Microsoft beat market predictions with its FY2018 Q2 earnings results yesterday, with cloud revenue growth (+56% YoY) being one of the main highlights. Because these latest financial results were also about the holiday shopping quarter, it’s safe to say that Microsoft’s Surface and Xbox business were also under heavy scrutiny.

While Surface revenue ($1.3 billion) disappointed a little bit with a 1% growth compared to the same period a year ago, the Xbox division did much better and brought $3.9 billion in revenue (up 8% YoY), which the company attributed to the successful Xbox One X launch. Moreover, Xbox Live monthly active users grew 7% to 59 million, a new milestone for the company.

Here is what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had to say about gaming during the company’s earnings conference call yesterday:

Our new Xbox One X was the top selling premium console this holiday in the U.S., and we saw strong sales of the Xbox One S. We will continue to innovate in console to attract high value gamers who want immersive, 4K experiences, to build a broader subscription service with Game Pass, and to extend our services to all the devices in our customers’ lives across console, PC and mobile.

Our decision to release exclusive game content on Xbox Game Pass simultaneous with global release increases the value of the subscription for members and our partners, and we are off to a good start.

We grew gamer engagement again this quarter with 59 million monthly active Xbox Live members, record usage of our Xbox Live services, record viewers of our new streaming service, Mixer, and record Minecraft users.

Finally, we just acquired PlayFab, which serves more than 700 million gamers with more than 1200 games from companies like Disney, Rovio and Atari. It’s a complete backend platform for mobile/PC/console game developers to build, launch, and scale cloud-connected games, extending our investments in Azure to provide a world-class cloud platform for the gaming industry.

In case you still had some doubts about it, Satya Nadella takes gaming and the Xbox division very seriously. It’s good to know that Xbox Live engagement is up, but we’d love to know the number of Xbox Games Pass subscribers as well. Unfortunately, we don’t think Microsoft will share some hard data until it can boast about a sufficient number of subscribers.

As for the freshly-released Xbox One X, Nadella only said that it was the top selling premium console in the US during the holiday season, which is definitely encouraging. The premium Xbox One X definitely remains for a niche audience, and Microsoft previously said that it expects to keep selling more Xbox One S consoles in the years to come.

Someone created a game that appeared prominently in the Xbox Creators Collection that emulated Logan Paul’s infamous trip to the Aokighara Forest. The game, titled, “The Suicide Forest,” was rated PEGI 3 (for ages 3 and up) was noticed first by Bearskopff on Twitter, who is the Global Comunity Manager for TT Games, the game developers behind all those multi-platform LEGO games.

Is this a joke? Just decided to check out the Creators Collection on the Xbox Marketplace and found a free, PEGI 3 rated game based on Logan Paul’s trip to Aokighara Forest… pic.twitter.com/i5XIW7OLvn

— Bear (@Bearskopff) January 30, 2018

Eurogamer picked up on the story and reached out to Microsoft for an explanation and the game was quickly pulled. The game was created as part of the Xbox Creators Collection that is obviously not very closely-monitored for content.

If you are unfamiliar with Logan Paul and his “Suicide Forest” YouTube video, that can be cleared up quickly with a Bing search. The Xbox Creators Collection game was quickly pulled when it was brought to the immediate attention of Larry Hryb, Xbox community manager, also known as Major Nelson.

This is being taken care of.

— Larry Hryb ????????☁ (@majornelson) January 31, 2018

A Microsoft spokesperson gave an official statement on the matter:

“This content violates our Store policies and we’re in the process of removing it,” a company spokesperson said. “Users can report inappropriate content on the game product page or by sending a report directly to [email protected].”

Surely, Microsoft will want to avoid this issue from happening again, so it is lkely that the Redmond company will pay more attention to the games being submitted to the Xbox Creators Collection in the future.

According to a tweet from video games industry follower Daniel Ahmad, Microsoft is planning on releasing special Chinese New Year Xbox One S bundles in China. The bundles help mark the start of the Chinese Zodiac year of the dog and will come with two downloadable games.

February 16th 2018 will mark the start of the year of the dog in China.

To celebrate, Xbox China will release a special new year Xbox One S bundle on February 6th 2018 in Mainland China. The bundle will cost RMB 2,399 and come with two downloadable games. pic.twitter.com/QvxEvGF0aK

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) January 31, 2018

It is not clear which games the bundles will include, but there appear to be two variants, both of which are 1TB. The bundles are supposedly scheduled for release on February 6th, 2018 in Mainland China and will cost 2,399 Chinese Yuan (381.46 US Dollars.)

The console appears to be cool looking since it is complete with a cool traditional looking image of a dog on the box. It will fit in well with the many Xbox One S bundles which Microsoft currently sells in various regions across the globe. Do let us know in the comments section below if this is something you’d consider buying if you’re in China.

February Games with Gold titles shouldn’t become free to download until tomorrow, February 1, but Microsoft apparently jumped the gun for Shadow Warrior. That’s right, the Xbox One game is already free to download with Xbox Live Gold, and shooter fans should really check out this reboot of the 1997 PC game of the same name.

Here is the game’s official description:

Shadow Warrior tells the offbeat tale of Zilla Enterprise’s corporate shogun Lo Wang as he is ordered to acquire a legendary blade of limitless power by his deceitful employer. Betrayed and left for dead, Lo Wang learns of the blade’s connection to ancient gods from another realm preparing to push our world to the brink of destruction. Now the reluctant hero must become legend through a masterful combination of gun, blade, magic and wit to uncover the truth behind the demonic invasion and banish evil back into the darkness.

You can download Shadow Warrior on your Xbox One with the link below. In case you forgot about it, we also remind you that today is your last chance to grab The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III and the Xbox 360 game Army of Two for free with your subscription.

Download
QR-Code

Shadow Warrior

Developer:
Devolver Digital

Price:
$29.99

Just last week some then new images of the long-dead Xbox Watch prototype leaked on the internet. Noted by Windows Blog Italia, the same person who leaked the original images recently posted a Hands-On video showing some workings of the Xbox branded wearable device.

You can see that the person struggles to keep the Xbox Watch charged, having to do a bit of juggling with the cables in order to use the device and keep it running through several reboots. Despite this, still shown off is the UI of the watch, which is very reminiscent of the tiled interface on Windows Phone.  There are three specific areas or apps of the UI which the user shows off— Workouts, Freeplay, and Settings.

It appears as though the Workout app does not do much and leads to a “please subscribe” menu. The Freeplay app, meanwhile, leads to an option to turn on or off GPS. And finally, the Settings menu shows some information about the device, the user. and gives options to control brightness.

It’s definitely cool to see the device in action, especially since it never came to be. Do you think this is a cool prototype? Feel free to let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

The popular Overwatch video game has finally received its Xbox One X update today which means that it will now play in 4K resolution when played on Microsoft’s new console.

Xbox One X 4K support, @Warcraft #BattleForAzeroth pre-purchase goodies, and hero balance updates are here!

Now LIVE on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. https://t.co/0eiXGlS0Mo pic.twitter.com/jmDhf61wFW

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) January 31, 2018

This update will also unlock a variety of Warcraft-themed items in-game for those that have also pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe version of World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth. There are also several fixes and updates to some Overwatch charactaers which you can read about in the full release notes here.

The update is free for all owners of the Xbox One version of Overwatch and should automatically download on consoles that are powered on. If, for whatever reason, the update hasn’t installed yet, the update download can be force-activated by opening “My games & apps” and selecting “Updates”.

Have you had a chance to play Overwatch in 4K yet on your Xbox One X console? Share your impressions with the community in the comments down below. Are you impressed?

Download
QR-Code

Overwatch® 2

Developer:
Blizzard Entertainment

Price:
Free

A new update has begun to roll out to Preview Alpha Xbox Insiders. This latest build, 1802.180129-1625, fixes a range of bugs involving UI glitches and crashes but it also adds something that a few gamers might find useful; a download/installation progress bar in the Xbox One’s popup Guide that also acts as a shortcut to the installation queue. Here’s the full release notes.

New Features:

Installation Progress in Guide

In-progress installations are now visible from a tile at the bottom of the Guide. When selected, this tile opens a new interface showing items in the queue and their status, and allowing some basic functions like pausing or cancelling the installation.

Fixes:

Profile

Fixed an issue which caused some elements in Profile to appear misaligned.

Home and Dashboard

Resolved an issue which sometimes caused unexpected crashes.

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous fixes and improvements.

Known Issues:

Games Installation

Games that are installed fail to launch. Workaround: If the games are installed to an external drive please copy the game to the internal drive or attempt to delete the title and redownload to fix the launch error.

Display 

We are investigating the inaccurate RGB colors that have been reported when displaying in 4K HDR mode when playing a UHD disc.

Tournaments

• The left and right navigation for selecting date and time during Tournament creation is currently reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
• Left and right navigation in Tournament twists is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
• Left and right navigation in the bracket view of Tournaments is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.

Avatars on Home

Users wishing to represent themselves as an avatar can do so by changing their settings under My profile > Customize profile > Show my avatar.

Have you installed this build yet? Let us know if you like the new Guide feature in the comments below.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (or ‘PUBG’) just received its seventh update on Microsoft’s Xbox One family of consoles. This latest update makes some significant changes to the way vehicles are damaged in-game and also improves controller input response. Here’s the complete patch notes.

Gameplay

• We’ve listened to your feedback and further modified the damage players can inflict on vehicles, increasing areas of vulnerability. This includes:
• Increased damage to the vehicle body, and significant damage to the wheels when targeted with gunfire
• Increased vehicle damage when successfully targeted with a grenade
• Both driver and passenger will suffer increased injuries from crashing into objects or other vehicles (Dacia, UAZ, and Buggy)
• Slight reduction to player damage when being struck by a vehicle

Optimization

• Continued optimization to controller input lag
• Visual quality of the reticle is improved for Xbox One (Red Dot, Holographic, and 2x Sight)

Bug fixes

• Resolved issue where inventory may highlight the wrong column when looting
• The sensitivity setting for 4x Scope is now also applied to the permanent scope on the VSS
• Auto-run (double-clicking the left stick) is disabled when aiming down sights
• Players can now use the D-Pad while in the map view without switching melee, pistol, or throwing weapons
• Removing the marker from the map when pressing (Y) will no longer switch primary/secondary weapons
• Fixed issue where the crosshair is not correctly displayed after players reconnect to a game session

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is one of the biggest video games on the Xbox One right now and currently boasts over 4 million players. Have you played PUBG yet? Let us know about your experience in the comments below.

Yesterday, in a lede-burying revelation, Polygon asserted that Microsoft may be looking to acquire game and gaming related companies, including PUBG Corporation, Valve, and most importantly, Electronic Arts, or as it’s more widely known, EA.

The news created a bit of a flurry in the Twittersphere, with many pundits scoffing that Microsoft would be willing to ante up so much (EA’s market cap currently sits at about $36 billion), would walk away from EA’s lucrative PlayStation business to gain first party exclusive titles for Xbox, or would waste so much money chasing what Polygon describes as Xbox’s “serious exclusive games problem.”

No, it’s not about exclusives

First of all, before we get too far, yes let’s not read too much into Polygon’s bombshell. Microsoft looks at acquiring a lot of companies, as do all the major tech players, and it would be more unusual that the company was *not* looking around than that it is. But Microsoft did just promote Matt Booty to a revitalized role of head of Microsoft Studios, who noted that “(c)ontent is extremely important to our strategy going forward.”

If there is a plan and it is moving forward, there are some significant reasons why a Microsoft acquisition of EA just might make sense. Probably the least of these revolves around exclusive gaming. As much as the tech press likes to boil the business down to PlayStation vs. Xbox, since the release of Xbox Play Anywhere, Microsoft’s goals seem to be more about creating a Gaming Anywhere business than a “play games on Xbox” business.

Microsoft needs content

So why EA? First, Microsoft needs to go big with content, and soon. Last year it made a big bet on the Xbox One X, launching a powerful new console with full 4K capabilities early in the cycle, but now it needs to keep up the momentum. The company simply can’t rely on Forza and Halo for the next five years. It needs games, and it needs them now.

Crossplay

Microsoft has been trying to work with Sony on a Minecraft crossplay solution that would allow ‘Crafters to build their worlds across PlayStation, Xbox, mobile and PC, but so far Sony has resisted.

Currently, some 60% of EA’s sales are for PlayStation, and Microsoft would be foolish to clamp down with an Xbox Only exclusivity and cut out all that revenue. But what if instead of exclusivity, Microsoft only required crossplay capabilities for future EA PlayStation games? Microsoft would keep the lucrative Sony/EA gaming business, and at the same time drag PlayStation owners (perhaps kicking and screaming) into the world of crossplay Xbox/PC gaming.

The Games Pass / EA Access fit

Microsoft’s launch of Games Pass is also a good fit with EA, who runs the successful EA Access. Again, this wouldn’t be a play for exclusivity, but one to significantly bolster the Games Pass catalog, and at the same time grow the Games Pass subscription base by adding all those EA Access users. And yes of course there’s that catalog, with Battlefront and Star Wars and the lucrative sports games.

Donald Trump (yes, Donald Trump!)

Then there’s also the “flush with cash” angle. Although $36 billion is a lot of money (remember that Microsoft paid $26 billion for LinkedIn), President Trump’s recent tax cut made it significantly easier for Microsoft and other tech companies to repatriate their offshore cash, which had been sitting (well not exactly) in foreign banks with a 35% tax looming to bring it back to the US. The tax reform has slashed that to less than 20%, making bringing offshore cash, of which Microsoft currently holds some $132 billion, back to the US.

While Apple and other companies have announced plans to repatriate their cash, Microsoft has been close-mouthed about their plans (believe me, we’ve asked!). Sure, $36B is still a lot of money, but investing in Games Pass, in gaming, and in Xbox with a newfound pile of money burning a hole in Microsoft’s pocket could take some of the sting out of such a big spend.

Apple and Facebook and Amazon…

Finally, although as I said the tech press likes to make this out to be PlayStation vs. Xbox, there’s a lot more to it than that. Amazon has been making inroads into gaming, most notably with the acquisition of Twitch, and Facebook is sniffing around, too, signing up ESL to an exclusive tournament streaming partnership. If Facebook and Amazon enter the gaming market in a big way (not to mention Apple, if it “goes there” too), the landscape changes significantly and quickly. Microsoft could find itself dropping from a comfortable second place in a two player race to an also-ran once again, if it doesn’t think big and bold.

Will Microsoft buy EA? In truth, probably not. It’s a lot of money, a big bet, and EA is heavily invested in PlayStation. Still, if an acquisition does happen, it could not only be good for the Redmond giant, but quickly change the gaming industry in a way that catapults the company into the lead dog. Interesting times.

What do you think, should Microsoft buy EA? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Microsoft and Columbia Sportswear today announced plans to help the outerwear, sportswear, and footwear company through their digital transformation. The leading innovator in the active outdoor apparel, footwear, accessories and equipment industries will turn to the power of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Azure cloud as part of the new plan.

According to Microsoft, thanks to Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Azure cloud, Columbia Sportswear will be able to “manage merchandise globally and streamline operations with increased efficiency.” The company will also be able to use the solutions in their retail, call center, customer relationship management and merchandising operations. This also helps the company personalize engagement with customers thanks to enhanced digital tools and information.

In the words of  Michael Hirt, chief information officer at Columbia Sportswear:

“At Columbia, we have a long history of leveraging innovative technologies to help connect active people with their passions…his practice extends not just to our products, but across every aspect of our business. Through our collaboration with Microsoft, we’re implementing intelligent cloud technology to streamline our global operations and provide additional flexibility and convenience to our consumers.”

Judson Althoff, executive vice president, Worldwide Commercial Business at Microsoft also expressed how this partnership will further make Columbia Sportswear an industry leader:

“Established in 1938, Columbia Sportswear is setting itself up to be an industry leader for another 80 years…Columbia Sportswear will leverage Microsoft’s intelligent cloud to connect data, people and processes globally to deliver personalized shopping experiences for its customers.”

Columbia Sportswear joins many other companies who have already partnered with Microsoft to drive digital transformation. UBS and Maersk, Hershey, Geico, and Fruit of the Loom are just a few of the companies which already deployed Microsoft services as part of their digital transformation.

The winning Super Bowl team gets championship rings to celebrate their tremendous achievement, but if you’re good enough at playing Madden NFL 18, you can get a special ring of your own. Microsoft and Xbox have created an official 10 carat white gold Xbox Ring with 188 diamonds, and you try to win it by entering a sweepstakes on Mixer.

The sweepstakes runs from now until February 5th, and all it takes to enter is to enter is to play online in a head-to-head matchup in Madden NFL 18 on Xbox, while broadcasting on Mixer. A random winner will be selected on February 7th, so be sure to keep streaming for your chance to land the ring valued at over $10,000.

Microsoft is also holding an Xbox Live Sessions with Patriots star Rob Gronkowski. This will be held today on the Mixer Xbox channel starting at 5:30 p.m. PT, and fans can also watch in person at the Microsoft Store at Mall of America. NFL fans are also invited to check out special Super Bowl themed events happening in Microsoft Stores across the US on Sunday, February 4th.

A new update has just rolled out to Xbox Insiders enrolled in Preview Beta and Delta. This update, 1802.180125-1923, doesn’t add any new features worth getting excited about but it does fix several bugs associated with downloads, localization, and profile colors. Here’s the full release notes.

Fixes:

My Games and Apps

• Fixed an error that resulted in content that was installing/downloading not resuming after a reboot.
• Certain games when installing had been failing to run on first launch until a reboot – this is now fixed.

Party Chat

• Reliability fixes to improve the time it takes for users to join a Party Chat session who had been experiencing long join times.
• Pseudo Localization/Language Translation String Fixes
• Users will no longer see incorrect language translations in the build.   If you do encounter any incorrect strings please report a problem

Profile

• Fixed an issue which caused the incorrect profile color to display after powering on the console.

Known Issues:

Games Installation

• Games that are installed fail to launch. Workaround: If the games are installed to an external drive please copy the game to the internal drive or attempt to delete the title and redownload to fix the launch error.

Display

• We are investigating the inaccurate RGB colors that have been reported when displaying in 4K HDR mode when playing a UHD disc.

Tournaments

• The left and right navigation for selecting date and time during Tournament creation is currently reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
• Left and right navigation in Tournament twists is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
• Left and right navigation in the bracket view of Tournaments is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.

Avatars on Home

• Users wishing to represent themselves as an avatar can do so by changing their settings under My profile > Customize profile > Show my avatar.

Have you noticed anything different on your Xbox One after installing this update that’s not mentioned here? Let us know in the comments below.

Perhaps, I’m a cynic, but I feel the drumbeat for Microsoft Universal Windows Platform efforts may have drummed on for the company with a fairly lackluster showing over the past four years.

Fortunately for those who rely on or are encouraged by the UWP platform, Microsoft continues to push and nurture those efforts with continual development. Microsoft’s latest efforts come from the company’s Dev Center team via a blog post about developers being empowered to target Surface Hub and Windows 10 S customers using Snapdragon processors.

While the first part of the Dev teams proposition may have some scratching their heads and wondering how to balance their expectations versus actual customer base, the second half should be the more interesting tease from Microsoft.

Snapdragon processors.

With the future of Windows now being tied to the Snapdragon processor through OEM partner hardware, UWP apps specifically targeting those processors may see an uptick in downloads as form factors and operating system variants promote usage.

To target Surface Hub when submitting your UWP app to the Microsoft Store, simply ensure that the box for the Windows 10 Team device family is checked. This is generally the case if you upload packages targeting the Universal or Team device family.

If you include an ARM package in your submission that targets the Universal or Desktop device family, this package will be made available to Windows 10 S on a Snapdragon processor (Always Connected PCs) devices as long as the Windows 10 Desktop device family box is checked.

The example above shows three packages that target the Universal device family, x64, ARM and x86. The boxes for Windows 10 Desktop, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows 10 Xbox, Windows 10 Team, and Windows 10 Holographic are selected. This means that customers on any of those device types can download this submission.

For more on the specifics, the Dev team offers this documentation to help developers get started.

While I’m still skeptical about an influx of Windows S UWP apps hitting the stores, Microsoft should be credited with offering developers all the tools to succeed in Microsoft’s future of software and hardware.

Microsoft appears to be racing into the future guns a blazed with the prospect of becoming the first big software provider of industry applicable AI solutions. To aid in Microsoft’s journey to AI solution supremacy, the company recently partnered with Publicis Group to form the Marcel AI platform.

The two will leverage their strengths, Microsoft being AI compute and Publicis 80,000 employees, will rely on one another to power this new “industry-first” platform.

The Marcel platform will use cognitive services and AI to empower Publicis Groupe’s people, clients, and business to seamlessly collaborate in three ways:

• First of all, by identifying relevant connections amongst the organization’s 80,000 employees. If there is someone out there in one of Publicis Groupe’s agencies who can help an employee, Marcel will find her or him.
• Second, by collecting, organizing and curating Publicis Groupe’s collective knowledge Marcel will enable employees to take full advantage of the combined experiences and insights that exist around its group.
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, by giving every employee the power to participate and create more, beyond their immediate boundaries. Through the M-Labs, the incubator for the Marcel platform, Publicis Groupe has been testing new collaborative models that are already driving results for some of its major global clients.

Despite being an internal project thus far, the implications of applying Microsoft’s AI solutions to more broader consumer-facing interest should be upon the horizon. Microsoft itself, may not be leading the charge but its partners should definitely be looking forward to seeing a return on their big data investments in Azure soon

The Super Bowl may not be for another few days, but Microsoft and Xbox are planning to put on a big show of their own. Indeed, the company has announced the next Xbox Live Sessions will feature and Madden NFL 18 and Patriots star Rob Gronkowski.

Rob Gronkowski will join his former teammate LeGarrette Blount in a Madden NFL 18 showdown on Xbox One X. The event will be live streamed on the Mixer Xbox channel, starting on Tuesday, January 30 at 5:30 p.m. PT. Xbox and NFL fans can also visit the visit the Microsoft Store at Mall of America to watch in person.

As a reminder, if you’re tuning in on Mixer you will able to submit questions for both players and earn the chance to win some amazing prizes. The last Xbox Live Sessions was about a month ago, featuring Modern Family’s Nolan Gould and Fortnite Battle Royale. Celebrity guests on previous Xbox Live Sessions included Star Wars’ John Boyega, actress Megan Fox, and Rona Rousey.

Just two weeks after version 4.4 of Microsoft Launcher released to the general public, a new version of the Android launcher app has already hit the Google Play Store. With the version 4.5 update, Microsoft Launcher gets even more customization options and the usual performance enhancements (via Neowin.)

The most significant change in this release is the ability to adjust icon size in the app drawer, dock, and the home screen. There are also new options for creating shortcuts on Android Oreo devices and setting wallpapers for home and lock screen in Android 7.0+. See the changelog below for the full details.

• Let meeting attendees know you’re running late from the calendar card.
• Employees whose enterprises leverage Microsoft Intune’s data protection policies can now use the Microsoft Launcher for viewing corporate data.
• Adjust icon size in the app drawer, dock and home screen.
• Set wallpapers for home and lock screen ( 7.0+)
• Add blank pages in vertical mode
• Recurring reminders
• Oreo shortcuts creation

Though not mentioned in the changelog, users should also notice a “Trending on Bing” carousel when using the search function. As is routine, this same 4.5 update was being tested with Beta users for the last two weeks and is now finally available for everyone. You can update now by heading to the Google Play Store, or you can check it out via the link below.

Download
QR-Code

Microsoft Launcher

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
Free

Intel asking everyone to skip its flawed firmware updates was apparently not enough for Microsoft. Over the weekend, the Redmond giant released another emergency update for Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 that disable Intel’s mitigation against Spectre variant 2, which has been causing system instability (via The Verge).

Intel previously acknowledged that recent security patches for all processors released over the last five years could cause reboot issues. “Our own experience is that system instability can in some circumstances cause data loss or corruption,” Microsoft added in a support page this weekend.

The chip maker also said that it has already identified the root cause of reboot issues on Broadwell and Haswell processors, and that it’s currently working on new firmware updates for these CPU architectures. Obviously, Microsoft didn’t want to wait as these system instability are more serious than expected:

While Intel tests, updates and deploys new microcode, we are making available an out of band update today, KB4078130, that specifically disables only the mitigation against CVE-2017-5715 – “Branch target injection vulnerability.” In our testing this update has been found to prevent the behavior described.

For now, the KB4078130 security update is only available to download from the Microsoft Update Catalog website. IT admins can also manually disable Intel’s mitigation against Spectre Variant 2 by applying new registry key settings, and more details are available on this support page.

“As of January 25, there are no known reports to indicate that this Spectre variant 2 (CVE 2017-5715 ) has been used to attack customers,” Microsoft added. Installing this new Windows update will leave your PC unprotected against this Spectre variant, though you may not really have a choice if you did encounter reboot issues (or worse) after installing recent firmware updates from Intel.

Welcome back to our Windows 10 news recap, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Microsoft’s flagship operating system.

Apple’s latest update for iTunes on Windows brings it closer to being in the Microsoft Store

A new update to iTunes on desktop adds a new file that makes reference to UWP, giving signs that Apple is closer to releasing its iTunes software on to the Microsoft Store, as promised during BUILD last year, despite delays.

Microsoft offering “Commercial” Surface Laptop with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed

For those in the enterprise space, Microsoft is offering an edition of the Surface Laptop that comes with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed, so that no upgrades are needed after purchase, providing a more seamless purchase and setup experience.

Microsoft reportedly working on new lightweight version of Windows 10 code-named Polaris

If Windows 10 for desktop, Windows 10 Mobile, and Windows 10 S weren’t enough, Microsoft is now working on another version of Windows 10 that is aimed to be lightweight, the codename being Polaris.

Office 365 now officially available in the Windows 10 Microsoft Store

Something that Windows 10 S users have been waiting for, Microsoft has now brought Office 365 to the Microsoft Store, allowing dedicated Office apps to be run on its lightweight edition of Windows 10.

That’s it for this week. We’ll be back next week with more Windows 10 news!

Microsoft news recap is a weekly feature highlighting the top Microsoft news stories of the past week. Sit back, grab some coffee, and enjoy the read!

Microsoft Rewards Dashboard redesigned with cleaner look, new streak system, more

Microsoft Rewards is Microsoft’s own take of a reward program for its customers. It offers up the chance to receive free gift cards, sweepstake entries and more by just using Microsoft products and services, such as Bing, and/or making purchases from places such as the Xbox Store. Now, the company is redesigning the Microsoft Rewards dashboard and the change is rolling out to users.

Turn your drawings into software with Microsoft Garage’s Ink to Code

If you ever get bored of typing code, Microsoft has come up with a solution. Called Ink to Code, this new Microsoft Garage app aims to allow drawings to be turned into working user interfaces, a quicker way of prototyping.

Microsoft spent about $8.5 million lobbying the US Government last year

In 2017, Microsoft spent $8.5 million in lobbying the US Government in its interests, such as opposing the travel ban, and to protect DACA recipients.

Microsoft Planner gets push notifications support on iOS and Android

The Microsoft Planner app on Android and iOS has been updated. This latest update adds support for push notifications, helping users be aware of when a new task has been assigned to them.

That’s it for this week. We’ll be back next week with more Microsoft news.

Welcome to our weekly Xbox news recap series, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Xbox. Let’s get started.

All Microsoft Studios games will launch on Xbox Game Pass

This is huge news, and marks Xbox Game Pass as the highest-value subscription service a gamer could possibly get their hands on. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has announced that all future Microsoft Studios games will be available at launch for anyone who’s subscribed to the Xbox Game Pass. That means that games like Sea of Thieves and Crackdown 3 will be available for Game Pass subscribers for no additional fee, just like they shelled out full price in advance. If the current games on the subscription – stuff like Gears of War 4 and Halo 5 – weren’t enough to convince you to buy in, you’ll now have the additional value of blockbuster titles for no additional cost.

Sea of Thieves dominates Twitch and Mixer

If you were banking on Sea of Thieves being a success, its closed beta should be very promising. The game managed to get some serious viewership numbers on Twitch and Mixer during the first day of the beta, managing to skyrocket to more than 50,000 viewers above the usual front-runner, League of Legends. While this could easily be dismissed as Sea of Thieves having its 15 minutes of fame, there’s a good chance that this marks an interest in the game that could sustain it post-launch.

PUBG celebrates over 4 million Xbox players

To the surprise of absolutely no one, PUBG has managed to hit it out of the park and become a hit on Xbox One. The battle royale has managed to pick up over 4 million players over the course of just two months, becoming a major success story for Microsoft’s Xbox Early Access program. The milestone was celebrated by the developers by offering everyone who’s purchased the game a huge stimulus of Battle Points to pick up cosmetics.

Anthem delayed until next year

Anthem, the upcoming blockbuster for EA and BioWare, has been delayed until 2019. Originally planned to release by the end of this year, Anthem has been the topic of quite a bit of discussion in the gaming community, as a “make or break” title for BioWare. After the failure of Mass Effect Andromeda, it seems like Anthem has been delayed in order to give BioWare the time it needs to get this one right. EA is often criticized for being a cynical company, whose decisions consistently get in the way of making good video games. This delay seems like it’s a step in the right direction.

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Monster Hunter: World is probably the most hyped game so far in 2018. Unfortunately, the launch of the game hasn’t gone as smoothly as it could have, with players on Xbox reporting issues with matchmaking.

Players are blaming the matchmaking issues on the lack of a beta for the Xbox version of the game, as only the PS4 edition received a beta test, due to a marketing deal with Sony’s PS4.

Now, Capcom have said on Twitter that they’re aware of the issues that players are experiencing and are currently investigating.

Hello Hunters, we’re aware of the Xbox matchmaking issues and dev team is actively investigating it, we’ll update you as soon as we can.

— Monster Hunter (@monsterhunter) January 27, 2018

There’s no ETA on a resolution of the issues at this time, however, as Capcom are now aware, it shouldn’t be much longer.

The Xbox team are releasing a new build to Xbox Insiders on the Preview Program. Those in the Alpha ring will receive this build 2AM GMT (2PM PST) that delivers fixes for a number of issues.

Here is the changelog:

• My Games and Apps

• Fixed an error that resulted in content that was installing/downloading not resuming after a reboot.
• Certain games when installing had been failing to run on first launch until a reboot – this is now fixed.

• Party Chat

Reliability fixes to improve the time it takes for users to join a Party Chat session who had been experiencing long join times.

• Pseudo Localization/Language Translation String Fixes

Users will no longer see incorrect language translations in the build. If you do encounter any incorrect strings please report a problem.

• Profile

Fixed an issue which caused the incorrect profile color to display after powering on the console.

There are also some known issues (and workarounds) to be weary of too:

• Games Installation

Games that are installed fail to launch. Workaround: If the games are installed to an external drive please copy the game to the internal drive or attempt to delete the title and redownload to fix the launch error.

• Display

We are investigating the inaccurate RGB colors that have been reported when displaying in 4K HDR mode when playing a UHD disc.

• Tournaments

• The left and right navigation for selecting date and time during Tournament creation is currently reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.

• Left and right navigation in Tournament twists is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.

• Left and right navigation in the bracket view of Tournaments is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew

• Avatars on Home

Users wishing to represent themselves as an avatar can do so by changing their settings under My profile > Customize profile > Show my avatar.

Hopefully this build will deliver a smoother experience to those in the Alpha ring. Let us know in the comments below once you’ve had chance to give the build a run!

Despite the bumpy road, Player’s Unknown Battlegrounds has hit the historic milestone of hosting over 4 million players on a single console.

As of today, 4 million Xbox One players are the lucky bunch of gamers who are the beneficiaries of rounds of optimizations, bug fixes, and other content updates.

With that being said, the Xbox team wants to further promote the game by offering currently invested gamers new in-game bonuses.

To show the community our appreciation for your support and feedback, we are rewarding players with 30,000 Battle Points to purchase cosmetic crates in the game. Anyone who has purchased or purchases PUBG on Xbox One and has created a character before January 31 at 12AM PST will receive this bonus, so if you’ve been waiting to jump onto the island, now is the perfect time to become a part of our growing community on conso le. Bonus Battle Points will be delivered and appear directly in players BP accounts (right below their gamertag) after February 1, 2018 at 12AM PT.

As an Xbox One exclusive (timed presumably), gamers should expect to see additional promotions similar to these throughout the year and the marketing teams seem pretty excited about the title.

We will continue to build on the foundation we’ve laid with PUBG on Xbox One with the feedback received from the community and we encourage you to continue in your pursuit of chicken dinners! Be sure to stay tuned to Xbox Wire and Major Nelson for all the latest PUBG news. See you on the battleground!

Even though the gifting season has come and gone, PUBG still ranks as one of the Xbox’s most gifted titles to date. Perhaps, you can convince a generous friend or family member to get you started soon and join this round of game giveaways.

Dragon Ball FighterZ, the much-anticipated fighting game based on the popular manga series, is now available on the Xbox One. Fighting games may have a pretty niche audience these days, but Dragon Ball FighterZ gained a lot of hype since Microsoft showed the first game trailer during its E3 2017 conference.

“With amazing looking character models and an easy to learn but hard to master fighting gameplay, Dragon Ball FighterZ looks to be the definitive fighting game experience for fans of the “Dragon Ball” anime franchise,” a blog post on Xbox Wire reads. The game is powered by the Unreal Engine 4 and it runs at 60 FPS on all Xbox One consoles with higher resolution graphics (not true 4K) on the Xbox One X.

Dragon Ball FighterZ has a 87 score on Metacritic at the time of our writing, making it the best Xbox One release of 2018 so far. The standard edition of the critically-acclaimed game is a $59.99 purchase, and you can get it from the link below.

Download
QR-Code

DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ(Xbox One)

Developer:
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc.

Price:
Free

Last year, Microsoft introduced a new “Story Remix” feature in the Windows 10 Photos app, which helps users create short videos with cool transitions, background music and more. This feature was unveiled during Build 2017, and shipped to all Windows 10 users with the Fall Creators Update.

Yesterday, the latest update for the Photos app introduced a new “Choose a Star” feature in Story Remix. This is something that Microsoft first demoed back at Build 2017, and it lets you put the spotlight on the person of your choice in your automatically generated videos.

“With today’s update, you can take your filmmaking to the next level by selecting yourself or nominating someone to be the star in your automatically generated creation,” Microsoft explained in a blog post. “Photos will then build a video around the person you choose, pulling in relevant photos and videos, zooming in on your star, and choosing an appropriate theme.” You can see how it works in the GIF below:

To try this new Story Remix feature, you’ll have to create an “Automatic video with music” in the Photos app and then select the photos and videos you want to see in your story. You can then automatically customize your video by clicking the “Remix it for me” button, and the option to choose the star of the film should appear just below.

We’re glad to see Microsoft delivering on its vision for Story Remix it showed us last year. The Photos app is already one of the best UWP apps the company created for Windows 10, and it keeps adding new features at a regular pace.