The outbreak of coronoavirus, officially called Covid-19, has been the cause of a range of issues in the tech world, from the canceling of MWC to Apple announcing it is unlikely to meet its quarterly forecasts. Now, it is impacting the production of hardware as well, with Valve announcing that it will have “far fewer” units of its Index VR headset available to purchase.
“With Half-Life: Alyx coming on March 23, we are working hard to meet demand for the Valve Index and want to reassure everyone that Index systems will be available for purchase prior to the game’s launch,” a Valve spokesperson said in a statement given to Road to VR. “However, the global coronavirus health crisis has impacted our production schedules so we will have far fewer units for sale during the coming months compared to the volumes we originally planned. Our entire team is working hard right now to maximize availability.”
Valve also reminded customers that they can sign up to be notified when Index hardware comes back into stock on the Index Steam page. To get notifications for availability, you can head to the Index Steam page and click “Notify Me” next to any piece of hardware to be informed once it is available for purchase.
Keeping Valve Index in stock has been an ongoing challenge, especially given the enthusiasm of Half-Life fans. When Valve’s upcoming title Half-Life: Alyx was announced as a VR exclusive in November last year, the Index headset sold out within a week. Access to the upcoming title was given away for free to anyone who purchased an Index device before the end of 2019, which drove up sales.
All of this interest added up to over 100,000 Index devices being sold, making Valve Index the bestselling PC VR headset of the last quarter of 2019. And there was another jump in demand last week, when the release date for Half-Life: Alyx was announced for March 23. But even with the renewed interest in the device, the hardware continues to be almost impossible to buy right now.
For those who are desperate to play the game, the good news is that it is compatible with all VR headsets for the PC, so you can play it on an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, among others. But if you’re waiting for the chance to play on an Index, getting your hands on the hardware may be a challenge.
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.