Month: June 2022

Enlarge / We knew Sony was bullish about PC game launches in 2022, but we didn't think Spider-Man would be included. Great news for PC gamers. (credit: Sony / Insomniac / Nixxes)

On Thursday, Sony's latest game-filled "State of Play" presentation included fantastic news for PC gamers: Its critically acclaimed Marvel's Spider-Man is coming to Windows PCs on August 12. The news arrived shortly after a leak suggesting that Returnal and Sackboy: A Big Adventure are not only coming to PC this year, as well, but will include toggles to make them look and perform better than their PlayStation 5 versions.

The event was jam-packed with impressive-looking new games, though most of them have been given 2023 release dates (and everything shown on the upcoming PlayStation VR 2 platform is thus far undated, as that new peripheral still doesn't have a release date). As PC gaming enthusiasts, however, we want to start with the PC-specific news.

Why Sony's PC bullishness makes us believe today's leak

Marvel's Spider-Man launched on PlayStation 4 and PS4 Pro in September 2018 and landed near the top of our favorite games of that year. Its PC port, which we are still surprised to see, given what a PlayStation console sales driver it's been, will arrive on PC courtesy of Nixxes, a development studio known for some of the best console-to-PC ports of the past decade. Sony acquired Nixxes in early 2021, but up until today, that acquisition hadn't yet borne fruit, as Sony's other recent Windows game releases didn't credit Nixxes in any way.

Enlarge / We knew Sony was bullish about PC game launches in 2022, but we didn't think Spider-Man would be included. Great news for PC gamers. (credit: Sony / Insomniac / Nixxes)

On Thursday, Sony's latest game-filled "State of Play" presentation included fantastic news for PC gamers: Its critically acclaimed Marvel's Spider-Man is coming to Windows PCs on August 12. The news arrived shortly after a leak suggesting that Returnal and Sackboy: A Big Adventure are not only coming to PC this year, as well, but will include toggles to make them look and perform better than their PlayStation 5 versions.

The event was jam-packed with impressive-looking new games, though most of them have been given 2023 release dates (and everything shown on the upcoming PlayStation VR 2 platform is thus far undated, as that new peripheral still doesn't have a release date). As PC gaming enthusiasts, however, we want to start with the PC-specific news.

Why Sony's PC bullishness makes us believe today's leak

Marvel's Spider-Man launched on PlayStation 4 and PS4 Pro in September 2018 and landed near the top of our favorite games of that year. Its PC port, which we are still surprised to see, given what a PlayStation console sales driver it's been, will arrive on PC courtesy of Nixxes, a development studio known for some of the best console-to-PC ports of the past decade. Sony acquired Nixxes in early 2021, but up until today, that acquisition hadn't yet borne fruit, as Sony's other recent Windows game releases didn't credit Nixxes in any way.

Enlarge / White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha speaks alongside White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during the daily press briefing at the White House on June 02, 2022 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty | Kevin Dietsch)

COVID-19 vaccination for children ages 6 months to under five years—the only age group yet to be eligible for vaccination—is expected to get underway on June 21, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said in a press briefing Thursday.

The Food and Drug Administration is now reviewing data from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech on their respective vaccines for the young age group. The agency will convene its panel of independent expert advisors to review the data on June 15 and vote on whether the vaccines should be granted emergency use authorization.

If the panel votes in favor of authorization, the FDA will likely grant authorization quickly. Once that happens, shipments of federal supplies of the vaccines will begin going out to states for distribution. But, before they can go into little arms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will need to have its own advisory committee meeting to review the data and vote on a recommendation. And for the final step, the CDC Director Rochelle Walensky will need to endorse the recommendation.

Enlarge (credit: System76)

HP released its Dev One Linux laptop today. Aimed at coders, the 14-inch clamshell comes at a lower price than previous Ubuntu-based HP clamshells.

Starting at $1,099, the Dev One begins to keep costs low by opting for an AMD, rather than Intel, CPU and skipping the discrete graphics card. HP's last Linux laptops, part of its ZBook workstation lineup, went well over $2,000 and offered up to Intel Xeon processors and Nvidia RTX GPUs.

The 14-incher weighs 3.24 lbs. (credit: System76)

Linux roots

The previous workstations used Ubuntu 20.04 preloaded with software packages aimed at data scientists. However, the Dev One runs Pop!_OS, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution from System76.