crispy4000

Another thought… If this judge considers Valve’s 30% cut nessicary to pay for online services for their users, where does that leave Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft charging on top of that? I’m sure the console manufacturers would still win in court if it ever came to it, for several reasons. One being they’d say its priced into their consoles. Perhaps that argument gets a tad weaker after the Deck is out.

Ultimately, actions speak louder than words. Not every choice they’ve made fits their PR rhetoric, but that doesn’t take anything away from the positive things they are doing to disrupt the status quo.

Yeah, I think the judge was right here. Steam’s cut is substantial, but also entirely non-existent if you buy a key from an off-client storefront. You can even pay a streamer to pimp your game and sell it through a custom store. There’s many options for exposure outside of Valve.

They don’t prioritize hardware as much as their competition with that move, sure. But selling Xbox hardware is absolutely a priority for the reason I already stated: console users are their biggest money maker. Their consoles are still monetarily set up to leverage that ahead of other platforms. They’ve proven over the last couple years they can have it both ways. Exclusives day and date on PC and additional fees/royalties on Xbox. Emphasizing player engagement in a (mostly) platform agnostic manner hasn’t really come at the expense of their console sales as far as we know. They’re still seen as an alternative library and subscription focus to Sony, and people still really want their consoles. This also bears repeating: if they truly valued player engagement above all else, the online paywall on their consoles would have been killed a long time ago. Not just for F2P games - which they only allowed for to save face after attempting to double the price of Gold.

Hardware remains a huge portion of their gaming business. They would absolutely prefer you to play predominantly on Xbox machines, since they’re practically guaranteed to collect more royalties and Live Gold fees there. A strong closed ecosystem benefits their buisness model, even when they don’t rely on it exclusively. Sure, they’ve been open minded about expanding their business elsewhere. But you don’t pay for the R&D of two new console SKUs to imply selling hardware isn’t your priority anymore. If they truly didn’t give a shit where you play, you’d see Gold fees dropped entirely and that same 12% cut on the Windows store applied to their console royalties. If that ever happens, you’ll be 100% correct, and there would be so, so many reasons to celebrate it.

Both Sony and Microsoft are dealing with the chip shortage and supply chain issues. Microsoft isn’t producing less at this point because they couldn’t sell out. But it’s pretty safe to assume PS5 demand is higher in most markets. After last gen, it’s up Microsoft to prove otherwise. “Exclusives” is a loaded term with consoles these days. With shifting attitudes towards PC, it can legitimately be said that Microsoft has no real exclusives, Sony has only timed exclusives, and Nintendo exclusives stick unless a limited publishing deal was negotiated. That said, I think Sony’s doing slightly better job than Microsoft at creating hardware-exclusive experiences. Mainly with the Dual Sense. It’s not really a system seller in a traditional sense… but when the relevancy of software exclusives is so downplayed, maybe it is? Auto-HDR on Series consoles isn’t really so exclusive anymore with Windows 11 (or 10 insider build) support. If this is where the industry is headed long term, I think the console manufacturers will be pressured to do more to individualize their hardware instead of simply building something newer and faster. Either that, or go in harder on the convenience angle by building consoles into TVs themselves.

Waiting for the Winter sale. But really, Epic Amazon and Humble have spoiled my desire to buy much of anything from the Steam client. Even with fake money.

There‘s a bit of that. I think Psyconauts 2 and Halo Infinite (potentially) turning out great sill make it a very special year by Microsoft standards. The final backwards comparability push is also a plus, and people will always consider games pass a winning deal. Really though, the best first year we’ve seen for a console in some time was the Switch. Nintendo was firing on all cylinders.

I liked Chrono Cross a little better than FFIX. The vibes in it are right up my alley, even more than Trigger, and I liked the battle system too. Baten Kaitos Origins feels like what a sequel to it would be, in a good way. I still haven’t finished it, one day I’ll go back.

I believe it's cheaper than $30 at Gamestop right now. Scratch that... it was a price error they corrected.

It could be argued the difficulty spike at the tree was a bit much. And nothing after ever gets as hard as it. Difficulty spikes are still one of the things I think matter least. As long as doesn't make the game feel totally impossible.

Spider-Man is easy to critique, being an open world game. Everything gets slightly too redundant IMO. Some of the challenge missions aren’t well tuned to the swinging mechanics, or all that fun. Stealth can overstay its welcome, especially when you aren’t playing as Spider-Man. Still is a great game. The final boss of the DLC is pretty nifty as well.

I felt that pain point with DK: Returns already. Aside, I'm really enjoying Yooka-Layee & the Impossible Lair right now. There's much less of that pushback, in a good (and intelligently designed) way.

The only thing holding Hollow Knight back, IMO, it's the distance between warp points. For a game with a map its size, I totally get the complaints about it. But man, I still devoured it. I like Celeste, but I didn't adore it for some reason I can't put my finger on. I wish the pixel art was higher-res.

I still need to get on it, but Tropical Freeze always a gets talked up as 2D platformer perfection.

So is a PS5 easier to find now?

Off the top of my head… Hades. Maybe there’s some recency bias there. But it’s just so damn good from the very first moment you hit something.

It’s okay. Nintendo fans were the og at this. Way too many people bought into Twilight Princess as “best ever” pre-release.

It just went gold. Here's a throwback.

Yeah, I know it's me.

Old Rare is back. I'm playing through Impossible Lair right now. It's outstanding. Also glad to see a Yooka-Laylee 3D sequel being developed. I still believe that it's a much better game than it's made out to be, though not without blemishes. A bigger budget is exactly what they needed.

Referring to me? I'm not the only one skeptical. I just enjoy platform fighters when they're fun. And wish the genre got more cred/sales for the good stuff outside of Smash.