Holy Smokes! I read this and immediately grabbed some more stock!
It’s tangentially related. Sam Altman co-founded OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT and Dall-E along with people like Elon Musk and Pieter Thiel. Microsoft has heavily invested in the company to the tune of $13bn for a 49% share of the for profit part. The investment was part of Microsoft’s big push to be at the forefront of commercialising AI which has been going into all their products including gaming.
On Friday the board ousted Altman for murky reasons and his fellow co-founder Greg Brockman resigned because of the sacking. A few high profile staff at OpenAI followed them and quit so all weekend there have been meeting between the board, investors and staff while the press has been speculating that OpenAI was about to implode. In one move Microsoft have managed to grab all the talent that was leaving while still keeping their deal with OpenAI. On the gaming front it’s unclear how much of OpenAI’s work is or will be used as Microsoft has quite a large AI division already so the gaming stuff might be coming from internal teams. Really it’s just the biggest news in AI recently and would have had a massive impact on projects within Microsoft but Satya has managed to sort things out fairly impressively
It’s 429 euros now here in The Netherlands in one store. Buddy of mine said he’ll buy one if it gets to 399. Personally I would have waited for the real BF too, but if it doesn’t get lower than 429 I’d just eat those 29 euros, it’s a great deal.
It’s at 415 now.
https://x.com/tomwarren/status/1726511778329407589?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
https://x.com/blader/status/1726521694435852797?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
Crisis adverted. And people wonder why Microsoft is doing better than ever.
Nothing really related, but this moment has shown why Satya is a smart man in business as you can see above post. 4D chess is key. Plus I could imagine people laughed at them and probably wished a downfall after ABK acquisition.
I wonder if Altman is a candidate to replace Nadella when he retires.
I assume Nadella was chosen to be CEO when MS shifted focus to cloud, and now the focus is shifting to AI…
Smart, losing him and other high level OpenAI people to other companies would have been bad for them
Prices on the store are crazy. Refurbished Series X at 379€ on the Xbox store in France. Check it out in your own country.
To make the outer shell of the console, Microsoft uses injection moulding, which involves heating the plastic to a higher temperature and injecting it into a mould to create the shape. The spot where the plastic enters the mould is called the ‘gate,’ and it often leaves blemishes like discolouration or weird spots. They designed it so the Series X’s gate would be where the power button would go, which meant any issues would be removed after the fact when adding the hole for the button. With the Series S initially shipping in white, the team didn’t need to take the same precautions to prevent blemishes. The gate ended up being on the top of the console near the middle, invisible in white but very visible in black.
That’s from a pretty interesting piece regarding the challenges of making the new black Series S, and how black plastic in particular is difficult to work with. The article is well worth a read.
Nothing immediately right now and only tangentially related to gaming, but it is being a large portion of Microsoft’s focus with the potential to widen the revenue Microsoft brings in. They have been expanding their product offerings with AI Assistance in nearly everything.
Showtime. It would definitely end up being a full season of Super-Pumped. Their first season was about Uber. Season 2 is about Facebook. Season could be OpenAI.
https://x.com/gematsu/status/1726599385067266298?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
Should I begin to question?
At least Redfall is repairing itself to be at least a 7/10 to many. These actual bad games are dare I say bad forever.
Nintendo acquisition confirmed!
But seriously, nice.
Almost 8 minutes of Vanillaware’s Unicorn Overlord gameplay. Only in Japanese but I can list some of the key stuff shown
- The game is divided into exploration and simulation battle segments
- You can encounter quests and enemy encounters while exploring
- The simulation battle stages start with beginning points marked on the map, and you complete the stage when you capture the enemy stronghold
- Each unit in battle is a small squadron of allies that you can customize/change freely. They level up as you complete stages, as does their affinities
- The battles themselves are automatic, they proceed with the strategy you made for the squadron (you can skip the battle animations)
- There are choices that affect the story (in the video, the guy says he’ll give back the stolen money and asks you to overlook him, you can do that or hand him over to the vigilantes)
- Last but not least: “By the way, you can expect tasty Vanillaware food to make an appearance!” is the last point shown
Yep, along with Gollum and King Kong this year. Kinda makes me wish there was an award for that too, lmao.
Looks like Gollum lol