Microsoft has shared a new milestone for Xbox Game Pass, which attained "nearly $5 billion" in revenue for the first time over the last year.
This achievement was announced as part of the company's FY25 Q4 earnings report detailing the results of the last 12 months (ending June 30, 2025), where CEO Satya Nadella also revealed that Microsoft has 500 million monthly active users across gaming platforms and devices.
“We are now the top publisher on both Xbox and PlayStation this quarter,” said Nadella. "...Game Pass annual revenue was nearly $5 billion for the first time" (via The Verge).
Overall, Xbox gaming revenue was up by 10% year-over-year, and Xbox content and services revenue, which includes Game Pass and first-party titles, is up by 13% this quarter.
This 13% increase could be attributed to Xbox's multi-platform push, which recently saw Xbox-exclusive games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Forza Horizon 5 come to PS5.
Microsoft didn't share the latest subscriber numbers for the service, so there's no way to know if there has been an increase or decrease in members from 34 million players, which the company revealed in February 2024.
Xbox hardware revenue, however, is down 22% this quarter, which could be a consequence of Microsoft increasing the price of its Xbox Series consoles and accessories earlier this year.
Along with hardware price hikes, Microsoft also announced in May that some first-party titles will also be increased to $80 to match the cost of Nintendo Switch 2 games.
However, this plan may be subject to change as the company has since lowered the price of both The Outer Worlds 2 and Borderlands 4.
You might also like...As governments and private companies around the world announce huge AI infrastructure plans, Meta has become the latest to announce a major spending spree.
In its most recent quarterly financial results, the company announced an expansion of spending to around $66-$72 billion - more than doubling its spending on data centres and servers.
“We expect that developing leading AI infrastructure will be a core advantage in developing the best AI models and product experiences, so we expect to ramp our investments significantly in 2026 to support that work,” Susan Li, Meta CFO, said during the company’s earnings call.
Costly infrastructureThe move comes shortly after Meta’s shares jumped more than 10%, thanks largely to advertising business success, where AI-driven ad creation tools allow users to generate video ads from images, helping prompt better conversion rates.
Meta says it expects a similar jump in spending onwards in 2026, as the firm looks to “aggressively [pursue] opportunities to bring additional capacity online to meet the needs of [its] artificial intelligence efforts and business operations.”
Meta isn’t alone, as Microsoft has also announced plans to spend billions on AI, announcing over $30 billion capital investment as it expands AI capacity in a bid to keep up with the likes of Amazon - which itself is set to spend up to $111 billion in 2025, with the majority going towards tech and infrastructure.
This infrastructure, primarily referring to data centres and large servers, is costly in more ways than one. It would be disingenuous to talk about data centre spending without mentioning the enormous environmental costs associated with the infrastructure.
Data centres consume massive amounts of energy and water - depleting local water sources and putting huge strain on already labored energy grids.
Local communities are being hit hard by nearby data centre constructions - with data centres in Texas using 463 million gallons of water, as residents are instructed to take shorter showers to offset the usage.
In Georgia, residents living in proximity to Meta’s own data centre, can no longer drink their water, with taps running dry thanks to added sediment in local wells. The cost of municipal water has skyrocketed, and the county water commission may face a shortage.
Via: TechCrunch
You might also likeEpson today announced the Epson Pro Cinema LS9000 4K 3LCD Laser Projector. The new lower-cost entry in the company’s Pro Cinema projector lineup is making its debut this week at the Audio Advice Live show, which takes place August 1-3, 2025, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Priced at $3,999 (around £2,995 / AU$6,135), the Epson LS9000 provides a more affordable alternative to the Epson Pro Cinema LS12000 ($5,999), currently the top pick in our best projectors guide. Like that model, the new LS9000 is a 4K 3LCD model with HDR10+, HDR10, and HLG support. It also uses a laser light source rated for 20,000 hours and has a motorized lens with powered zoom, focus, and +/- 96% vertical and up to +/- 24% horizontal lens shift.
With 2,200 lumens of white (ISO rated) and color (IDMS rated) brightness, the LS9000 isn’t as powerful as the LS12000, which is rated for 2,700 lumens of white brightness. But like that model, it features 4K 120Hz support on its dual HDMI 2.1 ports for gaming (eARC and ARC are also supported).
Epson’s ZX Picture Processor performs real-time frame interpolation and picture enhancement on the LS9000, which also features a powered lens cover that slides into place when the projector is powered off. A memory zoom option lets you use the projector with ultra-wide 2.35:1 screens, and it also supports third-party anamorphic lenses for use with the same.
A cheaper Pro Series? We’ll take itImage 1 of 3The new LS9000 is the entry-level model in Epson's Pro Cinema projector lineup (Image credit: Epson)Image 2 of 3A powered lens cover slides into place when the LS9000 is powered off (Image credit: Epson)Image 3 of 3Connections include two HDMI 2.1 ports with 4K 120Hz support (Image credit: Epson)At CEDIA Expo 2024, Epson debuted the Epson Q-Series, a trio of 4K laser projectors aimed at the high-end residential market. What distinguished these from other Epson projectors was the Q-Series’ high brightness specifications, starting at 3,300 lumens for the QB1000, with up to 10,000 lumens for the flagship Epson QL7000.
Such high light output makes the Q-Series a perfect option for open-format media rooms or living rooms, where some degree of ambient lighting is preferred.
With 2,200 lumens of brightness, the new LS9000 is aimed more at traditional dark-room home theaters, where the projector’s two-speed Dynamic Contrast adjustment will allow it to project crisp 4K movies with powerful contrast (Epson’s contrast ratio specs cite over 2.5 million to one).
The LS9000’s dual HDMI 2.1 ports with 4K 120Hz support also make it a great option for gaming with next-gen consoles or PCs. And at $3,999, Epson’s latest is a more reasonably priced gaming projector than other models in its lineup, and it’s also one that should capably do double duty for movies.
You might also likeNew IBM data suggests the cost of data breaches could actually be falling as AI becomes more integrated into cybersecurity practices, with companies employing these technologies typically incurring much lower costs than non-users.
The study estimated pro-AI firms incurred £3.11 million in costs compared with £3.78 million for non-users - but despite the potential £600,000+ in savings, fewer than one in three UK organizations have widely deployed AI and automation in security, meaning that many are still facing the consequences.
That said, while artificial intelligence has been seen improving detection, it's also assisting with code generation, meaning that more cybercriminals can access more sophisticated attacks.
AI is a double-edged sword in cybersecurityWith the widespread adoption of AI, companies are now seeing breaches happen when employees use non-approved AI tools – also known as shadow AI. Yet only 31% of the companies surveyed have AI governance policies to manage shadow AI.
Third-party vendor and supply chain compromises were cited as the top UK breach causes, accounting for 18 - with phishing (16%) and compromised credentials (11%) also widely seen.
Although humans remain a key entry point for attackers into an organization, trends have shifted over the past two decades. In 2005, lost or stolen devices accounted for nearly half (45%) of breaches, with 2015 seeing a spike in misconfigured clouds. Ransomware also picked up in 2020.
"The data speaks for itself as organisations implementing robust AI-driven security automation are significantly reducing breach costs," IBM UK&I Cybersecurity Services Leader Georgie Cohen explained.
With artificial intelligence, organizations are unlocking faster response times, with a mean time to identify (MTTI) of 148 days and a mean time to and contain (MTTC) of 42 days (compared with 168 days and 64 days for non-users).
You might also likeComedian Leanne Morgan’s self-titled sitcom has dropped on Netflix as of July 31, 2025, telling the fictionalized story of when her husband has an affair with a younger woman. It’s the sort of structure we saw on the sitcom Reba about 20 years ago, but this time, divorce is an empowering thing. Finding the humor in life and those around her, Leanne is determined to rebuild her life from the ground up.
Frankly, I’m already sold on the new series Leanne, despite only having this much information to go on. A female lead over the age of 50, real-life drama without the sensationalism and genuinely brilliant jokes is more than enough on its own, but there’s layers to the new Netflix comedy. Morgan has been in the comedy game for over 25 years, but there’s a good chance many subscribers have never even heard of her. She oozes charm and – in her own words – “dazzle” (you might have seen her on the most recent episode of Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast), and her Southern drawl is an absolute wonder… she could say anything in the phone book and you’d be hooked on it.
Clearly Morgan’s time in the global spotlight is long overdue, but I’m just as interested in her series co-creator. That’s none other than Chuck Lorre, part of the brains behind the growing Sheldon-verse that includes The Big Bang Theory (TBBT), Young Sheldon and Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage. He’s also now got Stuart Fails to Save the Universe on the go, but before that gets legs, fans of the franchise need to see Leanne for one very, very good reason.
Netflix’s new comedy Leanne is exactly the type of modern sitcom we didn’t know we needed to streamWhere something like Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage hasn’t quite landed how to adapt the traditional sitcom format for a 2025 audience (think the sound stage, laugh track vibe Young Sheldon left behind in 2017), Leanne has made it into its own. Why have Morgan and Lorre found it so easy? Because you simply can’t help but fall in love with Leanne herself, even if the humor isn’t always doing it for you.
Broadly speaking, the structure of sticking a laugh track over multi-cam filmed comedy scenes just doesn’t work anymore, even if it did for TBBT back in 2007. It’s just not how we connect to what makes us laugh anymore, and there’s a reason why most new hit comedy shows have pivoted to single-cam strategies instead. Leanne takes a risk by keeping it classic, but it naturally lends itself to the Southern charm and sheer amount of bombastic chaos we more regularly saw in pre-2000 comedies. Kristen Johnson’s Carol is a fantastic example of this – her comedic aura is just too big to restrict to a single camera point of view.
If nothing else, Leanne hammers home the message we need to hear right now. Women are all-powerful and important in every possible aspect of life. If needed, they can move mountains to start from scratch while not losing sight of the joy that’s right in front of them. For me, it’s even better that the show isn’t always perfect, because who wants to be that? As someone who misses Young Sheldon et al. more than I miss George Cooper being alive, Leanne has perfectly scratched that sitcom itch.
You might also likeIt's taken a while, but Amazon MGM Studios has finally confirmed the cameras are rolling on The Rings of Power season 3.
Four months after The Rings of Power was officially renewed for a third season, Amazon revealed filming had begun on the high fantasy show's next installment via a 23-second teaser, which was uploaded to the series' social media channels yesterday (July 30).
Something is stirring on set. Season 3 is underway. pic.twitter.com/YdBSGcGd8jJuly 30, 2025
There's not much to glean from the footage. Indeed, the brief behind the scenes video simply shows an individual carrying Sauron's iconic crown, which he acquired in The Rings of Power season 2 finale, to one of the show's sets. After the crown, which originally belonged to Sauron's master Morgoth in The Lord of the Rings (TLotR) literature, onto another person, the headpiece is set down on a table. The video ends with confirmation that the Prime Video series' third season in now in production.
That revelation notwithstanding, there is something else we can read into the first teaser for The Rings of Power's third season – and, surprise surprise, it's got something to do with the aforementioned crown.
Last season, we learned that Morgoth's headgear was an incredibly powerful, magical artifact that may possess the ability to fatally injure the Maiar. Essentially, they're angelic beings who serve the Valar, aka TLotR's god-like entities, and Sauron was a Maia before he was corrupted by Morgoth, a fallen Valar previously known as Melkor.
Sauron used Morgoth's crown as a weapon in his season 2 showdown with Galadriel (Image credit: Prime Video)Adar, one of Sauron's lieutenants who had possession of the crown, aimed to use it on Sauron due to the latter's belief that the orcs who make up his armies are nothing more than disposable creatures in his quest to rule Middle-earth. As the orcs' All-Father, Adar disagreed with Sauron's view, hence his desire to kill Sauron and set the orcs free. Long story short: Adar is killed – ironically by some orcs who've fallen under one of Sauron's dark spells – which sees Sauron come into possession of Morgoth's crown.
"But what's this got to do with what you teased three paragraphs ago?", I hear you ask. If Morgoth's crown is as potent as The Rings of Power has led us to believe, I think Sauron will use its magical abilities to help him forge The One Ring. We already know it'll be created next season – Sauron actor Charlie Vickers telling me it's the "next piece of the puzzle" for the Dark Lord's journey through this show, and would explain why Sauron was so keen to get his hands on the headpiece.
Is there a release date for The Rings of Power season 3 on Prime Video?The look of disappointment when we learn it could be another 18 months before season 3 arrives (Image credit: Prime Video)Alright, so we know filming is underway on one of the best Prime Video shows' third installment. I'm pretty confident that its first teaser has also given us a big clue about how the One Ring will be created. But, one big question remains: when will season 3 make its bow on Prime Video, aka one of the world's best streaming services?
The short answer is: I don't know. That won't stop me from speculating on a possible launch date, though – and it might be with us sooner than anyone might think, too.
For starters, seasons 1 and 2 respectively took 18 months and eight months to film. Principal photography took longer on the former due to a six-month hiatus amid the pandemic. So, if we remove that period of inactivity from its shooting schedule, the series' first two seasons took between eight and 12 months to film.
With principal photography commencing on season 3 yesterday (July 30), and given what its predecessors' shooting timeframes indicate, it'll be July 2026 before the cameras stop rolling on the forthcoming season. Considering how much post-production work would need to be conducted before it's ready for public consumption, we could be looking at an early 2027 launch – at the very earliest – for the series' next chapter.
There's a chance it could arrive before the end of 2026, though. Speaking to Gold Derby, director/producer Charlotte Brandstrom, whose worked on the show since early 2021, heavily implied that filming actually started in May.
"I’ve actually been shooting all day," she said, "So I’ve been up since 5am. I’m in London right now, so I’m working on it right now and I can’t say much, except that I think it’s going to be a really good season."
The fact that Brandstrom says she's already shot some scenes indicates that, at the time of publication, a few have been in the can for over two months. If that's the case, filming might be further along on The Rings of Power's latest season than we're being led to believe and may wrap earlier than anticipated.
All of that is to say, then, if Amazon surprisingly reveals filming has been completed before the end of 2025, it's possible season 3 will make its debut in late 2026. All eyes will be on the series' official social media accounts, then, for news on when principal photography wraps. Until then, read more of my exclusive coverage on the show below, including what we can expect next time around.
You might also likeBritish firms are increasingly turning their backs on single-cloud infrastructure, with as many as three in five UK orgs looking to open up beyond one single provider, new research has claimed.
The survey from Civo added further down that line, nearly one-third (29%) are already implementing multi-cloud strategies, with a similar number (31%) adopting hybrid cloud models to blend public cloud with their own on-prem infrastructure.
Civo believes this trend could be in response to data governance and sovereignty requirements, but increasing costs could also be playing a role in the decision.
UK orgs are going back to multicloud and hybridOnly 35% of the survey's respondents reported full visibility into their data storage and governance at the moment, suggesting they could be running suboptimally and at high expense. Hybrid cloud promises a balance of agility and control as companies look for more sustainable long-term solutions.
Although multicloud does share some of these promises, Civo noted that the current environment is dominated by operational complexity, like fragmented support, compliance inconsistency and proprietary tools preventing interoperability.
Two in three (68%) said they'd consider locally governed providers if UK and EU compliance frameworks were stronger, with four in five (78%) agreeing that sovereignty has now become a priority when choosing tech of infrastructure partners.
"I speak to founders and IT leaders all the time who tell me the same thing: they know they need to move away from relying on a single provider, but they feel stuck," Civo CEO Mark Boost explained.
"They want control and the ability to stay resilient in the face of geopolitical uncertainty - that starts with sovereignty... But to fully realise the benefits of hybrid cloud, businesses need platforms that are open by design, interoperable, and built with transparency at their core."
You might also likeDespite the rising cost of AAA games across the games industry, EA has said that it isn't looking to increase the price of Battlefield 6 to $80.
That's according to EA CEO Andrew Wilson, who responded to an investor asking the publisher about competitors now releasing $80 games during the company's Q1 earnings call on July 29 (via IGN).
"We're not looking to make any changes on pricing at this stage," Wilson said. "That's in the construct of, we already offer a fairly broad pricing scheme across our various products.
"When you think about everything from free-to-play through to our premium products and deluxe editions, our orientation is always to capture the full spectrum of pricing so that we can serve players in the best way possible and offer them the greatest value. We'll continue to look at opportunities to deliver great value to our players through various pricing schemes over the course of time, but no dramatic changes planned yet."
During the call, EA also confirmed that it had not factored in any price changes to its current fiscal year earnings guidance, suggesting that there will be no $80 games between now and the end of the current fiscal year, which is March 2026.
Nintendo set a new precedent earlier this year when it revealed that its Nintendo Switch 2 launch title, Mario Kart World, would cost $80.
Microsoft followed suit earlier this year by confirming that some first-party games would see a price increase to $79.99 later this year. However, the company recently announced that it had decided to lower the cost of both The Outer Worlds 2 and Borderlands 4.
Elsewhere, fans can look forward to the Battlefield 6 multiplayer reveal later today.
The livestream should also confirm a release date; however, an earlier report from reliable leaker Billbil-kun at Dealabs claims that the shooter will release on October 10, 2025, for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.
You might also like...Future Games Show at Gamescom is returning this year for another showcase packed with game trailers and world premieres.
This year, the show will be hosted by actors Maggie Robertson (Lady Dimitrescu, Resident Evil Village) and David Hayter (Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid). You'll be able to tune into the show live on August 20 at 1am PDT / 2pm EDT / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST.
Future Games Show will go live at the above times on a variety of social channels, including Twitch, YouTube, X / Twitter, TikTok, as well as with our friends over at GamesRadar.
Viewers can expect announcements and trailers for more than 50 upcoming games, many of which will be world premieres. Developers and publishers featured will include Bandai Namco Entertainment, Capcom, EA, and Nacon. And if there are any games you're looking forward to in particular this year, you just might be in luck, as the show is set to feature some "stealth demo drops."
On returning to the Future Games Show fold, Robertson said: “I’m thrilled to be joining David Hayter to co-host the Future Games Show at Gamescom on August 20! It’s always such a joy to celebrate the creativity and passion behind the games we love and this showcase is packed with exclusive reveals, dev interviews, and all the latest news on gaming. Can’t wait to see you there!”
Hayter added: “Yes! I'll be returning to the Future Games Show at Gamescom on August 20 with Maggie Robertson. I've had a sneak peek and the show is packed with world premieres, new trailers and deep dives into some incredible games. Join us on August 20!”
You might also like...Sometimes in software development, things can sit on your to-do list for years – and it’s a technology-based disruption that pushes them to the top of your priorities.
Remember the move to mobile 15 years ago? All of a sudden, people were rushing to address things they should have already thought about in the web app age.
Customer experience, robust testing, programs that are truly fit for purpose and not just functional – the emergence of mobile highlighted many gaps that organizations had to fill. In 2025, AI and low code are the innovations having a profound impact on software development.
And one, perhaps under-acknowledged, consequence is a shift in how organizations approach risk management and regulatory compliance.
The decentralization of developmentHow enterprises develop and deliver technology – for both internal and external use – is changing. Where once technology development was a process led centrally by IT, today no-code platforms and AI tools are driving a shift to development teams fractalized across the organization.
This is incredibly exciting in many ways, as developers can be more responsive to business needs, collaborating directly with the people most aware of what customers, employees and partners require. But at the same time, it changes the business’ relationship with risk. In the old world, the IT professionals driving development had a holistic perspective of the security concerns, risk profiles and compliance requirements of the organization as a whole.
But now, distributed developers work on smaller pieces of the puzzle, which each present a range of risk management and governance questions. Enterprises are now being faced with managing the risk, as well as embracing the opportunity, of this democratization.
The age of adaptive governanceRisk is a complex question in the time of distributed development. Governance and risk mean different things, depending on where the technology sits in the business. Issues like whether applications are customer-facing, the sensitivity of data and how it’s stored and privacy considerations will each vary from case to case.
Delivering a mobile banking feature could raise all kinds of questions. How and where is customer data stored? Who has access? What will be in the hands of the customers, and what will be in the hands of employees? With so many interconnected issues, it could be easy to miss something crucial from a privacy, security or regulatory perspective.
It’s more important than ever that individual developer teams get to grips with the risk and compliance implications of their activities.
This creates a new role for risk managers and compliance officers. Rather than simply sitting centrally, these specialists need to be embedded in multidisciplinary technology delivery teams across the organization, sometimes referred to as “fusion teams”. There, they act as a front line for risk management, empowering development teams with the right guidance and oversight of their activities.
The smartest organizations are moving to a model of adaptive governance: risk management that’s appropriate for each scenario, and balances innovation with compliance. It’s here that fusion teams will really deliver. With a blend of experts from the business, software developers and UX specialists, teams can better understand the risk and compliance implications of their work – and proactively protect the organization.
The invisible shiftThe shift to decentralized technology is nothing new. But low code and AI are catalyzing the parallel shift to a new risk management and compliance model. It may be less visible – but the consequences will be significant.
It’s important that everyone gets to grips with the age of adaptive governance, to ensure that distributed development can deliver on its promise, without compromising the business.
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