Sean Hollister

Senior Editor

Sean HollisterSep 27, 2023

Sadly, we won’t get to hear John Carmack talk shop and delightfully criticize his employer this year.

Carmack has delivered an unscripted talk at every Oculus / Meta Connect that I can remember, but he left Meta late last year after a particularly grumpy tell-all. He’s focusing on AI (and not the newfangled generative variety) at his startup, Keen Technologies.

Instead, we’ll get Carmack’s fellow lauded game industry programmer Michael Abrash, and CTO Andrew Bosworth, immediately following Zuck’s keynote.

How to watch Meta Connect — and Quest 3 — at 10:30AM PT / 1:30PM ET

Sean HollisterSep 27, 2023

Sean HollisterSep 26, 2023

“Is this the end of console gaming? I don’t see it.”

AMD’s Lisa Su somewhat dodges a question about whether a cloud gaming shift is underway: “I see PC gaming strong, I see console gaming strong, and I see cloud gaming also having legs. They all need similar types of technology but they obviously use it in different ways.”

Sean HollisterSep 26, 2023

“The semiconductor ecosystem in the US needed to be built five years ago.”

AMD’s Lisa Su is happy with CHIPS subsidies, but thinks we’re maybe a teensy bit behind the curve.

The Quest 3 is Meta’s last chance to win the headset war before it truly begins

Meta doesn’t just need another hardware building block — it needs games.

Sean HollisterSep 26, 2023

Zuck just teased augmented reality Lego — and then made it vanish.

Tomorrow, Meta will explain why you should pay $500 for a Quest 3 at Meta Connect... and I’m starting to wonder if Lego will be part of the pitch. See the blocks in Zuck’s image below? They’ve got trademarked Lego logos on top!

But Zuck has since yanked his video, and Microsoft’s similar teases with Minecraft have yet to produce a killer app.

Sean HollisterSep 26, 2023

Kamiya will keep making games.

Hideki Kamiya, who directed Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, Ōkami, Bayonetta, The Wonderful 101 and Scalebound (before it got canceled), announced yesterday that he’s leaving PlatinumGames. He co-founded the studio in 2006.

He’s not retiring, though. “As long as I have everyone’s support, I’ll keep making games, so I’ll do my best not to disappoint,” reads part of an auto-translated thread at X.

Valve suddenly releases SteamVR 2.0 in beta — as headset rumors swirl

Sean HollisterSep 26, 2023

Sean HollisterSep 25, 2023

33 more Dough customers have stepped forward to accuse the company.

Last week, I told you how 42 Dough customers accused the company of stringing them along for months or years without shipping their products or issuing refunds.

Since then, 35 more customers have stepped forward — only two of which say they got satisfaction.

I have now sent Dough a partial list of order numbers that are waiting for fulfillment, with our readers’ permission. Dough owes those people as much as $50,000.