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Amazon’s upcoming PC MMO, New World, is getting an open beta ahead of its September 28th release date, Amazon Games announced at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live on Wednesday. The open beta will take place from September 9th to September 12th.

The public beta will give players a chance to try out the game before its official launch just a few weeks later on September 28th, even if it’s only for a few days. In addition to the open beta, Amazon Games also revealed a new trailer for the upcoming MMO showing off more of the supernatural world of New World.

New World’s open beta follows a well-received closed beta and should give more people a chance to try out the game before it officially launches. The game, like others from Amazon Games, has had a troubled history — a recent delay to September 28th from August 31st was the game’s fourth — but the open beta could be an opportunity for Amazon to iron out as many issues as possible before New World’s release.

New World is available for preorder now starting at $39.99. Unlike some other MMOs, the game won’t have a monthly subscription.

Forza Horizon 5 will look and perform best on the latest Xbox console or a high-end PC, but no matter what platform you’re playing on, you should have a good experience. That’s according to Playground Games creative director Mike Brown, who recently spoke about the differences between the various editions of Forza Horizon 5. Brown also touched on how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the development of the racing game.

“There are so many slight differences between the platforms, I think I would struggle to give you a fully accurate answer. The main improvements are through the power we have available thanks to the Xbox Series X and S … is just the phenomenal detail we’re able to pack into every scene,” he said during a recent event attended by GameSpot. “The quality of the assets is improved. The quality of the lighting is improved. The quality of the shadows is improved.”

In the Forzavista mode specifically, which allows players to examine their cars up close, Forza Horizon 5 supports ray-tracing for a further visual jump. “Everything is rendered with unparalleled realism,” Brown said.

The main difference between the Series X and Series S editions of Forza Horizon 5 will be its capability to output in 4K on the higher-end model and 1080p for the Series S.

“Other than that, it should be more or less the same. The visual fidelity should be the same. You’ll still get ray-tracing in Forzavista. Everything else should look as detailed and as glossy as it does on the Series X,” Brown said.

Moving further down the spectrum of Xbox consoles, Brown said he didn’t have information readily available regarding the specific graphics and performance statistics for older Xbox hardware. But overall, Brown said he feels confident that players will enjoy the game and its visuals no matter what platform they’re on.

“I will just say, whichever platform you’re playing on–whether it’s a base Xbox One, the Xbox One X, or a high-spec PC–you will have a really great experience in the game. It looks great on every platform,” he said.

Also during the interview, Brown discussed the impact of COVID-19 on Forza Horizon 5’s development. Thanks in part to the game’s three-year development cycle (as opposed to the normal two-year schedule), the team was able to send researchers to Mexico to capture and compile a database of assets to use as models for the game prior to the pandemic. But when the pandemic hit, the UK-based Playground Games shifted to work-from-home and Brown said the team was able to quickly and successfully pivot to this new environment.

“Obviously COVID-19 affected everybody. It affected everyone and everyone’s lives, and I don’t want to sit here and pretend that video games was the hardest thing to do during a pandemic,” Brown said. “We’re a team of problem solvers and we reacted really quickly. The team did a good job of getting everyone set up to work from home pretty much as soon as the pandemic hit. And anytime we ran into any production problems, we just instantly worked to try and solve them. The team did a really great job. It wasn’t something we planned for at the start. Equally, I don’t think it was something that massively derailed us or anything. COVID affected everyone’s lives in a ton of ways. I don’t think us transitioning to work from home was the worst of them.”

Forza Horizon 5 launches on November 9 for Xbox and PC, and it’s included with Xbox Game Pass. About a month after that, Microsoft will launch another big exclusive, Halo Infinite, on December 8, according to a recent leak.

For more on Forza Horizon 5, check out this piece, How Forza Horizon 5’s Extra Year Of Development Helped Make It A Better, More Accessible Game. Microsoft also recently announced a special-edition Forza Horizon 5 Xbox controller.

Anyone still looking for an Xbox Series X restock needs to check Walmart for a new drop later today – August 25!

If you’re still on the hunt for an Xbox Series X, we can’t blame you. After all, the next-gen consoles are still hard to find, even coming up to a year after launch.

Thankfully, we have yet another shot at the new Xbox today, August 25. According to a representative at Walmart, new Xbox Series X/S consoles will be dropping imminently.

But if today isn’t your day, don’t worry! We’ve got news about all upcoming Walmart drops this week right here:

Xbox Series X/S Restock: Best Buy, Antonline, Microsoft, Walmart, & More Expected to Drop This Week – August 23-29

Walmart Xbox Series X Drop – August 25

It seems like Walmart has new Xbox Series X consoles up for grab with each passing week, and August 25 is the date of our next drop.

The latest Walmart Xbox Series X restock will take place today, according to new reports. A post on the Xbox Series X subreddit shows user Final_Prominence talking with a Walmart Customer Service agent.

According to the Walmart employee, there is a confirmed Xbox Series X restock taking place on August 25, though a time isn’t specified just yet. Our last Walmart drop went live at 6 PM PT, so we expect a similar drop later today.

Bear in mind, however, that it seems that Walmart is restocking consoles without shipping past orders lately. Buying a console from the major retailer might lead to a significant wait before you actually receive the device.

That said, getting an Xbox Series X eventually is always better than not getting one! And although gamers report that they’re waiting weeks for an Xbox dispatch at Walmart, it’s nice to finally secure your next-gen console.

Interestingly, it seems that Walmart has Xbox consoles to sell in-store in certain areas! Be sure to check your local store regularly to avoid disappointment.

We were promised earlier this year that the Xbox Series X/S shortage was almost over. But right now, we’re definitely beginning to question those claims.

SEOUL, Aug 25 (Reuters) – A South Korean parliamentary committee voted early on Wednesday to recommend amending a law, a key step toward banning Google and Apple from forcibly charging software developers commissions on in-app purchases, the first such curb by a major economy.

After the vote from the legislation and judiciary committee to amend the Telecommunications Business Act, dubbed the “Anti-Google law,” the amendment will come to a final vote in parliament.

That vote could come on Wednesday, although South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that parliament would act at a later date. read more

A parliament official told Reuters the office had not yet received an official request not to hold the meeting on Wednesday.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google have both faced global criticism because they require software developers using their app stores to use proprietary payment systems that charge commissions of up to 30%.

In a statement on Tuesday, Apple said the bill “will put users who purchase digital goods from other sources at risk of fraud, undermine their privacy protections”, hurt user trust in App Store purchases and lead to fewer opportunities for South Korean developers.

Wilson White, senior director of public policy at Google, said “the rushed process hasn’t allowed for enough analysis of the negative impact of this legislation on Korean consumers and app developers”.

Legal experts said app store operators could work with developers and other companies to create secure payment methods other than the ones they provide.

“Google and Apple aren’t the only ones that can create a secure payment system,” said Lee Hwang, a Korea University School of Law professor specialising in competition law. “I think it’s a problem to try to inspire excessive fear by talking about safety or security about using different payment methods.”

Based on South Korean parliament records, the amendment bans app store operators with dominant market positions from forcing payment systems on content providers and “inappropriately” delaying the review of, or deleting, mobile contents from app markets.

It also allows the South Korean government to require an app market operator to “prevent damage to users and protect the rights and interests of users”, probe app market operators, and mediate disputes regarding payment, cancellations or refunds in the app market.

This month in the United States, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would rein in app stores of companies that they said exert too much market control, including Apple and Google. read more

Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Joyce Lee. Editing by Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Crusader Kings III, a game entirely about buttons and menus and likely the last thing you’d ever expect to make the jump from the PC to consoles is doing just that, with a version announced earlier today for Xbox Series X|S and PS5.

Your reaction to this news might be laughter like that headline up top, or perhaps fear at what this could possibly look like, but there’s actually precedence for this, and pretty promising precedence at that.

For starters in 2019 Paradox released another of their games, the intergalactic 4X Stellaris, on console, and it was fine. Granted Stellaris isn’t as complicated as Crusader Kings, but still, it shows Paradox know a thing or two about swapping keyboards and mice for controllers.

Next up is Civilization VI’s console release, also in 2019, which I said was “fine” because while it had its problems with stuff like game speed, the actual thing folks would have been concerned about with the port—namely how the interface would work—was nothing to worry about.

And finally, remember that while Crusader Kings III lost none of its depth and complexity moving on from II, it did clean up its interface, and so navigating its menus and priority items was made a lot easier, which means flipping through them using a controller should be a lot easier as well.

The game’s console trailer below shows some of that in action; while some menu screens will work just like they did on PC, other systems are making some changes better suited to a controller, like using radial dials, or pressing face buttons to reveal more information about something that’s current on screen. The PS5 version will even get some haptic feedback related to the game’s stress systems, while Xbox users “will be able to quickly switch between gameplay and consulting a YouTube tutorial on how to quell a peasant revolt”.

Like Civilization, though, taming a sprawling interface is only half the battle, and it remains to be seen just how well these consoles can handle the rest of the Crusader Kings experience, including its performance. Limiting its release to next-gen systems is a promising start, though, and I guess we’ll all find out together when the game is out whenever it’s out (sorry, no release date as of yet).

Trebuchets — “the ultimate medieval siege weapon,” not the sans-serif typeface created by Microsoft — are coming to Age of Empires 4 and players will be able to learn all about them in the game’s “Hands on History” segments, developers World’s Edge and Relic Entertainment announced at Gamescom 2021 on Tuesday. Adam Isgreen, creative director at World’s Edge, offered a (very) deep dive into the fan-favorite, highly memed trebuchet during Xbox’s Gamescom stream, as a way to teach players about medieval history.

Age of Empires 4 will include 28 unlockable Hands on History videos, each of which was “filmed on location with experts around the world.” In the case of ye olde trebuchet, mechanical engineer Dr. Shini Somara explained how the don’t-call-it-a-catapult works at Warwick Castle in England during a three-minute-long segment shown at Tuesday’s livestream.

World’s Edge and Relic showed off the Age of Empires 4 trebuchet in action in-game last week, in a trailer that offers a short but satisfying burst of projectile lobbing and castle sieging.

They’ve also shown off other weapons of war coming to Age of Empires 4, including the Nest of Bees, which I only learned about today and was crestfallen to discover does not shoot actual bees.

Age of Empires 4 launches on Oct. 28, on Windows PC via Steam and the Windows Store. It will be available for Xbox Game Pass for PC on launch day.

SEOUL, Aug 24 (Reuters) – South Korea is likely to bar Google and Apple from requiring software developers to use their payment systems, effectively stopping them from charging commissions on in-app purchases, the first such curbs on the tech giants by a major economy.

The parliament’s legislation and judiciary committee is expected on Tuesday to approve the amendment of the Telecommunications Business Act, dubbed the “Anti-Google law,” that takes aim at app store operators with dominant market positions.

If the bill gets the committee’s approval, it will be put to a final vote on Wednesday. Lawmakers in South Korea have pushed the issue of the commission structure since mid-2020.

In a statement, Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said the bill “will put users who purchase digital goods from other sources at risk of fraud, undermine their privacy protections, make it difficult to manage their purchases.”

The iPhone maker said it believes “user trust in App Store purchases will decrease as a result of this proposal — leading to fewer opportunities for the over 482,000 registered developers in Korea who have earned more than KRW8.55 trillion to date with Apple.”

Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google was not immediately available for comment.

Both companies have faced global criticism because they require software developers using their app stores to use proprietary in-app payment systems that charge commissions of up to 30% on in-app purchases.

“For gaming apps, Google has been forcing app developers to use its own payment system … and it wants to expand its policy to other apps like music or webtoon,” said Kwon Se-hwa, a general manager at the Korea Internet Corporations Association, a nonprofit group representing Korean IT firms.

“If the new bill becomes the law, developers will have options to use other independent payment systems,” Kwon said.

The European Union last year proposed the Digital Markets Act, taking aim at app store commissions. The rules are designed to affect large companies, but some European lawmakers are in favour of tightening them to specifically target American technology giants, Reuters reported in June. read more

Earlier this month in the United States, a bipartisan trio of senators introduced a bill that would rein in app stores of companies that they said exert too much market control, including Apple and Google. read more

In South Korea, the home market of Android phone maker Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS), Google Play Store earned revenue of nearly 6 trillion won ($5.15 billion) in 2019, according to a government report published last year.

Earlier this year, Google said it would lower the service fee it charges developers on its app store from 30% to 15% on the first $1 million they earn in revenue in a year. Apple has made similar moves. read more

For Apple too, commissions from in-app purchases are a key part of its $53.8 billion services business, and are a major expense for some app developers.

In May, an antitrust lawsuit filed by the maker of the popular game Fortnite against Apple revealed that the game maker paid $100 million in commissions to Apple over two years. read more

($1 = 1,165.1800 won)

Reporting by Heekyong Yang in Seoul, Additional reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco
Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Samsung unveiled two new smartwatches—Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic—this month. They succeed the Galaxy Watch Active 2 and the Galaxy Watch 3, respectively, and they bring various improvements in terms of hardware and software.

The new smartwatches are available for pre-order in various markets around the world. In our review, we found them to be excellent new products that reinvent the Android smartwatch, and to further help you decide if you should buy the Galaxy Watch 4 or Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, we’ve rounded up what we think are their best features.

Galaxy Watch 4 series runs Wear OS 3

The biggest upgrade that Samsung is bringing with its new smartwatches is on the software front. The Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic are the company’s first smartwatches to run Wear OS 3, which is co-developed by Google and Samsung. The new platform is said to be fast, cohesive, and power-efficient.

On top of Wear OS 3, the new wearables run Samsung’s own One UI Watch 3 interface that includes additional features, including the ability to automatically install watch versions of apps that are installed on your connected smartphone. One UI Watch will also sync settings between phone and watch versions of the apps.

Wear OS also brings access to thousands of popular apps and watch faces via the Play Store. It has already been revealed that Spotify and YouTube Music will support offline music playback directly via the Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. Other apps such as Google Assistant, Google Maps, Google Pay, and Nike Run+ will be available as well.

Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic feature brand-new Exynos processor, higher memory

Samsung has made a brand-new Exynos processor for the Galaxy Watch 4 series. The two new smartwatches come equipped with the Exynos W920 chipset that is made using the extremely power-efficient 5nm process. It features two Cortex-A55 CPU cores and the Mali-G68 GPU. The Exynos W920 makes the Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic much faster and power-efficient than any other Wear OS smartwatch.

The company’s new smartwatches also feature 1.5GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage. That’s 3x more RAM and 2x more storage compared to the Galaxy Watch 3. Higher RAM means smoother multitasking, while higher storage offers you a way to store thousands of music tracks offline so that you can listen to them while running or cycling and space for installing more apps.

The Galaxy Watch 4 series also features 4G LTE (in some variants), dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 5.0, and NFC. You can also take calls, check notifications, and make mobile payments using the new smartwatches.

Samsung’s new smartwatches can accurately track your activity and fitness

Both new smartwatches come equipped with the latest sensors, including an accelerometer, barometer, compass, ECG, gyro, and a heart-rate monitor, to track your physical activity and fitness. Thanks to the inclusion of GPS, they can also track your outdoor activities like cycling, running, and swimming. The Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 can also track your body fat composition, sleep quality, SpO2 levels, and stress levels.

They are built tough, thanks to IP68 rating and MIL-STD-810G design

Despite packing such powerful hardware and an elegant design, the Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic are built extremely tough. They are IP68 certified for dust and water resistance (up to 5 ATM). The watches are also MIL-STD-810G-compliant for shock resistance. You can take them swimming as well.

Yes, the rotating bezel is still here

Samsung knows that people love the rotating bezel on their Galaxy smartwatches, and the company has included the feature on the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. It not only makes the watch look good but also makes navigating through the UI a breeze. The Galaxy Watch 4 lacks the rotating bezel, though, and suits those who like more compact smartwatches.

Galaxy Watch 4 series is extremely customizable

Both smartwatches offer high levels of customizations so that you can make them your own. You can replace the bundled 20mm watch straps with any third-party ones to match your style. You can also choose from thousands of watch faces that are available on the Play Store. As usual, Samsung has made multiple new watch faces for the Galaxy Watch 4 series, and you can customize them by changing the color scheme and adding complications.

Galaxy Watch 4 last long and offer wireless charging

Samsung claims that its new smartwatches can last up to 40 hours on a single charge. The 40mm version of the Galaxy Watch 4 and the 42mm version of the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic are powered by 247mAh batteries, while the 44mm version of the Galaxy Watch 4 and the 46mm version of the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic come packed with 361mAh batteries. They also support Qi wireless charging, which means that you can also charge them via your high-end Galaxy smartphone with Wireless PowerShare.

They let you play music, take calls, and make payments on the go

The LTE variants of the new smartwatches feature an eSIM, which means that you can take calls, stream music on Spotify, and even make payments (via Google Pay or Samsung Pay) even when you’ve left your phone at home. The Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic feature Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 5.0, and NFC.