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Plasma Confirms Xpl Lock, Denies Wintermute Link
Crypto Trends

Plasma Confirms XPL Lock, Denies Wintermute Link

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Plasma Labs issued a statement to counter speculation after its native XPL token faced heavy selling pressure in recent days. On Thursday, October 2, 2025, the company clarified that no team members or investors have sold tokens. Instead, all XPL allocations remain locked for three years with a one-year cliff. The firm also denied any ties with Wintermute, a leading market maker, stressing it has never contracted with them.

We’ve seen a number of rumors circulating since the launch of XPL and want to set the record straight.

1/ No team members have sold any XPL. All investor and team XPL is locked for 3 years with a 1 year cliff.

2/ Of our team of ~50, three spent time at Blur or Blast. Our team…

— Paul (@pauliepunt) October 1, 2025

The statement came after rumors linked Plasma’s core team to prior ventures and questioned token distribution. “No team members have sold any XPL. All investors and team XPL is locked for 3 years with a 1-year cliff,” said Paul, a Plasma co-founder. He further clarified that while some employees previously worked at Blur and Blast, others hail from Google, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, and Temasek.

Market Action and Chart Signals

XPL has experienced sharp volatility, with its price down more than 40% since its peak. Analyst Luke Martin noted on X that the $0.85 level is now crucial. The TradingView chart show the price moving down in a steady pattern, making lower highs and lower lows. But at $0.85, buyers stepped in strongly, pushing the price back up. This bounce hinted that people see value at that level and are willing to defend it.

This is the first $XPL setup since the selloff started that looks appealing for a bounce.

Combined with the team announcing they sold 0 tokens and not working with winternuke.

Would not be surprised to see this trading above $1.2 soon.

Second target: trillions pic.twitter.com/7TilTfsmIT

— Luke Martin (@VentureCoinist) October 1, 2025

Moreover, historical levels remain important. Resistance lies around $1.01, which must be reclaimed to shift momentum. Until then, the market could remain range-bound. “This is the first $XPL setup since the selloff started that looks appealing for a bounce,” Martin stated. He added that the team’s assurance of zero token sales strengthens sentiment.

Machi Big Brother’s $11M Loss

Celebrity trader Jeffrey “Machi Big Brother” Huang has taken heavy losses on Hyperliquid. Just two weeks ago, his 5x leveraged XPL long position showed $44 million in profit. 

Today, according to Hyperdash data, it sits at an unrealized $10.9 million loss, with liquidation looming at $0.4555. Besides this, Huang holds a 15x Ether long worth $1.2 million, which carries more than $500,000 in unrealized profit.

XPL faces a decisive moment at the $0.85 level. Plasma’s clarity on token locks could restore trust, but volatility remains a major risk.

Also Read: Bitcoin Miners Hit $56B Market Cap Despite Falling Margins





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Bloodlines 2 Won't Lock Clans Behind Paywall After Fan Backlash
Game Reviews

Bloodlines 2 Won’t Lock Clans Behind Paywall After Fan Backlash

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The controversy surrounding the DLC clans in the upcoming Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is finally over. The studio behind the upcoming game has confirmed that it is walking back its plans to lock two clans behind a paywall after receiving lots of “feedback,” aka people yelled at them online for a while.

Last month, Bloodlines 2 devs The Chinese Room and publisher Paradox announced at Gamescom ONL that the long-awaited vampire RPG sequel would finally arrive on PC and consoles in October. After a lengthy and messy development cycle that involved multiple studios and delays, a lot of fans were just happy that Bloodlines 2 was actually, for real, coming out.  But then folks discovered that two of the game’s six vampire clans, which essentially act as your class, were locked behind a $30 paywall. People got mad, a lot of negative headlines were posted, and about a week later, on August 27, the devs announced they were going to make some tweaks to the DLC plans. And now we know what that means: All six clans are included in the base game.

On September 17, in the YouTube description of a new Bloodlines 2 gameplay overview trailer, the executive producer on the game thanked fans for the “frank feedback” about the game’s Premium Edition DLC before confirming that none of the clans would be locked behind a day-one DLC paywall. He also praised the devs for helping create two new story packs that will now be included in the Premium Edition.

“Thanks to our community for the frank feedback on Bloodlines 2 and the Premium Edition,” said Bloodlines 2 executive producer Marco Behrmann. “That feedback made it clear: Lasombra and Toreador belong in the base game, so that is what we are doing. We’d also like to thank The Chinese Room for their quick turnaround on the concepts for the post-launch Story Packs. We’re constantly impressed by their creativity and skill in weaving enticing narrative threads that expand on the main story in Bloodlines 2.”

The two new story packs are: “Loose Cannon“ (Brujah Sheriff Benny’s story) and “The Flower & The Flame” (Toreador Primogen Ysabella’s path). The plan is for this DLC, which replaces the missing paid access to clans, to launch in 2026. And so ends the Bloodlines 2 DLC saga. Hopefully, after all of this and all the years of waiting, the game is worth it all. We’ll find out when Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 launches on Xbox, PS5, and PC on October 21.



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Our Favorite Smart Lock for Your Front Door Is Just $164 Right Now
Product Reviews

Our Favorite Smart Lock for Your Front Door Is Just $164 Right Now

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Is your current smart lock frustrating you endlessly, like mine is? The Yale Approach Smart Lock (8/10, WIRED Review) is currently marked down to just $164 on Amazon, a healthy 32% discount on our editors’ top pick for smart locks. This sale comes at a perfect time, because I was just complaining about the fingerprint reader on mine no longer working.

  • Photograph: Nena Farrell

  • Courtesy of Yale

The Yale Approach uses part of your existing deadbolt, which is great news for renters who don’t want to make major changes. You’ll also get to use your existing keys to unlock the deadbolt, which can save you a trip to the locksmith. There’s also a wi-fi bridge that needs a nearby plug to provide other services, but that’s not uncommon for smart locks. Our reviewer, Nena Farrell, even said it “works perfectly,” which is great news, because I have to unplug mine and plug it back in at least once a week.

Approach isn’t just a name, as this smart deadbolt’s standout feature is auto-unlock. By setting up your location in the Yale Access App, you can set the bolt to unlock as your get close to home, which our reviewer said “worked smoothly”, as long as she got far enough away from home for it to recognize her return. There’s an auto-lock, too, using timers from 10 seconds to 30 minutes.

This version of the Yale Approach includes the touchscreen keypad, which needs its own flat space to either stick or screw to. In exchange, it lets you set codes for yourself or friends, with options for time and access limits if you need to manage entry to your home more carefully. It also gives you an easy button to press to lock the deadbolt as you leave the house, and a biometric fingerprint scanner.

No matter what smart lock you buy, there’s going to be a little bit of hassle, that just comes with the territory, unfortunately. The Yale smooths out a lot of the worst parts by adapting to your existing hardware, and mostly stays out of the way afterwards. The auto-unlock feature isn’t totally unique to the Approach, but it is currently our favorite implementation. The price is normally a bit on the high side, so the discount here makes this a very appealing pickup for anyone ready to relegate their old front door lock to the garage door, like I’m about to.



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Kirby Air Riders is a blazing assault on the senses where once you lock in, the magic cuts through - hands-on
Game Reviews

Kirby Air Riders is a blazing assault on the senses where once you lock in, the magic cuts through – hands-on

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Let’s kick off with a confession: I never really rated 2003’s Kirby Air Ride. I’m well aware that some regard it as a GameCube classic, but I’m not one of them. When a sequel, Kirby Air Riders, closed out the big Switch 2 blow-out Nintendo Direct, my reaction was rather apathetic. A sequel to that is their grand finale?

It’s classic Nintendo that all it took to win me around was a way-too-detailed Nintendo Direct broadcast and a quick 30-minute hands-on. I get it now. Not why some people loved the original so – that knowledge still eludes me – but I now understand why Nintendo and Super Smash Supremo Masahiro Sakurai wanted to make another one of these. As the Direct cheekily needled, this could be seen as being a lot like Mario Kart. But really, in truth, it has more in common with Smash.

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Kirby Air Riders is a strange little thing. It’s simple, as demonstrated in its easy-to-discern objectives and a control scheme that requires only a handful of buttons to operate. With that said, it has its ways in which it is complicated – at the hands-on, Nintendo had a chaperone quickly run each player through a handful of tutorials amidst a menu replete with them, clearly concerned that some players might struggle to wrangle or understand its esoteric ways.

This whole dichotomy is very much Sakurai’s jam. These are the fingerprints of a man who designed one of the most competitively sublime fighting games of all time… sort of by mistake. Melee’s tightest brawling was a byproduct of making a party game for children that, through glitches, exploits, and mechanics interacting in unexpected ways became a hyper-competitive dream. Even if Sakurai’s instinct has been to design away from that with every Smash Bros game since, that same predilection for a mash-up of surface simplicity and hidden complexity rears its head here.

What is in a sense clearly intended to be a breezier racer than the manic euphoric highs and brutal blue-shelled lows of Mario Kart is elevated and transformed by a search for depth that doesn’t compromise that accessible core.

Appetite for combustion. | Image credit: Nintendo

Hop into Air Rider courses and you get the simplicity. It is after alls a circuit race with six competitors on track, automatic acceleration, and walls that keep you from going too far off-course. It feels fluffy and friendly – like Kirby. The controls add to that; all you really need to know is that the left stick steers you left and right and the B button brakes. That’s all a kid will need to ‘get through’, so to speak – but there is of course more to it than that.

Each of the control mechanisms is then subtly layered; the stick can also point the nose of your machine up or down, which can become vital for pulling off more complex moves. Braking and turning hard into a corner allows for a slight drift; holding the brake charges a boost. The courses are deliberately built to wind and weave with plenty of corners, and it’s in drifting and boosting through these that you can still have some control over your top speed in a game with automatic acceleration.

There’s more beyond this, of course – capturing enemies, special attacks, even items. But the fundamentals are that simple race design. The largest augment comes in the stats of the various vehicles and riders, which isn’t something all that new to this experience. Mario Kart and Sonic Racing Crossworlds both have such a mechanic, for instance – but in Kirby Air Riders, the effects feel like they can ultimately end up more profound.

To fully appreciate that, the easiest thing to do is to hop over to City Trial mode. This was present in the GameCube original and always espoused by that game’s defenders as its secret weapon – and it rather feels like that’ll be the case here, too. While the cheery-but-fun track racing worked well enough for me, City Trial is where I really locked in – and where I truly ‘got it’.

Wheel talk. | Image credit: Nintendo

In City Trial, you and other players are dropped into a small open zone, able to drive freely for a limited time as items, enemies, and frenzied events spawn all around you. Your goal is to put together a good ‘build’ before the clock hits zero, which is accomplished by picking up power ups that appear all over the place. You can even swap vehicles – known in this game as machines – or sabotage and battle other players for domination of power-up collection. It very quickly gets manic.

City Trial really showcases the strengths of the parameters each character and vehicle has naturally by absolutely smashing them to pieces. The nine categories of power-up you pick up augment your top speed, acceleration, offensive and defensive capabilities and so on, plus how hardy your vehicles are before they explode. The idea is essentially to garner as much power as you can in the City Trial time limit before being thrown into a mini game where you’ll use your powered-up form to compete to be the ultimate winner.

At this point it doesn’t really feel like a racing game. You can sense Sakurai’s sensibilities bubbling up, peeking through cracks in the genre design. City Trial is to a racing game as Smash is to a fighting game, in a sense. It is… except it isn’t. Except it is.

As you jet around the City Trial area, a mastery of the mechanics becomes vital. Braking to a sudden stop to avoid obstacles or fellow players, boosting to get to items before rivals, blasting off ramps and then working to stay aloft with careful gliding in order to collect parcels of airborne power-ups… like I say, you begin to lock in.

Call it a Knight. | Image credit: Nintendo

You need that feeling, too. That trance-like state where there’s you, the game, and everything else fades away. Because the power-up drops are random, though you have some degree of control over what you pick up you’ll also be making split-second decisions. What sort of vehicle ‘build’ am I going for here? More speed? Better gliding? Suddenly, amidst the chaos, you’re doing rapid-fire, almost subconscious decision-making. A lot of it is by feel, too – rather than looking at stats of what you’ve picked up you’re instead judging the feel of those super-simple controls, the heft of your machine, its turning circle, its acceleration and braking – then making calls on what else it needs.

If you’re efficient at collecting power-ups (and at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, I was very efficient), you can more or less break the game. A Nintendo rep was shocked at the sheer number of speed power-ups I picked up – the game became difficult to control, such was the pace of my vehicle. The camera freaked out.

I could then understand why Air Riders, which is relatively visually unremarkable, makes sense on Switch 2 – it needs to be able to parse such ridiculous speed and intense visual frippery. In the end, I had to ditch my naturally-quick vehicle and swap to one that was inherently slower in order to counteract the frankly bonkers amount of speed I was able to deploy. One can also see how, when compared to GameCube, this is a game that’ll benefit tremendously from online play.

I love stuff like this. City Trial is five minutes of total mayhem that does indeed evoke a similar feeling to Smash. It’s followed by a randomly-drawn mini-game where the larger number of City Trial participants get split into groups of four who then compete to be the ultimate winner. The stats accrued throughout City Trial will play a huge part in how that game plays out. If you’re unlucky your build might even work against you, so it’s not necessarily that the person who does the best in the City Trial wins.

Anyway, it’s fun. It’s wild. It feels breakable, which you can see as either a good or a bad thing, I suppose. Everything is turned up to eleven, from the deluge of tutorial options for such a simple game to the chaos that can unfold in City Trial.

All of this might sound familiar to those who loved the GameCube original – but there’s just something different here. Something more. Perhaps it’s the case that the original was simply the template and proof-of-concept for what a Kirby Racer-turned party game can be – and Air Riders might, two decades later, be the full expression of that idea. We’ll find out how far these ideas can truly be stretched in November.



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Hands-on with the Level Lock Pro: sleeker, smarter, still very expensive
Product Reviews

Hands-on with the Level Lock Pro: sleeker, smarter, still very expensive

by admin


Smart locks are among my favorite pieces of smart home tech, offering convenience and peace of mind; I haven’t used a key in years. But most of them are big, clunky, and unmistakably “techy.” Keypads, bulky battery housings, and fingerprint readers mean they really stick out, on both sides of your door. If you want the convenience of a smart lock without the look of a smart lock, there’s really only one option: Level Lock. And now Level has launched its latest model, the Level Lock Pro.

For nearly a decade, Level has been making smart locks that look like regular deadbolts, with all the smarts hidden inside the footprint of a traditional lock. The Pro keeps that discreet exterior, but the interior has been totally rebuilt.

The $349 Level Lock Pro launches today and adds a faster dual-core Bluetooth/Thread chip, a built-in door sensor, a passive infrared sensor for presence detection, and double the battery life of the Level Lock Plus. It can be controlled with a regular key, Apple’s Home Key, a key fob, an optional keypad ($80), and with an app using Bluetooth or Matter connectivity.

The Level Lock Pro feels like the most complete realization of Level’s minimalist smart lock vision so far

Matter support means the Pro works with Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings, among other options — a significant expansion from Level’s earlier Bluetooth-only locks, which were limited to Apple Home and Ring out of the box.

“The lock’s firmware platform is entirely new and built around Matter,” Ken Goto, Level’s founder and CTO, told The Verge in an interview. “This makes it faster and more responsive today, and moving forward, gives us a platform for creating new features and functionality.” He said the company is actively working on support for ultra-wideband (UWB) hands-free unlocking and the upcoming Aliro smart lock standard, which should standardize how smart locks use UWB and bring NFC tap-to-unlock to Android phones.

As with all Level Locks, the Pro is powered by a single CR2 battery that fits inside the bolt.

I have been testing the Pro for a few days, and it’s significantly faster than the Level Lock Plus I tested previously. The hardware remains almost identical; there are just a few subtle updates, including a color-matched strike/bolt plate and key cylinder and glass on the outer bezel hiding a new PIR sensor that’s designed to extend battery life.

  • Price: $349
  • Lock type: Full replacement
  • Finishes: Matte black, silver nickel
  • Connectivity: Bluetooth, Matter-over-Thread (with Matter Controller / Thread Border Router), Wi-Fi (with Level Connect Wi-Fi Bridge)
  • Access options: Key, Apple Home Key, app, voice, auto-unlock, optional keypad
  • Battery type: 1 CR2
  • Battery life: 12 months
  • Guest Keys: Yes (app, NFC tags or codes)
  • Security rating: BHMA AAA
  • Waterproofing: IP54
  • Works with: Matter (including Apple Home), Amazon Alexa, and Google Home
  • Warranty: 24 months

I didn’t install the lock on my front door; my past testing has shown that Level Locks can have alignment issues on older doors like mine. Instead, I used a custom mini test door provided by Level. While the locks can work on older doors, Goto confirmed that they work best with factory-cut doors from the last 10 years.

The most notable feature upgrade compared to prior models is the built-in door sensor, which Level locks lacked until now. This tells you via an app if the door is open or closed, not just whether it’s locked or unlocked — so you don’t think you’ve locked it remotely when it’s actually wide open. Unlike other smart locks that require a chunky sensor stuck to your door frame, Level’s is completely hidden inside the lock.

Because of varied support across Matter platforms for notifications from door locks, the door sense works best with Level’s Connect Wi-Fi bridge, a $79 plug-in device that connects the lock to Wi-Fi and can also add cloud-to-cloud integrations with Google Home and Amazon Alexa (Ring is no longer supported).

Alongside notifications for door open/closed status, the Connect also adds alerts for who unlocked or locked it and battery life, not all of which are available yet in Matter.

1/3The Level app shows door status via Bluetooth when you’re in range, or when connected to a Level Connect Wi-Fi bridge.

The door sense feature works in some Matter platforms, but not all. I tested it with Apple Home and only got basic locked/unlocked alerts, no open/close status. When connected to Google Home, I could see the door status. This patchwork of features across platforms is one of Matter’s current frustrations. Other than that, however, the lock worked flawlessly over Matter, responding instantly and sending notifications promptly.

The Pro is Level’s first Matter-native smart lock (its Level Bolt and Level Lock Plus can be firmware-upgraded as they have a Thread-capable radio). You can add it directly to any Matter platform by scanning the code and get out-of-home control, voice control, and the option to add the lock to smart home routines and automations. Plus, you can still connect it to the Level app over Bluetooth for features like auto-unlock and controlling it with your phone locally if the power is out.

The auto-unlock feature worked fine, but sometimes took a few seconds to unlock after I was at the door. Auto-unlock uses your phone’s location, based on geofencing, and its Bluetooth connection to determine when you’re near the door and unlock.

Weak GPS at my house is partly to blame for the sluggishness. I have this problem with auto-unlock on most smart locks. That’s why I’m looking forward to UWB hands-free unlocking, which uses direct radio-to-radio communication, so it should be more reliable. Goto told me that processor-wise, the Pro is capable of supporting UWB, but as the Aliro standard isn’t final, he couldn’t commit to a timeline.

The Pro works with Apple Home Key using your iPhone. Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

You can also use an Apple Watch. Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

In practice, I found Apple Home Key the most reliable way of unlocking the Pro. If auto-unlock didn’t trigger fast enough, a quick tap with my iPhone or Apple Watch unlocked it promptly.

Level has a touch-to-unlock mode, similar to auto-unlock, which also uses your phone’s Bluetooth for authentication along with GPS. The main advantage here is that it ensures your door only unlocks when you touch the capacitive area on the lock, as opposed to auto-unlock, which opens as you approach. You can’t have auto-unlock and touch-to-unlock enabled at the same time.

I only tested the lock for a couple of days, so I can’t comment on battery life, but Level claims up to a year on one CR2. The Level Lock Plus, the other lock in the lineup with an NFC radio for Home Key and key fobs, has a 6-month battery life, so the Pro doubles that. The new chip with built-in Matter-over-Thread support and the new PIR sensor to reduce false wakeups of the onboard radios are the major changes helping extend battery life.

The rear of the Level Lock Pro is as slimline as a standard thumbturn, no bulky battery housing in sight.

The Level Lock Pro feels like the most complete realization of Level’s minimalist smart lock vision so far. It’s faster, smarter, and now adds door sensing without compromising its sleek design. Native Matter support finally addresses the connectivity headaches that have plagued prior models, making setup closer to plug-and-play.

But you may struggle with the Level if your door isn’t perfectly aligned, and inconsistent platform support means you’ll want the $80 Level Connect bridge for the full experience, pushing this already pricey lock into very expensive territory.

Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

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An in-development screenshot of World of Warcraft's player housing, which is coming in the Midnight expansion. A blue-roofed cottage covered in vines and lights sits in a valley.
Product Reviews

World of Warcraft’s player housing won’t lock out casual players: ‘We’re not gonna put a beautiful bookcase behind killing a raid boss’

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When I heard player housing is coming to World of Warcraft, I immediately thought of the sheer amount of stuff in the game that could find its way into your home. Blizzard could reward housing items like they do rare mounts for achieving some of the most grindy or challenging things in the game. It could be a real time sink.

But thankfully that doesn’t seem like that’s the direction Blizzard wants to go in when it comes to collecting decorations. Speaking to IGN at Gamescom, game director Ion Hazzikostas said they won’t be locked behind “content that is too hardcore.”

“There may be distinct trophies or things that you can earn for being the best raider on your server or being one of the best dungeon players in the game,” he said, “but we’re not gonna put a beautiful bookcase behind killing a raid boss.”


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I for one am glad that Blizzard has drawn this line: You shouldn’t have to be good at raiding at the highest levels to have a fancy pad. Limiting high-level rewards to trophies is a smart way to let players celebrate their achievements without forcing people to play the game in ways they might not enjoy.

This theme of unrestrained creativity with WoW’s player housing is what has me and a lot of other people pretty excited for it to drop (in an early form) with the upcoming Midnight expansion. Decorations can be dyed, scaled up or down in size, rotated, and clipped into other objects in any way you want. You can take your entire house and save the blueprint to share with other players too. Other games with housing, like Final Fantasy 14, aren’t nearly as customizable.

Blizzard has spent the last year hyping playing housing up and we’ll finally get to try it with the launch of the final patch for the current expansion, The War Within. Anyone who buys Midnight will have access to it, and Blizzard says it will be updating it and adding new items to it for the foreseeable future.



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Our favorite smart lock is on sale for the first time today
Gaming Gear

Our favorite smart lock is on sale for the first time today

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Setting up a smart home security system is important, even if you never want to think about having to use it. Thankfully, Kwikset’s Halo Select — the best smart lock we’ve ever tested — is currently down to $259 ($20 off) at Amazon, Lowe’s, and The Home Depot, marking the first time the lock has been on sale since its launch late last year.

In her review, Verge reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy praised the Halo Select for supporting four entry methods: a physical key, Kwikset’s app, a location-based auto-unlock feature, and a pin code. The lock was also easy to install thanks to the detailed instructions Kwikset provided, along with its intuitive mobile app. Out of the box, the Halo Select works with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Kwikset’s app via the cloud. If you have a Matter controller and Thread border router — such as a current-gen Apple TV, a recent Echo speaker, or an Eero router — you can connect to those platforms locally, and gain the ability to control the lock using Apple Home or Samsung SmartThings.

In our tests, using the Halo Select over Matter significantly improved its battery life. However, using the Halo Select via Matter meant giving up its auto-unlock feature, which worked reliably. Having your door unlock itself as you’re walking up to it is very convenient, but Matter doesn’t currently support auto-unlock, door sensing, fingerprint access, or facial recognition. The auto-unlock feature also requires you to have Kwikset’s app open on your phone in the background. Still, if you want a futureproof smart lock that can do almost everything (even if you have to make a tough choice about which features to prioritize), it’s our top pick.



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Microsoft lock in a release date for their ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, but no price yet because macroeconomics
Game Updates

Microsoft lock in a release date for their ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, but no price yet because macroeconomics

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Xbox’s handhelds have a confirmed release date, and yes, it’s the one that leaked. As for how much the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X will cost you, Microsoft aren’t sharing a price yet, because there are some macroeconomics to take into account, don’t you know.

The pair of Asus devices souped up with some extra Xboxiness to fit the company with all the green branding will release on October 16th. As I said, no price or pre-orders as of yet, with Asus senior vice president Shawn Yen having offered the following explanation to IGN as to why that’s the case:

I think we will have to… we need more time to figure the macroeconomic impact to pricing, and that’s why we’ll be sharing more later, in September and October.

Odds are that’s exec speak for something along the lines of ‘We’d like to see how things play out a bit more with these US tariffs, if you please’. Dealabs, whose reliable leaker Billbil-kun was behind the early sharing of the handhelds’ release date, report that the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X’s US prices could be $549.99 and $899.99 respectively. We’ll just have to see if that’s accurate, and what it equates to in sadness island pounds and pence.

Xbox also revealed a Handheld Compatibility Program, that’ll let you look for the “Handheld Optimized” or “Mostly Compatible” badges on games in your library to see what should work on your Xbox Ally, much like you’d check for Steam Deck verification. There’ll also be a “Windows Performance Fit indicator” that’ll “reflect expected performance” on your hardware.

Odds are our James will have plenty to say about both when they debut, which’ll amount to far more than my expert analysis that them be some cheeky little thumbsticks. I can’t see myself investing in one over a Steam Deck whenever I inevitably decide a handheld’s a thing I need more than life itself, as Phil Spencer has over the past couple of years.

I’ll run out the clock here by flagging that there have been protests going on this week at a Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus. Staff continue to voice their opposition to the company’s business relationship with Israel’s armed forces amid the on-going assault on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Read Edwin’s full write-up here.



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