Connect with us

Tech

‘World of Warcraft’ battle heats up as NetEase rejects Blizzard offer

Published

on

'World of Warcraft' battle heats up as NetEase rejects Blizzard offer

Chinese games publisher NetEase Inc NTES.O (9999.HK) said on Wednesday it has rejected a proposal from Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI.O) to extend their long-time partnership for six months, as the U.S. game developer looks for a new partner.

NetEase said the proposal was “commercially illogical” and accused the U.S. firm of “seeking a divorce but still remaining attached,” in a rare public display of acrimony between the two gaming giants.

Blizzard said in November it would end its 14-year partnership with NetEase – sending shockwaves across the industry as the partnership was widely seen as one of the most lucrative in video games.

The companies had been unable to agree on key terms of cooperation and hits such as  World of Warcraft  will not be available in China, the world’s largest gaming market, from Jan. 23.

Advertisement

NetEase said Blizzard reached out last week with an offer to extend the partnership for six months but also made it clear that it would not stop negotiating with other potential partners.

“Considering the non-reciprocity, unfairness and other strict conditions attached to the cooperation, the parties could not reach an agreement in the end,” China s second-largest gaming company said in a statement.

The exact sticking points that soured the deal, which started in 2008 and was renewed in 2019, remain unclear.
A person close to Blizzard said the dispute that scuttled the renewal revolved around commercial terms rather than data issues as some media had reported.

The person, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, said NetEase had proposed to make structural changes to the partnership that would affect Blizzard’s control over its intellectual property (IP).

In its statement late on Tuesday, NetEase said it had never requested control over IP from Blizzard or any other partners as a publishing company over the past 14 years.

Advertisement

“Any usage and licensing of Blizzard’s IP were done in accordance with contract terms and with Blizzard’s consent and approval,” it said.

Activision Blizzard did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
With the demise of their partnership, Blizzard is currently without a Chinese publisher. Unlike other countries, foreign gaming companies typically need a Chinese publisher before they can release games in China.

NetEase rose to become a gaming giant partly by publishing Blizzard s games in China. It has since accelerated its own game development capability, with in-house games now accounting for more than 60% of revenue.

Advertisement

Tech

China launches Shenzhou-16 mission to Chinese space station

Published

on

By

China launches Shenzhou-16 mission to Chinese space station

 China sent three astronauts to its now fully operational space station as part of crew rotation on Tuesday in the fifth manned mission to the Chinese space outpost since 2021, state media reported.

The spacecraft, Shenzhou-16, or “Divine Vessel”, and its three passengers lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert in northwest China at 9:31 a.m. (0131 GMT).

The astronauts on Shenzhou-16 will replace the three-member crew of the Shenzhou-15, who arrived at the space station late in November.

The station, comprising three modules, was completed at the end of last year after 11 crewed and uncrewed missions since April 2021, beginning with the launch of the first and biggest module – the station’s main living quarters.

Advertisement

China has already announced plans to expand its permanently inhabited space outpost, with the next module slated to dock with the current T-shaped space station to create a cross-shaped structure.

Leading the Shenzhou-16 mission was Jing Haipeng, 56, a senior spacecraft pilot from China’s first batch of astronaut trainees in the late 1990s. He had travelled to space three times before, including two trips as mission commander.

Jing flew with Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao, both 36 and part of China’s third batch of astronauts. The mission is Zhu’s and Gui’s first spaceflight.

Former military university professor Zhu will serve as spaceflight engineer while Gui, a professor at Beihang University, will serve as the payload specialist on the mission, managing science experiments at the space station.

Beijing is expected to launch one more crewed mission to the orbiting outpost this year.

Advertisement

Also by the end of 2023, China is due to a launch space telescope the size of a large bus.

Known as Xuntian, or “Surveying the Heavens” in Chinese, the orbital telescope will boast a field of view 350 times wider than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched 33 years ago.

Continue Reading

Tech

WhatsApp rolling out archive feature for businesses on Android

Published

on

By

WhatsApp rolling out archive feature for businesses on Android

 WhatsApp is going to launch a new feature called “status archive” as a new business tool that will help people to share their previous status updates with their customers.

The feature is currently being rolled out to beta testers of WhatsApp Business for Android and will become available to more users in the coming weeks, a media outlet that closely monitors the updates in the messaging app said in its blog.

The users will receive a notification within the Status tab asking them if they want to enable the feature on their WhatsApp accounts.

When this feature is enabled, the status updates will automatically be sent into archives on the users’ device after 24 hours. In addition, people can manage their archive preferences and see it directly from the menu within the Status tab.

Advertisement

The feature will help businesses to re-share the previous status in an easy way.

Continue Reading

Tech

NASA sets coverage for Axiom Mission 2 departure from space station

Published

on

By

NASA sets coverage for Axiom Mission 2 departure from space station

NASA will provide live coverage of the undocking and departure of Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2) private astronaut mission from the International Space Station before crew returns to Earth.

The four-member multinational astronaut crew is scheduled to undock no earlier than 11:05 a.m. EDT Tuesday, May 30, from the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to begin the journey home and splashdown off the coast of Florida.

NASA will begin live coverage of space station joint operations with Axiom Space and SpaceX, starting with hatch closure preparations at 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 30, on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

Mission teams will monitor weather at the possible splashdown sites prior to undocking to ensure conditions are acceptable for a safe recovery of the spacecraft and Ax-2 astronauts.

Advertisement

Ax-2 Commander Peggy Whitson, Pilot John Shoffner, and Mission Specialists Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi, both representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, will complete approximately nine days in space at the conclusion of their mission. Their SpaceX Dragon will return to Earth with more than 300 pounds of cargo, including NASA hardware and data from over 20 different experiments.

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © GLOBAL TIMES PAKISTAN