The Fall of Microsoft’s Game Business

MAY 16, 2016 • The recent news that Microsoft Corp. was shutting down its highly ambitious Project Spark game/service received only muted attention but it is a sign of how the company is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the game space. Project Spark was a virtual world building game along the lines of Minecraft. It was hampered by a clumsy freemium business model and never could gain much trac.....

Microsoft Looks At Modular PCs

FEB. 16, 2016 • Last July, Microsoft Corp. filed for a U.S. patent on a modular PC design in which GPU, CPU and accessory components would be housed in separate easy to stack components without requiring any tools. Microsoft’s application was published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office on February 11. The reason behind Microsoft’s interest in modular design is that the company sees that most consumers upgrade their PCs by buying a whole new .....

China Xbox One Systems Region Unlocked

APRIL 8, 2015 • This week a firmware update went out to China Xbox One systems, after which consumers there reported their consoles were no longer region locked and screenshots of international versions of Xbox One games running on Chinese systems soon appeared. Microsoft Corp. and its local partner, BesTV, have not officially commented on the update. The disabling of the region lock on imported discs comes less than a month after the .....

Microsoft Xbox One Update Interview with Mike Nichols

MARCH 30, 2015 • With the onset of springtime, DFC Intelligence wanted to get an up-to-date perspective on Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox One. A lot has changed since the console was launched in late 2013 with the Xbox One achieving a strong measure of sales success during the holidays, especially in the United States. There is also greater integration with PCs on the horizon with Windows 10. To help us better assess where the Xbox One system is today, and Microso.....