After more than a year that they could not come to a new agreement and let games being removed from Chinese market (except Diablo Immortal), Blizzard Entertainment will return to China via Xbox consoles. Back in November 2022, when Activision Blizzard were still independent, could not reach a new business agreement beyond the availability of Diablo Immortal (a whole different agreement) and let January 2023 as the official month of most of Blizzard Entertainment games to be retired. This week's announcement is basically a Microsoft Gaming led gaming success in China gaming market, that includes to explore bringing new NetEase games to Xbox consoles and other platforms. NetEase hasn't been in the bench despite losing a powerful partner like Blizzard (which rumors saying that in part, is was due disturbed communication with unpleasant misunderstandings for then CEO Bobby Kotick), as buying and investing in Westerns gaming studios. For immediate effect, Chinese gamers will expect the recovery of access of previous available titles like World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and other titles in the Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo and StarCraft franchises. Of course, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer considers this agreement a new Xbox victory for bringing more games to more players around the world. #Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹 🎮

ABK Workers Alliance announced that #Activision Quality Assurance Tester in Minnesota, Los Angeles & Texas decided to officially unionize & the union was voluntarily recognized by Microsoft as parent company. During ABK buying saga & at the very beginning, Microsoft has said that will lift the notoriously known anti-union corporate culture of Activision if allowed to buy the gaming conglomerate. Of course, this would have the Communication Workers Of America, ABK Workers Alliance the backup main union organization, to vouch for Microsoft to be allowed to buy Activision Blizzard King. #Gaming #GameNews #YouTubeGaming 🎮 🕹

In a more than upbeat presentation than the "dire" scenarios that many outlets were rumoring, Microsoft Gaming finally came forward about the future of #Xbox and while acknowledging that all the mentioned things in the special Xbox Podcast episode were planned as early in December, it doesn't need to be taken a change of plans at all. Xbox Game Studios will be launching 4 unnamed games for Playstation 5 and Nintendo Switch and it was hinted that 2 of them are more than a year since launched, are community-drive games and no, is not neither Starfield nor Indiana Jones and for now they are not committing on more games. First party Xbox games will be on Game Pass with no End of date, including new launches and actually, new games will be releasing on Day1 and Game Pass is an Xbox service exclusively. Activision Blizzard King Games will be coming to Game Pass starting with Diablo IV on March 28th. Phil Spencer interestingly acknowledged that there is an importance of exclusive games for platforms, that includes Xbox, but he foresee that the strategy will be small part for the industry in between the next 5 to 10 years. Regardless of that, Xbox President Sarah Bond assured that Xbox is not abandoning the hardware business and actually, next-gen Xbox is already in development and we are inbound for some news this Holidays season but, Microsoft Gaming did not acknowledged the future of physical games while addressing Xbox's view on gaming preservation. Tomorrow I will be given my takeaways in a new gaming podcast episode. #Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹🎮

In a new signal that FTC is not giving up on reversing #ActivisionBlizzard acquisition in the future, the regulator wrote to the 9th Circuit of Appeal Court that Microsoft contradicted on its promise that both Microsoft & ABK will operate independently post-merger. All this as a result of the recent layoff at Microsoft Gaming that also included redundant jobs and the eSport department of Activision Blizzard. After failing to win a Preliminary Injunction in Summer 2023, FTC has said that it will continue its inner process that if successful (an uphill road at best as per observers), could force Microsoft to divest ABK, but either way the process could take years. There is a chance that if by 2024 US Elections, there is a change in FTC administration and a republican one takes over, the FTC could abandon the efforts. The FTC under Biden Administration, has grown intolerant on mergers that means big companies just becoming bigger but, the low success rate has been questioned by Congress with tax money being used just to fail and FTC requesting more funding regardless. Meanwhile, Microsoft has denied FTC's accusation on the #ABK independence promise post-merger, indicating that Activision was already on plans for running layoffs before the deal's closure is incorrect to fully attribute to Microsoft Gaming's process. #Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹🎮

Microsoft reported its Q2 2024 performance with $62 billion in revenue & net income of $21.9 billion, both a raise respectively of 18% & 33%. Microsoft Gaming & #Xbox were up 61% of revenue on content, 3% in hardware & 49% in gaming revenue YoY. And yes, this is the first quarter that includes Activision Blizzard. Meanwhile other segments of Microsoft were up except Surface business which went down by 6% YoY. #Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹🎮

Activision Blizzard run an additional layoff aside from Microsoft Gaming's last week, this time impacting 83% of its #Esport business letting go 60 people. The now Microsoft-owned conglomerate feels that 12 people is enough to operate taking in-context that both Call Of Duty and Overwatch League are now operated via outsourced companies. #Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹🎮

Also on #CES2024, Nvidia confirmed that it will bring G-Sync & Reflex support for its Cloud Gaming GeForce Now with the announcement that Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 will be the latest from Activision Blizzard games entering the service. #Gaming #GamingNews

Sources at Windows Central claims that a potential release of Hi-Fi Rush to Nintendo Switch is part of a plan by Microsoft to bring many past games outside #Xbox in the future as a semi-new strategy. Since heading to buy Activision Blizzard King, Microsoft has already being doing deals with competitors about still getting the conglomerate's games, as a proof that housing gaming IP is not the real purpose of the purchase. While there aren't many details besides the noise about Hi-Fi Rush port of Nintendo Switch (and maybe Playstation 4/5), since last year it was suggested that a revisit of Banjo Kazooie by Rare is already on schedule. #Gaming #GamingNews

Unfortunately for Sony this week, Rhysida hacker group went on their deadline after only 2% of the stolen data on their hack to #Playstation Studios' Insomniac Games was actually sold and the remaining 98% was released on the Dark Web. The loot is actually more than 1.3 million files totaling 1.67 terabytes and includes much more than anticipated than a swift hacking usually manages to copy. As expected in this kind of big stole, future games, and internal HR documents, budgets, more are in the public yes and as well Insomniac’s future projects, including the upcoming Marvel Wolverine game, a publishing agreement with Marvel that promises future games. Of course, the "promised games" is on the stipulation that Sony and Playstation needs to comply with goals set by both Disney and Marvel and maybe isn't just that Sony has strategically held the movies and videogames rights for Spider-man. Along with Wolverine, seems that Sony is ready to answer EA's take on Marvel Iron Man and now Bethesda/Xbox Game Studios's take on Marvel Blade as Insomniac landed a exclusive X-Men game, pending to be announced. As for more Marvel games, the Venom game is slated for a 2025 release, followed by a 2026 release of Wolverine and early estimate for X-Men is at 2030, which probably might see Iron Man and Blade being in this 7 years interval. Other documents reveals that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was not a total financial success despite being the flagship game for the launch of PS5 with a miss of 10% below Return Of Investment or in plain language, the game was not profitable at least in normal sales channel. A follow-up Ratchet & Clank main game is currently in development with a target release year of 2029. Finally and honestly I wasn't expecting anything centralized on the Playstation business and much-less being housed on one of Playstation Studios's servers but, here is the bad luck for Sony. Apparently, Insomniac Games had probably copies of documents that appears to be for Sony Interactive Entertainment to actually hold and there was a report on Steam sales of Playstation games brought to PC. Numbers includes: -Horizon Zero Dawn - 3.3 million units -God of War 2018 - 2.5 million units - Days Gone - 1.7 million units -Marvel Spider-Man Remastered 1.3 million units -Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves 483k units -Marvel Spider-Man: Miles Morales 450k units -Sackboy A big adventure - 62.9k units Surprisingly, there are documents related to the Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft and as excepted, concentrate on the Call Of Duty side of thing including the fear that Microsoft could find ways to differentiate Xbox and Playstation versions of COD. Game Pass subscription and the public perception that Xbox has indeed "lost the console war" as a way to transform the gaming business in one that could have Playstation left behind because their premium sale model and pro hardware model as subs are more feasible for gamers The insistence that the Playstation model is outdated is because Sony feels that Activision Blizzard gives Microsoft strategic value in live service, mobile and PC Storefront and Microsoft can supply, console, PC and subscription services. Reminder, currently the main tasks that Activision Blizzard is working along side Xbox is the new Mobile game app store, reportedly being made from the best of Battle Net & Microsoft Store with King leading the project, which Microsoft has said was the main reason to buy ABK. And with this recap.... BE CAREFUL, Wolverine's leaks apparently are in the wild and there is a PROBABILITY of seeing videos of an early version BOOTABLE of the game as well pics and assets for the game. I am not spoiling anything after this post. #Gaming #GamingNews #Gamestr