Microsoft takes over the Las Vegas Sphere with new Xbox advertising campaign

On Thursday night, Xbox took over Las Vegas' Sphere entertainment venue, lighting up the sky with its iconic green logo and new advertising campaign.

The details:

• The Sphere, a dome-shaped arena that opened last month on the Las Vegas Strip, is notable for being covered in 580,000 square feet of LED displays for companies to advertise their various brands on the city's iconic skyline. This week, Microsoft decided to mark its recent successes by transforming the Sphere into the Xbox logo and running a new, unique advertisement.

• The Xbox logo rotated around the dome, with its "sides" opening up to reveal clips from the company's franchises such as Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, and Forza, before expanding further to reveal the Xbox Series X/S using the display's impressive 3D tech.

• The ad is part of Xbox's new holiday marketing campaign, which also includes a live-action trailer titled "Wake Up and Dream" with music by Son Lux, the band responsible for the soundtrack to the award-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once.

• After 20 months of legal battles, Microsoft announced last Friday that it had officially acquired publisher Activision Blizzard King in the largest gaming merger in history, bringing franchises such as Call of Duty, Warcraft, and Candy Crush to the tech giant.

More gaming news:

• Following the commercial failure of its recent title The Lamplighters League, Paradox Interactive has confirmed that it is parting ways with developer Harebrained Schemes. The studio reportedly laid off 80% of its employees earlier this month, and it is now planning to go independent.

• Japanese authorities have arrested a man in Tokyo for allegedly stalking a young woman on social media and through the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. According to reports, the man tracked the woman's in-game character and began following her around and sending abusive messages in the game chat.