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.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has been talking about the future of Xbox, Project Helix, and why Microsoft desperately needs new games that aren't called Halo, Gears or Forza. Apparently, Xbox won't survive without fresh ideas. Which is an interesting thing to say after spending the year cancelling projects and getting rid of the people who make them.

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
Gears of War: E-Day reportedly sold around 62,000 copies on Xbox while attracting an estimated 1.7 million Game Pass players. That's a lot of people chainsawing Locust without ever buying the game outright.

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
You know that wonderful moment when you're waiting for a game to load and have a few seconds to contemplate your existence?

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
Forza Horizon 6 took us to Japan, gave us beautiful cars, and then apparently forgot to keep talking to the people driving them.

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
Xbox has announced XP Entertainment, a new division focused on bringing its gaming franchises into movies, television and other entertainment.

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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Did you like the intro music?
Of course you did. Because who wouldn't? Now you can hear more, thanks to Made By Humans! Check it out on Spotify, Apple Music or wherever you listen to your tunes!

 

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For previous episodes, our socials, community events, and more, visit

⭐THE XBOXCAST OFFICIAL WEBSITE ⭐

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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!
Blizzard is taking another crack at turning StarCraft into something other than a real-time strategy game. This time, it's a third-person shooter, and the developers are determined to make players feel powerful.

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
Diablo 5 is looking to the past for its next adventure, bringing back familiar classes from Diablo 3 alongside one rather interesting exception.

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?
Reports of potential changes to Xbox Game Pass have Microsoft doing some explaining. Among the possibilities being discussed is the removal of day-one releases from the service.

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?
Xbox's enormous collection of game studios could be getting another shake-up, with reports suggesting Halo's future may move under Activision while Obsidian could become part of 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.
Someone has reportedly managed to get PlayStation 5 games running on an Xbox Series X using a new emulator.

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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Did you like the intro music?
Of course you did. Because who wouldn't? Now you can hear more, thanks to Made By Humans! Check it out on Spotify, Apple Music or wherever you listen to your tunes!

 

--

For previous episodes, our socials, community events, and more, visit

⭐THE XBOXCAST OFFICIAL WEBSITE ⭐

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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!
Xbox and Sega showed off Japan in Crazy Taxi: World Tour, and suddenly we're ready to irresponsibly transport complete strangers around Japan at tremendous speed.

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.
We got our first proper gameplay look at Raji: Kaliyuga, a massive new boss in Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember, the very pretty Edge of Memories, and the slightly bonkers looking GACHIAKUTA: BREAKOUT.

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
And just when we thought Xbox was done, Hideo Kojima appeared.

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.™

 

--

 

Did you like the intro music?
Of course you did. Because who wouldn't? Now you can hear more, thanks to Made By Humans! Check it out on Spotify, Apple Music or wherever you listen to your tunes! 

 

--

For previous episodes, our socials, community events, and more, visit

⭐THE XBOXCAST OFFICIAL WEBSITE ⭐

Sony has lost Kojima. XBOX has found Kojima.
And we go helldiving for crabs....

🎮 Kojima's Physint Is Now an XBOX Game!
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.

💸 Leave Game Pass and Microsoft Might Give You a Discount?
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.

☁️ XBOX Cloud Gaming Gets a 15-Hour Limit
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.

💿 XBOX Disc-to-Digital Is Actually... Really Cool?
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...

⚒️ Blizzard Workers Win a Historic Union Contract
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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Did you like the intro music?
Of course you did. Because who wouldn't? Now you can hear more, thanks to Made By Humans! Check it out on Spotify, Apple Music or wherever you listen to your tunes!

---

For previous episodes, our socials, community events and more, visit
⭐ THE XBOXCAST OFFICIAL WEBSITE ⭐

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!
Gamescom 2026 has delivered an absolute mountain of Xbox news, and there’s a lot to talk about! From the explosive Gears of War: E-Day campaign trailer and the surprise announcement of The Witcher 3 Remastered to gorgeous new looks at Tides of Annihilation, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Metro 2039 and Exodus! Xbox had plenty to show off.

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
If you thought that was everything, think again! TrueAchievements counted a staggering 52 Xbox game reveals and updates from Gamescom Opening Night Live alone. That includes huge names like Fable, Forza Horizon 6, Halo: Campaign Evolved, Gears of War: E-Day, The Blood of Dawnwalker, Turok: Origins, Final Fantasy VII Revelation and Path of Exile II, alongside plenty of fascinating indie and AA games.

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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Did you like the intro music?
Of course you did. Because who wouldn't? Now you can hear more, thanks to Made By Humans! Check it out on Spotify, Apple Music or wherever you listen to your tunes! 

 

--

For previous episodes, our socials, community events, and more, visit

⭐THE XBOXCAST OFFICIAL WEBSITE ⭐