Microsoft will pay a fine of $20 million to settle a lawsuit from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The lawsuit concerned the violation of the privacy of children in the Xbox ecosystem.

In the first quarter, Russians bought game consoles much more actively than in January-March 2022. According to retailers’ estimates, demand has doubled over the year.

Gaming expert Simon Carless (Simon Carless) in the newsletter of the GameDiscoverCo portal told how the audience of PlayStation, Xbox and Steam was distributed across different countries. In all cases, Russia was at least in the top 15.

Microsoft reported for the third quarter of fiscal 2023, which ended on March 31. According to a number of indicators, it became a record for the gaming division.

Owners of Xbox consoles from Russia can no longer apply for warranty repairs directly to Microsoft. The Izvestia newspaper, with reference to the technical support of the corporation, reported that Microsoft had stopped warranty service in the country “due to the current situation.”

Microsoft has been trying for several years to reduce its negative impact on the climate. Now she has announced a new initiative. At the GDC 2023 conference, Microsoft presented a set of tools for eco—friendly game development – the Xbox Developer Sustainability ToolKit.

Microsoft has celebrated the 10th anniversary of the ID@Xbox program. In honor of this, she shared a number of numbers.

The head of Microsoft‘s gaming division in an interview with the Financial Times said that the corporation could open an Xbox store for mobile devices as early as next year. This will happen if regulators approve the purchase of Activision Blizzard.

The head of Microsoft‘s gaming division gave an interview to the Xbox On channel. During the conversation, Phil Spencer touched upon, among other things, the topic of artificial intelligence and video games.

The corporation told about this in the report for the second quarter of fiscal 2023 (October-December 2022).

On January 18, Microsoft confirmed that it would lay off 10,000 people. As it became known to the media, among others, developers from Bethesda, 343 Industries and The Coalition were reduced.

The company confirmed in a comment to IGN that from the beginning of next year it plans to raise the cost of its main titles for the Xbox Series X/S.

This was stated by the head of Xbox in the framework of the Decoder podcast. He did not name the approximate period for which Call of Duty may linger on Sony consoles, but noted that it is a bit silly to expect Microsoft to sign a contract with the word “forever”.

An amazing generation of consoles. Prices for devices and services do not fall over time, but rather grow. In August, Sony announced a price tag increase for the PlayStation 5, now Microsoft does not exclude its products either.

This statement was made by Ian Maclure, special effects artist at Bossa Studios. He explained that many studios have already managed to work with new-generation consoles and were dissatisfied with the first experience precisely because the Xbox Series S “hung like a stone around its neck.”

Such data was shared by David Gibson from MST Financial. According to him, in September Sony shipped about 7.5 thousand tons of consoles to the United States.

The corporation told about this in a report for the Brazilian antimonopoly regulator, which checked the deal with Activision Blizzard.

This figure was named by Simon Carless. Let’s clarify that we are talking about the median, not the average value.

Matt Booty has already asked Microsoft‘s research department to address this problem