Switch 2 Price Hike, Bungie Write-Down &

Subnautica 2 launched into early access this week and immediately broke the conversation. According to Skill Up's coverage, the game peaked at over 467,000 concurrent players and — per figures being cited at launch — reportedly moved more than a million copies in its first hour, though that specific claim appears to originate from commentary around the launch window rather than a verified official statement, so treat it with appropriate skepticism until the developer confirms. What isn't in dispute: a 91% positive rating with over 10,000 reviews counted at launch. The pre-release noise about the game not being ready? Largely didn't hold up. Ten thousand people giving it a thumbs up on day one is about as clear a signal as you're going to get this early.

All of that is the good news. Everything else this week costs more money.

$500 for a Handheld Console — Who's Actually Paying That?

Nintendo confirmed the Switch 2 price hike: $450 to $500 in the US, effective September 1st. The reasoning is straightforward — the global memory and storage shortage has every console manufacturer bidding against Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta for the same components, and Nintendo estimates it'll absorb roughly ¥100 billion (~$637M USD) in impact next fiscal year. PlayStation and Xbox already raised prices. Nintendo held out longer than most, probably to get the install base moving first, but here we are.

The September deadline at least gives buyers a window. That's a more civilized approach than Sony's immediate-effect surprise hike.

Here's the thing though: I cover the on-the-go gaming audience, and the Switch 2 is directly fishing in the same pond as mobile. Same demographic — younger players, people who game in short sessions, commuters, people who don't have a dedicated TV setup. And for that audience, $500 is a genuinely different conversation than it is for someone who already owns a gaming PC and a PS5.

The Gen Z player who's been treating their phone as their primary gaming device for the last five years has access to thousands of games for free or close to it. The proposition of spending $500 on hardware — before you buy a single game — is a harder sell every time the price goes up. It doesn't make the Switch 2 a bad product. The hardware is legitimately impressive for what it does. But the higher it climbs, the more it starts to feel like a second platform purchase rather than an obvious default, and mobile just keeps sitting there being free to enter.

Nintendo Switch Online is also getting pricier, at least in Japan first — monthly plans going from ¥306 to ¥400, which works out to nearly a 31% increase. Global increases haven't been announced yet but are, per Skill Up, "definitely coming."

Sony's PS6 situation is murkier. CEO Hiroshi Totoki told investors: "The memory prices are expected to be very high for FY27 because there will still be a shortage of supply. So, under that assumption, we would like to carefully think about what we will do... we will do various simulations including changing business models to come up with the best solution and strategy." Bloomberg previously reported (earlier this year) that the PS6 could arrive as late as 2028 or 2029 — that reporting looks more credible now, not less.

The Bungie Number Is Ugly However You Slice It

Sony's gaming division actually had a record year — operating income of ¥463 billion (~$2.9B USD), up 11.6%. But the CFO flagged that without Bungie's impairment losses, that figure would have been a 45% increase instead of 11.6%. That's the weight one acquisition is carrying.

The write-down totals approximately ¥120 billion (~$766M) — a new ¥88.6B impairment on top of the ¥31.5B loss already reported in late 2025 — representing a massive reduction from the $3.6 billion Sony paid for the studio. To be clear, this is an accounting adjustment, not cash out the door. But it's an acknowledgment that Bungie's business is worth dramatically less than what was paid for it.

The evidence isn't hard to find. According to Skill Up, the most recent Destiny 2 expansion — referenced in the video as "Renegades," though this expansion name could not be independently verified against current Bungie release data at time of writing — peaked at around 71,000 players, down 26% from the prior expansion, which itself peaked at less than a third of The Final Shape before it. That's a consistent, accelerating decline, not a blip.

Marathon, Bungie's extraction shooter, has seen its player count drop significantly within its first month of availability — though precise figures and the exact launch date need sourcing confirmation — with Skill Up noting that veterans are geared out and an incoming seasonal reset makes the current moment a bad entry point for newcomers. PlayStation's response was to affirm the game isn't shutting down: "Player reception to Marathon is strong with the game receiving a Metacritic score of 82 and more than 90% of the player reviews on Steam being positive. Engagement metrics such as retention also remain at a high level."

That's a reasonable defense of the game's quality — and Metacritic 82 with 90% positive Steam reviews is legitimately good. But "the game is good" and "the game has enough players to sustain itself long-term as a live service" are two different claims. I've watched this pattern play out in mobile gaming constantly: a well-made live service title, solid reviews, devoted core community — but once the player floor drops below the threshold a multiplayer genre needs to function properly, the feedback loop turns negative fast. Players leave because there aren't enough players. Marathon isn't at that cliff yet, but when its concurrent count is already below that of a struggling Destiny 2, the margin for error is thin. Publishers don't keep eating losses forever. If cuts come and they don't come at Bungie specifically, they come somewhere else at PlayStation. Either way, someone pays.

Discord + Game Pass: Real or Rearranging Deck Chairs?

Xbox Game Pass Starter Edition is now bundled into Discord Nitro ($10/month). The catalog includes Fallout 4, Stardew Valley, DayZ, Deep Rock Galactic, Overcooked 2, Grounded, and about 50 total titles, plus 10 months of cloud gaming.

Here's my honest read on this: Discord is already where Gen Z lives. Not just for gaming — for everything. Group chats, study halls, community servers, voice calls with friends. Microsoft is making a bet that putting games directly in that environment converts people who weren't going to seek out Game Pass independently.

Does it work for my audience? I think it works specifically for the person who already pays for Nitro for the Discord features and now gets games as a surprise bonus — that's genuinely good value, and a few of those titles (Stardew Valley, Deep Rock) have serious pull. What it probably doesn't do is convert someone away from mobile-first gaming habits. If you've been playing Clash, PUBG Mobile, or Genshin for the last three years, "cloud gaming access included" isn't the hook that changes your platform relationship. The Nitro bundle is solid for who it's for. Just don't mistake distribution for conversion.

The Rest of the Week, Fast

Sega cancelled its "Super Game" initiative — the AAA multi-IP revival project — though remakes of Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe, and Crazy Taxi are still in development. More interesting to me: Sega reportedly moved 100 free-to-play developers onto premium full-game teams. That's not a throwaway line. F2P development pipelines require specific expertise — live ops, monetization design, retention mechanics — and moving those people to premium development doesn't just change what they're making, it changes how they think about the player relationship. Whether that talent translates cleanly to premium game development, or whether some of that F2P institutional knowledge just gets lost in the shuffle, is worth watching. Sega is signaling a genuine philosophy shift here, not just a product one.

Stellar Blade's sequel will be self-published by ShiftUp, cutting PlayStation out of the publishing role. This follows Arrowhead (Helldivers 2) making a similar call last year. Two data points isn't a trend, but it's a direction — developers with proven IP finding that the control tradeoff of working with a first-party publisher isn't worth it when you have an audience already built.

Pearl Abyss sold CCP Games (Eve Online) back to its CEO for ~$120M, down from the ~$425M acquisition price in 2018. The studio has renamed itself Fenrir Creations and announced an AI research partnership with Google DeepMind using Eve Online as a test environment. The ownership change is described as having no impact on operations or development direction.

Double Fine filed to unionize with the Communication Workers of America, reportedly on May 7th — though this date is pending independent confirmation against NLRB filings. This follows union activity at Blizzard (QA ratified a contract in early 2025), Raven Software, and ZeniMax. Microsoft's acquisition footprint and subsequent layoff history gives these moves obvious context.

GameStop's bid to acquire eBay was rejected, with eBay's board calling the proposal "neither credible nor attractive." GameStop's market cap sits at $11.5B against eBay's $50.5B; the proposed $55B buyout was half stock. eBay's response was essentially a politely worded "no."

Nagoshi Studio (Gang of Dragons) has now had its website go offline, following earlier confusion about its YouTube channel. Netease reportedly pulled funding as of this month. The silence is getting harder to explain away.

The through-line in all of this, if I'm being straight with you, isn't really about the industry — it's about what players are being asked to absorb right now. Higher hardware prices. Subscription fees climbing. Live service games requiring you to stay engaged or lose your progress. Every one of these stories lands differently depending on where you're gaming from. A $500 Switch 2 is a considered purchase. A $766M write-down on Bungie is a corporate number until it becomes a shutdown or a layoff. The player at the end of that chain doesn't see the earnings report — they just see the server going dark.

— Jordan Mercer, Mobile Gaming Reporter, Buzzrag