Meta has laid off an unknown number of Reality Labs employees.As reported by The Verge, the Facebook and Meta Quest owner is currently restructuring Reality Labs into two groups: a 'Metaverse' organization that includes its Quest business and a 'Wearables' group that will house other hardware initiatives.The company has made some employees redundant as part of that restructure. The Verge claims a "relatively small number" of staffers were laid off, including some leaders within Reality Labs. Meta has laid off more than 20,000 workers since November 2022.An internal memo sent out by Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth (reprinted by The Verge) claims the shake-up will enable Meta to create a "more integrated product experiences across hardware, software, and experienc…

Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty has described the closure of Hi-Fi Rush developer as a "forward-thinking" decision.Speaking on Variety's Strictly Business podcast (as spotted by Kotaku senior reporter Ethan Gach), Booty said Hi-Fi Rush "did well" for Microsoft and Xbox, but implied leadership changes within Tango Gameworks were a factor when deciding to shutter the studio."There are a lot of people and processes and oversight to make sure we're making a good decision [to close a studio]," said Booty. "I won't get into the real nitty gritty details of what went into the decision, mostly out of respect for the people there. Just because there was a lot of work that went into delivering Hi-Fi Rush, which was a great game and did well for us.…

Asobo Studio's Microsoft Flight Simulator has now reached 15 million players pilots.The last we heard of the 2020 game, it had amassed 10 million players as 2022 was winding down. As it did back then, this new milestone covers the community across PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox Cloud.Sadly, Asobo was lacking in fun player metrics this time, such as the number of trips around Earth (or the sun) that equals 15 million players."Thanks to each and every one of you for filling the skies with your adventures!" wrote Asobo. "Blue skies and tailwinds."Microsoft Flight Simulator has been quietly running as a powerful niche game for Xbox and Game Pass in particular. This past weekend, Asobo brought the game to the annual FlightSim Expo for fans of all kinds of fligh…

Last week, Digital Cybercherries' Hypercharge: Unboxed launched on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, and it's now garnered 50,000 sales.The developer posted the news on Twitter, noting the toy shooter achieved 40,000 sales in just three days. Cybercherries called the game's success "surreal. We are a small team of six indie devs who brought our childhood dream game onto Xbox."Hypercharge debuted as an Early Access Steam game in 2017, then transitioned to a full Nintendo Switch launch in 2020. That same year, it released on Steam.Two years ago, the game went viral. Part of that can be owed to being a shooter where you play as toy characters going to war in toy stores, home kitchens and childhood rooms, but targeted marketing toward Xbox players also plays a factor into …

Mark Cerny has been a part of PlayStation for years, and led development on the PlayStation 4 and 5. And in his eyes, the two consoles have been key in helping games evolve technologically.Talking to GamesIndustry, he expressed surprise in how developers honed in on the PS5's capabilities. Before studios prioritized 60 frames per second, he'd figured games would stick with 30 frames since it offered more detail to a game's art style.Likewise, he didn't think raytracing would get much use, but it was a key tech feature for several PS5 launch games. Adding it was a "rather late" decision, and one he was unsure about given his work on "difficult" consoles like the PlayStation 3.While that took him off guard, he was fine with being "totally wrong&qu…

NotE3 season is in full swing. Despite the demise of the once-unmissable trade show, June remains chock full of video game announcements. Over the weekend, Microsoft followed Geoff Keighley's annual Summer Game Fest bonanza with its own 2024 Xbox Game Showcase.As was the case last year, the company stuffed its digital expo with trailers and reveals spotlighting the work of its first-party Xbox Game Studios family. Notably, this was the first Xbox Game Showcase following Microsoft's merger with Activision Blizzard, and that allowed the company to unveil Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on its own terms and tout the fact it'll be heading to "select Xbox Game Pass plans" on day one.The company pitched other first-party projects like Avowed, Age of Mythology: Retold, Doom: Th…

The original version of this story referenced a quote that CWA sent out in error referencing an individual's experience. We've updated the story to reflect the corrected CWA press release.U.S. labor union the Communications Workers of America (CWA) has filed Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges against Lionbridge Technologies for allegedly laying off 160 people after they attempted to organize.Lionbridge is a Microsoft supplier that has provided QA services to Activision. The CWA previously helped workers at both Activision Blizzard and Microsoft unionize.Now, the union has filed ULP charges with the National Labor Relations board and claims Lionbridge laid off its entire team in Boise, Idaho, after they engaged in "protected organizing activities and protected speech" w…

FromSoftware has revealed that Elden Ring has crossed a new sales milestone of over 25 million copies. Just a few months ago, in February, on the day of its two-year anniversary, it had sold 23 million units.The fantasy RPG has been a consistently strong seller since its launch in 2022. But the new number takes on extra significance due to the launch of its Shadow of the Erdtree expansion on June 21.Similarly, Elden Ring's player count has now reached 25 million players across all systems. To this, FromSoftware thanked players "for your passion and support. We have come a long way together."Erdtree will be the game's one and only expansion, and its release will likely grow its already larger player base and sales. But in February, FromSoftware said it'd keep making…

A new report from PCGamer digs into the ongoing troubles at ZA/UM. The report follows on from studio layoffs and the cancellation of several projects in February, with the most notable being one codenamed "Project X7."Per the outlet, this project was planned as a spinoff to the studio's debut game, Disco Elysium. It would've starred "one of [its] most beloved characters," in the vein of a game like Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.Current and former ZA/UM staff claim "X7" had a largely positive internal reaction. One developer went so far as to call it "exactly the sort of game ZA/UM needs to put out," as it would've improved the studio's perception after the February layoffs and previous controversies.A second developer be…

Capcom's fantasy-RPG Dragon's Dogma II is a little over two months old, and it's now sold over three million copies. That puts it not too far off from Street Fighter 6's 3.3 million copies (as of March 31, 2024).On Twitter, the developer thanked Arisen (aka players) who've "embarked on adventures! We are grateful for your continued support."Dragon's Dogma II released in late March, and sold 2.5 million copies within the same timeframe. Hitting this new milestone has taken some time, but that doesn't detract from how well the sequel has done in fairly little time.

Capcom's strong showing

At launch, the game al…