Ars Technica Gaming

Panic, the indie game publishers behind the quirky, yellow crank-sporting Playdate gaming handheld, is issuing refunds to customers who had to shoulder the cost of inappropriate tariffs imposed by the Trump administration this year. The news comes months after the Supreme Court said in a February ruling that those tariffs were illegal, which also demanded that the administration refund the companies that had to temporarily pay the import taxes. In an update posted on the Playdate help site this

This year is the 30th anniversary of the launch of the original Quake by id Software, if you could believe it. To commemorate that, publisher Bethesda has released a new campaign chapter for the game, titled "Dawn of the Machine." This is part of a series of new campaign chapters, all developed by MachineGames "in collaboration with id Software." MachineGames is best known for making the games in the relatively recent Wolfenstein reboot series, as well as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. The

Sony is “cautiously” moving forward with plans to stop producing discs for PlayStation games as of January 2028, CFO Lin Tao said through an interpreter today. During an earnings call, Tao said there are “various reasons” for Sony's decision, with the biggest being that the “digitalization of [content] overall has been progressing.” “When we think about the future, and we put in a lot of thought and time, and we cautiously considered this, and we came to this conclusion. And we’re going to cauti

Over the past couple of weeks, my immune system has been struggling to fight off a cold. It’s been unpleasant, as all colds are. But throughout this time—in defiance of my plight—I’ve been waging my own war against immune systems, thanks to Pathogenic, a new roguelite twin-stick shooter from developer Aberrant Labs. As I've downed endless shots of ineffective cough syrup, I’ve done little else with my free time than repeatedly take on the role of a bodily invader. And let me tell you: Being on t

Sony’s recent decision to stop producing physical PlayStation games in the near future has naturally led to a renewed focus and appreciation for physical games that can be played just by sticking a cartridge or disc in a console. But an increasing number of those “physical” games these days still require additional downloads from a centralized server to function as intended. For years now, the testers at DoesItPlay have been documenting this trend, testing thousands of physical game releases to

As the Steam Deck slowly marches toward its fifth birthday next February, owners are likely eager for a way to extend its life rather than investing in expensive high-end competition. A new patch for AMD's Linux drivers could substantially reduce low-end frame hitches when the Steam Deck or other AMD-based gaming hardware is running in Energy Performance Preference (EPP) mode. Writing on the Linux kernel mailing list (thanks, Phoronix), kernel coder David Vernet lays out the basic problem that g

Many gamers have been lamenting Sony's recently announced decision to halt sales of physical game discs in 2028. However, new data revealed by Circana analyst Mat Piscatella highlights how years of stark economic trends helped lead Sony to that decision. In a social media thread Thursday morning, Piscatella shared insights into Circana's tracking data on physical game sales in the US dating back to 2003. A graph of those trends shows physical sales peaking in the 12 months ending June 2009, when

For years, Microsoft has leaned heavily into extensive backward compatibility across multiple generations of Xbox hardware as a major selling point for its consoles. Today, that effort expands past the console ecosystem, making select original Xbox titles officially playable (and purchasable) on Windows PCs for the first time. The appropriately and bluntly named "Xbox Backward Compatibility on PC" program kicks off today with compatibility for BLiNX: The Time Sweeper, Conker: Live and Reloaded,

Since its 2022 launch, the Steam Deck has consistently been at or near the top of the company's "top selling products by revenue" charts, with brief dips outside of the top 10 treated as newsworthy events. But sales of the popular handheld gaming PC have apparently been on a steep decline since the system relaunched at a higher price in May. Linux-focused gaming site Boiling Steam breaks down the historical data, showing how the Deck's chart position has fallen from fifth place immediately after

Since Sony announced that it was planning to stop producing physical PlayStation discs in 2028, many people have been justifiably worried about how they will maintain ownership and long-term game access in a disc-free world. But halting production of PlayStation discs also means eliminating the market for cheap used PlayStation discs, which are often available for well below the price of a digital download. How much is this disc-based discount worth? To find out, Ars analyzed how the prices of 1

Last month, we passed along Modern Vintage Gamer's (MVG) confident assertion that Doom is functionally impossible to run on the Neo Geo, owing to the console's sprite-based display hardware and lack of a frame buffer. We all should have known better than to tell a dedicated group of hackers that something is "impossible," though, as two recent projects have made great progress toward functional Doom ports on stock Neo Geo hardware. Both of these projects have significant graphical compromises t

About a month ago, Valve announced that it would expand its long-standing Steam Deck Verified program to the now-shipping Steam Machine, offering a separate rating of Steam games' compatibility and playability for the fresh living room-focused hardware. Now that those ratings started appearing on Steam store pages last night (under a "Learn More" link next to Steam Deck Compatibility), we've found that Valve is frustratingly "still learning about" Steam Machine compatibility for dozens of games

In announcing plans for 3,200 layoffs across the Xbox division yesterday, CEO Asha Sharma focused on discussing cuts to the Xbox platform team and redundant layers of middle management. Now, though, word is filtering out about significant staffing cuts at remaining Microsoft-owned game developers including id Software and Bethesda. Apogee and 3D Realms founder Scott Miller—who helped publish some of id's earliest games—wrote on social media yesterday of "insider reports" that a majority of id ha

On Monday, Nintendo announced that it will stop selling the original Switch in Europe next February. That decision comes in response to European regulations that will soon require easily replaceable batteries in most consumer electronics. Rather than redesigning multiple original Switch models to comply with that regulation (as it is doing with the Switch 2), Nintendo has decided it will just stop selling the older console in the region. Those new battery rules won't affect the availability of t

Last month, Xbox executives laid out some "hard truths" about Microsoft's struggling gaming division that they said would require a difficult "Xbox reset." This morning, Microsoft revealed the brutal shape of that "reset," announcing plans for 3,200 layoffs and the divestment of five smaller studios that the company has spent years acquiring and shepherding. Half of those 3,200 layoffs are effective today, new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma wrote, while the other half will come by the end of Microsoft's 2

If I had to pick a chunk of the 1990s that feels the most 90s-ish to me, it'd be the two-year stretch between 1996 and 1997. 1996 saw me graduating from high school and starting college; 1997 saw me meeting my future wife and falling in love. While I tried to figure out how to navigate the University of Houston's still mostly pre-digital first-semester registration process (we had to sign up for classes over the phone, with touch-tone buttons, like cavemen!), the larger world kept turning in way

Some gamers are concerned about the future of game ownership after Sony's announcement today that it won’t produce physical discs for PlayStation games as of January 2028. On that date, “new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only,” Sony said in a blog post. Ditching discs is “a natural direction” for Sony “to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs," the post said. During Sony’s fisc

It seems to some of us like just yesterday—even though the transition began more than half a decade ago—that gamers were getting adjusted to spending $70 on AAA game releases at launch instead of $60, but as preorders begin this week for the wildly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI, they're finding that at least that title will sell for $80. Additionally, disclaimers make it clear that the physical release of GTA6 will not include a physical disc. Instead, it will be a box with a download code ins

The Steam Machine is almost here. Valve chose possibly the worst time to announce new PC gaming hardware in late 2025, just as the AI boom sent storage and RAM prices through the roof. The upheaval delayed its new Steam Machine release, but Valve has announced its TV-friendly gaming PC will go on sale June 29 with a reservation-based system and a starting price of $1,049. The Steam Machine will come in two variations: one with 512GB of storage and a more expensive one with 2TB. They'll retail fo

For years, Valve's physical Steam gift cards have been the closest you could come to buying a Steam game at a brick-and-mortar store. Now, Valve says it is phasing out the production of new retail gift cards, citing a losing battle against scammers exploiting the hard-to-track payment method. PC Guide was among the first to note the end of Valve's retail gift card program, which was quietly announced in a recent update to a Steam support page. Since launching the retail cards in 2012, Valve says