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Xbox Will Retire Games With Gold On September 14
Existing subscribers will get a handful of free titles, but new monthly additions are disappearing.
Xbox parent company Microsoft has revealed that Xbox Live Gold will be replaced with a Game Pass Core tier on September 14, 2023. As before, the $60 per year (or $10 per month) subscription will be necessary to play most online multiplayer games, but how Xbox handles free game downloads will change.
The steady flow of unique titles will be replaced by a base collection of over 25 games, with new additions limited to bi or tri-annual additions. Most titles will come from Microsoft’s catalog, including franchises such as Doom, Forza Horizon, and Halo 5. Third-party content will be far more limited, though titles such as Among Us and Human Fall Flat are known to be included.
Existing Xbox Live Gold members will automatically switch to Game Pass Core when the old service ends on September 1st. However, subscribers can still access any Xbox One games claimed if they’re either a Core or Ultimate member. Redeemed Xbox 360 games will be yours to keep forever, even if your subscription lapses.
Also Read: Top 10 Best Video Games Set In The Middle East
The change might be disappointing for players used to Games with Gold’s more frequent catalog refreshes. While you do get some hits, Microsoft is obviously trying to steer gamers towards an Ultimate subscription, where a much larger selection of titles can be found, including cloud gaming and an EA Play membership.
Microsoft stopped offering year-long subscriptions back in 2020 and ditched Xbox 360 games in 2022. The company announced plans to raise Gold prices in 2021 before quickly reversing its decision.
News
Google Releases Veo 2 AI Video Tool To MENA Users
The state-of-the-art video generation model is now available in Gemini, offering realistic AI-generated videos with better physics, motion, and detail.
Starting today, users of Gemini Advanced in the MENA region — and globally — can tap into Veo 2, Google’s next-generation video model.
Originally unveiled in 2024, Veo 2 has now been fully integrated into Gemini, supporting multiple languages including Arabic and English. The rollout now brings Google’s most advanced video AI directly into the hands of everyday users.
Veo 2 builds on the foundations of its predecessor with a more sophisticated understanding of the physical world. It’s designed to produce high-fidelity video content with cinematic detail, realistic motion, and greater visual consistency across a wide range of subjects and styles. Whether recreating natural landscapes, human interactions, or stylized environments, the model is capable of interpreting and translating written prompts into eight-second 720p videos that feel almost handcrafted.
Users can generate content directly through the Gemini platform — either via the web or mobile apps. The experience is pretty straightforward: users enter a text-based prompt, and Veo 2 returns a video in 16:9 landscape format, delivered as an MP4 file. These aren’t just generic clips — they can reflect creative, abstract, or highly specific scenarios, making the tool especially useful for content creators, marketers, or anyone experimenting with visual storytelling.
Also Read: Getting Started With Google Gemini: A Beginner’s Guide
To ensure transparency, each video is embedded with SynthID — a digital watermark developed by Google’s DeepMind. The watermark is invisible to the human eye but persists across editing, compression, and sharing. It identifies the video as AI-generated, addressing concerns around misinformation and media authenticity.
While Veo 2 is still in its early phases of public rollout, the technology is part of a broader push by Google to democratize advanced AI tools. With text-to-image, code generation, and now video creation integrated into Gemini, Google is positioning the platform as a full-spectrum creative assistant.
Access to Veo 2 starts today and will continue expanding in the coming weeks. Interested users can try it out at gemini.google.com or through the Gemini app on Android and iOS.
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