21–30 of 164 posts
I was surprised to come back to my XBOX account after 10 years in the US and see that very old digital purchases from previous console generations were not only still available, but actually playable on the latest console through transparent emulation! They did a pretty good job with that.
If implemented correctly the affected person is also warned/notified several times by email before this is going to happen, so you have enough time to log in at least once and prevent it (and also extend the time frame again).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, there's never been a better time to be writing games for those platforms. The SDK's are much improved from the proprietary stuff available at the time and the hardware is very well understood. People have been pulling off some utter witchcraft on the N64.
Kaze and James Lambert are amazing. Kaze's new Mario game looks better than a first party Nintendo title, and James's engines pushes the console to its absolute limits. I've been thinking about giving it a go myself. It's such a fun and nostalgic console, and the limitations are fun constraints. The code archeology is really cool too. Seeing Rare's Dinosaur Planet boot up and play after being a lost title. Decompilin…
You know, all those people making new n64, playstation, and gameboy titles might be onto something. Apart from steam, I don't think I've heard anything but bad news from modern consoles.
Huge capital overhead. Exhausting mid-lifecycle crunch that makes or breaks the next gen. Multiple giants. Meanwhile Steam just casually absorbing everything. It doesn't matter that it's porous. And now suddenly - hardware costs you can't tip toe schedule around. The console business is shitty.
The main problem is that, ex. the Steam Controller, nobody can make a decent game controller except for console vendors and when the console vendors go down somebody will have to step up.
I just can't believe the PS5 has sold as many units as it has with just 15 exclusive games, many of which are remakes, even remakes of remakes. That reputation that the PC platform is too sweaty has taken a long long time to die and it doesn't help that ACER and such are coming out with handhelds that are maximum sweat (boot into a Windows Desktop with 10x too small fonts) compared to the consumer electronics experience of the Steam Deck.
I was surprised to come back to my XBOX account after 10 years in the US and see that very old digital purchases from previous console generations were not only still available, but actually playable on the latest console through transparent emulation! They did a pretty good job with that.
Whatever you think about Microsoft, they are a good steward of their platforms and go to extremes to maintain backwards compatibility -- even if they are always moving your cheese in the UI.
And since digital ownership legislation is a joke consumers have pretty much no recourse.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there evidence that European courts have sided with that? “We’re holding onto all your data indefinitely just in case you log in again several years from now” seems to be the antithesis of GDPR and I can’t discern the difference between that and what you’re suggesting. I believe EU has dug their own hole here. And the best move would be to pass more legislation to explicitly require the retention (and transfer, id…
No need to wait for the courts’ opinions: controllers must keep the data for a limited amount of time (which can be something like “3 years after the last connection”) under GDPR article 5(1)e.
> Personal data shall be: kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed. (..)
Note that this does not say "it must be stored for a limited amount of time" - it says "no longer than necessary".
Your basic account data (such as username and password, or an email for password recovery) is still necessary to log in to the platform and make use of your purchases. As long as there is no clear indication that the user will never log in again (such as due to death, or because they explicitly deleted their account), it would be reasonable to keep it around.
On the other hand, it may make sense to delete some data. For example, it may make sense to store your full name and address info to make checkout more convenient. If a user hasn't bought stuff in a while, it makes sense to delete it and have them re-enter it in the future.
There might be a bit of a gray space for things like game achievements (especially when there's a public profile) or savefile backups, but reading it as "you MUST delete all digital purchases because GDPR" is just not true.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huge capital overhead. Exhausting mid-lifecycle crunch that makes or breaks the next gen. Multiple giants. Meanwhile Steam just casually absorbing everything. It doesn't matter that it's porous. And now suddenly - hardware costs you can't tip toe schedule around. The console business is shitty.
Talk to console gamers and they still think the PC is sweaty and playing on the PC is like putting your hands in the toilet. I mean, I remember the 1990s when kids were playing flight simulators with this huge plastic joysticks that were always falling apart and needed to be calibrated every five minutes. It's not like that anymore, with Steam Big Picture and either an XBOX ONE or PS4/5 controller your PC is a better…
I used to only play on DualShock 4s and even skipped the DualSense because I just loved my DualShock that much.
I use an 8bitDo now and it is better in every way I care about. 8bitDo does not make consoles.
You know, all those people making new n64, playstation, and gameboy titles might be onto something. Apart from steam, I don't think I've heard anything but bad news from modern consoles.
Gabe is in his mid 60s, I'm prepared that in the next decade or so there will be a change of guard at Valve and the slow train of enshittification will get moving.
P.S. There's been a lot of groupthink and bandwagoning for Valve, ignoring all the dirt under the rug. But at the end of the day, by comparison, they are the best behaving in the field.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there evidence that European courts have sided with that? “We’re holding onto all your data indefinitely just in case you log in again several years from now” seems to be the antithesis of GDPR and I can’t discern the difference between that and what you’re suggesting. I believe EU has dug their own hole here. And the best move would be to pass more legislation to explicitly require the retention (and transfer, id…
The GDPR does not say that controllers must always delete personal data on request. Article 17(1)(a) — erasure is required only when: "the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed" https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr It's like the cookie banner all over again. This law never, ever required a cookie banner. The big companies are master in malic…
You still need to keep it if there's a law saying that you need to have that data, of course, but that's the exception.
You know, all those people making new n64, playstation, and gameboy titles might be onto something. Apart from steam, I don't think I've heard anything but bad news from modern consoles.
> Apart from steam, I don't think I've heard anything but bad news from modern consoles. Gabe is in his mid 60s, I'm prepared that in the next decade or so there will be a change of guard at Valve and the slow train of enshittification will get moving. P.S. There's been a lot of groupthink and bandwagoning for Valve, ignoring all the dirt under the rug. But at the end of the day, by comparison, they are the best beha…