Back in September, Google previewed Play Games Sidekick. This experience is now beginning to roll out, with Google sharing a number of Android updates at the Game Developers Conference today. 

In supported titles, you’ll see a drag handle that opens a landscape or vertical overlay with shortcuts to Capture Screenshot, Start Screen record, turn on Do Not Disturb, and Stream to YouTube Live. The inaugural feature is a carousel of AI-generated Game Tips “based on your gameplay,” while you’ll also see achievements, quest progress, and rewards.

In the future, you’ll be able to “Start Gemini Live” to share your screen and get in-game help. You can now try Play Games Sidekick in over 90 titles. 

Google Play is adding support for Game Trials with a “Try” button on listings. This “risk-free way to jump into the full version of a paid title at no cost” will carry over any progress after purchasing. Game Trials are rolling out soon for paid games on mobile, with Google Play Games on PC support coming in the “future.” Behind the scenes, Game Trials are added directly to the Android App Bundle.

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Meanwhile, Google is introducing “Buy once, play anywhere” pricing that lets you access both the mobile and PC versions. Support is rolling out for the Reigns series, OTTTD, and Dungeon Clawler.

You can now browse desktop titles on Android with a new “PC” page in the Games tab. When you wishlist a game, Google will send alerts when it’s on sale. 

Google Play is adding more paid games like Moonlight Peaks, Sledding Game, and Low-Budget Repairs to join the existing free-to-play titles. 

It must be 2017 because loot boxes are back in the news again. Two weeks after New York’s attorney general sued Valve over its use of the gimmick, the company has responded. In short, the Steam maker essentially said, “See you in court.”

New York’s lawsuit accuses Valve of promoting illegal gambling through its games. AG Letitia James called the loot boxes found in titles like Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 “addictive, harmful and illegal.” The state seeks to “permanently stop Valve from continuing to promote illegal gambling in its games” and pay relevant fines.

In its defense posted on Thursday, Valve likened its mystery boxes to kids buying packs of physical trading cards. “Players don’t have to open mystery boxes to play Valve games,” the company wrote. “In fact, most of you don’t open any boxes at all and just play the games — because the items in the boxes are purely cosmetic, there is no disadvantage to a player not spending money.”

That last point, while applicable within the game itself, isn’t quite that cut and dry once you zoom out beyond that. As James pointed out, players can trade the cosmetic items they win from loot boxes on Steam’s marketplace or sell them on third-party marketplaces. Rarer ones can sometimes fetch lucrative sums.

Here, too, Valve defended the profitable practice by rolling out the trading card comparison. “We think the transferability of a digital game item is good for consumers — it gives a user the ability to sell or trade an old or unwanted item for something else, in the same way an owner can sell or trade a tangible item like a Pokémon or baseball card,” the company wrote. “NYAG proposes to take away users’ ability to transfer their digital items from Valve games. Transferability is a right we believe should not be taken away, and we refuse to do that.”

Valve is also facing a new class-action lawsuit over its loot boxes.

Some of Valve’s points land a bit more than its righteous defense of a gaming gimmick that, well, isn’t exactly beloved. The company accused the NYAG of proposing that Valve collect additional user information to prevent VPN use. In addition, the state allegedly “demanded that Valve collect more personal data about our users to do additional age verification.” Privacy experts have been sounding the alarm about the recent push for online age verification.

Valve also addressed James’s erroneous and outdated statement that video games encourage real-world violence. “Those extraneous comments are a distraction and a mischaracterization we’ve all heard before,” the company wrote. “Numerous studies throughout the years have concluded there is no link between media (movies, TV, books, comics, music and games) and real world violence. Indeed, many studies highlight the beneficial impact of games to users.”

The company says that, while it may have been cheaper to settle the suit, it deemed the NYAG’s demands user-hostile. “Ultimately, a court will decide whose position — ours or NYAG’s — is correct. In the meantime, we wanted to make sure you were aware of the potential impact to users in New York and elsewhere.”

Microsoft has pretty big news coming out of the annual GDC event, including a timeline for the next-gen Xbox console, “Project Helix,” as well as a new “Xbox Mode” coming to Windows 11.

Jason Ronald, Vice President of Next Generation at Xbox announced today that the next generation of Xbox console is actively in the works, with early versions headed to game developers sometime in 2027. The next-gen console will be powered by custom AMD hardware which will apparently deliver “an order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability.” Microsoft adds that it will integrate “intelligence directly into the graphics and compute pipeline, and drives meaningful gains in efficiency, scale, and visual ambition.”

Alongside the news about a new console, Microsoft also revealed more details about Xbox and Windows crossover.

Starting in April, Windows 11 will be adding an “Xbox Mode” in select markets. This brings the UI from the ROG Xbox Ally handheld to more Windows machines for a better full-screen and controller experience.

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Ronald says:

After debuting an early version with the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, today I’m excited to share that we are bringing the same innovation to Windows 11 with Xbox mode that begins rolling out in April, starting with select markets. Xbox mode lets players seamlessly switch between productivity and play, with a familiar full screen and controller optimized Xbox experience while embracing the openness of Windows.

Further, the Xbox Play Anywhere initiative, which includes both the ability to play Xbox games natively on Windows using the same purchase, as well as efforts such as cloud gaming, now features a library of more than 1,500 games.

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At the start of the year, Google brought a host of new Gemini-powered features, including built-in Nano Banana image generation, to Chrome. After debuting in the United States, those features are now making their way to Chrome users in Canada, India and New Zealand, with support for 50 additional in tow. Among the new languages Gemini in Chrome can now converse in are French, Gujarati, Hindi and Spanish.

To try out Gemini in Chrome, tap the sparkle icon at the top right of the interface. This will open the sidebar interface Google introduced in January. From there, you can chat with the company’s Gemini chatbot without the need to switch tabs. From the sidebar, you can also access Google’s in-house image generator. Additionally, Gemini in Chrome offers integrations with Gmail, Maps, Calendar, YouTube and other Google apps. If you live outside Canada, India or New Zealand, Google says it will make Gemini in Chrome available in more countries and languages throughout the rest of 2026. Oh, and if don’t want to use Gemini in Chrome, you can right click on the sparkle icon and select unpin to never see it again.

After the US launch last year and big update this January, Gemini in Chrome is now coming to Canada, India, and New Zealand, as well as adding support for over 50 languages. 

Gemini in Chrome can be launched from the top-right corner of the browser, keyboard shortcuts, Mac menu bar, or Windows system tray. It’s available as a floating window or side panel docked to your current tab.

Prompts can use the context of open tabs (up to 10), while Gemini in Chrome can tap into Calendar, Docs, Drive, Maps, Search, YouTube, and other Google apps. One particularly powerful integration lets you compose and send with Gmail right from the side panel. 

Meanwhile, Nano Banana 2 lets you edit images without needing to upload files or open a new tab. 

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On the security front, Gemini in Chrome will ask for confirmation before sending an email, adding an event to your calendar, or performing other sensitive actions. 

Gemini in Chrome now supports the following languages: Afrikaans, Amharic, Bulgarian, Bengali, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, English (UK), English (US), Greek, Spanish, Spanish (Latin America), Estonian, Basque, Finnish, Filipino, French, Galician, Gujarati, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Malayalam, Marathi, Malay, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish, Swahili, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese (Simplified), and Chinese (Traditional).

In addition to Chromebook Plus, Mac, and Windows, this expansion brings Gemini in Chrome to the iOS browser.

The inspector general’s office of the Social Security Administration is investigating allegations of a security breach by a member of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency operation spearheaded by Elon Musk. A whistleblower has claimed that a former software engineer from DOGE said he possessed two databases from the SSA, “Numident” and the “Master Death File.” The person reportedly asked for help transferring the databases from a thumb drive “to his personal computer so that he could ‘sanitize’ the data before using it at [the company],” an unnamed government contractor where he is currently employed. Those databases include personal information about more than 500 million living and deceased Americans.

The Washington Post reported that the whistleblower complaint was filed with the inspector general in January. “When The Post contacted the agency and the company in January, both said they had not heard of the complaint. Both said they subsequently looked into the allegations and did not find evidence to confirm the claims,” the publication said. It is unclear why the complaint is now being investigated and neither party offered comment this week for The Post‘s article. The SSA watchdog informed both members of Congress and the Government Accountability Office of its investigation.

These allegations follow a different whistleblower complaint filed last August about DOGE access and mishandling of data from the SSA. Charles Borges, former chief data officer at the agency, claimed that a SSA database was stored in an unsecured cloud environment. “This is absolutely the worst-case scenario,” Borges told The Post of the latest claims. “There could be one or a million copies of it, and we will never know now.”

As part of the March 2026 Feature Drop, Pixel phones are getting two features to help “manage your commute,” including Transit mode.

Last week, Google publicized At a Glance showing real-time updates about commute conditions. For example, you might see “Significant delays on work route” at the top of your lock and homescreen. Google will provide specifics underneath like “The Blue line from Main Station is delayed.” This is an extension of the existing “Commute” feature that shows “Traffic info and travel time.”

The second capability is a personalized Transit mode “to turn on helpful settings while you’re on the train.” This is part of the Modes feature (like Do Not Disturb and Driving). Options include: 

• To set volume settings during transit, tap Sound on, Vibrate only, or Silent.
• To set connectivity during transit, turn Use Bluetooth while commuting on or off
• To receive all notifications, turn on Allow all notifications.
• To choose who can send you notifications, tap People.
• To set which apps can send you notifications, tap Apps.
• To choose which alarms & other interruptions you’ll allow, tap Alarms & other interruptions.

A support document for the capability says “Google Maps needs time to learn your commute patterns” and that it “may take 2–3 weeks for commute info to appear after initial setup.” At a Glance is specifically leveraging your Maps Timeline (Location history) to learn your commute history and patterns.

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To set up Transit mode and At a Glance commute alerts through the Modes menu

To set both features up, go to Settings > Modes > Transit > App Settings > Set up commute notifications. You will need to: 

• Set up home and work locations.
• Confirm location settings.
• Build your commute profile.

As of today, we’re not seeing Transit in the Modes list, but we enabled what it will look like:

This is available on the Pixel 7 and newer:

Real-time transit info on At a Glance available only on Pixel 7 and newer, excluding Pixel Tablet. Language restrictions may apply. Available globally except Europe and the UK. Connection to Google account and Google Maps required