Lexus LS+ Concept previews automated driving technology for 2020

The LS+ also shows of the direction of Lexus design.The newest iteration of the Lexus luxury flagship, the 2018 LS, is on the stand at the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show, but it is also joined by a high-tech version. The Lexus LS+ is a concept that represents a lofty goal: to eventually eliminate traffic casualties. To help do that, the LS+ is equipped with “Highway Teammate” automated driving technologies that preview what is to come in consumer cars in 2020.

“Highway Teammate” tech allows the LS+ to drive under its own control on restricted access (motor-vehicle-only) roadways. It can take over driving duties from entrance ramp to exit ramp, says Lexus, including merging and lane changes. The tech also keeps the car in its lane, and maintains an appropriate following distance behind other vehicles, similar to today’s lane-keeping assistance and adaptive cruise control functions.

The LS+ goes a bit further than current mainstream technology, though, and communicates with a data center, which allows it to update its software with new functions (think Tesla’s over-the-air updates). Its AI also learns from collected data to help inform its automated driving system about the roads and surrounding areas, making it safer and more precise.

In addition to the autonomous highway driving technology, the LS+ Concept offers a glimpse into the future of Lexus design. It features a version of the the automaker’s signature spindle grille, which incorporates a large grille shutter to help with cooling and aerodynamic efficiency. Its headlights and taillights incorporate laser lighting. It also replaces bulky side mirrors with slimmer, electric camera units.

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Source: Lexus

PSVR, one year later

PlayStation VR hit the market with a bang in October 2016. It debuted at $400, without the PlayStation Camera or motion controllers. By February, Sony had sold 915,000 headsets — far surpassing the combined number of HTC Vive and Oculus Rift units estimated to be out in the wild. Sony Interactive Entertainment head Andrew House went on a press tour to brag about the numbers, telling The New York Times the PSVR sales were on track to outpace the company’s internal goal of 1 million in the first six months. That would have been mid-April.

“The company will almost certainly surpass that forecast,” The New York Times wrote.

April came and went. It wasn’t until June that Sony announced it had sold more than 1 million PSVR headsets — missing its internal estimate by about two months, in the opposite direction that House had initially touted.

One year after the debut of the PSVR, Sony hasn’t publicly updated that sales figure. The VR market is chugging away, with three standalone headsets — PSVR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift — dominating the conversation. Sony is assuredly ahead of this pack when it comes to hardware sales, even though PSVR came out roughly six months after the Rift and Vive.

Superdata Research estimates HTC sold 420,000 Vives and Oculus sold 243,000 Rift headsets in 2016. Meanwhile, it says Sony sold 745,000 PS VR units with just three months on store shelves. Note that, at launch, the Vive cost $800, the Rift was $600 and PS VR came in at $400. Today, the Vive is $600, the Rift is $400 and PSVR is still $400 — but, now, that includes the $50 PlayStation Camera.

The sales discrepancy could come down to accessibility: Vive and Rift are PC headsets, each requiring a fairly hefty rig to run smoothly while PSVR is a plug-and-play device for anyone with a PlayStation 4. That’s not a bad market to bet on, considering there are more than 60 million PS4s in living rooms across the globe.

Sony has a sizable lineup of games, with more than 100 VR experiences available and 60 more expected by early 2018. PSVR can’t compare with the libraries for the Rift or Vive, however: On Steam, there are 2,133 titles that support Vive, Rift or both.

Still, Sony’s software sales figures are impressive: As of September, the company has sold 9.97 million PSVR games. This includes titles like Rez, Farpoint and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. That last one is especially noteworthy for Sony — it’s a timed exclusive to PSVR and one of the first AAA games to be fully playable in this new medium. Plus, it’s fantastic.

“Different users enjoy different experiences, and it’s hard to pinpoint a particular app or experience that is most popular, but we’ve found that certain genres work very well with VR, and horror is one example,” a Sony spokesperson told Engadget. “When Resident Evil 7: Biohazard launched earlier this year, the average amount of time PSVR users spent playing doubled.”

PSVR players spend an average of 25 minutes with the headset on at a time — “a lot of bite-sized experiences,” Sony PR said — but Resident Evil 7’s special brand of bloody terror stretched that to nearly an hour. It was a smart way to kick off the PSVR’s year.

Still, the VR market overall is moving at a more sluggish pace than many watchdogs expected. In March 2016, a Macquarie Securities analyst said he expected Sony to sell 8 million PSVR headsets in its first two years; another analyst estimated 4 million sales in its first year. Nokia recently shut down production of its OZO VR camera, citing the “slower-than-expected development of the VR market.”

But virtual reality is far from dead. The second generation of VR devices is on its way: Oculus has two wireless devices in the works — the $200 Go is scheduled to land in early 2018, and Project Santa Cruz, a truly impressive untethered headset, should ship to developers sometime that year. Earlier this month, Sony revealed an updated version of the PSVR with integrated headphones and HDR passthrough support; it’s already on sale in Japan. Microsoft is also diving into the world of mixed and virtual reality in a big way, recently opening a collaborative studio space in San Francisco to help developers create these types of experiences.

Globally, Superdata Research expects the VR market to generate $2.2 billion this year, and that estimate jumps to $28.5 billion by 2020. Much of this growth is driven by mobile VR devices including Google Daydream and Samsung Gear VR.

PSVR has proven there’s healthy interest in accessible, standalone VR, at least when it comes to gaming — what’s left to see is how long this intrigue can last.

O2’s flexible plans let you change your data allowance each month

When signing a new mobile contract, you typically pick a monthly plan with strict call, text and data allowances. You’re then tied to that decision as you see out the contract for the next two years, before starting the process all over again. With O2’s new flexible tariffs launching tomorrow, however, you can jump between different plans each month, shrinking or growing your data allowance, and thus how much you pay that month, too.

You might want to make sure you have a larger data allowance in a month you anticipate uploading a lot of pictures, for example, or a more frugal plan if you’re going on holiday and expect to spend more time looking at vistas instead of your phone. Subscribers can select a different plan once per calendar month, in-store, over the phone or via O2’s app, with the new allowance kicking in next billing cycle. You only need to worry about how much data you’ll need, really, since every relevant O2 plan includes unlimited calls and texts as standard.

This flexibility is available to new and existing O2 Refresh customers from tomorrow, but there is, of course, a catch. You need to have a relatively new phone supplied by O2 to qualify: Either of the new iPhones or the soon-to-be-released iPhone X, a Galaxy S8, S8 Plus or Note 8, or a OnePlus 5. O2 is in a slightly unique position to offer shapeshifting plans because of the way it structures monthly payments.

O2 Refresh portions your monthly bill into two parts. One is the charge for paying off your handset, and the other is the charge for your mobile service (calls, text and data). This means O2 can make the latter charge flexible without changing the amount you pay for the actual phone each month. The carrier is understandably keen to promote its transparent pricing at the moment, after Citizens Advice recently reminded people they are at risk of overpaying if they don’t upgrade immediately when their current contract expires.

Most mobile providers bundle your phone and service bill together, you see, so if you continue to pay the same amount after your contract is up, you’re effectively giving the carrier free money since you’ve already paid off the cost of your handset. But O2 isn’t the only provider that splits bills in this way. Sky Mobile does the same thing, for example, and offers a similar style of flexible plan you can change each month — incidentally, the MVNO piggybacks on O2’s network. There is a benefit to Sky’s way of doing things, though, in that any data you don’t use that month goes into a pot you can tap if you exhaust your allowance in any following month.

Rollover data is not a feature of O2’s flexible plans, however. If you think it’s going to be a particularly busy month and you want a 50GB cap to tide you over, but you only end up using 10GB of that. Well, the other 40GB you paid for is lost forever.

Source: O2

Alexa can control all the Dish TVs in your home

Dish has been cozying up with Amazon of late. The Pay TV provider already offers an Echo Dot to new customers, which lets you control its Hopper DVR or Wally with your voice. And, now you can do the same with all the Joey-enabled TVs in your home as well. As long as you have one of Amazon’s smart speakers in earshot, you’ll be able to bark orders at your extra television sets, which is great for when you want to pause and resume the action between rooms. And, if you seek to rule the TV in the kid’s bedroom.

Dish’s latest Hopper supports up to six Joeys, and older models work with up to three. That’s enough for all the family, so you can avoid the shouting matches that come with communal viewing. Despite Amazon opening up voice support to TV and streaming services, Dish is thus far the only US company to take advantage of it.

Source: Dish

Baidu updates its open-source autonomous driving platform

It’s odd that the search engine company known as the “Google of China” says that its open-source autonomous driving platform Apollo is the “Android of the auto industry.” But that’s exactly what Baidu is trying to be with Apollo and it’s racking up partners worldwide (including Ford, Daimler, NVIDIA and others) to make it a reality.

At an event in Sunnyvale, California, the search company unveiled Apollo 1.5, its latest version of its autonomous driving platform. The new version supports HD maps, LiDAR, obstacle detection and deep learning technologies. All of which, like the rest of the platform, is open source and modular so developers can pick and choose what they want to use in their own systems.

But it’s not a completely open system. At some point a developer will have to contribute to the platform to access more of the data for their own needs. It seems like a fair trade. Why build up your entire stack on the backs of others without at being an active part of the community?

Baidu has big plans for Apollo. It expects it will be powerful enough for a Level 3 car on the road by 2019, and primed for Level 4 vehicle in 2021. It’s an impressive feat for a company that’s not even building cars… and also in line with Google’s own autonomous car plans, its US counterpart.

Source: Baidu

eBay’s New Image Search Feature is Now Live Within iOS App

Following an announcement earlier in the summer, eBay this week launched an “Image Search” feature in its iOS application. Image Search uses computer vision technology powered by AI to let you search the popular auctioning site by snapping a picture — or uploading one from your Camera Roll — and receive similar results based on image recognition abilities.

Live now in the eBay iOS app, you can tap the camera icon in the search bar at the top of the home screen, choose “Image Search,” then take a picture or upload one from Photos. You’ll have to grant eBay access to both your iOS Camera and Photos apps for the feature to work properly.

After you take a picture or choose one, you can crop it so it focuses on the item you want to search, and then tap “Search.” eBay will then show you listings for items that are a “close match” or “visually similar” to the product in your picture. Image Search takes into account all of eBay’s over one billion listings, according to the company.

Leveraging the latest advances in two core parts of artificial intelligence — computer vision and deep learning — these new features make it easier to find and buy the things that inspire you. When you upload images to run Find It On eBay and Image Search, we use a deep learning model called a convolutional neural network to process the images.

The output of the model gives us a representation of your image that we can use to compare to the images of the live listings on eBay. Then, we rank the items based on visual similarity and use our open-source Kubernetes platform to quickly bring these results to you, wherever you are in the world.

eBay also launched “Find It On eBay” for Android smartphones only, which lets users start an image search on another social platform, like Facebook. Using a share extension on an image, Android users can tap eBay and the retailer’s app will open to show similar listings.

We’ve performed a few quick Image Searches today and found mostly solid results for some items (an Apple Watch and band), although other products stumped the software so much we got an error (Nintendo Amiibo, Apple Watch dock). eBay still hasn’t said if some products are more reliable than others, but it did mention that Image Search will gain intelligence as customers use it more, as is typical with machine learning technology.

Image Search is live now on iOS and Android, and Find It On eBay has also launched on Android this week. The eBay app on iOS doesn’t require an update for Image Search, so it appears the company is rolling out the feature through over-the-air installs.

Tag: eBay
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Apple vs. Samsung Lawsuit to Drag Into Eighth Year With Retrial Scheduled Next May

The never-ending legal battle between Apple and Samsung over the design of the iPhone will likely stretch into its eighth year of proceedings.

Apple’s original complaint accused Samsung of copying the iPhone’s design
Lucy Koh, the judge who has been presiding over the case since it began in April 2011, has scheduled a five-day retrial between May 14 and May 18 of next year, according to court documents filed electronically on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Koh ordered that a new trial is required to determine whether Apple’s $399 million award for Samsung’s design patent infringement should stand or whether a new damages trial is required.

Apple successfully sued Samsung for infringing upon the iPhone’s patented design, including its rectangular front face with rounded edges and grid of colorful icons on a black screen.

Apple’s damages were awarded based on Samsung’s entire profit from the sale of its infringing smartphones, but Samsung argued that the amount should be a percentage based on individual components like the front bezel or display.

The case progressed all the way to the Supreme Court, which recommended that the U.S. Court of Appeals reconsider the damages amount that Samsung owes. The trial has since returned to the U.S. District Court in Northern California where it began.

Apple’s statement about the case from last December:

Our case has always been about Samsung’s blatant copying of our ideas, and that was never in dispute. We will continue to protect the years of hard work that has made iPhone the world’s most innovative and beloved product. We remain optimistic that the lower courts will again send a powerful signal that stealing isn’t right.

Apple was initially awarded nearly $1 billion in damages, but a significant part of the decision was reversed in 2015, leaving Samsung owing $548 million. The amount was eventually lowered to $399 million, and now it may be adjusted again.

Tag: Samsung
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LG’s phone arm continues to eat away at its profits

One of the great problems with being a popular musician or comedian is that your audience is always aching for you to play the greatest hits. That can get pretty boring, especially if you want to be known as an artists with a broader, or deeper, body of work than just Achy Breaky Heart. Bear that in mind for poor LG which, yet again, has to announce that its mobile division is a furnace that turns money into ashes and dust.

In terms of the chaebol’s various businesses, sales of premium TVs jumped 12 percent compared to the same quarter last year. That translated into an operating income of $407.3 million, while LG made $375 million in its home appliances arm thanks to higher demand for premium kitchen devices.

The company’s nascent vehicle components business did lose $25 million, but LG says that the loss was down to R&D investments, with in car-infotainment and EV systems selling well. It’s expected that the surge in development in electric vehicles from even traditional car manufacturers will push this division into profitability in the near future.

And then there’s LG Mobile Communications which managed to get more handsets out of the door compared to the same quarter in 2016. But the notes of optimism end there, since the business managed to lose $331 million thanks to higher raw material and component pricing.

LG’s turnaround strategy is, as it always seems to be, to look to reduce manufacturing costs and push well-regarded devices like the V30 and Q6. Although it remains to be seen if users will vote with their wallets in the face of so many other well-regarded handsets out there on the market right now.

Overall, LG made a net profit of $298.9 million, but you could imagine how much bigger that figure would be if its mobile division wasn’t such a liability. Despite the losses, the company concluded that it’s doing pretty well, especially considering the geopolitical situation it finds itself mired in.

In the report, LG specifically mentions a “continued business risk caused by trade conflict from increasing U.S. trade protectionism,” which threatens LG’s access to the North American market. Not to mention the overall political outlook for the world, which the company euphemistically describes as “gloomy.”

Source: LG (.PDF)

Bloodhound preps for land speed record with 200MPH test run

It’s finally happened. Nine years after the Bloodhound project was announced at London’s Science Museum, the supersonic car has completed its first test runs. At a closed-off airstrip near Newquay airport, Cornwall, the monstrous vehicle roared across the tarmac at roughly 200 MPH. That figure is a long way off the team’s ultimate goal of 763 MPH, however, and a new world land speed record. Eventually, the team hopes to crack 1,000 MPH at the dusty Kalahari desert in South Africa. Before then, however, the team had to prove that the car was more than vapourware and broken promises.

Today, the car relied on a Eurojet EJ200 jet engine for thrust. That on its own could take the car to 650 MPH. The final configuration will also have a rocket system provided by Nordic aerospace company Nammo. For the initial record attempt, the Bloodhound will use a single monopropellant rocket which can produce around 40kN of thrust. It will then be swapped out for a hybrid rocket system that, combined with the jet engine, can carry the car to 1,000 MPH. In total, the vehicle will produce 212kN of thrust, which is eight times the power output of a Formula 1 starting grid.

To install the rocket system, however, Bloodhound needs cash. Funding has always been a problem for the team in Bristol, which relies on sponsorship and fan donations to operate. The trial runs in Cornwall, then, serve two purposes; they’re a vital form of testing, giving the team valuable data and insight into the practicalities of running the vehicle. They are, though, also a marketing tool which the team hopes will attract the interest and, ultimately, the cash of a deep-pocketed investor. Without extra funding, the team will have to delay its record attempt in late 2018.

Bloodhound is driven by Andy Green, an RAF pilot who set the previous world land speed record with the Thrust SSC in 1997. He’ll be piloting the vehicle both for the initial land speed record (the team hopes to hit about 800 MPH) and the 1,000 MPH attempt. Bloodhound is a complicated and intimidating car to operate, measuring 13.4 meters and weighing roughly seven and a half tonnes. In Cornwall, however, Green seemed unfazed —excited even — as he clambered into the cockpit. We’re not surprised; he’s waited as long as the public to finally push the accelerator pedal. Here’s hoping it won’t be quite as long before we see Bloodhound run again.

‘Super Mario Odyssey’ is everything it needs to be and more

“A return to form.” “A reinvention.” There are lots of clichés we fall back on when describing a fresh game in a long-running series. The truth is, Nintendo has constantly reinvented the idea of a 3D Mario game, relentlessly pushing the franchise forward with each release. Super Mario Odyssey is just one more step in the right direction, another evolution of a perfect formula.

The setup in Odyssey is as familiar as ever: Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach, so you need to collect an arbitrary item (Power Moons rather than Stars this time) and chase him down to save the day. This time around, Bowser is going from kingdom to kingdom collecting items — a ring, a gown and so on — for a wedding ceremony. It’s a coherent enough narrative, but the joy of Mario has never been in its story.

The structure is essentially a combination of Super Mario 64 and Galaxy. There are hundreds of Moons dotted around more than a dozen kingdoms, some nestled in hard-to-reach and hidden locations, others handed out for defeating bosses or winning races. Just as Galaxy‘s spaceship would only advance after you collect a certain number of Lumas, Odyssey‘s Moons power up an airship that will fly you to new kingdoms.

There are certain things you know you’re getting with a Mario game. It almost goes without saying that Odyssey offers tight controls, creative platforming and gorgeous art with near-perfect levels of polish. But every Mario has a twist. Sunshine has the water pack, Galaxy has space, 3D World has multiplayer score chasing. Odyssey‘s is a hat.

At the start of the game, as Princess Peach is kidnapped, Mario’s famous hat is shredded. Luckily, he soon meets a character called Cappy, whose regular appearance is a cross between a Boo and a top hat. Cappy’s sister, Tiara, has been kidnapped to act as a headdress for the ceremony. The pair quickly resolve to join forces to stop Bowser from wreaking his personal brand of comic mischief and mild havoc.

Cappy has a single talent: He can be thrown. But that one move opens up a world of possibilities. You can throw Cappy with the X button and use him to grab coins and hit certain enemies. Hold X and Cappy will hover in place, ready to be used to jump over gaps or as a springboard to reach high platforms. (If you run into Cappy, Mario jumps roughly as high as with a backward or sideways somersault.) This alone makes platforming challenges far more dynamic and interesting: Where before you would simply long jump and somersault around a level, now there are multiple approaches to any obstacle.

The real fun starts when you use Cappy to “capture” enemies and objects, which grants you full control over them. Many Mario favorites can be possessed in this way, just by throwing Cappy at them. Goombas can shuffle around and stack themselves on top of one another to reach high places; Cheep Cheeps allow Mario to swim freely underwater; Lakitu will let you fish; Fire and Hammer Bros. grant you huge jumps and their respective projectiles.

At its core, Cappy is a replacement for the power-ups of every Mario game, but Nintendo takes the system to weird and wonderful places. Within a few hours, you’ll have controlled a T. rex, a tank, a fork, an RC car, a lava bubble and … a slab of meat. Each of these possessions brings new mechanics, and there are dozens of characters you can control. Some, such as the Goombas, are ubiquitous, while others appear in just one kingdom or even a single sequence. Just as using Cappy to jump allows for more divergent platforming sequences, the capture system gives rise to ceaseless variety in gameplay.

I played the vast majority of Odyssey in portable mode, maybe eight hours docked with a Pro Controller and a couple more with Joy-Cons in each hand. The Joy-Con controls were fine: There are lots of motion-control options, particularly when throwing Cappy or controlling foes, but I always found the button-press alternatives more intuitive. I’m not a huge fan of the Pro Controller, as I tend to use the Switch as a portable, but it’s definitely the most comfortable way to play in front of a TV.

I also briefly tested the two-player mode. It’s an asynchronous affair, with one player controlling Mario and the other Cappy. It’s certainly useful for playing with very young children, but those coming from the superb multiplayer of 3D World aren’t going to be blown away. If you’re desperate to play with friends, you’re probably better off just passing the pad between Moons.

My friends and I used to reference “Resident Evil logic,” which was the notion that people always seem to leave caches of ammo or herbs down dead-end corridors. The core tenet there is if you stray away from the beaten path, you’ll be rewarded. That idea is everywhere in modern gaming, often with collectible items as the prize. Most recently, Nintendo used the concept to encourage wayfinding in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

3D Mario games have always done this to an extent — many of the stars in 64 or Lumas in Galaxy were squeezed into forgotten corners of their respective games. They reward inquisitiveness and prompt players to embrace exploration.

Every kingdom is like a rabbit warren, full of secrets and unique trials.

You’ll probably stumble upon your first hidden Moon or bevy of coins entirely by accident. For me, “I wonder what’s up there?” gave way to “Well, how do I get up there?” which, after a couple minutes of problem solving, led to, “Oh, a Moon!” In Odyssey, that observation-investigation reward loop drives the whole game forward.

Every kingdom is like a rabbit warren, full of secrets and unique trials. In five minutes of gameplay, you might waddle about stacking Goombas before flying around as a Bullet Bill and then head down a pipe for some 2D platforming. But despite this occasionally frantic pacing, Odyssey never descends into a mini-game compendium, thanks in part to the Cappy conceit keeping you in control of proceedings.

A quick word about those well-publicized 2D-platforming levels: Nintendo has clearly borrowed from the creativity of Super Mario Maker, integrating many new ideas into the format. Some levels look graphically interesting, with 2D planes that wrap around a cylinder, while others mess with gravity or even require you to follow a backdrop or “fall out” of the 2D world and into the 3D one. The spirit of exploration from the main game is also present here, with Moons hidden offscreen or behind drops that would usually mean death for Mario. These levels are great set pieces, with the New Donk City sequence being particularly memorable. I’m really hoping we get a new Super Mario Maker soon.

New tricks

While it doesn’t stray too far from the established Mario formula, there are a number of additions that make Odyssey feel like a more modern game than we typically see from Nintendo.

Perhaps the most notable addition is a proper map system with fast traveling. Kingdom maps are beautifully put together in a travel-guide format. This not only helps you find your way but also facilitates travel between checkpoints in seconds rather than running the length of a level. Getting to any particular spot in the game (after you’ve unlocked everything) shouldn’t take longer than a minute, which makes mopping up Moons way less of a chore.

Coins are now actually used as currency. You can use them to buy clothes and other items, and each kingdom also has 100 unique coins that can be used on outfits, stickers and collectables specific to that region.

The outfits are a lot of fun: You can select your hat and outfit independently, which has been hilarious to the kids I’ve shown it to. Most collectables live inside your airship, so by the time you’re finished it’ll look like a Mario gift shop. Stickers are actually applied to the outside of the airship, a little like the luggage stickers of old, which vibes well with the travel-guide maps and a lot of the end-game dialog.

The modernization continues with the addition of a decent-enough photo mode, which lets you pause the action and move the camera around to capture images. The graphics quality seems to increase a little when you’re in this mode. I think the render resolution is the same, but to my untrained eye the draw distance is improved and there’s some anti-aliasing added on top to smooth out the edges a little. Beyond that, there are a few fun filters, along with an option to add a logo. It’s not on the level of games like Uncharted 4 or anything that supports NVIDIA’s Ansel, but it’s a solid feature.

Another welcome feature is minigame leaderboards. Nintendo is clearly held to a different standard when it comes to online functionality, as its efforts have been so hit or miss. For it to have a functional online leaderboard with settings for filtering global and friends’ scores, just for a collection of side content, at least shows it’s moving in the right direction. Also, it was enjoyable briefly being third worldwide for something. I’m sure by the time you read this I’ll be a few million spots lower.

While we’re on the subject of moving with the times, there’s Princess Peach. Yes, Nintendo is still leaning on the kidnapped cliché, but without spoiling things, she at least has one scene where she’s given some agency in this game.

Super Mario Odyssey‘s main story is short. I wasn’t rushing through it, but I arrived at the end credits in around eight hours. I was a little concerned when I reached this point — I wasn’t ready to call it a day, and we’ve all seen developers put together a great short game only to be slammed by The Internet for not padding it out with hours of tedium.

The Mushroom Kingdom is stuffed full of Easter eggs and fan-favorite characters. If you can avoid social media until you’ve had the chance to explore it, you should.

Luckily, both my fears and disappointment were short lived. After the credits finish rolling, you soon unlock a new area, which contains more to do than any other world in the game. Hundreds of new Moons are also added to places you’ve already visited, and extra challenges like races appear on each kingdom map.

These segmented trials are perfect for when you have five minutes to burn, which naturally leans into the Switch’s strengths as a portable device.

After around 30 hours of playtime, I’ve now collected 330 Moons, which is less than half of the 800 in the game. Even though I know at least one other reviewer who’s approaching 800 Moons and I’ve definitely been taking it easy, I can happily report that Odyssey should last you weeks and months rather than days.

I’m not one to complain about game lengths — I actively avoid longer games because I worry I’ll never find time to complete them. But Odyssey‘s end game is extremely pleasing, and this is one game I’m definitely going to finish. Whether they’re at the end of a tricky challenge or just a reward for following your instincts, hunting down new Moons is an enjoyable task. Because you can zip around worlds and checkpoints so quickly, these segmented trials are perfect for when you have five minutes to burn, which naturally leans into the Switch’s strengths as a portable device.

Super Mario Odyssey is not the departure from the norm that Breath of the Wild represented for the Zelda series, but it didn’t need to be. Super Mario 64 was that, and Sunshine, Galaxy and 3D World didn’t rest on its laurels in the same way that the main Zelda games hemmed to the Ocarina of Time formula.

Instead of sea change, we got another great Mario game. Controlling Mario in three dimensions has been fun for more than two decades, and with each iteration Nintendo hones its mascot a little more. I had as much fun jumping and somersaulting around in Odyssey as I did when I was 12 playing Mario 64.

Yes, we got some important updates, like fast travel and maps, and a truly memorable mechanic in Cappy. But it’s that core, that joy of Mario, that makes collecting 800 meaningless objects fun. It’s the joy of Mario that makes Odyssey one of the best games I’ve ever played, and a firm contender for game of the year. Now the challenge for Nintendo is to meet the standards it set with Odyssey and Breath of the Wild over the coming years. And that’s a good problem to have.

[Image credits: All screenshots captured by Engadget on a Nintendo Switch.]