Agree. Outer Wilds is my favorite game and all the others in that section aren’t far behind.
That is, except for Ultros, which is a game I’ve heard about before but didn’t know it belonged in this category of games. I guess I know what I have to check out next.
Yes, but that’s a different sale. My point is it can still be considered a loss leader if they sell it at cost. It took them many millions to develop it, so overall they would be losing money on the hardware sales.
That’s as opposed to something like Costco’s hot dogs. There was no R&D there, so if they sold it at cost, I wouldn’t consider it a loss leader.
An item that is sold to you at a loss in hopes that you buy more profitable stuff from them to make up for said loss. Game consoles are usually sold at a loss in order to get people into their ecosystems, so they can buy things like games and subscription services, which are more profitable.
I actually think that, while it’s maybe a fun topic for idle conversation…it doesn’t have a huge impact in the way traditional console pricing normally does.
With a traditional console, what the console vendor chooses to do on hardware is what you get. Maybe, as with Microsoft on the Xbox Series X/Series S, you get a high and low end model, but that’s as much choice as you get. All the games are made for that hardware, and whether the platform lives and dies depends on it.
But…that’s not really true of the Steam Machine. It’s just another PC, albeit preconfigured for Steam and HTPC-oriented. If you want to get a lower-end PC or a higher-end PC, you have the option of getting one and plugging it into a TV and running the same games on it and save some money or with a bit more visual bling. The games for PCs are already more or less written to scale up and down with hardware.
And it’s not like Valve’s platform is gonna live or die based on the Steam Machine the way a traditional console generation is, where success of a hardware console is high-stakes for the manufacturer and the players in successfully getting a game library going. I’d guess that it might help Valve make strategic inroads into gaming in the living room. But even if it completely bombs, Valve is gonna keep right on selling games to people to run on PCs (and the Deck) and their huge game library isn’t going anywhere.
I think comparing it to a console is the wrong mindset. It’s a computer first that can also be a console. It’s also a pre built Linux based computer you can have a higher degree of confidence that things just work even after updates. It’s a legitimate competitor for a new windows PC as much as it is a console competitor.
I don’t understand why they feel the need to hide it.
I can liken my opinion on it to that of Generative AI: Consumers have the right to be informed. Hiding whether AI was used (or SBI/other similar agencies in this case) is not a good look. If a consumer doesn’t want to buy games that SBI has worked on, it is the consumer’s right to know if a game has been worked on by SBI so they can make an informed decision. In just the same way a person would want to know if Generative AI was used in a game, some consumers want to know if SBI or other similar companies were used during a game’s development. And this of course works opposite too. If someone wanted to buy a game specifically because SBI worked on it (which I personally can’t see being a real reason to buy a game, but to each their own) then they too should be able to be clearly informed on the matter.
Basically, hiding something like that is anti-consumer. It gives the impression that the developers are trying to trick consumers into buying something they don’t want.
For example, if there was a video game which directly funded something you didn’t like, let’s say something like directly funding Russia’s war against Ukraine, you would want to know that before you bought the game, right? When you find out where your money went, you probably wouldn’t be very happy, would you? If you had known that information before you bought the game, that likely would have changed your decision to buy the game, right? Now of course, war is a bit more extreme compared to social politics, but the idea is the same. You would feel tricked. You would feel upset. Its the same idea. Consumers want to be informed, and hiding information from consumers is not friendly to consumers. The developers should have just updated the game description to include that SBI worked on the game and left it at that. The drama would likely not have reached its current level.
This is stupid and it doesn’t make any sense. People should have a right to know if it’s inclusive? If other races are portrayed? If other sexual orientations are portrayed? The only people who mind are bigots, and they can just move on. What’s especially remarkable to me is that bigots aren’t satisfied with not partaking, they desperately and pathetically need others to share that view, because in their minds, then it isn’t wrong.
People have a right to know if a company worked on the game or not, just like they have a right to know if Generative AI was used, or if it funds something they don’t like. It doesn’t matter if you or I think it’s stupid or not.
I’m not sure I’d say the consumer has a right to know, per se, but they may well have an interest in knowing. Whether or not a developer/publisher/whoever opts to provide this kind of information may itself be a factor in consumers making a purchasing decision, and, if some information isn’t being provided up-front, consumers can and should ask questions. Ideally, those questions and the answers would be public-facing.
I am a little miffed at responses down this comment chain somehow seeing your opinions as evidence of bigotry. It’s, like… people can disagree, people can have thoughts about things. Just because someone seems not to agree on one point doesn’t make them your polar opposite on everything, and surely shouldn’t lead to name-calling and gatekeeping. That’s the kind of behavior that leads folks to see everyone on “the other side” as extremists of some kind, if every time you interact with them they just jump to hard responses at the slightest provocation.
To be clear, that part was all directed at the others’ behavior, not really yours.
Signed,
A lefty non-bigot who doesn’t think anyone in this thread (among those whose comments I read) is showing any actual signs of bigotry
3 is extremely cool and all, epecially for what NES can output. But SMW has an insane mechanics with higher skill ceiling. Speaking as a player who haven’t played any of these two but watched some pros/speedrunners play them.
Oh darn, I guess you’re going to have to start over :) . Changing class (even subclass) makes the game very replayable and as you’ve noticed, it’s easy to miss things on your first play-through.
Tough choice but I’m reluctantly picking World. It’s probably because as a kid I had a NES, but never a SNES, so all my SMW play was at friends or the demo kiosk at the store.
Not until I was a 20something when I traded a used motherboard for an old SNES and played the shit out of it.
The Best Buy demo kiosks added an absurd amount of shine to unworthy consoles. I’m still waiting on my $800 3D0. It can’t suck if it’s that expensive!? I played the Road Rash demo, mind you!
Sears is the one I remember using the most. My parents would let me hang out in the all but abandoned video game section while they bought a lawnmower, some pants or maybe a frying pan.
I definitely remember the lawnmowers. The pants. The apparently orgasmic tools. But I don’t think mine had a kiosk. Honestly, I probably spent more time at neck-breaking Walmart kiosks than at any other.
That one was my favorite because I don’t think many knew it was there, the section was always empty, and in the years they had it, the thing kept working unlike all the other stores…
The regular PS4 controller works fine. Works well in steam, lutris, retroarch and the few native games I own, never had any (unsolvable) problems with it.
I’ve got it working but, unfortunately, when wireless the controller has unacceptable input lag. Might be something interfering with the bluetooth signal, I don’t know.
Hast thou considered: while holding an item, hold up on the D-pad, then release B, then jump up in front of a climbable surface like a vine or a fence and hold B in time to catch the item. Now you’re climbing with the item.
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