Our biggest stories and favorite things of 2024 | The Vergecast

David Pierce's Notebook and Pen Habit

• David Pierce has a habit of buying notebooks and pens, despite having poor handwriting and experiencing hand pain when writing, in an attempt to switch from digital note-taking to writing on pen and paper (10s).
• He owns various types of notebooks, including old five-star school notebooks, Moleskine knockoffs, an actual Moleskine, and a Tote Book from Studio Neat (48s).
• Pierce has realized that he needs a notebook that is always with him and a large number of pens, so he bought 12 Pilot Precise V5RT pens from Amazon to place in different locations (1m31s).
• His goal is to always have a pen within reach, as he often forgets to carry one with him despite usually having his notebook (1m50s).

The Vergecast Special Holiday Episode

• The Vergecast is doing a special episode for the holiday week, featuring discussions with various staff members about the biggest stories of the year, their most important work, and their favorite new things (2m17s).
• The episode will include conversations with multiple staff members, covering a range of topics and allowing listeners to get to know them better (2m34s).
• The episode is expected to be enjoyable and informative, with a lot of content for listeners to engage with during the long drive on the weekend (2m56s).

The Vergecast December 10th Special Episode and Staff Homework

• The Vergecast will have a special episode on December 10th, where they will answer questions about how The Verge works, what they're doing, and their future plans, and they're asking listeners to send in their questions via the hotline or email (3m49s).
• The staff was given homework to come up with their story of the year, favorite tech thing of the year, and favorite new non-tech thing of the year, with deliberately broad categories to encourage different interpretations (4m8s).

J Peters on Google's Monopoly Ruling

• J Peters, a news editor, chose Google being ruled a monopolist as his story of the year, which he believes could fundamentally transform the way people use the internet and search for things (5m35s).
• Peters thinks this story could have massive consequences, but also acknowledges that it might ultimately amount to nothing, making it a fun and unpredictable story to follow (6m18s).
• When asked which outcome he thinks is more likely, Peters leans towards the "big deal" end, but acknowledges that it's difficult to predict (6m41s).

Potential Consequences of Google's Monopoly Ruling

• The government may prevent Google from making default deals, such as the one on the iPhone, which could lead to a massive change in the future of mobile search (6m46s).
• The current trial and the Microsoft trial from 25 years ago share similarities, and just like how Microsoft was focused on the trial while Google rose to prominence, AI companies may be on the verge of a similar shift (7m4s).
• The rise of AI companies could lead to a realization that Google is not the only option, resulting in significant changes in how technology is used daily (7m51s).
• Some AI search engines are being explored, but they have not yet gained widespread adoption due to the difficulty of changing established habits and workflows (8m9s).
• The muscle memory of using Google makes it challenging to switch to alternative search engines, even for those who are aware of the potential benefits (8m22s).

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

• Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a favorite new game, exceeding expectations as a huge RPG with lovable characters and an incredible storyline (8m59s).
• The game holds a special memory for being played during late-night sessions while a child slept, making it a unique experience (9m32s).
• The genre of video games that can be played with a sleeping child on top is a special niche, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth fits into this category (9m46s).
• For someone who has never played Final Fantasy, it's recommended not to start with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, as it's part two of a three-part story, and instead begin with an earlier game in the series (10m12s).
• A remake of a game has been played, which captures everything people loved about the original and brings it up to modern graphics and gameplay standards, with the developers clearly knowing the source material and treating it with care, and it's a great game to settle into and play, but it's long and requires a significant time commitment (10m22s).
• The game can be played in both long and short stints, with the ability to play 20 minutes at a time, making it suitable for busy parents who can't dedicate large blocks of time to gaming (11m20s).
• The game can be played on the Steam Deck, a portable gaming device that's great for playing games around the house when you have a kid (11m53s).

Field Notes Notebooks

• A favorite non-tech thing of the year is a pack of Field Notes notebooks, which are very pocketable, have a nice grid for sketching, and are great for writing to-do lists or outlining stories with pen and paper (12m16s).
• Writing in a notebook with pen and paper has been a great way to process thoughts and get a handle on things, and it's something that's been done more than expected, especially as a new parent (12m48s).
• Field Notes notebooks are a great size, but can be tricky to hold and write in due to their flexibility, and some people prefer either giant sturdy notebooks or tiny pocket-sized ones (13m15s).
• A person finds the Field Notes notebook to be perfect for taking notes and thinking through ideas, but not ideal for extensive journaling or writing, due to its design and the way it feels to write in it (13m51s).
• The Field Notes notebook is great for jotting down quick thoughts, writing bullets, and sketching out ideas, making it a good use case for note-taking (14m24s).

Jake Kastrenakes and Thomas Ricker's Sweater Game

• Jake Kastrenakes, The Verge's executive editor, is known for his strong "sweater game," often wearing impressive and layered outfits (14m48s).
• Thomas Ricker, who came from the Netherlands, was also praised for his exceptional sweater and scarf combinations (14m53s).

Jake Kastrenakes on AI

• Jake Kastrenakes' story of the year is AI, which he believes is actually good, not just overhyped, and has shown its usefulness in various situations (15m17s).
• Jake shares a personal experience where he used AI to compare health insurance benefits documents, and the AI provided a correct and helpful answer in just a minute and a half (16m9s).
• This experience made Jake realize that AI can be useful in small moments, saving time and providing helpful information, even if it's not 100% correct (17m1s).
• AI can be viewed as the world's most powerful summarization machine, which is a smaller yet cool and full of neat things it can do, and it's good at tasks like giving ballpark correct answers, doing math, and writing reasonably good content (17m12s).
• High standards are set for AI, but it's impressive that it has become reasonably good at various tasks, and these capabilities are suddenly in everything, with many minor use cases becoming second nature for people (17m12s).

AI Predictions and Nvidia's Worth

• The year 2025 is expected to be the year where high-minded rhetoric gets closer to the actual reality of AI technology, with the tech getting better and people calming down about it (18m30s).
• Nvidia's worth is mentioned, with a value of around $500 trillion, but it's noted that people need to calm down about the company's valuation and the technology (18m47s).

The Weamp Sound System

• The Weamp is a favorite new thing of the year, a $300 device that combines an amp, streamer, and phono amp into one, making it a convenient and reasonably good-sounding solution for those with bookshelf speaker systems (19m11s).
• The Weamp is praised for its ability to automatically turn on and off, stream things, switch inputs, and be controlled by a TV, making it a great solution for those who want a hassle-free sound system (19m11s).
• A sound system is preferred over separate items due to its simplicity and ease of use, despite the sound not being significantly better, with the exception of a phono input which requires a separate amp (21m0s).
• The sound system can stream Chromecast, AirPlay, and connect to a TV, making it a great option (21m29s).

Chronology Card Game

• The favorite non-tech thing of the year is a card game called Chronology, which is simple to learn and play, and involves guessing the order of historical events (22m18s).
• In the game Chronology, each player starts with one year and is given another event and year, and they must decide if the event happened before or after the initial year (22m27s).
• The game becomes more complicated as players receive more cards and must determine the correct order of events (23m5s).
• Chronology is a fun and easy-to-learn party game that is great for casual game nights and allows players to tease each other about their knowledge of history (23m16s).

US Presidential Election and Environmental Concerns

• The story of the year is the US presidential election, which affects everything, including the environment, policy, and the future, and its outcome is a major concern for the upcoming year (24m37s).
• As an environmental reporter, there are studies indicating that the next administration will lead to more pollution and a warmer planet, and the Supreme Court's decisions have made it more difficult to regulate industries (24m55s).
• The Supreme Court has been reshaped with Trump's appointees, leading to more challenges in regulating industries and having wide-reaching effects (25m21s).
• Reporters and people need to figure out how to discuss these issues without resorting to "directionless screaming" and instead find ways to talk about the stories within the larger narrative (25m55s).
• One interesting aspect to watch is what happens at the state and local level, as people have historically counteracted federal actions and made progress at the local level (26m18s).

Nuclear Energy and Tech Companies

• Nuclear energy is another area to watch, as it has gained interest from tech companies and has surprisingly received bipartisan support, despite being divisive within the environmental community (26m51s).
• Tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have made deals in nuclear energy, and Trump has been supportive of it in the past, with his pick to lead the Department of Energy having ties to both fossil fuels and nuclear energy (27m31s).
• The development of advanced nuclear reactors by companies like the one Trump's pick for Department of Energy leads is also worth monitoring (28m9s).
• Advanced nuclear reactors are not expected to become a reality until the early 2030s, with regulatory approvals and costs still being major hurdles (28m50s).
• Next Generation nuclear reactors are supposed to be smaller and cheaper, but projects have also run into rising costs (29m32s).
• Regulatory and permitting delays are significant challenges in making nuclear energy an affordable source of energy (29m40s).
• The regulatory state is not expected to become more efficient and effective in the near future (29m53s).

Documentaries: Nurse and Scene, Cat Film Festival, and Sugar Cane

• A documentary called "Nurse and Scene" is about the history of Filipino nurses in the US, particularly during the pandemic, and gives voice to an overlooked community (30m24s).
• The documentary "Nurse and Scene" is still in theaters, but it is hoped that it will be available for streaming soon (31m24s).
• Watching documentaries on the big screen can be a unique and enjoyable experience, similar to being in a classroom, but in a good way (31m36s).
• A person attended a cat film festival in New York City, which featured cat videos on a big screen, but the main attraction was the community of cat lovers and the opportunity to be with like-minded people (32m5s).
• The cat film festival is on tour, and it's a great way for cat enthusiasts to hang out with each other, similar to a cat convention (32m50s).
• A documentary called "Sugar Cane" was recommended, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and is available on Disney+ and Hulu; it's an investigation into abuse at an Indian residential school run by the Catholic Church in Canada (33m9s).
• The documentary "Sugar Cane" was created by an environmental justice advocate whose father attended the school, and it's a powerful story about healing and the advocate's relationship with his dad (33m39s).
• The person has a long list of documentaries to watch and is considering canceling all non-documentary streaming services for six months to catch up (34m3s).

2004 Package and Fashion Trends

• The 2004 package was a highlight, featuring pictures from 2004 that staff members had to dig up, and the resulting story was a fun trip down memory lane (34m25s).
• Many people's 2004 photos were embarrassing, with fashion trends like popped collars and puka shell necklaces being particularly notable (35m4s).
• The resurgence of 90s fashion trends, such as frosted tips and pukas, is being observed, with some people finding it difficult to distinguish between adults and their children due to similar clothing styles (35m30s).
• The fashion trend is seen as a real and terrifying phenomenon, with some people noticing their friends posting pictures on social media dressed in outfits reminiscent of their middle school and high school days (35m58s).

The Vergecast Break and Return

• The Vergecast is taking a break and will return with more discussions featuring folks from The Verge sharing their biggest and favorite stories of the year (36m10s).

Grammarly and Service Now

• Grammarly is a tool that delivers a consistent communication experience across an organization's ecosystem, helping to unblock roadblocks at work and potentially saving 19 days per year per employee (36m26s).
• Grammarly works seamlessly across over 500,000 web and desktop apps, and its stats show that companies can get 25% faster time to resolution for support tickets and 52% less time spent writing sales emails (36m52s).
• Service Now is an AI platform for business transformation that puts AI to work for people across a business, removing friction and frustration for employees, supercharging productivity for developers, and providing intelligent tools for service agents (37m38s).

Home Depot Smart Home Security

• The Home Depot offers a wide selection of smart home security products that afford easy control and automation of a home, including smart cameras with 4K surveillance and doorbells that can be operated from a smartphone (38m15s).
• The Home Depot's smart home products can help provide an extra layer of safety and security, especially during the holiday season, and can be purchased online or in-store (38m54s).

The Vergecast Returns and Vision Pro Review

• The Vergecast is back from its break and will continue with discussions featuring Ven Pavich, the supervising producer on the video team (39m5s).
• The Vision Pro review is considered the video of the year due to its high production value, despite being completed under a tight deadline and requiring significant editing to meet time constraints (39m54s).
• The review was a collaborative effort by a team working late into the night, with a script delivered by Nei that was impressive but needed to be cut down from its original 35-minute length (40m10s).
• The Vision Pro was a new product category for Apple, generating a lot of interest and attention, and the review felt like a classic Verge review (40m35s).

Vision Pro's Momentum and Features

• Despite initial excitement, the Vision Pro seems to have lost momentum, with few people discussing or caring about it 10 months after its release (41m24s).
• However, some users are still enthusiastic about the device, particularly with the recent addition of ultrawide monitor support, which allows for a more seamless workflow (41m46s).
• The Vision Pro can be used as an external monitor, allowing for a more immersive experience, such as editing photos in Lightroom, and this use case is considered one of the best for the device (42m17s).
• The lack of support for the Apple Pencil is seen as a limitation, requiring users to switch back to keyboard and mouse, disrupting the workflow (42m49s).
• The ultra-white monitor is an impressive feature, but its price is too extreme for anyone to buy and use, making it inaccessible to most people (43m4s).

Fuji X6 Camera and Kino App

• The Fuji X6 is a favorite new thing of the year, a camera that was ordered on the day it was announced and took eight months to be delivered (44m2s).
• The Fuji X6 is a favorite due to its compact size and 35mm camera, which is preferred over bigger full-frame cameras (45m6s).
• The Kino app is an honorable mention, used for video recording on an iPhone, particularly for its HC files and built-in LUTs, such as the Tyler Salman's LUT (45m27s).
• The Kino app has increased the use of an iPhone as a camera, and the action button is programmed to open the app (46m15s).

Coffee and Mounting Gazette Magazine

• Getting good at making coffee with a new coffee machine is a favorite non-tech thing of the year (46m40s).
• A magazine called Mounting Gazette is a favorite, which focuses on outdoorsy activities such as skiing and snowboarding, and features beautiful photography, making it a great way to step away from the tech bubble (46m45s).
• The idea of a magazine as a coffee table book is considered, with the potential to create a big, beautifully crafted publication that can be enjoyed at home (47m57s).
• A Breville coffee machine with a grinder and milk frother was purchased, which has elevated the coffee experience and made it difficult to go back to previous methods (48m15s).
• After some trial and error, the perfect coffee beans were found, and a preference for high-quality coffee has developed, with a willingness to spend more money on it (48m42s).

Kylie Robinson on Billionaire Crybabies

• Kylie Robinson, the senior AI reporter, is introduced, and despite having a cold, she is happy to participate in the discussion (49m30s).
• Kylie's story of the year is the common theme of billionaire crybabies, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Sam Altman, who are pushing for less regulation and getting their way (50m2s).
• The year has been marked by the presence of several childish billionaires who seem to be everywhere, doing everything, and making popular podcasts, with a suggestion to put a 200% tariff on straight men with podcast microphones (50m49s).
• The theme of the year is expected to continue, with billionaires trying to influence people to be chill with their products and companies, especially with the incoming Trump Administration (51m1s).
• It is predicted that billionaires will still have to argue with Trump and deal with tariffs, with Elon Musk having the president's ear, as seen in the Open AI Elon lawsuit (51m44s).
• The lawsuit reads like Elon is using his influence to argue that others are being anti-competitive, and it is expected that billionaires will have to continue to kiss up to the president or pick fights from within the White House (51m56s).

Stardew Valley and Comfort Games

• The favorite new tech thing of the year is Stardew Valley, a cozy comfort game that has received a new update on the Switch, featuring different colored cats and new ways to explore the town (52m31s).
• Stardew Valley is a game that combines elements of Animal Crossing with combat, where players can beat up monsters, grind for resources, and build their own farm, with the option to marry in-game characters (53m21s).
• The game has a strong community, with players often asking each other who they married in the game, with one player mentioning that they married Harvey, the town's doctor (53m47s).
• A new update for Stardew Valley has been released, allowing players to sink a lot of time into the game due to its fun and chill nature, making it a great example of a comfort game (54m6s).
• Comfort games, such as Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Minecraft, have become increasingly appealing as they focus on the enjoyment of playing the game rather than working towards a specific goal or beating a big boss (54m15s).
• The appreciation for comfort games has developed over the last couple of years, with a realization that the point of these games is simply to have fun playing them (54m41s).
• Animal Crossing was found to be a bit too pointless, but Stardew Valley offers goals and quests to work towards, making it more enjoyable (54m54s).
• Skyrim has also been replayed recently, despite being a "pointless time sink" from 2011, showcasing the appeal of comfort games (55m5s).

Nintendo Switch and Curated Playlists

• The Nintendo Switch has been revisited, with a preference for its games despite the old yellow original switch having a poor battery life (55m15s).
• Rumors of a new Switch being released next year have been circulating, but Nintendo has been teasing this for many years, making it a humorous situation (55m30s).
• A favorite non-tech thing of the year is curated playlists, specifically the "Non-Stop November" playlist, which features indie music and autumn vibes, including songs by Suki Waterhouse (56m14s).
• The playlisting process is based purely on vibes, with a focus on creating a playlist that captures the current mood and atmosphere (56m50s).
• The importance of simple things like music and fresh flowers is highlighted as they can bring happiness and comfort, especially during difficult times like having a cold and being stuck at home on a rainy day (57m21s).
• Tulips are mentioned as a favorite type of flower due to their beauty and the way they slowly open up (57m57s).
• The idea of being like a character in a romantic comedy, with a cozy setup and a warm atmosphere, is discussed as an aspiration, with the addition of being one oversized bowl of soup away from achieving it (58m20s).

Barbara Krasnoff's Story and Tech of the Year

• Barbara Krasnoff, a reviews editor, shares her story of the year, which includes two notable pieces of election coverage, one being Addie's article on the 2024 presidential election and the other being an essay on the implications of voting for Donald Trump (58m59s).
• Barbara praises the essay's headline, "Vote for Donald Trump is a vote for school shootings and measles," as one of the best and most impactful headlines of the year (59m32s).
• The difficulty of choosing a tech thing of the year is discussed, with Barbara mentioning that she found it to be the hardest task among the three pieces of homework assigned (59m59s).
• Barbara shares that her tech thing of the year is the Steam Deck, a handheld gaming console that she loves and enjoys playing with, although it's currently unplugged (1h0m4s).

Steam Deck and Smart Home Devices

• A person uses a device for quick answers and navigation, but doesn't have a smart home to utilize its full potential, so they mostly play with it and experiment with different features (1h0m41s).
• They plan to attach the device to their Chromecast to easily play background content like cute kittens on their TV (1h1m21s).
• Another person has been trying to figure out how to quickly play specific YouTube videos, such as Moana, for their toddler, and has mapped a shortcut button on their Roku remote to achieve this (1h2m0s).
• They also want to create a button to play a specific video, like the Happy video, so their toddler can play it themselves (1h2m26s).
• As a Google Voice household, they sometimes prefer pressing a button to open Netflix rather than using voice commands (1h2m40s).
• Using a stream deck to change their Slack status has been helpful and made them a better coworker, as they can reliably update their status with the press of a button (1h2m59s).

Googly Eyes Trend

• A non-tech favorite thing is googly eyes, which were given out at a meeting, and attaching them to the back of a phone has been a relaxing and uplifting experience (1h3m29s).
• A person has a dark blue backing on their Pixel 6 with two little eyes, resembling kitten eyes, which is a cute and adorable design (1h4m25s).
• There is a trend of putting googly eyes on things in the newsroom, started by Via, who put googly eyes on her old Mac Mini instead of getting a new one (1h4m56s).
• The idea of putting googly eyes on things is becoming popular, and it's even suggested that carrying a bag of googly eyes can be used to brighten someone's day by handing them a couple (1h5m20s).

Huntress, ServiceNow, and Stripe Sponsorships

• The Vergecast is supported by Huntress, a cyber security company that provides enterprise-grade security for small to midsize businesses (1h5m54s).
• Huntress offers a fully managed security platform that includes endpoint detection and response, identity theft detection, and security awareness training (1h6m18s).
• The Vergecast is also supported by ServiceNow, an AI platform for business transformation that removes friction and frustration for employees and supercharges productivity for developers (1h7m0s).
• ServiceNow provides intelligent tools for service agents to make customers happier, all built into a single platform (1h7m20s).
• The Vergecast is also supported by Stripe, a payment management software that simplifies the process of buying products online (1h7m33s).
• Stripe's software handles the complicated processes that occur under the hood of online transactions, making it easier for customers to buy products (1h7m44s).
• Stripe is a payments and billing platform that offers a seamless experience for business owners and their customers, supporting millions of businesses worldwide, including companies like Uber, BMW, and DoorDash, and providing a suite of specialized features and tools to power businesses of all sizes (1h7m54s).

Alex Heath on the AI Rat Race

• Alex Heath, Deputy Editor at The Verge and author of the Command Line newsletter, considers the Riverside Mac app as his thing of the year, which is a desktop app used to record podcasts (1h9m2s).
• Alex Heath's story of the year is the "AI Rat Race," where big tech companies and Open AI have been trying to one-up each other with announcements, creating a high-stakes and expensive game of one-upsmanship (1h9m19s).
• The AI Rat Race has led to a constant stream of iterative improvements, with each company trying to do 5% better than the others every few weeks, spending large amounts of money in the process (1h10m0s).
• Despite the rapid progress, there hasn't been a significant "aha" moment, similar to the early iPhone, and the improvements have felt more like iterative updates, similar to the iPhone 14 era (1h10m32s).
• Alex Heath believes the AI Rat Race will continue next year, despite the possibility of a slowdown or a bubble bursting, and that companies will continue to invest heavily in AI research and development (1h10m47s).
• The concept of the "scaling wall" in AI is becoming a challenge, where increasing compute power and money doesn't necessarily lead to dramatically smarter models, and companies like Google are seeing diminishing returns from training their next-generation models (1h11m13s).
• The current state of AI models is focused on building good experiences around existing models, with agents being a key area of development that can perform tasks on behalf of users by chaining together multiple actions and taking over desktop or phone interfaces (1h11m41s).
• Agents can be achieved with current models, and the magic happens in post-training, with the scaling wall applying to training new models but not necessarily improving existing ones (1h12m8s).
• Open AI is considered the current leader in the AI race, especially with its 01 reasoning model, although other companies like Meta, Gemini, and Google are also making progress (1h12m46s).
• Meta has significantly moved up the leaderboard this year with its Llama model, while Google's Gemini seems to be doing okay, and Anthropic is performing well on the business side by being accessible through every cloud provider (1h13m7s).
• Open AI's ChatGPT is seen as a major consumer bet, with the potential to become the next big platform like Google or Facebook, justifying the company's high valuation (1h13m30s).
• The AI industry is rapidly changing, with a lot of movement among the top players, making it difficult to predict who will be leading in the future (1h13m45s).

Granola App and Shu Spirit

• A favorite tech thing of the year is the Granola app, a meeting note-taking app that uses a hyper-miniaturized LLM to transcribe calls in real-time and provide actionable summaries without saving audio files (1h14m37s).
• A favorite application of AI is an interview transcription tool that integrates well into Mac OS, providing a simple and useful interface, and is fairly well-integrated into the operating system (1h15m23s).
• The tool can recognize voices, make distinctions, and provide next steps after a meeting, making it helpful for breaking down long conversations (1h15m52s).
• The application also has integrations with other apps, allowing users to drop a summary straight into Slack or their email app (1h16m14s).
• A non-tech favorite is Shu, a Japanese spirit that is not sake or Soju, but a higher ABV, clear, easy-to-drink, earthy, and smoky spirit (1h16m53s).
• Shu is not easily found in the States, but can be found in some Japanese restaurants in LA, and is worth trying for those who enjoy strong spirits (1h17m11s).

Ash Parrish on the Video Game Industry

• Ash Parrish, a video games reporter, joined the conversation and discussed her favorite story of the year, which is a story from her beat (1h18m46s).
• The biggest stories in the video game industry are the upcoming releases of the Nintendo Switch 2 and Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6), which are expected to be massive events in the industry (1h18m49s).
• The Nintendo Switch 2 is expected to be announced sometime before the end of Q1 2025, and the company is clearing its plate in preparation for the release (1h19m44s).
• GTA 6 is expected to be the biggest video game release in recent history, with immense hype surrounding it, and there are concerns about whether it can live up to the expectations (1h20m12s).
• The fact that the two biggest stories in video games are things that do not exist yet raises existential questions about the industry and the nature of hype and anticipation (1h20m53s).
• Despite concerns about hype and potential disappointment, it is likely that both the Nintendo Switch 2 and GTA 6 will be big successes due to the reputation and loyal fan base of their respective companies (1h21m47s).
• The success of these releases is not solely dependent on their quality, as the brand recognition and loyalty of Nintendo and Rockstar will drive sales regardless of the final product (1h21m55s).
• There is a risk of disappointment and catastrophe if GTA 6 does not meet expectations, similar to what happened with Cyberpunk 2077 (1h22m26s).
• Despite this risk, many people are excited about GTA 6, and the lack of information about the game has only added to the hype and anticipation (1h22m40s).
• Rockstar has not revealed much about the upcoming game GTA 6, and no official gameplay has been shown, which is seen as a smart move to manage expectations (1h22m50s).
• Despite the lack of information, GTA 6 is expected to sell well due to its popularity and the fact that it's a Rockstar game (1h23m32s).
• The video game industry has been experiencing a trend of layoffs and studio closures, with the Embracer Group recently announcing a dried-up release pipeline due to the closure of six studios and the layoff of over a thousand employees (1h24m13s).
• The layoffs and closures are expected to have a significant impact on the industry, with a lack of new games and a decrease in production pipeline (1h24m36s).
• A rising culture war within the video game industry is attributing the problems of the industry to minorities and people of color, which is seen as absurd and not based on facts (1h25m12s).
• The culture of storytelling in video games is shifting towards a more diverse tapestry, appealing to people of color, LGBTQ people, and disabled folks, which is causing some people to resist change and get mad at the wrong reasons (1h25m53s).
• It's essential to cover these stories to understand why they're happening and to counteract narratives that attribute the failure of games to being "woke" (1h26m17s).
• The video game industry lacks institutional memory due to the high turnover rate of journalists and the difficulty in maintaining steady jobs in the field, making it hard to keep track of past issues and developments (1h27m5s).
• This lack of institutional memory is specific to the video game industry and is not seen in other industries such as movies, which have a more stable group of people covering these kinds of issues (1h27m9s).

PlayStation Portal and Corgi Puppy

• The PlayStation Portal is a favorite new device, allowing users to play PlayStation games on the couch while still being in the same room with others, and its recent update to stream games from the cloud makes it a must-own for anyone with a PlayStation 5 (1h28m40s).
• The PlayStation Portal's ability to stream cloud games with a PlayStation Premium Plus Membership makes it comparable to the Steam Deck, although it may not have the same technical specs (1h29m44s).
• The device's update breaks it open and makes it more appealing to a wider audience, particularly those who want to play games without being tethered to a PlayStation 5 (1h29m22s).
• The Portal is considered a lovely object that has been improved to do what it should have been doing all along, making it a desirable product to own, especially with its enhanced utility (1h29m53s).
• However, there's still room for improvement, particularly in maintaining a stable connection, as it currently drops the connection, requiring reconnection every few minutes (1h30m16s).
• The solution to this issue would be to beef up the streaming from the PlayStation, making it more reliable and efficient (1h30m24s).
• A new Corgi puppy named Boo, or BU for short, has been introduced as a favorite non-tech thing of the year, named after Alexander the Great's horse Bucephalus (1h30m46s).
• Boo is a three-month-old Corgi who loves chewing on feet and is currently teething, but is also very affectionate and loving (1h31m22s).

Concluding Remarks and Show Information

• Boo has become a favorite among The Verge staff, with dedicated dog channels in their Slack, and is considered a destroyer of worlds due to his energetic and playful nature (1h31m54s).
• The conversation concludes with a mention of upcoming topics to discuss in 2025 and a thank you to the Verge staff for participating in the show (1h32m20s).
• The hotline number for sharing thoughts, questions, and ideas is 866 Verge one1 (1h33m8s).
• The next couple of weeks will feature discussions on big thoughts about the future of media (1h33m16s).
• The show is produced by Liam James, Will Pore, and Eric Gomez (1h33m20s).
• The Vergecast is a Bird's production and part of the VOX media podcast Network (1h33m24s).
• Upcoming episodes include discussions on fun vanity things and microphones on Tuesday, and the news on Friday (1h33m28s).
• The show will be covering year-end topics soon as the holidays approach (1h33m38s).
• Despite the holidays, AI news is expected to continue (1h33m39s).
• A message of appreciation is extended to listeners in the US who celebrated Thanksgiving, wishing them a wonderful weekend (1h33m44s).