Return Entertainment said its debut game, Rivals Arena, is now available for Fire TV in the United Kingdom.Read More

Bill Petras, Overwatch and World of Warcraft art director, has diedPetras worked on multiple genre-defining games at the studioImage credit: Blizzard Entertainment News by Samuel Roberts Editorial Director Published on April 7, 2025 Overwatch and World of Warcraft art director Bill Petras has died.The news was shared by Harley D. Huggins II, former cinematic projects director at Blizzard, who paid tribute to Petras on LinkedIn."Bill Petras, a game development legend has unexpectedly passed away. Billy was an amazingly gifted artist who worked at Blizzard Entertainment for almost two decades," Huggins said."He was immensely proud of the work he did there, most notably as the Art Director for World of Warcraft and Overwatch.""Billy and I started at Blizzard the same week and were close friends for 28 years. I will miss our regular, long, rambling conversations about life, game dev, games, art, comic books, toys, monster movies and Conan."He will be deeply missed by me and all who knew him."Petras' career began in the early '90s on PC titles like BloodNet and Star Crusader.He joined Blizzard in 1997, working on 1998's StarCraft and its Brood War expansion. Petras was an artist on the best-selling real-time strategy game, and is also credited for its box and manual art.Petras would later work on the RTS WarCraft III, and then World of Warcraft, where he was responsible for the highly influential art direction of the MMO upon its original launch in 2004.Petras left Blizzard in 2005 to co-found the studio Red 5, which created the MMO Firefall.He later returned to the company in 2010, working as Art Director for the successful shooter Overwatch, which emerged from the cancelled MMO project, Titan. He remained at Blizzard until 2021.

Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities when trained on extensive visual-text paired data, advancing multimodal understanding tasks significantly. However, these models struggle with complex real-world knowledge, particularly long-tail information that emerges after training cutoffs or domain-specific knowledge restricted by privacy, copyright, or security concerns. When forced to operate beyond their internal knowledge boundaries, LMMs often produce hallucinations, severely compromising their reliability in scenarios where factual accuracy is paramount. While Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has been widely implemented to overcome these limitations, it introduces its challenges: the decoupled retrieval and generation components resist end-to-end optimisation, and its rigid retrieve-then-generate approach triggers unnecessary retrievals even when the model already possesses sufficient knowledge, resulting in increased latency and computational costs.Recent approaches have made significant strides in addressing knowledge limitations in large models. End-to-end reinforcement learning (RL) methods like OpenAIs o-series, DeepSeek-R1, and Kimi K-1.5 have remarkably improved model reasoning capabilities. Simultaneously, Deep Research Models developed by major AI labs have shown that training models to interact directly with internet content substantially enhances their performance on complex real-world tasks. Despite these advances, challenges persist in efficiently integrating external knowledge retrieval with generation capabilities. Current methods either prioritize reasoning without optimized knowledge access or focus on retrieval mechanisms that arent seamlessly integrated with the models generation process. These approaches often fail to achieve the optimal balance between computational efficiency, response accuracy, and the ability to handle dynamic information, leaving significant room for improvement in creating truly adaptive and knowledge-aware multimodal systems.Researchers have attempted to explore an end-to-end RL framework to extend the capability boundaries of LMMs. And tried to answer the following questions:(1) Can LMMs be trained to perceive their knowledge boundaries and learn to invoke search tools when necessary?(2) What are the effectiveness and efficiency of the RL approach?(3) Could the RL framework lead to the emergence of robust multimodal intelligent behaviors?This research introduces MMSearch-R1, which represents a pioneering approach to equip LMMs with active image search capabilities through an end-to-end reinforcement learning framework. This robust method focuses specifically on enhancing visual question answering (VQA) performance by enabling models to autonomously engage with image search tools. MMSearch-R1 trains models to make critical decisions about when to initiate image searches and how to effectively process the retrieved visual information. The system excels at extracting, synthesizing, and utilizing relevant visual data to support sophisticated reasoning processes. As a foundational advancement in multimodal AI, MMSearch-R1 enables LMMs to dynamically interact with external tools in a goal-oriented manner, significantly improving performance on knowledge-intensive and long-tail VQA tasks that traditionally challenge conventional models with their static knowledge bases.MMSearch-R1 employs a comprehensive architecture that combines sophisticated data engineering with advanced reinforcement learning techniques. The system builds upon the robust FactualVQA dataset, specifically constructed to provide unambiguous answers that can be reliably evaluated with automated methods. This dataset was created by extracting 50,000 Visual Concepts from both familiar and unfamiliar sections of the MetaCLIP metadata distribution, retrieving associated images, and using GPT-4o to generate factual question-answer pairs. After rigorous filtering and balancing processes, the dataset ensures an optimal mix of queries that can be answered with and without image search assistance.The reinforcement learning framework adapts the standard GRPO algorithm with multi-turn rollouts, integrating an advanced image search tool based on the veRL framework for end-to-end training. This image search capability combines SerpApi, JINA Reader for content extraction, and LLM-based summarization to retrieve and process relevant web content associated with images. The system employs a carefully calibrated reward function that balances answer correctness, proper formatting, and a mild penalty for tool usage, calculated as 0.9 (Score 0.1) + 0.1 Format when image search is used, and 0.9 Score + 0.1 Format when it is not.Experimental results demonstrate MMSearch-R1s significant performance advantages across multiple dimensions. Image search capabilities effectively expand the knowledge boundaries of Large Multimodal Models, with the system learning to make intelligent decisions about when to initiate searches while avoiding over-reliance on external tools. Both supervised fine-tuning (SFT) and reinforcement learning implementations show substantial performance improvements across in-domain FactualVQA testing and out-of-domain benchmarks, including InfoSeek, MMSearch, and Gimmick. Also, the models dynamically adjust their search rates based on visual content familiarity, maintaining efficient resource utilization while maximizing accuracy.Reinforcement learning demonstrates superior efficiency compared to supervised fine-tuning approaches. When applied directly to Qwen2.5-VL-Instruct-3B/7B models, GRPO achieves better results despite using only half the training data required by SFT methods. This remarkable efficiency highlights RLs effectiveness in optimizing model performance with limited resources. The systems ability to balance knowledge access with computational efficiency represents a significant advancement in creating more resource-conscious yet highly capable multimodal systems that can intelligently utilize external knowledge sources.MMSearch-R1 successfully demonstrates that outcome-based reinforcement learning can effectively train Large Multimodal Models with active image search capabilities. This approach enables models to autonomously decide when to utilize external visual knowledge sources while maintaining computational efficiency. The promising results establish a strong foundation for developing future tool-augmented, reasoning-capable LMMs that can dynamically interact with the visual world.Check outthe Blog and Code.All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,feel free to follow us onTwitterand dont forget to join our85k+ ML SubReddit. Mohammad AsjadAsjad is an intern consultant at Marktechpost. He is persuing B.Tech in mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Asjad is a Machine learning and deep learning enthusiast who is always researching the applications of machine learning in healthcare.Mohammad Asjadhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/mohammad_asjad/Anthropics Evaluation of Chain-of-Thought Faithfulness: Investigating Hidden Reasoning, Reward Hacks, and the Limitations of Verbal AI Transparency in Reasoning ModelsMohammad Asjadhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/mohammad_asjad/Building Your AI Q&A Bot for Webpages Using Open Source AI ModelsMohammad Asjadhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/mohammad_asjad/DeltaProduct: An AI Method that Balances Expressivity and Efficiency of the Recurrence Computation, Improving State-Tracking in Linear Recurrent Neural NetworksMohammad Asjadhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/mohammad_asjad/PydanticAI: Advancing Generative AI Agent Development through Intelligent Framework Design

A malicious campaign dubbed PoisonSeed is leveraging compromised credentials associated with customer relationship management (CRM) tools and bulk email providers to send spam messages containing cryptocurrency seed phrases in an attempt to drain victims' digital wallets."Recipients of the bulk spam are targeted with a cryptocurrency seed phrase poisoning attack," Silent Push said in an analysis. "As part of the attack, PoisonSeed provides security seed phrases to get potential victims to copy and paste them into new cryptocurrency wallets for future compromising."Targets of PoisonSeed include enterprise organizations and individuals outside the cryptocurrency industry. Crypto companies like Coinbase and Ledger, and bulk email providers such as Mailchimp, SendGrid, Hubspot, Mailgun, and Zoho are among the targeted crypto companies.The activity is assessed to be distinct from two loosely aligned threat actors Scattered Spider and CryptoChameleon, which are both part of a broader cybercrime ecosystem called The Com. Some aspects of the campaign were previously disclosed by security researcher Troy Hunt and Bleeping Computer last month.The attacks involve the threat actors setting up lookalike phishing pages for prominent CRM and bulk email companies, aiming to trick high-value targets into providing their credentials. Once the credentials are obtained, the adversaries proceed to create an API key to ensure persistence even if the stolen password is reset by its owner.In the next phase, the operators export mailing lists likely using an automated tool and send spam from those compromised accounts. The post-CRM-compromise supply chain spam messages inform users that they need to set up a new Coinbase Wallet using the seed phrase embedded in the email.The end goal of the attacks is to use the same recovery phrase to hijack the accounts and transfer funds from those wallets. The links to Scattered Spider and CryptoChameleon stem from the use of a domain ("mailchimp-sso[.]com") that has been previously identified as used by the former, as well as CryptoChameleon's historical targeting of Coinbase and Ledger.That said, the phishing kit used by PoisonSeed does not share any similarity with those used by the other two threat clusters, raising the possibility that it's either a brand new phishing kit from CryptoChameleon or it's a different threat actor that just happens to use similar tradecraft.The development comes as a Russian-speaking threat actor has been observed using phishing pages hosted on Cloudflare Pages.Dev and Workers.Dev to deliver malware that can remotely control infected Windows hosts. A previous iteration of the campaign was found to have also distributed the StealC information stealer."This recent campaign leverages Cloudflare-branded phishing pages themed around DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices served across multiple domains," Hunt.io said."The lure abuses the ms-search protocol to download a malicious LNK file disguised as a PDF via a double extension. Once executed, the malware checks in with an attacker-operated Telegram bot-sending the victim's IP address-before transitioning to Pyramid C2 to control the infected host."Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

Attackers aren't just spending more time targeting the cloud they're ruthlessly stealing more sensitive data and accessing more critical systems than ever before.

To support our product team, we are looking to recruit a service-oriented and tenacious person as a freelancer. Your dutiesImplement all product requirements (text, data/statistics, photo, graphics, audio and video) for delivery of standard corporate coverage and campaigns across owned and operated digital platforms using existing components and templates to offer the best user experience according to deadline and budget;Input/Output: Focus on output by maintaining a close collaboration with other colleagues in the creation and delivery of products that house content on owned and operated channels, syndication/distribution platforms and other media. This will allow colleagues to focus on input by detailing content/campaign briefs and elaborating content/campaign requirements. In all cases, both entities shall collaborate closely to ensure an effective delivery and operation of all services in line with stakeholder requirements;Take responsibility for coordinating and executing content-led product delivery on pre-determined owned and operated digital platforms, liaising closely with content and other colleagues to implement according to agreed deadlines;Work closely with all content production and product colleagues on all requirements (including content management system (CMS) definition), coordinate with the content production and Corporate Communications team to deliver agreed business priorities, including implementing proper mechanisms for the efficient reporting, escalation and repair of issues, especially in a live environmentTake responsibility for building new sections or sub-sections on the organisation's website including:Identifying appropriate templates from the existing template library and connections with the correct data sources to launch new sections or sub-sections on the siteSetup of new front-end templates based on existing componentsAdding new components by modifying an existing component from the component libraryAddition of any new tags or modification in the taxonomy to display content correctly on the new sectionsTake responsibility for any modifications to current sections or sub-sections of the website includingChanging order of components on an existing pageSwapping one component for another from the components library and connecting it with correct data sourcesLiaise closely with content and editorial colleagues to support the delivery of multilingual, multimedia, photographic, graphical, data and social media content on the website on behalf of the organisation and its stakeholders according to the organisation's standards and goals;Support the content production team, where necessary, with the delivery of relevant streamed video content for corporate and competition activities according to agreed proceduresManage the library of redirects used on the siteMaintain the SEO definitions on the siteTroubleshooting issues relating to website operationsLinks (broken), documents and asset managementSupport the content production colleagues in continuous training and help with the CMSMonitor and maintain integrations with Digital Asset Management (DAM), Video and other content sourcesStay abreast of CMS updates and support the move to newer versions of the CMSUnderstand and be conscious of the nature of some of the organisation's activities around the sport, in ensuring a professional and service-minded approach to all communications and other requests;Our requirementsProven experience (4+ years) working as Producer in an international sports and/or media organisationProven Experience in working with headless CMSUX/UI experienceExcellent written and spoken communication skills and management of messaging and media as well as working under tight deadlinesExpertise in managing and supporting content management systemsKnowledge and experience of Contentful a plusAbility to work in a corporate environment and to be diplomaticMS Office / AdvancedExcellent English skills, including writing, communication, and presentationAn outstanding team spirit with an entrepreneurial mindset that thrives when being challengedAbility to foster long-term relationships with key professionalsSolid experience coordinating successful content campaignsYou can expect a highly motivated and helpful team working in a dynamic multicultural environment. If you have the necessary qualifications and are keen to work for an international organization, please submit your application in English (motivation letter, CV, diplomas and reference letters).

Its been just over two months since Kathleen Hicks stepped down as US deputy secretary of defense. As the highest-ranking woman in Pentagon history, Hicks shaped US military posture through an era defined by renewed competition between powerful countries and a scramble to modernize defense technology. Shes currently taking a break before jumping into her (still unannounced) next act. Its been refreshing, she saysbut disconnecting isnt easy. She continues to monitor defense developments closely and expresses concern over potential setbacks: New administrations have new priorities, and thats completely expected, but I do worry about just stalling out on progress that we've built over a number of administrations. Over the past three decades, Hicks has watched the Pentagon transformpolitically, strategically, and technologically. She entered government in the 1990s at the tail end of the Cold War, when optimism and a belief in global cooperation still dominated US foreign policy. But that optimism dimmed. After 9/11, the focus shifted to counterterrorism and nonstate actors. Then came Russias resurgence and Chinas growing assertiveness. Hicks took two previous breaks from government workthe first to complete a PhD at MIT and the second to join the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she focused on defense strategy. By the time I returned in 2021, she says, there was one actorthe PRC (Peoples Republic of China)that had the capability and the will to really contest the international system as its set up. In this conversation with MIT Technology Review, Hicks reflects on how the Pentagon is adaptingor failing to adaptto a new era of geopolitical competition. She discusses Chinas technological rise, the future of AI in warfare, and her signature initiative, Replicator, a Pentagon initiative to rapidly field thousands of low-cost autonomous systems such as drones. Youve described China as a talented fast follower. Do you still believe that, especially given recent developments in AI and other technologies? Yes, I do. China is the biggest pacing challenge we face, which means it sets the pace for most capability areas for what we need to be able to defeat to deter them. For example, surface maritime capability, missile capability, stealth fighter capability. They set their minds to achieving a certain capability, they tend to get there, and they tend to get there even faster. That said, they have a substantial amount of corruption, and they havent been engaged in a real conflict or combat operation in the way that Western militaries have trained for or been involved in, and that is a huge X factor in how effective they would be. China has made major technological strides, and the old narrative of its being a follower is breaking downnot just in commercial tech, but more broadly. Do you think the US still holds a strategic advantage? I would never want to underestimate their abilityor any nations abilityto innovate organically when they put their minds to it. But I still think its a helpful comparison to look at the US model. Because were a system of free minds, free people, and free markets, we have the potential to generate much more innovation culturally and organically than a statist model does. Thats our advantageif we can realize it. China is ahead in manufacturing, especially when it comes to drones and other unmanned systems. How big a problem is that for US defense, and can the US catch up? I do think its a massive problem. When we were conceiving Replicator, one of the big concerns was that DJI had just jumped way out ahead on the manufacturing side, and the US had been left behind. A lot of manufacturers here believe they can catch up if given the right contractsand I agree with that. We also spent time identifying broader supply-chain vulnerabilities. Microelectronics was a big one. Critical minerals. Batteries. People sometimes think batteries are just about electrification, but theyre fundamental across our systemseven on ships in the Navy. When it comes to drones specifically, I actually think its a solvable problem. The issue isnt complexity. Its just about getting enough mass of contracts to scale up manufacturing. If we do that, I believe the US can absolutely compete. The Replicator drone program was one of your key initiatives. It promised a very fast timelineespecially compared with the typical defense acquisition cycle. Was that achievable? How is that progressing? When I left in January, we had still lined up for proving out this summer, and I still believe we should see some completion this year. I hope Congress will stay very engaged in trying to ensure that the capability, in fact, comes to fruition. Even just this week with Secretary [Pete] Hegseth out in the Indo-Pacific, he made some passing reference to the [US Indo-Pacific Command] commander, Admiral [Samuel] Paparo, having the flexibility to create the capability needed, and that gives me a lot of confidence of consistency. Can you talk about how Replicator fits into broader efforts to speed up defense innovation? Whats actually changing inside the system? Traditionally, defense acquisition is slow and serialone step after another, which works for massive, long-term systems like submarines. But for things like drones, that just doesnt cut it. With Replicator, we aimed to shift to a parallel model: integrating hardware, software, policy, and testing all at once. Thats how you get speedby breaking down silos and running things simultaneously. Its not about Move fast and break things. You still have to test and evaluate responsibly. But this approach shows we can move faster without sacrificing accountabilityand thats a big cultural shift. How important is AI to the future of national defense? Its central. The future of warfare will be about speed and precisiondecision advantage. AI helps enable that. Its about integrating capabilities to create faster, more accurate decision-making: for achieving military objectives, for reducing civilian casualties, and for being able to deter effectively. But weve also emphasized responsible AI. If its not safe, its not going to be effective. Thats been a key focus across administrations. What about generative AI specifically? Does it have real strategic significance yet, or is it still in the experimental phase? It does have significance, especially for decision-making and efficiency. We had an effort called Project Lima where we looked at use cases for generative AIwhere it might be most useful, and what the rules for responsible use should look like. Some of the biggest use may come first in the back officehuman resources, auditing, logistics. But the ability to use generative AI to create a network of capability around unmanned systems or information exchange, either in Replicator or JADC2? Thats where it becomes a real advantage. But those back-office areas are where I would anticipate to see big gains first. [Editors note: JADC2 is Joint All-Domain Command and Control, a DOD initiative to connect sensors from all branches of the armed forces into a unified network powered by artificial intelligence.] In recent years, weve seen more tech industry figures stepping into national defense conversationssometimes pushing strong political views or advocating for deregulation. How do you see Silicon Valleys growing influence on US defense strategy? Theres a long history of innovation in this country coming from outside the governmentpeople who look at big national problems and want to help solve them. That kind of engagement is good, especially when their technical expertise lines up with real national security needs. But thats not just one stakeholder group. A healthy democracy includes others, tooworkers, environmental voices, allies. We need to reconcile all of that through a functioning democratic process. Thats the only way this works. How do you view the involvement of prominent tech entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk, in shaping national defense policies? I believe its not healthy for any democracy when a single individual wields more power than their technical expertise or official role justifies. We need strong institutions, not just strong personalities. The US has long attracted top STEM talent from around the world, including many researchers from China. But in recent years, immigration hurdles and heightened scrutiny have made it harder for foreign-born scientists to stay. Do you see this as a threat to US innovation? I think you have to be confident that you have a secure research community to do secure work. But much of the work that underpins national defense thats STEM-related research doesnt need to be tightly secured in that way, and it really is dependent on a diverse ecosystem of talent. Cutting off talent pipelines is like eating our seed corn. Programs like H-1B visas are really important. And its not just about international talentwe need to make sure people from underrepresented communities here in the US see national security as a space where they can contribute. If they dont feel valued or trusted, theyre less likely to come in and stay. What do you see as the biggest challenge the Department of Defense faces today? I do think the trustor the lack of itis a big challenge. Whether its trust in government broadly or specific concerns like military spending, audits, or politicization of the uniformed military, that issue manifests in everything DOD is trying to get done. It affects our ability to work with Congress, with allies, with industry, and with the American people. If people dont believe youre working in their interest, its hard to get anything done.

The 33,500m2 life sciences scheme, which includes 22,800m2 of laboratory space, is backed by the Snowsfields Quarter, a joint venture between Guys and St Thomas Foundation the NHS trusts charitable arm and developers Oxford Property and Reef Group.The AJ understands that Perkins & Will, which was part of the original developer-led team and carried out some early feasibility work, is no longer involved.The three buildings would be on Snowsfields, a small street at the back of Guys Hospital, on the site of a multistorey car park, and various shops, pubs and offices. They will sit next to RSHPs nine-year-old Guys Cancer Centre (pictured bottom).AdvertisementAllies and Morrison has designed two of the buildings Plots 2 and 3 while DSDHA has designed Plot 1.The tallest building, Plot 2, on the site of the car park, would reach 15 storeys with a 2.5-storey basement and, as well as the laboratories, would include a science on display space to watch researchers at work. There would also be a shop and a cafe.Plot 3, which is described as being part-2, part-4 and part-7 storeys with a 2-floor basement, would also have space for two cafes in addition to its research space.DSDHAs Plot 1 is part-three, part-eight storeys with a two-storey basement. It includes a replacement pub and community performance space as well as the research facilities.The project team said the project would be fossil-fuel free and would target net zero carbon. They also said that 95 per cent of construction and demolition waste materials would be sent for reuse, recycling or recovery rather than disposed of directly.AdvertisementRetrofit of the existing building stock was ruled out, the architect said, because of the unsuitability of the current buildings on site for life sciences research. The car park is in a poor condition, while the other buildings currently occupying the site are also inappropriate for refurbishment.Allies and Morrison and DSDHA said the project would also improve the local public realm and add greenery. The scheme will create 890 jobs, the project team estimate. Local architects Belong will also get funding to work with local estate residents to plan improvements to their homes as part of the project.The Snowfields site is 1.5 miles away from another major development for Guys & St Thomas Foundation: the AHMM-led, six-block Royal Street scheme behind St Thomas Hospital in Londons South Bank. Source:Dan Fisher/Ness StudioHamilton Square viewProject detailsLocation - London BridgeLocal authority - SouthwarkType of project - Mixed use/life sciencesClient - The Snowsfields Quarter PartnershipArchitect - Allies and Morrison & DSDHALandscape architect - DSDHAPlanning consultant - DP9Structural engineer - AKTIIM&E consultant - Hoare LeeQuantity surveyor - Gardiner & TheobaldPrincipal designer - BCAL ConsultingLighting consultant - Hoare LeeGross internal floor area m - 33,500m2New Cancer Centre at Guys Hospital, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (2016)

Who lives and who leaves the White Lotus in a body bag? The 90-minute episode reveals it all.

US tariffs cause Nintendo and Sony stock to plunge"The mobile game companies do even worse."Image credit: Nintendo News by Victoria Kennedy News Reporter Published on April 7, 2025 Japanese game stocks have dropped following the announcement of major tariffs on trade to the US.US president Donald Trump imposed wide-reaching trade tariffs last week, with some of the highest levies targeting countries which also happen to be critical centres of video games hardware manufacturing.Mario Kart World Hands-On Preview: Is It Good? Watch on YouTubeWe are now seeing some of the impact these tariffs will have on companies. As shared by industry analyst Dr Serkan Toto, on Monday morning at 10am Japan time, Nintendo's stock was down by 7.35 percent. Meanwhile, Sony has seen a drop of 10.16 percent, Bandai Namco -7.03 percent, Konami -3.93 percent, Sega -6.57 percent, Koei Tecmo -5.83 percent, Capcom -7.13 percent, and Square Enix -5.23 percent."The mobile game companies do even worse," Toto wrote on social media.Earlier this month, Entertainment Software Association (ESA) senior vice president Aubrey Quinn said these tariffs will "have a real and detrimental impact" on the video games industry. Quinn's comment follows on from industry analyst Daniel Ahmad's own, where the Niko Partners director of research and insights said:"While the company has shifted some of its manufacturing to Vietnam to offset US tariffs on China, the looming threat of reciprocal tariffs prior to the Switch 2 showcase will have also forced Nintendo to consider a higher price for the rest of the world. The reciprocal tariffs on Vietnam and Japan have come in higher than expected, and Nintendo will feel the impact of this if the tariffs go into full effect." To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Back in February, Sony took some preventative measures to protect itself from the then impending tariffs, which included stockpiling PlayStation 5's in the US. This will provide the PS5 maker a "temporary buffer against the impact of tariffs," Ahmad wrote over the weekend. However, as Ahmad notes, Sony's business is wider reaching than just its PlayStation consoles.As for the PS5, "Sony would need to assess how quickly it can move production of US units to Japan (lower tariff rate: 24 percent) and how many would be produced in China (higher tariff rate: 54 percent), and how quickly it can start producing in Vietnam (Est 2026)," Ahmad wrote on X."The firm would then need to evaluate how these tariffs impact current profit margins and how much they would need to increase hardware prices for the consumer. There could also be a potential impact on accessories and game pricing depending on how Sony wants to pass on costs."Ahmad continued: "The good news is that the initial stockpiling + Japan manufacturing + PS5 being mid to late gen at this point (profitable on per unit basis) + PS5 Pro likely priced at $700 in anticipation of some potential tariff impact, means that even with a price increase, the increase may not be as significant as it would be for new tech products."However, there is still so much uncertainty around tariffs at this point, which won't actually go into effect until April 9, that no one knows if tariffs will end up higher, lower or removed entirely at some point." Image credit: NintendoLast week, Nintendo announced it was making the unprecedented decision to delay Switch 2 pre-orders in the States. The company cited the impact of Trump's tariffs as well as "evolving market conditions" as the reason for this delay.Nintendo still expects to release its Switch successor on 5th June in the US, as originally planned.For more on the console, our Tom has already been hands-on with the Switch 2. You can read his Switch 2 impressions here.