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🎮💰 What's Streaming
Instead of preordering GTA VI, BLKSUIT is giving the cash straight to one of you. On Saturday, November 14th, around 9PM CST, we're drawing a winner live on stream — spin the wheel, cash lands in your pocket. The giveaway was originally set for August but moved to November to give it runway in case of more delays, and to see whether a PC rollout gets announced before we draw.
Borderlands 4 (PS5 / Xbox Series X).
Was $49.99, now just $19.91 on Amazon, 60% off and the deepest discount in this entire issue.
GRAB THE DEAL →⚡ Tech Discounts of the Week
DealRazer Basilisk V3 Wired Gaming Mouse — Was $69.99, now $34.98
A wired gaming mouse from Razer with 11 programmable buttons and Chroma RGB lighting, built to handle everything from shooters to MMOs. At 50% off, it's half price on a name-brand gaming mouse.
Fanttik B10 Pro Max Electric Air Duster & Power Bank — Was $79.99, now $59.99
A cordless electric air duster from Fanttik that doubles as a power bank. It blows dust out of keyboards, vents, and consoles with no cans of compressed air, and it can top off a phone in a pinch. At 25% off, it's a modest cut, so it's best if keeping your gear clean is already on your list.
CRUA 32" FHD 200Hz Curved Gaming Monitor — Was $199.99, now $159.98
A 32-inch curved gaming monitor from CRUA with a 200Hz refresh rate, 1080p resolution, a tight 1800R curve, and AMD FreeSync. The VA panel covers 120% sRGB, and it has HDMI and DisplayPort inputs plus wall-mount support. At 20% off, it's a modest cut, so it's best if you want a big, fast screen on a budget.
▶ This Week in Gaming
Sega and Creative Assembly took the Complete Edition off sale on October 15, two days after it launched on October 13 at $39.99. Players complained about performance problems, bugs carried over from the 2011 original, and artwork they say looks AI-upscaled, including the unit cards. Before it was pulled, the game sat at "Overwhelmingly Negative" on Steam, with only 19% of more than 2,000 reviews recommending it. Sega said the current experience "is not where it needs to be" and that it's working with its development partner to find the causes and deliver improvements. No return date was given.
The original 2011 game is being reinstated while the problems are investigated, and Sega says people who already own it can still play. That's the part worth noticing. The remaster arrived after the original had been taken off sale to make room for it, and then the remaster itself vanished within days. What you own stays on your shelf. What's for sale can change overnight, which is the whole case for owning your games.
Ken Kutaragi, who led the creation of the first three PlayStation consoles and left Sony in 2007, told VGC at the Game Republic New Horizons event in Middlesbrough, UK, that Sony's push away from physical games has "caused some friction with game enthusiasts." He said he gets why: "physical discs have become a metaphor for 'owning' games." That lands weeks after word that Sony will stop producing discs for new releases starting in January 2028.
Kutaragi isn't arguing to keep them, though. He said dedicating resources to discs is no longer economically reasonable and that the mindset has to change, comparing games to smartphone content people simply trust they'll keep. He also floated that Sony's current leadership may see PlayStation as "not just a game console, but also a content terminal," and added that if companies fully use AI and cloud computing, "we won't need any console," stressing that wasn't an official Sony comment. The man who built the platform understands why people want a disc. He's just betting they'll get over it.
Rockstar released a 90-second launch trailer on October 15 that lays out the plot and introduces protagonists Jason and Lucia, whose botched "easy score" pulls them into a criminal conspiracy across the state of Leonida. The French duo Justice composed the original score, and a new Justice single, "Flower in a Hurricane," featuring Tame Impala, SZA, and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, will be on Grand Theft Auto 6: The Album. Rockstar says the trailer was captured entirely on a PS5. The game launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S, and Rockstar's studio heads told Bloomberg the next Rockstar game won't take another eight years.
Sony announced a PS5 Digital Edition in Midnight Black, plus a matching black disc drive sold separately, with both launching November 19 in Japan. The console is priced at 55,000 yen (about $350), and it's region-locked, so it only works with a PlayStation account set to Japan and the system language set to Japanese. Sony SIE CEO Hideaki Nishino told Famitsu it was crucial to deliver the PS5 properly to Japanese customers, and the model is meant to counter exports driven by exchange rates. Sony hasn't said whether it's coming West, though its existing Midnight Black Console Cover ($54) gets Western players close.
Xbox's new Nano Controller is about 5 inches long and 3.5 ounces, compared with roughly 6 inches and 10 ounces for the standard Wireless Controller. It has a built-in rechargeable battery instead of AAs, a programmable Action Button for screenshots or clips, and connects over Xbox Wireless or Bluetooth to Xbox, PC, phones, and smart TVs. It's $49.99 (£44.99 in the UK), launches November 4, and pre-orders are open now on the Microsoft Store.
▶ This Week in Streaming
Streams Charts counted 31.698 billion hours watched across tracked platforms in Q3, about 0.8% above Q2 and the highest quarterly total it has recorded. YouTube is still the biggest at 13.62 billion hours, but it fell 13.7% from Q2 and its share dropped from 49.5% to 43%. TikTok LIVE jumped 19% to a platform-record 10.6 billion hours and a record 33.5% share. The report says the World Cup final peaked at 36.06 million concurrent viewers on YouTube, an all-time high.
Twitch grew 4% to 4.51 billion hours for a 14.2% share, its strongest quarter since Q2 2025, with Caedrel leading its streamers. Kick surged 30.7% to a record 2.04 billion hours and a 6.4% share, its third straight quarter of growth, which narrows Twitch's lead from about 2.8x Kick's watch time to about 2.2x. One caution: Kick's top streamer topped 50 million hours, but Streams Charts says its earlier research flagged unusual audience patterns on his channel. Elsewhere, four of the six smaller platforms lost viewers, with Bigo LIVE and Rumble each losing nearly half their hours, and CHZZK passed SOOP for the first time, 335.2 million hours to 333 million.
YouTube ran an experiment that put creator analytics inside YouTube Studio for a small group of brand channels. VidIQ spotted a "creator discovery" tab, which YouTube calls Channel Search, and said brands could see unique viewers, watch time, audience age and gender, and top countries. YouTube says the data was limited to public information already available through its Creator Partner Hub, and that the test strictly targeted brand channels. A non-brand entity got access by mistake, and YouTube rolled the experiment back after discovering the error. For streamers, it's a sign sponsors are getting more data-driven about finding you, so keep your channel's audience info sharp.
A Syracuse University Center for the Creator Economy survey of 1,001 U.S. adults put YouTube first as a news source at 16.5%, just ahead of TV news at 16.1% and print and online media at 15.7%. About 61% said they trust independent news creators as much as network broadcasters, and two-thirds said reporting ability matters more than journalism credentials. One grain of salt: Tubefilter notes the center is incentivized to publish numbers that favor independent creators. Still, it's a data point for every streamer who talks news, culture, or commentary on air.
YouTube's second annual European economic impact report, released at MIPCOM, credits its creator ecosystem with €8.4 billion in GDP and more than 220,000 full-time jobs in 2025. The same report says 83% of surveyed creators rely on recommendation algorithms to grow, and 71% of those say less visibility would hurt their income. It lands as YouTube argues in the UK against broadcasters like the BBC that want algorithmic preference. Platforms are lining up creator-economy numbers as ammunition in the fight over who gets surfaced.
★ Hot Deals This Week
Borderlands 4 (PS5 / Xbox Series X) — Was $49.99, now $19.91
Gearbox's looter-shooter sequel, set on the new planet Kairos with four new Vault Hunters, an open world to roam, and four-player co-op. It's built for anyone who wants loot-chasing with friends. At 60% off, it's under twenty bucks for a big new-gen shooter.
Persona 3 Reload: Launch Edition (Switch 2) — Was $59.99, now $27.12
Atlus' ground-up remake of Persona 3: a stylish JRPG where you live out school days and then climb the Tartarus tower at night. It's long and story-heavy, so it's a good pick if you want something to sink dozens of hours into. At 55% off, it's more than half off a long, stylish JRPG on Switch 2.
Cronos: The New Dawn (Switch 2) — Was $39.99, now $23.99
Bloober Team's survival horror, where you play a time-traveling agent pulling people out of a ruined 1980s Poland while fending off monsters that merge and grow stronger. At 40% off, it's a solid cut for horror fans who want something fresh on Switch 2.
🕑 Coming Soon
Release Calendar🎮 Indie Spotlight
Aggro Crab and Landfall's co-op climbing game, a Steam hit since June 2025, finally comes to consoles with cross-play across all platforms. Up to four friends climb a mysterious island's mountain together, where one mistake can be fatal. The map rotates every 24 hours, and the physical PS5 edition is $19.99 with a buddy code to share a free digital copy.
From Wonderscope Games and Team17, a gentle sandbox inspired by Hokko Life where you build miniature diorama worlds at your own pace, controlling the time of day, weather, and seasons. Residents move in as your space grows, and a photo mode lets you frame the perfect shot. $7.99.
A King's Field-inspired action RPG from indie studio Freshly Baked Games, with stamina-based combat and 50-plus melee weapons, now headed to PC and all the major consoles.
🎮 Big Studio Releases
Square Enix's first HD-2D Final Fantasy, a rebuild of the first story arc of the mobile game Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius, with turn-based battles, chocobos, espers, and airships. $49.99 for the standard edition. Six days out.
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Arguably the biggest launch of the month, with Captain Price leading his crew once again. One week out.
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S-Game's action title, pushed back from its original September 9 date, finally lands on PS5 and PC.
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Nintendo's full remake of the 1998 classic, with a stylized-realism visual overhaul, voice acting, proper camera controls, a jump button, a quest log, and the option to hum the ocarina songs instead of using button prompts. Under three weeks out.
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Rockstar's biggest game yet is under five weeks out, the official launch trailer is live, and the map is twice the size of GTA 5's.
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