Sean Hollister

It’s the “tock” in Nvidia’s new “tick-tock” product roadmap.

Qualcomm’s new handheld gaming chips are here.

Is it dangerous? What happens next?

On March 18th, Nvidia will release a two-hour demo for Half-Life 2 owners, showing what its RTX 50 cards can do: full ray tracing, subsurface scattering for translucent skin, volumetric light through fog and smoke, physically-based materials, and Nvidia’s new neural shaders — which are also coming to DirectX for other developers in April. Half-Life 2 RTX Remix isn’t for weak rigs. Even an RTX 5090 / Ryzen 9800X3D system might get under 30fps at 4K before applying DLSS 4. With it, Nvidia suggests an RTX 5070 might be enough for a 1440p tour. [Image: In this demo, you do go to Ravenholm — and Nova Prospekt, too. https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/FoxitPDFReader_Nnng9TrFhz.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]

The New York Times reported in 2023 that Keita Takahashi gets no royalties from his quirky roll-up-the-world’s-objects-into-a-blob game series — which wouldn’t terribly surprise me. Royalties aren’t common in an industry that doesn’t treat workers well in general. But I imagine he’s getting something from cute licensed products with his name on them, right? Right? The desk mat is $28, and I just bought one for my wife. (We bonded over Katamari in our dating years; Don’t tell her, it’s a surprise!) [Image: “By Keita Takahashi,” says the website. https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/product_katamari_delicacy_deskmat_main_93d62f70-aa06-44c0-abab-7d2c6dca277a-2.webp?quality=90&strip=all]

A key piece of FSR 4 is coming to PS5.

[Image: The Portege Z40L-N offers a “self-replaceable battery.” https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/03/portege-dynabook-removable-battery.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] This is the new Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N, and it’s not quite what I’m asking for — while it does unusually have its own dedicated compartment, this 56Wh battery is more user-serviceable than swappable. Some other laptops offer that too. But what if you could carry a second battery with you, charge it outside of the laptop (maybe integrated USB-C), then toollessly swap at a moment’s notice? Or are external batteries just better for that now?

The battery — among other things.

Does that mean Amiibo support?

AMD tells The Verge more MSRP cards are coming.