The Docket

Microsoft has announced sweeping layoffs and other dramatic changes resulting in 4,800 layoffs across the company, including 3,200 at Xbox specifically. What's led to this? According to one expert, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and his "catastrophic mismanagement" of the company is to blame. Ed Zitron, an author who specializes in covering the technology space and is the CEO of EZ Primary Research, offered a blistering take on Microsoft's management in response to the mass layoffs. "Catastrophic m

GameSpot / Eddie Makuch

Expensive package but with features to back it up. | The Arctis Nova Pro Omni builds on the strong foundation of the popular Arctis Nova Pro Wireless headset. They improve on all key features, including sound quality, battery life, and connectivity, but with a slightly higher price tag.

NotebookCheck / Vineet Washington

No news was not, in fact, good news.

PC Gamer / Ted Litchfield

So are cult classics from Final Fantasy's most iconic artist and the creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion

Polygon / Willa Rowe

Fractured Jinx from Arcane: League of Legends season 2 will get a deluxe release from high-end toymaker Hot Toys.

Polygon / Michael McWhertor

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has shared new details on the significant changes at Xbox, including mass layoffs, studio spinoffs, and more. In an interview with Fortune, Sharma said Microsoft undertook "a bunch of bets" years ago to help grow the business, including Game Pass, going multiplatform, and beefing up its studio base. These bets did not pay off, and in the process of pursuing these new ventures, "We inherently didn't focus on the core business," Sharma said. "The number one measure of your str

GameSpot / Eddie Makuch

With the Steam Machine starting to land in some lucky buyers hands, a few of the gremlins in Valve's compact living-room PC have started to surface. But while some might remind you of infamous hardware failures of old, many of them are smartly designed errors that you can, for the most part, resolve yourself. Last week, the Steam Machine subreddit was rocked with what the community described as the "Red Line of Death," a reference to the catastrophic Red Ring of Death that plagued early Xbox 360

GameSpot / Alessandro Barbosa

Have you got game?Fans of obscure Japanese dating sims may be excited to learn that SEGA Saturn’s Sentimental Graffiti will be revived for the PS5 by Japanese dev Entergram.Originally released in 1998, this game sees you assume the role of Tanaka Ichirou, a student who moved around a lot during middle school, meeting a variety of different girls.Read the full article on pushsquare.com

Push Square

Games often feature unfocused spectacle, but here are ten titles that demand precision and patience in exchange for satisfying gameplay rewards.

Polygon / Jason Venter

Titles still belong to them.No longer part of the Microsoft first-party umbrella, Psychonauts 2 developer Double Fine and South of Midnight studio Compulsion Games have thanked the Xbox maker for the seven years under its wing.In addition, both teams confirm they have taken the IP rights to their games with them. Therefore, Double Fine still has control of Psychonauts, Keeper, and Kiln, while Compulsion Games remains the owner of We Happy Few and South of Midnight.Read the full article on pushsq

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Paddle Paddle Paddle is a friendslop game with largely positive reviews, but that hasn't protected it from one of Valve's worst indie game policies

Polygon / Patricia Hernandez

GKIDS will bring Your Name, the animation masterpiece from Makoto Shinkai, back to the big screen this August.

Polygon / Willa Rowe

Talk is cheap.A theme of this generation has been Sony’s communication – or lack thereof. I think this past week has proven that the firm’s approach is no longer fit for purpose.In the aftermath of its decision to kill physical games, it’s provided us with a few short sentences citing “consumer preferences”. It’s quit social media and doesn’t appear to be in any rush to return.Read the full article on pushsquare.com

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A deadly plague spread through World of Warcraft's Moonguard server over the weekend, making it the second time in WoW history a horrific virus has run uncontrolled through the game's populace. As broken down by Wowhead, the origin of the plague in question comes from a Dragonflight dungeon, Brackenhide Hollow. Within the dungeon, some enemies cast a spell called Withering Contagion, a disease that inflicts heavy nature- damage-over-time and spreads to all players within five yards. Whether by a

GameSpot / Cameron Koch

Coming in winter 2026.Guilty Gear Strive raised eyebrows over the weekend with an announcement that took players — including myself — completely by surprise.Developer Arc System works confirmed that the fighter will be getting a second guest character, as part of the game's ongoing Season 5 offering.Read the full article on pushsquare.com

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Elevate your Fora Horizon 6 gameplay experience.

IGN / Eric Song

"Videogames are not mere merchandise—they are cultural assets."

PC Gamer / Elie Gould

Arkane, the studio behind Dishonored and more, has its future in question as Xbox cuts 4 other studios and lays off 3,200.

Polygon / Willa Rowe

'Microsoft prides itself on being a good neighbor in the communities where we operate.'

PC Gamer / Jess Kinghorn

Red card, no backsies.The latest UK Charts data is in, and as World Cup fever seemingly takes hold as we approach the quarter-finals, EA SPORTS FC 26 has once again grabbed the gold.Meanwhile, Star Fox has slipped down to fourth place, just behind Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. Still a pretty good result for its second week on the market, mind you. Just below this at number five, we've also got Rhythm Heaven Groove making its debut. Not a bad start for a niche Switch 1 game, to be sure, and w

Nintendo Life

You probably shouldn't bet on a Starfield sequel if news coming out of Xbox's reset is anything to go by.

IGN / Cade Onder

A grim outcome from Xbox's latest round of reaping.

PC Gamer / Harvey Randall

As part of the 1,600 people being let go by Xbox during its big reset on July 6, it appears that the company's Accessibility division has been hit pretty heavily as well. According to a now-deleted July 6 Bluesky post, a senior user researcher for accessibility at ZeniMax Media shared that they were caught in the blast zone, too. They also revealed that the "accessibility staff overall seems heavily impacted," with "multiple people on the Bethesda User Research Team" getting laid off. On LinkedI

GameSpot / Levi Winslow

Hexed follows a rebellious teen discovering a magical world and her family's secrets.

Polygon / Sam Nelson

The future of Marvel’s Blade remains unclear as Microsoft tries to sell or close its developer, Arkane Lyon.

IGN / Wesley Yin-Poole

As Xbox cuts ties with Ninja Theory, Compulsion, and Double Fine, Undead Labs' case is the worst but not the only case of mismanagement

Putting all my hopes and dreams on an independent Arkane.

PC Gamer / Ted Litchfield

Elder Scrolls, Fallout, DOOM, more.If you're keeping up, you'll know that Xbox has just announced sweeping layoffs across its business, eliminating more than 3,000 jobs over the next year and divesting several of its first-party studios.ZeniMax Media, which houses publisher Bethesda Softworks as well as numerous development studios, will feel some of the impact from this Xbox reset.Read the full article on pushsquare.com

Psychonauts and Keeper developer Double Fine Productions, and South of Midnight and We Happy Few developer Compulsion Games, have reacted to their new futures as it's confirmed they will become independent developers again. Read more

Eurogamer / Robert Purchese

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has outlined her plan to "reset" the Xbox business, and it includes mass layoffs and selling off studios. In her memo announcing the dramatic shakeup, Sharma also talked about what led to this moment, and one piece is that the Xbox business is "not healthy" due in part to big bets that have not paid off, like Xbox Game Pass. Xbox is undergoing a strategic "reset." She said Microsoft bet on things like Xbox Game Pass, releasing more titles on competing platforms, and a "broad

Following weeks of rumours and speculation, Microsoft and Xbox have announced today around 3200 jobs are being cut before financial year 2027 ends, with a number of studios being let go to find new owners or go independent. As more details pour out, we've also learned ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks are facing cuts - even if no studios are closing. Moreover, there are new plans for their key properties moving forward. Read more

Eurogamer / Fran Ruiz

As attacks get more advanced, security must follow.

PC Gamer / James Bentley

Pre-order market prices are out of control for the September TCG set, and likely to get worse the release date gets closer.

Polygon / Patricia Hernandez

It's a bleak Monday for Xbox, as the division is losing five of its studios and approximately 20% of its workforce will be laid off throughout the current fiscal year. These changes, referred to as "the most significant restructure in Xbox history" by Xbox boss Asha Sharma, will impact every corner of the business, including Id Software and ZeniMax Online Studios. While the two developers aren't shutting down, reports claim that they will be losing large portions of their respective workforces.

After announcing that it's killing physical disc releases on its platform, Sony's X account hasn't posted anything.

Polygon / Elijah Gonzalez

Rey and Leia was a master and apprentice duo that never got to shine in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Madeline Roux plans to right those wrongs.

Polygon / Aimee Hart

CloverWorks is producing Grotesqqque, an anthology anime movie from director Atsushi Nishigori that already looks like a spectacle.

Polygon / Francesco Cacciatore

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has expressed hopes that Xbox can be a company that "entertains more than a billion people each day" amidst drastic change at the company. Read more

"I know we can achieve this goal".Xbox wants to “entertain more than a billion people per day” as it moves forward with a dramatically downsized workforce.In a memo, CEO Asha Sharma said she “knows” the company can achieve this goal, and that today’s changes are part of a “bigger future for Xbox, not a smaller one”.Read the full article on pushsquare.com

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Microsoft has begun its big reset, cutting 1,600 jobs right now and another 1,600 in the next 12 months. Despite this massive restructuring, the company claimed that these moves don't involve canceling any already announced first-party games. In a lengthy Xbox Wire blog post on July 6, Microsoft announced that some studios (such as Ninja Theory and Undead Labs) are being sold while others (like Arkane Studios) are still awaiting their fate. Tucked within the post was a line about the projects cu

Double Fine and Compulsion Games have issued public statements to confirm their status following word of today's enormous cuts by Xbox, discussing their respective futures as independent studios.

IGN / Tom Phillips

Dark Souls popularized a control scheme where the light attack button is on R1/RB. Action games have copied it for years, and I'm sick of it.

Polygon / Ari Notis

Xbox is ‘not healthy’, but losing all of this talent isn’t the cure.

IGN / Simon Cardy

These things MAPPA.We've only seen glimpses of them, but the animated cutscenes in Persona 4 Revival look really high quality — and it turns out there's a good reason for that.Developer Atlus has confirmed that the scenes are crafted by MAPPA, the popular Japanese studio behind anime adaptations like Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, the second season of Vinland Saga, and the fourth season of Attack on Titan.Read the full article on pushsquare.com

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Evading its previously-reported closure, Compulsion will retain its IP rights as it transitions to independent ownership.

PC Gamer / Lincoln Carpenter

Project Ekur, a standalone Halo multiplayer game, has reportedly been canceled, according to a Halo leaker with a track record.

Polygon / Ford James

Still cooler than me.

PC Gamer / Jess Kinghorn

Konami's adaptation of it's classic role-playing game release later this year in japan

Polygon / Willa Rowe

The announcement of the Tokyo Anime Next awards has been painted as a reaction to the Crunchyroll Anime Awards, but the truth is more complex

Polygon / Francesco Cacciatore

As part of Microsoft's restructuring announcement today for Xbox that is resulting in mass layoffs, the company also announced that it is selling off two of its development studios: Undead Labs and Ninja Theory. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said those two studios have "entered terms to join new ownership with funding" to help finish Senua (Ninja Theory) and State of Decay 3 (Undead Labs). Microsoft did not name the mystery buyers, however. Senua is a brand-new Hellblade action game that was only just an

GameSpot / Eddie Makuch

You can score $15 off the MTG x Avatar: The Last Airbender Beginner Box today, as it's dropped to its best price ever at Amazon in a new sale.

IGN / Robert Anderson

Posters revealed at Anime Expo.Sony subsidiary Crunchyroll made a slew of announcements at the Anime Expo in LA this weekend, but of most interest to PlayStation fans are these new posters for its forthcoming Ghost of Tsushima adaptation.A collaboration between PS Productions, Sony Music Entertainment, and Aniplex, the series promises to “translate the game’s signature samurai aesthetic into a visually compelling, cinematic experience”.Read the full article on pushsquare.com

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Double Fine and Compulsion will retain their IPs after leaving Xbox, following huge cuts

Video Games Chronicle / Andy Robinson

That's one way to cut costs.

PC Gamer / James Bentley

Meccha Chameleon's painting game has been targeted by cheaters using image scanning and automated tools to bypass the manual painting mechanics, prompting concerns about fair play in the community.

PC Gamer / Elie Gould

Nintendo will discontinue retail sales of the original Switch, Switch Lite, and Switch OLED in Europe starting mid-February 2027 to comply with EU battery regulations. The company is simultaneously launching a Switch 2 revision with replaceable batteries in Europe later this year, which will be slightly heavier due to the new battery design.