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It is a remarkably good time to get into video games. It’s not just that we have new console launches from Microsoft and Sony. It’s also like Nvidia is bringing new possibilities to PC games as it brings 4K performance into an achievable price range. And the fact is that Oculus has released a new, cheaper VR headset.
In addition, game companies are starting to experiment with new pricing models and distribution methods. Microsoft has bundled its hardware with its game streaming service in a subsidy plan. Apple seems to want to avoid this with its own bundle, but is still giving it a try with Apple Arcade. Nvidia and Google offer cloud streaming competition for games. Sony has added more top tier games (or at least games that have been top tier games more recently than usual) in its PlayStation Plus bundle.
Oh, and AAA console titles are likely to cost $ 70 right now. There is another experiment for you.
All of this (including the last one) opens up more competition and more opportunities for video games. And as I mentioned earlier, this round of new consoles, new PC hardware, and new deployment mechanisms is just a foundation. We don’t yet know exactly what these technical changes will ultimately mean for game design.
So yeah, late 2020 is a very good time to get into video games. But if the technologies released this year live up to their promise, it will only be a start.
PlayStation News
┏ The 10 Biggest Announcements and Trailers from Sony’s PS5 Showcase.
┏ The PS5 will be released on November 12 for $ 499.99.
┏ PS5 Digital Edition launches November 12 for $ 399.99.
┏ PS5 pre-orders started a day earlier and have been a mess so far. Everyone just went live early and no one was prepared for the flood of traffic. Last night at 7:30 p.m., all of these retailer websites were broken in some way:
GameStop soon released a press release promoting the availability of the PS5 online, although at that point there wasn’t a product page to buy one from. You can now find product pages at Target (PS5, PS5 Digital) and Best Buy (PS5, PS5 Digital).
┏ PS5 will be 99 percent backward compatible with PS4 games.
┏ PlayStation 5 games cost up to $ 69.99.
┏ Sony confirms PS5 initial lineup and free upgrade plans for PS4 titles. Well, well, look at this, $ 70 games are really becoming a new normal!
Here is the full list, including pricing and first-time confirmation that Sony intends to increase the price of some exclusive titles by $ 10 to a maximum of $ 69.99:
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Astro’s Playroom (Japan Studio) – pre-installed on PS5
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Demon’s Souls (Bluepoint Games / Japan Studio) – $ 69.99
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Destruction All Stars (Lucid Games / XDEV) – $ 69.99
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Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales – $ 49.99
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Marvel’s Spider-Man: Mile Morales Ultimate Edition – $ 69.99
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Sackboy A Great Adventure (Sumo Digital / XDEV) – $ 59.99
┏ Final Fantasy XVI is coming to PS5, check out the first trailer.
┏ Hogwarts Legacy is an open Harry Potter game for PS5, Xbox Series X and PC. This was one of the most popular posts on the site yesterday.
Hogwarts Legacy is a new Harry Potter open world game for the PlayStation 5 platform that Sony announced on Wednesday during its live stream event for the release of the PS5 price. The game, which was developed by Just Cause Studio Avalanche, takes place in the legendary Hogwarts from the book series in the 19th century, but is not played as the series’ title character due to its length of time.
┏ Sony’s PlayStation Plus Collection lets you play a range of PS4 classics on PS5 when you launch. Lots of good things in this bundle. Hope Sony keep updating it.
┏ Sony announces prices for PS5 accessories, including a DualSense controller for $ 70.
┏ Confirmed: The PS5 is the largest game console in modern history. It’s really, really big. Really. Plus, those weird flippers on the side? Yes…
Oh, and there’s a little tidbit I forgot to mention which makes this even better: Sony doesn’t include the PS5’s “largest projection” or optional base in these measurements, according to the press release.
Oculus news
As you may know by now, I need to disclose that my wife works for Oculus. Apart from deleting the following links, I will not report on Oculus, VR or Facebook either editorially.
┏ Connect 7: All the news from Facebook and Oculus’ big VR / AR event.
┏ Oculus Quest 2 review: better, cheaper VR. Adi Robertson rated:
Quest 2 is everything I liked about the original Quest at launch, but with the benefit of a stronger ecosystem that has developed over the past year. Even with the inherent awkwardness of current generation VR, it feels more like an end product than an experiment with early adopters. Oculus – a company owned by social giant Facebook – has done some of its best work to date. It has also raised some of the biggest questions about the future of VR.
┏ The new Quest 2 VR headset from Oculus starts at $ 299 and ships on October 13th.
┏ Oculus Quest vs. Oculus Quest 2: What’s the Difference?.
┏ The original Myst comes to VR.
┏ Facebook’s first “smart glasses” will be Ray-Bans, which will be released next year.
┏ Facebook is discontinuing the Oculus Rift S..
┏ VR Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell games are coming.
┏ Mark Zuckerberg on why he doesn’t “want to put an Apple Watch on your face”. My colleague Casey Newton interviewed Mark Zuckerberg.
reviews
┏ Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 review: 4K PC games finally make sense. Tom Warren has an incredibly comprehensive and detailed review. And he is impressed:
The RTX 3080 heralds the next generation of 4K gaming, thanks to some raw performance and many promises Nvidia made with the RTX 2080 to finally bring it to life. DLSS and ray tracing were merely promises of where the future of PC gaming would head two years ago. With games like Minecraft, Control, Fortnite, and Call of Duty backing the latest technology from Nvidia, that’s a reality with RTX 3080. The next generation of consoles will also support ray tracing, which means we’ll even see more games later in 2021 and beyond can add ray tracing and soften the blow with DLSS.
┏ GoPro Hero 9 rating: 5K for under $ 500. GoPro has had a few companies on its heels, but in reality there is little comparison. That thing looks great. Becca Farsace rated:
Building on years of action camera knowledge, GoPro has finally mastered a hardware experience that has never frustrated me while sticking to software that, while taking a bit of getting used to, offers endless resolution and frame rate capabilities.
Apple news
┏ The blood oxygen meter of the Apple Watch is for the subject of “wellness” and not for medicine. Important context from Nicole Wetsman:
The Apple Watch’s blood oxygen sensor is not a medical device and cannot diagnose or monitor medical conditions. The company says the feature is simply there to help users understand their fitness and wellbeing. However, Apple linked the feature back to the COVID-19 pandemic during the product announcement: “Blood oxygen and pulse oximetry are terms we heard a lot about during the COVID pandemic,” said Sumbul Ahmad Desai, Vice President of Health at Apple.
┏ Apple developers are battling for the accelerated release of iOS 14. It was really a lot for developers and a bummer. Jon Porter collected a number of their stories:
Today’s version is most people’s first chance to try out the new bells and whistles of iOS 14, including new home screen widgets, a picture-in-picture mode, and a new translation app, to name a few. However, it wasn’t good news for iOS developers who had a tight deadline to compile, test, and submit their apps in time for iOS 14 launch day
┏ iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 are starting to roll out.
┏ Apple accuses Epic of “lighting a fire and pouring gasoline” on the new Fortnite file.
More from The Verge
┏ Cheaper air quality sensors arrived just in time for the climate catastrophe. Really great story from Justine Calma. This is the kind of thing The Verge is meant for: to be informed about consumer technology and to use that knowledge to get smart stories about how those things are transforming culture, politics and living experience.
According to Wexler and Castell, commercially available, low-cost sensors are likely not yet accurate enough to allow political or regulatory decisions to be made on their own. You can miss very small particles or mistake water droplets for particles in high humidity. But many are good enough to raise awareness of air pollution and get the ball rolling for action. When air quality is really bad – like it has been on the west coast of the US for the past few weeks as a result of forest fires – the readings don’t have to be perfect to let people know they should take shelter.
┏ Super Mario 3D All-Stars is a wonderful history lesson. Andrew Webster reviews the package with the most unsung Mario, Super Mario Sunshine:
It’s rare for 3D games to be fun and interesting for so long after it’s released, but it’s proof to Nintendo’s designers that this seems like one crucial Switch release to get excited about rather than another Mario 64 -Port can complain. I jumped back and forth between all three games, and while I have fun from moment to moment, the most enjoyable thing was watching the series develop over time
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