PlayStation announced its big holiday deal on Tuesday, discounting the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition by $70 from now until December 24, 2024.
The disc-free version of the console will start at $380, down from its standard $450 price. That’s a pretty sizable discount on the latest version of the base edition PS5.
This deal is clearly targeted at holiday shoppers. Black Friday is coming up, so this also serves as PlayStation hardware’s big savings for later this month. After Christmas, it’ll be back up to its regular price.
While getting a mainline console for under $400 these days is always worth checking out, the discount isn’t as drastic as it seems on the surface. For one, the vertical stand is sold separately. As this is the digital version, it also doesn’t come with a disc drive, which can also be bought separately. If you want the ability to play physical games or have flexibility in setting up the PS5, you’re out of luck unless you don’t mind spending $80 on a disc drive (currently out of stock on the PlayStation Direct store) or $30 for the vertical stand . Also, $380 is only $20 less than the $400 the PS5 Digital Edition cost at launch in 2020.
Put together, this sale is still less expensive than the PS5 Slim with a built-in disc drive. This version hasn’t been discounted for the holidays and still costs $500 — and the vertical stand is sold separately, a fact that seems to be quickly becoming a meme if the comments on the YouTube video above are any indication.
The PS5 Slim replaced the infamously chunky PS5 Sony released in 2020. It doesn’t change much about the launch console, but it’s thinner and has slightly more storage. There also aren’t any differences between the Digital Edition and regular edition besides the disc drive. If you have the money to spare this holiday and need the best frame rates possible, there’s also the PS5 Pro, which launched earlier this month for $700 (disc drive and vertical stand sold separately).
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.