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Emboldened Democrats gear up to challenge Trump over Iran war, Gulf business ties
Democrats are weighing options to enforce Congress’ authority to declare war.
Quentin Lake says Justin Herbert was ‘seeing ghosts’ against Rams
The Los Angeles Rams are currently gearing up for their upcoming game on the road vs the Washington Commanders. The Rams are coming off a dominant home win over the spiraling Los Angeles Chargers , one in which they held the Chargers’ offense to just nine points on the afternoon. Now, Rams safety Quentin Lake has given his glowing review of how the […] The post Quentin Lake says Justin Herbert was ‘seeing ghosts’ against Rams appeared first on ClutchPoints.
Call of Duty: Warzone Season 1 Brings Hajin, Zodiac and a Full Level Reset
Call of Duty: Warzone Season 1 starts November 6 with the Hajin and Zodiac maps, a level reset, new field gear and Modern Warfare 4 weapons.
Citizen's Rugged Eco-Drive Field Watch Just Got a Lot More Affordable
The brand's solar-powered timepiece is at its lowest price ever thanks to Amazon's current sale.
The Borderlands series has sold over 100 million copies, and Gearbox is "cooking hard on more Borderlands 4 content for next year"
Gearbox has announced that its looter shooter series Borderlands has sold over 100m copies, but it's still "taking a bigger look at the franchise as a whole."
Gearbox Calls on Fans to Help Shape the Next Borderlands, Teases 'Exciting Overall Direction' For the Future of the Franchise
Borderlands developer Gearbox has called on fans to let it know what they want next from the next game in the franchise, as work begins on “an exciting overall direction.”
3 Burning Questions Ahead of Suns' Rematch With Warriors
The Phoenix Suns and Golden State Warriors are gearing up for another tense battle.
My mom invented a stroller blanket. Now we run the business.
Chana Campora's mom invented a stroller blanket after moving to NYC from Paris. Now they run the baby gear company 7 AM Enfant together.
Advancing Active Acoustics: How Scientists Use Sound to Monitor a Three-Dimensional Ocean
The ocean is a three-dimensional world. Life moves vertically and horizontally through the water, often across large areas and at depths scientists cannot easily observe. Active acoustic technology gives researchers a tool to sample what’s hidden under the surface, gathering information that nets and other sampling gear cannot capture.
Gears of War: E-Day's "$500 million budget" story oversimplifies The Coalition's contribution to Xbox
Over the past few weeks, I've been investigating Gears of War: E-Day's budgetary discourse ahead of looming, widely expected layoffs. Here's what I've discovered so far.
Your PlayStation 5 Can Play PS2 Discs, But You'll Have To Do Some Extra Legwork
Learn how to play PS2 discs on a PS5 using the PS5SX2 emulator: jailbreak firmware limits, SSD disc dumping, CD-ROM hurdles, and emulation setup steps.
The earliest Saints’ Jordyn Tyson could return from hamstring injury
The New Orleans Saints are currently enjoying a bye week as they gear up for next week’s clash against the Cleveland Browns. The Saints sit at 2-5 on the season, having played every game so far without first round draft pick wide receiver Jordyn Tyson , who has been dealing with a prolonged hamstring issue. Now, the team has gotten the latest […] The post The earliest Saints’ Jordyn Tyson could return from hamstring injury appeared first on ClutchPoints.
Why you can’t wear, bring political gear to a polling place in these states
States have different guidance regarding electioneering at or near a polling place.
Why blaming Xbox players for 'Gears of War: E-Day' sales is completely ridiculous
Xbox gamers are not to blame for 'only' a reported 400,000 sales, and you are not any less of a customer or fan for using Xbox Game Pass to your advantage.
Why you can’t wear, bring political gear to a polling place in these states
States have different guidance regarding electioneering at or near a polling place.
5 Of The Best Leatherman Multitools For Gardening
From pruning stubborn branches to fixing garden fixtures, these Leatherman multitools are resourceful companions that won't get dusty in your garage.
17 Cool New Gadgets to Keep on Your Radar
Catching you up on the past week’s most notable product releases.
5 New Foldable Phones To Consider Instead Of The iPhone Duo
Compare top foldable alternatives to the iPhone Duo: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Pixel 11 Pro Fold, Galaxy Z Flip 8, Xiaomi 18 Fold, and Motorola Razr.
Will Josh Shapiro’s Data Center Past Haunt his Political Future?
As Pennsylvania’s popular governor gears up for a potential presidential run, his reversal on the issue draws scrutiny.
5 Of The Best Leatherman Multitools For Camping
Explore 5 of the best Leatherman multitools for camping: outdoor survival on the Signal, premium ARC MagnaCut, versatile Wave Plus, Skeletool, and Wingman.
Celtics Prove NBA Cup Scoring Has More Than One Gear
Payton Pritchard scores 30 and the Celtics crush the Bulls 125-111. Boston shows deep scoring options for the NBA Cup run per NESN.
Gears of War: E-Day Reportedly Cost $500 Million to Make, Amid Claims It Has Sold Just 400,000 Copies
Gears of War: E-Day reportedly cost $500 million to make, amid claims it has sold just over 400,000 copies.
Election '26: Local officials discuss early voting, federal monitors
The Department of Justice is gearing up to send 1,000 election monitors to sites around the country on Election Day. Champaign County is expected to be among them, said County
Suns Provide Positive Oso Ighodaro Update Prior to Nuggets Matchup
The Suns and Nuggets are gearing up for an NBA Cup battle. Read more on the tenuous status of Oso Ighodaro, as well as Nuggets players.
The latest Google Home update goes way beyond Gemini and fixes your Nest gear too
This is a big update!
'It Hasn't Made Any Difference': Gears of War PS5 Cancellation Fails to Boost Xbox
"In fact, it keeps getting worse"
The Gear Patrol Holiday Gift Edit: 125+ Ideas for 2026
The 2026 Gear Patrol Holiday Gift Edit collects fresh finds, proven standbys and worthy splurges across tech, whiskey, watches and more.
Kingwood Ballet gears up for 42nd annual Nutcracker performance
Kingwood Ballet will host its 42nd annual Nutcracker performances Dec. 5-6 and debut The Little Mermaid in the spring.
USC defense gears up for Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State
The Trojans will welcome No. 2 Ohio State to town, tasked with trying to limit a Heisman frontrunner.
The science behind the screams: Inside Mishawaka’s Legend Park
Halloween is almost here, and local attractions are gearing up for a spooktacular weekend."Fear Itself" at Mishawaka's Legend Park is offering theatrical experi
Downtown businesses celebrate season with ghost scavenger hunt
CASPER, Wyo. — There is still time for downtown Casper shoppers to become intrepid ghost hunters as businesses in the district are gearing up for the
Spacewalk Preps, Robotics Jobs, and Science Duties Fill Tuesday Schedule
Spacewalking tools and a pair of robotics jobs topped Tuesday’s schedule aboard the International Space Station. The Expedition 75 crew members also kept up their scientific duties configuring botany research hardware and setting up advanced Earth observation gear.
Which Diamondbacks are entering free agency?
Here is a guide to the Diamondbacks' free agents, as the offseason will kick into gear after the World Series.
I Tested Every Major AI Agent for a Day. Here’s the Best One
I ranked six AI agents—from Meta’s Muse to Anthropic’s Claude Duet—on how well they completed basic tasks.
5 new businesses opening in the Upstate soon. See what's coming and when
See what businesses are new in the Upstate or gearing up to open soon.
13 Practical Tools You Should Carry For Fall Camping
Autumn is a glorious time to get the max use out of your camping gear. These tools will supplement your summer kit for an enhanced fall experience.
12 Fun USB-C Gadgets For Your Home Office Desk
Some fun USB-C desk gadgets include the Dockcase Explorer Smart USB-C Hub, Raspberry Pi 500, Creative Pebble SE, Kodak Charmera, and the Divoom Ditoo Pro.
11 Cool Mini-Gadgets You May Not Realize Exist
You probably weren’t looking for a remote-control paper plane or a $600 calculator. Fair enough. They exist anyway, and they’re weirdly hard to ignore.
9 Cool Camping Features Built Into Oliver Travel Trailers (And 3 You Can Add Yourself)
The utility you can get with an Oliver Travel Trailer these days will surely enhance your next camping trip, but there is even more than meets the eye.
6 Tech Brands Owned By Best Buy
Best Buy owns several tech brands, including Insignia, Rocketfish, and Best Buy Essentials, that offer competitive performance and value.
12 Cool New Gadgets to Keep on Your Radar
Catching you up on the past week’s most notable product releases.
30 New Watches You Missed from Casio, Breitling, Oris and More
The past week has seen new watch releases from Casio, Breitling, Oris and many more favorites. Here's what you missed.
Ukraine: Explosive weight soldiers could put on drone surprised maker
Drones' explosive power is limited by gear, like batteries, that they must carry. But soldiers push gear to the limit, surprising even its makers.
How Much Would It Cost To Build A PC That Can Compete With The PS5 Pro?
The price of the PS5 Pro continues climbing. If you're going to shell out that much, maybe you should consider building a similar PC. How much would that be?
Pittsburgh Penguins Face Another Key Absence Against Predators
The Pittsburgh Penguins are gearing up to take the ice on Saturday and will be without one of their key skaters against the Nashville Predators.Per Pens Inside Scoop, “Dan Muse said that Evgeni Malkin (illness) will not play tonight, so Avery Hayes is in. And Arturs Silovs will start in goal against Nashville.”The former is […] The post Pittsburgh Penguins Face Another Key Absence Against Predators appeared first on HEAVY.
When does ‘Mayor of Kingstown’ season 5 premiere? Inside the crime drama’s final chapter
‘Mayor of Kingstown’ is gearing up for one last showdown. Here’s what to expect from the fifth and final season, including its premiere date and the new threat coming to Kingstown.
Toonz 4 Tots gears up for Nov. 7
PUNXSUTAWNEY — In case you haven’t noticed that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the stores, another sure sign of the upcoming season is the annual Toonz
Kindle Unlimited Vs. Kindle+: What's New With Amazon's Rebranded E-Book Subscription?
The newly-renamed Kindle+ remains the same price and scope as it was as Kindle Unlimited, but Amazon has added AI-powered audiobook narration options.
New Quincy business brings recreation supplies, ammunition closer to home
For outdoor enthusiasts in Plumas County, finding the right gear for a day of fishing, a weekend in the backcountry or a hunting trip can sometimes mean a
Palmetto Sports Daily: Bryce Young gears up for 50th career start
PSD returns with a preview of the Panthers looking to stay hot against the Buccaneers.
Gears of War: E-Day, Cancelled Last-Minute for PS5, May Have Cost Half a Billion to Make
Fenix down
State Fair of Louisiana Celebrates 120 Years with Championship Rodeo, Family Fun and Entertainment
Photo Courtesy of State Fair of Louisiana SHREVEPORT, La. — A Louisiana tradition 120 years in the making is gearing up for another exciting celebration as the State Fair of Louisiana returns to Sh…
State Fair of Louisiana Celebrates 120 Years with Championship Rodeo, Family Fun and Entertainment
Photo Courtesy of State Fair of Louisiana SHREVEPORT, La. — A Louisiana tradition 120 years in the making is gearing up for another exciting celebration as the State Fair of Louisiana returns to Sh…
How well have past GOTY winners sold?
We’re less than two months away from 2026’s The Game Awards, and what a year it’s been for fantastic games, including Resident Evil Requiem, Forza Horizon 6, Slay the Spire II, the Blood of Dawnwalker, and Control Resonant – just to name a few. So as we approach the end of the year, we thought we’d look back on our estimates for the GOTY winners of the past four years. In terms of revenue, Elden Ring (2022 winner), Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), Astro Bot (2024), and Expedition 33 (2025) have generated a combined $3.8B via 73M copies sold: Let’s have a look, then. Elden Ring has generated $2B in revenue Elden Ring is a phenomenon in every sense. It’s sold a whopping 36.4M copies across Steam (50%), PS5 (35%), and Xbox (15% across console and PC). Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Elden Ring also just passed an astronomical milestone: $2B in revenue. While PlayStation and Xbox account for half of Elden Ring’s copies sold across these three platforms, they account for 57.5% of revenue. This – as ever – is due to regional pricing and the higher relative share of PC gamers in lower-priced markets. For example, around 17.4% of Elden Ring’s Steam copies sold were in China, where the game costs about 26% less than the price in the States. There’s an … interesting narrative going around these days that console gamers are only interested in ball-and-gun games and have the patience for little else. Well, Elden Ring’s impressive sales prove that is simply not true, and across all platforms. What’s more, over 9.8M people have played Elden Ring for over 100 hours, with nearly 3.5M people getting all of the achievements and trophies. For reference, 10.9% of Elden Ring’s PlayStation players have the platinum trophy, while 10.5% of players on Steam and 3.9% of Xbox players unlocked all the achievements. Git gud, Xbox players! Of the 1.5M people who played Elden Ring on PlayStation last month, 4% also played Dark Souls 3 last month, 4% played Bloodborne, and 3% played Sekiro. There’s those Soulsborne diehards for you. By many accounts, including my own, Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time. It’s an evergreen seller that will continue to be a cash cow for Bandai and FromSoftware for years to come. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Elden Ring has sold another 2M copies across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox this year, generating almost $110M. This means it’s outperforming many of this year’s high-profile releases. Even Elden Ring’s standalone run-based PvE spinoff, 2025’s Nightreign, has sold 7.8M copies and generated $282M in revenue. Baldur’s Gate 3 is another billion-dollar-plus banger Another cross-platform phenomenon is Baldur’s Gate 3, which has sold 23.2M copies and generated over $1.2B in revenue. About 18.7M of these copies (80.6%) are via Steam, 2.9M via PS5 (12.7%), and 1.6M (6.8%) via Xbox. Around 1.3M folks on Steam bought BG3 before it hit 1.0. The PlayStation version launched about a month after the PC 1.0 release, while the Xbox version came four months later due to technical issues around developing local co-op on the Series S. Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Across platforms, Baldur’s Gate 3’s monthly active users have never dropped below 2M, including 2.2M MAUs last month (68.5% on Steam, 21.9% on PS5, and 9.6% on Xbox). And it still regularly brings in 280K to 400K players every day: About 1% of BG3’s Steam player base has played for over 500 hours! That’s a little under 200K people. Astro Bot is also an evergreen seller, albeit a more niche, family one Astro Bot, 2024’s winner, has now sold 4.7M copies and generated $291M in revenue. The budget, including marketing, is almost certainly under $100M, given the small Japan-based core team and three-year dev timeline. You can really see why the tides are changing toward less expensive hubs. Astro Bot is the only first-party winner on this list, but follows other first-party winners of The Last of Us Part II (2020’s winner), God of War (2018), and Breath of the Wild (2017). Around 46.6% of Astro Bot’s copies sold have been physical, which is far higher than the typical game. This makes sense for a couple of reasons: There’s a large family audience for this one, and physical boxes are an item to wrap when giving Astro as a gift. Astro has collector value for the PlayStation core (this is nostalgia-fueled platformer celebrating PlayStation’s history) Want more free estimates and insights in your inbox twice a week? Subscribe below! Subscribe Astro is another one of those games that continues selling over time, regularly selling more than 100K a month. It’s sold around 1M more copies this year ($60M in revenue) and is a popular title with families. We can see this using the Alinea platform’s MAU crossover tool: Astro Bot’s top #2, #3, and #4 games by crossover in any given month this year are Minecraft, Fortnite, and Roblox – without fail. The #1 title every month, though, is Astro’s Playroom, a pack-in with all PS5 consoles. For every month this year, between 20% and 30% of Astro Bot players also played Astro’s Playroom that month. So the free pack-in is a noice funnel for converting players to a full paid product. Expedition 33 sells 8.7M despite Game Pass cannibalisation Finally, we have last year’s winner – Expedition 33. The turn-based-RPG banger has generated $366M via 8.7M copies sold, with 58.8% on Steam, 35.7% on PS5, and 5.5% on Xbox. Xbox’s share of copies sold is this low due to Expedition 33 launching on Game Pass, where 4.3M people across console and PC accessed the game. A little under 700K Xbox players used their subscription to play Expedition 33 this year. That said, the game’s 1.5-year Game Pass deal ended last week on October 16, and we’re already beginning to see a positive trend on Expedition 33’s copies sold via Xbox (but the jury’s still out!). There’s understandably a lot of French pride behind this one, as France is the game’s #3 market on both Steam and PlayStation. Vive la France! One thing that stood out to me is that the GOTY winners aren’t $300M Hollywood productions made in the US. They’re mostly mid-budget studios outside the traditional AAA cost centres. Lots to think about there. Also, good games sell well; who’d have thunk it!? And there’s a whole load of them this year, with GTA 6 still to come, too. GTA just made the cutoff point for the VGAs this year. What a coincidence! Loading... Cool links and other stuff Our physical games newsletter from Tuesday was picked up by GameSpot, Eurogamer, TweakTown, and a bunch of others. We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply right here on Substack/email, and we’ll set you up. Next week, we’ve got some exciting news regarding the future of our newsletter, so stay tuned! The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. Want to see why these companies (and many others) are subscribed to Alinea? Get a free platform trial! [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
G-Shock's Affordable "CasiOak" Successor Is Here, and It Looks a Lot Like Another Bucket-List Sports Watch
G-Shock says the 2500 series takes after its original 1983 octagonal watch. Some excited fans are convinced about another horological icon.
The Case For Exclusivity When Gears Of War: E-Day Cost Over $500 Million To Make
Xbox's big 2026 console exclusive was a money pit
New Arrivals in the ER? Georgia Gears Up To Solve Rural Maternal Health Crisis
Most of Georgia’s counties are without a labor and delivery unit. To fill the gap, the state is looking to equip emergency rooms to handle obstetric emergencies. Advocates and doctors worry, however, that the ER is being used as a stopgap.
Leica and Formula 1 Shift Into Gear With Limited Edition Q3 43
The Leica Q3 is the company's most popular model.
Hospitals: Federal changes will worsen Minnesota healthcare crisis
Minnesota hospitals had a record high of over 2 million emergency department visits in 2024. That year, more than a quarter of hospitals lost money on operations. The Minnesota Hospital Association painted a bleak picture of Minnesota healthcare Tuesday in a new report titled “A Statewide Crisis of Care.” The hospitals are gearing up for […]
Bleu Provence hosts wine event to support local charities
SWFL Children’s Charities, Inc. recently hosted their second wine series event in Naples geared at bringing like-minded women together around a great cause and supporting restaurant & winery partners during
Roland n/vision Review: Vision for the Future or Late to the Party?
The new Roland n/vision is the company’s first true wavetable synth. Can the latest addition to the Boutique series hold its own against the competition?
A Beloved Hi-Fi Specialist Just Dropped a Gorgeous Pair of Audiophile Loudspeakers
The revered audio brand's entry-level loudspeaker range just got a new addition.
The RTX 5090 Isn’t 'Alive' if It Costs $10,000, No Matter What Nvidia Says
Nvidia's flagship GPU may still be in production, but that isn't saying much for the state of Nividia's RTX 50-series lineup.
Vibe coding is turning the music gear world upside down
LLMs have led to an explosion of custom firmware and hacks for synths, samplers, and grooveboxes.
Trained community volunteers to monitor seagrass for study
The research is geared toward finding the best ways to train community volunteers to collect data on underwater seagrasses in waters throughout the state in a program led by Coastal Carolina Riverwatch and the University of North Carolina Wilmington and funded by North Carolina Sea Grant.
This Pocket-Sized Multitool Is An Affordable Leatherman Alternative
If you're looking for a new multi tool for your EDC, there's a new alternative on Kickstarter that you should definitely check out. Here are the details.
Political organizations on campus gear up for Election Day
Students on Elon University’s campus are getting prepared for the midterm elections. Two groups on campus are trying to do their part to get students excited and interested in local and national elections. The College Democrats and College Republicans chapters at Elon have both been involved in civic engagement, bringing local candidates to campus and trying to bridge the gap for politically disengaged students at Elon. To do this, both organizations have hosted or participated in events that emphasize the upcoming election.
Streaming’s Biggest Show Returns…and a Buzzy Genre Struggles
(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.) Obviously, the big news of the week (if not month) is Netflix letting go of executive Bela Bajaria, their chief content officer. I’m going to cover this in my next “Most Important Story of the Week”, but I also have a data angle that I might publish before then. (Too much news this month, am I right?) But first, I have a bonus Streaming Ratings Report issue for you. Today’s article is a bit of a grab bag of topics I’ve wanted to write about, but couldn’t squeeze into the (already very long) Streaming Ratings Report issues. The NFL drives huge viewership numbers, so I’ve got a look at that. A whole bunch of TV shows returned to the traditional broadcast channels, and I have thoughts. And I have a quick look at adult animated shows, since a couple flopped earlier this month. Plus, the Emmys aired earlier this month, and we got some fun data bout how popular those nominated shows are and why I’m not optimistic about the show’s future. That’s a lot, so let’s dive right in. Subscribe Sports - Football Remains the King of Streaming Over the last two Streaming Ratings Reports, I sorta ignored the biggest “show” each week. (I was tempted to say “piece of content” but I know that word bugs folks.) In my database, I call these “specials”, and they sure are special. I speak of the king of American TV: football!!! Streaming football is back and, unlike some other sports, it routinely dominates all viewership. Probably the best way to show this is to update one of my favorite graphics, the “40 Million Hour Club”1 since football games have joined that club each week they’ve premiered: (Yep, that’s the data through 28-Sep, the first four weeks of the season. As a reminder, I take the average minute audience provided by Nielsen, factor out a percentage of linear TV viewers in home markets, and multiply the run time by the three-hour runtime.) Again, the numbers are huge. Let’s start with Netflix. They grabbed the rights to the bonus opening week NFL Kickoff game (which was on YouTube last year) and it put up 18.5 million viewers on average. That nets out to 47.4 million hours of estimated streaming hours. That’s good! Though, notably, it’s well below Christmas Day games from previous years. Compared to other streamers/broadcasters, that’s a bit of a mixed result. On one hand, Netflix’s 18.5 million average is about what YouTube claimed last year, though Nielsen used a bespoke methodology at that time, so I trust this viewership figure more. So that’s good. (The game also shifted from a Friday to a Thursday and that could have helped the viewership as well.) And Netflix continues to best Prime Video in total viewership—as you’ll see next—though Netflix has had much higher-profile (opening week and Christmas Day) games. NBC/Peacock’s opening game the night before averaged 25.1 million average viewers, which is just much bigger than Netflix (or Prime Video). That’s the big caveat to all streaming viewership records: even in success, they can’t compete with traditional linear TV. Previously, I called this my “hierarchy of viewership”, and the data keeps supporting that thesis. The downside for NBC is that this game’s viewership was down compared to previous years, though it may be a counting issue. Here’s a great chart from Sports Media Watch: Indeed, looking at all the opening week games across all windows, Netflix still lags the other primetime windows, but does well compared to the afternoon games: I saw a few folks make the case that streamers still lag traditional broadcasters in reach, and I’d add they really lag compared to “broadcast plus streaming” options like NBC/Peacock, ESPN/Disney+ and CBS/Paramount+. The best data I saw for this came from Samba TV, who charted reach through the 2025 season, and, wow. (Samba TV’s numbers are historically lower than Nielsen’s, so don’t compare their household figures to Nielsen’s hours, but use them as a proxy for the relative reach of the streamers.) The good news is Prime Video is NOT having a down year. Their opening Thursday Night Football game reached 18.6 million viewers (about what Netflix got), but that’s a high for Prime Video on Thursdays and the biggest Thursday night game since 2015. The TNF games the weeks of 21-Sep and 28-Sep continued this streak, getting 43.1 (16.8 million average viewers) and 42.5 total hours (16.6 million average viewers), which were both up from last year. Still, that continues the (typical) season slide: (For those new-to-streaming-football-numbers folks, the viewership declines for Thursday Night Football as the year goes along.) Overall, it appears as if Prime Video is now part of the “football habit”, be it for customers at home or out at places like bars and restaurants. And its viewership is slowly catching up to broadcast. One last chart shows this. Last season, Nielsen started adding out-of-home viewership to the charts, so I try not to do season-to-season comparisons as I did for the first few years. And while Nielsen added Big Data viewing this year, I’m going to compare the last two seasons. Here’s that chart, which shows the season-over-season gains: When it comes to streaming football, we have to keep a few seemingly contradictory thoughts in our head… First, streaming doesn’t come close to matching broadcast’s reach and, thus, viewership. Second, even with that gap, football is still the biggest “thing” on streaming. It’s very, very popular. Third, while some methodology changes have likely helped Prime Video’s numbers, their viewership does appear to be growing. Lastly, yeah, the NFL started the season off poorly, with week one dragging down the numbers in year-over-year comparisons. However—and again, methodology changes may have helped this—the viewership grew compared to previous seasons over the next couple of weeks. So football is still king. On streaming and off. Television - Adult Animation Continues to NOT Make the Streaming Charts In the last two reports, two adult-animated shows whiffed: Netflix’s animated comedy, Dang! Paramount+’s Sega-video-game-inspired fantasy/comedy, Golden Axe. Neither made the charts, but that’s usually the case for animated shows. I mean, here’s literally every animated show that’s made the Nielsen Original charts since the start of 2025: And one of those shows is G_abby’s Dollhouse_! A kids show! The problem with charts like this is that they don’t give you a sense of how many shows miss the charts. Netflix had at least eleven animated flops, including comedies like Big Mouth (a show everyone assumed was popular in the pre-Streaming Ratings Era), Long Story Short, Haunted Hotel, Mating Season, Strip Law, and Alley Cats, and action shows like Blood of Zeus, Castlevania: Nocturne, Devil May Cry, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, and Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. Prime Video had at least six animated misses, two in the same universe (Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss), three more comedies (#1 Happy Family USA, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy and Kevin) and an action show (The Mighty Nein). Disney+ had MCU and Star Wars animated misses (Eyes of Wakanda, Marvel Zombies, Star Wars: Visions, Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord, and Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld) but I can’t tell how many of those shows were geared towards adults. HBO Max had Harley Quinn and Hulu had Solar Opposites. None of these shows made the charts! That’s a lot of misses! If I remade the chart with all those misses, here’s how it would look: Listen, I know the counter arguments. First, it’s cheaper to produce animated shows than live action. Fair enough, but with viewership this low, even that cheaper price point starts to not matter. Second, just look at the acquired charts. Hit animated comedies can generate viewership for years! Shows like The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers do really, really well. Fair enough, but streaming has failed to recreate the dynamic that Fox has mastered so well. That’s a problem for streaming still. Television - Emmys! The annual Emmys broadcast was a few weeks ago, and I’ve got data on how the nominees performed on streaming, plus hot takes on this year’s viewership (and the big news about the broadcast’s, er, streamcast’s future). We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out… The top Emmy-nominated shows… ...why I’m worried about the future of the Emmys telecast... ...the pros of broadcast television ...and the cons... ...please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support. Coming Soon! Next week, we’ve got a double issue (since the weeks of 21-Sep and 28-Sep were so light), but then I’ll be all caught up after a deluge of streaming ratings data from Nielsen in September. In the meantime, I’m going to try to take a look at Netflix’s stats to explain why Bela Bajaria is out. But even light weeks give me plenty to talk about. The Great British Baking Show returns to Netflix and Apple TV has a buzzy new star-studded comedy. And Netflix has a controversial-but-appears-to-be-popular new game show. Plus big films like Toy Story 5, Backrooms and The Breadwinner head to streaming. And is East of Eden a hit? After that, The Kardashians return to Hulu, Prime Video has a reboot of Carrie, and Netflix has a horror show, Below. Disclosure Day heads to Peacock, The Housemaid heads to HBO Max_,_ a new Ben Affleck film, Animals, lands on Netflix, and Apple TV has a new John Cena action film based on, checks notes, Hasbro’s Matchbox toys. Okay. Longterm, some interesting TV production news. HBO Max ordered How to Survive Without Me, starring Kaley Cuoco, Joshua Jackson, Ray Romano and Rita Wilson, for fifteen episodes! I love that some streamers (or, at least, HBO Max) are finally ordering TV shows with more than eight episodes. In less wise production news, Landman does not appear to be coming back this year, since it just started production. Frankly, I don’t love this (get your shows out on time) but Landman is so popular, I doubt it matters.
14 Cool New Gadgets to Keep on Your Radar
Catching you up on the past week’s most notable product releases.
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Microsoft's latest Windows 11 perk will give new PC buyers 25 free Xbox games worth over $500
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How did political campaigns get so expensive?
The 2026 midterm elections are fast approaching, and it’s gearing up to be the most expensive election in American history. So how did we get here, where every election feels more expensive than the last? Today on the show, we’re exploring what’s causing the flood of money into our politics. Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.Your Next Listen –Bad economics, smart politics –Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR AppConnect with The Indicator from Planet Money–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks. –Instagram, TikTok and YouTube –Find the Planet Money book –Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
Employer Compliance Guide to 2027 Open Enrollment for Health and Welfare Benefits
It’s that time of year again – employers are gearing up for the administrative marathon known as open enrollment season, when employees revisit their benefit plan choices for the upcoming plan year. This critical period consistently highlights the many complex rules applicable to employer-sponsored health and welfare plans. We’ll cover five key legal considerations for employers and share practical takeaways to help you stay compliant.
Ubisoft plans cuts at German studios, adding to wave of workforce reductions
Ubisoft is planning to reduce its workforce in Germany, where it operates a trio of studios, by about 100 workers, Game File has learned. The company wants to offer employees buyouts to, should enough people accept, avoid having to lay anyone off. “In Germany, we initiated discussions with the Works Council last week regarding a proposed voluntary departure plan across Ubisoft Dusseldorf, Ubisoft Berlin & Ubisoft Mainz,” a company rep told Game File. A “works council” is a union-like group representing employees. “The voluntary plan is the primary measure being proposed to support the intended organizational changes,” the Ubisoft rep added. The company declined to confirm the scale of the potential headcount cut. Of the impacted studios, Mainz might be the best known to the public. It leads development of the Anno series and shipped the well-reviewed strategy game Anno 117: Pax Romana in November 2025. Berlin and Dusseldorf operate as support studios within Ubisoft’s creative network. Berlin recently supported the development of Rainbow Six Siege and the Rayman Legends Retold remake. Dusseldorf also contributed to those projects, as well as The Settlers and Ubisoft-branded escape rooms. Dusseldorf is the biggest of the three studios, with some 400+ workers, compared to just over 100 at the other two, a source familiar with the reductions and the teams told Game File. More than half of these new reductions of about 100 people are expected to happen at Dusseldorf. The planned cuts were announced at a town hall for the German studios on Tuesday of last week. In an email follow-up, the studio group’s managing director, Benedikt Grindel, said the cuts were intended to “best position our German studios for the future... with a clearer focus on their role, capabilities and organizational setup needed for the work ahead.” The email was an echo of the past. In January 2025, Grindel had emailed the Ubisoft developers in his region (or studio “zone”) to explain that a round of 185 cuts at the time, including about 65 at Dusseldorf, were “essential to improve our operational efficiency and ensure the long-term sustainability of our studios, the zone and the company.” A half-decade of continued job cuts Ubisoft has been aggressively cutting its headcount for years. At the end of September 2022, it had 20,729 workers. By the end of March 2026, that total was down to 16,590. Studio management is trying to trim costs as it grapples with a changing industry and a drought of releases, let alone hits. The company announced earlier this year that it had reduced its costs since 2022 by “nearly €325 million” ($362m) and planned to lower them through 2028 by another €180 million ($200m). In June the company said it was closing down its Winnipeg and Belgrade studios and cutting roles in its Barcelona team. Even commercial and creative success hasn’t spared studios from this ongoing company-wide contraction. As Game File was nailing down details around the proposed cuts in Germany, Ubisoft management was informing workers of cuts in its Singapore studio, which shipped a hit remake of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag this past July. Some 70 positions in Singapore are being eliminated “to align the studio with upcoming production needs,” per a company rep’s statement to Game File. In early 2024, a large team in the Singapore studio launched the multiplayer pirate game Skull & Bones. It performed poorly but has been supported with regular content updates since. Many of Ubisoft’s studios around the world are heavily subsidized via regional grants and tax breaks. Singapore had been among them for years, but received no such local assistance in the 12 months ending this past March. News of the Singapore cuts broke today alongside word that Ubisoft is also proposing the closure of RedLynx, pending negotiations with officials. The Finnish studio behind the motorbike series Trials was founded in 2000 and sold to Ubisoft in 2011. As reported by VGC (and corroborated by Game File), Ubisoft management told employees it could not come up with a new, sustainable assignment for RedLynx. The 2025 workforce at Ubisoft Dusseldorf were straight-up cuts. This time, Ubisoft is hoping the reductions at its trio of German studios will largely come from workers taking a payout to leave. The company offered such voluntary dismissals at its Massive Entertainment studio (The Division) a year ago. For the German studios’ buyouts this time around, Ubisoft and the Works Council had discussed a formula that’d pay a worker’s monthly salary multiplied by 1.5 and by the number of years they’ve worked at the company, according to Game File sources. The formula is still subject to negotiations with the Works Council and has not yet been part of an official offer to workers. It could be adjusted up or down, and it could be supplemented with additional bonuses. Asked about the floated payout formula, a Ubisoft rep told Game File, “The terms of a potential voluntary departure program remain subject to negotiation with employee representatives. No final agreement has been reached, and we won’t comment on specific proposals while discussions are ongoing.” Game File is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe Item 2: Epic’s AI adventures Epic Games (Fortnite, the Unreal engine) is all-in on using AI to try to transform the way it makes video games and game-making tools. It’s leaders appear to be undeterred by any resistance among gamers and some game developers around generative AI—and instead emboldened by advances, particularly in AI-assisted programming. A recap of the last three days: On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Epic management told workers last week that development of an upcoming game combining Star Wars and Marvel characters would be “AI first.” Employees would be expected to use AI models such as Claude to code the game. A manager told Epic’s developers there would be “[n]o more hand-written code” and that art for the game would be “generated with full AI workflows,” per the outlet. Just ahead of that story running, Epic founder Tim Sweeney tweeted: “We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration. The aim isn’t to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal.” In a follow-up, Sweeney predicted that most game development processes would be at least three times faster a year from now than they were in January 2026, thanks to AI. To a person on X who told him he was failing to read the room, Sweeney said: “Much of the room wants it to be 2016 again, but it’s not. Our job, as the provider of tools and technology to much of the industry, is to design for the present that is and the future that will soon be.” On Wednesday, Epic announced it was releasing a faster launcher for its Epic Games Store marketplace. It did so by stating in a blog post as clear as could be that the launcher is an AI-enabled, vibe-coded project: Programming is hard. So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look. Programming is hard? That was unexpected phrasing from a company founded by a legendarily great programmer. Back in 2011, Sweeney told me that he’d picked up programming quickly as a kid and rejoiced at the power it gave him. “I could look at any program that anybody else had written and, with enough effort, build something cooler.” Item 3: The Xbox Labs experiment (and one of the people behind it) Microsoft’s Xbox division, which is flooding the zone with announcements lately, yesterday revealed a new internal tech-tinkering team called Xbox Labs. In the words of Xbox boss Asha Sharma Labs is “a small group of game makers, engineers and scientists whose job is to turn emerging ideas into things our players and developers can experience.” Conventional wisdom coming out of the announcement is that Labs is a team that’ll focus on ideas driven by generative AI. In her announcement, Sharma cited some of the dizzying achievements in tech and gaming over the past month as AI agents and other AI tools have been deployed to swiftly figure out how popular games work, then rebuild them and mix them up. She mentioned seeing ”games rapidly decompiled and rebuilt to run on hardware they were never originally designed to support” and said “[p]erhaps more surprisingly, we’ve seen many of the biggest games in the world have been remixed into the source code of another.” (Minecraft plus Elden Ring, for example, or Fortnite + Super Monkey Ball + Overwatch + Diablo + others.) Sharma also cited the work of Windows PC games being ported to run in browsers, a seeming reference to a recent AI-assisted fan port of Halo. Or perhaps Call of Duty or GTA. Sharma didn’t use the specific term “AI” in her memo, but she came close, citing AI “agents” and their potential for game-making tools that Labs could help craft: I think XBOX has an important role to play here. Coding became the first major workload for agents because they can write, run, and test software. Games share many of those same properties, and people spend more than 72 billion hours a year playing XBOX games, roughly five times the estimated time spent writing code worldwide. We’ve spent 25 years learning how to make great games, and I want our game makers to help shape what these new technologies make possible. As we learn, we’ll share the tools we build with developers across the industry, just as we always have. When I asked an Xbox rep if Labs was an AI-centric team, they said genAI was not the focus, describing it as having a broader mandate for using new tech in new ways in gaming. As an example, they pointed to Xbox’s recently launched disc-to-digital gaming usage rights program. Microsoft didn’t specifically name anyone involved full-time in Xbox Labs yesterday, but on social media and LinkedIn, I spotted Adrian Mato IDing himself as leading the creatio of tools at Labs and talking up the launch. Mato first caught my attention in late September, when he said on X that he was “starting to build a new team at Xbox focused on products and tools for how games get built and distributed as agentic tools become more capable.” At the time, he framed AI-based tools as a supplement to traditional game dev tools. “I don’t think we need to replace them,” he said. Since then, he’s publicly shown interest in AI and in games. He’s recently spent some of his X feed marveling at the power of AI agents and praising the lighting in the latest Gears of War. Following the Labs announcement yesterday, he enthused about the Xbox Labs’ stylish landing page. He wrote: “We built some fun tools to art-direct shaders in real time, experimented with interactive ASCII art, and sprinkled in lots of tiny details. “Move your mouse to leave a colorful trail that reveals the original footage, or interact with the video to trigger bursts of particles. “A lot of love went into making it all feel just right. “More to come”
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