Surprise! Hot on the heels of PlayStation's own upscaling tech announcements, Microsoft and AMD just revealed that the firm's flagship FSR 4.1 tech is coming to the Xbox platform.

FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) is a technology from AMD that renders games at a lower resolution, and then uses machine learning to generate a sharper image. Since the hardware isn't working as hard, that overhead can be used for performance.

FSR 4.1 is a big leap over previous versions, and Microsoft has partnered with AMD to bring it not only to Xbox Series X, but also Xbox Ally X, Xbox Ally S and Xbox Series S — the latter two of which should benefit from very, very big performance boosts as a result.

"At Xbox, we're building a gaming platform designed to meet players where they are, and make it easier for creators to reach them," Xbox CTO Scott Van Vilet explained. "AMD has been an important partner in that journey for more than two decades. Together our teams have been pushing gaming forward, across Xbox and Windows. From the silicon at the heart of our consoles and handhelds, to technologies like DirectX, Advanced Shader Delivery, and AutoSR that helps developers get more from the hardware and deliver better experiences for our players."

"Today, we're excited to take another step forward together. With FSR 4.1 coming to Xbox. Now, we've worked very closely with AMD to optimize this technology, giving developers another powerful tool for great performance and visual quality for players. Now, whether you're playing on an Xbox Ally handheld, as well as coming soon to Xbox Series X and Series S consoles. And this is just the beginning. Our teams are continuing to work together across hardware and software, and there's even more ahead with Project Helix, leveraging FSR Diamond to power what comes next."

It's unclear exactly when these technologies will roll out to Xbox devices. It sounds as though FSR 4.1 will hit Xbox Ally X before the year end, but Xbox Series X|S are listed as "coming soon," with no exact window offered.

Sadly, it seems the Xbox Ally base model is fully incompatible with FSR 4.1, which is a bit of a shame, but it should prove transformative for those with the Xbox Ally X and the just-released Xbox Ally X20, as well as the Xbox Series S.

The Xbox Series S has historically been difficult for developers owing to its irregular RAM allocation, but if FSR 4.1 can do some of the heavy lifting, it should ease the pressure on developers to deliver a native 1080p image.

We're reaching out to Microsoft for some clarification on timelines for Xbox Ally and Xbox Series X|S consoles, and will get back to you if we hear from them.

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The console industry continues to reel from the RAMpocalypse, and Xbox is certainly feeling it.

Circana analysis suggested a few weeks ago that Xbox hardware sales are at their lowest level ever, with PlayStation also suffering their lowest hardware sell-through situation since 2013. Without a doubt, the so-called RAMpocalypse is to blame, with companies like Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, and indeed, Microsoft itself buying up all the RAM for their AI-tinted ambitions.

That leaves little left over for "niche" consumer electronics scenarios, such as video game consoles ... ballooning Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo console prices to their highest levels ever in some cases.

The timing couldn't be worse really. Grand Theft Auto 6 launches in a month from now, and its mainstream appeal would've driven huge amounts of users to upgrade older consoles or perhaps enter the hobby for the first time. With global stock levels battered and prices otherwise impossible for most to consider, Microsoft is turning towards a novel approach to try to increase stock availability.

Spotted by users on X (cheers H!) and covered first by PowerUP, Microsoft is actually sending out emails to users who have dormant Xbox Series X|S hardware, recommending that they trade them in, offering links and advice on how to do so. The email specifically cites Best Buy, which has a trade-in system here you can explore for Xbox hardware.

It seems the emails are going out specifically to users who have hardware that they aren't actively using, including users who own multiple consoles potentially.

Indeed, the economics on console hardware is so bad right now that any user sitting on a dormant PS5, Xbox Series X|S, or Nintendo Switch potentially represents a big net loss for the big three. The margins are so bad, and the stock availability so low, that trying to convince users to move their consoles to others who might actually become more active players (and spenders) is more than preferable.

Ahead of Grand Theft Auto 6's launch, Microsoft and its competitors are working around the clock to source components for their hardware provisions. Call of Duty has also stopped shipping on past-gen consoles, and it seems fairly likely given how popular Modern Warfare 4 has been so far that many users would want to upgrade for that as well ... if indeed there was stock available.

Stock availability of new (and very pricy) Xbox Series X|S hardware has generally remains stable in Microsoft core markets like the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and so on. In Asia, mainland Europe, the Middle East, and South America Xbox console stock has been almost non-existent. Tariffs, the RAMpocalypse, and general global economic instability has left the console market in a precarious state ... despite an unprecedented density of high-quality games.

Some analysts expect the "RAMpocalypse" to last through to 2028, maybe even 2029, with consumer electronics expected to take a battering between now and then. Smartphone, PC, laptop, and of course, game console shipments are all down as a direct result of the AI build out. It doesn't look like things will change any time soon.

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It might seem weird to complain about having "too much content." I've been around World of Warcraft for over two decades, more than half of my entire existence, and I've known some of the game's notorious and mighty content droughts.

When Blizzard first introduced roadmaps a few years ago, I was pretty excited. The World of Warcraft team offered unprecedented transparency about where the game would go over the coming weeks and months ahead. In a subscription-based game, that is a pretty great thing. I pay for the 12-month subscription year in, year out, rain or shine. WoW is my go-to game, and I presume it always will be. I've taken breaks; I've even said I'm totally done with it a few times. But I, like many others, always come back.

With World of Warcraft: Forever on the horizon, I can't help but lament the state of the separate Retail experience. It should be the core of what WoW ultimately is. It comes with expansion packs; it has the most investment, the most history, and legacy. Yet, it feels worse than ever in a lot of ways.

I've come to decide Blizzard's self-imposed 8-week patch cadence is to blame. But whatever the cause, something needs to change.

Blizzard is destroying WoW's setting and story, chasing short-termism

I wrote this week about Blizzard's mid-season patch, which featured the highly unceremonious death of a major lore figure. The 30-minute quest chain concludes with a painfully anticlimactic cutscene, at the hands of an entity that has about 5 seconds of screen time.

The death felt undeserved and unearned, and continues Blizzard's losing streak in handling major Horde characters ... representing another issue I have with the writing in general. Blizzard built up and threw away this character like they were nothing, echoing previously failures with the likes of Vol'jin and others.

I'm sure the death will serve some ham-fisted gameplay purpose in the coming weeks. Some are already speculating it could be to do with the introduction of Undead Paladins on the Horde, for example, but even still ... it was so oddly handled, anticlimactic, and uncinematic, and does subscribers a disservice in general.

This absolutely isn't the first time I've written about these kinds of problems, and they've been going on for some time. It's especially problematic when World of Warcraft sits side-by-side with recent Blizzard writing wins like Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred, and even Warcraft 3: Forsaken Kingdom. Why does World of Warcraft, its flagship product, feel as weak as a Saturday morning kids' TV show right now?

Much like a Saturday morning kids' TV show, I want to firmly believe it's deadline expectations and patch cadence driving the utter crater in quality. Unlike a Saturday morning kids' TV show, though, Blizzard is utterly imposing these deadlines on itself, to the detriment of the game.

The deciding factor for shipping a product should always be quality, and WoW hasn't walked this line for what feels like forever.

World of Warcraft players are in their 30s and increasingly 40s and even 50s ... I think players want an end to their intelligence being insulted like this. I think players want a more mature tone, and higher-quality treatment of the setting and characters we all know and love.

The story feels as rushed out and forced as Shadowlands did, an expansion so notorious for its damage to WoW that it is whispered like a curse in discussions about the game.

It's beyond writing. I feel like WoW hasn't been this buggy in over 20 years.

I already conceived this article last week to focus generally on the story delivery, but Blizzard itself injected another point I might've otherwise overlooked.

As recently as patch 12.0.5, Blizzard literally issued an apology for bugs and the state of the game in general. Yet here we are again, another patch, more game-breaking bugs.

12.1.5 should've been a big deal arguably. We have a mid-season boss battle featuring lore that pushes the story forward. Instead we have cringeworthy writing and needless character death that has become a meme in of itself. But hey, at least we got the first Labyrinth, right?

WoW retail has long focused on linear dungeons designed for the timed Mythic+ race experience, but Labyrinths sounded like a great opportunity to get back to the old-school "lets get lost and have an adventure"-style dungeon of WoW: Classic. Like BRS, Scholomance, Stratholme, BRD, etc. Alas, it too, is broken.

Whether it's progression resetting unexpectedly or total game-breaking blockers and walls, the first Labyrinth has been an unmitigated disaster so far. Reddit is full of complaints like the above over how wings aren't being registered as completed, with random disconnects resetting progress and the like.

Blizzard can't even get its microtransactions right either. It pulled a new Rexxar-themed outfit from sale just yesterday, owing to weird missing textures and clipping. I wrote about the Haranir race, a major expansion inclusion, suffering from similar issues months ago. Blizzard said they would improve ... alas, here we are, with more examples of the exact opposite.

Is Blizzard just AI vibe coding the game? Are there not enough QA people left? Or is it, once again, the self-imposed deadlines that some CFO spreadsheet says are well worth ditching quality for?

I think people would accept a slower patch cadence for higher quality

I'm sure what has ultimately happened here is that Blizzard has some magical telemetry data that suggests 8 weeks is the sweet spot to prevent churn. Churn is the un-subscriber factor, and World of Warcraft is a very big, complex, and expensive game to run.

Built out of California, one of the most expensive game development communities on Earth, World of Warcraft has long been Blizzard's golden goose. Former writer Eric Covington suggested on X that it represents load-bearing revenue for the entire Blizzard operation.

Blizzard President Johanna Faries said in a recent email to staff that the storied publishing house is now Xbox's top studio after a successful sprint across Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and Diablo IV. BlizzCon 2026 just wrapped up with World of Warcraft: Forever, which has seen subscribers flock back into the game in abundance not seen in over a decade.

I asked World of Warcraft director Ion Hazzikostas if World of Warcraft: Forever would end up becoming what Blizzard points to when Retail players ask for higher quality in certain areas of the game ... he assured me that isn't the plan. But we've seen the apologies before. Apologies for bugs, promises to do better, and "we're listening to feedback."

I think putting major story beats on a 16-week, or even 24-week cadence instead of an 8-week cadence might help. Mid-season patches, if they must exist, shouldn't try to squeeze in major character deaths out of the blue with no real build-up or inference.

Bugs are one thing, but shitty story delivery threatens to unmake the entire game, turning it into cringe meme fodder, serving to turn people off the setting in a big way. We don't need this. Given how out-of-the-blue Kith'ix has been, he could've worked better as a boss with story context delivered entirely in text, as a side mission-type experience for "player mercenaries." The rush job to inject the major characters has only served to hurt the entire feel of the current arc. It all just continues to contribute to the sense that WoW's writing team is utterly rudderless.

RELATED: World of Warcraft players beg Blizzard to slow down

World of Warcraft is still fun. I have a great guild, I love the gameplay, and I love the relationships I've made and the memories I've carved out. I've met tons of people from the WoW team, and I know they're all passionate, well-meaning people who want to deliver the best quality possible. I imagine it's frustrating for them too, seeing reactions like the above. But something needs to change.

As someone who has played pretty much non-stop through every permutation of the game, I'm wondering if World of Warcraft: Forever will take some of the pressure off the retail team to keep driving this self-destructive 8-week dance. I'm also wondering if WoW: Forever will end up harvesting up resources that would otherwise go to Retail, making the situation there even worse. I'm also wondering if I'm part of the problem by remaining subscribed despite my dissatisfaction ...

Indeed, perhaps there's only one piece of feedback Blizzard will listen to here, and it's to unsubscribe.

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Microsoft might be planning to take a sharp left turn on the whole digital games argument, with this new Xbox job vacancy.

The summer has been quite fractious for the gaming industry. Xbox has laid off hundreds and divested, closed down studios. And Sony nuked all the good will it has built up over the years by announcing PlayStation will no longer support physical discs, while reiterating in court testimony that it doesn't consider purchases to represent true ownership.

Xbox has pulled in the opposite direction so far, in some ways. Xbox's new Disc-to-Digital program gives disc-based game owners digital rights simply for inserting the game into a compatible Xbox One or Xbox Series X console. But, Microsoft alone can't really stop the tide. It remains true that the only mass-market use case for Blu-ray drives these days are video game consoles, and if PlayStation is pulling out, the supply chain generally won't be viable at scale. Disc drive manufacturers are pivoting their assembly lines to adjacent industries, like lenses and lasers, ditching mechanical disc drives and putting disc-based games on notice.

But, could there be an alternative?

Users on X noticed last night that Microsoft has posted a vacancy for a "Xbox Games Supply Strategist" specifically focused on physical games.

"The Xbox Games Supply Strategist will coordinate the launch of physical Xbox games across all platforms, lead development & oversee execution of global supply positioning strategies across all stages of the product lifecycle, ensure that inventory is positioned to deliver working capital/cost/service goals, and oversee the sales & channel execution of those games. You’ll work closely with Product Marketing, Finance & various groups within Supply Chain to establish & manage supply and sales plan of record. Every day will bring a new challenge, and you’ll be continually looking for ways to drive business profitability by planning and executing a predictable, reliable & low-cost supply chain."

Notice that the copy makes no mention of discs here specifically ...

Indeed, with disc drives for laptops, Blu-ray players, and even CD players being phased out, it doesn't seem entirely likely to me that Xbox Helix will have a traditional disc drive. But, it increasingly seems like Microsoft may be looking at alternatives. The Nintendo Switch range for example uses SD cartridges to deliver game licenses, and in some cases entire games when the speed is adequate. Could Microsoft be looking to follow suit here?

Will Xbox Helix support physical games?

Microsoft has stayed fully quiet on its plans for physical games, even as PlayStation leaps head-first into self-imposed brand damage by telling users it's going all-in on digital.

Digital-based games are the norm now, owing to convenience and often times price. Xbox Game Pass delivers hundreds of games for a low monthly fee, all digital. Steam accelerated the death of disc-based games on PC, and the Steam sales, cloud saves, and family sharing, and offline playback have become the gold standard for a digital games platform. Mobile games too have converted entire generations to assume gaming is a digital-first medium.

Yet, in the core gaming audience, the hobbyist audience that makes up Xbox, Nintendo, and PlayStation's bulk customers — perhaps there's an opportunity for Microsoft here with Xbox Helix.

Retail presence, physicality, that sense of ownership, and resale viability are all hugely popular aspects of the hobby. Microsoft would score a huge win with large swaths of the most passionate fans were it to announce long-term support for physical games delivery. But, Microsoft would also be swimming hard against the tide. The quiet majority has signalled pretty loud and clear they prefer digital, whether it's via Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, or gaming itself. But ... vinyl, 4K Blu-Ray, and even music cassettes have fought back in recent years, as discussions about ownership heats up.

Perhaps Xbox could do something similar to Nintendo with Helix, delivering games via cartridges. Perhaps they could come up with something alternative, low cost and proprietary, even if it was just discs. Perhaps they could revive Skylanders toys and put game licenses on NFC chips inside action figures. Who knows? I guess we'll have to wait and see what Microsoft's ultimate play here is.

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