Tag Archives: Consumer Discretionary

Samsung Odyssey monitors are up to $1,000 off right now

Posted on by

If you’ve considered splurging on a premium monitor, Samsung has some deals worth investigating. The company’s offerings, including the 55-inch Odyssey Ark (available for a record-low $2,000), 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9 ($500 off) and 49-inch Odyssey OLED G9 ($400 off) are among the models discounted in a wide-ranging monitor sale on Amazon and Samsung’s website.

The 55-inch Odyssey Ark is a 4K behemoth with a 1000R curvature to ensure all sides of the screen face you at a roughly equal distance. It supports 165Hz refresh rates, making for fairly smooth gaming and other tasks, and it has a 1ms response time. You can even rotate its screen into portrait orientation, although that’s more of a niche bonus than an essential feature for most people.

Samsung fixed one of our biggest gripes about the first-generation version, adding the DisplayPort compatibility and multi-input split view that were perplexingly missing from that inaugural model. The one on sale is the latest variant, launched in 2023.

Usually $3,000, you can cut that in third on Amazon and Samsung, taking the 55-inch Odyssey Ark home for $2,000.

Product lifestyle shot of a young adult playing a game on the ultra-wide Samsung monitor.
Samsung

The 57-inch Odyssey G9 Neo has a more elongated (32:9) aspect ratio. This lets you squeeze more apps onto your desktop multitasking setup while supplying a wider field of view for gaming. Despite its different size and shape, it has the same tight 1000R curve as the Ark.

The monitor has 8K resolution, a 240Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time. Its mini LED technology uses 2,392 local dimming zones and “the highest 12-bit black levels.” Ports include DisplayPort 2.1, HDMI 2.1 and a USB hub.

Usually $2,500, you can shave $500 off the 57-inch Neo G9 monitor, taking it home for $2,000. That pricing is available on Amazon and Samsung.

Product lifestyle shot of a young person folding his arms behind his head as he looks at the ultra-wide monitor.
Samsung

The 49-inch Odyssey G9 OLED also has a 32:9 aspect ratio. Its OLED / Quantum Dot screen produces rich colors and deep blacks to make your games pop more, and its solid-black text can help your workspace lettering jump out more.

This model’s curve (1800R) is less pronounced than the 55-inch Ark and 57-inch G9 Neo’s, but it still supplies a gentle curve inward. It includes built-in speakers, and it has a 240Hz refresh rate with a “near-instant” (0.03ms) response time. It includes connections for HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort.

The 49-inch G9 OLED retails for $1,600, but you can get it for $1,200 on Amazon. (It’s $1,300 on Samsung’s site.)

We only highlighted some of the standout monitors, but you can browse through the full sale on Amazon and Samsung.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-odyssey-monitors-are-up-to-1000-off-right-now-200039299.html?src=rss

Niantic is bringing an AR skateboarding game to Apple Vision Pro

Posted on by

Pokémon Go creator Niantic is bringing an AR skateboarding game to the Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality headset. The company teamed up with Reality Crisis, another player in the AR gaming space, to create Rodney Mullen’s SKATRIX. For the uninitiated, Mullen is a professional skateboarder who is credited with creating a number of iconic tricks, including the ollie and the kickflip.

This is the first augmented-reality skateboard game ever, unless you count using an actual skateboard to speed around town catching pocket monsters in Pokémon Go. Niantic says the gameplay will involve players navigating the real world to “explore and collect skatepark elements.” The game will use the same AR precision elements as the company’s other titles to “turn the world into an endless skatepark.” A gameplay demo shows an avatar skating in real-world locations like parking lots and inside of washing machines. However, there’s one really expensive elephant in the room.

The Apple Vision Pro costs $3,500 and isn’t exactly suited to removing from the living room, let alone the home. You’ll also look pretty stupid wearing Apple’s bulky ski goggles while out and about, not to mention it’d be mighty easy to snag it from your head and race away, perhaps on a real-life skateboard. 

To that end, Niantic and Reality Labs are also bringing the game to standard mobile devices, including iOS and Android smartphones. Much of the gameplay is still under wraps, but Niantic promises that players will be able to share custom-made skateparks with other users on both mobile devices and mixed-reality headsets.

Rodney Mullen’s SKATRIX will be released sometime this year. As for the Apple Vision Pro, the device looks to be getting all kinds of apps. The headset will have access to Microsoft’s entire 365 productivity suite at launch, along with a Zoom app. All told, Apple says there will be 600 apps available for tomorrow’s release.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/niantic-is-bringing-an-ar-skateboarding-game-to-apple-vision-pro-183740925.html?src=rss

Dave the Diver is bringing Godzilla with him to PS5 this spring

Posted on by

Dave the Diver is coming to PS5 and PS4. The 2023 breakout hit won Indie Game of the Year at The Game Awards — stretching the definition of “indie” — and was included in Engadget’s Best Games of 2023. It arrives on Sony’s consoles in April, and a Godzilla crossover DLC (sure, why not!) follows it in May.

The game has you exploring a vast underwater world full of mysteries during the day, and helming a sushi restaurant at night. As Engadget’s Lawrence Bonk wrote, “The daytime adventures are sort of like an underwater Metroidvania while the nighttime restaurant management is a combination of a Kairosoft sim and the arcade classic Tapper.” It doesn’t sound like it would work, but it does.

Dave the Diver launched on PC in June and arrived on Switch in late October.

Sony touts the game’s DualSense support. “The controller’s haptics offer the realistic feeling of a hooked fish tugging the line,” the company wrote in an announcement blog post. “The adaptive triggers respond differently depending on which weapon you’re using, making the combat and fishing experience even more immersive.”

As for the Godzilla DLC, we don’t know much yet other than it will introduce “even more enormous threats lurking in the depths” as you “prepare to meet the King of the Monsters in the Blue Hole.”

You can watch the trailer for Dave the Diver on PlayStation below, including a peek at Godzilla near the end.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/dave-the-diver-is-bringing-godzilla-with-him-to-ps5-this-spring-233136441.html?src=rss

Hideo Kojima teases a new action-espionage game for PlayStation

Posted on by

Hideo Kojima is a busy, busy man. Not only does he have Death Stranding 2, a movie based on the first game and Xbox horror title OD on his plate, he's developing a brand new game for PlayStation. He'll be going back to his roots, as it's an action-espionage title codenamed PHYSINT.

Head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst said during today's State of Play stream that the project is in a genre he's been encouraging Kojima to "reinvent for years." Kojima, of course, found fame as the creator of the Metal Gear series. This upcoming endeavor won't be a Metal Gear Solid game, however. Kojima says this will be a "brand new, original IP."

According to Kojima Productions, the game will feature "cutting-edge technology and a stellar cast to deliver an experience like no other. Blurring the boundaries between film and games, offering near life-like graphics and a new take on interactive entertainment."

Kojima Productions has started early work on the project, but it won't go into full production until the team finishes Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, which is set to arrive next year. Kojima noted that Sony makes music and movies, hinting that it could be a transmedia project. He added that he's "confident that this title will be the culmination of my work" after four decades of working in games. 

It'll likely be a few years until we learn exactly what he means by that, but fans will likely have two more games from the auteur to enjoy/be perplexed by in the meantime. (Seriously, the latest Death Stranding 2 trailer is something else.)

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hideo-kojima-teases-a-new-action-espionage-game-for-playstation-230846022.html?src=rss

Silent Hill: The Short Message is free, bite-sized and available now for PS5

Posted on by

Silent Hill is back, and sooner than you might have expected. Sony and Konami teamed up to create a brand new title in the series as a PlayStation 5 exclusive. Best of all, Silent Hill: The Short Message is free and you can play it today.

The game brings the series bang up to date. For one thing, we see protagonist Anita using a smartphone. She ventures inside a crumbling apartment block after receiving messages from her friend. But this is no ordinary building. There have been rumors of suicides there, and it won't be long until Anita discovers "bizarre, otherworldly spaces, haunted by a twisted monster."

This is the first of several new Silent Hill games that are in the pipeline. Producer Motoi Okamoto wrote on the PlayStation Blog that The Short Message started as an experimental project that helped newer developers who are Silent Hill fans get some hands-on experience with the franchise. The team also wanted to explore how social media could fit into a psychological horror game. Konami and Sony decided to release it for free to help newcomers to the series get a sense of what it's all about (hint: scary stuff).

Meanwhile, Sony and Konami also offered a fresh look at the Silent Hill 2 remake Bloober Team is developing. There's still no timeline for that project's arrival just yet, unfortunately. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/silent-hill-the-short-message-is-free-bite-sized-and-available-now-for-ps5-224022321.html?src=rss

February’s PlayStation Plus games include Foamstars, Rollerdrome and Steelrising

Posted on by

Sony has revealed the PlayStation Plus monthly games lineup for February, and it’s pretty solid. There’s no clear headliner here, but a trio of nifty games are about to hit the platform, including Foamstars, Rollerdrome and Steelrising. Also, a two-hour trial of the beloved superhero simulation Spider-Man 2 drops on February 6 for PlayStation Plus Premium/Deluxe members.

If we had to pick the biggest game of the bunch, it’d be Rollerdrome. The dystopian roller-skating sim is absolutely fantastic, with a neat 1970s aesthetic, comic-book style visuals and a timely message about corporate greed. It’s also really fun to play, which is why it made our list of the best games of 2022. It even made our list of the best PS5 games of 2023, and that was back when you actually had to pay for it outright.

We already knew Foamstars was hitting PS Plus this month, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting. This is Square Enix’s attempt to capture some of the magic of Nintendo’s Splatoon franchise and it's actually a day-one release for the platform. Foamstars is a 4x4 online party shooter, just like Splatoon. Unlike Nintendo’s game, you use foam as a primary mechanic instead of paint.

We haven’t written about Steelrising, but it’s a pretty cool riff on the Soulslike genre, trading a fantasy setting for a steampunk vibe. It’s set in an alternate history version of Paris in which robots quelled the French Revolution. It doesn't get more steampunk than that, though I haven’t played long enough to see if Jules Verne somehow shows up via time travel. The combat is fun though.

Fall Guys is also getting an avatars pack as part of this drop, including costumes based on characters from the Ratchet & Clank franchise. All three of the aforementioned titles will be available to PS Plus members starting February 6 and until March 4. To that end, some titles are leaving the platform this month. You only have until February 5 to add A Plague Tale: Requiem, Evil West and Nobody Saves the World to your digital library.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/februarys-playstation-plus-games-include-foamstars-rollerdrome-and-steelrising-190919961.html?src=rss

Watch Sony’s latest State of Play here at 5PM ET

Posted on by

Sony is set to host its first PlayStation showcase of 2024 and it's shaping up to be a big one. The State of Play stream will run for over 40 minutes and feature more than 15 games. The event starts at 5PM ET and you can watch it below.

We know for sure that we'll get extended looks at two games in particular: Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin. Shift Up's Stellar Blade is a Sony-published action-adventure game that's coming to PS5 at some point this year. Perhaps we'll get a release date during the showcase. Sony is also publishing Rise of the Ronin, an action RPG from Nioh developer Team Ninja that's coming to PS5 on March 22. (Sidenote: it sure seems like time for Ghost of Tsushima to make the leap to PC.)

Beyond that, there have been all kinds of rumors about what the State of Play will include. Along with chatter about Death Stranding 2, there have been murmurings that a remake of Until Dawn is coming to PS5 and PC (perhaps ahead of the planned movie adaptation). Given that it's only a month away, it's a safe bet that we'll get another peek at Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. We could also get more details on the long-awaited Silent Hill 2 remake, which is a PS5 console exclusive. In any case, we'll find out new information about a bunch of games that are coming to PS5 and PS VR2 this year and further down the line.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/watch-sonys-latest-state-of-play-here-at-5pm-et-183713629.html?src=rss

The Morning After: This is Doom running on E. coli bacteria

Posted on by

MIT biotech researcher Lauren “Ren” Ramlan has run the iconic computer game Doom using gut bacteria. It’s not doing the running of the game, per se, but it is running (barely) on a display inside a cell wall made entirely of E. coli bacteria.

The researcher dosed the bacteria with fluorescent proteins to ensure they lit up like digital pixels, reaching a heady 32x48 resolution. In their paper, Ramlan says “To run Doom, all one needs is a screen and willpower,” mentioning Doom running on the digital display for a pregnancy test.

However, this is not playable. It takes 70 minutes for the bacteria to illuminate one frame of the game and another eight hours to return to its starting state. So, nearly nine hours per frame. Your Switch doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?

— Mat Smith

​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!

​​

The biggest stories you might have missed

OM System’s OM-1 Mark II offers improved autofocus and stabilization

Elon Musk’s $56 billion Tesla pay package has been tossed out by the court

How to watch Super Bowl 2024

Xbox boss thinks Apple’s EU App Store plan is ‘a step in the wrong direction’

Microsoft’s gaming revenue was up 49 percent in Q2

Mostly thanks to the Activision deal.

It’s earnings season, so we’re trawling through reports and press releases and suffering earnings calls to eke out what it all means. For Microsoft, it was a boost in gaming revenue, having finally adopted Activision Blizzard. The entire company reported revenues of $62 billion (up 18 percent on last year) and profits of $21.9 billion (a 33 percent increase). Microsoft says its overall gaming revenue increased by 49 percent, 44 points of which came from the “net impact” of the Activision deal. Xbox hardware sales were up only three percent.

Continue reading.

Samsung’s annual profits continue to decline

The company is banking on the Galaxy S24.

Samsung still hasn’t recovered from its 2022 decline in profit. In its latest earnings report, it revealed KRW 258.94 trillion ($194 billion) in annual revenue and KRW 6.57 trillion ($4.9 billion) in operating profit for the fiscal year of 2023. That’s markedly less than last year. The company says its memory business — often a money maker — showed signs of recovery but not enough to stop it from incurring KRW 2.18 trillion ($1.63 billion) in operating losses for Q4 2023. Samsung has high hopes for the Galaxy S24 series and believes the devices’ AI capabilities can help its mobile business achieve double-digit growth in 2024. Here’s what we thought of the flagship S24 Ultra.

Continue reading.

The best gaming handhelds for 2024

From portable PC powerhouses to mobile emulation machines.

TMA
Engadget

There are enough of them now to warrant a guide. Yes, handheld gaming PCs are having a moment and, depending on what you want to play, the right handheld could range from a solid $100 emulation machine to a $700 portable PC more powerful than your existing laptop. My one tip: consider battery life.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-this-is-doom-running-on-e-coli-bacteria-121421476.html?src=rss

Samsung is betting on AI and the Galaxy S24 to turn around declining profits

Posted on by

Samsung has failed to recover from the sharp decline in profit it experienced in 2022. In its latest earnings report, the Korean company has reported KRW 258.94 trillion ($194 billion) in annual revenue and KRW 6.57 trillion ($4.9 billion) in operating profit for the fiscal year of 2023. Those are markedly smaller numbers than the previous fiscal year's, especially the latter's — Samsung posted an operating profit of KRW 43.38 trillion ($35 billion) for 2022, which was already $6.9 billion smaller than the year before due to the weak demand for its chips and smartphones. According to The Wall Street Journal, these numbers represent Samsung's weakest earnings in over a decade. 

The company says its memory business showed signs of recovery, but not enough to stop it from incurring KRW 2.18 trillion ($1.63 billion) in operating losses for the fourth quarter of 2023. According to Nikkei, this is the semiconductor division's first annual loss in 15 years since the 2008 global financial crisis, and it's the biggest one yet. Samsung's visual display and digital appliances division also posted KRW 0.05 trillion ($37.5 million) in operating losses despite TV sales doing well in the fourth quarter due to the holiday season. Samsung's mobile business showed a a decline in sales and profit quarter-on-quarter, as well, due to lower smartphone sales and "the fading of new-product effects" from previous flagship models. 

For the first quarter of 2024, Samsung's game plan is to improve its profits "by increasing sales of high value-added products," such as components meant for generative AI products. It expects stronger demand for its chips in the PC and mobile sectors this year, but it admits that its earnings may not significantly recover soon because its customers are still downsizing their inventories. Samsung has high hopes for the Galaxy S24 series, though, and believes the devices' AI capabilities can help its mobile business achieve a a double-digit growth in 2024. The Galaxy S24 phones have already started shipping with prices starting at $800 for the most basic version and at $1,300 for the S24 Ultra. 

Update, January 31, 2024, 6:44AM ET: Added information about the semiconductor division's historic losses.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsungs-annual-profits-continued-to-decline-in-2023-090500640.html?src=rss

Here’s a video of Doom running on gut bacteria, proving you really can play the game on anything

Posted on by

An MIT biotech researcher has been able to run the iconic computer game Doom using actual gut bacteria. Lauren Ramlan didn’t get the game going on a digital simulation of bacteria, but turned actual bacteria into pixels to display the 30-year-old FPS, as reported by Rock Paper Shotgun.

Specifically, Ramlan created a display inside of a cell wall made entirely of E. coli bacteria. The 32x48 1-bit display may not win any resolution awards, but who cares, right? It’s Doom running on bacteria. The researcher dosed the bacteria with fluorescent proteins to get them to light up just like digital pixels.

There’s a couple of caveats here. First of all, the bacteria aren’t actually running the game, as we still haven't cracked that whole “inject biological matter with digital code” thing. Instead, the bacteria combine to act as a teensy-tiny monitor that renders gameplay for the beloved shooter.

Also, there’s the subject of frame rate, which is always an important metric when considering FPS games. To be blunt, the frame rate is atrocious, likely due to the fact that bacteria were never intended to display 3D video games. It takes 70 minutes for the bacteria to illuminate one frame of the game and another eight hours to return to its starting state. This translates to nearly nine hours per frame, which means it would take around 600 years to play the game from start to finish. That’s even worse than Cyberpunk 2077 at launch.

So while this won’t present the smoothest gameplay experience, it’s still a pretty nifty idea. Also, it further proves the theory that Doom can run on just about anything. We’ve seen the game running on pregnancy tests, rat brain neurons and even inside of other titles, like the sequel Doom II and Minecraft. Doom is the great equalizer. May it continue to surprise us for the next 30 years.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/heres-a-video-of-doom-running-on-gut-bacteria-proving-you-really-can-play-the-game-on-anything-184629896.html?src=rss