After a morning of speculation from EarthBound/Mother fans everywhere that was spurred by the games’ creator teasing an announcement during today’s Nintendo Direct, the actual announcement was finally unveiled. EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings are coming to the Nintendo Switch Online membership program today.
The Nintendo Switch Online program is Nintendo’s subscription service similar to PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold. It lets players play games online and gives them access to a library of numerous retro titles. The newest titles being added are the highly requested original two EarthBound games.
EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings made their last official showings on Nintendo consoles with the previous generation’s Wii U. Unlike on that console, the titles won’t be available for purchase alone through a Virtual Console store, but are exclusively playable through Nintendo Switch Online.
This announcement may come as a bit of a disappointment to many, as series creator, Shigesato Itoi gave a subtle hint earlier today about the reveal. Many saw this as a tease of a possible new installment to the franchise or an official release of Mother 3.
It isn’t all bad though, as the EarthBound titles have been some of the most requested omissions of the Nintendo Switch Online service. When they are readily available to subscribersm it will give tons more players an easy way to finally experience one of the most talked-about and highly praised Japanese role-playing games out there.
You can play both EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings right now with a membership obtained through the Nintendo Switch Online app on Nintendo Switch.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.