The Download

Morning Brew Inc.

TL;DR: Yesterday, Xbox announced 268 new job cuts as part of a larger restructuring that began earlier this year, and it’s also shuffling around some of its most popular games and developers. It’s a move to “reset” a struggling gaming brand—but it’s also a further example of consolidation in the industry and could make it harder for smaller developers to survive.

What happened: In a sign of the overall turbulence currently rocking Microsoft’s gaming division, the next Halo game—one of its most iconic homegrown franchises—will now be developed by Activision, an Xbox subsidiary (and very divisive Call of Duty publisher) that Microsoft acquired in 2023.

It’s all part of a great shakeup to revitalize Xbox, which began in July with the elimination of 1,600 jobs and the sale of some studios—with roughly another 1,600 layoffs slated. Alongside the most recent role cuts, Xbox is shedding more studios and moving games under a few big publishers (like King, the Candy Crush maker, now overseeing games like Minesweeper and Solitaire).

In a July email to staff, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said she wanted the gaming brand to be “one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day.” That’s an extremely ambitious goal—for a sense of scale, Netflix, with more than 325 million subscribers, said its entire audience (not per day, but total) was “approaching one billion people” earlier this year.

The state of Xbox now: It’s not exactly surprising that Microsoft’s gaming subdivision is taking such drastic steps. While Microsoft overall remains a gaming juggernaut, Xbox is firmly in third place in what’s pretty much a three-way console race. The firm doesn’t publish unit sales numbers, but Xbox hardware revenue fell by 29% in fiscal year 2026, which ended in June.

Why it matters: Much like streaming, gaming has seen a wave of consolidation and shakeups in recent years. This kind of concentration can mean fewer choices and higher prices for consumers as competition thins out (which is exactly why the FTC tried to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision). Microsoft has also been a financial lifeline for many smaller game studios, so its leaner strategy could now ripple across the wider industry.

Bottom line: This kind of upheaval might disrupt the day-to-day work inside Xbox and on a slew of upcoming games—which could lead to consumers moving to other platforms, further shrinking Xbox’s hardware sales. —WK

      

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• 🌊 A new tool could warn of flash floods before it even starts raining. Given that floods are the second-deadliest weather-related event in the US (and the third globally), you would hope there’s a solid way to predict them. But right now, forecasters rely mostly on gauges that don’t cover every inch of ground. This new software uses satellites to read how much moisture is building in the air, then runs the data through machine learning to predict deadly floods sooner. Built by NASA, the National Weather Service, and UC San Diego researchers, the tool is live in two California offices, with an updated version slated to roll out to all 122 US forecast offices in late October.
• ✈️ These new airport machines will squish your clothes into cubes. Who hasn’t sat on their suitcase to close it after buying a few too many souvenirs on vacation? New ATM-sized machines will roll out in four Japanese airports soon and can turn your clothes into less-bulky cubes (no plastic compression bag needed) in about one minute without damaging them. All you have to do is fold them, put them in the machine, and press a button. Then, once you get home, you apparently just wash them or spread them out for 15 minutes. The developer of the machines, a Tokyo-based apparel company, is reportedly eyeing hotels and stores next. —SM

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The Zeitbyte

A college alternative for future AI founders

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Getty Images

If you’re a young adult who doesn’t want to take out a mortgage-sized loan to obtain a college diploma, Andreessen Horowitz has an alternative: Enroll in its unconventional new school, rub shoulders with some of the biggest names in tech, and (hopefully) get a job in the AI industry once you graduate.

While the college-dropout-to-tech-mogul pipeline is nothing new to Silicon Valley, the pitch here is that in the age of AI, with universities basically playing ChatGPT whack-a-mole, a valuable education might be less Harvard University and more Horowitz Andreessen Academy (which, to be clear, isn’t accredited and doesn’t grant certificates for graduating).

Probably the most enticing part for prospective students: Tuition is free, at least for the roughly 50 students in its inaugural fall 2027 cohort. The school also promises visiting lectures from Silicon Valley celebs like Jensen Huang, Travis Kalanick, and Satya Nadella. And instead of taking Intro to Psych or some mandatory freshman writing seminar, students will have their pick of less traditional courses, like The Craft of Selling, The Math of Getting Rich, and The Geometry of Luck—a class that covers the art of “arranging a life so good fortune flows through it.” —WK

Chaos Brewing Meter: ☕☕☕/5

• Dyson’s $500 AI-powered electric toothbrush is reportedly having some issues, but the company won’t say what’s going on and hasn’t recalled them.
• Gallup surveyed 37 countries on AI. Here’s where people feel the best and worst about it.
• A hacking group claims it broke into the FBI and stole data “on all FBI employees and applicants.” Everything’s fine; nothing to see here.
• Meta had some, uh, very clear inspiration for its Muse agent. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
• Meanwhile, images have also leaked of Meta’s “Project Phoenix” headset.
• A wave of almost 1 million Kalshi trades (worth $5 billion) in just one market has caught the CFTC’s eye.
• iOS 27 has reportedly fixed the Apple Mail feature people hate the most.

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This time last week...

Readers’ most-clicked story was a reminder to check on your crypto bro friends. They probably weren’t doing so well last Wednesday.