Xbox could hold another Developer Direct showcase in January

Xbox could be preparing to hold a first-party games showcase in January 2025.

The company held its first Xbox Developer Direct event in January 2023, which was followed by its second one in January 2024.

And now a well-informed reporter has said they’re expecting an Xbox event to take place next month.

“Feels like Microsoft has finally hit a good cadence with Xbox Game Pass releases, especially with recent drops like Indiana Jones and what’s ahead in 2025,” The Verge’s Tom Warren wrote on Bluesky.

“Avowed, South of Midnight, Doom, Towerborne, Fable, Outer Worlds 2, and more are coming next year. I’m also expecting an Xbox event in January 👍”

Whether it’s just an assumption based on Microsoft’s recent history of holding events in January, or if it’s informed by insider knowledge isn’t clear, but Warren isn’t the only reliable source who thinks Xbox has an event coming in early 2025.

Earlier this month, Windows Central executive editor Jez Corden said Microsoft wasn’t planning many first-party announcements at The Game Awards, “pending xbox’s own dev direct in q1”.

Last month, Microsoft’s gaming CEO Phil Spencer reiterated that the company won’t rule out any first-party Xbox game potentially coming to rival platforms such as PlayStation and Nintendo in the future.

Matt Booty, Microsoft’s president of game content and studios, also told Variety this month: “We are very much making the [exclusivity and windowing] decisions on a game by game basis. And each of our studios is in a little bit of a different position.

“There’s also the production timeline on a game, so the decision on spacing comes there first. We want to make sure there’s a great experience for our Xbox players, and then the gap between [when it becomes available on PlayStation] is as much a production decision as it is anything else.”