Vince Zampella, the co-creator of Call of Duty, has died in a car crash aged 55. Zampella was a video game titan, RIP www.theverge.com/news/849297/...

this Honey scandal is another great reminder that you should always be wary of installing browser extensions. They’re a huge privacy risk, especially if they have permission to read all your browsing behavior www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwB3...

8 is my daily and 7 and 9 on the go. How about you?

Microsoft is now selling a Clippy pool floatie in its employee-only company store 😅

LG tells us that it will let users delete the Microsoft Copilot shortcut it installed on newer TVs recently. Reddit users spotted Copilot getting installed on their TVs last week, with no option to uninstall. That’s changing soon www.theverge.com/news/847685/...

Riot Games found a motherboard security flaw that’s been helping PC cheaters. Motherboards from Asrock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI are affected, and you may need a BIOS update to keep playing Valorant www.theverge.com/news/847539/...

Microsoft has added two Fallout-themed Dynamic Backgrounds for Xbox Series S / X owners

why does Philips Hue think it’s ok to add a sales banner ad to the top of the main section of their app? They also randomly do popup ads for new products when you open the app. I absolutely hate this kind of bullshit

Bungie is launching Marathon in March, priced at $40. It’s gonna be interesting to see how improved this extraction shooter is over the alpha version, especially as it’s now going up against the success of Arc Raiders www.theverge.com/news/844780/...

Wolves scored all 3 goals and lost. Very lucky 3 points for us tonight 😳

Microsoft just announced some Xbox management changes. Xbox CFO Tim Stuart is now transitioning to COO of ZeniMax. Xavier Pokorzynski is now Microsoft Gaming CFO. Pokorzynski has been at Microsoft nearly 12 years, and has spent the past couple of years on the gaming finance side

Arc Raiders picks up best multiplayer at the Game Awards. Well deserved for the team at Embark, who also did amazing multiplayer work with The Finals. I’m truly obsessed with Arc Raiders 👍

the mystery statue for the Game Awards? It's the Hellstone, and it's part of Larian's new Divinity game that will be "even larger than Baldur's Gate 3"

Star Wars Fate of the Old Republic is a new single player action RPG, directed by Casey Hudson

Microsoft confirms an Xbox Developer Direct will be held in January 2026. Matt Booty says "we will feature Playground in the upcoming Dev Direct in January."

someone forgot to disable emote "on screen celebration" on the Twitch stream for The Game Awards 😅

another Xbox game is heading to PS5 and Switch 2. Compulsion Games' South of Midnight debuts on both the PS5 and Switch 2 in spring 2026

GPT-5.2 is here. OpenAI calls GPT-5.2 the best model yet for professionals, and says it “hallucinates less” and is more accurate than GPT-5.1 www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

so many people are trying to redeem a free Arc Raiders backpack in the Nvidia app that the redeem section of the app is failing to load 🙃

Activision is changing up its Call of Duty strategy after the Black Ops 7 launch didn't live up to the hype. Activision won't release back-to-back Call of Duty Modern Warfare or Black Ops releases anymore, as the strategy "going forward is changing" www.callofduty.com/blog/2025/12...

today's Windows 11 update (KB5072033) fixes the white flash when you open File Explorer 👍

Microsoft is promising to focus on "performance fundamentals" for PC gaming on Windows 11. This includes a focus on background workload management, power and scheduling improvements, graphics stack optimizations, and updated drivers

Mico, Microsoft’s AI version of Clippy is now available in the UK and Canada. The animated virtual character is part of the voice mode in the Copilot app

scoop: OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 "code red" response to Google is coming next week. I'm hearing that GPT-5.2 should drop on December 9th, slightly earlier than OpenAI was originally planning. Details here 👇 www.theverge.com/report/83885...

meanwhile, I just got an 89GB update for Call of Duty 😭

the EU has fined X (Twitter) $140 million over "deceptive" blue checkmarks. "Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU," says the bloc’s tech chief www.theverge.com/news/645154/...

it's official, Netflix is buying Warner Bros. for $83 billion. The streamer will acquire the Warner studio, both HBO and HBO Max, and access to IP including Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and DC Comics www.theverge.com/news/838781/...

🚨 Microsoft finally has a better looking Run dialog for Windows 11 🚨 the new Run design looks a lot more like a launcher, and I really hope Microsoft goes all the way into making this like its Command Palette and PowerToys Run efforts. Details 👇 www.theverge.com/news/838798/...

Cloudflare just had another major outage, taking down Fortnite, LinkedIn, Coinbase, and even Downdetector. "A fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results," says Cloudflare. This is the second major Cloudflare outage in a matter of weeks 😬

Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts. In my Notepad 📒 newsletter this week I cover Microsoft's D&I changes and reveal that LinkedIn has been testing an AI personal assistant for Microsoft execs. Live for subscribers now 👇 www.theverge.com/tech/838079/...

Nvidia’s new RTX 50-series GPU driver restores PhysX support for popular games. Popular games like Borderlands 2 and Mirror’s Edge will now work properly on RTX 50-series GPUs, but not all PhysX games are supported. Full details 👇 www.theverge.com/news/838043/...

Microsoft is adding a store section to the Xbox mobile apps for iOS and Android

Apple’s design executive behind Liquid Glass is joining Meta. Alan Dye will take over the design of Meta’s hardware, software, and AI integration www.theverge.com/news/837654/...

PlayStation is making an MLB The Show mobile game. Sony is soft-launching a new MLB The Show title for iOS and Android in the Philippines 🤔 www.theverge.com/news/837614/...

Crucial is shutting down — because Micron wants to sell its RAM and SSDs to AI companies instead. It’s already getting hard to build an affordable PC, and the exit of the longstanding provider of consumer memory is going to make that even more challenging www.theverge.com/news/837594/...

my Spotify wrapped. It’s all house music 💪

Microsoft says Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was the biggest third-party game launch in Xbox Game Pass this year. This is based on the number of “unique users in the first 30 days of its availability” news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/1...

Nixxes has managed to reduce the Helldivers 2 install size on PC from ~154GB to ~23GB, for a total saving of ~131GB. That’s a massive reduction! www.theverge.com/news/836948/...

Wooting’s 60HE v2 is a solid upgrade to the best gaming keyboard. I've been testing the new v2 over the past week, and it's clear Wooting has done a great job improving the sound and feel of its popular keyboard www.theverge.com/tech/836168/...

Kia is going to unveil its EV2 at the Brussels Motor Show in January. Interestingly, it's "designed, developed and soon to be produced in Europe"

Microsoft has somehow shipped a bug in Windows 11 that makes the File Explorer flash white in dark mode. The bug is part of an update that was supposed to improve dark mode consistency in Windows 11! Oops. Full details 👇 www.theverge.com/news/836199/...

Bungie always has the weirdest bugs in Destiny 2…!

Microsoft’s ugly sweaters return with Clippy, Xbox, and Zune brown options. Microsoft didn't do a holiday sweater last year, but it's definitely making up for that this time around. Full details 👇 www.theverge.com/news/835130/...

I thought everyone was overreacting about RAM prices, but here's a UK retailer selling 8GB of DDR4 for £120,000 ($158,000) 🙃

Zipcar is shutting down in the UK. You’ll be able to hire zipcars until December 31st and then it’s closing

if I wear these Crocs outside I’m gonna get beaten up aren’t I?

I delve into how Microsoft's software developers are using AI in my Notepad 📒 newsletter this week. There's a big push internally at Microsoft for AI software development, but some employees are skeptical of its benefits. Live now for subscribers 👇 www.theverge.com/tech/831379/...

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American followers! 🦃

Around 500 million PCs are holding off upgrading to Windows 11, says Dell. The Windows 11 transition is a lot slower than the upgrade to Windows 10. Details 👇 www.theverge.com/news/831364/...

three-mendous post from Bayern yesterday. What a 3–fun win for Arsenal 😉