Following its official unveiling in China earlier this year, HTC has finally made the Viveport online store available to the rest of the world. Vive headset owners can now access the application storefront and can even purchase a few titles at a heavy discount to celebrate.
HTC’s Viveport offers an alternative to Steam, which since the launch of the Vive virtual reality headset earlier this year, has become a de facto marketplace for HTC Vive virtual reality applications.
It comes with a comprehensive slate of VR-compatible apps across multiple categories, and integrates with HTC’s existing Vive Home VR hub, allowing HTC Vive owners to browse and purchase compatible apps without leaving the realm of virtual reality. Although that was possible before with the Steam overlay, it was a little clunky in places — this should offer a more streamlined (dare we say it, Oculus-like) experience for consumers.
Along with games, Viveport also hosts VR edutainment titles, creative apps, and 360-degree video content, in addition to VR-focused news, sports, health, travel, and shopping information.
To celebrate this launch, HTC has teamed up with developers to offer theBlu, The Music Room Mini, Mars Odyssey, Firebird — La Peri and Stonehenge VR, all for just a dollar each. Although most of these titles are far from the most expensive at their traditional pricing, this still represents a big savings.
It’s a nice addition for anyone just getting into virtual reality, as it means they will be able to flesh out their library for less.
With more than 300 pieces of gaming software for the Vive on Steam alone, the marketplace is a lot more crowded than it once was. It’s hoped that Viveport can help highlight some of the non-gaming experiences that are available for the HTC Vive, to show that it’s good for more than just swords and shooting galleries.
Launch titles for the new store include the aforementioned, discounted experiences, as well as Everest VR, Apollo 11, Titans of Space 2.0, Cineveo, Heaven Island, Surge, Cloudlands: VR Minigolf and many more.
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.