The Switch 2 is a hit (and a supply chain success story). Microsoft is starting to show off its plan for the future of Xbox. And everywhere you look, there are reasons to think we’re headed toward a very different kind of gaming device. Maybe it’ll be even more modular and portable. Maybe it’ll be even more like a Windows PC. Maybe it’ll be all that a bunch of other things besides.
Switch, Xbox, and the portable future of games
On The Vergecast: handheld consoles, WWDC vibes, and Google Zero.
On The Vergecast: handheld consoles, WWDC vibes, and Google Zero.
On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David are joined by The Verge’s Jake Kastrenakes to talk all about the future of gaming. We’ll have more of a Switch 2 review on the show next Tuesday, but for now there’s a lot of Xbox Ally stuff to talk about, and 3.5 million Switch 2s to reckon with. Before we get into that, though, we talk a bit more about this year’s WWDC, why Apple executives spent so much time apologizing for and explaining Siri, and why F1 seemed to be what the company actually wanted to talk about.
After that, we run through some AI news. Because there’s a lot of it. Disney is suing Midjourney; Google Zero is rapidly approaching; Alexa Plus is apparently actually out there; and the Dia browser has some big ideas about chatbots. And it all uses some water, says Sam Altman, citing no sources.
Finally, in the lightning round, it’s time for another round of Brendan Carr is a Dummy, plus the latest on the Warner Bros. Discovery split, some super-fast USB drives, and Meta’s next new messaging platform.
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with gaming and gadget news:
- Craig Federighi confirms Apple’s first attempt at an AI Siri wasn’t good enough
- From Variety: ’F1’ and Apple’s Movie Strategy: Inside Tim Cook, Lewis Hamilton’s Big Bet
- Nintendo’s Switch 2 is the fastest-selling game console of all time
- Nintendo says your bad Switch 2 battery life might be a bug
- Microsoft and Asus announce two Xbox Ally handhelds with new Xbox full-screen experience
- This is how Microsoft is combining Windows and Xbox for handheld PCs
- Xbox’s new handheld is a surprisingly comfortable way to play Gears of War
- Microsoft just teased its next-gen Xbox console, and nobody noticed
- The Nothing Phone 3 is coming to the US, and not in beta.
- HP reveals $24,999 hardware created just for Google Beam
And in AI news:
- Online publishers are facing a chatbot calamity.
- The Dia browser is a big bet on the web — and an even bigger bet on AI
- Alexa Plus now has a million users and could be coming to you this summer
- Disney and Universal sue Midjourney for making AI ripoffs of their biggest characters
- Sam Altman claims an average ChatGPT query uses ‘roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon’ of water
And in the lightning round:











