E3 2022 has been canceled, both digitally and in-person, according to a series of reports. After canning hopes of an in-person event earlier this year, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has informed its partners that a digital event won’t be happening this year either.
The news of the event being halted for the year comes from a tweet from Razer PR lead Will Powers. Powers stated that he received an email detailing E3 digital’s cancellation before the ESA even put out an official statement. That tweet was later confirmed by various partners and press.
Just got an email… It's official, E3 digital is official cancelled for 2022. Lots of mixed feelings about this…
— Will Powers (@WillJPowers) March 31, 2022
This isn’t the first time E3 has been canceled. The 2020 show was shut down during the first year of the pandemic, with it making a digital-only return in 2021. Some hoped that the show might return to in-person in 2022, but those hopes were dashed in January when the ESA canceled the live show due to the COVID-19 Omicron variant. When the ESA announced that news, it didn’t confirm that an E3 showcase would happen at all in 2022, though some assumed it meant a digital pivot was coming.
In a report from IGN, sources connected to the event claim that discussions about a possible digital E3 have been ongoing ever since the cancellation of the physical equivalent. However, a lack of momentum reportedly stalled the ESA’s plans.
IGN’s sources state that the ESA seems to be making plans to regroup for a larger comeback in 2023. The ESA has yet to put out an official statement claiming that anything is being planned, let alone an official cancellation announcement of a potential digital event.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.