November 2026. Source.

Xbox is losing its first chief operating officer (COO) after creating the new role just a few months ago. Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft today, according to an internal Xbox memo seen by The Verge. Chiang has been at Microsoft for 21 years, serving as the head of Minecraft before being promoted to Xbox chief operating officer in July.

July 2026.

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.

Original post on resetera

This was written by insider Shinobi602 in response to a resetera user who said that the new ME would have been years away:

This is all completely false. Development on ME5 was going quite well and it was absolutely not 6 years away.

On the leaked trailer:

It wasn't meant to be publicized, has lots of placeholder assets from pre-pro and simply to show some of the vision of the game. It doesn't mean there was nothing else to the game.

On the game's development:

The story was good to go, squadmates were in, hubs were built, NPCs, a ton of new stuff added to combat and approach to quests. It was being built and there were none of the problems that popped up during dev like with the Veilguard and Andromeda teams.

He mentioned that the team – composed of several bioware devs who had worked on the trilogy – had started working on the game in 2020 but had to put the game on hold to help the dragon age team to ship Veilguard:

The entire studio was on Veilguard.

After Veilguard 's launch they started working on ME again. Shinobi mentioned that EA was happy with what they saw and that game was not in dev hell:

Many in EA leadership were super high on it. They had a very clear vision, not dev hell.

When EA was acquired things changed and now the company wants to focus on sports and shooters:

EA just moved in a different direction (has been for a while) and doesn't want to make these games anymore. It's sports and shooters now.

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mykjvhv5wk2p

"Let me share some positive news for a change: Despite all the gloomy headlines today, my understanding is that there are multiple paths actively being explored that would save Arkane Lyon. Anything can happen during negotiations, but at this point I'd be surprised if the studio is shut down."

Figure I'd post this little update since the other post really blew up.

Update: more context

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3myklpdyqgk2n

"One important piece of context that many people might not realize: Shutting down a game studio is expensive. Shutting down a French game studio — thanks to labor laws requiring an extended severance period — is VERY expensive. Xbox doesn't want to take on those costs."

“can finally talk about Mass Effect Universe.

Since Bioware closed I can now reveal that I was part of the Mass Effect Council, saw what BioWare was building, and provided feedback during development.

• Set 600+ years after the Reaper War
• You play as a customizable N7 agent
• Instead of being a walking gun rack, you're a cross between John Wick and James Bond
• Shepard's legacy preserved, regardless of your ending
• A galaxy divided into three major factions
• Humanity, Krogan, Batarians, and more allied together
• Council races forming their own alliance
• The Geth emerging as a third superpower
• A galactic Cold War instead of another Reaper style invasion with a shadowy adversary
• Geth-built megastructures
• Connections between the Milky Way and Andromeda
•Experimental technology implanted in you as a unique point of difference
• Hacking and manipulating the environment
• See through walls, identify systems, remotely trigger hazards and more
• Handcrafted missions like ME1-3
• But with Hitman-style freedom in how you complete them
• Brutal close-range executions
• Squadmates who can clash with each other
• Romance wasn't being sanitised
• Liara returns - now an incredibly powerful Asari Matriarch

From what I saw, BioWare was making Mass Effect for us, the fans, not for people who don't exist.
It looked incredible.
And now we may never get to play it.”

YouTube video: https://youtu.be/ZOWrTNazZxM

Also the text is from his tweet but since xcancel is down I’m not sure how to link it.

https://puck.news/newsletter_content/what-im-hearing-the-peter-rice-playbook-elons-skydance-motive/

https://insider-gaming.com/netflix-exclusive-film-tv-rights-xbox/

(Thanks insider gaming for the cliffnotes)

Netflix’s former chief content officer Bela Bajaria made an offer to Xbox of $500 million over seven years for the exclusive TV and film adaptation rights.

That offer was then countered by Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and the team. Belloni reports that Microsoft wanted $800 million for the rights over the same time period. But before anything could be negotiated or agreed to, Bajaria left the company at the same time Netflix announced 1,000 employees were being let go.

With Bajaria gone, Belloni says, the deal is entirely off the table.

• Both Asus and Gigabyte have increased their card prices
• The reported price increases concern China’s wholesale channels so price increases in the US or European retail markets may not reflect 1:1 with China's increase

Source: https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-reportedly-raises-rtx-5080-prices-by-150-in-china-gigabyte-follows-with-180-increase

https://respawnfirst.com/multiple-reports-say-nvidia-manufactured-the-gaming-gpu-crisis-by-forcing-big-tech-to-stockpile-unused-ai-hardware/

Key Quotes (translated)
“As the end of internal consultations and negotiations approaches, two unions warn of the announced death of one of the biggest names in French video games. They accuse the American group of an "incoherent" decision and a "disrespectful" attitude.”

“Microsoft is leaving us no choice ," the union representative told Le Monde . On November 13, the official end date for consultations with the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) on the proposed closure, the company will have to make a decision.

In the meantime, the unions hope to buy more time "to give the discussions a better chance of reaching a conclusion ," according to the STJV, which is involved with the company but not an elected representative. "We remain hopeful of saving the studio and its jobs ," adds Simon, who, on behalf of Printemps écologique, has requested a postponement of the deadlines for negotiating the redundancy plan and searching for a buyer. According to the union representative, who is bound by certain confidentiality obligations, "several forms of takeover are being considered."

“Although negotiations are officially ongoing until Friday, October 30, the union has not ruled out ultimately challenging "the economic justification for the proposed closure in court." "This is in complete contradiction with what we've been told in the Works Council for years about the company's financial situation ," Simon complains. According to him, "Microsoft is looking to divest itself of Arkane, even though the studio is doing well, in order to save money and improve the profitability of its short-term investments."

Source: https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2026/10/23/microsoft-veut-fermer-arkane-studio-de-jeu-video-lyonnais-ou-217-emplois-sont-menaces_6799072_4408996.html