A Japanese video-game brand spanning consoles, online services and peripherals
Barclays is exploring a return to Japan’s cash equities market, hiring in Tokyo amid a rebound in Japanese stocks driven by governance reforms, rising profitability, and AI-driven market optimism. Barclays previously pulled back in 2016 but is now considering expanding its Japan presence, potentially pitting it against Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Nomura and Daiwa.
Sony has announced it will stop producing physical PlayStation game discs from January 2028. New titles will be sold on the PlayStation Store or as retailer-issued download codes. The decision follows several years of rising digital sales — roughly 78–85% of full-game purchases — and has provoked fan backlash over ownership, preservation and resale.
Microsoft has announced 4,800 job cuts companywide, including 3,200 roles in Xbox during fiscal 2027 and 1,600 Xbox positions eliminated immediately. Xbox will spin out or divest five studios and reduce management layers as it restructures to strengthen margins while shifting resources toward AI and core franchises. The move has reduced Xbox headcount by about 20%.
The PlayStation brand has announced it will end physical disc production for new games starting January 2028, shifting to digital-only releases. Boxed versions will include download codes. Analysts say the move will improve margins, but consumers will lose resale options and used-book value.
Amazon is integrating its Luna cloud gaming service into Prime Video, making Luna games accessible within the Prime membership. The move follows Luna's prior standalone rollout and aims to broaden gaming access by removing hardware barriers. Publications discuss the potential for ads, the impact on traditional consoles, and the ongoing challenges of latency.
Xbox reports an outage lasting about 20 hours, affecting sign-ins and game launches. CTO Scott Van Vliet apologises and says a licensing service failure caused entitlement checks to fail. Microsoft will harden dependencies and roll out a fix to prevent future disruptions, amid renewed worries about a digital-only future in gaming.
Xbox announces a disc-to-digital program that will let players claim a digital entitlement for most Xbox One and Series X titles by inserting the disc. The entitlement enables digital play, cross‑play features, and backward compatibility on future hardware. Not all titles are included and some licensing constraints apply. Sony has announced a shift toward a digital future with no more physical discs for new PlayStation games from January 2028.
A wave of reviews from BBC, The Independent and The Guardian assess Marvel’s Wolverine, praising its combat and visual design while debating its linear structure and violence. Insomniac’s shift from Spider-Man’s open world to a more guided path is seen as a gamble with potential rewards and drawbacks.