Everything the anchors say on this tape, story by story.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Square Enix says Evercold makes Final Fantasy 14 almost a new game. Our panel has opinions.
ODETTE: Vox pop. Somebody is always willing to be asked. ▶
BARNABY: How we got here, in one tidy explainer. ▶
DIRECTOR MARGE: THE STREET it is. Somebody tell the graphics. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Welcome to the Pixel Panel. Golem says Evercold makes Final Fantasy 14 almost a new game. We first told you about Evercold today at 13:35. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Ada, our maker, and Prue, our hedger, will tell us whether almost a new game is a new game. Ada, you first. ▶
ADA: Almost a new game is a big claim! Would it survive a first prototype? I want to see the tolerances before I trust the paint job. ▶
PRUDENCE NUANCE: Almost is carrying that headline. Half a new game is also half the old one. ▶
ADA: If the old game is the frame, you swap parts carefully. Print the new bits slowly, and test every joint before the players do. ▶
PRUDENCE NUANCE: Veterans want change. Veterans also want nothing to move. I have both on one slip. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: I tell my nephew it is the same game with a new cloud on top. He says that is not how the cloud works. It is weather. Moving on. ▶
ADA: Nobody here knows what is inside it. The page we got is mostly a cookie banner. A new game needs more than a headline to hold up! ▶
PRUDENCE NUANCE: Ada, who decides what counts as almost? The studio, a headline writer, or a player at three a.m.? ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: No verdict from this panel, as usual. Tell us at home: is Evercold a new game? Vote now. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: A 1982 modem for a hundred dollars. We asked the street.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Now to a modem from 1982: the Commodore 1600 VICModem, perhaps the first phone modem under one hundred dollars. We first told you this Saturday 08:01, today. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: I have always thought a modem is a fax machine that only listens. Ada is at the makerspace asking the public. Ada? ▶
ADA: Thanks, Grant! I'm in the makerspace asking people about a hundred dollar modem from 1982. Hackaday says others cost twice that or more. Huge, as Kai would say! ▶
PASSERBY: Competing modems cost at least twice as much? Then cheap was a design choice. I respect a design that skips things on purpose. ▶
PASSERBY: It could not dial the phone for you. You dialed, then plugged in. I would call that a feature request. ▶
PASSERBY: What is a baud? Is that like a bit, but slower? Why would anyone want a slow one? ▶
PASSERBY: A modem on a chip and six other chips. That is thrift. Nowadays we use seven chips to blink a light. ▶
ADA: They outsourced it to Anchor Automation, and the chip could in theory do 600 baud but it was rated for 300. Clever, a little sneaky, and I love it! ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Thank you, Ada. Dave Farquhar wrote it up as a walk down memory lane, and they clearly enjoyed the walk. ▶
Pixels in Brief (PXL)
GRANT BRICKMAN: Four quick headlines in about half a minute.
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Quick round. A new trailer gives a December release for a DLC returning to Cronos: The New Dawn. Dread, with a date. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: One UI 9 Watch skips the Galaxy Watch 4 lineup, which got its four promised updates. A watch can retire. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: From November 29, OpenAI trains on Daybreak Blue sessions even with training off. A separate opt-out is promised. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Avatar: Seven Havens ended season one with a four-parter. Season two will be the longest wait. ▶
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Weather
STORMY BYTES: Good evening. Hype for Evercold is a warm front over Tokyo, with scattered speculation about what almost a new game means.
STORMY BYTES: A low-pressure system of nostalgia is moving in from 1982, carrying modem noise and hundred-dollar price tags.
STORMY BYTES: Outlook for the night: a settled opt-out debate over OpenAI, with a chance of December horror.
Real or PXL?
GRANT BRICKMAN: Correct! You picked the real one. Printed turbojets are real and the other one was PXL's own work. We make them up so you don't have to.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Ah, you picked the one PXL made up. A fine fake, if I say so myself. The real one has the turbojets. Better luck next time.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Time is up! The clock waits for no one, not even me. One of those headlines was real and one was ours.