The XboxCast

Lee sold his fridge. 

And bought a game. 

In this house, that's what we call being fiscally responsible. 

🟢 Xbox Has a Plan. Again.

There's talk of returning to growth, making Xbox consoles matter again, and building the next generation of hardware. We've heard a few Xbox comeback stories over the years, but maybe this time they've found the PowerPoint that fixes everything.

⚙️ Gears of War: E-Day Has a Game Pass Problem

It's great for players, but it raises some awkward questions about the future of full-price Xbox games. When your biggest fans are already paying a subscription, convincing them to hand over another $70 might be a bit of a challenge.

But, keep in mind, thats 1.7 million who paid for early access. So maybe double dipping really does work. At least when you can double dip for $30... 

📺 Microsoft Wants Ads in Your Loading Screens

Microsoft has filed a patent involving advertisements during game loading screens. Because apparently the one place we haven't been advertised to enough is inside the games we've already paid for.

It's only a patent, not a confirmed Xbox feature, but we're already imagining Master Chief taking a quick break from saving humanity to tell us about affordable car insurance. Or, and maybe Microsoft are the good guys here - they patented it to stop the other guy from doing it. Hey, one can dream. 

🏎️ Forza Horizon 6 Players Are Getting Grumpy

The community has been getting increasingly frustrated with repetitive updates, missing features and Playground Games going rather quiet. After months of complaints, the studio has finally acknowledged the feedback and says it's looking at making changes.

Which is lovely. Now we just need them to tell us what those changes actually are. Preferably before Forza Horizon 7.

🎬 Xbox Goes to Hollywood

Because after spending billions buying game studios, the obvious next step is to make television shows about them.

There's plenty of potential in the Xbox catalogue, from Gears of War and Fallout to Fable and beyond. We're just hoping somebody remembers to make some actual Xbox games between film shoots.

Funny first. Factual second.™

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Blizzard is making a StarCraft shooter. Diablo 5 is bringing back some old friends.

And apparently, your Xbox can now play PlayStation games.

🚀 StarCraft Is Getting a Shooter. Again!

Which sounds fantastic. We've always wanted to experience the StarCraft universe from somewhere other than several kilometres above the battlefield, desperately clicking on tiny units while being shouted at for not building enough pylons.

Of course, anyone who remembers StarCraft: Ghost will be approaching this announcement with cautious optimism. Blizzard has been down this road before, and we'd quite like this one to actually come out.

🔥 Diablo 5 Is Bringing Back the Classics

Blizzard seems keen to remind everyone why we fell in love with Diablo in the first place. Familiar characters, enormous monsters, mountains of loot and the never-ending quest to find a pair of boots that's slightly better than the ones you're already wearing.

The real challenge will be making Diablo 5 feel like a proper step forward rather than Diablo 3 wearing a slightly more expensive coat.

🟢 Xbox Game Pass Without Day-One Games?

Day-one games have been one of the biggest reasons to subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate. Take those away, and suddenly the subscription starts looking a lot more like an expensive library card.

Microsoft has responded to the reports, but the whole conversation raises a bigger issue about where Game Pass goes next. Between rising prices, changing subscription tiers and an increasingly confusing Xbox strategy, keeping up with Game Pass is starting to require its own spreadsheet.

🏢 Halo Goes to Activision, Obsidian Joins Bethesda?

That's a lot of moving pieces for a company that already owns half the gaming industry. Halo, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty and The Outer Worlds all living under the same corporate roof was already strange enough.

Now Microsoft might be rearranging the furniture while everyone's still sitting on it.

Nothing says creative independence quite like being moved into another department because someone in management discovered a new organisational chart.

🎮 Your Xbox Can Play PS5 Games Now. Apparently.

We've spent decades arguing about which console has the best exclusives, and now the emulation community is apparently trying to make the whole argument irrelevant.

There are still plenty of questions around compatibility, performance and just how practical this actually is. But the idea of an Xbox running PlayStation games is the sort of technical nonsense we absolutely love.

Somewhere, a console warrior has just dropped their controller in disbelief.

Join Kyle and Lee on The XboxCast as we dive into Blizzard's latest games, Microsoft's plans for Xbox Game Pass, the future of Halo and Obsidian, and the increasingly blurry line between Xbox and PlayStation.

We've got opinions, we've got questions, and we've probably misunderstood something along the way.

Funny first. Factual second.™

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We stayed up late to watch Xbox at Tokyo Game Show 2026 live.

Because apparently, we make excellent life choices.

🇯🇵 Xbox @ Tokyo Game Show 2026!

This week we're doing things a little differently. We watched the entire Xbox Tokyo Game Show 2026 broadcast live, microphones on, with absolutely no idea what was coming next.

This means you get our predictions, first reactions, increasingly questionable opinions and the occasional moment where we actually get something right.

🚕 Crazy Taxi Goes to Japan!

There was also a new campaign trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, a wonderfully creepy new Fallout 76: The Slasher trailer, more Persona 4 Revival, and a proper look at Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement.

🎮 So. Many. Games.

Then there's Bloomwalker, which is now officially part of the Ni No Kuni universe and lets you build yourself a lovely little home in a pocket dimension. Finally, a game that understands that sometimes we don't want to save the universe. We just want to rearrange the furniture.

We also met Faraday Blues, got more Genigods: Nezha, saw Hope in the City, and discovered that Shape of Dreams was launching on Xbox and Game Pass right then and there.

That's how you do a shadow drop.

👻 HIDEO KOJIMA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT

Of course he did.

We got another look behind the scenes at OD: KNOCK, with Sophia Lillis and Hunter Schafer doing performance capture, before Kojima moved onto PHYSINT.

And we now know who is leading Xbox's newly rescued Kojima espionage game: Bill Skarsgård. Yes. Pennywise...

Because apparently Hideo Kojima looked at one of the most unsettling men in Hollywood and thought, "That's my guy."

So, grab a drink, load up the Xbox Tokyo Game Show 2026 broadcast and watch along with us as Xbox throws 17 reveals and announcements our way and we attempt to make sense of them in real time.

Or just listen normally and enjoy two idiots reacting to video we can see and you can't.

We've thought this through.

Funny first. Factual second.™

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Sony has lost Kojima. XBOX has found Kojima.

Well. We didn't have this one on the bingo card. PlayStation has stepped away from Physint, Hideo Kojima's big return to action espionage, after Sony unexpectedly cancelled the project in June. Kojima Productions then spent three months hunting for someone willing to help keep the game alive. Enter XBOX. Microsoft is now publishing Physint through XBOX Game Studios, expanding its relationship with Kojima beyond OD and somehow leaving XBOX with not one, but TWO Kojima games. We're sure the internet will react to this news in a calm, measured and entirely reasonable fashion.

XBOX Game Pass has discovered the relationship tactic of only appreciating you after you've left. Former Game Pass subscribers are reportedly being offered targeted discounts of up to 30% off to tempt them back. Which is great news! Unless you've been faithfully paying for Game Pass every month. Then you get the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing your continued loyalty is apparently its own reward.

Remember when XBOX Cloud Gaming was about playing anywhere? Microsoft would now prefer you didn't play too much anywhere. Starting in November, XBOX Game Pass Ultimate gets 15 hours of cloud gaming each month. Premium gets 10. Essential gets just five. Run out and you'll be able to buy additional hours from the XBOX Store. Microsoft says only around 4% of Game Pass subscribers will be affected, which raises the wonderfully obvious question: if it's only 4%, why annoy them? Especially when XBOX has spent years telling us that cloud gaming is an important part of the future of XBOX. Apparently the future comes with a timer now.

Quick! Microsoft has done something good. Everyone, remain calm! XBOX's new disc-to-digital program is rolling out to XBOX Insiders, letting you insert supported physical XBOX games and claim digital access to them. More than 800 XBOX discs are already supported, including over 200 delisted games, and the list continues to grow. It's a fascinating solution for XBOX game preservation, backwards compatibility and taking physical libraries into an increasingly digital future. It also resurrects some ideas from the infamous XBOX One announcement in 2013, except this time Microsoft appears to have explained what it's doing before setting the internet on fire. Progress! Not every publisher is fully onboard yet, though...

And finally, something rather more important than arguing about plastic boxes. Nearly 1,900 Blizzard Entertainment workers across World of Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Hearthstone, QA and other teams have ratified a major new union contract after two years of bargaining. The agreement includes wage increases, layoff protections, hybrid and remote working provisions, just-cause protections and, rather interestingly in 2026, rules requiring Blizzard to actually discuss and bargain with workers over the use of generative AI. It's potentially a massive precedent for people working across the games industry, and it all happened inside a Microsoft-owned studio.

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Lee now owns a ute. Not just any ute, the Kia Tasman ute!

And he's pretty impressed with all the junk in its trunk. 

Now quite a regular show as we're coving GamesCom!

🟢 GamesCom 2026!

We're looking at everything you need to know about Gamescom 2026 in this episode! So join us to see if there was anything you've missed.  

🎮 Gamescom 2026 Was HUGE for Xbox!

We’ve also got new release dates, Game Pass announcements, delays, fresh gameplay and a whole bunch of games you probably didn’t even know were coming to Xbox. Worms: Galactic Tactics, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Tactics, Crazy Taxi: World Tour, Stage Tour, Road Kings, Mewgenics and Valor Mortis are just some of the games making waves.

And that’s before we even get to the Future Games Show, which brought more than 40 Xbox and PC games and 13 brand-new reveals, including SPINE: This is Gun Fu, Wolcen 2, Serious Sam: Shatterverse, Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault and Star Wars: Galactic Racer.

🟩 52 Xbox Games, Game Pass Goodness & All the Gamescom 2026 Highlights

There was also plenty for Xbox Game Pass subscribers, with titles such as Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, There Are No Ghosts at the Grand, Aniimo and more joining the growing Game Pass lineup.

Of course, Gamescom wasn’t all good news - Turok: Origins, Mariachi Legends, Road Kings and There Are No Ghosts at the Grand were among the games pushed into 2027. But with so many releases coming across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, Xbox Play Anywhere and Game Pass, there’s still plenty to get excited about. 

So, grab a drink, settle in and join The XboxCast crew as we dig through one of the biggest Gamescoms Xbox has had in years - the games we’re excited for, the ones that surprised us, and the ones that might have slipped completely under your radar!

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Welcome back to the podcast. 

Did you miss us? 

Now on with The Regular Show.

🐜 Grounded 2’s Player Count Surges 220%

🐉 Game Pass August 2026: Beast of Reincarnation & Plague Tale Lead

📺 Xbox Introduces Free Game Streaming With Ads

🧑‍💻 Xbox VP of Engineering Quits After 2 Months

🥽 Game Pass Starter Edition Expands via Meta Horizon

🏃 Another Studio Breaks Free From Xbox

🧩 Xbox Surprise Update Adds 12 New Console Features

💿 Xbox Testing Disc-to-Digital Conversion

📰 Xbox Wire Gets a Redesign

🚀 No Man’s Sky Celebrates 10th Anniversary

🔫 Gears of War: E-Day Breaks Franchise Records

🕹️ Xbox 360 Backwards Compatibility Leak for PC

🛠️ Xbox Adds Four More Console Features

🧪 New Game Pass Additions: Resonance, Vapor World, Blood Dungeon

🪑 IKEA x Xbox Furniture Line Announced

📅 Four Game Pass Games Confirmed for September

💸 Xbox Series X Price Spike

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Lee is confused about Wuthering Waves. 

But, why? 

Now on with The Regular Show.

🟢 Xbox Insider Update Brings Four Handy New Features

Xbox Insiders are getting a surprisingly useful batch of quality-of-life improvements. Microsoft is rolling out updates to Gamertags, Game Hubs, Wishlists and Game History, making it easier to discover games, manage your profile and keep track of what you've been playing. Nothing flashy, but these are exactly the kinds of improvements that make the Xbox dashboard feel more polished. Now if only we could get a faster Store...

☁️ Stream Your Own Game Gets 51 More Titles

Microsoft has massively expanded the "Stream Your Own Game" feature, adding another 51 games to the growing list. If you own these titles digitally, you'll be able to stream them directly from the cloud without needing them to be part of Game Pass. It's another step toward Microsoft's vision of letting you play your library almost anywhere. The feature keeps getting better... now we just need Australia to get all the good cloud features first.

🎯 Cancelled Xbox 360 GoldenEye Finally Runs Natively on PC

One of gaming's greatest "what ifs" has taken another fascinating turn. Developers have successfully recompiled the cancelled Xbox 360 version of GoldenEye 007 into a native PC executable, meaning it runs without emulation. It doesn't make the project legal, but it's an impressive piece of preservation work that shows just how close this remaster came to release before licensing issues killed it.

💳 Xbox Could Soon Offer Buy Now, Pay Later

Buying an Xbox console, game or accessory may soon become a little easier on the wallet. Microsoft is reportedly partnering with Klarna and PayPal to introduce flexible payment options across Xbox purchases. Whether you're eyeing a new console or just a few too many games during a sale, spreading the cost could become as simple as checking a different payment option. Just remember... buying games on finance probably isn't the best financial advice you'll hear today.

⚠️ Xbox Faces Another Major Reset

The biggest story this week continues to be Microsoft's internal shake-up. Following confirmed July layoffs, Xbox leadership has reportedly told staff that "this cannot continue," signalling another major reset for the gaming division. CEO Asha Sharma is said to be focusing on leaner teams, better execution and a more affordable Xbox ecosystem moving forward. It's a tough period for Xbox, but many fans are hoping these difficult decisions eventually lead to stronger games and a healthier platform. Which leads to... 

💼 Satya Nadella: Xbox Must Become Sustainable

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made it clear that Xbox's future depends on becoming a sustainable business. Rather than chasing endless growth, Microsoft wants predictable returns from its gaming division as development costs continue to rise. It's a statement that helps explain many of the company's recent decisions around Game Pass, multiplatform releases and internal restructuring. And of course this means... 

🏢 Xbox Studios Reportedly Looking for Independence

Reports suggest several Xbox Game Studios teams, including Double Fine and Ninja Theory, are exploring ways to spin off into independent studios. Nothing has been confirmed, but after months of restructuring and uncertainty, it paints a picture of developers wanting greater creative and financial control. Whether Microsoft would actually let these studios go is another question entirely.

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What even does that title mean? 

☀️ 🎮🕺 Summer Games Fest Wrap Up

We cover all the games coming to XBOX and PC revealed during the Summer Game Fast 2026! Here's a complete list for you. You're welcome...

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In the deep, dark Winter of the Southern Hemisphere, XBOX has arrived to spread some much-needed light and joy...

We hope!

🎮 XBOX Showcase 2026

From new console hardware, to announcing the return of Exclusives - we cover everything that XBOX had to show the world. 

Is 2026 the year they win us all back? Or is this another year where they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? 

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In a change heard across the world, Xbox is now XBOX! 

Now on with The Regular Show!

🏎️ Forza Horizon 6 Is XBOX’s Biggest Launch Since 2024

Forza Horizon 6 has exploded out of the gate, becoming the biggest XBOX launch since at least 2024 according to TrueAchievements’ player-count data. It’s outperforming every major first‑party release of the last two years and that’s before the full Game Pass wave hits. Playground Games continues to carry the platform on its beautifully rendered shoulders. At this point, Forza is XBOX’s most reliable franchise…

🟩 Microsoft Gaming Changes Its Name… From Xbox To XBOX

In a company-wide memo, Microsoft Gaming has officially rebranded itself as simply XBOX. Executives say the new “North Star” for the division is Daily Active Players, not console sales or Game Pass subs. This marks the biggest identity shift since the Phil Spencer era began. Sanity has prevailed it seems... 

🎨 New Limited-Edition Controller… But Only in Design Lab?

XBOX has revealed a new “Limited Edition” controller. But in true XBOX fashion, it’s only available through Design Lab. It features a unique shell, special accents, and custom engraving options, making it feel more like a premium preset than a true LE release. Design Lab exclusivity means scalpers can’t touch it, which is a rare W for controller collectors.

💀 Why the Game Pass Family Plan Was Cancelled

A new report sheds light on why the Game Pass Family Plan quietly disappeared. And in surprise to no one, it looks like EA is to blame... The plan was “too generous,” too easy to exploit, and too difficult to scale globally. Microsoft reportedly struggled with regional pricing, account sharing, and revenue forecasting. In short: it was great for players, terrible for accountants.

🌌 Destiny 2: Every End Is a New Beginning

Bungie has released a massive new Destiny 2 update reflecting on the end of the Light & Darkness saga. The studio outlines what’s next for the game, including new seasonal structures, narrative arcs, and long‑term support plans. It’s a soft reboot without calling it a reboot. Destiny players are eating well again... Finally! Looks like Destiny is being killed so Marathon can flop...

📺 XBOX Games Showcase 2026 & Gears E‑Day Direct — Dates Confirmed

Insider Gaming has confirmed the dates and times for the XBOX Games Showcase 2026, followed immediately by a dedicated Gears of War: E‑Day Direct. Expect major first‑party reveals, new gameplay, and the full unveiling of E‑Day’s campaign. This is XBOX’s biggest broadcast of the year. Prepare your hype meters accordingly.

🧑‍💼 XBOX Hires New Exec to Strengthen the Console Side

XBOX has hired a new senior executive specifically tasked with “strengthening the console side of the business.” This comes as XBOX pivots toward a more balanced strategy between hardware, PC, cloud, and multiplatform releases. The new hire will oversee hardware planning, accessories, and retail presence. In other words: someone finally got put in charge of making XBOX consoles feel like a priority again.

🎮 The XBOX Elite Series 3 Leaks… And It’s Missing Something Big

The Elite Series 3 controller has leaked online, featuring a removable battery, new grips, and updated internals. But according to early impressions, it’s still missing one crucial feature: Hall Effect sticks. In 2026, that’s becoming inexcusable for a premium controller. Come on XBOX — drift is not a personality trait.

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