However, according to a “person familiar with the matter” speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Game Pass subscriptions are about 30 million. So what’s the problem? Back in 2023, in its case against the FTC regarding the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the division noted its goal to hit 77 million subscribers by the start of fiscal year 2027.

Such was the importance of this figure that former CEO Phil Spencer didn’t believe Microsoft would remain in the gaming business if it wasn’t reached. If the current figures are accurate, then even without last year’s disastrous price hikes that resulted in millions leaving, it would be a long way off from that goal. Heck, it would be a significant drop from the 34 million reached in February 2024.

Of course, there’s no intention of suddenly abandoning Game Pass, as Xbox will continue investing as much as it always has. Sharma has also outlined the goal of focusing on “higher priority projects.” The Elder Scrolls and Fallout are allegedly included in that catalogue alongside the next Wolfenstein, which is apparently getting a TV show to complement it. As for the rest, we’ll have to stay tuned, especially with ZeniMax Online Studios and Obsidian Entertainment reportedly taking sizable hits.

It kicks off with 2.5 Metroidvania Winds of Arcana: Ruination, out now on Ultimate, Premiuma and PC Game Pass. Gears of War: Reloaded, a remaster of the original, joins Premium on July 9th alongside Tamashika, a corridor shooter coming to all three tiers.

Ascend to ZERO is next up on July 13th, launching on day one for the service and offering a rogue-like experience with time manipulation. July 14th sees the addition of PBA Pro Bowling 2026, answering the question of competitive bowling titles in today’s world.

Quarantine Zone: The Last Check arrives for Premium on July 15th, followed by Marvix by Matt Jones, a pro riding title with a focus on open-world multiplayer competition, on July 16th. Meanwhile, FixForce joins the line-up on July 17th with its co-op extraction repairing loop (as odd as that sounds). It arrives alongside rogue-like deck-builder Fogpiercer for PC.

Things improve drastically on July 21st with the addition of The Planet Crafter, a survival-crafting terraforming sandbox which recently received a massive new update. It will be available on all three tiers alongside Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, the acclaimed remakes of the first two games with new skaters, levels, and much more.

Check out the list of all the titles leaving on July 15th. Be warned – it’s fairly lengthy and may contain some favorites:

• Dungeons of Hinterberg (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• EA Sports FC 24 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Golf With Your Friends (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Minami Lane (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• PowerWash Simulator (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Splitgate: Arena Reloaded (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Stellaris (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Super Fantasy Kingdom (Game Preview) (PC)
• Techtonica (Game Preview) (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Rumors swirled about the fate of Compulsion Games, Ninja Theory, Double Fine Productions, Undead Labs and even Arkane Studios, despite three of them having major projects in development. Would Senua and State of Decay 3 face cancellation, especially after occupying such prime spots during the latest Xbox showcase? Thankfully, no. Instead, Compulsion and Double Fine will return to independent status while receiving some runway to tide them over during the transition. No funny business about Xbox owning their IP or anything – at least, the former has confirmed that it retains ownership over We Happy Few, South of Midnight, and Contrast.

Ninja Theory and Undead Labs, meanwhile, will have new ownership. Funding is in place to ensure their projects can “grow,” and while we don’t know who has acquired them, their future is seemingly secure for now.

Arkane Studios is a more complicated situation. It’s currently in “required consultation” with the Works Council to “review potential strategic options.” Could that mean the studio is sold? Is it going to be restructured around MachineGames, especially with the latter’s co-founder, Jerk Gustafsson, becoming president? We probably won’t find out for several months.

By the way, Mojang and King are now directly under Sharma, who touted their monthly active players as the “largest” of Xbox, alongside other benefits. So anyway, they’re facing layoffs. Cheers, everyone.

In fact, every single unit is being hit. Activision, Bethesda, ZeniMax, Blizzard, Xbox Game Studios – you name it. The extent of layoffs is different across the board. Aside from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reporting that ZeniMax faces significant restructuring (but won’t be stuck working only on Fallout and The Elder Scrolls), we don’t know who’s hit the hardest. But hey, as Sharma proclaimed, “None of our first party publicly announced games or projects are being cancelled as part of these reductions.” So for the time being, Marvel’s Blade, despite rumors galore about its status, is safe. Key emphasis on “for the time being.”

In terms of worst-case scenarios, you’re probably hearing all this and thinking that it’s not so bad. Hardly ideal, nowhere near good, but Xbox could have easily shuttered the above five studios without so much as any empathy. Instead, it’s taking the high road. As for the other studios, at least Microsoft’s chief people officer, Amy Coleman, said that the eliminated roles aren’t being replaced by AI…before saying it’s true that “AI is changing how work gets done.” What a fantastic thing to say on a day where thousands have lost their jobs, but I digress.

It’s also worth noting that management is becoming more streamlined, going from 14 layers to three or five, which likely means layoffs across those roles as well. Helen Chiang is taking over as Chief Operating Officer to “bring our businesses together under one operating model, making sure we make clear investment decisions, learn from our successes and failures, and hold ourselves accountable for results,” Sharma says.

When you look at the bigger picture, however, it’s hard not to see the past several years of Xbox – ever since Phil Spencer announced those acquisitions in 2018 – as one big failure after another. A three percent accountability margin is bad enough, but hearing that it’s three to ten times lower than the competition?

Game Pass, which has become a huge tent-pole and arguably the lifeblood of Xbox (besides Call of Duty, Minecraft and Candy Crush Saga, as depressing as that sounds), hasn’t seen the required growth. Besides inking deals for tens of millions of dollars with other developers and publishers to have their games on the service, first-party titles have seen their own sales affected. Which anyone and everyone predicted from the start, because who in their right mind would spend $70 on The Outer Worlds 2 when they can play it for cheaper on Game Pass?

That’s not even getting into the hardware revenues for Xbox, which have been declining quarter after quarter after quarter for a while now, even as it grew larger, increased investment, and became even more muddled.

While attempting to tackle Xbox’s problems head on is admirable, I’m not sure that Sharma’s goal for the brand to be “one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day” – claiming it has “many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history, talented studios around the world” – is the right choice of words. Especially after outlining how the brand has burnt billions of dollars over the year. That too on top of losing several IPs due to the studios departing.

It’s always nice to be positive, especially when proclaiming a “return to growth in 2027.” But that just tells us that 2026 is absolutely cooked, and really, who can sugarcoat that? Saying that Xbox will invest as much as it ever has but with “greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity” is only useful through a proven track record. And no, changing Xbox to all-caps XBOX after a Twitter poll doesn’t qualify.

After a terrible generation with the Xbox One, doomed from the start due to one horrendous reveal conference and Don Mattrick, the deck was stacked against Xbox Series X/S from day one. Even Sharma admits that the install base was smaller when Gen 9 began, while the overall cost structure was higher. The main means of growth, Game Pass, ended up an albatross that effectively torpedoed the company’s first-party efforts. We’ve gone from Xbox serving as a juggernaut owning some of the most significant studios out there to proclaiming that it’s “neither possible nor desirable” to do this, and that it lost 64 cents for every dollar invested in a “typical year.” Man alive, what did a terrible year look like in that case?

Even after all this refocusing and boasting about the return of console exclusives, we’re currently in a situation where no one can buy an Xbox Series X/S if they wanted to. Recent price hikes aside, there aren’t enough in supply, to the point where Microsoft is encouraging those with used consoles to sell them to those in need. All of this is due to recent memory and storage price hikes. The latter is estimated to be more than five times higher in Holiday 2027 than what the company paid in 2025, with memory following a similar pattern.

What a time to proclaim, “Physical discs to the rescue,” right? Well, because of PlayStation’s tomfoolery, that may look like a distant pipe dream for Project Helix as well, based on rumors. At least Xbox is reportedly working on a way to digitize your Xbox One and Series X/S libraries (sorry, OG and Xbox 360 lovers), but that does nothing to assuage fears that it’s also pursuing a digital-only business model for its games. And as we’ve emphasized several times with PlayStation, that means it can dictate everything from discounts to licenses. You won’t really own everything so much as “rent” it, subject to the terms and conditions of using the very same service. Don’t like it? Well, go to the competition who employ the same tactics.

Maybe this comes across as doom-saying for Xbox, but if you’ve been paying attention, that’s what PlayStation has been doing. Removing over 500 Studio Canal films and episodes that customers purchased because of expiring license agreements. No option to download them afterwards either – your ownership isn’t even null and void because it didn’t exist in the first place. The PlayStation 3 and PS Vita storefronts are shutting down, which paints a grim future for the PS4’s store (at least their content remains downloadable for now). The less said about dynamic pricing for its discounts or PlayStation still trying the live service model despite all evidence proclaiming it shouldn’t, the better.

The same goes for any prospect of reselling games, which have only increased in pricing over the past several years. You could argue that not every major title can carry an $80 price tag like Grand Theft Auto 6, but that won’t stop publishers from trying, and ditching physical copies in the process.

I don’t want to make a blanket statement proclaiming that every single aspect of gaming is awful, or that there aren’t successes out there that offer some respite. It hasn’t even been a year since we celebrated how games like Clair Obscur could exist in an industry where triple-A budgets could rival the GDPs of the smallest countries. There have been so many wonderful releases thus far this year, including from Xbox and PlayStation, such as Forza Horizon 6 and Saros.

There’s still more to look forward to from them with Halo: Campaign Evolved, Gears of War: E-Day, and Marvel’s Wolverine, and with releases like Clockwork Revolution, State of Decay 3, Resident Evil Veronica, Fable, The Witcher 3 – Songs of the Past, and Final Fantasy 7 Revelation in 2027, the hobby as a whole isn’t dying by a long shot.

But it’s extremely disheartening to see two of the Big Three console manufacturers so horrendously cooked for different reasons. On the lowest end, it’s crazy to see Xbox taking all these steps and getting rid of so many people, not for the sake of profitability but to escape the ditch it dug for itself. Meanwhile, at the tippy top, it’s sad that PlayStation, the market leader, could care less about preservation, much less giving you any sense of ownership or a console that doesn’t demand an instalment plan (and I’m not even talking about next-gen).

The takeaways from this are too numerous to count, even without delving into the bubble that is triple-A development. At the end of the day, gaming is more expensive and will only skyrocket further with the PS6 and Project Helix. Whether this is a storm to weather, or an unending downpour without respite, it’s a sad day for gaming regardless.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

In fact, we may learn about Undead Labs’ new owner this Summer. Interestingly, despite Xbox funding the development of State of Decay 3, the studio’s new owner is reportedly “not obligated” to make it a day one Game Pass release. It’s an unorthodox dynamic to be sure, and we’re interested to see how this could impact sales on Xbox.

Also, it seems that Xbox hasn’t cut Game Pass funding for third-party developers. Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Shams Jorjani claimed that “loads of people” were in “advanced discussions” for deals on the service before having the “rug pulled out from under them.” Granted, both can be true at once, especially given Xbox’s shifting priorities and lack of growth in Game Pass.

Perhaps the most curious part of Totilo’s report is that CEO Asha Sharma allegedly believes the company has “massively under-invested” in Minecraft. Despite some disappointing spin-offs, from Minecraft: Story Mode to Minecraft Legends, there’s been some success with Minecraft Dungeons. The sequel is out on September 29th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.

Nevertheless, with the blockbuster success of A Minecraft Movie, it makes sense that Sharma would believe even more could be done. Mojang, alongside Candy Crush developer King, will report directly to her, so stay tuned for more updates on the IP’s future.

Interestingly, it looks like Activision and Microsoft realized their mistake quite quickly, and a quick search through Meta’s Ad Library indicates that it has since been taken down. Reports have indicated, however, that the ads began running over the weekend, starting on June 27th, and were spread around across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Xbox had announced that the subscription price for Game Pass Ultimate would be going down from $29.99 to $22.99 in April. The announcement came after plenty of backlash against a price hike from back in October 2025. Chief strategy officer Matthew Ball later revealed in an interview that the service had lost “millions of subscribers” when prices were raised.

Interestingly, more recent reports have indicated that Game Pass as a whole might be seeing an upheaval, especially when it comes to third-party games. According to Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Shams Jorjani, developers had discussed getting “the rug pulled out from under them” when it came to their Game Pass deals. While Jorjani doesn’t think that the service is ending by any means, he does believe that some of the last third-party Game Pass deals might have been signed, at least for now.

First-party games might be facing similar issues if analysts are to be believed. Following Xbox’s confirmation that Call of Duty games would stop showing up on Game Pass on day one of their release, Ampere Analysis’ Piers Harding-Rolls spoke about how the company might decide to pull more of its first-party releases from the service.

“This is still a core piece of the offer,” he wrote, referring to the value offered by day-one Xbox games releasing on Game Pass. “However, this opens the door to potential windowing of other new 1st-party releases.”

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 was officially unveiled back in May. The title is coming to PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2 on October 23rd and features a new story that revolves around North Korea invading South Korea, turning the entire peninsula into a warzone. Modern Warfare 4 will star a new protagonist – Private Park – who eventually gets to meet Captain Price, who seems to be on his own mission after cutting ties with Task Force 141.

Recently, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma spoke about how the Call of Duty franchise is one of the biggest in the world, even when compared with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “If you think about it, we’ve got the number two show of all time on Amazon [Fallout]; Minecraft was top 5 in 2025; Call of Duty is bigger than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So, it all measures. [There’s] more appetite to work with us on titles than ever before,” she said.

Referring to details that he was told during the First Playable industry event in Italy, Jorjani recalls being told about the current Game Pass deal involving developers and publishers getting “the rug pulled out from under them.” Noting that he doesn’t think this to be the end of Game Pass by any means, Jorjani said that Xbox leadership is likely trying to figure things out for now.

“I was at a trade show in Italy, had some nice lunches, some nice dinners with industry colleagues, and word on the street was that loads of people who were in the frame for Game Pass deals, i.e., you know, nothing was inked yet, but the deals were in advanced discussions. Everybody got the rug pulled out from under them,” recalled Jorjani.

“What does that mean? I mean, I think what that means is that I don’t think Game Pass is over. I mean, given that, the new incoming leadership have talked a lot about Game Pass and talked about…”

“I think they’re figuring it out. That’s my read anyway. But yeah, for the time being, it seems like Game Pass deal. Like we just did one at Kaboodle earlier in the year, and I get the feeling that it might have been one of the last ones that did.”

Game Pass has been a source of issues for Xbox since the company announced price hikes last year. While it announced earlier this year that it was lowering the prices at the expense of not bringing Call of Duty titles to the service on launch day, a report by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier indicates that the upcoming layoffs across the division might have been inadvertently fuelled by its need to populate the subscription service.

In a video, Schreier discussed how studios like Compulsion Games and Double Fine were encouraged to develop small-scale games that would help make Game Pass feel like a more attractive service. However, with Xbox’s more recent moves, he said that Microsoft is now essentially punishing studios simply for following orders.

“A lot of these studios made plenty of their own mistakes, but in a lot of ways they’re being punished today for following orders,” Schreier said. “For listening to what they were told a few years ago. And that is just a shame, and what is going to happen is pretty brutal. The word bloodbath has been thrown around among people I talk to who know about what’s going to happen. It’s going to be bad.”

The subscription service has also faced criticism from Moon Studios head Thomas Mahler, who said that it could have worked out well if Microsoft didn’t “slop out mediocre content like a factory.”

In his lengthy post, Mahler said that the strategy would have worked “if people would’ve shown up for it.” However, “they didn’t, and the software catalogue was just nowhere near good enough to make people happily pay the subscription every month.” Comparing it to other subscription services, like video streaming, Mahler said that he would continue to pay for his HBO subscription to watch high-quality shows like The Wire and The Sopranos. Game Pass, he said, needs a similar level of quality.

“You need those games your studios are producing to become smash hits, cultural events that everyone wants to play – but what was the big Xbox game in recent years that was just delightfully good? That game doesn’t exist.”

“Almost every single first-party studio in recent years has been floundering. You’d want Bethesda to create a ‘Skyrim in Space’ that ought to be better than Skyrim was, cause that was an old game: But we got Starfield instead.”

The “crux of the issue”, as Mahler puts it, revolves around the people working at Xbox to “deeply, fundamentally understand gamers and what they want. They’d need to understand what’s a good game and what’s a mediocre game. And they’d need to have good deals with devs so developers are actively incentivized to produce massive hits, not just slop out mediocre content like a factory.”

Broussard’s post also points out similar issues, noting that the company should not have given the greenlight to spend $100 million on the development of a game like South of Midnight. He wrote about how a large corporation like Microsoft needs to find the right balance between giving its game development teams the “freedom to make things, and execute”, and making sure that the projects still ultimately end up turning a profit.

“I’ve said it before, but I believe Xbox does not have the DNA to right the ship, so you will see a slash and burn phase where all the perceived fat and costs are cut,” he wrote. “Then what? Do we believe Xbox has the founding DNA that created the Xbox and the 360 (which all then left during another regime change, and we got the One and Kinect?). Can [CEO Asha Sharma], [CCO Matt Booty] and the rest turn things around? I hope so, but would be against.”

The discission largely revolves around the fact that Xbox is reportedly getting ready for sweeping layoffs and studio closures in the months following the end of Microsoft’s fiscal year on June 30th. Companies like Compulsion Games, Double Fine, and Ninja Theory have already begun negotiations to turn independent, according to a report.

On June 17th, Call of Duty: Vanguard will be available. As a successor of sorts to Call of Duty: WW2, it sees players embarking on yet another campaign through World War 2, but this time as a special operations task force called – you guessed it – Vanguard. As far as campaigns go in the series, especially over the last five years, it’s pretty decent.

Other additions include EA Sports FC 26 on June 18th and Abyssus, a rogue-lite shooter with support for up to four players in co-op. If you’re looking for a more stressful experience with friends, indie hit RV There Yet? debuts on June 30th for Ultimate, Premium and PC tiers.

As for next month, it kicks off with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 joining Game Pass Premium on July 2nd. It’s already available for Ultimate and PC subscribers, and while not quite as compelling as the series’ last pair of remakes, there’s still plenty of fun skateboarding action available. On July 6th, all three tiers can look forward to Winds of Arcana: Ruination, a 2.5D Metroidvania that involves venturing through a mysterious world.

And as usual, several titles will leave the service on June 30th. Check them out below:

• Mecha BREAK (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Payday 2 (Console)
• Rise of the Tomb Raider (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Tomb Raider (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Slay the Spire (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Ultimate Chicken Horse (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Unpacking (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Volcano Princess (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Geoff Keighley was present during the event and tweeted about Ball’s statements, in which he said that the service lost “millions of subscribers” when it happened. So if you need any proof that the decision did not sit well with a significant number of the service’s player base, there it is.

Well, it’s good that things have been rolled back since then, and that the brand seems to be well on track to earn back our good graces. There’s that Limited Edition Xbox Series X and Controller to celebrate two and a half decades for the brand, and rumors that Project Helix might be all set to duke it out with the PS6 on its image quality. Well, here’s to hoping that the brand’s darkest days are behind it, and that the latter Helix sets it on course for a bright future.

June 8th will see two more games joining the service – Solarpunk and Undisputed. While both will be available across PC, cloud and Xbox Series X/S, Undisputed will also be available on handhelds. Solarpunk will be available through Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, while Undisputed will also be available for Game Pass Premium subscribers.

Persona 5 Royal will be coming to PC, console and cloud on June 9th for Game Pass Premium, Ultimate, and PC subscribers, followed by Beastro for PC, Xbox Series X/S, Cloud, and handheld on June 11th for Game Pass Ultimate and PC subscribers. The same day, Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers on cloud, Xbox Series X/S and PC will also get Frog Sqwad and the Game Preview version of STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions. Finally, Junkster will come to Ultimate and PC subscribers using Xbox Series X/S, PC, Handheld and cloud on June 16th.

Since it’s a part of Game Pass Ultimate, EA Play is also offering an Early Access Trial for its upcoming title, EA Sports UFC 6 for console players on June 12th.

June 15th will see a number of titles leaving the service – Jurassic World Evolution 2, Lost in Random: The Eternal Die, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine – Master Crafted Edition, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge.

While there are quite a few indie titles that are making their debut through Game Pass in this batch, the headliner for many will likely be System Era Softworks’ STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions. The title has been in development for quite some time now, and unlike the original Astroneer, will have an even larger focus on multiplayer gameplay.

October 2025 saw the studio showcasing the gameplay for STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions through a video that came in at almost 17 minutes in length. It also featured creative director Adam Bromell giving some insights into the title.

“With this game, I didn’t want to just make a sequel to Astroneer,” explained Bromell in the video. “This is not Astroneer 2. This is a game that really represents the kind of online sandbox games that I want System Era to be known for, so much so that it is a whole new genre, and it is a whole new title. That game is STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions.”

STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions has been described by the studio as being a “full-blown expedition game”, with its core gameplay emphasizing improvisation and co-operation with other players. The title revolves around players being recruits on an experimental space station – the ESS Starseeker – and setting off on timed missions on different alien worlds under the leadership of the Fronteer Force.

Along with PC and Xbox Series X/S, STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions is also coming to PS5 and Nintendo Switch.