Xbox is changing how it handles automatic renewals for both Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold subscriptions in the UK, after the government got involved. It's not clear if those changes will be made in other regions.

The changes by Microsoft were revealed as part of a report (spotted by Eurogamer) following an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) into the video game sector that highlighted a number of concerns about Microsoft's online gaming services.

According to the CMA, the concerns related to Microsoft were particularly focused on the company's auto-renewal processes and revolved around several key factors - whether or not the company was clear upfront that its subscription contracts would renew, how easy it was to cancel or turn off automatic renewal, and whether people may not have realised that they were still paying for the service long after they'd stopped using it.

As per the report, the CMA has stated that Microsoft has undertaken a number of voluntary arrangements to improve its Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold auto-renewal services, which include the following changes:

• Better upfront information: Microsoft will provide more transparent, upfront information to help customers understand their Xbox membership – making clear, for example, that the subscription will auto-renew unless the customer turns off auto-renewal; when the subscription will auto-renew; how much it will cost; and how the customer can receive a refund after an accidental renewal
• Refunds: Microsoft will contact existing customers on recurring 12-month contracts and give them the option to end their contract and claim a pro-rata refund
• Inactive memberships: Microsoft will also contact existing customers who haven’t used their memberships for a long time but are still paying. These customers will be reminded how to stop payments, and if they continue not to use their memberships, Microsoft will ultimately stop taking further payments
• Better information about price increases: Microsoft will give clearer notifications of any future price rises, and will ensure people know how to turn off auto-renewal if they don’t want to pay the higher price

Following the action from Microsoft, Executive Director of Enforcement at the CMA Michael Grenfell issued a statement detailing the need for companies to act in a similar fashion. "Gamers need to be given clear and timely information to make informed choices when signing up for auto-renewing memberships and subscriptions," explained Grenfell.

"We are therefore pleased that Microsoft has given the CMA these formal undertakings to improve the fairness of their practices and protect consumers, and will be offering refunds to certain customers. Other companies offering memberships and subscriptions that auto-renew should take note, and review their practices to ensure they comply with consumer protection law."

It's not clear if Microsoft will bring those changes to other markets, or if this will remain an approach specifically for the UK. We've contacted the company for comment.

For more recent news surrounding Xbox Game Pass, make sure to check out this piece detailing everything that's being made available on the service across this month.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

After earning $1,382,800 and securing the second-longest consecutive winning streak in Jeopardy! history, Amy Schneider's historic 40-game run has finally come to an end.

As reported by NBC News, Schneider, who is an engineering manager from Oakland, California, was defeated by a Chicago librarian named Rhone Talsma. While Schneider was able to win $19,600, it wasn't enough to best Talsma's $29,600.

Despite Schneider not being able to best Ken Jennings' record streak of 74 wins, she has become the first transgender contestant to make it into the Tournament of Champions and is the highest-earning female competitor in Jeopardy! history.

Her winnings place her at #4 on the list of the highest-earners in regular season play, and put her behind only Matt Amodio's $1.5 million, James Holzhauer's $2.4 million, and Jennings' $2.5 million.

The match was close heading into Final Jeopardy, but Schneider could not come up with the answer to which country ends its English spelling with an "h" and is also one of the Earth's 10 most populated nations. The answer, for those curious, was Bangladesh.

“It’s really been an honor,” Schneider said. “To know that I’m one of the most successful people at a game I’ve loved since I was a kid and to know that I’m a part of its history now, I just don’t know how to process it.

“I had thought that Rhone was going to be tough going into it,” she said in a statement released by the show. I loved hanging out with him, we had great conversation before the taping, but I could tell that he was here to play and that he was going to be good. I still came very close to winning, but I did feel like maybe I was slipping a little bit. And once it was clear that he was fast on the buzzer, I knew it was going to be a battle all the way.”

Talsma also shared a few words of his victory, saying it's still hard to believe what he accomplished.

"I’m still in shock,” Talsma said. “This is my favorite show. ... I was so excited to be here, and I just wanted to do my best. I did not expect to be facing a 40-day champion, and I was excited to maybe see someone else slay the giant. I just really didn’t think it was going to be me, so I’m thrilled.”

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts revealed that he, Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, Tobey Maguire, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon had something of a "Spider-Man therapy session" before filming the movie's first scene together.

Speaking to Variety, Watts shared that the so-called therapy session was the first time he had everyone together to talk about the story and how much Spider-Man means to each one of them.

"We sat on folding chairs in a circle and went through the script together," Watts said. "I had talked to everyone separately, but to have everyone together to talk about the story, how the pieces fit together and what Spider-Man meant to them — that was exciting for me. We had the only three actors to ever play Spider-Man in a film, and each had been through so much, on and off screen. It was like a Spider-Man therapy session.”

This session, and all the work done prior to filming No Way Home's first scene, allowed Watts to "take a step back" and realize that he and the crew were "capturing something more than a scene from a movie." To them, it was simply "watching a once-in-a-lifetime event."

Watts also discussed how his three Spider-Man films - Homecoming, Far From Home, and No Way Home - actually mirrored his greatest fears as he made these very personal feelings central to the "thematics of the films."

"I’ve always taken my greatest fear and made that central to the thematics of the films,” Watts says. “‘Homecoming’ is about a kid who gets a huge opportunity and is so afraid he’ll miss his chance, that he creates a disaster. That was my fear: ‘What if I screw the whole thing up?’ ‘Far From Home’ is about being afraid to make a second movie and screwing things up. Peter Parker is given a mission and he doesn’t want to take a risk. ‘No Way Home’ is about trying to finish this origin story and the responsibility that comes with this. Peter Parker and Spider-Man mean so much to people and I felt that responsibility.”

For more, check out the full script for Spider-Man: No Way Home, concept art that reveals Mysterio was almost part of the story, and Sam Raimi's thoughts on the film.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Space observers say part of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that has been floating around space for nearly seven years is on track to collide with the moon.

The Falcon 9 rocket launched in February 2015 carrying NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), which monitors solar wind and other space weather. After delivering DSCOVR, the rocket’s upper stage didn’t have enough energy to return to Earth’s atmosphere or to escape the Earth-Moon system, according to Eric Berger at Ars Technica. It’s had a “chaotic orbit” since then, affected by the gravity of the Earth, moon, and sun.

Bill Gray, the developer of Project Pluto, a suite of software for tracking near-Earth objects, asteroids, and comets, has been keeping an eye on the rocket stage. Collecting data from professional and amateur astronomers, he calculates that it should hit the moon at around 5,600 miles per hour on March 4th. The impact is likely to happen on the far side of the moon and go unobserved, but it’s possible that there could be something to learn about lunar geology based on the crater it leaves.

The rocket stage won’t be the first man-made object to hit the moon. In 2009, NASA intentionally sent spacecraft into the moon to check for water at its poles. It might be the first chunk of spacecraft to unintentionally strike the moon, but a lot of various space junk isn’t closely tracked.

“This is the first time that something not explicitly targeted at the Moon has been noticed to accidentally hit it, but that's mainly because we weren't paying attention until recently,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, on his website.

“There are about 30 to 50 lost deep space objects like this that have been missing for years - 50 years in some cases - that haven't been picked up by asteroid searches, and probably some of them hit the moon.”

For other space news, check out our articles about an asteroid that just passed Earth and a moon of Saturn that might be hiding an ocean.

Kait Sanchez is a freelance writer for IGN. Find them on Twitter @crisp_red.

Main image credit: NASA

The world's favorite gaming community messaging app, Discord, is down. Currently, users are unable to communicate with each other through the service and will have to wait until the company fixes the issue.

You can check out the status of Discord on IGN's sister site Down Detector. The site shows that issues started appearing about an hour earlier until almost all of its users experienced them.

We are currently investigating a widespread API outage and are working to resolve this ASAP. More details on our status page: https://t.co/rq97JXB3gV pic.twitter.com/6tRWTf7QqM

— Discord (@discord) January 26, 2022

According to Discord and its status page, it is investigating a widespread API outage that started around 11:49 AM PT today. About 15 minutes later at 12:30 PM PT, Discord identified the underlying issue with the API outage, though service remains spotty.

Discord has since instituted a rate limit on logins in order to manage the traffic load. Users who are already logged in are able to successfully use Discord now. The company will slowly raise the limits here to allow more users at a steady pace.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey

Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep leads the way for February's PlayStation Plus lineup. Announced on the PlayStation Blog, February's free games for PS Plus subscribers include Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep and EA Sports UFC 4 for PS4 players, and Planet Coaster Console Edition for PS5 owners.

Fans looking forward to Tiny Tina's Wonderlands in March will want to check out Assault on Dragon Keep. While the upcoming game is a full-fledged adventure taking place in Borderlands' Dungeons & Dragons-inspired counterpart, players first got their taste of the Wonderlands back in 2013, with a Borderlands 2 DLC starring Tiny Tina. Now, that DLC has been rereleased as a standalone package so players can get a taste of battling skeletons, dragons, and more ahead of the new game this spring.

Planet Coaster is a modern-day Roller Coaster Tycoon, letting players build and manage amusement parks. The game includes over 700 objects, including track parts, facilities, and more. And, you can download coasters made by other players in the community.

And finally, EA Sports UFC 4 is the latest ultimate fighting game from EA, featuring a career mode and online battles. We called the game great in our review, saying, "EA Sports UFC 4 is a largely iterative sequel that tightens up some looser parts, makes a few smart tweaks here and there, and doesn’t rock the boat all that much."

All three games will be available for download starting on February 1. You still have time to download January's PlayStation Plus games, which include Persona 5 Strikers, Dirt 5, and Deep Rock Galactic.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Steam Deck will go on sale starting on February 25, with the first batch of handhelds set to ship on February 28.

In a blog post, Steam says customers will begin getting invites “shortly after 10 am PT” on February 25 and will have 3 days, or 72 hours, from the receipt of their order email to make their purchase. If a person doesn't make an order at this time, the person next in the queue will get the chance to place an order.

Valve says it is hoping to send emails for orders out in batches weekly.

Order emails will be sent out in the same order as the reservations, and Valve will only let you order the Steam Deck model that you originally reserved. The initial reservation deposit will also be applied to the final price of the Steam Deck at checkout.

The Steam Deck was originally slated to start shipping at the end of 2021, but Valve announced that despite its best efforts, the global chip shortage hit them as well and the window was delayed to Q1 2022.

The Steam Deck is Valve’s take on a handheld PC gaming device and should be able to run your Steam library on the go. Some games will be better optimized for the Steam Deck and a new version of Steam OS will be used for the handheld.

There are three different models available for order, a 64GB eMMC model, 256GB NVMe SSD model, and a 512GB NVMe SSD model.

IGN was the first outlet to go hands-on with the Steam Deck and you can read our full preview here, along with an interview with Valve founder Gabe Newell on why Valve decided to enter the handheld market.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

No Man's Sky studio Hello Games has announced that it's surprise-released remasters of its debut Joe Danger games on Apple devices.

Before it gained notoriety for making No Man's Sky, Hello Games cut its teeth with Joe Danger - a sidescrolling mobile series. Now, ahead of the character's tenth birthday, Hello Games has revealed that both Joe Danger and Joe Danger Infinity have been remastered for iOS15 and are available as of today from the App Store.

The remasters see a number of enhancements over their predecessors. Improved graphics, a new engine, and upped framerates are present in both titles, while Joe Danger Infinity will also gain the added benefit of gamepad and ProMotion support for those who are interested. To cap off the good news, Hello Games has also revealed that any fans who already own either game will receive an update today for free.

Studio head Sean Murray added that, at a later date, both games will be "fully playable for free online".

Having originally sold over a million copies, Joe Danger unfortunately became a casualty of the Apple App store, as iOS looked to cull older games that were no longer supported by the latest Apple devices. While Hello Games founder Sean Murray admits that the success of No Man's Sky left Joe Danger slightly unloved, he says that the team has been working for the past two years to bring the character back to life, piece by piece through eight years of Unity updates.

"Hello Games is best known for No Man’s Sky, but for us though it really doesn’t feel that long ago that we were pouring everything we had into a game called Joe Danger," stated Murray in a press release. "Joe holds a special place in our hearts. It was our first game when we were still four guys in a shed, trying to get noticed."

"We published it ourselves (no publishers were interested!), houses were even re-mortgaged to bring it to completion! Joe helped our studio get a foothold and establish ourselves as a company, but it’s also where we learned to make games."

For more from Joe Danger, make sure to check out our original review for the game where we awarded it a 9.5/10.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

eBay has announced that it will be expanding its Authenticity Guarantee service to include trading cards in a bid to combat the number of costly fakes that have grown in circulation.

As detailed in a press release, the company has stated that it will be expanding its Authenticity Guarantee starting with single ungraded cards.

While free, the service at launch will include any collectible card games, sports and non-sports that are sold as single ungraded cards for a fee of $750+ in the U.S. Looking ahead, however, the company says that it also has plans to include graded, auto and patch cards sold for $25+ - though this won't be available until mid-2022 at the earliest.

Ask and you shall receive! Authenticity Guarantee for Trading Cards is here and even more cards will be eligible soon. https://t.co/kSIuExaEBf

— eBay (@eBay) January 25, 2022

The move represents eBay's latest bid to reassure customers when purchasing higher-value items through the online marketplace and follows in the authentication footsteps of other products such as handbags ($500+), sneakers ($100+), and watches ($2000+) that are already covered by the guarantee.

eBay's decision to offer customers more assurance when purchasing and selling high-value cards through the marketplace is to little surprise. The company noted in its press release that its trading card category is growing "significantly faster" than the total marketplace. According to eBay, trading card sales in the first half of 2021 reached a peak of $2 billion in transactions - a figure equal to the total value of transactions made across the entirety of 2020.

To date, the company says that over 4 million cards purchased on and off the marketplace have been added to its customer collections tool, which allows collectors to upload their cards to a portfolio and monitor the real-time market valuation of any cards that they own.

For anyone looking to get into the trading game, the company also revealed the categories of trading cards that saw the most growth during the first half of 2021, which included tennis (growing by 1,797%), soccer (at 852%), Pokémon (536%), Marvel (437%) and golf (436%).

For more from the world of trading cards, make sure to check out this article detailing how Logan Paul recently denied faking his reaction to the $3.5 million Pokémon scam that he found himself at the heart of. And, if you finish that then try this article explaining how you might be able to tell if your (real) cards are worth any money.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Kao the Kangaroo, the mascot platformer first seen two decades ago on the Sega Dreamcast and Game Boy Advance, is returning for a reboot on all major platforms (PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X) this summer. Watch the announcement trailer above and click through a half-dozen new screenshots in the gallery below.

Punchy kangaroo Kao will again navigate colorful worlds clad in boxing gloves that can be imbued with various abilities. Coin-collecting is a must, of course, and the developers at Tate Multimedia also promise challenging combat along with "unique boss battles." Naturally, it's a family-friendly game that Tate says will have an engaging story.

Check out IGN's review of the Sega Dreamcast version of Kao the Kangaroo from 2001, and our review of the GBA version from 2002.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.