Instagram’s got a verified-only feed now, we guess
Remember when Instagram used to only be for close friends, just sharing updates to their lives? Vaguely. Meta is looking to rid itself of its troubled (and less profitable) past with the launch of a new ‘feature’ for Instagram – a verified-only homepage feed. Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, announced the change in his broadcast channel on Monday. “We’re exploring this as a new control for people and a way for businesses and creators to get discovered,” he wrote.
If you’re scratching your head wondering what the hell Verified accounts are, we’ll give you a quick refresher. Soon after Twitter’s decision to charge for the privilege of a blue tick didn’t result in the platform shutting down, Meta quickly did its best Mr. Bean impression and left us with Meta Verified, a subscription-based program that’ll give you the coveted blue tick.
We can only guess that Meta hasn’t seen the adoption numbers it was hoping for. A verified-only feed would only make the $12/m fee more desirable to those foolish enough to hand Meta more money. For now, the feature is limited to a small pool of users, though Mosseri didn’t say who might be eligible. To test for the feature, open Instagram, hit the cursive logo in the top left, and look for the ‘Meta Verified’ toggle under “Following” and “Favourites”.
Silksong… is that you?
We’re sorry to see you go E3, really. But you’re just not needed anymore. We’ve got Geoff Keighley keeping the scene alive when Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo aren’t just unveiling games themselves. Microsoft is driving the knife further into E3’s heart with the announcement of the Xbox Partner Program, a new showcase landing this week that’ll solely focus on third-party and indie games.
Don’t expect much, though. Microsoft’s gone to some effort to temper expectations, with official confirmation that the show would only be around 20 minutes long. It’ll kick off tomorrow, Wednesday 25 October at 10:00 PT. That’s 19:00 for any South African folks that might want to check out the live stream being held over on the official Xbox YouTube and Twitch channels.
Microsoft says you can expect a “mix of indie games and familiar favorites from our third-party partners,” akin to those Mini Directs that Nintendo often puts on. The Xbox Wire post announcing the event went as far as telling us what not to expect. The presentation ““will not feature any additional news, game reveals, or Game Pass information related to the recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard King.”
Technically, that doesn’t rule out some sort of announcement from Team Cherry’s highly anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong. It might just be our daily dose of Copium talking, but we’ve got our fingers crossed for a surprise release date. Or anything, really.
Google’s Play Games PC Beta gets 4K graphics and controller support
Google’s Play Games for PC, which is still in beta, just got a major update that’ll see the service add controller support, a handful of new games, and a couple of new features to fiddle with. Google’s announcement is really pushing the addition of Supercell’s Clash of Clans and Clash Royale – though there are now officially over 3,000 Windows 10 and 11 games to choose from on the service.
To handle the 3,000-strong library, Games for PC is introducing an improved search function for the “All games” field in the top-right corner. That’s joined for a new filter that should make scouring through the catalogue that much simpler.
Controller support is a thing now, too. Google didn’t go into much depth about which games would have the support, only mentioning two titles; Asphalt 9: Legends and BADLAND. It did mention that players would be able to use a DualShock 4, DualSense, Xbox One, or Series X|S controllers, however.
And finally, 4K resolution. If you’ve got a 4K-capable monitor and own games that’ll run at a higher resolution, go nuts. It stands alongside the new “option to select from a variety of screen resolutions that suit gameplay needs.”
The Fallout TV show is landing in 2024
In recent years, we’ve seen a couple of videogame adaptations for the small screen that didn’t instantly make us hate the IP. HBO’s The Last of Us is the most recent example of a videogame-turned-show that had everything going for it and came out the other side better than ever. We’re hoping we can eventually say the same for the upcoming Fallout TV series coming from Amazon’s back pocket.
Which, by the way, is landing in April 2024. 12 April 2024 to be exact. Amazon Prime unveiled the air date and the show’s first episode title: “The End” yesterday in a post on X, meaning Amazon is looking to stick with the weekly release.
Other than that April release, Amazon’s kept all the big details from the series under lock and key. We know it’s got Jonathan Nolan (yes, Christopher Nolan’s brother) at the helm which does ease our concerns of another Rings of Power repeat. We can also guess that the first episode will play out much like the intro to 2015’s Fallout 4. It’s still missing an official trailer, though some test footage did manage to leak back in August if you’re still able to find it after Bethesda scrubbed the internet. Oh, wait.