Microsoft just posted the fourth and final quarter of its 2025 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $76.4 billion in revenue and a net income of $27.2 billion during Q4. Revenue is up 18 percent, and net income has increased by 24 percent.

Like clockwork, cloud services are the strong point of Microsoft’s revenue this quarter. Azure revenue grew 39 percent year-over-year, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says “Azure surpassed $75 billion in revenue” for the entire financial year, up 34 percent.

The impressive cloud earnings come just weeks after the software maker laid off as many as 9,000 employees earlier this month. Microsoft says it employed 228,000 people on a full-time basis as of June 30th, the same amount as 2024 before the most recent layoffs.

Windows and Surface revenue

The PC market is still feeling the effects of the Trump tariffs and consumer spending, while businesses look to refresh PCs ahead of Windows 10’s end of support in October. As a result, Windows OEM and devices revenue is up 3 percent year over year, driven by growth in Windows OEM revenue.

Gartner said earlier this month that PC shipments were up more than 4 percent in the recent quarter, thanks to a Windows 11 refresh cycle for desktop PCs. Microsoft primarily makes money from Windows through OEM revenue, the price that manufacturers pay to license Windows for laptops and PCs.

While this time last year Microsoft’s Surface revenue had been in decline for two years, Microsoft started combining Windows and devices revenue together during this past financial year, so it’s still not clear how Surface is performing. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood did reveal on the company’s earnings call today that devices revenue is expected to decline next quarter, alongside a Windows OEM revenue decline in the “mid to high single digits.”

Microsoft did launch two new Surface devices in the recent quarter, though: the 12-inch Surface Pro and 13-inch Surface Laptop. Both devices launched midway through the quarter, so the full impact of sales on Windows OEM and devices revenue won’t be felt until next quarter.

Xbox and gaming

Xbox content and services revenue, which includes Xbox Game Pass, is up by 13 percent this quarter. Microsoft still isn’t revealing any new Game Pass subscriber numbers, though, and the last time we got an update was in February 2024, when Microsoft revealed there were 34 million subscribers, including Xbox Game Pass Core (previously Xbox Live Gold) members.

Microsoft has been aggressively pushing ahead with its strategy to bring more previously Xbox-exclusive games to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch over the past year. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is arriving on PS5 next month, alongside the original Gears of War as a remastered version. Microsoft also launched Forza Horizon 5 on PS5 earlier this year, as well as Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, Age of Mythology: Retold, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

While the move to bring more Xbox games to PlayStation might have angered some fans, it has proven to be a successful choice. Preorders for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Forza Horizon 5 topped Sony’s own PlayStation Store earlier this year, and Circana revealed this week that Microsoft had six of the 10 top-selling games on PlayStation in the recent quarter.

“We are now the top publisher on both Xbox and PlayStation this quarter,” said Nadella on an earnings call today. Nadella also revealed “Game Pass annual revenue was nearly $5 billion for the first time,” and confirmed that Microsoft has 500 million monthly active users across gaming platforms and devices.

Xbox hardware is still struggling, though. Xbox hardware revenue is down 22 percent this quarter, despite a busy period for Game Pass. Microsoft increased the prices of its Xbox consoles and controllers worldwide in May, with the Xbox Series X bumped by $100 to $599.99.

Overall gaming revenue at Microsoft is up 10 percent year-over-year, and has increased by $2 billion for the entire fiscal year. Xbox content and services revenue has also increased by 16 percent for the fiscal year, but Xbox hardware revenue has decreased by 25 percent in the fiscal year “driven by lower volume of consoles sold.”

Microsoft’s Xbox everywhere strategy — which I’ve been covering closely in my Notepad newsletter over the past year — will also include titles for the Nintendo Switch 2. It’s possible we might even see one during Nintendo’s Switch 2 partner Direct tomorrow.

Looking ahead, Microsoft is also heading to the Gamescom show next month, where it will let attendees play with its new Xbox Ally handheld devices. A playable demo of the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong will also be available on the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, as well “a couple more surprises at the show from our partners too.”

In Q1 fiscal 2026, Hood expects Xbox content and services revenue to decline in the mid single digits, alongside an overall gaming revenue decline in the mid to high single digits.

Office and cloud

Microsoft 365 commercial cloud revenue grew by 18 percent year-over-year, driven by growth in revenue per user and in part to Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses. The January price increase to Microsoft 365 consumer plans has also contributed to 20 percent of growth in Microsoft 365 Consumer cloud revenue. There are now 89 million Microsoft 365 consumer subscribers, up 8 percent year-over-year.

It’s Microsoft’s cloud growth that’s really the story this quarter once again. Azure and other cloud services grew by 39 percent, a big jump that was driven by growth across all workloads, according to Microsoft. Server products revenue declined 2 percent, a sign that Microsoft’s customers are increasingly moving to its cloud offerings.

Nadella noted on Microsoft’s earnings call that every Azure region is now AI-first, and all regions support liquid cooling.

LinkedIn revenue was also up 9 percent this quarter, with sessions also growing by 7 percent. Microsoft says it has also seen “record engagement” with LinkedIn this quarter. Even Microsoft’s search and news advertising revenue is up 21 percent, after it has overhauled Bing with AI-powered results and features.

Adobe is finally releasing Windows on Arm versions of Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, and Media Encoder this week. All four apps are available as public beta versions, but they do lack some features or have some known issues compared to the versions available for Intel-powered systems.

The native ARM64 version of Premiere Pro won’t currently include support for third-party extensions, raw video files like ProRes, or the hardware-accelerated playback and export of H.264 and HEVC in MP4. Those are some big missing features that Adobe is looking to make available in a future release, but the company won’t deliver the Loudness Radar effect, export to Wraptor DCP, import & export of GoPro CineForm content, or the export to the P2 Movie format in beta or final versions of Premiere Pro for Windows on Arm.

There are some known issues with Adobe After Effects for Windows on Arm, too. It also lacks ProRes support, alongside the inability to import or export ARRIRAW, SWF, GoPro CinePro, JPEG20000 in MXF, and WMV. Currently, you can’t import MotionJPEG and MKV in the beta version of After Effects, and there’s also no hardware-accelerated playback and export of H.264 and HEVC in MP4. Adobe notes that third-party plug-ins for After Effects will have to be updated for this Windows on Arm version, so there’s no support for these just yet.

There are similar features missing from the native Windows on Arm version of Audition and Media Encoder, which are both also available in beta this week.

Adobe first released an Arm beta version of Photoshop for Windows in late 2020, but the company has taken far longer to get Premiere Pro and After Effects recompiled natively for ARM64. Owners of Qualcomm-powered Copilot Plus PCs have had to use the emulated version of Premiere Pro over the past year, which didn’t have enough performance for more demanding video editing tasks.

I like to drive without the distractions of my work life interrupting me, but if you’re eager to stay connected then Mercedes-Benz is ready. You’ll soon be able to join a Microsoft Teams call in some Mercedes‑Benz vehicles and use the in-car camera to chat with colleagues while you’re driving.

Mercedes‑Benz is the first car maker to enable in-car camera use for Microsoft Teams while a car is being driven, but there are some important safety caveats. While you can share a video stream of yourself merrily driving along, you won’t be able to see any shared screens or slides while you’re in motion.

Usually video meeting apps like Teams, Zoom, or WebEx only work while a car is stationary, so this Mercedes‑Benz functionality is clearly designed primarily for that colleague — you know the one — who always has to let everyone know they’re working no matter what.

The meeting video stream will be automatically turned off as soon as the in-car camera is enabled, but other meeting participants will still see your camera feed while you’re driving — so don’t forget it’s on if you get the urge to rummage around your nostrils. The in-car camera support for Microsoft Teams will arrive first on the new CLA, and it’s part of several “productivity enhancements” that Mercedes‑Benz is making this summer.

Microsoft and Mercedes‑Benz are also working together to integrate Microsoft 365 Copilot into “the latest vehicles,” which would be a first of its kind in a car. The experience will be driven by voice prompts, allowing drivers to summarize emails, manage daily tasks, and more.

Mercedes‑Benz gleefully describes this as having “the potential to transform the vehicle into a third workspace, complementing the office and the home office.” I don’t know about you, but I already have enough workplaces, thanks to smartphones and laptops, and I have zero desire to work while I’m driving.

Mercedes‑Benz only mentions the all-new CLA for this new Teams app, but given the latest E-Class models have a selfie camera for apps like TikTok and Zoom, it’s likely we’ll see this functionality show up on other MB.OS-powered vehicles.

Earlier this month, Microsoft’s Family Safety feature, primarily used by parents and schools as a set of parental controls and filters, started randomly blocking Google’s Chrome browser from opening on Windows. The first reports surfaced on June 3rd, with some Chrome users noticing the browser kept closing or wouldn’t open.

Microsoft has introduced a bug into Family Safety that specifically targets the Chrome browser and prevents it from functioning on Windows. “Our team has investigated these reports and determined the cause of this behavior,” says Chrome support manager Ellen T. “For some users, Chrome is unable to run when Microsoft Family Safety is enabled.”

Other browsers like Firefox or Opera appear to be unaffected, and some users have even found that renaming Chrome.exe to Chrome1.exe works around this issue. Schools or parents who have enabled Family Safety as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription can also disable the “filter inappropriate websites” setting in Family Safety to get Chrome up and running again, but this does leave children able to access any website.

It’s unclear when Microsoft will fix the issue, which has been ongoing for more than two weeks. We reached out to Microsoft to comment on this problem earlier this week, but at the time of publication, the company hasn’t responded.

“We’ve not heard anything from Microsoft about a fix being rolled out,” wrote a Chromium engineer in a bug tracking thread on June 10th. “They have provided guidance to users who contact them about how to get Chrome working again, but I wouldn’t think that would have a large effect.”

Microsoft has a habit of doing weird things on Windows to steer people away from using Chrome. While this Family Safety issue is likely an innocent bug, Microsoft has used prompts, fake AI answers, malware-like popups, and even a poll injected on Google’s Chrome download page to try and sway people to switch to its Edge browser. Earlier this year, Microsoft even used Bing to trick people into thinking they were on Google.

Beyond the selfies between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and the friendly conversations between the pair on stage, all is not well with Microsoft's $13 billion AI investment. Over the past year, multiple reports have painted a picture of a Microsoft and OpenAI relationship that is straining under pressure.

As OpenAI battles for access to more compute power and less reliance on Microsoft, tensions have been rising during negotiations over the future of OpenAI's business and its Microsoft partnership. Microsoft backed down on being the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI earlier this year, but OpenAI still needs Microsoft's approval to convert part of its business to a for-profit company. That's led to a potentially explosive outcome.

OpenAI executives have now reportedly considered accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior, which could mean regulators look even more closely at the terms of Microsoft and OpenAI's contract for potential violations of antitrust laws. The Wall Street Journal reports that OpenAI's potential acquisition of AI coding tool Windsurf is at the heart of the latest standoff, as OpenAI wants Windsurf to be exempt from its existin …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft first revealed Gears of War: E-Day during its Xbox Games Showcase last year, and at today’s showcase it’s now putting a 2026 release window on the latest entry in the sci-fi shooter series. Developed by The Coalition, E-Day will release in a year that marks 20 years since the original Gears of War game debuted on the Xbox 360, and 25 years of Xbox.

E-Day is set 14 years before the first Gears game, and “tells the story of the first Locust emergence on Sera.” It’s being billed as an origin story, and once again stars Marcus Fenix. E-Day is the first title in the series since Gears 5 debuted in 2019.

Last month, Microsoft also announced a Gears of War remaster that also brings the franchise to PlayStation for the first time. Gears of War: Reloaded is launching on August 26th for Xbox Series X / S, PlayStation, and PC for $39.99. The remaster features 4K resolution, 120fps support, and cross-progression and cross-play for all platforms. Gears of War: Reloaded will also have two-player co-op for the campaign and 8-player multiplayer.

Xbox chief Phil Spencer confirmed the E-Day release window during the Xbox Games Showcase earlier today, and also revealed “the next Forza” is coming in 2026 too, as well as “the return of a classic that’s been with us since the beginning.” That classic may well be the Halo CE remaster I wrote about last year.

Something strange is going on with Microsoft’s Xbox app on Windows. Over the past few days, the Xbox PC app has started showing Xbox console games inside the library. While you can’t install games like the original Alan Wake for Xbox 360, it shows up if you own it as part of the “My PC Games” list inside the Xbox PC app.

I don’t believe this is a simple bug, but more the result of Microsoft’s plans to more closely combine its Xbox and Windows stores. I wrote about this effort in March, when I revealed in Notepad that Microsoft is working with Asus on a Project Kennan handheld. “It’s part of a larger effort from Microsoft to unify Windows and Xbox towards a universal library of Xbox and PC games,” I wrote at the time.

This effort also involves enabling Steam and Epic Games Store games to be visible in the Xbox PC app library. Microsoft accidentally revealed mockup images showing Steam games in the Xbox PC library earlier this year, and at the time sources familiar with the company’s plans told me Microsoft was working on an Xbox app update that will show every game you have installed on your PC.

Microsoft has also been working on making the Xbox app the home of PC gaming over the past year, and it has recently started referring to its Xbox PC app as simply “Xbox PC.” This new branding first showed up in Microsoft’s announcement of Gears of War: Reloaded, and a new gameplay trailer for MIO: Memories In Orbit also shows off the Xbox PC branding and logo that we’re going to see whenever Microsoft wants to let PC players know the game is available on its Microsoft Store.

Microsoft is also combining ‘the best of Xbox and Windows together’ for handhelds, in changes that we should see later this year. Microsoft is in desperate need of a response to SteamOS, particularly as PC makers like Lenovo are starting to put SteamOS on their own handheld gaming PCs.

All of these Xbox PC changes and the handheld work means we’re probably close to seeing exactly how Microsoft lists additional games in the Xbox PC app. The big question will be whether Xbox console games will actually be playable on PC, and Microsoft may need to leverage its cloud infrastructure for that unless it has an emulation breakthrough ready to finally make the dream of playing old Xbox games on PC a reality.

Microsoft employees have discovered that any emails they send with the terms "Palestine" or "Gaza" are getting temporarily blocked from being sent to recipients inside and outside the company. The No Azure for Apartheid (NOAA) protest group reports that "dozens of Microsoft workers" have been unable to send emails with the words "'Palestine," "Gaza," and "Genocide" in email subject lines or in the body of a message.

"Words like 'Israel' or 'P4lestine' do not trigger such a block," say NOAA organizers. "NOAA believes this is an attempt by Microsoft to silence worker free speech and is a censorship enacted by Microsoft leadership to discriminate against Palestinian workers and their allies."

Microsoft confirmed to The Verge that it has implemented some form of email changes to reduce "politically focused emails" inside the company.

"Emailing large numbers of employees about any topic not related to work is not appropriate. We have an established forum for employees who have opted in to political issues," says Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw in a statement to The Verge. "Over the past couple of days, a number of politically focused emails have been sent to tens of thousands of e …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft has quietly launched an updated Spotlight-like launcher app for Windows that provides quick access to commands, apps, and development tools. The software maker originally launched its PowerToys Run launcher for Windows 10 nearly five years ago, and the updated version — Command Palette — now includes search for apps, folders, and files, calculations, system commands, and much more.

Command Palette is available for any Windows user from the PowerToys app, but it looks like Microsoft is now targeting this particular utility at power users and developers. You use Command Palette to access Windows commands or launch command prompts and shell shortcuts. Command Palette also has the ability to quickly open websites, web searches, and search through folders and files like you’d expect from a Spotlight- or -Alfred-like interface.

Microsoft has also moved its previous Window Walker PowerToy into Command Palette so you can easily switch between open windows. The most interesting part about Command Palette is that Microsoft has made it fully customizable thanks to extensions support so you can add additional commands and features beyond what’s available by default.

The PowerToys Command Palette has been available since early April, and you can activate it using the Win+Alt+Space shortcut once it’s installed. Microsoft says “Command Palette is intended to be the successor of PowerToys Run,” but both are still available for now. Microsoft made some tweaks and changes to Command Palette this week ahead of its Build developer conference on May 19th.

Microsoft is going to allow Xbox owners to pin apps and games directly to the Home UI. The latest change to the homescreen section of the Xbox dashboard will be available to Xbox Insiders this week, alongside options to hide system apps, choose the number of apps and games listed, and modify the size of the tiled UI.

You’ll soon be able to pin up to three of your recently played games or apps to the homescreen. “These pins will stay near the front of the list as you launch other things, giving you quick access to your go-to titles,” explains Eden Marie, principal software engineering lead for Xbox experiences.

If you don’t want to see system apps listed on the homescreen, you’ll be able to disable these to focus solely on games and apps. If you really want to take customization a step further, you’ll also soon be able to reduce the number of visible tiles in the recently played games and apps list. Microsoft says it’s “refining this setting” and it’ll be available to Xbox Insiders soon.

Microsoft is making these Xbox Home interface changes because fans have requested more customizability. “We’ve heard from many of you that Home should feel more like your space,” says Marie. “Whether it’s surfacing your favorite games, hiding what you don’t use, or simply making Home feel less crowded, this update is a direct response to that feedback.”

Microsoft previously tested a big overhaul of the Xbox Home UI in 2022, before shipping it broadly to Xbox owners in 2023. The software maker made more room for backgrounds, quick access to games, the store, and settings as part of the UI overhaul.

If you’re like me and you have a bit of an uncontrollable potty mouth, Microsoft has got you covered with its latest Windows 11 feature. The software maker is changing the way its profanity filter for voice typing works on Windows 11 soon, so you can disable the filter and let all your nasty swear words be free like nature intended.

Microsoft has started testing this change in the Dev and Beta Channel with Windows Insiders, by adding a new toggle inside voice typing’s settings interface that lets you either filter profanity and replace it with asterisks or have it type out your profanity like any other words. I’m personally ****ing excited about this one, because voice typing currently filters out profanity with the incorrect amount of asterisks, which makes me swear even more.

Alongside the profanity filter changes, Microsoft is also allowing Surface Pen owners to configure the button on the stylus to trigger the new Click to Do feature that started rolling out today. Click to Do provide actions for the text or images that are on your screen, so you could click your stylus button and summarize text or quickly remove an object from an image.

These features are all being tested with Windows Insiders, and I’d expect to see them appear for Windows 11 users in the coming months.

We knew Microsoft was about to launch Recall for real this time, and now the software maker is making it available to all Copilot Plus PCs. Recall, a feature that screenshots almost everything you do on a Copilot Plus PC, will be available today alongside an improved AI-powered Windows search interface and a new Click to Do feature that’s very similar to Google’s Circle to Search.

Recall was originally supposed to launch at the same time as Copilot Plus PCs in June last year, but the feature was delayed following concerns raised by security researchers. Microsoft then planned to start publicly testing Recall in October, but pushed it back again to November to have more time to secure it further. Microsoft has now spent the past 10 months overhauling the security of Recall and making it an opt-in experience that you don’t have to enable if you’re concerned about the privacy implications.

“When we introduced Recall, we set out to address a common frustration: picking up where you
left off,“ explains Navjot Virk, corporate vice president of Windows Experiences at Microsoft. Recall is designed to improve how you search your PC, but taking snapshots that are categorized so it’s easy to search for vague memories instead of file names.

I spent a few weeks testing Recall last year and found it was creepy, clever, and compelling. Technologically it’s a great improvement to the Windows search interface, because it can understand images and content in a much more natural way. But it does create a privacy minefield because you’re suddenly storing a lot more information on your PC usage, and you still need to manage blocked apps and websites carefully.

Kevin Beaumont, one of the security researchers that first raised alarm bells over Recall, has been testing the final version recently and found that “Microsoft has made serious efforts to try to secure Recall.” The database is now encrypted, Recall attempts to filter sensitive data by default, and the feature is now an opt-in experience.

Beaumont does note that filtering sensitive apps and websites can be hit-and-miss though, and occasionally even buggy. He also says that you can access Recall through a simple four-digit PIN unlock option with Windows Hello, instead of it forcing more secure facial recognition or a fingerprint. Microsoft’s Recall website claims “you must have at least one biometric sign-in option enabled for Windows Hello, either facial recognition or a fingerprint, to launch and use Recall.”

Alongside Recall, Windows search is also getting some AI improvements on Copilot Plus PCs today. You can now use the File Explorer, Windows search box, or settings with natural language queries. That means instead of searching for file names or specific settings, you can now describe images or documents and get results. If you’re looking for an image of a brown dog you know you have saved somewhere, you can just ask for “brown dog” rather than having to know the file name or date the image was created.

Microsoft is also rolling out Click to Do today, which works a lot like Google’s Circle to Search. You activate it by using the Windows key + left mouse click, and it will provide actions for the text or images that are on your screen. This includes summarizing text or being able to quickly remove an object from an image.

Recall, the improved Windows search, and Click to Do will all be available today across all Copilot Plus PCs, but the text actions in Click to Do are currently limited to Qualcomm-powered devices, with AMD- and Intel-powered Copilot Plus PCs getting this feature “in the next few months.” Recall and Click to Do should be available in a variety of languages and regions, but Microsoft says both features won’t be available in EU countries and Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway until later this year.

Microsoft revealed earlier this year that LG TVs would get access to Xbox Cloud Gaming, and now the Xbox TV app is rolling out to select LG smart TV models starting today. The Xbox app will let LG TV owners stream Xbox games directly to their TVs, and use a wireless controller to play them.

The Xbox app will be available for LG’s 2022 OLED TVs, select 2023 smart TVs, and newer models and smart monitors that are running webOS24 or higher. It will also soon be available for LG’s portable StanbyME screens. The Xbox app is built into the LG gaming portal on the latest 2025 LG TVs, but for older models you’ll have to head into the LG app store and download the Xbox app.

LG’s 2022 OLED TVs and select 2023 smart TVs will also need the latest firmware upgrade to run the Xbox app, and you’ll have to connect a Bluetooth-enabled controller and subscribe to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to stream Xbox games to your TV.

Microsoft first launched its Xbox TV app on Samsung’s range of smart TVs in 2022, before expanding it to older models a year later. The app looks very similar to the web version of Xbox Cloud Gaming, and aims to provide a console-like experience without the need to purchase an Xbox Series S / X device. The Xbox TV app is a big part of Microsoft’s strategy to expand Xbox to multiple devices and make it clear that it thinks every screen is an Xbox now.

The creators of Halo and Destiny are finally ready to show off their next big project: Marathon. It’s a long-awaited title from Bungie and revives the classic Marathon IP in the form of a PvPvE extraction shooter. After a teaser nearly two years ago, the Sony-owned studio just spent an hour showing off Marathon gameplay and game mechanics and revealed the game will launch on September 23rd on PS5, Xbox Series S / X, and PC, with full cross-play and cross-save. There’s even an alpha test for fans to try out the game later this month, ahead of its full debut this year.

Marathon is set in a sci-fi universe in 2850, in the remains of Tau Ceti IV, which Bungie describes as a lost colony whose inhabitants disappeared without a trace. Rival factions have hired Runners to scavenge for what’s left behind, and anyone who signs up to be a Runner has given up their human form for a biosynthetic shell with unique abilities and stats.

As a Runner, you fight in a crew of up to three players across a variety of zones and points of interest. You can face rival runners in maps of up to 18 players, so up to six teams, in a bid to grab as much loot as possible and get out. While Marathon is designed to be played in crews, with contextual pings and shared objectives, you can also play solo instead of having to form a dedicated three-person team.

In Marathon runs, there will be what Bungie calls security forces, PvE enemies that roam the world. There are also creatures on these planets that are a threat when you’re navigating toward points on a map. You’ll have to choose whether it’s worth engaging with these enemies and risk revealing your location to rival teams or use a strategy of avoiding these threats in this PvPvE environment.

The maps are filled with bold and vibrant artwork and weapons, materials, and equipment that can be scavenged. Before a run, you build a loadout and select the Runner that fits your play style. In the alpha test, which starts on April 23rd, there will be four runners to choose from, including the stealthy Void character that can go invisible much like a Hunter from Destiny 2.

There’s also a Glitch runner that has fast-paced abilities and, like its name implies, can glitch out enemies. If you’re more of a run-and-gun type of player, Locus has a shield ability and looks similar to the slide and shotgun play of a Titan from Destiny 2. The final runner in the alpha test is Blackbird, designed for recon and scanning the area around you. While there are four runners in the alpha test, there will be six to choose from when Marathon launches in September.

During its livestream, Bungie published a nearly 20-minute video of highlights from 40 creators it says it recently invited to try the game.

If you die, you’ll drop your gear. But if you survive, your loot moves with you to future runs so you get more powerful gear and level up. Teammates can also revive you if you fail a mission.

Bungie isn’t putting a limit on team compositions, so that means everyone on a three-person team can select the same runner. There will be end-game challenges, ranked play, seasonal storytelling, community events, and more.

Bungie has even produced an original short cinematic that’s set in the Marathon universe. Written and directed by Alberto Mielgo (Love, Death, and Robots), this nearly nine-minute short will have Bungie fans poring over it for days to discover every little detail about the Marathon universe.

While Marathon is very slick-looking, there’s a lot riding on this game. It’s entering a crowded market of shooters and live-service games that have tried and failed to break through in recent years. Concord, also from a PlayStation studio, was the biggest example of a shooter that failed to take off recently, forcing Sony to take the game offline less than a month after launch and eventually shut down the studio behind it.

Spectre Divide, a Valorant-like free-to-play shooter, also shut down just months after its launch, with the developer behind the ambitious shooter shutting down, too. These high-profile failures add to the pressure that Marathon is already under on the back of Bungie’s success with Halo and Destiny and Sony’s ambitious live-service game effort that it has been scaling back recently.

The Marathon alpha test will be an opportunity for Bungie to show the world exactly how its latest game will stand out from the competition, and whether it does enough to tempt people away from hero shooters or Call of Duty and Fortnite into the extraction shooter genre that Escape from Tarkov has popularized.

The big question left for Bungie to answer is how much Marathon will cost. It’s not a free-to-play game, but the studio isn’t ready to talk about exact pricing just yet. Destiny 2 is technically free-to-play with an optional season pass, but a lot of additional content requires payment for access to raids, dungeons, and even some of the story content. It’s been a confusing model for new players over the years, so I’m hoping Bungie lands on a clear pricing structure for Marathon.

Marathon debuts on PS5, Xbox Series S / X, and PC on September 23rd. You can sign up for the Marathon closed alpha test on Bungie’s website or on Discord.

Microsoft has started testing a new update to its Copilot app on Windows that will let you share your screen or apps with the AI assistant. Copilot Vision was originally limited to Microsoft’s Edge browser, but it’s now extending to any app on your PC.

Copilot Vision will be able to do things like coach you through using Adobe Photoshop features, or analyze the photos and webpages you’re looking at. I got to see an early version of Copilot Vision on Windows at Microsoft’s 50th anniversary party last week, where the AI assistant guided me through a game of Minecraft and helped to optimize settings in Microsoft’s Clipchamp video editor.

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I haven’t been able to fully test Copilot Vision on Windows through the Insider beta because Microsoft is limiting the experience to US testers only. Copilot will be able to highlight parts of your screen to guide you through apps, although this initial beta version won’t have the feature enabled just yet. Copilot Vision might sound similar to Microsoft’s Recall feature that automatically takes snapshots if you allow it, but it’s actually more like screen sharing an app or your entire desktop in a Microsoft Teams call.

Microsoft has also started testing file search in Copilot on Windows, allowing you to ask the AI assistant about the contents of a file on your PC. File search supports .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .txt, .pdf, .json files, and you can use Copilot to easily find the documents you were working on recently.

Both of these Copilot features just require the Copilot app on Windows, and not a full Copilot Plus PC. You can also use Copilot Vision on iOS and Android. Microsoft has started testing these new Copilot features with Windows Insiders, ahead of a broader rollout to all Windows 11 users in the coming weeks or months.

Microsoft unveiled its Xbox AI era earlier this year with a new Muse AI model that can generate gameplay. While it looked like Muse was still an early Microsoft Research project, the Xbox maker is now allowing Copilot users to try out Muse through an AI-generated version of Quake II.

The tech demo is part of Microsoft’s Copilot for Gaming push, and features an AI-generated replica of Quake II that is playable in a browser. The Quake II level is very basic and includes blurry enemies and interactions, and Microsoft is limiting the amount of time you can even play this tech demo.

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While Microsoft originally demonstrated its Muse AI model at 10fps and a 300 x 180 resolution, this latest demo runs at a playable frame rate and at a slightly higher resolution of 640 x 360. It’s still a very limited experience though, and more of hint at what might be possible in the future.

Microsoft is still positioning Muse as an AI model that can help game developers prototype games. When Muse was unveiled in February, Microsoft also mentioned it was exploring how this AI model could help improve classic games, just like Quake II, and bring them to modern hardware.

“You could imagine a world where from gameplay data and video that a model could learn old games and really make them portable to any platform where these models could run,” said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in February. “We’ve talked about game preservation as an activity for us, and these models and their ability to learn completely how a game plays without the necessity of the original engine running on the original hardware opens up a ton of opportunity.”

It’s clear that Microsoft is now training Muse on more games than just Bleeding Edge, and it’s likely we’ll see more short interactive AI game experiences in Copilot Labs soon. Microsoft is also working on turning Copilot into a coach for games, allowing the AI assistant to see what you’re playing and help with tips and guides. Part of that experience will be available to Windows Insiders through Copilot Vision soon.

I’ve always been fascinated by Microsoft, and it’s led me on a somewhat surreal path to covering the company for most of my life. It all started in my teenage years, when my curiosity over the inner workings of Windows led to brief moments of fame and lots of moments of trouble with Microsoft’s lawyers.

As a nerdy teenager in the early ’00s I would spend hours building PCs to run prerelease versions of Windows, and I would regularly lug my custom machines and CRT monitors to house parties. I would DJ the latest MP3s I had downloaded from Napster and try to impress my friends with a secret new Windows feature they had never seen before.

While Windows rarely impressed my friends, my passion for unreleased Microsoft software really kicked up a gear with Windows XP. Codenamed Whistler, it was a big departure, visually, from Windows 2000 and Windows ME, and there was a lot to play around with during early beta builds.

Microsoft issued public builds of Windows XP in late 2000, but the really interesting parts were hidden away in the daily builds that Microsoft’s Windows engineers were working on. I wanted to get access to as many of these as possible, so I started to downlo …

Read the full story at The Verge.

In 2005, Microsoft’s leaders were starting to get worried. Windows and Office were doing well, but the company’s lead software architect, Ray Ozzie, warned them that an emerging trend threatened Microsoft’s very existence.

“A new business model has emerged in the form of advertising-supported services and software,” warned Ozzie in his famous memo. “This model has the potential to fundamentally impact how we and other developers build, deliver, and monetize innovations.”

Ozzie wanted Microsoft to get ready for the web-based world and cloud computing, fearing the company would otherwise be left behind. In the years after Ozzie’s memo, Google started to build an online competitor to Office with its Google Docs web service that it was selling to businesses and offering free to consumers. But the idea of moving Office to the cloud remained controversial internally. Doing so would upend Microsoft’s traditional method of selling software — and potentially eat into short-term profits in a big way.

“It was a gutsy call, it wasn’t a popular call at Microsoft at that time,” says Rajesh Jha, executive vice president of Microsoft’s experiences and devices group. Steve Ballm …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Fifty years ago today, Micro-Soft was founded by friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen. As the name implies, Microsoft was originally focused on microprocessors and software, and Gates and Allen created the company to develop software for the Altair 8800, an early personal computer.

Founded on April 4th, 1975, Microsoft went on to strike a deal with IBM to provide software for its first PC in 1980. This became the foundation of MS-DOS, which dominated IBM-compatible PCs during the ’80s. Microsoft’s early success in developing software for PCs eventually led to the first version of Windows in 1985 and a dream of a PC on every desk and in every home.

That early Windows GUI on top of MS-DOS quickly progressed into an even more capable operating system with the launch of Windows 95. The highly-anticipated version of Windows launched at midnight, with fans lining up at stores to get boxed copies of Windows 95 to install on their PCs. Windows 95 introduced many parts of Windows that we still use today, including the familiar desktop, File Explorer, My Documents area, and Recycle Bin.

While Microsoft was improving Windows with every release, it was also developing a variety of productivity apps throughout the 1980s that would soon become the company’s Office suite. Launched originally in 1989 for the Mac, Office quickly became an important productivity suite on Windows that even runs inside a web browser these days. Office and Windows are now used by billions of people every day, making Microsoft one of the most valuable tech companies in the world.

Microsoft’s success with Windows and Office has allowed the company to expand in many directions over the past 50 years, including the launch of the Xbox game console in 2001, the Azure cloud push in 2008, and even the Bing search engine launch in 2009.

Microsoft has also experimented with a variety of hardware over the years, but its most successful device lineup has come in the form of Surface, which originally launched in 2012 alongside Windows 8. Surface has served as a vehicle to demonstrate the best of Windows and Office, and it’s quickly becoming a test bed for Microsoft’s AI ambitions on the PC.

Microsoft’s next 50 years look increasingly focused on an AI transformation it’s in the middle of building toward. It has the potential to overhaul Windows, Office, Azure, and practically every business that Microsoft has built over the decades.

Microsoft is celebrating its 50-year anniversary today during a special event at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The software maker will unveil new Copilot features, and we’re expecting to see familiar faces from the past and present of Microsoft to reflect on the company’s 50 years and the future of this tech giant.

Microsoft was originally founded on April 4th, 1975, and the tech giant is now celebrating its 50-year anniversary. Microsoft started with a focus on personal computers, building the very software that helped it achieve an early goal of a PC on every desk and in every home.

The success of Windows and Office has allowed Microsoft to launch devices like the Xbox and Surface line and transform its business into software and services in the cloud. Now, Microsoft looks ahead to its next 50 years in a period of AI that could transform everything it does.

Follow along for our coverage of Microsoft’s 50 years, the company’s celebrations, and what’s next for one of the world’s most valuable tech companies.

• How Microsoft made it through 50 years
• Microsoft is now 50 years old
• Microsoft’s three CEOs get roasted by Copilot.
• Here are Microsoft’s 50th anniversary Xbox themes and wallpapers.
• The 50 best things Microsoft has ever made
• Microsoft is holding a 50th anniversary and Copilot event in April