Microsoft say Bethesda will bolster Xbox Games Pass lineup

Microsoft may be known as a business software giant, powering most of the world’s PCs and building backroom technology and tools. But Microsoft has also spent more than $10 billion buying development studios behind some of the most popular video games in the world. To Microsoft, it is all about the future of software. Microsoft has made big bets on the video game industry, buying “Minecraft” maker Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014.

Then Microsoft bought five more studios in 2018, including role-playing game maker Obsidian, known for the space adventure “The Outer Worlds” and the well-received “South Park: The Stick of Truth”. In 2019, Microsoft bought Double Fine, maker of adventure game “Psychonauts”. Interactive entertainment will be a key technology in the next 10 years and that gamers who use Microsoft products expect the company to make titles like those made by the studios it has bought.

Microsoft announced its $7.5 billion cash purchase of ZeniMax Media, which owns several industry-leading game developers, including Bethesda Softworks and Id Software. The idea of having content is so Microsoft can reach larger communities. That is why Microsoft will consider buying even more video game companies in the future, and why the company continues to invest in its Xbox Game Pass subscription service.

Content is just the incredible ingredient to Microsoft’s platform that the company continues to invest in.

This doubles the size of Microsoft’s creative organization. Microsoft’s purchases mark the most dramatic ways the company is looking to build up its Xbox brand. The purchases also give Microsoft more games to field in what is increasingly become a hits-driven business. Competitor Sony is known for a range of homegrown series, from the post-apocalyptic thriller “The Last of Us” to the treasure-hunting game “Uncharted” to the action series “God of War”.

Sony’s upcoming game, Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Miles Morales”, will headline the November 2020 launch of the PlayStation 5, priced up to $500. The Xbox team, meanwhile, is best known for its “Halo” and “Gears of War” space war series, and its “Forza” racing games, none of which will headline the launch of its $500 Xbox Series X. Microsoft now does not need another major content/IP acquisition.

While Microsoft may be home to some big hit titles, many gamers have said the company needed to up its game, particularly when compared with Sony. A look at the two companies’ 2018 exclusives roster makes for grim reading, at least for Xbox fans. Gamers will see a noticeable difference with Bethesda. Bethesda’s games will be offered on Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass subscription service the same time they hit store shelves.

The games will also be available through Microsoft’s xCloud video game streaming service, which allows people to play games over the internet similar to the way they stream movies from Netflix.

This is a huge investment in games that people are going to get to play. Bethesda will run semi-independently, in an effort to keep the company building the games that brought it success in the first place. It is about the culture of the teams. It is not about Bethesda becoming Microsoft. It is also why the game companies will continue to be on Microsoft’s radar.

Microsoft will always look for places where there is that commonality of purpose, mission and culture. The Xbox team has worked with ZeniMax companies including Bethesda since the first Xbox was released in 2001. Microsoft will always look to grow inorganically where it makes sense. Bethesda is not the only consumer product acquisition Microsoft has been involved in over the past.

Microsoft also made a bid to buy TikTok, the rapidly growing China-based social media network built on memes and short videos. TikTok, which has been downloaded more than 2 billion times around the world and counts more than 100 million users in the United States, is at the center of a political battle between the Chinese government and President Donald Trump. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, approached the company to attempt to create a company that would be fully owned by Microsoft.

Over the course of the few weeks, Microsoft was part of a shifting public acquisition process, dictated at times by Trump, who threatened to ban TikTok from United States app stores over undefined national security concerns.

Trump said he would not ban the app if it is purchased by a United States company, and for a while it seemed Microsoft would be the one. On Sunday, though, Trump announced that he has approved a deal in which it appeared business software maker Oracle and retailer Walmart would take stakes in a new company, called TikTok Global, though some uncertainty remains. If Microsoft had won the acquisition, it would have been part of the company’s efforts to expand its software.

Microsoft finally confirmed the existence of the Xbox Series S on Tuesday September 6th 2020. One day later on Wednesday September 7th 2020, Microsoft has announced the hardware specifications of its smaller, cheaper next-generation console. At $299, the Xbox Series S appears to be a great value proposition for people who do not care about physical games or 4K resolution.

The Xbox Series S is built to play all the same next-gen games as its more powerful sibling, the Series X, except at a lower target resolution of 1440p rather than 4K. Both consoles can play games at frame rates of up to 120 frames per second. And the Xbox Series S will still deliver the same visual fidelity as the Series X. The Xbox Series S is capable of hardware-accelerated real-time ray tracing, variable-rate shading, and mesh shaders.

The Xbox Series S will also upscale the native-resolution output to 4K.

By designing two consoles in parallel from the very beginning, Microsoft can deliver the same core gaming experience. While also making it as easy as possible for developers to scale their games across both consoles with minimal effort. This means that the Xbox Series S delivers the same incredible next-generation experience and features as the Series X, just at a reduced rendering resolution.

The Xbox Series S delivers 4 teraflops of graphics performance, which means that on paper, it is 33% less powerful than the One X and 67% less powerful than the Series X. But the Xbox Series S manages to deliver the same performance as the Series X because of the way Microsoft built it. In addition to the aforementioned graphics rendering features, it offers “identical I/O performance” to the Series X, courtesy of its solid-state drive and Xbox Velocity Architecture.

That means that the Xbox Series S owners will also see the same improvements in loading times as on the Series X, among other benefits. In terms of the specifications, the Xbox Series S contains the same eight-core Zen 2 CPU architecture as the Series X. Except down-clocked slightly to run at a constant frequency of 3.6 GHz instead of 3.8 GHz. With simultaneous multithreading enabled, the Xbox Series S CPU will run at 3.4 GHz instead of the Series X’s 3.6 GHz.

The Xbox Series S GPU contains far fewer compute units, 20 instead of 52, and runs at a slower frequency of 1.565 GHz compared to the Series X’s 1.825 GHz.

The lower raw numbers will not hold back the Series S too much because of the virtual memory multipliers provided by the Xbox Velocity Architecture. The Xbox Series S system memory is scaled in line with the target resolution of 1440p. The Xbox Series S boasts 10 GB of GDDR6 RAM instead of the Series X’s 16 GB, with less memory bandwidth. Another major difference is the internal storage.

While both consoles deliver the same storage bandwidth, the read speed is 2.4 Gbps for uncompressed data and 4.8 Gbps for compressed data. The SSD in the Xbox Series S is half the size of the one in the Series X, 512 GB instead of 1 TB. That could be a sticking point for the all-digital Xbox Series S, with storage requirements for many modern games creeping up near the 100 GB mark, if not topping it.

A key Series X feature that the Xbox Series S lacks is an optical drive. These days, the majority of games are sold digitally. Owners of either next-gen Xbox will be able to bump up the consoles’ internal storage by buying a 1 TB Storage Expansion Card. But Microsoft has yet to announce the price for the proprietary device manufactured by Seagate. The next-gen consoles will support USB external hard drives, but you will only be able to play backward-compatible Xbox, 360, and One games from external storage.

Next-gen games must be installed to the internal SSD or to a Storage Expansion Card.

Leaving out the 4K Blu-ray drive is a way for Microsoft to keep costs down. And even though it will not be able to play games or Blu-ray movies, the Xbox Series S will support 4K video output for streaming services, just like the Series X will. In fact, Microsoft announced that both consoles will support Dolby Vision HDR at launch for services such as Disney+, Netflix, and Vudu.

The next-gen consoles will also get Dolby Vision support for games sometime in 2021. And both consoles feature an HDMI 2.1 output for cutting-edge video features such as variable refresh rate and auto low-latency mode. Both the Xbox Series S and X will launch November 10th 2020 worldwide. Pre-orders will go live on September 22nd 2020. Pringles is holding a contest for a new Xbox Series X in South Africa.

A sharp Twitter user took a look at the fine print to find it includes both the number of consoles being given away and the estimated value of these consoles. There were some more caveats in there, with the price of a controller and Halo Infinite not really accounted for properly. And with a very specific disclaimer that the price estimate was not final.

This one is more specific and closer to the time that the Xbox price is meant to be final.

There is, again, a disclaimer in there, based on the fact that the prize value could change before the product is released. As many have theorized, the prices on these consoles probably are not even final yet. But with a little quick math, that would make the price of each individual Xbox Series X $815. This is likely not the final price because it does not include taxes and that sort of thing.

Taken in a more general way that does not involve punching numbers into a calculator, this also just sort of prepares us for a higher number than we have been expecting. As a rule, people have been looking at $499 as a low end and $599 as a high end for these things. $599 would be a lot, but Microsoft could more plausibly raise the price of its high-end console because it will also offer the lower-priced Xbox Series S.

It has been a long time coming, but Microsoft is officially back in the smartphone business with the launch of its foldable Surface Duo. Announced October 2019, Microsoft’s new foldable phone takes the form of a two-screened Android device joined together with a hinge that allows it to open up like a book. Microsoft says the two screens are designed for productivity.

With its launch, the Microsoft’s Surface Duo joins a small but growing group of foldable offerings, including Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Motorola’s Razr.

But even though all three are squarely in the foldable category, they still differ in shape and build. The Microsoft Surface Duo has dual screens, for example, while the Fold 2 and Razr both feature a bendable display with a hinged seam. But one of the most conspicuous differences between the three foldables is how they fold. The Motorola Razr rocks a clamshell design that opens vertically, lengthening the device.

The Microsoft Surface Duo and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, meanwhile, broaden when unfurled. In fact, the Microsoft Surface Duo’s two 5.6-inch displays open up to form an expansive 8.1-inch screen that is closer in size to a tablet than a phone. For its part, Microsoft has emphasized that it does not want its latest device to be called a phone, insisting that it is a device in a new category.

Other key differentiators include 5G connectivity and the camera setup. The Microsoft Surface Duo features only a single 11-megapixel shooter on the inside, which can become an external camera if the Duo displays are flipped around. It is increasingly rare for a premium phone, especially in 2020 to come with just one camera. Motorola Razr gets multiple lenses as part of its camera set-up, something that will likely appear in the next-gen Fold.

It is also worth mentioning that the Microsoft Surface Duo does not have support for 5G wireless technology unlike the Fold 2.

Microsoft chose to skip out on the feature to help preserve battery life and allow the device to maintain a slim design. Motorola Razr does not have support for the next generation wireless tech either, but it is reportedly launching a 5G Razr in September 2020. The Microsoft Surface Duo is now available for preorder starting at $1,399 for the 128GB version, and will ship on September 10th 2020.

After months of teasing the device on Twitter, Microsoft is now allowing anyone to preorder the Surface Duo today in the United States. Preorders will be available at Microsoft’s online store, AT&T, and Best Buy. While Microsoft had revealed the design of the Surface Duo back in October 2019, the company has kept the specs relatively secret. The device includes two separate 5.6-inch OLED displays with a 4:3 aspect ratio that connect together to form a 8.1-inch overall workspace with a 3:2 aspect ratio.

Unlike foldables like Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, Microsoft’s Surface Duo is using real Gorilla Glass. Surface Duo’s displays are designed to work in a similar way to multiple monitors on a Windows PC. One big question over the Microsoft Surface Duo has been the camera. Microsoft is using an 11-megapixel f/2.0 camera, which will include auto modes for low light, HDR multi-frame captures, and a super zoom up to 7x.

Both 4K and 1080p video recording will be supported at 30fps and 60fps, with electronic image stabilization.

There is only a single camera on the Microsoft Surface Duo, which can be used both for video calls and as a main camera. The basic Surface Duo hardware also consists of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, 6GB of RAM, and up to 256GB of storage. LTE is available on T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon, but there is no 5G support at all. Microsoft is also shipping a bumper cover in the box, designed to protect the Surface Duo.

Microsoft is also including two batteries in the Surface Duo, split beneath both displays. Overall there is 3577mAh of capacity, which is considerably less than the 4500mAh found on Samsung’s single-screen Note 20 Ultra and even the 4380mAh on the original Galaxy Fold. Despite this, Microsoft is promising all day battery life, which means up to 15.5 hours of local video playback, up to 10 days of standby time, and up to 27 hours of talk time.

The capacity does leave a little cause for concern as the device is powering two screens, not one. The Surface Duo is probably one of the sexiest devices Microsoft has ever built, it does things that single-screen devices can not do. Microsoft’s vision for the Surface Duo is to improve productivity on the go, and it has also been doing some interesting work on the software side to compliment the hardware.

Any Android app will run on the Surface Duo without modification, thanks to the choice of two separate displays.

If any app has to run, it was obviously important to support everything Android from day one. Developers can also optimize the layouts of their apps to really take advantage of the two displays and span across them. Microsoft has tweaked its own apps like the Office suite and OneDrive to span the displays. And third parties like Amazon have also done work on the Kindle app to make it feel like you are reading a book by flicking pages across the two screens.

Microsoft is also using algorithms to predict how to open apps on different displays. There is an algorithm in there that is very smart and trying to be predictive. If you are on one screen and you are invoking a link, it will fill the other screen. The end result is that if you click a link in an email app on one screen, it will open on the other so you can continue to read the email side by side with a webpage.

Apps like Microsoft Teams and PowerPoint are also optimized so you can see a video call and the rest of your Teams chat, or look at a full slide and the rest of the deck simultaneously. Microsoft has been working closely with Google on Android for the Surface Duo. The work was a bit of a head scratcher. Its initial days were interesting at first, and the partnership has been crazy fun.

At first there is a little bit of getting to know each other, but then very quickly they saw what is right for their customers and what can be possible.

The work is great for Google, Android, and Microsoft. Microsoft had to go with Android for the pure reason of mobile apps, especially after Windows Phone failed in the market. Microsoft has to light up on every platform. Microsoft has created APIs for dual-screen apps to work in the Android codebase, and the company plans to upstream them for other manufacturers and third parties to use.

The APIs are part of a broader push to make dual-screen and foldable devices a reality. Two screens are coming, and they are needed. It will be interesting to see how developers adapt their Android apps, and it is key to the overall success of dual-screen or foldable devices in general. Price will be a sticking point for the Surface Duo, just as it was for the Galaxy Fold and other devices that will try to usher in a foldable or dual-screen future.

A lack of 5G and NFC, questions over battery life, and the camera quality will all need to be addressed.