PlayFab Digest: October Feature Updates
Take a closer look at the enhancements to PlayFab for the month of October.
Welcome to the PlayFab Digest! We’re excited to share the latest PlayFab updates. PlayFab introduces Game Saves for cross-platform progression, a new API rate limits view in Game Manager, and the Unified SDK for easier integration. Explore these updates to enhance your game development. Let’s look at what’s new for the month of October!
PlayFab Game Saves: Ready for Title Launch
What’s New:
We’re excited to announce that PlayFab Game Saves is now generally available and ready for your next title launch! Building on the foundation set by Xbox Game Saves and the feedback from our preview program, PlayFab Game Saves is designed to empower cross-platform developers to deliver seamless, player-first progression across devices and ecosystems.
How to Get Started:
- Begin by selecting your title in PlayFab Game Manager, navigate to Progression > Games Saves and request access.
- We also encourage you to review our documentation to better familiarize yourself with our approach and access the new PlayFab Unified SDK in the October GDK.
- For more information, please see PlayFab Game Saves: Ready for Title Launch.
PlayFab Unified SDK
What’s New:
The PlayFab Unified SDK is the next generation development platform that brings together all PlayFab client libraries such as Multiplayer, Party, Game Save, and Services into one cohesive product. It delivers a consistent, streamlined integration experience across all PlayFab components, improving interoperability and simplifying client development.
Included in the October 2025 GDK, the PlayFab Unified SDK standardizes key development practices like authentication, async operations, error handling, and memory management. Developers can now integrate PlayFab services through a single SDK with unified APIs, reducing the complexity of managing multiple SDKs.
Existing standalone PlayFab SDKs (v1) remain supported, but the PlayFab Unified SDK (v2) is recommended for new projects.
Key Benefits:
- Simplified integration: One SDK installation and update process replaces multiple separate SDKs.
- Unified authentication: A single sign-in flow works across all components, removing the need for manual token handling.
- Automatic token management: Centralized logic keeps tokens refreshed in the background, preventing session timeouts.
- Consistent development model: Standardized patterns for initialization, async operations, error handling, and logging make development faster and easier.
How to Get Started:
- Check out the documentation at aka.ms/playfab-sdk-v2
PlayFab Party Sample for Switch 2
What’s New:
We’ve expanded platform support by porting the PlayFab Party sample to Nintendo Switch 2. This update enables developers to explore Party’s networking and voice capabilities on the latest Switch hardware, ensuring cross-platform consistency and feature parity. The sample demonstrates best practices for integrating Party services on Switch 2, making it easier to build multiplayer experiences that connect players seamlessly across consoles, PC, and mobile.
How to Get Started:
If you have not yet been granted access to our PlayFab Switch 2 SDKs, first confirm your Switch 2 developer status in the Nintendo dev portal under PlayFab.
Otherwise, you can find our PlayFab Party sample for Switch 2 here: PlayFabPartySwitch2 - Repos
PlayFab Party v1.10.12 Released for All Platforms
What’s New:
This release introduces key improvements and fixes across platforms. We refined the PartyNetwork::CreateEndpoint behavior to return PartyServiceError for transient issues before token expiration and UserNotAuthorized only when the token has expired, improving both developer experience and user stability. On Android, support for 16 KB page sizes has been added to meet new system requirements. For Apple platforms, we now support Arm64 simulator builds on iOS, implemented retry logic for microphone focus recovery after interruptions, and resolved memory leaks and potential freezes during Party voice chat and transcription. Additionally, we fixed a crash that could occur when calling PartyManager::Cleanup.
How to Get Started:
- Learn more about PlayFab Party here: Azure PlayFab Party overview - PlayFab | Microsoft Learn
- Get Started with Party Quickstart - PlayFab | Microsoft Learn
- Download the version of PlayFab Party you need for your specific platform/middleware: Azure PlayFab Party SDKs - PlayFab | Microsoft Learn
Thanks for checking out the great features that we’ve delivered in October! We’ll see you next month for more exciting updates in our upcoming PlayFab Digest. Happy Developing!
Ready to dive deeper? Explore PlayFab and discover how it can level up your game development journey.
Please visit the official PlayFab getting started guide to learn more!