When gameplay was first shown off for Halo Infinite back during Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase last week, many fans expressed disappointment at the graphical quality of the next-gen title – with particular criticism given to the game’s lighting and its “flat” appearance. It seems that Halo Infinite has disappointed more …
Read More »Halo Infinite is still a ‘work in progress’, demo was played on PC
Last night, we all got a good look at Halo Infinite, with roughly 10 minutes of campaign gameplay. The demo was shown being played with a controller but it was not running on Xbox Series X or Xbox One hardware, instead the demo was indeed played and captured on PC. …
Read More »Microsoft no longer interested in bringing Game Pass or xCloud to competing consoles
Despite previous rumours and teasers that Xbox Game Pass may one day come to other platforms, Microsoft is officially shooting that idea down this week. While Phil Spencer and his team previously considered bringing Xbox content to competing systems, the idea has since been put to rest. During a recent …
Read More »More than 60 new game demos are now live on the Xbox Store
With E3 and many other gaming conventions cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19 and the global pandemic, the opportunity for fans to get their hands on games before release has been severely limited. It is for that reason that Geoff Keighley teamed up with Xbox to bring more than 60 …
Read More »Xbox will have “a good strong showing of Japanese created games”
In just a couple days, Microsoft will be hosting its Xbox Games Showcase, unveiling an hour’s worth of next-gen games. Though PlayStation is most often associated with Japanese developed titles, Phil Spencer has stated that he is “proud of what we're going to show on July 23” when it comes …
Read More »Microsoft discontinues Xbox One X and Xbox One S All Digital Edition
After some back and forth over the last couple of weeks, it has seemingly been confirmed that Microsoft is indeed discontinuing the Xbox One X and the Xbox One S All Digital Edition. This isn't too surprising, as next-generation console hardware is just around the corner, although the standard Xbox …
Read More »Project xCloud streaming comes to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate in September
Microsoft has long been open about the fact that one day, Project xCloud will become part of the Xbox Game Pass service. Now, we have a date on that, with xCloud streaming becoming part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership tier in September. “This September, in supported countries, we’re …
Read More »Microsoft Flight Simulator will take up 10 disks
There's no denying that Microsoft Flight Simulator is an ambitious game. The upcoming PC and Xbox title is set to simulate the entire planet Earth, featuring over 1.5 billion buildings and 2 trillion trees. All of these textures and models aren't coming cheap, as it has now been revealed that …
Read More »Microsoft reportedly stopping publishers from selling next-gen upgrades as DLC
One of Microsoft's consumer-friendly initiatives in place for the Xbox Series X launch is ‘Smart Delivery', ensuring you only need to buy a game once and then be able to play it on both Xbox One and Xbox Series X. As you might imagine, some publishers would like to charge …
Read More »Nacon and Microsoft team up for Xbox-branded peripherals
Recently, Microsoft announced a partnership with Bang & Olufsen for high-end gaming audio peripherals. Now, in preparation for the Xbox Series X, more peripheral license partners are joining up, with the latest being Nacon, best known for third-party game controllers. Nacon, previously known as Bigben Interactive, is a French gaming …
Read More »The Initiative reportedly won’t be present at the Xbox Games Showcase
With Microsoft recently announcing its first-party next-gen Xbox Games Showcase for the 23rd of July, the attention has now been drawn to what games fans might expect to see at the digital event. Recent rumours suggested that The Initiative, Microsoft’s “AAAA” studio would be making itself known at the event. …
Read More »Xbox Games Showcase will be holding back announcements, claims insider
Microsoft has finally officially announced the date of its Xbox Games Showcase. The upcoming showcase is set to unveil a number of new first-party next-gen titles for Microsoft’s consoles. While fans can expect games such as Halo Infinite and The Initiative’s project to be shown off, an industry insider has …
Read More »Microsoft is reportedly interested in buying WB Games
Back in June, we reported that the gaming division of Warner Bros. was reportedly up for sale. At the time, it was claimed that Take-Two, EA, and Activision Blizzard were all interested in the acquisition. Now, according to one publication another major name can be added to the list of …
Read More »New Project xCloud controllers are coming, hinting at a September launch
Microsoft has been busy beta testing Project xCloud for a long time now, although we've yet to learn when the service will officially launch and open up to everyone. Now, we may have a better idea, as peripheral makers are preparing new Xbox controllers specifically for xCloud streaming. 8BitDo unveiled …
Read More »Microsoft sets date for the next Xbox Games Showcase
Last week, rumours about Microsoft's upcoming July Xbox games showcase began to surface, indicating potential announcements for a new Fable, as well as the first game from newly formed studio, The Initiative. Now, Microsoft has all of its plans lined up, setting the date for Xbox's next big showing. While …
Read More »PlayStation suspends its Facebook advertising in protest campaign
2020 has served as a year of great reflection when it comes to hate speech and general intolerance. While companies such as Twitter and Twitch have started making moves to limit such actions on its platform, Facebook has seemingly done no such thing. As such, a large number of companies …
Read More »Microsoft renews Fable trademark ahead of anticipated July reveal
Microsoft may have downplayed recent rumours about the return of Fable and Perfect Dark but evidence elsewhere continues to stack up. The latest discovery is Microsoft very recently renewed the trademark for the Fable IP, coinciding with rumours that Playground Games is working on a reboot. The rumour that Playground …
Read More »Microsoft introduces Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling
With Microsoft's new Windows 10 2004 update, the company added a “mysterious new optional feature called Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling” – a feature that is said to reduce latency caused by buffering between the CPU and GPU. Microsoft explains that “with the right hardware and drivers, Windows can now offload most …
Read More »Microsoft cuts advertising from Facebook
In an oddly timed move, Microsoft has reportedly stopped all advertising spending on Facebook and Instagram. Given that Microsoft is one of the biggest spenders on Zuckerberg's platforms, this is an important shift, but it comes at an odd time, as Microsoft just partnered with Facebook Gaming following the shutdown …
Read More »Microsoft reportedly set to announce Xbox Series S in August
Rumours have long suggested that Microsoft has two next-gen consoles in the works, with the high-end one being the Xbox Series X and a lower-end console called ‘Lockhart', or Xbox Series S. Microsoft has yet to officially announce this second console, but reportedly the targeted announcement date is set for …
Read More »Microsoft releases Windows File Recovery app
Many of us know the pain of running into a crash and losing data, or just deleting something by mistake. Soon, Microsoft will be offering something extra to help in that situation with the Windows File Recovery tool. If you've misplaced a picture, document, video or audio file, the Windows …
Read More »Xbox’s July event will not occur until later in the month
Many fans were disappointed with Microsoft's most recent third-party next-gen event. The stream included ‘gameplay’ of a number of next-generation titles coming to the Series X. With that, many turned to the console manufacturer’s first-party event which was announced for July. According to one insider however, fans still have a …
Read More »Evidence points to Perfect Dark and Fable announcements
Microsoft’s big first-party games showcase is coming up very soon and eagle-eyed fans are already picking up on some clues for announcements. The most recent information found indicates that Fable and Perfect Dark games will be revealed. In the build-up to big announcements, companies will usually set up placeholder social …
Read More »Microsoft set to close down retail stores
Microsoft is officially winding down its physical retail business, with 83 Microsoft Store locations set to close down permanently. Instead of investing in high street locations, Microsoft will instead be focusing the bulk of its efforts on the Microsoft Store website instead. The shift to online shopping has been an …
Read More »Microsoft acquires CyberX to bolster IoT security
Microsoft has been making a number of big moves lately. So far this month we've seen the Mixer streaming service begin closing operations and the announcement that Microsoft will be closing down many retail stores. Microsoft isn't just cutting back though, this week the company also announced that it has …
Read More »Ori and the Will of the Wisps surpasses 2 million players
Ori and the Will of the Wisps was one of Microsoft's major console exclusive releases for 2020. The metroidvania platformer released in March to universal acclaim. Now, just over 3 months later, Microsoft has announced that the game has “over 2 million spirits [i.e. players] and counting.” Taking to Twitter …
Read More »Microsoft reveals list of ‘Optimised for Xbox Series X’ games
Xbox 20/20 has continued this month, although it has been a bit easier to miss. Rather than a big video presentation, this month Microsoft has been publishing deep-dive editorials explaining various platform features and initiatives for Xbox Series X. Last week, we learned more about Smart Delivery and today, Microsoft …
Read More »The Messenger comes to Game Pass – as many more titles leave
One of the issues with subscription services is that subscribers never truly own the games – they merely own a licence to play the games for a limited time. Because of that, games often come and go from these services. Microsoft has now announced which games are coming soon to …
Read More »Microsoft is shutting down Mixer and partnering with Facebook Gaming
Despite years of heavy investment and even bringing in some huge streamers on multi-million dollar contracts, Microsoft's streaming platform, Mixer, has been unable to catch up and compete with the bigger sites like Twitch, YouTube and even Facebook gaming. Now, Mixer will be shutting down, with the service set to …
Read More »Microsoft Edge to reduce memory usage ‘by up to 27%’ with next major update
High memory usage is an issue that web browsers have been trying to tackle for a long time now. Google and Mozilla have made well publicised efforts to reduce memory usage for their respective browsers and with the next Windows 10 update, some significant improvements to memory usage in Edge …
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