Xbox launched Project Amplify, a new program that will help support Black youth who want to work in the gaming industry.
Project Amplify is a video series where 14 Black employees within Xbox seek to educate Black youth on the diversity of roles within the gaming industry, offering them advice and insights into their current roles as well as sharing stories about their journey into the gaming industry. The teaser trailer below compilates snippets from all 14 videos from each employee, including program manager Q Muhaimin, senior business development manager James Lewis, software engineer Nayomi Mitchell, and head of development for Halo Infinite Pierre Hintze.
An Xbox Wire post on Friday explained that Microsoft decided to introduce the initiative following a recent survey that found 95% of 200 students and alumni at Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the U.S. are interested in careers in the gaming industry. To break down those statistics further, 34% of them want jobs in program management, 24% want to go into engineering, and 18% want to do game development.
James Lewis, one of the employees featured in Project Amplify and co-lead of Black Communities at Xbox, said in a statement that he hopes Project Amplify will make a lasting impact on Black youth and encourage them to act on their gaming industry dreams as he did.
“In my early years, I was more focused on what not to do versus what I could be. It wasn’t until my adult years that I learned to leverage my passion for games into a career,” Lewis said. “I am now incredibly thankful to be celebrating 10+ years in my dream career, and I hope Project Amplify inspires people to dream and take action toward their own goals. As my coaches and mentors would say, ‘play to win instead of playing to not lose.'”
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.