Ploopy, the makers of the DIY-friendly peripherals, like the Ploopy Adept trackball and the Ploopy Trackpad, has just released the Ploopy Bean, a standalone pointing device that mimics the functionality of something like the Lenovo TrackPoint that has become so popular with ThinkPad users. However, the Bean takes the pointing stick and dials it up to 11, giving users four programmable buttons around the pointing stick and allowing full customization via open-source QMK firmware. By default, the Ploopy Bean's keymap features left, middle, and right click as well as a drag scroll option and pre-configured QMK combos for forward and back buttons, making it equivalent to a standard six-button mouse.

Ploopy has opted for a magnetic Texas Instruments TMAG5273 magnetic sensor, which is theoretically capable of reading the position of the pointing stick 20,000 times a minute. The pointing stick also has a wider-than-average range of motion, allowing for up to 11 mm of movement in each axis. The switches in the Bean are Omron D2LS-21 "Subminiature" switches, which are rated for 20 million clicks—basically extra-small mouse switches with a clicky actuation. The Bean is compatible with VIA for easy customization, although more in-depth customization can be performed by editing the firmware directly (if you're comfortable coding), or with the QMK Configurator. While Ploopy does sell the Bean for CAD 69 (~$52 converted)—currently under pre-order—it has also published all of the necessary 3D models, electrical CAD files, firmware, and documentation necessary to make your own version or tweak the design. The version Ploopy sells is also 3D printed in

Pokémon Pokopia is widely known to have been a successful launch for Nintendo, with the life sim having recently climbed its way to the top of Metacritic's 2026 game rankings with an impressive 89 Metacritic score. Now, recent financial filings indicate that Pokopia has been more than simply a critical success, with the Japanese gaming giant having sold over 4 million copies of the game in the five weeks after its launch on March 31, 2026. By comparison, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen had achieved roughly the same sales figures in six weeks, while Donkey Kong Bananza and Pokémon ZA have sold 4.52 million and 3.94 million units, respectively.

In less positive news, however, Nintendo has also revealed that the Nintendo Switch 2 will get a price increase on September 1, 2026, to $499 in the US and €499 in the EU, while Japanese customers can expect to pay ¥59,980, up from ¥49,980, as soon as May 25, 2025. Nintendo expects the Switch 2 to sell 16.5 million units in the 2027 financial year, down 16.9% from the FY 2026 projection of 19.86 million units. Between the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, Nintendo reported hardware sales of 23 million units for the same period. The Switch 2 price increase has been expected since January 2026, thanks to rising DRAM and BOM costs across the board.

Arc Raiders is one of only a handful of semi-competitive, shooters with a large player base that has a Platinum rating on ProtonDB, thanks to its Linux-friendly Easy Anti-Cheat implementation. In a recent blog post addressing the studio's plans to "ensure fair play," Arc Raiders developer, Embark Studios, confirmed that it is testing a new kernel-level anti-cheat solution that the studio expects "will sharpen both detection and precision throughout Speranza and the Rust Belt." The studio confirms that, in addition to the pre-existing kernel-level anti-cheat implementation, it relies heavily on machine learning tools and input telemetry data in order to catch cheaters. In spite of these existing efforts, Steam user reviews still complain bitterly about the presence of cheaters in Arc Raiders.

It should be noted that Embark has clearly considered Linux playability via Proton and similar tools, as well as its Steam Deck Verified status, until now. There's a fair bit of the anti-cheat blog post dedicated to accessibility and players on uncommon hardware and input devices, with the developer promising to continue letting players with unorthodox accessibility tools play the game. Additionally, when Embark first implemented kernel-level anti-cheat in The Finals, it promised to maintain support for Linux and the Steam Deck, so there's a fairly decent chance that Arc Raiders may remain playable on Linux devices. That said, in cases like that of Apex Legends, Respawn and EA have claimed that dropping Linux support resulted in a 33% decline in cheaters, giving rise to a notion in certain circles that Linux is a cheater's operating system.

Despite earlier rumors speculating about both the upcoming PlayStation 6's pricing and supposed launch date, it has come to light in a recent investor call that Sony has yet to actually decide on either of those aspects of the new console's launch. When asked about the progress of the next-gen console, Sony CEO, Hiroki Totoki, said that "Looking at the current circumstances, the memory price is also expected to be very high FY 2027, because there will still be a shortage of supply," going on to explain that "We have not yet decided on at what timing we will launch the new console or at what prices, so we would like to really observe and follow the situation."

Sony isn't the only console maker struggling with pricing. The Xbox Helix is expected to launch at a price of around $1,000 when it eventually hits the market, and, while the rumor mill has nothing to say about Nintendo's next console launch this early in the Switch 2's lifecycle, there has been talk of a potential price increase for the Nintendo Switch 2—an issue worsened by softening US sales. The PS5 itself also recently saw a sizeable price increase, and although Sony didn't provide a justification for the price increases outside of "the global economic landscape," the assumption has largely been that increasing DRAM prices have been to blame for the price increase.

It's no secret that Apple's $599 MacBook Neo has been a hit for general productivity workflows and as a Chromebook replacement, but in a recent financial results report, Tim Cook touched on just how unexpectedly high the Neo's demand was. The outgoing CEO on April 30 confirmed that Apple was supply-constrained on the MacBook Neo, explaining that "we under-called the level of enthusiasm that would be with it." In a recent report, industry analyst, Tim Culpan claimed that insider sources report that Apple has ordered a fresh production run on the A18 Pro SoC that powers the MacBook Neo from TSMC.

Crucially, getting TSMC to spin up a new production run of the A18 Pro may affect the pricing of the Neo, since its initial production run used rejected A18 Pro SoCs—with a defective GPU core—from the original iPhone 16 Pro smartphones, and a new run of SoCs would mean that Apple would be subject to the same memory supply constraints as the rest of the industry instead of using up old inventory that had already been paid for at a lower price. This news also comes after wild rumors of a potentially incoming MacBook Neo with an A19 Pro from the newer iPhone 17 Pro, replete with a potential 12 GB RAM upgrade. The fresh SoCs from TSMC, however, would allow Apple to reach its new 10 million unit production goal without changing anything about the hardware itself.

Right on schedule, as teased by Capcom in late April, the promised Resident Evil Requiem combat minigame DLC has officially arrived on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox series X|S. Leon Must Die Forever—whose name must be a reference to the flood of endless, bullet hell roguelites, like Death Must Die, that have recently popped up on Steam—features fast-paced combat, as players step into Leon's shoes once again to take on hordes of undead to clear stages and take on the final boss. The minigame takes on a distinctly roguelite structure, with both permadeath and player upgrades in the form of enhancer abilities that are unlocked as you progress.

As alluded to previously, the minigame will unlock once players complete the main story quest, and it will rely on a high degree of replayability. Players will be able to select from a number of difficulty modes, and players will have a time limit to clear the levels and make it through the boss encounter. The update and the accompanying minigame are both free, and the update also adds fixes to gameplay bugs and implements Adaptive Triggers, vibration feedback, and motion sensing for the DualSense Wireless controller on Steam.

When Valve launched the Steam Controller, the new gaming peripheral expectedly sold out within the first day of sales. Valve then promised stock was coming soon, stating that the demand for the controller was unexpected. Now, the gaming giant has confirmed that changes are coming to the Steam Controller ordering process in order to mitigate the high demand and limited supply. Starting on May 8 at 10:00 Pacific time (17:00 UTC), Valve will allow users to place a reservation for the Steam Controller on the usual store page, which will allow prospective buyers to reserve a spot in the queue. When the controller is back in stock, Valve will automatically place orders for reservation holders in the order they placed their reservations, and buyers will have 72 hours from the time they receive that order email to finalize their purchase through Steam.

Notably, Valve is restricting reservations to one controller per account, and those who have already purchased a Steam Controller will not be able to place reservations until further notice. It's also worth pointing out that Valve has added additional account conditions in order to prevent scalping. Steam accounts seeking to place a reservation will need to be in good standing and have made a purchase before April 27, 2026. Valve also confirmed that the US, Canada, the UK, EU, and Australia will be getting Steam Controller restocks next week—meaning May 11.

Keychron has been busy updating its mechanical keyboard line-up over the last few months switching to hyperefficient firmware and its updated Silk POM mechanical switches. Now, the Keychron Q11 gets the same treatment, with the Q11 Ultra being a much bigger improvement over the original Q11 than the other keyboards Keychron has recently updated. The reason for this is that Keychron's only split keyboard was the Q11, with no Max or Pro variants to add wireless connectivity into the mix. This time, though Keychron has gone one step further with the Q11 Ultra, not only eliminating the USB-C cable to the PC, but also making the two halves of the split keyboard communicate wirelessly as well. Keychron claims that the dual batteries in the Q11 Ultra are capable of delivering 300 hours on a single charge, and the keyboard connects via Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz, or via the USB-C cable on the left half. With 2.4 GHz and the wired connection, the polling rate can go as high as 8 kHz, even though that's hardly necessary for a mechanical switch. The Q11 Ultra is available for $239.99 from Keychron's online store.

The Q11 Ultra is a 75% split keyboard, meaning the keyboard splits in half for ergonomic purposes, although it still maintains the row staggered layout, so it should feel familiar for most users coming from a regular mechanical gaming keyboard. Despite the 75% layout, the Q11 Ultra has an additional five-key macro column on the left edge of the left side of the keyboard, and there are two programmable knobs—one on each half of the keyboard. The keyboard cases are constructed from CNC aluminium with an integrated top plate, and the keyboard uses double-shot PBT keycaps in Keychron's KSA profile. The Q11 Ultra is only available in black with blue accent keycaps, and it seems to miss out on the decorative bottom panel found on the likes of the Keychron Q1 Ultra. It comes with a choice of Keychron Silk POM Red (linear), Brown (tactile), and Banana (sharp tactile) switches, but the PCB is hot-swap compatible, so you can bring your own switches and keycaps if you don't like the stock experience. The Q11 Ultra has south-facing per-key RGB backlighting, which, along with the layout, is fully programmable in Keychron Launcher.

NuPhy's Berry profile is a low-profile keycap profile that mimics the popular Cherry profile that has become popular with mechanical keyboard enthusiasts and gamers alike, and NuPhy has just announced a new keycap set in its Berry keycap line-up. The new Berry profile Alchemical Manual keycap set is the seventh official Berry profile to launch out of NuPhy (the others being Beat Boy, Godzilla, Trackday, Obivion, BoW/WoB, and Peach Blossom), and it's by far the set with the most unorthodox design. The Alchemical Manuscripts Berry profile keycap set is available on the NuPhy online store for $59.95 for the whole 124-key set, which is compatible with keyboards anywhere from 60% to 100%. The set doesn't include an ISO enter key, however, so those outside the US may want to double-check compatibility.

The keycaps themselves are made from PBT with dye-sublimated legends, meaning that the legend and keycap texture should last a good long while, and the aesthetics of the set are based on a handwritten font style, "inspired by classical alchemy, occult symbols, and ancient manuscript diagrams," with an off-white color for the majority of the keycaps and earthy green, red, blue, orange, and brown accent and modifier keycaps. The set also includes a handful of alternative colors for certain keycaps as well as keycaps with rounded bottom corners for keyboards like the Node series. The keycaps are low-profile with an MX stem, so they will be compatible with both Gateron and Kailh Choc V2 low-profile switch standards, as long as the key spacing follows the MX standard and not Choc spacing.

Not too long ago, 2K Games announced that it was suspending the development of Borderlands 4 on the Nintendo Switch 2, stating that the focus would be "delivering quality post-launch content for players on the ongoing improvements to optimize the game." Now, Take-Two CEO, Strauss Zelnick, has commented on the launch delay in an interview with Game File's Stephen Tolito, explaining that the Switch 2 just isn't the target platform for Borderlands 4. The executive explained that Sony's PlayStation 5 and the Xbox are the primary consoles for Borderlands 4, and that, although Take-Two wants to meet players on the consoles they're playing on, the studio wants to "make sure that we've addressed Borderlands 4 from a consumer's point of view before we bring it to more platforms."

Zelnick maintains that running Borderlands 4 is still "doable" on the Nintendo Switch 2, although Nintendo gamers may be in for a significant wait if the game's performance on the Steam Deck and other, more powerful, gaming handhelds is anything to go by. It should be noted that a recent update to Borderlands 4 claimed to deliver a 20% performance improvement at high resolutions and up to 40% improvements at 1080p on the minimum PC spec.

Since FBC: Firebreak launched in June 2025, it has not managed to top even 2,000 concurrent players on Steam, according to SteamDB, with low player counts ultimately resulting in Remedy putting active development for the co-op shooter on ice in March 2026. In Remedy Entertainment's Q1 2026 earnings report, however, the game studio announced that it would not actually be sunsetting the game itself. Instead, Remedy will "remain live and playable" on PC and all platforms it launched on, and it will remain playable via PlayStation Plus, and Xbox Game Pass. Remedy says that "upkeeping the infrastructure will not incur significant costs" for the studio.

The game studio also reinforced that Control Resonant is still on-track for a 2026 launch, and that it expects 2026 to be a pivotal year, with the studio likely expecting strong launch figures for Resonant, given how popular the first Control game was. The studio didn't share exact numbers, but noted that Control continued to show strong sales figures in early 2026. The studio also confirmed that it is in the proof-of-concept phase of an as-yet unnamed new project and in full production on remakes of Max Payne 1 and 2.

ATK has become known for its impressive budget gaming peripherals that provide gamers with an alternative to flagship gaming mice and keyboards without having to empty their wallets. The brand's latest launch is the ATK Dragonfly A9 Mini, which, the brand claims, will be a world-first exclusive launch of the PixArt PAW 3955 Master sensor, which will be a custom version of the existing PAW 3955 sensor. The mouse itself looks to be a pretty close match to the compact shape of the Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2C, and it will likely weigh the same as or a little less than Logitech's design, which comes in at 51 g.

As for exact internal specifications, not much has been revealed, but it would make sense for ATK to use a Nordic 52-series MCU and either tuned Omron optical or Huano mechanical switches. Regardless of MCU, the ATK Dragonfly A9 Mini will likely feature 8 kHz polling and ATK's typical "Ice-Feel" coating. The skates deviate from Logitech's design, with two large flat skates at the front and back as well as the typical ring around the sensor. Pricing and availability have not yet been announced, but it will likely cost around the same $59.98-74.98 range as the regular Dragonfly A9 series.

The LVFS (Linux Vendor Firmware Service) is a firmware update project that's been gaining traction in recent years, especially with distributions like Bazzite and SteamOS serving as simplified operating systems for devices like gaming handhelds, and manufacturers like Framework and System76 releasing Linux-first hardware. While Dell and Lenovo have previously allowed firmware updating for a number of their devices, it was just announced by Richard Hughes, a Gnome developer and maintainer, that both Dell and Lenovo have recently become premier sponsors of LVFS, meaning they each donate in excess of $100,000 annually to keep the project sustainable and fund development.

Becoming a premium sponsor of the LVFS also means that Dell and Lenovo will be able to implement several custom features, allow for 1,500 monthly uploads and 10,000,000 monthly downloads, and more closely collaborate with the LVFS developers. The LVFS previously announced a sustainability plan, which sought to secure $400,000 in additional annual donations to fund development and a $30,000 annual budget for hosting costs.

It seems as though a recent patch to Pragmata on the PS5 Pro has increased the game's render resolution, although Capcom has yet to actually announce the change. According to recent tests by Digital Foundry and Brazil Pixel on YouTube, Pragmata's Patch 1.21 has increased the internal render resolution from 864p to 1080p. Notably, this is now the same resolution as the game uses on the base model PS5, which produced a cleaner image in some cases before the update, because it used a native render resolution of 1080p from the outset. Pragmata will still use Enhanced PSSR to upscale the image, whereas the base console uses FSR, and in Digital Foundry's testing, the image produced in Patch 1.21 is much cleaner, with little to no impact on the final frame rate.

In the world of Hall effect and TMR gaming keyboards, tactile switches are somewhat of a rarity, largely because the tactile bump somewhat defeats the object of having an adjustable actuation point. Despite this, Keychron has just announced not one, but two tactile magnetic switches for its Ultra-Fast Lime Magnetic Switch line-up: the Banana and Silent Banana switches. There is also a new Silent Red linear switch joining the two Banana variants and the original Lime linear switch. The new switches are available on Keychron's online store for $29.99 for a pack of 110 switches, which is very much on the affordable side of the spectrum, especially compared to the Gateron Magnetic Jade Emerald Heavy Tactile switch, which comes in at $59.50 for 70 switches or $76.50 for 90.

All three new switches share similar characteristics, with 3.5 mm of total travel, pre-lubed construction, N-pole magnet configurations for compatibility with most HE keyboards, like Wooting and Keychron's own HE 8K series, and 30 gf starting actuation force—the Silent Red and Lime bottom out at 55 gf, while the Banana variants both bottom out at 50 gf. Curiously, the Silent Red switch uses silicone buffers in side rails to silence the bottom-out, while the Silent Banana tactile switch features a silencing circlip to dampen the bottom out. This was likely a consideration to prioritize the switch's bottom-out feel, but it may result in a switch that is not completely silent, but rather with a damped bottom-out sound.

CCP Games, the developer of EVE Online, just announced that it has been bought out by its board of directors, meaning it will no longer operate as a subsidiary of Pearl Abyss. As the announcement highlights, the studio is "returning to a model similar to how the company operated before 2018, and one designed to support strategic decision-making for persistent live games and long-running virtual worlds." The company was sold by Pearl Abyss for $120 million, and the transaction was executed using both cash and non-cash assets. Following the sale, CCP Games will also rebrand to Fenris Creations, and it has also forged a new partnership with Google DeepMind, who owns a minority stake in the company.

Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of Fenris Creations, says that "EVE Online exists today because of pioneering thinking, patience, and trust between developers and players," and that the DeepMind partnership will "enable us to carry that legacy forward—continuously evolving a living universe and actively exploring what it can become, with forever in mind." The collaboration with DeepMind will also see Google's AI project develop an offline version of EVE Online running in a local server in order to "test and evaluate models in a controlled setting" and "explore new gameplay experiences enabled by these technologies." It remains to be seen how the studio and EVE Online will change with the new strategy and alongside the DeepMind partnership, but there don't seem to be any real structural changes at the time of writing.

With a little over a month left before the launch of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, Ubisoft has given us a look at what to expect from the latest entry into the long-running game franchise, specifically the overhauled combat, parkour, and stealth. The game studio showed off a long list of features and updates to the game, but the gist of it is that Ubisoft has invested time making the combat more reactive and challenging, the parkour more responsive and fluid, and the stealth gameplay more engaging and intuitive.

Possibly the most important and exciting new mechanic coming to Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced is a combat rework that makes enemy NPCs more interesting to face off against. According to Ubisoft, the combat in Black Flag Resynced will be "more demanding," thanks to what it calls Adaptive Enemies, which will spot attack patterns and adapt to them over the course of a combat encounter. "For example, wait around too much for a Parry, and enemies will react by performing Unstoppable Attacks that cannot be parried. Abuse a Kick too much, and enemies will quickly dodge them. The trick is to alternate between offense and defense. Varying your combos helps. Rotate between Kicks, Sweeps, Rope Darts, Pistols and Heavy Strikes at the end of your attack combos to confuse enemies." Enemies will also come with different archetypes, each of which have their own strengths and weaknesses, like the soldiers, who prefer to work in pairs and coordinate attacks, or the Brute, Captain, and Demolitionist, which will require players to break their guard before going in for a takedown.

In a recent post on X, Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma, announced that Copilot on console will officially exit active development, while Copilot on mobile will also be wound down. Copilot for Gaming was previously announced in March 2025, with the feature first making its way to mobile and later announcements predicting that Copilot would be coming to Xbox Series consoles sometime in 2026. Copilot was slated to land on Xbox consoles in the form of an AI that effectively watches you game by taking screenshots and monitoring inputs and then providing suggestions and recommendations based on that data. Judging by the wording in the announcement, this appears to be another move by Xbox Gaming CEO, Asha Sharma, to earn back the trust of gamers in what she calls "a return to Xbox." It's unclear what this means for the rest of the Xbox Gaming software suite, especially when it comes to devices like the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally and its Xbox Game Bar, but it seems likely at this point that those integrations may also eventually be removed.

The full post by Sharma reads:

Xbox needs to move faster, deepen our connection with the community, and address friction for both players and developers.
Today, we promoted leaders who helped build Xbox, while also bringing in new voices to help push us forward. This balance is important as we get the business back on track.
As part of this shift, you'll see us begin to retire features that don't align with where we're headed. We will begin winding down Copilot on mobile and will stop development of Copilot on console.

Logitech's HITS (haptic inductive trigger system), introduced with the G Pro X2 Superstrike gaming mouse in late 2025, made serious waves in enthusiast gaming mouse spaces, but, as is the case with many of Logitech's innovations, the mouse the tech came with was imperfect and commanded a premium price. Now, it seems as though at least two Chinese peripheral makers are lining up to challenge at least some of Logitech's capabilities with their own magnetic switch tech. First, and the one we know the least about, is Keychron, surprisingly enough who is apparently preparing a micro switch called the MagOpt. The MagOpt switch was teased by Keychron on the brand's own YouTube channel, where it showed off a switch design that looks to use a hybrid optical and magnetic sensing mechanism combined with a traditional click leaf. It seems as though Keychron's MagOpt switch will attempt to mimic some of the functionality of the HITS system—like rapid trigger, adjustable actuation, and better longevity—but without a lot of the adjustability enabled by the haptic feedback of Logitech's HITS system.

The other incoming contender is Snaptiq, a product by a Russian streamer (shared by @goonerfps on X), and this system appears to have much more feature parity with Logitech HITS. The sensors in Snaptiq are analogue, like those found in Logitech's implementation, but these use magnets and either Hall effect or TMR sensor in place of Logitech's inductive switches. More importantly, Snaptiq will also mimic the tactile feedback with vibration motors, similar to HITS. How this pans out remains to be seen, but Lunacy claims that it will be able to detect movement as fine as 1 micron (0.001 mm) and that the mouse clicks themselves will be completely silent. Lunatic's Snaptiq is slated to launch by the end of 2026, although it is unlikely to launch in Western markets. However, this and Keychron's implementation may be the start of a wave of Chinese brands adopting similar tech to Logitech HITS.

When NVIDIA first revealed DLSS 5 and its neural rendering, a lot of the online backlash that was leveled at the feature centered around Capcom's Resident Evil character, Grace, and how DLSS 5 changed her facial features. Now, in a recent interview with Eurogamer, Koshi Nakanishi and Masato Kumzawa, the game's director and producer, have responded to the DLSS 5 outrage and to the game's overall reception at and since launch. Addressing the DLSS 5 debacle, Kumzawa took the backlash as a positive indication, commenting that "the fact a lot of players commented they really liked the original design of Grace and didn't want to see it changed was a positive—it meant we got the design right," and that it was an indication that "Grace quickly established herself as a fan favorite." The Nakanishi and Kumzawa did not comment on previous allegations that Capcom had not involved game developers or even inform them of the potential changes to the character designs ahead of time.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of Resident Evil Requiem can be found here]

Just 16 days after Resident Evil Requiem launched, it had already sold over 6 million units, making it the fastest-selling Resident Evil game to date. Commenting on the overall success of the game, the pair said that "we were very happy to see the reaction of players around the world after the game launched. In particular, because we were very tight-lipped in order to maintain the surprise for players, especially about what happens after the return to Raccoon City. So, watching people's clips and online reactions, we felt not only pleased that they were enjoying it, but relieved our strategy was right to try and save that for them." Notably, the Resident Evil developer publicly asked gamers not to spoil surprises about the game when the game's plot was leaked online shortly before the official launch.

With the official launch of Forza Horizon 6 around the corner, Microsoft and Playground Games have just divulged a little more information about the upcoming driving sim, specifically its world, car line-up, and official console performance modes and expected frame rates. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly Forza Horizon 6 will feature two distinct performance modes on the Xbox Series X and S consoles. Performance Mode will allow the game to run at 60 FPS on both consoles, at 4K resolution with dynamic upscaling on the Series X and 1080p with dynamic scaling on the Series S. Quality Mode, on the other hand, will target 30 FPS on both Xbox variants, at 4K native resolution with "increased visual fidelity" on the Series X and 1440p with dynamic scaling to maintain the target frame rate. Horizon 6 will also feature a number of accessibility features, including AutoDrive, Proximity Radar, High Contrast mode, colorblind filters, and ASL and BSL interpreters for cut-scenes. There is also an option to modify the game speed in offline mode, which should make the game more accessible to kids and those with limited mobility and reflexes, especially when used in conjunction with difficulty settings.

The announcement revealed that gamers can start preloading Forza Horizon 6 on both PC and Xbox already, from the library page for preorderers and Game Pass subscribers, from the Microsoft Store, or using the Xbox app for smartphones if you're planning on buying a physical edition. Microsoft will also be giving Forza veterans login rewards in the form of free special car unlocks that will appear in players' garages after they complete the introductory mission. These cars depend on the game players previously played: 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray for Forza Motorsport; 2021 Mercedes-AMD ONE for Forza Horizon 5; 2016 Aston Martin Vulcan for Forza Horizon 4; 2016 Lamborghini Centenario LP 770-4 for Forza Horizon 3; 2014 Lamborghini Huracán LP-610-4 for Forza Horizon 2; and 2013 Dodge SRT Viper GTS for Forza Horizon.

Even though it looks as though Valve may be preparing for some upcoming large-scale hardware shipments, and it has officially launched the Steam Controller that was slated to launch with the Steam Machine, the gaming giant has yet to even announce a price for the Steam Machine. While we know from a previous statement that this is due to the ongoing RAM shortage, Valve's Steve Cardinali and Lawrence Yang have just addressed the Steam Machine's launch again in a recent interview with PC Gamer. Yang explains that "I mean, obviously we're bummed that this is the state of things. At the very least we're not the only ones in this boat. Like, everyone's kind of figuring out how to overcome these obstacles and challenges—RAM shortages, memory shortages, price hikes, everything."

Despite this somewhat pessimistic outlook, Yang also says that Valve is still aiming for competitive pricing on the Steam Machine: "You know, it's unavoidable that it will impact basically anything we make that has any of those parts in them. So we're doing our best to make sure that we can make the product and have it still available at as good and competitive a price as we can." It also seems as though Valve didn't expect the memory price hikes and shortages to be quite so steep and severe, as Cardinali explains that "you're, like, right there, and then you have this whole challenge thrown at you last minute. It's frustrating. But yeah, we're working our hardest to get resolution there." Yang also commented that, even though it was expected that all three hardware products would launch around the same time, Valve knew that the Controller might launch ahead of the Frame and Machine, stating that "we knew that there was some chance that schedules would move, and we would just ship them when they were ready," and he again confirms that Valve was not prepared to launch the Steam Machine without launching the controller first or at the same time.