This week, we cover Microsoft’s latest AI abomination–this time targeting the gaming industry. Plus, we deep dive into the new state of matter that Microsoft claims to have “invented.”

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Topics

Microsoft Muse - A Generative AI for “Gameplay Ideation” - Backwards Compatibility?

Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/introducing-muse-our-first-generative-ai-model-designed-for-gameplay-ideation/

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/02/19/muse-ai-xbox-empowering-creators-and-players/

Microsoft’s Muse project is an AI model designed for gameplay ideation. In their examples, they’ve trained their model one 1 second of real footage from a Ninja Theory game called Bleeding Edge. It’s… something alright.

But one of THEIR biggest claims is that they “believe this could radically change how we preserve and experience classic games in the future and make them accessible to more players”. Using AI to… preserve older games inaccessible? I mean… we have a thing. It’s called Emulation, and it’s pretty fucking good.

Microsoft’s new State of Matter

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/technology/microsoft-quantum-computing-topological-qubit.html

It’s not Solid, Liquid, Gas, or Plasma… it’s something new entirely, as per Microsoft. MS dubs it… the “topological qubit”. All of this to fuel a quantum computer. Personally I can’t wait for a quantum GPU to fit in my PC powered by this mysterious state of matter.

Amazon v Steam - How David felled a Goliath

Link: https://gameworldobserver.com/2025/02/19/why-amazon-failed-to-compete-with-steam-store

“We never validated our core assumptions before investing heavily in solutions”

The Death of the AA games market

Link: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ps5-japan-studios-closed-because-the-double-a-market-has-disappeared-says-shuhei-yoshida/

Former President of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Shuhei Yoshida spoke about the death of Sony’s former “Japan Studio”. He chiefly attributes the death of the studio to the evaporating AA market, where AAA games got bigger and bigger and indies came in to fill in the void. Are AA games truly dead? Is the middle class of gaming dead?

VxKex NEXT - For those who refuse to leave Windows 7 behind

Link: https://github.com/YuZhouRen86/VxKex-NEXT

https://github.com/i486/VxKex

https://x.com/TheBobPony/status/1891308340837249317

“VxKex NEXT is a set of API extensions for Windows 7 that allow some Windows 8, 8.1 and 10-exclusive applications to run on Windows 7.” Quite a few programs that no longer support Windows 7 (most notably, Steam) runs on Win7 using VxKex NEXT. Quite impressive really, though VxKex isn’t made for games. Still curious about them effectively bolting forward compatibility onto an older version of Windows… and how far one could feasibly take it.

Team Fortress 2 - SDK Released

Link: https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=238809

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013

Team Fortress 2 is a beloved game that’s sort of fell to the wayside many years ago. But today marks a day when Valve did the TF2 community a massive favor, by effectively open sourcing TF2. In theory, this change allows gamers the freedom to essentially create new games based on TF2. Any game made using the Source SDK must be free however. Valve is also updating their back catalogue of multiplayer games including 64bit support, HUD scaling, prediction fixes, and more.

Grand Theft Auto VI - The Next Big “Creator Platform”?

Link: https://digiday.com/media/rockstar-games-talks-with-top-metaverse-creators-with-an-eye-on-making-grand-theft-auto-the-next-creator-platform/

Grand Theft Auto VI is heavily speculated to feature the ability to create custom experiences in GTA VI, ala Fortnite or Roblox. In fact, Rockstar is said to be in talks with top creators in Fortnite/Roblox and GTA content creators for this explicit reason. Not much else has been revealed about it but the game is also speculated to ALSO have a budget of $2 BILLION. Good chance user generated content may fit the quota. Having users generate the content while R* takes a bit off each sale.

Epic v Cheater - Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?

Link: https://x.com/JakeSucky/status/1891565780283617631

https://x.com/FNCompetitive/status/1891564240604999725

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XouE9KalIVA

Epic Games has taken action against a player who account shared to qualify for the Fortnite Championship Series. On top of legal action, they’ve also permanently banned that player from entering any Epic sanctioned tournaments indefinitely and forced the prize money to be donated to charity. On top of that, they also made the player post a public apology on YouTube. Is public humiliation a good anti-cheat strategy?