Mustafa Mahmoud 4 hours ago Featured Tech News, PC, Software & Gaming
Recently, we reported that the open world viking-themed survival game Valheim had sold 2 million copies in just two weeks. This trajectory for success has not slowed down at all, with the studio now announcing that the game has reached 5 million players in just over 1 month.
Making the announcement, the Iron Gate team said “You’ve done it again! As you are reading this, the Valkyries have ferried more than FIVE MILLION souls to Valheim to uncover ancient treasures, sail savage seas and secure the tenth norse world.”
Alongside this, the team provided some other statistics for the game, including the fact that players have:
Spent more than 15,000 years playing Valheim
Watched more than 35 million hours of gameplay Twitch
Pushed us to number 39 in the best user reviewed games on Steam of all time
Once again, they concluded by thanking their fans, saying “We watch with pride and excitement, and struggle to find the right words to express our gratitude to you, the community. Exciting new milestones lie ahead, and we for one cannot wait to show you more of the game as we journey through our 2021 Roadmap. May Frey bless you with a plentiful harvest, and may Heimdall watch over your settlement. Oh, and if you see an oversized mosquito, run.”
Valheim’s continued success over such a short period is testament to the fact Iron Gate Studios managed to carve out their own slice of the market, innovating in various ways, be it thematically or gameplay-wise. It will be interesting to see just how long Valheim can keep up its current trajectory.
KitGuru says: Are you surprised by Valheim’s success? What do you think of the game? Are you playing it? Let us know down below.
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Mustafa Mahmoud 3 hours ago Featured Tech News, PC, Software & Gaming
Recently, we reported that the open world viking-themed survival game Valheim had sold 2 million copies in just two weeks. This trajectory for success has not slowed down at all, with the studio now announcing that the game has reached 5 million players in just over 1 month.
Making the announcement, the Iron Gate team said “You’ve done it again! As you are reading this, the Valkyries have ferried more than FIVE MILLION souls to Valheim to uncover ancient treasures, sail savage seas and secure the tenth norse world.”
Alongside this, the team provided some other statistics for the game, including the fact that players have:
Spent more than 15,000 years playing Valheim
Watched more than 35 million hours of gameplay Twitch
Pushed us to number 39 in the best user reviewed games on Steam of all time
Once again, they concluded by thanking their fans, saying “We watch with pride and excitement, and struggle to find the right words to express our gratitude to you, the community. Exciting new milestones lie ahead, and we for one cannot wait to show you more of the game as we journey through our 2021 Roadmap. May Frey bless you with a plentiful harvest, and may Heimdall watch over your settlement. Oh, and if you see an oversized mosquito, run.”
Valheim’s continued success over such a short period is testament to the fact Iron Gate Studios managed to carve out their own slice of the market, innovating in various ways, be it thematically or gameplay-wise. It will be interesting to see just how long Valheim can keep up its current trajectory.
KitGuru says: Are you surprised by Valheim’s success? What do you think of the game? Are you playing it? Let us know down below.
Become a Patron!
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Breakout early access sensation Valheim, the Nordic-themed survival title taking the gaming world by storm, has sold more than 5 million copies since it launched on Steam on February 2nd, developer Iron Gate Studio announced on Wednesday. At a retail price of $19.99, that’s roughly $100 million in revenue before accounting for Valve’s cut and other expenses.
The Swedish studio developed the game with a team of just five people and released it on Steam’s Early Access platform in February, where it’s battled its way to the top five most played games on the entire platform with more than 500,000 concurrent players at one point last month. (It’s currently sitting at No. 4 on the Steam charts, behind only Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.)
The closest analog to Valheim’s success is PUBG, which holds the record of highest concurrent player count on Steam at more than 3.2 million. Like PUBG, which arguably pushed the battle royale genre into the mainstream with its then-unprecedented 100-player take on competitive survival shooters, Valheim is combining the crafting and survival sim mechanics from popular games like Minecraft and Rust and giving them new life.
“Valheim continues to attract critical and player acclaim, with over 115,000 positive user reviews on Steam,” Iron Gate and its publisher, Coffee Stain Publishing, write in a press release. “It has also been climbing the ranks of the 250 top reviewed games of all time on the platform, now sitting at number 39. On Twitch, Valheim has maintained a steady stream of viewers, and fans have now spent more than 35M hours watching Valheim gameplay, and over 16,266 years playing.”
AMD is holding a hardware event today, March 3rd, where the company plans to announce the next graphics card in its Radeon RX 6000 series. This will serve as the fourth GPU in the RX 6000 line, following the GPU’s debut in November.
Like the other three cards, the new Radeon RX 6000 GPU will feature AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture that includes real-time, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and variable rate shading.
This latest RX 6000 card will likely serve as a competitor to Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series, which recently released a new budget GPU, the RTX 3060. Whether this new AMD GPU will serve as a flagship or a lower-end budget card is yet unknown.
WHEN DOES AMD’S EVENT START?
It starts today, March 3rd, at 8AM PT / 11AM ET / 4PM GMT.
WHERE CAN I WATCH AMD’S EVENT?
We have embedded the live stream at the top of this post, so you can stay here to watch it when it begins. AMD will also make streams available on its website, in addition to its official Twitch and YouTube channels.
Move over H.264/AVC and HEVC, there’s a new video streaming codec in town and it’s got you in its sites. AV1 is here and it’s going to be everywhere before you know it.
AV1 is an open, royalty-free video standard with an improved compression system that should allow huge data efficiency savings without reducing video quality – and that could be key going forward into a world of higher frame rates, 8K resolution, HDR standards and audio demands.
As such, AV1 brings implications for those who use services such as Netflix, Disney Plus and Prime Video; people looking to buy a new TV or media streamer; and anyone interested in 8K TV. And as a catch-all compression standard there are many uses beyond, including gaming, realtime applications such as video conferencing and anything else where video streams are required.
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What is AV1?
AV1 (AOMedia Video 1) is the the next evolution of the defacto video streaming codec across the internet. It’s planned as the successor to the HEVC (H.265) format that is currently used for 4K HDR video on platforms such as Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney Plus and Netflix.
It was developed by the Alliance for Open Media, which counts Amazon, Apple, ARM, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, Nvidia and Samsung among its members, and is designed to offer internet streaming efficiency upgrades without affecting quality. That makes it an important step in the uptake of streamed 8K video, given the more data-heavy demands of this higher-res format.
The other big advantage to the streaming giants is that AV1 is royalty-free. That means video platforms, device manufacturers and, by proxy, users can avoid the hefty licensing payments previously associated with codecs such as HEVC. With any luck, that should also grease the wheels of AV1’s evolution and development by avoiding costly, time consuming and generally prohibitive law suits and patent claims.
At the time of writing, the AV1 video codec shows anywhere up to 30 per cent more efficient compression than HEVC, and those within the Alliance for Open Media will push for even bigger gains still. After all, it’s always good to leave room to squeeze more audio and video standards into the bitstream as and when they arise.
But while all sounds good for efficiency of the compression, there is a catch – it takes much, much longer to encode videos in AV1 in the first place. Imagine capturing a video on your mobile then having to wait an age for the AV1 file to be created before you can share it.
The aim for AV1 is for significant improvement here. Realistically, it’s a problem that needs to be solved before widespread adoption can happen. Until then, expect AV1 to be a more fringe player.
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AV1 specs
(Image credit: AOAlliance)
AV1 decoders are available at different profile settings and levels, depending on each piece of hardware’s capabilities. Theoretically, though, there’s plenty of scope and the very upper limits of AV1 have not yet been defined.
For the time being, the codec can go as far as 8K at up to 120fps, involving bitrates at up to 800mbps. Bit depth for colour comes in 8-, 10- and 12-bit varieties and with colour sampling up to a 4:4:4 full pixel level.
Can I watch AV1 video now?
Google has already implemented some AV1 use onto YouTube and requires AV1 support to view its 8K videos on TV.
Netflix has also started streaming AV1 content on a few titles. In fact, the subscription giant first took on AV1 as a way of keeping costs down for Android customers. The Netflix ‘Save Data’ feature on Android devices prioritises the use of the less data-heavy AV1 streams where possible. The company has also committed to take AV1 use across the board going forward.
Vimeo has adopted AV1 for the streams of its ‘Staff picks’ channel. Facebook has promised a roll out of AV1 as browser support emerges, and Twitch has 2022 or 2023 targeted with universal support projected to arrive in 2024 or 2025.
To watch this AV1 content requires both hardware and software support, which mostly breaks down to which device you’ve got and what operating system it’s using. At the time of writing, there’s no AV1 support on MacOS or iOS.
Android (10 onwards), Chrome (70 onwards) and Linux can decode AV1 streams, as can Windows 10 devices (once updated) for certain Windows apps.
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What devices support AV1?
Any device looking to support AV1 will need to have an AV1 decoder built-in at the chip level. Compatibility to the codec cannot be added as a firmware update for most devices. That means the very vast majority of devices out there at the time of writing aren’t ready for it.
There are one or two that were future-proofed in 2020, though. Of those, the Roku Ultra is probably your best bet to get going with AV1 content straight away, although it’s only available in the US for now.
LG’s 8K TVs from 2020 are also AV1 compatible with a decoder built into the α9 (Gen 3) processor. It’s a similar story for Samsung’s 8K sets from the same time – you can actually watch AV1-encoded 8K content from the YouTube app of those sets now.
The other notable AV1-enabled hardware is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards, which would make a very handy video streaming addition to most PCs.
Otherwise, it’s a list of AV1 promises but these include a particularly good one. Google recently announced that any device looking to use the Android TV 10 OS produced after the 31st March 2021 deadline will need to have an AV1 decoder built in.
So, expect plenty of set-top boxes and smart TVs launched in 2021 and beyond to be ready to go and, with Google putting its foot down, all sorts of other products and services should fall in line over the next 12 months, and that’s good news for everyone. Higher quality video, here we come.
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On Sunday night, President Joe Biden released a message of support for unionizing Amazon workers in Alabama, while sternly denouncing anti-union efforts by employers. The message comes in the midst of a contentious union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer. And while Biden stopped short of an explicit endorsement of the fledgling Bessemer union, he was broadly enthusiastic about the benefits of collective bargaining.
“I made it clear during my campaign that my policy would be to support unions organizing and the right to collectively bargain,” Biden said in the statement. “I’m keeping that promise.”
It’s rare for a sitting president to publicly support a union drive, and the statement is careful not to direct workers to vote in favor of unionization, as such statements might violate labor law. Biden never names Amazon directly in the statement, although he does directly name Alabama warehouse workers. He also denounces anti-union efforts in a way many will see as aimed at the company.
“There should be no intimidation,” Biden says in the video, “no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda.”
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which is organizing the Bessemer worksite, applauded the statement. “As President Biden points out, the best way for working people to protect themselves and their families is by organizing into unions,” said RWDSU president Stuart Appelbaum in a statement. “And that is why so many working women and men are fighting for a union at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama.”
Amazon has been aggressive in its efforts to prevent the warehouse from unionizing, inundating Alabama workers with text messages and worksite posters warning of the downsides of unionization. Last week, workers spotted anti-union ads running on Amazon-owned Twitch, although Twitch withdrew the ads once their existence was made public. In another incident, Amazon worked with county officials to alter the timing on a stoplight near the warehouse, making it harder for organizers to approach workers as they left the site.
In some instances, those efforts have provoked a backlash against the company. Last week, Amazon’s VP overseeing labor and employment law abruptly resigned from the American Constitution Society, a liberal legal group that had recently appointed him to a three-year term. A coalition of members had called for his resignation in December, citing Amazon’s response to a walkout at a Staten Island warehouse last year.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nvidia supposedly launched a $329 graphics card today, the GeForce RTX 3060, but I’ve yet to see much proof.
Orders began today at 9AM PT / 12PM ET for a card whose listed prices ranged from $329.99 all the way up to $629.99, averaging $471. Those aren’t scalper prices, mind you. They’re the retail prices set by Nvidia’s partners.
As far as I can tell, the only places that actually claimed to stock a card for $329.99 were Newegg and EVGA’s own website, and neither simply put the card on sale: Newegg is only raffling off chances to buy the cards, and EVGA has a queue where you hit a “notify me” button. In both cases, you wait for the company to hopefully email you back with good news.
Newegg listings pointed you straight to the Newegg Shuffle.Screenshot by The Verge
The raffle and queue are good things, in my opinion! It means you might maybe possibly have a chance to actually get one. You have until 12PM PT / 3PM ET today to enter the Newegg Shuffle, which features a PS5 bundle as well, and you’ll know by 2PM PT / 5PM ET if you luck out. But it also means we’ll have little evidence that $329 is the actual price of this GPU.
There’s also a question of whether Nvidia initially managed to ship many 3060s. Queues and raffles aside, today seemed to have some of the most sparse GPU availability yet, with some accusing Nvidia of a “paper launch” much like AMD’s RX 6800 series in November. PCGamer gave up live-blogging the launch after an hour of failure. Best Buy barely had them. At some other retailers, they never showed up. I saw listings for some versions straight-up pulled off the web. Micro Center only had them in store.
One bright spot (for US gamers anyhow): Best Buy wound up restocking a variety of other Nvidia GPUs today, with the 3060 Ti, 3070, and even the hardest-to-find 3080 popping up from time to time.
In fact, it may have shown just how rough the RTX 3060 launch is: I was sitting Falcodrin’s Twitch channel, a popular hangout where people try to track down the cards and share their success, and Falcodrin ran a poll where only two people admitted to nabbing a 3060 at all:
Falcodrin’s poll.
It’s also worth noting that at least two of the four supposedly $329.99 graphics cards look suspiciously like token offerings to meet that price. EVGA has a second near-identical version of the 3060 with a very slightly higher boost clock that retails for $390.
I’ll let you guess which one’s the less expensive “Black” model.
And while Newegg might be listing Zotac’s 3060 Twin Edge for $329.99, Zotac itself lists it and briefly sold the exact same card this morning for $479.99. (I saw the add to cart button on one refresh, but Zotac’s website crapped out, and it was out of stock as soon as I returned.)
The RTX 3060 is a good card, but even at $330, I think you might want to wait and see what’s next since the 3060 Ti is so much better. At $400 and up, that goes double. But maybe you didn’t have a choice to begin with. We’re asking Nvidia if it has more thoughts, and we’ll let you know what we hear. EVGA would only confirm that it’s shipping a $329.99 GPU, and that “we have more supply on the way.”
On Saturday, Post Malone will hold a virtual concert to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pokémon franchise. If that combination wasn’t strange enough, today, he revealed one of the songs he’ll be performing: a cover of Hootie & the Blowfish’s mid-’90s hit “Only Wanna Be With You.”
I’m not entirely sure how much crossover there is between Post, Hootie, and Pokémon fans, but the song is definitely a real thing. You can listen to the cover in the video above, and The Pokémon Company says “the song will be included as part of Post’s headlining appearance” at the virtual concert, which will be airing on February 27th at 7PM ET. You can watch the live stream on both Twitch and YouTube.
Elsewhere, it also looks like we may be getting some big news from the franchise. On February 26th at 10AM ET, The Pokémon Company will host an event on its YouTube channel, which promises “approximately 20 minutes of Pokémon news.”
PlayStation fans, rejoice. Sony is hosting the first State of Play live stream of 2021 today. The 30-minute presentation will feature 10 new games coming to the PS4 and PS5, along with updates on some upcoming third-party and indie games that appeared at Sony’s PS5 showcase last June.
Sony has not unveiled what games will be announced during today’s event, but the company has a ton of highly anticipated games slated to launch this year and possibly into 2022. These include Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which will launch exclusively on the PS5 on June 11th, and Horizon Forbidden West, which is expected to come out sometime this year on the PS4 and PS5.
WHEN DOES THE PLAYSTATION STATE OF PLAY EVENT START?
The live stream starts today, February 25th, at 2PM PT / 5PM ET / 10PM GMT.
WHERE CAN I WATCH THE PLAYSTATION STATE OF PLAY?
We have the embedded live stream at the top of this post, so you can stay here and watch it when it begins. Alternatively, you can head to the official PlayStation YouTube channel or the PlayStation Twitch account to watch today’s event.
Ever since Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville recorded an almost undecipherable version of the French song “Au Clair de la Lune” in the mid-19th century, it’s been clear that the technology that you use to produce and listen to sounds can affect your experience. Even now, about 150 years later, the quality of your gear can mean the difference between a tinny, nearly unrecognizable noise or a fully realized aural experience.
As you can imagine, the people here at The Verge spend a lot of time listening to a variety of digital sounds — whether it’s online meetings, music, podcasts, videos, or sound checks of their own multimedia productions. We asked the staff what their favorite devices were to either listen to, enhance, or produce their digital sounds. Here’s what they talked about.
Plantronics Explorer 500 Bluetooth headset
Plantronics Explorer 500 Photo: Poly
About six years ago, I reviewed a midlevel Bluetooth headset from Plantronics (now Poly) called the Explorer 500. It was a small, nicely built, single-ear headset, and it came with a short USB cable with ends that magnetically snapped together to become a loop. I thought it was a pretty good piece of tech at the time, so I bought one — and I’m still using it. Of course, it’s not great for music (it uses only one ear, after all), but it’s incredibly convenient to have it hanging on a loop in my bag so I can grab it for a quick phone call or if I want to listen to a podcast. And surprisingly, the battery still holds a reasonable charge. One of these days, I’ll have to invest in a fully wireless headset so I can have fully mobile music as well — but until then, my Explorer 500 serves me well. — Barbara Krasnoff, reviews editor
AudioQuest Dragonfly USB DAC
AudioQuest Dragonfly seriesPhoto: AudioQuest
AudioQuest’s Dragonfly portable digital-to-analog converter (DAC) brings higher-quality audio to your devices. Most laptops, tablets, and smartphones don’t have great DACs or don’t natively support hi-res files like FLAC (nor tell you when they don’t), but with the Dragonfly, you’ll be able to listen to uncompressed audio up to 24-bit / 96kHz. There’s also an LED light on the device that changes colors to indicate which sample rate is being supported at the moment. AudioQuest makes three separate models: the basic Dragonfly Black; the Dragonfly Red, which uses a higher-performance DAC chip; and the Dragonfly Cobalt, its highest-end model.
In order to take full advantage of the Dragonfly, you’ll also need an adapter for your phone with a Lightning-to-USB-A adapter for an iPhone or a USB-C-to-USB-A adapter for an Android device. Portability is the biggest feature here — swapping between my phone and my laptop is the reason I’m recommending this for anyone who wants one gadget that will let you listen to hi-res audio on any device. — Andrew Marino, audio engineer
Audio-Technica ATH-M50 headphones
Audio-Technica ATH-M50xPhoto: Audio Technica
Alright, yes, I’m aware that these are pretty much already the internet’s favorite pair of wired, over-ear headphones. But seriously: I’ve had mine for six years now, and they’ve held up great. Sure, the pleather on the headband is starting to flake off, and I had to replace the ear cups a while back, but they sound just as good as the day I got them. I find that music just sounds fun with them — not too analytical, like my DT-770 Pros can sometimes be. The Audio-Technicas are for sure not reference headphones, but that’s probably not what most people are actually looking for.
They were also a great price, especially compared to their Bluetooth counterparts. And honestly, I’ve been falling out of love with wireless headphones for anything other than working out, though that’s probably a problem with me, not them. Either way, the newer version, the ATH-M50x (the ATH-M50 has been discontinued), has a removable cable so you don’t have to worry about being saddled with the ridiculously long cables that sometimes come with fancy headphones. (Another version, the ATH-M50xBT, disposes of the cable entirely.) — Mitchell Clark, news writer
Antlion Audio ModMic USB microphone
Antlion Audio ModMic USB microphone Photo: Antlion Audio
It seems like everyone’s getting big standalone microphones for their desks during the pandemic, but I don’t want to give up any precious real estate. A solution that works better for my needs is Antlion Audio’s ModMic USB microphone. It’s cleverly designed. First, you adhere a small circular base (about the size of a large chocolate chip) to the side of your headphones, then the microphone itself can be magnetically attached and detached at will. I like being able to quickly turn my headphones into a gaming headset, or to get ready for a meeting appearance, then back to regular headphones by detaching the mic. I use one with my Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro open-back headphones and it helps me get more out of the kit I already own.
This particular microphone has two modes you can switch between: omnidirectional (made for broadcasts) or unidirectional, which helps to capture just your voice if you’re in a noisy environment. The sound quality of a voice recording made with the ModMic is very good — far better than most of the gaming headsets I’ve tried. The microphone is compatible with Windows, macOS, Linux, PS4, and PS5.
The downside is this model costs about $70. Also, if your headphones are wired, introducing this mic’s wire into the fray can get a little tough to manage. For me, the price is worth the effort. Antlion also makes an all-wireless rechargeable microphone for $120, if you want to go that route, which also has dual mic modes and can stick to your headphones with adhesive. — Cameron Faulkner, writer
AirPods
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
I love my AirPods and I have since my first pair. They’re lightweight, they charge up quickly in their case, and they sound good enough for what I need them for, which is mostly hearing notifications, listening to podcasts, and watching YouTube videos. It helps that I’m an iPhone and a Mac user, as they work really well with both devices.
I think I like the original AirPods more than the Pros, though. While the Pros offer some welcome upgrades like active noise cancellation and water and sweat resistance, they just don’t fit my ears as well. The original AirPods never fell out, but the AirPods Pro will slowly slip out if I’m talking or eating, and sometimes when I’m running. That means I’m constantly readjusting them if I’m doing anything besides sitting completely still. (To be fair, I’m sitting completely still a lot of the time right now.)
Here’s hoping that the next version of the Pros will fit my ears just a little bit better. If they do, they’ll likely become one of my favorite Apple products ever. — Jay Peters, news writer
Rode RodeCaster Pro podcast production
Rode RodeCaster Pro podcast production Photo: Rode
This four-mic input audio interface by Rode makes it significantly easier to set up a full podcasting session with a design that mimics a live mixing board. You can record multitracks onto your computer or internally on a microSD using a USB-C connection.
As someone who mostly mixes podcasts after they’re recorded, this setup is more appealing to me for live streaming on Twitch or YouTube. You also get built-in customizable sound banks, compression and EQ settings, multiple outputs for monitoring, and an intuitive design for traditional live mixing.
Fun tip: it’s also a great way to record phone call interviews by pairing the RodeCaster Pro with your smartphone via Bluetooth. — Andrew Marino
HyperX QuadCast microphone
HyperX QuadCastPhoto: HyperX
I’d been looking to upgrade my microphone for a long time, but I was unsure which product to go with. A few friends recommended the HyperX QuadCast, and that’s what I ended up buying.
Previously, I used a Blue Yeti microphone, but I felt the audio quality was unsatisfactory on my end. I wanted to make sure I was buying a microphone that was not too cheap and not too pricey and, most importantly, had a nice cable lengthy so I did not have to rearrange my desk. Compared to the Blue Yeti, I found the HyperX QuadCast had great clarity and picked up the subtle details from my audio output.
I really enjoy the somewhat unconventional design of the QuadCast; it comes with straightforward controls, a stand, and a shock mount adapter for boom arms if you want to mount the microphone closer to you. I also find it convenient that the mute button is on top of the microphone. It makes it easy to mute myself quickly while on Zoom or Discord. —Taylor Lyles, writer
Sonos Five speaker
Sonos FivePhoto: Sonos
I’ve never found a single smart speaker that sounds better, and I like that there are no microphones inside. Those are the main bullet points for why I’ve had a Sonos Play:5 — recently refreshed as the Sonos Five — on my desk for several years now. For a speaker that doesn’t have a 360-degree design, the Five still produces a very satisfactory soundstage that can fill most rooms. It can kick out ample bass without overpowering the highs and mids of your music. It takes two of most other smart speakers paired together to come anywhere close to what the Sonos Five can deliver. (Granted, it had better sound damn good for $500.)
Pretty much every audio app under the sun is supported through the Sonos app, including hi-fi options like Tidal and Amazon Music HD. The Sonos Five works with Apple AirPlay, and there’s a 3.5-millimeter aux input for wired playback. (You can also use this to get a turntable hooked into your Sonos system.)
No, there’s no built-in voice assistant like Alexa or Google Assistant included here. But some people will appreciate the absence of always-listening mics. And adding an assistant to the mix after the fact is easy, either via another Sonos speaker like the One or simply by hooking up an Echo Dot or Nest Mini.
It’s just a shame that the white and black combo Play:5 colorway is no more; I think that was the best-looking speaker Sonos ever made. — Chris Welch, news editor
Despite its later-than-usual timing and going completely virtual for the first time, yesterday’s BlizzCon keynote brought with it some big news and exciting trailers. It also featured a musical performance from Metallica. The band isn’t new to BlizzCon, having first appeared at the conference in 2014.
Viewers on many platforms (including Blizzard’s own Twitch and YouTube channels) heard a performance of Metallica’s 1984 tune “For Whom The Bell Tolls.” Several Twitch streamers broadcasting BlizzCon muted the feed during Metallica’s appearance to avoid any potential DMCA troubles.
But on the Twitch Gaming feed that was also carrying the stream, well, things took an amazing turn. Within seconds of the song beginning, the audio was replaced by what AV Club perfectly summed up as “the dorkiest, most Zelda forest-ass music imaginable.”
The transition really makes the whole story here, so please watch:
It would seem the music performance rights that Blizzard obtained for its own channels didn’t extend to Twitch’s in-house gaming channel, so we were instead rewarded with this glorious moment. Could they have just cut the audio altogether? Sure, but that wouldn’t have been as fun. This version of the opening keynote stream currently has over 1.2 million views.
If you want to see Metallica’s actual performance, it’s right at the 1:24:50 mark on either YouTube or Twitch. But me? I’m always going to remember it the Twitch Gaming way. The right way.
And no, it’s not lost on anyone that this happened to a Metallica performance. There’s a lot to chew on there with Napster and the contentious DMCA quagmires that regularly pop up today. But let’s leave that for another day. For now, just imagine Lars Ulrich and company actually jamming out to this RPG adventure music. It all syncs up nicely at times.
After canceling BlizzCon 2020 due to the pandemic, Blizzard is back — earlier than usual in the year — for BlizzCon 2021. Blizzard is actually calling it “BlizzConline 2021.” Expect to hear updates on anticipated titles, including Diablo IV, Overwatch 2, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and perhaps a sneak peek at the rumored Diablo 2 remaster.
Activision, Blizzard’s parent company, announced during a recent earnings call that both Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 wouldn’t see a 2021 release. And while that’s disappointing, there will likely be some news on games releasing this year. A likely candidate is the Diablo Immortal game for iOS and Android phones, which my colleague Andrew Webster got to experience hands-on.
If you want to watch the festivities (which should still be plenty festive even if they won’t be replete with the usual amount of in-person cosplay), here’s how to do that.
When is BlizzCon 2021 happening?
BlizzCon will start with the usual opening ceremony at 5PM ET / 2PM PT on Friday, February 19th, and it’s slated to last for an hour and 10 minutes. From then, the convention splits off into five different broadcasts, each focusing on a different game. Here’s the full schedule. All broadcasts are scheduled to wrap up by 8:40PM ET / 5:40PM PT. If you’re looking for news on games, it’ll likely happen on day one.
However, it’ll start up again on Saturday, February 20th, at 3PM ET / 12PM PT. The day two schedule consists of Q&A sessions, community showcases, and additional entertainment, like a Diablo tabletop campaign hosted by the Critical Role crew.
Does it cost anything to attend BlizzCon 2021?
Nope. It’s free to attend, unlike previous in-person BlizzCon events that required tickets. If you want some of the goodies that usually came with a ticket, you can buy a BlizzCon bundle of in-game items and cosmetics right here.
Where can I watch BlizzCon 2021?
Blizzard is hosting its online convention at BlizzCon.com, or through Battle.net, Activision Blizzard’s game launcher on desktop and mobile. It’s also going to stream live from YouTube and Twitch.
Hades, Supergiant Games’ Greek-themed roguelike, can be a pretty tough game. But one intrepid Twitch streamer took it upon himself to up the challenge by beating the game in an incredibly nontraditional way: by using a controller made out of an actual pomegranate.
Pomegranates are a big part of the game, serving as useful power-ups, and they also have an important place in Greek mythology. But I never imagined that someone could use a real-life pomegranate to defeat the final boss.
To make the controller, streamer Dylan “Rudeism” Beck cut up a pomegranate into 10 pieces, wired the pieces to a MakeyMakey circuit board to make them act as capacitive touch buttons, and taped an earth wire from his arm to the board. Here’s how the contraption works, according to Beck: “My arm will be connected to the MakeyMakey via the earth wire, and then when I touch one of the pomegranates, it then creates a loop between me, the pomegranate, and the circuit board, and that’s what does inputs.”
You can watch Beck put the controller together (and make his first attempt to beat the game with it) in this video:
Beck first tried to play the game with a pomegranate six days ago, and he has been grinding runs ever since, chasing an elusive escape from the Underworld. Overnight, Beck finally did it, successfully defeating the game’s final boss in an epic battle that included two heart-stopping controller failures.
This isn’t Beck’s first attempt at playing a game with a nontraditional controller — it’s actually kind of his thing. Among other notable feats, he won a round of the adorable battle royale platformer Fall Guys with jelly beans.
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Amazon’s new Fire TV Stick is a $39.99 streaming dongle that’s aimed at people who haven’t yet made the upgrade to a 4K TV — and don’t intend to anytime soon. It maxes out at 1080p video resolution, but offers support for modern tricks like HDR and Dolby Atmos surround sound. That’s a weird zone to be in when rival products like the Chromecast with Google TV go all-in on 4K for not much more money.
Even Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K, which works just fine with older TVs, is only 10 bucks more at $49.99. So the Fire TV Stick (and cheaper Fire TV Stick Lite) are really only recommended if you’re positive your HDTV isn’t going anywhere for a few years to come.
If that’s your situation, you’re definitely getting a more powerful streamer than before. Amazon says the new Fire TV Stick is 50 percent faster than the previous version — but it looks identical on the outside. It’s still a matte black stick that plugs into one of your TV’s HDMI ports. You attach a Micro USB cable to it for power, toss some batteries in the Alexa voice remote, and you’re off and running. This is the same full-fledged remote that comes with Amazon’s pricier streaming devices, so in addition to playback and navigation controls, you get some extra buttons (power and volume) for controlling your TV with it. The Fire TV Stick Lite’s remote doesn’t include those.
The Fire TV Stick’s remote has buttons for controlling your TV power and volume.
The improved performance is noticeable. Amazon’s older Fire TV Stick could sometimes get hung up or slow down when scrolling around or opening apps, but I rarely encountered anything of the sort with this new model. It feels on par with the more premium 4K-capable Fire TV products in terms of speed. Voice searches with the Alexa remote were similarly quick, whether I was searching for a certain show or asking about the weather.
Expect mixed results when it comes to HDR and Dolby Atmos support. In my tests, Prime Video and Disney Plus did a good job getting the most out of the Fire TV Stick’s video and audio specs and regularly delivered both HDR and Atmos, but you’ll find that not all services will serve those with a 1080p stream. Both HDR10 and HDR10+ are supported by the Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite, but Dolby Vision is not. Video frame rates of up to 60fps are supported now, compared to the 30fps ceiling on the prior hardware. That’s a nice upgrade for sports and watching video game streams on Twitch.
The Fire TV Stick plugs directly into any available HDMI port.
Amazon’s app selection is excellent, though there is one notable omission: NBCUniversal’s Peacock service still hasn’t been made available on the platform. Everything else, including Apple TV Plus, HBO Max, and other apps, can easily be downloaded. When you set up the Fire TV Stick, Amazon suggests a number of streaming apps to install right off the bat, though the list doesn’t include all the popular favorites. (Everything is easily downloadable after the fact.) Getting the remote configured with your TV’s volume and power controls is also a snap.
The new Fire TV experience
Perhaps more interesting than the new hardware is the overhauled software experience that’s first debuting on the Fire TV stick before arriving on the company’s other devices. Aside from cleaning up and simplifying the main menu navigation — there are now just four tabs to choose between, in addition to your favorite apps — it also introduces multiuser profiles. You can create up to six profiles, and it’s possible to designate them as kid profiles that are limited to age-appropriate streaming content. Each user gets their own personalized viewing history, recommendations, watch list, and live TV preferences. As for apps, you can choose which six apps appear on the main menu and easily get to your others with a click.
The new Fire TV experience still has ads that have nothing to do with streaming.
The Library tab is where you’ll find your purchases, rentals, and watch list. Home is essentially the same as before, giving heavy preference to all things Prime Video (and IMDb TV, which Amazon also owns). The order of rows will dynamically adjust based on your viewing habit, but not to the point where it makes things confusing: your “up next” and recent apps stay up near the top. With the new Find tab, you can dig deeper into dedicated areas for movies, TV, genres, or other categories like “free,” which highlights ad-sponsored streaming channels. (This section is also now where the app store is found.) The last tab is for live TV, which integrates with services like Hulu, Sling TV, and YouTube TV to show a traditional channel guide on-screen where you can quickly access live programming.
But the main frustration of the new Fire TV software remains the same as it was before: there’s an over-abundance of sponsored content. Within a few clicks down on the home tab, I saw a full-width ad banner for Honda trucks and SUVs. And as you progress down the carousels of content, it becomes clear that many of them are sponsored. These are a few I saw as I moved down the Home tab:
Pluto TV — free movies and TV shows — sponsored
Sponsored: Prime Video Cinema
Sponsored: This week on Fire TV
Sponsored: Apps and games
Amazon’s content still gets pushed heavily across the software.
This spon-con is interwoven with genuinely useful rows like “movies we think you’ll like” and “top-rated TV shows,” so it’s not egregious or enough to ruin the overall experience. You could also argue that Amazon is just being more transparent and obvious with its sponsored sections, versus competitors who might mix them in alongside general algorithm recommendations. But it still leaves you with the feeling that there’s a lot of advertising real estate for sale throughout the Fire TV experience.
The new Find tab does a better job than the Home tab at aggregating TV shows and films from your various subscriptions — not unlike what Google tries to accomplish with its Google TV software. Amazon was one of the first to push the idea of prioritizing content over a more app-centric layout (like what’s on a Roku or Apple TV), but in some ways Google has already pulled ahead. On Fire TV, it’s never clear which service you’ll be watching content through until you click into a title. Google does a better job making clear what’s coming from where right on the main menu. But to Amazon’s credit, there are helpful filters for things like “free to me” and “rent or buy” to help you whittle down the selection.
The all-new Find tab makes it quick to find content that’s free to watch.
When you’re browsing around, this new Fire TV experience all feels very familiar. Amazon might have switched up the home screen, but on the whole, this isn’t a drastic makeover. I like how on the title page for any show or movie, it’s very quick and convenient to scroll through other things that the cast has appeared in. And you still get the handy “more ways to watch” to see where else you can stream something, with existing subscriptions and ad-sponsored services given preference above paid options.
But some areas of the interface still need refinement. For example, I got a notification that said “some content is provided by Verizon” with a disclaimer that the company might collect viewing data — with no indication of which app the notification was actually for. I assume it was for one of the live news services, but there was no confirmation that it was.
The new Fire TV experience will come to other products in March. It’s definitely an improvement over what was there before, and the profile options will prove useful for parents and people with shared living spaces. It’s available first on the Fire TV Stick, but I don’t think that’s reason enough to get Amazon’s $40 player.
I’m sure Amazon has all the data in the world to show that this product makes sense, but buying a 1080p streaming device in 2021 seems ill-advised. This feels like something Amazon should just be giving away to Prime subscribers as a freebie. You’d be much better off in terms of future-proofing by spending extra — not much extra, really — for the Fire TV Stick 4K if you constantly stream from Prime Video and will put the remote’s Alexa capabilities to use. If you’re not big on Amazon’s ecosystem, then something like the new Chromecast or a Roku streamer would be a more sensible buy. The latest Fire TV Stick is faster than before and comes with sleeker software, but it’s still not cut out for a 4K streaming world.
Mediatonic’sgoofy, colorful hit from last year, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout,is launching for Nintendo Switch this summer. The news was announced today during a special Nintendo Direct.
Fall Guys is a battle royale game in which players compete in massive elimination-style party games. Each match lasts only a matter of minutes, and players can choose to watch matches play out. The developer released season 2 last fall, which added medieval-themed games into the mix.
It was an immediate success following its August release, with more than 7 million downloads on Steam that month. It also became the most downloaded PlayStation Plus title of all time. It failed to become the biggest game on Twitch that month, but it still clocked in as the second most-watched, beating out Animal Crossing.
Fall Guys is currently available on PC and PlayStation 4. The game is also being ported to mobile, but only in China.
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