Amid the ongoing changes and restructuring at Xbox, the PC app is getting optimized. The tool is now going to be considerably faster, making it a greater competitor to the likes of Steam and the Epic Games Store.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma revealed the updates on Twitter herself. "We're making Xbox on Windows faster and more responsive," she writes. "Starting today, we're rolling out updates that make our app up to 60% faster."

Accompanying her post is a short video demonstrating what's been improved. The start-up time has now been reduced to just over five seconds, where it used to take over 15. That's an impressive bit of optimization, making the interface feel immediately sleeker.

Sharma calls it "a meaningful improvement," to which I'd agree, and she adds there's "plenty more to do" as well. Seems like the PC experience is becoming a greater priority in whatever form the Xbox company is taking going forward.

This new and improved startup time holds up well against Valve and Epic's offerings. For comparison, it generally takes between 5.23 and seven seconds for Steam to fully open based on recent clocking, and the Epic Games Store does so in 5.47 seconds. Both Steam and Epic made recent efforts to boost their respective launcher speeds, so it feels like – intentionally or not – there's a three-way competition happening here.

Should these alterations hold up to scrutiny, the Xbox PC app now beats both stores. It sits at 5.2 in the official video, and it seems the race is now on to go below the five second mark. That said, you should always take those times with a grain of salt. That'll be in ideal conditions all around. But to be even in the same league is a strong start if the goal is growing the PC audience.

Valve cracks down on Steam game submission process as questionable AI clones and vibe-coded slop flood its store.

Union workers at Arkane Studios claim owner Microsoft has sabotaged the development of its Marvel's Blade game and used the resulting costs and delays as justification to close the studio.

A scathing new letter from the Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV) video game union worries "Arkane Studios might close without having ever seen failure." (Microsoft previously closed US dev Arkane Austin following the failure of Redfall, a live service game that the single-player-focused studio was evidently saddled with under Xbox leadership.)

"Our studio might get closed because, and only because, Microsoft decided to, even if that means sabotaging the game it funded," the union claims.

"Microsoft chose to close Arkane," the letter adds. "Microsoft chose to justify the closure on economic reasons. But Microsoft is actually why those economic reasons even exist. Because after freezing hiring for 19 months, which artificially caused delay and additional cost, Microsoft now use those same delay and additional cost as a reason to close down the studio."

The union claims Arkane is understaffed, underfunded, and unfairly assessed, and calls "the resources provided in the redundancy plan" proposed "outrageously low." The union is demanding employee representation and a say "in the discussion to choose a potential buyer," as well as "a protection fund for employees on the level of the PSE compensation in case workers get fired for economic reasons."

If Arkane does close, the union demands employee compensation "commensurate with Microsoft’s status as a corporation," which it tallies at "a redundancy payment of 200K€, two years’ redeployment support funded by Microsoft," and "shared resources for training and studio creation, with a residual bonus to enable all employees to look to the future with confidence."

The letter calls supporting Arkane staff the bare minimum that Microsoft can do "with a net profit of more than 133 [billion] dollars in the past years." In its latest quarterly report, Microsoft reported $36.6 billion in net income, an increase of 32% on a GAAP basis.

"Arkane cash pool is always low as any remaining cash is systematically funneled to the group through a cash pooling mechanic," the letter continues. Additionally, the union seems to say the books are stacked against them, arguing that Arkane's previous games, "which combined have sold [tens] of millions, aren't anywhere to be found in the company results."

"Arkane is profitable. Just not profitable enough for Microsoft," the union says. "So indeed, Microsoft is responsible for the situation Arkane is in today. Microsoft is responsible for the situation the workers are in today. So Microsoft has to take full responsibility here and act accordingly."

Importantly, the union also claims that "closing Arkane today would probably be more expensive than finishing the game." On top of closing costs, this is surely a nod to the added costs associated with France's strong labor laws. "Fortunately, French law gives Arkane Studios the opportunity to find a buyer," the letter notes.

The letter also indicates that Blade is close to completion, which aligns with some previous reports.

"Today, as work on Blade is going fine, and that the level of quality of the game to be expected is on par with what Arkane has accustomed its players [to], workers have to face the harsh reality," the union says.

"We want to finish Blade and release it to the players, as well as the many games the future holds for Arkane. This is our dearest wish. But let’s not deny what we know is [real]: we want a future for the studio that goes beyond Blade, not to continue no matter what the cost may be for the workers."

The letter reiterates that Arkane will have no choice but to close if no buyer can be found, cutting loose 217 employees. I've reached out to Microsoft for comment.

Just yesterday, it was reported that Ubisoft is among at least three companies that have bid on the studio. As the STJV notes here, the deadline to find a buyer was extended by one month by Microsoft – an extension which, the union says, came "after we warned the press about the situation."

Xbox says "two separate agreements" to save Hellblade developer Ninja Theory have fallen through

The fallout from last month's departure of Xbox's newly appointed COO just got a little messier.

ICYMI, late last month, Helen Chiang, who had been with Microsoft for 21 years and was appointed COO in July as part of the big Xbox reset, abruptly left the company. Chiang has yet to provide an explanation for her departure, and the conspicuously brief memo in which Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced Chiang's departure only deepened the mystery. This week, Chiang herself shot down reports that she was fired for violating policy and said she had "serious concerns" about Microsoft's handling of the situation, but notably didn't directly refute claims she was ousted.

Now, a prominent figure in Xbox's history is stepping up in defense of Chiang with a sharp rebuke of Microsoft leadership. In a response to Chiang on LinkedIn (captured via Twitter user Knoebel and independently verified), former Xbox VP Shannon Loftis, who was with Microsoft for 33 years before leaving in 2022, throws her full support behind Chiang amid her departure.

"Team Helen all the way," says Loftis. "The 'leak' itself (of false information, for what purpose -? Let's all speculate on who made THAT decision) shows the loss of moral character and 'clarity' in leadership at Xbox. A real leadership team would have relentlessly pursued the 'leaker' and taken appropriate action because 'confidential personnel matters' actually are bases for defamation lawsuits."

The "leaker" Loftis is referring to appears to be the source at Eurogamer who had claimed Chiang was fired for "policy violations." Chiang has vehemently denied the claim about why she was fired, but so far Xbox and Microsoft have provided no official statement beyond the published internal memo from Sharma, which provides virtually zero explanation for Chiang's departure.

"It's a clownshow up in there and I feel terrible for anyone that still has to deal with it," Loftis concludes.

Loftis is a self-employed "video game maker" today, according to her LinkedIn, but she originally joined Microsoft as an IT project manager way back in 1993, before hopping over to the games side of the business in 1995. She would climb all the way up to VP of Xbox Game Studios in 2022, a position she would hold for just a few months.

Xbox's "money tap" was "unsustainable," South of Midnight co-director says, admitting he wouldn't have funded his own game if he were in charge at Microsoft

Ubisoft and at least two other companies have reportedly offered to buy Dishonored and Marvel's Blade dev Arkane Studios from Microsoft as the company seeks to spin out multiple Xbox developers.

Bloomberg reports that Ubisoft – which, like Arkane, is based in France – placed an offer in undisclosed and early-stage negotiations.

Other Xbox studios, like Psychonauts 2 maker Double Fine, have gone independent post-Xbox as Microsoft brute forces a "reset" plan under new leadership. Two agreements to save Hellblade developer Ninja Theory fell through, and in September, Arkane's future was also looking uncertain. Last month, in a move that sure seems to align with today's report, Xbox announced an extension to the deadline to "explore options" for Arkane's future.

Conflicting reports make it difficult to estimate how much work still needs to be done on Blade, which has occupied Arkane for years, including the years after Xbox closed down Arkane Austin following the Redfall disaster. Whether it's almost finished or still needs a year of work, Blade will need new backing, which is where this deal comes in.

Ubisoft would be a curious home for Arkane, though you could point to shared stealth action DNA between Dishonored and Assassin's Creed. And again, they're also both French, which is especially relevant concerning labor laws.

However, much like Microsoft, Ubisoft has a reputation for shuttering a lot of teams and cancelling a lot of games, though you'll hardly find a large publisher with a squeaky-clean graveyard these days.

Ubisoft is also going through its own reset following several disappointing years, with a new subsidiary dedicated to pillar franchises like Assassin's Creed propped up with backing from Tencent. By some miracle, this reset has not yet seen the end of Beyond Good & Evil 2, which – not to be outdone by the misguided Dragon Age: The Veilguard pivots that certainly contributed to the end of BioWare – Ubisoft apparently wanted to be a live service game at one point.

Ubisoft says it's done with Assassin's Creed remakes for now after Black Flag Resynced, and Assassin's Creed Hexe is "making steady progress" toward 2027 update

A total of 3,200 jobs will be cut at Xbox by the end of this fiscal year as part of an extensive restructuring. One of the casualties already is id Software, which has lost somewhere in the region of half its staff. That said, if you ask current leadership, everything at the Doom and Quake studio is fine and dandy at the moment.

Marty Stratton, studio co-director of id Software, commented on how the company's been doing since the layoffs hit over the summer during a preview event for Doom: The Dark Ages DLC. "We're doing great," he says, per IGN.

"Not to handwave the [layoffs] away," he adds. "Everybody knows we had about half of our studio exit as part of that. But there was a very deliberate effort to make sure that we were incredibly viable coming out of that across everything we do, across game development and technology department."

Being down half your team is pretty significant. Reportedly, id Tech itself, the studio's in-house engine, is now being managed by exactly one whole person. While that's certainly viable financially, I'm not sure how structurally sound that is long-term.

Stratton goes on. "We're working more closely with MachineGames than ever," he states. "We've always had a very close partnership with them, but I think we're at a point with technology development that both teams are incredibly talented and have incredibly talented engineers and we're really on an amazing path that had started pre-[layoffs]."

A question mark has loomed over MachineGames since the release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. The prevailing rumor is Wolfenstein 3, and given the general push toward established IP Xbox has been making amid all the redundancies, that seems a safe bet.

But what the collaboration between the two companies looks like, and where that leaves the next Doom, are bigger questions. "We'd kicked this off earlier this year. We're really excited about that," Stratton adds. "We're both really really bullish on what we have ahead."

Doom's John Romero confirms his new FPS is saved after Xbox abandoned it, new publisher deal helps studio re-hire 10 laid off staff

The state of affairs at Xbox right now is pretty grim. Microsoft's games division is letting go of a total of 3,200 jobs after years of declining financial returns. In discussing this, a lead developer for one of the brand's exclusives last year mentions that he probably wouldn't have funded his own game given where things were at.

Chatting to MinnMax, David Sears, the co-director of South of Midnight, went into where his reluctance would come from. "I literally told people, I was like, 'Yeah, wow, this could be terrible,'" he says.

"Because somebody is going to say one day, the money tap, we're closing those floodgates and that's going to have really traumatic results downstream," he adds. When asked to clarify if he's implying he wouldn't have gotten as behind South of Midnight as Xbox did, he makes it clear that is where he's at.

"Yeah. I mean, I wanted to make it, no doubt, right?" he continues. "Would I have turned off someone else's money flow before South Midnight? Yeah, because I'm not completely selfless."

That's a big statement to make about your own game, but I can understand his perspective. Xbox has clearly been in a difficult position for a while now, and you could probably highlight a bunch of games that were riskier to fund than perhaps necessary. It sure seems like a lot of people have learned the hard way that the money well wasn't as deep as anyone thought, which has led to the current cutbacks.

"It just seems like, in hindsight at least, it was unsustainable," Sears adds. "So, of course, it was going to have a shocking outcome." Hindsight is always 20/20, and at least South of Midnight exists as a result.

Former Xbox COO wants to "set the record straight" on her reported firing: "I don't want my departure reduced to an inaccurate story about incompetence"

Helen Chiang, the Microsoft veteran and former Xbox COO who left the company in October, is pushing back on reports claiming she was fired for violating company policy.

In an impassioned rebuttal posted on LinkedIn, Chiang directly refutes a recent report from Eurogamer that claimed she had been fired from Microsoft for policy violations. "That’s not accurate and while I won’t turn this into a play-by-play, silence should not be mistaken for agreement," says Chiang.

"What has been said about my departure, and what has been left unsaid, has created a picture of me that I hardly recognize. It’s important to me to set the record straight."

Refuting claims point by point, Chiang says she didn't leak confidential information to the press, she didn't leave Xbox to join a competitor, "did not engage in discrimination, bullying, harassment, insider trading, embezzlement, or other fraudulent activity," and didn't leave because she was passed up for a bigger role. The reason for Chiang's departure hasn't been made clear, neither by Chiang nor Microsoft. At the time of the departure, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said she was "grateful for her years of service" and wished Chiang well in a surprisingly brief message to employees.

"I believe in fairness, accountability, and holding ourselves to the standards we expect of others," she says. "Those standards only mean something when they’re applied consistently. I have serious concerns about how they were applied in my case, and I believe those concerns deserve to be taken seriously.

"I share this because I don’t want my departure reduced to an inaccurate story about incompetence, ambition for the next big job, or a Nelson-level scandal. My story is about staying true to your core values, especially when it is hard. That’s the legacy I hope to leave behind."

The full details of Chiang's departure might never come into view, but the abrupt removal of a 21-year veteran is noteworthy. Chiang joined Microsoft in 2005 as product manager and worked her way up to studio head and then corporate vice president of the Minecraft franchise in 2020. Sharma was appointed as Xbox's first COO by Sharma in July as part of the company's big "reset".

Xbox Game Pass overhaul would have you pay for add-ons like multiplayer and cloud gaming "ala carte," says new report

Gears of War E-Day's Xbox exclusivity did not move the needle for Xbox Series X|S sales, according to Circana games analyst Mat Piscatella.

Speaking to The Game Business, Piscatella notes that – despite negative reception from fans and mixed reviews – PS5 sales in September 2026 were boosted compared to September 2025 thanks to Marvel's Wolverine. He notes that the console bundle and new DualSense controller also did well sales-wise, adding, "In terms of an old-school, 'here's an exclusive game and we're going to sell some consoles and some accessories with it,' I think it's about as good as you could hope from an IP that isn't the level of Spider-Man."

However, the same can't be said for Xbox. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma made a big song and dance about how Gears of War E-Day will be exclusive to Xbox consoles, despite word that a PS5 version was far in development, but since launch, it doesn't seem to have done much for the platform. UK Xbox sales data from Nielsen IQ showed a 22% drop in October, while Circana saw no uplift in the US. Piscatella notes, "All of the new programs they're putting into place, at least in the sales and engagement data that I look at, I'm not seeing [them] have any positive impact.

"Saying Gears is going to be exclusive hasn't made any difference in terms of the hardware trend. In fact, it keeps getting worse," Piscatella says, also noting that since Call of Duty was removed from Xbox Game Pass as a day one release, "you lost a ton of engagement on Xbox because it's no longer on Game Pass, and you got no benefit."

As for Xbox consoles, Piscatella says, "It's really hard to find any signs of positivity or hope on that platform right now." He adds, "Everything they're doing seems to be getting Twitter likes from the most passionate part of their fan base, but other than that, in terms of actual results, I'm not seeing anything right now. And I'm looking really hard."

Gears of War E-Day sold just 62k copies on Xbox versus 1.7 million Game Pass players, analyst estimates: "The $70 premium SKU is – functionally – dead on Xbox"

Microsoft has made thousands of layoffs over the past few years, and it's not done cutting jobs yet. After implementing a voluntary buyout program earlier this year, the company is now offering it to a reported 60,000 employees. That number represents over a quarter of the company, a telling indicator of just how much human labor Microsoft is looking to cut as it continues to go all in on AI.

"This is a time-limited, voluntary program that gives those who are eligible the opportunity to leave Microsoft with financial support and career planning resources," the company says in a message to employees, which it also published online.

Official communication from Microsoft does not detail how many employees will be eligible for the voluntary exit offer, but CNBC reports that "around 60,000 people" will receive the offer, or around 27% of the company. Certainly, not every eligible employee will accept the deal, but the numbers remain staggering.

Microsoft offered voluntary buyouts earlier in the year to an estimated 9,000 employees, and recently reported that "more than 30% of eligible employees chose to participate" in the program. Assuming the reported estimates were accurate, that means that around 3,000 employees took the buyouts.

That's on top of the 6,000 laid off in May 2025, 9,000 laid off in July 2025, and 4,800 laid off in July 2026. Xbox has been hit particularly hard in these layoffs, with 1,600 jobs in Microsoft's gaming division eliminated as part of the 2026 cuts, and another 1,600 layoffs currently in progress. More of those cuts are expected to be announced between now and January.

Amid mass Xbox layoffs, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the "streamlining" is "great to see"

Last week, it was reported that Microsoft's negotiations over the fate of Arkane Studios could be reaching an impasse as the deadline approached. The home of the Xbox brand has since confirmed the end date has been extended, allowing more time for a positive resolution.

Since summer, union representatives have been discussing what'll ultimately happen to Arkane in Xbox's grand restructuring with Microsoft. French law requires that any layoffs involving 1,000 or more people include an attempt to consider alternatives before letting people go.

As such, PlayStation's rival has to sit at the table with the makers of Dishonored and look at where the studio could go. Several options are being considered, presumably meaning the team could be sold to another publisher or media group.

Microsoft's been generally tight-lipped, but in a statement to PC Gamer, it was revealed that the timeline is growing longer. "We have extended the consultation period by one additional month as we explore options," a representative told the outlet, "including finding a partner to support the studio through the development work still ahead. This is a defined extension, and we remain committed to keeping the Works Council informed throughout the process."

The "development work still ahead" is on Marvel's Blade, a project that was announced in 2023. There are conflicting reports on its status, as a union rep told French outlet Le Monde it was nearing completion, whereas PC Gamer now says sources claim it still has years to go.

Regardless, any and all unreleased games become potential casualties amid the kind of layoffs Xbox is making. But at least it seems like everyone involved wants Blade to see the light of day.

Unfortunately, what comes after is still to be seen. Even if Arkane is bought, the likelihood remains that some jobs will be cut by the new owner. It's a sad situation. Watch this space.

Xbox COO and ex-Minecraft boss leaves Microsoft after just 3 months in the role

Helen Chiang, a Microsoft veteran who was head of Minecraft before transitioning to Xbox Chief Operating Officer (COO), has left the company after 21 years.

The Verge (paywalled) obtained a copy of an internal memo sent by Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announcing Chiang's departure, and as the publication notes, it's surprisingly brief for such a high-profile change in leadership. "Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft today. I'm grateful for her years of service and wish her well," said Sharma. The memo reportedly notes that Chiang's job responsibilities will be broken up between other Xbox leaders until a new COO is appointed. "We'll share more on COO leadership as plans are finalized," Sharma told employees.

Chiang joined Microsoft in 2005 as a product manager for the company's now-defunct Streets & Trips mapping software and joined Xbox as business manager in 2007. She joined the Minecraft team as senior director in 2014 and made her way up to studio head and then corporate vice president of the Minecraft franchise in 2020. In July 2026, when Sharma announced her big Xbox "reset," Chiang was appointed as the very first Xbox COO, a role that was created as part of Sharma's broader plans for the brand.

Although hundreds of jobs have already been lost as part of the Xbox reset, Xbox has said a total of 3,200 jobs will ultimately be cut by the end of the 2027 fiscal year. A recent report from Fortune claims the company is planning three waves of layoffs between now and January 2027, which would follow two major waves that have already happened since July when the reset was announced.

Netflix reportedly wanted a $500 million film and TV deal with Xbox – but the counter offer was $800 million

Conversations are ongoing concerning the fate of Arkane Studios, one of many companies impacted by Xbox's current restructuring. Sadly, reports suggest the team and Microsoft will be parting ways, and what will become of its slate at the moment remains in the air.

The information comes from Le Monde, a French publication that spoke to union representatives about Arkane's discussions with Xbox. Given the changes underway in Microsoft's games division, a November 13 deadline looms for the consultation process on what will become of the studio behind Dishonored and Deathloop.

Alas, according to comments from the union Printemps Ecologique, things aren't looking great. Although Arkane is apparently doing well, Microsoft wants to sell it on, leaving the team and its projects in the lurch. Per a machine translation, a number of potential resolutions for a takeover are being considered. In other words, buyers are being courted, and some are showing interest, but shutting the doors is feasible too.

Another owner is always a dangerous proposition, because the transition comes with considerable uncertainty. Moreover, the fact Arkane isn't in charge of its own destiny is anxiety-inducing all its own.

Labor law in France dictates acquisition must be explored if performing layoffs of over 1,000 employees. PlayStation's big rival is undergoing a large downsizing, getting rid of 3,200 jobs in total. The belief within Arkane is that the studio is collateral damage of what's going on at Xbox.

217 jobs will be impacted by whatever happens. Arkane's been working on Marvel's Blade for a number of years, and it's said the game is nearing completion. It would be truly disappointing if all that hard work didn't lead to a full release, but I wouldn't count on anything given the industry at the minute.

In a statement given to Le Monde, Microsoft said it is "actively seeking a partner to support the next phase of development and enable the commercialization of [Marvel's Blade]." We'll keep you informed as November 13 draws closer.

Ex-Blizzard boss says an $1,800 Xbox "will never sell" and current-gen consoles are "fine for 99% of the audience" anyway

Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra doesn't like what he's hearing about the next Xbox console costing somewhere in the range of $1,200 to $1,800, as was recently reported.

In case you hadn't heard, yes, I'm afraid I bring you even more bad news about the games console market. A recent report from Fortune claims Microsoft is projecting internally that its next home console will "cost consumers between $1,200 and $1,800," assuming Xbox doesn't subsidize some of that cost and take a potential financial loss on hardware sales. Even amid an unprecedented increase in component costs driven by global memory shortages, $1,800 is stretching the limits of the most cynical predictions for the price of next-gen hardware. Let's remember quickly that less than six years ago, the PS5 and Xbox Series X released for $500.

Voicing his astonishment at the possibility on Twitter, Ybarra urges Xbox against considering a next-gen line of consoles at such an exorbitant cost to consumers.

"I find this very hard to believe," he says. "A 'console' is a mass-audience device and you need great games and a low entry price (IMO $399 to $499). A console at the prices rumored below will never sell meaningful units to be of any value vs. alternatives. Zero.

"I wouldn't release it at all," says Ybarra.

Not to belabor the point, but consumers particularly in the US right now are already fielding increased prices on everything from fuel to housing to insurance to ground beef, and entertainment as an expense is increasingly being squeezed from budgets. Anecdotally, I can tell you that if Xbox released a $1,200 console today, I would simply dust off my Xbox Series X and tell new Xbox to get bent. And that's exactly what Ybarra suggests console manufacturers do for now:

"Stick with PS5 Pro/Series X until prices normalize. The capabilities of those boxes are both fine for 99% of the audience," he says. "No one is screaming 'I need a more powerful console' right now and I believe tons of optimization can and is happening on those platforms." As an example of these optimizations, Ybarra points to Xbox's recent announcement that its machine-learning upscaler FSR 4.1 is coming to Xbox Series X and S.

I'm interested to see how Xbox navigates this situation. Amid new CEO Asha Sharma's big and layoff-heavy reset, what the company does with its next big machine will answer a ton of questions about how it plans to position itself against competitors Sony and Nintendo in the next generation of hardware. Of course, Sony and Nintendo are in similar predicaments, although Nintendo to a lesser degree as it just released the Switch 2 last year.

If the idea of an $1,800 Xbox that doesn't even run physical games horrifies you, I'd pick up an Evercade Nexus and ignore the next generation

Xbox is reportedly planning three more waves of layoffs this month, in November, and in January 2027 as part of its planned 3,200 job cuts before the end of the fiscal year.

Earlier this year, after near-yearly layoffs since Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King at the end of 2023, it was announced that a further 3,200 jobs would be cut throughout FY27. This included Xbox separating from Compulsion Games, Undead Labs, and Double Fine, while Ninja Theory is at risk of closing after a deal fell through. These plans saw 1,600 laid off in July, with a further 268 laid off in September – including at Halo Studios, whose franchise has been moved to Activision

A Fortune report, published alongside an interview with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, says that "people familiar with the plans" have said Sharma is planning layoffs for October, November and January. Obviously, for Xbox to hit its planned 3,200 job cuts by the end of March, these will need to happen, but it sounds like they will be near-monthly from here out, rather than one more big batch like the one in July.

The planned layoffs have reportedly left Xbox employees demoralized by the decision to structure them in several waves, as it effectively gives them a year's worth of worrying about whether they'll be next. Days after Gears of War E-Day story director Juan Vaca was laid off, reports emerged from The Coalition that the studio fears post-launch layoffs and that Microsoft is withholding bonus payments.

Fortune also reports that Microsoft's internal projections for the next-gen Xbox, Project Helix, indicate it could cost between $1,200 and $1,800, with the console reportedly set to launch by Christmas 2028. Alongside this is news that there's an Xbox Game Pass overhaul on the way, which could sell certain features like multiplayer and cloud gaming "à la carte."

Layoffs are unfortunately becoming more commonplace in the industry as game budgets – and CEO bonuses – increase, with Sony shutting down the likes of Bluepoint Studio, while EA laid off workers from Battlefield Studios after the game was considered a success.

Optimism that a spike in consumer spending during the COVID-19 era would persist hasn't helped either, nor does the impact of US tariffs and AI on component costs. As Sharma has noted since taking over, Xbox is no stranger to the issues facing the industry, though whether her plan to right the ship works or goes too far remains to be seen.

New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is reportedly planning some huge Game Pass changes, including a full-blown pricing overhaul that would have users pay for subscription add-ons "ala carte," according to a new report.

This comes from Fortune (paywalled), which published an exhaustive conversation with Sharma covering some of the broad strokes of her plan to make Xbox "the No. 1 entertainment company." Part of that plan is a multi-stage downsizing that'll see 3,200 cut jobs by the end of the 2027 fiscal year, but it also includes the new Project Helix home console that is reportedly due to release in time for the 2028 holiday season and could cost as much as $1800, as well as a handheld system expected to launch in 2027.

The reason we're here, however, is this reported plan to fundamentally change how Microsoft's Game Pass subscriptions are priced. The current structure allows users to pick from various pre-determined tiers with various features based on price, but according to this new Fortune report, Sharma and co. are hatching a new plan to introduce paid add-ons for things like cloud gaming, multiplayer, and console-only games. So, in theory, you could be subscribed to the cheapest plan with the fewest benefits and still add on features that are important to you for additional monthly charges.

This is all far from confirmed and heavily dependent on pricing specifics, but I don't hate this idea fundamentally. If I can save myself a few dollars on a subscription by opting out of stuff like online multiplayer and cloud gaming, and just tack-on benefits like day one releases, that could increase the value proposition enough for me to resubscribe. But again, it's far too early to say how consumer friendly this potentially revised Game Pass plan will be in the end.

Xbox business manager says devs not using AI shouldn't "be in the business of being a business" – because he "vibe coded a bad but improvable game in 2 days"

A higher-up at Xbox is weighing in on the discussion around generative AI in game development, and he believes it's part of an inevitable future. Despite never having made a video game before, he's convinced vibe coding is the way forward for the industry.

In a series of posts on Twitter, Brandon Stirrup, a senior business strategy manager at Microsoft, explained his stance on the technological shifts within video games. "I vibe coded a bad but improvable game in two days and I only spent three hours actively," he starts.

"I’m telling you I tried it and it’s true - anyone can build a game," he adds, before asserting the direction of the headwinds. "There’s no point in a five-ten year plan absent AI in 2026. Everything you plan for will be superseded. You’re planning for a fake future," he writes.

Stirrup feels so strongly about this, he believes studios who aren't incorporating AI in some form are categorically worse off. "If you’re a game developer refusing to believe that AI has a place in your future, you should not be in the business of being a business," he tweets.

Amid his stream of consciousness, he asserts that if he's suddenly let go from his position, it's "because I told you the truth that nobody wants you to know." Included in that remit is the notion gen-AI can make a game from a prompt, and the assertions that "hundreds" of Xbox employees actively use AI, and "gaming is the only industry pretending to not use AI."

There are more tweets, but he goes around in circles on these beliefs, at one point providing a demo of the game he got some sort of chatbot to spit back at him after some prompting. It's a basic soccer sim that looks every bit like the three hours he says he put into it.

We can't verify his statement on how many people at Xbox use AI in their workflow, nor to what extent. Last year, it was reported EA was making chatbots mandatory across the company. Is Xbox operating similarly? What are the mandates and approval rates?

Multiple studios have either been caught out using AI assets or plainly admitted the tech was involved somewhere in the development process. The feedback to such is roundly negative. Of everything Stirrup says here, his claim devs shouldn't be in business if they aren't using AI is among the most flippant and easily untrue. Palworld, Wardogs and Slay the Spire 2 are three massive hits that'd like a word.

"I have never attempted to make a video game," he tweets at one point. He still hasn't, I'd argue, and he probably shouldn't make broad statements about those who actually do, either.

A Halo extraction shooter and battle royale hybrid game was reportedly scrapped during the development of Campaign Evolved

A new Xbox survey is asking players how they would feel about future titles being console-exclusive to Xbox, with Fallout, Hideo Kojima's Physint, and Minecraft name-dropped.

Since its massive spending spree on the likes of Activision Blizzard and Bethesda, Xbox has been a bit all over the place when it comes to exclusives. Aside from honoring exclusive deals with the likes of Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo, Microsoft went all-in on being a third-party publisher for a bit there, bringing almost every one of its games to PS5. Then, with the appointment of new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, the strategy changed again: Gears of War: E-Day was confirmed to be on Xbox and PC only, despite reports that its PS5 port was apparently close to completion.

And now – barring Fable, which was previously confirmed for a PS5 launch – it looks like Microsoft may be priming players for more exclusivity. As highlighted by Windows Central, some Xbox Insider members have received surveys asking about game exclusivity and where they would play the title – or if they would play it at all if it's not on PS5 or Switch 2.

These reportedly included questions about Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and the upcoming Hideo Kojima game, Physint, which Xbox Game Studios recently became the publisher of, following Sony's decision to cancel the project. Kojima himself has said he doesn't know if Physint will release on PlayStation.

However, it's the final question that is likely to raise the most eyebrows. The question asks players to imagine every Xbox game – barring Call of Duty, which Microsoft is legally required to release on other platforms until at least 2033 – was an exclusive. However, it adds "For Minecraft only, existing titles would no longer be available for purchase on PlayStation or Nintendo consoles, and would not receive any new content updates."

I don't think people would be happy if Fallout 5 or Elder Scrolls 6 were exclusive to Xbox for sure, but the idea of removing Minecraft from PlayStation and Nintendo consoles, as well as no longer giving updates to those versions, is so brazenly a bad decision that even being floated is concerning.

Minecraft on Nintendo Switch has sold over 4 million physical copies in Japan alone, and the worldwide number is likely to be much higher, while the PS4 version of the game had over 17 million players as of 2019 – and given that a native PS5 version didn't release until 2024, again, that number is likely to have far surpassed it. Obviously, it's just a hypothetical for now, but I can only imagine that taking Minecraft away from millions would have a backlash that makes complaints about Sony's killing physical games look like nothing much.

As Minecraft sells over 425 million copies and attracts 300,000 new players a day, the evergreen sandbox game is getting its first dimension in 14 years

Batman and Good Will Hunting actor Ben Affleck says that his early years of fame were defined by staying at home and playing an unfathomable amount of Starcraft.

Speaking to Josh Horowitz on Happy Sad Confused, Affleck is asked what his favorite video game of all time is, more specifically "what sucked the most life out of you." And while Affleck dubs it a hard question, he responds: "There was a game called Starcraft that probably took the most life out of me for a period of time." He recalls, "I had just got famous and all I did was stay home for 3 years and play Starcraft."

As for more modern titles, Affleck shouts out Riot Games' Valorant, but "the problem with that game" is that he gets "fucking rocked" by 11-year-olds. "It's very humiliating," he adds.

While on the subject of being beaten at games by children, Affleck notes, "I get to play 2K with my son and lose, which is so humiliating," before adding that the 14-year-old "just beats you and then just mocks me and derides me."

On top of that, Affleck shares his love for titles like Madden, Civilization, and classic FPS games. He recalls that "we played" Doom "endlessly" during the making of Good Will Hunting ("we" in this case presumably being himself and Matt Damon, co-writer and star of the film), with Affleck saying, "I remember writing and taking these long breaks to play Doom. I can't believe it's been out that long."

Affleck also praises Myst, calling it a "fabulous game" partly for its storytelling; he says, "there's an opportunity for somebody to do something like that again."

Blizzard's new StarCraft shooter is "not a seasonal game," says lead: "The story has a beginning, a middle, and an end."

If you've been taking on the Locust horde in Gears of War: E-Day lately, you might have noticed some disruption in online play. The servers have been subject to DDoS attacks, but The Coalition is on the case and normal service is expected to resume in the near future.

The developer posted about the incidents on social media. "Earlier today, some players experienced intermittent disconnects, login issues, or other service disruptions in Gears of War: E-Day," a post on Twitter says. "These issues were due to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks targeting our online services."

Repairs are underway, and the tweet notes the devs are keeping an eye on things. "Our teams are continuing to monitor and mitigate this activity," the post continues. "We’ll provide updates if there are any significant changes."

The tweet ends by thanking fans for being patient and understanding. It's unclear how much damage the attackers caused or how badly the systems were impacted, but it was likely fairly noticeable and widespread if it necessitated an official response.

This is a frustrating turn since the game only came out last week, on October 6, and it's the big return for one of Xbox's flagship series. Many have likely already finished the campaign, and are now getting stuck right into the multiplayer - or they glossed over the single-player elements in favor of blasting and chainsawing others online.

Now, those plans have been delayed. In the responses, some users are noting they've been waiting a number of hours for servers to stabilize again, indicating it's been stop-start the last while. You can probably expect that to persist throughout today, before The Coalition managed to completely firewall the DDoS culprits.

Nobody said taking on the Locust would be easy. Sometimes it just takes a little more patience than you'd like. Remain steadfast.

Gears of War E-Day sold just 62k copies on Xbox versus 1.7 million Game Pass players, analyst estimates: "The $70 premium SKU is – functionally – dead on Xbox"

It is absolutely no surprise to anyone in the market for a new gaming console that prices have risen rather sharply in the last year-and-change, but fresh insights from a trusted industry analyst put some context into just how bad things have gotten.

The ongoing RAM shortages, coupled with tariff-driven increases in hardware prices, have driven each of the three big console manufacturers; Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo; to drive up console prices numerous times in less than two years. If you want a brand-new PS5 Pro, you're looking at $900, while the disc version of the Xbox Series X is now priced at $800. Meanwhile, Nintendo's second Switch 2 price hike means you'll need to drop $500 on the base model of the current-gen system.

Circana's Mat Piscatella, citing data from the company's US retail tracking system, says these price increases have, unsurprisingly, resulted in slowed sales for both Sony and Microsoft. Specifically, "For 2026 YTD ending August, Xbox hardware unit sales are down 33% versus a year ago in the US, while PlayStation hardware units are 25% lower," says Piscatella on Bluesky. "Xbox YTD US hardware unit sales are at an all-time low, while PlayStation is at lowest point since 2013."

Looking at year-to-date console price changes in averages and percentages, Piscatella says "the average price a consumer has paid for a new Xbox console in 2026 YTD ending August is $529, 26% higher than a year ago, while the average PlayStation console has sold for $597, 20% higher than last year.

"Both prices are at all-time US highs. Price sensitivity is becoming a real problem."

Perhaps the release of the Big Video Game in November will help ease at least some of these declines.But this will also depend on product availability given the RAM and component crisis. And pricing, of course.The US hardware market has not been in a more precarious position since the early 80s.

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-10-09T18:15:04.217Z

"Price sensitivity is becoming a real problem" just might be the most broadly relatable sentence possible living in the US in 2026, but Piscatella shares a small glimmer of hope in a certain video game that rhymes with Grand Theft Auto Fix. "Perhaps the release of the Big Video Game in November will help ease at least some of these declines," Piscatella says, clearly alluding to GTA 6, but even that is a big uncertainty. "This will also depend on product availability given the RAM and component crisis. And pricing, of course," says Piscatella, concluding with a dramatic contextualization of the current environment:

"The US hardware market has not been in a more precarious position since the early 80s."

Of course, Piscatella seems to be referencing the historic video game crash that happened from 1983 to 1985 and saw revenue attributed to US home video game sales fall 97% from about $3.2 billion in 1983 to $100 million in 1985. We haven't quite reached that level of catastrophe yet, and there's hope component shortages and tariff-related costs will eventually stabilize and ease some of the pressure on the console market, but going into the holiday season, console shoppers shouldn't expect substantial relief outside of big sales like Black Friday.

"Supply has been consistently available" - Acer's CEO says it's "impossible" for the memory shortage to last until 2030, but that average PC prices will still increase by 5-20% by the end of 2026

A lot of change is going on in the annals of Xbox right now. The games division of Microsoft is in the midst of 3,200 layoffs and a complete restructuring, and that includes in senior management. Mojang, the company overseeing Minecraft, now has a new boss, but their background isn't strictly in game development.

Asha Sharma, CEO of Xbox, has announced that Maria Angelidou-Smith is taking on the role of Mojang CEO, replacing Kayleen Walters, who's now president of XP. That's apparently another wing of Xbox dedicated to how "how people experience our franchises beyond the games themselves" - in other words, TV and movie adaptations and licensing agreements and what not.

Considering the success of A Minecraft Movie, and the fact she's a named producer on the sequel, it makes sense for Walters to move into that role. It's mentioned Minecraft garnered over 250 licensees in her time there.

Angelidou-Smith is no stranger to positions like this, but more in social media than video games. From 2014 to 2022, she was with Meta, looking after various aspects of Facebook, firstly in app monetization, and then in the realm of Facebook Groups, Dating and the like.

Then, after stints in other industries, she took on the job of chief product officer at Reddit in November of last year. And now she's in charge of Minecraft.

"Mojang already has an exceptional game development team that knows Minecraft and its players deeply," Sharma writes in an internal memo shared by The Hollywood Reporter. "We wanted someone who has built products for communities at enormous scale, who is deeply technical, and who understands how creators, product, technology and monetization come together."

Sharma says Angelidou-Smith's "first order of business" is "to learn from the teams and communities that make Minecraft so special."

If you're somewhat cynical of this move, I don't blame you. This certainly looks like Microsoft's targeted someone who's more concerned about user retention, advertising, and monetization than community moderation and access.

Minecraft is a juggernaut that's resisted many of the more concerning practices you can find in something like Roblox. There's no explicit suggestion Microsoft wants to push that direction, but this changeover leaves the possibility open. We'll see what the future holds.

Former Halo art director claps back at founding Xbox member for implying 343 Industries had a "laziness" problem: "It isn't accurate"

After the seven year wait between Gears 5 and Gears of War: E-Day, The Coalition studio head Mike Crump says we won't be waiting quite as long for what's next.

Gears of War: E-Day is finally out after being announced back in June 2024, and by extension has ended the series longest hiatus. Gears 5 was released all the way back in 2019, following a three year wait between it and Gears 4 – which in turn only took three years to release after the launch of Gears of War Judgement. In fact, the entire original trilogy released within a five-year span, meaning the wait between 5 and E-Day has been pretty significant for fans.

Speaking to the BBC, Crump promises that E-Day will set a "great foundation" for the future of the series, and that "the next game will not take nearly as long." However, reports out of the studio ahead of launch were that of fear that Microsoft would be laying off staff members following the release of the game and as part of the company's planned 3,200 job cuts by the end of the fiscal year (with the game's story director being laid off just before launch).

Crump acknowledges this, saying: "What I say to myself, what I say to the team, is we just [sic] we need to focus on the things that we can control." He adds, "For us that's about shipping a great game that people are going to love and I feel like, as a team, we've done that."

Gears 5 pretty famously ended with a massive cliffhanger, so naturally fans have been waiting to see the resolution of that, and still are given that E-Day is a prequel to the entire series. But thankfully, it sounds like it won't be seven years away.

Gears of War E-Day review: "Brings Gears back to the cutting edge of shooters."

Laura Fryer, one of the first developers to join Microsoft Game Studios back in 1995, says she "watched the birth" of Halo Studios – formerly 343 Industries – while working on Gears of War 2, dubbing it "a ghost town."

According to Fryer, who now regularly uploads videos about the video game industry on her YouTube channel, the Halo team was "next door" to her own – and after witnessing how it supposedly came to be, she says she's "not surprised" by Halo Studios' recent layoffs.

You know, the ones stemming from Microsoft's plans to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox, with a whopping 268 employees laid off earlier this month, many of whom were working at Halo Studios.

The very same which saw Activision take control of the franchise with a promise to deliver "the greatest Halo game ever," in fact.

Former 343 Industries art director Glenn Israel doesn't exactly agree with Fryer's recollection, however, commenting as much on her video. "I'll reiterate that while Laura's intro is a cool story, it isn't accurate," he writes, explaining that he's not looking to "glaze" Halo Studios, which "was rife with systemic issues."

It wasn't, however, rife with "laziness," as he points out. "343 Industries didn't start staffing up as a development studio until late 2009 (Gears 2, incidentally, shipped late 2008 in the west and mid 2009 elsewhere – the actual work executed in NC not WA)," Israel continues, already leaving some holes in Fryer's own tale.

He explains that when he joined in 2010 "straight from Bungie," there was no Gears of War team "next door."

The Halo developers were "already hard at work in a maximum-security off-campus satellite called Willows," and "you couldn't badge into the studio space if you weren't on the team" – which, yeah, would imply that Fryer's memory here isn't exactly accurate.

Israel concludes that the video is "deeply disappointing" as "there are more than enough legitimate grievances to farm engagement from in this pot; we don't need new fictions from the kettle."

It's tough to discern what is reality and what isn't, I suppose, but Israel's words hit hard here – especially considering the circumstances. Fryer has yet to respond to the former art lead's reply, but since she's commented on others' posts, she just might.

Veteran Halo lead has suggestions for how Activision could actually make "the greatest Halo game ever," and they include hiring "Bungie, Halo Studios, and other laid-off folks"

As Blizzard continues to flesh its PC storefront Battle.net out with the likes of The Witcher 3, Xbox CEO and executive vice president Asha Sharma doubles down on what the World of Warcraft studio has said before – it's not trying to create another Steam.

Yes, Blizzard partnered with CD Projekt Red to see The Witcher 3 make its way onto its own storefront – but that doesn't mean Battle.net will continue to accept just any game willy-nilly, or that it's a one-to-one Steam competitor.

Andrew Guerrero, Blizzard's vice president of product management and global insight, confirmed as much last month, saying the company isn't "trying to do the Steam or Epic Games Store thing."

He said Blizzard already has its "audience," a "passionate core of people that play Blizzard games and games similar to Blizzard," assuring that they'd only "get after" titles for Battle.net should they make sense for that core.

Sharma is now saying the same herself, telling Xbox in an internal town hall (as per Windows Central) that Battle.net will grow, and is actually nearly retaining as many users as Steam already – but it'll never be Steam.

She hints that it'll instead be a more selective, curated storefront than platforms like Steam or even Microsoft's Xbox PC. Sharma also teases that the partnership bringing with CD Projekt Red bringing games like The Witcher 3 to Battle.net will grow, too, although carefully.

In her words, "We will do it the right way for those communities." So, there's clearly a sense of executives taking utmost care with the whole situation.

As it stands now, Battle.net really isn't anything like Steam, anyway. It's primarily a home for Blizzard's own lineup of games, from World of Warcraft to Diablo 4 and the like.

Sure, there are other partner titles, like Call of Duty entries and Xbox Game Studios gems such as Avowed and Sea of Thieves, but it truly is a more particular store than its competitors.

How will that work out in the long run? Well, I suppose only time will tell.

Xbox Helix is seemingly pulling a Steam Deck, CEO discusses devices for players "on the go" with "a great console first"

New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma reiterated plans for Xbox Project Helix to encompass a "family of devices" at a recent company town hall meeting, describing a new generation with a console at its center but also with options for players "on the go," seemingly in the vein of portable systems like Valve's Steam Deck or Nintendo's Switch 2.

In a meeting transcript shared with Windows Central, Sharma says, "We are moving to a family of devices for Gen-10," the hardware generation which will cover the PS6 and whatever Xbox Helix ends up being. We're currently in Gen 9, but as ever these generations remain loosely defined.

"There is not one device that fits all. We will certainly have a great console first, but we also know that many players will be on the go," she continues, repeating assertions that Xbox consoles remain load-bearing for the brand despite concerns about its shift to a publisher-lite role.

In separate comments that notably follow years of multiplatform efforts which have now ended in seismic layoffs and closures across Xbox studios, Sharma admits the brand doesn't have "the right" to aim beyond console if its core user base, its "most valuable players," can't be treated "the right way."

Returning to hardware, Sharma adds, "There are some things that we are the best in the world to manufacture, and there are other things that [we will] partner on." This reads as her tipping her hat to the third-party hardware manufacturers who will actually make the implied Xbox handheld. "So, we will be sharing more about that as our plans develop. The operating system is starting to look really good. We're very excited about this."

Much of this echoes discussion around the ROG Xbox Ally, which increasingly looks like Xbox dipping its toes into the portable PC market before putting more resources behind an entire generation of bespoke hardware.

Details remain scarce, but this portable Helix device sounds closer to a Steam Deck or Steam Machine arrangement – an operating system in a box which will also play PC games – than something like the Nintendo Switch.

It's also unclear how this device will, as Sharma has repeatedly urged, tackle the affordability crisis facing new consoles.

Xbox CEO says working with PlayStation is on the table even after Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear successor Physint swaps publishers: "Competition and collaboration can coexist."

The Elder Scrolls Online is undergoing a bit of a "renaissance" this year and beyond, as the MMO's developers put it – and much of that involves introducing new types of content that break the game's old formula, so to speak.

2026 has not been easy for ZeniMax Online Studios with Microsoft's plan to cut over 3,200 employees at Xbox coming into action. Heck, Bethesda's union representatives reported a loss of "dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers" – and the chaos is ongoing.

Despite it all, however, game director Nick Giacomini confirmed that the MMO is "here to stay" with extra help from Bethesda… and boy, is it.

I was able to sit down with the director and other leads, including associate design director Jason Barnes, to discuss what direction The Elder Scrolls Online is taking now, in fact – and as difficult as it's been for the developers, it's an exciting time for the community with regard to all of the new content coming nonetheless.

There's the season system, of course, and the ever-puzzling Nowhere Vault, Rumors, and High Seas of Tamriel event.

It all marks a break away from the game's usual mold – one that involves yearly expansions and hardcore content (think Veteran difficulty and the like) – in honor of experiences that far more flavors of player might enjoy.

As Barnes puts it, experiences that "let players figure it out" for themselves… no combat skill required. Plus, "people love secrets," he says. "They love uncovering things." And, there's plenty more to uncover now.

ZeniMax saw success with content like the Nowhere Vault during playtests, even, as Barnes tells me engagement "was extremely high because everyone was looking in every nook and cranny and trying to figure out "what does this mean" and "does it have a secret to it?"

The devs didn't want to only cater to "the more causal player," though – don't get it wrong. This new format is for everyone, casual or hardcore.

They wanted to create "something that everyone could invest in, like, everyone could hop in." And, although "the combat's not extremely hard," it's a different kind of tricky. "There's still enough that you're feeling engaged," as Barnes describes.

I get it, honestly. I do love a good trial and Veteran-level dungeon here and there myself, but the Nowhere Vault is downright cool. It, and the other new content, offers a new way to engage with the MMO.

It's only the beginning, too. Between the more puzzle-oriented features and bigger events like the High Seas of Tamriel, it's all just a "foundation," according to the dev. ZeniMax plans to "layer on to it as much as we want," and the creators "already have some ideas floating around."

He can't tell me what they are, but I'm admittedly already pondering what might be next for The Elder Scrolls Online. Between that and the mysterious return to Skyrim… I can't wait.

This shift, "renaissance" or whatever you'd like to call it, in content brings back immersive Morrowind-style gameplay (I mean, come on, Rumors) and a fresh take on engagement – and it may just be precisely what the MMO needs.

Searching for other new games to look forward to? Read through everything we know about The Elder Scrolls 6 before it finally arrives.

PATCH NOTES v10.06.2026 – Both Microsoft and Sony have fallen from grace in the eyes of console gamers, but one smart decision has turned PlayStation's fumble into Xbox's biggest gain.

What's going on in gaming this week?

• Hideo Kojima took to his radio show to discuss OD and Physint, both to be published under Xbox Game Studios
• He is drawing out the mysterious, unknown quality of each, saying that he "doesn't want to reveal too much" though the games are progressing as planned

Why is this happening now?

• Sony allegedly canceled plans to publish Physint as a PS5-exclusive, with Xbox picking it up instead
• Sony is moving toward a digital-only future for PlayStation, while Xbox has announced no such plans

Meta Shift

• Xbox doesn't have to own Kojima Productions to benefit from its star power

The console wars are supposed to be long behind us, but Kojima having two partnerships with Xbox seems to have reignited it in Xbox's favor.

Xbox had already partnered with Kojima to publish his upcoming horror game OD (Overdose), so adding the detective thriller to its litany of upcoming Xbox Series X games doubles down on the partnership. It turns Sony's loss into a great boon for Xbox; Sony is cast off an exclusivity deal with one of the industry's most prominent visionaries, leaving it primed for Xbox to take over and come out looking somewhat virtuous in the eyes of Kojima fans.

Xbox has become known for its high-value mergers and acquisitions, with its $75 billion purchase of Call of Duty punisher Activision Blizzard being its biggest to date. But Xbox doesn't need to own Kojima Productions to benefit from its star power. We are used to Hideo Kojima being a mysterious and tight-lipped figure, so each and every non-comment from the creator is another reason for his loyal fans to follow him from PS5 to Xbox. As Xbox steers itself into a murky new future, having an unpredictable companion like Hideo Kojima along for the ride feels rather poetic. At the very least, it will keep us entertained while the corporate cogs keep turning in the background.

Platform Stability

Aligning itself further with gaming's most interesting creator means Xbox has bought back some of the goodwill it lost through the confusion generated by CEO Asha Sharma's ongoing "Xbox Reset". As part of a larger Microsoft-wide restructure, it has so far resulted in the divestment or disbanding of in-house developers like Ninja Theory and Undead Labs, while others such as Bethesda and Obsidian have merged.

Meanwhile, Sony earned the ire of many PS5 owners who went as far as staging a PSN blackout to protest the publisher's decision to cease physical disc production as of 2028. When Kojima alleged that Death Stranding publisher Sony had canceled its Physint deal with Kojima Productions, fans were outraged – and Xbox swooped in to save the day (and the game) after Kojima pitched them instead.

Patch Notes summary

Kojima has become a master at using a lot of words to say very little, but Xbox partnering up to publish two upcoming Hideo Kojima games says it all: The publisher is abandoning its heavy M&A push in favor of strategic partnerships.

This latest one with Kojima has the twofold advantage of pitting it favorably against Sony, hitting the PlayStation publisher at its most vulnerable in terms of player approval, while proving an effective distraction technique to help weather the storm caused by ongoing restructures and the devastating impact they have had on key studios.

Related stories

Oh, what could've been. Now that Activision is handling development of the next Halo game and Halo Studios has been reduced to a support studio for existing releases, we can only imagine what the next installment in Master Chief's adventures would've looked like from that team. A selection of concept art provides some insight into their vision for Halo 7, and it points towards an intriguing game.

Alex Wakeford, a franchise writer at Halo Studios, published what's now believed to be the final issue of Canon Fodder, a newsletter dedicated to updates on the property. This one contains snippets of ideas for what the seventh mainline Halo game, set on Zeta Halo, was intended to look like.

Several locations get brief descriptions alongside adjoining imagery. One such spot is the Containment Facility, a place "overseen by the submonitor known as Adjutant Repose," who has to initiate lockdown when it's visited by Reclaimers and those dratted Flood start running amok.

"Like many facilities on Zeta Halo, timelock technology is utilized based on the Forerunners’ own knowledge of advanced higher dimensional engineering," reads the description, "and information gleaned from study of the Ancestor-San’Shyuum alliance’s 'time bolt' feature applied to the cage of an ancient, terrible creature that once held dominion over the ring when it was designated Gyre 11."

I would like to know more about this "ancient, terrible creature," but alas. Between that and Fireteam Crimson having to hand over the slipcase artifact after they're redirected, it seems like Halo 7 would've had a lot going on.

One particular image I enjoy is of a Promethean Knight, standing on a cliff above ground on Zeta Halo, after escaping the labs underneath the surface. It's unknown what they're looking at, but the vibes are pure Halo - an open field, primed for waves of combat, and a soldier ready to dive right in.

"The battle for Zeta Halo encompasses much of the ring's surface," reads another snippet, attached to images of several locales, running from a deep first to a snowy base, "taking place in vast fields of snow and ice, deep jungles with Banished steel embedded into mighty trees looming over the wetlands, sand-blasted ruins that were once home to the Tudejsa."

Those pictures have real Return of the Jedi vibes to them. It seems like whatever Halo Studios was working on could've been quite a lot of fun. Whatever Activision makes, it better be big, epic, and have at least one scene of some alien dude hanging out on a mountain.

Veteran Halo lead has suggestions for how Activision could actually make "the greatest Halo game ever," and they include hiring "Bungie, Halo Studios, and other laid-off folks"

Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden says Xbox's current issues have mostly been down to the publisher's inability to pick a lane and stay in it.

Whether you're an Xbox diehard or not, there's no denying that Microsoft has been pretty confusing over the last few years, with the company seemingly changing its strategy on a whim constantly – which really hasn't helped it catch up on PlayStation's massive lead. Most prominently has been the company's approach to game exclusivity since it purchased Bethesda and Activision Blizzard, where for a bit there every Xbox game was also coming to PS5, and then sometime this year it decided, 'actually, no we're doing exclusives again'… at least for some games.

Speaking to The Expansion Pass (below), Layden – the former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America – notes, "I think Microsoft never really picked a lane. Or if they picked a lane, they didn't stay in it very long." He notes the aforementioned flip flopping between being a publisher on all platforms vs wanting to be an exclusive platform, saying, "a platform needs exclusives or the platform has no meaning," but "if you're the biggest publisher in the world, you almost have to be on every platform, because that's how the business model works. You can't be successful at both."

There's also the Xbox Game Pass issue, wherein Microsoft is inherently devaluing its big titles by offering them as part of a subscription service on day one. Layden says, "If you're going to do that, then are you expecting people are going to buy content if they can get it on a subscription service".

He notes "the math doesn't" work with trying to be everything at once with Game Pass, adding, "if you're sitting on a big bunch of Microsoft money perhaps you don't feel that tension until, you know, slowly slowly slowly and then all at once where it becomes very hard to ignore. And I think they've got themselves in a pickle, to be honest."

Layden says new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma "is doing her best to try to right the ship", adding, "I hope she does it. Though I don't know what that looks like."

PlayStation creator says games have stagnated, urges developers not to lose their "curiosity" as the industry reaches a major turning point ahead of the "next stage."

PlayStation and Xbox are both pulling back from multiplatform releases and reemphasizing exclusive games. At the same time, Sony recently dropped Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear successor, Physint, leaving Microsoft to pick up the project. The console warriors might be drawing battle lines, but Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says the publisher's collaborations with PlayStation will continue.

Xbox still has several ongoing projects with PlayStation. Forza Horizon 6 and Fable are both set to come to PS5, and franchises like Call of Duty and Minecraft remain multiplatform affairs. As Sharma tells the New York Times: "Competition and collaboration can coexist."

According to the NYT write-up, Sharma "laughed" at the idea of apologizing to Sony for the whole kerfuffle over Physint which, hey, fair enough. The outlet additionally reports that Xbox's agreement with Kojima was "substantially below" development costs for a AAA game, and includes film and TV rights for the project.

Rumors have been floating around that Kojima was seeking something in the neighborhood of $400 million for Physint, but a new edition of The Game Business suggests that "Xbox is paying far, far less than that number," potentially less than $200 million.

For years, Xbox had been pursuing a multiplatform strategy that ultimately culminated in several major first-party games receiving ports to PS5. That strategy was one of many things that turned around when Sharma took over Xbox leadership from Phil Spencer, but there are still plenty of games under the Xbox banner which are still set to come to PS5.

For its part, PlayStation never embraced multiplatform the way Xbox (briefly) did, though a certain few games – like Bungie's Marathon – were released on the competing console. But Sony's big experiment was on PC, which is a platform it's now pulling back from. Competition and collaboration can, indeed, coexist, but it continues to feel like both concepts are a little one-sided in the modern console war.

Here are the PS5 exclusives and Xbox exclusives you need to know about.

The Elder Scrolls Online is changing as ZeniMax Online Studios moves the MMO further away from its old annual DLC formula toward new content drops that incorporate a greater variety of playstyles – a "renaissance" of sorts, if you will.

It's no secret that The Elder Scrolls Online has suffered a difficult year following Microsoft's plan to cut over 3,200 employees at Xbox, with Bethesda's union representatives reporting a loss of "dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers."

Its remaining developers are pushing on with work on the MMO, however, with game director Nick Giacomini having said that it's "here to stay" with extra help from Bethesda along the way.

As work carries on, the game is making a move away from its usual yearly expansion release, bringing a new season system to The Elder Scrolls Online with less combat-focused content.

I got to sit down with Giacomini and discuss this path forward myself, which he describes as a "renaissance" for the MMO "where we took a look at this game that's been going for 12 years and decided to make some changes."

It hasn't come "just for the sake of making changes, but because it was something the players were asking of us," as Giacomini says. Folks wanted the devs "to excite them" and "surprise them again" – something that was lost in the old "formula," so to speak.

That's why "breaking that formula was really important for us to excite our players." How, though? Seasons, sure, but also new types of content like the Nowhere Vault, Rumors, and High Seas of Tamriel.

"Games haven't stood still," after all. "New games have come out. Great games have come out. That's raised the bar of expectations for players." That led to ZeniMax having to "evolve and revise our own design ethos," and it's a welcome change, in my opinion.

Some more chaotic Morrowind-esque exploration, brain-scratching puzzles, and community events slot nicely into Tamriel, helping gap the bridge between expansions.

Because, you know – even though the studio is trying a new path, it's not entirely abandoning everything we've grown to love the MMO for.

Associate design director Jason Barnes tells me as much, alluding to the mysterious return to Skyrim that ZeniMax is cooking. "There's still a time and a place for some of the like kind of the bigger, more grand type of releases," as he says – "like the new Skyrim zone that we're working on."

That, Barnes describes, won't be "a return to form" entirely as "it's definitely not the same as our traditional zones" – but "it's going to be that kind of spectacle that the chapter model essentially gave us."
Honestly, I'm personally thrilled they're retaining a bit of ye olde Elder Scrolls Online goodness, while also making room for something fresh… and it's already upon us. Heck, we just got Update 51 and the High Seas of Tamriel.

I'm ready for more, and I'm equally as ready for more Skyrim – whatever form it might take.

Massive bit of Elder Scrolls lore from Morrowind is actually because of "a typo," former Skyrim designer believes: "Someone just typed a date wrong in the timeline"

Gears of War: E-Day Metacritic scores are in, and it's the best reviewed game in the series since Epic Games stopped developing it.

Over on Metacritic, the game currently sits at a score of 88 based on 50 critic reviews, and while this doesn't quite match the 94, 93, and 91 that the original trilogy from Epic Games got, it's still bound to be cause for celebration for fans. The score of 88 means that it does beat out People Can Fly's Gears of War Judgement (79), and The Coalition's Gears of War 4 and Gears 5 (both 84) – as well as spin-offs Gears Tactics and Gears Pop. So, it's the best Gears in 15 years as far as the numbers are concerned.

In GamesRadar+'s Gears of War E-Day review-in-progress, features editor Andy Brown calls it "the best cover shooter I've played since Xbox 360" and says "crunchy shootouts and a groundbreaking adaptive cover system makes every shootout dynamically chaotic, but the devastated city of Kalona is the real star of this show." The full-scored review will be available in the near future after the game's multiplayer has been thoroughly tested.

The game nabbed full marks from multiple outlets, including Pure Xbox and Eurogamer Germany, however, the majority of the scored reviews are deemed "Positive" by Metacritic, while the only ones that aren't are the three deemed "Mixed."

At the moment, a number of outlets have published unscored reviews, so this may be subject to change in the coming weeks, but for now it's good news for The Coalition. However, this comes at an unfortunate time for the studio as the game's story director, Juan Vaca, was laid off after the game went gold, while reports from the studio have devs fearful for more layoffs and withheld bonuses following Microsoft's planned layoffs before the end of the fiscal year.

Gears of War: E-Day devs want to be known for "all the things that made Gears resonate in the first place," without "looking outside at other franchises."

We're mere days away from the launch of Gears of War: E-Day, and the return of one of Microsoft's banner game franchises. What should be excitement for developer The Coalition is reportedly closer to dread, as team members fear being let go once the highly anticipated game ships.

According to a report from Eurogamer, a number of staff at the studio are anxious about the coming weeks amid ongoing layoffs across Microsoft's games wing. Since July, hundreds of roles have been cut across the myriad studios owned and operated by Xbox.

CEO Asha Sharma stated that a total of 3,200 jobs would be let go over the course of a harsh restructuring process. We've seen Halo Studios, Obsidian, Bethesda, Ninja Theory, and more impacted by these changes, and people at The Coalition believe they could be next.

Comments made to Eurogamer paint a picture of existential dread as the release day for the new Gears of War approaches. Though the studio had a reputation as one of the "good children" at Microsoft, as one source put it, a combination of internal changes and the game's release is ratcheting up the nerves.

Until now, The Coalition considered itself relatively safe because the developers were working on a flagship property and consistently delivered results. But when Juan Vaca, story director on E-Day, was laid off last week, amid several others quietly let go recently, reality set in that perhaps nobody is truly safe.

"I can only imagine the heartbreak of spending all those years on a game to have the final stretch ripped away, completely out of your control," said a source on Vaca's exit. "It's like you planned for a year on a meal for your family where everyone will be there and the day of, you get locked out of the building or something and can't join in."

Indeed, there are many who aren't far off Vaca in terms of time spent on the project. Recent months have been a crunch period, but it feels like there's nothing they can do to avert changes. "We honestly expected the layoffs to hit us post-release, but that seems to not matter now," says one developer. "Now we're just expecting the next wave, or being reorganized under Activision or something later this year."

There are also worries that anyone laid off now would miss out on post-release bonuses tied to the game's critical performance. "It's hard to believe anything [Microsoft leadership] say anymore after discarding staff in this manner," one developer stated, with another adding they "wouldn't put it past" the corporation to hold back on those lucrative payouts.

At the time of writing, Gears of War: E-Day has debuted to a Metacritic score of 87. Sadly, all anyone can do is see what happens in the coming weeks. The Coalition has plans for five seasons of updates post-launch for E-Day, including celebrating the property's 20th anniversary in November.

Gears of War: E-Day devs want to be known for "all the things that made Gears resonate in the first place," without "looking outside at other franchises"

After seven years, the Gears of War series is back, and this time we're experiencing Emergence Day in full. The appropriately titled Gears of War: E-Day arrives on October 6, and in the meantime, the devs have revealed what you can expect in the shooter's initial months.

In a news post on the official site, developer The Coalition breaks down the first couple of seasons and what's coming in each. Season 1 actually started in the beta period, has all the launch basics like modes and maps, and will run until December 1. There are three events therein: Halloween, 20 Years of Gears, and Thanksgibbing.

Each one comes with a special Versus mode, a Horde mission, and special rewards, and they'll all run for two weeks. Ranked play on Versus launches on October 13, a week after the game's release, so experienced players can jump right into the deep end of competitive multiplayer.

Season 2 is a special one, because it's dubbed Legacy and covers the franchise's 20th anniversary. I know, I know - I can't believe it's been that long since a friend brought me over just to show me the first Gears of War in motion. Anyway, a "special birthday gift" is coming for all players on November 7, the anniversary of Gears of War's launch.

"Crafted as a love letter to the franchise and you, our fans, you can expect a ton of new content inspired by the franchise’s most memorable moments," reads the tease for Season 2. Exciting.

We only get the titles for the following three seasons: Infiltration, Pendulum, and Devotion, respectively. Not much to go on, but I'm sure all three will deliver chaos in their own way.

Following up on the multiplayer beta, The Coalition provides some insight into the feedback received. This includes series-first changes to The Gnasher. "To improve hipfire, E-Day is the first Gears title to introduce a hybrid between muzzle and camera-oriented shooting," says the blog. "When you fire on a target, we check both the camera and muzzle shots and apply the one that better matches what the player would expect. This means a shot that looks like it should hit, will hit."

On top of this, some mechanics are actually absent at launch, due to how E-Day has been built from the ground up. "Including every legacy feature from Gears of War was not possible for launch," The Coalition says. "Those features, like Meat Shields, Chainsaw Duels, select weapons from the franchise’s past, and online work like Private Lobbies and leaderboards – are not gone from the franchise."

It's noted the devs are working on bringing them all back in, it just may take some time. Included, then, is a list of bug fixes and tweaks. There's a lot going on to ensure E-Day runs as smoothly as possible. We'll need it to deal with the encroached Locust.

Gears of War: E-Day director laid off days after completing development as Xbox cuts reach The Coalition

In an extraordinarily turbulent time for the games industry as a whole, Xbox stands out as particularly volatile amid its big reset that'll see 3,200 people lose their jobs by the end of the current fiscal year. Meanwhile, entire studios have been shut down and their games canceled, while other teams under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella have been gutted and reduced to skeleton crews, as is reportedly the case with Halo Studios. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently said the "streamlining" of Xbox is "great to see," fueling existing rumors of a potential divestiture from Microsoft. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, however, insists there are no such plans.

"Xbox is not for sale," Sharma tells The New York Times. "We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model and everything needed to achieve that."

Back in June, The Information reported that Microsoft had been considering spinning out Xbox or packaging it for sale by restructuring the company as a wholly owned subsidiary. Xbox has been navigating sluggish hardware sales for years, and a pivot to multiplatform anchored by Xbox Game Pass failed to materialize. Sharma announced what she has called "the most significant restructure in Xbox history" in July of this year, when 1,600 workers lost their jobs. Another 250-or-so employees were let go in September amid cuts to Gears of War studio The Coalition and Age of Empires developer World's Edge.

All of this change, Sharma says, will one day result in a sustainable and profitable Xbox, even if it takes years. "We've got a long way to go with Microsoft," says Sharma, "and we're going to take the long-term view."

Inside Xbox, "the only concrete thing they have communicated is they want higher profits, and they want it now," says id Software employee

It's no secret that Microsoft's plans to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox are still in action, having just affected a whopping 268 employees earlier this month, many of whom were working at Halo Studios – the team largely responsible for the Halo franchise.

At the time, chief content officer Matt Booty said the role eliminations were focused "across Halo Studios, other first-party studios, and the XGS management and central functions layer." As for the future of Halo, Activision took control of the franchise from Halo Studios with a promise to deliver "the greatest Halo game ever."

So, how exactly will it do that? Perhaps by looking to those who were laid off for ideas?

Frank O'Connor, industry veteran with nearly 20 years of work on Halo as both a writer and franchise creative director under his belt, certainly believes that the company should.

He shares as much under a new LinkedIn post on the matter, commenting on which paths he thinks that Activision could take to make a successful Halo entry – but "none of these are easy, guaranteed, or necessarily viable," as O'Connor writes.

The first path? "Make a 'classic' Halo movement/sandbox/shooter experience tailored to a core audience and scaled to be successful with that core audience and attractive to a broader one so it can grow." He adds the obvious fact that multiplayer "is better with more people playing, by mathematical default" – which, yeah.

And, the second? Well, that one moves away from what the Halo franchise is already known for for something "new."

O'Connor's second suggestion reads as follows: "Make something new, modern that reinvents the game/universe in a surprising but fantastic way. An action/sandbox game (maybe it's a new take on the FPS, maybe it's an action RPG but it's fundamentally different) and succeeds with a combination of strong story, IP use and gets a small head start based on curiosity or loyalty."

I suppose I could see it – but it's certainly riskier.

The Halo veteran's third potential path for Activision involves "translating" the IP into its new parent company's "comfort zone," with "player, progression, and business models that are proven to work" and "a big annual or semi-annual spectacle and constant content."

He does warn against tying it to hardware launch cycles and abandoning Halo's sandbox elements – and suggests hiring laid-off devs.

"Hire Bungie, Halo Studios, and other laid-off folk who are bursting with talent and ideas that got nerfed or shut down over the years," as O'Connor's comment concludes – and boy, would that be a nice idea if I thought for a moment that Activision would consider it.

Am I hopeful that it will? Of course, but the industry is shaky at best right now, and it's been a while since we've heard good news akin to O'Connor's suggestion here.

A girl can dream, I suppose – and I'll keep my fingers crossed that executives hear our (and O'Connor's, apparently) prayers and deliver a solid Halo entry… perhaps even "the greatest Halo game ever," as per Activision's own words.

Halo cinematic director "promoted and laid off in the same week" as Microsoft continues sweeping Xbox layoffs

At least somebody is happy with the state of Xbox. With Xbox now 75% through an urgent restructuring plan that has seen thousands laid off, many games canceled, and several studios severed or consolidated, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the "streamlining" going on is "great to see."

Asked about the state and future of Xbox on Sources Podcast by Alex Heath, Nadella says "I feel fantastic about the IP we have right now. If I look at the studios, the IP portfolio we have, and our ability to then take that and produce great games going forward, I feel fantastic."

This has been the story with Xbox for years, especially after a string of high-profile business acquisitions. It's hard not to feel good about IP and production with the likes of Minecraft in your corner, or with the entire Activision Blizzard fleet – well, the people who weren't laid off – behind you. But how is Xbox doing?

"There's some amount of streamlining the team is doing, and Asha is doing, which is great to see," Nadella observes, tipping his hat to new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. Which is just an incredible way to describe the dismantling of longstanding studios, the uprooting of thousands of lives, and the ongoing closure of creative powerhouses that were generally doing just fine before Microsoft bought them.

What's next for Xbox? With these "fantastic" IP, and after all this "great" streamlining, what then? "And then we have to invent the right sustainable business model that allows us to deliver gaming to more and more people," Nadella continues, never actually exploring what sort of model might rescue Xbox or how this invention might compare to the strategies that other publishers and platform holders have successfully followed for decades.

"That has always been the goal," Nadella reiterates. "We want to be a great publisher and a great platform provider for games, across both PCs and Xboxes. That is sort of our goal, and I think Asha and team have said that Xbox is gonna get back to growth this next fiscal year, and that's the plan they're executing on, and in that process do a bang-up job of producing some great games."

There really isn't a lot to chew on here apart from the casual glossing over of a seismic business overhaul now bookending several bloody years for Xbox. It's the C-suite equivalent of an NBA coach saying, 'We're gonna win this game by scoring more points with our great players.' But then Nadella, especially recently, has seemingly only seen Xbox in his peripheral vision when he pauses to take a breath between swings of the big-ol' hammer labeled gen AI.

For a deeper analysis of Xbox's hardships and options, I'd point you toward John Kimmich, a 16-year Microsoft veteran who was there when Xbox got started. In his view (and others'), Nadella's outlook may be part of the problem: you have to be a good platform or a good publisher, but when you demonstrably can't handle one, you certainly can't be both.

Inside Xbox, "the only concrete thing they have communicated is they want higher profits, and they want it now," says id Software employee.

Jon Kimmich's 16 years at Microsoft included the conceptual years for the Xbox brand, so he speaks with some experience when he says Xbox can't be two things at once.

In a lengthy analysis on GamesBeat, Kimmich distinguishes between Microsoft Gaming as a business and Xbox as a platform. Loosely echoing former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden, he frames a choice for Microsoft: does it want to invest in a platform and give people reasons to buy Xbox consoles, or does it want to maximize its efficiency as a publisher? Recently, its actions skew toward the latter.

"The Xbox platform is the relationship with players and developers: the console, Xbox Mode, commerce, identity, ownership, community, tools, and third-party support," he clarifies, adding, "Microsoft Gaming may grow while the Xbox platform withers."

The console as the centerpiece of Xbox – something new CEO Asha Sharma has committed to – is a sticking point. Revisiting a notorious Xbox slogan that's since died out, Kimmich says, "'This is an Xbox' was a campaign worth aiming for," but it got lost, like so much at Microsoft, in "timing and execution." It didn't serve "the promise you're making" or "the experience" itself, so the multiplatform campaign "became the punchline to a joke Microsoft told on itself."

Much of this, Kimmich reasons, stems from the fence-sitting approach that Xbox took for many years. The "play anywhere" promise almost unavoidably grew the audience – more places means more people – but wasn't "a compelling reason to choose Xbox," Kimmich says of the Phil Spencer era, resulting in a platform that "became everything, and nothing; to everyone and nobody."

Xbox further expanded into PC and the cloud, but didn't master any one platform, let alone build and clearly define its own. Kimmich contrasts this "incoherent' approach with Valve's work on Steam: "Meanwhile, Steam had one focus: the PC customer. Xbox never answered the two questions that mattered: which layers must we own, and which internal business would take priority (and when)?"

Here, Microsoft's next console, Xbox Project Helix, is a key, and perhaps final, test. Without the "anchor" of a console as a "signature product," the whole platform becomes a simple "suite of services customers can purchase piecemeal from elsewhere."

"I was there at the beginning of Xbox," he recalls. "Inside Microsoft, the fear wasn't merely that Sony would sell more consoles; it was that another company would gain ownership of the operating and commerce layer in the living room. First-party games were how Xbox earned the right to exist. They were not the goal of the exercise."

With Project Helix, like the PS6, fighting to exist at all in a dire hardware market hollowed out by AI demand, an indecisive platform offering could be a death sentence, especially if Microsoft's new console is as PC-focused as it seems. There's a risk Project Helix ends up epitomizing and dooming Xbox as a platform entirely: a console that is completely overshadowed by third parties on its own turf, the antithesis of the Nintendo Switch 2.

We know Helix will run PC games, but how does it compete as a console, as a thing players are expected to buy and connect to a TV in the living room? "An Xbox that’s only good for launching Steam is like subsidizing Valve's cash register," Kimmich reasons.

"If I got to write the doctrine, I'd pick platform" over pure publishing, he says. The benefits to having a platform are enormous, even if building one is hard – setting terms, owning the sales pipeline, attracting developers, building consumer loyalty, gaining leverage over other platforms, and more productively applying Microsoft's enormous Azure and PlayFab footprint.

"Stabilize the console, make it the reference device, but don’t confuse the two," Kimmich explains. "Turn Xbox Mode into a coherent XboxOS on Windows machines and third-party devices. Make ownership and developer reach the reason people pick your brand. The Store, first-party games, Game Pass, the cloud, mobile – all to support that promise. And yes, give your fans a bit of hope."

"Microsoft has to own a scarce layer that players, developers, and hardware makers all willingly value. If the PC Store never competes, if Play Anywhere remains a niche offering, and if XboxOS offers nothing that Steam and regular old Windows doesn’t already, then the platform case is dead."

Tragically, this will require releasing some good games, which has been one of Xbox's biggest struggles for years, as well as successful realignment of a sprawling, flailing business.

Kinnich lays out expectations for the next 12 to 24 months: "Microsoft should be able to point to third-party XboxOS devices; rising Play Anywhere and PC Store usage; Disc to Digital migrating into Helix; genuine progress in Minecraft’s creator economy; faster publishing for developers; a decision about the relationship between Battle.net and the Xbox Store; and an exclusivity policy that survives more than one reporting period."

The clearest sign that Xbox has failed in its bid to build a platform, he adds, would be a "premium-priced" Helix with no clear selling point, an Xbox launcher "mainly" serving other stores like Steam, "getting casket-ready on crown-jewel assets," and seeing money fed back into Microsoft instead of into Xbox itself. (As it happens, Halo, the face of Xbox, was just shuffled into Activision, with Halo Studios dismantled following the PC, Xbox, and PS5 release of Halo: Campaign Evolved.)

As Xbox lays off thousands while consolidating, closing, or spinning out studios, Kimmich reckons "the worst outcome is to promise a platform and run a harvest portfolio."

Inside Xbox, "the only concrete thing they have communicated is they want higher profits, and they want it now," says id Software employee.

Things aren't great over at Xbox right now. Microsoft's games wing is undergoing substantial re-structuring right now, with ongoing layoffs planned to the tune of 3,200 jobs. As a result, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's recent trip to Japan has drawn some ire from the former boss of a studio within the corporation.

Sharma visited Kojima Productions in Tokyo, both to check out the company and spend some time with Hideo Kojima himself. Photos of her time there were posted on the back of the announcement that one of the team's games, Physint, is now being published by Microsoft after it was dropped by Sony.

It's certainly a bit eyebrow-raising given the state of the neon green system right now, and a tenured developer has taken some time to say so.

"Super funny that Asha Sharma said 'Clarity is kindness' to the WSJ last week then did a half layoff today," Shannon Loftis, ex-studio head of Age of Empires developer World's Edge, writes in a Threads post. "I guess Damocles' Sword is a form of clarity, what do I know?"

She's referring to this profile of Sharma from the Wall Street Journal, covering the Xbox head's philosophy towards handling redundancies and internal turmoil. Sharma lives by "clarity is kindness," delivering anything bad straight and to-the-point. There's something to not beating around the bush, I suppose, though it's probably hard to see any niceties when you're being told your job's at risk.

The axe of Xbox's recalibration reportedly fell on World's Edge this week, as details of layoffs have been dripping out through social media. Loftis, who left the outfit in 2022, also made a post on LinkedIn commiserating with her former colleagues, saying she's "crushed" by the news. "I do not know of everyone that has been impacted by today's news, but I can guarantee these people know how to ship games and make gamers happy," she said.

You can feel her frustration in her Threads post. "Please, Asha, publish more 'cool' photos from your Japan Kojima-maxxing trip," Loftis adds. "That's the kind of leadership game developers need."

Ooft. I can easily imagine the devs that have been let go or found their roles and teams significantly changed over the last few months balking at Sharma's heavily publicized time with Kojima. Watching leadership write a check after all sorts of redundancies is serious whiplash.

But then, Sharma's job isn't to make friends, it's to dig Xbox out of the hole it's currently in. Getting a Kojima project hasn't hurt in scoring headlines. Only time will tell whether it moves the needle for Microsoft more substantially.

Xbox is "very happy with GTA 6 pre-orders," exec says, claims sales match "our share of the console market."

It's probably safe to assume GTA 6 pre-orders are going well. Rockstar's new crime sandbox, some 13 years in the making, is set to be one of the biggest entertainment launches ever. However, a new report suggests the bulk of the purchases so far are on PlayStation 5, leaving the Xbox Series X version in the dust.

This comes from The Verge, where it's reported that GTA 6 has been pre-ordered much more on the PS5 than the Xbox Series X, compounding existing worries about Microsoft's games division. No percentages or other details are provided.

Matthew Ball, the chief strategy officer of Xbox, responds to the article on Twitter. "We are very happy with GTA 6 pre-orders," he says. "The title is breaking records for Xbox, we expect even more records will be broken throughout the fall, and our internal analysis shows our share of pre-orders to be matching our share of the console market."

To be fair, he would say all of that, the problem is a lot of it doesn't count for much. By "breaking records," I presume he means for overall pre-orders on the Xbox Series X, which seems extremely plausible since it's such a mammoth release. But competition isn't exactly stiff on the neon green system.

We haven't seen many big exclusives from the brand, and of those, lots have been pushed on Game Pass, making their pre-purchases and day one sales seem secondary. "Matching our share of the console market," is fine and dandy until you consider data that has the PS5 out-selling its rival by a pretty hefty portion.

Ball's own tweet has prompted barbs from analysts on the Xbox Series X's performance compared to the PS5. Circana analyst Mat Piscatella writes on Bluesky: "Given what the Xbox share of the console market is, not sure I'd be gushing about anything related to a relative split but that's just me."

Available numbers show Sony's machine boasting up to 80% of a multi-platform game's pre-orders on console. Microsoft has maintained the split on GTA 6 is less than that, but to what degree isn't shared.

The climate at Xbox is pretty bleak at the moment due to extensive restructuring and layoffs. We'll see how the dust settles in the coming months – and how well Rockstar's epic manages to sell.

GTA 6's $400 collectible spoon is actually a reference to another, far more expensive GTA spoon from 18 years ago.

Mass layoffs at Xbox are only making it harder to meet Microsoft's still-steep expectations amid management chaos, according to one of the id Software employees who escaped the studio's own wave of redundancies.

Speaking with Aftermath, this anonymous id employee reportedly says "things are still very chaotic" as Xbox works to finish the "reset" plan that CEO Asha Sharma described as essential for the health of the business.

3,200 jobs will be eliminated for the sake of the plan, and after the latest cuts, Xbox creative lead Matt Booty estimates the company is 75% of the way through it. This has doomed countless Xbox devs to walk on eggshells until the other shoe eventually drops.

"While there has been an attempt to communicate to the studios, it is still entirely in bullshit corporate speak," says the id employee. "I still don't believe they have a clear vision for the future. The only concrete thing they have communicated is they want higher profits, and they want it now."

Previously, it was reported that Microsoft's notoriously high profit expectations had left Xbox with an ultimatum. Assessing the Xbox business, Sharma said in June that "our business today is not healthy" and spoke negatively of margins that were 3 to 10 times lower than "comparable platform and publishing businesses."

It sounds like Microsoft is still teeing up moonshot margins. This id employee continues: "Aggressive goals are being set that would have been unrealistic even before the layoffs. ... To say the workers within Xbox have a dim view of the future is putting it mildly. We keep thinking morale can't sink lower but the obvious incompetence of Xbox management somehow keeps driving it down worse."

Among many conflicts in Xbox's plan, an understated one is the simple fact that laying off devs directly opposes the goal of releasing more and better games, something Microsoft has struggled to do for many years.

It's not just that Xbox teams will be down talent and manpower – even the sterling Elder Scrolls team is bleeding invaluable seniority – or saddled with overseeing studios which they've been forced to absorb. Creatives rightly fearing for their jobs under notoriously closure-happy leadership will struggle to make good games simply because fear, doubt, confusion, and uncertainty are demonstrably terrible for morale, motivation, and mental health.

As late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said in 2013: "If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease, and I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world."

Japanese companies like Nintendo, Capcom, and Konami are healthier because they have smaller teams, don't have frequent layoffs, and don't pay executives $30 million, says expert.

Storied RPG studio Obsidian is now a part of Bethesda. That news came alongside Xbox's latest round of layoffs and reshuffling, and it's not entirely clear what it means for the studio's future. Apparently, it'll be little more than "a change in reporting structure" – according to a leaked memo from Bethesda president Jill Braff, anyway.

"The creative identity and strengths that make Obsidian distinct will remain at the core of their studio and work," Braff says in an email to employees, obtained by Aftermath. "[CEO] Feargus [Urquhart] and the Obsidian leadership team will continue to lead Obsidian, with the studio reporting to me. Bethesda Game Studios will continue to lead the Fallout franchise."

Earlier this year, Bethesda and Obsidian announced that they were collaborating on a new Fallout game, 16 years after the two studios worked together on the beloved Fallout: New Vegas. That project became official shortly after behind-the-scenes reporting suggested that Microsoft had swooped in to kill Obsidian's Avowed sequel and put the devs to work on Fallout.

"Together, the teams will build on their longstanding relationship and the early work already underway on a new Fallout project, with more to share in the months ahead," Braff says in the leaked message. "This structure supports the franchise-led model we've been strengthening while keeping accountability for both the studio and the franchise clear."

For much of the past decade, Obsidian has put its resources into developing original IP, including The Outer Worlds, Grounded, and Pentiment, as well as a fresh take on its Pillars of Eternity series in Avowed.

While I love New Vegas as much as anyone, and a new Fallout game is long overdue, I have a hard time restraining my cynicism over Obsidian's future. The studio was clearly passionate about its own, internal IP, and this talk of "franchise-led" development feels all too familiar. We have, after all, spent years watching studios like Ubisoft and Activision slowly turn their vast rosters of internal studios into little more than support houses for big franchises like Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty.

Baldur's Gate 3 publishing lead Michael "Cromwelp" Douse shares those concerns about Obsidian. "I can't imagine what it must feel like to have independent agency and then, suddenly enough, find yourself working *under* a competitor," he writes. "I can't imagine that feels great." Especially with reports of 25% of the studio being laid off as part of the transition.

Another Fallout RPG was in development at Obsidian Entertainment before Bethesda pulled the plug "a while ago," ex-studio lead says.

By the time StarCraft launches in 2030, it will have been nearly 15 years since developer Blizzard released a new game in the long-running science fiction series – so it deserves a big welcome rather than a small splash as an Xbox exclusive. Thankfully, Blizzard just confirmed it won't be.

Before Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in a historic 2023 deal, StarCraft was mostly a computer man's game, anyway. From the first StarCraft in 1998, to the franchise's most recent installment, StarCraft: Remastered in 2017, games in the series mostly rocketed between Windows and Mac OS. There was that one, short trip to planet Nintendo with StarCraft 64 in 2000, but StarCraft is historically loyal to the noble mouse and keyboard. This seemingly won't change now that Blizzard's under Xbox's jurisdiction, though the publisher refuses to give precise details as to what platforms StarCraft will appear on.

Instead, a Blizzard spokesperson simply told Kotaku in a new report that they "can only say for now that StarCraft won't be exclusive." After being pressed on the issue, Blizzard continues to say that referring to the shooter as an "Xbox-exclusive" would be incorrect.

While this is potentially great news for historic StarCraft computer gamers, it might disappoint Xbox fans – if there are any left. Some people seem to have convinced themselves that StarCraft will not only be exclusive, but also limited to the upcoming, next-gen console Xbox Project Helix. But this outcome was always unlikely.

Xbox has a fair-weather friendship with exclusivity. After its Activision Blizzard merger, games were flying all over the place – Call of Duty left PlayStation to appear on all consoles, and things that should have been Xbox blockbusters like Starfield ended up on PlayStation, too... and they weren't blockbusters.

But Xbox recovered. It started showing off its renewed interest in exclusivity this summer. At the time, chief strategy officer Matthew Ball told GamesRadar+, CEO "Asha [Sharma] believes that to build a platform, you must have exclusive services and software – in this case, games. And so to return our platform to consistent growth, we need a reliable pipeline of exclusive games."

Strangely, this exclusive games "pipeline" apparently does not include StarCraft, despite the franchise's huge popularity. But only Blizzard knows why.

Blizzard's new StarCraft shooter is "not a seasonal game," says lead: "The story has a beginning, a middle, and an end,"

Amid ongoing layoff chaos at Xbox, now-former Halo Studios cinematic director Josh Daniels says he was promoted and then immediately lost his job.

"Promoted and laid off in the same week is pretty wild," Daniels says in a LinkedIn post. "I’m one of the many hit by the Halo Studios layoffs. I’ll be taking some offline time today but very much would love to talk to anyone looking for Cinematic Direction or Production roles. Feel free to get in touch if anything looks like I might be a fit."

Earlier today, Microsoft announced the elimination of another 268 employees under Xbox, with Halo Studios seemingly hit especially hard. The Halo IP is now in the hands of Activision. Meanwhile, studios like Ninja Theory and Arkane are looking at closures, while Obsidian has been absorbed by Bethesda, Playground and Turn 10 have been combined, and Undead Labs is spinning out. Xbox's studio lineup is unrecognizable compared to even nine months ago.

The breadth of the layoffs is still coming into focus, with members of multiple teams including Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition reporting cuts.

In a statement, Xbox CCO Matt Booty said these layoffs have brought Xbox "roughly three-quarters of the way through" the restructuring plan previously announced by new CEO Asha Sharma, which will see 3,200 employees cut in total. This has forced countless Xbox employees and studios to work with an axe looming over them the entire year, uncertain of who will be laid off next or when.

Even as Xbox rushes to get games out and reportedly puts Bethesda's feet to the fire over Fallout and The Elder Scrolls production timelines, Microsoft leadership has overseen layoffs that cut veteran talents including many Fallout and The Elder Scrolls seniors. Nobody anywhere seems safe.

Halo Studios didn't have the chance to launch even one original title before Xbox decided to let Call of Duty publisher Activision try instead

Halo Studios lived a short, utilitarian life – Microsoft used it to create the perfectly serviceable Halo: Campaign Evolved remake, and now the studio is effectively retired after 268 layoffs impacting it and other first-party Xbox developers. But it never had the opportunity to be anything more interesting.

Thus is the plight of Western gaming. Big corporations keep being impatient for results, so they move straight to relentless "restructuring." That's what's happened here – Halo: Campaign Evolved was a fine remake, but it was not good enough to compete with the Call of Duties absorbing the modern FPS player's time.

So we can only mourn Halo Studios' recently summoned potential. Formerly known as 343 Industries, Halo Studios had been the guardian of Halo games for 20 years; Xbox established it in 2007, after Halo creator and former Microsoft baby Bungie went independent. Xbox then rebranded 343 as Halo Studios in 2024, saying in a press release at the time that the developer had new energy to produce more Halo "without distraction, without impediment, to create better games with players' hopes and wishes at the heart of the endeavor." … It didn't last long.

Following September 22's 268 layoffs, made in service of 3,200 total gory cuts to Xbox, Microsoft also shared that it was passing along the Halo franchise to Call of Duty publisher Activision. About the layoffs, Xbox writes in an announcement on its website, "We are reorganizing our studios. The goal is to strengthen our franchises and games by operating fewer business units, aligning groups that already work closely together, and focusing our publishing expertise."

Basically, it's going to let the behemoth that regularly ships billion-dollar Call of Duties handle Halo instead. Activision president Rob Kostich says the publisher wants to "make the greatest Halo game ever, worthy of its universe and legacy, while staying true to what made players love it in the first place. It is a bold ambition, one that this franchise deserves. We have already begun assembling a purpose-built team, unique in capability and talent, ready and excited to deliver this next chapter with the community."

While Xbox disclaims in its press release that "a small team at Halo Studios will continue supporting the Halo community and games in-market," it seems like, for the most part, Activision is scraping off the old paint and starting again.

This is starting to sound like an old story – studio releases game, studio immediately undergoes mass layoffs no matter how much money it made, and whatever major corporation that owns it isn't concerned with the layers of grime coating its reputation. Just this year, this sad story has applied to Battlefield 6 developers, Destiny 2 developers, Directive 8020 devs, Tomb Raider devs, and many more in an especially difficult year.

ASGC Games Industry Layoffs Tracker creator Amir Satvat, who recently spoke to Edge for a feature now available to read in the Knowledge newsletter, says, "I think this is as bad as the '83 crash if you're a game developer based in North America or western Europe, in a traditional triple-A studio."

Notice that Satvat calls out Western developers in particular. The Japanese games industry has been triple-fortified from the storm of 2026 layoffs because, "They didn't get swept up in the live-service trend, or into these mega-blockbusters with 500-person teams," Satvat says. It probably helps, too, that they don't pay their executives $38,649,984 like EA did for CEO Andrew Wilson despite all those Battlefield 6 layoffs.

Laid-off id Software producer Andrew Willis shared a similar observation about Japan's brawny games industry in a recent interview with Kiwi Talkz, saying about Nintendo, "They're feeding the tree fertilizer and water. Trimming, you know, where necessary, and just making sure that it will healthily produce fruit forever."

"Our folks here," Willis continues, "in the more Western game executive side, they're just cutting it down. They want it now. And then they look around and they're like, 'Why aren't there any apples?'" It's almost as ridiculous as introducing Halo Studios and then firing everyone before they could make the next Halo.

Activision was playing the long game – the Call of Duty dev lost a bidding war to acquire Rare over 20 years ago, and now it's overseeing the studio.

The handheld PC scene was off to a refreshing start back in 2022, with the Steam Deck kickstarting a trend of very affordable portables that pack a punch. That was before the AI industry decided to convince component makers, fab labs, and any other entity holding the cards that consumer tech isn't a priority, and as a result, the days of getting a decent device for under $500 are long gone.

At least, they are, if you are gunning for most of the best gaming handhelds out there. I'm constantly staring into the void that is now retailer listings for affordable portables, wondering if anyone will bother to make something under $500, since the Steam Deck OLED starts at over $700. The closest contender to that coveted price tag is the ROG Xbox Ally, and opting for an open-box model is probably the best call right now; it's one I recommend begrudgingly.

Here's the thing: you can grab a white Xbox Ally (not the full-fat ROG Xbox Ally X with a Z2 Extreme chipset) for $479.99 at Best Buy, so long as you're okay with an open-box handheld in "good" condition. That's the sort of price I'm continually looking to pay for a portable, especially one that isn't gunning to be outright premium.

However, I am pretty peeved that to get a portable at the same prices that were standardized by the Steam Deck and OG Asus ROG Ally just three years ago, you now have to risk a handheld having "minor scratches or dents." That's before I even get to the base ROG Xbox Ally itself, as its specs don't really have the same next-gen feel as its Extreme sibling.

On paper, the Xbox Ally is pretty similar to Asus' 2023 model. You're getting 16GB RAM, 512GB storage, and the same 7-inch 1080p 120Hz display. Keep in mind that the older version hit under $400 during sales in the past, and while paying more would be easier if it came armed with a punchier chip, the AMD Ryzen Z2 A really resides in the same ring as the custom Steam Deck APU.

Effectively, the four cores and eight threads of the Z2 A won't boost fps like the Z1 Extreme with its 8/16 combo. Having tested the Lenovo Legion Go S, a handheld that uses a similar Z2 Go chipset, you're talking frame rates that are only just edging out the Steam Deck, whereas the first ROG Ally could comfortably outpace Valve's contender in many scenarios.

To really stomach picking up a ROG Xbox Ally, a handheld that would have been fantastic in 2023, you have pretend other portables didn't exist. The whole situation with gaming hardware is a bit silly, really, and it's hard to even find comparatively cheaper retro handhelds for their previous prices these days.

TL;DR - If you really need to pick up a handheld PC right now, Xbox Ally open box stock is a sensible option, even if we should really be enjoying the ROG Xbox Ally X for under $600 and Steam Decks for their launch price.

If you'd rather stick with the classics, check out how to play PS2 games and dive into some 2000s gems.

The new Fable has the unenviable position of bringing the series to a contemporary audience. After all, it's been 16 years since Fable 3, the last mainline entry. Playground Games is taking that responsibility seriously, with combat that merges new school and more classical mechanics.

"When we're talking about being faithful to the classic franchise, we thought about how there was an approachability to combat there," Will Kennedy, associate game director, explained to TechRadar. "And we knew that we wanted to be able to capture some of that for our game as well. But at the same time, we're making a game for gaming today."

It's a tricky balance. Fable has a lot of fans who've been waiting around for another installment - myself included - and we want this sequel to feel like the other games. But game development has evolved, and you don't want to alienate newcomers for the sake of making sure it still feels like 2009 to our old, decrepit hands.

"We wanted there to be breadth and depth to it, so we landed on wanting to have style-weaving combat," he says. "We wanted to be able to move from move to move really smoothly and easily, and that combined with the level expression that you've got."

The system Playground Games created is all about versatility. You can edit your loadout from the top down, and you have four spell slots to tinker with to see what works for you. Kennedy notes that you won't be playing long before "you have a really broad, deep, rich suite of options to choose from."

He adds the team is "really proud" of how "satisfying" the RPG feels. "We've landed somewhere that is still approachable but has that depth that we want and so therefore is faithful but works in gaming today as well for players, which is sometimes to be proud of," he finishes.

We'll see just what he means when Fable arrives in February 2027.

Fable devs originally had a tool to randomize the RPG's 1,000 NPCs that "would have saved us so much time," but that "just didn't make as much sense"

Blizzard union members represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) have won a contract that shields a total of 1,900 workers at the World of Warcraft developer ahead of BlizzCon 2026, and in the middle of parent company Microsoft's ongoing plan to layoff a total of 3,200 people.

"It's a new day at Blizzard, where greater power for workers is translating into more innovative games for players," says CWA president Claude Cummings Jr. in a press release. The union – which includes World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Blizzard's story and franchise development team – is now guaranteed protections regarding layoffs, Microsoft's AI usage, and other urgent concerns.

"The company has to talk with us before implementing AI tech that affects our working conditions, and we get to negotiate over the impact of that,” senior World of Warcraft designer Paul Cox tells Aftermath "We'll also be regularly discussing AI as part of our labor management committee, which is the sort of meeting between the union and the company on a frequent basis where we can bring up everything from AI to 'Hey, people are complaining that the toilet doors have too large of a gap in them.'"

And since Microsoft is cracking its knuckles ahead of another 1,600 layoffs at Xbox, Blizzard union workers also made sure to secure "really strong layoff protections," Cox says. Union members are now eligible for at least four weeks of severance and recall rights that last 14 months, which give qualified laid-off workers the opportunity to be "recalled" into open positions at Blizzard during that time period.

Cox explains, "If WoW has a bunch of layoffs, but Diablo doesn't, and Diablo is looking to expand, the folks who are laid off from WoW can get recalled into Diablo if they're qualified, which has definitely never happened in our industry before, and is very rare to see just in general. So we are really excited about that."

Blizzard workers have been fighting to feel steady in an increasingly unstable industry for a while now – apparently, "a few hundred people" have been stationing themselves outside the Blizzard campus' 12-foot tall orc statue to make "noise on a regular basis," says Blizzard senior editor Alison Veneto. But Veneto thinks what really convinced Blizzard bosses to take the company's union members seriously was the threat of an awkward BlizzCon 2026, which starts on September 12.

"I'll go ahead and say it: BlizzCon is next week," she explains. "Going into BlizzCon without a contract with the level of mobilization that had been ramping up from Blizzard employees could have been uncomfortable." But now Blizzard union members' efforts have paid off, and everyone can relax – until the next thing.

43-year CRPG veteran behind Fallout and Wasteland "worried about job loss" from AI, which seems justified now that his parent company Microsoft laid off 9,000 in exchange for more slop.

Ubisoft, Sega, Bandai Namco, and Square Enix are reportedly some of the publishers who are not supporting the Xbox disc-to-digital program, leading to concerns of the initiative's viability as a preservation tool.

Microsoft announced its disc-to-digital initiative for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One games last month, and at the end of the month, users on the Xbox Insider Program were able to access the feature in a beta form. This led to interesting discoveries like Activision's Deadpool, Transformers: Devastation and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan, as well as assorted titles from other publishers like Rock Band 4 and Lego Dimensions being available despite being delisted from digital stores.

However, unfortunately, Xbox Insider users have seemingly discovered another piece of the puzzle. As reported by users on Reddit, Ubisoft-published games are completely locked out of the program, with a message that reads, "This game is not participating in digital licensing." And since then, players on Reddit have reported the same thing is the case for Sega, Square Enix, and Bandai Namco, which in turn means every FromSoftware game, barring Sekiro, is unavailable on the service.

Sega is particularly interesting given that Sega president Shuji Utsumi pledged his support for physical games following Sony's announcement it's abandoning preservation by killing PS5 discs. On top of that, Sega has been a big supporter of the likes of Xbox Game Pass and Play Anywhere, so many are disappointed to see it seemingly isn't on board with this. However, the feature is still in beta, so hopefully Sega and others get on board once it's out in public.

13 years after famous Microsoft dunk, ex-PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida says Xbox disc-to-digital feature is "a great move"

Double Fine has just regained its independence as a studio after seven years at Microsoft, who founder Tim Schafer initially didn't want as a dad anyway. But things seemed OK until new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma stepped in for Phil Spencer.

"No one puts Double Fine out of business except for me," Schafer tells Bloomberg in a new report. "Asha's not going to shoot my dog. I'm going to shoot it. But I'm not going to shoot it because it's going to do great. A lot of people want to walk the dog." It's a good dog – Double Fine made the fantastic Psychonauts 2 and always commits to weird experiments like pottery brawler Kiln.

The developer's allegiance to the strange is what made Schafer suspicious of Microsoft in the first place, when it offered to buy the entire studio in 2019. He remembers thinking, "I don't want to get bought by you," since, "You guys love shutting down studios." But former Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer was a real fan, and current Xbox CCO Matt Booty assured Schafer that Double Fine would get to feel self-sufficient – and it did, until Xbox's huge leadership overhaul this year.

"It's not all at once out of the blue," Schafer says, seemingly nodding to the realization that Sharma might have planned to include Double Fine in Xbox's mass layoffs. "It's like – oh, that person didn't reply to my joke text. That's kind of how you find out these things. So I knew before I knew."

Double Fine officially regained its independence on July 6 along with three other studios, including South of Midnight developer Compulsion Games. Schafer was convinced the studio would be dead at Microsoft "unless we had a breakout, Minecraft hit that year," but now he doesn't have to worry about such things; Double Fine just announced its new game Thank You Bus Driver on September 4. You play as a bus driver who wants passengers to say thank you.

"After all these years," says Schafer, "how little I understand about the business just shows how hard it is to know."

He continues, "That's why I'm focused on keeping my team alive. That's why we do these creative things all the time. If we stopped doing these wacky creative things, we'd eventually be like, 'Who cares?' These games aren't lucrative enough to make up for how hard they are. They have to also be really fun and rewarding to make."

After escaping Xbox, Double Fine lays off 23 people as Tim Schafer says "only the survival of our studio would ever make us consider such a painful action."