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Among white households for instance, 2% didn't have a bank account last year as compared to 11% and 9% of their Black and Hispanic counterparts. Microsoft says these same principles will also apply to the future Xbox mobile store, which could be enough to lure developers onto the platform. One company that might be particularly interested is Epic Games, which has allied itself with Microsoft in the past few years in the fight against Apple’s App Store policies. The CMA and other regulators now have the unenviable task of untangling these arguments between Sony and Microsoft and figuring out exactly how this deal could harm consumers or competition. Microsoft still hopes to close this deal out by spring 2023, but there’s a good chance we have months of battles ahead — as well as the opportunity to gain rare insights, as with these mobile plans, into the secret ambitions of the gaming industry. Additionally, last year, homes where the head of household was out of work were nearly five times more likely to not have a bank account as compared to those where the household head was employed.
Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney welcomed Microsoft’s first hints at an open app store model in 2019 ahead of a giant battle between Epic and Apple a year later that saw Fortnite disappear from iPhones. Epic has been arguing that Apple should allow third-party payment systems in its App Store or even allow rival app stores to function on iPhones and iPads. However, the CMA has barely discussed the potential for Microsoft’s entrance into mobile gaming as part of its investigation and is instead largely focusing on console gaming, which Microsoft argues is an increasingly smaller part of the overall market.
Are some groups more likely to be unbanked?
The FDIC initiated an educational campaign to get more Americans to open an account to enable the direct deposit of those funds. And banks such as Capital One and Ally Financial ended overdraft and other fees that have been a key barrier to some Americans accessing the banking system. Sign up to get the best content of the week, and great gaming deals, as picked by the editors. "During the last recession unbanked rates did indeed go up,'' Karyen Chu, chief of the Banking Research Section at the Center for Financial Research, said during the call. "Since launch, the game has been reaching nearly 3x the amount of players per day as the previous daily peak for the original Overwatch," reads the announcement. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Those who have a checking or savings account, but also use financial alternatives like check cashing services are considered underbanked. But even if Call of Duty stays on PlayStation, Sony could still lose out on serious revenue if Microsoft offers the title on Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft previously claimed that Sony is paying for “blocking rights” to keep some games off Xbox Game Pass and now says that’s the case with Call of Duty. “The agreement between Activision Blizzard and Sony includes restrictions on the ability of Activision Blizzard to place Call of Duty titles on Game Pass for a number of years,” says Microsoft in its filings. Microsoft is building an Xbox mobile store to directly offer games on mobile devices, challenging Apple and Google. The software giant first hinted at a “next-generation” store it would “build for games” earlier this year but has now quietly revealed details of the plans in filings with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority .
Tim Cook admits that iPhones use Sony camera sensors
In a graph posted at Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition site, the company depicts the entire gaming market as worth $165 billion in 2020, with consoles making up $33 billion , PCs at $40 billion , and mobile gaming at $85 billion . Microsoft’s acknowledgment of a mobile gaming push comes as the company increasingly positions Xbox Cloud Gaming as an option for mobile gaming on emerging handhelds. Microsoft was quick to support Xbox Cloud Gaming on Valve’s Steam Deck, followed by a partnership with Logitech and Razer for their cloud gaming-focused handhelds. That means a push into mobile gaming could happen on multiple fronts — not just on phones and tablets. The numbers of the unbanked were greater among households that included those who were working age and disabled, lower income, included a single mother, or were Black or Hispanic.

A lack of banking options delayed some households from getting federal payments aimed at helping the country weather the economic fallout from the COVID-19 health crisis. And bloated player queues, Blizzard has announced that over 25 million Overwatch 2 players have logged on in its first 10 days. When he spoke to Sony bosses in January and confirmed Microsoft's "intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard". Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox daily.
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And since 2011, when 8% of U.S. households were unbanked, the highest since the start of the survey, and the record low reached in 2021, roughly half of the drop was due to a shift in the financial circumstances of American households the FDIC says. "Safe and affordable bank accounts provide a way to bring more Americans into the banking system and will continue to play an important role in advancing economic inclusion for all Americans,'' FDIC acting chairman Martin J. Gruenberg said in a statement. The number of American households that were unbanked last year dropped to its lowest level since 2009, a dip due in part to people opening accounts to receive financial assistance during the pandemic, a new report says. Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him.
Meanwhile, nearly 15% of households with a working age member who had a disability were unbanked compared to almost 4% of other households. And nearly 16% of households with a single mother were unbanked as compared to about 2% of married couples who lacked an account. A household is deemed unbanked when no one in the home has an account with a bank or credit union.
Xbox boss: Sony wants to ‘grow by making Xbox smaller’
Microsoft is quietly building a mobile Xbox store that will rely on Activision and King games. Many of those who are unbanked say they can't afford to have an account because of the fees for insufficient funds and overdrafts that are tacked on when account balances fall short. Roughly 29% said fees or not having the required minimum balance were the primary reasons they didn't have a checking or savings account, as compared to 38% who cited those obstacles in 2019. Roughly 4.5% of U.S. households – or 5.9 million – didn't have a checking or savings account with a bank or credit union in 2021, a record low, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's most recent survey of unbanked and underbanked households. The irony of Sony making deals like this one while fretting about COD's future on PlayStation probably isn't lost on Microsoft's lawyers, which is no doubt part of why they brought it up to the CMA.
Unfortunately, the footnote ends there, so there's not much in the way of detail about what these restrictions are or how long they'd remain in effect in a potential post-acquisition world. Given COD's continued non-appearance on Game Pass, you've got to imagine the restrictions are fairly significant if they're not an outright block on COD coming to the service. Either way, the simple fact that Microsoft is apparently willing to maintain any restrictions on its own ability to put first-party games on Game Pass is rather remarkable, given that making Game Pass more appealing is one of the reasons for its acquisition spree. However, a big potential stumbling block for Microsoft’s mobile gaming ambitions could be its control of Call of Duty on both mobile and console. Microsoft has seen success with Xbox Game Pass, and it has made it clear it wants to bring Activision games to the service.