It has long been predicted that the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI would have an outsized impact on the gaming industry when it launches on November 19, but what might not have been as widely anticipated is how it would impact the sales of its 13-year-old predecessor, Grand Theft Auto V. According to recent data published by Alinea Analytics's Rhys Elliott, Grand Theft Auto V has sold a total of 150,000 copies in the first 13 days of November 2026 and garnered 16 million monthly active users to date for November, across all three platforms where it is available.

According to Elliott, 54.2% of new GTA V sales were on PS5, while 25.2% were on Steam, and an additional 20.6% were on Xbox. This follows a legendary run in Q2 2026, during which Take-Two Interactive says GTA V sold over 5 million copies, bringing its grand total to over 235 million sales and $10 billion in revenue. Previous estimates put the budget of the upcoming GTA VI at as high as $3 billion on salaries alone, suggesting the actual budget to be over $5 billion.

Xbox is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary, during which it announced 21 new games coming to the Xbox Backwards Compatibility program, and, as part of its anniversary celebrations, Microsoft and Xbox are giving PC gamers 25 Xbox Game Studios games for free when they register a new Windows 11 PC. The deal is valid in the US, and it is only valid for PCs purchased until December 31, 2026.

Some of the highlights in the game bundle include Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, Doom and Doom II, The Outer Worlds, and Gears of War: Reloaded. While Microsoft has been vague about the eligible devices, it includes select PCs with Windows Home or OEM and NVIDIA Spark PCs with Windows Pro. There is also a page on the Microsoft online store that lists eligible PCs, which include everything from the Microsoft Surface Pro 2-in-1 to the HP OmniDesk AI and the Dell Alienware Aurora desktop. PCs purchased from authorized retailers will also be eligible, and the announcement deliberately calls out gaming handhelds, like the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally.

The last Rainbow Six: Vegas game launched as far back as 2008, and the series has more or less been dormant since then. However, a recent report out of Insider Gaming claims that an insider at Ubisoft has confirmed that a new Rainbow Six: Vegas game is in the works.

Not much is known about the new Rainbow Six: Vegas game other than that it is in development and that Ubisoft is developing the game in its new Vantage Studios subsidiary, which is partially owned by Tencent. The new game in the Vegas series is known internally by the codename "Spades," and it is one of three new games Ubisoft is working on at Ubisoft Montreal. This also isn't the only Rainbow Six game in development, after Ubisoft's August reveal of Rainbow Six Tactics.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced the Razer Soma Pro and the Razer Soma Sensa HD Haptics, two gaming chairs with wireless connectivity that bring haptics into the seat, with the Soma Pro adding THX Spatial Audio and Razer Chroma RGB for a complete immersive experience.

Following the debut of the Soma Chroma, Razer's first RGB gaming chair, the Soma Pro and Soma Sensa HD Haptics complete a line built on one idea: immersion has evolved through sight and sound, yet the chair often stayed on the sidelines. Both chairs turn the seat into an active part of every session - built for gaming first, and just as immersive for movies, music, and streaming.

Valve has been seemingly working non-stop on developing SteamOS in order to deliver a competitive advantage over alternatives like Windows, with recent updates frequently polishing the overall user experience and fixing annoying bugs. The most recent update to the SteamOS beta channel, SteamOS 3.9.6, has just been pushed, with improvements to VRR, high framerate games, and high refresh rate monitors.

Aside from the usual line-up of bug fixes for edge cases, the update notes directly mention improved frame timing when using a combination of VRR and the framerate limiter, a change that will likely be noticeable in how games feel to play; improved frame timing without VRR and with the framerate limiter enabled, with specific mention of games with capped frame rates; and more consistent performance after CPUs waking from deep CPU idle states. Games capable of running at high refresh rates will also no longer run at low refresh rates on 240 Hz displays. The beta also corrects issues with Remote Play on NVIDIA GPUs and fixes SDR saturation with HDR10 output on non-wide gamut displays.

Xbox announced earlier in 2026 that it was bringing some of its classic Xbox games to PC in a new Xbox Compatibility program, although it initially only launched four games in that announcement. Now, as part of Xbox's 25-year anniversary celebration, Microsoft has announced that it will be releasing 21 additional classic Xbox games on PC. These games will also be playable on the Xbox Series and Xbox One consoles.

In addition to the new games, which are listed below, Xbox has also announced that it will be adding support for achievements in select Xbox games in the Backwards Compatibility program. At the time of writing, the list of games that support achievements on PC is short: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II—The Sith Lords, BLiNX: The Time Sweeper, and Conker: Live and Reloaded. It has also stated that more games in the program would be getting support for achievements further down the line.

Not long ago, Keychron announced Zephyr Gaming Mouse as an upcoming open-source firmware project for gaming mice. More recently, the peripheral maker announced MKF (Magnetic Keyboard Firmware), an open-source firmware project designed for TMR and Hall effect gaming keyboards. The project has yet to feature any public code contributions, but there is a landing page that outlines what Keychron aims to do with the project.

MKF is meant to serve as "an open firmware foundation for magnetic gaming keyboards, with room for the project and its community to grow," and its current feature outline includes support for the obvious, like 8 kHz polling, adjustable actuation, Rapid Trigger, and SOCD, but it will also apparently support custom response curves, PDO—sending more keypresses the deeper a key is held—and controller emulation. It currently seems as though only wired connectivity is planned for the initial release, but the project will be open to new features and use cases outside of competitive gaming.

AMD has reportedly cut its gaming GPU supply in China by at least 20% to 50% since the start of the fourth quarter in October. According to a November 12 post on Board Channels spotted by Videocardz, AMD's shortage is now comparable to NVIDIA's, with very few gaming chips going to add-in board (AIB) partners. Their monthly allocations are apparently still shrinking, and the source expects supply to remain extremely tight until January.

The same source describes Radeon prices in China climbing every quarter, with smaller increases month to month within each quarter, and puts that down to rising memory and GPU costs. AMD is reportedly raising the price of its GPU and GDDR6 kits again this month, after an earlier increase in October. Things aren't much better on the green side either, with an NVIDIA partner saying in late October that it couldn't buy RTX 5090 GPU and GDDR7 kits anymore, while RTX 5090 and 5080 prices continue to skyrocket. Graphics cards were already selling 44% above MSRP on average in October, so a smaller pool of Radeon cards is unlikely to help matters.

It's been known for a while now that Bungie has been toying with the idea of a permanent PvE mode for Marathon, much like Embark has been for Arc Raiders, but it seems as though Bungie is playing things a little more by ear, with the game studio previously announcing that a permanent PvE mode would be coming to Marathon in December. In a recent Marathon developer update, Bungie spilled the beans on what the start of Season 2 will look like and announced that there will be a free week coinciding with the launch of the Symbiosis update.

The Marathon Open Play Week, as it has been dubbed, will start on December 7 and run until December 15, and Bungie is seemingly hopeful that this will allow players to try the game and potentially turn into long-term Marathon players. December 8 marks the introduction of the new Expedition gameplay mode, which is a PvE-exclusive game mode that allows players to "form a team with your friends and explore Tau Ceti IV with a more collaborative mindset."

When Stop Killing Games's Ross Scott previously spoke about the initiative, he mentioned that the upcoming Digital Fairness Act was considering addressing game licensing but ultimately passing up the opportunity. Now, the European Commission has officially published a draft of the Digital Fairness Act, allowing us to see what the proposed legislation is targets and how that might affect video games and their makers. The draft act aims to "tackle unfair commercial practices affecting consumers online, while simplifying and harmonizing parts of the existing legal framework," and it will affect everything from dark patterns and subscription services to loot boxes, in-game purchases, digital contracts, and even influencer marketing.

What will be most pertinent to gamers and gaming companies is that gaming companies will be forced to be more transparent about in-game spending. This means they will need to show the real-world monetary value of virtual items purchased with in-game currency; loot boxes and other paid variable rewards systems will need to have rewards clearly shown as well as the probability of obtaining those rewards, and these systems will be unavailable for minors; and pay-to-win mechanics will be prohibited for minors under certain conditions. Platform designers, like social media companies, will also need to abide by new rules relating to what the Commission is calling "addictive design and attention-maximizing features."

In the six years since the PlayStation 5 launched, Sony says that the gaming console has officially sold more than 100 million units, as of a November 2026 announcement by Sony. As per the console maker, it has sold as many as 4.2 million units between April and September 2026, which is actually a significant decline compared to the previous year's 6.5 million units in the same period in 2025—despite the expected increase in sales from the imminent launch of GTA VI.

So far, this puts the PS5 as Sony's fourth most successful console platform to date, behind the PlayStation 1 (102.4 million sales), PlayStation 4 (117 million), and the PlayStation 2 (over 160 million units), but sales are likely to continue until and even after the expected 2028 launch of the PS6. At the time of writing, only the PSP and the PlayStation 3 have sold less than the PlayStation 5. Sony also provided some insights into software sales for its PlayStation platforms, with the PS4 and PS5 combined having sold a claimed 1.795 billion units (including physical and download-only titles, PS VR titles as well as software bundled with PS4, PS5).

GTA 6 is now the most pre-ordered game ever on both the PlayStation Store and the Microsoft Store, according to Sony and Microsoft. Sony announced the record in a PlayStation Blog post that opened PS5 pre-loading nine days before the November 19 launch, pointing to "unprecedented demand" for the early start. Xbox then called it "the most pre-ordered title of all time on the Microsoft Store" while confirming that GTA 6 will stream to Xbox One through Cloud Gaming. Neither company shared actual numbers, however.

Sensor Tower's tracker fills some of that gap. As of November 10, the firm estimates 9.69 million pre-orders worth about $942 million net of returns, up from 7.71 million a week earlier and 6.45 million in late October. PlayStation holds roughly 75% of that with 7.23 million copies and $703 million, while Xbox sits at 2.46 million copies and $239 million. That averages out to around $97 per copy, which fits with most buyers going for the $100 Ultimate Edition. If accurate, GTA 6 has passed the 8 million pre-orders CD Projekt reported for Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020. The comparison isn't quite like-for-like, though, since Cyberpunk also launched on PC and likely counted physical copies, while Sensor Tower seems to track digital console orders only.

It has just been reported by Bloomberg that Sony has officially canceled Fairgames, an online, live-service, heist shooter that PlayStation has been working on since before its announcement in 2023. The publication cites an internal email sent to PlayStation employees on Tuesday, November 10, which explains that, during a recent large-scale test of the game, "player feedback and retention were mixed and fell short of the goals we had set," despite "strong operational excellence, live ops readiness, and community engagement."

While the test demonstrated strong operational excellence, live ops readiness and community engagement, player feedback and retention results were mixed and fell short of the goals we had set. Combined with challenging market conditions in the PVP shooter genre, we have made the difficult decision to cease development on the game.

In mid-October, it was revealed that EA was closing BioWare, laying off 400 employees, and canceling an in-development Mass Effect 3 game in the process. The aftermath of that series of unfortunate events spawned a very lively #SaveMassEffect petition. More recently, seemingly in response to the outcry for a Mass Effect rescue mission, James Ohlen, former creative director and lead designer on games like Knights of the Old Republic and Dragon Age: Origins, and Trent Oster, one of the co-founders of BioWare, have teased that there may be something in the works to revive Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

Oster has made several posts over the span of a week or two suggesting that he is seriously considering or actively working on trying to revive both Dragon Age and Mass Effect, likely through the Embracer Group-owned Beamdog games, where Oster is the sitting CEO. One such post reads: "What are you doing this Saturday? I'm huddled in front of a computer running scenarios in Excel. I just passed rev 30. #SaveMassEffect #SaveDragonAge." Another directly tags James Ohlen as an unofficial recruitment to participate as a designer in a potential Dragon Age revival.

Earlier in 2026, it was reported that Sony would no longer be porting the majority of its games to PC, with those reports later being backed up by an official confirmation that narrative games would remain PlayStation exclusive. Now, Sony has announced that it will soon be ending development of the PlayStation Plus PC app, which previously allowed PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers to stream PlayStation Plus games from their PCs.

The announcement comes by way of the official PlayStation Blog, which confirms that the app will go offline on December 10, and Sony justifies the move by saying that "less than 0.4%" of PlayStation Plus Premium users actually used the PlayStation Plus app on PC. It also confirmed that it would be ending the PlayStation Plus cloud streaming app on PC at the same time. At the same time, it seems as though Sony is completing its transition away from PC ports, with the recent return of the "PlayStation Exclusive" badge on first-party games, as spotted by @realradec on X.

Xbox One owners will be able to play GTA 6 when it launches on November 19, while PC players still have no official way in. In its pre-load announcement, which also confirmed a 30 FPS target on consoles, Rockstar says the game will be available through Xbox Cloud Gaming on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles, using Xbox Series S graphics settings. Xbox says streaming opens at 1 AM ET on launch day, and the game still has to be bought separately. Rockstar also warns that connection speed and other technical factors may affect performance in ways that local play would not.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma framed the news as the start of a much bigger deal with Rockstar's parent company. In a post on X, she called the Xbox One cloud launch the first step of a new 10-year strategic partnership with Take-Two, adding that GTA 6 is already the most pre-ordered game ever on the Microsoft Store. Neither company has shared the terms of that partnership so far. Xbox did confirm that GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, and more Rockstar titles will join Xbox Cloud Gaming in the coming months. Back in October, Sharma reportedly told staff at an internal town hall that Xbox had something planned around GTA 6 that "no other platform holder is doing," which led to reports of exclusive streaming rights. Xbox CSO Matthew Ball shot those down shortly after, saying the game "will not be streaming exclusively or to PC."

For competitive gamers who demand speed and responsiveness, every gram counts. With high-quality features designed for effortless movement, easy connectivity, and long-lasting gaming sessions, this is the gaming mouse built for players who want it all.

Weighing just 67 g, the Volyx's standout feature is without a doubt its ultra-lightweight design. Allowing for swift, responsive movement, it enables gamers to take full advantage of speed without compromising on performance. Coupled with a stylish cut-out housing, this PC gaming mouse adds a unique aesthetic touch to any setup.

Following the release of the Keychron G6 HE, the brand has been steadily expanding its portfolio of models with Hall effect switches for adjustable actuation and rapid trigger support. The G25 HE is Keychron's latest HE mouse model, recently announced in an X post, and it takes the Hall effect switch tech and the flagship internals of the G6 HE and puts it all into a smaller shape that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Razer Viper Mini and Cobra shapes. Keychron has yet to provide a full spec sheet or product page for the G25 HE, but the mouse has been scanned and submitted to EloShapes for comparisons, where its specs and features are also available.

The Keychron G25 HE measures in at 120 × 63 × 39 mm and weighs 46 g, which is on the lighter side for a wireless mouse, but not the lightest by any means. It is also a symmetrical shape with right-side programmable thumb buttons and a partially open bottom plate. The G25 HE is powered by a PixArt PAW 3955 optical sensor and a Nordic 54LM20A MCU, which means it has a peak DPI of 40,000, up to 8 kHz polling rate, and can track at up to 750 IPS and 60 G of acceleration. The star of the show, and the mouse's namesake, are the MagOpt switches which feature both optical and Hall effect magnetic sensing, although the switches still have a click leaf and a distinct tactile bump, which has been largely considered to have a negative impact on the mouse's adjustable actuation trickery.

MSI introduces the MEG X, a flagship 34-inch QD-OLED gaming monitor combining advanced on-device AI, next-generation display technology, immersive lighting, and a distinctive Infinity Mirror design. The MEG X features a 34-inch (33.98-inch viewable) UWQHD (3440 × 1440) 5th-Gen QD-OLED panel with Penta Tandem technology, an RGB Stripe sub-pixel layout, and DarkArmor Film, delivering a 360 Hz refresh rate and 0.03 ms (GtG) response time. A dedicated AI Processor powers intelligent visual, audio, and gameplay features, while MSI's exclusive SpectrumBar+ adds real-time lighting feedback for greater immersion.

AI at the Core
The built-in AI Processor analyzes on-screen content directly on the monitor, enabling real-time AI features without requiring dedicated PC software.

Grand Theft Auto VI is now available for pre-load for gamers who pre-ordered the game, allowing them to start the download. With the game launching on November 19, Rockstar has confirmed that it will run at 30 frames per second on consoles, utilizing their integrated graphics for maximum visual fidelity. This means that while the studio has invested significant resources to maximize the performance of these console graphics cards, the game will be capped at 30 FPS to ensure stability and optimal visual quality. Current generation consoles are limited to 30 FPS, although some will receive additional features.

For instance, Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro will offer gamers PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) and ray-traced shadows, exclusive to that console. Although the standard PlayStation 5 supports a similar technology called Quick Spectral Super Resolution (QSSR), a simplified version of PSSR, it will not be implemented at launch. Only the more powerful PS5 Pro will feature PSSR and ray tracing.

Valve recently announced that it was adding an opt-in toggle to enable data collection in Steam for the Steam Deck, with the idea behind the new feature being that developers could analyze the reported framerate data using Steam's built-in tools to better optimize their games for the handheld's hardware. In a new Steam Client update, however, Valve has confirmed that it will start sharing that same average Steam Deck framerate data with players before they buy the game, so that they can get a relatively accurate idea of what to expect from the gameplay experience before spending money on the game.

The framerate data will be displayed as an average at the bottom of the Steam Deck compatibility screen as an FPS figure specific to the player's current hardware. The figure will also cite the date the average was last updated. Clicking or tapping the dropdown arrow next to the framerate note will expand a histogram showing the game's average framerate distribution across gaming sessions as a percentage. This should, with relative certainty, convey how often players ran into gameplay hitching.

Pulsar has apparently been busy in recent months, with the gaming peripherals maker previously showing off an upcoming ergonomic gaming mouse designed for gamers with large hands and more recently teasing new dual-sensor gaming mice that will allow for true virtual sensor position for individual customization. Now, according to a recent post shared by @jakeufps on X, Pulsar is planning to launch two new Hall effect gaming keyboards: the Sboard HE TKL and Sboard HE 100%.

As you might have guessed, the names denote two distinct keyboard form factors—classic TKL and 100% layouts, the latter of which is already something of a rarity in the modern gaming keyboard market—but instead of chasing fancy features, like programmable knobs, Pulsar has gone for a cleaner aesthetic and functionality. Both keyboards have the typical 8 kHz polling rate and Hall effect switches expected from serious gaming keyboards launched in 2026, but they also have built in DACs and four-pole 3.5 mm audio combo jacks for audio passthrough. Both keyboards will also supposedly launch with silent Hall effect switches, which is another stand-out feature in a world of clacky gaming keyboards.

Gaming PCs sitting idle could one day earn their owners credits, or even cash, by training AI models, at least if a newly published Microsoft patent application ever becomes a product. Titled "Opportunistic Micro-training on Edge Devices Using Spare GPU Utilization," the filing US-20260349820-A1 from Microsoft Technology Licensing was submitted in April 2025 and made public on November 5. It describes chopping large training jobs into small micro-tasks sized to what each device can handle, then sending them to phones, laptops, and gaming PCs whenever they have spare capacity. Owners would have to explicitly opt in, after which the system could track the work done and apply credits to their account, redeemable for free software, access to the trained model, or money.

To stay out of the way, the system watches GPU and CPU load, memory use, temperature and power draw, and checks less often when the GPU is busy or hot. Apparently, tasks can be paused or stopped when limits are crossed, and results get cross-checked across devices to catch faulty or tampered work. The filing doesn't give a payout rate or list supported hardware, and Microsoft hasn't announced a Windows or Xbox service, so it's impossible to say whether the rewards would cover the extra electricity. Of course, this is only an application for now, and plenty of those never turn into products.

It's been known since before the actual release date was announced that GTA VI would generate enough hype that there would be ripple effects throughout the gaming industry, with some analysts estimating that the game would generate as much as $4.5 billion in sales in its first week on the market. However, according to Take-Two Interactive's CEO, Strauss Zelnick, in a recent interview with Variety, GTA VI is already exceeding expectations.

Strauss Zelnick via VarietyGrand Theft Auto VI" presales are "running far in excess of our expectations... That's a good thing. That said, we never claim success before it occurs. So we're just days away from beginning to see the fruits of our labor.

With the GTA VI launch around the corner, more and more information has begun to surface about the upcoming game. The latest news comes from GTAForums user Tex2, who analyzed the GTA VI PS5 metadata, who claims that GTA VI will launch alongside a newer version of PSSR. The biggest takeaways from this update are that the new PSSR game mode improves both the framerate capabilities of the PlayStation 5 and manages to eke out some more CPU performance out of the PlayStation 5.

The metadata lists PSSR (or MFSR, by Sony's internal references) version 13.60, which builds on the 13.00A found in Assassin's Creed Shadows and Cyberpunk 2077, and the new version will apparently include a 120 Hz mode that drops support for VRR. It may also include a 40 FPS mode as a stop-gap to make up for the lack of VRR, but that hasn't been confirmed by the metadata. It will also enable a CPU High Frequency mode on the PlayStation 5, which may be necessary to enable higher frame rates in GTA VI.