What if survival meant facing the versions of yourself you never became? The version of you who chose family over going to college? The version of you who chased down your high school sweetheart and made her your wife or the version of you who lost her? In The Alters, the upcoming sci-fi game from 11 bit studios (makers of This War of Mine and Frostpunk), where survival has never been so personal, the path to salvation begins with a question as old as humanity: What if I had chosen differently? Revealed today as part of the 2025 Triple-I Initiative, 11 bit studios announced that The Alters will launch on June 13, 2025, arriving on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and day one on Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass.

Stranded on a hostile planet and racing against a deadly sunrise, Jan Dolski's only chance of survival is to create "alters"—alternate versions of himself shaped by roads not taken. Each Jan comes with unique skills, personalities, and memories tied to a different life choice. But they also come with conflict, doubt, and emotional baggage. Managing the mission means managing yourself—literally. Players must maintain a mobile base, make time-critical decisions, build relationships with their Alters, and confront the consequences of their own past lives.

Accessibility is a fundamental right for people with disabilities and makes technology easier for everyone. We see this reflected in how customers are using Microsoft technologies around the world. Copilot for Microsoft 365 is unlocking workplace productivity like never before, more than 10 million people use Edge each month to have the web Read Aloud, over 1 million people use Immersive Reader to make webpages easier to read and partners like Tobii Dynavox and Special Olympics are bringing AI to people with disabilities globally. And these are just some of the highlights of what we shared today! Here's a quick summary of the new accessibility products, features and programs announced at the 2025 Ability Summit.

What's new in 2025?
We announced that the Xbox Adaptive Joystick is now available for purchase exclusively at Microsoft Store. With more than 429 million players with disabilities worldwide, we know each player has unique needs and preferences for how they choose to play. The Xbox Adaptive Joystick is a singular, wired controller primarily designed to meet the needs of players with limited mobility. Its versatility helps players seamlessly incorporate it into their existing gaming setups. Built with the Gaming and Disability community who inform the development of Xbox products from the beginning. The joystick joins our family of adaptive accessories including the mouse, pen, adaptive kit and Xbox Adaptive Controller. For more details visit Xbox Support.

One of the main pillars that vendors of Arm-based processors often cite as a competitive advantage versus x86 processors is a keen focus on energy efficiency and predictability of performance. In the quest for higher efficiency and performance, Arm vendors have largely designed out the ability to operate on multiple threads concurrently—something that most enterprise-class CPUs have enabled for years under the technology description of "SMT"—which was also created in the name of enabling performance and efficiency benefits.

Arm vendors often claim that SMT brings security risks, creates performance unpredictability from shared resource contention and drives added cost and energy needed to implement SMT. Interestingly, Arm does support multi-threading in its Neoverse E1-class processor family for embedded uses such as automotive. Given these incongruities, this blog intends to provide a bit more clarity to help customers assess what attributes of performance and efficiency really bring them value for their critical workloads.

People are using AI more and more at home, at work, in school, and everywhere in between. According to the most recent Microsoft Global Online Safety Survey, there has been a global increase in active generative AI users. Our findings showed that in 2024, 51% of people are users or experimenters of generative AI compared to 38% in 2023. Generation Z continues to drive this adoption with 64% of young adults reporting ever using the technology. That means it's up to us - especially those of us who work in technology and gaming - to make sure that young people have the support they need to navigate the world of AI safely while also fostering their curiosity and creativity in exploring these new technologies.

That's why, for Safer Internet Day 2025, Minecraft Education is releasing a new installment in the CyberSafe series where players can explore the risks and opportunities of AI use through fun, game-based challenges. In each instance, players are tasked with articulating guidelines for how to use AI safely and responsibly. Welcome to CyberSafe AI: Dig Deeper, available free on the Minecraft Marketplace and in Minecraft Education!

Thursday, January 23 was a big day for all of us at Compulsion Games. In addition to being a part of Developer_Direct, where members of our studio team shared more about the gameplay, look, and feel of South of Midnight, our third-person action-adventure game set in the American Deep South, we announced our release date of April 8, 2025, and early access beginning April 3. If that wasn't enough, we also released our brand-new story trailer, which expands on the narrative of South of Midnight, while including all-new gameplay, characters, and mythical creatures from the game. We're so excited to share more about South of Midnight, which is available now for pre-orders.

The Story of South of Midnight
In our story trailer, protagonist Hazel and her mother are preparing for the impending hurricane. The storm proves massive, causing catastrophic flooding-and causing their own home to be swept down river with her mother in it. Its aftermath shows the fictional town of Prospero, located in the southern United States, eerily calm while irrevocably changed from the hurricane's destruction. Here, Hazel undertakes a journey in search of her mother, while finding out more about herself and her family's lineage in the process. Hazel begins to see fantastical phenomena all over Prospero, including meeting Catfish, an enormous—and talking—creature in his own right, stuck in a tree following the hurricane's destruction. Catfish tells Hazel she is a Weaver, someone who possesses magical powers and can see how our threads connect to form the woven tapestry of our fates.

Jim Ryan—President & CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment—revealed a sobering restructuring plan earlier today: "The PlayStation community means everything to us, so I felt it was important to update you on a difficult day at our company. We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people, subject to local law and consultation processes. Employees across the globe, including our studios, are impacted." Ryan's full email—addressed to the entire Sony Interactive Entertainment workforce—can be found here. It reveals that company leadership has decided to close its PlayStation London Studio—the South East UK team is/was reportedly working on an announced "PS5 online game." Microsoft revealed a larger scale layoff program late last month—affecting 1900 employees—albeit without shuttering any major development studios. A number of its California-based teams are in the process of ditching "traditional" office locations (including a former aircraft hangar), and are moving to a work from home (WFH) model.

The SIE chief believes that current circumstances are not sustainable: "These are incredibly talented people who have been part of our success, and we are very grateful for their contributions. However, the industry has changed immensely, and we need to future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead. We need to deliver on expectations from developers and gamers and continue to propel future technology in gaming, so we took a step back to ensure we are set up to continue bringing the best gaming experiences to the community." His email outlines an "impact for employees across all SIE regions—Americas, EMEA, Japan, and APAC," with reductions affecting native development teams and Firesprite, a Liverpool, UK-based studio (founded by former Psygnosis veterans). Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios, also posted a blog entry on the subject of SIE global layoffs—he confirmed a number of reductions and project cancellations.

We are excited to introduce the The Mountain Royals DLC for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition! Unlock the rich history and untold stories of two remarkable civilizations, available now to pre-order with a 15% discount! Our teams have been working on The Mountain Royals for some time, expanding the storytelling of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. As we announce this DLC publicly and make it available for pre-order, we're aware of the events currently affecting modern day Armenians. The Mountain Royals has not been designed as a comment or reference to modern day events.

The Georgians
Carve out a sturdy kingdom in the shadow of the Caucasus Mountains and use the rugged terrain to your advantage as you repulse countless foreign invasions. The Georgian unique unit is the Monaspa, a brawny cavalry unit whose strength increases in numbers. During the early medieval period, the regions south of the Caucasus Mountains were divided among numerous petty kingdoms that eluded foreign dominance largely through geographical isolation. Although the Byzantine Empire occasionally attempted to extend its influence into these polities, no significant lasting gains were made. However, the constant threat of foreign invasion catalyzed a gradual shift towards unity. In the early 11th century, Bagrat III finally succeeded in gathering these formerly squabbling states into the Kingdom of Georgia.

Players come to Xbox to build friendships, be competitive, and to experience incredible games - and they expect to be treated fairly, for interactions to be free of hate or harassment. Our investments in safety have helped players feel safer across text, video, and image - and our new voice reporting experience is the latest addition to our robust suite of family and online safety features.

Starting this week, we are releasing a new platform-wide voice reporting feature to Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead Xbox Insiders, that gives players the option to capture and report inappropriate in-game voice chats. More specifically, this feature equips Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One players with the ability to capture a 60-second video clip of an in-game voice incident that they believe violates our Community Standards and submit it as evidence to our Xbox Safety Team for review. This feature is purpose-built to support the broadest arena of in-game interactions between players and works across thousands of games that offer in-game multiplayer voice chat, including Xbox 360 backward-compatible titles.

This July, as part of Disability Pride Month, Team Xbox proudly celebrates players, creators, and community members with disabilities. More than 400 million video game players have disabilities worldwide, and we recognize the incredible contributions the gaming and disability community has made in making Team Xbox, and the broader gaming industry, more inclusive and welcoming for everyone.

Disability Pride holds a special place in my heart, as I am not only a Program Manager on our Gaming Accessibility Team, but also a person with disabilities. Most people wouldn't think of me as having a disability at first glance. In fact, I didn't know I had disabilities until I was in my 20's when I was diagnosed as being neurodiverse. Now I know that I have had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Sensory Processing Disorder since I was a young child. And, as the years have gone by, I've acquired new disabilities due to illness, injury, and trauma. Chronic pain is now part of my life, as is hearing loss, and anxiety and depression related to complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

At Xbox, we have the fundamental commitment to provide all players with a safe and secure experience on our platform - and this is especially true for our youngest players. We frequently iterate on our safety measures, in collaboration and with feedback from the community, regulators and partners. We recently entered into a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to update our account creation process and resolve a data retention glitch found in our system. Regrettably, we did not meet customer expectations and are committed to complying with the order to continue improving upon our safety measures. We believe that we can and should do more, and we'll remain steadfast in our commitment to safety, privacy, and security for our community.

Our two decades of safety experience has taught us that all players want, and need, safety and privacy protections. Since 2005, when we launched the first console that could connect players online, we've continued to invest in tools and technologies to protect our community. That work evolved into a multifaceted safety strategy. Our suite of safety, privacy and security measures are designed to respect player privacy and safety, and empower players, as well as parents and caregivers, to have control over their gaming experiences.

The Meteor Lake codename has been linked to the fourteenth generation of Intel's Core lineup for a while, following several significant leaks in 2022 and 2023. According to newly unearthed internal documentation and benchmark data, Intel has confirmed that the Meteor Lake family of CPUs will form its upcoming 14th Gen Core lineup - with laptop variations expected to arrive mid-2023 and heavily speculated desktop units in the fourth quarter, although a middle of the year refresh of Raptor Lake could push the entire Meteor Lake range's release window into 2024.

Meteor Lake is anticipated to be Intel's debuting of a "disaggregated" design - the most advanced laptop CPU variant features a top-of-the-line 6P+8E core configuration. Intel is solely responsible for fabrication of an IOE (I/O) tile (the company's own term for a chiplet) with PCIe 5.0 plus Thunderbolt 4, as well as an SoC tile. The GPU part of the design is rumored to be based on their own Arc Alchemist architecture, and TSMC has been contracted to manufacture this graphics tile - not a big surprise since Intel has also placed substantial manufacturing orders for discrete Arc cards with the Taiwanese foundry.