Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told the BBC that the next console, Project Helix, has to chase "efficiency and affordability alongside performance." She would not say whether Helix ships a disc drive. Dev kits are not due until 2027. Helix is described as a console/PC hybrid.

As an industry, we're in the middle of 'Rampocalypse'.

RAM and storage prices are up because AI data centers are buying the same chips. Microsoft is one of the buyers. Xbox already hiked current hardware this month: UK Series S 512GB to £430 (from £250 at launch), Series X 1TB with disc to £670 (from £450). The translucent green 25th Anniversary Series X is $899.99.

We've reached a point where it will be hard to imagine that mass audiences can afford thousands of dollars to spend on a console generation.

That line is from June. In the BBC sit-down she added that Xbox will look at "how they play their console and how they purchase their console," and at "hardware efficiency in terms of how you use storage and memory." In June she also floated "radically different business models" later this year. No detail on what that is.

Same interview: disc-to-digital. Insert a supported Xbox One or Series X disc, claim a digital license. About 1,000 titles at first. Insider test starts 31 August. The license follows the disc if you sell it. Sharma tied it to backwards compatibility on future hardware.

Within Xbox, we haven't been healthy.

Source: BBC

Inner Circle dumped Vitality 2-0 in the BLAST Open Fall Group B opener in Copenhagen. HLTV had Inner Circle at #34, Vitality at #4. jL stood in for mezii (paternity leave). Prize pool is $1.1 million. Groups run through 31 August at BLAST Studios; playoffs are in Porto, 4-6 September.

Anubis 13-8, Inner Circle's pick. Vitality's T half was 5-7; ZywOo went 0-7 to start. Cache, Vitality's pick, went to OT. Vitality led 6-0 then 12-7 and still lost 13-16. cptkurtka023 was 43-30 (1.58), headtr1ck 42-24 (1.37). ZywOo finished 27-36 (0.78).

Today we were mentally much, much stronger.

onic, to HLTV.

Same event, Group A (26 August): M80 2-1 NaVi (NaVi took Anubis 13-4, then 6-13 Mirage, 6-13 Inferno), G2 2-0 Aurora, Spirit 2-0 DENDELE, FURIA 2-0 paiN.

Inner Circle play MOUZ next in the Group B upper semi. Vitality drop to 9z in the lower bracket. Three teams per group make Porto.

Streams: BLASTPremier

Source: HLTV

Two weekly Quake Champions duel cups this weekend, plus EGB 2v2 on Sunday.

Estoty #215 - Friday 16:00 UTC, 28 August 2026 to 20:30 UTC, 28 August 2026. $100, double-elim, Bo3 / Bo1 losers / Bo5 grand final. Streams: ShaftasticTV, Keltz, st0n3, Strongsage. Plus Forward, EstotyCups.

NAQCL #70 - Saturday 18:00 UTC, 29 August 2026 to 21:30 UTC, 29 August 2026. Ping uncapped. Same day as 250 FPS S5 finals day 1 (that one opens at 11:00 UTC). Streams: dramiS, Strongsage, st0n3, Yup, ChurchOfQuake. Plus Forward.

EGB Cup 2v2 #3 - Sunday 16:00 UTC, 30 August 2026. $100 QC TDM. Plus Forward.

Source: Plus Forward

Thri11er won NAQCL Duel Tournament #69, 3-1 over dramiS in the grand final. $100 pool: $50 / $30 / $20 to klyb.

He went through winners: 2-1 vs dramiS in WB R3, 2-1 vs klyb in the winners final. dramiS won three straight in losers, including 2-0 klyb in the LB final, then lost the rematch.

First NAQCL title for Thri11er. ChurchOfQuake's VOD is on Plus Forward.

Source: Plus Forward

Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 wrapped in Cologne. Two hours of trailers, plus a separate Nvidia GeForce drop the same day.

The closer was The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, a free upgrade, with new footage of the Songs of the Past DLC. Other headline reveals: Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Remake, Path of Exile 1.0 on December 11 (free-to-play), Metro 2039 for February 2027, Exodus April 7 2027, Ananta January 15 2027, Rainbow Six Tactics in 2027, and a Gears of War: E-Day story trailer. Control Resonant, Turok Origins, Crazy Taxi multiplayer, Rayman Legends Retold (October 1), and a free Hitman World of Assassination Snoop Dogg DLC on August 27 also showed.

On the PC side, Nvidia shipped DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction through the Nvidia app for all GeForce RTX cards (Game Ready 580.88 or newer). It is a second-generation transformer model that folds denoising and Super Resolution into one pass. Launch override list is 30 games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, and DOOM: The Dark Ages. RTX Mega Geometry, six years of work on ray-tracing Unreal Engine 5 Nanite at full detail, debuts in Gears of War: E-Day on October 6 and is headed into Microsoft's DirectX Raytracing 2.0. Control Resonant (September 24) and 007 First Light (path tracing update September 15) were the other tech showpieces.

Full rundown: TechRadar. Nvidia notes: GeForce.

Source: TechRadar

Keltz took two Quake Champions time-limit duel titles this weekend, both against St0n3.

On Friday he won Estoty Duel Tournament #214 ($100: $40 / $25). St0n3 beat him 2-1 in the winners final. Keltz 2-0'd Thri11er in the losers final, then reversed it 3-1 in the grand final. ShaftasticTV has the VOD.

On Sunday he went unbeaten through EGB QC Cup #6 ($85: $68 / $17), 2-1 in the winners final then 3-0 in the rematch. Map record 9-1. St0n3 took 2nd after 2-0'ing dramiS in the losers final.

It is Keltz's second EGB QC Cup after #2, and his fourth duel win since August 8: NAQCL #67, NAQCL #68, Estoty #214, and this. Through six EGB QC Cups, k1llsen leads with three titles, Keltz two, Strongsage one.

Sources: Plus Forward (Estoty #214), Plus Forward (EGB QC #6)

cYpheR and pavel went unbeaten through koMnoT Cup TDM 2v2 and 2-0'd AGENT and ash in both the winners final and the grand final. Ten teams, 100,000 RUB (~$1,200): 60k / 30k / 10k.

They dropped one map in four series: Almost Lost in a 2-1 WB semi over danches and rell. Winners final was Campgrounds 74-36 and Bloodrun 83-70. AGENT and ash came back through losers, 2-0 over k1llsen and Spart1e in the LB final (3rd), then lost the rematch 0-2: Bloodrun 86-60, Campgrounds 62-55.

This pairing has now met in three recent 100k-RUB TDM 2v2 cups. AGENT and ash took GBNC (2-0, then 2-1). cYpheR and pavel took EGB Cup #50 (2-1 twice). Playoff head-to-head is now 4-2 for cYpheR and pavel.

Bracket: shambler.site

Source: Plus Forward

The approximate match schedule for the 250 FPS QL League Season 5 finals is out. Two days, not one: winners bracket on Saturday, 29 August, lower bracket and grand final on Sunday, 30 August. Both days open at 11:00 UTC.

11:00 UTC, 29 August 2026 - cherepoff vs pavel (WB R1)
11:50 UTC, 29 August 2026 - k1llsen vs ash (WB R1)
12:40 UTC, 29 August 2026 - AGENT vs winner of match 1 (WB semi)
13:30 UTC, 29 August 2026 - cYpheR vs winner of match 2 (WB semi)
14:20 UTC, 29 August 2026 - WB final

11:00 UTC, 30 August 2026 - LB semi (loser of WB semi 2 vs loser of WB R1 1)
11:30 UTC, 30 August 2026 - LB semi (loser of WB semi 1 vs loser of WB R1 2)
12:05 UTC, 30 August 2026 - LB R2
12:40 UTC, 30 August 2026 - LB final
13:30 UTC, 30 August 2026 - Grand final

Lower bracket is Bo3, winners Bo5, grand final Bo7. Champion gets $1,000 from a $5,500 season pool.

Times after the 11:00 UTC starts are approximate and may slip with match length.

Streams listed on the event page: ShaftasticTV, 250 FPS RUS, 250 FPS ENG, mstshambler.

Source: Plus Forward

Plus Forward posted an interview with cherepoff (Andrey Cherepanoff, 30, IT, Moscow) ahead of the 250 FPS QL League Season 5 finals on August 29. He finished group play in the last six and draws pavel in WB R1.

Toughest opponent this season: AGENT.

He constantly pushes with the rocket launcher while dodging. If you don't deal a critical amount of damage right away, he just starts chasing you all over the map.

Most exciting match: his series vs pavel. Predicted champion: cYpheR.

I think after last season, Alexey is laser-focused on taking top 1.

On rapha: you can out-aim him in spots, but one shake and you lose map control.

It felt like rapha plays very aggressively and with total confidence.

What he needs vs that:

nerves of steel.

He does not use aim trainers; he practices in-game because Quake movement does not copy well into them. He rarely gets weekends free around work, so match-day form is the tradeoff. Original Russian interview is on the 250 FPS Telegram.

Source: Plus Forward

Scheduled: 16:00 UTC, 23 August 2026 to 20:00 UTC, 23 August 2026
Schedule: Passed

EGB QC Cup #6 is Sunday, 16:00-20:00 UTC: Quake Champions time-limit duel, double-elim, Bo3. Prize pool is $50 ($40 / $10).

Maps: Awoken, Blood Covenant, Blood Run, Corrupted Keep, Deep Embrace, Ruins of Sarnath, Tower of Koth, Vale of Pnath, Vestibule of Exile.

k1llsen took Cup #5 last weekend without dropping a map. Cup #4 went to Strongsage.

Streams from the usual QC names when they go live: k1llsen, st0n3, Keltz.

Bracket: egb.com

Source: Plus Forward

Scheduled: 11:00 UTC, 22 August 2026 to 18:00 UTC, 22 August 2026
Schedule: Passed

koMnoT Cup TDM 2v2 is running now: QL 2v2, double-elim, Bo3, 11:00-18:00 UTC. Prize pool is 100,000 RUB (~$1,209): 60k / 30k / 10k.

Ten teams. Maps: Almost Lost, Bloodrun, Campgrounds, Devilish, Hidden Fortress.

As of WB semis, AGENT and ash are through after a 2-0 over k1llsen and Spart1e. cYpheR and pavel are in the other WB semi against danches and rell. k1llsen and Spart1e dropped to losers.

Streams: Cypher, k1llsen, mstshambler, AGENT.

Bracket: shambler.site

Source: Plus Forward

Keltz went undefeated through NAQCL Duel Tournament #68, a $100 QC time-limit duel cup on August 15, then 3-0'd dramiS in the grand final.

He never dropped a map in winners: 2-0 Anorky, 2-0 Thri11er, 2-0 dramiS in the WB final. dramiS came back through losers, 2-0'ing Yup in the LB final for the rematch. Keltz swept it. Yup took 3rd, Thri11er 4th.

Prize pool was $100: $50 to Keltz, $30 to dramiS, $20 to Yup. ChurchOfQuake's VOD is on Plus Forward. NAQCL #69 is later today.

Source: Plus Forward

QuakeHub put up a monthly "State of Quake" dashboard that rolls every live-polled Quake game into one page: peak counts, maps, servers, modes, a world map, and Twitch.

August so far (the month is not over): 8,058,178 real-player frags, 125,193 hours played, 507 players online on average, and a peak of 1,009 at once on August 16 at 18:00 UTC. 984 servers hosted a real match (2+ humans and a frag). A typical poll still sees 2,281 bots.

Average concurrent players by game: Quake Champions 214 (Steam concurrent; QC has no dedicated servers in this poll), Quake Live 199, Quake III Arena 66, Quake II 26, QuakeWorld 17. Everything else is in the low single digits.

Deathmatch is 36% of play, Clan Arena 27%, duel 10%, TDM 9%. Servers sit mostly in the US (29%), Germany (24%), and Russia (14%). 2,300 different maps got played. QL Thunderstruck leads map time at 8%, then Campgrounds and Blood Run.

The fullest single match was 63 players on Japanese Castles at [a2m] Quake Like Carmack Used To Make (QL, August 8). Busiest server by hours is IZI PUB#1 16v16 CA.

Twitch peaked at 1,803 viewers on August 16. AGENTJKEZOOR ( AGENT) had the most days streaming Quake (8). One-night peaks: marcrebillet 1,132, then JeanFaymas, iXBT_games, rapha, Maynarde, k1llsen.

Source: QuakeHub - The State of Quake