Microsoft kicked off its Xbox Series X Games Showcase on Thursday with the first look at Halo Infinite campaign gameplay. And after it was widely panned by viewers, Microsoft responded with a plea for patience.
“Listen, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic,” Xbox marketing manager Aaron Greenberg said in an interview with Inside Gaming on Thursday. “It’s July, we’re far from [launch in] holiday, you’re seeing a work-in-progress game.”
Greenberg was responding to a growing chorus of people who were disappointed by Halo Infinite‘s graphics. During the livestream, many viewers said the game looked more like an Xbox One title rather than a game slated for a next-generation console. Since then, Reddit, Twitter, and other online forums have been awash with fears that Halo Infinite may not live up to the hype.
Greenberg didn’t necessarily say that the game looked like a true next-generation title in his interview. He did, however, try to partially blame the stream on how the game looked.
“It’s very hard to show the full power and graphical fidelity of what Xbox Series X will be able to deliver for you over a stream,” he said. Greenberg told viewers to visit Halo’s YouTube channel where the gameplay can be viewed in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. He noted that the livestream was delivered in 1080p.
Still, questions have been surfacing for weeks about whether Xbox Series X games will match PlayStation 5 alternatives. Microsoft has said that all Xbox Game Studios titles will be developed for both the Xbox One and Xbox Series X, prompting some to fear that the games may have less fidelity because they’re being built for older hardware.
Microsoft has said on several occasions that won’t happen and all of its games will be optimized for next-generation hardware. Halo Infinite, however, didn’t give those fearful players confidence.
Interestingly, Microsoft also revealed on Thursday that the Halo Infinite gameplay footage wasn’t actually running on an Xbox Series X. Instead, it was streaming over a PC with specs “representative” of the Xbox Series X experience. Whether that may have also played a role in the gameplay footage is unknown.
Whatever the case, Greenberg is urging patience and said by the time Halo Infinite launches this holiday season, things will turn out well.
“Between now and Holiday,” he said, “it’s just going to get better and better.”
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.