Rob Fahey
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Microsoft joins the publishing top table | Opinion
By adding Activision Blizzard to its existing studios, Microsoft has created a publishing behemoth – and in its financials this week, it was keen to underscore the commitment this represents to gaming
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What did Microsoft want from Starfield? | Opinion
Bethesda's latest is a bona fide hit, topping US sales charts – but for Microsoft's plan to use exclusives to drive Game Pass subscriptions, that success is a double-edged sword
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Unity's crisis is much bigger than John Riccitiello | Opinion
What Unity's customers need isn't a sacrificial scalp, it's a clear plan for how the company they rely on is going to achieve financial stability
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Resident Evil Village on iOS makes cases both for and against cloud streaming | Opinion
Capcom's impressive port shows once again that cloud streaming isn't required for high-end mobile gaming – but it might be the only path to commercial success
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Meta's Quest 3 fires the starting gun on consumer AR devices | Opinion
Apple and Meta are betting big on augmented reality – but expectations of a revolution to rival the introduction of smartphones should be tempered
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Microsoft's hardware strategy looks more and more traditional | Opinion
Xbox Series X|S once presented a radically different vision; a console platform that would evolve and improve, ending the hardware generation cycle for good. What happened?
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The pressure of expectation adds a sour note to Starfield’s launch | Opinion
Bethesda’s latest is exactly what the studio’s fans would expect – but deeply unsuited to carrying the weight of Microsoft’s ambitions
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PS Plus price hike: We'll all pay for a subscription-based future | Opinion
There's a flicker of Sony's old arrogance in the bump to its PS Plus prices, but it's also a reminder that current subscription pricing is a land grab, not a sustainable business model
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Xbox at the crossroads | Opinion
Microsoft’s new ABK deal would set the company on a very specific path – can it also focus on the first-party pipeline Starfield is meant to exemplify?
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Is any progress being made against online anti-social behaviour? | Opinion
Microsoft announced a new strikes system for policing online behaviour – but for the most part, it feels like we're treading water on this increasingly damaging problem
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Capcom's recipe for success is simple: stay the course, ignore the bandwagons | Opinion
Publishers feel immense pressure to pursue new technologies and trends, but Capcom's decade-long rise highlights the importance of focusing on the fundamentals
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Xbox' back catalogue isn't just a stopgap – it's a competitive advantage | Opinion
Maintaining great backwards compatibility shouldn't be seen just as a way to cover for a lack of exclusives; we're in an era where back catalogues are more valuable than ever before
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We’re in the Wild West of generative AI: Beware the outlaws | Opinion
Technology is again out in front of legal and commercial frameworks – but those being taken in by the "this changes everything" hype could learn some lessons from the past
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Redaction errors reveal the economics of exclusivity | Opinion
Badly-redacted documents from the FTC vs Microsoft show why platform exclusivity is such a big deal
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Nintendo Direct introduces the Switch's "sunset slate" | Opinion
A focus on remasters and remakes was a fan-pleasing move – but it's increasingly obvious that Switch software is in a holding pattern as we wait for a hardware refresh
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FF16's demo is a masterclass in pre-launch marketing | Opinion
The choices that allowed the demo from Square Enix' latest to shine lie in the game's fundamental design
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In defence of the cosmetic whales | Opinion
Expensive in-game cosmetic items are a contentious issue that many developers tiptoe around – but this is the most balanced and palatable option for a modern business model
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Do players now value performance over graphical realism? | Opinion
Conventional wisdom is that graphical quality is more important but expectations may have shifted
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Sony’s Project Q offers far more Qs than As | Opinion
Unless PlayStation's new device has very aggressive pricing, it’s tricky to see what problem it’s solving
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Will players tolerate Overwatch 2’s broken promises? | Opinion
By cancelling much of the sequel’s new content, and with other F2P options a click away, Blizzard’s choice is a huge risk
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Nintendo Switch gets its swansong – what about its successor? | Opinion
With Tears of the Kingdom launching with no spec-bumped Switch Pro in tow, it seems increasingly likely that Nintendo has dropped that idea for something more radical
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Is Xbox's future brighter without Activision? | Opinion
Denied a shortcut to industry leadership, Microsoft's ambitions can be channelled into innovation and creativity – starting with the world-class studios it already owns
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The CMA and Microsoft agree on one thing: the cloud gaming market is what matters | Opinion
For all the furore over Call of Duty, Microsoft would never have made a deal this big just to sell more Xbox consoles
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Could AI spell the end of the immersion-breaking NPC? | Opinion
The technologies behind ChatGPT et al could overcome some of the biggest problems with game world immersivity – but it's no plug and play solution
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Could Sony return to the handheld market? | Opinion
The company has always seen PlayStation systems as part of a hardware ecosystem – but the business case for adding a new handheld to the family does not seem promising