Tom Warren
@tomwarren
Senior Correspondent @theverge.com ║ Sign up to Notepad, my weekly newsletter on Microsoft's big bets at ║ Tips? msg me on Signal: tomwarren.01
honestly, fuck LG for adding these notifications at startup on their TVs. I had every option for promotions disabled in the system settings, but they added new ones through the built in apps. I’ll never ever own anything LG ever again.
Meta’s Horizon Plus subscription now includes the Xbox Game Pass starter edition. It’s the same 50+ games that are offered to Discord Nitro members, and 10 hours of cloud gaming each month www.theverge.com/tech/968846/...
Microsoft is making some BIG changes to Windows Search. It's dropping the annoying ads, decluttering the UI, and prioritizing local results over web ones. Looks like some genuinely great changes 🙏 blogs.windows.com/windows-insi...
Kevin LaChapelle, VP of Xbox Platform was impacted by Microsoft’s recent layoffs. LaChapelle spent 37 years at Microsoft and led the platform teams behind the Xbox Backward Compatibility program and xCloud
a good surprise to see MFG cutting EV charging costs to 59p/kWh from 79p/kWh in the UK this summer. Public chargers are still way too expensive compared to home charging, but they’re essential for people who can’t have a home charger installed
“most of the Destiny team” are being impacted by today’s layoffs at Bungie, according to an internal memo from Sony’s PlayStation studio chief Herman Hulst. “Some Marathon team members” are also being cut, as well as “reductions across SIE teams that support Bungie’s operations.”
Rockstar says “physical” versions of GTA 6 will contain “a download code inside the box”
Rockstar Games is pricing GTA 6 at $79.99 for PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. The ultimate edition is priced at $99.99
calling all mothers and fathers, what’s the best baby monitor? I think I’ve narrowed it down to the Eufy E21 and the momcozy BM04 as we need a screen and might wanna use an app rarely and disable it most of the time 👍
just a few months ago, Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty was pointing to Double Fine and Compulsion Games as examples of studios it's committed to, "where little sparks can grow into something big."
with all the talk of "radically different" console business models for Xbox, I think it was clear from Asha's Bloomberg interview that the future of Xbox consoles is OEM hardware. Why say Xbox will put out "great reference experiences" and hint at a Windows future if not
surprising, to say the least, to see Microsoft admit this publicly. Some harsh truths in Asha's memo about the reality of how the Xbox business has been managed
this new Xbox library update looks so much cleaner, thanks to poster-style art. It's coming to some Xbox Insiders today, along with an easier way to find mutual friends news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/0...
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says there will be more Xbox exclusives. “Our business isn't particularly healthy, as you noted, and so we're starting by introducing 1 or 2 signature exclusives, and as the business is healthy, we will look to try and do more." www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0hM...
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma thinks “mass audiences” won’t spend “thousands of dollars” on a console generation. “I think we’ll start to see radically different biz models that we never expected start to come into orbit later this year." xCloud? www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0hM...
there are now 92,158 people playing Destiny 2's final update on Steam. That's more than the 88,337 all-time peak of Marathon. Come on Sony, wake up and realize people want Destiny 3 🫡
Microsoft’s Build keynote and Xbox showcase were very, very good this year. The only thing that would have made the Xbox showcase better is having a proper live show. I miss hearing the crowd react to announcements and the spectacle of a live show
Microsoft changed Gears of War: E-Day to an Xbox exclusive at the last minute. If you want the ultimate proof of that, Xbox posted a podcast today and forgot to remove the PS5 logo from the E-Day art 😬 Xbox has removed the video now
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma on Xbox exclusive games: "We're looking at that very closely. I think we have to be very thoughtful about each title and how we want to think about it, and learn from similar cases in the industry"
"My mandate is not 30% accountability margins, it’s not enterprise software margins, it’s to be the number one gaming and entertainment company, and what’s what we’re going to go do.” - Xbox CEO Asha Sharma at Bloomberg Tech live
The Verge now has a full dark mode 🌑 (and light mode 💡) across the entire site 🙏
Microsoft has been running its new reasoning model on its own Mai 200 chips and seen a 1.4x performance per watt improvement over Nvidia’s GB200 chips
will be interesting to see where Microsoft goes with Project Solara. It has tried and failed to build platforms for many devices in the past - Band, Cortana devices, Windows Phone, the list goes on. This time it's using a version of Android, anticipating future AI agent hardware
it’s time for Microsoft Build 2026. Keynote kicks off at 9:30AM PT / 12:30PM ET / 5:30 UK. Expect new Microsoft AI models, Windows dev improvements, and a little surprise or two. Follow along 👇 www.theverge.com/tech/941668/...