The Googlebook is available for pre-order today. I gave the product page a look out of curiosity spawned from the hand-wavy announcement at Google I/O earlier this year. Seems like the final product is just as meaningless as the announcement was.

There are three key points Google decided to focus on:

• Hardware: Crafted for performance
• Intelligence: Designed for Gemini Intelligence
• Better together: Synced effortlessly with your Android phone.

It all strikes me as taking a Chromebook then taking every possible shortcut to make a MacBook equivalent for Android. But that comparison feels like an insult to the MacBook when you scroll down the page.

"Ready from day one with a full suite of premium Gemini services and 5 TB of cloud storage."

Off the bat, this statement tells me there are no customizable SSD options and that to even use the Googlebook requires a subscription—just what I want for my laptop. A quick perusal of all five starting laptops confirms that the only options potential customers have are the manufacturer, screen size, chip, and price.¹ All pre-orders have only a 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. The screen sizes range from 13.4 inches to 15.3 inches. Two laptops come with an Intel chip and the other three have Snapdragon X Elite (say with hardcore enthusiasm) chips.

They all have the "Glowbar," which seems to be a requirement from on high in Mountain View. While it doesn't light up when you get a phone call, it does act as an "indicator of your battery life and charging status." I doubt it will be as elegant as the breathing LED status indicator found on Mac computers in the aughts.

The hardware section also touts a dedicated search key, fingerprint scanners, the ability to use whatever crappy webcam is installed to authenticate your face, and premium materials in the construction of the laptop.

Moving on to the "Intelligence" section, the showcase the most unique feature of the Googlebook's OS, a magic pointer that you wiggle to summon AI to select stuff on your screen to search for or prompt AI to mash together. The example of creating a poster for a kid's band is as tacky as you think it is. There are also examples of reminders, cleaning up dictation, etc. etc. The problem is all of this functionality most assuredly requires the internet and is not being handled locally. Footnote number seven on the Googlebook page says "Internet connection required. Works on compatible apps and surfaces. Results may vary depending on visual matches. Sequences shortened and simulated." Now, I can't actually find footnote seven's anchor point on the page. I found all the other numbers and based off where six and eight are, seven is squarely referring to the AI functionality. If I am going to need the web regardless, what makes the Googlebook "designed for intelligence?" If an internet connection is all that's required for intelligent design, my printer must be pretty intelligent.

Then there is the ecosystem pitch. You can mirror apps from your Android phone to the Googlebook, just like a Mac and an iPhone. I remember when Windows did this with Amazon apps in 2021. Turns out that was discontinued in March 2025. So much for a masterstroke. If you are all in on Android, I'm sure this will be a nice feature, but I don't think the Android app scene is really going to bolster your laptop experience. Of course, Google showcases all the Google apps, which work in any web browser. All the creativity apps are ones with better desktop apps or web experiences, same for productivity and streaming. Speaking of streaming, that's the gaming message. You can play mobile games or stream PC titles with Nvidia's GeForce NOW. If only Google had their own game streaming service...

As for what's powering these Googlebooks, it is Aluminium OS—now Googlebook OS—which they proudly announced at I/O as being built by prompting Gemini 3.5 Flash inside Google Anitgravity. I understand AI is prolific in software development these days, but if I wanted an agentic Linux-based OS, I think DHH has me covered.

Besides all that, I think the lineup is just ugly. No stickers in sight, but they all have the word "Googlebook" etched near the keyboard. Those glowbars are not in the same spot on each machine. I think it is the inherent inconsistency of having five manufacturers handling the image of the "Googlebook" brand. There's no opinion to the design except the poor copycat approach these brands have implemented over the last two decades. And if that is Google's approach, then their opinion is a flaccid one.

The price range for all these is $899–$1,299, which Apple matches with the MacBook Neo to the Air. If I am going to spend that much on a computer, I want one that can function as its own self-contained computing experience, not one that is nothing more than the physical manifestation of an Electron wrapper. The Googlebook looks like a computer only the Android and Google services diehard would even consider. I think that audience would just end up with a Windows machine first. Granted, not a much better option, but a familiar one.

Seang Chau, the Vice President and General Manager of Android, said on Twitter that they "took the best of ChromeOS and Android to create a brand-new category of laptop with Gemini intelligence at the core." Nothing I see on their website convinces me that this is a new category or that the Gemini experience is anything more than a tacked on webhook with some form of a UI slapped onto a tasteless laptop.

Hideo Kojima spoke with IGN in his first interview after dropping support for PHYSINT.

"So in June, SIE said they wanted to have a Zoom call. I was so busy at that time — I had just gone to New York for a Prada event and then to LA right after. But anyway, I came back and we had this Zoom call.

They said they can no longer fund development for Physint. I was shocked and I said, 'What did you say?' I couldn’t quite process what they had said. I wasn’t sure because I was in shock....

...So I was surprised. But not just surprised. We didn’t understand the reason. I didn't have any anger or sadness; my first thought was, 'What am I going to do with my studio?' Because we signed contracts for projects. Of course I had OD, but I only have two projects in my studio: OD and Physint. And I hire according to how many projects we have, and we have two. If we lose one contract, I thought I might have to cut all the people working on Physint, right? Or our studio could end up collapsing because we’ll run out of cashflow."

Not even the legendary Hideo Kojima is adverse to fears of his studio shutting down. It reminds me a whole lot of the "psychodyssey" that Double Fine went on and continues to play out. No studio is safe, even when you make AAA blockbusters like Death Stranding.

But this realization also makes me dislike the term "indie" when speaking about studios like this. "Indie" came to mean small, independent games, made by small teams back in the twenty-teens. When I hear "indie game," I think of Journey, Death's Door, and Outer Wilds—small teams and small games. Kojima Productions may be an independent studio, but my brain won't let me consider their work as "indie." It'd be like saying Taylor Swift is "indie" because she produces and owns her music all on her own now.

"But the number one priority is my staff. We have about 200 people, and I expanded because we had Physint. They are talented, of course. And some of them came to my studio from big corporations. I warned them it might not be a good idea to do so… But anyways, I needed to protect these important staff."

This reminded me of a quote from this article I was reading last week from Edge by Alex Spencer "The game industry is broken – can we fix it?" about Japanese developers and how they have avoided mass layoff stories like Western developers have suffered during the decade, emphasis my own:

"When it comes to the layoffs situation, Amir Satvat says, 'Japan is a completely different ballgame.' He acknowledges that the country isn’t entirely 'a utopia': there are still layoffs, and they are generally focused on contractors based outside the country, 'to protect core staff in Japan', but these have generally numbered in the hundreds rather than thousands. 'Everyone calls out Nintendo, but you can look at Konami or Capcom – these companies all have staff retention of 97 per cent plus' So, what can the west learn? 'My understanding is that, generally, Japanese teams tend to be much smaller and leaner,' Satvat says. 'They didn’t get swept up in the live-service trend, or into these mega-blockbusters with 500-person teams.' And perhaps most important of all? 'The executive salaries. They still make great money, but it’s two or three million dollars, not 30 million.'

Kojima's instincts to protect his staff are commendable and , I'd suspect, appreciated deeply by his staff. Instead of reacting with his knees, Kojima responded first by doing what he does best—writing:

"True story: after the meeting, the first thing I did was, I came back to my desk, and I started to write and add a little bit more to the concept for Physint. What had just happened was a big thing, a big incident. And so I decided to just keep it between the three of us (Hideo Kojima, Shinji Hirano and Aki Saito) for now, and we didn’t tell the staff, because we needed to figure out a direction before telling anyone."

IGN did ask about the game engine, which is something I wondered as well. Sounds like the game is still so early in production, that any sort of pivot away from Decima was not consequential. Clearly, all the posters are promoting Unreal Engine 5 and Metahuman, which is what the OD team at Koji Pro is using.

The studio also made an outright statement in response to Jason Schreier's reporting a Bloomberg. It's rare to see a Japanese studio directly address this sort of reporting, which makes me think Schreier spoke to folks on the miffed side of this decision.

Normally, we would not comment on unsubstantiated speculation on the internet, but these aspersions around our relationship with PlayStation, the commercial performance of the Death Stranding franchise, and the broader production planning and investment for Physint, have reached beyond the studio and have touched our fans, our creative partners, and colleagues we have worked alongside with for three decades.​

None of the claims written came from any official or on-the-record source and as such we encourage you to take them with a dose of scepticism.​

Make no mistake, this was a serious situation for the studio with a range of potentially significant implications. While we recognise that the article may have caused alarm, we want to reassure you all, for the record: that the studio is in a healthy, profitable state, development for Physint continues to move forward with Xbox, and our relationship with PlayStation remains strong.​

Thank you for your continued support,​

Kojima Productions​

Author Robin Sloan published a pretty swell blog that articulates my experience with AI over the last year.

"This is an update to my post about apps as home-cooked meals, which has found a large audience over the years. That post, published in February 2020, discussed personal software, designed and built in different ways, for different reasons, than industrial apps.

What’s changed between 2020 and today? Oh, just the entire process and practice of computer programming. Here, right up front, I decree: building a personal app with the help of AI agents still totally counts as “home cooking”. You’re no longer grinding the flour by hand; fine. This is a cool development. You do still have to make the meal taste good, and this still requires care and effort. Fine...

...I got home, and I told it, and I cooked dinner, and by the time I went to bed, I had my new notes app, native macOS. I began using it immediately, and over the next couple of weeks I refined it, explaining my preferences to the AI agent. The app has taken pole position on my dock, and I use it every day."

It is powerful to have a software need and to wish it into existence. This is exactly how my experience went with redesigning this here blog this year.

"I propose a new and ongoing habit, asking this question: Is the computer working the way I think it ought to work? No? Okay, I’ll ask the AI agent to help me change it."

This is exactly the fuel behind my creation of DDDS and this OBS replacement I have been working on. The software available was not working for me, was bloated, and just crummy to use. It got in the way of me wanting to create something. AI has allowed me to make the change I want to see on my computer.

"Making these apps, I felt my programming muscles wither in realtime, the timelapse of the rotting apple. The idea of writing code by hand now feels … not impossible, but just SO excruciating. That feeling honestly frightens me, and I intend to keep it firewalled into this domain."

This is a feeling I don't have since my programming muscles were built by little baby five pound HTML weights. While not frightened, I am in turmoil. There are so many differing and passionate opinions about AI and its role in waves hands everything. Being a Certified People Pleaser™, I live in a personal cell of my own design. I think being cognizant of the struggle and wrestling with it is a sign that I haven't given my entire brain over to the machine and dopamine thrill of magic software appearing in my Dock.

Rules for personal software produced with the help of AI agents:

1. You must actually and consistently use anything you build for two months before posting about it.

2. Ideally, never post about it. (I know I am breaking this rule, but my purpose is pedagogical, and anyway, I’ve got more apps I didn’t tell you about.)

3. Don’t let the AI agent name the app. You pick the name.

4. Don’t distribute the app, not even for free. Don’t post the code on GitHub. This is not software for glory; it is software for you.'

I have broken three of these rules—naming things is hard, but that's all mine. The Certified People Pleaser™ feels awful about this. Have I broken a proper form of conduct I was not even aware of or thoughtful enough to consider? I have never thought of the software I have conjured to be for glory though. I am not foolish enough to pursue misbegotten glory. DDDS the piece of my Venn diagram that didn't overlap with the rest of the software world. This OBS replacement—I told you naming was hard—is similar in that my intended goal of selling it is not for fame, but just to help put some extra bread on the table in the ever fluctuating business landscape dubbed self-employment.

Robin's piece is a good encourager to try these things out for yourself. The power to make tailored software is a game changer and I think Robin captures that feeling well.

Tell me that John Gruber read my piece on iPhone Duo popularity on MKBHD's channel without telling me that John Gruber read my piece.

"I still think interest in Apple’s September iPhone events is higher than ever, and interest in the iPhone Duo is perhaps unprecedented, but there’s no point trying to measure this objectively via YouTube view counts with this change."

Last week the official trailer for the next Avatar series debuted and I was surprised to be filled with confidence.

Now, I am not some Korra hater. I actually quite like the show, the character, and sympathize with the creative team's struggles as Nickelodeon bungled the entire show. I even wrote about the show for my history of animation class at UCF in November 2015. While I have found the Pages document, I have decided to spare you all from publishing it.

Seven Havens is leaning into the Korra hate by making her the destroyer of the world? Kinda cool and on the nose in a cheeky manner. I like the idea of Earthbender twins and one being the Avatar. I like the global hunt for the Avatar, although it sort of is an amplified version of the Fire Nation hunting down the Avatar.

I was reading an interview on Polygon and picked up some tidbits I hadn't heard before. For example, this show takes place 225 years after The Legend of Korra. So, did Korra live for 218 or however many years? Did she freeze herself in the South Pole? What were the consequences of merging the spirit and non-spirit realms? Why is it post-apocalyptic? It seems this natural bubbling up of questions was intentional. Here is series co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino:

"Early on, we also decided we wanted this to be more of a mystery show than the last two series, so that a viewer would enter the story with a lot of questions: How did the world get so bad? Why does everyone hate the Avatar? How did Pavi lose her leg? We want the audience to always hunger to know more."

There was a sentence just before that quote that I wanted to isolate, emphasis my own:

"The choice to make her such an underdog gave us a lot of potential drama that could sustain a series."

If you had to list one overarching issue for The Legend of Korra it was a through line that was able to sustain the series. Book Two: Spirits was a problematic season in the sense of following up and building the future seasons. Friend of the blog Razbuten made a video re-writing Book Two specifically. We don't need to get into the semantics of production, but Korra had a turbulent production, to say the least. My hope with Seven Havens, inspired by this quote, was that Avatar Studios has been given the space to design a show with longevity in mind.¹

There were other cool tidbits, like a focus on the "Havens" being cities that provide an Outer Haven from the harsh elements. It gives me a very Ba Sing Se vibe. I never noticed Pavi was missing a leg. I am curious why the twins were separated. I like hover skateboards. The world appears to have been reverted back to a more Last Airbender style world without cars, trains, and giant mechs. I always thought Korra's 70 year jump was too much tech in too little time. I do wonder how Cabbage Corp is doing though...

Color me excited for this new series. I'll be seated October 9th.

Alex Co at MP1ST:

"According to our sources familiar with the project, Media Molecule’s next game is set to be unveiled and released in 2027. As to what kind of game it is, it’s a social-simulation-type of game, one that’s inspired by titles such as Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon. We were also told it’s not a GaaS (games-as-a-service) title, though we wouldn’t be shocked if it had GaaS elements in it."

This sounds like a return to form in a handful of ways. First, we get a smaller scale than creating an entire user-facing game engine and platform for players to create entire video games. This gives shades of Little Big Planet with user created levels and the social aspect those games created.

Another is the vibe of Sony chasing Nintendo's dominance of a genre. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale anyone? I liked that game, so this isn't a knock at trying to enter the social sim space. I think this kind of game could serve the first-party well, especially with a dedicated handheld on the horizon. I think Media Molecule would fit right into this genre. Now, if the game doesn't sell and Sony doesn't put muscle behind it, I would fear for MM's survival.

Big chunks of salt to go with this report from "Maxim Boldson" at gamegpu.com, but I believe the broad strokes.

"Sony's next-generation portable gaming console, codenamed Project Canis and leaked as the PSP 3 Handheld, is slated for release in late 2027 and will feature full hardware support for PSSR 3.0 intelligent scaling and frame generation technology. The device is being designed specifically to support current PlayStation 5 desktop platform projects. The hardware platform for the new console is a custom 3-nm AMD Canis processor, combining six Zen 6 processor cores (four Zen 6c cores and two power-efficient Zen 6 LP cores), 24 GB of unified LPDDR5X RAM with a 192-bit bus, and a tightly limited thermal design power (TDP) ranging from 15 W to 25 W."

A lot of these hardware specs leaked last year from Tom at Moore's Law is Dead. Twenty-four gigabytes of RAM in 2027 sound preposterously expensive today—woof! What's new (to me at least) is the angle of PSSR 3 and targeting an internal resolution of 540p and then scaling up to 1080p with frame generation to boot. We just got PSSR 2.0 earlier this year and the results were spectacular. I am somewhat surprised that a version 3 would be ready by the end of next year.

The performance target makes sense though. Colin Moriarty and I just spoke about this and the PS5 eco mode push on The Max Frequency Podcast. Sony is Preparing the Way™ for portable and docked gaming once again.

It sounds like this hybrid console is the "standard" PlayStation 6 with a dedicated home console being the "Pro." An interesting split that sort of combines Nintendo's Switch consoles and Xbox's bifurcated Series line. Given the speculated cost, I don't think I'll go to the PS6 at launch. It's too much, especially after what I paid for the PS5 Pro. Granted, I seem to have gotten that console at a steal now. Sounds like the Pro is selling out with Grand Theft Auto VI on the horizon.

My favorite annual review of the iPhone camera is back. I mean, just look at these!

My takeaway wasn't the adjustable aperture or focus tracking, but the third generation of Photographic Styles. More and more digital photography is leaning into principles in film photography. Apple's inclusion of film texture and grain controls puts those kinds of tools right into the photographic pipeline, which I think will be great. I've found myself using !Camera a lot in the last year and think Apple is capturing some of that spirit in the native camera experience.

I also was pleased to see manual focus with a pleasant and easy UI. That's one bit about !Camera and other pro camera apps I don't care for. Their solutions try to mirror a physical camera too much and block the viewport. Apple's solution may be a "pro control" but the experience is dead simple, just what you'd expect from Apple.

Go give Austin's review a full read. It's as delightful as ever.

Yesterday was the four-year anniversary of my iPhone Xs Max Exit Review. I gave it a read this morning since I may be on the verge of writing a new iPhone exit review (👀) and one of my footnotes caught my attention.

"Just glancing at MKBHD’s top 20 videos (out of 1,464), seven of them are iPhone specific. They total a cool 84 million views. Also, his most viewed video is about the Game Boy with 39 million views. The second most viewed has 23 million and is about the first Samsung Fold."

I was curious how much the top 20 had changed in four years. Color me surprised that a one-week-old video entered the top three.¹²

I think the iPhone Duo is going to do just fine.

Looking a bit deeper at the top 20, half of the videos are related to Apple with seven being focused on the iPhone. Those seven iPhone videos tally up to 118 million views, which is about a 40 percent increase in four years. Out of those seven iPhone videos, five of them have come out within the last four years. Here they are from lowest to highest view count:

• iPhone 14 Pro Review: This Will Be Copied! - 13 million
• iPhone 17/Pro/Air Impressions: Spot the Red Flags! - 14.1 million
• iPhone 15/15 Pro Impressions: Not Just USB-C! - 14.2 million
• Reviewing EVERY iPhone Ever! - 19 million
• iPhone 18 Pro/Duo Impressions: Mogged - 26 million

The poor iPhone 16 is sitting in 31st place... What this little list tells me though is that the immediate impressions after the event are far more popular than the review a week or so later. The fervor of the September iPhone event is unstoppable. It makes me wonder how popular the assumed spring event for the non-Pro iPhones will be in comparison.

When looking at the rest of the top 20 lineup, two are about the Apple Vision Pro, four are Tesla-focused, and three are foldable-focused. Here are the folding videos, bottom to top:

• The Broken Galaxy Folds: Explained! - 17 million
• Samsung Galaxy Fold Unboxing: Magnets! - 23 million
• iPhone 18 Pro/Duo Impressions: Mogged - 26 million

Besides the Duo, there are no videos about the folds or flips in the top 20 since Samsung's foray into the form factor seven years ago. The two non-Duo videos are an unboxing and an explanation about the plastic screen layer that killed the Galaxy Fold if peeled off.³

Scrolling way down the list, we see where folding phones fall in the top video hierarchy. The next folding phone video is about the iPhone Duo. That's right. A follow-up video on the Duo from four days ago is sitting at slot 36. Just two slots later is a video on the folding phone you all love—Royole FlexPai! After a sketchy Pablo Escobar phone and the Galaxy Fold 1.1, we finally get a non-Chinese, non-Samsung folding phone in slot 119 with the Moto RAZR. Google enters the list at 140.

Apple enters the category and in a week it blows past every other folding video.

Now, this doesn't translate to sales and folding phones taking over the entire smartphone market, but it does highlight a few things to me about tech and the viewers of Marques' channel.

1. Apple is the most popular brand Marques talks about.
2. New products and form factors from Apple are the most popular Apple videos.
3. When the iPhone comes in a new form, watch out.

Views on YouTube are not direct sales though. They are a live pulse on curiosity and popularity. While I do expect the Duo to sell out instantly, I wager that's more early adopters and speculated low production numbers. John Gruber pondered the form factor's mass appeal:

"Given the design brief of creating a book-shaped foldable phone, I feel quite certain already that Apple has nailed it with the Duo. But having only seen the keynote spiel and poked around with one in hand for a few minutes Wednesday afternoon, I think it remains an open question whether a book-shaped foldable phone is a good idea in the first place. Folks from Apple who have actually spent time carrying the Duo seem genuinely enthused. I remain highly skeptical about its appeal for me personally, and somewhat skeptical about its appeal broadly. That’s OK if it’s not suited for me, but is suited for many (but not most) people. No one in the keynote described the iPhone Duo as the future of iPhone, like they did when introducing the iPhone X in 2017. I just wonder if the fundamental idea appeals to all that many people at all. We’ll find out starting in late October."

When we consider that Apple is actually marketing the Duo, the reactions in the media, and then combine those with Marques' views, I think the Duo will be a hit.

But not more popular than the Game Boy.

Last week PlayStation made another bold move and announced they would no longer be funding and collaborating with Kojima Productions on the action espionage game PHYSINT.

"An update from PlayStation Studios: After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS on its project PHYSINT. We continue to have great admiration for Hideo Kojima's vision for the game.

Our relationship remains strong after three decades of industry-leading, genre-defining creative cooperation, and we look forward to continued close collaboration with Hideo Kojima and his award-winning independent studio in the future."

Hideo Kojima would make his own statement too, describing the cancellation as unexpected:

As confirmed earlier through our official channels, in mid-June of this year, we unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the PHYSINT project. PHYSINT is an important project both to me personally and to KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS. Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner. In the course of seeking advice and pursuing negotiations with people across many fields, we found in XBOX a partner with whom we share a common vision for the future, and we have decided to team up with them once again. Please rest assured that development of PHYSINT, our genre-defining action-espionage title, is ongoing and will continue moving forward.

When looking at Sony' behavior this year though, I don't think the break up with PHYSINT and Kojima is all that surprising. PlayStation is acting like it is in a damage control mode. Their plan for an abundance of live service titles as failed. Many studio acquisitions have been the equivalent of lighting piles of money on fire. They are subletting Bungie's office space for goodness sake!

Marvel's Wolverine has shipped to middling acclaim and stern criticism. Fairgame$ (now Break In?) has had gameplay leak and it sure looks like Fortnite and Payday had a baby. Perhaps God of War: Laufey will save us until Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet arrives.

A difference with those and Kojima's Death Stranding titles and PHYSINT is that Kojima's games are not console exclusive. They have or will eventually get ported to PC and Xbox. Sony's not too keen these days on multiplatform releases.

Jason Schreier [wrote](these days) for Bloomberg about the split, citing the exclusivity as an issue, as well as missed milestones and a gargantuan budget. Schreier also made a video about the same topic, if the gift link expires.

"One major factor behind the decision was the commercial performance of Kojima’s previous two games, Death Stranding and its sequel, which didn’t meet PlayStation’s revenue expectations, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing information that’s not public.

But the new project has also missed deadlines and was on track to be well over budget despite being years away from release, the people said."

Procrasination pays off because this morning, Xbox had there Tokyo Game Show presentation and they crammed in a near five minute video from Kojima with the smallest possible update on OD Knock and a form of news for PHYSINT. The lead actor is not Robert Pattinson like I hoped, but Bill Skarsgård.

This rapid pivot to Xbox makes me wonder how far along the tech stack was on Sony's side for PHYSINT. I went back and watched the original announcement and Hulst said this toward the end, which is real funny in hindsight:

"We're all are really excited about this project and we will fully support you with the latest innovation Sony has to offer."

That innovation angle comes off as using more of the Decima engine, which Kojima Productions used for the Death Stranding games. For OD Knock, the studio is using Unreal Engine 5 and their Metahuman technology. On the new poster for PHYSINT, the Xbox and Metahuman logos are quite prominent.

I suspect the game was not all that far along technology wise. It still gives me immense pre-production vibes what with Death Stranding 2 coming out last year and OD Knock somehow still not close to done. An engine switch like this doesn't seem too big a task this early on.

More telling to me from the poster and the Tokyo Game Show video is how movie-eque the PHYSINT material is. Kojima's original pitch for the game with PlayStation happened on the Columbia Pictures lot and was described with a "hope to transcend the barriers between film and video games."

"Of course, it is an interactive game, but it is also a movie at the same time, in terms of look, story, theme, cast, acting, fashion, and sound. With this title, we hope to transcend the barriers between film and video games."

Kojima appears to be going even deeper in his love for film and marrying it with video games.

Derrick Lin proves photography is all about the lighting in these photos of miniature dioramas. Here are some of my favorites from this particular article.

Having miniature dioramas was actually my original hope and vision for the seasonal art of Chapter Select Season 5 - Resident Evil. I love the illusion of toys and small objects being life-sized. I suppose I did do that with Hot Wheels for Season 4 - The Fast and the Furious. In fact, I bought a little diorama canoe for the Fast X episode art.

Colossal has at least one other article filled with Lin's work. I enjoy this very much. And while not Lin, these food diorama images from Pierre Javelle and Akiko Ida are delectable.

"The content originally planned for September will now arrive as part of our Symbiosis update on December 8. Alongside the new Runner shell, permanent PvE experience, and refreshed Perimeter zone, the update will also include a social space/firing range, an experimental TDM mode, and improvements to new player onboarding.

Before then, we’ll release a smaller, focused update on October 6 that resets progression and the in-game economy, refreshes rewards, and improves the live game, while giving the team the time needed to deliver the larger experiences planned for December and March.

We’re also moving away from a strict seasonal schedule. Instead of tying major updates to fixed seasonal deadlines, we’re giving the team more flexibility to build, test, and improve features before they are released."

I haven't been able to play as much Marathon as I would like this season due to familial demands, but from what I have played, this is all music to my ears.

The sigh of relief I suspect most people I have played with for a team deathmatch mode was more of a rushing wind yesterday when the news broke.

Marathon is my favorite new game in quite some time. Shocker, I know. I am glad Sony is giving the team the latitude to adapt, even if a lot of the signs are worrying for Bungie and PlayStation at large.

I mean, with key art like this, there's no way this can be bad, right?

Last week Apple introduced the world to the iPhone Duo and it has taken up an inordinate amount of mushy gray matter in my head since.

I'm a pretty avid follower of the tech space, especially the phone scene despite never diverting from the Apple ecosystem. The folding phone has always struck me as impressive in a futuristic manner—glass that bends!

But I have never been a big iPad user. I did make the poor decision out of high school to use all my money to buy an iPad mini and a MacBook Air instead of putting it all into a MacBook Pro. I had this vision of my textbooks on the iPad, but that never panned out. I got my dad's older iPad Pro when he upgraded, but never got into it. Earlier this year, we bought a plain ol' iPad and that has gotten quite a bit of use as a cooking companion and music player. That's the kind of iPad user I am: The kind that does two things at once.

Seeing a foldable with, you know, good software has shown me the way of the foldable and how it would fit in my life. It'd be propped up while cooking with Mela and the latest MKBHD video playing on the top half. I'd be folded in half while I eat lunch or rotated in portrait to let me read more of a webpage. It's let me not be locked into one app at a time on my phone. I can imagine reading a FAQ off GameFaqs while playing some classic game.¹

Sure, the hardware of foldables has always been impressive, but its nothing without the software. Not unlike a video game console—you gotta have the games to make the console worth it. And while some consoles share the same games, the best are usually exclusive and from the first-party teams that know the hardware inside and out.

Apple is clearly out classing the Android folding scene when it comes to the software experience.

I remember this video Becca Farsace made last summer about trying to replace her MacBook Pro with a Galaxy Z Fold 7. Here's what I had to say then:

"It seems like the issue comes down to software, which makes me wonder, how different this video will be when Apple debuts their folding phone next year.

Or how similar they will be.

Who knows with Apple? Given the changes on iPadOS with window management this year, and the fact iPad does have apps like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and other great third-party power apps (honestly, just a better overall app selection), I feel like this concept will be more feasible with a folding iPhone."

While the Duo is not running iPadOS or touting iPad-class apps like Final Cut Pro or a "docked" desktop-like mode, the software on display strikes as far more pleasant than what Samsung has been working on for the last seven years.² I am eager to get my hands on a Duo, whether in an Apple Store or one of my own. I am trying some financial jujitsu to make the latter happen.

But let's be real, most of that mushy gray matter has just been replaying the open and close animation over and over; followed by the status icons merging into that slick, singular circle.

Ol' Johnny Boy did a recent live show on Sirius XM at Stephen Talkhouse (on Stephen Talkhouse) and, of course, the community already has a rip of it on the Internet Archive. Goodness gracious John can shred.

John and whatever legal apparatus is behind him always seems chill enough with live concerts being recorded and shared online. I wonder how chill Sirius will be with this, but you owe it to yourself to give it a listen.

I cannot wait for his next album. Soon.

As a side note, Continuum turned 20 years old yesterday. Every year, Stop This Train hits me harder and harder.

"One generation's length away from fighting life out on my own."

A few stops down the track and I'll be able to introduce my own kid to his music, which had been beyond definitive in my own life and my relationship with my wife. I don't plan on waiting until 62 to renegotiate.

Craig Mod, in Roden 118, about the infection of "Claude Voice" in the world, writing, and art.

"My best response to the 'horde of agents colonizing our brains' is: Be as weird as possible.

One way to do this: take the Venn diagram of your lived experiences and what’s been talked about in the world. Now focus on the part of your life that doesn’t overlap. Out pops: pizza toast...

And an encouraging reminder that it is not a black and white struggle depicted in sci-fi and social media; which are arguably the same these days.

...And yet!!! Don’t dismiss technology. Don’t dismiss the LLMs; don’t shy away from the tools. This is what makes the writing and thinking of those folks linked above so compelling and rare: They contend with both sides. They love literature and words and the humanity of it all, and yet can engage with the technical side of AI at the highest levels. Art should reflect society, and society is being reconfigured by these tools. The best art of the next decade will contend with this.

Programming seems curiously aberrational. That is: Why don’t I care about the code despite having been a lifelong fair-weather coder? But then I remembered — The Demo Scene. Demos are the literature of code. In the demo scene the code is the point. The 1s and 0s, their order — 1011 vs. 1101 — makes all the difference. The output is secondary to the bytes. I haven’t been keeping track of what’s happened to the demo scene in the last two years, but I imagine it’s complicated. An eight-kilobyte demo optimized to within a microcycle of its life, but done by spending a thousand bucks on Claude tokens, doesn’t hit with the same punch as a little crew of teenage Scandinavians obsessing over byte optimization in their parents’ basements. (That’s my frozen image of the demo scene: ’90s, pale, blond teenagers in basements trying to crank out code before they were siphoned off to compulsory military service.) A great demo, an inspiring demo, is the kind of demo that makes you want to learn assembly. It makes you want to invest in a complex challenge. And in doing so, shows you what the human mind is capable of. Even yours.

As does a great book, a great movie, a great song. Push back in your own work. Don’t dismiss the new tools outright, but remember why we started doing what we do in the first place. The power of art is derived from the shared experience of being alive."

Nintendo finally showed off the Ocarina of Time remake in a Direct wholly dedicated to the series and its 40th anniversary. The graphical style is pushing its thumb on the Twilight Princess end of the scale with rich, detailed textures, evocative lighting, while seeming to maintain the fantastical character designs from 1998. It's a stunner to be sure and in the same vein as Nintendo's other big remake this year—Star Fox.

The reaction to the art direction and seeming lack of divergence beyond those aesthetics is much more down than I expected. Lots of complaints about the art direction, the 1:1 remake commitment, and the return of the Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom horizontal item selection system.¹

There is also quite a bit we don't know about though. The presentation stuck to the basics and generalizations about the remake. We have no clue if, say, the Master Quest is there. What kind of expansions have they done similar to the new bit of Castle Town they showed? We won't know until Nintendo says more or until the game is out in two months.

Jason Schreier made a video explaining the basics of why developers love remakes. I'm always surprised at Schreier's simple and clean approach to explanation, as if his audience doesn't understand how and why games are made—but then I realize that they probably don't understand. As I've spent time over the last couple days thinking about this remake, I think it goes much deeper than fans wanting something "new," not Breath of the Wild-new, but rather "new-new."

As we all ought to know, time is a flat circle, and the Zelda series proves that in more ways than one.

Let's go back to 1998 when Ocarina of Time came out for the Nintendo 64. It was recognized and hailed as an industry defining experience. The series was transformed in its new 3D livery, while its fundamental formula was the same as A Link to the Past. After the success, Nintendo immediately began working on a sequel by combining established assets, developer tools, and a RAM expansion pak. But Nintendo accidentally added an extra ingredient—a dark, oppressive story and time mechanic. Thus, Majora's Mask was born! From there, after a little Space World MacGuffin, Nintendo introduced the world to Wind Waker, which sparked endless debates about "Cel-da." While Wind Waker is a part of the series' upper echelon, Nintendo responded to the outcry in 2004 when it revealed Twilight Princess at E3 and made at least one grown man cry.

Now let's go back to 2017 when Breath of the Wild came out for the Nintendo Wii U.² It was recognized and hailed as an industry defining experience. The series was transformed in its new open-world design, while its fundamental formula was the same as The Legend of Zelda. After the success, Nintendo immediately began working on a sequel by combining established assets, developer tools, and a more powerful console than the Wii U.³ But Nintendo accidentally added an extra ingredient—a freeform construction mechanic from Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts! Thus, Tears of the Kingdom was born! From there, after a cutesy remake of Link's Awakening, Nintendo introduced the world to Echoes of Wisdom, which sparked endless debates about UI design. While Echoes of Wisdom was a fusion of classic dungeons and freeform puzzle solving, Nintendo is now responding to outcries over the last decade with the reveal of the Ocarina of Time remake and probably made at least one grown man cry.

Jokes aside, the flat circle of time wraps around again. Ocarina of Time has been released on the N64, GameCube, Wii and Wii U Virtual Console, 3DS, Nintendo Switch Online, and, now, Switch 2. There has not been a console without it, besides the Nintendo DS. There are even shades of the 3DS' launch year with remakes/remasters of both Star Fox 64 and Ocarina of Time for the handheld.⁴

The timing of this particular remake is laser-targeted on as well. Say you were seven years old when Ocarina came out in 1998. You are now 35 years old, maybe with your own seven-year-old to boot.

Say you were seven years old when Ocarina came out in 2011. You are now 22 years old.

Say you were seven years old when Breath of the Wild came out in 2017. You are now 16 years old.

Besides turning to dust with every sentence there, all of those ages are primed for a bold reimagining of one of the greatest games of all time in our nostalgia-charged consumerist world. There is also the entirely new generation of seven-year-old kids that are going to see The Legend of Zelda movie next spring and have Ocarina of Time be their first Zelda game. Brian Altano wrote about this very factor in June. I know I linked to it then, but it remains relevant.

"Imagine being a 10 year old who walks out of the Zelda movie, heads home, grabs their Nintendo Switch 2, and plays Ocarina of Time for the first time in their lives. It’s hard not to be envious of experiencing a moment like that. Also, consider this: it’s been almost three decades since the original game launched, and it seems pretty likely that a sizable number of people who played it back then now have children of their own. Hmm, if only there was a Zelda game about experiencing how the world changes from the perspective of a child and the perspective of an adult…"

Another complaint that rustled Cucco feathers was the structure of the gameplay demo. It focuses entirely on the opening areas of Kokiri Forest, the Great Deku Tree, Hyrule Field, and Castle Town. It's so simple, especially to anyone who knows those locations like the back of their hand.

But this line of criticism got me thinking about previous Zelda gameplay demos and reveals. I don't remember them being anything more than gameplay basics and early environments. Of course, memory is fickle, so I went back and watched the reveal demos for Twilight Princess at E3 2006 and Skyward Sword at E3 2010. I encourage you all to go watch those segments.

I hate to break it to you, but the demos are ostensive. You've got your basic controls, tiny new mechanics, and core principles explained. Both show off aiming a bow and arrow on the Wii for Reggie's sake! There is one element that is leagues different from the gameplay demonstration for the new remake.⁵

The entire industry has lost surprise, delight, and showmanship ever since Nintendo trailblazed the "direct" approach with manicured presentations. There's a loss of energy, the kind that crackles over the waves as we surf the web—imagine the loss of the energy of being in the room.

Both the E3 demos had failures, hitches, and bugs. Their charm prevailed under pressure and communicated that it was indeed a live demo. In 2026, there is zero chance the remake demo fails. It is framed exactly how Nintendo wants to present its game.

We do get glimpses of that live Nintendo charm. Eiji Aonuma playing a real ocarina to playing an ocarina in the game is the stand out example.

In all this waxing poetic about live presentations, I had an idea. I wanted to see if I could elicit the feeling of an E3 reveal. Could I take you back to a world where the game's leak didn't rob us of some joy and Nintendo revealed it with pizazz? I thought I just might be able to by taking the legendary Twilight Princess reveal and mashing parts of the Ocarina of Time remake trailer in its place.

I may be biased, but I think it hits.

There was a similar time in my life with another video game remake. Last time I wrote about Ocarina of Time, I closed the article out with my memory of witnessing the reveal of the Final Fantasy VII remake:

"Speaking of Final Fantasy VII remake, I remember sitting in a movie theater in that summer of 2015. I had never played Final Fantasy VII. I had no clue what was happening. But I remember the eruption at the reveal and the news that it was a remake. I don't recall leaks or rumors, but perhaps there were. All we got was a CG cutscene in a very Tetsuya Nomura way. There was no gameplay. No date. It didn't come out for another five years. The other parts are still coming out to this day."

Then I get to thinking about other remakes of timeless classics and the reaction to their existence. I don't remember backlash for Shadow of the Colossus or Demon's Souls or Metroid Prime Remastered. I do remember backlash for The Last of Us Part I, but that's the curse of greatness, right? It was before my time, but there doesn't seem to have been backlash to Resident Evil's remake (my beloved ReRe) as a GameCube exclusive! I certainly don't recall negative reactions to Resident Evil 2 or whatever release of Skyrim we are on now.

Friend of the blog, Tomas Franzese, wrote about how there is "no right way to make a remake" in his newsletter Remastered.

"There’s no one “correct” way to handle a remake, because each remake exists somewhere different on a spectrum with a slightly different interpretation of what being a remake means...

...Not every remake is going to be for you as a player, but it is going to be for someone. What matters most to me is that the developers have a clear vision of their wants for a remake, and execute upon that. I might not agree with every choice they make, but the game industry is better off when developers are bold enough to execute a remake exactly how they see fit."

Not everything is for you or me—that includes every entry in one of the most beloved gaming series ever conceived. They can be! Or they can be for the kid who first played the remake on 3DS. Or the kid going to the movie theater with his parents, who played the game series when they were a kids. Or the kid that opens a new Nintendo console on Christmas morning.

We are becoming old enough to realize that the hobby and industry we love is not chock-full of innovation at every release; where every game we touched offered something not just new, but unknown to us. Revolutions are few and far between. We are older and wiser, perhaps jaded—but wisdom is a gift that we can no longer trade for youth. Much like Link himself at the end of Ocarina of Time—there is no going back, not really. We may only march forward, but we have a choice in our posture. I miss the reveals, the pomp and circumstance of it all. I miss being surprised and delighted. I don't miss Ocarina of Time—I miss the way it made me feel. I think this remake is going to stir up those feelings and more this fall. For that, I am all aboard.

Bring on murderous, hangry Samus Aran baby. I love the timeline we are in to get a new 2D Metroid game in four months. Here's the pitch from the official site:

It’s eat or be eaten!

Take control of Samus Aran, a renowned bounty hunter ambushed by unknown attackers and marooned on an unfamiliar moon.

Gather your arsenal, navigate a maze of corridors, hunt down powerful bosses, and use your newly awakened Metroid instincts to devour your foes.

You’ll need to strike quickly and aggressively with beams, missiles, and more—lest you become the enemy’s next meal.

And are you kidding me with this Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon-esque key art?!? Come on!

And the key art isn't the only sick art. These are just a handful of screenshots I decided to download. I love the western/samurai flare these enemies that are hunting Samus have going on.

Ravenous is vibrant, techno, and slick as all get out. I am here for all of it—talking Samus included. Hey, I liked Metroid: Other M.

Thomas Mahler of Moon Studios—the creators of the Ori games—has made a new review aggregate site called Video Games Critic. The whole pitch is to reflect the current state of a game instead of the launch state. Here's Thomas in the announcement tweet:

"The other big problem: Those sites rate a game once, at launch, and then never really touch it again. But that's not how games work anymore. A game can launch rough and get patched shortly after, but on Metacritic and OpenCritic it carries that scarlet letter forever."

This makes a lot of sense from the guy who said his studio was in danger when their early access title was "review bombed."

There is quite the page explaining how the aggregation works, but the gist seems to press the scales in favor of current Steam reviews, while critics, creators, and other aggregators take a smaller slice of the the total. Outlets are also rated and weighed by their alignment to those Steam reviews.

I think this approach makes a ton of sense given the current score-focused market and the malleable nature of games post-launch. Games like No Man's Sky or the PC port of The Last of Us Part I are much improved or, in the case of No Man's Sky, are wildly different than their launch vision. Therefore the scores today are wildly different than they would have been at launch. But, who is reading a ten-year-old review of No Man's Sky before purchasing it today? I'd argue no one is.

Video Games Critic is a site really trying to "math" the current apparatus of criticism and opinion. When the system is built upon and thrives off scores, then a website amalgamation like this is the natural byproduct. This is the shining example of why I don't score reviews and haven't since my days at DualShockers. The score is just a glanceable race to the bottom of criticism. Why is someone with a user name like "BingoBongoBosh" and "Fruitpunch22" have more weight than a John Linneman or a Ralph Panebianco (Skill Up)? They don't.

It'd be like going to the Amazon reviews section for the new iPhone and using them instead of reading John Gruber's review or watching Austin Mann's iPhone camera review. You'd be putting a whole lot of faith in that public review system. They can offer a pulse, but I'd argue they lack thought out criticism.

Scores are the problem and Video Games Critic exemplifies that. One of the explainers for score calculation captures it perfectly.

"Reviewers have never used the full 0 to 100 range: a "7/10" is press-speak for mediocre, and even weak games get a 6."

I don't think you can math your way out of this one.

It is funny how opinionated the design is for a site set out to minimize written opinion. You need opinionated design for something like this and I applaud the design. It's clean and ad-free and the explanations are transparent in their technicality.

If scores are your thing and you aren't just jumping straight to those Steam reviews, I think this is the site you want to use.

Me, a year ago:

I've dabbled with vibe coding for some projects on this here blog. The other week I tried to make a little Mac app for work to help with converting files into markdown. It too did not go well...

...The LLM's are so confident in their accuracy, yet so wrong that it creates this maddening loop of sharing errors that make no sense to the vibe coder and an over confident stack of GPUs somewhere proclaiming their accuracy. It is a vicious cycle that isn't what the AI elite would have you believe.

What a difference a year makes; in both the functionality and my opinion.

I see more and more people building tiny apps tailored for their needs and workflows. Websites, dashboards, menu bar apps, etc. etc. are all within reach to make a person's life better in some way.

That conversion process is a breeze now for work. I've made DDDS, a 3DS capture tool designed for the Mac, which never was going to exist without access to tools like this. It's what is allowing me to make an OBS replacement for myself. AI and vibe coding has turned into an empowering toolset.

I so often see strong opinions about the use of AI as the times dictate. Just today Time Extension ran a story about Star Fox modders parting ways over a conflicting stance of using AI to write the code versus assisting. When I pop on Bluesky I see such dissent for AI in any aspect of the video game industry. It matches what John Gruber wrote last month in Bluesky is Full of Anti-AI Zealots:

The reaction on Bluesky to my recent work is like nothing else. It’s largely in the vein that watermarking can’t possibly make AI-generated text worse because it’s already random gibberish, and that the only explanation for my being opposed to this is that I must be using AI to produce my own writing and I’m upset that my scheme will soon be detectable. Read the replies to this one; they speak for themselves.

But then I talk to my developer friends, tech podcasters, and the like and AI is now instrumental in their bug chasing and development. The reactions and audiences are so split and divisive that I often feel quite torn.

One comment on DDDS had a user suggesting I take the time to learn and rewrite the app with non AI generated code. There is just not a world where I can do that. The most coding experience I took in school was HTML and CSS. I don't have the time or expertise to learn math and computer science with my life. But AI has given me the capability of directing development. It has brought to life a tool that has made my life and others better in a small way.

It is an emotional conversation that is wrought with tension. I find myself wrestling with it quite bit having one foot in the gaming community and another in the tech space at large. When I saw this article pop-up in the Previously On section, I didn't anticipate a reflective piece beyond the whole "look how far vibe coding has come" angle. Today, I am (obviously) on board. I suppose we shall see how far it all changes in a year.

Join us next week for two Nintendo Direct presentations!

• The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct on Sept 8 at 7am PT (Approx 30 mins)
• Nintendo Direct on Sept 9 at 7am PT (Approx 45 mins)

Sony gives us two mediocre State of Plays yesterday.

Nintendo said hold my Lon Lon Milk.