News round-up: Colorado DLC gaming veto, Fable delay, Switch 2 surge in Japan and an unexpected GameSpot merger
Plus: A calendar of next week's numerous gaming events
Note: Thanks to a holiday-shortened work week and the need to get the weekend going (for me and for you!), this is an all-round-up edition of Game File. I’ll be back next week with some original stories–and with coverage of the coming avalanche of E3-style gaming events and announcements.
In brief…
👀 Colorado governor Jared Polis has vetoed a bill that would have forced gamers in the state to pay an extra 5% fee for downloadable content for video games, The Denver Post reports. The money would have been used to fund youth mental health and education programs,
Polis said he vetoed the “Online Add-on Transaction Fee Youth Enterprise” (full text of the bill) due to “serious legal concerns about the bill’s enterprise structure and its reliance on fees on gamers to fund these important programs and enforcement functions.”
With more nuance about video game DLC than you’d expect from a governor, Polis added: “the fee imposed on these add-on transactions means that consumers would not only be charged extra for things like character costumes and upgrades, but also for storyline content for online games. This type of content represents digital storytelling and artistic expression, and I do not support such a fee.”
🎮 Rockstar Games employees in the U.K—including in Scotland where Rockstar North historically has built the bulk of each Grand Theft Auto—have formally announced a workers’ union, Aftermath reports.
No word yet from Rockstar about whether it will voluntarily recognize the union.
😮 Valve has significantly raised the price of its Steam Deck handhelds, citing “rising memory and storage costs.”
The 512GB OLED model went from $549 to $789.
The 1TB OLED model went from $649 to $949.
🇯🇵Switch 2 sales in Japan exceeded 200,000 units for the second straight week (through May 24). The surge came just ahead of a May 25 price increase to the Japanese-language edition of the device from ¥49,980 ($314) to ¥59,980 ($376)
Just a month ago, Switch 2 was selling about 40-50,000 units in Japan each week. Then, in early May, Nintendo announced the May 25 price hike.
📱 Nintendo’s new mobile game Pictonico, which turns user’s photos into comedic, rapidly played micro-games was co-developed by Intelligent Systems, the longtime co-developer of Nintendo’s WarioWare games, which are… compilations of rapidly played micro-games.
🟩 Microsoft has delayed the role-playing game Fable, one of its biggest upcoming releases, until February 2027. The company cited a crowded 2026 calendar of its own games (Halo: Campaign Evolved, Gears of War: E-Day) and third parties’ (GTA VI, Star Wars: Galactic Racer).
In January, Xbox Studios chief Craig Duncan told GamesRadar that releasing three games during October 2025 was a moment “where we were probably on top of ourselves.”
The new Fable, developed by Forza Horizon studio Playground Games, was announced in 2020 and has been in development since 2017 or so (just after the studio released Forza Horizon 3; they released FH6 this month).
💥 This year’s Call of Duty is Modern Warfare 4, set partially on the Korean peninsula and coming to PC, PS5, Xbox Series and Switch 2.
That Switch element is notable. In February 2023, Microsoft signed a 10-year agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms, as it tried to assuage regulators’ concerns over its planned purchase of Activision Blizzard. CoD has not appeared on a Nintendo platform since the 2013 Wii U release of Call of Duty Ghosts.
🃏 Balatro and Case of the Golden Idol publisher Playstack is expected to be sold to Integrated Media Company, the owners of gaming editorial outlets GameSpot and Fandom for $151 million, pending a shareholder vote, Kotaku reports.
⚔️ CD Projekt Red is indeed preparing a new expansion for their 2015 hit role-playing game The Witcher III.
Called “Songs of the Past,” it’s slated for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series in 2027 and will be developed “in partnership” with external studio Fool’s Theory, the company said.
Item 2: The (eventful!) week ahead
Monday, June 1
Event: Kicking off what used to be E3 week and now is commonly referred to as Summer Game Fest, the MIX Summer Game Showcase airs online at noon ET. It will highlight a batch of upcoming indie games.
Tuesday, June 2
Event: The Black Voices In Gaming summer showcase airs online at 3pm ET.
Event: An hour-long Sony PlayStation State of Play showcase will air online at 5pm ET. Sony is promising a new look at Insomniac Games’ Wolverine alongside “updates, announcements, and gameplay reveals from top studios around the world.” The PlayStation team considers the overall showcase a big enough deal that they’re organizing watch parties at movie theaters across the U.S. Shall we finally see Sony Santa Monica’s next game?
(If you’re curious about Xbox’s version of this, their event will air on Sunday, June 7. And Nintendo, well, they haven’t announced a showcase yet… didn’t do one in 2025 seemingly because they’d just aired a Switch 2 showcase in April … and aired one in 2024 on June 18, more than a week after all the other SGF stuff concluded. They do their own thing, if you haven’t noticed.)
Thursday, June 4
Event: The Latin American Games Showcase airs online at 5pm ET.
Event: The Women Led Games Showcase airs online at 7pm ET.
Friday, June 5
Event: The actual Summer Game Fest showcase will be held in-person in L.A. and streamed online at 5pm ET, with some two-hours of game reveals and updates.
Event: The Day of the Devs (indie game) showcase airs right after, at 7pm ET.
(That’s not all! Even more events will unfold into the weekend; I’ll run another breakdown in next Friday’s newsletter.)