One day I will be right and Analogue will announce a PlayStation FPGA console, but it is not this day. For their annual announcement, Analogue did something I would not have expected. They revamped the Super NT and Mega SG and gave the FPGA consoles the mandatory "+" designation. Here is the announcement tweet:

Introducing Super Nt+ and Mega Sg+

The definitive way to play original Super Nintendo, Super Famicom, Sega Genesis, Mega Drive, and Master System.

Beginning with Super Nt in 2017, the originals set a new standard for video game preservation. Nearly a decade later, they return.

Super Nt+ & Mega Sg+. Definitive, all over again.

Now with Bluetooth + 2.4G. Reworked industrial design, OS, packaging, and more.

At the core: an FPGA architecture engineered in-house from scratch, backed by over a decade of development. Purpose-built 1080p for 2D gaming. No emulation. Zero lag. Total accuracy. Plug and play.

At first glance, I thought the accompanying image was the two consoles fused together, but they are separate products.

The original Super NT and Mega SG had a "final run" as one of the annual announcements four years ago. In the years since, the aftermarket price for the consoles has skyrocketed. It felt like Analogue was done with the 16-bit era and moving forward into an era with the Pocket, openFPGA, and the 3D.

In the four years since, sure, the Pocket is still for sale, the openFPGA scene is vibrant with community support, but none of the products since—including these new plus revisions—support it. The 3D has been received quite well and the M64 from Modretro has kept the pressure on Analogue to update the console with a regular cadence. The 3D may be their most consistently attended to console (although I am still waiting for the "jailbreak"). I figured Analogue would keep marching forward into the 3D graphics generations, leaving 16-bit behind.

I had a Super Nt, but sold is a few years ago, likely to pay for my RetroTINK-4K Pro or my PS5 Pro, I forget. I also sold the Pocket and DAC. I was content with either real hardware or my other solutions for high-res SNES gaming. But out of those sold Analogue products, the Super NT is the one I have missed the most. There's something about the cartridge use, the Phil Fish boot, and that pop of purple. So of course I snagged a Super NT+ this week.

So what is actually new with the Super NT+ and Mega SG+? One might hope for 4K resolution or Wi-Fi or perhaps a built-in DAC. None of that is here. One of the top taglines on the product page says "Refined Not Redrawn" and that sums it up quite well. Here's are the listed new features:

• Built-in Bluetooth and 2.4g wireless controller support
• "Refined" industrial design
• Redesigned retail packaging (seriously)
• USB-C Power and a USB-A port exclusively for DAC support
• The ability to hot swap cartridges without powering down the console
• Wired controller priority over wireless ones
• Powering on the console wirelessly with a paired controller.

The FPGA chip inside is the same as before. It still rocks an SD card like all there consoles. The colorways are identical. The best of the bunch is the built-in Bluetooth and 2.4g support. No more dongles protruding from the controller port. It really is a refinement of the console.

Which I think is fine, possibly great even if Analogue keeps the units for sale and in-stock. All six options (three color options per console) sold out within hours on Monday. There isn't really another plug-and-play solution for these consoles of high caliber outside of maybe the Epilogue SN Operator, but that only interfaces with your computer.

I find it interesting that one of the features listed on the page is "Advanced Video Options: No external scalers or 3rd party products required." It feels more like Analogue acknowledging their competition with RetroTINK or PixelFX in the retro-scaling scene, which was a factor in selling my original Super NT off. When you read between the marketing fluff along with the Analogue 3D patch note tea leaves, you realize the company is perhaps trying to be more agile and available. I do believe there is nothing better for the consume than a plug-and-play option. No fuss. It should work like the Super Nintendo did and Analogue does achieve that with aplomb.

The unanswered questions I have are the typical ones for new Analogue products. Will the Nintendo Switch Online controllers work? There are options for both the Super Nintendo and the Genesis. I wonder if the "jailbreaks" for the original Super NT and Mega SG will work out of the box. I fear the Phil Fish boot sequence will be removed. Please don't take away the sole character of the OS.

Overall, I am happy these 16-bit titans are back. I am happy to re-add one to my collection. I promise I won't get rid of you again. I think it will be nice to have when my daughter and I move onto the 16-bit generation. One can only hope that the consoles can come back and stay back in-stock. Next year the PlayStation will be announced. I bet on it.

Apple finally announced their smart home control hub (dubbed HomeView) yesterday. It's a whopping $299 and an amalgamation of their technologies in an attempt to reinvigorate their home strategy.

Later in the day, Marques Brownlee's impressions video dropped and he said he doesn't really know who the product is for:

"But whenever we see a new product, whenever I think about a new product, I always want to think about the target demographic that they think it's best for, that they're aiming this at. And I've been living with this for all day basically, and I cannot figure any group that this is actually ideal for.

Like maybe, okay, I guess in theory, the complete casual who doesn't really care about the price and just kind of likes that it's in the Apple ecosystem and the couple interesting features of it connecting to the iPhone, that makes it cool, then sure, fine, I guess.

But for like the super bleeding edge smart home enthusiast who already has a bunch of smart lights and is like ready to go all in with a smart doorbell and a smart thermostat and a smart home, well, this ecosystem is still dwarfed by Amazon's and even Google's, and the value proposition of the display product that lives in your kitchen is not that different between them."

I think this is a rare miss from Brownlee and reminds me of two things: First, that he (presumably) does not live at home with a family and second, he's a multi-ecosystem guy.

The target audience for this product is as clear as day. It is for that "complete casual," sure, but it is also for families like mine that are all in on Apple's ecosystem, where Google and Amazon's offerings are atrocious. We have had a Google Nest Hub for four years. It has served diligently as our kitchen timer, clock, and occasional music player. There is plenty of untapped functionality left on the speaker because the hub is outside Apple and an awful experience.

We don't have any of our photos on the device because we don't use Google Photos. We could, but then it is managing our library in multiple places or updating albums. It'd be like the Aura Frames, which many of our family members have, and updating it with photos is a chore. We don't want to do that for our pictures.

Apple Music is an app on the Nest Hub, but man, it never works. Google never plays the music we want. It always tries to go to YouTube before Apple Music. My library isn't on the device or navigable in any intuitive way. My account is often logged out, which requires a song and dance inside the Google Home app. I swear they change the layout and location of settings every time I have to bumble my way through it.

Earlier this year, we bought a base iPad and I use that for cooking, timers, and music every time over my Nest Hub. The HomeView is an eagerly awaited replacement for the Nest Hub because I know all that friction with Google inside an Apple household will vanish.

This product is also for families like my parents next door. My dad is a Home Assistant enthusiast. The house has so many smart objects, alerts, and lights. He is the "super bleeding edge smart home enthusiast" that Brownlee describes. You know who is not a smart home savant? My mother. It's a source of tension when lights don't cooperate or devices don't respond to the incantation she's recited. A HomeView would give my mother a home base for visual digital buttons for those objects, alerts, and lights. It's the bridge between the enthusiast and their "complete casual" family.

Stephen Hackett describes the same scenario in his impressions article:

I run Home Assistant behind the scenes, but my family interacts with things like smart plugs and the garage door using HomeKit, usually via one of the HomePod minis I have placed around the house.

This has led to some frustration over the years when a HomePod doesn’t hear them correctly. Tapping a button would certainly clear that up.

The HomeView has Thread and the smart home standards you'd expect. I am sure this will fit in quite nicely to the enthusiast's—both Apple and smart—home.

Back to Brownlee's closer:

"So I just imagine anyone who gets this, after like the first two weeks when the novelty wears off, it's just going to be reduced to that LCD square attached to a speaker that lives in the corner somewhere. Once in a while you ask it for some some music or for a timer, or you ask Siri some stuff, and it's fine at that, but it doesn't really bring any extra value on top of that that's convincing me that it's worth the extra price."

That is what this product is for. It's the "Aura Frame." It's the kitchen speaker. It's the light switch hub. It's the ask-an-assistant-out-loud screen. It's the digital clock. There's no reduction. Doing all that seamlessly within Apple's ecosystem, for all the other family members inside the home, without having to deal with the ad-ridden, bloated, clumsy experiences of Google and Amazon is the extra value.¹ All of that seems worth the price of admission to me and my family. I suspect it will be for many.

At the start of the month, developers at Capcom—the team behind one of my favorite video game engines—gave a talk about RE Engine's future. News began to swirl about slides, statements, and translations revolving around AI. Satoshi Ishida laid the foundation for what this new "RE neXt ENGINE," aka REX, is setting out to address. Here is Eurogamer's reporting on the talk, which was in Japanese and originally reported on gamebiz.jp:

"Ishida pointed to three challenges driving the REX Project – one, games have grown so large in scope and data volume that build and iteration times are slowing development down; two, RE Engine is now used by over 2,000 developers, including international staff and people coming from other engines, requiring better multilingual and accessibility support; and three, AI needs to be built into the development pipeline rather than bolted on."

What spun reactions out of proportion were mistranslations by news outlets that took "AI" and "Generation" the unintended way, opting for generative AI instead of the "AI generation." The vocal sentiment toward generative AI in game development, at least that I observe on Bluesky and on forums, is absolutist.

What I think the bulk of the detractors fail to realize is that your games today are and were likely made with AI. The benefits of chasing down bugs, coding, and implementation are too advantageous. Jack Buser, Google's Global Director for Games, Google Cloud (who spent near eight years at PlayStation before), claimed that "nine out of 10 game developers" were using AI from a survey Google conducted at Gamescom in 2025.

"'I think what players don’t realise is that their favourite games right now were already built with AI. Those games have shipped. We did a survey around Gamescom last summer with studios all over the world. Roughly nine out of 10 game developers told us, yeah, we’re using it.

'Now you’ll see other surveys from other organisations that have that more around like 40-50%. And you might ask yourself, well, that’s still a large number. It’s still almost half of the developers out there. What’s that gap? And that gap is basically the developers willingness to tell you whether the fact of the matter is it’s being used.'"

Recent examples could be the deluge of decompiled and recompiled classic games. I see a new one pop up all the time and the news is usually accompanied with an indication of whether "slop" was used to make the PC port. There's even a new slop-derived derogatory term—"slopcomp." It's created an aggressiveness in the scene that is quite intense.

"DarioSamo pointed out that his group had already made clear its intentions to produce a port of Banjo-Tooie at some point without using AI. He also slammed the competing project over on the Decomps subreddit, calling on Banjo-Tooie Recompiled to be renamed."

I didn't realize unlicensed fan projects had rights to naming conventions, but here they are calling for changes.¹ It's become so contentious, that there is a list of which decompilations and recompilations are untouched by AI—big Sneetches-with-star-bellies energy. It's not a long list either. From the introduction of said list:

"Now we’re in the mid-2020s, and AI has gotten a hold of everything, with people that have little to NO programming experience porting games completely untested, leading to a wave of buggy AI ports of games that are completely broken. And the sad part is, they overshadow the quality work of decomps/recomps done by actual people."

Just a smidge further down, the list aggregator, Mr. @funky90slion, writes the following:

"I am not against AI-Assisted Projects done responsibly as they’re different from vibecoding. HOWEVER, this list is made to showcase projects made by people who powered through any difficult tasks. And deserve to be commended for their efforts."

This distinction between "AI-Assisted Projects" and "vibecoding" is the crux of the issue.

On the same day that the Capcom news broke, Lex Friedman coincidentally published Vibe-coded apps: The vibes are good for people with specific needs. He closed out a series of wonderful tools, utilities, and apps with this:

"For decades, if the software you needed didn’t exist, you had three options: Learn to code, pay someone, or live without it. Now there’s a fourth option, and people are taking it. They’re not building the next big thing. They’re building the next small thing, for themselves. Sometimes they abandon it two weeks later. That’s allowed, too.

Vibe-coded doesn’t mean subpar. It doesn’t mean bad. And in all these cases, it means empowerment. Computers are meant to help us customize our workflows to the ways we work. LLMs make that more possible than ever."

I'm not arguing that recompiled N64 games are a utility or tool, but I will say that leveraging AI to do this process is a specific need for the person facilitating the project. It's a curiosity, a long-held desire, or a project to make playing a favorite game easier for them. I would wager it is not from some malicious, shortcut, cheating clout-chasing perspective.

It is the same fuel for creating DDDS, my app for recording modded 3DS console footage. No one was going to make that app. I was not learning how to code. I could not pay someone to make it for me. I had been living without it. With Claude Code, I was able to build the best Mac capture experience for those tens of us with modded 3DS consoles and a Mac-centric workflow.

Two days later, Friedman was back with Claude writes code; I author the apps, which I recommend you pause here and go read in full. Friedman has a deep history and background in computers, coding, and game development. It's a wonderful piece about how AI has empowered his creativity. Go ahead. It's fine, even if you get distracted and don't come back.

"As I wrote recently, not everyone’s a fan of vibe-coded apps. “Vibe-coded,” in fact, is used as an insult, the coding equivalent of “slop.” I think the term is problematic, but I understand some of the concern: Just as people are using AI tools to write crappy articles, generate crappy posters, and make crappy fake photos, there are folks using LLMs to create crappy websites, apps, and other software.

But there are good apps out there that are made at least in part with help from LLMs. In fact, I think it’s a safe bet that the vast majority of regularly-updated software you use today is made by developers leveraging AI tools in at least some ways."

I believe the same can be said for video games today. I look to the likes of Pascal Pixel and his decompilation project for the Golden Sun GBA titles—all being done by his orchestration of LLMs. He is coming from a position of passion and care for the games and turning them into readable, malleable code for players and modders alike. I don't think anyone could look at his work and posts and call his authenticity into question. Back to Friedman:

"I know of zero “vibe-coded” apps that started with a single prompt and then were immediately released. There’s a reason we’re not flooded with more amazing apps than ever before. Great apps take time. There is a real problem of too many vibe-coded apps hitting the App Store, lacking in craft, skill, and humanity.

The question, to me, isn’t how much code was written by a human. It’s how much the app was authored by a human, which I think is a more nuanced question. How much care, thought, and humanity went into the app matters far more than tabs vs. spaces or a manually-vs.-machine-built HStack.

Movie editing and newspaper layout aren’t less impressive now that we use software vs. scissors. WYSIWYG text editors don’t make the written word less compelling than typewriters...

...The person using the tool has direct influence over the quality of the final product."

AI is and has been a tool. The same rules that apply to a hammer and chisel apply to a stack of GPUs burning through tokens. The tool doesn't make the art, the product, the application—the human does with the tool. When you hit the publish button, that work is yours, not the LLM's. If that recomp is a buggy mess and it's easier and more delightful to just emulate the old-fashioned way, blame the developer, not the methodology of development. But if that recomp is sound, sturdy, and delightful, I say praise the person and how they use the tools of the trade. Same goes for modern releases and the like. It is like I wrote in Is Coding Not Art?:

"When it comes to AI in game development, I make the call when I see it. Does the game look good, play great, and resonate? The devs used the tool the right way. If it looks sloppy, I say that's the developer's fault, not the tool's."

If there is any studio I trust to build and upgrade their engine for the "AI generation," it is Capcom. If I was ever looking for a reason to play Golden Sun on my computer, I'd look at Pascal's project. I'm looking for the games and projects authored by humans.

The first three episodes of Avatar: Seven Havens released on Friday and I finished up the bundle last night. I am so very pleased to report that the show is excellent. The team there at Avatar Studios has not lost the sauce.

It was filled with charm, stakes, maturity, grace, comedy, and a whole lot of bending. What a treat to be back in the world and in a powerful way. I was stunned at the end of Chapter 1: On the Horizon. Full blown surprised and I am so glad.

Friday, Paramount/Viacom/Skydance/whatever-mega-studio announced at New York Comic-Con that Seven Havens was renewed for Books 3 and 4. What a turn around from The Legend of Korra having mismanaged and unsure timelines. The team can focus on crafting a story and drama that can "sustain a series."

The next series was also announced—Avatar Kuruk: Wave of Chaos—which is focusing on the Water Tribe Avatar three cycles before Aang. Here's the pitch for that show:

"A rebellious teenage Avatar bucks thousands of years of tradition by choosing to learn the four elements through globetrotting adventures, staying one step ahead of his angry teacher, rowdy pirates, and chaotic spirits – all while helping the world in his own unique ways."

The concept art for that show looks like what you'd hope from an Avatar series.

I am excited for the future of Avatar in a way that I haven't been since Korra debuted in April 2012. It's good to be back in the four nations, or should I now say the Seven Havens?

Game developer and YouTuber Bofner has a snazzy look at how Konami created the scrolling spike walls in their Game boy Castlevania games. Thanks to Marcin Wichary of Unsung for sharing this one.

"Konami saw something much more dynamic than just a HUD with the Window Layer. Konami looked at its restrictions and designed an entire level based around it, where the Window Layer becomes your enemy."

The secret was using the Window layer as an enemy not a HUD like everyone else. They then used a rasterization blip to still draw a HUD in the sequel.

"The developers at Konami back in the day really had a knack for bending 8-bit system limitations into strengths, and the Game Boy Castlevania games contain just a small subset of the clever programming tricks Konami figured out to get the most out of their games."

Limitations breed creativity and ingenuity. Sometimes I think games on the whole have lost that ability in the generations with so much horsepower and open worlds. That's not to say there aren't clever hacks, workarounds, and tricks to surprise and delight, but it does feel fewer and far between. Nintendo may be one of the companies that regularly exemplifies this game development mindset, given their own hardware limitations. Tears of the Kingdom on Switch 1 hardware still blows my mind.

Sophie McEvoy at GamesIndustry.biz:

Sony has agreed to transfer 419 global VR patents to Meta, with 180 patents filed in the US under an agreement signed in December 2025...

...Between June and September this year, Sony moved more than 40 of these patents to Meta, which covered virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and head-mounted display systems.

I think Sony is not going to make anymore games for the PlayStation VR2. While I am a big believer in the technology, I definitely bought PSVR2 on the promise of software that was never to come.

Marques Brownlee uploaded a video breaking down the Googlebook. He uses a Pixel as one of his two phones, so I was curious if I missed anything in my original assessment of the new laptop line. I don't think I did.

One angle I did not consider was that the only way to get applications on these machines is the Google Play Store. That means you are at the whims of mobile apps and Android's tablet efforts if there is not a newly dedicated desktop version. The experience is so splintered, Google has five compatibility labels.

• Made for desktop
• Optimized for desktop
• Compatible with desktop
• Better on the website
• Built for mobile

"Better on the website" is both a sick burn and probably true for most apps targeting potential Googlebook users. Also, I guess every app in the Play Store has an ESRB rating because that's the only explanation for Adobe Acrobat Reader: Edit PDF being rated "E for Everyone."

It turns out that Googlebook OS seems to be a thin wrapper around Android 17, because the device details lists the Android version. And my goodness, it has a toggle for "auto-rotate" which these laptops don't even support. I think Google's prompt to Gemini when making the OS was "Make Android 17 into a desktop OS."

While I still think the hardware is ugly, it does seem nice. It's thin and light. The screens sound premium. But these machines seem like they should only be bought by the most diehard Pixel users. Even then, I don't think this "brand-new category of laptop" will survive very long.

Two years ago, 343 Industries rebranded to Halo Studios. Here is what I had to say:

"A name and engine change aren't enough to save this languished franchise...

At a certain point, maybe the author off these 'new' chapters needs to step down, not change to a pen name. "

Two weeks ago, Xbox continued its consolidation and a part of the announcement was that Activision was taking over the future of Halo.

"Activision will also be developing the next Halo title, led by a new, purpose-built team that is separate from ongoing development and plans for Call of Duty. A small team at Halo Studios will continue supporting the Halo community and games in-market."

Seems like the pen name didn't work out after all.

I can't believe buying the PS5 Pro at launch was buying it at near half off.

The inventory for the PS5 Pro has been out of stock the closer we get to Grand Theft Auto VI's launch on November 19, 2026. The supply has been so constrained that Sony has re-introduced a lottery system in Japan for the opportunity to give them ¥137,980 ($872.28~) to buy a new one. PlayStation Lifestyle reports that this shortage may continue into early 2027. This shortage is another good reason for Sony to push out QSSR for base PS5 consoles.

Back in March this year, Sony raised the prices again. The PS5 Pro starts at $899 new, which is more than it cost me for the console, the official stand, and a disc drive back at the mid-gen console's launch two years ago.

What's so striking to me is GameStop following the second-hand market so blatantly. Prichecharting shows the spike happening within the last month. I wonder how high and how long this spike will last.

This generation continues to validate to me buying all these consoles at launch. Never lived through something like this. It makes me wonder if justifying a PS6 at launch makes more and more sense or if I am succumbing to the RAMageddon price fluctuating madness. I wonder if we will ever see price drops on hardware again.

Next week Analogue is due for their annual announcement. My prediction is the same as last year—they'll reveal a PlayStation FPGA console.

I can imagine the marketing now: a bunch of physical discs and proud declaration of supporting and preserving physical media. I really just want to see the 8BitDo DualShock.

I'll spice up this year's prediction though with a price, a price hear around the world as it were—$299.

I sure wish this interview was a whole lot longer. Remarkable stuff. I kept wondering what he'd be like if he had come clean sooner. What kind of Stallone would the world have if he had not built that castle of regrets? All I know is it wouldn't be the one that gave this interview.

Last week, Sony surprised us all with the announcement that a smaller, leaner PSSR-like upscaler was being brought to regular PlayStation 5 consoles.

Today, we’re excited to announce Quick Spectral Super Resolution (QSSR): a new performance tier of AI upscaling. Born from Project Amethyst, our AI graphics collaboration with AMD, this quick new evolution of PSSR is built on two key innovations:

• A streamlined neural network architecture
• A hand-tuned implementation that maximizes performance on PS5

With these, we are bringing the benefits of AI-guided upscaling to PS5. While PSSR remains the gold standard on PS5 Pro, QSSR provides some notable improvements to both image detail and image stability on PS5.

The results are striking. This is a huge win for the millions of PS5 owners to get better image quality without having to hunt down the seemingly sold out PS5 Pro.¹ I encourage you to check out the sample footage and Digital Foundry's hands-on preview.

But make no mistake. While QSSR is a boon for the current generation, Sony's push to make this pipeline is no doubt for the PS6 handheld rumored to launch next year. Same as the eco-mode for the PS5 titles. It's all about eking out every ounce of performance and image quality on as lean of a system as possible.

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My rate is $50/hr. Shoot me an email at [email protected] or schedule a call if you are interested. If you know someone who would be interested and could use my help, I'd appreciate it if you'd pass my information along. I appreciate your time and any work you can give me. I won't let you down.

Yesterday a demo dropped for Castlevania: Belmont's Curse and I gave it a go. Man, I think Motion Twin has pulled it off.

The movement is right for the series, anchored feet, but once you are in the air, you soar. The sword feels good, the dodge and slide are welcome. I like the magic system. I think the ability to heal is appropriate in this day and age. Don't let that lure you into a false sense of ease, the game is still tough and kicks you back to your last save, should you bite the dust.

I like the ties to the Netflix anime and am eager to learn more about the world.

I recorded my whole time with the demo as another test for a new gameplay recording app I am developing. You can see the whole session below. If you want to play the demo yourself, here are the links to download.

• PlayStation 5
• Xbox
• Nintendo Switch
• Steam

I can't believe we are getting both a new 2D Castlevania and Metroid within three months of one another. What a time to be alive!

A company by the name of "New Matter" has revealed their first product dubbed "Sudo" as a dedicated music player with an ahem familiar design.

It'll cost $250 and you may place a $50 reservation now. They expect to ship in the fourth quarter of 2027.

I have been longing for the return of an iPod Classic in my life. The used market is booming lately with prices being in the $150~ range, and that's before exploring mods that bring the iPod forward with new batteries, storage, Bluetooth, etc. This seems like a possible better bang for those 250 bucks.

But, who are New Matter? I can't really find much. Their website and socials are sparse and newly made. On Instagram the account follows three others—stuffbyretro, Teenage Engineering, and MSCHF—those last two feeling like inspirational follows. This stuffbyretro account is also new, but is promoting an iPod app for iPhones that will surely never leave TestFlight and be widely available. Apple does not tolerate iPod clones.¹

All of that does not instill confidence in me, but I would like to believe.

I think the design is what I want out of a dedicated music player. The iPod Classic was called that for a reason. The tiny specs section lists both offline and streaming playback. There is 64 GB of internal storage with the ability to expand with a microSD card. There is a "tactile wheel," not a Click Wheel. They got the standard 3.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth with 20+ hours of battery life, which is recharged over USB-C. The screen is roughly a quarter inch larger than my beloved Classic and is a touchscreen—that feels unnecessary with the "tactile wheel," but is probably just a part of the screen they sourced.

The software is "Sudo OS" and there isn't much to glean from the screenshots except the standard menu options like "Albums" and "Playlists." I would bet on it being some wrapper around some version of Android. It comes in four colors—Silver, Basalt (black), Forest (green), and Tangerine (orange). They all, unfortunately, come with a black "tactile wheel." I don't think that combination looks right. I do like the backplate being secured with the flush hex-head screws. I wish the power button was a different color to evoke the bright orange of the Hold switch.

The important part of this product is one that cannot be conveyed through images and videos. How does it sound? How does it feel? The Click Wheel felt right. How does this "tactile" copy compare? I assume the body is made of aluminum. How is the texture and weight in hand? How clicky are those buttons? And then there is sound. I saw comments on YouTube already rejecting the product for the lack of a 4.4mm jack. There is no mention of the DAC or supported Bluetooth codecs.

My biggest question after "Will this even come out?" is "Will Apple Music be supported?" Seems like New Matter doesn't know either. Here's a response they gave in the comments on YouTube:

"As Sudo will have Wi-Fi, streaming service integrations are something we’re actively exploring. The goal would be to support both streaming and offline downloads where the service allows it. It’ll ultimately depend on the APIs/SDKs each service makes available, so we don't to promise Apple Music or Spotify specifically just yet - but something we’re working towards."

Again, more wishy-washy hand-wavy bits. While I don't believe streaming is essential for a product like this, I wish they didn't promise it on the product page. Better to surprise and delight with the feature later than to promise it up front and not be able to accomplish it. This product is very much in active development and this announcement is more of a concept reveal than a product launch.

I still want to believe though.

In other obvious Naughty Dog news, it seems like the team is back in the Uncharted saddle. Alex Co at MP1st has the report, which VGC claims to "partially" corroborate.¹ Here is Co:

"According to sources familiar with the situation, Naughty Dog is working on a new Uncharted game...Also of note, this is an all-new Uncharted game, and not a remake of any kind...Directing this new Uncharted project is Shaun Escayg..."

Apologies for all the ellipses, but I am skipping some Uncharted 4: A Thief's End spoilers, as well as obvious, unnecessary SEO fluff.

The most obvious bit is that Shaun Escayg is directing the game. I can't believe I forgot to write about this when my friend Logan shared with me a few months ago, but Escayg posted on Instagram a very Uncharted-coded image from Fort George in Trinidad & Tobago with the caption "Research..." It is so obvious that Escayg and a team are at work on an Uncharted title. Here's the image itself, so you don't have to log into Instagram just to see it.

Escayg was the co-director of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and the Creative Director of The Last of Us Part I. He was a Lead Cinematic Animator on all of Naughty Dog's games from the original release of The Last of Us in 2013 until those director roles. He knows his Uncharted.

"In addition to that, we were told that this new Uncharted project is the next game Naughty Dog will work on and release after Intergalactic, with The Last of Us Part III as the next project after that."

This timeline makes sense to me. Neil Druckmann just announced that a couple of The Last of Us projects were in "very early stages." With Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet being teed up for a 2027 release, you have to imagine (i.e. hope) that the studio would put something out before another seven-year-gap.

What strikes me is that this could very well finally be Naughty Dog living out their two team dream. This all started after the release of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves when the studio split to make Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception and The Last of Us. The plan was to keep the split, but Uncharted 4 became a whole situation that resulted in the teams converging. They split up again for The Lost Legacy, but the tight turnaround essentially meant everyone hopped on board to finish out that game before moving to full-blown production on The Last of Us Part II. During that development, the multiplayer component of Part II was spun out into The Last of Us Online and became its own team. We know how that project panned out, unfortunately.

When Intergalactic was revealed in 2024, The New York Times reported that "more than 250 Naughty Dog employees" had worked on Intergalactic since the release of Part II in 2020. The speculated headcount in Santa Monica is 400~ in-Kennel dogs. Now, that 250 number from The New York Times does not indicate that it was 250 from the get-go, but just the headcount over the course of the new IP's inception. In fact, reporting from Jason Schreier seems to indicate that the team had fallen back into their "all hands on deck" routine with TLOUO. Here's a quote from Schreier in his video PlayStation's Live-Service Initiative Could Not Have Gone Worse:

"So, Last of Us Online, that game was canceled. A lot of people at Naughty Dog were working on that game. I think there's a belief out there that it was just kind of a side project while most people were working on Intergalactic. No, the opposite is true. Intergalactic did not have the majority of staff until after Last of Us Online was canceled, and then most people in the studio came over to work on Intergalactic, but many people in the studio, I would say the majority of the studio was working on either Last of Us Online or the remasters, the remakes that they were doing throughout the 2020s, which is why we haven't seen a brand new game from them since 2020."

There were layoffs in QA and art close to the official cancelation, but reports indicated that this was mostly, if not all, contractors. With so much staff, you have to wonder what everyone was working on and if this was the right time to try a proper two team approach once again.

I do suspect that since the outset of 2024, the bulk of the studio has been working on Intergalactic, but I can picture a world where a new Uncharted game gets spun up from pre-production and starts ballooning. Thinking about the rumored release order, this could be a healthy cycle for the team and Druckmann's directorial roles. We may (hopefully) get Intergalactic next year, then an Uncharted title three years later in 2030 and then one of the two TLOU projects in 2033~ when I am almost forty years old. This type of cycle also gives a possible Intergalactic sequel a chance to percolate.

Schedules and ambitions change though. Druckmann talked about this very prospect in an interview with Variety in September 2025.

"I’m sure if Intergalactic is successful, you will see it again. Whether that will be our next game right after that, I can’t say, and I leave that door open. Not to be coy for this particular question, we want to see how we feel once we’re done with it and look at the options in front of us, because we have some other ideas that we’d like to explore as well."

Given the early stages of those TLOU ideas, I think it'd be safe to bet on the return of Uncharted being the next game out of Naughty Dog post-Intergalactic. I also think a 10+ year gap between Part II and Part III is a proper amount of breathing room. This potential lineup is encouraging to me. It has been discouraging to witness the lack of new releases from my favorite studio the longer the generation goes on. There was a major opportunity cost with The Last of Us Online that Naughty Dog is going to be paying off for years to come. I suspect these games will pay it off in spades when all is said and done.

Another "Outbreak Day" has come and gone with the biggest piece of news being about a game not even associated with The Last of Us. There was no new merch, posters, music, board games, etc. There were some sales, Ghost of Yōtei DLC, a Youtooz thing, and dedicated social media accounts—very thrilling stuff. The highlight was a charity stream conducted yesterday that raised over $11,000. The cynic in me can't help but wonder though if more could have been raised if this was promoted at all before the day of the stream.

The day closed out with a blog post from Neil Druckmann, the studio head over at Naughty Dog, answering two questions: one about The Last of Us and the other about Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.

1. Will there or won’t there be more stories in The Last of Us?

Since Grounded II, we’ve talked about the possibility of telling more stories in the world of The Last of Us.

We have a couple of very exciting new projects in very early stages – so we can’t say much about them at this point. I will tell you that both projects will expand the canon of The Last of Us beyond Part I and Part II.

The world of The Last of Us means a great deal to us, and we wouldn’t return to it unless we had something meaningful to say. We believe these stories are worth telling.

Druckmann has actually expressed an interest in more TLOU stories since early 2023. Heck, he confirmed "a couple of projects" earlier this month! This direction from the studio is not surprising. It does make me lament the lost time spent on The Last of Us Online. If these new projects are in "very early stages," how much further along could they be if the years and money were not wasted on the live service effort? It has taken at least seven years for Naughty Dog to ship a new video game. This languishing development cycle is a significant piece of Sony's wasted generation.

As for what these two new projects are? I mean, one has to be Part III. When I read "expand the canon of The Last of Us beyond Part I and Part II," I think of the story Druckmann has had kicking around since the beginning about Ellie's mom Anna. This story has had a roller coaster journey over the years. I wonder if this could slot in between Intergalactic and Part III as a cheaper (to develop) and smaller game a la The Lost Legacy to explore a shorter but important story in the universe. I mostly hope that just so it isn't some 16 year wait for Part III.

Then Druckmann gives us some form of a timeline for news about their space bounty hunter journey.

2. You debuted Intergalactic almost two years ago. When will we see it again?

The team is heads down on what is shaping up to be Naughty Dog’s most ambitious game yet.

There’s an electricity around the studio right now as all the pieces come together, and we’re stoked to finally unveil Intergalactic in all its glory.

But…we need to cook for just a little bit longer.

So we want to set expectations: we’re going to be quiet for the rest of this year. In 2027, that changes. We’ll fully reveal Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and give you a proper look at Jordan’s wild sci-fi adventure.

I appreciate the set expectations. No chance of getting my hopes up for The Keighley's this year. My hope would be a reveal early in the year with a six to eight month turnaround to release like Sony Santa Monica is doing with God of War: Laufey. That would mean the game could come out in the fall/winter of 2027 and make it before the physical game deadline.

Last month, Naughty Dog announced that the team had finished shooting cinematics for Intergalactic. The team made a similar announcement for The Last of Us Part II way back in April 2019. If we want to play a game and extrapolate when Intergalactic might be released, we just need to compare time to release from the wrap on cinematic filming.

The Last of Us Part II wrapped shooting on April 19, 2019, and was released on June 19, 2020. If we just take that fourteen month gap and apply it to Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, we would expect release to be around Halloween 2027. The last Tuesday is October 26, so I'd pick that. Now, to be fair to this arbitrary calculation, there was a little thing called COVID-19 at the end of development for Part II that, at the very least, delayed the game one month. If we want to assume there will be no more global pandemics between now and release, perhaps Intergalactic can be released as soon as the summer of 2027. That would require a prompt reveal at the year's outset if Sony wants a minimum six month lead time on advertising.

While Druckmann has tempered (some) expectations, Troy Baker has not. Speaking at a panel at the Ottawa Comiccon 2026, Baker hyped up the game in a way only he would and could.

"You guys are going to have your minds blown. You are not ready. Woo! You are not ready. It's so good. We finally just wrapped as you saw the cinematics. Tati Gabrielle is—I don't know how Neil found two amazing actors to be. He found Ashley for Ellie and he found Tati for Jordan. It's like what? How do you do that? She is the spiritual successor.

Like there is so much about Jordan and that game of Intergalactic that feels like, man, I feel all of it. I feel Uncharted. I feel The Last of Us. I feel something new. They're testing the bounds of what that studio is capable of. And everything that I've seen, they are delivering. It's going to be incredible. As far as The Last of Us, we'll see."

Sign me up for all the feelings that Baker is feeling. I am purely amped by the prospect of a new game from the studio. I'm just tired of waiting, but I don't think I'll have to wait much longer. Good things come to those who wait.

While a lot of news outlets are covering the bits from Baker's panel about Intergalactic, they are missing an interesting tidbit about The Last of Us that very well may tie into one of those very early projects or, at least, the possible direction for one of them. The question that sparked all this news was fun speculation about if the studio made story DLC for Part II, what story would Baker like to see expanded upon. Here's what he had to say:

"...what would we do for the DLC for part two? I mean, everyone talks about a prequel as it were, like what happened between Tommy and Joel.

That's something that I thought about. I wrote music about it. It's something that Jeffrey Pierce and I talk a lot about. Who knows, man? Here is what I can tell you. I have learned to trust Neil and Naughty Dog. There is no one that cares more about that story, those characters, and that world than Neil Druckmann. Period."

The interesting bit to me is that Baker wrote music for this Tommy and Joel rift. Wrote music for and by himself? Or wrote music in a semi-official exploratory way? Seeing Tommy's story in particular expanded would be nice, given the potential in a prequel sense and in a Part II sense. More Jeffrey Pierce please.

Lastly, Naughty Dog shared brand new concept art for Intergalactic. You can see the full resolution art on their site, but here's a compressed, smaller version for myself and posterity.

Sign me up, man. Sign. Me. Up.

👋🏻

It's time to call it. I'm calling it. Memory Card is done, or in the interest of sticking with the theme, the memory card is "full." No more data to save and I won't wipe old "saves." It is time to put a close on this chapter and move along. Despite being the obvious and right thing to do, my heart is heavy.

When I fell out of the rhythm of making video essays, I fell out of the rhythm of writing this newsletter. While not uploading to YouTube is easy, not writing this newsletter was proving much more difficult. What began as an effort to shine a light on the creative process became a dark cloud that loomed over me. The drops of guilt that poured down on my mind, while unfounded and unnecessary, still soaked me to the creative bone. No matter what project's shelter I hid under, the cold of neglecting this letter bit.

I don't enjoy feeling like this. At all.

I share too soon. I think when I share, a part of my ADHD-addled brain says "Cool! That's done! No need to do more. Let's find something else" and the self-loathing creative in me goes "Yeah. Finishing that is pointless anyway. No one cares." It's easier for my brain to roll with the perceived excitement ADHD provides while being complicit with the ho-hum artist. This sharing so soon releases the dopamine of "publishing" without actually publishing. I was self-sabotaging with each letter. I need to be free of this little storm I brewed for myself and go back to just blogging to the anonymous masses.

For a couple of months, I have feared that this idea of shutting down the project was admitting defeat, letting myself and others down. It would be another badge of creative shame. It hasn't been healthy. I wonder if I am giving into that doubtful part of my self, confirming their bias, and feeding the gremlin. Is this the example I ought to set?

After chewing on it all this time (which I find is how long it really takes me to process anything meaningful) I think it is. There is value in knowing when to quit, pivot, restart, shake-up, try again, etc. etc.—but more importantly, there is untold value in identifying a burden, confessing and confronting that burden, and being free of it. What was always intended to help others and myself had become a detriment to my process. In this final letter I am identifying, confessing, and confronting it. After I hit send, I will be free of it.

I want to close out with an excerpt from Kevin on his site Overkill in his A day is short, a life is long birthday post, only slightly censored by me (I am sure you can fill in the blank):

I am also increasingly okay with abandoning things.

If somebody depends on me finishing something, that obviously changes things. But if I start a project because I am curious, spend three months on it, learn everything I wanted to learn, and then stop caring before I reach whatever arbitrary finish line I invented at the beginning...

Okay? What exactly would finishing achieve? I got what I wanted out of it. Kthxbye.

Maybe that's the kind of change I need. My interests shift. I follow them. The rest can stay pretty f— stable...

...I don't need to write today. I don't need to go to the gym today. I can spend an entire Saturday playing Pokémon and drinking coffee and eating pains au chocolat (I love pains au chocolat) and call it a successful Saturday because I enjoyed Saturday.

It only becomes an issue when "not today" becomes "not this year."

If I haven't written anything in six months even though I still claim writing is important to me, maybe something changed. Maybe I don't care about writing anymore. Fine.

Or maybe something else ate all the time that used to belong to it.

Abandoning Memory Card is not a failure. Perhaps it is actually a triumph. I came. I saw. I learned. I wrote. I created. Now I am doing it in a different way. This was the ebb and now I go flow.

As for the methodology, I'll be deleting the entire Buttondown archive and email list. There's like eight of you (three or four of you are my family, three are dear friends so its not information I don't already have, but nevertheless, I shall wipe the info). I'll do that at the end of the week and let this email percolate a bit.

This does not mean that the newsletter is being wiped from existence. Far from it, the entire catalog will live on Max Frequency like it has from day one. You know I am not one to delete old articles.

Thank you for taking the time to go on this journey with me, whoever is reading this. The clouds are breaking up and the sun is starting to poke through. I am still blogging. I am still writing essays. Perhaps one day I'll re-read all these and find new insights. It's been a fun run. I almost made it to 100 letters! On to the next thing! You know where to find me.

Until next time...

Court orders Reddit moderator who widely pirated Switch games to pay Nintendo $4.5 million in damages by Chris Scullion

Last year Nintendo filed a document with the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, asking for a default judgement on James Williams, known online as Archbox, after he failed to respond to a lawsuit filed in 2024.

As reported by TorrentFreak, the court has now granted Nintendo‘s motion in full, awarding Nintendo the full $4.5 million.

I wonder if Nintendo will give us consumers another customer appreciation sale thanks to this money.

Bungie feels like it is coming out of an intervention, except instead of being prompted by loving friends and family, the studio was cornered by accountants and angry gamer bros. Last week, Bungie posted a blog post and video about the "next chapter for Bungie." Turns out it's not just Marathon that is getting a new roadmap. Poria Torkan, Bungie Studio Head, addresses lost trust and the consequences of weak focus:

"For more than 30 years, Bungie has built these amazing worlds and communities have formed around them. Over the last few years, we lost sight of that. The consequences have been real. We lost trust. We lost incredible colleagues. And our ambitions as a studio stalled. We chased vision without enough focus on what players loved and that's on us...

...We're not asking for your trust. We know we have to earn it. And to do that, we need our games to deliver in ways that exceed your expectations of what you've come to love about the games that we make."

I've poured a fair share of my life into Bungie games. I care deeply about the studio and its games. While I was not and am not as hardcore as my friends in college or the folks I have met playing Marathon this year, even I could sense the drift of the studio from its player base. So much so that I called it out in the opening of my review of Marathon.

"Over the years, I have grown cold toward both Destiny 2 and Bungie as they failed to draw me back, forgot its own lore, and were rumored to have swung the axe on The Last of Us Online. I felt like the studio had lost its touch chasing the stars with Guardians. I fell away. Friends fell away. I became even a smidge snarky. Not unlike a certain Dickensian miser soured on Christmas, when Bungie's name came up, I would grumble."

This sort of response was necessary and I am glad Bungie came out and said what they said. The reaction to Destiny not being dead and all the vaulted D2 content coming back is a good sign of their first announcement. Now we all have to wait and see if their actions line up.

As for my darling Marathon, the scope of the game is growing quite a bit, it seems. The team went into more detail yesterday about their vision and plans, but I think these observations from the team in a little behind-the-scenes video Future of Marathon Part 1 (Behind the Scenes) | Marathon Developer Insights frame the following decisions. Kevin Yanes, a Senior Design Lead, talked about how the team was too close to the project:

"Launch didn't go the way we wanted it to. We all built a game that we believed would resonate. But I think when you're so close to something, it's hard to see the bigger picture objectively. And so we made a game that was overly difficult, I think, for a lot of folks. And, that constant loop of failure, I don't think, spoke to as many people as we hoped it would. While death is the first step, for many players, death was the only step."

And the Creative Director, Julia Nardin, points out the need for evolving the game to encapsulate all of Bungie's DNA. I found this analogy to reflect the game's narrative of evolving Runner shells in a spot-on way.

"...there's kind of components of the Bungie DNA, and that this game has a lot of them, but there are strands missing, and it's our job over the next year to kind of weave those strands back in to create a holistic player experience, that people recognize as being truly Bungie."

The empty desks behind Nardin and the game's director, Del Chafe III, do not inspire confidence.

I thought it was truly Bungie at launch, but I do understand. In pursuit of this evolution, Bungie wants to go beyond pure extraction shooter and turn the game into an offering of survival experience.

"PvEvP will remain an important part of Marathon, but it will become one point in a connected set of survival experiences.

We’re building toward:

• Connected PvE, PvP, and PvEvP experiences
• Different levels of intensity and commitment
• Options for solo players and crews
• More approachable ways to enter and learn the game
• Experiences built around cooperation, competition, and high-risk survival"

That whole list sounds like a very good time for Marathon. Again, actions speak louder. We have to wait and see.

The game's developer Twitter account gave a deeper dive into specifics. Here are the ones that caught my eye. The first is a change I have been begging for since the beginning.

"Cryo Archive will run every week starting Thursday October 15th and we're extending its availability window by 24 hours each week! Now Cryo Archive will be available all day Sunday as well because what better way to end a weekend than with an epic Cryo run?"

Thank goodness. I have not been able to play as much as I was in the beginning. Whenever I'd find time to play on Sunday, Cryo would already be gone. I never understood why you wouldn't want your sickest map and experience available all weekend long.

"We want to rethink how Runners interact with their Cradle and give you more agency over each shell’s progression, capabilities, and its specialized role in your arsenal."

To me, this sounds like Runner-specific upgrade trees, which will give players more to level up and grind. I think the Cradle is too generic, and offering specific trees and perks for each shell makes way more sense. It rewards you for playing and mastering a specific role.

"Symbiosis will also introduce an experimental Team Deathmatch mode. This experience offers a more direct, lower-commitment way to sharpen your skills and compete without putting a full run at risk. We’ll be watching how players engage with the experiment and using what we learn to help shape the future of competitive play in Marathon."

I am curious what this will look like from a loot perspective. I assume you don't lose any gear? There's a bit of refined pressure when you know more than your K/D ratio is on the line. Speaking of which, more detailed stats would be nice. I would really like a Team Deathmatch mode though. I can always get better at team play, map movement, and encounter strategy.

They also published a detailed calendar of the entire reset schedule until the Symbiosis expansion. That's pretty thorough communication. No confusion here.

I am excited for these changes and plans. Marathon is a game that hasn't left my brain since I started playing it—even when I haven't had the time or opportunity to play. I am eager to jump back in soon and explore the direction Bungie and the community are taking the game. Bungie closed out their next chapter blog with the following paragraphs, which felt like an appropriate closer here.

"We’ve made several changes with how we operate by simplifying our priorities, reducing competing initiatives, moving decisions closer to the teams building our games, and changing how we measure success to place greater emphasis on player satisfaction.

None of those changes earn trust on their own. What matters is whether they help us make better decisions, deliver stronger experiences more consistently, and communicate with greater clarity when plans change. 

There is still a great deal of work ahead and challenges to overcome, but we believe deeply in this studio, our people, and the games we are building. But belief is not enough. It’s on us to prove progress through what we deliver. Thank you for continuing to challenge us, and for caring so deeply about the worlds we create. Keep holding us accountable. We are ready to do the work."

Bungie has been shaped by its community since its earliest days. Seems like they are ready to let the community back in a more respected role. Let's see if they can deliver.