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Meta has just launched a new game for Horizon Worlds called Super Rumble, and it's unlike any other game released for the social VR application. Previously known as Titanborne in beta, Super Rumble is the the first game out of Meta's in-house studio, Ouro Interactive. It could also herald a new era for the Horizon Worlds platform, one embodied by experiences with better graphics and more complex gameplay. Vishal Shah, Meta's VP of Metaverse, called the shooter "more than just a new world" and described it as "the next generation of Horizon Worlds" to Janko Roettgers of Lowpass 

Roettgers said everyone he played the beta version with "seemed awestruck by the level of fidelity the game offered." Apparently, that's because it was built using imported objects, assets and textures, which wasn't possible in the past. Shah said Meta rebuilt the VR platform's underlying technology to give it the ability to support higher-quality games and to allow developers to import assets created using third-party tools. The company has reportedly given Ouro and select partners the capability to use the import feature so they could develop new Horizon Worlds games to be released over the next six months. 

Shah told Lowpass that the company's metaverse team has been working on improvements for Horizon Worlds over the past year. "As consumers come to Horizon, we want to make sure there's a bunch of compelling content that they can find on day one. We're going to seed the ecosystem, bootstrap it with stuff that we build both in-house, but also with some studios that we're working with," he said.

In addition to building an improved version of the platform, the Horizon team has also apparently been developing a mobile app. They'd reportedly finished creating one a year ago but weren't happy with the result, so they chose to build it again. Super Rumble will be one of the first titles to be available when the mobile app comes out, and Shah said it will feature cross-platform play. 

A mobile app with cross-platform capabilities could help Meta reach new audiences who can't afford or aren't interested enough to get a VR headset. The company's VR business unit, Reality Labs, posted a $3.7 billion operating loss in the second quarter of 2023. In all, the division has lost $21 billion since the beginning of 2022 and had to axe some projects last year. A mobile app could make Horizon Worlds more accessible, which in turn could translate into greater revenue. 

Shah's team has been working on other improvements for the VR platform, as well, including investing in generative AI tools for creation. The idea is to give more creators the ability to build new worlds even if they don't know how to use professional 3D tools. He didn't tell Lowpass when the mobile app or generative AI tools will be available, though, so we'll have to wait for their official announcements.

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'Twitters swift rebrand to X is generating yet another issue. As reported by Bleeping Computer, the social media platform is causing Microsoft's Edge browser to throw up a warning, indicating some sort of security problem.

It seems to be related to how Edge and other Chromium-based web browsers deal with favicons (or 'Progressive Web App Icon Change', if you want to get super technical about it). With the Twitter rebrand being so sudden, Edge likely thinks X is a scam. The security alert prompts users to review the icon update and reads, "If this web app is trying to trick you into thinking it's a different app, uninstall it."

But as Bleeping Computer points out, PWA is working as intended. It is supposed to alert you when a website suddenly changes its favicon as that could indicate a potential redirect to a scam website. Presumably, this is temporary and will be fixed quickly. We've reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this story once we've heard back. 

Florian / X

This is similar to an incident earlier this week, where X was blocked in Indonesia as it has laws forbidding gambling or porn. The X.com domain's previous owners broke the country's content laws.

Still, this is yet another indicator of how sudden the Twitter-to-X transition was. Other companies such as Meta and Microsoft already own trademarks on variations of X, which could land Musk's company some lawsuits. X even ran into trouble when attempting to change its signage at its San Francisco headquarters, as it didn't have the required permits. The company had to abandon its would-be facelift and leave the old bird logo and the letters "er" intact for a day or so.

The sudden name change is part of a larger plan to turn Twitter into a "super app" that's similar to China's popular WeChat. The platform could theoretically be used for payments, messaging and calls in the future.

Sad news for fans of billionaires beating the paste out of one another. It looks like the Mark Zuckerberg vs Elon Musk cage match isn’t happening, according to exclusive audio heard by Reuters. In an audio recording exclusively provided to the publication, the surprisingly buff Zuckerberg told Meta employees at a company town hall that he’s “not sure if it’s going to come together.”

Zuckerberg’s comments on the match occurred during a company-wide discussion regarding Meta’s recently-launched Twitter rival, Threads, which has been stuttering a bit in the weeks since blasting onto the scene.

Zuck didn’t actually say the match is off, just that it remains unlikely. So keep that glass half full, fight fans. Musk, who loves the letter “X” more than most people love clean air, hasn’t issued a response, but given Zuckerberg’s recent penchant for jiu jitsu, he could be relieved. 

The cage fight was supposed to be a glitzy Las Vegas affair, with the pair of billionaires dancing around the topics of date and venue for the past month or so. Zuckerberg has seemed pretty serious about the fight from the get-go, and Musk eventually relented, tweeting (x-ing?) that he was “up for a cage match” if the Meta CEO was. Musk also said he has this “great move” called "the walrus" where he lays on top of opponents and does nothing. 

Zuck certainly seemed ready to take on the challenge, according to trainer and MMA legend Alex Volkanovsky. And though he generally treated the whole thing as a joke, Musk did sort of prepare for the fight by accepting a training offer from UFC champ Georges St-Pierre and sparring with podcaster Lex Fridman. Of course, that's when he's taking a break from retweeting (re-xing?) hateful anti-trans content and changing the site's rules to allow for misgendering. Dana White, president of the UFC, has also told reporters that the organization was ready to assist with the event. 

It took a decade, but Square Enix's premier massively multiplayer online role-playing game is finally coming to Xbox consoles. The developer has revealed that Final Fantasy XIV will be available for Xbox Series X/S in spring 2024. Like its PS5 counterpart, this version will support 4K visuals on Series X and faster loading times. It's not yet clear if there will be Xbox-only upgrades.

An open beta is expected for patch 6.5X. In other words, the Xbox port should be ready in time for the Dawntrail expansion due in summer next year.

Microsoft has been eager to add Final Fantasy games to its catalog. In 2019, it added 10 titles to Game Pass that included many of the releases from VII through to XV. The deluge didn't include XIV, however, leaving Xbox players without an active MMO. The game debuted on PS3 and PC in 2013, with ports for PS4 (2014), Mac (2015) and PS5 (2021) in subsequent years.

The incentives are clear. Final Fantasy XIV helps court fans of the series, particularly those left out by the timed PS5 exclusive for XVI. It's also an attempt to reach out to both Japanese gamers and JRPG enthusiasts. The Xbox has struggled in Japan due in no small part to local studios skipping the platform in favor of domestic consoles from Nintendo and Sony. This game won't suddenly improve Microsoft's fortunes, but it does eliminate a barrier to adoption for some players.

This week, the biggest event in tech took place in Seoul with Samsung's Unpacked showcase. Among other announcements, the company officially unveiled its latest foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Z Fold 5. It's not even available yet, but Amazon is offering a $200 gift card if you pre-order from its site. This week also saw a bunch of continued video game sales from sites like Xbox, Playstation and Epic Games. Other site-wide sales include 20 percent off at Otterbox and a sale on music equipment at Reverb. Plenty of single items are seeing discounts as well, like the always popular Apple AirPods Pro and the Kids Kindle (which isn't just for kids). Dell is offering a $50 discount on the Xbox Series X, though we don't expect that deal to stick around long. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today. 

Apple AirPods Pro

The latest generation AirPods Pro are back to their all-time low price of $199. That's the same as they went for during Amazon's Prime Day. The buds have one of the best transparency modes of all the buds we've tried, and we think they're the best pick for people who use iPhones. They pair quickly with other Apple devices and make great use of Siri for hands-free commands. A good battery life and a wireless charging case are just two more points in the buds' favor.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 

Earlier this week, Samsung announced its latest flagship foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 during its Unpacked event. The folks at Amazon are hoping you'll pre-order the handset from them — and are offering a $200 Amazon gift card plus a storage upgrade if you do so. The base configuration of the Z Fold 5 retails for $1,800, which comes with 256GB of storage. Amazon's deal gets you the 512GB model plus a physical gift card shipped separately from the phone.  

Engadget's Sam Rutherford spent some time with the new foldable recently. The most notable upgrade from last year's model is Samsung's new Flex Hinge, which eliminates most of the gap between the two screen halves when folded. A second-generation Snapdragon 8 chip and support for new gestures round out the new features.  

Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 

Samsung also revealed two new wearables during Unpacked. If you pre-order the Galaxy Watch 6 from Amazon, the company will throw in a $50 Amazon gift card. The offer only applies to the Bluetooth models, not the LTE or Watch 6 Classic variants. To help you take advantage of Samsung's new one-click mechanism, Amazon will also include a fabric band to swap out with the included strap.

The watch starts at $300 for the 40mm case size and bumps to $330 for the 44mm size. Engadget's Cherlynn Low had a chance to check out the watch during a hands on event and you can check out her thoughts here. This latest generation has a sharper and brighter display and has an updated processor and larger battery that offers a claimed eight hours of use after just eight minutes of charging. 

Kindle Kids

The Kindle Kids ereader is a top pick in our guide to educational toys for kids. Though, to be fair, this isn't a toy. The internal tech is identical to a standard Kindle, with a 300 ppi screen, adjustable front light, 16GB of storage and weeks of battery life. But the kids version throws in a colorful case and includes a year of Amazon Kids+, a subscription that grants access to thousands of kid-appropriate books and hundreds of audiobooks. It usually goes for $120, which is $20 more than the standard Kindle, but the sale is knocking it down to just $80, making it a good buy for a kid or even a full-grown adult who enjoys saving money.

Xbox Series X

It's been tough to find the new Xbox console in stock, let alone at a discount, but right now the Xbox Series X is $50 off at Dell. It comes in a bundle with a copy of the open-world racing game Forza Horizon 5 for a total of $450. The game usually retails for $45 on its own. Dell did this discount before, but didn't offer a game. Even if you don't care about racing, this may be a good time to buy, considering the Xbox Series X console (or its cheaper, digital-only Series S sibling) will be a required purchase for the upcoming Bethesda game Starfield, unless you plan to play on a PC. This deal has already gone out of stock once, so you may want to jump now if you're interested.  

Otterbox Back to School sale

We often recommend products from Otterbox in our guides and from now through July 29th, the site is running a site-wide, 20 percent off sale. One of their battery banks, the Fast Charge, is among our top picks in our portable battery guide. The 15,000mAh capacity model usually goes for $45, but is $36 after the discount. The bank packs enough charge to fill a late-model iPhone or a Galaxy S-series twice, with a little left over. It also recharges quickly and looks nice, something not all charging accessories manage to do. 

Apple Air Tags (4-pack)

We recommend Apple's AirTag Bluetooth trackers to iPhone users in our guide to those devices. Right now a four-pack is down to $85 at Amazon, which is the lowest price we've tracked. Of all the finding networks out there, Apple's FindMy is by far the most comprehensive as it uses every iPhone in an area (unless the owner has opted out) to ping nearby AirTags and help find them when they're lost. They'll also ring when you tap a button in the app so you can find your lost keys.    

Apple Pencil

If you have a recent model of an iPad Air, Mini or Pro and have been considering adding a stylus to your setup, you may want to consider grabbing the second-gen Apple Pencil while its on sale for $89. The 23 percent discount is the steepest discount so far, matching the Prime Day sale price. But now you can get it from Walmart or target as well as from Amazon. The Pencil makes drawing and hand-writing on your tablet easier and it even magnetically attaches and charges to the side of compatible devices. Just note that the current generation standard iPad curiously only pairs with the first-gen Apple Pencil. 

Xbox's Ultimate Game Sale

Video game companies and retailers often celebrate the summer months with some sort of sale on popular titles — maybe because gaming indoors beats heat-fusing to the pavement outside. Right now Xbox is hosting an Ultimate Game Sale with deals up to 80 percent off. Not all of the discounts are best-ever prices, and the steepest savings are typically reserved for older titles, but a decent selection of games we like are on sale right now, such as Halo: The Master Chief Collection ($10 off), Star Wars Jedi: Survivor ($17 off) and Elden Ring ($18 off).

Some of our recommended Xbox exclusives are going for less than $10, including Gears 5, Ori and the Will of the Wisps and Rare Replay. Of course, many sale items are also available with an Xbox Game Pass subscription, so if you already subscribe, check that availability first. 

PlayStation Summer Sale

PlayStation's Summer Sale is discounting exclusives like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart ($40 off) and Horizon Forbidden West ($30 off). The PS5 remake of the original The Last of Us is on sale for $50, while the well-reviewed puzzler Humanity is $24. Non-PS exclusives are also on sale, like the time-bending FPS Deathloop ($15), the sci-fi RPG Cyberpunk 2077 ($25) and one of our favorite co-ops, It Takes Two ($16).

Epic Games Store Summer Sale

If you don't play on a console, you can still save on some good PC titles with the sale at Epic Games. Red Dead Redemption 2 is down to $20, for one, while the remasters Mass Effect Legendary Edition and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 are available for $15 and $16, respectively. Elsewhere, the action-game-meets-delivery-sim Death Stranding: Director's Cut is on sale for $20, and Dead Island 2, the zombie action-RPG that was released in April, is available for $45.

Outside of Epic's sale, two more of our favorite games from 2022 are discounted. Nintendo has the fast-paced first-person shooter (but with cards for weapons) Neon White for 30 percent off and the rollerblading, '70s drenched shooter, Rollerdrome is half price at Steam.

Reverb Summer of Savings

The music equipment marketplace Reverb is also having a summer sale right now, with discounts on instruments and music production gadgets site-wide. A few deals worth calling out include the Novation Summit synth for $460 off of $2,300 and Universal Audio's Volt 276 studio pack for $130 off of $429. That brings the studio pack down to $299, which is the usual price of the interface on its own, which means you're getting the included Volt condenser mic and Volt headphones for free. 

The Volt 276 is one of our top picks in our audio interface guide and we gave it a 90 in our review. Engadget's Terrance O'Brian appreciates its all-analog emulation of "one of the most iconic compressors of all time" and said most other interfaces at this price point can't match the 276's stylish and ergonomic design.  

Samsung PRO Plus microSD

Samsung's Pro Plus microSD card is what we recommend for most people, based on our tests. It offers nearly the best sequential write performance of the cards we tested and bested all cards for for random read/write speeds. Usually $19, the 128GB size is currently down to $12 at Amazon, which nearly matches its Prime Day low. If you've got a camera, tablet or gaming handheld that could use more space, this is a good time to grab some extra storage.

Bose SoundLink Flex

One of our top Bluetooth speakers, the Bose SoundLink Flex, is down to $129 at Adoramam, Target and directly from Bose right now. That matches the price it hit during Amazon's recent sale. The Flex is compact, but manages to give bright, dynamic sound and offers a surprising amount of bass for its size. It plays for 12 hours on a charge and can even pair with other Bose speakers for stereo sound.

Kasa Matter Smart Plug

A few different Kasa smart plugs are currently on sale at Amazon, including the Kasa KP125M, which is our pick for a Matter-enabled plug in our guide to smart plugs. Usually $40 for a two-pack, the sale drops it to $30 after a discount and a clickable coupon. Matter connectivity means it'll work with Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Samsung SmartThings and Google Home, so whichever voice assistant you prefer should be supported. In our tests it paired easily (though required a few extra steps for Apple's system) and stayed reliably connected.

The Kasa EP25 plug is our top pick overall and also connects to all four major smart home eco systems. It's currently $38 for a four-pack after a 24 percent discount.

Apple MacBook Air M1

The lowest price on a MacBook in Apple's current lineup is on the 2020 MacBook Air with the M1 chip, which is down to just $750 at both Amazon and at Best Buy for the 256GB base model. That matches the lowest price we've seen, including what it went for during Amazon's Prime Day. It's the budget pick in our MacBook buyer’s guide, and the one we recommend to students or anyone who needs a reliable machine for casual computing. It earned a high score of 94 in our review in part thanks to the performance of the M1 chip, which is responsive, launching and running apps effortlessly while conserving the battery life. 

Apple MacBook Air M2

If you want the newer M2 chip in your MacBook Air, you can grab the base model of that machine from B&H Photo for $999. That matches the lowest price we've tracked for the 256GB base model and $100 savings. We gave the ultraportable an impressive 96 in our review, calling it a “near-perfect Mac.” It has a Liquid Retina display, a quad speaker array and a battery that lasted over 16 hours in our video tests. For ports, you get two Thunderbolt ports, a headphone jack and a MagSafe charging port. 

Samsung Smart Monitor M8

Samsung's 32-inch M8 Smart Monitor is part computer monitor and part smart TV, meaning it can do everything a monitor can do when hooked up to a PC, but you may never need to do that. All on its own, it can stream Netflix, Disney+, Peacock and other services just by connecting to your WiFi. The included Microsoft 365 programs means you can compose and edit docs, browse the web and build some Excel sheets with no additional computer required. It can also act as your smart home display to control your smart devices and keep tabs on your connected cams and doorbells.

This is a refreshed version of the M8 that Samsung launched at CES in 2022 and right now it's $100 off at Amazon, making it $600 instead of $700.

Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II

We think the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II offer the best noise cancellation you can buy and recommend them in our guide. The buds are back down to $249 at both Amazon and directly from Bose. That's a price they've hit many times before, but matches their all time low. Just remember that they don't offer wireless charging and don't have multipoint connectivity, meaning you can only pair with one device at a time. 

Powerbeats Pro

We named the Powerbeats Pro the most comfortable option in our guide to workout headphones. The controls are intuitive, iOS integration is great and the comfortable, behind-the-ear hooks are easy to get in place and stay put (though they can interfere with sunglasses). We gave them an Engadget score of 86 when they came out in 2019. They're a little older at this point and the over-ear design doesn't block out any noise but they're currently $90 off the MSRP, which is around $40 less than what they've been going for lately and matches their Prime Day sale price on Amazon.

Headspace

We've recommended Headspace a few times in our guides because it's an intuitive app that can actually help you relax. If you take a minute out of your day and cue up a breathing exercise or guided meditation you may very well find that your shoulders release back down from up around your ears. Right now a year-long subscription is 30 percent off, making it $49 instead of $70. There's far more content than any typical person will get through and new sessions are added continuously.

TP-Link Deco AXE5400 Tri-Band WiFi 6E Mesh System

If your WiFi connectivity could use a boost, it may be time to invest in an mesh router system. The top pick from our guide, TP-Link’s Deco XE75, is currently down to $330 for the three-pack instead of its usual $400. That's not quite an all time low, as it went for $10 less during last year's Black Friday deals and the most recent Prime Day sale, but is still a tidy discount. The set will cover up to 7,200 square feet but if you don't need that much coverage, the single unit and two-unit packs are also on sale, though aren't as steeply discounted. We like the Deco XE75 because the WiFi 6E routers support all three wireless bands (including the 6GHz band) and offers a great mix of power, user-friendliness and affordability — particularly when it's discounted. You can read our full review here.

iRobot Roomba s9+

Our top pick for a premium robot vacuum, the iRobot Roomba s9+, has returned to it's record low of $600 at Amazon. That's a 40 percent discount and matches the sale price from Prime Day. Engadget's Valentina Palladino found it to be a powerful machine that was better than most at navigating around furniture and other objects and despite having excellent suction, it actually moves faster than its cheaper sibling, the j7. It also looks pretty premium, with its copper accents and sleek design. The self-emptying base means less involvement from you and the setup only takes a few minutes so it can quickly get to work making your floors cleaner. 

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

Reverb is hosting a summer sale from now until August 7th, allowing you to nab great music gear at a discount. The Summer of Savings sale boasts products from hundreds of well-regarded manufacturers, including Universal Audio, Novation, Gibson, Warm Audio and plenty more.

So what are the best deals? This depends on what you’re into and whether you are more of a practicing musician or a bedroom studio producer. For budding engineers, nab the Universal Audio Volt 276 Studio Pack for $300 instead of $430, which features the well-reviewed Volt 256 audio interface, a condenser microphone and a pair of headphones. You also get a month of access to Universal Audio’s Spark subscription plug-in service.

For synth-heads, there’s the ultra-premium Novation Summit polyphonic synthesizer, which you can pick up for $430 off the regular price of $2,300. Novation makes plenty of well-regarded pieces of gear, but the Summit is the company’s flagship keyboard, with 61 keys, 16 simultaneous voices, a semi-weighted keybed and the ability to combine two patches to create unique multitimbral sounds.

You can also pick up entry-level Fender Squier electric guitars for $100 off and more Korg synthesizers and workstations than you can shake an oscillating stick at. There are also deals on pedals, midi controllers, bass guitars, audio interfaces and, well, just about everything else. Peruse the full list at your leisure.

Just like Cinderella and her punk rock pumpkin, these deals have an expiration date. The sale ends on August 7th. In other words, make haste if you plan on beating the heat by fiddling with musical instruments behind air conditioned doors.

For anyone with an eye on video game news, it’s been hard to ignore the recent rise of names like Annapurna Interactive, Devolver Digital, Private Division, Humble, Epic Games and Netflix tied to independent projects. The distribution process for indie developers has shifted over the past few years from a self-publishing-first model, to one that prioritizes deal-making and acquisitions. For the moment, this shift is powering a small but highly visible boom in the world of indie games.

“I don't think I ever want to self-publish again.”

Ben Ruiz has been a game developer since 2005, and in that time, he’s pretty much done it all. He founded two studios, he did contract work on titles including Super Meat Boy and Overland, and he independently published a tentpole original project, the monochromatic brawler Aztez. Nowadays, Ruiz is running a five-person studio called Dinogod and he’s building Bounty Star, a game that blends mech combat with life-sim mechanics. Bounty Star is being published by Annapurna Interactive and it’s due out in early 2024.

Annapurna Interactive

“Everything favors a publisher relationship, seemingly, because self-publishing has become this extraordinarily difficult thing,” Ruiz said. “It’s possible, but without help, I just don't know how anyone's doing it … I got a lot of friends in the same boat.”

Ruiz’s career is a microcosm of the shifting landscape for indie developers over the past 10 years. He began working on Aztez in 2010, when Steam was a curated marketplace where Valve employees hand-selected individual games for the platform. This system had fully imploded by 2012: On the heels of breakout hits like Braid, Super Meat Boy and Fez, the indie market was overrun by new games and developers, and Steam dropped its curation efforts. It shifted to a community-voting approach called Greenlight, before eventually landing on the everything-goes Early Access model we know today.

Ruiz and his business partner built Aztez in between contract projects, and by the time it was ready to debut on Steam in 2017, the indie market was saturated. There were 309 games added to Steam in 2010; in 2017, there were 6,306. Even with a hefty amount of hype behind it, Aztez had trouble standing out, and that was the last time Ruiz tried self-publishing.

Ruiz did contract work for a while after Aztez, and in 2018 he pitched Bounty Star to people he knew at Annapurna. The game has a complex premise — it stars Clem, a desert bounty hunter with plenty of baggage, and it involves mech battles, emotional narrative scenes and home-management mechanics, including some light gardening. Annapurna bit, and Ruiz landed a publishing deal.

Annapurna Interactive

Annapurna Interactive is one of the most prominent publishers of indie games today, with titles like Stray, Outer Wilds, Neon White, Donut County and What Remains of Edith Finch on its books. It was founded in 2016 as an offshoot of Annapurna Pictures and quickly established its brand as an arthouse publisher, focused on visually innovative and emotionally driven experiences. Its showcases are now a staple of the gaming calendar.

Annapurna is handling the marketing for Bounty Star, and it’s also financially supporting Ruiz’s studio, Dinogod. When Ruiz pitched the game, he was clear that he’d need a team of five or six people to bring his vision to life, and Annapurna gave him the funding to hire up.

“The fact that Dinogod has five full time people, that was a part of the partnership,” Ruiz said. “When everything was greenlit, that was the first step, to bring in these five or six people…. If [Annapurna is] into a thing that they think is a good move, and it needs more people, that seems to be fully okay. Like, they're not averse to scale.”

It’s not just Annapurna making these types of deals with indies nowadays. Devolver Digital is the granddaddy of indie publishers, and since 2009 it’s released hits including Hotline Miami, Hatoful Boyfriend, The Talos Principle, Gris, Fall Guys, Inscryption, Weird West and Cult of the Lamb, all in collaboration with small development teams. There’s also Humble, Private Division, Raw Fury, Epic Games, Finji, Gearbox, EA and Netflix, all of which have stepped up their indie publishing efforts in recent years. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s strategy is to simply acquire the studios it likes, and today it has 23 developers under the Xbox Game Studios banner. Sony is taking a similar approach, though it owns fewer studios than Microsoft. Microsoft and Sony are also signing hundreds of one-off deals with indies as they attempt to fill their streaming libraries — Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Premium — with a steady stream of new experiences.

This is the new standard for indie developers: Identify the publisher that best matches your game’s tone, pitch it, and pray. Even established studios, such as Device 6 creator Simogo, have swapped to a publisher-first model. Simogo’s latest projects, Sayonara Wild Hearts and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, are the result of its partnership with Annapurna.

Annapurna Interactive

“I think for us as a studio, the biggest change is working with a publisher, something which we would see as completely uninteresting and impractical ten years ago,” Simogo co-founder Simor Flesser told Engadget earlier this month.

And then there’s Netflix. The streaming company officially entered the game-distribution business in 2021, and it’s on track to have 100 titles in its library by the end of 2023, all freely available to anyone with a Netflix subscription. It’s already brought a number of high-profile titles to mobile devices, including Kentucky Route Zero, Poinpy, Into the Breach, Spiritfarer, Lucky Luna and Oxenfree II, and it’s purchased a few studios outright — notably, Alphabear developer Spry Fox and Oxenfree house Night School Studio. The first of these purchases was Night School, which Netflix acquired in 2021.

“Consolidation — I didn't really have my finger as much on the pulse of that, because when we joined Netflix, it didn't feel like that was happening so rapidly,” Night School co-founder Sean Krankel told Engadget. “And now in the last few years, literally, it's non-stop.”

The acquisition allowed Night School to move into the Netflix offices and it provided stability for the studio overall, Krankel said. With Netflix’s resources, the Night School team was able to add day-one support for 32 languages in Oxenfree II, and they were able to fly in remote collaborators as needed.

“All that's really exciting,” Oxenfree II lead developer Bryant Cannon said just ahead of the game’s July 12th release. “I think the game is going to be better because we have this battery in our back.”

Netflix

Outside of acquisitions, Netflix is also signing individual deals with developers. Snowman is best known as the name behind Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey, and its latest project is Laya’s Horizon, a serene wingsuit experience exclusive to Netflix. There are two big benefits of working with Netflix, according to Snowman creative director Jason Medeiros: The instant access to an audience of more than 230 million people, and the freedom to build a game without worrying about monetization.

“You'll notice real quick that the game that you've been playing can't be free-to-play,” Medeiros told Engadget in April. “Like, where would the ads go? It’s this fantasy world with no currency, even, and all that’s intentional. As the creative director, I didn't want any of that stuff. Because I mean, I liked games before all that stuff happened. So having a platform like Netflix, it's just like, none of that matters. You don't have to do that stuff. It's a breath of fresh air; we jump on opportunities to make games that way.”

Of course, there are still developers self-publishing their projects — Vampire Survivors, Phasmophobia, Celeste and Among Us are all standout examples — but there’s a murkier path to success with this model, one based on timing, trends and a hefty amount of luck. There are more than 90,000 games on Steam today; Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus Premium libraries each have more than 400 titles (and counting). In this marketplace, it’s hard to stand out without a little help.

It’s taken 10 years to get here, but it’s now a solid, quantifiable fact: There’s a lot of money in indie games. So much money that outside companies are popping up and trying to get a piece of the pie — and for now, it’s created a shiny bubble of pretty PR packages and bespoke showcases dedicated to small teams and their games.

Devolver Digital

It’s difficult to ignore the potential for exploitation down the line, especially with Netflix in the mix. Amid the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strike, the company is facing accusations that it instituted wildly unfair compensation deals for creatives, paying out one-time, minimal wages even as projects became massive hits on the streaming service. Annapurna, for its part, was accused of mishandling claims of abuse at three prominent studios on its publishing roster — Mountains, Funomena and Fullbright — in a March 2022 documentary by People Make Games. Meanwhile, the current consolidation craze is shrinking the video game industry overall, even as the market caps of the biggest companies continue to rise.

For now, bespoke publishing is the name of the indie game. This system has already distributed innovative and important games to huge audiences — Tchia, Tunic, Sea of Solitude, Gris — and it’s offered stability to a lot of independent artists. Like, for instance, Ben Ruiz.

“I hope Annapurna’s success means more Annapurnas in the future,” Ruiz said. “It doesn’t feel like they’re just trying to grab a thing that will make money or collaborate with people that are just going to make them money. They clearly have a brand and an aesthetic directive … if I can keep making games for them for a long time, I will.”

The new normal works for Ruiz — and Flesser, Krankel, Medeiros and plenty of others. For now, it’s a functional system, even if it ultimately leaves publishers, rather than independent developers, with most of the power.

The Primetime Emmys won’t take place on September 18th, according toVariety. The publication reported on Thursday that vendors scheduled to work the event have been told the ceremony is delayed because of the writers’ and actors’ strikes that have shut down all Hollywood productions and promotions. The TV Academy hasn’t yet announced a replacement date, but Variety previously reported that broadcast partner Fox tentatively wants to shoot for January 2024. HBO’s Successionleads this year’s field with 27 nominations, while The Last of Us made history with an impressive 24 nods for the video game adaptation.

Hollywood writers began striking in early May, while actors joined them earlier this month. Artificial intelligence figures prominently in both cases: Scribes and performers fear producers will increasingly use AI-generated content to diminish humans’ ability to make a living in the already-brutal show business industry. Perhaps the most startling revelation was the report that studios offered a “groundbreaking AI proposal” to pay performers for one day of work to use their digital likeness for eternity. As generative AI advances quicker than most people could have imagined, it now threatens to annihilate content creators’ careers inside and outside of Hollywood.

Disney / Lucasfilm

Although The Last of Us marked a milestone for gaming adaptations (including acting nominations for Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey), season three of Disney’s The Mandalorian received an impressive nine nominations. At the same time, Andor picked up eight nods — including Outstanding Drama Series. It recounts the journey of spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), one of the fallen heroes of 2016’s Rogue One, in the period building up to the Rebel Alliance’s rise against the Galactic Empire. Obi-Wan Kenobi, also on Disney+, received five more nominations, including Best Limited or Anthology Series.

In addition to The Last of Us and Andor, Outstanding Drama Series nominees include Better Call Saul, House of the Dragon, Succession, The White Lotus and Yellowjackets.

Apple

Apple TV+ also fared well in nominations, with 52. Ted Lasso is up for Best Comedy Series among its 21 nominations, which also include Best Actor in a Comedy Series for lead Jason Sudeikis, Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Hannah Waddingham and Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for Phil Dunster. Apple’s mesmerizing sci-fi adaptationSilo debuted too late for consideration this year, but don’t be shocked if it features prominently in the 2024 list.

Elsewhere, Amazon’s colossally ambitious The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power received six nods (mostly in technical categories). Netflix’s Stranger Things picked up six, Peacock’s Poker Face nabbed four and Star Trek: Picard got two makeup nominations. HBO led all platforms with 127 nods, while Netflix led streaming-only networks with 103, followed by Apple (52) and Amazon (46).

If you've wanted a top-tier robot vacuum but were put off by the sometimes outlandish prices, now's your time to act. Amazon is once more selling iRobot's Roomba s9+ at a record low of $600, or 40 percent off. That's the best we've seen since Prime Day, and puts it at the same price as a mid-range model like the Roomba j7 or Shark's AI Ultra.

The Roomba s9+ is still our pick for the best premium robot vacuum. It's powerful, good at navigating floors (both carpet and hardwood), tackles corners well and empties itself relatively quietly. The slick design also makes it look right at home in an upscale abode. You shouldn't have to worry about it getting stuck or missing an important mess.

It's not flawless. The Roomba s9+ isn't specifically geared to avoid pet poop, so you may need to look elsewhere if your cat or dog routinely leaves unwanted surprises. It's also louder than newer (if less effective) options like the j7. At this price, though, it's an easy choice — you'll get efficient cleaning that frees you for more important tasks.

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