Microsoft appears to be working on expanding its Xbox Game Pass subscription to China. References to "Project Saluki" have been discovered in a recent update to the Xbox PC app this week, with Microsoft describing the codename as "China market expansion for Game Pass, Rewards, and subscription tiers."

While Microsoft offers a variety of games in China through Activision Blizzard, it does not currently make Xbox Game Pass available in the country. Microsoft does sell Xbox consoles in China, and first launched the Xbox One in China in 2014, becoming the first video game console to do so after a 14-year government ban on game consoles.

The Ch …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Discord is announcing the launch of Nitro Rewards today, a new program for subscribers that bundles benefits from third parties like Microsoft, Logitech, and SteelSeries, into a Nitro subscription. The main addition is that Nitro members will now get a new starter edition of Xbox Game Pass at no extra cost.

Xbox Game Pass starter edition, which leaked last month, allows PC and Xbox owners to download more than 50 games, including titles like Fallout 4, Stardew Valley, and DayZ. The starter edition also includes 10 hours a month of Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming and the ability to earn up to $25 a year in the Xbox Store with rewards.

Alongside …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft showed off a "consistent" Xbox UI across handhelds, consoles, and cloud gaming during its Xbox keynote at the Game Developers Conference in March. At the time it was difficult to see if there was anything new about the UI from the videos and photos captured during the event, but Microsoft has now given us a closer look at it thanks to a new video of the keynote that was published earlier today.

Jason Ronald, VP of next generation at Xbox, showed off the UI while mentioning that players had been noticing "a lot of fragmentation within the experience" across devices, and an overall lack of consistency. "What the team has been doing …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Two weeks ago there was a buzz in the air inside Microsoft's studio D building. Hundreds of Xbox employees gathered early on a Thursday morning, packed into the hallways and atrium, to hear from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. The "return of Xbox" slogan was plastered all over the walls of the building, the same message Sharma first delivered to Xbox employees in February. It was time for Sharma to rally the troops, after two years of turbulence, and hint at the future of Xbox.

During the roughly 40-minute all-hands, sources tell me that Sharma laid out a four-point action plan for Xbox employees, focusing on several areas in turn: hardware, games, p …

Read the full story at The Verge.

It feels like not a day goes by at the moment without some Xbox news, and today is no different. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma just announced that Xbox owners will get a new boot up sound and animation on May 13th. The console boot animation is the new Xbox logo, complete with a slight twist on the existing boot-up sound.

Microsoft first revealed its new Xbox logo last month, and the company has already released Xbox dynamic backgrounds of the logo, as well as profile pictures for Xbox fans to use. The new Xbox logo has a more glassy look, and I understand Microsoft has also been using this new design for some of its internal next-gen Project Helix …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft's new Xbox chief, Asha Sharma, has spent the past couple of months making her mark on the Xbox organization. After focusing on highly requested Xbox console features, reducing the price of Game Pass, and moving Microsoft Gaming back to Xbox, Sharma is reorganizing the Xbox platform team at Microsoft today.

The changes will see some veterans depart, promotions, and new faces with more technical expertise to help the Xbox platform team. Jared Palmer, who used to work with Sharma in Microsoft's CoreAI division, is joining Xbox as VP of engineering and a technical adviser to Sharma. In a memo to Xbox employees, seen by The Verge, Shar …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft is now rolling out its Xbox mode to all Windows 11 PCs. The new Xbox mode adds a full-screen interface to the Xbox PC app, much like Steam's Big Picture Mode, and originally debuted as the Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE) with Asus' Xbox Ally devices.

"Some players in select markets will be able to download the Xbox mode experience today, with availability expanding to more players in those markets over the next several weeks," says the Xbox team. You'll be able to get the Xbox mode by installing the latest Windows update for Windows 11.

Xbox mode aims to try and bridge the gap between Xbox consoles and Windows, but its original …

Read the full story at The Verge.