7E

John Thompson has been studying the guqin—a silk string zither—and classical Chinese music since 1974. Here he is with Hong Kong filmmaker Lau Shing Hon performing a drinking song first published 1589 and attributed to third-century poet Ruan Ji: Jiu Kuang (Wine Mad)

We've seen a lot of guesses of what the the stars representing the subtitle of The Elder Scrolls VI stand for, and we have a lot of guesses ourselves. Here are some possibilities, assuming the eight stars were a hint it'll be eight letters: Sentinel Orsinium Balfiera Dominion Covenant Numidium Iliac Bay (assuming spaces don't count) High Rock Starfall Landfall Eltheric Aldmeris

Unfortunately I don't trust any PR statement that comes out for any studio under the Microsoft umbrella anymore. More layoffs are to come over the next 12 months. Microsoft could just come along and close the studio during that time. Two other things to keep in mind as well. 1. ID Software has lost a lot of institutional knowledge now and that will impact the output and quality of their games going forward. 2. I expect the morale to be soul crushingly low, devs aren't going to work at their best after a huge amount of their friends and colleagues were shown the door. I could easily imagine a scenario where a number of the remaining devs are secretly applying elsewhere cause they don't want to work for Microsoft anymore.

Bloomberg: Obsidian Entertainment cancels planned Avowed sequel and pivots to new Fallout title, led by New Vegas director Josh Sawyer ➡️ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

New reports indicate that half of the team working on The Elder Scrolls Online has been laid off, leaidng many to wonder how the game will continue. bit.ly/4y67Yfd

This is what happens when you get "lazy." I know people like Fallout 76, but when you get comfortable as a studio just releasing the bare minimum when it comes to updates for a live service game, your higher ups may wonder why they spent the money on you in the first place. The executives at Bethesda are among the pettiest people I have dealt with in the industry. They play favorites, hold down people they don't like, and bully you as a content creator if you post things they "don't like." I have a DM from a community manager asking me to delete several tweets simply because "some in management saw it and weren't too happy." It brings me great joy that Bethesda is getting a fire lit under their ass. They have dragged out the new Elder Scrolls, mishandled the Fallout series, and their newest IP, Starfield, was widely panned as slop. Get your shit together, you ain't Rockstar and your reputation is failing these days spectacularly.

This is an important email I sent today to all employees at XBOX: Team, We are beginning the most significant restructure in XBOX history. After careful consideration, I've made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 throughout FY27. This will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today, and in addition, four studios will leave XBOX to new management. I recognize that a year-long restructuring creates additional challenges. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make all the necessary changes in a single day, and I wanted to be direct about the scale. I know this is painful. These changes will directly affect people who have poured their creativity into building XBOX. Many joined us through acquisitions, while others were recruited here, or sought us out because they loved this industry and loved XBOX. Today's decisions do not reflect their talent or dedication. Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3–10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset XBOX. First, we will reset our content portfolio. Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined. We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset XBOX, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision. Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will return to management and transition to independent studios with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3. In France, Arkane’s management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options. We are also making reductions across other units, and in some cases, shifting investment to focus on higher priority projects. These changes vary in size across Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and XBOX Game Studios. None of our first party publicly announced games or projects are being cancelled as part of these reductions. In addition, Mojang and King will now report directly to me. These two studios have increasingly become platforms and are our largest by monthly active players. They bring critical geographic, demographic, and differentiation to XBOX. Second, we will reset our platform. We know that great technology gets better when it gets simpler, not bigger. Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. Our platform teams are 40% larger than they were at the start of this generation, even as our player base and playtime have declined. That complexity has slowed decisions, blurred accountability, and made it harder to deliver for players. As we reset XBOX, we will simplify. We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. And we will streamline how we work across our tools, with a cleaner code base, shared services, and 50% reduced vendor spend. Third, we are resetting how we operate. As XBOX grew our headcount, we became more fragmented. Teams, studios, and functions often operate independently, and it became harder to work towards a shared goal, make the right tradeoffs, and get things done. For the first time, we are establishing a Chief Operating Officer with end-to-end P&L responsibility across content, hardware, platform, and services. Helen Chiang has been promoted to this role and will report directly to me. Over nearly two decades at XBOX, Helen has helped build some of our most important businesses, from XBOX Live to leading Mojang and the Minecraft franchise. She will 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. Thank you, Dave McCarthy, who is retiring after 17 years with XBOX. Dave has played a defining role in building the platform that millions of players rely on every day and has been a trusted partner through many of the biggest moments in XBOX's history. We wish him all the best. These changes are about a bigger future for XBOX, not a smaller one. The next decade of gaming will be larger, more global, and more creative than anything we've seen before. This year, we'll invest as much in XBOX as we ever have, but we'll invest with greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity, all in service of making XBOX where the world plays and creates. I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect. I know we can achieve this goal. XBOX has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history, talented studios around the world, and we will return to growth in 2027. History is full of companies that mistake longevity for inevitability. We will not be one of them. Asha