If Xbox ever gains majority market share your choices go out the window.
Wasn’t there a quote from a Microsoft exec stating exactly that is essentially the only plan. They either have majority market by 2027 or they leave the gaming industry.
I love how it’s all or nothing, they don’t care about gaming. Even if that exec quoted didn’t have the power to are the division, it shows a lot about what their plans are. And as always, it’s not good for the consumer.
The best thing the consumer can hope for is they grow too big and regulatory agencies grow some balls and split them up like old Bell. That’s the only way I could see it benefitting consumers in the future. Even if MS left the gaming industry, they are not selling everything off piecemeal like a tag sale. It’s all getting sold to Facebook or a better fit would be apple. They already have the hardware side, they could whip up a console real quick, and they already have the marketing on their side. Although both FB and Apple have tons of cash to burn, I could see FB buying it, developing a sub par console in the hopes it can bridge the gap until they can get everyone in VR goggles. That would be almost as bad for consumers as MS’ Monopoly…
Also, I am not implying either of those companies could afford to buy those purely with cash. It’s just if you have massive cash reserves it’s usually indicative of planning on new investments. Looking at the list again, and sorting by reserves as a percent of value, I could also see Google and Amazon being contenders. Amazon already has spent money developing devices, although that has turned out poorly for them, so they might be hesitant to dump a huge amount of money into something that hasn’t worked well for them in the past. Google has the money, they have power, but little to no experience in gaming world beyond mobile gaming.
Since its release in 2020, the Xbox Series S has been the subject of debate over its value within the current hardware generation lineup due to being less powerful than the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. It turns out, Microsoft's $300 Series S is more popular than the Series X....
My reason for buying a PS5 is my Xbone bit the dust, and my Xbox 360 also had issues when I traded it in. My ps2 and ps1 still work. There was also the fact that the only available options were PS5 or Series S. I didn’t buy the console for exclusives, I bought it because it was the better available console and my previous one was dead.
No I didn’t. The announcement of their intentions to fully absorb Bethesda didn’t even come out until around the PS5’s release, and wasn’t completed until like 6 months after. Not everyone pays close attention to gaming news. And if you bought the console early on, there is a chance you never would have even heard about it, let alone completely understood the implications of the purchase.
"Dragon Age in the early days had its fair share of identity crises," Flynn says. "Was it going to be a tools-driven, modding-driven game like Neverwinter Nights? Was it going to be a big singleplayer RPG like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?"...
Why did the genre go on life support? I have been missing a couch co-op game since the days of PS2, my wife and I used to love playing together. Speaking of old RPGs, anyone know if there are any plans to reboot Champions of Norath? That used to be our favorite game.
I also get confused by all these RPG prefixes, probably too old. In my day I would walk into the gamestop or Babbages and just say “got any new good RPG games” then they would point me to one of the Final Fantasy games, and then I would say “actually I mean, do you have any new hack and slash RPG games?” Then they would say “no, but you can pre-order Call of Duty” and then I would rifle through the bargain bin, and then leave. Good times.
Which means I have essentially been asking for Baldurs Gate 3 for 18 years now (Champions 2 was released in 2005, a year after BG2).
Spencer said in no uncertain terms that Microsoft could exit the gaming business if this projection became reality. Microsoft needs the light green and blue segments (PC and cloud) to get much larger and much faster by fiscal year 2027, or it could opt out of the business altogether....
I would rather it all die and force back to disks, or at least some guarantee you actually own the game.
All these services are going to become endlessly tiered with eventual extra dlc costs. They know most gamers spend $300 a year on games. So if Gamepass takes off, expect the base option to eventually be $15 a month, with tiers up to $40, maybe higher… who knows what whales will spend, especially if they throw in currency bonuses.
Then they will add in some in store currency and give the highest subscriber tiers extra Boxbux to spend on DLC… or probably literally loot boxes.
It would be neat to see support for a universal digital library system. Where it can only be checked to one person. If you want to sell the game, you uninstall and it provides you with a token number it generates. That unique number is tied to the copy of the game. You sell the token number, they now own the game. If they ever uninstall it, they get a new number to trade. Or libraries could lend them for free using the same system.
I’m okay with the PSN being down from time to time, nothing is perfect… but WHAT? you can play BG3 offline, but you cant buy it offline? now I am more pissed they won’t sell a disc.
Honestly to me the real shame is everyone’s retirement is tied up in Wallstreet, but no one is personally voting, that’s all done by investment managers. Even in the cases where people get their proxy votes, they mostly throw them away.
Retail investment is a quarter of the market, but only 32% of retail shares had their votes cast (vs 80% for the market as a whole), and on average only 12% of a firms retail accounts vote at all.
Disc’s haven’t seemed to matter in a while. “Pop in this game to download 35GB of game data” “download complete, please download 12GB update before playing game” “update complete, do you have code for expansion pack?, if so please download these 3 7-9GB updates” *phew only a tenth of a TB later I am playing the game
I fear more and more games will become like BG3, digitally exclusive. I asked for it for my birthday and was told the game didn’t exist for PS5. I was confused, as I most certainly have been reading reviews, then I found out it’s only digital and thats why no one saw a copy.
I bought a PS5 because my old XBone was on the fritz, and the series x wasn’t available at the time… plus hardware failure from the Xbone made me lean towards Sony anyway. Hard-core console gamers also helped push me into it as well… “who cares about Halo, you will be able to play all the good games on either console”.
I have no team, and now I kind of regret even buying a console at all, it’s only real feature for me is it has a fast boot up time lol. Every other article about a new game seems to be a kick in the nuts to console owners.
What’s the benefit of Steam deck vs something like Ally ROG? Genuine question, I have no horse in the race. (I can’t even find as much time as I wished to game in my free time at home, I am definitely not going to spend book reading time on subpar gaming)
Why? It’s so boring, I only play it when I want to play car simulator for a half hour. If you try to do any objective that requires you stepping out of your car, looking at a map for 15 seconds or picking a lock, some 13 year old will roll up and frag you with a rocker launcher. Almost no one works together, and there is always at least one or two dudes in every server that are whales and just spend the entire time pissing off everyone that they can. The don’t care about missions because they already bought whatever they wanted.
What do you like about online? Because honestly I have never been able to accomplish anything because some asshole frags me before I have time to pick a lock or look at my map real quick. It gets super boring. I wish they added mechanics where fragging other players became a more risky thing to do. Like your a police informant for a while and if someone kills you they automatically get four stars. Or I wish they focused more on stealing from other’s business. So you need to put more work into defense.
Idk, maybe those things exist once you get some money. But it’s nearly impossible to progress in the game as a noob without friends in the same server.
I am now totally confused as to what is even going on. After reading multiple top level comments, many responses and then reading the article (gasp I know… blasphemy) I can’t tell if conservatives are mad about pronouns being an option or not being an option. Many of the comments made it sound like they added pronouns, the way the article is written makes it sound like they removed the ability to choose pronouns.
So which is it. Who is mad, and why exactly?
Edit: Okay, maybe I understand now. Someone created a mod that removed pronouns. The place that hosts mod downloads, removed that mod from their list of downloads. Now people are mad it was removed. Do I have that right? If so, my only remaining question is if one were to use the mod, does it mean others not using the mod can’t see their pronoun(s)?
They still seem to handwave away the issue of baseload, which is entirely frustrating. As I seem to understand it, it’s just a 1:1 comparison of costs.
They use nebulous phrases like “Flexibility is more important” and point to batteries or energy saving methods getting cheaper, without actually including it in the comparison.
Although if it’s true EU plants were randomly closed from production 50% of the time baseload doesn’t really make a difference I guess.
Doesn’t the Australian model ask for a 4-6% fossil or other fuel input? I don’t see how base load, nuclear or other fuels aren’t relevant to discuss, as nucleur is like 4% of global output right now.
I don’t know enough about the topic to have an argument against, just trying to educate myself. I am curious how you would respond to this person in another thread:
I assume your response would be essentially similar to your previous comment. That we can develop the battery tech and it would be easier just to use fossil fuels as a bridge anyway?
How much concrete does it take to build a nuclear plant? Concrete production is currently 8% of global emissions, so if you have to scale up construction capacity 10x for the next decade, don’t you end up destroying the environment with concrete before they are even operational?
The cool thing about concrete for renewables (excluding hydro dam) is only the very base pad needs to be virgin. You can make a lot of the rest of the base and fill material with down cycled concrete. So tearing down part of an old factory on land near the solar panels are? Crush it up and only move it a few miles over to where you need it. Rather than hauling that to a landfill where it sits forever, costing energy use to haul, and more energy use to bring the fill and other bade materials from a further destination.
Is it possible that in the future there will be games available on Xbox Game Pass that cannot be played without joining Game Pass? Phil Spencer: No. That's not it. What we want to offer is choice. (game.watch.impress.co.jp)
Unity May Never Win Back the Developers It Lost in Its Fee Debacle (www.wired.com)
Leaked Microsoft Documents Show the Xbox Series S Might Be More Popular Than You Think - IGN (www.ign.com)
Since its release in 2020, the Xbox Series S has been the subject of debate over its value within the current hardware generation lineup due to being less powerful than the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. It turns out, Microsoft's $300 Series S is more popular than the Series X....
Microsoft completely misjudged Baldur’s Gate 3 (www.polygon.com)
Former BioWare manager wishes Dragon Age had kept a 'PC-centric' and 'modding-driven' identity like Neverwinter Nights (www.pcgamer.com)
"Dragon Age in the early days had its fair share of identity crises," Flynn says. "Was it going to be a tools-driven, modding-driven game like Neverwinter Nights? Was it going to be a big singleplayer RPG like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion?"...
Microsoft May Exit Gaming Business If Game Pass Subscribers off Console Don't Increase Enough by 2027 (wccftech.com)
Spencer said in no uncertain terms that Microsoft could exit the gaming business if this projection became reality. Microsoft needs the light green and blue segments (PC and cloud) to get much larger and much faster by fiscal year 2027, or it could opt out of the business altogether....
Baldur's Gate 3 developer says pull your PS5 offline to fix sudden crash issue (www.eurogamer.net)
The developer of Baldur's Gate 3 has recommended PlayStation 5 owners take their console offline to fix a sudden spate of game crashes....
Microsoft Nintendo acquisition hopes revealed by leaked Xbox exec email (www.rockpapershotgun.com)
In the latest unredacted document oopsie stemming from the US Federal Trade Commission's efforts to stop Microsoft acqu…
This is Microsoft’s new disc-less Xbox Series X design with a new gyro controller (www.theverge.com)
The Elder Scrolls VI will skip PS5 and isn’t coming until at least 2026 (www.theverge.com)
GTA V turns 10: The impact and legacy of Rockstar's biggest game - and why sequel is taking so long (news.sky.com)
Nexus Mods Fine With Bigots Leaving Over Removed Starfield ‘Pronoun’ Mod (kotaku.com)
New research shows renewables are more profitable than nuclear power (www.pv-magazine.com)
Link to paper: www.sciencedirect.com/…/S2542435123002817
Young climate activist tells Greenpeace to drop ‘old-fashioned’ anti-nuclear stance (www.theguardian.com)