While most developers and publishers are getting their music onto existing streaming apps, Nintendo went the extra mile and made its own. The company announced Nintendo Music on Wednesday, and it is now free to download on Android and iOS. It’s also free to use as long as you have a Nintendo Switch Online membership.
Nintendo has a lot of games under its umbrella, and many of their soundtracks are available to stream on the app. You can look up game soundtracks individually, but Nintendo Music also gives you some playlist options that sort music by character (and, yes, that extends to songs performed by characters, like KK Slider in Animal Crossing: New Horizons), by mood, or by whether it’s a track in a boss battle or menu screen. You can also loop songs or extend certain tracks by up 60 minutes. Nintendo also says that you can sort tracks so that late-game moments won’t get spoiled, and that it’ll recommend you music based on your play history.
The app still needs some updates, though. First up, the selection isn’t comprehensive yet. Here are the game soundtracks you can stream at the time of this writing, sorted by release year:
Second, as some online have noted, there isn’t any composer information on the tracks. I clicked through a few tracks, and the only information available is the track title and the game it’s from (copyright Nintendo, Game Freak, etc). Finally, it’s not available for your PC, Mac, or other device just yet.
Still, the basics are here. You can download tracks for offline listening, make your own playlists, and listen in the background while in other apps. Plus, it is free to use if you have that Switch Online subscription.
While we’ve all been waiting for Nintendo to announce its next-generation Switch successor, the company has been busy releasing new unrelated products. Besides the Music app, it also released Alarmo, a motion-sensor-controlled alarm clock.
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.