Basketball season is fast approaching, and so is a new opportunity to virtually get in on the action: NBA 2K24 New Gen. 2K shared preliminary information about the game in July but has just announced new details about September 8th's NBA 2K24, including adding a LeBron Era. This new mode follows LeBron James' 2010 journey of leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers to play for the Miami Heat and leads into the already existing Modern Era. NBA 2K23 also introduced the Magic vs. Bird Era, Jordan Era and Kobe Era to the game. 

Another potentially exciting eras update (if you like being reminded about the passage of time) is an aging feature, which shows the athletes growing older as you play across a person's career. Other new era additions include curated reactions from spectators and journalists, depending on the time period you're in. After a game, you'll also see an article sharing a summary of your match — initially as a newspaper and, as time passes, a social media webpage. 

NBA 2K24 should also reflect aspects of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) reached by the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association and currently in place through the 2029 to 2030 season. These include each NBA team being positionless and shifting the Restricted Free Agent Right of Refusal Period to 24 hours. 

MyNBA online has some updates as well, including a range of roles for you to take on: commissioner, admin, gameplay tuner, time manager, designer, appearance editor or attribute editor. Each position has specific tasks, such as the designer, who can make and change logos, arenas and jerseys. Plus, there's now MyNBA Lite which removes some of the steps typically required for gameplay, such as CBA restrictions and scouting. 

WNBA gameplay also has new features coming on NBA 2K24, such as the ability to start as either a college basketball star or an up-and-comer. There's also "In Pursuit of Greatness," which has you play against rival players to be the best. These games, and those against a veteran of your team or a historic all-star player, allow you to earn badge perks. You can use these rewards to get updated 2K Breakthrough Skins and MyTEAM Jersey Cards. 

Two of the standout indie hits of the past few years are Cult of the Lamb and Don’t Starve Together. Now, the pair of critically-acclaimed darlings are teaming up for a new game mode, unique in-game items and even some character cameos. This crossover impacts both games, though each receives different perks.

The biggest draw here is a brand-new game mode for Cult of the Lamb that’s directly inspired by Don’t Starve Together. The appropriately-named Penitence Mode ups the stress factor by giving your lamb protagonist the same mortal needs as your cute and poop-obsessed followers. In other words, you have to eat and shelter yourself, in addition to providing for your cult. You are given the same options as the criticality-acclaimed traditional game, so you can eat meat and veggies, or go at it Yellowjackets style (cannibalism.)

The games also now share some items to create a unique look, so you’ll be able to unlock decorations in Cult of the Lamb from Don’t Starve, like pig heads on sticks, and vice-versa. Look for new chest skins, tabernacle decorations and more.

Finally, there’s some characters making their way through a “crossover portal.” Webber, from Don’t Starve’s Reign of Giants DLC, is now an unlockable cult member, complete with a new “never hungry” trait so you can save that grassy gruel for someone that actually needs it. Additionally, Don’t Starve’s lamb-like ewelet critter/pets are getting even, uh, lamb-ier, thanks to clothing and design options inspired by the other game.

The update is available now for PlayStation and Xbox consoles. The developers also note that a major content update is coming soon to Cult of the Lamb and that Don’t Starve Together will continue to receive more content in its ongoing From Beyond story arc.

As if October wasn't already going to be busy enough for new games. Publisher 505 Games has revealed that Ghostrunner 2, the sequel to a terrific cyberpunk platformer from 2020, will arrive on October 26th. It will be available on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store and GOG), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Pre-orders are open and those who snap up the Brutal Edition will get access 48 hours early.

The latest entry in the series takes place one year after the events of Ghostrunner. You'll once again play as Jack, a cyberninja who has to slice and dice his way up through an imposing tower. Ghostrunner is a fast-paced, often-tough game in which you parkour around treacherous environments. Jack dies often, but instant respawns, frequent checkpoints and accessibility options are helpful.

The sequel from One More Level seems to build on that foundation with new features such as a motorbike and dialogue choices. This is one of my most anticipated games of the year, so it's a real shame that it might get buried under the onslaught of blockbusters that are arriving in October.

Ghostrunner 2 will be going right up against Alan Wake 2 (October 27th) — Epic Games and Remedy last week delayed their game by 10 days to get out of the way of major titles like Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Also coming in October are games including Assassin's Creed Mirage (which also moved release dates to stake out its own spot on the calendar), Detective Pikachu Returns, Forza Motorsport, Lords of the Fallen and Cities Skylines II.

On top of those, many people will still be knees deep in the likes of Starfield,Armored Core VI and perhaps Immortals of Aveum by the time Ghostrunner 2 arrives. Given the abundance of games coming out in the next couple months, perhaps waiting an extra few weeks wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Steven Spielberg's wholesome sci-fi classic, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, became a cultural touchstone following its release in 1982. The film's hastily-developed (as in, "you have five weeks to get this to market") Atari 2600 tie-in game became a cultural touchstone for entirely different reasons.

In his new book, The Stuff Games Are Made Of, experimental game maker and assistant professor in design and computation arts at Concordia University in Montreal, Pippin Barr deconstructs the game design process using an octet of his own previous projects to shed light on specific aspects of how games could better be put together. In the excerpt below, Dr. Barr muses in what makes good cinema versus games and why the storytelling goals of those two mediums may not necessarily align.

MIT Press

Excerpted from The Stuff Games Are Made Of by Pippin Barr. Reprinted with permission from The MIT Press. Copyright 2023.

In the Atari 2600 video game version of the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Spielberg 1982), also called E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Atari 1982), the defining experience is falling into a pit. It’s cruelly fitting, then, that hundreds of thousands of the game’s physical cartridges were buried in a landfill in 1983. Why? It was one of the most spectacular failures in video game history. Why? It’s often put front and center as the worst game of all time. Why? Well, when you play it, you keep falling into a pit, among other things ...

But was the video game E.T. so terrible? In many ways it was a victim of the video game industry’s voracious hunger for “sure fire” blockbusters. One strategy was to adapt already-popular movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark or, yes, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Rushed to market with a development time of only five weeks, the game inevitably lacked the careful crafting of action-oriented gameplay backed by audience testing that other Atari titles had. I would argue, though, that its creator, Howard Scott Warshaw, found his way into a more truthful portrayal of the essence of the film than you might expect.

Yes, in the game E.T. is constantly falling into pits as he flees scientists and government agents. Yes, the game is disorienting in terms of understanding what to do, with arcane symbols and unclear objectives. But on the other hand, doesn’t all that make for a more poignant portrayal of E.T.’s experience, stranded on an alien planet, trying to get home? What if E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a good adaptation of the film, and just an unpopular video game?

The world of video games has admired the world of film from the beginning. This has led to a long-running conversation between game design and the audiovisual language of cinema, from cutscenes to narration to fades and more. In this sense, films are one of the key materials games are made of. However, even video games’ contemporary dominance of the revenue competition has not been quite enough to soothe a nagging sense that games just don’t measure up. Roger Ebert famously (and rather overbearingly) claimed that video games could “never be art,” and although we can mostly laugh about it now that we have games like Kentucky Route Zero and Disco Elysium, it still hurts. What if Ebert was right in the sense that video games aren’t as good at being art as cinema is?

Art has seldom been on game studios’ minds in making film adaptations. From Adventures of Tron for the Atari 2600 to Toy Story Drop! on today’s mobile devices, the video game industry has continually tried for instant brand recognition and easy sales via film. Sadly, the resulting games tend just to lay movie visuals and stories over tried-and-true game genres such as racing, fighting, or match 3. And the search for films that are inherently “video game-y” hasn’t helped much either. In Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Spider-Man ends up largely as a vessel for swinging and punching, and you certainly can’t participate in Miles’s inner life. So what happened to the “Citizen Kane of video games”?

A significant barrier has been game makers’ obsession with the audiovisual properties of cinema, the specific techniques, rather than some of the deeply structural or even philosophical opportunities. Film is exciting because of the ways it unpacks emotion, represents space, deploys metaphor, and more. To leverage the stuff of cinema, we need to take a close look at these other elements of films and explore how they might become the stuff of video games too. One way to do that in an organized way is to focus on adaptation, which is itself a kind of conversation between media that inevitably reveals much about both. And if you’re going to explore film adaptation to find the secret recipe, why not go with the obvious? Why not literally make Citizen Kane (Welles 1941) into a video game? Sure, Citizen Kane is not necessarily the greatest film of all time, but it certainly has epic symbolic value. Then again, Citizen Kane is an enormous, complex film with no car chases and no automatic weapons. Maybe it’s a terrible idea.

As video games have ascended to a position of cultural and economic dominance in the media landscape, there has been a temptation to see film as a toppled Caesar, with video games in the role of a Mark Antony who has “come to bury cinema, not to praise it.” But as game makers, we haven’t yet mined the depths offered by cinema’s rich history and its exciting contemporary voices. Borrowing cinema’s visual language of cameras, points of view, scenes, and so on was a crucial step in figuring out how video games might be structured, but the stuff of cinema has more to say than that. Citizen Kane encourages us to embrace tragedy and a quiet ending. The Conversation shows us that listening can be more powerful than action. Beau Travail points toward the beauty of self-expression in terrible times. Au Hasard Balthazar brings the complex weight of our own responsibilities to the fore.

There’s nothing wrong with an action movie or an action video game, but I suggest there’s huge value in looking beyond the low-hanging fruit of punch-ups and car chases to find genuinely new cinematic forms for the games we play. I’ll never play a round of Combat in the same way, thanks to the specter of Travis Bickle psyching himself up for his fight against the world at large. It’s time to return to cinema in order to think about what video games have been and what they can be. Early attempts to adapt films into games were perhaps “notoriously bad” (Fassone 2020), but that approach remains the most direct way for game designers to have a conversation with the cinematic medium and to come to terms with its potential. Even if we accept the idea that E.T. was terrible, which I don’t, it was also different and new.

This is bigger than cinema, though, because we’re really talking about adaptation as a form of video game design. While cinema (and television) is particularly well matched, all other media from theater to literature to music are teeming with ideas still untried in the youthful domain of video games. One way to fast-track experimentation is of course to adapt plays, poems, and songs. To have those conversations. There can be an air of disdain for adaptations compared to originals, but I’m with Linda Hutcheon (2012, 9) who asserts in A Theory of Adaptation that “an adaptation is a derivation that is not derivative — a work that is second without being secondary.” As Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin (2003, 15) put it, “what is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they refashion older media.” This is all the more so when the question is how to adapt a specific work in another medium, where, as Hutcheon claims, “the act of adaptation always involves both (re-)interpretation and then (re-)creation." That is, adaptation is inherently thoughtful and generative; it forces us to come to terms with the source materials in such a direct way that it can lay our design thinking bare—the conversation is loud and clear. As we’ve seen, choosing films outside the formulas of Hollywood blockbusters is one way to take that process of interpretation and creation a step further by exposing game design to more diverse cinematic influences.

Video games are an incredible way to explore not just the spaces we see on-screen, but also “the space of the mind." When a game asks us to act as a character in a cinematic world, it can also ask us to think as that character, to weigh our choices with the same pressures and history they are subject to. Hutcheon critiques games’ adaptive possibilities on the grounds that their programming has “an even more goal- directed logic than film, with fewer of the gaps that film spectators, like readers, fill in to make meaning." To me, this seems less like a criticism and more like an invitation to make that space. Quiet moments in games, as in films, may not be as exhilarating as a shoot-out, but they can demand engagement in a way that a shoot-out can’t. Video games are ready for this.

The resulting games may be strange children of their film parents, but they’ll be interesting children too, worth following as they grow up. Video game film adaptations will never be films, nor should they be—they introduce possibilities that not only recreate but also reimagine cinematic moments. The conversations we have with cinema through adaptation are ways to find brand new ideas for how to make games. Even the next blockbuster.

Yeah, cinema, I’m talkin’ to you.

This week's best tech deals include the 9th-gen iPad on sale for $250, which ties the lowest price we've seen. While the 10.2-inch slate is showing its age design-wise, it's still a good bargain for those who just need a tablet for the basics and want the most affordable Apple tablet possible. Elsewhere, Sony is still running a rare $50 discount on PlayStation 5, while Amazon's Fire TV Stick 4K Max is within $2 of its best price to date. We're also seeing all-time lows on the top picks in our gaming headset and microSD card buying guides, plus Apple's third-gen AirPods. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today. 

Apple iPad (9th gen)

The 9th-gen Apple iPad is back down to $250 at Amazon, matching its all-time low. You should see the full discount at checkout. Apple sells the 10.2-inch tablet for $329, though we've regularly seen it retail closer to $275. 

The entry-level slate is certainly getting long in the tooth, as its non-laminated display, thick bezels and Lightning port give it an altogether more dated design than newer iPads. Its 64GB of storage is low, too. At this price, though, the 9th-gen iPad remains one of the better values in the tablet market, with a sturdy aluminum frame, 10 or so hours of battery life and fast-enough performance for casual media consumption. There's always a chance Apple will introduce new iPads later this year, but if you just want the cheapest route into iPadOS, this model should be enough.

Astro A40 TR

The Astro A40 TR is on sale for $100, which is $30 off its usual street price and ties the lowest price we've seen. The A40 TR is the top pick in our guide to the best gaming headsets, as its open-back design gives it a more spacious and enveloping sound that most competitors. It emphasizes the bass, but not to an overwhelming degree, and it's comfortable to wear to extended periods. That said, the built-in mic is just OK, and like any open-back headphone, the whole thing both leaks and lets in lots of outside noise, so it's not ideal if you usually play in a noisy room. In general, you can get better value from a pair of "normal" wired headphones than a dedicated gaming headset unless you need a mic. If you really want an all-in-one solution, though, the A40 TR is a worthwhile compromise. 

Samsung Pro Plus

The Samsung Pro Plus is the top pick in our microSD card buying guide, and right now its 128GB, 256GB and 512GB models are down to $12, $20 and $35, respectively. Each of those deals match an all-time low. The Pro Plus technically isn't the fastest microSD card you can buy, but at this price it's a fantastic value for a Nintendo Switch, GoPro or Android tablet, as it topped all the cards we tested in sequential write speeds and random read/write performance. It also comes with a 10-year limited warranty.

Sony PlayStation 5

The PlayStation 5 is still on sale for $449 at various retailers, which is a $50 discount. We highlighted this deal when Sony kicked off its latest summer sale a couple of weeks ago, but the company says that is scheduled to end on August 19. Discounts for the PS5 have been exceedingly rare since the console arrived in late 2020, so consider this a last-minute PSA. We gave the device a review score of 87 at launch, though it's become a much better value proposition over the last three years as it's built out its games library.

Sony PlayStation 5 DualSense Controller

In other PS5 deals, the DualSense wireless controller is still on sale for $49 in various colors. Depending on which model you pick, that's $20 or $25 off. This matches the lowest outright discount we've seen for the gamepad, which is also compatible with Steam. Elsewhere, console covers for the PS5 are down to $45 at the PlayStation Direct store. That's a $10 discount. 

PS5 and PS4 exclusive game sale

A number of PlayStation-exclusive games we recommend are discounted as well, including God of War Ragnarök for $49 and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales for $20. The thrilling roguelike Returnal and the charming action game Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart are both down to $29, while the open-world samurai game Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut is available for a buck more. Elsewhere, Death Stranding: Director's Cut is on sale for $19, while a PS4 copy of Horizon Forbidden West (which includes a free upgrade to the digital PS5 version) is down to $29. We've seen all of these deals before, but if you need something new to play, each matches or at least comes within a few dollars of the lowest price we've seen. 

Anker 622 Magnetic Battery

The Anker 622 Magnetic Battery is back on sale for $40, which isn't quite an all-time low but still comes in $10 below the device's typical street price. This portable wireless charger has a slim frame that snaps easily onto the back of a MagSafe-compatible iPhone. It also includes a built-in kickstand for propping your phone up. This deal applies to the "Upgraded Version" of the battery, with a USB-C port on the side; an older variant places that port on the bottom, which is a bit less convenient for pass-through charging. Just note that, like many wireless power packs, the 622 can't deliver a particularly fast charge (only 7.5W), nor does it have a high capacity (5,000mAh). It can get hot, too. Still, if you want a truly cable-free way to extend an iPhone's battery on the go, it's a decent value at this price.

Apple AirPods (3rd gen)

The third-gen Apple AirPods are back down to $140, tying its all-time low. Apple sells the wireless earbuds for $169, though we often see them go for $10 or $20 less elsewhere. This open-back pair has a more balanced sound than most unsealed earbuds, with more bass depth than usual (albeit not a ton). There’s no ANC, as expected, but you still get wireless charging, relatively intuitive touch controls and the usual Apple-friendly features like fast pairing and Find My tracking. Just note that the earpieces are a little large, so they may not fit well with certain ear shapes. This set is also pricey, and like any other open-back pair, it doesn't isolate much outside noise. Still, if you own an iPhone and hate the feeling of traditional in-ear headphones, it might work. We gave the AirPods a score of 88 in late 2021.

Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max is down to $27, which is $2 more than the lowest price we've seen but still roughly $20 below the 4K streamer's usual street price. This is Amazon's fastest streaming stick, with support for all the necessary apps and HDR standards, plus Alexa voice controls built into its remote. We generally prefer Roku's and Google's respective streaming platforms over Amazon's Fire OS, as the latter is more aggressive about displaying ads and promoting Amazon's own content across the UI. But if you just want an affordable device for casual 4K streaming, or if you regularly use Amazon services like Prime Video, this is a fine option. 

Amazon Echo Studio

The Amazon Echo Studio is on sale for $160, which is a $40 discount and within $5 of the smart speaker's all-time low. This is the largest and best-sounding option in Amazon's Echo lineup. Though we recommend the newer Sonos Era 100 to most people looking for an audio-focused smart speaker, the Echo Studio is still a strong alternative for those who want to save some cash or add a centerpiece to an existing set of Echo devices.

Logitech Litra Glow

The Logitech Litra Glow is back down to $50, which is a deal we've seen a few times before but still takes $10 off the device's usual going rate. The Litra Glow is a USB-powered video light we recommend in our guide to the best game-streaming gear, as we found it to deliver relatively soft and pleasant lighting without harsh edges or shadows. The hardware clips onto the top of a monitor and is easy to rotate or tilt, and you can customize the lighting's brightness and color temperature through built-in control buttons or Logitech's companion software. While Logitech markets the device toward content creators, it can also be useful for those who frequently have to take Zoom calls in a room with poor natural lighting. 

Instant Pot Duo (3-quart)

If you've been thinking about jumping on the Instant Pot bandwagon, the 3-quart Instant Pot Duo is now on sale for $60, or $20 below its typical street price. While that's not an all-time low, it does match the best price we've seen in 2023. We recommend this smaller variant to those who want an electric pressure cooker for individual use or smaller kitchens in our Instant Pot buying guide. It's one of the more basic options available, but it's still easy to operate, and it comes with modes for sautéing, slow cooking, steaming and making rice or yogurt, among others. 

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5

The 256GB Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is down to $900 at Amazon with an on-page coupon, which is a $100 discount for a phone that only went on sale earlier this month. If you shop at Amazon regularly, you can also get the foldable phone with a $150 Amazon gift card, but you'll have to pay the standard $1,000 MSRP. We gave the Galaxy Z Flip 5 a review score of 88 earlier this month, and we currently list it as the "best foldable for selfies" in our guide to the best smartphones. The big upgrades are a larger 3.4-inch cover display that's more useful for quickly checking notifications or using apps and a redesigned hinge that lets the device fold flat. You still give up some battery life and camera performance compared to more traditional flagship phones around this price, and like any foldable device, you have to take extra care when handling it. But if the idea of a phone you can fold in half appeals to you, this is the new leader in that market. 

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Honda is looking to make waves in the electric vehicle market. The first model in the automaker's major 2024 push into the space is the Acura ZDX. It expects to obtain an EPA range rating of 325 miles on a single charge for the base A-Spec single-motor configuration.

That's in the same ballpark as the Tesla Model X (333 miles) and better than the Model Y (303 miles), as well as Ford's Mustang Mach-E (up to 312 miles) and the F-150 Lightning (230 miles). What's more, Honda is touting this range for a starting price of around $60,000. The first Acura ZDX deliveries are slated for early 2024 with pre-sales starting later this year. Sales will take place exclusively online.

The company unveiled the EV at Monterey Car Week after teasing it earlier this month. It will be available in two variants: the Acura ZDX A-Spec and ZDX Type S. The former is expected to deliver 340 horsepower. The dual-motor, all-wheel-drive ZDX Type S will have an estimated 500 horsepower and is expected to start at around $70,000. Honda says that will be "the most powerful and best performing Acura SUV ever" but it's expected to eke out a shorter range of 288 miles from the 102 kWh battery. Of note, the ZDX A-Spec will have 20-inch wheels, while the Type S has 22-inch wheels.

MullenLowe

Honda has been dripfeeding details about the ZDX for months, so it was already known that the EV would have Android Auto, built-in Google apps and Apple CarPlay integration. It will feature an 11-inch touchscreen dashboard for the driver and an 11.3-inch center display. The ZDX is the first Acura model with a Bang & Olufsen audio system, which comes as standard. It has 18 speakers, including a subwoofer.

Safety features include a rear pedestrian alert and blind zone steering assist. The ZDX Type S has hands-free cruise driver assistance. According to Acura, that allows for "true hands-free driving on up to 400,000 miles of compatible roads." The Type S also has an automatic parking assist system that should help with parallel parking.

When it comes to topping up the EV's battery, Honda is hoping you'll never be too far away from a charging station. Last month, it announced a joint effort with six other automakers to build an extensive network of 30,000 stations in North America. The initiative's first locations are expected to open in the US next summer. Honda also notes that the ZDX supports DC Fast Charging, and a 10-minute top up can add up to 81 miles of range to the ZDX A-Spec's battery in the rear-wheel drive configuration.

MullenLowe

The busy fall calendar of game releases remains in flux. Remedy Entertainment and publisher Epic Games have pushed back the Alan Wake II release date by 10 days to October 27th, and it seems the decision isn't specifically to do with giving the studio more time to polish the game. "October is an amazing month for game launches and we hope this date shift gives more space for everyone to enjoy their favorite games," a tweet on the Alan Wake Twitter (ugh, X) account reads.

Not only does that give Alan Wake II a bit more distance from some of the other major new games dropping around that time, it brings the survival horror title a bit closer to Halloween. In the meantime, you won't have to wait much longer to find out more about the game, which will be featured at Gamescom's Opening Night Live event next Tuesday. "We can't wait to show you what everyone's favorite novelist is up to in the Dark Place next week," the tweet states. "Thanks for your patience!"

October is an especially packed month for games. Alan Wake 2 is no longer arriving in the same week as Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Marvel's Spider-Man 2, but now it's arriving just a few days after Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection and a game that's in a similar wheelhouse in the form of Alone in the Dark.

There are many other notable games scheduled to land that month, including Detective Pikachu Returns, Forza Motorsport, Lords of the Fallen and Cities Skylines II. Earlier this week, Ubisoft sought to carve out a small window for itself by bringing the Assassin's Creed Mirage release date forward by a week to October 5th, while Batman: Arkham Trilogy will crash onto Nintendo Switch on October 13th. Phew. I hope you're already practicing your finger stretches ahead of that glut of games.

Microsoft has revealed when the Xbox 360 store will close its doors. You'll no longer be able to buy games, expansions or anything else on the Xbox 360 console or Marketplace after July 29, 2024. Any original Xbox or Xbox 360 games and DLC that are backwards compatible on the Xbox One or Series X/S will still be available to buy on the newer consoles' storefronts.

The Microsoft Movies & TV app will stop working on the console on the same date, so you won't be able to use it to watch TV shows and films. Any content you have bought from the Xbox 360 store will stay in your library and you can watch it on Windows 10 and 11 devices, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. You can also watch any titles with Movies Anywhere compatibility on that service's app and website.

You can still buy Xbox 360 games and other content through the console's storefront until next July (you should still be able to find second-hand physical copies of games you want to play too). Any games you have in your library will still work on your Xbox 360 after the store shutters, and you'll be able to access many of them on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S through backwards compatibility too. Microsoft notes that it has enhanced many Xbox 360 titles on the Series X/S, adding features such as FPS Boost, Auto HDR and snappier loading times.

Multiplayer features on Xbox 360 games will still be supported as long as publishers and developers keep their titles' servers up and running. You'll be able to save your games and progress to the cloud as well, and pick up where you left off on Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S.

The Xbox 360 is 18 years old this year and (as best I can tell) it's been five years since the last game was released for it. It perhaps doesn't make business sense for Microsoft to keep the store open. However, the store's closure will prevent players from being able to buy many digital-only games, making the move a blow for game preservation.

After fans protested against Sony's plan to shut down the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita stores in 2021, the company relented and kept them open (though it followed through on closing the PSP store). On the other hand, Sony is making players jump through a few extra hoops to buy PS3 and Vita games as neither digital storefront directly accepts credit cards, debit cards or PayPal payments. In 2022, Sony set up a game preservation team.

The 2023 version of Samsung's Freestyle projector is now available for pre-order through the company's website. Introduced at CES earlier this year, the Freestyle Gen 2 can throw 1080p images on your wall or your ceiling and transform it into a screen that's between 30 and 100 inches in size. Its cradle stand rotates 180 degrees, allowing you to move the screen for the best possible position, and it comes with built-in 360-degree sound capability for immersive viewing. 

Since the compact projector weighs less than two pounds and is meant to be used whether indoors or outdoors, you can also plug it into portable batteries with USB PD and 60W/20V output or above when outlets aren't available. In addition, it comes with the brand's SolarCell Remote, which, like its name indicates, has a solar panel attached to it for easy charging on the go. 

Like any regular smart TV, the Freestyle Gen 2 gives you access to the usual streaming apps, including the Samsung TV Plus service. You can also use it to play videos, though, through the Samsung Gaming Hub that lets you stream titles from various providers. The Gaming Hub gives you quick access to Samsung's streaming partners, which include Xbox Game Pass, NVIDIA GeForce NOW, Amazon Luna and Utomik. While the hub is free, you will need a subscription to those services to be able to play the games they have on offer. Also, the projector doesn't come with its own controller, so you'll need to use your own and connect it via Bluetooth.

The Freestyle Gen 2 projector costs $800 and will be available for pre-order until August 30th, the day before it starts shipping. You'll get a free case with the unit if you purchase it before its launch date. 

Samsung

The Associated Press published standards today for generative AI use in its newsroom. The organization, which has a licensing agreement with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, listed a fairly restrictive and common-sense list of measures around the burgeoning tech while cautioning its staff not to use AI to make publishable content. Although nothing in the new guidelines is particularly controversial, less scrupulous outlets could view the AP’s blessing as a license to use generative AI more excessively or underhandedly.

The organization’s AI manifesto underscores a belief that artificial intelligence content should be treated as the flawed tool that it is — not a replacement for trained writers, editors and reporters exercising their best judgment. “We do not see AI as a replacement of journalists in any way,” the AP’s Vice President for Standards and Inclusion, Amanda Barrett, wrote in an article about its approach to AI today. “It is the responsibility of AP journalists to be accountable for the accuracy and fairness of the information we share.”

The article directs its journalists to view AI-generated content as “unvetted source material,” to which editorial staff “must apply their editorial judgment and AP’s sourcing standards when considering any information for publication.” It says employees may “experiment with ChatGPT with caution” but not create publishable content with it. That includes images, too. “In accordance with our standards, we do not alter any elements of our photos, video or audio,” it states. “Therefore, we do not allow the use of generative AI to add or subtract any elements.” However, it carved an exception for stories where AI illustrations or art are a story’s subject — and even then, it has to be clearly labeled as such.

Barrett warns about AI’s potential for spreading misinformation. To prevent the accidental publishing of anything AI-created that appears authentic, she says AP journalists “should exercise the same caution and skepticism they would normally, including trying to identify the source of the original content, doing a reverse image search to help verify an image’s origin, and checking for reports with similar content from trusted media.” To protect privacy, the guidelines also prohibit writers from entering “confidential or sensitive information into AI tools.”

Although that’s a relatively common-sense and uncontroversial set of rules, other media outlets have been less discerning. CNET was caught early this year publishing error-ridden AI-generated financial explainer articles (only labeled as computer-made if you clicked on the article’s byline). Gizmodo found itself in a similar spotlight this summer when it ran a Star Wars article full of inaccuracies. It’s not hard to imagine other outlets — desperate for an edge in the highly competitive media landscape — viewing the AP’s (tightly restricted) AI use as a green light to make robot journalism a central figure in their newsrooms, publishing poorly edited / inaccurate content or failing to label AI-generated work as such.