After a difficult start for the pre-order season with the PlayStation 5, Microsoft’s Xbox Series X isn’t off to the best of starts in the U.K.
Once Xbox Series X pre-orders went live this morning in the U.K., retailers Game and Smyths both saw their websites go down. In a tweet early on Tuesday morning, Game said that it was forced to put up a “holding page” while it worked to “improve the customer journey for our pre-order customers.” Smyths apologized for having its site go down and told customers that they could still pre-order Microsoft’s new console at its retail stores.
In interviews with Eurogamer, sources at the retailers said the sites went down after a host of problems mounted one on top of the next. At Game, for instance, the site buckled under the pressure of players seeking pre-orders for Microsoft’s Xbox All Access program, which allows them to pay a monthly fee to get a new console and play online.
The Xbox Series X program costs $35 per month for 24 months and includes an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. Shoppers seeking the Xbox Series S and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate can pay $25 per month for 24 months.
Additionally, the source told Eurogamer that the site experienced a glitch in its delivery system, and a sale cropped up on the website in error.
The problem didn’t appear to affect other U.K. retailers on Tuesday morning. Microsoft, Amazon, and the ShopTo online stores were still working and accepting pre-orders early this morning.
Still, the problems could be a sign of what’s to come in the U.S. With U.S. pre-orders just minutes away, retailers will need to be ready for a deluge of players seeking launch day access to Microsoft’s next console. Whether they’ll be able to stay up and not buckle under the pressure remains to be seen.
Demand for next-generation hardware appears to be extremely strong. Last week, Sony launched its own PlayStation 5 pre-orders, and units quickly sold out at retailers across the internet. Over the weekend, Sony apologized for angering customers who missed out and said that it plans to make more units available in the coming weeks.
For now, though, all eyes are on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. Digital Trends has a guide to finding Xbox pre-orders and getting the console on launch day.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.