SAN FRANCISCO: James Spratt recalls dashing home from school as a teenager to band together online with friends to do battle in Call Of Duty, the global video game juggernaut that never gets old. The franchise deployed by Activision Blizzard 20 years ago helped define the military shooter game genre, winning millions of fans and raking more than US$ 30bil( RM140. 08bil). And Spratt, to the amazement of his dad, now makes a living sharing his COD sniper skills on his YouTube channel from his home

“ But the ‘may’ there is a big one.” Much of the anticipation centers on the past commercial successes of Microsoft-owned Bethesda Softworks, the studio behind long-running series such as Doom, Elder Scrolls and Fallout.... In fact, Bethesda first sought to trademark the Starfield name a decade ago, and teased the game in a brief trailer five years later in 2018.... Now Starfield is caught up in another planned Microsoft takeover--of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard....

PARIS: Fans will this week get their hands on the latest Halo video game, as Microsoft marks 20 years of the franchise that turned its Xbox console into a hit. Halo Infinite is out Dec 8 – but to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the cult sci-fi series, Microsoft and developer 343 Industries have already released a free-to-play “ beta ” test version. Within an hour of its launch on November 15 some 100, 000 people were logged on to play simultaneously via online platform Steam, in a taste of the