Manga Launches New Set of Videogames on Various Platforms

Manga Productions launches new videogames across various gaming platforms. (SPA)
Manga Productions launches new videogames across various gaming platforms. (SPA)
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Manga Launches New Set of Videogames on Various Platforms

Manga Productions launches new videogames across various gaming platforms. (SPA)
Manga Productions launches new videogames across various gaming platforms. (SPA)

Manga Productions, an affiliate of the Mohammed bin Salman MiSK Foundation, organized an event called “XP” in Riyadh to launch new videogames across various gaming platforms.
An elite group of media figures, influential content creators, and stakeholders attended the event. It aimed to engage with the players' community in the Kingdom through gaming experiences, exclusive content, and thought-provoking meetings.
CEO of Manga Productions Company Dr. Essam Bukhari expressed his pride in launching the new games and in the achievements of Saudi talents at the global level in content creation and production, such as “The Journey” and “Legends in the Coming of Time”.
He also highlighted successes in the distribution and anime licenses for both Grendizer and Captain Tsubasa.
Bukhari stated that the company is proud to publish three games in the Middle East and become the first Saudi company to publish AAA games by young Saudis, adding that investing in them and believing in their abilities is the strategic choice for regional and global competition.
The games include “Space Adventures Grendizer: Feast of the Wolves”, “The Smurfs 2: Prisoner of the Green Jewel”, and “Flashback 2”.
The “Grendizer” game is an epic adventure and a journey that explores the most famous landmarks and characters within the fantastic world created by “Go Nagai”, the author of the original series.
Players can also discover a fictional world of surprises in “The Smurfs 2” and help the famous Smurfs characters rid their world of green gem monsters.
In the second installment of the game, “Flashback 2”, players prepare to embark on a new mission with Conrad and Aisha in a cyberpunk world full of danger, mystery, and lost memories. The first installment of the game was launched in 1992 and sold more than 2 million copies.



Microsoft, Turning 50, Dials up Copilot Actions to Stay in AI Game

The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)
The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)
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Microsoft, Turning 50, Dials up Copilot Actions to Stay in AI Game

The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)
The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)

Thousands of people swooned in a dark conference hall that felt more like a rock concert when a Microsoft product manager demonstrated the company's latest feature: how to sum numbers in Excel, with the click of a button.

"It was literally like Mick Jagger walked out," said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's consumer chief marketing officer, who started as an intern.

That was more than 30 years ago. On Friday, the day Microsoft turned 50, the company's leaders and staff gathered at its Redmond headquarters to remember the software maker's glory days while trumpeting what they hope will bring it into the future: more powerful artificial intelligence.

Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant, is gaining a host of new features to make it more proactive. The version for consumers will start remembering personal facts about them. It will offer birthday reminders or support ahead of a presentation, or consumers can opt out, Mehdi said in an interview.

Copilot likewise will personalize podcasts and shopping recommendations, and it will let consumers task their AI to book events for them, or send a friend a gift while checking in for guidance. "It frees you up," said Mehdi.

Microsoft is hardly first to roll out action-taking or "agentic" software. As with rival systems, the AI will work best on popular sites where Microsoft has done some behind-the-scenes technical work, like with 1-800-Flowers.com and OpenTable, Mehdi said.

Mehdi recalled days when Microsoft was smaller and growing. He said CEO Bill Gates could devour three books' worth of information from one day to the next, at a time when the co-founder still worked on Microsoft software. Mehdi watched Steve Ballmer, Gates' eventual successor, chant "developers, developers, developers!" in a sweat-drenched shirt to rouse a crowd into the ".net" era.

Microsoft went from top of the pack to badly bruised in a high-profile lawsuit that US antitrust enforcers brought against it in 1998. Years later, younger companies and startups, among them Alphabet and ChatGPT creator OpenAI, beat it to the punch on key AI developments.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft's current CEO, is not standing still. The leader who turned Microsoft into the No. 2 cloud powerhouse challenged his executives at an internal summit this week, recalled Mehdi: "How do we rethink the way that we build the software?"

Microsoft is iterating on its chatbot technology in a crowded field that includes Elon Musk's xAI and Anthropic. It has added Copilot to its heavily used productivity suites for business while giving consumers a distinctive version.

"It's warm; it has that personality," said Mehdi. Some users have taken to this, while others find it asks too many questions, he said.

"When we get to now be more personalized, we can start to get smarter," Mehdi said. "We're part way through that journey."