The PS6 handheld, while running on a cheaper APU, also has to contend with including a display and a battery, bringing its BOM up to $493.69. The main PS6 home console—Orion—will seemingly cost $743 to manufacture thanks to its more expensive APU die, which sits at $110.50, as well as a $48 board. Moore’s Law is Dead uses a hypothetical PS6″S” for the sake of comparison – a low-powered console that could be sold alongside the handheld and home consoles which could end up being the least expensive SKU of the lot. Its BOM, when taking the PS6 handheld’s screen and battery out of the equation, comes in at around $404.38.

For contrast, the slim model of the PS5 with the disc drive costs Sony $507.03 to manufacture. Before the recent price hikes, the console was priced at $499, before going up to $649 earlier this month. This new price tag takes 30 percent import tariffs into account.

The PS6 handheld will seemingly cost $499, allowing Sony to make a minor profit off the hardware. Tariffs bring this price tag up to $649. Orion will be the most expensive of the bunch with a $749 price tag. However, if import tariffs continue by then, it will likely end up being priced at $949. The hypothetical PS6S would  work to counter this massive price tag by being priced at around $399.

The host of Moore’s Law is Dead, Tom, has noted that he used to estimate prices like this professionally when he still worked as an engineering account manager. However, as is the case with all rumors, until we get an official announcement by Sony, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt.

However, while memory prices have certainly played a major role in the BOMs for the upcoming consoles, it looks like Tom is expecting import tariffs to play a much larger role in deciding the pricing of the console. He also reiterated that the PS6 will likely cost around $750, and it is very unlikely that Sony will bring its price tag up to $1,000. “The longer people think the PS6 is $1,000, the more they’re going to claw their eyes out when they see it’s not because it’s not. It’s not going to be $1,000. It’s not,” he said.

Even taking the current geo-political landscape into account, and with the assumption that DRAM prices don’t come down by the time Sony wants to launch the consoles, Tom still predicts that the price will likely sit somewhere between $600 and $800.

This prediction runs counter to what analysts believe might happen, with some believing that the recent PS5 price hikes might lead to the PS6 costing 50 percent more.

“From the start, our goal was to create a narrative detective where knowledge is the key,” explains Sergi in the trailer. “We wanted you to experience the same genuine ‘eureka’ moment that we all had in titles like Outer Wilds or The Forgotten City, when everything finally clicks, and the path forward seems clearer than ever.”

Sergi also showcases some of the fancy tools that players will have access to throughout their time in the game, like the SONAR and the vault. These tools can be used alongside each other to give the player a clearer idea of what kind of mysteries they might be dealing with. When it comes to the main setting of the game, Sergi confirms that players will get to explore areas that range from the submerged forest of New England to the city of R’lyeh.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Its story revolves around occult investigator Noah, who is looking into the mysterious disappearances of miners at an underwater facility in the Pacific Ocean.

The game got a trailer back in February that gave us a look at its opening moments. It helped establish the general atmosphere of the upcoming game quite quickly, and also provided a clear look at the kinds of threats players will have to deal with during their investigations.

Another trailer was released last month, providing an overview of the gameplay in Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss. This includes things like underwater exploration and how analysing clues works. The protagonist’s companion—an AI assistant named KEY—was also shown off in the trailer.

Interestingly, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss isn’t the only Lovecraft-themed game published by Nacon. ACE Team’s The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu was unveiled back in November 2025 and offers a different take on the Cthulhu mythos by focusing on co-op gameplay rather than a single-player experience.

The title involves teams of four players setting off to a mysterious island that is seemingly filled with treasures (and strange horrors). While players have the simple goal of getting their hands on as much treasure as possible and escaping from the island, things start getting complicated when strange creatures appear. Players can also start suffering from hallucinations, which can range from simply being jump scares to larger-scale ones that can convince you to kill your allies. It’s out on July 15th.

As for Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss, it’s coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on April 16th. A free demo is available now on PC.

This means that, in total, the PS5 family of consoles saw 13,539 units sold. The number is dwarfed by the Nintendo Switch 2, which sold 59,543 units in the same week.

The triple-digit sales figures of the PS5 and PS5 Pro in Japan bring the consoles surprisingly close to the Xbox Series X/S. In the same week, the Xbox Series X sold 803 units, while the Xbox Series S sold 129 units. This brings the total number of Xbox consoles sold in Japan in the same week up to 932 units.

When it comes to lifetime sales, the Nintendo Switch 2 has sold 5,011,059 units in Japan since its launch. The PS5 console family, on the other hand, has sold 7,500,537 units since 2020. Xbox Series X/S, comparatively, hasn’t yet cracked a million, having only sold 696,936 units so far.

It is worth noting that the PS5 has gotten quite a bit more expensive in Japan, with the base model now priced at ¥97,980. The PS5 Pro is the most expensive Sony console available right now, with its ¥137,980 price tag. The relative success of the PS5 Digital Edition likely comes down to the fact that there is a more affordable Japan-only version of the console, priced at ¥55,000.

Japan hasn’t been the only country affected by these price hikes, however. The US, UK, and Europe have seen the base PS5’s price go up to $649.99/£569.99/€649.99, up from $549.99/£479.99/€499.99. The PS5 Digital Edition has gotten more expensive as well, priced at $599.99/£519.99/€599.99. Even the game streaming handheld PlayStation Portal hasn’t escaped unscathed, with its price going up to $249.99/£219.99/€249.99. The PS5 Pro was the hardest hit, now priced at $899.99/£789.99/€899.99.

“We know that price changes impact our community, and after careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide,” said Sony when it announced prices going up, which came into effect on April 2nd.

Interestingly, Sony’s recent moves to raise the prices of its consoles have led analysts to believe that Nintendo will be following the PlayStation-maker’s lead to do the same thing with the Switch 2. While Nintendo hasn’t yet made any announcements, analysts have noted that rising memory costs will inevitably lead to the company needing to recoup some of its costs through a price hike.

Notably, even a former Nintendo sales lead has expressed similar sentiments. “Unfortunately, I think eventually the hardware price is going to have to go up,” he said. “I think that there’s things that they can and seem to be doing to try and mitigate that, but I also look at this move on software, if I’m reading it correctly, as a way to make a hardware price increase a little bit more palatable.”

The listing doesn’t yet mention a launch date, noting that one hasn’t yet been approved, but it does mention that Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy on Nintendo Switch 2 will be rated PG-12 thanks to the presence of violence and inappropriate language.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy puts players in the shoes of Peter Quill / Star-Lord, who happens to be the leader of the eponymous group. The story takes place some time after a major event called the Galactic War, which involved Thanos and the Chitauri. The roster of the Guardians in this story—notably separate from the Marvel Cinematic Universe—will be familiar to fans of the films, and includes Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Gamora, and Drax the Destroyer. For more details, take a look at our review from back when it first came out.

As of November 2022, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy had gotten more than 8 million players across PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. CEO of Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal, Phil Rogers, said that the game being available through Game Pass and PlayStation Plus helped with player engagement quite a bit. “I’ve actually just landed back from a few days in Montreal,” he said at the time. “There’s great pride in the team about the game they’ve made, and there’s also great excitement now about how we drive it commercially within our own business unit.”

It is worth noting that, despite getting a positive critical reception, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy seemingly failed to hit internal sales targets. However, in 2023, Disney’s head of gaming, Sean Shoptaw, said that the company would be happy to work with the studio again. “Games are really hard to make,” he said. “If you’ve got great IP. If you’ve got a great story. You know, it’s still a challenge.”

The discovery of the Nintendo Switch 2 port listing comes just a few days after developer Eidos Montreal was hit by major layoffs. The studio announced that 124 of its employees were being let go, and studio head David Anfossi would be leaving as well.

“The reduction in workforce affecting 124 employees is a result of changing project needs and impacts across production and support teams. Today is a difficult day for our studio and reflects the need to adapt and concentrate efforts where Eidos-Montréal can be most effective,” wrote Eidos-Montréal in its announcement.

“Also, after many years as Head of Studio, David Anfossi and Eidos Montréal are also parting ways. We thank David for his contributions and wish him the best in his future endeavors. A transition plan is underway, and further updates will be shared as new leadership is finalized.”

The trailer places quite a bit of emphasis on the pressure that protagonist Johnny Cage will feel throughout the story, thanks to the fate of Earthrealm resting on his shoulders. We also see several iconic characters from the series, including Raiden, Scorpion, Liu Kang, and Kung Lao. Interestingly, the trailer also confirms that its take on Noob Saibot is a now-transformed Sub-Zero.

This latest trailer comes just a couple of months after the last one, which showcased the film’s colorful cast of characters, including Saibot, Scorpion, Shao Kahn, and Kung Lao, among others.

Before Mortal Kombat 2 got its May 8th release date, the film was originally set for release in theatres in October 2025. It was delayed to May 15th, before subsequently settling on its current release date. A report from back in October indicated that this was to make room for The Devil Wears Prada 2.

The report had also noted that May 2026 was a relatively sparse month for film releases, with Mortal Kombat 2 primarily competing with Final Destination: Bloodlines and Is God Is.

The story of Mortal Kombat 2 will be a direct continuation of its predecessor, and will feature Karl Urban as Cage. He’s joined by Adeline Rudolph, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Tati Gabrielle, Lewis Tan, Damon Herriman, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada. Martyn Ford will also be in the movie, playing Shao Khan.

The reboot of the film franchise kicked off back in 2021, with the first release proving to be an incredible hit despite the pandemic-induced lockdowns going on at the time. It had reportedly grossed $23.3 million in its opening weekend in the US, and had beaten internal expectations set by Warner Bros.

As we get ready for Mortal Kombat 2’s release next month, it is worth keeping in mind that screenwriter Jeremy Slater has already confirmed that a third movie is being made. During a panel at New York Comic Con, Slater said that New Line and Warner Bros. have been quite happy with the production of Mortal Kombat 2, and have already asked him to start writing the third movie.

As for the video game franchise, developer NetherRealm Studios recently announced that the latest entry—Mortal Kombat 1—has sold 8 million copies. While an impressive milestone, it will still be some time before it can beat its predecessor, Mortal Kombat 11, which sold more than 15 million copies as of 2022.

The performance improvements largely revolve around PSO-related issues, including misses, such as one that fetches materials from the wrong LOD (level of detail) levels, even for Nanite-enabled meshes. Speaking of which, misses related to NaniteLumenCard and NaniteShading have also been addressed, along with ray tracing-related misses for dynamic geometry.

As for general gameplay, the update has brought in a failsafe for NPCs dying to fall damage, as well as fixes for issues with AI running onto busy roads to inspect dead bodies, and police sirens sometimes not working. The update has also brought in some more polish to the game, like improved lean-on-wall alignment, higher volume for NPC vehicles, and separate dialogue buckets for police vehicles and remote dialogue. For a complete list of everything in the update, check out the patch notes below.

Samson is currently only available on PC. For more details, check out our review. Also, take a look at the studio lead’s opinions on the current state of the industry.

Samson update #1 patch notes:

Performance

• Several performance fixes focusing on PSO related hitches (Fixes stuttering related issues)
• Fixed some misses with Slate
• Fixed landscape RayTracingDynamicGeometry misses
• bIgnoreMaskMateria & bRequireRTDynamicGeometryUpdate was not set correctly from landscape PSO precache dispatch since 5.7
• NaniteLumenCard & NaniteShading misses
• Fixed PSO misses due to FStaticMeshComponentHelper::CollectPSOPrecacheDataImpl fetching materials from LOD levels depending on MinLOD even for Nanite-enabled meshes which will render with LOD 0 materials

Crash fixes

• Crash fix for clearing UseDestructionHelp for vehicles with a timer
• Fix for potential case where attempting to update a failed dispatch when losing warp governance could clear the callback lambda as it was being executed, causing a dangling this pointer and crash
• Fixed various audio-related crashes, including one when closing the game
• Avoid race conditions caused by writes to bIsCachedRayTracingInstanceValid and bDynamicRayTracingInstanceCachedDataDirty from parallel tasks
• Force separate storage unit between ray tracing and non-ray tracing bits
• Force separate storage unit between bIsCachedRayTracingInstanceValid and bDynamicRayTracingInstanceCachedDataDirty

Physics

• Fixed issue with Physics destructables behaving like solid objects and not getting destroyed when playing on high framerates.

Mission

• Ice Fish – NPCs spawned in the Beatdown are no longer only Level 1
• Thrill of the Fight and Running on Fumes – now functional after save/continue
• Suzy Red no longer gets multiplied during “Stitches for Snitches” mission completion
• Hit 16 (No Return Fare) – passenger now gets into the cab at the pickup location
• Dave Shultz Tailing Job – Dave now spawns close to player, avoiding near-instant fails for being too far away
• Story Chapter – No Whisper Dealers – no beatdown triggers when eliminating enemies, preventing mission failure
• Hot Iron – fixed issue where the fail radius for the reach dealer objective was too small
• Day 3: Oonagh Welcome Home – call now comes after story mission Blood on Tap rather than Dirty Scripts
• Fixed issue with the “Hot Iron” not being replayable after failing and retrying the next day.
• Improved traversal and removed collision traps by White Whisper stash close to the priest’s house in Park Avenue.
• Fixed the Cumberland barge wall

General Gameplay

• NPC fall damage added as a failsafe for dropped NPCs
• Day 3 Pickups – raised interact range to allow easier pickup if an item is dropped under a body
• Let outsiders check if the driver can be pulled out of the vehicle
• Fixed issues where enemies were not advancing towards you in group encounters
• Fixed issues with AI running onto roads to inspect dead bodies
• Fixed issue where police siren sometimes did not work

Polish

• Fixed smoker alignment in Double Tap and Suzy’s
• Fixed vehicle voices
• Added a dedicated “remote dialogue” bucket for voice lines without a visible speaker (e.g. phone calls or police radio chatter)
• Added separate dialogue buckets for police vehicles and remote dialogue
• Fixed door kick spam
• [Audio] New day stinger now plays before dialogue
• Increased volume for NPC vehicles
• Prevented corpses from popping back up or being launched into the air after takedowns, hazards, or railing interactions
• Improved lean-on-wall alignment
• Blocked bark gestures or one-offs during ranged combat
• Fixed Vivian holding a folder in the doctor’s office instead of nothing
• [Audio] Added “outside vehicle” dialogue lines to NPC non-combat efforts
• Fixed several grammatical errors
• Removed the facility marked on the map for no reason.
• Improved French localization, adding a whole lot of strings that were missed in translation.

Combat

• Fix for unreliable combat barge. If you tried to do a combat barge during the 4-second cooldown, it would just drop you out of combat stance instead.
• Fixed issue with Enemies failing to pull the player out of a vehicle if misaligned even slightly.
• Balanced Police escalation detection ranges to make it fair to the player.
• Fixed issue with player falling through the floor, dying.

Usability

• New “Controls” screen for showing game input from the pause menu
• Correct text for Carpe Diem: First Job costs 0 AP.
• Added Heal to combat hints
• Fixed so we toggle Grab / Throw when you pick up an item in the combat hints
• Fixed issues with changing the Deadzone setting not changing the way sticks respond
• Fixed issues with turning off vibration in the settings.

“The First Berserker: Khazan is the first of three games designed to introduce our Dungeon & Fighter to a global audience. The game got off to a solid launch with good critical scores in Western markets on both PC and console,” said the company in a statement.

Further in its statement, it reiterated the fact that personnel were being allocated off the project to make more effective use of resources across current and future projects at the company.

“As the development roadmap for The First Berserker: Khazan enters its final stage, Neople has reorganized its teams to more effectively allocate resources across current and future projects, including the pipeline of games designed to attract players in every major market globally.

“This adjustment is not related to workforce reduction or team dissolution. It reflects a planned reallocation of talent to support live service operations and new initiatives across Neople and Nexon affiliates.”

The report of Neople’s staff being reallocated came about thanks to Yonhap News Agency. The latter noted that, out of the 100 developers who worked on The First Berserker: Khazan, an undisclosed number have been put into a “transition unit” known as “R Team”. Nexon has also stated that it will “actively support the reassignment of personnel who gained expertise in completing a global AAA title through the Khazan project, so they can apply their experience and capabilities to other projects.”

The fact that The First Berserker: Khazan missed sales targets set by Nexon hasn’t really been a secret. The company revealed during an earnings call last month that its Q1 revenue for the game was lower than expected. Despite this, however, it “achieved our objective as a strategic first step in a multi-year plan to introduce Dungeon & Fighter IP to a global audience.”

The First Berserker: Khazan is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more, check out our review. A year ago, after its release, creative director Junho Lee thanked players for supporting the game since its release.

“I poured my heart into making Khazan, telling myself that this would be the game I stake my entire career on, leaving absolutely nothing in the tank. By the time we launched in 2025, I truly believed I had given every last ounce of energy I had. But then, so many of you showed up. You played the game, you shared your honest thoughts, and you cheered us on.”

“Because of all that, not just me but the entire dev team found ourselves filled with even more energy than we spent building the game in the first place.”

Along with this, Lee also revealed interesting player stats, like the number of player deaths different bosses caused, and how many players were able to complete the game across its difficulty modes.

“Phantom Blade Zero is currently in the intense, final stages of development. With the time we have left, we are pouring every available resource into pushing every aspect of the game to the absolute limit of our capabilities. We are fully aware that a profound technological revolution is unfolding around us. However, to this day, every single piece of content in our game has been crafted by the hands of real artists. We will not use AI visual tech that could alter our artists’ original creative intent.

“Our character models are built upon 3D scans of our phenomenal cast, who also provided the facial capture performances. The voice acting in both Chinese and English has been meticulously refined by our dedicated actors and directors, complete with full lip-syncing for both languages. The prototypes for our weapons are drawn from the vast arsenal of traditional Chinese weaponry. Sometimes, to better understand how a weapon’s weight and length impact movement, we have master swordsmiths forge real replicas.”

The studio went on to note that it had hired more than twenty highly experienced martial artists to motion capture the game’s combat. Also, to ensure the “most authentic kung fu techniques,” it consulted “directly with the masters and inheritors of traditional martial arts schools. When we needed authentic swordplay, we invited sword masters from Mount Emei; when we needed lion dance choreography, we brought in lion dance masters from Guangdong.” Its efforts certainly paid off, judging by the release date trailer which highlighted a lion dancer-like boss.

To help create the world for Phantom Blade Zero, the developers visited “many stunning locations across China, from ancestral halls in Fujian to ancient towns in Zhejiang, and even old steel factories in Beijing.”

Even the in-game guiding maps aren’t AI-generated. In fact, S-Game has confirmed that they aren’t even digital paintings. Rather, they are hand-drawn, using Chinese brushes and Xuan paper (crafted from rice straw and Tara Wing-Celtis or Blue Sandalwood bark, and often employed for calligraphy and painting). What’s more, the developer even roped in “young artists from the Chinese Painting department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA)” to draw them.

“We firmly believe that human artistry is not merely a means for creating value; it is the value itself,” it explained. “S-Game didn’t just hire a group of developers to make a game; rather, in our pursuit of continuously building an exceptional, passionate team, we decided to make a game that everyone here could be deeply proud of.”

Phantom Blade Zero is currently in development for PC and PS5, and is slated to be console-exclusive to Sony’s platform for at least a full year. It launches on September 9th and while an Xbox Series X/S version isn’t confirmed, it hasn’t been ruled out entirely either.

“We are always exploring ways to introduce Borderlands to new audiences,” said Zynga in its statement. “Zynga’s NaturalMotion studio is currently conducting a limited-time test for an untitled Borderlands mobile project, with Gearbox providing creative guidance on the franchise’s design, history, and lore. We hope that players enjoy this new Borderlands experience and look forward to their feedback.”

Speculation on a mobile version of Borderlands first started popping up thanks to an App Store listing for Borderlands Mobile. Available only on iPhone, the free-to-play shooter’s listing confirms that it is being developed by Zynga. Its description also noted that it features “devastating action gameplay that’s been fully optimized for mobile,” as well as a similar gameplay loop to the console and PC Borderlands games, where players take on missions to fight enemies in the hopes of getting brand new loot.

The lack of any fanfare in the release of Borderlands Mobile has also indicated that Zynga opted for a soft launch of the title, releasing it in limited territories on specific platforms to ensure early adopters could get plenty of time to test the game and offer feedback. Through this, the company can then make changes to the game before it is launched to a wider global audience.

This has also led to gameplay videos popping up on YouTube, showcasing just how Borderlands Mobile plays. As can be seen below in Techzamazing’s video, an introductory cutscene provides some quick context for players that might be new to the Borderlands franchise. It doesn’t take long for gameplay to begin, however, and Borderlands Mobile retains the franchise’s fast-paced FPS action.

Zynga working with Gearbox Entertainment to bring Borderlands to mobile platforms shouldn’t come as a big surprise, since the CEO of parent company Take-Two Interactive, Strauss Zelnick, had spoken about using Zynga’s expertise to bring “core” IPs to mobile platforms back in 2022.

Following an acquisition valued at $12.7 billion, Zelnick noted that Zynga would work with other studios under the Take-Two banner to bring franchises like Red Dead, GTA, Borderlands, and NBA 2K, among others, to mobile platforms. This, he noted, would help with bringing the franchises to wider audiences that don’t otherwise exist on PC and consoles.

“We believe we have the best collection of console and PC intellectual property in the interactive entertainment business and it’s basically nearly entirely un-exploited from mobile and free-to-play around the world. Zynga’s best-in-class studios can help us develop that property,” he said.

“Their best-in-class free-to-play mobile publishing operations can bring that to consumers, delight those consumers and create recurrent consumer spending along the way. The list is endless and it’s early days. We’re just thrilled to have this opportunity to be able to work together and create what we’re certain will be of extraordinary value going forward.”

This includes full controller support with appropriate input icons, the ability to bring up the on-screen keyboard when needed, a lack of compatibility warnings, and potential launchers being navigable with a controller. There’s also support for the Deck’s default resolution of 1280×800 or 1280×720, appropriate default settings, legible text, and good support for Proton, including for anti-cheat systems and any other middleware.

Aside from getting Steam Deck Verified, the update also addresses frame rate drops that players might have experienced whenever they use the scope of a sniper rifle. For more details, check out the full patch notes below.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach was released on PC just last month after having spent several months only being available on PS5. The PC release made a strong debut, peaking at 57,682 concurrent players. While Kojima Productions hasn’t revealed too many details about sales, Alinea Analytics estimated that it had sold 425,000 copies on Steam in its release month. This, combined with a previous report indicating 1.4 million sales on PS5, would bring total sales of the title up to over 2 million.

Shortly after the PC release, lead level designer Hiraoki Yoshiike spoke about the more fast-paced nature of the storytelling in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, thanks to world-building being toned down, and how it was done this way because “Kojima wanted more people to enjoy the game all the way to the end. This was an order he provided.”

He went on to discuss how, since much of the world-building had already been done with the original Death Stranding, with the sequel, the studio could focus on telling the ongoing plot rather than having to divert their attention to more world-building elements.

For more details about the PC release of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, check out our review.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach update 1.3 patch notes:

• Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is now Steam Deck verified.
• Fixed hitches and stutter that could occur when zooming in with sniper rifles.
• Implemented performance optimizations.
• Fixed multiple rare crashes and improved overall stability.
• Addressed various minor graphics-related bugs.
• Various input and user interface related improvements and bug fixes.
• Implemented various text and localization related fixes.