Even though you can be a Playstation or Xbox player today without even owning a console at all, console sales continue to be a hot potato that always renders wild discussion. And that's likely to continue to be the case, but it's clear that quite a few will have to rethink a lot in the future.

Console warriors have been around since at least the 80s (maybe even before that, but that was before my time), and the worst tend to follow their formats with the loyalty of a fool, so much so that it easily becomes toxic. Consequently, there are many who see red immediately when writing about a format they do not have standing under their TV stand and slide in to write something negative.

This is not unique to any format, but we have seen it from all sides, but when we have now written about Xbox Helix a few times in the past week, it is possible to discern a pattern. Many of our most famous console warriors slip in to write something like "Without games, it will meet the same fate as Series X" or "Hard to see how Helix will sell well" - and in doing so show one of the following Two options:

a) They have no idea how Helix works
b) They know how Helix works - but are just trolling fanboys

The thing is that Microsoft has confirmed several times that Helix plays computer games and is a hybrid console. You can compare it to Steam Machines in several ways. Whether Valve sells one or 100 million Steam Machines, it only affects them in the margins. PC has two billion players.

Helix won't be without games, you can use the Epic Games Store (why not download a free game every week), Steam (by far the world's most well-stocked gaming service) or the Xbox Store and more. No matter how it sells, it will be the console with the most games ever, and even if it doesn't sell one iota, the games will continue to be released.

And it is not likely to sell particularly well in comparison to, for example, the Switch 2, and the price tag will probably be twice as high. However, it is not something that will affect the format. Your Helix is a hopefully extremely affordable PC (including a stable controller) with a set of components that many will want to optimize their games for so that they run well on it, as it will almost certainly be one of the most common PC configurations. just as the Steam Deck is also one of the most common.

I'm not trying to say that it will be a success or not a success, what I'm trying to say is that it's time to learn that it doesn't matter. Compare it to a green PC. Just because the green PC model sells worse (or better) than a computer built by Komplett or an HP package from Elgiganten - the format will not be discontinued or take over everything. It will not affect at all.

It will obviously take time for Microsoft to establish what Helix is and what it enables, and many people are having a hard time letting go of their boxed notions of what a console is (image created with AI).

Tradition dictates that you should say the wrong song won, but... I really don't think so. I haven't seen the Swedish selection of Melodifestivalen in probably 15 years, but during the weekend I ended up in front of the TV due to changed plans. 

What I spontaneously think is that the songs were unusually high class. There were none of them that felt that directly really disgusting more than Lilla Al-Fadji, but on the other hand it is also a prank song where you are absolutely not the target group. The best, however, was Felicia. I knew that she could sing, and combined with a nice number, easy Skrillex and genuinely good pull, it felt worth sending her to the final - even though she went for half speed due to illness.

I was convinced that Finland would win everything, but now I'm absolutely not so sure anymore. The presenters. Gina Dirawi and Hampus Nessvold, I think were unfortunately a bit turned off though. It felt like it was often read before and was too stiff, without that self-irony that would have been needed.

The right song won, just as well that we start planning where next year's Eurovision will be held... or (picture from Melodifestivalen in SVT)?

Something I've always liked Nintendo is that basically everything they've ever created is considered important and thus never allowed to disappear. A rather reviled game like Super Mario Sunshine today feels completely integrated into everything Mario does, Virtual Boy gets a new release with lots of love and so on.

A fresh proof of this is in the new The Super Mario Galaxy Movie poster, where right next to the Nintendo logo (under Mario's right knee) we find a creature we haven't seen in a long time... namely Wart. He was the main villain in Super Mario Bros 2 - which, as you probably know, wasn't really even a Mario game. It was thrown together based on Doki Doki Panic since the real Super Mario Bros 2 was considered not up to scratch (a game we know today as Lost Levels), which explains why it has whole new enemies, atypical gameplay and lots of other quirks.

But several things from it have crept into Mario's world since then, and are today to be considered staple. And now, apparently, the time has come to bring Wart back to life. Hopefully this means that he can be in some game again, maybe drive a car in Mario Kart World and fight in the next Smash Bros. 

Are you old enough to remember the old villain Wart?

It seems increasingly likely that Sony will completely change its multi-format approach and only release live service for formats other than Playstation. This means that games like Helldivers II are likely to continue to be released widely, while projects like Lego Horizon Adventures and Saros will probably remain PlayStation exclusives.

I've seen many people launch the theory that this would be to stop Xbox players from playing Sony's titles, but that's something I really don't believe in. On the one hand, neither we nor Sony know yet exactly how the next Xbox will work, and on the other hand, we don't even know when it will arrive.

Considering how powerful it seems to be, noticeably better than the Playstation 6 according to the most credible information, one can also suspect that it will cost north of $10,000 and be a PC in a console-like box. I don't think it's a threat Sony cares much about. 

However, Steam Machines are on the way, and here I think (just like former Blizzard boss Mike Ybarra) Sony is all the more concerned.

Will these be a success and essentially function as a PC that allows you to play both Playstation and Xbox games in addition to the huge Steam library... then it can get really difficult. I think that worries Sony much more. I would go so far as to say that they see Microsoft as a partner rather than a competitor in this case, and a component to use against Steam.

A PC with the Xbox logo on it hardly worries Sony - but this can they will keep a close eye on.

It has been a few frustrating weeks where Johan Mackegård on a daily basis explained how tired he is due to nightly playing of Pokémon Pokopia, this because "it is not possible to put down". It has made me grieve a lot that I didn't review myself - while I enviously read his review.

But he is not alone in praising the game. Open Critic reported yesterday that it is well on its way to becoming the highest-rated Pokémon game ever, in a series of basically only good games and that has been around for 30 years - and Metacritic also joins the chorus.

As a result, Pokémon Pokopia has been widely discussed in the editorial chat over the past two days, where I estimate that roughly half of the editorial staff is ready to take on the role of a Ditto and build themselves a cozy island with all the pocket monsters. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the mail will arrive on time, because now I'm hyped and my review will come next week in the blog.

For a long time, I viewed Pokémon Pokopia with some skepticism because it probably means we'll have to wait for Animal Crossing - but luckily it seems to stand on its own two feet.