CES isn’t usually the place we see the 12 months’s largest gaming bulletins, with main upcoming video games often being saved for summer season and winter, and new console bulletins now usually coming within the spring or fall. However after spending every week in Vegas, I’m now leaving feeling just like the gaming business is about to undergo a giant shift. A few of it’s for the higher, with small creators getting an opportunity to vary how we work together with our favourite video games, whereas the remainder of it displays the tech business’s incessant have to stuff ineffective AI into our lives. With that in thoughts, listed here are my 4 favourite (and three least favourite) gaming bulletins from CES 2025.
Favourite: MCON Magsafe cellphone controller
Credit score: Michelle Ehrhardt
There’s no purpose we shouldn’t all be gaming on our telephones extra—and I don’t imply Sweet Crush. (Not that there is something incorrect with Sweet Crush, in fact.) This stuff have gotten highly effective sufficient to run video games launched for the PS5, however because of their lack of bodily controls, most builders are nonetheless making heavy compromises for his or her cellular titles.
That’s the place 20-year-old Josh King comes into play. The YouTuber made waves late final 12 months when he launched a video showcasing his prototype MCON controller, which makes use of MagSafe to provide your cellphone an identical type issue to, say, a Nintendo DS. Whereas different cellphone controllers often require you to take away your case and might be annoying to tackle and off your cellphone, utilizing the MCON is meant to be so simple as utilizing a MagSafe energy financial institution.
I’m in love with the end result. It has a full suite of controls, the magnetic connection is robust, and utilizing it’s as simple as snapping it onto my machine and flipping out the hidden controls. Plus, should you don’t have an iPhone, it really works with MagSafe adapters.
King is at present working with peripheral firm Ohsnap to finalize the design, however should you’re offered already, there’s a Kickstarter the place you possibly can pre-order your individual MCON beginning at $99. I can’t wait to get mine and really begin treating my iPhone like the right handheld it clearly has the chops to be.
Least Favourite: Razer Challenge Ava AI esports coach
Credit score: Razer
Razer’s Challenge Ava is certainly one of two ideas the corporate’s bringing to CES this 12 months, and of the 2, I hope it’s the one the corporate leaves behind.
Have you ever ever heard of backseating? It’s the phenomenon the place a streamer will get caught whereas taking part in a sport and their viewers preserve piping in by way of the chat perform to inform them tips on how to progress. Most streamers I’ve seen explicitly ask their viewers to keep away from it, often contemplating it extra annoying than useful.
Ava, in the meantime, guarantees to carry a bespoke AI backseater to everybody with a pc.
Primarily, the way in which it really works is that Ava will watch you play and provide ideas based mostly on what it sees, loudly talking over the in-game audio to take action. Razer insists it’s not dishonest, since Ava can’t entry data not accessible to you, however I feel that also misses the purpose.
First, it’s unclear the place Ava’s getting its ideas, and second, it might find yourself being fairly distracting if it talks over your gameplay. However actually, it’s the entire recommendation angle I’ve a problem with.
If I’m taking part in Darkish Souls, the builders have often labored out a extra elegant option to cue me into after I ought to dodge than an AI yelling in my ear. If I depend on Ava, I’m coaching myself to disregard these hints, robbing myself of a few of the expertise as a minimum and making myself worse on the sport on the most.
Even in multiplayer, a part of the enjoyable for me is determining one of the best builds and most optimum routes. If Ava is simply telling me what I ought to do, then am I actually taking part in or studying the sport, or am I simply urgent buttons whereas the robotic makes all the true choices?
There’s a place for guides—far be it from me to gatekeep. However this form of real-time interruption appears extra more likely to spoil my enjoyable than improve it.
Favourite: Lenovo Legion Go S brings SteamOS outdoors the Steam Deck
Credit score: Michelle Ehrhardt
Valve’s Steam Deck is certainly one of my favourite gaming purchases I’ve made in a very long time, making my sport library moveable with much more flexibility than the Nintendo Swap. An enormous a part of that’s the firm’s SteamOS working system, which makes it handy to vary the hand-held’s settings and entry your Steam video games on the fly.
Makes an attempt to repeat the Steam Deck with out SteamOS, just like the Asus ROG Ally or the Lenovo Legion Go, simply haven’t completed it for me, as they depend on Home windows, which is a a lot clunkier expertise when utilizing a controller. These gadgets are technically extra highly effective, however the efficiency improve isn’t value it to me.
That’s why I’m so excited for the Lenovo Legion Go S. Introduced throughout CES, this would be the first gaming handheld not from Valve to make use of SteamOS. It’ll have Home windows variations, too, however beginning in Could, you’ll be capable to get it with the working system I really like a lot. Even higher, it does look to supply specs with a slight-to-moderate enchancment on the Steam Deck, and its beginning value of $500 is definitely cheaper than the entry stage Steam Deck OLED. I’m excited to see extra partnerships observe swimsuit.
Least Favourite: The PUBG Ally brings the useless web idea to video games
Graphics card and now AI firm Nvidia is about to fill your sport lobbies with bots, however like, in a futuristic approach. Introduced throughout CES, Nvidia is working with PUBG developer Krafton to carry “co-playable characters” to the well-known battle royale title.
Primarily, the expertise groups you up with a bot, however you can provide it instructions to inform it to search out armor or weapons for you or coordinate with you in a struggle.
I might really see this being actually cool in a single-player sport, being the subsequent evolution of the kind of gameplay seen in titles like Star Wars: Republic Commando. However in multiplayer, it simply raises too many questions.
Is the bot going to be extra conscious of the map than people? How good ought to or not it’s at capturing, earlier than it begins to really feel both like a cheater or a legal responsibility? And maybe most significantly, will it really feel satisfying to win if an AI guided you to victory? Or will or not it’s the gaming equal of a wealthy particular person hiring an skilled hunter to take them on a curated expedition and do all of the work besides pulling the set off?
There’s loads of powerful balancing acts to determine right here, however even assuming every little thing performs out as desired, I’m nonetheless unsure what the purpose is. A part of the enjoyable of taking part in a shooter on-line is realizing that after I take down the enemy, I’ve ruined some 11-year-old’s day. If half the individuals I’m going to be capturing at are robots, why not simply play a single-player sport as a substitute?
Favourite: The Razer Challenge Arielle has offered me on heated and cooling gaming chairs
Credit score: Michelle Ehrhardt
Razer’s Challenge Arielle is the corporate’s second idea machine for CES, and the one I’m positively extra enthusiastic about. Primarily, it takes the Razer’s present Fujin Professional gaming chair and straps some heaters and a bladeless fan onto it, with surprisingly efficient outcomes.
What I initially thought was going to be a gimmick turned out to be a pleasant little oasis on the CES present flooring, both warming me up after an hour within the freezing media room or blowing chilly air on my again and neck after I spent a while wandering across the sweaty present flooring.
Positive, you could possibly get an identical expertise with an area heater or a fan, however having the local weather management built-in immediately into your chair permits it fast entry to your again and neck, and I discovered it felt more practical and comfy than my desk fan at dwelling.
Las Vegas is a nightmare in terms of constant temperature, and after every week right here, I’m nearly able to stage a heist on this factor and take it dwelling. I’m hoping Razer provides this the identical remedy it gave its haptic gaming cushion idea from final 12 months and really brings it to market.
Least Favourite: Nvidia RTX Neural Faces is an AI yassification filter
The tradition struggle spares nobody, particularly in terms of gaming. In case you’ve seemed up The Final of Us Half II or Horizon Zero Daybreak on social media, little doubt you’ve seen photoshops of their feminine leads that try to make them seem like they only walked out of a Sephora, regardless of them spending their video games deep within the coronary heart of the apocalypse. Critics have began to name these edits “yassification,” and it looks like Nvidia’s taking a facet right here: its new RTX Neural Faces function would possibly as effectively be an AI yassification filter.
The concept is to assist sport NPCs cross the uncanny valley by utilizing AI to assist with extra pure lighting, pores and skin, and hair, particularly when gamers are taking a look at that NPC from an uncommon angle. The end result simply sort of appears prefer it’s trampling over the artists’ rigorously made choices with no matter Nvidia thinks “pure” means.
In an instance video posted by Nvidia, an NPC with Neural Faces utilized appears to have completely totally different bone construction, a contemporary layer of basis, some new mascara, neater brows, and greater however a lot deader eyes. Cool should you’re into that, I assume, but it surely’s clearly not the look the modelers or lighting artists have been going for, and it positively wouldn’t be applicable for loads of gaming’s most well-known characters…until you’re curious what a Strong Snake make-up tutorial would seem like?
Favourite: Acer Nitro Blaze 11
Credit score: Michelle Ehrhardt
If the Lenovo Legion Go S stands out from different gaming handhelds due to its software program, then the Acer Nitro Blaze 11 is the alternative. Frankly, it’s the largest gaming “handheld” I’ve ever used, and whereas meaning it’s not essentially probably the most handy, there’s a sure maximal pleasure to be taken from carrying it round.
With a lot room, it’s packing some fairly spectacular specs, however what actually takes the cake is its 11-inch, 2560 by 1600 show. It will get vivid, it comes with a sturdy kickstand, and it may show as much as 120 frames per second. It’s additionally surprisingly light-weight at 2.3 kilos. That’s a pound heavier than the Steam Deck, however in comparison with a laptop computer, it’s nonetheless affordable.
Granted, should you get uninterested in holding it to play it, the Nitro Blaze 11 does have one trick. Just like the Nintendo Swap and the unique Lenovo Legion Go, it’s received removable controllers. However not like these gadgets, its display screen is sufficiently big to make kickstand mode really feel value it to me (I often simply maintain the competitors).
To be sincere, at this level in my life, I’m not more likely to go for the Nitro Blaze 11. I’m older, I’m busier, and comfort trumps efficiency for me. However a youthful, extra explicitly gamer-y model of me would have been throughout this.
