This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here. About three years ago, a doctor told me I had to lose abdominal fat. She didn't care about my lower […]
Category: Gaming
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How to survive the memory shortage crisis: a PC owner's guide
Urgh. Have you seen memory prices lately? If you somehow haven’t, make sure to look through your fingers, as they are truly terrifying. DDR5 RAM sticks are ungodly expensive, older DDR4's not much better, high VRAM graphics cards are ridiculous, and any PC hardware that includes at least one of these (which is a lot) is suffering ludicrous price hikes in turn. That includes the new Steam Machine, while handheld PCs are being stripped of affordable options, and next-gen, standalone VR headsets are unlikely to do much better.
But we’re been here before, right? We made it through the crypto-mining-induced GPU price spikes of 2018, the 2011 hard drive shortages caused by flooding in Thailand, and the pandemic-driven PC surge. Remember the Discord stock alerts? The retailer lotteries? The waiting lines for websites?
We can do this. We can weather the storm of new memory price hikes. But we don’t have to do it in silence. We don’t need to damn our enthusiasm for the PCs that play our PC games. There are ways to still upgrade and improve your rig, and its gaming prowess, even with memory prices as ridiculous as they are.
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Fitbit’s Charge 6 and kid-friendly Ace LTE are much cheaper for Prime Day
Prime Day is making it much easier to pick up a Fitbit without spending more than you want. Both the Fitbit Charge 6 and Fitbit Ace LTE are on steep discounts today. Right now, you can buy the Charge 6 for $85.45 ($74.5 off) at Amazon, while the kid-friendly Fitbit Ace LTE is $69.99 (a […]
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It’s now the Arduino Uno Q’s turn to get a price hike
Arduino's Raspberry Pi-like microcomputer the Uno Q is joining many other devices in getting a price hike this week. The 2GB version of the Uno Q, which is powered by a Qualcomm Dragonwing QRB2210 processor, will increase in price from $44 to $59, while the 4GB model is getting a slightly steeper increase from $59 […]
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Deep and volatile Terraria-style factory sim Sandustry hits early access in August, Hooded Horse announce
Driven witless by the UK heatwave, I throw open my email inbox and search desperately for videogames about waterfalls, canopies of thick palm leaves, and the sibilant settling of ice in the bellies of the largest, most enduring glaciers. Instead, I am challenged to excavate a world of sand.
Hooded Horse and Lantto Games have announced an early access release date for Sandustry, their 2D factory-building game in which resources break down into pixels with individual physics. It's out in early access via Steam, GOG, and the Microsoft Store on August 13th. Please be careful when watching the below trailer. It may absorb whatever body fluids you have left.
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Switch 2 is the second fastest-selling console in US history, as PlayStation records its worst May in decades – and Xbox its worst May ever
Let's start with the good news: Switch 2 has become the second fastest-selling console in US history, after just 12 months on sale. It shifted a whopping 5.9m units, placing it only behind Nintendo's own Game Boy Advance – which sold 6.5m units in the 12 months after it arrived, 25 years ago. Read more