The Game Boy is back but it only plays music from the Kanto region. Nintendo is spending nearly $2 billion on stock buy backs from Japanese banks. And the cool-looking He-Man brawler finally has a release date. It’s the latest edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily roundup of gaming news, rumors, and culture.
I was up until 3:00 a.m. playing Marathon last night and I’m currently paying for it. There have been lots of complaints about everything from the UI to the ammo economy, but I think a lot of the complaints so far are knee-jerk reactions to a rough onboarding process. The real problem is that nobody’s on proximity chat. It’s ruthless out there. Tau Ceti IV is no post-apocalyptic Calabrada.
The Game Boy Jukebox is pricey but adorable
It was revealed during today’s Pokémon 30th Anniversary Presents and it might be the oddest little lo-fi gadget of 2026. The Game Boy Jukebox plays music instead of games, and only from the original Red and Blue Pokémon games, and only if you insert one of 45 small cartridges corresponding to the track you want. It’s absurd, but I respect it.
Also, it’s $70. Which is less respectful and even more absurd. I won’t buy one, but I definitely want one. Maybe DIY chiptune artists can do some really cool homebrew hacks with it. If nothing else, it will look perfect on a shelf since we’re probably not getting an actual Game Boy classic device from Nintendo anytime soon. The Jukebox goes on sale later today.
Disgaea gets a surprise action-RPG spin-off
It’s called Disgaea Mayhem and it turns the long-running tactical JRPG series into a real-time brawl-fest. You play as a candy-loving mercenary who can wield all the weapons you’d find in your standard Disgaea entry. I’m not gonna lie, the action looks floaty and stiff in the trailer, but there are lots of big numbers, and I’m sure endless dungeons to grind. It hits Switch, PS5, and PC this summer.
It’s raining XP in Fallout 76 after the game’s 66th update
As PC Gamer reports, all the in-game events have been buffed. The XP they award now scales with your level; some of them are shorter, so they feel less tedious and unrewarding, and revised icons make it easier to tell which event is which on the map. It might be time to go back to Appalachia for a bit.
Nintendo is doing a massive $1.9 billion stock buyback
That’s a lot of cash to burn making anxious investors happy. Reuters reports that it’s mostly big institutional banks like MUFG Bank and the Bank of Kyoto selling shares back to Nintendo following political pressure to have companies insulate one another less from outside shareholders.
The new retro He-Man beat-em-up finally has a release date
A new trailer confirms the Saturday special-looking He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction will be out April 28 across console and PC. It looks cool as heck and very old-school, though hopefully it plays better than some of the other licensed retro brawlers in recent years. It’ll be out just a month and change shy of the new movie’s arrival in theaters.
A former Xbox executive gives the new one some advice
“I wish her all the best,” Xbox’s old E3 tattoo artist Peter Moore told GamesBeat about new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma. “She’s in a position right now where–keep your head down. Fly low. Avoid the radar. Learn, listen. Spend a lot of time internally. Travel the world. Meet with the studio heads. Do the classic listening tour, which a lot of executives do. I think she’ll be fine. She’s gotta explain AI and her background. That’s a minefield. I would, for me, avoid talking about that if you possibly can. But I wish her all the best.”
ICYMI:
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Legend of @BalatroGame DrSpectred aka Balatro University hits the naneinf with No Jokers Equipped and a 755 card deck pic.twitter.com/oaadtzqGPe
— Yung Skrrt™ (@yungskrrt) February 22, 2026
