A bad week of gaming news: June 24-30 news round-up

Hey, readers.

I absolutely love writing positive news stories and trying to get people excited about what’s happening in the video games space, but that was a little harder to do this week.

A lot of tough news comes from PlayStation and Xbox, and updates regarding Xbox’s situation are developing at a pace where I’ve had to add such details to this issue at the last minute. Right before this issue is about to go out, Sony announced that it’s ending production of physical PlayStation discs in 2028 (more on that next week). And with Microsoft’s next fiscal year beginning today, there might even be more information about Xbox’s planned layoffs by the time this is in your inbox.

Needless to say, the tone of this week’s issue will be a little dour. We’ll talk about rising costs, union efforts, and where the industry might look going forward. Brace yourself.

We’ve talked about Destiny 2 wrapping up development of new content, but things have gotten worse at Bungie, the studio behind the long-running online shooter. Sony Interactive Entertainment, the parent company of PlayStation Studios and Bungie, cut a reported 292 jobs at Bungie, including “most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members.”

Sony shared its internal memo about the layoffs, and it’s riddled with the usual corporate speak of how it was “painful news” but “reduction was necessary to align the studio’s resources with its current priorities and long-term goals.”

Meanwhile, in Xbox land, Microsoft has increased the price of four Xbox models and has phased one out entirely.

In case you lost track, this is the third time Xbox prices have risen since May 2025. An official Xbox Wire blog mentions how “console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x” since the last price hike in October, and the company expects “another doubling by the fall of 2027.” It’s a situation so bad that Microsoft is promoting its “Buy Now, Pay Later” options for paying in installments, if you want to make your Xbox purchase feel like buying a freaking car.

To make matters worse, May 2026 was the worst month for Xbox hardware sales in the history of the brand. With how much Microsoft has pushed for and invested in AI, and how AI companies are largely responsible for the spiking costs of memory components, you can say that the corporation wrote this fate for itself.

We’ve previously talked about reports that Xbox studios Ninja Theory, Double Fine, and Compulsion Games were in precarious positions, with talks over potential closures or spin-offs—either would result in layoffs at those studios. An unknown number of employees have already left Compulsion, the Peabody Award-winning studio behind South of Midnight, in anticipation of impending layoffs.

Since then, reports have suggested that State of Decay studio Undead Labs is in the same position as the aforementioned three studios, and a separate report says that Arkane may face closure and cancellation of its game based on Marvel’s Blade. It’s also claimed that the Blade game is overbudget.

And while IO Interactive, the studio that made Hitman and the recent 007 First Light, is not an Xbox-owned studio, it’s undergoing its own layoffs after Microsoft pulled out of a partnership with IO. Xbox was initially going to publish IO’s new IP, a game codenamed Project Fantasy. Despite the cuts, IO insists that it will continue development of this mystery game.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty surrounding Xbox’s “reset” as I write this. In response to everything, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) held a joint press conference with the members of unions representing Xbox employees demanding layoff protections and declaring that Xbox workers “will not be treated as disposable.”

One has to wonder what the new management’s vision is, and who internally will even be left to make the games that Xbox purports to want to make.

In last week’s issue, we briefly touched on the price point and release details for Grand Theft Auto 6, as they came to light shortly before that issue went out. To summarize, that’s $80 for the base game and $100 for an “Ultimate Edition,” while the physical release of GTA 6 will not include a disc, but rather just a code in a box.

We’ve had a week to mull over this information, and generally, people aren’t happy about any of this. The internet has been in a fearmongering spiral about it, believing that GTA 6 will set a norm for video games at an $80 price point (Mario Kart World was arguably the first shoe to drop, though) and the beginning of the end for physical media.

Another criticism is that the Ultimate Edition includes access to in-game shops and character customization options, leading many to view this as GTA 6 locking essential features behind a $20 paywall. It’s normal for big video games to have these types of deluxe editions, but it’s unclear how GTA 6 will handle this until we actually get our hands on the game itself.

Despite the hand-wringing, analysts say that the move to a digital game makes sense, seeing how sales for physical games have been declining over the years. Reports and claims floated the possibility (based on language from a Rockstar support ticket) of a proper disc release for GTA 6 coming in the future, but another report disputes this. We’re left questioning what the value of owning an empty GTA 6 box is, besides being able to display it on your shelf.

If you believe researcher and University of Virginia professor Anthony Palomba, GTA 6 may have already generated $1 billion in pre-sales in the first hour of preorders alone. I’m skeptical of that exact claim, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the negative talk surrounding GTA 6 did very little to hamper the game’s success.

A poll from IGN’s readership indicated that those within the outlet’s audience are pre-ordering GTA 6 on PlayStation 5 over the Xbox Series X/S version in an 8-to-1 ratio. The statistic picked up enough traction that Xbox itself commented, saying that it’s had “record orders” and that people should wait for “real data.” 8-to-1 sounds pretty extreme and unbelievable, but it’s claimed by one analyst that, in general, the PS5 captures between 75-80% of the audience for multiplatform games compared to Xbox. And the same will certainly apply with GTA 6, with the PS5 version being heavily promoted over the Xbox version, presumably the result of a marketing deal between PlayStation and Rockstar Games.

While the launch of GTA 6 is still likely to be huge, the concern from at least one retailer is that stores might not be able to meet demand for consoles this holiday season (for reference, GTA 6 launches on November 19, a little over a week before Black Friday).

In late 2025, Rockstar Games terminated 31 workers, with the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) accusing the studio of firing them over their union involvement.

Rockstar disputed accusations of union busting, claiming that these workers were “found to be distributing and discussing confidential information in a public forum.”

As we move closer to the release of GTA 6, a group of Rockstar employees known as the Rockstar Game Workers Union (RGWU)—a subsidiary of IWGB—is seeking voluntary recognition before the game’s launch. Should the union succeed, it would be the second recognized video game worker union in the UK.

That’s all for this week. July is set to have some exciting game releases, but I’m not expecting the bad news to slow down anytime soon.

See you next issue,
Chris Compendio