Could Microsoft secretly prefer if consumers ceased purchasing the Xbox altogether? Would you take the chance of damaging a $2,000 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold just to achieve a high score? And what caused League of Legends to be unplayable for numerous players over the weekend? You’ve found another edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily summary of gaming news and culture.
Welcome to the inaugural full week of 2026, where I am captivated by the notion that the opening act of Cyberpunk 2077 could have been even more extensive. Creative director Igor Sarzyński clarifies why that would have been a disastrous choice. “It’s akin to suggesting we linger longer on Tatooine with farmer Luke before he became involved in all this Jedi business.” RIP Jackie.
Purposefully not selling Xboxes at this point
Sales of Xbox consoles plummeted 39% in the UK during 2025, marking it the worst year ever for Xbox consoles. With the return of beloved Xbox franchises in 2026, could this year see a turnaround?
— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) January 2, 2026
The Game Business‘s Chris Dring notes that 2025 stands as “definitely the worst year on record for Xbox” console sales in the UK. They dropped nearly 40 percent compared to the previous year, which was already less than impressive. I find it difficult to reconcile Microsoft’s apparent total neglect of hardware sales less than five years into the current generation with its commitment to continue producing consoles moving forward.
League of Legends faced complete unplayability yesterday, and the reasoning is quite ridiculous
As stated by YouTuber Vandiril, Riot Games neglected to renew the client security certificate for the popular MOBA game. A workaround existed, though. All players needed to do to return to the game was adjust their system clock. Perhaps it was merely the Nexus’ way of suggesting fans take a break.
At last, a Flappy Bird designed just for folding devices
Phone manufacturers: We’ve tested our hinge mechanism for 200,000 folds, which should suffice for 5 years of usage
Users: https://t.co/jRzjFWB2Hk
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) January 3, 2026
Foldy Bird requires you to physically fold your extremely pricey phone repeatedly to keep the bird soaring through the recognizable Super Mario Bros.-style terrain. How cool! I still don’t want one.
Sega co-founder David Rosen has passed away
Rosen played a crucial role in the company’s amusement game division, including the initiative into coin-operated arcade games like Periscope and Monaco GP, RePlay Magazine reports.
Resident Evil 4 Remake first started with a removed chapter featuring Ashley
That’s according to
