The next Nintendo Direct is scheduled for this Wednesday, the company just announced. It's being billed as a "partner showcase," with Nintendo saying it'll show off Switch games coming in the first half of this year from "our publishing and development partners." It'll kick off on February 21, bright and early at 9AM ET.
While Nintendo holds these showcases on a regular basis, this one is potentially more significant than usual. Last week, Microsoft made an expected but still surprising announcement that it would begin bringing some of its titles to "other consoles," a phrase that's hard not to interpret as games coming to the Switch (and Sony's PlayStation 5 as well).
Nintendo says it'll be a 25-minute presentation, so there's a chance we'll hear about some games from other developers, as well. But we're all expecting to see some news about what games Microsoft is going to bring over to the Switch. Microsoft only said that it would be bringing four games to other platforms but didn't name them; the latest rumors cite Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Halo and Gears of War as likely options to make the move.
This comes at a time when Nintendo doesn't have a lot of its own first-party games scheduled for the platform (that we know of, anyway). There's also the looming specter of a Switch 2 console; reports just said that the hardware is getting pushed back to 2025 after an expected launch at some point this year.
A #NintendoDirect: Partner Showcase is coming! Watch on-demand via YouTube on 2/21 at 6am PT for around 25 mins of info focused on #NintendoSwitch games coming in the first half of 2024 from our publishing and development partners.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wednesdays-nintendo-direct-will-focus-on-upcoming-third-party-releases-221910223.html?src=rss
After letting rival camera companies catch up for the last few years, Sony laid down a gauntlet with the 24.6-megapixel A9 III. It’s the world’s first mirrorless camera with a global shutter, a much-awaited holy grail feature. It completely eliminates rolling shutter distortion found on CMOS cameras by reading the entire sensor at once. It also boosts speed and removes the need for a mechanical shutter.
As a pioneering product, it’s not cheap at $6,000, but you can expect the technology to come down in price in the future. And there is a downside: Image quality is reduced compared to regular cameras, due to the nature of a global shutter.
Is it worth trading off image quality for extra speed and lack of distortion, especially compared to stacked sensor cameras that are already pretty quick? To find out, me and my pro photographer friends put a final production model through a variety of shooting scenarios.
Body and handling
The A9 III is Sony’s best handling-camera yet, borrowing all the latest features of recent models like the A7R V. It’s very light for a full-frame camera at just 617 grams. And the redesigned grip is more comfortable and secure, which is a big help to working pros, especially with heavy lenses. By comparison, Sony's A1 can be hard on one’s hands over a full day, according to my photographer pals.
There are three top control dials, making it easy to find primary settings in fully manual mode. It has a pair of dual dials, with one for video, photos and S&Q plus shooting modes, and the other controlling burst along with autofocus. You also get a rear joystick, control dial and no less than 5 custom buttons.
With everything well-placed, it’s a cinch to shoot manually. When you do need to delve into the menus, those are also well laid out. Settings are divided logically into categories, while the home menu shows key options (shutter speed, white balance, etc.) at a glance. Everything can be customized, and you can back up your settings to a memory card.
The high-resolution two million dot rear display is of course touch sensitive for focus and menu control. It flips out and tilts up or down to please both photographers and creators. The viewfinder is the best on any camera, with 9.44 million dots at 120Hz, or half that at 240Hz. That level of sharpness makes it easy to check focus and colors. Again, this is Sony flexing its tech muscles as the primary camera EVF supplier.
Battery life is a solid 500 shots, but you can double that with a new $400 vertical grip, which also gives you a better hold of the camera. It has a dual-card slot setup with both SD UHS II and CFexpress. As usual with Sony, the latter is the slower Type A variety, though. Those are less than half the speed of CFexpress type A, but their smaller size allows Sony to do the dual slot setup.
Other key features include headphone and mic ports, with the option to add Sony brand microphones or audio accessories to the hotshoe. There’s also a full-sized HDMI port, USB-C charging port, ethernet, live-streaming capability and more.
Performance
With the global shutter, dual Bionz processors and the same dedicated AI processor found on the A7R V,, Sony’s A9 III is the fastest full-frame camera in the world. Compressed RAW bursts can be shot at an incredible 120 fps with autofocus and auto-exposure, or you can dial that down to 60 fps or 30 fps.
Steve Dent for Engadget
A big caveat is that the 120 fps mode only works with supported Sony lenses, while third-party lenses are all limited to 15 fps. Hopefully the company will address that in a future firmware update.
The buffer holds 200 RAW frames, so it fills up in less than two seconds at maximum speed. It takes longer to clear the buffer than it should due to the CFexpress Type A cards. If you use SD UHS II cards instead, it takes about twice as long to clear.
In any case, shooting at 120 fps is major overkill most of the time unless you like wading through thousands of photos later on. Sony does have a solution, though. You can shoot at, say, a still-very-fast 30 fps, then press the C5 button to enable the top speed at key moments. That way, you’ll get the shot you want without wasting frames.
The A9 III is also the first Sony camera to use a pre-capture mode that saves a second of photos when you half-press the shutter button. After you fully press it, those photos are saved along with any taken after.
Nathanael Charpentier
Your photos will usually be sharp, too. The 759 phase-detect focus points allow for extremely rapid and accurate autofocus in most situations. For regular continuous AF, it can keep up with even the fastest action.
The AI-powered subject detection shines too. Face tracking works with subjects farther away and it follows someone tenaciously, even when they duck behind obstacles. Human tracking is fast and fluid, and you can easily see if it’s locked onto eyes, face or body.
It can detect birds, animals (or both), along with insects, cars and trains. You can also select any distinctive object and the system will usually track it reliably.
The bottom line is that it rarely misses focus, so it’s great for professional sports, wildlife, weddings and more. Of course it’s not infallible and can mix up subjects, but is better than any camera I’ve tried to date.
Nathanael Charpentier
The A9 III has no need for a mechanical shutter because there’s no rolling shutter distortion, meaning you can shoot in complete silence at all times. With that, it’s perfect for sports like golf, as you can shoot a player in mid-swing without disturbing them, and a club in motion won’t be distorted.
It also allows for extremely fast shutter speeds up to 1/80,000th and it can sync with supported flashes all the way up to that speed. It also eliminates the flicker and banding from venue lights, another big aid for sports photographers.
Sony has also improved its in-body stabilization significantly, boosting it to 8 stops with supported lenses. That allows shots down to a quarter second or less, matching Canon’s EOS R3 and besting the Nikon Z9 and Sony’s own A1.
Image quality
As mentioned, the primary issue with this camera is image quality. So is how much does it fall below regular CMOS cameras? To test that, I shot in situations including gymnasiums, night scenes, bird shooting, an airport and more.
There’s no question that dynamic range is reduced compared to Sony cameras like the A1, at least by a stop. The reason is that the sensor has less light capacity due to the space taken up by the extra electronics.
It also has a smaller ISO range, both on the high and low end. Minimum ISO is not great at 250 and at the high end, ISO is limited to 25,600, half that of the A9 II.
In general, there’s more noise and less dynamic range at any given ISO setting than the A9 II. At the same time, the resolution is lower than rivals like the Nikon Z9 and Sony’s own A7R V and A1. So for landscapes, portraits and other types of photography where dynamic range and resolution is important (and speed isn’t), the A9 III isn’t the best choice.
That said, you’d need to pixel peep to notice any major difference in image quality between rival 24-megapixel cameras up to about ISO 6400. For the intended audience of sports, action and wildlife shooters, it’s more than sufficient.
Beyond that, images are noisier, but still usable up to the maximum ISO 25,600 with noise reduction (Sony appears to have more aggressive noise reduction for JPEG images at higher ISOs). I had no difficulty extracting good shots in dark scenes at ISO 6400 or even ISO 12,800. And as mentioned, you have more control with a flash than any other camera on the market – so that’s a solid option in low light.
Otherwise, images are typical for Sony, with accurate colors and skin tones. The 14-bit RAW files are easy to work with and allow some pushing and pulling, particularly in highlights.
Video
Steve Dent for Engadget
Sony took advantage of the global shutter to make the A9 III its most capable mirrorless camera for video. 4K at up to 60 fps is supersampled using the full 6K sensor width, while 4K at 120 fps can also be shot using the full sensor, albeit with pixel binning. That mode supports full 120 fps playback as well, or slower playback modes via the slow and quick (S&Q) setting.
RAW 4K capture at 60 fps is also possible using an external recorder. All of those modes are available with 10-bit S-Log 3 recording to expand dynamic range in challenging lighting conditions.
That’s just the start of the A9 III’s video powers. Autofocus is as fast and accurate in video as stills mode and has all the same AI features. That means you’ll be sure to keep even fast-moving subjects sharp, whether they’re people, birds, animals or vehicles.
Those who prefer to shoot manually can employ Sony’s handy focus map feature. It has the auto-framing seen on previous Sony models like the ZV-E1 that lets YouTubers move around while filming themselves. You also get the digital zoom feature that reduces focus breathing for supported lenses, with some loss of quality.
Steve Dent
Airplane propeller distortion in video is a telltale sign of a rolling shutter camera, so naturally we had to test the A9 III at an airport against Sony’s stacked sensor A1. Our findings? While the A1 still produces bendy propellers, they’re of course dead straight on the A9 III. That trivial test has large implications. You can shoot things like whip pans or a fast moving train that you’d never try with a rolling shutter sensor. And since everything is exposed at once like a film camera, it’s more cinematic.
The A9 III does have some video competition, as RED just launched a pair of full-frame global shutter cinema cameras last month.
It has the same excellent video stabilization capabilities as the ZV-E1. Regular optical stabilization is good for handheld shots without much movement, or you can kick in the dynamic active mode for walking. That provides near gimbal levels of smoothness, though there’s a considerable zoom and loss of sharpness.
Much as with photos, video quality isn’t quite up to other full-frame cameras, with more noise in general. I shot in S-Log3 most of the time to maximize dynamic range and was satisfied with the results. In low light, I was forced to use some noise reduction.
Quality is still better than any APS-C mirrorless or cinema camera. I think the global shutter advantages, particularly the elimination of rolling shutter, will be worth the tradeoff in quality for a large number of videographers.
Wrap-up
Steve Dent for Engadget
Sony launched its first full-frame mirrorless camera, the A7, years before rivals, and was first to market with backside illuminated and stacked sensors. Lately though, rivals (especially Canon) have been catching up and the field has leveled. With the first global shutter camera, Sony has taken a leap ahead once again.
Image quality has held global sensor cameras back, but Sony clearly felt that the time was finally right. It was a wise calculation — the A9 III is far better than I expected for a first-gen product. It offers mind-blowing speeds and incredible video capabilities, with a relatively small cost in image quality..
Its primary rivals are the $4,800 Canon R3, Sony’s own $6,500 A1, the $5,650 Nikon Z9 and $3,800 Z8, all stacked sensor cameras. The latter three offer much higher resolution and better picture quality, plus shooting speeds that are still darn fast. They all have some rolling shutter, though, along with flicker and flash sync issues that don’t exist on the A9 III.
Whether it’s worth risking that kind of money on new and unproven stacked sensor tech depends on the buyer. Action photographers and videographers won’t blink at the cost if they advantages of global shutter will help them make money. Unless you really need those benefits, though, Nikon’s Z9 and Z8, along with Sony’s A1, are more versatile cameras — and the Z8 is significantly cheaper.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-a9-iii-review-the-future-of-cameras-is-fast-130057924.html?src=rss
Times are a-changing at Xbox. The brand's leaders have confirmed plans to bring more Xbox games to other platforms — that almost definitely means PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. Both of those consoles have a far larger install base than Xbox Series X/S, which are estimated to have shipped a combined 27 million units, compared with 54.8 million PS5s and nearly 140 million Switches.
On the latest edition of the Official Xbox Podcast, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer says his team is bringing four of its games to "the other consoles." He didn't name the titles, but contrary to previous rumors, Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are not coming to PS5 or Switch for now. Reports have suggested that Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Halo and Gears of War would be among those crossing the great divide.
Spencer did confirm that the Xbox games that are coming to PlayStation and Switch have been on Xbox and PC for at least a year already. "A couple of the games are community-driven games, new games, kind of first iterations of a franchise that have reached their full potential, let's say, on Xbox and PC — there's always growth, franchises that we obviously want to continue to invest in," he said.
"Two of the other games are smaller games that were never really meant to be built as kind of platform exclusives and all the fanfare that goes around that, but games that our teams really wanted to go build that we love supporting creative endeavors across our studios regardless of size," Spencer added. "And as they've realized their full potential on Xbox and PC, we see an opportunity to utilize the other platforms as a place to just drive more business value out of those games, allowing us to invest in maybe future iterations of those, so equals to those or just other games like that in our portfolio."
Spencer said Xbox isn't going to commit to porting other titles to more platforms beyond those four games just yet. He urged folks who play games on "those other platforms" not to assume every Xbox game will be come to their systems, but suggested that his team is going to take notes based on the impact of the initial four games and take things from there.
That said, this doesn't mark a major change in strategy, Spencer argued. Xbox's philosophy has long been about helping players access its games from anywhere, including through the cloud, and tiptoeing onto other consoles is just a part of that.
"By bringing these games to more players, we not only expand the reach and impact of those titles, but this will allow us to invest in either future versions of these games, or elsewhere in our first-party portfolio," an Xbox Wire blog post reads. "There is no fundamental change to our approach on exclusivity."
President of Game Content and Studios Matt Booty noted on the podcast that Xbox will continue to release its first-party games on Game Pass on their release date, and that "Game Pass will only be available on Xbox." Still, Booty acknowledged that Microsoft wants to bring more of its games to more players.
Meanwhile, Xbox President Sarah Bond assured fans that Microsoft isn't looking to get out of the console hardware business. In fact, the team has "some exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we're going to share this holiday." Previous leaks indicated that Microsoft was building an all-digital version of the Xbox Series X that has improved Wi-Fi connectivity and more power efficiency.
Microsoft is also looking ahead to the next Xbox. "We're also invested in the next generation roadmap," Bond added. "And what we're really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation, which makes it better for players and better for creators and the visions that they're building." A leak last September indicated that the next Xbox is slated to arrive in 2028 and that it will be support "cloud-hybrid games."
Microsoft's gaming division looks vastly different than it did a few months ago. The company finally completed its protracted $68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard in October, significantly swelling its headcount in the process. In January, Microsoft said it was laying off 1,900 people from the gaming teams. It also canceled at least one game, a survival title that Blizzard was working on.
Even though the Activision acquisition immediately and significantly improved the bottom line of Microsoft's gaming division, the company is looking to make that part of the business more profitable. Reducing headcount is one way of doing that. Selling games to new audiences on other platforms is an arguably healthier approach, even though it might come at the expense of turning some former Xbox loyalists away from the brand.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/xbox-confirms-four-of-its-games-are-coming-to-more-popular-consoles-201419203.html?src=rss
Times are a-changing at Xbox. The brand's leaders have confirmed plans to bring more Xbox games to other platforms — that almost definitely means PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. Both of those consoles have a far larger install base than Xbox Series X/S, which are estimated to have shipped a combined 27 million units, compared with 54.8 million PS5s and nearly 140 million Switches.
On the latest edition of the Official Xbox Podcast, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer says his team is bringing four of its games to "the other consoles." He didn't name the titles, but contrary to previous rumors, Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are not coming to PS5 or Switch for now. Reports have suggested that Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Halo and Gears of War would be among those crossing the great divide.
Spencer did confirm that the Xbox games that are coming to PlayStation and Switch have been on Xbox and PC for at least a year already. "A couple of the games are community-driven games, new games, kind of first iterations of a franchise that have reached their full potential, let's say, on Xbox and PC — there's always growth, franchises that we obviously want to continue to invest in," he said.
"Two of the other games are smaller games that were never really meant to be built as kind of platform exclusives and all the fanfare that goes around that, but games that our teams really wanted to go build that we love supporting creative endeavors across our studios regardless of size," Spencer added. "And as they've realized their full potential on Xbox and PC, we see an opportunity to utilize the other platforms as a place to just drive more business value out of those games, allowing us to invest in maybe future iterations of those, so equals to those or just other games like that in our portfolio."
Spencer said Xbox isn't going to commit to porting other titles to more platforms beyond those four games just yet. He urged folks who play games on "those other platforms" not to assume every Xbox game will be come to their systems, but suggested that his team is going to take notes based on the impact of the initial four games and take things from there.
That said, this doesn't mark a major change in strategy, Spencer argued. Xbox's philosophy has long been about helping players access its games from anywhere, including through the cloud, and tiptoeing onto other consoles is just a part of that.
"By bringing these games to more players, we not only expand the reach and impact of those titles, but this will allow us to invest in either future versions of these games, or elsewhere in our first-party portfolio," an Xbox Wire blog post reads. "There is no fundamental change to our approach on exclusivity."
President of Game Content and Studios Matt Booty noted on the podcast that Xbox will continue to release its first-party games on Game Pass on their release date, and that "Game Pass will only be available on Xbox." Still, Booty acknowledged that Microsoft wants to bring more of its games to more players.
Meanwhile, Xbox President Sarah Bond assured fans that Microsoft isn't looking to get out of the console hardware business. In fact, the team has "some exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we're going to share this holiday." Previous leaks indicated that Microsoft was building an all-digital version of the Xbox Series X that has improved Wi-Fi connectivity and more power efficiency.
Microsoft is also looking ahead to the next Xbox. "We're also invested in the next generation roadmap," Bond added. "And what we're really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation, which makes it better for players and better for creators and the visions that they're building." A leak last September indicated that the next Xbox is slated to arrive in 2028 and that it will be support "cloud-hybrid games."
Microsoft's gaming division looks vastly different than it did a few months ago. The company finally completed its protracted $68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard in October, significantly swelling its headcount in the process. In January, Microsoft said it was laying off 1,900 people from the gaming teams. It also canceled at least one game, a survival title that Blizzard was working on.
Even though the Activision acquisition immediately and significantly improved the bottom line of Microsoft's gaming division, the company is looking to make that part of the business more profitable. Reducing headcount is one way of doing that. Selling games to new audiences on other platforms is an arguably healthier approach, even though it might come at the expense of turning some former Xbox loyalists away from the brand.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/xbox-confirms-four-of-its-games-are-coming-to-more-popular-consoles-201419203.html?src=rss
The mini PC is misunderstood. Easily dismissed as underpowered, over-priced or just plain ugly; we intuit that a computer with a tiny footprint has to mean a compromise. Ayaneo, best known for its Windows gaming handhelds, has branched out into tiny desktops with retro-inspired designs. Thankfully Ayaneo’s AM01 and AM02 mini PCs have more to offer, but their initial draw over rivals, I won’t lie, is nostalgic appeal.
Sadly, I’m old enough to remember using the original Macintosh that inspired the AM01 and if Nintendo ever reimagined a real NES, I hope it looks like the AM02. Both PCs come in various specifications, but to save typing out the numerous configurations the AM01 starts at $200 and comes in low-to-modest specifications, good for retro gaming and general office tasks. The AM02 is priced between $440 and $630, and all variants come with an AMD 7840HS APU, better suited for PC gaming and heavier tasks like video editing or even music production.
Photo by James Trew / Engadget
As someone that plays a lot of retro games and doesn’t mind playing PC games on low or medium settings, the AM02 is fast becoming my primary gaming system. Partly because the AM02 strikes a good balance between retro and contemporary design so it fits well in my adult living room. It’s also really well built. I’m not so sure about the four-inch touch screen (more on this later) but the overall design blends in nicely with a contemporary decor without calling too much attention to itself.
The AM02 I’ve been testing is fully loaded with 32GB or RAM and 1TB of storage, but there are enough ports here that even with a lower-spec model you can add more storage or even an eGPU (thanks to a USB 4.0 port) later down the line. There are also two RJ45 ports, one of which is 2.5Gbps, future-proofing the AM02 somewhat and making it well-suited to pulling media from networked storage. This model is also powered by USB-C which makes it more “portable” than its Mac-inspired sibling that uses a laptop-style power brick. Theoretically you could power a display from the AM02’s USB 4 port and have a PC that can easily be moved around. Yes, they invented laptops for exactly this but a perk of mini PCs is that they aren’t a pain to relocate.
I’ve suggested that the AM02 works great in a living room, and it does, but the placement of the built-in display suggests this was designed to live on a desk. When Ayaneo announced these mini PCs, marketing shots showed them in horizontal and vertical configurations. Sadly, neither model makes sense in a vertical orientation. Not least because both have ports on the side that would be facing the desk. Worse, the AM02 has a delightful NES-inspired front flap covering the USB and 3.5mm ports. Press the red button and it satisfyingly clicks open, but that would be the side facing down in a vertical set-up. Not to mention all the cables would then be coming out of the top.
It’s kind of a bummer as I was hoping the built-in display could be visible from across the room, but you can only see it if you’re near enough to peer over from above. What’s more, at least right now, the display is more of a novelty. By default it shows performance statistics such as FPS, CPU usage / temperature and fan speed which is useful for some folk. You can even change the TDP/power draw right from the display, but honestly, given that this thing is plugged in I’ve just been leaving it on the max 45W setting.
Swipe left on the screen, and the view changes to a date and time widget. Swipe one more time and there’s a virtual volume control along with the option to turn the display off. Fun fact, right now there’s no option to turn it back on again. I restarted the PC via Windows and it still didn’t come back to life. I tried once more via the physical power button and that worked, there’s a neater solution coming in the final software. Relatedly, Ayaneo is hoping users will create their own widgets for this display, so there’s definitely potential here. I’m sure it won’t be long before Doom is running entirely on the linux that runs that display.
Photo by James Trew / Engadget
If you do want to use this just for gaming, then you’ll have to decide whether you want to use the company’s own launcher or not. On Ayaneo’s handhelds it’s useful for changing power settings on the fly and other tasks that would otherwise be a pain for a handheld. On a PC like this, the launcher is adequate, but you might want to find your own or just ditch it for the most part. I set the AM02 up to load right into Launchbox/Big Box which handles all my retro/Steam/Epic games just fine and gives a much more console-like experience. But that’s the joy of Windows for gaming I guess, you can do what you want with it.
Despite their diminutive size, mini PCs aren’t always cheap. Like their full-size counterparts, prices range wildly depending on their performance, storage and components. Ayaneo’s handhelds almost universally fell into the “premium” pricing category with nearly all its Windows models costing more than the Steam Deck they try to rival. The two mini PCs break that trend with both models offering, at worst, fair market prices and, at best, beating the competition.
Most direct rivals to the AM02 don’t have a built-in screen (though some do) or have quite as good a selection of inputs and outputs. That’s to say, overall the AM01 and AM02 are reasonably priced for their spec and even more so if you can scoop them up during the early-bird window, which at time of publication is still active for the AM02.
Photo by James Trew / Engadget
There’s a small elephant in the room though. That is, if you’re looking for a true gaming PC, there are likely better ways to spend your money. The lowest spec AM02 costs more than a PS5. Or about the same as an LCD Steam Deck with a dock. Then there’s the Mac Mini which starts at $600 (with less memory and RAM but that M2 processor is no joke). So if gaming is your sole goal, then there’s a slim niche that the AM02 serves best — those looking for a mix of retro and PC titles that also want the flexibility of other media tasks (an easier way to watch Netflix with a VPN, for example) in a package that only draws the right kind of attention. Or maybe you just love it for its design and the capabilities work for you.
Mostly, it’s a promising new direction for a company that made a name for itself trying to take the Steam Deck head on. It might not have been truly successful in that specific mission, but it earned itself plenty of fans along the way for its high-spec handhelds that help re-establish portable gaming as an exciting category. As Ayaneo enters the more general PC market, it might well have found a space where it can excel against a very different type of competition.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ayaneo-nes-inspired-am02-mini-pc-review-170029368.html?src=rss
The mini PC is misunderstood. Easily dismissed as underpowered, over-priced or just plain ugly; we intuit that a computer with a tiny footprint has to mean a compromise. Ayaneo, best known for its Windows gaming handhelds, has branched out into tiny desktops with retro-inspired designs. Thankfully Ayaneo’s AM01 and AM02 mini PCs have more to offer, but their initial draw over rivals, I won’t lie, is nostalgic appeal.
Sadly, I’m old enough to remember using the original Macintosh that inspired the AM01 and if Nintendo ever reimagined a real NES, I hope it looks like the AM02. Both PCs come in various specifications, but to save typing out the numerous configurations the AM01 starts at $200 and comes in low-to-modest specifications, good for retro gaming and general office tasks. The AM02 is priced between $440 and $630, and all variants come with an AMD 7840HS APU, better suited for PC gaming and heavier tasks like video editing or even music production.
Photo by James Trew / Engadget
As someone that plays a lot of retro games and doesn’t mind playing PC games on low or medium settings, the AM02 is fast becoming my primary gaming system. Partly because the AM02 strikes a good balance between retro and contemporary design so it fits well in my adult living room. It’s also really well built. I’m not so sure about the four-inch touch screen (more on this later) but the overall design blends in nicely with a contemporary decor without calling too much attention to itself.
The AM02 I’ve been testing is fully loaded with 32GB or RAM and 1TB of storage, but there are enough ports here that even with a lower-spec model you can add more storage or even an eGPU (thanks to a USB 4.0 port) later down the line. There are also two RJ45 ports, one of which is 2.5Gbps, future-proofing the AM02 somewhat and making it well-suited to pulling media from networked storage. This model is also powered by USB-C which makes it more “portable” than its Mac-inspired sibling that uses a laptop-style power brick. Theoretically you could power a display from the AM02’s USB 4 port and have a PC that can easily be moved around. Yes, they invented laptops for exactly this but a perk of mini PCs is that they aren’t a pain to relocate.
I’ve suggested that the AM02 works great in a living room, and it does, but the placement of the built-in display suggests this was designed to live on a desk. When Ayaneo announced these mini PCs, marketing shots showed them in horizontal and vertical configurations. Sadly, neither model makes sense in a vertical orientation. Not least because both have ports on the side that would be facing the desk. Worse, the AM02 has a delightful NES-inspired front flap covering the USB and 3.5mm ports. Press the red button and it satisfyingly clicks open, but that would be the side facing down in a vertical set-up. Not to mention all the cables would then be coming out of the top.
It’s kind of a bummer as I was hoping the built-in display could be visible from across the room, but you can only see it if you’re near enough to peer over from above. What’s more, at least right now, the display is more of a novelty. By default it shows performance statistics such as FPS, CPU usage / temperature and fan speed which is useful for some folk. You can even change the TDP/power draw right from the display, but honestly, given that this thing is plugged in I’ve just been leaving it on the max 45W setting.
Swipe left on the screen, and the view changes to a date and time widget. Swipe one more time and there’s a virtual volume control along with the option to turn the display off. Fun fact, right now there’s no option to turn it back on again. I restarted the PC via Windows and it still didn’t come back to life. I tried once more via the physical power button and that worked, there’s a neater solution coming in the final software. Relatedly, Ayaneo is hoping users will create their own widgets for this display, so there’s definitely potential here. I’m sure it won’t be long before Doom is running entirely on the linux that runs that display.
Photo by James Trew / Engadget
If you do want to use this just for gaming, then you’ll have to decide whether you want to use the company’s own launcher or not. On Ayaneo’s handhelds it’s useful for changing power settings on the fly and other tasks that would otherwise be a pain for a handheld. On a PC like this, the launcher is adequate, but you might want to find your own or just ditch it for the most part. I set the AM02 up to load right into Launchbox/Big Box which handles all my retro/Steam/Epic games just fine and gives a much more console-like experience. But that’s the joy of Windows for gaming I guess, you can do what you want with it.
Despite their diminutive size, mini PCs aren’t always cheap. Like their full-size counterparts, prices range wildly depending on their performance, storage and components. Ayaneo’s handhelds almost universally fell into the “premium” pricing category with nearly all its Windows models costing more than the Steam Deck they try to rival. The two mini PCs break that trend with both models offering, at worst, fair market prices and, at best, beating the competition.
Most direct rivals to the AM02 don’t have a built-in screen (though some do) or have quite as good a selection of inputs and outputs. That’s to say, overall the AM01 and AM02 are reasonably priced for their spec and even more so if you can scoop them up during the early-bird window, which at time of publication is still active for the AM02.
Photo by James Trew / Engadget
There’s a small elephant in the room though. That is, if you’re looking for a true gaming PC, there are likely better ways to spend your money. The lowest spec AM02 costs more than a PS5. Or about the same as an LCD Steam Deck with a dock. Then there’s the Mac Mini which starts at $600 (with less memory and RAM but that M2 processor is no joke). So if gaming is your sole goal, then there’s a slim niche that the AM02 serves best — those looking for a mix of retro and PC titles that also want the flexibility of other media tasks (an easier way to watch Netflix with a VPN, for example) in a package that only draws the right kind of attention. Or maybe you just love it for its design and the capabilities work for you.
Mostly, it’s a promising new direction for a company that made a name for itself trying to take the Steam Deck head on. It might not have been truly successful in that specific mission, but it earned itself plenty of fans along the way for its high-spec handhelds that help re-establish portable gaming as an exciting category. As Ayaneo enters the more general PC market, it might well have found a space where it can excel against a very different type of competition.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ayaneo-nes-inspired-am02-mini-pc-review-170029368.html?src=rss
A team of South Korean researchers at Yonsei University have developed a hybrid rice variant that’s quite literally filled with beef. The lab-grown rice grains were infused with cow muscle and fat cells, so they are one part plant and one part meat. The rice is also an appetizing shade of bright pink, which tends to happen when flesh enters the picture.
The team hopes to eventually offer a cheaper and more sustainable source of protein with a much lower carbon footprint than actual beef. It’ll also save time for those who enjoy a nice beef bowl over rice—the rice is the beef bowl.
Here’s how they achieved this culinary delight. The researchers first coated each grain of rice in fish gelatin to help the meat cells latch on. Next, they inserted cow muscle and fat stem cells into each grain, which are then left to culture in a petri dish. Rice grains feature a porous, yet organized, internal structure that actually mimics the “biological scaffolds” found in meat cells. So the rice grains offer a housing that allows the cells to grow and thrive, along with molecules to provide nourishment.
The meat cells grow both on the surface of the rice grain and inside of the grain itself. After around ten days, you get a finished product. The study, published in Matter, says the rice grains taste like beef sushi, which makes sense given the ingredients.
“Imagine obtaining all the nutrients we need from cell-cultured protein rice,” primary author Sohyeon Park said in a press release. “Rice already has a high nutrient level, but adding cells from livestock can further boost it.”
The team even envisions a day when livestock could be eliminated from the process entirely. They hope to develop a line of cells that continue to divide and grow over long periods of time, so they can source from that line instead of from actual cows. “After that, we can create a sustainable food system,” Park told CNN.
Obviously, this is still in the research phase, so pink beef rice won’t be showing up on restaurant menus anytime soon. The team’s refining the growth process to produce rice grains with more nutritional value. They also hope to further improve the taste, texture and color. “It could one day serve as food relief for famine, military ration, or even space food,” Park said in the press release.
This is just one part of a global effort to do something, anything, about the ongoing ecological disaster that is meat production. Livestock intended for slaughter are responsible for 6.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere each year, according to a UN report. That’s nearly 12 percent of all human-caused carbon emissions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youve-tried-plant-based-meat-but-here-come-meat-based-plants-163654564.html?src=rss
A team of South Korean researchers at Yonsei University have developed a hybrid rice variant that’s quite literally filled with beef. The lab-grown rice grains were infused with cow muscle and fat cells, so they are one part plant and one part meat. The rice is also an appetizing shade of bright pink, which tends to happen when flesh enters the picture.
The team hopes to eventually offer a cheaper and more sustainable source of protein with a much lower carbon footprint than actual beef. It’ll also save time for those who enjoy a nice beef bowl over rice—the rice is the beef bowl.
Here’s how they achieved this culinary delight. The researchers first coated each grain of rice in fish gelatin to help the meat cells latch on. Next, they inserted cow muscle and fat stem cells into each grain, which are then left to culture in a petri dish. Rice grains feature a porous, yet organized, internal structure that actually mimics the “biological scaffolds” found in meat cells. So the rice grains offer a housing that allows the cells to grow and thrive, along with molecules to provide nourishment.
The meat cells grow both on the surface of the rice grain and inside of the grain itself. After around ten days, you get a finished product. The study, published in Matter, says the rice grains taste like beef sushi, which makes sense given the ingredients.
“Imagine obtaining all the nutrients we need from cell-cultured protein rice,” primary author Sohyeon Park said in a press release. “Rice already has a high nutrient level, but adding cells from livestock can further boost it.”
The team even envisions a day when livestock could be eliminated from the process entirely. They hope to develop a line of cells that continue to divide and grow over long periods of time, so they can source from that line instead of from actual cows. “After that, we can create a sustainable food system,” Park told CNN.
Obviously, this is still in the research phase, so pink beef rice won’t be showing up on restaurant menus anytime soon. The team’s refining the growth process to produce rice grains with more nutritional value. They also hope to further improve the taste, texture and color. “It could one day serve as food relief for famine, military ration, or even space food,” Park said in the press release.
This is just one part of a global effort to do something, anything, about the ongoing ecological disaster that is meat production. Livestock intended for slaughter are responsible for 6.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere each year, according to a UN report. That’s nearly 12 percent of all human-caused carbon emissions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youve-tried-plant-based-meat-but-here-come-meat-based-plants-163654564.html?src=rss
Sony may shrink the gap between the launches of its PlayStation exclusives and PC ports. Company president Hiroki Totoki suggested in a post-earnings call Q&A session Wednesday (viaVGC) that he wants PlayStation to go “aggressive on improving our margin performance,” with “multi-platform” games playing a significant role. He clarified in the talk that, by multi-platform, he meant on PlayStation and PC — not Xbox or Switch.
When asked about Sony’s profits not keeping up with increasing gross income, he said hardware and first-party games were two areas of focus. He noted that hardware cost reduction this console cycle was “difficult to come by,” suggesting we won’t see any permanent console price drops.
“I personally think there are opportunities out there for improvement of margin, so I would like to go aggressive on improving our margin performance,” he continued. Totoki hinted one way to get there is to cash in more on its (often critically acclaimed and commercially successful) PlayStation Studios titles, like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and God of War: Ragnarok.
“In the past, we wanted to popularize consoles, and a first-party title’s main purpose was to make the console popular,” Totoki said in the Q&A. “This is true, but there’s a synergy to it, so if you have strong first-party content — not only on our console but also other platforms, like computers — a first-party [game] can be grown with multi-platform, and that can help operating profit to improve, so that’s another one we want to proactively work on.”
The Last of Us Part I
Naughty Dog / Sony
That’s a clear shift from PlayStation Studios head Herman Hulst’s thoughts in 2022. He said then that PC gamers would have to wait “at least a year” before seeing first-party PlayStation games (minus live service titles) on their computers. God of War (2018) and the first Marvel’s Spider-Man had about a four-year gap between their PS4 and PC launches. The latter’s Miles Morales spin-off saw about a two-year turnaround.
On February 8, Sony launched Helldivers 2 on PS5 and Windows simultaneously. VGCnotes the game led to PlayStation Studios’ highest concurrent Steam player count — beating God of War (2018), The Last of Us Part I and Horizon Zero Dawn. Helldivers 2 was developed by Arrowhead Games with Sony Interactive Entertainment publishing.
It isn’t clear if Totoki meant we can expect future PlayStation tentpoles like the upcoming Wolverine game or the ever-popular Spider-Man, God of War or various Naughty Dog franchises to appear on PC on the same day as console. But a strategy shift is underway regardless, and Totoki will have the leverage to put the plan into action: He takes over for Jim Ryan as interim CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment in April.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-wants-its-playstation-exclusives-to-come-to-pc-earlier-212001939.html?src=rss
Baseball fans who've had to stay glued to their computer to watch several MLB games simultaneously will soon be able to kick back in front of their TV and do the same thing. The league has announced several updates for MLB.TV for this upcoming season. For one thing, the MLB apps on supported Apple TV, Fire TV and Google TV devices will let you watch up to four games simultaneously in Multiview.
Until now, Apple TV users, for instance, were restricted to watching a maximum of two games at once through picture-in-picture. The upgrade should become especially useful later in the season as the race for playoff spots comes down to the wire and fans can watch multiple teams play for a post-season slot simultaneously with more ease. You'll also be able to stream more than 7,000 Minor League Baseball games, featuring affiliates from all 30 MLB teams.
In addition, MLB.TV is bringing Catchup Mode to certain streaming platforms this season, but did not specify which. This mode will feature in-game highlights for key moments and plays you might have missed, so if you missed the first few innings of a game that's in progress, you can quickly get up to speed.
Fans can expect new episodes of original shows such as Carded and Inside Stitch, along with more documentaries and live programming. Select teams will provide local pregame and postgame coverage, while MLB Big Inning will deliver the top action from around the league with highlights and live look-ins. Those who authenticate subscriptions through TV providers will be able to stream every post-season game, as well as the 2024 All-Star Game.
The MLB All Teams Yearly subscription is the same price as last year at $150. It includes access to every out-of-market regular season game and some Spring Training games with no blackout restrictions, both live and on-demand. A monthly subscription is also available for $30.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mlbtvs-four-game-multiview-feature-is-coming-to-apple-amazon-and-google-tv-devices-210523812.html?src=rss