PlayerUnknown himself, Brendan Greene, took the stage at Paris Games Week to reveal what many Xbox One owners have been wondering since E3: When will Buy Now land on Microsoft’s console? The answer to that question, according to Greene, the game’s lead designer, is December 12 through the Xbox Game Preview program — the equivalent of early access titles on Steam.
Known as PUGB, the wildly popular battle royale game, which drops 100 players on a map in a fight to be the lone survivor, was announced for Xbox One at E3. The game became a runaway hit instantly following its March launch on PC as an early access Steam game. In seven months, it has sold more than 13 million copies and currently stands as the most-played game on Steam.
The decision to bring PUBG to Xbox was helped by the Xbox Preview program, which allows unfinished games to be played on the console — no program of that sort exists on PlayStation 4 at this time. PUBG will still have the same premise on Xbox One, but Bluehole said that due to its “community-driven focus,” it won’t be exactly the same experience on Xbox One. It will, however, cost $30, just like the PC version.
Bluehole Studio also announced that it worked with Xbox to produce three unique, limited-edition cosmetic packs exclusively for Xbox. The packs — Warrior (shown above), Accessory, and Tracksuit — will be available as stand-alone purchases when the game debuts on Xbox One in December. While pricing isn’t yet known, you’ll want to act fast since they will only be available for a limited time. Bluehole said these three add-ons will be the only items available for purchase on Xbox One while the game is in the preview program.
Along with the Xbox One launch date reveal, version 1.0 of PUBG for PC is expected to arrive in late December. That means that the shooter could exit early access by the end of the year and become a “finished” product.
Bluehole has been developing both versions of the game in tandem, but each version has its own unique challenges. Even though the PC version is planned to enter version 1.0 shortly after the game launches for Xbox Preview, Bluehole wants “to have both versions align to each other as soon as possible.”
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.