Long-time TweakTown editor Anthony Garreffa is recovering in hospital after a serious stroke in late February.

On Monday, February 23, 2026, Anthony suffered a stroke and has since been receiving care in the hospital stroke ward. There were additional complications in the days following the event, further complicating the situation.

Thankfully, Anthony has begun making gradual progress in his recovery. Recently, he has been able to speak a little, understand communication, and regain some movement on his right side. However, the recovery process is expected to be long and will require significant rehabilitation.

Nintendo's latest Pokemon game is a huge hit, selling over 2 million copies in just a few days' time.

Pokemon's new worldbuilder spin-off Pokopia is a certified best-seller, amassing 2.2 million copies in 4 days on the market. Numbers-tracker Pierre485 puts Pokopia's performance in context, noting that Super Mario Odyssey sold 2 million copies in 3 days, Pokemon Legends Z-A sold 2.9 million copies in 4 days, yet the record-holder is Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, which amassed 10 million copies sold in 3 days.

"We are pleased to announce that global sales of Pokemon Pokopia for the Nintendo Switch 2 system have surpassed 2.2 million units (including 1 million units sold in Japan) in the first four days since its worldwide launch on March 5, 2026," Nintendo announced.

After lackluster sales and a confusing ad campaign, Microsoft now doubles down on Xbox consoles, saying that they are core, integral parts of the brand's DNA--in other words, consoles will "always be around."

Microsoft has made a clear commitment to support and invest in the Xbox ecosystem, and at GDC 2026, the company delivered much-needed clarification that showed a more cohesive plan for the future. The next generation of Xbox is centered around Project Helix, ambitious new hardware that's designed to play both Windows PC and Xbox console games in a single device--all powered by new, thoughtfully-designed silicon and performance-accelerating tools for developers.

During Xbox's keynote speech at GDC, Xbox hardware VP Jason Ronald reiterated the importance of consoles while also touching upon Microsoft's other focal points--handhelds and accessories.

Sony and LEGO are reportedly teaming up to release a set based on the original PlayStation console from 1994.

A new specialty PlayStation LEGO set has reportedly been unearthed by renowned leaker on Instagram. The set itself is modeled after the first PlayStation system released in the 90s and will come with at least one controller. PlayStation LEGO set leaked, coming in Holiday 2026 with $160 price tag

The design of the PS1 is somewhat straightforward, with the main contours coming from the controller, which may be the OG non-analog controllers and not the DualShock revisions released later.

As it lays out the future of Xbox gaming at GDC 2026, Microsoft also pledges to support four generations of games and content from previous consoles.

Microsoft unveiled tons of new details about its next-generation Project Helix console at this year's Game Developers Conference, including some technical information as well as assurances on the "future of play." Project Helix will play both Xbox console and Windows PC games in one device, Microsoft says.

The past is just as important to Xbox, though, and hardware VP Jason Ronald hints at "new ways to play" these yesteryear titles in a recent blog post. "We're committed to keeping games from four generations of Xbox playable for years to come. As part of our 25th anniversary later this year, we'll be rolling out new ways to play some of the most iconic games from our past."

Renowned leaker KeplerL2, who gained notoriety in the GPU-watching community for posting early device IDs, memory configurations, die names, and accurate performance estimates, recently revealed in a forum post when Sony and Microsoft anticipate releasing next-generation consoles.

KeplerL2 has been a very strong leaker within the GPU community and has obtained most of the early information by scrubbing GPU drivers, which can include hardware identifiers for unannounced products. From this information, KeplerL2 can detail other aspects of the product, such as core counts, product segmentation, and more. KeplerL2's digital detective work and validated breadcrumb information have led multiple media outlets to dedicate coverage to advancements in the GPU space and to validate KeplerL2's predictions.

Now, KeplerL2 has taken to the neoGAF forums to share an update on the PS6, PS handheld, and the next-generation Xbox, codenamed Project Helix. KeplerL2 wrote that Sony and Microsoft are both currently on track to release their new consoles sometime throughout the holiday season in 2027. Additionally, the leaker revealed that Sony is also targeting this release window for the PS handheld.

NVIDIA has confirmed that the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell will ship with 160 ROPs, not the 176 ROPs previously reported.

It appears the previous reporting was based on unlocked specification entries in the database, rather than NVIDIA's locked specification sheet for the product. The discrepancy between the previously reported figure and the official figure arose after a Reddit user noticed that his 48GB variant displayed 160 ROPs, despite reports citing that it would ship with 176 ROPs. In a statement provided to TechPowerUp, NVIDIA explained that a bug in GPU-Z is the cause of the discrepancy and that the new workstation card officially ships with 160 ROPs.

As for the other specifications, NVIDIA reveals in its official materials that the new RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell utilizes the latest Blackwell architecture, and sports 14,080 CUDA cores, 48 GB or 72 GB of GDDR7 ECC memory, 1,344 GB/s of bandwidth, a 512-bit memory interface, PCIe 5.0 x 16, and 300W of total power. Furthermore, NVIDIA states that the card comes with a Graphics Processing Cluster of 10, which verifies the 160 ROPs figure, as 1 GPC equals 16 ROPs.

NVIDIA GTC 2026, the company's long-running AI conference, kicks off next week in San Jose, and KIOXIA will be there, showcasing its cutting-edge memory and SSD storage solutions built to meet the demands of AI workloads head-on. GTC is all about bringing the AI industry together, from researchers to developers and businesses, with KIOXIA's focus centered on how its flash storage can play a critical role in empowering scalable and efficient AI infrastructures.

KIOXIA's booth will feature a wide range of demonstrations, including the company's groundbreaking AiSAQ (All-in-Storage ANNS with Product Quantization) technology. With the large volumes of data required for modern generative AI systems, this open-source solution offloads large-scale AI vector search from increasingly expensive DRAM to SSD storage - like KIOXIA's CM9 Series Enterprise NVMe SSDs.

This plays into KIOXIA's "Redefining Vector DB Management: Uniting Massive Scalability with GPU-Accelerated Indexing" theater session on Wednesday, March 18, presented by Rory Bolt, a senior fellow and principal architect at the company.

It wasn't long ago that Microsoft rolled out "This is an Xbox" marketing to demonstrate its future vision for the Xbox brand: that every device is technically an Xbox.

The marketing campaign generated more confusion than intrigue, as Xbox fans wondered why they would ever get an actual Xbox if Xbox titles are available on every platform. Microsoft and the Xbox brand are still suffering from that brand hit today, and now we have discovered that Xbox is attempting to silently remove that marketing from the internet as Game Developer attempted to revisit the "This is Xbox" landing page on the Xbox Wire website, which is Microsoft's Xbox-focused news repository.

Game Developer discovered that the landing page only provided a 404 error message and a bland screen. Upon searching Xbox News Wire for "This is an Xbox" within its search, the only article that popped up was one regarding the ROG Xbox Ally. The removal of this press release is somewhat telling considering the recent reporting that the "This is an Xbox"marketing campaign was championed by outgoing Xbox president Sarah Bond, and was one of the reasons for her departure.

Valve announced the Steam Frame and Steam Machine in November last year, and since then, users have been waiting to see where each device will land in terms of performance. Now, Valve has revealed the requirements for a title to receive the Steam Frame Verified and Steam Machine Verified labels.

For those who don't know, Valve has a Steam Deck Verified label, which means the title has been tested by Valve to run smoothly on the device. Additionally, the title would meet all of Valve's requirements, including full controller support, performance at the device's native resolution, and performance targets. The idea is that a Steam Deck owner can browse the Steam Store, discover a title with the Verified badge, and begin playing without having to worry about any settings tweaks or changes.

The same system is being expanded to the Steam Machine and Steam Frame, and according to Valve, the Steam Machine Verified badge requires at least 30 FPS at 1080p. The Valve slides reveal that Steam Machine Verified is simply an extension of Steam Deck Verified, and that titles that are Steam Deck Verified will also be Steam Machine Verified, as long as they maintain the same input expectations as the Deck. Additionally, the slide states that Valve will not be testing display resolution or legibility, and that an updated API to detect hardware is also required.

BlizzCon 2026 will see the in-person return of Blizzard Entertainment's long-running celebrations of its franchises, games, and community, later this year. With the event scheduled to take place on September 12-13 at the Anaheim Convention Center, there's some great news for fans of some of Blizzard's older, classic games.

With the company planning a robust "esports slate" for the event, the first competition-based announcement of the show is the confirmation that it'll be home to the first-ever Blizzard Classic Cup. This will include "all-star teams" battling it out across a wide range of classic Blizzard games, including the real-time strategy masterpiece that defined esports - StarCraft.

First released in 1998, StarCraft was the sci-fi-themed follow-up to the iconic Warcraft II, expanding the scope, speed, and intensity of the studio's real-time strategy games. And its robust multiplayer mode made it a phenomenon in Korea, where it drew large crowds and created celebrities. Professional StarCraft defined the modern era of esports, so it's great to see it making a comeback at BlizzCon 2026.

ASRock's DeskMeet mini PCs are powerful, versatile, and configurable, and can also double as portable gaming PCs. With the launch of Valve's Steam Machine delayed until later this year, ASRock has come out to say that if you take one of its DeskMeet mini PCs, like the DeskMeet B660 that we've previously reviewed, and pair it with the Intel Arc A380 Challenger ITX 6GB OC GPU, you've got an affordable alternative.

Intel's first-generation Arc graphics cards have come a long way since their debut; however, the recent release of XeSS 3 has breathed new life into the Intel Arc A380. With new, updated AI-powered upscaling (Super Resolution), Frame Generation, and now Multi-Frame Generation, the Intel Arc 380 can deliver decent 1080p gaming performance that could theoretically compete with the Steam Machine.

According to ASRock, the arrival of XeSS 3 sees the Intel Arc A380 perform more in line with the Radeon RX 6600, with better image quality than AMD's FSR. Of course, as a 6GB GPU, the Intel Arc A380 Challenger ITX won't be able to render games at Ultra settings, but at a price of only $139.99 USD, it's worth considering.

ASRock's flagship X870E Taichi OCF motherboard for AMD's Ryzen AM5 platform is built for extreme overclocking, with premium power delivery for those who want to tweak and push their CPU and DDR5 memory to their limit. And with that, professional overclocker Alex2305 has set a new CPU world record by pairing the X870E Taichi OCF with AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D, running the popular PCMark10 Express benchmark.

The 14,290 score was enough to take the crown in this highly contested space, achieved by pushing the CPU clock speeds to 6,370 MHz. Naturally, as a world record, plenty of liquid nitrogen cooling was also involved to keep CPU temperatures in check. However, even with liquid nitrogen, the HWBOT listing for this world record confirms that the load temperature still reached 100 degrees Celsius.

For the 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, this is an impressive result, as it takes the crown from overclocker Doomed83, who previously held the top two entries with an Intel Core i9 14900K and an Intel Core i5 14600K back in October 2025. It'll be interesting to see how long this new world record stands, as only 10 points separate the top two entries.

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, NVIDIA and ComfyUI announced new updates that will streamline AI video generation on RTX GPUs and the DGX Spark for game developers. Although the use of generative AI in game development is somewhat controversial, these tools are all about 'concept development and storyboarding.' Plus, with the new simplified App View interface from ComfyUI, 4K video generation will work on any rig with GeForce RTX 5090.

ComfyUI App View is designed to be a simple, easy way to generate video, with users only needing to enter a prompt, adjust settings and parameters, and then generate the video. This will sit alongside the more detailed, AI enthusiast-friendly Node View, with users given the option to switch between the two. Optimized for RTX hardware, NVIDIA confirms that performance has been improved by 40% since September 2025, with expanded native support for NVFP4 and FP8 formats.

That part is key because it opens the door to 2.5X faster performance and reduces VRAM requirements by 60% on GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards when using NVFP4. And with NVIDIA RTX Video Super Resolution support, AI-generated videos can be upscaled to 4K in a matter of seconds. If you've got a powerful GeForce RTX GPU and are looking for a powerful local AI video generation, then the following NVIDIA Studio Sessions video is for you.

Turtle Beach has announced a pair of new Nintendo-themed peripherals for the Nintendo Switch 2, just in time to celebrate Mario Day. The Mario & Luigi Rematch Wireless RGB Gaming Controller and Mario Star Airlite Fit Wired Gaming Headset have been designed and built specifically for Nintendo's latest console, and they go a lot further than simply slapping images and art from the iconic Super Mario franchise on the hardware.

Mario & Luigi Rematch Wireless RGB Gaming Controller not only lets Switch owners access GameChat features intuitively with the C Button placement, but it also has integrated motion controls to match the functionality you get with Nintendo's first-party offerings.

However, with TMR (Tunneling Magnetoresistance) technology on the analog sticks, Turtle Beach is delivering pro-grade anti-drift hardware that will go the distance. And with that, the wireless connectivity is good for up to 30 feet. One cool feature of the controller is the RGB mode, which includes four dynamic lighting presets that showcase hidden glow-in-the-dark style Super Mario items and power-ups.

Crimson Desert developer and publisher Pearl Abyss has released the full PC specs and hardware requirements for the game's upcoming March 19, 2026, launch, and the good news is that it's a massive AAA-style open-world game that will be playable on a wide range of rigs. In fact, based on what we're seeing here, aside from unforeseen bugs or other performance-related issues, it's shaping up to be an optimized day-one release.

As expected for a game that will feature a 60 FPS Performance mode (with AMD FSR 3) on the ROG Xbox Ally X, the minimum PC GPU requirement for 1080p at 30 FPS (upscaled from 900p) is a GeForce GTX 1060 or a Radeon RX 5500 XT. Bump that up to running the game natively at 1080p with Low settings, and the GPU requirement changes to either a GeForce GTX 1660 or a Radeon RX 6500 XT.

Yes, even though the game ships with DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation support, and supports real-time ray tracing, it'll run just fine without upscaling. However, when it comes to playing at 1080p 60 FPS or 4K 30 FPS with Medium settings, the 'Recommended' spec, you'll need a GeForce RTX 2080 or Radeon RX 6700 XT.

Pixelpaw Labs is a new startup, and its first gaming peripheral, simply called 'Phase', is a PC gaming mouse that can split in two to become a game controller. A literal mouse of two halves, the magnetic split design turns the PC gaming input device into a JoyCon-style controller with access to traditional dual analog sticks, as well as face and shoulder buttons familiar to all gamers.

Compatible with Windows, macOS, Linux, and mobile platforms, with Bluetooth and low-latency 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity, it's certainly a versatile peripheral - and one that will also let you seamlessly switch between three devices. Pixelpaw Labs plans to launch the Phase via a Kickstarter campaign but is already accepting pre-orders on its own site ahead of crowdfunding.

With an introductory price of $115 USD for the Phase, there's also a planned Phasegrip add-on that will connect the controller half of the mouse's design to a smartphone, similar to devices like the Backbone or Razer Kishi. With its unique two-in-one design, here's a quick breakdown of the Phase's specs and features.

GeForce Game Ready Driver 595.79 WHQL is now available for GeForce gamers, and it brings day-one support for a big PC game release on March 19, 2026. The highly anticipated open-world action-adventure Crimson Desert from Pearly Abyss and legendary game creator Hideo Kojima's latest opus, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.

Both games are set to debut with full DLSS 4 support with Multi Frame Generation for GeForce RTX 50 Series owners, with access to the new and improved DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution powered by NVIDIA's powerful new Transformer model via the NVIDIA App. And when it comes to the NVIDIA App, it's getting a major 'Beta' update on March 31.

This update will add DLSS Override support for the new DLSS 4.5 Dynamic Multi Frame Generation update, which is designed to intelligently max out your display's refresh rate and includes a new 6X mode. This update also includes an updated DLSS 4.5 Frame Generation for GeForce RTX 40 and RTX 50 Series gamers, improving image quality and performance.

With 25 years behind it, Xbox is targeting the "future of play" and is using deep analysis of player behaviors to help define the next generation of its gaming business.

At GDC 2026, Microsoft today revealed tons of new details about the future of its Xbox business. Starting with Project Helix, its next-gen hardware, the company revealed advanced tech upgrades like a high-end AMD chip with AI built right into the silicon, enabling new functionalities like GPU-generated workloads, potential reductions or eliminations of CPU bottlenecks, raytracing that's an "order of magnitude" better than current tech, and powerful new DirectX optimizations like Deep Texture Compression.

Throughout the keynote speech, Xbox VP of Next Generation Jason Ronald asserted that Microsoft is focusing on the "future of play," saying that gamers don't really attach their identities to a platform any more. "The days of people defining themselves as a console, PC, or mobile gamer don't really exist any more," Ronald said, as per IGN.

Xbox's Full Screen Experience (FSE) has been renamed, and it's coming to all Windows 11 PCs starting next month.

Released first on the ROG Ally and Ally X handhelds, the Full Screen Experience was a window into Microsoft's so-called "future of play," a vision that unifies Xbox and Windows together. While the hybrid Project Helix next-gen Xbox will be the physical manifestation of this plan, Microsoft is still rolling out its simulated Xbox environment to all Windows 11 users, likely in a bid to test and tweak the software in preparation for Helix.

Xbox Mode, aka FSE, will start to roll out to Windows 11 users starting in April, Xbox exec Jason Ronald says: "After debuting an early version with the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, today I'm excited to share that we are bringing the same innovation to Windows 11 with Xbox mode that begins rolling out in April, starting with select markets."

Valve is being sued by New York Attorney General Leticia James on allegations that in-game lootboxes break the state's gambling laws. Now the company has issued a lengthy response letter that presses back against the AG's allegations.

The NY Attorney General's lawsuit against Valve, whose press release loudly proclaims "Attorney General James Sues Game Developer for Promoting Illegal Gambling Through Video Games," seemed to come out of left field and caught the gaming world off guard.

It's been weeks since New York made the lawsuit public, and Valve has now published a statement refuting some of the claims and providing interesting context on the interactions that preceded the legal complaint.