The developer of PCOT, a free PC tool that reads text from a game window and translates it, announced on 10 November that the update now in progress will be its last. In a post on X, the developer, who goes by ぬるっぽ (Nullpo), wrote that advances in AI point to a future in which players can translate games into Japanese directly themselves, so the tool’s role has come to a natural end. The same post says the app will stay available and bugs will still be fixed.
PCOT stands for Process Connect OCR Translator. The user attaches it to a running program and drags a box around on-screen text; PCOT reads the text with optical character recognition and shows a translation in its own window, which also works for text that cannot be copied and pasted, as GIGAZINE explained in 2021. Recognition was never perfect: in that test, a game’s “Skip all” and “Next” buttons came out as “Stap Ail re”. Compatibility varies by game, and volunteers maintain a wiki that tracks it. The tool’s official download page calls it free and lists its limits: no real-time translation, no full-screen mode, and some processes cannot be connected.
The developer kept adding newer models. Version 1.7.9, released on 11 April 2025, added Gemini AI, which the page says improved reading and translation accuracy; the page also warns that the Gemini API cannot be used by anyone under 18. In December 2025 PCOT gained a link to Nani !?, a translation tool by independent developer catnose, AUTOMATON reports. The outlet dates PCOT’s first release to 2020 and notes that other AI-based game translation tools and real-time screen translators already exist.
According to AUTOMATON, Nullpo wrote that the end is not a sad one: they are glad that players will soon be able to enjoy games in Japanese with AI’s help. Users replied with regret and thanks, the outlet says. When GameTales checked the download page on 11 November, it did not yet carry an end-of-development notice.