🕹️ Game Boy's back, 💰 Spotify price hike, 🖥️ PSVR 2 PC, ⚙️ New Intel & AMD CPUs
🕹️ Game Boy's back, 💰 Spotify price hike, 🖥️ PSVR 2 PC, ⚙️ New Intel & AMD CPUs
10 tech stories in the quickest format possible
It’s already tomorrow where I’m at and it truly feels like I’m living in the future while in Taipei, Taiwan. All this week, Kevin, Adam, and I have been reporting on the future of computing at Computex for The Shortcut. This is only days before Apple unveils its own iOS 18 AI ambitions at its WWDC keynote next Monday.
3 big draws at Computex 2024
🤖 We’re seeing the first AI PCs in laptops powered by Intel, Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm chips. Gigabyte had an AI Arcade demo I’ll report on tomorrow
🎮 We’re testing 3 new PC gaming handhelds and it feels like Round 2 with sequels like MSI Claw 8 AI+ & Asus ROG Ally X (now up for pre-order). The Zotac Zone is a brand-new entry.
🖥️ We’ve tested new monitors and gaming PCs. These are Computex staples, and we haven’t forgotten about our core gaming fanbase. We also saw new Samsung gaming monitors in NYC with a hands-on coming soon
The tech is as dense as the number of people packed into Nangang Exhibition Center, but it was worth the 15-hour flight from NYC. Computex feels like it has new meaning in 2024 thanks to the attention AI has brought to computing, CPUs and GPUs.
For the first time, we’re here handing out The Shortcut Computex Awards, which will debut in the next issue to paid subscribers first. Stay tuned!
🔒 For paid subscribers only (bottom of the page)
I have another PlayStation Store discount code in stock (while it lasts) for paid subscribers (you can use a free trial to nab it, but do consider supporting The Shortcut team if you’re saving money in the process).
$100 PlayStation Gift Card for $84**
$59.99 Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut (PC) for $44.99
$34.99 V Rising (PC) for $24.33
$59.99 Homeworld 3 (PC) for $36.37
50% off Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at $26 (MSRP is $51 and may go up as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, normally $70, will launch on Game Pass in October)
➡️ I’ll put them at the very bottom of this page until they run out*
*If they run out, I’ll have more discount codes this weekend for subscribers
**If this one sells out (it’ll go FAST) and you subscribe, message me. I’ll put you first in line for the next batch and privately DM you
🐦 Ask Matt Swider on Twitter or Instagram for hand-picked deals from Walmart / Best Buy / Amazon / B&H / Samsung / Google / GameStop / Xbox / Microsoft Office (PC) / MS Office (Mac)
Today’s 10-story newsletter continues below the calendar ⤵️
📆 Your Tech Calendar
💻 NOW: Computex is underway in Taipei (we’re here!)
🎧 TODAY: Sonos Ace headphones release
⌚️ June 5, Wed: Fitbit Ace LTE release
🤖 June 7, Fri: Astro Bot PS5 pre-orders start
🏝️ June 7, Fri: Summer Game Fest begins
😎 June 7, Fri: Bad Boys: Ride or Die in theaters
🟩 June 9, Sun: Xbox Game Showcase w/ Doom & Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
🍎 June 10, Mon: Apple WWDC 2024 keynote
⌛️ June 12: Sony’s Days of Play deals end
⚽ June 14, Fri: UEFA Euro 2024 begins
🚀 July 10, Wed: Samsung Unpacked rumored
💻 July 18, Tue: New Microsoft Surface and CoPilot+ PCs release
🎮 July 21, Fri: Asus ROG Ally X release date
🕹️ 1. The ultimate Game Boy costs $199, and Nintendo isn’t involved
🤩 ModRetro Chromatic breaths new life into your old Game Boy cartridges
👏 It’s a pixel & color-accurate way of enjoying Game Boy and GB Color games
😎 It’ll work outdoors thanks to its super-bright IPS LCD
🧠 From the mind of Palmer Luckey, the brains behind Oculus Rift VR
📆 Chromatic costs $199 and starts shipping this holiday
Modern-day gaming has its perks, but there’s nothing like a bit of nostalgia-fueled retro gaming, especially when the experience has been elevated by today’s technology. And that’s exactly what the RetroMod Chromatic offers. It’s a handheld that’s capable of playing Game Boy and Game Boy Color games with pixel-perfect color accuracy, unlike other systems on the market.
It’s been designed by Palmer Luckey, the man behind the Oculus Quest, and no expense has been spared to ensure this is the very best Game Boy you could hope to own. Its super-bright IPS screen can be used in the sunniest conditions, and everything down to the buttons themselves has been made with high-grade materials.
The RetroMod Chromatic is available to preorder today for $199 and includes an updated copy of Tetris that’s been designed for the Chromatic. The handheld will also be available at GameStop, but expect supply to be limited.
🥽 🖥️ 2. PSVR 2 PC support is coming – but there are caveats you need to know
📆 Sony has revealed that PSVR 2 PC support arrives on August 7
💰 You’ll need to purchase an adapter that costs $59.99
😬 No HDR, eye-tracking, adaptive triggers, or headset & haptic feedback
👉 You’ll also need a Steam account and a DisplayPort cable that’s compatible with DisplayPort 1.4
🔧 Your PC will also need to meet the minimum requirements
It’s been a good week for PSVR 2 owners. After Sony announced it was giving away five free games to PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers, it’s now revealed PC support arrives on August 7, thanks to a $59.99 adapter.
It means you’ll be able to enjoy thousands of VR games on Steam, including the critically-acclaimed Half-Life: Alyx and other titles like Fallout 4 VR. You’ll need a fairly powerful to get the best experience, and you’ll also need to purchase a DisplayPort 1.4 cable.
What’s more, quite a few of the PSVR 2’s best features won’t work on PC. You won’t be able to experience HDR, headset feedback, eye-tracking, adaptive triggers, or haptic feedback, which is admittedly a shame. Still, it makes the PSVR 2 a little more appealing and will please those who already own the headset but are looking for more games to play.
Don’t forget that the PSVR 2 is $100 off until June 12 as part of Sony’s Days of Play sale.
📈💰 3. Spotify is going up in price again next month
😖 Spotify is going up in price yet again
📈 It’s a 30% increase for Duo, 25% for Family, and 20% for Premium
♊ It’s the second time in the space of a year
🔒 Previously, Spotify didn’t raise its Premium price for 12 years
🗣️ Spotify says price hikes let it “continue to invest in and innovate on our product”
After not increasing the price of Spotify Premium for 12 years, the world’s most popular music streaming service is raising its subscription prices for the second time in the space of a year.
Subscribers will have to pay more starting in July. The new price of Spotify Premium will be $11.99, and Spotify Duo is increasing by $2 a month from $14.99 to $16.99. A Premium Family account will increase from $16.99 a month to $19.99 a month. That’s a 30% increase for Duo, 25% for Family, and 20% for Premium.
We’re still waiting for Spotify to launch its long-overdue lossless audio option. Originally dubbed “Spotify HiFi” and later Spotify Platinum, hi-res audio could come via a new “Music Pro” add-on which will also include DJ remix features that will let subscribers tinker with tracks.
👏 4. Asus ROG Ally X hands-on review: the best gaming handheld just got better
✅ 😌 Bigger grips make the Ally X more comfortable to hold
✅ 🔋 The larger battery promises three to eight hours of battery life
✅ 🕹️ Tighter thumbsticks and a more accurate D-Pad are greatly improved inputs
❌ 📺 The screen remains the same down to its large, ugly bezels
❌ ⚙️ No direct tweaks to the Z1 Extreme chip to make the Ally X faster
🛍️ Now available to pre-order from Best Buy
🔜 We also saw the MSI Claw 8 AI+ and got hands-on time with Zotac Zone PC gaming handhelds (write-up coming next).
The Asus ROG Ally X isn’t the Asus ROG Ally 2. It’s best to think of it like Valve’s Steam Deck OLED upgrade, though its main draw is a significantly better battery, more memory, storage, and various tweaks to its controls and cooling.
These changes means the Ally X improves upon the original in almost every way, addressing each of the shortcomings Asus’ original handheld. You’ll need to pay $100 more to gain these benefits, though, and there’s only one spec version available this time. Check out our Asus ROG Ally vs Asus ROG Ally X for all the differences and read our hands-on review for more.
🖥️ 🤖 5. We saw MSI MEG 321URX, the world's first gaming AI monitor
🤔 MSI’s new AI gaming monitor could give you an unfair advantage
🔎 It has a mode to help detect enemy positions
👏 It uses a QD-OLED panel with a refresh rate of 240Hz
💰 The release date hasn’t been shared but expect to pay $1,699
MSI showed its AI gaming monitor again during Computex 2024, after first revealing it during CES earlier this year. The monitor can help you detect an enemy’s position and display it on the screen using a feature called “Sky Sight”. Sky Sight works by analyzing an on-screen mini-map to help you see where enemies are coming from.
The MSI MEG 321URX uses a 4K, QD-OLED panel that supports HDR 400 and FreeSync Premium Pro. You also get a 240Hz refresh rate with a panel gray-to-gray response time of 0.03ms. Console gamers aren’t left out either, as the monitor has HDMI 2.1 ports with 120Hz support, VRR, and ALLM.
🤖 6. AMD reveals its new AI-powered Ryzen CPUs at Computex
👀 AMD has shared its latest processors for gamers and creators
🤖 It’s also revealed its AI-focused chips for CoPilot+ PCs
🆕 AMD announced two new AMD Ryzen 5000 Series processors for AM4 motherboards
📆 The new AMD CPUs are coming this July
AMD has unveiled a new series of Ryzen AI 300 Series processors to power upcoming Copilot+ PCs and AMD Ryzen 9000 Series desktop processors. The new Strix Point mobile chip destined for 2024 laptops introduces a much beefier XDNA 2 NPU with 50 TOPs of AI processing power – a big step up from the 16 TOP in AMD’s previous Ryzen 8040 series. With the new NPU, AMD is promising five times the AI responsiveness than its last top-tier Ryzen 9 8945 chip.
AMD also introduced its Granite Ridge Ryzen 9000 Series desktop processors based on its Zen 5 architecture. AMD’s new flagship AMD Ryzen 9 9950X packs some serious power with 16 cores, 32 threads and up to 5.7GHz boost paired with 80MB of L2 and L3 cache.
⛈️ 7. Intel Lunar Lake is here to take Copilot+ PC and AI by storm
🤖 Intel Lunar Lake processors pack a whopping 120 TOPs of AI performance
🧠 Integrated memory for the first time in an Intel processor
🎮 Xe2 GPU promises 50% more graphical power and better ray tracing
💪 Lunar Lake packs four P-core and four E-core
Intel has shared the full details on its Lunar Lake processors coming in 2024 laptops later this year. Lunar Lake represents a paradigm shift for Intel processors. The new chip features an eight-core hybrid design, with four new Lion Cove performance cores and four Skymont efficiency cores.
Lunar Lake is the first processor from Intel that won’t utilize hyper-threading in 22 years, and will instead push more workloads to its E-cores while the P-cores do the heavy lifting.
The CPUs also come with integrated memory, up to 64GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and will take advantage of AI to maximize its performance. The announcement comes after Microsoft announced it would be using Snapdragon X Plus and Elite chips in its new laptops, and hot off the heels of AMD’s Computex announcements.
🙌 8. Xbox Series S is finally delivering on its next-gen promise
🆚 The Xbox Series S has started to widen the gap between the Xbox One X
💪 Recent comparisons show big advantages for Microsoft’s $299 machine
👋 Many titles are also now skipping the last-gen Xbox
🤔 It may be time to upgrade to Microsoft’s latest console
Those who are yet to upgrade to Microsoft’s next-gen consoles may want to reconsider the Xbox Series S. The more affordable system hasn’t always delivered on its next-gen promise, but it’s now leaving the Xbox One X in the dust in recent cross-gen titles.
The technical experts at Digital Foundry reassessed the Xbox Series S’s performance against the Xbox One X, and found that the Series S is “powering ahead” in several titles like Diablo 3, Persona 3, Reload, Like A Dragon: Ishin, Assassin’s Creed Mirage and more. The gap isn’t always crystal clear, but it’s no longer the coin toss it once was.
It’s worth noting that many games are skipping the older Xbox One X altogether. What’s more, many titles are simply no longer releasing on the Xbox One X. Hellblade 2, Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 aren’t compatible with the last-gen Xbox. It’s led Digital Foundry to conclude that if you’ve been clinging on to last-gen, now is the time to upgrade.
🎮 9. Scuf Nomad is the gaming company's first mobile controller
🆕 Scuf is releasing a mobile gaming controller called the Scuf Nomad
📱 It’s compatible with iPhones and contains all the features you’d expect
👏 It could be the best way to play games remotely
📆 It’s out July 8, 2024, and costs $99
Scuf, the gaming peripheral company behind some of the best pro controllers, has announced its first mobile gamepad – and it looks like a winner. The Scuf Nomad is packed with essential features, such as including two customizable rear paddles, anti-drift Hall effect thumbsticks, an ergonomic, full-sized design, and an app that lets you tweak things to your liking.
The Scuf Nomad is available to preorder today for $99.99 in white or black. Shipping begins on July 8, 2024. One thing to note is that the Scuf Nomad only works with iPhones and isn’t compatible with Android devices yet.
😖 10. Instagram is testing unskippable ads
😫 Instagram is working on unskippable ads
⏳ You’ll have to wait until an ad has finished before you can scroll
📺 It’s similar to how YouTube implements ads
😡 Users are slamming the decision & threatened to delete the app
🙄 Of course, this may lead to a “premium” plan to remove commercial
Instagram has confirmed it is testing unskippable ads that will display a countdown timer that stops users from being able to browse through more content. Similar to how YouTube ads function, you’ll be stuck watching the advert until it ends, which may see Instagram offer a premium subscription service that will naturally remove the commercial interruptions.
The news of Instagram’s unskippable ads hasn’t gone down well users, unsurprisingly. It’s led to some saying they’d abandon the app instead of sit through ads, but we’ll have to see how it’s implemented and whether its intrusive enough to make people leave.
🔒 Bonus: Discount codes for subscribers
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