Xbox and Windows users can now add money to their accounts with Bitcoin, the mysterious cryptocurrency that has made waves in the last few years for presenting the first, arguably viable, decentralized currency to compete with government-backed systems. The option to buy Xbox credit with Bitcoin was noticed and posted to Reddit by user shafnitz and subsequently confirmed by a help page on Microsoft’s commerce site.
The move makes Microsoft one of the largest tech companies yet to embrace Bitcoin, following Dell and Newegg’s lead from earlier in 2014. Microsoft began to quietly support the currency in recent months by adding a Bitcoin converter to its search engine, Bing.
According to Microsoft’s help page, Bitcoin cannot be used to purchase products directly at this time, but rather must first be used to add funds to a Microsoft account, which can then be spent on games, music, and videos from the Xbox, Windows, and Windows Phone stores (though not yet on physical merchandise). Bitcoin transactions are non-refundable and currently only supported in the United States. No word has been given about plans to roll the feature out in other countries.
While supporters of Bitcoin are generally thrilled about the announcement, Oxford economic sociologist Dr.Vili Lehdonvirta, speaking to TechRadar, cautioned against overestimating the announcement’s impact on the currency overall:
“Microsoft is the latest in a string of progressively larger firms to start engaging with Bitcoin. However, like many of the earlier adopters, my understanding is that Microsoft is not actually receiving Bitcoins itself, as it uses a partner that converts customers’ Bitcoin payments into dollars. This means that Microsoft itself will not be accumulating and thus spending Bitcoins, which somewhat limits the significance of this announcement. Microsoft is not entering the Bitcoin economy as such.”
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.