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Microsoft is rolling out a refreshed Xbox startup experience to Xbox Insiders, with a wider release planned for all Xbox Series X and S players in the coming weeks. The update adds a new boot animation, a new sound, and the latest Xbox logo with the familiar green styling. The new startup animation was teased earlier by Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, and it is

Forza Horizon 6 and Subnautica 2 are both coming to Xbox Game Pass, but that has not stopped them from selling strongly on Steam. The two games recently took the top two spots on Steam’s premium best seller list, showing that a day one Game Pass launch does not always reduce direct sales. SteamDB’s weekly data for May 5 to May 12, 2026, listed

Judas is still on the way to Xbox, but BioShock creator Ken Levine says the game has taken so long because of the amount of work behind its narrative systems. The delay is not mainly about graphics technology or hardware limits. It is about building a story that can react to player choices in many different ways. Levine explained that Judas is doing a

Garfield is getting a new 3D platformer on Xbox later this year. Garfield: Escape from Monday is set to launch on September 24, 2026, for Xbox Series X and Series S, along with other platforms. The game is being developed by OSome Studio, the team behind recent Smurfs games and several Asterix and Obelix titles. That has already made some platforming fans curious, especially

SEGA has shared a new roadmap for its upcoming games, giving a clearer look at the projects it has already announced. The list includes several major revivals, including Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, and a new Virtua Fighter project. The roadmap was included in SEGA’s latest full year results presentation. It only covers announced titles, so more games could

Mixtape has become one of the most talked about recent Xbox Game Pass releases, but not only because of its strong critic reviews. The indie adventure launched last week with several high scores, including some 10 out of 10 reviews, and that has sparked a wider debate about taste, review scores, and what people expect from narrative focused games. The discussion became louder after

The Xbox Game Preservation website has added a new section that lets fans vote for delisted games they want to see return to the Xbox Store. The tool was already being used to track backward compatibility requests, and it has now expanded to cover games that are no longer available digitally. The website has gained attention after Xbox executive Jason Ronald pointed fans toward

Star Wars Battlefront 2 may be nearly a decade old, but its community is preparing another major push to bring players back. A fan led event called Resurgence Day 2026 is planned for May 23, with players across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC invited to log in and help boost the game’s player count. The event is being promoted by the team behind Kyber, the

NBA The Run is coming to Xbox Series X and Series S on June 9, 2026, giving arcade sports fans a new street basketball game with clear NBA Street inspiration. The game focuses on fast 3v3 action, online play, crossplay, and flashy above the rim moments. The connection to NBA Street is not subtle. NBA The Run’s creative director worked on all four NBA

Fanatical’s Bundlefest is ending with a larger build your own deal aimed at PC and Steam Deck players. The Prestige Collection XL Edition includes 29 games, with prices starting at $7.50 per game and dropping to $6.90 each when you buy 10 or more. The bundle includes several strong picks, including Death Stranding Director’s Cut, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Cat Quest III, Mullet Mad

Steam Deck and handheld PC players have several free games to claim or try this week, with new offers available across Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, and Amazon Prime Gaming. Some of the biggest picks include Sunderfolk, The Telltale Batman Shadows Edition, V Rising, Astral Ascent, Make Way, and Mafia 2 Definitive Edition. Steam has several free to try games available for a limited

Fanatical’s Bundlefest has added another low cost PC game deal with the BYO Zenith Bundle. The bundle lets you choose from 20 games, with prices starting at $2 per game and dropping as low as $1.75 each if you buy 10 or more titles. The lineup includes several well known games, including Green Hell Anniversary Edition, Frostpunk Game of the Year Edition, Sniper Ghost

Intel’s unreleased Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has appeared in new benchmarks, and the results may explain why the company never brought it to retail. The chip was expected to be the flagship model in the Core Ultra 200S Plus Arrow Lake Refresh lineup, but early testing shows it performs only slightly better than the much cheaper Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. The Core

Intel’s Core i9 14900KF has set a new world record for the highest CPU frequency ever recorded, reaching 9.206GHz under extreme cooling. The result was achieved by Chinese overclocker wytiwx, pushing Intel’s older Raptor Lake Refresh chip beyond the previous 9GHz barrier. The Core i9 14900KF is not a new processor, but it remains one of Intel’s fastest desktop chips for extreme overclocking. It

An Amazon customer reportedly ordered one Samsung 990 Pro SSD but received 10 drives instead, turning a single storage purchase into a box worth nearly $4,800. The buyer, Reddit user u/TheDankestYo, shared images showing multiple Samsung 990 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSDs. The order details showed only one drive was purchased, with a listed price of $479.13. Instead of receiving one SSD, the

Intel may get an important opening in the AI chip supply chain if NVIDIA uses its EMIB T packaging technology for a future Rubin Ultra GPU variant. A UBS note suggests that a possible four chip version of NVIDIA’s Rubin Ultra could rely on Intel’s advanced packaging, giving Intel a larger role in high end AI hardware. The report does not confirm that NVIDIA

Microsoft appears to be testing a small but noticeable change to its gaming brand, with Xbox now being styled as XBOX in some official places. The change follows a social media poll from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, where most voters preferred the all caps version. The poll asked people to choose between “Xbox” and “XBOX.” Nearly 20,000 people voted, and 64.8 percent chose XBOX.

The new Steam Controller has another unusual trick. A community made tool can make the controller play music by using its haptic motors, turning MIDI files into vibration based sound. The tool is called SteamHapticsSinger, and it was created by Critic89. It works by reading MIDI files, which do not contain audio themselves but instead carry instructions for how music should be played. The

The new Steam Controller may soon work better outside Steam, thanks to an upcoming update to SDL. The change will not make the controller fully independent from Steam, but it should improve support in games and apps that use SDL for input. SDL is a software library that helps games and applications communicate with hardware such as controllers, keyboards, mice, and other input devices.

Valve’s latest Steam beta client update appears to include new Steam Machine references, adding more weight to the idea that the company is preparing its next hardware push. The update reportedly includes text and system references tied to Steam Machine features, including a dedicated verification program, LED control, and HDMI CEC audio control. The new references were spotted inside Steam client changes and shared