Gaming, in brief

The Xiaomi 18 Fold went on sale in mainland China today, the first phone carrying Arm's new Mali G2-Ultra NX graphics chip. [1]

Arm is a British company that designs chips and sells the designs to other firms; it builds no phones of its own. [1] Its previous graphics chip is used by Xiaomi, Vivo and OnePlus. [2]

The chip draws only a quarter of one picture for real and lets AI fill in the other three quarters; the picture after that is invented entirely. [2]

Arm claims up to four times the frame rate when its three AI methods run at once. [1]

Chris Bergey, who runs Arm's edge AI business, said a phone can now hold 1080p at 60 frames a second for three hours, where before it managed about 30 minutes. [1]

The whole phone draws no more than 2.5 watts doing it, with 1.5 watts going to the graphics chip. [1]

The reason any of this exists is heat. A phone cannot shed heat the way a console or a PC can, and it runs off a battery all the time. [2]

Arm published the AI networks openly on GitHub and Hugging Face, so a studio can retrain them on its own game. [2]

Deyan Lazarov of Arm's graphics team said Nvidia's rival DLSS 5 software is proprietary and closed, and would blow past a phone's power budget instantly. [2]

Only the upscaling arrives now. Invented frames are due in early 2027 and cleaned-up lighting after that. [1]

Three games are confirmed to use it: Where Winds Meet from NetEase, Infinity Nikki from Infold Games and Arena Breakout: Infinite from Tencent. [1][2]

Inventing frames usually adds a delay between a button press and what you see, a cost Nvidia, AMD and Intel all pay too. [1]

Why it matters. Watch whether Where Winds Meet, Infinity Nikki and Arena Breakout: Infinite actually ship with it turned on; Arm says more games are coming but will not name them yet.

Don't Nod, the French studio behind Life is Strange, told investors it may not be able to keep operating past January 31, 2027 without new outside money. [3] Its cash fell from 15.4 million euros at the end of 2025 to 8 million by the end of July, and revenue dropped 56% year on year. [3] The board approved a plan on September 4 that folds the French operation into a single production line and could cut up to 90 jobs. [3] Two games, Aphelion and P14, could not raise funding. [3]

Why it matters. Ninety jobs is most of a mid-sized studio. Don't Nod's own auditors gave a similar warning in June, after Tencent, its largest shareholder, refused a short-term cash injection. [3]

Sega cancelled Super Game earlier this year, and its president has now explained why. [4] Announced in 2021, it was meant to be an original online game sold worldwide, and Sega said it might spend close to $1 billion on it. [4] Shuji Utsumi, Sega's president, spoke to the Japanese business paper Nikkei. [4] The company believed it had the technology, he said, but found the investment and the daily running of the service would have to grow enormously. [4] He said Sega still thinks there is a business there. [4]

Why it matters. Sega already lost money on one always-online game, Hyenas, cancelled in 2023, and Sony has pulled back from the same bet. [4] The company not backing out is Tencent, which is far larger. [4][11]

China's games market grew 5.4% in 2025 to $51.8 billion, passing $50 billion for the first time, according to a new report from the research firm Niko Partners. [5] The firm expects $53.9 billion this year and $59.8 billion by 2030, with 769 million players. [5] Small, quick mini-games are the fastest-growing part: 80% of Chinese players use them, and they take almost a fifth of all mobile game spending. [5] The report also found 66% of players get around China's internet controls to reach games abroad, mostly through overseas servers, speed-up services and VPNs. [5]

Why it matters. Growth of 2.9% a year over five years is slow for a market this size, so Chinese studios are competing for players who already play rather than for new ones. [5]

Memory is the part of a phone or console that holds what it is working on, and its price has been rising for two years after decades of falling. [15] Three companies make about 90% of the world's supply: Samsung had 39% of the market in the second quarter of 2026, SK Hynix 26% and Micron 25%, according to the research firm Counterpoint. [15] AI data centres buy a stacked, faster version that is harder to make, and pay more for it. [15] Micron's president, Manish Bhatia, said the industry has to build new factories. [15]

Why it matters. The next iPhones are expected to cost more because of this, and console makers buy from the same three firms. [15] Arm's new chip cuts memory traffic by 70%, which is one way around a price nobody can argue with. [2]

Tencent, the Chinese company whose games include Honor of Kings, League of Legends and Valorant, said it is still aiming at live service, meaning games that keep selling things to the same players for years rather than once. [11] Yong-yi Zhu, its vice president for operations, strategy and compliance, said those games build on themselves and give a studio steady income and a community. [11] He said this while other publishers retreat: Sony's live-service push went badly, and Highguard, reportedly funded by Tencent's own TiMi group, shut down. [11]

Why it matters. Three of the biggest always-online games in the world already run on Tencent's money and staff, so keeping one more alive costs it far less than it would cost anyone else. [11]

CD Projekt, the Polish company behind The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077, plans to put most of the cash its older games still bring in straight back into making more games, rather than paying it to shareholders. [12] Its chief financial officer, Piotr Nielubowicz, told Bloomberg the company is at a completely different stage than five years ago, when it bet its fortunes on a single title. [12] Spending on development is now a main consideration when the board decides what to pay out. [12]

Why it matters. Running several projects at once is only possible because the back catalogue keeps selling. A studio with one finished game and no old ones has nothing to reinvest. [12]

Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Capcom's first main game in that series since 2006, sold over a million copies on its release day. [9] In the press release announcing that figure, the Japanese publisher said it is focusing on re-activating series that have not had a new game recently. [9] It is already doing that with a new Okami and Mega Man: Dual Override. [9] Capcom named no others; Dino Crisis has had no new game since 2003, and there has been no new main Devil May Cry since 2019. [9]

Why it matters. A revival starts with players who already know the name, so it needs less marketing than something new. [9] That matters most in a year when most publishers are cutting staff.

Aggro Crab, the studio behind Peak and Another Crab's Treasure, has started a publishing label to pay for other developers' games. [6] It will sign one or two a year, funding projects that need $500,000 or less and can be finished within two years, and has already taken on the platformer Rebounder and the horror game Subway Midnight. [6] Its terms do not require the money to be paid back in full, and it will not hold the final payment back until release day. [6] Peak has passed 20 million players since June 2025. [7]

Why it matters. Publishers usually keep the last payment until launch, which is exactly when a small studio has least money. Removing that changes who can survive a delay. [6]

Firefly, the British studio behind the castle-building series Stronghold, has launched a publishing label called Wuselfaktory, starting with Fool King from the first-time developer Loot Donkey. [8] Firefly is paying for the game and its marketing. [8] Studio head Nick Tannahill said the 50-person team has been self-publishing since 2010, so the marketing and localisation work already exists inside the company. [8] The move came at the suggestion of Devolver, which bought Firefly in late 2021 and has little experience in strategy games. [8]

Why it matters. Two developer-run publishers opened within a week, both paid for by their own hit rather than by an outside investor. [6][8] That is what indie funding looks like when the outside money has gone.

Gamescom, the German games trade show, apologised for how it responded when several independent developers had hardware stolen at this year's event. [10] Its first statement said that at an event of this size some people will always try to take advantage, and pointed exhibitors towards bookable stand security and insurance. [10] The organisers now say that criticism of that response was justified, and that a theft can destroy work that took years to build. [10] They are reviewing security for indie exhibitors and holding a roundtable with the shared booths. [10]

Why it matters. Ryan Laley, who makes the game Mimic, had all his laptops stolen and called it a huge blow financially and mentally. [10] The organisers have still not said whether anyone will be compensated. [10]

Nintendo is holding two video presentations this week. [13] The first, today, is a 30-minute show for the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, ahead of a remake of Ocarina of Time and a live-action Zelda film expected next year. [13] The second, tomorrow, is a regular 45-minute Direct about Switch 2 games arriving this winter, followed by a longer gameplay livestream. [13] Nintendo raised the price of the Switch 2 by $50 earlier this year. [13]

Why it matters. Nintendo raised the price of the Switch 2 by $50 this year, and Grand Theft Auto 6 arrives in November. [13] A winter line-up is what Nintendo has to answer both with.

Playground Games said Forza Horizon 6 will still reach the PlayStation 5 before the end of 2026, after reports that the version had been dropped from this year. [14] The studio told players planning to buy it on PlayStation to add it to their wishlist and wait for a date. [14] No other detail about the port was given. [14]

Why it matters. Microsoft, which owns Playground, has a narrow window: September and October are already crowded with releases, and November belongs to Grand Theft Auto 6. [14]