Subscription Gaming

Last week Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), the third largest publicly-traded company in the world, reported financials for the period ended December 31, 2016, the company's second quarter of fiscal year 2017. The company reported revenue of $24.1 billion (GAAP), a slight increase over revenue of $23.8 billion reported for the same period last year. Other highlights for Q2 of fiscal year 2017 include operating income of $6.2 billion (GAAP), net income of $5.2 billion (GAAP) and diluted earnings per share of $0.66 (GAAP).

Peacock and Roku reach an agreement, Facebook settles a massive privacy suit in Illinois, and streaming service Quibi wants a new owner.

We are just 10 days into the New Year, and the international headlines are grabbing everyone's attention. Check out today's Five on Friday for a pleasant distraction. In this week's edition, the Boardroom Salon for Men has made unlimited haircuts possible with a barber shop membership in select markets; Zuora discusses its thoughts on how subscriptions might be the future of banking; Apple's App Store made more than $50 billion last year, but can it keep up the pace; Forbes thinks the 2020s are finally the right time for ebooks; and LinkedIn shares top subscription jobs.

Understand how your organization can adopt new effective retention strategies and tactics. Determine what’s next for your subscription business and how you succeed during COVID-19 and after. Listen to the fireside chat with Michael Daley, Global VP Solution Evangelist at Vindicia, and Rajeev Raman, CEO of Redfast.

LiquidSky Game Streaming Service is making it even easier to play Windows-compatible games online, by putting games in the cloud and adding subscription options, reports Tom's Hardware. First, the service operates in the cloud, so gamers can save their game files to LiquidSky's cloud and then play their games from any PC, laptop or Android phone or tablet. LiquidSky promises high performance hardware with high quality graphics, ultra-low latency and lightning internet speed (1 GB per second for uploads and downloads).

Before you head out for the three-day weekend, check out this weeks edition of Five on Friday. Disqus explores why readers pay for news, Ad Week explains ways media companies can use native advertising to their advantage, a consumer watchdog group in the U.K. is monitoring social influencers who may not be disclosing paid promotions, YouTube is being strategic about its premium content and Shigeru Miyamoto urges game developers to embrace subscription-based services.

COVID-19 stimulates the furniture subscription industry, Popular Science shares Apple subscription tips, & ScreenHits TV aggregates streaming services.

Have you seen a rise in declines or a rise in chargebacks or fraud? Are your renewals taking longer to successfully process? Do you understand why? Paul Larsen, Subscription Insider Guide to Payment Processing, leading expert in card-not-present recurring payments, and Managing Partner of the Paul Larsen Group, in this on-demand version of our January 2017 online seminar, will outline key payment processing trends every subscription company should be aware of, and be on top of, for 2017.

Here is a number to marvel over: $2.3 trillion. Thats the size the subscription revenue marketplace will be in 2020 if economic forecasters are to be believed. Thats up half a trillion dollars from today. Where will this growth emerge, you may ask? And, how can my business capture its share?

The Washington Post is looking for new ways to engage younger audiences. On Monday, The Post announced it was launching a channel on Twitch to stream live coverage of "must-watch news and political events." The first event was Monday morning when Libby Casey hosted a live stream about President Donald Trump's and Russian President Vladimir Putin's first summit. Casey was joined by White House reporter David Nakamura and audience editor Gene Park to break down the summit and the ramifications it holds for our nation.