Starfield was supposed to be Microsoft’s biggest release of 2022. When it ended up getting delayed, the company looked into striking deals with third-party publishers like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft for major blockbusters it could bring to Game Pass day-and-date to fill the gap. A new internal email exchange leaked from the Federal Trade Commission trial earlier this year shows exactly how much Microsoft thought those deals might be worth, giving us our best sense yet of what it costs to secure blockbusters like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Grand Theft Auto V on the Netflix-like subscription service.

“This is really a disaster sistuation for us given all we’ve invested in content across studios at our GP content fund,” Phil Spencer wrote to fellow Xbox exectuives in a May 7 email. He was referring to Bethesda’s open world sci-fi RPG Starfield, whose delay at the time threatened to leave a 16-month hole in the Xbox first-party exclusive release calendar just two years into the Xbox Series X/S’s life-cycles.

Sarah Bond, Microsoft’s VP of gaming business development, responded to the discussion later in the month with a breakdown of major third-party games expected to arrive throughout 2022 and early 2023 that could make a big splash on Game Pass. Those included everything from Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, including an analysis of how many hours each game was likely to be played on Game Pass, how much it would cost to get the game on the service, and whether the publisher who owned it would be likely to make a deal.

Here’s the full list of estimates:

• Lego Star Wars: $35 million
• Dying Light 2: $50 million
• Cities: Skylines 2: unknown
• Red Dead Redemption 2: $5 million per month
• Dragon Ball: The Breakers: $20 million
• Just Dance: $5 million
• Return to Monkey Island: $5 million
• Wreckfest 2: $10-$14 million
• Baldur’s Gate 3: $5 million
• Gotham Knights: $50 million
• Assassin’s Creed Mirage: $100 million
• Suicide Squad: $250 million
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor: $300 million
• Mortal Kombat 1: $250 million
• Grand Theft Auto V: $12-$15 million per month
• Blood Runner: $5 million
• Net Crisis Glitch Busters: $5 million

The estimates vary wildly depending on the size of the release as well as whether it would be day-and-date on the service. Notably, some games like Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Suicide Squad ended up getting delayed (the latter still doesn’t have a new release date). It’s also funny to see Baldur’s Gate 3, one of the biggest games of 2023, low-balled at just $5 million (it’s out on PlayStation 5 now but delayed on Xbox due to issues with the Series S version).

Bond also notes that games like Suicide Squad and Mortal Kombat were unlikely to come to Game Pass due to corporate tumult at Warner Bros. following the merger with Discovery. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor also appeared to be off the table. Gotham Knights and Assassin’s Creed Mirage were considered much more viable and cost-effective deals. And indeed, while not day-and-date, Lego Star Wars did end up coming to Game Pass on December 1 of last year. Today, Microsoft officially announced Gotham Knights is arriving as well.

Companies like Activision (soon to be acquired by Microsoft) and Sony have been critical of day-and-date deals with subscription services, claiming it devalues games sold for $70. The PS5-maker has specificaly said it won’t bring blockbusters like Spider-Man 2 to its competitor, PS Plus, until years later to avoid cannibalizing sales, arguing that the economics aren’t sustainable for high-quality first-party exclusives. Microsoft has disagreed, promoting services like Game Pass as a way to introduce games to bigger audiences and claiming that it actually increases how much subscribers spend on the platform.

Spencer’s email exchange with Bond ends on a note about what ended up being the biggest game of 2022. “Another option with the hit factor around Elden Ring is to try to get all of the Dark Souls games and make a push with [FromSoftware] and an Elden Ring upsell,” Spencer wrote. “Like that one,” Bond wrote back. “Will do.” It’s not clear if Microsoft is still pursuing that deal.

The Resident Evil 4 remake costs $60 for its iPhone 15 Pro port, as much as is charged for standard console editions.

There are ways to justify spending $60 in the App Store, where pre-orders for RE4 are currently live. You could call it spending $60 to play a great survival horror game on a tiny, but supposedly high-power console that also shows you TikToks. (The Pro has a five-core GPU and the “fastest mobile” six-core CPU, Apple says.) An iPhone can also show you the 50 texts you’ve yet to respond to. And, according to Tom’s Guide, the Pro has a battery life of just under 11 hours. Hm.

If you’re as skeptical as I am about playing an intense shooter on a handheld device that’s busy with a thousand other things, you could always download a free version of the game to see how it feels. According to the App Store listing, “Resident Evil 4 is free to download and play, or you can get the full version with a single [$60] in-app purchase and sync your game progress across [iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPads containing an M1 or later chip].”

“On iPhone and iPad,” the game’s App Store description continues, “you can adjust the size, intensity and display time of the buttons on your onscreen touch controller. Or if a physical game controller is more your style, you can play with one that’s compatible with iPhone or iPad.” The $999 iPhone 15 Pro has a USB-C port; Apple is selling $70 cables for it.

Many mobile games and ports are free, like the great Marvel Snap, or Fortnite. In this context, Resident Evil 4’s $60 price tag feels shocking. (Though the game’s microtransactions are nowhere near as ubiquitous as those in something like free-to-play Genshin Impact.)

However, it seems like Apple wants their latest devices to become everything to you—a black box for communication, entertainment, and more. In this sense, $60 makes sense, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see future iPhone ports, including the one for the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed Mirage, to be priced similarly. It’s a serious price for what Apple considers a serious console.

Read More: Apple Wants Its New iPhone To Be Your Next Gaming Device
Buy Resident Evil 4: Apple App Store

Developer Capcom’s 2021 mutant game Resident Evil Village will also arrive on iPhone and iPad later this year, on October 30. You can currently buy it for $30 on Mac. Or you can buy Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 on PlayStation 2 for $15, up to you.

Happy Halloween! Ubisoft Netherlands invites you to celebrate the spooky festivities with AI-generated Assassin’s Creed art. Terrifying indeed!

People first began to notice some of Ubisoft’s social media channels posting what appeared to be AI-generated versions of Assassin’s Creed art last night. A smoothed over, off-brand Ezio emerged on the French publisher’s X (formerly known as Twitter) account for Latin America. “In other amazing industry news here’s an official Ubisoft account with 300K followers posting AI art,” tweeted Forbes contributor Paul Tassi. The publisher’s post was mocked for making Ezio look like a Fortnite character and for one character in the background wielding gun grips like knives. The tweet was deleted soon after.

Not to be outdone, however, the Ubisoft Netherlands account followed up with its own AI-looking Ezio art complete with Jack-o’-lanterns. “Which Ubisoft game is perfect for this horrible evening?” the account asked in Dutch. Clearly the one the Assassin’s Creed maker was playing with fans’ hearts.

Read More: AI Creating ‘Art’ Is An Ethical And Copyright Nightmare

Ubisoft recently revealed that over 1,000 people have left the company in the last year as part of its “cost reduction” program. Some of those departures were voluntary, but others included layoffs across customer support, marketing, and other departments in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere. “Ubisoft literally conducting layoffs this year and last month, and they’re posting AI art,” tweeted film concept artist Reid Southen. “Unbelievable. What the hell is the game industry doing right now.”

Still, over 19,000 people continue to work at Ubisoft, including many devoted just to the Assassin’s Creed franchise and all of its sequels, spin-offs, and other incarnations currently in the pipeline. Surely one of them could have made some art for the social media accounts. Or the company could have just used one of its many existing Ezio images. Anything would have been preferable to posting ugly AI-generated crap as thousands are laid off across the video game industry this year.

Fans have had to become increasingly vigilant in 2023 about companies trying to pass off AI-generated images in their marketing, as DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and other AI text-to-image models make it easier than ever to cobble together fake art. Amazon did it to promote its upcoming Fallout TV show. It sure seemed like Niantic did it to promote upcoming content in Pokémon Go. Legendary Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki calling AI art tools “an insult to life itself” back in 2016 has never felt so prophetic.