When it comes to virtual reality, it’s no wonder that Sony is leading the market with PlayStation VR. Its lower price point and compatibility with the PS4 make it a much easier investment than the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. Despite its success, there is one factor that really holds it back from achieving more: The PlayStation Move controllers.
Utilizing eight-year-old technology may have made sense for keeping development costs low, but it also brings a lot of the same flaws that plagued it. The imprecise motion controls leave virtual hands shaky at their best and floating away at their worst. If two patents filed by Sony Interactive Entertainment are anything to go by, a new motion controller could be on its way.
According to VR Focus, the first patent published earlier this month showcases a new controller with an analog stick surrounded by several face buttons. Like many other motion controllers, a trigger is lying underneath. The hand strap has also been moved from the bottom the controller, now sitting alongside it. Inside the controller shows even bigger upgrades. Interlocking gears in the grip expand and contract to give players more immersive feedback “capable of imparting a tactile sense to a user.”
A second patent filed last year also details the potential of finger placement tracking. This is similar to the technology found in Valve’s prototype Knuckles controllers and the Rift’s Touch controllers. The patent makes specific reference to the controller being tracked by a head-mounted display as opposed to an external camera. This would negate the tracking issues that occur with the existing PlayStation Camera and bring it closer to the experience found with Microsoft’s Mixed Reality headsets.
While the future of PlayStation VR is not certain, it’s currently leading the high-end VR gaming market with over 2 million units sold. It’s anyone’s guess whether anything comes of these patents or not. In the past, Sony has patented many other potential VR input devices that never make it to market. With these two patents, Sony at least makes it clear that it is listening to the demands of its current audience.
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.