Enlarge (credit: Pocketpair)

The unexpected success of Palworld continues to be one of the biggest gaming stories of 2024 so far, as developer Pocketpair says the game's sales and Xbox downloads have exceeded 19 million, with 12 million in sales on Steam and 7 million players on Xbox. Microsoft has also announced that the game has been the biggest third-party launch in the Game Pass service's history, as well as the most-played third-party title on the Xbox Cloud Gaming service.

These numbers continue a remarkable run for the indie-developed Pokémon-survival-crafting-game pastiche, which sold 5 million copies in its first weekend as a Steam Early Access title and had sold 8 million Steam copies as of a week ago. There are signs that the game's sales are slowing down—it's currently Steam's #2 top-selling game after over a week in the #1 spot. But its active player count on Steam remains several hundred thousand players higher than Counter-Strike 2 , the next most-played game on the platform.

Sometimes described (both admiringly and disparagingly) as "Pokémon with guns," Palworld 's unexpected success has driven some Internet outrage cycles about the possibility that it may have used AI-generated monster designs and allegations that its designers copied or modified some of the 3D character models from the actual Pokémon series to create some of the game's more familiar-looking monsters.

Enlarge / The crucial part, you see, is You. (credit: Microsoft / Activision Blizzard)

It has been a long road since January 2022 when Microsoft first announced its intentions to buy the gaming conglomerate Activision Blizzard King. But after overcoming a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit and appeasing UK antitrust authorities , it's official: Microsoft owns the makers and publishers of Call of Duty , Fallout , Overwatch , WarCraft , Diablo , Candy Crush , and many more titles.

There's even a trailer for it— a trailer for a corporate acquisition . It features iconic moments from Microsoft's prior acquisitions, including Halo and Fallout , and Activision Blizzard's titles, including a meme-friendly StarCraft moment , stripped of its "Hell" preface.

"Whether it was late nights spent playing the Diablo IV campaign with friends from start to finish, gathering the entire family in the rec room for our weekly Guitar Hero night, or going on an epic streak in Candy Crush , some of my most memorable gaming moments came from experiences their studios have created," said Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, in a press release . "It is incredible to welcome such legendary teams to Xbox."

Enlarge (credit: Sony)

In a blog post announcing its latest monthly PlayStation Plus games, like sandbox playground Saints Row and 1980s mecha co-op shooter Generation Zero, a Sony director "also wanted to let you know that starting September 6, we will be increasing the price for PlayStation Plus 12-month subscriptions," across all levels. The move comes just two months after Microsoft similarly raised prices on its Game Pass subscriptions .

The new prices take effect September 6 and, Sony's Adam Michel, director of content acquisition and operations, says the increase will "enable us to continue bringing high-quality games and value-added benefits" to Plus subscribers. If you have a current multi-month subscription, the new prices won't take effect until your next renewal data that occurs after November 6. Making any changes to your plan after September 6, however, will incur the new pricing. That gives subscribers about a week's time to stick another year or more onto their membership at current pricing.

PlayStation Plus' new prices are $80 per year for Essential (formerly $60), $135 for Extra (from $100), and $160 for Premium (from $120). All of these prices are notably below Microsoft's Game Pass prices , though Microsoft makes its first-party games, like the upcoming Starfield , available on day one through that service, and only Sony's Premium plan offers the kind of large library of games that compares to Game Pass. PlayStation Plus is not an easy subscription to understand —so much so that we were compelled to make our own explainer —but the company has been clear that it's not planning to put its own games on its own service at launch.

Enlarge / The FTC's reported filing would be more likely to stop Microsoft's acquisition of Call of Duty -maker Activision Blizzard than its previous internally litigated lawsuit. (credit: Getty Images)

A source has told Reuters that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will file an injunction seeking to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard in a $69 billion deal.

The FTC had previously filed a lawsuit in December seeking to block the deal , arguing that Microsoft's acquisition of the major game studio would allow it to "suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business." In that filing, the FTC pointed to Microsoft's prior acquisition of Bethesda Software's parent company, Zenimax, and the subsequent making of its upcoming epic RPG Starfield exclusive to Windows and Xbox, despite Microsoft's prior statements to European antitrust authorities.

That case is still pending with an internal administrative law judge, with a hearing set for August. Those proceedings don't have the power to entirely halt the deal, as a source close to the merger proceedings told Ars Technica in January . By filing for a preliminary injunction, the FTC now aims to prevent the deal from going through before a July 18 deadline, potentially voiding the deal and sending the companies back to the bargaining table.

Enlarge / Microsoft will offer Game Pass titles to Nvidia GeForce Now subscribers for streaming—a, shall we say, unique gaming setup to come. (credit: Microsoft)

There's a lot to unpack inside the game-streaming news from Microsoft's Xbox event over the weekend . The shortest, most context-free version of it is that some Game Pass games for PC will soon be available to stream through Nvidia's GeForce Now if you happen to subscribe to both services.

But most anyone following the company's quest to acquire Activision Blizzard, currently stalled by UK regulators , can see it as a transparent maneuver in Microsoft's continuing charm campaign. Microsoft's opening up of its PC Game Pass library to GeForce Now is predicated on countering the notion that its ownership of game studios, gaming hardware, and a cloud gaming/subscription service (let alone desktop gaming's most popular operating system) constitutes an unfair vertical monopoly, especially in cloud gaming.

Acquiring Activision Blizzard, the UK Competition and Markets Authority wrote in April, would result in "a substantial lessening of competition" in that country's cloud-gaming offerings, and Microsoft would likely "find it commercially beneficial to make Activision’s titles exclusive to its own cloud gaming service," the Authority wrote .