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The PC is one of the most popular gaming platforms in the world, and one that’s constantly changing. Here at The Verge we cover every aspect, including the latest hardware developments from companies like Nvidia and Logitech, massively popular games like Fortnite and Overwatch, and hugely influential digital platforms like Steam and itch.io.
Back in 2015, somebody wrote a program to make the original Steam Controller “sing” Doom’s theme song and other music. Catch up to 2026, and people are already making music with the new Steam Controller. Here’s “Still Alive” from Portal, and I love this rendition of the Super Mario Bros. 2 theme.
Discord has announced some big improvements available now in its Linux client. Phoronix notes that they include official support for more distros, support for hardware-accelerated video encoding, improved screen capture, better power efficiency on Steam Deck, support for Discord’s official auto-updater, and more.
Hopefully, this will mean smoother screen capture on my Fedora PC and better Discord performance overall for the record number of gamers using Linux.
The $219.99 Scuf Omega offers four rear paddles, two unique side buttons, trigger stops, five “G-Key” macro buttons, plus numerous other settings configurable through the Scuf mobile app. You can also swap its magnetic face plate, and remove all of the face buttons, if need be. Its TMR joysticks also set it apart from Sony’s $200 DualSense Edge, though it lacks adaptive triggers and haptics.
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With the files, people can more easily make accessories for the hardware. “Feel free to use these to make your own Puck holders, Controller sweaters, or whatever else you want to create!” Valve says on the GitLab page with the files.
Can’t wait to see what folks come up with. (And if you’re doing something cool, let me know!)
The Arctis Nova Omni succeeds its best-in-class Arctis Nova Wireless from 2022. It’s more of the same (good!), but with wireless hi-res audio support (24-bit/96kHz) like the $599 Elite from last year, plus Xbox support built into every model. I’m testing it now against the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro II, which also offers wireless hi-res audio and swappable batteries for $50 less. Stay tuned.
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According to Valve:
Steam Controller ran out faster than we anticipated, and we hate that not everyone who wanted one was able to get it. We’re working on getting more in stock and will have an update on expected timeline soon.
The Controller went on sale on Monday, but before long, it was going in and out of stock. For the moment, it seems like it’s totally sold out.
Brockman said that focusing on the game was his idea, in a project worked on by several people, later explaining that DeepMind was working on something similar with a different game but “had nothing” yet, contributing to their decision not to open-source the technology.
The most notable part of the project, however, is how its development led to understanding that increasing the scale of their compute could rapidly advance the AI capabilities. “…the first Dota bot Jakub Pachocki trained was on 16 CPU cores … every week they had 2x the CPU cores, and the AI got 2x better. There was no limit. We kept increasing the scale, thinking this would peter out, but it never did,” said Brockman.
We’ve asked Valve if it can share more details about the overall stock situation — as I write this, Valve’s website says the controller is out of stock.
In an interview in April, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge that, “We have significant quantity built up and production capacity,” but noted that “Whether what we consider ‘significant’ lines up with the world at large and how many people might want this controller, I guess we’ll find out. But, we think we’re ready.”
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Valve’s $99 Steam Controller is up for purchase exclusively at Steam. We’ve spent a bunch of time with it recently, so check out our review if you’re still on the fence. Also, read our deep dive on how the new model compares to competitors, and catch up on the replies to the AMA we held last week for Verge subscribers.
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Good: Running PC copies of two specific games (Wukong, Crimson Desert) performance can meet or barely beat native PS5! Control at 1080p50-60 with checkerboard RT reflections instead of 1440p30!
Bad: Only Phat consoles with ancient firmware qualify; only 1080p; glitches and stutters; memory management issues seemingly caused severe issues in some games. Read more.
Even though Valve says the Steam Controller is built for “anything running Steam,” out of curiosity, I paired my Steam Controller review unit to my iPhone 16 Pro this afternoon. Most native iOS games I tried didn’t recognize the controller. When they did, there were problems, like not being able to move my Fortnite character at all.
I’ve pinged Valve and Apple to see if this situation might change. As expected, the controller worked with games streamed over the Steam Link app, though!
Update: Noted that the controller is designed for devices running Steam.
Among the evidence released publicly, there’s this email exchange (Exhibit No. 844) between Valve cofounder Gabe Newell and Elon Musk about, of all things, trying to get a SpaceX tour and OpenAI introduction for Hideo Kojima.
Musk also wrote that he’d lost confidence in OpenAI competing with “Google/Deepmind” and decided to attempt that through Tesla instead, while pumping up Neuralink’s progress. Newell has since launched his own BCI company, Starfish.
During Roblox’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday, CEO David Baszucki commented on the photorealistic upsampling tech he’d shared a demo of earlier this week:
“...I do want to highlight, we’re right on the edge, really, in the whole AI space of running real-time photoreal video models in 2K at 60 hertz. ...This will not be free. This will use cloud compute. We will have some kind of way of subscribing or paying for this.”
It’s part of a big update Valve released for Steam. The update also includes gamepad improvements like a “low battery level toast” and a battery indicator in the header while you’re using wireless controllers. The Steam Deck got a big update with many of these improvements, too.
[Steam News]
The video game piracy community is claiming Denuvo’s anti-piracy software can now be cracked or bypassed on every title that uses it, as TechSpot and XDA report. Denuvo and 2K Games are reportedly pushing back already with a “14-day mandatory online check” for popular games like NBA 2K25 and 2K26.
Nvidia is launching a 12GB version of its RTX 5070 laptop GPU, to go along with the existing 8GB configuration. Nvidia’s blog post explains how this will actually help supply during the RAM shortage:
In order to maximize memory availability, we are releasing the GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop GPU 12GB configuration with 24Gb G7 memory. This gives our partners access to an additional pool of memory to complement the 16Gb G7 supply that currently ships with most GeForce GPUs. The 12GB configuration will exist alongside the current 8GB configuration, and allows our partners to bring a broader range of GeForce RTX 5070 laptops to consumers.
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The $5,500 dual-screen Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo is ‘who is this for’ incarnate. But it slaps.
If you have any burning questions about Valve’s new gamepad after reading our reviews, Cameron Faulkner and I will be responding in the comments of this article starting at 3PM ET.
There’s still no word on when it will be out, though. And with Valve still working on getting the Steam Controller out the door next week and shipping the Steam Frame and Steam Machine sometime this year, we could be waiting a while for a Steam Deck 2.
Every controller should have this, right? With most pads, you’d be lucky to even vibrate them at a distance — but TIL that official Nintendo Switch 2 pads do this too.
It’s not perfect, but I’m buying one anyway.
The original Atlas is 5mm thick, but the $129.99 Atlas Pro slims that down to just 1.9mm with a 1.1 mm sheet of tempered glass atop a 0.8 mm anti-slip base. The surface of the mat features a micro-etched texture, ensuring it’s compatible with optical sensors, while the edges of the glass have been CNC-milled to create a comfortable rounded finish.
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Valve originally promised an early 2026 launch for its Steam Controller, and it now looks like a price and release date could be imminent. A Steam Controller unboxing video has been spotted in SteamDB, which usually only happens when an announcement is about to happen.
In December, we explained how Valve architected a push for Windows games on Arm — the Steam Frame is just the tip of the iceberg. Now, Valve’s released a public beta of Steam for Arm+Linux (download link) — and one person’s already got it running on a rooted Switch! Can’t play games yet, though.
Remember the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless that launched in 2022? It has swappable batteries, ANC, a wireless hub for transmitting audio from multiple sources, simultaneous 2.4GHz and Bluetooth audio — the works. So does the new Stealth Pro II that’s up for preorder now. Notably, it also supports Hi-Res Audio over wireless, an impressive feat at $349.99.
