South of Midnight creative director David Sears recently made a surprisingly candid admission in an interview, saying that if he had been responsible for Xbox's budget decisions, he "probably" wouldn't have approved funding for the project.

This bizarre (or perhaps expected) twist now links two Xbox-related studios with comments questioning whether their games should have been funded at all. Before this, online drama surrounded Double Fine (Psychonauts, Keeper) saying something similar, albeit in a more tongue-in-cheek way.

To which MinnMax's Ben Hanson asked: “You would not have funded it yourself? If you were actually running Xbox, you would have been like, ‘No, turn off that tap much quicker?’”

Sears replies, “Yeah, probably.”

Xbox's creative freedom came at a cost

Sears went on to explain: “Yeah, I mean, I wanted to make it, no doubt, right? And obviously because we made it. Um, you know, would I have turned off, you know, someone else's money flow before South of Midnight? Yeah, cuz I'm not completely selfless.”

“But, you know, it just seems like in hindsight at least, it was unsustainable. So, of course, it was going to have a, you know, shocking outcome.”

Interestingly, Sears wasn't entirely critical of Microsoft. Earlier in the interview, he praised the company's support for South of Midnight, saying, “Microsoft encouraged everything,” while describing the creative freedom Compulsion Games enjoyed during development.

It’s a shame that things turned out the way they did. It’s hard to know who to fully blame, but Phil Spencer’s vision for Xbox of letting studios have complete creative freedom was fantastic on paper, yet in practice, it clearly didn’t work, especially for this era of gaming.

Who knows, maybe back in the Xbox 360 days, when games were regularly made on smaller budgets within a year or two, it might have been more sustainable. But given the bloated budgets for gaming that exist after 25 years of Xbox, and how development for major games can now span five-plus years, it’s difficult to see how that approach could continue indefinitely.

That said, let me know your thoughts on Sears’ comments. Are they shocking, or are you not surprised at all? Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll!

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

October 2026 was an extremely stacked month for Xbox games, with titles like Gears of War: E-Day, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Final Fantasy Resonance, and many vying for attention and our wallets.

How many games, you ask? Well, via analysis from @KoreaXBOXnews on X, 210 Xbox games launched in October 2026, 95 of which supported Xbox Play Anywhere.

That huge statistic highlights the general market challenge so far, as users debate market saturation. Gears of War: E-Day and its virtue as an "exclusive" game on Xbox has been under a microscope, with claims that the game hasn't delivered for Microsoft. Even if that was true, it was among many big high-quality releases actively competing with hundreds of other Xbox games at once for attention, and that's without mentioning the 187 Xbox games released in September 2026.

On the plus side, @KoreaXBOXnews's analysis shows that Xbox Play Anywhere is gaining more momentum, consistently hovering around 50% share since June 2026 (or 70% if you count "triple-stack" achievement games, otherwise known as shovelware titles. Microsoft is cracking down on this exploitative practice, where developers ship multiple versions of the same game to bait achievement hunters.)

This means Microsoft is focusing on encouraging more games adopt Xbox Play Anywhere going forward, as more people are liking the idea of buying an Xbox game once and then being able to play it on console, handheld, and Windows PC within the Xbox ecosystem.

Can't say I blame them because being able to buy and play a game on an Xbox Series X|S, and then being able to play on an Xbox Ally X while carrying over data with no extra charge is a pretty good deal.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Microsoft's COO Helen Chiang was fired from Xbox a few weeks ago, after 27 years of top-level leadership spent across the org, most prolifically at Minecraft.

The removal was abrupt and somewhat confusing on the face of it. Chiang was widely respected across the Microsoft stack and is a trusted figure, described to me as "by the book" by our own sources. When it emerged that she had been fired for "policy violations," it added an unexpected twist that left us with more questions than answers, ultimately.

Now, Helen Chiang has responded to the incident on LinkedIn, titled "Clarity is Kindness," which is a comment Xbox CEO Asha Sharma made to the WSJ while discussing the health of Microsoft's gaming business recently.

There has been some speculation about my abrupt departure from Microsoft, including claims that I was “fired for a policy violation”. That’s not accurate," Chiang writes, "silence should not be mistaken for agreement. What has been said about my departure, and what has been left unsaid, has created a picture of me that I hardly recognize. It’s important to me to set the record straight."

In the full post shared below, Chiang denies that she leaked information, sought employment at Microsoft competitors, engaged in insider trading, bullying, or embezzlement, or that she left because she didn't get the CEO job. She says that she always hoped to stay at Microsoft and "keep building," and this departure wasn't what she envisioned.

"I share this because I don’t want my departure reduced to an inaccurate story about incompetence, ambition for the next big job, or a Nelson-level scandal."

As to not paraphrase, I've included the full text from the post below.

"Clarity is Kindness

There has been some speculation about my abrupt departure from Microsoft, including claims that I was “fired for a policy violation”. That’s not accurate and while I won’t turn this into a play-by-play, silence should not be mistaken for agreement. What has been said about my departure, and what has been left unsaid, has created a picture of me that I hardly recognize. It’s important to me to set the record straight.

First, I did not leak confidential company information to the press. I have never communicated with any journalist outside the limited, company-authorized interviews I’ve done as part of my job. That includes every journalist who reached out this week seeking my side of the story.

Second, I did not leave XBOX to join a competitor. You don’t spend two decades somewhere without developing a deep loyalty to the people, teams, and businesses you’ve helped build. XBOX was never just another stop in my career. My end game was always to keep building here.

Third, I did not engage in discrimination, bullying, harassment, insider trading, embezzlement, or other fraudulent activity. I stand by my record: both the results I delivered and the way I have treated people throughout my career. I won’t let speculation define my character or erase that record.

Lastly, I did not leave because I was passed over for a bigger role. Since having children, I’ve been intentional about how I define ambition and success. I haven’t actively sought out bigger roles or increased responsibilities, and the last time I interviewed for a job was in 2011. My reputation and results paved the way for the opportunities that followed. I went where the company believed I was needed and where I could have the greatest impact. I did not ask for my most recent role, either. I was promoted into it in July.

I believe in fairness, accountability, and holding ourselves to the standards we expect of others. Those standards only mean something when they’re applied consistently. I have serious concerns about how they were applied in my case, and I believe those concerns deserve to be taken seriously.

I share this because I don’t want my departure reduced to an inaccurate story about incompetence, ambition for the next big job, or a Nelson-level scandal. My story is about staying true to your core values, especially when it is hard. That’s the legacy I hope to leave behind.

To everyone who has reached out with hugs, love, and support: thank you. So many of you have reminded me of the wonderful times we’ve shared over the past 20 years and the impact we’ve had on one another. Some of you I haven’t been in touch with for several years, yet you still took the time to check on me. Others are people I’ve never even met, but you reached out anyway. That speaks volumes about the care and humanity in our industry and the connections that transcend where we work.

This is not how I ever imagined my story here would end. And it is not the whole story." — Helen Chiang, former Xbox COO.

Helen Chiang's somewhat unceremonious departure comes amidst widespread upheaval at Xbox as Microsoft restructures its gaming org, which has led to thousands of layoffs, divestitures, and studio closures. Microsoft managed to return some studios to independent ownership and has sold others to publishers, as it tries to rein in spending in general.

The Coalition has been put on the hook for $500 million per Microsoft's finance auditors, who only see the dollars and not the complexity of game development, the impact the pandemic had on the development of games between Gears 5 and E-Day, and other mitigating factors.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has returned the brand's focus to its core customers in recent months, with a return of exclusive games, boosting investment in the existing console infrastructure, and improving things on the back end for game developers.

I suspect there'll be more disruption before things calm down ... as the industry in general reels from an overabundance of content, reduced consumer spending, and the AI-fostered RAMpocalypse.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Original article:

Over the weekend, YouTuber "P1REMAKE" uploaded a new video that has every Persona fan up in arms with excitement and speculation — a supposed gameplay trailer for a Persona 1 Remake that's coming to Xbox.

The video contains a gameplay montage of characters exploring a school filled with monsters, a visual-novel-style cutscene, and turn-based combat similar to that of modern Persona games like Persona 3: Reload, Persona 4: Revival, and Persona 5: Royal.

The video also shows that it's coming to Xbox (and/or PC) because the UI display during combat shows Xbox controller face buttons (Y, X, B, A) and an RB shoulder button.

Now it's very likely that this video could be a fake trailer made by fans, especially since Atlus hasn't been motivated to take this video offline yet.

Then again, this video, despite its low resolution, looks too well put together to be fake or AI-generated. Plus, Atlus did express a desire to remake Persona 1 and 2 last summer. So, there is a chance this trailer could, in fact, be real or, at the very least, a fan-made or leaked proof of concept of what a Persona 1 remake could look like.

Either way, it'd be cool to see remakes of Persona 1 and 2 finally happen, as they are vastly different and darker in terms of tone, story, and gameplay style compared to their more popular successors.

We'll have to wait and see if Atlus indeed plans to remake the games that kick-started its flagship franchise at either the upcoming Game Awards or at a future Xbox Games Showcase, since that's where they tend to reveal Persona games these days.

In the meantime, we'll have Persona 4: Revival (releasing on February 18, 2027, for consoles and PC) and Persona 6 to look forward to.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

We're just days away from World of Warcraft: Forever's launch on November 4, 2026, but it looks like Microsoft may have spoiled a major surprise: WoW may be coming to Xbox after all.

The rumor recently exploded on Reddit via u/hazedesunna, who spotted that Xbox UK's X account posted, "Don't forget to leave some space for these games coming to Xbox this November ⚔️" with images of Shrek 2: Remastered and World of Warcraft: Forever.

However, Xbox UK quickly took the post down and responded, "Hi there, this post was deleted as World of Warcraft: Forever will be available on PC and Mac via Battle.Net, and is not available on XBOX. This was our mistake so we needed to remove it and repost. We apologies[sic] for the confusion this may have caused."

Was this really a mistake or an accidental spoiler?

At face value, this was a genuine mistake on Xbox UK's part for placing the wrong game on a social post. But to entertain speculation for a moment, what if this post wasn't a mistake and Microsoft was hastily trying to cover it up to save face?

After all, we've been getting a fair amount of rumors about Blizzard's iconic MMORPG coming to Xbox for a while now, from Brazilian classifications to Blizzard wanting World of Warcraft playable 'on whatever you want' while name-dropping Project Helix.

Plus, with World of Warcraft: Forever having Xbox controller support, it's only a matter of time before it gets ported onto consoles.

As World of Warcraft: Forever launches, Retail continues to fall

Whatever the future holds for World of Warcraft: Forever, it's certainly looking better than the Retail version right now, which continues to degrade in quality.

On top of rushed content, poor writing, and controversial housing pricing, World of Warcraft can't even do monthly Trading Post content properly now, as its most recent batch of items is totally broken.

I really hope World of Warcraft: Forever can make up for World of Warcraft: Retail's current shoddy state because at this rate, I may just go back to playing Final Fantasy XIV when its latest expansion launches next year in February.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

From around July, rumors began to swirl that Gears of War: E-Day had cost upwards of half a billion dollars, raising questions about the state of AAA game development.

I can confirm at my end that Microsoft's financial auditors have attributed upwards of $500 million to The Coalition between Gears of War 5 and Gears of War: E-Day. But through multiple sources, I have a clearer picture of how that money has been spread and allocated over the past 6-7 years, and why there are even some internal disagreements over how exactly attribution should be distributed.

The Coalition has cost Microsoft "$500 million~" but is that the full story?

The reports of Gears of War: E-Day costing upwards of half a billion emerged first via Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming, and were later corroborated by Kotaku's Ethan Gach, with an extra $100 million on top.

I pushed back against the claims on my own show with preliminary information I'd received over the summer that The Coalition's budgeting situation is more complex than simply "Gears of War: E-Day cost half a billion dollars."

Multiple sources familiar with, but unauthorized to speak with us on, Microsoft's plans helped us flesh out a picture of why The Coalition has been hit with a $500 million price tag, and why, ultimately, debates over "how" the money has been allocated are ultimately academic.

Indeed, I am told by a variety of trusted sources that The Coalition has been contributing to a variety of other Xbox flagship titles that use Unreal Engine, including games like Avowed and State of Decay. Former senior Xbox staffer Derek Reese elaborated further recently on BlueSky, noting that The Coalition is "on the hook" for Microsoft's bespoke tools and pipelines for Unreal Engine.

So much of that cost is The Coalition being on the hook for the Microsoft branch of Unreal and one of the flagship titles.I should know, I tried to get leadership to support a plan to have other studios adopt it and write off the support costs.Same problem with Turn10 and ForzaTech.

— @derekree.se (@derekree.se.bsky.social) 2026-11-02T09:20:12.402Z

However, the situation goes a bit further than tooling and collaborative work on first-party Xbox games.

The Coalition also spent a great deal of time working with Epic Games on the "Matrix Awakens" Unreal Engine demonstration, as well as the Alpha Point demo, both of which were intended to showcase the potential of UE5 on next-gen consoles and PCs. The tools and techniques developed for these demonstrations were later deployed across a range of other first and third-party products Windows Central understands, during the period between 2020 and 2021.

Rod Fergusson formally left The Coalition in early 2020, and during the transition, it put the studio into a bit of a dormant state for a period, while Microsoft figured out how best to move the studio forward. The pandemic was also in full swing, creating chaos for game development pipelines that were designed for office work rather than remote work.

During this time, The Coalition worked for over a year and a half on a prototype project for Xbox that Windows Central understands was ultimately canceled. The Coalition also worked on Avowed, Hellblade 2, Clockwork Revolution, State of Decay 3, Grounded and Grounded 2, and has even contributed to the upcoming StarCraft reboot. Eventually Mike Crump was solidified as the new studio head, and E-Day development began in earnest.

Gears of War: E-Day hasn't been a huge success story against what Microsoft auditors and spreadsheets deem to be The Coalition's budget today. It runs afoul of a common theme surrounding Xbox in the post-pandemic period with an unclear accounting structure for contributions towards other projects.

I've previously heard from studio heads at Xbox, both past and present, who didn't have clarity over how their team's contributions to Xbox Game Pass fed back into their costing structure and how it affected investment from the Microsoft mothership.

Either way, it's true that game dev in North America has become incredibly costly ... and times are hard for many consumers

Either way, even if The Coalition didn't spend $500 million specifically on E-Day over the past half-decade — it's a lot of money to invest without a specific structure in place to explain why some of these costs were worthwhile to Microsoft auditors. A common theme in industry discussions revolves around the month-over-month cost of AAA game development in North America, vs. the willingness to spend on the part of core gamers therein. Competition from free-to-play titles, the sheer volume of content, and even non-gaming hobbies are thought to have reduced the opportunity.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella previously said Xbox had to become "sustainable" over the summer, while also stating that it will "always" invest in gaming as a company. Nadella lamented that video platforms like YouTube were doing a better job at monetizing Xbox than Microsoft itself. He's not exactly wrong, but I'd argue that's on Microsoft's lack of innovation at the top level, and tendency to cut and run rather than work through building up new businesses. The Xbox business is heavily constrained right now due to the component rout that Microsoft itself has had a hand in engineering. It doesn't bode well for the upcoming Xbox Helix, widely expected to be the most expensive retail video game console ever.

I argued in a piece in the summer that Microsoft's Xbox studios shouldn't be forced to bear the pain of previous decisions or market situations that are no longer viable ... alas, in our economic system it's naïve to expect corporations to behave this way.

RELATED: Xbox gamers shouldn't be on the hook for Gears of War: E-Day's retail success

I can't help but feel like the "$500 million" figure being shared around internally is being used to justify potential cuts, layoffs, or worse, a studio closure targeting The Coalition. Perhaps to "soften the blowback", should Microsoft target the studio. For what it's worth, I've not heard that Xbox is planning to close The Coalition. But Microsoft has already laid off thousands at Xbox, and has signaled plans to continue.

It's hardly a good look if Microsoft's first true, full Xbox exclusive in years results in mass layoffs at one of its core pillar studios. Gears of War has a TV show and a movie on the docket, and Gears of War: E-Day reviewed incredibly well. It's also true that Gears: E-Day is squashed beneath Call of Duty: MW4, GTA 6, WoW: Forever, and a variety of other major games that launched between August and now.

There's only so much $$$ to go around for one thing, and for many, even less free time to hit all these games.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Everyone is frothing at the mouth over Gears of War E:Day again, but this time it’s not the culture war.

It's the sensationalized reporting around it's budget and retail sales. Headlines claim the game cost an astronomical $500 million to make, while other reports suggest it "only" sold 400,000 retail copies. Predictably, the terminally online commentary machine is in full force, with some rather insanely blaming Xbox fans for this failure.

Xbox fans asked for exclusives, and yet when push comes to shove, "fans didn't put their money where their mouth was," making Gears of War: E-Day's reported failure "their fault." It’s a neat and tidy narrative for console warriors, but one that’s completely out of touch with modern gaming economics outside of the social media bubble.

First of all, that $500 million figure requires crucial context before anyone uses it as a stick to beat the game with.

As clarified by Derek Reese, former Senior Product Manager of Xbox Game Creator Services, that cost isn't simply the game's direct production budget. Much of that figure stems from broad operational overhead, with The Coalition essentially being on the hook for funding Microsoft's custom internal branch of Unreal Engine and supporting engine integration across the wider Xbox studio network (a tech-debt burden similar to Turn 10 bearing the operational costs for ForzaTech, on Fable and Forza Horizon). Conflating general engine-R&D operational overhead with the direct cost of a single game's development represents a misleading omission in the wider narrative.

Beyond the budget discourse, expecting Xbox players to subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate at $22.99 a month, and an annual commitment of over $275, AND drop $70 on day one for every first-party title just to prop up traditional sales metrics is both unrealistic and absurd. The suggestion that players need to pay twice to prove they support a studio fundamentally misunderstands why Microsoft built this system in the first place.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is not free gaming

For what many are spending on an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, in standard retail that represents the cost of roughly four full priced $70 AAA games. When a player opts into the Game Pass ecosystem, they are effectively pre-paying for their gaming line-up up front. Expecting that same consumer to buy Gears of War E: Day at retail price to satisfy outdated quarterly sales charts ignores the basic economic contract of a subscription service. The entire value proposition of Game Pass is that you don’t have to shell out $70 every time a major title lands.

Not only that, but framing Game Pass users as passive freeloaders ignores key data we already know. Under oath, during the FTC proceedings, Xbox President at the time Sarah Bond revealed that Game Pass subscribers actually spend 20% more money on average on gaming than those who don’t subscribe.

I too have pleaded with fans to “put their money where their mouth is” for Microsoft's divested teams like Undead Labs. There's a clear distinction between asking players to support a core Microsoft internal studio, whose quarterly profits are in the tens of billions, over supporting the newly independent Undead Labs. Players who are financially able, could buy State of Decay 3 to stick it to Microsoft's bean counters, and show Xbox what they had just given up.

The Coalition is a victim of Microsoft's structuring. Putting them on the hook for Unreal Engine support across multiple games, collaboration with Epic Games, while also building a multi-faceted multiplayer title squashed under Call of Duty: MW4, World of Warcraft: Forever, Grand Theft Auto 6, and various other heavy hitters this quarter is pure insanity.

In a single two-month span, gamers were asked to choose between massive titles across every sub-genre: Marvel’s Wolverine, Silent Hill: Townfall, Minecraft Dungeons 2, Ace Combat 8 and major remasters like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Dynasty Warriors 3 Complete Edition.

Expecting any single game to generate record-breaking direct $70 sales during one of the most crowded, wallet-draining launch windows in recent gaming history is wishful thinking. In a climate where players are already triaging their spending, a day-one Game Pass entry was an incredibly convenient and lower-cost way to play E-Day.

The $70 SKU is dead on Xbox, and $30 upgrades replaced it.

Regardless, simply citing 400,000 unit sales, or focusing on Steam copies, vastly misrepresents the actual paying audience. Game Pass subscribers actually engaged with the game's revenue model in a massive way through the $30 Premium Edition Upgrade. That’s much easier to justify purchase-wise when you feel like you're already getting something of value with your subscription.

How many would have spent ANYTHING on the game without it being on Game Pass? How do we really predict that behaviour? There's no "alternative reality generator" to see how the game would've shored up in a universe without Game Pass, GTA 6, or the rest of it.

The $70 premium SKU is, for all practical purposes, functionally dead for first-party titles on Xbox console. But that isn’t because Xbox players refuse to spend money; it's because Microsoft has trained them to spend money on early-access add-ons rather than $70 on a standalone license.

The same people attacking Xbox Game Pass are likely the same kind of people happy to wait for Steam sales, which too have contributed to a rejection of the $70 retail model. This is before we even talk about free-to-play titles like Fortnite, Roblox, mobile games, and others which actually dominate the spend.

For many of these people, it represents a glaring double standard to mock players for using the exact monetization model Xbox has designed for them.

Exclusivity is a marathon, not a sprint.

The second major flaw in the current discourse is the demand for seemingly instant gratification. Asha Sharma positioned Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution as console exclusives at this years Xbox Games Showcase as something of an olive branch to the community. A signal that platform exclusivity was still a core priority for Xbox. But one game was never going to turn around hardware sales overnight. The reality of today’s market comes down to demographics and household finances.

Just a short story from my own experience showing a colleague E-Day running on a Xbox ROG Ally X during a train ride for work. He was blown away by the visuals and fondly recalled buying an Xbox console specifically for the original Gears of War. But today, as he told me, he has a PS5, a mortgage, and a family. Knowing E-Day isn't on PlayStation was a bummer for him as he was genuinely interested in the game, but dropping significant cash on a secondary console for a single game simply isn't a justifiable household expense anymore for him.

Decisions like that aren't made on impulse anymore for the age and demographic of console users Xbox is targeting. Hardware momentum won’t be rebuilt with a single flagship release; it needs to be a slow and steady rebuild over years of consistent, uninterrupted hits. As a family, we have discussed buying a Nintendo Switch 2, driven in part by Ocarina of Time’s launch, but that alone isn’t a driving factor; we’ll get access to Pokopia, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Bonanza, etc. – all exclusives that make it a more justifiable expense and one the whole family can benefit from.

Expecting E-Day alone to magically reverse years of shifting multiplatform strategy and hardware decline in a single month is incredibly short-sighted. One game will not persuade someone to switch ecosystems, but four or five over a two-year span might. Rebuilding brand confidence requires patience, something the internet commentary cycle lacks, and something Microsoft has notoriously lacked itself in the past.

The danger of short sighted pivots

If Microsoft interprets the initial retail sales of E-Day as a failure of exclusivity rather than a predictable outcome of their own subscription strategy and timing, they risk making another premature course correction, so for their own sake I hope they are ignoring the current discourse.

Niche or brand-new IPs like Clockwork Revolution won't single-handedly move the needle either. What’s really needed, if they have the appetite for it, is exclusivity around massive, platform-defining pillars; the moments where a game like The Elder Scrolls 6 is kept strictly within the Xbox and PC ecosystem are what actually might be the thing that makes casual gamers re-evaluate where they play.

I don't even think something like Elder Scrolls 6 alone would do it, but if it is preceded by a bunch of other exclusives, it might.

Game Pass was designed to change how players consume games. Blaming the player base for using the service exactly as advertised is a bizarre double standard. Plenty of players paid out of pocket for E-Day premium upgrade on top of their subscriptions. If Xbox wants to prove that exclusivity still matters, it needs to give the strategy room to breathe.

And virtue-signalling pundits should stop expecting subscription-first, "wait-for-a-sale," players to buy into a $70 retail model have been repeatedly and explicitly told they don't need to.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

The official XBOX 25th anniversary is approaching fast, with November 15 flanked on both sides by plans for special hardware, celebratory merchandise, and a wave of themed cosmetics from Microsoft's gaming division.

It's almost hard to comprehend, given that I remember the much-anticipated launch of the original XBOX quite clearly.

But time marches on, and XBOX has proven it can iterate its hardware and innovate its experiences over the years.

So, in another mix of self-indulgent nostalgia and reflection on how far the technology has come, I'm looking back at how far performance has leaped across these console generations, from the original XBOX to the Series X and beyond.

XBOX (2001)

Microsoft's first console was comically gigantic and heavy, packed with parts that felt at home in a mid-to-high-tier desktop PC of the time. Its DVD drive sat alongside a 3.5-inch hard drive with 8–10 GB of space, connected via old-school IDE ribbon cables, and together they made up most of the heft. Some of my braver friends replaced their HDDs, requiring injected softmods to work.

Deeper inside, Intel provided a modified Pentium III x86 CPU built on a 180 nm process, which it has since scaled down incredibly far to the latest 18A process node used in its mainstream chips. Running at 733 MHz, the processor sat alongside 64 MB of DDR RAM (that's megabytes, not gigabytes) clocked at 200 MHz and an NVIDIA GeForce 3-based GPU at 233 MHz.

Looking back, it's fascinating how the OG XBOX resembled many of my friends' PCs at the time; we either paired Intel CPUs with NVIDIA GPUs or opted for AMD CPUs with ATI (later acquired by AMD) GPUs. It wasn't a permanent partnership for Microsoft, but it powered a compelling competitor to Sony's PlayStation 2, even if it remained out of reach for my teenage self.

XBOX 360 (2005)

Design-wise, this slim console was a far cry from its behemoth predecessor. Sure enough, the XBOX 360 made an instant impression on me and an even faster dent in my first self-earned paychecks. This time, Microsoft opted for a 64-bit PowerPC-based CPU design from IBM, moving further away from traditional PC architecture, with a massive clock speed jump to 3.2 GHz in its tri-core chip.

This leap to a multi-core processor makes direct clock speed comparisons a little moot, but it's still impressive to see how far the XBOX jumped in one generation. Its unified memory moved from DDR SDRAM to 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM clocked at 700 MHz for eight times more capacity and triple the bandwidth, and the GPU swapped teams to the ATI-designed 'Xenos' at 500 MHz.

Storage space is where it gets harder to define, because Microsoft offered so many different models, redesigns, and expandable add-ons. The earliest XBOX 360 consoles I saw ranged from selling with no hard drive at all to a 'Premium' model with a 20 GB HDD in the box. For game discs, Microsoft kept DVDs, but increased the read speed and moved to a SATA-connected, dual-layer disc drive.

XBOX One (2013)

Ah, the all-in-one entertainment unit. I bought into the XBOX ONE so eagerly because I wanted to play Quantum Break, but I was also intrigued by its appeal as a TV tuner with live programming snapped to the side of my screen. Of course, I'd never get the promised DVR function, and the Kinect 2.0 sensor did little more than collect dust, but the console still had its gaming appeal.

This is when Microsoft's consoles started resembling PCs again, with an octo-core AMD Jaguar CPU running x86-64 instructions, clocked at 1.75 GHz. It wasn't as mind-blowing as the XBOX 360's evolution, but the XBOX ONE came with 8GB of DDR3 RAM for a 16x generational memory capacity leap; all part of a new console that was generally easier for game developers to target.

This is also where Microsoft's modern AMD era began, building a GPU running at 853 MHz into its singular APU and delivering raw graphical compute performance about five times faster than the XBOX 360. Storage saw a huge jump to 500 GB to support game installations, and Microsoft finally adopted Blu-ray with a BD-ROM disc drive, but games were already going digital.

XBOX Series X (2020)

Yes, the current generation is almost six years old. We're once again entering an age of speculation about what comes next, but the XBOX Series X (and Series S) remain the brand's primary focus. There's even a transparent green 'Xbox Series X25' special edition console and controller launching in November, though I'm still quite satisfied with my original Series X|S variants.

The specs have more nuance these days, but the AMD octo-core Zen 2 CPU runs at 3.66 GHz, paired with an AMD RDNA 2 GPU at 1.82 GHz in another custom APU. For unified memory, Microsoft moved up to 16 GB of GDDR6 RAM, while storage starts with a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, depending on the model you choose. Proprietary external storage also returned this generation, up to 4 TB.

An Ultra HD Blu-ray drive was also standard at launch, but later 'All-Digital' models have dropped it, in keeping with an ongoing trend shift towards digital gaming. Some major releases are already launching without physical media, and it's reasonable to assume that the Series X could be Microsoft's last console to support them by default.

XBOX Project Helix (2028?)

So, what comes next? We already know that Project Helix will be "powered by a custom AMD SoC", much like the APUs in previous XBOX consoles, and that high-end visuals are a focus for the brand. Ray-tracing technology, in particular, delivers incredibly realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows, but it's demanding on any hardware, which is where AI comes in.

AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling tech is already making its way to current-gen XBOX consoles via FSR 4.1, and early testing with beta drivers on XBOX Ally handheld gaming PCs shows some promise for improved visual fidelity at the same performance. A new AI-assisted upscaler seems likely for the next XBOX, but it'll depend on what AMD can support with its hardware plans.

Of course, the utterly gigantic elephant in the room right now is the ongoing memory crisis. Shortages have pushed up the cost of components and completely removed some of the highest-end consumer GPUs from sale, as major brands like NVIDIA focus on hardware for large-scale artificial intelligence platforms instead. It'll likely be the most PC-like console yet, but at a severe cost.

Its literal cost will continue to be the most pressing prediction posed by long-serving XBOX gamers. Both of the Series X|S consoles already suffered a price hike, which has many wondering what they'll have to pay for the next-generation console. Is $1,000+ a realistic expectation, or can Microsoft pull some favors to offset the inflated manufacturing costs? Let's see what 2027 reveals.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

One of the lesser-appreciated aspects of Xbox Game Pass is Xbox Free Play Days, a feature that allows players to enjoy a select number of games for a brief period of time.

The selection of Free Play Days' games changes frequently, and this week's Xbox titles mostly fall in line with the spooky season of Halloween — WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers, Dead by Daylight, Darkwood, Spirttea, and Everspace 2 (the latter two of which are playable on console and PC).

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers, Dead by Daylight, Darkwood, and Everspace 2 will be free to play for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, and Essential members between October 29, 2026 to November 1, 2026.

Dead by Daylight will be free to play for all Xbox players (no Xbox Game Pass plan required) between October 28, 2026, and November 2, 2026.

A fallen Soulslike and an unkillable multiplayer horror game are on the menu for this year's Halloween

Among the biggest titles of this line-up are WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers and Dead by Daylight.

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers is an action-RPG Soulslike where you play as the titular pirate warrior, traveling the monster-infested lands of Shu to cure a horrific disease that's slowly turning you into an abomination.

My colleague, Jez Corden, gave WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers a highly positive review for its brutal yet satisfying combat, superb level design, and beautiful visuals. However, its difficulty and story were tarnished by harsh censorship, which can only be bypassed by fan-made mods on PC.

Dead by Daylight is a popular asymmetrical multiplayer horror game where four players must survive the night before a player-controlled slasher villain murders them all in brutal, horror-movie fashion.

The game was released in 2016, and it is still active to this day, with tens of thousands of people playing it and constantly adding new playable Survivors and Killers. Dead by Daylight has even added playable characters from other franchises like Diablo, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Stranger Things, Friday the 13th, Alien, Alan Wake, Nightmare on Elm Street, and many more.

To round up the horror titles is Darkwood, a top-down indie horror game where you must explore the titular forest to uncover its secrets whilst making gut-wrenching choices that may condemn human lives.

Of course, if you don't fancy being terrified this Halloween, you can always chill out with the cozy bathhouse simulator Spirittea or explore the universe while gunning down space pirates in the single-player space shooter, Everspace 2.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Microsoft has announced (via Xbox Wire) that Metro Redux has received a next-gen update on Xbox consoles along with Xbox Play Anywhere support.

This means that Metro Redux will be able to take full advantage of the Xbox Series X's hardware to run at 4K resolution at 60 FPS with improved graphics or at standard resolution at 120 FPS for smoother gameplay responsiveness.

Additionally, this Next-Gen update has TSR Upscaling and Anti-Aliasing to make each game's visual fidelity much sharper and more detailed.

With Xbox Play Anywhere, you will be able to own Metro Redux on a Windows PC by buying the Xbox version, and vice versa.

Plus, you will be able to play this game on handhelds like the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X, and continue your progress on any other compatible platform within the Xbox ecosystem.

For those unaware, Metro is a series of first-person shooters set in a post-apocalyptic future where you are struggling to survive in the Moscow underground filled with raiders, mutants, and other horrifying threats to the last scraps of humanity.

I never played this series myself, but my colleague, Jez Corden, is a huge fan of the series. Jez gave Metro Exodus a high 4.5 review score for its intriguing storyline and character writing, satisfying open-world survival gameplay, and excellent level design.

With Metro Redux's Next-Gen update, this will provide newcomers like me and long-time fans like Jez the perfect excuse to revisit the beginnings of this critically acclaimed series before its next entry, Metro 2039, drops on February 4, 2027, for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Xbox gift cards are a quick and easy way to add cash to your account, and they also make a great gift for your friends or family. It's even better when you can essentially get free cash to spend on expensive AAA blockbusters, like the upcoming mega hit Grand Theft Auto 6, which runs for $79.99 at retail.

So if you're hoping to buy yourself (or your pals) an expensive game, Newegg has your back with a special discount code on a (digital) $100 Xbox Gift Card for $90 with code GTWF968. Typing in the promo code during checkout at Newegg reduces the price, but you still get the full $100 delivered to your email inbox as a code. You could buy GTA6 and still have $20 left over!

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

It's been a long time since we last heard news of Threads of Time, the indie JRPG that aims to recapture the magic of Square Enix's all-time classic, Chrono Trigger.

After a year since its Tokyo Game Show 2025 trailer, Threads of Time has broken radio silence to reveal that it's releasing during the Summer of 2027 for Xbox Series X|S , PC via Steam, and now Nintendo Switch & Nintendo Switch 2.

Threads of Time is a turn-based JRPG where you travel across multiple time periods to save the world from sinister forces to ruin the world's past, present, and future.

The game will feature gorgeous HD-2D pixel art, a cast of intriguing characters, a rich storyline, a variety of exotic and wondrous lands to explore, and challenging enemies to beat in in-depth turn-based battles.

I've been looking forward to this for a while for its charming, retro aesthetic and gameplay, and was worried it might've been canceled after not hearing any news about it for a year. So I'm glad to hear it's still being made and that it's releasing next year during the Summer.

Here's hoping Threads of Time will get Xbox Play Anywhere at launch so I can play with it on the go with my Xbox Ally and carry over progress to my Xbox Series X at home.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.