Microsoft Vice President Frank Shaw accused Sony of lying to European regulators about the terms of the deal between the U.S. company and Activision Blizzard. It was reported by Windows Central. Is Call of Duty a Microsoft game? 

“I’ve heard Sony claim to people in Brussels that Microsoft doesn’t want to offer them parity on Call of Duty if we buy Activision. This is far from the truth. We’ve made it clear that we’ve offered Sony a ten-year agreement that provides parity on game release dates, content, features, quality and every other aspect,” Shaw said.

Microsoft and Call of Duty – what’s going on? 

According to Shaw, Microsoft has offered to secure Sony’s offerings through a contract, regulatory agreements or other commitments. Despite this, Sony representatives, to thwart Microsoft’s deal, about the company’s proposals to keep the Call of Duty franchise for PlayStation consoles claim otherwise.

Microsoft has repeatedly stated that it has no plans to make Call of Duty a Xbox exclusive, among other things, because such a decision is not economically viable. Also, the head of Microsoft’s gaming division Phil Spencer has previously stated that the company is acquiring Activision Blizzard primarily because of its dominant position in the mobile games segment.

It is expected that the final decision on Microsoft’s purchase of Activision’s Blizzard studio will be made during 2023.

We previously reported that Microsoft is announcing a new multi-billion dollar investment in ChatGPT OpenAI stock.

Microsoft has announced a new multi-year investment in artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developer ChatGPT, OpenAI. Microsoft did not name a specific investment amount; a week earlier; Bloomberg and Semafor reported that the company was in talks to invest up to $10 billion in the ChatGPT OpenAI stock. 

ChatGPT OpenAI Microsoft

Microsoft’s investment will help both companies scale supercomputers and create new capabilities based on artificial intelligence, the report said.

Microsoft is working to add ChatGPT artificial intelligence to its search engine, Bing, so that it can provide concrete answers to queries rather than simply providing links to pages on the Web. Plus, The Information found out that Microsoft is thinking about adding ChatGPT’s text-writing and editing capabilities to its office applications — Word Word, PowerPoint presentation editor and Outlook email service.

ChatGPT is able to answer users’ questions, give explanations, create texts (e.g., writing poems and stories or drafting legal documents), while imitating the speech style of a person without disabilities. OpenAI has also developed AI game software that can beat people at video games such as Dota 2, and the AI image generator Dall-E.

ChatGPT was launched in late November 2022. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit organization in 2015 to conduct research on artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s founders include billionaire Ilon Musk, LinkedIn co-founder Reed Hoffman, and technology investor Sam Altman, who now runs the company. According to CNBC, the founding investor group then pledged to invest more than $1 billion in the company. Musk resigned from the board in February 2018, but remained an investor.

The company was valued at $14 billion in 2021. In January 2023, OpenAI was in talks with investors to sell its stock based on a valuation of the entire company of about $29 billion. The Wall Street Journal wrote, citing knowledgeable sources. Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Y Combinator and Bedrock Capital are among the co-owners of the company.

Earlier, we reported that Apple sharply reduced the price of the iPhone 14 in China to increase sales.

Apple has slashed prices on all smartphones of its iPhone 14 lineup in China to spur sales in the country’s market. It is reported by the portal My Drivers. Will Apple drop the price of iPhones in other markets?

Traditionally, we always see Apple iPhone price drop after new release. It is known that the price of iPhone 14 gadgets has been adjusted throughout China. At the same time, on some sites, the prices of Apple smartphones have dropped by 1000 yuan (about $150). According to sources, they will remain until the Chinese New Year, which will begin on January 22.

As My Drivers notes, Trend Force analysts previously predicted a decline in iPhone sales in the first quarter of 2023 to 47 million units, down 22 percent from the same period last year. This is not the first time Apple has lowered prices in many markets to stimulate and adjust sales of its smartphones.

Earlier there was news that Apple was “paying back” for its financial success because of the bet on developing all production facilities in China in order to increase profits. According to the Financial Times, now the Cupertino corporation will have to urgently diversify its factories to minimize the damage.

Earlier, we reported that JPMorgan advised investors to get rid of U.S. stocks.