As Nintendo president and representative director, Shuntaro Furukawa looks ahead to milestone anniversaries for Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Pokemon Red and Green, he is also thinking about how Nintendo can expand beyond traditional gaming and find success with more multimedia projects.

During an investor Q&A following Nintendo's most recent earnings report, Furukawa addressed whether the company has special promotional plans tied to these major IP celebrations. His response made clear that while Nintendo is cautious, it sees growing opportunities in film and video content--not just in theaters but across different formats and platforms.

"The upcoming film, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, is the second motion picture that Nintendo has been actively involved in producing, so we are paying close attention to the kind of reaction it gets. We hope the reaction to this film will have a positive ripple effect in various areas, including our dedicated video game platform business."

Could the Switch 2 follow the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S platforms and get its own price hike in 2026? That's the belief of multiple experts, and Nintendo isn't ruling anything out.

During the company's latest earnings briefing, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said the "recent rise in memory prices" did not have much of an impact on the Switch 2's profitability for the latest quarter, and it's not expected to for the current one, but if the costs keep going up, Nintendo might pass that along to consumers in the form of a price hike. Or it might not. Nothing has been decided as of yet.

"If this rise in component prices lasts longer than expected and runs through the next fiscal year and beyond, it may put pressure on profitability," he said. "If the situation deteriorates significantly, we will carefully assess market trends and respond. As for any future change in the price of Nintendo Switch 2 hardware, no decision has been made at this time. Any decision to change the price will be determined comprehensively, taking into consideration not only profitability, but also other factors like the platform's installed base, sales trends, and the market environment."

It's official: Pikachu is dead. Or at least that's how it looks, as Pokemon Pokopia will introduce a new variant of Pikachu that has a ghostly shimmer to it. The first Pikachu variant in 25 years and designed by Game Freak--Pokemon Pokopia is co-developed by Koei Tecmo--this version of the electric rat is officially known as Peakychu.

Speaking to Famitsu (via GamesRadar), Koei Tecmo chief director Takuto Edagawa said that Peakychu was given the nickname "unfortunate Pikachu" internally, reflecting its ethereal appearance. In the game, Peakychu is unusually pale, has a smaller tail when compared to fellow Pikachu, droopy ears, and emits a strange glow from her body. "In particular, Pikachu (Peakychu)'s temporal and melancholy feel is impressive. Internally, we called it Unfortunate Pikachu," Edagawa said. Draw your own conclusions from that.

While Peakychu probably isn't dead, it certainly looks like you'll need to borrow a trap from the Ghostbusters to catch one. It's one of several new Pokemon variants being introduced in Pokemon Pokopia, with the list so far including a moss-covered Snorlax called Mosslax, a messy Smeargle called Smearguru, and Professor Tangrowth, a guide to the game's Ditto who has disguised itself as a human.

High on Life 2 is now out, and if you're looking to play the sequel to the 2022 original, you've got a few options. Available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, the Squanch Games-developed title is also a day-one release through Xbox Game Pass, making it relatively easy to download and play if you're a subscriber. High on Life 2's developers haven't missed an opportunity to poke fun at this partnership between Squanch Games and Microsoft, as in-game personal assistant Suit-O has a few choice words for anyone who opted to grab the sequel through a "game service."

"You paid for the game, you might as well play all of it. Or did you get it for free with some deal? One of those game services, huh? I bet you're playing it on one of those game services," Suit-O says at one point. "That's money out of pockets, I'll have you know. I mean, yeah, they pay us a lot to put it on those things, like millions, sometimes. But still! Think about how much more money we'd make if everyone bought it too! We could make a third game or something else entirely! What if we made Half-Life 3?"

Of course, there are several factors to consider here. How much Squanch Games was paid to make High on Life 2 a day-one launch title for Game Pass isn't public knowledge, and in terms of consoles, there's a far larger market on PS5 when compared to Xbox Series X|S console owners and Game Pass subscribers. PS5 is also the primary platform for High on Life 2, according to Squanch Games CEO Mike Fridley. The original High on Life was released as a timed Xbox Series X|S console exclusive in December 2022, and it eventually landed on PS5 and PS4 consoles seven months later.

Former Sega president and console designer Hideki Sato has died. News of his passing was reported over the weekend by Japanese outlet Beep21, and Sega later posted a statement online honoring Sato for his contributions to the company.

"We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Hideki Sato, who served as President of Sega from 2001 to 2003," Sega wrote in a social media post. "Sega would like to offer its condolences to his family and friends. His leadership helped lay the foundation of Sega, and his contributions had a significant and lasting impact on the entire gaming industry. We will always remember his contributions to our company, and all of us at Sega extend our deepest condolences as we honor his memory."

Sato joined Sega in 1971, and alongside the Sega R&D team, he was instrumental in the design of several of the company's iconic arcade machines and its home consoles, such as the SG-1000, SC-3000, Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast. Later in his career, he became Sega's president between 2001 and 2003, and he would eventually retire from the company in 2008.

All models of the Steam Deck are currently out of stock, and it's for the reasons you'd expect. According to Valve, the handheld device may be unavailable for purchase at times amidst the ongoing scarcity of memory chips.

"Steam Deck OLED may be out-of-stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages," Valve's Steam Deck store page reads. The site also leaves a reminder that the Steam Deck LCD is no longer in production, as confirmed in December, so don't expect that model to come back at all.

Valve previously sold the Steam Deck 256GB LCD model for $399. In comparison, the Steam Deck OLED 512GB model retails for $549, with the 1TB model going for $649.

Ubisoft has released its roadmap for Assassin's Creed Shadows through to the end of March, showing off the game's next title update, a parkour challenge for players to compete in, and a release date for the game's DLC on Switch 2.

The game's next title update lands on February 17--that's tomorrow--and will introduce three new additions to the game, all of them significant in their own way. The first is a detailed stats page, which can be accessed from the inventory, which will let you dig into all the stats relating to your loadout at a micro level. If you want to examine exactly how much damage you can do, all the buffs you've assigned and really examine your equipment's cumulative effects, this will make doing so much easier.

Critical hits are also getting a visual upgrade. The enemy health bar flashes on a critcal hit now, and animations are a little "snappier", so you'll have a better sense of how often your weapons are doing huge damage.

Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile will soon be going offline. Activision has announced, through their support site, an end date for the mobile battle royale game, with servers set to shut down on April 17, 2026. That means that the game will remain active for two more months, but will not be playable after this time.

This does not come as a huge surprise--Activision ended support for the game in May 2025, and the game has not been available for new players to download since then. Players have not been able to purchase anything in the game since then, and new content has not been made available.

In an FAQ posted alongside the announcement, Activision clarified that the game is being taken offline because it "did not meet our expectations with mobile-first players like it has with PC and console audiences."

While High on Life 2 and its predecessor both had substantial Xbox Game Pass deals, developer Squanch Games still sees PlayStation as the primary platform for the series.

"That was a no-brainer, like our lead platform is Sony, Steam is right behind it as far as units sold," Squanch Games CEO Mike Fridley said of the simultaneous PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC launch for High on Life 2 in an interview with TechRadar. "Shockingly, even after a delay on the Sony launch [on PS4 and PS5]--because of an exclusivity clause with the first game that Microsoft had--it's [PlayStation] still our lead platform," he said elsewhere in the interview.

That's surprising when you consider the High on Life games' connection to the Xbox platform and Xbox Game Pass. High on Life was released on Game Pass and as a timed Xbox Series X|S console exclusive in December 2022 before coming to PS4 and PS5 seven months later. Meanwhile, High on Life 2 launched simultaneously on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5 on February 13, with the Xbox and PC versions being available through the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier.

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie could be a fresh break from its source material, as the Weapons director has been given "carte blanche" to do whatever he wanted with the IP. According to Constantin Film CEO Oliver Berben--the company is the primary rights holder and producer of live-action Resident Evil movies--explained that the movie is "far away from everything that is connected to Resident Evil," as the company is aiming to tap into Cregger's unique style for this project.

"With Resident Evil, we have had an incredible journey with one of the most successful international IPs of more than a billion dollars in box office for many years and now we are creating something new, not just a new story idea, but to allow a new generation to take the IP into their own hands and form something different," Berben said to Deadline.

Usually, video game adaptations cherry-pick from the source material to create something that looks and sounds familiar, but still tells an original story. There are exceptions to the rule--like HBO's The Last of Us TV series, which is mostly faithful to the video games--but most of these projects deviate from the video game IP.

A God of War 2D action platformer probably wasn't on anyone's bingo card for the recent State of Play livestream, but not only is the game real, but it's also out right now for PS5. God of War: Sons of Sparta is a new project from Mega Cat Studios, a developer with a very cool name and a storied history since its founding in 2015--as well as a heartwarming story behind how it settled on its studio name.

On the PlayStation Blog, Mega Cat Studios founder and CEO James Deighan revealed that a real feline helped inspire the identity of the studio.

The ongoing shortage of memory chips--which has been primarily attributed to AI companies buying up available stock--could push the launch of the PS6 console toward the end of the current decade, analysts believe.

Speaking to Bloomberg, experts who claim to be familiar with Sony's strategies say that the current demand and rising costs of RAM have led to a "major upset" to Sony's plans, as it is now considering pushing the PS6 launch to 2028 or even 2029. This lines up with a January report where a senior analyst claimed that there is a "high likelihood that the PS6 launch will occur after 2028."

Recently, Sony confirmed that it has enough memory to meet demand for PS5 consoles throughout 2026, but it is planning to negotiate with various suppliers to secure a reliable supply going forward. "As for securing a supply of memory, we are already in a position to secure the minimum quantity necessary to manage the year-end selling season of next fiscal year--October to December 2026," Sony CFO Lin Tao said.

Jason Blum and James Wan's Blumhouse and Atomic Monster lined up a film adaptation of Dead by Daylight in 2023. Nearly three years later, the movie is finally going forward with two screenwriters attached, David Leslie Johnston-McGoldrick and Alexandre Aja. According to Blum, these scribes are bringing the intensity.

"What David and Alexandre bring to Dead by Daylight is a rare balance of character driven storytelling and relentless genre intensity," said Blum in a statement via The Hollywood Reporter. "Drawing from survival horror and psychological terror, their work establishes a world where fear is not just experienced, but earned. It is a cinematic blueprint designed to attract a director who can elevate that vision through performance and scale."

As alluded to by Blum, the project doesn't currently have a director even though Aja has two decades of experience behind the camera. Aja previously wrote and directed Crawl, Piranha 3D, and the 2003 remake of The Hills Have Eyes. He is unavailable to direct Dead by Daylight due to his commitment to helm Under Paris 2 for Netflix. Johnston-McGoldrick has written or co-written three of the Conjuring movies, both Aquaman films, and the upcoming sequel, Insidious: The Bleeding World.

The console wars may not be as heated as they used to be, but it doesn't mean Sony is going to let key franchises like Spider-Man go to Xbox Series X|S. When asked about the possibility about bringing the Spider-Man games to Xbox, Insomniac--the studio behind all three of Sony's Spider-Man titles to date--had a blunt response: "Not likely."

Although the original post posing the question was deleted from X, Insomniac's reply is still online.

Insomniac Games say it is “not likely” that Marvel’s Spider-Man will come to Xbox https://t.co/bH09zK7CIf pic.twitter.com/6eDV85Pytj

An Xbox port may not be in the cards, but the Spider-Man games have come to PC. As demonstrated last year, Sony's PC games are playable on the ROG Xbox Ally handheld console. If the next Xbox console is also able to play PC games, then that may allow Sony's titles to come to the system without getting a direct port.

A third mainline game in the Layers of Fear series, Layers of Fear 3, has been announced by developer Bloober Team.

The sequel was announced in a video celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the original Layers of Fear. It contains a lot of tone-setting footage, set to a spooky rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" - there's nothing particularly scary in the video, but it's a little unsettling.

Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno promises in the video that the Layers of Fear series is "still alive, still evolving, and still finding new ways to haunt". The video closes out with another live-action video, this time serving as a trailer for the third game. You can watch it below (but don't expect a lot of specific details).

Just like with human beings, there are a lot of different things a Sim can be good at. These things are known as skills, and The Sims 4 has amassed more than four dozen of them over the past decade, with new expansions and game packs gradually adding in new ones. At this point, the options are legion--there are more skills than most of us probably even remember. And each new expansion adds more of them--the new fairy-focused expansion, Enchanted by Nature, even added two surprisingly novel new skills for your Sims to train in. Even without adding more using The Sims 4 mods, we're practically drowning in skills these days.

Every skill in The Sims 4 has related activities that your Sims can do to improve that skill, but there are also things a Sim can do that will increase their gains in any skill. There are several aspiration rewards you can take that will make your sim gain skills faster--Night Owl and Morning Sim will increase your skill gains at night and in the morning, respectively, and Savant will give you a 25% boost to all skill gains permanently. Taking these perks is always recommended.

Likewise, there are skill books that will help you Sim learn a skill by reading about it. But your Sim won't max out any skills that way. Theory is good, but it can't beat actually doing it. So if you want your Sims to master a skill, they'll need to get their hands dirty.

Solid Snake is coming to Rainbow Six Siege.

Not as a skin for an already-existing character, but a fully-fledged operator with his own unique loadout and play style. When GameSpot talked to Ubisoft Montreal about the future of Siege for our 10th anniversary documentary, we didn't quite imagine a crossover of this magnitude.

Although Ubisoft's Siege team has done crossovers in the past, this is the first time a character outside of Ubisoft's Tom Clancy universe has joined Team Rainbow. I sat down with key developers from Ubisoft and Konami to learn how a collaboration like this comes about and why Solid Snake is a perfect fit for Rainbow Six Siege.

David Hayter, the actor who originated the voice of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid franchise, will reprise his role for the character's upcoming appearance in Rainbow Six Siege. Appropriately enough, Snake is arriving in the game just in time to come face-to-face with Zero aka Sam Fisher, the star of the Splinter Cell video games.

"For us, it was really a core objective to get Hayter for the English VO," creative director Joshua Mills told GameSpot. "Because it's just, again, very iconic, and we really wanted to be able to deliver that as far as the English VO."

Mills and content director Christopher Budgen confirmed that the team tried to incorporate Snake's signature cardboard box into the game. It just didn't quite work very well in the world of Rainbow Six Siege.

The murder mystery in High on Life 2 is a surprisingly complex sequence in the main story. As you slowly make your way through the ranks of the evil corporation you're hunting down, you'll come across Larry Pinkstock. This target, however, is a peculiar one--by the time you finally get to his location and prepare for the kill, he announces that you and four other guests are about to be part of a murder mystery.

This sequence is part of the main story, and it involves multiple steps as well as a keen eye for gathering evidence and asking follow-up questions to get to the correct final verdict. This guide explains how to solve the murder mystery in High on Life 2, as well as who the killer is, in case you want to skip this section fast.

• How to Solve the Murder Mystery in High on Life 2

The structure of the murder mystery in High on Life 2 goes like this. You're given a list with all four main guests: Admiral Sessions, O.B. Oberon, Richard Twelfth the Eighth, and Edeline Moss. Alongside each suspect, there are three columns with boxes to tick.

Earning cash in High on Life 2 can be a tough endeavor. Even if you're focusing on the main story as much as possible, those missions can take a significant time to complete. Sadly, the sheer act of killing enemies won't net money (called "pesos" in-game), otherwise you'd probably be rich within the hour.

Considering there are quite a few upgrades that can prove beneficial, especially if you can get them early on in the game, locating as many sources to gather money as possible is key. As such, we've listed the best methods to get cash in High on Life 2, as well as recommendations on which the best upgrades to get first are.

Money is surprisingly hard to come by in the world of High on Life 2. Even worse is the fact that the main story introduces you to cool, tantalizing upgrades that you likely won't be able to afford for a while. But don't fret, as there are a few methods to make this easier.