Unlocked

We wonder what, if anything, Microsoft will do to counter Sony's PS4 price drop. Also, our thoughts on Star Wars Battlefront and how it will sell this holiday. Plus: more Season Passes that tick us off, Halo 5 news, miscellaneous (bad) news, and your chance to win a Forza Motorsport 6 Xbox One console bundle! Oh, and Unlocked now has its own snazzy new homepage! Bookmark this: go.ign.com/unlocked...

We celebrate news that the creators of Burnout are bringing the series back (albeit under a new name), rejoice at the Stone Age setting of the just-announced Far Cry Primal, calculate the crazy value proposition of the Fallout 4 Xbox One bundle, take credit (not really) for making the icky Deus Ex: Mankind Divided pre-order campaign go away, check Destin into a rehab facility for his Destiny probl...

Discussed this week: Splosion Man developer Twisted Pixel pulls a Bungie and spins back out from Microsoft, single-player campaigns in first-person shooters seem to be an endangered species, Xbox One holiday bundles are in full bloom, Hitman course-corrects its unsettling pricing model, Telltale's Back to the Future heads to Xbox One, U2 heads to Rock Band 4, and more! Learn more about your ad cho...

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer joins our show this week for a conversation about all kinds of happenings in the world of Xbox, from Final Fantasy XIV's absence on Xbox One to whether or not existing Xbox One owners should upgrade to the upcoming Elite console to whether or not he thinks the "killer app" is dead, and much more! Plus: we discuss the Hitman delay, among other timely topics. Learn more abo...

On this week's Xbox show, Rainbow Six Siege's map count leads us to wonder how it'll be received. Plus: Fallout 4's season pass annoys us, Star Wars Battlefront gets a mini-fridge, we're excited for the imminent New Xbox One Experience Dashboard, Xbox One gets two new games in a genre it sorely needs them in, and more! Also: after we recorded, Ubisoft issued a correction to their developer who was...

We make an otherwise slow Xbox news week interesting by discussing notable 9/9 gaming birthdays, discuss former Xbox boss Robbie Bach's comments on how an 'Xboy' handheld almost came to exist, analyze what we learned about Destiny thanks to a court decision involving a former longtime Bungie employee, and give our ideas for what rides we think should be at Ubisoft's planned real-life theme park in...

Microsoft's newest Xbox One console bundle is extra special because it includes the hot new Elite gamepad as well as a 1TB SSHD hard drive. We break down the benefits you can expect as well as whether or not it might be worth upgrading to. Plus: we analyze Halo 5's newly released opening cinematic, take a guess at the real reason DICE is doing a Star Wars Battlefront beta, dry heave at Square Enix...

Mitch and Ryan shake and bake their way through this week's Xbox show, tackling, among other questions: Will we ever see Master Chief's face? What are the odds of Xbox One actually getting original Xbox backwards compatibility functionality? Should you take Just Cause 3's $50,000 cash prize, or the mysterious actual real-life island they're offering? And much more! Polite College Duke Nukem stops...

This week's Xbox show analyzes Rainbow Six Siege's daring delay and what it means for the franchise this year and in the longer term. Plus: we express sadness (but not anger) regarding the absence of Big Team Battle from Halo 5's launch, theorize what Gearbox might do with Duke Nukem now that their IP ownership lawsuit is settled, discuss Forza 6's new "mods," and more! Learn more about your ad ch...

This week's Xbox show recaps Gamescom from the IGN guys who were there, explains why the Halo 5 console bundle might not be such a good deal, details how the Halo TV show isn't dead, laments Capcom's remakes/remasters-or-bust strategy, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After Xbox's killer Gamescom, we just couldn't wait until Wednesday to do our next show. So here we are, talking about everything from Gamescom, including Halo Wars 2, Crackdown 3, Scalebound, Quantum Break, Homefront: The Revolution, the Halo 5 Xbox One console, new ID@Xbox games, strange Destiny news, Xbox One TV DVR functionality, and Xbox One's downright ridiculous 2016 lineup! Learn more abou...

Microsoft is set to have a big presence at Gamescom. So, we play our ol' predictions game, making 12 Xbox predictions for what we think might happen. Plus: Tomb Raider's exclusivity is dated, 343 explains the lack of any split-screen multiplayer support in Halo 5, Windows 10 begins rolling out to change the Xbox ecosystem forever, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm...

As news of a new Brothers in Arms game starting development surfaces, we revisit the smart, stellar, historically-based first-person shooter/strategy series and why we'd be excited for it to return – as well as if it could help bring WWII shooters back in general. Plus: all of Sony's marketing dollars still won't let you play Star Wars Battlefront on PS4 first, Xbox One gets another clever bundle,...

With the year half over, it's time to give our picks for our Xbox Games of the Year...so far. Plus: the latest chapter in the Hideo Kojima/Konami divorce is as wacky as ever. We wonder if there will even be another AAA Metal Gear game, and who might do it. Also, Dead Island 2 has lost its developer, so we debate who might pick up the ball on that and run it into the end zone. Furthermore, two $200...

It's impossible to follow the once-in-a-lifetime episode 201, but we do our best by dissecting a rumor that suggests Microsoft may be looking to buy Xbox One and PS4 chipmaker AMD. What would it mean for the current consoles? How about the Xbox 4 and PlayStation 5? We discuss it in detail. Plus: we lament some of the E3 Game Critics Award winners and give our take on the first trailer for Telltale...

We don't believe three generations of Xbox leadership have ever been brought into the same room before to share secrets and stories of Xbox history. Until now. In a once-in-a-lifetime episode, Xbox creator Seamus Blackley, Head of Xbox during the 360 launch Peter Moore, and current Head of Xbox Phil Spencer talk for 90 minutes about all three Xbox consoles, including beating Sony in the living roo...

Episode 200 finally happened, and it happened live with 450 IGN fans in San Francisco. It was an incredible event where we celebrated the history of Xbox, sharing our favorite original Xbox and 360 games as well as those of the fans in attendance. We even snuck in a teaser for a very special episode 201! We hope you enjoy listening if you couldn't make it, or reliving it again if you did! Learn mo...

We are all finally back from E3, rested, and ready to bask in the glory that was the week of Xbox awesomeness at the show. Sea of Thieves, Cuphead, HoloLens, Halo 5, and so much more all blew us away. We analyze what worked (almost everything) and what didn't (there isn't much) about Xbox's just-completed E3, and paint a pretty bright picture for Xbox in 2016 while we're at it. Join us for this ep...

In the wake of Microsoft's fantastic E3, we sat down with Head of Xbox Phil Spencer to discuss everything from backwards compatibility to Kinect, Xbox Live Arcade, winning the console "war," and much more. NOTE: this interview was recorded the day before Summer Spotlight was announced, so when you hear Phil play coy with our question about whether or not he'd ever bring XBLA back, now you know why...

In this special mini-episode, bucket-list edition of Podcast Unlocked, we sit down with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the Emmy Award-winning, Tony Award-winning, and Oscar-nominated comedy geniuses. They've got a new video game, hilariously titled South Park: The Fractured But Whole, that serves as a follow-up to the New Kid's adventures in The Stick of Truth. Here, Stone and Parker discuss the game...

In light of the big Halo 5 campaign details and multiplayer bomb dropped by 343 Industries, we spend a good chunk of the show getting SUPER EXCITED for Halo 5. Plus: reactions to the 1TB Xbox One announcement, a talk about how Forza is a victim of its own success, why we love Mirror's Edge Catalyst's new title, and much more. And, yes, there's another In-N-Out bet made over Games With Gold and, sp...

You know what we're talking about this week: Fallout 4. Join us for a 26-minute reaction segment to the announcement and the trailer. We discuss what gameplay elements the trailer suggests, why we think we're going to get a very long demo at E3, when we think the game is coming out, and more. Plus: what the Gears of War developer's studio rebranding means for the series, why the Rise of the Tomb R...

As E3 2015 approaches, each of our Xbox podcast crew shares his best – or worst – E3 memories. Plus: we get teased by Halo 3: ODST releasing for Xbox One (but ultimately it didn't), teased by a real baseball game on Xbox (nope, it doesn't have the MLB license), and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We react to Star Wars Battlefront bucking the recent years' trend of using iron sights in the upcoming first-person shooter. We also give our take on the newly announced Assassin's Creed Syndicate. Plus: why we're happy about The Division's delay, all of LEGO Dimension's toy tie-ins leak out early, praise for the May Xbox One System Update, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megapho...