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Hi everyone, apologies for the lateness of the Call For Question post, but here we go. It's going to be a big one, I guess, as Microsoft's reorganisation of its Game(s) Pass offering is our lead discussion point in the next show. I'm sure you have lots of opinions about that, of course, but let's try to have some non-GP questions too!

Other topics? Hopefully we'll have some time to look at two Steam Deck native ports - Baldur's Gate 3 and Cronos - and we'll also be discussing the new PS5 Slim, as "torn down" by Austin Evans. More topics, you say? How about John's experiences in Japan and his takeaways from the Tokyo Game Show?

We may also comment on the GPD Win 5 review from The Phawx, though I should say that my own review unit turned up today! Oh, and finally, AA batteries for the Dual Sense. Yes or no? That news item may well end up in the Direct too.

In the meantime, many thanks - as ever - for your prospective inputs into the next Direct!

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Comments

Lexxington87

Alex recently posted on bluesky about his gaming tastes which we never hear about! Love to have a section on what he’s playing now and any gems to recommend

The Portugeezer

So, Microsoft being Microsoft again, £22.99 for Game Pass Ultimate and day-one games shoved behind it. Is this still the ‘Netflix of games,’ or just the priciest rental library since Blockbuster? Classic scummy corpo move, right? At this point, is the pitch collapsing into a bait-and-switch where you’d be better off just buying the handful of games you’ll actually play? Much love!

Thumbs

Hi DF Gang.  I was wondering if you had any plans to release the overall results from the recent survey you conducted. I'd be interested to see how my answers lined up with the rest of the viewers. If it is going to be quote unquote dropped, will it be in the year of our lord 2025?

Kris Graney

I'm sure I'm not there only one, but I will be cancelling my GP Ultimate subscription when it's up for renewal in January. I also cancelled my Disney+ this week as well.

Question Generated By JensenGPT

Everyone knows the famous photo of John's 2006 PC setup, which has become famous across the internet even to people who have never heard of DigitalFoundry. John - Can you talk about that setup and tell some stories about games you played on it, or projects you completed? Does anyone else in the DF crew have old photos of their retro PC setups?

Kirkland Spector

What’s up DF :) First time asker, long time fan (since pre VO on Youtube)! With the new Xbox Ally, I’m imagining what my htpc gaming machine will run in the next few years. Ideally I’d hope Steam OS but will Nvidia ever support Linux to make that dream come true? It saddens, but doesn’t surprise me, to hear DF’s description of the “Xbox Windows” on the Ally feels bolted on and not legit - classic MS. After decades of Windows being filth compared to the Mac experience, I lack faith in Microsoft sticking the landing on making a true console OS for htpcs. If you had to wager a guess, do you see Steam OS becoming a viable option vs “Xbox Windows” for htpc pc consoles? I love my 4090, but am dying using windows on the tv. Let us pray the almighty messiah Jenson brings us to the rapture with Linux/SteamOS support. Much love from San Francisco!

Eric Benoit

Hello everyone, do think the Game Pass price increase was an eventuality? Or is it a case of we're charging this much because we can. I'm on the fence because if I bought a physical copy of every game I wanted to play on GP, I would be spending a little less but that's subjective to my own taste.

Dark3stWhite

Good day gents, Why is color banding such a problem in games? It’s especially noticeable with gradients such as sky and clouds. This was the first thing I noticed in Hollowknight Silksong which was thankfully “resolved” with a renodx mod. I have an LG C4 OLED which supports 12 bit color and it seems that the more you spend on a display, the worse the color banding looks. I see this issue in many games, Cyberpunk, Alan Wake 2 and Borderlands 4 but don’t see much discussion about it. Is this something you guys have come across as well? Cheers!

Taggen86

Who do devs even use dlss type 2 on s2 when they can just run type 1 at a lower res (given the huge loss in image quality)?

Taggen86

How exactly does skipping AA on moving object on switch 2 reduce the cost of dlss so greatly? By skipping motion vectors?

Natiq İsmayılzadə

Hi. How do you feel about console gaming still being available in only a handful of countries? Ghost of Yotei was released yesterday, and the official page tweet said “available worldwide.” PlayStation services are officially only available in 73 countries. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example. Do you remember that they removed the game from Steam in these countries due to PSN connectivity issues? Currently, the only official way for the rest of the world to play SONY and some Microsoft games is through Steam, Epic, and other PC stores. And if the games don't have a PC version, you can't play them officially. Why don't these big companies care less about the rest of the world?

Swe downhill

Hey guys! Turns out that the newly released Super Mario Glaxy 1+2 requires a day one update to enable the Switch 2 enhanced features.. For game preservation purposes I think it sucks. So I was wondering: Do you think we will ever see a solution where updates can be applied to the cartridge itself? Maybe Nintendo is scared of exposing more vulnerabilities that can be used for piracy exploits, but as a consumer I think it would be great to always have the most polished and up to date version of the game stored on the cartridge, thus eliminating the need for internet access apart from when the update is applied. Congrats on going independent by the way, and keep up the great work. You're amazing! 😊

ConcreteLlama

Hello esteemed Gentleman of the Foundry, I hope you have your top hats and pipes at the ready! People have been wondering how long it would take for the fluffy green rug to be pulled, and with these massive price increases in Game Pass I think it's finally happened. Do you think Microsoft is actively trying to kill off the Xbox brand? They've made a lot of unpopular decisions recently that only us internet folk care about, but now it's slapping people right in the wallet. A murder is afoot and I think it's Microsoft in the library with the blunt instrument of layoffs and price hikes.

Orcacle

Hi there folks, longtime listener first time caller. Before the RTX 50 series launched, I did extensive research on whether my PCIe 3.0 motherboard would bottleneck my 5070ti and the results were pretty conclusive: "it hardly matters", "it's only a 3% drop in performance who cares". However, the reality has been quite different. Every single UE5 title I've played since getting my card has been severely bottlenecked when using Nanite (Fortnite, Clair Obscur Expedition 33, and Silent Hill F for example). I know my board is getting old, but if the videos and articles told me not to bother then why not save the extra money, right? I'm curious on how you all think this could be better portrayed and if you think it'll only become more important to match your GPU's PCIe generation going forward prevent more from falling into this pitfall!

Mehzeb Chowdhury

Hi DF Crew, I recently watched the trailer for the Deus Ex (2000) remaster, and honestly, it left me (and many others) feeling quite disappointed. As a long-time fan of the original game, I'm starting to feel increasingly concerned about Aspyr's approach to this remaster. Given the game's historical significance, I'm curious to hear John's perspective. What are your general thoughts on the trailer? Do you have any suggestions on areas you think Aspyr could focus on to improve the remaster and potentially salvage it before its February release? Thanks, as always for the great work.

Series Xistential Crisis

Whats up distinguished gentlemen from accross the pond (and Oliver)! We’ve gone through another season of game shows, expos, exhibits, etc. and after all of this I’m wondering, is VR dead? Do you think there is a future for VR, and if so, will that be with just iterative improvements or does the medium need some major new technology to bring it to the next level? Thanks and keep doing what you’re doing.

itinerary

bonjour. how feasible would an x86 chip similar to the steam deck be in a smaller form factor? switch 1 size? ps vita? gameboy micro??? it could even be less powerful, at lot of the indie games in my steam library dont need much to run. merci!

Will Cooling

I'm i alone in thinking we just don't get an Xbox console in any meaningful sense? Maybe a couple of vanity collaborations with PC manufacturers to push the new XBOX UI but nothing more than that. Never seen someone burn a business down this fast as Microsoft

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Dear Foundrymen, why do you think AMD hasn’t commented the recent FSR4 „leak”? Do you think it might be a part of their deal with SONY, where PSSR2 needs to be released first? Cheers!

Peter

Good day DF Gents, I hope life has been treating you all well. I thought Johns tech analysis for Ghost Of Yotei was excellent, and it was a nice surprise to see RT in the game. Given that RT is in the existing console code, could this potentially make it easier to implement advanced RT features on the inevitable PC version? More RT passes in the GI, RT shadows, maybe even RT reflections?

Shadowreaper

Greetings, Foundrymen! I was quite surprised this week when I saw that EA is being bought by a consortium of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners for $55 Billion. I don't quite know what to make of this, as these company names don't ring any bells for me and EA didn't seem to be in any financial trouble that might make something like this necessary. Could this impact the future of some of EA's IP like dead space, mass effect or battlefield? Could this impact the wider gaming landscape in some way? I have seen very little talk about this so I would love to hear your opinions on this :3

Jordan + Cinewhirl

Quite often when showcasing retro PC games, you like to play them on age appropriate hardware. Do you think you'll be doing that in 20 years, or with everything going fully digital, just have to play the latest remastered reworked RTX Overdrive remix community patched editions?

SomeRyan

Waddup DF crew, exclamation point. My question is about in game cut scenes. Given that streaming and film media is presented mostly at 24fps, and given that most games usually strive for 60fps +, why are a lot of cinematics in PC games presented at 30fps? If the scenes are rendered in real time, I would have thought they'd be less immersion breaking if they held a similar FPS to the in game experience? Hopefully you can un-confuse me on this one. Stay awesome 😎.

TheMightyEthan

Hey DF! This may be outside of your wheelhouse, but talk of Alex's video on Switch 2 DLSS got me thinking: hypothetically, at some indeterminate date in the future when Switch 2 emulation is being worked on, are PCs with Nvidia GPUs going to have an advantage over other vendors by potentially being able to use real hardware acceleration rather than having to emulate that feature? Or could emulators even potentially swap in a better version of DLSS, like is currently possible with PC games? Or am I dumb and that's not how anything works? Cheers!

kreskowaty

Greetings! I know it's a busy season but... did Alex ever get a chance to check out FBC Firebreak? The game seems to be a bit of a flop but maybe the recent update could be an excuse to take a look at it through the lens of "not an Unreal engine 5 title"? Personally I can't seem to make that game look smooth no matter the settings and no matter how high a framerate I get. Maybe there's an idea here for a non-UE5 games of 2025 video once the busy season ends? Cheers!

regawdless

Hello Gents! I want to hear your predictions: will we see ray tracing in a first party Nintendo game before the Switch 3D launches? Cheers

Mike M

Hi guys, Will future hardware fix #StutterStruggle ? As an older gamer, due to the infinite struggles of work and family, I don't get much time to game so I'm currently stuck in the past!.... The dog and I curated a list of games we wanted to play through and sorted by release date. We're currently in 2017. I believe around this time was the onset of stutter struggle? Is near future high end hardware likely to alleviate this problem? By the time we get around to playing some of the more problematic games there will be at least a couple of new CPU generations and an Rtx 6090. And by the time we reach current date (2025) it will probably be at least 2030 on everyone else's calendar.

HimmelFlugzeug

Splendid day to you, gentlemen! DF being independent sounds like a good opportunity to step back into the Retro plan. Are there any new plans for future retro (or retro future) content? And a question for all of you: What are sequels that were once rumoured but never came to be, that you'd love to import from a parallel universe? I'll say the recently cancelled Perfect Dark for sure, but I'll gladly also take Shogo 2 from an alternate reality.

Massimo Mongiardo

when are you guys gonna do a weather effects vid like you did for water rendering? curious to know your favs and least favs! love your show!

Pol Kallamata

Could Microsoft's move to drastically increase the price of its day-and-date Game Pass offerings be driven by a desire to wind-down the service after realizing that the big bet they'd made on it would not pan out? While the company insisted that the model was profitable, its profitability hinged on an accounting of the service that never lined up the revenue that it brought in against the development costs of the first party content. Ultimately this painted a misleading picture of the money that was being bled through the loss of "a la carte" sales. We can infer that Game Pass never reached the critical mass needed for the subscription model to subsume the traditional game sales model through a couple of data points. The first being leaked internal communications during the FTC trial where Phil Spencer was discussing how the service was targeting 100 million users by 2030, and how a failure to make sufficient progress towards that goal by 2027 might lead to Xbox exiting the industry entirely. The second data point being that we can estimate that the service likely peaked / plateaued around 35 million subscribers, and that given the flatlining of Series hardware sales it may be in attrition as new current gen and PC subscribers fail to make up for the steady inevitable loss of last gen customers. All of this is to say, if the original gambit failed, would the most prudent course of action simply be to jack the price up high enough to kick most people off the service and push them back towards paying for the individual content they want again? Then if you're left with a sub-set of users that still subscribe to the day-and-date tier they are doing so at an annualized cost that's more inline with the content they are extracting from the service.

Sherif

Greetings Digitalus Foundarious, What do you think of the new Daft Punk Experience in Fortnite? I do not enjoy the game at all, but having a visual album experience sucked me in. I'm curious how they pulled off the lighting and reflections because it was truly immersive. I played through on my Switch 2 and RTX 4080, both were shockingly great! It would be a very cool to compare on a few platforms with Ray Tracing and other quality differences.

Ghu Ribun

Not a question but a suggestion. Please include the articles and videos discussed in the news in the commentary. You already have timestamps in it, so you could put the links between the sections. I follow lightly the game news and you're the main source I got them, so I like reading and watching what you're talking about before watching the DF. Thanks!

Marcus

Hello foundrymen! Alex just released his incredible video about DLSS on the switch 2, which made me somewhat curious about DLSS from incredibly low internal resolutions and maybe more generally upscaling from low internal resolutions using these high-quality upscaling solutions like DLSS or FSR 4 which is perhaps most relevant on handheld gaming devices. With a number of Z1 and Z2 extreme devices coming out or already out what tips can we take from the switch 2 in how to optimise games for these devices? Should we use post process sharpening to make the overall perceived image quality better? Do you think there is space for a “light weight FSR 4” model or would that just be FSR 3.1? Thank you for your time.

CABBAC

Hello Digital Foundry human beings and fellow aliens. How many tears were shed by Rich and John after seeing the disaster that is the Panzer Dragoon Zwei Remake and how one of the most beautiful games of all time has been insulted. https://youtu.be/8qVgF6WYIOg?si=3QrjPFYaqh7IbP70

zurce

With the GPD win 5 and the upcoming OneXFly Apex both using external batteries and being extremely heavy (win 5 is almost a kilo) how do you envision Strix Halo fitting within valve vision , specially since low wattage usage doesn’t seem too far from performance of Z1E devices Would we have a 1080p30 handheld for steam deck 2 just with better docking capabilities?

RAVE_DAM0S

Okay gentlemen of the Foundry Digital, This one is simple. Can you explain INT-4 and INT-8? What's the relationship to TOPS? Are there other INTs coming down the pike? And why do these new jargons matter to gamers? Silly me. Let's put all that aside and just chat about the INT'portant stuff first. How many TOPS can be found in the DF Merch store!? Top of the morning to ya!

Aaron Udy

Hi Deefers. I've heard you mention asynchronous shader compilation a few times recently, probably in reference to Boredlands 37. Can you explain what it is and how it differs to the preferred method. What is the possible advantage in it that made the Randy Army™ go with it?

Mr Bespoke

Hi DF Crew!! Apart from the Tokyo Game Show has John managed to grab any new swag from the land of the rising sun? Has John been testing any more equipment at Hard Off and has John been able to find someone with a car to get out the countryside for some bargains? Also any random PC ports you may of snagged like the Red Baron 2 that was passed on the last time John was there or any more stuff to make Alex chuckle? Thanks and keep up the Awesome work!!

Damian Teodorowicz

Hello! With Xbox market share continuously shrinking Microsoft has to look into expanding Game Pass into other platforms eventually. I know MS has been trying to convince us that everything from my fridge to a granite block is an Xbox but realistically you’ll find most gamers on Sony platform. I doubt Sony or Nintendo would budge on 30% licensing fee and this 50% GP price hike pretty much covers it. The only other rational explanation is that they need money for more severance packages. What are your predictions on GP expanding to PlayStation or Switch? Is it in any way plausible that expansion to other platforms is happening anytime soon?

Butler404

Hello DF! We've seen a lot of "AI" used for things like upscaling or frame gen, but I can't think of a single game where these new AI features are used for CPU opponents! Do you have any insight as to why that might be? I know it's possible, as someone has made an AI using called Phillip that you can play Smash Bros. Melee against, and it's frequently beaten some of the best players in the world, so why haven't we seen anything similar done by developers themselves?

Someguyperson

Now that Game(s) Pass costs $30/month, what do you think of Xbox $360/year? These prices seem way too high for Microsoft to sell much of anything really. Are they deliberately trying to go out of business? Surely people aren't playing more than 1 Silksong or Hades II a month, right? How does this make any sense?

Sleepless Indefatigable

Can I petition for Alex to cover planetenverteidegungskannonenkommandant when I comes out?

Someguyperson

DLSS has absolutely nothing to do with ARM/x86, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. We now know that the CPU side of the Switch 2 is comparatively anemic compared to the current consoles, and their CPUs are barely midrange now in the PC space. ARM's in-house core architectures aren't really competitive with Apple & Qualcomm's custom architectures, yet Qualcomm & Apple don't have GPUs that can really go up against Nvidia & AMD. Either way you go, you can't get both sides of leading technology without going to AMD.

James

Gentlemen - With xbox gamepass announcing it's price hike, could Microsoft be trying to asert itself as the main multi-platform pass, and be leaving production of xbox consoles behind? Perhaps the recent handheld you covered points to this - Microsoft leaving hardware to 3rd parties etc. In terms of gaming, is it trying to turn itself into what Android is in the mobile world - a relatively common platform? Could this make the traditional xbox a thing of the past? Interested in your thoughts on this, and the implications for gamers of the future.

Someguyperson

The devs are actively making a trade-off between fluidity in a section you're not playing with image quality and lots of pretty effects like a nice depth of field, lots of particles, or tons of alpha effects. The cutscenes sequences could only run at 60 if you lower the visual quality during those sequences (on console at least).

1040STF

Hi folks. The release of the Mario Galaxy games in HD and 4K re-opens in me the debate about what a good remaster is. Don't get me wrong: I'm super happy those games are available on modern plateforms. But the art style of the Mario Galaxy games on a Wii pluggued to a CRT looks like a cartoon with very rounded characters, rounded backgrounds and a big depth of field effect revealing the level design one step after another. Here, everything is sharp, every character and level has edges everywhere, and even objects and levels in the far distance have perfect focus. It doesn't feel like the art style of the Mario Galaxy games Nintendo's team created back then. It feels a bit cheaper now and way less coherent. Shouldn't games from the CRT era always get remakes made for flat screens and HD/4K instead of remasters? Like Silent Hill 2 got for exemple.

SomeRyan

I'm noticing it on pc games tbh. Presumably the devs are setting it that way for consoles as a priority and not adjusting it for pc players with the horsepower. would it be that difficult to adjust this for pc ports?

Aaron

You’re making a different argument, friend. My point is that the Switch 2 seems to impress in spite of its meager raw performance (and in spite of the compromises Alex identified in its DLSS implementation), and I think that awe is coming from the fact that we’re seeing these ambitious games running on a device that uses as little power as an alarm clock — but this kind of performance-per-watt efficiency is actually not that unique among other ARM-based mobile platforms that have enjoyed decades of power optimization. My point is that gamers may be giving the Switch 2 extra credit because we’re not accustomed to that kind of performance-per-watt efficiency

Alan

Hi guys, Surely this Game Pass price rise is as damaging as the Xbox One launch debacle? In their core market, the USA, the cost has gone from 'twenty-something' to 'thirty' (basically), and that 'thirty' has a psychological effect on consumers. The only way I can see what Microsoft/Xbox is trying to do with 'Play Anywhere' succeeding is if they become the new Google Stadia!

AMH

Yesssssssss Rich , I realized you guys aren’t covering Digimon Story Time Stranger. I downloaded the demo on my ps5 pro and was baffled that it’s capped at 30 fps. I double checked with reviews and it indeed is capped at 30 fps. I just wanna know what Bandai Namco is smoking?

AMH

This kind of reminds me of the Kingdom Hearts hd situation. I had a similar feeling playing through them.

speedlemur

Frametime Foremen - why can't game UIs be painted on after frame generation? I assume this currently does not happen hence artifacts/ghosting of UI elements. This is my only major visual gripe with frame generation as it stands.

speedlemur

I looked into this once and it's basically because AI neural networks would be way too good for human players. High performing AI and fun are not equivalent here! It's easier to make an AI that is fun to play against with hand written rules.

CookieButter

What demographics do you think Xbox aims to retain or capture with Gamepass Ultimate's 50% price increase and Fortnite/Ubisoft additions?

speedlemur

I'm also interested in this! It seems the nixxes PC ports do this well in a way that unreal games seem to fail to match and it's unclear to me why.

1040STF

I think it's the same feeling with every remaster of any game from the CRT era. Even the cell-shaded ones suffer from that, they suddenly feel more empty.

Bjornhard

Hello independent gentlemen! I’m curious if you have any thoughts on how well the PS6 will sell, could its launch and reception be similar to the PS5 Pro? For me the PS4, PS4 Pro and PS5 were all day one purchases, so I thought the PS5 Pro would follow this trend, but even with a 4K TV I’m finding myself holding off on the purchase. I’m really curious to see if there will be any pre-launch announcements from Rockstar showing what the PS5 Pro will bring to GTA6. That could be the thing that pushes me to upgrade. This has lead me to question if the PS6 will be an enthusiastic day one purchase or if I, along with others, will instead hold off and wait to decide if the upgrade is worth it. Thank you for the great independent content, hope you’re doing well!

Karvox

Hello DF Crew. Curious about what the panel's thoughts are on the recently released Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles treatment of graphics, and well overall thoughts on the remaster. I reckon with all of the #content hitting us right now there won't be enough time for a full review or indeed DF Retro video but hoping to hear what the gang thinks of it overall.

tod weitzel

There's a lot of wailing about the price increase on Game Pass Ultimate, but I note that cloud streaming is now included in the Essential $9.99/month plan. It feels like Xbox has added a plan above the existing Ultimate tier and moved everything downmarket. Has Game Pass Essential's value gone up as Ultimate's has gone down?

Succulent Chinese Meal

G'day Gents. AMD's handheld chips desperately need a better upscaler. With the testing Rich is doing on the FSR4 INT8 version, do you see it being viable, or does AMD need an FSR4 Mini, like Switch 2 and DLSS?

(Don’t be a) Richard

What are your thoughts on the new GamePass pricing and the value included in each tier?

Sam H

External batteries for the DualSense? How much is it, and where can I get it? I'm tired of having to switch between controllers whenever one needs a charge while playing the one that's already charged. Having AA batteries for the DualSense is a welcome addition so that I'm not worried in case the internal battery dies forever.

(Don’t be a) Richard

It feels like in 2025, the year of our lord and saviour, that Microsoft has had negative press on a monthly schedule. Be it repeat price rises, studio closure, game cancellations, staff layouts or a general realisation by console owners that Xbox exclusives are no longer a thing. Given we have two months left in the year, what’s on peoples Bingo cards for November and December? Will Microsoft celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Xbox 360 by pushing out a RROD patch to all Series console owners to brick their system. Will we find out that the new Gears is targeting a broader market and will be a G rated game where battles are won by contesting rock-scissors-paper? The next Halo game is announced as a PlayStation exclusive. Maybe Forza Horizon 6 will enforce speed limits when driving on public roads.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half-Fortnight Gentlemen! This week there was a blog post from AMD which confirmed that DGF "Dense Geometry Format" (as previously discussed) will receive hardware acceleration as part of RDNA 5. It seems likely that there will be some kind of fixed function unit for this purpose, although its unclear what at this point. It's all sounding like something that the PS6 would lean heavily on, with its "non-raster" focus, and from what i can tell, could deliver a very die area efficient means of reducing BVH (geometry) memory consumption. How helpful do you think this hardware acceleration will be for the next gen consoles, and how much do you think it could help solve the memory bandwidth problem for the portable?

goregutz

Yeeeeeees, DF gentlemen! Leaks for Intel's new panther lake have emerged and what seemed particularly interesting was it's celestial GPU. Lunar lake was already trading blows with the Z2 series. With an expected 50% performance bump to it's GPU and no Z3 series on the horizon, can panther lake potentially emerge as the handheld sleeper chip for 2026?

CottonBird

40fps modes are typically only made available if a 120Hz display is detected, but shouldn't a 60Hz VRR screen also work? Can't a VRR display be told to update every 25ms? It seems like that could also alleviate the bandwidth issues that HDMI 2.0 systems have at higher framerates.

Justin Valero

Hello again, gents! Given the current Game Pass news and the recent AMD collaboration announcement, it appears to me that the next gen Xbox hardware is set to be a reference design for Game Pass servers (à la Google Stadia). If so, then cost of retail hardware really isn’t about what consumers can afford but what Microsoft deems sufficient for their Cloud Gaming data centers. Thoughts?

Jeison Salazar

Any chance of proper DF analysis for Digimon Story: Time Stranger and Sonic Racing CrossWorlds? :)

Kaveh PG

Hey DF, why do Ray Traced Reflections require a low poly BVH? I was under the impression it was all some type of "per pixel" solution. Does something like Alan Wake 2's Path Tracing allow for more accurate worlds in reflection? I'm so confused.

Chase

PAC-MAN WORLD 2 Re-PAC apparently has poor performance / dips on Quailty 4k 30 FPS mode on Switch 2. My Question: Why do devs not set a lower target resolution to lock in performance in quality modes? Wouldn't a 1800p locked be better than an unstable true 4k?

TheAdam

Hi DF Crew. EA is off the stock market and owned by a group of investors. Microsoft is showing its greed or its desperation to recoup all those AI dollars. A strange console generation... but is there still anything positive that deserves more spotlight? What are you excited about or what are you looking forward to when you think about games, technology, and the industry? And is the mood in the Japanese gaming industry different? Thanks for your independent opinion and work. Greetings, TheAdam

digitalfoundry

Many VRR modes bottom out at 48Hz so this wouldn't work for a lot of people.

digitalfoundry

Steam Deck 2 is a while off and will be using a much more efficient chip. Think of Strix Halo as a laptop/desktop processor first and foremost.

digitalfoundry

We introduced this coverage for the 50-series cards with half-size interfaces but had no idea it would impact the higher end cards with the full-size PCIe slot!

zurce

Isn’t the expectation for this chip generation to last around 3 years ? Are we that far from a steam deck 2?

Lux

Hello, John Sonic Racing Crossworld impressions? I'm loving the game as my first sonic racing

Taggen86

Do you think dlss lite (type 2) will be made available to other systems than switch 2 such as nvidia powered handhelds?

Claw

Good morning DF Gents (any plans to add a lady?), As you have reported for a few years now, the Switch 2 SoC is based on an automotive product by Nvidia that dates back to 2020/21. My question is as follows: What is the current equivalent product? What specs does it have? What difference would it make to performance? How much does it cost? Given how surprisingly performant the Switch 2 has turned out to be, I'm left wondering just how much better it could have been had they based it on 2025 silicon. Having said that, if it would cost considerably more then obviously that would make it a non-starter. Keep up the great work!

Taggen86

Do you think less expensive AA techniques could be implemented in the future to help tiny DLSS with handling moving objects?

Bulbous_Bow

Good morning to you all. I recently popped my frame gen cherry to Black Myth: Wukong via the PS5 Pro’s performance mode. As Oliver concluded in his video, this is not the way to play this game. However, what bothered me most was not the artifacting or input latency, but rather the ‘soap-opera effect’ to my eye reminiscent of the kind of artificial motion smoothing that you get in many TV’s default settings. I understand the extent to which this annoys (or is even noticeable to) people is subjective, so I am wondering how close my one-off frame gen experience is to reality? Is there anyone on the panel who hates Motion Smoothing on TVs as much as I do, but nevertheless enjoys frame-gen in more ideal scenarios than Black Myth on the PS5? I’m hoping being team HDTV Test on the matter of video interpolation doesn’t automatically make me team ‘fake frames’ when it comes to this technology.

(Don’t be a) Richard

Never understood why some people seem really against the Xbox approach where you can use either AA’s or rechargeable batteries, or even just hot swap the rechargeable batteries if you will. So much flexibility, and the controllers have great battery life, but some people online seem deadset that the controllers battery should be an internal rechargeable only that needs dismantling a controller to replace.

CynthiaSizer

Hello DF, just a few notes regarding Mario Galaxy 1&2 for Switch: I’m experiencing some issues on S2 that weren’t really mentioned in your review yesterday. Once the game just crashed, another time Mario got stuck on the edge of a platform. Visually I think the color banding is a much more prominent problem than you mentioned, as you notice it in every tilted or spherical surface… it’s hard to unsee. Isn’t there something they could do about it?

DaJaCo (Dan)

The 40fps balanced mode, is the only (good) way to play that on pro.

Simplex

Hello gents! I hope you will cover upcoming Thief VR game, maybe with Ian?

BespokeEP

Rich, there is no verbiage to suggest Sony is going to use AA batteries in this Dualsense v3. They are simply complying with the new EU regulation that forces them to have an easy access to removing/replacing the lithium battery pack. This is great news for the future handheld. I was hoping that they would do a swappable battery for the PS6 handheld like they had for PSP, and this new regulation ensures this. But AA would require contact points for the batteries which would increase costs and is absolutely horrible for the environment

ShyLink

Did Mark Cerny blunder by setting "quality mode at 60 fps" as the aim for PS5 Pro? Instead of getting separate "Pro Quality" and "Pro Performance" modes, many developers are churning out a single Pro mode that takes the existing performance mode, runs it at a lower internal resolution, and passes it through PSSR. I'm not opposed to this approach conceptually, as machine learning looks to be the future of rendering, but it seems like it wasn't the right approach for THIS hardware. If anything, it highlights a tension with the PS5 Pro: it has updated ray tracing abilities, yet uses an upscaler that simply does not play well with ray tracing. Distinct Pro modes might make this a non-issue, but applying both features in a single mode, well... Do we just wait for Sony to implement their version of FSR 4, or do you think developers will start trying new approaches to Pro enhancements?

Samson

Hello fab workers of the digitized foundry! With the increase in price to Game Pass, I wonder if you share my opinion. Microsoft raised the prices to what I believe is a unreasonable price for console gamers. While I, a PC Chad (kidding) still only have to pay a very reasonable $16.99 for access to all their 1st party titles on day one, discounts. multiplayer, etc. I assume we can all agree that Microsoft has this lower price for PC gamers because they are aware that Steam is the dominant platform, so they have to make a value proposition. Which I believe works because... well, it made me subscribe. My question is, why can't they see Sony/Nintendo in the same vein as they see Steam? Also, what will happen when their next gen console/pc hybrid releases? Will they suddenly allow Xbox users to pay for PC Game Pass on the new hybrid console/PC? Thanks!

BespokeEP

PlayStation and Mark Cerny will never force a dev to do anything.. I can tell you do not own a Pro. Many eh? There is literally less than a handful of games that offer one mode, the overwhelming majority do offer "Pro quality" and "Pro performance". Silly how you anti gamers always focus on the couple bad patches instead of the 150+ amazing ones

Eirik M.Jenssen

Hello gents! I have a question I have been wondering for some time. Why do some games not allow access to ray-reconstruction with regular raytracing (eg. Cp2077), while some games don't (eg. Doom the dark ages). One would think ray-reconstruction would benefit most raytraced games if you have an Nvidia GPU, especially if that game uses several raytraced effects at the same time (dark ages). Cheers!

Adam

Hi Team - I am not sure if you’ll see this and I’ll try posting again for next week, however, have your heard anything about G’AIM’E: Plug & Play TIME CRISIS Gun for Modern TVs (GAIME) by Tassei Denki Co.,Ltd.? I saw it was at TGS and I backed it on Kickstarter a few months ago. Just wondering if it delivers on its promise.

NARadyk

Hi team! I hope you are well and thank you for all your hard work. I just wondered if there will be upcoming coverage for the Rog Xbox Ally alongside the Rog Xbox Ally X? I’m conscious that the Xbox Ally is more widely available and budget friendly than the Xbox Ally X, so it would be really great to see if it’s worth peoples time and money.

Kim

Hello DF team! I've been watching you for at least 10 years, so I finally decided to join the patreon. The whole idea about leakers kind of rubs me the wrong way. In a way, I'm always excited to read about news and rumors but at the same time I don't understand why these leakers do what they do. They are probably under heavy NDAs and are being paid a decent salary by their respective companies. Why would anyone betray their own company and leak information that hundreds of engineers are working on? And these youtube channels who leak information ahead of time take pride in receiving this information and spreading it. I suppose some leaks are done deliberately, but I would also assume many are not. I frankly find it an odd way of making a living: spreading information that hundreds of people are trying so hard to protect. What are your thoughts on this matter? Kind regards - Kim