Call of Duty and other Activision Blizzard games won’t appear on Xbox Game Pass until next year. On the Official Xbox Podcast, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer claimed that players wouldn’t be seeing a big drop of those titles immediately, due to the lengthy regulatory challenges the company faced in its buyout attempt. Since it was uncertain whether the acquisition would be approved by Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) until recently, Xbox wasn’t able to do the groundwork for adding the catalogue to their gaming subscription service. Ahead of the deal’s closure, Activision Blizzard confirmed on Twitter that the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and newly-launched Diablo IV won’t be coming to Game Pass soon, but Spencer’s statement covers older titles as well.

This is in stark contrast from Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media, where just two days after the buyout, 20 Bethesda back catalogue games, including franchises like Fallout, DOOM, Dishonored, and more were flooded onto Game Pass — free to play for members. “So now that the deal is closed, we’re starting that work. But there is work,” Spencer said on the podcast, attesting that Activision Blizzard’s tweet is ‘accurate’ in terms of the 2024 timeline. He further assured that there’s no ‘secret celebration drop’ coming in the next few weeks, while acknowledging that fans have the right to be disappointed about it. It’s a long-term acquisition though, granting Xbox a lot of time to experiment with the average gamer’s ever-growing needs, and to that effect, Phil states that he’s excited about the future.

The elephant in the room, of course, is Call of Duty. Spencer reiterated on the same podcast that the franchise will maintain ‘100 percent parity’ across all platforms, including PlayStation for a 10-year duration. The acquisition shouldn’t cause other players to miss out on exclusive content or timing, which is something the Blue team took advantage of by granting early access to multiplayer beta and an exclusive operator called Lockpick this time. The bundle will be available only to those who pre-order Modern Warfare 3 on PS4 and PS5 for a year, until November 9, 2024. That said, Spencer said that there could be some performance and resolution changes depending on the platform. Baldur’s Gate 3’s Xbox port is an example, where the developers are unable to include split-screen coop on the lower-end Xbox Series S due to technical limitations. However, the in-game content is expected to remain the same (at the time of writing).

“We have no goal of somehow trying to use Call of Duty to get you to buy an Xbox console,” he said, adding that he doesn’t think making platform exclusive beta weekends helps players. The regulatory process for Activision Blizzard acquisition took more than a year, thanks to the US FTC stepping in to express concerns that Microsoft’s $69 billion (about Rs. 5,74,528 crore) deal was anti-competitive and that it had plans to make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox. During those court proceedings, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan also claimed that a bunch of video game publishers he’d been speaking to unanimously agreed that Xbox Game Pass was ‘value destructive.’

Nothing Phone 3 may arrive soon as a successor to the Nothing Phone 2, which was launched in India in July. The phone was also teased in the Nothing Ear Open launch video in September. The purported Phone 3 series handsets have previously been spotted on the IMEI database, suggesting an imminent India launch. One of the anticipated smartphones has now appeared on a popular benchmarking website. The listing suggests its probable chipset, RAM, and operating system details. The phone is believed to be the Phone 3. 

Nothing Phone 3 Geekbench Listing

A Nothing handset with model number A059 was spotted on Geekbench. This is speculated to be the Nothing Phone 3. The handset scores 1,149 and 2,813 points on the single-core and multi-core tests, respectively. It is seen with an unnamed octa-core chipset speculated to be the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 SoC. The main core clocks at 2.5GHz, while three performance cores and four efficiency cores run at speeds of 2.4GHz and 1.8GHz, respectively.

The listing suggests that the rumoured Nothing Phone 3 will come with an Adreno 810 GPU and support for 8GB of RAM. It could be available in more RAM variants. The phone is expected to ship with Android 15-based NothingOS skin on top.

Nothing Phone 3 Series Features (Expected)

Earlier this year, two new Nothing smartphones with model numbers A059 and A059P were reportedly found on the IMEI database, suggesting an imminent India launch. The A059 model is expected to be the vanilla Nothing Phone 3, while the “P” in the A059P is said to stand for “Plus” in the moniker. The Nothing Phone 2a and Phone 2a Plus have the model numbers A142 and A142P, respectively.

A 91Mobiles report claims that the base Nothing Phone 3 may come with the codename Arcanine and sport a 6.5-inch screen. It has previously been tipped to get a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 or Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset. The existing Nothing Phone 2 runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC. 

The report adds that the Nothing Phone 3 Plus could have the codename Hisuian and will likely have a MediaTek Dimensity 9400 chipset and a 6.7-inch display. It could have the moniker Nothing Phone 3 Pro as well, according to the report.

Nothing Phone 3’s base variant may be priced at $599 (roughly Rs. 50,500), while the Pro variant will likely be listed at $699 (roughly Rs. 58,900), the aforementioned report added. Until more concrete details about the rumoured Nothing Phone 3 series surfaces, readers are advised to take all information with a pinch of salt.

Microsoft on Friday will defend its $69 billion (nearly Rs. 5,65,480 crore) planned acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, in a private antitrust lawsuit in San Francisco federal court brought by video gamers who claim the deal will harm industry competition and should be stopped.

At the hearing, US District Judge Jacqueline Corley will weigh a request that she issue a preliminary injunction barring the proposed acquisition.

The deal would mark the largest-ever in gaming if it is completed. Microsoft has defended the tie-up as benefiting gamers, and its lawyers have asked Corley to deny blocking the acquisition.

“What plaintiffs ask this court to do is unprecedented. They have not cited a single case where a court has enjoined a merger based on alleged harms claimed by a few individual consumers,” Microsoft’s lawyers told Corley in a May 5 court filing.

The deal, first announced in January 2022, separately faces intense regulatory scrutiny by the US, European Union, UK, and other competition law enforcers.

Britain’s antitrust regulator said in April it would block Microsoft’s acquisition after the company failed to assuage competition concerns.

The US Federal Trade Commission’s case against the deal is pending at the agency.

Joseph Alioto, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the gamers have a “very strong complaint” challenging the acquisition.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the plaintiffs’ complaint contained “unsupported and implausible claims about the deal’s effect on competition.”

US antitrust laws allow private consumers to sue over proposed acquisitions in lawsuits that are distinct from any federal regulatory actions.

Corley in March dismissed an earlier version of the plaintiff’s complaint, which she called “insufficient.” She allowed the plaintiffs to refile a more robust complaint.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers on Monday urged Corley to block the deal to allow a trial on the merits of the acquisition to take place.

“The loss of competition cannot be reclaimed,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said in a court filing. “Unwinding the merger after consummation is highly problematic and disfavored, making divestiture post-consummation significantly more difficult.”

The case is Demartini v. Microsoft, US District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:22-cv-08991. 

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Nothing Phone 3 may arrive soon as a successor to the Nothing Phone 2, which was launched in India in July. The phone was also teased in the Nothing Ear Open launch video in September. The purported Phone 3 series handsets have previously been spotted on the IMEI database, suggesting an imminent India launch. One of the anticipated smartphones has now appeared on a popular benchmarking website. The listing suggests its probable chipset, RAM, and operating system details. The phone is believed to be the Phone 3. 

Nothing Phone 3 Geekbench Listing

A Nothing handset with model number A059 was spotted on Geekbench. This is speculated to be the Nothing Phone 3. The handset scores 1,149 and 2,813 points on the single-core and multi-core tests, respectively. It is seen with an unnamed octa-core chipset speculated to be the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 SoC. The main core clocks at 2.5GHz, while three performance cores and four efficiency cores run at speeds of 2.4GHz and 1.8GHz, respectively.

The listing suggests that the rumoured Nothing Phone 3 will come with an Adreno 810 GPU and support for 8GB of RAM. It could be available in more RAM variants. The phone is expected to ship with Android 15-based NothingOS skin on top.

Nothing Phone 3 Series Features (Expected)

Earlier this year, two new Nothing smartphones with model numbers A059 and A059P were reportedly found on the IMEI database, suggesting an imminent India launch. The A059 model is expected to be the vanilla Nothing Phone 3, while the “P” in the A059P is said to stand for “Plus” in the moniker. The Nothing Phone 2a and Phone 2a Plus have the model numbers A142 and A142P, respectively.

A 91Mobiles report claims that the base Nothing Phone 3 may come with the codename Arcanine and sport a 6.5-inch screen. It has previously been tipped to get a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 or Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset. The existing Nothing Phone 2 runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC. 

The report adds that the Nothing Phone 3 Plus could have the codename Hisuian and will likely have a MediaTek Dimensity 9400 chipset and a 6.7-inch display. It could have the moniker Nothing Phone 3 Pro as well, according to the report.

Nothing Phone 3’s base variant may be priced at $599 (roughly Rs. 50,500), while the Pro variant will likely be listed at $699 (roughly Rs. 58,900), the aforementioned report added. Until more concrete details about the rumoured Nothing Phone 3 series surfaces, readers are advised to take all information with a pinch of salt.

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