Microsoft Return of Arcade

After regaining its independence from Microsoft, the veteran, esteemed game developer Double Fine has enacted a sweeping round of layoffs. Studio head Tim Schafer said the San Francisco-based studio laid off 23 people this week, which, according to reporter Jason Schreier, amounted to about 25% of the developer's total headcount. "As a small, tightly knit team, these actions are not taken lightly," Schafer said. "Only the survival of our studio would ever make us consider such a painful move." He added that the cuts were directly related to Double Fine regaining its independence from Microsoft

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Microsoft is reportedly considering canceling Marvel’s Blade and shutting its developer, Arkane, down.

If you wished for more pizazz at this year's Xbox Showcase, there's lots of it buried in an growing graveyard of cancelled Xbox games.

Microsoft has responded to a report regarding GTA 6 preorders and the apparent gulf between Xbox and PlayStation numbers, saying this early, unofficial third-party information "doesn't represent preorder data." "We’ve had record orders. People should wait for real data and not clicks on affiliate links," Microsoft said. This came in response to a data from IGN that said its own internal information from affiliate links from its userbase found that GTA 6 preorders were outperforming Xbox by a rate of 8 to 1. This is not official preorder data from Rockstar or Take-Two, but rather early results