The wait to get your Steam Deck is finally over. Valve has announced that starting today, you will now be able to order the 64 GB version of the Steam Deck without making any reservations whatsoever.
The company delivered the big news in a blog post, saying that you can place your order for the portable gaming PC and it will ship it right to you. Of course, you have to wait for a minimum of one to two weeks for the system to be delivered to you.
https://twitter.com/OnDeck/status/1578088497759793152
Ever since Valve announced Steam Deck as PC gaming’s answer to the Nintendo Switch last summer, would-be buyers have had to contend with making reservations to get their hands on the console. They were placed in groups to receive a Steam Deck on a quarterly basis, depending on when the reservation was made. While this measure was taken because the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for the company to produce the PC gaming handheld fast enough to meet demand, it meant that some people waited almost a year for their handheld. If you buy it now, that’s not the case.
Now that the pandemic has cooled off and the supply chain for components needed to make the Steam Deck has somehow regained equilibrium, Valve has increased the manufacturing volume to meet demand despite the growing list of reservations being made. If you happen to have an existing reservation, you might want to keep an eye out for your order email. It’s going to hit your inbox pretty soon if it hasn’t already.
As of this writing, the Steam Deck order page shows you can place your order for the 64GB version of the system. Reservations still need to be made for the 256GB and 512GB versions.
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.