Video game consoles have a long history with web browsers. From the advent of the World Wide Web, consoles have been trying to get online. Browsers on video game consoles were initially very much an attempt to provide a cheap gateway to the web for a casual audience lacking technical expertise, though as time progressed they’ve become a greater and more integrated part of systems.

This article takes a look at browsers on video game consoles in detail, though only covers official web browsers. Many consoles have browsers installable via custom firmware and homebrew, but they’re beyond the scope of this post, as are non-web systems such as Satellaview and online services that didn’t provide a browser, such as XBAND, Sega Meganet, and Sega Channel.

"So I was trying to write reviews of a bunch of hit indie games I played recently. Then I got overwhelmed by the pointlessness of video game reviews these days and had to take a long nap.

And, I mean, pro reviews are pointless, right? If a game has a big enough budget or following and isn’t actively on fire, it gets a 9. If it is a competently made but low-budget indie, like mine, it gets a 7. If you read the actual review (nobody does), it’s a collection of facts about the game you could easily get from watching the trailer. Throw in a couple of comments from the reviewer about whether they like this genre or not, mix in 3 or 4 ham-handed political comments, and you got a review! Hit send!"

“The European Commission said on Tuesday it cannot require video games to remain playable ​after they are withdrawn from sale, but ‌will work with industry and consumer groups on a voluntary code of conduct for managing games’ “end of life”.”

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest

June edition is live and my religion prompts me to download as many demos as my ssd can welcome and play them throughout the week. I usually hover around a good hundred, and that’s still a very small percentage of all demos available. I like to sort and evaluate them on a piece of paper (pic below from february).

Anyway here are some takeaways so far (still downloading):

• this edition, I’m noticing builds that are heavier than they should (based on what the game looks like), some indie games are approaching 2Gb of download, when I was used to the 500Mb - 1Gb range
• as always the most wishlisted demos aren’t the best, upcoming AA games are all looks no essence for up to 30Gb, I usually play them first to get rid of them and make space for more interesting indie games
• Jusant and Cairn had their impact on the industry, there’s a bunch of climbing games (mixed with the Only Up / Getting Over It formula) trying to ride the trend
• Noticing a lot of JRPGs inspired games as well, can’t correlate with the success of Expedition 33 but my guess is that there’s a big audience for those
• You still have a ton of survival crafting / chill farming games, but less than previous editions (I think it was October 2025 that was riddled with those)
• I’ll edit this post with more insights as I go through the demos

In this spoiler, the full list of demos I downloaded so far (will update throughout the week), I usually download the ones I already wishlisted (~15 to 20), then go through the trending ones (~10), and finally just doomscroll looking at interesting stuff: