left Steam's shores to find a home on the Epic Games Store, and now, a AAA title in The Division 2 will be skipping Steam entirely. With launches on Ubisoft's own store and an 88% cut on the Epic store, Ubisoft will be looking to maximize their profits.

That part of the story is done; Ubisoft has also outed the system requirements for the PC version of The Division 2, which, for a minimum of 30 FPS at 1080p, will require either an AMD FX-6350 or Intel Core I5-2500K CPU, 8 GB of RAM, and 2 GB of video RAM on an AMD Radeon R9 270 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 670.

Steam, being the most widely used games platform for the PC ecosystem, has proven weight on current hardware employed by gamers. While not wholly representative, let's just say it caters to enough of the PC gaming population that we can infer some broad strokes of the current state of the market. And for all the hailing for a newcoming of VR in 2018, it would seem that happened, with a doubling of the attachment rate for VR headsets on Steam's hardware surveys. If we're only speaking relatively, that is.

More interesting and important than the "doubling" in VR headset attachment rate to Steam's user's is the fact that this only increased said attachment rate to around 0.8% of Steam's user base. Of these 0.8%, 0.37% of Steam users who took part in the December survey carry an Oculus Rift, with HTC Vive close behind at 0.33%. The overall increase in usage for each of these headsets was 85% and 65% throughout 2018, respectively - still definitely a far cry from the kind of market penetration that was expected of this latest generation of VR. As for Windows Mixed Reality products? They make-up 0.07% of the Steam survey's results.

While seeing DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) claims used for the removal of copyrighted content on Youtube and the like is a common occurrence, seeing it used to take a game off digital store shelves is still a relatively new concept. However, that is precisely what happened to Stardock's Star Control: Origins which released back on September 20th, 2018. The DMCA claim itself comes from exclusive copyright holders Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford who were two of the original game designers that worked on the series' first and second installments back in the early 1990s for Accolade. Considering Stardock bought the brand, trademark and publishing rights in 2013, this particular DMCA claim may not be legitimate. Even so, the game has been pulled, oddly enough the DLC remains available for purchase.

While Paul and Fred are claiming exclusive copyright in regards to the original titles as well as any related materials present in said games, they also claim similar copyright in regards to Star Control 3. Even if they do have some form of a legitimate copyright claim, Stardock's title does not use characters or story threads from the previous games and is based in a separate standalone universe. Taking into account Stardock's ownership of the brand, the DMCA claim appears to be nothing more than a form of harassment directed at Stardock. Worse yet, considering the resulting loss of income due to the DMCA claim, the company will be laying off some developers assigned to Star Control: Origins. Considering this legal dispute has been ongoing for some time you can view Stardocks side of the story on a separate webpage. Meanwhile, you can see the original DMCA takedown at the source provided below.

Steam has releases its statistics for the state of gaming in 2018, where the company reveals which games provided the most engagement, either in sales or players, throughout the year. Top Sellers, Top New Releases, Top Selling VR Titles, Top Early Access Grads, and Most Played Games are the categories across which Steam divided 2018's games, and some of these found themselves on the top spot of more than one category.

Warframe, DOTA 2, Monster Hunter: World, PUBG and CS: GO all find themselves on the Platinum tier of both the Top Sellers and Top Played categories, with more than 100,000 concurrent players at some point in time. The Witcher 3 finds itself in the Gold category of the Top sellers, again, and in the Silver category for Top played. No man's Sky, Stellaris, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance all find themselves in the Gold tier of the Top played game as well, with more than 50,000 concurrent players - No man's Sky, for one, surprises here. The game with one of the worst receptions ever has actually managed to keep relevant for much, much longer than other, much more critically-acclaimed games. Check out the top tiers in the images below.

The launch of the new Epic Games store for the PC has created many an aftershock in the gaming industry, including Steam updating their revenue share model, but the games press and media alike were quick to discuss implications more so for the equally new Discord store that understandably is more in line as far as breaking into the market goes, and impact from competition accordingly. In a series of moves that no doubt pleases game developers and publishers alike, Discord announced that they are going to offer a 90/10 revenue distribution with 90% in favor of developers- an increase over the industry leading "up to 88%" from Epic Games until then.

There is a small catch in that Discord is allowing developers to self-publish the games if they so desire, which in turn is how they will get that 90% revenue share, so it remains to be seen how user friendly that process is. Discord in their blog post made a big point about how it does not cost 30% to distribute games in 2018, a move that will no doubt be examined throughout not only the gaming industry but every single online app distribution platform where a 70/30 split is the current industry standard. As long as this move enables the store to break even and churn out a profit, we would like to see more of this happening to where game developers get more money and do not feel compelled to work ridiculously long hours.

Epic Games has been pulling a few major moves in the PC gaming market lately, none bigger than creating their own game store and following up with shifting over some of their games from Steam. The company promises a more lucrative profit distribution share to developers (to which Valve had preemptively countered slightly with their own Steam revenue update), and that did help get some game developers and publishers on board, including Supergiant with their new games Hades.

To appease the cautious PC audience thus far, Epic Games has decided to begin with some free games for account holders. As of the time of this post, the excellent aquatic survival game Subnautica is up for grabs. The game was somewhat of a sleeper hit this year, and well worth the free price of admission for anyone interested. The game is available through December 27, after which Epic Games will offer Super Meat Boy for free the following two weeks.

Crossplay has become an interesting point of contention for the industry, with some very popular games and companies advocating for a unified, non-fractured player audience enjoying their games across different media consumption screens, and even gaming platforms. Microsoft has been pushing this kind of capability for some time now, launching their Xbox Play Anywhere initiative which aims to bring PC, Xbox (or both) gamers to parity - acquiring a game on one platform equals having it on both, with all game data being synced.

A new update in the Steam beta update code explicitly refers to Xbox, with an "Xbox_pairwise_id" being present, which could point towards exploration of a future feature. Microsoft adding keyboard and mouse support to their Xbox consoles, news of a new streaming-based console for Microsoft's xCloud efforts, and Steam already offering controller support are some of the little details that could make this a winning bet for both companies.

NieR:Automata on the PC platform is a love-hate affair, the former due to excellent gameplay and replayability via multiple "routes" and the latter no thanks to the game in need of performance enhancements and bug fixes that were promised nearly two years ago but yet to come to fruition. Overall, the game holds an overwhelmingly positive review feedback on Steam, and won many game awards from various video game publications last year. For those who were hoping, or just waiting, for a complete GOTY edition to come out, perhaps this news is for you.

Today, Square Enix officially announced the NieR:Automata Game of the YoRHa Edition that includes the full base game as well as the 3C3C1D119440927 Expansion DLC, four pod designs (Grimoire Weiss pod, Retro Grey pod skin, Retro Red pod skin, Cardboard pod skin), the Machine Mask accessory and two digital wallpapers. This releases February 26, 2019 for $39.99 for PC and the PS4, with the XBOX One having received a "Become As Gods" earlier this year that had brought with it performance improvements. It remains to be seen if the new edition gets a similar patch, which interested users must keep track of before committing to a purchase as many players today have had to resort to a third-party patch to get things smoothly running.

With more and more companies creating their very own digital storefronts in the PC gaming space, it was only a matter of time until Epic Games threw their hat into the ring. With an announcement posted today, by Tim Sweeney the Epic Games store is now officially a reality. The new digital storefront will be made available for PC and Mac to start with, while other platforms will be added throughout 2019. In regards to games available on the platform, Epic will offer Fortnite alongside a set of hand-curated titles at launch. What those games might be is currently unknown.

Delivering a shot across the bow at Steam and their 30% revenue cut, Epic's game store will instead only take 12%, resulting in developers earning 88% of sales revenue. If they are using Unreal Engine the 5% engine royalty will be waived by Epic and instead is factored into their original 12% take. Putting that into perspective, an Unreal Engine based game released on Steam currently gives developers only 65% of the revenue with Steam earning 30% and Epic 5% due to engine royalties. Going from 65% to 88% is a significant increase in earnings, and it doesn't matter what game engine a developer uses, the revenue split will remain the same. This should leave developers quite happy since they are not limited by game engine choice and Epic benefits from a vastly increased selection of titles they can offer in their digital store.