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Microsoft significantly increases Xbox prices worldwide and withdraws 2TB model citing "components crisis"

DanishScorpio — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 20:52:33 +0000

512GB model to increase by $100, 1TB model to increase by $150; pricing in other territories yet to be confirmed

Microsoft has announced that it is increasing the price of Xbox worldwide from August 2, blaming increased costs for console storage and memory. The 512 GB models will increase by $100 and the 1TB model will increase by $150; the 2TB variant will be withdrawn. The company did not immediately confirm pricing for non-US markets.

In a blog post, the company referred to its previous price increase in October and said that while it had hoped another price increase would not be necessary, "console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027. The entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles."

"Unlike phones, computers, speakers, and other consumer devices, consoles are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make."

In the announcement the company highlighted "programs to make Xbox consoles more accessible", including a buy now, pay later option for purchases through the Microsoft Store, interest free financing through Amazon, and "working with retail partners on new programs to provide previously played consoles at lower prices." It also pointed out that "Certified Refurbished Consoles are available at Microsoft Stores for up to US$100 off MSRP."

Valve admits Steam Machine is "more expensive" than it hoped

DanishScorpio — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 11:25:13 +0000

The PC giant is non-commital on whether the console's price will come down in the future if hardware costs reduce

The base version of the Steam Machine starts at $1,049.

"The big, number one factor in cost is the components that make up the device, and you know, the cost of making it and shipping it and distributing it, etc. etc.," Aldehayyat said. "I mean, as we said before, I think we really wanted the Steam Machine to be a good entry-level PC. I think we mentioned that in November, and we want it to be affordable for as many people as possible. It's definitely more expensive than we hoped."

Asked whether the price on Steam Machine could come down when component pricing reduces, Valve is non-committal.

"It's too dangerous for us to speculate right now," Aldehayyat said.

"I would say, like, anything we say now is probably gonna be unfortunate statements in the future, but I think we just have to wait and see what the market does, because I don't think anybody right now is able to predict what's going to happen in the future, so we'd like to refrain from trying to make predictions that are difficult to make right now."

Designer Lawrence Yang added: "Suffice to say, at least at this moment, component prices are too high, and components themselves are too rare, to make what we want, at the price that we want, when we want to. And I think it's something that's shared by everyone in this industry right now."

"This is going to be a niche device" – Analysts react to the $1,000+ Steam Machine price reveal

DanishScorpio — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 14:21:01 +0000

Mat Piscatella, Joost van Dreunen, Manu Rosier, and Piers Harding-Rolls offer their thoughts on how well the Steam Machine will sell, and the price implications for Project Helix and PS6

Yesterday, Valve finally revealed the launch price for its hotly anticipated Steam Machine console/PC hybrid. Prices will start at $1,049 for a 515GB without a controller, and go up to $1,428 for a 2TB machine with a controller.

These prices are far higher than Valve wanted them to be. Back in February, the company pushed back the launch of the Steam Machine as a result of memory shortages, and Valve has said that the initial batch of Steam Machines will only be available in limited quantities. Across the industry, the generative AI boom is having a seismic impact on component prices and supplies, and the Steam Machine price reveal is the latest evidence of the cost to consumers.

Although the Steam Machine is a PC at heart, it's a console in form, and going beyond the $1,000 mark is, for many, breaking a psychological barrier in terms of what consoles should cost. But what effect will the pricing have on sales? What are the implications for the upcoming consoles from Sony and Microsoft? And what does this tell us about the market more generally?

Van Dreunen says that he wasn't shocked at all to see Valve breaking the $1,000 barrier. "In fact, I predicted in March that we'd see the price of gaming consoles breach $1,000," he says. "If anything, I underestimated the speed: even in my most pessimistic February revision, I had the top SKU near $899, and the entry price alone cleared that. It's disappointing, certainly, because Valve prides itself on accessibility and fair pricing for consumers. But unless Valve is willing to heavily subsidize its upcoming device, it has to price in the runaway cost of memory and storage like everyone else."

Likewise, Rosier wasn't surprised about Valve's pricing. "The $1,049 entry price tracks the current component market, rather than any positioning choice," he says. "Valve set the 512GB model at $1,049, just above a clean $999. Combined with its public line that the original target is 'no longer viable', that points to minimal-margin pricing, not a marketing number. From Valve's own statements and the reporting around launch, the price came in well above the $700 to $800 band Valve had originally targeted. Valve attributes the gap to higher DRAM and NAND costs as AI data-centre demand absorbs supply."

In short, he says, "Valve is not subsidizing the hardware. Platform holders routinely sell consoles at or below build cost and recover margin on software and services. Valve's hardware has historically carried thin margins, with the business resting on Steam software and service revenue."

Valve's Steam Machine price starts at $1049 / £879; original pricing "no longer viable" due to hardware supply issues

DanishScorpio — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 20:34:59 +0000

Limited stock will initially be made available by randomly-ordered waitlist, with registration opening today

Steam has announced pricing and extremely limited availability for the Steam Machine, the desktop/living room sibling of the successful Steam Deck. It will be available in 512GB and 2TB versions, priced at $1,049 USD / £879 GBP and $1,349 USD / £1,149 GBP, and availability will be determined by a lottery system that opens today.

Early reviews from critics have been positive, citing the design and form factor as particular highlights, although reviewers said the price meant it was not as competitive with PS5 and Xbox Series consoles as some had hoped.

Users who wish to purchase can register today on the Valve website, with a deadline of June 25 at 10am Pacific time. At that point Valve will run a randomised lottery to assign places in a reservation queue, which it described as "an effort to improve the purchase experience and limit resellers."

"As units become available, people in the reservation queue will receive an email with the option to purchase," the firm said in an FAQ. "We'll send the first batch of those starting Monday June 29th, and intend to get through the queue by the end of the year."

The firm said that its original target price was "no longer viable" due to hardware pricing and availability, and the RRP "reflects the price of the components as we've secured them over the past 6 months." It said that availability was also severely constrained, to the point where it "couldn't source some of our components at all, at any price." RAM and storage costs have rocketed in recent months as AI hyperscalers buy out available supply.

The firm had previously said that pricing would be "pretty competitive" with equivalent PCs. Observers had initially expected the Steam Machine to be a strong competitor for the console market in general and Microsoft in particular, combining the lightweight Linux-based SteamOS with a desktop platform that supports a 20-plus-year old Steam library.

Unreal Engine 6, Unreal Engine 5.8

DanishScorpio — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 11:06:50 +0000

Many features are now Production Ready in UE 5.8, including MegaLights, Audio Insights, Dataflow for Chaos Cloth, and more

Unreal Engine 6

Epic said the next generation of its game development engine will take the AAA game development capabilities from UE5 and "expand them with a next-generation game development pipeline" it has been building live within Fortnite.

The company said it aims to enable developers to create games of "any scale and scope once and deploy to traditional platforms, Fortnite, or their own live and potentially multi-product ecosystems."

UE6 will be built with three major initiatives:

Moving the gameplay programming model to Verse, which transactionalizes C++, for increased accessibility of development and so that it can build persistent, large-scale, live experiences with thousands of contributors.
Enabling content, code, and economies to become portable and interoperable across games, ecosystems, and engines through open standards, to enable developer collaboration on much greater scales than ever before.
Building development pipeline features – such as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) with integrations for Claude, Gemini, and others – as creativity and productivity multipliers so that teams can focus their efforts on the essential creative and technical tasks of development rather than on time-consuming manual tasks.
Epic says it's targeting an early access release by the end of 2027.

Many features are now Production Ready in UE 5.8, including MegaLights, Audio Insights, Dataflow for Chaos Cloth, Live Link Hub, Iris, and Movie Render Graph. Mesh Terrain, a brand-new experimental system for authoring "complex 3D landscapes in any kind of environment without the limitations of heightfields," is also available.

Shader compilation has been optimized, along with improved deduplication, which Epic said "helped cut Fortnite's shader count by 68%."

"Lumen now features lightweight dynamic global illumination to support 60 fps on Nintendo Switch 2 and PCs," the company said. "And we've continued to expand worldbuilding capabilities and make character and animation workflows more interactive and intuitive."

Unreal Engine 5.8 also introduces a new Experimental Model Context Protocol (MCP) plugin, which enables developers to "connect models like Claude directly to UE projects."

"Rather than acting as assistants that simply copy and paste, these models can become active collaborators that understand and operate within specific Unreal Engine workflows," the company explained. "The interface is open, and so is the choice of model: build with Claude, Gemini, or whichever models best fit your needs."

New media and entertainment workflows now give artists "far greater creative control" over image and video generation than traditional text-prompt tools.

"Bringing diffusion models into Unreal Engine opens up the ability to use depth passes, normal maps, and camera data from 3D scenes as conditioning inputs alongside text prompts," Epic wrote. "The results are styled frames that respect camera framing and scene layout, extract and mesh segmented objects into reusable 3D assets, and render full video sequences with model-guided diffusion – all from within the engine."

Unreal Engine 5.8 is the "last planned major release" for Unreal Engine, although Epic stresses that it's "reserving the option to release a 5.9, if needed."

007 First Light officially sells 2.7 million copies, "probably" at three million

DanishScorpio — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 09:14:48 +0000

IOI CEO says game has yet to recoup but total cost is well below $200 million figure previously reported; in "ongoing conversations" with Amazon about future work

IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak says that the studio's recently-released 007 First Light is approaching three million copies sold, and while the game has yet to recoup its budget the goal is well below the $200 million budget previously reported. He says that conversations are ongoing about how the firm will work with Bond licence owner Amazon beyond the first year of content for the game.

He pushes back on previous reporting that the game had cost $200 million to make. That figure included "marketing, future [performance-related] bonuses and all those things," he says. "So it's less of an investment than that."

"We haven't completely recouped yet because there's a partnership as well, and royalties. But it's above all our dreams and expectations," he says. "It's going to be a massive, massive record for us and by all measures it's going to be a huge new success."

The developer announced a slate of upcoming content for the game's first year, the bulk of which will be released for free. Abrak says it is "very possible" the firm will continue to support the game beyond the first year. "We're just, high level, talking about year one," he says. "I absolutely hope that players stick around and we do some awesome stuff year two as well."

The firm is having "ongoing conversations" with Amazon about the future, Abrak says, but at present "we're just talking about First Light, and the live tail of it."

"We will soon sometime in the future be talking about the future plans between Amazon and IOI."

Switch 2 sales drop 87% in Japan following surge ahead of cost revisions

DanishScorpio — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:43:31 +0000

Sales of original Switch also experienced declines in the week after hardware prices rose

Nintendo Switch 2 sales in Japan fell by 87% after a surge prior to the May 25 price increase.

In the three weeks before May 25, Switch 2 sales surged to more than 200,000 units each week, driven by reports in early May of the impending price increase. Before the announcement of the price hike, weekly sales ranged from 44,000 to 52,000 units.

On May 25, the price of the Japanese-language Switch 2 system rose from ¥49,980 ($312) to ¥59,980 ($374). The cost of the multilanguage system remained unchanged.

The original Switch also received a price increase on May 25, from ¥32,978 to ¥43,980. In the six weeks before the announcement, the original Switch model sold 3,000 to 8,000 units per week. Last week, sales dropped to 229 units, trailing the Xbox Series X

"If the increase in costs were seen as something temporary that would subside relatively soon, then we could have pursued other options, such as working to improve productivity and expand the installed base while maintaining hardware prices," said Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa.

Cyberpunk 2077 and Blue Prince among winners of 2026 Apple Design Awards

DanishScorpio — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 10:34:00 +0000

"Whether delivering intuitive features or exciting gameplay, these apps and games represent the very best of what our platform makes possible"

Apple has announced the winners of its 2026 Apple Design Awards, featuring games such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Blue Prince.

Winners were chosen from 36 global finalists, with one app and one game recognized in each of six categories.

Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition for Mac OS received the Visuals and Graphics Award and was described as "one of the most technically demanding and visually ambitious games" on the platform.

Other nominees included Ball x Pit by Kenny Sun Studios, PowerWash Simulator by FuturLab, Civilization 7 by Firaxis Games, and Despelote by Julián Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena.

"This year's Apple Design Award winners are a remarkable reflection of how developers are creating exceptional experiences," said Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations Susan Prescott.

"Whether delivering intuitive features or exciting gameplay, these apps and games represent the very best of what our platform makes possible. We are incredibly proud to celebrate these developers and are grateful for their commitment to enriching the lives of people everywhere."

Nintendo reportedly planning 20% production increase for Switch 2

DanishScorpio — Tue, 26 May 2026 13:03:52 +0000

Report claims platform holder is raising hardware production to 20 million units following initial forecast of 16.5 million

Nintendo reportedly plans to increase Switch 2 hardware production to 20 million units, a 20% rise, despite previously forecasting a sales decline from 16.9% to 16.5 million units for the next fiscal year.

According to Bloomberg, sources stated that this increase is not final and may be adjusted based on demand.

Before the Switch 2 launch, Nintendo projected 15 million sales but ended the year with 19.9 million units sold.

Toto predicted 18 million units sold for the fiscal year, despite recent price increases that Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa attributed to current market conditions.

Regarding Nintendo's latest forecast of 16.5 million units, Furukawa said this "takes into account current sales momentum and the sales performance in the second year of our past dedicated video game systems."

"The pace of adoption of Switch 2 is extremely fast, even when compared to the Switch, and we do not see any particular concerns about its momentum at this time," he continued.

"Going forward, we have many new titles for Switch 2 prepared, and we will carefully convey the appeal of each title to encourage people to transition to Switch 2 at their own pace.

Nintendo reported significant growth in net sales and profits after its first fiscal year of the Switch 2, with net sales reaching ¥2.3 trillion ($14.6 billion), an increase of 98.6%.

The platform holder also reported a 106.7% increase in dedicated platform sales, totalling ¥2.2 trillion ($14 billion) from hardware, software, and accessories.

Original Doom soundtrack to be inducted into US National Recording Registry

DanishScorpio — Tue, 19 May 2026 10:11:01 +0000

Composed by Bobby Prince, the 1993 score is the third video game soundtrack to join the registry

Composed by Bobby Prince, the 1993 album will be inducted alongside 25 other recordings spanning 70 years. It was selected from more than 3,000 public nominations.

"Key to Doom's popularity was the adrenaline-fueled soundtrack created by Prince," the National Recording Registry said.

"Prince, a lifelong musician and practising lawyer, was fascinated by the MIDI technology that rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as a means for instrument control and composition, an interest that led to his earliest work composing video games."

It continued: "Taking advantage of his knowledge of MIDI, Prince worked to ensure that the sound effects he created could cut through the music by assigning them to different MIDI frequencies.

"The Doom soundtrack would go on to inspire countless remixes and lay the foundation for future generations of game composers."

Doom's soundtrack is the third video game score added to the registry. Last year, Daniel Rosengeld's Minecraft: Volume Alpha and the Microsoft reboot chime were also preserved.

The Super Mario Bros. theme became the first video game soundtrack in the registry in 2023.

Together with co-founder Brenda Romero, they discussed the studio's recent challenges and the broader state of the industry.