Nomura's Richard Shurland upgraded Microsoft to Buy from Neutral with a $50 price target. Shurland said Microsoft's Q3 results reflected difficult comps and core business weakness due to the transition to cloud, but results were better than guidance. The analyst said there is emerging evidence that Azure has turned positive on gross margins and Office 365 margins have expanded sharply. Shurland believes Microsoft will begin to show low single digit revenue growth in 2016, with about 10% EPS growth from share repurchase leverage and with a 2.9% dividend yield. He also said he views valuation as reasonable.

Craig-Hallum lowered the firm's price target on Edgio (EGIO) to $10 from $30 and keeps a Hold rating on the shares. The analyst sates some of the recent run-up in the stock has been due to "buzz from a few promoters" that Edgio is an "edge" play, an artificial intelligence play, and about to benefit from a new reseller relationship with Microsoft (MSFT). The firm does not agree with any of those. At its core, Edgio is a streaming centric content delivery network, with improving plays on security and app development / deployment, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Hallum believes that while the company can claim technical leadership in these areas, converting any of these products to sustained revenue growth and free cash flow generation "has been and likely remains hard to come by."

Amazon (AMZN) has renewed its latest hit Prime Video series "Fallout" for a second season, Variety's Joe Otterson reports. The news comes after Variety previously reported that a second season was slated to receive $25M in tax credits by shooting in the state of California. The "Fallout" franchise is published by Bethesda, which Microsoft (MSFT) acquired in 2021. Reference Link

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Sales of video games in Bethesda's "Fallout" series have surged across Europe, with 2015's "Fallout 4" reclaiming the top spot, Gamesindustry.biz's Christopher Dring reports. Sales of "Fallout 4" jumped 7,500% week-on-week across Europe, due to some heavy discounting on games in the "Fallout" franchise across all platforms designed to tie-in with Amazon Prime's (AMZN) "Fallout" television series, Dring says, citing GSD data. 2018's "Fallout 76," 2010's "Fallout: New Vegas," and 2008's "Fallout 3" rounded out Europe's weekly top ten as well, Dring says. The Fly notes that Microsoft (MSFT) acquired Bethesda in 2021. Reference Link

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Microsoft's Activision is dropping team entry fees for its professional Call of Duty League, and will return prior collected fees, as the esports industry faces profit challenges, Bloomberg's Cecilia D'Anastasio reports. A lawsuit this year from a former owner identified the fees as $27.5M per franchise. Activision is also offering the teams two-year minimum revenue guarantees, according to the report. Reference Link

Microsoft's (MSFT) Rare said that its 2018 video game "Sea of Thieves," has achieved 40M players across Xbox, Windows 10 and Steam so far. The Fly notes that the game is set to release on PlayStation 5 (SONY) on April 30. Reference Link

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