The rumors were true, and Microsoft has finally opened the curtains to reveal their new Xbox 360 Elite gaming system. At first glance, you will notice that this puppy comes in black, not kiddie white. That’s because the Elite is packing some new power. The hard drive has been upgraded to 120GB and you will now find an HDMI connection on the back of the system.
“Today’s games and entertainment enthusiast has an insatiable appetite for digital high-definition content,” said Peter Moore, corporate vice president for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. “Xbox 360 Elite’s larger hard drive and premium accessories will allow our community to enjoy all that the next generation of entertainment has to offer.”
The new Xbox 360 Elite has a price of $479.99 USD. So what you should be asking yourself is this: sure it has an HDMI connection, but does it upconvert DVD’s to 1080p? Nope. Does it come with an HD DVD drive built in? Nope (you will need the stand alone HD DVD player for $299). So basically you get a larger hard drive, HDMI support and a system w/ accessories that come in black? Yup. But with that HDMI connector on the back, that could be a sign of future features, like DVD upconverting for example. Only time will tell!
Picture and more information can be found on the Xbox website.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.