Nevertheless, this prompted a spokesperson to tell Windows Central that this “doesn’t represent pre-order data. We’ve had record orders. People should wait for real data and not clicks on affiliate links.”

They’re not wrong, even with IGN’s significant influence in the gaming sphere. Why did Xbox feel the need to clarify this, especially considering all the other ongoing issues, like impending layoffs? There’s also the small matter of announcing a big game, Senua, from a studio like Ninja Theory, while apparently knowing that it’s on the chopping block in July.

Regardless, Grand Theft Auto 6 is a big deal, and with Xbox announcing more price hikes for its Series X/S consoles, this clarification may be a way to tackle any negative implications. Of course, even if Xbox is seeing record pre-order numbers, you have to remember that it’s a relative figure, since there are far more PS5 consoles out there.

Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on November 19th, and it should be interesting to see its returns, especially given the reported budget of over $2 billion. Stay tuned for updates in the meantime.

While half of the top 10 list in the US were new releases for the month, the other half was made up of older games, like Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, MLB: The Show 26, Crimson Desert, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and Mario Kart World.

When taking the whole year into account, Resident Evil Requiem continues to take the top spot for game sales in the US. It is followed by Crimson Desert in second place and MLB: The Show 26 in third place. Despite being a relatively new release, 007 First Light has managed to do incredibly well by taking the fourth spot for the entire year so far, followed by Forza Horizon 6 in fifth. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is the only new release to have broken through the top 10 sales for the year, coming in at 7th place.

007 First Light ended up getting quite a few accolades for its performance in May 2026, being the best-selling PlayStation game for the month, as well as the highest “full game dollar sales” of any James Bond game in history.

All in all, Piscatella has reported that total video game spending in the US for May 2026 hit $4.2 billion, which marks a 3 percent increase over May 2025. By the time the month was over, the year-to-date spending was 4 percent higher than last year, coming in at $23 billion.

Interestingly, Piscatella has noted that consoles served as the primary platform for game spending in May 2026 in the US, with total spending having gone up by 25 percent compared to last year. When taking year-to-date figures, console content spending is 13 percent higher. PC and subscriptions haven’t fallen behind either, coming in at 15 percent and 11 percent year-on-year increases, respectively.

Piscatella has also revealed details about console hardware sales in the US for May 2026, noting that both PlayStation and Xbox haven’t been doing too well. While it was the first May faced by PlayStation since 2000, Piscatella has confirmed that May 2026 was the worst May for Xbox since Microsoft launched the division. While there are likely many reasons for console sales falling in this regard, Piscatella also brought up the fact that price hikes have led to consoles simply getting too expensive. Xbox, for example, saw a 22 percent increase in average hardware price since 2025. PlayStation, on the other hand, saw an increase of 33 percent year-on-year.

“Xbox is currently tracking a distant third in hardware sales among the major manufacturers. But they are getting more revenue from each unit sold, enough to make dollar sales grow in May despite the unit drop,” said Piscatella. “If that fits the definition of ‘working’ or not, I don’t know.”

May 2026 U.S. Projected Top 10 Best-Selling Games Ranked on Physical & Full Game Digital Dollar Sales (Excludes Mobile and Digital Add-On Content)

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-06-26T13:00:03.576Z

YTD 2026 U.S. Projected Top 10 Best-Selling Games Ranked on Physical & Full Game Digital Dollar Sales (Excludes Mobile and Digital Add-On Content)

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-06-26T13:00:03.577Z

Content – Console drove content spending growth in May. Total spending on console content increased by 25% compared to a year ago and is now 13% higher year-to-date. PC content (+15% versus a year ago) and subscription spending (+11%) also grew in May.

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-06-26T13:00:03.585Z

Content – 007 First Light was May’s leader in full game dollar sales, debuting as the 4th best-seller of 2026 year-to-date. It also led all titles in full game dollar sales on PlayStation platforms in the month.

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-06-26T13:00:03.586Z

When taking individual companies into account, Sony’s consoles have seen a steep rise in price to an average of $672. This marks a 33 percent increase from last year. Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S, on the other hand, has seen prices go up by 22 percent, to $524.

Curiously, while Xbox unit sales have been going down by 12 percent, spending on Xbox hardware has seemingly gone up when compared to last year. PlayStation, unfortunately, doesn’t have the same benefits, with spending having dropped by 43 percent when compared to May 2025, coupled with a 58 percent drop in console unit sales.

“Xbox is currently tracking a distant third in hardware sales among the major manufacturers. But they are getting more revenue from each unit sold, enough to make dollar sales grow in May despite the unit drop,” said Circana’s Mat Piscatella. “If that fits the definition of ‘working’ or not, I don’t know.”

Nintendo, on the other hand, has continued to see growth in console sales, with 5.9 million units of the Switch 2 having been sold in the US in the console’s first year. This has also made it the second-fastest-selling gaming hardware in the country, right behind the Game Boy Advance, which had sold 6.5 million units in its first year. With a price hike looming over the horizon for the Nintendo Switch 2, however, Piscatella has noted that the coming year “may be a tough one” for the console in terms of hardware sales.

As for software sales, IO Interactive’s 007 First Light has topped the sales charts in the US, followed by Forza Horizon 6 in second place and LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight in third. Fourth place has been taken up by the Early Access release of Subnautica 2. The only other new game in the top-10 chart is Yoshi and the Mystery Book, which debuted at 8th place. The rest of the chart is taken up by games released earlier in the year, like Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream at 5th, MLB: The Show 26 at 6th, Crimson Desert at 7th, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 at 9th, and Mario Kart World at 10th.

Piscatella noted that there weren’t really any anomalies in software sales for the month of May 2026 in the US, while also mentioning that half of the titles in the list were new releases. It is worth noting that three of the top 10 best-sellers in the US were exclusive to Nintendo platforms.

Hardware – The average price paid for a new unit of video game hardware reached $502 in May, up 14% compared to a year ago ($440). May 2026 PlayStation 5 average pricing increased by 33% versus a year ago to $672, with Xbox Series up 22%, to $524.

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-06-26T13:00:03.582Z

“There is an old adage in software development about the process having three corners: resources, time, and quality,” Nesmith explained. “The studio decides two of them, which determines the third. If you lock down the resources and the schedule, that decides the quality you will achieve. If you lock down the quality and the schedule, that determines the resources you will need to complete the project.”

“A less well-known aspect of this is a rule of diminishing returns. The three corners need to be roughly balanced. You can’t ask the project to be done in a month by throwing a million people on it. Over-committing to any one of the corners increases friction and becomes less effective. Allowing ten years for a project creates a cycle of endless reinvention and ultimate failure.”

To reduce development times would mean “either increasing resources or reducing features, or both,” explained Nesmith, who went on to say that “resources in most big studios are already quite large, and it takes time to onboard them.” However, while shorter development times may have benefits, such as more frequent releases, they can lead to lower-quality sequels, resulting in fan disappointment.

“In my opinion, the biggest risks of shortened schedules are quality, reduced features, polish, or bugs,” he said. “The things that are done last end up getting set aside to complete the game on time. And of course, faster dev times would result in faster sequels. But that’s the wrong question. Those sequels risk disappointing fans.”

As for whether Bethesda could potentially mitigate these issues by getting other studios involved in the development of The Elder Scrolls 6 or Fallout 5, Nesmith didn’t want to make any blanket statement on the matter, since he doesn’t work at the company anymore. He did, however, note that “you can’t just hand it to anyone. I also think that it serves a franchise well to let the ground fallow for a while. A franchise that releases too many titles too quickly risks fan fatigue. Of course, too much time between releases can also be a problem.”

Ultimately, Nesmith believes that “the industry has painted itself into a bit of a corner” due to its emphasis on expanding on its games with bigger sequels rather than refining what it already has. “Each new release has to be bigger, better, and more,” he says. “Which requires more time, resources, and features. Publishers demand it. The fans demand it. But bigger isn’t linearly harder to make. It’s geometrically harder. To put it more simply, you get diminishing returns by adding staff and time. Twenty percent more staff or time gets you less than a twenty percent improvement.”

In the meantime, Bethesda employees who aren’t currently working on The Elder Scrolls or Fallout are rumored to be at risk of impending layoffs at Xbox.

For example, the Xbox Series S 512 GB, which retails for $399.99, will cost $499.99 – the launch price for the Xbox Series X 1 TB back in 2020. The digital Xbox Series X is going from $599.99 to $749.99, while the regular version of the console will cost a whopping $799.99, up from $649.99.

As for the Xbox Series X 2TB Galaxy Black, which retailed for $799.99 after last October’s price hike, it’s being discontinued.

Regarding the reason for these hikes, Xbox said, “We hoped another price increase would not be necessary, and we have spent the last several months working with suppliers on options.” However, it noted that memory and storage prices have increased by over 2.5 times for consoles and expects them to double again by Fall 2027.

“The entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles,” it added. “Unlike phones, computers, speakers, and other consumer devices, consoles are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make.”

To help make the consoles more “accessible,” Xbox is announcing a Buy Now, Pay Later option with interest-free installments. Those purchasing through Amazon can also utilize up to 12 months of zero percent APR financing, and Microsoft is coordinating with retailers to offer “previously played consoles” at lower prices.

“Players who are ready to upgrade or no longer use their console will be able to trade it in with participating retail partners for cash or store credit. Those consoles will then be made available at lower prices for players,” it said.

Besides the long-term impact this could have on Project Helix, you have to wonder how this will affect the company’s upcoming line-up. Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are especially notable since they were announced as console exclusives (and not timed either). Again, time will tell, but you’d have to think it’s a conversation that’s dominating Xbox, especially ahead of the rumored mass layoffs in July.

Among these employees is former art director at Halo Studios, Glenn Israel, who had previously spoken out against the studio’s leadership’s harassment campaigns and retaliation. His statement essentially warns Xbox employees still working at the company to be well aware of their rights under various labor laws in their country.

“Make yourself aware of state and federal statutes of limitations for reporting such actions to relevant regulatory organizations, which vary from 60 to 300 days by location,” he said. “If you are laid off, consult an attorney before signing anything and at the very least secure a document retention agreement.”

While Israel has spoken out openly against the company, others spoke under condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation from Microsoft and other potential employers. They went into detail about how even filing complaints with the HR department or making use of their legal rights led to them either being fired from the company or being pressured to leave on their own. Israel said that he “roughly a dozen” former employees he spoke with had shared similar experiences.

One of these employees said that they had become caught up in mass layoffs after serving as a witness in an internal investigation against an executive at their studio. This executive allegedly “viciously berated employees in meetings,” and even tried to identify the witness. A second one spoke out against a member of their studio’s leadership team verbally abusing subordinates. This led to the employee in question being placed into a “performance improvement plan” for “disrespecting them” during a team meeting, and the employee ultimately ended up being fired as a result.

A third employee said that they saw their studio’s leadership retaliating against another employee who had filed for an ADA accommodation request for her disability. They noted that these executives would start retaliating against employees the moment the studio’s working conditions were questioned. “If you show any signs of not drinking the Kool-Aid…we don’t want you anymore,” they said.

Israel himself had spoken about facing things like “blacklisting, rampant favoritism/cronyism, and multiple harassment campaigns designed to provoke the constructive discharge of ‘unwanted’ employees otherwise in good standing” at Halo Studios. When he filed complaints with HR in June 2025, a senior Global Employee Relations representative reportedly started threatening him with retaliation and promising that they would “quash any further investigation.”

He has also noted suspicions of Microsoft using its mass layoffs as a chance to get rid of employees who have previously filed “proper and effective” complaints. The investigation teams of the company’s HR department are also alleged to be compartmentalized so that they could “obfuscate responsibility and create plausible deniability.”

“I know that our industry is in truly dire straits now, but as a matter of public interest I cannot in good conscience recommend seeking employment at this organization or continuing there if you have *any other option*,” wrote Israel. “Your effort and expertise are not respected. You are not fairly compensated. If you refuse to engage in political gamesmanship, your career will stall; if you object, you will be forced out. I have the evidence – you are not safe.”

Among the employees to have confirmed that they have been laid off are game writer and narrative designer Bijan Stephen, principal 3D environment artist Paulette Richardson, senior character concept artist Shelby Dela Cruz, and dialogue designer Sean Miller.

“After nearly six wonderful years at Compulsion Games, significant professional growth, and having shipped one of my most creatively satisfying titles in my career, I am now #OpenToWork,” wrote Miller. Richardson said, “After five wonderful years at Compulsion, I am now #OpenToWork.”

Recent reports had indicated that, while many Xbox studios are seemingly going to be affected, Compulsion Games was going to be the first to face layoffs.

While many people from across the industry have spoken about these impending layoffs and studio closures, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier went as far as to say that Microsoft is punishing its employees for following its own previous 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 in a video. “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.”

“And one of the reasons Xbox studios have struggled to make great games over the past decade is this uncertainty,” he concluded. “It’s really hard to make great art when working under the fear of layoffs and turbulence and cancellations and shutdowns.”

Former PlayStation Studios boss Shawn Layden offered his own opinions on the matter, noting that Xbox’s recent moves have indicated that the company has a “basic misunderstanding” of how the gaming industry works.

“At the risk of sounding like a ‘hater’ (which, I’m really not), the moves evince a basic misunderstanding of how the interactive entertainment world moves. [If you know, you know], which also means if you don’t, you don’t,” wrote Layden. His statement came in response to a LinkedIn post by industry consultant Tadhg Kelly, who had pointed out that many of Xbox’s recent moves have seemed quite contradictory. Among these has been the decision to rebrand back to its previous brand, and an insistence that, despite the potential high price tag of Project Helix, “a claim that hardware can’t be expensive to win.”

In the meantime, Compulsion Games, Double Fine, and Ninja Theory have reportedly begun negotiations with Xbox to try to go independent rather than suffer from studio closures. If these negotiations succeed, however, the studios will still likely have to undergo some form of layoffs.

This wouldn’t be the first time Project Ekur has changed directions. According to the leaker, it was originally being developed as a battle royale game under the codename Tatanka. This got cancelled when Halo Studios decided to transition its development efforts to Unreal Engine 5. At the time, this transition involved giving Certain Affinity the task of creating prototypes to see whether the assets made for the Slipspace and Blam engines used for Halo Infinite could be imported over into Unreal Engine 5, and to see whether the resulting game could maintain the “feel” of Halo.

Citing sources, Rebs Gaming claims that these goals were originally accomplished in June 2023, with prototypes of Project Ekur being developed that involved AI opponents. This led to the exploration of a Halo-based extraction shooter. Among the concepts explored was the idea of players teaming up with AI squad members to explore a large map and scavenge for resources, often taking on other teams of players and their AI squads. While there were still some elements of the extraction shooter genre in this concept, the studio was reportedly going for something more in line with Halo 5: Guardians’ Warzone game mode.

While Halo Studios hasn’t officially confirmed the development of Project Ekur so far, such a game being made wouldn’t be too surprising, since the next big entry in the franchise is going to be the campaign and co-op-only title Halo: Campaign Evolved. A remake of the original Halo, the game will not feature any competitive game modes. Rather, Halo Studios has decided to focus strictly on single-player and co-op content. To that end, an accompanying game that focuses purely on PvP could be seen as a smart idea, since the Halo franchise as a whole is also beloved for its multiplayer.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on July 28th. This will mark the first time that a Halo game is playable on a PlayStation console since the franchise’s inception all the way back in 2001.

Executive producer Damon Conn and creative director Max Szlagor have previously spoken about how Halo Studios wants to honor the entire franchise and its fans, while also bringing it to a new generation of gamers.

“We hope to bring along the series veterans who have been with us for the past 25 years and have them play with an entirely new generation,” said Conn. “There are people who have never been exposed to Halo. Maybe they’ve always been on Sony products, switched consoles at a certain point, or just missed it at the time. We want to bring players back together.”

While you wait for Halo: Campaign Evolved, check out the 10 major differences between it and the original Halo: Combat Evolved.

While he didn’t go into too many details, he referred to it as “our biggest project right now” and has confirmed that it’s what “the majority of the studio” is working on. He went on to say, “We know we need to get it right, and it’s been a long time.”

The fact that most of Bethesda is currently working on The Elder Scrolls 6 should come as no surprise, since Howard had already spoken about this back in March.

“The majority of this building is working on The Elder Scrolls 6,” he said. “It’s amazing for us to come back to it. I gotta be honest, right? Being in that world after not developing in Elder Scrolls – it’s so different than Starfield, so different than Fallout – it feels great for us.”

At the time, he also discussed how Bethesda uses The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games as follow-ups to each other with regard to the engine improvements each title tends to bring with it.

“We feel we’re in a really good place with these franchises,” he explained. “Obviously, we’re around Fallout stuff as well, and we feel good about that. The trick is still we have three big audiences, and in some ways, three big franchises – and in a lot of ways, the franchise is the studio. Skyrim is somewhat the sequel to Fallout 3. Fallout 4 is somewhat our follow-up to Skyrim.”

Aside from Howard’s general silence on the subject, earlier this month, Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty was asked a similar question. He noted that the title is “coming along well,” and that it will be showcased “at the right time.”

“I would say one of the more challenging balancing acts of someone in a job like mine is balancing that you want to go show the world all the cool stuff you’re working on, and you want to get them excited early, but we also know that we want to wait till the right moment,” he said.

And when you decide to show it, you want it to be the best you’ve got. And also, that when you show the game, you’re also giving them a promise of, hey, it’s coming soon. So, I can tell you, having visited Bethesda and sat with Todd and seen ‘Elder Scrolls’ playing, it looks amazing, and it’s coming along well. And we’ll make sure to announce it and really reveal it at the right time.”

Howard had previously confirmed that The Elder Scrolls 6 is being developed with Creation Engine 3 – Bethesda’s in-house game engine that it has iterated upon for more than a decade. The last iteration of the game engine – Creation Engine 2 – was seen in Starfield. The director had noted that the studio had spent “the last several years” on continuing the engine’s development to make sure that it could handle the needs of The Elder Scrolls 6.

Booty noted that Xbox has “over 20 franchises that have made a billion dollars, lifetime.” He went on to speak about the responsibility he feels to “shepherd” these franchises. “We’re the stewards of that IP. We’re not the owners, because really, the communities own those.”

Sharma, in turn, spoke about just how massive Xbox’s franchises have been in recent times, especially when it comes to cross-media properties like Amazon’s Fallout series and the Minecraft movie. As for games, she also spoke about the massive success of the Call of Duty franchise.

“You won’t see us try to become the biggest linear provider in the world or anything like that, but I think great games are culture, and culture is entertainment,” said Sharma. “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.”

Booty also spoke about Netflix’s live-action Gears of War film adaptation that is currently in production, being directed by David Leitch (The Fall Guy, Bullet Train), and written by Jon Spaihts. The film’s story will revolve around the origins of Delta Squad, which has been described as “a ragtag crew of soldiers who wage a desperate war for survival against the Locust, a race of subterranean creatures set on destroying humanity.”

Booty spoke about how the core of the Gears franchise has been about the bonds between the various team members that the games focus on. “When you go visit the studio, their tagline is ‘Never Fight Alone.’ So when you think about that for a dramatic narrative, it’s a pretty good starting point.”

However, when asked if Halo might ever see another adaptation after the poor reception of the one produced by Paramount+, Booty didn’t quite commit to any solid plans for the future. He did, however, talk about the franchise being one of the most important ones for Xbox.

“Halo, first and foremost, is one of our biggest franchises,” he said. “It’s iconic to Xbox, and we’re certainly going to invest going forward.”

As for Sharma, she spoke about how her first job as CEO of Xbox would be to learn about the division, its past, and how it became the company that it is known as today. “I’m learning a lot about the brilliance of our artists and what it takes to make a game — and not just a game that is beautiful, but a game that is just so deep with characters and worlds and has potential to invite millions, if not tens of millions of players,” she said.