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‘Am I going back to PS4 days?’ Shuhei Yoshida says Steam Machine is ‘hard to recommend to people’ at its current price
The former SIE president has been sharing his hands-on impressions of Valve’s new hardware…
NFL prospects share their first impressions of Pittsburgh
The NFL’s next stars are here in Pittsburgh for the draft.
Initial Impressions from the Kentucky game
Alabama overcame a rough start to dominate on the road.
Silent Hill: Townfall promises to "massively subvert" your expectations, and it's left me painfully excited
Our hands-on impressions of Silent Hill: Townfall, plus producer Motoi Okamoto and director Jon McKellan's thoughts on evolving the series.
Prospect camp open thread: Pens vs. Detroit
Game to be streamed on nhl.com/penguins, starts at 7:00pm eastern. We’ll check back in after with impressions of the game, until then feel free to use this space to talk about the action!
Marketplace Spotlight: Sulfur Cube-Inspired
Minecraft Marketplace moves fast. With every week that goes by, incredible new add-ons, worlds, mini games, and mash-up packs join the plethora of DLC already roosting on the Marketplace like loveable little birds. You can download birds, right? And now, with the arrival of sulfur cubes, it seems that Marketplace creators are working even faster, harder, and creative-er. How else would you explain the smorgasbord of new sulfurous delights now available for your delectation? How else would you explain the fact that these add-ons and worlds transform Minecraft with sulfury sports, sulfury contests, and even sulfury weapons? You simply can't. So, it's time for this humble (yet heroic) Minecraft.net writer to jack in to the Marketplace matrix once again and report back on what he finds. Will he come away with first impressions of seven new pieces of DLC or just a severe case of sulfur-induced nausea? Spoiler: it's both.
I've seen 90 minutes more of The Blood of Dawnwalker and I'm excited - could this be 2026's breakout RPG?
Our impressions from a lengthy demo of the dark fantasy vampire game's grisly, sophisticated prologue.
First impressions of the Lucas Museum on opening day
'Star Wars,' R2-D2, Padmé Amidala, D'Arcy Carden, C.S. Lee: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opening day visitors on L.A.'s newest cultural institution.
Packers Discussion: 1st impressions of Jonathan Gannon’s defense
What did you think of Jonathan Gannon’s debut?
First Impressions: Nintendo's Latest 'Switch 2 Edition' Is Here, And It'll Really Make You Sweat
Towel at the ready
The Googlebook era is here: some first impressions of the hardware and a whole new OS
Today is the day. After months of tracking code commits, dissecting leaks, and getting that unforgettable first taste at Google’s media showcase in New York City, Googlebooks are officially landing...
iPhone 17e hands-on: Pretty in pink, with portraits enabled
Our first impressions of the new iPhone 17e.
A week with the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: Big, bright and sometimes helpful
We've had Samsung's latest Ultra smartwatch for about a week, and here are our first impressions.
'Romeo Is A Dead Man' Receives Wide Range Of Review Scores, Hits Xbox This Wednesday
Impressions are all over the place
Marathon has sold 1.2M copies across Steam, PS5, and Xbox
Alinea Analytics estimates show that Marathon has generated gross revenues of $55M via 1.2M copies sold on Steam, PS5, and Xbox: Looking at the split between Steam, PS5, and Xbox, Steam is clearly the main platform for Marathon, accounting for a little under 70% of the audience (800K copies sold). Meanwhile, PS5 takes about 19% (217K) and Xbox (including console, PC, and cloud) accounts for a bit over 11% or 133K. Marathon is technically a first-party Sony title, so seeing the home console struggle to break 20% of the volume is a notable data point for the ongoing platform-agnostic debate. PlayStation Studios online games will almost certainly continue being multiplatform (despite Sony reportedly pulling back on PC releases). Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe As for Marathon, the consensus among hardcore players who pushed through the awkward onboarding phase – myself included – is that it’s fantastic. The gunplay, aesthetic, and presentation are among the best in the shooter genre. A great game doesn’t always equal an immediate hit, though, as shown by our estimates. Things are looking lukewarm right now. But this might be one of those marathon-not-a-sprint situations. Had to, didn’t I? Why wasn’t Marathon a hit on the same level as Arc Raiders? One topic that came up in a lot of conversations at GDC this year was why Marathon hasn’t hit the same stratosphere as Arc Raiders. On paper, they’re both extraction shooters, and Marathon has the Bungie pedigree – the house that built the gold standard for gunplay in Halo and Destiny. Marathon’s neon-futuristic aesthetic also distinguishes itself from the gritty realism of Tarkov or the post-apocalyptic hope of ARC Raiders. But vibes can only get you so far for first impressions if the onboarding feels like a brick wall. Marathon is a sweaty PvP-focused experience with a first-time user experience and UI that I can only describe as dreadful. Players are dropped into a complex ecosystem where the UI, though visually striking, is functionally uninformative, forcing users to manually hover over nondescript, identical icons just to identify basic gear or weapon mods. This lack of clarity is compounded by punishing mechanics like a severe heat gauge for movement and a scarcity of vital resources, all without a clear tutorial or a low-stakes mode to learn the ropes. Most people – even top streamers and veteran shooter players – have no idea what’s going on in Marathon at first. Arc is on the complete other end of the spectrum. As we covered here and here, Arc Raiders offers a more collaborative, approachable loop where players often work together toward shared goals. And the objectives are instantly clear. To many players, this contrast only emphasised Marathon’s issues, especially during the testing period. Players understand the Arc Raiders loop within 30 minutes, while Marathon acts as a massive filter, chewing up newcomers and spitting them out before they can experience the depth of Bungie’s signature gunplay. What I’m getting at here is that the poor first-time user experience of Marathon’s Server Slam likely stifled launch sales, while the opposite was true for Arc. Let’s look at the pre-launch copies sold for each game during their respective Server Slams (launch-aligned) : Looking at the trajectory: Arc Raiders saw a massive 80% jump in copies sold during its three-day Server Slam (day -13 to -11). Players jumped in, realised the water was fine, and immediately opened their wallets. Marathon, meanwhile, saw a 49% increase in the four days following its Slam (Day -7 to -3). At the time of each game’s respective launch, Arc Raiders had nearly double the Steam footprint of Marathon – and word of mouth only continued to grow. Bungie could have had more time to fix the onboarding process had the beta happened earlier. But Marathon launched three days after the beta finished. These factors limited the launch sales quite a bit, I reckon. Marathon has found a niche audience, though Despite the friction-heavy start, the data suggests that those who survived Marathon’s onboarding are loving life. We’ve been tracking cross-platform DAUs, and while there’s the expected post-launch leakage, many players are sticking with it. After peaking at 478K total DAUs on its first Saturday, Marathon has settled into a respectable rhythm, holding 345K DAUs as of yesterday and averaging 380K DAUs across the weekend. Steam continues to do the heavy lifting here, consistently accounting for the lion’s share of the daily players. Players have been putting in the hours, too: On Steam, Marathon’s average playtime has climbed to 27.8 hours, significantly outpacing the console averages on PS5 (16.5h) and Xbox (17.3h). Even more telling than the averages: 22% of the Steam audience has surged past the 50-hour mark, and nearly 7% have already logged over 100 hours. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe This data suggests that once the Bungie magic clicks, it hooks players deeper than the average extraction shooter. There’s also started to be a shift in the game’s discourse. Marathon launched as one of those games that’s cool to hate. But as Marathon’s 100-hour club grows, we’re seeing conversations around its mechanical merit outweigh the negativity. Several high-profile creators, who were initially vocal critics, have spent the last week coming around on the mechanical depth of the endgame. It’s a subtle but positive signal; the hate train is losing steam, and a new narrative about the game is emerging. Bungie faithfuls unite Another interesting metric in Marathon’s first few weeks is who, exactly, is playing. Bungie leans heavily on its prestige as the “makers of Halo and Destiny,” in its marketing, and that message has clearly hit the mark. On Steam, the gravity (hammer) of Bungie’s previous work is unavoidable. A staggering 78.2% of Marathon players also played Destiny 2. The trend carries across other platforms, with 74.2% of PS5 players and 82.7% of Xbox players also having played Destiny 2. The Halo legacy lives on, it seems. More on that in a bit. While Destiny 2 went free to play, these numbers still represent a high-intent migration of a fanbase that trusts Bungie’s specific brand of kinetic gunplay and cryptic world-building. The Xbox data adds another layer of legacy. About 85.7% of Marathon players on Xbox have played Halo Infinite, while over half of the Steam audience has spent time in Halo Infinite and 36.1% in the Master Chief Collection (a paid collection of the old Bungie-made legacy games). Interestingly, we see a 55.9% overlap with ARC Raiders on Steam. Overlap is even higher there on PlayStation (60.5%) and Xbox (66.5%). And there’s also significant crossover with Helldivers 2 on all platforms, too. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe Bungie has found some of its fans with Marathon, and the challenge now is keeping this engaged in a high-stakes PvP environment when they’ve spent the last decade primarily enjoying the power fantasies of PvE. On that note… Go the full 26 miles? Or cut and run? Time for some could’ve, should’ve, would’ve. These things would have improved Marathon’s performance at launch: A more robust onboarding process, perhaps in the form of a short single-player/PvE campaign. We know Bungie fans love this stuff. A traditional arena-based mode akin to Destiny’s Crucible could have been a bridge for the cautious players who’d have been otherwise deterred by the Server Slam. It’s also a great palate cleanser after getting merked. Introducing a dedicated PvE environment would have similarly diversified the conversation and lowered the barrier for the Bungie faithful who found the pure PvP extraction loop too abrasive. PvE is safer than PvP these days. There’s an argument that a thin PvE mode would have just felt like a budget Destiny, potentially hurting the brand more. But given how dire the FTUE is, I think it would have been a net positive. Any kind of tutorialised loop that demystifies the stakes, really. While there is merit in a studio sticking firmly to a singular creative vision, and going all in on the hardcore extraction loop. Less forgiving is the technical reality is that the user interface and first-time user experience (FTUE) were not at a commercial standard for launch. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe In a landscape where player time is oversaturated and the most contested currency, a flawed FTUE is a critical failure point. But it’s not all doom and gloom, as Marathon has an incredible, unique gameplay loop, suggesting that financial success is still attainable if Bungie can pivot effectively. Bungie and PlayStation now face a difficult strategic crossroads, though – one within a challenging games market. They could: Double down on Marathon with a long-term Rainbow Six Siege- or No Man’s Sky-style recovery plan, which is something I heard Last Stand Media’s Chris Maldonado mention last week. While this could be a sunk-cost fallacy in action, it could eventually yield the audience the game’s mechanical depth deserves. Shift focus toward the inevitable Destiny 3 or another project, mitigating the escalating opportunity cost and cutting their losses, so to speak. Doing both is an expensive proposition, given the high overhead and burn rate of operating out of Bellevue, Washington. With Sony recently demonstrating a lower threshold for underperforming studios and projects, the margin for error has vanished. Whatever happens, the next six months will determine whether Marathon becomes a cornerstone of Sony’s live-service portfolio or a cautionary tale of vision exceeding accessibility. I’m hoping it’s the former, because Marathon rocks. As always, hit subscribe to get updates on Marathon and other relevant games. Subscribe Want to get your hands on our data for yourself – for free? We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply to this email, and we’ll set you up. 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. [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!]
Hands-On With the Apple Watch Series 12
The Apple Watch Series 12 came out today, and we picked one up to get a look at the new feature set. There are no major external changes, but Apple updated the device's internals and health sensors. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The Apple Watch Series 12 has the same design as the Series 11, but it does come in different colors.
Big Blue View mailbag: First impressions, retired numbers, penalty reviews
The mail’s here! This week’s questions, answers about the Giants.
Our first five impressions of Googlebooks
Google’s new laptop OS shows lots of promise for Android phone owners, but there’s a long road ahead.
iPhone 18 Pro First Impressions: What Do You Think So Far?
It's been a little over a week since the iPhone 18 Pro models launched, and we want to hear from MacRumors readers. What do you think of Apple's newest iPhones? If you upgraded from an older phone, was it worth it? What about upgrading from an iPhone 17 Pro? What problems are you running into? Anything you love so far? MacRumors readers have already been sharing early opinions on the MacRumors forums, and there are interesting discussion threads to read through.
Disco Elysium dev's highly-anticipated follow-up, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, has things to say about our nostalgia
Our impressions from the first few hours of the Zero Parades: For Dead Spies demo, available now on Steam.
Galaxy Z Fold 8 release date leaks, hands-on impressions make ‘Ultra’ seem pointless
Continued Galaxy Z Fold 8 leaks are revealing more and more about Samsung’s upcoming foldable series, this time including some...
Can the new tubeless Chilipad 2.0 finally end your night sweats? Our first impressions of the $3,000 bed cooling system
I tested the Chilipad 2.0 mattress topper for a week. Its active cooling and comfortable design impressed me, but it lacks sleep tracking.
3 Takeaways From the Giants' Final Practice in West Virginia
The legendary John Denver song "Country Roads" speaks glowingly about West Virginia, but the New York Giants are surely ready for someone to take them home to the northeast. The Giants closed their 11-day residency at The Greenbrier with one final practice Saturday. Here are three impressions of how things went in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
Guardiola's personal to-do list for Pulis
My first encounter with Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola was when I was with West Brom. It was early in Pep's first Premier League campaign, 2016-17, and Manchester City had just beaten us at home. As people will tell you, I forced him to eat with us too, while we discussed his early impressions of the Premier League and English football in general.
Sports without politics is a fantasy and the World Cup proves it
From ancient Greece to Nazi Germany, sport and politics have long been intertwined. Nevertheless, we still imagine that international sport can be kept above the fray and serve as a neutral arena where nations compete on merit alone. In this article, diplomacy scholar Geoffrey Allen Pigman argues the 2026 FIFA World Cup shows this is a dangerous illusion. When international sport is left entirely to revenue-maximizing private bodies like FIFA, it doesn't escape politics, but rather surrenders to its worst expressions. With the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics fast approaching, the IOC must decide whether to learn that lesson or repeat the same mistakes. The largest and most lucrative FIFA World Cup ever draws toward its climactic conclusion amidst a swirl of controversy. Team members, staff, fans, and spectators have been denied their right to enter the United States to participate, and US President Donald Trump intervened with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino to overturn a referee’s call that Trump believed disadvantaged the US national team. It is a moment to step back and reflect on what the purposes of international sport mega-events like the World Cup, and international sport more broadly, are, and what they should be. Does international sport serve public purposes? Is there a public interest? Or is it primarily a private endeavor organized by commercial enterprises to entertain the global public (and generate profit in the process), which is occasionally used by governments and leaders for raisons d’etat? Central to the idea of sport is the principle of fair play, which in the international context demands that games be free from political interference. However, it is impossible to separate sport from politics, all claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The most positive political use of international sport through the millennia has been to facilitate diplomacy. The use of international sport for diplomatic objectives has existed since at least the time of the ancient Olympic Games, around which was instituted the custom of the Ekecheiria, or Olympic Truce, between participating states to facilitate fair competition and diplomatic achievements by ensuring that participants could travel safely to the Olympiad. In his seminal work On Diplomacy (1987), diplomacy scholar James Der Derian characterized the objectives of diplomacy as overcoming alienation and mediating estrangement between governments and between peoples. One increasingly important diplomatic tool in the technology-infused media environment over the past century has been public diplomacy, under which governments and non-state diplomatic actors (e.g. transnational corporations) communicate to global publics about their international policy objectives and to shape their global brand image. Political scientist Michał Kobierecki, in his important book Sports Diplomacy (2020), views sports diplomacy as falling broadly within the ambit of public diplomacy, as international sport intimately involves the participation of global publics as spectators and consumers of global media. Diplomacy scholar Stuart Murray and this author, in a 2013 article, distinguish between international sport used for diplomatic purposes and international sport-as-diplomacy, which encompasses the range of diplomacy that occurs as teams and competitors, spectators and fans, and government officials all converge for international sporting events like the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. Diplomacy scholar H.E. Chehabi, in a 2001 article on US-Iran sports diplomacy, describes the interaction between spectators and fans at international sporting events as “people-to-people diplomacy,” in which relationships develop independently of governments and their objectives. Diplomacy by the aforementioned definitions is often unsuccessful. Moreover, all too often the tools of diplomacy may be employed by governments and other actors to thwart or oppose the objectives of diplomacy as characterized by Der Derian. Governments routinely use the tools of public diplomacy to disseminate propaganda, spreading misinformation in the attempt to deceive global publics about their objectives and to create misleading impressions about their brand identity. Within sports diplomacy, the term “sportswashing” has been coined recently to describe how governments invest in and promote international sport to create positive global public impressions of their nations and, in doing so, to distract the global public from their deficient records in areas such as human rights and democratic governance. Murray, in his 2018 book Sports Diplomacy: Origins, Theory and Practice, introduces the concept of sports anti-diplomacy, wherein governments intentionally use international sport to advance aggressive and nationalistic objectives. Obvious historical examples include Hitler’s use of the 1936 Berlin Olympics to glorify his Third Reich and the 1969 El Salvador-Honduras football “war.” SUGGESTED READING The beautiful game made ugly By Emily Ryall FIFA argues that it is and seeks to be apolitical in its stewardship of international Association Football (soccer). FIFA policies governing bids to host the World Cup require uninhibited and non-discriminatory access for players, team staff, and spectators of all participating countries to host nations and venues. It became clear soon after Trump returned to power in the United States in January 2025 that Trump’s political intentions and objectives to limit non-US citizens from living and working in the United States and, in numerous cases, even visiting the country, would collide with FIFA’s host nation policies. Beginning soon after the start of the second Trump administration, US federal authorities imposed restrictions on entry to the United States of citizens of between 20 and 40 countries for any purpose, with only limited exceptions. Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began arresting non-US citizens in the United States, including persons with and without legal status, holding them in jails, concentration camps, and other detention facilities until they were deported to their home or third countries, where they faced substantive risks to their personal safety. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, in an effort to ensure the most successful and lucrative World Cup in history, engaged diplomatically with President Trump in an attempt to facilitate entry to the US for World Cup participants. Infantino did all in his power to ingratiate himself with Trump, to the extent of creating a FIFA “Peace Prize,” which he awarded to Trump in December 2025 at a ceremony in the then Trump-controlled John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, on the occasion of the World Cup draw. The prize was an ersatz consolation for someone who aspired in vain to win the rather more prestigious and well-known Nobel Peace Prize. And in the run-up to the World Cup, conditions became worse. In February 2026, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a war of aggression against Iran, illegal under international law, under the false pretence that Iran’s government was preparing to attack the United States and Israel. During the US aerial bombardment of Iran, US planes bombed Azadi Stadium, the facility where Iran’s national football team trained. As the 2026 FIFA World Cup began, it was clear that Infantino’s efforts had been for naught: the Trump administration would not adhere to FIFA policies governing access to World Cup host nations. World Cup referee Omar Artan, a citizen of Somalia, was denied a US visa to enter the United States to participate in the World Cup. Trump’s government only granted US visas to Iran’s football team ten days before they were scheduled to arrive for the tournament. Numerous members of the support staff for Iran’s team were denied US visas. Iran’s team, which had been scheduled to train in Arizona, was directed to shift its training site to Tijuana, Mexico, notwithstanding that all three of their group stage matches took place at US venues. The US Department of Homeland Security only permitted the Iranian team to enter the US on the day before each scheduled match and then to return to Mexico immediately after playing. Members of Iraq’s and Switzerland’s football teams were delayed for hours by US officials at the US border, and an Iraqi team photographer was refused entry. Spectators and fans from Haïti and Iran were denied entry to the United States altogether. A large number of fans from a range of countries had their applications for US visas rejected. There were multiple off-ramps through which participants could have avoided the negative consequences of Trump’s decisions for the 2026 World Cup. Once it was clear that the Trump government intended to violate the established expectations for World Cup hosts, FIFA could have shifted the matches scheduled to take place in the United States to Mexico and Canada. The three nations were already designated as co-hosts, and host cities and venues had been selected. Once it was clear that FIFA, governed by FIFA boss Gianni Infantino’s dependent and dysfunctional relationship with Trump, would never consider this option on its own, it fell to the national football federations to act. The national federations, particularly some combination of federations of the leading contenders (France, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Morocco, England, Germany, etc.), could have refused to participate under the US-imposed conditions or, at the least, demanded an ironclad agreement with the Trump government that FIFA policies on access would be respected. ___ International sport is inextricably entangled with diplomacy of different sorts, for good or ill, it cannot be considered to be in the purely private realm and left to revenue-maximizing private actors. ___ Why did neither FIFA nor the national football federations act to protect the interests of players, team staff, referees, fans, and spectators? In essence, the relentless engines of capitalism prevailed over norm observance, ethics, and fair play. The revenue interests of FIFA, sponsors, global media, and host cities won out. FIFA’s managers viewed hosting another World Cup principally in the United States as a veritable pot of gold for FIFA and its collaborators. FIFA has estimated its own revenue over the 2023-26 budget cycle, which includes the 2026 World Cup, at $13 billion, revised up from an initial projection of $11 billion, and 72% higher than the previous revenue cycle. Of that total, FIFA is estimated to have generated $8.9 billion from the Cup itself in revenue from TV rights ($3.92 billion), sponsorships ($2.69 billion), ticket sales ($3.1 billion), licensing rights, and other sources. A joint study by FIFA and the World Trade Organization estimates that the World Cup will contribute over $40 billion to global GDP, including nearly $14 billion in direct visitor spending in the three host countries (but principally in the United States, which hosted the lion’s share of the matches). The FIFA World Cup is now reportedly “the single most lucrative recurring commercial property in global sport.” And yet, notwithstanding the Trump government’s uses of the World Cup for sports anti-diplomacy, and the climate of anxiety that this created for participants and spectators, diplomacy that did not depend upon governments was able to thrive at the World Cup. Examples of successful people-to-people diplomacy were legion, as citizens of towns and cities across the States, as well as in Mexico and Canada, welcomed team members, their families and supporters, to training sites across North America. Fans of different teams joined together in person in stadiums for matches, at watch parties and bars, and at welcome events sponsored by host cities. The joy and camaraderie shared between the citizenry of Boston and Scotland’s “Tartan Army” of fans is but one example of how the “Beautiful Game” brings people together. Friendships forged across continents are likely to endure well beyond the Cup final. Even those achievements cannot be seen as unalloyed, however. As South African football fan Byron Pillay commented to Al Jazeera, “Football is called the Beautiful Game for a reason, for its ability to unite people. But it’s hard to believe in that magic with the politics and war rhetoric off the field of play, especially when one of the tournament hosts is central to that.” Ultimately, the experience of the 2026 FIFA World Cup illustrates that, as international sport is inextricably entangled with diplomacy of different sorts, for good or ill, it cannot be considered to be in the purely private realm and left to revenue-maximizing private actors. As long as there is the possibility of diplomatic progress in mediating estrangement between governments or between peoples, there is a broad and overarching public interest in international sport. Likewise, as it would be difficult to put on an international sport mega-event without international sporting organizations like FIFA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), global media firms, and companies purchasing sponsorships, public and private interests in international sport must coexist, most likely somewhere on a shifting spectrum between partnership and rivalry or cross purposes. As the World Cup wraps up, the IOC needs to consider its lessons before the scheduled 2028 Los Angeles Olympics if they want to avoid a media-hyped Trump version of the 1936 Berlin Olympiad. The IOC and the National Olympic Committees need to set conditions on and make demands of Trump’s government with clearly articulated consequences for non-compliance, up to and including cancellation of the Games. Time is running out for the IOC, as unlike with the FIFA World Cup, there is no at-the-ready alternate venue for Los Angeles.
Prospect camp open thread: Pens vs. Columbus
Game to be streamed on nhl.com/penguins, starts at 3:30 eastern. We’ll check back in after with impressions of the game, until then feel free to use this space to talk about the action!
Round Up: The Reviews For Pokémon Pokopia: Bubbly Basin Are In
Including first impressions of the new DLC
Survey: Michigan Businesses Report Overwhelmingly Favorable Impressions of MEDC
81% of business leaders that know the MEDC have a positive impression
Playing Mass Effect-inspired RPG Exodus was an uncomfortably familiar space trip, despite some brilliant zero-G fights
Action-RPG Exodus shows flashes of real creativity, but risks coming off as a less characterful Mass Effect shooter. Here's our hands-on impressions.
11 celebrities who weren’t amused by their ‘SNL’ impressions
Not every celebrity is flattered by an ‘SNL’ impression. EW looks back at 11 stars who made it clear they weren’t in on the joke.
OLED TVs have long trailed Mini LED in brightness, but Samsung's S95H narrows the gap
I measured the Samsung S95H at 2,780 nits, making it the brightest OLED TV I've tested. Here are my first-look impressions of its picture and design.
6 standouts from Eagles' preseason loss to the Ravens
The Eagles fell 24-7 to the Ravens in their preseason opener, but several young Philadelphia players made strong individual impressions in Baltimore.
'Love Boat' star Ted Lange says famous guest star refused to shake his hand: 'Who does that to anybody?'
Bad first impressions last a lifetime — just ask 'The Love Boat' star Ted Lange, who has never forgotten a famous guest star on the show who refused to shake his hand.
Playing 007: First Light makes me wonder if it's actually possible to nail James Bond - but IOI has made a cracking attempt
Our impressions of 007: First Light after a multi-hour hands-on, and interview with the James Bond game's art director, IOI's Rasmus Poulsen.
Fitbit Air: 24 Hours Later First Impressions
Here's your first impressions of the Fitbit Air, and how it compares physically to Whoop 5.0/MG, Amazfit Helio, and the Polar Loop.
First-Person Soulslike Valor Mortis Is Brutal, Frightening, and Strangely Chill
It's refreshing seeing Napoleon leave the strategy-game realm
Pixel 11 Pro Fold is changing how I multitask on a foldable with ‘App Handles’ [Gallery]
Google is launching a new Android feature with the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, "App Handles," which is changing how I use foldable multitasking.
Bungie ask Marathon critics to delay "full reviews" till the release of an endgame zone, and I am wistfully reminded of Vault of Glass
Bungie suggest that Marathon reviewers "hold your full review and impressions until you play Cryo Archive, Marathon's pinnacle endgame zone and experience".
Xiaomi’s wide foldable promises more power than Samsung’s
Xiaomi is the latest to hop on the wide fold bandwagon
The Star Of Star Fox On Switch 2 Is Its Multiplayer
I have never played the original Star Fox, nor any of its myriad remasters and remakes. Steve Watts, our All-Things Nintendo™ editor, was unfortunately, at the last minute, unable to attend our appointment to go hands-on with the game. As such, the responsibility of writing up preview impressions for the upcoming title fell to me,...
First iPhone 18 Pro, Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4 and AirPods 5 Orders Arriving to...
It's Friday, September 18 in Australia and New Zealand, which means customers who pre-ordered are beginning to receive their new devices. The iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4, and AirPods 5 are launching today. Apple fans who ordered an iPhone, Apple Watch, or AirPods will soon be sharing first impressions on Instagram, Reddit, the MacRumors forums, and other social networks.
Initial Impressions from the Oklahoma Game
Well, that was something. Alabama opened last night’s game looking like the team we saw in Atlanta. Frankly, they looked like an unprepared team perhaps led by a coach who had been distracted at practice. Down 17-0 in the second quarter without so much as a single first down for the offense, rallying for 27 […]
Colts rookie garnering attention in minicamp, 'operating like a vet'
Cam Bynum shared his initial impressions of Colts' rookie safety AJ Haulcy following minicamp.
What critics said about A24's secret Elizabeth Holmes documentary
A24 surprised critics at the Telluride Film Festival with a screening of an Elizabeth Holmes documentary. Here were some of their impressions.
First Impressions: Dell XPS Googlebook and the Googlebook OS
As someone who has, over the years, found himself deep in the Google ecosystem of hardware and services, I had been curious about the Googlebook concept for a while — whether it would be basi…
Slay the Spire 2 is a bit too familiar for its own good
Early Access impressions: New characters shine, but it feels like we've done this before.
iPhone 18 Pro Unboxing: New Colors, Better Photos, and Smaller Dynamic Island
The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are launching tomorrow, but we were able to get one early to share some initial impressions. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Both the 18 Pro and Pro Max are heavier than the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models they replace, and it's most noticeable when you pick up the Pro Max. It was a heavy phone to begin with, and now there's more weight (249 grams vs. 233 grams).
SBART Press Luncheon: Fall Sports Teams Make First Impressions
Samuel Boeddeker and Blake Saunders are the SBART Athletes of the week.
Former Viking GM Reacts to New Vikings GM Hire
New Vikings General Manager Nolan Teasley was asked at his introductory press conference Wednesday about his impressions of Vikings quarterbacks […]
Seedless and WatermelonDS Drop Their Latest Updates at Once
The world of Nintendo DS emulation has always been a bit of a strange thing. You're either in the camp where the emulation is fine, or the one where it's just better to do it on an original console. Recently though, those lines have been blurred with dual screen releases like the Anbernic RG DS,
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Business Restructuring Review
In This Issue: The Year in Bankruptcy: 2025 A brief chronicle of the year's notable developments in corporate bankruptcy and restructuring, including business bankruptcy filings, significant court rulings, and legislative developments. [read more …] U.S. Bankruptcy Court Denies Chapter 15 Recognition of Maltese Liquidation Absent Evidence of Meaningful Activities Supporting Finding of COMI or Establishment in Malta In In re Geden Holdings, Ltd., No. 25-90138, 2025 WL 2484883 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. Aug. 28, 2025), stay pending appeal denied, No. 25-90138, 2026 WL 97993 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. Jan. 13, 2026), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that, for purposes of recognition under chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code, although a foreign debtor may have had its center of main interests ("COMI") or an establishment in Malta when a liquidation proceeding was commenced for it in a Maltese court in 2017, the absence of any meaningful activity by the debtor's liquidator from that time until the liquidator filed a chapter 15 petition in the United States more than five years later meant that the debtor had neither a COMI nor an establishment in Malta on the chapter 15 petition date. The court accordingly denied the petition for recognition. [read more …] The Ninth Circuit's Expansive Reading of "Financial Accommodations" that Cannot Be Assumed or Assigned in Bankruptcy It is generally well understood that agreements to extend credit or provide financing to a debtor cannot be assumed or assigned in bankruptcy. Even so, the provision of the Bankruptcy Code that precludes assumption or assignment—section 365(c)(2)—also extends to "financial accommodations," a term that is not defined in the Bankruptcy Code and has been the subject of relatively few bankruptcy and appellate court rulings. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit examined the meaning of the term in In re Svenhard's Swedish Bakery, 154 F.4th 1100 (9th Cir. 2025). The court of appeals ruled that a deeply discounted settlement of pension plan withdrawal liability is a "financial accommodation" that cannot be assumed or assigned, thereby extending the reach of section 365(c)(2) well beyond conventional lending arrangements. [read more …] Pennsylvania District Court Applies "Hypothetical Test" in Determining that Patent License Agreement Is Assignable in Bankruptcy In Crivella Holdings Ltd. v. Mesearch Media Technologies Ltd., No. 2:25-cv-333, 2025 WL 2443400 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 25, 2025), the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania affirmed a bankruptcy court ruling denying a software licensor's motion for relief from the automatic stay to terminate the license agreement. The court found the license was assumable in bankruptcy under the Third Circuit's hypothetical test as a result of language in the agreement stating that it could be assigned to a "successor in interest" of the debtor without the licensor's further consent, thereby overriding federal patent law's general prohibition against the assignment of patents. [read more …] New York Bankruptcy Court Denies Motion to Terminate Chapter 15 Recognition and Dismiss Chapter 15 Case In In re Oi S.A., No. 23-10193 (LGB), 2025 WL 2806591 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Oct. 1, 2025), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York considered whether chapter 15 recognition of a debtor's Brazilian restructuring proceeding should be terminated and the case dismissed due to the debtors' financial deterioration and inability to satisfy its restructuring plan obligations after entry of the recognition order. The court denied the motion, concluding that recognition of the Brazilian proceeding and a court-approved restructuring plan for the debtors should not be terminated under section 1519(d) of the Bankruptcy Code—according to the court, the sole authority for revocation of chapter 15 recognition—because, among other things, the restructuring proceeding was still pending, the debtors might still need relief authorized under chapter 15, and the debtors' prospects for reorganizing under a hypothetical chapter 11 case were uncertain at best. It also found that no provision of the Bankruptcy Code authorizes the dismissal of a chapter 15 case. [read more …] Newsworthy Effective January 1, 2026, Jones Day welcomed Isel M. Perez (Miami), Andrew M. Butler (New York), Sid Pepels (Amsterdam), and Anna C. Bretting (Munich) to the partnership in the Business Restructuring & Reorganization Practice. Sid Pepels (Amsterdam) has been nominated for the Future Leader Award by the Global Restructuring Review, an organization that acknowledges and honors excellence within the global restructuring and insolvency sector. This award is designed to recognize exceptional contributions made by both individuals and firms in the field. The 2026 edition of Chambers UK recognized Ben Larkin (London) in the practice area Restructuring/Insolvency and Adam R. Brown (London) in the practice area Restructuring/Insolvency: Litigation. The 2026 edition of Chambers Asia-Pacific ranked Roger Dobson (Sydney) in the practice area Restructuring/Insolvency. An article written by Corinne Ball (New York) titled "Backstop Fees for Lenders in Chapter 11 Plans: Absent Market Test, Equality of Treatment Now Required in Fifth Circuit After 'ConvergeOne'" was published on November 12, 2025, in the New York Law Journal. An article written by Oliver S. Zeltner (Houston) titled "Delaware Bankruptcy Court: No Legal Authority for Chapter 11 Plan Gatekeeping Provision" was published on November 20, 2025, by Lexis Practical Guidance. An article written by Daniel J. Merrett (Atlanta) titled "First Impressions: Eleventh Circuit Rules that Annulment of Automatic Stay Does Not Violate U.S. Supreme Court's Prohibition of Nunc Pro Tunc Orders" was published on November 21, 2025, by Lexis Practical Guidance. An article written by Genna Ghaul (New York) titled "Iowa District Court: Avoidance Claims Cannot Be Encumbered by Pre-Bankruptcy Liens" was published on November 20, 2025, by Lexis Practical Guidance. An article written by Dan T. Moss (Washington/New York), Corinne Ball (New York), David S. Torborg (Washington), and Ben Rosenblum (New York) titled "New York Bankruptcy Court Rejects Challenge to Barnet Rule Permitting Foreign Debtors to Obtain Chapter 15 Recognition With Only Minimal U.S. Assets" was published on November 21, 2025, by Lexis Practical Guidance. The M&A Advisor has recognized the Silvergate Capital Corporation Bankruptcy case as the Chapter 11 Reorganization of the Year (over $5 billion) during its 20th Annual Turnaround Awards. Jones Day is listed among the professionals for the representation of Exploration Capital, which was led by Joshua M. Mester (Los Angeles). Lawyer Spotlight: Sid Pepels Sid Pepels, a partner in Jones Day's Amsterdam Office, litigates and advises clients on commercial and international insolvency matters, with a focus on complex restructurings and insolvencies. He has advised and litigated high-profile cases, including: the cross-border WHOA (Wet Homologatie Onderhands Akkoord) proceedings concerning Vroon Group and Diebold Nixdorf; proceedings on behalf of expropriated SNS Reaal bond holders against the Dutch State; the bankruptcy of Intertoys, the leading Dutch toys retailer; the restructuring of Oi, the Dutch finance vehicle of the Brazilian telecom giant; and Blokker, the leading Dutch home appliances retailer. Sid holds a Ph.D. in European insolvency law and regularly publishes in academic journals on topics of cross-border insolvency. He has been recognized in The Legal 500 Netherlands and was noted by his peers for being client-minded and a creative thinker with a "strong grasp of the law and strong interpersonal skills." Sid was also nominated for the "Future Leader" award at the Global Restructuring Review Awards 2025. He is a board member for the Netherlands Association for Comparative and International Insolvency Law and a NextGen member of the International Insolvency Institute.