Gamedaily is reporting that Anthony Gikas, an analyst at research firm Piper Jaffray, thinks Sony could be launching a new PSP product sometime in mid-2006 that will feature an integrated hard drive. Gamedaily speculates that this could be a move by Sony to counter a new Nintendo Gameboy product that might launch sometime next year as well. Based on my experience with the Sony PSP, transferring files over to the Sony memory stick can be a chore that most people could do without. The instructions for playing back media content are unclear and overly complicated. An internal hard drive might help solve some of these issues. Of course Creative Labs has just launched their new Zen Vision product which is a portable media player featuring an integrated 30GB hard drive. The Zen Vision really is not much larger than the Sony PSP, so it would make sense for Sony to target Creative, and possibly Apple with a new PSP. There is no denying that the screen on the Sony PSP is nothing short of a work of art, with an integrated hard drive, Sony would have a killer product. In the same GameDaily article, Gigkas predicts that Microsoft’s early launch of the Xbox 360 will help the company grab more market share from Sony, who is expected to launch their Playstation 3 sometime in March 2006. In somewhat related news, Toshiba has announced that they will be pushing back the introduction of HD DVD players till later into 2006. With rumors surrounding the Xbox 360’s integration of an HD DVD drive, I think you can personally throw that idea out the window.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.