2026-06-24 05:48:13
Jason Schreier: Studios in Microsoft’s Xbox Division Brace for Closures
Several studios in Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox gaming division, including Montreal-based Compulsion Games and San Francisco-based Double Fine, are in active negotiations to spin off as they try to thwart closure, according to people familiar with the company’s plans.
Cambridge, England-based Ninja Theory, the maker of Hellblade, is also in conversations with Xbox, as are several other studios across the portfolio that are at risk of being shuttered.
8 years ago, Microsoft announced their 5 new new Xbox Game Studios (Playground Games, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, Compulsion Games, The Initiative), and it was a big deal. It showed that the company was listening to its fans and was acquiring enormous amounts of talented game developers, which they promised to help flourish under their leadership. Some studios were meant to make huge blockbusters, while others were expected to make smaller games that would fill out the Game Pass library as well as bring them accolades. It's literally the movie studio model where some movies are meant to make a billion dollars, while others won't make a ton of money, but will help with their reputation. And if you have enough of those, they can make a lot of money together.
Sadly, things have not gone great. I'll let the Xbox Game Studios Wikipedia page do most of the talking, but as of today, there are 14 active studios, 5 that have been sold off, and 17 of them have been closed or consolidated into other studios. And as Jason Schreier reports, at least 4 of those 14 active studios are currently figuring out if they're going to get sold or shut down entirely. And we haven't even gotten into the studios under Bethesda, such as Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, which had stories histories and recent successes, only to be shut down unceremoniously.
I'm not saying we need to bar Microsoft from acquiring any more studios, but every time they announce they've acquired one, I get very nervous for them.
2026-06-23 07:07:28
From the MonoLisa blog: MonoLisa - MonoLisa version 3 – now with MonoLisa Text family
Now with version 3, the family grows with a new member besides MonoLisa Code, the original typeface. The new font family called MonoLisa Text covers the other half of common usage where a monospaced typeface reaches its limits. In other words, MonoLisa Text is a proportional family designed for use cases where you might have regular text and therefore completes the family while working as a complementary pair to the original version. This makes it ideal for use cases such as prose, user interfaces, presentations and any sort of printed items like books, magazines and the like.
According to my emails, I purchased MonoLisa almost exactly five years ago today in 2021. Since then, it's been my monospace font across every Mac I've owned, whether it be my text editors or my terminals. It's one of those things where I was trying out every monospaced font I could get my hands on, and once I got this, I stopped looking because it was exactly what I wanted.
In 2023, they added a variable font version, which I immediately picked up. And honestly, I thought that would have been the end of updates. Fonts aren't exactly like regular software where you expect ongoing improvements. Frankly, this might be the only font I've ever kept up with updates at all over the years. Still, I wasn't expecting to have a version three come out, let alone have it include a text version. You can try it out on their testing page, but I think it looks really nice. I haven't made the jump yet, but I'm going to play around and see how this would look on Birchtree, but I suspect it's just a matter of time.
Fair warning, this is a paid font, which I know is not the norm in 2026, especially for monospaced fonts. I know there are plenty of free options out there, but for me, this has been worth the money. Besides, if you've ever bought other fonts in the past, you know this is incredibly cheap compared to what a lot of premium fonts go for. Update: it is done.
2026-06-23 06:58:15
Hartley Charlton: Advanced AI Dictation Not Enabled by Default in iOS 27 Beta
Apple's next-generation AI dictation feature for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air is not turned on by default in the first developer beta of iOS 27.
I assumed this would have been on by default, so I was a little disappointed when dictation felt exactly the same two weeks ago when I installed the first iOS 27 beta. But enabling this does absolutely help. It's still not 100% perfect, and it's not as good as something like Aqua Voice or WhisperFlow on the Mac, but it's definitely an improvement and is something that I will use more often. Ironically, it kind of Sherlock's one of the use cases for Quick Notes, which exists in part because I hated iOS dictation so much.
2026-06-23 06:52:40
Valve: Steam Machine launches today!
Steam Machine 2TB + Steam Controller: $1,428 USD
I'm quoting this part because this is the number that matters. There is also a 512GB model for $1,128, but 512GB is pretty paltry for a PC (80% of Steam players have a PC with over 500GB), especially for a $1,000+ device. And yes, you can save $79 by not getting a controller in the box, but this is a console…most people are gonna want a controller, even if the good news is most controllers you already own will work with this out of the box (it's a PC, after all).
I don't think Valve has given an official statement, but the rumors seem to be that the expected price they were targeting was around $749 when they announced it last year. Obviously, at this point, we all know what's going on with component prices, and the Steam Machine is another victim. We'll see how it sells in the long run. I would expect it to sell out at launch because people really want this device and it looks pretty cool, but I do wonder how it's going to do long term. $1,049 for limited hard drive space and no controller is pretty rough and isn't exactly going to appeal that strongly to people who traditionally have purchased consoles.
I'll leave the reviews to the many folks who put them out today, but it seems like performance-wise, it's a little shy of what a PS5 would deliver, but for nearly double the cost, which is a tough sell as well.
2026-06-22 20:31:19
MacStories Deals posted this last week (emphasis mine):
Samsung's 990 PRO SSD 2TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen4 internal storage is the cheapest it's been in months on Amazon.
Honestly, nothing represents the current times we're in right now better than this post, in my opinion. This is an SSD released in 2022 for about $290. Within a year, the price had dropped to somewhere around $170, and it stayed there for several years. Then from late 2025, the price started going up and up and up, hitting a high in April of $639.99. Data via CamelCamelCamel.
Which brings us to last week, when the price dropped from that high down to $369.99, and it is indeed technically the lowest price in months, but it is still about double what you paid for this this time last year. The bad year of tech continues.