Technology News

Following Monday’s Blockbuster acquisition of Destiny developer Bungie, Sony plans to strengthen its PlayStation brand by acquiring more game studios.

Speaking to GameIndustry.biz, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said the shopping spree is far from over, promising the company “still has a lot of steps to go.”

The comments come as a growing concentration of ownership in the major gaming studios, with Bethesda and Activision joining Microsoft’s ranks more recently. Sony has been more modest in its acquisition strategy but still extremely active in the number of developers it buys out.

It snapped up Housemarque, the developer behind the PlayStation-exclusive Returnal last June. The company also bought Nixxes to port PlayStation properties to PC, as well as Valkyrie Entertainment, which co-develops the God of War series with Sony. It also owns Firesprite, which made the Playroom experiences.

However, the $3.6 million purchase of Bungie, which ironically created the Halo series for Xbox more than 20 years ago, represents its biggest purchase yet. However, Ryan says Sony is far from done.

“We should definitely expect more,” says Ryan. “We’re far from done. At PlayStation, we still have a long way to go. Personally, I’ll be spending a lot of time with Pete [CEO of Bungie] and the team at Bungie helping to ensure everything is in place and that autonomy means autonomy. But elsewhere in the organization we still have a lot to do.”

In the same interview, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons said the move “has nothing to do with industry consolidation.” He added, “It was all about a shared vision and how we can make things better together.”

“We also do a significant amount of philanthropy. How can we continue to do good for those in need? And what’s exciting for us is that Sony not only understood this desire and need to be independent and keep that flash in a bottle, but that they believe in our vision and the way we look at focus our vision. These aren’t just words, man. They really do.”

According to one of the OS designers, Microsoft is working on improving its 2D emoji with a proper three-dimensional version.

A LinkedIn post by Microsoft’s Nando Costa, explaining how Microsoft came to design its “flowing emoji,” describes the behind-the-scenes work on the more expressive emoji system.

Given the amount of work Microsoft has put into beautifying the characters with a unique flavor, it’s surprising that the 3D element was left out in favor of a flattened approach.

The piece itself is of great interest to emoji enthusiasts, but the kicker comes with Costa’s response to a tweet about his piece. It makes it clear that Microsoft is still working on bringing true 3D emoji to Windows 11 in a future update.

Reader @EthanAlvaree said: “Nice. I wish they actually looked like this on Windows 11.” To that replied Costa “Thank you and agree! We are working on that.”

No timeline was mentioned for the actual launch of the 3D versions of the emoji, or why Costa and his team decided to drop them for the original Windows 11 launch last year.

The blog post itself explains how Microsoft has attempted to make its People category more humanistic, while still being representative of a variety of characteristics and staying true to the emoji system. Not an easy task!

In the blog post, he added, “It came down to our third and final iteration for the People category!” Costa writes. “We had an aesthetic balance between the graphic look and feel we wanted and the very important human qualities we needed. In this final version, there were three different head shapes: genderless, female, and male (as seen below). Each creates enough space for variations in skin tone, hair and facial hair to easily function as a connected system while still standing on its own.”

Google may be about to discontinue free, unlimited WhatsApp chat history backups for Android users via its Google Drive cloud storage platform.

A new version of WhatsApp beta for Android shows that unlimited backups will come to an end in the near future and free backups will be limited in nature.

Strings discovered in Android 2.22.4.8 source code by WABetaInfo contain text like: “Google Drive limit in effect” and “gdrive backupq quota reached” along with indications of when this change will take place. This is referenced in the text “%1$s limit starts on %2$s”.

WABetaInfo said it spotted something in a previous Android beta a few months ago, but wanted to wait for evidence to surface in the app before posting anything on the matter. Now that evidence has surfaced. And it’s below.

It seems that Google is planning to do with WhatsApp backups what it has already done with its own Google Photos storage, which initially promised users unlimited free backups of photos and videos in high (but not original) resolution.

It’s not clear how much free storage WhatsApp users will continue to benefit from, or whether, like Google Photos, anything already uploaded to the cloud would be safely tucked away and the cap would only apply to future uploads.

You might like…

WhatsApp may start counting Google Drive storage, and the limits depend on how much free storage the company has to work with. Users may need to start prioritizing whether they only want to back up texts rather than photos and videos.

Google has yet to publicly comment on whether it plans to end free backups. However, that was probably in the post at the moment when it started imposing restrictions on users of its own Google Photos app.

Sony is not looking to secure the exclusivity of games developed and published under the Bungie banner as part of an agreement to acquire the iconic gaming company.

In announcing the $3.6 billion buyout, both Bungie and Sony expressed their commitment to keep future development of hit games like Destiny 2 available to fans “wherever they choose to play.” .

In a statement announcing the acquisition, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons said, “Together [Bungie and Sony] share the dream of creating and nurturing iconic franchises that unite friends around the world, families across generations and fans across multiple platforms and entertainment media.”

His PlayStation counterpart, Jim Ryan, was equally emphatic: “Bungie will remain an independent and cross-platform studio and publisher.”

This is in stark contrast to Microsoft’s apparent strategy, where the Xbox maker only promises to honor existing contractual agreements with third-party platforms before deciding what to do with its new toys.

It appears that once these agreements expire, games like Call of Duty may only be playable in locations where Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass is available. Microsoft isn’t ready to publicly commit to either keeping games exclusive or making them available on multiple platforms just yet, as that will be decided on a game-by-game basis.

has reached out to both Sony and Bungie regarding the long term commitment to multi-platform gaming beyond the current and future Destiny 2 expansions. However, both companies were very emphatic in their statements on Monday.

A question and answer posted on Bungie’s website states that all new Destiny expansions – including The Witch Queen coming next month – will remain cross-platform, all cross-game and social elements will remain cross-platform, and that no future games the company develops will use it will be exclusive to PlayStation.

“We want the worlds we create to expand wherever people play games. We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and continue to drive a unified Bungie community.”

Players on Steam, Stadia, and Xbox can rest assured that Bungie will continue to support those platforms as long as the platform continues to support Bungie games.

Sony is buying Bungie, makers of the Destiny video game and pioneers of the early Xbox years as developers of the original Halo game series for Microsoft.

The move comes just weeks after Microsoft continued a recent trend of concentrating ownership of famous video game studios by announcing an agreement to buy Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion.

In contrast, Sony is paying $3.6 billion to acquire Bungie.

In a blog post on Monday, Bungie announced it is joining forces with Sony Interactive Entertainment, which describes it as “a partner that gives us unconditional support in everything we are” and allows the developer to maintain “creative independence.”

The blog post reads, “Together we share the dream of creating and nurturing iconic franchises that unite friends around the world, families across generations, and fans across multiple platforms and entertainment media.”

Significantly, Bungie’s continued independence will ensure its games are available across a variety of platforms, which is unlikely long-term when it comes to Activision Blizzard and Bethesda products on Xbox and Windows.

“We keep our destiny in our hands,” the post continues. “We will continue to publish and creatively develop our games independently. We will continue to drive a unified Bungie community. Our games will continue to be where our community is, wherever they choose to play.”

Sony’s acquisition of Bungie is a telling move given Microsoft’s long history with the developer. It created the Halo game series and developed the entire original trilogy that was largely responsible for putting the original Xbox console and its successors on the map.

Microsoft even owned Bungie as a first-party studio between 2000 and 2007 before returning to an independent entity. It stopped development of the Halo franchise and Microsoft retained the rights. The iconic series has been acquired by 343 Industries, the first-party Microsoft studio that just released Halo Infinite.

PlayStation boss Jim Ryan added in a blog post: “I want to be absolutely clear to the community that Bungie will remain an independent and cross-platform studio and publisher. As such, we think it makes sense to sit alongside the PlayStation Studios organization and we’re incredibly excited about the opportunities for synergy and collaboration between these two world-class groups.”

Sony will soon be releasing a new flagship smartphone which is expected to be named Xperia 1 IV. Here’s everything we know about it so far, from camera hardware to performance specs and more.

We dubbed the Sony Xperia 1 III “one of the most interesting phones” we’ve reviewed in 2021, and it was named one of the best Android phones of the year. No wonder, then, that there is so much interest in the launch of its successor, known for the time being as the Sony Xperia 1 IV.

In the article below we’ve gathered all the available information about the device ahead of its launch, so read on to find out what Sony could be coming up with as a fourth – including the latest rumors on camera tech, internal specs and more.

release date

So far, the only rumor we have regarding the launch date suggests that May 2022. Sourced from a reliable leaker on Chinese social media site Weibo (via Notebook Check), it appears to be at least a reasonable guess based on previous entries in the series. Here’s where the previous three handsets were announced:

Note that you may not be able to buy the devices for a few months after they are released. The Xperia 1 III wasn’t available until August, four months after it was announced.

design

One thing that sets Sony’s latest smartphone collection apart from the competition more than anything else is its distinctive design. With a 21:9 aspect ratio that’s said to be ideal for widescreen content, and retaining a 3.5mm headphone jack and SD card slot, it’s clear why it won over some fans.

However, according to Twitter tipster The Galox, something about this design could change in the next iteration of the series. With no further details other than “improved design,” we’ll just have to be on the lookout for more rumors ahead of launch, but this points to an unexpected shock.

camera

The aforementioned Weibo source gave us some information about the camera system of Sony’s next smartphone: the ultrawide sensor appears to be completely unchanged, but the telephoto and main wide-angle snappers are said to both receive upgrades.

Sony Xperia 1 III camera module

In our review, we described the Sony Xperia 1 III’s ultrawide sensor as “good, if not quite as sharp as some of the competition,” so we were hoping it would be picked up again. Our most urgent request, however, would be for the Xperia 1 IV to improve its low-light shooting, so there’s still hope for significant improvement in that department.

performance

Sony’s previous flagships have all come with Qualcomm’s latest top-of-the-line Snapdragon chipset, so it’s hardly surprising that the same is being rumored for the Xperia 1 IV.

Apparently it will arrive with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 on board, so it should be able to deliver strong performance; In addition, it should have at least 12 GB of RAM and a maximum of 16 GB.

battery

The other spec we got an early hint about is the battery, and this is where big improvements could be made. According to reports, not only will the capacity be increased (by 500 mAh for a total of 5,000 mAh), but it seems that the charging system will also be revised. This time we can expect 45W fast charging (instead of 30W) and the device is also said to support Qi wireless charging.

All fans of The Witcher 3’s Gwent will be thrilled to know that a new single-player card game is coming this year.

According to IGN, a brand new standalone single player game codenamed Project Golden Nekker will be released within the year.

Developed by CD Projekt Red, the same studio that bought us The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077, the game aims to offer an entirely new standalone experience that would stand out from the previous variants of the digital card game.

Speaking of which, Gwent saw massive growth in popularity in the last Witcher game, but it fully evolved into a standalone single-player game back in 2016.

The first official spin-off, The Witcher Tales: Thronebreaker, was released back in 2018, but reports suggest the upcoming version will be something completely different.

CD Projekt Red has been sparse with details, but has apparently given hints about the new project over the past few months, with live streams and community projects alluding to the card game.

If these clues have gotten to much for you, don’t worry, the official Project Golden Nekker reveal is coming soon, although no dates have been announced yet.

Concept art for the game was also revealed, with the titular Golden Nekker taking center stage alongside Living Fire and Fire Elemental.

Since they’re all Gwent card-themed, perhaps let’s take a look at some of the playable units from the new game. You can check out the images just below.

Credit: CD Projekt Red/IGN

The roadmap for Gwent in 2022 shows new maps coming in April, July, October and December. It’s also worth noting that every Witcher game has historically released in either May or October, so Witcher fans might want to keep an eye out during those months.

We’ll be keeping you posted on all things Project Golden Nekker, so keep checking back with for more Witcher updates.

Longstanding rumors that Samsung is shelving its iconic line of phablets were confirmed this week when the company announced it has no plans to launch a Note family phone this year.

The news made waves in the phone world, and with good reason. Samsung’s unveiling of the Galaxy Note has been a fixture on most tech fanatics’ calendars for years, and offers a mid-year treat ahead of the launch of Google’s and Apple’s respective flagships. Which are expected to be the iPhone 13 and Pixel 6 this year.

The Note line is also undoubtedly the most well-known phablet family in the world, with only Apple’s Max and Plus lines offering equivalent brand awareness. For that reason, many of you might be wondering why Samsung decided to scrap it in favor of the much more niche and younger Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 foldables.

I was initially in this camp as well, my disdain for foldable devices being well documented on the site. But after considering the move, I think it makes perfect sense for one key reason: Samsung never got big enough with the Galaxy Note.

To be clear, I’m speaking literally here. Samsung has always done a great job with the Galaxy Note at the hardware level. For example, last year’s flagship Galaxy Note 20 Ultra was the first mainstream phone to include a truly variable refresh rate screen.

Before that, the original Galaxy Note was a pioneer, offering a then-huge screen and a never-before-seen dockable S Pen stylus. When I unboxed the handset back then, I was genuinely shocked that a company thought a 5.3-inch screen was something consumers actually wanted.

Hands in the air, I got that particular move wrong. Check out the entries in our guide to the best phones and you’ll see that people definitely like big screen phones.

publisher’s Note

But for me, Samsung failed to replicate that initial “wow” factor because year after year it didn’t go far enough with the size of the phone. Last year’s Ultra sure had a whopping 6.9-inch screen, but even that didn’t feel big enough to really take advantage of the Note’s biggest selling point: the S Pen.

As an aspiring amateur digital artist and person who often needs to edit photos on the fly, the S Pen has always had appeal. But to date, every Note phone I’ve tested has proven a bit disappointing due to the device’s pronounced “phone” form factor.

Editing photos in Android’s Photoshop Express app, even with an S Pen, is still a frustrating experience, especially when coming from the larger desktop or iPad versions. The less said about trying to draw something the better, because 6.9 inches isn’t big enough for anything other than light doodling, no matter how responsive and good quality a screen is.

For that reason, it makes sense to me that Samsung is trying to recapture the Note’s potential with a foldable device like the Fold S3, which is intentionally designed to offer a larger and sculpted tablet-sized screen specifically for things how creative work was developed.

The only downsides are that it still has to bypass Android’s woefully populated digital artist app library – which, outside of a nice port of Krita, isn’t nearly as good as Apple’s iPad OS – and my lingering concerns about build quality regarding it folding screens .

You might like…