PUBG MOBILE Esports have confirmed the 23 National Olympic Committees competing in the 2026 Asian Games Esports Qualifiers: PUBG MOBILE Asian Games Version, with the teams seeded into two groups ahead of the tournament kicking off in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam on 19 June. The qualifier marks the second Asian Games to feature PUBG MOBILE as an official title, and runs across three days from 19 to 21 June, with eight teams earning a place at the 2026 Asian Games Esports Events in Japan.

As announced on 15 June 2026, the field spans powerhouse regions and rising contenders alike, all chasing one of the eight qualifying slots that join four directly seeded teams at the 20th Asian Games.

How The Qualifiers Work

The 23 teams have been randomly seeded into two groups for the Group Stage, played in the classic Battle Royale format across 19 and 20 June. The top six teams from each group advance to the Qualifiers Finals on 21 June.

The Qualifiers Finals pit the 12 surviving teams against each other across six matches, with placements in each match determining points. The top-scoring eight teams advance to the 20th Asian Games, where they join the 19th Asian Games gold, silver and bronze medallists from China, the Republic of Korea and Chinese Taipei. Japan, as host nation, takes the twelfth and final slot.

Map Rotation For The Qualifiers

The map rotation has been confirmed for every stage. Matches one to four are played on Erangel, while the final two matches move to Miramar.

The 23 Teams By Group

The two groups break down as follows, with the top six from each advancing to the Qualifiers Finals.

Contenders And Familiar Faces To Watch

Pakistan, Indonesia, Iraq and Uzbekistan are flagged as key contenders, each carrying a reputation as a regional powerhouse heading into the qualifiers.

Several recognisable names are also in the mix. The field includes 2026 PUBG MOBILE Global Open Season 1 winners 4Thrives Esports, members of Yangon Galacticos, who won the 2025 PUBG MOBILE World Cup, and Magna Esports Club, champions of the returning 2026 PUBG MOBILE Pro League.

What Comes Next

The Group Stage gets underway on 19 June, with the Qualifiers Finals on 21 June deciding which eight teams travel to Japan to meet China, the Republic of Korea, Chinese Taipei and host nation Japan at the 2026 Asian Games Esports Events.

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Former Bungie community manager Liana “DirtyEffinHippy” Ruppert has said the studio was “below the red line” before Sony bought it in 2022, describing the roughly $3.6 billion deal as an “emergency acquisition” that kept Destiny alive. Writing on X this week, Ruppert pushed back on fans blaming Sony for Destiny 2’s end, arguing the studio’s troubles ran far deeper and predated PlayStation ownership entirely.

Her comments land as Destiny 2 sits in stasis following its final content update on 9 June, with Bungie’s future now tied to the performance of its extraction shooter Marathon.

“This Fight Was Pre-Sony,” Ruppert Says

Ruppert’s remarks came in response to a fan who suggested Sony should have given Destiny 2 more of a chance. “This fight was pre-Sony,” she wrote. “Bungie was below the red line before the Sony acquisition. If it wasn’t acquired right then, the studio was very close to shutting its doors at the very least on Destiny. It was an emergency acquisition.”

Ruppert worked as a community manager at Bungie, focusing in part on accessibility, before being let go in October 2023 as part of a studio-wide round of layoffs. She has spoken out repeatedly since, previously placing the blame for Destiny’s funding problems on leadership “greed” rather than on Marathon or Sony.

How Bungie Got Here

Bungie split from publisher Activision in 2019 to self-publish Destiny 2, taking on the full cost of running the looter shooter itself. The game struggled at launch and built its audience slowly over the years, but a declining playerbase, repeated shake-ups to content delivery, microtransactions, and pricing, and rounds of layoffs left the studio searching for a partner to stay afloat. Sony bought Bungie for roughly $3.6 billion in 2022.

The deal has not gone the way either party hoped. Last month, Sony recorded a $766 million impairment loss against Bungie for the 2025 financial year, tied to both Destiny 2 and Marathon falling short of expectations. Reporting around Sony’s financials also pointed to a separate $565 million impairment figure attached to the studio. Bungie was initially given wide creative freedom under PlayStation, but that independence has tightened over the past year as the studio has been folded further into PlayStation Studios.

Destiny 2 Ends As Fans Push For Destiny 3

Bungie announced in late May that Destiny 2 would stop receiving new content, shipping a final Monument of Triumph update on 9 June before moving into maintenance mode. The send-off drove a spike in players: Destiny 2 peaked at 167,000 concurrent players on Steam, its only platform with public stats, around the final update, with smaller spikes of over 100,000 in the days since, roughly triple its recent monthly averages.

Fans have not gone quietly. A Change.org petition asking Sony to greenlight Destiny 3 has gathered upwards of 400,000 signatures, and players have flooded the live chats of recent online showcases, including Sony’s own State of Play, demanding the sequel. A third Destiny looks unlikely in the current development climate, and would be years from launch even if work started today.

Why Ruppert Says Marathon Matters

Rather than call for a new game immediately, Ruppert argued the surest way to keep Bungie alive long enough to make a Destiny 3 someday is to back Marathon now. “Half the community is going to hate me for saying this, but the only way to keep Bungie alive right now is to support Marathon,” she wrote, calling comparisons between Marathon’s and Destiny’s player counts “ignorant.” Marathon, she said, was never designed to match Destiny 2’s numbers and sits closer to extraction shooter Escape from Tarkov, targeting a smaller but loyal niche that happens to overlap heavily with Destiny’s audience.

The numbers reflect that gap. Marathon, which debuted in March, hit an all-time Steam peak of 77,358 players at launch but a 24-hour peak of under 16,000, typically a fraction of Destiny 2’s count. Both figures are Steam-only snapshots, with PlayStation and Xbox concurrents kept private. Ruppert maintained Marathon is “actually performing within expected perimeters” from the conversations she was part of, describing it as scratching “a small but VERY loyal niche” with “a beyond killer team” behind it.

What Happens Next

Bungie has given no indication it will revisit the decision to wind down Destiny 2, which was quietly made months ago, even amid the fan outcry. The studio remains focused on Marathon as fears of further layoffs linger. With Destiny 2 now in maintenance mode and no Destiny 3 confirmed, the studio’s next move hinges on whether Marathon can hold the loyal audience Ruppert says it was built for.

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Modern Warfare 4 Campaign Early Access begins on Friday, 16 October 2026, a full week before the game’s 23 October launch, and the only way in is a digital pre-order. Activision confirmed the early access window on 12 June, locking the perk to anyone who pre-orders or pre-purchases the Standard Digital Edition or Vault Edition. Here is exactly how to get it, which platforms qualify, and what the Campaign sets up before the open beta and full release land later in October.

How To Get Modern Warfare 4 Campaign Early Access

Access is tied to one action: a digital pre-order. Players who digitally pre-order or pre-purchase either the Standard Digital Edition or the Vault Edition of Modern Warfare 4 unlock the Campaign on 16 October, seven days ahead of the wider release. A physical pre-order does not qualify, the requirement is a digital pre-order or pre-purchase through a supported store.

The steps are straightforward:

1. Choose the Standard Digital Edition or the Vault Edition of Modern Warfare 4.
2. Digitally pre-order or pre-purchase it through a supported platform store.
3. Launch the Campaign from 16 October, ahead of the 23 October release.

Which Platforms Qualify For Early Access

The early access benefit applies across every launch platform for digital pre-orders. The supported platforms are listed below.

• Xbox Series X|S
• Xbox on PC
• PlayStation 5
• Battle.net
• Steam
• Nintendo Switch 2

Modern Warfare 4 will be available for pre-order on Nintendo Switch 2 later this year, so Switch 2 players cannot lock in the pre-order yet. One catch sits outside the pre-order itself: Modern Warfare 4 is not a day one Game Pass launch. New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma pulled new Call of Duty games out of the subscription at launch, adding them some time after release, so playing the Campaign early or at launch means paying for the game directly.

What The Modern Warfare 4 Campaign Is About

The Campaign casts players as Private Park, a young South Korean soldier facing live combat for the first time alongside his squad. What starts as a routine mission collapses into chaos when North Korea launches a full-scale invasion, forcing Park and his unit through collapsing cities and counteroffensives.

Running parallel to that front line is Captain Price, recast here as an operator-turned-outlaw working outside the system he once served. A hunt for revenge draws Price toward a weapon powerful enough to shift the balance of power, pulling him into uneasy alliances, off-book operations, and a conflict far larger than he anticipated. Activision describes a Campaign spanning large-scale battles, covert missions, combined-arms warfare, and cinematic set pieces, with grounded combat and gameplay variety across a war that spreads beyond the front lines.

Why Early Access Matters This Year

Modern Warfare 4 is the first Call of Duty to offer Campaign early access since 2023’s Modern Warfare 3, whose Campaign landed badly, IGN scored it 4/10. Both 2024’s Black Ops 6 and 2025’s Black Ops 7 skipped the perk entirely, so its return points to renewed confidence in this year’s single-player offering. Modern Warfare 4 is led by Infinity Ward, with PC builds handled in partnership with Beenox and the Nintendo Switch 2 version developed natively alongside Digital Legends.

Modern Warfare 4 Key Dates

The two dates players need are the early access unlock and the global release, both confirmed by Activision.

An open beta sits between now and launch, with Activision pointing to further information drops before the beta and the 23 October release. Pre-orders are live now in-game, on platform stores, at participating retailers, and at CallofDuty.com, with Switch 2 pre-orders to follow later this year.

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The Resident Evil 0 Remake was restarted partway through development and is now in the hands of Capcom Division 1, the studio’s flagship team behind its mainline entries, according to well-known Resident Evil insider Dusk Golem. The claim, made on 12 June 2026, suggests the project was taken off the team that had originally led it after hitting trouble.

Dusk Golem’s Claim

The detail surfaced when Dusk Golem replied to a comment about the 0 Remake being handled by the Resident Evil 3 Remake team, stating that the project had been “rebooted mid-dev.” Following that reboot, the insider said, the remake is being led by “Capcom Div 1.” As an insider claim rather than an official announcement, it should be treated with caution until Capcom comments.

It got rebooted mid-dev & Capcom Div 1 is currently leading it post reboot.

— AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem (@AestheticGamer1) June 10, 2026

Who Capcom Division 1 Is

Capcom Division 1, led by Jun Takeuchi, is the company’s flagship development team responsible for its mainline AAA releases across series such as Resident Evil, Devil May Cry and Dragon’s Dogma. Moving the 0 Remake under that team would mark a significant step up from the Resident Evil 3 Remake group that reportedly started the project.

Where the RE0 Remake Fits

Rumours of a Resident Evil 0 Remake have circulated for some time, alongside talk of a Code Veronica Remake. Code Veronica has since been officially revealed, while the 0 Remake has appeared to run into development challenges, which the reboot claim would help explain. The original Resident Evil 0 launched in 2002 and received a remaster in 2016. Previous rumours have pointed to Resident Evil: Veronica arriving in 2027, with 2028 reserved for the Zero Remake.

If that rumoured cadence holds, the rebuilt Resident Evil 0 Remake would land in 2028 after Code Veronica in 2027, though Capcom has confirmed neither the reboot nor any release window.

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Grow a Garden 2 has one active code at launch, TEAMGREENBEAN, which hands players three Green Bean Seeds when redeemed in-game. The code is live as of 13 June 2026, a day after the Roblox farming sequel went live, and is claimed through the Settings menu inside the game. Fresh codes for Grow a Garden 2 are posted to the game’s official Discord server, and the full working list sits below along with the steps to redeem them.

The sequel launched on 12 June 2026, carrying over the plant-grow-sell loop that made the original a record-breaker while layering in a night-time stealing mechanic, a redesigned map, and garden defences. Codes work the same way they did in the first game, so anyone who played the original will recognise the redemption flow.

All Working Grow a Garden 2 Codes

Here are the working Grow a Garden 2 codes as of 13 June 2026:

• TEAMGREENBEAN – 3 Green Bean Seeds

Because Grow a Garden 2 only launched on 12 June, the code pool is small and tied to the launch window. New codes typically drop through the game’s official Discord, often around updates and milestones, so it is worth checking back as the sequel’s code system fills out.

How To Redeem Codes In Grow a Garden 2

Redeeming codes in Grow a Garden 2 takes a few seconds through the in-game Settings menu. Here is the process:

1. Launch Grow a Garden 2 in Roblox.
2. Select the cog button at the top of your screen to open the Settings menu.
3. Type a code into the text box at the bottom of the menu.
4. Press the Claim button to add the reward to your account.

Codes are case-sensitive, so enter TEAMGREENBEAN exactly as written. If a code returns an error, check for stray spaces or confirm it has not expired.

All Expired Grow a Garden 2 Codes

There are no expired Grow a Garden 2 codes yet. The game is new, so every released code is still active. If any code stops working, it will move to this section.

Grow a Garden 2 Is Out Now

Grow a Garden 2 launched on 12 June 2026 at 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM ET / 7:00 PM CET, arriving as a standalone Roblox experience rather than an update to the original. The first game pulled in more than 20 million players at its peak, and the sequel rebuilds that farming loop around a new core idea: other players are now a threat. Progress from the original does not carry over, so everyone starts fresh.

Early access opened one hour before the main release for players who linked a Roblox account and invited five friends through the official referral page. For players outside North America and Europe, the launch landed in the early hours of 13 June local time.

Global Launch Times By Region

The Night-Time Stealing Mechanic

The headline change in Grow a Garden 2 is theft. In the original, stealing was a paid, largely cosmetic feature that posed no real risk to your crops. The sequel turns night into an active threat window, where other players can enter your garden and attempt to steal your harvest. The better your crops, the bigger the target on your garden.

Defending your farm is now part of the loop. The launch trailer confirms defensive plants and traps as core tools, including a Venus Flytrap-style plant that attacks intruders and another that launches fire projectiles. Bear Trap Crates, Weather Machine Crates, and Owner Door Crates have surfaced through datamines, pointing to a defence meta with real depth.

A Redesigned Map Built Around Player Interaction

The original used a straightforward row-based plot layout. Grow a Garden 2 replaces it with a circular map where player gardens surround a central hub holding shops and key services. The layout is not just cosmetic: placing every farm around a shared centre creates natural foot traffic past your crops, which means more opportunities for both interaction and theft. The design pushes the social and competitive elements the sequel is built around.

What Is Confirmed And What Is Leaked

Not everything coming to Grow a Garden 2 has been officially announced. The launch trailer confirms the stealing and garden defence system, a full day and night cycle, new seeds and crops including Bamboo, Cactus, Beanstalk, and Poison Apple, the circular map with its central shop hub, defensive plants and traps, and offline progression that grows crops while you are logged off.

Datamines point to a collectible pet system built around egg hatching, with creature types including Deer, Raccoons, Birds, Frogs, and Bunnies, though their passive bonuses and defensive functions have not been detailed. New crates, utility items, and a gear and equipment system have also surfaced through leaks. A guild system remains rumoured: references appeared on an early game page before being removed, which could mean it was cut or held back for a post-launch update. Even without a formal guild structure, the stealing and defence systems already create natural team dynamics.

What Comes Next For Grow a Garden 2

With the sequel live and only one code active at launch, the code pool will grow as the developers post new rewards to the official Discord around updates and milestones. The next thing to watch is whether the rumoured guild system surfaces in a post-launch update, and how the leaked pet bonuses shake out once their effects are confirmed.

The post Grow a Garden 2 Codes June 2026 – All Working Codes And How To Redeem appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Xbox’s online network went down worldwide on the morning of 12 June 2026, locking players out of sign-ins across consoles, cloud gaming, mobile and web for several hours. Microsoft acknowledged the problem quickly, put its engineers on it, and restored normal service by around 12:45pm BST, when players were able to log back in.

What the Xbox Outage Affected

The outage was unusually broad, knocking out sign-in across nearly every Xbox surface at once. Microsoft listed the affected services as:

• Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One
• Xbox 360 and backward compatibility
• Xbox Cloud Gaming
• Xbox on Windows (PC)
• Android and Apple devices
• Xbox web services

Because the failure was in sign-in itself, the knock-on effects were wide. The Xbox Status page warned that players “may not be able to sign-in to your Xbox profile, may be disconnected while signed in, or have other related problems,” and that “features that require sign-in like most games, apps and social activity won’t be available.” Players reported losing access to online play and cloud saves during the downtime, and one said their game crashed mid-session in Forza Horizon 6.

Microsoft’s Response and Timeline

Reports began surfacing around 9am BST, with players across the world flagging the same sign-in errors at once. Xbox Support acknowledged the problem shortly after on social media: “We are aware that some users are encountering errors when attempting to log onto the Xbox network,” the team posted, thanking users “for your patience while our engineers investigate this issue.” By 10:35am BST, Microsoft said its engineers were actively investigating.

The fix landed a little over three hours after the first reports. At 12:45pm BST, Xbox Support confirmed the all-clear: “Users should once again be able to sign in to the Xbox network without issue. Thank you for your patience while we addressed this issue.” Microsoft did not say what caused the outage, and gave no figure for how many players were locked out while it lasted.

Users should once again be able to sign in to the Xbox network without issue. Thank you for your patience while we addressed this issue. https://t.co/QNeQ70JJIl

— XBOX Support (@XBOXSupport) June 12, 2026

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Nintendo and The Pokemon Company stand to win no more than 5 million yen, around $30,000, from their patent lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair, with the case now confined to older versions of the game. As of 13 June 2026, the written pleadings and evidence have been filed, and the Tokyo District Court has scheduled a presentation of evidence for October 1, with an opinion due on November 9, 2026.

The narrowed scope leaves Nintendo with no realistic path to blocking any current, recent, or upcoming build of Palworld, including the Palworld 1.0 release due on July 10. What started as an attempt to halt the game entirely has shrunk to a fight over old code and a payout that would not cover Nintendo’s legal bills.

The Case Is Now Limited To Older Palworld Versions

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company began their lawsuit against Pocketpair in Japan in 2024, built around three Japanese patents covering how monsters are caught in a virtual field. Palworld used a mechanic where players threw a ball-like Pal Sphere at creatures to capture them, similar to the system in the 2022 Nintendo Switch title Pokemon Legends: Arceus.

In November 2025, the plaintiffs amended the scope of their claims so the case now targets only older versions of Palworld, rather than every release. The change followed a series of gameplay edits Pocketpair made specifically to remove the disputed mechanics. Patch v0.3.11, released in November 2024, removed the ability to summon Pals by throwing Pal Spheres and switched to a static summon beside the player, alongside several other mechanic changes. In May 2025, Pocketpair changed the game again so gliding was performed with a glider rather than with Pals.

Pocketpair described those edits as compromises forced on the studio by the threat of an injunction. The developer said at the time that the changes were necessary to prevent further disruption to Palworld’s development, adding that it understood the move would disappoint players just as it disappointed the studio.

Why The Payout Could Be Just $30,000

Even if Nintendo clears every hurdle, defends its patents against Pocketpair’s invalidity challenges, proves infringement, and ties the damage to that infringement, the maximum it could recover is 5 million yen, roughly $30,000. As IP expert Florian Mueller put it, writing on games fray, that figure is chump change for either party and a rounding error against Nintendo’s litigation expenses.

The reason is timing. Palworld launched in January 2024 priced at $30 on Steam and went straight into Game Pass on Xbox and PC, breaking sales and concurrent player records. Nintendo only brought the divisional patent applications after that launch, and Pocketpair changed the game’s mechanics that November. That leaves a short window, with limited sales volume confined to Japan, for which Nintendo can claim damages. A Japanese patent is valid only in Japan, so worldwide Palworld sales are out of reach.

Mueller framed the stakes bluntly, saying the litigation is no longer about anything serious in commercial terms, and that it now concerns a hypothetical injunction that does not apply to current product versions and, at most, a small damages award for a period in which Pocketpair generated limited new sales in Japan.

What Happens Next In The Lawsuit

Pocketpair raised a range of defences across the proceedings, filing numerous invalidity challenges and non-infringement arguments, and submitting expert opinions from former judges to counter Nintendo’s accusations. Nintendo could still lose outright if the patents are found invalid or never infringed.

Nintendo’s broader patent strategy has also run into trouble. In April 2026, the USPTO rejected the company’s contested “summon character and let it fight” Pokemon patent after heavy criticism from IP lawyers, and the Japan Patent Office has grown sceptical of Nintendo’s game-rule patent applications. That difficulty in securing game-rule patents in key jurisdictions may discourage Nintendo from opening a fresh lawsuit against Pocketpair in another country.

Palworld 1.0 Arrives In July

Palworld 1.0 is due to launch on July 10, with its release date and further details revealed at Summer Game Fest 2026. Pocketpair has also filed a trademark for Palworld Online in the United States and South Korea, and the studio earlier signed a deal with Sony to form Palworld Entertainment, the business tasked with expanding the IP, before bringing the game to PS5. The court delivers its opinion on November 9, by which point Palworld 1.0 will have been on the market for nearly four months.

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The Pokemon Company International will release the Mega Forces Tins on 28 August 2026, a three-tin set headlined by new alternate-art foil promos of Mega Dragonite ex, Mega Darkrai ex, and Mega Zeraora ex. Each tin carries one of the three Mega Evolution Pokemon ex on its exterior and ships with the matching promo card inside.

Every tin sells for $21.99 and includes one foil promo, four Pokemon TCG booster packs, and a code card for Pokemon TCG Live. The reveal landed on 11 June 2026, putting the tins roughly eleven weeks out from their late-August release.

What Comes In Each Mega Forces Tin

The three tins split across the trio of Mega Evolution Pokemon ex, with each box built around a single promo. A buyer picks the tin fronted by the Pokemon they want, and the matching foil card sits inside.

The promos carry artwork built around each Pokemon’s Mega Evolution: Mega Dragonite ex with its wings, Mega Darkrai ex with its gaze, and Mega Zeraora ex leaning on speed. All three are positioned as some of the heaviest-hitting Mega Evolution Pokemon ex in the game, each with attacks built to deal large damage.

Where The Promo Artwork Stands

The alternate artwork for the three promos has not released in Japan yet, with one exception: Mega Darkrai ex has already surfaced in the Traditional Chinese release. The Japanese and English versions of the other two remain unseen outside the tin reveal.

Mega Dragonite ex may be the promo heading to Japan’s November Special Deck Set, alongside the Mega Gengar ex from the June tins. Mega Zeraora ex and Mega Darkrai ex could instead surface in a future High Class Pack set, joined by the prerelease promos and the Mega Clefable ex promo from the June tins. No such set has been confirmed yet, so where these promos ultimately land in Japan stays open.

What The Community Is Saying

Early reaction across fan forums and Reddit has centred on the Mega Dragonite ex tin, with several collectors calling it the standout of the three. Some readers debated the promo’s pose, reading the outstretched arms as either a friendly gesture or a battle stance fitting a Mega Evolution. A few also raised the prospect of scalping pressure on the Mega Darkrai ex tin, given the demand Mega Darkrai cards have drawn.

How The Mega Forces Tins Fit 2026

The Mega Forces Tins continue the run of Mega Evolution-focused products across 2026, following the June tins that carried the Mega Gengar ex and Mega Clefable ex promos. The 28 August date slots them into the back half of the year’s Pokemon TCG calendar ahead of the November Special Deck Set.

With the artwork for two of the three promos still unseen outside the tins and no follow-up Japanese set confirmed, the next confirmed checkpoint is the 28 August retail launch, when all three Mega Forces Tins hit shelves at $21.99 each.

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Nintendo has temporarily suspended sales of the multilingual Switch 2 in Japan after detecting what it believes is organised hoarding, and slapped new conditions on who can buy one. As of 12 June 2026, customers must have at least 50 hours of play time on the original Switch, logged by the end of 31 May, and are limited to one console per Nintendo account, a clampdown driven by a weak yen that has made the Japanese unit cheaper than Switch 2 consoles abroad.

Why Nintendo Halted Multilingual Switch 2 Sales

Nintendo said it acted after spotting a wave of suspicious orders on its own store. “We temporarily suspended sales of the Nintendo Switch 2 (multilingual support) on the Nintendo Store after confirming several orders that appeared to be hoarding,” the company said. In a fuller statement posted to social media, it added: “To ensure we can deliver the product to as many customers as possible, we will now limit sales to customers who meet the following conditions.” Those conditions are 50 or more hours of play time on the original Switch as of the end of May, and a cap of one Switch 2 per Nintendo account.

Nintendo StoreにおけるNintendo Switch 2（多言語対応）の販売につきまして、買い占め等の疑いがある注文を複数確認しましたので、一時的に販売を停止しておりました。…

— 任天堂株式会社 (@Nintendo) June 11, 2026

Japan’s Two Switch 2 Versions

Unlike other regions, Japan has two distinct Switch 2 models. A Japanese, domestic-only version is sold widely through general retailers, while a multilingual version, which behaves like Switch 2 hardware everywhere else in the world, can only be bought directly from Nintendo on its online store. It is that multilingual model whose sales have been suspended and gated.

The Yen, Scalping and a September Price Rise

The likely driver of the hoarding is currency. After a recent price increase the domestic version rose from ¥49,980 ($310) to ¥59,980 ($375), while the multilingual version held at ¥69,980 ($435), and the weak yen leaves that multilingual unit cheaper than a Switch 2 bought overseas. The gap is about to widen: from 1 September, the price of a Switch 2 in the United States rises from $449 to $499, which would leave the Japanese multilingual model around $65 cheaper at current exchange rates. Nintendo has attributed its price increases to “changes in market conditions” and its “global business outlook,” and every major console maker has announced increases in recent months amid global supply shortages and other pressures.

Nintendo has not said when unrestricted multilingual sales will resume, and with the US price rise landing on 1 September the incentive for cross-border buying, and the scalping it has fuelled, is only set to grow.

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Valve is facing one of the largest financial legal challenges in Steam’s history, after Dutch consumer group Stichting Consumenten Competition Claims (CCC) filed a pre-action proceeding on 12 June 2026 seeking more than €220 million in damages. Brought under the GameClaim banner on behalf of an estimated 2 million Dutch PC gamers, the case alleges Valve used Steam’s market dominance and its 30 percent revenue cut to artificially inflate digital game prices going back to 2013.

As of 12 June 2026, the foundation has put Valve on notice through a formal letter and is seeking a settlement before any court case is filed. CCC says the resulting legal process, if it reaches court, is expected to run between three and five years.

What the GameClaim Case Alleges

The complaint centres on Steam’s grip on PC gaming. CCC says Valve controls roughly 85 percent of the market, a figure drawn from an analysis by economic consultancy Copenhagen Economics, and argues the company leveraged that position to keep digital prices artificially high. The group puts the estimated average damage at €130 per affected Dutch Steam account, across roughly 2 million accounts in the Netherlands, and acts for everyone who bought games or in-game content through Steam or competing PC storefronts since 2013.

At the core of the claim are so-called Most-Favoured Nation clauses. CCC alleges these terms stop developers from selling games more cheaply on rival platforms such as the Epic Games Store than on Steam, keeping prices across the PC market artificially elevated. The long-standing 30 percent revenue share Valve takes on every Steam sale sits alongside this, which the foundation argues is excessive and reflects monopolistic behaviour.

The complaint also targets in-game purchases. CCC says players are required to use the Steam Wallet to complete transactions, with Valve taking a further 30 percent commission on those payments, while developers are barred from pointing players in-game toward cheaper options outside Steam.

How the Pre-Action Process Works

As a pre-action step, CCC is asking Valve to reach a settlement through formal negotiation before the matter goes to court. Foundation chairman Bert Heikens said CCC will try to reach a solution in consultation with Valve, and will only start court proceedings on behalf of all Dutch PC gamers who bought games or in-game content on Steam or other channels if those talks fail. In the meantime, Dutch consumers can register free of charge through the Consumer Competition Claims website to preserve their potential right to future compensation.

Gabe Newell Rejects the Monopoly Claims

Valve has strongly rejected the allegations, with CEO Gabe Newell directly addressing the monopoly framing. Newell argues consumers have enormous choice, pointing to Steam, consoles such as Xbox, rival PC platforms like the Epic Games Store, and direct purchases from developers as competing options. He maintains Valve does not dictate the prices games sell for on external storefronts, and that Steam’s position comes from the quality of its service and the breadth of its catalogue rather than any abuse of dominance.

Newell’s comments were made in a conversation with Bloomberg discussing documents from an ongoing antitrust case against Valve. Figures cited in that report put Steam’s growth over the past five years at around 60 percent, with roughly 42 million active players on the platform at any given time. Despite years of competition from Epic Games, which has courted developers with a more generous revenue split and free game giveaways, Steam has held its dominant position in the PC market.

Part of a Wider Antitrust Wave Against Valve

The Dutch filing is the latest front in a multi-jurisdiction push against Valve. A comparable class action valued at around €756 million was approved in the United Kingdom earlier in 2026, while in the United States indie developers have launched separate antitrust litigation over the same industry practices. Valve has never been convicted in a comparable case, leaving the outcome of each uncertain. Earlier, between 2021 and 2023, the European Commission fined Valve over unlawful geo-blocking practices that restricted how games were distributed based on a user’s location within the EU.

With the Dutch case still in its pre-action phase, the immediate question is whether Valve negotiates a settlement or lets CCC take the claim to court, even as the parallel UK and US actions keep the pressure on Steam’s business model from multiple directions.

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