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Something about collaborations with Sonic the Hedgehog seem to dial in the right balance between good-natured fun and the sensibilities of the franchise. At the last Summer Game Fest, I quite enjoyed my time with Sonic Racing Crossworlds and it turned out to be a damn good game . This year at SGF, I played Sonic Pico Park, and across all the bigger demos I saw – including RGG’s upcoming Stranger Than Heaven – this little co-op puzzle-platformer is the one I came away from with the biggest smile, eager to tell my peers about why they shouldn’t overlook it.

What’s Pico Park? And What’s Sonic Got to Do With It?

Part of it is the inherent charm of the Pico Park games that fosters a natural kind of cooperation and problem-solving between strangers. It creates a joyous bond through the low-stakes consequences, but clever gameplay mechanics to get through progressively tougher obstacles in the 2D side-scroller framework. And don’t let its minimalist 8-bit-inspired look fool you, because it’s not a walk in the park in later levels. Whether it’s timing your dashes together to pass falling platforms or stacking atop each other to reach high-up switches to open paths, there needs to be some sort of communication between players. Some of it can be said in person, and some of it is just visually apparent as your character moves and gestures in-game. The latter is important for the online experience where I don’t expect many players to have microphones, so I’m curious to see how this would hold up as the challenges ramp up. Whether it’s a byproduct or by design, teamwork is embedded into the experience without the pressure you may feel in other co-op multiplayer scenarios so far.

That’s kind of the core thesis behind Pico Park, but what does the Sonic license bring to the formula? Well, it’s not just a cute skin to put over character models — judging from the eight levels I played, Sonic Pico Park thoughtfully incorporates mechanics we’ve seen in Sonic games over the years. The spin-dash carries a distinct momentum that you have to wield to either work your way up quarter-pipes or across ledges, springs launch you violently around the screen, and rings let you take a hit without having to reset – which can be used strategically. Some characters have unique traits that add a wrinkle to the solutions. For example, Tails can fly and carry one teammate along with him, but can only really hover at the level you initiate his tailspin. There’s a lot of poking and prodding to eventually devise a solution and it can be a bit frustrating – that’s part of the process, though, and even when I get knocked around from the collision physics between teammates, the colorful characters and cute soundtrack take the heat off really quickly (for now, at least).

Judging from the eight levels I played, Sonic Pico Park thoughtfully incorporates mechanics we’ve seen in Sonic games over the years.

How does this work when you have variables like character abilities and overall number of people in a given session? While each level’s format stays the same, it will adjust based on how many players are in the session. Certain ledges won’t be as high and certain paths will be different to accommodate player count whether it’s just you and a friend or eight players chaotically bouncing across the screen. I played with three other strangers during my brief 20-minute session and we cleared all eight levels available in the demo, and I feel like we forged a bond – I may not see them again, we may not remember this moment if we cross paths at another event, but we laughed and worked together to clear the demo and that’s what matters!

Sonic Pico Park is a fairly simple premise, and it looks unassuming, but I expect it to grow increasingly complex, which we won’t know for sure until it comes out later this year (although there is no release date or window quite yet).

Chatting with the Pico Park and Sonic Devs

In the meantime, I talked with producer Shintaro Shimazu from Tecopark and head of Sonic Team Takashi Iizuka about how this partnership came together. Shimazu explained that the director Shunsuke Miyake, who used to work at Sega, tasked Shimazu with expanding Pico Park as a series. While it has popularity in Asian territories, it hadn’t really picked up in the Americas and EMEA region. “I didn’t think it was going to happen, but I hoped maybe we could collaborate with Sonic on something. I pitched it with a whole presentation to Sega and astoundingly, they said it sounded like a great idea,” Shimazu told me. On the Sonic side of things, Iizuka said, “I wasn’t sure if it was really going to work for Sonic, but we didn’t have a game that had four people playing together in this style. So, I thought it could be fun for Sonic fans to yell and scream and get together in the same room, and so I said we should just try this out.” Iizuka also mentioned working with independent developers in the past and lending the Sonic IP to great success, namely with Sonic Mania.

But Shimazu didn’t want to just drop in the Sonic aesthetic and call it there. He explained all the ideas to incorporate gameplay mechanics seen in the mainline Sonic games, however, “We needed to make a demo so they could understand what we were trying to do. We presented it as well, and they understood it, especially with the Sonic elements.” Yet, it’s still very much a Pico Park game at heart – as Shimazu puts it, “When somebody fails, they can explain what they're trying to do, and we can get people to have this fun conversation, even when they're messing up.” Once this was established, he began working more closely with Iizuka by bouncing ideas around and testing level concepts.

"I thought it could be fun for Sonic fans to yell and scream and get together in the same room."

“One creative request I had for the Pico Park team was for the Sonic characters to all have their unique abilities – Tails can fly, Knuckles can glide. That would change the core dynamic of what Pico Park is. But they understood the challenge and did a great job integrating that into the levels and puzzle design,” Iizuka said. He went on to say that there’s still open communication as the game continues to be worked on as well. Shimazu says he’ll send updated builds to Iizuka, and he’ll play it, review it, and give feedback with the goal of it being both a solid Pico Park game and solid Sonic game merged together.

Sonic has been finding its footing in spin-off games and Iizuka sees the franchise as having three core pillars internally – one being racing, another being the 2D platforming action, and the other being 3D action in a more modern sense. But he also sees the value in working with external developers to bring something fresh and mix things up for Sonic fans more broadly. As for where he’d like to take Sonic next after Pico Park, well, Iizuka wouldn’t give me a hint, saying, “We can’t talk about anything that’s not announced yet, but Sonic Pico Park will be out this year.”

Michael Higham is an editor at IGN who regularly contributes with reviews, previews, features, and news in written and video form. He's usually entrusted with covering long RPGs and tech products, but he's got range when it comes to games. You'll also catch him at events and hosting video content, including IGN's weekly podcast Unlocked .

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The central bank for central banks is concerned about the eye-watering sums being invested into AI, and it's raising the specter of a global recession should the bubble burst. In its annual report for 2026, the Bank for International Settlements compared the current craze to historical events, including canal and British railway mania in the 1800s, electrification exuberance of the 1920s, and the dotcom boom of the 1990s. The report states: “all shared one common trait: a genuine technological breakthrough that attracted capital in excess of what commercial returns could ultimately justify. “These episodes ended with an eventual reversal in investment, inducing economy-wide recessions. The scale and pace of the current AI investment boom accompanied by expectations of large productivity payoffs bear resemblance to these precedents, highlighting potential downside risks in the near term.” The Register has already reported that Amazon forecasts capital expenditures of $200 billion for 2026, Microsoft is projecting $190 billion, Google some $180 billon and Meta up to $140 billion. Oracle is also betting big on AI. BIS estimates the five largest hyperscalers are set to spend more than a trillion dollars on AI-related capex in 2026 – and given the inflationary conditions regarding memory and that each rival is trying to outdo each other, that seems plausible. “These commitments are outpacing earnings and the free cash flow of these firms, leading some to issue debt to raise additional financing. This investment race may be partly driven by the perception that only a small number of players with superior technology will ultimately dominate the market shares." Intense competition is leading to the risk of the tech giants overcommitting resources to “investment projects with still uncertain returns, leaving all firms vulnerable to disappointments in AI payoffs.” This is because as competitive pressure drives spending ever higher, the net economic surplus for the tech industry declines and “could turn negative in adverse scenarios.” “Disappointment in returns could trigger a sudden pullback in financing and turn the capex boom into a protracted investment bust with potential knock-on effects on the financial conditions,” the annual report continues. The report also cited concerns about a looming "supply side roadblock" around issues like electricity availability, chip shortages and grid connection bottlenecks. AI datacenters are already putting pressure on energy prices and input costs with “potential spillovers to inflation.” “Looking ahead, these temporary shortages may also amplify over-investment, as firms attempt to lock in future capacity through long-dated contracts that further expose them to any disappointments in demand.” Should inflation spike or AI-led investment collapse, the macroeconomic consequences could be amplified by “existing financial vulnerabilities.” Policy rates being tightened to get a hold on inflation may precipitate a “sharp pullback in asset prices after a prolonged period of exuberant risk-taking, triggering disruptive macro-financial feedback loops.” Given AI companies' “rising leverage” and a “growing footprint in credit markets”, a major change in optimistic sentiments towards these businesses could have serious financial knock-on effects. ”Vulnerabilities extend to their supplier ecosystem, including engineering, procurement and construction contractors whose balance sheets are comparatively weak, leaving them exposed to any Capex pullback by hyperscalers.” The “opacity” of AI-sector financing is compounding vulnerabilities as corporations create a web of private arrangements – circular financing – and the terms of datacenter facility leases are often not fully disclosed, BIS adds. The backdrop to all of this is that, while enterprises running pilots report some efficiency gains at a employee level, few report discernible productivity gains from AI projects that went into production environments at scale. The Register has long discussed concerns about the dynamics of the AI industry, as outlined in the many links in this article above. It now seems that suits in the finance industry are waking up to the potential pitfalls too. ®

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LONDON — The U.S. Embassy’s glitzy summer party celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence will bring together ministers, military brass, industry titans and ambassadors in London on Tuesday night.

But Britain’s likely next prime minister, Andy Burnham, is sitting this one out.

A spokesperson for Burnham — who is widely expected to become the U.K.’s next prime minister on July 20 — told POLITICO that he had turned down an invite due to a “scheduling clash.”

Speaking to reporters last week, U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed Burnham as the former “mayor of a town” and labeled him as “extremely liberal.”

The Grand American Jubilee is set to attract roughly 2,500 guests to Winfield House, U.S. Ambassador Warren Stephens’ official residence in Regent’s Park, where invitees will squeeze past U.S. Marines and into the gardens.

Stephens has issued fewer invites to the party this year than usual, according to two people familiar with the planning, granted anonymity to speak freely. Up to 4,500 guests have attended in previous years.

Invitations have been sent to every major party leader. Previous attendees include former Prime Minister Liz Truss, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and outgoing U.K. PM Keir Starmer, who attended in 2023 before he entered office.

Guests will be entertained by country music star Tim McGraw — and fireworks so loud that special permission had to be secured after previous year’s explosions unsettled the animals in nearby London Zoo, according to one of the people cited above.

The U.S. Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

The American bash in Regent’s Park isn’t the only hot diplomatic ticket in London on Tuesday night. The Swiss Embassy’s Soireé Suisse takes place on the same evening at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The Swiss are pulling out all the stops to try to beat their rivals: a flying buffet, raclette stations, an ice bar, mountains of swiss cheese, and DJ sets inspired by Alpine glaciers. Two U.K-based diplomats said some are plotting a shuttle operation between the two receptions.

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Ford topped JD Power’s mainstream quality study, beating brands like Subaru.

Jim Farley credits a four-year culture shift for the surprise result.

Just three years ago, Ford sat in 15th place among mainstream brands.

Ford chief executive Jim Farley is celebrating the company being named the top mainstream brand in JD Power’s recent Initial Quality Study, and he’s pinning the win on a four-year campaign to fix what was broken.

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The study , which analyzes problems experienced in the first 90 days of ownership of new vehicles, showed that Ford experienced an average of 152 problems per 100 vehicles. Not only was this enough for Ford to beat out the likes of Lexus, Nissan, Buick, Hyundai, and Subaru, but it also represented a massive improvement over 2023, when Ford ranked 15th among mainstream brands.

Read: Ford Went From Recall King To JD Power’s Top Mainstream Brand For Initial Quality

“Oh boy, this is a big day for Ford ,” Farley declared after the results were announced. “We’ve worked really hard for four years to be an overnight success story. It’s been an incredible journey over the last several years. We have completely transformed all of our plants and our quality operating system.”

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Admittedly, the study provides only a snapshot of new vehicle ownership and does not analyze problems owners experience after the first 90 days. In addition, Ford has issued 51 recalls alone this year, more than double any of its competitors. However, Farley told Yahoo! Finance the automaker’s warranty costs fell last year and will continue to decline this year. He also said, “recall costs are going down,” and “this will be a big financial story for the company too.”

Ford Now Obsessed With Quality

Farley said Ford had to change its culture to match the quality of its competitors, particularly those from Japan and Germany. Now, Ford’s workers are “completely obsessed with all the data,” Farley describes, stating that “we look at every defect and understand why it happened.”

Also: Ford Asked AI To Build Better Cars, Then Rehired Humans To Fix What AI Broke

Ford hasn’t been solely focused on improving the quality of its vehicles. During the same interview, Farley spoke about the company’s plans for more affordable models, stating it plans to launch five or six of them, starting with its new electric pickup priced at less than $30,000. He also revealed that Ford can now match BYD on battery cost thanks to the work of its skunkworks team in California.

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