Technology - Google News |
- Opinion: The Future of Xbox May Hinge on E3 2020 - IGN
- Samsung Galaxy S10e review - The INQUIRER
- 41 must-see PC games at E3 2019: Watch every trailer - PCWorld
| Opinion: The Future of Xbox May Hinge on E3 2020 - IGN Posted: 10 Jun 2019 09:32 PM PDT  Microsoft has loaded the bases. Can Team Xbox knock it out of the park next year? Ever since the Xbox One's nightmarish launch in 2013, Microsoft and the Phil Spencer-led Xbox leadership team have done a remarkable job of rebuilding the entire Xbox brand on the fly. There could never be an overnight fix; restoring Team Xbox to its Xbox 360 glory days would require a complete systemic overhaul in order to win spurned fans back over. And so they began. The Xbox One S, the Xbox One X, Xbox 360 backwards compatibility, original Xbox backwards compatibility, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Game Pass for PC, Xbox All Access, eight new first-party studios, Project xCloud, and on and on and on. Every E3 program has come with a clear focus and a gamer-first message. Kinect is dead, the "all-in-one entertainment device" is dead. Xbox is a gamer-focused brand, and this year, it was playing for tomorrow. Exit Theatre Mode Many thought "tomorrow" would be E3 2019. After all, Xbox had teased a next-gen presence of some sort, confirmed Halo Infinite would be there, and Sony was sitting this one out. And indeed Microsoft delivered an excellent Xbox press conference this week. First-party games like Gears 5, Bleeding Edge, Battletoads, and Minecraft Dungeons showed well, while Miyazaki and George RR Martin's Elden Ring, Sega's Phantasy Star Online 2, and Bloober Team's Blair Witch were all impressive surprise reveals. Meanwhile, Project Scarlett was officially confirmed, with Microsoft emphasizing a lot of the same focuses (SSD drives, eliminating loading times, and of course raw horsepower) as Sony did ahead of the show. And an almost six-minute in-engine Halo Infinite trailer gave us our first proper look at what next-gen Halo looks like. Still, while each successive Xbox E3 press conference since 2013 has been better than the last, even 2019's action-packed event couldn't quite throw the megaton, knockout punch that Xbox fans have been waiting for since the Xbox 360 glory days. The good news is that next year should be the year Microsoft finally has all of the pieces in place to do so. A number of its new developers will almost certainly be ready to show off what they've been working on since they joined Xbox Game Studios, likely including Playground (and the rumored Fable reboot), Obsidian, Compulsion, Ninja Theory, and perhaps others. Meanwhile, Forza Motorsport 8 is nearly guaranteed to be readying to launch alongside Scarlett, while we should also get the new console's (or, as rumor has it, consoles' plural) name(s), final specs, release date, and price(s). And the whole thing will be headlined by Halo Infinite, a spiritual reboot in development for five years and powered by a brand-new game engine, which will become just the second Halo to ever launch with an Xbox console. And it couldn't come at a better time for Microsoft. Exit Theatre Mode Third-party support is on track to be strong in 2020 as well, with EA's Star Wars Battlefront 3 a solid bet to be on the Xbox stage, Rocksteady Studios hopefully ready to finally show off what they've been working on since Batman: Arkham Knight shipped in 2015, 2K seemingly prepping its rumored BioShock revival, and plenty more we don't even know about yet. Scarlett appears poised to have a very impressive launch lineup. Exit Theatre Mode While Microsoft has been doing all the right things as it reinvents itself for the next generation, E3 2020 is likely to be a historically critical one for Xbox. If its showing disappoints, all of the momentum it's been carefully building over the past several years could be wiped away for good, regardless of how well or poorly Sony comes out of the gate with PlayStation 5. In short, E3 2020 will be a make or break moment for Microsoft and the future of the Xbox brand. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic, but for Microsoft, the pressure is on. Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible. |
| Samsung Galaxy S10e review - The INQUIRER Posted: 11 Jun 2019 01:33 AM PDT DOING THINGS OUT OF SPITE doesn't seem to be Samsung's style, but the Galaxy S10e looks like it's been created just to flip the bird at Apple's iPhone XR. OK, we're probably being grossly liberal with our in-between-the-lines reading, but much like the iPhone XR takes the core bits of the iPhone Xs and packs them into a cheaper package, the Galaxy S10e does the same with the Galaxy S10, only in a smaller package.
Turns out that's a pretty good approach, as the Galaxy S10e is a superb 'small' Android phone that comes packing flagship features for £669; some £130 less than the S10's starting price. Design
There are other differences; principally the dual, rather than triple lens module on the rear (more on that later) and the capacitive fingerprint scanner built into the power button on the phone's right-hand edge. The scanner is one of the best capacitive ones we've encountered, being fast and responsive as well as easy to reach.
Left-handers will need to get used to the position, but that happens pretty quickly. Swiping down on the scanner also pulls down the setting quick menu, which is a neat touch. We'd even say the capacitive scanner is better than the ultrasonic under-display fingerprint readers of the S10 and S10 Plus. Aside from those few points, the S10e has all the design features of its larger stablemates, including IP68 water and dust resistance, wireless charging, stereo speakers, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
The maligned Bixby button remains present and correct, but it can be set to fire up an app of choice from a single press; we used it to launch the Kindle app and found it was handy to quickly jump back into an ebook chapter when commuting. A longer press kicks Bixby into gear, which has been improved but still lags behind the Google Assistant.
Available in five colours in the UK: Prism White, Prism Black, Prism Green, the garish Prism Yellow, and Prism Blue, the metal and aluminium chassis looks particularly fetching in the latter hue.The S10e also feel absolutely lovely with its excellent build quality and finish.
Its smaller size and rounded edges make it easier to hold and navigate with one hand than the curved glass on the S10 models, though it arguably lacks the aesthetic punch of those handsets. While we praised the Pixel 3 for its neat size, the S10e blows it out of the water when it comes to ergonomics, looks and screen space. Display
Instead, you'll be focusing on the cracking colours and contrast the S10e display kicks out, alongside an eye-searing dose of brightness when its cranked to full whack. There are two display calibrations to choose from: Vivid and Natural. The latter offers colours that are well… more natural but also a tad muted. Vivid mode ups the saturation and delivers more punchy colours and the expense of true-to-life representation.
Our preference was the Vivid mode, which we feel is best for viewing videos. And you'll want to watch videos on this screen, despite its diminutive size for 2019 standards, as like its sizable siblings it has HDR10+ support. For those who don't know, HDR10+ is an open standard spearheaded by Samsung, which adds more metadata to the HDR10 standard, thereby expanding on the range of details and colours that can be displayed.
There's not a lot of HDR10+ content out in the wild, but HDR videos still look very nicer on the S10e display, with deep dark blacks and colours with plenty of clout. As enjoyable as watching stuff on the S10e is, if you resize a video to fit the whole display you'll notice the punch-hole cutout, which houses the front-facing camera in the screen's top right-hand corner, when a bright scene pops up and effectively surrounds the dark dot in a sea of light. But in everyday use, the cutout becomes less noticeable over time. It'll be a matter of opinion whether a punch-hole is less noticeable than a camera notch; we don't particularly mind either, and Samsung's cut-out is a solid example of display engineering.
One thing to note is that the S10e comes with Gorilla Glass 5 rather than the sixth-gen version. The phone should still survive a drop but we don't recommend you go flinging it around. All in all, the S10e sports one of the best displays we've seen on a Samsung phone and the edge-to-edge design makes the screen feel bigger than the phone's actual footprint. Samsung is really at the top of its game here. Performance, storage and battery life Granted, in the UK the S10e only comes with 6GB of RAM rather than an 8GB option, but it still handles everything from flicking between loads of browser tabs and berating colleagues on Slack to smooth video playback and gaming.
In the Geekbench 4 benchmark, the S10e hits 4,472 in the single-core test and 10,106 for the top multi-core score. Surprise, surprise that's up there with the S10 Plus. The Galaxy S10e powers through Android 9 Pie with suitable aplomb, though it doesn't quite feel as super smooth as a OnePlus 7 or OnePlus 7 Pro; then again, few phones do. And as much as the One UI skin is a proper improvement over TouchWiz, it still feels less fluid than stock Android. That's arguably down to the fact that Samsung still insists on pre-loading its own browser, email app, and other software gubbins that native Google apps are far more suited for, meaning you have to swipe through a reasonable amount of redundant apps in the app tray. Those apps don't look great either, at least to our tastes, with Samsung sporting a rather cartoonish take on the software aesthetics.
Gesture control is an option but it's not as slick as OnePlus' take with Oxygen OS, though the ability to swipe anywhere on the screen to bring down the settings menu is a nice touch. Things can be sped up by toggling the option to reduce app animations, which sees apps spring open with renewed gusto. But we'd still love to see Samsung come out with a flagship phone that comes with vanilla Android; fat chance that'll happen. That being said, fans of customisation will likely be enamoured by the mass of options One UI provides when it comes to customising the look and feel of the software; there's a dark mode and all manner of wallpapers and other custom options. Where Samsung's software does shine is in the inclusion of Dolby Atmos support, which can make all manner of content sound excellent through the AKG stereo speakers that kick out some solid sonics. Plug in a good pair of headphones and you in for a nice aural experience.
Storage comes in at 128GB and that's your only option in the UK. But the SIM tray has a slot for a microSD card to pop in up to an extra 512GB should you so desire, though the built-in storage is plenty for people who don't go crazy on apps and movie downloads. What is a bit stingy is the 3,100mAh battery, which will get you through a working day but will have you reaching for the charger once you get home. Use the phone with gusto and the screen brightness cranked up, and you might find the S10e gives up the ghost on your commute. Fast charging is on hand to juice the battery pack up in a pinch, but we'd still have liked to see the S10e rock a little more endurance. Arguably, that's the price one pays to have full-fat flagship performance in a reasonably compact design. Cameras Lossless zoom lenses are great, but we're glad Samsung opted to keep the 12MP wide-angle camera with the dual pixel autofocus, optical image stabilisation and an f1.5/2.4 aperture, as well as the 16MP ultrawide camera with its 123-degree field-of-view and f/2.2 aperture. That's because the former takes some excellent photos and using the latter to fit more into an expansive shot is handier than some zooming action.
Much like the S10 Plus, the S10e takes excellent standard photos that are rife with details, colour and contrast. Samsung phone photography tends to produce photos with pretty vivid colours that aren't true-to-life. The S10e keeps saturation in check, but expect photos to have a bit more vibrancy than shots on other flagships. We rather like the punch the S10e gives photos, but whether you do will be a matter of personal preference. Wide-angle shots are also very good; you'll still spot some 'bowing' to photos with hefty panoramas, but that's not anything to be annoyed about. Video is pretty excellent as well, thanks to some slick boosted stabilisation chops when shooting Full HD footage; smooth 4K recordings at 60 frames per second are present and correct but you won't get the same level of stabilisation. There's also the option to capture HDR10+. Slow mode video comes in two guises: a 240fps at 1080p or 960fps at 720p for super-slow motion video.
There's also a suite of smartphone photography aiding features, including Shot Selection, which uses AI tech to offer on-screen framing guidance to help you get the best shot according to some clever computing. It's a tad fiddly and we're confident enough in our own abilities to snap a good photo, but it could be useful to those who aren't. Bixby Vision is present and correct and is OK at finding images related to things you've trained the camera on. But it still feels more like a gimmick than a proper tool. One of the best software features is the Live Focus mode that produces very pleasant blurred-background portrait pics. The other top features is a night mode that does a sterling job of making low light pics seem much better lit, but can't trump the Pixel 3's Night Sight mode for low-light photography. And overall, we'd say the rear-camera array is arguably beaten by the Pixel 3, though the S10e's snappers are still in the upper echelons of phone photography.
The 10MP front-facing punch hole camera is also a proper flagship camera, taking nicely detailed selfies and shooting video up to UHD, aka 2160p. It also uses some software to virtually zoom out to compromise a tad for lacking the second lens the Galaxy S10 Plus has on the front.
We noticed a bit of smoothing of our facial flaws when it came to taking pics of our world-weary mug, especially in portrait mode. We'd say the Pixel 3 takes more tonally balanced selfies, but otherwise, the front camera is excellent. Overall, the S10e's camera setup is of proper flagship quality and remains impressive despite dropping one of the rear lenses. In short
But then there isn't an Android phone for that price that offers a suite of proper flagship features - the HDR10+ display, the cameras, performance, IP68 rating, wireless charging - in a beautifully made small phone form. The iPhone XR is really the only rival here, and if you're not an Apple advocate then you won't give a damn about that. While the S10e stands alone, it's also worth its asking price as it's simply a very lovely phone to use.
Had Samsung offered the phone for £500 it would have a serious contender for the top Android phone; though wait a few months and there's a good chance you'll be able to pick it up for cheaper or on a very competitive contract. As it stands, the Galaxy S10e is our favourite small Android phone, and it sets the standard for other - *cough* Pixel 4 *cough* - to follow. µ The good The bad The ugly Bartender's score
|
| 41 must-see PC games at E3 2019: Watch every trailer - PCWorld Posted: 11 Jun 2019 03:30 AM PDT  E3 2019 is probably the most PC-centric show we've seen in years, what with Microsoft announcing Xbox Game Pass for PC and bringing its future first-party games to Steam. Those are big moves for a company that's long seemed to tolerate its Windows-based audience more than embrace it. And with Sony's absence, it's safe to say pretty much every game at the show (aside from Nintendo's) will come to PC at some point. What games? Well, we've rounded up a whole big list for you—nearly every trailer we saw over the last two days, from Outer Worlds to Microsoft Flight Simulator, and from Doom Eternal to Watch Dogs Legion. It's been an exciting E3, and we haven't even hit the show floor yet. We've listed these games roughly in the chronological order of their announcements, so be sure to check out the whole thing to avoid missing out. And while we've covered all the big reveals, we couldn't squeeze every new game trailer in here. If you're looking for trailers for some smaller games and expansions, be sure to check out our coverage of the Microsoft, PC Gaming Show, Bethesda, Ubisoft, and Square Enix events. Baldur's Gate IIITechnically Baldur's Gate III is the first trailer we saw at E3 2019, right? Sure, Google's Stadia event happened last Thursday, but I'm counting it as part of the festivities. And it was one hell of a way to start the week, both a surprise-sequel I thought we'd never get and an absolutely horrific trailer that teases an invasion of Mind Flayers, one of the creepiest and most threatening Dungeons & Dragons enemies. Oh, and it's being developed by Divinity: Original Sin studio Larian, which is probably one of the best-case scenarios you could ask for. All in all, there's a lot to be excited about here. Destiny 2: ShadowkeepIf we're going to count Google's Stadia primer as an E3 event, then we might as well include Bungie's Destiny 2 expansion announcement as well. Hell, I want to include it. This was Bungie's big moment, its chance to show us a post-Activision Destiny 2, and Bungie delivered. With a free-to-play version landing alongside an extraordinary looking new expansion due in September, plus a shift from Battle.net to Steam, the future of Destiny 2 looks pretty promising. It's taken a while, but Bungie's finally hit its stride and delivered the game fans wanted all along. Jedi: Fallen OrderEA Play felt a bit empty this year, but it did allow Respawn to show off its upcoming Jedi: Fallen Order ahead of its November 15 release. Problem is, it didn't really show anything that hooked us. What little we saw looked a bit like The Force Unleashed, crossed with a bit of Sekiro—not a bad combination, but nothing too exciting either. Game Informer's cover story sounds more promising, with interesting ideas like real-time space travel and a Metroid-style approach to exploration. Those ideas are harder to demo though, and will probably take an entire game to fully appreciate. Outer WorldsMicrosoft started its press conference with Obsidian's Outer Wilds, one of my most anticipated games this year. Once again we got a tightly edited trailer that gives little context or hint at the overall structure, but there are plenty of beautiful sights to admire and I'm sold on the Fallout: New Vegas-looking conversations alone. I also think I saw a shrink ray among the more routine weapons, which seems like a fun gimmick. The October 25 release date can't come soon enough for this one. Bleeding EdgeNinja Theory revealed its first game as part of Microsoft's rapidly expanding family of studios, and it looks a lot more DmC: Devil May Cry than Hellblade. Bleeding Edge is a hero-driven 4v4 combat game that shares a lot of similarities with Gearbox's ill-fated Battleborn at first blush. Fingers crossed this one winds up more compelling. Ori and the Will of the WispsAnother year, another Ori and the Will o' the Wisps trailer at E3. It looks as gorgeous as ever, but I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to, you know, actually play it. Maybe someday. Minecraft DungeonsIt took more than a decade, but we're getting a Minecraft spin-off. Minecraft Dungeons blends the core game's blocky artwork with what appears to be Diablo-style dungeon crawling, complete with 4-player co-op both locally and online. I'm already jazzed to play this with my kids. Blair Witch"The Blair Witch game is made by Bloober Team." Brad typed those words into our chat and I went from being sort of interested to eager. I didn't see their name in the trailer, but they're the ones who uploaded the trailer and thus it's safe to say the Layers of Fear and Observer devs are working on this found footage adaptation. It's hard to imagine any team outdoing Outlast, which was that concept in everything but name, but Bloober's been on a streak these last few years and I'll be curious how they meld an established universe with their fever dream approach to horror. Cyberpunk 2077Cyberpunk 2077 is releasing sooner than I ever anticipated: April 16, 2020. Less than a year from now, we'll have it in hand. I still can't believe it. But that's not even the wildest fact we found out during Microsoft's press conference. Turns out Keanu Reeves is making a celebrity cameo in the game, as you'll see at the end of the latest trailer—which if I had to guess appears to be the beginning of the game, with a deal gone sour and your character apparently left for dead at the end. Dying Light 2Cyberpunk 2077 isn't the only major April 2020 release, if you can believe it. Dying Light 2 is also releasing before I ever expected, and also targeting that same month.That makes two sprawling, story-heavy games due within weeks of each other. It's going to be an embarrassment of riches. The latest trailer introduces us to protagonist Aiden Caldwell, who floats between the various factions at each others' throats in Dying Light 2 and will change the fabric of the city by siding with one or another, a feature I hope we see more concrete examples of during this week's E3 demo. Next page: The trailers continue! |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Technology - Latest - Google News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
This post have 0 komentar
EmoticonEmoticon