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Despite being inspired by a real-life film project, Sisters of Solitude doesn't appear to feature much found footage. Nor does it look like Sweet's prior credits in the realm of cyberpunk and revolutionary Paris, though I guess you could trace a throughline from the witchy endeavours of 1666: Amsterdam. It's a top-down 8-bit pixelart affair, with players roaming a haunted convent as they try to solve the mystery of a murdered Mother Superior.

The ghosts of the four sisters who killed her are still here. In the course of some open-ended exploration - "from the desecrated chapel, the greenhouse, [and] the cemetery to the old theatre" - you'll dig through old diaries, find secret doors, and make use of some gadgets to flush out the spooks. You might also "have to dabble in the very rituals that trapped these souls in the first place", according to the Steam page. Seems unwise. Dabbling all too easily becomes doing. I dabbled in writing amateur videogame reviews 20 years ago and look what happened.

Your chunky ghost-hunting tools are pleasingly arranged along the left hand margin. They include an electromagnetic field detector, used to discover both hidden documents and vengeful spirits, and an instant camera for the capture of "spectral imprints". There's also a tape deck with which to record the silence of each room, then play it back with the volume turned up so you can hear any astral whispering. Some additional career context: after leaving Ubisoft, Sweet spent four years as an artistic director at Kino Montreal, a movie-making non-profit. I am hoping his evident expertise in film technology will extend to some nicely in-depth forensic Paranormal Activity-style puzzles.

Sisters of Solitude is out this year. If I've left you in the mood for a convent murder mystery, Misericorde is already available and said to be extremely good. For something table-toppier, maybe try The Horror at Highrook. %!s()

The RAMpocalypse, which is an ongoing global computer memory and storage supply crisis driven by AI data center demands, shifted manufacturing capacity, and soaring component prices, is hitting console manufacturers hard. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have all announced hardware price hikes, and there are concerns that there won’t be enough consoles to meet demand — even at higher prices.

Sony, though, sounds positive about the situation. Reporting its first quarter financial results, it said it had secured the amount of memory it needs to meet its PS5 sales targets for the financial year ending March 31, 2027, and insisted there is no change to its plan for hardware profitability to remain as it was last financial year.

Here’s the statement:

Regarding the impact of memory market conditions on PlayStation 5 hardware, we have secured the quantity of memory necessary to meet our projected sales volume for FY26, and there is no change to our plan for hardware profitability for FY26 to remain similar to FY25.

This is hugely important for Sony, as it has a number of key video game releases due out this financial year that are expected to boost PS5 sales. Chief among them is Rockstar’s behemoth, GTA 6, which is sure to spark a surge in console interest (it’s not coming out on PC at launch). There will undoubtedly be an army of GTA fans who will need to upgrade from the last generation or even buy a console for the first time since the Xbox 360 / PS3 era in order to play GTA 6, and it’s crucial that both Sony and Microsoft have enough consoles to capitalize on that demand.

Outside of GTA 6, Sony has Marvel’s Wolverine out in September, and God of War ​Laufey due out in February. It will want to make sure it has enough PS5s to make the most of those releases, too.

Overall, PlayStation continues to do brilliantly financially, although sales of the PS5 continue to fall. In the first ‌quarter Sony ⁠sold 1.6 million PS5 units, roughly a third fewer than the same period a year earlier (total PS5 sales are now up to 95.3 million). Total PlayStation Monthly Active Users reached 125 million accounts in June, up 2% year-on-year and a record high for the month of June. Although total playtime during Q1 FY26 decreased 4% year-on-year, Sony insisted that user engagement continued to be solid because Q1 FY25 benefited from season updates to major titles and new hit titles.

One drag on its profits in the first quarter was an increase in costs, "including investments for the next-generation platform and restructuring costs." That's a nod not only to the development of the inevitable PS6 and maybe even a PlayStation handheld or hybrid console, but significant layoffs.

Sony raised its forecast for the gaming business, expecting a 3% increase in sales versus its May forecast. Part of that is due to a refund on Donald Trump’s U.S. tariffs, which other gaming companies including Nintendo, have secured.

There is one interesting note in the financials: Sony says its profit will be negatively impacted by “adjustments to the FY26 first-party title roadmap,” which suggests a first-party Sony game that was due out by the end of March 31, 2027 has been delayed. What that is, though, we don’t know.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected]. %!s()

The arrangement was not born of blind obedience. Eman describes herself as stubborn, and arguments over phones, curfews and going out were hardly uncommon. But, as her parents' only daughter, she also trusted that the limits they set came from a desire to protect her rather than control her.

Beirut's rules were strict, but they were far from unusual. In Gaza, relatively few teenagers aged below 16 own smartphones, and even among wealthier families, whether a child has a phone often depends as much on parental approval as financial means. In Eman's class, only a handful of girls had phones of their own. Most borrowed a parent's device, and owning one before finishing school was considered a matter of luck rather than expectation.

Eman wanted one all the same. Her close friend, Hanaa, had her own phone throughout their school years, and Eman remembers pleading with her mother for one too. The arguments were frequent, but Beirut never relented. The family rule was simple: no personal phone until she had finished school and turned 18.

At the time, the wait felt impossibly long. Looking back now, Eman can scarcely imagine what finally receiving that long-awaited phone would come to mean.

During the genocide, though, the phone became something else entirely.

She would carry Beirut’s old iPhone 11 Pro Max as her family fled their home under Israeli bombardment, climbed onto rooftops during communications blackouts that lasted for months, and uploaded videos capturing these moments that would eventually reach millions.

The phone became a torch when there was no light, a camera, a witness, a notebook, a map, an archive, a classroom, a newsroom and, increasingly, a responsibility.

It transformed Beirut, too. The mother who had once refused to let her daughter have a phone now became the one urging her to use it.

The device Eman now hands back to her mother each night is different. For her 18th birthday, her parents spent 6,000 shekels ($1,950) and bought her a brand-new iPhone 16 — a bright pink handset tucked inside a plastic case decorated with roses and butterflies, its lock screen a smiling selfie.

In the weeks that followed October 7, 2023, the family's 300-year-old home in Gaza's Old City was destroyed. Their current apartment sits barely 100 metres away, in eastern Gaza City. Scarred by bullet holes and shattered windows, it survived the surrounding bombardment, though the family has still been forced to flee it repeatedly during military operations.

"I wanted the world to see what was happening to us," Beirut says.

Small in stature, Beirut sits beside her husband and daughter on the sofa, her soft, delicate features making her look more like Eman’s sister than mother and daughter. She speaks with unguarded emotion, hands rarely still, her eyes widening as she recalls that morning.

"Our house was bombed while we were inside it ... we ran out barefoot, took nothing, the house burning behind us ... we survived by a miracle ... it was five in the morning ... at that moment I wished the whole world could see what was happening."

The first videos Eman posted were simple records of daily life. Images of destruction. Memories of her childhood home before it was damaged. Fragments of ordinary existence interrupted by war. They attracted little attention.

Then the audience changed. As Israel barred international journalists from entering Gaza, millions searching for a glimpse of life inside the Strip increasingly found it on social media. A handful of viewers became a few thousand. Thousands slowly became tens of thousands.

Eman smiles, shaking her head. "There was no clear plan behind the content. The ideas were already there, because it was just our life," she says.

"I was taking the ideas from the everyday things we were living and doing under the war ... open the camera and say, this happened to us, or that happened."

Then one afternoon a video took off.

Eman and her parents riding through Gaza on a donkey cart, known locally as a karra. With vehicles destroyed and diesel and petrol no longer entering the Strip, donkey carts had become one of the only ways to get around. She filmed the journey exactly as it was: her, her father and her mother passing between the rubble of destroyed neighbourhoods.

"Me, dad and mom," she captioned it.

"The clip got a huge amount of engagement," Eman says, her eyes widening as she gestures animatedly with both hands, a broad smile spreading across her face as she relives the moment. "I started gaining 100,000 followers every day. Within about a week I'd reached 500,000."

The numbers kept climbing. Roughly two weeks later, she woke to find her audience had passed two million. Eventually, it would reach five million. %!s()

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tim Perks, a 58-year-old vice president of store design and planning at DICK'S Sporting Goods in Pittsburgh. It's been edited for length and clarity.

After two decades at Nike, my team and I got cut from the company in a major reorganization. It was my first corporate job. I wasn't freaked out when I heard the reorg was coming — it had been announced some months before, so everybody knew it was on its way.

In September 2024, just four months after being let go, I started a new executive role as a VP at DICK'S Sporting Goods. I had also been interviewing intensely with a second company when I accepted DICK'S offer.

I'm in my late 50s, and taking this job required my wife and me to sell our home in Portland. We had to relocate across the country to Pennsylvania, leaving a place we loved for somewhere neither of us had roots.

The process of landing my new job involved many interviews, assessments, and sessions with a corporate psychologist. Here are three strategies that helped me to quickly land on my feet as a job seeker in my 50s.

I hired a career coach who helps older execs get hired

I held several retail design roles at Nike across geographies and global teams — my last position at Nike was as senior director of retail design.

The company went through more than one reorganization during my two decades there. As the strategy that had driven growth at Nike since 2020 began to slow, I could see my career growth opportunities at the company narrowing.

I started thinking about what the next chapter of my career was going to be.

Prior to being laid off, I'd already started working with an executive career coach, who helped me clarify my value and build a strategy. When I first met my career coach, I didn't know for sure whether I was going to get kept on at Nike — but I was ready to make the change one way or the other myself.

This change involved thinking about what was important to me and what I wanted to do next. Through my work with my career coach, I knew it was important how you show up on your LinkedIn profile, so creating my positioning there was how I started preparing for my next steps.

I activated the network I'd built over my Nike tenure

Through my coaching conversations, I'd also started to network with a lot of different people.

Part of the process was writing out a list of my relationships at Nike and starting to understand the types of connections they represented, as well as the skills I sought in them. After 20 years, I crossed paths with a lot of people at other brands, including people who I had worked with at Nike who had moved on to other brands. The key to finding a new position was that I leaned heavily into this network I'd built.

That network proved to be the most valuable asset in the search. I started to build out a presentation for myself that featured people I knew by grouping them in different ways:

• The types of leaders they were.
• The types of connections I had with them.
• How could they contribute to my search?
• What I was going to do next.

Then I reached out to each of those folks for coffee or wine to see if they had any thoughts or ideas about my next steps.

One of the network folks that I reached out to began as a simple conversation. I had told her, "I'm not asking you for a job, I'm just reaching out to have a conversation about the next phase of my career." She ended up inviting me for an interview.

I knew my value

I didn't have to lower my expectations about pay as a job seeker in my 50s.

Some of this came from my coaching conversations. I knew that I was leaving money on the table staying as long as I was at Nike. I realized I could significantly increase what I was making by going to another company. If I left and later came back, I had a better chance of getting a pay raise than staying at a company for a really long time.

I also didn't have to lower my expectations to find a new job in my 50s. I never let myself get to that place where I believed that my age was somehow going to be a barrier.

I approached this job searching process knowing I had real value to offer and felt confident I could find a company that would agree. I felt like my age meant much more about my experience and my career level, and it was an asset with value that companies would want.

Working at Nike feels like getting a Ph.D. in working with a brand, and it gave me a lot of confidence in what I could offer. I was mentally prepared to be let go because I knew what I was worth.

Do you have a story to share about landing a new job in this current market? If so, please reach out to this editor, Agnes Applegate, at [email protected].

Read next

Robin Madell

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Robin Madell has spent over two decades as a corporate writer and communications consultant in New York and San Francisco, serving as a copywriter, ghostwriter, and speechwriter for executives, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders across diverse industries, with a focus on productivity, work-life balance, stress management, and women's leadership. As a business journalist, Robin contributes to Business Insider's Strategy section, and her work has also been published in Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Forbes, US News & World Report, and many other business publications.  Robin is the author of "Surviving Your Thirties: Americans Talk About Life After 30" and has contributed to many business books including "Ditch Your Inner Critic at Work: Evidence-Based Strategies to Thrive in Your Career," "Rise to the Top: How Women Leverage Their Professional Persona to Earn More," and "Be Your Own Mentor: Strategies from Top Women on the Secrets of Success," published by Random House. Before starting her own business as a corporate writer, Robin held executive positions in communications, journalism, and advertising, including as vice president and managing director at Draftfcb in New York, as managing editor at Cline Davis & Mann, and as director of communications at Catalyst, Inc., on Wall Street; she has also served on the Board of Directors of the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association in New York and San Francisco.  An avid runner and two-time Boston Marathon qualifier, Robin graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with honors from University of Oregon, a.k.a. TrackTown USA, where she majored in English — visit her on her website or connect with her on LinkedIn.

• Nike
• as told to

Due to significantly reduced market expectations, especially for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, Schaeffler AG now expects fiscal year 2028 sales to range between EUR 24.00 bn and EUR 26.00 bn (previously: EUR 27.00 bn and EUR 29.00 bn).

The mid-term target for fiscal year 2028 to achieve an adjusted EBIT margin at group level of 6.0 percent to 8.0 percent as well as the target to achieve an adjusted free cash flow ranging between EUR 400 mn and EUR 600 mn are confirmed.

For the E-Mobility division, the sales target 2028 is lowered to EUR 6.25 bn to EUR 7.25 bn (previously: EUR 8.25 bn to EUR 9.00 bn) due to a market-related adjustment of the order backlog. At the same time, the adjusted EBIT margin is now anticipated to come in at -4.0 percent to 0.0 percent (previously: at least 0.0 percent). Thus, achieving break-even at the operating level remains the focus.

For the Bearings & Industrial Solutions (B&IS) division, Schaeffler AG now expects fiscal year 2028 sales of EUR 6.50 bn to EUR 7.00 bn (previously: EUR 6.75 bn to EUR 7.25 bn). Based on the progress made in the implementation of structural measures, the company continues to target an adjusted EBIT margin in the B&IS division of 9.0 percent to 11.0 percent.

The adjusted EBIT margins of the two divisions Powertrain & Chassis (PTC) and Vehicle Lifetime Solutions (VLS) are lifted by 0.5 percentage points each. In the updated forecast for 2028, PTC is anticipated to achieve an adjusted EBIT margin of 10.5 percent to 12.5 percent (previously: 10.0 percent to 12.0 percent) and VLS of 14.0 percent to 16.0 percent (previously: 13.5 percent to 15.5 percent).

On August 5, 2026, Schaeffler AG will release half-year 2026 results and provide further information on the adjustment of the mid-term targets.

Legal notices:

Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors could cause actual results, financial position, development, or performance of Schaeffler AG to differ materially from the figures given here. Explanations and reconciliations of the financial metrics used can be found in the 2025 Schaeffler AG Annual Report (available at https://www.schaeffler.com/de/investor-relations/veranstaltungen-publikationen/ergebnisveroeffentlichungen/).

Contact:

Heiko Eber, Head of Investor Relations

Phone: +49 9132 82 88125

Email: [email protected]

Dr. Axel Lüdeke, Head of Group Communications & Public Affairs

Phone: +49 9132 82 8901

Email: [email protected]

31-Jul-2026 CET/CEST The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases.
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