by Matt

As rumored last week, Asha Sharma, CEO of XBOX, announced today that they are beginning their largest restructuring in XBOX's history. Asha shared the following email she sent to employees at XBOX:

Team,

We are beginning the most significant restructure in XBOX history. After careful consideration, I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 throughout FY27. This will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today, and in addition, four studios will leave XBOX to new management. I recognize that a year-long restructuring creates additional challenges. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make all the necessary changes in a single day, and I wanted to be direct about the scale.

I know this is painful. These changes will directly affect people who have poured their creativity into building XBOX. Many joined us through acquisitions, while others were recruited here, or sought us out because they loved this industry and loved XBOX. Today’s decisions do not reflect their talent or dedication.

Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset XBOX. 

First, we will reset our content portfolio.

Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined. We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset XBOX, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision. 

Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will return to management and transition to independent studios with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3. In France, Arkane’s management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options. 

We are also making reductions across other units, and in some cases, shifting investment to focus on higher priority projects. These changes vary in size across Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and XBOX Game Studios. None of our first party publicly announced games or projects are being cancelled as part of these reductions. 

In addition, Mojang and King will now report directly to me. These two studios have increasingly become platforms and are our largest by monthly active players. They bring critical geographic, demographic, and differentiation to XBOX.

Second, we will reset our platform.

We know that great technology gets better when it gets simpler, not bigger. Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. Our platform teams are 40% larger than they were at the start of this generation, even as our player base and playtime have declined. That complexity has slowed decisions, blurred accountability, and made it harder to deliver for players. As we reset XBOX, we will simplify.

We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. And we will streamline how we work across our tools, with a cleaner code base, shared services, and 50% reduced vendor spend.

Third, we are resetting how we operate. 

As XBOX grew our headcount, we became more fragmented. Teams, studios, and functions often operate independently, and it became harder to work towards a shared goal, make the right tradeoffs, and get things done.

For the first time, we are establishing a Chief Operating Officer with end-to-end P&L responsibility across content, hardware, platform, and services. Helen Chiang has been promoted to this role and will report directly to me. Over nearly two decades at XBOX, Helen has helped build some of our most important businesses, from XBOX Live to leading Mojang and the Minecraft franchise. She will bring our businesses together under one operating model, making sure we make clear investment decisions, learn from our successes and failures, and hold ourselves accountable for results.

Thank you, Dave McCarthy, who is retiring after 17 years with XBOX. Dave has played a defining role in building the platform that millions of players rely on every day and has been a trusted partner through many of the biggest moments in XBOX’s history. We wish him all the best.

These changes are about a bigger future for XBOX, not a smaller one. The next decade of gaming will be larger, more global, and more creative than anything we’ve seen before. This year, we’ll invest as much in XBOX as we ever have, but we’ll invest with greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity, all in service of making XBOX where the world plays and creates.

I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect. I know we can achieve this goal. XBOX has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history, talented studios around the world, and we will return to growth in 2027. 

History is full of companies that mistake longevity for inevitability. We will not be one of them.

Asha

While news like this is never good, I can appreciate Asha's communication style and the direct approach she and the XBOX team are taking. Hopefully after all this pain, XBOX can return to a sustainable platform that can deliver amazing content year after year. My heart goes out to all the impacted employees at XBOX.

I'm very glad to hear that Double Fine and Compulsion Games are going independent and not simply being shut down. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs being sold to investors so they can continue development on their upcoming games also seems like great news. A much better outcome than Bungie had lately at PlayStation. 

These kinds of changes are always extremely painful, and a lot of great people get hurt along the way. 

by Matt

News from PlayStation lit the internet on fire yesterday. In a July 1st PlayStation Blog post, Sony announced that physical game disc production would end by January 2028:

Physical disc production ending in January 2028 for new games releasing on PlayStation consoles 

You can probably imagine how well some people took the news, particularly collectors (who value physical media for their collections) and producers of physical games that rely on PlayStation's production facilities.

I even wrote a cover story for EGN on the topic, titled: The End of Physical Media is a Major Blow to Consumer Rights

I encourage you to check it out when you get a chance, since the end of physical media matters to everyone, even if you only buy digital.

by Matt

At least two significant positive events in the world of gaming today:

1) GTA VI Pre-orders are now live for PlayStation and Xbox (sorry, no PC at launch)

Base game costs $79.99 and the Ultimate edition costs $99.99. There is some in-game content locked within the Ultimate edition, so make sure to thoroughly research before you buy. (Personally I'm going to wait closer to launch just to ensure there aren't any other "gotchas" we aren't aware of yet.) In exchange for pre-ordering, Rockstar is giving a 1-month free GTA+ subscription, plus the "Vintage Vice City" pack.

2) Star Fox (the remake) is now for sale on Switch 2

Retailing for just $49.99, you can experience the epic adventure of Star Fox 64, now with shiner visuals and (questionably) better voice acting. On Metacritic, Star Fox currently has 81/100 based on 79 critic reviews, with Game Informer giving it 83/100, GameSpot giving it 7/10, and IGN giving it 8/10.

And at least one negative: according to posts on X, it appears layoffs have begun at South of Midnight developer: Compulsion Games. I really liked that game, and it's extremely unfortunate.

--UPDATE--

Even more bad news: PlayStation Studios confirmed a reduction in force is underway at Bungie as it goes through a mass reorganization. Bungie itself cited that Destiny 2 fell short of expectations, and seemed to be implying that was one of the reasons behind the force reduction, although they didn't say it explicitly.

AND...even more bad news: Xbox followed shortly on the bad Bungie news, with news of a large price increase for the Series S and X consoles. Effective August 1, 2026, the price of XBOX consoles for the 512GB models will increase by US$100, and increase US$150 for the 1TB models. 2TB models are being discontinued altogether. 

by Matt

Not as much news today as rumors, but X has been on fire today with rumors that Xbox is in the process of either selling off or closing three of their first party studios: South of Midnight developer Compulsion Games, Psychonauts and Keeper developer DoubleFine, and Hellblade developer Ninja Theory (yes, just a week after showcasing a new game from them). Additionally, there is a rumor that Luna Abyss developer Kwalee Labs has laid off its entire dev team (although this isn't Xbox related). Additionally, there is a rumor that Life is Strange developer Don't Nod will be out of money by November unless something changes.

Of course people are fighting all over social media about whether Xbox is the issue, Microsoft, or both (or neither). Plus people are pointing out that PlayStation has also closed a bunch of first party studios, including Bluepoint who developed the outstanding Demon Souls remake.

Not a great day for gaming.

by Matt

The following is a list of new PlayStation Store game releases over this past week, starting on Monday (6/8). Just keep in mind, that ratings for games released today (6/12) are likely to be very fresh and not necessarily representative of a game's average experience:

• 6/8/26: Seven Days Until Morning (4.60/5 from 5 ratings) $7.49

• 6/8/26: Solarpunk (4.27/5 from 166 ratings) $22.99

• 6/9/26: Poetic Trio (2.53/5 from 32 ratings) $9.99

• 6/9/26: Bellwright (4.12/5 from 185 ratings) $29.99 

• 6/9/26: NBA The Run (4.16/5 from 1k ratings) $29.99 

• 6/10/26: Chico's Delivery (5/5 from 9 ratings) $4.99

• 6/10/26: Aleesha's Tower (5/5 from 2 ratings) $5.99

• 6/10/26: 4PGP (4.07/5 from 14 ratings) $19.99

• 6/10/26: Military Merge (4.22/5 from 23 ratings) $0.49

• 6/11/26: Unrailed 2: Back on Track (4.61/5 from 18 ratings) $19.99

• 6/11/26: Mori Carta (3.8/5 from 5 ratings) $12.49

• 6/11/26: Love Chemistry - Sibella's Formula (4.6/5 from 5 ratings) $5.99

• 6/11/26: Dragon Loop (2.27/5 from 11 ratings) $14.99

• 6/11/26: Demon Castle Story (4.82/5 from 11 ratings) $13.99

• 6/11/26: Console Archives - L'Empereur (5/5 from 6 ratings) $7.99

• 6/11/26: Arcade Archives 2 - Rack'em Up (5/5 from 8 ratings) $9.99

• 6/11/26: Arashi Gaiden (5/5 from 1 rating) $14.49

• 6/11/26: Sportal (4.5/5 from 6 ratings) $9.99

• 6/11/26: Beastro (5/5 from 26 ratings) $19.99

• 6/11/26: Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions (3.95/5 from 114 ratings) $29.99

• 6/12/26: Zumba - Jurassic Marble Quest (no ratings yet) $4.99

• 6/12/26: Air Hunter (no ratings yet) $2.99

• 6/12/26: X-Force Genesis (4.67/5 from 3 ratings) $7.49

• 6/12/26: Project SNAQE (5/5 from 1 rating) $2.99

• 6/12/26: Pitstop in Purgatory (5/5 from 2 ratings) $4.99

• 6/12/26: Extreme Cycling Championship (no ratings) $9.99

• 6/12/26: Beholgar II (4.5/5 from 10 ratings) $17.99

• 6/12/26: Water Park Manager Simulator (2.8/5 from 5 ratings) $9.99

• 6/12/26: Driftland The Magic Revival (no ratings) $19.99

A few of the games this week looked interesting to me, and I ended up buying Beholgar II, since it's a cool looking pixel-art 2D action platformer. Review will be coming next week sometime. Solarpunk and Beastro also look interesting, but they are both on Xbox Gamepass, so I'll likely try them there. Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions also launched day one into Gamepass, but that game doesn't interest me personally. I played the first one, and it was well made, but just not my kind of game; my daughter and her friends liked and played it though.

Happy hunting!

by Matt

Last week saw some great video game showcases, and some incredible new game announcements. Here are my favorites from each one:

• PlayStation State of Play: God of War Laufey reveal

• Summer Game Fest: Resident Evil Veronica reveal

• Xbox Games Showcase: Gears of War: E-Day going exclusive

Then earlier this week, Nintendo held its latest Direct and revealed:

• Xenoblade Genesis

• Kingdom Hearts IV

• Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake

Most of the Direct was a bit of a snooze-fest, but those reveals certainly caught my attention. I had seen so much chatter on socials regarding the Ocarina of Time remake, it honestly didn't shock me at all, but for a lot of people it was a complete surprise. Nintendo didn't show much, but regardless it's very exciting.

Sadly the week ended with some not-so-great news, with a leaked Xbox memo that Xbox then released officially. On the one hand it was refereshing to see new CEO, Asha Sharma, directly addressing some of Xbox's challenges, but on the other hand it sounds like more layoffs are coming. Further reporting on X.com hints that other layoffs are likely as well, from major publishers such as Ubisoft. I wouldn't doubt we'll hear more before the week is done.

by Matt

Got some exciting game updates this week! Lots of showcase events will mean a ton of new game updates and announcements.

• Best Indie Games Summer Showcases goes live today (6/2) at 11am Eastern: WATCH

• PlayStation State of Play goes live today (6/2) at 5pm Eastern: WATCH

• Summer Game Fest kicks of this Friday (6/5) at 5pm Eastern: WATCH

• Xbox Games Showcase goes live this Sunday (6/7) at 1pm Eastern: WATCH

Also, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches tomorrow, Wednesday (6/3), on Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S. Other notable games releasing this week include The 7th Guest Remake (6/4) and the Gothic 1 Remake (6/5).

Previously available on PC and Xbox, The Eternal Life of Goldman demo is also now available on PS5! Check out our preview and hands-on impressions after you've had a chance to check it out. See how your experience compared. 

In EGN News, my preview and demo impressions of Gurei went live today. Check it out! I'm also currently working my way through Mina the Hollower. With any luck my review might go live at the end of the week or early next week. Want to be sure of my experience before making a decision.

I'm still building out this news feature, so not sure if it will be weekly, daily or just as interesting information becomes available. Stay tuned!