keyword: Windows

windows-10-now-has-1.3-billion-active-users

Windows 10 now has 1.3 billion active users

Back when Microsoft first introduced Windows 10, it had a lofty goal of reaching 1 billion active users within its first three years. That milestone ended up taking five years to reach, with Windows 10 being found on 1 billion active devices by March 2020. Now a year later, Microsoft has added another 300 million users to the Windows 10 ecosystem. 

Last night during Microsoft’s financial earnings report, the company revealed that Windows 10 is now installed on 1.3 billion active devices. A large portion of this growth was driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw many people having to switch to working from home. The PC market as a whole also grew over the last year.

At this point, Windows 10 holds just shy of 80 percent of PC market share, while Windows 7 has dropped to around 16 percent, according to Statcounter.

With more users than ever before, Windows is also bringing in more money for Microsoft. Windows OEM revenue rose by 10 percent from the previous quarter and according to ZDNet, Windows OEM revenue rose by 44 percent year-on-year.

Microsoft’s Surface line-up also saw growth in the past year, with revenues rising to $1.5 billion for the quarter ending on March 31st. As a whole, Microsoft revenue sat at $41.7 billion for the quarter.

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microsoft-reveals-how-halo-infinite-will-look-on-32:9-super-ultrawide-monitors-and-other-pc-perks

Microsoft reveals how Halo Infinite will look on 32:9 super ultrawide monitors and other PC perks

I wish I’d had this to test with Samsung’s Odyssey G9

Microsoft has something of a history of neglecting PC gaming, but it’s trying to change that in a big way — by promising its flagship Halo Infinite will feel like a native PC game when it arrives later this year. We’ve known for many months that it wouldn’t be the Xbox Series X’s killer app, but Microsoft’s trying to make PC gamers feel like first-class citizens too, with features as forward-looking as support for 32:9 super-ultrawide monitors like the Samsung Odyssey G9 I reviewed late last year.

This morning, we learned the game would support ultrawide monitors, in addition to triple-keybinds, advanced graphics options, and both crossplay and cross-progression between Xbox and Windows PCs. But this evening, the Halo Waypoint blog went way deeper, revealing what Infinite will look like at 32:9 and an array of other PC-gamer-friendly details like being able to adjust your field of view up to 120 degrees — and the ability to host your own LAN multiplayer server!

In my Samsung Odyssey G9 review, I bemoaned how even the games that do support 32:9 typically look abnormally, wildly stretched out on each side, providing over a dozen examples of how they don’t properly adjust the shape and curvature of the window they’re opening into the 3D game world. But Halo Infinite PC development lead Mike Romero says the game’s designed to support arbitrary window sizes, and can fit its HUD, menus, and even in-game cutscenes into the wider aspect ratios.

“There’s dozens of people across the studio that have had to put dedicated effort into supporting something like ultrawide throughout the entirety of the game, and I’m very excited to say I think we’ll have some of the best ultrawide support I’ve ever seen in a game,” boasts Romero.

Looking at these Halo Infinite images at 32:9, it’s not immediately clear to me that Microsoft has solved the 32:9 issue — looking at the hill on the right of this image below, for instance, it seems like the game world still might appear a little bit skewed and warped.

But it is clear that you’ll see a lot more of the game world at once this way, if you’re one of the few who’ve ascended to an ultrawide monitor — and have a PC powerful enough to drive it, of course.

Here’s a short list of all the PC-esque perks Microsoft is promising:

  • LAN play, hosting a local multiplayer server on PC that you can join from both PC and Xbox
  • Crossplay, restricting ranked matches to input type rather than console vs. PC, with server-side anti-cheat
  • Adjustable FOV (up to 120 degrees) on both PC and console
  • Mouse and keyboard support on both PC and console
  • Triple keyboard and mouse bindings
  • Visual quality settings up to ultra presets on PC, with individual settings for texture quality, depth of field, anti-aliasing etc.
  • High refresh rate options
  • 21:9, 32:9 “and beyond” ultrawide monitor support on PC
  • Minimum and maximum framerate settings on PC
  • Fixed and dynamic resolution scaling options on PC
  • Optional borderless fullscreen on PC
  • FPS and ping overlay on PC
  • Out-of-game multiplayer invites let you join games through Xbox Live, Discord and Steam

As my colleague Tom Warren notes, there’s still more to learn, like whether the game will support GPU-dependent features on PC like Nvidia’s framerate-enhancing DLSS, ray tracing, and more.

microsoft-to-focus-on-bringing-more-gaming-features-to-pc

Microsoft to Focus on Bringing More Gaming Features to PC

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Earlier today, Microsoft released a blog post sharing the company’s thoughts on the gaming industry and its focus for gaming in 2021 and beyond. Microsoft’s goal has changed for the Xbox team and its gaming initiatives from focusing more on a specific platform (i.e the Xbox consoles) to being focused on multiple platforms, specifically the PC.

Microsoft’s end goal is to be a ‘player first’ company, focusing more on the game rather than the platform it’s on. This means that we’ll be seeing more and more features being focused on the PC platform, and not just the Xbox consoles alone.

This is good news for PC gamers is that Microsoft is now focusing more than ever before on the PC gaming ecosystem, which hopefully means more and more gaming optimizations for the PC and more cross-play potential, which is what Microsoft also highlighted in its blog post.

For example, Microsoft shares more details on Halo Infinite which is getting a significant amount of PC development time and will fully support features such as ultrawide (21:9) and super ultrawide (32:9) screens, triple keybinds, and higher fidelity graphics which will be PC exclusive.

Plus, Halo infinite will also have cross-play capabilities with PC and the latest Xbox Series X/S consoles.

Microsoft is also expanding its cloud gaming services to allow any device to stream over 100 console games to your PC. A few days ago, Microsoft announced the beta for its cloud gaming service, and it will work with both Windows 10 devices and Apple iOS devices through web browsers such as Edge, Chrome, and Safari.

As for developers, Microsoft is adding more features to give developers an easier time making games for PCs. Currently, there’s a new DirectX12 feature called the Agility SDK, allowing developers to push the latest DirectX 12 features and updates to their games without the end user (player) requiring an operating system update.

Microsoft is also working on other features like Auto HDR technology and continuing to work on DirectStorage technology, which was an Xbox exclusive feature but is now being developed for the PC.

These are just some of the features Microsoft addressed in its blog post, but overall it’s great to see Microsoft focusing on the PC player experience just as much as on the Xbox consoles.