Microsoft’s annual holiday sweater release has arrived, and this year they’ve thrown caution to the wind by creating three sweaters commemorating the good, terrible, and ugly of Microsoft history. Each of them is essentially a wearable essay on the company’s greatest achievements and mistakes, a jumble of software flaws, faded content that no one remembers, and console releases that changed everything, for better or worse.
Back in the late 1990s, people who spent their evenings fiddling with their motherboards and looking for the latest driver updates frequently fantasized about the day when a full-fledged PC could fit in a backpack. Laptops did exist, of course, but they were similar to carrying a little anvil and running hot enough to give you a warm glow, almost like a space heater. The goal was to create something far more portable, light enough to fit into an everyday carry without hesitation. Fast forward to 2025, and that dream has finally come true thanks to modder Changliang Li, who converted a surplus Pentium processor into a handheld system that boots directly into – you guessed it – Windows 98.
Microsoft has spent years developing its cloud streaming service, and today is the big moment. After more than five years in beta, Xbox Cloud Gaming has transitioned from preview to full production. Subscribers can now stream games at higher resolutions, with improved visuals and smoother animation, without the need for a high-end console or PC. These improvements will primarily affect the top-tier Game Pass Ultimate subscription, but they will also extend cloud access to lower-tier plans.
A single frame from Halo: Campaign Evolved depicts Master Chief standing on the Ring’s beach, with sunlight cutting through palm fronds so sharp you can count the veins. Twenty-four years after the original Halo debuted on a clunky Xbox, the same shore shines in Unreal Engine 5.
Tito Perez of Macho Nacho Productions spent months staring at a grainy photograph of Microsoft’s 2000 Xbox prototype. A 40-pound X carved from solid aluminum, polished so it mirrored the room like a dark mirror, and topped with a glowing green diamond. The original is kept away at Microsoft headquarters, a relic that no one could touch. So he created his own, a version that could actually play games.
Holiday decorations are frequently locked in traditional patterns – snowmen, reindeer, and lines of dazzling lights that have illuminated living rooms for generations. But Hallmark’s latest Keepsake ornament mixes things up in a really exciting way. The ornament resembles an old Xbox 360 console – yep, the one from nearly two decades ago – and is 3.25 inches tall, perfectly capturing late-night gaming sessions and heroic fights against extraterrestrial opponents.
Microsoft’s latest move pulls one of its oldest visual hits straight from the screen and onto your feet. These Crocs, built around the Windows XP Bliss wallpaper, hit the company’s online store this week at $79.95 a pair. The bundle packs in more than just shoes—there’s a drawstring backpack patterned after that same famous hill and sky, plus a set of six charms that clip onto the clogs and summon up chunks of early computing life.
Photo credit: Dan DeLong for Microsoft
Cooling computer chips is a quiet war in the tech world; as AI pushes silicon to the limit, they are hotter than ever and traditional cooling is failing to keep up. Microsoft’s new discovery, microfluidics, can change the game by cooling from within.
Photo credit: SpawnPoiint
Preorders for Microsoft’s new portable gaming push began today, along with the prices for the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X. Both will be available on October 16, but the pricing has already sparked some concerns. These handhelds, priced at $599 for the base model and $999 for the X, are more comparable to high-end laptops than the consoles that many gamers are accustomed to.
