Ready at Dawn Studios has been shut down after more than 20 years developing games for platforms like the PSP and the Meta Quest (formerly Oculus Rift).
The company, which had been working on the Lone Echo VR series for parent company Oculus Studios, is closing effective immediately. According to Android Central, which broke the news (former workers confirmed the shutdown on LinkedIn), the cuts were to “ensure that Reality Labs stays within the new budgetary constraints and that Oculus Studios can make a ‘better long-term impact’ in VR development.” The parent company is also encouraging laid off workers to apply to other jobs within Oculus Studios.
Ready at Dawn was originally formed in 2003 by ex-Naughty Dog members to work on PSP games like Daxter and God of War: Chains of Olympus. Its first original IP was the The Order: 1886 in 2015, which was not received well but has retained a sort of weird cult status among players. It hopped into VR development with Lone Echo in 2017, and was subsequently acquired by Oculus Studios. Its last game was Lone Echo 2 in 2021, but it ended Echo VR support to focus on other projects a couple of years later.
The studio was hit by layoffs in 2023 as part of Meta’s larger cuts across the company that affected thousands of workers.
Last week, Meta released its quarterly financials, which showed that Reality Labs — its AR/VR and metaverse segment — reported a $4.49 billion operating loss. The division has reported losses over each of the last four quarters, and since the start of 2019 has lost around $59.5 billion.
Meta executives said in an earnings call that the company will continue to invest in the “full set of ambitions” in Reality Labs, including virtual reality. CFO Susan Li highlighted the Quest 3 headset, along with Meta’s push into AR glasses. A spokesperson told Android Central that we shouldn’t expect more cuts to games development.
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.