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Why a show about grief might be the ‘comfort watch’ of the summer
“The Five Star Weekend,” adapted from “queen of the beach read” Elin Hilderbrand’s popular novel, is about friends helping each other through tragedy.
Why is tiny Norway so good at sports? It’s more than Erling Haaland.
The success of Norway’s athletes might be rooted in the way its youth learn sports – by first focusing on the process, rather than on wins and losses.
Xreal’s new AR glasses are way cheaper and almost just right
The A01 Plus are flimsier and have fewer features than the 1S, but they might deliver exactly what you’re looking for.
Don Mattingly seemingly leaks Kyle Schwarber Home Run Derby participation
Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper announced on Thursday that he’ll be part of the 2026 Major League Baseball Home Run Derby in his home ballpark at Citizens Bank Field. The Home Run Derby features a field of eight batters, and with Harper’s announcement, six of the participants are now known. And that number might be…
This team of lawyers represents Trump, even against his own government
President Trump has assembled a team of personal lawyers who have a key strength in his eyes: willingness to make arguments his previous attorneys might have balked at.
State Health Plan premiums could rise again, and some might pay more to keep their doctors
The State Health Plan is scheduled to vote Friday on a preferred provider program and whether to raise premiums on many of its 750,000 members.
Samsung said to discontinue its Galaxy Z Flip lineup after the Flip8
It might be for real this time. According to a Chinese tipster with a solid track record, especially when it comes to Samsung-related leaks, the company...
Sony’s Affordable New In-Ear Monitors Might Be Perfect for Beginners
Even if they're geared toward musicians.
In Graham Platner’s coastal Maine hometown, his fall is personal
Residents of Sullivan, Maine, are left to ponder what it means to enter the maelstrom of national politics, and what might be exposed along the way.
Clacton byelection likely to be two-man race between Reform leader and Binface
Nigel Farage’s resignation as MP means comedian might have to consider representing constituency if he wins
Kentucky governor requests ‘transparent’ update on McConnell’s health amid speculation
Representatives for the 84-year-old senator haven't disclosed what sent him to the hospital June 14, nor when he might return.
LeBron James Might Be Making the Smartest Move of His Career by Walking Away From the Lakers
As your business grows, let your values, not just money, guide the decisions that shape your work, leadership, and life.
How social media can get people hooked on science
Does using a casual tone and making pop culture references make people more interested in science content? New UGA research suggests it might.
AI tools meant to vet science are surprisingly easy to fool
The gold standard of scientific review, peer review by researchers’ colleagues, is in crisis. AI might offer a solution but has problems of its own.
Anthropic’s Political Risks Are Real, but OpenAI’s Loom Even Larger
The U.S. government’s targeting of Anthropic might not last—especially if political winds shift.
Samsung might start taking pre-reservations for the new Galaxy Z foldables tomorrow
Tomorrow is exactly two weeks before the expected July 22 date for the next Galaxy Unpacked event. Samsung will kick off the pre-reservation campaign for...
These Maine Democrats Might Replace Graham Platner in the Senate Race
Mr. Platner has not yet withdrawn from the race after a rape allegation, but Democrats in the state and nationally are already exploring potential alternatives.
Sports World Reacts To Argentina Comeback: Tom Brady Makes 28-3 Comparison
Tom Brady might be ready to crown a new greatest single-game comeback in sports history.
Tom Brady: Argentina's stunning World Cup rally past Egypt might top 28-3
Tom Brady is the author of arguably the greatest comeback in sports history. But even he’s not sure about that after Tuesday’s action at the World Cup.
Why isn’t Deion Sanders in EA Sports’ College Football 27? It might be the money
Sanders said he has a team who handles his business, but if he's not in the game, it means EA Sports wasn't "paying enough."
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro Max might come with a massive battery
The iPhone 18 Pro, not so much.
What If We Could Spread Compassion Like a Disease?
Researchers are exploring what epidemiology—the science of how disease spreads—might teach us about spreading compassion.
Midjourney founder says AI coding leaves friends 'extremely drained'
Midjourney founder David Holz said the phenomenon "makes me feel like something is wrong, and also that there might be a big opportunity."
A few thoughts on returning home
Did you miss me? (Editor: might be best not to ask…) I’ve been on the road for much of the last month or so, visiting family and performing my one-man show as Alexander Hamilton for groups of lawyers and regular folks. So, no columns from me lately. Did I miss anything? Oh, right, the primary. […]
The SpudCell: Could some 'blobs' in a dish spark the 'Sputnik' moment for synthetic life?
A quivering blob in a dish might not sound like a scientific breakthrough.
Who Might Replace Graham Platner if He Drops Out of the Maine Senate Race?
Graham Platner can be replaced on the ballot if he withdraws in the next week. If he does, Maine Democrats would face an uncertain two-week race to choose a replacement.
The $10 Billion Takeover That Could Turn the Auto Parts Business Upside Down, Explained
O'Reilly might buy NAPA, which would affect the aftermarket parts business in more ways than you might realize.
Why Ole Miss Might Be the SEC's Most Underrated Team
When most people think of the SEC, they think about Alabama, Georgia, and LSU, but Ole Miss tends to miss the list.
The Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale's Stick-Shift Might Not Be 'Real' But You've Gotta Stop Freaking Out About It
In essence, it was either going to be this "fake" manual, or no manual at all, and I personally believe in the lesser of two evils. Do you not?
Clip-Ons Are Wireless Earbuds’ Next Inescapable Trend
With Samsung looming large over the category, clip-style wireless earbuds might go fully mainstream.
Why Taylor Swift's backup dancer is ruffling feathers with wedding look
If upstaging the bride is a cardinal sin of wedding etiquette, one guest from Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's nuptials might have some explaining to do.
iPhone 18 Pro Max vs Pro: Leak reveals Apple’s plan to differentiate models
Apple sometimes gives iPhone Pro Max models a special advantage over Pro, and a new leak indicates that might happen with the iPhone 18 line.
A chip and a chair won't save Paul Renner, but a deal might
The Richard Corcoran playbook pays better than going bust at the table.
Scratching that bug bite might feel good at first but science explains why it’s a bad idea
You’ve likely heard it since childhood: Don’t scratch that bug bite or rash, you’ll make it worse. But why would something that feels so good be bad?
Apple has already given consumers a reason to steer clear of iPhone 18 Pro
Our readers might just sit this one out.
Opinion
The evidence for needing eight hours of sleep a night is shakier than we might assume.
I Wasn't Expecting Much from Netflix's #1 Movie But It Turned Out to Be Exactly What I Needed
A new Netflix comedy is climbing the charts, and it is a chaotic, laugh-out-loud ride that might be more fun than the trailer lets on. Find out more here.
Hear me out, GTA 6's graphics might be too good
Rockstar's next open world looks staggering. But sometimes in gaming, realism can create its own problems.
Why Doug Jones Keeps Running
Alabama’s upset artist hopes the state is changing enough to elect a Democrat again.
Missing ‘something’? It might be Pilates
It’s impossible not to smile and take a deep refreshing breath when you walk into The Sunshine Studio. With its freshly painted white walls, new equipment and the sun mural on the studio’s matt-room wall, the 1,500 square-foot space is as i…
Jacob Misiorowski's All-Star Game dream might come down to weather
Jacob Misiorowski has become must-see TV. Now weather and timing could determine whether fans see the Brewers ace on All-Star night.
A Nantucket dive bar is booking big name bands, bringing fans together like never before
Concertgoers from all backgrounds have packed this 375-person venue to listen to artists that might not typically go out to Nantucket.
The Dallas Cowboys may be interested in Shedeur Sanders
There is a possibility Shedeur Sanders might become a Dallas Cowboy
Two Struggling Teams That Might Be Back in Business Soon
With the fourth of the July now here, it is a good time to take a look at the standings and examine which teams are truly in the race and which teams are not. I
About South County: In charter school decision, McKee chose politics over process
Gov. Dan McKee froze charter school growth for three years but he stopped short of commissioning the kind of independent, rigorous study that might actually fix what’s broken.
Long Reads for the Long Weekend
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) Happy Fourth of July weekend! As has been a tradition of mine going back to the beginning of the EntStrategyGuy website, I’m sharing my favorite long reads of the last year, like I did in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024, and 2025. Let’s dive right in! Subscribe “Different Prices for the Same Ride: How Uber and Lyft Use AI to Get More Money Out of You“ by Derek Kravitz in Consumer Reports I don’t think surveillance pricing, like the kind described in this brilliant Consumer Reports article, is long for the world—it’s toxically unpopular—but we’ll see if either party takes on this issue. If I ran a political party focused on affordability, I would focus on a few pro-consumer and pro-market policies: Banning non-compete agreements. Ending surveillance pricing Eliminating junk fees (read more here...) Ensuring “right to repair” for consumer (and military!) products Capping excessive app store fees Stopping digital/algorithmic price-fixing tools. Preventing automatic subscription price increases. And more. If you want to fight inflation, there are a lot of great ways to do it quickly. Speaking of higher prices... “Secret Documents Show Pepsi and Walmart Colluded to Raise Food Prices Across the Economy“ by Matt Stoller in BIG Again, I think a political party should focus on lowering prices for consumers. And deals like this—Walmart making a deal/forcing Pepsi to offer the lowest prices at its stores and nowhere else—hypothetically lower prices at Walmart...but raise them everywhere else. “15 DUIs, still driving: California’s failure to take repeat drunk drivers off the road“ by Robert Lewis and Lauren Hepler in CalMatters CalMatters does terrific reporting in California, something the Golden State desperately needs more of, and this article is a great example of that. “PugLips: The next insanely popular thing you’ve never heard of…” by Simon Carless in Game Discover Co I thought that this parody article (and yes, it’s a parody, but I was definitely unsure at first) was hilarious and totally nailed how much tech/business journalism feels these days. Actually, three of my favorite articles this year were on hype in the video game industry, including Georg Zoller’s “The Video Game Industries Very Dark Night”—which I linked to recently and wrote a follow-up here—and Owen Mahoney’s “Derek Zoolander, Videogame Exec”. In particular, I like Mahoney’s focus on user experience as a guide to what trends will actually grab hold of customers. “The Matrix Lies“ by Evan Shapiro in Media War & Peace Evan Shapiro’s first person account of his experience with AI was hilarious. I think LLMs capabilities have significantly grown from last summer, and yet...my editor/researcher just had an abysmal experience using an LLM to do a quite basic task (which our LLM normally does each week) and the LLM made a mistake on every single data entry...along with seven different mistakes affecting twelve of the twenty or so entries, including mistakes that are explicitly spelled out in the prompt. That’s a brutal failure rate. Again, if you use AI/LLM for data collection, you need to take a lot of extra steps to verify and check the data. “Ghosts in the Balcony: A Cross-Country Trip to 58 Theaters Fighting to Survive“ by Matthew Frank in The Ankler I thought Matthew Frank’s pitch to head across America to visit theaters sounded insane aggressive at the time—at least it felt that way to someone a decade older than him; man, to be in your twenties again, am I right?—but I knew the result would be great. And it was, a terrific feature by a great young writer. Also, I loved Matthew’s recent article on who’s getting the precious few entry level jobs in Hollywood. (Hint: nepotism.) “Disney erased FiveThirtyEight“ and “Did Las Vegas get too greedy?” by Nate Silver in Silver Bulletin I love media history and analysis, and there’s no one better to get the history of FiveThirtyEight than from Nate Silver, who wrote about his personal experience in one of my favorite pieces from this year. I also loved Nate’s breakdown of what’s causing Vegas’ woes, but I’ll offer one criticism, summarized as “Might I suggest antitrust?” Many centrists/center-right/libertarian thinkers (Nate is self-described as the latter) often don’t consider consolidation or antitrust as factors in policy issues like housing, America’s military readiness, or, in this case, Las Vegas. Even if libertarians want to debunk antitrust/consolidation concerns, I’d love to read that debunking. In this case, Vegas is incredibly consolidated (though it also has been for a long time) and I’d have loved to read Nate at least contending with this factor, since he addresses almost every other potential factor for Vegas’ decline. “Why Microsoft’s Carbon Removal Pullback Is Such a Big Deal“ by Robinson Meyer in Heatmap News I’m a big supporter of carbon removal efforts, but this nascent industry faces a lot of headwinds, including this big move most recently. I think it’s clear that solar panels and batteries should be able to get the world to its carbon footprint goals, but effective carbon renewal remains necessary to prevent the worst impacts of global warming. “AI is killing the cheap smartphone“ by David Oks LLMs and AI will impact the world in ways we’re not ready for, and already, third world countries are seeing the prices of cheap cellphones skyrocket due to the cost of chips skyrocketing. This article by David Oks is a terrific breakdown. “100 Days of Madness: Netflix, Paramount, Warner and the Future of Hollywood“ by Wade Major at Hollywood Heretic Wade Major dove deep into Hollywood/streaming’s financials in this must read piece. Not that I agree with everything in this article (read my take on Warner Bros./Paramount here) but the analysis is top notch. I think many people discount how quality thinking, regardless of the argument/conclusion, will make you a better thinker. “Erased by the UFC: Frank Shamrock, The MMA GOAT of the 20th Century“ by Nate Wilcox in The MMA Draw Newsletter Growing up playing the UFC fighting game on the Dreamcast, Frank Shamrock was my favorite MMA fighter, and this history/tribute to him was great. Other Fun Reads “The Hardest Part Of History To Tell Is How It Felt“ by Craig Fehrman at Defector “Unmasking the Sea Star Killer“ by Craig Welch at bioGraphic “What Could Save the Industry? Fin-Syn“ by Richard Rushfield in The Ankler Alex Rollins Berg in Underexposed on movie bumpers, pillow shots, Disney trash cinema, cult films, and Casablanca. David H. Montgomery in YouGov’s The Surveyor on punctuation marks, condiments, dinosaurs, and comic strips and kids media. “How Medium finally pivoted its way to profitability“ and “Why the best journalists on YouTube are all former Vox employees“ by Simon Owens in Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter “It’s Not Just You, Netflix Shows Have Gotten Slightly Shorter: Here’s What the Data Says“ by Kasey Moore at What’s on Netflix “Numlock Awards: How Diane Warren became the biggest loser in Oscar history“ by Nathaniel Rakich and “Numlock Awards: The Oscar Bait era is over. The Oscar Chum era is here.” by Walt Hickey & Michael Domanico at Numlock Awards
Is Taylor Swift's wedding televised or livestreamed? We have your answers
Taylor Swift might relish the spotlight. But her wedding to Travis Kelce will be out of sight – at least for now.
'Big Short' Michael Burry may have own version of 'Buffett effect'
Michael Burry from "The Big Short" told BI he doesn't believe his stock picks move markets, but several commenters said a "Burry effect" might exist.
If you still own one of these 6 popular Android phones, it's probably time to upgrade
Holding onto an old Android phone from Samsung, Google, or Motorola? It might be time to finally give in and upgrade.
America’s next 250? A revival of civic virtues might hold the key.
Democracy requires civic engagement – and it can sometimes seem to be falling short. But the seeds of renewal are visible, from potluck dinners to youth programs.
Something Is Going On With Mitch McConnell’s Health, and His Office Is Keeping Mighty Quiet About It
McConnell checked into a hospital last month. We don’t know why.
Rockies' Top Prospect Ethan Holliday Lands Major Off-Field Opportunity
The Rockies' No. 1 prospect might not be playing on the field right now, but he is about to be in the national spotlight.
Pixel users aren't receiving calls, but the issue might be Google's phone app
What if you missed a call and there was an issue, or worse?
Ocasio-Cortez endorses Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan Senate race
New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave her coveted endorsement Thursday to Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive Senate candidate in Michigan who party leaders have worried might be too left-leaning to win in the swing state.
Samsung is upgrading your Galaxy Watch, even if it might seem like something's missing
Samsung is removing the Vascular Load feature from Galaxy Watch devices in the US, but there's new feature replacing it.
The Iran MOU is a mess. It still might work
The 14-point “Memorandum of Understanding” is among the oddest international agreements in recent memory. Short on detail, its two pages purport to grant significant up-front American concessions to Iran in exchange for opening the Strait of Hormuz, which was already open before the war President Donald Trump started in February and now hopes to end.
It’s one of the biggest mysteries of the cosmos: What are these little red dots?
Massive galaxies? Dusty black holes? Black hole stars? Scientists have raised a lot of theories around what the crimson blobs in James Webb data might be.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rent crusade might be coming to your city
Rent control movements surge in Massachusetts, California
Lawmakers takes another crack at easing privatization of youth sports
House bipartisan committee addresses private equity’s "vertical integration" that has youth sports costs soaring. What might come out of the hearing?
Sony will cease production of discs for new PlayStation games in 2028
New games sold for PlayStation consoles will only be available digitally and won’t be sold on discs effective January 2028, Sony has announced. The move applies to all PlayStation games released from that point on, including those made by Sony and those released by third parties. The PlayStation group calls the change “a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” according to a PlayStation blog post reviewed by Game File in advance of its publication. As movies, TV and music have shifted from physical media to an age of downloads and streaming, Sony’s move could speed the demise of physical media in a gaming. The industry has offered consumers games via cartridges, cassettes, floppy discs, CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays across a 50-year stretch. Sony has been reporting to investors in recent years that PlayStation games have been increasingly purchased as downloads, not as discs. The most recent figures show nearly four in five purchases of full games for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 were purchased digitally in the past year. Stats like that may cause today’s news to carry an air of the inevitable. But Sony’s declaration for 2028 is still likely to produce a shock, as the biggest gaming platform on the planet that uses game discs leaves them behind. Discs going away, but the fate of game boxes is unknown Sony is committing to still selling games in physical retailers even after they drop discs in 2028. Just how those games will be sold—in boxes with codes inside, as cards marked with digital redemption codes—is unclear. Digital games will also continue to be sold in the online PlayStation Store. New games released for PlayStation consoles prior to January 2028 will be unaffected by the policy change, Sony says. That means the PS5 games of 2027, be they a new Madden, a new God of War, a new Call of Duty, a new Sly Cooper (one can dream?), would still potentially be offered on disc. PlayStation 6 implications Sony’s timeline for a transition to a no-disc era will also spin up more speculation about the timing and configuration of Sony’s next-generation console, the probable PlayStation 6. “This pretty much guarantees that PS6 won’t arrive until 2028 at the earliest,” Piers Harding-Rolls, senior games research analyst at Ampere Analysis tells Game File. Harding-Rolls also concludes from today’s news that “the base version of a PS6 will not include a physical media drive,” as Sony looks to keep costs down on the device. Sony itself is saying nothing about the PS6 today: not its timing, nor how it might or might not support internal or external disc drives in order to run disc-based PS4 and PS5 games, should the console be backwards compatible. The many signs this was coming Industry support for games being released on physical media has been waning. As has consumer interest in them. PC games effectively went all-digital years ago, thanks to the popularity of playing games through Steam and other digital storefronts. The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that kept much of the global population home helped shift shopping patterns toward downloads. Sony’s own data shows PlayStation game downloads being an uncommon consumer choice a decade ago and now becoming the norm. On consoles, physical media has been in such decline that Sony and Microsoft both launched their current gen Xbox Series and PS5 consoles in 2020 with cheaper versions that lacked disc drives. In early 2024, Phil Spencer, then head of Xbox, told me that ““[w]e ship games physically and digitally, and we’re really just following what the customers are doing.” He added that the game industry had become an outlier in still supporting disc-based entertainment, even as movies and TV have bailed on discs in favor of downloads and steaming: “Gaming consoles themselves have kind of become the last consumer electronic device that has a drive. And this is a real issue, just in terms of the number of manufacturers that are actually building drives and the cost associated with those. And when you think about cogs that we’re going to go put in a console—and as you have fewer suppliers and fewer buyers—the cost of the drive does have an impact.” Last year, the Nintendo’s Switch 2, which uses cartridges rather than discs, introduced the concept of game-key cards, which are physical media that contain no game, just a prompt for a download. Even disc-based games aren’t what they once were, now frequently containing just stubs of games rather than the whole thing. The website Does It Play has tested over 3000 games and found that, for example, that the disc version of this year’s hit 007: First Light, only contained the game’s first mission, with the rest needing to be downloaded. Beyond all that, last week brought the news that Grand Theft Auto VI, likely the biggest game launch this decade, will debut for PS5 and Xbox Series without a disc-based version. Today’s big news comes to you for free. Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and ensure more of my work is possible, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Discs helped define PlayStation However the trends in entertainment may be going, it is still remarkable to see PlayStation ditch discs given their importance in PlayStation history: In the late 1990s, the first PlayStation’s support for games on relatively cheap CD-ROMs instead of traditional game cartridges allowed the upstart console to outmaneuver cartridge-based systems from Nintendo and Sega, as it drove down game prices down in the process. (The cheaper disc format even prompted Final Fantasy VII maker Square to taunt Nintendo in a magazine ad, saying that if the game was “available on cartridge, it’d retail for around $1200.”) PlayStation devices often doubled as machines for watching movies and TV on the latest disc-based formats. In the late 2000s, for example, Sony’s pricy PS3 gained traction as a go-to device for playing then-novel Blu-Ray discs. In 2013, Sony effectively roasted the digital game-sharing restrictions proposed by rival Microsoft for its upcoming Xbox One console by showing how games could be shared for the then-upcoming PS4. In a 21-second clip that has over 20 million views on YouTube, one PlayStation executive simply handed a game box—presumably with disc inside—to another, who said “thanks.” Sony’s possible motivations The PlayStation announcement today cites “consumer preferences” and a shift away from discs among “the broader entertainment industry,” but does not delve into the decision-making process that brought Sony to this point. Sony is not discussing the economics of this move (I asked!), but there are a number of potential factors: Abandoning discs will spare Sony the cost of manufacturing and shipping them, which analysts and industry veterans I spoke to said could account for $1 or so of a game’s retail price. For first-party games, that’s direct savings for Sony, though the amount is limited by the winnowing percentage of people who were even buying the disc-based versions. For third-party games, Sony could pass the savings on to partners or just retain the better profit margin for themselves. As the 2024 comments from Phil Spencer alluded to, leaving discs behind could mean leaving disc-drives behind, allowing Sony to produce consoles more cheaply. Switching to digital-only for games could diminish the risks of copies of new games leaking. It would also seemingly make second-hand sales of used games impossible, pushing more people to buy their own copies of games. These economic benefits for Sony could be boons for the games industry overall, Ampere analyst Piers Harding-Rolls tells Game File. Among other things, it could free publishers and retailers from having to worry about securing an inventory of game discs when trying to sell games, he noted. “If there is a way to streamline the business of games retail, I generally think it’s a good thing for the industry as it removes unnecessary costs,” Harding-Rolls said. “This will help offset pressure on margins from other directions – development and staffing costs for example.” Should the industry shift from game boxes that contain discs to smaller, cheaper game cards, Harding-Rolls said, that reduces pressure on publishers and retailers. “The advantage of everything going digital for the industry is that sales can be tracked much more easily and there is less commercial risk for publishers wanting to continue selling via retail,” he said. The shift to no discs will also likely impact game development timelines, as developers will no longer face the same urgency to have a build ready to submit to PlayStation for the production of a disc, as industry experts noted around GTA VI’s no-disc news last week. Instead, projects may gain weeks of development time, in the event delivery deadlines for platform approval move closer to release date. Preservationists’ likely worries While millions of gamers have shifted to digital, there are still people who associate game discs—and only game discs—with actual ownership of PlayStation games. That portion of the gaming community spoke up last week about wanting to buy a version of GTA VI that they could hold in their hands, could lend to a friend and could potentially pop into a well-preserved PS5 console three decades from now and still see it run. Such gamers didn’t want to worry that they’d merely purchased a digital copy that could lose access to the game if, say, the company behind the game someday turns of the servers that transmit downloadable copies. Digital copies of games are inherently less long-lasting, because consumers aren’t actually buying a game (on a disc), just buying access to the game. The fine print in online gaming shops notes this, as does a recent law that went on the books in California in 2025. That lasw requires game publishers doing business in the state to refrain from words like “sell” when offering digital copies of games, unless they explicitly tell consumers that what’s being sold isn’t the game itself but a potentially revocable license to access it. A Sony spokesperson noted to Game File that “[w]ith all digital content, including games, movies, and music, players are purchasing a personal license for non-commercial use.” Regarding the fears of PlayStation games being lost to time in an all-digital era, the rep also noted that Sony remains “committed to delivering experiences from past generations to the new platforms our players are using.” They noted that PlayStation has used emulation and remasters to keep offering its classic games to modern gamers. It’s true that many consumers have become accustomed to not having physical copies of new music albums or movies, but the relative precariousness of digital copies of games is in fact being highlighted today by…. Sony’s other big announcement: the upcoming closure of the PS3 and PS Vita online stores Sony said today that it will be closing the online marketplaces for its PlayStation 3 console and PS Vita handheld in most countries in July 2027 (sooner elsewhere: August 2026 for the PS3 store Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua; late 2026 for PS3 in other Latin American countries and the Middle East). “We know this news may be disappointing to PS3 and PS Vita players who hold a special place in their hearts for this generation of gaming,” Sony said in its announcement, saying the move “was not an easy decision for us to make.” Sony said that PS3 and Vita marketplaces “are no longer able” to support modern commerce systems, prompting a “need” to close the shops and focus on more modern PlayStation platform stores. The news may spark some deja vu. Sony announced back in March 2021 that it planned to take the PS3, Vita and PlayStation Portable marketplaces offline that summer. The move would have caused some 2,000 digital-only games to become unavailable for new purchasers, according to a VGC analysis at the time. Fans complained loudly. By April 2021, Sony walked back the PS3 and Vita shop closures, with then PlayStation boss Jim Ryan saying “it’s clear that we made the wrong decision here.” This time around, Sony is giving a longer notice period in most regions. The closure of those stores is still likely to cut off access to new purchases of digital-only PS3 and Vita games. The current PlayStation 5 marketplace sells PS5 and PS4 games, as well as a selection of PS1 and PS2 games. It does not sell PS3 games, because games for that platform can’t run on the system (some are offered via a PlayStation Plus streaming option). Vita games also aren’t sold via PS5. Sony says digitally purchased PS3 and Vita games will be downloadable after the stores’ shutdowns “for the foreseeable future.” Sony’s move contrasts with Microsoft’s Xbox platform, which continues to sell and support games from all four Xbox console generations. But it puts it in line with Nintendo, which disabled purchases in the marketplace for its Wii console (a contemporary of the PS3) in 2019. Nintendo discontinued purchases in the online shop for its 3DS portable (a contemporary of the Vita) in 2023. The big questions about Sony’s 2028 post-disc era Will Microsoft follow suit, ending support for new disc-based games on Xbox platforms and therefore all game consoles, too? Whether Microsoft does or not, will third-parties that can no longer release games on discs for PlayStation, simply ditch the disc options across the board? Given the GTA VI no-disc experiment launching this November, will more game publishers decide to forgo disc-based offerings even in 2027? How will no-disc PS5/6 games be packaged and sold in brick-and-mortar retail stores? What becomes of game sharing in an all-digital era? Will Sony modify its current set-up, which currently allows some sharing of digital games across a pair of consoles, to allow more casual lending? (See for example, Nintendo’s year-old system of letting players lend a digital game to another player in a “family group” for up to 14 days.) Will there be a version of a PS6 with a disc drive? Or will a drive be offered as an add-on? And how will gamers who want to retain access to PS4/PS5 disc-based games react to whichever configurations Sony chooses to offer? What will the final disc-based PlayStation game be?
Ways and Means in early stages of tackling sports taxation
Republican and Democratic tax writers are interested in changing how collegiate and professional athletics are handled in the tax code — but they’re in the early stages of discussing what those changes might look like. Members of the House Ways and Means Committee during a nearly four-hour hearing Tuesday expressed a desire to come to […]
Weak hands and blurry vision: Are you getting a 'phone body'?
Your devices are changing your body in ways you might not realise. It's not too late to do something about it.
Taylor Swift might steal America’s thunder on its birthday weekend
(CNN) — Yes, it’s really happening.
How the Museum of Ice Cream and Other Companies Woo Visitors From Art Institutions
As arts institutions struggle to increase attendance, entertainment centers marketed as museums are wooing those who once might have gone to view art.
Baton Rouge General’s Health Tip of the Week: Man, it’s hot in here!
Sponsored by Baton Rouge General Night sweats affect nearly 45% of adults at some point, and while it might not be talked about as much as it is with women and menopause, men do experience those middle-of-the-night wakeups drenched in sweat. Low testosterone disrupting the body’s temperature regulation system is a big culprit, but there […]
LeBron On The Move
For the last few years, LeBron James’ name has popped up as someone who might be on the move in the NBA off-season. But few truly believed the future Hall of Famer would actually bolt from the Los Angeles Lakers. Now, it appears he actually won’t be playing for the Lakers in 2026-27. The source: ...
NFL offseason power rankings: No. 27 Las Vegas Raiders might finally have a plan, starting with Fernando Mendoza
Nutrition apps can help build healthy habits. For some users, their gaming features carry risks
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Netflix and Superheroes Are Having a Rough Stretch on Streaming....
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) I have a quick prediction before we start today’s article: You might see this data in future news articles. Not my specific charts or analysis, but the core trend I’ve been monitoring—Netflix is having a lackluster Q2—will become inescapable. Often, folks want to know “What does the data say?” Well, that’s what it says. I haven’t seen this analysis hit the trades really yet, but I have a feeling some other outlets are going to start making this case soon. Remember, you read it here first. You probably have read about the problems facing superhero films at the box office this weekend. Well, this week, I explore whether superheroes are dying on TV as well! And the data says: definitely maybe! We have a lot to cover in today’s Streaming Ratings Report, which covers the two weeks of 18-May and 25-May. Today, I’m just looking at TV, like Netflix’s disappointing Q2, superhero shows underwhelming, a few TV shows dropping off the charts, The Pitt finally ending its epic run on the viewership charts (and whether “view counts” change its status as one of the biggest shows of all time), all the flops, bombs and misses, and a whole lot more. Tomorrow, I’ve got a great rundown of the film side of things. Let’s dive right in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, Showlabs, TV Time trend data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of May 18th to May 31st, 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Television - Netflix’s Q2 Slump Continues Having analyzed streaming ratings for going on half a decade, I have learned to trust my gut, but I’m always relieved when I can find actual data to back it up. For example, after a string of very popular shows like Stranger Things, Bridgerton, The Lincoln Lawyer and The Night Agent came out, week after week, in January and February, my gut wondered if Netflix had enough new and returning TV shows to sustain them throughout the year. Since then, Netflix’s post-March slate of shows has not impressed me. This week seemed to feature a potential new hit, but then, like a classic Duffer Bros. TV show, there was a twist. I speak of The Boroughs, Netflix’s latest (and last) Duffer Bros. produced show. The pitch is “Stranger Things with older actors”. And it topped the Nielsen charts: With just two weeks of viewership, The Boroughs would have been a top 25 debut show last year: But here’s the twist: Netflix has already cancelled The Boroughs! What happened? Likely a few things. First, the show didn’t do as well globally as it did in the US. As What’s on Netflix showed, it lagged behind several other shows that got cancelled. Second, its completion rate was likely low; after an initial burst of interest, it quickly dropped off on the Samba TV and Luminate charts. Third, the Duffer Bros. left Netflix for Paramount, and that may have factored into Netflix’s decision here. (Though I tend to believe that if a show is doing well, Netflix would have kept greenlighting seasons.) Still, just because I can explain why Netflix may have cancelled this show doesn’t mean I’m justifying it. In particular, as I’ve noted before, Netflix is losing a lot of their bigger shows as they reach their natural ends, and they need to replace those shows. This show had the hallmarks of a big new genre show, and it’s their biggest hit of the last few months (in the US at least), but now it’s done. Netflix’s other show this week—The Four Seasons, the second season of the “hit” show from last year—definitely disappointed. Its sophomore season had about half the viewership of the first, only 12.7 million hours. It also only had a two week run on Samba TV, and its numbers were all down on Luminate too. In other words, even with two successes, the Q2 slump for Netflix looks real: I could add to the list of disappointments: Both Lord of the Files and Man on Fire had short runs on the Nielsen charts. Running Point’s sophomore season also opened to about half its viewership, similar to The Four Seasons. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’s second season—see below—didn’t even make any of the three viewership charts I track, unlike the first season. Netflix is absolutely having a dismal second three months of 2026. If this Nielsen data is any indication, and I think it is, I think this will show up in Netflix’s engagement report, and maybe even their financial outcomes. And the rest of June doesn’t look much better. We have two hit shows coming back—Sweet Magnolias, one of their quietest big shows, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, a big hit for them in 2024—but the other big swings are limited series crime thrillers i.e. no future season potential. Like I said above, sometimes when I uncover a juicy nugget like this, other outlets end up writing very similar articles mimicking the data without credit. We’ll see if that happens this time! Share Television - The State of Superhero Shows on Streaming When I first heard the pitch for Spider-Noir—a Sony TV show on Prime Video that binge-released eight episodes first on MGM+ then on Prime Video two days later—I had my doubts. It’s a live-action Spider-Man show set in the 1930s, starring Nicholas Cage, based on a cameo of a character in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. No, seriously, that’s the pitch. That could either go terrifically well or horribly wrong. Great because, Spider-Man. He’s the biggest superhero we have. I’ve seen tracking numbers that put the new _Spider-Man: Brand New Da_y as the blockbuster of the year and initial pre-sales back that up. And yet this Spider-Noir pitch feels very esoteric. (Also, the eight-episode binge release feels very “Amazon copying Netflix” again.) So what’s the data say? And what does this say about the future of superhero shows?
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