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Max Knoblauch

Microsoft is hiking US Xbox prices for the second time in five months

Microsoft said on Friday that it is once again hiking the price of Xbox consoles in the US, this time by up to $70. According to the company, the new prices will take effect on October 3.

A Series X special edition console will now cost $800, up from $730. The standard Series X is now $650, up from $600. Pricing outside of the US will stay the same, Microsoft said.

If you’re feeling deja vu, that’s because Microsoft just did this back in May when it hiked its Xbox prices by up to $100 in the US. The standard edition of the Series X was $500 at launch, meaning the nearly 5-year-old console has seen a 30% price hike this year.

The update is “due to changes in the macroeconomic environment,” according to Microsoft, language mirroring that of rivals Sony and Nintendo when each hiked their own console prices last month. Industry analysts have long warned that tariffs like those imposed by President Trump could substantially increase the costs of video game console production.

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Streamers continued retreating from original shows in 2025

The death of “peak TV” has not been exaggerated, per a new report from Luminate.

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Retail display of Takis snack food in various spicy flavors in Target store, Queens, New York

America’s love for spicy food and mouth-tingling sauces has surged, but are we approaching “peak heat”?

Takis doesn’t think so, as it searches for a “Chief Intensity Officer.”

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Netflix made $1.5 billion from advertising last year, about 3% of its total revenue

The figure rose more than 2.5x last year, per the company.

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OpenAI’s ARR reached over $20 billion in 2025, CFO says

Sam Altman’s $500 billion artificial intelligence behemoth hit a major financial milestone last year, according to a new blog post over the weekend from OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, as the company confirmed it had hit a more than $20 billion annual revenue run rate at the end of 2025.

Elsewhere in the blog post, Friar spent time addressing the company’s shifting goals, referencing plans to “close the distance between where intelligence is advancing and how individuals, companies, and countries actually adopt and use it.” As has become customary in the AI company press release genre, the CFO was also keen to tout the unending growth of the business, writing:

  • “Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization.”

  • “Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025.”

And, perhaps most importantly for current backers and those keeping an eye on the private company before its rumored mega IPO:

  • “Revenue followed the same curve growing 3X year over year, or 10X from 2023 to 2025: $2B ARR in 2023, $6B in 2024, and $20B+ in 2025. This is never-before-seen growth at such scale.”

That latest figure has certainly set tongues in the tech world wagging, just as the company announced it would begin rolling out ads to free and ChatGPT Go users. It also puts the chatbot giant a fair way ahead of competitors like Anthropic, the company behind Claude.

OpenAI Anthropic ARR race
Sherwood News

A business that scales with the value of intelligence

A business that scales with the value of intelligence

Elsewhere in the blog post, Friar spent time addressing the company’s shifting goals, referencing plans to “close the distance between where intelligence is advancing and how individuals, companies, and countries actually adopt and use it.” As has become customary in the AI company press release genre, the CFO was also keen to tout the unending growth of the business, writing:

  • “Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization.”

  • “Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025.”

And, perhaps most importantly for current backers and those keeping an eye on the private company before its rumored mega IPO:

  • “Revenue followed the same curve growing 3X year over year, or 10X from 2023 to 2025: $2B ARR in 2023, $6B in 2024, and $20B+ in 2025. This is never-before-seen growth at such scale.”

That latest figure has certainly set tongues in the tech world wagging, just as the company announced it would begin rolling out ads to free and ChatGPT Go users. It also puts the chatbot giant a fair way ahead of competitors like Anthropic, the company behind Claude.

OpenAI Anthropic ARR race
Sherwood News
The Sphere In Las Vegas

Washington, DC, looks set to get America’s second Sphere

Revenue for the Las Vegas version of the big orb has soared, but the Sphere is still a money pit.

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