TechnologyThe Governments Computing Experts Say They Are TerrifiedFour IT professionals lay out just how destructive Elon Musks incursion into the U.S. government could be.By Charlie Warzel and Ian BogostIllustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty.February 7, 2025, 9:01 AM ET Listen1.0x0:0015:31Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (Noa) using AI narration. Listen to more stories on the Noa app.If you have tips about the remaking of the federal government, you can contact Charlie and Ian on Signal at @cwarzel.92 and @ibogost.47.Elon Musks unceasing attempts to access the data and information systems of the federal government range so widely, and are so unprecedented and unpredictable, that government computing experts believe the effort has spun out of control. This week, we spoke with four federal-government IT professionalsall experienced contractors and civil servants who have built, modified, or maintained the kind of technological infrastructure that Musks inexperienced employees at his newly created Department of Government Efficiency are attempting to access. In our conversations, each expert was unequivocal: They are terrified and struggling to articulate the scale of the crisis.Even if the president of the United States, the head of the executive branch, supports (and, importantly, understands) these efforts by DOGE, these experts told us, they would still consider Musks campaign to be a reckless and dangerous breach of the complex systems that keep America running. Federal IT systems facilitate operations as varied as sending payments from the Treasury Department and making sure that airplanes stay in the air, the sources told us.Based on what has been reported, DOGE representatives have obtained or requested access to certain systems at the U.S. Treasury, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Personnel Management, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with eyes toward others, including the Federal Aviation Administration. This is the largest data breach and the largest IT security breach in our countrys historyat least thats publicly known, one contractor who has worked on classified information-security systems at numerous government agencies told us this week. You cant un-ring this bell. Once these DOGE guys have access to these data systems, they can ostensibly do with it what they want.Read: If DOGE goes nuclearWhat exactly they want is unclear. And much remains unknown about what, exactly, is happening here. The contractor emphasized that nobody yet knows which information DOGE has access to, or what it plans to do with it. Spokespeople for the White House, and Musk himself, did not respond to emailed requests for comment. Some reports have revealed the scope of DOGEs incursions at individual agencies; still, it has been difficult to see the broader context of DOGEs ambition.The four experts laid out the implications of giving untrained individuals access to the technological infrastructure that controls the country. Their message is unambiguous: These are not systems you tamper with lightly. Musk and his crew could act deliberately to extract sensitive data, alter fundamental aspects of how these systems operate, or provide further access to unvetted actors. Or they may act with carelessness or incompetence, breaking the systems altogether. Given the scope of what these systems do, key government services might stop working properly, citizens could be harmed, and the damage might be difficult or impossible to undo. As one administrator for a federal agency with deep knowledge about the governments IT operations told us, I dont think the public quite understands the level of danger.Each of our four sources, three of whom requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal, made three points very clear: These systems are immense, they are complex, and they are critical. A single program run by the FAA to help air-traffic controllers, En Route Automation Modernization, contains nearly 2 million lines of code; an average iPhone app, for comparison, has about 50,000. The Treasury Department disburses trillions of dollars in payments per year.Many systems and databases in a given agency feed into others, but access to them is restricted. Employees, contractors, civil-service government workers, and political appointees have strict controls on what they can access and limited visibility into the system as a whole. This is by design, as even the most mundane government databases can contain highly sensitive personal information. A security-clearance database such as those used by the Department of Justice or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, one contractor told us, could include information about a persons mental-health or sexual history, as well as disclosures about any information that a foreign government could use to blackmail them.Even if DOGE has not tapped into these particular databases, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the group has accessed sensitive personnel data at OPM. Mother Jones also reported on Wednesday that an effort may be under way to effectively give Musk control over IT for the entire federal government, broadening his access to these agencies. Trump has said that Musk is acting only with his permission. Elon cant do and wont do anything without our approval, he said to reporters recently. And we will give him the approval where appropriate. Where its not appropriate, we wont. The specter of what DOGE might do with that approval is still keeping the government employees we spoke with up at night. With relatively basic read only access, Musks people could easily find individuals in databases or clone entire servers and transfer that secure information somewhere else. Even if Musk eventually loses access to these systemsowing to a temporary court order such as the one approved yesterday, saywhatever data he siphons now could be his forever.Read: Trump advisers stopped Musk from hiring a noncitizen at DOGEWith a higher level of accesswrite accessa motivated person may be able to put their own code into the system, potentially without any oversight. The possibilities here are staggering. One could alter the data these systems process, or they could change the way the software operateswithout any of the testing that would normally accompany changes to a critical system. Still another level of access, administrator privileges, could grant the broad ability to control a system, including hiding evidence of other alterations. They could change or manipulate treasury data directly in the database with no way for people to audit or capture it, one contractor told us. Wed have very little way to know it even happened.The specific levels of access that Musk and his team have remain unclear and likely vary between agencies. On Tuesday, the Treasury said that DOGE had been given read only access to the departments federal payment system, though Wired then reported that one member of DOGE was able to write code on the system. Any focus on access tiers, for that matter, may actually simplify the problem at hand. These systems arent just complex at the code levelthey are multifaceted in their architecture. Systems can have subsystems; each of these can have its own permission structures. Its hard to talk about any agencys tech infrastructure as monolithic. Its less a database than it is a Russian nesting doll of databases, the experts said.Musks efforts represent a dramatic shift in the way the governments business has traditionally been conducted. Previously, security protocols were so strict that a contractor plugging a non-government-issued computer into an Ethernet port in a government agency office was considered a major security violation. Contrast that with DOGEs incursion. CNN reported yesterday that a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern without a background check was given a basic, low tier of access to Department of Energy IT systems, despite objections from department lawyers and information experts. That these guys, who may not even have clearances, are just pulling up and plugging in their own servers is madness, one source told us, referring to an allegation that DOGE had connected its own server at OPM. Its really hard to find good analogies for how big of a deal this is. The simple fact that Musk loyalists are in the building with their own computers is the heart of the problemand helps explain why activities ostensibly authorized by the president are widely viewed as a catastrophic data breach.The four systems professionals we spoke with do not know what damage might already have been done. The longer this goes on, the greater the risk of potential fatal compromise increases, Scott Cory, a former CIO for an agency in the HHS, told us. At the Treasury, this could mean stopping payments to government organizations or outside contracts it doesnt want to pay. It could also mean diverting funds to other recipients. Or gumming up the works in the attempt to do those, or other, things.In the FAA, even a small systems disruption could cause mass grounding of flights, a halt in global shipping, or worse, downed planes. For instance, the agency oversees the Traffic Flow Management System, which calculates the overall demand for airspace in U.S. airports and which airlines depend on. Going into these systems without an in-depth understanding of how they work both individually and interconnectedly is a recipe for disaster that will result in death and economic harm to our nation, one FAA employee who has nearly a decade of experience with its system architecture told us. Upgrading a system of which you know nothing about is a good way to break it, and breaking air travel is a worst-case scenario with consequences that will ripple out into all aspects of civilian life. It could easily get to a place where you cant guarantee the safety of flights taking off and landing. Nevertheless, on Wednesday Musk posted that the DOGE team will aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system.Even if DOGE members are looking to modernize these systems, they may find themselves flummoxed. The government is big and old and complicated. One former official with experience in government IT systems, including at the Treasury, told us that old could mean that the systems were installed in 1962, 1992, or 2012. They might use a combination of software written in different programming languages: a little COBOL in the 1970s, a bit of Java in the 1990s. Knowledge about one system doesnt give anyoneincluding Musks DOGE workers, some of whom were not even alive for Y2Kthe ability to make intricate changes to another.Read: The rapid unscheduled disassembly of the United States governmentThe internet economy, characterized by youth and disruption, favors inventing new systems and disposing of old ones. And the nations computer systems, like its roads and bridges, could certainly benefit from upgrades. But old computers dont necessarily make for bad infrastructure, and government infrastructure isnt always old anyway. The former Treasury official told us that mainframesand COBOL, the ancient programming language they often runare really good for what they do, such as batch processing for financial transactions.Like the FAA employee, the payment-systems expert also fears that the most likely result of DOGE activity on federal systems will be breaking them, especially because of incompetence and lack of proper care. DOGE, he observed, may be prepared to view or hoover up data, but it doesnt appear to be prepared to carry out savvy and effective alterations to how the system operates. This should perhaps be reassuring. If you were going to organize a heist of the U.S. Treasury, he said, why in the world would you bring a handful of college students? They would be useless. Your crew would need, at a minimum, a couple of guys with a decade or two of experience with COBOL, he said.Unless, of course, you had the confidence that you could figure anything out, including a lumbering government system you dont respect in the first place. That interpretation of DOGEs theory of self seems both likely and even more scary, at the Treasury, the FAA, and beyond. Would they even know what to do after logging in to such a machine? we asked. No, theyd have no idea, the payment expert said. The sanguine thing to think about is that the code in these systems and the process and functions they manage are unbelievably complicated, Scott Cory said. Youd have to be extremely knowledgeable if you were going into these systems and wanting to make changes with an impact on functionality.But DOGE workers could try anyway. Mainframe computers have a keyboard and display, unlike the cloud-computing servers in data centers. According to the former Treasury IT expert, someone who could get into the room and had credentials for the system could access it and, via the same machine or a networked one, probably also deploy software changes to it. Its far more likely that they would break, rather than improve, a Treasury disbursement system in so doing, one source told us. The volume of information they deal with [at the Treasury] is absolutely enormous, well beyond what anyone would deal with at SpaceX, the source said. Even a small alteration to a part of the system that has to do with the distribution of funds could wreak havoc, preventing those funds from being distributed or distributing them wrongly, for example. Its like walking into a nuclear reactor and deciding to handle some plutonium.DOGE is many thingsa dismantling of the federal government, a political project to flex power and punish perceived enemiesbut it is also the logical end point of a strain of thought thats become popular in Silicon Valley during the boom times of Big Tech and easy money: that building software and writing code arent just dominant skills for the 21st century, but proof of competence in any realm. In a post on X this week, John Shedletsky, a developer and an early employee at the popular gaming platform Roblox, summed up the philosophy nicely: Silicon Valley built the modern world. Why shouldnt we run it?This attitude disgusted one of the officials we spoke with. Theres this bizarre belief that being able to do things with computers means you have to be super smart about everything else. Silicon Valley may have built the computational part of the modern world, but the rest of that worldthe money, the airplanes, the roads, and the waterwaysstill exists. Knowing something, even a lot, about computers guarantees no knowledge about the world beyond them.Id like to think that this is all so massive and complex that they wont succeed in whatever it is theyre trying to do, one of the experts told us. But I wouldnt want to wager that outcome against their egos.Explore More Topics

Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube795kIn case you somehow missed it, Nintendo has confirmed the Switch Online service will carry over to the Switch 2.With this in mind, during Nintendo's latest financial results Q&A, company president Shuntaro Furukawa reiterated how the service will "continue to be available for Nintendo Switch 2" when asked for his thoughts on "future online strategy". He also mentioned how Nintendo will continue to "provide comprehensive services" to ensure users "enjoy their experience" with its hardware.Furukawa acknowledged the current membership count for Switch Online at the same time - noting how it's "not changed significantly from the 34 million as of last September", with subscriptions "stable" now that the holiday season is over.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube795kWatch on YouTube As for the recent "Switch Online: Playtest Program", which ended up leaking, the plan is to "leverage results and other learnings gained from this initiative in future Nintendo Switch Online services" but there are no announcements for this right now.The Switch Online service has so far been bolstered in 2025 with multiple retro game updates for SNES and N64 libraries, and next week sees the arrival of Wario Land 4 for the GBA collection on 14th February. Of course, the service also continues to allow subscribers to play with other users from around the globe, save data in the cloud, and receive special offers. The perfect Valentine's Day giftIt's Ridge Racer!Including a special Super Famicom release...How are you feeling about Nintendo Switch Online ahead of the Switch 2 launch? Will you be using the service on this new hardware? How would you like to see it evolve over the next generation? Vote in our poll and let us know in the comments.What would you rate the Switch Online service based on the past 12 months? (76 votes)10/10 - Outstanding11%9/10 - Excellent12%8/10 - Great22%7/10 - Good32%6/10 - Not Bad5%5/10 - Average11%4/10 - Poor3%3/10 - Bad 0%2/10 - Terrible 0%1/10 - Abysmal5%Do you have an active Switch Online membership? (77 votes)Yes (Switch Online)26%Yes (Switch Online + Expansion Pack)62%No12%Related GamesSee AlsoShare:00 Liam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related ArticlesNintendo Reconfirms Release Windows For Major Upcoming Switch Games... and the Switch 2!Ex-PlayStation Boss On Switch 2's Name: Nintendo Created So Much "Brand Value""Why would you mess with that?"69 Games You Should Pick Up In Nintendo's 'Supercharge' eShop Sale (North America)Every game we scored 9/10 or higher"Nintendo Is Probably The Easiest To Scam" - Devs Discuss The Current State Of The eShopThe rise of "eSlop"Don't Worry, Nintendo's Thinking About Affordability With Switch 2 PricingThough no official price will be revealed for now

DOGE you just hate it when someone has made up their mind on something youre convinced theyre wrong about?Humans have always been divided by perspective. Its tempting to say today more than ever. But history was harsh. Read Voltaires 18th century book The Calas Affair to see how horrifically humanity treated people who were merely a different religion. Or just browse Our World in Data. On a century-to-decades scale, almost every metric of human progress is better these days. Of course on a day-month-year scale, there can be periods of calm and of calamity.Whats happened with Elons DOGE since Trumps second inauguration can be painted many ways. And is. The algorithm seems fueled by strong opinions. But what are the facts about the Department of Government Efficiency? The truth is in data, sources of which this posts aims to collect.Anchor yourself on 3 trillion dollars.This is the amount the USA intends to spend in 2025. USASpending.gov, the official open data source of federal spending information, visualizes government spend.USA Spending by agency. $500 billion (17.6%) of the budget is Unreported. Click for InteractiveUSA SpendingUSA Spending by budget function. Click for InteractiveUSA SpendingMORE FOR YOUHow will this money be spent? Why are there 500 billion dollars of unreported data? These are among many questions asked by DOGE, the meme turned agency birthed by humanitys - depending on who you ask - villain or hero, Elon Musk. According to its founding X post, it aims to ensure your tax dollars will be spent wisely!Auditing a $3 trillion mega economy sounds like the embodiment of easier said than done. A government is wise to periodically audit itself. And there is an agency for that, the GAO, Government Accountability Office, which on Feb 5th released a government 2025 Fiscal Health Report. The report finds that the federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path that poses serious economic, security, and social challenges." Recommending "Congress and the administration will need to make difficult budgetary and policy decisions to address the key drivers of federal debt and change the governments fiscal trajectory.DOGE dove in, not just auditing but cancelling entire agencies overnight. Since Trumps inauguration on Jan 20th, DOGE has cut nearly a billion dollars a day from the federal budget. Debate rages on whether this is legal. So far it is. What has been done so far? While there is not yet a DOGE API, there is DOGE Livetracker, a page created when founders Connor Power and Cam Cross realized there was no single source of data for anyone to rely on." Connor said that the teams "only plan has been to create as much transparency possible. Being 2025, the transparency is enabled by official DOGE posts on X.DOGE LivetrackerDOGE LivetrackerDOGE Livetracker Leaderboard as of Feb 8, 2025DOGE LivetracerThere is scant formal DOGE data. The official government website doge.gov is a single page that reads DOGE: The people voted for major reform.Federal Government Data SourcesThe government dearly needs an easier way to explore its financial data. Perhaps DOGE is the spearhead that the worlds interaction designers need to turn API streams into something a standard American can use to understand the myriad paths tax dollars can take.Some of the better resources include The Hamilton Project, which offers an interactive tool graphing daily and weekly processed outlays (expenditures) from the government. Other data sources include the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and FRED, the Federal Reserves Data Portal, that includes numerous categories of data such as government debt and state-by-state activity. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) typically shares the Presidents budget proposal. Their website redirects to whitehouse.gov. Finally there is USASpending.gov, the official open data source of federal spending. Are you getting a vibe of TMI? So am I.If all of this makes you mad, try your hand at balancing the budget.At the end of the day, whether youre cheering DOGE, furious of its power, or quietly watching what unfolds, were all on the same team. Team Human.Team Humanity is dedicated to making the world better. Today and for generations to come. Even in the face of tough, cutthroat decisions, we must lead with compassion. As new data emerges, we owe it to ourselves to approach it with open minds.As Seneca wisely said, we read not merely to refute but to weigh and consider. DOGEs rise from meme to machine raises as many questions as it answers. But in the end, beyond politics and algorithms, its about we the people. If the people want their virtues reflected in government, they must follow the data and champion causes they care about.

Looking almost like a watercolour painting, this stunning photograph of comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) was ... [+] taken by Yuri Beletsky on 19 January from ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. The comet poses next to one of the Auxiliary Telescopes of ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer. Links: Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) wagging its tail Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) and its multiple tails Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) setting at Paranal ObservatoryY. Beletsky (LCO)/ESOLately, there seems to be no shortage of fascinating astronomical phenomena worth looking for in the night and occasionally the daytime sky. From solar eclipses to lunar eclipses to meteor showers to aurora displays, the past few years have been a delight for anyone interested in the wonders of the universe or at least looking for a break from whats happening here on Earth.There have also been a series of comets that have captured our collective curiosity; the earliest one I remember specifically heading out to see was Comet NEOWISE in the summer of 2020; it was one of the first events I attended with other people, as a group of amateur astronomers and enthusiasts inadvertently congregated in a dark park to admire the comets bright nucleus and brush-stroke tails.Since then, there have been other comets to spot in the night sky, including one that recently put on a spectacular show especially in the southern hemisphere. If you havent heard of Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) until now, youll wish you had sooner but at least we have some amazing photos of the Great Comet of 2025 to inspire the world to get out and look up at the stars.Discovery & History of C/2024 G3 (ATLAS)Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) was discovered on April 5, 2024, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). A comets designation holds key details about its discovery and classification:C denotes a non-periodic comet, meaning it either makes a one-time pass through the Solar System or takes over 200 years to complete an orbit.2024 G3 indicates it was discovered in the first half of April 2024 and was the third comet identified during that period.ATLAS credits the discovery to the ATLAS survey, a cutting-edge system designed to detect potential Earth-impacting asteroids.Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) intrigued astronomers since its detection; initially classified as a dynamically new comet (one making its first foray into the inner Solar System) it was thought to be at high risk of disintegration during its closest approach to the Sun.MORE FOR YOUAs an exceptionally long period (around 180,000 years) comet due to its highly elongated orbit, C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) likely came from the Oort Cloud, a sphere of comets around the solar system. It reached perihelion (its closest point to the sun during its orbit) on January 13, 2025.It seems that the comets nucleus has broken apart after failing to withstand the Suns intense heat; a set of images taken by Lionel Majzik between January 18 and 20 shows that the largest fragments of the comets breakup are now stretched out in a line where its head would normally be.A series of photos that show the pseudo-nucleus (the small bright spot in the comets head) slowly ... [+] fading away. The central bright spine in the tail is strong evidence that the comets nucleus has completely broken apart.Lionel Majzik (Hungary)This has caused the comet to dim much more quickly than if its nucleus had remained intact after perihelion; dont worry though: the comet has put on an incredible show, especially for southern hemisphere viewers, observing the comet after sunset in the past few weeks.Top Photos of Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS)Even before Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) reached perihelion, there were some amazing photos of it. The first one that captured most peoples attention was taken by astronaut Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station. Here you can see the comet lit by the sun while the ISS is still beyond the edge of the horizon.AStronaut Don Pettit shared this photo of Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) from the Cupola aboard the ... [+] International Space Station on January 12, 2025, just before the comet reached perihelion.Don Pettit/NASASome of the best photos of C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) were taken in Chile, including this one where the comet shines brightly over the light pollution of La Serena a coastal town of half a million people.Comet C/2024 G3 soars above the city of La Serena in this image from 18 January 2025.NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/A. LopezThe best set of photos of comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) was taken from the area near the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Paranal; this is in the Atacama Desert, one best places for stargazing in the world.A series of photos was released in early February, highlighting the incredible starry dark skies, and comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) with multiple tails.Florentin Millour captured this breathtaking wide-field image of comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) on January ... [+] 21 from ESOs Paranal Observatory in Chile. The Very Large Telescope sits atop Cerro Paranal to the left, while the comet sets in the western horizon right after sunset.F. Millour/ESOEven in black and white, Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) puts on a show, as pictured here directly over one of the many large pieces of astronomical observatory equipment at the site.Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) wagging its tail.J. Beltrn/ESOA closer view shows the distinct tails of Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS); even after its nucleus has broken apart, these tails are formed by the now-many smaller bodies of the comet moving through space.Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) and its multiple tailsA. de Burgos Sierra/ESOAnd here is the full frame of the image shared at the top of this article, showing the incredible long tails of Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) against a beautiful sunset.Looking almost like a watercolour painting, this stunning photograph of comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) was ... [+] taken by Yuri Beletsky on 19 January from ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile.Y. Beletsky (LCO)/ESOComet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) is no longer visible in the northern hemisphere and is rapidly dimming for southern hemisphere viewers with proper equipment t oview it in all its glory (binoculars, telescope, or a camera).While it may be the Great Comet of 2025, there is another comet on the calendar this year; in mid-December 2025, Comet 240P/NEAT will also pass perihelion. This one will again be best visible for those at the equator or south of it, and hopefully it too will put on a show that we can at least all admire in pictures.

Colombia produces the world's most expensive emeralds. The highest-quality stones can be worth tens of thousands of dollars per carat. Miners have fought over these treasures for centuries, but in the past decade, foreign investors have modernized and consolidated the industry. The newcomers have brought safety and new jobs to the area, but there's little left over for the communities around the mines. So what happens when foreign investors take over a $150 million industry? And can local miners gain a piece of it back?Show more

A nearly 24-hour outage disrupted Sony's PlayStation Network starting on Friday.The outage prevented gamers from playing or purchasing games online, disrupting the digital economy.PlayStation returned online, but not before Sony's stock took a 2% dip in after-hours trading.Sony's PlayStation Network went down on Friday, starting a daylong outage that outraged gamers, disrupted the digital economy surrounding the system, and knocked Sony's stock. "PSN has been restored. You should be able to access online features without any problems now," a PlayStation account posted on X late Saturday afternoon. "Sorry for the inconvenience!"Representatives for PlayStation did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.At the time of publication, the PlayStation's server status page indicates service has been restored to the network about 24 hours after the initial disruption started.Some users were still reporting issues on social media when PlayStation's server status showed the problems had resolved, though reports of disruption on sites like DownDetector had largely subsided. While the exact economic impact of the outage remains unclear, the PlayStation Network has an estimated 116 million monthly users, according to the company's estimates from September 30, 2024.Users were prevented from playing and purchasing games online for a full day, disrupting the digital economy that has grown around the top-selling gaming system in the US.Sony's stock dipped in after-hours trading as news of the outage circulated, falling nearly 2% at publication time.The outage drew ire from diehard gamers, who chronicled their disappointment in posts on Reddit and X, as well as snark from corporate entities responding to the news."Well, I'm tired of waiting. Off to buy a STEAM deck. Guess my Playstation is no longer my main system," one Reddit user wrote.Krispy Kreme posted on X an offer to displaced gamers for a free glazed doughnut on Friday evening, writing: "Calling all gamers: this play station still works.""Bet y'all want physical copies now," GameStop's official account posted as a joke after the outage had dragged on over 14 hours.

The PS5 is a great console and Im tired of people putting it down Readers FeatureGameCentralPublished February 9, 2025 1:00am It prints money (Sony)A reader is frustrated with some of the negativity surrounding Sony and points out just how successful and popular the PS5 continues to be.We got some very interesting news this week, showing exactly how much the Xbox Series X/S has sold and how far behind the PlayStation 5 it is. Microsofts consoles have sold less than half that of Sony and while it was obvious they were in trouble this really does lay out how Xbox isnt even in the same weight class as PlayStation, and thats why theyve been forced to go third party.The PlayStation 5 has been an amazing success. Its sold 70 million consoles in just four years, is ahead of the PlayStation 4 at the same time in its life, and Sony stock is the highest its been since the PlayStation 2 in the early 2000s.The PlayStation 5 is the most profitable console Sony has ever made and the most profitable of this generation, making roughly twice as much as Nintendo in second place. It has had multiple highly-rated exclusive games it literally couldnt be more successful. And yet everyone treats it as a failure and talks about Sony as if they are on the rocks.I get it. Theres no arguing that Sony hasnt been acting oddly the last two years. The number of announcements and new releases have slowed down and whatevers been going on behind the scenes, in terms of the push for live service games and the changing of CEOs, has all happened without any real explanation.I dont know why theyve been so secretive about this. I imagine its because there has been some internal disagreement and they dont exactly want to put out a press releasing admitting that theres been a bunch of in-fighting and the live service stuff hasnt worked out as hoped. But it doesnt matter.No matter how embarrassing the failure of Concord might have been it hasnt done anything to dent sales or profit. If anything, its success illustrates just how much wiggle room theyve got for anything going wrong.The PlayStation 5 is not only the most successful console but its so popular that Xbox cannot stay in business without it. They cant make Call Of Duty an exclusive even if they wanted to, because the vast majority of people play it on PlayStation. Its the same for every game, from every publisher.Even with Nintendo, PlayStation is the default video game console for the whole world and that alone explains why Sony has seemed so complacent. People dont appreciate just how successful theyve been and if thats the case youre hardly going to be in a rush to change things up.Its not out of laziness that theyre happy to sit back, its out of fear of making some change that will knock them out of that position. If you were doing the best youd ever done youd be terrified of making some change that undid it and I believe thats where Sony is now.Other than that, theyre not running scared or giving up theyre just sitting back and letting the money roll in. They are taking advantage of a windfall and not upsetting the applecart.More TrendingDont get me wrong. I do wish they werent doing this. Id much prefer they were out there announcing new single-player games all the time, being inventive, and pushing the boundaries, but I understand why theyre not. A company not doing what we want does not mean that company is in trouble or stupid. The only problem for Sony at the moment is counting all the money theyre making.By reader Hammeriron The PlayStation 5 has not been a sales failure (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.GameCentralSign up for exclusive 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

Pokemon TCG Pockets first ex card after the Space-Time Smackdown expansion is Cresselia ex. And since it was introduced as a free card through promotion packs, many players have already added it to their collections.

The Monk class is one of the most underrated classes in Baldurs Gate 3. These melee combat warriors use Ki points, which allow them to use special abilities. They are also proficient in Constitution, Dexterity, and Wisdom.

Netflix has raised subscription costs in the UK in line with last month's price hike in the US.