Marvel's Wolverine tops US September game sales and PS5 spending rises 43%, while Xbox console sales fall 27% to a record September low

The rest of the day

26 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

1. 02

   EA's cuts reach five more studios

   Staff at five more EA studios say they lost their jobs in the cuts that closed BioWare on 21 October. [10] They include Maxis, maker of The Sims, Ripple Effect, which helps make Battlefield, and Full Circle, maker of Skate. [10][18] Staff at Motive, which is making an Iron Man game, and Respawn, maker of Apex Legends, are affected too. [10] EA said about 400 jobs would go, but named only BioWare's 50 and a smaller Skate team. [10]

   Why it matters — The names come from staff posts on LinkedIn, gathered by the news site Vertical Slice, so the full list is still unknown. [18][19] Variety's sources say Respawn and DICE, the Battlefield studio, are making a new Star Wars Battlefront, which EA has not named. [20]

2. 03

   Gears of War: E-Day reportedly cost $500 million

   Gears of War: E-Day, Xbox's big new shooter, cost more than $500 million to make before marketing, a source told Kotaku. [15] The Game Business, a trade newsletter, reported the same figure. [21] A Windows Central reporter says the figure is not wrong, but cannot say whether it also covers running the studio. [21] Alinea Analytics, a research firm, estimated 230,000 copies and $37 million in the first week. [15]

   $500m+Reported cost to make

   vsvs

   $37mFirst-week sales money

   Why it matters — At $70 a copy, $500 million is more than seven million full-price sales, and nearly 2 million people first played it, many through Game Pass, Xbox's subscription. [15][21] Kotaku's source says it was unlikely to earn back its cost on any platform. [15]

3. 04

   The Switch 2 is broken open for the first time

   A security researcher, Sammy Hajhamid, has broken through the Nintendo Switch 2's protections in software, 16 months after it went on sale. [12][22] He says OpenAI's Codex, an AI coding tool, helped him find the flaws over about two weeks. [12] The way in is SmileBASIC 4, an old Switch app for writing simple programs, and the hack resets every time the console is switched off. [23][24] Ars Technica reports the app has already been taken off the Switch store worldwide. [12]

   Why it matters — It lets people run homemade software and change games, but not take full control of the console, Ars Technica says. [12] Kotaku expects copied games to be the main use, though the steps are still far too hard for most owners. [22][23]

4. 05

   A web flaw takes big online games offline

   Square Enix stopped players logging in to Final Fantasy 14, its online role-playing game, on 21 October while it fixed a flaw in PHP. [13][25] PHP is a programming language that runs many websites and game servers, and the flaw lets a stranger run their own code on them. [26] Logins were back on by 22 October, after about 18 hours, though save backups stayed off. [13][25] Umamusume: Pretty Derby, a Japanese horse-racing game, went fully offline and later gave every player free in-game currency. [25]

   Why it matters — Security agencies in the US and UK advised sites built on PHP to go offline until fixed. [26] Cloudflare's boss says attempts to use the flaw rose from thousands to millions once it went public. [26] Path of Titans, a dinosaur game still in testing, was taken down for up to three days. [25]

5. 06

   Two of Japan's oldest phone games close for good

   World Quest, a travel game first released in 2011 on GREE, a Japanese phone-game service, has closed for good because of the PHP flaw. [14] Its makers say its ageing systems cannot be made safe. [14] The game had shut in 2019 and came back unchanged in 2020, so people could visit places virtually while borders were closed for Covid. [14] Save My Demonic World, a text role-playing game with no updates for two years, closed for the same reason. [14]

   Why it matters — Neither game could be updated to fix the flaw, so their players lost them in a day. [14] Kotaku warns that other old online services nobody maintains face the same choice. [14]

6. 07

   The cancelled Mass Effect's trailer leaks

   A trailer for the cancelled Mass Effect game, titled Mass Effect: Universe, appeared on Reddit on 22 October, a day after EA closed BioWare. [27][28] Bloomberg's Jason Schreier and IGN both confirmed it is real. [27] It shows a new hero working with Liara T'Soni, a character from the first three games. [29] Kotaku says it may have been meant for 7 November, the fan day BioWare marked every year. [29]

   Why it matters — Tony de Waal, a BioWare cinematics lead, says the game aimed for more player choice than any other, after seeing what the makers of Baldur's Gate 3 and The Witcher had done. [30] Writer Catherynne M. Valente, who spent three years on it, says the team was making good progress. [31]

7. 08

   A Canadian party leader wants BioWare's staff to own it

   Avi Lewis, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party, said BioWare's developers should get government help to buy the studio and run it themselves. [32] BioWare was based in Edmonton, Canada. [32] Lewis blamed private equity, investment firms that buy whole companies, and said they 'rip them apart for short-term profit'. [32] His party has traditionally been Canada's third-largest. [32]

   Why it matters — Warren Spector, a veteran game designer, wrote that anyone who took part in the closure should be ashamed. [33] James Ohlen, who spent 22 years at BioWare, asked studios that are hiring to start with its people. [34]

8. 09

   An old BioWare game left out of the goodbye

   Caitlin Sullivan Kelly, lead writer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, called it heartbreaking that BioWare's farewell post left the game out. [35][36] BioWare launched the online role-playing game in 2011, and it is still running. [35] EA moved it to another studio, Broadsword, in 2023, so the closure does not touch it. [35][36] The post named Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age and Mass Effect, and even Anthem, the online shooter that failed badly. [36]

   Why it matters — Kelly says the game paid for the studio's other projects for years with its income and its staff. [35] Broadsword also runs Ultima Online, another long-running online game. [35]

9. 10

   Ex-BioWare founders' Exodus changes its hero's face

   Archetype Entertainment, a studio started by former BioWare developers including James Ohlen, showed a new face for the male hero of Exodus, its science-fiction role-playing game. [37] General manager Chad Robertson said the change came from players' feedback over recent months. [37] Exodus comes out on 7 April 2027 on PS5, Xbox and PC. [37]

   Why it matters — GameSpot calls Exodus a game in the spirit of Mass Effect, and it came out with the new look the day after EA cancelled the next Mass Effect. [37]

10. 11

    A studio cuts staff eight months after being bought

    Gamepires, maker of the survival game Scum, said last week it was cutting staff, eight months after Splash Damage, the studio behind Gears Tactics, bought it. [11] Splash Damage made its own layoffs three months before that purchase. [11] Those came two months after investment firms bought Splash Damage. [11] Splash Damage told PC Gamer on 22 October that work on Scum goes on, but not how many people lost jobs. [11]

    Why it matters — When it bought Gamepires, Splash Damage said the deal gave its group of just under 150 people meaningful work and protected jobs. [11] It has not released a game since Gears Tactics in 2020. [11]

11. 12

    Sony stops its last 4K disc player

    Sony has stopped selling its last 4K Blu-ray disc player in Japan, the UBP-X700, with sales ending on 22 October. [38] Sony Japan's website lists it as out of stock and not coming back. [38] In Japan, the PS5 is now the only new Sony machine that plays these discs. [38] Panasonic is the last big electronics company still making such players. [38]

    Why it matters — Sony has already said it will stop making PlayStation game discs in 2028. [38] About 35% of Wolverine's PS5 copies were sold on disc, Ampere Analysis estimates. [4]

12. 13

    Graphics cards cost far above their list prices

    The cheapest Nvidia RTX 5050 graphics card PC Gamer could find costs $400, against a list price of $249. [9] The RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB of memory costs $789, against about $429, the same as the faster RTX 5070. [9] A graphics card is the part of a PC that draws a game's pictures. PC Gamer blames the shortage of memory chips. [9]

    RTX 5050, listed$249

    RTX 5050, in shops$400

    RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, listed$429

    RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, in shops$789

    Why it matters — The site's own tracking shows prices rising again. [9] The only card it found close to list was AMD's RX 9070 GRE, at $570, $20 over. [9]

13. 14

    A pricing adviser wishes Silksong cost more

    Cassia Curran, who advises game makers on prices for Steam, Valve's PC store, told The Game Business she wished Hollow Knight: Silksong had cost more. [17] Team Cherry sold the hit for $20, only $5 more than the first Hollow Knight in 2017. [17] Curran says $24.99 would have helped many studios with similar games. [17] She has studios compare their price with their most successful rivals'. [17]

    Why it matters — So when a hit is cheap, similar games find it hard to charge more. [17] Kotaku notes Scott Pilgrim EX struggled at $30, while Mina the Hollower did better at $20. [17]

14. 15

    Roblox's players are growing up

    Roblox, a platform of games made by its users, was played for 4.05 billion hours on PC and console in the first half of 2026, more than any other game. [39] A report by two research firms, Newzoo and GEEIQ, finds 80% of its players over 16 spent money on games in six months, against 59% of other players. [39] About 30% of those who leave Roblox prefer realistic shooters such as Call of Duty. [39]

    Why it matters — Roblox is adding age checks, which left its spending per child under 13 lower than expected in its second quarter, the report says. [39] GEEIQ counted only 15 promotions by game companies on Roblox since 2021. [39]

15. 16

    Epic opens a game contest built on AI

    Epic Games, maker of Fortnite and the Unreal Engine game-making tools, announced the AI MegaJam, a contest to make a game from 12 to 15 November. [40] Entrants are 'highly encouraged' to use AI tools, PC Gamer reports. [40] Winners in three categories get $7,500 each, and teams can win grants of up to $50,000 to keep going. [40] Some people will work at an event space in San Francisco. [40]

    Why it matters — Epic's boss, Tim Sweeney, says the company is moving developers around 'to retool for maximum AI acceleration'. [40] One critic replied that the Ludum Dare game jam lasted just 24 hours back in 2002. [40]

16. 17

    Dispatch reaches 5 million and heads to phones

    Dispatch, a comedy game about managing a team of superheroes, has been played by more than 5 million people a year after its first episode came out. [41] AdHoc Studio, started by four former Telltale developers, says one publisher funded it partway and then dropped it. [41] It comes to phones on 9 December, with the first four episodes free and the rest for $20. [42][43]

    Why it matters — Its boss, Michael Choung, says Steam kept it on its front page through all its weekly episodes, which brought hundreds of millions of views. [41] A concert of its music is planned in Los Angeles on 3 December. [41]

17. 18

    Pantaloon opens a games subscription

    Pantaloon, a small games publisher, has launched the Playbill, a subscription with 14 games from other studios plus its own. [44] The full tier costs $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year. [44] Pantaloon buys a fixed number of each game's keys, and a game leaves once subscribers outnumber its keys. [44] Its newsletter, which feeds the service, has 50,000 readers. [44]

    Why it matters — Co-founder Jamin Smith says nobody has made a subscription work for small games yet. [44] His first goal is for 5% of newsletter readers to pay. [44]

18. 19

    Hellraiser's makers bet on mid-sized games

    Matthew Karch, chief executive of Saber Interactive, says Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival has done 'extremely well' since it came out on 8 October. [16] His post, as IGN reports it, gives no sales figure. [16] Karch argues that mid-sized games built on known names, with controlled costs, carry less risk than huge-budget ones. [16] Barker, who created Hellraiser, said he was 'genuinely astonished' by how far the game went. [45]

    Why it matters — Karch says more Saber games built the same way come in a few weeks. [16] His case lands the same week Gears of War: E-Day's budget was reported at over $500 million. [15]

19. 20

    Owlchemy moves from headsets to smart glasses

    Owlchemy Labs, a Google-owned studio known for virtual reality games, is releasing Hyper Visor for $1.99 on the Google Play store. [46] It is a launch game for XREAL Aura, high-tech sunglasses that plug into an Android phone. [46] Players use their hands to clear eight short levels, each in the style of a different kind of game. [46]

    Why it matters — Its boss, Andrew Eiche, says headsets fail what he calls the cafe test: people will not wear them in public. [46] He says the XREAL Aura is starting to pass it, because wearers do not 'look like a bug'. [46]

20. 21

    Atari's VCS console loses its store

    Atari will close the online store for its VCS console on 1 February 2027. [47] The VCS is a small computer loosely styled after the original Atari 2600, and plays classic Atari games and streaming apps. [47] Games already downloaded will keep working. [47] Atari plans an update so the console no longer needs its servers to sign in or run software. [47]

    Why it matters — The console reached buyers after a crowdfunding campaign and years of delays. [47] Atari also plans a homebrew app so fans can keep adding games. [47]

21. 22

    A Valve developer says 'HLX' on stage

    Mike Morasky, a long-time Valve composer, named a project called 'HLX' on a sound panel at GameSoundCon in Burbank, California, on 21 October. [48][49] Fans believe HLX is the working name of a new Half-Life game, first spotted in Valve's files in early 2024. [50] Valve has never announced it. [48] The developer beside him was heard saying 'Nice work'. [51]

    Why it matters — Valve, which runs the Steam store, last released a Half-Life game in 2020, the virtual reality game Half-Life: Alyx. [48] GameSpot notes fans get excited every year and nothing has been announced. [51]

22. 23

    Arc Raiders' no-fighting test ends

    Embark Studios ended a one-week test in its shooter Arc Raiders in which players could pick matches without fighting each other. [52] Players ran more than 30 million of these rounds, Embark says. [52] Players online at once rose from 50,000 to 185,000 around the test and a big update, by PC Gamer's count. [52] Embark is surveying players and expects to say more in November. [52]

    Why it matters — Embark says the test split its players, and that the game's overall health will decide whether the mode returns. [52]

23. 24

    A Melbourne games showcase in a row over a sponsor

    Freeplay, which runs Parallels, an independent games showcase in Melbourne, has rejected claims of prejudice over a sponsor it dropped. [53] On 8 October, the day of the event, it refunded and removed Wren Brier of Witch Beam, maker of the game Unpacking. [53] Brier, who is Jewish, says a speaker had called her a 'zionist'. [53] Two board members have resigned, a games news site reports, and ACMI, the state body that runs Melbourne's games week, paused its support. [53]

    Why it matters — Brier says nobody checked the claim before she was dropped. [53] Freeplay says it decided under time pressure because the event was at risk, and that its board has received violent threats. [53]

24. 25

    An actor objects to her face in games

    Debra Wilson, an actor in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and God of War Ragnarok, told GameSpot she is tired of developers giving her characters her face. [54] She plays Callisto in Marvel's Wolverine, and says she refused when its makers wanted to scan her tattoos too. [54] Some players now joke that she is in every game. [54]

    Why it matters — Wilson says she would rather play characters who do not look like her, so players are not pulled out of the game. [54]

25. 26

    Who gets credit for making a game

    Bryant Francis, an editor at GameDeveloper.com, wrote that saying Star Wars: Galactic Racer was 'made by a core team of 75' hides most of the people who built it. [55] About 1,100 people appear in the racing game's credits. [55] The phrase came from a GamesIndustry.biz post about Fuse Games, the studio that led the game with partner companies. [55]

    Why it matters — Francis notes that investors often back the small core team, while staff at partner studios are sometimes barred from saying they worked on a game. [55] GamesIndustry.biz's features editor says the industry has no settled words yet for this way of working. [55]

26. 27

    A forgotten Pokemon collection sells for 1.56 million pounds

    A retired painter and decorator in Woking, in the UK, sold a Pokemon card collection he had forgotten in his loft for 1.56 million pounds, about $2.09 million. [56] He began collecting in the late 1990s, when his son swapped the cards at school. [56] He went looking after reading that one card had sold for over 6,000 pounds. [56] A full Skyridge set he bought for 300 pounds fetched 97,500. [56]

    Why it matters — Ewbank's, the auction house, called it its most successful sale in 30 years. [56]