A hefty information dump—originating from documents relating to a Microsoft vs. FTC legal case—has revealed plans (dated April 2022) for an upcoming refresh of current generation Xbox Series X and S consoles. Microsoft Gaming's head honcho, Phil Spencer, dismissed the need for a mid-gen refresh of the more powerful model—his summertime 2023 declaration came after the rumor mill coughed up speculative details of Sony working on a more potent PlayStation 5. The leaked roadmap and slides points to a refreshed Xbox Series X console lined up for launch in October 2024. The new cylindrical design is codenamed "Brooklin" and features an all-digital entertainment scheme—internal upgrades include a 2 TB SSD, plus support for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. An "improved sustainability story" suggests that the refresh will consume less power.

A 6 nm die shrink of the current Xbox Series X "Scarlett" APU with Zen 2/RDNA2 setup is reportedly in the cards. It seems that Microsoft is not preparing something that could compete with a theoretical "PlayStation 5 Pro." The leaked roadmap states that Brooklin's projected MSRP is $499—so no price hike over the original. The refreshed Xbox Series S—codenamed "Ellewood"—retains the existing Series S aesthetic, along with its entry-level $299 price tag. Microsoft's roadmap has it launching earlier than "Brooklin"—August 2024. Internal storage is set at 1 TB, and an updated southbridge grants support for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. A low-power standby mode is said to consume only 20% of the current gen model's sleepy intake. The 2022 roadmap also mentions a refreshed "Sebile" Xbox controller, with the aim to get it launched by May 2024, so several months before the projected arrival of revised X and S consoles.

Panos Panay, Microsoft's chief product officer—where he has lead development on Windows (since 2020) and the company's Surface device product line (from the start)—is leaving the American multinational technology corporation. He made it official on X this afternoon: "After 19 incredible years at Microsoft, I've decided to turn the page and write the next chapter. I'm forever grateful for my time at Microsoft and the amazing people I had the honor to make products with." In an email sent to employees, Rajesh Jha (vice president of experience and devices) said: "After nearly 20 years at the company, Panos Panay has decided to leave Microsoft. Panos has had an incredible impact on our products and culture as well as the broader devices ecosystem. Under Panos' leadership, the team created the iconic Surface brand with loved products. More recently, as the leader of Windows, the team has brought amazing services and experiences to hundreds of millions with Windows 11 on innovative devices including those from our OEM partners. He will be missed, and I am personally very grateful for his many contributions over the years. Please join me in wishing him well."

A press release regarding the high-level departure was released to media outlets not long ago—Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had some kind words: "Thank you, Panos, for your impact on our products, culture, company, and industry over the past two decades. I'm grateful for your leadership, support, and all you've done for Microsoft and our customers and partners. We remain steadfast and convicted in our strategy, and Yusuf Mehdi will take lead on our Windows and Surface businesses and products externally." Mehdi is the current Corporate Vice President & Consumer Chief Marketing Officer, perhaps best known for producing a lot of his company's big artificial intelligence announcements. Microsoft is expected to reveal a bunch of next-gen Surface models later this week—will the new boss be in attendance?

Microsoft has scheduled a special product announcement event for next week—Germany's WinFuture has likely spoiled all mystery ahead of time by revealing two next generation Surface devices. It was already speculated that Microsoft would exhibit a bunch of new portable Windows PCs at the upcoming September 21 New York City-based shindig, but this week's leak treats us to photos and initial specifications for the Laptop Studio 2 and Laptop Go 3. The former retains its predecessor's 14.4-inch 3:2 format display, with a 2400×1600 resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate. Under-the-hood improvements for the Surface Laptop Studio 2 include a jump up to 13th Gen Intel Core Raptor Lake CPUs (from 11th Gen Tiger Lake)—WinFuture reckons that two options are lined up: Core i7-13700H and and Core i7-13800H. The Surface Laptop Studio 2's discrete graphics solution is speculated to be a mobile NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 or RTX 4060 GPU.

A base model could rely on an iGPU based on Intel Iris Xe graphics architecture. 64 GB of LPDDR5X memory is believed to exist with some configurations, which is a nice upgrade (albeit probably a very pricey option) over the previous generation's 16 or 32 GB RAM offerings. The leaked photos indicate that a Micro-SD slot and USB Type-A connector are new additions for 2023's model. The WinFuture article presents some prices—€2249 (~$2400) for the basic iGPU model, mid-tier with RTX 4050: €2729 (~$2915), and €3199 (~$3415) for an almost top flight model sporting 32 GB RAM and RTX 4060. The Surface Laptop Go 3, meanwhile, looks a little less exciting—it is said to get a CPU bump up to Intel Core i5-1135G and Core i5-1235U processors. Otherwise it looks largely similar to its previous-gen sibling. The leak did not include images of a reported Surface Go 4, but WinFuture expects it to be presented next week, powered by an Intel N200 SoC.

A screaming goat once told me that October is the BEST month. Not just because it's full of pumpkins (yum!) or because all the skeletons in my save file finally fit in (aww!), but because Minecraft Live is back on October 15, and this year it's bigger and blockier than ever! If you've never watched our epic, once-a-year livestream before, then you are in for a treat. Not only do we spend an hour talking about Minecraft (our favorite topic), but we dive into news from Minecraft and Minecraft: Legends; share snippets of what you can expect in the future, and reveal the winner of the hotly anticipated mob vote!

Minecraft Live returns on October 15! Tune in at 1pm EDT for news, sneak peeks, the mob vote, and more! Once the mobs have been revealed, you'll be able to cast your vote via the Minecraft Launcher, Minecraft.net, or the special event server on Minecraft: Bedrock Edition from October 13. You can even challenge yourself to mob-tastic mini-games while you're there!

Microsoft has revealed that it will phase out support for third-party printer drivers utilized by printing devices on Windows operating systems, thankfully this is not getting limited to Windows 11. Their update document states that: "the release of Windows 10 21H2, Windows offers inbox support for Mopria compliant printer devices over network and USB interfaces via the Microsoft IPP Class Driver. This removes the need for print device manufacturers to provide their own installers, drivers, utilities, and so on. Device experience customization is now available via the Print Support Apps that are distributed and automatically installed via the Windows Store."

A streamlined Windows print platform will be welcomed by folks who have had to deal with unreliable third-party drivers, operating system updates causing printers to stopping working, and getting older models to communicate with modern versions of Windows. Microsoft appears to be confident in their improved solution—the implementation of native support via updates has resulted in: "the end of servicing of the legacy v3 and v4 Windows printer drivers. As this is an impactful change, end of servicing will be staged over multiple years." Techradar has highlighted that the migration will not cause a complete lockout of legacy devices: "it's important to note that even when the switchover is complete, buyers will still have access to any existing third-party drivers. This means your old printer that's still kicking won't be rendered useless once support ends and only first-party drivers are updated."

We know players are interested in getting more value from Xbox, and we've heard feedback from the community that they want more ways to get value from their purchases. Today, I'm excited to share that we are introducing the no annual fee1 Xbox Mastercard in partnership with Barclays US Consumer Bank, a leading co-branded credit card issuer in the United States.

With the Xbox Mastercard credit card, players can earn card points with everyday purchases to redeem on games and add-ons at xbox.com. The Xbox Mastercard will be available exclusively to Xbox Insiders in the 50 United States beginning on September 21, with availability to all Xbox players in the 50 United States coming in 2024.

d-Matrix, the leader in high-efficiency generative AI compute for data centers, has closed $110 million in a Series-B funding round led by Singapore-based global investment firm Temasek. The goal of the fundraise is to enable d-Matrix to begin commercializing Corsair, the world's first Digital-In Memory Compute (DIMC), chiplet-based inference compute platform, after the successful launches of its prior Nighthawk, Jayhawk-I and Jayhawk II chiplets.

d-Matrix's recent silicon announcement, Jayhawk II, is the latest example of how the company is working to fundamentally change the physics of memory-bound compute workloads common in generative AI and large language model (LLM) applications. With the explosion of this revolutionary technology over the past nine months, there has never been a greater need to overcome the memory bottleneck and current technology approaches that limit performance and drive up AI compute costs.

A new version of Minecraft for Xbox Series X and S consoles has been registered with ratings boards around the world—as reported by Eurogamer, the first appearance arrived back in August through Germany's USK system, and more recently with the ESRB (USA). This lead to speculation that Mojang Studios was prepping a visually-upgraded variant of the game for current generation consoles. Microsoft and Xbox teased a significant ray tracing graphical option back in 2020, prior to Series X launching, but we have not heard much since then. Bedrock Edition, utilizing the RenderDragon engine, is set to improve graphics across most platforms, yet only PC gamers get to enjoy ray tracing features on capable/compatible hardware.

Microsoft has seemingly become fed up with the latest batch of news reports, and reached out to media outlets in order to shutdown further conjecture on the topic.
A company spokesperson informed Eurogamer and other sites about the situation: "Given the number of platforms and geographies in which Minecraft is available, we periodically go through rating reviews and updates with different regional boards. This recent rating is not indicative of any new versions or platform support for Minecraft in the near future." A 2022 test build inadvertently included "prototype code for ray tracing support on Xbox consoles," but was swiftly eliminated from public view soon after release. A spokesperson stated back then: "this early prototype code has been removed from Preview and doesn't signal near future plans to bring ray tracing support to consoles."

The Xbox Digital Broadcast will be returning to Tokyo Game Show on September 21 at 6 pm JST / 9 am UTC / 2 am PDT. Tokyo Game Show represents a special time each year where we share news and updates on games that we hope will delight Xbox fans in Japan and across Asia. Players can expect to hear progress updates from Xbox and Bethesda Softworks and see a creatively diverse collection of games from creators predominantly located in Japan and across Asia. We'll also share exciting new games coming to Xbox Game Pass, which continues to grow with great content from teams all around Asia.

This year's broadcast will be available on Tokyo Game Show's official YouTube channel, as well as on select Xbox social channels in Japanese, English, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, French, German and Castilian Spanish. It will also be broadcast with Japanese Sign Language (JSL), Australian Sign Language (AusLan), and audio descriptions in both Japanese and English. A full list of where you can watch the broadcast will be available the week of the show.

Microsoft has quietly added WordPad to their list of "Deprecated features for Windows client," as of September 1—this classic word processor application has been part of their operating systems stretching back in time to Windows 95—when it debuted as Microsoft Write's successor. The announcement stated: "WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows. We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like.doc and.rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like.txt." Updates for the bundled rich-text editing program ceased following UI tweaks introduced around the Windows 8 era.

Microsoft presents two alternative paths for the near future—naturally, one involves a paid 365 subscription—you can opt for Word. An online version is available at no cost, but it involves registration (with MS) and only functions as a web app. Notepad is the next best free-to-use native word processor—it has been modernized with new features, albeit via Windows 11. HotHardware has hyped it up: "One major update that users have been asking for was recently added to Notepad, that being the ability to open multiple tabs within the same session. Future updates include an autosave feature and the ability to restore previously open tabs as well as unsaved content and edits across those open tabs." Microsoft will be adding a snipping tool at some point, with the introduction of a: "combined capture bar, making it easier to switch between capturing screenshots and screen recordings without having to open the app."

If you've ever dreamed of launching into space and exploring new worlds, a much-anticipated new video game can take you there in rich detail and immersive storytelling. With Starfield, the first new universe from Bethesda Game Studios in 25 years, your role-playing journey can lead to more than 1,000 planets. It's available day one on Xbox Game Pass on Sept. 6, and on Xbox Series X|S consoles, Windows PCs and Steam.

"We love the idea of exploring space and always wanted to turn it into a game. People love to get lost in games we build, and we do as well," says Todd Howard, game director and executive producer of Bethesda Game Studios, which Microsoft acquired through parent company ZeniMax Media in 2021. "This one is easily the most ambitious one we've built. It's something we've really poured ourselves into over a long period of time."

For those of you who have already started the epic journey into Starfield in early access I hope you're having a blast, and for those of you joining on day one with Game Pass, your time starts very soon! I am so excited to finally add Starfield to our list of games "Coming Soon." Space, feelings, souls-like - we have amazing games for you to explore (not to mention a reminder of some surprise shadow drops last week!). Let's get to it!

Available Today
Gris (Cloud, Console, and PC)—Gris makes a return to the Game Pass library today! Gris is a hopeful young girl lost in her own world, dealing with a painful experience in her life. Her journey through sorrow is manifested in her dress, which grants new abilities to better navigate her faded reality.

We're excited to announce that Xbox Series X Console Wraps are launching this year, and pre-orders have already started. We know gamers want to be able to customize their consoles and show support for their favorite games, and we are delivering an option that's more affordable and more sustainable than purchasing a special edition or limited edition console. With the launch of Series X Console Wraps, you can customize the console you already have. There are three striking designs to choose from - complete your Starfield setup with a Starfield design that pairs perfectly with the recently released Starfield Controller and Headset, and we are also launching two camo colors to choose from, Arctic Camo and Mineral Camo.

The wraps were designed specifically for Series X and have a custom, precision fit. Every detail was taken into consideration to ensure your console performance is preserved- vents are all clear, and small feet were added to the bottom of the wraps to ensure air can flow freely through the console. Made with solid core panels that are layered with high-tech fabric finishes, the wraps are folded around your console and secured with a hook and loop enclosure. The interior of the wraps are printed with silicone designs that keep the wrap in place.

September is shaping up to be one of the hottest months of the year for Xbox players, with a ton of new releases, including some of the year's most anticipated games, several of which will be available with Game Pass on day one (Starfield, Lies of P, Payday 3 - just to name a few). Plus, with the release of the 1 TB Xbox Series S in Carbon Black on September 1 and Xbox Game Pass Core launching on September 14 you will have even more options on what to play and where to play it.

Xbox Series S - 1 TB
With the release of so many new games this month, it's a great time to join Xbox or upgrade your console, so you can enjoy games that only run on Xbox Series X|S and PC like Starfield, Forza Motorsport, and more. Plus, September 1 marks the release of the new Xbox Series S - 1 TB, which was announced earlier this year at the Xbox Games Showcase 2023. This console features the same next-gen speed and performance of our 512 GB Series S, now with double the storage so you can download even more of your favorite games to your console where they'll be ready to play when you are. Xbox is always exploring ways to use less new materials and reduce waste - our new 1 TB Series S incorporates Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) resins, mirroring the practice established in 2021 with our white Series S in a new color. The bold Carbon Black color is the same sleek, modern matte finish as Xbox Series X and the Xbox Wireless Controller. Make the most of every gaming minute with features like Quick Resume, lightning-fast load times, and support for gameplay of up to 120 FPS.

MSI has received several reports of users encountering a Blue Screen of Death that has an error message that reads "UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR" with MSI's 600/700 series motherboards after installing the Windows 11 update, KB5029351 Preview. Both MSI and Microsoft are aware of the "UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR" error and have begun investigating the root cause. While the investigation is underway, we recommend that all users temporarily refrain from installing the KB5029351 Preview update in Windows. We will keep you updated on the progress of our investigation.

Microsoft today announced that Python integration is happening, and it is coming to the latest Excel version. Through a new partnership with Anaconda, Excel will natively support executing Python code and accessing popular Python data science libraries like Pandas, Matplotlib, and Statsmodels. This integration will empower Excel users to leverage the full capabilities of Python for data transformation, analysis, and visualization without switching between separate tools. The Python integration will be available starting today in preview form for Microsoft 365 Insider beta channel members. It is being added as part of Excel's Power Query data preparation feature.

To access it, Insiders must install the latest Excel preview build, then look under the Formulas tab for the new "Insert Python" option. This will allow them to write and execute Python scripts directly in Excel worksheets. The limited-time integration preview will revert to reduced functionality once it expires. At that point, users must purchase a license to regain full access. This reflects Microsoft's strategic move to position Python as an alternative to VBA for programming and automation in Excel. With this new level of Python integration, Excel continues to evolve as a versatile hub for data analysis tasks, reducing the need to switch between separate Python and Excel workflows. Anaconda provides documentation and training resources to help users take full advantage of the new capabilities.Update 10:58 UTC: Just to clarify: only the "Office 365" cloud version receives Python integration—no improvements for the classic offline version.

To celebrate our presence here at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, today we revealed that the local and world-famous Nürburgring GP circuit will be available in Forza Motorsport at launch on October 10. What's more, as part of our plan to regularly bring new content to the game after release, we are also happy to confirm the iconic 12.9-mile (20.83 km) Nordschleife will be coming in Spring 2024.

Both tracks have been completely rebuilt for the Xbox Series X|S and PC. Nürburgring GP is the latest addition to the 20 tracks featured in Forza Motorsport on day one - with more announcements remaining, check out the list of tracks we've announced to date. In addition to our track lineup, Forza Motorsport starts with over 500 cars, and this list will continue to expand beyond launch. Check out the cars we have announced so far and stay tuned for future car reveals as we get closer to release day.

Electronic Arts Inc. is creating the most intense NHL game yet with EA SPORTS NHL 24, coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on Oct. 6, 2023. Colorado Avalanche superstar defenseman Cale Makar, whose world class on-ice skills exemplify the type of hard-checking and game-changing features that will be a part of EA SPORTS NHL 24, has been named the cover athlete for this year's game.

NHL 24 feels like hockey and brings the rush and fatigue of high-pressure games to life. The brand-new Exhaust Engine - powered by Frostbite - includes the Sustained Pressure and Goalie Fatigue systems to let players experience concentrated moments of intensity that hockey is known for. Through the Sustained Pressure System, offensive players who keep pressure on in the attack zone are rewarded and will trigger the Sustained Pressure perk, lowering their opponent's attributes for a limited time and creating more space for movement and setting up plays. With the Goalie Fatigue System, the more pucks you put on net, the more fatigue the opponent's goalie will experience. This will affect the netminder's ability to react to shots as they wear down over time and upwards of 75 new goalie animations will help bring this in-game storyline to life.

Microsoft Azure users can now turn to the latest NVIDIA accelerated computing technology to train and deploy their generative AI applications. Available today, the Microsoft Azure ND H100 v5 VMs using NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs and NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking—enables scaling generative AI, high performance computing (HPC) and other applications with a click from a browser. Available to customers across the U.S., the new instance arrives as developers and researchers are using large language models (LLMs) and accelerated computing to uncover new consumer and business use cases.

The NVIDIA H100 GPU delivers supercomputing-class performance through architectural innovations, including fourth-generation Tensor Cores, a new Transformer Engine for accelerating LLMs and the latest NVLink technology that lets GPUs talk to each other at 900 GB/s. The inclusion of NVIDIA Quantum-2 CX7 InfiniBand with 3,200 Gbps cross-node bandwidth ensures seamless performance across the GPUs at massive scale, matching the capabilities of top-performing supercomputers globally.

My favorite announcements are those coming soon, especially when "soon" means "right now" (looking at you Celeste!). We have hikes, we have Bros., kingdoms, and space, and more, so let's get to the games!

Available Today
Celeste (Cloud, Console, and PC)—Help Madeline survive her inner demons on her journey to the top of Celeste Mountain, in this super-tight platformer from the creators of TowerFall. Brave hundreds of hand-crafted challenges, uncover devious secrets, and piece together the mystery of the mountain.

Introducing a brand-new controller to the Xbox lineup, the Xbox Wireless Controller - Stormcloud Vapor Special Edition. This controller's rich color will pull you in, featuring a dynamic dark navy swirl - each with its own energy and pattern. The design is inspired by clouds and storming skies, with each billowing puff of vapor bringing a unique design to each controller.

Stormcloud Vapor features rubberized, blue diamond-pattern grips on the back case that allow you to hold onto all your gaming action. By using Bluetooth and Xbox Wireless, the Stormcloud Vapor controller can connect to Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles, PC, mobile phones and tablets. Its 3.5 mm audio jack allows you to talk with friends with your favorite compatible headset as you utilize the dedicated Share button to show off all your most unbelievable gaming highlights.

The escalating challenges in acquiring high-performance x86 servers have prompted Chinese data center companies to accelerate the shift to Arm-based system-on-chips (SoCs). Investment banking firm Bernstein reports that approximately 40% of all Arm-powered servers globally are currently being used in China. While most servers operate on x86 processors from AMD and Intel, there's a growing preference for Arm-based SoCs, especially in the Chinese market. Several global tech giants, including AWS, Ampere, Google, Fujitsu, Microsoft, and Nvidia, have already adopted or developed Arm-powered SoCs. However, Arm-based SoCs are increasingly favorable for Chinese firms, given the difficulty in consistently sourcing Intel's Xeon or AMD's EPYC. Chinese companies like Alibaba, Huawei, and Phytium are pioneering the development of these Arm-based SoCs for client and data center processors.

However, the US government's restrictions present some challenges. Both Huawei and Phytium, blacklisted by the US, cannot access TSMC's cutting-edge process technologies, limiting their ability to produce competitive processors. Although Alibaba's T-Head can leverage TSMC's latest innovations, it can't license Arm's high-performance computing Neoverse V-series CPU cores due to various export control rules. Despite these challenges, many chip designers are considering alternatives such as RISC-V, an unrestricted, rapidly evolving open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) suitable for designing highly customized general-purpose cores for specific workloads. Still, with the backing of influential firms like AWS, Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Samsung, the Armv8 and Armv9 instruction set architectures continue to hold an edge over RISC-V. These companies' support ensures that the software ecosystem remains compatible with their CPUs, which will likely continue to drive the adoption of Arm in the data center space.

Samsung Electronics today announced the first step in a plan to reimagine mobile device security for business customers in partnership with Microsoft. This collaboration has led to the industry's first on-device, mobile hardware-backed device attestation solution that works equally well on both company and personally owned devices.

Device attestation can help ensure a device's identity and health, verifying that it has not been compromised. On-device, mobile hardware-backed device attestation—available on Samsung Galaxy devices and combined with protection from Microsoft Intune—now adds enhanced security and flexibility. For enterprises, this is an extra layer of protection against compromised devices falsely claiming to be known and healthy, gaining access to sensitive corporate data. Additionally, organizations can now enable employees to bring their own device (BYOD) to work with the confidence that they are protected with the same level of security as company owned devices. For employees, this means added flexibility for their personal Galaxy devices to safely access their work environment.

Starting today, a new Home experience is rolling out to all Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles. This update is designed from player feedback and makes it easier to discover new games, rediscover games you already love, connect with communities, and create a more personalized experience.

We're excited to share more about the journey that led us here, and what you can expect with this new update.

Microsoft Flight Simulator World Update XIV: Central Eastern Europe captures the majesty, charm and allure of Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The region bristles with history, architectural wonders, and stunning scenery. The Central Eastern Europe countries beckon exploration from above with never-before-seen fidelity.

Microsoft Flight Simulator assembled fresh, full-coverage aerial imagery, digital elevation data and more from our partners at Bing Maps and Maxar to create this update. World Update XIV includes 103 points of interest (POIs): 18 in Czechia, 15 in Slovakia, 19 in Hungary, 15 in Slovenia, 23 in Croatia, and 13 in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Castles, towers, and churches, among other sights, all brilliantly reproduced and awaiting discovery from the air in this update.