Most Americans play games, but don’t see themselves as gamers. Samsung has a plan for that.

I’m very familiar with that audience because I’m married to it. My wife doesn’t call herself a gamer, though she spends more time playing games than I do: Meowdoku, Mahjong, Wordle. Our son is the opposite. He plays AAA titles, shooters, indie darlings. Until recently they shared a house, a TV, and a Prime account, but almost never the same game.

This dichotomy of play is what Samsung is aiming at, and it’s betting families feel it too. It also comes as the global memory shortage is making TVs harder to sell at a profit.

At least the family part of Samsung’s bet has numbers behind it. Seventy-nine percent of parents wish they were spending more quality time with their children, according to new research commissioned by Samsung and conducted by Ipsos. And 80% want options that make it easy to spend time together at home. More than half (58%) say it’s hard to find something the whole family genuinely enjoys. Parents also see their own part in it: 84% admit to at least sometimes multitasking on their devices during family time.

Samsung’s answer to too much screen time is, essentially, more screen time, just with everyone sharing the same screen.

Marie Shanley, a digital well-being consultant who moderated a Samsung panel on the topic last week, doesn’t see a problem with that.

“What we know now from research is it’s not about the screen time,” she told me. “It’s the quality of what you’re doing on the screen.” She’d rather her own kid “play a video game than just sit and watch TV any day.”

The $1,000 console problem

The pitch is party and board games on the TV, played with phones as controllers, and often already included in subscriptions people pay for. Amazon’s Luna offers its GameNight lineup, titles like Clue, Ticket to Ride and Jackbox, at no extra cost to Prime members. Netflix has party games inside its app on compatible TVs.

“You don’t need to be a pro-gamer, you don’t need to bring your controller,” Jeff Gattis, Amazon’s head of gaming, said during the fireside chat. “You just scan a QR code and people can all be playing together literally in minutes.”

The problem, Gattis said, is that people don’t know they have it.

“Our challenge, to be candid with the group here, is that not enough Prime members know they have it,” he said. “Lots of people have access to this benefit today. You just need to let them know they have it.”

None of this is new technology. Sony announced PlayStation Now for Samsung smart TVs in 2015 and then pulled the service from non-PlayStation devices two years later.

“If we’re being critical,” Gattis said, “you could say it’s been a little bit of a solution in search of a problem.”

What’s changed over the past 11 years for cloud gaming is the price of the alternative. The global memory shortage, driven by demand for AI hardware, is pushing console and PC prices up.

“These consoles have been relatively inexpensive,” Gattis said. “You could go buy a used console at GameStop, at least you used to be able to get it for $150. That’s all fundamentally changing.

“I think for the first time, we have a major marketplace disruption happening because of the RAM crisis predominantly. PCs and consoles are going to be upwards of $1,000. That just means fewer players. So I really don’t think the solution is in search of a problem anymore, I think the problem is actually here.”

Two-thirds of Americans play something every week, mostly on their phones. It’s unlikely that they are going to buy a $1,000 console. But a TV is something they already own.

Samsung’s pivot

Samsung wasn’t initially planning to chase casual game players.

When Gaming Hub launched in 2022, partners included Xbox and Nvidia GeForce Now, players needed a game controller to play, and the message was aimed squarely at the hardcore gamers.

“The pitch back then was, this is a console replacement,” Kevin Beatty, head of product for Samsung Visual Display, told me.

But that’s not how it shook out.

Many early users already owned a console. Instead they used the service because they had a TV in different room and didn’t want to move it or buy another console. And people without consoles weren’t playing at all.

So Samsung pivoted to games you can play with the TV remote, with your voice or with your phone. Removing one of the big obstacles for the service.

“We started partnering with different types of partners. We started looking at unique game developers that were creating games for the TV,” Beatty said. “Where we saw holes we filled it by hiring producers and creating our own type of content experiences and our own gaming experiences.”

“What we saw is all three of these inputs, the engagement was extremely high because it was going after an audience that didn’t have that controller,” Beatty said. “And so we’ve evolved a lot over the last few years, but so have our partners. So there’s been a big evolution there.”

Samsung added an onboarding quiz to help sort a catalog that Beatty said was about 4,000 games, including a daily trivia title called The Six.

“We now have this more elegant onboarding experience where we ask you a few questions, we show a couple games just to try to understand your preference profiles,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that we hide or exclude those other more casual games if you’re a AAA gamer or AAA games if you’re more of a casual gamer but we want to try to get taste preference from you first.”

Once that’s done, it tracks your play style to personalize suggestions.

If you don’t play any AAA games, the TV starts showing you fewer of them. They also started suggesting more Party games on Friday and Saturday.

“It’s the right game at the right moment,” Beatty said.

Samsung says the number of unique users playing casual and party games on its TVs grew more than 90% in North America and more than 200% globally between June 2025 and June 2026. Samsung first released those numbers in July, and it still hasn’t said how many people that actually is. Samsung hasn’t said how many people that actually is. Neither has Amazon, which says Luna’s active players have grown about fivefold since it moved games into Prime, a figure Gattis himself said came from a small base.

Your TV has a RAM problem too

Unfortunately, the same memory crunch inflating console prices is also hitting televisions. That’s because modern TVs are basically computers.

“Memory is really hard to come by these days because of all of the GPUs that are being sold across the globe,” Beatty told me. “It’s putting immense pressure on the entire supply chain, which is affecting how we think about this and it’s allowing us to look at service revenue as another opportunity.”

That’s because Samsung can’t simply pass that cost along to consumers.

“But there are other ways to make that cost up,” he said.

One of those ways is Samsung TV Plus, its free, ad-supported streaming service, which the company says passed 100 million monthly users this year. The longer people play, the more ads Samsung gets to show them.

“That’s substantial revenue that helps us from a profitability perspective,” Beatty said. “If we’re looking at this device and how much revenue does it generate in a lifetime, those ancillary services kind of help pad some of the pressure coming from memory and chips and some other things.”

The more content and services Samsung puts into its new TVs the less older TVs will be able to support it.

New AI features need more powerful hardware, Beatty said, and the whole industry is working on putting more chips and GPUs into TVs.

“If we want to power agentic experiences on these devices, you need to change the hardware component,” he said. “Now you get into backwards compatibility issues that your 15-year-old TV is probably not going to be running some of these experiences.”

Playing real Jeopardy

The most interesting thing Beatty floated during our chat is still in development. Samsung is exploring how to turn the old game shows packed onto TV Plus into interactive games.

“We have 100 million monthly active users that are watching old episodes of Jeopardy or Family Feud,” he said. “How could we take that old episode and make it play along? How do you let them play and actually start to accumulate points and how can I show the leaderboard of like everybody else that’s played this 15-year-old episode of Family Feud?”

AI, he said, could make it practical to tag every question across hundreds of channels.

“We’re not able to announce anything yet,” he said. “But there’s a lot of exploration, not just with us, many content partners. Some have already announced, some have already shipped unique experiences like this, where they’re taking older episodes of trivia games and making it play along.

“I think we’re going to see a lot more of that.”

Beatty added that Samsung “flirted” with the idea of creating its own experience, but Samsung is primarily focused on licensing other people’s content.

During the panel, Beatty said Samsung is preparing to launch features in the next few months that add trivia and game elements on top of regular TV programming, to make viewers “a little bit more participatory.”

A Samsung representative confirmed this week that the interactive content is launching in the coming months.

The console isn’t going anywhere

Xbox, meanwhile, is moving the other way on cloud play. Samsung is bundling Microsoft’s new $50 Xbox Nano controller and two months of Game Pass Ultimate for new members with select TVs this holiday. That lands just as Microsoft starts capping Game Pass cloud streaming at 15 hours a month on its top tier.

Beatty brought up the bundle himself after I asked about the TV’s many ways to control games. He sees it as a win.

“I think the proliferation of controllers is good for the industry, because it just gets more people to be playing,” he said.

Bill Gates famously got into the console business to get a computer into the den, under the TV. I asked Beatty whether Samsung had beaten Gates at his own game. Was the TV the console now?

“I don’t think the consoles are ever going away,” he said. “The computing power that is in these PlayStation 5 Pros and whatever the next generation of these devices is going to be, it’s far eclipsing all of the hardware components that’s in this [TV].”

And the reality of TV consumerism, Beatty said, is that for many people the biggest size at the cheapest price is what they’re looking for.

“We’re a premier brand, and so there’s already that pressure of trying to reduce the [bill of materials] cost to get this thing down,” he said. “So being able to compete in terms of the graphics and the compute and just GPU, it’s just so hard.

“I just don’t think we’ll ever go after that market.”

When I asked whether streaming could stand in for a console, he said, “I don’t think it will… It’s not where we’re looking. I think we’re really focused on figuring out the ubiquity of play and experiences and trying to get as many of these things in as many hands as possible.”

Elsewhere

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How to solve the investment problem for mid-tier AA games

End of Abyss Hands-On: Body Horror on a Brutalist Canvas

Sony’s PlayStation disc plant is losing 10 percent of its volume in 2028, not 90

Sony won’t license disc pressing to anyone else, Microsoft does, and a former PlayStation boss thinks that’s the whole problem.

When Sony DADC chief Dietmar Tanzer spoke with an Austrian broadcaster in July about PlayStation disc production at the Thalgau plant, a number of press outlets misunderstood the report, writing that production would fall to a tenth of current levels.

It won’t.

Sony DADC confirmed to Game this week that the figure is a 10 percent decline, not a decline to 10 percent.

“To clarify and avoid any misleading information: in that statement Dietmar anticipated an overall product volume decline by 10 percent, not a decline down to 10 percent,” a spokesperson with Sony DADC told Game.

That figure covers 2028. Tanzer didn’t put a number on the years after, and the spokesperson declined to comment further.

What we do know is that on July 1, PlayStation announced that physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028 and that the transition has no impact on games that have already released in disc format or will be releasing in disc format prior to that month.

“So, there will be reorders going to the market after January 2028,” the Sony DADC spokesperson said. “For details around that I would ask you to liaise with the PR team from PlayStation, as we can’t speak or comment on their behalf.”

PlayStation officials did not respond to questions about reorders or other disc-related matters.

But I did recently speak with Shawn Layden, Game Industry Strategic Advisor and former chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios, who called a future without physical PlayStation discs “depressing, but solvable.” then added, “I think.”

The chief hurdle to third-party manufacturing of collector’s editions or any other version of a PlayStation game disc is that Sony owns the proprietary process to press those discs, Layden said.

“And unless they decide or determine a way to license that to some of these bespoke disc manufacturers, there’s no way to make it happen,” he said.

Layden was careful to add that he understands the concept but doesn’t have “line of sight on the particulars.”

Microsoft already licenses replication to outside plants. Xbox discs are pressed by manufacturers Microsoft certifies as Authorized Replicators, a term defined in its publisher agreements, with the approved list set at the company’s sole discretion and Microsoft retaining the right to halt manufacture. The structure is still in place today: publishers select an Authorized Replicator in Partner Center and submit a bill of materials created with a Microsoft representative. Sony, by contrast, presses PlayStation discs through Sony DADC, its own manufacturing subsidiary.

No one I spoke with said they were in discussions with Sony about doing that, and PlayStation hasn’t responded to questions about whether it would be open to a licensing deal.

There is an obvious reason Sony might not want to. Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad pointed it out on the day of the announcement: it’s a platform-led decision, he wrote, designed to cut costs, eliminate the resale market, and drive all revenue through the PlayStation Store.

The math is not subtle. On a $70 third-party game sold through the PlayStation Store, Sony keeps $21. Sold at retail, Ahmad says, it earns about half that.

Licensing disc replication to an outside manufacturer might not be worth it.

And even if it were, it seems unlikely that such a deal would come from boutique companies like iam8bit, which sells collector’s editions of video games.

“We would absolutely love to find a way forward to continue making physical PlayStation games,” said Jon Gibson, co-owner and co-creative director of the company. “We are big believers in giving humans the option to truly own media. If we can play a role in helping make that a reality for the future of PlayStation games, count iam8bit in!”

If it were to happen, it would most likely be with a company like Conectiv Supply Chain Solutions, a Memphis-based manufacturer of optical discs and vinyl records that also runs third-party logistics, fulfillment and distribution for packaged media.

The company, which was formed in 2025 when Los Angeles private equity firm Variant Equity Advisors purchased Vantiva’s Supply Chain Solutions division, traces its lineage back to Technicolor. When it sold the division, Vantiva described the business as having served video game creators for more than 25 years.

Conectiv is also buying, not shrinking. Last month it acquired SDS, the distributor for Universal and Warner Bros. home entertainment, consolidating those studios’ packaged-media pipeline from pressing plant to retail shelf.

I reached out to Conectiv and its CEO, but haven’t heard back.

Layden pointed to music and books in our discussion about the ongoing value of physical media.

“No one ever saw the comeback of cassette tape,” he said. “And vinyl didn’t so much come back. The flame went down, the fire’s dying, but the ember was always there, and it just kind of came back. Much like the book business. We thought we’d all be on Kindles right now.

“I believe that physical media is crucial and important. One of the things that makes us gamers, one of the core game mechanics, going back to the beginning of time, is collecting stuff.

“Did you get all the diamonds in Crash Bandicoot? Did you get all the stars in Mario? And we like to collect our games. And we have a game shelf. And we put all our boxes up there. And if you’re super hardcore, when you buy a game, you buy two copies, right? One stays in the shrink wrap, and you play the other one. What happens to that important cultural part of the gaming world? You know, we buy the steelbook and the three-disc Final Fantasy set and the figurine and, you know, you can’t download any of that.

“What happens to that?”

And Layden believes it shouldn’t have been a revenue question for PlayStation.

“This was a core thing to the experience of our most devoted fans,” he said. “Yeah, it’s fan service. Why would we take that away? Well, we can’t afford to. It’s already 120 bucks, you know, limited edition special purchase onyx box version of whatever, and those sell at a higher rate than the box selling at $69.99 does. So yeah, the market has said they will continue to buy them. You’re just saying you just don’t want to make them anymore.”

Layden said he was recently talking with someone about these sorts of business decisions and how they’re made. Too often, he said, it’s all about the financials and nothing else.

“OK, we can do this and save this much money, or we can invest this to look at that outcome, or we can do this and have this happen over there, or move this team to Sri Lanka,” he said. “But each one of those, someone also has to have a ledger there saying, ‘OK, what is the brand impact from that move?’

“If we do that, dollars and cents work out. I get it. That’s just math. But what’s the brand impact? Are people going to say, ‘Good move, you guys?’ Or are they going to say, ‘We hate you guys. Quit doing that.’ And sometimes they say, ‘We hate you.’ Then you take a note and say, OK, how much of that can we live with? How much ‘we hate you’ is OK. And when does it go over the line?

“I see a lot of companies making decisions which, objectively speaking, I don’t know what the dollar end of that was for you, Mr. Company, but your brand value just dropped 30 percent. So I hope it was worth it.”

Of course, shifting to a digital-only model for games raises other issues beyond simply wanting to collect. The biggest is ownership.

Layden pointed out that once you go to a streaming-only or download-only model, it’s just a digital footprint on a hard drive.

“What does ownership mean anymore?” he said. “It’s a genuine question. Well, in fact, it’s not even a question anymore. It’s like you are shifting the model from ownership to accessibility.

“And what’s always been true, which people forget, is you’ve never been able to sell your iTunes library. And you can’t sell your PlayStation download library. So if you can’t resell it, do you really own it?”

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Last week, I sat down virtually with Cliff Bleszinski to chat about why his studio went under back in 2018.

I’ve been writing these post-mortems with founders and studio heads for 80 Level for more than a year now. I’ve always loved getting people to reflect more deeply on pivotal moments in their lives.

This series of monthly-or-so stories has allowed me to do just that.

What I thought would be an hour or so interview with Bleszinski turned into a nearly three-hour conversation. Our chat delved into not only the issues that LawBreakers and Radical Heights faced when they were released, and the collapse of Boss Key Productions, but also deep insight into the developer, probably best known for his work on Unreal Tournament and Gears of War.

The long interview was likely in part due to the fact that Bleszinski and I have known each other for more than twenty years. I’ve chatted and hung out with him while covering the Unreal Tournament games, Gears of War, Bulletstorm, and of course LawBreakers and Radical Heights.

When I wrote about the evolution of Epic Games in 2016, the story led with a moment from Bleszinski’s 2012 wedding.

So we had a lot of catching up to do, but more importantly, Bleszinski is at a moment in his life where he’s made some important realizations about himself and the industry he worked in.

You can read about his struggles with alcoholism, the moment of clarity that led to his sobriety, and why he thinks he was one of the big problems with Boss Key Productions, and what he’s playing next in my story over on 80 Level.

But there are also some things that didn’t make the cut. (I turned in a story nearly twice as long as it was supposed to be. That won’t surprise anyone who knows me.)

One thing I breezed over in the story was how Bleszinski, famous for his work in video games, came out of retirement not to make another game, but to get involved in a musical.

The collapse of Boss Key sent Bleszinski into a spiral that lasted, on and off, for years — he goes deep on it in the 80 Level story. It was in that state that Broadway found him.

“The irony is that the person who roped me into that is a guy named Alex Boniello,” Bleszinski said. “He actually played Connor Murphy in Dear Evan Hansen.”

If you’re not familiar, Dear Evan Hansen is a musical — later a book and a film — about a high school senior with social anxiety who sort of accidentally puts himself at the center of a school tragedy.

There’s a song in it, “You Will Be Found,” that reached Bleszinski at his lowest.

“That really resonated with me at that point,” he said, “because I really did feel broken and on the ground.

“And then, ironically, the person who played Connor Murphy on Broadway hit me up and was like, ‘Hey, they’re looking for some fresh producing blood to get involved with Broadway. And there’s this upcoming show called Hadestown.’”

Bleszinski said he listened to the soundtrack for the musical and loved it because it set the mythology of Orpheus and Eurydice and Hades and Persephone to a “jazzy New Orleans vibe.”

“So I wound up getting involved and ended up being there at the Tonys at Radio City Music Hall with (my wife) Lauren, to see it win eight Tonys,” he said. “It was one of those kind of almost comeback stories. I just put money into it and helped promote it, so I wasn’t exactly creatively involved, but to be a small part of something like that and to have a little victory, it was huge for me.”

After co-producing Hadestown, he was involved in the revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and then went on to co-write, with Alex de Campi, a six-issue sci-fi comic called Scrapper.

Bleszinski also said that during those years after the breakup of Boss Key Productions, his retirement from video games extended to playing them, at least for a while.

It wasn’t until relatively recently, Bleszinski said, that he got back to the point of enjoying video games again.

“I think it was about a year and a half or so ago where I started playing games again,” he said. “It actually started with my Switch.”

He said his mother-in-law was declining from stage-4 lung cancer and he and Lauren would travel back and forth to New Orleans to spend time with her.

He started playing games to pass the time.

He mentions Shovel Knight, Celeste, Hotline Miami, and Trees Hate You (which he says he both loves and is “another conversation”). He said he beat Mouse P.I., and played West of Loathing. And recently finished Pragmata, which he called fantastic.

“The stupid little hacking system added so much depth to the game,” he said.

But the game he’s most excited about now is the one he mentioned when we started our call, and again near the end of it. The one, he told me, he was giving up time to play to talk to me: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

“Oh my god, it’s so good,” he said. “This is just cutting into my Expedition 33 time.”

You can, and should, read the full interview with Bleszinski over on 80 Level.

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News this month that Sony Interactive Entertainment would stop producing PlayStation physical discs in 2028 wasn’t very surprising, but the way it was delivered was.

Pointing to “consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry’s … shift away from physical discs,” SIE framed the decision to cease disc production for new games starting in January 2028 as a natural direction shaped by consumer preferences.

While it may be true that digital copies of PlayStation 5 games outsell physical editions, the decision really comes down to money: Saving it and making it.

The reality is that in most cases you’re not actually buying a physical game, you’re renting it. Thanks to often odious DRM rules many developers or publishers retain the right to simply take what you paid for. I don’t mean they’ll break into your house, but only because they don’t have to. They just tell you you can’t download it anymore. Or that you have to check into a server to play, and they turn off the server.

The shift to digital isn’t mysterious.

What is more interesting, though, is how the different platform holders go about ushering in that shift.

PC and the Gradual Surrender

With PC games there was no single moment to point to. You could draw a line at the launch of Steam back in 2003 as the lip of the slippery slope, but what PC gaming did right, seemingly by accident, was not create a flashpoint.

It simply happened.

In August, 2004, you could download an encrypted version of Half-Life 2 and be ready to play it on the November release day without delay. But however you bought the PC game or in what format, you had to install Steam and activate the game.

There was some pushback, of course, but Steam remained and grew, bringing with it an easier way to get more games immediately onto your computer, and lots and lots of sales.

Ten years later and PC versions of games were, well, vestigial.

That’s the result of a gradual shift that saw PC players trading away ownership for some tangible benefits.

Nintendo’s Hedge

Back in 2012, Nintendo announced plans to sell its games in stores and online in the near future.

The first big game to take advantage of that for Nintendo was New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the 3DS, which hit in both formats.

The idea, the company said at the time, was to make it easier for people to purchase their games their way.

Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo at the time, said he saw it as a key factor in increasing games sales for both the 3DS and the Wii U. But he also stressed the value of ensuring that games were still available as box copies at retailers.

At the time, the key points were user choice and retailer support.

Nintendo spent the following years seemingly fighting against digital-only releases with strong physical sales. Recently, the company seems to have found a sort of middle ground — at least in one way. Game-Key card holds no game data; it’s a key that downloads the full game and then has to stay in the slot to play. Because it isn’t tied to your account and works in any Switch 2, you can still lend it, sell it, or buy it used. That said, what it can’t promise is the same level of permanence you’d get from a cartridge with the game actually on it. Since the data lives on servers, your ability to reinstall it lasts as long as those servers remain up.

So maybe less middle ground and more of a company deciding how much ownership it’s willing to sell.

I was so impressed with Iwata’s slow approach to digital distribution at the time that I saw it as the antithesis of Microsoft’s initial approach to digital games with the Xbox One.

Microsoft’s Spectacular Failure

Microsoft’s original roll out of the Xbox One was so mishandled that at the time I referred to it as a “Miltonian fall from grace and an attempt at redemption.”

I even broke down the amazing self-inflicted harm done by the initial Xbox One unveiling as a three act story. You can read the whole thing here, but in a nutshell:

Microsoft, riding the high of the Xbox 360, decided to push ALL of the envelopes with the Xbox One. The device was unveiled on May 21, 2013 at Microsoft’s campus, with a distinctly broad-entertainment flavor that included lots of television support, a Kinect that shipped with every system, and a console that required regular check-ins online for games to function.

As if that weren’t bad enough, months later the company managed to make things worse by saying the system would also restrict disc resales and complicate lending games to friends. Both moves that seem to be setting the stage for a digital-first, or digital-only system.

The news hit so poorly that Microsoft reversed the decision, and Don Mattrick, president of Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, was gone within weeks, with Phil Spencer eventually taking over.

In what has become quite an irony, PlayStation at the time took great pleasure in twisting the knife in Microsoft before the reversal happened, pointing out that the PlayStation 4 would be a system with no such DRM requirements.

Sony’s Clean Kill

And that brings us back, full circle, to this week and a heavy, historic dose of irony.

Thirteen years after mocking Microsoft and its plans for a DRM-heavy game system with controlled but built in support for “lending” your games to friends and perhaps even reselling them, Sony essentially announced it’s doing a worse version of that.

In 2028, the company will stop the production of physical game discs.

No word yet on whether the digital games that replace those physical copies will have any bells and whistles attached to them, like the ability to resell, lend, or keep playing when a server shuts down.

As if to underscore the issue here, just last week, Sony announced it would in September be deleting hundreds of movies users thought they had purchased when Sony’s license with StudioCanal runs out.

It also announced this week that the stores for the PS3 and PS Vita will be shutting down by the summer of 2027.

That’s two great examples of what people fear when it comes to owning digital media.

But at least Sony’s unwanted news wasn’t tied to the launch of a console. Though I can only assume this is setting the stage for news of a future console with no disc drive that relies solely on digital downloads.

What can fans of video games do about it?

Not much.

The one power we have is our wallet.

The most watched test of digital-only is likely to be GTA 6. When it hits later this year, its physical edition comes with a box, but no gaming disc inside. Instead it will be just a download code. At least that’s the current plan.

While it will have the eyes of the industry on it, the reality is, GTA 6 is probably the single worst place to try and prove a point as a consumer. It’s shipping without a disc and is charging up to $100 because the publisher knows nothing will slow it down.

If anything, GTA 6 is the checkmate that companies will use to justify a further shift toward digital.

But don’t give up hope.

Where your wallet can mean something is in the quieter sales. Supporting DRM-free options, publishers who still press discs, and the secondhand market.

Just look at both music and movies where physical ownership is making a resurgence precisely because people realized ownership was worth the inconvenience of physical products.

A niche, if it gets loud enough, can make a difference.

June in New York City wasn’t entirely about the NBA. Three days before the New York Knicks won their first championship since 1973, the city held a press conference for a different sort of sports champion.

The NYC Battle of the Boroughs Champions were honored at the Tweed Courthouse on June 10, bringing together the winners of the 2026 Minecraft Education Battle of the Boroughs and their coaches.

Two of the year’s three division champions were all-girl teams. One of those, Elementary Division Champions Team Hyper Pigmentation, won back-to-back titles.

The event was designed to highlight how gaming is building a pipeline into careers in coding, design, and technology in New York City. It also underscores a message that the city has been working six years to get out to the world and the game industry in particular: New York City is the largest game development hub on the East Coast.

The Blueprint

The initiative behind the Battle of the Boroughs started back in 2020, when Alia Jones-Harvey, the Associate Commissioner of Workforce Development and Educational Initiatives for the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment (MOME), brought together industry leaders and then commissioned a study of the digital games industry in the city.

The results were published in 2021. The study found that New York City’s digital games industry supported 7,600 jobs, accounting for $762 million in wages, and $2 billion in total economic output.

The report’s recommendations suggested tax credits, digital resources, community relations, workforce development, and support for indies and freelancers.

Since 2020, MOME created the Game Development Industry Council to shape city policy on games, launched the NYC Summer of Games campaign, funded grants that help developers finish and market their games, backed the new bachelor’s degree in Digital Game Design at City College of New York, and built a K-through-college pipeline into the city’s games workforce.

They also started the Battle of the Boroughs Esports Mayor’s Cup.

Today, Jones-Harvey said, New York City has one of the fastest-growing digital gaming ecosystems in the U.S. with $2.6 billion in annual economic impact, about 7,900 jobs across the sector, and roughly 380 digital gaming firms, with about 65 percent of those being small or indie studios.

“In the GamesBeat comparison of Q3 2024 to Q1 2026, New York/Manhattan/Newark (Middle Atlantic) has surged from 15.1 percent to 29.2 percent share of open roles in games,” she said. “Another indicator I have been eyeing is the rapid growth of Anime NYC.”

Anime NYC’s total attendance jumped roughly 47 percent in 2025, from 101,000 to 148,000. MOME has long supported Play.NYC, an indie-focused convention run by Playcrafting; since 2024, Play.NYC has staged its showcase inside Anime NYC, giving its developers access to that far larger crowd.

Those figures do come with an important caveat: the city is grading its own work. MOME commissioned the original 2021 study, and the updated numbers — including a striking 90% jump in studios, from 200 to 380 — come from the city’s own Economic Development Corporation, which doesn’t say how it defines a studio or what changed in why they include them.

And for all the emphasis on indies and startups, New York is home to Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive — mammoth players in the industry, and exactly the kind of triple-A weight the city’s current pitch tends to wave off.

Jones-Harvey frames the city’s strategy as a two-part bet: build the talent through schools and competitions, and then retain that talent with studios that can employ them.

Summer of Games

We’re currently in the middle of New York City’s Summer of Games, a celebration of NYC’s “booming digital games community” through a number of big events running from May to September.

This year, the Summer of Games kicked off with record attendance at the NYC Video Game Festival.

“MOME sponsors several tentpole events that attract game developers and gamers (Tribeca Games Gallery, Power Up Festival, Games for Change, Play.NYC, Game Devs of Color Expo),” Jones-Harvey said.

The City’s push to gain more attention for local video game developers reminds me that there was a time when the organizers of E3 privately looked into hosting the now-shuttered video game expo in New York City.

I asked Jones-Harvey if there have been any recent talks to try and attract or create a similar show in the City.

“Yes,” she said, “we have spoken with several organizations that are eyeing New York City for a major video game expo. We definitely see the potential with the audiences attracted to New York Comic Con, Anime NYC, and the esports tournaments.”

The Gamer Mayor

NYC Mayor’s Office is, of course, deeply impacted by who the current mayor is. The fact that the desire to attract more game developers and support the industry as a whole has lasted across three mayors shows how important the City believes the industry is.

But while both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Mayor Eric Adams supported New York’s gaming industry, there are those who believe Mayor Zohran Mamdani is the first true Gamer Mayor for the City.

“What may distinguish Mayor Mamdani is not necessarily that he plays more games, but that he appears more fluent in the culture and digital platforms that surround games,” Jones-Harvey said. “Mayor Mamdani has referenced games like FIFA, Pokémon, and even SimCity from his childhood. His willingness to engage on Twitch and social media to connect with younger audiences on the platforms where they spend their time is something previous mayors never really did. In that sense, he may be New York’s first mayor who understands gaming as a native part of culture rather than simply a sector.”

And that deep understanding of not just games, but the culture that surrounds it could help to push MOME’s efforts forward.

“I think Mayor Mamdani has the potential to elevate gaming from a niche industry to a core component of New York’s cultural and economic strategy,” Jones-Harvey said. “His fluency with digital culture suggests he understands that games are not just products—more so, they are communities, careers, and a major part of how the next generation experiences media.

“The biggest factor influencing whether game developers stay in New York isn’t gaming policy—it’s affordability. If Mayor Mamdani succeeds in making housing, childcare, and transportation more affordable, he will do more to retain game talent than any industry-specific program. Creative people can make games anywhere; the challenge is making New York a place where they can afford to build a life.”

Among Cultural Equals

It is a crowded space that video games are slipping into in New York City. The City is already well known for its music scene, its films, television, theater, and book publishing. But Jones-Harvey believes video games are at home among cultural equals.

“Film lets us watch stories,” she said. “Theater lets us experience stories. Music lets us feel stories. Publishing lets us imagine stories. Games let us participate in stories. That’s why digital games deserve a place alongside New York’s other cultural industries — and why they represent such an important part of the city’s creative and economic future.”

Jones-Harvey, a self-described “old school” gamer with a classic Atari console at home and a growing interest in mobile and indie games, believes that New York City is poised to become the world’s leading city for the intersection of gaming, storytelling, creativity, technology, and talent development.

“Games are one of the defining cultural mediums of our time,” she said. “New York may never be the city with the most AAA game studios, but it can absolutely be the leading city for independent developers, startups, and creative experimentation.”

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It’s been a bit more than 100 days since Asha Sharma was named Xbox CEO, a period of time that saw a drop in the price of the Xbox Game Pass subscription, the removal of Copilot from Xbox, a broader leadership shuffle, and a promise to “celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox.”

A week into her second 100 days, Sharma is signaling what that promise might mean in action.

In a memo sent to Team Xbox employees globally and published on Xbox Wire on Wednesday, following a Bloomberg story, Sharma and Xbox CCO Matt Booty outlined what they described as the “realities” that the company needs to navigate.

“We won’t succeed by hiding hard truths, nor will we succeed by doing the same thing and expecting different results,” Sharma wrote on X, along with a link to the published memo.

The memo kicks off by saying something I’ve heard former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime say for years: The real competition for a console isn’t other systems, it’s entertainment. The entire game industry is competing in an attention economy.

Then the two get to brass tacks.

The memo is alarmingly blunt and forthright, detailing the business rationale for what will surely result in layoffs, the closure or sale of some studios, and a shift in the console's business model.

What I find most interesting, though, is the discussion of hardware and platform.

The memo points out that Xbox is in a hardware-component crisis and that, while the industry as a whole is affected, they feel Xbox has been affected “more greatly than many of our peers.”

“We need a new business model and partnerships for hardware as we remain committed to (the next Xbox codenamed) Helix.”

Further down in the memo, the two point out that Xbox’s current platform infrastructure is not built for the battle ahead and that they will need to evolve and rebuild their stack.

Placed side by side, these two major issues and the concerns raised can’t help but make me think of one thing: handhelds.

Yes, yes, I know. I’m a bit obsessed.

But here’s the thing.

Microsoft and Xbox have already tested the waters for a potential solution to both their hardware and platform problems.

In terms of hardware, my take on the memo is that while Xbox will still release its own flagship Xbox, the “new business model and partnerships for hardware” means they’re going to open the door for licensed third-party hardware, allowing them to eventually exit the subsidy business permanently.

In some ways, the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally tested the waters for this. Think of a third-party Helix as an upscaled version of the Ally.

Now, let’s look at the question of the platform. The memo notes that Microsoft needs to become more self-reliant as an engineering culture. And Microsoft’s biggest distribution advantage, by far, is Windows.

Once more, the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally shows us a path forward for Xbox. The handheld launches directly into a full-screen Xbox experience on boot-up. Once in there, players access their library no matter what store they bought their PC titles from. More importantly, the Xbox experience on the Ally Xbox reclaims about 2GB of RAM, according to Microsoft, and reduces CPU activity. Both big gains for game developers and game players.

The smart play here would be to take that experience and expand it to all Windows-running computers. Imagine a system that will let you decide to boot into Xbox mode or press a button to switch to Xbox mode. Think Steam Big Screen mode, but for Windows and with support for all stores. It essentially turns every Windows-running computer in the world into an Xbox.

Microsoft has already tried and failed to break into the store business. I don’t see them buying up or being able to buy up a competitor. (Though a Discord purchase could lead to something interesting, and I do think Microsoft will be launching a mobile store.)

The smart move is to lean into what Microsoft already has, make Xbox the default gaming layer for Windows, and monetize through Game Pass and the engagement the company knows is the future.

The strategy here is to stop fighting to be the number one console manufacturer and instead focus on the gaming activity already happening on the screens Microsoft controls.

Xbox still wants to have a console, but this platform approach gives them a business that no longer lives or dies based on the price of memory and storage.

Disclosure: I run a consulting business, Pad & Pixel, whose clients include companies that compete with Microsoft in game distribution.

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The Archivio Storico Barilla and its pasta museum house the oldest spaghetto in the world, dating back to 1837. It’s searchable online archives tell the entwined stories of both Barilla and Italian pasta.

The public LEGO House, the private LEGO Idea House, and the secretive and hidden LEGO Archives are home to every LEGO set ever released, the desk once used by the company founder, and stacks of design documents, office memos, and letters.

While still in its relative early stages, the Embracer Games Archive is already home to some intriguing and useful video game history and wonders.

And like those other, older museums, the games archive is already being put to good use by researchers and experts in the craft.

“The archive is already in active use, and we’re always happy to support projects that benefit gaming culture and the gaming industry,” said David Boström, CEO at Embracer Games Archive. “We’ve worked with authors, including Lost In Cult, who create detailed books and have spent time here photographing items. We also assist companies that no longer have their own legacy materials. When they own the IP, we can scan original releases for reissues. We’ve hosted researchers, supported university collaborations, and lent items to exhibitions.

“One of my favorite examples was helping with the development of the Atari 2600+. Developers brought prototype hardware here to test compatibility with original games. We are currently assisting with the upcoming Neo Geo AES+ as well.”

The archive, currently located in an old Game Outlet Europe warehouse in Karlstad, Sweden, currently houses 90,114 objects, as of late May. Boström estimates that about 87 percent of the collection are games, with the remaining collection split between consoles, computers and accessories.

While work on the archive started in 2022, the staff of four (Boström, an archivist, a supply manager, and a technical engineer) are still meticulously making their way through the collection.

The concept for the archive was born out of Embracer Group co-founder Lars Wingefors collection. Wingefors founded the original Nordic Games in 1993 at the age of 16, selling used video games by mail order. He also slowly started building up a private collection.

“About seven years ago, he started to reflect on how this collection could serve a greater purpose,” Boström said. “He realized it could become a valuable resource for both the games industry and gaming culture, and that it could form the foundation of a proper archive for video games.”

By the time the archive was announced in 2022, the collection had about 50,000 items in it and Boström and his small team were tasked with the challenge of building an archive from scratch.

“The first challenge was simply to gather everything that had previously been acquired in one location,” he said. “There was quite a bit of logistics to solve, but everything went smoothly, and within a couple of months all items were in place at the archive facility.”

The collection came to the archive in more than a thousand boxes packed onto about 100 pallets.

“It was an incredible sight, and something that still gives me goosebumps thinking about it,” Boström said. “Those months were a lot of fun. Together with my colleagues, we unpacked every single box and were constantly surprised by what we found. It felt like Christmas multiplied by a hundred and every day it was hard to stop without opening just one more box. Eventually, everything was unpacked and placed on the newly acquired archive shelves. Once everything was safely stored, we moved on to the next key step, cataloguing everything into our newly created database.”

The group decided that before digging into the details of each item in the collection they needed to have a quick overview of what the new archive consisted of. To that end, they limited their database to just a few essential fields: title, object ID, platform, storage location, and which collection the item originated from.

With that baseline established, the archivist is now working through what the team calls iteration three.

“In this phase, we will open every single game and document its contents in detail, both through metadata and high-resolution photography,” Boström said.

The archive is also actively working to expand its collection. It’s already grown to 90,114 objects.

“Since we are still in a relatively early phase of building the archive, we prioritize acquiring larger collections, ideally complete ones assembled by dedicated collectors, such as all releases for a specific system,” he said. “Over the years, we’ve been fortunate to acquire several collections like this, and the people we’ve worked with have been pleased to see their collections live on in the archive and serve a greater purpose.”

Boström noted that the archive is in the process of acquiring a major collection from the United States.

“American releases are an area where our collection has been relatively limited, so this will significantly strengthen that part of the archive,” he said. “The acquisition includes several complete sets, such as Nintendo 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.”

While cataloging and acquiring items for the collection are important steps in maintaining and growing the archives, ensuring that the items in the collection both function and don’t degrade are equally important.

The Embracer Games Archive monitors temperature and humidity at the facility, but the group is also planning on incorporating a more specialized facility for items that need more care.

“All visits are supervised by archive staff, and any handling of objects is done by us to minimize wear and risk,” Boström said.

Allowing access to the growing collection is, of course, one of the most important elements of gathering together such an enormous slice of video game history.

Currently, that access is very limited, but Boström hopes to see it expand soon.

“We do plan to make the database publicly accessible in the future via our website, although no timeline has been set yet,” he said. “In the meantime, our Technical Engineer, Jukka, has developed a simple and effective solution where an AI chatbot can access a CSV export from the database. This has proven to be a very useful tool, as it can provide clear answers and give a good overview of what is currently in the archive. We provide access to this tool for researchers, exhibition planners, and others who reach out to us.”

Boström said the Embracer Group, which funds the non-profit, sees the archive as a “meaningful long term investment, not only in preserving the cultural heritage of video games but also in making it accessible for research, education, and future generations.”

For himself, Boström said he feels a strong responsibility to build, with his team, the best archive possible.

“It’s been a very educational journey,” he said. “There’s a lot to consider when building something like this from the ground up. One of the most important things is having a clear, shared plan and solving things step by step, which I think we’ve done well. Now that we have a solid foundation, a key part of my role is also to spread awareness of the archive.”

Video game history hasn’t historically had the support it deserves. Relatively recent work by groups and individuals is helping to change that before the early history of video games is completely lost.

Like most involved in the research and preservation of video game history, Boström believes strongly in the need for archives.

“Games are one of the largest cultural and entertainment forms today,” he said. “Like with other cultural media, it’s important to be able to look back and understand how it has evolved. When so much of gaming history is preserved in one place here in the archive, it becomes an incredibly powerful resource, almost like a time capsule.”

As a collector myself, I couldn’t help but ask about the archive’s collection of handheld gaming systems. I’ve managed to acquire about 250 unique systems dating back to 1975. I was curious how it compared.

“We have a strong selection of handheld gaming systems,” Boström told me. “I’ve included an image of one of our shelves where we have many of Nintendo’s different systems on display. We also have a complete set of all Game and Watch titles, which is a personal favorite of mine. So far, we haven’t been able to go through and service every individual system, but whenever we come across something that isn’t working and needs attention, our Technical Engineer Jukka, who specializes in restoring older electronics, handles it.”

All told, the collection has about 700 handheld games as well as a large number of handheld consoles, he said.

Boström said one of the things that he’s come to realize through his work is just how much he didn’t know.

“One of the most fun discoveries was finding a Nintendo Game Boy–branded sewing machine that can stitch Nintendo-themed patterns,” he said. Another personal favorite is “a special Swedish edition of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the Super Nintendo. It was released in Sweden with a larger box and an included game guide, known as the ‘Gold Pack,’ and it’s quite sought after today.

“What makes it even more special is its story. Someone from my hometown reached out to us and they had kept it since its original release and wanted to ensure it would be preserved in the archive.”

It is that sort of interaction that Boström said makes he and the others at the archives feel so grateful for the work they do.

“We look forward to continuing to build and grow this important collection,” he said. “If anyone reading this would like to get in touch, whether to collaborate, contribute, or simply learn more, please don’t hesitate to reach out, as our website is the easiest way to contact us.

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It seems that many major players in the video game industry haven’t quite caught on to the fact that social media is essentially dead or dying.

I talked about this a bit in January in my monthly column. But I ended the article on a note upon which I probably should have elucidated.

At the time I wrote:

“Currently, I think brands and media need to focus on building up their own safe haven for consumers, readers, and fans away from social media and the like. Own your community and treat it well, because if you lose it to social media or Google, it may be forever.”

That dangling thought came back to mind when I recent spoke with Tim Courtney about, well, a lot of interesting things.

Courtney pioneered a crowdsourcing innovation that would later become LEGO Ideas. He turned the passion of LEGO fans into a $100,000,000-generating community. But more importantly, he did it in a way that respected and empowered fans and without the need to cede control to some outside source.

We got onto the topic of social media, and when I mentioned my thoughts about its slow death, he pointed out that what I was saying sounded a lot like the Dark Forest Theory of the Internet. Something I hadn’t been aware of.

The theory holds that people are retreating from the big public platforms to private, smaller digital spaces.

I couldn’t agree more. Where Yancey Strickler talks more about the implications for the internet when this happens, I’m more interested in how important it is for game makers to help either create or maintain those safe spaces.

When social media came along, a lot of video game discourse slowly moved over, leaving behind a lot of amazing places to wither away.

Forums still existed, of course, but they mostly gave way to behemoths like Facebook, Twitter, and the like.

Now, with social media crawling with Nazis, AI-created invasive porn, scammers (and Elon Musk) most people—at least those without some sort of fiduciary tie to the services—are moving away, on the hunt for green pastures, or perhaps a friendly copse in a dark forest.

My suggestion, which is driven by my own personal need for safer spaces, is also one that can help game developers in their need for a place to interact with authentic fans about the games they hope those fans will play.

Act now. Build those safe spaces. Invest the money and energy to create the kind of community you would be eager to join—before it’s too late.

I say, with more than a little personal interest in the outcome, that one great such place could be, and often is, video game publications.

If maintained, and many are, the comments on a website dedicated to the coverage of video games can be filled with authentic fans who want nothing more than to participate in the conversations sparked or driven by well-researched, well-written stories.

Of course, this requires a level of effort to ensure that these places don’t become their own dark forests, but it’s very doable.

Support your local gaming site—developers and publishers—now. Don’t do it just because they may cover your game. Do it because they are critical safe havens for your fans. At their best, these gathering spots spark meaningful conversations, inspire current and future developers, and—when necessary—demand the occasional course correction.

Create your own forums or open comments on your own sites. Build out your sites to include a form of editorial coverage. Hire those who want nothing more than to dive deep into your process, bring to light your passion, and help build a community that loves your creations as much as you do.

Whichever path you choose, do it soon, because it won’t be long before the people you so want to connect with have scurried away into unknowable pockets of an increasingly dark forest—leaving you behind.

It is, perhaps, the perfect time in Cuba to make a horror game.

Intertwined oil shortages and an economic crisis sparked by fuel shortages and the continued U.S. embargo, have rocked the island nation, leading to daily rolling blackouts as well as food, water, and medical shortages.

Back in 2016, when Cuban indie developer Josuhe Pagliery, started work on his first game, it garnered international attention at a time when he thought things couldn’t get any more difficult.

“I always believed Saviorless would be the game of difficulties,” Pagliery told me recently via email. “If you remember, there was no internet on the island in 2016 when development began. And it turns out that now we’re living through daily blackouts of 20 hours! One dollar equals 510 Cuban pesos compared to 24 in 2016; without exaggeration, more than 85 percent of the people who collaborated on the first project are now outside of Cuba; and to top it off, there’s now also the risk of an invasion or the implementation of a total naval blockade.”

Now, deep in development on his second game, Pagliery says the increasing difficulty of not just making a game in Cuba, but surviving, has helped to shape what this new title will be.

“After two quite stressful months with these thoughts in the middle of blackouts, I realized that making this game, with this subject matter, in this particular moment and context possessed a unique value as a work,” he wrote. “The potential to become an artistic record of what appears to be the end of an era in Cuba. I convinced myself that my terrible context could also be used as an artistic opportunity.”

His new game, Tasteless, is a low-poly 3D first-person horror game with a heavy narrative focus.

Pagliery hopes it will be the second title in a trilogy of “less” games that revolve around the concept of emptiness, and which shares some references in common with his first game.

Saviorless

Saviorless, considered by many to be one of Cuba’s first modern indie games, endured a tumultuous development that kicked off in 2016.

It survived a split-up of the development team, supply shortages, social unrest, and COVID, but still managed—after eight years of development—to launch as Empty Head Games’ first title.

“The reception from players was very positive, same with the press; the visual department was universally praised, as was the music,” Pagliery told me. “During development we never thought about sales, only about getting the first Cuban video game onto all major consoles and platforms. Sales were above average within what’s expected for a 2D cinematic platforming experience.”

Since release, the game sparked another wave of attention that included reviews, interviews, and presence at global events. It even received a nomination at the Indicade and Quirino awards.

Along the way, the game managed to connect with publisher Dear Villagers, and is going through the process of brought to platforms beyond the computer.

Pagliery said he hopes that the game hitting the console will lead to the studio seeing significant returns. But more important, at least for the developer, launching the game brought with it a number of important lessons and a desire to make a second independent game.

“I love making independent video games; frankly I can’t think of an activity I enjoy more,” he wrote. “No matter how much I complain about the sacrifice involved in doing it from Cuba, it’s simply the best!”

Tasteless

Where Saviorless was a side-scrolling 2D platform, Tasteless makes the leap to 3D and focuses much more on the game’s story.

“The game takes place mostly inside a house in Havana based on the house where I was born and raised,”Pagliery wrote, “and it’s about a father who is trying to resurrect his recently deceased son.”

The concept for the game was driven in large party by Pagliery, himself, becoming a father and realizing how completely fatherhood changes everything about a person.

The game views fatherhood not only as a “genetic and emotional bond, but also as a dynamic based on control and deformation,” he wrote. “The parallel with Cuba, starting from this family tragedy that in essence speaks of the death of the future, became increasingly present as I progressed; so I believe the project will have a certain documentary quality regarding these convulsive times in Cuban history, without necessarily being a game about Cuba.”

The core team working on Tasteless is made up of Pagliery, who serves as the game’s director, artist, writer, and designer; Miguel Nicolas, who handles programming; and Angel Menendez, who creates the 3D art and animation. The music and sound is being created by German Carrasco, and David Darias, is the technical advisor.

This time around, Pagliery hopes to get the game wrapped up in just two years, something he thinks he can accomplish despite the ever escalating challenges.

“I have much more experience, and it’s real experience, since it comes from having made almost every mistake a beginner can make and having paid the price,” he wrote. “I also now know the professional areas where I’m good, and by default, the others I should try to improve or simply avoid. The jump to 3D (although there are 2D segments within the game) represents a technical and artistic challenge, but far from seeing it as something negative, I prefer to understand it as a way to expand my expressive possibilities.”

Another boon for the game’s development was Pagliery’s decision to invest much of his own money into solar panels for his home and office.

“That was the only way I found to keep working and in the process preserve some peace of mind, investing in a solar panel system, which in fact I’m using right now in the middle of a nighttime blackout to write these lines,” he wrote. “The setup consists of an inverter, a battery, and six panels of 600 watts each, located on the rooftop of my building. Thanks to this we can continue working even under critical scenarios, like when the national electrical system goes down across the entire island.”

While the electricity affords him the ability to work when others on the island may not be able to, he’s not immune to other issues the blackouts create.

“The blackouts generate a survival logic in people, where life is reduced to its most basic aspects, in other words, it feels like devolving in real time,” he wrote. “And yes, it’s true that thanks to these panels right now I’m not as affected, but my parents are, and so are the members of my team, and this generates a feeling of guilt over something that’s not in your hands to solve.”

Pagliery believes the energy problems are the result of what he calls “profound governmental neglect, marked by the absence of real investment in energy infrastructure for years,” as well as the long-lasting embargo on the island.

“It’s an infinite loop, which functions as the perfect excuse to wield before the many problems or shortcomings on the part of the state,” he added.

The accumulation of problems in Cuba have also triggers a systemic crisis that Paliery sais extend to every level of life in the nation.

“Water and gas, for example, also depend on electricity,” he wrote. ”There are literally no cars on the streets; activities like cinemas, theaters, concerts have nearly disappeared. As always happens in these cases, culture is among the first victims within a free-falling economy.

“Everything is much more negative and hopeless, but paradoxically it’s perfect for a horror game. At this point, I’m starting to process all these infinite problems and shortages as fuel to keep working. In essence, I try to convert all these multiple ‘nos’ into a creative ‘yes’.”

Life in Cuba

With the embargo heightening issues on the island and talk of the U.S. somehow taking over the country, Pagliery said everyone on the island seems to have an opinion.

Pagliery points out that the U.S has always been present in the Cuban collective imagination, either as “savior or villain.”

“Possibly the place in the world where the USA is talked about most after the USA itself is Cuba,” he added. “That has been a constant throughout my life, since school; it was practically the only thing Fidel Castro talked about in his interminable diatribes.”

Since the U.S. attacked Venezuela, the blackouts in Cuba have worsened by 20 percent, Pagliery estimates.

“That tells you that the energy crisis in Cuba had already been dragging on from long before Maduro’s fall,” he wrote. “I can attest that in interior provinces of the country, like Cienfuegos, blackouts of more than 20 hours were already a present reality since at least the year 2024.”

Pagliery believes that Cuba is is obligated to make a deal with the U.S.

“I don’t think it’s even optional,” he wrote. “I know many people, generally outside of Cuba, adore that idyllic image of David versus Goliath, but the truth is, little David doesn’t stand the slightest chance against a giant. The concrete reality is that at just 90 miles away from the USA, the tiny island of Cuba cannot afford the luxury of confronting a rival like that. These are no longer the times of Vietnam. Anyone who demands that the Cuban people immolate themselves defending blackouts and misery, whether from the comfort of a smartphone or the regime itself, would in my eyes be someone pathologically malignant. It is the Cuban people who have solely suffered the consequences of this political standoff that now dates back 67 years, never their rulers or his relatives; perhaps it’s time to give us a damn break!”

He added that only the future can tell if the US stepping in would help or harm the country.

“It’s practically impossible to make the situation being lived on the island right now any worse,” he wrote.

As for the video game industry in Cuba, Pagliery doesn’t have high hopes for its growth any time soon.

“Forget about it completely!” he wrote. “If before it was unlikely to take off, given the terrible strategies of its managers and the dubious quality of their video games, right now that’s simply impossible. In fact, in the last six years, culture specifically is one of the sectors that has suffered the most palpable deterioration and institutional abandonment, both in the quality of its offerings and in its mere presence on the island.”

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Crimson Desert is the sort of glee-generating, open-world graphical powerhouse that clearly isn’t designed to be played on a handheld PC.

But after spending more than 125 hours with it on my handheld of choice, I’ve only really run into two issues: the text can be so small for my aging eyes that I occasionally have to use a magnifying glass to read it (please try not to imagine what that looks like, it’s sad) and the chance that I’ll throw the game across the room in a boss-fight-induced rage is much higher than if it were running on my chunky desktop.

Boss fights aside, Crimson Desert is the sort of game I’ve been waiting for without really realizing it was the exact sort of thing I need in my life right now.

I happen to be traveling for the month, and my only gaming form of entertainment is my iPhone and the beefy ROG Xbox Ally X. It also happens to be (currently) the worst month of the year in terms of Trump-driven rage, dystopia, and depression.

In short, I needed a comforting distraction but didn’t have my desktop handy to help wth that.

Along came an early copy of Crimson Desert, and I hopped right in. But, to my surprise, I wasn’t initially drawn to the game. The quests felt very hand-holdy, and the combat was simply me mashing the same buttons over and over. Is this it? I thought.

Fortunately, it wasn’t. By the time I hit 20 hours, I was fully invested.

I think the sheer complexity of controls, the depth of experience, and the (let’s call it straightforward) main quests had somehow initially coalesced into delivering an experience that seemed routine at best.

But once you get past those lengthy opening moments, by the time (at least for me) that I unlocked the second playable member of the Greymanes I was hooked.

It helped that Damaine is a badass rapier-wielding warrior who I triained up to essentially shiv people to death … which, of course, never gets old. Kliff, the main, starting hero, is also fun, but he’s more of my tank.

As you play the game, some wild stuff happens and new things unlock that make you realize just how deep this game goes. I don’t want to spoil any of the surprises, but just trust me when I tell you it’s worth the time to get past the first seven hours or so. I know that’s a crazy thing to say outloud, but I’m 125 hours in and have only finished a couple of the main quests.

Heck, I’ve barely touched the side quests. How am I supposed to concentrate with everything going on in the world.

As I pointed out, this game feels like the perfect experience for me right here, right now.

Some of the ways that holds true includes the fact that you can explore the world as, essentially, a naturalist, geologist, and biologist. You can be like the Darwin of Crimson Desert. It seems that nearly everything living in the world can be identified and is cataloged in the game’s Knowledge database.

If you open the Knowledge database when you start the game, you’ll discover ten categories, including things like People, Creatures, Mountain, and Gatherables. In each of those categories are a number of subcategories, and in each subcategory are a bunch of undiscovered things noted by question marks. Once you discover them, the question marks turn into the thing you found. But here’s the thing, you play the game KNOWING there’s so much yet to discover. It’s very hard to ignore once you know it’s there. (You’re welcome.)

So far in the subcategory of Creatures of Mysteries, for instance, I have discovered two of the world’s five Chimeras. Once discovered, it tells you about them, and when you see them in the world, they’ll no longer show up as unidentified.

For most of these, you need to either interact with them or … catch them to see what they are. The latter can be a bit unnerving when you, say, grab something moving in the grass and it turns out to be a yellow garden spider.

On the bright side, the game has 15 different types of cats and dogs—all of which you can carry and pet.

So you can see my problem.

How am I supposed to go find the dude in the castle who wants the thing done when there are so many cats to cuddle and dogs to pet? Why defeat the big bad in the second chapter when you can go mountain climbing, or be startled by a family of partridge scurrying from the underbrush during a forest amble?

I actually find myself completing more quests by accident than on purpose. I’ll be strolling through a field when I come upon something that gets me mired in some local issue, and then decide to sort things out.

I suppose in that way, Crimson Desert is almost more like the ‘70s TV show Kung-Fu than it is single-player World of Warcraft.

I should also mention that the complex and gratifying skill system allows you to focus on unarmed combat and grappling, if you’d like. So I can as easily take a guard out with a clothesline or body slam as I can a slash of my sword. I find it most enjoyable, though, combining the two. Using Damaine’s rapier to shank shank shank someone, and then follow that up with a spinning scissors throw, Captain America shield toss, and then maybe a shot from her gun. Did I mention she has a gun? She has a black powder gun. Poor Kliff has a bow, but he can get poisoned arrows.

There’s also a form of magic, which, frankly, I’m just starting to get a handle on. It’s use is required for some of the puzzles, and I believe for the BIG overarching story, but as I’ve noted, I’ve been too distracted.

A typical gameplay session for me usually starts with me thinking, ‘I’m going to turn off the music, crank up the sound effects, and quietly ride my horse through the woods to see what I find.’

Flash cut ten minutes later to me chasing a robber on foot, only to turn around and see two of his buddies attacking my horse “Wait, what? Why are they attacking my horse? I’m right here! Those fuckers! “

Then I spend 15 minutes chasing the other two down on foot because my poor horse needs a good rest. Usually, this involves a lot of cussing and some dirty looks from my wife, who only hears my reactions to what’s happening on the machine between my hands.

Once that’s done, I decide to proceed on foot, maybe identifying the occasional raccoon, or petting a dog, or seeing if I can climb onto a wild horse when it walks by.

There’s a whole bounty system built into the game that activates when you kill and steal. It’s by region, but is incredibly hard to remove aside from essentially turning yourself in and paying the bounty they put on your head.

You can find this and other details out about the game in its built-in guides, which also has a lot of mysteries to be discovered. For instance, I’ve only tried one (arm wrestling) of the 15 or so minigames and only discovered two of the 100 types of special equipment. One of those is a knuckledrill which is designed for mining but can make a mess of an enemy. The other is a mask, which you need if you want to do some robbin and stealin, stealin and robbin.

There’s a lot I haven’t really done much with, like camp management, which lets you build out your own base and even decorate it, recruiting more members of the Greymanes to play as, heck, I’ve only scratched the surface of the lifeskills like cooking, logging, and mining.

One thing I have done though, is travel as far as possible to the east and west of the game’s massive map. I sent Kliff east and Damaine west.

Damaine’s journey was relatively routine, though the further west she went the higher she climbed and the colder it got, to the point that her endurance lessened, her recovery slowed and frost began to tinge the edges of the screen.

Eventually she found herself in a high forest framed by mountains that warned her not to proceed. It was unclear if this was the permanent western edge of the map or something that was locked because of her low level and the incomplete quests.

Kliff discovered just how bizarre the game gets and how unusual the enemies become. He managed to skirt much of the massive, deadly enemies by riding horseback through forests, around castles, and—once—along what appeared to be a wooden train trestle that cut high above warring factions.

When he finally got to the edge of the map, I found a tiny island a swim’s distance from the shore. It was populated only by sea birds, so I scrambled Kliff to the edge and then looked out at what appeared to be an endless ocean.

There is still so much undiscovered, unexplored between those two edges of the maps, like circuses, ruins, magic, and lost friends.

I’m sure I’ll eventually play through the quests, but right now I’m too curious about all the details, little and big, stuffed into this grand experience.

And who knows, maybe when I’m done traveling in the real world, I’ll try my hand at a bit of virtual exploration on my desktop. Right now, though, it doesn’t feel like a requirement to me.

Elsewhere

Voice actors discuss what it takes to bring a grand adventure like Crimson Desert to life

Crimson Desert guide: How to manage your Greymane camp and recruits

Crimson Desert guide: Everything you need to know about crafting and cooking

Good morning!

Last week, the Epic Games Store’s news page was a smorgasbord of horror, homages, horseriding, and high school hangouts. Here’s your week in review.

Take a cast of talking guns, add a skateboard, mix in a human petting zoo, and add a dash of bootleg cosmetic surgery, and you’re not even close to the bizarre recipe for High On Life 2.

An AI takes control of a human body in Replaced, a game with the cinematics of Blade Runner and the combos of a Batman: Arkham game.

“We didn’t want to make a war game,” Creative Director Gérard Lehiany said about The Legend of Khiimori, which transports players to 13th-century Mongolia and substitutes history’s best horseriders for Genghis Khan.

What Resident Evil Requiem secrets lie hidden inside a steel briefcase, wrapped in yellow police tape?

Ancient alien secrets, thousands of planets, and a snarky, floating companion arrived in Residual, free this week on the Epic Games Store for mobile.

Stay out of sight and earshot, and be sure to unlock the best skills to become a stealth master in Styx: Blades of Greed.

On their last day of high school, three teenagers bond over the greatest music ever created in Mixtape.

A new and mysterious island, a pair of new characters, and a challenging, new post-game arena create the definitive dual-protagonist adventure in Ys X: Proud Nordics.

If you want to dominate Battlefield 6 Season 2, you need to know the best mechanics, builds, and attachments for the first-person shooter’s new weapons.

Resident Evil Requiem is not just horror, and it’s not just action. Producer Masato Kumazawa says it’s the best of both worlds.

I’m trying something new starting this week. As you may know, Pad & Pixel maintains the Epic Games Store’s news page, overseeing and creating 40 to 50 stories a month for the store.

I thought subscribers might be interested in a short round-up of what’s being created each week.

Please do let me know what you think and how we can improve it.

Now, on with Dave Tach’s round-up.

Good morning,

Last week, the Epic Games Store’s news page was filled with diverse stories about creating a game in war-torn Ukraine, reconnecting a fragmented world, finding great games for Valentine’s Day and Galentine’s Day, becoming a soccer hero (but not in the way you’d expect!), and much more. Here’s your week in review.

This year’s huge Epic Games Winter Sale was more intimate, with a tour of great and discounted games from AAA blockbusters to indie darlings.

Capture the flag meets a ticking clock and hidden treasure in developer Night Street Games’ Last Flag.

A team of scrappy liberators is on the hunt for stolen and stashed African artifacts in developer Nyamakop’s Relooted.

From war-torn Ukraine, a core team of developers at The Future Entertainment Company is building the Purple Lands, filling it with a mysterious fog, and populating it with nightmarish mutations in DDoD.

Practice makes perfect for mastering every motorbike class in RIDE 6, an arcade racing game that goes big on realism.

Valentine’s Day is a natural time to share with those you love, and the Epic Games Store is full of games to give and play together.

The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark brought America’s 34th-most haunted city to the Epic Games Store mobile app for free.

Save humanity from extinction and connect survivors from Mexico to Australia. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, coming soon to the Epic Games Store.

Backed by more than 30,000 members—developers, business leaders, and more—The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences lauded the year’s best games at its annual DICE Awards.

Women-led games from the Epic Games Store took center stage on Feb. 13, better known as Galentine’s Day.

There’s only one way to unlock the secret ending: Become an expert Coffin hunter in REANIMAL.

The players on the pitch may get the glory, but you’ll become the unsung hero in developer Triple Espresso S.A.’s Copa City as you manage money, volunteers, specialists, fans, and more for huge soccer events.

In a response to a question about how GDC Festival of Gaming will react to ICE agents if they request information about attendees or to access the convention, I was told that organizers are in “discussions with the mayor’s office … about the safety, security, and overall experience of attendees.”

When asked earlier for specifics about the discussions between city officials and GDC, I was referred to a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) by San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie in which he underscores the priorities of local law enforcement as protecting public safety, “including the right to peaceful expression.”

“We will continue to uphold San Francisco’s longstanding policies that keep local law enforcement focused on keeping our city safe—not federal immigration enforcement,” the mayor wrote. “If you see SFPD on the street, they are there to keep you safe, not to assist immigration enforcement.”

Earlier in the week, I raised concerns some have about the safety of international visitors to the show with GDC Executive Director, Innovation & Growth, Mark DeLoura.

When I asked whether organizers have discussed the possibility of ICE agents coming to GDC, which runs from March 9 to March 13, to conduct visa checks among attendees, DeLoura said they have had a range of conversations.

“We have really good partners in San Francisco in the mayor’s office as well as at the state level,” he said. “So that’s helpful for sure.

“These are questions that are very appropriate, and we think about a lot. I really think of GDC as being an international event, so I want it to be safe for international people.”

It’s not the sort of thing you might typically think about for a video game development conference, but with increasingly out-of-control Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agencies shooting and killing two people in the past month, it’s a question on the minds of some considering a trip to the United States.

Operation Metro Surge, which kicked off in December, has seen an increase in the brutality of ICE and Border Patrol, as well as the detention of U.S. Citizens and people lawfully allowed to visit or stay in the country.

Both France and Germany have issued advisories to their citizens planning to travel to the U.S., warning them to avoid Minneapolis in particular.

Over on LinkedIn, business development and strategist Cassia Curran wrote that “GDC is going to be very empty of Europeans this year.” And noted developer and consultant Rami Ismail wrote that when asked for travel tips to DICE and GDC, his reply was “Cancel. Genuinely. Cancel.”

“Unless you’re white, and fit the racist, sexist, and supremacist ideal of Trump’s US, or can pass as such, you already have reasons to be rejected,” he added. “Even if you are ‘perfectly’ Trump-approved, you are at risk of being the next news story of a foreigner being rejected or detained at the border.

“And I really need you to understand that *any* rejection or detention at the border is a permanent mark against entry, forever. That mark will stick past Trump’s eventual defeat, and it is unlikely future governments will allow appeal or go through case by case.”

All of this does beg a question, DeLoura noted:

“If we’re throwing an event for all game developers, why do we have an event just in the United States?”

That is something they’ve been looking into, he added.

Following my interview with some of the GDC folks earlier this week, the team sent over a statement from Nina Brown, president of the GDC Festival of Gaming.

“The GDC team regularly evaluates (and will continue to consider) locations based on attendee feedback, logistics, venue capacity, and accessibility,” she said in the statement. ”To address those concerns around travel and lodging costs, GDC works closely with local hotel partners to offer discounted rates to attendees, and works with the City of San Francisco to offer discounts for local businesses around the city.

“As event organizers, we are always assessing how we balance the choice of location alongside venue infrastructure, hotel capacity, and international travel access, to ensure that the event experience is the best it can be for our attendees from the moment they arrive.”

She also said that the folks at GDC “appreciate the concerns that some of our community have expressed in the lead-up to GDC Festival of Gaming. We work with local officials and legal experts to monitor any US policy changes, and our guidance to our international community members is to begin visa applications early and consult with their embassy on any additional requirements.”

Brown added that the convention’s safety and security initiatives in and around Moscone Centre include a 24/7 safety hotline, San Francisco Safety Community Ambassadors stationed around the center, security escorts upon request, and expanded training for festival crew.

While Brown noted that the organizers are seeing global participation from more than 60 countries so far, almost one-third (31 percent) of those surveyed by GDC last month for its annual State of the Game Industry report had already canceled travel plans to the U.S., and one-third were reconsidering future plans. It’s unclear what the past month’s events in Minneapolis might have had on that number.

The 2026 State of the Game Industry report was released by the GDC Festival of Gaming today.

While the negative impact U.S. immigration policies are having on the industry is perhaps the most timely fact in the survey, the deep dive into the state of the video game industry offers insight into myriad facets of the current state of game development.

The report, which surveyed 2,300 game industry professionals, highlights several troubling issues facing game developers today.

That includes the fact that layoffs have increased, not diminished, in the past year, that generative AI’s use is increasing despite those surveyed increasingly disliking it, that three-quarters of those surveyed regularly work more than 40 hours a week, and that, despite 82 percent of those who responded wanting to unionize, only 12 percent are.

There are also some interesting points that aren’t so bleak in the survey. For instance, the use of Unreal Engine in the making of games now surpasses Unity, and developing a game for a handheld PC system seems to hold an allure for many of those surveyed.

The kind folks behind the report spent an hour or so walking me through the findings and answering some questions about it. But before we dive in, an interesting, data-specific point. (ha)

Beth Elderkin, the primary author and researcher for the annual report, noted that the team decided to change the way they conduct the survey this time around. So, you can’t compare this year’s report to the previous year’s. It’s not apples to apples.

“We really wanted to reexamine the state of the game industry and figure out how to best represent the full game ecosystem,” Elderkin said. “I have long had a personal philosophy … that if you are part of making a game exist, you are a developer. So I wanted to dig deeper into State of the Game Industry and … figure out how I can better represent the game community and give them more of a chance to share their expertise.”

This time, the survey ensured that those with specific expertise could respond to questions relevant to their areas.

But, in general, the first year-over-year comparison won’t be possible until next year’s results.

Perhaps the biggest news coming out of the survey won’t be too surprising to those who work or have worked in the game industry: one in four video game professionals has been laid off in the past two years.

Despite the hope that the post-pandemic surge of layoffs would be over by now, it appears that not only has it not stopped, it’s gotten worse.

The top three reasons those layoffs happened, according to those surveyed, were “company restructuring,” “budget cuts,” and “market conditions.” The sentiment makes it clear that employees don’t view these or the other reasons given as valid.

Among that list of reasons for layoffs was automation and AI implementation, but only six percent thought that was the reason.

The AI-related questions yielded some curious results. Specifically, 36 percent of respondents said they use generative AI tools in their work. But before you pull out the pitchforks, know that the way they’re using it sounds mostly mundane. For instance, about half use it for writing emails, scheduling, or other daily tasks. About 81 percent said they use it for research or brainstorming, but only 5 percent said they use it for play-facing features.

More interestingly, 52 percent of respondents believe generative AI is harmful to the industry. In this case, the survey included last year’s responses, noting that only 30 percent considered it bad, and in the 2024 report, only 18 percent did.

The state of work in the game industry remains challenging, with half of game workers reporting that they put in 50 or more hours a week, and a whopping 21 percent saying they worked 60 hours or more in a single week over the past year.

The main reason given for the crunch (59 percent) was that “there was too much essential work to fit into a standard 40-hour-week,” right behind that was “self-pressure.”

So it shouldn’t be surprising that 82 percent of those surveyed in the United States said that they support unionization, while only 12 percent are actually in one. Interestingly, 58 percent of owners and executives from companies with at least 20 employees said they supported unionization.

Despite the fact that the past year has seen a shockingly large shift away from DEI programs and initiatives at large companies like Meta and Disney, 63 percent of those surveyed said they haven’t seen any changes related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, while 23 percent said they were unsure. The same can’t be said for schools, unfortunately, with 47 percent reporting they have.

Personally, the questions I found most interesting were those pertaining to the way the rest of the world views the U.S., given the current state of shocking, over-the-top immigration enforcement, and seemingly arbitrary use of tariffs.

About 38 percent of respondents said U.S-based tariffs are impacting their expenses, revenue, or financial decisions.

About 60 percent of non-US industry leaders and investors said current immigration policies have impacted their ability or desire to do business with American companies. While 18 percent of those at companies with at least 20 employees said that immigration and gender identity policies have impacted their ability to recruit or retain talent. That goes up to 21 percent when asking people who work at companies with at least 100 employees.

Elsewhere

Toxic Commando: Fusing blood, mud, and John Carpenter

Indonesian indie game Kejora’s journey from Cuphead shoot-’em-up to puzzle platformer

Our Resident Evil Requiem hands-on preview reveals fresh, frightening features

I remain befuddled about the current state of SEO and the shift to GEO.

For those of you blissfully unaware, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, or the way Google (and other search engines) force people to write to ensure they show up high in a search result. Or at least it was that way five years ago.

GEO is replacing SEO, it stands for Generative Engine Optimization and is essentially the way you have to write to ensure that your work will be read by an AI and then summarized back to its searchers on Google (or some other search engines). (No need to visit the source, my friend.)

It’s basically the slop, devil-baby of SEO and GEN AI.

According to a study by the Pew Research Center released last year, when a search result includes AI summaries, the percentage of people who will click through to a source drops from 15 percent to 8 percent.

BUT, and it’s a big one, only 1 percent of people who use an AI summary will click on one of its links.

One percent.

Now this is the part I’m confused about.

The whole concept of SEO was to get better rankings for your site or your article in Google’s search results to help drive more traffic your way.

But it seems that the whole point of GEO is to ensure your work is being used for an AI summary, which ultimately DOESN’T drive traffic.

So why bother?

This feels like the end of something that, even at its height, wasn’t exactly fair, but at least helped at times.

Back when SEO was king, there was a sort of unspoken trust.

We wrote the articles and allowed Google to crawl those articles so the company could then create a useful service that would catalog everyone’s work and allow people to find it. Thus increasing traffic.

Google didn’t pay us (or most of us) for access. But we were OK with that, because they were simply creating a massive catalog in which people could search for things that they wanted to research or read. And then go to that source to dig deeper into the topic or story.

But now, we’re being asked to create content that is being used to feed Google’s Gen AI, which, in turn, takes our hard work and turns it into, hopefully, mostly very brief, often contextless, summarized answers. Those answers are given a bit more heft because they’re not just some chatbot spouting off ideas; they’re a chatbot taking the hard work of a human and stripping it down to its soulless, shortened summary. And people often trust the answer because the chatbot then points to the link and says, “Hey, I didn’t make it up, so and so(AP, New York Times, Game Informer, CNN) did a ton of work, so you can trust me. But no need to go read the article, this is all you need to know.”

So now, we do the work, Google bots scrape the words, and we get nothing in return. Google no longer wants to help people find things; it wants to be a flytrap. It doesn’t want you to ever leave.

Social Media is doing the same sort of thing. These sites are making it increasingly difficult to leave or, more specifically, it encourages readers to stay on their site. Some don’t allow links off their site, others treat them in a way that lessens the likelihood people will click through.

Instead, they want people to consume, to stay, to “engage.” So they push for shorter, for less context, for fewer routes leading away from their sites.

They encourage this enshortification (with apologies to Cory) to help create tiny little ouroboros of context-free facts, entertainment, emotions, and engagement.

You’ve probably heard that word before, a lot if you work in media. Engagement. What’s it mean? Why should I care? How does it affect me as a writer or someone who runs a site?

It’s essentially the way social media tricked everyone into no longer tracking click-throughs. Click-throughs, or clicks on a link from, say, Twitter, to your website, are meaningful. They have a direct impact on your income and audience. But engagement. Engagement means clicking on things inside Twitter, for instance. Engagement helps Twitter, not necessarily you. You can have hundreds of thousands of engagements on a post, but four clicks to your site.

Stop caring about engagement. Despite what your social media managers and experts, and nearly everyone looking to make a buck on LinkedIn, tell you. Engagement is good for social media companies, not media companies, not when it’s happening somewhere else.

There is a counterargument, one I don’t think is meaningful. The counter-argument is that engagement can reflect on how well you’re building your brand. But here’s the thing: brand building is happening in an increasingly escape-proof vacuum. Who cares if PadandPixel is HUGE on Twitter if no one ever leaves Twitter to interact with my writing?

Brand building only helps if it’s to a group of people who show a willingness to, to borrow a phrase, engage with that brand in a meaningful way.

I just don’t buy the argument.

So why should I care if Google’s AI is well fed or Twitter’s engagement is high, if I get nothing back from the deal?

What’s the solution?

Currently, I think brands and media need to focus on building up their own safe haven for consumers, readers, and fans away from social media and the like. Own your community and treat it well, because if you lose it to social media or Google, it may be forever.

Elsewhere

How 007 First Light brought its characters to life

Read 2025’s best video game stories from Epic Games Store News

Sci-fi, dino-taming survival game ARK 2 eyes a 2028 release with a little or a lot of Vin Diesel

We are teetering on the tail end of the holidays, but I thought it would still be fun to send out a list of some of the cooler things I’ve been playing around with over the course of the year and call it a gift guide.

Maybe there’s not enough time to order any of this and get it to your home in time to wrap and give away.

But there’s plenty of time to pick some of this up and keep it for yourself.

Trust me, it’s all pretty cool.

Ollee

I’m not just a big fan of handheld gaming systems; I’m also a big fan of watches that can run games. Of course, you can just use an Apple Watch or an Android Watch these days to play some pretty neat things. But if you want to go retro, it’s going to set you back quite a bit to pick up a functioning game watch from the likes of Nelsonic, Unitrex, Alba, or Casio.

That’s where Ollee Watch comes in.

Ollee Watch is the product of an electrical engineer who loves to tinker. That tinkering eventually led to an amazing little do-it-yourself mod that can convert the classic Casio A158W (a $20 watch) into a sleek little smart watch with—you guessed it—some built-in games.

The mod, which will set you back $55 if you can get one, takes about half an hour to apply to one of the watches and delivers world time, snooze alarm, timer, stopwatch logging, sunrise and sunset tracking, step tracking, heart rate and temperature measurements, and two games.

It also syncs with your phone to keep the time correct and save what you’re tracking.

The best bit? There’s a whole roadmap of coming features, which includes more games.

Atari Gamestation

I talk and think a lot about the history of retro video game handhelds. But that doesn’t mean that the formfactor is stuck in the past.

Of course, we have modern handhelds like the Switch 2, the PlayStation Portal, and the Xbox Rog Ally X, but there are also some real standouts that aren’t designed for modern gaming.

These classic retro-focused wonders are hitting all year.

One of my favorites of 2025, though, is the smashing bit of electronic kit from My Arcade. The Atari GameStation Go ($179.99) isn’t just an Atari-themed handheld; it’s a handheld that manages to cleverly support most of the main controllers found in those old Atari games on consoles and arcade machines.

The system has a 7-inch screen absolutely surrounded by different controllers, including a spinner, a roller ball, a D-Pad, and—yes—even the number pad.

It’s a delight to play and is smartly designed. Check out my full write-up and interview if you’re interested.

Evercade

I’ve been fascinated with the entire Evercade ecosystem since the first handheld hit the market back in 2020.

The key differentiator with Blaze Entertainment’s approach to retro gaming is that the company sells licensed retro and indie games on cartridges that work with all of their systems.

It’s neat to have a little cartridge collection that includes Atari, Arc System Works, Interplay, Mega Cat, Intellivision, Commodore, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, and on, and on, and on.

The best part is that the cartridges work on almost all of the systems that Blaze sells. So, for instance, you can slap your copy of the Taito Arcade 1 collection into the diminutive Hyper Mega Tech Super Pocket ($25) handheld and play it there. Or move over to the slightly bigger and more comfortable Evercade EXP-R ($99.99). If you’re hanging out in your office, you might want to move that cart into the Evercade Alpha ($279.99) mini bartap machine you have down there. Or, if you want to game on the couch, just bring the cartridge up to your VS-R ($99.99), which comes with two controllers and supports 1080p on your television.

It’s a great way to encourage cartridge gaming across a spectrum of use, and it also enables some indies to get a bit of that cartridge love.

MyPlay Watch

While the Ollee Watch Mod is a great way to show off your love of retro watch gaming, there haven’t been a ton of new watches designed to play games recently.

The one standout is the MyArcade line of watches ($79.99).

The not-so-smart watch launched as a Kickstarter for a Space Invaders version back in 2024. I chatted with Floor 84 Studios founder Jeff Hardy about the thinking behind the watch that I labeled “selective tech.” It’s an interesting philosophy, but the more interesting thing is the watch (now watches) itself.

One of the big differentiators behind the watch is that it doesn’t actually connect to your phone or the internet. Instead, it just chugs along doing it’s own thing. And that thing is diving deeply into specific games or publishers with not just gameplay, but also a cool take on the look of that era.

For instance, the Space Invaders watch includes the game (with shockingly accurate sound design from the original), but also has a slew of watch faces and interchangeable bands built around the iconography of the original game.

Beyond telling time and playing games, it can also track fitness data, but that’s it. It’s also enough if you’re a big fan of these titles.

Tetris is very similar to the Space Invaders watch, focusing in on the single title. And then the Atari 2600 watch features four games from the classic system: Pong, Centipede, Super Breakout, and Missile Command.

ModRetro

If you can come to terms with ModRetro’s backstory, the Chromatic is a well-crafted, hardy version of the Game Boy featuring a magnesium shell, a sharp, authentic color screen, support for Link cable play, native video streaming, and can play Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles.

The Founder’s Edition is mostly gone, but ModRetro has a new line of colors out for the Chromatic ($199.99).

I’m more focused now on some of the post-launch goodies the company is putting out. The company has about 20 original or remastered titles available on cartridge that you can pick up for the system. They include indies and remakes of Croc, Rayman, and a collection of Atari games. Each runs about $45.

Alongside the typical swag of crossbody bags, link cables, and headsets, ModRetro also has a Rechareable Power Core ($29.99) and—most intriguing- a little Mod Kit ($14.99).

The Mod Kit comes with a selection of D-pads and colored buttons along with the tools you need to swap them out on the system to make it more personal. It’s a great idea that I’d love to see more handhelds adopt.

Pac-Man 45th Anniversary Pocket Player Max

I’ll just rip the band-aid off: yes, we’re all very old.

Pac-Man is now 45 years old, and that makes you and me … well, let’s not talk about it.

To celebrate, the handheld-obsessed designers over at MyArcade put together this bundle of Pac-Man-themed handheld and travel case.

It’s clearly for the Pac-Man fans out there, featuring a colorful little zip case, screen protector, and lanyard, as well as the handheld itself.

What makes Pac-Man 45th Anniversary Pocket Player Max ($69.99) stand out for me is the choice of games the company decided to include.

Pac-Man and Pac-Man Speed-Up mode: Of course!

Super Pac-Man: While Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani may have called this a boring game, it’s a fun take on the old formula featuring a big (some say too big) Pac-Man.

Pac-Man Plus: Another 1982 title that skips the Pac-Man relationship games (Ms., Mr & Mrs., and Baby), but OK, that’s fine. It’s not a game you typically find outside of an arcade or TV game, and let’s face it, there was no way they were bringing a mini-pinball meets video game title to a handheld. (Oh, we miss you, Baby Pac-Man)

Pac & Pal: OK, the inclusion of this oddity is, well, genius. Released in 1983, Pac & Pal was a genuine Pac-Flop. It’s not that it was a bad game as much as it was a weird game. Fortunately for all of us, some wunderkind over at My Arcade saw this and decided to include it in this marvelous collection. Now you too can make your way through the maze, gobbling up icons from other Namco titles and hoping that your “pal” Miru doesn’t screw things up for you.

BuildaBoy

The LEGO Group is the master of breaking down cultural touchstones into little plastic bricks, and then teaching you how to build them up again—complete with fun Easter Eggs.

The LEGO Game Boy is such a product, with authentic details like the D-pad, Select, Start, A, and B buttons. Two included Game Paks, and even matching lenticular screens that mimic those games’ start screens.

What’s better than a LEGO Game Boy? How about a fully functioning LEGO Game Boy?

That’s right, modder Natalie the Nerd figured out a way to cram a Pocket CPU into the LEGO-brick-built handheld and get it to function. It doesn’t play Game Boy carts, but don’t let that stop you.

Natalie has a website set up for the Build A Boy to start taking orders once it’s ready (which sounds like early 2026) The kit will come in three flavors: completely pre-soldered drop in and play (aka the Brian version), Everything soldered, but doesn’t include the CPU or RAM. and 100 percent DIY, meaning you buy all of the components yourself.

The estimate is that the completely pr soldered version will run about $100. Sounds like a steal!

While it isn’t ready yet, you can pre-build your LEGO Game Boy to prepare.

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In an era when handheld gaming systems are growing increasingly bland—an army of glossy black rectangles framed with a familiar array of buttons and thumbsticks—My Arcade decided to do something very different: Embrace the potential chaos of too many controllers.

The Atari Gamestation Go features four face buttons, a directional pad, right and left triggers and bumpers, a spinner knob, a roller ball, and a number pad, all in the service of ensuring that people can play the games packed into the system in the same way they were played when they first hit consoles and the arcade decades ago.

The Gamestation Go comes packed with more than 200 games and lets you easily load your own legally obtained ROMs.

With its 7-inch screen, relatively light weight, massive game library, and ability to plug into a television via HDMI, the Go is likely to be my system of choice for visiting family over the coming holiday months.

And even without the excuse of family, I’ve found that the Atari system is getting a lot more attention than any of the other more than 200 handhelds I have in my collection.

A big part of that is the controls, and what a good job My Arcade did with implementing them in a practical, non-confusing way.

To be clear, if you’re a heavy retro gamer used to playing on the original systems—especially arcade machines—this is not a one-to-one experience. The spinner, for instance, is smaller than you’d expect and doesn’t have any travel when you stop twisting. It’s still very usable, but if you’re looking for something that does a better job of authentically recreating the arcade feel, I’d pick up one of the kits I’ve seen advertised for adding heft to the knob.

The roller ball, on the other hand, is a much faster ball than what you’d find in an arcade, and of course, much smaller. It’s designed to be used with your thumb, not your fingertips or hand. It can take some getting used to. Fortunately, several of the games do allow you to tweak the sensitivity of controls before you play.

The directional pad is slightly mushy, but nothing that will be noticeable in the sorts of games you’ll be playing. The face buttons are very snappy, but again, you’re using them to play games that once ran on systems like the Atari 2600 with a monolithic joystick and a single big red button.

The number pad is only currently used for the Atari 5200 games loaded into the system. They don’t come with overlays, but it’s fairly easy to flip back and forth between gameplay and the built-in instructions when you’re about to, say, pitch in RealSports Baseball. The instructions include overlays for the games that support them, showing, for instance, that pressing one on the number pad in Baseball will pitch a high curveball.

Despite my nitpicking, the controls were fine in general, especially for a system used mainly on the go, and that offered so many options.

One of the neatest design choices for the system is also tied to those controls. When you start a game, the controls or a circle around them light up a soft orange to let you know which will be needed. It’s a fun touch that speaks volumes to the overall approach My Arcade took in designing the system.

The system also features the iconic Atari logo badging at the top center, as well as some very ‘70s orange-to-black striping across one side.

The back of the handheld has a tuckaway stand that works nicely if you want to play with a controller, as well as two controller ports that are almost dead center on the back panel.

The game selection is quite robust, including not just titles from the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, M-Network, Recharged, and arcade, but also Pac-Man games, Balls of Steel pinball tables, and Jaleco and Piko games.

That’s a lot, but you’re sure to find something missing even among the list of 200 titles. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to load your own library of games. You just need to install the legally obtained ROMs onto an SD card in a folder called games, and pop the card into the system. On boot-up, it will ask you if you want to load local storage or the Micro SD Card. If you choose the SD card, you’re presented with a list of the games you loaded, which are supported. I found that some of those titles even support the specific controllers found in the system.

I haven’t spent a ton of time messing with ROMs, but I can say that the system does seem to support Lynx games, which is amazing.

I was also delighted to discover, when speaking to Michael Ponce, Vice President of Design at Dreamgear/MyArcade, that the built-in Wi-Fi functionality will eventually be used to expand the system’s library with the possibility of downloadable add-on packs. (Make sure to read my full interview with Ponce here for more insight into the system’s inspiration and design iteration.)

Playing the Go over time is surprisingly comfortable. Even running through the four to five hours of battery life didn’t leave me with sore hands or any annoyance caused by poor design choices. This is a system meant to be held and played a lot.

I’m not surprised to see that the pre-orders for the system seem to be selling out quickly. It’s the sort of handheld that skillfully bridges the gap between casual gamer, hardcore gamer, nostalgia player, and retro enthusiast.

Who doesn’t want to play the original Adventure on a system you can walk around with that sports the Atari logo, or Missile Command with a roller and Tempest, a spinner? Despite the fact that the system’s games hit the sweet spot of my pivotal console gaming years, I also still managed to find several games I’d never played before … and quickly fell in love with them.

My current obsession is with the firefighting real-time strategy game The Ignition Factor.

All of that said, there are things I hope My Arcade gets around to tweaking post-launch. Fortunately, all of them are tied to software, I believe.

I’d love for the system’s controller glow to activate as I scroll through the games. Or for there to be a way to sort by controller. After all, a big part of Go’s experience is playing a spinner or roller ball game. Why not make it easier to find them?

Probably the chief annoyance that’s going to surface, though, is that a lot of the games you’ll play won’t let you fine-tune the ball or spinner sensitivity, and it’s not easy to see, at first blush, which games support tweaking those controls.

I think this is because My Arcade is relying on what was supported in the original ROMs, but if they could find a way to offer system-level sensitivity adjustments for those controls, that would be amazing.

For instance, there is the ability to save your progress in the games, something that wasn’t originally supported in the titles. So I hope more sensitivity adjustments are on the way.

I’d also like to see WAY more games that support the keypad. The current offering is surprisingly enemic. That said, I’m sure we’ll see that tackled down the line when downloadable games arrive.

My Arcade’s Atari Gamestation Go is a pleasant surprise in an industry that seems to increasingly devalue the sort of creativity that strays from the pack of experienced success..

It’s the sort of system that, for a lot of people, is going to feel like it was made just for them, delivering the warm embrace of retro gaming in the ‘70s glow of a handheld that plays like a love letter to Atari.

If you can still find it, the Atari Gamestation Go costs a chunky $180. It’s scheduled to launch in late October, though Amazon is currently saying it arrives in early November.

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It’s likely that the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally will land to conflicting perspectives.

Seen through the lens of a lifelong console player, the system simply isn’t ready to be compared to the locked-down, slick user experience of a Nintendo Switch 2.

But viewed by a lifelong PC gamer, especially one with experience playing on today’s handheld PC gaming systems, that’s a different story altogether.

This story.

The latest iteration of Asus’ handheld gaming PC is more revolution than evolution, thanks to a deep partnership with Microsoft and an Xbox wrapper that stretches far beyond a bit of badging and an extra button.

The ROG Xbox Ally officially arrives on Oct. 16 in two versions. The ROG Xbox Ally, which features an AMD Ryzen Z2 A processor, 16GB RAM, and 512GB of storage, costs about $600. The ROG Xbox Ally X features an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme Processor, 24GB RAM, and 1TB of storage, and will cost you about $1,000.

ASUS was kind enough to send me a review unit of the ROG Xbox Ally X a week or so ago, and I’ve spent my evenings playing everything from the Call of Duty beta to Battlefield 6, to games like Hollow Knight: Silksong.

As a handheld gaming aficionado and collector (I have more than 200 systems dating back to 1975 and including a half dozen handheld gaming PCs), I’ve extensive experience with various forms of user interface, game installation, and ergonomics. I can comfortably say that the ROG Xbox Ally X is one of, if not the, most powerful handhelds I’ve ever played games on. It’s also one of the more comfortable systems, and is on the cusp of delivering an experience that masterfully erases many of the traces of the biggest issues found in most Windows-based PC handheld systems: Windows.

Ergonomics

I was doubtful when I got my first look at the ROG Xbox Ally’s new design. It looked a lot like someone had slapped the grips of an Xbox controller onto the body of the ROG Ally X. While that’s a fairly accurate description, it turns out that addition has an oversized impact on the ergonomics of the handheld.

I’ve found that while playing during lengthy sessions on the earlier ROG Allys, I start to subconsciously straighten my wrists a bit, flattening the screen and making it a bit harder to see. I pull the system back up every time I notice this, but it’s an annoyance. I suspect it has a bit to do with the design, which has you gripping the side of a rectangle.

While the ROG Ally X tweaked the shape of the bottom corners of the system to smooth it out a bit more and remove a hard edge in the bottom corners, it didn’t change that behavior for me. The addition of grips, however, did.. Not only is the new design more comfortable, but the palms of my hands no longer block the forward-facing speakers on the system. The new design also has the added benefit of shifting your hand position out a bit, which more naturally places the thumbsticks right at your fingertips.

The face buttons, thumbsticks, directional pad, bumpers, and even the small back buttons all feel very similar to the Ally X’s, but the triggers feel more luxurious with a stronger pull and better sense of depth.

The other major change to the system is a prominent Xbox button, which instantly launches the redesigned Game Bar. The Game Bar gives you access to everything from settings to friends lists and captures. What I find most compelling, though, is that the home tab prominently features the other stores you’ve installed on your system. So, for instance, if you have Steam and the Epic Games Store on there, both of those icons are sitting next to the Xbox icon on your Game Bar home tab.

User Interface

No amount of revamped ergonomics, colorful lights, haptics, or Dolby sound will cover up the fact that a Windows gaming handheld is still a Windows PC. That’s something we learned as ASUS, Lenovo, and others fought for the crown of best handheld gaming PC. Despite its limitations on things like cheat software and some games, the Steam Deck managed to trounce the competition mostly because it wasn’t running Windows.

To my delight, Microsoft seems to have finally gotten the message and done a lot of work on making sure you don’t feel like you’re playing games on a Windows PC when you boot up the Xbox Ally.

The first big change is that you can boot directly into the new and improved Xbox app. Once you sign in on the start screen, the system launches you directly into the Xbox experience without a desktop in sight.

Visually, it essentially looks a bit like Steam’s Big Picture mode. It’s the Xbox app running in full screen, designed for console controls. More intriguing is what is happening in the background, or to be specific, what isn’t happening. According to Microsoft, when you’re in the full-screen Xbox experience, the system minimizes background activity and defers non-essential tasks to ensure more system resources are dedicated specifically to gameplay.

You can drop out of the mode and go to your desktop, but when you return, the system warns you that if you want to experience those features, you need to reboot.

The Xbox app also does an admirable job of supporting other storefronts with very little extra work on your part. Once installed and signed in, the storefronts not only appear in the app, the games you play most, no matter what store you play on, appear right at the top of the home screen under the Jump Back In section. Each game thumbnail features an icon to show which store it runs through. The whole experience feels like the best off-the-shelf launcher for Windows gaming currently on the market.

That isn’t to say there aren’t areas that could be improved. The search bar, which always looms at the top of every page in the app, bugs me. It seems like something that could be hidden until you need it. Its current design mars what would be a much more console-like view.

My biggest disappointment, though, is something I hope to see corrected in the coming days. Microsoft announced months ago that a new game badging system would be coming to the Xbox app with the launch of this new system.

But as of this writing (six minutes before embargo lift), the badges are nowhere to be seen. Once in operation, the games in the Xbox store should support what Microsoft is calling the Handheld Compatibility Program. This new initiative would place distinct badges on games showing that they are either handheld-optimized or mostly compatible with a handheld.

But the closest I’ve seen to that as of this morning is a category in the store of handheld optimized games, still shown without badges.

The badging system will deliver one of the missing pieces for a system that is very close to delivering something akin to playing on a purpose-built handheld.

Conclusion

So are these systems worth the price of play?

That really depends on what you’re looking for.

Even in its current state, the ROG Xbox Ally X does an amazing job of delivering a console-like experience on a Windows system, somehow hiding many of the annoyances that have increasingly plagued the operating system.

And it does so without diminishing the power of Windows. What I mean is that you can still go into the desktop and run anything that runs on a Windows machine. You can connect the system to a television or a monitor and watch movies. You can add a keyboard and mouse and write, do your taxes, browse the internet.

With its array of buttons and inputs (which include a touch screen), its many ports ( which include both Display and Thunderbolt support), a 7-inch, 120Hz refresh rate display, and easy-to-upgrade storage, this could very well become the future of gaming.

But that future comes with a price.

Is this an Xbox?

Sure, why not? But it’s more computer than console.

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A series of mysterious animated shorts popped up on number of official Nintendo channels this week, confounding and exciting fans of the Japanese game maker.

In the first of the two shorts, a baby left to their own devices chases a floating pacifier, eventually standing on up to take its first wobbly steps before falling into the quickly returning mom’s arms.

In the second video, the same event plays out, but now you can see it’s Pikmin, stars of four of Nintendo’s popular games, and invisible to the human eye, that are behind the bouncing pacifier.

While the videos were obviously relatively new creations, it reminded me of a conversation I had more than a decade ago.

After a bit of thinking and rooting around on the internet, I remembered what rang such a loud bell for me.

A dozen years ago, following a wide-ranging and fascinating chat with Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto for Polygon, a Nintendo employee pulled me aside to chat once more with the legendary designer about a passion project of his.

When I entered the room, Miyamoto placed a 3DS XL on the table in front of me and started a video.

Miyamoto created the video with the help of an external animation studio. He told me at the time that he used the handheld’s Flipnote Studio to create a storyboard of sorts to hand over to the studio.

He went on to co-create a video asking people to put on their 3D glasses before a movie starts. He then had it placed in 60 theaters on 150 screens around Japan to see what the reaction would be.

The success of that experiment led Miyamoto to create a longer video, which he showed me at the time.

In it, a bunch of Pikmin stumble upon Captain Olimar blending up what appears to be red Pikmin, only for them to discover it was actually carrots.

Back in 2012, Miyamoto said Nintendo was still sorting through what it wanted to do with these animated shorts. Maybe sell them directly to customers.

It’s obviously been a while since I saw those creations—and Nintendo released three shorts back in 2014—but this new video and the success of the Mario movie can’t help but make me think that Nintendo and Miyamoto are once more discussing the possibility of creating Pikmin shorts.

I can see Nintendo releasing these fun little videos you can download directly from the store onto your Switch.

It’s clear that Miyamoto is still playing around with this idea, something that back in 2012 seemed to be more of a passion project than anything official.

He did say, though, that Nintendo wanted to figure out a way to expand the sort of offerings on the eShop.

I can’t imagine that’s changed.

I’ve reached out to Nintendo for comment and will update this story if they reply.

Handheld gaming systems are big business as of late, and it’s not just PC gaming handhelds that are taking off. There’s also been a rise in the popularity of retro gaming handhelds.

That category includes everything from the often Android-based systems designed to emulate classic console and computer games, to interesting new additions like the crank-included Panic Playdate, to systems that offer licensed versions of classic titles.

Evercade, for instance, released a rash of handhelds that accept proprietary cartridges packed with some amazing games. But what’s really got me excited this month is a new system coming out from MyArcade and Atari.

The Atari Gamestation GO is a handheld with more than 200 built-in games and (Here’s the really cool part) an integrated paddle, trackball, and number pad to play them with.

The system, which hits on Oct. 24 for $180, includes titles from Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, and Arcade as well as a few Recharged creations. It sports a 7-inch screen and Wifi.

The system arrives during what I see as a renaissance in handheld gaming. Michael Ponce, Vice President of Design at Dreamgear/MyArcade, agrees.

“We’re seeing a cultural return to tactile, authentic gameplay experiences,” he told me in a recent interview. “Handhelds are thriving because people want gaming that’s accessible, nostalgic, and personal—something they can pick up and play in any setting. For Atari, whose roots are in approachable fun, this is the perfect moment to bring a device that celebrates that history into the handheld space.”

The idea for the Atari Gamestation GO, though, came about after the launch of the Atari Gamestation Pro in 2023.

“That system established a foundation of authenticity and versatility by bringing together both modern and retro control schemes,” he said. “As we looked ahead, the idea was to take that same spirit of ‘all-in-one Atari play’ and make it portable, giving players the ability to enjoy the full breadth of Atari’s history anywhere.”

The design team was well aware that Atari’s storied legacy included games that used paddles, joysticks, trackballs, and, yes, even a keypad, and they wanted to honor that breadth of creativity by creating a system that could natively support all of those control types.

“We studied Atari’s most iconic titles—like Pong, Asteroids, Centipede, and Missile Command—and built the control set around delivering an authentic experience for those games,” Ponce said. ”The biggest challenge was ergonomics and reliability. Each input method—paddle, trackball, joystick, and keypad—operates very differently, and fitting them into one compact handheld required extensive prototyping. Balancing the sensitivity so that a trackball feels responsive while the paddle maintains precise resistance was particularly tricky. The engineering team spent months refining tolerances to make sure no single control felt like an afterthought.”

The trackball, he added, was by far the most challenging to lock down.

“Replicating the arcade feel of games like Centipede in a handheld form factor required custom components and fine-tuning sensor calibration. Getting it small enough without sacrificing the smooth, rolling motion was a major hurdle—but ultimately one of the most rewarding parts of the design.”

While packing all of those controls into a single system was challenging, the team also had to figure out what they wanted the overall design and shape of the system to look like as well. To do that, the design was chiefly informed by portability and comfort, and then layered in retro cues from classic Atari hardware.

The system’s rounded edges and proportions are clearly designed to make the system easy to hold for long gaming sessions, but the first thing you’ll probably notice is that matte black finish and Atari red accents that tie back directly to the brand’s iconic visual language.

“We see it as a bridge between past and present—modern in form by unmistakably Atari in spirit,” Ponce said.

Fans of Atari, handhelds, and retro gaming have had, perhaps, longer than expected to hunger for the system’s release. It was first shown off at CES in 2024, with an expected release date later that year. But that anticipation was met with mostly silence until this year’s CES, where it popped up again.

Ponce said the system was delayed because MyArcade wanted to ensure they had plenty of time to do quality assurance and respond to feedback from partners, licensors, and early testers.

The result of that way means the system now has upgraded screen brightness, improved battery efficiency, and that the paddle and trackball have both been fine-tuned for greater accuracy.

Of course, even the best hardware needs a nice selection of games to play on it. The GameStation GO will release with a focus on a core library of original Atari classics spanning arcade, 2600, 5200, 7800, and beyond. But the team also worked with partners to include a number of remastered or enhanced titles that take advantage of the hardware’s unique control options.

“The balance is designed so that fans get both authenticity and freshness in the same system,” Ponce said.

Better still, the Wi-Fi functionality will be used to expand the library over time, he confirmed, including the possibility of downloadable add-on packs.

“This gives the Gamestation Go room to grow beyond launch, with future updates keeping the system fresh for both longtime Atari fans and new players discovering the catalog,” Ponce said. “The Gamestation Go is really a celebration of Atari’s versatility. From the paddle to the trackball to the joystick, this system is designed to let players experience the full range of Atari’s history in one device—no adapters, no compromises.

“For us, the most rewarding part is seeing new generations discover these games in a way that feels authentic to the originals while being portable and modern enough for today.”

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Perhaps lost today in the tsunami of video game impressions, interviews, and general mayhem of Gamescom, Asus announced that the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X will begin hitting stores this October.

The handheld PC gaming system that the company co-designed with Microsoft will pop up on store shelves and online in the United States and across “key international markets” starting Oct. 16. Both versions of the system are being shown off this week at the ROG booth during Gamescom, along with a key new feature for the systems.

There’s still no word on pricing, which we expect to find out in the coming weeks.

While I haven’t had a chance to go hands-on with the system, it’s built on the bones of the ROG Ally and ROG Ally X, which is to say, it’s got a very solid foundation.

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Outwardly, the two sets of systems appear very similar in appearance with the exception of the added-on grips, horn-like handles that jut out from the body of the system to give it the appearance of an oversized game pad.

While I never felt the need for better grips for the Ally X, it does look like it could make the system more comfortable to game with over time, while reducing some of the svelte design that makes it easy to slip into a bag. The system also features a prominent Xbox button, placed just to the right of the left thumbstick. But more on that in a few.

As has been reported, the guts of the system have been upgraded to include the AMD Ryzen AI Z2 process (for the Xbox Ally X) and AMD Ryzen Z2 A processor (for the vanilla Xbox Ally). Memory, storage, and the display all remain unchanged. While the Xbox Ally X still has an 80Wh battery, the Xbox Ally gets a slight bump up from 40Wh to 60Wh.

For me, the biggest news coming out of today’s announcement is a bit more insight into how the team at Xbox has been working to make the handheld PC system behave a bit more like a console and a bit less like a Windows system.

Apparently, Xbox has been working with game studios to test and optimize “thousands” of PC titles for handheld compatibility. Most importantly for future players, this will be underscored with a new badging system that makes games “handheld optimized” or “mostly compatible” if they’ve been tested and work with the system.

Handheld Optimized means that the game is ready to go — with default controller inputs, an intuitive text input method, accurate iconography, clear text legibility, and appropriate resolution in full-screen mode, according to the Asus press release. Mostly Compatible means that the game may require minor in-game setting changes for an optimal experience on handheld.

The ROG Xbox Ally systems will also support advanced shader delivery, which allows the Xbox app to preload a game’s shaders during download, allowing it to launch as much as ten times faster, run more smoothly, and use less battery on the first play.

ASUS points out that the systems will also promise that the Xbox Ally X’s built-in NPU will unlock new AI-powered features starting early next year. So far, this includes automatic super resolution, which uses the NPU to upscale games running at lower resolutions, and Highlight Reels, which are captured automatically by the AI as short replay clips.

For many fans of handheld PC gaming systems, the big takeaway here is that the Xbox team is working to make the system feel more like a gaming device and less like a Windows device. It’s unclear how much the badging of games will be interwoven into the experience or if it will still behave like you’re battling with Windows to play your games.

Either way, it’s clear that Microsoft is aware that to make these systems competitors for Valve’s excellent Steam Deck, they need to reduce the friction between the myriad of gaming apps used on Windows-based systems and the games themselves.

I just want to be able to pick up a system like the ROG Ally and play a game without ever seeing anything that resembles Windows.

Last year, I detailed what I thought a handheld PC gaming system needed to do to continue to be competitive. While the ROG Xbox Ally seems to address some of those suggestions, there are a few unfortunately ignored.

The redesigned case addresses long-play comfort, and the Xbox work on badging could deal with the user-interface issues and game optimization. The system also appears to be designed for upgrading and self-repair. The beefier chips are also a great sign.

That said, the decision not to increase the X battery size and the lack of an AMOLED screen are baffling to me. It’s also a bummer that there’s no built-in kickstand, but at least it comes with a 65W charger stand.

As with most consumer electronics, the price is going to be a very important element of whether or not this system can even approach the level of mainstream success a console historically sees.

Earlier this year, Lenovo dropped its second wave of systems: The Legion Go S is a redesign of the company’s massive Legion Go, which comes in both Windows and SteamOS versions. Valve has also made it easier for you to install SteamOS in any flavor of AMD-powered handheld, if that’s what you’re looking for.

So we all continue to have evolving choices. If you’re at Gamescom, make sure you check out the upcoming ASUS systems and tell me what you think in the comments.

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