‘Forza Horizon 5’ celebrates the “biggest launch in Xbox history”

Anna Tingley All products and services featured by Variety are independently selected by Variety editors. However, Variety may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.Gamers are in for a treat this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with deals on dozens of high-tech gear that will add a competitive edge to any gaming experience.GameStop, in particular, has come out with some of the best deals of the year for Black Friday.

Nintendo Switch is always in high demand—and things are no different this Black Friday. Amazon has just made one of its best ever Switch bundle deals available, with a huge saving of over £110.For £284.99 you can get the standard Nintendo Switch console with two Joy-Cons, a three month Switch Online membership, the brilliant racer Mario Kart 8, and even an extra game—Just Dance 2022—thrown in.The bundle usually costs around £380 without the extra game, so with Just Dance 2022 (RRP £20+) you're looking at a saving of over £110.

Black Friday and Christmas, a new FIFA game comes around every year. However, they're not always cheap at launch despite being released so regularly.If you're a fan of the iconic football series but have been putting off buying the new FIFA 22 because of the price tag, now's your chance to get stuck in.

Black Friday, and the TV deals price war is quickly heating up. Argos has just launched its TV offers ahead of the big day, with big discounts on two models.First up is the Samsung 43-inch Smart QLED 4K TV for £494.10, what Argos calls its 'lowest price ever'.

Xbox Series X | S, Microsoft has been launching tons of great titles on its Game Pass service, including Halo: Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, and Age of Empire IV.However, if you don't have the monthly game subscription service, that doesn't mean you have to miss out on the latest titles. Black Friday deals on the Xbox store have just gone live, with up to 67% off more than 700 games.

With retailers across the country getting involved with Black Friday, shoppers are seeing some major price cuts on products.

Halo Infinite’s early release of a free-to-play multiplayer beta has not stopped players from creating some truly astounding mods, but one seems to stick out from the rest.As noted by PC Gamer, modders have been having a field day with mods in the new Halo, and one is definitely ludicrous. Appropriately called the “Tank Hog”, this mash-up combines the Warthog with the Scorpion tank, so now there’s a huge tank cannon on a car, because why not.Viewable in the below video from Gamecheat13 on YouTube, you can see the Tank Hog put to good use in a game against bots.

With Black Friday sales covering the videogame market right now, it's easy to miss the regular deals which can save you just as much money.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé has praised the impact the Xbox has had on the games industry.As pointed out by Pure Xbox, Fils-Aimé hosted a panel of Xbox pioneers (which is embedded below), and he made his opinion on the platform holder and console known. The video aims to celebrate the console’s 20th anniversary through the lens of Xbox visionaries.“The moment in time of the launch, the moment in time now, 20 years later, the industry is better because of the Xbox launch, I passionately believe that,” Fils-Aimé stated.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition may be coming to Xbox Game Pass if a recent listing is believed. As spotted by VGC, Polish site XGP noticed that the Legendary Edition briefly had the Game Pass badge on the Xbox store earlier this week (November 20).

Halo Infinite is on track for its December 8 release, with developer 343 Industries announcing the game has gone gold.The confirmation came on the official Halo feed on twitter, with a simple announcement of the game’s gold status, and the messages “We’ll see you on December 8, Spartans.” The game will arrive on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC.#HaloInfinite has officially gone gold!We'll see you on December 8, Spartans. ♾️ https://t.co/WUyHTqp6yp pic.twitter.com/bIbmyCParc— Halo (@Halo) November 19, 2021When a game has “gone gold”, it means that a final master copy has been produced by the developer, and – traditionally – been sent off for the replication, packaging and shipment of physical copies.

PlatinumGames’ action RPG Scalebound was cancelled in 2017, and now Hideki Kamiya has come out and apologised to both Microsoft and fans over the ordeal.Positioned as an Xbox exclusive, the game would see players control Drew, who could issue commands in combat to his dragon companion Thuban. In a Cutscenes video posted today (as spotted by VGC), Kamiya talked about the games development and eventual cancellation.“We were working in an environment we weren’t used to,” explained Kamiya.

Xbox feature was introduced that lets you search for Gamertag account names, Twitch streamer Lee Fabela decided to track down an old pal he had spent years playing Halo 2 multiplayer with."I was looking for him for years, Xbox finally added a search bar that gives you gamertag suggestions," Fabela explained in a Facebook post."I looked him up, and sent him a message thinking I would get a reply back, and maybe play Halo again like the good old days."After messaging him, Fabela received no response for months.That was until he received a response from the man's nephew, who said that his uncle Shaun had tragically died from leukaemia a year prior and passed on his Xbox account to him.In a Facebook post, Fabela paid tribute to his former

Xbox head Phil Spencer has reportedly sent out a staff-wide email stating that Microsoft will be “evaluating all aspects” of its relationship with Activision Blizzard, in the wake of major sexual misconduct allegations.According to a report by Bloomberg, Spencer has sent an email stating that he is “evaluating all aspects” of Microsoft’s relationship with Activision Blizzard, and has clarified that the company is already “making ongoing proactive adjustments”.Spencer added that he is “disturbed and deeply troubled by the horrific events and actions” at Activision Blizzard, which faces allegations of sexual misconduct.

It’s a topic that’s been hot for a long time now, and with more and more people downloading games digitally than ever before, the question often comes up: what happens to games when servers get turned off, or new consoles come out and don’t run the older games? Phil Spencer and Xbox has been pushing backwards compatibility for a while now, and speaking to Axios.com Spencer has had some pretty bold statements to make about the situation.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has voiced his belief that older games should be preserved, adding that he hopes the gaming industry can work on “legal emulation” to promote this.Speaking to Axios, Spencer said that the gaming industry should prioritise the preservation of older video games.

Sam & Max: Beyond Time & Space the second season in Telltale Games‘ point-and-click adventure series is being remastered.The game, which is a sequel to the recent Sam & Max Save The World Remastered, will launch on December 8 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC.“Sam & Max are back on the crime beat in a showdown with Santa Claus, a race to subdue a giant volcano, and a face-off with a Eurotrash vampire,” revealed Skunkape Games, the developers at the helm of the remaster.A new trailer shows off the wise-cracking crime-fighting duo reminiscing about their adventures as they’re about to face certain doom.“Zombies will dance. Mariachis will sing.

Microsoft has detailed Xbox’s November update, and it’s available now.The new update brings new accessibility features to Microsoft Store, better colour filters for the Xbox Series X/S, new audio output settings and a controller firmware update.The update also improves stability in several games, such as NBA2K22, FIFA 22 and Battlefield 2042. Reports of these games turning consoles off with no warning began in September.The new accessibility tags will allow players with disabilities to find out if a game is playable for them prior to purchase.

Xbox Cloud Gaming has launched on consoles and is available right now for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers.Announced over at the Xbox official blog, Xbox Cloud Gaming is now available across“Today you can play Game Pass games from the cloud on your Xbox console,” it revealed. “We’re excited that Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) is now available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles with a Game Pass Ultimate subscription.”Xbox Cloud Gaming was unveiled earlier this year and has been slated for a console release for some time.

Microsoft suddenly released the Halo: Infinite multiplayer on Monday, fans of the long-running Xbox series have been going wild for Master Chief action.The good news is that there's even more to get excited about, as Paramount Plus has just released an enigmatic teaser trailer for its upcoming Halo TV adaptation.Slated for release in 2022, the nine-episode Halo TV series is being co-produced by Steven Spielberg. Like the original videogame series, the series is set to explore an armed conflict between humans and aliens called 'The Covenant' in the 26th century.

Xbox Phil Spencer has weighed in on the constantly evolving relationship between video games and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and made it clear that he is currently very wary of them.In an interview with Axios, Spencer was asked about NFTs and where they might fit into the Xbox ecosystem.“What I’d say today on NFT, all up, is I think there’s a lot of speculation and experimentation that’s happening, and that some of the creative that I see today feels more exploitive than about entertainment,” explained Spencer.“I don’t think it necessitates that every NFT game is exploitive. I just think we’re kind of in that journey of people figuring it out.