A Nintendo legend is about to call it a day, as veteran game designer and director Takashi Tezuka will leave the company later this year. Nintendo noted in its investor briefing today that the 65-year-old Tezuka will depart on June 26, closing the book on over four decades of work at the gaming giant.

Tezuka first began his career at Nintendo in 1984, joining as a part-time employee while he was still studying at university. Starting with Punch-Out, Tezuka would then go on to frequently work alongside another Nintendo legend, Shigeru Miyamoto, teaming up with him on several projects. It wasn't long before Tezuka was hired as a full-time Nintendo employee, serving as the assistant director and designer on 1985's Super Mario Bros. and then going on to direct the first The Legend of Zelda game.

Over the years, he has worked on multiple Mario games and several other big Nintendo IP like Pikmin and Animal Crossing. In the modern era, Tezuka has served as a producer and supervisor on titles like Super Mario 3D World and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

One of the new creative directors at Kingdom Come studio Warhorse, Prokop Jirsa, has commented on the hot-button issue of using artificial intelligence in game development. His comments come at a time when Warhorse was accused a firing a translator to help save costs.

Jirsa told PC Gamer that he understands why people hate when art is generated with AI, and that's because he hates it, too. While using AI to generate art that would be released to the public is not something Jirsa is interested in, he said the technology can be "really helpful" during development in other ways. That includes AI-assisted programming efforts and coming up with concept art with genAI.

"Even if you're not a programmer, for example, you can code little things that help you. Not necessarily something that will be used in the game, but, for example, you'll be able to access some information in a more comprehensible way … or, for example, quick generation of some concept art, so you can actually communicate better to concept artists what you need," he said.

Nintendo has shared the financial results for the fiscal year ending in March 2026, and while the company expects the Switch 2 to sell fewer units during its second year of life, not all things look bad for Nintendo. The company announced that its social life simulator, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, is doing gangbusters numbers, selling nearly 4 million units in just two weeks.

In a series of slides posted to the company's official website, Nintendo shared the sales figures for Living the Dream. For a game that released on April 16, Nintendo confirmed that the "global cumulative sell-through in [two] weeks after release [was] over 3.8 million units." This was the only mention of the game in the 29 slides, but it's still an impressive figure for a franchise that hasn't seen a new entry since 2013's Tomodachi Life.

The sales figure makes sense when you look at the attention surrounding Living the Dream. A cursory glance at Nintendo's official YouTube channel demonstrates just how popular the game would likely become when it launched, with many of the videos garnering hundreds of thousands to millions of views. And the same is true on Reddit, where the game's two primary subreddits--r/tomodachilife and r/TomodachilifeLivingTD--have 1.7 million and 290,000 weekly visitors, respectively. It appears players are living the dream in Living the Dream.

As you progress through Outbound you'll find four landmarks to visit with mini puzzles attached to them. The third one is the windmill, but to reach it you'll face difficulty as it's up a steep slope. In order for your vehicle to go up slopes, you'll need to upgrade your motor. This requires researching the motor upgrade and then crafting it, but it's not immediately obvious how to do this.

After searching for a while you might be losing hope, but there's a simple solution. You'll need to drive to as many signal towers as possible and use download coupons at each of them until the option to download the vehicle research station becomes available. For us, this was 12 signal towers, but it may vary for you based on the other options you've chosen at signal towers beforehand.

Once you've downloaded the vehicle research station blueprint, head back to your camper and enter building mode. Place the vehicle research station on a counter in your van, and from there you'll see branching options with multiple upgrade choices. For the motor upgrade, you'll need 10 bolts. These can be crafted out of scrap metal at the bolt press machine.

As you progress through Outbound's main story quest in your cozy camper, you'll encounter several landmarks. The third of these is a windmill, and its occupant, Lilly, has left a note pinned to a fence near the front door advising that she's out of town at the festival. She says you can have a poke around and use the terminal on the windmill's lower floor, but the door to the terminal is powered by the windmill, which just so happens to be broken. To fix it, you'll need to follow a few steps.

First, make sure you've got 20 scrap metal on you--this is heavy so you'll want to leave the rest of your possessions in the van. Then, head upstairs inside the windmill where you'll see two levers. Use these and look up to line up the pile of boxes and wooden planks with the switch on the wall. Head up the ladder and flick the switch to drop another ladder down from the upper floor.

Afterwards, head back down one floor and use the levers to move the ladder to an accessible position. Then, climb up and use your 20 scrap metal to fix the mechanism of the windmill. Activate the brake lever to get the windmill's sails turning. This will open the door on the ground floor and make the terminal accessible.

While all eyes are on the Switch 2 console following the release of Nintendo's financial results briefing today, its predecessor has continued to cement itself as Nintendo's best-selling console of all time with 155.92 million consoles sold as of March 31, 2026. That puts the Switch within spitting distance of Sony's PlayStation 2--currently the best-selling console of all time, with 160 million units sold as of March 31, 2024.

To put all of this into perspective, 19.86 million Switch 2 consoles have been sold as of March 31, and the Switch has long surpassed the 154 million lifetime sales of the Nintendo DS. Nintendo is predicting that it'll sell fewer Switch 2 consoles in its second year on the market--around 16.5 million units according to its estimates--due to a wide variety of global factors.

Sony's PS2 figure was revised back in 2024 when the Nintendo console began closing the distance. The sales record stood at 155 million PS2s sold to 143.42 million Switch consoles sold in August that year, with the number eventually being revised after the final PS2 unit was manufactured.

Nintendo foresees Switch 2 hardware sales declining during the system's second year of availability--an unusual development for successful games systems. This comes as the hybrid console has already sold almost 20 million units in 10 months, but with a price hike waiting in the wings.

The company behind Mario explained why fiscal 2027's (April 1-March 31, 2027) forecast sees a reduction in Switch 2 sales, with the current estimate at 16.5 million units sold. Nintendo offered the following reasons for the reduction: "In light of the strong sales performance in the first year following launch and price adjustments, we expect unit sales for the fiscal year ending March 2027 to decline year-over-year. That said, we view this as a healthy level of sales for Nintendo Switch 2 in its second year after launch, and we continue to anticipate further growth in its installed base."

Intriguingly, the major launch-year success for Switch 2 caught Nintendo a bit off-guard. The company even admitted that the system's sales "reached a level we had not experienced with any of our previous hardware systems."

As part of Sony's latest earnings briefing, the company revealed that PlayStation 5 sales are down massively year-over-year, while management discussed what it believes will be a rosy future for the company thanks to AI-driven efficiencies.

In terms of PS5 sales, Sony reported that it had sold 46% fewer PS5 units during its fiscal Q4 than it did during the same quarter last year. More specifically, Sony sold 1.5 million PS5 units worldwide during the quarter, down from 2.8 million during the same period the year prior. The PS5 has now sold 93.7 million units worldwide.

Downward trends are expected for the PS5, as the system is now in its sixth year on the market. The PS5 is also more expensive than ever before, as Sony has raised the price of the console by $200 for its cheapest version since the system launched in 2020. During the earnings briefing, Sony blamed the latest downturn on "continued pressures in the global economic landscape."

Video games have featured famous faces for decades now, but they've often suffered from a stigma of providing subpar entertainment when compared to movies and TV. Things are changing lately, thanks to games like The Last of Us, and last year's smash-hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 making a strong case for how actors can still deliver emotional performances through this digital medium. One of the Expedition 33's stars, Andy Serkis, has spoken about how there has been a shift in attitudes from actors, with a new generation of thespians wanting to appear in video games.

"I don't see any difference in that or acting in films, on stage, or TV," Serkis said to Variety. "It's exactly the same; you approach and build a character the same way. My first engagement with video games was with a company called Ninja Theory, and we made a game called Heavenly Sword for PS3. At that point, actors looked down on video games as like, 'I wouldn't get involved in a video game'. Now, young actors coming out of drama schools, and they're like, I really want to be in a video game. There has always been that snobbery about video games not being anywhere near filmmaking. But that's all changing and certainly looking into the future when we have more immersive storytelling, which is what's happening."

Serkis has had a long career in video games, starting in 2002's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers game, where he reprised his role as Gollum, and continuing through the official King Kong video game, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, several Lego games, and the aforementioned Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Like several of his fellow actors, Serkis' performance as Renoir received high praise for being nuanced and charismatic.

Mere months after launch, Resident Evil Requiem has shadow-dropped a new mode that focuses purely on the best part of the game: Leon S. Kennedy's talent for taking care of bioweapons that have run amok. Titled "Leon Must Die Forever," the minigame adds a roguelike element to Leon's survival-action gameplay while taking players through familiar levels and boss fights from the Requiem campaign.

It was originally thought that Requiem would get a form of the popular Mercenaries mode that has been present in several Resident Evil games over the years, but this minigame sees the franchise explore new gameplay territory. You can check out the trailer through this link, and screenshots of it below.

In its latest financial results, Sony revealed that it has yet to determine pricing or a launch date for the PlayStation 6. While the console hasn't been officially unveiled yet, Sony did mention that it is increasing investment in its "next-generation platform" while also working out how to deal with the global component shortage crisis driven by various global factors currently.

Responding to questions, Sony president and CEO Hiroki Totoki explained that the rising costs for vital components like RAM would have an impact on its PS6 plans. "We have not yet decided on at what timing we will launch the new console, or at what prices," Totoki said during the call.

"We would like to really observe and follow the situation. Looking at the current circumstances, the memory price is also expected to be very high in the Financial Year 2027, because there will still be a shortage of supply. So under that assumption, we must think carefully about what we will do."

Sony just presented its financial results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026, including the fact that the majority of PlayStation game sales are digital. Of course, this comes as no surprise since digital sales overtook physical between 2018 and 2019, in the PS4's midcycle.

When the PlayStation 5 launched with an option to have no disc drive at all, it was evident the digital era had become king. Now, Sony has reported a record-breaking 85% of PlayStation game sales were digital in Q4 of its last full fiscal year.

That's a 2% increase from 2024, where Q1 and Q4 reported 80% of sales were digital. Its sales in gaming overall remained "essentially flat," contributed to positively by the impact of foreign exchange rates, an increase in sales from network services, and an increase in sales of non-first-party titles.

After writing $204 million off Bungie's value in November last year, Sony has recorded another $565 million impairment loss against the studio--resulting in a total $769 million being wiped off Bungie's value in the last financial year.

While Sony gaming's FY2025 results are generally pretty strong considering the challenging market conditions, the company listed the $769 million loss against Bungie's value as the biggest negative factor impacting its operating income. The write down, which represents over 20% of the $3.6 billion Sony paid for Bungie back in 2022, doesn't look good for Bungie, or either of its ongoing titles.

The loss may turn out to be another nail in the coffin for Marathon, which has been slowly losing players since it launched in March. While the game has a small but loyal playerbase who appreciate its unique style and aesthetics, no one seems particularly optimistic about Marathon's longevity at the moment.

Amid pressure from investors, Nintendo has announced that it will be increasing the price of the Nintendo Switch 2 to $500 from September 1, 2026. The new pricing is a $50 increase from the Switch 2's current $450 price point.

Nintendo announced the price hike in today's earnings release for the 2026 financial year, where ongoing hardware pressures continue to impact the company's bottom line. The pricing changes are being implemented "in light of changes in market conditions, and after considering the global business outlook," Nintendo said in a press release.

The $50 price increase is at the lower end of the range anticipated by analysts. Multiple regions are set to receive a similar price bump on September 1, including the US, Canada, and Europe, however Japanese consumers will be the first to be impacted, with the local price for the system set to increase from May 25.

Unless it's Mario or Zelda, there seems to be no guarantee that a Nintendo franchise will remain a constant presence in the company's portfolio. Take it from the heartbroken and frustrated fans of Nintendo properties that have lain dormant for years--decades, even. Until very recently, Star Fox was perhaps the most notable example of this.

The grand return of Fox McCloud and the crew came with little warning, with the reveal of Fox in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and news of the upcoming Switch 2 game blowing up the internet like a Smart Bomb. But while Star Fox devotees celebrate these developments, I'm left contemplating why this series came back--and why others aren't getting a similar treatment.

I've long been under the impression that Nintendo sidelines properties that it simply doesn't have any new ideas for. That was famously the reason why a Metroid game never materialized on Nintendo 64, with Shigeru Miyamoto saying that developers "couldn't come up with any concrete ideas or vehicle at that time." Star Fox itself skipped the Wii era, with Miyamoto recalling that Nintendo "didn’t find an idea that really brought that together for the Wii."

The Entertainment Software Association is opposing new legislation in California that would require developers of online games that are shutting down to give lengthy notice beforehand, offer refunds, and make their games playable offline.

Introduced by Democratic Assemblymember Chris Ward, Assembly Bill 1921 would require game developers to "communicate specified information to purchasers and prospective purchasers of a digital game 60 days before the operator ceases to provide services." Once that server-closure day arrives, the studio would have to offer "an alternate version of, a patch or update to, or a refund for, the game."

Its aims generally align with the goals of Stop Killing Games, an online game preservation movement that has gained traction over the past year. It also comes in the wake of high-profile live-service game failures like Concord and Highguard, which were abruptly taken offline and delisted shortly after launch.

Players who constantly check PlayStation Store for the best prices may be surprised to hear that Sony has apparently removed the deals tab that has been associated with its online marketplace. A sale was previously scheduled to begin today, but there's currently no sign that it will.

Push Square was among the first outlets to notice that PlayStation Store's deals tab was missing, and we confirmed that going to the deals page on a web browser results in an error message. Pinning down a reason why has been more difficult in the absence of any official word from Sony. GameSpot has reached out to Sony for comment.

Early speculation from the outlet suggested that the move may be tied to Sony's currently in-progress update for PlayStation's UI, which is in beta. Insider Gaming has also reported that the settlement of a class-action lawsuit against Sony could be another factor in the decision to take down the deals tab. If the settlement is accepted by the court, Sony will pay $7.8 million to players in the United States who purchased select games on PlayStation Store.

One of the changes that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma could make as the new boss could pertain to Microsoft's controversial multiplatform strategy. She said as much during a recent town hall, and now new reporting from The Verge states that Sharma is "evaluating a range of options for Xbox exclusive games."

The report said Sharma is "treading carefully" and is not yet ready to sign off on "any major changes" to the policy.

This is hardly a surprise. Before this, Sharma said she's trying to make "the right decision, not the fastest decision." Whatever Sharma and the team land on in terms of exclusives will amount to "long-swinging decisions that have decade-long impact," she said.

Darkstone Digital and DreadXP have announced that they will no longer release Paranormal Activity: Threshold because Paramount would not give them more time to make the horror game.

Brian Clarke, best known for being the creator of the viral horror game The Mortuary Assistant, broke the news on Darkstone Digital's X account on Wednesday.

"It became clear that the game needed more time to ensure it was the best it could possibly be," Clarke explained. "DreadXP stood by my need for more time and, together, we made a request to Paramount for a time extension. Sadly, Paramount did not agree to extend development. This left me with two choices: Rush through development and release a sub-par product I would not be proud of or request we go our separate ways. I chose the latter."

As the halfway point of the year comes into focus, the latest batch of free games for Amazon Luna has been revealed. Amazon Prime members can claim these 11 PC games and six more via the cloud for a total of 17 freebies in May. This month, the selection includes a classic gangland drama that has been overhauled for modern systems, some escape room fun, and one of the best Alien games of all time.

As a reminder, all of the free games that you claim through Amazon Luna are yours to keep forever, even if your subscription expires. If you aren't a member, you can sign up for Amazon Luna for as little as $15 for one month to take advantage of the subscription and its freebies.

• Mafia 2: Definitive Edition (GOG Code)
• Fruitbus (GOG Code)

• Survival: Fountain of Youth (Amazon Games Code)
• 60 Minutes to Extinction: Escape Room (GOG Code)
• Lethal Honor: Order of the Apocalypse (Epic Games Store)

• Space Grunts (GOG Code)
• Palindrome Syndrome: Escape Room (GOG Code)
• Hot Brass (GOG Code)

• Nordic Storm Solitaire (Legacy Games Code)
• Moon Mystery (Epic Games Store)
• Pro Basketball Manager 2026 (Amazon Games Code)

Prime subscribers will also be able to play the following new games in May via the Luna channel: