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As Microsoft lays off thousands and jacks up Game Pass prices, former FTC chair says I told you so: The Activision-Blizzard buyout is ‘harming both gamers and developers’

by admin October 4, 2025

As Microsoft slashes jobs and raises prices, former US Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan has taken to X to say that the company’s actions since completing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023 is pretty much what the FTC warned would happen when it opposed the deal.

Khan, you may recall, was head of the FTC when it challenged Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a convoluted process that didn’t formally end until May of 2025—almost two years after the deal closed.

“Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been followed by significant price hikes and layoffs, harming both gamers and developers,” Khan wrote on X. “As we’ve seen across sectors, increasing market consolidation and increasing prices often go hand-in-hand.

“As dominant firms become too-big-to-care, they can make things worse for their customers without having to worry about the consequences.”

Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been followed by significant price hikes and layoffs, harming both gamers and developers. As we’ve seen across sectors, increasing market consolidation and increasing prices often go hand-in-hand. As dominant firms become… https://t.co/FoI50tlEsL October 3, 2025

Well, when you’re right, you’re right, and it’s hard to argue that Khan wasn’t right on this one. The FTC filed a lawsuit to block the deal in 2022 over concerns that the impact of the proposed acquisition was “reasonably likely to substantially lessen competition and/or tend to create a monopoly in both well-developed and new, burgeoning markets” if it was allowed to go through.

Microsoft and Activision, of course, insisted otherwise: Bobby Kotick, then the CEO of Activision Blizzard, said in a July 2023 statement that the merger “will benefit consumers and workers,” and also “enable competition rather than allow entrenched market leaders to continue to dominate our rapidly growing industry.”

The deal was closed in October 2023, even though the FTC’s legal action against it was still pending, and it’s been one shitty thing after another since then. Just a few months after the deal was sealed, Microsoft laid off 1,900 workers at Activision Blizzard and Xbox, and cancelled the studio’s long-awaited survival game; then in September 2024, another 650 people were shown the door. That was followed by the layoff of 9,000 more employees across Microsoft in July 2025, a spot of unpleasantness that also saw multiple game cancellations, the closure of The Initiative, and knock-on impacts on other studios, even as Xbox boss Phil Spencer said the company’s gaming business “never looked stronger.”

Meanwhile, in case you hadn’t heard, the cost of Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass also jumped significantly this week. Which is actually the second price hike for Game Pass since the Activision Blizzard deal was concluded: The FTC had some harsh words for the previous (and, ironically, much smaller) price increase in July 2024.

Khan was replaced as chair of the FTC in January 2025 by incoming president Donald Trump, so her comments on X don’t carry any regulatory weight. But even if this is a hollow I-told-you-so, I’d say it’s a well-earned one.

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October 4, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Helldivers 2 Dev Explains Why The Game Takes Up So Much Space On PC

by admin October 4, 2025

Have you ever noticed that Helldivers 2 takes up a lot more room on PC than it does on either Xbox Series X|S or PlayStation 5? At 150GB, the game is roughly three times bigger on PC than on consoles. According to Arrowhead game studio deputy technical director Brendan Armstrong, the reason why is that Helldivers 2 is still catering to a small segment of PC users.

In a lengthy post on Steam, Armstrong wrote that Helldivers 2’s install footprint is so large because most of it is duplicated for the benefit of players who still use mechanical hard disk drives. It’s an antiquated process that features duplicate data grouped close together in order to reduce loading times. Armstrong notes that the duplication is not necessary for players who have long since upgraded to solid state drives, but Arrowhead has had difficulty determining how many players remain on mechanical HDDs.

“How many Helldivers 2 players are still using mechanical HDD? The truth is that we don’t currently know,” Armstrong wrote. “Even the Steam user surveys are unable to give us data on mechanical HDD use in the overall gamer population. Our best estimates put it at around 12% of all PC gamers, but the data is very unreliable and relies on a lot of extrapolations. Until we can more accurately determine the number of mechanical HDDs that Helldivers 2 is installed on, it is difficult to know how many players will be impacted by reducing the amount of data duplication. Even if that number is small, keep in mind that the load time for each player dropping into a mission is determined by the slowest member of the squad.”

Armstrong laid out some potential solutions and noted that the next update will make some progress towards shrinking the file size. However, he warns that players may not notice the difference “because the new stuff we’ve added will eat those gains.” For a medium-term solution, Arrowhead plans to bundle common assets together rather than featuring so many duplicate files. The downside is that it will make the game slightly slower for mechanical HDD users, but he hopes to keep the load times to “less than 30 seconds.”

Going forward, Arrowhead will also work to improve its engine and improve compression techniques that reduce the need for duplication. However, Armstrong added that the studio doesn’t know yet if the impact on load times will make this an infeasible solution.

Arrowhead Game Studio CEO Shams Jorjani recently stated that the team’s goal for Helldivers 2 is to keep it going forever, rather than moving on to Helldivers 3. The studio also released a patch that tackled cave crashes and audio bugs. More recently, Arrowhead acknowledged a long list of problems to address, including “issues including performance drops, stability hiccups, freezes, and the annoying audio bugs.” An update is planned for later this month, but many of those issues may take more time to fix.

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October 4, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Tokyo Game Show: Flashy booths mask economic and industry anxiety | Opinion

by admin October 3, 2025

Although Japanese games are finding increasing presence in the global gaming marketplace, something felt off when visiting Makuhari Messe for this year’s Tokyo Game Show (TGS).

Many of the big companies in Japanese console and PC gaming held relatively light showcases, limited to already released titles or games set to release within the coming weeks and months.

Sega’s biggest games on display were Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, which was released on day one of TGS, and Like a Dragon 3: Kiwami, the newly announced remake of the early PS3 title. Konami had the Japan-only latest entry in the Momotaru Densetsu series, a sequel to the best-selling third-party title in Japan and set for release in just six weeks’ time, along with Silent Hill f, another title that had already been released by the time the show kicked off.

Silent Hill f | Image credit: Konami

Level-5 were present at the event to showcase Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road and Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, set for release in November and 2026, respectively. But the company had already showcased these two games at last year’s event, where Level-5 also had Fantasy Life i on show. Other titles on their slate – such as Decapolice, showcased with a public demo at TGS in 2023 but delayed to 2026 to address feedback – were nowhere to be seen.

Similar summaries can be given for Sony, Square Enix, and Bandai Namco: the latter’s showcase was limited to new entries releasing this autumn in the Digimon, Little Nightmares, and Katamari series.

Rather than offering a glimpse into the future of next year or beyond, the show felt absent of anything exciting for those playing on console or PC. Indeed, aside from Capcom – whose booth was by far the most popular as it shared the first domestic glance of their 2026 lineup, including Resident Evil: Requiem (with a global-debut preview of the Switch 2 version) and Pragmata – Japanese publishers and developers were not the draw for many fans attending TGS.

Why were Japanese developers lacking in new titles, and what was capturing the imagination of fans instead? To understand that, it may be worth first leaving the showfloor and looking elsewhere.

Akihabara may have lost some of its lustre as Japan’s otaku capital on the cutting-edge of Japanese anime and gaming culture, but it’s still a strong indicator of what hardcore audiences of these mediums are engaging with most. Visit the city recently, however, and you’ll notice something has changed. Billboards that were once plastered with promotions for major upcoming anime and games are near-permanently rotated between an array of promotions for in-game events for ongoing free-to-play titles from East Asian studios based outside Japan, like Genshin Impact.

Animate Akihabara, Japan’s biggest anime retailer, currently promotes the Nikke collaboration with Resident Evil at its entrance. The central exit of Akihabara Station has even been renamed after Yostar, the Shanghai-based developer and publisher of Azur Lane and Blue Archive.

While the mobile free-to-play boom of the 2010s may have reached its apex with a strong recovery of traditional gaming propelled by the Nintendo Switch, that’s not to say these games don’t remain a dominant part of the Japanese gaming landscape. In-app purchases for mobile games reached $11 billion in 2024 according to Sensor Tower, and considering the growing trend of these free-to-play titles finding an audience on console and PC alongside the minimal appetite for premium titles, it’s likely the true spend on free-to-play games in Japan is higher than these reported numbers.

What differentiates the free-to-play market today in Japan compared with ten or even five years ago is how much more difficult it is to launch a successful new title against established favourites in the sector. Without brand recognition at the developer or IP level, you need to do something to get your game in front of as many people willing to spend money as possible.

Anything that can help a title to stand out and increase brand awareness can make a difference, and TGS is a high-profile way to make an impression. That said, it’s a risk – while a 3m x 3m booth can cost as little as 385,000 yen, a large-scale booth can cost millions of yen before staffing and construction.

In a preview of the 2025 CESA Video Game Industry Report handed to the press attending TGS, one thing stood out: while the Japanese games industry did grow by 3.4% last year to 2,396 billion yen, this growth can mostly be attributed to the mobile gaming market. Indeed, the console market has shrunk from 395 billion yen to 383 billion yen since 2020. The market for non-mobile gaming has only grown overall in this period thanks to the more than 100% growth in the PC market, from 122 billion yen to 265 billion yen in the same period.

For every demographic between 5 and 60 years old, mobile player counts among Japanese players either remain in line with players on console or, for those aged 15 years or older, exceed it.

While the most common primary or secondary platform for console or mobile players is Nintendo Switch, even the Nintendo DS and 3DS era of consoles is more popular than both the PS4 and, below that, PS5 in the eyes of the general population, where much of the high-budget headline-grabbing major games are being developed. With a PS5 costing 80,000 yen, compared with the 50,000 yen for a Switch 2, it’s simply too pricey for many players (something that’s also a factor in terms of the player base for the console skewing older).

The big money is in mobile gaming, and getting even a small slice of that pie can lead to big returns. The risk is worth taking.

Every year at TGS, alongside the typical line-up of major Japanese publishers and select international partners, a few free-to-play titles take to the show floor. By spending big on a flashy booth with even flashier female models handing out fliers and freebies, they hope to generate word of mouth on their upcoming or already launched free-to-play games. This year, it felt overwhelming seeing how many of these booths littered the show floor, and to what extreme lengths they would go to provoke attention from the hordes of players attending the event.

Lots of the buzz on the show floor centred around Ananta

They filled the void left by a lack of eye-catching games to command long lines from major studios. Instead, in terms of already released titles, fans flocked to booths for Love and Deepspace, Infinity Nikki, Nikke, and more in order to take photos with their favourite characters, snag exclusive merchandise, and interact with other fans. Among the unreleased games vying for the attention and anticipation of attending fans, lots of the buzz on the show floor centred around Ananta, the new free-to-play open-world action game developed by Naked Rain and published by NetEase, targeting PC, PS5, and mobile.

The game consistently enjoyed long lines throughout the event, with large backpacks designed after the game’s main character ever present on the show floor throughout. While online reactions have noted the game’s many similarities to the likes of Insomniac’s Spider-Man titles, Like a Dragon, Uncharted, Grand Theft Auto, and more, reaction from those playing the demo was relatively positive. For all that it aped these popular games from other studios (personally, I felt it also wasn’t fully able to mesh these ideas or refine them enough to be enjoyable in their own right or feel cohesive in the same project), many relished the idea of enjoying these mechanics within a more appealing anime aesthetic tailored to the Asian and Japanese markets.

Among the other free-to-play games enjoying long lines at the show were Smilegate’s Miresi: Invisible Future and another NetEase title, Sword of Justice.

Players at Tokyo Game Show 2025 | Image credit: Alicia Haddick

There are other reasons these games are once again growing in the post-COVID Japanese market, years after the initial mobile boom came to an end. Though the huge player numbers and overall market spend are eye-catching figures for studio executives, the spend per user on mobile games is significantly lower than those who are primarily console or PC players. High revenue is offset by high spenders, a point emphasized by a recent survey noting 18.8% of respondents admitted prioritizing gacha spending over essentials including rent.

While Japanese players are more willing to spend money on free-to-play games – Sensor Tower research noted that although 80% of Japanese mobile game downloads came from overseas, revenue for these titles came 70% from domestic players – there remains a significant portion of the Japanese player base for these games that engages with these titles without spending anything.

With the trend for more high-budget free-to-play titles, like Hoyoverse’s Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail alongside many of the titles on display at this year’s TGS, these games offer cash-strapped players a chance to still enjoy high-budget, flashy action and graphics without needing to buy a new device beyond the essential phone they already own, at a time where many Japanese people are cash-strapped in economically strained times.

Some who choose against in-game spending will instead spend money on merchandise

After decades of relative price and wage stagnation, inflation without similar increases in the average wage (the cost of rice has increased by 100% in just 12 months to above 4,000 yen for a 5 kg bag) has left many Japanese people struggling to spend money on luxuries such as gaming. Coupled with the fact that the most successful free-to-play games enjoy a vast multimedia empire peppered with pop-up stores and merchandising, cafe collaborations, and more, these games offer a chance for players to embrace not just a game, but a lifestyle.

Some who choose against in-game spending will instead spend money on merchandise centring their favourite characters, allowing people to show off their hobbies to friends without the initial high cost of entry. They can meet and participate in in-person activities that merge their hobbies with socializing. It’s luxury on a budget – a chance to go out eating and do fun events with friends, without sacrificing other hobbies in order to do so.

In such a market, the key to success comes in encouraging the most intense players to part with their money, something that translates to more extreme public showcases. Sex sells, and in a flashback to the 2000s, a number of sexually demeaning booths sought to attract the eyes of hardcore players with raunchy displays and fan service.

Nikke’s booth, for the second year running, offered a “human gacha,” where players could simulate the roll for new characters in-game by pressing a button to reveal suggestive cosplayers in boxes reminiscent of the in-game character reward screen.

Nikke’s booth at Tokyo Game Show 2025 | Image credit: Alicia Haddick

Miresi: Invisible Future – found on the show floor directly next to the family-friendly offerings of Sonic proudly showcasing its Minecraft collaboration – grabbed attention by showcasing “the artistic vision of AD Kim Hyung-seop (Hyulla)” on a 5.5 metre LED cube. This mostly resulted in the rather scantily clad main character’s butt and chest jiggling endlessly and unavoidably for all to see.

It felt demeaning, but if these can attract the players who will spend the excesses of money needed to pull these characters in-game and keep the game afloat, this will be viewed as a success regardless.

In an attempt to earn maximum money and cut budgets in a time when game spending is tight, it should be no surprise that the same 2025 games industry report found that 51% of Japanese developers stated they are embracing generative AI in development. Indeed, there was a full pavilion on the TGS show floor dedicated to the technology: a pavilion that pushed the actual artistic output of a curated selection of indie games away from the main show floor and into the corridors above the convention floor itself, demeaning it to a sideshow outside the view of most attendees.

The rise of AI, the exploitative nature of the manner in which these free-to-play titles were being showcased, alongside the lack of major titles from Japanese publishers and developers, made this an uncomfortable TGS to visit on both business and public days.

It’s no secret that as the industry undergoes a post-COVID realignment of expectations, companies are slashing budgets and cancelling games. While firms like Square Enix are publicly acknowledging the fact they are adjusting their approach to games development and cancelling titles, the true scale of cancellations is likely to be far larger, with many titles that have never been publicly announced getting the chop.

It’s hard not to view TGS in 2025 as representing the anxieties of the industry and its players

Layoffs in Japan are not as prevalent as has been seen internationally (in part due to local labour laws), thus helping studios to retain institutional knowledge that is being lost elsewhere. But many developers I’ve spoken to acknowledge that they are choosing not to renew the contracts of temporary workers instead of letting full-time employees go.

However, it would be naive to pin this year’s shift in balance on a temporary course correction rather than a decade-long trend of economic uncertainty, which has forced players to reconsider their spend on new games and instead find experiences within the rising free-to-play market. Far from needing a full trade show to expose it, the popularity of free-to-play mobile titles has been easy to spot online and by glancing at the phones of people playing on the train. To ignore this trend would be to ignore the more existential concerns facing the future of gaming both inside and outside Japan.

While respect for Japanese games and media is growing, it’s hard not to view TGS in 2025 as representing the anxieties of the industry and its players, rather than its virtues. The worries of developers about budgets and the need to scale back, the worries of players about how to afford new consoles and games, and how to keep enjoying a hobby they love. Solving these issues will require economic intervention that goes far beyond gaming.

In the meantime, how will the games industry adjust to this financial and social realignment? I’m not sure TGS 2025 had the answers, but it sure staked a claim at the future.

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October 3, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Payday Developer Cancels Its Dungeons & Dragons Game Project Baxter, Resulting In Layoffs

by admin October 3, 2025

Payday developer Starbreeze announced yesterday that it has ceased development of Project Baxter, its cooperative game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. The cancellation will result in layoffs at the studio.

Project Baxter was first announced in December 2023 with a 2026 launch window, and was billed as an Unreal Engine 5-developed cooperative multiplayer Dungeons & Dragons game. It was also described as a live-service game, though the extent of which was never made clear. Project Baxter was slated to launch on all major platforms and would have supported cross-play.

Although we don’t know what state Project Baxter was in for Starbreeze to abandon the game, the company states that after a strategic review, its management and the board of directors determined it would be financially healthier to divert the resources allocated to Project Baxter to “accelerate the growth” of its flagship Payday franchise.

“This was a difficult but necessary decision,” said Adolf Kristjansson, CEO of Starbreeze. “Our strategy is clear: Payday is one of the most iconic IPs in gaming, with unmatched reach and potential. By focusing our investment and talent here, we can accelerate delivery, engage players with more content, and reinforce Starbreeze’s position as the clear leader in the heisting genre. This is about sharpening our focus to create the strongest long-term value for our players, our people, and our shareholders.”

Payday 3

Although Starbreeze states that some of the Project Baxter development team will be reassigned to other projects (mostly Payday), it plans to let go of 44 employees and contractors in an effort to “enable Starbreeze to become cash-flow positive in 2026.”

“I want to sincerely thank the Baxter team for their passion and creativity, and express appreciation to Wizards of the Coast for their support,” says Kristjansson. Though we have made the decision to not continue forward with this project, we are proud of what was achieved in Baxter, and those contributions will carry forward into Payday and the future of Starbreeze. By concentrating our efforts on Payday we give Starbreeze and all our employees the best chance to succeed.”

Starbreeze’s last release, Payday 3, was released in September 2023 in a troubled state and failed to hit sales expectations (here’s our review). This resulted in the departure of then-CEO Tobias Sjögren less than six months later. In December 2024, 15 percent of Starbreeze’s staff were laid off. Kristjansson became the new CEO in March of this year.

Project Baxter joins several high-profile cancellations this year, which include Monolith Productions’ Wonder Woman, EA’s Black Panther, Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts: Missing-Link, Xbox’s Perfect Dark and Everwild, and Avalanche’s Contraband.

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October 3, 2025 0 comments

A player crouches behind a car to hide from a massive robot.

Game Updates

Arc Raiders’ 2-Year Delay Explained: Game Was Boring

by admin October 3, 2025

PvPvE shooters, especially ones where the game loop circles an extractive “get in, find good loot, get out” vibe, haven’t saturated gaming culture in the same way battle royales and hero shooters have. But for developer Embark, who are currently at work on the upcoming PvPvE shooter Arc Raiders, adding in other players as potential opposition to their extraction shooter was key to avoiding boredom.

In an interview with Edge Magazine (h/t PCGamesN), developer Embark (The Finals) revealed that even though there was some joy to be had in early builds of Arc Raiders when it was just a PvE game, the team eventually had to admit to itself that the “game [was] not fun.” But once the team added in other players, things turned around.

Friend-or-foe showdowns makes for some great tension

There’s a moment in one of the more recent Arc Raiders trailers that I think demonstrates what Embark was probably keying into with the inclusion of other players. Right around the 2:53 mark, there’s a sequence in which the player encounters another player who’s potentially a threat. They attempt a negotiation before one of the players is gunned down by yet another player hiding on the map.

It’s a little scripted, naturally, but I think it conveys the idea well. If you played The Division’s Dark Zone or Call of Duty’s DMZ, you’re likely familiar with this type of situation. It makes for a degree of unpredictability and an injection of tense social dynamics that can really help liven up a game in which you’re mostly just mowing down bots and moving from place to place to find good stuff. It’s also pretty rare to see the same situation repeat itself, so each match has more of a chance to feel fresh than if you were just targeting enemies relying on the same predictable AI behaviors.

As PCGamesN states, a technical test of Arc Raiders’ PvPvE experience earlier this year was well received, and the game is currently the fifth-most-wishlisted on Steam. Maybe (fingers crossed!) Arc Raiders will finally crack the code and prove why PvPvE extraction shooters can be so much fun.

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October 3, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Microsoft says its “trying to reinforce” Xbox Game Pass price increases “by adding more value”

by admin October 3, 2025

Microsoft says it “understand[s] price increases are never fun for anybody” following its decision to raise the prices of Xbox Game Pass tiers.

Speaking to The Verge, Microsoft director of gaming and platform communications Dustin Blackwell said that it is “trying to reinforce” its offerings by “adding more value to these plans” alongside the price increases.

“It’s something we don’t take lightly, and we’re listening to the feedback of players and the community to try and provide them with more of what they’re asking for.”

Earlier this week, the firm announced it was increasing the most expensive tier of Game Pass, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, from $19.99/£14.99 to $29.99/£22.99 per month.

It also announced rises of Xbox Game Pass Standard – renamed Xbox Game Pass Premium – and PC Game Pass.

Blackwell noted the price increases reflected additional content added to the service, specifically its Ultimate tier.

“[Game Pass Ultimate] will now include access to more than 400 titles globally, this includes the majority of our partners who want to continue to bring their future games to Xbox Game Pass,” he noted.

“We’re also now giving access to more than 75 day one releases each year. That’s a 50 percent increase over the day one titles we provided last year.”

Last week, Microsoft also announced it would be bumping up the prices of its Xbox Series X|S consoles for a second time in the United States.

Costs will rise from between $20 and $70 across its hardware range.

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October 3, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

The Lego Game Boy Is A Masterpiece

by admin October 3, 2025

I’ve rather given it away with the headline there, but I couldn’t help myself. Lego’s recently launched Game Boy is the most extraordinarily satisfying build, with results that feel uncannily realistic. It looks and feels perfect, complete with a just-too-murky screen to thoroughly emulate the real thing.

Announced back in July and immediately up for pre-order (which I did as soon as I’d written the article), the Lego Game Boy was clearly a labor of love, and in some ways a compromise for Lego given the number of bespoke pieces made just for this set. From the curved and grilled panel to the fuchsia caps for the A and B buttons, a few plastic liberties have been taken to make this such a stunning replication of the 1989 handheld. And wow, it nails every element, from the bizarrely realistic-feeling d-pad (despite being so ostentatiously a Lego cross) to the spongy A and B buttons, all made complete with the epic and satisfying “CLICK!” of the on-off switch.

By my count, there are at least 12 pieces unique to this set, and wonderfully this includes a large number of pre-printed pieces with distinctive Game Boy designs and fonts. Where these would usually be stickers, Lego has saved people like me who live in fear of such operations, and I’m so very grateful. Placing stickers, especially long, thin ones, requires the steady hands of a surgeon, and not the shaky incompetent flippers on the end of my arms. Still, for those who enjoy the adrenaline rush of the completely irredeemable moments, both the game cartridges you build require a large sticker be placed.

Another aspect that makes this build so special is that—and I realize how pretentious this sounds, but it’s definitely true—the instructions are put together with wit and timing. The first thing you’re asked to build is one of the two cartridges, along with a display stand for it that contains a slot for storing the spare lenticular cards. But rather than going straight onto the second, you instead are launched into the Game Boy itself, building it from the inside out. This means that you’re constructing its green network board first, then adding the base below, before putting in the mechanisms for the buttons and the buttons themselves, and only after that’s all in place putting together its complete shell. It’s so delightful that it’s constructed just as a Game Boy would have been, and those button mechanisms are just so smart. The d-pad uses a concealed rubber tire to provide the push-back when you press it in any of its four directions, while the A and B buttons get their exact sponginess from a cunningly placed rubber band pegged around three c-arm clips. The results feel so realistic, making these super-smart tricks feel all the more remarkable.

Further, it’s only after you’ve finished the main Game Boy that you realize you were unwittingly adding amazing details like a realistic-looking DC inlet at the bottom, a headphone jack on the left side, and the scrolling contrast and volume wheels. Oh, and the unexpectedly hefty click of the on-off button is still making me happy.

The smart nature of the instructions is completed by ending on the second cartridge, which you then slide into the back of the Game Boy, where even here it slots in with a satisfying clunk. It’s an incredibly rewarding way to finish, and you don’t have that moment of ending with the boring fiddly bits that so often marks the finish of a Lego build. There’s no putting the side-character together, or wedging flowers on all the plant stems here; that other cartridge and both display stands are already completed, and inserting that cartridge is your final moment.

Now, the one criticism I have here is the last thing I thought I’d be saying, but there are a couple of flaky moments in the instructions. One piece type in particular is always shown such that you can’t see that it has an L-bend, and there are three or four odd moments where it obfuscates where a piece should be placed underneath what you’ve already built. Nothing disastrous, nothing I couldn’t quickly figure out, but unusual for Lego. But that’s it.

OK so, I swear this is true: As I was writing this review my ten-year-old son came into my study and saw the Lego Game Boy on its Lego stand next to me on my desk. “Oh, a new device!” he said. I handed it to him, and he muttered, “Game Boy.” He’s never held a real one. “Look more closely,” I told him, and he read bits of the writing, pressed some of the buttons, and said, “What?” So I took it from him, flipped it over, removed the back panel and took out the Zelda cartridge, revealing some of the Lego innards. “OH, IT’S LEGO!” he declared. I switched the lenticular out and put it back together, and he exclaimed, “This is SO COOL!” So there you go, a second opinion.

It’s worth noting that the lenticulars are splendid. There’s the main loading screen one, which has the word “Nintendo” scroll up and down just like it should. Then there’s one for Zelda and one for Super Mario Land, to match the two carts. The Zelda one is perhaps the more disappointing, given the only movement is Zelda turning to look at Link while some V-like birds move about in the sky. Mario‘s is far better, showing Mario jump up to hit a ? block and reveal a star, with a couple of Goombas moving below. Both only have two images, but the Mario version feels a lot more dynamic. Meanwhile, the Nintendo logo screen has seven panels, such that you get a weirdly smooth scroll. And as I mentioned up top, once they’re in the Game Boy behind the plastic screen (it’s a Lego window frame with the plastic glass inserted, repurposed), it really gives that authentic dullness that’s dramatically improved by holding it in direct light.

I realize I’ve just totally nerded out here, and I’m good with that. I wasn’t even a proper Game Boy kid, my primary experience being a splendid summer vacation when a school friend lent me hers for a full six weeks and I just obsessed over it. But even that established a lifetime’s nostalgia for me, that’s duly met and respected by this perfect Lego recreation.

For the quality here, and the real pleasure gained from both the build and the finished result, $60 feels like a fantastic price. I usually find Lego’s prices egregious, often offensive, but the company could have been a lot more greedy here and wasn’t. Yes, you could also spend $60 on a handheld device that’ll emulate every Game Boy game and more beside, but honestly, this Lego brick (pun so very much intended) just feels very special.

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October 3, 2025 0 comments

Spacer's mascot says "this is how we play now."

Game Reviews

Welcome To The Enshittification Of Xbox Game Pass

by admin October 3, 2025

Some things happen slowly and then all at once. So it appears to be with Xbox Game Pass. Once hailed as the “best deal in gaming,” it’s now best known as the deal that just keeps getting worse. A 50-percent price hike this week feels like a death knell, if not for Microsoft’s $5 billion annual subscription business, then at least for the perception that the company is trying to meaningfully compete by rewarding its long-time fans with something they can’t get anywhere else.

It feels like the shift began way back in 2022. “We’ve held price on our console; we’ve held price on games and our subscription,” Xbox boss Phil Spencer said on stage at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference that year. “I don’t think we’ll be able to do that forever. I do think at some point we’ll have to raise some prices on certain things, but going into this holiday we thought it was really important that we maintain the prices we have.”

After years of Game Pass boosterism, he was also noticeably cool on the subscription service’s long-term growth prospects. “Game Pass as an overall part of our content and services revenue is probably 15 percent,” he announced at the time. “I don’t think it gets bigger than that. I think the overall revenue grows so 15 percent of a bigger number, but we don’t have this future where I think 50–70 percent of our revenue comes from subscriptions.”

He continued, “We’re seeing incredible growth on PC…on console, I’ve seen growth slow down, mainly because at some point you’ve reached everybody on console that wants to subscribe.”

Game Pass now costs more than Netflix

Three years later, with over $70 billion in acquisitions weighing on Microsoft’s gaming division, we’re seeing what that calculus means for the math on the ground. Microsoft has doubled the price of Game Pass in the last two years, in addition to tariff-fueled hikes on its consoles and briefly flirting with releasing its first $80 game this fall. Even as the company has touted Game Pass’ self-sustaining profitability, it’s also laid of hundreds of developers, closed studios, and canceled some of the biggest games it promised players at summer showcases past.

To me, the most shocking part of Game Pass Ultimate’s jump to $30 a month wasn’t the price tag, even if it is more than every other mainstream content subscription service out there (you can currently get Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN bundled together for the same amount). It was how little Microsoft offered in return: Hogwarts Legacy, old Assassin’s Creed games, and Fortnite skins. These are the types of fine-print perks Verizon gives you for adding a new phone line, not the basis for a premium flagship subscription service.

What the latest Game Pass overhaul is really about is extracting a premium from existing customers for day-one access to Call of Duty. Microsoft tested the waters last fall with a $3 a month price hike ahead of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and, just as importantly, the removal of day-one access from Game Pass’ middle tier. Microsoft is now promising that all of its first-party day-one Game Pass games will come to Standard, which remains $15 a month, within the first year—except Call of Duty.

That’s on console. The picture on PC is even more explicit. There, the service is going from $12 a month to $16.49 with no other changes. That’s almost a 40-percent increase in exchange for nothing except the ability to continue playing the new Call of Duty each year without paying for it. Microsoft apparently got tired of not being able to charge PC players for online multiplayer, which still costs $120 a year on Xbox.

Microsoft hasn’t announced new Game Pass subscriber numbers in over a year, which strongly suggests that it hasn’t grown much beyond the 34 million number shared in early 2024. Having now hit the ceiling Spencer alluded to back in 2022 on PC as well as console, the company seems content to soak its remaining users for as much as it can. Instead of growing Game Pass revenue by growing the program, it will make the number go up by getting its highest rollers to spend even more time at the tables.

Sony / Kotaku

In this regard it’s taking its cues from Sony. Part of what has made the PS5 generation the “most successful ever” is that the most dedicated PS5 players keep spending more and more. While PS5 sales are largely in line with the PS4 before it, fans are buying accessories and Fortnite skins, and staying subscribed to the most expensive version of PS Plus. With sky-high hardware prices and fewer exclusives than ever, Microsoft has clearly given up on growing its own share of the gamer pie. Instead it’s leveraging a massive publishing apparatus to try to squeeze its remaining users for even more cash.

This makes it sound like there is cold, hard financial logic governing Microsoft’s strategy here. But while I concede the new Game Pass might look good in a spreadsheet, I have no idea who it’s actually for anymore. At $360 a year you could buy Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Gears of War: E-Day, Fable, and Forza Horizon 6 and still have almost enough left over to pay the Xbox online multiplayer tax. If you’re only in it for the service’s impressive parade of neat indie games, well, you could buy A LOT of indie games for that much. And if you are a daily Fortnite player, I mean, are you even playing anything else?

The ‘Play Anywhere” platform is pricing fans out

Perhaps this is just Microsoft’s way of teeing up a cheap, ad-supported tier sometime in 2026. Call it Game Pass Lite. “The big question going forward is if Game Pass can be a sustainable product off console and how best they can reach this audience,” Niko Partners research director Daniel Ahmad wrote on X. “At the very least that’s going to require a lower entry cost (Essential) and experimentation with cloud only, ad supported, or mobile-first offerings.”

In the meantime, the company seems content to price out large parts of its audience that stuck with it for years waiting for Xbox to finally turn a corner. This reflects a larger reality in the current market. The top 10 percent of income earners now account for nearly 50 percent of consumer spending. “Everything is being priced for them while Xbox leaves everyone else behind,” wrote Giant Bomb‘s Jeff Grubb.

Been talking about this trend for years when it comes to games spending. Why are there premium gamepads, $149 collector’s editions, Pro consoles and general rising prices? Because the price-insensitive, affluent players are the ones doing more of the spending as everyone else shifts more to f2p.

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2025-10-02T16:34:58.378Z

Motley Fool recently teased this out using Bureau of Labor statistics. “The top 20 percent of earners spent $1,722 on ‘other entertainment,’ including video games, in 2023, according to BLS,” it reported last month. “The next lowest income quintile spent $657 and the lowest income segment spent just $125 over the course of the entire year. The average spend on ‘other entertainment’ across all income levels was $653.” We don’t how those spending averages breakdown exclusively for games, but it suggests a similar picture: fewer people are accounting for a larger share of total spending on games, at least in the U.S.

Others are seemingly rushing to ditch their Game Pass subscriptions before they auto-renew at the higher price. Microsoft’s webpage for subscriptions was briefly overloaded after the announcement yesterday, and searches for how to cancel peaked. The whole episode might leave a less unpleasant taste in people’s mouths if it seemed like it was all in service of some larger ambition. Instead, it feels like Microsoft is setting a house it spent decades building ablaze and telling everyone inside to strip the copper wiring out of the walls before they leave.

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October 3, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Rams vs. 49ers: Week 5 NFL game highlights

by admin October 3, 2025

Sarah Barshop
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Sarah Barshop
ESPN Staff Writer
Nick Wagoner
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Nick Wagoner
ESPN Staff Writer

Oct 2, 2025, 10:15 PM ET

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The Los Angeles Rams face the San Francisco 49ers in a NFL Week 5 matchup on Thursday.

Our two team reporters — Sarah Barshop for the Rams and Nick Wagoner for the 49ers — are at SoFi Stadium, and they’re keeping you updated on all the biggest plays and highlights.

Rams-49ers highlights

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October 3, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Game Pass Ultimate is still $20 a month if you buy pre-paid codes

by admin October 3, 2025

Microsoft may have made the unfortunate decision to raise the price of a Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription to $30 a month, but you don’t have to live by the company’s rules — at least not yet. Most online retailers are still selling codes for prepaid Game Pass subscriptions at the original $20 a month price. That means you can pay $60 for three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, stack your codes and keep your subscription without having to downgrade or cancel.

Xbox

You can still purchase pre-paid Game Pass codes at their original price.

$60 at Amazon

As the highest tier in Game Pass, an Ultimate subscription gives you the ability to download and play a library of over 200 games on your PC or Xbox. With Xbox Cloud Gaming, you can also stream the majority of those games to other devices, too, whether it’s a smartphone, LG TV or in-car display. It’s worth noting, though, the benefits of Ultimate did change with the introduction of the higher price. Microsoft shared that Ultimate subscribers will now also receive the benefits of an Ubisoft+ subscription at no additional cost, a $16 a month value that unlocks access to a back catalog of Ubisoft games from franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry. Starting in November, the new Ultimate subscription also includes access to Fortnite Crew, Epic’s $12 a month plan that gives you V-Bucks, battle passes and more in Fortnite.

While those new benefits might justify a higher price monetarily, whether that’s a convincing reason to stay subscribed is a separate question. This likely won’t be the last time Microsoft will raise the price of its subscription service. Avoiding those fees by buying pre-paid Game Pass codes seems like an excellent way to try out the new Ultimate before committing to cancelling your subscription, downgrading your plan or sticking with Microsoft’s new price. You can purchase three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $60 a month. Stacking four three-month codes should come out to around $240.

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October 3, 2025 0 comments