News written by James Delahunty (August, 2020)

Epic Games has received support from gamers and from other firms as it takes on Google and Apple in court over their App Store policies.

Epic recently offered Fortnite players a 20 percent discount on its in-game V-bucks currency if they paid Epic Games directly. Bypassing Apple and Google's internal payment systems meant that Epic could avoid paying the standard 30 percent fee to the tech giants.

Apple was the first to retaliate by kicking the megapopular Fortnite off of its App Store, meaning there is nowhere now for Apple products' users to install the game. Epic seemed to be primed and ready for Apple's action and released a parody video of Apple's icon 1984-themed advert.

Epic Games has defied the App Store Monopoly. In retaliation, Apple is blocking Fortnite from a billion devices.

Visit https://t.co/K3S07w5uEk and join the fight to stop 2020 from becoming "1984" https://t.co/tpsiCW4gqK

-- Fortnite (@FortniteGame) August 13, 2020

Japanese electronics giant has no presence left in laptop and PC market where it was operating for three and a half decades.

Toshiba transferred its remaining 19.9 percent stake in Dynabook to Sharp earlier this month. The transfer was enabled through a share purchase agreement reached between Sharp and Toshiba in 2018 when Sharp initially acquired 80.1 percent of Toshiba Client Solutions Co., Ltd (TCS).

TCS changed its brand name to Dynabook in January 2019.

The action means that Toshiba - a consistent name in PCs and laptops since 1985 - now has no presence left in the PC market, while Dynabook has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sharp.

Toshiba's first laptop was the T1100, released in 1985. Over the decades it had considerable success with its Satellite, Qosmio, and Protege devices.

Press release: toshiba.co.jp

Leaked packaging and materials for Xbox controller confirm the existence of the "Xbox Series S" console.

There has been growing evidence that Microsoft plans to release a cheaper, possibly disc-less version of its upcoming Xbox Series X next-gen console. The codename for the project is well known - Lockhart - and now its actual name may be confirmed as the Xbox Series S.

Twitter user Zak S obtained a white next-gen Xbox controller on OfferUp for $35 and The Verge verified its authenticity. The packaging and materials that come with the controller mention both the Xbox Series X, and the Xbox Series S.

Earlier in the summer, leaked documents also showed that the Xbox Series X devkit (codenamed Dante) includes a Lockhart mode. The Lockhart hardware is expected to have 7.5GB of RAM (down from 13.5GB in the Series X) and a lower performance GPU. While it will pack the same CPU as the Series X, it's likely underclocked. Series S would be expected to be part of Microsoft's Xbox All Pass subscription push.

The focus of the Series X is also suggested to be on 1080p and 1440p resolution gaming, rather than 4K.

Apple has clarified that Microsoft's cloud gaming service won't be available for iOS devices because it breaches its App Store rules.

Microsoft's xCloud gaming service is expected to launch on September 15, having been in beta testing since November of last year. It will allow users to stream games across a variety of devices from the cloud.

While it was available for testing on Apple's iOS devices, it will not be launching for them next month. According to Apple, the problem is that xCloud violates numerous rules enforced on developers.

Firstly, Apple's rules stipulate that all games that would be made available through the App Store are submitted to it for checks. This is an issue for xCloud because a large number of titles would be available through an interface on the app, with many games becoming available the same day as they launch for purchase.

Secondly, games must also appear in the search on the App Store, but that would not the case with the xCloud app. Furthermore, games available in the xCloud app would not appear in charts.

Microsoft is pushing back against Apple's explanation, however, pointing out that all the games available in the xCloud library would be probed by games' rating bodies like the Entertainment Software Rating Board in America, and that further checks should not be required on Apple's end.