Players =/= copies sold when a game is also part of a sub service (pun maybe intended).

"Gardner said that VCs need to make roughly five times what they put in, and overall they’ve put in around $7 - $8 billion. “So, we need $40 billion in exits,” he noted. “...So, we’re going to see that on an aggregate basis, venture has overinvested in gaming.”" Read that again. Then once more.

"Unfortunately, the recent surge in memory and other component prices, and the changes in the market environment, including trends in the foreign exchange market and the price of oil, are all factors that we anticipate will continue over the medium to long term." Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa

Going to start posting this every time I catch myself coming close to wading into video game discourse.

So, yeah, I cannot confirm or deny sales claims or projections done by other analytics companies' folks. I can just speak to Circana reporting. Cheers.

Oh wow. One of the most fun, well themed and special open world games ever made and you also get RDR2.... in the same month? Wild.

Sometimes seeing things as a dev and not a player can ruin your perspective. For example I look at a lot of the Mixtape coverage and think ‘the game was built around the songs that could be prized from the record labels without bankrupting the project, and everything else came after’

"Sega has announced the cancelation of its ambitious ‘Super Game’, five years after it first mentioned development of the project... In November 2021, Sega said it would consider investing up to ¥100 billion (then $882 million) over five years to achieve its Super Game ambitions."

US GAME WORKERS: Let’s talk healthcare. UVW is exploring union-sponsored solutions and we need your input. Workers based in the US are invited to complete this survey — union and non-union welcome! Take the survey: uvw-cwa.org/healthcare-t...

7 months to go

Anyways, given what's happening to the console hardware market following price increases I expect that any decisions to return to console exclusivity will be extremely short lived.

Circana Player Engagement Tracker - US Top 10 Titles by Total Weekly Active Users (Not Concurrent) - W/E May 2, 2026 - NTE: Neverness to Everness launches 13th on PlayStation - Trepang2 jumps from 921st to 19th on Xbox with Game Pass add - Diablo IV reaches 33rd on Steam, up from 144th last week

I started writing a blog about Mixtape that may or may never see the light of day, but the only thing more I'll add to the social media ~conversation~ is that we need more diverse people reviewing and critiquing video games, still.

Okay yeah Mixtape's ending credits song is perfect. Cool game.

One thing I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about is the role that AI has played in cutting costs for Grand Theft Auto VI. Not much, according to its CEO.

Turns out, no, chat. It is not good. Gas is now about $1.55 higher, on average, than it was in Feb. The US burns through around 375M gallons of gas a day. That's.... ballpark $17.4 billion more US people are spending on gas per month than they were just a few months ago.

April 2026 US Marathon stats from Circana's Player Engagement Tracker: Platform - Monthly Active User ranking - Avg Hours per Player Steam - 16th - 29 hours PS - 82nd - 36 hours XBX - 147th - 38 hours Marathon players are a small, yet very passionate, group. Definition of an enthusiast niche.

'(Nintendo) has forecast Switch 2 hardware sales to decline 16.9% to 16.5 million units... Nintendo continued: "In light of the strong sales performance in the first year following launch and price adjustments, we expect unit sales for the fiscal year ending March 2027 to decline year-over-year."'

Physically recoiled at an early bit of Mixtape and could not hit A for THAT'S ENOUGH as quickly as I would have wished to.

Steam Controller update: Reservations will be available on @steampowered.com beginning tomorrow. Details here: store.steampowered.com/news/group/4...

It’s The Game Business Show time! Today we have the return of @matpiscatella.bsky.social . We chat PS5 price rise, Switch 2 sales, Game Pass price cut, and finally settle the debate… do exclusive games matter. It's a corker www.thegamebusiness.com/p/gta-6-play...

I'm very happy for all you Star Fox freaks.

“wow can you believe youtube guys are mad about–“ yeah i can. they’re dumb assholes who negatively polarize against anything girls like. it’s not really my problem

2026 evergreen post.

Total household debt hit $18.8 trillion in the US in Q4 2025. Credit card balances grew 5% year over year, reaching a record $1.3 trillion. Not sure who needs to hear this, but these are not good things for the US consumer. Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

"The choice is stark: permit the shares to continue their decline by holding the Switch 2 price firm and hoping for a major software hit to change the narrative, or increase the price to steady the ship and risk alienating customers at a sensitive time in the product's life cycle."

Xbox.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma - "We will begin winding down Copilot on mobile and will stop development of Copilot on console."

US consumer spending across Video Game hardware, content and accessories finished Q1 2026 at $14.6B, growing 5.3% when compared to a year ago, according to Circana's Games Market Dynamics and mobile spending provided by Sensor Tower. The US Video Game market is projected to reach $62.8B in 2026.

Steam Controller ran out faster than we anticipated, and we hate that not everyone who wanted one was able to get it. We’re working on getting more in stock and will have an update on expected timeline soon.

HAPPY CITIZEN SLEEPER DAY! 🎉 The series is 4 today and I have ⭐NEWS⭐ 🚀 Announcing CITIZEN SLEEPER: HELION RISING, a full TTRPG in the CS universe, coming 2027! ⭐LAST CHANCE to get CS2: DESIGN WORKS at Lost in Cult! ◼️What's next for JOTA? Something is growing in the dark, see it emerge June 7th...

I really want the price to be announced soon for no other reason than to stop the topic from further disparaging the term 'analyst'.

Congrats to the scalpers. Again.

Circana Player Engagement Tracker - US Top 10 Titles by Total Weekly Active Users (Not Concurrent) - W/E April 25, 2026 - Vampire Crawlers launches 7th on Steam - Pragmata ranks 12th on Steam, up from 17th last week - Albion Online debuts 30th on Xbox

Oh, it's May the 4th. Star Wars: Battlefront (2015) is the best-selling Star Wars video game in US tracked history, and Star Wars as a property ranks 7th overall in lifetime franchise full game dollar sales (excludes digital add-on content). Source: Circana Retail Tracking Service

San Diego is the greatest city in the world. Example B.

San Diego is the best city in the world.

Look at you. May of the year 2026 and you're still here doing your thing. I'm proud of ya. Keep it up. It ain't easy out there.

Recently I had the amazing- and yet very bizarre- experience of going to Xbox HQ as a visitor. I had been invited by Asha, who is very cool it turns out, to have a hike and hang out a bit. I’ll probably talk more about that another time. But first let’s talk about microorganisms.

Next week’s episodes are proper bangers. Especially this one

So yeah. @dringo.bsky.social and I got together this morning to chat through all this stuff. Fun convo. Or it was for us at least I think. Look, I'm not the boss of you. You may think it fun or lame. Either way, I'll share it when it posts.

Great game but the rule is you also have to buy Blur then compare. It's like 2010 law.

'“We believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business,” Cook said in the Q&A portion of his company’s earnings call... telling analysts that the company faced “supply constraints” in the latest quarter. “We’ll continue to evaluate this.”' Translation: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's International Workers' Day. Shout out to all those in the video game industry doing the hard work towards achieving fair wages and improved conditions for everyone making, marketing, selling and supporting video games. You matter and make a huge difference. Thank you!

To add context here, this is from Circana's Q1 Future of Video Games consumer survey. But obviously, this isn't the whole story. Who knows, maybe Christopher and I will get a chance to chat more about this soon.

Among the games that sold 1 new physical unit in the US during Q1 2026 (Abridged): 360 Kinect Star Wars 3DS Nintendogs Golden Retriever and New Friends 3DS Rune Factory 4 GBA Barnyard GCN Killer 7 NDS Bust-A-Move NDS Imagine: Babyz Fashion NDS Squeeballs Party w/Stylus NWU Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE

I'm sure purchasing a new video game will fix me. Even if it sits there, downloaded yet unplayed, for weeks.

Sure would be nifty to see just one piece of US economic news that isn't completely &%(*! dire.

Cute date idea: Job security, decent pay, and a unionised games industry. 🥰 The chair of UKIE @ukieofficial.bsky.social, the trade body for the UK Games Industry thinks job security is good for her, but not for you. Work in games in the UK? Join our union today: iwgb.org.uk/en/join/game...

Hello everyone, First off, we apologise for the silence over the past month - it's been a while. We're going to cut straight to the chase so you're not left wondering: After a long period without clear answers, we have received confirmation that Spiders is being liquidated.