Welcome to DayOne!

Announced as a part of our 300th Podcast Episode, after nearly seven years, XboxEra is about to change.

It’s a big change, and there’s a lot to cover here, but let’s get the larger part out of the way – yes, we’re rebranding, and that rebrand is going to see a big update to come to our little corner of the internet – including a brand new (and very shiny) website!

While I acknowledge that change isn’t easy – especially when it involves something that people care deeply about, I’m pretty sure this isn’t a big surprise, particularly to the fantastic folks that have supported our team since the very early days.

XboxEra, which we started as a small podcast way back in 2019 has grown far beyond what we had originally planned. It’s become more than a vehicle for what was then a small podcast that went out every fortnight, or even a website about Xbox consoles and Xbox games. In 2025, we celebrated our biggest year ever in terms of readership and overall growth, and saw incredible milestones for the podcast.

For us however, it’s always been about you. Our community. To the people that have supported us year in, year out. We owe you.

It’s a community that’s been built on passion, fun and a shared love of just playing video games, with an aversion to clickbait and nonsense in an industry increasingly dominated by it. As we’ve scaled up, as our ambitions and readership have grown, we came to the inescapable conclusion that change is not only desirable, but necessary.

We understand that rebranding away from XboxEra is probably going to be a big deal for some of you – so allow us to explain the why, what it means for our community going forward, and where we plan to go next.

Why DayOne?

When XboxEra launched, the name made a lot of sense. We wanted to build a website focused on Xbox, built by people that actually played there. It was just before the dawn of a new generation and it’s been a pretty crazy time – and it’s fair to say a lot has changed!

Ultimately as time went on, we found ourselves covering – and wanting to cover – more than just Xbox. PC, VR, Nintendo and PlayStation – and all of the industry turbulence, news and culture that came with it.

Beyond all of that though, DayOne refocuses us on what this is ultimately all about – playing great video games, and bringing you the best in news, reviews and previews – on day one. It’s a name that we feel ultimately honours our roots and where we came from, but gives us complete freedom to make our corner of the internet even more awesome.

We went through a lot of name ideas for the rebrand – and even toyed around with the full URL – playday.one. Ultimately, we shortened it to just DayOne and we hope you dig it. (I really annoyed Predrag for weeks with tons of different branding ideas)

What does it mean for the XboxEra Podcast?

It’s a good question. The XboxEra Podcast, over the course of 300 episodes, has earned (according to our community), an ‘iconic’ place in their hearts and minds. We’re not so sure about that, but we do appreciate the compliment.

We discussed internally that the rebrand would allow for us to do multiple shows, and perhaps new shows, like a PlayStation focused podcast, a Nintendo one and so on.

But really, outside of time and consistency being a primary concern, we already talk about all the platforms on the current Podcast by default.

So, as painful as it might initially feel – Episode 300 of the XboxEra Podcast will see it transform into the ‘DayOne Podcast’, alongside the general branding update.

Wait? A New Website?

That’s right! Over the course of the next month or so, our website will begin to transform. Full disclosure: We did have plans to update and make all of this happen during the actual episode, but ultimately – as ‘cool’ as that would have been – websites are complicated behemoths, and we’ve got 8000+ pieces of content and history to consider and protect.

So instead, a more considered approach was called for, but we wanted to at least show you what we have planned, and additionally, use the time over the next month to gather feedback from the people that matter the most – you.

The new site has been custom designed with the incredible talent of our Art & Design Lead, Predrag. The focus here is on a fresh new look, a mobile first design (nearly 80% of our readers are on a mobile device) and the flexibility to add new features and additions quickly.

We will be inviting our existing supporters to come in and help test things out when we get to that stage – because there’s one feature that’s very important to us and our future – and that’s DayOne Memberships.

Goodbye Patreon, Hello Memberships!

We started the XboxEra Patreon back in 2020, and like many sites that are independently owned, we relied on our readers to keep us ticking over. It’s been instrumental in getting us to where we are, and we’re genuinely beyond grateful for that. But as we grew, so did the cracks in the business model surrounding Patreon.

Patreon is a third party platform with its own set of rules, fees and limitations. Even worse, when we wanted to make cool new content for our supporters, we had to send them away from our own website, and that just didn’t feel right at all.

So today we’re excited to reveal Memberships as part of our big site redesign, which we’ll begin testing this month, with a plan to have it all live by the end of February.

By moving away from Patreon and bringing membership functionality in-house, we get to call the shots, and you get to reap the rewards.

With memberships on DayOne, it’s not just a support button. It’s a way to invest in a community you can actively participate in building.

The biggest problems an independent games media face today are multiple – a lack of trust and for the big sites out there, all owned by an increasingly small number of massive companies. A race to be ‘first’ in reporting, a lack of care or even interest for smaller indie developers and games, and perhaps most frustrating – the need to chase profit above building a relationship with readership. This results in a big focus on SEO driven garbage and worse, AEO (That’s ‘Answer Engine’ Optimisation, if you’d never heard vomit-inducing phrase until now).

Being a primarily reader-supported outlet, we plan on doing things differently – and as best we can, better than everyone else.

If you’re an existing Patreon member, don’t worry. Once memberships go live on DayOne, we’ll be tying all the accounts together so everyone can enjoy the same level of access, along with all the exclusive content. After that point, we’ll then pause accepting new members on the Patreon page, so if folks have paid for a year in advance, it will continue to be supported.

Members-only features will include:

• A completely ad-free browsing experience across the forums and website
• Exclusive Content and Exclusive Access
• Early Access to Articles, Interviews, Quick Looks and more
• Community Tools and Features
• Access to Discord and Forum ‘Members-only’ Areas
• A Direct Say in What We Cover
• Loads More!

By the end of February, our plan is to have all the cool stuff available where the community we’ve built wants it to be, with our forums, Discord community and content integrated together, and we can’t wait to see how it all evolves. Importantly, this change is about putting you at the centre of what we do – we want this to feel like a great place to hang out, talk games and connect with others, and to have a direct say in what games get coverage.

What does it mean for our Games coverage?

While we’ve reviewed plenty of games across Xbox and PC, we’ve never strayed too far beyond that. We’ve dabbled with the occasional Switch or PlayStation game, VR or mobile titles, but it was certainly not the ‘norm’.

With this rebrand, that will indeed be changing. We’ll be bringing the same high quality, deep look at games across multiple platforms from now on, and yes – we’ll be including PlayStation and Nintendo titles in among those, as well as whatever we want to cover, because we bloody well can.

We’ve built some fantastic relationships with developers, independent creators and publishers both large and small over the last six years, and they’ve all been alerted to the rebrand ahead of the show today. We look forward to building even more going forward, especially with the folks over at PlayStation and Nintendo.

I Hate All This Change. This is all Jon’s Fault, Right?

Yes.

Like I said at the start – change isn’t easy, but in the grand scheme, I could boil it all down to a simple statement:

“Same Content – Different Wrapper”

That’s really the approach we’re taking with DayOne. We feel we’re pretty good at what we do, and if we can bring that same passionate approach to more games, across more platforms? That isn’t going to take anything away from our audience or the wider community.

It will only add to it.

If you’ve been with us from the beginning, you’re not losing anything. You’re gaining a bigger, better and bolder version of what you helped build in the first place. We hope you embrace these changes and continue your support for our incredible team.

The Next Chapter Starts Now

We’re excited, and I think it’s fair to say, nervous. Rebranding is always a big risk, but we know we’ve built an incredible foundation to really push forward in a space where independent outlets are becoming increasingly rare. We think we can be different.

If you’re tired of the “same old, same old“, and want a direct say in what your outlet and community cover – Welcome to DayOne!