I have a very similar experience to @Zarxrax. When I was younger, I’d play just about anything I could get my hands on. But now, it’s like you, where 99% of what’s out there doesn’t interest me.
I think this happened for a few reasons for me:
Games are a pretty big time commitment compared to other media, and my time has only become more valuable as I get older. I’m just not willing to invest it in a game that isn’t really scratching an itch effectively
There are more games out now than ever before in history. Combined with the previous point, there’s never been a better time to be picky.
AAA games are stagnating pretty badly due to profit incentive. While there a still some that break the mold and show artistic value, most of them are so commodified and painfully derivative, it’s difficult for an older gamer who has already played things like it to get excited
I’ve become more attuned to my preferences in genre, and know what I will and will not enjoy, which is something I didn’t have as much when I was younger, since everything was still relatively new and therefore, interesting enough to play.
But this last one is the biggest reason for me: games are not reaching the potential they have locked within them.
I say that as someone who is a massive fan of storytelling, good writing, and immersion in games. Compared to books and movies, writers are still given extremely low priority in the gaming industry, which results in a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance, simplistic writing, and a lack of innovative gameplay inspired by said writing.
Indies have been the most willing to experiment, but that’s mostly with pure mechanics or themes, and writing is still often neglected.
There have been a few titles that I think reach that potential, but most of them are quite old now. With so few to truly tickle me in that way, I’ll instead opt for arcade type games that manage to create a tight gameplay loop, as it let’s me not lament the lack of a good story so much.
Disco Elysium (even though I personally didn’t really care for the game due to the setting, the writing is undeniably high quality)
A Mind Forever Voyaging
All of those games have, IMO, a tremendously good sync between gameplay and story, where everything lines up to the point where you can become fully absorbed into whatever experience the writer/designer crafted. I would say Thief accomplishes it the best, while Mafia’s and Deus Ex’s clunky gameplay hold them back, but I can see what they were trying to achieve, and overall are close enough to my ideal.
Oddly enough I actually pre-ordered a physical copy of Primordia, and got a ways into it before stopping for some reason. I should really go back and finish it!
I used to buy tons of games and I enjoyed them all. These days I rarely buy any, unless it’s something that’s really got my attention. But I’ve got a ton of old games to play.
@mohab Eh. I like what I like, which is relatively narrow, and the major industry quit catering to me 30 years ago. Luckily indies picked up the torch that AAA threw away.
Ah, man, I feel the same. I like some indie titles, but haven't run into anything I could add to my favorites except Crimzon Clover World EXplosion. Nex Machina and Furi got really close too.
I definitely feel like my tastes have narrowed with age. Or maybe it's just that I've found a few games to really really fall in love with, and not much else pulls my attention away from grinding those top favorites.
When I was a kid, I could only get a new game every few months or so, so I kind of had to make the most of each one. Now I've got several hundred games in my Steam library, and more than half of are unplayed, because they don't grab me enough to boot them up over playing another ranked online set of riichi mahjong today.
I'm extremely picky, and I'm lucky to have a game I love to bits that's been consistent the last two decades. I don't think it's a bad thing, and I've come to accept it. I still play games socially with my friends, even if I wouldn't have played that game by myself.
I went through the same thing you did, trying games that are popular and finding that I don't enjoy them that much, and then thinking that I've become jaded and no longer enjoy games. However when I do play a game I enjoy I enjoy it very much indeed, so perhaps I'm not jaded after all.
This is me with current books and music. For books, common styles of prose or an abundance of certain tropes used now simply don’t hit with me, and I’ve even gone back to mid-to-late 20th century books recently to try to avoid all that.
I’d say the best way to try to broaden your taste is to make sure you’re touching on the hits in different genres, and–if you can handle dated gameplay and visuals–to go back and try games from previous generations as well.
I don’t think you’re alone in this. I’m kind of becoming the same way, and I figure it’s because as you become older you become wiser, specifically wiser to the way that so many modern games are bullshit now.
Nowadays it seems like almost everything is just a cynical cash grab. And with a lifetime of experience, you know how to spot that bullshit. Oh look, it has always online components. And an in game store. And season content. And gatcha mechanics. And grind. Not only just regular old grind, you know, where you need to level up and be at least be this tall to beat the beef gate (which always has the tantalizing possibility of being able circumvent it by cheesing it or being very clever). No, it’s just grind with no mechanical justification. You must fill the bar before you’re allowed to access this content. Would you like to make a microtransaction to fill the bar faster?
Fuck that, and count me out.
The current fascination is on delivering games as a “service,” and that just rubs me the wrong way. Everything is transient, nothing is permanent, and everyone is making a desperate grab for recurring revenue over creating a compelling experience or indeed anything anyone would ever want to go back to and play again. It’s all just crap designed to feed into people’s sunk cost brains, and it feels like damn near every major title wants to be your full time job.
I have even started eschewing Nintendo titles and some modern indie stuff specifically because they display a complete and utter disrespect for not only the player’s intelligence, but also their time.
I’ve found that as I got older, my taste in games has narrowed significantly. I used to be able to play pretty much anything, or especially any popular or critically acclaimed games. But these days I just don’t give a shit about most of what’s out there. I do have certain genres and developers that interest me though, so I know there are occasionally going to be some new games that I really like. And every now and then I might get surprised by something too.
I suspect this is a natural result of having much more limited time as we become adults. I used to love all kinds of games too, but today if I feel like a game doesn’t respect my time it gets thrown right onto the “no thanks” pile.
It’s limited time, but also the selection these last few years has felt very uninspired. Everything is extremely derivative and been done to death.
There was a mass consolidation of developers/publishers recently, on top of further extended development cycles that has really limited any kind of variety we might have seen.
You can only play reskins of essentially the same game for so long. Not to mention recycling gameplay loops microtransaction hell toxic multiplayer experience (cheating griefing), makes for a minefield of unplesant game experiences. Sticking to what you like and know is how you get enjoyment out of playing.
Does it not feel weird sometimes to be disconnected from the gaming zeitgeist? Like, we can obviously still follow news and whatnot, but I'm particularly talking about having no significant emotional investment in contemporary releases—in other words: being disconnected from the hype of announcements and release cycles.
I know people consider this a blessing in this age of hyper-consumerism, but there's a communal aspect to it that I like, and it often feels odd to not be part of it.
Not weird for me. I don’t play anymore at all. Don’t even have a system to do so. But, I watch YouTube videos about games and game facts or speed running every night before bed. I know more about games now than when I actually played them. I just don’t have time for them anymore but that doesn’t mean they don’t interest me. I lost my passion for playing games years ago but not the idea of it. I don’t know or care about the hype but I just find it terribly interesting via others hype or interest in these games. If that makes sense.
Like, we can obviously still follow news and whatnot
I stopped following the news first, then largely lost interest in new games after that. After TotalBiscuit passed I haven’t seen a single thing about video game news or reviews. If there’s something I’m interested in I might skim through a review, but that’s the most I do.
The Xbox 360 uses a processor with a different instruction set which means the executable on the disc simply isn’t compatible with the Xbox One and Series X|S. For those, Microsoft have worked with game vendors to convert the executable (from binary, not source) to the other platform: “static recompilation”. The new executable must be downloaded to play the game.
For the Xbox One, the architecture is very similar to the Series X|S so it can mostly just run it like you can run Windows 7 games on Windows 11 with compatibility tweaks applied by the operating system.
Okay the other person is onto the right path but I think it’s important to understand the underlying reasons for how “backwards compatibility” works on the Xbox.
The 360 used a PowerPC architecture, which at the time was very cost effective at the time. Pretty much most things now use x86, our standard 32-bit and 64-bit CPUs are this architecture. (ARM is another type that we are seeing now).
Now, you cannot run code from one PC architecture to another, even emulated this is a very costly procedure, every call to the CPU, every call has to be translated. Even with emulation this is difficult. (Note how we’re still just now getting 360 emulators).
This is mostly why Microsoft and Sony both said no to backwards compatibility, because there was no simple way to take a disc, pop it in, and play.
So after the massive backlash (which they deserved, but also was understandable their point of view), Microsoft created their backward compatibility program. Essentially what they (or developers, not sure who did it) did, was to literally re-compile each entire game for x86, instead of PowerPC. They would then upload the bits to Microsoft, and that is what you download when playing. The disc you insert is purely for checking that you own it, after that you ignore everything else and download the x86 version which is runnable on your console.
So, it stands that backward compatibility wasn’t feasible, it still isn’t “backward compatible”. They rebuilt everything from the source code to run. A pretty massive effort on Microsoft’s part and the developers just so we could play old games. Hopefully you see too why I don’t blame Sony for not going through all of that, it’s a lot of work.
So to answer your questions:
Digitally downloaded in x86 with the disc as key
No, it is a simple recompile, from the original source code
No, since there is only the PowerPC bits on the disc, there is no way to play the game on a newer x86 cpu without downloading the x86 bits
They work the same, once compiled for x86 it works for all x86 processors. (Caveats in software engineering of course, but in this case you can assume they are the same)
Microsoft went through a ton of effort to get this working, and developers each had to pull up old projects, figure out how to build them again, and did all of this for free. I’m all for hating on Microsoft for a myriad of reasons, but this was a project that had very little profit for them but did the community a huge service. They have my thanks, and Sony has my understanding for why they didn’t do it at the time.
No, since there is only the PowerPC bits on the disc, there is no way to play the game on a newer x86 cpu without downloading the x86 bits
Something worth adding here, if you happen to know, would be if the games still work after download & install while offline. Microsoft’s been rather inconsistent with this over the years (which is part of why Xbox One fell behind PS4 at launch).
I believe so? I think? It’s been a long time. The only thing I could see that would prevent it is if they require a check when launching it, but I remember if you had the disc in that was enough for it before.
AI is not a great source to ask for any sort of factual information, just a heads up. Its good for creating new stuff, like improvising story narratives or something like being a TTRPG dungeon master, though. I just wouldn’t ever rely on anything it says to ever be factually true.
Im not an Xbox/Microsoft employee, but I will answer to the best of my knowledge. Some or all may be wrong though.
Both.
It does not transform the game at all as long as there are no bugs. Usually the only benefit is increased internal resolution, and sometimes increased framerate Everything else is identical to the original release.
AFAIK, no. When you install the game it doesn’t actually copy the files, it downloads them because some of the files are patched. No internet means you cant download. I think it also needs occasional connection to check. I do think you can play offline but not for 20 years straight.
To my knowledge, no, there is no significant difference. I think it probably is exactly identical, actually. It is however, different from how backwards compatibility worked on the Xbox 360. It is significantly improved.
Cross-generational System Link. Its cool being able to have one player on Original Xbox and one on Series X in the same game.
In reference to point 2 I would like to ask you a question: do the x86 versions that are downloaded offer improvements over the original X360 games in terms of image contrast (notoriously dark on that platform) and audio? PS3 games sounded better at the time due to blurays and audio chip.
It is exactly the same game. Audio quality will be identical to the X360 release.
The picture may be a bit brighter, I haven’t noticed the X360 being darker. But picture output is effected by the emulator in the same way that picture output on a N64 emulator will appear brighter than a real N64 plugged into the composite plugs on an LED TV.
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