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.