Pocket Pair announced that #Palworld sold 1 million copies in 8 hours after release & as of the posting of this, Steam reports 370K concurrent players, despite being an early release.

Palworld early release also launched on Xbox Game Pass.

#Gaming #GameNews #youtubegaming 🕹🎮

Understandably, Phil Spencer confirmed that Activision Blizzard will began adding their games #Xbox Game Pass on 2024 as early, in an good attempt to kill wrong expectations.

Also he is on board if ABK decide to revisit loved classic franchises.

#Gaming #GamingNews

Meta have began pre-orders processing for the new Quest 3 VR headset and yesterday, it was announced that there will be a BETA for the VR version #Xbox Game Pass Cloud applicable to ALL Quest headsets starting December.

#Gaming #GamingNews

About the PS Plus annual price increase...

I will speculate that MAYBE Sony had something in store for #Playstation to REALLY justify the increase so suddenly & no previous warning.

The only plausible thing to me is trying to force Microsoft #Xbox Game Pass prices too.

After a while ago announcing it and some games included, Microsoft added 25 Xbox Game Pass PC selected games and available on #GeForceNOW, starting today.

This includes an integration to Microsoft Store to have access to already bought games.

#Gaming #GamingNews

A wild #Playstation Project Q has appeared as Tech enthusiast Zuby_Tech got a test unit & revealed to be Android mini Tablet with DualSense attached.

I doubt that Sony will look for Google Play approval as this would enable people installing Xbox Game Pass.

#Gaming #GamingNews

Microsoft announced that #Xbox Live Gold will be closed on September 14th & replaced with a new Xbox Game Pass tier called Game Pass core for $10/month.

Includes all XLG offerings but except free claimable games, a selected set of 25 games that will switch like the other tiers.

The FTC appeal against Preliminary Injunction lost against Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard got unsealed and this is the agency's rationale to request the 9th Circuit's help:

1) applied the wrong legal standard, relying on government cases seeking permanent injunctions

2) erred on Xbox Game Pass consumer benefits over potential foreclosure in multi-game subs

3) relied too much on Microsoft's cloud gaming agreements

4) missed potential partial foreclosure strategies

5) ignored the FTC’s evidence about Microsoft's incentive to foreclose

In the past hour, FTC requested the very same Judge Corley to still issue an Emergency Injunction to avoid the acquisition deal being close (which is rumored to occur between Friday and Monday).

Day 3 of FTC Preliminary Injunction request against Microsoft buying ABK 1st recap:
-The day opened with a pre-filmed deposition of SCE CEO Jim Ryan (he is currently in Japan)
-Playstation doubles wariness on having Microsoft with PS6 details/dev kits
-An email from Phil Spencer in August 2022 was the moment he knew things will not go well for Playstation if the transaction closes
-Acknowledge that was convinced that it was King and mobile studios the main target of the purchase
-Ryan told Bobby Kotick that wanted the deal blocked
-Jim Ryan contradicted on a meeting with Fidelity Investors in 2022 that he was wary of Xbox Game Pass business model claiming publisher are not sold, but at the same meeting was confident that the buyout wasn't about Call Of Duty
-Playstation 5 lost against Xbox Series X in the first three month of respective availability
-Economist expert as FTC witness, Dr. Robin Lee, agrees with the FTC’s market definition of Xbox Series S / X and PS5 consoles as “high performance” BUT, included Nintendo Switch where FTC wanted NOT to count Nintendo at ANYTHING
-At counter-questioning, Microsoft legal team brought a document were Sony sees Nintendo as competitor, but it seems that FTC prepared Dr. Lee as he was very evasive on not sounding contradicting
-An scenario where COD is not available on Nintendo and other assumptions, Xbox would increase its share on Call Of Duty by 8.5%

So basically, there was a possibility that Google Stadia could have its money being run by Project xCloud now Xbox Game Pass Cloud, but of course, we will never know...

And I don't know how I have to feel about this....