Earlier this month, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su said that Valve was on track to release its Steam Machine in the early part of 2026. That could still happen, but Valve has now confirmed that Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller have all been delayed.

In a post on Steam, Valve notes that it had originally planned to release pricing and launch dates for all three products by now. Those plans were scuttled because of “the memory and storage shortages you’ve likely heard about,” wrote Valve. The company reiterated that it still plans to release these products in the first half of this year, but it hasn’t been able to “land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce.”

Valve also shared that it will be sharing faceplate CAD, specs, and details with fans and manufacturers so that they will be able to make their own. The company added that Steam Machine’s SSD (NVMe 2230 or 2280) and memory (DDR5 SODIMMs) “are both accessible and upgradeable.”

Additionally, Valve noted that it is approaching the issue of visually demanding Steam games “from multiple angles” and looking into improving upscaling and optimization for ray tracing performance as well as further improvements to the HDMI VRR.

According to Valve, Steam Frame should be able to work for players with glasses, but it may depend upon the width of the glasses frames. The company also disclosed how its foveated streaming differs from the foveated rendering in other VR headsets. Unlike foveated rendering, foveated streaming doesn’t require a dev to implement it, so it could improve performance for more games.

For the better part of three decades, Charles Martinet was Nintendo’s official voice for Mario. While Martinet has since stepped back from playing the iconic character, he has shared how his approach to the role helped him land the part of a lifetime.

While speaking with GamingBible, Martinet recalled that he crashed Nintendo’s audition for Mario without knowing anything about the character or the Japanese video game publisher.

“I was simply told to start talking, and when you run out of things to say, that’s your audition,” said Martinet. “I didn’t want to do an Italian plumber sounding gruff, mean and nasty or scary to children, like a Mafia member. I didn’t know whether the audience would have children in it, but I have a principle of comedy of always being kind. I thought to myself that I’ll do something much more silly and fun. I didn’t know anything about video games, so I just made things up about food and started talking.”

“Being able to bring that joy into children’s and adults’ lives has been a tremendous honor,” added Martinet. “When they tell me stories of growing up with Mario, and playing the games with their parents, grandparents, and now their children, it gives me such a feeling of joy that cannot be described. I’m just grateful for those moments every day.”

Martinet voiced two characters in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mario and Luigi’s father and Giuseppe, but it’s unclear if he will return for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. The most recent trailer for the sequel introduced Yoshi and Birdo to the cast. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will be released on April 1, and it may have a big Super Bowl trailer this Sunday, February 8.

Developer Binary Haze Interactive has made a name for itself with its elegantly gloomy games, and you won’t have to wait too much longer for the physical edition of 2D action-RPG Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist. The standard edition launches for PS5 and Switch on April 3, and you can preorder it now on Amazon for $40.

In case you missed it, a physical Switch edition for Ender Lilies: Quitus of the Knights is also available. Priced at $45, the game is set in the hauntingly beautiful world of Land’s End, and it’s up to players to unravel the mystery behind the Rain of Death cataclysm that led to the destruction of a kingdom.

For even more gaming deals, don’t forget to check out the Games Mega Sale promotion that Amazon-owned retailer Woot is currently holding. Dozens of physical games have been discounted, including recent releases like Elden Ring: Nightreign, Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.

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Nintendo’s most recent earnings report delivered a routine update to its list of games that have sold at least one million copies by the end of 2025. A conspicuous absence was Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which led to hand-wringing among fans of the series. However, the game has now reached that sales milestone, but only when combining its performance across Switch and Switch 2.

That’s according to reporter Stephen Totilo, sharing the tidbit in an X post and citing a Nintendo representative. It’s unclear if Metroid Prime 4, which released on December 4, reached that figure by December 31 (as with other games in the earnings report) or if that includes sales through January.

It might be somewhat comforting news for Metroid diehards, many of whom were spelling doom and gloom for the Prime subseries and the Metroid IP as a whole. As a point of comparison, the Switch 2 Edition of Pokemon Legends: Z-A reached 3.89 million units sold, making it to Nintendo’s top-selling Switch 2 software list. At the same time, the version on the original Switch hit 8.41 million units, totalling 12.3 copies.

While reaching the 1 million figure is impressive for most games, comparing the sales numbers of Prime 4 to other Nintendo software is a salient reminder that Metroid has historically underperformed next to other IPs. Pokemon, Metroid is not. It’s uncertain if Prime 4’s sales performance was in line with Nintendo’s expectations, but its omission from the company’s earnings report stood out.

These numbers came out of Nintendo’s latest quarterly earnings report, which included the surprising detail that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still selling like gangbusters. Despite some impressive results, Nintendo’s stock declined after the report. The company is gearing up for a Nintendo Direct for Thursday, which will showcase games from the company’s partners.

Call of Duty Mobile is celebrating the Lunar New Year with Season 2’s launch. This new season of content adds a fresh battle pass, a holiday map variant of Shipment, more DMZ features, a new gun, and seasonal events.

Season 2 start date details

Season 2: Lunar Charge starts on February 11 at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET. This new season includes a brand-new battle pass with both free and premium items.

Season 2: Lunar Charge battle pass details

The main highlight of the free battle-pass tiers is the new Lachman-556 assault rifle weapon unlock. Other free-tier rewards include operator skins, weapons blueprints, vault coins, and more.

The premium pass offers even more cosmetics. This includes operator skins for Park, Stitch, and Isabella. Weapon blueprints are included for the season’s new Lachman-556 assault rifle as well as other guns.

Seasonal events

Five Gods of Wealth Event – Fortune Fusion

In this event, players complete daily missions to earn a card flip on the event board. Each card hides a different number of “Wealth Points” that can be used to unlock milestone rewards including the Emerald Prosperity weapon blueprint for the Type 25 assault rifle.

1v1 Duel Event – Second to None

Call of Duty Mobile’s 1v1 mode returns. Wins will earn trophies, and these will unlock rewards along the way. This includes a new operator skin, secret caches, and several weapon camos.

Ramadan Event – Starlit Quest

To help celebrate Ramadan, all players will have access to a free in-game event that offers multiple ways to earn Ramadan-themed rewards, like an operator skin for Zero and blueprints for guns like the AK47 assault rifle.

Multiplayer content

For multiplayer, Season 2 adds a variant of the popular Shipment map. This is a holiday-themed map variant for the Lunar New Year, so players can expect decor in red and gold tones, new lighting, snow, and firecrackers.

1v1 mode returns with best-of-three matchups, with each individual round lasting until a player reaches seven eliminations. Trophies are awarded for 1v1 match wins. Players can unlock milestone rewards for earning multiple trophies.

DMZ updates

Train event

New content and features arrive in Call of Duty Mobile’s DMZ mode. This includes the new Train event for the Serpent Island map. For this event, players will be tasked with clearing out enemies from multiple marked sites in order to activate a nearby computer and launch a missile at the moving train. Completing this event will award high-tier loot.

Five Gods of Wealth contract event

Themed around the Lunar New Year, Five Gods of Wealth is an in-game event on Serpent Island maps. Players can locate the Five Gods of Wealth contract, activate it, and collect items from specific marked locations. Once all items are collected, the player can summon the Five Gods of Wealth in order to exchange the items for money.

New boss

The Velikan boss from Modern Warfare 2’s DMZ mode is being added to the Call of Duty Mobile version of the Building 21 map.

Plunder battle royale mode

Season 2 also adds Warzone’s Plunder mode to the mobile battle royale. Just like the original version, this mode is all about collecting cash and being the first team to reach a million dollars. Plunder will be played on the Isolated map in trios.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is also gearing up for new Season 2 content. Make sure to check out all the major announcements for Season 2 of Black Ops 7 and Warzone. This includes more maps, Zombies content, and a Blackout-inspired mode for Warzone. Season 2 also adds Ranked Play for both multiplayer and battle royale.

Grand Theft Auto VI is coming this year after a long wait, and as it gets closer, rumors have begun to pop up about its launch. One rumor that has gained considerable traction is that the game would launch as a digital-only title, with a physical release coming at some point after release. The logic behind the rumor was that a physical release of the game could lead to early leaks ahead of the game’s launch, and that publisher Take-Two might be willing to go to great lengths to avoid this.

As it turns out, though, this is not the plan. Talking to Variety following an earnings call, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has confirmed that the publisher does not intend to delay the game’s physical release. When asked directly about the rumor that the game will not be available physically on launch day to avoid potential leaks, Zelnick gave a straightforward response: “That’s not the plan”.

Based on this, it seems that you’ll be able to buy the game on disc on launch day if that’s your preference, which is good news for physical games stores around the world. Zelnick also said that the game’s release date, November 19, 2026, is still locked in, although rumors will likely continue to circulate right through to release date–there’s speculation that the game will carry a larger-than-normal price tag, for instance.

As part of their earnings call, Take-Two also confirmed that GTA V continues to sell extremely well–it has now sold over 225 million copies, and is one of the best-selling games of all time.

GTA 6 developer Rockstar recently allowed a terminally-ill fan to play the game ahead of launch at their office in Ontario. The studio has also been in hot water for firing several developers in what some have described as an act of “union busting“.

In a recently-released roadmap for the future of Borderlands 4, one milestone was suspiciously absent–the game’s Switch 2 port, which was previously delayed indefinitely just 10 days before its original launch date. Now, publisher Take-Two Interactive has revealed why that’s the case, and it’s not good news for anyone holding out for the game on Nintendo’s hybrid console.

In an interview with Variety, spokesperson Alan Lewis has revealed that development on the Switch 2 version is paused. “We made the difficult decision to pause development on that SKU,” he told the outlet, while affirming that the company is still committing to the system with upcoming games like PGA Tour 2K25 and WWE 2K26.

The use of the word “pause” indicates that development on the Switch 2 port of Borderlands 4 could, theoretically, resume in the future, as it’s not technically cancelled, but there’s no guarantee that this will happen. The game reportedly sold below expectations at launch, despite also having the biggest launch in the franchise’s history.

The Switch 2 build of Borderlands 4 was playable at the Nintendo booth at PAX Australia in October 2025, but it was in rough shape, with muddy visuals and lacklustre performance. Every other game in the mainline series was ported to the Switch 1.

While the Switch 2 has a smaller install base than the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, which Borderlands 4 launched on, the system has had an incredibly strong first year on the market, selling over 17 million units in its first seven months.

Recently, popular video game stocks like GTA 6 owner Take-Two ($TTWO), game development engine Unity ($U), and sandbox game Roblox ($RBLX) saw huge sell-offs that hammered share prices in the wake of Google’s announcement of a new generative AI tool called Project Genie.

The product claims it can create worlds “generated in real time,” and people quickly put it to use to create rip-offs of Mario and Fortnite, among many others. The generative AI tool seemingly spooked some investors, prompting the stocks to get hammered. But how big of a threat to the industry mainstays is Project Genie, or generative AI systems like it?

“Wall Street has lost the plot again”

Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics told GameSpot that “Wall Street has lost the plot again” and that generative AI is “not coming to eat the games industry.”

Some investors may have panicked at the thought that a tool like Project Genie may disrupt the video game industry because Google said Project Genie would allow anyone to generate a game with a simple prompt. But that doesn’t tell the whole story and leaves out numerous essential pieces of context.

“It’s a technical impossibility masquerading as a breakthrough,” Elliott explained. “It’s the same kind of DiSrUpTiOn we saw with web3, blockchain, the metaverse, cloud gaming, and esports. How are they doing again?”

He added: “The reaction to Genie is the clearest indicator yet for what most of us already know: Generally speaking, the stock market fails to understand how games are made and what draws players to them.”

The stock prices for Take-Two, Roblox, and Unity have not fully rebounded since the dramatic dip on Friday, January 30, though Take-Two’s stock did bounce back a bit after the company confirmed that GTA 6 was not delayed again.

Take-Two and Unity’s share values are actually up more than 10% over the past year, including the recent dip, but Roblox has been on a downward trend since October 2025. This general downturn for Roblox may be more related to the lawsuits filed against it and criticisms that the company is not doing enough to protect kids.

Take-Two’s reaction to the stock sell-off

Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick recently commented on the company’s falling stock price, telling The Game Business that people on Wall Street may be confused about what Project Genie actually does.

“I think the confusion though is… somehow the new technology and the new tools will become entertainment experiences by themselves. That’s just not going to happen. Tools are not entertainment experiences. Creators use tools to create great entertainment,” he said.

Zelnick said he was “surprised about the market reaction” to Project Genie. “Innovation is one of our core tenets. Our three-part strategy is to be the most creative, the most innovative and the most efficient company in the business, and the innovations surrounding AI is definitely driving efficiencies, and we think also can drive creativity. Because as tools get better, our teams can do cooler and cooler things,” he said.

Zelnick also pointed out that Take-Two has always embraced new technologies, and the company has already spun up “hundreds of AI pilots and implementations” to make the most of AI.

“This company was built on the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence,” Zelnick said. “We’re really enthusiastic about what this new technology can mean. I am even more optimistic than I’ve ever been. And I thought the [Google] release was a great sign of things to come. It’s an opportunity, not a problem.”

“All style, no substance”

Project Genie may be a “cool research prototype” in Elliott’s eyes, but he predicts it will follow in the footsteps of other failed Google projects like the gaming platform Stadia. Google generated a lot of hype and excitement about Stadia, and even made some big hires to create teams to make games for it, but it all crashed and fell apart, with Stadia ultimately joining the Google Graveyard.

“Genie follows the same pattern of a flashy PR cycle followed by a research prototype phase with no viable path to a profitable consumer product,” Elliott said. “Genie will be in the Graveyard by 2028.”

The kinds of “games” that Genie can spit out in its current form are not viable game products, in part because Genie appears to be training its model on visual outputs instead of the all-important source code, Elliott believes.

“That’s sort of like trying to build a working Ferrari by looking at photos of a Ferrari. You might get the shape of the frame and color right, and it might look very pretty and impressive, but there’s no engine under the hood. All style, no substance,” he said.

Zelnick has said AI is a compelling technology for game development, but people are largely overstating what it can do. No one will be able to prompt an AI technology with, “Please develop the competitor to Grand Theft Auto that’s better than Grand Theft Auto” and have it deliver something good, he said. Humans will always be needed to make compelling art, and tools like AI may exist to help them, but never to replace human creativity completely, the CEO said.

A recent survey of game developers found that more than 50% of surveyed developers said they believe generative AI is a threat to the video game industry. More than 35% said they were already using generative AI in their processes.

Possible legal issues and bubbles

Genie could also run into plagiarism and copyright issues, which in turn could prompt a company like Nintendo, or theoretically any rights-holder who feels their work is being infringed upon, to take action.

“Nintendo’s lawyers are ruthless, and they’re not going to like this,” Elliott said. “Nintendo has a history of litigating against even fan-made projects using their assets and IP (like AM2R, Pokemon Prism, and Lost in Hyrule). A multi-billion-dollar corporation like Google using its IP to train a commercial AI is a completely different kettle of Magikarp,” Elliott said.

The AAA games business has a long list of serious and systemic issues that are all valid reasons for concern from investors. But Genie is not one of them, Elliott said.

There may be beneficial use cases for generative AI technologies in game development to help developers make games more efficiently, but Elliott said people should “not mistake a bit of efficiency for product evolution.”

“The reality is that generative AI carries every hallmark of a classic venture capital bubble. We’re witnessing billions of dollars in speculative investment chasing an ROI that simply hasn’t materialized,” he said.

Technologies like Genie are coming out now because companies like Google and other giants are trying to “manufacture a new narrative” to hammer home with shareholders in an effort to generate market appreciation, when in reality, the technology may not actually work as promised at scale. This is part of the reason why some observers and experts in the wider technology space have said AI is a bubble set to pop.

“Profound ethical decay”

There is also the matter of ethics, Elliott said, pointing out that there is a “profound ethical decay at the heart of” a generative AI model that fundamentally devalues the medium of video games. Generative AI models train on publicly available assets, and don’t create anything new of their own, after all.

“If games prioritize high-speed, automated output over human intentionality, it risks trading away its creativity, its jobs, and its soul for a library of infinite, tasteless content,” he said. “If everything is procedurally generated by a machine that doesn’t understand fun, then nothing is actually worth playing.”

As part of Take-Two’s earnings announcement today, the company confirmed that Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto VI remains on track for release on November 19, 2026. There was no reason to believe it might be delayed again, but the company said today that it remains on track.

GTA 6 was originally set to release in Fall 2025 before it shifted to May 26, 2026 and then again to November 19, 2026. Rockstar said it needed more time to make the game the best it could be.

Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick told IGN that marketing for GTA 6 will begin in earnest this summer. “Any time you’re getting closer to marketing beats, you’re obviously in a place where your confidence level is as high as it can be,” he said of GTA 6 making it out on time this November.

Pretty much every high-profile game that Rockstar has made has been delayed multiple times, so it was no surprise to see GTA 6 get delayed. If it were to be delayed again, however, that would move the game into rare territory, as Rockstar has not historically delay games twice. This does not count any internal delays that are never communicated publicly.

GTA 6 is coming to market with a mountain of hype behind it and projections that it could sell 40 million copies and generate $3 billion in revenue during its first year alone. Hopes are high for the game, but experts have warned that GTA 6 being a success will not solve the industry’s many serious issues.

Also in the earnings report, Take-Two announced that GTA 5 had sold another 5 million copies, climbing to 225 million sold to date. Red Dead Redemption II, meanwhile, sold another 3 million units, pushing it to 82 million units sold since it launched in October 2018.

After a few weeks of rumors, Epic Games finally revealed that Chappell Roan will be the next Fortnite Festival headlining artist when the new music pass launches on Thursday, February 5. As is usually the case with these things, Roan will have a skin, the Pink Pony Club jam track, and other cosmetics on the new Heartcore music pass, along with an additional set of items and jam tracks available for direct purchase in the item shop.

Buying the music pass–which is included with Fortnite Crew, or can be purchased on its own for 1400 V-Bucks–will instantly unlock the Chappell Roan skin. Players can then unlock the rest of the items on the pass, including several musical instruments and an additional style for the Chappell Roan skin, by gaining XP in any Fortnite mode. There should be a number of jam tracks other than Pink Pony Club included on the pass, but we don’t know what they are yet. And there will also be some free items on the pass that you can earn without buying it.

Over in the shop, we’ll have the Roan of Arc skin, with the singer sporting her iconic armored look from the 2024 VMAs. Roan will also be the first Festival Headliner to have a sidekick–a Pink Pony in the style of a Fortnite piñata–which will be part of her shop bundle. Typically, a season headliner also has at least two new jam tracks in the shop, but Epic’s announcement didn’t mention any new songs other than Pink Pony Club.

We won’t have to wait too long to find out the rest of the details of Fortnite’ collaboration with Chappell Roan, however, since the new season of Fortnite Festival launches on Thursday. Both the music pass and Roan’s shop items should be available on Thursday morning after Fortnite’s next major update on Wednesday night.