Gaming, in brief

Memory chips getting dearer

Meta put up Quest 3 and Quest 3S prices during a shortage that made memory chips dearer. [1] A GamesIndustry.biz columnist expects the next PlayStation and Xbox to launch at prices far above today's for the same reason. [6]

Money moving from headsets to glasses

AR glasses shipments rose 138% in a year while headsets fell 18%. [1] Meta's next device, seen in a leaked firmware file, is a slim pair of glasses rather than a headset. [3] Meta stopped selling its business-market Quest headsets and moved its spending to AI and smart glasses. [4]

AI doing work people were paid for

EA confirmed it is using AI copies of two announcers' voices in NHL 27, with their consent. [7] NC's new shooter Like or Die carries a Steam notice that AI tools made some of its art. [12] A free app now applies Nvidia's AI frame-drawing to a whole Windows desktop. [13]

New games built on old names

Koei Tecmo's next game is based on The Apothecary Diaries, an anime whose third season starts next month. [10] Bandai Namco's Gundam Rogue Orbit borrows a 40-year-old series and moves it to a new universe. [11] Square Enix is rebuilding a shut mobile game as Final Fantasy Resonance. [9]

One pressure seen across the day runs through Gaming too.

• AI helpers doing the workHigh ↑ · seen in 3 beats→

1. 1VR headset shipments fell 18% in a year after Meta raised prices. Valve is about to sell a new one into that market.
2. 2Valve readies a lottery for the Steam Frame
3. 3Meta's glasses leak before its own event
4. 4EA confirms AI voices in NHL 27
5. 5An anime detective gets an Ace Attorney-style game

Watch the Steam Frame's price and its launch game: a headset dearer than a $600 Quest 3, sold into a market that shrank 18%, tests whether anyone but Meta can sell one now.

A VR game can only be sold to someone who owns a headset, so when fewer headsets sell, the studios that make only VR games run out of buyers first.

It closed because the number of people who could buy any VR game got smaller, and that number was set by Meta's price list, not by Polyarc.

Valve is preparing a headset with few new games to launch it, so data miners expect it to lean on Half-Life: Alyx from 2020; the games side of the pair is thin before the machine even ships

the biggest headset seller is putting its next device on the glasses side, where shipments rose 138%; every headset Meta does not sell is one fewer customer for a VR studio

the same chain run forwards: the anime built the audience first, so Koei Tecmo funds the game knowing the buyers already exist

Each of them sees only the link beside them: the studio never met the chip maker, and the shopper never sees the studio that closed because they did not buy.

A reservation system for the Steam Frame, Valve's coming VR headset, is already set up in Steam's backend for two versions of the device, according to data miner Brad Lynch. [2]

Valve has not announced a release date. Lynch posted a screenshot of a lottery email with a placeholder date of 31 December 1969 and wrote: "Expect nothing.

It isn't ready." [2] Valve used the same lottery for its Steam Machine PC, released in June, and its new Steam Controller, where new reservations will not be filled until 2027. [2]

A lottery means Valve expects to have fewer headsets than buyers at first. It is launching into a market that shipped 18% fewer headsets this quarter than a year ago.

UploadVR published images of Meta's Project Phoenix, which it says it found inside a firmware package for HorizonOS prescription lenses, two weeks before Meta Connect on 23 September. [3]

The images show lenses set in a slim, glasses-style frame, with a wire from one earpiece that could lead to a battery or a small computer, and cameras facing out and down. [3]

It sits between a full headset like the Quest 3 and Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses. [3] Phoenix is not expected to launch until next year.

Google is working on a similar pair, Project Aura. [3]

Meta sells most of the world's headsets outside China, and its next device is not a headset. Every VR studio's customers are people who bought one.

EA said in a blog post that NHL 27, its yearly ice hockey game, uses AI voice technology to add to more than 50 recording sessions by its two announcers, John Buccigross and Darren Pang, with their full consent. [7]

Buccigross had said on a podcast a week earlier that EA played him lines in his own voice.

He added: "If it means less work and the same check, I'll take it." [7] He also said the AI got things wrong, calling seats chairs. [7]

EA's first update fixes player-name pronunciations and repeated lines. [7]

EA has moved from a commentator's remark to a written policy, and it now carries the debt from a $55 billion buyout.

PC Gamer expects AI to appear more widely in its games.

Koei Tecmo, a Japanese publisher, showed a trailer for The Apothecary Diaries: The False Imperial Brother, a game based on the anime about Mao Mao, a poison taster who solves murders in an imperial palace. [10]

It has an original story planned by the series' creator, Hyuganatsu, in which Mao Mao and Jinshi investigate crime scenes, interview people and present their findings to the emperor, with exploration and crafting alongside. [10]

It arrives in early 2027 on PS5, Switch 2 and Steam. [10] The anime's third season starts next month. [10]

The audience was built by the anime first, so the game ships to people who already want it.

Capcom has said nothing about a new Ace Attorney game, and this fills that gap.

Bandai Namco's Gundam Rogue Orbit puts the 40-year-old robot series in a new universe where humanity is losing a war against aliens, so a player needs none of the old story. [11]

Producer Yuya Tomiyama said the studio walked away from the original Gundam idea to reach a new audience, keeping the war and the drama. [11]

Kotaku played two levels at Gamescom and found stamina bars, healing items and limb-cutting boss fights borrowed from Souls-style games. [11]

It arrives on 5 March 2027 on PC, PS5 and Xbox, with co-op for three after a mission. [11]

Forty years of shows and manga is a wall for anyone who did not grow up with them.

Bandai Namco is spending a famous name on people who do not know it yet.

Like or Die is a shooter from NC, a Korean developer, first shown at Gamescom 2026's opening night show. [12]

Players stream their matches on a made-up platform called Quaya, and the more likes they earn the more gifts sponsors send; NC's head of IP, Kim Hwan, said the watchers include aliens across the galaxy. [12]

Polygon says it looks a lot like The Finals, down to players bursting into pixel cubes. [12]

Its Steam page says AI tools made some of its art, later reworked by artists; NC aims for a closed test this year. [12]

A big Korean publisher is building a shooter around streaming culture and using AI in production openly. Both are where the money and the arguments in games now sit.

Capcom released a gameplay trailer for Arjun, an Indian fighter and framed policeman on the run, who joins Street Fighter 6 on 13 October as part of the game's fourth season of paid characters. [8]

He controls wind and earth, and his biggest attack strikes poses borrowed from Bollywood dance. [8]

He follows Yasmine, another new character; Tifa from Final Fantasy 7 arrives in early 2027 and the story character Bosch next spring. [8]

Capcom reported record sales for the Street Fighter series earlier this year. [8]

A fighting game from 2023 is still being sold one character at a time three years on.

That season pass is how Capcom keeps earning from a game most buyers already own.

Final Fantasy Resonance, out in full next month, is Square Enix's rebuild of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a mobile game that has shut down. [9]

It keeps the old game's story as a starting point and adds Visions, characters from across the series who can be summoned in battle. [9]

Using the new demo, modders built FFR Vision Studio, which puts almost 1,300 Brave Exvius characters into the game, including Sora from Kingdom Hearts and 2B from Nier. [9]

They also restored Ariana Grande, who the producer, Keisuke Nakashima, said would not fit the game's mood. [9]

Players of the shut mobile game get their characters back from other players, not from Square Enix.

It shows how much of a live game's value sits with the people who played it.

A free app on GitHub called DLSS 5 NeuralScreen applies Nvidia's DLSS 5, which uses AI to redraw what is on screen, to an entire Windows desktop, including videos, photos and windowed games. [13]

It runs on RTX 30-series graphics cards and newer. [13]

It caps at 2560 by 1440, has no HDR, adds 40 to 60 milliseconds of delay, and may set off anti-cheat systems in online games. [13]

DLSS 5 has reached its first real game in NBA 2K27, where the menu calls it DLSS Neural Rendering. [13]

Nvidia's most argued-over feature is now something a hobbyist can switch on anywhere. The company no longer fully controls where its own technology runs.