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Microsoft is raising prices on Xbox consoles in the US again
Gaming Gear

Microsoft is raising prices on Xbox consoles in the US again

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Microsoft is raising the prices of its Xbox Series S / X consoles in the US next month. The Xbox Series X will be priced at $649.99 in the US starting October 3rd, up from its existing $599.99 price. The Xbox Series S will move to $399.99, up from $379.99.

Microsoft blames the price hikes on “changes in the macroeconomic environment,” which is a lot of words to say: tariffs. Xbox console pricing outside the US will remain the same. Thankfully, pricing for controllers and headsets will remain in the same in the US.

The price rises mean Xbox Series S consoles will increase by $20, Xbox Series X consoles by $50, and the 2TB Galaxy Black Special Edition Xbox Series X is increasing by $70 all the way up to $799.99.

Here’s the full list of price increases in the US:

Microsoft only just raised the prices of its Xbox products worldwide in May, with price hikes to the Xbox Series S / X consoles, controllers, and headsets. Those previous price increases already bumped the Xbox Series X up by $100, and the Xbox Series S by $80. Coupled with today’s announcement, that means the Xbox Series X has increased in price in the US by $150 and the Series S by $100 in just six months.

Microsoft’s Xbox Series X 2TB Galaxy Black Special Edition originally debuted nearly a year ago at $599.99, and it’s now about to be $799.99 — a $200 increase in just a year. Microsoft’s latest price increases are the second this year, following initial price hikes in 2023.



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Microsoft Surface Hub 2S
Gaming Gear

As Windows 10 Team edition reaches EOL, Microsoft Teams Rooms will no longer work on Surface Hub v1, raising challenges for enterprises

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  • Windows 10 Team edition support ends October 14, 2025
  • Surface Hub v1 hardware cannot upgrade and may become obsolete for organizations
  • Microsoft recommends hardware refresh or migration to supported Windows 11 platforms

Thousands of companies could face meeting room disruption soon as the upcoming Windows 10 end of life deadline looks set to affect Microsoft Team Rooms devices.

From October 14, Surface Hub v1 devices, like other Windows 10 systems, will no longer receive updates or support from Microsoft, as the company pulls support for Windows 10 Team edition.

Unlike standard Windows 10 editions, Windows 10 Team doesn’t have an extended support option, and although Surface Hub 2S units can be upgraded to Windows 11 or fitted with a Surface Hub 3 Compute Cartridge, the original Hub doesn’t have that luxury.


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Buy a new Surface Hub or else

“Surface Hub v1 devices will no longer be supported. It’s recommended to upgrade to a newer Surface Hub device,” Microsoft said in an update.

This advice places many meeting spaces in an awkward position, and will see some devices turning into expensive but unsupported equipment, as the impact stretches beyond Surface hardware.

The Microsoft Teams Rooms app will no longer function on Windows 10 devices after October 14, nor will the Teams Rooms Pro Management Portal.

As Microsoft puts it: “The Microsoft Teams Rooms app based on classic Teams will no longer be accessible.”

Andrew Francis, applications engineering senior manager at Shure, told The Register that many companies may underestimate the problem.

“While the initial focus is often on personal devices like laptops and desktops, there are many other endpoints that need consideration. One key example is the Microsoft Teams Rooms on a Windows 10 device,” he said.

Francis noted there are about one million active Teams Rooms worldwide, on both Windows and Android, but many Windows-based units cannot move to Windows 11 because of hardware restrictions.


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An additional layer of complexity exists for those companies whose meeting room tech spans multiple departments or outsourced providers.

The looming deadline means organizations must now choose between upgrades, migrations, or replacements.

For Surface Hub 2S users, Microsoft says users have three options: install a Surface Hub 3 Compute Cartridge, perform a software migration before October 14, or unlock devices for a manual USB installation of Windows 11.

Surface Hub v1 customers sadly only have the one option, buying a new model. Failure to do so could see some meeting rooms left with costly equipment that’s no longer fit for use.

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This Microsoft Entra ID Vulnerability Could Have Been Catastrophic
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This Microsoft Entra ID Vulnerability Could Have Been Catastrophic

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As businesses around the world have shifted their digital infrastructure over the last decade from self-hosted servers to the cloud, they’ve benefitted from the standardized, built-in security features of major cloud providers like Microsoft. But with so much riding on these systems, there can be potentially disastrous consequences at a massive scale if something goes wrong. Case in point: Security researcher Dirk-jan Mollema recently stumbled upon a pair of vulnerabilities in Microsoft Azure’s identity and access management platform that could have been exploited for a potentially cataclysmic takeover of all Azure customer accounts.

Known as Entra ID, the system stores each Azure cloud customer’s user identities, sign-in access controls, applications, and subscription management tools. Mollema has studied Entra ID security in depth and published multiple studies about weaknesses in the system, which was formerly known as Azure Active Directory. But while preparing to present at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas in July, Mollema discovered two vulnerabilities that he realized could be used to gain global administrator privileges—essentially god mode—and compromise every Entra ID directory, or what is known as a “tenant.” Mollema says that this would have exposed nearly every Entra ID tenant in the world other than, perhaps, government cloud infrastructure.

“I was just staring at my screen. I was like, ‘No, this shouldn’’t really happen,’” says Mollema, who runs the Dutch cybersecurity company Outsider Security and specializes in cloud security. “It was quite bad. As bad as it gets, I would say.”

“From my own tenants—my test tenant or even a trial tenant—you could request these tokens and you could impersonate basically anybody else in anybody else’s tenant,” Mollema adds. “That means you could modify other people’s configuration, create new and admin users in that tenant, and do anything you would like.”

Given the seriousness of the vulnerability, Mollema disclosed his findings to the Microsoft Security Response Center on July 14, the same day that he discovered the flaws. Microsoft started investigating the findings that day and issued a fix globally on July 17. The company confirmed to Mollema that the issue was fixed by July 23 and implemented extra measures in August. Microsoft issued a CVE for the vulnerability on September 4.

“We mitigated the newly identified issue quickly, and accelerated the remediation work underway to decommission this legacy protocol usage, as part of our Secure Future Initiative,” Tom Gallagher, Microsoft’s Security Response Center vice president of engineering, told WIRED in a statement. “We implemented a code change within the vulnerable validation logic, tested the fix, and applied it across our cloud ecosystem.”

Gallagher says that Microsoft found “no evidence of abuse” of the vulnerability during its investigation.

Both vulnerabilities relate to legacy systems still functioning within Entra ID. The first involves a type of Azure authentication token Mollema discovered known as Actor Tokens that are issued by an obscure Azure mechanism called the “Access Control Service.” Actor Tokens have some special system properties that Mollema realized could be useful to an attacker when combined with another vulnerability. The other bug was a major flaw in a historic Azure Active Directory application programming interface known as “Graph” that was used to facilitate access to data stored in Microsoft 365. Microsoft is in the process of retiring Azure Active Directory Graph and transitioning users to its successor, Microsoft Graph, which is designed for Entra ID. The flaw was related to a failure by Azure AD Graph to properly validate which Azure tenant was making an access request, which could be manipulated so the API would accept an Actor Token from a different tenant that should have been rejected.



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Hands-on with an ROG Xbox Ally handheld gaming PC
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Good news for Windows handhelds: Microsoft is now letting you launch installed Steam, Battle.net, and other storefront games from the Xbox app

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Xbox on PC is now officially rolling out a feature that might have it become a single stop for all your games. As Xbox’s VP of Experiences Jason Beaumont explains, in addition to “updated app functionality”, one new feature currently rolling out on Windows is an “aggregated gaming library”. Beaumont has also announced that “cross-device play history” will be coming, but that will be later this month.

The main library aggregation update rolled out to Insiders a few months ago, but it looks like it’s now being released to non-Insiders in regular updates.

Those considering using aggregator apps like Playnite, in other words, might not need to do so anymore because they’ll be able to use the Xbox app to view their entire game library, not just games bought on the Xbox app itself. This will “show your installed games from multiple PC storefronts, including your Xbox library, Xbox Game Pass, Battle.net and other leading PC storefronts.”


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Getting to those storefronts should be easier, too, as you can use the new ‘My Apps’ tab in your library to house Battle.net and so on.

It’s worth noting, though, that third-party apps like Playnite and other aggregators might not be rendered completely redundant by this new Xbox feature. That’s because the new feature is only for installed games, whereas Playnite (for example) also acts as a home for owned but uninstalled games.

This also seems like more of a move for Windows handhelds—especially the Asus ROG Xbox Ally—than PCs, which explains why all the promo pics are all of the Xbox Ally. Although it’s nice to have all games from different platforms in one place on a desktop or laptop, it makes most sense for a handheld device where you’re expected to stay within the confines of the Xbox app, in the ‘full screen experience’.

(Image credit: Microsoft Xbox @ Xbox Wire)

It also fits in with Microsoft’s seeming push towards an all-encompassing platform.

I’ve come up with a new term for the Microsoft Xbox platform: ‘Gloop’. The Gloop is a globby mass of various features and services all schlopped together into an increasingly large ball of putty. At least, that’s how my peculiarly abstract brain likes to think about it.

Microsoft is even claiming that game streaming inside a car ‘is an Xbox’. With it seeming like the ROG Xbox Ally handheld ‘console’ is, well, just a Windows handheld with some optimisations, and with Xbox expanding and pushing its cloud gaming services across various devices, Xbox is starting to become synonymous as just ‘whatever runs on the Xbox app.’

Thus: Gloop. I’m not complaining, it’s just a metaphor. You’re welcome. It only makes sense to throw our mutli-platform game libraries into that mix, I suppose.

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The best Xbox controllers: Microsoft, Razer, 8BitDo, and more
Gaming Gear

The best Xbox controllers: Microsoft, Razer, 8BitDo, and more

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We live in a golden age of controllers. The gamepads on the market now are of higher quality, more versatile, and more customizable than anything from even one console generation ago. If you play games on an Xbox Series X or Series S (or a Windows PC), you have the unenviable task of choosing between several high-quality controllers from Microsoft as well as a plethora of great options from the likes of 8BitDo, PowerA, Razer, Scuf, GameSir, Nacon, and Turtle Beach. Some of them have drift-resistant Hall effect or TMR-based joysticks for improved longevity, yet all of them are good for one reason or another. The days of the cheap “little sibling” controller that looked cool, but barely worked, are over.

We’ve spent a ton of time playing all kinds of games (first-person shooters, fighters, third-person action-adventure, racing, indie roguelikes, etc.) to test a wide swath of Xbox controllers, and it may not be a surprise that the standard, Xbox Wireless Controller is the best option for most folks. It makes for a great PC and Steam Deck controller, too. The default Xbox gamepad strikes the right balance of quality, comfort, versatility, and price, but there are several alternatives worth considering.

$50

The official Xbox Wireless Controller has a dedicated share button for saving clips and screenshots and sharing them online, Bluetooth support, and a USB-C port for charging up Microsoft’s play-and-charge rechargeable battery.

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$30

The latest 8BitDo Ultimate Wired Controller for Xbox includes Hall effect analog sticks and triggers, plus two rear buttons, customizable mapping and sensitivity, and compatibility with PC and mobile devices.

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What we’re looking for

How we test Xbox controllers

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We test Xbox controllers by playing with them for an extended period of time across a variety of genres. Our test targets include team-based arena games like Marvel Rivals, competitive shooters like Call of Duty, fighters like Tekken 8, and role-playing titles like Elden Ring. When doing so, we pay close attention to how all of the components feel. Are the triggers satisfying to pull? Do the analog sticks offer the right level of resistance? Are the D-pads and face buttons too mushy, or just right? If a controller includes customization options — such as adjustable trigger stops and sensitivity, and / or remappable back buttons — we test how easy they are to configure, then judge their impact on our gameplay experience.

Connectivity

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Is it wireless? Does it support Bluetooth? Or is it wired only? If so, is the cable replaceable?

Quality

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Does it feel cheap or nicely made? Any glitches or reliability issues while testing?

Extra features

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Does it have handy extras, like remappable buttons or fancy triggers?

Customization

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Can you remap buttons or tune it with custom software profiles?

Value

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Is it priced affordably, about average, or does it come at a steep premium?

The best Xbox controller for most people

$50

The Good

  • Incredible value for Xbox Wireless support
  • Great ergonomic design
  • Satisfying buttons and triggers

The Bad

  • Lacks customization
  • Requires AA batteries (or an optional rechargeable cell)

Connectivity: Xbox wireless, Bluetooth, wired / Connector type: USB-C / Mappable rear buttons: No / Software customization: No / Power: AA batteries or add-on rechargeable

Okay, I already know what you’re thinking. “The best controller for Xbox is the one that comes with the Xbox?” That may seem like a no-brainer, but this standard controller truly does earn this title as the best. It lacks some extras found on pricier options, but this controller is the distillation of all that has made the last 20 years of Xbox gamepads great, and it shows.

Thanks to Microsoft’s proprietary wireless protocol, this is the only affordable wireless Xbox controller out there. (Third-party wireless options have been trickling out in recent years, but they’re mostly at the high end.) While some hate the standard Xbox wireless controller for its use of AA batteries instead of a built-in rechargeable cell, that also means it’s flexible, allowing for rechargeable AAs or a battery pack. And user-replaceable batteries mean you’re not stuck with a controller that doesn’t hold its charge after years of use. It also works over a USB-C wired connection.

You won’t find a better wireless controller at this price. Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

But the standard-issue Xbox pad isn’t just great because of its varied connectivity. The hardware itself is excellent for the controller’s $65 (and often less) asking price. The sticks, buttons, triggers, and the sunken dish-shaped D-pad all feel impeccably tight, with the latter having a satisfying clickiness to it. If you’re a hardcore fighting game fan, you’ll probably be best served by a dedicated fight stick or a controller geared toward that genre — one with a superb D-pad like Hori’s Horipad Pro — but the Xbox Wireless Controller is otherwise an extraordinary jack-of-all-trades.

The only things it really lacks compared to pricier options are extra, customizable buttons and software tuning for things like stick sensitivity (button remapping is available), though Microsoft does offer cosmetic customization through its Xbox Design Lab, which bumps the price from $79.99 to $124.93 depending on the configuration. There’s a lot to love about these controllers, whether you make your own or pick one from the many colors that Microsoft offers.

The best cheap Xbox controller

$30

The Good

  • Inexpensive
  • Lightweight and comfortable
  • Satisfying buttons and Hall effect components
  • Programmable back buttons are easy to press

Connectivity: Wired / Connector type: USB-C / Mappable rear buttons: Two / Software customization: Yes / Power: Wired

The 8BitDo Ultimate Wired Controller for Xbox is a fantastic budget model that typically retails for $44.99 but can often be found for as little as $29.99. The shape is reminiscent of Nintendo’s Switch Pro Controller, only a bit smaller, with hints of Xbox influence and a curvaceous design that feels great to hold.

On the hardware front, the Ultimate Wired Controller features Hall effect sticks with satisfying tension. It also uses Hall effect triggers with dedicated vibration motors, though it lacks trigger stops, unlike our previous budget pick, the PowerA Advantage Wired. Its D-pad, face buttons, and bumpers are nice and clicky, too, despite being smaller than we’d typically like. It has two rear paddles, remappable buttons, and the ability to save up to three profiles, which you can switch between on the fly using a dedicated button. There’s even a built-in mute switch for audio, which isn’t common on cheaper controllers. You can download the 8BitDo Ultimate Software X app on PC or Xbox to fully customize this controller.

8BitDo controllers may be inexpensive, but that doesn’t mean they should be considered cheap. Photo: Quentyn Kennemer / The Verge

The 8BitDo Ultimate Wired works as a wired controller with your PC, but if you prefer wireless connectivity, the company also makes a three-mode wireless version for $69.99 with support for both Bluetooth and 2.4GHz wireless (via a dongle). The wireless version is a bit more expensive, however, and it’s still limited to wired connectivity on Xbox consoles.

The best “pro” Xbox controller

$153

The Good

  • Extensive modular customization
  • Premium look and feel
  • Rechargeable battery lasts an incredible 40 hours

The Bad

  • Pricey
  • Questionable quality control
  • No Hall effect components

Connectivity: Xbox wireless, Bluetooth, wired / Connector type: USB-C / Mappable rear buttons: Up to four / Software customization: Yes / Power: Built-in rechargeable

The Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 is Microsoft’s fanciest controller, and it’s got a lot of nice extras, like better build quality, extra buttons, user-swappable sticks and D-pad, a built-in rechargeable battery, and loads of software customization. Where the standard Xbox controller is constructed entirely of unassuming plastic, the Elite mixes higher quality soft-touch plastic, rubberized grips, and metallic touches for a superior fit and finish. This makes it heftier than the stock controller, and as a result, it just feels nicer in your hands. It also comes with a charging dock and zip-up case with passthrough charging, completing a really nice package for $199.99 (or sometimes less, if it’s on sale).

There’s also the stripped-down Elite Series 2 “Core” version with an MSRP of $149.99, which ditches the add-ons but is equally customizable. You can buy them separately in a $59.99 accessories pack, but you’ll end up paying more that way, barring sales or discounts.

A pricey controller like an Xbox Elite is a bit of a splurge purchase. Most of us are not competing at e-sports levels that require its high-end features. Nevertheless, it’s fun to use something that feels nicer, offers ways to custom-tailor it to your liking, and maybe gives you a slight competitive edge thanks to features like hair triggers and removable rear paddles. In theory, you may be able to get shots off faster in an online shooter with the hair triggers, and you can map the paddles to functions like jump, crouch, reload, etc., while keeping your thumb on the right stick. You could teach yourself claw grip to accomplish the latter with even a cheap wired controller, sure, but it just won’t feel as cool or easy as when using an Elite.

While the Elite is still a great controller in 2025, you should keep in mind that it’s been around since 2019 and a Series 3 revision is feeling long overdue. The Series 2 also has a bit of a reputation for lackluster quality control — with horror stories from users about going through multiple replacements under warranty. Microsoft extended the controller’s warranty from 90 days to a year in late 2020 to help address concerns, but buying an Elite Series 2 may still feel like a slightly risky proposition. It also predates the current-gen implementation of a dedicated Share button, and its potentiometer-based sticks run the risk of stick drift after long-term use (something third parties are addressing with controllers that use drift-free Hall effect sticks, unlike all three big console manufacturers).

The Elite Series 2 offers unprecedented customization with analog sticks and a D-pad you can pluck right off. Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Even so, the Elite 2 remains by far the most well-rounded option for a step-up Xbox controller — thanks in large part to its impressive build and expansive software experience. If all these caveats give you pause, though, there is another promising option.

Read our Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 review.

A formidable alternative to the Elite

$200

The Good

  • Supports Xbox Wireless protocol
  • Hall effect sticks use replaceable tops
  • Four rear buttons smartly positioned for comfort
  • Two extra shoulder buttons add unique versatility
  • Trigger stops and back buttons offer a satisfying mouse-like click

The Bad

  • Expensive
  • Requires a USB dongle
  • Razer Synapse software needs work

Connectivity: Wireless USB dongle (Xbox / PC), wired / Connector type: USB-C / Mappable rear buttons: Four / Software customization: Yes / Power: Built-in rechargeable

At $199.99, Razer’s Wolverine V3 Pro controller is as expensive (or more, depending on available deals) than the Elite Series 2, but it’s worth the cost if you want a high-end controller with drift-free sticks. Not only is the V3 Pro Razer’s first foray into using Hall effect sticks, it’s the company’s first fully wireless Xbox gamepad. It also sports some of the best hair-trigger lockouts around, yielding a mouse-like click usually found on even pricier Scuf controllers (a previous high-ranking pick of ours).

Other than that, the V3 Pro is similar to the previous V2 Pro, with six remappable buttons — four rear paddles in new, angled orientations and two extra shoulder buttons — and some RGB lighting. The buttons and D-pad still have that satisfying micro-switch tactility and audible clickiness like the previous-gen V2 Pro, but the RGB lighting is more subtle this time around.

It’s not every day you see six buttons on top of a controller. Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

The Wolverine V3 Pro’s biggest shortcomings compared to Microsoft’s Elite Series 2 are its more basic software customization, its lack of Bluetooth, and the fact that it needs a USB dongle to work wirelessly. The V3 Pro is otherwise the better pick if you can justify its high price, which, unlike the Series 2, is rarely subjected to discounts. Luckily, if you can’t, there’s also the $99.99 Wolverine V3 Pro Tournament Edition that has a nearly identical set of features in a wired configuration.

An affordable alternative to the Elite

$80

GameSir’s G7 Pro is a wired Xbox controller with remapable rear buttons, adjustable triggers, and TMR joysticks. It can also be connected wirelessly to a PC (via a 2.4Ghz dongle) or Android (via Bluetooth).

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Connectivity: Wired (Xbox), wireless USB dongle (PC), Bluetooth (Android) / Connector type: USB-C / Mappable rear buttons: Two / Software customization: Yes / Power: Built-in rechargeable

If you don’t mind using a wired controller, GameSir’s G7 Pro offers some features of the splurge-worthy Xbox Elite Controller 2 for under $100. It has remappable buttons, smooth-feeling drift-resistant TMR control sticks, a satisfying weight, and textured grips that made it feel comfortable to hold even with sweaty palms.

The G7 Pro is actually a battery-powered wireless controller, but its cable free connectivity is limited to PC (via an included 2.4Ghz dongle) and Android (via Bluetooth). You’ll need to plug the controller into the Xbox with a cable, and GameSir provides a lengthy USB-C to USB-A cord. The cable was long enough that I could play games from my couch (roughly six feet away) without feeling tethered.

I was impressed with the G7 Pro’s overall build quality, especially the triggers, which could be locked by flipping switches on its back. GameSir includes three swappable direction pads with the G7 Pro, which can be swapped by lifting the front of the controller’s shell and popping them in and out. However, its face buttons felt noticeably cheaper than the ones on the Elite 2, which makes sense given their price difference. Button feel aside, the controller never dropped an input, even when I mashed buttons to string together elaborate combos in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, or continuously cast spells, dodged, and healed in Diablo IV. If an action was mistimed, it was on me.

What the controller lacks in face button quality is more than made up for in customizability. GameSir Nexus, a free app on the Xbox Store, allowed me to remap any button (including the L4 and R4 buttons on its backside), adjust the vibration intensity of both triggers, enable two flavors of hair trigger mode, and set the deadzone for each control stick. You can save up to four profiles with different settings, and quickly switch between them by pressing the controller’s M button along with one of the face buttons. You never need to touch these options, or even download the GameSir Nexus app for the G7 Pro to work, but doing so will unlock its full potential.

The GameSir G7 Pro is an excellent Xbox controller, especially in its price range. I’d have liked the option to use it wirelessly, but that wasn’t a dealbreaker for me. That said, it’s something to consider depending on how far away you are from your Xbox when playing. If you’re a multi-platform gamer and want a controller to use with both an Xbox and PC (or Android device), it’s an even better choice.

Other Xbox controllers we tested

  • The Scuf Valor Pro is the company’s first Xbox controller with Hall effect sticks, as well as its cheapest at $109.99. Scuf emulates Microsoft’s winning ergonomics while implementing redesigned remappable rear buttons (two are removable) and shoulder bumpers that are more comfortable to reach. It also has trigger stops that produce a satisfying click with next to no travel when pressed. The D-pad produces a similarly satisfying click, one we prefer over the softer tactile feel of the Instinct. The Valor Pro is not the most exciting controller on paper, but it’s a solid option for Scuf faithful or anyone who wants more durable analog sticks. Read our hands-on impressions.
  • We tested PowerA’s latest pro-style Xbox controllers, including the Fusion Pro 4 Wired ($74.99) and PowerA Fusion Pro Wireless ($159.99). They’re standard fare for pro-style controllers these days, with height-adjustable Hall effect sticks, four remappable rear buttons, three-way trigger locks, and onboard volume controls. They’re similar, but the Pro Wireless has four trippy Lumectra lighting zones that respond to your button presses. Both controllers are satisfying to use and a clear step up from PowerA’s older products in terms of overall quality, but they ultimately don’t stand out much at these price points.
  • Nacon’s Revolution X ($25.90) remains one of the most customizable wired controllers you can get (it even has removable weights in its handles), and its software is nearly as expansive as Microsoft’s first-party app.
  • If you’re the nostalgic type, the Hyperkin Duke ($89.99), DuchesS ($49.99), and Xenon ($49.99) are faithful wired recreations of Xbox gamepads from Microsoft’s first two console generations. They’re kind of dumb but endearing (especially the chunky Duke), but they’re unique collector pieces you can also use on modern games.
  • Hyperkin’s Competitor controller, which it announced in January at CES, will be released in October for $49.99. The wired gamepad looks almost identical to the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller, with a pair of analog sticks next to one another at the bottom of the controller, glassy buttons, and a non-contiguous D-pad. Hyperkin is offering the Competitor in five colors, but only the black and white controllers will be available in the US at launch.

Update, September 15th: Updated to reflect current pricing / availability, additional details about Hyperkin’s Competitor controller and added GameSir’s G7 Pro controller. Brandt Ranj also contributed to this post.

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Elon Musk is trying to silence Microsoft employees who criticize Charlie Kirk
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Elon Musk is trying to silence Microsoft employees who criticize Charlie Kirk

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Elon Musk is pressing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to look into Blizzard employees who criticized Charlie Kirk after his death. Musk’s post quotes an X thread listing names and screenshots of the developers.

Musk’s direct question to Nadella follows a broader censorship crackdown from Republicans targeting individuals celebrating Kirk’s death or criticizing him. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) said he would use “Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”

Former Blizzard developer Mark Kern, who goes by “Grummz” online and frequently posts about right-wing issues on X, quoted the original thread, claiming that the screenshotted posts showed Blizzard employees “trashing” Kirk. Musk then quoted the post himself with his question to Nadella.

“We’re aware of the views expressed by a small subset of our employees regarding recent events,” Microsoft said in a post on X. The post is not a reply to Musk but was shared on its main @Microsoft page. “We take matters like this very seriously and we are currently reviewing each individual situation. Comments celebrating violence against anyone are unacceptable and do not align with our values.” (The screenshots in the thread shared by Musk do not celebrate the shooting against Kirk.) Nadella has not replied to Musk publicly as of this writing.



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Open AI
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OpenAI for-profit restructuring given go-ahead by Microsoft in new non-binding deal

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  • Microsoft has signed a non-binding memorandum with OpenAI for its next phase
  • OpenAI may want to go public after it distances itself from Microsoft
  • It already uses Google and others for compute power

Microsoft and OpenAI have signed a non-binding agreement to restructure OpenAI into a for-profit company.

Details of the agreement have not been confirmed, but OpenAI could ultimately want to go public after raising capital and adopting a more conventional corporate governance model following its huge success in recent years with generative AI.

The news comes after huge investments from Microsoft into the ChatGPT maker, including $1 billion in 2019 and a further huge multibillion-dollar investment in 2023 that later turned out to be worth around $10 billion – around 18% of its total revenue for the second calendar quarter of 2023.


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OpenAI to enter its next business phase

“OpenAI and Microsoft have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the next phase of our partnership,” OpenAI and Microsoft shared.

“We are actively working to finalize contractual terms in a definitive agreement. Together, we remain focused on delivering the best AI tools for everyone, grounded in our shared commitment to safety.”

Under previous terms, Microsoft had exclusive rights to sell OpenAI’s software via Azure and had preferential access to its technology, but this has since changed. Today, Microsoft is no longer OpenAI’s sole compute provider. In July, we learned that Google Cloud would be joining forces with OpenAI for compute power.

OpenAI is also seeking some degree of independence by reducing reliance on third parties, building out its own data center as part of the $500 billion Project Stargate.

Reuters reporting citing a memo from OpenAI nonprofit board chairman Bret Taylor suggests the nonprofit arm could receive more than $100 billion in funding – about 20% of the $500 billion valuation OpenAI is reportedly seeking in private markets.

However, with regulatory hurdles now standing between OpenAI’s change of structure and its future, quite what the shakeup could mean for the ChatGPT maker remains unclear.

Microsoft’s share price increase peaked at 2.5% in after-hours trading following the announcement, marking investor confidence in its decision to free OpenAI from its reins.

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‘Microsoft has become like an arsonist selling firefighting services to their victims’ says US senator, referring it to the FTC for a cybersecurity flaw, though Microsoft says it has a plan

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US senator Ron Wyden has written a letter to the FTC requesting that the organisation investigate Microsoft for what he calls “gross cybersecurity negligence.” His complaint is primarily related to a form of encryption still supported by the company’s Windows operating system, which the senator’s office believes is vulnerable to ransomware attacks.

In the letter [PDF warning], Senator Wyden reveals that an investigation his office conducted into a ransomware breach of healthcare provide Ascension last year found that support of the RC4 encryption cipher was a direct contributor to the attack (via Ars Technica).

“Because of dangerous software engineering decisions by Microsoft, which the company has largely hidden from its corporate and government customers, a single individual at a hospital or other organization clicking on the wrong link can quickly result in an organization-wide ransomware infection,” said Wyden.


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“Microsoft has utterly failed to stop or even slow down the scourge of ransomware enabled by its dangerous software.”

RC4, or Rivest Cipher 4, was developed in 1987 by mathematician and cryptographer Ron Rivest, and was considered a protected method of encryption until 1994, when it was compromised as a result of a leaked technical description. Despite this, RC4 was widely used in common encryption protocols until around a decade ago, and is still used by Microsoft to secure Active Directory, a Windows component used by system administrators to configure user accounts.

(Image credit: Witthaya Prasongsin via Getty Images)

While Windows will use AES encryption by default, the senator’s office discovered that Windows servers will still respond to RC4-based authentication requests, which potentially opens them up to “Kerberoasting.” This is a technique in which administrative privileges are gained via exploiting encryption on one affected machine in order to install ransomware on others.

In the case of Ascension, the senator claims that a contractor clicking on a malicious link led to hackers “moving laterally” within its server network, exploiting the weak encryption in order to push ransomware to thousands of other other computers in the organisation and ultimately stealing the sensitive data of 5.6 million patients.

While the senator says that his office contacted Microsoft about the vulnerability, and that the company eventually posted a blog post with actions that organisations could take to protect against it, a promised security update to fix the issue is yet to arrive.

(Image credit: Future)

“The Ascension hack illustrates how it is Microsoft’s customers, and, ultimately, the public, who bear the cost of Microsoft’s dangerous software engineering practices and the company’s refusal to inform its customers about the pressing need to adopt important cybersecurity safeguards,” the senator continues.

“There is one company benefiting from this status quo: Microsoft itself. Instead of delivering secure software to its customers, Microsoft has built a multibillion dollar secondary business selling cybersecurity add-on services to those organizations that can afford it. At this point, Microsoft has become like an arsonist selling firefighting services to their victims”


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The senator ends his letter by urging the FTC to investigate Microsoft, and hold the company responsible for what the senator claims is the “serious harm it has caused by delivering dangerous, insecure software to the U.S. government and to critical infrastructure entities, such as those in the U.S. health care sector.”

(Image credit: Maciej Toporowicz, NYC via Getty Images)

Microsoft has since released a statement to multiple outlets, including Ars Technica, directly addressing the senator’s claims:

“RC4 is an old standard, and we discourage its use both in how we engineer our software and in our documentation to customers – which is why it makes up less than .1% of our traffic. However, disabling its use completely would break many customer systems,” the company said.

“For this reason, we’re on a path to gradually reduce the extent to which customers can use it, while providing strong warnings against it and advice for using it in the safest ways possible. We have it on our roadmap to ultimately disable its use. We’ve engaged with The Senator’s office on this issue and will continue to listen and answer questions from them or others in government.”

Microsoft also says that in the first quarter of 2026, “Any new installations of Active Directory Domains using Windows Server 2025 will have RC4 disabled by default, meaning any new domain will inherently be protected against attacks relying on RC4 weaknesses. We plan to include additional mitigations for existing in-market deployments with considerations for compatibility and continuity of critical customer services.”

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Issy les Moulineaux, France - January 2020 : Microsoft France headquarters entrance in Issy les Moulineaux near Paris
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Tribunal hears Microsoft case on whether second hand Office and Windows license trading is unlawful

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  • Microsoft continues tribunal fight over legality of reselling Office and Windows licenses
  • ValueLicensing claims Microsoft restricted resale market and seeks £270 million in damages
  • Outcome could reshape the future of Europe’s second-hand software industry

Microsoft’s long-running dispute with ValueLicensing, a UK reseller of pre-owned licenses for products like Windows and Office, returns to the Competition Appeal Tribunal this week, with the US tech giant now arguing that selling pre-owned Office and Windows licenses is unlawful.

ValueLicensing says the trial will focus on whether the entire resale market for perpetual Microsoft licenses is legal, or indeed ever has been, and the result could have huge implications for Europe’s popular second-hand software market.

The reseller contends that if Microsoft’s argument succeeds, it would mean second-hand license trading should never have existed in Europe.


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A change of stance

The case, which has been going on for several years now, stems from ValueLicensing’s claims that Microsoft restricted the availability of pre-owned licenses.

According to the reseller, Microsoft offered customers discounts on subscription services if they surrendered their perpetual licenses, limiting the stock available to firms like ValueLicensing.

It also alleges Microsoft inserted contract clauses that curtailed resale rights in exchange for further price cuts. This strategy, ValueLicensing claims, cost it £270 million in lost profits.

Microsoft’s defense rests on the claim that it owns copyright not just to program code, but also to elements such as the graphical user interface.

The tech giant says the European Software Directive does not apply to such components, meaning resale is not allowed.

ValueLicensing boss Jonathan Horley said Microsoft’s position had shifted dramatically, from denying anti-competitive conduct to arguing that the resale market itself should not exist. “It’s a remarkable coincidence that their defense against ValueLicensing has changed so dramatically from being a defense of ‘we didn’t do it’ to a defense of ‘the market should never have existed,'” he said.

Microsoft’s stance draws on a precedent from the Tom Kabinet ruling, which found that software resale was allowed but that e-books were different.

Microsoft is seeking to place its own products outside the rules that allowed secondary trading by making the interface distinct from software code.

The tribunal’s decision could determine whether Europe’s thriving trade in pre-owned software survives or vanishes entirely.

Via The Register

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Microsoft and OpenAI announce the ‘next phase’ of their partnership

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Microsoft and OpenAI have issued a joint statement to say that they have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding for the “next phase” of their partnership. The companies are still finalizing the terms of agreement and haven’t shared the details of what their future would look like exactly. But according to The New York Times, the deal includes hows the parties share technology and and the revenue from those technologies. The new agreement also reportedly modifies the clause in the original, which states that Microsoft cannot access OpenAI’s most powerful technology if its board decides that it has reached human-like artificial general intelligence or AGI.

In addition to the new deal, The Times says OpenAI is giving an equity stake worth at least $100 billion to its nonprofit arm that will continue to oversee and control the organization. As the publication notes, a change in the company’s agreement paves the way for OpenAI to transition into a public benefit corporation, a type of corporation that’s meant to make a positive impact on society, and for an eventual IPO. OpenAI had to reach an acceptable agreement with Microsoft first, including how much equity it’s getting in the AI firm’s for-profit arm. Microsoft had invested over $13 billion into OpenAI and is entitled to 49 percent of its future profits.

Reports about OpenAI moving away from its complicated non-profit structure started coming out last year. After Christmas in 2024, it officially announced its plan to transform itself into a public benefit corporation with ordinary shares of stock. “It will enable us to raise the necessary capital with conventional terms like others in this space,” it said at the time. In May, however, OpenAI announced that it was no longer going to remove the control of its for-profit arm from its non-profit board. “OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, and is today overseen and controlled by that nonprofit. Going forward, it will continue to be overseen and controlled by that nonprofit,” it said.



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