Xbox Game Studios' Phil Spencer announced a new Xbox today at Summer Game Fest. The new console variant will provide 1TB of storage (double the previous amount) in a sleek “carbon black” colorway. As the company notes, its September 1st launch means it’s “just in time for Starfield,” the highly anticipated game that arrives on September 6th.

“Whether you’re looking to upgrade from your current console or are new to Xbox, the Xbox Series S – 1TB offers you another option within the Xbox family of devices,” Xbox said in a blog post. In addition, it says its carbon black color is “the same sleek, modern matte finish” as the Xbox Series X and Xbox Wireless Controller.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

If you're in the market for a quality controller without breaking the bank, now might be a good opportunity. Microsoft's Xbox Elite Series 2 Controller in black is 19 percent off, dropping from $180 to $145. Though it's not the lowest we've seen, it's still a decent-sized drop from its retail price. 

The Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 is a solid option for Xbox gamers, regardless of your system of choice, as it's compatible with Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and Windows 10 or 11 devices through Xbox Wireless or Bluetooth. There's also an option to connect it with an included USB-C cord. You can swap parts like D-pads and paddles, save up to three unique profiles to the controller and explore button mapping options through the Xbox Accessories app. It also holds up to 40 hours of battery life.

Microsoft's Xbox Wireless Headset is also on sale, down from $100 to $85 — a 15 percent discount. The headphones are compatible across the same systems as Xbox's wireless controller, such as Xbox Series X|S. Additional features include auto-mute, voice isolation and up to 15 hours of battery life. The headphones have sound technologies like Dolby Atmos and Windows Sonic, with volume control dials located on the left earcup.

The wireless headset is still a good $40 more than its wired counterpart, but if free movement is important to you, the discount certainly helps. If you're looking to update all your accessories for the summer, the sale brings the total price of the wireless headset and controller to $230 — saving you $50 overall.

It's not a handheld console, but Sony is preparing to release a device that will allow PlayStation 5 users to stream their favorite games to a portable display. Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan shared the existence of "Project Q" on Wednesday during the company's PlayStation Showcase. He said the device would allow PlayStation gamers to stream any PS5 game, excluding PlayStation VR2 titles, over WiFi and the company's Remote Play protocol. The device features an 8-inch "HD display" and "all the buttons and features" found on a DualSense controller. Ryan did not say how much the device would cost but promised Sony would share more information about Project Q soon. 

Apparently, the PlayStation VR2 sold way better than its predecessor in the weeks after it became available. During a business presentation, Sony has revealed (PDF) that it sold almost 600,000 PS VR2 units within its first six weeks of availability. That's around 8 percent more than its PS VR sales for the same time window. As PushSquare notes, that number only covers sales until the beginning of April, so Sony has most likely already crossed the 600,000 threshold. Especially since the headset is now available at retailers after being exclusively sold for two months at Sony's website. 

In addition to announcing PS VR2's successful launch, Sony has also shared some information on its future plans. Apparently, the company intends to put more and more money into developing new franchises for the PlayStation over the next few years. By fiscal year 2025, it's aiming for a 50-50 split of PlayStation Studios investments' between old and new IPs. Based on the graph it presented, it's mostly been focusing on well-known franchises for the console, such as God of War and Horizon, these past years. In 2019, for instance, it only put 20 percent of its investments on the development of new properties. For fiscal year 2023, its focus is still on current IPs, though not by much: 40 percent of its PlayStation Studios investments will go towards new franchises. 

One other area that Sony intends to put more money in is live service games like Destiny 2 and MLB: The Show. By fiscal year 2025, it expects 60 percent of its PS5 investments to go towards live services and 40 percent towards traditional games. Further, the company expects sales from add-on or downloadable content to keep growing in the future. Sony has also revealed that it expects the PS5 to overtake the PS4 on all key metrics very soon. It believes the PS5 would have more monthly active users playing more hours on the newer console by February 2024. To note, Sony sold more PS5 units than it predicted for fiscal year 2022 after it solved its supply chain crisis to release more consoles. 

The popular Backbone One is an excellent accessory that brings a controller-like experience to your iPhone or Android device. It was so successful that the company collaborated with Sony last year to build a PlayStation Edition. This model replaces all of the face buttons with the traditional PlayStation controller layout, with a white finish to match. The PlayStation Edition has been exclusively available for iPhone, until today. Backbone and Sony have collaborated once again to bring the PlayStation Edition variant to Android devices.

As a refresher, the Backbone One PlayStation Edition is an accessory designed in collaboration with Sony that is the closest you’ll get to having a DualSense controller while on the go. Sony says that it will be detected as a DualSense controller within its own PS Remote Play app. That means you’ll be able to play your PS4 or PS5’s catalog of games with something that looks and feels similar to a standard DualSense controller, regardless of whether you have an iPhone or an Android device. Though, you don’t necessarily need this controller specifically to play your games through PS Remote Play. Other controllers will work similarly, just without the special controller detection.

Of course, you’re not exclusively tied to PS Remote Play. The Backbone One will be compatible with other game streaming apps including Xbox Game Pass, Nvidia GeForce Now and Microsoft Luna. The controller accessory will also work with any other games that support standard hardware controllers such as Call of Duty: Mobile. The Backbone One PlayStation Edition for Android will be available starting today for $99.

A variety of Razer's gaming accessories and peripherals are currently discounted on Amazon, including its Blackwidow V3 TKL keyboard, a favorite of gamers at Engadget. Normally retailing at $100, the silent version is 20 percent off at $80, while the clicky model is 15 percent off at $85. Both models support 16.8 million colors across the keys and can handle up to 80 million clicks.

The Kraken X headset is also on sale with a 48 percent discount bringing the 7.1 surround sound headphones down from $60 to $31. They feature a noise-canceling microphone along with volume and mute buttons right on the left earcup.

Razer's Viper Ultralight Mouse has one of the biggest discounts, with a 50 percent slash dropping the price from $80 to $40. The ambidextrous mouse has an 8000Hz polling rate, meaning there's next to no input latency. The woven wire means there are no concerns about battery life while still allowing for smooth movements. It also holds up to five stored profiles and utilizes the Focus+ 20K Optical Sensor for features like motion sync.

Rounding out the Razer gaming basics currently on sale is the Wolverine V2 Chroma controller for Xbox, with a 27 percent discount bringing the price from $150 to $110. Like with the Blackwidow V3 TKL keyboard, gamers can customize it with 16.8 million colors and light effects. The controller also offers four extra triggers and two remappable bumpers. Users can change the color effects and button controls through the Razer Control Setup for Xbox app.

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Sony may be having some problems with PlayStation Plus games today. Commenters in forum posts on Reddit, ResetEra and NeoGAF report various users being alerted to an alert, reading, “The game will expire in 15 minutes,” and then booting them to the PlayStation home screen. Engadget’s Kris Holt also ran into the issue Wednesday evening while playing Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.

Users experiencing the glitch say it appears to happen with any game in the PS Plus catalog. Fortunately, you can apparently return to the game from the home screen and quickly continue playing. However, the cycle seems to repeat in regular 15-minute (and possibly other) increments.

It isn’t yet clear how widespread the issue is. (Some users in the Reddit post claim they’re playing PS Plus games without problems.) Additionally, the bug doesn’t have any known fixes. PlayStation hasn’t yet acknowledged the issue publicly; Engadget has reached out to ask for a comment, and we will update this article if or when we hear back.

It's Global Accessibility Awareness Day and Microsoft is marking the occasion by highlighting some of the steps it has taken to make the Xbox ecosystem more inclusive. For one thing, the Xbox web store now has accessibility filters for console, PC and cloud games. There are 20 options, including gameplay settings — even just being able to pause is an important consideration for many folks as they decide whether to buy a game.

You'll also be able to filter games by audio, visual and input features. There's the option to look for games based on supported languages as well. At the outset, you can filter games by 17 languages. The web store filters build on a similar feature Microsoft brought to the Xbox PC app earlier this month. The filters are available on Xbox consoles too.

Elsewhere, Microsoft has expanded the Xbox accessibility support pages. They now cover more than 150 accessibility features, settings and controls for PC and consoles. Recent additions include a page that details how to adjust thumbstick settings in the Xbox Accessories app.

Microsoft has been doing a lot of positive work on the accessibility front both at the system level and in individual games. For instance, it recently offered an early look at many of the accessibility settings that will be available in Forza Motorsport.

Sony is set to kick off a busy spell of gaming events as it will host a PlayStation Showcase next week. You'll be able to watch the stream at 4PM ET on May 24th on YouTube and Twitch. The company says the showcase will run for just over an hour and it will focus on PS5 and PS VR2 games. Expect to see first-party titles as well as games from third-party partners and indie studios.

As for the specific games Sony plans to spotlight, it's a pretty safe bet that we'll get more details on Marvel's Spider-Man 2, the biggest PlayStation Studios game that's currently on the docket for the rest of this year. It's scheduled to arrive this fall, but perhaps Sony will reveal a firm release date next week. (Sidenote: check out the prequel comic if you haven't done so. It's a good read.)

We may also learn more about the standalone The Last of Us multiplayer game, while rumors have been swirling for a while that the showcase will include Mortal Kombat and Metal Gear Solid announcements. In any case, the showcase is likely to be a bigger deal than a typical State of Play stream. With over an hour to fill, here's hoping for a lot of exciting news on the PS5 and PS VR2 fronts.

Microsoft has overcome a significant hurdle in its attempt to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. As expected, the European Union has rubberstamped the acquisition. The European Commission (the EU's executive arm) said Microsoft will have to ensure full compliance with the commitments it has made to offer its games on other platforms, particularly cloud gaming services.

Activision does not yet offer its titles on cloud gaming services. EC regulators determined that the game streaming market is relatively small as things stand and having Activision games available on cloud platforms could help it to grow. Were Microsoft to offer Activision games exclusively on its own cloud service, that could have impaired competition, the EU said. 

Microsoft has signed 10-year deals with Nintendo and cloud gaming services such as NVIDIA GeForce Now and Boosteroid to make its own games and Activision's available on them. As such, regulators said Microsoft's commitments "fully address the competition concerns identified by the Commission and represent a significant improvement for cloud gaming as compared to the current situation." 

"Video games attract billions of users all over the world. In such a fast-growing and dynamic industry, it is crucial to protect competition and innovation. Our decision represents an important step in this direction, by bringing Activision’s popular games to many more devices and consumers than before thanks to cloud game streaming," the EC's competition chief Margrethe Vestager said. "The commitments offered by Microsoft will enable for the first time the streaming of such games in any cloud game streaming services, enhancing competition and opportunities for growth."

"The EC conducted an extremely thorough, deliberate process to gain a comprehensive understanding of gaming. As a result, they approved our merger with Microsoft, although they required stringent remedies to ensure robust competition in our rapidly growing industry," Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said in a statement. "We intend to meaningfully expand our investment and workforce throughout the EU, and we’re excited for the benefits our transaction brings to players in Europe and around the world."

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked the Activision acquisition last month over concerns that it would give Microsoft too much of a dominant position in the cloud gaming market, though it does not believe the takeover would pose a threat to competition in the console ecosystem. Microsoft is appealing the CMA's decision. That process is likely to take months to resolve.

In response to the EU's decision, the CMA stood by its claim that Microsoft would still have too much power in the cloud gaming space. "Microsoft’s proposals, accepted by the European Commission today, would allow Microsoft to set the terms and conditions for this market for the next 10 years," the CMA wrote on Twitter. "They would replace a free, open and competitive market with one subject to ongoing regulation of the games Microsoft sells, the platforms to which it sells them and the conditions of sale."

On the console side of the equation, the EU has determined that "Microsoft would have no incentive to refuse to distribute Activision's games to Sony." It noted that Sony is the world's biggest distributor of console games and that in the European Economic Area (EEA), there are four PlayStations for every Xbox sold. The EC suggests that would give Microsoft "strong incentives" to keep offering Activision games on PlayStation.

Even so, were Microsoft to pull Activision titles from Sony platforms, "this would not significantly harm competition in the consoles market," according to the EU. "Even if Call of Duty is largely played on console, it is less popular in the EEA than in other regions of the world, and is less popular in the EEA within its genre compared to other markets," the bloc said. "Therefore, even without being able to offer this specific game, Sony could leverage its size, extensive games catalog and market position to fend off any attempt to weaken its competitive position."

Much of the discourse related to the acquisition has centered on Call of Duty and how eager Sony was to stop Microsoft from making that series exclusive to its platforms (something Microsoft says doesn't make sense for it to do). Call of Duty games are said to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to Sony's bottom line every year, but cloud gaming has been the bigger sticking point for UK and EU regulators.

In December, the US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal over concerns it "would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business." A hearing in that case is scheduled for August 2nd. Although Microsoft and Activision Blizzard face a tough battle to push the deal through in the UK and the US, the EU approval gives the companies some more momentum.