PS5 Players Will Want to Watch Xbox's Developer Direct, Confirmed for January 1
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Microsoft has very quietly announced an Xbox Developer Direct, taking place in January 2026.

This comes via a report from Variety, in which Xbox suit Matt Booty talks about the upcoming showcase. He not only confirms the presentation, but also reveals one of the company's studios showing off its work.

"I can’t share exactly what’s there, but we’ve got a lot of stuff that we’re shipping next year," Booty says. "In fact, usually Dev Direct is about highlighting what’s coming up for the year ahead. This year, we’ve got more stuff coming up than we can fit in one show."

He confirms that Playground Games will be part of the program, developer of two upcoming Xbox games, Fable and Forza Horizon 6 — the latter of which is already confirmed for release on PS5.

"So I will tell you that Playground Games is going to be in the Dev Direct, but we’ll have more stuff next year to ship than we can fit into one Dev Direct show in January, which is a good place to be," Booty says.

2026 will mark the 25th anniversary of Xbox, and Booty is teeing it up as a big year for the platform.

"We’re coming up on franchises of ours that have got these decade-level anniversaries," he tells Variety. "It’s the 40th anniversary of Bethesda, Blizzard’s 35, Diablo shipped 30 years ago. We’ve announced things like the Halo Campaign Evolved collection that we’ve got coming, and we’ve got a lot of other things that we’ll talk about soon, that ship next year. So it’s going to be a real banner year for the brand and a banner year for some of our biggest franchises to show up across the industry."

So, Xbox is kicking off 2026 with a big presentation, and it'll definitely be worth watching for PS5 users too.

Will you be tuning in? Tell us in the comments section below.

[source variety.com]