Overdrive, a homebrew games library offering over 1,600 PS4 and PS5 games, went viral after a video of its demonstration on X by Edigax caught online attention. Shortly after the influx of attention the Overdrive project received, it was shut down, reportedly after the developer received a cease-and-desist letter in an X post by Oliver Darko. However, two GitHub repositories have taken its place, reviving the project after one day of downtime.

The storefront for jailbroken PS5 models was released on GitHub on October 9, with reception being relatively tame. It was only after Edigax, a popular jailbreak installation tutorial account, posted their video on X for Overdrive’s installation on October 12 that it went viral, receiving over 7.9 million views with over 600 comments, many commenting on how Sony deserves this over their controversial effort to produce no physical copies of games: “Only digital, as Sony wanted,” one commenter says.

A day after the project went viral, Sony reportedly sent the developer a cease-and-desist letter and had it shut down. There are no concrete sources for this cease-and-desist, but it likely doesn’t matter because just a day later, like a single-headed hydra getting its head cut, two more popped up in its place; one is a fork of the original, while the other is a clone of the original under a different account.

The jailbreak community seems keen to preserve this homebrew because of its incredible library and as a protest against Sony’s business practices, making it unlikely that Sony will ever get rid of this problem for good. If Sony manages to take down another, more will likely pop up in its place.

The PS5 jailbreaking community has been on a roll in the past few weeks since the Relapse jailbreak’s release on September 29. Since then, an influx of homebrew apps has been developed, including a range of emulators, launchers, and streaming apps; even Xbox Cloud Gaming runs natively on the PS5. It seems that this giant library of PS4 and PS5 games, easily accessible and completely free, is the climax of the past month’s notable releases that finally caught Sony's attention.

While Sony remains committed to phasing out physical media, Nintendo is taking the opposite approach. In a recent interview with the Brazilian YouTube channel Coelho no Japão, Bill van Zyll, Nintendo's VP and General Manager for Latin America, confirmed that the company has no plans to abandon cartridges.

"Historically, we’ve been very agnostic, right?" stated van Zyll in the interview.

The Nintendo executive firmly continued, "We go off what the consumer prefers, and take that into account very heavily. We also have a platform that was just launched. We're barely just over a year into NS2. It's got both digital and physical – that capability. There's no plans to ditch physical. We know how much the fans like it as well, so our position has been to be agnostic."

In an era where the gaming industry is rapidly shifting toward digital distribution, it is comforting to see at least some companies still supporting physical media. The core issue with digital purchases is that you do not truly own what you buy; instead, you are purchasing a license to access the game, unlike owning a cartridge or game disc. Some storefronts, such as GOG or itch.io, offer DRM-free downloads of the titles you purchase, but only a handful of them exist.

However, even cartridges cannot completely escape the march toward digitalization. With the release of the Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo introduced game-key cards, physical cards that contain a license to download the full game data. Modern AAA game releases have exceeded the storage capacity of traditional cartridges or discs. For instance, Black Myth: Wukong and the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI use this code-in-a-box model.

On the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, cartridges max out at 32GB and 64GB, respectively. That is not much capacity by modern standards, so publishers turn to game-key cards as a compromise for a physical release. Compared with fully digital releases, game-key cards bind the license to the card, so owners can still trade or sell them like normal cartridges.

Owning physical copies can sometimes cost more than going digital, especially for Nintendo’s first-party titles. Effective as of May 2026, physical versions of first-party Nintendo titles sell for $10 more than their digital counterparts. The price increase was due to manufacturing, packaging, and distribution costs for cartridges. However, Nintendo frames the pricing adjustment differently, claiming it lowered digital game prices by $10 to pass the savings on to consumers.

Nintendo has announced plans for the Switch 2 to mirror its predecessor's lifespan, about six to seven years. No one anticipated Sony's decision to phase out game discs, so Nintendo's future remains uncertain, even though the company pledged to continue physical releases. With the Switch 2 launching just last year, we can at least look forward to another six good years of physical media.

Brazilian developer RafaelNGP has created his own Homebrew called PSBox Cloud Gaming on his jailbroken PS5 and released it for download on GitHub. The mod, created in part using Claude, allows Xbox Cloud Gaming to run natively on a PS5, with up to 4 DualSense controllers mapped to Xbox for compatibility.

The lines between consoles and PC have been blurring lately, and even more so for the PS5, with jailbreak mods allowing for many new capabilities it was never intended for. We recently covered a story about the original Xbox being emulated on a jailbroken PS5, but a more modern and usable mod is this natively running Xbox Cloud Gaming mod. Gone are the days of switching to your Xbox or PC to play xCloud; just run it on your PS5 — that's what RafaelNGP thought to himself before making PSBox Cloud Gaming.

Rafael explains how easy it is to get it running, with just a .zip file download from their GitHub, extraction to a specific folder, waiting for a Homebrew loader to mount the “game,” then launch and sign in as usual. Users are able to sign in using their phone through a code on the TV. It currently supports a 1080p60 stream, but can be upscaled to 4K using the PS5’s GPU with AMD FSR 1 or Anime4K upscalers. The application is still not perfect, with testers reporting video issues such as macroblocking, pink artifacts, and vibration issues on the DualSense controllers, while others are thrilled and having a good experience.

As if emulating the original Xbox and playing xCloud on a PS5 weren’t enough, a comment under the Reddit post asked whether they could use local Xbox Remote Play on it, intending to stream games from an Xbox they already have to the PS5. Rafael said it didn’t work yet, but promptly created an update days later enabling Xbox Remote Play.

The PS5’s library of exclusives may be lackluster, but it seems that the PS5 has more to offer than its own games outside of what Sony intends for it, thanks to the jailbreaking community.

Video game console sales in the U.S. have cratered, with both the PS5 and Xbox seeing a massive drop in YTD sales through the end of August compared with last year. Mat Piscatella, the video game industry advisor at research firm Circana, shared the numbers on his Bluesky account — PlayStation 5 sales have dropped by 25%, putting it at its lowest point since 2013, when gamers held off buying PlayStation consoles in anticipation of the arrival of the PS4, while Xbox’s retail figures have cratered by 33% YTD, putting its sales numbers at an all-time low since its launch almost 25 years ago.

From Circana's US Retail Tracking Service:For 2026 YTD ending August, Xbox hardware unit sales are down 33% versus a year ago in the US, while PlayStation hardware units are 25% lower.Xbox YTD US hardware unit sales are at an all-time low, while PlayStation is at lowest point since 2013.

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-10-11T15:51:03.015Z

Piscatella said price sensitivity is becoming a real problem among gamers, especially as the chip shortage has pushed console manufacturers to raise prices. Microsoft has raised the price of the Xbox three times in the past two years, with the 512GB versions jumping by $100 and 1TB models becoming $150 more expensive. Worse, the company has killed off the 2TB model. This brought the Xbox Series S to $499.99 (512GB) and $599.99 (1TB), while the Xbox Series X now costs $749.99 for the Digital Edition, and the disc version costs $50 more at $799.99.

PlayStation fans haven’t escaped these price hikes, as Sony raised prices for that console by $100 to $150. The base Digital Edition PS5 now costs $599.99, while the version with an optical drive is priced at $649.99. If you want the PS5 Pro, you’ll have to shell out $899.99, while those who want to stream games from their console via the PlayStation Portal must now pay $249.99 — $50 higher than its $199.99 launch price. Even used consoles didn't escape inflation, with Sony bumping the price of refurbished PS5 Slim consoles by $100, bringing them to $399.

Despite the higher prices, the PS5 Pro remains in short supply, which is why used prices have now reached the stratosphere. Refurbished PS5 Pros now cost $1,399 at GameStop, almost $500 more than the MSRP of a new one (if you can find one in stock at that price). While this price might feel egregious, it’s about $100 less than the prices of new units we found at Best Buy and Walmart, and sealed units on online marketplaces sell for about $100 less than this.

AI chip shortage-driven price hikes, along with rising living costs, have made console purchases less of a priority for many families, driving this massive downturn in retail sales. The arrival of the much-anticipated GTA VI in November, along with the upcoming holiday season, will hopefully help consoles bounce back. Still, Piscatella says the U.S. hardware market has never been more precarious since the early 1980s.

Don’t throw away your PlayStation 2 games just yet. Modder Sword has released PS5SX2 for jailbroken PlayStation 5 consoles. This new software brings PlayStation 2 games to Sony’s latest console and supports physical discs, letting you relive your favorite classics in their original form.

For those active in the PlayStation emulation scene, the name PS5SX2 will immediately ring a bell, and for good reason. PS5SX2 is a native port of PCSX2, a very popular PlayStation 2 emulator for PC. Sword has successfully adapted the PCSX2 CPU recompilers to run on the PlayStation 5’s powerful custom Zen 2 chip. Unlike previous hacks that run PCSX2 on a host system and stream to the television, the PlayStation 5 does the recompiling and rendering.

PS5SX2 uses Vulkan as its backend renderer. However, since the PlayStation 5 lacks a standard operating system with official Vulkan driver support, emulation software requires a custom translation layer. Instead of developing a Vulkan driver from scratch, Sword uses a modified version of ps5vk, developed by renowned coder Mihawk-99, who has brought us projects like RetroArch.

PS5SX2 embraces virtually all popular disc image formats used for PlayStation 2 emulation, including ISO, CHD, CSO, and ZSO. More impressively, it fully supports physical PlayStation 2 game discs. It supports built-in optical drives and external USB optical drives. It reportedly works with discs from all regions. The only drawback is that the software can only read PlayStation 2 games released on DVDs, not CDs. It is more of a hardware limitation, though, since the PlayStation 5's optical drive lacks the laser needed to read standard CDs.

Beyond bringing PlayStation 2 fun to the PlayStation 5, PS5SX2 adds an impressive suite of features to enhance your retro gaming experience. One standout feature is high-resolution upscaling, enabling 6X scaling over the PlayStation 2's native resolution for up to 4K on modern displays. The emulator also supports a wide variety of upscaling and post-processing filters, including AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). Patch files (.pnach) are also compatible with PCSX2, so that games can unlock widescreen or 60 FPS support for certain titles.

Beyond graphical enhancements, PS5SX2 packs other cool features. Gamers can fine-tune graphics, audio, and gameplay settings directly from their smartphone or tablet, and changes take effect instantly. PS5SX2 also lets gamers play online by emulating the PlayStation 2's network adapter and routing traffic to community servers. It also supports keyboard and mouse, couch co-op for up to four players, and the ability to create virtual memory cards up to 64MB per game.

PlayStation 2 disc support is only the tip of the iceberg. When asked about the potential inclusion of PlayStation 3 disc support for an RPCS3 port currently under development, the developer, Sword, responded affirmatively: "Yes, it’s coming with it :)." Sony's decision to kill game discs only further spurred the homebrew community to develop methods to preserve disc usage. The irony is that community projects, such as PS5SX2, have contributed to boosting the PlayStation 5's value.

Sony implemented backward compatibility on the PlayStation 5 for both physical and digital PlayStation 4 games. It is evident that the console can play games from older generations of consoles all this time. This raises an interesting question: why has Sony been holding out on its fans?

The open-source AnyPS5 project has reached 100% GPU shader instruction coverage, a significant milestone in its effort to run PlayStation 5 games natively on Windows and Linux PCs. The project's live progress tracker now lists all 1,166 instructions in its tracked AMD RDNA 1 and RDNA 2 instruction set as implemented. There's a fairly important asterisk attached to that number, though: it doesn't mean the PS5's GPU is fully supported, much less that PS5 games are ready to run on your PC.

The distinction is in how AnyPS5 defines "implemented." In this case, it means the project's shader decoder recognizes an instruction. That's an essential first step, but it doesn't necessarily mean every instruction is implemented in translation to SPIR-V, never mind a guarantee that the instruction's behavior is correct in every situation, that every GPU feature is supported, or that a game's shaders will render properly. Consider the network libraries: libSceHttp is reported at 95% implementation, but the technical-debt document explicitly states that no HTTP request reaches the network in the current implementation.

If you're confused about AnyPS5, let me break it down for you. The most accurate starting point is "native porting through binary transformation and API reimplementation," rather than conventional PS5 emulation. AnyPS5 takes an existing PS5 executable (in standard ELF format, like Linux) and relinks it into a native x86-64 Linux ELF or Windows PE executable. It doesn't need the game's original source code, and it doesn't rebuild the game from scratch; instead, it adapts the existing machine code and supplies native replacements for the PS5 system libraries the game expects to find.

The line gets blurrier when we reach the GPU. PS5 games use Sony's proprietary AGC graphics interface and AMD RDNA-specific shader instructions instead of the standard graphics APIs and shader formats familiar to PC developers. AnyPS5 reimplements the necessary graphics behavior and translates RDNA shader programs into SPIR-V for execution through Vulkan. That's translation, reimplementation, and arguably some emulation of hardware behavior at different levels, but it's not a conventional emulator recreating an entire virtual PS5 and running the game inside it. The CPU code can generally execute directly on a compatible x86-64 host, though AnyPS5 also provides a "--to-intel" option to convert supported AMD-only instructions for Intel processors.

There's plenty left to do beyond shader decoding. The project's tracker reports 84.69% implementation across 2,578 of the 3,044 system-library functions currently declared in its codebase. That figure doesn't represent every function in the PS5's firmware, nor does it guarantee that each implemented function behaves exactly as it does on the console. Graphics state, texture formats, synchronization, memory management, audio, and other system services must also work correctly for an entire game to run.

The project's official compatibility list currently identifies Dreaming Sarah, a charming but technically very simple 2D platformer, as its single verified playable title. Developers are making progress with more demanding games (including the recent Ghost of Yotei), but experimental bring-up reports still document substantial rendering, stability, and performance problems. Reaching a game's intro or rendering its first 3D scene is real progress; obviously, it isn't the same thing as playing through the game.

There's also no retail-disc-to-desktop shortcut here. AnyPS5's documented workflow starts with an already-extracted game ELF, its associated modules and resources, and a properly built set of host-side compatibility libraries. It isn't a disc-ripping or decryption tool, so you're going to have to figure out how to extract the game ELF and resources yourself.

Hardware requirements will vary by game, but memory headroom is a big concern: on Windows, the project warns that a title may request up to 13,824 MB (13.5 GB) of direct memory, with the full allocation charged against the system's commit limit immediately. That's not a universal free-RAM requirement, but it does mean that this isn't something to try on any old PC with 16GB of RAM and a small page file.

To be clear, none of this should be taken to mean I'm not gobsmacked by the achievement. Recognizing every instruction in the project's tracked RDNA list is a critical step toward broader compatibility, and the work now being done to translate those instructions and reproduce the surrounding GPU behavior is precisely what makes the project interesting. There's real work by humans going on here, too; the project counts over 100 human contributors besides the expected assistance from Claude (and potentially other assistants not credited directly on GitHub).

The more likely long-term outcome of AnyPS5 isn't a universal PS5 emulator where you insert a disc and press "play," but a powerful framework for unofficial native PC ports of individual games. There's a tricky legal tangle to work out there, though, and there's also still a tremendous amount of work between today's milestone and that future, but progress on the project is rapid. It may well be the case that we end up playing the PS5 version of GTA VI on PC before Rockstar drops an official PC release.

The original MSI Claw (A1M) was forgotten about almost as quickly as it launched, being the first handheld from MSI, and the first one to sport an Intel CPU (in this case, the Core Ultra 7 155H from the Meteor Lake family). Unsurprisingly, Best Buy has the handheld on clearance, and right now it's available for a surprisingly good price of $562.99 considering how expensive newer handhelds are.

• Check out this deal at Best Buy

In this case of handheld gaming PC, this is the cheapest option you can get right now. Even the ROG Xbox Ally with the Ryzen Z2 A and 512GB of storage is $600. Handhelds with 1TB of storage and the Ryzen Z1 Extreme (the chip Intel originally targeted) will run you north of $1,000.

In both build quality and layout, the A1M is nearly a carbon copy of the original Asus ROG Ally. It sports a 7-inch 1080p display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a single USB-C port for charging and peripherals, and a microSD card slot for storage expansion; though, you can replace the SSD inside, as well.

This is a great deal considering the price of handhelds right now, especially those packing 1TB of storage, but the A1M was glossed over quickly for a reason. The Meteor Lake chip inside wasn't built for handheld gaming, so although it offers decent performance, it does so at relatively high power draw.

In a game like Horizon Zero Dawn, it's able to achieve around 30 FPS at native 1080p with the Balanced power plan, which uses a 30W target. Plugged in with a full 40W power budget, the game can crack 30 FPS in titles like Cyberpunk 2077 with the Steam Deck preset.

It falls between 5% and 10% short of the Z1 Extreme, and with worse battery life. With prices equal, we'd normally recommend the ROG Ally. Considering the price gap, the A1M is worth considering. The software isn't as clear as what you get with an Asus handheld, but MSI has made dozens of updates to its firmware and overlay software since the original A1M launched.

Performance is less of a concern than battery life, with the Meteor Lake chip sucking down quite a bit of power relative to modern PC handhelds. That's not a dealbreaker at this price, but make sure to have a quality USB-C charger at the ready.

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Do you or someone you know have a Nintendo Switch 2? What about accessories for your new console? Whether you want to play with others, increase your storage, or add functionality, you may want some extras to deliver the best gameplay experience possible, or even add accessories to make it your own. Now is the best time to score a big deal on them during Amazon's Prime Big Deals Days 2026.

• Check out all the Switch 2 accessories deals in Amazon's Prime Big Deals Days

There are many official, licensed accessories alongside third-party extras available at a wide range of prices. Now is an excellent time to hunt for deals and the best prices on Switch 2 peripherals and accessories.

One of the most important extras you'll most likely want to pick up is a microSD Express memory expansion card. If you know that's what you want, check out our handy list of the best Prime Day microSD Express card deals for the Switch 2.

Other accessories to consider are screen protectors, carrying cases, and peripherals such as controllers, headsets, and cameras, as listed below.

Best gaming laptop deals | Best monitor deals | Best PC and laptop deals | Best SSD deals | Best CPU deals | Gaming Chair | Best hard drive deals | Best PC case deals | Best Dell and Alienware deals | Best 3D printer deals | Best PC peripherals deals | Best motherboard deals | Best CPU cooler deals | Best gaming chair deals

GameStop has increased the price of refurbished PS Pros from $800 to $1399.99, meaning used units cost 55% more than their list price for brand-new consoles, and well over double the PS5 Pro's original MSRP. A Redditor working at the retailer has leaked a memo telling employees that the higher price of used consoles versus new ones is intentional. A r/GameStop subreddit moderator has confirmed the validity of the post, saying that the original poster has been properly vetted. The leaked prices are now showing on the GameStop website.

Brand-new PS5 Pro units have an MSRP of $899.00, which has already increased from $749.99 earlier this year because of chip shortages. It’s unclear whether Sony requires retailers to sell brand-new PS5 units at or close to the MSRP, but they generally have more freedom in setting the prices of pre-owned devices. Unfortunately, it seems that there’s a shortage of new PS5 Pros across several retailers. Sony, GameStop, and Target, which list the consoles at $899.99, are out of stock. While new consoles are available on Best Buy and Walmart, they’re priced at $1,496.01 and $1,554.99, respectively. Gamers who find these prices too rich might want to take their chances on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, but the situation there isn’t any better. New sealed PS5 Pros are going for more around $1,300 or more on these platforms. While they might be cheaper, you’ll miss out on some of the protections and peace of mind that retailers with brick-and-mortar stores provide.

Many people blame the AI-driven memory chip crisis for the PS5 Pro shortage. AI data centers’ appetite for HBM and willingness to pay top dollar for these chips meant that DRAM manufacturers have pivoted most of their capacity towards this more lucrative market, with manufacturers of consumer goods fighting over a smaller pie of DRAM production. The situation has led to a 500% increase in RAM prices in the past 12 months, with the shortage now starting to spill over into other industries like smartphones and automotive manufacturing.

The situation is likely compounded by the anticipated launch of GTA VI this coming November, which started pre-selling in June 2026. While Rockstar isn’t targeting 60 FPS for the game at launch, it seems that gamers are willing to pay top dollar just to ensure that they can get the best possible performance when the game finally arrives after years of waiting.

It seems that buyers who have saved just enough cash to buy a PS5 Pro are out of luck as retailers are taking advantage of the shortage and jacking up prices, even for used models. The basic PS5 Digital (Slim) and Disc (Slim) editions are still priced at or close to the MSRP, though, so those who want to get their hands on a PlayStation right now without overpaying scalpers would have to settle for these instead. Gamers who are specifically buying a console just to play GTA VI at launch could also settle for an Xbox Series X instead, which is a bit cheaper than the PS5 Pro at MSRP while offering more performance than the base PS5, or they could experiment with the open-source AnyPS5, which runs PS5 console games natively on PC.

Rising component costs have forced every major console maker to raise prices. However, Amazon U.K. has stepped up for Nintendo fans by slashing the Switch 2's retail price by 15%, bringing the console to an all-time low of £354.99. Other U.K. retailers, including Argos, John Lewis, and Smyths Toys, have also followed suit.

• Check out the Nintendo Switch 2 deal on Amazon
• Check out the Nintendo Switch 2 deal on Argos
• Check out the Nintendo Switch 2 deal on John Lewis
• Check out the Nintendo Switch 2 deal on Smyths Toys

The Nintendo Switch 2, which debuted a little over a year ago, originally entered the U.K. retail market at an MSRP of £395.99. Like its competitors, Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo ultimately raised the Switch 2's MSRP to £419.99 just last month due to the memory and storage shortage. This context makes the current offer of £354.99 exceptionally compelling, since you are essentially saving up to 10% off the launch price and up to 15% off the newly adjusted MSRP.

Not only is the Switch 2 available at a fantastic price, but it also opens the door to an unmatched library of franchises and upcoming blockbuster releases. Major titles, including the highly anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and Metroid Ravenous, are set to launch soon, so you can secure your Switch 2 now at an unbeatable price.

If you are a longtime Nintendo fan, you already know that Nintendo rarely offers direct price cuts or holiday discounts on its highly sought-after consoles. It is uncommon to find a Nintendo console priced below the MSRP. Being able to buy the Switch 2 at a record-low price is already a blessing given how recent the handheld console has been on the market. Having a handful of retailers to choose from, including Amazon, Argos, John Lewis, and Smyths Toys, feels like an early Christmas.

Popular Xbox emulator Xemu has just been ported to jailbroken Sony PlayStation 5 consoles. Reddit user u/Yzenxam posted a video of their PS5 running the emulator with three games installed: Forza Motorsport, Halo 2, and Crash Bandicoot. The port, playfully named XPSemu, is on their GitHub page: ZiZc3.

The modder has stated that XPSemu is Xemu and is nothing different; all they did was allow it to be opened on the PS5 as an application. Xemu uses QEMU’s TCG JIT to translate the Xbox CPU to the PS5 CPU in realtime, allowing for fast performance compared to interpretation-based translation.

Xemu has its own translation for the Xbox’ NV2A GPU and uses a Vulkan renderer to work with modern GPUs; thanks to the modder behind PS5_Vulkan, Xemu can talk to the PS5’s AMD GPU through the open-source RADV Vulkan driver — allowing the porter to run Xemu as a native PS5 application.

ZiZc3 also added their own touches as explained in their GitHub repository:

"On top of the port, XPSemu adds its own controller-friendly dashboard, per-game settings, cover art, play time, game patches, a performance overlay, a per-game log and a set of CPU optimizations made for the PS5's Zen 2 processor."

While QEMU's TCG JIT is relatively fast, it still leaves plenty to be desired. ZiZc3 explains that the emulated Xbox CPU is the bottleneck, loaded at 85-97% while the PS5 GPU remains mostly idle. As a consequence, the resolution multiplier up to 3-4x barely affects performance, and upscaling with FSR does not add performance.

The developer further explains that the PS5's Zen 2 cores are slower per core than a fast PC, and CPU-heavy games suffer from this. In terms of performance, ZiZc3 has provided a table of their experience and performance of the games on XPSemu:

As of writing, there are fewer than 15 fully PS5-exclusive games, while the number of emulators the PS5 can run is increasing by the week. On X, users BrinoTk and Mihawk9_9 (the same person behind PS5_Vulkan) announced their Xbox 360 and PS5 Proton projects on the same day, with the Xbox 360 emulator already available for testing.

The PS5 already has emulators for PS1-3, with PS4 emulation technically built in. Non-PlayStation emulators besides the XPSemu include the Nintendo Switch, Wii U, 3DS, and of course the myriad of emulators available on RetroArch as well. On the other side of the coin, the PS5 itself has also been emulated on PC and the Xbox Series X — at this point, the lines are blurring faster than owners know what to do with their jailbroken PS5.

The PlayStation 5 is getting AI-driven upscaling, giving base console owners access to the technology that was previously available on the more powerful PlayStation 5 Pro. In a blog post, Sony introduced Quick Spectral Super Resolution (QSSR), a new version of its AI upscaling technology for the PS5, with Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei being the first games to support it.

Sony originally introduced PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) as a highlight feature when it launched the PS5 Pro. The technology uses AI to analyze frames on a pixel-by-pixel basis and reconstruct them at a higher resolution. This helps improve image detail and temporal stability while allowing games to render internally at a lower resolution. However, the computational requirements of PSSR meant that the feature was not available on the standard PS5.

According to Sony, QSSR uses a streamlined neural-network architecture and a hand-tuned implementation intended to maximize performance on the PS5. The company describes it as a new performance tier of AI upscaling rather than a direct replacement for PSSR, which remains the “gold standard” solution on the PS5 Pro.

Sony does not intend to limit the new upscaling tech to its own studios, as the QSSR library will be offered to all PlayStation developers. This will allow more PS5 games to adopt the technology in the future and give developers an option for balancing rendering resolution, performance, and image quality on the aging console hardware.

Jasmin Patry, Lead Rendering Engineer at Sucker Punch Productions, said, “QSSR excels at resolving the fine details in our characters and environments and does so with a level of temporal stability that hasn’t been possible on the PS5 console until now. We’ve long wished that all PS5 players could experience the incredible image quality that PSSR brings to PS5 Pro, and QSSR is a positive step towards that goal!”

With Sony continuing to improve its upscaling technology in collaboration with AMD under Project Amethyst, PS5 owners can expect sharper and more stable visuals in supported games without having to upgrade their hardware. That said, QSSR won't turn the standard PS5 into a PS5 Pro; rather, it can be best described as an important software-level upgrade for the console.

Insomniac Games' Marvel's Wolverine is the hot new PS5 game right now, but that's all it is — there's no PC version in the works, and given Sony's reported decision not to bring single-player games to PC, that seems unlikely to change anytime soon. However, that doesn't mean PC gamers are out in the cold after it was confirmed that an experimental PS5 emulator has been shown to be able to run the early portions Marvel's Wolverine, though only at single-digit frame rates.

While the KytyPS5 emulator was already able to start the game up, that was all it was able to do. That was great if you just wanted to be able to move around the game's menus, but it wasn't much use beyond a proof of concept. Now, things have progressed considerably, with VideoCardz pointing to an X social media post showing the emulator rendering the game's cinematics and gameplay.

The latest build of KytyPS5 can indeed play the game, but it does so at a single-digit frame rate. That's a long way short of making the action-packed title playable on anything other than a PS5 or PS5 Pro. But it's a start, and a much more promising one than was the case previously.

The frame rate situation probably says more about the emulator than the game itself. KytyPS5 is still very much in the early stages of its development, which means that issues are to be expected — especially for a title that has only been available for a few weeks. The emulator's developers are also focused on making it boot more games rather than making a handful work flawlessly, so it's unlikely it will be ready for prime time for a little while yet.

None of this is to detract from the work that has been done to get this point, though. The rapid progress that Marvel's Wolverine has seen is promising for the future of PS5 emulation on PC. KytyPS5 uses Vulkan 1.3 for its graphics output and uses an in-house system to decode the PS5's RDNA 2 GPU instructions. It's also available for both Windows and Linux right now, with an even more experimental version in the works for macOS.

This news also comes as another PS5 emulator has reached something of a milestone of its own. The developers behind SharpEmu, another experimental PS5 emulator, have been able to run a number of PS5 games at a playable 60 FPS. But even then, the success is modest —the developers only got six of 55 games to that point. A further six reached the point of gameplay, albeit at lower frame rates.

All Xbox gamers can now get digital versions of their game library with the rollout of the Disc to Digital feature, which allows them to secure a digital license for the game tied to the physical media and associated with their Xbox profile. The gaming company said on X that players on Xbox Series X and Xbox One could take advantage of this licensing program, allowing them to play their games without needing to insert the disc into the console.

Xbox has been experimenting with a feature that would let you digitize your physical game library since early July of this year, with the company rolling it out to Xbox Insiders first in late August. Now that Disc to Digital licensing is available to all Xbox users, gamers with extensive physical game libraries could get digital licenses for their titles, allowing them to install and play those games on Xbox consoles where they’re logged in. However, Microsoft says not all Xbox One and Xbox Series X titles are eligible for this feature, and that eligibility may change over time. The company said that this could be due to changes in technical factors, licensing, publishing rights, manufacturing, and more. You also need to have access to the qualifying disc to retain the digital license — if you lose, sell, or give away the eligible title, your digital license may be limited or revoked.

While this move is more of a quality-of-life feature than a full game preservation strategy, it still gives hope to gamers who prefer the “ownership” of physical games on discs over the licenses you get when buying them online. This is especially crucial after Sony announced that it will kill the PlayStation disc by 2028. This decision received a lot of criticism, with a Change.org petition to reverse the decision reaching more than 200,000 signatures a week after the company made the announcement. Despite that, it has doubled down on the decision, saying that it will move forward cautiously and stop manufacturing physical media for new releases by January 2028.

While Sony is moving towards a disc-less future, it seems that Xbox is choosing a hybrid path that allows gamers to own their physical games while still giving them the convenience of having a copy of the title in their digital library without requiring another purchase. Former Xbox CEO Phil Spencer said a couple of years ago that it won’t abandon physical media despite the success of Game Pass, and this move shows its commitment to the promise, even if Spencer has since retired.

A new PS5 jailbreak has been released with support for all PlayStation 5 consoles running firmware 7.00 through 13.60, meaning all consoles that haven't been updated within the last week or so are compatible. That includes the latest PS5 Pro console, too.

The new jailbreak, called Relapse, uses browser and kernel exploits to unlock kernel read and write access, including support for additional payloads like the homebrew enabler etaHEN.

However, while support for consoles all the way up to firmware 13.60 opens the door to more jailbreakers than ever before, the free-for-all might be short-lived. As VideoCardz reports, some games are already requiring the latest 14.00 firmware in order to download updates.

One example is the new Marvel's Wolverine game, with gamers reporting that the disc-based version requires PS5 firmware version 13.40. Downloading the latest 1.001.005 game update bumps the required firmware to version 13.60, which shouldn't be a problem for the Relapse jailbreak. But the fly in the ointment appears to be the digital version of the game. Some gamers have reported that the same update for the digital version of the game requires firmware version 14.00, pushing the PS5 beyond the firmware supported by Relapse.

This news leaves PS5 jailbreakers with a familiar Catch-22 situation. Some games, especially future releases, may require a newer version of the PS5 firmware in order to run. But installing those newer PS5 firmwares will break the jailbreak, giving gamers a decision to make — do they want to play the latest games or maintain their jailbreak?

Marvel's Wolverine aside, there are a number of reasons that gamers may wish to jailbreak their PS5 or PS5 Pro consoles. Doing so bypasses Sony's software restrictions, giving gamers the chance to install and run non-standard software and games. That can include pirated titles, of course, but it also means that emulators, including one for Nintendo Switch games, and mods can be used on a PlayStation. Naturally, those who choose to do this accept the inherent risks involved and do so at their own risk.

More information about Relapse can be found on the jailbreak's GitHub page.

There's a brilliant deal to be had on the Nintendo Switch 2 over at Amazon in the UK right now. This family-friendly console has just hit £354.99, which is a new record low price for this retailer, and arguably one of the cheapest prices we've seen for it to date. You'll save £65, or 15%, on this Switch 2 compared to its usual RRP, just before the big sales season starts.

● Check out this deal at Amazon

There are no compromises or hidden catches with this deal, and this item is brand new and sealed, so you're not getting a used return. Amazon is running this as a limited time deal ahead of its Big Deal Days event next week, but there's no guarantee that this deal will last long, so you'd better be quick to secure the console at this price.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is Nintendo's second generation version of the popular Switch. It comes with a 7.9-inch 1080p touchscreen that you can hold in your hands, but it also includes a dock that'll let you play games on a TV for 4K gaming at up to 120 fps. The included Joy-Con 2 controllers can be used attached or detached for flexibility.

You're getting 256GB of internal storage for games, but the Switch 2 does support expansion using microSD Express cards. The more big games you want installed, the more storage you'll need, so picking up a card here might not be a bad idea. A good option is this 256GB Samsung P9 Express microSD card for £73.98, saving you 19% on its usual price.

The £354.99 sale price for the Nintendo Switch 2 is an awesome deal to pick up before Amazon's Big Deal Days event next week. Expect this limited-time deal to sell out fast, though, especially with console purchases ramping up before the Christmas period starts.

In the face of strong demand and device shortages, Sony has decided to filter PlayStation 5 Pro purchasers in Japan using a lottery system. We’ve seen such anti-scalper techniques used by the makers of the most treasured tech before, but the Sony Store in Japan is also insisting (machine translation) that those joining the queue for PS5 Pro purchase tickets possess a Japanese PSN account. Furthermore, participants must have logged at least 60 hours of gaming time on a PS4 or PS5 over the last two years.

The Sony Store’s PS5 Pro application and purchase conditions indicate that PS5 Pro purchase lottery ticket applications are limited to gamers who can satisfy the following:

• “For those using PlayStation Online Services with a Sony account registered in Japan.”
• “You must be signed in to your Sony account and have played a total of 60 hours or more of games on either a PS5 or PS4, or both, between September 27, 2024 (Friday) and September 27, 2026 (Sunday) at 23:59.”

These Sony Store PS5 Pro purchase applications will open on October 7, with sales to ticket holders commencing October 26, 2026. If the applications to purchase Sony’s MSRP stock outstrip supply, then prospective purchasers will be selected via lottery. Successful applicants will have until November 2 to complete the purchase of their PS5 Pro at MSRP.

The PS5 Pro has been available to buy for approaching two years (launched November 2024). These game consoles have also seen prices climb several times this year due to key components being funneled to AI data centers. You might think that the console aging and getting more expensive would slow demand. It is thought, however, that demand for the PS5/Pro consoles is now rising, at least partly due to the impending release of Rockstar’s GTA 6.

Japanese gamers have previously been seen to grumble about foreign tourists buying up stocks of RTX 5090s, for example. That experience makes the PS5 Pro lottery system, tied to the Japanese PSN account requirement, seem logical. Moreover, the logged PlayStation gaming time of 60 hours helps steer stock to folks who buy these machines to enjoy, rather than just scalp and sell them on.

PlayStations are traditionally where you go to play PlayStation games, but now you can also use your PS5 to play Nintendo Switch games, too. At least, you can, so long as your PS5 is jailbroken and running the right version of Sony's software. And even then, not all games work, and those that do work might still have performance issues.

Backing up slightly, this whole thing is made possible by a project called ProsperoEden, which is based on the Eden open-source Nintendo Switch emulator that already works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. ProsperoEden takes that open-source base and then adapts it to work on the PS5, and while it's only available as an early alpha version right now, it does indeed work, as reported by VideoCardz.

According to the project's documentation, a number of games have been tested with varying degrees of compatibility. Cuphead and Metroid Dread are said to run fine, reaching at least 40 FPS. Hollow Knight, Horizon Chase Turbo, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and a handful more achieve similar results.

At the other end of the scale, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is "unplayable," while Animal Crossing: New Horizons runs "with major issues" and a frame rate that sits around the nausea-inducing 15 FPS.

The confusing compatibility situation can probably be put down to the fact that the emulator currently uses OpenGL, since there is no Vulkan renderer available to it. The PS5's firmware is also a variable not to be ignored. While most testing was done on a PS5 running the version 6.02 firmware, some builds of the ProsperoEden emulator have been known to work on firmware version 12.70. All of this is to say that your mileage may very well vary if you intend to take ProsperoEden for a spin on your own console.

The good news is that the project is in active development, so compatibility may improve over time. The latest v1.000.010 release promises improved game loading and includes fixes specifically for the Metroid Dread and Super Mario 3D World titles. It also includes improved OpenGL rendering and performance, including multisample operations, render-target compatibility, shader lifetime handling, and depth copies.

Anyone wondering about connecting their Switch Joy-Con to a PS5 needn't worry; ProsperoEden supports DualSense controllers, and there's even support for saving your game so you won't have to start from scratch every time you play.

If you want to check out ProsperoEden for yourself, you can. It's available as a free download via the project's GitHub page right now. There's no guarantee it'll hang around for long, though. Nintendo has a history of taking down emulation projects hosted on GitHub.

PlayStation 5 emulation has witnessed massive growth ever since Sony confirmed its plans to end PC ports for its first-party, narrative-driven single-player games. The latest name joining the list is the open source project AnyPS5, which is claimed to run PS5 games natively on PC without requiring any emulation. The official GitHub page describes it as a tool for automatically porting executables to Linux and Windows.

Since the PS5 is powered by AMD’s Zen 2 hardware, it uses the x86-64 architecture, thus allowing AnyPS5 to work as a compatibility translation layer somewhat similar to Proton or Wine. It takes the original PS5 executable files and converts them into Windows and Linux formats, while the shaders are recompiled into SPIR-V for Vulkan. By avoiding emulation altogether, AnyPS5 can potentially eliminate some of the computational overhead, resulting in a smoother experience.

That said, development is still in the early stages, with test builds reportedly managing to boot select games as far as the main menu, with some even reaching gameplay with audio. However, the tool still requires a lot of work, particularly when it comes to system libraries and proprietary APIs unique to the PlayStation 5’s operating system. While the project is currently active on GitHub, a working public build is yet to be released.

PS5 emulation is still far from being practical, but if you are interested or have been following the topic, make sure to check out KytyPS5, one of the most prominent and popular PlayStation 5 emulators in active development. It recently managed to run the PS5 version of Grand Theft Auto V as high as 40 to 60 FPS using high-end PC hardware. Unfortunately, this one is also in an early experimental phase and is not stable enough to maintain playable frame rates.

There is also SharpEmu, which focuses on accuracy and the underlying infrastructure needed to improve compatibility with PS5 games. The project has managed to successfully run Astro’s Playroom on a Steam Deck and was shown booting on the handheld at around 0.5 to 1 FPS. The game remains unplayable at those frame rates and does not progress beyond the introductory sequence, but getting PS5 emulation to run on the Steam Deck represents a major step forward for the project.

Nintendo of America just won a lawsuit against James Williams, who allegedly moderated the r/SwitchPirates subreddit and sold pirated Switch games online. According to Aftermath, the company sued Williams in June 2024 for copyright violations. However, they failed to respond even after several months, so the company asked for and received a default judgement in their favor.

The court is now directing Williams to pay $4.5 million to Nintendo of America for damages and shut down the pirated shops they control. “To effectuate this injunction, Williams shall immediately disable access to all online ‘shops’ that he operates or otherwise controls which have offered to the public extensive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games for download,” Washington court clerk Joshua C. Lewis and deputy clerk Natalie Wood said in the default judgement filing.

Williams was reportedly uncovered through an in-depth investigation by the company and its lawyers, which tracked them through their Archbox persona on Reddit. Nintendo then matched the details it found on the social media platform to its internal database and discovered that it was linked to a Nintendo account that had a handheld sent in for repairs. A few days after the unit was returned to Williams’ address, the company sent a cease-and-desist, to which the defendant allegedly replied via email.

Nintendo said in its filing that Williams agreed to comply and cooperate with the company’s demands and requests that are within their control but has since cut-off communications. Because of this, it asked the court for a default judgement in October 2025, which the court finally granted.

Nintendo is known for being litigious when it comes to its intellectual property. The developers of Switch emulator Yuzu settled with Nintendo for $2.4 million in 2024, while the company won a $2 million settlement against a Switch modder making backup devices like the MIG Switch and MIG Dumper last year. It has also successfully applied DMCA strikes on over 400 GitHub repositories hosting Switch emulators earlier this year.

But despite many public wins, Nintendo does not always prevail in its lawsuits. Palworld, which is often described as “Pokémon with guns,” has sold over 5 million copies on Steam, and Nintendo hasn’t filed a copyright lawsuit against the company. Instead, it sued the developers of the game for patent infringement several months after it went viral. The case is still ongoing, but sources say that Nintendo could only expect a maximum payout of $30,000 if it were to win its case.

Paying for your new games or in-game content like new levels and skins might be about to get even easier if a newly published PlayStation patent is anything to go by. The patent, titled “Video Game Controller-Driven Information Transfer,” details a system that would allow a PlayStation controller to accept payments whenever a gamer taps it with their credit card or smartphone. It would work with gift cards, too.

The patent was first filed way back in March 2025, but it was only made public on September 17 this year before being spotted by Dexerto.

The patent includes artwork that shows how the payment system would potentially work. One example shows a TV displaying the question "Do you wish to purchase this game?" with a PS5 DualSense controller beside a smartphone. Another shows a "Gift card received!" message, confirming that we may be about to see the end of entering long strings of text just to top up a PlayStation Store balance.

PlayStation's patent also suggests that gamers could be prompted to buy a game after playing a demo at a retailer or event. The console would handle payment once a card or phone has been presented to a controller, although it's unclear if gamers would need to sign in to their PlayStation account for the purchase to be completed. The patent does allow for both NFC and Bluetooth to be used, so it's possible the PlayStation smartphone app may play a part here.

However, those hoping the patent would hint at a future PlayStation console or controller will be disappointed to learn that is very much not the case. Imagery used in the patent shows a recognizable PS5 console and DualSense controller.

There have been rumors of a PS6 launch as soon as 2027, but given the current state of play with regard to component shortages and price hikes, that's far from confirmed at this point. A delay until 2029 has also been rumored.

Just because Sony has a patent doesn't mean this idea will hit real PlayStations. Companies apply for (and are granted) patents all the time. Not everything depicted in those patents turn into shipping products or features. There are no guarantees this new payment system will ever see the light of day.

Valve's Steam Deck portable PC, the same one you might play your favorite games on, isn't just for fun, as Airbus has just proven. The aerospace firm is using the Deck to control a prototype Mars rover throughout its development and testing process.

The ExoMars rover, a device that will be autonomous when it reaches the Red Planet, is being developed in the UK by Airbus. The rover and its Steam Deck companion made an appearance in a video shared by YouTube personality Tom Scott following a visit to Airbus' facility. And while ExoMars is being tested on Earth, it's hoped that it will eventually be capable of controlling itself when it rolls out onto the Martian terrain.

For now, engineers need a way to control the rover during its development and testing in a Mars-like environment. And for that, Airbus has settled on a Steam Deck.

The video shows a Steam Deck running unspecified custom software. Just like playing the games Steam Deck owners are familiar with, Scott can be seen using the thumbsticks, triggers, and face buttons as a method for controlling the rover.

While novel, the decision to use a Steam Deck in this way probably shouldn't be all that surprising. It's a handheld PC in every sense of the word — it's powered by Linux and has both physical and touchscreen controls, not to mention Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support. If you're so inclined, you can even install Windows on a Steam Deck, too.

All of these things make the Steam Deck the perfect way to control something as advanced as a Mars rover. Doubly so if specialist software is required, something that traditional controllers like Sony's DualSense and Microsoft's Xbox controllers can't offer. With that in mind, it's perhaps only a matter of time until we see Valve's Steam Frame also used for testing of a future Mars rover.

As for today, Airbus teams in Stevenage, UK, are working on a project to design the mechanical, thermal, and propulsion systems for the landing platform that will help a rover land on Mars in 2030. That rover will be officially called the Rosalind Franklin, and getting it to Mars safely will be "the culmination of more than 20 years’ work," says Kata Escott, the managing director of Airbus Defence and Space UK. Even if Valve's handheld doesn't prove necessary for controlling the Franklin rover once it's on Mars, it can still claim a cool spot in the history of the platform's development.

The ‘magic security chip’ inside the original PlayStation 2 has been successfully reverse-engineered and dumped. Canadian retro hardware and software enthusiast DiscoStarslayer was the manic mind behind the cracking open of the CXP102064 MechaCon chip, which arrived inside the ‘PS2 Fat’ from 1999. It took “four years of effort” to reach this stage, but this milestone should be a boon to hardware preservation, repair, and emulation projects.

The Mechacon got its name from its primary duty of controlling the PS2’s optical and flash drive mechanics. It also played a significant part in Sony’s game optical disc security, supporting “Magic Gate [memory card] and KELF file [executable] decryption among other things,” notes the PSDev Wiki. Unlocking the secret workings of such chips can be important to those involved in video game preservation. So, many people will appreciate DiscoStarslayer’s work in reverse engineering and dumping one of the PS2’s last remaining secrets.

As per the social media post, the arduous task of breaking the MechaCon’s security took four years. Some of the reverse engineering tricks utilized by DiscoStarslayer include chemically decapping the CXP102064 to expose the die, then using microscopes and optical dumping skills to analyze the silicon chip circuitry. In this case, a lucky break during the hacking apparently uncovered an exploit that provided a method whereby the chip’s data could be extracted through software.

With this achievement unlocked, the game/hardware preservation and programming communities can look forward to improved emulation and homebrew developments. It should also open up possibilities for replacing the aging optical drives in PS2 consoles.

Beyond the confines of PS2 Fat consoles, some social media commenters noted that the MechaCon was also used in a handful of arcade machines from the era. Specifically, the Namco System 246 and System 256, as well as the Konami Python 1, which used modified PS2 hardware, used the MechaCon firmware to authenticate security and allow the execution of encrypted game data.

In a recent lawsuit against Sony, the firm argued that "reasonable consumers would not be misled" into believing they own digital games that they "purchased" on the PlayStation Store. Folks on the Consumer Rights Wiki have now compiled a humongous list of specific instances in which Sony currently states that users do, in fact, own their digital PS4 and/or PS5 games. The list is currently up to 44 specifically documented statements, but actually notes hundreds of examples where Sony explicitly states that users do, in fact, "own" their games across its various services and pages.

In this case, Sony says that no "reasonable person" would believe that, when they add a game to their cart and click "Purchase" on the PlayStation Store, they are entering a contract that entitles them to ownership of the digital goods in question. Instead, Sony believes it's obvious that what you're paying for is a limited, revocable license for a service that only remains available as long as Sony offers it, which is quite different from ownership in a legal context.

The case isn't exactly about ownership, though; it's really about consumer disclosure and product representation. The plaintiffs aren't arguing that buying a digital game somehow transfers ownership of Sony's underlying intellectual property, but rather that Sony's use of words such as "buy," "purchase," and "own" could reasonably lead consumers to believe that they were acquiring a durable right to use the game, rather than merely obtaining a revocable license. That distinction matters because Sony's defense depends in part on the claim that no reasonable consumer would interpret the transaction that way. At the same time, the plaintiffs have produced a substantial body of evidence showing that Sony itself routinely uses precisely that ownership language when describing the digital games its customers have purchased.

This issue is in particularly sharp relief now that Sony's digital store is confirmed to be the only way to purchase new PlayStation games from next year. The publisher's announcement that it would stop producing game discs in January of 2028 caused quite an uproar among gamers who value physical copies of games as a token of ownership. It's worth noting that most players do purchase games digitally (as much as 85% of PlayStation games, by some reporting), and also that disc production and usage become less practical as the manufacturing of both disc drives and discs slowly winds down.

The gamer outrage isn't really about the end of discs, though. This fury has been simmering for a good while now, as gamers resent perceived anti-consumer practices. The realization that discs are going away simply forced a lot of gamers outside the enthusiast sphere to confront the reality that they do not own their digital purchases and that they can be taken away at any time, just as Sony has already done in the past. This is especially pointed in light of the price increases asked by game publishers in the last few years, where games have gone from a typical ceiling of $60 USD up to $70 and now, more recently, $80 (with Mario Kart World, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and now Grand Theft Auto VI), despite often struggling to provide the same level of satisfaction and enjoyment as older titles.

And so we come back around to the Consumer Rights Wiki and its list of times that Sony has explicitly used ownership language on its website and on its digital storefront. The Wiki catalogs these quotes with both links to live pages as well as archived snapshots and screenshots with the relevant text highlighted. The Consumer Rights Wiki was of course founded by consumer rights advocate and YouTuber Louis Rossmann, but much of the work was done by the community that has sprung up around the site as people rebel against the continuous erosion of their consumer rights, particularly by technology companies that argue against their own responsibility.

It's unfortunately still not clear if this case is actually going to trial yet. Sony is attempting to have the case moved to private arbitration, citing that all four plaintiffs agreed to such when signing up for the PlayStation Network; in that case, Sony will likely pay a small cash award to each plaintiff and the matter will be settled, legally speaking. If the case goes to trial, there's a possibility for real legal precedent to be set by a public ruling, at least in California. For the sake of consumer transparency on the PlayStation Store, let's hope that the court agrees to hear this one.

Nintendo of America got its tariff refund and is using the money to hold a sale, rather than returning it to customers who paid higher-than-expected prices for the Nintendo Switch 2 and accessories. The rare promotion, dubbed the "Customer Appreciation Sale," will run from September 13 to 26 and will offer 30% off digital Switch games, bundles, and "select physical games, downloadable content, accessories, amiibo, and apparel." Discounts will be available in Nintendo Stores and the Nintendo eShop, as well as other participating retailers.

"The Customer Appreciation Sale is our way of saying thank you to Nintendo players for their continued support and is made possible in part by tariff-related refunds," a brief blog post on Nintendo's U.S. website reads. "While Nintendo absorbed most tariff-related costs, the refunds helped make promotions like this one possible."

In a 2026 earnings document, the company stated that it got $300 million in tariff refunds.

Nintendo of America is facing a proposed class action lawsuit from customers who believe the company will be made whole twice: once through raised prices and a second time through the refunds. Sony is facing a similar suit, and in September, Nintendo of America filed a motion to dismiss its suit.

Nintendo was hit hard by the Trump administration's tariffs. Soon after the Switch 2's initial announcement, the company delayed U.S. pre-orders for the console, though the system launched on time. In May, Nintendo raised the price of the Switch 2 by $50 to $499, though that also priced in component shortages and included hikes in Europe and Japan.

In March, Nintendo of America sued the U.S. government in the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking refunds, joining Costco, FedEx, Revlon, and more than 1,000 others. The Supreme Court ruled that large swaths of the tariffs were unlawful, with over $166 billion due back to American businesses. By the end of July, the government had paid $100 billion in refunds.

Most companies seem to be pocketing the refunds, even though costs were typically passed on to American consumers. In August, Panic, which makes the handheld Playdate focused on indie games, refunded tariffs to customers.

Preorders for the Nintendo Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition went live shortly after yesterday's Nintendo Direct and sold out instantly. Walmart has listed the handheld gaming console but has enabled preorders. Meanwhile, you can preorder it on Amazon for $519.99, so you may still have a chance to get one at MSRP before the scalpers.

• Pre-order the Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition on Amazon
• Pre-order the Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition on Walmart
• Pre-order the Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition on Best Buy
• Pre-order the Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition on Target
• Pre-order the Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition on GameStop

Major U.S. retailers, including Target, Best Buy, and GameStop, were the first to enable preorders for the Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition, which instantly sold out. It did not take long for scalpers to hit eBay to resell preorders for as much as $1,000, almost 2X over Nintendo's MSRP. Zelda-exclusive consoles have always been prime targets for scalpers.

The Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition, the first limited edition of the Switch 2 and a The Legend of Zelda-themed edition celebrating the franchise's 40 years, makes the handheld console even more desirable to hardcore fans and scalpers looking to make a quick profit. Plus, the console's $519.99 price tag, which is only $20 over the vanilla Switch 2, gives gamers extra incentive to purchase one. The problem is finding one in stock.

Along with the console, Nintendo also gave the Switch 2 Pro controller and carrying case with an included screen protector the same The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition treatment. Best Buy currently has both up for preorder at $99.99 and $39.99, respectively.

The Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition officially launches on October 29. Historically, The Legend of Zelda-themed consoles are available for purchase on launch day. However, stock will likely be extremely limited, which is why many fans like to lock in their preorders early.

It remains to be seen whether Nintendo will produce many units of the Switch 2 The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition. At least for the previous limited-edition consoles, like the Nintendo Switch OLED: Tears of the Kingdom Edition or Nintendo Switch Lite: Hyrule Edition, stock was not a problem since you can still buy them today despite being last-generation consoles.

Nintendo just aired one of the most important Directs of the Switch 2 generation, showcasing the upcoming Ocarina of Time remake in all its glory. The presentation also brought along the announcement of the first special edition Switch 2 hardware: The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition. The console costs $519.99, but there's also an identically themed Pro Controller for $99.99 that you can pre-order right now — either item ships later this year on October 29.

• Pre-order The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition Switch 2
• Pre-order The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition Pro Controller
• Pre-order The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition Carrying Case

The company's first handheld to be adorned in special edition Zelda makeup was the Game Boy Advance SP released in 2004 alongside The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. The first home console to receive the same treatment was The Wind Waker HD edition of the Wii U in 2013. Most recently, we got a Tears of the Kingdom-themed Switch OLED in 2023, followed by the Hyrule Edition of the Switch Lite next year.

Across every handled and home console released, The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary special edition Switch 2 will be the 12th piece of Zelda-themed hardware Nintendo has put out. Moreover, it took the original Switch just a few months to get its first limited-edition hardware (Monster Hunter XX Special Pack), but the Switch 2 has clearly taken its time with this design, and it's sure to be a collector's item.

The tablet itself is mostly the same boring black except for a few golden triangles at the back. However, the Joy-Cons feature a beautiful green design with a Tri-Force symbol on the left. The dock is a gorgeous, two-tone golden and black color with a very bold Tri-Force theme across the front and some easter eggs on the back. Even the packaging is supposed to have textured foil cover art. The console will retail for $520 and does not come with any game.

Alongside the console, there's a Switch 2 Pro Controller that looks very similar to the Joy-Cons, with a green and gold theme that combines elements of the Triforce with a crest emblem. It comes as is for $100, but you can also get it with a subtly themed display stand for $110. Finally, there's also a $40 carrying case adorned with Zelda illustrations. You even get a custom, green-colored microfiber cloth inside and a screen protector.

• Pre-order The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (remake)

Keep in mind that all of this hardware celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Zelda franchise, which already passed earlier this year. It has nothing to do with the upcoming Ocarina of Time remake and, as such, the game is not included in the $520 limited edition Switch 2. Pre-orders for all the items discussed above are open, and they will be released on October 29, 2026. The Ocarina of Time remake drops next month, on November 19, 2026, and will be sold separately for $60.

Sony Japan has officially implemented a new customer harassment policy to address ongoing customer backlash, following the company’s controversial announcement to phase out physical PlayStation game discs by January 2028. In an official publication on September 1, the company outlined prohibited customer behaviors to protect the dignity and safety of its employees and threatened to suspend customer service if the behaviors continued.

“The dignity and safety of our employees must not be threatened by customer harassment, such as words or demands from customers that exceed what is considered reasonable according to social norms,” the publication read. “If any behavior constituting customer harassment is confirmed, we may restrict or suspend customer service in order to protect the safety of our employees.”

Some of the examples of customer harassment detailed in the publication include “persistent and repeated, or prolonged, demands; excessive or unreasonable demands for compensation; abusive language, threats, slander, and other similar behaviors; requests unrelated to products or services; intimidating attitude; discriminatory or sexual conduct; and attacks and demands against individual employees.

The company also listed “forcing someone to prostrate themselves,” visiting company grounds without permission, and excessively asking for apologies as customer harassment, expressing willingness to use legal force if necessary. “We will take a firm stance against such actions and aim to build healthy and sustainable relationships while respecting both our customers and employees,” it said. “If we deem it necessary, we will cooperate with the police, lawyers, etc., and consider taking action, including legal measures and criminal proceedings.”

The new policies appear to be in response to the intense backlash over Sony's decision to end physical disc production by 2028. The decision was met with immediate, widespread backlash from the gaming community, which argued — among other things — that ending physical discs was equivalent to eliminating true ownership. Critics also argued that digital purchases were rentals and placed too much power in the company's hands, which could restrict access at will. Just 6 days after the July 1st announcement, a Change.org petition to stop the move had amassed 200,000 signatures and is now approaching 400,000.

The company doesn't appear to be backing down. After a class action lawsuit related to Sony’s decision to kill physical discs, the company moved to force the case into out-of-court arbitration, arguing that “reasonable consumers would not be misled into believing they own digital games.” The plaintiffs allege that Sony misleads consumers by using "Buy" buttons for digital PlayStation games without clearly disclosing that buyers are only purchasing a temporary, revocable license rather than actual, permanent ownership of the game.

Several other related lawsuits are ongoing. Regardless, Sony has said it will "cautiously move forward" with its decision despite “strong views” from players. The company hopes its new customer harassment policy will curb some of the backlash individual employees are currently facing. The policies also align with Japan's recent law that mandates companies to take measures to prevent customer harassment towards their workers.

The developers of the Sony PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 have told their social media followers that it is now possible to play games straight from discs. As announced on Twitter/X, the emulator’s latest refinement works only with certain internal and external Blu-ray drives. Happily for retro gamers, there’s a lengthy compatibility list of drives featuring many models and brands, and the same drives are also compatible with dumping your media to fixed storage.

Above you can see the RPCS3 devs are pretty happy with the slick new “plug and play” refinements that are available to users of the latest version of the emulator. “You can now play your PS3 games on PC... DIRECTLY FROM THE DISC DRIVE!” boast the open source emulator programmers. “PLUG AND PLAY! Owning your games as physical media allows you to play games released as far back as 20 years ago without relying on any servers!” The RPCS3 team thanks digant73 and Megamouse, specifically, for contributions making this feat possible.

Indeed, this is another step forward in making a slick emulator that works in a surprisingly frictionless fashion. Though the Tweet mentions PC, specifically, extended disc drive play support is also available on Linux, FreeBSD, and macOS. You just need to check that drive compatibility list. Moreover, all users can enjoy “optimized install times for package installations from the disc drive.” It has also been confirmed that PS4 and PS5 console users with Linux installs can launch PS3 games directly from disc using RPCS3.

Here’s a quick tip for folks who have an obscure Blu-ray drive that isn’t in the list. If you want to confirm compatibility with the drive, just put a PS3 disc in it. If you can browse its files, it's compatible; if nothing shows up, then it's not.

With pricing for the best SSDs now sky-high, being able to test-run new (old) games before dumping them to fixed storage could be a boon. It might also be good for auditioning a batch of discs you have recently bought, to see which ones are keepers.

The first units of the ‘world’s first fully transparent video game console’ are shipping to founders, and now the project is on its way to Kickstarter. Above and below you can see images of the new Arduview. As you can see, it isn’t just another clear-shell console or handheld; the makers of this device have fully embraced the latest in transparent electronics. Thus, here we have a crystal shell handheld with a see-through motherboard, using a transparent display.

There have been quite a few transparent shell consoles over the years, with some of the best-known probably being the Game Boy Color in Atomic Purple and the N64 Funtastic series. Earlier this year we saw the new Commodore release a dazzling Starlight edition of the C64U. Most recently, Microsoft has revealed its translucent green Xbox Series X25.

Adruview founder Louis Huang told Tom’s Hardware that while he has always loved transparent consoles and clear-shell mods, he was disappointed that the transparency always just stopped at the frame. “So we pushed it further with a transparent OLED screen, board, and case. You can see straight through the whole device,” wrote the Babson College student.

That's enough about the console’s appearance, what about the guts of this handheld? Well, the Arduview project is based on the open-source Arduboy. You guessed it, this console is based on the Arduino platform, designed for DIY electronics tinkering and coding, and here it is purposed for playing hundreds of community-made 8-bit games on the ATmega32u4 microcontroller with its meager resources (2.5KB RAM, 32KB storage).

Huang highlights that the Arduview weighs just 50g (<1.8 ounces), connects to your computer and charges via USB-C, and there is no app store, no Wi-Fi. Users just power on and play.

If you are interested in this kind of handheld, the Arduview early access program still appears to be open, despite the site mentioning it runs “in August 2026.” I guess we are only just into September… I clicked the button and could still reserve a unit for $5 and benefit from the $49 'founder price.' Apparently it will be $100 at retail.

We don’t have a date for the Kickstarter launch yet, and perhaps there will be similar cheaper-than-$100 offers for early birds, and so on. However, the Kickstarter backers won’t get their hardware until 2027.

As an open-source platform, there are other makers and suppliers of Arduboy hardware, such as Seeed Studio. If the Arduview’s clear charms aren’t reeling you in but the portable platform appeals, you can grab the not-very-transparent Arduboy FX-C available on Amazon at $79.99, for example.

Grand Theft Auto V came out in late 2013 for PS3 and Xbox 360 before it was ported to eighth-gen consoles. Despite running on seventh-gen hardware, Rockstar never released it on the Nintendo Switch. Fast forward 13 years later and modders have done Rockstar's job for them. An unofficial Homebrew port of GTA V is now available for the Switch, and it runs natively on the hardware at roughly 30 FPS. You do need a jailbroken device, and it needs to be overclocked in order for the game to be playable.

The port is developed by Paralympics Productions and is based on the leaked source code from 2023. That source code allowed modders to reverse-engineer the game logic and recompile it for Arm, allowing it to run natively on the Switch's Tegra X1 SoC. That means GTA V can technically also run on Android, and sure enough, Paralympics' Discord server teases that an Android port is coming soon.

The Discord server is also where you'll find all the necessary resources required to make this work. There are four key components: a package builder, an asset converter tool, modified config files, and a specific folder layout. They work together to patch the original GTA V files, construct an executable (.NSP), and make the game data compatible with Switch's Horizon OS.

Obviously, we can't detail the entire process here, but it's relatively straightforward, and you'll find detailed guides, including a video tutorial, on the Discord. There are a few bugs to look out for, but personally we did not face any during installation. You can skip all the work and just download the already-prepped archive from Switch piracy sites, too, which is around 50GB.

Once everything is set up, you transfer the NSP to a jailbroken Switch running custom firmware, along with the modified game files, and open GTA V like you would any other game. It's kind of surreal at first, but it boots up and runs directly on the console without any emulation overhead. The load times are alright; it doesn't heat up the handheld like crazy, and battery drain was similar to any other demanding title.

Despite that, the performance is quite wonky because the Tegra X1 inside is dated and thermally constrained. You'll get between 10-25 FPS depending on exactly what Switch model you have and the silicon lottery. To get a more stable experience that mostly locks the framerate at 30 FPS, you'll need to overclock your Switch. It's easy enough to do so through sys-clk, and you can create different profiles for handheld, docked, and charging modes.

We tried moderate overclocks across the CPU, GPU and memory on a Switch OLED, and were able to run the game at a "smooth" 30 FPS as long as there wasn't too much action going around. The moment a bunch of NPCs pop up in a mission, or there's an explosion, for instance, the framerate dips quite aggressively. The controls also felt weighty since Joy-Cons aren't suited for precise movement, so the portable experience might be a bit compromised.

Plenty of folks online have gone past the starting mission and explored the open world, too. There are no issues with save states, and the game runs surprisingly well considering the Switch's stature. Keep in mind that the source code making this possible comes from GTA V Legacy in particular, which is the PS4, Xbox One, and PC version. The PS3/Xbox 360 version of the game did not leak, or else scaling down the logic to fit within the Switch's 4GB memory buffer would've been far easier.

Those consoles only shipped with 512MB of unified RAM. Instead, the modders had to deal with high-resolution PC assets that needed to be heavily compressed first. The modified config files mentioned earlier throttle settings like draw distances and particle counts, so the PC engine code doesn't instantly melt the Switch. At the end, the Homebrew port performs similarly to the PS3/Xbox 360 versions of the game.

Paralympics Productions has already put out a few patches that improve performance, with more to come down the line, especially once the Android port rolls around. You can already emulate GTA V on Android phones through apps like GameHub and Winlator that translate x86 instructions into Arm. That will run much better if you have a flagship (Snapdragon) phone from the past few years. You can even emulate this Homebrew port through a Switch emulator if you want to enjoy twice the overhead.

It feels like the emulation and modding community across the entire handheld space is going through a renaissance. Ever since the Steam Deck lit the spark, these developers have made the impossible seem possible. People used to wonder why GTA V never came out on the original Switch (the answer is GTA: Online) up until literally weeks ago, and now we have the game running natively on an almost decade-old device that was underpowered even at the time it came out.

This does not suddenly mean that the Switch 2 can run GTA VI. For the PS5/Xbox Series version of the game, you'll need a potential Switch 3 if we follow a similar trajectory. More importantly, though, Rockstar's stance towards Nintendo in general has changed, and that plays a much bigger role in getting GTA VI on Nintendo hardware one day as opposed to just the capabilities of the silicon.

Acer debuted the smaller Predator Atlas 7 handheld at IFA 2026, joining the larger Atlas 8 that we saw earlier this year. Like its larger sibling, it packs up to an Intel Arc G3 Extreme SoC, now with a smaller 7-inch, 1080p screen. Alongside it, Acer teased Project DualPlay Mini, a concept that brings together an 8-inch gaming handheld with the idea of a netbook in a foldable design.

Project DualPlay Mini is certainly the more interesting of the two announcements, though Acer was clear that it is “a concept only” right now. Specs-wise, Acer shared very little. The handheld is powered by an Intel chip (presumably a G-series SoC, though possibly full Panther Lake), and it uses the same dual-fan cooling apparatus as the Predator Atlas 8, with one AeroBlade metal fan and one plastic fan.

The handheld is split in the middle, allowing you to flip up the front on a hinge and expose a keyboard underneath. Once open, the screen area shows two large speaker grilles. The screen itself is on a hinge that can flip to the other side of the shell, allowing you to use the handheld as a very small laptop, reminiscent of a netbook (though likely with far better compute capabilities).

Based on Acer’s renders, the device sports two USB-C ports, two back buttons, as well as either a touchpad or fingerprint reader. None of those details were included in Acer’s press release, though the renders of the design provide some hints as to what the goal of the device actually is.

Acer says the keyboard has a backlight, and that the device will be able to connect to an external display. Assuming Acer used the Predator Atlas 8 as a blueprint, that display support likely comes through Thunderbolt 4. To celebrate Acer’s 50th anniversary, the back of the handheld has “Acer 50 since 1976” inscribed in Morse Code, which you can just barely see on the render of the back of the device in the gallery above (look toward the bottom).

More consequential in the immediate term is the Predator Atlas 7. It, too, features a dual-fan design with one AeroBlade fan that’s made of metal with 89 blades measuring 0.1mm thick, alongside a plastic fan. The specs from top to bottom are identical to the Atlas 8, just with the smaller 7-inch display.

You get up to an 80Whr battery, dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, a UHS-II micoSD card slot, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, and dual 2W speakers with DTS:X Ultra spatial audio support. At the heart of the machine is the Arc G3 or Arc G3 Extreme, alongside up to 1TB of PCIe 4.0 storage through the M.2 2280 slot and up to 24GB of LPDDR5X-7467 memory.

The screen differs in size, though it sports identical specs to the Atlas 8 otherwise. It’s a 16:9 display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 10-point multi-touch support. Acer claims it can achieve 500 nits of brightness, and it’s an IPS panel.

As is the case with the Atlas 8, the larger 80Whr battery is paired with the Arc G3 Extreme, while a smaller 60Whr battery is used for the base Arc G3. The battery size will change the weight, with Acer claiming the device weighs “under 700 grams” and “under 750 grams” for the 60Whr and 80Whr batteries, respectively.

Acer has yet to put a price on the Atlas 7, though given what we’ve seen with Arc G-series handhelds like the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, it’s reasonable to expect a price tag north of $1,500. The Atlas 7 goes on sale in North America in Q4 of this year. The Atlas 8, meanwhile, will be available in North America in EMEA regions in Septembe, after being revealed at Computex earlier this year.

Sony Interactive Entertainment asked a federal judge on August 21 to push a proposed class action lawsuit over the PlayStation Store’s “buy” and “purchase” labels out of court and into individual arbitration. In doing so, Sony is invoking a clause in the same terms of service that the four litigants suing it in Heycock v. Sony Corporation of America argue aren’t presented clearly enough at checkout to satisfy California law.

The June lawsuit alleges that Sony sells revocable game licenses behind “Buy Now” and “Confirm Purchase” buttons without the disclosures required by AB 2426, California’s digital goods law. That law, which came into effect on January 1, 2025, requires that companies clearly disclose when consumers are obtaining a revocable license to access “digital goods,” the definition of which includes games, and prohibits storefronts from using words like “buy” or “purchase” when a license is being granted.

Four PlayStation owners, Andrew Garcia, Edward Heycock, Jason Mendoza, and Josh Salinas, filed the complaint on June 18 in the Northern District of California, pleading violations of Business and Professions Code § 17500.6, the state’s False Advertising Law, and the Consumer Legal Remedies Act on behalf of a proposed class of California purchasers.

The purchases the plaintiffs are pleading all post-date the statute’s January 1, 2025 effective date: Garcia bought NBA 2K25 for $20.99 on March 27, 2025, then NBA 2K26 and Madden NFL 26 for $65.99 and $69.99, respectively, on August 11, 2025. The complaint alleges that these transactions convey “only a limited, revocable license,” while the language used on the PlayStation Store communicates ownership. The four plaintiffs claim they sent two CLRA demand letters on April 21, 2026, and May 11, 2026, respectively, which Sony didn’t answer.

See you in court

Section 14 of the PlayStation Terms of Service requires U.S. users to resolve disputes through binding individual arbitration and waives class actions, unless the user mails a written opt-out to Sony’s legal department in San Mateo within 30 days of accepting the terms. Sony’s motion attached three versions of those terms as exhibits dated August 2023, March 2025, and April 2026, along with the Software Product License Agreement, covering the window in which the proposed class members accepted them. The plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed co-defendant Sony Corporation of America on August 20, one day before Sony’s motion, leaving Sony Interactive Entertainment as the sole defendant.

Some readers — especially those outside the U.S. — may be surprised to learn that corporations can contractually block their customers from suing them in court. The foundation for this is the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925, which makes arbitration agreements “valid, irrevocable, and enforceable,” and the Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, which held that the Act overrides state rules treating class action waivers in consumer contracts as unenforceable. Sony added the arbitration clause to the PlayStation Network terms in September 2011, months after that ruling.

The clause isn’t bulletproof: California’s McGill v. Citibank ruling bars contracts from waiving a consumer’s right to seek a public injunction, and the present Heycock complaint is asking for an injunction against Sony’s checkout practices. The plaintiffs’ response to Sony’s motion is due by September 4, and we can expect the plaintiffs to argue that at least the injunctive claims belong in court.

Both Sony’s motion and the plaintiffs’ response will then be heard by Judge Vince Chhabria on October 1st in San Francisco. Its fallback asks Judge Chhabria to dismiss the case outright on the grounds that the checkout flow already complies with California law, with Sony’s filing arguing that “reasonable consumers would not be misled” into believing they own digital games because buyers agree to the license terms via the Software Product License Agreement before the purchase is finalized. Quoting Section 8.4 of the PlayStation Terms of Service, the motion states that a purchase buys “a personal license” and that users “do not own the product,” and Section 1 of the SPLA, which reads: “The software is licensed to you, not sold.” Sony’s lawyers, then, appear to contend that digital purchasers inherently understand that they can’t own a game the way they’d own a physical object, since a digital copy isn’t exclusive to any one buyer.

The filing also argues that claims over digital game ownership are highly unlikely (prima facie implausible), pointing to the plaintiffs’ own purchase histories in what is either a wild display of mental gymnastics or a bad-faith attempt to argue that, in saying they own the games they’ve purchased, the plaintiffs are trying to stake a claim to owning the game IP outright, which they obviously don’t. Sony highlights that Heycock bought Resident Evil Requiem for $69.99 on February 25, 2026, 11 days after co-plaintiff Jason Mendoza bought the same game, and argues that if a purchase conveyed ownership, Mendoza would have owned the title and Heycock’s transaction couldn’t have happened.

California's AB 2426

California Assembly Bill 2426 took effect on January 1, 2025, and bars sellers of revocable digital goods from using language like “buy” and “purchase,” or any term that a reasonable person would read as conferring ownership, unless the seller collects an affirmative acknowledgment that the transaction is a license or displays a clear and conspicuous statement, distinct from other T&Cs, before checkout.

Subscriptions, free content, and games offered for permanent offline download are exempt, and violations carry potential misdemeanor liability and civil penalties. Valve added a license disclaimer banner to Steam’s shopping cart within weeks of the bill’s signing in 2024. Sony’s checkout, meanwhile, links to the Terms of Service and license agreement in fine print but requires no acknowledgment and shows no separate statement.

The only real precedent on AB 2426 is Casell v. Ubisoft, which reached no ruling on digital ownership. Players sued in November 2024 over the server shutdown that rendered The Crew unplayable, but their purchases and the filing itself predated § 17500.6, so the statute was never applied to the case. The plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the federal action in June 2025, refiled in Sacramento County Superior Court, and reached a class settlement with Ubisoft that’s now in the approval process.

The plaintiffs’ opposition to Sony’s motion is due September 4, and Sony’s reply is due September 11, ahead of the October 1 hearing. The dispute runs alongside Sony’s controversial intent to wind down physical media production for new PlayStation releases and comes months after a firmware change briefly convinced players that digital games required an online check-in every 30 days.

The person or group behind nine days of Grand Theft Auto VI gameplay leaks cashed out of the $CYBERLEEK memecoin on Thursday, hours before Rockstar's Extended Look premiered on Netflix, according to on-chain data reported by CoinDesk. The wallet that created the Solana token claimed roughly $146,000 in wrapped SOL plus 15.4 million tokens in accumulated creator fees, then sold the whole allocation for about $125,000 in SOL in a single transaction, with GTAForums user ViceCit — who has been documenting the debacle — putting the total exit near $250,000 across four transactions.

The token, which “Cyberleek” watermarked onto every leaked clip, next to a QR code and a promise that a higher market cap would buy more leaks, peaked at around $0.0344 on August 23, per data cited by CoinDesk. It now trades near $0.002725 and is continuing to fall.

“Cyberleek” minted $CYBERLEEK on Solana around August 15, just a few days before the first gameplay clip appeared online, and its manifesto against digital-only preorders. As PC Gamer explained, liquidity providers collect a cut of the fees charged on every trade through the pool. As each gameplay leak drove trading volume, each trade through the pool charged a fee that accrued to Cyberleek as its liquidity provider. The $250,000 estimated exit came from those accumulated fees rather than from dumping a founder's stash on the market.

As the leaker’s campaign pushed on, 270 million reserve tokens, worth about $1.79 million at the time, were burned, which commentators believe was part of a trust-building exercise to keep traders in the pool and the fees flowing. GTAForums’ Vice Cit wrote in a post that the scheme was "planned out and executed very intentionally to maximize the money they'll make."

As the scheme came to a close Thursday afternoon, its proceeds were moved into four newly created wallets after being cashed out. At least 91 SOL were deposited in a KuCoin account, per CoinDesk. Another portion went to CCE.Cash, a non-custodial, anonymous swap service.

Take-Two filed DMCA subpoenas on August 20 demanding that Microsoft and Discord identify the “CyberLeek” persona by September 4, and has since served a similar subpoena on X.

KuCoin does verify its users through Know Your Customer verification. However, given that it’s an entity headquartered in the Seychelles, there’s no route for a civil subpoena to be served, let alone any mechanism to force the company to comply if one were served. KuCoin hasn’t had a U.S. presence since early last year, when it pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and exited the U.S. market after paying a $297 million Department of Justice settlement.

The final leak, a four-plus-minute cut of protagonist Lucia's prologue, appeared on August 26, with the same on-screen plea for more leaks in exchange for more trading volume. No new leaks have been posted since the meme coin was cashed out, despite “Cyberleek” claiming to hold a full working build of the game. The saga has also (predictably) spawned a fake 113GB ISO padded with malware. GTA VI launches November 19.

A Sony PlayStation 3 console modder has shared images and details of their ‘PS3 Pro v3’ design. On the PS3 subreddit, Fun-Equivalent-7785 showcases this project, which includes a heavily customized 3D-printed top case, dual Noctua fans, and liberal use of tin foil. While you may love or hate the new aesthetic, the results seem impressive, with the PS3 overclocked like a champ and running very cool and quiet.

Yes, this is at least the third PS3 Pro mod from Fun-Equivalent-7785, but all projects benefit from refinement. PC builders will be familiar with the dread of unwrapping their motherboards and seeing the revision number is v1.0.0, contrasting with the pleasure of seeing v1.0.3. Moving swiftly back on topic, you can look and read about the first version of this PS3 Pro project here, and there’s also a video about the PS3 Pro v2.

In some comments following the original post, Fun-Equivalent-7785 provides more technical details about the PS Pro v3 mod. They claim that the processors aren’t delidded, nor undervolted. Instead, they have installed “server heatsinks” on Sony’s custom PS3 processors. In front of these, one can clearly see two chunky Noctua fans, presumably pushing much air through the heatsink fins. Tinfoil has been used to shape the ducting. The Noctua fans are somewhat wider than the heatsinks, and overall it is “super silent.”

One screenshot shows an overlay from the ‘PS3 Pro v3’ running. Specifically, we can see the CPU is 40 degrees Celsius, the Reality Synthesizer (AKA the RSX, a GPU) is 42 degrees Celsius, while the fans are only rotating at 24% max RPM. This is while the RSX is overclocked to 750 MHz core and 1,000 MHz memory. A stock PS3 would achieve around 500 MHz core and 650 MHz memory.

Those uprated numbers result in broadly improved performance in PS3 gaming. “Almost every game has a boost in FPS,” crows Fun-Equivalent-7785. The results seem pretty worthwhile, especially if you like the look of this design from Fun-Equivalent-7785.

While it is an interesting project that might inspire you to do something similar with your old PS3, there are some aspects to modding like this that you have to consider. This particular project isn’t a ‘product’ so you can’t just buy a kit to copy it. There aren't yet 3D printer resource files shared on GitHub or similar. We are also not aware of any other shared resources to make it easy for other modders to replicate the PS3 Pro v3 project.

Lastly, please remember, before you risk your precious PS3 under the knife, there can be risks to modding. For example, there are many opportunities to inflict accidental physical damage to electronics when undertaking DIY projects like this. Moreover, overclocking may shorten the lifespan of your console's components, and applying unofficial firmware has the potential to soft- or hard-brick your system.

Xbox has unveiled its long-rumored new disc-to-digital service, which will let players who own physical copies of games claim digital entitlements, playing them as if they own digital copies. In an announcement, Microsoft confirmed support will include digital benefits such as Xbox Play Anywhere and Xbox Cloud Gaming.

"Players have spent decades building their XBOX libraries. Some games were purchased on disc. Some were purchased digitally. Many span multiple generations of hardware," the company stated in a blog post on Xbox Wire. Microsoft says the new feature "brings the benefits of digital to physical discs." Xbox Insiders can test the feature from August 31.

The company says that "most" disc-based games for Xbox One and Series X support the new feature. If you insert a game disc into your Xbox One or Series X, you can claim a "digital entitlement" by launching the game.

That means that games you own on disc will be accessible through your digital library, including support for Xbox Play Anywhere and Xbox Cloud Gaming "where supported."

You can also keep using your physical copy as normal. Microsoft says that "thousands" of titles are supported, with more being added over time, but confirms that not every title will be available at launch.

The news will be of some comfort to fans of physical media, especially given recent developments in the gaming sphere, notably Sony's decision to end physical media with its next console. While the move does give physical media a new lease of life in some regards, it still marks a shift away from physical media towards online, digital libraries, encouraging users to transition from physical to digital.

Microsoft has opened preorders for the Designed for Xbox 25th Anniversary Collection, a set of officially licensed peripherals in translucent "OG Green" marking 25 years since the original Xbox launched on November 15, 2001. Every item comes from a third-party partner rather than Microsoft, and the set leans toward PC and mobile, with three Razer desktop peripherals, two phone controllers, an 8BitDo charging dock, and a PowerA bag built to carry the Asus-made ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. Most units will ship in late October, with the Razer gear dated for October 20.

• Razer Basilisk V3 Pro 35K – XBOX 25 Anniversary Edition
• Razer BlackWidow V4 75% – XBOX 25 Anniversary Edition
• Razer Hammerhead V3 X HyperSpeed – XBOX 25 Anniversary Edition

Razer naturally contributes the priciest pieces, with the Basilisk V3 Pro 35K mouse at $179.99, the BlackWidow V4 75% keyboard at $209.99, and the Hammerhead V3 X HyperSpeed for Xbox earbuds at $119.99, each carrying a $20 premium over the standard model.

The Basilisk pairs Razer's Focus Pro 35K Optical Sensor Gen-2 with up to 140 hours of wireless battery, and the BlackWidow comes with hot-swappable Orange Tactile Switches Gen-3, the same internals as their standard versions. Backbone's Pro controller runs $159.99 in a blind-box format that hides which of three heritage colorways sits inside, GameSir's X5 Lite phone controller lists at $44.99, and 8BitDo's Ultimate Charging Dock lists at $39.99. The translucent green shells revive the look of the original Xbox and its Halo special editions, down to the four-color face-button palette that carries over to the separate anniversary console.

The keyboard carries a dedicated Xbox key that opens Windows Game Bar, the same shortcut the ROG Xbox Ally maps to its own Xbox button, and the collection's other anchors are a bag for that Windows 11 handheld and two clip-on controllers for phones. That composition aligns with the platform that Xbox has become, after Microsoft began rolling Xbox Mode out to Windows 11 desktops and laptops in April, extended the ROG Xbox Ally's full-screen interface across PCs, and started building its next-generation console on a custom AMD chip.

The Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition is the only anniversary product Microsoft makes itself, announced June 7 at the Xbox Games Showcase and due in November alongside a matching Wireless Controller X25 sold separately. It reuses the standard Series X internals with 1TB of storage in a translucent green shell, and Dealabs pricing cited by TechPowerUp puts it near $899, roughly $100 above the current 1TB Series X, though Microsoft hasn't yet confirmed a price.

A family from Pierce County in Washington, Seattle, claims that thieves broke into their home and stole a haul of retro Nintendo hardware worth more than $50,000. Amongst other items taken, Fox13 reports the perps made off with more than 850 NES games, collected by the family over the span of some forty years.

According to the report, the thieves simply forced entry to the home by breaking in through the front door. The stricken family told the outlet that it appeared the thieves knew the layout of their home, targeting the master bathroom and making off with a tennis bracelet, amongst other things.

"They’ve been in our home. They know our home layout. They’ve been in our master bathroom. They took my wife’s tennis bracelet," Roger Holler said. The prize haul, however, seems to have been the aforementioned bundle of retro video games.

Holler told the outlet he had begun collecting Nintendo games from 1984, and had spent some 30 years "driving around on the weekends from game store to game store." Holler's son reportedly said the father and son duo would spend up to 10 hours on car journeys, collecting and cleaning the cartridges.

All in all, the collection amounted to 850 NES games, some of which are said to have been worth a small fortune. An image from the report shows five games that appear to be from the collection, likely not worth more than $25 a piece as loose cartridges. They are:

• The Legend of Kage (1987)
• Ice Climber (1985)
• Raid on Bungeling Bay (1987)
• Rygar (1987)
• Donkey Kong 3 (1986)

Depending on the condition and the game, NES titles can indeed fetch astonishing amounts of cash in today's retro market. One lucky scavenger recently discovered a collection of 97 untouched Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. cartridges, thought to be worth $10,000 each. In 2024, an ultra-rare NES Gold Nintendo World Championships cartridge sold for $207,400.

Given the stated value of the stolen collection, Holler told the outlet that it "was going to be my grandkids' inheritance or college tuition." Beyond the financial value, Holler lamented the loss of decades of family history.

Asus has finally opened pre-orders for the ROG Xbox Ally X20, an upgraded version of its flagship handheld with an OLED screen and transforming D-Pad. On its own, the system will sell for $1,299.99, while a bundle with the ROG Xreal R1 Edition 20 AR glasses, a dbrand Killswitch case, and a custom Pelican case will cost $2,499.99. The device will be available on October 15 at the Asus Store at Best Buy.

See the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 at Asus

See the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 at Best Buy

Initially, Asus had only announced the bundle, but later turned around and said a standalone version of its new take on the best handheld gaming PC. Given that this version of the Ally has an OLED screen (one of the biggest drawbacks of the original), it didn't make much sense to force a pair of AR glasses when so many people would want to look at the built-in display.

The original ROG Xbox Ally X, which, released in the fall of 2025, still costs $999.99. This new version, with a translucent shell, the OLED screen, transforming d-pad (from 4-way to 8-way), TMR joysticks, and rubberized grips, will come with a $300 premium before you add the bundle. What isn't changing is the internals: the X20 will still come with an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor.

The dbrand Killswitch in the bundle blocks much of the clear plastic, but has black and gold accents, as well as a built-in kickstand. The Killswitch also includes a skin that shows what's inside the Ally, but given that the black plastic is see-through, it seems somewhat redundant.

The Pelican case is exactly what you would expect: a black box with red latches. There is a black-and-gold ROG 20th Anniversary logo, but all things considered, this is the most restrained item in the entire anniversary lineup. While I appreciate a case for the device, this is pretty heavy-duty.

The ROG Xreal R1 glasses appear to be functionally identical to the version we reviewed earlier this year, but with black and gold accents.

The ROG Xbox All X20 was originally announced at Computex, along with a suite of twentieth anniversary ROG computer components that cost as much as $15,000 in one PC build. Beyond components and the handheld, there is also a twentieth anniversary monitor, keyboard, mouse, router, and NUC mini PC.

Nintendo has just issued DMCA takedowns against seven GitHub repositories hosting Switch emulation code, leading to 401 affected repos being removed from the platform. Most of these belonged to a single parent repo of the Suyu emulator, which itself is a fork of the previously shut down Yuzu emulator. Nintendo leveraged GitHub policies to their fullest extent to execute its notice, arguing that emulators inherently rely on circumventing anti-piracy protections built into Switch games.

TorrentFreak reports that this was a coordinated campaign by Nintendo as it filed seven different strikes on the same day. GitHub has a rule that says if a parent repo contains more than 100 forks, then the platform will not look at each one individually but rather remove the entire network. Suyu had 311 of these repos under its parent, so all of them were wiped off the map. Suyu was born in 2024, picking up after Yuzu following a lawsuit against its creators, Tropic Haze, that ended in a settlement.

Besides Suyu, the Android-based Skyline emulator was also affected in this campaign, but it has already been defunct for the past three years. It's not based on Yuzu, so it stands out in this lineup. Skyline devs actually stopped development in 2023, fearing legal repercussions, so the source code has remained dormant, but it did have 29 independent forks under the parent repo. Since it's an open-source project, anyone can iterate on it and publish their own versions.

Similarly, Yuzu Android, another fork of Yuzu was also struck with a DMCA notice that took down 8 forks under it. NicholasArvani's Yuzu fork had a network of 14 repos that were removed. A repo focusing on an early access build of Yuzu with 21 forks was taken down as well. Finally, MonoNX and its 17 forks, along with the parent repo of the main Yuzu emulator, were hit by Nintendo, too. These repos now link to the seven DMCA notices Nintendo sent to them, as visible in the sidebar, while their forks may return a 404 error.

The reasoning for the takedown is tied to piracy, with the company saying these emulators "illegally circumvent Nintendo's TPM in order to run illegal copies of Nintendo Switch games." Switch games require cryptographic keys upon every boot to verify the authenticity of the title, and emulators rely on a ripped-off prod.keys file to bypass this failsafe at runtime. Nintendo argues that, therefore, these keys are used to play pirated games instead of legally acquired ones.

The company lists two previous court cases as justification. The first one is its settlement with Tropic Haze — the devs behind Yuzu — and the second one is a default judgment against streamer EveryGameGuru who streamed pirated copies of Switch games ahead of their release using emulators. According to Nintendo, both convictions prove that merely providing the tools that lead to piracy also constitutes illegal trafficking since they rely on circumventing the company's TPM.

Keep in mind that neither case actually set a legal precedent because they weren't contested rulings where a judge interpreted the law; there was no verdict. Tropic Haze decided to settle, and EveryGameGuru failed to appear in front of a court entirely, granting Nintendo a victory by forfeiture. Still, the outcome of either case sets a strong legal blueprint on which the Japanese game company stands today as it tries to warp the legal precedent surrounding emulation as a whole.

Sony’s decision to end physical game production by 2028 is facing backlash from the community, with one group announcing a concrete protest. DoesItPlay, a community dedicated to video game preservation, has called for a one-week boycott of PlayStation, asking players to turn off their consoles or log out of the PlayStation Network from August 23 to 30. According to its Bluesky post, the community, along with other creators, is calling for a one-week #PSBlackout starting tomorrow, asking for “No logins, no play sessions, no purchases on any of Sony’s platforms.”

Unfortunately, many say this move likely won't make much of an impact. That’s because the last week of August is “ordinary,” with no major events or PlayStation-related launches. In fact, it’s also the same week as Gamescom, so many hardcore gamers would likely be away and at the convention anyway. Some comments on DoesItPlay’s post suggest more drastic measures, like a mass cancellation of PSN subscriptions for three months or even mass refunds of pre-selling digital games, arguing that a boycott or blackout with an expiry date is meaningless, as Sony will simply wait it out.

Other users are showing their displeasure with the move towards digital-only releases in more drastic ways. One example of this is Cyberleek, who leaked gameplay clips and the entire map of Leonidas a week before GTA VI’s extended look trailer is set to come out on Netflix. Take-Two is already taking steps to find out who was behind the leaks, but only after it became apparent that the hacker apparently has a full working build of the much-anticipated game. While the leaker did not mention anything about Sony’s plan to go fully digital, Cyberleek opposed the decision to offer pre-selling digital copies of GTA VI and threatened to keep releasing leaks until the publisher issues a public apology and “a concrete commitment to be better.”

Sony wants to abandon fans? Let's give them a small taste of their own medicine!Together with other creators we call for a 1 week #PSBlackout in August. No logins, no play sessions, no purchases on any of Sony's platforms.

— @doesitplay.org (@doesitplay.org.bsky.social) 2026-08-23T02:04:05.199Z

The gaming industry has been slowly moving away from physical media and toward fully digital releases, especially with the prevalence of the Steam and Epic storefronts. However, what many do not realize is that “buying” games from most of these services does not equate to ownership—something Steam had to clarify on its checkout page in 2024.

The only major distributor that currently offers complete ownership is GOG, which says, “A purchase of a digital content on GOG grants you its Offline Installers, which cannot be taken away from you.” Subscriptions like PC Game Pass have also started offering short-term convenience for gamers, especially those who only want to play something for a while and don’t mind losing access to the game after they’ve already completed or grown tired of it.

Companies like Sony are likely reacting to market preferences for digital games, which is probably why it doubled down on its decision to axe physical game discs. One way consumers can force these tech companies to keep physical distribution alive is by putting their money where their mouth is and start purchasing game discs from retailers instead of downloading them from online storefronts.

Take-Two Interactive filed two DMCA subpoenas in the Southern District of New York on August 20, demanding that Microsoft and Discord identify the person or persons behind the "CyberLeek" persona responsible for this week's Grand Theft Auto 6 gameplay leaks. Take-Two wants more than just names and is asking for MachineGuid and MSA device identifiers, registration and last-login IP addresses, phone numbers, linked Google and Xbox connections, and OneDrive contents for every account that communicated in three named Discord servers since June 1. Both subpoenas, filed by Dale Cendali and Joshua Simmons of Kirkland & Ellis, set a September 4 deadline.

MachineGuid is a Windows value generated during installation and, according to Microsoft's own support documentation, stable across hardware changes unless the OS drive is replaced. Attachment A asks Microsoft to return that identifier for every account that was a member of, or communicated with any of the three listed Discord servers between June 1, 2026 and the present, in addition to the three handles named in the filings.

The Discord subpoena names three servers: Ødyssey.gg (guild ID 1517326120867991592), "! Odyssey" (1127436882800816149), and DarkViperAU (268280696601051136). The Microsoft subpoena describes the first of those as a cheat community and labels it the "operator's home." It also demands device telemetry where certain "tool/file artifacts" were present on a system, though no list of those artifacts appears anywhere in the exhibit.

Take-Two's petition directs the Microsoft subpoena to the company as GitHub's service provider, not as the operator of Xbox or OneDrive. The predicate takedown notice, filed as an exhibit, was sent on August 19 by Take-Two IP paralegal Alex Aviles to GitHub's copyright address over a single repository, zyrexdz/cyberleek-leak-research. It states that the repository "must be completely disabled, there are no remedies to rectify this clear case of infringement." At the time of writing, the GitHub repo is public with nearly 500 stars, more than 30 forks, and a commit pushed at 16:18 UTC.

Discord account and server IDs encode their creation time, and decoding the IDs in the filings dates the CyberLeek account to January 10, 2019, and the DarkViperAU server to January 10, 2017. Australian creator Matthew "DarkViperAU" Judge, whose server the filings describe as an editors' server, denied any knowledge in a post on X, writing "I don't know anything." The Ødyssey.gg server decodes to June 19, 2026, which is 18 days after the start of the June 1 records window. The Discord petition also lists 1517326120867991592 as a user ID belonging to the handle Surfer24k, while both subpoena attachments list the same number as the Ødyssey.gg server ID.

A sixth gameplay video leak appeared on August 21, six days before Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look premieres on Netflix. Rockstar's parent company was itself hacked by ShinyHunters in April, while CyberLeek claims to have a full, working build and has published a manifesto attacking digital-only preorders.

Spending on physical game disks has fallen to the lowest recorded level since tracking began in 1995, according to a new report documenting a drastic slump in the console market. U.S. console hardware sales fell 39% by unit volume in July against a year earlier, while the average price paid for a new system rose 16% to $542, according to Circana data posted by analyst Mat Piscatella on August 20.

Dollar sales came in at $282 million, down 29% and the lowest July total since 2020, with Piscatella tying the drop to console price increases caused by the RAM and component crisis, a link Circana hadn't made in its monthly reporting before. PlayStation 5 units fell 6%, Xbox Series units fell 18%, and Switch 2 units fell 51%, with Nintendo's own $50 price increase still to come on September 1.

PS5 dollar sales rose 29% in July even as unit sales fell 6%, a gap driven by Sony's $100 increase across the PS5 range in April, which took the standard console to $599 and the PS5 Pro to $899. Sony still led the month in dollar sales, while the Switch 2 led in unit volume.

Switch 2 dollar sales fell 52% alongside the 51% unit decline, and the original Switch dropped 62% in units and 61% in dollars. Nintendo's Switch 2 is the only one of the three current platforms that hasn't raised its U.S. price yet, but that’ll change when the console goes to $499 on September 1. The company's RAM costs for the console rose 41% late last year, and Nintendo reportedly cut planned Switch 2 output by 2 million units in March. Piscatella noted the comparison is skewed by the record-setting June 2025 launch, and that the Switch 2 is still 11% ahead of the original Switch's time-aligned pace.

Xbox Series dollar sales fell 18%, matching its unit decline, after Microsoft raised prices on every Xbox model for the third time in two years and dropped the 2TB Series X. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has said the company will pay five times more for memory and storage in 2027 than it did two years earlier. Taken together, the July numbers work out to roughly 520,000 consoles sold across all platforms, against around 850,000 a year earlier, based on Circana's dollar totals and average selling prices.

As for physical game discs, spending fell to $85 million in July, the lowest July figure Circana has recorded since tracking began in 1995, according to the firm's full report as cited by Kotaku. Nintendo platforms account for 63% of U.S. physical game spending so far in 2026 and PlayStation for 32%, leaving Xbox a little over 4% once PC collector's editions are stripped out. Sony has already committed to ending disc production for new PlayStation games in January 2028.

Microsoft stopped sharing digital sales data with Circana as of the July report, Piscatella confirmed, and EA also left the firm's digital panel around the time it went private. That means Circana now estimates rather than measures digital sales for Xbox, Activision, and Bethesda titles, including Call of Duty: Black Ops II, which topped July's chart on its new PS4 and PS5 port. Total U.S. video game spending across content, hardware, and accessories fell 10% to $4.5 billion in July.

An alternative storage solution for the Xbox Series X|S finally arrived on the market five years after its launch. The SanDisk Optimus GX C50 starts at 1TB on Amazon and costs $249.99, while the 2TB version will set you back $486.99. SanDisk initially announced the Optimus SSD lineup in early January 2026, but it only revealed this storage solution for the Xbox Series X|S in August of this year. These drives are also listed at a discount directly on the SanDisk website, with the 512GB available for just $109.99, and the 1TB and 2TB versions priced at $199.99 and $339.99, respectively. However, they’re all listed as unavailable at the time of writing, meaning you’ll have to be patient and click on ‘Notify Me’ to get informed once stock becomes available.

• Get the SanDisk Optimus GX C50 Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S on Amazon.

Seagate was the only brand to offer a storage expansion card for the Xbox Series X|S at launch, with the Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S, initially available at a 1TB capacity with an SRP of $199.99. Unfortunately, the AI-driven memory and storage chip shortage has caused NAND prices to balloon, meaning the cheapest brand-new options from third-party sellers on Amazon now start at $318. The brand followed this up with 2TB and 4TB options, with an SRP of $299.99 and $549.99, respectively, but Amazon pricing has brought the former up to $473.99 while the latter remains unavailable.

The Xbox Series X|S launched in 2020, meaning it has been more than six years since these consoles arrived on the market. Despite that, Seagate and SanDisk are your only options if you want to play games directly off the add-on storage slot. Western Digital also used to make these add-on cards for the Xbox, but its decision to focus on HDDs and the spinoff of SanDisk as a separate entity meant that gamers can no longer buy WD storage expansion cards.

These specialized storage expansion cards are only needed if you want to increase the capacity of your console to install more games directly on it. You can still keep your games offloaded on an external hard drive and just plug it into the console when you want to play it again. Crucially, you'll have to move the games from your hard drive back to your Xbox's SSD to ensure the games run properly, which is why these expansion cards are a popular alternative.

This is a different take from Sony’s PS5, which comes with an NVMe slot right on the console. This means that you don’t have to buy proprietary PlayStation SSDs to upgrade the capacity of the console — any PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD would work, making capacity upgrades cheaper. The Nintendo Switch 2 took a similar approach, where it allowed users to upgrade the capacity of their handhelds with a microSD Express slot. It must be noted that microSD Express cards are quite niche, though, and more expensive than ordinary microSD cards, but they could potentially be used on other devices that have a similar slot, making them far more useful compared to the Xbox Series X|S expansion cards, which only work with the particular consoles.

YouTuber Kouzex has transplanted the internals of a pair of Joy-Con 2 controllers into two original Wii Remote shells, producing motion controllers that snap magnetically onto a Switch 2 and work in every game. The build keeps only five parts from each Joy-Con 2: the motherboard, thumbstick, magnetic rail, battery, and HD rumble motor, while the Wii Remote's circuit board stays in place to handle its buttons. KOUZEX tested the result in Mario Kart World, Super Mario Galaxy, and Nintendo Switch Sports, and said he'll use the pair for Nintendo Switch Sports Resort when it launches in October.

The left (blue) unit has its thumbstick where the Wii Remote's A button used to be, and the right (red) unit has the stick in the old speaker cutout. The Joy-Con 2 stick's ribbon cable is too short to reach either spot, so KOUZEX harvested the stick connector from a dead first-generation Joy-Con, which uses the same connector type, and soldered individual wire extensions to each pin before potting the joints in UV resin.

The battery and rumble motor cables required the same treatment. Fitting the rail, Joy-Con board, and battery into the Wii Remote's thicker rear section required removing three of the shell's four screw posts, so the magnets in the rail now hold the case together when the controller is docked. There's now no release button, so you pull the controllers off by hand, and the two Wii Remotes no longer work with a Wii.

The D-pad and minus button wire directly to their Wii Remote equivalents, Home maps to Capture, Plus to one shoulder button, and the rear B trigger to R, with buttons 1 and 2 serving as B and A when the unit is held sideways. An attempt to drive the Wii Remote's four blue player LEDs from the Joy-Con 2's power circuit failed, which he attributed to blue LEDs requiring a higher voltage than the green LEDs the Joy-Con 2 uses.

The thumbsticks are epoxied only around their outer frame so they can be replaced if they drift, a deliberate choice given that Nintendo confirmed the Joy-Con 2 doesn't use Hall effect sticks and iFixit's teardown from June last year found the same potentiometer design as the original Switch. The 18mm Joy-Con 2 sticks and magnetic attachment were among the changes we examined when testing the console. KOUZEX credited Shank Mods, whose 2020 GameCube Joy-Con build used a similar approach, as inspiration.

Nintendo has released NES, SNES, N64, and GameCube-style controllers for the Switch family but never a Wii Remote, and the Switch 2 can't pair with the original controller despite both using Bluetooth.

On February 6, Nintendo's support site briefly listed a page titled "Nintendo Switch 2: Wii Remote" with no product details, as reported by My Nintendo News; the page was later removed. Nintendo Classics added Super Mario Sunshine to its GameCube library on August 13 but still has no Wii titles, and Switch Sports Resort, the first new entry in the Wii Sports line for Switch 2, is built around Joy-Con 2 motion and mouse input across 12 sports.

GTA VI is one of the most hotly anticipated games in history, but Rockstar’s decision to not release a physical copy has hit a sore nerve among fans. Apparently, one of them is a talented hacker who somehow landed their hands on GTA VI gameplay and the entire map and decided to leak them. According to gaming creator NikTek on X, Cyberleek allegedly leaked the two clips and the entire map of Leonida as a protest against the publisher’s decision to sell pre-selling digital copies of the game. They said that they will not stop dropping leaks until the company issues a public apology and commits to doing better.

"No consumer shall pay for a game through digital storefronts before release and independent review. Physical preorders for tangible media remain permitted. Preorders were not created for gamers. They were created because physical discs had manufacturing limits. In digital distribution, there is no inventory. There is no stock shortage. A digital copy cannot sell out. Yet publishers kept the preorder system and stripped away its only consumer benefit. Now gamers pay early and receive nothing in return except a countdown timer and a cosmetic skin,” Cyberleek said on their website. “If publishers want revenue before launch, they can press discs. Print boxes. Put them on shelves. Earn that money through physical production."

Aside from this, Cyberleek has two other points in their manifesto: that publishers should not sell “fake” single-player DLCs that unlock content already included in the base game and that any title featuring single-player content must always be available, even when server support ends. These points are issues that many gamers are fighting for, especially as many companies focus on digital games and subscriptions over physical media and one-time purchases. One major example is Sony’s decision to cut physical media. This move has angered gamers, with many complaining that we no longer own the games we buy. Unfortunately, Rockstar is following in this trend — even though you can still physically buy GTA VI from retailers, these copies only contain a download code, not physical game discs you can insert into your console.

NikTek said in another X post that the leaked clips showed various gameplay details, including basketball games, vehicle loadouts, and openable and closable trunks. There’s also a stamina bar and an honor system similar to Red Dead Redemption 2. The map leak also showed details of the five counties, as well as revealing that there is a massive rail system and many tiny islands that players can explore. Another creator said that these leaked details are already over a year old, but Rockstar has been actively issuing DMCA takedowns against posts that showed these details, meaning these are likely clips of the real thing. After all, the base gameplay has likely already been completed, and the developers probably spent the last few months finalizing the game ahead of its November launch.

One man’s trash is another’s treasure, and that certainly seems to be the case for ‘Josh,’ a GameStop customer. The well-known gaming and trade-in business says that Josh came into its Clackamas, Oregon store and “traded hundreds of broken consoles for $10,690.06 in store credit.” In its Twitter/X post, GameStop shows Josh looking pleased with a fistful of trade credit cards, another image showing reams of receipts, and a far too small photo of the broken console haul.

That’s a lot of in-store credit to spend, but as most GameStop-ites will know, your trade-ins go further this way. In other words, if you asked for cash instead of credit, you would get less. Accepting the compromise of in-store credit can actually net you up to 50% more cash to spend – albeit with your choices locked to what GameStop has in stock. This might not be a big drawback if you like video games. But $10,690.06 is a lot of credit, even for the most avid gamer.

Checking the GameStop website today shows it doesn’t embrace gaming PCs or laptops, or PC components. Your local store might have a selection available, though. What I did see today were a few meager electronics items like MacBooks and iPhones listed. The major trade at this retailer is in PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch consoles and games. This is where most customers would probably expect to use their credit.

I found it interesting to try and identify the few broken consoles we can see in the plastic crates. Without too much scrutiny and pixel peeping, there are clearly a few Nintendo Switch Lites in there, a Sega GameGear, a pair of Sony PSPs, and numerous Nintendo Game Boys representing a few eras (GBC, DS, DSL). Under that crate are what look like a black and a white Xbox 360. There must have been many more crates to tally up to “hundreds.” Squinting at the receipts shows there were indeed multiple PS4, Xbox One, Series X, and 360 consoles in the traded collection.

In terms of pricing, the receipts reveal Josh traded in multiple Xbox One consoles for $7.92 each, Xbox Series X consoles for $10-11, PS4 consoles priced at $16 each, and working Xbox One consoles at around $40. Pricing for the more exciting stuff is unfortunately illegible in the photos.

Some social media keyboard warriors throw scorn at Josh for selling this bountiful collection of broken consoles to GameStop. The key accusation is basically that he’s been swindled by GameStop, who would pay a pittance compared to what could have been raised selling on auction sites like eBay. Perhaps he could have made a lot more cash selling his broken consoles independently, but depending on how many auctions he generated from the 100s of items, that would be a lot more effort: dealing with accurate description writing, photography, shipping, and the inevitable returns.

It would similarly be interesting to find out how much profit GameStop ends up making from this pile of consoles, but it isn't likely to share this kind of business data. Some of the consoles will likely be irreparable, only useful for spares and donor components; others, perhaps if there are rarer special editions in the collection, could bring in a lot of cash if fixed and refurbished.

The PlayStation 5 emulation scene has been a wonder to witness, with rapid progress matching the community's ambition. The latest development on this frontier is SharpEmu, an open-source PS5 emulator, successfully running on the Steam Deck with Astro's Playroom even booting to show the PlayStation Studios loading screen. The framerate doesn't go past 1 FPS, but the fact that it's even running is very impressive.

We scoured the internet for more information on this but couldn't find anything. This seems to be the first and only case of someone getting a PS5 game to load on a Steam Deck without streaming involved. The video above shows the Steam Deck in its desktop mode inside SteamOS, which is based on Linux. Performance fluctuates between 0.5 FPS and 1 FPS according to the overlay in the corner, and the audio is just as choppy.

SharpEmu can smoothly run lightweight 2D titles like Dead Cells and Dreaming Sarah on more capable hardware, but the team's focus is not on compatibility. KytyPS5 is far more advanced in terms of the games people have been able to boot on it, including 3D titles like Demon's Souls. However, Kyty is limited to Windows while SharpEmu has native support for Linux and Mac, and there's even an unofficial Android fork.

We tried this version on a OnePlus 12 and were able to get Dreaming Sarah to show an initial splash screen with the developer's logo. After that, though, the screen turns black, and nothing happens, despite the FPS counter constantly hovering around 60 FPS. A few questionably optimistic users on Reddit have even suggested running SharpEmu on Android through Winlator, so that GTA VI can be played on Android once it launches.

Just like the Steam Deck, even the fact that the game launches on Android is a mighty feat and a testament to the sheer ambition of this community. SharpEmu is only meant for x86 devices; it runs on Apple Silicon Macs through the Rosetta 2 translation layer, and on Windows-on-Arm devices through Microsoft's Prism translation layer. But since it's written in C# from scratch, evidently, the code can be recompiled for Android.

With the ongoing component crisis making even consoles more expensive to purchase, and the death of physical media right around the corner, emulation is once again being touted as a cornerstone of preservation. With a roadmap to playing GTA VI on PC without waiting a few years for a port no doubt in the back of everyone's minds.

Sony lets gamers access their PlayStation consoles remotely through a couple of different tools. The Remote Play app lets gamers stream titles from their consoles to their phones, tablets, and PCs. The PlayStation Portal handheld has an extra trick. It can stream PS5 games both locally from a gamer's own console or directly from the PlayStation Plus Premium service's cloud gaming library.

Third-party apps like Chiaki have already brought PS Remote Play functionality over to Linux, but the new Asobi Remote Play app promises to make that functionality available directly from Steam. It also boasts an exclusive feature that can turn your Steam Deck into a virtual PS Portal, allowing you to play cloud games from the PlayStation Plus Premium library. The app is in a pre-release play test right now, but its capabilities are intriguing.

As long as you have a PlayStation Plus Premium subscription, you can stream select PS5 titles directly from Sony's servers inside Asobi, even if you don't have a PS5 console. This hasn't been possible on any device other than the PS Portal until now. Only the titles Sony has approved are available for cloud streaming on PS Portal, and that same restriction will apply within Asobi.

That said, hundreds of games are already available through this subscription, so you likely won't run into any trouble finding something to play if you want to try the PlayStation library without committing to a PS5.

The Asobi team has just released the app for SteamOS (and, by extension, Linux), which means you can install it on a Steam Deck or Steam Machine and essentially turn your existing Steam Deck into a Portal, saving you from buying a $250 device just to enjoy PlayStation games without a console.

Asobi is not associated with Sony in any way, so there's no guarantees for future compatibility or even a stable experience, but the developer does promise 1080p 30FPS streaming with the app's free tier. The premium tier bumps that up to 1080p 60 FPS with HDR and 4K upscaling support, as well as manual bitrate selection, controller haptics, and lower latency.

All of these premium features are currently free on the Steam playtest, which is also why pricing for the premium tier hasn't been announced yet. Some users already part of the testing are reporting issues, which is to be expected for pre-release software.

But if the team can iron out the kinks, and assuming that Sony doesn't block whatever method Asobi is using to mimic the PlayStation Portal for cloud game streaming access, this app could become the most accessible way to play PlayStation games on the Steam Deck (apart from native PC ports, of course).

A Steam Deck enthusiast and modder is close to finalizing the ‘SteamBoy.’ Of course, this WIP project shoehorns the brains and brawn of Valve’s Steam Deck into the form factor of the original Nintendo Game Boy. If it were the other way around, for some bizarre reason, it would be called the GameDeck. PhyFawkes’ project appears to be progressing splendidly, though the non-trivial hurdles of designing a custom display adapter PCB and fitting a new screen remain.

PhyFawkes’ SteamBoy project began after a handheld gaming lightbulb moment. “The Steam Deck motherboard seems pretty small,” the Redditor thought to themselves. “I wonder if you could make a Steam Deck the size of a Game Boy?”

As you can see from the embedded photos, a lot of the design already completed for this hybrid modern heart in a retro shell device seems spot on. We’d appreciate more beige, but that’s mere cosmetics and a simple 3D printer filament swap in the future, perhaps. PhyFawkes says that, as the project stands, “It has a fully functional LCD Steam Deck motherboard, battery, speakers, and all the face buttons you see here. No custom PCBs needed (so far), and all within the dimensions of a Game Boy.”

Elsewhere in their Reddit post, we learn that a 30 x 7mm fan and heatsink from AliExpress have been used, alongside a custom 3D-printed mount, to cool the new SteamBoy. Using this cooler design and a smidgen of undervolting, reasonable max temperatures of between 70 and 80 degrees Celsius have been observed when gaming.

Getting the screen to interface and fit doesn’t sound like an insurmountable task from the description. The Redditor admits it will be a challenge to fit the “1200x1080, 90Hz AMOLED panel, originally intended for VR” into the shell, but they have a plan. A custom adapter PCB, to be situated between the Steam Deck ribbon cable and the display, is in the making. Then, a BIOS mod will need to be implemented. PhyFawkes says this firmware change will be similar to those seen in the DeckHD and Deck Sight projects.

For those of you thirsty for more SteamBoy info, the modder has also just shared a Reddit post packed with teardown images, and another post demonstrating the unit. This video demo shows the SteamBoy operating while attached to a monitor. That’s the only way to use the device until the aforementioned screen integration challenges are met. “Hopefully it won't be too long before that's working as well,” added PhyFawkes in a comment.