crispy4000

Won’t touch the demo until after finishing Crisis Core and the Yuffie chapter for Intergrade. But I think I can still do both before the release.

If sure bets are allowed… PS5 Pro’s price tag will be exceedingly stupid, arrogant Sony strikes again.

Yes, selling people on a box in order to pay for a subscription. This thread exists as a result of their failures in doing so thus far. CoD is going to have to do the legwork.

There’s still plenty of mystery and intrigue around how they intend to keep Xbox consoles marketable.

You mentioned them dropping their console hardware ambitions. Without a competing console, I could see Sony allowing for it. Microsoft would probably have to price hike to account for royalties and the size of their studios. (which is why people laugh at Ubisoft+) Maybe even split off CoD into its own subscription. Nintendo, no way.

They have/had every opportunity to become the market leader if they stopped trying to act so altruistic to the medium and put their console owners first. They came remarkably close in the 360 era, without Activision, Blizzard or Bethesda. If they truly leveraged those companies to regain market share, they could have their cake and eat it too. I don't think they'd need to phase out Games Pass entirely. It could be their Ubisoft+ if anything in this scenario.

Some less credible rumors out there suggest Microsoft won't be putting CoD on Games Pass after all, because of the money that leaves on the table. Could just be noise.

Xbox Local is already Games Pass on PC. They already use this model in effect. You pay for xCloud with your Xbox console online multiplayer subscription. The main difference is that console gamers must be upsold on that, because.

Microsoft is reportedly considering bringing Gears of War to PlayStation | VGC WWW.VIDEOGAMESCHRONICLE.COM In addition to Starfield, Indiana Jones, Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of… Rumor via Jeff Grubb

IMO, this either is not the end game, or they're making some odd choices to try to get there. Games Pass, as a competing service, will not end up on Playstation or Nintendo hardware. They have no leverage to do so, outside of things they promised not to do (*cough* withhold CoD *cough*). If any form of Games Pass ends up on those consoles, and probably just Sony's, it'd be more akin to Ubisoft+ than Games Pass as we know it. Then there's the whole debacle of cloud gaming decidedly not taking off (yet). Its mass market appeal is still just a theory at this point. They can't bank on it happening. I think Microsoft still expects to keep selling console hardware for the foreseeable future. Much of the history of Xbox deals in services and specs as the linchpins of their strategy. I believe they think they'll keep a spot in the console market with competitive hardware, Games Pass, and timed exclusives from all the studios they bought. Similar to how they think they have a place on consoles with day and date on PC. If I’m wrong, it’d probably be at the request of people above Phil.

You should probably be thinking less about the cost of a modern PC build compared to the current consoles, and more how it would stack up to the potential PS5 Pro.

You can do that today, if you're cool waiting a bit, and don't mind a slight premium on the ports relative to console. Sure, I'd welcome it. Sony would feel hoodwinked on some level.

(Copied from the pixel art thread) It's To the Moon if it was a puzzle based platformer, but unlike that game, the block switch puzzles are its best bits. The pixel art is stunning, so is the animation. The story bits tend to fall apart by the end: the basic mystery is compelling enough, but the way it wraps up is pretty contrived. Bear with me here... this game feels like an accidental meta-commentary on indie games that crawl too far up their psuedo-intellectual buttholes. Games like this tend to string you along, pull out stupid twists with convoluted explanations, and justify it all as being 'smart.' Nah guys, it's just being manipulative, especially to the player. And it's telling how much that gets downplayed at the end. But hey, it's a breezy, enjoyable ride that hooked me. So I can't fault it too much. 7.5/10 2024 Games Final Fantasy XVI - 8.5/10 Tinykin - 8/10 Evan's Remains - 7.5/10

Time Spent: 3 hours Rating: *** Completed I liked this one enough from the start to finish it, so that says something. It's To the Moon if it was a puzzle based platformer, but unlike that game, the block switch puzzles are its best bits. The pixel art is stunning, so is the animation. The story bits tend to fall apart by the end: the basic mystery is compelling enough, but the way it wraps up is pretty contrived. Bear with me here... this game feels like an accidental meta-commentary on indie games that crawl too far up their psuedo-intellectual buttholes. Games like this tend to string you along, pull out stupid twists with convoluted explanations, and justify it all as being 'smart.' Nah guys, it's just being manipulative, especially to the player. And it's telling how much that gets downplayed at the end. But hey, it's a breezy, enjoyable ride that hooked me. So I can't fault it too much.

Closest I've been to being a fan of this company was the Prince of Persia Sands trilogy. Then maybe BG&E, the Mario Rabbids and Rayman series. I liked the original Rainbow Six for the time, but never got into later ones. Splinter Cell always felt a bit soulless to me. Maybe Outlaws will do something for me. And the 2d PoP game looks good. If those two games are more of the trajectory they'd go in, I'd be happier.

Almost 20 hours into Crisis Core Reunion and I've completely broke it. HP is 99,999. Single target attack deals 99,999. AOE Attack deals about 60k. Same for a drain heal attack with i-frames. Almost no status effects work on me. I can't be staggered. All elemental attacks are absorbed as health. All it took was maybe 2 hours of grinding once I beat ~1/3 of the in game side quests. It's a stupidly unbalanced game, but maybe that's what people love about it?

Physical to me, cynically, is about the used market and retail promotions keeping console game pricing in check. I don’t think games get cheaper to own if a single storefront dictates what you’ll pay for a game on its platform. The cost savings of skipping retail won’t be passed on to us, but pocketed.

There’d be almost no incentive for retailers to push Black Friday sales for Xbox consoles. Retail isn’t just about the front facing kiosks, it’s the adverts and customer bases that the big 3 can tap into. Including online. I don’t think GameStop is as critical as the wholesale stores either way.

Time Spent: 20 minutes Rating: *** Going back to Warlords I, I have a soft spot for games where you explore ruins, and gamble the odds to come away with good things or totally screw yourself. So making a game all about that should, on paper, appeal to me. Certainly the visuals and soundtrack do. It feels early Civilization, in a good way. The issue here is that you can only hold 3 or 4 items before your inventory fills, then you become 'overburdened' and start going 'insane' (creating bad luck essentially) which ruins your run. I haven't figured out how to expand that inventory, but it feels incredibly limited. You can't steal artifacts from ruins without overburdening yourself. I'm sure there's a way to expand your inventory. But this is a snap judgement, and the tutorial didn't explain how to, so that's that. I'd go back to Yes Your Grace sooner, even though I still enjoy the aesthetic here. The sequel looks so much more ugly than the original's pixel art.

One thing is for sure, Kojima is playing Microsoft and Sony against each other and laughing all the way to the bank. Leaving Konami has done wonders for him.

The biggest problem with bowing out of retail, IMO, is the mindshare they potentially forfeit. Not all people shop for hardware online, and seeing consoles in person with demo kiosks and a vibrant game selection markets to the general public making their Walmart and Target runs. But Microsoft only cares about Games Pass yada yada yada…. that only works with viable on-ramps into their ecosystem, and Xbox consoles are still the most definite avenue Microsoft has to do that. Well, unless cloud gaming apps on TVs are the future of this medium, and they become the literal Netflix of gaming in the process. It still feels like they’re banking on the Activision acquisition to offset choices like this and porting more games to PlayStation. It could pay off. Maybe they have the metrics to suggest this is how they win mindshare and generate as much revenue as possible.

Tinykin immediately hooks you with its collect-a-thon bits. It scratches that itch better than any 3D platformer I can remember since Banjo Kazooie. If you'd consider yourself over these types of games, play Tinykin for 30 minutes and you'll surely change your mind. It makes me question why collecting doodads isn't more fun in open world games. Maybe its because everything you get in Tinykin has some purpose in the world itself: to open a compartment, to break things, to climb higher, to activate some contraption, to carry more, etc. You feel more capable in each level the more things you grab. The game's biggest flaw is definitely its story and characters. So many indie platformers get NPCs all wrong. They're devoid of charm here. And there's too many of them, with too much dialogue. So it's little surprise the ending gives no grand payoff. This problem feels even more pronounced considering there's no combat, and no final boss to get through. Not even some sort of final platforming challenge. Otherwise its a wonderful game. I still think everyone should play it, the level design is spectacular, and it feels like a classic game much of the time, but I really wish it could have stuck the landing better. 8/10 2024 Games Final Fantasy XVI - 8.5/10 Tinykin - 8/10

Sucks. I must have picked it up on Steam somewhere down the line, so I'm good.

I don't know if I'd recommend it. It's basically a battle gauntlet game with repeating battlegrounds and occasional NPC interactions. The story, while maybe critical to Rebirth / the end Remake, is maybe one of Square's worst localized efforts. Or its just bad writing to begin with. It's definitely addictive, but in the way Hyrule Warriors was for me when I played it last year.