Last year, Microsoft fought for the appearance on iOS of the service for “playing in the cloud” xCloud. From the letters published during the trial between Epic Games and Apple, it became known that a similar Shadow Cloud Computing service suffered because of this struggle.

Shortly before the start of the confrontation with Apple, the head of Epic Games asked Microsoft to make multiplayer on Xbox consoles free. He sent a letter with this idea to Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox.

Today, the concept of metaverses in the gaming industry is becoming increasingly popular. Microsoft reported that the authors of content for Minecraft have already earned over $350 million on it. And individual game developers for Roblox earn hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars a year. We tell you what metaverses are and why developers are actively investing in them.

The story with commissions launched by Epic Games continues to gain momentum. This time in the role of the “destroyer of tranquility” — Microsoft. The company announced that from August 1, the commission of the Windows Store app store will decrease from 30% to 12%. This will only affect games.

Microsoft has published a report for the third fiscal quarter (ended March 31). The company is seeing growth in all directions. The period was particularly successful for the gaming industry: its revenue exceeded $ 3.5 billion, and console sales jumped by 232%.Key data for the quarter

A month ago, the network started talking that Microsoft plans to buy Discord for $ 10 billion. But it looks like the deal didn’t work out. According to The Wall Street Journal, the owners of Discord have changed their minds about selling the business to an American corporation or to anyone else.

Microsoft will supply the US army with 120,000 special AR glasses based on HoloLens 2. The updated device allows you to see in the dark and display additional information on the screen. The amount of the contract, calculated for more than 10 years, is $21.8 billion.Photo: Microsoft

Xbox Game Pass is often called “Netflix gaming”. As it turned out, Microsoft does not quite agree with this comparison. The vice president of the gaming ecosystem of the company, Sarah Bond, explained what the key difference is.

Microsoft is preparing for a new takeover. This time, the corporation is negotiating the purchase of Discord. The estimated volume of the transaction is over $10 billion. But there is a nuance. The owners of Discord are not sure yet whether they need to sell the business at all. Instead, they can conduct an IPO.

Despite the problems at the launch, Sea of Thieves continues to develop actively. Shortly before its third anniversary, the game broke the mark of 20 million players. In honor of this, the developers announced several nice bonuses and events for fans at once.

The deal between Microsoft and ZeniMax Media officially ended yesterday. On this occasion, Phil Spencer finally directly answered the question that has been worrying since September: what will happen to the games of the acquired company? He did not open all the cards, but confirmed that at least some of the new games from Bethesda will indeed be released exclusively for PC and Xbox.

Microsoft is closer than ever to completing the purchase of ZeniMax. Today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission officially approved a deal worth $7.5 billion. Now the decision has to be made by the European Commission.

Microsoft has updated guidelines that will help developers make games more accessible to people with disabilities. Studios will be able to submit their projects for PC and Xbox for review and receive feedback on their improvement.This was stated in the official Xbox blog by senior project manager Brannon Zahand (Brannon Zahand).

Recently, rumors appeared on the web that Microsoft is going to buy Techland. However, now the community manager of the Polish studio has stated that this is not true. According to him, the developers of Dying Light 2 do not intend to make a deal with Microsoft or anyone else.

Last week, the authors of Borderlands joined the Embracer Group. According to rumors, Microsoft was interested in buying Gearbox before the Swedish holding. That’s just among the conditions was the resignation of the head of the studio Randy Pitchford (Randy Pitchford).

Sony continues to selectively abandon the exclusivity of some of its titles. The MLB baseball simulator The Show 21, which was previously released only on PlayStation, will also appear on Xbox for the first time. This is hinted at, among other things, by the cover of the game merged into the network.The covers of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox One versions of the game were shared by a well-known insider Anerdydad.

Microsoft summed up the results of the second fiscal quarter (October-December 2020), noting growth in many indicators. The gaming division of the company was particularly successful — its revenue exceeded $5 billion for the first time.

A lot of noise has been raised around the problematic release of Cyberpunk 2077. The gaming community blamed the title’s shortcomings on its developers, testers and, eventually, the owners of the platforms that certified the game — Sony and Microsoft. Rami Ismail, a well-known indie developer, explained how the certification process goes and why Sony and Microsoft should not be responsible for the shortcomings of Cyberpunk 2077.

On paper, the Xbox Series X is more powerful than the PlayStation 5. However, the first tests show that the multiplatform now works better and more stable on the Sony console. The reasons are banal. First: game developers had less time to optimize games for a Microsoft device. Second: less convenient tools and weaker documentation for it. This was told by The Verge, after talking with various teams that were preparing new releases for the latest…