To promote its Xbox 360 gaming console over the upcoming end-of-year holiday buying season, Microsoft has announced it will be bundling two games with Xbox 360 and Xbox 360 Elite consoles: Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The bundled consoles are expected to reach retail channels by the end of October; the Xbox 360 price will remain at $349.99, while the Xbox 360 Elite price will stay at $449.99. According to Microsoft, the game bundle equates to a retail value of $90.
The announcement comes shortly after Microsoft lowered prices on its Xbox 360 consoles, and right on the heels of its mammoth launch of Halo 3, widely viewed as the most-anticipated title for the platform. The bundle is almost certainly intended to sweeten the appeal of the Xbox 360, which will soon be entering its third year of availability (making it the oldest of the so-called “next generation” consoles). The Xbox 360 will also face increased competition from Sony as that company tries to increase the appeal of its so-far floundering PlayStation 3, as well as from the runaway success of the lower-powered (and lower-priced) Nintendo Wii.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.