Xbox Wire

In the hopes of selling more consoles and that didn’t work. Not sure if you have seen the recent news but things are not looking great there. Gamepass is not making them a lot of money at all. Even after acquiring Activision their operating margin is 3% Big layoffs / studio closures coming in July, on top of the previous ones. Internal memo: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/06/10/next-100-days-xbox-reset/ Spinning off Xbox: https://www.reuters.com/business/microsoft-has-considered-spinning-out…

From the Xbox press release (https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/02/19/muse-ai-xbox-empowering-creator… > Today, countless classic games tied to aging hardware are no longer playable by most people. Thanks to this breakthrough, we are exploring the potential for Muse to take older back catalog games from our studios and optimize them for any device. We believe this could radically change how we preserve and experience classic games in the future and make them accessible to more players. > To imagine that beloved games lost to time and hardware advancement could one day be played on any screen with Xbox is an exciting possibility for us. To me this shows that they're just bullshitting to pump the stock price. There's no way that using generative AI to port nontrivial games based on gameplay videos and recorded inputs would produce anything more than maybe a tech demo at best. You wouldn't get anywhere near the accuracy of emulation or a direct source port, but saying "we're hiring emulation experts to improve our backwards compatibility" doesn't juice the stock like "we're using generative AI to preserve games" does.

For what it's worth I currently play flat games on Quest 3 via Xbox Cloud Gaming (i.e. streaming) [1], in passthrough mode (i.e. mixed reality with the virtual screen floating in the air) using a PS4 controller paired with the Quest 3, and it's definitely very playable, if much lower visual quality than just playing it on a 4K TV (30hrs into Starfield at the moment). But I like it because I can take my giant floating screen in any room of the house or in bed and don't have to stop when my partner wants to use the TV. I'm pretty sure this will work on day 1 on Vision Pro since Xbox Cloud Gaming already works on Safari with PS/XBox controllers paired to Macs/iPads/iPhones, and with the supposed higher quality display, passthrough, and user interface (the Quest hand tracking is insufferable) I expect it will be even better. [1]: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/12/13/play-xbox-game-pass-with-meta-q…

Source: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2026/07/06/the-latest-in-our-company-… (Earliest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48804401) Main discussion on Xbox division post: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/07/06/resetting-xbox/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48804993)

ZeniMax, the parent holding company of Bethesda Softworks/Bethesda Games, bought iD in 2009.[1] Microsoft bought ZeniMax for $7.5B in 2020 and assigned it to the Xbox division.[2] ZeniMax's board was subsequently dissolved, so it's entirely Microsoft.[3] 1: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/bethesda-parent-zenimax-a… 2: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/09/21/welcoming-bethesda-to-the-xbox-… 3: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/zenimax-board-of-directors-dissolved…

>where is microsoft putting this money that is going to earn it more? Sure, https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/07/06/resetting-xbox/

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/07/06/resetting-xbox/ This one also has a lot more concrete information on what they are doing, like reducing their layers of management from up to 14 to a maximum of 3-5.

> assuming they continue making Xbox It sounds like that's the plan: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/03/11/project-helix-building-next-gen…

Didn't we already get there with Mountain Dew [1] and Pure Kick [2]? [1] https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/10/05/snack-with-doritos-mtn-dew-and-… [2] https://www.purekick.com/products/forza-fuel

XNA died when the people behind it left, thus the C++ side won once again, and DirectXTK was born as replacement. https://walbourn.github.io/directxtk/ Years later they kind of sponsored Monogame, when they were recovering from XBox One mess, https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2016/03/14/letter-chris-charla-idxbox-upda… By the way, I think one of these episodes talks about the emulation, but I am not certain if it was on this podcast I heard about it. https://theretrohour.com/?s=xbox

I thought Apple and Microsoft were already building this into their devices? Is it only available on phones and xboxes? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213323 https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/01/11/xbox-carbon-aware-console-susta…

> Their streaming service is still limited to Game Pass games only. Earlier this year Microsoft announced[1] that they are going to be allowing cloud enabled games that you own to be played without them needing to be Gamepass games. [1] https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/06/09/whats-next-for-gaming/ (section titled Get More Out of Your Xbox Game Pass Membership, just over halfway down)

Maybe Stadia is just extremely location-dependent, but when I tried both services via a (very stable) VPN, xCloud felt a lot smoother and with less latency (when comparing the same geo region). Both were worse than GeForce Now though (which doesn't require a VPN but around the same latency). They're also adding xCloud support for your purchased games at some point[1], a bit like Geforce Experience's Steam-linking but for Xbox owners. 1: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2019/11/14/expanding-project-xcloud-more-g…

That doesn’t seem to be the case. See e.g. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/02/17/making-backward-compatible-game…

I like how the way this was officially communicated is by editing the original blog post to strike out (but not remove) the bits that are no longer applicable - makes it clear what exactly was backtracked. This should be standard practice. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/01/22/update-on-xbox-live-gold-pricin…

The user base of Minecraft has skyrocketed to 126M monthly active players (https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/05/18/minecraft-connecting-more-playe… so no, absolutely not.

They may have something in mind for that? This is from the article on xbox.com: > Enter Xbox Velocity Architecture, which features tight integration between hardware and software and is a revolutionary new architecture optimized for streaming of in game assets. This will unlock new capabilities that have never been seen before in console development, allowing 100 GB of game assets to be instantly accessible by the developer. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/03/16/xbox-series-x-tech/

Sony: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/state-of-play/ Microsoft: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/insidexbox/

Ramping down, sure, but they'll keep going a long time for production for the developing world. Consoles have extremely long lifespans in places like South America, India, and Africa, where $600 might be your entire yearly income. You're not going to race out and buy a PS5 on that. It can be somewhat surprising but PS3 production was only discontinued in 2017, Xbox 360 production was discontinued in 2016. https://www.eteknix.com/playstation-3-officially-discontinued-sony/ http://news.xbox.com/2016/04/20/xbox-360-celebrating-10-years/

Better link: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2019/12/12/microsoft-unveils-xbox-series-x…

Original: http://news.xbox.com/2016/04/20/xbox-360-celebrating-10-years/

The Xbox One is (essentially) using an AMD HD 7790, which AMD [1] have confirmed to support DX 12, and Microsoft have confirmed that DX 12 is coming to the Xbox One with the Windows 10 update [2]. [1] https://community.amd.com/thread/180474 [2] http://news.xbox.com/2015/01/xbox-one-phil-spencer-unveils-new-experie…

They are. At Minecon today they announced a beta for the Windows 10 version of Minecraft. It's a port from the Pocket Edition version of the game. More info: http://news.xbox.com/2015/07/games-announcing-minecraft-windows-10-edi…

A copy of the blog post if the site is down: https://archive.today/TbJQh Xbox announcement: http://news.xbox.com/2014/09/games-minecraft-to-join-microsoft

This is blogspam. Actual source: http://news.xbox.com/2014/07/xbox-one-xbox-one-sales-more-than-double-… Also, the source domain has an...odd voting history for the articles submitted from it. (6 points for an Assassin's Creed article?) https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=kichu37

What sales figures? Xbox One without Kinect started to be sold today. I think it's a little early to tell if Kinect was the thing holding all those sales. If you're comparing sales figures from XboxOne (w/ Kinect) versus PS4 (w/o Move), I think that adds too many variables to be object right now. Let's see how this thing goes. Good thing is there is more option now. If you don't care about Kinect, you're not forced to buy it anymore. It doesn't change the fact it's an incredible piece of technology. http://news.xbox.com/2014/05/xbox-delivering-more-choices First, beginning on June 9th, in all markets where Xbox One is sold, we will offer Xbox One starting at $399. This is a new console option that does not include Kinect.

Here's a statement from MS http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update (may need a refresh or two to load) looks like they are removing the feature of being able to play a game without the disc in the tray, which pretty much was the root of all these drm issues IMO

Stop spreading privacy FUD. Kinect can be controlled and disabled. http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/privacy

That FAQ is from last month. The update from today specifically states: > After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360. http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update