Hasta La Gadget!

Just as the prophecy foretold, Valve has started the long-awaited Steam autumn sale. The autumn sale may traditionally be outshined by the longer and larger holiday sale, but there are still some pretty excellent deals to take advantage of right this minute. For instance, some of the featured deals include Darksiders II at $16.99 (that’s 66% off) and XCOM: Enemy Unknown for $33.48 (33% off).

Rounding out the featured deals, we have Magic 2013 half-off at $4.99, Terraria for a measly $3.39, The Walking Dead for $12.49, and Age of Empires III Complete for $9.99. Those are some pretty deep discounts, but then, what else would you expect from a Steam sale? Of course, featured deals are only one part of the equation, as there will be plenty of other deals to take advantage throughout the duration of the autumn sale.

These include flash deals, which pop up on the Steam store for a short amount of time and usually feature some pretty tempting offers. Current flash deals include the entire Operation Flashpoint franchise for $12.49, Limbo for $2.49, and Payday: The Heist for $4.99. If you’re more of the indie gaming type, you’ll be pleased to know that Steam has you covered with a dedicated hub for indie gaming deals. Today’s featured indie deals have Sanctum, World of Goo, Cave Story, and Audiosurf all down to just $2.49.

The featured deals will change daily and the flash deals will switch up even more frequently, but it’s worth pointing out that there are plenty of other discounted games available through Steam, despite them not having featured status. The Steam autumn sale will go until November 26 (that’s next Monday), after which time things will go silent until the Steam holiday sale kicks off. That’s apparently going to happen on December 20, so you might want to hold off on spending all of your money during the autumn sale.

Steam autumn sale kicks off with deals on XCOM, Darksiders II is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

When NASA cleans their garage, they always end up with the largest yard sale in the world. The giant platforms in the photo above are just part of the last shuttle-era equipment being removed from the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building. More »

The latest installment in the Call of Duty series has been out for almost a year now, but it’s still an extremely hyped up game that a lot of people are still playing. However, if you’re a PC gamer and you haven’t yet bought Modern Warfare 3, now is probably the best change you’ll get. It’s 50% off this weekend on Steam, which means you only have to pay $30.

The Infinity Ward-developed first-person shooter is also having a free weekend on Steam. From now until Sunday at 1pm Pacific Time, you can play Modern Warfare 3 at no cost. This is great if you’re interested in buying the game, but want to try it out first. Plus, the $30 deal lasts all weekend, so if the half-off price still doesn’t convince you, you can try out the game for free during the weekend and buy it on Sunday before the deal closes.

However, it doesn’t state what exact features you do and do not have access to. Most free weekends on Steam only involve the multiplayer portion of games, so there’s usually no access to the singleplayer campaign. We’re guessing you’ll only have access to multiplayer, but Steam doesn’t mention anything regarding that, so it’s something you’ll have to find out yourself when launching up the game.

In other Steam news, the Total War series is also on sale this weekend. You can pick up Total War: Rome for just a $1 (90% off), or get the Total War Master Collection, which includes every Total War game, for only $31 (75% off). You can buy the Total War games separately if you’d like, although they’re only discounted by 25%.

[via Joystiq]

Modern Warfare 3 is 50% off, free weekend on Steam is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Much like the run-up to the previous flagship product launch, Qualcomm-backed Xiaomi has just announced that it’ll be selling a small batch of pre-production second-gen Xiaomi Phones, in the hopes to get some keen users to perform last-minute checks before mass production. To be exact, only 600 of these quad-core Jelly Bean phones will be made available online at local time 10am on September 22nd (that’s 10pm ET on the 21st); and even if you have CN¥1,999 ($310) to spare, you’ll still need to be one of the 1,200 expert members from the Xiaomi and MIUI online communities to be able to hit the “order” button. Nice hype drive, if you ask us.

Later on, successful buyers can simply swap their engineering units in for a final version of the 16GB or 32GB Xiaomi Phone 2 — the latter a new addition that co-founder Lei Jun announced on Sina Weibo last Saturday (where he also cheekily asked if anyone need a 64GB flavor). For those who qualify but would rather avoid the digital bloodshed next week, we suggest you wait until the official Chinese launch in the second-half of October; or try Taiwan by the end of the year.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Xiaomi Phone 2 pre-production units available on September 22nd, limited to 600 lucky buyers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to the New York Times, Fox is about to try another tactic to enhance sales of its movies, by offering downloadable UltraViolet copies for sale a full three weeks ahead of their release on Blu-ray / DVD or for video on-demand rental. The first movie to get the treatment will be Ridley Scott’s Prometheus later this month, and Fox is pricing the copies at about $15, down from the $20 of previous releases. Other flicks on deck for the early digital sale treatment are Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Watch and Ice Age: Continental Drift. Fox is apparently calling the setup Digital HD, or DHD, as it rolls out in 50 different countries all at once, and opted to offer the flicks in high definition instead of issuing cheaper standard def versions to “put its best foot forward”. Last year’s $30 premium VOD rental pilot was another attempt to experiment with release windows that Fox participated in, but DHD’s more reasonable pricing makes it an interesting option. Of course, the main trick will be getting customers to opt for an UltraViolet format which is still not supported by Apple and Amazon’s movie stores, but dangling early access to mainstream movies could be just the bait required.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

Fox to sell UltraViolet Digital HD movies three weeks ahead of discs or VOD, Prometheus is first originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 03:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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