• Western Digital Xbox Series X|S expansion card 512GB: $79.99
• Western Digital Xbox Series X|S expansion card 1TB: $149.99

Western Digital announces Xbox expandable storage cards, starting at $79.99 https://t.co/t7f1ohXxIp pic.twitter.com/X59zhSoC9R

— The Verge (@verge) June 6, 2023

Western Digital is Seagate’s first competitor when it comes to Series X|S storage expansion. These cards are a bit more affordable than Seagate’s offerings, although Seagate did (finally) give its cards a permanent price cut just last month, likely in anticipation of Western Digital’s announcement. Hopefully this will mark the beginning of more affordable storage Xbox Series X|S options.

To be clear, other storage options are usable, including non-SSD ones. However, to take advantage of the Xbox Series consoles’ speed and performance, these official storage solutions are needed. The Quick Resume feature requires either the Xbox’s internal SSD or these expansion cards, and some games require it outright to play.

Featured image via The Verge. 

The feat is all the more impressive when one considers that it took the Nintendo Switch (which has gone on to become one of the best-selling game systems ever) 12 weeks longer to accomplish the same. Comparatively, the Xbox 360 took 110 weeks to sell 2 million in the U.K., while the Xbox One reached the mark in 104 weeks.

Sony’s PlayStation 5 hit 2 million units sold in the U.K. back in October last year.

Late last year we reported that the Xbox Series X|S was one of the most popular consoles in the U.K. last year. The more affordable (and then more available) Series S was responsible for much of that success. But it’s good to see the Xbox’s success carry over there into 2023.

And current-gen gamers on Series X|S need all the storage they can get, with many modern AAA games taking well over 100GB of storage. For example, the recent Star Wars Jedi: Survivor weighs in at just over 135GB.

The 1TB cards are still not exactly easy on the wallet at the new price of $149.99. Other size options are now priced as follows:

• 512GB: $89.99
• 2TB: $279.99

That 2TB expansion card is still eye-watering at nearly the cost of an Xbox Series S console (and over half the price of a Series X). The official Xbox Twitter account announced that the price cuts were permanent following a week-long “discount” period.

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: https://t.co/qjgbTRuMeB pic.twitter.com/RovCaXADmd

— Xbox (@Xbox) May 5, 2023

If you’ve held out this long, you might want to wait a bit longer as a new competitor may be about to hit the scene in the form of Western Digital. We reported on this last month; and while the supposed $179.99 price point for the Western Digital 1TB card would no longer be the more affordable choice, a new player on the scene is likely what is needed to bring these prices down to a more reasonable level.

Via Tom’s Guide. 

The document also mentions that the next-generation Xbox already has a code name, though it is redacted in the document. The document states that this future hardware “is part of Microsoft’s
forward-looking strategy for its console, subscription, and cloud gaming businesses.”

The mention of cloud gaming here is particularly noteworthy. As you may recall, back in the summer of 2021 Microsoft CVP of Gaming Experiences and Platforms Liz Hamren said in a press briefing,

Cloud is key to our hardware and Game Pass roadmaps. But no one should think we’re slowing down on our core console engineering. In fact, we’re accelerating it. We’re already hard at work on new hardware and platforms, some of which won’t come to light for years.

We don’t yet know anything whatsoever about the future Xbox, but it would be a fairly safe bet going off these comments that cloud streaming may be an integral part of it. Only time will tell.

Perhaps it shouldn’t come as any surprise that team Xbox is already looking toward the next round of the console war and what it will ultimately offer up to go against the PlayStation 6 and whatever Nintendo brings to the market by that point.

Sony’s sales dominance

While the Xbox Series X|S is shaping up to bring the brand back to form (and we’ll dive more into that later), the PlayStation juggernaut seems to have somehow hit its stride despite the PS5 being the console most-affected by hardware component shortages. According to data from VGChartz, for the month of January 2023 the PlayStation 5 sold 1,257,932 units worldwide while the Xbox Series X|S sold 456,921, extending the sales gap between the two consoles by just over 800,000 units.

To put this in perspective, the units sold gap has increased in the PlayStation’s favor by over 5 million units (5,062,695) over the last 12 months as of January 2023. Altogether, the PS5 has sold 31,767,146 compared to the Xbox Series X|S 20,683,634 units sold globally. Again, this is as of January. As it stands at that point the PS5 is ahead of the Xbox Series X|S by 11,083,512.

Has Microsoft already lost the Xbox Series X|S vs PS5 battle?

So all this spells doom and gloom for Xbox, right? Not necessarily, when you put the data into context. Comparing aligned launches, the Series X|S is ahead of Xbox One by over 1 million units. PS5, on the other hand, is actually behind its PlayStation 4 predecessor by just under 5 million units at this point in each console’s respective lifespan. And as VGChartz also reported back in October last year, the year-to-date sales figures at that time had shown a decline in overall hardware sales from 2021-2022 for both Nintendo and Sony, while Xbox enjoyed significant sales growth year on year for that same period, according to their data.

There are two important factors to take note of here. One of them is the Xbox Series S and its attractive price tag. There is no denying the Series S has accounted for much of Xbox’s success thus far in this console generation, with half of all Series S sales reportedly going to gamers new to the Xbox ecosystem.

Also there are the aforementioned hardware shortages that have plagued all three major home gaming console makers to varying degrees since 2020. Which ties in to the success of the Series S specifically, as it has been less affected by component shortages than its bigger, beefier Series X sibling. Sony has been most impacted—so much so to the point that Xbox Series X|S has managed to outrun Sony’s newest console in weekly sales even in Japan a couple times in 2022.

Xbox Series X|S vs PS5 and the Activision Blizzard deal

It will be interesting to see how all this will tie into Microsoft’s bid to strengthen its position by acquiring Activision Blizzard King. The Redmond giant has repeatedly pointed out its distant third-place position in the home gaming console market in its arguments to persuade government regulators to approve the deal. The argument, while not without merit, has to be taken with the caveat that the Xbox brand does seem to be gaining ground, as it did manage to pry a very small percentage of market share away from Sony in 2022. If Microsoft is ultimately successful in securing the Activision Blizzard deal, it will mean an enormous boon for Xbox that could justify the enormous price tag.

Featured image via Wired.com. 

This update forces Xbox Series X and Series S users to use their consoles’ Shutdown (energy- saving) power option. This option is more energy efficient than the Sleep (Instant-On) option, which uses more power than Shutdown (energy-savings) when in standby mode.

Force the shutdown settings you want on Xbox Series X or S

Here’s how to prep your console to change the shutdown settings on Xbox Series X or S consoles:

1. Press and hold the power button on the front of the console for 10 seconds. This will force the console to turn off.
2. Once the console is off, unplug the power cord from the back of the console.
3. Wait for at least 30 seconds before plugging the power cord back in.
4. Press the power button again to turn the console back on.
5. Once the console has fully booted up, press the Xbox button on your controller to open the guide.

Once you are in the Xbox guide, here’s how to configure your Xbox Series S | X to shutdown or go to sleep when you turn off your Xbox console.

Shutdown (energy-saving option)

In shutdown mode, your Xbox Series X or S console is shut down in order to save electricity. It is the lowest power consumption mode, but it may take up to 45 seconds for your console to start up and you may need to press the Xbox button on either the controller or the console first to power up your console.

To change this setting, follow these steps:

1. Press the Xbox button to open the guide.
2. Go to Profile & system > Settings > General > Power options.
3. Choose the Shutdown (energy-saving) option.

Sleep option

In sleep, your console is put into low-power mode when you’re not actively playing games. Your Xbox Series X or S sleeps instead of turning off, but the downside is that this option uses more electricity and thus more power. This setting is needed for the remote wake and fast boot options and helps the console boot up faster, even letting you use your voice to turn on the console.

Here’s how to change this setting:

1. Press the Xbox button to open the guide.
2. Go to Profile & system > Settings > General > Power options > Customize power options.
3. Choose the Sleep option.

Other power options

You can also change the shutdown settings you want on Xbox Series X or S by changing when your console shuts down or goes to sleep after a period of inactivity as well as other power options, here’s what to do:

1. Press the Xbox button to open the guide.
2. Go to Profile & system > Settings > General > Power options > Customize power options.
3. Choose the options you want for your Xbox Series X or S console.

What power settings do you use on your Xbox Series X or S console? Let us know in the comments!

In 2022, 269,737 Xbox Series X|S consoles were sold in Japan. This brings the total number of units sold since launch to 398,395 and also makes it clear that last year was the most successful one for the current Xbox console generation.

It’s worth noting that this report makes no distinction between the premium Xbox Series X console and the more wallet-friendly Xbox Series S. Sales of both are conflated.

Compared to the rival video game consoles, Microsoft’s Xbox consoles came in third behind Nintendo’s Switch (4,804,546) and Sony’s PlayStation 5 (1,154,054) and beat out sales of the last-gen PlayStation 4 (22,823) and Nintendo 3DS (10,449) consoles.

While the Switch and PS5 clearly outsold Xbox Series X|S consoles overall in 2022, the Xbox consoles did, on occasion, sell better than the PS5.

The change was officially announced earlier this week as part of a 2022-2023 financial report released by Ubisoft.

“The additional time has already paid off and brought impressive improvements to its quality, which has been confirmed by recent playtests,” the passage in the report relating to Skull and Bones reads. “We believe players will be positively surprised by its evolution. We have decided to postpone its release in order to have more time to showcase a much more polished and balanced experience and to build awareness. Skull and Bones will now be released early 2023-24.”

An upcoming beta testing period for Skull and Bones was also mentioned though such a test was always expected pre-launch given the online nature of the video game.

Are you disappointed by the constant Skull and Bones delays? Share your thoughts with the community in the comments below.

The first volume will feature 432 pages focusing on key art from the game’s opening movie in addition to concept and development art relating to Elden Ring’s open-world, dungeons, characters, and armors.

The second Elden Ring art book will have 384 pages and will focus on the game’s villains, weapons, and items.

While the official cover artwork for each volume has yet to be added to Amazon listings for each volume, a look at both the covers and interior artwork can be seen on the Amazon Japan listings as both the first and second Elden Ring art books have already been released in Japan.

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This switch will not be irreversible, however. Rather, this update will merely set the default power option for Xbox Series X|S consoles to Shutdown (Energy Saver). Users will still be able to set the power option to Sleep/Standby if they choose. The energy saver power mode default was only implemented in Series X|S consoles shipped since last March.

The Sleep/Standby power option allows users to boot the console instantly, but of course uses more energy while in Standby. Conversely, Shutdown uses less while the console is off but takes around 15 seconds to boot. Microsoft says that,

For every 2 consoles that switch to Shutdown (energy saving) for one year, we will save the equivalent amount of carbon removed by 1 tree planted and grown for a decade.”

That really puts into perspective the power consumption gap between the two modes.

Today’s sustainability post on Xbox Wire announced that Xbox is the first gaming system to offer carbon aware downloads and updates. The post also points out other ways Xbox gamers can help, such as setting up a carbon aware Xbox by choosing automatic updates and selecting Shutdown (energy saver) as the power option.