Rhythm Heaven isn't Nintendo's best-known series, nor its most prolific. Prior to the launch of Rhythm Heaven Groove on the Switch this week - it's out on July 2nd - there were only four previous entries, one of which was exclusive to Japan. The most recent came out more than a decade ago. Even still, there's a case to be made that this is Nintendo's most consistent franchise. There are few guarantees in life, but a new Rhythm Heaven being great is one of them.If you're unfamiliar, Rhythm Heaven is sort of like a music-focused version of WarioWare. That means it's a collection of short and bizarre minigames, except these ones all test your …Read the full story at The Verge.

After a lengthy legal dispute, Krafton has settled with its subsidiary Unknown Worlds Entertainment, which is developing Subnautica 2, and will pay bonuses to the studio's staff, Bloomberg reports.The dispute began last year after Krafton pushed out Unknown Worlds' cofounders, Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, and its CEO, Ted Gill, ahead of a potential $250 million bonus for hitting certain financial goals that would have been shared with the studio. After the executives sued, a judge reinstated Gill as CEO in March, and Subnautica 2 finally launched in early access in May. The game passed four million copies sold in five days.Details …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Kobo Libra Colour lets you take notes. | Image: Rakuten Kobo Kobo recently raised the price of its Libra Colour e-reader to $259.99, but today’s deal effectively erases that hike. The company, Best Buy, and Target, are all selling it for its old $229.99 price as part of broader sales, making now one of the best times to grab my favorite alternative to Amazon’s Kindle.Kobo Libra ColourWhere to Buy: $259.99 $229.99 at Best Buy $259.99 $229.99 at Rakuten Kobo $259.99 $229.99 at TargetIf you’re not heavily invested in Amazon’s ecosystem, I think the Kobo Libra Colour is a better buy than its closest Amazon rival, the $249.99 Kindle Colorsoft. It offers many of the same core features, including a sharp seven-inch color display that makes book covers, comics, and highlights pop with only slightly less vibrancy than the color Kindle. It’s also waterproof so you can rest easy at the beach, and features adjustable warm lighting for more comfortable nighttime reading.The Kobo also has a few advantages over Amazon’s e-reader. It supports EPUB and a broader range of file formats, making it easier to read books from a variety of sources, while offering twice as much storage (32GB). Unlike the Colorsoft, the Libra Colour includes physical page-turning buttons, which I find make for a more intuitive reading experience. It also supports Kobo’s optional Stylus 2, letting you annotate ebooks, jot down handwritten notes, use built-in notebook templates, and even convert your handwriting into typed text. Due to its size, I wouldn’t recommend it as a dedicated digital notebook over something bigger like the Kobo Elipsa 2E or Kindle Scribe, but it’s far more practical for quick notes than using your phone. It also works with Instapaper, making it easy to save web articles for offline reading.Read our Kobo Libra Colour review.

The Killswitch 2 lets you easily use the Switch 2 in handheld or docked modes. | Image: The Verge Dbrand apparently knows how to really whiff a product launch, as we recently saw with the Steam Machine Companion Cube shell. But it also makes the best case out there for the Nintendo Switch 2, which happens to be discounted right now. The Killswitch 2 is versatile, with better build quality than other similar models, snapping around the back and the edges of the console, with Joy-Con slip covers that add a bulkier, more ergonomically-friendly feel to the controllers. The “Travel” bundle that also includes a hard bungee strap-secured cover to protect the screen (that can hold 10 cartridges) plus stick grips is $69.99 at Dbrand, or $71.99 at Best Buy (usually $80).Dbrand Killswitch – Switch 2Where to Buy: $79.99 $71.99 at Best Buy (Travel kit) $79.95 $69.95 at Dbrand (Travel kit)The Killswitch 2 is a great pick if you want to retain the console’s hybrid use cases, swapping with ease between handheld to docked mode. The case includes a USB-C dock adapter to let you beam the console’s video feed to a TV; it’s a slightly cumbersome solution if you’re aiming to have a tidy entertainment center, but I haven’t seen other brands achieve a more elegant adapter solution yet. Read my review of the Killswitch 2.Other good deals to considerWalmart is offering a fantastic deal on Acer’s 27-inch 1440p QD-OLED gaming monitor. Originally $549.99, it’s down to $314.99 online, which was the same price we saw during Amazon Prime Day last week. It’s tough to beat the value here. For one, OLEDs offer unparalleled contrast compared to other panel types, not to mention the fastest response time around. The Predator X27U here has a 240Hz refresh rate, two DisplayPort 1.4 ports, and two HDMI 2.1 ports. It includes a heigh-adjustable stand that supports swiveling and pivoting, and the monitor has built-in speakers, though they likely aren’t all that good. Importantly, the monitor is covered by Acer’s three-year warranty that protects against burn-in under normal circumstances. Acer’s monitor has similar specs to the $349.99 Alienware AW2726DM I bought, though I prefer the Alienware’s slimmer design.Movies that are part of the Criterion Collection are half off at Barnes and Noble as well as Amazon, ending July 26th according to Barnes and Noble. That means 4K Blu-rays are down to $24.99, excluding box sets and some releases (like Seven Samurai, which is still a phenomenal deal at $29.99). Several preorders are eligible for half off discounts, too, but not the upcoming K-Pop Demon Hunters that’s releasing in December. Blu-rays are down to $19.98, though some similar exclusions apply there, too. Big discounts like these come just a handful of times each year, and you don’t need me to tell you they’re a great opportunity to load up your shelves.If you’re like me and occasionally order groceries for delivery with same-day service, you might appreciate Best Buy’s small, but welcome discount on Instacart gift cards. It’s offering $50 gift cards for $45, putting some money back in your pocket for tipping your delivery person. Regardless of which local retailer you plan to order deliveries from (Costco is a personal favorite), make sure to add the gift card credit through the Instacart site, then do your shopping from there. It seems like Best Buy limits customers to a single gift card per account at this price.

NBCUniversal executives are about to find out whether Peacock will sink or swim in the streaming industry. Now that Comcast is planning to split NBCUniversal, Peacock, and Sky from its broadband and wireless businesses, Peacock will be forced to stand on its own - without the backing of a combined company that pulled in more than $123 billion last year.In the years following its launch in 2020, Peacock was treated as an accessory to an Xfinity subscription. But once Comcast stopped offering it as a free perk to Xfinity X1 and Flex subscribers and axed its free membership tier in 2023, it was a sign that Comcast believed Peacock had somethi …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Google Home Speaker is Google’s first smart speaker in years. And it’s pretty! | Photo: Jennifer Patison Tuohy / The Verge Smart speakers have spent the past few years searching for a compelling second act. Beyond music, timers, and controlling your lights, they've struggled to justify taking up space on the kitchen counter. AI promised to change that.Amazon debuted its new hardware powered by a revamped Alexa last fall, and now it's finally Google's turn. The Google Home Speaker is the company's first new smart speaker in six years and its first "built for Gemini." After years of neglect, Google appears to be finally getting serious about the smart home - again. The new speaker is the clearest sign yet. Gemini for Home, however, still feels unfinished.Google …Read the full story at The Verge.

I'm always in search of more efficient ways to manage my home lab, whether that's a new dashboard or automation tools. I'll be real, it's driven by laziness, because the less time I spend on admin tasks, the more time I get to play with the new features or software I'm interested in. That's to say nothing of the mental effort and cost associated with learning the new control surface for each piece of hardware and switching between them in practice.

The future of video game preservation just took a major hit. This morning, Sony announced that, starting in January 2028, the company will no longer produce physical PlayStation discs, which means that from that moment on you can only purchase new PS5 games digitally. At the same time, Sony also announced that it's going to start winding down the digital stores for both the PS3 and PS Vita, helpfully illustrating one of the most pertinent issues with a digital-only future for gaming: Once the stores are gone, so are the games. It's a terrible blow for preservation of the medium.In a lot of ways, both announcements seemed inevitable. It's c …Read the full story at The Verge.

Most AI tools can build a decent-looking website now — that's no longer the hard part. The real test starts when the layout needs polish, the spacing needs discipline, the copy needs better placement, and the whole thing needs to feel like it was designed by someone who actually cared.

This USB condenser microphone from Razer delivers in value thanks to its recent price drop to just $30. We've seen this microphone go on sale before, but this is the lowest price that we've seen so far. You get impressive audio quality, it's easy to use, and it's now extremely easy on the wallet. If you've been thinking about upgrading your setup, or just wanted to give a new microphone a try, we can't recommend this one enough.

When I first started my home server, I initially reached for what felt like the responsible option: a four-bay NAS. It looked like the perfect choice, as it was something purpose-built with polished software, and four bays seemed like plenty of space. If I filled two of them with mirrored drives of high enough capacity, I'd be set for years. After I bought one and went through the initial setup, though, I realized that I was asking far more of what this box was capable of, and a repurposed desktop was a much more reasonable starting point.

Microsoft will likely soon follow Sony and stop the production of physical discs for Xbox games. But instead of leaving physical discs behind entirely, sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell me the company has quietly been working on a disc-to-digital feature that will allow Xbox owners to digitize their existing physical game collections.Xbox employees recently started testing this new feature, after references to "enable Disc2Digital" appeared in the Xbox PC app code in May. I'm told that Microsoft's disc-to-digital feature will work on Xbox One and Xbox Series X discs only, and not those for the Xbox 360 or original Xbox console. …Read the full story at The Verge.