NEW RELEASES: New Xbox Games for July 17th to July 21st 2023

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NEWS: Xbox Launches New Voice Reporting Feature, with The Option to Capture and Report Inappropriate In-Game Voice Chats

Players come to Xbox to build friendships, be competitive, and to experience incredible games – and they expect to be treated fairly, for interactions to be free of hate or harassment. Our investments in safety have helped players feel safer across text, video, and image – and our new voice reporting experience is the latest addition to our robust suite of family and online safety features.   

Starting this week, we are releasing a new platform-wide voice reporting feature to Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead Xbox Insiders, that gives players the option to capture and report inappropriate in-game voice chats. More specifically, this feature equips Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One players with the ability to capture a 60-second video clip of an in-game voice incident that they believe violates our Community Standards and submit it as evidence to our Xbox Safety Team for review. This feature is purpose-built to support the broadest arena of in-game interactions between players and works across thousands of games that offer in-game multiplayer voice chat, including Xbox 360 backward-compatible titles.  

Summary

• Xbox’s latest safety feature allows players to capture and report inappropriate voice activity on any multiplayer game with in-game voice chat on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.
• Players who experience or witness inappropriate verbal behavior can “capture now, report later” minimizing impact to their gameplay.
• Xbox’s player reporting and evidence capabilities now cover all content including text, image, video, and voice, further supporting player safety.
• The voice reporting feature will be available first to Xbox Insiders to gather feedback from the community

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NEWS: Microsoft wins fight against FTC to buy Activision Blizzard

A judge in California has allowed Microsoft to proceed with its purchase of Activision Blizzard, a video game company, after several days of arguments. However, Microsoft still faces a separate legal case by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding antitrust concerns. The judge, Jacqueline Scott Corley, listened to both the FTC and Microsoft and decided not to grant the FTC's request to stop the merger for now.

Judge Corley stated that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision deserves careful examination due to its size. However, Microsoft made commitments to keep the popular game "Call of Duty" available on PlayStation consoles for ten years, as well as to bring the game to Nintendo Switch. Microsoft also agreed to make Activision's content available on various cloud gaming services. The judge found that the FTC did not provide enough evidence to prove that the merger would harm competition, and therefore denied their request to stop it.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard reacted positively to the ruling, while the FTC expressed disappointment and stated that they would plan their next steps. The decision allows Microsoft to proceed with the acquisition before a deadline, but only if certain conditions are met, including negotiations with the UK regulator and appealing their decision to block the deal.

European regulators have already approved the merger, so Microsoft could proceed without the UK's involvement and without an injunction in the US. The FTC has the opportunity to appeal the judge's decision, but they may choose not to pursue the case further.

This ruling is a setback for the FTC and its chair, Lina Khan, who has been actively pursuing legal actions against large technology companies since taking office in 2021.

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