Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who made/makes VSCode?
VSCode was an in house MS project
Wasn't the initial codebase github atom? So, about as in house as edge2 (the current one) is.
Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard
561–570 of 590 posts
Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard
#562Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard
#563Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didn't cheat on sc2 did they? They did in sc1. But regardless, with the breakthroughs in AI recently, I don't think they'd need to cheat on a hypothetical sc3.
I know in SC2 the harder AI would get free resources. I think "playing like a human" can still be an issue depending on the game. Until people want to play against AIs, there's not a lot of work put into making AIs human-like rather than just AI players. Also there still Starcraft 1 AI tournaments which are interesting. https://youtu.be/gqggsFpTAt8
Probably doesn't need to be perfectly human-like. If you want human-like, play against humans :-) Just keep it as fair as possible with the AIs.
I didn't know they were still doing SC1 AIs, I always wanted to make one but never quite figured out how to get started.
Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard
#564People are so excited for cloud gaming, and Xbox Game Pass growing now... The price will continue to go up up up up up up. I remember when YouTube TV was $35/mo now it's $73/mo. Game Pass and all cloud gaming will slowly cost more until it's close to 1/2 the price a month of a game, and slowly creep up from there. Sad.
Not only will the price go up, they will have worse content and Premium Passes.
Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard
#565Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, an SC3 would be potentially awesome. And I've always thought it would be interesting if they built a StarCraft MMO.
That Starcraft ghost seemed like a cool concept. Also I wonder why "World of starcraft" never happened. Terran would play like kinda like Planetside, zerg could play like the alien team in Natural Selection, protoss like the predator in the AVP games.
My assumption for why "World of X" games didn't pan out under ActiBlizz was because Project Titan destroyed all appetite for other MMO games at Blizzard. You've got the MMO team on WoW. Are you going to split that team up to go work on MMOs for Starcraft or Diablo?
Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard
#566Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get this use case, but I don't think it's very common. Most gamers are near their gaming hardware most of the time. Gamers who travel often usually have some mobile gaming hardware already. The number of people who would game but can't because they travel often and aren't satisfied with existing mobile gaming hardware is minimal. Not zero, but not a huge untapped market either. Personally, I game almost exclusively…
It's not even that I'm traveling often (as in hotel stay or something equivalent), it's that I'm often out of the house for a bit. Gaps of time where it doesn't make sense to go all the way home to play a game, but enough time to get like a half hour or more of gaming in. Kids want to go bounce around at the trampoline park? Cool, I'll hop on the wifi there and game. Had to go into the office and am taking a lunch br…
> Good luck getting that flexible of an experience with a full console or desktop.
You could stream your gameplay without resorting to Cloud. Steam has (had?) a great service where you could stream your game from one computer to another on the same network.
Admittedly, I'm not in the cloud gaming market nor would I ever be. First, data caps prevent me from doing this. Second, let's say I wanted to stream from some public place. I have to connect to their wifi? Non-starter. Not going to happen. Stream over mobile? Data caps again, this time they charge an arm and a leg and the connection quality is garbage. Third, if I am out of my house I'm probably driving. A Switch, Steam Deck, or Cloud Gaming can't do anything for that.
It turns out I'm no longer a child. I cannot game while out of the house anymore and that's ok. I will never sign up for a cloud gaming service until they can get over the infrastructural issues that prevent adults like me from engaging. For starters that would be public transit, and better Internet infrastructure and services.
I'm happy you found a use case for it. Most of the United States in particular, and I'd wager the world as a whole, does not and will not be in a place where that's viable.
Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard
#567This must be terrible for people that work in gaming. What if you don't work at one studio, and then there are only 3 others you can realistically go to and make enough $ to earn a living? Will that number just continue to decrease over time?
Note that the unions representing Activision developerd (part of the CWA) supported the merger because Microsoft was more willing to work with the union than Activision and signed a labour neutrality agreement (whereas Activision repeatedly used union-busting tactics)
Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard
#568Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But Sony having some real competition is a good thing. Sony has a bad tendency of anti-consumer tendencies in their gaming space when they are the leader and they get cocky. They did it with the PS3 and they are repeating some of that with the PS5 generation. I'm curious about which "anti-consumer practices" Sony is responsible for, that Microsoft isn't. So far it seems to me that Sony did acquire some gaming studi…
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…
I’m not sure there would’ve been any way Sony could’ve managed backwards compatibility with the PS3 on the PS4, short of building a PS3 into the PS4, given the vast architectural differences between the two. It’s only been in the past few years that x86 PCs have become powerful enough to emulate the PS3 well, and I have serious doubts that the Jaguar APU in the PS4 had anywhere near the raw horsepower required to emulate a PS3.
By contrast the Xbox 360 was built with a relatively simple tri-core PPC G5 which mapped to the hardware of the hardware of the Xbox One much better. The OG Xbox was just a Pentium III PC which no doubt made backwards compatibility with it much simpler (just need to virtualize an Xbox).
Microsoft has also had its own share of consumer unfriendliness, like the ridiculously expensive WiFi dongle for the 360 or how the current gen Xbox uses a proprietary expansion card slot for storage upgrades (contrasted with the PS5 which just needs a mid-to-high spec NVMe SSD like you’d put in a PC).
Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard
#569Re: Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard
#570Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hotmail, DOS, Windows NT (Dave Cutler from DEC)
I don't think NT belongs on the list as it was entirely developed in house. Sure the lead developer had designed an OS while at DEC and NT built upon his experience from that, but it was still a entirely new OS
There was no in house talent behind it. Dave already knew what he was gonna build before he arrived. Yeah, compared to the others that came in wholesale, I think NT still counts as an acquisition.