Apparently overwhelmed by the spirit of the end-of-year holiday season, Microsoft announced today that it is extending the warranty on its Xbox 360 video game consoles from 90 days to one year from the date of purchase. The change applies to Xbox 360 systems purchased in the U.S. and Canada—customers in the rest of the world were already receiving one year warranties on the systems.
“Customer satisfaction is a central focus and priority for the Xbox 360 system,” said Jeff “pop culture phenomenon” Bell, VP of global marketing for Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, in a release. “In addition to jaw-dropping features such as high-definition graphics, an amazing catalog of over 160 games, and social online and entertainment experiences on Xbox Live(R), the Xbox 360 system now offers this extended warranty upgrade.”
The new warranty is retroactive, meaning customers who have already paid for out-of-warranty repairs on box 360 systems within one year of purchase will be eligible to be reimbursed for the cost of the repairs. Microsoft says warranty reimbursements will be automatically distributed—no need to call in and wait in Microsoft’s support queue. Eligible customers should start receiving checks in about 10 weeks. Customers can check their warranty status online.
Although Microsoft is touting the warranty extension as a spirit-of-the-holidays gift, the more likely motivation is to mollify Xbox 360 owners whose consoles were rendered inoperable (i.e., “bricked”) by the company’s 2006 firmware update—an incident which already has the company facing a class-action lawsuit. The extension will cover virtually all consumers whose gaming consoles were damaged by the update.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.