A few weeks ago, Microsoft unveiled pretty huge limits on Xbox Cloud Gaming, which up until now has been unlimited for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate users.

Starting in November, Xbox Cloud Gaming via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will be limited to 15 hours, with Premium users getting 10, and basic users getting 5. The breakdown of the limitations can be seen below.

However, Microsoft just revealed that users will be able to move beyond these limits with new cloud playtime passes — which don't require Xbox Game Pass at all.

Xbox Cloud Gaming access via playtime passes

In a blog post, Microsoft says, "Cloud playtime packs provide an ad-free cloud gaming experience, including shorter wait times, high-quality streaming, and playtime that remains available until it's used."

Unlike some other providers, these playtime passes don't expire until they're actually fully used. You could buy the 50-hour pass and just keep it rolling throughout the year, for example, using it when needed. Some other services put a limit on when the passes can be used, i.e., they expire within the month.

For those on Xbox Game Pass, these are the current limits you get with Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Microsoft says that these new passes will go live for Xbox Insider Program members today, as well as a new free ad-supported tier. I'm told it comes with a 30-minute session limit for the Xbox Insider Program test run.

After 30 minutes, an ad will play, and then users will have to re-queue to resume their session. The ad-based option is, indeed, an option, and probably designed to on-ramp players to a more premium offering.

Is this all in preparation for Grand Theft Auto 6?

Recently, Tom Warren at The Verge reported that Microsoft has landed Xbox Cloud Gaming rights for Grand Theft Auto 6, although it led to a very curiously worded denial from Xbox. Microsoft said specifically that they won't be streaming GTA 6 on PC, nor exclusively ... but left the door open for console streaming. Perhaps Microsoft has landed some form of access for streaming GTA 6 via Xbox Cloud Gaming, specifically to Xbox consoles.

The Xbox One console range can stream Xbox Cloud titles, and there are still hundreds of thousands of users on the previous-gen console platform, given that games like Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, and others are still fully updated on PS4 and Xbox One.

RELATED: Best Xbox Cloud Gaming controllers

It's entirely possible that Microsoft has landed some form of cloud streaming deal specifically for Xbox consoles, offering Xbox One players a chance to join in on the GTA 6 fun without having to upgrade to one of the more expensive modern systems. Microsoft also has a few PC games on Xbox Cloud Gaming too ... perhaps World of Warcraft: Forever could jump on this bandwagon as well, given that WoW:F won't be native on consoles for now.

This is speculation for the time being, though. I'm also curious how well received the pricing tiers will be for users who are active on Xbox Cloud Gaming. As an Ultimate subscriber, 15 hours is already way more than I use cloud these days (since getting an Xbox Ally ... which will get even better with FSR 4.1 soon).

But Xbox consoles have become prohibitively expensive in some regions. Xbox Cloud Gaming has been a useful bridge for some, but perhaps not at these new prices. I'm curious what you think?

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Xbox Ally and Xbox Series X|S consoles are about to get a big AMD-shaped boost.

Yesterday, AMD and Microsoft revealed that FSR 4.1 is coming to the entire suite of current-gen Xbox devices. That includes Xbox Ally (base model), Xbox Ally X, and Xbox Series X|S consoles.

FSR 4.1 is an upscaling technology that allows games to render images at a lower resolution, passing overhead to performance. Then, FSR 4.1 upscales the image to create a sharper image, granting the appearance of higher native resolution. Technologies like FSR and DLSS have been boosting the lifespan of older and less-powerful hardware for some time now, and given the on-going RAMpocalypse and component crisis, anything that extends the usability of more affordable hardware is a win in my book.

But, when can we expect to get our hands (and eyes) on it? Here's what our sources are telling us so far.

FSR 4.1 will become available to Xbox Series X|S game developers in the next couple of weeks. Some partner developers have already had early access in preview builds, and will enable FSR 4.1 earlier than others. In the AMD video above, the firm used Blood of Dawnwalker to demonstrates FSR 4.1 boosts on Xbox Ally devices, so you can probably expect that to be among the first batch.

For Xbox Ally X and the Xbox Ally base model, AMD and ASUS will ship updated drives to the Armoury Crate's new "Preview Update" segment by Friday, Oct 23. The new preview segment which lets users test out early builds if they don't mind risking some bugs and polish, similar to the Xbox and Windows Insider programs.

Developers that have enabled FSR 4.1 on existing PC games will automatically get enhanced when the drivers go live on Xbox Ally devices.

On Xbox Series X|S console, FSR 4.1 won't be retroactively injected into existing games. Developers will have to implement it into their existing games via updates, or support it out of the box in future games.

Sources tell me that there is a "handful" of FSR 4.1-enhanced titles slated for the holiday season on Xbox Series X|S, with a steady feed of new games gaining FSR 4.1 throughout 2027 and beyond.

FSR 4.1 should provide a meaningful quality bump for all sorts of games across Xbox Series X|S and Xbox Ally X and the base model, but perhaps more so on the lower-end devices. The Xbox Series S has been notorious for performance trade offs, with developers struggling with the irregular RAM allocation.

Games on Xbox Series X|S that presently trade resolution down for frame rates should get noticeably sharper even in performance mode when implemented.

People have been using apps like Optiscaler on Github to inject FSR 4 on devices like the Steam Deck, and the results have been impressive, but setting it up can be a chore. Native, official support should bring a ton of performance benefits for the Xbox range across the board without the headaches of using workarounds.

As soon as it's available, I'll be demonstrating how it all works in practice right here on Windows Central.

The big question is ... will GTA 6 support it? Time will tell.

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Over the past couple of weeks, I've been investigating an apparent wave of undeserved bans across the Forza Horizon community on Xbox, particularly in Japan.

Japan has a strong and unique car culture, and Playground Games acknowledged that Japan has been the most-requested setting for their popular Forza Horizon franchise. Forza Horizon is now in its 6th installment, which is currently available exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Indeed, general Xbox adoption in Japan has generally been anemic at best. Microsoft has historically struggled to compete against PlayStation and Nintendo in the region for a variety of reasons. Microsoft's U.S.-centricity has long prevented it from achieving reasonable penetration outside of its traditional English-first markets.

Forza Horizon set in Japan should've been a chance to change Xbox's fortunes in at least one region, but the RAMpocalypse has put a stop to that. But even beyond simply maintaining Xbox Series X|S stock levels, Microsoft has drawn the ire of some Japanese Forza Horizon players, who have once again put a spotlight on its haphazard community management systems.

Ban waves have been hitting some Forza Horizon 6 players in Japan and beyond over anime-styled skins

Japanese "Itasha (痛車)" user-generated liveries seem to be at the center of the ban waves Playground Games has been handing out for Forza Horizon 6 players.

Itasha is a car subculture, literally meaning "painful car," ironically celebrating overly flashy or "cringy" car liveries. The culture represents a nexus of sorts between car culture and anime culture, going all the way back to the 1980s.

As vinyl printing got more sophisticated and affordable, full-blown car skins became prevalent in Japan and even in the West, with otakus with more money than perhaps good taste (or armed with a strong sense of irony) jumping on board. Even major brands have been on the trend in recent years, too.

Naturally, since Forza Horizon 6 allows users to generate their own custom designs, Itasha car culture has proliferated within the game as well. However, sometimes the designs have fallen afoul of Forza Horizon's "E for Everyone" rating. Or at least, on paper.

Some of the skins that have caught bans are pretty clearly in violation of the policies like the above, but others seem relatively innocuous, making users wonder if Microsoft is being a bit heavy-handed.

One user told me that they had been banned for a month, potentially for the above livery, which they had designed and then kept in storage. I say potentially, because Forza doesn't exactly tell you why you've been banned or for which livery.

"This game has a forum for appealing penalties, and although I submitted a post there, I haven't received a reply in over a month," he said. "Consequently, I have no idea which livery caused my ban."

"Furthermore, there are people who received harsher penalties than I did—such as permanent bans or device bans—despite creating vinyls featuring female characters that were clearly less revealing than mine."

Other livery creators have seen their entire Xbox accounts permanently banned without so much of an explanation. If you live in the U.S. or UK and have ever had to deal with Microsoft's Kafka-esque AI-powered support systems, imagine how much worse they are outside of Microsoft's core markets. There's little viable recourse to appeal bans, seemingly, and Microsoft's systems aren't transparent enough about the reasons as to why a user might catch a ban, permanent or temporary.

Some users have speculated that Forza Horizon is using some form of auto-banning system, AI-powered or otherwise, handing out false bans. There are also conspiracy theories of mass reporting to trigger the automated ban systems. Forza Horizon's Code of Conduct claims that all reports are reviewed by a human moderator and now contains a segment regarding "Itasha-style" designs.

"Itasha-style designs are permitted; however, explicit sexual content and sexually suggestive content are forbidden. While we cannot show specific examples of suggestive imagery in this article, designs that depict provocative poses, associated gestures and facial expressions, and attention to specific body parts can be examples of suggestive imagery."

The problem here could pertain to a lack of "specific examples" more than likely. When it comes to art, what could be deemed "sexually suggestive" is subjective across cultures and demographics. But it also continues a general trend of Microsoft's opaque systems for enforcement across its platforms.

A former Xbox staffer told me that the teams that handle moderation within Forza and other games had effectively been gutted by Microsoft's layoffs, leaving a big gap for community management in general across Microsoft's platforms.

Indeed, even beyond the Itasha ban waves, I've been investigating hacked Xbox users being locked out of their accounts due to the way Microsoft handles account support for Xbox as well, and the above could just be symptomatic of overstretched staff unable to handle the workload placed upon them.

The situation underpins Microsoft's struggles in Japan, but also account management systems in general

Microsoft has struggled to get Xbox stock to its main markets, let alone some of its smaller markets like Europe, the Middle East, and indeed, Japan itself. But there's a cultural issue too. Microsoft generally doesn't make or publish games that have strong appeal outside of its U.S.-centric markets, and Japanese publishers have historically arrived on Xbox last.

The situation has improved over time with companies like Square Enix, Capcom, and Konami pledging greater support, but I would argue things still aren't where they should be.

Forza Horizon 6 is currently Xbox exclusive, and if the RAMpocalypse wasn't destroying stock levels, it might've been a good source of progress for the brand in Japan. Regardless, the situation with the Itasha liveries highlights, again, Microsoft's opaque systems for enforcement and account management.

Over the summer, a Brazilian user who was locked out of his account by a hacker actually sued Microsoft and won after the big M admitted he was hacked but claimed they couldn't do anything about it. Since then, Xbox has been working through a backlog to help users locked out of their accounts to regain access, but it shouldn't be this hard.

As more of our content goes digital, and with AI-powered mods and user-generated art becoming more commonplace, the systems that govern access to our digital platforms need to improve a ton. Losing access to years of content and hundreds or thousands of dollars of investment shouldn't come without a clear explanation of why you lost access. Nor should appealing those bans be so slow and difficult.

It'll probably end with some form of legislation, but that won't help today's users.

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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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It's no secret that Microsoft's gaming division has struggled to keep pace with PlayStation and Nintendo for active console users, and this Xbox survey suggests the firm might be considering the nuclear option to fix things.

Yesterday, a new survey appeared for a subset of Xbox users on the Insider Program, presumably among those who Microsoft tracks as having multiple devices. A user sent us the below survey screens, which Windows Central has verified as real.

Microsoft's problematic Xbox multiplatform strategy has left many users who own multiple devices with fewer reasons to actually turn their consoles on. In that universe, it reduces Microsoft's chances to earn users in it's own ecosystem considerably, impacting both first party revenue and third party port viability. Microsoft sells mountains of games on PlayStation, but it has to pay a 30% cut for the privilege. Many PlayStation users already own an Xbox too, so Microsoft is potentially handing away potential users for no real reason.

These new surveys suggest Microsoft may be considering some drastic moves to change the situation.

The survey asks a variety of questions of users across multiple ecosystems, asking how likely they would be to invest in the Xbox platform if various games went timed, or even fully console exclusive.

Microsoft asks if users would switch to Xbox on a per game basis, including pitches of exclusivity for games like Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, DOOM, Hideo Kojima's PHYSINT, Diablo, and even Minecraft itself. The survey even stresses that existing titles wouldn't be removed from other platforms, but would no longer receive new content.

There's even a nuclear option question, asking users how they'd change their habits if every single Xbox game (except Call of Duty, likely owing to acquisition requirements) went fully console exclusive.

It asks users to consider the hypothetical scenario, offering multiple choice responses below it.

"Imagine it was announced that all future title releases from every XBOX-developed gaming franchise except Call of Duty will be console-exclusive to XBOX," the final survey question reads. "For Minecraft only, existing titles would no longer be available for purchase on PlayStation or Nintendo consoles, and would not receive any new content updates. However, there is no impact to any of the existing titles or content you already own. Nothing changes on PC in this announcement."

It asks users if they would move to an existing Xbox console they already own, buy a new one, switch to PC, or skip it entirely in this scenario.

Going multiplatform didn't work, would going maximum exclusivity work instead?

In the near term, even if Microsoft did create massive desire for its platform and was somehow able to make even GTA6 magically exclusive, the RAMpocalypse has driven hardware sales to historic lows. Even if there was Xbox stock available globally, they've become prohibitively expensive for many. But, that situation (hopefully) won't last forever.

If games like Fallout 5, The Elder Scrolls 6, and Diablo 5 were Xbox Helix exclusive, it would undoubtedly drive masses of sales for Xbox hardware. But would the stock even be available? Microsoft has historically struggled with global distribution even before the component crisis. As much as I think Xbox desperately needs exclusive content, the risks are undeniable on paper.

But sacrificing the entire platform is just as risky potentially. PlayStation itself just massively clawed back from Steam and Windows PC gaming too.

There's little point in maintaining Xbox as an entity if it was to become a simple publisher. Microsoft is more of a hardware company than it has ever been arguably, powered by data centers and increasingly home grown silicon, like its new Maia chips which has driven the stock to new highs recently. Microsoft has already sacrificed mobile as a platform endpoint, greatly limiting its ability to distribute and train its AI platforms. I can't imagine they'll seek to make the same mistake with Xbox.

Surveys are just surveys, and it all might amount to nothing. It could also be a hint around Xbox's thought processes. Perhaps there's math that exists that proves that the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. Halo Campaign Evolved on PlayStation likely did irreparable brand damage to Xbox as a hardware entity, even though the game itself wasn't spectacularly well-received.

The future of Xbox could end up being more interesting than expected.

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World of Warcraft has been my main gaming love for over two decades; I have multiple tattoos dedicated to the game. I built my career on top of it, and met my partner of 14 years because of it. So believe me when I say it HURTS to be feeling this way about the game.

World of Warcraft has never boasted the most amazing writing at a granular level, but at least it was often steeped in satisfying spectacle, leading with the "rule of cool" for better or worse. The setting was always what made it stand out, atop genuinely immersive background lore and major story beats that feel like the product of something greater. Or at least, should be the product of something greater.

I feel like since the disaster that was Shadowlands in back in 2020, Blizzard hasn't been able to find its narrative voice with World of Warcraft retail. I've written more than a few articles on the topic, but this week's major story resolution as part of Patch 12.1.5 is already seeing significant backlash.

Has Blizzard completely lost the plot here? SPOILERS AHEAD.

World of Warcraft *has* to be an episodic soap opera to function, but the payoff almost never materializes

As I sit to write this, I'm wondering to myself if eventually I'll eat some crow. There's always a flicker of curiosity in my mind about the way the game has moved forward since its most hated story arc, which demystified Death itself, reducing the universal stakes to almost nothing. Shadowlands effectively rendered death and dying as relatively inconsequential in the Warcraft universe, and the inconsistent behavior of some of its major characters, namely Sylvanas, single-handedly undid decades of character development and expectation.

Blizzard doesn't seem to have learned any lessons about stakes, and it's increasingly maddening given how well Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred, and even the recent Warcraft III: Forsaken Kingdom expansions prove that Blizzard can still write good shit. Why can't we have this in WoW retail?

In World of Warcraft: Midnight Patch 12.1.5, which launched today in Europe, Lady Liadrin, matriarch of the Horde Blood Elven paladins, dies. Her death is perhaps among the most anticlimactic, unceremonious, and understated deaths for a major character I've seen in video game history.

Blizzard has long held a strange joy for killing off Horde figures in unsatisfying and frankly wasteful ways. Whether it's Garrosh, Saurfang, Vol'jin, Cairne Bloodhoof ... at least some of these figures got meaningful deaths as part of an epic cutscene or CGI sequence. Liandrin simply passes out on a cavern floor, in a death that felt wholly unearned narratively and undeserved figuratively.

Throughout WoW: Midnight, Lady Liadrin has basically followed the player about, giving them quests and standing around while you did most of the busywork. Blizzard has rushed through troll and elf reunification, pushing aside thousands of years of baggage in a few relatively underwhelming quest segments that often feel pretty disconnected from the central battle against Xal'atath. That sense of disconnect extends to Liadrin in general, who hasn't really enjoyed enough build-up in my view to warrant what ultimately happened next.

In Patch 12.1.5, she channels her faith in the Light to deal a decisive blow to returning Old God general Kith'ix, who represents this patch's mid-season boss. The power seemingly overwhelms her, leading to her pretty unexpected demise on the cavern floor. I felt sadly bemused and mildly irritated. But not exactly shocked ... this has been par for the course as a Horde player for some time.

I saw the cutscene without any exposure to reactions online, and wondered if my immediate and overwhelming sense of dissatisfaction was simply a me problem. Apparently not. The backlash so far seems pretty palpable.

I feel as if Blizzard has tried to cram far too many characters in all at once in recent years, leaving them without meaningful story arcs. Mountains of supporting characters appeared as quickly as they then disappeared from the central narrative, robbing deaths like Liadrin's of any real sense of build-up, and therefore, no sense of payoff. It just feels awful, man. It's wild I find myself not even vaguely caring about the death of a character that has been in the game for almost 20 years ... what another miserable, maddening waste.

At least 12.1.5 has a new raid, a new "Mega Delve" to explore (which looks awesome), and other new content ... but man. For me, it has always started with caring about the setting, the roleplay, and feeling immersed in the world. Blizzard has been stripping that away with reckless abandon in recent years.

We have World of Warcraft: Forever coming up thankfully ... but game director Ion Hazzikostas promised me at BlizzCon that WoW: Retail wouldn't be left on the shelf as a result. That might not be his intention ... but it seems to be happening anyway.

Why is World of Warcraft: Retail's writing such a mess right now?

I'm still trying to speak to sources to get to the bottom of what's going on with World of Warcraft's writing so far. This isn't a matter of taste or sour grapes; I'm certainly not alone in thinking that WoW's writing has completely fallen off a cliff in recent years.

There are tons upon tons of issues with World of Warcraft's story delivery right now. I've theorized it's the self-imposed 8-week patch cadence, preventing quality and iteration from reaching the live client. I've huffed copium thinking that maybe, maybe there's going to be a payoff at the end of all this ... and that stuff like Liadrin's death will lead to something more interesting later, somehow?!

I've clung to hopium that Blizzard's appointment of franchise architect Chris Metzen might lead to somehow fixing the disaster that is Shadowlands in the wider narrative. I still have Vol'jin's urn in my inventory ...

Yeah ... I'm most likely just deluding myself at this point. And make no mistake, if Blizzard does somehow manage to pull off a gallery of major pay offs from all of this weirdness come The Last Titan, I'll be the first in line to apologize for my lack of faith. But, right now, I can't see it. After so many disappointments, cringeworthy story beats, and years upon years of unresolved plot threads — perhaps it's time for me to accept that WoW's retail writing team just isn't capable of delivering anything I find to be vaguely engaging.

The South Park team previously talked up a writing rule they follow, by which if your story beats can be linked by "and then" statements instead of "but" and "therefore" connections to denote consequences ... you've created something boring. I can't think of something more relatable to the current WoW writing style.

Things just keep happening for no real reason; "and then," it leads to no real consequences. There are too many plot threads going nowhere. Too many characters are half-baked and then sidelined, leading to various instances of "and then" instead of "therefore." Major lore points keep getting glossed over. Villains who vaguepost and scheme and tease and spend years leading us on to nowhere. Sylvanas showed up in Midnight for literally no reason. So many things keep happening for no reason.

RELATED: An ode to the Horde, and its weird erasure

Arator who? Turaylon when? Thrall where? There's not a single character left in WoW that isn't constantly wracked with self-doubting introspection, suffering from a terminal lack of conviction. Everything in WoW retail has become homogeneous sludge, and it's driving me crazy.

And perhaps worst of all, it's all just getting so, so boring.

World of Warcraft players deserve better.

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It's time to finally wrap up this Gears of War: E-Day review, having now been able to grab a significant chunk of time in the multiplayer Siege mode.

For the review build, Gears of War: E-Day's new PvE multiplayer Siege mode was disabled. It felt odd to me to score a game I hadn't fully experienced as I and many others likely intended to play it. As such, this had previously been a review in progress. But now I'm ready to put a final say on proceedings.

Gears of War: E-Day is something of an important game for Xbox. It carries the flag for Microsoft's return to exclusive Xbox Series X|S games, and likely has some oversized pressure upon it to deliver. We're not here to review that aspect of the product, though — only what is here sitting in front of me.

Even upon reflection, my feelings on the campaign are a bit mixed. Thankfully, Gears of War: E-Day is a multi-faceted game, and Siege mode is an undeniably fun and genuinely well-considered evolution on the Horde-style gameplay, vastly elevating the overall package.

Gears of War: E-Day has some of the most stunning visuals I've ever seen committed to the medium, with absolutely immaculate lighting treatment, immense and meticulous city detailing, and gorgeous character work. The gunplay is also fantastic, smoothing off some of the series' rough edges with boosted mobility, without sacrificing the Gears feel.

But the overall campaign gameplay structure does the overall game a pretty sizeable disservice in my view, preventing it from reaching its full potential. Thankfully, Siege provides a satisfying canvas for future play, and the problems are by no means unfixable. Let's get into it.

Gears of War: E-Day review — Story, Art, and Tech

Gears of War: E-Day takes place over a decade before Gears of War 1, offering us a front-row seat to the brutal and genocidal opening to the Locust's attack on humanity.

The city of Kalona serves as ground zero for that invasion. Kalona is known as a city of science and technological progress, and was instrumental in developing the COG's weapons tech and industrial war economy during the civil war against the UIR. E-Day takes place six weeks after the UIR surrenders, and Dominic Santiago and Marcus Fenix are picking up the pieces and mourning lost friends and family.

The character work on offer in E-Day is absolutely top-shelf. The trauma of loss and the shock of the Locust invasion comes through incredibly well in every single aspect of the game's delivery. The cityscape is immaculately detailed, with interiors fully rendered with a lived-in feel, complemented by some of the best lighting I've ever seen in a video game.

I wish Gears of War: E-Day ran better on my Xbox Ally X, but it's hard to expect such a visually rich game to perform well on every potentially niche device. On its main platforms, namely Xbox Series X|S and compatible desktop PCs, Gears: E-Day absolutely sings. Make no mistake, Gears of War: E-Day is at the absolute apex of Unreal Engine technological prowess, and the game deserves awards on that basis alone, most likely.

Rendering the city in so much detail really helps serve the story. Gears of War's more recent games take place in a ruined world, where the Locust have effectively already won and decimated humanity and most of its cities. For E-Day, The Coalition had to show a city that was still thriving and populated, and the horrors therein.

From the very first cutscene, The Coalition pulls no punches: this is a horror story, a war story, and a tale of survival and desperation. The COG army is decimated and blindsided, besieged by an unknown threat that they immediately underestimate as monsters without a plan, only to discover later just how smart and organized the Locust actually are.

Civilian NPCs litter the city, sometimes fleeing, sometimes in dismembered puddles on the ground. The reactions from the characters and their development throughout the game really help to elevate that sense of loss and fear — they're not the battle-hardened survivors of the original Gears trilogy. They're young, war-weary from fighting the UIR, and in some cases wholly traumatized already.

I don't want to give too much away about the story, but this very much felt like the first game in a new planned trilogy ... there were aspects of the delivery that suffered as a result. Some plot threads felt designed to be resolved in future games (or DLC?), leaving me wanting somewhat. But the fact that I am eager to learn more about this Emergence Day story arc is probably a plus. It would be far worse if I didn't care, and I find myself caring a lot about the new characters, their struggles, their past lives, and what will ultimately end up happening to them ... given that some clearly aren't present in future installments.

Gears of War: E-Day's setting, visuals, and story delivery represent its best aspects. The game's performance on Xbox Series X is top-tier, with slowdown only occurring during some particularly heavy sequences towards the end. I didn't experience a single crash, and it's great to see a modern game offer split-screen co-op in the modern age as an option.

The new characters are interesting and engaging, and finding out new layers of existing characters is also rewarding as a long-time fan. I think Gears of War: E-Day could've benefitted from leaning more into civilian-oriented side stories potentially ... but as I'm going to explain in the gameplay section, Gears of War: E-Day's campaign is let down a fair bit by its gameplay structure all up.

Gears of War: E-Day review — Campaign Gameplay

Let's get the good stuff out of the way first: this is still very much Gears of War. Everything you've loved previously about Gears is still here, and in most cases, elevated to the 11th degree.

E-Day boosts the player character's mobility by a huge amount. Sprint is now more instantaneous and on the left stick like a standard modern shooter. Cover is far more dynamic than it was previously, with the ability to take cover in lower spaces than before, making environments feel more varied and natural. You can now also climb and vault, allowing The Coalition to build on the game's verticality. Given that Kalona is a city-state with large buildings and urban environments, having these features serves the game incredibly well.

The gunplay is also very polished. Chainsaw-ing dudes in half is more rewarding than ever, with almost embarrassingly satisfying sound treatment and chunky gore physics. Watching a severed torso flip onto the floor never gets old.

There's a variety of new weapons which are also instant classics. The Locust have been scavenging the battlefields of the Pendulum wars, adapting old UIR guns with horrifyingly inhumane enhancements. As such, that satisfying M1 Garand "ping" returns from the UIR Markza, repurposed into the axe-hilted Locust Breechshot rifle, for example.

The gunplay lets itself down a bit when it comes to fighting some of the game's bigger enemies, though. Drones, wretches, and some of the earlier enemies are by far the most satisfying to fight, reacting to your bullets and even having destructible armor that makes combat feel more dynamic and modern. I'm not sure why The Coalition didn't extend this gameplay style to some of its bigger enemies, which is where I would argue it'd be far more crucial.

Indeed, in Act 1, Gears of War: E-Day starts so strongly, and I was sitting there wondering if this was going to end up being the best game Xbox ever shipped, but over time, that feeling began to unravel.

Reavers, Brumaks, and other larger enemies barely react at all to gunfire, making them feel like robots or bullet sponges — something Gears 4 was heavily criticized for. You end up just watching the enemy's health bar in some cases for at least some semblance of reactivity, instead of the visuals The Coalition's art team painstakingly worked towards. Towards the end of the game, these types of enemies become more common too, robbing the game of some of its dynamism.

Another irritating aspect of Gears of War: E-Day pertains to its open-but-not-actually-open world design, which to me smacks of rushed or changing game design priorities throughout development.

Kalona is a fully realized 3D city, with a huge variety of urban exterior and interior locations. It's a great canvas that The Coalition can build upon when designing future content, potentially both for Siege and Versus mode. The problem is, it doesn't lend itself particularly well to the campaign mode.

Gears of War: E-Day starts incredibly strongly, with a linear cinematic segment that really sets the tone for the game. Then, it opens up into this odd semi-open world structure that seemed interesting in previews, but in practice, it doesn't really reach further than the glimpses we got over the summer.

There's a map that offers the illusion of large explorable spaces, but in practice, all the segments are very linear. Even the side objectives take place in a structured way, undermining the need or desire to really explore. It felt like The Coalition tried to shoehorn in more reasons to explore by spreading weapon mods and collectibles around, but I just found this aspect of the game to be irritating and pace-breaking.

There's dozens upon dozens of weapon mods to find in the field, but half the time it'll be for weapons you don't really want to use. The game pings you with an annoying pop-up every few seconds saying "hardcase nearby," which just served as a distraction given that the reward was mostly just junk items. Even the collectibles were annoying to find, given that you had to jump through several menus then go manually searching for the item you just found from a huge list. There were more mods to find than there was gameplay canvas upon which to place them ... E-Day really would've benefitted from some kind of vendor system instead here, allowing you to buy mods at your leisure, rather than feeling forced into boring hide-and-seek gameplay every 3 minutes.

These might seem like minor gripes, but given that there's not much else "new" here on offer across the general Gears formula, they stand out a bit like a sore thumb.

It doesn't help that, as a result of the game's structure, you end up revisiting the same locations multiple times as part of the story, which felt anticlimactic and choring, particularly towards the end of the game.

The campaign does have some incredibly epic, cinematic, and deeply emotional moments — don't get me wrong. There are some fantastic sequences spread throughout the game, showcasing Emergence in all of its reptilian, subterranean horror. I just wish they'd doubled up on these moments instead of trying this odd "open" world experiment, which seems ill-conceived and poorly executed, with features that detract rather than elevate the overall experience.

Gears of War: E-Day review — Siege Mode

Let me preface this by saying I've never been a big fan of Gears' brand of PvP combat, and you might want to look elsewhere for a take on that. Instead, my preference for Gears multiplayer has always fallen to its Horde mode, which has taken on a whole new life in E-Day.

Siege Mode takes twelve players split into teams of four, and drops them into a portion of Kalona's devastated township. Here, you take on the role of one of the Gears during E-Day in progress, tackling side objectives, battling waves of enemies, setting up killzones, and grinding upgrades. This is where some aspects of the campaign's "open world" gameplay really shines through in ways that it didn't when there was a cinematic story to tell on top of it all.

The new mobility gives Siege maps a great deal of verticality and strategical elements. Four character classes offer some soft class roles, with snipers lending cover while medics revive fallen players. As you progress, you can hybridize a bit, equipping your medic with a sniper rifle for example from the outset, while still maintaining access to your "ultimate" ability kit items that can change the tide of battle for your squad.

It's impressive how well Gears of War: E-Day's multiplayer maps work in practice, they're incredibly large and have a lot going on simultaneously across the play space, giving it a sense of frantic urgency. As you're completing your missions, you may cross paths with another squad as is often the case in the campaign, leading to epic and emergent gameplay moments.

Invasion events spawn huge bosses like Brumaks and Corpsers, charging all 12 players to come together to bring them down. My complaint about them feeling a bit "spongey" persists here, but it's far more exciting tackling these towering behemoths in a big multiplayer setting, all while getting swarmed by lesser enemies like wretches and drones.

There's some mild and quite forgiving extraction gameplay here too. Side objectives and invasion events reward you with parts to upgrade your weapons and classes. If your squad fails to complete your mission for whatever reason, you will lose those weapon parts. Siege does give you a lot of leeway to avoid failure, though, even on the higher difficulties, detracting from the sense of urgency a bit.

I think The Coalition could've done a bit more to enhance the "emergent" gameplay moments and social interaction aspects. There are no emotes for example, which feels odd. Siege clearly takes some inspiration from Helldivers 2, but omits some of its more interactive and engaging innovations, which is a shame. But hey, it's all potential things to include in future seasons and updates, maybe?

We're not reviewing the future though, we're reviewing the now. And the now of Siege mode is already fantastic. Getting a capable squad together and putting yourself through the meat grinder is a ton of fun. Setting up batteries of mortar sentries and watching them rain down shells like an explosive hailstorm is endlessly satisfying. The potential here is clear and exciting.

What The Coalition has built here is as technically impressive as it is infectious. If the update cadence is solid, I can see me sticking with Gears of War: E-Day's Siege Mode remaining in my multiplayer rotation for some time.

Gears of War: E-Day review — Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed Gears of War: E-Day overall, and am already enjoying my second playthrough on a higher difficulty, but I would be lying if I said the game didn't have large campaign issues — particularly given how easily avoided many of them could've been.

Kalona is an immaculate canvas ripe for telling epic stories. The new, horror-laden tone is absolutely the right direction for Gears of War: E-Day. The existential dread oozes throughout every character delivery, and the city design is among the best the medium has ever seen.

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The gameplay structure placed on top of the campaign becomes the problem. It could've used a lot more iteration and forethought. It felt a bit like E-Day was originally intended to be some form of open-world, but at some point, they retreated, leaving it feeling disjointed. The "open world" aspects work far better in Gears of War: E-Day's siege mode, where side objectives, upgrades, and mission rewards actually feed a far more satisfying upgrade loop. In the campaign, they feel a bit more like irritants and roadbumps.

If I were to score the game based on the campaign alone, I'd probably give it an 8/10 overall — it's still incredibly fun, and the downsides are frustrating but not game-breaking. Siege mode elevates the overall package to a 9/10 for me. What doesn't work as well in the Campaign works incredibly well in Siege, and the potential for its future is quite clear.

The Coalition could probably do a little more to think outside of the box to stave off franchise fatigue and defy expectations, but the consistency of this franchise feels like coming home every time — which certainly has its own merits in today's times.

Long may Gears live.

Gears of War: E-Day launched October 6, 2026, exclusively on Xbox Series X|S on console with Xbox Play Anywhere for PC, it's also on Steam and Xbox Game Pass.

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Microsoft has been responsible for some pretty compelling innovations in the gaming space over the years, from everything including DirectX in decades past to more recent stuff like Xbox's disc-to-digital program or Xbox backwards compatibility on console and now Windows PC. Microsoft is now formalizing a team dedicated to exploring these unique and potentially transformative features.

Dubbed "Xbox Labs," Microsoft is formalizing the team that will research and work on new technologies across its gaming stack. The team there will work on new compatibility layers, such as bringing Xbox games to Apple silicon and WebGL, while also exploring the rise of reverse-engineered AI mods and games such as the recent 128-player Halo title that went viral a few weeks ago.

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Microsoft, like many in the gaming industry, are wondering about how to reach more users. Xbox announced "XP" recently, designed to bring more of its franchises into the real world via marketing collabs, merchandising, and even theme parks. Microsoft has also been putting its biggest franchises onto PlayStation as it seeks more users therein, and also pushing Xbox Cloud Gaming as an option for those who don't want the upfront cost of buying a console.

Microsoft has struggled to maintain pace with the growth of the PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch platform, or Steam on PC, but made a sprint of acquisitions in a bet to at least sell games on those platforms. Titles like Call of Duty, Minecraft, and Forza Horizon are dominant off Xbox, but the decline of Xbox as a platform has been painful for fans to watch.

Incoming Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is charged with reviving Xbox's fortunes in this space. There's been a lot of promises to fans, including returning to exclusive games (starting with Gears of War: E-Day), and doubling down on new updates for Xbox Series X|S consoles, which recently included the addition of Mythic completion achievements. However, it has come at the cost of thousands of Xbox job losses via redundancies and divestitures, leaving a vast trail of disrupted lives in its wake.

Sharma noted in a town hall meeting with Xbox staff last week that it can't rely on past wins as it seeks to shape the future. AI and other technologies are rapidly disrupting what gaming will actually be in the next decade, as attention and access gets disrupted by AI-borne RAMpocalypse. The content cadence is likely to vastly saturate the addressable audience too, leading to a dilution in attention and spend.

In my view, it's pretty clear Sharma is right that technological platform innovation is absolutely necessary to navigate this "new world" being foisted upon us (by, well ... Microsoft itself), but it remains unclear when Xbox Labs' first innovations will materialize for users or developers. For those interested, a bit more "wait and see" is likely on the menu.

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Xbox has been "restructuring" over the past summer, which has seen thousands of job losses via cuts and divestitures, and has left Xbox fans wondering what the aftermath will ultimately look like.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has made no secret of her intent for content moving forward: Microsoft will double down on its biggest and most visible Xbox franchises, including the likes of Fallout, Call of Duty, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, among others.

Some of Xbox's more eclectic studios, such as Ninja Theory, Double Fine, and Compulsion have either been spun off as separate, or outright shut down. These studios were all working on new franchises generally speaking, and while they didn't become financial success stories, the creativity was often award-winning.

Sharma's comments about Xbox's biggest franchises have left many wondering if there'd still be space for creativity and newness at Xbox, and it seems the answer is "yes," complete with a warning on over-relying on existing franchises.

"On content, I think this is probably the thing that you are all seeing the most about as we're making a lot of changes," Sharma said at the Xbox Town Hall this past week, in wholly unauthorized transcripts shared to Windows Central via multiple trusted sources.

Sharma reiterated the plan to focus on the biggest Xbox franchises, but also noted that relying on past victories won't help Xbox win the future.

"We're backing our strongest franchises. I want our great games to become great global billion-dollar franchises. I would also like to see us continue to create enduring new IP. We will not survive if we only revive on the past. We have to find new ways, and courage, to have invention on new IP, that reaches new sets of audiences."

Sharma remarked upon opportunities to grow King and the casual gaming segment in general, where titles like Monopoly Go and Block Blast have eaten into Candy Crush's casual gaming market share in recent years. Asha Sharma also talked about simplifying their studios, reiterating decisions to move some IP, like Halo and Sea of Thieves under Activision, hinting that more "simplification" could be on the way ... what that "simplification" might look like remains to be seen.

"Everything big once started as something small."

Xbox has been aggressively exploring ways to drive down costs in general this year. The opportunity within Xbox's ecosystem has diminished as hardware stock levels collapse, owing to the RAMpocalypse. Xbox's disastrous multi-platform strategy of yesteryear saw the platform lose relevancy while boosting competitors, leading to declines for major third-party games like FIFA, Fortnite, and NBA 2K titles on Xbox Series X|S as well.

Moving back to exclusive games has given Xbox a boost, with users returning to the platform for titles like Gears of War: E-Day and Forza Horizon 6, but growing Xbox again will probably take a multi-year, multi-game, multi-franchise effort, coupled with some sort of miracle on the hardware side. Xbox Series X|S and console hardware in general has moved wholly to being a luxury purchase, putting pressure on Xbox's chances.

In an interview with Windows Central at the start of the year, Chief Content Officer Matt Booty remarked that "everything big once started as something small," in reference to investing in new IP, which has always resonated with me. Indeed, Microsoft has partnered up with Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear fame for PHYSINT, complete with movie and TV rights in development with Xbox's new XP entertainment licensing division.

It'll be interesting to see if Sharma's Xbox does more in this space ... even if Xbox has made stark, quite devastating cuts within its existing teams. AI is muddying the water and blowing up component costs. There are more games than ever, and for many, less free time and money than ever. Micro-spend in service games continue eating up all the spend and users, and finding new cohorts seems more difficult than ever ...

The challenges on Xbox's plate are numerous, but being able to land exclusivity over the next Fortnite, Roblox, or indeed, Minecraft, is doubtless the dream of every major entertainment company. Does Sharma's Xbox have it in them? As usual, only time will tell.

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Surprise! Here's a quick look at Xbox's new PC app, potentially set to go live to Xbox Insiders before the end of the year.

Over the summer, Microsoft began testing a new Xbox Cloud Gaming interface codenamed Bastion, which aimed to bring the user experience closer to the Xbox Series X|S console. The Xbox PC app looks a lot different from this general ident at present, and has a variety of performance concerns, particularly when loading into large libraries or the general Xbox PC game store.

This week, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma noted her intention to elevate Microsoft's gaming offering on PC, and here's an early glimpse at at least part of what that looks like.

Microsoft is preparing to ship the below interface, codenamed Garrison, some time in the near future. I got access to an early version of the app this evening, and thought I'd give you a quick run through.

In the video above, I give you a quick tour guide of the new app's interfacing on PC, which includes designs for both mouse and keyboard and controller. You can set this app as your default home screen when loading into Windows 11's new "Game Mode" setting, and it will default to the controller scaling — ideal for devices like the Xbox Ally.

First impressions revolve around performance for me. This is a lot faster than the previous app, particularly when it comes to loading in my large 1400+ library of Xbox titles from across the years. It's a lot easier to see when something is actually installable now, or just stream-capable from Xbox Cloud Gaming.

The navigation between game listings is also a lot more streamlined. There's no longer two separate pages for games, and both the store listing and game listing now share a single interface.

For the most part, there isn't a ton of new functionality on offer just yet. This seems to be about boosting performance and usability first and foremost.

Xbox's PC offering has diverged immensely from Steam, as Steam offers a lot more community tooling, developer dialogue systems, and more visible reviews. Steam arguably has better curation too, and while the store pages on this version of the app aren't fully implemented yet, I'm eager to discover if Microsoft has improved visibility for developers through this app. It would be good if developers end up with more tools to communicate with their audiences on the Xbox PC app too, and Microsoft has an opportunity to integrate Minecraft and its other live service games more deeply to boost its community-building chops potentially.

I suspect this version of the app could go live to Xbox Insiders on PC in the coming weeks given that it's already getting bundled into Windows 11 builds now.

Microsoft has been on a bit of a tear over the summer, restructuring its business, divesting studios, and re-focusing its efforts on Xbox Series X|S consoles. It's encouraging to see Microsoft hasn't left its Xbox PC efforts fall by the wayside either. This week, it announced a huge partnership with NVIDIA for their new RTX Spark Arm laptop line, which includes the Surface Laptop Ultra — which is a gaming powerhouse in its own right. Microsoft also announced Xbox XP this week, focused on building player retention and community outside of its traditional console channels. I wonder if the Xbox PC app will play a role here too.

In any case, let me know what you think of the new Xbox PC app in the comments, and what you'd like to see added to Xbox PC in the future!

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In among the litany of failures across Xbox and Microsoft in general, there are at least a few dozen undeniable epic business wins. One of those is undoubtedly Minecraft.

The blocky craft 'em up adventure already had huge momentum when Microsoft acquired it, but the firm has since turned Minecraft into a cultural powerhouse, with a merchandising and licensing empire that is often overlooked in general gaming discourse. Microsoft thinks there are more opportunities like this ... and that's why it is creating a new division under Xbox today.

"XP" is a new department under Microsoft's gaming team, led by new XP CEO Kayleen Walters, former president of Minecraft.

During Xbox's internal Town Hall meeting this week, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma described "four Cs" of focus for Xbox, with the session focusing mainly on Core and Content, i.e. console growth and uplifting Xbox's first and third-party content. Sharma described XP forging ahead with the Creator and Connection segments of the plan, aimed at developing other Xbox franchises to the same heights as Minecraft itself.

Microsoft put out a blog post today outlining the vision for XP, which will essentially operate as a licensing pipeline across all of Xbox's major franchises.

"Xbox Pictures" will focus on opportunities to bring Microsoft gaming franchises to the big and small screen, in the forms of movies and TV shows. Microsoft has already revealed a range of content in this area, including content for Gears of War, Wolfenstein, Diablo, among others. Big wins here include the Minecraft movie and Fallout TV show, both of which were huge successes in their own right, and vastly boosted interest in the games.

"Xbox Products" will extend what Walters has already done for Minecraft in the form of merchandising and other product lines. Microsoft says that these will be "authentic" to the fandoms. Toys 'R' Us recently announced plans to open dozens of new stores, focusing on the new adult toy-collector cohort. I suspect Microsoft may seek to join in here ... perhaps we could see Skylanders return?!

"Xbox Places" will be a new division focusing on fan events and theme park experiences. Microsoft specifically referred to BlizzCon in the press release here, and I recently heard whispers that Microsoft was interested in extending the BlizzCon model to other major Xbox franchises. Microsoft also has a theme park for Minecraft going live in the UK next year, set as a test bed for this type of thing. Perhaps the Overwatch map "Blizzard World" will become a reality some day ...

Finally, we have "Xbox Partnerships," which will continue the work Microsoft already does bringing its universes into other brands. The recent IKEA Xbox furniture line is an example of this, as well as the Blizzard McDonalds promotion in the UK, and the recent Fanta Xbox Game Pass integrations.

Kayleen Walters spent 13 years at Lucasfilm doing the same kind of work between Disney's theme parks and merchandising empires for Star Wars, and delivered the same for Minecraft during her tenure at Xbox. Now, Microsoft is hoping to extend that even further to franchises like Fallout, Call of Duty, Candy Crush, and more.

Reaching Xbox fans outside of Xbox

Speaking on the appointment, Kayleen Walters had this to say about XP and the potential that exists in Xbox's franchises.

"XP was created from a simple but powerful belief: the world's most beloved gaming franchises have an opportunity to reach people far beyond the boundaries of the game itself. Fans don't just play our franchises. They watch them, wear them, attend them, celebrate them, and connect with them in countless ways. XP brings together the teams responsible for helping XBOX franchises show up in the world in bigger, more meaningful ways."

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Microsoft has also appointed former Reddit and Meta executive to run Minecraft in Walters' stead, with a goal of growing Minecraft's chops as a developer platform, taking on Roblox and the like.

This era of Xbox revolves around synchronizing and utilizing Microsoft's acquisitions of the last few years, identifying the clear opportunities that the Minecraft movie and Fallout TV show has presented. Other big media properties of recent years, spanning Cyberpunk, to Castlevania, to Resident Evil, have all seen significant uplift as a result of successful delivery of these shows and movies.

Of course, those movies and TV shows have to actually be good. And as the Halo TV show has taught us ... a flop can actually do more harm than good to a gaming brand and its potential. There's no guarantee Microsoft and its partners can easily emulate the success of the Fallout TV show and Minecraft movie with other properties. I would like to see them take another stab at a Warcraft movie, though.

In any case, Microsoft has explored this segment before with Xbox Entertainment Studios, which fell apart quite rapidly. Microsoft knew this segment was going to be big, as far back as 2012. Although it seems Microsoft now has the good sense to work with external experts (like Netflix and Amazon Prime) rather than try to develop some of these products in-house.

It remains to be seen if the results of this venture will actually deliver. There's definitely a clear and obvious opportunity here, and Xbox's primary competitors, Nintendo and PlayStation, are leaning heavily in this direction already.

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Yesterday, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma spoke to Microsoft employees in a big Town Hall meeting, covering a variety of topics.

Xbox's gaming org has undergone vast restructuring this summer leading to thousands of job cuts via layoffs and divestitures. The reorg is designed to reduce costs and shift as much of its business as possible out from underneath Microsoft U.S. corporate structure. More of Microsoft's game studios have been moved under purpose-built publishers like Activision and Bethesda, as the AI buildout continues to dominate Microsoft U.S. overall bureaucracy and legal apparatus.

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Xbox stated recently that its restructure is "75% complete," with staffers still wondering what additional layoffs might be on the table. But for now, Asha Sharma took to the internal airwaves to give Xbox staffers an update on what to expect in the coming months from Xbox's overall plan. The quotes below were transcribed to us and verified with multiple sources.

Xbox's big plans for PC and gaming in general: easier publishing, and a Battle.net boost

Sharma spoke on a range of topics at the event, some of which we covered yesterday which you can read up on here. There, Xbox's Asha Sharma spoke on the need to strengthen Xbox's core user base: console users, with plans to boost Xbox Series X|S and the next-gen Xbox Helix "family of devices." But today, I'd like to highlight her comments on Xbox PC and its future, which includes boosted publishing powers for developers, more support for Battle.net, and more.

"On PC historically, we've taken a one-shot approach. We've had one app, and that's what we've focused on. As we have dug in, we're leaving a lot on the table," Sharma said. "It turns out that Battle.net supports an audience that we're not reaching outside of it, and it is awesome at it. The retention is nearly as good as Steam's retention, and we've never really put any work behind it as a platform. And so, we are doing that. We are doing it the right way for that community. It'll be great for our first-party games, and great for select third-party games too."

Indeed, Battle.net recently picked up its first third-party game in the form of The Witcher 3. Activision previously experimented with Battle.net, putting Call of Duty and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater up on the service, and Xbox chimed in with DOOM and Avowed, among others. Blizzard seems to be taking a more curated approach to content on Battle.net, as opposed to opening the flood gates Steam or Xbox PC-style. Retention refers to return users, and not necessarily total users. Sharma is saying that once they're in the ecosystem, Battle.net users stick around at a rate almost as good as Steam.

It'll be interesting to see what publishers show up there next in any case. I could see Battle.net focusing more on AAA type stuff, but it also seems to be designed to help Xbox boost Xbox Play Anywhere. Indeed, The Witcher 3 is now Xbox Play Anywhere on Xbox Series X|S consoles and cloud as a result of this partnership, even if you grab it via Battle.net on PC.

None of this means Xbox plans to ditch Steam, though.

"We will continue to invest in other PC apps as long as they reach distinct audiences," Sharma emphasized. "The Windows app [Microsoft Store] reaches a lot of people around the world. In fact, in China, it is the number one store," Sharma said, although it's unclear by what metric they're measuring this. It's true that Fortnite, Roblox, and some other major service-type games are available on the Windows Microsoft Store, and not on Steam. I'm told many users in China access Steam via a VPN, which probably clouds some of these figures.

"We're collaborating across the board," Sharma said, "we're doing a lot this fall [in terms of offers] through OEMs. We have an offer going out to 14 million OEMs. I saw some great pre-install work that's happening for [World of Warcraft], and some great conversion numbers. We will continue to succeed on Windows. There are a billion Windows PCs. There's no reason we shouldn't be serving our audiences there."

OEMs refers to companies that build and ship Windows-based devices. It sounds to me like Sharma and Xbox are working to bundle other content with upcoming laptop launches. Many laptops come with PC Game Pass codes these days, for example, and it sounds like World of Warcraft may come with launchers and gametime pre-installed on some devices to celebrate the launch of WoW: Forever and further boost Battle.net in general.

Finally, Sharma spoke about making it easier to "work with Xbox," echoing complaints I've heard from developers big and small about building games for the Xbox ecosystem.

"Right now, it is simply very hard to work with Xbox," Sharma admitted. "So, we are simplifying the targets, we're moving to a headless partner center, we're taking the cruft out of our APIs, and we're making them machine-readable. There's a lot of work here. We need developers to be able to work with us, understand how they are performing, and have tools that actually grow their business. There's a lot we can do here. I'm encouraged by the work happening."

The idea here is to make Xbox's publishing programs as simple and automated as possible, reducing the need for human-intervention and bottlenecks. You might notice on Metacritic that PS5 and Steam reviews of games often vastly outstrip their Xbox counterparts. One reason for this is that developers' games often seem stuck in certification until the last minute on Xbox, with reviewers and content creators opting for PS5 and Steam versions as codes usually come in much earlier there.

More problematically, Microsoft's publishing requirements often just see indie developers rejected without providing any clear reasoning, despite obtaining clearance on Steam and PS5. It's often only when the Xbox community gets involved and makes noise that some publishers get their work cleared through cert, which is absolutely stupid. It sounds like there's an effort to fix this, thankfully.

PC gaming is a huge opportunity for Xbox, both on and off Steam

Microsoft's core focus is rebuilding its Xbox Series X|S console business ahead of the Xbox Helix launch, but it's encouraging to see they're not abandoning efforts to strengthen their PC offering.

In years past, Microsoft earned itself a reputation of hostility among PC players, with services like Games for Windows Live remaining notorious to this day. As of 2026, Xbox's offering on PC is far far better. The Xbox PC app is in a much better place (although could still be better), the Xbox Ally X handheld is a fantastic console companion for Xbox Play Anywhere fans. And perhaps ironically, Microsoft's disc-to-digital program on Xbox consoles is offering a way to acquire physical PC games for the first time in years, strangely.

Microsoft still has a way to go on building trust with PC gamers for sure. I would argue having more open dialogue with the community there and having a more public, prominent feedback program similar to what we've seen on Xbox Series X|S would help. PC Game Pass is still a very strong offering, and Battle.net is arguably the best of the publisher-focused launchers, vastly outstripping stuff like Ubisoft Connect and EA Play.

PC gaming is a very different culture to console gaming, and arguably more competitive. Steam is absolutely beloved, and outside of that, we have an arrangement of publisher-focused launchers like the Riot Client and HoYoverse launchers. Xbox PC still needs a lot of work on the performance side, especially on handhelds, and the integrations with external launchers like Battle.net itself aren't always the best. But as an Xbox-first, Xbox PC-second gamer, I've been encouraged by the work here. I'd love to see Xbox boost publisher relationships and discoverability for indie games, improve the search functionality on Xbox PC, and also streamline processes for getting Xbox Play Anywhere functional.

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Today, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma addressed all of Xbox in an internal town hall, the transcript of which was shared to Windows Central and verified by trusted sources.

Xbox has been undergoing something of a reset this year, with divestitures, layoffs, and structural changes. Xbox Game Pass removed Call of Duty and picked up a big price cut, Xbox also returned to exclusive games and content, and began investing in marketing and features for its Xbox Series X|S consoles again for the first time in years.

"Why do we exist?" Sharma said, "We exist to be where the world plays, we will know when we have a billion daily active people, and we have a right to win because we're now focused on our fans and franchises."

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Sharma noted that Xbox was declining in hours spent, players, and revenue at the start of the year. She now says Xbox has stabilized in hours spent, and she's now said after year-over-year first party declines, Xbox has now returned to growth in this area. She reiterated that the previous Xbox Game Pass strategy sent Xbox into "freefall" declines on the balance sheet, likely referring to the damage at both ends to Call of Duty and Xbox Game Pass.

UPDATE: To clarify, when speaking about growth here, I'm told Asha Sharma was using a chart referring specifically to first party growth, i.e. games that Xbox owns and publishes. I've updated the text to clarify this.

"We're making the right decisions to reinvest in the business, after an all time low, we've started to return to growth, more than 2 to 3 times what we were, and we expect that continue." Asha Sharma also called out Gears of War: E-Day, Minecraft Dungeons 2, and World of Warcraft Forever for having "strong" starts, and noted that Xbox has seen a 30% increase in positive brand sentiment over the past year.

Growing Xbox Series X|S, leveraging Xbox Helix, Xbox Game Pass, and more handhelds?

Core, content, creation, and connection, are the "four C's" Asha Sharma described as leading Xbox forward. She said that Xbox's market position suggests it needs to invest more in Xbox console, despite the fact the segment overall isn't growing in the gaming industry — she says Xbox still has an opportunity to grow in the space. She also said Xbox doesn't have "the right" to grow beyond console if it can't serve their "most valuable players the right way."

Asha Sharma says strengthening Gen-9 (Xbox Series X|S) is key to this, calling out innovations like Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox's disc-to-digital program, and Xbox Play Anywhere growth. She also hinted that Xbox Game Pass will get more "flexible for more players" in the future, reiterating previous hints that users will be able to tailor exactly what types of content they want to access in the service.

Asha Sharma also called out Gen-10, Xbox Helix, describing it as a "family of devices."

"We are moving to a family of devices for Gen-10. There is not one device that fits all. We will certainly have a great console first, but we also know that many players will be on the go. There are some things that we are the best in the world to manufacture, and there are other things that will we partner on. So, we will be sharing more about that as our plans develop. The operating system is starting to look really good. We're very excited about this."

Asha Sharma also spoke about Xbox PC and Battle.net, talking about an intention to grow Battle.net as a platform. She said Battle.net is almost on-par with Steam for user retention, and the recent partnership to bring CD Projekt RED's games like Witcher 3 to Battle.net will grow further. "We will do it the right way for those communities," she said, hinting that Battle.net will remain a more curated store compared to the likes of Steam or Xbox PC.

On further opportunities, Asha Sharma also revealed that Xbox PC is, in fact, the number 1 PC gaming storefront in China (although, it has been suggested to me that this claim likely excludes China-based Steam users using a VPN — I'm exploring this comment a bit more.)

Update: I'm told Asha Sharma was referring to the Windows Store here, not necessarily the Xbox PC store, which while linked are indeed separate technically. For context, he Windows Store is installed by default on Windows 10 and 11 PCs, and contains many games that aren't available on Steam including Fortnite and Roblox.

Asha Sharma also stated that they'll continue to invest in other PC apps where there's a distinct audience, i.e. Steam in general.

Sharma also said that Xbox is "simplifying" the target and streamlining APIs for publishing on Xbox to make it easier for developers to ship on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Helix, and Xbox PC — which has long been a sore point.

Xbox's strategy looks like the right one, for now

Xbox has seen tons of layoffs over the summer in a big effort to restructure more of the business away from the ballooning costs of Microsoft bureaucracy. To that end, it has shifted some Xbox studios under purpose-built subsidiary publishers like Activision and Bethesda, divested some, and shuttered others.

Microsoft has also doubled down on its core audience, Xbox console players, whose neglect became untenable at the start of the year as Microsoft seemed to focus on future-facing telemetry data at the cost of the current reality.

Indeed, I wrote two years ago that Xbox was neglecting its core at the cost of growth that might never materialize, and it seems that growth indeed never did materialize in the previous strategy.

There are positive shoots throughout Sharma's pitch to Xbox staff, but she still noted upon caution with regards to the state of the economy, the RAMpocalypse, and generalized disruption in the entertainment biz.

How are you feeling about Xbox's new strategy so far? Let us know in the comments.

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We've been hearing bits and pieces about the new Xbox Elite Controller (Series 3) for some time now, and this latest leak is the biggest one yet.

It initially leaked as part of the big Xbox documents drop during the Activision-Blizzard acquisition hearings, and then later via the Brazilian equivalent of the U.S. FTC. But wait, there's more!

During the summer, an early Xbox Elite Controller Series 3 unit leaked in full on social media, giving us full pictures of what to expect. Now, we might even have its full spec sheet.

Shared by the fine folks at /r/GamingLeaksAndRumours on reddit, it seems the Xbox Design Lab itself might've just giving us the best glimpse yet at what to expect in the new Xbox Elite Controller, and it sounds rather enticing.

Although the APIs were already taken down by the time I saw the listing, it seems reddit was able to scrape the providers of the Xbox Design Lab storefront and discovered a variety of information about what to expect.

The highlights includes "advanced haptics," PlayStation-style, as well as full Design Lab integration for customization. It also comes with options for silent sticks, swappable d-pads as is typical, an adjustable scroll wheel (confirming previous leaks), and full TMR anti-drift Hall Effect thumbsticks — which is great news for accurate movement and aiming.

Here's the Xbox Elite Controller Series 3 spec summary in full from the reddit post.

The post alleges that there were four SKUs listed. Two with, and two without the full haptics motors, split between base models and "complete" models that likely come with additional bells and whistles like charge docks, carry cases, and so on. Other features I've been hearing about include direct-to-WiFi connectivity to minimize Xbox Cloud Gaming latency, as well as easier device switching and management between Xbox, Bluetooth, and other sources.

I had heard that the Xbox Elite Controller Series 3 was imminent for a reveal. If this API leak is indeed true, its addition on the Xbox Design Lab suggests Microsoft may want it out in time for Christmas and the holiday shopping season.

Although, the leaks make no mention of price ... and that'll be the big kicker for many.

The new Xbox Elite Controller (Series 3) is doubtlessly imminent

I teased on the Xbox Two Podcast last week that I was expecting the Xbox Elite Series 3 out before Christmas, and this leak aligns with what I've been hearing.

I really enjoy the Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 for the convenience of having a permanently-charged controller. The battery life on the Series 2 is truly absurd, and the convenient and weighty charge dock beats all the other options I've seen on the market. Although ... the Series 2 is indeed notorious for quality issues. I've gone through at least two of them, maybe even more, with issues ranging from shoulder button failures to rubber grips falling off.

From speaking with sources about the Xbox Elite Controller, quality control and repairability has been a priority for the Xbox Elite Controller Series 3. It remains to be seen of course how it functions in practice. I'll be eager to get my hands on it and do a full review and teardown video so you guys know whether or not this is the one to buy.

I, for one, am pretty excited. Although there's no information yet on price, and the split between haptic and non-haptic versions makes me wonder just how pricy the haptic-based version will be if they're going as far to split them into separate SKUs. 🤔

Take this all with a pinch of salt for now, of course, but it probably won't be long until all of this is confirmed by Microsoft itself.

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One of my favorite things about the Xbox ecosystem has historically also been one of its most frustrating. Why? Primarily due to a "lack" of adoption.

Xbox Play Anywhere is by far and away my favorite thing about being an Xbox owner. As a heavy (figuratively and literally) Xbox gamer with hundreds upon hundreds of owned games, I'm always excited to see when one of my games supports Xbox Play Anywhere — a feature that allows me to take my game to Xbox Cloud Gaming or Windows PCs or gaming handhelds on the same license, with the same save file.

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However, in years past, adoption was pretty anemic. Xbox's first-party titles (mostly) came to the service, but third-party games generally turned their nose up at it. What's worse, the idea of older games getting support was almost unheard of. That changed in a big way in 2026.

Games both old and new are getting Xbox Play Anywhere support out of the blue

I will remember 2026 as the year Xbox Play Anywhere really saw a watershed moment.

Previously, it felt like AAA developers simply didn't care or want to work with Xbox Play Anywhere. I wrote an opinion piece complaining about Xbox Play Anywhere adoption back in January, but almost a year later, things have done an almost total 180.

Before, it felt like to expect Xbox Play Anywhere, Microsoft had to drop an Xbox Game Pass deal on the game in order to acquire the rights and convince the developers to play nice. But this year, we've seen a steady cadence of games both large and small hitting Xbox Play Anywhere without any form of Game Pass integration.

Yes, many AAA games still aren't arriving as part of Xbox Play Anywhere (notably ones from the "bigger" publishers like EA and Ubisoft), but it seems even they are coming around to the idea. A few weeks ago, Ubisoft began offering some of its games on Xbox PC "for free" if you own the Xbox console version, making them Xbox Play Anywhere in all but name. Now if we could just get Star Wars Zero Company too ... if you're listening, EA.

Other publishers have been sporadic. Capcom brought Onimusha: Way of the Sword to Xbox Play Anywhere, but not Resident Evil 9 or Pragmata, for example. Others have been fully on board, with Square-Enix pledging virtually every new release, including re-releases like the upcoming Kingdom Hearts remasters and Final Fantasy Resonance.

Indeed, one of the bigger issues with Xbox Play Anywhere revolves around gaps in the overall content line-up. It reminded me a bit of the Windows Phone app gap ... wherein developers didn't see enough users to justify the port, and users didn't see enough content to justify using the store. But somehow, Xbox seems to have overcome this issue with Xbox Play Anywhere.

Witcher 3 recently got retroactively updated with Xbox Play Anywhere support, for example. Today, Metro 2033 and Last Light were announced with HD refreshes, complete with Xbox Play Anywhere support. Baldur's Gate 3 too, also grabbed Xbox Play Anywhere support, with Larian remarking that it's just "a cool part of the ecosystem." Even some of the more obscure games like Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon, a game I was secretly hoping would grab Xbox Play Anywhere, just randomly got certified today. I also had no idea other viral indie hits like TCG Card Shop Simulator were Xbox Play Anywhere until I checked what was available today.

What's going on here?!

There's been a huge, generalized sprint of solid Xbox Play Anywhere support recently. Blood of Dawnwalker, Control Resonant, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, Aliens Fireteam Elite 2, Beast of Reincarnation, Dispatch, 007: First Light, Subnautica 2, Vampire Crawlers, RuneScape: Dragonwilds, Replaced, Monster Hunter Stories 3, Deep Dish Dungeon, Clive Barker's Hellraiser Revival, Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons, and many more — have all hit the service in recent months, or will in the near future.

There are tons more as well, on top of first-party titles which are all but guaranteed to hit Xbox Play Anywhere by default. Crucially, all of the games play incredibly well natively on Xbox Ally X, optimized for handhelds out of the box in most cases.

Microsoft hasn't been shy about its intentions to improve the Xbox back-end systems to facilitate these kinds of features. But I'm curious what is driving this increased adoption of late ... could it be the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X effect? Is it simply a no-brainer if you're also moving copies via Xbox Cloud Gaming? Is the Xbox PC store seeing more rapid adoption than people think?

Whatever the cause is, as an Xbox Ally X gamer, I'm loving it.

Now if you don't mind, I'm going to rock up with some more Deep Dish Dungeon for a bit while the WoW: Forever servers are in maintenance ...

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As I write this, I just wrapped up my run-through of Gears of War: E-Day, start to finish. Although, I have yet to experience the full actual game.

For the review build, Gears of War: E-Day's new siege mode is disabled, as is versus multiplayer. It felt odd to me to score a game I haven't fully played yet; as such, this will be a review-in-progress pending the launch state of versus and siege mode, which I presume goes live with the game itself on October 6, 2026.

Gears of War: E-Day is something of an important game for Xbox. It carries the flag for Microsoft's return to exclusive Xbox Series X|S games, and likely has some oversized pressure upon it to deliver. We're not here to review that aspect of the product, though — only what is here sitting in front of me.

And my feelings are a bit mixed.

Gears of War: E-Day has some of the most stunning visuals I've ever seen committed to the medium, with absolutely immaculate lighting treatment, immense and meticulous city detailing, and gorgeous character work. The gunplay is also fantastic, smoothing off some of the series' rough edges with boosted mobility, without sacrificing the Gears feel.

But the overall gameplay structure does the overall game a pretty sizeable disservice in my view, preventing it from reaching its full potential.

Gears of War: E-Day review — Story, Art, and Tech

Gears of War: E-Day takes place over a decade before Gears of War 1, offering us a front-row seat to the brutal and genocidal opening to the Locust's attack on humanity.

The city of Kalona serves as ground zero for that invasion. Kalona is known as a city of science and technological progress, and was instrumental in developing the COG's weapons tech and industrial war economy during the civil war against the UIR. E-Day takes place six weeks after the UIR surrenders, and Dominic Santiago and Marcus Fenix are picking up the pieces and mourning lost friends and family.

The character work on offer in E-Day is absolutely top-shelf. The trauma of loss and the shock of the Locust invasion comes through incredibly well in every single aspect of the game's delivery. The cityscape is immaculately detailed, with interiors fully rendered with a lived-in feel, complemented by some of the best lighting I've ever seen in a video game. Well and truly, Gears of War: E-Day is at the absolute apex of Unreal Engine technological prowess, and the game deserves awards on that basis alone, most likely.

Rendering the city in so much detail really helps serve the story. Gears of War's more recent games take place in a ruined world, where the Locust have effectively already won and decimated humanity and most of its cities. For E-Day, The Coalition had to show a city that was still thriving and populated, and the horrors therein.

From the very first cutscene, The Coalition pulls no punches: this is a horror story, a war story, and a tale of survival and desperation. The COG army is decimated and blindsided, besieged by an unknown threat that they immediately underestimate as monsters without a plan, only to discover later just how smart and organized the Locust actually are.

Civilian NPCs litter the city, sometimes fleeing, sometimes in dismembered puddles on the ground. The reactions from the characters and their development throughout the game really help to elevate that sense of loss and fear — they're not the battle-hardened survivors of the original Gears trilogy. They're young, war-weary from fighting the UIR, and in some cases wholly traumatized already.

I don't want to give too much away about the story, but this very much felt like the first game in a new planned trilogy ... there were aspects of the delivery that suffered as a result. Some plot threads felt designed to be resolved in future games (or DLC?), leaving me wanting somewhat. But the fact that I am eager to learn more about this Emergence Day story arc is probably a plus. It would be far worse if I didn't care, and I find myself caring a lot about the new characters, their struggles, their past lives, and what will ultimately end up happening to them ... given that some clearly aren't present in future installments.

Gears of War: E-Day's setting, visuals, and story delivery represent its best aspects. The game's performance on Xbox Series X is top-tier, with slowdown only occurring during some particularly heavy sequences towards the end. I didn't experience a single crash, and it's great to see a modern game offer split-screen co-op in the modern age as an option.

The new characters are interesting and engaging, and finding out new layers of existing characters is also rewarding as a long-time fan. I think Gears of War: E-Day could've benefitted from leaning more into civilian-oriented side stories potentially ... but as I'm going to explain in the gameplay section, Gears of War: E-Day is let down a fair bit by its gameplay structure all up.

Gears of War: E-Day review — Campaign Gameplay

Let's get the good stuff out of the way first: this is still very much Gears of War. Everything you've loved previously about Gears is still here, and in most cases, elevated to the 11th degree.

E-Day boosts the player character's mobility by a huge amount. Sprint is now more instantaneous and on the left stick like a standard modern shooter. Cover is far more dynamic than it was previously, with the ability to take cover in lower spaces than before, making environments feel more varied and natural. You can now also climb and vault, allowing The Coalition to build on the game's verticality. Given that Kalona is a city-state with large buildings and urban environments, having these features serves the game incredibly well.

The gunplay is also very polished. Chainsaw-ing dudes in half is more rewarding than ever, with almost embarrassingly satisfying sound treatment and chunky gore physics. Watching a severed torso flip onto the floor never gets old.

There's a variety of new weapons which are also instant classics. The Locust have been scavenging the battlefields of the Pendulum wars, adapting old UIR guns with horrifyingly inhumane enhancements. As such, that satisfying M1 Garand "ping" returns from the UIR Markza, repurposed into the axe-hilted Locust Breechshot rifle, for example.

The gunplay lets itself down a bit when it comes to fighting some of the game's bigger enemies, though. Drones, wretches, and some of the earlier enemies are by far the most satisfying to fight, reacting to your bullets and even having destructible armor that makes combat feel more dynamic and modern. I'm not sure why The Coalition didn't extend this gameplay style to some of its bigger enemies, which is where I would argue it'd be far more crucial.

Indeed, in Act 1, Gears of War: E-Day starts so strongly, and I was sitting there wondering if this was going to end up being the best game Xbox ever shipped, but over time, that feeling began to unravel.

Reavers, Brumaks, and other larger enemies barely react at all to gunfire, making them feel like robots or bullet sponges — something Gears 4 was heavily criticized for. You end up just watching the enemy's health bar in some cases for at least some semblance of reactivity, instead of the visuals The Coalition's art team painstakingly worked towards. Towards the end of the game, these types of enemies become more common too, robbing the game of some of its dynamism.

Another irritating aspect of Gears of War: E-Day pertains to its open-but-not-actually-open world design, which to me smacks of rushed or changing game design priorities throughout development.

Kalona is a fully realized 3D city, with a huge variety of urban exterior and interior locations. It's a great canvas that The Coalition can build upon when designing future content, potentially both for Siege and Versus mode. The problem is, it doesn't lend itself particularly well to the campaign mode.

Gears of War: E-Day starts incredibly strongly, with a linear cinematic segment that really sets the tone for the game. Then, it opens up into this odd semi-open world structure that seemed interesting in previews, but in practice, it doesn't really reach further than the glimpses we got over the summer.

There's a map that offers the illusion of large explorable spaces, but in practice, all the segments are very linear. Even the side objectives take place in a structured way, undermining the need or desire to really explore. It felt like The Coalition tried to shoehorn in more reasons to explore by spreading weapon mods and collectibles around, but I just found this aspect of the game to be irritating and pace-breaking.

There's dozens upon dozens of weapon mods to find in the field, but half the time it'll be for weapons you don't really want to use. The game pings you with an annoying pop-up every few seconds saying "hardcase nearby," which just served as a distraction given that the reward was mostly just junk items. Even the collectibles were annoying to find, given that you had to jump through several menus then go manually searching for the item you just found from a huge list. There were more mods to find than there was gameplay canvas upon which to place them ... E-Day really would've benefitted from some kind of vendor system instead here, allowing you to buy mods at your leisure, rather than feeling forced into boring hide-and-seek gameplay every 3 minutes.

These might seem like minor gripes, but given that there's not much else "new" here on offer across the general Gears formula, they stand out a bit like a sore thumb.

It doesn't help that, as a result of the game's structure, you end up revisiting the same locations multiple times as part of the story, which felt anticlimactic and choring, particularly towards the end of the game.

The campaign does have some incredibly epic, cinematic, and deeply emotional moments — don't get me wrong. There are some fantastic sequences spread throughout the game, showcasing Emergence in all of its reptilian, subterranean horror. I just wish they'd doubled up on these moments instead of trying this odd "open" world experiment, which seems ill-conceived and poorly executed, with features that detract rather than elevate the overall experience.

Gears of War: E-Day review — Conclusion (so far)

I thoroughly enjoyed Gears of War: E-Day overall, and am already enjoying my second playthrough on a higher difficulty, but I would be lying if I said the game didn't have large issues — particularly given how easily avoided many of them could've been.

Kalona is an immaculate canvas ripe for telling epic stories. The new, horror-laden tone is absolutely the right direction for Gears of War: E-Day. The existential dread oozes throughout every character delivery, and the city design is among the best the medium has ever seen.

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The gameplay structure placed on top of it becomes the problem, that could've used a lot more iteration and forethought. It felt a bit like E-Day was originally intended to be some form of open-world, but at some point, they retreated, leaving it feeling disjointed. The "open world" exploration aspects are unrewarding and more often than not simply frustrating, and a lot more work could've gone into making boss-level enemies more dynamic and interesting to fight.

If I were to score the game based on the campaign alone, I'd probably give it an 8/10 overall — it's still incredibly fun, and the downsides are frustrating but not game-breaking. In any case, we haven't experienced the full package Gears of War: E-Day represents. We still have Siege and Versus to talk about, and it remains to be seen how fun or even functional those will be at launch. Stay tuned.

Gears of War: E-Day launches October 6, 2026, exclusively on Xbox Series X|S on console with Xbox Play Anywhere for PC, it's also coming to Steam and Xbox Game Pass.

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The last couple of Xbox events I've attended, including BlizzCon, I noticed I was getting the same question from industry figures and fans alike: is Microsoft gearing up to sell Xbox?

Microsoft's vast layoffs across the summer have hit Xbox in their thousands, with studios like Ninja Theory on the path to being closed, and others like Double Fine being divested completely. Microsoft has effectively shut down Halo Studios itself and handed off the franchise to Call of Duty showrunners instead, as Xbox aggressively seeks to restructure for its next decade.

A decade that might not arrive, that is, if these "sell off" rumors turned out to be true. Many analysts and industry figures have opined that the cuts are designed to make Xbox "leaner" and more attractive to a potential buyer. When you dig down into it, these commentaries don't make a lot of sense; why would Xbox keep smaller franchises like Age of Empires even at a reduced clip, or try to rebuild Halo at all if it was indeed looking to sell?

Regardless, even senior industry figures like Shawn Layden of PlayStation fame described Xbox as being in its "Dreamcast phase" recently, referring to the time Sega exited the hardware business. A lot of these comments tend to emerge from industry figures who seem particularly aggrieved by Xbox, though, regardless of actually being a customer or not.

Indeed, actual Xbox customers have been generally optimistic about the way Xbox has been heading. Nobody (sane) revels in layoffs, but purely mathematically speaking, it was unclear how some of Xbox's 'niche' kind of games like Keeper, Kiln, or Hellblade 2 were going to be self-sustainable for the studios that produced them. There's a lot of valid criticism to be levied at the leadership figures that allowed for projects that were quite obviously going to be unsustainable.

Sharma has promised deeper investment in the very-long-dormant Fallout franchise, promised to restructure and rebuild Halo, and continues to promise Xbox Helix, the long-awaited next-gen console. Sharma has declared intent to invest in Xbox's biggest brands, leveraging TV shows, movies, and other transmedia opportunities to find new users. Despite this, there still runs the idea that Xbox could end up being divested from Microsoft itself, owing to a report from The Information earlier in the summer that Microsoft was exploring the idea.

The NYT interviewed (paywall) Sharma recently covering the Xbox layoffs generally. The outlet said that Asha "did not stall" in declaring Xbox not-for-sale.

"Xbox is not for sale. [...] We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model and everything needed to achieve that. [...] We’ve got a long way to go with Microsoft and we’re going to take the long-term view."

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is to blame for the lack of faith in the Xbox business from mainstream figures

The NYT quite patronizingly called the comment a "bob and weave" seemingly unwilling to let go of the idea of divestiture. It's great shareholder bait; Xbox has long been an aspirational type of product, and it has been a loss leader in some regards. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has remarked in the past about how, despite the fact Xbox isn't a huge profit generator, fandom of the brand has led to lucrative deals for Azure on the business side of things. Yet, shareholders would love nothing more than for Microsoft to quit the difficult and risky game industry to dive all-in on AI psychosis products instead.

Indeed, under Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, the company has seen a near total retreat from consumers in general. Surface is on its death bed, Windows Phone was killed off, all consumer hardware products were effectively shelved. Microsoft's retail stores were closed, customer support is anaemic to non-existent, and Windows itself has seen huge declines in popularity and trust. Even Microsoft Copilot has undergone a work-focused update, ditching their (admittedly terrible) consumer-oriented features.

Nadella is absolutely not consumer-savvy in general. Nadella's Microsoft strategy paints the Xbox business as a sore thumb on a very boring, cold, sad, and business-oriented IBM-style Microsoft — a Microsoft chasing cultural irrelevancy.

RELATED: To save Xbox, Asha Sharma needs to defeat Microsoft itself

It's no wonder that mainstream media can't understand why Xbox could exist in this current incarnation of Microsoft, and it's through no fault of previous Xbox leaders, Asha Sharma or Xbox in general.

The one saving grace here is that Nadella has, for some reason, continued to allow Xbox to exist — likely against the wishes of shareholders and his generalized anti-consumer and anti-customer instincts. Nadella claimed in an internal meeting that Microsoft will "always" be in gaming, and will take a "long view" on its future. But it's really, really easy to understand why the trust isn't there. We wouldn't even have this commentary from Nadella if I hadn't literally leaked the meeting's audio myself.

The NYT noted that Nadella declined to participate in the interview. He really should have participated in my opinion, because this generalized lack of faith comes from his strategies and public-facing comments.

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