30 New Home Theater & Gaming Releases You Might’ve Missed This Year
From Sonos’s new flagship soundbar to loving homages to the PS1, original Gameboy and N64, 2024 featured numerous great releases for home theater and video game fans.
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Welcome to the Year in Review, where we’re rewinding the clock on an entire year’s worth of coverage to highlight the notable and under-the-radar product releases that crossed our desk in 2024.
Here’s a look back at the TVs, projectors, soundbars, video game systems and other home entertainment products that launched this year.
The rumored and expected late-cycle update to the PS5 is finally out in the open. The new PS5 Pro is aimed at diehard gaming fans who obsess over frame rates. Sony considers the new system “the most visually compelling way to play games on PlayStation.” That’s all made possible thanks to a beefier GPU, which offers 67 more Compute Units than the current PS5, as well as 28% faster memory. Together, these spec bumps make rendering up to 45% faster, at least for games optimized for the new machine and featuring “PS5 Pro Enhanced” labels. Advanced ray tracing support and AI-powered upscaling will also help improve the look of older PS5 and other legacy titles. Strangely, the PS5 Pro doesn’t include a 4k Blu-ray drive like the original PS5, though including a 2TB hard drive and Wi-Fi 7 support are meaningful hardware perks.
TCL, one of the biggest brands in affordable TVs, has released its first-ever portable projector. The Projector A1 can deliver an HD (1080p) picture up to 120 inches. It has a Google TV operating system and thus works similarly to a smart TV. When you’re not watching something, it can double as a Bluetooth speaker, too. The one catch is that it doesn’t have a built-in battery and needs to be powered.
Valve is releasing a limited-edition version of its handheld gaming console. It’s exactly the same as its Steam Deck OLED, which is all-black and comes with 1TB of storage. The only difference is it has an all-white design (with grey buttons) and is $30 more expensive. It goes on sale on November 18th.
Amazon’s newest TVs, the Fire TV Omni series, are its first to harness Mini LED backlighting. Unlike its previous LED TVs, they have a backlight featuring thousands of miniature LEDs, resulting in a brighter picture with near OLED levels of contrast. They’re Amazon’s most premium TVs ever and promise to be a more affordable alternative to other Mini LED TVs by the likes of TCL and Hisense.
The LG UltraGear GX7 is the company’s first OLED gaming monitor with a blazing-fast 480Hz refresh rate. It has a .03-millisecond response time, as well. The 27-inch monitor has a QHD (2,560 x 1,440) resolution and is DisplayHDR True Black 400 certified. At $1,000, it’s slightly more affordable than its closest rival, Sony’s $1,100 InZone M10S monitor.
One of the most anticipated games, 2024, is finally out, and it’s not the Uncharted clone many expected. The early reviews are promising. IGN gave it a 9/10. GameSpot gave it a 9/10. As you’d expect, the game involves living your Henry Jones Fantasies through a series of cinematic missions scattered across the globe. Nazis are the enemy. Puzzles abound. Stealth is prevalent. You can use a bullwhip. It’s available only on Xbox for now, but it will come to PS5 at an undisclosed time next year.
The original PlayStation launched on December 4th, 1994. Sorry if that’s making you feel old. To celebrate the 30th anniversary, Sony has revealed a new limited edition collection of current PlayStation devices, including the upcoming PS5 Pro decked out in the original PS1’s classic grey color. Every item in the collection will also ship in throwback-style packaging, and the controllers include a fun easter egg in the form of a PS1-style cable connector. Fans will have the option to buy bundles as well as individual items, but supplies will be limited. Sony says only 12,300 editions of the PS5 Pro will be available – matching the month and date when the original PlayStation launched – each of which are individually numbered. Pre-orders will be available from direct.playstation.com starting on September 26th. Pre-orders from other retailers will also begin on September 26th for the DualSense Wireless Controller, with pre-orders for the PS5 digital edition opening up on October 10th. Items will start shipping on November 21st.
Meta
Meta Quest 3S
The Meta Quest 3S is the company’s most affordable VR headset to date — it costs $300. Despite being nearly half the price as the Quest 3, it’s actually quite similar. The Quest 3S is powered by the same processor (Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2), and has all the same mixed reality abilities. There are a few differences, obviously, the biggest being that it lacks high-resolution displays (in fact, it uses similar displays are in the older Quest 2).
The Sonos Arc Ultra is the company’s flagship Dolby Atmos soundbar. It looks quite similar to the older Arc, but packs more drivers, has a redesigned center channel, and takes advanced of a new woofer technology called “Sound Motion.” This helps the Arc Ultra deliver better midrange and more bass than the Arc, despite being similar in size.
The Sonos Sub 4 is the company’s new flagship wireless subwoofer. It looks and works quite similar to its predecessor, the Sub 3, but Sonos upgraded its internals with increased processing power and memory, as well as new WiFi radios. Maybe the biggest difference is that the Sub 4 comes in new matte white or matte black finishes.
Analogue, the biggest name in modern retro game consoles, has finally revived the iconic N64 — arguably the greatest multiplayer gaming system ever. The Analogue 3D works with all N64 game cartridges and features a “purpose-built 4K upscaler” so that games look great (yet still are faithful to the CRT original) on modern TVs. Analogue also worked with 8BitDo to create a modern take on the original N64 controller (sold separately). Available in white or black finishes. You’ll be able to preorder them next week on October 21 and it’ll ship in early 2025.
The Vizio MicMe is an entry-level 2.1-channel soundbar with a unique trick — it doubles as a karaoke machine. The soundbar comes with two wireless microphones and works with a dedicated karaoke app that has access to over 85,000 songs. Each microphone has an eight-hour battery life, built-in LEDs and various tuning features to change the sound of your voice. The soundbar will be available in late November.
Denon’s newest AV receiver, the A10H, is a more affordable version of its flagship A1H. It’s an 8K-ready, 13.4-channel AV receiver that can power up to 7.4.6 or 9.4.4 speaker setups and supports the most popular surround sound technologies (including Dolby Atmos, DTS:X Pro and IMAX Enhanced). It has built-in HEOS (for multi-room streaming) and supports Dirac Live Room Correction.
First announced at CES earlier this year, Samsung’s high-end ultra-short throw (UST) laser projector is finally available for purchase. It delivers a true 4K picture that can stretch to be up to 130 inches. It runs Samsung’s Tizen OS and has a built-in 2.2.2-channel sound system that supports Dolby Atmos.
Turtle Beach’s third-generation Stealth 700 gaming headset is designed to work across PC and console platforms. Its most exciting feature is that it ships with two USB transmitters, which you can plug into your console and PC and switch between the two via a button on the headset’s ear cup. It also has built-in Bluetooth for connecting to your smartphone or Nintendo Switch.
For once, this Zelda game revolves around Princess Zelda vs. Link. Aesthetically, it looks a lot like the recent remake of Link’s Awakening. At the same time, the gameplay borrows at least some ideas around summoning and manipulating objects popularized by the latest AAA Zelda release, Tears of the Kingdom. The result is a satisfying and low-key game that’s great for anyone looking to play something that doesn’t require 40+ hours to complete. Metacritic gives it a 85 overall rating.
Microsoft has revealed a few late-cycle refreshes for its flagship console. A Robot White version with a 1TB hard drive is a new color for the console and the first discless incarnation. It’s otherwise unchanged from the standard console. It’ll cost $449. A new 2TB Galaxy Black version, which is essentially black with greenish speckles, was also announced for $599. Both are slated to launch “later this year,” which we translate as definitely before the holiday season.
Openhagen
Openhagen LightBoks Home Theater Projector
Portable projectors have been around for a while, but we’ve never seen one designed quite like this. The LightBoks is a Kickstarter project with a tagline of the “world’s only wooden projector.” It weighs just five pounds while measuring slightly smaller than a 7-inch cube. Early designs show three variations of the box in Walnut, Black Stained Oak and Oak, each with a contrasting wooden screen panel. The wooden frame houses a small LED projector capable of producing a screen size between 42-200 inches in 1080p at 300 ANSI Lumens of brightness, though it can also support 4k content. Users can also flip the box’s orientation to display a vertical projection better suited for vertical content from TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Other specs include Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity, Airplay / Miracast content mirroring capabilities, an HDMI 2.0 input, a USB 2.0 port capable of reading hard drives, a headphone jack and a rear IR receiver.
Sonos has quietly revealed the second generation of its ultra-portable Bluetooth speaker alongside its new Ace headphones. While it’s called the Roam 2, it’s more of an iterative release. The most noteworthy changes include a more straightforward setup option – now it can be used immediately like any other Bluetooth speaker without dealing with the Sonos app. It also now features a dedicated Bluetooth pairing button. However, one potential loss is that the battery is no longer replaceable, and the run time remains the same at ~10 hours of use. Aesthetically, it’s virtually identical to the previous generation, save the fact that the Sonos logo now matches the speaker’s color.
Gear Patrol
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