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It emerged last week that Roblox would finally make its bow on PlayStation some time this October, and Sony revealed the exact date during its State of Play showcase. You’ll be able to hop into the ultra-popular sandbox on PS4 and PS5 (albeit through backward compatibility) on October 10. There will be full cross-platform support, so you should be able to check out the many, many experiences Roblox has to offer with your friends, even if they access it via mobile, PC, VR or Xbox. 

Sony had been opposed to having Roblox on PlayStation for some time owing to safety concerns (most of Roblox’s 66 million daily active users are younger players). But court documents that emerged during the recent FTC and Microsoft legal battle indicated that Sony’s stance on the issue softened as of last year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/roblox-is-coming-to-playstation-on-october-10-212727224.html?src=rss 

Hades is widely considered one of the best games of 2020, but players were able to get their hands on it long before then as it hit early access in December 2018. The hotly anticipated sequel is on a similar path, and developer Supergiant Games has revealed roughly when you’ll be able to try it.

Hades II will enter early access on PC in Q2 2024 — in other words, sometime next spring — via Steam and the Epic Games Store. Supergiant will reveal the exact early access release date and details such as pricing and system requirements in the coming months.

Supergiant noted in a blog post that it’s planning for Hades II to have at least as much content in early access from the jump as the original did during its early access period. “Even though early access inherently means a game is not yet complete, we still want to do everything we can to make sure Hades II is worth your while as soon as you can play it in any capacity,” the studio said.

Some folks will be able to check out Hades II even earlier as Supergiant is planning a technical test. The aim of this is to unearth and resolve compatibility or technical issues before more players hop in during early access. However, the build for the technical test will have “much less content than what’s in store for the early access launch, and likely be limited only to a relatively small subset of players who express interest in participating.”

Early access can be enormously helpful for a game’s success, as Supergiant and Baldur’s Gate III developer Larian Studios have found. So the former is sticking with a similar rollout plan for Hades II. “We believe the timeframe we’re planning for will be the ‘sweet spot’ where the game is far enough along that player feedback won’t mostly consist of stuff we already know isn’t there yet, but isn’t so far along that it’s too late in development for us to act on the feedback we receive,” the studio wrote.

Supergiant plans to release major updates to Hades II during the early access period and to make changes based on feedback. The story and number of characters will expand, as will relationships between existing ones (it’s reasonable to assume there will be a lot of sexual tension this time around too). Supergiant will wrap up the story when it releases the full version of Hades II, but it doesn’t have a clear sense of when that will be just yet. Console players, sadly, may have to wait until then.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youll-be-able-to-play-hades-ii-on-pc-next-spring-180315949.html?src=rss 

TikTok and Billboard are collaborating on a pop music chart. TikTok Billboard Top 50 Chart is a new weekly roundup listing the most popular songs on the social platform in the US. The list debuts with the track “SkeeYee” by Sexyy Red taking the inaugural top spot.

TikTok and Billboard describe the collaboration as the first official chart in the US to provide the “most accurate record” of the hottest songs on the platform. As TikTok has proven it can even revive the fortunes of four-decade-old classic rock tunes, the company says its chart combines creations, video views and user engagement by the US TikTok community to tally the top hits. The list will be updated weekly on Thursdays.

Following Sexyy Red’s top spot is Doja Cat, with “Paint The Town Red” at number two. “August” by Taylor Swift, who has six songs in the top 50, lands at number three. The list includes one startling entry: Convicted sex offender R. Kelly somehow appears at number 45 with his unfortunately titled song “It Seems Like You’re Ready.”

“I am so excited that so many of my songs are charting on TikTok and Billboard’s new chart,” said Sexyy Red. “I always knew I would be a #1 type of artist, so I want to thank all my fans on TikTok for running my music up! I’m just being me on TikTok and people love it.”

You can check out the weekly charts in the TikTok app by selecting the round icon on the screen’s bottom corner and then tapping the “Music Charts” button on the top right. Alternatively, you can view the Top 50 chart on Billboard’s website.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/billboards-latest-top-50-chart-pulls-the-biggest-tracks-from-tiktok-181120151.html?src=rss 

The Steam Deck is on sale again, for those on the fence about purchasing the ubermensch of portable gaming consoles. This is part of Steam’s 20th anniversary celebration and new buyers get 10 to 20 percent off, depending on which model you choose. The bare-bones 64GB version now costs $360 instead of $400, the mid-level 256GB iteration costs $450 instead of $530 and the baddest of the bunch, the 512GB behemoth, sets you back $520 instead of $650.

This matches a sale from earlier this summer for the console. Previous discounts have capped out at around ten percent, so a deep cut of 20 percent for the 512GB model is nothing to sneeze at. You’ll have to wait one to two weeks to get your precious portable console, but early adopters had to stand by for months and months, so consider yourself lucky.

The Steam Deck is a powerful portable console that plays AAA titles like Elden Ring and even Baldur’s Gate 3, in addition to hundreds upon hundreds of unique indie games. Some of the more popular releases that excel on the platform include Hogwarts Legacy, The Witcher 3 and, of course, Vampire Survivors.

Valve’s anniversary sale also extends to games, with deep discounts on self-published titles like Half Life 2 and standout hits from the past 20 years, such as Counter-Strike and Left 4 Dead. Newer games are also getting in on the fun, as Resident Evil: Village, Valheim, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and other modern classics are on sale. The discounts stop on September 19th, so grab your games or console while you can.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/valves-steam-deck-is-up-to-20-percent-off-right-now-190052126.html?src=rss 

Sony is hosting a State of Play livestreamed event today. Sony says the announcement will include “something for everyone,” focusing primarily on indie and third-party titles and promising updates on flagship games and PS VR2.

The State of Play follows the Nintendo Switch Direct from earlier today. Upcoming titles revealed in that event included the Switch games Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Princess Peach: Showtime, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Dave the Diver.

The PlayStation State of Play stream starts at 5PM ET today and will be available on PlayStation’s YouTube, Twitch and TikTok accounts. Or you can watch the embedded video below.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/watch-sonys-latest-state-of-play-here-at-5pm-et-193021890.html?src=rss 

The CEOs of leading AI companies — including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Open AI’s Sam Altman — appeared before Congress once again on Wednesday. But instead of the normal bombast and soapboxing we see during public hearings about the dangers of unfettered AI development, this conversation reportedly took on far more muted tones. 

In all, more than 20 tech and civil society leaders spoke with lawmakers at Wednesday’s meeting, organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to discuss how AI development should be regulated moving forward. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Todd Young (R-IN) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) who were also in attendance and reportedly working with the majority leader to draft additional proposals. 

The word of the day: consensus. “First, I asked everyone in the room, ‘Is government needed to play a role in regulating AI?’ and every single person raised their hands even though they had diverse views,” Schumer told reporters Wednesday. 

But as Bloomberg reports, “areas of disagreement were apparent throughout the morning session” with Zuckerberg, Altman and Bill Gates all differing on the risks posed by open-source AI (three guesses as to where old Monopoly Bill came down on that issue). True to form, Elon Musk got into it with “Berkeley researcher Deb Raji for appearing to downplay concerns about AI-powered self-driving cars, according to one of the people in the room,” Bloomberg reports.

“Some people mentioned licensing and testing and other ways of regulation … there were various suggestions as to how to do it, but no consensus emerged yet,” Schumer said following the event.

“That’s probably the worst wedding to try to do seating for,” Humane Intelligence CEO Rumman Chowdhury said of the event as an attendee. She also noted that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg did not interact and sat at opposite ends of the room-width table — presumably to keep the two bloodthirsty cagefighting CEOs from throwing down and Royal Rumbling the esteemed proceedings.

The meeting participants generally agreed that the federal government needs to “help to deal with what we call transformational innovation,” one unnamed participant suggested. That could entail creating a $32 billion fund that would assist with “the kind of stuff that maximizes the benefits of AI,” Schumer told reporters.

Following the seven-hour event, Facebook released Mark Zuckerberg’s official remarks. They cover the company’s long-standing talking points about developing and rolling out the technology “in a responsible manner,” coordinating its efforts with civil society leaders (instead of say, allegedly fomenting genocide like that one time in Myanmar) and ensuring “that America continue to lead in this area and define the technical standard that the world uses.” 

In a departure from his rhetoric in recent years warning of perceived growing threats from China, Zuckerberg pointed to a new boogieman: “the next leading open source model … out of Abu Dhabi.”  This appears to have been a thinly-veiled reference to the UAE’s recent entrance into AI development. 

Elon Musk, famed libertarian and bloodsworn enemy of the FTC, warned reporters corralled outside of the hearing about the “civilizational risk” posed by AI. He wants a Federal Department of AI to help regulate the industry. He reportedly envisions it operating similarly to the FAA or SEC (two more agencies Musk has been variously scolded by) but did not elaborate beyond that. “I think this meeting could go down in history as important to the future of civilization,” he told reporters.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai-tech-leaders-make-all-the-right-noises-at-cozy-closed-door-senate-meeting-194505318.html?src=rss 

Major League Baseball is ready to test its virtual ballpark for a regular-season game. Fans can “enter” the digital stadium on Wednesday, September 20, to watch the Tampa Bay Rays host the Los Angeles Angels. The league debuted the digital park earlier this summer for a celebrity softball game during this year’s All-Star Game activities. Next week’s game will mark the first non-exhibition game to deploy the metaverse-like digital park.

The game will include a “3D representation” of on-field avatars corresponding to the game’s real-time action, tracked using the same Sony Hawk-Eye cameras used for the league’s Statcast data. In addition, participants who prefer a traditional view can watch the game’s television broadcast on the virtual park’s giant Jumbotrons floating around the field and parking lot. There should be plenty to keep you occupied if the on-field play gets dull: The stadium supports spatial audio, and you can talk with nearby fans, play trivia games and take part in a scavenger hunt to win NFT collectible “cards.”

The entire setup sounds like something you’d eventually use with a VR or AR headset like the Meta Quest or Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro. While it may be a precursor to those more immersive experiences, you’ll access this game on flat screens through a web browser. MLB says a desktop or laptop provides the best experience, but it recommends Safari on iOS or Chrome on Android if you want to tune in on mobile.

The experience begins at 6:40PM ET on September 20. You’ll need to create an MLB profile to join. After that, you can head to the park’s webpage to create a custom avatar (rocking your favorite team’s apparel) and start exploring.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-angels-face-the-marlins-in-mlbs-first-regular-season-virtual-ballpark-game-202934979.html?src=rss