Tag Archives: microsoft

2020 has served as a year of great reflection when it comes to hate speech and general intolerance. While companies such as Twitter and Twitch have started making moves to limit such actions on its platform, Facebook has seemingly done no such thing. As such, a large number of companies …

Microsoft may have downplayed recent rumours about the return of Fable and Perfect Dark but evidence elsewhere continues to stack up. The latest discovery is Microsoft very recently renewed the trademark for the Fable IP, coinciding with rumours that Playground Games is working on a reboot.  The rumour that Playground …

With Microsoft's new Windows 10 2004 update, the company added a “mysterious new optional feature called Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling” – a feature that is said to reduce latency caused by buffering between the CPU and GPU. Microsoft explains that “with the right hardware and drivers, Windows can now offload most …

In an oddly timed move, Microsoft has reportedly stopped all advertising spending on Facebook and Instagram. Given that Microsoft is one of the biggest spenders on Zuckerberg's platforms, this is an important shift, but it comes at an odd time, as Microsoft just partnered with Facebook Gaming following the shutdown …

Rumours have long suggested that Microsoft has two next-gen consoles in the works, with the high-end one being the Xbox Series X and a lower-end console called ‘Lockhart', or Xbox Series S. Microsoft has yet to officially announce this second console, but reportedly the targeted announcement date is set for …

Many of us know the pain of running into a crash and losing data, or just deleting something by mistake. Soon, Microsoft will be offering something extra to help in that situation with the Windows File Recovery tool.  If you've misplaced a picture, document, video or audio file, the Windows …

Many fans were disappointed with Microsoft's most recent third-party next-gen event. The stream included ‘gameplay’ of a number of next-generation titles coming to the Series X. With that, many turned to the console manufacturer’s first-party event which was announced for July. According to one insider however, fans still have a …

Microsoft’s big first-party games showcase is coming up very soon and eagle-eyed fans are already picking up on some clues for announcements. The most recent information found indicates that Fable and Perfect Dark games will be revealed. In the build-up to big announcements, companies will usually set up placeholder social …

Microsoft is officially winding down its physical retail business, with 83 Microsoft Store locations set to close down permanently. Instead of investing in high street locations, Microsoft will instead be focusing the bulk of its efforts on the Microsoft Store website instead. The shift to online shopping has been an …

Microsoft has been making a number of big moves lately. So far this month we've seen the Mixer streaming service begin closing operations and the announcement that Microsoft will be closing down many retail stores. Microsoft isn't just cutting back though, this week the company also announced that it has …

Ori and the Will of the Wisps was one of Microsoft's major console exclusive releases for 2020. The metroidvania platformer released in March to universal acclaim. Now, just over 3 months later, Microsoft has announced that the game has “over 2 million spirits [i.e. players] and counting.” Taking to Twitter …

Xbox 20/20 has continued this month, although it has been a bit easier to miss. Rather than a big video presentation, this month Microsoft has been publishing deep-dive editorials explaining various platform features and initiatives for Xbox Series X. Last week, we learned more about Smart Delivery and today, Microsoft …

One of the issues with subscription services is that subscribers never truly own the games – they merely own a licence to play the games for a limited time. Because of that, games often come and go from these services. Microsoft has now announced which games are coming soon to …

Despite years of heavy investment and even bringing in some huge streamers on multi-million dollar contracts, Microsoft's streaming platform, Mixer, has been unable to catch up and compete with the bigger sites like Twitch, YouTube and even Facebook gaming. Now, Mixer will be shutting down, with the service set to …

High memory usage is an issue that web browsers have been trying to tackle for a long time now. Google and Mozilla have made well publicised efforts to reduce memory usage for their respective browsers and with the next Windows 10 update, some significant improvements to memory usage in Edge …

Traditionally, when a new console is released, it arrives with an entirely new and updated user interface. Just as the hardware is changed and improved, so too is the software. It would appear however that the Xbox Series X, Microsoft’s upcoming next-gen console will share the same dashboard as that …

Recently, Microsoft put out a blog post titled “Everything You Need to Know about Xbox Series X and The Future of Xbox… So Far”. In it, they reiterated many of the details which have been covered already. That being said, there was at least one nugget of new information, and …

While Sony is teasing its own high-end sound tech for the PS5, Microsoft is apparently looking into pushing gaming into the high-end headphone market. This week, Danish audio company, Bang & Olufsen, announced a new partnership with Xbox to ‘deliver high-end audio' for gaming. Not much is known about this …

Barring any unforeseen delays, Halo Infinite will be out within the next six months across Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC. As the final development push on Infinite continues, it looks like Microsoft is also preparing for a new Halo game.  The Microsoft careers website was updated this week, …

Last month during Inside Xbox, EA announced that it would be supporting free next-gen upgrades for some upcoming games shipping on current-generation consoles and the upcoming Xbox Series X/PS5. It didn't take long for players to notice the catch involved though, as there was just a small window to upgrade. …

Back in February, Samsung and Microsoft announced a partnership which would see the console manufacturer’s streaming services come to Samsung devices. At the time, the announcement focused on Samsung’s smartphones, however an update to Samsung’s website suggests that the services could be coming to its line-up of smart televisions. First …

Just last week, 343 Industries began teasing that Halo 3 for PC would begin public testing at some point in June. Now, the latest Master Chief Collection development update confirms this, telling us to expect testing to begin soon and giving us an idea of what content will be included. …

After briefly teasing its next-gen headset back in March, today HP has officially unveiled the Reverb G2 VR headset, designed with input from the folks at Valve and Microsoft.

We already knew that Microsoft was committed to maintaining backwards compatibility on next-gen console hardware, but the number of improvements in place run deeper than that. Today, Microsoft released some more details on the tech behind backwards compatibility on Xbox Series X, including the ability to improve frame rates and …

Fans of Phantasy Star Online have been waiting close to a decade for PSO2 to arrive in the West. That wait is finally over, with the game coming to Xbox One and Windows 10, but the transition has not been without issues, mostly due to Microsoft's iffy Windows Store.  The …

Each month without fail, Xbox Live Gold members are offered a number of free titles to download. The console manufacturer has now announced which games subscribers can look forward to over the course of the month of June. The offerings include the 2D action-adventure game, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, …

While there have been some solid efforts to build an original Xbox emulator over the years, developers behind these projects have often struggled to rebuild the kernel and custom operating system for the console. That could begin to change though, as the Xbox source code has leaked online.  The leak …

As part of the game's 10th anniversary celebration, Alan Wake is officially joining Xbox Game Pass for PC and console this week, bringing the cult classic back to the forefront.  Alan Wake joining the library is just one part of a pretty big month for Game Pass, as Cities: Skylines …

Over the last year, Microsoft has been making an effort to bring more of its games to Steam, leaving behind the Windows Store exclusive strategy. While games like Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Gears 5 were quick to make it over, others have taken a bit longer. Recently, State …

Brad Smith, Microsoft President, recently stated at a MIT event that “Microsoft was on the wrong side of history when open source exploded at the beginning of the century”. This marks a shift in the company's stance towards open source.  Microsoft hasn't been known to be a great endorser of open source. …