Blizzard Apologises as Battle.net Goes Down, Making Diablo 4 and More Unplayable

Square Enix announced the “Viper” job, a Final Fantasy XI crossover alliance raid, and more for the Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail expansion at Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2023 in London. A Final Fantasy XVI crossover for the 6.x series was also announced, and an open beta test for the Xbox Series version of Final Fantasy XIV is planned for mid-January to February 2024.

AI Roundup: The US will close loopholes on exporting AI chips to China, building on previous restrictions implemented last October. In a separate development, Bloomberg Tax & Accounting launched its AI Lab, offering AI-driven tools like an LLM combined with Bloomberg Tax Research for question-and-answer services. Deloitte also unveiled its AI chatbot internally which can assist professionals with responses and insights.

Update: It's the second day of the Big Deal Days sale, which means new deals are live and ready to be snapped up. Check out the best PlayStation offerings below!

If you love freebies and sweepstakes, today (and many other days on IGN) is your lucky day! There are quite a few cool giveaways going on right now, so you can enter for your chance to win a Nintendo Switch OLED, Steam Deck, Vizio TV, PlayStation 5, and the new Mission: Impossible movie, just to name a few.

Generally speaking, videogame trailers are a promotional, sometimes informative type of thing: «Here's our new game, here's what it looks like, here's when it comes out,» and all that. But today we've got something different to share with you: A trailer celebrating Microsoft's $68 billion swallow-up of Activision Blizzard, which finally happened today following the long-awaited green light from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority.

Today was a big day for artificial intelligence, where major strides were made in the development of this emerging technology. Google today announced that it will give its customers, who use generative AI tools, protection against copyright infringement lawsuits. The company also added that for seven of its products, it will also give legal protection. In other news, CD Projekt SA revealed that it used AI to recreate the voice of a deceased voice actor for the game Cyberpunk 2077. This and more in today's AI roundup. Let us take a closer look.

By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.

Earlier today, the UK’s CMA approved the Microsoft Activision Blizzard merger. Having previously rejected the company’s bid to purchase the creator of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch in April 2023, Microsoft has since altered the terms of its proposed acquisition to fit the CMA’s requirements. The Microsoft Activision Blizzard merger is now closed and completed, as Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer says that “as one team, we’ll learn, innovate, and continue to deliver on our promise to bring the joy and community of gaming to more people.”

After one year, eight months, and 26 days, Xbox has finally completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, meaning it now owns premium video game franchises including Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Diablo.

Nintendo has changed the official artwork forPrincess Peach: Showtime, making the titular character look a lot more expressive.

Ravensburger has announced it’ll be rolling out Disney Lorcana to ten more regions later this year, ahead a third set confirmed for early 2024.

It’s a Minecraft tradition for players to log on each year around Minecraft Live, a yearly celebration of the voxel building game, and vote for a new mob or enemy to be added to the game. In previous years, fans have voted for the fearsome Warden, or the helpful Sniffer to be added to the game. In 2023, however, there’s a sizeable protest over the mob vote. Fans don’t want to choose between the available options — they want it all, and they’ve created a fan union to protest their cause.