The Weekly Authority: 📱 Pixel Prototype

⚡ Welcome to The weekly authoritythe Android Authority newsletter that breaks down the top Android and tech news of the week. 197th edition here, with this Pixel 7 prototype, Galaxy foldable specs, Final Fantasy 16 updates, and some good news for coffee drinkers.

🎉This week marked the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations here in the UK (the first British monarch to celebrate 70 years of service!), so I took advantage of the two-day national holiday and we organized a street party here in town!

Popular news this week

• Top Gun: Maverick’s Memorial Day weekend opener grossed $124 million at the box office last Sunday night ($248 million worldwide).
• Season 3 of The Boys hit Amazon Prime Video on Friday and the first reviews have arrived.
• And the creators of Stranger Things answer some burning questions ahead of Volume 2 (spoiler alert if you haven’t already read Volume 1!).
• Meanwhile, Netflix’s new crackdown on password sharing is a confusing mess in test markets in Costa Rica, Chile and Peru.
• Speaking of Netflix, a trailer has been released for new action comedy The Man From Toronto, starring Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson.
• Owen Wilson’s superhero movie is coming to Paramount Plus: but no official release date for Secret Headquarters yet.
• Spider Foes Look Away Now: A remake of Arachnophobia is in the works, with Christopher Landon on board as director, James Wan and Michael Clear named as producers.
• And: Beavis and Butt-Head Do The Universe gets a release date, premiering on Paramount Plus June 23 – plus there’s a trailer and a new revival series coming later this year.
• We’ve ranked Sam Raimi’s movies from worst to best, including Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
• Also this week: Our pick of the best new movies to stream, from 13 Going on 30 to Colossal.

Games :

• Bad news for Diablo fans: Many Samsung Exynos-powered phones can’t run Diablo Immortal, but Blizzard is working on a fix.
• Speaking of which, Diablo Immortal will not be released in Belgium or the Netherlands, due to the countries laws regarding lootboxes.
• The Steam Deck docking station has been delayed indefinitely with Valve citing “parts shortages and COVID shutdowns”.
• And Amazon is finally launching an invitation system to buy a PS5 or an Xbox Series X.
• The Summer Game Fest unveils the lineup of more than 30 participating companies, which will take place from June 9 to 12.
• Meanwhile, the sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will arrive next year, will be next-gen only.
• Modern Warfare 2’s first trailer has landed ahead of the full gameplay reveal on June 8.
• And Modern Warfare 2’s art is sparking speculation on the Call of Duty platform – could the game return to Steam?
• BioWare confirms the next big fantasy RPG title – Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, but don’t expect it this year.
• Veteran Square-Enix producer Shinji Hashimoto is retiring – often credited with spawning the Kingdom Hearts franchise, he also worked on FF VIII, FF IX and The World Ends With You, as well as its sequel.
• Sony is going all out in live service games after buying Bungie – according to Tech Crunch the company plans to spend 49% of its PlayStation Studios development budget on live games by the end of the year.
• And one of Japan’s most revered game developers is creating a game for Apple’s subscription service: Yu Suzuki and his team are working on Air Twister, which will be released on June 24.
• Also: This interview with Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney dives into Fortnite, the Metaverse, and more…

Comments

• Vivo X80 Pro review: Vivo’s best, (mostly) refined – “It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s still a welcome upgrade over its already excellent predecessor.”
• Samsung Galaxy A52s review: Jack of all trades – Premium build, great display, long-lasting battery life, and long-term software support make this easy to recommend.
• Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro review: Titanium, ceramic and compromise – “A lot to offer but hampered by too many software flaws, missing features at launch and an extremely limited third-party app ecosystem, unless you plan to stick to a Huawei phone.”
• Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch review: An oldie but a goodie – The best Wear OS 2 watch you can buy.
• Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra review: The power user’s best friend – “In addition to the best specs and feature-rich, widely supported software, the Galaxy S22 Ultra comes with the S Pen and a plethora of productivity tools unmatched by the competition.”

Features

This week PlayStation’s latest State of Play gave us a lot to get excited about, including Final Fantasy 16 news:

If you missed it, you can catch up here, but if not keep reading for everything you missed:

• Things kicked off with a new trailer for the Resident Evil 4 Remake, which we’ve been waiting for but still excited about. It arrives on March 24, 2023, in addition to being developed for PSVR2, and will arrive on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
• The PSVR2 news continued with a look at Resident Evil Village – to be honest, that sounds a bit scary to me, but kudos to anyone brave enough to play it! After the horror, there was another spooky title, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners Ch2, and we also got a glimpse of a VR version of No Man’s Sky.
• But the PSVR2 trailer everyone wanted to see was a first look at Horizon Call of the Mountain, complete with amazing gameplay – plus news about a new patch for Horizon Forbidden West, which landed on Thursday.

Everything you need to know about PlayStation Plus

• On to the news that excites me the most: we have a release date for Stray! It’s July 19! We also got another trailer that showed some gameplay. Oh, and it will be included in higher tiers of PlayStation Plus.
• What else? Spider-Man is coming to PC on August 12, and Miles Morales will soon follow.
• We’ve seen a trailer for survival horror The Callisto Protocol, giving us some serious Dead Space vibes and coming December 2nd.
• Plus, Rollerdrome is out August 16: the roller derby sci-fi game looks pretty fun – and the anime action/dating sim Eternights lands in early 2023.

• In case you missed it: Street Fighter 6 has taken a look, showing new character Jamie alongside Luke, Chun-Li and Ryu, coming in 2023, with Xbox Series X/S and PC also on the way.
• The critically acclaimed Tunic hits PS4 and PS5 on September 27, and Season: A Letter to the Future looks incredibly intriguing, coming this fall.
• But the biggest update, the one everyone was waiting for, was the Final Fantasy XVI news. We got a trailer, as well as a summer 2023 release window. I can’t. Wait.

Technical calendar

• June 6-10: Apple’s WWDC 2022
• June 9-12: Summer game party
• June 10: The Quarry is out on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One
• June 10: Jurassic World Dominion in theaters
• June 12: Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase at 12 p.m. CT
• June 20-23: Collision (Toronto)
• June 26-July 3: Summer games done quickly
• July 5 at 8 a.m.: Asus ROG Phone 6 launched
• July 19: Stray is coming to PS5, PS4, PC

Tech Tweet of the Week

A few DALL-E 2 Kermit The Frog inspired qualities – the Sopranos one is pretty awesome:

Paula Beaton, editor.