Microsoft has created a special edition Xbox Series X to celebrate 25 years of the console. The Xbox 25th-anniversary console takes design cues from the original Xbox console, with both the console and controller featuring a translucent green design."For the first time, we're bringing a translucent design to Xbox Series X, drawing inspiration from the original Xbox and OG Green so many players remember," explains Jason Ronald, VP of next generation. "The Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition respects our history, with the power and performance of the Xbox Series X, including 1 TB of storage, and a design that reflects where we've been and the co …Read the full story at The Verge.

As part of its Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday, Microsoft revealed new details about Halo: Campaign Evolved, the upcoming remake of Halo: Combat Evolved's campaign mode. The remake will debut on Xbox Series S / X, PC, and PS5 on July 28th.Today's mission trailer includes a first look at Operation: Meteorite, a new three-mission story arc in Halo: Campaign Evolved. It takes place a year before the events of the first game and features Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson.Microsoft announced Campaign Evolved last year, calling it a "modern evolution" of the original story. The game is built in Unreal Engine 5 and features "stunning new 4K visuals, …Read the full story at The Verge.

The 2026 edition of Summer Game Fest just wrapped up, and it was surprisingly hectic. The nearly week-long event came at a challenging time for the games industry, and for the most part the big keynotes were used as a chance to show some strength through major announcements, while largely ignoring pesky details like hardware price hikes and the mess of the live-service space.Both Sony and Microsoft used their showcases as a way to confirm they're refocusing on tried-and-true strategies like exclusive games and single-player blockbusters. Meanwhile, every publisher in existence seemed to be avoiding going up against Grand Theft Auto VI on t …Read the full story at The Verge.

If you've ever stuck with something because it was familiar, and not necessarily because it was good, then you'll understand my relationship with Ubuntu Server. For five years straight, it ran most of the services in my home lab, which included a handful of self-hosted apps, containers, and VMs. I've always found Ubuntu's LTS releases to be stable, predictable, and completely boring, with "boring" seeming like the right word to describe an ideal production server. After a week on Fedora, I realized that I'd been mistaking stability for stagnation.

This year's Summer Game Fest turned out to be a good one for fans of Japanese RPGs. First, the conclusion of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy was announced at SGF Live, and now we have the long-awaited return of the Persona series.Atlus confirmed Persona 6 exists with a brief teaser, but aside from implying a very dark tone, that's about all the video revealed. There's no release date or window, though the game will be coming to the PS5, Xbox, and PC whenever it does launch. Atlus describes the game as "a bold, new standalone story blending heartfelt daily life and new characters with pulse-pounding, supernatural adventure," which coul …Read the full story at The Verge.

Just a few days after pushing Fable out of 2026, Microsoft showed off more footage of Fable, the first new entry in the storied RPG franchise since 2010's Fable III, at its Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday. The company also announced a specific release date: February 23rd, 2027. Though if you get the Premium Edition, you'll get early access starting February 18th.The trailer from the showcase follows a dedicated gameplay overview shown earlier this year. Based on what Microsoft has shown so far, the new Fable looks like it could deliver on what people love about the original trilogy, including the fantasy RPG setting and a lot of British humo …Read the full story at The Verge.

The console industry is in a weird place, and both Xbox and PlayStation have a chance to change the narrative a bit with their showcases at Summer Game Fest. Sony did that by focusing on the single-player titles it’s known for, and then it was Microsoft’s turn.The Xbox Games Showcase was focused mainly on games we already know, but there was also some confused messaging about the company’s exclusivity strategy. Gears of War: E-Day won’t be launching on the PS5, which was a big surprise, but other major first-party titles like Fable and Halo: Combat Evolved are still coming to Sony’s console. That makes it hard to tell just how focused Microsoft really is on exclusives.In a blog post recapping the event, the company said that “Games already announced for multiplatform releases will stick to that plan — we’re committed to investing in and growing Xbox both on console and beyond,” suggesting that future first-party titles will be only for Xbox consoles.The event came at an interesting time for Xbox. Microsoft’s gaming division went through an executive shake-up in April, and new boss Asha Sharma has been making some smaller but welcome changes, while also promising what she calls the “return of Xbox.” Given how confused the Xbox brand has been of late, it seems likely bigger changes are on the way.There were at least a few surprises, though, including a first look at Sony’s Crazy Taxi revival and a very brief teaser for Persona 6.You can follow all of our coverage from the Xbox showcase right here. Fable will be getting a story expansion sometime after launch. Sega used generative AI as part of making the new Crazy Taxi, apparently. A return of Xbox console exclusives. Another look at Call of Duty. Clockwork Revolution is also an Xbox console exclusive. Persona 6 exists, and that’s all we know Spyro’s back. A spooky new Castlevania for October. Fly over some national parks. Microsoft’s Xbox 25th anniversary console comes in translucent green Minecraft Dungeons 2 gets a September release date Crazy Taxi is going on tour. The DLC for Doom: The Dark Ages adds a throwable spear. Back to hell. Bad Magpie looks like Untitled Goose Game with a different bird. It’s not Persona 6, but… State of Decay 3 launches in 2027. Fable launches in late February after recent delay Halo: Campaign Evolved arrives July 28th Gears of War: E-Day isn’t coming to the PS5 The Xbox Games Showcase is starting soon. Xbox and PlayStation have a lot to prove

Minecraft Dungeons 2, a sequel to Microsoft's dungeon crawler spinoff Minecraft Dungeons, will be released on September 29th.The company originally revealed the game in a brief trailer in March, promising a fall 2026 release window. Here's how Microsoft described it at the time:Return to the world of Minecraft Dungeons in an all new action RPG adventure, brimming with high stakes encounters, thrilling challenges, and never before seen locations, as you set out to save a world in crisis. Will you and your allies prevail against the forces of evil and save the day once more?Minecraft Dungeons 2 will be available on Nintendo Switch, Nin …Read the full story at The Verge.

Have you ever wondered what the most indispensable app is for your favorite musician or how the world’s tech CEOs stay focused? Well, that’s the sort of thing we aim to uncover in our Verge Weekend Questionnaire. Think of it as a spiritual successor to Five Minutes on the Verge.Every Saturday, a different guest submits to our rapid-fire menu of questions, and we bring you their unfiltered answers. Subjects come from a variety of worlds. We talk to content creators, authors, politicians, developers… basically anyone interesting. We want to know how they get their work done, how they unplug, and, of course, what GIFs and memes they’re sending to their friends and loved ones.Want to know what legendary designer insists on only opening one browser tab at a time and who holds the Game Boy up as their favorite gadget of all time? Check back each week for all that and more. Benn Jordan longs for the days of tech that didn’t spy on you Welcome to Night Vale host Cecil Baldwin shares his tech pet peeves The man behind the legendary MPC, Roger Linn, stays focused with a single browser tab NPR’s Manoush Zomorodi talks about living with too much tech

Apparently, the "return of Xbox" means a retreat from other platforms. At its Xbox Games Showcase today, Microsoft revealed that Gears of War: E-Day - which was previously rumored for a PS5 launch in addition to Xbox and PC - will not be coming to PlayStation. It'll be an Xbox console exclusive and is launching on October 6th.The announcement was preceded by a trailer, which opened with a street-level view of an alien attack, with the extraterrestrial invaders being fought off in an urban landscape, including an electronics store and grocery shop. It looked like familiar Gears gameplay: lots of blood and lots of cover. It also may have bee …Read the full story at The Verge.

The internet still runs on two addressing systems that don't really get along: IPv4 is the one practically everyone still has to understand, with its familiar four-number addresses, and it ran out of available addresses to hand out years ago. IPv6 is the official successor, first standardized in 1998 and updated since, and despite nearly three decades of deployment work, it's widely used in some places and still absent or only partially implemented in many others. That leaves the internet stuck in a messy halfway house: IPv4-only in some places, IPv6-first in others, and dual-stack across the entire middle. And that's exactly the situation nobody wanted from a replacement to IPv4.

LLM-powered tools have come a long way over the last few years. What were typically considered tacky gimmicks have now become QoL-enhancing assets that are capable of automating tedious tasks. This applies to everything from cloud-based Perplexity and NotebookLM to a self-hosted Pi instance and LLM extensions for VS Code. And then you've got AI apps that can act as all-in-one productivity hubs, despite not specializing in a particular niche.