Gaming - Page 12

Obsidian and Bethesda will join forces to make a new Fallout game as Xbox restructures its business, sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

New updates from the big Xbox reset say that Obsidian has been downsized and is now laser-focused on a new Fallout project. Sources close to the matter tell Bloomberg that Obsidian has cancelled multiple projects to make way for the new Fallout game, including a sequel to Avowed. Josh Sawyer, who served as game director of fan-favorite 2010 RPG hit Fallout New Vegas, is leading the new Fallout project.

It's said that Obsidian has reduced its workforce by about 25% as a result of the reorganization.

Sony is set to kill physical PlayStation games, and the backlash is already turning into a full-blown culture war.

The PlayStation 6 will officially launch without a disc drive, with Sony setting a firm end date for PlayStation physical media. But gamers aren't taking it lying down. A recent petition against the move has already surpassed 200,000 signatures, and Microsoft has joined the fray with a snarky counter-offensive, offering free CDs to developers via GitHub.

The wave of resistance started with a simple but powerful act of digital defiance. Over 45,000 gamers signed a letter urging Sony to reconsider, arguing that physical media is still king for collectors, gift-givers, and those with spotty internet. The petition exploded in just four days, proving that this isn't just a niche issue, but a generational shift in how people engage with PlayStation games, not to mention a pivotal change in how PlayStation gamers actually own their games.

Xbox's promise to "bet big" on The Elder Scrolls VI and other core franchises has collided with brutal reality as Bethesda Game Studios and id Software were hit hardest in the latest wave of layoffs.

Reports reveal that studios behind DOOM, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls have been decimated, with some teams nearly halved; id Software, the studio behind the DOOM franchise and its iconic idTech engine, reportedly lost most of its coders.

Bethesda, despite being a darling of Xbox, also saw significant cuts, which has now raised red flags for fans of the long-awaited Elder Scrolls VI. Bethesda Game Studios Union wrote in a post on BlueSky that Bethesda's latest round of layoffs affected several departments, such as programmers, artists, designers, and game testers. Additionally, the union added that many of these former staff members had been at Bethesda Game Studios for "decades".

Valve's Steam Machine has had a rough couple of weeks. It was first criticized for its high price tag and mediocre performance, which even fails to beat a base PS5. Then, scalpers were spotted selling Steam Machine reservations on eBay for more than $3000, calling Valve's queuing system into question. Shortly after the first units were shipped to buyers, reports began to appear about a mysterious "red line" error.

Early buyers started reporting a solid red light across the console's LED strip shortly after setup, sometimes after installing a firmware update, sometimes after just a few minutes of gameplay. Since Valve's own support documentation lists a full red bar as a GPU error, it did not take long for "Red Line of Death" comparisons to the Xbox 360's infamous Red Ring to start doing the rounds.

The scare started with a Reddit post from user me_hill, who said their Steam Machine bricked itself right after installing an available update, following a short session of No Man's Sky. Commenters jumped in with theories, most pointing at a fried GPU, since the console's graphics silicon is soldered directly to the board with no way to swap it out. That is about as bad as it gets for a $1,049 to $1,349 device that had barely made it into customers' hands.

A petition calling on Sony to reconsider its decision to end physical disc production of PlayStation games in January 2028 has reached 200,000 signatures, indicating a substantial number of PlayStation gamers urging Sony not to end production of physical PlayStation games.

For those who don't know, Sony announced it would end production of physical PlayStation games in January 2028, and any games released after that time will be sold with a download code rather than a disc. Sony cited digital sales outpacing physical sales of its games as the reason for ending physical media production, but that reasoning isn't sitting well with many gamers, who are rightfully concerned about what an exclusively digital gaming landscape would look like.

Many PlayStation gamers have raised concerns about how an entirely digital gaming landscape takes away ownership from gamers, as at any moment the controlling platform can delist a game and effectively revoke access to the potentially thousands of people who bought it, versus having a physical copy of the game and being able to just put the disc in your console.

Following deep personnel cuts, ZeniMax remains committed to The Elder Scrolls Online, yet the devs remaining after the layoffs are worried about the future of the long-running MMO.

Xbox recently announced it will lay off a total of 3,200 people from now until June 2027. Half of that amount, some 1,600 people, are in the process of being let go across all of Xbox's divisions; from sales and marketing to QA and level design, the layoffs affect multiple divisions and studios. Four studio groups will be divested--Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, Double Fine, and Undead Labs. Arkane Lyon is also in discussions to be separated as well.

ZeniMax is also affected. While exact numbers remain unclear, reports indicate that a substantial portion of ZeniMax Online Studios has been let go. ZOS is responsible for the popular Elder Scrolls Online MMORPG that has accumulated tens of millions of players throughout the years. The cuts were so substantial that anonymous developers remaining at ZOS tell Kotaku that they have worries about the future of the game. As an online-driven MMO, games like ESO have a unique synergistic affinity for subscription services like Xbox Game Pass.

PlayStation's decision to end physical disc production for all new games starting January 2028 has been controversial enough on its own. It has now come to light that the announcement surprised not only players but also publishers, major business partners, and even PlayStation's own regional offices. None of them were apparently given any advance notice before the news went public.

According to sources speaking to High Chaos Run, an executive at a major AAA publisher described the situation bluntly. "Despite our seemingly close working relationship with PlayStation, we weren't informed that this was happening. It's only hitting us now that we may be out of jobs sooner rather than expected." The secrecy reportedly extended throughout PlayStation's own organization, with regional divisions learning about the decision at the same time as the general public.

The PlayStation India situation is perhaps the most striking example. At the time of the announcement, PlayStation's India office was negotiating with local distributors and retailers to set up exclusive PlayStation brick-and-mortar stores, targeting around 100 locations by 2028.

A new report from Bloomberg says that multiple people pushed back against launching new AAA games day-and-date into Xbox Game Pass.

Game Pass was always a controversial topic from the get-go. How could a service that launches games for effectively half of the purchase price actually make money for Xbox? The service introduced a new replacement effect, also called cannibalization, wherein gamers would just buy a month of Game Pass for $25 (then $30, now $20) instead of paying the more expensive $60-$70 purchase price for new games. The idea was to convert Xbox's user base to the higher-margin business model of subscriptions, which are all-digital and delivered in a more controlled way, and then (hopefully) entice subscriber growth through must-have value propositions.

The model wasn't entirely popular behind the scenes, though. Five sources that used to work at Microsoft tell Bloomberg's Cecilia D'Anastasio that Game Pass' core day-one value strategy faced criticism and push-back. We've already heard former Bethesda comms VP Pete Hines voice his apprehension of Game Pass, and former Xbox Game Studios VP Shannon Loftis said that the Game Pass model created "weird inner tensions" due to its replacive effect.

IO Interactive shares some updates on what's next for the studio, confirming that it has acquired the rights to its latest new game.

007 First Light developer IO Interactive has ambitious ideas for a very different new kind of game. It's called Project Fantasy, and reports indicate that it could have flying dragons set in a world of myth and mystery. Originally, Xbox had been funding the project, but that deal got scrapped after Microsoft set the reset switch on its gaming business. Now IO Interactive has managed to get both the publishing and IP rights to Project Fantasy.

Unfortunately, the studio has also announced layoffs and the closure of its studio in Istanbul, Turkey.

Legendary Doom developer id Software is facing downsizing as Microsoft makes major restructuring moves.

Xbox has announced more sobering news: The games division will lay off 3,200 workers total in FY27 as part of a major strategy reset. The first round of layoffs is beginning now, and will affect a total of 1,600 people. The layoffs are affecting multiple parts of Xbox, and now there are reports of numbers of people affected from individual studios, including id Software.

Sources tell Game Developer that nearly half of id Software's staff have been let go. That's over 90 people affected, including significant cuts to quality assurance (QA). Id Software isn't being shut down, however, and Bethesda apparently has no plans to shut down any studios as part of the layoffs.

Console represents the large majority of the Xbox business, however, without further context it's hard to extrapolate what exactly this means outside of more obvious metrics like Game Pass subscribers.

Xbox recently announced heavy layoffs as part of a major restructuring plan. Microsoft wants to entertain 1 billion people, but there's just one problem: Right now, console represents 80% of its business. The news was spotted as a data point in a recent Fortune article, and no exact clarification was offered, but we can interpret this based on previous data and info.

We know that Game Pass is heavily weighted to consoles (just not by how much), so it's possible that the 80% statement is more of a generalization for overall revenues. It stands to reason that most people who have an Xbox console may subscribe to Game Pass in some form. This metric also underlines the significant potential for growth on PC, which falls in line with comments from Xbox's previous management about PC being a major growth vector for the business.

Nintendo will stop selling Switch 1 systems in Europe starting mid-February 2027, with new units no longer being sold to retailers after this time.

Nearly 10 years after its original launch, Nintendo is making moves to phase out the original Switch console. The company announced that it will no longer sell new Switch 1 hardware in Europe. The news was delivered on a FAQ section on its support page.

The news comes as Nintendo readies a new array of Switch 2 consoles and accessories for the European market--a potentially expensive revision, especially during the current hardware climate. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony are all being squeezed by the chip shortages, forcing them to raise hardware prices so that the books even out against extreme production cost increases. While it's likely that Nintendo always planned to start phasing out the Switch 1 sometime soon, the ongoing chip crisis may have accelerated these plans.

Xbox Game Pass could have lost as many as 4-5 million subscribers following the price hike to $29.99 per month, new reports indicate.

Microsoft is making radical changes to its Xbox games division, and new Game Pass subscriber counts were revealed in the news fallout. Microsoft's game service has lost multiple millions of subscribers, and sources tell The Wall Street Journal that Game Pass is currently at 30 million subscribers.

Our tracking data shows that Game Pass could have lost as many as 5 million subscribers following the price hike. In October 2025, right before Black Ops 7's release onto the service, Microsoft raised the price of Game Pass Ultimate by +50% from $19.99 to $29.99 per month. There are always fluctuations in subscription services, so it's hard to know exactly when the drops happened, yet the price hike was widely disliked by fans so cancellations during this period seem likely.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma shared a memo this week outlining her vision for the brand's future, and buried near the end is a goal that's raised plenty of eyebrows. Sharma wrote that she wants Xbox to become "one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day," adding that she believes the goal is achievable given the strength of Xbox's franchises.

That's a big number, so let's put it next to something real. Steam reportedly hit a peak of around 42 million concurrent users this year, which is widely seen as one of the biggest single moments in PC gaming history. Sharma's billion-a-day target works out to roughly 24 times that number, every single day, not just at a record peak.

Counter-Strike, currently Steam's most played game, has topped out at around 1.8 million concurrent players. Xbox would need over 500 games pulling those kinds of numbers at the same time to get there.

Indie developer Zoroarts, creator of the co-op paddling game Paddle Paddle Paddle, has publicly asked Valve to reconsider Steam's refund policy after claiming over 55,000 copies of his game have been refunded so far. He posted on X that the game has a 21 percent refund rate despite sitting at 90 percent positive reviews, calling the situation something that "should not be possible."

The issue seems to come down to how quickly the game can be finished. Steam's no-questions refund policy lets players get their money back if they've owned a game for less than 14 days and played it for under two hours, no matter how they feel about it. Zoroarts had originally designed Paddle Paddle Paddle to take closer to three and a half hours, but speedrunners and experienced players have been finishing it in one to two hours. This keeps them eligible for a refund even after seeing the credits roll.

The developer Zoroarts, aka Mateo Covic, told Kotaku he's still in favor of Steam's refund policy as a rule, but flagged how odd it feels watching people enjoy the game and refund it anyway. He's suggested that Steam display the expected playtime next to the price on store pages, so shorter games are not automatically flagged as "too short" once played through.

Sony's plan to phase out physical disc production for new PlayStation games by January 2028 has triggered a massive gamer revolt, with a Change.org petition hitting 120,000 signatures in just four days, and that comes after a separate petition held by tech experts Digital Foundry, which received 45,000 signatures calling for Sony to reconsider its decision.

The "Don't Kill the Disc" petition, created by the Canadian retail platform PnP Games, focuses on Sony's phasing out of physical PlayStation disc games beginning January 2028. The petition focuses its concerns on ownership, pricing, and the long-term viability of digital-only game sales.

Petitioners argue that discs represent tangible ownership, while digital codes offer nothing more than a revocable license and a complete lack of actual ownership of the title purchased. The petition points to instances in which people have purchased digital copies of movies from platforms and then had those movies already purchased deleted from their libraries.

Epic Games has privately settled a court case with a former contractor accused of leaking unreleased Fortnite collaboration details, closing a contentious legal chapter with the leaker vowing not to leak anything else they have in their possession.

The lawsuit centered on Hayden Cohen, a former contractor who allegedly breached confidentiality terms by sharing sensitive information about upcoming partnerships in association with Fortnite. For those who don't know, leaks like these can completely destroy marketing strategies currently in the works, or undermine the surprise factor that keeps players engaged in a live-service game such as Fortnite.

While the specific collaborations in question weren't named in the filing, the case added another layer to the ongoing scrutiny around content leaks in the gaming sector. Additionally, since specific collaborations were mentioned, it suggests they were accurate leaks, as Epic Games appears to still be protecting them (and, of course, they went to the effort of suing and settling with Cohen).

Cyberpunk 2077 has seen a resurgence in players, with the title recently breaking the 100,000 concurrent player mark on Steam for the first time since 2023.

The new concurrent player record comes as CD Projekt Red announces Cyberpunk 2077 has officially sold 40 million copies, which the developer says shows the "incredible, lasting strength of Cyberpunk 2077 and is a testament to what CD Projekt Red does best: creating high-quality, immersive stories that keep players returning for years."

Cyberpunk 2077 was originally released in 2020, and its launch on gamers' platforms was shaky at best, with almost every platform except high-end PC hardware reporting performance issues that stained the reputations of CD Projekt Red and Cyberpunk 2077.

Should there be a formal pathway to a career in esports and professional gaming? That is, courses and studies offered at colleges, universities, and other specialized educational institutions focused on esports and professional gaming. With several esports competitions culminating in intense showdowns in large stadiums the world over, with countless fans watching and participating in much the same way as at other sporting events, this question is, in a sense, also about legitimizing and accepting professional gaming as a viable career path.

A new study commissioned by Logitech G in partnership with Censuswide has conducted a global survey to answer this very question. And yes, per the headline, Gen Z supports teaching gaming in classrooms. The 18,000-person study was conducted across a wide range of countries. Although the numbers vary, the majority of Gen Z are in favor of having a pathway to building an esports or professional gaming career. And for reference, Gen Z refers to those born between 1997 and 2012.

Looking at the data, 93% of Gen Z Chinese participants support educational pathways for esports and gaming professionals, with around 83% of Swiss and Brazilians feeling the same. 72% of Australia's Gen Z participants were in favor, with 67% and 66% in European countries such as Poland and Spain following suit. With Logitech providing us with some of the survey data, we also have the numbers for Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers in favor of educational pathways for students looking to get into professional gaming.

Steam Machines are being delivered to customers who pre-ordered the new console PC/hybrid, and one unlucky buyer is facing the same fate as many Xbox 360 buyers, but this time in a different form.

In a new post on the SteamMachine subreddit, user me_hill shared an image of their Steam Machine showing what they described as the "red line of death" after a No Man's Sky gaming session, which reportedly caused a GPU issue. Notably, the Steam Machine LED status light bar can be customized to display a range of colors, but Valve has outlined which specific colors, or lack thereof, it aims to communicate.

For example, when the status bar is completely red and solid, it indicates the Steam Machine has overheated, as CPU and/or GPU temperatures have exceeded 95C and 90C, respectively. Other indicators are the fourth quadrant of the light bar flashing red, indicating the system cannot detect any memory. Half the light bar breathing red indicates a GPU failure, and others. In this case, it appears the customers system has suffered from a GPU failure, though since its an image we can't see if its breathing or not.