Top Stories

Atari to acquire Crossy Road developer Hipster Whale (3 min read)

Atari agreed to acquire Australian mobile studio Hipster Whale for an initial $29.3 million ($26 million cash, $3.3 million in shares), with an earn-out of up to $10 million over three years based on performance. Hipster Whale, founded in 2014 by Matt Hall and Andy Sum, created the Crossy Road franchise, which has 340+ million downloads worldwide. Matt Hall will lead Atari's expanded mobile development efforts post-acquisition. Hipster Whale generated $8.28 million in revenue over the trailing 12 months ended January 31, 2026. (Game Developer)

CD Projekt begins "most intensive phase" of Witcher 4, expands team to over 500 devs (2 min read)

CD Projekt has expanded its Witcher 4 development team to 513 developers and entered the "most intensive phase" of production. The studio plans to release three new Witcher games over six years with no expansions, departing from The Witcher 3's post-launch content model. A third Witcher 3 expansion, Songs of the Past, co-developed with Fool's Theory, was delayed from 2026 to next year to improve quality and will skip last-gen consoles. Witcher IP revenue rose 36% to PLN 44.7 million in Q1 2026; The Witcher 3 has surpassed 65 million lifetime sales. (GamesIndustry.biz)

Nvidia finally unveils Spark superchip, coming to laptops and mini PCs this Fall - here's everything we know so far (3 min read)

Nvidia unveiled the Spark superchip (N1X) at Computex 2026, launching in laptops from Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, and MSI this Fall. The Arm-based SoC pairs a 20-core Grace CPU with a 6144 CUDA-core RTX Blackwell GPU, developed alongside MediaTek. Nvidia claims 100+ fps in 1440p Triple-A games. The flagship model ships with 128GB LPDDR5X unified memory. Developers including Unreal, Xbox, Sega, Konami, Riot, and Remedy are working with Nvidia to optimize Windows-on-Arm performance via Microsoft Prism emulator, addressing prior framerate drops. (GamesRadar)

Business & Finance

Xbox CEO says it's already seeing positive impacts following Game Pass price cuts (2 min read)

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma reported that April's Game Pass price cuts—dropping Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99 and PC from $16.49 to $13.99—have already improved subscriber acquisition and retention. Sharma said Xbox will continue evolving Game Pass into a more flexible system and partnered with Discord to offer a starter edition to Nitro subscribers. (GamesIndustry.biz)

Balatro publisher Playstack is being sold to GameSpot and Fandom parent company (3 min read)

Integrated Media Company, which owns Fandom and GameSpot, is acquiring a majority stake in UK publisher Playstack for approximately £125 million ($169 million). Playstack has published Balatro and Abiotic Factor and reported an 85% hit ratio on titles, with over $100 million in Steam revenue last fiscal year. (Game Developer)

Dragon Age and BioWare veteran says games could learn a thing or two from how the movie business makes money (3 min read)

BioWare veteran Mark Darrah argues the game industry could adopt movie-industry revenue models, which rely on theatrical ticket sales plus ancillary streams (DVD, streaming, product placement) rather than relying heavily on microtransactions and expansions for ongoing monetization. (GamesRadar)

Studios & People

TIGA appoints Elaine Green as chair (1 min read)

TIGA appointed Nellyvision co-founder Elaine Green as chair, succeeding Rebellion's Jason Kingsley. Green brings over 20 years of game development and publishing experience and has served on TIGA's board since 2013. (GamesIndustry.biz)

Games & Releases

Fable delayed to February 2027 (2 min read)

Xbox delayed Playground Games' Fable reboot from Autumn 2026 to February 2027 to avoid competing with Grand Theft Auto 6. Xbox CCO Matt Booty stated the game is "in great shape" and needs "its own moment to shine.". (GamesIndustry.biz)

007 First Light Has Already Sold Over A Million Copies (2 min read)

IO Interactive's 007 First Light sold 1.5 million copies in its first 24 hours after launching May 27 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The spy-origin game received critical acclaim, including an 8.75/10 from Game Informer. (GameInformer)

Culture & Community

Nordic Game 2026 was full of smiles, but they hid a very tough reality | Opinion (8 min read)

Nordic Game 2026 returned to Malmö with international representation from Germany, Ukraine, and Moldova. Despite positive conference atmosphere, speakers highlighted ongoing industry challenges: too many competing games and insufficient funding for development. (GamesIndustry.biz)

gg! see you in game!

— james