Google announced in a tweet that it would be sharing more details about its upcoming game streaming service Stadia ahead of E3 2019. It prefaced the news with the words, “Some news can’t wait for #E3,” and followed up by inviting viewers to tune in on Thursday, June 6, at 9 a.m. PT to the first Stadia Connect, a livestream where we will finally learn more details around Stadia’s pricing, games, launch, and more.
This is a pretty big deal considering Google remained fairly quiet about some of the service’s most pertinent details. It’s also interesting that it’s opting to unveil this news prior to the most important video game conference in the world, E3. Does this mean Google thinks its news will get drowned out in the sea of announcements anticipated at E3? Or is the Stadia news so juicy that the company just can’t wait to reveal more? We’ll see on June 6.
First introducing the tech as Project Stream, Google allowed interested gamers to sign up and participate in a “technical test” to help them address common issues it has with cloud gaming. Since then, the company revealed the project to be Stadia, a service that promises to deliver high-end gaming via streaming to every and any platform connected to the internet. Several companies are already working on their own game streaming services, but Google’s offering is a bit more ambitious than the competition.
While we already know a good amount about what Stadia promises to deliver, how much it will cost, what games it will offer, and when it will launch are all questions that have yet to be directly addressed. Speculation has been made about the price with many pointing to a Netflix-style subscription service that would offer players access to a large library of games, and while Google confirmed a launch in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, it has not given a firm date or an estimated time of arrival. Despite this, many sources estimate it will arrive in the last quarter of the year.
The Stadia Connect event is already up and scheduled on YouTube. If you don’t want to miss the livestream, we suggest visiting the page and setting a reminder so you’ll receive a notification prior to and at the moment it begins.
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.