This digest compiles the latest from The Verge.
Today’s The Verge Roundup
You can buy your Xbox Ally an official pair of anti-drift joysticks
20 Dec 2025, 2:00 pm by Sean Hollister
Even at $1,000, the Xbox Ally X handheld didn’t ship with magnetic drift-resistant joysticks, and neither did the $600 model. But for an extra $20 at Amazon, you can change that today – with officially Asus-approved and sanctioned TMR joysticks from Gulikit, the company that’s made a name for itself by supplying aftermarket drift-resistant sticks.
The company says it worked with Xbox Ally manufacturer Asus to create these sticks, that they’ll be “automatically recognized” when you swap them in, and that you can use the handheld’s built-in Armoury Crate app to calibrate them afterwards.
And while I haven’t tried these ones (I do have a pa …
Dogpile’s puzzles mix Balatro, Tetris, and a pile of puppies
20 Dec 2025, 2:00 pm by Ash Parrish
One day, video game critics and journalists will put together a comprehensive study on the impact Balatro had on the industry – of how so many games that came after tried to capture its essence by adding complex systems to otherwise simple, easily understood games. Until then, I’m gonna play Dogpile.
Dogpile is a deckbuilding match-3 roguelike that builds on the style of merge games like Suika Game by adding a Balatro-like twist. The result is a cute, cozy (in both genre and vibe) game that appeals to both the numbers-go-up and the dog-loving sicko in me. Drop matching dogs on top of each other to create bigger dogs that reward you with poi …
‘Friend slop’ made co-op gaming goofier than ever in 2025
20 Dec 2025, 1:30 pm by Stevie Bonifield
When a friend invited me to play a new game called REPO earlier this year, I thought I was wasting my money – not because the game looked bad, but because it looked like Lethal Company. The surprise-hit 2024 co-op survival horror game has players wander through unnerving ruined structures collecting trash while evading monsters. Lethal Company was popular with my friends (and just about everyone else), but its eerie liminal spaces spooked me too much. My friends swore REPO was different, though, that it was so funny it was hard to be scared, especially with its goofy robot avatars – and they were right.
REPO has become one of my favorite ga …
Rivian’s AI pivot is about more than chasing Tesla
20 Dec 2025, 12:00 pm by Andrew J. Hawkins
RJ Scaringe is sitting in Rivian’s Palo Alto offices, explaining why the adventure-themed EV company suddenly decided to build its own self-driving cars, when an unexpected guest glides by the window outside: Waymo.
A robotaxi from the Alphabet-owned company pulls up outside the office. The passenger, an analyst from Goldman Sachs, briefly takes a selfie before climbing inside. The Rivian founder and CEO chuckles at the scene.
“That’s amazing,” he laughs. “So perfect.”
The arrival of the Waymo helps clarify the challenge that lies ahead for Rivian. A few hours earlier, Scaringe was onstage in front of an audience of hundreds of investor …
The sold-out Nex Playground made my kids laugh and cry
20 Dec 2025, 11:00 am by Sean Hollister
If you told me last year the Nex Playground would outsell Microsoft’s Xbox, even for two weeks, I would have laughed my way out of the room.
It’s a three-inch cube of a game console that’s likely less powerful than your phone, one which uses a single camera to track your body. It only plays curated, certified kid-safe games. Though frequently compared to the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect, the Nex Playground is worse than either at tracking motion.
Nor is it cheap: $250 upfront plus $89-a-year or $49-a-quarter annual subscription to get more than a basic sampler. If you like a game, you can’t buy it separately. Many are little better …
Want to link from Google’s app store to your app? That’ll be $2–4 per install
20 Dec 2025, 1:17 am by Sean Hollister
Today was the deadline for Google to reveal how it’s complying with Judge James Donato’s order to crack open Android for third-party app stores, stop illegally tying its Google Play Billing system to its app store, and let developers link to ways to download their apps outside the Play Store in the US.
But Google isn’t just letting app developers do things however and whenever they’d like. The company’s quietly updated its support pages with a January 28th deadline to enroll in specific Google programs for “alternative billing” and “external content links” – and these programs will come with large alternative fees of their own, assuming Jud …
Google is part of Movies Anywhere again
20 Dec 2025, 12:50 am by Jay Peters
Google is once again part of Movies Anywhere, meaning that movies you’ve purchased from Google Play and YouTube will now show up as part of your Movies Anywhere collection. Films from Google Play and YouTube became unavailable on Movies Anywhere on October 31st, but now they should sync to your account again.
“Support for Google as a digital retailer has been re-enabled,” Movies Anywhere says in a support page. “Reconnect your Google account and your movie purchases from Google will be added to your collection as usual. It only takes a minute!”
You may have received an email from Movies Anywhere about Google coming back, too – thanks to th …
End of today’s The Verge roundup.
