Technology

At E3 gaming event, Microsoft teases sci-fi epic Starfield while Ubisoft shows off new Avatar title

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3 years ago

June 14, 2021

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Bethesda’s Todd Howard introduces Starfield at the 2018 E3 trade show.

Christian Petersen | Getty Images

The video game industry’s annual trade show went virtual this year, giving publishers a new format to show off upcoming titles.

The E3 gaming expo kicked off on Saturday and runs until Tuesday, when Nintendo is expected to showcase its new releases. Microsoft, Ubisoft and Square Enix were among the big publishers that presented over the weekend.

E3 has lost steam in recent years, with Sony pulling out of the event for the first time in 2019, and long-time host Geoff Keighley skipping the event for the first time in 25 years in 2021.

Still, E3 is often used as a platform for major players to drum up hype for their new blockbusters. And there were several highlights from this year’s event.

Microsoft teases Starfield

The biggest reveal of the weekend was undoubtedly Starfield, an upcoming sci-fi epic from Microsoft’s Bethesda.

Microsoft bought the iconic publisher’s parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in an industry-shaking deal announced last year. One of the main outcomes analysts expected from the takeover was Xbox exclusivity for some Bethesda titles.

Microsoft made no delay in bringing out the big guns, and in a joint press conference with Bethesda on Sunday announced that Starfield would launch Nov. 11, 2022, exclusively on the Xbox Series X and S consoles and PC.

Microsoft has long been seen as lagging behind Sony when it comes to exclusives — games that only run on one system. AAA franchises like The Last of Us and God of War were key to the success of Sony’s PlayStation 4, and the company is taking a similar strategy with the PS5.

Here are a few other highlights from Microsoft’s E3 showcase:

We got a first look at online multiplayer for Halo Infinite, the latest instalment in the Halo series; Microsoft also announced the game will release in the 2021 holiday season, after being delayed last year due to criticism of its graphics.

There was an official trailer for the Forza Horizon 5 racing tile, as well as a Nov. 9 release date.

Microsoft unveiled Redfall, a new multiplayer shooter from the developers behind Dishonored and Prey, announcing a summer 2021 release window.

A few popular titles including Hades and Among Us are coming to Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft’s Netflix-style subscription service for games; Starfield will be available to play on Game Pass from the day it launches.
Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life is the successor to the original “Pirates of the Caribbean”-inspired game, and even features the film series’ beloved protagonist Captain Jack Sparrow; the game releases on June 22.
A new zombie survival co-op shooter from the makers of Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood, drops Oct. 12 this year.
Age of Empires IV, the fourth entry of the real-time strategy game franchise, comes out on October 28

Ubisoft reveals Avatar game

Ubisoft made a few big announcements at its E3 show on Saturday. The French publisher gave fans a closer look at the story of Far Cry 6, the sixth main instalment of the popular Far Cry series. The game, which features Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad fame, launches on Oct. 7.

But a big surprise from the Ubisoft showcase was a game based on James Cameron’s 2009 sci-fi film “Avatar.” It’s called Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and features colorful creatures and environments from the Avatar universe.

Ubisoft also showed off Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Extraction, the newest entry in the Rainbow Six tactical shooter series. The game was initially going to be called Rainbow Six: Quarantine, but Ubisoft changed it due to controversy amid the coronavirus pandemic. Extraction debuts on Sept. 16.

Another big reveal was a new mashup of Nintendo’s Mario and Ubisoft’s Raving Rabbids, called Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. A sequel to 2017’s Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, the game comes out next year on Nintendo Switch.

Elden Ring and other big reveals

Geoff Keighley may have parted ways with E3, but he’s not done with video game broadcasting just yet.

The presenter hosted his new digital-only Summer Game Fest last week, which ended with a reveal trailer for Elden Ring, the much-anticipated role-playing title made in collaboration with “Game of Thrones” creator George R.R. Martin.

Elden Ring comes out on Jan. 21, 2022. The game’s publisher will be Bandai Namco.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Square Enix revealed a new game based on Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” It will be a single-player title, unlike another game based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel’s Avengers, which got a mixed reception when it released in September.

Technology

Intuit shares drop as quarterly forecast misses estimates due to delayed revenue

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3 hours ago

November 21, 2024

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Intuit shares drop as quarterly forecast misses estimates due to delayed revenue

Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi speaks at the opening night of the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles on Aug. 15, 2024.

Rodin Eckenroth | Filmmagic | Getty Images

Intuit shares fell 6% in extended trading Thursday after the finance software maker issued a revenue forecast for the current quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates due to some sales being delayed.

Here’s how the company performed in comparison with LSEG consensus:

Earnings per share: $2.50 adjusted vs. $2.35 expected
Revenue: $3.28 billion vs. $3.14 billion

Revenue increased 10% year over year in the quarter, which ended Oct. 31, according to a statement. Net income fell to $197 million, or 70 cents per share, from $241 million, or 85 cents per share, a year ago.

While results for the fiscal first quarter topped estimates, second-quarter guidance was light. Intuit said it anticipates a single-digit decline in revenue from the consumer segment because of promotional changes for the TurboTax desktop software in retail environments. While that will affect revenue timing, it won’t have any impact on the full 2025 fiscal year.

Intuit called for second-quarter earnings of $2.55 to $2.61 per share, with $3.81 billion to $3.85 billion in revenue. The consensus from LSEG was $3.20 per share and $3.87 billion in revenue.

For the full year, Intuit expects $19.16 to $19.36 in adjusted earnings per share on $18.16 billion to $18.35 billion in revenue. That implies revenue growth of between 12% and 13%. Analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $19.33 in adjusted earnings per share and $18.26 billion in revenue.

Revenue from Intuit’s global business solutions group came in at $2.5 billion in the first quarter. The figure was up 9% and in line with estimates, according to StreetAccount. Formerly known as the small business and self-employed segment, the group includes Mailchimp, QuickBooks, small business financing and merchant payment processing.

“We are seeing good progress serving mid-market customers in MailChimp, but are seeing higher churn from smaller customers,” Sandeep Aujla, Intuit’s finance chief, said on a conference call with analysts. “We are addressing this by making product enhancements and driving feature discoverability and adoption to improve first-time use and customer retention.”

Better outcomes are a few quarters away, Aujla said.

CreditKarma revenue came in at $524 million, above StreetAccount’s $430 million consensus.

At Thursday’s close, Intuit shares were up about 9% so far in 2024, while the S&P 500 has gained almost 25% in the same period.

On Tuesday Intuit shares slipped 5% after The Washington Post said President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” had discussed developing a mobile app for federal income tax filing. But a mobile app for submitting returns from Intuit is “already available to all Americans,” CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.

Goodarzi said on CNBC that he’s personally communicating with leaders of the incoming presidential administration.

On the earnings call, Goodarzi sounded optimistic about the economy.

“Our belief, which is not baked into our guidance, is that we will see an improved environment as we look ahead in 2025, particularly just with some of the things that I mentioned earlier around just interest rates, jobs, the regulatory environment,” he said. “These things have a real burden on businesses. And we believe that a better future is to come.”

WATCH: H&R Block, Intuit shares fall after report Trump administration is considering a free tax-filing app

H&R Block, Intuit shares fall after report Trump admin considering a free tax-filing app

Technology

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is ‘billionaire proof’

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6 hours ago

November 21, 2024

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Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is 'billionaire proof'

Bluesky has surged in popularity since the presidential election earlier this month, suddenly becoming a competitor to Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads. But CEO Jay Graber has some cautionary words for potential acquirers: Bluesky is “billionaire proof.”

In an interview on Thursday with CNBC’s “Money Movers,” Graber said Bluesky’s open design is intended to give users the option of leaving the service with all of their followers, which could thwart potential acquisition efforts.

“The billionaire proof is in the way everything is designed, and so if someone bought or if the Bluesky company went down, everything is open source,” Graber said. “What happened to Twitter couldn’t happen to us in the same ways, because you would always have the option to immediately move without having to start over.”

Graber was referring to the way millions of users left Twitter, now X, after Musk purchased the company in 2022. Bluesky now has over 21 million users, still dwarfed by X and Threads, which Facebook’s parent debuted in July 2023.

X and Meta didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Threads has roughly 275 million monthly users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in October. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates 318 million monthly users as of October.

Bluesky was created in 2019 as an internal Twitter project during Jack Dorsey’s second stint as CEO, and became an independent public benefit corporation in 2022. In May of this year, Dorsey said he is no longer a member of Bluesky’s board.

“In 2019, Jack had a vision for something better for social media, and so that’s why he chose me to build this, and we’re really thankful for him for setting this up, and we’ve continued to carry this out,” said Graber, who previously founded Happening, a social network focused on events. “We’re building an open-source social network that anyone can take into their own hands and build on, and it’s something that is radically different from anything that’s been done in social media before. Nobody’s been this open, this transparent and put this much control in the users hands.”

Part of Bluesky’s business plan involves offering subscriptions that would let users access special features, Graber noted. She also said that Bluesky will add more services for third-party coders as part of the startup’s “developer ecosystem.”

Graber said Bluesky has ruled out the possibility of letting advertisers send algorithmically recommended ads to users.

“There’s a lot on the road map, and I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do for monetization,” Graber said. “We’re not going to build an algorithm that just shoves ads at you, locking users in. That’s not our model.”

Bluesky has previously experienced major growth spurts. In September, it added 2 million users following X’s suspension in Brazil over content moderation policy violations in the country and related legal matters.

In October, Bluesky announced that it raised $15 million in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The company has raised a total of $36 million, according to Pitchbook.

Technology

Alphabet shares slide 6% following DOJ push for Google to divest Chrome

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7 hours ago

November 21, 2024

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Alphabet shares slide 6% following DOJ push for Google to divest Chrome

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Alphabet shares slid 6% Thursday, following news that the Department of Justice is calling for Google to divest its Chrome browser to put an end to its search monopoly.

The proposed break-up would, according to the DOJ in its Wednesday filing, “permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet.”

This development is the latest in a years-long, bipartisan antitrust case that found in an August ruling that the search giant held an illegal monopoly in both search and text advertising, violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

The potential break-up would include preventing Google from entering into exclusionary agreements with competitors like Apple and Samsung, part of a set of remedies that would last 10 years.

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.