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Daily Briefing: Tuesday 30th November
🕑 Added 2021-11-30 15:00:06 +0000 UTCXbox Cloud Gaming really wants you to use Microsoft Edge
Microsoft have announced a new feature coming to Xbox Cloud Gaming called Clarity Boost, which is intended to vastly improve the sharpness of Cloud Gaming streams provided the player is using the often-ignored Microsoft Edge browser. The functionality allows players to easily activate an additional layer of optimisation to sharpen the edges of the stream.
- Clarity Boost works by relying on "a set of client-side scaling improvements" or, in other words, the extra processing is handled user-side by the Edge browser. At the moment, the functionality is currently only available to users running the experimental, beta-testy version of the browser: Microsoft Edge Canary. Clarity Boost is expected to roll out to all Microsoft Edge users by the end of next year, and it's nice to see Cloud Gaming getting a few more improvements, even if they are limited to a small set of potential users.
Halo Infinite's first progression rework will add per-match XP
343 Industries have finally issued made a change to Halo Infinite's stunted and stingy progression system following waves of backlash. The developers were quick to acknowledge widespread complaints from players regarding the lacklustre system, but also emphasised that no large alterations would be made until the team returned from a well-deserved Thanksgiving break. Well, that break is over and here come the changes, starting with per-match XP.
- Before launch, 343 were pretty open about the fact that Halo Infinite would not award players XP for simply playing matches, players would instead have to earn it by completing various challenges. It made sense in theory, but in reality some of Halo Infinite's challenges have proven so complicated and cumbersome that many players feel they're not being rewarded for playing the game at all. Players will now be awarded more XP for the first six games they play every day. The first will earn them 300XP, games two and three will earn 200XP, then games three, four, and five will earn 100XP apiece.
CD Projekt Red to restructure GOG team following a disappointing year
CD Projekt Red held revealed their Q3 financial results this week and, though it was a good quarter for the development side of the business, the retail side was a bit disappointing. While revenues creeped up around 3%Year-to-date losses for the GOG marketplace total $2.21m, a sharp decline from a comparative $1.37m gain from the same reporting period last year, which really isn't good. The decline comes in spite of quite a few new additions coming to the marketplace this year, from venerable older titles like Star Trek and Myst to all-new releases like Psychonauts 2.
- As for what will be done about all this, CDPR confirmed some restructuring will be in order. GOG will be reorganised to better focus on "core business activity," while certain members of the GOG team specialising in online service support will be transferred to other areas of the company. GOG will also withdraw from the so-called Gwent Consortium, a sort of Gwent-related collaboration across all of CDPR's various teams. The withdrawal means "that it will neither bear its portion of expenses nor obtain the corresponding share of revenues associated with this project." So there you go.
