It has been a rollercoaster year for both Xbox and PlayStation through July of 2026, to say the least.
Both companies have experienced some pretty high-highs, especially off the backs of their respective June showcases. Between titles like God of War Laufey, Wolverine, Fable, and Gears of War: E-Day, there was plenty to get excited about to say the least.
Unfortunately for both companies, any highs have been massively undercut by a series of devastating self-owns over the first half of the year. Each has managed to find new ways to antagonize consumers to an almost hilariously fast, but justified, pace. Layoffs and potential studio closures, the abrupt ending of a beloved game in favor of one that never got off the ground, and a variety of anti-consumer decisions have dotted 2026 in a year where general tensions between corporate interests versus citizens’ interests are at an all time high in the U.S.
Standing head and shoulders above them all was PlayStation’s announcing it will end physical game production in 2028. The company said in PlayStation.Blog post “as consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028.”
To say consumer backlash was sever would be an understatement. PlayStation immediately found itself in the crosshairs of every gaming outlet and several national outlets, pundits, content creators, and third-party studio for a decision that is both anti-consumer and anti-preservation, as more digital content with no physical backups means a higher risk for content to be lost forever. It would be akin to the original Mona Lisa being converted into an NFT and then the source code is suddenly deleted, losing this file forever with no chance of recovery. And thus, one of the greatest pieces of art in human history is lost forever because someone hit ‘delete’ by mistake.
Xbox hasn’t been much better, with the very fate of its many first-party studios becoming more and more unsure.
Microsoft’s gaming arm managed to drum up plenty of good will heading into its June Xbox Showcase, the first under new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who took over from longtime CEO Phil Spencer following his retirement. She came out of the gate saying all the right things, such as removing Microsoft’s AI Copilot from Xbox, that resonated with consumers. It looked even stronger coming out of the June Showcase with news on Gears of War: E-Day, Halo: Campaign Evolved, Fable, a new game in the Plague Tale universe, and Doom: The Dark Ages – Revelations, the game’s first major DLC, and plenty more.
One in particular caught people’s eyes – Senua. A third game from in the Hellblade series from developer Ninja Theory which had only grown in popularity from the first to the second game in the series. It appeared as though Xbox may have found its answer to God of War on PlayStation, and it was clear there was genuine interest in Senua.
Days later, it was reported by the Game File that the Senua trailer was meant as a pseudo-sales pitch for any parties interested in purchasing Ninja Theory from Xbox. Around this time, it was also reported Xbox was looking to close or sell several of its own studios amid larger financial difficulties plaguing all of Microsoft in 2026 between what it has spent on AI and the legal challenges it brought with it, among various other issues.
In one fell swoop, Xbox managed to wipe away all the good will it had built in the previous months.
Asha Sharma’s activities since the Showcase hasn’t helped, either, especially after she was made an adviser on the economic impact of AI for the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Productivity and Jobs Task Force. It was met with almost immediate backlash by consumers and outlets, alike.
Rockstar even got in on the action when it announced the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI would only be available digitally. A “physical copy” would be released in stores, which was simply a case with a digital code inside. Rockstar was hit with much of the same criticism as PlayStation for the looming end of physical game production.
A $100 price tag for GTA VI didn’t make things any better.
Despite all this, both gaming powers still have plenty of titles on the way that people want to get their hands on. God of War Laufey and Wolverine both look like the type of major single-player epics the PlayStation has been known for since the very first back in 1994. Xbox is giving some of its most popular franchises a shot in the arm with highly anticipated new games in the Fable and Gears of War series on top of a full remake of the entire campaign from Halo: Combat Evolved.
These are things people want to play and want to be excited about.
But when decisions like these draw the reactions they do, the powers that be need to actually listen. It isn’t just white noise. It is the sound of growing disdain that will, not may, come back to haunt them down the line if they don’t recognize the issues they are creating and contributing to.
One silver-lining in all of this looks to be the resurgence of the $30-$60 AA studios filling the malaise created by the major powers in the industry. Saber Interactive, Focus Entertainment, Deep Silver, and THQ Nordic are just a few of such studios to emerge in recent years, providing an avenue outside one of the major publishing powers for developers to try and get their games made.
More developers are just publishing their own games outright, as well, and have grown into significant independent powers. Larian Studios is among the more notable of these independent publisher-developer studios thanks to its popular role-playing series Divinity and 2023’s widely-acclaimed Baldur’s Gate 3.
Larian has since announced its next title, Divinity, in quite the dramatic and grotesque trailer at the 2025 Game Awards.
As for what the rest of 2026 could hold for Xbox and PlayStation, there are still plenty of games consumers want to get their hands on, Wolverine and Gears of War: E-Day among them. The self-owns, however, show no signs of slowing down either, with plenty of question marks still swirling around the futures of several studios under Xbox or PlayStation ownership after swaths of layoffs at the likes of Bungie or id Software and plenty of justified concerns over AI implimentation.
Only time will tell.
Minimum Wage Nerd 