Month: March 2021

Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.

This video has an invalid file format.

Razer has launched a brand-new type of product, aimed not only at gamers but also the many people still working behind a computer at home. If you’ve been looking for a device to both protect your eyes and take your calls, the Razer Anzu Smart Glasses fit that specific niche.

$200

The $200 pair of frames is Razer’s first foray into eyewear, with the largest focus on protecting user’s eyes from the harmful blue light most displays produce. The included lenses filter out 35% of blue light from all your digital devices, while the supplementary polarized lenses feature 99% UVA/UVB protection outdoors.

The Razer Anzu Smart Glasses are available right now from Razer’s website, with both rectangular and rounded styles to choose from. Razer is also offering different sizes (small, medium and large), with the largest weighing less than 48g.

Nickelodeon has greenlit The Patrick Star Show, the SpongeBob SquarePants spin-off series. In addition, the first image from the starfish-starring show has been released.

For the first season, 13 episodes of The Patrick Star Show have been ordered, and the show will debut sometime this summer. The Patrick Star Show will be a family sitcom focusing on the titular character and his family, who have to constantly deal with Patrick’s antics. The SpongeBob Twitter released an image from the show, which you can check out below.

“Nickelodeon is diving deeper into Bikini Bottom to give fans a look at our lovable young adult Patrick Star and his entire family with a sitcom only he could imagine up,” said Ramsey Naito, president of Nickelodeon Animation in a press release. “This second original spinoff allows us to expand our reach, tell new stories and connect with our audience around the world who continue to love these characters.”

Longtime Patrick Star voice actor Bill Fagerbakke will continue in the role on the new show. He’ll be joined by new cast members like Tom Wilson (Back to the Future) as Patrick’s father Cecil, Cree Summer (A Different World) as Patrick’s mother Bunny, Jill Talley (Mr. Show) as Patrick’s little sister Squidina, and Dana Snyder (Aqua Teen Hunger Force) Patrick’s grandfather GrandPat.

Executive producing the series are Marc Ceccarelli, Vincent Waller, and Jennie Monica.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

ASUS may have accidentally leaked the existence of a fourth Nvidia GPU set to release for laptops, listing the unannounced RTX 3050 Ti as an option for one of its upcoming laptops.

The product listing for the ASUS TUF Dash F15, spotted by Videocardz, lists configurations featuring two RTX models already available for laptops, namely the RTX 3060 and RTX 3070. But its third configuration mentions the RTX 3050 Ti, with the listing mentioning that the GPU will feature just 4GB of GDDR6 memory. Clock speeds and power consumption are not disclosed on the listing.

This would make the RTX 3050 Ti the most entry-level Ampere GPU Nvidia has released thus far, especially with such a restrictive memory allocation (for reference, the incredibly popular GTX 970 featured 4GB of VRAM, albeit with much slower memory). The RTX 3060 for laptops was already stretching it with just 6GB of VRAM, making it a tough sell for modern gaming on the go.

The overall performance of the RTX 3050 Ti will likely be just as confusing as the rest of the Ampere laptop line, now that Nvidia has done away with its Max-Q branding. The company has started forcing AIB laptop makers to specifically specify power consumption and core clock speeds of its GPUs to make real-world performance clearer, but determining just how powerful a laptop with any of these GPUs can be is trickier than it should be.

If the RTX 3050 Ti is already showing up in product listing then you can expect Nvidia to make an official announcement soon. This follows AMD’s announcement of its RX 6700 XT earlier this week, during which it teased 6000 series laptop GPU news soon.

A new live-action movie based on the acclaimed manga and anime Hellsing is in development at Amazon. Deadline reports that the film will be adapted by John Wick writer Derek Kolstad.

Hellsing was created by Kouta Hirano and is a retelling of the Dracula myth, in which the iconic vampire is reimagined as a special agent who works for the Hellsing Organization and helps protect England from a variety of supernatural threats. The manga ran from 1997 to 2008, while an anime series was produced in 2001. In the US, it was broadcast by Adult Swim in 2014.

There’s no word yet on casting or a director for the Hellsing movie. In a statement, producer Mike Callaghan said, “I’ve always loved the vampire genre, especially when a creator is able to put their own unique spin on it, so when Derek introduced me to Alucard and the Hellsing Organization, I knew we had something special in that tradition. Kouta Hirano’s gonzo reimagining of the Dracula-Van Helsing mythology is an exhilarating, quirky mashup of action and horror that’s unlike anything we’ve seen before.”

Hellsing isn’t the only high profile anime series getting a live-action adaptation from a big streaming service. The classic sci-fi show Cowboy Bebop is being adapted by Netflix, with a cast that includes John Cho, Alex Hassell, and Daniella Pineda.

Kolstad’s next movie will be the action comedy Nobody. The film stars Bob Odenkirk and it hits theaters in April–check out the latest Nobody trailer.

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer is a big fan of Nintendo, as we’ve seen with the two companies’ collaboration over the last few years, and he made an appearance in a new Nintendo documentary.

Playing With Power: The Nintendo Story is a five-part documentary series available to stream for free on Crackle. It features interviews with a wide variety of video game experts and industry legends, Spencer being among them. According to VGC, Spencer praised Nintendo’s focus on creating a family-friendly and inviting atmosphere for gaming, adding that he doesn’t think it’s possible to decouple Nintendo from the industry as a whole.

Spencer also admitted he didn’t understand the N64 controller’s design–to be fair, few people do–but praised how Nintendo boldly innovates in ways its competitors don’t. We’ve certainly seen that several times, from the DS to the Wii, along with less-successful examples like the Virtual Boy and Wii U.

He also stressed that sometimes, it’s the strengths of Nintendo’s brands that help it succeed. With Pokemon Go, for instance (Nintendo is a partial owner of The Pokemon Company), Microsoft’s internal team saw its success and an employee thought it meant AR was the future.

“And I challenged him a bit to say, ‘Well, really what you have, is you’re seeing the strength of Pokemon,'” Spencer added. “And it just happens to be an AR game.”

Microsoft and Nintendo are still technically competitors, of course, but this has turned into something of a symbiotic relationship for the companies in recent years. Microsoft publishes games on Nintendo’s platforms, including Minecraft, and both companies allow cross-play in several titles. Sony eventually jumped on board the cross-play train, as well, after holding out initially.

Playing With Power: The Nintendo Story is available on Crackle now. All five episodes can be streamed here, and they chronicle its history from the earliest days of playing cards to the Nintendo Switch today.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

The upcoming horror sequel A Quiet Place Part II will be released on May 28. The movie was previously set to arrive in September, but it has now been brought forward several months.

The new release date for A Quiet Place Part II was announced on Twitter by director John Krasinski, who stated, “They always say good things come to those who wait. Well… I think we’ve waited long enough.” Check it out below:

A Quiet Place Part II was originally set to be released in March last year and was one of the first films to be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The movie was initially given a September 2020 release, before being pushed back an entire year in January.

The decision to move the film forward follows this week’s launch of Paramount+, the rebranding of ViacomCBS’s CBS All Access service. It was announced last month that big movies such as Mission Impossible 7, No Time To Die, and A Quiet Place Part II will be released onto the service 45 day after they hit theaters. A Quiet Place Part II can therefore be expected to be available on Paramount+ in early July, although a streaming release date has not been confirmed yet.

Theaters are starting to open more widely in both the US and internationally. Last week, New York City governor Andrew Cuomo announced that New York heaters can reopen at 25% capacity. This is the first time that they have been allowed to open in this key market since they closed in March last year. In addition, UK theaters are set to reopen on May 17, providing a series of conditions about hospitalization rates are met.

A Quiet Place: Part 2 stars Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Djimon Hounsou, and Cillian Murphy. It’s written and directed by Krasinski, who also helmed the first movie. Check out the trailer here. There’s also a third movie in the works, to be directed by Jeff Nichols (Midnight Special).