Rockstar Games opened its Launch Gallery on November 5 with a batch of fresh in-game screenshots, marking the final visual push before Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19. The images center on protagonists Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos as they move through robberies, quiet moments, and the crowded streets of Vice City and the wider state of Leonida.
Microsoft built a single Xbox Series X and sealed it inside a life-sized alligator that stretches more than five feet from snout to tail. The console remains fully playable. An illuminated Xbox Nexus button glows through the creature’s back so the machine can be powered on, while a custom wireless controller sits clenched between the open jaws, marked with simulated bite marks.
Photo credit: Ben Rowlands
Microsoft’s all-digital Xbox Series X in Robot White, priced at $599.99 today (was $749), removes the disc drive while keeping every bit of the original hardware performance intact. An eight-core custom Zen 2 processor runs at 3.8 GHz, paired with a custom RDNA 2 graphics processor delivering 12 teraflops across 52 compute units. Sixteen gigabytes of GDDR6 memory split into high-speed and standard pools handle the load, letting games target true 4K resolution with frame rates reaching 120 on compatible displays.
BioWare’s long run as one of the most influential studios in role-playing games ends today as Electronic Arts announced its closure along with the cancellation of early work on the next Mass Effect title. Founded in 1995 in Edmonton by a group of doctors who left medicine for game development, the studio built a reputation on titles that let players shape stories through dialogue choices and party companions. Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic established the approach before Mass Effect and Dragon Age turned it into a global franchise that players still revisit years later.
Xbox Series X owners can now boot certain PlayStation 5 titles on Microsoft’s console through an experimental port called PS5X. Developer Devran Cosmo Uenal built the project by adapting the open-source KytyPS5 emulator, which normally runs on Windows and Linux PCs, into a UWP application that operates exclusively inside Xbox Developer Mode. His September video showed the PS5 build of Quake II running with an Xbox controller, and three additional titles soon followed.
Microsoft has rolled out the Xbox Nano Controller today as its smallest option yet, measuring a little over five inches in length and weighing just 3.5 ounces. That makes it shorter and lighter than most modern smartphones, and a clear step down in bulk from the standard Xbox Wireless Controller, which runs closer to six inches wide and roughly ten ounces once batteries go in. Pre-orders opened immediately at $49.99, with stock set to reach stores in November across the United States and more than thirty other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and several across Europe and Latin America.
Game preservationist MattKC spotted an undocumented original Xbox copy of Burnout 3 on eBay this summer and paid a steep price to have it shipped from Australia. Printed on the face is July 28, 2004, the words Beta 3, and a warning that reads Confidential material: return to mastering lab. A name on the label, blurred in the video for privacy, belonged to a product manager at EA Australia, which fits the moment Electronic Arts bought Criterion and took the series in-house. How the disc left that office and landed on a public auction remains a guess.
Microsoft shipped the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, priced at $111.74 (was $150), in late 2019 as a heavier, more configurable pad built around metal parts, an internal battery, and a profile switch that lives on the face of the controller. Years later it still shows up in living rooms and on desks because the basics have held: four rear paddles, tension you can set with a small tool, trigger stops that shorten travel, and a grip that wraps far enough to keep sweaty hands from sliding during long sessions.
Electronic Arts spent nearly four years treating Motive Studio’s Iron Man game like a locked workshop. Announced in September 2022 as a single-player action adventure and the first title in a multi-game Marvel deal, the project then went dark. Fans filled the gap with rumors. Some of those rumors said the game was dead. Friday’s leak, and the company’s own reply a few hours later, said otherwise.
RedOctane Games used Gamescom Opening Night Live to set Stage Tour for December 10 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store.