Spawn_of_Apathy

As long as Todd Howard isn’t in charge of directing the game in any way maybe it will be fine. Maybe it won’t feel like it was designed to run on a GameCube.

I don’t really consider Nintendo not dropping the price much or often on games as gouging. Now if when Switch 2 releases and they put out a Breath of the Wild remaster with 60fps for $50-$70 even if you own the original digital I’ll say “yeah”. I would say yeah in regards to digital purchases as owning a title digitally on the Wii didn’t translate to you owning it digitally on the Switch. That’s definitely gouging to me. to me this is an area where MS does far better (to the consumer) than either Sony or Nintendo. To me this and MS’s commitment to game preservation and backwards compatibility and licensing is has been my favorite thing about Phil’s leadership at Xbox.

That is true. Even if I don’t care for Sea of Theives, it’s nice to see Rare making games again. Plenty of gamers don’t want to play games on PC and Sony is still doing just fine gouging their console audience. Like with the TLOU remasters. Jim Ryan seemed to make it his mission to fleece PlayStation owners, and they’re still releasing games on PC.

I didn’t say they had. Sony is releasing titles in PC while Nintendo isn’t. My stance is Sony has seen the light that there is money to be made selling to PC gamers. Selling to both people who won’t buy a PS or will rebuy a game on PC. In contrast Nintendo is willing to let that money sit on the table.

Good games do take time, but so far their bad games have also taken quite a bit of time. I’m not even blaming them for Redfall or Overwatch 2, or Diablo 4’a release and first season, and other stuff. I would call Starfield BGS’s most “bug free” title as it still had bugs. Some small, some large, but they were there. It was their least buggy game at release though. I’ll give them that and that is likely largely due to MS pouring additional QA resources into the game in the final 12-18 months. Still couldn’t save BGS from some woeful design and development decisions that went into the game. And I know we can’t expect studios to turn around a AAA title within 1-2 years of their acquisition. But even before the buying spree MS first party studios seemed aimless. While Sony and Nintendo were pumping out banger after banger. Maybe Mattrick had made some changes in many of these studios that aren’t so easily undone, and the crop of games over the last 10 years have been a result of that. Something Phil can’t easily undo. Maybe Phil doesn’t know how to lead a large software publisher, but he’s great with leading hardware development and he’s good at PR. But both the quantity and the quality of titles we were getting on the Xbox 360 vastly outweigh what’s been delivered on the Xbox One onward.

I think this is where Sony is starting to see the light though. Nintendo has likely made most of what they’re going to on Astral Chain and Bayonetta on the Switch. Release them on PC now and they will get people buying them who aren’t buying a Switch or people rebuying them to play at higher quality and performance. At a certain point exclusivity just leaves money on the table. Even if you think that because games are kind of forever on PC, just look to Skyrim. Even on PC there are like 2-3 versions of the game. And many new mods require the anniversary edition. So if you just own the standard version and want those mods, you’re paying something for the game again. Bethesda still getting paid. Many of the people who bought Tears of the Kingdom on a switch day one would buy it again on PC in a heartbeat if in May of this year a PC version dropped. Heck many people would buy an official Breath of the Wild PC port if one released this year. Because most PC players don’t engage in piracy and even of those that do some would still buy the official PC release to clear their conscience or for whatever improvements there could be for having a more native port vs a rom on an emulator.

While yes Don Mattrick did a great deal of harm to the Xbox ecosystem and brand in his 3 year tenure as president and 6 years with the company, Phil has been president for even longer and something still isn’t right. the hardware has gotten better and more focused for gaming. The value has gotten better with Gamepass. But what the hell has happened to their big IPs under the Xbox banner? So few titles coming out and then when a big tent pole title does come out it feels way off. Feeling incomplete, lacking quality control, feeling like a shadow of even past tiles made by the studio or in the franchise. Like yes Halo infinite seems like it’s in a decent place now, but it got delayed by a year and then took another year to make it feel like a complete Halo title anyone would want to spend any time in. Maybe it’s a combination of many things. Leadership at studios full of more marketing people than creative game designers, compared to the OG and 360 days. Games made specifically to go to Gamepass so the mindset is “if it’s not ready we can just release it and finish it over time” like a free to play live service title. They’re not thinking of these games like they need to be finished boxed products any more. Maybe more to do with leadership we also got the stories that Microsoft game studios seemed to heavily use contract developers over hiring more full time developers. They then allow contracts to expire and hire new contractors in mid development. So a significant portion of the development staff have little to know experience with the engine, tools, hierarchy, culture, etc for a large portion of their tenure. theres little continuity with talent. something is out of balance. the result of which is I cant think of the last title that after a month of release you could point to and say "that's a system seller". Xbox has Gamepass, which I dont mean this to say there aren't any good games on it, but kind of embodies a quantity over quality. Microsoft first party feels like it peaked on the Xbox 360. honestly I’m ok with Xbox doesn’t have any exclusives. Only fanboys care about games staying platform exclusives. I’m ok if their value proposition to gamers is Gamepass and that’s the reason to buy an Xbox. I’m not ok with the lack of quality coming out of MS first party.

Yeah it’s just when I saw the price and performance it felt like Nvidia was just trying to make a card for every price point in hopes you just rationalize your way up to the $1000 4080 Super. But at the very least make people think about spending just a bit more for just a bit more power, since that next jump is just $50-$100 more. These new super variants didn’t just happen to fall in between the current cards in power by accident or happenstance. I’m sure they could have easily made these super variants as fast and powerful as next model up, like a refresh. I dunno. It just feels overly calculated and predatory.

Is this like when that company was suing everyone for using “Edge” in the name or title? Claiming they had to show they were trying to protect their copyright so they didn’t lose it. R* knows they won’t win, but they have to take on this losing battle so they can win ones more blatant down the line?

well, Nvidia really threaded the needle expertly there. Price and performance exactly in the middle of the 4070 and 4070 Ti. I assume that will be similar for the 4070 Ti Super being just above the 4070 Ti and well below the 4080. The one that makes me the most curious though is the 4080 Super which on paper looks to be a bit faster and more powerful than the 4080 but actually cheaper.

Honestly, ES6. I’ve never completed a GTA game and get bored with them very quickly. While I won’t disregard the scope and detail in GTA games. There’s a chance I won’t love ES6, but I bet I’d play it more than a GTA game. I don’t think I’ve ever played a GTA game more than a dozen hours before Ingot bored, tried to get the largest and longest running 5 star wanted level I can for a hour or so and then I put the game down forever. Odds are, based on my gaming history, I’ll play an ES6 for at least a hundred hours.

It’s fine. Ubisoft isn’t releasing games worth owning.

I couldn’t make it through the first season. It’s not the worst adaptation of a property. It at least has the aesthetics of Halo. But that’s where the praise ends. The show runners and writers didn’t want to be beholden to the story of the games and books because it would hurt their creativity. But then it’s not even equally good. Just bad. Though they seemed to take inspiration from current (Halo 4 onward) areas of lore. You know, the stuff that’s far less relatable and more generally panned. I have no faith in a season 2 righting the ship for me. My dad will like enjoy it. He just told me he and my stepmom really likes Rebel Moon, so his bar is pretty low when it comes to sci-fi. He’s always enjoyed sci-fi channel original movies, no matter how b tier they were.

I liked Ms Marvel, but more so the stuff with her family and community. Less so anything to do with the bangle and her super powers. so sounding like Echo is worth a watch? I honestly forgot which show she was in before. So I wasn’t sure how good of a show they’d make with her has a main character.

yeah and I can play licensed tracks pretty much anywhere. I guess it’s fine if FM is the only sim style game you have access to, but if you have access to more sims then FM just “exists”. FM hasn’t done anything to stand out or set itself apart in a positive way from others that will keep people playing. 3 months past launch and neither career nor multiplayer has been improved meaningfully. But that could also be because of how buggy the game has been, making basic playability challenging for many. But T10 does need to do some major development work. This game may not have a community a year from now, but if a year from the game is very much the same but with more tracks and cars, it won’t have a resurgence T10 or anyone may be hoping for.

Something about that doesn’t seem right though. Could be another bug.

your saves didn’t sync just because your game pass lapsed?

Ah well most of what I said is still true. You can more easily turn up graphical settings with RT off on PC and stay above 60fps, still making it perform better than the console performance mode.

console versions don’t have ray tracing any more, so the biggest hit to their performance is now gone. If PC performance is solid without RT, then I’d bet the PC version is overall better since you can likely turn up other settings while keeping at or above 60fps.

At the bottom it says something generic about it.

I bet IGN has you covered with that 8.

They hand out a couple awards and call it the second biggest award show of the year.

That’s not fair. It’s at least DS quality. But not much better.

I’ve always felt there were many contributors that expanded games appeal and public awareness. Sports games starting in the late 90s and early 2000s like Madden, NBA Live (then 2K), and FIFA as graphics began to look “real”. The Wii that made gaming “for all ages” and “for the whole family”. Facebook games, which segued into mobile games. Fortnite, not for the players it attracted, but the notoriety of it becoming a job (Streaming, coaching, tournaments).