We talk about how Xbox doubling down on Hideo Kojima after PlayStation decided to drop Physint, Ubisoft's move away from its intrusive Ubisoft Connect PC launcher on Steam, smaller Steam games getting better personalized visibility on the front page of the site, and CliffyB talking about how AAA should 'faceplant for a while' in this new PC/console game creation paradigm.
We talk about how Xbox doubling down on Hideo Kojima after PlayStation decided to drop Physint, Ubisoft's move away from its intrusive Ubisoft Connect PC launcher on Steam, smaller Steam games getting better personalized visibility on the front page of the site, and CliffyB talking about how AAA should 'faceplant for a while' in this new PC/console game creation paradigm.
Join Simon Carless & Chris Plante in the latest GameDiscoverCo Show as they look at these questions and more. Mentioned in this episode:
Ubisoft is testing a workaround for its intrusive Ubisoft Connect PC launcher and Steam, announcing a new Ubisoft Connect Services Steam tool “that keeps Ubisoft game features such as cross-progression, cross-play, player safety, challenges and rewards, among others, without requiring the Ubisoft Connect PC launcher to be installed or launched.” (Another example of third-party launchers backing off of Steam…) https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2751000/view/702153223322993170
ICYMI: Xbox doubled down on Hideo Kojima’s games, signing the formerly PlayStation-published Physint - after Sony dropped it in June - to add to OD, while also “collaborating across film and television to bring new stories to broader audiences.” (PS dropping it makes sense if Death Stranding 1/2 underperformed expectations & the fact Physint would have been PS5 only, per Bloomberg.) - https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/09/09/xbox-and-kojima-productions-expand-partnership-to-publish-physint/
Spotting smaller Steam games getting more front page referrer traffic than they used to? That’s cos, some time recently, Valve changed the featured front-page games in ‘Discounts & Events’ (the non-Daily Deal ones) to be more personalized to logged-in player interests. (A good move to help the little guys, done quietly.) Over on Facebook (!) former Epic wunderkind Cliff Bleszinski has views on the ‘Crash 2.0 for games’ rhetoric: “So is the end near? Hardly. ‘Life finds a way”’ - keep looking towards the AA/’slop’ area to find the fun, and at a reasonable price, which allows you to sample a bunch of quirky, innovative titles with friends. Let AAA faceplant for a while, I say.” - https://www.facebook.com/CliffBleszinski/posts/pfbid02UHX6Xt6fXD8EMUr1LuzntcX8waJaesoV45A7DZozw9BjRCGtq5Lrw5pensGNM992l
Also discussed: last week and this week's new Steam releases, and discussion of new features for our GameDiscoverCo Pro/Plus data service.