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Please watch or listen to the normal channels to get this week’s Microsoft news and events from OnPodcast.

Big news of the week – Summer Game Fest 2023 just happened and we’re covering all the highlights this year.

Episode 117 Headlines:

Microsoft expects $425 million privacy fine over LinkedIn ad targeting practices

Microsoft settles with FTC for $20 million over Xbox child data violations

Apple unveils new Game Porting Toolkit that runs Windows games on Mac

Free 7 day Ubisoft+ trial is now available on Xbox with dozens of games

Diablo IV is already Blizzard’s most successful game ever

Microsoft to kill Cortana app for Windows 10 and 11 later this year

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Mortal Kombat 1

We were treated to official gameplay reveal for the upcoming Mortal Kombat reboot. The game looks nothing short of stunning, and true to form it will boast fatalities galore when it releases September 19.

The Witcher 3 Netflix season 3, vol. 1 official reveal trailer

We got another look at the first part of The Witcher season 3, which will be Henry Cavill’s final season starring as Geralt of Rivia before Liam Hemsworth takes over that role.

Alan Wake 2

Along with an exciting gameplay reveal, Remedy Entertainment also gave us a release date for this long-awaited game: October 17, 2023

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 season 4 reveal trailer

The new season drops on June 14th, and here is a peek at what gamer’s will have in store. It might not be exactly what you expect…

Fortnite Wilds chapter 4 season 3 cinematic trailer

Releasing tomorrow June 9, the all-new season brings with it a new jungle biome. And Optimus Prime.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth trailer

Summer Game Fest 2023 closed with a bang with the reveal trailer for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the second part of the remake of the classic RPG. As of right now the game is set to be PlayStation exclusive, but now PS gamers can still keep their fingers crossed.

Summer Game Fest 2023 impressions

It was a pretty exciting show overall, and the prepending highlights were just a sampling of the many, many games shown off. Of course, there were some notable absences. We were hoping to see more of the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty DLC expansion, which in the end only got a passing mention.

Summer Game Fest isn’t quite done yet, however, with the Devolver Digital Showcase and the Day of the Devs Showcase also streaming today.

The critical reception confirmed this, as seen in our Diablo IV review roundup, with the game getting 9 and 10 review scores across the board.

We now know that Diablo IV is the fastest-selling game ever for Blizzard Entertainment, this only a week after the game’s early access launch. It had the most pre-launch units sales in company history both on console and PC. Exact sales numbers don’t seem to available, however.

Diablo IV has collectively been played for an incredible 10,000 years, with players logging over 93 million hours of playtime. General manager of the Diablo franchise said “This is a moment year in the making for the Diablo IV team,” adding,

As I keep saying, I am extremely proud of this team and this game. What an accomplishment! A big thank you to all of our players for their time, dedication and feedback. This is just the beginning for #DiabloIV and we’re very grateful to have you along with us on this journey.”

As I keep saying, I am extremely proud of this team and this game. What an accomplishment!

A big thank you to all of our players for their time, dedication and feedback. This is just the beginning for #DiabloIV and we're very grateful to have you along with us on this journey. https://t.co/sVEFHswCZM

— Rod Fergusson (@RodFergusson) June 6, 2023

Diablo IV is available for various platforms including Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC.

Diablo® IV (Free, Microsoft Store) →

Via India of Today Gaming. 

Featured image via Blizzard News. 

Mac Studio got its first hardware upgrade with the M2 Max and Ultra chips.  The Mac Studio still starts at $1,999 and can be custom configured up to an M2 Ultra with 24-cores and a 60-core GPU flanked with up to 192GB of ram.  The Mac Studio is still aimed at professional workflows.  The Mac Pro is the first Apple Silicon-based system to feature PCI expansion with eight slots available for custom connectivity.  The Mac Pro starts at $5,999 and is available in both tower and rackmount form factors.

Apple has given its entry into the VR space with the Apple Vision VR Pro headset.  A stand-alone battery-powered unit offering experiences in both work and play.  With a battery life of just two hours according to Apple, we’ll have to wait and see how good these experiences are. Waiting all the way until early 2024 when the headset is supposed to be available for $3,499. Sound pricey? Compared to the Microsoft Halo Lens 2, its right on target, but what audience is Apple aiming for?  We’ll have to wait and see.

The yearly updates to the software stack did remain consistent, it’s all about widgets and sharing with others.  Widgets have been enhanced on the iPad allowing you to interact right from the lock screen.  Widgets have also made their way back to WatchOS, making more information available at a glance.  Apple has done something with macOS  Microsoft has yet to complete with Windows 11, fully customizable widgets on the desktop.  You also have access to the widgets on your phone  from your computer which is a nice touch, leveraging the Apple ecosystem.

Other notable mentions coming this year are the ability to share contact cards just by bringing two Apple devices close together.  A new Check-In service was debuted allowing you to share location, cell signal, timing, and other location information with those close to you.  This could be especially useful on trips if someone doesn’t arrive at a destination on time.  Share Play also received some enhancements, such as any passenger being able to add music to the car playlist.

Those are the highlights for WWDC 2023.  What interests you most?  Are you disappointed that you didn’t see something?  Leave it in the comments, and check out or special OnPodcast WWDC 2023 edition to get our thoughts

Welcome back to another OnPodcast show! We’re at episode 116 and we’re talking about all things WWDC 2023.

Thanks, as always, for joining us and see you again next week! Check out https://www.onmsft.com for more Microsoft content.

The Xbox Games Showcase promises to be packed with all kinds of exiting reveals, news, gameplay footage and more for Xbox fans and gamers in general. What should we expect from the event? Read on to find out, starting with the likely highlights of the show.

A new look at Forza Motorsport

The latest sim racer from Turn 10 will almost certainly show up, and likely in a big way as the game is still slated to release this year—likely sometime in the fall. As Forza Motorsport is a proven franchise and one of Xbox Game Studio’s tentpole IPs, we would expect it to take a place of prominence in the showcase. Expect a new deep dive feature with lots of new footage of the game.

More on Fable (finally)

Last week we reported that Xbox strongly suggested on its Twitter account that the new Fable game would be present at the showcase. This reboot was first announced back at the Xbox Games Showcase in 2020 with a reveal trailer. Three years later, we still don’t know much about it, but it seems likely that that will soon change.

Starfield Direct

This will be an entirely separate showcase immediately following the Xbox Games Showcase. Starfield is one of the most anticipated games of recent memory, and Xbox has a lot riding on its success. Starfield will finally release in just a few short months on September 6, so the game has to be in a near-finished state at this point.

The Starfield Direct event will no doubt give us a deep dive into the upcoming open world action-RPG and the team behind it at Bethesda Game Studios. Expect plenty of new gameplay footage and developer interviews. With the game’s release immanent, we would also look for an appearance from BGS director Todd Howard himself.

An all-new game reveal

As it did with Hi-Fi Rush during the Xbox & Bethesda Developer_Direct back in January, Xbox may just end the showcase with the unveiling of a previously unseen game. Could it be Gears 6? There’s been some buzz surrounding this as-yet unannounced title recently. Or perhaps an all-new IP?

Other things to expect during  the Xbox Games Showcase

Here is a list of other things we would expect to see.

• Avowed gameplay trailer
• Halo Infinite season 4 tease
• Hellblade 2 release date announcement
• Bethesda’s Indiana Jones game first look trailer
• An update on The Outer Worlds 2
• Xbox Series X|S Pro reveal? (that one might be a bit of a stretch, but we’re hopeful!)

Tell us your Xbox Games Showcase predictions

So what are some of your predictions for what we’ll see at the Xbox Games Showcase? Let us know down in the comments what you think Xbox is going to show off at this year’s event. And don’t forget to tune in on June 11.

Cortana was at one time “the next big thing,” a personal assistant that could look up stuff, complete tasks, and answer questions similar to Amazon’s Alexa. It debuted in 2014 for Windows and Windows Phone, but by 2019, after attempts to increase engagement by connecting directly with Alexa didn’t help, Microsoft began shifting gears, relegating Cortana as an assistant for Office and Teams.

Now with the advent of Bing Chat, and voice access for Windows 11, Cortana’s functionality has largely been replaced.

Microsoft’s advice for those who still use the Cortana app in Windows 10 or 11 (and there can’t be that many of you), is basically to use something else:

We know that this change may affect some of the ways you work in Windows, so we want to help you transition smoothly to the new options. Instead of clicking the Cortana icon and launching the app to begin using voice, now you can use voice and satisfy your productivity needs through different tools.

Did you ever use Cortana in Windows or Windows Phone? Let us know in the comments below.

(via Windows Central)

Don’t miss our shows on Sundays at 12 PM ET and 9 AM PT on our usual channels.

Please watch or listen to the normal channels to get our weekly Microsoft news and events from OnPodcast.

Dark Mode

Paint will already default to your system settings for Light or Dark Mode or theme settings, but you can now change this option just for Paint with a new settings page.

Zoom Controls

We are also rolling out improvements to the zoom controls as well to give you more flexibility and control over the view of your content on the canvas. The classic presets are still available, but you can now also zoom in and out with finer granularity increments on the zoom slider or set a custom zoom value for even greater precision. We are also introducing a new fit to screen option to quickly optimize zoom to match your window size.

Image Properties

Image Properties now more closely aligns with the Windows 11 design style, and now has “many accessibility and usability improvements to dialogs throughout the app,” and improved keyboard shortcut support.

Are you a Paint user? Check out the new Paint app update and tell us what you think.

Featured Image via Windows Insider Program

Jason Schreier, writing for Bloomberg, recently penned a sweeping assessment of Redfall’s development cycle—and more specifically, what went wrong with the ambitious open-world multiplayer shooter. A month out from the game’s launch, it is currently one of the worst-reviewed games of 2023 thus far.

In his article Schreier notes that around the time Redfall began development, the idea of “games as a service” was beginning to take off thanks to titles like Fortnite and Overwatch. Zenimax, which at the time was looking for a buyer, encouraged its studios go in the same direction (of multiplayer-focused games with microtransactions), Schreier says.

So it went with Redfall, at least initially. But according to the Bloomberg piece,

Staff members said that, over time, they grew frustrated with management’s frequently shifting references to other games, such as Far Cry and Borderlands, that left each department with varying ideas of what exactly they were making.”

The report also states that Arkane Austin was constantly understaffed throughout Redfall’s development. All this inevitably led to a crisis of morale which led to a great deal of turnover at the studio. Which in turn exacerbated the understaffing issue.

Add to that the fact that developer Arkane Studios had relatively little experience with multiplayer games. Rather, it was known for single player oriented games like Dishonored and Deathloop. As Schreier reports, once the Zenimax acquisition completed in early 2021, the team behind Redfall were hoping that might be cancelled or at least reworked into the kind of single player experience that was Arkane’s bread and butter.

Alas, neither of those things happened. What did happen was an incohesive, unfinished game at launch—and one that has put a dent in Arkane’s considerable reputation. One has to question Microsoft’s role in all this. As MIcrosoft Gaming XEO Phil Spencer admitted following the Redfall launch, “We (Xbox) didn’t do a good job early in engaging Arkane Austin.”

After taking much criticism for doing the very opposite with some of its earlier acquisitions, Microsoft has adopted a famously “hands off” approach when it comes to its internal game development studios. In the case of Redfall, that approach can partially be blamed for the end product. Perhaps going forward Xbox Game Studios can find a happy middle ground with its studios that involves oversight without undue interference.