crispy4000

Time Spent: 2 hours Rating: *** Fell off this a few years ago. To quote myself from then: It's both better and worse than I thought it would be. On one hand the combat system is very unique, kind of a real time Paper Mario. The writing is surprisingly on point for having to live under Undertale's shadow. Platforming is straight-up boring though, and production values are a little off at times, kind of like a 90's computer game that can't decide whether its pixel art or not.

With my own money? Zelda Ocarina of Time gold cart.

It's in line with his approach in the past: Change your own company policy to something beneficial to consumers, then publicly ask why your competitor hasn't followed suit yet.

This is part of their cross-buy argument. You already have a PC, you can buy an Xbox for your living room, subscribe to Games Pass and play games on both. Or vice versa if you get into PC gaming. It's not a winning strategy, or at least, it hasn't borne out to be thus far. There aren't many gamers with cash to burn on every device, most of us have to pick and choose.

Okay then, buying a second $500 console so you don't have to wait a year to play certain games. Buying a second high-end console already made less and less sense with both Microsoft and Sony's PC port policies.

It means there is no evidence to support this method of brand exposure leading to gamers switching platforms, or growing a subscription. It'd be like if Sega ported the NFL2K series to PS2 and banked on it pushing Dreamcast sales. Okay, maybe not to that extreme, but you should get the picture.

Yes, I did, to show illustrate what Microsoft is saying here is a different logic without evidence to support it. Phil has a dream that with more exposure on other platforms, more gamers will migrate, and the bigger Games Pass can grow. It's certainly a theory.

And the latter is the thing Sony has never implied about their porting policy. To quote Jim from the past:

There's no inside baseball when they've been transparent about the reasoning. It was to improve margins on their games.

For it to be a good marketing strategy, it has to do better than 'not nothing.' I don't think Sony ever hedged their bets on PC-only gamers to migrating to console after exposure to their franchises.

So you're telling me PC gamers are rushing out to buy PS5's, now that they had a taste of old Horizon, Spider-Man and God of War? Nope, not buying it. People have their reasons for choosing one system over another, and a year's wait on certain games is hardly a dealbreaker for someone not invested in a particular ecosystem in the first place. I only think this works if cloud gaming takes off in a meaningful way, and thus, the (mental) barrier to entry is removed.

Misses the point. People were freaking out because this is a change in strategy. They can choose to tell us they're only testing the waters, but they're still opening Pandora's box by bringing former console exclusives to PS5. On that note, Phil did it again here by saying being "over a year old" is one of his criteria. There's going to be a lot of port begging, even as games are announced.

By saying that the damn isn't breaking, we know the fissures are there. Especially with his vision of the industry 5 to 10 years from now involving less exclusives.

Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Pentament, Grounded. You're welcome.

Time Spent: 1 hour Rating: ***½ Fantastic of what I've played so far. You don't walk, but instead warp from point to point, aiming your trajectory with the analog stick. The controls feel super polished, because of how the game intuits where you try to move to. And while it's hardly the most beautiful game on the list, I get a lot of Metroid Zero Mission vibes from the art, with its own flair. Even the music has a strong atmospheric vibe to it that gives the zones a sense of place. There is one obvious downside: several rooms will twist and flip your perspective. So even when you unlock the map of an area, you'll be scratching your head over which direction was true up, true down, etc. It really could have used some sort of UI compass, or even better yet, a rotating map that's visible in the corner as you play. The game can rail-guide you with the limited platforms you can warp to, but that structure isn't so different than what most Metroidvania's do anyways. It seems to be a bit contentious in critic reviews. But it clicked with me immediately, whereas several other reviews mention it didn't. So mileage could vary? You might have gotten it free from Epic. It's absolutely worth a shot.

Grubb saying that a Nintendo Direct was likely delayed due to the Microsoft announcement.

One thing is certain to me in all this: porting most of their games to Microsoft consoles would be an Arrogant Sony move. *We're still going to outsell you handily no matter for however long we do this, what's wrong with porting our games to your system a year late as well? You clearly need us to succeed! It's only true until its not. The smart Sony move would be to act decisively to preserve their high-end console monopoly, while simultaneously expanding their brand and subscription model in other sectors.

Call me crazy, but the costs of losing 30% royalties and PS+ Subscriptions from a lost console market monopoly probably aren’t worth as much as porting your mega expense games to one more (underperforming) platform. Remember the stink Sony made over CoD? Royalties are a gargantuan portion of their buisness. The logical answer is to stop making everything 1st party AAAA, as Ubisoft would describe it.

If someone’s going to charge for online play and collect 30% royalties, it might as well be them. So it follows that you make competitive moves to draw/keep more people to your platform…

Cool, I have until then to get through the Yuffie chapters.

I think it's a better situation for us all to own a single Nintendo platform at least, and it simplifies development for them. Nintendo was still riding high with software and hardware sales during the Nintendo DS and Wii era. They still sold 60+ million units of Mario Kart, split between platforms. So I don't think you can strictly say they're at full potential because they're focused on one machine. Though the gaming landscape back then was obviously very different, and they struck lightning in a bottle twice.

Time Spent: 30 min Rating: **½ Competent Zelda clone with randomly generated layouts, but lacks the polish of Blossom Tales. The main hook is that the game will glitch out on occasion, Missingno style, and you have to fight or otherwise overcome those glitches. There's also blood and gore when you or other NPCs die. You'd probably be better served playing a Zelda clone of another flavor due to screen tearing issues. It's unforgivable not to have vsync in a Zelda-like that scrolls like this. The hitboxes on bosses are also very suspect.

Yup. Right around Super Mario 3D Land, the OoT remake and Mario Kart 7.

That is true. But I'd imagine a lot of those sales were as pack-ins, considering that it sold better than any Gamecube game (and that console had roughly twice the install base by the end). Both those consoles are pretty much what happens if Nintendo only appeals to its core base. The Wii U even less than the Cube though. And the Switch was them at their full potential. 65.5 million Mario Kart 8's vs 8.5 million.