Sony has officially launched PlayStation Tournaments on the PS5 today. The company announced the launch of the new esports feature in a blog post published this morning following three months of beta testing.
To kick off the feature’s debut, Sony is allowing both PS5 and PS4 players to participate in the PlayStation Tournaments: Win-A-Thon. In this tournament, players can win as many times as they can to improve their rankings on the leaderboard and win prizes including, but not limited to cash. The competition is scheduled from December 1 through January 31, 2023.
The signup process for the Win-A-Thon and eligible titles varies depending on the console you own. If you have the PS5, you can see specially marked tournament cards for eligible games from the Game Hub and press the Register button to enter and review the tournament ruleset in the pop-up window. Once you agree to the terms, press the Join Now button on the card. If you have the PS4, you need to go to the Events tab from the PS4 home screen, select Tournaments on the left side, pick one the participating games, hit the Register button on the to-left, and follow on-screen instructions to link your PSN account with ESL Gaming to complete the registration process.
Only three games are eligible for the Win-A-Thon on the PS5: Guilty Gear: Strive, FIFA 23, and NBA 2K23. The eligible PS4 games include the aforementioned titles, as well as BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, Street Fighter V, Mortal Kombat 11, Soul Caliber VI, Dragon Ball FighterZ, DNF Duel, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r], FIFA 22, NBA 2K22, and Madden 23. Guilty Gear: Strive players who rank in the top 64 on their regional leaderboard will qualify to compete in a themed Win-A-Thon Final to vie for additional cash prizing.
For more information on the prizes you can win depending on where you rank, go to PlayStation’s Competition Center page.
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.