🎮 Xbox Is Not Doing Well, Multiplayer Assassin's Creed Might Be In Trouble and New PS Hardware Might Be Released This Year...

Xbox Is Not Doing Well, Multiplayer Assassin’s Creed Might Be In Trouble, New PS Hardware Might Be Released This Year, MindsEye Studio Plans To Part Ways With A Publisher And More!

Hello friends,

Today is February 10th 2026 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌

In today’s news:

• 🎮 Xbox Is Not Doing Well

• 🎮 Multiplayer Assassin’s Creed Might Be In Trouble

• 🎮 New PS Hardware Might Be Released This Year

• 🎮 MindsEye Studio Plans To Part Ways With A Publisher

• ⚡ Lightning Round!

• 🫡 True Tribute!

• 😄 Personal Update

All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️

Let’s dig in!

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🎮 Xbox Is Not Doing Well

Image: Xbox / Microsoft

Microsoft recently released a big Q2 2026 earnings report. And while the company is doing quite well, the gaming division is not.

According to an official press release, the company’s revenue is up by 17% to $81.3 billion. But this growth is mostly driven by cloud and AI businesses. And in the meantime, gaming revenue declined by ~9% overall. Xbox content & services revenue down ~5% (which includes Game Pass and other digital sales). And Xbox hardware revenue plunged by a staggering ~32%. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t divulge any specific numbers, for example, units sold in terms of consoles, but this is quite a big drop after previously reported solid numbers in Q1.

And while the overall growth of the company may mitigate some of the shareholders' disappointment, it is certainly not a good sign for Xbox. Especially after all the rumours about very high profit margin goals that were circling last year.

Personally, I think the decline in hardware revenue could be easily explained as the company went through several price hikes recently, and I suspect that people are just not ready to open up their wallets for a console that might be at the end of its cycle. And if we are talking about the games, Microsoft’s push toward a service ecosystem surely isn’t working out so well for them.

The only positive thing that Xbox has going for it is the multiplatform releases, but since it’s a relatively new strategy, it didn’t have enough time to offset the other shortcomings.

So far, there have been no announcements of any corporate changes triggered by this financial report, but I expect there will be something during the next few months. Corporations like Microsoft don’t usually let dropped revenue go unattended.

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🎮 Multiplayer Assassin’s Creed Might Be In Trouble

Image: Ubisoft

Among other things that Ubisoft is working on is a mysterious multiplayer project in the Assassin’s Creed universe codenamed Invictus. And it looks like it’s not doing well. The project is doing so poorly, in fact, that even developers don’t want to play it.

According to GameRant, a notable leaker and gaming streamer claimed that a source inside the development team told him that everyone working on the game doesn’t like it. If the leak is to be believed, the project is set to be a “Fall Guys” game based on the AC franchise with Fortnite-like graphics, funny challenges and similarly to a party game, the goal is to get to Top 1.

Specifically, he said:

I don’t know a single colleague who likes Invictus. Only the managers will probably keep smiling and singing the praises of this project.

It’s awful: ridiculous animations, hideous and cartoonish characters (their faces are just as awful), idiotic sound and visual effects, combat arenas… the concept is just plain dismaying. I wonder who this game is even for and why it was made.

And honestly, if this is true, I kind of agree. First off, I believe Fall Guys and Stumble Guys (mobile version from a different studio) are outliers. Meaning that these games became successful because they were at the right place, at the right time, with a concept that miraculously worked. It was more luck than not that these games managed to be successful. And since then, a lot of studio and publishers tried to replicate their success without any luck. Like Rumbleverse, for example.

While I understand the impulse to explore other avenues for the franchise and try to expand the brand to be liveops, is this really the best that Ubisoft could come up with? I don’t know who came up with this idea, but if I was a fan of Assassin’s Creed, I would never play this game. If I were a fan of party games, there are plenty of those already. I don’t get why such a rich franchise would be turned into this.

Hopefully, this is just a practical joke, or Ubisoft is going to have another big flop on the horizon.

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🎮 New PS Hardware Might Be Released This Year

Image: Sony

Speaking of leaks, another claim was made recently that suggests that Sony is planning to release a new version of PlayStation Portal later this year.

This comes from a user named KeplerL2 via NeoGAF, who’s been known to leak information about Sony. According to them, the original Portal model was quite a success for the manufacturer, so they decided to make a new one with an OLED display and some additional features.

While it is still an unconfirmed rumour, this might make sense to a certain extent. Specifically, if we are talking about the whole RAM situation, no news about a standalone handheld, and a big surprise update last year that allowed people to cloud-stream a bunch of different games. The latter one seems to turn the tide for this console, as with it, you don’t need a PS5 standing nearby and it almost makes it a standalone device in itself.

Steam Deck OLED was a huge success when it was released, so Sony might just be taking a page from Valve’s playbook. I can definitely see a world where it’s working, but I honestly can’t believe this accessory sold well.

Have you tried Portal? Or are you waiting for a 100% standalone device?

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🎮 MindsEye Studio Plans To Part Ways With A Publisher

Image: Build a Rocket Boy / IO Interactive

The studio behind probably the biggest failure and the worst game of 2025 is, apparently, ready to say goodbye to their publisher, IO Interactive.

Exclusively reported by Insider Gaming, Build a Rocket Boy Studio is planning to announce this decision quite soon, citing the desire to keep the publishing in-house as well as to gain more control over the studio’s future. As a part of this change, it looks like a planned crossover between MindsEye and Hitman will be no more and Build a Rocket Boy will be free to focus on fixes and content updates for their game.

Honestly, I think it’s a huge mistake for the studio and a huge weight off the shoulders of the publisher. With them no longer being associated with what appears to be a failed franchise, they can focus their efforts on building 007 and Hitman further. But for Build a Rocket Boy? A studio that has a track record of being the biggest flop of the year, blaming it all on “internal and external saboteurs”, and saying that around 300 staff members are at risk of being let go… A big publisher was the only thing they had going for them.

Call me sceptical, but this doesn’t sound like a good idea. For me, it feels like taking a broken car, uninstalling the brakes and putting in another acceleration pedal. This might just be the thing that kills this studio altogether.

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⚡ Lightning Round!

1…2…3…Go!

🎮 Paradox Interactive Reports Big Losses With Bloodlines 2

Image: Paradox Interactive

Speaking of financial failures, Paradox Interactive also recently shared some financial results and they are also not great.

While the company reported that its Q4 was stronger than the same one last year, increasing by almost 23%, it wasn’t nearly enough, as it also reported a 162% drop in operating profit year-on-year. The company still managed to end the quarter with positive cash reserves, but it was mostly due to the titles that were still selling strongly, like Age of Wonders 4 and Cities: Skylines II.

Recently released Bloodlines 2, however, did not meet “commercial expectations”, according to the CEO. The company decided not to include any sales numbers, so it’s unclear just by how much those expectations weren’t met. But at least the company owned their mistakes, right?

Btw, have you played Bloodlines 2? What do you think?

🎮 Nintendo Shifts Dispatch Censorship To Developers

Image: AdHoc Studio

With Dispatch going to Switch 2, a big topic recently surfaced about the censorship of the content.

The gist of it is that AdHoc Studios had to censor all versions of the game to release this game on this platform, and it kind of confused everyone. The game is known to have quite a few naughty bits, but even an in-game feature allowing users to play with or without them wasn’t enough. Which left a lot of players wondering. Nintendo already has quite a few games that have nudity, for example, The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. So, why this game?

What’s even worse is that after a lot of people saw this news and demanded refunds, the company decided to shift the blame to AdHoc Studios, stating that developers were the ones who decided to censor the game in that way to meet the organisational requirements.

The whole thing highlights a systemic communication failure between developers, platform holders, and consumers. I think that policies that require content adaptation should be paired with transparent, platform-wide communication to minimise consumer confusion and backlash. And this whole situation was poorly handled from all sides, in my humble opinion.

Also, if you haven’t played Dispatch, I highly recommend it. One of the best games I played recently 😍

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🫡 True Tribute!

Today I wanted to salute oya’s game hub and Oya !

Game Roundup #5

First of all, congratulations on moving to Spain! As a person who just a few years ago moved to a different country and a different hemisphere, I know how difficult it must be. So, it’s amazing you even have the time to do this great roundup! The Botany Manor sounds very-very cosy! Also, I know a language coach who is looking for students. She used to teach me English, and she offers Spanish lessons as well, and she is the best one I know.

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😄 Personal Update

With my vacation being over, I’m back to work, and I have a lot of exciting stuff to do. I can’t share a lot, but this is something that I’ve been looking forward to doing for a long time.

Which means that I’m very busy now and barely have enough time to keep this newsletter and YouTube channel going 😅

And that means that I had to say no to a bunch of other projects and plans, unfortunately. And that’s ok, I think. It’s ok to say no to certain things, as we are all humans and we all have only so much time in a day. But I still have a bunch of stuff lined up, and I’ll probably ask for your opinion, friends, sometimes during the next episodes of our exciting journey.

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This is all the news I have for you folks today.

Thanks for making it this far! 🙌

If you feel like supporting me and my work, consider Powering-Up GameDev Relay 🎮

Have a great week!

Alex from Gamedev Relay.