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Weekly Update 424: Big news in the gaming world, The Lab, and plenty of tech talk Jan 28, 2022

Young L. , Jan 28, 2022 :

by @Starcommander
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Hi guys,

Young Lin here. Nice e-meeting you all here. This is actually my first thread ever, so bear with me if I sound a little nervous. But I am genuinely excited to see you all.

It is a great honor for me to write the last Weekly Update before the Chinese New Year. Initially, I planned to share something about this beautiful festival (which has more than 4000 years of history), uncovering many fun facts and the traditions that are part of this special week.

However, what happened last week in the gaming industry totally shifted my mind… I'm taking a page out of the Writers' Club book and sharing some tech news with all of you – Microsoft's surprise announcement that it will acquire Activision Blizzard for 68.7 billion USD.

I believe, to some degree, everybody nowadays is a gamer. Thus, I would like to share my thoughts on this massive acquisition and why this matters.

Activision Blizzard is huge!
In the official press release by Microsoft, Activision Blizzard was described as "a leader in game development and interactive entertainment content publisher." While it may see the studio is past its prime, with the sexual harassment and discrimination scandals within the organization, Activision Blizzard is no doubt still a major player in the gaming industry, with world-class influential IPs such as World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Diablo.

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You can also tell the importance of Activision Blizzard from the investment perspective: Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion. That's a sensational number not only to us but also to Microsoft, one of the richest companies in the world: $68.7 billion is almost half of the cash reserve they had. It is in fact the biggest acquisition by Microsoft. As a comparison, it bought Nokia for nearly a tenth of that, at "just" $7.2 billion.

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This acquisition's most instant and straightforward result is that many Activision Blizzard games will come to Game Pass, a video game subscription service. Having Activision Blizzard's big names, such as Call of Duty, is definitely one more selling point. In the meantime, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer assured they aren't pulling the rug out from under PlayStation.

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Anyway, I felt like it is still way too early to judge the influence of this acquisition. It is still going to take a while, expected by Q2, 2023, for both companies to finish the entire process. Let's stay tuned and see how it goes, but feel free to let us know what's on your mind!

Now that I have shown you how much I'm into games let's see what happened in Community this week.

A flood of The Lab reviews
After the first threads dropped last week, we now see the bulk of OnePlus 9RT 5G reviews hitting the Community. Below, you have four new takes on this India-exclusive device from four different users. But before you start reading through the list, @Daniel D. wants to hear about your experience with The Lab has been. Enter this survey, and you can even win a cool prize.

• [The Lab] OnePlus 9RT 5G - Return of the Flagship Killer? by @Starcommander
  
• [The Lab] OnePlus 9RT 5G: Week After the Unboxing by @GGauraang_Arora
  
• [The Lab] Exploring the OnePlus 9RT 5G by @psygarden
  
• [The Lab] Geared for Grea "T" ness? A review of OnePlus 9RT 5G by SRD. by @SRD.

A flood of rumors
Seems like this week also saw its fair share of OnePlus-related rumors. While we obviously have nothing to say about these, it's always fun to see everyone sharing their guesses about unconfirmed news.

• [Rumor] OnePlus Nord 2T - Will the Nord get the "T" treatment? by @YRJ
  
• OnePlus could be readying an Ultra Flagship. Your expectations? by @Cheetosdust
  
• OnePlus 10R: What we know so far by @eddyros

Just remember,

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A flood of content
I'm starting with everyone's favorites – contests and giveaways. The Writers' Club came up with a very interesting contest idea around the Camera Module. We've just hit 50 valid entries, which means the Community team is giving away a pair of Buds Z2, and three POC Jackets. Join the contest now (or just have some laughs with the entries).

If fun edits aren't your cup of tea, you can enter the Raffles for another chance to get the POC Jacket. Oh, and don't forget to submit your Shadow photos for the January Shot On OnePlus contest before the month ends. I hear that a new Raffle, a new SOOP contest, and a very cool contest for our EU users are just around the corner. Keep your eyes peeled!

No wonder @BobbyV8_ awarded @Cheetosdust as GOTW for the Writers' Club content floods in the latest UWIR. The group has been churning a lot of content these days. I don't want to make this WU even longer, so I'll share just a few of the threads that might benefit you the most:

• Let's talk about Security: learn how to better protect our devices by @eddyros
  
• The BEST Photo editing apps on Android by @CosmicPaladin
  
• The BEST Video editing apps on Android by @yashonagori
  
• Top 5 Android Launchers to delight you right now! by @CosmicPaladin

That's it for this week. It's time to join the fun and play some WikiTrivia.