Valve says it’s using a randomized purchase queue to make the experience “less frustrating and more fair.” The Steam Machine is almost here. Valve chose possibly the worst time to announce new PC gaming hardware in late 2025, just as the AI boom sent storage and RAM prices through…
The repurposing of Pokémon Go data for AI training continues to draw scrutiny. A decade after the global craze for Pokémon Go peaked, an AI company has been using billions of real-world images captured by millions of players to develop navigation technologies for delivery robots and possibly military drones.…
Brutal self-assessment paints a picture of a Microsoft gaming division in crisis. Just 100 days ago, when new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma replaced long-serving executive Phil Spencer, she said she’d work to “understand what makes work and protect it.” Now, Sharma and Xbox Studios chief Matt Booty…
Move also cuts off a massive market of legit users who buy cards with physical cash. For years, Valve’s physical Steam gift cards have been the closest you could come to buying a Steam game at a brick-and-mortar store. Now, Valve says it is phasing out the production of…
Sprite-based graphics architecture makes first-person 3D a challenge. Here at Ars, we’ve taken pleasure in reporting on versions of Doom that run on everything from wireless earbuds and printers to Windows’ notepad.exe and even inside Doom itself. So when we hear that a piece of game-playing hardware from the…
But the hardware refresh is tethered to a bundle with pricey AR glasses. When the Steam Deck OLED launched three years ago, we were glad to see that the new, more brilliant screen fixed the biggest flaw of Valve’s original handheld hardware. So we’re unsurprisingly excited about today’s announcement…
The port seems solid, and all DLC is supported—but there’s no crossplay, sadly. Despite all the graphics capabilities of modern Macs, being a Mac gamer is generally a thankless existence. Every once in a while, though, Mac gamers get a bone thrown to them that is substantial enough that…
Europe, Australia, and Asia can still get it while the getting’s good. Well, that was fast. Less than 24 hours after Valve announced renewed availability of the Steam Deck OLED (at a massively increased MSRP), the handheld is once again listed as “out of stock” in the US and…
Smooth movement, compelling combat, and tons of secrets make for an innovative throwback. Modern Legend of Zelda games like Breath of the Wild are built around Link’s ability to run, climb, and jump with the best of them. In old-school, top-down Zelda titles, though, the ability to increase Link’s…
But there are some real-world constraints that virtual pinball could easily ignore. If you owned a Windows computer in the late ’90s or early ’00s, you probably remember 3D Pinball for Windows – Space Cadet, a surprisingly competent virtual table included for free with multiple Microsoft OS releases through…
