Ars Technica Gaming

1. Lawsuit: Nintendo is getting tariff refunds—its customers should get them instead

   Lawsuit demands Nintendo pass Trump tariff refunds on to its customers.

2. Microsoft removes Call of Duty from Game Pass, lowers subscription pricing

   New Xbox CEO says subscription "has become too expensive for too many players."

3. Framework Laptop 16 upgrades make it look less like an unfinished prototype

   A lower-end Ryzen AI 340 CPU option will also bring the price down, for now.

4. Meta's AI spending spree is helping make its Quest headsets more expensive

   Prices for "critical components" are surging because of massive data center investments.

5. The Ukraine war's deep impact on Metro 2039’s development, story

   Upcoming sequel wants to capture a "uniquely Ukrainian perspective" on the post-apocalypse.

6. Retro Rewind re-creates the glorious drudgery of working a '90s video store

   What the nostalgic throwback lacks in complexity it makes up for in repetitive charm.

7. What leaked "SteamGPT" files could mean for the PC gaming platform's use of AI

   AI tools could help moderators sift through mountains of suspicious incidents

8. Steam client files point to "framerate estimator" feature in the works

   JSON text strings suggest performance charts based on "framerates of other Steam users."

9. Valve brings native Steam Link app to Apple's Vision Pro

   New app can replace third-party options that were jankier to use.

10. Nvidia rolls out its fix for PC gaming's "compiling shaders" wait times

    Microsoft, Intel are also working on their own solutions for the issue.

11. Playing Wolfenstein 3D with one hand in 2026

    Over three decades later, this historical curiosity has more than a few rough edges

12. Sony is raising PlayStation 5 prices again, this time by between $100 and $150

    Memory, storage shortages have made all kinds of consumer tech more expensive.

13. AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition crams 208MB of cache into a single chip

    Both of the chip's CPU dies will include 64MB of extra cache stacked beneath.

14. Nintendo's physical Switch 2 games will soon cost more than digital copies

    The first physical game affected will cost $10 more than a digital copy.

15. Nvidia CEO tries to explain why DLSS 5 isn’t just “AI slop”

    If game makers don’t like it, “they could decide not to use it, you know?"

16. Major SteamOS update adds support for Steam Machine, even more third-party hardware

    Both AMD- and Intel-based hardware is getting better support in SteamOS 3.8.

17. Counter-Strike 2’s new reload system could upend the entire game

    Full-magazine reloads throw out muscle memory in favor of "higher stakes" decisions.

18. Gamers react with overwhelming disgust to DLSS 5's generative AI glow-ups

    Nvidia's next frame-gen tech goes way beyond upscaling, and not in a good way.

19. Switch 2's new "Handheld Mode Boost" can run original Switch games at 1080p

    Switch games running at 720p can look worse on the Switch 2's 1080p display.

20. New "vibe coded" AI translation tool splits the video game preservation community

    Creator apologizes after using Patreon funds for Gemini-powered magazine scan processor.