The Engadget Podcast

Microsoft made its Xbox layoffs official this week, and they’re absolutely brutal. The company plans to lay off 3,200 employees, or 20 percent of its workforce, over the next year. 1,600 were immediately let go this week. To help us understand Xbox's strategy (if there’s any), we chatted with Mike Futter, co-host of the Virtual Economy Podcast and Director of Ops and Publishing at Causeway Studios. Once again, we chart Xbox’s sad decline to the inauspicious debut of the Xbox One in 2013.

Microsoft’s Xbox layoffs get real and several studios are spun off – 0:59
Mike Futter’s prediction for the future of game dev: AAA and everyone else – 35:34
Behold, iRobot’s first new product post-bankruptcy: a vacuum operated by humans – 42:39
Jess Conditt’s Steam Machine review: Very expensive and underpowered…but at least it’s quiet! – 44:47
Pop culture picks – 46:06

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Valve’s Steam Machine is finally here! But while it lives up to much of the hype, its high price makes us wonder who it’s really for. In this episode, Senior Writer Jessica Conditt joins to talk about her experience with the Steam Machine and how it compares to consoles (which have also gotten very expensive). Also, we discuss Sony’s bombshell announcement about killing physical PlayStation discs in 2028 and Xbox’s confusing array of layoffs.

Topics
The base price for the Steam Machine is $1,049, who’s interested at that amount? – 1:09
Sony is giving up on physical discs come 2028 – 23:08 
Xbox layoffs could cut Arkane, Double Fine, and other marquee studios – 32:02
A slow drip of news on Apple’s touchscreen laptop, the MacBook Ultra, is leaking – 45:24
Cherlynn Low’s hands-on with the new Meta Glasses – 47:07 
Pop culture picks – 52:09

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With SpaceX planning to go public on June 12th, we brought on Slate’s Nitish Pahwa to dive into what it all means. How can an unprofitable company justify an IPO, and what does it plan to do with all that money? And how can we square the tech and finance world’s excitement over this IPO when Elon Musk spent this week inciting the Belfast race riots?

SpaceX may have the largest IPO ever, how will it change the tech investment landscape? – 1:13
A few stray thoughts on WWDC 2026 – 38:33 
Meta silently adds, then deletes facial recognition code from its smart glasses – 44:08
Anthropic’s Fable AI brings Mythos’ coding power to consumers – 45:47 
Around Engadget: Rivian R2 first drive and a review of the Logitech Mobi Fold – 51:50
Pop culture picks – 52:20

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Executive editor Cherlynn Low is joined by Yahoo Finance tech editor Daniel Howley, Wirecutter senior staff writer Brenda Stolyar and Judner Aura (also known as uravgconsumer) on this special episode of the Engadget Podcast. The four talk about what really mattered at WWDC 2026, the delayed gratification of Siri AI as well as what it all means for Tim Cook's legacy.

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In this bonus episode, Devindra and Nathan Ingraham recap all of the major announcements from Apple's WWDC keynote. Siri AI was the star of the show, of course, and we chat about how it differs from all of the other AI tools out there. Also, we dive into Apple's progress around child safety, as well as speed improvements coming to all of its platforms.

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