Sony's decision to stop producing game discs in 2028 has caused a real uproar. Some PlayStation owners see a dire future as they become dependent on digital services and lose the ability to trade old games in for new ones, while at least one analyst says we'll all get used to it quickly enough anyway. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has now weighed into the debate, and he's clearly in the "no big deal" camp.

Guillemot was asked during today's quarterly investors call if Sony's decision might create "a demand headwind," because of the loss of the secondary market for PlayStation games.

"What we saw on the PC is that it helped to grow the market," Guillemot said, presumably a reference to the explosive growth of Steam that drove a stake through the heart of physical PC game releases.

"There's also some pressure for the future on the cost of machines, and being able to be only digital will help to have more accessible machines, I would say. There are pluses and minuses, but we think it will not disturb the industry too much."

The impact of Steam on the evolution of PC gaming is obvious and undeniable, and while you might argue that it's not entirely a good thing (I certainly would), PC gamers are absolutely eating well these days—at least as long as you don't need to upgrade your rig. Sure, we can't take our old stuff down to GameStop and trade them in for new releases, but we do get regular, ridiculous deep discounts on Steam (and GOG, Humble, Epic, and numerous others) that pretty nicely balance the scales.

But the implied comparison strikes me as flawed. Consoles are walled gardens, and the PlayStation Store is very tightly controlled in ways that Steam never has been, even before it decided that (just about) anything goes. The likelihood of Sony loosening its grip in the all-digital future does not strike me as particularly good, and without that I think outcomes will also be different.

Expectations are different, too: The end of physical releases on PC was never mandated by any central authority, and the wheels started turning on the process well before gaming became the mainstream at-home entertainment it is now. How much impact will the absence of an optical drive have on costs? I do not know. It will presumably give Sony a little extra flexibility on pricing, but I wouldn't expect it to surrender any more of its bottom line than it has to.

Despite all of that, Guillemot is probably correct. If Sony sticks to its guns—and it surely will—then the only options we have are to either roll with it or go outside and find something else to do. Whether or not it's a good thing for gamers is a whole different question, and maybe it'll be a bumpier ride than I (and Yves) expect—on that one, we'll just have to wait and see.

Admittedly, I've been feeling pretty dour about the whole handheld gaming PC thing lately, but I do still love having the option to take big games on the go. What I love a lot less is just how chunky modern handhelds have to be in order to contain and cool all of their internal hardware. Perhaps I'm just yelling at clouds but if you ask me, the Switch Lite and the PlayStation Portable had the right idea when it came to a portable form factor.

Well, an enterprising modder has apparently heard my cloud-yelling. Developer Yifeng Wang has created OpenStrike, a Counter-Strike clone that apparently enjoys a tiny 12 MB RAM footprint and runs at 60 FPS on Sony's 22-year-old PSP handheld (via Tom's Hardware).

Though described as only being a proof-of-concept, the developer still went incredibly hard on this project; Wang built his own Rust-based 3D engine called Pocket3D, plus a JavaScript engine called PocketJS. We're still a ways off from seeing the OG's buying stages find their way into OpenStrike, but all eight of Counter-Strike's original maps have been tested, and you can try your hand at elimination matches against bots in the current build.

If you're interested in noodling with this project yourself, either on your own original hardware or via an emulator, you can check out the GitHub Distro here. However, you'll need to supply your own copy of the Counter-Strike asset data.

OpenStrike makes the most of some fascinating technical limitations. For instance, the original PlayStation Portable features a teeny-weeny 4.3-inch display with a 480 x 272 resolution. OpenStrike runs at this native resolution at 60 fps thanks to some very neat technical know-how.

For one thing, non-visible areas of the map are still culled via Binary Space Partitioning, rather than a more modern, and potentially hardware intensive, algorithmic solution. For another, graphical assets are pre-processed, baking lightmaps into vertex colors rather than relying on any realtime or on-startup calculation shenanigans. So, no, this is not the most dynamic or shiny these maps have ever looked but it gives the decades old hardware room to catch its breath.

OpenStrike also works on 2011's PS Vita handheld console with native graphics. This slightly more sprightly hardware enjoys a display that is a whole 5-inches big, offering a resolution of 960 x 544. Okay, I admit it—I'll happily take the Steam Deck's 7.4-inch OLED display with its 1280 x 800 resolution over that dinky little canvas. If you're less keen on the whole Sony hardware dimension, you could alternatively take a look at Counter-Strike 1.6 right here in your browser.

The Steam Machine might have turned out to be a disappointment (mostly down to its price), but the Steam Controller remains a very useful thing.

Should you be the tinkering sort, the OpenPuck project doubles down on the Steam Controller's Swiss Army Knife-like tendencies, allowing it to emulate Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation controllers.

The OpenPuck is the work of Github user safijari, and the project is based around a Pro Micro NRF52840 board. This $8 device can be flashed to emulate the Steam Controller's regular wireless puck, and translates the controller inputs to their console equivalents while also enabling Steam-specific features (via Hackaday).

Although safijari says "the Switch and PS3 modes have been verified to work on real consoles," so your mileage may vary. By the looks of the project's page on Github, DualSense emulation is currently supported for PC only, and there are various caveats for emulation support to consider for each potential mode.

Pairing involves connecting the board and the Steam Controller to a PC with a USB Type-C cable and flashing the microcontroller, after which the controller itself can be wirelessly connected.

"At any point you can hold all four back buttons and press X to switch over to Xbox mode which maps all canonical inputs to their expected counterparts," safijari confirms. "In this mode the right trackpad acts as a mouse, but at present this only works in Android and SteamOS."

Holding the back four buttons and Y switches to, err, Switch mode (with gyro and haptic support), whereas the same buttons + B puts it in "Lizard" mode, where the Steam Controller behaves as it does when Steam is closed—while it's still open.

"This has a few advantages," says safijari. "The biggest one being that you can use inputs when a high privilege application is in the foreground (like the Task Manager, when using Steam if you wanna be able to do that Steam must be run as admin)."

The project seems to be a work in progress, and the author warns that "Every part of this project HEAVILY used LLMs," so take that for what it's worth. Should you wish for a chassis to contain the puck properly, you'll also need to 3D print one for yourself—with several options offered.

Unfortunately, the OpenPuck isn't capable of charging your Steam Controller like the regular puck, as it lacks any pins. Otherwise, though, it seems to be a multi-talented little marvel.

As part of this project, safijari also includes reference to ReversePuck, which is their way to emulate Steam Controller inputs (except the grip controls) on the Steam Deck in order to use it as one of the world's most expensive console pads. It's an interesting part of the project for sure.

I had a feeling Valve's new hardware would excite the imaginations of the maker community, and by the looks of things, they're already beavering away finding all sorts of uses for the latest Steam-branded offerings.

As reported by WCCFtech, the Dutch consumer organization Stichting Massaschade & Consument now believes it has an even stronger case in its €400 million ($457 million) lawsuit against Sony over the 30% rate it charges on every game sold through the PlayStation Store, a "Sony tax" that retail games are not subject to⁠—the same retail games Sony has announced it will discontinue by 2028.

"The end of physical discs removes the last place where a PlayStation game could still be bought and sold at a competitive price," SM&C chair Lucia Melcherts told WCCFtech. "No discs means no second-hand market and no alternative to the PlayStation Store, so from 2028, Sony alone decides what a game costs and even how long you are allowed to use it.

"That is exactly the harm our Fair PlayStation claim is about: a price can never be fair when the buyer is left with no ownership and no alternative."

It's illustrative to compare this situation with Epic's Apple Store challenges and the antitrust lawsuits faced by Steam⁠—with one brought against it by another, different Dutch consumer group. Apple, which sells the hardware and maintains its own storefront⁠—a system which closely maps to Sony's⁠—was ultimately forced to relinquish some of control of that ecosystem.

Meanwhile, Steam's flat 30% take (sound familiar?) from everyone on the platform, be they EA or a bedroom programmer, is my least favorite part of my preferred storefront. But it doesn't own our PCs the way a console manufacturer or Apple controls a non-jailbroken device. Indeed, you can install alternate operating systems, competing storefronts, and even physical PC games onto Steam Decks and Steam Machines.

Tweaktown reported PlayStation's 2025 revenue as ¥4.69 trillion ($29 billion), but a $427 million lawsuit isn't anything to sneeze at, and the company is likely to face other challenges to its policies around the PlayStation Store. Whether it's physical discs or some other concession to consumers and watchdogs, as advocated by analyst Daniel Ahmad, something's gotta give.

The latest double whammy that both Grand Theft Auto 6 and PlayStation will soon be ditching disks and going digital has angered fans and roused old discussions of what ownership of videogames and players rights will look like in a digital future. Spoiler alert: it's not great, that's if Hideo Kojima's preminitions are anything to go by. But there are some who are willing to put up a fight.

One such person is none other than La France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who recently took to social media to say the following: "With GTA 6 without a disc in 2026 and Sony's announcement of the end of physical disc sales for games in 2028, the question arises of how we view these products.

"You will pay without ever owning anything. No loan, no resale, no guarantee of keeping what we've paid for. Videogames are not mere merchandise—they are cultural assets, and the law in force must apply to them."

As it turns out, Mélenchon is sharing a petition to save physical videogames in hopes of combatting a future where game ownership doesn't actually exist. "With the end of physical games, the videogame industry wants to impose a fully digital model on us, where access will be conditional and time-limited," he continues. "The buyer's rights will be denied. This is the triumph of total commodification: you pay full price for nothing more than a simple revocable right of access."

Mélenchon is right, and he's saying what we're all thinking. If ownership rights of digital media aren't expanded upon then mediums such as games will suffer for it. With no control over how we preserve the games we buy and cherish, we run the risk of losing older games that serve as the foundation for our industry and all the rest that follow suit, or as Mélenchon puts it, "our cultural heritage".

With the memory crisis continuing to suck up supplies of memory and push up the cost of computing and gaming devices, a big question mark has lingered over the prices for the next consoles from Microsoft and Sony. And early reports suggest things won't be looking pretty for their launch.

As spotted by TechPowerUp, well-known hardware leaker KeplerL2 recently posted in a NeoGAF thread that the BOM (Bill of Materials) for the PlayStation 6 is currently $200 more than their last report, where they estimated it would cost $760. That means the current expected price of materials alone sits at around $960.

Naturally, this doesn't come from Sony, so a grain of salt is required, but KeplerL2's history as a hardware leaker is solid thus far.

Consoles sit in a unique place in the market. Because you need to use their software, and they get a cut of game sales, consoles have traditionally been sold at a loss or, if companies are lucky, they would barely break even. Where the Steam Machine has to make some sort of profit for Valve (explaining that hefty price tag), Sony and Microsoft care more about securing you as a long-term user.

With this in mind, the BOM estimate suggests the retail price of the PS6 will sit somewhere around the $900-$1000 mark, over double that of the PS5 at launch. The BOM does not factor in the price to build and ship the machine either. Sony could likely afford to take a small loss on these devices, but it seems the price tag isn't going to look pretty either way.

Sony is in a very awkward spot regarding its next console. It seems likely the memory crisis won't end in the next year at least, with it perhaps pushing past 2028, but pricing likely won't stabilise immediately, even when supply meets demand. This means even if the crisis suddenly ends by the end of 2028, we might not see prices return to normal until 2029 or 2030.

But the PS5 launched in 2020, and Sony has tended to upgrade every five or six years. So it either pushes out the next console with inflated memory prices in 2028, or waits another few years, having to restart research and development around new hardware so its machines don't lag behind the competition.

Even if Sony holds back its next console by a year or two, plenty of work done on designing the PS6 will have to go out the window to catch up with new hardware as it launches. So, like the Steam Machine launching at its astronomical price point, it's likely to just go ahead with it anyway. If you're waiting to get its next console, you'd better start saving soon.

Six years ago, PC Gamer's Evan Lahti wrote a headline that captured the feeling of the moment, when PlayStation announced it would be bringing more of its exclusive games to Steam: Well, I guess we won the console war.

The walls between platforms had crumbled. Everything but Nintendo was or would soon be playable on PC. Steam, not Xbox Live or PSN, was the kingmaker for new indie games, and the best place for devs to keep steadily selling their back catalog.

Things feel a lot different half a decade later, as AI wreaks havoc with hardware prices, Xbox panics about all the money it's spent on acquisitions, and Sony retreats from the PC—and physical media—back to its exclusive digital garden. And yet it still seems like the PC won the console war.

Because what are Xbox and PlayStation at this point other than PCs, but worse?

Sony's dual announcements—that it will cease producing physical discs in 2028 and also shut down the older PlayStation 3 and Vita online stores next year—seem to have been published simultaneously with a ripping-the-band-aid-off PR mentality. People are going to be mad, so get all the bad news out at once and hope you didn't remove too much flesh with the band-aid in the process. The takeaway of those two announcements landing simultaneously, though, is highlighting that you can only buy games on the PlayStation how and where Sony says you can. The executives have already literally said they want to wring more money out of every PlayStation owner; clearly cutting the Walmarts and GameStops of the world out of the equation is one way for them to do that.

Obviously the games industry has been trending towards digital-only releases for years; to the spreadsheet-brained it was just a matter of time until the cost of manufacturing and shipping of physical discs no longer made sense. The PC even led the charge on that front, meaning consoles clinging to the option of buying physical releases was one of their last true differentiators. Microsoft gave up on Xbox exclusivity, bringing all of its games to its own Windows Store and then to Steam. But those were just digital releases. If you really wanted to own a disc with Halo Infinite printed on it, you still needed an Xbox.

In 2020, Sony killed Microsoft's entry level Xbox Series S, an underpowered $300 machine, by selling its discless but otherwise fully capable PS5 at just $400. In the midst of the crypto mining craze making graphics cards unobtainable, the PS5 was a great console for the price. Today it costs $250 more, and Sony has also started raising prices for its PlayStation Plus subscription service needed to play games online.

Even with the painful prices of storage and memory hitting PC gaming hard, the consoles seem to be pricing themselves into irrelevancy. In the six years since the PS5 launched, Sony has produced so few of its once-system-selling blockbuster exclusives that it's hard to imagine spending close to $1,000 to play one new Naughty Dog game, one new Insomniac game, and a new God of War. The prestige just isn't prestiging as hard as it was on the PS4. Add to that the uncomfortable reminder that Sony can revoke the licenses to stuff you've bought on its platform, and that it will inevitably stop selling old games whenever it becomes too much work to bother maintaining an aging digital store, all while you pay it $80 a year just to play games on the internet, and you've gotta ask what the point of that device really is.

I guess it makes a nice sound when you turn it on.

Okay, less sarcastically—the system is designed to work nicely on a TV. The user interface is relatively easy to navigate. It's got apps. Those old chestnuts have been used to defend consoles against the scawwy computer for as long as I can remember. It was true in, like, 2004. But console interfaces get more annoying and ad-infested every year, while their games now offer multiple performance options to pick from in a shallow approximation of the PC experience. Valve's SteamOS, meanwhile, has made tremendous strides towards a controller-friendly interface without sacrificing the flexibility that has always been the PC's core identity.

Install SteamOS on a giant tower PC or a tiny box built from the guts of a PS5! Use whatever controller you want! Buy your games on Steam (the prices are always better) or get them DRM-free on GOG, or grab them from a legally questionable "abandonware" website if they're no longer on sale. Still have a soft spot for physical discs (or disks) and want to do everything on the up-and-up? A USB drive will cost you all of 20 bucks, and decades of PC games remain available on Ebay. There are probably even cool mods or fan projects that make them play nice with modern hardware.

The PC may have led the charge on digital games years ago, but the thing is: anyone can still make, sell, or play physical PC games if they want to. The only person who can take away your PC disc drive is you.

To sum it all up:

• The last PlayStation and Xbox that were meaningfully different from PCs under the hood came out in 2005 and 2006.
• Price was once their biggest asset—AI has killed that.
• Simplicity was their second biggest, but while they've been making that experience worse for years, Valve (and the open source developers behind great initiatives like Bazzite) have been making the PC's better.
• Genuinely compelling exclusives other than Nintendo's are anomalies, and it's hard to be heartbroken over missing one or two given the number of interesting games hitting Steam every single week.

Sony now sells an overpriced entry ticket to a walled garden that kinda looks worse than the forest just outside it, while Xbox is actively lighting its own grounds on fire. Simpler and cheaper used to be worth the price of admission for a lot of people. But the way things are going, by the time the PS6 arrives anyone who buys it will just be paying more for worse.

Earlier this month, former SIE Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden said the still-ongoing flailing at Xbox "evince a basic misunderstanding of how the interactive entertainment world moves." Harsh words indeed—but lest you think he's just a partisan hater, he's now taken aim at his former company, Sony, and its pullback from the PC market.

It's been quite a turnaround from Sony. After years of dogged exclusivity, Sony began releasing its games on PC to significant success—to the point that Shuhei Yoshida, also a former SIE Worldwide Studios boss, said it was "almost like printing money."

But earlier this year, Sony began backing away from the strategy, and while no formal announcement was ever made, it soon became clear that a PC pullback is happening.

Layden, who also previously served as president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America and executive vice president and COO of Sony Network Entertainment International, addressed the shift in a new interview with PSI, beginning by noting that in his mind, at least, bringing Sony games to PC was never about making money—it was about getting Sony properties in front of people who otherwise wouldn't see it.

"Not necessarily because they're going to buy a PlayStation," Layden said. "I wasn't that crazy. I didn't think that was going to happen.

"But as we take our intellectual property across other media, whether it's into films or whether it's in television or in comic books or into merchandise, whatever, you need to have as many eyeballs that are aware of this character, of this story, and just concentrating on the PlayStation population and only telling them these stories, and then try to bring it off of that platform into different media, that's going to be a hell of a jump."

While some have suggested that releasing PlayStation games on PC could "devalue" the brand, Layden says the strategy of holding them back for a year or so effectively addresses that concern: "I think if someone's waiting 18 months for something to come on PC, we didn't lose a sale to them. They weren't going to buy the hardware anyway."

"If it's a way to cover costs or the burden of making a port, there is some money attached to that, or the distraction or whatever," Layden said. "I don't know what they're thinking."

I don't either, but I do think it's interesting that we seem to be moving inexorably into a new round of the console wars: Microsoft has indicated that it's also looking at leaning more heavily on console exclusives in order to resuscitate the flagging Xbox brand. In that case, though, the impact on PC gamers should be minimal: Microsoft chief content officer Matt Booty said earlier this month that Xbox exclusives will "still show up on all the normal places where we sell the PC version."

The material impact of the PlayStation PC pullback is also debatable: PC Gamer's Morgan Park recently reminded that in the short term, at least, we're not likely to miss out on very much.

Here's another fact not to be overlooked: Unlike the ignominious dark days of "PC gaming is dying," PC gaming has never been stronger than it is right now. While year-over-year console revenue growth was close to stagnant, according to a Global Games Market Report published earlier in June, PC revenues leapt by 12%, powering the market past $200 billion in a single year for the first time. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says PC gamers have to wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 because we're not part of its "core" audience, but he also admits that PC can account for 45-50% of a big game's total sales. I have no idea how to square that either, but I definitely agree with Layden: Bringing Sony games to PC made sense, and taking them away just does not.

First shared on Bluesky by Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, Sony has provided a glimpse of PlayStation's future and priorities through a written summary of its Game & Network Services Segment Small Meeting Q&A. Answers were provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino, Studio business CEO Hermen Hulst, and SIE senior vice president of finance and corporate development, Lynn Azar.

The meeting took place on Friday, June 5, a month after Sony revealed it was pulling back from releasing its major singleplayer games on PC, and weeks before the Bungie bloodbath precipitated by the sunsetting of Destiny 2. Speaking as a normal guy who likes games and mostly uses his PS4 to watch Hulu, the "vision" provided during the meeting did not inspire confidence.

In fact, this unvarnished glimpse at the decision making priorities at the heights of the game industry made me actively depressed.

'Focusing more on monetizing our user base'

Responding to a question on how PlayStation will achieve Monthly Active User (MAU) growth in 2027, the group indicated that it's more focused on maximizing profit per customer, assessed through a metric with the unsettling name of Customer Lifetime Value.

As for how that happens, PlayStation's execs explained in a follow-up question: "There are multiple ways to achieve that via recurring revenue such as add-on content revenue," and rather than upping the MAU count, the group is "focusing more on monetizing our user base, which is well reflected in the strong FY2025 financial results." I love being monetized. Were I a PlayStation customer, I'd be thrilled that's such a major priority.

Elsewhere in the Q&A, they reference "record-high PS Plus profitability in FY2025." Between normal use and the streaming PlayStation Portal, the paid premium online service seems to be a key moneymaker for PlayStation. In response to a question about recouping the infrastructure costs of streaming games, the group responded that "We expect to recover the costs associated with investments and operations through revenue generated from PS Plus, which provides the streaming service."

'AI is an exciting long-term opportunity'

"For the next-generation platform, rather than simply serving as an alternative to PCs, we aim to deliver value that is unique to PlayStation.""...we are focusing more on monetizing our user base""We expect to recover the costs... through revenue generated from PS Plus"morganfreeman.gif

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-06-30T00:22:56.575Z

"We also see AI as an important foundational technology supporting our strategy," said CEO Nishino as part of a message before the Q&A. "AI is already helping us across various fields by improving development efficiency, enhancing the player experience, improving content discovery, and enabling creators to build richer content."

"With our global player base, deep library of IP, and integrated ecosystem, AI is an exciting long-term opportunity for us."

Further into the Q&A, the lone specific example of AI use in development was the classic placeholder assets, something that has gotten studios like Sandfall Interactive and Pearl Abyss in trouble when they make it into a final product.

"This is less about cost efficiency and more about improving quality and development speed, which we see as highly valuable," the execs said. "At the same time, we are experimenting at a more fundamental level with smaller, AI-first initiatives, while remaining realistic about near-term efficiency gains. These efforts position us to stay at the forefront as AI continues to evolve, both in development process and in shaping future player experiences."

'Deliver value that is unique to PlayStation'

As a primarily PC gamer, I found PlayStation leadership's understanding of why players prefer the platform to be illuminating. In response to a question about winning back PC players who switched from PlayStation, the group described it as a matter of form factor.

"PlayStation has long been strongly associated with the idea of playing in the living room. However, in recent years, more users globally have been using personal monitors," said the group. "In response, we are selling peripherals such as monitors and speakers to break away from the fixed perception that 'PlayStation equals the living room' and to broaden usage scenarios.

"For the next-generation platform, rather than simply serving as an alternative to PCs, we aim to deliver value that is unique to PlayStation. This includes not only technological advancements but also an expansion of usage styles, enabling a seamless experience that can be enjoyed naturally beyond the living room."

Much as I love my desk and my high refresh monitor, they're not the main reasons I prefer PC to console: I'm here because of the PC's nature as an open platform, with access to more of gaming history and the frontiers of independent development than any single console or console service like Game Pass or PlayStation Plus.

In 2026, would you rather own a Steam or GOG library that was started in 2014, or a collection of PS4 games from around the same time? How valuable or relevant will a PS5 library look compared to a PC one 12 years from now?

The PC is the only platform where more than 50% of revenue comes from games outside the top 20 best sellers. Sony seems to view its first party lineup as a crown jewel that PC players should be desperate to access, but the reality is that it's just a small subset of a much deeper, more interesting catalogue. There's only one Sony exclusive I've personally held a candle for in the past 20 years, and not even loyal PlayStation customers are getting their Bloodborne fix.

Handheld and small form factor builds can extend the PC's potential past the desk, but PlayStation will always be a closed loop no matter the form factor, one that requires users to maintain a premium online subscription to fully utilize the electronics they already purchased, all on top of the internet access they pay for.

This disconnect may help explain why SIE pulled back from PC despite its ports raking in major profits: The company's leadership thinks converting PC players into PlayStation owners is a matter of form factor and quality exclusives. It isn't, and with yet more AI-induced hardware price increases on the horizon, I think that reality will hit SIE's bottom line sooner rather than later.

Man, there was a while there where we could all be real smug about being on PC, right? Sony exclusives—save the obvious—all got eventual releases on our desktops, Xbox stuff was a given even while its console fanbase gnashed their teeth about seeing Starfield on a PS5, and Nintendo… well, Nintendo is Nintendo, but those unofficial Zelda ports are very impressive.

Now? Well, we're still smug. Rightly so. But Sony decided we were living high on the hog for too long, and resolved that its splashy singleplayer blockbusters would no longer be available anywhere but its own consoles. Now, just to drive that point home, it's nixed PC from a discussion of its "business environment and strategy" in an annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (via Game File). Even worse: it's replaced it with a great big paean to AI.

In the 2025 version of the same report, Sony wrote that it would "continue its efforts to deploy its first-party titles to multiple platforms such as PC." That's now completely gone in the 2026 version. Instead, you get this: "Sony is utilizing AI to unleash the creativity of studios and further enhance the PlayStation experience."

Which is deeply dispiriting all by itself, but wait! It goes on: "Sony aims to improve productivity through the use of AI powered tools, allowing development teams to reinvest their time into building richer worlds and gameplay experiences. In the platform business, Sony is working to leverage AI to route transactions more efficiently, and to personalize and recommend content for individual users in the PlayStation Store. Sony also aims to push visual fidelity forward and deliver higher quality gameplay experiences through continued investments in AI and machine learning."

Certainly gets me excited. I've never gone gaga for Sony's first-party games, but they're good-looking things. Spider-Man's New York looks and feels amazing; The Last of Us is very unpleasant; God of War's giant snake guy? Love him. Love that my subwoofer kicks into overdrive whenever he opens his mouth.

Perhaps there is a way to deploy AI that both enhances productivity without drowning all this good, human-made art direction under a tidal wave of slop, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it and I'm not making any bets. I guess it's relatively immaterial to me as a player—I don't have a PlayStation and, well, we're not seeing a Sony singleplayer game on Steam any time in the near future.

Xbox is flailing again. Major studio closures loom, the AI boom continues to erode the affordability of console hardware components, no one seems to want those consoles anyway and, according to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella—a fierce advocate of the AI industry crippling the rest of consumer tech—the corp isn't making enough money from its first-party games.

All this, despite Microsoft having a market value of over $2 trillion, and owning some of the biggest games studios and IPs in the world, including Call of Duty and Minecraft.

What's going on? Everyone has an opinion, some more authoritative than others. Among those opining include Shawn Layden, a high profile former Sony executive who helped usher in the PlayStation 5 before his resignation in 2019. Overall, he spent 32 years with Sony.

Sony's PlayStation, of course, has troubles of its own, but Layden bowed out long before the worst of them manifested. He's criticized the industry's pivot to live service—which has proven a terrible tactical shift for Sony—and the continued reliance that major publishers and platform holders have on blockbusters. He also thinks industry consolidation is "the enemy of diversity", and that subscription services stifle creativity.

In other words: the beliefs he espouses would seem to put Microsoft firmly on his shit list.

In a LinkedIn post, game design consultant Tadhg Kelly reiterates some of the blunders, strategic shifts and curious tacks taken by Xbox since Asha Sharma took the reins in February. "The Xbox identity crisis will continue until morale improves," he writes. "We've had:

• A new CEO after previous leadership was beheaded
• A rebrand that was kinda just the old brand
• A reaffirmation of expensive Helix
• A claim that hardware can't be expensive to win
• A claim that 30% margin is done
• A claim that 3% margin is trouble
• Matthew Ball and some new tech-industry hires
• A claim about refocusing on core franchises
• A showcase of new games
• A killing of studios making those new games
• A claim that gaming is important to Microsoft
• A comment that gaming at Microsoft needs to stand alone

"And on and on and on," Kelly adds. "Strategy isn’t a collection of contradictory decisions that might matter. That's just tactics. Bob and weave. Let's just get through this. Sad times for Big Green."

Layden sounded off in the comments. "At the risk of sounding like a 'hater' (which, I'm really not), the moves evince a basic misunderstanding of how the interactive entertainment world moves."

He added: "Iykyk [If you know you know], which also means if you don't you don't."

Those are strong words. It'd be like a carpenter evincing "a basic misunderstanding" of how a lathe works, 25 years after their apprenticeship.

Reading this comment I can't help but remember the words of former Activision boss Bobby Kotick, who said in an interview last year that he once told Satya Nadella that he shouldn't be in gaming at all. "We [Kotick and Nadella] had half an hour together and he said: 'what can you tell me about gaming'? And I was like, dude, you shouldn't be in gaming. You're not a creative company. You should buy Workday or something, SAP. This is not a creative DNA company."

Kotick continued: "When he called to do the deal I said the same thing to him. You need us, because you're not going to figure out gaming with what you have. But is this really the priority?"

One thing's for sure: if Microsoft is, as Nadella claims, "not monetizing" its entertainment despite its clear advantages in terms of wealth and IP ownership, then it can hardly be labeled a smart or even halfway capable business. Certainly not one well-equipped to handle an existentially consequential technology like AI is proving to be.

Either that or, as a diabolically wealthy, publicly traded corp who makes the majority of its money from cloud services, it isn't fit to work in the creative industries.

As a console interloper hailing from the PlayStation side of the tracks, I have a soft spot for controller rumble and haptics. It would appear I'm in good company, as a wild Sony patent exploring a fresh avenue for tactile feedback right there in your gamepad has just been published.

The patent in question concerns reactive buttons that can both soften and harden (via Cheat Happens). In theory, this would offer different tactile sensations by altering button hardness in real-time, depending on either the in-game situation or, ahem, personal preference (steady on).

I've definitely complained about 'squidgy' controller face buttons and D-pads in the past, so what's the appeal here? Well, the patent pitches a couple of use-cases, including a terrifying 'finger grab' effect that could grip your thumb tip should you, say, get grabbed while wading across yet another poisoned swamp in a Souls game.

Alternatively, this feature could be used to hold your thumb in place and prevent slippage. I'm not exactly jazzed about potentially having to pry my thumbs away from my gamepad for whatever reason. That said, there's a potential accessibility argument here, with the adaptable buttons changing shape to accommodate palms, wrists, elbows, and so on.

The tech could achieve this shape-shifting effect either through fluid-filled membranes or 'magnetoviscoelastic elastomers'. Not completely dissimilar to magnetic tech you'll already find in your controllers and keyboards, this could cause the reactive buttons to soften or harden depending on the magnetic field strength.

In many ways, the idea of reactive buttons feels like a natural follow-on to the DualSense's detailed haptics. While you can use the DualSense over both a wired and Bluetooth connection on PC, you'll be looking to sources other than Sony for haptic support. I wrote about just one of the unofficial options available, DSX+, yesterday.

Odds are, if we ever do see these reactive buttons on a DualSense successor, Sony won't be the party to bring it to PC; the company has doubled down on making the PS5's tentpole releases, like God of War Laufey, console exclusives, so it seems likely this reactive tech will follow a similar path into the walled garden of PlayStation.

I spent a decent chunk of my early career writing about all things PlayStation. But despite all of that, I wouldn't call Sony's DualSense controller my go-to gamepad for PC gaming. Well, the latest DSX beta update might just make it a real contender.

Traditionally, you can use a DualSense controller on PC via a wired connection or over Bluetooth via an extra adapter. What a faff! Furthermore, there's no official support for the pad's detailed haptics on PC—so the team behind DSX are now extending unofficial support over both Bluetooth and wired connections. The v3.2 Beta 01update adds "Virtual DualSense with Audio support, allowing games to send native DualSense audio and haptics through DSX over Bluetooth or USB" (via WCCFTech).

There is a catch, though. The update post notes that haptic and controller-based audio support will require "DSX+ to create a virtual DualSense as it always has been." Essentially, that means you're going to have to pay $7.99 for the base software on Steam, and then another $3.99 for the DSX+ 'DLC'. In short, paying over 10 bucks for functionality that's standard on PS5 does feel a wee bit cheeky to me. That said, small teams providing unofficial support like this have gotta eat too.

This update also introduces the handy option to launch the controller software manually outside of Steam. Neat! This does use "a 28-day ownership cache" system, though, so you'll still need to futz with Steam at least once a month to continue enjoying support. To enjoy this functionality alongside haptics support, you'll need to set up access to the DSX Beta branch via Steam anyway.

I've not yet had a chance to go hands-on with DSX's haptic support, so I can't comment on how refined the feedback feels on PC versus console. But given that Sony has u-turned on bringing its tentpole releases to PC, such as God of War: Laufey, the case could be made that this unofficial haptic support comes a little too late. Still, if you're curious about what you're missing, this could be a great excuse to finally pick up 2023's Returnal (we've even got a robust beginner's guide).

I'm also fond of all the subtle haptics that have since been added to the PS5 version of Final Fantasy XIV Online, though there's no guarantee you'd get this in the PC version of the game. In my humble opinion, the best showcase for the DualSense's haptics are the last two AstroBot games. Unfortunately, Astro's Playroom—a game which I've heard at least one game developer describe as 'the five-hour hand massage'—was a free pack-in release for the increasingly expensive PlayStation 5 console, so it feels like the bot has a snowball in Hell's chance of ever making it PC-side.

As a PlayStation girlie, I'd kind of already accepted I'd be stuck with unrefined rumble at best on PC. It's a shame Sony has missed a trick by not offering official haptic support on PC itself, but it's also unsurprising given their doubling down on PS5 exclusives. Still, when a major player closes a door, you can bet a small team with a fraction of the resources will crack open a window. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to chill out in a rainy, forested corner of Atropos and soak up some DualSense ASMR.

Sony's surprise decision to reverse its strategy of porting singleplayer PlayStation games to PC has been scrutinized plenty. Bluepoint Games' head of technology suggested it was likely because Sony's more worried about Valve than about Xbox, while our own Morgan Park pointed out that Sony is only robbing us of maybe four half-decent games.

Alinea Insights has been analyzing sales of PlayStation games more generally, but with some interesting info about the PC side of things for us to dig out. Like the fact a full 42% of Death Stranding 2's PC sales came from China, which was its "biggest Steam market". Alinea notes that "China is a top market for Stellar Blade on Steam as well."

According to Steam's last hardware survey, 39.48% of Steam users have their language set to English and 21.85% to Simplified Chinese, making it the second-most popular language by a large margin—every other language is a single-digit percentage or less. It's difficult to figure out how many actual people that comes to though, since a bunch of those accounts will inevitably belong to internet cafes. Some estimates put the number over 30 million. Whatever the actual figure, it's a sizable chunk of players to up and ignore because you want people to fork out for a PS5 to play Wolverine.

Shift Up, the developer of Stellar Blade, won't be publishing its sequel with Sony. In an earnings Q&A, the studio said, "we are formulating an optimal go-to-market strategy designed to maximize sales and reach a broad global audience from day one." For "broad global audience" we can probably substitute "Chinese audience".

Alinea also noted that releasing games on PC didn't seem to hurt sales on PlayStation. In fact, it had the opposite effect, with Death Stranding 2 having "its best two-week stretch since launch on Sony's platform" after coming to PC. And while it was on sale at the time, the same discount had run twice before with less effective results. Stellar Blade, which wasn't discounted on PlayStation when it was ported to PC, also enjoyed a simultaneous boost in PS5 sales.

Launching on PC gives a bump to how many people will stream a game and just talk about it on the internet in general, and word of mouth remains a good way to sell anything. No matter what language it's in.

Technically Fumito Ueda, the director of critically acclaimed adventures Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian, has released a game on the PC. His first credits, from a year-and-a-half working as an animator at Kenji Eno's studio Warp, are on horror adventures D and Enemy Zero, which both got '90s MS-DOS releases. Once Ueda joined Sony and began designing his own games, however, he was dedicated to the PlayStation—a dedication that stuck through the end of 2016, with the release of The Last Guardian.

After partnering with Epic Games, Ueda's next project, the still mysterious Gen Atlas, will be the first he's directed to come to PC. We spoke at length about the game itself, including the prospect of getting his work in front of a new audience.

"I have nothing but excitement and am happy that this can reach a lot more players just from day one," Ueda said. "I'm looking forward to it as much as I think new players are looking forward to experiencing a Fumito Ueda game."

But I couldn't let the opportunity pass by without asking about the games he spent more than 15 years of his career developing. Would he like to see those games available to the same PC audience as well?

"Yeah, if there is [such] an opportunity, I think it's only good news for the games," Ueda responded via an interpreter.

I framed the question with the acknowledgement that the decision to port Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian to PC isn't entirely up to Ueda. The first two were wholly created while he was a Sony employee; while he went independent during the development of The Last Guardian to found his own studio, Gen Design, Sony no doubt owns the rights to the game. And judging by Sony's recent pivot, it seems unlikely that porting its back catalog of games to PC is currently on the agenda.

Still, I told Ueda that I hope it happens someday.

"I hope so too," he said.

As strange as it is to say, I often feel like I'm forced to use the Xbox Controller whenever I turn on my Xbox (which is getting rarer and rarer nowadays anyway). It's still a lovely feeling pad, but it genuinely feels like a downgrade when putting down the Victrix Pro BFG Reloaded, Gamesir G7 Pro 8K, or even EasySMX D10, which I usually have to hand for my PC.

I've come to the realisation that, even ignoring the fact that Sony and Microsoft's standard controllers don't have much protection against stick drift, I still wouldn't pick them if I put them head to head against the rest of the controller market.

And yet, they still hog most of the conversation around controllers, and still regularly sit on Amazon's best-selling list. Case in point, two different listings for the Xbox controller(1 and 2) both have Amazon added tags ("Overall Pick" and "Best Seller" as of time of writing), and these serve to place those controllers front and centre to potential buyers. But this preference isn't only a thing on storefronts.

I'm interested in the Steam Controller. I don't really like its polling rate or membrane buttons, but its mouse input is neat, and it comes with drift-resistant sticks, which I'd argue should be almost mandatory for a controller now. But I noticed a common narrative came out during its launch: the belief that it's better than Microsoft and Sony's gamepads. While I think that's debatable, I'm left wondering why we are forced to choose only one of those three.

One post went around a few weeks ago, which now has over one million views and over 8K likes as of the time of writing, that directly compares the Steam Controller to Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony's offerings. It shows that Valve's new controller has tonnes of features that none of the others do, and it justifies the price. It argues, "If your only argument against the Steam Controller is the price, you're stupid."

And it's easy to see why third-party controllers are often left out of these conversations. For one, as I noted at the start, Microsoft's platform is a finicky beast that only allows controllers to work wirelessly if they use its tech. This is why the GameSir G7 Pro has Xbox wireless versions (like the ZZZ and Wuchang model), which are more expensive. Unlike PC, you can't just grab any old wireless controller and get it working.

But the second, I think, is its history. Growing up, using a non-official controller often meant you were player two. It meant you had to deal with the jammy buttons, sticky bumpers, and weird thumbsticks. Third party meant cheap, both in cash and in feel. And I'm not convinced it has managed to shake that history. I do really like the EasySMX D10, but it being covered with RGB certainly doesn't help it in that regard. The same is true of the D05, which has a flashy gold D-Pad and triggers.

Let's look at raw specs. The Steam Controller for $100 gets you TMR analogue sticks, extra custom buttons, dual trackpads, dual-stage magnetic triggers, gyro support, and a 35-hour battery life with a charging dock. This does beat out the Xbox pad and Sony's DualSense. But the EasySMX D10 gives you TMR sticks, a polling rate that is four times greater, linear Hall effect and non-linear micro switches, extra reprogrammable buttons, and (in my opinion) a nicer dock.

The GameSir G7 Pro offers everything the D10 has, but with a nicer feel and stronger build quality (and it's $20 less than the Steam Controller). Raw stats would matter little if they didn't have feel, but these controllers are great in that regard, too. These, and 8BitDo, all offer genuinely excellent-feeling controllers, equally matching the big dogs of the controller world.

This doesn't immediately make them better than the Steam Controller, but instead makes each choice viable. And that's what people miss when they overlook third-party controllers.

In the weeks since its launch, I've become more and more enamoured with the Steam Controller, and I may pick one up anyway, but that will be at least partially driven by what makes the controller unique, not what makes the controller unique when compared to a limited range.

I like its touchpads and gyro support. I think it seems genuinely pretty neat, and I like its ergonomics too. But its competition is wide, and only getting wider every day. And it especially makes sense to know what's out there when you're spending up to $100 on it. Still, the fact that the controller can sing is kinda cool.

The PlayStation 3's arcane architecture is why many never thought we'd actually see Metal Gear Solid 4 on PC, soon to finally be free of its last-last-gen prison. It's fair to say that PlayStation 3 emulation has come along in leaps and bounds over the years, but the advancement of AI may end up pumping the brakes.

The team behind open-source PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 has apparently been inundated with AI code pull requests, recently issuing a (mostly) polite request to contributors via X to "Please stop submitting AI slop code" (via Respawn First). The team warns that those who continue to submit AI-generated code to the project's GitHub without proper disclosure will be banned.

The team goes on to write, "There are plenty of resources online to learn how to debug and code instead of generating slop that you don't understand and that doesn't work."

The AI guidelines on the GitHub project have been updated. It's important to note that AI tools are not banned outright, though each pull request must state "the scope of AI involvement." The guidelines seemingly acknowledge the difference between AI-assisted code and 'AI slop code,' stating that AI tools are permitted for "research and reverse engineering purposes," but there is the expectation that contributors "fully own and understand all code they submit."

Basically, vibe coders can still generate the code, but will need to then make the effort to comb through the LLM's output and ensure they're on the same page as the bot.

The majority of the emulator's AI code pull requests have apparently been for macOS builds, (only one developer on the main team has the Apple hardware necessary for maintenance, so that's a lot of pull requests to sift through solo). On this note, the team shares, "We have had to revert a few slop [pull requests] that caused big regressions a few times—enough is enough."

Proponents will claim AI coding tools represent big wins in terms of efficiency, but often those gains appear to be undone in the implementation. The GitHub's guidelines echo this point, saying, "[AI slop code] wastes maintainer time and, in worse cases, such changes get merged and break functionality for all users."

The RPCS3 team aren't the only devs losing time to dodgy AI code. Just for one example, Linus Torvalds recently lamented that "The continued flood of AI reports has basically made the [Linux team's] security list almost entirely unmanageable."

My Dad used to say that on the internet, no one knows you're a dog—and it turns out the same is true of vibe coding. Doggone code may be the least of a maintainer's worries, too; one human software engineer rejected an AI agent's code change request, only to later discover the AI agent had published an 'angry' blog about him. So, while vibe coding and coding agents may be quick and easy options, I'm not yet convinced they're actually the best option.

In its latest earnings call, Sony included a corporate strategy for the future of the brand, and as you might be able to expect from any figurehead talking to investors, there's a lot of talk about AI.

As noted by GamesIndustry.biz, Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki believes "AI will make it easier to take on more innovative and ambitious projects."

In games, it talks extensively about an in-house tool called 'Mockingbird' that animates 3D facial models based on performance captures and confirms that this tool was already used in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.

Totoki says, "Importantly, we are not replacing human performers, but rather optimising how we process the data from these live captures."

Totoki also explains that an AI model is being used to animate hair, something that is traditionally very labour-intensive. Totoki claims, "These practical applications allow our teams to spend less time on manual, high-effort tasks and to instead reinvest their time into building richer worlds and gameplay for our players."

On richer worlds, it also details prototypes of NPCs with "their own personalities" that "can create a living, dynamic world for the player to explore."

"As AI capabilities evolve, the role of our creators will remain unchanged." Totoki continues, "AI is meant to augment their capabilities, not to replace them."

One could argue that making NPCs that feel like fine-tuned human beings with personalities is, in fact, a job for a creative, designer, and artist. Worlds have existed filled with unique NPCs before generative AI came along, so I'm not sure how further committing to it doesn't replace workers down the line.

Sony sees AI as a rather grand tool in its tool belt, arguing, "For our players, this will mean gaming experiences like never before—more immersion, more adventures, and fresh ways to enjoy their favourite characters."

It's easy to see why big-budget developers may be drawn to generative AI. Though former head honcho Shuhei Yoshida thinks companies should invest in smaller, experimental projects, that doesn't seem to be the vision for generative AI. AI is pitched as a productivity tool—a way to cut corners in development, but one has to wonder historically, how many games have found greatness in those corners? How many developers have played around with glitches or found new ways of doing things through repetition? How many, bored on a Friday afternoon, thought, 'Is that really what I want hair to look like in this game?' and came up with a new style.

Sony's output is already pretty formulaic, so consider me cautiously pessimistic that further committing to these tools will really help it get out of that creative rut. I suppose we'll have to wait for a few more financial earnings to see if the gambit pays off.

Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Hideaki Nishino used Sony's latest quarterly financial report to share some thoughts on the role that AI will play in the future of game development, and if you're thinking that he might temper his enthusiasm in the face of consumer discontent, all I can say is—guess again.

Nishino is an unabashed booster of AI, calling it a "powerful tool" during Sony's corporate strategy presentation that will enable "gaming experiences like never before—more immersion, more adventures, and fresh ways to enjoy [your] favorite characters."

Naturally, the embrace of AI will also mean a "more efficient production environment" for game makers, but not in a way that would result in job losses, Nishino claims. In fact, Nishino says, "AI is lowering barriers to creation, accelerating development cycles, and enabling more creators to enter the market," which will result in a greater number and variety of games available to players.

"Within our studios, game developers are automating repetitive workflows, improving software engineering productivity, and accelerating areas like quality assurance, 3D modeling, and animation through new, AI-powered tools," Nishino said. "For example, our teams created a tool we call 'Mockingbird' that quickly animates 3D facial models based on performance captures.

"Importantly, we are not replacing human performers, but rather optimizing how we process the data from these live captures. With Mockingbird, animation work that would have taken hours can now be completed in a fraction of a second."

Nishino also cited another AI tool created for the normally "labor-intensive process" of animating hair, which uses videos of real hairstyles to generate 3D models with "hundreds" of hair strands rendered. "These practical applications allow our teams to spend less time on manual, high-effort tasks and to instead reinvest their time into building richer worlds and gameplay for our players."

I feel obligated to state that I'm not reflexively against new technologies, nor am I naive about the nature of human progress, which is always at least a little destructive. At the same time, if a labor-intensive process has been replaced by a much faster automated process, the people involved in that labor will naturally find themselves without much to do—and as much as corporations like to talk about freeing developers from scut work so they can focus on artistry and magic, the reality is that the artists and animators responsible for expressive faces and flowing hair are not suddenly going to find themselves holding creative director roles on a multitude of new, AI-powered games.

Still, Nishino is clearly eager to make the point: "As AI capabilities evolve, the role of our creators will remain unchanged. The vision, the design, and the emotional impact of our games will always come from the talent of our studios and performers. AI is meant to augment their capabilities, not to replace them."

AI is also a growing part of Sony's "platform business," he continued, used in everything from payment processing to storefront curation: "Our AI capabilities will evolve into a consumer-centric experience that not only suggests the next game a player might enjoy, but also the next gameplay moment, subscription, accessory, or merchandise that best reflects their passion."

Some of the controversy surrounding the use of AI in game development arises from a lack of precision in language and definitions, and the tendency to lump generative AI, LLMs, machine learning algorithms, and any other "it's thinking" technology that float to the surface into a great pile called AI. But there's a great gulf between, say, Elon Musk's promise to "release a great AI-generated game" before the end of 2026—clock's ticking, bud—and recognizing that these technologies can be very powerful and useful in a real-world sense.

That kind of hand-waving also makes it easier to paper over the less-positive impacts of the rise of AI. Big-name "creators" (another ill-defined term) will be protected, but jobs will be lost, and there's no doubt in my mind that despite lofty talk about the value of talent, reducing headcounts and payroll is one of the chief goals of the drive to embrace this technology. The AI feeding frenzy is also putting a lot of new hardware out of the reach of normal consumers: It's why my 10-year-old rig will, in just a few short years, be my 13-year-old rig.

And despite Nishino's belief that "AI models can outperform manual curation," the fact is that I don't want recommendations based on my purchase history and hours spent on this or that: I want people who know me to say, "Hey man, you're a weirdo—check this shit out."

No machine will tell you to play this. But we will.

I think the truth is that AI, in whatever guise, is and will continue to be useful to game developers, in some cases invaluably so, and will also continue to cause upheaval: Fewer people employed in the game industry, more sloppy shovelware, and—until the bubble pops, at least—higher costs for consumers. And we will continue to see effusive enthusiasm for it from game industry executives, not necessarily because they have a firm grasp on what it really offers (I suspect nobody can honestly make that claim), but simply because they're all afraid of missing the boat and getting fired.

"We believe AI will unleash the creativity of our studios, power a more curated platform, and enhance the PlayStation experience for both players and creators," Nishino concluded. "With our global player base, deep library of IP, and integrated ecosystem, AI is a powerful tool for us to deliver a truly cutting-edge entertainment experience."

AMD reports it made $10.3 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2026. While revenue growth has been more or less flat quarter-on-quarter, this figure otherwise represents a growth of 38% compared to the same period in 2025. By all accounts, AMD is continuing to dine well on the demand for "high-performance CPUs and accelerators" from the AI industry—though even this heavy hitter won't be immune to 'headwinds' caused by the memory supply crisis.

First, let me break down that frankly eye-watering $10.3 billion figure in the press release: AMD's data centre segment represents a $5.8 billion slice of that pie—which has also grown 57% compared to Q1 2025—while gaming alone represents only about $720 million. It always feels wrong to say 'only' in relation to a monetary amount in the millions, especially as gaming grew about 11% year-on-year. However, AMD is advising investors to expect a sharp dip in this sector shortly.

During the recent earnings call, executive VP, CFO and treasurer Jean Hu advised "We expect second half demand in gaming to be impacted by higher memory and component costs. We now expect second half gaming revenue to decline more than 20% compared to the first half."

In other words, with consumer memory prices skyrocketing, and other components, such as CPUs, also experiencing knock-on shortages, PC gamers are understandably expected to spend less overall. AMD CEO Lisa Su later added during the same call, "We're making very good progress in the commercial PC arena with our AI PCs. We did see desktops a little bit softer just given desktop is a more consumer-focused market. And so in that market, it's more impacted by some of the memory pricing and the component price increases."

As AMD's hardware powers the PS5, Su also shared that "Semi-custom revenue declined year-over-year as expected at this stage of the console cycle." The PS5 released in 2020, meaning that 2026 represents the tail-end of its lifespan if prior console generations are anything to go by. While I personally may not be all that excited for the PS6, Su says that "engagements with customers on next-generation platforms remain strong."

AMD's gaming projections are not necessarily a shock; in response to an investor question, Lisa Su elaborated, "I mean, look, this is something that everyone in the industry is working with—in the time of tight supply, we are seeing some cost increases on the memory side. I think we are all working through that."

Indeed, both Nvidia and Microsoft have made similar predictions about how the memory crisis will affect their revenue.

"The way we're seeing it unfold in the market is actually on the Data Center side, because of the, let's call it, the demand for AI compute," Su continues, "People are largely focused on supply and ensuring that the supply assurance is there. The corollary of that—the larger impact that we're watching is the impact on the consumer markets. And as we said in the prepared remarks, we are expecting that there could be some demand impact as a result of the memory price increases on things like the PC business in the second half of the year as well as the Gaming business. So we're taking that into account in our overall model."

Even though I'm in the land of PC hardware now, I wrote about all things PlayStation for a chunk of my early career. As such, I could not resist the siren song of this hardware project that brings the original PlayStation 1 bang up to date. HDMI output, USB power, wireless controllers: it's all here in a snazzy blue shell inspired by the original dev kits!

I do enjoy a teardown video, and Elliot Coll of YouTube channel The Retro Future delivers here. He first disassembles a very crusty-looking SCPH-5502 PAL region PlayStation, revealing old mod work from a previous user—it's a bit like finding a fossil-rich strata in sedimentary rock.

These old hardware mods introduced NTSC region compatibility, plus the option to play games burned to a disc, but Elliot instead opts to work from a blank-ish canvas. After sending the original PlayStation shell off for a much-needed spa day, the creator starts by desoldering all the old modding work from the PCB, before revealing the "catalyst for this video": the PicoStation ZeroWire.

Turns out hardware mods have moved on a bit over the decades. The ZeroWire allows modders to launch games on the PlayStation via an SD card by including a Raspberry Pi Pico and greatly simplifying the soldering process to get all the contact points on both PCBs to play ball. It's a really elegant bit of kit, and vastly preferable to folding the motherboard in half 'like a book' as in this handheld PS1 project.

But contrary to its name, it does involve soldering one remote contact with a single wire (as Elliot reflects, 'OneWire' would still have been a fine name). After the not-actually-ZeroWire is in place, the video shows the modder disconnecting a few select pins on the CD-ROM controller chip from the motherboard so that the PicoStation can take over. Elliot isn't even halfway done on all he needs to solder on this 'Ultimate' PS1 project, though.

Just for a start, the HDMI mod features a ribbon cable with almost 50 contact points that need to be soldered to the PlayStation's original video chip. The other option is an external adapter that plugs in via the original component cables and converts the console's 480p output to 1080p (PSSR, who?). But who wants to introduce yet more cables to a retro gaming project if they can help it?

Speaking of, adding wireless controller compatibility to the 32-year-old console involves taking apart the original controller ports and—you guessed it—introducing another bespoke PCB, plus a whole lot more soldering. Still, this mod does mean you can play your PS1 with the PS5's DualSense.

After all of that, the last mod is a fresh power board that enables the whole thing to be powered via USB-C connection. As someone with the svelte redesigned PS one from the year 2000, this particular mod certainly appeals, though I've not touched a soldering iron since Design Technology lessons in school.

Still, the actually-not-that-scary-looking, almost modular guts of the original PlayStation already make me want to don some protective gear and get elbow deep. The Retro Future's in-depth video and lo-fi beats to solder to only stoke that ambition. Who would've thought I'd be more excited about a PS1 mod project than the PS6, eh?

A forthcoming Bloodborne film adaptation will be an "R-rated animated feature" co-produced by YouTuber JackSepticEye, Variety reports. In case you're doubting the veracity of this, Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group president Sanford Panitch made the announcement himself during CinemaCon today, which is currently taking place in Las Vegas.

According to the report, the adaptation will be just as gruesomely violent as the games, news that is sure to delight sickos worldwide.

Perhaps the most surprising news is JackSepticEye's involvement, though given his 31.2 million YouTube subscribers, maybe it's not so surprising. The Irish content creator, whose real name is Seán William McLoughlin, has racked up nearly five million viewers for his Bloodborne playthrough, and it's apparently his favourite game. Whether that's enough to make him fit to help adapt one of the most beloved games of the 21st century, I guess we'll find out.

JackSepticEye will co-produce with Sony Productions and Lyrical Animation, which is also working on a Death Stranding adaptation and Hell Followed With Us, which is based on a YA "dystopian fantasy horror" novel.

No word as yet on when this film will hit cinemas or streaming services, but it's part of a significant push on Sony's part to turn its games into movies and TV: The Last of Us comes immediately to mind, as does God Of War. Sony is also working on a live-action Legend of Zelda film.

Whatever the case, Bloodborne still isn't on PC and it's becoming increasingly unlikely that it will given Sony's reported U-turn on porting its exclusives. Thankfully, emulating Bloodborne is becoming more and more seamless by the day.

Before joining the hardware team here, I spent a significant chunk of my early career writing for Official PlayStation Magazine UK—and not even I am excited for the next Sony console.

When I pre-ordered my PS5 back in 2020, I never once considered I was actually getting a good deal at the time. For context, I'm UK-based, and I love my Blu-rays, so I paid £450 for the basic version of the PlayStation 5 with the disc drive back in late 2020. But since then, the PS5 has gone up in price not once, not twice, but three times since launch; if you want to buy the same basic PS5 I have today, it will cost you $650/£570/€650.

That a console, or any ageing hardware really, would get more expensive with this amount of distance from launch is kind of unprecedented. For perspective, the basic PS4 cost $399/£349/€399 back in 2013, and I paid £279 for the 1 TB model in late 2017. With runaway pricing like the PS5's, it's hard not to wonder what the point of a console even is anymore.

The memory supply crisis is in part to blame for the PS5's rising price tag. Sony is apparently considering pushing back the release of the PS6 until 2028 or even 2029 due to 'rampant AI demand for memory' according to Bloomberg. While that gives me some time to save my pennies, I doubt I'll be getting the next PlayStation console on launch day or otherwise.

For a long time, console gaming genuinely seemed like the most cost-effective way for me to play all the games I wanted at decent fidelity. That relative affordability is one reason why I stuck with console gaming for so long, and resisted getting back into PC gaming until relatively recently. That isn't to say I'm under any illusion that PC gaming is even slightly more affordable; it's absolutely a point of despair for me that some folks are fully spending much more than $650 on their GPU alone.

If the PS6 comes out with mouth-watering specs at a price point of, say, $800 or likely more, that may well be the 'cost-effective' option for someone who doesn't already own a gaming PC. Still, now more than perhaps ever before, it feels particularly difficult to justify the expense of such an expensive, separate box for games, plus about $70 for each major release I then want to play on top. At least on a PC, I can answer emails too, I guess? Gaming has always been an expensive hobby—and that's true now more than ever—but even on a severely underpowered PC, there's still a wealth of games to enjoy.

A significant drawback on going all-in on PC is cutting myself off from PlayStation-exclusive games, as Sony has recently backpedalled from bringing headliner acts like Ghost of Yōtei to PC. It's not hard to understand the reasoning behind this move, as exclusive games like this would've been a hardware seller once upon a time. Ghost of Yōtei itself builds on everything that made Ghost of Tsushima a razor-sharp samurai epic, but it's also another massive game with cinematic aspirations.

Huge open worlds have become PlayStation's bread and butter. Considering brand new games increasingly cost upwards of $60, I see the argument for getting your money's worth. Unfortunately, having played a whole lot of them, I've simply fallen out of love with the sort of big-budget efforts that have come to dominate the console landscape. In other words, I've got big game burnout.

"For a long time, many games have been focused on creating these infinitely replayable, high-retention, forever experiences," Night Signal Entertainment co-founder Nick Lives recently said, "Either their magic works on you and you actually play them forever until you die, or else the spell wears off and your last impression is getting burned out. I think a bunch of players are gradually warming up to the idea of self-contained, satisfying one-off experiences that can leave you on a high note."

Case in point, I really dug Night Signal Entertainment's off-beat, supernatural customer service sim Home Safety Hotline. Like many of the games I've played, finished, and enjoyed on PC lately, it's a focused experience—costing much less than $20 on Steam. If you're looking for a few more self-contained games costing close to $15, I'd also recommend the original Perfect Tides (teenage angst in a point-and-click wrapper), and Ambrosia Sky: Act One (think Power Wash Simulator but with more story and space fungi).

Heck, even Resident Evil Requiem is under 10 hours long, and lends itself well to multiple, increasingly overpowered playthroughs. Unfortunately, at 60 bucks, it's the most expensive of my recent rotation. It's also the game most recently that has justified my continued ownership of a PS5, as I happened to play it on console. It's Resident Evil, man—ain't no way I'm playing it on anything other than a PlayStation.

Besides maybe the PS5 Pro's PSSR upscaling tech (which enjoys the same 'core' as AMD's FSR Redstone anyway) and uncovering the mystery of who exactly Leon S. Kennedy is married to, there's little about PlayStation's future that truly excites me. For one thing, if the ageing PS5 already costs about 700 smackers, I dread to think just how pricey the PS6 will be.

When it comes to consoles, Nintendo appears to be the sole entity that still sort of understands the assignment. Just in terms of price, you can pick up a Switch 2 for $450/£396, though this console will likely also see a price hike before long. That's also without mentioning how Nintendo games tend to retain their value over time, or the fact I'm currently considering pre-ordering the $60 Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (I've decided the demo was just that good).

Our Ted has already made the case that the Switch 2 'looks like every other console now: A worse PC with a few exclusive games'. While I'll concede it's not reinventing the original Switch's wheel, that hybrid design still offers something PC has yet to fully crack. Sure, you can 'dock' the Steam Deck, but it's not really as elegant an experience—though I'll grant you there's nothing elegant about the enduring spectre of Joy-Con stick drift.

On the subject of exclusives, Pokopia has become something of a system seller for the Switch 2 and, having spent 25 hours with it myself, I can absolutely see why. Despite having written for PlayStation publications for a huge chunk of my career, it's the Nintendo console I'm currently reaching for. How's that for words I never thought I'd write…

It's important to get out of the way early on that there's still a lot we don't know about Microsoft's Project Helix— including how it will implement even the elements we do know about.

We know that Project Helix is designed to play Xbox and PC games, and it could bridge the gap between a Windows PC and a traditional Xbox. This means it will likely give more creative freedom than the likes of the Xbox Series X, and theoretically gives players more ways to play.

And, in a sense, one could argue that the Sony PlayStation 6 and whatever Nintendo does next is less its competition than the likes of the Steam Machine or prebuilt gaming PCs. On one hand, this seems like it could be a decent device. On the other hand, it feels like just another nail in the coffin that Xbox has been slowly dropping into the freshly dug earth that is Xbox Play Anywhere, a lack of exclusives, and a struggling USP.

Microsoft has a few things in its favour when it comes to making a kind of PC / kind of Xbox experience. Xbox consoles have traditionally been loss leaders, because Microsoft can make its cash back on software licence fees and extra hardware like peripherals. Someone building you a PC will not get a cut of whatever Steam makes, so they need to profit from selling the device. So, Project Helix could theoretically offer a PC-like experience, perhaps with some built-in Xbox branding and Xbox store incentives, and for cheaper than the competition.

Project Helix appears to have a tentative release date of late 2027, with a chance of being pushed back to 2028, and the memory crisis may not have ended by then. Micron recently revealed demand is in excess of supply for the foreseeable future, with plans to balance it out over 2027 and 2028, and SK Hynix recently suggested the wafer shortage will last until 2030.

As cynical as it feels to say, this could actually offer a bit of an advantage to the likes of Microsoft. It's a huge corporation which will have lines of communication and contracts with manufacturers, it has a long road to launch, and it can afford to sell at a loss. If it can offer a Windows-like experience with its Xbox Mode app, it's not hard to see why one might choose the more bespoke Project Helix over something prebuilt.

That selling point makes more sense with Xbox's last few years of strategy, too. The majority of 'true' exclusive games (that is to say, exclusives that are only on Xbox) are mostly reserved for backwards compatible games like Lost Odyssey.

With its catalogue and controller being available on PC, and the Xbox software coming to Windows in the future, I see very little reason for one to pick an Xbox Series X now over a PC. On its launch, ease of use and price made an argument, but the gap has been bridged somewhat, which means an Xbox Series X is sort of like a PC, except without access to Steam, Epic Games Store, and many other bits of PC software.

And Sony seems to have got the message that the scarcity of exclusives can sell consoles, as it is reportedly backing away from launching games on PC. Coming up to the launch of the PS6, users will likely want to feel like the console gives them access to something new and not available to PS5 and PC users.

But Project Helix trying to emulate a PC means that exclusives don't have to be its biggest selling point. It can theoretically offer a finetuned streamlined experience with PC games, and could even eat some costs to get it into the hands of customers for lower prices. That, to me, makes it already a more attractive option than the Xbox Series X.

I still don't think it's good enough, though, and I'm not fully convinced it's not just one more step backwards for Xbox to retreat from the console space. A few months ago, I said, "Everything is an Xbox now, so I see no reason to buy Xbox again". Though Microsoft retired the 'This is an Xbox' ad campaign, my feelings haven't fully changed.

Because even if the marketing is gone, the feeling remains. Xbox is an ecosystem that has spread to a seemingly endless list of devices, and it's getting easier to emulate the Xbox experience without having to throw cash at a new device and a separate storefront. But, in losing its appeal as a console, it could gain some appeal in a similar market to the likes of mini PCs.

Project Helix doesn't have to be built with upgradability in mind, so much as ease of use, and prettiness, and buyers will know that going in. But, ultimately, is that what one wants from a console, and importantly, is it good for the broader market?

To me, Sony and Nintendo feel like they operate side by side, giving distinct enough selling points to not feel like a direct competition. Microsoft's Xbox division could serve to keep Sony in line.

Think of that one 20-second video of PlayStation showing off how to share games. This snippy little response to Xbox's DMR fiasco is exactly the counterweight I'm talking about. If the PS5 proved to be unpopular, Xbox could have capitalised on its mistakes and punished it. With Xbox fitting into that middleground, Sony doesn't really have a balancing force, and that feels troublesome to me.

Xbox, in a console world, is part of the big three. It's admittedly the smallest part of the big three, but it has presence nonetheless. In a PC manufacturing world, it's one of a dozen, and I don't know yet if it has the chops to be worth the lateral move. Better on paper isn't necessarily better in practice.

Sony has confirmed significant price rises for the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal. These landing not long after it raised prices in the United States in 2025, and globally (excluding the US) in 2022.

The PlayStation 5 was launched at $500, and the Digital Edition at $400. The newer Slim versions were launched in late 2023 with the Digital Edition going up in price by $50. The standard version remained at $500.

"With continued pressures in the global economic landscape, we’ve made the decision to increase the prices of PS5, PS5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal remote player globally," Sony says in a blog post.

"We know that price changes impact our community, and after careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide."

Sony cited "a challenging economic environment" for its previous US price hike in August of last year. No doubt the ongoing scarcity and rising costs of memory are somewhat to blame for the latest.

Another price hike back in 2022, which was rolled out globally but excluded the United States, cited "high global inflation rates".

The new prices are expected to be rolled out by retailers commencing April 2, 2026. That means there's still stock on the shelves that will not be immediately impacted, though whether these will be sold at higher prices sooner is yet to be seen. A sudden surge in demand off the back of this announcement, possibly from scalpers, wouldn't be unexpected.

This comes at a strange time in the existing generation's life. Sony has already detailed its partnership with AMD for a new SOC to power its next generation console. If rising memory costs weren't already a dark cloud over the price of future consoles, this move suggests even Sony is not immune.

Valve's plans for the Steam Machine (et al) have also been scuppered by rising memory costs. Nintendo has also said it is "carefully considering the situation".

The memory crisis is not expected to clear up for a long time. Micron, a major memory manufacturer, confirmed "demand significantly in excess of our available supply for the foreseeable future" in a recent earnings call.

A market research firm recently suggested that it looks unlikely to clear before the end of 2027. That's when the next-generation of consoles are expected to show up, providing rising costs don't delay things.

SK Hynix, another memory manufacturer, expects it to last until 2030.

It is 2026 and Sony has finished steaming Jim Ryan's ghost out of the office sofa cushions once and for all. Per a report from Bloomberg, the PlayStation company is pulling all the way back on its strategy of releasing its exclusive games on PC, a U-turn on a welcome policy introduced during the Ryan era and to which I have grown quite accustomed over the last six years.

Bloomberg's enticingly anonymous Sony sources—remaining nameless for lack of authorisation to actually blab about this stuff—say the first PS-exclusive we can kiss goodbye to is Ghost of Yotei, Sucker Punch's 2025 follow-up to Ghost of Tsushima that did rather well with critics when it released last year. Likewise, Housemarque's upcoming third-person bullet-hell Saros is also tipped to stay console-bound.

It sounds like Sony's live-service fare will continue coming to PC, if you're into that. Marathon, obviously, is very much still coming to Steam, as are the fighting game Marvel Tokon and the impressively ill-named Horizon Hunters Gathering.

But those lavishly-produced singleplayer feasts Sony has prepared for us—after a waiting period of one to two years—since 2020's PC release of Horizon Zero Dawn? It sounds like those are going away. Though at least we are still getting Kena: Scars of Kosmora and Death Stranding 2. Just slipping in under the wire there, Kojima. Age hasn't slowed you down one bit.

The good news, if you're down in the dumps about this, is that Bloomberg's sources did note that this videogame business is a wild and woolly thing, and there's every possibility this reversal will itself be reversed at some point in the future.

I've reached out to Sony for comment on this scuttlebutt, and will update this piece if I hear back.

This news does not come out of the blue. Videogame ink slinger Jason Schreier (who also authored this Bloomberg piece) and Digital Foundry's John Linneman were out and about dropping hints that Sony was reconsidering its PC strategy as recently as last week.

It seemed, and seems, an odd move. At least one ex-Sony head honcho has compared releasing on PC to "printing money," which led plenty of people to assume it would be the new normal in perpetuity. But like I said in that piece last week: Sony's recent PC releases haven't lit the world on fire, and if it feels the time and resources spent on porting to PC could be spent better elsewhere, or if it feels like releasing its games more widely undermines its console business, that could easily justify a move like this.

Indeed, Schreier references at least one faction inside Sony that rankles at putting games on non-Sony platforms. It weakens the brand, apparently.

I've never fallen in love with any of Sony's erstwhile PS-exclusives, but I'd still be sad to see them go. More games on my platform of choice—an open and free (as in freedom) platform of choice, at that—is a good thing.

But mostly, I just hope that Sony's PC porting maestros at Nixxes come out of all this alright.

It might finally be time to accept that a Bloodborne remake isn't happening, at least not anytime soon. According to a report from Bloomberg, the project almost happened, but FromSoftware are the ones that ultimately turned it down.

A Bloodborne remake has been demanded by fans for so long that Sony's remaster studio, Bluepoint, figured it was inevitable that it would be given the job, especially after its very successful Demon's Souls remake in 2020. But Sony tasked the studio with making a live service God of War game instead.

When Sony abruptly ditched its live service initiative in early 2025 and cancelled Bluepoint's God of War game, Bluepoint was left to search for other projects. It approached Sony again to pitch its idea for a Bloodborne remake, and Sony was receptive: The only reason it didn't happen, according to the report, was because FromSoft didn't want it to happen.

Bloomberg doesn't have the details on why FromSoft turned it down, but points to a comment by former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida in an interview with Kinda Funny about FromSoft president Hidetaka Miyazaki wanting it to happen, but not wanting "anyone else to touch it." Miyazaki has previously said he's not "opposed" to a PC port of Bloodborne, and acknowledged that other FromSoft developers want to make one, but if Miyazaki is insistent on doing it himself, Yoshida believes Sony would respect his wishes even though it owns the rights to the game.

Bluepoint was still looking for something to work on when Sony announced last week that it would be shutting the studio down, laying off what will be reportedly about 70 people.

Yoshida is also the person who has spoken about a dispute between Sony and FromSoft around the release of Demon's Souls on a podcast last year. Sony, owning the rights to the Dark Souls progenitor, wanted to work with FromSoft on a sequel, but the studio was "so disappointed" with how it was treated it chose Bandai Namco as a publisher instead.

Sony and FromSoft's partnership for Bloodborne might've been a sign of some kind of resolution between the two, or merely a compromise, if it's true that Miyazaki doesn't trust it enough to handle a remake. Miyazaki told Game Informer earlier this year that "Bloodborne is a special game for me," and that it's "perhaps the strongest reflection of my type of flavoring of a game that one can experience."

It sounds like it's going to be up to Miyazaki and Miyazaki alone for whether or not we ever get a remake of one of the greatest action RPGs of all time. I have my issues with Bluepoint's Demon's Souls remake when it comes to the modernized aesthetic compared to the original game, but I would've happily taken a Bloodborne remake of any kind from a studio with such a strong track record.

Videogame oracle Jason Schreier has issued a dire portent: Sony might be gearing up to reverse its push onto PC of the past six years. In the latest episode of the Triple Click podcast, Schreier said that "the sense I'm getting is that [Sony is] backing away from putting their exclusive console stuff—like, traditional singleplayer stuff—on PC."

Schreier—whose games industry newshound credentials are hard to argue with—later followed up his podcast comments with a post on Resetera: "It's not speculation, but sometimes topics come up on the show before I'm quite ready to publish a story about them." As an added bonus, Digital Foundry's John Linneman made similar comments on one of that outlet's shows, remarking that "I actually have an inkling that [Sony is] pulling away from PC. Watch this space."

Schreier suggested his understanding is that Sony's "strategy is live-service games are coming to PC," but that we can, perhaps, kiss goodbye to the days when pretty much every Sony first-party console exclusive was all but guaranteed to make its way to our platform of choice. "We're seeing Wolverine coming in September—they just announced it's coming September 15. That's not gonna be on PC. That's gonna be on PlayStation 5 only."

One shouldn't be alarmist about this. Until Schreier's full report hits, all we have to go on concerning any pullback from PC by Sony is a few comments on podcasts. Nevertheless, Schreier and Linneman are reputable, and I'm willing to say there's no smoke without fire. With the next Xbox sounding distinctly PC-like (though, with recent leadership changes at Microsoft's gaming arms, it's anyone's guess as to what the future there looks like now), it would make a degree of sense for Sony to shy away from its hitherto reliable strategy of putting everything on PC eventually. It likely isn't keen on the notion of PlayStation games appearing on an Xbox, even if that Xbox is nothing like the consoles of yore.

Then again, a year ago ex-PlayStation Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida chuckled that putting PlayStation games on PC was "almost like printing money," which has led a few people to raise an eyebrow at the notion of Sony pulling back from PC. I'm not sure I buy that, though. Porting games to PC takes time and resources. If Sony thinks that time and those resources might be better put to use on an alternative strategy—or if it's gotten the notion that committing to PC unavoidably weakens its core console business—I could quite easily see it making a U-turn.

Regardless, I have to admit that I'm not all that broken up by the notion of Sony's first-party singleplayer stuff swerving PC. I've played a fair number of them now, and only ever come away thinking I'd had a nice but unmemorable time.

The original God Of War trilogy released exclusively on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 consoles and sold millions, cementing Kratos as a bad ass Sony mascot of sorts. But it was still surprising to learn today that the original "Greek saga" is getting the remake (not the remaster) treatment by Sony Santa Monica.

We learned as much from original Kratos voice actor TC Carson during today's PlayStation State of Play showcase. The project is in its early stages at the moment, so no gameplay was shown nor even a cinematic trailer, but it's definitely a thing that exists.

Will it come to PC? Not all Sony exclusives are on PC—Bloodborne being the most conspicuous absence at the moment—but the most recent God Of War games have come to Steam, and it's hard to imagine a world where these ones don't too. Sony has, after all, made over two billion dollars by letting us play their games on the most holy of platforms.

Here's TC Carson's appearance:

It's unclear whether the trilogy will be released piecemeal or as a collection: my gut tells me the former.

As part of the presentation Sony also revealed God of War: Sons of Sparta, a new sidescrolling spin-off that released on PS5 today. "Sons of Sparta is a tale of duty, honor, and brotherhood featuring TC Carson who reprises his role the first time in over a decade as the adult version of Kratos," Sony's description reads. That's not on PC yet, but I doubt it won't release sooner or later.

At Sony's latest State of Play showcase, we got a first look at the second John Wick videogame, currently billed as "Untitled John Wick Game." The adaptation is in development at Saber Interactive (Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2).

The trailer mainly shows our titular sadboy assassin getting fitted for one of his bulletproof suits, broken up with cuts to some painstakingly screen-accurate John Wickian jiu jitsu takedowns. Most of it's in Cutscene Mode, but the final 20 seconds or so are fully in-engine, with a helpful "Captured on PS5" notice below.

Perhaps most exciting, Keanu Reeves himself is reprising his role as John Wick. In addition to likeness and voice, all of his takedowns have that signature labored weightiness of the films' fight choreography—It'd be exciting if they got Reeves in for full performance capture of that nature, while series creator (and Reeves' stunt double on The Matrix) Chad Stahelski is also billed as being deeply involved.

The trailer's YouTube description offers some hint of what we can expect in the final game. "Saber’s design will be faithful to the unique style and signature elements of the series," it promises. "Including a distinct gun fu combat system, jaw-dropping camerawork, immersive driving experiences, and a variety of memorable environments."

So not a turn-based strategy game, then. RIP John Wick Hex, you walked so Untitled John Wick Game could run. I do like the sound of "gun fu combat system," though. Untitled John Wick Game does not yet have a release window or a page on any PC storefront.

I spent my childhood as a Sega fanboy. Even though I loved Nintendo games I was fiercely loyal to my chosen console, in that daft way that kids are. I'd argue at school with mates about who would win in a fight between Mario and Sonic (Sonic would absolutely destroy him), extol the virtues of Streets of Rage 2, and insist that the Saturn would smash N64 and PlayStation (oops).

Fast-forward to my young adulthood and suddenly the Sega of old was no more, and watching games like Shenmue 2 release on Xbox felt oddly like betrayal. But that was nothing next to seeing Sonic appear on the Nintendo GameCube. What madness was this?

Luckily I'd already swapped one console war for another, having been an early adopter of Xbox. I fell in love with Halo and would go head-over-heels for Halo 2, and lived for years with a magazine poster for Halo 3 behind my television with that magical promise: "Finish the fight." I did do other things, I promise, but I spent an awful lot of time with the Master Chief, and Xbox and Halo became synonymous in my mind with peak console gaming.

Halo has fallen a long way since those heady times. Microsoft has never really been able to replace Bungie, and of course in one of those crazy twists the onetime Halo studio is now owned outright by Sony and PlayStation, and gearing up for the release of Marathon. The last entry in the series was 2021's underwhelming Halo Infinite, and the next is going back to the source: Halo: Campaign Evolved, a complete remake of the original.

These days I game almost entirely on PC, have long left console wars and platform loyalties behind, and watch from a distance as the traditional console makers struggle to find their place in the contemporary ecosystem. Nintendo remains unique, while Microsoft and Sony arguably dilute their once-dominant brands in pursuit of a much wider audience. So it's weird that, reading about the new Halo coming to PlayStation, I get that sense of resentment once more.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is going to launch on Xbox, PC and PlayStation 5. Two leads from Halo Studios (the re-branded 343 Industries) have given a new interview to PCG sister site GamesRadar+ explaining why the once-iconic Xbox mascot is now going to be on Sony's platform and, I'm not gonna lie, I'd rather Microsoft had just released it without saying anything at all.

"We hope to bring along the series veterans who have been with us for the past 25 years on the Xbox and PC platforms, and have them be able to play with this entirely new generation," says Damon Conn, executive producer on the game.

"Maybe [it's] people who have never been exposed to Halo, because they've always been on Sony product, or maybe they just missed it, or maybe they switched consoles at a certain point, and they want to kind of come back together."

There's some verbiage about how "the original is a masterpiece" and so on, before we get to the quote that really made my jaw drop.

"We're able to honor the Halo legacy on PlayStation," says Conn. "It's just paving the way to expand our Halo universe, that's how we see it."

Man. You know, I didn't think I really cared about Master Chief anymore, but something about that quote shows me I do. I think I'd long given up on Halo returning to the glory days, we just live in a different time, but some part of my love for the series clearly lingers on. Maybe that is silly nostalgia, but the idea that the Chief can "honor the Halo legacy on PlayStation" just feels like a twist of the knife. RIP Chief, RIP Xbox, and RIP to the good old console wars. It was fun while it lasted.

Before joining the PC Gamer team, I spent many years as a console gamer—shocking, I know. Though I have a Steam backlog many would envy, I'm still hopping between my rig and perhaps far too many consoles. What's a gamer to do? Crack each of those bad boys open and form something like a console Megazord? Well, one Chinese modder has basically done just that.

Hong Kong-based tech creator 小宁子 XNZ has built a 3-in-1 console that swaps between a PS5, Xbox Series S, and a Switch 2 at the push of a button (via TechSpot). It's a project vaguely reminiscent of Origin PC's The Big O, a liquid-cooled desktop with either a PS4 Pro or an Xbox One S console tucked inside, back in 2020. The creator calls her 3-in-1 effort the 'Ningtendo PXBOX 5,' and it turns out this hunk of hardware was no easy thing to create.

Rather than simply strapping all of the hardware together (which the YouTuber demonstrates would be both unwieldy and weigh a hefty 10 kg), she stripped everything down to its electrical components and completely rethought the hardware's housing. Don't worry, no motherboards were folded 'like a book' or otherwise harmed during this project.

Noticing that individual PSUs and cooling components take up an awful lot of space, the tech creator's first decision for her project was figuring out which components the consoles could share. Taking inspiration from the 2013 Mac Pro's 'trash can' design, 小宁子 XNZ set to work on designing a triangular cooling array with an exhaust at the top to regulate the temperature of all three consoles at once.

Actually making such a bespoke bit of kit proved an adventure in itself, though. After 3D printing her preliminary design for the cooler, 小宁子 XNZ found that relying on an outsourced manufacturing service to CNC machine her work in aluminium would be both a lengthy and costly process—so she decided to do it herself.

Seeking the time and space to iterate on her design, the tech creator chose to use an aluminium casting method not unlike lost-wax casting. Realising that, like wax, the PLA filament often used in 3D printing also has a low-ish melting point, she encased her cooler design inside a cast of gypsum. This version of the cooler is 3D printed with an extra channel for the creator to pour in molten aluminium. After a kind of chunky first attempt, the creator tweaked the design of the cooler's fins and tried again.

With a more successful later attempt coming out like 'a lotus flower emerging from water,' 小宁子 XNZ polished the aluminium chassis before attaching copper blocks to it for even better thermal regulation. For a spot of testing in Elden Ring, she strapped just the PS5's electrical hardware and a 12 cm cooling fan to the copper-aluminium-combo cooler. The console is shown to not only switch on in this bare bones state, but also doesn't exceed 60 °C over 30 minutes of gameplay.

The final 3-in-1 console runs off a single 250 W PC power supply, and even incorporates a push-button mechanism that allows the Switch 2 console to be ejected like a slice of funky, chunky poptart from a toaster. The actual console switching mechanism is accessed via a triangular button on top of the 'Ningtendo PXBOX 5,' with an Arduino-based control board handling the HDMI output and ensuring only one console is powered on at a time.

While multiple consoles can be in standby mode, it sounds like game switching on the Xbox isn't really supported by this setup. However, 小宁子 XNZ's video also demonstrates that hopping between consoles takes less than five seconds.

Black walnut panelling and an LED light strip that glows either blue, red, or green depending on the active console are among the finishing touches. Looking not unlike a hefty white chocolate Toblerone, the resulting 3-in-1 console is undeniably still bulky—though 小宁子 XNZ says she 'thinks it looks better than the PS5.'

Though I do have a bit of a soft spot for Sony's funky white box, the Ningtendo PXBOX 5 remains an incredibly impressive project. While I'm not sure the whole thing saves that much space in the end, I am also writing this from a rig that has a lot of the same games and arguably takes up even more room…

Just a hair over two years ago, I wrote about a fan translation of a landmark Japanese PS2 game, Boku no Natsuyasumi 2, making a landmark "cozy" game playable in English for the very first time. We didn't call games cozy back in the early 2000s, but were it released today, the slice-of-life adventure game (translated as My Summer Vacation) about exploring a small seaside Japanese town would very much fit the description.

So it seems only fitting that the fan translators who did such a marvelous job with that game would wind up getting to do the same for another underappreciated cozy gem—only this time, with official backing.

1999's Milano's Odd Job Collection, out on Steam today, is the first 'legit' project from the fan translators at Hilltop Works, who teamed up with publisher XSeed and emulation-porting house Implicit Conversions to release the game in English for the first time. I think the background of how Milano ended up finally being released in English is maybe even more interesting than the game itself, given how rare it is for fan translations to get the official seal of approval.

While this isn't quite the same as a completed fan translation getting licensed and released, which happened a few years ago with two RPGs in the Legend of Heroes series, it still feels like a sign that some of the stigma has disappeared from fan translation patches—that Japanese developers or publishers are more open to working with the folks most passionate about seeing their games be re-released.

"Among the countless pieces of content available today, the fact that Milano was found and brought back is incredibly fortunate," designer Ryuichi Nishizawa said in a recent interview. "As a creator, it’s a wonderful experience to see a small project from decades ago reach new players around the world."

Until now, the only way to legally play Milano's Odd Job was to buy a very expensive copy on the secondhand market. And it wasn't available in English at all.

As wholesome games go, Milano's is a bit different from the more life sim-leaning My Summer Vacations and Animal Crossings that would become a hit in Japan in the early 2000s and in the west much later. It's more of a minigame collection, where you spend a young girl's summer vacation doing all sorts of part-time jobs like scrubbing dishes and dodging cars on the scooter ride to work. The cozy payoff, of course, is getting to decorate the house.

"I am always humbled by the passion fans have for games. Sometimes fans directly tell me, 'This title seems influenced by your work,' and such messages are truly inspiring," Nishizawa told our colleagues at GamesRadar+ in another interview. "It's always surprising and delightful to realize, 'Wow, there are fans in that country too.' I believe that these fan-driven activities influence creators across borders, because they teach us things like 'They don't enjoy this part as much, or 'Wait, this detail is what they find interesting?'—discoveries that help us grow."

At the time it was released in Japan, Milano's Odd Job Collection was likely considered too Japanese, or too unorthodox, to be worth an English translation; the same was the case for Boku no Natsuyasumi. But a lot's changed in 25 years, and as he told GamesRadar+, Nishizawa now sees that as a strength.

"The biggest change over my 40-year career is the dramatic growth in the gaming population. Japanese culture as a whole has become admired worldwide, even beyond gaming," he said. "This game was created without any consideration for the global market, and I believe that is why it turned out to be so distinctly Japanese. ... Today's creators must think globally, but that is exactly why we must first understand what makes games 'Japanese,' and create based on that strength."

Guerrilla Games and NCSoft have announced Horizon: Steel Frontiers, an MMO take on the PlayStation open world series about taking down huge robo-dinosaurs in a lush post-apocalypse. Similar to the mainline games, the objective is to take down the machines, but this time you'll do so as a fully customizable "machine hunter" in an open world inspired by Arizona and New Mexico.

Curiously, Steel Frontiers is confirmed for PC, Android, and iOS but not PS5, though as Guerilla Games' Jan-Bart van Beek mentions in the video embedded above, it has been "built specifically for mobile". It's also well worth noting that this NCSoft-developed project is distinct from Horizon Online Project, which is an online spin-off Guerilla Games itself is making.

Based on the footage, Steel Frontiers looks pretty good for a mobile game, though that depends on whether you think the Horizon series in general looks good. There are few obvious compromises made when it comes to the equally lush and decrepit open world, and the mechanical beasties look as ornate as usual.

Some loose things I can glean from the video footage: there are mounts, both flyable and grounded. You can leap from your mount onto a Tallneck and commence climbing them with an advantage. Combat is just as much about hitting weak spots as it always has been, and traps are back too. It's possible to have a grappling hook, and to use it to grapple onto flying beasties.

Van Beek said Steel Frontiers is set in a place called the Deathlands, and that players will be "sharing the frontier with thousands of other players, sometimes working together to take down machines, sometimes competing with rival tribes, or fighting over resources."

Executive producer Sung-Gu Lee doesn't mince words when it comes to what the big idea behind Steel Frontiers is: "The core concept of Horizon Steel Frontiers can be summed up in one phrase: the thrill of taking down colossal machines," he said.

He also listed some of the ways combat will deviate from the original games. "Our main focus is designing a new combat experience tailored for MMORPGs," he said. Examples given include, "after destroying a specific part of a machine, you can quickly approach and climb onto it using a Pullcaster, set traps on the damaged part, and inflict status effects. During battle, you can even pick up weapons dropped by the machine, carry them to your mount and use them in subsequent fights."

Korea-based NCSoft is best known for Guild Wars 2 and the Lineage series. It has most recently released Throne and Liberty, and the brawler Battle Crush, which was shut down five months after its release in June 2024. Horizon is a bigger series than you might realise: big enough for it to have sold 38 million copies worldwide, and big enough to have warranted a "slavish clone" courtesy of Tencent (Sony is suing).

No word yet on when Horizon: Steel Frontiers will release, nor whether it'll be a paid affair or free-to-play.

Sony has announced a new "PlayStation" branded gaming monitor, due out in 2026. It's a 27-inch model running at 1440p and features a swing-down charging hook for DualSense Playstation controllers.

Specs wise, the information Sony has released places the new panel towards the lower end of the mid-tier in a PC gaming monitor context with an IPS panel and 240 Hz refresh rate. Though the 240 Hz is only available when hooked up to a PC. It'll run at 120 Hz connected to PlayStation consoles.

Aside from the resolution, refresh rate and panel type, the rest of the speeds and feeds are unclear. Sony doesn't quote response times or brightness. Even the quoted HDR capability is awfully vague.

"High Dynamic Range support with Auto HDR Tone Mapping that automatically adjusts HDR settings during setup on PS5 and PS5 Pro consoles, ensuring rich and vivid picture quality," is what Sony says, which could mean almost anything from very basic HDR signal support right through to full-array local dimming.

That said, you might have expected Sony to make a big deal about any fancy backlight tech on offer. So, we're probably talking about the most basic entry-level HDR support for this monitor.

With all that in mind, this doesn't seem like a hugely compelling proposition for PC gaming, even though Sony does call out both PC and Mac compatibility and the monitor includes a DisplayPort input, which is obviously irrelevant for PlayStation console use.

It's not that this is obviously a bad display. More that it seems unlikely this will be a value-oriented proposition in a PC gaming context. Sony hasn't priced it up, but you're bound to be paying a little extra for that charging dock and the broader PlayStation-ness of the thing.

All that said, it might still make sense as a display to share between a PlayStation and a PC, depending exactly where it lands on price. But with 240 Hz 1440p panels now available for a whisker over $200 on our best gaming monitors deals page, this new Sony offering will have to be sharply priced to get our attention. Sony says the new monitor will be released in 2026 with "more information on launch date and availability in the coming months."

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Ex-Sony Interactive Entertainment head honcho Shuhei Yoshida thinks that bigger companies should do more to invest in "smaller, experimental projects" because at the end of the day, nobody really knows what kind of games are going to pop off with the masses.

Yoshida sat down with games press including MiniMap ahead of Korea's G-Star conference chatting about Stellar Blade's influence, console gaming, and the Korean indie game scene. When asked about how large studios can stay creative, Yoshida said he reckons it's more about them using their money to support smaller developers through publishing.

He highlighted the fact that both Nexon and Mintrocket have maintained that the former was very hands-off in the latter's development of Dave the Diver—which faced a ton of 'is this an indie game?' discourse around the time of the 2023 Game Awards—saying "I completely agree with the philosophy that creative freedom should remain untouched."

"No one truly knows what kind of game will succeed," Yoshida pointed out. "Not even marketing teams can predict it because they rely on past data and new ideas are, by definition, unprecedented."

I really do feel like that notion has been encapsulated more and more in the last few years. We've seen games like Dave the Diver become hits alongside other pleasant surprises like Balatro, Schedule I, Palworld, Lethal Company, and Peak. Stuff that might not have necessarily stolen the hearts of shareholders and big wigs, but managed to do incredibly well regardless.

"That is why I believe big companies should invest in smaller, experimental projects while also supporting them through publishing," Yoshida continues. "For indie creators, working under a supportive larger entity can be beneficial. Ultimately, creativity thrives in environments built on trust and collaboration. If large companies like Nexon can nurture that freedom rather than restrict it, that is the ideal model."

I mean, is it a slightly romanticised view on the whole thing, especially now Yoshida is chilling in retirement? Sure, it would be lovely if in an ideal world, publishers threw loads of money at tiny studios to make their thing with zero creative interference and then that thing would be a huge success and everyone wins. The reality is often a little more complicated of course, but it's still a stance I hope more bigger studios take on board in the future. More Balatros, more Vampire Survivors, more Valheims for all.

Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida reckons that increasing confidence among Korean game developers is at least partly in thanks to Stellar Blade.

Shift Up's soulslite did pretty well for itself when it hit consoles last year, with a further boost when the game made its way over to PC in early 2025. I had a good amount of fun with Stellar Blade myself—even if I found it a little uninspired in the face of similar concepts. But when it comes to Korean developers breaking out beyond niche MMOs and mobile games, I can't deny that Stellar Blade is one of the forerunners in broadening the region's reach.

It's something that Yoshida agrees with, and even reckons that the game's success has bolstered spirits among Korean game developers, particularly when it comes to developing console games.

As spotted by GamesRadar (via MiniMap), the ex-PlayStation boss sat down with press ahead of game development conference G-Star to chat about the Korean indie scene, the role larger corporations play in helping them to thrive, and other console-y related bits.

When asked about how the collaboration with Stellar Blade came about, Yoshida said: "I visited Shift Up between 2019 and 2020 after hearing that an outstanding console game was being developed in Korea. The creator also happened to be a fan of mine, so I decided to visit the studio. At the time, Shift Up was mainly known for Destiny Child so I was curious about what kind of game they were working on."

Yoshida said he was surprised to find that Stellar Blade had "exceptional quality across the board: 3D modelling, realism, graphics, and action," saying it felt "stylish, polished, and genuinely fun."

Apparently after being pretty impressed with "the way the team designed characters" by taking real-life body models and using them to create Eve, he went back and told his team "this is a truly remarkable game."

That was the catalyst to Sony throwing its money and manpower behind Stellar Blade, with Yoshida saying "I believe Stellar Blade represents more than just one successful title. If the game succeeds, it could inspire many other Korean developers to pursue their ambitions. Even today's conference and the growing confidence among Korean creators, in my view, owe something to Stellar Blade's influence."

I do think that perhaps Yoshida's years-long investment in the game has influenced his strong feelings towards Stellar Blade, but it certainly has been interesting to see an uptick in Korean-developed games breaking into more mainstream parts of our hobby. Neowiz's Lies of P saw tidy success back in 2023 and Mintrocket's Dave the Diver had half of the PC Gamer team in a chokehold that same year.

Even Sims competitor Inzoi garnered huge attention in the run-up to its release, though it didn't quite dazzle folks when it launched in early access earlier this year. I reckon we'll only be seeing more Korean-developed games breaking new ground over the next few years and entering more mainstream spaces—though whether they'll be kissing Stellar Blade's feet as they do, I'm not so sure.

Part of the appeal of gaming on PC is the sheer breadth of the platform. That hasn't stopped some pesky console exclusives slipping through the net over the years, but these days most are coming across. Most of the best PlayStation games to play on PC come directly from Sony themselves. You only need to scroll through our review section to find deep dives into PS5's biggest hitters that have landed not long after their initial PS5 releases.

I've been a PC player for a long time, as well as working across two console mags: Official PlayStation Magazine and PLAY Magazine. I first played the iconic PS1 titles Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy 7, and even PS2's Silent Hill 2 on PC. Now, the most exciting new game releases on PS5 don't take long to come to PC. It's a thrill to not only play fab indie gems on the Steam Deck, but take PS5 games on the go that would otherwise be bound to a big screen at home. I've even reviewed some of the best PlayStation games to play on PC for PC Gamer myself! So join me as I rank them below, and take a look at what you might expect to see in the future.

The 10 best PlayStation games to play on PC

10. Sackboy: A Big Adventure

Released on PC: October 27, 2022
Steam reviews: 83%, Very Positive

Historically, the mascot platformer has been the domain of the home console. While the tides have changed, with many of the best platforming games these days being radical indies that lead the way on PC–there's still a thrill to getting a taste of formerly PS5 exclusive jumping action on your gaming rig. This cosy adventure offers a slew of tightly designed stages full of blissful bubble bursting as you hoover up collectibles, and stuffed 'til the stitches strain with snappy levels and interesting gimmicks. Playable in co-op, this already gorgeous and colorful platformer is even gorgeous-er with PC enhancements like VRR and DLSS.

9. Returnal

Released on PC: February 15, 2023
Steam reviews: 81%, Very Positive

With a background in arcade-style games like Outland and Nex Machina, Housemarque was never a developer confined to PlayStation, so it's great that with Returnal they've made their return to PC. And what a comeback. Combining their twitchy shooter chops with the kind of blockbuster presentation we expect from PlayStation Studios, Selene's mission to survive the clutches of a grisly alien planet is magnificent. A roguelike loop ties together a nightmarish story of endless reincarnation, all while giving you plenty of reasons to play with an arsenal of larger-than-several-lives sci-fi weapons. Able to dash and strafe through randomly generated rooms across a series of bleak but gorgeous environments, the action never truly stops–the only one giving up is you.

8. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered

Released on PC: October 31, 2024
Steam reviews: 83%, Very Positive

PC players have really come out on top with Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. Not all lavish PS4 redos have been winners (looking at you, Until Dawn), but this overhaul is stunning—taking Guerilla Games' debut adventure with heroine Aloy and bringing it up to technical par with the almost unbelievably good looking Horizon Forbidden West. This one wins out, as Aloy's quest to prove herself and unravel the mystery behind a post-apocalyptic landscape filled with machine creatures is a more compelling story than the followup. Even beyond the narrative, though, exploring the open world and using low-tech weapons like bows to tackle huge whirring mechanical dinosaurs never stops being a thrill.

7. Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade

Released on PC: June 17, 2022
Steam reviews: 87%, Very Positive

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade isn't, actually, a remake of the older Final Fantasy 7 (confusing, I know), but a pseudo-sequel that greatly expands the original story. Set entirely in the industrial city of Midgar, FF7R allows you to get properly immersed in the grime of the city and the lives of mercenary Cloud and his allies as they fight planet-shattering capitalism. Somehow, remaking just this slice manages to find its own satisfying story arc as it paves the way towards its sequel, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. The combat is the real star of the show though, slickly combining real-time hack and slash with cooldown commands that slow time to a crawl. This is supercharged with the additional Intergrade chapter that focuses on ninja Yuffie, whose solo battle mechanics feel like a single party all in one.

6. Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Released on PC: November 18, 2022
Steam reviews: 93%, Very Positive

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a midway point between Insomniac's original game and its sequel, following the Into the Spiderverse lead character as he covers for Peter Parker while he takes a long-needed holiday. This Christmas time in New York adventure benefits massively from the reduced scope and personal stakes as we become immersed in Miles' life–invested in how small issues begin to mount into citywide danger. With electricity and stealth powers in addition to the standard Spider-Man moves, Miles naturally has an extra layer of depth compared to the first game, and the faster paced story means he's put into situations where you really have to make the most of them. So tight is this, the story and action both feel like genuine competitors to the better Marvel Cinematic Universe flicks–something I can't quite say for the other two games.

5. Persona 5 Royal

Released on PC: October 21, 2022
Steam reviews: 96%, Overwhelmingly Positive

Persona 5 Royal on PC is the best version of one of the best RPGs ever made–and it's as simple as that. While this year's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 reminded many of the charms of turn-based combat, Persona 5 had been putting in the work long before, with incredibly stylish battle menus and fluid animations making every mid-dungeon scrap not only feel snappy, but cool. Centering on a group of high school students who end up with the power to steal the "hearts" of corrupt adults, forcing them to confess and make good on their misdeeds, this adventure is at its best giving voice to the voiceless. Easily 100 hours long (especially with all the extra content compared to the base game), once you're on the other side of this RPG, it'll be all you can talk about—like you've made a whole new friend group and binged several anime seasons at once.

4. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Released on PC: July 26, 2023
Steam reviews: 89%, Very Positive

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was one of the PS5's first exclusives, owing to the technology that powered it. Because of its rift-hopping mechanic, it simply had to have an SSD. Obviously, that’s not exactly an uncommon feature in a modern PC build, which is why it's great to have it make the leap. Tearing it up in a fresh dimension with a new arsenal of over-the-top comical weaponry, this acts as a great jumping on point for those less familiar with the series’ silly sci-fi antics, all while introducing the just as lovable mirror universe duo Rivet and Kit. Effortlessly charming, blasting strange aliens to bits is satisfying, and re-tooled platforming supercharges previously cumbersome classic action into something quite elegant. The rifts themselves prove a worthy gimmick too–interdimensionally outflanking enemies really can change the pace of firefights.

3. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection

Released on PC: October 19, 2022
Steam reviews: 89%, Very Positive

I'm counting this as one entry instead of two, though the fact Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection includes enhanced versions of a pair of PS4's greatest action games is certainly to its merit. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End follows Nathan Drake years after hanging up his treasure hunting sack to tell a rollicking, globetrotting tale of learning when to let go. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, meanwhile, elevates supporting cast members to full-time stars, with Chloe and Nadine joining forces to track down a lost Indian relic. Both games are extremely pretty as you run and gun through some marvelously lush locations that to this day still make me take a knee and simply nod to myself. A new grappling hook is genuinely revolutionary, with the extra mobility allowing Nate and friends to constantly reevaluate their approaches to firefights, while improved stealth means some encounters can be bypassed altogether.

2. God of War Ragnarok

Released on PC: September 19, 2024
Steam reviews: 88%, Very Positive

God of War Ragnarok is a superb sequel that feels right at home on PC. While its predecessor, simply named God of War, was a massive shift for the series, this followup superbly iterates on those solid foundations. But, almost like the classic style of map pack releases, it feels like it's given Sony Santa Monica's designers the opportunity to go hog wild with the tools they're already familiar with, refining and refining some more—these are master crafters at work. It also means that when new elements are bolted on they can complement what we know rather than reinvent, from Atreus' coming of age journey apart from his muscled pa, to an excellent new spear weapon that forces you to rethink weapon cycling. Plus, a new roguelike mode acts as both an epilogue, and a fresh bridge between Kratos' previous adventures through Greece and his new Nordic home.

1. The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered

Released on PC: April 3, 2025
Steam reviews: 90%, Very Positive

The Last of Us Part 2's storytelling may be divisive for some (even leading to a recently added option to play it chronologically), but this revenge quest that centers Ellie while sidelining Joel provides a fresh perspective that feels like a real shot in the arm for this zombie post-apocalypse. Everyone in this world seems out to make the wrong decisions while repeating the mistakes of the past… or are they? Across many, many hours you'll grapple with that question. It'd almost be too much if it wasn't for essentially every second playing this adventure being both one of the best looking games you've seen in your life, and the best to control. Combat encounters are stomach-churningly hyper expressive, and dynamic stealth feels extremely slick—no other game captures the feeling of extreme sneaky violence as you worm snake-like through slithers of cover. A rather excellent new roguelike mode in this release means you can keep challenging yourself—not just repeating the violence of the past for yourself, but actively revelling in it.

PlayStation games yet to come to PC

Not every PS5 exclusive comes to PC, but they are coming thick and fast. There's some noticeable omissions that feel curious as of right now, though. Gran Turismo 7 would feel right at home alongside the best racing games on PC, and Demon's Souls' recent remake or PS4's Bloodborne would satiate the huge contingent of FromSoftware fans that play on gaming rigs. Meanwhile, some games like Marathon will be coming out day-and-date with PS5. It can be hard to keep track of it all. Below, I've collected together a quick rundown of the true PlayStation exclusives that I'd expect to be coming to PC at some point—even if they've not even been announced yet. How do I do it? Through a rigorous testing process called: looking at what happened before. Join me.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Released on PS5: June 26, 2025

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach improves on its walking sim predecessor in just about every way. New gadgets make hiking or driving across the fresh Australian setting more engaging, freak weather makes the biomes more immediately diverse and challenging to traverse (from timequakes to wild fires), while new ghoulish BT enemies join creepy puppet robots that make stealth more of a must. Plus, the expanded supporting cast are great, especially your stop-motion style companion Dollman. The original game made its way to PC as a 'Director's Cut', so I'd expect something similar here.

Ghost of Yotei

Released on PS5: October 2, 2025

Ghost of Yotei seems like a surefire bet as the first game, Ghost of Tsushima, is already on PC. This sequel, set hundreds of years after the first, centers on Atsu, a new masterless samurai on a revenge quest of her own to take down the Yotei Six. The open world is gorgeous, and you've an amount of freedom in how you tackle your targets, with constant points of interest rewarding curiosity via small side stories and bits of gear to pick up. When it comes out, make sure to turn on the Miike and Watanabe modes for a hearty helping of blood splatter alongside a lo-fi soundtrack—which almost feels like a PC mod right out of the box.

Saros

Releases on PS5: March 20, 2026

This spiritual followup to Returnal from Housemareque follows a similar structure, with soldier Arjun Devraj investigating an off-world colony in a familiar roguelike style. Folding in more persistent progression mechanics, it seems that getting through this game may be friendlier, and it may have a stronger narrative thread to make the most of that. Ikaruga fans should be happy, as this essentially takes the same mechanics that allows Arjun to use a shield to absorb some gunfire instead of dodging it, which will make the pace of play a big departure from Returnal.

Marvel's Wolverine

Releases on PS5: 2026

Marvel's Wolverine, like the Spider-Man titles, comes from Insomniac Games—and is the latest in a long-term partnership between the comic publisher and PlayStation. It makes the console a great home for lovers of their roster of superheroes, but given they've released excellent PC ports of the webhead's adventures, the same should be true for ol' mutton-chops. Much more violent, this makes full use of Wolverine's razor-sharp adamantium claws to show intense, blood-soaked slashing (and a healing factor means he can brush off most damage to boot). Wider X-Men lore will factor in, including appearances from Mystique, and even the mutant hunting sentinel giant mechs.

Sony appears to be exploring potential cross-buy games between PC and PS5, according to recent leaks from the PlayStation store.

The leak first appeared on X, where user Amethxst posted an image purportedly showing new, hidden symbols that have been added to the PlayStation store. One icon reads "Cross-Buy", while the second reads PS5/PC. "New Symbols will be added soon (website & tool), but here [are] some nice new features from PlayStation", Amethxst wrote. "A kind of 'echo mode' 'PS5/PC games' and 'Cross-Buy'."

While this initial post was difficult to verify, later, Amethxst followed this up with a video, in which they locate the symbols within the PS5's user menu, and it is much more convincing.

Elsewhere, a French website Dealabs (via Gamespot) provided further evidence of the symbols' authenticity, discovering the words "crossbuy-tag" within some CSS files on the PlayStation Store. Since the term "Cross-Buy" has been used by Sony since the PS-Vita days, Dealabs also checked when the new symbols were added to the store, and discovered they first appeared in June this year.

Sony has yet to confirm the authenticity of these symbols. But PC/PS5 cross-buy would certainly fall in line with Sony's increasingly PC friendly attitude. Sony has been releasing its first-party exclusive games onto PC for years, while last year brought us the first concurrent PC/PS5 launch in Helldivers 2.

Earlier this year, former head of PlayStation Studios Shuhei Yoshida explained that releasing its exclusives on PC is "almost like printing money". If that's the case, then Cross-Buy would seem to stop the presses somewhat, as it means Sony would lose that second bite of the apple.

However, Yoshida also pointed out that Sony believes when players are exposed to a new PlayStation game via PC, "those people may become fans of a particular franchise, and when a new game in that series comes out, they may be convinced to purchase a PlayStation." By this line of thinking, cross-buy would make it easier to expose those players to the PlayStation ecosystem, possibly encouraging PC-only players to pick up a PS5.

Then again, it might have the opposite effect. Microsoft already facilitates Cross-Buy for most of its Xbox games, allowing them to be played on Xbox, PC, as well as its new handheld PC, the ROG Ally X. But as James Bentley recently pointed out, between this and putting its games on PS5, Xbox has made pretty much everything an Xbox, and consequently has lost much of its brand identity. The most recent reports indicate that Xbox sales are in decline, though Microsoft insists that it is still making a next-gen console.

Not that this matters much to PC gamers—having more games we can play on more systems is all gravy for us. Nonetheless, I can't help but wonder where Xbox and Sony's strategies ultimately lead, and what the shape of the gaming landscape will look like in five years' time.

Before I wrote about all things PC hardware, I enjoyed a sordid, console gaming past. My platform of choice? Sony's curvy white box, the PlayStation 5. Having spent enough time with the console to create an alarmingly accurate mould of the DualSense controller with nothing but my palm prints, I think I'm qualified in saying this: the PS5 is a bit chunky, innit?

YouTube maker channel Not From Concentrate apparently shares this sentiment, having shrunk the standard, bulky console into a comparatively svelte 6-litre chassis (via Videocardz).

While the base version of the PlayStation 5 is a comparatively chunkier 10.4 litres, the slim—with the detachable disc drive that looks kinda like a zit to me—is only about 7 and a half litres. So, yes, you do lose those eye-catchingly swoopey white wings but you do gain back a whole lot of space around your TV.

This isn't Not From Concentrate's first attempt at a tiny PS5 build, but this latest project features support for full size M.2 form factor SSDs, and enjoys a much bigger potential storage capacity for all of your games as a result. Not only that, but this itty bitty take runs even cooler and draws less power than a standard PS5 too.

During Not For Concentrate's own testing, they found the "stock PS5 consistently pulled 230-235 Watts and the temperature averaged 59 degrees Celsius." That is, in a few words, hungry and toasty. After a redesign, the now even smaller tiny PS5's power draw dropped below 220 watts, with its temperature averaging about 50 degrees celsius.

This tiny build's secret weapon is a bigger, 3D printed fan shroud with a "larger intake and deep channels around the fan" to improve air flow. It's so big it had to be printed in four parts and then glued together. Also keeping those temps down is the shroud's "neoprene gasket that presses against the cover panel to prevent recirculation of hot air," plus a whole load of Noctua fans.

For a small fee, you can have a go at building a 6-litre PS5 yourself too; for a little under 11 bucks (or only £8) Not From Concentrate is offering up a digital download that contains a full illustrated guide, plus .STL files for all of those bespoke 3D printed parts, and a hardware list for everything else.

As a recovering Sony acolyte, I'm definitely tempted to give this project a go myself. Its aluminium panels with a Cerakote plus finish are certainly snazzy, but also there's no getting away from the fact it's yet another black box. To be fair, a lot of the best mini PCs also look like that. Still, perhaps there's room for tinkering with the tiny PS5's design to make it even more head-turning. Swoopey white wings, anyone?

Razer has been on a tear. Not satisfied with being our top pick for the best high-end controller once, they've only gone and done it again with the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro 8K. But if you're not a fan of this pad's Xbox-style asymmetric sticks and button glyphs, Razer has another 'don't worry, I've got you' offering.

Enter the Raiju V3 Pro, another wireless controller pitched towards the Esports scene but instead featuring symmetrical TMR sticks and PlayStation stylings. All for $220, which is $20 more than the latest iteration of the Wolverine. Sorry, what?

The TMR sticks contribute in part to that steep premium. For those unaware, the Hall effect is one magnetic tech that effectively banishes stick drift, and TMR (or tunnelling magnetoresistance) is another.

The difference is that the way TMR leverages its electromagnetic sensors allows the controller's sticks to pick up really minute movements, making for a level of precision above even what the Hall effect can offer. Oh, and on the Raiju V3 Pro, you can swap in a long, long thumbstick topper for even more precise movement if that's your jam (though I'm not sure it's mine).

The pad's triggers and bumpers are also tuned in the name of Pro-level precision. The shoulder bumpers already serve mouse-click quickness, but the triggers can be toggled between a similarly responsive clicky mode or a more typical, fuller range of movement via corresponding flicky switches on the gamepad's underside. On top of that, you can dive into Razer's Synapse software and fine-tune the triggers' actuation point to suit you.

Alongside the typical PlayStation R1/L1 shoulder buttons and R2/L2 triggers, you also get the bonus M1/M2 clickers a little further in. These are the most pronounced of the Raiju V3 Pro's six remappable buttons.

As my first exposure to remappable back buttons was the DualSense Edge, I couldn't help but wrinkle my nose at the raised paddle shape of M buttons 3 through to 6 on first brush; on the Edge, I'm always misclicking the floating back paddles, and the alternate back button toppers that jut out even more aren't really much better in my uncoordinated grip.

However, the angle of the Raiju V3 Pro's buttons and their placement make way more sense for my grabby little hands. The shape of the M3 to M6 buttons reminds me a bit of helicopter seeds, flicking up at the outer edge end to better cradle your fingertips. It's possible to register a click at the inner part of these remappable buttons, but it's far more comfortable to click at the more raised end.

It's a small bit of smart design that felt like it genuinely reduced the number of times I misclicked one of the back buttons. Still, when clumsiness does inevitably get the better of me, it's good to know I can also disable the Raiju V3 Pro's back buttons not just via the Synapse software but also on a hardware level, too.

Yes, it's finally time to talk about what that itty bitty bespoke screwdriver in the box is all about. As a hardware writer, I already have more tiny tools than I know what to do with, but at least here you can slot Razer's screwdriver into a designated cubby within the included carry case. As to why you might want to take this tiny tool on the road with you, let me explain.

On top of the M3, M4, M5 and M6 back buttons is a wee silicone shield. Pry this up (which is easier said than done with short nails), and a teeny tiny screw will be exposed. Unscrew this with the included screwdriver, and you can replace the raised back buttons with one of the included 'blanking slates' to smooth out the underside of your controller, should you so wish. If you'd rather not remove the back buttons, you can alternatively just press 'disable' in the Synapse software—troublesome misclicks begone!

As you might expect, there's actually a lot more besides the back buttons you can noodle with in Synapse. Let's talk about the TMR thumbsticks again: via Synapse, you can really finely tune your sticks' dead zones, as well as toggle on a setting that prevents doubling up on dead zones introduced at a software level in-game.

You can also toggle a setting that either keeps your directional movements pronounced or smoothes them out. Last but certainly not least, you can also set up a DPI-reducing sensitivity clutch for more precise aiming, say, down the sights of a sniper rifle. All of this can then be calibrated across four different on-board profiles.

Make no mistake, the Razer Raiju V3 Pro is an impressively customisable controller. But I'm still fairly certain that even with this snazzy bit of kit in hand, any opposing Azucena player in Tekken 8 is still going to kick my arse.

My own skill issues aside, it's worth also mentioning that the Raiju V3 Pro offers an up to 2,000 Hz polling rate (which is only available on PC because the PS5's standard polling rate caps out at 250 Hz). I say 'up to' because, yes, you can fiddle with this in Synapse too; under 'wired polling rate,' you can choose between 250 Hz, 500 Hz, 1,000 Hz, and 2,000 Hz options.

Now, lest owners of the Razer Deathadder V3 Hyperspeed mouse with its 8,000 Hz polling rate think they'd be getting shortchanged by this controller, let me be clear: an 8,000 Hz polling rate is frankly ridiculous—and I say this as someone who uses the Razer Deathadder V3 Hyperspeed every day.

A 2,000 Hz polling rate on a controller, combined with everything else you can minutely customise in the name of precision on the Raiju V3 Pro, is more than enough. Those playing at a competitive level are unlikely to find a 2,000 Hz polling rate wanting, and those who just want to, say, mash devils in Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army, will be similarly satisfied.

But enough about what you can fiddle with—let's unplug this bad boy and actually talk about how it feels in the hands. Just for a start, I definitely like this more than the similarly priced DualSense Edge—though that's arguably a low bar to clear

The Razer Raiju V3 Pro is a surprisingly lightweight bit of kit, while also offering fairly robust build quality. I appreciate the included carry case, but I'm also not fretting that this controller will get chewed up in a bag without it.

I also appreciate the symmetrical TMR sticks and the PlayStation button glyphs. The floating D-Pad and face buttons are fairly clicky on the Raiju V3 Pro, though there's some tactile resistance to each of my button presses I'm not really loving. As with the shoulder bumpers and M buttons, it's more of a mouse click.

That's great for demanding play that requires lightning-fast reactions, but I don't think it's really my cup of tea. After all, I'm not lining up play of the game headshots on the regular, I'm just over here trying to fill out my devil chart in Raidou Remastered.

Personally, I prefer how the face buttons feel on the similarly priced wireless version of the Scuf Valor Pro and even the far, far cheaper GameSir Nova Lite. What can I say? I just like my face buttons to offer a little more THOK. Sure, there's no accounting for taste, but if you're also not a fan of mouse-style clicks on a controller, then the Raiju V3 Pro may not be for you.

On the subject of controller comparisons, the Valor Pro is a heavier bit of kit than the Razer Raiju V3 Pro, but I prefer the heftier, more ergonomic handles on the Scuf. Both controllers feature textured non-slip grips too, but in two different flavours: If you're after a subtle, totally unobtrusive texture under your palms and forefingers, the Raiju V3 Pro has got you covered; If you like a rugged, almost tractor tyre track vibe mostly localised to your palms, then you'll love the Valor Pro.

Scuf's Pro controller also comes with removable back buttons and blanking slates too, though the process of removing them requires more scrabbling around with just your nails—unfortunately, there's no bespoke screwdriver to be found there. Otherwise, the wireless Scuf Pro Valor is another sturdy controller pitched towards competitive play for $30 less than the Razer Raiju V3 Pro. Scuf also offers interchangeable faceplates and more colourways besides just black and white.

Mind you, if you're already in the market for a pricey pro controller and you're not fussed about the Raiju's specifically PlayStation layout, there's always the previously mentioned Razer Wolverine V3 Pro 8K PC. Featuring Xbox-style asymmetric sticks and face button glyphs, you're also getting a ridiculous 8,000Hz polling rate—but for $20 less than the Raiju V3 Pro.

As a filthy console convert myself, I do think it's a bit of a shame that a pro controller with PlayStation-stylings doesn't feature in our best PC controller guide—but the Razer Raiju V3 Pro isn't going to change that. I just keep coming back to that $220 price tag. As nice as it is that I can use this controller on both my PC and my PS5, most of my Steam games default to Xbox-style button glyphs within the UI.

Again, this probably speaks more to my far-from-toned muscle memory, but this disconnect between what I'm seeing in-game and what's on my controller adds more of a delay to punishing my opponents than I'd like. Alas, trounced by an Azucena player again.

I have played on Xbox for a long time, starting with an original Xbox, as a kid. That was a hand-me-down, and I distinctly remember begging my mum for an Xbox 360 (then subsequently a second 360 when the first one got hit with a distinct maroon circle). I have (fond?) memories of playing on an Xbox 360 without its case and with the window open to stop it from overheating, and jamming things into the disk tray or banging the top to open it so I can pop in the new Call of Duty game.

I even bought an Xbox Series X in 2020 against my better judgment, and it has been demoted to a device I use to access Xbox Game Pass every couple of months when something I really want hits the service.

This is all to say, despite good memories of the Xbox brand, things have been going slowly downhill for my appreciation of it, and for the first time ever, I plan on skipping whatever Microsoft puts out next.

In the latter half of 2024, Microsoft unveiled its 'This is an Xbox' marketing campaign. In it, we see an Xbox (naturally) running Xbox Game Pass, alongside a laptop, mobile phone, and even a Steam Deck. The declaration is clear here: 'the future is cloud streaming'. Naturally, marketing is at least half bluster, but the 11 months since have seen Microsoft thoroughly commit to this messaging.

In fact, many new game trailers don't just say the game is coming to Xbox, they say it is coming to 'Xbox Series X |S, Xbox PC, and Xbox Cloud'. The Cloud isn't just a way to play the game, but a marketing point in game trailers.

Microsoft's game plan seems to be getting Xbox on everything, rather than getting everyone on Xbox. Exclusives, in the traditional sense, don't really exist anymore for Microsoft. If you are a PC gamer, you miss practically nothing from the company's large roster of game studios, but this is even mostly true if you have a PlayStation 5.

The broader games industry at large is moving in this direction, with the majority of the PS5's exclusive catalogue being available to play on PC (perhaps after a short wait). So, in a sense, the point of consoles is not to compete with PC but with other consoles, which is what surprises me so much about Xbox's strategy. You can functionally own a PlayStation and a PC, and get some use out of both.

Choosing a single console between Sony and Microsoft, I find the Dualsense and its pretty whacky haptics to offer something genuinely quite different to the rest of the market. I also prefer Sony's UI, trophy system, and social functions. Plus, exclusives stay on it for an allotted time, so it's the only way to play a handful of pretty great games a year or so early. Both console generations have controllers weak to stick drift, which is a huge shame, as the 8BitDo Pro 3 hooked up to my PC wipes the floor with both of them when it comes to ease of use.

If you want to buy a console between the Xbox and PlayStation for the sake of getting a console experience, the PlayStation feels like the obvious winner between the two.

The existence of a company like Xbox is a good thing, though. It's something to challenge the oligarchy in the console gaming space. Fundamentally, Nintendo and Sony can function as separate entities without having to compete as much as the likes of Sony and Microsoft. That's because, for better and for worse, Nintendo feels like it operates in its own domain. Nintendo has many unique selling points that aren't matched elsewhere.

And Xbox Game Pass has been Xbox's crowning achievement over the last half a decade or so. Access to hundreds of games for $10-15 a month, and it comes with the added bonus of being able to stream some of them to your phone, complete with cloud saves to avoid losing any save data. But the recent price hike of Xbox Game Pass has finally pushed it above what I'm willing to pay.

The Ultimate tier I previously paid for jumped up by 50%, adding Fortnite Crew to the service too. Now, for $15 a month, you can opt for the Premium tier, which comes with half the games, as well as access to multiplayer. Importantly, Premium doesn't come with day one access to Xbox Games Studio games.

The PC only tier also got a price bump of 40%, so it's more expensive across the board to use Xbox Game Pass than before. $30 a month (or $360 a year) is quite a lot of money, and more than I've spent on individual games I've played on the service in the last year.

Xbox Game Pass still gets some great games: Grounded 2 launched on the service in July, Keeper just came out a few days ago, and The Outer Worlds 2 will release on it soon. If I were to buy all of those games at full price (which I wouldn't, as I don't have time to play them all right now), that would only eat through a third of the Game Pass subscription cost, and you can actually 'own' the games, too—as much as one ever can these days.

Grounded 2 costs the price of one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (the only way to play the game via XGP), and, assuming you want to play it for more than a month, you've already overspent on it. And, with limited time to play games, I need to plan out what I want to finish in advance. I longed for a service like Xbox Game Pass as a kid, which could deliver me a nearly endless supply of games, but I've become more selective about what I play now and don't think I'd get $360 worth of value out of my subscription this year.

But, Microsoft does do hardware, and part of the joy of a console is that experience. People aren't buying consoles purely for access to games, as there are plenty of ways to play games. They are doing so to get a relatively fuss-free gaming experience, at an affordable price point, without having to think about anything else. Though even affordability could be going out the window.

My PC is my gaming device, but also my access to social media and the wider web, plus it's something I write music and edit videos on, and generally exist alongside. When I turn on my PlayStation 5, 99% of the time it's because I intend on playing a game. That divide is one of my favourite elements of owning a console.

Xbox is reportedly still "actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices", but we have had two new bits of hardware with the Xbox logo launch this year alone.

Let's take the recent Asus ROG Xbox Ally X. For all intents and purposes, this isn't an Xbox. It's a Windows device with some clever OS wrappings (and it seems like an impressive one at that). You are playing PC versions of games, with the trials and tribulations that come with it. You aren't getting intuitive, specifically designed software and hardware handshakes for a device you are supposed to play from the comfort of your sofa. You are getting a mini PC with an Xbox logo on it. You are still getting the closest to an Xbox that a handheld gaming PC can feel right now, though.

Then, we also recently saw the launch of a Meta Quest 3S, complete with Xbox's iconic black and green theming, plus an Xbox controller. The intent of this collaboration seems to be to encourage buyers to use their Xbox Game Pass subscription with the headset.

I'm sure whatever is next will be the 'most powerful Xbox' yet and will likely have a slightly redesigned controller alongside it. If we're lucky, we may even get Hall effect or TMR sticks to deal with drift. But, a focus on collaborations and cloud streaming, plus the rising prices of Xbox Game Pass, leaves Xbox feeling too expensive and not unique enough for my time or money.

As a PC gamer, my interest in consoles as a whole has wavered, but I can't say I haven't enjoyed booting up Donkey Kong Bananza on Nintendo Switch 2 or Ghost of Yōtei on PlayStation 5. My Xbox, however, has become a bit of a joke when friends come over: the mistake I made five years ago. In fact, booting it up to play Grounded 2 with my brother not only required downloading the game itself and an update for the system, but also plugging it into the mains and hooking up an Ethernet cable. It became the device I unplugged to plug in something else.

With the Xbox Series Y, Xbox 720, or whatever name Microsoft cooks up for its next-generation console, I don't want that same joke sitting on my shelf.

Gaming is an expensive hobby. I mean, don't get me started on how much you're expected to shell out for even middling rig upgrades these days, or how full-price game releases are now asking for $70 of your hard-earned cash. In such a landscape, with console prices going up instead of down over time, is it any wonder that PlayStation steward Sony is perhaps looking to diversify its gaming hardware portfolio? Enter some fresh gaming speakers.

Announced during last night's State of Play stream, the Pulse Elevate wireless speakers clearly feature the PS symbol—but the PlayStation blog pitches these sleek bad boys for "desktop gaming" specifically. With PlayStation bringing more of its platform-exclusive games to PC over time, it's maybe not actually that surprising.

The Pulse Elevate wireless speakers are a swish bit of kit available in black or white colourways. These speakers also enjoy planar magnetic drivers, built-in woofers, and support for 3D audio. They've even got a neat-looking, adjustable lean-back orientation when placed in the included charging docks. As such, I've no doubt that when these launch in 2026, Sony will be asking for an equally swish price for them, but no MSRP has yet been officially announced.

Obviously, if you're a two-timing console gamer like me, then you will also be able to use these speakers with your PS5, or PlayStation portal, as well as your desktop. Speaking of the console kingdom, though, the Pulse Elevate speakers also have another feature tucked away here that brings to mind the Switch 2 and its GameChat feature more than the PlayStation 5: a built-in microphone with "AI-enhanced noise rejection".

Basically, rather than donning a bulky headset that may require you to get intimate with your microphone arm, these speakers will transmit your trash talk all on their own.

Alongside the typical Bluetooth connection you'd expect from a wireless bit of kit like this, the Pulse Elevate speakers also feature PlayStation Link wireless connectivity. A PlayStation Link USB-C dongle will be included in the box for this "ultra-low latency and lossless connectivity."

Plus, you can either seamlessly switch between multiple connected devices or "listen simultaneously via a PlayStation Link-connected device for in-game audio and a separate Bluetooth-enabled device for music, voice chat, and more."

Now, you know me—I'm currently enjoying my best cat-eared life with the Razer Kraken Kitty V3 Pro. But before that, I was a recent sound bar convert thanks to the Creative Stage Pro, so I'm definitely already wondering whether the Pulse Elevate speakers will give our best PC speakers a run for their money.

However, I'm also pondering more practical concerns, too. For one thing, I'd love to know what the battery life looks like for these wireless speakers beyond the vague assurance in the announcement trailer that it does amount to "hours." Furthermore, the vertical design of the Pulse Elevate is tasteful for sure, though I doubt I could tuck them neatly under my monitor. What I'm trying to say is, there's perhaps room in my life for two separate desktop speakers—but maybe not room on my tiny desk.

PC gaming is an expensive hobby. I know, stop the presses, right? My point is, once you've decided your non-negotiables—the expensive bits of kit worth your money—what do you do about everything else? Simple: Get creative.

One thrifty Reddit user did just that, sharing their DIY PC build featuring both a $60 1080p OLED panel and custom-built housing using Lego-style bricks. Known as Choi, the creator revealed they'd never even touched Lego before attempting the project. They told me that while shopping online, they were looking for something cheap to push the total value of their basket over an amount that would qualify for a discount—and that's when they spotted the bricks.

Electing to translate their own answers from Korean into English via ChatGPT, Choi told me, "Once I received them and started building, I thought, 'This is fun!' That’s when I wanted to try making a PC case with it. I’m not a Lego expert at all—just a beginner who started less than a year ago."

As such, there was a lot of trial and error. "I worked on the monitor, keyboard, and main body separately as modules. I don’t remember the exact time, but altogether it took more than a month and a half," said Choi. "I’m the type who can’t stand it if the build isn’t sturdy or if the monitor screen ratio isn’t just right."

But Choi wasn't just taking to the bricks for the first time; this was their first DIY PC build period. They wrote, "It was actually my first time assembling a PC myself (I usually only used prebuilt PCs), so I asked a lot of questions in Korean PC communities."

They also say that though their build has a distinct throwback look to it, they weren't using any particular machine as a point of reference. So the Apple logo on this distinctly Windows machine? That's just a bit of fun. Choi explained, "People say the overall shape reminds them of the Apple II, but it wasn’t meant to copy anything specific—it’s my own creation."

Choi has also made a number of other creations using the same bricks, including a "retro Commodore-style monitor case," as well as "a desk clock combining an old iPhone 6, and an audio deck shaped like a radio." They would like to keep building, but don't currently have any future projects planned.

As for the PC that started it all, here's the biggest twist—the rig in question was never intended to primarily be a gaming machine. It turns out Choi's main gaming machine is, in fact, a console. "I only play games on PlayStation, so I didn’t need a dedicated GPU," Choi explained, "The build is a simple office PC with a Ryzen 5 5600G and 16 GB of RAM."

Choi's brick-by-brick PC housing is not only charming, but a timely reminder that, as with any hobby, everyone's got to start somewhere. It can feel uncomfortable making an initial foray into something creative—but there's little stopping you from making those first steps in style.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy everything modern PC gaming has to offer—but there's no use denying I am also a Nintendo girlie. I'm dating myself here, but the company got their hooks in me young with the Game Boy Color, and I've had an affectionate respect for cart-based gaming ever since. Enter an OS project that asks 'What if modern PC gaming were just a little more Nintendo?'

Kazeta is what can best be described as a nostalgic vibes-based Linux operating system that you can download right now from GitHub. Rather than wait for your beefy games to download or update, Kazeta is all about a classic plug-and-play sensibility. Just download your favourite DRM-free games onto SD cards, plug 'em into your Kazeta-based mini PC, and dive straight into gameplay just like the console gamer's days of yore.

To install Kazeta, you need only fulfil a few fairly easygoing system requirements and take note of some limitations:

• RAM: 4 GB or more
• Storage: 32 GB or larger
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 400-series or newer; Nvidia GTX 16-series or newer; Intel "may work" with poor game compatibility
• Not supported: hybrid graphics, virtual machines, dual booting, Secure Boot, Intel RST, legacy BIOS

The only 'supported' gear is the Geekom A5 2025 Edition Mini PC, a Ryzen-based machine presumably used by Kazeta's creator, plus the 8Bitdo Ultimate 2C Wireless Controller.

Built using a system developed for the Linux OS, ChimeraOS, Kazeta offers an immutable, or partially locked, operating system itself. There are a number of other drawbacks to this nostalgic vision besides that though.

For one, the Kazeta project won't really handle updates at all, pitching itself as offering a "Classic '90s console experience".

"At the moment, there is no official way to update the operating system," the Kezeta technical details notes. "Part of the appeal is that you never have to update. Not updating will ensure that your system and games will continue to work indefinitely."

For another, not every DRM-free game lends itself to running from an SD card, either in terms of file size or just my personal budget.

I know one can pick up a 10-pack of 16 GB SD cards for a very reasonable price, but with a read speed of 80 MB/s at best, that doesn't mean you should. As such, the Kazeta Operating System seems to be more geared towards games with a deliberately throwback flair. Between the likes of Stardew Valley, Celeste, and not to mention the imminent Hollow Knight: Silksong, Kazeta still arguably presents a gaming daydream with legs for a lot of folks.

Indeed, beyond the obvious retro charm, Kazeta pitches a few other often forgotten use cases. These include understandable examples like 'kids who need a safe, offline environment,' and 'older family members intimidated by modern gaming.' As someone with a Mum who's definitely gaming-curious, as well as younger relatives whose horizons I'd love to expand beyond the confines of their tablets, a Kazeta-based device could present a compelling opportunity.

But back to the retro charm—besides 'cartridge'-based gaming, Kazeta also offers save management with a nostalgic twist. Having written about all things PlayStation in a past life, I have a bit of a Pavlovian response to a save data screen with cute little icons. Even though the Kazeta OS's approach isn't even as sophisticated as the PlayStation 2's dancing polygons, I'm charmed nonetheless.

It's important to not look upon the past with rose-coloured glasses; as much as I still enjoy the look of games from decades gone by, a trip down memory lane always leaves me missing the quality of life features we enjoy in the here and now (though I modern narrative games need to look back at what visual novels have been doing for decades and incorporate a 'Log' feature as standard). But even though I'm far from a wizened gaming crone, it's hard not to see the appeal of Kazeta's 'no servers, no launchers, no microtransactions' sell.

With the current crop of consoles from Microsoft and Sony nearing the end of their natural product cycles, tech rumours are abound as to what hardware and systems the next generation will have. Amongst a whole raft of claims as to what the PlayStation 6 will be like are a list of specifications for Sony's return to the handheld market, with a beefy custom AMD chip at the heart of it all.

Now, before I go any further, let me get one thing out of the way first, and it's the source of these claims: Moore's Law is Dead. The tech YouTube channel's modus operandi is all about rumours, leaks, speculation, and at times, pretty wild predictions. But hey, even if you spray about in a raging gale, something will eventually land on target.

On to the nitty-gritty, then. MLID claims Sony is planning a handheld PlayStation for its PS6 portfolio. Not a major shock announcement, as the company has done this before. Something else that won't raise any eyebrows is that it's apparently going to be powered by a custom AMD chip, codenamed Canis.

The specs for it, though, are a tad more of a surprise. Manufactured on TSMC's N3 process node and coming in at 135 square millimetres in size, the CPU size of Canis is alleged to have four Zen 6c cores and two Zen 6 Low Power cores. That's a little bit like AMD's Ryzen AI 340, which sports two Zen 5 and four Zen 5c cores. However, unlike that laptop APU, MLID is suggesting that games will run on the 6c pipelines, with the handheld's operating system being handled by the two LP cores.

There are no architectural differences between AMD's normal Zen and Zen-c cores (at least, not in Zen 5) other than what clock speeds they can reach, but given that it's also being claimed that the 'PS6 handheld' will be backwards compatible with PS5/PS4 games, I'm not sure how four, low-clocked cores are supposed to handle software designed for up to eight cores.

And that's before one begins to question why Sony would choose to go with an architecture that AMD hasn't released yet, when it's historically chosen an older design that's well-tested, proven, and predictable. Oh, and cheap. Very cheap.

Moving onto the GPU section of the APU, Canis is supposed to have 16 RDNA 5 compute units. To put this into perspective, the Steam Deck has eight RDNA 2 CUs, and the Asus ROG Ally X has 12 RDNA 3 CUs, so the compute unit count isn't beyond the realms of possibility.

However, just as with the CPU section, I'm not overly convinced that Sony would go for what would be a cutting-edge GPU architecture for the release. Even the expensive PS5 Pro is still using what's fundamentally an RDNA 2-powered GPU, albeit with some hefty modifications.

Where things get a bit silly are the claimed clock speeds and performance for the handheld's GPU: around 1.65 GHz in docked mode and up to 75% of a PS5's native rendering power. Sony's current console has a GPU with 36 CUs, with a top clock speed of 2.2 GHz, and requires a power budget of 180 W.

While RDNA 5 rumours have yet to settle down into any semblance of sensibility, no amount of architectural wizardry can really overcome a 56% deficit in CUs with a 25% short fall in clock speed to that kind of degree. Well, perhaps it can, if the rendering resolution is low enough or the actual graphics workload leans more towards favouring AMD's current shader design than for RDNA 2.

Just as with many handheld gaming PCs, Sony's effort will apparently use LPDDR5X-8533, but rather than using a 128-bit wide bus, Canis is purported to sport a 192-bit bus, resulting in the total amount of RAM reaching 48 GB. That's not impossible, as handhelds really do benefit from having considerably more than 16 GB of RAM, as it's shared across the CPU and GPU.

Having watched MLID go through the specs, I was unconvinced by the CPU description, on the fence by the GPU (but not at all by the performance claims), and reasonably okay with the RAM specs. However, it wouldn't be a MLID video if there wasn't at least one really bonkers prediction, and in this instance, it's the price: between $399 and $499.

The Switch 2's retail price is $450, and it is a far weaker collection of hardware, with the main SoC manufactured on an old, cheap process node. Top-end handheld gaming PCs that are more akin to the above claimed specs are typically double the cost. Heck, even the PlayStation Portal is $200 and there's practically nothing inside that beyond a basic Qualcomm chip, a smattering of RAM, and a pokey 16 Wh battery.

Sony wouldn't set the price that low for a platform that isn't going to sell anywhere near as many units as a normal console. It can afford to get away with a tiny profit margin with the PS5 because it hauls the money back via the millions of games sold each year for the console. A PS6 handheld would have to be physically profitable, and given that the specs are all next-gen architecture, on an expensive process node, $500 would surely be nowhere near enough.

Anyway, you can make up your own mind about MLID's claims about the handheld or the other PS6 bits and pieces. Better yet, you can play your own game of 'Guess the next-gen console specs' and make a video of it, because everyone's predictions will be just as valid as each other until the hardware itself finally appears.

Former Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shawn Layden thinks subscription services like Xbox Game Pass are a "danger" to the industry, and that the model risks turning developers into "wage slaves".

In a wide ranging Games Industry interview on the state of the industry, Layden compared gaming subscription services unfavourably with music subscriptions services. While products like Spotify and Apple Music have dramatically undermined physical music sales, musicians—so Layden contends—at least have touring and merchandise as alternative income streams. "The problem with gaming is all we have is launch," Layden said. "That's it. No one wants to pay money to come into the studio and watch people code."

The financial impact of subscription services isn't the only drawback of the model, according to Layden: it may also have an adverse effect on developers and creativity, not to mention that its profitability remains vague.

"You can do all kinds of financial jiggery-pokery for any sort of corporate service to make it look profitable if you wanted to. You take enough costs out and say that's off the balance sheet and, oh look, it's profitable now. The real issue for me on things like Game Pass is, is it healthy for the developer?"

Subscription services risk turning studios and developers into something akin to a "wage slave". "They're not creating value, putting it in the marketplace, hoping it explodes, and profit sharing, and overages, and all that nice stuff," he said. "It's just, 'You pay me X dollars an hour, I built you a game, here, go put it on your servers'."

Developers have started to criticise the Game Pass model too. Founder of Arkane Studios Raphael Colantonio condemned the model in the wake of Microsoft's catastrophic mass layoffs in July. "I think Gamepass is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade, subsidized by MS’s 'infinite money', but at some point reality has to hit," he said. "I don’t think GP can co-exist with other models, they’ll either kill everyone else, or give up." Colantonio left Arkane in 2017, four years before Microsoft acquired it as part of ZeniMax Media.

Apparently Sony had the same reaction as the rest of us when Tencent announced a game that looks shockingly similar to Horizon Zero Dawn. It's suing the Chinese tech company over the open world game, which like Horizon is set in a lush post-apocalypse and stars a woman with a bow who fights and tames animals made of metal.

In the lawsuit, Sony calls Tencent's Light of Motiram a "slavish clone" of the Horizon series that copies its entire aesthetic, story, themes, and gameplay in a way that could confuse consumers. Sony is asking for an unspecified amount of monetary damages and an order that prevents Tencent from infringing on its IP rights.

Weirdly enough, Sony actually promoted a trailer for the game last year on the PlayStation China Weibo account. The PlayStation 5, along with Steam, is one of several platforms Light of Motiram is set to appear on.

Notably, Sony is suing over copyright infringement rather than patent infringement, like Nintendo did when it sued Pocketpair last year. That suggests it's pretty confident in how egregious the similarities between the two games are. And I'm not surprised: If you squint at this trailer from two weeks ago, it really does just look like Horizon Zero Dawn with a different girl.

The Steam page describes Light of Motiram as an open world action game set in "a world overrun by colossal machines" where you train and fight "Mechanimals". I don't know about you, but that sure sounds like the description on the Horizon Zero Dawn Steam page that describes it as an open world action game set on a "future Earth ruled by machines." That alone isn't enough for copyright infringement, but some of the visual similarities are remarkable, especially the look of the mechanical beasts.

In the complaint, Sony mentions that Tencent pitched a similar game set in the Horizon universe last year. "At no time during this meeting did Tencent disclose that it was already working on a game that was based on the Horizon IP assets," it said. Sony rejected the pitch, but believes this is evidence that Tencent is intentionally violating its IP rights.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes for Sony given how common it is for clones of popular games to show up everywhere. Vampire Survivors, for example, was inspired by an Android mobile game called Magic Survival, and it got its gothic horror aesthetic from an asset pack inspired by Castlevania. Instead of suing the developer, Konami partnered with them to make official Castlevania DLC.

A lot changes when it's a massive tech company ripping off another massive tech company though, so it's possible Light of Motiram won't see the light of day, at least in its current form.

For a long time I've been jealous of my fellow gamers who were smarter than me and bought a PC controller that can easily swap between multiple devices. My Xbox controller has served me well, but it's anchored to my PC and my PC only.

The dream would be to have a controller that can handle the PC and my PlayStation 5 without going through the pairing process every single time. It's good news for me—and anyone else who owns a DualSense controller and has been minorly inconvenienced by this—that Sony is about to eliminate that problem.

In an upcoming PS5 update, the DualSense controller will be able to pair to multiple devices and switch between them with a press of a button. That means no more resyncing it to your PC every time you want to make the swap.

Sony will be sending out email invites to try a beta version of the update tomorrow, but it sounds like we can expect to have the real thing before the end of the year.

The process for syncing the controller to multiple devices is pretty simple too. All you do is hold down the PS Button and a face button (triangle, circle, cross, or square) of your choice to link it to a specific device. That gives you four total devices you can have saved. Then, to switch between them, you just need to hold the PS Button and the button tied to the device you want for a few seconds. And you can do this without turning the controller on.

Sony has officially caught up with all the other companies, like 8BitDo, that have had multi-device pairing in their controllers for years. Microsoft doesn't even let you do this with the Xbox controller for some reason. As fond as I am of the Xbox controller, the DualSense is a close second, and this new pairing functionality might be enough to win me over.

One of the most powerful tools in any writer's box is the complete mastery they have over time. While real life trudges along in a doldrum routine of cause and effect, stories can arrange their happenings however they'd like. Storytellers have spent centuries finding and developing effective structures. Naughty Dog, however, has better plans. Plans that I am about to be entirely too crotchety about. Nevertheless:

Ask yourself—who needs the potent hand of authorial intent? Why would you generate mystery? What's the point of meticulously challenging a desire for vengeance after spending hours stewing in it? That kind of thing might lead to people having to think about a story's themes and messages and analyse it, or critique it, or something. Ugh, gross.

Introducing the cure to what ails ye: The Last of Us Part 2 "Chronological Experience", a truly baffling alternate mode recently released for the remastered version of the game on both PC and PS5.

"Those who have already played will know its story is told non-linearly," a blog explains, "As Ellie and Abby’s motivations, realizations, and emotional stakes unfold across myriad flashbacks and present-day storylines."

But what, instead of all of that, you simply didn't? Naughty Dog is brave enough to ask that question: "While this structure is very intentional and core to how our studio wanted Part II’s themes and narrative beats to impact players, we always wondered what it would be like to experience this story chronologically. And now finally, we can answer that question."

The blog then posits that players will be given a "deeper insight into Part 2's narrative", before reaching so hard you can hear the joints pop: "Players will be able to see how Ellie being gifted a guitar flows so neatly into her learning to play." This is great for me, someone who cannot parse the concept of someone having a hobby when I'm not looking at them.

In fairness, it does make the somewhat-salient point that seeing Ellie and Abby nearly bump into each other might be interesting: "You’ll see just how close they come into running into each other, how their actions impact each other, and more."

Except, uh. Naughty Dog. Buddy. Pal. That already happens in the base game, provided you have a functioning long-term memory. You just need to recognise a familiar area, then access your mind palace to remember that, oh, hey, I was here a few hours ago playing as a different character. It isn't hard!

Look—I'm sure that this is a kinda-neat restructuring of the game's narrative, a fun little alternate universe jaunt. If you play it and enjoy it for a second playthrough, I wouldn't blame you at all, and the blog does, to its credit, say you should go through the game normally first. But I can't imagine it's a valuable exercise, other than an idle thought experiment. A shower thought that somehow made it into a production line.

Even if you're dim on Part 2's story, there's a lot else that gets thrown in the grinder—pacing, for one, which in videogames applies to more than just narrative. I'm confident calling the shot here and now that this chronological mode doesn't just make the story worse, it'll make the game worse, too.

I just… I don't get it, man. Maybe I'm being overly cynical because of the slow, steady slide of previously complex series dropping anything that'd otherwise challenge their players, or the seemingly pervasive, AI-driven hunger to punt writers out of their rooms. But I will dig my heels in and argue that Naughty Dog is being pretty condescending here.

Did you know that interviewees in a 2024 article published in the International Journal of Communication alleged that Netflix instructed showrunners and screenwriters "to both show and tell" and "say much more than you would normally say" so that people watching a second screen wouldn't get lost?

This whole mode smacks of the same corporate cynicism, and while you can enjoy your videogames any way you want, it personally makes me feel babied. We can probably, just maybe, take stories seriously enough not to chop them up and repackage them just to get a few more play hours in the bank.