This Month On Edge

When we weren’t doing everything else, we were thinking about stuff like this

The things that caught our eye during the production of E299

HANDHELD Smach Z www.bit.ly/smachzPC

Valve’s long-rumoured assault on the living room may have failed to shake up the industry, but on this evidence the Steam Machine project may yet have a future elsewhere. Initially announced under the name Steamboy, then Smach Zero, this portable SteamOS PC was finally playable in prototype form at Gamescom, and has a campaign launching soon on Kickstarter. Available in two configurations, Smach Z will support over 1,000 Steam games, its dual-touchpad setup mimicking that of a Steam Controller. Magnetic attachments allow you to play using a D-pad and face buttons, too, making this not only the first portable Steam PC, but also the new standard in handheld emulation.

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GTA drive

Teaching self-driving car AI the rules of the road. Watch out, pedestrians

Girl power-up

Next from Sony Santa Monica: a game-design badge for US girl scouts

Demo-friendly

PSVR’s demo disc adds a hearty glug of nostalgia to Sony’s future vision

Core blimey

Miyazaki confirms FromSoft is at work on a new Armored Core

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Hogs of gore

Fun-loving PETA wants pig slaughter in Farming Simulator 17

Guardian down

It wouldn’t be The Last Guardian without one more delay, would it?

Don’t Touch

Some (cough) rare bad news for Oculus: £190 for Touch controllers

Can’t spell cheap

EA’s offer to license Iceland’s national team for FIFA 17? $15,000

TWEETS

Sure was considerate of Palmer Luckey to bring VR to the masses so they can escape the nightmare terror world he hopes to usher in. Nathan Grayson @Vahn16 Reporter, Kotaku

Silicon Valley (TV) will have to up its game to compete with Silicon Valley (RL). Matthew Wiggins @wiggo CTO, MakieLab

Well, they’re pretty similar, Vive is from the guys that made Half-Life, and Oculus is from a meme-loving 4chan-dwelling Trump-fan fuckball. Cabel Sasser @cabel Co-founder, Panic Inc

That Oculus Rift Kickstarter sure had weird stretch goals. Tim Dawson @ironicaccount Co-founder, under, Witch Beam