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Industry

27 stories tagged Industry

Heart Machine Lays Off Nearly Everyone After a Pullout

Founder Alx Preston says the Hyper Light Drifter studio lost its funding this week and had to cut almost all staff, leaving him unsure whether Heart Machine can survive.

news1 month ago

Polyarc Has Closed Eight Weeks After Its Last Game

Seattle studio Polyarc, the team behind the Moss series and its flat-screen reissue Moss: The Forgotten Relic, announced its closure on September 11, 2026. Twenty-nine staff are affected, including all three Bungie-veteran co-founders, just eight weeks after the studio's final game shipped.

news1 month ago

Nintendo's Biggest Sale Ever Is Funded by Tariff Refunds

Nintendo of America's Customer Appreciation Sale runs September 12-26 with 30% off dozens of Switch games, and the company says tariff-related refunds helped pay for it - while arguing in court that the customers who paid the tariff-era prices are not entitled to a cent.

news1 month ago

Xbox Is Publishing Physint After Sony Walked Away

Kojima Productions' action-espionage project Physint has moved from Sony Interactive Entertainment to Xbox Game Studios. Sony called it a difficult decision to step away; Hideo Kojima says PlayStation Studios sent notice in mid-June that it would cancel the project, and that he spent three months finding a new partner. The deal also extends to film and television.

news1 month ago

Frontier Signs Disney for a New Game

Frontier Developments told the London market on September 3 that it has signed an agreement with Disney for a new game drawing on Disney's IP portfolio - funded entirely by Frontier and pitched squarely at the Creative Management Simulation genre behind Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo and Jurassic World Evolution. No title, no platforms, and a fourth unannounced Planet game confirmed in the same filing.

news1 month ago

The Journey Studio Is Now a Publisher

thatgamecompany announced thatgamepublisher on August 25, a full-service label funded by Sky: Children of the Light's profits that will back games which 'move people through play' - offering funding, marketing, platform strategy and IP development to teams of any size, with a couple of projects already signed.

news2 months ago

Deus Ex Creator Warren Spector Is Retiring From Games

Warren Spector says he is retiring after 44 years, 17 games and roughly nine add-on packs, from Ultima Underworld and Thief to Deus Ex, Epic Mickey and this year's Thick As Thieves. He cites age, health and an industry that has stopped being enjoyable - and admits there are still three games he would like to have made.

news2 months ago

Sony's CEO Says the PS6 Still Has No Launch Date

Hiroki Totoki told the Wall Street Journal that the PlayStation 6's launch timing - and therefore its price - has not been decided, with AI-driven component costs complicating the maths. Hours later, PlayStation launched a new It Happens on PS5 campaign.

news2 months ago

Amazon Is Getting Out of MMOs Entirely

Amazon Games will hand Throne and Liberty to NC by the end of Q4 2026 and Lost Ark to Smilegate in early 2027. Neither game is closing, player data carries over, and Amazon's MMO publishing era ends after New World's wind-down.

news2 months ago

Supermassive Games Is Cutting Up to 75 Jobs

The Until Dawn and Dark Pictures Anthology studio has begun a redundancy consultation covering up to 75 roles, following roughly 90 cuts in February 2024 and 35 in July 2025. Supermassive reported 172 staff at the end of 2025, and the cuts follow Directive 8020's soft launch and CEO Robert Henrysson's exit.

news2 months ago

Elder Scrolls Online Pushes Update 52 Into 2027

ZeniMax Online Studios is delaying three major Elder Scrolls Online features - the long-requested Warden class overhaul, the Crimson Veldt Trial, and Update 52 - into 2027, after Xbox's restructuring laid off 213 ZeniMax Online staff, including the game's former director and studio head. New game director Nick Giacomini says Update 51 still ships September 28 and insists 'ESO is here to stay.'

news2 months ago

EA's $55 Billion Saudi-Led Sale Closes on August 4

Electronic Arts says every regulatory approval needed for its $55 billion buyout by a consortium led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has now been obtained, with the deal expected to close on August 4 - making it the largest leveraged buyout in history and taking EA private for the first time since 1990.

news2 months ago

Bethesda: Elder Scrolls 6 Roadmap Unaffected by Layoffs

Facing concerns that Xbox's latest round of layoffs would delay The Elder Scrolls 6, Bethesda told YouTuber MrMattyPlays directly: 'No, the roadmap is unaffected.' Jason Schreier's own reporting still pegs the game at two to three years from completion.

news2 months ago

Double Fine Lays Off 23 Staff Days After Leaving Xbox

Tim Schafer confirmed Double Fine Productions has laid off 23 employees, just weeks after the Psychonauts 2 studio was spun off from Xbox as an independent company. Double Fine keeps its IP and catalog, with Xbox funding future projects, but the studio says it had to resize to survive on its own.

news3 months ago

Marathon Director Joe Ziegler Leaves Bungie

Joe Ziegler, the public face of Bungie's Marathon reboot, confirmed July 17 was his last day at the studio after nearly four years. Del Chafe III steps up as game director alongside creative director Julia Nardin, as the team pushes on following a launch that fell well short of Bungie's sales expectations.

news3 months ago

ZA/UM Lays Off Up to 32 Staff After Zero Parades Flops

Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM has issued redundancy or at-risk notices to up to 32 employees, two months after Zero Parades: For Dead Spies launched to strong critical acclaim but weak commercial performance. It's the studio's second round of layoffs since 2024.

news3 months ago

Sony Calls AI a 'Foundational Technology' for PS6

PlayStation CEO Hideaki Nishino told investors AI is now a core pillar of Sony's PS6 strategy, already powering tools like the facial-animation system Mockingbird. Weeks earlier, Hideo Kojima said in a Washington Post profile that he isn't interested in AI making art. Together, the two moments capture where the industry's biggest players actually stand on AI right now.

news3 months ago

Switch 2 Outsells the PS5 by a Million This Quarter

A year into its life, the Switch 2 is outrunning the PS5 quarter-to-quarter and dominating the US market - even as Sony's console keeps a commanding lifetime lead. And a Switch 2 price hike is now on the horizon.

news3 months ago

PlayStation Stops Making Physical Discs in January 2028

Sony Interactive Entertainment will stop producing physical discs for new PlayStation games from January 2028, moving new releases to digital distribution. Existing discs, disc drives, and games launching before the cutoff are unaffected, but the move sets a firm end date for the physical era of new PlayStation games.

news3 months ago

Xbox Raises Series X and S Prices Worldwide on August 1

Microsoft is hiking Xbox Series X and Series S prices worldwide from August 1 - up to $799.99 for a disc Series X and $499.99 for the Series S - while discontinuing the 2TB model, blaming a 2.5x surge in memory and storage costs.

news4 months ago

Luna Abyss Was a Hit, Then Its Whole Team Got Laid Off

Just 26 days after the acclaimed bullet-hell shooter Luna Abyss launched to an 81 Metacritic and a day-one Game Pass deal, developer Kwalee Labs has laid off its entire nine-person team. CEO Hollie Emery called the decision 'completely outside of our control.' The studio, formerly Bonsai Collective, spent seven years building the game.

news4 months ago

Xbox Braces for Another Round of Layoffs and Studio Closures

Microsoft's Xbox division is bracing for another wave of layoffs and studio closures as its fiscal year ends June 30. Ninja Theory (Hellblade) is reportedly being shut down, while Compulsion Games and Double Fine negotiate to spin off - and XGS head Craig Duncan is said to be stepping down.

news4 months ago

Xbox CEO Calls PS5 Logos at Xbox Showcases 'A Miss'

New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has called the decision to display PS5 and Nintendo Switch logos during Xbox showcases 'a miss,' contradicting content chief Matt Booty on the same day and promising to rethink the policy for future shows - though the June 7 Xbox Games Showcase is still set to keep them.

news5 months ago

Mario and Zelda Architect Takashi Tezuka Is Leaving Nintendo

Co-creator of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. Director of A Link to the Past, Super Mario World, and Yoshi's Island. Producer of Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Pikmin 4. After more than four decades and over 150 credits, the 65-year-old Takashi Tezuka is retiring from Nintendo on June 26, 2026.

news5 months ago

Forza Horizon 5 Is Carrying Xbox on PS5

Forza Horizon 5 has reportedly pulled in over $300M and 5M+ copies on PS5, but Microsoft's other multiplatform ports are quietly underperforming — and combined with a 33% hardware revenue collapse, it's pushing Xbox to actively reconsider exclusivity ahead of the May 7 Project Helix reveal.

industry6 months ago

Sony Raises PS5 Prices Amid a Memory Chip Crisis

Sony has hiked PS5 prices by $100–$150 globally starting April 2, citing a severe DRAM shortage driven by AI infrastructure demand. The PS5 now costs $649.99 and the Pro hits $899.99 in the US.

industry6 months ago

Epic Games Lays Off Over 1,000 Staff

Epic Games has confirmed layoffs affecting over 1,000 staff, citing a prolonged decline in Fortnite engagement that has strained the company's finances.