Trump's choice of NASA Administrator suggests he wants to shake up the agency's status quo.Jared Isaacman, a billionaire and SpaceX astronaut, is a mascot of the commercial space age.He might push for getting humans to the moon and Mars faster, but he'll have to go through Congress.President-elect Donald Trump has made a bold choice for NASA's new leader.Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Wednesday that his choice for NASA Administrator is Jared Isaacman a CEO, fighter-jet pilot, and two-time SpaceX astronaut.Isaacman is not exactly a traditional pick. For one, he would be the first billionaire to lead the agency. More importantly, though, he's on the cutting edge of the new commercial space age, where private companies are becoming the biggest actors in space. Jared Isaacman at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX/Business Wire via AP Photo Some past NASA administrators were former NASA astronauts. Others were former executives from the aerospace industry. Many were politicians including Trump's last NASA chief, Jim Bridenstine, and the current administrator, Bill Nelson.Isaacman is none of those things. He has, however, flown to space in a Crew Dragon spaceship, conducted the first-ever commercial spacewalk in a brand-new SpaceX spacesuit, and plans to fly on future missions with the company aboard its Starship mega-rocket, no less.The nomination, which still has to be confirmed by the Senate, suggests that Trump wants to shake things up at NASA. Jared Isaacman stands at the hatch of Crew Dragon during the world's first commercial spacewalk. SpaceX "He certainly has the potential to be a disruptor," Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander who now works in consulting, told Business Insider. "I think it's a great pick. It's much better than just status quo another retiring member of Congress."It's also another signal that Trump might make a big push to put the next humans on the moon, and even the first humans on Mars.Speeding up the road to MarsIsaacman's enthusiasm for space exploration isn't his only bona fide. He also has a businessman's mindset and a close relationship with Elon Musk. The two share the goal of getting humans to Mars.Chiao hopes Isaacman can speed up the process.Indeed, in a post on X accepting the nomination, Isaacman wrote that NASA would help make humanity "a true spacefaring civilization.""Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars and in doing so, we will make life better here on Earth," he added.NASA is already working on it. The Artemis programsend astronauts back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years, and eventually to use the moon as a jumping-off point to send people to Mars.However, Artemis is years behind schedule and billions over budget, largely due to technical and programmatic challenges with the giant Space Launch System that NASA is building for moon missions. Many industry commentators see SLS as a waste of government funds, when NASA could instead lean on commercial heavy-lift rockets like Starship. NASAs Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA/Steve Seipel "Frankly, we have been at the status quo of this exploration program in one form or another over the last several presidents since 2004," Chiao said, "and we're not even close to launching the first astronaut on a new vehicle."In fact, NASA just pushed back the launch date for its first crewed Artemis mission, set to fly around the moon using SLS. On Thursday the agency delayed the mission by another seven months, to April 2026, citing issues with the system's Orion spaceship.That's the slow-moving status quo that Trump might aim to shake up.To that end, efficiency may be a top priority for Isaacman. That could mean reassessing Artemis entirely or cutting back some of NASA's centers and facilities nationwide, according to Abhi Tripathi, a former NASA engineer and SpaceX mission director who now leads mission operations at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab."I definitely think SLS will be on the chopping board," Tripathi told BI.First, though, Isaacman will have to go through Congress."He is going to ruffle a lot of feathers," Chiao said.Pushing through CongressCongress can be a formidable wall for anyone trying to revolutionize NASA.In places like Alabama and Southern California, a status quo NASA fuels the work of legacy aerospace contractors like Boeing and Northrop Grumman."The majority of members of Congress want jobs in their district, and they look at the space program primarily through that lens," Tripathi said.Plus, he added, "the lobbying arms of all of those big contractors will be basically camped outside their congressional representative's office, asking them to thwart any big plans that would change the status quo greatly."It'll all come to a head when the Trump White House makes its budget proposal. That's when Congress will approve or deny any cuts or reprioritizations that Trump and his NASA Administrator try to make.If Trump wants to put boots on Mars fast, he'll have to convince individual Congress members to push those changes through."I think Jared is a very smart and capable individual," Tripathi said, "but his ability to wield power will completely depend upon how much his president will back him up."

Support independent journalism that matters become a Vox Member today.The shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was met by many people online with a morbid sense of inevitability. The often callous nature of the US health care system has long been a point of wide discussion, with evidence piling up that the way the country provides medical services is costly in both money and human life. The health industrys executives insurers, pharma, even hospitals have become popular villains. The killing of a human being is morally repugnant full stop. But many people still found themselves asking: If it turns out, as may well be the case, that the shooter was primarily motivated by the injustices of American health care, would that be surprising?On the same day as the shooting, news that a different insurer would restrict coverage for anesthesia during surgeries went viral, serving as a kind of cosmic confirmation of this line of thinking. A health insurance executive is shot in New York City over (it is assumed) the industrys avaricious practices, while another insurer affirms the worst stereotype with such a seemingly arbitrary limit on peoples benefits to be given anesthesia during surgery.The reality, however, is more complicated. As Voxs Eric Levitz covered, this policy would not actually result in higher bills for patients; it is instead the kind of cost control that policymakers will often vouch for when public attention is elsewhere, something meant to rein in high payments to health care providers. But public and political outrage didnt stop to make that connection, and the insurer quickly reversed the policy.Put every aspect of this tragic episode together and you have the rotten core of American health care. The cruelties of the US medical system and the ongoing blame game between the private industries that profit from it have left patients angry and confused and looking for someone, anyone, to blame, fairly or not. There is not one man nor even one industry responsible for the failures of US health care. The finger-pointing is a distraction. Every party bears responsibility. The only way forward is to reckon with that collective failure. We need to begin working toward a more rational and just system if we are to have any hope of creating a world in which Thompsons shooting would be truly unimaginable.The distracting health care blame gameAt the dawn of the modern American health care system, the private industries that compose much of the medical sector were allies. Physicians in particular were fierce defenders of private insurance in the middle of the 20th century. The American Medical Association and its compatriots greatly preferred the country to cover most people through private employer-sponsored insurance over a government program and fiercely lobbied to smother the latter in the crib. They tolerated the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 to cover populations that were otherwise uninsurable, but would come together again to stop the Clinton health reform effort in the 1990s.Everybody involved was invested in maintaining a free-ish market system. Hospitals and pharmaceutical companies could raise prices, and the insurance plans could pass on those increases to employers, whose health benefits were tax-free thanks to Congress, which made those hikes more tolerable. Medicare and Medicaid limited their spending, but the private portion of the market created the opportunity to increase profits, and they stuck together whenever the status quo was threatened. At least for a while.But prices have continued to spiral upward, accelerated by the aging of the baby boomers and by important but costly advancements in medical science. Today, as everyone knows, health care in the US can be prohibitively expensive even for people who have insurance. Almost four in 10 Americans say they have skipped necessary medical care over the costs, and millions carry medical debts from past cases.The passage of Obamacare over industry opposition was the first sign that the private sectors political vise grip was loosening, with the Obama White House successfully dividing the industry against itself, targeting insurers and hospitals for cuts while in effect buying off pharmas opposition. The more recent Inflation Reduction Act contained a provision allowing for Medicare to negotiate prices with drugmakers, which would lower costs and allow the program to cap seniors out-of-pocket costs. That would have been unthinkable a generation earlier when Big Pharma lobbied Congress to prohibit such a policy. Lawmakers of both parties continue to look hard at how to overhaul the health system to reduce costs.That political realignment has turned the insurer, pharma, and hospital industries against each other. I have been covering health care for more than a decade, since shortly after the ACA passed. The battle lines have become clearer over that time, to the point where every sector is blaming the others for patients frustrations with the medical system:Hospitals blame drug companies (for charging high prices that they must pass on to payers) and insurers (for restricting benefits and leaving patients exposed to uncovered bills)Drug companies blame insurers (for charging patients high out-of-pocket costs for medications) and hospitals (for exploiting technical programs like 340B to artificially boost their profits); they also blame the pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) who coordinate among drug manufacturers, plans, and pharmaciesInsurers blame hospitals and drug companies (for charging too much money for their services and products, which patients bear through higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs)Patients blame everybody (for the high costs they face and the hassles of navigating this complicated system).That is how you end up with misguided outrage over Anthems anesthesia policy. The doctors paint it as insurers cracking down on patients, when it is actually the plan trying to lower its overall costs and thereby save patients money. It becomes hard to do anything to reduce costs, leaving the frustrations with the system to metastasize until we see what we saw after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.The collective failure of US health careTo be clear, health insurers have earned plenty of scorn. Before the ACA, they would simply refuse to cover people with expensive medical conditions. They are more constrained now that the ACA is law, but there is a constant stream of new reporting on novel tactics by insurance plans to deny patients coverage. Theyre even using AI to do it. UnitedHealthcare has been the subject of recent ProPublica exposs for, among other examples, the companys use of algorithms to deny claims for mental health services.The same goes for drugmakers, who are sitting on the sidelines for the moment. There are some merits to their criticisms of health insurers, PBMs, and hospitals and how those entities pilfer money in the drug reimbursement process. But pharma companies also overstate how much the high prices they charge are necessary to fund research and development for new cures. They deflect when pressed on how they exploit loopholes in patent law to keep their monopolies on prices for popular medications like the diabetes drug Humalog.The insurance and drug industries are right to cite hospitals and physicians as the biggest drivers of US health care costs. Most doctors are very generously compensated, and they have limited entry into their fields, which reduces the number of doctors and makes health care harder to access and more expensive per patient.Yet providers have their own justifiable complaints about how health insurers deploy their networks to restrict coverage, such as prior authorization and other bureaucratic hurdles that providers must jump in order to receive compensation for caring for their patients. US doctors may make more, but they also spend more time and money on administrative tasks than their peers in other countries.And round and round it goes.People are fed up. The health care industry enjoyed a brief spike in popularity during the pandemic, but its approval rating as measured by Gallup has fallen back to 31 percent, with 51 percent disapproving. The share of Americans who approve of the quality of health care available to them has fallen to an all-time low. Only 18 percent of the American public views the pharmaceutical industry favorably; 60 percent hold a negative opinion. Most people say theyre happy with their insurance plan, but they are less likely to approve of their coverage if they have high bills, and most people still report problems using their benefits, according to KFF.Providers enjoy the highest approval ratings, which may be why many people instinctively opposed the Anthem policy. But while the US public remains mostly fond of nurses, its opinion of doctors and hospitals has been dropping: for physicians from 81 percent in 2003 to 69 percent in 2023, for hospitals from 70 percent to 58 percent in the same period. The passage of the No Surprises Act, which targeted hospital billing, was a sign of their political clout softening.The failure of American health care is a collective one, the result of the system being pulled together haphazardly over many decades, rather than thoughtfully planned from the start. Even the public often has contradictory desires, wanting both more choice and guaranteed coverage. The conflict between those two impulses helps explain the difficult struggle to reform US health care and the history of voters punishing politicians who do try to change the system.There has been some progress. The uninsured rate remains too high, but it is about as low as it has ever been after a decade of the ACA. Medicare can negotiate drug prices, and seniors out-of-pocket costs for medications are now capped for the first time. Much more work needs to be done, and it will require cutting through the industrys finger-pointing: Every sector demands some kind of reform. Only by looking at the system as a whole and figuring out how to make it economically viable while also providing necessary care for all who need it can we save this system that has fallen behind those of other rich nations. There are many different ways to achieve a version of universal health care. The US still has to decide that is in fact what it wants, as every other developed European and Asian country has. Many of their people have no concept of a world in which people go bankrupt over medical bills, something that is an everyday reality in the US.No one person is to blame for all of the nations health care problems, not even a CEO. These issues were festering long before most of us were born. No one person has all of the answers either. But it has long been clear that the overall system is deeply flawed. There must be better policies across all the industries that make up what we call the American health care system to fix it.Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

A new Justice Department investigation has revealed that officers in the Memphis Police Department use excessive force, discriminate against Black people and people with behavioral health disabilities, and engage in unlawful searches and arrests. The harrowing findings, part of a report released Wednesday, are the result of a 17-month investigation into the department, launched after Memphis police killed 29-year-old Tyre Nichols in a traffic stop last year. But for now, Memphis isnt required to act on the findings. Any legally binding commitment to reform would require more action by DOJ, including a possible lawsuit and settlement with the city. Its not guaranteed that the agency will or would be able to take that action before President-elect Donald Trump starts his second term, however. And if it doesnt, the Trump administration could choose not to pursue oversight of Memphis at all. Trump, as well as his allies at the Heritage Foundation and elsewhere, have made clear that theyre less interested in efforts to hold police accountable than President Joe Biden has been. That much was evident during the first Trump administration, when the DOJ significantly dialed back its oversight of police. Over Trumps four years in office, the DOJ opened just one new investigation into potential departmental civil rights violations, far less than the 25 it opened during former President Barack Obamas tenure and the 12 it has opened under Biden. Additionally, it was much more reluctant to enter into legal agreements with cities about required police reforms one of the departments best tools for enforcing changes to policing. Based on the first Trump administration, I would expect that in the second Trump administration, civil or criminal investigations into police will decrease, Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the ACLU, told Vox. What federal oversight of police entailsThere are two key avenues for DOJ oversight of police departments: civil pattern-or-practice investigations and criminal investigations of individual offenses. The Memphis investigation was the former. Pattern-or-practice investigations can be triggered by a specific incident, but seek to examine whether there is a pattern of systemic civil rights violations by a localitys police department. The DOJs Memphis inquiry was prompted by the brutal police killing of Nichols a Black man who was tased and beaten by five officers after getting pulled over for a traffic stop in the city last year and aimed to examine just how widespread such problems are. (That incident is also the subject of its own separate federal criminal inquiry.) Once the DOJ concludes its investigation and announces its findings, it typically files a lawsuit if it identifies misconduct. A judge will then impose whats known as a consent decree, or a court mandate, for the city to implement reforms that both the locality and DOJ agree upon. These changes can include requirements that a police force reduce the frequency of use of force incidents and improve community trust in police, among other possible provisions.The court also appoints an independent monitor to oversee the departments efforts, who will keep an eye on progress or violations of the consent decree. Cities that dont comply with consent decrees can be fined and face other penalties.Memphis has said it wont enter into negotiations with DOJ about potential reforms until it has an opportunity to review and push back on the reports findings. And if the Trump administration decides not to pursue the typical lawsuit, Memphis likely wont need to enter a consent decree at all.A similar scenario transpired in 2017 after the Obama administration identified police abuses in Chicago following a pattern-or-practice investigation, and Trumps DOJ chose not to pursue the process further. (In that case, the state of Illinois stepped in to finalize a consent decree with the city.)The Trump administration could walk away from these investigationsDuring his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly signaled an intent to empower police, often making remarks that suggested a reduction in federal oversight of law enforcement. We will give our police back their power, protection, respect that they deserve, he said in July, pledging to end Democrats so-called war on police. Hes talked, too, about emboldening officers to use force, rather than curbing the practice: They have to be extraordinarily rough, Trump has said about polices response to shoplifters, claiming, too, that one violent day of policing would end crime. Other policies that Trump has advocated for, like the return of stop and frisk, which has led to racial profiling in the past, and the provision of military-grade equipment to local police, also stress an interest in empowering law enforcement. Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation policy wish list put together by Trump allies, has projected a similar message, urging the elimination of existing consent decrees.And Trumps first term also offered a preview of how the DOJ could take a much laxer approach to police oversight once the president-elect is back in office. It could do so in several ways, experts told Vox. The first way is that it could pull back on existing consent decrees that have already been put into place. In 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions attempted to delay the implementation of a consent decree that the Obama administration had already negotiated with Baltimore, but such efforts were blocked by the courts. Given this precedent, it would likely be difficult for the DOJ to drop the decrees entirely, though it could dedicate fewer resources to oversight or helping the local department craft policies for training and other needs. The second way is that it could effectively abandon investigations that have not yet resulted in consent decrees. Cities like Memphis and Phoenix, for example, have yet to enter into settlements with the DOJ. If they fail to do so prior to the end of the Biden administration, its unlikely that the Trump administration will pursue them. At that point, state governments, or civil rights organizations like the ACLU, could potentially step in and use the DOJ investigation to file lawsuits of their own, with the goal of forcing courts to require changes by these cities. In the interim, however, these cities wont face binding requirements to pursue police reforms. During Trumps first term, Sessions explicitly instructed DOJ staff to exercise special caution when agreeing to a consent decree with local governments and effectively told them to do so sparingly. Sessions also required DOJ lawyers to get permission from many of the Justice Departments most senior officials before entering into a consent decree, Voxs Ian Millhiser wrote. Technically the Attorney General is supposed to be somewhat independent from the President. But in reality if the President says, you know, Im not sure we need to be involved in these cases as aggressively as the prior administration [was], I think any attorney general would see the tea leaves there, Michael Gennaco, a former DOJ civil rights attorney and principal at OIR Group, an independent auditor that works with cities to review police practices, told Vox.The third way the Trump administration could reduce oversight is by opening up fewer new investigations altogether. The lower number of pattern-or-practice investigations opened in Trumps first term, compared to Bidens and Obamas, underscores the likelihood of this possibility. The DOJ has a unique authority and access when it comes to looking into misconduct by local police departments and doing a deep dive on their day-to-day operations. State governments also have this capacity, but they tend to have fewer resources than the federal government and they arent backed by the same laws that empower federal investigations. That means if Trumps DOJ takes a step away from police oversight, there will be no comparable authority that can scrutinize departments to the same degree. The horrific attack on Tyre Nichols, that kind of police violence never comes out of nowhere, Borchetta said. It always results from some kind of department-wide problem, but understanding what problem leads to that kind of tragedy requires looking under the hood of the police department. Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More:

The first time I played on a ZX Spectrum was at the Stockport branch of Debenhams, which in 1983 had an impressive home computer section that quickly turned into a sort of free creche for bored 13-year-old boys. You could hang out there for hours, typing rude Basic programs into an array of machines while the harried staff rushed about trying to stop them running. Some of the computers, however, ran games for customers to try and this was where I encountered Manic Miner, the legendary platformer with its strange flashing visuals and surreal enemies. Speccy games looked utterly unique thanks to the machines idiosyncratic way of restricting 8x8 sprite maps to two colours, which meant moving objects on screen were usually collections of coloured pixel patchworks, leading to an effect known as attribute clash. Somehow, it was both ugly and beautiful and it still is.Unpacking The Spectrum, the latest piece of modern vintage hardware from Retro Games Ltd, is an astonishingly nostalgic experience. It looks exactly how I remember the original machine: a black slab with rubber keys, each one displaying not just a number or letter, but also a Basic programming command. Rem, Rand, Gosub, the mystical words of the home programming era. There is a USB cable to plug it in (though youll need a USB plug of your own) and an HDMI lead, but no joystick. The machine is compatible with most USB gamepads you just need to configure the buttons yourself, which takes a little time but is worth it if you cant bear using those rubber buttons to control your games.A classic Head Over Heels on The Spectrum. Photograph: Retro Games LtdLoading it up, you get a modern homescreen showing a carousel of built-in games. There are 48 to choose from, ranging from classics such as The Lords of Midnight, Head Over Heels, Manic Miner and The Hobbit, to modern titles produced by contemporary coders in the Speccy fan scene. These are fascinating projects, including top-down sci-fi blaster Alien Girl: Skirmish Edition and tomb raiding romp Shovel Adventure. If you exhaust the built-in supply, you can also download Spectrum game Roms from a PC on to a USB stick, plug it in and run them here though if youre looking for classic Speccy titles rather than modern open-source fan-made games, then youre in shady legal territory.As ever, there are a bunch of screen settings so you can add a CRT effect to give a more authentic 1980s television experience, though honestly nothing is going to diminish the wild discombobulation of playing Horace Goes Skiing on a 55in LED display. What amazed me is how these games still carry so much visual charm. The pupils and masters wandering the halls of Skool Daze are filled with character, from the hulking bully to the decrepit history teacher. Sandy Whites Ant Attack retains its stark beauty, the geometric walls and scuttling giant ants providing the same old sense of alienation and terror. Oceans relatively sophisticated isometric adventures The Great Escape and Where Time Stood Still pack so much detail into their largely monochrome worlds. It is lovely to see them again.Legendary Manic Miner on The Spectrum. Photograph: Retro Games LtdAs with most other retro consoles, there are modern gaming additions such as save points (a little finicky to work, but they do the job) and a rewind function that whizzes you back to seconds before you were inevitably run over by a car in Trashman. But I also love the fact that each time you select a game you get a few seconds of the original illustrated loading screen; these pictorial delights were a key part of the initial experience as youd be staring at them for up to five minutes as you waited for your tape to finally load it matters that they have been preserved.Also preserved are the original computing abilities of the ZX Spectrum. If you select the classic mode, the console switches to ye olde worlde boot screen and you can actually program it. Its a feature I have taken full advantage of.A classic Spectrum Basic program. Photograph: Retro Games LtdWho is this for? Obviously the target audience is people like me who were there at the beginning and remember playing a lot of these games 40 years ago. Sure, there are free Spectrum emulators available online if you know where to look and you dont mind risking a malware infection every time you search a Rom site. But part of the nostalgic gaming experience is seeing a reproduction of the machine you remember sitting in front of your TV; and with The Spectrum you also get those legendary rubber buttons, feeling them squidge beneath your fingers as you hammer the leg sweep button in The Way of the Exploding Fist.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionIn the digital age we sometimes forget how much of memory is about feel. Many of these games were designed with keyboard controls in mind as joysticks were an optional extra and out of the price range of a lot of families in the early 1980s. The Spectrum revels in the tactile appeal of this seminal computer and its springy buttons. It will remind you of how odd Speccy games were, and how they forged their own path beyond the Japanese arcades and flashy American home computers. The days of hanging out in the computer department of Debenhams all Saturday afternoon are long gone, but the games, and the way we played them, are here again. You can come back any time you like.

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Nintendo Switch 2 will be the last console and I fear what comes after Readers FeatureGameCentralPublished December 7, 2024 1:00amUpdated December 7, 2024 1:00am Is the end nigh? (Nintendo)A reader worries that it will no longer make business sense for Xbox and PlayStation to make new consoles after the Nintendo Switch 2.Im writing this on Wednesday and, so far, the Switch 2 has not been announced. I feel safe in assuming it wont have been by the time you read this either. Nintendo said wed hear something before April though, so at some point relatively soon the boil will be lanced and the first console of the tenth generation of consoles will be revealed.Im not going to try and predict what it is or what its games are going to be, because apart from anything thats irrelevant to the point Im going to try and make. What we can reasonably assume though, is that the console is going to be more powerful than the first Switch and that means that the games are going to be more expensive to make and will take longer to create.Ive seen some fans express concern about this already, but what Ive not seen anyone mention is the negative effect this will have on smaller Japanese publishers and developers, who have just about been able to keep up with the Switch but now face a future where its too expensive and time-consuming to make games for Nintendos new console. But thats only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my concerns about the tenth generation.It will be harder to make games on the Switch 2, and more financially risky to experiment, but I have faith that Nintendo will be able to adapt and still put out the great games they are justly famous for. But I feel that is the absolute limit. If an imagined Switch 3 was more powerful again on par or more so than the PlayStation 5 then thats it, not even Nintendo can make innovative or unusual games with the huge financial burden that would imply.Now think about the PlayStation 6 and Xbox Series Y (please, for the love of sanity just call it Xbox 6, Microsoft you can pretend the Xbox Series S was number 5, nobody will mind). Neither Sony or Microsoft has ever done anything other than make their next console more powerful and increasingly its been very hard to tell where the improvements are.Ive been watching trailers of Indiana Jones And The Great Circle this week and the characters look great, there really is no point in trying to do better because theyre still not going to be 100% photorealistic and yet the amount of money its going to cost to get them from 70% to 80% will be exorbitant and Im not even talking about the cost of the console to ordinary fans.But I have my doubts as to whether there will be a traditional generation 10 Xbox and PlayStation. Therere rumours of both making portable consoles but they cant be more powerful, or even as powerful, as the current gen because its just not possible on a small handheld, even an ultra expensive one.They might make portables based on the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, but I predict thatll be it. It just doesnt make business sense to keep making ever more expensive consoles, that need ever more expensive games, when nobody can even notice the improvements they supposedly bring. Xbox has heavily hinted at a new portable (Microsoft)So, I think the Nintendo Switch 2 will essentially be the last console, at least in terms of the sort of generational improvement weve been used to over the last 40-odd years. At first this might seem like a good thing, since companies will have to just concentrate on the games to distinguish themselves, but I think we all know thats never going to happen.No new console generation means no more growth and so Microsoft and Sony are going to look elsewhere for it, to subscriptions, streaming, and whatever new band wagon they can jump onto AI probably, or something even more useless.Youd think shaking up the paradigm would be a positive, but I cant see it like that at all. These companies are not going to want to be sitting there just making games on the same hardware for the next 40 years, theyre going to push everything they can to make you spend more and more money because hardware sales are going to slow even more.Thats why theyre not giving up on live service games. Even if it takes 10 tries till each publisher gets a hit thats enough for them if that hit generates endless microtransactions for a decade or so. The next generation, or lack of it, is going to make the actual games in the games industry even less important than ever, theyll just become vessel for microtransactions especially as the mobile market is stagnating and they cant do the same there anymore.More TrendingTo be honest, Im not sure gaming will survive the upheaval. I hope Im wrong, because I have a really bad feeling about the future.By reader Zeiss Will there even be a PlayStation 6? (Sony)The readers features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you wont need to send an email.GameCentralExclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Nintendo Switch 2 to launch in June after May event claims insiderAdam StarkeyPublished December 6, 2024 6:02pmUpdated December 6, 2024 6:06pm We might have a little while to wait for the Switch 2 (Nintendo)More rumours have emerged about Nintendos next console, as an insider claims another Kirby game is heading to Switch next year.Nintendos successor to the Switch is set to be announced before next April, but theres still a wealth of speculation as to when it will actually launch.The rollout of the original Switch saw it revealed in October 2016, before it launched in March the following year. Since its missed the chance to replicate that schedule, many now suspect that Nintendos next console wont be out until some point in the second half of 2025.However, several new rumours have suggested the console might be pushed out before or during the summer next year, in what feels like unusual timing for a game console launch. The question of a summer launch was discussed on Nate The Hates podcast, where he suggested that he had heard of a similar release window, based on industry chatter.What I can say on this topic is, as of late September, early October, theres been a lot of industry chatter around the release window of the Switch 2, Nate said. And that release window in this chatter has been late May to June.While he clarifies that this is not gospel, he claims it is the timeframe industry partners and companies have as their internal expectations.Expanding on this report, Nate further claims an event for the Switch 2 is set to take place at some point in May next year. While he doesnt have any details on the event specifically, he speculates it would be similar to the press event for the original Switch, which took place in January 2017, two months before the console launched.One piece of information I do have, that these reports do not, is that Ive heard Nintendo is preparing and planning to host an event in May that will be focused on Switch 2, he added.While this doesnt entirely align with the previous two-month gap between the Switch media event and its launch in March, its certainly possible that Nintendo could have a shorter timeframe between these milestones for its next console. Its time for a new console (Nintendo)The bigger question is why launch a console during the summer, which is traditionally the quietest period for video game sales and not a time of year when most people are thinking of buying new hardware.There could be various reasons but the launch of GTA 6 in autumn is certain to take the air out of the room for anything else video game related, even including the Switch 2.Elsewhere on the podcast, Nate, who has a fairly decent track record for gaming rumours, also claimed Kirby: Planet Robobot will be released on Switch in 2025. The platformer was originally released on the Nintendo 3DS in 2016, and as Nintendo has a habit of rolling out Kirby games at the end of a consoles lifecycle, it certainly sounds plausible.More TrendingWhile Nintendo has confirmed nothing about the Switch 2, except that its backwards compatible, leaks earlier this week appeared to show the new seemingly magnetic Joy-Con controllers with a back pedal. Kirby might be back on Switch soon (Nintendo)Emailgamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below,follow us on Twitter, andsign-up to our newsletter.To submit Inbox letters and Readers Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use ourSubmit Stuff page here.For more stories like this,check our Gaming page.GameCentralExclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

When it is finished, Qianfan could number 14,000 satellites

Theres something about the Wicked soundtrack coming up at the tail end of the year and sneaking into our Spotify Wrapped playlists that just doesnt do the album justice. I know in a couple weeks time, it will have taken over most of the top positions in my rankings at least. Lets be real, it will probably have a bigger year on everyones Wrapped rankings by the release of Wicked: Part Two. With that in mind, were needle-dropping Wicked Part Ones music featuring Ariana Grande as Galinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, whose witchy frenemy romance propels the hit musical film. If youre in the same (theater) camp as those of us who have watched the film multiple times already, theres already a setlist of the tracks we listen to when not sitting inside Nicole Kidmans AMC church. Like it or not theres faves and not so faves, but good on you if you consider it to be a no-skips album. However, here are our rankings from forgettable to favorite earworms from the Wicked soundtrack. A Sentimental Man Jeff Goldblum Universal Pictures Okay, we have to say it whisper singing isnt good. Love Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard, but verbally slowing down this already least-played entry on the musical soundtrack makes it all the more drawn out for exposition purposes, right when the action is about to get going.Something Bad Peter Dinklage and Cynthia Erivo Universal Pictures What balances this one out is Cynthia Erivos singing. Yet, this first act number is definitely our first bathroom and snack break when re-watching it in the theater. Obviously important to sit through the first go round for important exposition purposes. Theres nothing all that baaaad about it. Dear Old Shiz Shiz University Choir, Ariana Grande, and Wicked Cast Universal Pictures Its giving magic school upgrade; we needed more of them. I cannot wait to walk through a Universal Studios theme park and hear this performed live. And Grandes note ate.No One Mourns the Wicked Ariana Grande and Wicked Cast Universal Pictures We mourn the Wicked. Love the word play here with the crowds chanting No one mourns the Wicked and Ariana Grande singing No, one mourns the Wicked, and the two meanings at play with Glindas high notes hit so hard as the story begins to unfold. Im Not That Girl Cynthia Erivo Universal Pictures The bittersweet moment of unrequited love, weve all been there. Its good soft song for Cynthia Erivo to show Elphaba has multitudes before belting Defying Gravity.One Short Day Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, and Wicked Cast We are still screaming about the [redacted] cameos and working on memorizing the new lyrics.Ozdust Duet The Wicked Orchestra Universal Pictures Dancing Through Life is super long in the movieits basically an act all its own but really shines when Elphaba and Glinda have their moment of bonding. The Ozdust Duet instrumental is gorgeous and evokes all the feelings you have when you find someone who understands you. Dancing Through Life Jonathan Bailey and Wicked Cast Universal Pictures Okay, despite its length, Dancing Through Life runs the gamut of set pieces, from the library to quiet moments between characters we love singing along to (Uh, Nessa? Listen Nessa? Nessa? Nessa?), right into the showstopping finale. This is such a fun one to blast out loud.The Wizard and I Cynthia Erivo The power ballad that is Elphabas I want song will know more karaoke moments and sing-alongs for years to come.What Is This Feeling? Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, and Wicked Cast This frenemy anthem is going viral for its duet ability and TikTok dance craze with Galinda and her Shiz crew (taps notebook, stomp). We know this because its on constant rotation within every other Reel and TikTok sample in our For You pages. Popular Ariana Grande Ariana Grande as Galinda singing Popular is an all-timer. Its infectious and bubbly, RIGHT?! Thankfully a shorter radio edit without dialogue has been released. Check it out above! Defying Gravity Cynthia Erivo Give Cynthia Erivo all the awards! Defying Gravitys timelessness is elevated by Erivos sheer talent as Elphaba. The extended version is our favorite but the radio edit (above) will make you feel unlimited in a pinch when you need it.Wicked is out now in theaters; sing-along screenings start on December 25 at a theater near you, thank you for your continued restraint to not sing along until then. Wicked the Soundtrack can be found online. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, whats next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.