Xbox

The Xbox Series X Has 60 FPS As ‘Standard’, But It’s Not Guaranteed

After Ubisoft confirmed today that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will run on the Xbox Series X at a minimum of only 30 frames-per-second, people are wondering what they can expect from Microsoft’s new gaming console. The answer is not constant 60 fps gaming. “Developers always have flexibility in how they use the power, so a standard…

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Is Bringing Back The Instakill Hidden Blade, In A Signal To Hardcore Fans

Upcoming Assassin’s Creed games always sound terrific in the spring, when the marketing machinery jolts into motion to describe the series’ next potentially great adventure. The new one will mix the best of what’s come before, plus new things, all set, this time, in the exotic era of (the Renaissance)(the American Revolution)(ancient Egypt) the Vikings.…

Everything Microsoft Showed During Today’s Xbox Series X Event

Microsoft finally showed its next-gen Xbox Series X in action today during a special edition of Inside Xbox featuring a slew of trailers for upcoming games, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Dirt 5, and Yakuza: Like a Dragon Over a dozen games were shown during the roughly hour-long event and while many of them were from…

All These Studios Are Making Xbox Series X Games

During today’s Inside Xbox broadcast, Microsoft revealed a whole host of studios making games for Xbox Series X. Some of the bigger names featured include Crystal Dynamics, Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Bethesda, Capcom, Epic, From Software, Sega, Square Enix, and WB Games. Sarah Bond, head of Xbox partnerships, said that players can look forward to “hundreds”…

This Is What Xbox Series X Graphics Look Like

Here’s what Playism’s Bright Memory: Infinite looks like running on the Xbox Series X, or at least in-game footage representative of Xbox Series X performance. Not too shabby. The first game shown during Microsoft’s Xbox Series X gameplay reveal event was this first-person shooter from developer FYQD-Studio. Note that the official stream version carried a…

Watch The Xbox Series X Gameplay Reveal Live Right Here

This morning Microsoft is giving us our first look at next-generation gameplay on the Xbox Series X, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla in action. Let’s watch. It should be an interesting show, full of footage from games looking slightly to significantly better than they would on standard Xbox One hardware. Many of the games coming to…

Microsoft Will Show Xbox Series X First-Party Games In July, Still Promising Halo For Launch

Microsoft says it plans to show updates on its first-party games some time in July and is still planning on launching Xbox Series X and Halo Infinite later this year. The company shed more light on its plans for the rest of 2020 in a blog post today, including announcing a series of “monthly moments”…

Xbox Series X Gameplay Reveal Set For May 7

Microsoft will finally show gameplay from Xbox Series X games, including our first look at Assassin’s Creed Valhalla in action, on a new episode of Inside Xbox airing May 7. While Microsoft has already shown the console itself, as well as shared deep dives into its specs, this will be the first opportunity to see…

Next-Gen Consoles Reignite An Old Argument Over Controller Batteries

Without electrical juice controllers are just paperweights, and Sony and Microsoft continue to take dramatically different approaches to solving that problem. Yesterday Sony revealed its PlayStation 5 controller: the DualSense. It’s chunkier than the current-gen DualShock 4 and comes loaded with a number of new features, including haptic feedback and a built-in microphone. People wasted…

Everything Shown During Today’s Inside Xbox

Here’s a roundup of everything Microsoft shared during today’s Inside Xbox stream. An early version of Grounded, the upcoming survival adventure game from Obsidian Entertainment, will arrive on Xbox Game Preview on July 28. We learned that while Xbox Series X games can be stored on any external hard drives, they’ll need to be moved to…

Here’s April 2020’s Xbox Live Games With Gold

April’s Xbox Live Games with Gold is a good deal for fans of racing games and RPGs. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active Xbox Live Gold subscription. April’s Games With Gold are: Xbox One Project CARS 2 (April 1-30) Knights of Pen and Paper Bundle (April 16-May 15) Xbox…

The Xbox Series X Is Shaped Like A Fridge So It Can Vent More Heat

In a departure from past video game consoles, the Xbox Series X stands upright instead of laying horizontally. Microsoft says that design choice was part of an effort to make the hardware’s fan as big and efficient as possible. The company laid out its thinking in a recent interview with Digital Foundry over on Eurogamer.…

Microsoft’s AI Experiments Are Creating Unbeatable Raid Bosses

Raid bosses are the toughest fights in any massively multiplayer online game, but eventually players always find ways to crack them. Now developers are looking at ways to use cloud computing to give raid bosses a way of fighting back. During one of Microsoft’s Game Stack developer livestreams yesterday, software engineer James Trott said that…

Microsoft Adds More Stuff You Probably Won’t Use To Game Pass Ultimate

Today, Microsoft announced it’s expanding the Game Pass Ultimate subscription to include “perks,” extra goodies like in-game currency and cosmetic packs for certain games available through the service. While it’s a small gesture, it’s part of the company’s ongoing attempt to make subscribers feel like they’re getting their money’s worth. The first set of games…

The Xbox Series X Controller Is Subtly Different

There are obvious differences between the controller for the Xbox Series X and the current Xbox One controller. The directional pad has changed, and there is a share button now. Then there are features like new textures and rounded bumpers, small changes that could make a big difference in controller comfort for many people. In…

Here’s What’s Inside The Xbox Series X

Last month Microsoft posted a lengthy article talking about what the upcoming Xbox Series X console can do. Today the company details the hardware inside the box that’s getting it done, including a custom eight-core AMD Zen 2 CPU running at 3.8 GHz and its powerful RDNA 2 GPU. The technical jargon runs thick in…

I Like One Of Xbox’s Two New Controller Colors

Look at this beautiful piece of gaming equipment. Microsoft calls it Phantom Magenta, but we’re calling it “purple.” Not the Atomic Purple of Nintendo fame, but a richer, more mature hue. I want to uncork it and drink deeply from it’s hand oil-caked reservoirs. It’s up for preorder today, along with a white camouflage number…

The newest installment of the Major Nelson podcast breaks down some of the newly-announced Xbox Series X features. Among the intriguing details: the Series X doesn’t just let you suspend multiple games, but those suspensions can survive a system update. Pretty cool.

Here’s March 2020’s Xbox Live Games With Gold

March’s Xbox Live Games with Gold are a nice mix. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active Xbox Live Gold subscription. March’s Games with Gold are: Xbox One Batman: The Enemy Within—The Complete Season (March 1-31) Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (March 16-April 15) Xbox 360 (compatible with Xbox One) Castlevania: Lords…

It Seems A Playable Xbox Build Of StarCraft Ghost Has Leaked (Update)

Here’s something I didn’t expect to see today: New gameplay footage of StarCraft Ghost. The third-person shooter had a rocky and well-known development history before being officially canceled by Blizzard, something confirmed back in 2014.Now an early Xbox build seems to have leaked out and popped up online. Andrew Borman posted some screenshots on Twitter…