At CES 2025, LG and Microsoft announced that an Xbox app is coming to LG smart TVs sometime this year.
The Xbox app is already available on newer Samsung TVs, and it lets people try out Game Pass Ultimate titles via cloud gaming, even if they don’t own an Xbox Series X or S console.
The announcement of this collaboration on Xbox Wire particularly spotlights Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which launched into Game Pass Ultimate in October, and Avowed, a new RPG from Obsidian Entertainment that launches on February 18. While those games are directly part of the Game Pass catalog, the LG Xbox app will also let players access owned Xbox games that support Xbox Cloud Gaming but aren’t on Game Pass, like Hogwarts Legacy.
The Xbox app will be part of the LG smart TV’s Gaming Portal when it launches this year. LG Senior VP of Platform Business Chris Jo said that this partnership will “enrich the gaming experience on LG Smart TVs with a broader selection of popular games” and that the “Gaming Portal will provide users with a seamless, convenient and exciting way to enhance the gaming experience on LG Smart TVs,” in a statement to press.
LG and Microsoft have not revealed which specific TVs will get the Xbox app just yet, but plan to reveal more in the coming months. As such, a specific release date for the Xbox app on LG smart TVs has not been confirmed yet, but we can expect it to be released sometime in 2025. To access Xbox Cloud Gaming, you’ll need a $20-a-month Game Pass Ultimate subscription.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.