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Xbox expansion: Microsoft buys Fallout maker Bethesda's parent company for $7.5B - CNET
OnePlus Messages now available on the Google Play Store - 9to5Google
Microsoft kills off Windows 10 update that had been slowing down PCs - Techradar

Xbox expansion: Microsoft buys Fallout maker Bethesda's parent company for $7.5B - CNET

Posted: 21 Sep 2020 06:31 AM PDT

Microsoft's making more investments in its Xbox gaming franchise.

James Martin/CNET

Microsoft's Xbox team significantly expanded its list of game development studios on Monday, announcing the purchase of ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in cash. The entertainment company owns several industry-leading game developers, including Bethesda Softworks, the maker of the post-apocalyptic Fallout games and the fantasy series The Elder Scrolls. It also owns id Software, known for its Doom, Rage and Wolfenstein shooting game franchises.

The move grows the number of in-house Xbox game development studios to 23, up from 15 earlier, giving it control of some of the game industry's most popular franchises. Microsoft also plans to run Bethesda as its own division, with leadership and structure intact.

"As a proven game developer and publisher, Bethesda has seen success across every category of games, and together, we will further our ambition to empower the more than three billion gamers worldwide," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement.

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The two companies pitched the deal as an expansion of an already close partnership that's spanned decades. "The big winners today are our fans," ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman said in a statement. "Our games can only get better."

Microsoft's move comes weeks before the November launch of its next big video game consoles, the $500 Xbox Series X and $300 Xbox Series S, both promising sharper visuals and faster gameplay than their predecessors. The new game consoles will be competing against Sony's $500 PlayStation 5 and $400 discless PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, also coming out in November.

Microsoft's ZeniMax acquisition also comes after its failed bid for a stake in TikTok, the China-based social network that's attracted more than 2 billion downloads worldwide and more than 100 million users in the US. The tech giant spent at least the past month negotiating to own some part of the app in an effort to satisfy national security concerns raised by President Donald Trump, who'd threatened to ban the app from US app stores if it wasn't bought by a US company.

For Microsoft, its biggest ever video game purchase isn't just about bulking up its slate of game studios. By purchasing an established company with string of hits going back decades, Microsoft is beyond its focus on the space war series Halo and Forza racing game series as their marquee titles. It also insulates Microsoft from fallout over having to delay its highly anticipated launch title, Halo Infinite, from this holiday to 2021, leaving it without a key launch title to compete against Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales on the PS5.

"Today is a landmark step," Spencer said in his statement, adding that Bethesda's catalog of hit games will be added to Microsoft's Xbox Games Pass service, which now boasts more than 15 million subscribers.

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OnePlus Messages now available on the Google Play Store - 9to5Google

Posted: 21 Sep 2020 04:14 AM PDT

OnePlus has brought another one of it's "stock" apps to the Google Play Store, this time it's the turn of OnePlus Messages.

The app listing has now popped up, with the SMS and MMS application joining the recent OnePlus Weather app in breaking free of OxygenOS updates. It still won't work on non-OnePlus smartphones, but updates can now be had via the Play Store rather than system OTA updates (via Android Police).

OnePlus Messages has also come to the Play Store touting a few new features including the ability to copy and paste one-time passwords, financial transactions, and even promotions within the chat overview panel. We can see this as a way to help organize your SMS section but we're not sure how well it will work in practice.

It doesn't look like the massive OxygenOS 11 overhaul has come to this Play Store version of OnePlus Messages, as the one-handed reachability is not present. However, it does include those aforementioned features for those with compatible OnePlus hardware.

Introducing, OnePlus Messages for easy categorization of messages. With categories of transactions, promotions, and OTPs manage and track your finances and grasp details at a glance.
Simplification at its best and no room for ambiguity, receive visualised messages with brand logos and names of senders. Precise and concise information just a glance away, with Smart SMS.

WHAT'S NEW

Introducing
An easy way to find and copy OTPs
Smart categorization of message threads for clutter free inbox
Messages visualized in neat card format to quickly glance all the important information

Being able to copy and paste one-time passwords is one feature that is long overdue in OnePlus Messages but maybe you've already swapped to Google Messages anyway. If you are insistent on using OnePlus Messages, you can now grab it directly from the Google Play Store if you wish.

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Microsoft kills off Windows 10 update that had been slowing down PCs - Techradar

Posted: 21 Sep 2020 03:15 AM PDT

Goodbye Windows 10 update KB4559309, we hardly knew ye. After less than two months, in which the Windows 10 update managed to annoy many users by seemingly slowing down their devices, Microsoft has now unceremoniously killed off the update.

As Windows Latest reports, the Windows 10 update KB4559309 update was supposed to replace the old Edge web browser with the new and improved Chromium-based Edge web browser. However, many users reported that after installing the update, their PCs began to perform poorly, while Windows 10 also booted slowly.

To make matters worse, KB4559309 is an automatic update, which meant users didn't have a say in whether or not Windows 10 should download and install it.

Righting a wrong

After receiving numerous complaints about the update, Microsoft has now pulled the update, and replaced it with KB4576754, which so far seems to be working as intended. This is once again an automatic update, and will change the old version of Edge to the new, and we think better, version.

As Microsoft states in a support page for the update, "This update replaces previously released updates KB4541301, KB4541302 and KB4559309."

While we're somewhat dismayed to see yet another problematic Windows 10 update, we're at least glad that Microsoft has been quick to fix this issue.

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