iam8bit, a company known for its physical gaming collectibles, has responded to Sony's announcement that it will no longer support physical PlayStation discs in 2028, saying it is "profoundly disappointed" by the news.

"Physical games are vital to games preservation, ownership, and consumer choice, values that have guided iam8bit since our first physical release in 2016," the company said.

The company added that it remains committed to these values. "Long live physical media," iam8bit said in its sign-off.

iam8bit collaborates with numerous game companies like Blizzard, Remedy, Capcom, Annapurna, and Xbox on physical games and merch. The company also releases vinyl soundtracks for games like Arc Raiders and Persona.

The company also funds and publishes games through its iam8bit Presents label.

Another company, the independent game developer Aeternum Game Studios, reacted to Sony's announcement as well, saying its commitment to physical editions of its games remains intact. "We pledge to work urgently to bring every game we create--and those already on the way--tangibly to your shelves before that fateful early 2028 deadline," the company said.

It added: "The industry may try to change its course but we will not let go of your hand. Your shelves will keep being filled with stories."

Sony continues to sell many, many millions of physical, disc-based games, but the number it sells each year continues to drop, and that trend is expected to continue for Sony and other game companies. Against this backdrop, Sony will no longer support disc-based games starting in January 2028, and the implication here is that the PS6 also won't work with disc-based games. A recent report said Microsoft's new console, Project Helix, may not support discs, either.

Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is expected to be one of 2026's biggest game releases alongside GTA 6, and the company is expected to go all-out with its marketing and promotion campaign for it. That may have already begun, but not in the way anyone might have expected.

World Cup fans have spotted a curious detail on the French men's national team bus--luggage that appears to carry the Modern Warfare 4 branding.

You can clearly see the branding in the image below. We don't know if this is an official marketing effort from Activision or something else, but in any event, it's getting people to talk about Modern Warfare 4.

It's not the only sports-related marketing beat for Modern Warfare 4, as the game will be playable at the Fanatics Fest in New York City this month.

https://twitter.com/ForwardLeaks/status/2072180124913471745

Modern Warfare 4 releases this October, about a month before GTA 6 arrives. The game takes place on the Korean peninsula as North Korea launches an invasion that "threatens to destabilize the world." You play as Private Park (portrayed by The Last of Us actor Young Mazino) while a second story focusing on Captain Price takes place simultaneously in other parts of the world.

"As Price’s off-book mission collides with the forces behind the invasion, the war spreads beyond anyone’s control," reads a line from the game's description.

Ahead of release, Activision will host a multiplayer beta for Modern Warfare 4, and you can get in early by preordering. Unlike the previous two games in the series, Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7, Modern Warfare 4 will not be on Game Pass at launch. That's something Activision is reminding players in ads for the game.

In a major development, Modern Warfare 4 will be available on Nintendo Switch 2. It will mark the first time since 2013's Call of Duty: Ghosts that a Call of Duty game has come to a Nintendo platform.

The unlicensed Companion Cube engineered, illegally, for Valve's Steam Machine will never go on sale again, with those who preordered already being refunded. But what about the handful that made it out of the door and into the hands of journalists, influencers, and content creators? Instead of becoming collector's items, it seems they're all being destroyed.

The fate of the existing Companion Cubes wasn't covered in the lengthy statement describing the entire fiasco, which was published by manufacturer Dbrand earlier this week. But it seems that the company is requesting existing samples to be sent back to them so that they can be destroyed, mimicking the fate of many of the cubes across both Portal titles. At least that's what's happening to the sample sent to The Verge, who captured the entirety of the cube's design and elaborate packaging before it was ripped away.

The detailing, from the Portal iconography to the actual reproduced cube itself, shows exactly why Valve would've been extremely irate at a company making money on one of its IP without consent. Dbrand admitted that it made a mistake attempting to sell the Steam Machine accessory without explicit permission from Valve, but also didn't do itself any favors with the cube's advertising, which even hints at a non-existent Half-Life 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfITSn5pcrQ

The Steam Machine launches next week for those lucky enough to have secured the chance to throw lots of money Valve's way, with the base 512GB model without a Steam Controller starting at $1,050. Valve says this is much more than it originally wanted the compact computer to cost, and cannot promise that it'll come down in the future, either.

Diablo 4's worst endgame grind just became a lot less painful in Season 14, thanks to a batch of impactful changes to gems and conversion recipes.

In Diablo's latest expansion, Lord of Hatred, Blizzard introduced two new tiers of gems to its ARPG: Horadric and Flawless Horadric Gems. These gems are far more powerful than their lower-tier counterparts, but there is a catch--they can't be found as drops. Instead, they can only be crafted using the Horadric Cube's Amalgamation recipe. The recipe turns five Grand Gems into one Horadric Gem, and five Horadric Gems into one Flawless Horadric Gem. 

Season 13 saw players running one particular dungeon, Seer's Reach, for hours on end, as it was one of the best sources of acquiring gems that could then be converted into Grand Gems. Those Grand Gems could then be converted once more into Horadric, and eventually Flawless Horadric, gems. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuu7aOAw0is

If running the same dungeon over and over for hours on end just to convert gems sounds like a lot of monotonous work, that's because it was. It took hours upon hours of mindless grinding to even get a full gear set's worth of Horadric Gems, and that's without even going the extra mile to then eventually turn around and convert those into the even more powerful Flawless versions.

Thankfully, as detailed in the game's official patch notes for update 3.1.0, the now-live Season 14 has made the gem grind far more manageable. For starters, players will find significantly more gem fragments in Torment X and above, making the hunt for Grand Gems less of a pain point and requiring less time spent farming Seer's Reach.

The other big change is to gem-conversion recipes at the Jeweler. Blizzard has reduced the types of gems needed to use a conversion recipe from three to two. Those gem conversion recipes additionally don't have as much overlap as before, which should make it easier to convert unwanted gem fragments into ones that are needed for a given build.

Those changes alone should make Diablo 4's endgame less of a chore, even as Blizzard has lengthened the grind in other areas. In Season 14, Mythic items have undergone a major change to have more random affixes, making the quest to obtain a perfect item a much longer process. While some of that randomness has since been walked back with the season's launch, it still remains to be seen how what Blizzard calls "Mythic Uniques 3.0" will land with the community.

In an interview with GameSpot ahead of Season 14's release, Blizzard seemed aware its changes to Mythic items have been controversial, but sees it as a necessary step for Diablo 4's long-term health.

While it can seem like every week feels bad in the games industry, this past week felt especially awful. You're not wrong for thinking so, too, and the start of this week wasn't that great either. But what if I told you that it could get even worse? It doesn't sound possible, but trust me, it appears it definitely could.

Let's look at what happened last week.

A week to forget

On June 22, news broke that Ubisoft co-founder Claude Guillemot died in a plane crash on June 19. His brother, Yves Guillemot, paid tribute to the late co-founder in a statement, saying that Claude "helped shape Ubisoft with an entrepreneurial spirit, curiosity, and unwavering optimism." This was quite unfortunate news to start the week.

In the background of this announcement has been the drama surrounding Santa Monica Studios' upcoming action-adventure game God of War: Laufey, with gamers blaming "gender" for the game's narrative decisions despite the PlayStation-owned developer building toward Laufey for almost a decade now.

You also had CD Projekt Red--the publisher, not the developer--talking about how its reputation still hasn't fully healed following the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077, an Ocarina of Time fan project shutting down for fear of "Nintendo ninjas," and the announcement of the Steam Machine's $1,000 price tag--which the internet had a lot of thoughts about.

June 23 came with some bombshell news. Alongside the confirmation that Lords of the Fallen II was delayed to avoid Grand Theft Auto 6's imminent release and an EA executive saying that the company's embrace of AI saw a "real rise of creativity," Rockstar Games announced that GTA 6 won't ship with a physical disc at all. The internet wasn't too happy about this news, and some retailers said they're refusing to carry physical copies of the game now.

Things started to get particularly bad on June 25. News began circulating that the looming Xbox layoffs were about to start, with South of Midnight developer Compulsion Games reportedly being hit first. That same day, Bungie let go of "most" of the Destiny team and "some" of the Marathon staff in a massive layoff. Justin Truman, the head of Bungie, also stepped down after less than a year on the job. And then, Microsoft announced that Xbox consoles will get a price hike in August, and hinted at another increase coming in 2027 or 2028--capping off a bad day with worse news.

Now fast-forward to the last couple of days.

The bad news snowball

On June 29, Activision began promoting Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4--which drops on October 23--by reminding you that it won't launch on Xbox Game Pass during its first year. This isn't necessarily new news, as Microsoft announced in April 2026 that new Call of Duty titles won't hit the subscription service going forward. However, it's still a blow when the last two entries--Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7--both landed in the vault day-one. Now, if you want to play Modern Warfare 4 or any new Call of Duty, you either have to pay full price for the game or wait one full year if you have an active Game Pass subscription. It's odd, considering Microsoft acquired Activision--and Call of Duty--for $69 billion in 2023, but the decision could be because putting the mega-hit military shooter on Game Pass came at a loss.

On the same day, Sony tried to temper expectations for the PlayStation 6, clarifying that it won't sell hardware at a "significant" loss anymore. Basically, the company is warning that the PS6 won't be cheap at all. On the other side of the coin, reports came out that the Xbox-owned studio Undead Labs, developer of the State of Decay franchise, is at risk of closure. (It's worth noting that several other Xbox Game Studios, like Double Fine and Ninja Theory, are also at risk unless a buyer is found.)

Microsoft came with even more hits on June 30, as Hitman developer IO Interactive suffered layoffs after funding was pulled from the studio's in-development fantasy RPG. As if things couldn't get any worse that day, a report suggested that Microsoft may shutter the Blade developer Arkane Studios and cancel that project entirely. (Hideo Kojima's Xbox-exclusive OD is seemingly safe, though.) While it's smaller potatoes in the wake of the biggest fishes, developer Papergames rescinded its decision to add a new love interest to its action dating sim Love and Deepspace after fan outcry spilled over into the real world.

And just today, July 1, Sony announced plans to end all physical disc production for PlayStation games in 2028--which could mean that the PS6 will be a digital-only console. (Reports suggest Microsoft's next Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, may also be discless.) The move sent the internet into a heated frenzy, but Sony wasn't done yet, as the company also confirmed that the PlayStation Stores for both the PS3 and PS Vita will close in July 2027.

Things get worse before they get ... worse?

As you can see, the last week has been awful, and the last couple of days exacerbated that badness. But things aren't looking too great if we look ahead, either.

According to a June 30 report by The Verge, the looming Xbox layoffs will start on July 6. The full number of impacted staff is unknown right now, but rumors suggest that the aftermath could end with at least 1,500 laid-off employees. Ahead of these cuts, unionized Xbox workers are calling for protections to shield themselves from these executive decisions.

There's that ancient axiom: Things get worse before they get better. It's hard to believe that is true when, everywhere you look in the games industry lately, things just look more and more bleak as time marches forward. Maybe the industry will improve, and things will get better. There are, after all, a ton of games to look forward to--particularly in September. But right now, the games industry is looking more like a wasteland than ever before.

Following Sony's announcement that it will not support PlayStation discs starting in 2028 and conjecture that the PS6 won't have a disc drive, it's now been reported that Microsoft's next-gen Xbox, Project Helix, won't have a disc drive either.

Jez Corden of Windows Central reported today that Project Helix will not have a disc drive. The report did not include any further details, but this would not be a surprising development given the increasing percentage of games sold digitally compared to physical, along with existing precedent.

The Verge, meanwhile, reported that Microsoft has not decided yet about if Project Helix will have a disc drive. The report also said Microsoft is working on a disc-to-digital feature that would allow users to transition their physical games to digital ones. This feature, which Xbox employees are now reportedly testing, will allow users to convert Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S discs to digital copies; there will apparently be no support for Xbox 360 and original Xbox discs.

"Getting a digital copy of a game works simply by inserting a compatible disc and installing and playing the game. This will require a Microsoft account on an Xbox console and will grant a digital entitlement for physical games," the report said. "This digital entitlement is tied to the specific disc, and it will move from account to account if you swap the physical game with a friend or log in to a different Xbox profile and try to play a disc-based game."

Not all existing discs will be supported, though, the report said. Supported discs for the disc-to-digital program will continue to work as discs even after being digitized, the report said. However, the entitlements are tied to specific consoles and the entitlements will end if people give away their discs. . 

Project Helix may not have a disc drive.

Microsoft already offers a digital-only version of the Xbox Series X, while all Xbox Series S consoles do not have disc drives. Microsoft has been plotting a future for consoles with no disc drives for more than a decade, as the company considered doing away with the disc drive for the Xbox One.

While many millions of games continue to be sold physically on discs, the share of digital games compared to disc-based games sold continues to grow in favor of digital. Sony had its highest-ever quarterly digital game sales period just before it announced it was abandoning discs. Companies like EA, Capcom, Nintendo, and others have reported increased shares of digital game sales, too.

Sony said it was ending support for discs because the majority of its users buy games digitally, and that's likely true for Xbox as well. Sony publishes this data in its quarterly reports, but Microsoft is much more secretive and doesn't share much in the way of concrete data for how its Xbox division is performing.

Not much is known about Project Helix, apart from Microsoft touting it as a system that will "push the boundaries of rendering and simulation."

At Summer Game Fest recently, Xbox's Matthew Ball said Microsoft remained committed to releasing Project Helix, despite ongoing concerns about component and memory pricing due to the AI craze.

This month's batch of free games for PlayStation Plus subscribers has been revealed. All PS Plus members will be able to claim a trio of freebies starting July 7--Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, For the King 2, and CrossCode. If you haven't claimed June's PlayStation Plus free games yet, make sure to do so before next Tuesday.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 isn't exactly a high point for the franchise, but at the very least, the 2023 game was a comfortably familiar experience. Set directly after the events of the previous Modern Warfare game, the threequel follows Captain Price and Task Force 141 as they take on ultranationalist war criminal Vladimir Makarov across the globe. Throw in the usual multiplayer and Zombies modes, and you've got a passable Call of Duty adventure to dig into.

For the King 2 sees players battle against a tyrannical queen, either on their own or in co-op. Set in the land of Fahrul, the game is inspired by classic tabletop adventures and offers a digestible roguelite campaign, as well as the Dark Carnival that tests your group by seeing how many floors of a dungeon they can clear before they're overwhelmed by all the danger inside of it.

Finally, CrossCode is a gem of an action-RPG. This fan-favorite game features a retro-inspired design, combining 16-bit-style graphics with smooth gameplay and a fusion of gameplay ideas. You get old-school action, meaty RPG buildcrafting, and fast-paced battles to enjoy. CrossCode developer Radical Fish also recently released its next game, Alabaster Dawn, in Steam Early Access, and it's worth checking out for even more nostalgic RPG goodness.  

PlayStation Plus July 2026 Games

Available July 7 through August 3

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Cross-Gen Bundle (PS5, PS4)
• For the King 2 (PS5, PS4)
• CrossCode (PS5, PS4)

The Best PS5 Games In 2026 View Images

After Sony announced that it would stop supporting physical discs starting in January 2028, many expected GameStop's stock price to take a hit. After all, the company is known to drive revenue from new and used game sales. However, GameStop is not hurting today. Actually, GameStop's share price is up.

Why is that? Whereas GameStop's business was once mainly focused on selling game software, that's no longer the case. The store still sells new and used games, of course, but for GameStop's latest reporting period, software sales were actually the smallest part of the company's overall business.

For the 13 weeks that ended May 2, 2026, GameStop reported software revenue of $152.7 million, making up just 18.3% of GameStop's total revenue for the period. This includes new and pre-owned games, along with digital games.

For the same period the year prior, software sales were $175.6 million, or 24% of GameStop's total revenue for the quarter.

GameStop's business is much less focused on software these days.

During the latest quarter, GameStop's biggest revenue-driver was collectibles, which amounted to $348.9 million, or 41.8% of total revenue. Next behind it was hardware and accessories, which came to $333.7 million, or 39.9% of revenue.

Sony killing off physical, disc-based PlayStation games is not good news for GameStop, but it's also not the worst, and won't have an immediate impact in any event. After all, the changes do not go into effect until January 2028.

Ahead of that, Rockstar's GTA 6 won't be sold on a disc, but you can still buy a physical copy at GameStop (with a code in the box).

Another factor at play here is that GameStop's stock price got a jolt recently after CEO Ryan Cohen re-committed to his plan to buy eBay and abandoned his $35 billion pay package incentive.

PlayStation said it was abandoning physical discs because the majority of its users prefer digital. Given the announcement, experts believe the PS6 will be a digital console and won't launch until 2028 at the soonest.

After a year of litigation that resulted in the firing and rehiring of Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill, the Korean publisher Krafton Inc. has agreed to pay the entire Subnautica 2 team bonuses in three annual installments.

According to a July 1 Bloomberg report, Krafton Inc. and Unknown Worlds Entertainment have reached a "legal settlement" with the Subnautica 2 studio's CEO Ted Gill and its co-founders. As part of the agreement, Gill has resigned, stating that the two companies--Krafton and Unknown Worlds--are searching for a new CEO outside the companies.

"We mutually agreed to part ways," Gill told Bloomberg News. "New leadership is the best way for the studio to move forward."

Gill explained to Bloomberg that everyone at Unknown Worlds--including those who were there during the Krafton acquisition in 2021 and those recently hired--will be "compensated significantly more" than under the original purchase. How much is unknown, but Gill said that the team will get "further incentives" as Subnautica 2 receives more updates. These bonuses will be paid out in three annual installments.

Unknown Worlds filed a lawsuit against Krafton in July 2025 for refusing to pay out $250 million in bonuses. The drama resulted in Subnautica 2 being delayed and Ted Gill being fired, though a judge ruled in March 2026 that Gill be reinstated, blaming the publisher's CEO for consulting ChatGPT on how to get out of paying the bonuses the studio was reportedly owed. Now, Gill is out once again, but the team's getting paid.

Subnautica 2, which launched on PC and Xbox Series X|S on May 14, hit an impressive player count one day after launch and sold 4 million copies within four days of release. Despite no longer being employed at the company, Gill was proud of the success.

"We're all super excited about Subnautica 2 and its tremendous success," Gill told Bloomberg News on July 1.

After Sony's surprising announcement that it plans to end PlayStation disc production by 2028 in favor of a digital-only future for its consoles, some fine print has gotten lost in all the buzz: Sony is also ending support for the PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita.

"After nearly two decades of supporting the PS3 console generation, we wanted to let you know we will be closing the PlayStation Store on PS3, as well as on PS Vita," Sony senior director Sid Shuman shared in a blog post announcing the upcoming changes.

Of course, this isn't nearly as surprising as Sony's pivot to digital-only games. Cutting off online store access for aging consoles is common--Nintendo cut off eShop access for the 3DS and Wii U in March 2023, for example--but Sony seems to be taking a softer approach. 

"PlayStation Store on PS3 will close in select markets starting this year, followed by global closures for PS3 and PS Vita next year," Shuman explained. "That means new content purchases will no longer be possible once the PlayStation Store closes on these devices. To ease the transition, players will still be able to download previously purchased content after the closing date for the foreseeable future."

Per Shuman, the first markets on the chopping block are Mexico, Honduras, and Nicaragua, where the PlayStation Store on PS3 will close in August. (No word yet on how this will affect Vita users in these regions.)

The PlayStation Store will also become inaccessible on PS3 consoles in "additional Latin American and Middle Eastern countries" sometime in "late 2026." Sony hasn't provided any specifics on which countries will be affected, or exactly when in 2026 this will take place. (And no word on Vita here, either.)

"In all other countries, PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita will close in July 2027," Shuman wrote suggesting that regardless of location, all PS3 and Vita users will lose access to the PlayStation Store by this time next year.

"As we continue to expand the PlayStation experience on newer devices that most of our users are playing on today, we need to focus more resources on delivering the best gaming experiences on these platforms as we look ahead towards the future," Shuman said of the decision.

But it looks like Sony's future doesn't have room for physical games.

Sony's announcement that it will end production of all PlayStation game discs in 2028 hasn't gone over well with fans of physical media. While the move might be an obvious one to make for Sony--digital sales account for almost 80% of its game sales on PS5 currently--the news still feels like it came from out of nowhere.

Coupled with Sony also confirming that it'll be closing the PS3 and PS Vita storefronts next month, today feels like a solid reminder that you don't own the game you just bought, merely a license to play it on that specific platform.

This will have a major ripple effect across the industry, as physical retailers like GameStop have long made their bread and butter on physical sales, both new and secondhand. Then you have people who swap games with each other or who prefer to obtain a tangible copy of a game so that they can feel some sense of ownership over it, or the consumers who don't trust a company to keep the servers online forever--an idea that feels especially relevant in light of Sony delisting hundreds of digital movies from PlayStation user libraries last week.

Naturally, people have a lot to say about the shift to digital, and how it feels like the latest addition to a seemingly never-ending cycle of bad news. 

https://twitter.com/GOGcom/status/2072255180083462536 https://twitter.com/shinobi602/status/2072313946824974394 https://twitter.com/GermanStrands/status/2072305061477167585 https://bsky.app/profile/krismoyse.bsky.social/post/3mplmcjhklc24 https://bsky.app/profile/dark1x.bsky.social/post/3mploe56kv22v https://bsky.app/profile/knoebel.bsky.social/post/3mplnutreok2t https://bsky.app/profile/vgtomo.bsky.social/post/3mplnf2it4s27 https://bsky.app/profile/skywardsiren.bsky.social/post/3mpliqegof22r https://bsky.app/profile/brianpshea.bsky.social/post/3mplnsdixa22n https://bsky.app/profile/jamesbjones.com/post/3mplnjpcdc22d https://bsky.app/profile/stephentotilo.bsky.social/post/3mpln6b4oh22q https://bsky.app/profile/matpiscatella.bsky.social/post/3mpljsrb3is2s https://bsky.app/profile/svegvari.bsky.social/post/3mpllwrl7e22u

Lately, things feel glum in the gaming industry. Alongside Sony's future plans--which suggest the PS6 being a digital-only gaming console--Rockstar has also come under fire for its GTA 6 code-in-a-box plans, Microsoft is reportedly planning to close down several of its game studios, and an Xbox console is more expensive than ever before. But hey! At least you can get some PC games for cheap right now and use them to ignore the dismal state of things.

Sony has confirmed that it will no longer support physical discs for PlayStation games--for first- and third-party games--starting in January 2028. Many are wondering why, and it likely has to do with steep declines in physical software sales at the gaming giant.

Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad has reminded people that while physical software is not a dead market--almost 70 million new disc-based PlayStation games were sold in 2025--but the shift toward digital keeps growing.

"Having a retail presence is still important for many publishers, but it's clear that doesn't always need to a disc, and won't be going forward," he said.

"So as much as rising digital share is a market trend, the decision to stop physical disc production at this point is entirely a platform led decision that is designed to cut costs for Sony, eliminate resale / used markets, and drive 100% of revenue through the PlayStation Store," he added.

No more discs for PlayStation games.

When the PS4 launched, less than 10% of game sales were digital. For the latest fiscal year, it rose to about 80% of full-game sales being digital for PlayStation.

Sony's decision to kill physical discs on PlayStation is a "watershed moment" for the games industry, an analyst said. It also has implications for the PS6, with experts saying this news almost guarantees a PS6 launch in 2028 at the soonest.

The announcement from Sony about PlayStation discs came not long after Rockstar confirmed that GTA 6 will not be released on a disc.

Sony killing off physical discs for PlayStation games might make business sense, but it's also a big bummer for many who wanted to keep buying physical games. It also has sparked game-preservation concerns.

Sony's official explanation is that it's doing this "in response to shifting trends in consumer preference."

"This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs," the company said. "This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today."

Despite being the Switch 2's leading launch game, Mario Kart World hasn't gotten much in terms of proper new content. But update 1.7.0 just dropped for the game, and it adds two Knockout Tour routes for players to burn rubber on.

The Drill Rally starts at Wario Shipyard and ends in Bowser's Castle, while the Boomerang Rally extends from Salty Salty Speedway to Whistlestop Summit. Nintendo's website mentions that additional routes will be added in future updates, and the game's menu indicates that six more are on the way.

Mind you, there aren't any new tracks or expansions to the open world included in this new update, but the addition of new Knockout Tour routes signals that Nintendo isn't done with the game yet.

https://twitter.com/NintendoEurope/status/2072228720501240314?s=20

As a bonus, Mario Kart World's photo mode now lets you add stickers to your pictures, with touchscreen and mouse support sure to make sticker placement even easier. Other changes in version 1.7.0 include changes to item rates and other gameplay adjustments.

Previous Mario Kart World updates include the addition of Bob-omb Blast, but this is probably the most substantial content drop for the Switch 2's best-selling game yet. The Mario Kart World community on Reddit appears quite excited to have received anything, to be frank.

Fans were convinced last year that DLC based on Donkey Kong Bananza was inevitable, but there's been no hint of such an update. At least with this patch for Mario Kart World, hope for more tracks, costumes, and such can race on.

Let’s Rank What Matters Most In Mario Kart World: The Food View Images

Stranger Things and Enola Holmes actor Millie Bobby Brown has called out Grand Theft Auto as being her favorite video game series. She said in an interview that she's very excited for GTA 6, and she also shared some insight into how she plays GTA games--it's probably not how you play them.

"I follow the rules in GTA," she said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. "I don't break the rules. I stop at red lights. I never run anyone over."

Millie Bobby Brown is excited for GTA 6.

She said her husband, Jake Bongiovi, asked her why she plays GTA like The Sims. Her response? "I'm going to go to the strip club, but I am not going to get drunk."

This isn't the first time Brown has discussed her gaming habits. She previously called out games like The Sims 4 and Fortnite as some of her favorites, according to Screen Rant.

GTA 6 is the next entry in the series, and it arrives this November on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Preorders are open now for the $80 and $100 editions of the open-world crime game. Preorders come with an auto-renewing GTA+ membership.

Sony's announcement that it will stop releasing games on discs beginning in 2028 will have implications for the PlayStation 6, according to one industry expert.

Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis said the decision to stop having PlayStation's first-party games, along with titles from third-parties, printed on discs, "pretty much guarantees that PS6 won't arrive until 2028 at the soonest."

He said this in an interview with Game File, in which he also predicted that "the base version of a PS6 will not include a physical media drive."

"Ampere’s current expectation is that the console will launch at the end of 2028," he said of the PS6 (via VGC).

“Sony will be looking for all the ways it can reduce the cost of its next-gen console, and this is an easy win,” he added. “It’s possible that an add-on disc drive could be made available to play older PS4 and PS5 games on disc.”

No more discs for PlayStation games, starting in 2028.

Sony's official announcement today about abandoning discs included no official details about the implications for the PS6. To be sure, Sony has not even officially announced the PS6 yet, and the system's timeline could be impacted by the AI-fueled RAMageddon situation.

But why is Sony abandoning discs?

Game sales at Sony and other major game companies have been trending toward digital for years already. Sony's latest sales data showed a record-breaking high figure for digital game sales.

According to Harding-Rolls, Sony going all-digital--for both first- and third-party games--will help "streamline the business of games retail" and help mitigate margin pressures to help improve the overall health and stability of PlayStation.

Printing discs and sharing revenue with physical retailers are costs that Sony and other companies bear. Going all digital "will help offset pressures on margins from other directions--development and staffing costs, for example," Harding-Rolls said.

When the PS4 launched in 2013, the digital share of PlayStation games sold was estimated to be about 13%. In 2025, it was 80%, and that number is growing.

Industry analyst Daniel Ahmad said the announcement was "entirely a platform led decision that is designed to cut costs for Sony, eliminate resale / used markets, and drive 100% of revenue through the PlayStation Store."

The writing had been on the wall for this announcement. Both Sony and Microsoft released versions of their flagship consoles in 2020 that did not include a disc drive, and Sony’s PS5 Pro doesn’t ship with one by default--it can still be added via a modular attachment.

Nintendo, meanwhile, launched a new Game-Key Card system with the Switch 2 in 2025 that put a download code in a box. Some Switch 2 cartridges include the full game, but not Game-Key Card titles like Hogwarts Legacy and Resident Evil Village, among numerous others.

Sony's explanation

Sony's official word is that it's going all digital starting in 2028 in response to "shifting trends in consumer preference."

"This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs," it said. "This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today. "

GTA 6 also won't be on a disc

Sony's announcement came not long after Rockstar Games and Take-Two announced that GTA 6 will not be available on a disc. People can buy the game physically, but they will get a code in the box, not a disc. Neither Rockstar nor Take-Two have offered an explanation or defense for this decision, but it's likely to do with the biggest reason of all: cutting costs to make more money.

Will Microsoft follow suit?

Microsoft has its own fair share of problems with Xbox at the moment, and many are wondering if Xbox will follow PlayStation and ditch disc-based games in the future. That remains to be seen, but it wouldn't be surprising.

People still want and support disc-based games

Many people still buy disc-based games and prefer physical media. The news about GTA 6 going all-digital and now Sony's decision to kill disc-based games is sure to be controversial, especially through the lens of game preservation.

Sony is not killing off discs because players stopped buying them--they still do. Almost 70 million PlayStation discs were sold last year, but that number has dropped off dramatically. Sony's statement said the decision was about cutting costs and improving profit margins. Gaming is a business, after all, but that doesn't make the news any less difficult to stomach for those who prefer physical media.

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"Inevitably there will be concerns from PlayStation gamers around various aspects of this announcement including choice, accessing older physical games on new consoles, the ability to collect physical games, and game preservation, however the purchasing trends of gamers are clear," Harding-Rolls added. "This is a watershed moment for the industry."

Sony coupled the disc news with another painful announcement:  it will close the PlayStation Stores for PS3 and PS Vita.

Sony has officially confirmed that it will end the production of physical discs for PlayStation consoles, starting January 2028. In a new blog update, the company says that it made the decision based on how physical game disc sales have begun to decline, and in the future, all new games--both first- and third-party--will be available through the PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only.

Sony added that this new transition "has no impact" on games that have already been released or will be released. "This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today," the company added, while emphasizing that it will "continue to prioritize" resources on where consumers can access its games.

The writing has been on the wall for years now, as recent reports from Sony have indicated a massive shift from physical to digital. PlayStation owners overwhelmingly purchase games digitally when compared to physical editions, and one of the biggest games of the year, GTA 6, will also be available purely as a digital product. While a "physical" edition will be sold at retailers, this is essentially a code-in-a-box copy. It's also worth noting that both Sony and Microsoft released versions of their flagship consoles in 2020 that did not include a disc drive, and Sony's PS5 Pro doesn't ship with one by default (but it can still be added via a modular attachment).

The other knock-on effect is that the next PlayStation console will not include a physical media drive for its base model, as Sony aims to keep costs down. "This pretty much guarantees that PS6 won't arrive until 2028 at the earliest," Ampere Analysis senior games research analyst Piers Harding-Rolls said to Game File. Even physical copies of games don't contain the full experience on the disc, with many acting as an authentication key while all game data is copied to the console--a process that usually requires a hefty download as well.

On top of all this, Sony has also announced that it will be closing the PlayStation Store on PS3, as well as on PS Vita.

Wallpaper Engine has been a popular wallpaper tool on Steam for the better part of a decade since its release. However, the tool's application wallpaper was apparently hijacked by bad actors months ago who used it to infect users' machines with malware as the desktop wallpaper program ran in the background. Now, Wallpaper Engine's application is going to be permanently removed from the program over those malware concerns.

In a statement on Steam, the program's developers stated that users have a limited time to back up any wallpapers used from the application before the app is removed on Monday, July 6. The devs also note that removing the app only affects "0.5% of all wallpapers with actual user numbers being much lower than even that."

"The reality is that executable files cannot be reliably secured with automated systems," reads the statement. "There will always be blind spots and ways for people to bypass them. As many of you know, we recently saw people trying to use this old feature to spread malware. At the end of the day, keeping a feature around that lets anyone easily share random .exe files on the Workshop is a risk we are no longer willing to take."

A report on Securlist published earlier this month brought this issue to light and contends that malware had been inserted in the Wallpaper Engine's application as far back as late 2025. The malware could reportedly hijack Steam accounts, cripple hard drives, insert hidden crypto miners, or use ransomware to encrypt important users' data.

There have been a handful of games removed from Steam over similar malware issues, including Beyond the Dark last spring. The issue has even drawn the attention of the FBI, which announced an investigation into multiple infected titles on Steam.

Shortly after developer Papergames announced the addition of Valko--a new love interest in the mobile action dating sim Love and Deepspace--the backlash from fans has spilled into the real world. Now, Papergames is reversing course by canceling Valko's debut and pledging to focus on the five other love interests who are already in the game.

"We recognize that we moved forward with the introduction of Valko before we were truly ready," reads the statement posted to Love and Deepspace's Instagram account. "In doing so, we let down the players who have supported us from the start, and we also fell short of delivering the experience that players anticipating Valko deserved. After extensive internal discussions ... we have decided to cancel both the launch and any further development of the new love interest. We also commit that no additional love interests will be introduced in future content plans."

According Gaming on Phone, angry players made their displeasure about Valko's arrival known by targeting Papergames' headquarters in China with cow dung that was delivered to the company's lockers. White and yellow chrysanthemums--which represent funerals and mourning in Chinese culture--were also delivered. As a further insult, glutinous rice, and pomelo leaves--both of which are used in cleansing rituals--were delivered as well.

The outlet also notes that Love and Deepspace lost approximately 1 million followers on Chinese social media since the unveiling of Valko. One of the primary complaints was that Papergames wasn't delivering new story content or developing the characters of the five male love interests who were already in the game. In addition, many fans voiced complaints that the game, at times, felt like it catered too heavily toward whales, and said that they wanted improvements to how you're able to farm in-game resources.

In gacha games--like Love and Deepspace--or any type of live service game, a "whale" is a term used to describe a person who drops such a large amount of money on microtransactions, that they effectively keep the game afloat. The average user has been worried that the Love and Deepsace team caters too heavily toward these big spenders, and in an attempt to incentivize whales to drop even more money, the game is making everything too pricy for everyone else.

Despite the online (and offline) vitriol for him, there are apparently plenty of players who are now disappointed by Valko's cancellation. Replies left on Instagram have called for Valko to be released on Love and Deepspace.

The Protect Our Games Act--a piece of legislation endorsed by the Stop Killing Games movement--has been voted down at the California State Senate. However, one of the most noteworthy incidents from this legislative battle was a comment made by an Entertainment Software Association lobbyist who claimed that Minecraft and Call of Duty private community servers are "illegal."

Jennifer Gibbons, the ESA's vice president of state government affairs, told lawmakers that community servers for Minecraft and Call of Duty games are both breaking the law.

"They’re illegal," said Gibbons. "They are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft, for Minecraft, has gotten a lot of criticism because of those community servers not employing the same safety standards that Microsoft does on their Minecraft servers ... In fact, we consider it piracy. We have ... two pending lawsuits against private servers right now, and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in their Notorious Markets Reports on counterfeiting and piracy has named some of these big private servers as a notorious market."

As PC Gamer and Video Games Chronicle have noted, Gibbons has apparently conflated community-run servers with the ones actually targeted by the USTR for allowing players to circumvent subscription fees. Neither Minecraft nor classic Call of Duty games fall under those parameters and they don't require a subscription to play. There are even links to Minecraft community servers on the game's official site.

On Reddit, an advocate for Stop Killing Games accused Gibbons and the ESA of making claims that were "designed to scare a busy legislator who does not have time to fact-check a well-dressed lobbyist in real time." In response, the advocate vowed to continue the fight in future legislation.

"We are not stopping. Not even close," reads the statement. "We are not limiting this to California. We intend to introduce versions of this in other state legislatures, and we are seriously looking at the federal level. The ESA is about to learn what it is like to fight on many fronts at once. They have to win every single time to keep things the way they are. We only have to win once to change them. That math does not favor them."

In a statement to Video Games Chronicle, the ESA doubled down on its claims about private servers.

"Private servers infringe on the intellectual property (IP) rights of game publishers," reads the statement. "Publishers reserve the right to exercise their rights against them. The provision in CA AB 1921 that proposed these servers as a legitimate alternative to keep games running raises concerns about a publisher’s ability to enforce their IP rights. In addition, private servers operate with no oversight from the publisher and do not uphold the same trust and safety standards. This could create an unsafe environment for players and be counter to the industry's commitment to fostering safe and fun game play for all players."

The Stop Killing Games movement initially came together when Ubisoft decided to shut down The Crew. Since then, activists for the group have argued in Europe and North America that gaming companies have an obligation to keep older games alive that have already been sold to players. Video game publishers have in turn argued that following the demands of these players "would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create." 

As the wait for GTA 6's next trailer continues, fans are poring over all the little details from the new batch of screenshots that recently went live. One piece of information that fans are now obsessing about is what they believe will be a system in the game that lets you get swoll.

As relayed by GamesRadar, fans are convinced that a newly released image that shows main character Jason being less jacked than he was in a previous image is evidence that the game will have some kind of fitness/bodybuilding system.

The commenters rightly point out that lighting and angles can make a person's build look different from image to image, not to mention the effect of a good pump on making muscles pop. However, what we're looking at here in the images seems to be more than that. As you can see in the image on the right, Jason's biceps, triceps, traps, and back are looking absolutely huge, whereas the image on the left shows a much more average-looking Jason.

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This follows on from the trailer for GTA 6 released in May 2025 showing Jason throwing up some heavy weight on the bench somewhere on the beach in Vice City. We dug deep to try to find out how much Jason could bench.

It’s likely pumping out sets could be an activity in GTA 6, as Rockstar is known to allow players to do much of what they see in trailers for their games. Given that, it stands to reason that putting in the work would lead to some proper gains like the ones people are noticing in the comparison image above.

GTA San Andreas had a bodybuilding system whereby CJ could lift weights to build muscle that was then reflected in his character model and gameplay attributes, so it seems GTA 6 might be bringing that back.

Jason is one of two playable characters in GTA 6, the other being Lucia. GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and while the game will have a physical edition, it comes with a code in the box, not a disc.