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16 Aug 2026 6:48pm GMT

"As Sony soldiers ahead with their plans to end hard copies for new PlayStation games, players are fearing a future which will force them to pay more and own less," writes Kotaku. What will prices do in a world with no physical copies to share or sell? One former Square Enix executive speculates this could actually drive down the price of games: "Digital on the PS store will likely get cheaper," posted Jacob Navok, former Square Enix business strategist. "Current prices are tied to retail. Without physical discs holding digital hostage we'll see a larger spectrum of pricing similar to steam." Navok says that the digital-only landscape will pit major publishers in constant, dynamic competition with each other... "The more the Playstation store becomes digital only, the greater this trend will accelerate," Navok follows up. "You will see more sales and dynamic pricing similar to Steam because publishers will compete among themselves to a greater extent." [O]n the other end newer games are getting increasingly expensive, even on digital platforms. The fact that Grand Theft Auto VI will be a purely digital release has not caused its price point to budge.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

16 Aug 2026 6:42pm GMT

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16 Aug 2026 6:17pm GMT

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16 Aug 2026 5:49pm GMT

An anonymous reader shared this report from TechCrunch: According to data from digital intelligence provider Similarweb, Bluesky's mobile app had 10.4 million monthly active users worldwide in June 2026, down 27.2% year-over-year. In addition, mobile daily active users continued to decline, falling 25.6% year-over-year in July to around 3 million... Bluesky's app has lost more than half its monthly active users from its late-2024 high... Its quarterly average was around 22.1 million monthly active users in the fourth quarter of 2024, Similarweb's data indicates, and it declined to 10.7 million in the second quarter of 2026. That's a decline of around 52%. While Bluesky's numbers are down, those who stuck around are committed. Its smaller community remains relatively active, with a stickiness rate (the ratio of daily to monthly active users) of roughly 29% in June, about the same as Threads. For Bluesky's new CEO, Toni Schneider, these numbers may not be as concerning. The company is not entirely focused on making Bluesky (the app) succeed, but on making it possible for the underlying protocol (AT Proto) to power a growing number of social apps, services, and communities. That's something that is now taking place, as projects like BlackSky and Eurosky are growing, while some AT Proto apps like the video-focused Skylight have found early traction, too. In addition, the company has launched new products, like the AI-powered research tool Attie, and is now working on adding support for private data to Bluesky. The latter could generate new interest in Bluesky from a different type of user - those less interested in the public square, and more interested in private networking and communities. But on Threads in July of 2026, daily active users were up 21.3% year-over-year to 147 million, the article points out, and website visits were up 112% year-over-year to 471.6 million. And Threads now appears to have roughly 66% more monthly active users than X.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

16 Aug 2026 4:34pm GMT

Saturday Disneyland announced a special Star Wars-themed collaboration with third-person shooter game Fortnite - including a slick new trailer for its Star Wars: Smuggler's Gambit quest. Visitors to Disneyland's Smuggler's Run attraction at Disney's theme parks in Orlando and in Anaheim can accept a special mission while waiting in line for the ride, according to The Hollywood Reporter. And "If they succeed, they will get a unique Forsworn Trooper Outfit in a newly-created Fortnite adventure called Smugglers Gambit set in that same universe." "Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run | Fortnite marks the first time this attraction has reached beyond its physical walls into a connected game world - a story that starts in a queue in Orlando or Anaheim can now continue on a screen almost anywhere," said Sean Shoptaw, executive VP of Disney Games and Digital Entertainment.... "Together these experiences reflect our ambition to connect stories and worlds across formats into one converged entertainment ecosystem...." The cockpit technology in the ride was actually created using Epic's Unreal Engine, which allows for many assets from the ride to appear in Smugglers Gambit.... "Whether you're at a Disney Park or playing Fortnite with your friends, fans have new ways to keep their Star Wars adventures going," [said Adam Sussman, president of Epic Games]. "This is only the beginning of what's possible when world-class storytellers bring their creativity into Fortnite." Disney, of course, is an investor in Epic Games, and the two companies have been at work building a new world that will connect to Fortnite with all of the Disney's beloved characters... This new collaboration, however, extends to the real world for the first time, bringing some video game magic to Disney's parks, and some of that theme park magic to the video game. Disneyland will also launch a new area based on James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water, reports The Orange County Register - which even has a picture of the Avatar Destination ride's model, showing an enormous (and very colorful) waterfall. The model was part of Saturday's Disney fan expo "D23", showing the Disneyland Monorail traveling around the edge of the attraction (which reportedly involves a 30-person vehicle). Saturday's event also included details on the long-awaited "reimagining" of the park's Tomorrowland area, with their official blog promising "Yesterday's tomorrow, today!" Tomorrowland has some history, explains the Orange County Register: The land's first update in 1967 was dubbed the New Tomorrowland with the 1998 makeover jokingly referred to as the New, New Tomorrowland. The latest iteration is already being called the New, New, New Tomorrowland. Disneyland's Land of Tomorrow has plenty of empty spaces in need of some Imagineering magic with the Tomorrowland Theater, Star Wars Launch Bay and PeopleMover track all sitting underused. Or, as The Wrap puts it, "The problem with Tomorrowland, of course, has been keeping up with tomorrow." 1967 introduced New Tomorrowland, with Adventures Thru Inner Space, Carousel of Progress and the PeopleMover giving it the "World on the Move" theme. In 1975 Space Mountain opened and in the 1980's the Tomorrowland stage was enclosed to become a 3D theater, where "Magic Journeys" and "Captain EO" played. Star Tours also opened in the 1980's, giving the area some additional adrenaline. But an elaborate redo of the area, planned for the 1990's, was cut short due to financial woes following the opening of Disneyland Paris and were largely shuttered. (In Florida, a new Tomorrowland was approximated in the mid-1990's but not really followed through on, adopting some of the timelessness of the Jules Verne-inspired Discoveryland from Paris.) Since the 1990's, Tomorrowland in Disneyland has become largely defunct or outright abandoned... In the late 1990's, Disney tried to use the [PeopleMover] track for a high-speed attraction called Rocket Rods. The attraction never worked properly and was shuttered after just a few years. Rumor has it that the intensity of the ride vehicles actually weakened the PeopleMover track and removing the track would be time consuming and costly. So since the turn of the millennium, there has just been track above and all around Tomorrowland that sits, untouched.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

16 Aug 2026 3:34pm GMT

Nextcloud Native is a new open-source client bringing Files, Photos, Talk, Calendar, Mail, and more into one polished native interface.

16 Aug 2026 11:48am GMT

Founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock, Debian celebrates 33 years as one of the most influential projects in the Linux ecosystem.

16 Aug 2026 6:00am GMT

Also: Ahsoka S2 teaser, Doomsday trailer, news about MCU's X-Men and Star Wars: Starfighter

15 Aug 2026 9:21pm GMT

nnn 5.3 "Mai Tai" introduces a native preview pane, improved fuzzy filtering, lazy-loaded plugins, new plugins, and numerous usability fixes.

15 Aug 2026 7:46pm GMT

"Flamingo missiles were used. A good achievement."

15 Aug 2026 3:46pm GMT

Utility-scale solar leads by a mile, followed by batteries. Fossil fuels, not so much.

15 Aug 2026 11:09am GMT