Tag: Microsoft - Page 7
Guide Xbox Game Pass: All Games Coming Soon In August 2025
All the confirmed reveals so far
Looking for a complete list of games coming to Xbox Game Pass in August 2025? It can be pretty difficult to keep track of all the comings and goings in the world of Xbox Game Pass every month, so we've put together this handy guide to provide an overview of what's coming to Xbox Game Pass in August 2025. Here's a...
News Two Major Xbox Games Are Being Delisted In August 2025
Both going fully offline in 2026
Earlier this month, we brought news of a few server shutdowns on Xbox in July & August, whilst also briefly mentioning that EA's Anthem is set to be removed from storefronts next month as well - before going offline in 2026. Now, another big Xbox title is also being delisted in August and taken offline next year,...
News Microsoft CEO Comments On Recent Xbox Layoffs, Doubles Down On AI
"These decisions are among the most difficult"
Now that the dust has somewhat settled on the masses of job losses that recently occurred over at Xbox, and as the company moves towards a new fiscal year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has put out a fresh statement on moving forward. The Microsoft boss starts out by mentioning the company's recent...
News Two Xbox First-Party Games Now Shipping On Disc In 2025, Says Retailer
Another great Microsoft reversal
Shortly after Microsoft lifted the lid on Ninja Gaiden 4 and The Outer Worlds 2 during its 2025 Xbox Games Showcase, it was revealed that both of these games would get code-in-a-box physical releases - but the team has now reversed that decision and the two games will ship on-disc here in 2025. Hurrah! News of this...
Talking Point Would Halo Infinite Have Been A Bigger Success Using Unreal Engine 5?
A new report says Epic's engine was considered
Last year, Xbox made the announcement that it was rebranding 343 Industries to Halo Studios, in an attempt to reboot its most famous series and give the developer a new lease of life. With that reboot comes a switch to Unreal Engine 5, but should that move have come sooner? Would Halo Infinite have been...
News Xbox Will Apparently Announce More PS5 & Switch 2 Ports 'In The Coming Weeks'
Starfield? Halo? What next!
We're all well aware at this point that Microsoft is willing to take its full slate of games to other platforms, including PS5, and a fresh comment from The Game Business writer Chris Dring suggests that more announcements could be imminent. In a post that breaks down the current state of the US games market with...
News Xbox Celebrates Grounded 2 Launch With Bonkers '10-Foot Ant' Giveaway
You've got to be in it to win it
Obsidian's Grounded 2 Early Access launch is upon us, with the team's co-op backyard experience hitting Xbox Game Pass next week - and Team Green has just the accessory to get you settled in with the upcoming sequel. Basically, you can now enter to win a "Wild 10-foot Red Ant Plush" to ride while you master the...
News Sony Invests $460 Million In Bandai Namco, But Xbox Fans Shouldn't Be Worried
Transmedia opportunities are the priority
PlayStation owner Sony has today announced that it's made a significant investment in Dark Souls publisher Bandai Namco; pumping more than $460 million into the business. In return, the Japanese console maker now owns 2.5% of Bandai Namco shares, as the two companies form a "strategic business alliance"...
News Free Play Days: Try These Xbox Games For Free (July 24-27)
Included with Xbox Game Pass
Xbox's Free Play Days promotion is now live for the final weekend of July 2025, and we have five games in total to play over the next few days. There's no 'big game' to headline this week's selection, but there's some good variety nonetheless, and it's always nice to have a good few games to choose from. Anyway, here's...
News Xbox Game Pass Contributed To 'An All-Time High' For Subscription Spending Last Month (US)
"This is an all-time high for a single month"
Circana's Mat Piscatella has shared another interesting update on how the gaming industry performed for the month of June 2025 (in the US), and it's another good bit of news for subscriptions services like Xbox Game Pass. In June, non-mobile video game subscription spending reached an all-time high for...
News Microsoft Reverts Price Increase For The Outer Worlds 2, Will Launch For $70 On Xbox
"In line with current market conditions"
Not so long ago now, Microsoft announced sweeping price increases for some of its Xbox products, including plans to release future AAA games at $80. In turn, October's The Outer Worlds 2 was set to be the company's first $80 release, but those plans have now changed. In a statement provided to
News Forza Horizon 5 Is Seemingly The Best-Selling New PS5 Game Of 2025 So Far
Very impressive results
Earlier this month, we brought news that Forza Horizon 5 was about to surpass three million sales on PS5, and now it's done just that - seemingly becoming the best-selling new PS5 game of 2025 in the process. These figures are again coming from Alinea Analytics, who've provided an update for us on how FH5 is doing
News Xbox's Next First-Party Title Gets 'Story Trailer' Ahead Of Game Pass Release This Month
Staying grounded
It's been a busy year so far for Xbox first-party, but despite us being in the slower summer months here, the team isn't stopping there. Nope, the productive folks over at Obsidian are about to drop another big release this month in the form of Grounded 2 - with the game's early access story trailer now live. You can check out this...
News Microsoft Is Adding A 'Play History' Tab To The Xbox Dashboard
Unifying Xbox, PC and Cloud gaming
Microsoft has today announced an intriguing update for Xbox players, in another move towards unifying its gaming experience across console, PC and cloud. Rolling out now for Xbox Insiders, a new 'Play History' tab is being introduced on console and PC that makes it easier to browse your recently played games -...
News Four Games Are Available This Week With Xbox Game Pass (July 22-24)
Update: We've got a surprise fourth addition!
Welcome to your latest roundup for Xbox Game Pass! This week, we have three new additions coming to the XGP library, including day one soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers. As usual, then, we're going to round up all three of these new titles to give you a flavour of what's new to Game Pass this week...
Talking Point As A Game Pass Subscriber, Do You Still Spend Money In Xbox Sales?
Or do you tend to wait for XGP?
With Xbox's big summer sale now out in full force, we've been having a good browse of the Microsoft Store in recent days, picking out some pretty great bargains that we're tempted to grab. There are loads of titles at their lowest-ever prices, alongside a big
News Microsoft Movies & TV Is Officially Ending, Which Will Have A Big Impact On Xbox
It's the end of an era!
For well over a decade now, Microsoft has used its "Movies & TV" (otherwise known as "Films & TV") service to allow Xbox and PC users to rent or buy films - but suddenly, that's all come to a screeching halt today. The company has confirmed that it will no longer be providing this service on PC or Xbox, although...
Rumour Xbox Has Locked In A November Release Date For Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7
Shock?
The word on the street is that Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will launch this November. Shocked? Nah, probably not, but considering last year's entry arrived in October, it's looking like Xbox and Activision are taking a few extra weeks to get Black Ops 7 out the door. The official release date is set for November 14th, 2025, according to...
Feature These 20+ Xbox Games Are At Their 'Lowest Price Ever' In The 2025 Summer Sale
Some big games at their lowest-ever prices
Xbox's big Summer Sale for 2025 is now properly underway, and while we've put out our usual roundup of some of the biggest and best deals this promotion has to offer, we've done a little more digging to find that loads of these games are actually at their lowest-ever price on Xbox! <related...
News Xbox's Contraband Still In The Works As Job Listing Reveals New Details
Will we see it soon?
Prior to the 2025 Xbox Games Showcase, we pondered the thought of Avalanche Studios' Contraband showing up again after a four-year hiatus - and while that didn't turn out to be the case, the project does seem alive and well within Microsoft's games pipeline. As spotted by Tech4Gamers, the Swedish developer has posted a new
Opinion Xbox Series X Still Hasn't Been Fully Utilised Yet, But 2026 Could Be The Year
So many proper 'next-gen' games coming
It's weird to make such a statement, but, I genuinely don't believe Xbox Series X has been properly taken advantage of almost five years into its lifecycle, and I'm surely not alone in that feeling. In recent years, we have finally started to see the cross-gen period fizzle out — which is good news for...
Rumour Xbox Is Working On Next-Gen Cloud Gaming, Including PC-Based Streaming
"Here's what we expect to see"
Despite questions about Xbox's next-gen hardware plans, one thing that's for sure is the team's continued focus on cloud gaming, which is quickly becoming a core feature of the ecosystem. This week, Microsoft began rolling out the 'Stream Your Own Game' cloud service to PC, and it sounds like the Windows platform could...
Poll Which Of Xbox's Fall 2025 Games Are You Most Excited About?
Come take your pick!
With June's Xbox Games Showcase event we learnt a lot about Microsoft's release calendar for the rest of 2025 — as you'd expect for a big summer livestream — and the rest of the year is set to bring some big games from the team. Three of those big games land within two weeks of each other in October, which is shaping up to...
News Starfield DLC Reportedly Still In The Works Alongside The Elder Scrolls 6
An update on Bethesda from Jez Corden
One notable absence from this year's Xbox Games Showcase was Bethesda's Starfield, despite an update from the team back in March stating that "a lot of exciting things are planned for the game this year". While those things clearly weren't ready to be shown off this summer, it's claimed that Bethesda Game...
Report Activision Blizzard's King Team Sees Axed Job Roles 'Replaced' By AI
200 jobs have been cut at the studio
We apologise in advance for bringing another AI story to you today, but a fresh report from MobileGamer suggests that Activision Blizzard's King team is a part of the Microsoft Gaming business seeing human job roles shift to AI. It had previously been reported by the likes of Bloomberg that
News Three Games Are Leaving Xbox Game Pass In Late July 2025
The latest batch of departures
Microsoft has revealed a relatively short list of three games leaving Xbox Game Pass at the end of July, including Capcom's action-strategy title Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. All three of these games will depart right at the end of the month on July 31st, around which time we'll hear about our first set of...
News These Eight Games Are Coming To Xbox Game Pass (July 17-August 1)
Your latest batch of new titles
Microsoft has revealed a new batch of Xbox Game Pass titles for the second half of July 2025, which includes a few previously-confirmed titles such as Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, as well as some surprises like RoboCop: Rogue City! Don't forget about High
News Xbox Hardware Isn't Dead But 'Big Changes' Are Coming, Says Digital Foundry
"No, Xbox hardware isn't dead."
In recent weeks, and in the wake of the ROG Xbox Ally, there's been lots of speculation about the future of Xbox hardware and where Microsoft is taking things - and over the past few days, the folks over at Digital Foundry have had their say on proceedings. The DF team believes that Xbox is still taking hardware...
News Two Games Are Confirmed For Xbox Game Pass In August 2025 So Far
An early look at next month
As we always do around this time of the month, we're taking a look today at what's ahead for August 2025's Xbox Game Pass selection, with two titles having been confirmed for the library next month so far. As it stands, two Xbox first-party releases are the only games we know about for now - including the...
Talking Point After Almost Two Years, How Do You Feel About Xbox's Starfield In 2025?
Where does the Bethesda RPG rank for you?
Almost two years ago now, most of us in the Xbox community were eagerly awaiting the next big RPG from Bethesda Game Studios - yep, Starfield was upon us, with its September 2023 release date fast approaching at the time. Since then, the hype has somewhat died down for this big Xbox release, so we want to...
News Microsoft Spends Up To $50m On Xbox Game Pass Partnerships, Says Former Manager
"Deals ranging from $50k to over $50m"
Microsoft's own first-party titles are a big draw with Xbox Game Pass — particularly these days with this many studios under its belt — but that's not to say that big partnerships with third party teams aren't also needed. In fact, some of these partnerships are pretty darn huge, with deals going all the...
News Xbox Fan 'Shocked' That Latest First-Party Release Ships Completely On Disc
No download required!
In recent months, there's been a bit of controversy surrounding physical Xbox releases and the amount of data stored on-disc, with both Indiana Jones and DOOM: The Dark Ages requiring big downloads before being able to play. However, the company's latest first-par
News Marvel's Blade Seemingly Entered Full Production At Xbox In Late 2024
It could be a good few years until we see it
At The Game Awards 2023, Xbox announced that Bethesda studio Arkane was making a Marvel's Blade game, and in the time since we've seen very little on the project - aside from some early concept art shared shortly after the show. It should be no surprise, then, to learn that the game has seemingly only...
News Former Exec Says He's 'Not Sure Xbox Would Be Around' If Microsoft Didn't Fix 360 RROD Issue
"This was, for us, a defining moment"
Former Microsoft exec Peter Moore has been getting all nostalgic again recently in his new chat with outlet The Game Business; touching on the Xbox 360 era when Moore helped lead the team. While we've heard some of this chatter before, he did make
News Microsoft Said To Have 'Unrealistic' Expectations For Xbox, But Not Everyone Agrees
"An utterly unrealistic financial requirement"
With last week's Xbox layoffs still fresh in everyone's minds, there's been plenty of debate over the past few days about why they happened and what needs to be done to ensure they're not repeated on such a large scale again. In Windows Central's report about this a few days ago, it was mentioned that...
News Three Games Are Available This Week With Xbox Game Pass (July 8-11)
Including another big first-party release
Welcome to your latest Xbox Game Pass update! Today, we're highlighting all three of this week's new XGP additions (because they fall on separate days, so they're easily missed), with these including the return of The Ascent, a brand-new Xbox release in Minami Lane, and a new first-party release in Tony...
News Xbox Series S Compared To Switch 2 In Hogwarts Legacy Analysis, And The Results Are Surprising
Series S provides a much better experience!
Nintendo Switch 2 is now out in the wild, and after a month or so on the market, the system has seen mixed results with it when it comes to third-party experiences. While developers like Koei Tecmo recently came out and said that the hybrid console is pretty close to Xbox Series S, the results so far haven
News Kojima's Xbox Game 'OD' Hasn't Been Affected By Microsoft Layoffs, Says Report
Hopefully we see it in action soon
Alongside multiple project cancellations from inside Xbox HQ, certain external efforts have also been affected by this week's Microsoft layoffs - including Romero Games and its now-canned AAA FPS. However, t
News Three Xbox Games Are Shutting Down Their Servers In July & August 2025
The closures we know about so far
Every month, we like to bring you an update on the Xbox games shutting down their servers, but there's not a whole lot going on in both July and August 2025 so far - with just three Xbox games getting the treatment as things stand. That's obviously a good thing though! These are all pretty small titles as well,...
News Former Xbox Dev Claims Turn 10's Forza Motorsport Team 'Is No More'
"A very sad day"
As part of Microsoft's sweeping job cuts this week, it's been reported that Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 Studios has lost almost 50% of its staff - and according to a former worker, the losses are even more significant than that. Fred Russell — former content coordinator at Turn 10 — has posted out to
News PlayStation Is Publishing Helldivers 2 On Xbox, Signalling A Shift In Strategy From Sony
Will more PlayStation games move over?
We got some big news today in the form of Helldivers 2 making its way over to Xbox; a super well-regarded multiplayer shooter from the folks over at Arrowhead Game Studios. In isolation this is big news, but with extra context this is massive news - as it's the first-ever PlayStation Publishing release to...
News DOOM Co-Creator Has Funding Pulled For AAA Title, Seemingly By Xbox
Another Microsoft casualty
At this point, we know that Microsoft's latest round of layoffs has affected lots of projects at Xbox's internal studios, but the casualties seemingly don't stop there. Romero Games, the studio being helmed by DOOM co-creator John Romero, has just had funding pulled on its next title "along with several other unannounced...
News Microsoft Is Seemingly Cutting Back On Its Quality Assurance Efforts With Xbox
"The Xbox user research team has been hit hard"
As we're sure you're all aware by now, Microsoft has been cutting staff like nobody's business this week, and their efforts are in-part due to 'streamlining' the business - or as Xbox exec Matt Booty says: "to adjust priorities and focus resources". Well, it seems as though these adjustments will be...
News Phil Spencer Isn't Retiring Anytime Soon, Says Xbox In Response To Rumour
Xbox's head of communications chimes in
As if today hasn't been enough of a whirlwind for us at PX HQ — and everyone else closely following Xbox right now — fresh rumours are doing the rounds that long time boss Phil Spencer may step down from his role in the near future. Call of Duty insider TheGhostOfHope has gone public with this, claiming...
News Forza Motorsport Team Reportedly Loses 'Nearly 50% Of Staff' In Xbox Job Cuts
Brutal losses for Turn 10
Microsoft's current round of layoffs is starting to feel particularly brutal, with Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10 Studios reportedly losing almost 50% of its entire staff as part of these ongoing Xbox job cuts. This latest news is coming from
News Xbox's Everwild Gets Cancelled As Layoffs Hit Sea Of Thieves Developer
Update: It's now official
We told you folks to brace yourselves today and that's exactly what's needed. Following news earlier that fresh Microsoft layoffs were starting to hit Xbox teams, it's being reported that Rare is now one of the studios affected - and its Everwild project has seemingly been cancelled as a result. This is coming from outlet
News Xbox Has Briefly Taken Down A Bunch Of Classic COD Games For 'Maintenance'
Are they being prepped for Game Pass?
We have an intriguing development in the world of Call of Duty today, folks. As part of what appears to be quite a hefty maintenance effort from the Activision team, a big batch of COD titles have gone offline for roughly four hours today - including some Xbox 360 classics like Modern Warfare 2 and the original...
News Two Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass Standard (July 2)
A couple of fresh additions
Welcome to your latest Xbox Game Pass roundup! Today, Microsoft's mid-tier XGP service grows in the form of two new additions to Game Pass Standard - both now live in the library. Here's a quick introduction to today's new Game Pass Standard titles: Legend of Mana (Game Pass Standard):
Feature Xbox's Hot Streak Continues With Two New First-Party Releases This Month
Microsoft's seriously impressive games pipeline
It's been a busy first half of the year for Microsoft, hasn't it? Truth be told, we can't remember a more stacked first half of a year for Xbox Game Studios titles in ages, with massive launches like Avowed, Oblivion Remastered, DOOM: The Dark Ages and more landing before the midway point of 202
News Six Games Are Leaving Xbox Game Pass In Early July 2025
This month's first batch of leavers
Microsoft has announced the first batch of games leaving Xbox Game Pass in July 2025 today, with six games set to depart the service on July 15th - all of them across console, PC and the cloud. Here's the full list of games leaving Xbox Game Pass in early July 2025: Date Game Leaving Xbox Game...
