Sean Hollister

The $70 Anbernic RG 34XX is my favorite new way to play Game Boy — but the new RixelHK app lets people use the handheld’s built-in Wi-Fi to browse a huge catalog of games for free. It encourages you to download Nintendo, Sony, and Sega titles, and they appear to be the real deal but unauthorized.

Embracer Group wanted to be the one video game publisher to rule them all, even buying up Lord of the Rings, until a $2 billion Saudi deal fell through and the layoffs and restructuring began. Now, Stephen Totilo has published a rare window into the rise and fall from someone in the room: Saber Interactive CEO Matt Karch, who gave Totilo a 2.5 hour airborne interview.

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.

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?

Do you have an OG Asus ROG Ally with a 40Wh pack? Jsaux, the biggest name in handheld accessory innovations, is now selling a 65Wh upgrade kit for $80. It comes with a slightly thicker back cover and an extended heatsink too. If that’s not enough battery, iFixit’s slightly hackier mod can give you an ROG Ally X-beating 88Wh. Jsaux seems to be out of stock, but you can smash a “notify me” button.

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?