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Phil Spencer (business Executive)
Phil Spencer is an American business executive and the CEO of Microsoft Gaming. He is currently the head of the Xbox brand and leads the global creative and engineering teams responsible for gaming at Microsoft. Personal life Spencer attended Ridgefield High School in Ridgefield, Washington, and then earned a bachelor's degree in technical and scientific communication from the University of Washington. He serves on the boards of the First Tee of Greater Seattle and the Entertainment Software Association. Career Spencer joined Microsoft in 1988 as an intern and has worked in a number of technical roles, leading the development of Microsoft's first CD-ROM-based titles (such as '' Encarta''), development manager for Microsoft Money, and general manager of Microsoft's online and offline consumer productivity products including Microsoft Works and Microsoft Picture It! During his early time at Microsoft he was known by other employees to be an avid gamer, playing games such a ...
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University Of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle approximately a decade after the city's founding. The university has a 703 acre main campus located in the city's University District, as well as campuses in Tacoma and Bothell. Overall, UW encompasses over 500 buildings and over 20 million gross square footage of space, including one of the largest library systems in the world with more than 26 university libraries, art centers, museums, laboratories, lecture halls, and stadiums. The university offers degrees through 140 departments, and functions on a quarter system. Washington is the flagship institution of the six public universities in Washington state. It is known for its medical, engineering, and scientific research. Washington is a member of the Association of American Univer ...
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Groove Music
Groove Music (formerly Xbox Music or Zune Music Pass) is a discontinued audio player software application included with Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. The app is also associated with a now-discontinued music streaming service, Groove Music Pass, which was supported across Windows, Xbox video game consoles, Windows Phone, as well as Android and iOS. As of 2014, The Groove catalogue had over 50 million tracks. Its subscription service Groove Music Pass was officially discontinued on December 31, 2017, and the Android and iOS versions of the Groove Music app were discontinued in December 2018, restricting the player to its native Microsoft Store base. Groove Music has been replaced by Media Player in Windows 11. History Microsoft had previously ventured into music services with its Zune brand. The Zune Music Marketplace included 11 million tracks. The line of Zune players and Zune music store were somewhat unsuccessful, and the brand was largely discontinued at th ...
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Nintendo Switch
The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a hybrid console. Its wireless Joy-Con controllers, with standard buttons and directional analog sticks for user input, motion sensing, and tactile feedback, can attach to both sides of the console to support handheld-style play. They can also connect to a grip accessory to provide a traditional home console gamepad form, or be used individually in the hand like the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, supporting local multiplayer modes. The Nintendo Switch's software supports online gaming through Internet connectivity, as well as local wireless ad hoc connectivity with other consoles. Nintendo Switch games and software are available on both physical flash-based ROM cartridges and digital distribution via Nintendo eShop; the system has no regi ...
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Xbox Adaptive Controller
The Xbox Adaptive Controller (XAC) is a video game controller designed by Microsoft for Windows PCs and the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S video game consoles. The controller was designed for people with disabilities to help make user input for video games more accessible. History According to Phil Spencer, Microsoft had started to take more interest in accessibility features for gaming following the Kinect motion sensing input device first introduced in 2010. While it was successful on the Xbox 360, the Xbox One version, released in 2013, failed to make as strong as an impression, and Microsoft eventually dropped Kinect for gaming areas, though has continued to use its technology in more productivity-related applications. However, the company was contacted by parents of disabled or impaired children that positively commented on the ability of the Kinect to help their children enjoy video games without need of a traditional controller. Matt Hite, an engineer for Microsoft, spott ...
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Xbox Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass are video game subscription services from Microsoft. Both services grant users access to a rotating catalog of games from a range of publishers and other premium services, including Xbox Live Gold and EA Play, for a single monthly subscription price. Xbox Game Pass provides this service on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One consoles, as well as Android, iOS, and iPadOS devices via Xbox Cloud Gaming, selected Samsung TVs via Xbox Cloud Gaming, while PC Game Pass provides the service to personal computers using Windows 11 and Windows 10 with support for Xbox Cloud Gaming. The service was launched on June 1, 2017, while Xbox Live Gold subscribers received priority access on May 24. History Conception of what would become Game Pass came from two areas. First was with Phil Spencer taking over for Don Mattrick as the head of the Xbox brand at Microsoft following the troubled launch of the Xbox One in 2013. Mattrick had positioned the Xbox One as more of ...
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Minecraft
''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java (programming language), Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before being fully released in November 2011, with Notch stepping down and Jens "Jeb" Bergensten taking over development. ''Minecraft'' is the best-selling video game of all time, with over 238 million copies sold and nearly 140 million monthly active players , and has been ported to several platforms. In ''Minecraft'', players explore a blocky, procedurally generated 3D world with virtually infinite terrain and may discover and extract raw materials, Glossary of video game terms#Crafting, craft tools and items, and build structures, Earthworks (engineering), earthworks, and simple machines. Depending on their chosen Game mechanics, game mode, players can fight hostile Mob (video games), mobs, as well as cooperate with or c ...
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Bethesda Softworks
Bethesda Softworks LLC is an American video game publisher based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986 as a division of Media Technology Limited, and in 1999 became a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media. In its first fifteen years, it was a video game developer and self-published its titles. In 2001, Bethesda spun off its own in-house development team into Bethesda Game Studios, and Bethesda Softworks retained only its publishing function. In 2021, Microsoft purchased ZeniMax, maintaining that the company will continue to operate as a separate business. History 1986–1994: Early years Prior to founding Bethesda Softworks, Christopher Weaver was a technology forecaster and a communications engineer in the television and cable industries. After finishing grad school, he was hired by the American Broadcasting Company, where he wrote several memos about "the importance of alternative distribution systems and how satellites and broadb ...
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Mojang
Mojang Studios is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. The studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game '' Minecraft'', the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independent video game designer Markus Persson in 2009 as Mojang Specifications for ''Minecraft''s development. The studio inherited its name from another video game venture Persson had left two years prior. Following the game's initial release, Persson, in conjunction with Jakob Porsér, incorporated the business as Mojang AB in late 2010, and hired Carl Manneh as the company's chief executive officer. Other early hires included Daniel Kaplan and Jens Bergensten. ''Minecraft'' became highly successful, giving Mojang sustained growth. With a desire to move on from the game, Persson offered to sell his share in Mojang, and the company was acquired by Microsoft in November 2014. Persson, Porsér, and Manneh subsequently left Mojang, with Jonas Må ...
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Backward Compatibility
Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially in telecommunications and computing. Modifying a system in a way that does not allow backward compatibility is sometimes called " breaking" backward compatibility. A complementary concept is forward compatibility. A design that is forward-compatible usually has a roadmap for compatibility with future standards and products. A related term from programming jargon is hysterical reasons or hysterical raisins (near-homophones for "historical reasons"), as the purpose of some software features may be solely to support older hardware or software versions. Usage In hardware A simple example of both backward and forward compatibility is the introduction of FM radio in stereo. FM radio was initially mono, with only one audio channel repre ...
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Cross-platform Play
In video games with online gaming functionality, also called cross-compatible play, cross-platform play, crossplay, or cross-play describes the ability of players using different video game hardware to play with each other simultaneously. It is commonly applied to the ability for players using a game on a specific video game console to play alongside a player on a different hardware platform such as another console or a computer. A related concept is cross-save, where the player's progress in a game is stored in separate servers, and can be continued in the game but on a different hardware platform. Cross-play is related to but distinct from the notion of cross-platform development, which uses software languages and tools to enable deployment of software on multiple platforms. Cross-platform play is also a distinct concept from the ability to allow a player to play a game on different hardware platforms, often only having to purchase the title for one single system to have access ...
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Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. It was founded in July 2008 through the merger of Activision, Inc. (the publicly traded parent company of Activision Publishing) and Vivendi Games. It is traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol ATVI, and since 2015 has been a member of the S&P 500 Index. Activision Blizzard currently includes five business units: Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, King, Major League Gaming, and Activision Blizzard Studios. The company owns and operates additional subsidiary studios, as part of Activision Publishing, including Treyarch, Infinity Ward, High Moon Studios, and Toys for Bob. Among major intellectual properties produced by Activision Blizzard are ''Call of Duty'', ''Crash Bandicoot'', '' Guitar Hero'', ''Tony Hawk's'', ''Spyro,'' ''Skylanders'', ''World of Warcraft'', '' StarCraft'', '' Diablo'', '' Hearthstone'', ''Heroes of the Storm'', ''Over ...
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The Game Awards
The Game Awards is an annual awards ceremony honoring achievements in the video game industry. Established in 2014, the shows are produced and hosted by game journalist Geoff Keighley, who worked on its predecessor, the Spike Video Game Awards, for over ten years. In addition to the awards, The Game Awards features premieres of upcoming games and new information on previously-announced titles. History In 1994, Canadian games journalist Geoff Keighley had been part of the first televised awards show for video games, ''Cybermania '94: The Ultimate Gamer Awards''. Keighley, as a teenager, had been brought on to help write material for the celebrity hosts such as William Shatner and Leslie Nielsen. The show was not considered successful, aimed more for comedy than celebration, but he had been prompted from it to develop something akin to the Academy Awards for video games later in his career. Keighley had subsequently worked on the Spike Video Game Awards (VGA), which ran from ...
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