Your iPhone is now a Spider-Man-playing machine
Forget about Marvel’s Spider-Man for the PS4. We’re more interested in Peter Parker’s early beginnings from the PS1 days, where Neversoft laid the groundwork for what a Spider-Man game could be. Unless you’ve held onto both your PS1 and the 24-year-old game, however, you’re stuck watching longplays on YouTube. Or… you could take advantage of the new Gamma PS1 emulator that just hit the App Store.
Thanks to the App Store’s new rulebook, emulators which don’t require any sort of jailbreaking knowledge are slowly becoming the new normal for iOS and iPadOS devices. We recently saw the Delta emulator top the charts with its support for NES, SNES, Nintendo 64 and DS titles, and now Gamma is chasing that fame. Coming from developer ZodTTD, Gamma includes Bluetooth controller and keyboard support, as well as on-screen controllers.
You won’t need any BIOS files to get your games going on Gamma, saving a certain amount of hassle that usually accompanies most other emulators. It does, however, require the game’s .bin files, meaning there’s still a bit work work needed to get Shrek: Treasure Hunt running. You can figure that bit out for yourselves.
Sony (literally) doesn’t want customers buying Ghost of Tsushima on PC
After the whole Helldivers II fiasco, we thought Sony had learned from its mistake — but apparently, it hasn’t. According to a report from Eurogamer, customers who pre-ordered the upcoming PC port of Ghost of Tsushima are automatically being refunded if they live in a region where signing up to the PlayStation Network is physically impossible. That’s roughly 120 countries where Ghost of Tsushima will be unplayable (on PC).
This is the case for all the big PC storefronts, like Steam, Epic Games or GMG. This is the message most affected Steam players received this past weekend: “You are receiving a refund for a game you pre-purchased – Ghost of Tsushima. The publisher of this game is now requiring a secondary account to play portions of this game – and this account cannot be created from your country.”
According to Sucker Punch Productions, the game’s creators, the PSN login is only needed to get into Ghost of Tsushima’s online co-op mode and isn’t necessary to access single-player mode. Rather than lock out the game’s multiplayer feature, Sony is still bringing down the hammer in a blanket manoeuvre that’ll stop millions of customers from picking up their game.
Ghost of Tsushima for PC releases later this week, 16 May.
Vodacom’s 2023/24 spending tops R11.1 billion (again)
Don’t say Vodacom never does anything for you. In a bid to keep up with MTN, Vodacom South Africa has been on a bit of a spending spree of late, according to the network operator’s results for the 2023/2024 financial year. The company’s financial year, ending March 2o24, reveals that the company spent R11.1 billion, not quite managing to top the operator’s record spend of R11.2 billion recorded the previous year.
“Despite the economic backdrop, we remain committed to spending 13% to 14.5% of our overall revenue on capital expenditure that ultimately results in an enhanced customer experience through sustained investments in technology and network infrastructure,” said Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group’s CEO in a call with journalists.
All that money is supposedly being pumped into enhancing “network resilience through the acceleration of 5G coverage,” the expansion of the operator’s rural coverage programme, and “keeping customers connected” throughout the many challenges set by Eskom like higher electricity costs and load shedding. Maybe we were a little too harsh on the company’s price hikes, which came into effect in April this year.
We expect Vodacom’s 2024/2025 spend to continue this trend, as Eskom inevitably returns to shedding our load following the 29 May elections.
Sonos’ new app… sucks?
As much as we love Sonos, the company’s latest efforts, coming out in the form of a revitalised app, is just not it. It’s not just us saying that, by the way. Since the Sonos 2.0 app launched last week, it’s been slated across the entire internet, and for good reason. While Sonos delivered many new features with the app, it came at the cost of killing other basic features.
There’s an entire Reddit megathread getting plenty of attention, where users are banding together as a single entity to make their voices heard. Features like sleep timers and alarms are simply gone in the updated app, as are queue customisation features, volume numbers for precise control, and the ability to manage Wi-Fi connections. Hell, even adding new speakers to the app is proving impossible for most.
Altering the app and leaving it in such a barebones state took guts. That’s not us saying that, either. That’s coming from Sonos’ chief product officer Maxime Bouvat-Merlin in a statement to The Verge. “It takes courage to rebuild a brand’s core product from the ground up, and to do so knowing it may require taking a few steps back to ultimately leap into the future.”
That doesn’t help users much right now, does it? Bouvat-Merlin reckons Sonos is “working diligently” to bring those features back from the dead, though he unfortunately says this will only happen in “the coming months.” It’s going to be a bumpy couple of months for Sonos owners.
