Microsoft may have plans to build out its own Xbox storefront on mobile platforms, according to its recent filings.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is currently under investigation by the UK’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA). First spotted by The Verge, in Microsoft’s filings, the company says that it wants to expand its gaming offerings on mobile, and that includes building a mobile storefront.
“The transaction will improve Microsoft’s ability to create a next-generation game store which operates across a range of devices, including mobile as a result of the addition of Activision Blizzard’s content. Building on Activision Blizzard’s existing communities of gamers, Xbox will seek to scale the Xbox Store to mobile, attracting gamers to a new Xbox Mobile Platform,” Microsoft says in its filings. “Shifting consumers away from the Google Play Store and App Store on mobile devices will, however, require a major shift in consumer behavior. Microsoft hopes that by offering well-known and popular content, gamers will be more inclined to try something new.”
Microsoft acknowledges that its merger with Activision Blizzard would also give the company a valuable presence in the mobile game market, as titles such as Call of Duty: Mobile and Candy Crush are very popular. Microsoft says that Activision Blizzard’s mobile games and ancillary revenue accounted for more than half of the company’s revenues in the first half of 2022.
“Microsoft currently has no meaningful presence in mobile gaming and the Transaction will bring much-needed expertise in mobile game development, marketing, and advertising,” says Microsoft in the same filings. “Activision Blizzard will be able to contribute its learnings from developing and publishing mobile games to Xbox gaming studios.”
While U.K. regulators are still putting the Microsoft and Activision Blizzard merger under intense scrutiny, it has already been approved in Brazil. Time will tell whether other territories will either reject or approve it as well.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.