“Yoshida has a strategy he deploys for managing fan expectation where he speculatively says things he knows to be true. For instance, during FF16’s promotion, he casually speculated about the possibility of more games and stories in that universe. At the time he did this, some was on the slate. But things change, obviously. What he is doing here is simply outlining that such things are not likely to happen and giving a broad reason for why, though the reason isn’t entirely true anyway, as it’s all a question of scope and scale.”

Donaldson’s post comes on the heels of Yoshida’s recent statement about potential remakes of Final Fantasy 6, 8 or 9 needing to be released in multiple instalments. When it comes to Final Fantasy 9’s rumored remake, Donaldson went on to explain that Yoshida’s statements are essentially a way for him to manage fan expectations.

“There was an FF9 remake, and it was a single game, and it was very far along. Yoshida even made some vague comments like these hinting at the fact around the last expansion’s FF9 tribute content. So, it is possible, with the right scope, which, to be clear, is obviously a smaller scope than FF7R. However, for various reasons – surely a story for another day – that project stalled out, and it’s no longer moving forward. And Yoshida makes comments like this to manage fan expectations.”

Ultimately, Donaldson believes that Square Enix wants to start working on brand-new mainline Final Fantasy games rather than only relying on past titles. This work, he said, will likely start after the company has wrapped up the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy.

“What this is really all about is that SE has made the decision that after they close out the 7R trilogy they need to focus on new stories and less on mining the past, which has done okay for them but ultimately offered diminishing returns. If you want to grow the franchise, remakes probably aren’t it.”

The last time we heard about Final Fantasy 9’s rumored remake was an insider noting earlier this year that there has been “no new movement” when it came to its development in recent times. The rumors first started all the way back in 2023 thanks to an infamous GeForce Now leak that, at the time, had indicated that God of War (2018) would be coming to PC, and Helldivers 2 was being developed. The same leaks had also indicated that Square Enix had been working on a remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics – which we saw last year with Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles – and a remake of Final Fantasy 9.

Faries kicked off her email by getting employees excited about BlizzCon 2026 on September 12th, noting that “the weekend will reflect the bold and collaborative work of everyone reading this. It’s my hope that the event can shine a light on the work underway at Blizzard, and that it can serve as a powerful springboard into a new era of momentum and excitement behind our mission to bring joy and belonging for communities worldwide.”

Further on, Faries said that, along with being the “top-performing studio” under Xbox, Blizzard also saw its third-highest fiscal performance when it came to Blizzard revenue throughout its history. Much of this was buoyed by the strong performance of free-to-play hero shooter Overwatch and the release of Diablo 4’s Lord of Hatred expansion earlier this year.

“FY25 and FY26 were our first back-to-back years of growth since FY17. Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred and Overwatch drove exceptional performance in particular, with Overwatch delivering its strongest quarter since 2022.” Further, Faries said that the revenue growth has helped the studio invest in developing more games and hiring more staff.

BlizzCon 2026 is expected to be a showcase for Blizzard’s upcoming titles, ranging from more content being developed for Diablo 4 and Overwatch, to potentially giving us our first look at World of Warcraft’s The Last Titan expansion. A few surprises are also expected, such as the much-rumored StarCraft third-person shooter, and potentially even a revival of some of the company’s older games, like the StarCraft or Warcraft strategy titles.

As for Xbox, Microsoft had revealed during its recent earnings report that the division saw its revenue fall by 10 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of FY 2026. This confirmation came shortly after the company had conducted sweeping layoffs across the entire division, affecting 1,600 jobs in the process. In announcing the layoffs, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma had also confirmed that 1,600 more jobs were planned to be cut before the end of FY 2027.

When it comes to Microsoft as a whole, however, the company has seen quite a bit of success thanks to the strong performance of businesses like Microsoft 365 and Azure. CEO Satya Nadella praised the former for having surpassed $100 billion in revenue for the first time, and praised the latter for seeing major growth when it came to paid users.

“We are advancing the frontier on the cost-to-outcome curve, ensuring every customer can turn tokens into business results. This year, Azure revenue surpassed $100 billion for the first time, and Microsoft 365 Copilot reached over 30 million paid seats, reflecting the confidence customers are placing in us to power their AI transformation.”

Sharma has also reportedly discussed Xbox’s plans to return to growth through an internal memo.

However, you probably shouldn’t expect to see much, if anything, around the next iteration of Grand Theft Auto Online. Bloomberg’s Jason “One Take” Schreier reported in his latest video that Take-Two Interactive is currently “only talking about GTA 6 in terms of the single-player portion, which will not presumably have recurring revenue.”

He doesn’t believe the single-player component will have microtransactions, but he then added that Take-Two “are not planning to talk anytime soon about what the new GTA Online will look like and what that recurring spend will look like.”

While he didn’t delve into the reasons, a few potential ones come to mind. Leaked data indicated that the current iteration of the online mode brings in over $1 million daily for Rockstar. Announcing a follow-up could cause the player base – and more importantly, spending – to drop, even if it doesn’t launch on the same day as GTA 6.

It’s also possible that the next GTA Online isn’t anywhere near ready for launch. As a result, Rockstar and Take-Two could be looking to focus on the single-player game, which is performing way above the publisher’s expectations in pre-orders.

Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on November 19th for Xbox Series X/S and PS5. The Extended Look is slated for August 27th at 3 PM ET on Netflix with a six-hour delay before it drops on YouTube.

While it’s yet to receive a release date, it seems there’s already trouble brewing at the studio. Layoffs seemingly occurred last Thursday, as reported by Insider Gaming, and 14 employees have allegedly been affected, according to a source.

The studio has yet to officially announce the same, and whether this will affect current development remains unknown. Regardless, with so many other companies facing layoffs, whether it’s Xbox’s first-party studios, Destiny 2 and Marathon developer Bungie, IO Interactive and so on, it’s rarely a good sign.

Crossfire is coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, and follows a mercenary, Layla, who must work alongside the antagonistic Cross to survive. Besides armed human operators, which is where the cover system shines, they also need to deal with an “existential threat.”

The reveal trailer showcases zombies, but they may just be one part of the puzzle. As always, stay tuned for further details and updates on the same.

“No layoffs have occurred at Halo Studios,” said a source, according to the report. “There are often external contractor shifts that happen after a game ships. This is what people are noticing.”

Reports of layoffs at Halo Studios popped up earlier this week when producer Nick Treitman confirmed that he had been let go through a LinkedIn post. “After 6.5 years working on Halo and dodging just as many rounds of layoffs – it has finally caught up to me. I have nothing but love for Halo and the folks at the studio; this is just a tough reality in the gaming industry right now,” he wrote. A scrum master at the studio, Paul Morris, also confirmed that he was among those let go following the release of Halo: Campaign Evolved.

“Today, I learned my time at Halo Studios will be coming to an end following the successful launch of our latest game, Halo: Campaign Evolved. I know this is one of the most challenging job markets our industry has seen, and I know the road ahead won’t be easy. But I’m not done, and my purpose has not changed.”

Industry analyst Rhys Elliot of Alinea Analytics has also noted that Halo: Campaign Evolved – despite being the first entry in the franchise to come to PlayStation – hasn’t been able to leave as big a mark on the PS5 as Microsoft likely hoped. In a report, Elliot noted that the title only around 351,000 copies of the game were sold on Sony’s platform in its launch month.

Compared to other games on PS5, Halo: Campaign Evolved sat at ninth place in terms of sales, with its presence overshadowed by the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2, both of which sold quite well – 3 million and 8.2 million copies, respectively.

“July’s PS5 chart, then, is clearly all about nostalgia and the catalogue,” said Elliot. “A proven, beloved old game, dropped at the right moment and, just as importantly, at the right price, can out-earn almost anything new and buy a bit of breathing room in the slate. CoD got it. Halo didn’t. Fifty dollars for what’s essentially a graphical touch-up of a 2001 game was always going to be a hard sell, and players clearly weren’t having it.”

Halo: Campaign Evolved is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and you can check out our review for more details. While there have been plenty of criticisms about the title, one of the original co-creators of the Halo franchise has said on social media that its issues have been “taking a back seat to the fun” he has been having with the game.

While the update will still allow users to disable the feature through the console’s settings, it will be enabled automatically and applied to all games that support even the previous version of PSSR.

Currently, Enhanced PSSR is only available for games that have been updated by the developers to support it. Even the lead architect for the PS5 Pro, Mark Cerny, had said earlier this year that the company’s policies revolve around giving developers the agency to update their games and add support.

“The current strategy is that it will be fixed, i.e., even if there are updated network parameters for the most recent PS5 Pro games, those parameters will not be applied when the Enhance feature is used. That allows the PS5 Pro community to provide clear guidance on how and when to use the Enhance feature – conversely, if the parameters were continually being updated, then that guidance would be much harder to provide. Having said that, we are in very early days here at PlayStation with these ML libraries, and I’m certain our strategy will evolve over time.”

However, things have seemingly changed, and the positive feedback Sony has received for Enhanced PSSR likely encouraged it to spread its use to as many games as possible. It is worth noting that, even with this new beta system software, games that didn’t previously support PSSR won’t automatically tap into Enhanced PSSR. They still need to support the older version to use the newer one.

Cerny had previously referred to the company as still in its “early days” with PSSR and machine learning libraries. “The new PSSR is something like 100 microseconds faster than the original. Which in turn allowed us to implement the ‘Enhance PSSR Image Quality’ option to force-upgrade all PSSR-supported games. If you use it, frame drops should become oh-so-slightly rarer.”

Sony has been working quite closely with AMD for quite some time now, which has likely helped the former’s efforts in improving its image upscaling technology. Back in March, Cerny had spoken about the development of FSR Redstone, which was also helping to improve PSSR. Frame Generation is also in the works for PlayStation hardware, with Cerny calling it “co-developed technology” between the two companies.

The report points to two independent leaks courtesy of regional classification bodies in Indonesia and Taiwan that indicate that the release is quite close. As for when Blizzard will officially make the announcement, Gamescom 2026, which will feature the presence of Xbox as a whole, is expected to be the venue. It is also unknown whether the release will just include the base game, or if it will also include its two expansions – 2024’s Vessel of Hatred and this year’s Lord of Hatred.

Lord of Hatred was released for Diablo 4 across its PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S versions back in April, bringing in a host of content, including two new playable classes – the Paladin and the Warlock. On the gameplay front, it introduced the region of Skavos, as well as a host of new and improved systems that affect all of the game’s classes, like a brand-new crafting system that makes use of the Horadric Cube, which was first introduced back in Diablo 2.

As for the endgame, Lord of Hatred brought in the War Plans system that offers players a greater degree of freedom in how they want to plan out their progression. This means getting to pick and choose preferred activities that can then be modified to alter rewards. Along with this, a fishing system has been added that gives players a chance to relax between their bouts of demon-slaying.

Leading up to its release, game director Zavan Haroutunian and lead system designer Colin Finer discussed the Lord of Hatred expansion and how it might represent the core gameplay of Diablo 4 at its very best.

“We think Lord of Hatred is the best Diablo 4 has ever been — we think of it as the ultimate expression of the game,” said Haroutunian.

Finer continued: “So many of the features are a love letter to Diablo and its players. It’s been a huge labor of love from the team. We’ve been playing the game constantly internally; it’s been so easy to lose yourself in the flow state of grinding War Plans, using the map overlay to efficiently navigate every level, and using the loot filter to make ultra-endgame items pop.”

In our review, we gave the Lord of Hatred expansion a score of 6 out of 10. While we enjoyed the art and music, as well as the new additions like Skovos and the two classes, we found its campaign to be painfully paced and riddled with poor storytelling decisions. The War Plans system also felt superfluous, and we noted that it should have been part of a free update to the base game.

“From Jan. 2028, newly released games on all PlayStation will be available for purchase on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital format only. Discs for games released before Jan. 2028 can continue to be played on this console.”

The fact that new console boxes with this warning started showing up so soon after Sony’s initial announcement indicates that the company had been planning this for quite some time. This also means that the manufacturing process for these new boxes likely began a few months ago.

The company’s CFO, Lin Tao, had already reaffirmed the plans to end PlayStation disc production. During a Q&A segment during a recent earnings call, Tao acknowledged complaints from the PlayStation user base, but said that a “future digital ecosystem” is coming, and that the company has to figure out how it can engage with its users in this future.

“There are various reasons we made this decision, the biggest being that the digitalization of content overall has been progressing, that’s the big factor,” she said. “It’s not just PlayStation, but for all kinds of content, digitalization is progressing. And so, when we think about the future – and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this – and we came to this conclusion, and we’re going to cautiously move this forward. And to this decision, we have received various opinions and people have strong views, and we understand that the community has put forth those views to us.”

“Games are beloved by many people. It’s a form of entertainment that’s loved by people, and it’s connected to people’s fond memories in many cases. And so, we understand those emotions. We want to consider that. And in the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would continue to explore.”

Former Valve writer Chet Faliszek has been among the voices discussing Sony’s plans to end disc production, and noted that it wasn’t part of some grand conspiracy. Rather, the company has simply been following consumer trends, and many consumers seem to have a vast preference for digital media thanks in large part to its convenience.

“You think that, somehow, they’re benefitting from this. No. They’re reacting to your purchases. They had a system set up, and you said, ‘No, we don’t like this. What we like is buying it digital. We want it instantly. We want to be able to download and play it right away.’”

Interestingly, a recent report has indicated that Microsoft may not follow Sony’s footsteps with physical media, and that before the recent Xbox reset, the company had planned to continue supporting discs across its consoles. Whether this stance has softened since then, however, remains to be seen.

None of the three companies have any plans to expand on additional supply for the period. This means that, in general, memory will remain a scarce product, with most of the supply going to AI companies for data centres. This also likely plays into deals that Sony and Microsoft may have made with these companies for their next-generation consoles.

Interestingly, the report has noted that some companies have even been “begging” these companies for supply, which has also led to price increases, since Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have all essentially monopolized the memory market.

If you thought that memory for consumer products like computers and smartphones has been rare so far, things might get far worse, with the report noting that these market segments will see “significantly reduced” supply, even when compared to 2026. This applies to memory modules for RAM and VRAM kits, as well as NAND modules for solid-state storage devices. The whole situation will likely lead to even sharper price hikes.

However, when it comes to storage, the report has indicated that there is still some NAND allocation leftover for companies to buy in 2027. These supplies, however, are expected to be short-lived, with a sellout expected by the end of the month.

As for how this might affect current-gen consoles, Sony had previously confirmed that it had acquired enough RAM to ensure that PS5 production won’t be affected, at least until the end of fiscal year 2027. As for the future, however, things might get bleak, and Sony might have to follow in Microsoft’s footsteps in issuing yet another price hike.

While some have thought that the AI bubble’s eventual collapse might lead to memory prices falling back down to reasonable levels, people in the industry aren’t quite sure about this. Among these is Lenovo executive Martin Hiegl, who said back in June that memory and storage prices will “never” go back down. Hiegl’s choice of words was believed to be a bit of an exaggeration, however, and the executive was believed to only be talking about the next five years.

Back in June, SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron had become the targets of a class-action lawsuit alleging that the three companies had been working together to fix the prices of their components while simultaneously creating constraints on the supply. The lawsuit has claimed that they have lowered the supply of older DDR3 and DDR4 memory modules, leading to price hikes in those segments, while production capacities of their factories had been turned to making HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) modules for use in AI data centres.

Going further, the lawsuit has noted that the three companies’ decisions have led to consumers suffering from “the impacts of a distorted market crippled by the behavior of DRAM oligopolists.”

“After 6.5 years working on Halo and dodging just as many rounds of layoffs – it has finally caught up to me. I have nothing but love for Halo and the folks at the studio; this is just a tough reality in the gaming industry right now,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

Treitman was seemingly joined by Paul Morris, who confirmed that he is being let go as well following the game’s release. Morris was listed as one of the studio’s scrum masters. “Today, I learned my time at Halo Studios will be coming to an end following the successful launch of our latest game, Halo: Campaign Evolved. I know this is one of the most challenging job markets our industry has seen, and I know the road ahead won’t be easy. But I’m not done, and my purpose has not changed.”

According to Insider Gaming, software engineer Caleb Lawrence has also listed himself as being available for work on LinkedIn, but hasn’t made any post regarding his current employment status. Halo Studios itself hasn’t yet made any comments regarding the layoffs either, so details like the number of jobs affected remain unknown.

The round of layoffs comes shortly after a report indicated that Halo Studios is suffering from quite a bit of mismanagement, which even led to the cancelation of a multiplayer project that was in development. Quite a few of these issues ended up creating extra work for the development team of Halo: Campaign Evolved, which, in turn, also meant that several important deadlines were missed and expectations from leadership became unreasonable.

Among these issues was the decision of the studio to move from the older Blam engine to Unreal Engine 5. While the team was assured that assets that had already been created would carry over into Unreal Engine just fine, the developers realized that this wasn’t the case and had to start afresh in creating in-game assets. In the same timeframe, Halo Studios seemingly brought in support studio Abstraction to help with the transition, before eventually cutting ties with the studio and starting from scratch once more.

Missed deadlines would even lead to crunch in the final year of Halo: Campaign Evolved’s development, which led to the team needing to cut out planned features. This included in-engine cutscenes like the original Halo: Combat Evolved, which had to be scrapped in favor of pre-rendered cutscenes.

Rumors have indicated that Halo Studios is working on a host of new projects following the release of Halo: Campaign Evolved – a brand-new mainline entry in the franchise, a remake of Halo 2, and a new multiplayer title. No details about these have been revealed, however, and the report indicated that the new Halo game is still in its concept stages.

In the meantime, Halo: Campaign Evolved is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Read our review for more details.