Microsoft

Microsoft reverses Xbox Live Gold price hike after public outcry

Microsoft announced a price hike for Xbox Live Gold on Friday, raising the rates to $10.99 for one month, $29.99 for three months, and $59.99 for six months. Following a wave of public outcry, Microsoft reversed its decision less than 24 hours later, confirming that the price of Xbox Live Gold would not be changing…

Published 4 years ago in
Microsoft reverses Xbox Live Gold price hike after public outcry

Microsoft announced a price hike for Xbox Live Gold on Friday, raising the rates to $10.99 for one month, $29.99 for three months, and $59.99 for six months.
Following a wave of public outcry, Microsoft reversed its decision less than 24 hours later, confirming that the price of Xbox Live Gold would not be changing after all.
In addition to keeping Xbox Live Gold at the same price, Microsoft is also removing the Xbox Live Gold requirement for free-to-play games like Fortnite on Xbox consoles.

Microsoft made waves on Friday by announcing that it would be raising the price of Xbox Live Gold for the first time in a decade. Going forward, the paid membership required to play any Xbox One and Xbox Series X game online would cost $10.99 for one month, $29.99 for three months, and $59.99 for six months. In effect, the price of Xbox Live Gold was going to double overnight, as 12-month subscriptions were previously priced at $59.99.

Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go over well with Xbox owners, and the topic trended on social media throughout the day as word began to spread. Even a surprisingly robust selection of freebies as part of Games with Gold in February wasn’t enough to calm the furor, and by the end of the day, the company had heard enough. The blog post announcing the change was updated late at night to reveal that Microsoft had reversed its decision.

“We messed up today and you were right to let us know,” the Xbox Live Gold team wrote in an update. “Connecting and playing with friends is a vital part of gaming and we failed to meet the expectations of players who count on it every day. As a result, we have decided not to change Xbox Live Gold pricing.”

In addition to leaving the prices at $9.99 for 1-month, $24.99 for 3-months, $39.99 for 6-months, and $59.99 for 12-months, the team also announced that it will no longer require Xbox owners to subscribe to Xbox Live Gold in order to play free-to-play games online. Today, you’ll need to have an Xbox Live Gold membership if you want to play Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, or Neverwinter, which is not the case on PlayStation, Switch, or PC. Microsoft never offered a sensible explanation for why this was the case, but “in the coming months,” you should be able to play free-to-play games on any Xbox console without having to pay for an additional online membership.

Considering that Microsoft spent an entire console generation playing catch up with Sony and Nintendo, it is honestly hard to fathom how such a wildly and inevitably unpopular move made it this far.

And to make the announcement in the middle of a viral pandemic — one which has taken an unfathomable physical, emotional, and financial toll on all but the richest of us — was truly stunning. Thankfully, the price hike did not actually come to pass. But Microsoft needs to get rid of Xbox Live Gold as soon as possible. An entire strategic decision was reversed after half a day of mean tweets. You can’t put this genie back in its bottle.
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Microsoft

Microsoft denies shutting down operations in China

Microsoft China denied it would cease operations in the country, after a screenshot of an internal email from Wicresoft, a Microsoft outsourcing partner, fueled speculation about a potential exit. On Monday, several employees of Wicresoft shared screenshots of layoff emails on social media. The email cites geopolitical tensions and shifts in the global business landscape

Published 2 weeks ago in
Microsoft denies shutting down operations in China

Microsoft China denied it would cease operations in the country, after a screenshot of an internal email from Wicresoft, a Microsoft outsourcing partner, fueled speculation about a potential exit. On Monday, several employees of Wicresoft shared screenshots of layoff emails on social media. The email cites geopolitical tensions and shifts in the global business landscape [……
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Microsoft

Fake Microsoft Office add-in tools push malware via SourceForge

Threat actors are abusing SourceForge to distribute fake Microsoft add-ins that install malware on victims’ computers to both mine and steal cryptocurrency. …

Published 4 weeks ago in
Fake Microsoft Office add-in tools push malware via SourceForge

Threat actors are abusing SourceForge to distribute fake Microsoft add-ins that install malware on victims’ computers to both mine and steal cryptocurrency. …
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Microsoft

How Microsoft’s AI chief measures consumer inroads for Copilot

Advertisement Business How Microsoft’s AI chief measures consumer inroads for Copilot Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman speaks at the company’s 50th anniversary celebration in Redmond, Washington, U.S., April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jeffrey Dastin Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman speaks at the company’s 50th anniversary celebration in Redmond, Washington, U.S., April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jeffrey Dastin Microsoft co-founder

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How Microsoft’s AI chief measures consumer inroads for Copilot
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How Microsoft’s AI chief measures consumer inroads for Copilot

How Microsoft's AI chief measures consumer inroads for Copilot
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman speaks at the company’s 50th anniversary celebration in Redmond, Washington, U.S., April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jeffrey Dastin
How Microsoft's AI chief measures consumer inroads for Copilot
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman speaks at the company’s 50th anniversary celebration in Redmond, Washington, U.S., April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jeffrey Dastin
How Microsoft's AI chief measures consumer inroads for Copilot
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella make a joint public appearance at the Microsoft’s 50th anniversary celebration in Redmond, Washington, U.S., April 4, 2025. REUTERS/Jeffrey Dastin

05 Apr 2025 08:13AM
(Updated: 05 Apr 2025 08:28AM)






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REDMOND, Washington : As Microsoft CEOs past and present gathered here to celebrate the company’s 50th birthday, one leader said he is targeting a particular metric’s improvement to guide his strategy on artificial intelligence.

Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of Microsoft AI, said his consumer and research division is tracking the usual measures of adoption for the company’s AI assistant called Copilot. These include daily and weekly active users, distribution, and usage intensity for Copilot’s consumer offering, he said.

But Suleyman’s interest lies elsewhere.

“I really, really focus the team on SSR, the rate of successful sessions,” he said in an interview.

In an older era when consumers gave less real-time feedback on software, the time they spent with a product – on social media, for instance – or the problems they could solve represented crude “proxies for quality,” he said.

“Now, we actually get to learn from the anonymized logs and extract the sentiment,” said Suleyman, who joined Microsoft about a year ago after leading the startup Inflection AI. Suleyman was one of the only Microsoft executives other than former CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer and current CEO Satya Nadella to speak on stage at Microsoft’s Friday event at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters.

Suleyman said Microsoft has tasked an AI model itself to assess such sentiment and help determine Copilot chats’ SSR.

“Over the last four months, it’s gone up dramatically, and that’s what we optimize for,” he said.

Suleyman declined to state the rate in absolute terms or disclose other Copilot metrics.

The company last fall announced a more amiable voice for its consumer Copilot and the ability to analyze web pages for users as they browse.

On Friday, Microsoft demonstrated further features for Copilot: personalized podcasts, a tool to help consumers research complex queries, and eventually a look for Copilot that can be custom to each user and conversation.

“I would definitely go for something that was cutesy,” said Suleyman, “like a little Furby-type thing.”

Source: Reuters

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Microsoft Raises Alarm of Malware Targeting Coinbase, MetaMask Wallets

Tech Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Microsoft Raises Alarm of Malware Targeting Coinbase, MetaMask Wallets A new report from Microsoft researchers warned of malware that could steal and decrypt users’ information from 20 of some of the most popular cryptocurrency wallets. By Margaux Nijkerk| Edited by Stephen

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Microsoft Raises Alarm of Malware Targeting Coinbase, MetaMask Wallets
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Microsoft Raises Alarm of Malware Targeting Coinbase, MetaMask Wallets

A new report from Microsoft researchers warned of malware that could steal and decrypt users’ information from 20 of some of the most popular cryptocurrency wallets.

By Margaux Nijkerk|Edited by Stephen Alpher
Updated Mar 18, 2025, 6:34 p.m. Published Mar 18, 2025, 3:05 p.m.
Microsoft shareholders voted against adding bitcoin to its company's treasury. (Photo by Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images)

What to know:

  • Tech giant Microsoft shared a new report warning of malware that targets 20 of the most popular cryptocurrency wallets used with the Google Chrome extension.
  • The malware, dubbed StilachiRAT, could deploy “sophisticated techniques to evade detection, persist in the target environment, and exfiltrate sensitive data.”
  • While the malware has not been distributed widely, Microsoft did share that it has not been able to identify what entity is behind the threat.

Tech giant Microsoft shared a new report warning of malware that targets 20 of the most popular cryptocurrency wallets used with the Google Chrome extension.

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Microsoft’s Incident Response researchers raised alarms of a new remote access trojan (RAT), dubbed StilachiRAT, which could deploy “sophisticated techniques to evade detection, persist in the target environment, and exfiltrate sensitive data,” the team shared in a blog post.

According to the team, the malware was discovered in November 2024, and it could steal users’ wallet information, and any credentials, including usernames and passwords, stored in their Google Chrome browser. StilachiRAT targets 20 crypto wallets including some of the most widely-used ones like MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, Phantom, OKX Wallet, and BNB Chain Wallet.

While the malware has not been distributed widely, Microsoft did share that it has not been able to identify what entity is behind the threat and laid out some mitigation guidelines for current targets including installing antivirus software.

“Due to its stealth capabilities and the rapid changes within the malware ecosystem, we are sharing these findings as part of our ongoing efforts to monitor, analyze, and report on the evolving threat landscape,” the team wrote.

Read more: Microsoft Shareholders Vote Down Bitcoin Treasury Proposal

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Margaux Nijkerk

Margaux Nijkerk reports on the Ethereum protocol and L2s. A graduate of Johns Hopkins and Emory universities, she has a masters in International Affairs & Economics. She holds BTC and ETH above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.

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