6 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Entertainment

The Verge’s entertainment section collects the latest news from the worlds of pop culture, music, movies, television, and video games. Whether you want to know what to watch on Netflix or how to make the most of your streaming service budget, the entertainment section acts a reliable source. There’s simply too much to read, watch, hear, and play. Let us be your tour guide.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Real people faced off inside a giant Street Fighter arcade cabinet in Times Square.

As far as publicity stunts go, this is a pretty solid one. Performers dressed as Ryu and Ken battled inside an arcade cabinet, complete with oversized joysticks and buttons. Interestingly, it only has three buttons, rather than the traditional six, with one of them reminiscent of the pressure-sensitive buttons on the original Street Fighter.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
Look who’s talking now.

The extremely brutal horror film Talk to Me is being turned into an immersive series called I Let You In. It’s coming to Meta headsets and VR glasses, will shift the setting from Australia to “the ultimate party in Ibiza,” and is expected to release next spring.

Artificial is a wicked satire that also sticks to the facts

According to The Verge’s senior AI reporter, Luca Guadagnino’s dark comedy hit all the familiar tech milestones.

Hayden Field
Xbox is launching a new film and TV divisionXbox is launching a new film and TV division
Jay Peters and Tom Warren
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Crunchyroll is getting a spot on the PlayStation 5’s home screen.

Sony, which acquired Crunchyroll in 2021, is launching a hub for the anime streaming service on the PS5 in spring 2027, as reported earlier by Variety. It’s still not exactly clear what this hub will look like, but Sony says it will allow players to explore anime series and games, as well as access the Crunchyroll app.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
A mysterious Nintendo gadget just appeared in the FCC’s database.

Nintendo describes it as an “NFC Reader Writer,” and I found a vague diagram in one of the files. Maybe it’s something for amiibo? An update to the old Nintendo 3DS NFC Reader/Writer accessory, for some reason?

What do you think? Here are the files, if you want to dig through them yourself.

A screenshot of a Nintendo gadget that appeared in the FCC’s database.
Image: Nintendo
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
North Carolina man who used AI for music streaming fraud sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Michael Smith, who pleaded guilty earlier this year, was also ordered to pay over $8 million. According to the DOJ, that’s the amount he earned in royalties from using bots to stream hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs from 2017 to 2024.

What The Social Reckoning gets right — and wrong

Spoiler alert: The Facebook Files are still more interesting than Aaron Sorkin’s new thriller.

Lauren Feiner
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Somebody made a native PC port of the Silent Hills P.T. demo.

You’ll need to bring your own PS4 game files, according to the GitHub page, but it looks like a great way to play Hideo Kojima’s infamous, delisted horror demo.

“I made this on my own, in my spare time, because P.T. deserved to keep existing somewhere other than on consoles that still have it installed,” the developer says on GitHub.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Skydance is merging Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery’s games teams.

The change means that Paramount Games Studio, which was established this year, will be combined with WBD teams like Rocksteady Studios and Hogwarts Legacy developer Avalanche Software, Variety reports.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
A Chinese fitness influencer was disqualified for riding a bike during the Berlin Marathon.

Yuanyuan Sun, aka Abeeeer, was photographed on the bike during the race and wrote a statement later admitting that she “did indeed violate race rules,” The Athletic reports. Sun wore Brooks China gear during the event, and the sponsor has terminated its relationship with her.

It’s just another incident of sportsy influencers dropping the ball with brands they represent, following a disastrous golf ad and the shenanigans at the US Open.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
The axe from The Shining and 2001’s star child are going up for auction.

Following public exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, a collection of “props, annotated scripts, production materials, awards, filmmaking equipment and personal possessions” from the Stanley Kubrick Film Archives will be going up for auction thgrough Bonhams London starting on February 3rd, 2027.

<em>The star child prop from </em>2001: A Space Odyssey<em> is expected to sell for</em> <em>£600,000 to £800,000.</em>
<em>Jack Torrance’s special effects axe from </em>The Shining<em> is expected to sell for £30,000 to £50,000.</em>
<em>Stanley Kubrick’s director’s chair is estimated to sell for £8,000 to £12,000.</em>
<em>A production-used clapperboard from </em>The Shining<em> is expected to sell for £10,000 to £15,000.</em>
1/4
The star child prop from 2001: A Space Odyssey is expected to sell for £600,000 to £800,000.
Image: Bonhams
The Social Reckoning is a tepid thriller that reminds us of how we got here

Aaron Sorkin’s follow up to The Social Network puts the Facebook Files scandal on the timeline.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Play Chase Bliss’ newly open-sourced Chompi sampler in your browser.

It took only about a week for someone to take the source code from the adorable but discontinued sampler and turn it into a free virtual instrument called NIBBI. You can download it and play it as a standalone app, open it in your DAW, or just tinker with it in your browser.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
MonHun is rising on Netflix.

The streamer has been pivoting to TV-based games of late, but some new app store listings — as spotted by RPG Site — show that a mobile version of Monster Hunter Rise is on its way to the service. The timing is particularly interesting as the mobile-focused MonHun spinoff Outlanders is also launching at the end of October.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Spotify audiobooks go (even more) global.

Premium subscribers already get 12 hours of (primarily English) audiobook streaming every month, and that perk is now expanding from 22 to over 180 countries be the end of 2026. The offering includes 350,000 titles, “including new catalogs in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, and more, spanning over 120 languages.”

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Dolby Atmos comes to F1 on Apple TV.

Apple TV subscribers in the US can experience Formula 1 in the enhanced audio format for the first time starting October 23rd with the US Grand Prix in Austin.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Laurene Powell Jobs is joining Skydance’s board of directors.

Following today’s completion of the $110 billion Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery megamerger to form Skydance, the company announced three new board members: Powell Jobs, former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, and newly-appointed Skydance co-CEO Ynon Kreiz. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is also joining as a “board advisor.”

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Fable is trying to get its AI film an Oscar.

Though AI studio Fable has not yet announced which distributor will put its animated Gods Don’t Give Gifts feature into theaters, Variety reports that the project is now slated to premiere on December 4th — which would make it eligible for submission for the upcoming Oscars.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
My favorite game from GDC just got delayed.

At Fate’s End, a new game from the developers of Spiritfarer, blew me away when I tried it earlier this year, but its release date just got pushed from 2026 to 2027. Bummer. Ahead of the official launch, though, you can now check out a demo on Steam and a new gameplay trailer.

If you buy something from a link, The Verge may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Transformers, under Steven Spielberg’s eye.

The acclaimed director, who worked on the first two Transformers films, will focus on “all creative aspects” of the next live-action movie that’s in the works at Paramount, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Michael Bay, who directed the first five movies, is “in talks” to direct this planned eighth film. Shia LaBeouf isn’t expected to return.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
A new Crossy Road game is coming next month.

Crossy Road Rush puts the cute blocky animals into a runner mobile game. It looks pretty charming. It’s releasing exclusively on Apple Arcade on November 5th.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Spotify’s new music quizzes test your knowledge about your favorite artists.

The feature is rolling out to Spotify Premium subscribers, presenting you with questions about music trivia, album cover art, and audio track previews. You can find a music quiz by scrolling down on the “Now Playing” view of a participating artist’s song.

Spotify is launching the feature in 11 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, and Australia, with more than 2,000 supported artists.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
A good day for game releases.

Two excellent titles are launching today, and they appeal to very different audiences. You can read our reviews of both right here: Gears of War: E-Day and Star Wars: Galactic Racer.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is free to stream on Luna if you’re a Prime subscriber.

The game has an excellent single-player campaign, though if you hit any hitches due to Luna’s cloud streaming, they could be frustrating because Galactic Racer basically requires split-second reflexes. Check out my review of the game, which I played on PS5, if you want to learn more about it.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
AI backlash hits fountain pens, with delightful results.

Write Love Pens, a small pen and stationery shop, had initially used AI-generated images (including one of a pen with two clips on the cap) to advertise surprise boxes that the shop puts together. After getting yelled at on fountain pen Reddit, the shop’s owner apologized, and replaced the AI images with extremely cute amateur drawings.

Three images, all hand-drawn, showing three different sizes of surprise box: select, signature, and reserve. The drawings are obviously amateur, and appealingly quirky.
Write Love Pens