What’s up, gamers? It’s been a rather loud week in the tech and gaming world, thanks to China’s brand new DeekSeek AI model tanking the global AI market. I wouldn’t blame you if you thought that was the only news this week. That’s why I’m here to get you caught up to speed on what you might have missed slipping through the cracks.
So, without further ado, here is all the tech and gaming news you should know about this week.
1. DeepSeek AI
Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek took over our feeds this week after it dropped its open-source AI model. This caused the big tech giant Nvidia to lose almost US$600 billion (AUD$900 billion) in a single day. The AI space is deliberately convoluted, so if you’ve been confused about what this all means, I don’t blame you.
In short, DeepSeek revealed that the market for AI is grossly overvalued. This news hit even harder as President Trump signed a deal investing USD$500 billion into new data centres and AI infrastructures (risks be damned!).
Not only is DeepSeek free compared to ChatGPT’s higher models, but it also uses significantly less power, which is why Nvidia lost a huge amount of stock value.
Many are calling this a “Sputnik” moment for AI, as this might be the start of the US losing in the AI war. Three other Chinese companies announced three more rival AI models as well. And, of course, how could we forget about Alibaba’s AI model?
OpenAI has also accused DeepSeek AI of scraping from ChatGPT’s model. The irony of ChatGPT getting angry at an AI company for stealing its work is too rich, it actually hurts.
The TL;DR here is that the worst people you know got humbled on the world stage. It’s uncertain what this means for the development of AI moving forward, but hopefully, by proving these models can work on less intensive equipment, it’ll cool the amount of power being used to fuel this tech.
2. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 reviews drop
Speaking of Nvidia, reviews for its latest GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 graphics cards dropped this week, and the response has been underwhelming, to say the least.
The brand new 5090 card will cost Australians $4039 and promises to revolutionise your gaming experience. However, reviewers found that it performs only slightly better than the previous RTX 4090 series released in September 2022, which comparatively costs $2,959.
Hardware review channel Digital Foundry did an excellent breakdown detailing the benchmarks here for the wonderful tech nerds eager to see the results. But if you want a quick summary, these graphics cards are wildly more expensive for a superficial bump in performance and better-looking graphics. Unless you’re trying to crack into the highest ends of gaming, it’s probably not the best investment right now.
With Trump announcing plans to tariff Taiwan, the largest chipmaker developer in the world right now, prices for these graphics cards are expected to rise dramatically worldwide. So, if you’re planning on building your PC soon or looking to upgrade, it’s now, more than ever, worth considering more affordable hardware first.
3. Overwatch 2 players demand refund after paying for a free skin
Blizzard announced this week that it would be holding an Overwatch 2 Spotlight event, which would reveal massive changes to the game. The announcement also revealed that they’ll be giving away the brand new Cyber DJ legendary skin for Lucio for free as a Twitch drop next month. This means that if you watch an Overwatch 2 Twitch stream for a certain amount of time, you can claim this skin for free.
Sounds neat, right? Well, the catch here is that the skin was made available to purchase only a day before this announcement. So, if your favourite character is Lucio and you spent your hard-earned money on this skin, you might rightly feel a bit angry. The skin was priced at 2800 Overwatch coins, which translates roughly to $40 AUD.
As of writing, the skin has been removed from the store, and players are demanding refunds. Blizzard has yet to issue a response.
It’s not the best start to the new season, but hopefully, whatever they have in store for us on February 12 will breathe some life back into the game.
4. PS4 Games To No Longer Be Included In PlayStation Plus
Sony announced this week that, starting in January 2026, it will remove PlayStation 4 games from its PlayStation Plus Essentials monthly Games and Games catalogue and focus only on PlayStation 5 releases.
In a PlayStation Blog post that went into further detail, Sony clarified that this won’t affect the monthly titles players have already obtained. Games Catalog titles will still be available to play until they leave the catalogue as part of the monthly refresh.
Sony also announced its plans to add more PS5 games to the free monthly games list instead. So, if you’ve before, it’s probably a good idea to keep tracking these monthly and adding to your profile.
5. AI Mario Game Hits The Xbox Store
Gamers raised their eyebrows this month after the bizarre Mariostro Strikers: Soccer League suddenly popped up in the Xbox Store. No, Nintendo didn’t surprise drop the beloved Mario Strikers game on the Xbox. As you might have guessed, this is a bit of a shameless rip-off (if the AI-generated cover art didn’t tell you that already).
Game Developer (?) LightGamess first debuted Mariostro Strikers: Soccer League on the Xbox digital store on January 10. I put game developer under question because I couldn’t find any information on the studio. No website, no Linkedin. It’s like they don’t even exist. Even more strange, the store page doesn’t really provide a lot of information. But what it does provide speaks a thousand words. I mean, just look at this screenshot.
Ah yes, my favourite Mario character: 80s Paul McCartney from The Beatles four times.
Kotaku also pointed out that the game’s description is wrong. The store page mentions 4v4 matches as perfect for “challenging your friends,” but the game is listed as a single-player title.
You can still buy the game for USD$4, but I don’t even think it’s worth it, even for the bit. Go spend your hard-earned money on a better shitpost game, like 420BLAZEIT 2. Now that’s a video game.
The post DeepSeek Launches & Fake AI Mario Game Drops On Xbox: Tech & Gaming News This Week appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
