Xbox news recap: Scalebound canceled, Xbox has peak sales month and more

Welcome to our weekly Xbox news recap series, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Xbox. Let’s get started.

Scalebound officially canceled after confusion

Scaelbound has been in a pretty strange state of development for a while, with appearances only made once or twice at big events like E3. As it turns out, Scalebound just wasn’t meeting the standards of Platinum Games or Xbox. It was announced this week that the game will cease all development, and be cast off to the graveyard of games that never were. No real reason was given for the cancellation of the game, but it marks a sad moment for the many people who were rooting for it to succeed.

Xbox has its best sales month ever in December

With the holidays driving sales for people of all sorts, it’s not hard to imagine that the month can often bring sales numbers high. December 2016, however, marked the best sales month that Xbox has ever had. Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg mentioned the achievement on Twitter, congratulating all Xbox users for helping Xbox become the #1 best selling console in the US.

Microsoft releases new red and crimson controllers

Microsoft has released two new premium looking controllers – red and crimson. The two controllers feature a nicely textured grip, an improved wireless range, and some truly striking color schemes. While many people in need of a new controller might prefer to create one of Microsoft’s Xbox Design Lab custom controllers, these make a good option for people looking for a more premium product.

Mass Effect Andromeda will be playable for early access

Mass Effect Andromeda is going to be playable on early access for EA access members. The service has been offering this early play option for a while, and it’s a pretty nice perk for those who happen to like getting their toes wet before release day. People looking to try out early access should know that the game will likely only be available to play up to a certain point (and in a time limit of a certain amount of hours). We don’t have a date yet for certain, but the rumor mill says that the trial will start on March 18th.

New feature coming to Beam – but we aren’t sure what it is.

Someone on Twitter asked Xbox’s Mike Ybarra a fairly simple question: Will Beam be snappable on Xbox One? Mike replied with a pretty cryptic answer, opting to forego a simple yes or no by saying “better than snappable.” We aren’t sure what this could possibly mean, but you can bet that Xbox has something up its sleeve. We’ll have to wait and see what the future of Beam on Xbox is going to be.

We talk about how to improve Xbox One in 2017

Xbox One had a great year, and we want to see 2017 be even better. We put together a list of six ways that Microsoft can kick the Xbox One’s success into high gear in 2017. We talk a bit about Kinect, backward compatibility, and social features like Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks for joining us. To keep up to date with all the latest Xbox news, keep a close eye on our Xbox One news hub.