361–370 of 590 posts
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That's hardly on their "gaming space", like OP said.
still pissed me off when i had the option of losing online gaming or losing console access to my ps3.
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> They haven’t owned Bethesda for very long so I think it’s fair that they haven’t released a F:NV successor yet. Word on the street is that the principals at the top of Obsidian and Bethesda still hate each other, Microsoft keeps them at arms distance, and Obsidian isn't in a rush to do a new Fallout game even if "Daddy Microsoft" forced Bethesda to share its toys with the other studios (just like "Daddy Interplay"…
See having completed Outer Worlds and also comparing it to Starfield, I’ve enjoyed both but Starfield feels much bigger while Outer Worlds feels smaller but deeper. The sheer scale of planets on Starfield runs pretty well. I’d love to have those two teams combined again for a great game.
(As something of an aside/tangent, as a failed game developer I've always wished for the ability to "scout" locations in other people's games. Hollywood keeps a number of backlots of standing sets that just about anyone can rent to use. Plus real world cities can be shot by anyone looking to fill out the right permits. But games still rarely to never "share backlots" and game players and reviewers/critics still generally "punish" games that do [compare reviews of Saints Row 3 and Saints Row 4, for instance]. Imagine if movies got bad reviews every time they were set in New York. "Can you believe yet another movie set in New York? How uncreative," said no one ever. It could be incredible if as a game story writer I could "shoot" a deep story somewhere in Starfield. Sure mods exist and sort of fill that role some of the time, but mods still have that too strongly bound association with the parent game [can't sell it standalone] and monetization for mods is still complicated and players/reviewers/critics still look down on their noses for mods. "Imagine if this modder had built their own game for this story how much better it could have been?" That story might not exist to be told without "sets and costumes" to easily borrow as a foundation. I don't have any easy solutions to this conflict between wide and deep games, but I do think more access and better reviews for people trying to write deep stories in someone else's wide sandbox could be a start.)
UK regulators were objecting the deal because they were concerned that the takeover would reduce competition in cloud gaming. Microsoft gave game streaming rights to Ubisoft, which made the Activision deal possible: https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/13/why-microsoft-had-to-relin... "For Ubisoft, this deal means it has full and exclusive cloud-streaming rights to all current commercially available Activision games, as we…
It's strange to see some gamers praise this acquisition as if it will have any positive effect on some of the games they enjoy. In no world will Microsoft decreasing the competition going to be a good thing for consumers.
Mostly its because Activision/Blizzard is such an obviously shitty terrible company that any deal that sees cool IPs taken out of their hands is seen as a positive thing.
I'm not even worked up about gaming specifically. I just think the FTC is failing horrifically at its job of protecting consumers from monopoly. The SEC is failing on its end too. Everything will just get slowly worse.
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A few things, and I am likely forgetting others: Backwards compatibility: It was a mess on the PS3 with different launch models having different levels of compatibility. They later removed this functionality completely on the PS3. The PS4 had no backwards compatibility for PS3 instead you had to purchase (or subscribe) to play games in the cloud, games you may already own. Compared to Xbox which the Xbox One did not…
Backwards compatibility was a luxury, and not the standard, until recently. The first Nintendo backwards compatible home console was the Wii in 2005. Rapidly changing architecture differences made playing older games difficult. The GBA, DS, PS2, and PS3 all had custom hardware needed to play older games. The fact that the PS3 could play PS1 games in any way should be lauded, not labeled as anti-consumer.
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Which games has MS shown good stewardship of? Halo is a shell of what it once was and has snubbed the players with false promises in recent iterations (couch co-op used to be a staple of Halo but they reneged on their promise to include it with the latest). AFAIK they haven't had any good exclusive IP for Xbox in a while. They've had a few dynamite hits (ex. Sunset Overdrive) but haven't followed up on any that I'm a…
Age of Empires, for one. Thoughtful updates and remastered versions that aren’t priced like new games. Then new games that are actually worth the update. Can’t wait for that same ethos to be applied to Warcraft.
Best case scenario is that Microsoft embraces these properties and revitalizes them without ruining the game in the process. Worst case is they kill it completely...
UK regulators were objecting the deal because they were concerned that the takeover would reduce competition in cloud gaming. Microsoft gave game streaming rights to Ubisoft, which made the Activision deal possible: https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/13/why-microsoft-had-to-relin... "For Ubisoft, this deal means it has full and exclusive cloud-streaming rights to all current commercially available Activision games, as we…
Does this mean World of Warcraft will eventually be playable on Ubisoft's competitor to Nvidia's GeforceNow?
But presumably they could sell their rights or license them to others, so who knows how this will actually play out.
SC2 is still the best RTS there is. Immortal, Stormgate, and ZeroSpace are all showing great promise, but none of these is even at the public alpha stage. So SC2, with all of its problems, it is.
I keep my fingers crossed for the revival of the StarCraft franchise. I grew up with the game, and it's kinda sad to see the current state of SC2: old bugs, new bugs, community trying to take over the processes but having a very bumpy ride, opaque decision making (de-facto spokespersons/community figures under muddy NDAs), and unfortunately all our 2010 fears (no local/LAN play!) coming true, when server outages are…
I expect starcraft would be the same, maybe cant go back to it former glory but atleast it would be alive especially if make it to gamepass