Spotlight on Xbox Game Pass as Microsoft showcases upcoming games
Visitors walk to the microsoft Xbox stand at the Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2019. Hundreds of thousands will check out the latest video games this week at the biggest event in the gaming industry. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
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Microsoft on Sunday showcased 30 upcoming games and said most of those titles will be available on its monthly subscription service, Xbox Game Pass.
The company said it would launch new games on Game Pass every month through the end of the year, including titles such as PC strategy series "Age of Empires IV" and racing game "Forza Horizon 5."
One of Microsoft's big-ticket games, "Halo Infinite," is now set for a holiday launch this year after being delayed due to the challenge of developers being stuck at home during coronavirus restrictions.
Several of the game launches announced by Microsoft at the E3 conference came from video game publisher Bethesda, behind hits such as Fallout and Doom. Microsoft last year bought ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda, for $7.5 billion.
Microsoft also announced launch dates of two big-budget games, exclusive to Xbox and PC - role playing game "Starfield" and vampire-themed shooting game "Redfall." "Starfield" will launch on Nov. 11, 2022 and "Redfall" next Summer.
Both Microsoft and Sony launched their next-generation gaming devices in November last year and have seen heightened demand for the consoles as gamers stuck at home due to the pandemic snapped up the devices.
Gaming analytics firm Newzoo forecasts that the global games market will generate revenue of $175.8 billion in 2021, with 2.9 billion players, and surpass $200 billion in 2023.
Microsoft has also been developing its cloud gaming service to attract casual gamers and its own streaming devices.
Game Pass has hundreds of games playable on Xbox consoles, Android devices and PCs with a $9.99 monthly fee.
"What makes us different from a service like Netflix is that we give players both options, a subscription package and also a full retail store," said Phil Spencer, head of Xbox.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee, European Technology & Telecoms Correspondent, based in Stockholm; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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Toronto's Chief of Police has clarified a statement that he'd hoped for "a different outcome" made just after Umar's Zameer acquittal, telling reporters Tuesday he supports and accepts the jury's finding in the five-week trial.
Protesters chanted 'Blood on your hands' at Tennessee House Republicans on Tuesday after they passed a bill that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds, and bar parents and other teachers from knowing who was armed.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb said Tuesday that joining the NATO alliance a year ago has transformed his country into a 'front-line state,' given that it has doubled the military bloc's border with Russia.
Officials in Baltimore plan to open a deeper channel for commercial ships to enter and leave the city's port starting on Thursday — a significant step toward reopening the major maritime shipping hub that has remained closed to most traffic since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed last month.
What began last week when students at a New York Ivy League school refused to end their protest against Israel's war with Hamas had turned into a much larger movement by Tuesday as students across the U.S. set up encampments, occupied buildings and ignored demands to leave.
The head of Mexico's detective service acknowledged Tuesday that the country is "the champion" of fentanyl production, contradicting President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
Households in Saskatchewan will continue to receive Canada Carbon Rebate payments, despite the province refusing to remit the federal carbon price on natural gas, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday.
The Canadian Medical Association is asking the federal government to reconsider its proposed changes to capital gains taxation, arguing it will affect doctors' retirement savings.
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The defence attorney representing a former Los Angeles-area gang leader accused of killing music legend Tupac Shakur in 1996 in Las Vegas says his client’s accounts of the killing are fiction.
A previously lost 12-string acoustic guitar that belonged to the late John Lennon will go up for sale at an auction in May after it was recently found in the attic of a home in Britain.
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The Vancouver Canucks will be without all-star goalie Thatcher Demko when they face the Nashville Predators in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series.
The U.S. Justice Department announced a US$138.7 million settlement Tuesday with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of grossly mishandling allegations of sexual assault against Larry Nassar in 2015 and 2016, a critical time gap that allowed the sports doctor to continue to prey on victims before his arrest.
Tesla's first-quarter net income plummeted 55 per cent as falling global sales and price cuts sliced into the electric vehicle maker's revenue and profit margins.
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A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
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Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021, according to the man's mother.
As Vancouver plays host to Stanley Cup playoff games for the first time in nearly a decade, there is no sanctioned outdoor location for fans to gather and watch the games.
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United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
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