Consumers are worried about the surge of ads in gaming: Xbox and Sony both have in-game ad programs in the works, and consumers aren’t thrilled.

Xbox makes nearly $70 billion bet on Activision Blizzard: Microsoft moves in just as the maker of Candy Crush and Overwatch saw slumping sales due to misconduct allegations.

Among US gamers, PlayStation Now and Xbox Game Pass are the most popular video game subscription services, used by 21% and 18% of those ages 18 and older, respectively.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, at $45 for three months. EA Play, bundled with the Xbox perk, at $15. Mana is also offering rewards to people who sign up for the waitlist, at seven levels, with points and tickets to win prizes. Why this could succeed: Mana appears to have studied its target audience in depth.

For instance, a single household could share one Prime Video login that is simultaneously accessed across a game console like an Xbox, a Chromecast, a Roku streaming stick, and a smart TV.

Sony stressed that Bungie will remain independent and will play to its strengths as a creator of cross-platform games playable on PlayStation, Microsoft’s Xbox, and gaming PCs.

These titles, among others, could now potentially be linked exclusively to Microsoft’s Xbox consoles and Game Pass subscription service. Microsoft has been on an acquisition spree for the last few years as it attempts to become a video game giant.

The Samsung Gaming Hub will make switching between video games and other functions relatively easy by supporting both Xbox and PlayStation controllers at launch, per The Verge. It also won’t require users to pair their controllers every time when switching between devices.

In context, Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Sony’s PS5 consoles are 4K native. Recent outages have also been taking longer to resolve, indicating growth is quickly becoming unmanageable. The bigger picture: While video service and gaming outages might seem like a minor annoyance to end-users, they are a symptom of a concerning connectivity trend that could get worse before it gets better.

Xbox and HoloLens maker Microsoft ranked 10th in the world with 2,108 AR/VR patent applications, the most filed by any US firm in the past two years, per IPRdaily report. The takeaway: Its large AR/VR patent stockpile could result in China owning technologies and inventions that can build various metaverse-related products and services and result in reliance from the rest of the world.

Mobile gaming will continue to have post-pandemic appeal, as gamers can play when traveling or commuting to work, while consoles will sustain relevancy through new PlayStation and Xbox devices that were released at the end of 2020. Desktops and tablets, however, have fewer use cases for gaming in the post-pandemic world. GVC is growing fast.