Gaming Roundtable: Arc Raiders' Rise
The crew kicks things off with the Gaming Roundtable, where the main topic is the explosive success of Arc Raiders. Following the "North Line" update which unlocked the 'Stella Montis' map, the game has smashed its own records, peaking at over 481,000 concurrent players on Steam alone.
Valve's New Hardware
The discussion turns to Valve's surprise hardware drop. In an unexpected move, Valve announced three new products for 2026: a new Steam Machine, a revised Steam Controller, and a standalone VR headset called the Steam Frame. We break down what this means for the living room and PC gaming.
IBM Layoffs
We cover the continued trend of tech layoffs, with IBM confirming another 2,700+ jobs are being cut as the industry continues to pivot.
The Great Azure Outage
The team dives deep into the "Great Azure Outage" from late October. We explain what Azure Front Door is, how a single "inadvertent configuration change" caused a global cascade failure, and why it took down everything from M365 and Teams to Xbox Live.
Watch & Listen
VOD: https://youtu.be/GgtfQ-Fvgac
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/TheDigitalAscent
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@TheDigitalAscent
Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/digitalascent/
Hosts & Credits
- Hosts: Brent, Matt, Brandon, Shaun, Jordyn
- Technical Design / Production: Brent