Matthew Wilson 1 day ago Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming
Last week during Capcom’s Resident Evil Showcase stream, the publisher announced that Resident Evil Village will indeed be getting a demo. There was just one problem – it would only be available in a small 24 hour window. Fortunately, Capcom has decided to reconsider and as a result, the demo will be available for a much longer period of time.
In an update posted this afternoon, Capcom said: “we’ve heard your feedback and are extending the availability period” for the hour long Resident Evil Village demo.
The demo will now be available in the US from 5PM PDT on 1st May to 5PM PDT on 9th May. Here in the UK, that works out to 1AM BST on 2nd May to 1AM BST on 10th May. In Europe, it will be available from 2AM CEST on the 2nd of May until 2AM CEST on the 10th of May.
The demo itself is not limited to any platform, so you’ll be able to play it on PC, Xbox, PlayStation and even Google Stadia. The game will be fully released on the 7th of May.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: A 24 hour window for a highly anticipated game like RE Village did always seem a bit too limited. Fortunately, now many more people will be able to try the game for themselves ahead of release. Will any of you be playing the demo?
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Matthew Wilson 1 day ago Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming
Back when the Xbox One launched in 2013, one of Microsoft’s big exclusives, Ryse Son of Rome, released to middling critical reception. As the years have gone on though, the game has developed a cult following and soon, those long-time fans may have a sequel to look forward to.
Crytek went through a lengthy period of not releasing big budget titles after Ryse Son of Rome, but the studio may be ready to return to larger scale games. According to Xbox insider, “Shpeshal Ed”, Crytek is currently working on a new Ryse game, which was in development as of July 2020.
There is reason to believe this, as Crytek was unfortunately hacked in late 2020. In one of the leaked documents, several upcoming projects were listed, with a sequel to Ryse Son of Rome being one of them.
Interestingly, this time around the game may release as a multi-platform title, rather than being exclusive to Xbox. That’s all the information we have for now, but hopefully we’ll hear something more official later this year.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: While it was short, Ryse Son of Rome was genuinely very good and still looks great visually even today. Hopefully Crytek continues working on a sequel that can shoot this IP back into the spotlight at some point during this console generation.
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Microsoft is launching its Office and OneNote apps on Amazon’s Fire tablets today. Both apps are available in Amazon’s Appstore, with the Office app combining Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a single tablet app.
Microsoft is no stranger to Amazon’s Appstore, having previously published apps like Outlook, Xbox, and Xbox Game Pass for Fire tablets. This is the first time Office has appeared on Amazon’s tablets, though. Microsoft has essentially taken its Android Office app that’s already available on the Google Play Store and modified it to work on Amazon’s Fire OS — a forked version of Android.
Both the Office and OneNote apps will be available on Amazon’s Appstore in regions where Fire tablets are currently sold. Microsoft says it has timed the release of these apps to coincide with Amazon’s new Fire HD 10 tablet. The $149.99 Fire HD 10 has a thinner design, slimmed-down bezels, and better specs, and Amazon is also offering a $219 bundle with a 12-month subscription to Microsoft 365 in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, and Japan.
Microsoft Teams is down and experiencing an outage worldwide for many users. The issues started at around 6:30AM this morning, and are blocking connectivity for lots of Microsoft Teams users across Europe and Asia. Microsoft is aware of the issues and is currently investigating the route cause.
“We’ve confirmed that this issue affects users globally,” says Microsoft’s 365 status account on Twitter. “We’re reviewing monitoring telemetry and recent changes to isolate the source of the issue.”
Some Microsoft Teams users are reporting 401 error codes when attempting to access the service via the web, while others appear to see Teams and channels but are unable to send messages. Others may still be logged into the service, but Microsoft warns they “may experience degraded performance with multiple features” and that “any user could be affected by this issue.”
We’ve confirmed that this issue affects users globally. We’re reviewing monitoring telemetry and recent changes to isolate the source of the issue. More information can be found under TM252802 in the admin center.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) April 27, 2021
This is the second Microsoft Teams outage this month, following issues with the service at the beginning of April. Microsoft also experienced Teams problems for more than four hours last month, after an authentication change knocked out access to the communications app. Azure Active Directory also experienced issues as part of last month’s outage, alongside Office web apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and other Microsoft services.
It appears Microsoft’s service issues are limited to Teams this morning, with no other signs of Azure, Xbox Live, Office, or other services experiencing issues.
Resident Evil Village is nearly here, and Capcom is giving you more time to play a piece of it ahead of launch. The studio originally announced that players on Xbox, Playstation, and PC would have access to a 60-minute demo this weekend for just 24 hours, but after fan criticism, Capcom has extended the demo’s availability to a full week.
Village’s final demo will still unlock on May 1st at 8PM ET in North America, but availability will now end on May 9th at 8PM ET, a two-day overlap with the game’s full release on May 7th. Capcom announced the change along with extended time frames for both the United Kingdom and Europe on the game’s Twitter account. Playtime for the demo will still be limited to an hour, though.
We’ve heard your feedback and are extending the availability period for the final 60-minute multi-platform #REVillage demo.
The original 24-hour window starting 5PM PDT May 1 (1AM BST May 2) has been increased by a week, and now ends at the same times on May 9 PDT (May 10 BST). pic.twitter.com/8VKEU8bMnu
— Resident Evil (@RE_Games) April 26, 2021
The final demo will let you play two sections of the game: the eponymous village and Castle Dimitrescu, home of the tall vampire lady everyone knows and loves. PlayStation owners had just a few hours to check out the village and then the castle sections in 30-minute chunks over the past two weekends, but on May 1st, players on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Stadia will all have a week to play through both sections of the game, as long as they do so within 60 minutes.
This demo follows the first from January, titled “Maiden,” which featured an unnamed protagonist rather than Village’s main character, Ethan Winters.
Resident Evil Village launches on Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, and Stadia on May 7th.
If you haven’t gotten your hands on an Xbox Series X, you may be able to pick up one very soon, but without the RDNA 2 graphics, of course. The recently uncovered AMD 4700S Desktop Kit (via momomo_us) has found its way into a mini-ITX gaming PC at Tmall in China.
When the AMD 4700S emerged last week, the obscure processor raised a lot of questions. For one, the chip doesn’t carry the Ryzen branding, suggesting that it might be a custom processor that AMD developed for one of its clients. Stranger still, the processor is available for purchase as part of the AMD 4700S Desktop Kit.
Starting with what we know so far, the AMD 4700S is an octa-core Zen 2 processor with simultaneous multithreading (SMT). The Tmall merchant listed the AMD 4700S with 12MB of L3 cache, although we saw the chip with 8MB in a previous Geekbench 5 submission. The processor runs with a 3.6 GHz base clock and a 4 GHz boost clock. While we saw the AMD 4700S with 16GB of memory, we were uncertain of its nature. However, we suspected that the AMD 4700S is a variant of the processor that powers Microsoft’s latest Xbox Series X gaming console. The new mini-ITX listing appears to confirm our suspicions.
Apparently, the AMD 4700S is outfitted with 16GB of GDDR6 memory, which is the same amount of memory in the Xbox Series X. It appears that AMD is salvaging defective dies that don’t meet the requirements for the Xbox Series X and reselling them as the AMD 4700S.
Logically, AMD can’t just sell the same processor that it produces for Microsoft (for obvious reasons). Therefore, the AMD 4700S could be a result of a defective die with a faulty iGPU, similar to Intel’s graphics-less F-series chips. On the other hand, AMD could simply have disabled the iGPU inside the AMD 4700S, which is a shame given how generous GDDR6 memory is with bandwidth.
The only image of the mini-ITX system’s interior revealed a motherboard that looks like the same size as the Xbox Series X. There are no memory slots, and we can see some of the GDDR6 chips that surround the processor. Naturally, AMD reworked the motherboard for PC usage, as we can see by the addition of capacitors, passive heatsink, power connectors, and connectivity ports. Since the AMD 4700S lacks an iGPU, AMD added a PCIe 3.0 x16 expansion slot for a discrete graphics card.
AMD 4700S Benchmarks
Processor
Cinebench R20 Single-Core
Cinebench R20 Multi-Core
Cinebench R15 Single-Core
Cinebench R15 Multi-Core
Ryzen 7 4750G
411
4,785
199
2,085
AMD 4700S
486
3,965
160
1,612
Core i7-9700
508
3,643
200
1,469
Thanks to the listing, we can also get an idea of just how the processor inside the Xbox Series X performs compared to today’s desktop processors. However, it’s important to highlight that the AMD 4700S may not be the exact processor used in Microsoft’s latest console. The Series X uses a chip that runs at 3.8 GHz and 3.6 GHz when simultaneous multithreading is active. The AMD 4700S, on the other hand, clocks in a 3.6 GHz with a 4 GHz boost clock. On paper, the AMD 4700S should have faster compute cores since it doesn’t have an iGPU that eats into its power budget, so the heightened clock speeds make sense.
In general, the AMD 4700S lags behind the Ryzen 7 4750G (Renoir) and Core i7-9700 (Coffee Lake) in single-core workloads. The AMD 4700S did outperform the Core i7-9700 in multi-core workloads. However, it still placed behind the Ryzen 7 4750G.
It’s remains to be seen whether AMD is selling the AMD 4700S to retail customers or just OEMs. Thus far, we’ve seen the AMD 4700S Desktop Kit retailing for €263.71 (~$317.38) in at Tulostintavaratalo, a retailer in Finland. The Chinese mini-ITX gaming system is listed for 4,599 yuan or $709.12, but the price factors in the Radeon RX 550, 5TB SSD, CPU cooler, power supply and case.
Apple has just released macOS 11.3, alongside iOS 14.5. It’s probably worth updating your Mac to it as soon as you can — not only because it comes with some new features, including improvements for running iPhone and iPad apps on M1 Macs and updates to Apple Music and Podcasts, but it also fixes a major security flaw.
The update reportedly patches a vulnerability that allowed malware to bypass many of macOS’s built-in protections, like File Quarantine and GateKeeper’s opening dialog box. While Apple’s built-in anti-malware system could still block malicious programs if Apple were aware of them, enterprise software company Jamf did find evidence that the security flaw was being exploited by attackers.
Apple also details a slew of other security fixes that are included with the latest update on its security update page. Catalina and Mojave have received security patches as well, for those who haven’t yet updated to Big Sur.
Aside from security updates, one of the biggest new improvements in 11.3 (at least for owners of M1 Macs) is the ability to resize iPhone and iPad app windows. Apple’s also added keyboard, mouse, and trackpad support for games that are compatible with controllers.
The infinity symbol in the queue controls the Autoplay feature.
Apple has also added autoplay to the Music app — a feature which is either great or annoying depending on your mood. After you reach the end of a song or playlist, Apple Music will continue playing music that it thinks is similar (thankfully, it can be turned off if you’re just looking to listen to one specific song). The News and Podcasts apps also have redesigned pages to make them easier to use (with the former getting a reworked search feature — something that’s exciting to me, and possibly no one else).
The update also adds many of the features that are in iOS 14.5: the ability to track AirTags using the Find My app, new emoji and Siri voices, and support for the Xbox Series X / S and PlayStation 5 DualSense controllers. You can visit Apple’s site to see the entire list of updates and features.
Apple has begun rolling out iOS and iPadOS 14.5. The latest software update includes the new App Tracking Transparency feature, which lets users decide whether to allow apps to track their activity “across other companies’ apps and websites” for advertising purposes. A pop-up will now appear whenever apps are designed to share your activity in this way. Facebook has heavily criticized Apple over App Tracking Transparency, claiming that it presents “a false tradeoff between personalized ads and privacy.” The new option could have a detrimental impact on Facebook’s ad business.
Perhaps more important to day-to-day iPhone usage, iOS 14.5 also includes a very helpful and timely new trick: if you own an Apple Watch, you can set your iPhone to automatically unlock without requiring a Face ID match or passcode as long as Apple’s smartwatch is on your wrist. This is designed to make getting into your phone that much quicker while we’re all still wearing face masks so frequently throughout the day. Installing watchOS 7.4 is necessary for this feature to work; that update is also available as of today.
iOS and iPadOS 14.5 include a ton of new emoji with a focus on inclusivity. The update adds the ability to watch Apple Fitness Plus workouts on a TV with AirPlay 2. Apple’s Podcasts app is getting a new design and optional subscriptions. The latest video game controllers for the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S are now supported on the iPhone and iPad as of this update. And all iPhone 12 models will allow for 5G connectivity in dual-SIM mode in more countries. Starting with the 14.5 update, Apple will no longer default to a female-sounding voice for its Siri assistant. Instead, you’ll be prompted to choose your preferred voice during device setup. Apple has a post up with all of the miscellaneous improvements and additions.
iOS and iPadOS 14.5 is rolling out to iPhone and iPad users now; you can check the “software update” section in settings to begin the update process right away.
This week, Apple launched a new Apple TV 4K streamer complete with a shiny new Siri remote control. But there’s a kicker – the new Siri remote won’t work with motion-controlled video games, DigitalTrends reports.
That’s because it lacks a gyroscope and accelerometer, meaning no Wii-style motion gaming. According to MacRumors, if you try to play a motion-controlled game with the new remote you’ll see the following error message:
“To play this game on your Apple TV, you need to connect the Apple TV Remote (1st generation) or a compatible PlayStation, Xbox or MFi controller.”
Why the change? Apple Arcade is trying to position itself as a more serious gaming platform, with fewer motion-controlled titles, which are seen as frivolous by more hardcore gamers. It stopped insisting that games on the platform support the original Siri controller’s motion controls back in 2016, and in 2019 started supporting controllers from “proper” consoles such as the Xbox One and PS4. It will soon support PS5 and Xbox Series X/S controllers, too.
The new Apple TV supports high frame rate HDR with Dolby Vision at 60fps, and is powered by the A12 Bionic chip, which debuted in 2018’s iPhone XS. It also has a unique approach to setting the colour balance: it uses your iPhone’s sensors to optimise the video output for your particular TV. The light sensor in the iPhone compares the colour balance to “industry-standard specifications used by cinematographers worldwide”. The Apple TV 4K then automatically tweaks its picture output to allegedly deliver more accurate colours and better contrast based on the measurements it takes from your TV.
We can’t wait to try it for ourselves.
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The Evercade handheld that released in 2020 can connect to your TV through its Mini HDMI port, but its 4.3-inch screen proves it was designed more for retro gaming on the go. Now, there’s a version of the Evercade just for your TV. It’s called the Evercade VS, and it can output retro games at 1080p, delivering “top-of-the-line emulation,” with support for up to four wired USB controllers for multiplayer in games. It’ll cost $99.99 when it launches on November 3rd, 2021, and preorders start on May 28th, 2021.
Crucially, the Evercade VS will be able to play games from the same kind of proprietary cartridges used by the handheld, and this home console can store two at a time under the NES-style flap that opens at its top. Each cartridge allows for save and load states in its updated user interface, and you can pick up where you left off by swapping them between the Evercade VS and the Evercade handheld if you own both. In terms of visual options, it will support 4:3, “pixel perfect,” or full-screen modes as well as the option for scan line filters. The company says the handheld will receive these interface features in an update by the end of 2021.
Image: Evercade
Evercade will release its own controller, but you can use other USB controllers, including the Xbox Adaptive Controller, 8BitDo’s wireless controllers that have USB wireless receivers, and likely many others. Even the Evercade handheld can serve as a controller if you purchase a link cable. The console will include a Micro USB power cable but not a wall adapter. It also won’t include an HDMI cable.
This cross-device approach to the Evercade platform seems well-thought-out. Letting you take the games out of your handheld and pop them in the VS to play on TV is a power play for any kind of proprietary format, especially from a small company that’s paying IP holders a licensing fee for games that it writes to cartridge. That’s notable (and even commendable), but this approach has hit its first major snag in the jump to the home console: some of the Evercade’s most popular retro titles won’t work on the VS. Specifically, the two cartridges featuring Namco Museum collections are licensed exclusively for use on handheld, so the VS simply cannot play Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Galaga, and the other games built into those cartridges.
Blaze Entertainment expects to have over 280 games available to play on its Evercade ecosystem by the end of 2021, and barring other licensing conflicts ahead of the VS’s launch, all games outside of the Namco Museum cartridges will be playable on the TV-based console. Also, the company is committing to all future cartridges supporting both the VS and the handheld.
(Pocket-lint) – MotoGP sits at the very apex of the motorbike-racing formulae, yet its officially licensed games have somehow never quite crossed over to a mainstream audience. The cognoscenti are aware, however, that developer Milestone – which has been crafting MotoGP games since 2007 – really knows its stuff.
For a number of reasons – not least the fact that making a motorsport game in the middle of a pandemic, when visiting circuits to scan them is somewhere between tricky and impossible, is a logistical nightmare – MotoGP 21 doesn’t offer much by way of surprises.
It’s the first MotoGP game to include the long-lap penalty, its management element has been expanded somewhat, and its tyre-wear model has been tweaked to offer even more realism. So is the 2021 edition worth the ride?
Preaching to the converted
But that there’s no major new feature isn’t vastly problematic, since Milestone’s MotoGP games have been consistently solid for a number of years, and MotoGP 21 continues that trend.
As we’ve come to expect from officially licensed motorsport games, it’s big, comprehensive and technically accomplished, and provides a meaty facsimile of the whole real-life MotoGP circus, encompassing the lower formulae, Moto2 and Moto3, and letting you indulge your team-management fantasies to an extent, as well as to showcase your bike-riding skills.
One reason why MotoGP games haven’t been huge hits among a mainstream gaming audience in the past instantly becomes obvious when you fire MotoGP 21 up: its target audience is clearly hardcore MotoGP fans and the sort of bike enthusiasts who might participate in track days.
It does have a tutorial, you can turn on driver aids, and there’s a rewind button for erasing painful wipeouts. But that tutorial is distinctly cursory when it comes to explaining the fundamentals of bike-riding, and much more detailed regarding esoterica like bike-setup.
Koch Media
MotoGP 21, then, preaches mainly to the converted, and those who are new to bike-racing games are likely to find it a tad intimidating, although it is easy enough to set things up so as to ease yourself in gently.
Carving out a career
In Career mode, once you have virtually created yourself as a MotoGP racer, you can choose whether to start in Moto3, Moto2 or the full-blown MotoGP. From then on, there’s a familiar calendar-based structure, so you can opt to participate in as many or as few testing and practice sessions and so on as you want.
Koch Media
If team management is your thing, you can start your own junior team after a season, and you can mess around with chasing the most lucrative contracts and swapping to the best teams.
But if you find all those aspects peripheral and just want to dive into the racing, MotoGP 21 delivers brilliantly. You can leave the Career mode to launch quick races in all the formulae, but if you don’t know the circuits, you’ll struggle in the races. So, it makes sense to participate in the Career mode’s free practice sessions in order to learn the circuits, before qualifying and the actual races.
If your bike-racing skills aren’t quite at a ninja level, it also makes sense to start off in Moto3: its less powerful bikes are much more forgiving and, in particular, easier to stop going into the corners – those used to four-wheel racing games will have to adopt an unfamiliar slow-in, fast-out style, and learn how to blend the throttle. Being the last of the late-brakers is a recipe for disaster.
Koch Media
MotoGP 21’s bike-feel is exemplary – the full-blown MotoGP beasts are a real handful, but once you develop confidence in the front-end of your bike, you can really flow round the circuits. Tyre wear is also very noticeable – as it is in the real-world MotoGP – and you must setup your bike carefully for the races, playing off tyre longevity against top-end power. You don’t necessarily have to fiddle around with bike settings yourself: you can tell your virtual engineers what you want, and they will make changes accordingly.
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Online play
Online, MotoGP 21 feels impressively solid in technical terms, although it can be difficult to tell pre-release, when servers are sparsely populated. But the online side of the game definitely isn’t for the faint-hearted: it tries to match riders with similar skill levels, but you’re still likely to be pitting yourself against gamers with expensive rigs rather than just a console and a gamepad. Inevitably, brutal racing results. Offline, you can crank up the AI to reflect that, but its default level is fairly forgiving: your rivals will be quick, but at least they won’t take you out with abandon.
Koch Media
Visually, MotoGP 21 is very good, but not exactly jaw-dropping. We played it on the Xbox Series X, and it didn’t feel like a game which was designed for the latest generation of consoles, then crunched down for the previous generation – understandably, given that new-gen consoles are still in short supply. Ironically, MotoGP 21 is at its visual best when you crash, and it switches perspective to a harrowingly realistic crash-cam.
Verdict
For hardcore, committed MotoGP fans, MotoGP 21 is absolutely spot-on: it doesn’t offer any major surprises or innovations, but it does let gamers fulfil their bike-racing fantasies in the most realistic manner imaginable. It’s technically solid, nice and flexible, and decent-looking.
Our main caveat would be that those who haven’t played a MotoGP game before might find it intimidatingly hard at first, although if you start off in Moto3 before working your way up the formulae, you should find that it constitutes a decent gateway towards becoming a seasoned virtual bike-racer.
Overall, though, MotoGP 21’s quality is on a par with the prestige of its official licence, which is pretty much all you could ask for.
Sony will start rolling out support for 1080p streaming (aka Full HD) on PlayStation Now from this week, thus levelling up the streaming quality of its cloud gaming service’s current 720p cap.
The Japanese gaming giant shared the news in a tweet on its official PlayStation account, which reads: “The rollout will occur over the next several weeks across Europe, US, Canada, and Japan, where PlayStation Now is available”.
PlayStation Now will begin rolling out support for streaming 1080p capable games this week.The rollout will occur over the next several weeks across Europe, US, Canada, and Japan, where PlayStation Now is available. pic.twitter.com/OEHWHtMTw8April 22, 2021
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As first noted by The Verge, Sony has yet to share a list of games that can actually be streamed in the higher resolution, but says support will soon roll out for “1080p capable games”.
Granting some PlayStation Now games 1080p streaming will bring the cloud gaming service up on a par with several of Sony’s competitors. Amazon’s Luna currently maxes out at 1080p, although Google’s Stadia can hit up to a 4K resolution. Microsoft, meanwhile, is currently trialling 1080p support for xCloud, its Xbox cloud gaming offering launched in September last year.
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The Xbox Series S isn’t perfect and won’t be for everyone, but it delivers a near next-gen gaming experience for a reasonable price
For
Attractively priced
Solid AV and gaming performance
Responsive controls
Against
Over-complicated AV set-up
Doesn’t support native 4K gaming
Small hard drive
The Xbox Series S is a tough console to nail down. It’s next-gen, but with one rather large drawback; it isn’t a 4K games console, which will undoubtedly rule out some potential buyers from the off.
But it is about more than just resolution. The Xbox Series S brings features and performance benefits to a price point we’ve never seen a high-tech console hit at launch before. And, after resolution, the price of the Series S is arguably the big talking point.
Price
The Xbox Series S is a remarkably cheap console, costing just £250 ($300, AU$500) – no wonder there was a collective gasp from members of the media when pricing was finally revealed. This compares to £450 ($500, AU$749) for the Xbox Series X.
Using Xbox All Access, where you can pay for the console in instalments, you can get a new Series S on a 12-month contract for £21 ($25, AU$33) per month, compared with £29 ($34, AU$46) per month for the Series X.
Its main rival, the PS5 Digital Edition, comes in at £359 ($399, AU$599). It is also missing a disc drive, but the difference is that it gets all the same 4K gaming performance and specs of the standard PS5 console, whereas the Series S has various performance downgrades on the Series X.
Build
(Image credit: Future)
It’s not just the price tag of the Xbox Series S that catches your attention. Open up the box and you’ll be taken aback by the size of the console. It’s tiny compared with its big brother, the Xbox Series X, but also the PS5 and PS5 Digital Editions too.
Positioned horizontally, the Series S measures 28cm wide and 15cm deep. This is in stark contrast to Sony’s disc-less rival, the PS5 Digital Edition, which is 39cm wide and 26cm deep. This makes the Series S ultra-portable, and you’ll be more than happy to sling it into a rucksack and take it to a friend’s house. The ‘S’ and its relatively small frame will also take up less space on your AV rack.
Xbox Series S tech specs
(Image credit: Future)
Resolution 1440p at 60Hz, 120Hz
Storage 512GB
Outputs HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB (Type-A) x3
The chassis is essentially an off-white plastic. It doesn’t feel particularly expensive, but that’s hardly a surprise, given the bulk of Xbox’s budget has been spent on what’s inside.
Compared with the striking PS5, the Xbox Series S looks anything but flamboyant. Its only distinctive feature is a circular black grill for the fan, which makes it look more like a wireless speaker than a cutting-edge games console.
In terms of connections, the Xbox Series S doesn’t throw up any real surprises. On the front, there’s a USB (Type-A) socket, a 3.5mm headphone jack and the power button. On the rear, there are power, ethernet, HDMI and a pair of USB (Type-A) inputs.
The only socket we haven’t really encountered before is a slot for expanding the amount of storage on the Xbox Series S. And, depending on the number of enhanced games you intend to buy, there’s a chance you might have to use it sooner than expected.
In fact, storage is one of the biggest drawbacks for the Xbox Series S. On the box, it says it has 512GB of storage, but when you boot up the console and go into the system’s menu, that figure is nowhere to be seen. Before installing a single game, we are down to 364GB. Download a few enhanced games at 60GB+ and you’ll soon be reaching for an expansion card.
Be warned – the official Seagate Storage Expansion Card costs a whopping £220 ($220, AU$359). The good news is that if you already own an external hard drive with backwards compatible games on it for an Xbox One S, you should be able to plug it into the Xbox Series S and use it straight away.
Home screen
(Image credit: Future)
Power up the console and you’re greeted with the traditional Xbox GUI. On the one hand, it’s nice and familiar but we can’t help but think it’s a missed opportunity. Couldn’t Xbox have created a more exciting and inviting interface to wow its customers and usher in its next-gen consoles?
The tile system is still in play and so is the horizontal navigation. You can reach all the relevant areas, such as games and system settings, with minimal button presses. It’s quick to respond to your commands too. This could be down to a combination of more powerful CPU processing, the super-fast solid-state hard drive and even the new low-latency controller.
What’s even more noticeable is the speed at which games load. Compared with the previous generation of Xbox consoles, the Series S is much quicker. Not only does it get you through loading screens with a greater sense of urgency, with Quick Resume, you can now pick up games from where you left off in a matter of seconds. Xbox claims you can have three or four games on the go at any one time.
Controller
(Image credit: Future)
Like the X, the new Xbox Series S gets a new control pad. It’s supposed to be slightly smaller, although the difference is hard to spot. Irrespective of whether it’s shrunk, the controller still feels good in hand. The bumpers are more rounded, while the triggers have been given more sculpted grips and a new texture that also spreads to the rear of the controller.
Your hands and fingertips get better purchase when pressing down hard, and it feels like the texture pattern from the back of an Xbox Elite Wireless Controller (Series 2) has been placed onto the Xbox Series S controller. Which is no bad thing.
The controller also features what Xbox calls Dynamic Latency Input (DLI), which immediately synchronises each controller input with what you see on screen. Of course, your TV’s own lag is also part of the equation here, but at least the console is doing its bit to reduce lag. It feels as though the console is quick to respond to commands, whether navigating the console’s home screen and in-game too.
Another addition to the controller comes in the shape of a new dedicated ‘Share’ button, which means you can capture screenshots and clips and share your gameplay on social media. Those with older legacy controllers from an Xbox One S (or One X) will be pleased to know you can pair them with the Series S.
Features
(Image credit: Future)
According to Liz Hamren, Head of Platform Engineering and Hardware for Xbox, the Series S delivers “four times the processing power of an Xbox One console”. On paper, the figures are 4 TFLOPS of power for the Xbox Series S, compared with 12.15 TFLOPS for the Series X.
The Series S is “similar in CPU” to the Series X, but not identical. The Xbox Series X uses an 8-Core AMD Zen 2 CPU running at 3.8GHz (3.6GHz with SMT enabled) while the Series S uses the same CPU working at 3.6GHz (3.4GHz with SMT enabled).
The ‘X’ is powered by a 52CU (compute unit) RDNA GPU running at 1.825GHz, while its cheaper sibling has a 20CU, 1.565GHz GPU.
The Series S doesn’t have the graphics grunt of its sibling, meaning that resolution is a big difference between the consoles. The Xbox Series S has been geared towards outputting 1440p at 60Hz, up to a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. It can upscale the picture to 4K to match your 4K TV, but you won’t be able to see next-gen games in native 4K. You can only play games in native 4K resolution (at up to 120Hz) on the Xbox Series X.
But we wouldn’t write off the Xbox Series S just yet. While it does lose out on graphical power and resolution, it still has a range of features that will appeal to anyone looking to make the jump from, say, an Xbox One S.
You can still enjoy refresh rates to up to 120Hz. The console also supports VRR, variable rate shading and ray-tracing just like the Series X. You get the same Quick Resume feature, so you can pick up where you left off at the touch of a button, a faster SSD hard drive and a speedier user experience. All of these mean the Series S is a big step up from the previous generation Xbox One S.
All the streaming apps you need are there too, including Netflix, Spotify, Sky Go, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and Disney+.
Picture
(Image credit: Future)
When it comes to playing games on the Xbox Series S, it’s difficult to find a lot to grumble about for the money. While it’s not native 4K, what it does dish out is easy on the eye. Play Madden 21 and the intro video bursts into life with a colourful and vibrant display of NFL uniforms and impressive-looking stadia shots.
Detail on jerseys and boots is good. The reflections on player helmets are glossy and add polish to the presentation. The motion of the players, whether they’re walking slowly into formation or blitzing the opposing team, is stable and we don’t notice anything in the way of tearing, judder or artefacts.
Gears 5 looks good too, even though it isn’t being rendered in true 4K. Compared with the Xbox Series X, the more powerful console delivers a picture with more ‘wow’ factor, but the Series S is by no means embarrassed. The on-screen detail is good enough, with decent texture on chiselled faces and war-torn body armour. Motion is stable, and there’s good insight in the shadows.
As a streaming device, the Xbox Series S presents a solid case too. Playing Altered Carbon via Netflix, the Series S produces a watchable picture, with none of the artificial appearance that can sometimes be served up by poorer streaming devices.
There’s a good sense of clarity and motion, with detail and definition both excellent too. As Quellcrist Falconer makes Angelfire rain down on her pursuers, the screen lights up with bolts of blue neon. As each soldier is struck down, the flames turn to embers, small pin pricks burning briefly, but ever so brightly, in Dolby Vision HDR. The detail in the shadows as she hides behind a fallen tree is nicely judged and not overly dark.
We’d say the Xbox Series S is comparable to an Apple TV 4K for picture quality, which is a great video streamer in its own right. That’s quite impressive for a games console.
Sound
(Image credit: Future)
Despite being a next-gen console, we’re still left scratching our heads at the way some audio settings have been implemented.
Instead of being able to pass unadulterated audio from your streaming service of choice through to your AV amp, the Xbox needs to decode and re-encode it. You need to navigate the console’s audio settings and pick one format which the console will then apply to everything. You can select from DTS Digital Surround, Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos for Home Theatre or DTS:X for home theatre. It’s not a particularly next-gen way of going about things.
Click on DTS:X and you’re told you need to download the DTS Sound Unbound app. This unlocks DTS:X for home theatre, but you still need to pay a further £17 to unlock DTS Headphones:X. Similarly, you need the Dolby Access app to get free Atmos support for your home theatre, but if you want Dolby Atmos for Headphones, that will cost you extra too. Seriously?
However, the Dolby Access app is handy for setting up a Dolby Atmos soundbar, AV receiver or TV. You can customise your audio settings and even switch on a built-in audio upmixer if you want some of the Atmos experience, but don’t happen to own a Dolby Atmos speaker package.
Oddly, during set-up we are greeted by a pop-up from the console asking if we want to pass Blu-ray audio directly to our AV receiver – someone clearly forgot that the Xbox Series S is a disc-less console.
Once set up, you get is a perfectly acceptable sonic performance. The console sounds punchy and lively with a decent sense of clarity, and an even tonal balance. It’s not as subtle or refined as a dedicated budget 4K Blu-ray player, such as the Sony UBP-X700, nor does it have the same sense of timing and natural flair with music. But it sounds lively enough when firing out the 80s soundtrack to Cobra Kai and the dialogue sounds clear and relatively weighty.
Switch to the opening chapter of Gears 5, and as Kait, Marcus et al arrive at the opening to the cave, the detail and definition in the whirring rotor blades is impressive. Combine this with the strings of the soundtrack, and the sound of the birds circling around the huge opening and the console creates a fine sense of immersion and atmosphere as you head underground.
Verdict
Xbox has been pretty smart with the Xbox Series S – the price tag alone will be enough for some to give it serious consideration. However, if true 4K resolution gaming or playing 4K Blu-rays matters to you, it won’t even be on your radar.
If you aren’t fussed about those and just want to play Xbox exclusives with some of the other game enhancements, such as VRR and the high frame rates, then the Series S isn’t a bad shout.
It could also be an affordable console for a second room or to keep the kids happy. After all, you still get a huge chunk of future-proofing and day-to-day performance upgrades that make it a decent jump up from the Xbox One S.
The Xbox Series S isn’t perfect. The user interface feels a little dated for a next-gen console and there are still too many quirks when you want to use it as part of a proper home theatre system. While it won’t necessarily appeal to everyone, if you’re happy with what the Series S can offer, you won’t be disappointed.
Apple’s new Siri Remote doesn’t come equipped with an accelerometer or gyroscope, which means it won’t work as a motion controller in certain Apple TV games. The omission was initially spotted by Digital Trends, and can be seen on the remotes’ product pages. The old Siri Remote lists an “Accelerometer” and “Three-axis gyro” in the tech specs, but they’re missing from the new listing (we’ve linked to a Google Cache because as of this writing Apple’s store is down ahead of AirTags pre-orders going live).
The change means that the new Siri Remote won’t work with certain Apple TV games that rely on motion controls. According to code in tvOS 14.5 seen by MacRumors, trying to play an incompatible game will lead to the following error message: “To play this game on your Apple TV, you need to connect the Apple TV Remote (1st generation) or a compatible PlayStation, Xbox or MFi controller.” If you’ve got one, you might want to keep an old Siri Remote around for occasions like this.
The lack of motion controls might sound surprising given the new Apple TV box was expected to have a bigger gaming focus, and arrives as Apple Arcade is maturing into a pretty compelling games subscription service. But in recent years Apple has shifted its attention towards more traditional gaming controllers, away from motion controls. It dropped its requirement for games to support the Siri Remote’s motion controls in June 2016 just months after the remote launched alongside the 2015 Apple TV. Then, in June 2019, it announced Apple TV support for Xbox One and PS4 controllers. Support for PS5 and Xbox Series X and S controllers is expected to arrive with tvOS 14.5.
Despite Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous and bug-filled December 10th launch, the title was “the largest game in CD Projekt Red’s history,” the studio said on Thursday (PDF). The game sold 13.7 million copies in 2020, according to CD Projekt Red.
We already had a pretty good idea that Cyberpunk 2077 has been a major financial success for the studio. On December 9th, one day before the game’s launch, CD Projekt Red announced that Cyberpunk 2077 had accrued 8 million preorders. One day after the game’s release, CD Projekt Red said digital preorders had recouped all of the game’s development and marketing costs. And the studio said that the game had sold more than 13 million copies as of December 20th in a memo shared on December 22nd.
Cyberpunk 2077 drove massive sales even though its launch was a huge mess. The game had bugs and issues on many platforms and ran particularly poorly on older consoles, forcing CD Projekt Red to quickly release numerous hotfixes. The game’s performance and fan outcry were so bad that Sony yanked the game from the PlayStation Store just one week after launch, and months later, it still hasn’t returned.
CD Projekt Red also said on Thursday that its hit RPG The Witcher 3 sold more than 30 million copies, making 2020 “the second best year in [the game’s] history with regard to the number of copies sold.” In addition, the studio committed to releasing PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S-optimized versions of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 in the second half of 2021.
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