New Xbox Series X Controller Color Revealed
Xbox Series X preorders are live, and if you want to pick up an extra controller, there are a number of new options to choose from. The first is a new colour for the Xbox Series X controller: Shock Blue. While the previously revealed Carbon Black and Robot White controllers have an MSRP of $60, the Shock Blue variant costs slightly more at $65.
In addition to the new controller, Microsoft has updated its PC controller bundles to include the new Xbox Series X controller. All of these controllers and bundles will be available on November 10, the same day the Xbox Series X and S launch. Some of these products are available to preorder now.
Xbox Series X/S wireless controller – Shock Blue
$65
The Shock Blue Xbox controller features a blue front plate with blue buttons and analog sticks, accompanied by black triggers, shoulder buttons, and D-pad. Flip the controller over, and you see a white back plate that works great as an accent to the other two colours. The controller was designed for Xbox Series X and S, but it also works with Xbox One, PC, and compatible Bluetooth devices.
Microsoft’s PC controller bundles will now include the Carbon Black Xbox controller with either a USB-C cable for $60 or a USB wireless adapter for $80. However, you don’t need the adapter to connect to your PC wirelessly if your setup features Bluetooth connectivity.
Samsung’s New 980 Pro SSDs Might Be Fast Enough For PS5
Solid-state drives, or SSDs, keeping getting quicker and quicker. If you’ve recently upgraded your PC with a motherboard that supports PCIe 4.0, then you have access to some of the fastest drives out there. This includes Samsung’s new 980 Pro, which could be fast enough to be used as expandable storage for the PlayStation 5, pending Sony’s confirmation that it will fit in the next-gen console.
The NVMe M.2 drive is Samsung’s new flagship storage option, boasting sequential read/write speeds of up to 7,000MB/s and 5,000MB/s, respectively. To put that into perspective, that’s already twice as fast as the maximum capabilities of PCIe 3.0, as well as 13 times faster than the more popular SATA SSDs that have become incredibly cheaper over the last few months.
Samsung 980 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD
Starts at $90
The Samsung 980 Pro releases October 12 and comes in three sizes: 250GB for $90, 500GB for $150, and 1TB for $230. Samsung says a 2TB model is coming later this year but has not shared its price yet.
Of course, you’ll need a motherboard that supports PCIe 4.0 to really bring the best out of the 980 Pro, and Samsung is seemingly aware that most of its customers won’t have that yet. The 980 Pro is still compatible on PCIe 3.0 boards and features some impressive speeds on the more limited interface. With sequential read/write speeds of 3,500MB/s and 3,450MB/s respectively, this could be a great drive to use now and future-proof your PC for the years to com.
Pokemon Go Is Holding A Team Rocket Event Before Jessie And James Leave The Game
Team Rocket’s Jessie and James made their debut in Pokemon Go earlier this summer, but they won’t be around for much longer. The duo are set to leave the game on September 30, but before then, Niantic is holding a little event that gives you more chances to battle them before they blast off for good.
Starting today, September 22, at 12 PM local time, Jessie and James will appear in Pokemon Go more often than usual, so you’ll have more opportunities to challenge them to battles and rescue their Shadow Pokemon. Unlike other Team Go Rocket grunts, Jessie and James will appear above the world map in their signature Meowth-shaped hot air balloon, so you’ll know immediately when you’ve spotted them.
The Team Rocket event runs through the end of the month, until 11:59 PM local time on September 30, when the duo will leave the game. It’s not yet clear if Jessie and James will return to Pokemon Go in the future, so if you want to add their Shadow Ekans and Koffing to your collection, you’ll need to battle them before they depart. You can read more about the event on the Pokemon Go website.
Surprise! Xbox Preorders Were A Total Mess, Too
Xbox Series X and S preorders went live this morning right on time, as Microsoft announced they would. At least, they did in some places. For some people. As long as you weren’t stuck in a queue, or told it was sold out when it seemingly was not. Well, at least Amazon had pictures of cute dogs to keep you company.
Predictably, Xbox preorders were a shitshow, demonstrating for the third time in a short span (after the RTX 3080 and PS5) that retailer websites just aren’t equipped to deal with this level of heavy demand. Microsoft appears to have done what it could, announcing that preorders would go live at a specified time so that people could be prepared, rather than giving bots the opportunity to scrape everything up as they went live. But everyone knowing exactly when preorders would begin also ensured the maximum amount of traffic to all of these websites, and none of them seem to have handled it particularly well.
For starters, neither Amazon nor Best Buy had their preorders available right at 8 AM PT. That may have meant you were stuck frustratingly refreshing those pages, expecting them to be live any second, when you could have been spending your time frustratingly refreshing pages on Walmart, Target, and the Xbox Store, where there were consoles to place orders on right away.
Dishonored, Prey Dev Arkane Hiring For Unannounced AAA Project
Developer Arkane Studios is hiring for some unannounced AAA title. This comes not long after the Dishonored and Prey creator was scooped up by Microsoft, along with other ZeniMax Media studios for $7.5 billion.
According to a Twitter thread by user MauroNL3, a number of positions are open at Arkane’s Austin, Texas and Lyon, France locations. The availabilities run the gamut from character animation engineer and engine programmer to systems designer and tools programmer. Many of the positions hint at what Arkane plans to work on next.
The graphics engineer position in Austin is looking for someone with Unreal Engine 4 familiarity, signaling a possible engine change for the studio. Most of Arkane’s games, with the exception of Prey, run on a form of id Tech, a proprietary engine developed by id Software.
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Season 6 Brings Back Some Familiar Faces
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is fast approaching, but if you’re still getting your first-person shooting fix with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, you have more seasonal content to look forward to next week.
Season 6 for both Modern Warfare’s multiplayer and the free-to-play battle royale, Warzone, is launching on all platforms on September 29. The trailer for the new season brings back two of Modern Warfare’s main characters–freedom fighter Farah Karim and Soviet soldier Nikolai. The two are involved in an operation underground, with an abandoned subway station looking like a new map setting for the new season.
The trailer doesn’t reveal much else about what will be included in Season 6 or what will be exclusive to Warzone. You can probably bet on getting both Farah and Nikolai as operators with the battle pass, as has been the tradition with past season-headlining characters.
Hey, You: It’s National Voter Registration Day, So Register To Vote
We all have a lot of fun here talking about video games and movies and occasionally Lego Baby Yodas, but there’s one thing that’s no laughing matter: democracy. The United States election is coming up, and today is National Voter Registration Day. The holiday (of sorts) is a reminder to make sure you’re registered to vote in November.
“But where do I start?” you may ask. I’m so glad you did! The National Voter Registration Day site has all the information and resources you need to check your voter registration in your state or territory. If you aren’t registered, you can go straight from there to the correct registration link, or even request a mail-in ballot. Registering to vote is important, because without a proper registration you may not be able to vote in November.
But don’t just listen to me, listen to important people like these celebrities.
Attack On Titan Final Season Coming To Funimation Later This Year
Attack on Titan fans finally have confirmation about the upcoming fourth season. Funimation announced that the Attack on Titan final season sub and dub will be available on its streaming service later this year. The subtitled episodes will stream day and date with its Japanese broadcast in the US, Canada, the UK, and Ireland.
While no date has been announced, Funimation has released an official trailer for the upcoming season, which you can watch below.
Animation studio MAPPA replaced Attack on Titan’s original studio, WIT, for work on the final season. With the MAPPA takover, Jun Shishido and Yuichiro Hayashi replaced Tetsuro Araki and Masashi Koizuka as chief director and series director, respectively. MAPPA is the studio responsible for hit Yuri on Ice, on which Shishido was the chief director, as well as other well-known series like Hajime no Ippo and Kakegurui.
Destiny 2 Just Added A Mission Honoring A Developer – Here’s How To Find It
Destiny 2‘s September 22 weekly reset came with a small hotfix, as well as another new addition: a tribute to Vicarious Visions developer Matt Helsom, who worked on Destiny 2 during the years it was being published by Activision. Helsom died in 2019, and a short new mission commemorates his contribution by writing him into Destiny lore as a Golden Age figure.
Fire up Destiny 2 starting today and you’ll see a screen that directs you to Mars to investigate a signal. You won’t see this mission in your quest log or receive any markers to track it, thanks to the fact that this isn’t your usual Destiny 2 excursion. To find the tribute, head to the Braytech Futurescape area of Mars and head north into the building, past Ana Bray, toward the Mindlab: Rasputin area.
