Gaming

Microsoft could announce the melding of Xbox and Windows sometime in 2026.

Next year, Xbox turns 25, and the brand has been anything but static over its multi-decade run. Xbox was built on disruption, first through Xbox LIVE online play, then with subscription services like Game Pass. Now the next disruption is on the way: Merging PC and consoles together in a hybridized device.

Reports indicate Microsoft's next Xbox console won't be a console at all, but a Windows 11 PC that mimics a console experience. It's possible that the Xbox console as we know it will be relegated to an app "experience" within this new Windows 11 gaming framework. Exact details on what's going on are unclear, however a key Xbox hardware designer says that the future of the Xbox ecosystem will be revealed in 2026 to coincide with the division's 25th anniversary.

Microsoft has posted an update covering all of the advances and improvements it has brought to PC gaming on Windows in 2025, from the arrival of the full-screen experience (FSE) for gaming handhelds through to Windows on Arm gaming improvements and the arrival of DirectX Raytracing 1.2 (DXR 1.2).

However, with the general sentiment that gaming on Windows 11 has only gotten worse in recent times, as most Windows updates either focus on adding new AI features and bloat to the operating system, or worse, cut game performance in half for GeForce RTX owners, the post also makes a statement on the future of Windows gaming as we head into 2026.

"We're committed to making Windows the best place to play," Ian LeGrow, Corporate Vice President, Windows + Devices, writes. "And we will continue refining system behaviors that matter most to gaming: background workload management, power and scheduling improvements, graphics stack optimizations, and updated drivers."

Nintendo shares have slid as much as 4.7% on Wednesday, hitting their lowest levels since May, wiping $14 billion in market share, as there are major concerns over the increasing price of DRAM memory chips required for the Switch 2.

Inside of the Nintendo Switch 2 is 12GB of RAM which the company needs, but they have gone up a huge 41% in the last quarter, with the NAND storage board for the Switch 2 also now 8% more expensive, and expected price increases for the add-on storage cards in 2026, too.

Pelham Smithers of Pelham Smithers Associates said: "The rise in NAND prices is starting to really impact express SD card prices. A 256GB express SD card costs $89.99 on Amazon. This is effectively a cost that Nintendo has passed on to the gamer".

AMD has announced and launched FSR 'Redstone,' which is a suite of four AI-powered technologies designed to improve PC gaming performance and image fidelity. Exclusive to RDNA 4, we've already seen one of the significant components of FSR 'Redstone' arrive alongside the latest generation of Radeon graphics cards with the AI-powered FSR 4 Super Resolution.

However, as FSR 'Redstone' introduces AI-powered FSR Upscaling (what we previously called FSR 4), FSR Frame FSR Generation, FSR Ray Regeneration, and FSR Radiance Caching, all FSR technologies now fall under the AMD FSR banner - including the older FSR 3.1 Super Resolution for RDNA 3 and RDNA 2 GPUs, which is now called FSR Upscaling (Analytical).

And with AMD confirming that over 200 games will be getting FSR Upscaling (ML) and FSR Frame Generation (ML) support by the end of the year, if you've got an RDNA 4 GPU like the Radeon RX 9060 XT, Radeon RX 9070, or Radeon RX 9070 XT, you've come to the right place. Here's the complete list of FSR 'Redstone' games supporting these new technologies.

John Romero briefly talks about a new game at the Madrid Video Game Show 2025 convention, confirming that the new project is separate from his previous cancelled game.

Back in July, Microsoft laid off hundreds of employees, closed down a studio, and cancelled a handful of games. John Romero's new FPS had been among those cancelled games. Romero's studio was working on a new shooter for Bethesda before Microsoft pulled funding, leading to the game being scrapped.

That hasn't stopped Romero and his team. At a big gaming event in Madrid, the legendary Doom creator says that he's working on a new game that has a "completely different design"than the original project. To be clear, that original game isn't coming out, but Romero is taking pieces of that $50 million project and inserting them into the new game. The aim is to deliver something that brings the same sense of wonder that Elden Ring brought to the souls-like genre.

Nintendo released the Switch 2 in September, and now Bethesda has a native version of Skyrim ready for the holiday season.

Skyrim is re-releasing yet again, this time on the Switch 2 with the new Skyrim Anniversary Edition. This marks the ninth time that Bethesda has released Skyrim, and the third time that Skyrim has appeared on the Switch. Anyone who bought the Anniversary Edition on the base Switch 1 will receive a free upgrade to the Switch 2 version, but that's to be expected, because all players are getting access to is a next-gen upgrade--gen 9 taught us that these upgrades typically aren't worth paying for on their own.

For the Switch 2 version, Bethesda has leveraged the system's new beefier Tegra T239 chip to deliver some gameplay boosts over Skyrim on Switch 1. The studio says that the new version has improved loading times and in-game performance, however users report that Skyrim is still locked to 30FPS on Switch 2 and suffers from substantial input lag.

Ubisoft officially confirmed that it was remaking classic Assassin's Creed games earlier this year, with the first game part of this initiative expected to be fan-favorite Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013). This remake has been heavily rumored for 2026 for quite a while, and now, thanks to a PEGI rating listing, we have a title for the project: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced.

PEGI, the European video game content rating system, has awarded Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced a PEGI 18 rating, indicating that the ratings board played through the game to determine the rating. Interestingly, Assassin's Creed IV is dropping the numerical 'four' or 'IV' branding for the remake, which makes sense if Ubisoft plans to release multiple Assassin's Creed remakes with the Resynced name.

Based on leaked information, it's worth reiterating that Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is a remake and not a remaster, which means it's set to feature all-new visuals and animation for the game's characters and environments alongside updated voice work and other elements. It remains to be seen how faithful the remake is to the original and whether it will introduce some of the franchise's more modern action-RPG aspects into the game.

OneXPlayer's impressive new Super X gaming tablet is now live on Kickstarter, which packs an AMD "Strix Halo" APU, 48GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage starting at $1899.

The configurations of the OneXPlayer Super X gaming tablet vary from the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 385 "Strix Halo" APU at $1899, to the flagship Ryzen AI Max+ 395 variant for $100 more at $1999. There is a range of configurations between APU + RAM + SSD, as well as cooling versions as OneXPlayer's new Super X gaming tablet comes in a Standard Edition, as well as a Liquid-Cooled Edition which costs $60 more per system.

OneXPlayer has one version each of the Standard Edition and Liquid-Cooled Edition Super X gaming tablet, with the Ryzen AI Max 385 "Strix Halo" APU, and just 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD storage at $1899, and $1959, respectively. From there, the Super X gaming tablet starts at $1999 and $2059 with the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 "Strix Halo" APU, 48GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

Activision has good news for anyone with Call of Duty fatigue, announcing plans to expand the franchise with more original games rather than numbered sequels or remakes.

Activision is making some changes to its Call of Duty lineup. In a recent COD blog post, the company says that it will no longer bounce back and forth between Black Ops and Modern Warfare. Instead, Activision says it wants every new Call of Duty game to deliver something different with each release. Call of Duty will still remain an annualized franchise with a new title every year.

The news comes after the release of Black Ops 7, and another major development: It appears that Activision is also preparing to release Call of Duty on the Nintendo Switch, a start to Microsoft's 10-year contractual agreement to bring COD to Nintendo platforms.

Gamers are on a scavenger hunt to figure out what the puzzling The Game Awards statue could be, and a new trademark filing offers some clues.

A bit ago, The Game Awards showrunner Geoff Keighley posted a picture of a bizarre demon-clad statue. This sent the rumor mill buzzing with the possibilities of which game could be revealed then TGA premieres this Thursday. Could it be Diablo? Maybe The Elder Scrolls? The new God of War game that could be set in Egypt? Maybe Lords of the Fallen 2? Those were debunked, and now thanks to a trademark filing found by MP1st, there's speculation that the statue is teasing a Divinity game.

Interestingly enough, Larian's Michael Douse recently squashed the Divinity Original Sin 3 rumors, saying: "There aren't currently any plans for a new Divinity Original Sin 3 game but once we are ready to show what we've been working on we will."

WB Games, an interactive segment that recently generated over $1 billion in sales with Hogwarts Legacy, apparently was not included in Netflix's valuation of Warner Bros.'s studios & streaming business.

Netflix wants to buy Warner Bros.'s most valuable parts for $82.7 billion. The streamer is interested in WB's studios & streaming business, which includes HBO, HBO Max, catalog TV shows and film, the studio in Burbank, and the interactive entertainment division WB Games responsible for numerous platinum-selling games.

Interestingly enough, it now appears that Netflix may not have included WB Games in its $82.7 billion deal model; when companies want to make an acquisition, they put together what's called a deal model, or an in-depth brief that puts a value on the business that they want to buy. Now at this year's UBS Global conference, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters seems to indicate that Netflix didn't assign a value to WB Games when putting together its deal model for WB's studios & streaming business.

2K Games has recruited the leads behind Xbox's cancelled Perfect Dark shooter to head a new studio.

As most of the games industry contracts, publisher Take-Two Interactive is opening new production groups and planning for the future. Brian Horton and Darrell Gallagher have been hired by Take-Two's billion-dollar 2K Games label to helm a new creative group for an unannounced project. The news comes months after the publisher tried to make a deal to salvage Microsoft's now-scrapped Perfect Dark game; faced with profit challenges, Microsoft chose to cancel Perfect Dark and shut down The Initiative, a studio that had been formed specifically to work on the discarded project.

"Happy to announce I joined 2K as VP, Head of Creative at a new studio with Darrell Gallagher!" Brian Horton, who had previously worked at Insomniac Games before moving to Perfect Dark in late 2024, wrote on LinkedIn.

Paramount, not Netflix, could end up becoming the new owner of Warner Bros. video games unit, controlling the gaming fate of iconic franchises like Mortal Kombat, Batman, Harry Potter, and more.

Paramount Skydance today made headlines by offering $108 billion to acquire Warner Bros.. Paramount's hostile takeover bid is an attempt to thwart Netflix's own $82.7 billion offer for WB, and Paramount is prepared to pay a premium of $30 per share to acquire both Warner Bros. studios & streaming and global networks businesses.

The acquisition would include WB Games, the interactive division that handles production of Warner Bros.' iconic video game brands, including decades-old franchises like the fan-favorite LEGO series of games (200 million copies sold), the die-hard Mortal Kombat fighting series (100 million sales), and the breakout hit Hogwarts Legacy (34 million sales).

Netflix mulled over the idea of buying Electronic Arts when it became clear the megaton games publisher was up for sale, Bloomberg reports.

The creative landscape is changing rapidly, and the world's biggest entertainment franchises are facing mass consolidation. Warner Bros. is up for sale, and Netflix has offered $82.7 billion for WB's studios and streaming business. This includes the WB Games video game segment, which is bundled with a plethora of worldwide creative teams and billion-dollar interactive series, alongside tentpoles like HBO Max and the full HBO catalog.

Before Netflix made the offer to buy WB, company management explored the possibility of acquiring other gaming entities, including sports titan Electronic Arts. This was ahead of EA's announcement that it will soon go private thanks to a $55 billion leveraged buyout--which is funded almost entirely by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.

FromSoftware continues its success streak with another best-selling video game--and it's actually an expansion.

The mavens of the macabre at FromSoftware have been having an incredible run as of late. Elden Ring exploded onto the market in 2022, and has since racked up 30 million sales to become one of Bandai Namco's most popular franchises. This prompted an expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, which likewise did incredibly well with 10 million sales. Even the online-only Elden Nightreign was a big success at launch, selling 5 million copies in just two months.

The iconic devs are keeping the ball rolling with Nightreign's first expansion, The Forsaken Hollows, which also debuted to stellar numbers: Bandai Namco has confirmed that over 2 million people purchased the $15 expansion, putting Forsaken Hollows at a substantial 40% attach rate.

Weeks ago, The Game Awards showrunner Geoff Keighley released an image of an elaborately carved statue--a promo teasing a new reveal. Since then, everyone's tried to figure out what the statue is for by ruling out what it isn't.

An enigmatic statue is teasing some sort of new reveal at TGA 2025, and gamers are trying to solve the mystery with an internet-wide scavenger hunt. No publisher or developer has stepped forward to take ownership of the bizarre structure, but there are a few clues to help eliminate incorrect guesses.

It was previously believed that the statue could be for a number of games: a new Diablo expansion, The Elder Scrolls, the new rumored Egypt-based God of War game, or something like Lords of the Fallen 2. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier debunked the Diablo reports. Schreier further clarified to say the statue also is not related to The Elder Scrolls VI. Sony Santa Monica's Cory Barlog also said that it's not for God of War. Now CI Games have confirmed that Lords of the Fallen isn't involved with the statue.

Original Fallout series co-creator Tim Cain is now back at Obsidian full-time, but he can't say what game he's working on just yet.

Fan-favorite RPG creator Tim Cain has come out of retirement, finding a new permanent role at Obsidian Entertainment. Cain says that he is working on a mysterious project within the studio. The news was announced in the developer's Cain on Games series--a line of videos that started out as an interactive video representation of Cain's own memoirs.

"I'm back at Obsidian, I'm their full-time employee and in-person, not remote. I would say that I'm probably a lot less retired now than I was before," Cain said in the announcement.

After 30 years developing Tekken games, Katsuhiro Harada has announced that he is leaving Bandai Namco at the end of the year.

It's the end of an era for fighting game fans, especially those that grew up around arcades in the 1990s: Katsuhiro Harada will step away from the Tekken franchise and will not be involved in further games in the series. With 30 years worth of releases and more than 60 million sales globally, Harada is responsible for one of the best-selling and genre-defining video game lineups in history.

"I'd like to share that I'll be leaving Bandai Namco at the end of 2025. With the TEKKEN series reaching its 30th anniversary-an important milestone for a project I've devoted much of my life to-I felt this was the most fitting moment to bring one chapter to a close," Harada wrote.

If you're wondering what the NEX Playground console is, well, it's a compact, cube-shaped, affordable console with an 8-core ARM chip running Android OS and a motion-sensing camera built into the box. Circana, which tracks video game console and software sales for the United States, confirms that during Black Friday 2025, ending on November 29, the NEX Playground sold more units than the Xbox Series X|S lineup.

According to the data (via social media), the PlayStation 5 accounted for 47% of Black Friday week console sales, with the Nintendo Switch 2 coming in second with 24%, followed by the NEX Playground with 14%. Adding a bit of irony to the numbers, the NEX Playground is a Wii- or Kinect-style console aimed at younger gamers, with titles based on popular IP like Bluey, Barbie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and more.

Of course, there is some additional information that adds context to the report. Firstly, Sony's up to $100-off campaign for the PlayStation 5 lineup, combined with the lack of comparable discounts for Xbox consoles, made shoppers more inclined to go the PS5 route. Also, being the Nintendo Switch 2's first holiday season meant it was always going to be a hot-ticket item. Also, the NEX Playground was on sale from $249.99 down to $189.99.

Creative Assembly's Total War series is a PC gaming institution, from Medieval: Total War to Total War: Rome II, Total War: Three Kingdoms, and the recent Total War: Warhammer trilogy. With massive real-time battles featuring hundreds of units on-screen and a deep Civilization-style map with turn-based management and conquest, the series has been absent from PlayStation and Xbox consoles for decades.

Granted, its RTS-like presentation makes it a genre better suited to the PC's keyboard and mouse, which is why the franchise's only console appearance was the third-person action spin-off Spartan: Total Warrior for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube. With the Total War franchise currently celebrating its 25th anniversary, Creative Assembly has announced that this will change.

And it's all thanks to the studio's new "cutting edge of strategy gaming" Warcore engine that will power the Total War series for years. And with that, Creative Assembly adds that "Warcore opens the door for future Total War titles to launch on PlayStation and Xbox, bringing the scale, depth, and tactical mastery of Total War to a new generation of commanders."