After a tough year, Microsoft’s video-gaming chief is still looking at acquisitions and charting how to compete and partner in the markets for handheld game devices and mobile stores.  

Deals that add “geographic diversity,” including in Asia, might be worthwhile, Phil Spencer said in an interview Tuesday at Bloomberg’s offices in New York. Buying another mobile company would add to titles Microsoft picked up in its $69 billion (roughly Rs. 5,82,417 crore) acquisition of Activision Blizzard last year, he said.

“We definitely want to be in the market, and when we can find teams and technology and capability that add to what we’re trying to do in gaming at Microsoft, absolutely we will keep our heads up,” Spencer said.  Still, there’s nothing “imminent” and very large deals are probably off the table at present as the company is spending a lot of time absorbing Activision Blizzard employees, he said.  

Microsoft wants to diversify the teams working on games by looking more to China, he said. The company developed a new mobile version of Age of Empires, a world-building franchise that first appeared in the 1990s, by partnering with Tencent Holdings Microsoft and Tencent released the game globally in October.

“It’s been a good area for us to learn from creative teams that have real unique capability,” Spencer said. “The real opportunity is to partner with creative teams in China for global.”

The executive, who has repeatedly professed his admiration for handheld game devices, said the “expectation is that we would do something” in that category. Although the company is working on prototypes and considering what it might do, Spencer also asked his group to look at the market and develop its vision based on what it learns. Such a device is a few years out, he said.

In the coming months, designers and engineers will focus on making the Xbox app work better on existing portable devices and partnering with hardware makers to make sure their products sync with Xbox games and experiences, he said. The Xbox app right now is good rather than great on some of these gadgets, he said.

“Longer term, I love us building devices,” Spencer said. “And I think our team could do some real innovative work, but we want to be informed by learning and what’s happening now.”

The company’s planned online store for mobile games has been delayed as the group does additional research on the market, Spencer said. Xbox President Sarah Bond had announced the store in May, with a planned release date of July. But staffers are still talking to mobile developers, including those responsible for Microsoft-owned Candy Crush and Call of Duty Mobile, to figure out a plan. As regulatory cases involving Apple Inc.’s iOS and Alphabet Inc.’s Android mobile stores work their way through courts in various countries, Microsoft still doesn’t have an effective way to get its own store on mobile phones.

“So a web store would mean somebody doesn’t have to go into the app store to try to install something, but you still have to have a way to find the store,” Spencer said. “If we’re just hoping, like, if we build it, they will come, I’m going to bet that doesn’t work.”

That means Xbox has to make its store unique for players and figure out what will draw content creators. At the same time, it’s preparing for a world where Apple and Google mobile devices are more open to Xbox.

“I think the ball is moving in the right direction,” Spencer said. “I think this idea of open platforms, where users have more choice, creators have more choice, you see the momentum, right?”

After releasing the first batch of Xbox games for Sony Group’s PlayStation and Nintendo’s Switch, Spencer is pleased with the results. Microsoft will do more of that, he said, and won’t rule out any game in Microsoft’s stable.

“I do not see sort of red lines in our portfolio that say ‘thou must not,’ ” he said. It’s too early to make any sort of decision on the next version of Halo, he said. 

Following the Activision acquisition, Xbox cut more than 2,500 jobs and closed three game-design studios. With the company exiting what management calls a difficult year amid a challenging mobile-game market, Spencer feels good about 2025. 

“The Xbox business has never been more healthy,” he said, citing growth in cloud and PC gaming as well as console usage. “The business is performing right now, and I think that means a more healthy future for hardware and the games we build.”

Spencer also said he’s optimistic about the growth of mobile games.

“I feel pretty good about where this industry is going,” he said. “To reach new players, we need to be creative and adaptive of new business models, new devices, new ways of access. We’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 (roughly Rs. 84,408) consoles.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Alphabet’s Chrome browser could go for as much as $20 billion (roughly Rs. 1,68,762 crore) if a judge agrees to a Justice Department proposal to sell the business, in what would be a historic crackdown on one of the world’s biggest tech companies.

The department will ask the judge, who ruled in August that Google illegally monopolised the search market, to require measures related to artificial intelligence and its Android smartphone operating system, according to people familiar with the plans. 

Antitrust officials, along with states that have joined the case, also plan to recommend Wednesday that federal judge Amit Mehta impose data licensing requirements, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing a confidential matter. 

If Mehta accepts the proposals, they have the potential to reshape the online search market and the burgeoning AI industry. The case was filed under the first Trump administration and continued under President Joe Biden. It marks the most aggressive effort to rein in a technology company since Washington unsuccessfully sought to break up Microsoft. two decades ago. 

Owning the world’s most popular web browser is key for Google’s ads business. The company is able to see activity from signed-in users, and use that data to more effectively target promotions, which generate the bulk of its revenue. Google has also been using Chrome to direct users to its flagship AI product, Gemini, which has the potential to evolve from an answer-bot to an assistant that follows users around the web.

Should a sale proceed, Chrome would be worth “at least $15 billion (roughly Rs. 1,26,571 crore) -$20 billion (roughly Rs. 1,68,762 crore), given it has over 3 billion monthly active users,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mandeep Singh. 

The price prospective buyers are willing to pay may depend on their ability to link Chrome to other services, said Bob O’Donnell of TECHnalysis Research. “It’s not directly monetsable,” he said. “It serves as a gateway to other things. It’s not clear how you measure that from a pure revenue-generating perspective.”

Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said the Justice Department “continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case.” She added, “the government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed.”

The Justice Department declined to comment. 

Chrome Access

Antitrust enforcers want the judge to order Google to sell off Chrome because, as the most widely used browser worldwide, it represents a key access point through which many people use its search engine, the people said. 

The government has the option to decide whether a Chrome sale is necessary at a later date if some of the other aspects of the remedy do not create a more competitive market, the people added. The Chrome browser controls about 61 percent of the market in the US, according to StatCounter, a web traffic analytics service. 

Government attorneys met with dozens of companies over the past three months as they prepared the recommendation. States are still considering adding some proposals and some details could change, the people said.

The antitrust officials pulled back from a more severe option that would have forced Google to sell off Android, the people said.

Alphabet’s Google Bracing for Antitrust Rigmarole: Legal Outlook

The benefit of Chrome, which Google doesn’t charge for directly, is partially in the convenience it provides users, by making their experience with Google products more seamless, said Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, on CNBC. “Breaking up these companies is not going to fundamentally address the annoyance you have with them.”

Google said in a blog post that if other companies owned Chrome, they wouldn’t have the incentive to invest as heavily in it or keep it free, and would likely have to change its business model. 

Google Appeal

Mehta’s August ruling that Google broke antitrust laws in both online search and search text ads markets followed a 10-week trial last year. The company has said it plans to appeal. 

The judge has set a two-week hearing in April on what changes Google must make to remedy the illegal behavior and plans to issue a final ruling by August 2025.

The agency and the states have settled on recommending that Google be required to license the results and data from its popular search engine and give websites more options to prevent their content from being used by Google’s artificial intelligence products, said the people.

The antitrust enforcers are set to propose that Google uncouple its Android smartphone operating system from its other products, including search and its Google Play mobile app store, which are now sold as a bundle, the people said. They are also prepared to seek a requirement that Google share more information with advertisers and give them more control over where their ads appear.

Lawyers from the Justice Department and state attorneys general included all of those options in an initial filing in October, as well as a ban on the type of exclusive contracts that were at the center of the case against Google. 

A forced spinoff, if it happens, would also hinge on finding an interested buyer. Those who could afford and might want the property, like Amazon.com Inc., are also facing antitrust scrutiny that may prevent such a mega-deal. 

“My view is this is extremely unlikely,” Singh said in an email. But, he added, he could see a buyer like OpenAI, the maker of artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT. “That would give it both distribution and an ads business to complement its consumer chatbot subscriptions.”

A merger with a US-based AI player may more easily pass government scrutiny than another tech giant, said Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, digital advertising and media analyst at Emarketer. It “could conceivably be approved by the government as a way to prioritize AI innovation and US posturing around AI on the global stage.”

AI Overviews

Google now displays artificial intelligence-based answers at the top of its search pages billed as “AI Overviews.” While websites can opt-out of having their information used by Google to create AI models, they can’t afford to opt out of the overviews because that would risk pushing them down in search results, making it harder to reach their customers.

Website publishers have complained that the feature dampens traffic and advertising dollars since users rarely click through to see the data being used to power those results.

Earlier: Google’s AI Search Gives Sites Dire Choice: Share Data or Die

Regarding data licensing, the antitrust enforcers plan to propose two options: That Google sell the underlying “click and query” data and also separately syndicate its search results, according to the people. 

The company currently sells syndicated search results, but with restrictions, such as preventing their use on mobile. Forcing Google to syndicate its search results would allow rival search engines and AI startups to quickly improve their quality, while the data feed would allow others to build their own search index.

© 2024 Bloomberg LP

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Google is reportedly working on a Pixel-branded laptop with high-end specifications. The tech giant is said to have assigned a team dedicated to this project and the brand could pack reasonably advanced hardware on the upcoming device. The so-called Pixel laptop may run on Android instead of ChromeOS. It is expected to compete against Apple’s MacBook Pro or Microsoft’s Surface laptops. Google announced its last Pixel laptop — the Pixelbook Go — in 2019.

Citing an internal email, Android Headlines reports that Google will soon be returning to the laptop market with a new premium Pixel laptop. Inside the company, the laptop (codenamed “Snowy”) is being considered as a competitor to other high-end laptops, including the MacBook Pro, Dell XPS, Microsoft Surface and the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook. It is speculated to come with high-end specifications.

Google has reportedly assigned a team dedicated to this project. Google’s Pixel laptop is said to have a premium build as the company is looking to target the premium market. It is said to run on Chrome OS.

Additionally, a report by Android Headlines suggests that Google’s rumoured Pixel laptop will run a new version of desktop Android. Unfortunately, the reports do not include a timeline for the launch of the Pixel-branded laptop.

It has been a long time since Google released a Pixel laptop. The brand unveiled the Pixelbook Go in October 2019 at its Made by Google event alongside the Google Pixel Buds, Nest Wi-Fi, and Nest Mini. The first Chromebook with Pixel branding was launched in 2013.

The Pixelbook Go came with a Chrome OS and has Intel Core M3 processors on the base variant, and Intel Core i7 processors on the higher-end variant. It sports a 13.3-inch display and is offered in 8GB or 16GB RAM options. It has 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB storage variants as well.

iQOO 13 is all set to debut in India in the first week of December. As the launch date nears, the Vivo sub-brand has disclosed more details about the Indian variant of iQOO 13. Like its Chinese counterpart, it is confirmed to ship with a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, iQOO’s in-house Q2 chip and an LTPO AMOLED display. The iQOO 13 will offer IP68 and IP69 ratings. It is confirmed to receive software updates for four years.

iQOO 13 Indian Variant Specifications Confirmed 

In a press release, the company confirmed that the iQOO 13 will be equipped with the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, and the handset is claimed to have scored over 3 million points on the AnTuTu benchmarking platform. It also includes the company’s Q2 chip for gaming and a 7000 sq mm vapour chamber cooling system for thermal management.

The iQOO 13 is teased to feature a Q10 LTPO AMOLED display with 2K resolution and 144Hz refresh rate. It has IP68 and IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance. iQOO says it will get four software updates and five years of security updates. 

Like the Chinese variant, the Indian variant of iQOO 13 boasts a triple rear camera unit, comprising a 50-megapixel primary camera with a Sony IMX 921 sensor, a 50-megapixel Sony portrait sensor and a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera. It has a 32-megapixel selfie sensor that is capable of shooting 4K videos at 60fps.

The iQOO 13 features a Monster Halo lighting effect on the camera module. This side light offers dynamic alerts for calls, messages, and charging. It houses a 6,000mAh battery with 120W charging support. This is slightly smaller than the 6,150mAh battery unit available on the Chinese variant.

The Indian variant of the iQOO 13 is confirmed to arrive in Nardo Grey and Legend Edition colourways. The latter features BMW’s iconic Red, Black, and Blue stripes on a matte white rear panel.

The price of iQOO 13 in China starts at CNY 3,999 (roughly Rs. 47,200) for the 12GB RAM + 256GB option and ranges up to CNY 5,199 (roughly Rs. 61,400) for the 16GB + 1TB RAM and storage configuration. We can expect the Indian variant to be priced similarly.

The iQOO 13 will be announced in India on December 3. It will go on sale through iQOO e-store and Amazon.