Xbox may finally be giving Game Pass the overhaul it badly needs

The planned overhaul could let players pay for individual Game Pass features instead of relying entirely on fixed subscription tiers.

Microsoft has spent years treating Game Pass as the centerpiece of Xbox, but the subscription service has become something of a problem for the company. Subscriber growth has fallen far short of internal expectations, while putting expensive first-party games on the service from day one has reportedly hurt the full-price sales Microsoft still relies on.

According to Fortune, Sharma is planning a major Game Pass overhaul that would let players choose some features à la carte, including add-ons for console-only games, cloud gaming, and multiplayer, while keeping a tiered subscription structure.

Xbox Project Helix is eyeing a 2028 launch, but the price could be as high as $1,800

As per internal estimates, Project Helix could cost between $1,200 to $1,800, unless Microsoft decides to sell it at a loss.

Microsoft has made plenty of waves with its upcoming Project Helix console, and it appears the company is planning a whole family of devices rather than a single gaming box. Beyond the expected performance leap, it seems the upcoming console will deliver another surprise, and not the good kind, mind you. Here's a hint: an astronomical price hike.

According to an expansive profile of Xbox chief Asha Sharma, Microsoft is eyeing a next-gen handheld for 2027, followed by Project Helix in 2028. The catch is the price. The next-gen Xbox could carry a steep asking price unless Microsoft absorbs part of the cost and eats into its margins, or even sells the console at a loss in the hope of making the money back through its services.

AMD drops FSR 4.1 on five-year-old Radeon graphics cards, and Xbox is next

AMD just breathed new life into RX 6000 cards months ahead of schedule

AMD gave RX 6000 users some good news earlier this year, but followed it up by making them wait till 2027. But now, Team Red seems to be moving ahead of schedule. FSR Upscaling 4.1 is now officially available on Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards, with support arriving through the new Adrenalin 26.10.1 driver.

It is still several months earlier than AMD's previous early-2027 target and brings its machine-learning upscaler to a GPU family that first appeared all the way back in 2020. AMD's Jack Huynh confirmed that support stretches from the RX 6900 series down to the RX 6400 class, with the company retuning the model and optimizing its execution for the older architecture.