microsoft: Last News

Microsoft has confirmed that Diablo 4 will be the first Activision Blizzard title to come to Xbox Game Pass.Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was finally approved in October 2023 after being announced in January 2022 via a deal thought to be worth £50billion.Now the first of Microsoft’s new franchises is coming to its subscription-based Game Pass service. Head of Xbox Sarah Bond confirmed the news during an official Xbox podcast last night (February 15).Diablo 4 will be available to play via Game Pass from March 28 and is said to be the first of multiple Activision and Blizzard-developed titles coming to the service.Elsewhere in the podcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer announced that Game Pass now had 34million “fully paid” subscribers compared to 25million in 2022.

Xbox has confirmed that four exclusive games will be released on rival consoles, after weeks of speculation.Earlier this month, several reports emerged that Microsoft was planning on releasing several big exclusives like Starfield, Indiana Jones & The Great Circle, Halo and Gears Of Wars on the PlayStation 5. Microsoft then confirmed a press conference to discuss the “vision for the future” of Xbox, which finally took place last night (February 15).Those rumours were swiftly debunked, but Microsoft did announce their intention “to take four games to the other consoles [PS5 and Nintendo Switch]”.

Gears Of War creator Cliff Bleszinski said he’s “moved on” from the series after Microsoft didn’t take him up on his consultancy offer.Bleszinski worked at Epic Games between 1992 and 2012 and was lead designer for the first three Gears Of War games.Despite not working on the franchise since 2011’s Gears Of War 3, Bleszinski has released a statement about his involvement in the series going forward.Taking to social media, Bleszinski wrote that he is still “down to consult” on the series and share his “two cents” but has heard nothing but “crickets” from Microsoft and current Gears Of War developer The Coalition.“I understand that Gears will always be an enormous part of my legacy. I appreciate and respect that. That said, Microsoft and Coalition haven’t hit me up.

Microsoft has spoken out against the new AI-generated deepfakes of Taylor Swift that have been spread widely on social media this week.A new AI filter, which changes users’ faces to look remarkably like Swift’s, went viral. Danae Mercer, a journalist and ambassador for the National Eating Disorder Association, said: “The technology used here is only going to get exponentially smarter.

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata.Iwata was president of Nintendo from 2002 until his death in 2015 and oversaw both the Nintendo DS and the Wii.However, he was also CEO during the turbulent Wii U era of Nintendo, which was considered a flop by many. Following the failure, he took a 50 per cent pay cut while other executives reduced their salaries by 20 per cent.Speaking about the decision in 2013, Iwata said: “If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease.

Xbox Developer Direct is fast approaching, bringing with it a lot of early-year looks at upcoming games. But how can you watch the show and what should you expect?The Xbox Developer Direct takes place today (January 18) at 8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 PM PST.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Xbox save woes should be over from today following a new update.Baldur’s Gate 3 launched on Xbox in December 2023 after winning Game of the Year at the 2023 Game of the Year awards. However, it wasn’t released without several issues, such as reports of save files deleting themselves after a crash.

Microsoft has begun to unban players who accidentally uploaded NSFW clips from Baldur’s Gate 3 to Xbox servers.Baldur’s Gate 3 has quickly earned a reputation for being the horniest game on the market, thanks to a huge number of adult romance options and nudity that players are presented with.However, last week it was reported that players received bans from Microsoft due to captured NSFW clips being automatically uploaded to public Xbox servers. According to Microsoft’s rules set out to protect players from offensive imagery, “nudity and sexual content” is banned from public servers but captured clips are uploaded by default.“This shouldn’t even be possible,” wrote one fan on Reddit.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is to leave his role next week.Kotick became CEO of Activision in 1991 after purchasing a 25 per cent share in the near-bankrupt company the previous year. Over the next 32 years, he headed up the company as it grew to become one of the biggest and most influential pillars in the world of video games, acquiring a number of other studios on the way.However, it was claimed Kotick knew about cases of sexual misconduct happening within the company and kept it secret, even after state regulators started investigating the company in 2018.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has hinted that a new Banjo-Kazooie title could be in the works.The original Banjo-Kazooie was released in 1998 for the Nintendo 64 and was followed by three sequels and a spin-off racing game with the last game in the series (Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts) coming in 2008.Since then, the games have been re-released for Xbox while the original Banjo-Kazooie was added to the Nintendo Switch Online library at the start of last year, but there’s been no news about further additions to the series.However, in a new interview with Windows Central, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has hinted that new Banjo-Kazooie adventures could be on the cards. “You’ve seen from our history that we haven’t touched every franchise that people would love us to touch,” he said, before he added “Banjo fans, I hear you.”“But it is true that, when we find the right team, and the right opportunity, I love going back to revisit stories and characters that we’ve seen previously,” he continued.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has confirmed the company has “no plans” to bring Game Pass to Nintendo or PlayStation.Game Pass currently allows gamers access to hundreds of PC and Xbox titles on a subscription-basis. In a new interview with Windows Central, Spencer confirmed that the company had spent over a billion dollars in 2023 (£780million) “supporting third-party games”.“What we see in Game Pass is a service that supports all kinds of games, from the biggest games, to the unknown indie games that you didn’t know you would love until you played it,” he continued (via Eurogamer).“Game Pass is an important part of the Xbox console identity.

Starfield has already vanished from many people’s collective consciousness, but Bethesda has begun defending the game from criticism in Steam reviews by replying to certain users.As spotted by YouTuber JuiceHead on X (formerly Twitter), Bethesda has started replying to Starfield reviews using the handles Bethesda_FalcoYamaoka and Bethesda_Kraken.In a reply to one review that criticised the number of loading screens in the game, a Bethesda developer wrote that “while there may be loading screens in between fast travelling, just consider the amount of data for the expansive gameplay that is procedurally generated to load flawlessly.”In a reply to another review, which called the game “wide as an ocean- shallow as a puddle”, the same developer wrote that “if you feel that things are getting boring, there is so much more to do than just the main mission! There are many side missions where you can learn more about the people and story of Starfield.”There’s currently no word from Bethesda as to why they’ve suddenly decided to reply to Steam reviews, however.Starfield launched in September of this year, releasing on the same day as the PS5 version of Baldur’s Gate 3, to fairly positive reviews. The game is currently sitting at 83 on Metacritic, with an 85 on Opencritic.NME’s own review of Starfield was positive, writing that “Starfield promises so much, but comes up short of perfection.

Quake players in the world has confirmed Elon Musk’s claims that he once played with the game’s top-level competitors, though he “wasn’t very good”.In a podcast with computer scientist Lex Fridman, Elon Musk stated that he has a “lifetime of playing video games”. Musk then said that “at one point I was, you know, maybe one of the best Quake players in the world”, and mentioned that he “actually won money” in “the first paid esports tournament in the US.”Posters on X (formerly Twitter) doubted the claim, with many questioning whether Musk was simply trying to brag.

Xbox players switch on their console, the first thing they see is a prompt to purchase Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and some people have not reacted well to this splash screen.“Fight against the ultimate threat. Play the Campaign now.

Xbox controllers and accessories will no longer work after November has concerned disabled gamers who use their own controllers.Error “0x82d60002” has popped up for those using an unauthorised controller to play on the Xbox One or Xbox Series consoles, stating that the controller “will be blocked from use on [November 12]”.Microsoft provided a statement to clear up the confusion, saying that “unauthorised accessories can compromise the gaming experience” and this new policy is part of maintaining “quality standards for performance, security, and safety”.Yet, disabled gamers who play with controller and accessory combinations that use third-party technology have aired their aggravation at the announcement.“Xbox I urge you to give a statement on if this will affect the disability community and if so, how is this in line with your vision for accessibility in gaming,” said streamer Elisabeth “Arevya” Sivertsen in a post to X.Another said it was a “step backwards in inclusivity” for Xbox, as the release of the Xbox Adaptive Controller in 2018 won it several awards for the innovation in its design.“For a company that touts their accessibility and inclusion efforts so hard, this move by Xbox is really confusing and disappointing,” added X user and game developer jasonthinks.Fortunately, it appears that conversations about the impact of this policy on disabled players are occurring.

Microsoft will not allow players to use unauthorised third-party controllers and accessories for their Xbox from November in the interest of “performance, security, and safety”.Windows Central reported that players have been encountering error “0x82d60002” when they attach a third-party accessory in an article from October 29.“Using unauthorised accessories compromises your gaming experience. For this reason, the unauthorised accessory will be blocked from use on 11/12/2023,” read the pop-up on the console.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or Modern Warfare 3 are on their way to Xbox Game Pass this year, Microsoft has confirmed, as there wasn’t enough time to sort out a “secret celebration drop”.Activision Blizzard stated that there were no intentions for its “upcoming and recently launched games” like Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Diablo 4 to be playable through Xbox Game Pass this year.Yet, rumours swirled that there was something in store. In the latest episode of the official Xbox podcast, Microsoft CEO of gaming Phil Spencer explained that there simply wasn’t enough time to arrange the games’ arrival on Game Pass.The acquisition of Activision Blizzard was only finalised last week following repeated revisions to the terms of the agreement.

Microsoft‘s Phil Spencer has shared that special Call Of Duty content or events on Xbox would exclude the rest of the “Call Of Duty nation”, and therefore is not a part of the company’s plans for the series.On October 13, the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft was finalised, passing on properties like Crash Bandicoot, Diablo, Overwatch and World Of Warcraft as well as the immensely popular shooter series to the corporation.In spite of repeated insistences from Microsoft that it would not exclude players on other platforms from the future of Call Of Duty, there were still some concerns from fans.Spencer addressed these in the latest episode of the official Xbox podcast, reiterating that exclusive content for Xbox is not in Microsoft’s vision for the series (via Video Games Chronicle).“For Call of Duty players on PlayStation, and in the future Nintendo, I want you to feel 100 per cent a part of the community,” said the CEO.“I don’t want you to feel like there’s content you’re missing out, skins you’re missing out, there’s timing that you’re missing out on… that’s not the goal.”Historically, the series has prioritised those on PlayStation – Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 offered players exclusive monthly double experience point events, weapon bonuses when playing in parties with other PlayStation players, and additional loadout slots, to name a few features.This will not be replicated in future entries on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.

Microsoft suggest Bethesda Softworks has remasters for Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion in the works.In a Resetera post published today (September 19), an image appearing to be a “title release schedule” for Microsoft was shared, taken from court documents related to the company’s ongoing Activision Blizzard acquisition.While the schedule begins with releases from 2020, such as Doom Eternal and The Elder Scrolls Online: Greymoor, a number of unannounced projects are also listed.This includes a remaster for Bethesda Softworks’ role-playing game The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, which was listed as launching in 2022. There’s also a remake for post-apocalyptic shooter Fallout 3 marked down for 2024.However, certain dates – such as Redfall being listed for 2021 when it only launched this year – suggest this release schedule, if legitimate, is no longer accurate.These remasters would come at a time when both Fallout and The Elder Scrolls are going to be without new entries for a while.

Xbox‘s next update have been shared in a post to Xbox Wire, including direct Discord streaming, variable refresh rate improvements and more.“We heard that you wanted more Discord features! Starting this week, you can stream gameplay directly from your Xbox to your Discord friends,” Kristen Mann, principal group product manager of Xbox Experiences, said in the announcement.Players are able to enter voice channels in their Discord servers directly from their console as long as they’ve linked their account in the app first. Then, pressing the Xbox button on the controller will open the parties and chats part of the guide.Once Discord and the specific server that they want to stream to is selected, Mann encouraged players to try out the new feature to show off Starfield, which is out on PC and Xbox Series X|S today (September 6).Moving on, the update will add new options for variable refresh rate (or VRR).

Microsoft has nixed the Xbox Game Pass offer that introduced new customers to the subscription service for £1, one week before Starfield‘s launch.According to Games Radar, players realised that the offer disappeared over the weekend (August 26) and that the timing appears to be related to the upcoming launch of Starfield.Originally, players were able to get their first month of Xbox Game Pass for £1 in order to see the benefits of the service, such as playable first-party launches on day one, discounts and backwards compatible classics from the Xbox 360 era.In March, Xbox’s head of global communications Kari Perez said that the offer had been killed off as it “[evaluates] different marketing promotions for new members in the future”. The company then rolled out a system where current users could invite five of their friends to free two-week trials of Xbox Game Pass.Following that, the offer was resurrected in July, but it was shortened to 14 days of Xbox Game Pass for £1 for new customers just a month later.Xbox Game Pass is available in three different versions – console, PC and Ultimate.