FraserG

Thank you very much, and you're welcome! Same to you

@BustedUpBiker So, as I understand it, you'll get the Spacer's Choice Edition for free if you own The Outer Worlds before May 27th, but if you buy it after May 27th, you'll require both the base game and the DLCs to get it for free.

There's another bit about this here:

"After May 27th to upgrade to the Spacer’s Choice Edition from the base game on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, you will need to own the base game and both DLCs for The Outer Worlds. That said, we are removing the paid upgrade path and as long as you have everything, the Spacer’s Choice Edition will be yours."

Thank you for correcting me on the "bare" thing! You're absolutely right... it's been a long week

@Nakatomi_Uk @BustedUpBiker Split/Second is an absolute gem, incredible game that still gets players online as well.

@Fiendish-Beaver It does have a solo campaign, but I don't believe the devs have discussed how long it'll be just yet.

Seems a bit too early to know for sure whether it's more single-player heavy or multiplayer heavy.

@Dravenkrow Could you clarify which Valiant you mean?

I've also just added the following to the list:

Amazing Maze
Dragonkin: The Banished
Easy Delivery Co.
Planet of Lana 2: Children of the Leaf
Super Meat Boy 3D
Sword and Fairy Together Forever

Update: Release date confirmed as October 6th, 2026! Pre-orders are also now live on the Xbox Store.

@TrollOfWar Haha, if you want to. It'll just look I'm talking to myself and have gone crazy (which to be fair, happened a long time ago)

@TrollOfWar Hmm, I might need to be careful here because there's a confidentiality statement involved. Will look into it and see... thanks for sharing anyway.

@TrollOfWar Can you link this to me or provide extra details? I haven't come across it yet, sounds interesting.

@Skinny-Pete Yeah, I saw that! Big shame — both The Games Tester and Fuzion Xbox Testing have been fantastic resources for us and we've tried to share their stuff where possible.

Digital Foundry is obviously best for deep dives, but those two channels have been excellent at getting initial footage and some early visual and frame rate tests for new Xbox releases.

Update: We've got a date for this one! Details are at the top of the article, and if you're still eager for more footage, IGN has shared a new YouTube preview as well:

https://youtu.be/zsZf2W_BAu8?si=HdhtVWJQ67-zMAfT

@MinervaX76 Thank you! We'll look into it — can't promise anything (we have to be very picky with what we cover these days due to our small team, and FFXIV content historically hasn't received that much interest on PX), but the info you've shared is much-appreciated.

@Tasuki @VisitingComet1 Apologies both, I'm on BST time so I occasionally miss tags outside of the UK 9-5!

It doesn't matter whether you capitalise my name or not, it'll still reach me

I find it interesting that the font remained consistent all the way through from 2005 (Xbox 360 launch) to essentially now.

If the new logo is indicative of what to expect going forward, they're basically breaking a 21-year streak of using the word "Xbox" with the same font style.

Trying to pick a favourite is hard, but I know for sure that Xbox One is the weakest 😅

@somnambulance There's a demo of Bubsy 4D if you're interested:

https://www.xbox.com/games/store/bubsy-4d-demo/9mwfzxgjxj89

@Fiendish-Beaver They didn't say anything about this when we reported on it — haven't come across anything since either.

No idea about 007 First Light, but I assume we will get reviews pre-release for that one.

@Lup I didn't think about May the 4th! Definitely hoping for an announcement along those lines...

@Matthewnh Yeah, me too. Might be the first full-priced AAA game I've bought in a while.

@Fiendish-Beaver Thank you! Haven't got much time to grab any sunshine, Asha Sharma is making our year too busy! 😅

@Fiendish-Beaver There isn't really a Trepang1, it was a weird side-scrolling thing that had nothing to do with Trepang2.

Trepang2 is a solo campaign game that does have a story, but it's also "about just shooting everything" as you say

@RexLudian @Dravenkrow Thanks both! Updated.

@Sindayl Nobody knows for sure yet, but they'd probably call it "PC Game Pass" if it was just PC.

Update: Asha Sharma has shared more details to Game File:

“We’ll take a data-driven approach and a strategic-driven approach, and then we’ll look at our principles and we’ll make some calls. So we’ll share more when we’re ready... I want to make the right decision, not the fastest decision.”

https://www.gamefile.news/p/xbox-asha-sharma-matt-booty-interview

@Skinny-Pete @Coletrain It's like a blend between a forum and a chatroom, but with extra features like the ability to host audio chats and video chats. People set up Discord servers related to specific games and hobbies and whatever else.

I'd never really used it until a few years ago, but some of the "virtual" press events we get invited to are hosted via Discord these days.

@Banjo- Ah, good memory! My brain struggles to go back to Xbox One X anymore, all the memories have been undone by writing 11,925 articles in the last six years

Maybe they could bring back the original Xbox startup for the 25th anniversary in November 👀

@Banjo- Maybe it was just the startup animation that was new? My mind might be deceiving me... I just recall seeing it for the first time on Series X and feeling like a kid at Christmas!

@Skinny-Pete I remember hearing the startup sound for the first time in 2020 and getting all excited about it!

But yes... we definitely need a new one now.

I hate when I forget to turn the volume down when booting up the Series X, and the whole house essentially vibrates with that startup sound and wakes up the entire neighbourhood

@Jenkinss Yeah, you're referring to this one right?

Same thing, just different colour!

I agree with you on the green — there's something about the white logo on top of a green background that I really dislike.

@Jenkinss The green one is from an age verification post from July 2025, so definitely still a current-gen example:

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/07/28/xbox-age-verification-uk/

But yeah... as people have said, they've recoloured the logo multiple times this gen for different events like the Games Showcase and Partner Preview.

It's just that this time, they're including this new logo on marketing materials and alongside the big statement yesterday.

It's even showing up internally at Microsoft HQ on one of their elevators, for example:

@Skinny-Pete Everyone should be getting it by default, this isn't a luck-of-the-draw kind of thing

Mine's coming up soon too, interested to see what the reward is...

@Banjo- Thanks! I'll need to double-check — has it ever gone away over the past few months? We mentioned about Ultimate getting a $1 offer in December, and both Essential and Premium still had the same thing back then.

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2025/12/xbox-launches-new-usd1-game-pass-ultimate-offer-for-the-holidays

It was in November that we last spotted Essential and Premium specifically getting new $1 trials:

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2025/11/xbox-brings-back-two-regular-black-friday-promotions-including-usd1-game-pass-trials

Will look into it 👍

@DoomSlayer87 I wonder if the "flexible" part could be that full Nitro will be available as an optional add-on?

@Krlozgod Essential is basically a small Xbox Game Pass library that you get access to as long as you're subscribed. The difference is that it's much smaller than Premium and Ultimate, and only gets updated around once every four months (but games rarely leave it).

Here's the full list of Essential games:

https://www.purexbox.com/guides/xbox-game-pass-essential-full-list-of-games-april-2026-update

Essential was the replacement for Xbox Live Gold, which used to give away 4+ games per-month that you could claim permanently.

@freshdex You're welcome, thank YOU for working on this.

@SargeCassidy Do we know exactly how many games it is? The "hundreds" reference was taken from the Reddit post.

@QuantumNinja There's been no word on this as of yet (unless I've missed something).

@GeminiX53 No, of course not! It's all good, no offense taken whatsoever

@GeminiX53 Yeah, fair enough. We covered the Alinea thing last week, so this article was meant to be entirely about Piscatella's comments (and the accompanying Kotaku article) which were less opinionated aside from the "solid debut" remark.

@Balaam_ Until they turn off the servers and you can never download the other half again 😅

@GeminiX53 Is that differently though? We tried to mention most of that stuff in here too, particularly about the minimal competition and what Alinea Analytics had to say about it last week.

@Fiendish-Beaver I don't know the official answer on that, but my guess is that they consider it to be third-party handheld.

I don't think we're looking at the same situation with Helix here in any case. They're making a point of saying "first-party" over and over again, whereas they weren't with the Ally.

@betterthings You may very well be right.

@Bob_Tempura You'll still be able to redeem for gift cards / pre-paid cards as always (unless I'm very much mistaken).

They haven't gone into detail about anything else yet. If a game is 10 dollars on the store, it should theoretically cost as many points as redeeming a 10 dollar Xbox Gift Card.

@ValentineMeikin This'll just be using the standard Microsoft Rewards / Xbox Rewards system as it exists today.

It's confusing because Microsoft calls it "Microsoft Rewards" and Xbox calls it "Rewards with Xbox", but for all intents and purposes they're the same thing.

@Lup We've only used it a couple of times before, but we'll use it all the time going forward (as long as we don't forget!)

@ZeD Damn, that's a shame! If it's any consolation, they'll likely drop to these prices again soon — probably in the summer sale.

@PartyMarty Yep! Haha

@Fishysensei Not sure on the answer to that — your best bet would be to reach out to Eden Marie (Xbox Engineer) on Twitter:

https://x.com/neonepiphany

@Nightcrawler71

"Quick Resume is one of the most loved features on Xbox, but we’ve heard that for certain games it doesn’t always deliver the experience you expect, especially after long periods of inactivity. With this update, you can disable Quick Resume on a per-game basis to ensure those games always launch fresh.

You can find this option by opening the More options menu on a game tile and selecting the Manage Quick Resume option, or by going to Manage game & add-on > Quick Resume Settings."

@Fiendish-Beaver They should show up when you open your profile or someone else's!

"Now, when you open your own profile or view another player’s profile in the Guide, you’ll now see their five most recently unlocked badges, making them easier to spot while browsing profiles."

@Celestial_Keyblade @JON22 Yes, this is indeed part of it:

"Hey Xbox, one other thing: if you've been having issues with checking for game updates not working in my games & apps, that should also be fixed with the April update."

https://x.com/neonepiphany/status/2044598847570325559?s=20