Microsoft brings a major September update for Xbox. This update has numerous exciting features like Variable Refresh rate (VRR), Voice Reporting, and a highly requested feature, Discord streaming.

For those unaware, Discord is a popular voice chat platform with features like streaming your game within the voice channel. Before this update, streaming on Discord was only possible on the PC platform, but Xbox users can now also enjoy the streaming services on the console. An overview of new features in this update is provided below:

Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) update for Xbox Series X/S consoles

Variable Refresh Rate allows users to adjust the refresh rate of the TV or monitor according to the frame rate of the content. This new feature provides a smooth and precise gaming experience. Some users may not want this VRR enabled. They can turn this setting off by going to General > TV & display options > Video and selecting the dropdown menu to “Off.”

Streaming Games on Discord

As mentioned above, it is now possible to stream your gameplay on Xbox. To get started, users first need to link their Discord account. From there, users must join a voice channel on the Xbox console and select “Stream your game” to start streaming.

Redeem Rewards

Xbox users will now find it easier to redeem their rewards with the new Rewards tab. Users can select Profile & System by pressing the Xbox button and choose My Rewards. Alternatively, players can redeem rewards directly from this option.

Ask to join the game session

Ask to join is an option now available in Xbox where the users can ask their friends to join their game session. Your friends will receive the notification of your request to join, and they can respond to it by game invite, party invite, or a message.

Voice reporting

In July, Xbox announced a new voice reporting feature that allows players to record a 60-second video clip of an in-game voice incident that they believe violates the Xbox community Standards and submit it as evidence to the safety team for review. The full report of this feature was covered on our website. Those wanting to know about this new feature can check our Xbox’s new voice reporting story here.

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(Source)

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Xbox users rejoice as streaming your game on Discord is finally possible. The popular voice chat platform has announced that it will soon support game streaming on Microsoft’s popular gaming consoles.

Why is this a big deal?

At the moment, Discord on Xbox only enables voice chats and the screen-sharing feature that is enjoyed on PCs was not available. This feature has been highly requested by Discord users on consoles. Since the features first dropped, it allowed users to share their screens and games on Discord servers with friends. And now, the streaming feature is finally making its way to Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One.

How to stream Xbox Games on Discord

As per the official blog, the Xbox users will first need to link their Xbox and Discord accounts via Discord on a smartphone or desktop. Head to ‘Settings’ and then ‘Connections, where you’ll find the option to connect the Xbox and Discord accounts. Following this process, return to Discord on Xbox and look for the option to “Stream your game” when sitting in a Discord Server or DM.

Notably, the Nitro members of Discord can also avail special benefits on the console as well. This includes 60fps streaming on 1080p resolution. Meanwhile, free members only get access to 720p resolution at 30fps. Keep in mind that streaming also takes resources, which can either impact gaming performance depending on the title you’re playing. In these situations, the resolution of the stream and its frame rate will likely drop. A good and stable internet connection is also required to get the full benefits.

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Nintendo has long been rumored to be working on a successor to the original Switch handheld console. The next gen entry is expected to offer a notable bump in performance thanks to more powerful hardware, but now, we might have a fair idea just how capable this Switch 2 model could be.

Nintendo Switch 2 could be on the same level as the Xbox One & PS4

Interestingly enough, the information this time around weren’t shared by some tipster or an anonymous source. Rather, the details comes from Activision Blizzard’s CFO Armin Zerza. To elaborate, the executive in an email sent to Nintendo stated that Activision can ‘make something compelling for NG (next generation) switch as well’. Apparently, the development plans for new the titles for the upcoming Switch 2 model is thanks to the handheld console being ‘closer’ in performance to Gen8 platforms.

The 8th Gen consoles are basically the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. In terms of raw performance, these consoles operated within a performance range of between 1.3 TFLOPS and 1.84 TFLOPS (FP32) and featured 8GB of RAM. However, the next gen Switch console can possibly output up to 4 TFLOPS from its new Nvidia Tegra T239 processor. This chipset is the customized variant of the Tegra T234 chip that features Team Green’s Ampere architecture and 2,048 CUDA cores.

If this rumor is true, then the Switch 2 could possibly offer around 10 times the power of its predecessor. While this is a huge jump over two generations, Nintendo hadn’t updated its Switch series in years, except a Lite model and an OLED refresh. So stick around for more, as we will be providing updates when additional information is available regarding this matter.

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Microsoft has officially announced that it is ending game development for its older Xbox One generation of gaming console. The company has announced that they will no longer be making any games for these older consoles as they have “moved on” to their 9th gen Xbox Series S and Series X models.

Microsoft Xbox One users might want to upgrade soon

The American Tech giant’s Xbox Game Studio Chief Matt Booty stated that “We’ve moved on to Gen 9”. Although, it isn’t all bad news since the brand has confirmed that it will continue to support Xbox One hardware as well as games that are still running on the previous generation. But, Microsoft has officially announced that none of its internal studios are developing any new games for the platform. But this basically implies that other game studios making titles for the Xbox One is also unlikely.

Furthermore, the latest Xbox Games Showcase didn’t unveil any new first party games that ran on Xbox One, which confirms this announcement. On the other hand, the brand is pushing its cloud gaming platform further with the Xbox Cloud Gaming service. This enables it to offer hefty titles like Microsoft Flight Simulator to Xbox One owners. Booty added that “That’s how we’re going to maintain support”.

Now, we can expect the team to solely focus on their latest gen Xbox Series X and Series S console models. These newer consoles offers various improvements in performance and enable gamers to run certain titles at up to 120fps, which makes them better for competitive titles. Interestingly enough, this announcement also arrives mere days after the company was found ‘accidentally’ collecting kids information illegally on the Xbox.

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The gaming community is eagerly awaiting any news on Grand Theft Auto 6. While there has been no official confirmation, it appears increasingly likely that the game will bypass the last-gen PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, releasing instead on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Here are the details…

Why GTA 6 Will be Exclusive to Next-Gen Consoles and PC

GTA 6 has been the subject of numerous leaks, including the notable September 2022 leak, and other insider reports that seem to confirm the game’s exclusivity to next-gen consoles and PC. Additionally, the current Grand Theft Auto title’s odd performance on older consoles and Rockstar Games’ recent approach to GTA Online lend further credence to these claims.

With each new game, Rockstar Games strives to redefine open-world gaming, and GTA 6 is anticipated to continue this trend. As the gaming industry has evolved considerably since the launch of Grand Theft Auto 5 in 2013, it is reasonable to expect that the upcoming game will feature enhanced graphics and gameplay mechanics.

The pre-alpha footage from the September 2022 GTA 6 leak indicates that the new game will offer more realistic visuals and improved gameplay physics compared to its predecessor. This footage showcases stunning graphics and an intricate open world, suggesting that Rockstar Games aims to optimize the game’s performance on next-gen consoles and PC.

A recently deleted Reddit post contained a leaked GTA 6 map with a massive Vice City map, dwarfing the State of “San Andreas”. Given the hardware requirements for running the current game, it is unlikely that the older PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles could handle the massive new world effectively. Consequently, it is logical for Rockstar to target updated hardware for the game’s release.

Tom Henderson, an author at Insider Gaming, recently reported that Rockstar Games has marked 2024 for the release of GTA 6, with a possible delay until the 2025 holiday season. According to Henderson, the game will be exclusive to the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC platforms. Despite being released in 2020, the latest-generation consoles have not yet achieved the same player numbers as their previous counterparts.

Rockstar is reportedly waiting for these new consoles to attract a larger audience before releasing GTA 6, ensuring a sizable player base upon launch.

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Microsoft is gearing up for the official launch of the Windows 11 OS. It arrives with various new features and other improvements, but perhaps most notably, it brings native support for Android apps without requiring an emulator. Now, a new report has suggested that this feature could also arrive in the company’s popular gaming consoles, the Xbox.

While the Android app support on Windows 11 won’t be available immediately after its first launch, it is expected to arrive soon after. However, the American tech giant did announce that it was working with Amazon (and its App Store) and Intel to bring this feature to its latest Windows version. As of right now, you can find the feature dubbed “Windows Subsystem for Android” on the Microsoft Store, although, it doesn’t do anything at the moment.

But interestingly enough, the Store listing offers us quite an unexpected device being mentioned in the system requirements category. In this list, we can see the Xbox One being mentioned as well, which hints at the possibility of this Android app support feature also making its way to the popular gaming console (Via SlashGear). However, it is unlikely that this would bring Android productivity based apps and would likely include more entertainment based software like games. This wouldn’t be too far fetches considering the control schemes of mobile games are directly inspired by the controller gamepads.

Keep in mind that this is still just an unconfirmed speculation so take this report with a pinch of salt. We will also have to wait and see what Microsoft has in store for us with its new Android app support feature, so stay tuned for more as we will be providing updates when additional information is available regarding this matter.

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Xbox Cloud Gaming or xCloud is Microsoft’s game streaming service. Available on Android, PCs, and iOS, Microsoft is now bringing the service to its game consoles including the last generation Xbox One in time for the holidays.

xCloud allows users to play up to 100 different Xbox games on devices that normally wouldn’t support these games such as your smartphone. Now, the service is being extended to the Xbox Series S|X as well as the Xbox One. The news of the service coming to the last-gen console was first reported in June.

The big winners here are the Xbox One owners as this means they will be able to play (via streaming) next-gen exclusive games not originally released for their console. Microsoft has already revealed that new Xbox games will be available on Game Pass, the subscription service required for Xbox Cloud Gaming, on the same day that they are released.

Xbox Cloud Gaming will also allow users to join their friends in multiplayer games without the need to finish downloading the said game. Games available for streaming on Game Pass will have a cloud icon as seen in the image above. The Verge reports that an update to the Xbox dashboard will roll out to the consoles to include the cloud icon. It is said that users will be able to stream in 1080p at 60fps.

The game streaming service will first be made available to Xbox Insiders this fan before a wider release in time for the holidays.

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When a new console is announced, manufacturers still support the older consoles for a short while before finally dropping it. When this happens, no new games will be made for them and owners of these older consoles will miss out on next-gen games unless they pick up the new consoles. Microsoft is changing that by bringing its xCloud game streaming service to older Xbox One consoles, thus allowing owners of these older devices to play next-gen games.

During its Xbox+Bethesda E3 event a few days ago, Microsoft announced that its next-gen games will be available on its game streaming service on day one. This means, if you have an active subscription, you will be able to begin playing these games on the very day they are announced.

With xCloud coming to older Xbox One consoles, owners will be able to play these new games which are exclusive to the new generation consoles on their old consoles, thanks to the game streaming service. This wouldn’t have been possible without xCloud since the games will not be released for the older Xbox consoles.

What Xbox is doing here is converting older Xbox One consoles into game streaming devices like a computer or an Android or iOS device. There is no news yet on when the service will be made available but we expect it to happen this year.

Xbox announced last week that it will integrate xCloud into the Xbox app on PCs which means users will not need to access the service through their web browsers. They will also be able to try games via the game streaming service before they download them on their PCs. Of course, to enjoy the game streaming service, PC owners will have to pay for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, the $15 per month service that also includes Xbox Live Gold and EA Play.

It also announced last week that it will bring xCloud to the Xbox consoles but it only said it will be a way for users to try games before they download and not as a full game streaming service as it is available on other platforms. However, the latest announcement means that folks can just stream the new games directly if they want.

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In yet another setback for games developer CD Projekt, its highly anticipated game, Cyberpunk 2077 has moved from one controversy to the other since its arrival last week, as it is being reported that it is unplayable on Sony‘s PlayStation PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox One S consoles. Disappointed gaming fans have therefore accused the developer CD Projekt Red of doing little to provide widely compatible versions of the game, saying that the Cyberpunk 2077 is riddled with unacceptably poor graphics and several game-crashing bugs.

In a swift move to restore confidence, and in response to the outcry, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has taken the decision to remove Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store and has gone further to offer full refunds to those users who purchased the game via its online store.

In a statement, SIE says it strives to maintain excellent customer satisfaction, which standard was breached by the performance of Cyberpunk 2077, hence it is offering a full refund for all gamers who have purchased the game through the PlayStation Store. Sony also said it will be removing Cyberpunk 2077 from PlayStation Store until further notice.

Sony, with this move, also prevents PS4 Pro and PS5 users from further purchasing the game digitally, even though these versions are far more stable.

CD Projekt has tendered its apologies for the stated problems users of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 and Xbox One faced and has promised to fix all issues and improve the overall experience.

The developer also stated that all efforts are in place to bring Cyberpunk 2077 back to the PlayStation Store as soon as possible, stressing that all earlier purchased physical and digital copies of the game will continue to receive technical support and updates as part of the improvement strategy for a better user experience for the game.

CD Projekt has also stated that there are no plans to pull out Cyberpunk 2077 from the Xbox digital store.

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The whole world is going through troubled times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the severely affected countries by the virus are under lockdown in order to maintain social distancing. Because of this, several business industries are suffering in a way they had never dreamt of. But the current situation has turned out to be favorable for the gaming industry as the sales of consoles and games surged higher.

To stop the spread of the coronavirus, people around the world are being advised to stay home and follow social distancing as much as possible. Some countries even went ahead and ordered total lockdown to enforce people to stay indoors.

Thus, people have nothing to do (those who can’t work from home) other than stream media and play video games. According to an analysis by Gamesindustry.biz on the recent data from Games Sales Data (GSD), the consoles and games sale climbed between March 16 and 22.

Ever since Microsoft and Sony started hinting the release of their next-generation gaming consoles, the sales of consoles declined in recent months as people are waiting to invest in the latest products expected to release in the holiday season. However, the current situation urged people to buy the existing current-gen consoles like PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. 

As per the data, the sales of consoles rose to 155%, which is significantly higher in recent times. The consoles’ sales in Australia were up by 285.6%, 250% in the UK, 140.6% in France, 84% in Italy, and 66% in Spain. Whereas, digital game downloads were up by 52.9% in 50 markets without including Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Interestingly, even physical games sales jumped to 82%.

During these hard times, video gaming has become a viable option to kill time for most people according to the sales data.

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