"Our players deeply care about what Xbox is".

Earlier today, a new interview with Xbox president Sarah Bond was shared on YouTube by the folks at Fortune Magazine, and Bond had a particularly interesting response to a question about "redefining" the identity over at Xbox.

After spending a fair bit of the interview discussing the idea of "playing anywhere" and accessing your Xbox games across multiple devices, she was questioned about leading the brand through such a shift after multiple decades of being console-focused, and ultimately whether there's been some resistance towards that.

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No first-party games in the GOTY list.

Geoff Keighley & co. have just announced the nominations in each category for their upcoming The Game Awards show, and while two day one Game Pass titles make the main Game of the Year list, Xbox Game Studios misses out on any top-tier nominations.

The Game Awards' 2025 GOTY is as follows: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2, Donkey Kong Bananza, Hades 2, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. We've highlighted the two of these that released day one on Xbox Game Pass earlier this year.

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"Hardware is absolutely core to everything we do at Xbox.".

Xbox president Sarah Bond has been speaking with Fortune Magazine as part of a lengthy interview for YouTube today, where she's provided a few extra hints about what to expect from the next Xbox console and future Xbox hardware.

Sarah was questioned during the interview about how important hardware remains to Xbox in a future that's all about playing anywhere, and she insisted that it remains "absolutely core" to what the brand is doing right now:

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Featuring 007: First Light and more.

At the tail end of October, Windows Central's Jez Corden dropped a report detailing an Xbox Partner Preview event coming this month - and now an official Xbox Wire post has all the details on the upcoming third-party focused showcase.

Microsoft's next Xbox Partner Preview takes place at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm GMT on Thursday, November 20th. 007 First Light, Reanimal and Tides of Annihilation are three games that will be a part of the show, as confirmed by Microsoft.

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"Iceflake Studios will be taking the lead".

We've now passed the two-year mark since Cities: Skylines 2 released for PC Game Pass, and after another couple of years attempting to optimise the console version for an Xbox Game Pass launch, Paradox Interactive has parted ways with the game's developer; Colossal Order.

In an update on Paradox's forums, the team says that the two companies "have mutually decided to pursue independent paths". The Cities: Skylines franchise will now move to Iceflake Studios, who will deliver "free updates for the current version, continuous work on the Editor and console editions, as well as future expansions and content packs".

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Good luck playing this on a plane.

I mentioned last week how I've spent the past month barely turning on my Xbox Series X at all because of the ROG Xbox Ally X, and therefore all of my time with Black Ops 7 has been spent on the new premium handheld device so far.

It was revealed ahead of launch how Call of Duty: BO7 was being optimised for handheld devices including the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, and you definitely notice that right away when launching into the game. This is the kind of experience Xbox is aiming for - you boot it up, you jump into a match and everything just works fine.

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The latest freebies for XGP subscribers.

The Xbox Game Pass Perks program is continuing to add a bunch of freebies for Game Pass members throughout November 2025, including for the likes of Albion Online, The First Descendant, Apex Legends and a whole lot more.

Fortnite Crew is certainly stealing the show this month though, bringing tons of Fortnite rewards to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members from November 18th. We've covered this in more detail elsewhere on Pure Xbox:

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Even with releasing 3 games in a year.

The use of AI in video games is a hot topic at the moment - especially in the wake of the whole Tim Sweeney, ARC Raiders debacle from last week. We've also seen reports that Black Ops 7 contains some use of AI recently, but fellow Xbox studio Obsidian Entertainment has come to definitively say that it hasn't used the tech "at all" so far.

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Happy with the new Call of Duty?

We're still working away on our full Black Ops 7 review here at Pure Xbox, having delivered our initial campaign thoughts late last week. We weren't shy in saying that we didn't exactly have a great time with Black Ops 7's story mode - but we're now checking in to see what you think of the new Call of Duty game on Xbox Game Pass. Have you been enjoying it so far?

Of course, there's plenty more to Call of Duty than just its campaign mode - lots of folks play the game each year just for multiplayer and/or co-op. Black Ops 7 has plenty to offer in this regard too, with online and Zombies play arguably being the meatier portions of this year's Call of Duty package. The good news is that at this early stage, those two modes are shaping up much better in our opinion, which is nice to see.

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It's a PlayStation console exclusive for now though.

If you've happened to venture away from the Xbox ecosystem over the past few days, you may have noticed that a new game called Where Winds Meet has been proving extremely popular across Steam and the PlayStation Store.

This is a free-to-play open-world action-adventure RPG featuring a narrative-driven campaign that can either be played solo or in co-op, and the first reviews have been very good, with the game boasting a "Very Positive" rating on Steam.

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Including three major RPGs!

Microsoft has today revealed the next batch of five games set to leave Xbox Game Pass in late November, with these titles appearing in the "Leaving Soon" section of the Game Pass tab on the official Xbox mobile app.

We've got three particularly big ones here - Octopath Traveler, Octopath Traveler 2 and Lords Of The Fallen. The first two are classic Square Enix RPGs, while the latter is a pretty awesome action-RPG as well.

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Just two days after launch.

If you've been playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 today, you may have noticed that it's suddenly asking for an update - and that's because Treyarch has released the first post-launch update since it launched on November 14th.

There are only a few minor adjustments here across two areas of the title - Multiplayer and Zombies.

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