Epic Games unveils Launcher V2 in re-attempt to topple Steam, says redesigned storefront is up to 6.5x faster — promises player profiles, user reviews, universal controller support, and much more

Epic Games has just shown off a new year-long roadmap for its launcher, promising to bring community-requested features and a faster overall platform in the next 12 months.
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MSI’s new Claw 8 EX AI+ handheld with an Intel Arc G3 Extreme and 32GB of RAM costs $1,799 — company says it’ll be ‘a tough year’ with chances of ‘another price hike’

MSI’s new Arc G3 Extreme-based handheld costs nearly $2,000 but the company is rather apologetic about it, even if it’s warning that the price may rise in the future.
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Cancelled Xbox 360 version of GoldenEye 007 gets recompiled for PC — ‘No emulator, the game runs as a real native executable,’ insists dev

GoldenEye Recomp v1.0 has been released, providing ‘a native PC port of GoldenEye 007 built by statically recompiling the original game into C++’ with no emulation involved.
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Hardcore SpongeBob speedrunners smudged Xbox optical disks with sweat and grease to exploit ‘lag clip’ trick — filthy smeared disks cut gameplay times in ultimate pursuit of speed

A grease smear-induced optical disc reading quirk can save speedrunners lots of time in SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom on Xbox.
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Xbox will pay five times more for memory and storage in 2027 than it did two years ago — CEO Asha Sharma admits there’s an unsustainable hardware gap that ‘cannot continue’

The next-gen Xbox Helix is looking in trouble due to surging memory and storage costs that are forcing even a giant like Microsoft to bend down.
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Valve to discontinue physical Steam gift cards by the end of 2026 due to scammers — says nefarious actors continue to exploit them despite years of restrictions

Physical Steam gift cards will no longer be restocked at retail stores, though digital gifting options and existing cards will remain supported.
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Overenthusiastic GTA 6 fan claims to be monitoring oxygen levels, acoustic noise from the bushes at Rockstar North HQ — promises trailer 3 launch is imminent based on heightened activity

Either a dedicated jokester or a deranged fan has been posting advanced surveillance on Reddit in an attempt to predict the next GTA 6 trailer.
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Developer gets Half-Life running at 30 FPS on a Nokia N95 — proves 2007 phones can just about match 1998 PCs

Argentine developer Dante Leoncini has gotten the original Half-Life running at 30 FPS on a Nokia N95, the Symbian slider phone that launched in 2007.
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Retro gaming enthusiast attempts loading games to Sega Genesis from a vinyl record player, recording game data as sound — Mega EverDrive Pro and Pi Pico 2 board not enough to overcome limitations of the turntable

A quirky tech enthusiast attempted to load Sega Genesis console games through a vinyl record player.

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Valve says Steam Machine and Steam Frame ‘shipping this summer’ — company confirms release window as it expands Verified program

Valve Steam Machine summer release is now set in stone — company launch window and expands Verified program

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