Stop-motion sci-fi odyssey Junk Head is a masterpiece over 7 years in the making

Yesterday (Tuesday, September 12), it was announced that the game engine Unity will soon begin charging developers a monthly fee based on the number of installs their games have, in a move that has left many indie studios upset and frustrated.

The first time I heard of Steam it was, as you might expect, in conjunction with the release of a little FPS called Half-Life 2 back in 2004. You needed Steam to access it, whether you bought the digital version or a retail copy. Given relative unfamiliarity with digital distribution, the nascent status of broadband internet in the UK and US, and the much greater importance of physical game sales at the time, this caused quite a stir. I remember being alarmed by an op-ed over on GameRevolution.com that held forth at length about the risk of conflicts between Steam and other software, if players were outright required to leave it running. How quaint those anxieties seem today - the day of Steam's 20th anniversary. And yet, there's nothing quaint about Steam's ability to shape the field in which it operates.

PS5 sales in the UK have jumped 60% year-to-date while sales of both Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch are down compared to last year.

Starfield has topped the weekly retail game sales chart in the United Kingdom, according to GamesIndustry.biz head Christopher Dring, who explained that the figure is particularly impressive because Xbox sales tend to skew heavily toward digital. According to Dring, when adding in Game Pass, Starfield could be the biggest launch of the year in terms of player counts in the United Kingdom.

Take a moment to imagine where you might have a better quality of life. Did France spring to mind? It does have universal healthcare, affordable childcare, a high level of civic and social engagement, good work-life balance, and of course it’s home to beautiful countryside and arguably the most desirable city on earth, so that would be a natural place to think of.

The Kirin 9000S found in Huawei’s latest flagship smartphone, the Mate 60 Pro 5G, would not have been possible without the involvement of SMIC, a Chinese chipmaker that leveraged its second-generation 7nm process to mass produce the SoC. However, one U.S. congressman believes that stricter sanctions should be placed on both SMIC and Huawei as the trade between them should not have happened.

Never doubt the power of an A-list superstar. The Denzel Washington-led Equalizer 3 destroyed all competition at the domestic box office en route to a $42 million 4-day weekend ($34.5M 3-day) after an impressive $13.1M Friday, per Deadline. That’s about on par with the previous two entries in Antoine Fuqua’s franchise, a hair under The Equalizer 2 ($36M) and just over The Equalizer ($34M).

Sundays are for being in awe of backpacks that pack into themselves. Before you scrunch it into a ball, let's read this week's best writing about games (and game related things).

Believe it or not, there is a lot of new TV coming this fall. You might be incredulous: Aren’t we in the middle of historic strikes from both the Writersand Screen Actors guilds? Correct! But for now, TV’s output continues apace, swamping all of us in plenty of new stuff to watch.

The NES released in Japan 40 years ago, but a new Rugrats game is on the way to Nintendo's old console next year.

Bethesda brought a few content creators over to the US Space and Rocket Center for a unique experience. To prepare for Starfield, they got to play in a real life space camp.

The Seafarer Pack is now available in the Battle.net shop for $27.49! This bundle awards 3 pets and 1 mount, all of which will be retired from the shop on September 17, 2023.