We at Obsidian Entertainment know players have been anticipating an updated look at Avowed and we're excited to show off what we've been working on with a first-ever gameplay trailer today at Xbox Games Showcase 2023. Expanding the universe that we created for the original Pillars of Eternity games, Avowed brings a new perspective, a new way to fight, and a new land to explore in the world of Eora. The Pillars games are near and dear to us and we can't wait to share Avowed with everyone next year.

In Avowed, you'll explore the Living Lands, a plagued, wild island set in the world of Eora. The Living Lands are full of mysteries and secrets, danger and adventure, and choice and consequences. Unique to the world of Eora, the Living Lands is home to bustling port towns and rolling hills adorned with weird and fantastical plant life. Every part of the Living Lands is home to its own ecosystem. Around every corner there are creatures, sentient mushrooms, or tribes of lizard-like Xaurips looking to make you their next meal…

This weekend, at Xbox Games Showcase and Starfield Direct, we showed the exciting future for players and game creators - dozens of new games, a new 1 TB Series S console and new ways for players to get their games anywhere with PC Game Pass coming to NVIDIA GeForce NOW later this year. After our double feature, Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox Creator Experience, Sarah Bond, Head of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty, and Game Director at Bethesda Game Studios, Todd Howard also addressed the future of gaming at Microsoft in our What's Next for Gaming event.

Players are discovering and playing games like never before - we have reached new records for monthly active users and monthly active devices, and just last quarter we saw a 46% increase year over year in people playing PC games on Game Pass. Game Pass continues to grow - our revenue from subscriptions overall reached nearly $1 billion last quarter. We're excited about the future of Xbox, and we see the opportunity to grow not only our own business, but the entire industry as a whole - through creating groundbreaking new games, inviting creators to build their dream projects on our platform, and opening gaming up to everyone, no matter where they are in the world. These are our key pillars to help continue that growth.

In Cities: Skylines II, players build detailed cities at an epic scale. Intricate economic systems present players with choices that have ripple effects across the city. Dynamic maps set in various biomes present both challenges and opportunities for city builders. High-fidelity visuals showcase the beauty of cities like never before, from a humble city block to an iconic city skyline. For the first time ever, each citizen has their own individual life, including occupation, household, relationships and more, making cities feel alive. Players can now follow how their choices affect citizens' lives, adding weight and immediate impact to every strategic decision.

Players start by picking a map, with each environment presenting its own challenges, climate, and opportunities. From there, players manage a series of interconnected simulation systems as they build and grow their city. Build roads, lay out districts, set up infrastructure, and manage citizens' needs as the population grows from a small town to a sweeping metropolis.

Starfield players can now explore the depths of gaming - and open space - while making Constellation proud. Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ: STX) today announced the company's Starfield Special Edition Game Drive and Game Hub for Xbox, taking Seagate's popular line of storage for gamers to the next level. The new external hard drives deliver speed and high capacity to make the Xbox gamer's journey through the universe unforgettable.

Officially licensed by Bethesda and wrapped in exclusive artwork commemorating the explorers from Constellation, the Game Drive and Game Hub display a design that feels pulled directly from the Settled Systems of Starfield. Featuring customizable RGB LED lighting, the drives bring the majesty of the stars to the gamers' ecosystem. Available with up to 5 TB of capacity, the Game Drive is lightweight in design, making it easy to take an entire library on-the-go. The Game Drive and the Game Hub are connected and powered with high-speed USB 3.2 Gen 1, and the Game Drive does not need a separate power cord, making it easy for gamers to play from anywhere. Designed to work with Xbox Series X|S or Xbox One, both drives are easily installed through Xbox OS in under two minutes so gamers can launch into action.

Publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive are thrilled to reveal John Carpenter's Toxic Commando, coming in 2024 to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via the Epic Games Store. Tag team with up to four players in this intense first-person shooter and battle massive hordes of mutated monstrosities to eradicate a supernatural outbreak before it's too late.

Watch the exhilarating reveal trailer, which premiered at the Summer Game Fest live showcase, for a first taste of the title's over-the-top gameplay and John Carpenter-inspired '80s vibes, packed with tons of action, humor and horror. "We're happy to team up once again with our historical partner Saber," said John Bert, Managing Director at Focus Entertainment. "After World War Z, Space Marine 2, Insurgency, SnowRunner, and many others, Toxic Commando is a new entry into the successful long-term relationship between Focus and Saber. We cannot wait to unveil more about this new amazing IP created by the talented teams at Saber and leverage Focus' expertise in turning new franchises into worldwide hits."

At Xbox, we have the fundamental commitment to provide all players with a safe and secure experience on our platform - and this is especially true for our youngest players. We frequently iterate on our safety measures, in collaboration and with feedback from the community, regulators and partners. We recently entered into a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to update our account creation process and resolve a data retention glitch found in our system. Regrettably, we did not meet customer expectations and are committed to complying with the order to continue improving upon our safety measures. We believe that we can and should do more, and we'll remain steadfast in our commitment to safety, privacy, and security for our community.

Our two decades of safety experience has taught us that all players want, and need, safety and privacy protections. Since 2005, when we launched the first console that could connect players online, we've continued to invest in tools and technologies to protect our community. That work evolved into a multifaceted safety strategy. Our suite of safety, privacy and security measures are designed to respect player privacy and safety, and empower players, as well as parents and caregivers, to have control over their gaming experiences.

The season of hot sun and longer days is here, so stay inside this summer with 20 games joining GeForce NOW in June. Or stream across devices by the pool, from grandma's house or in the car - whichever way, GeForce NOW has you covered. Titles from the Age of Empires series are the next Xbox games to roll out to GeForce NOW, giving members plenty to do this summer, especially with over 1,600 games part of the GeForce NOW library.

NVIDIA released the first Xbox games to the cloud last month as part of its ongoing partnership with Microsoft. Now it's the first to bring a smash hit Xbox series to the cloud with Ensemble Studios' Age of Empires titles. Since the first release in 1997, Age of Empires has established itself as one of the longest-running real-time strategy (RTS) series in existence. The critically acclaimed RTS series puts players in control of an entire empire with the goal of expanding and evolving to become a flourishing civilization.

Select Samsung Smart TV and Smart Monitor owners will now gain access to nearly 3,000 games as Antstream Arcade and Blacknut have been added to the Samsung Gaming Hub partner lineup, with the rollout starting today. Samsung makes it easy for players of all ages to find content and choose apps from industry-leading game streaming partners: Xbox, NVIDIA GeForce NOW, Amazon Luna, Utomik, and now over 1,400 games with arcade classics from Antstream Arcade, and over 500 premium family titles and exclusive games from Blacknut.

"Samsung Gaming Hub offers players more ways to access the titles they love and discover new ones to play from our game streaming partners, no console required," said Mike Lucero, Head of Product Management for Gaming at Samsung Electronics. "With Antstream Arcade and Blacknut, we've made games even easier to jump into. Now all you need to do is pick up your Samsung TV remote to enjoy great games like "Pac-Man" and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", or pair your Bluetooth controller to access thousands of world-class games across genres. With more games and more ways to play, there has never been a better time to play games on Samsung Gaming Hub."

Earlier this month, we shared that PC Game Pass is now available in 40 new countries, the ability to take the expansive Game Pass library everywhere you go with the Asus ROG Ally, and the new PC Game Pass Friend Referral program where you can invite your friends and play together. You can find Friend Referral invitations on the Game Pass Home screen in the Xbox App on PC, just click the "Give PC Game Pass" button to share with up to 5 friends. Now, we're excited to share the latest Xbox app update to improve your PC gaming experience. Let's explore the new features and improvements.

Improved Discovery with Updated Game Card, Filtering, and New Collections
We've updated game cards throughout the app to give you more information and convenience. Now, you can see the game's title along with contextual metadata like publisher, pricing, HowLongToBeat time, coming to Game Pass date, leaving Game Pass date for those games leaving soon, and more! You will see all this information as you browse through games in the app. We have also made it easier for you to filter and sort game collections and your library with new filter options, including accessibility features and game ratings, as well as introducing HowLongToBeat as a new sorting option. This way, you can easily find the games you love and discover new ones that match your preferences.

Coming Soon to Xbox Game Pass: Amnesia: The Bunker, Car Mechanic Simulator 2021, Dordogne, and more "available today" notifications! We're excited to bring you some simulators, slayers, stacking, and more. Let's get to the games! Starting off with the "Available Today" category:

Chicory: A Colorful Tale (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a top-down adventure game in a coloring book world where you can draw on anything. Use your painting powers to explore new places, solve puzzles, help your friends, and change the world!

Keep the NVIDIA and Microsoft party going this GFN Thursday with Grounded, Deathloop and Pentiment now available to stream for GeForce NOW members this week. These three Xbox Game Studio titles are part of the dozen additions to the GeForce NOW library.

Triple Threat
NVIDIA and Microsoft's partnership continues to flourish with this week's game additions.

Set forth on your grand adventure, Arisen! The PlayStation Showcase brought us the first footage of the much-anticipated action-RPG Dragon's Dogma 2, now in development for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. There's plenty to unpack in this trailer, and we look forward to sharing more in the future. For now, let's talk about a few of the elements we can reveal so far.

Whether you're new to the Dragon's Dogma series or a seasoned adventurer, well met, Arisen. Set in a vividly detailed fantasy world, Dragon's Dogma 2 is a single player, narrative-driven action-RPG that challenges players to leverage their creativity and curiosity to approach a wide variety of gameplay situations. Dragon's Dogma 2 begins in a subterranean jail, where the Dragon's voice echoes in the fog of lost memories. You play as the Arisen: set on a path to slay the Dragon, a symbol of the world's destruction as it soars through the sky on massive wings, breathing flames that scorch everything in its path. Set out on an epic journey to fulfill your forgotten destiny and claim the throne.

We're continuing to deliver on our promise to bring high-quality, immersive PC games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda to more people in more ways. Today, we're announcing that Deathloop, Gears 5, Grounded and Pentiment will be available to play for Boosteroid members beginning June 1. This is another step to ensure players worldwide have access to great content on their terms.

Boosteroid customers in the Ukraine, the United Kingdom, countries across the European Union, and the United States will soon be able to jump in as Kait Diaz to take on the Horde in Gears 5, team up with friends to survive and explore the backyard of Grounded, attempt to escape a seemingly never-ending timeloop in Deathloop, or experience life in an illustrated world with Pentiment. These four titles are just the start - we'll regularly add more hits and fan favorites from our extensive catalog of PC games. Boosteroid members will be able to access games purchased through Steam or the Epic Game Store (for eligible titles) to start, with support for games purchased through the Microsoft Store coming soon.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is an exciting moment for Xbox to recognize the importance of accessibility, celebrate the players and developers with disabilities that are part of our vibrant, global gaming community, and highlight recent accessibility work at Xbox. To meet the needs of over 427 million players with disabilities, and create a platform where everyone feels welcome, safe, and represented, we know that accessibility awareness and support is something that has to happen every day and has to be part of the community culture. What this support resembles will vary based on the player, but ultimately, accessibility at Xbox is all about creating gaming experiences that everyone can enjoy.

Gaming is all about the power of connection and play. And it has been incredible these last several months watching the energy our community has put into learning about game accessibility, especially as we continue our own accessibility journey and push for a more inclusive games industry. On Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2023, we're excited to share with you some of the work we've been doing in support of our Gaming & Disability communities, including updated accessibility support pages, new accessibility features on PC, and recognizing the achievements of thousands of Xbox Ambassadors who are showing how easy and fun it can be to learn about game accessibility by completing over one million Accessibility Explorer Path missions!

Dear Combo Breakers - this winter will be Killer Instinct's 10th year on Xbox Live. Throughout that time, Xbox platforms and services have been constantly evolving. We have been able to keep KI operating and adapting to many of these changes behind the scenes. Over the last five years, however, it has become more challenging to deal with issues that crop up due to KI's reliance on legacy services. We have been working on solutions to address these concerns. Thank you for being patient and amazing fans through any bumps in the road.

We have started migrating KI's legacy services to PlayFab services, a process which will happen over the next several months. This is a quality-of-life (QOL) update and does not have any new content or tuning changes: it ensures the game you know and love continues to provide the best possible player experience. Today, we've kicked off the first migration build for Xbox consoles, Windows PC, and Steam.

Get ready for action - the first Xbox game title is now streaming from GeForce GPUs in the cloud directly to GeForce NOW members, with more to come later this month. Gears 5 comes to the service this GFN Thursday. Keep reading to find out what other entries from the Xbox library will be streaming on GeForce NOW soon. Also, time's almost up on an exclusive discount for six-month GeForce NOW Priority memberships. Sign up today to save 40% before the offer ends on Sunday, May 21.

All Geared Up
NVIDIA and Microsoft have been working together to bring the first Xbox PC titles to the GeForce NOW library. With their gaming fueled by GeForce GPU servers in the cloud, members can access the best of Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda titles across nearly any device, including underpowered PCs, Macs, iOS and Android mobile devices, NVIDIA SHIELD TV, supported smart TVs and more.

From the creator of the groundbreaking Arctis line of headsets and the new Arctis Nova franchise, SteelSeries, the original esports brand that fuses gaming and culture and worldwide leader in gaming and esports peripherals, today expands the Arctics Nova universe with the introduction of the Arctis Nova 4 - exclusively available at GameStop stores beginning Saturday, May 20, 2023.

For today's gaming lifestyle, people need access to wireless freedom for gaming, streaming, and entertainment at a more affordable price. The Arctis Nova 4 introduces a new wireless option for players that shares the same meticulously crafted Nova Acoustic System as the entire Nova family, featuring Hi-fi audio, supercharged by the Sonar Audio Software Suite, and delivering 360° Spatial Audio. It's the perfect companion for those living life on the go - offering untethered elite sound and performance.

May has a plethora of genres and game styles coming your way. You can hit the pitch later today, or soon you can build a railway empire, collect monsters, voyage a magical world, or we can stop here and get right into the games. Let's dive in!

Available Today - FIFA 23 (Console and PC) EA Play
The World's Game is available today from 10:00AM PDT with PC Game Pass & Ultimate via EA Play. Hit the pitch today, plus claim monthly FIFA 23 member rewards. Experience HyperMotion2 Technology on Xbox Series X|S that delivers even more gameplay realism, the addition of women's club teams, and more.

Soccer Fans: put your cleats on and get ready to hit the pitch - FIFA 23 is coming to The Play List tomorrow - May 16! The most expansive EA Sports FIFA title to date, FIFA 23 hosts the next evolution of HyperMotion technology on current-gen platforms, setting the standard in realistic and immersive gameplay. In addition, and for the first time in EA Sports FIFA history, players now have the chance to play as their favorite women's club team - so get ready to nutmeg opponents and get on the scoreboard with teams from the Barclays Women's Super League, Division 1 Arkema, National Women's Soccer League, and UEFA Women's Championship League.

Take the pitch now in FIFA 23 to earn great monthly rewards, including the FIFA 23 Ultimate Team Supercharge Pack which features FUT content to help take your club to the next level. This month, members can also show their personality on the field with the Overdrive Lightning Head Tattoo, the FUT Hero Iván Córdoba Tifo Set, and more rewards.

Logitech G, a brand of Logitech and leading innovator of gaming technologies and gear, announced the long awaited launch of the award-winning Logitech G CLOUD Gaming Handheld in Europe starting on 22 May 2023. In addition to North America and Taiwan, Logitech G Cloud will now be available in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, available on LogitechG.com, Amazon, Currys, Fnac, and MSH Electronics for a suggested retail price of $349.99 / €359 / £329.

To celebrate the European launch, Logitech G has worked with its partners to offer a special bundle that includes up to 6 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate which includes Xbox Cloud Gaming, 1 month of NVIDIA GeForce NOW Priority, and 1 month of Shadow PC. It will be available in select countries effective from 22 May to 22 June 2023 while bundle supplies last.

Microsoft launched two flavors of its Xbox Series console back in November of 2020 - a more expensive and powerful "X" model appealing to hardcore enthusiasts arrived alongside an entry-level/budget friendly "S" system that featured lesser hardware specifications. The current generation Xbox consoles share the same custom AMD 8-core Zen 2 processor, albeit with different clock configurations, but the key divergence lies in Microsoft's choice of graphical hardware. The Series X packs an AMD "Scarlett" graphics processor with access to 16 GB of VRAM, while the Series S makes do with only 8 GB of high speed video memory with its "Lockhart" GPU.

Games studios have historically struggled to optimize their projects for the step down Xbox model - with software engineers complaining about memory allocation issues thanks to a smaller pool of VRAM - the Series S CPU and GPU have to fight over a total of 10 GB GDDR6 system memory. Microsoft listened to this feedback and made necessary changes last year - an updated SDK was released and a video briefing explained: "Hundreds of additional megabytes of memory are now available to Xbox Series S developers...This gives developers more control over memory, which can improve graphics performance in memory-constrained conditions."

Secure a time machine to 2005. The Xenon is a replica of the official Xbox 360 Controller - licensed with Designed for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and Windows 10|11 PCs, priced at $49.99. Pre-orders begin at MIDNIGHT PDT / May 5th via HyperkinStore.com. Announced in November of last year, the Xenon is a replica of the official Xbox 360 Controller. The Xenon is named after the codename of the Xbox 360's first console iteration. Although a replica of the official Xbox 360 controller, the Xenon will include some modern amenities for the Xbox Series X|S. It will initially come in four colors: black, white, pink and red.

Hyperkin has recreated the Xbox 360 Controller as an officially Xbox-licensed controller. The Xenon features precision analog triggers, a share button for Xbox Series X|S, vibration feedback for realistic experiences, a 3.5 mm headset jack, and a detachable 10 ft. Type-C cable. The Xenon takes you back to 2005, when you and your buds spent nights filled with fun, competition, and bonds that last to this day. You've come full circle.

Microsoft's official Xbox Twitter account has today announced that its official range of Xbox Series console storage expansion cards has been reduced in price: "Think of all the new games you'll be able to download and play now 👀. The Seagate Storage Expansion Card is now available starting at a lower price: xbx.lv/41e8t57." It is slightly odd that Seagate itself has not announced this lowering of gaming product MSRPs, but today's changes only affect the US market - European and UK listings feature the old prices (at the time of writing). It is not clear whether this discount is a permanent or temporary thing, but the latter is a more likely situation given rumors from last month.

It is very possible that Seagate is reacting to new competition - last month a Best Buy listing revealed that Western Digital is lining up to provide third party storage expansion cards for Xbox Series console owners. The leak of WD's incoming offerings indicated that it would be undercutting its arch rival in terms of pricing, at least with the single model that leaked (1 TB at $179.99) - Seagate has a timed exclusive agreement with Microsoft/Xbox for the licensed production/selling of proprietary cards. The officially sanctioned price drop brings the cards to more reasonable value levels, but Xbox owners have largely agreed that MSRPs were inflated from the beginning. The entry-level 512 GB Seagate model now costs $89.99 (a $50 reduction), the 1 TB model is now available at $149.99 (a $70 reduction) and the top-end 2 TB model gets the largest price slash (of $120) which brings it down to $279.99. Seagate appears to be undercutting WD's BLACK C50 1 TB model (if the Best Buy info leak price was accurate) by $30 with the official 1 TB storage expansion card.

Avalanche Software has released quite a big patch for Hogwarts Legacy, improving visual, performance, gameplay, and general stability. In addition to more than 500 bug fixes, it also brings the new Arachnophobia Mode.

Performance-wise, the newest patch resolves general crashes on the PC and various memory leaks, brings plenty of optimizations, fixes ray tracing issues, and more. It also updates minimum driver recommendation for NVIDIA graphics cards, updates NVIDIA DLSS to v3.1.2, AMD FSR to v2.2, and Intel XeSS to v1.1.

We're delighted to announce that the Xbox Games Showcase will be livestreamed on June 11 at 10am PT (local time zones below). Immediately after the Showcase, we'll be airing Starfield Direct, a deep-dive into Bethesda Game Studios' highly anticipated sci-fi RPG. Join us for some new surprises and first-looks from our incredibly talented internal studios, and our many creative partners around the world. This is the day gamers have been waiting for to see what is coming to Xbox, PC, and Game Pass.

Starfield Direct will invite you inside Bethesda Game Studios to learn much, much more about Starfield, with tons of new gameplay, developer interviews, and behind-the-scenes insider information. Like last year, we'll also have our follow-up stream, Xbox Games Showcase Extended airing June 13 at 10am PT, with in-depth interviews focused on the news from our Xbox Games Showcase as well as game updates from our partners.