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20 stories tagged Microsoft
Xbox Insiders without Game Pass can now buy prepaid cloud streaming hours, from 10 hours for $3.99 to 50 hours for $11.99, ahead of a wider rollout in November.
Microsoft has announced the Xbox Nano Controller, a 3.5-ounce pad with all 18 standard inputs, Bluetooth and a rechargeable battery. It costs $49.99, pre-orders are open, and it ships in November.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has formed Xbox Labs, a small team led by Scott Van Vliet that will build in the open around AI tools, game preservation and player creation, citing the recent wave of decompiled games and browser ports.
Xbox has formed XP, a new division for film, TV, merchandise, live events and brand partnerships, led by Minecraft's Kayleen Walters, while former Reddit CPO Maria Angelidou-Smith becomes CEO of Mojang on October 19.
IKEA and Xbox's nine-piece YXSTABY collection, including a stool built from the controller's original thumbstick design files, is in IKEA stores now, with online sales coming later this year.
Xbox's disc-to-digital program is rolling out to all players, turning most supported Xbox One and Series X discs into digital licences, as long as you keep the disc.
Microsoft is eliminating 268 roles across Xbox Game Studios and reorganising its studios: Activision takes Halo, Rare and World's Edge, Obsidian moves under Bethesda, and Playground and Turn 10 merge. Ninja Theory faces a proposed closure after two sale agreements collapsed.
Xbox announced a disc-to-digital programme at Gamescom 2026. Inserting a supported Xbox One or Xbox Series X disc and launching the game attaches a digital entitlement to your Microsoft account, unlocking Play Anywhere and Cloud Gaming where applicable - and the disc keeps working. Thousands of titles are supported at launch; original Xbox and Xbox 360 discs are not. Xbox Insiders start testing August 31, 2026.
Microsoft is hiking Xbox Series X and Series S prices worldwide from August 1 - up to $799.99 for a disc Series X and $499.99 for the Series S - while discontinuing the 2TB model, blaming a 2.5x surge in memory and storage costs.
Microsoft's Xbox division is bracing for another wave of layoffs and studio closures as its fiscal year ends June 30. Ninja Theory (Hellblade) is reportedly being shut down, while Compulsion Games and Double Fine negotiate to spin off - and XGS head Craig Duncan is said to be stepping down.
New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has called the decision to display PS5 and Nintendo Switch logos during Xbox showcases 'a miss,' contradicting content chief Matt Booty on the same day and promising to rethink the policy for future shows - though the June 7 Xbox Games Showcase is still set to keep them.
Microsoft's second Game Pass drop of the month adds 13 titles between May 20 and June 2 across Ultimate, Premium, and PC tiers. Day-one additions include Luna Abyss (May 21), Echo Generation 2 (May 27), and the Crashout Crew / Kabuto Park double on May 28. The standout finishers are Jurassic World Evolution 3 and Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster, both landing on June 2 and both available on the family-friendly Premium tier - a tonal pivot from April's action-heavy calendar.
Forza Horizon 6 launched worldwide on May 19 across Xbox Series X|S, PC, Cloud, and Game Pass. Playground Games' Japan-set racer arrives with a 92 Metacritic, 100 percent OpenCritic recommend rate, and the title of 2026's best-reviewed game already secured. The PS5 version still has no firm date beyond a fall 2026 window.
Xbox Game Pass's May 2026 first wave is fully playable: Mixtape, Outbound, Black Jacket, Call of the Elder Gods, Elite Dangerous, and Subnautica 2 are all in the library now, with Forza Horizon 6 dropping Day One on May 19. A breakdown of every game, who made it, and where it fits.
Brazil's Anatel regulator just leaked Microsoft's unreleased Xbox Cloud Gaming Controller and Xbox Elite Series 3. The cloud pad packs Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, a Realtek chip, and a 500mAh battery so it can talk directly to xCloud without a phone or console as middleman.
Microsoft launched a recurring dev-focused show on May 7. Episode one made PlayFab Foundation Mode free for every Xbox game across seven service pillars, shipped DirectStorage 1.4 with Zstandard compression, opened the April GDK, debuted Xbox PC Remote Tools, and kicked off a multi-surface Marketplace rebuild. Project Helix got a closer look — Xbox Magnus AMD SoC, FSR Diamond AI upscaling, dev kits in 2027, late-2027 launch.
Forza Horizon 5 has reportedly pulled in over $300M and 5M+ copies on PS5, but Microsoft's other multiplatform ports are quietly underperforming — and combined with a 33% hardware revenue collapse, it's pushing Xbox to actively reconsider exclusivity ahead of the May 7 Project Helix reveal.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate drops from $29.99 to $22.99/month in a permanent price cut, but future Call of Duty titles lose day-one access under new Xbox head Asha Sharma's strategy reset.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma scraps the Microsoft Gaming brand in a company-wide memo, restoring the Xbox name and outlining four priorities: hardware, content, experience, and services, with a pledge to reevaluate exclusivity.
Microsoft confirms the Xbox Games Showcase 2026 for June 7, immediately followed by a Gears of War: E-Day Direct with new gameplay reveals. Xbox FanFest returns for the brand's 25th anniversary.