Yeah, the technical error of enabling them before they meant to. Anyone who’s stupid enough to have bought a Ubisoft game in the past decade deserves this shit. There’s so much excuse-making about the way gaming companies are going, that they can all get fucked. I hope they enjoy their full screen ads.
They didn’t accidentally code everything for this, test it, put it in updates, etc. That was all on purpose, and they ‘accidentally’ enabled it to measure how much outrage was generated. If people make excuses for this shit now, it WILL be coming as a permanent “feature”.
Absolutely agree. I was about to play the devils advocate and try to find ways, that this could happen by accident. If it was on PC it could’ve been the Ubisoft launcher (or whatever it’s called) which accidentally took window focus.
But this is on Xbox and PlayStation. That can only mean that it’s in the game files. That does neither happen by accident nor by technical error.
The only error could be, that it was enabled before they meant to. But no, this was 100% fishing for reactions.
I’ll tru to play Devil’s Advocate as well. You know how, durong development, specially on AAA games, they try things, discard them, and then leave them in the code, caise removing it is harder? Like Bethesda’s cut content, secret, semy empty levels in other games, etc. Maybe they tried a new ad pop up system during development, ultimately decides to remove it with a feature flag or something for it not to actually pop up, and then it turns out they did not disable the pop up.
Buuuuut they are Ubisoft, so while this is definitely possible…
If you pay for the discs, you can’t use the discs on future generations. Right? Ps4 can’t read ps3 or ps2 discs. Xbox one can read xbox and 360 discs, but they limit it to only specific games. So in general, you have to buy it once again on their online store, if its available at all.
Yeah, idk why Ps4 has no backwards compatibility. PS3 (fat) was backwards compatible with PS 1+2, and PS5 is backwards compatible for PS4. I didn’t buy a PS4 for that exact reason, and was lucky enough to get my hands on a PS5 during launch to play all the PS4 games I missed.
With all the niche Japanese games I like slowly coming to PC, I probably won’t buy a new console ever again. (As an aside, if anyone has a spare fat PS3 they’re willing to sell for parts…)
I agree. One of the few reasons I still stuck to consoles is because I could buy the physical games and have it on my shelf forever. That’s going the way of the dinosaurs, and while I love that things are more accessible via Steam or whatever, I can’t let my friends borrow my games, or pass it along to someone else to enjoy if I didn’t like a game as much.
I also just love collecting and displaying game cases and steelbooks and stuff. That’s rarely a thing anymore, either.
The lack of backwards comparability is because of the large difference in architecture.
The PS2 was a128 bit custom processor, the PS3 had PS2 hardware in the original fat versions to achieve backwards compatibility, it was dropped to reduce the price.
The PS3 was a 64 bit (I think) custom PowerPC processor.
With the PS4 Sony switched to x86_64 processors making the console essentially a PC with bespoke custom hardware. The PS5 is the same but better speced components as the tech moved on. That’s why the PS4 & 5 are compatible, they are essentially using the same architecture.
Microsoft is a similar story but they went all in on emulation of their old consoles which is why only certain games are allowed, they only allow the ones tested to work with the emulator.
The PS3 was a 64 bit (I think) custom PowerPC processor.
Thanks for jogging my memory, I completely forgot how different the PS3 architecture is compared to the other PlayStations and also the 360. Same reason why emulation for it is so hard (and why MGS4 has no modern ports 🥲)
The PS3 fat could only read PS2 disks because it had stripped down PS2 hardware included. It was effectively a PS2/3 combined. This was part of what drove the cost up, so they gutted that hardware from the slim.
PS4s can’t read PS3 disks because the PS3 used a bespoke PowerPC based chipset that was a colossal pain in the ass to develop for. So for the PS4 to have backwards compatibility, they would have had to either A, include PS3 hardware in the PS4 (expensive) or B, create an efficient software translation layer/built in emulator (see “pain in the ass”).
From what I have heard, they smartened up with the PS5. It’s basically just a faster PS4. At it’s core, it’s based on very similar hardware, so it’s easy to make PS4 games run without issue, but the boost in performance allows games designed specifically to take advantage of it.
It did when the ps5 first came out. $500 for it was a steal back then. I wanted to build a PC at the time but due to the crazy GPU prices and low stock for other parts I decided it was best to wait. Got a ps5 instead (was also hard to get as well) and thought it was absolutely worth the price for the experience it offered. Just built the pc I wanted last fall shortly after prices started dropping. First time ever I made a good choice.
Yeah, after that time I really didn’t think consoles would be as much as a midrange PC. And yet, here we are. Feels like Sony’s back to late PS2 era levels of hubris now.
Even at the time it came out you could have built a pc with an RTX 3060 for that price, which would outperform the PS5 by a big margin and have a way bigger game library
Depending on how much you care about visuals, yeah.
A decent GPU will often be the price of an entire console. That said, even if you go with high-end hardware I found that eventually the cost will make up for itself for not having to pay for PSN to make use of and play on the internet. Or the fact that games are very often priced up to 50% more on the PS store than those on PC because there are no competing stores.
You absolutely will not get anything that runs even remotely decently with ray tracing on in any recent title.
For the fair comparison you’re only allowed to buy new, not used parts. So, for 700$ you won’t even be able to put together a decent system with a 3070 in it.
“Oh but i don’t care about ray tracing” – nice copium.
I got a cheaper AMD GPU specifically because I do not give a fuck about ray tracing. Also just look at the steamdeck, you can get great performance for very cheap nowadays. It might not be as powerful or nice as a PS5 Pro, but the $700 computer has many advantages in its favor
Get fucked. After all the shit I’ve seen them pulling with Windows 11 they’ll never get a dime out of me again. I’ll ride my win 10 until it’s out of support then switch to Linux. Fuck monopolies, and fuck enshittification for profit.
I’m sure on the game specs on the store it says steam will no longer support win 10 in jan 2025. Unless i misread and it’s it’ll only support win 10 and above.
Maybe you are confusing this with the news from a year ago that Steam doesn’t support Windows 7 and 8 anymore?
By the way MS-support for 7 ended in 2015, so that’s 9 more years of Steam support after updates from MS stopped. I’d count on Steam working on Windows 10 for years to come.
Steam already runs fine on Linux, you don’t need SteamOS to us the compatibility functionality, meaning anything you can play on the steamdeck already works on a Linux pc.
Playing modern Windows games on Linux and SteamOS is done using Wine and Proton. Wine is available on almost every Linux distro and Proton comes* with Steam.
*You can use Proton outside of Steam but it’s quite hacky and not really needed.
Anything Microsoft built lately is dogshit. They turned Windows into a steaming pile of shit over the past 20 years. When you think it can’t get any worse, they somehow raise the bar on disappointment.
No doubt it will be loaded with a shit ton of tracking/telemetry to build new datasets and train LLMs. Mining data from kids/teenagers and building those ad profiles early on is key.
I’m curious what the movie would contain that the game didn’t. The game was very linear and almost played like a movie itself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a cat movie! Just curious how it will differ from the game.
“In the beginning, animated movies starring Chris Pratt were spaced by 24 weeks, then 12, then six, then every two weeks. The last one, with Garfield, was a week. In four days, we could be seeing new casting announcements every eight hours, until they’re coming every four minutes.”
If you’re just looking for sales numbers, which we haven’t had much of for a long time, the long and short of it is:
4M Steam Decks since launch, 2M of all of its competitors combined; expected that all handheld PCs sharing this AMD tech will sell about 2M more this year.
To put it in perspective there are 150 million Switches and 75 million PS5s out there. And 15 million Wii Us, if anybody is counting. This puts PC handhelds some ways ahead of the N-Gage and well behind the Game Gear.
I'm less concerned about who's ahead in the handheld PC market and more interested on whether it'll ever become a mass market space. I think a lot depends on prices for integrated GPUs not skyrocketing like their desktop counterparts and their performance stepping up a notch or two. We'll see.
It’s worth keeping in mind what’s different here though. If the Steam Deck came out in the early 90s, it wouldn’t be analogous to the Game Gear; it would be competing with the Nomad. It plays the same games as a PC but handheld, so it’s capturing specifically the market that wants to extend that library to be handheld as well. Every Switch sold is handheld, but outside of the Switch Lite, we don’t know who values that system for its handheld capabilities (I basically never used my Switch handheld back when I actually used it). There was also literally no competition for it when it launched, so it will be interesting to see how many opt for a handheld PC instead when the handheld part is what they’re looking for.
Additionally, there’s this rising market segment of mini PCs that are powered by the same tech that’s in these handhelds. I’ve got one that I like to bring around for local multiplayer games, and if you only ever intend to use a computer at a desk for basic documents and web browsing, they can undercut low-end laptop prices for the same level of power and run the same operating system. Based on recent rumors, this tech could wind up in a new crop of Steam Machine-esque consoles very soon but with the library problem more or less solved compared to ten years ago.
Yeeeah, I don't know that "it'd slot in next to the Nomad" is a ringing endorsement of mainstream appeal.
You, by the way, are not in the majority in your usage pattern for the Switch. Every bit of info available suggests that handheld vs docked use of the Switch is pretty much evenly split. Which is surprising to me, because I see it as a handheld first and foremost.
I do agree that it'll be interesting to see how the Switch 2 fares in a market where it's not the only thing in its class, but if I had to place any bets, they have a humongous lead despite PC handhelds having been around for ages and the Deck having taken a very good stab at competitive pricing and performance a whole three years ago (what is even time, holy crap).
As for mini PCs... Man, I don't get mini PCs. I'm very much an early adopter of weird tech, I have more SBCs and handheld devices than I know what to do with, but... who wants a screenless laptop? Or an underpowered, overpriced desktop? I can see some use cases for it, I've had some NUCs and thin clients here and there, I just don't think the value proposition is there to use them even as a media device. But hey, it's a small but clearly competitive space, and if this gen APUs do indeed match a 4060 desktop level of performance when fed enough power maybe that starts to make sense next to a Xbox Series S or something as a gaming device. We'll see.
For the record, I do have a PC plugged into a TV for gaming, mostly made out of spares and hand-me-downs built into a smaller, less garish case. I haven't seen a mini PC that made me question that choice yet. I'm open to having my mind changed, it just hasn't happened yet.
Yeeeah, I don’t know that “it’d slot in next to the Nomad” is a ringing endorsement of mainstream appeal.
PC gaming has mainstream appeal, measurably. There are lots of reasons to play games on PC, and this is an additional one, particularly compared to PlayStation and Xbox, moreso than Switch.
Every bit of info available suggests that handheld vs docked use of the Switch is pretty much evenly split.
I haven’t seen any reporting on that in a long time, since before this PC form factor existed, but I’d happy to peruse a link. I see some people playing Switch on the subway from time to time, but also anecdotally, most of my friends, all adults, play them docked just about exclusively. I’ve definitely seen children playing Switch Lites at the laundromat as a tool that parents use to keep them busy.
As for mini PCs… Man, I don’t get mini PCs. I’m very much an early adopter of weird tech, I have more SBCs and handheld devices than I know what to do with, but… who wants a screenless laptop? Or an underpowered, overpriced desktop?
My use case is I have a very easily packed and unpacked local multiplayer machine, for emulators and fighting games especially. The Steam Deck is a bit of a pain to set up for this use case, and it can’t run Street Fighter 6 very well or at the resolutions I’d want it to, but the mini PC does all of that very well. That use case, and some interested fighting game tournament organizers I’ve been talking to, are admittedly very niche, but I think the alternative for a laptop has real legs. My friend just got one for her dad (in his late 60s) for a little north of $150. It runs Windows. It allows him to browse the web and run his office applications, plus whatever else he needs to run on x64. Most older folks I see using laptops only ever use them in a single place like a desk anyway, and they’d rather output them to a larger monitor. This is where I think this form factor will sing in the coming years, plus the real possibility of whatever living room PC game machine that Valve can put together for decent value. The other advantage is that not only can they be cheap up front and take up less space, they also use less electricity and produce less waste heat.
PC gaming absolutely has mainstream appeal, and it's growing. Just not specifically because of the handheld market. By the numbers, anyway. I find people tend to hedge on this. Either the Steam Deck is a consolized solution to PC gaming that makes the Switch obsolete or a bit of an experiment that doesn't need to stack up to mainstream devices.
Yes, PCs (desktop PCs, laptops and handhelds together) are comparable to 4K home consoles these days and lead in some segments. But of those categories the handhelds are the smallest contributor while they are the largest portion of the console market. I love PC handhelds and I'd like to see those proportions shift, but it's interesting that Valve has put a lot of resources behind having a competitive device at a very low price point and we haven't seen more of a change.
On the docked vs handheld thing, Nintendo disclosed that info a few times. This is the first result I found just searching for it. It's recent enough that there were already a hundred million of the things in the wild, so I don't expect it'll have changed much.
As for the mini PC thing... yeah, sure. I mean, I'm not sayng they don't do the thing, I'm saying whenever I sit to look at the optimal solution for a problem the mini PCs never seem to come out on top. A PC for an older person taht doesn't need a ton of computing power? I went with an Android tablet with a detachable keyboard last time, they are delighted at having a laptop-style thing and a tablet to watch media that works like their phone. A low power device to run some specific application? I can probably find some cheap SBC somewhere I can get running passively with a heatsink and will do the job. A portable gaming solution? I have laptops with dedicated GPUs around that are older but much faster than most mini PCs. Also, they have a screen, so there's that. A set-top box? I can put something together for cheaper in the same performance range.
There are valid use cases. Sure, if you need a dozen of these things to embed in desktops, or something you can mount behind a screen, or... something to run a FGC tourney for cheap, apparently, there are reasons to use them. I just haven't found they provided a better alternative than other devices for most of the uses I personally have.
PC gaming absolutely has mainstream appeal, and it’s growing. Just not specifically because of the handheld market. By the numbers, anyway.
I’d wager that the reason the PC market has grown is due to a million different reasons that, on their own, are quite small. Probably not many people would ditch their PlayStation just for mods. Or just for more freedom on controller choices. Or just for better performance. Or just for free online play. Etc.
If I might nitpick your link on the handheld usage, which by the way is dated approximately right when this handheld PC market was born, the thing that Nintendo was seemingly seeking to justify with that data is, “Do people switch with the Switch?”, but it would not answer the question, “How many people would buy the handheld-capable version if they already had a more powerful stationary machine that plays the same games?”
I'm confused on what your hypothesis is here. You think PC handhelds are massively shifting the modes of usage of the Switch towards being primarily docked? I'm not gonna dig for it, but my understanding was that the Switch usage was slowly drifting towards more handheld over time. Even if that wasn't the case, the numbers just don't match. Even if 10 million people had shifted from using the Switch as a handheld to a PC handheld, why would that impact the remaining 130 million users? PC handhelds are a rounding error in the space the Switch operates in.
If I had to guess the drift towards PC probably has a lot to do with software. PC ports weren't a given until recently and they arguably still aren't reliably great. With console exclusives becoming fewer and further between and both first parties now willing to ship PC ports there just is less of an incentive to be stuck to a specific piece of hardware. PCs have always been backwards and forwards compatible, but with all sorts of devices able to run the same software across many device types and hardware generations that is becoming a big selling point.
Which on the Switch is a lot weaker, mostly because Nintendo is better at making a ton of first party games than Sony and Microsoft and because they have a younger userbase that is less likely to have three other gaming-worthy devices at their fingertips at all times.
Answering this post is difficult without writing an entire book, but I think the existence of this form factor, the iteration on it, and the cycles of hardware going out of date and being replaced will, in the long term, have more and more of a tangible effect on all consoles, and Nintendo will feel that last out of the three. Rumor has it Xbox has given up on being a console and will actually just be a PC going forward.
With console exclusives becoming fewer and further between and both first parties now willing to ship PC ports there just is less of an incentive to be stuck to a specific piece of hardware.
This is basically the gist of my point, and long-term, I think it will apply to handhelds as well. As an example, on the current Switch, you can get compromised versions of the Witcher 3 and Doom Eternal, or you could just get the better version of the game on PC; it will run perfectly at home, and you can run it at acceptable settings when handheld. Feel free to extrapolate that a few years into the future when there’s a new handheld PC out and the consumer is comparing the latest new game on PC against a Switch 2.
This has been true of Nintendo hardware for a long time, though. I wouldn't discount their ability to sustain it through a steady feed of exclusives.
Whether they can do better at managing rising costs and complexity than others is anybody's guess. And we'll see what happens on PC with compatibility. With a handful of games that don't run on SteamOS dominating the PC market there is a quiet conflict there and it's not clear how it will resolve itself.
I think it’s very interesting to note that mainstream consoles like the Switch or PS5 have massive ad campaigns behind them, expensive television spots, and a constant churn of new exclusives that they’re using to keep themselves in the conversation. The Steam Deck certainly had an ad campaign, but it feels impressive to me that they managed to make those numbers happen mostly just through throwing up an announcement on the Steam front page and then having it review well once it found its way into critics’ hands.
I look at the Steam Deck less as an end product and more of a means.
The Steam Deck is absolutely getting slaughtered by the Switch in terms of sales, but it gives Valve an alternative to the Windows ecosystem that is becoming more hostile as Microsoft tries to muscle in on gaming. I also think that Valve could have designed a Steam Deck variant to compete with the Switch 2, but hasn’t for various reasons
Already, Valve has the technology to create a console to compete with a PS5 and Xbox Series X, but doesn’t seem to want to.
I can’t imagine it would be that much harder to make a Chromebook equivalent, giving it access to the PC market without Windows.
Since Valve is using Linux, developing the tech stack is cheap. Also, Valve seems to be selling hardware for a profit, so it may be more comfortable with slimmer margins.
I'm comparing unit sales. The Deck just happens to slot in between older handhelds in terms of unit sales. It also sold about as much as the Saturn and a little more than the Dreamcast, as far as I can tell. I may be ahead of both and on par with the Wii U now, but Steam isn't super transparent with giving sales numbers.
No, I get it, no animosity here. I'm just curious about why you think the bar is fundamentally different for the Deck than for consoles in general.
Hell, adjusted for inflation the Game Gear retailed for the equivalent of 300 bucks at launch, which is not far off from the lowest price for the Deck at 399. Plus 90s devices sold a lot less than modern devices. Why would meeting the Game Gear not be a reasonable target for the Deck?
It's the most successful individual PC handheld, but it's also not made it into the same range as most consoles so it hasn't turned this product category into a mainstream device... yet.
Hah. You're overestimating the potential of 90s gaming devices. No game console, handheld or not, had sold a hundred million units. Hell, the Game Boy didn't crack into the hundreds until the Game Boy Color came around, and it was certainly the first.
Anyway, mild exaggeration aside, I get what you're aiming for, but I guess my question is why people read that positioning on Valve devices in the first place. There's no obvious indication that Valve is any less ambitious than any other first party, or any reason why they would be. They went to AMD and comissioned a custom APU at scale, just like Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft are doing. The only differentiating factor is they built the thing on top of a mostly usable pre-existing OS (which I suppose Microsoft also does, but hey). If anything their entire call to fame was to "consolize" Linux for SteamOS, which they'd been trying to do for a while anyway.
I agree that their goal is to set up an ecosystem that works for them, but I find it surprising that people assume they're disinterested in hardware sales. If I had to guess I'd say it's because they refuse to market too hard outside their own ecosystem, so their branding feels different than the more in-your-face releases of Sony, MS or Nintendo products and people assume that's because they're intrinsically or intentionally smaller, which I don't think is true. I do think that image is projected on purpose, though.
Nintendo has done backwards compatibility before, pretty extensively. The Switch 2 isn't a departure. They put a GBA cartridge slot in the first few Nintendo DSs (they lost it in the DSi), and the 3DS was backwards compatible with the DS. They also did GC to Wii and Wii to Wii U (but not GC to WiiU). They even put physical plugs for GC controllers and memory cards on the Wii.
And they've done weirder stuff, like the ability to use a GBA as a controller on the GameCube and some cross-save bonuses between games in some platforms.
The Game Gear is a weird example for that, specifically, since it was basically a repackaged Master System, so there was a lot of game crossover. Sega also had a widely advertised adapter that allowed the Mega Drive to play Master System games.
Anyway, nerdy retro gaming stuff aside, there is definitely a gradient across Valve, that is mostly driving a software platform across a ton of third party hardware, the 4K twins, which are relatively focused on service providing and Nintendo, which is somewhat more focused on a single platform, at least so far. It's very much not black and white and very much not a new thing, though.
And in any case, the smooth gradient does mean that ultimately it should be fair to at least compare Deck sales to console sales.
Maybe handheld gaming PCs aren’t something that has mass market appeal? It feels like theres so many variables that depend on it. Exclusives? Price? Ease of use? Brand recognition? Advertising? Im glad Valve is happy with deck’s sales numbers becuase it means we will probably keep seeing more support for it and newer models down the line. It still feels like if Microsoft launched a handheld xbox, it would probably still be a console first experience without traditional PC functionality and probably sell more while directly competing with switch 2. Definitely will be interesting to see how handheld PC pan out in the next 5 years, right now it feels like a slowly emerging market.
As you say, it doesn't seem that manufacturers are too unhappy with their sales here, but I'd also like to see scale grow to the point where we can start seeing devices launch cheaper, rather than more expensive. Besides the presumably heavily subsidized (or at least priced for scale) Deck the more interesting alternatives are luxury items. It'd be nice to see them find some room for more competitive pricing, and that probably requires adding a zero to the sales numbers.
Well, with low-end gpus (like the integrated APU in the Steam Deck) there is still competition. The main reason high-end gpus are so expensive is that there are no alternatives to Nvidia, so they can ask for any price they want
Hm. That is an interesting read, I don't know if I see it. For fast iGPUs it's been all AMD for a while. Nvidia has been threatening to build a faster one, but it seems they may be targeting integrated, fully branded devices for AI instead of gaming or general use.
Intel has started competing there, but so far it's not been a popular pick with handheld manufacturers.
My understanding is this generation there are more powerful parts but they're expensive to implement and they many not be as good at low wattages, but I guess we'll have to wait a while to know for sure. Either way I don't see a reason why there would be downward pressure on prices. Less upwards pressure than Nvidia just throwing a number at the 5080 and 5090 presumably selected from a bingo card, for sure, but still not necessarily down in price to performance.
Yeah, that one is real competition - at least gameplay wise - and a wonderful example of taking inspiration from Pokemon while still making something their own. It really deserves more attention than it got.
Game Freak will learn absolutely nothing from this, except “People like Pokemon, lets crank out one every 6 months instead of yearly and make them even shittier!”
Maybe. Maybe not. Pokémon isn’t successful because it’s good. It’s successful because people want to play Pokémon. If they can have the same experience of capturing and training Pokémon in a different format and name, it may compete with them. Admittedly, PalWorld is missing a lot of the higher level Pokémon things, but I don’t think that matters to the vast majority of players, and hunting for perfect traits may make up for it.
I don’t think it’s a particularly great game, but I also don’t think Pokémon is.
no pal world is not at all a pokémon-like game. the adventure aspect is idk what to call it, the only adventure really is finding new pals for the first time. it’s kind of like ark with some inspirations from BOTW mechanics but you throw some pokemon in there
it does have a good variety of pals but honestly the only thing that feels unique is the appearances/sizes and sometimes the modifiers they have. the actual movesets don’t feel very emphasized
in my opinion the actual pal vs pal combat is pretty lackluster, it’s definitely not the focus of the game (although using slave labour is a focus of the game)
uuuuh since G5 the Pokémon plots are rehashed and banalised as heck, and there’s almost never any sensation of valuable risk or conflict to the plot. G6 literally makes the first arc of the plot “join this bunch of loser schoolers and do nothing”.
Yeah I would like a better Pokemon game, not an fps survival with monsters. The idea is that people looking for a Pokemon game probably aren’t simply looking for a collectible monster game, they want the things that are associated with Pokemon games.
For long I’ve dreamed of the heights Pokémon could reach if the mainline videogame production was handed over from a small indie company to a respectable developer with a better track record such as Camelot or CDPR.
Camelot can’t write themselves out of a paper bag. The Golden Sun games were good for their time, and had me hyped as a pre-teen, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking the dialogue or story was actually good. Seriously, if you took off the portraits while characters were speaking, could you tell just by the way they talk who is who (besides Kraden, cuz that mofo likes to TALK)? Could you describe their personalities based on their dialogue, and not the character art? It’s part of why the third Golden Sun failed: it was just too generic, and they tried to stretch the little personality they could muster across 8 characters, just because the 2nd game had 8 characters, but it left them all feeling like hollow husks for the most part.
I’m not saying the games are bad, but there are definitely much better JRPG devs out there.
Interesting, I thought they were more… disposable? But now that I think about it, in ark, you had your near and dear creatures and then you had the faceless workers.
Honestly? I think they should be more disposable. You can do stuff like sell, butcher, overwork or fuse away your Pals (all of which are rather deliberate on the player’s part), but I genuinely think if there was some threat of permadeath or having them stolen by the Syndicate baddies if you get sloppy, it would give the adventure a greater sense of threat/risk. People seek out Nuzlocke rules for a reason, and currently I find the options for dropping your items and Pals on death don’t really make compelling gameplay sense (you just walk back and get them).
Setting/story-wise, Palworld supports that kind of thing so I figure it’s most likely coming as an option eventually. The game is on track for some interesting things, and as half-baked as parts might seem now, it’s already fairly fun. Definitely an addictive formula.
It’s worth waiting to see where they take it if the journey and developing those bonds with the creatures are a big part of the draw for you. I doubt you’ll get compelling turn based combat at any point, though.
I’m the opposite. I literally never hear the slack notifications, and half the time my Taskbar icon doesn’t show I have new messages. My volume is at a reasonable level to hear everything else. I’m not the only one at my job who has the issue either.
Me too. Teams is the worst for finding old conversations. They might as well be gone after a couple days pass.
Not to mention lately teams will sometimes just not update with any notifications lately. So I’ll go an hour with no messages or whatever and then suddenly teams decides to update informing me that I missed a call and a handful of messages.
Signing out and back in usually helps but man it feels like they took Skype and just Jerry rigged it
At least Slack has a usable user interface… Teams is, well, I’d rather sit on a cactus. Let me phrase it like this: We have Office at work. We also have a Slack subscription, because Teams is just so much worse in comparison…
I don’t know, I had to use Slack because of a specific customer, and I can’t stand the UI of it.
The way it displays the reply’s… the confusing crap of the workspaces (which each one has it’s own account, and they are independent)… the (lack of?) inline images…
Teams is included in most Microsoft/Office 365 licenses. And since a lot of businesses use those licenses already for office apps, email, Azure AD, SharePoint and more, it’s an easy decision to make.
Teams is also neat because it’s integrated with SharePoint which makes access control easy for document sharing within a team.
The Microsoft ecosystem is quite good for administration.
The only one I know is close is Google Workspace but then you have the problem with having to use Google office apps which are lacking in functionality. I don’t believe Google Workspace have any AD equivalent features (except on chromebooks maybe).
To be fair, teams has been ahead of slack on video call functionality for a few years. Noise suppression, screen sharing and additional functionality all seems to be a bit ahead.
I use both for work. Slack is far superior when it comes to written messages, and I use slack for quick video calls with collegues, just because I don’t feel like booting up Teams, but for scheduled meetings or longer conversations with screen sharing we always use Teams.
I don't need Slack to do voice calls. I could use something else for it. It's just that the things that Slack is good at, Teams is horrible at, and Teams sucks for calls too. If someone calls me, the pop up that allows me to accept or decline the call should actually be responsive and not crash. When I'm browsing old messages, it should be able to render a simple text history without thinking about it for 30 seconds. When I get a message, the notification should occur every time instead of just when it feels like it. When I lose and regain my VPN connection, it should be able to dynamically reconnect without crashing or hanging on a disconnect message. If you're going to put document integration into Teams, why is there not a tab system for open documents I need to keep open rather than forcing me to use the history on the back button or otherwise reload the document by clicking through to teams->team name->files?
I’ll be honest - it has never been an option for me or my workplace to use teams for anything but video calls for us developers. We have bitbucket for code, slack for dm, confluence for documentation, jira for tasks, email for async communication and Teams for video calls. Each one are great at what we use them for and kinda sucks as soon as we try to use it for something else.
Microsoft Teams is for consumers and is the one preinstalled in Windows 11
Then there’s Microsoft Teams. It’s for business. Is completely incompatible with the other Microsoft Teams and is a separate app.
The icon is also “different”. One has the Microsoft teams logo in white on a purple background, the other has the Microsoft teams logo in purple on a white background (forgot which and which)
I really don’t understand why they don’t use the Skype branding for the consumer version. They forgot how many billions they paid for that?
The icon is also “different”. One has the Microsoft teams logo in white on a purple background, the other has the Microsoft teams logo in purple on a white background (forgot which and which)
They do the same thing with PowerBI. THe cloud version is one icon, the PowerBI for Reports Server (aka locally hosted) is for the on-prem version. Pretty annoying.
I work with Teams (Business version) daily. Have never even seen the other one.
Holy shit. Never thought I’d see the day. When I was working QA they would lay us off after the end of every project. It sucked. We’d be off work for months at a time. No benefits, no healthcare, no OT pay, long hours, bullshit 1099 contracts. And if you were on a shit title, sorry homie. Enjoy Barbie’s Island adventure.
QA could use some unionizing across the software/game industry imo.
It’s amazing how buggy websites of billion dollar companies are. They either don’t have a QA team or don’t prioritize any of the bugs they file. If I were still in that field I’d probably team up with some litigious ADA lawyers.
I’m super happy to see this. Just a few years ago, I was working as QA in a studio adjacent to this group. (We had our own QA, but worked alongside the activision group) and god they needed to do this.
So happy to see them fighting back. I hope the rest of the employees who don’t get fucked QUITE as hard as QA join too.
I applied for a job as a QA at Nintendo and barely was not taken. Hearing about all of the bad experiences people have had working as QAs, maybe it’s for the better lol
Trying to raise the “standard” price to $80 will have very nice ripple effects of more pricing diversity, where each game will really consider what it’s actually worth, which we haven’t had for a long time. Even now we’re getting first-party Microsoft titles releasing at $20, $30, and $50.
Steam doesn’t advertise at the scale of Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. It won’t have a ripple effect because it won’t change the degree to which artificial hype drives people towards the “Buy” button.
A lot of games priced at $70 right now are having a rough go of it, so charging more on top of that isn’t going to help, but there are the likes of South of Midnight and Clair Obscur launching at $50. If your game isn’t as hot of a commodity as Mario Kart, you’re probably going to try to lure people in with a lower price.
there are the likes of South of Midnight and Clair Obscur launching at $50.
Beautiful games, both. But again, they aren’t having the full court press of advertising like a new Call of Duty or Final Fantasy or Diablo would.
That’s the real cost savings. You don’t need to change $80+ for a game if you aren’t focused entirely on presale figures to justify your studio’s budget.
Incidentally, you also get to focus on a better game. Balatro didn’t need wall to wall subway ads in New York to end up on everyone’s phones.
Steam doesn’t need to. It’s got the steam sale and a hundred million people to share memes of “sale so good spent all my money no time to play all the games I bought in such massive sale”
I bought it long before the steam release, back when multiplayer was in experimental. So glad that there are 1000s of hours that were never tracked so I don’t need to see those.
I think all it will do is raise the ceiling of what publishers are willing to price games at. If they think they can get away with it, they’ll charge $80 instead of $70, with the rest being $70 and less just like it already is now.
Not ALL steam games have DRM. Yes, you should buy from GOG whenever you can, but if you use Linux like me, GOG doesn’t give a shit. It can be hard to decide, support DRM free games and proper ownership with GOG, or expanding compatibility with Linux and improve it in general. If its cheaper on steam cause of a sale or something, I’ll buy on steam, then years later like with DOOM 2016 for example, I’ll buy it when it hits like 4 bucks on gog. That way, I have acces to an offline installer, and I show support and interest to valve for investing in proton.
Yeah, it just launches a web browser in the client, but behind the scenes, it’s using a referral code in partnership with GOG to make sure they get a cut. So you can support DRM-free and Linux gaming support at the same time.
Your not wrong. If it weren't for steam being absolutely stellar than I wouldn't be buying games from them. I would try to go through gog. But with their work on proton alone I personally give them a pass.
To run the games i wanna play would require a pc worth 3 ps5s
Edit: people here don’t like facts, but where I live a pc that matches a ps5 is around $1500+ it you’re lucky. Yes your pc is better than my ps5 in the same way that your Ferrari is better than my Honda. But I like Hondas.
Again no, that’s not my taste. I’m just saying steam doesn’t work for most people. The convenience of a console alone is always gonna keep me. To know i can buy a game 5 years after the console is released and it’ll run. PC gaming is superior, but it costs way more and takes way more work. Im it’s not convenient for casual people like me, especially since I want to sit on my couch with a controller and not have to interact with a computer
*laugh sitting on the couch playing PC games off steam using a tv to display and a wireless controller
What are you even talking about …enjoy paying more for less, and paying monthly to play games while also being locked to whatever terms they decide all willy nilly.
If you can afford the cost of console game prices, more power to you. They’re pricing me out and I know I’ll have no choice but to switch to PC in the future if I want to be able to keep playing games.
Steam doesn’t work for most people? You sure about that? It has 132 Million active users, that’s nearly double the number of PS 5s that have been sold!
Very odd comparison, you need to buy a ps5 to be a ps5 user, you don’t need to buy anything to be a steam user, you just need to sign up and you’re considered a user.
And I’m not under NDA. I have signed no contracts, made no verbal agreements; I haven’t even clicked through a EULA. This message does pop up when I launch Deadlock, but I didn’t click OK; instead, I hit the Escape key and watched it disappear.
I’m not a lawyer but I sure hope the writer of this checked with a lawyer before posting because that does not sound right.
Edit: Thank you Vodulas for pointing out this update appended to the article.
Update, August 12th: Turns out Valve was not fine with me trying Deadlock with friends; I’ve been banned from matchmaking! Oh well. Please feel free to make fun of me in the comments!
I’ll have to see if I’ve got a copy of an NDA I signed for play testing but that’s what I would have thought. It would be provisional on your participation not on an agreement like old school EULAs. As someone else pointed out it seems to be in closed beta or some form of early access, so maybe Valve won’t care and it won’t come back on them.
At best they ignore it. At worst, they never invite the user to test anything again. I doubt they’d issue an account ban for that. Not even sure if they can straight up ban you from the platform anyway and lock you out of your games entirely; pretty sure the bans are limited to VAC secured servers for online play and the array of community features like posting on the forums.
Didn’t we reach a point where EULAs are non-enforcable? Or is that just in the EU? But regardless, Valve can just ban you and good luck doing anything about it.
Looks like anyone who has access can invite their steam friends, so I guess it’s like closed beta? Seems weird to have something soft-launch with zero announcements. The design also looks very rudimentary. Im
It's a closed alpha test claiming everything is placeholder content and could/will change while they flesh out the design, hence why they don't want you to share anything.
There is no NDA to sign or anything though, only this pop up warning. Valve can't sue you for sharing details of the game but they absolutely can remove you from the play testing and/or ban you from ever playing it again for this.
This game had all kinda of problems, but problem #1 was releasing on epic games with 0 hype. At least with a wider release they could have secured a decent launch.
It wasn’t published by some rogue and inexperienced entity. Accepting Epic’s offer meant that it beat the projected sales figures. The game also ended up being a top seller on Epic, possibly adding to that revenue. On Steam, a negative score would likely bury the game, though we can only speculate.
Yeah since they explicitly say performance met mangement expectations, I suspect they knew ahead of time that it’s going to bomb, so they took Epic’s money and thereby guaranteed some monetary return at least.
It’s a shame, because while I loved SR3 (and enjoyed SR4 and even GOOH albeit I could not stand playing as Johnny), Agents of Mayhem and now the new Saints Row showed that not only is the humor outdated by modern standards and they didn’t know how to modernize it, they also couldn’t even properly recreate the actual humor the way it was.
The issue with SR Reboot is that they did try to modernize the humor, they went and dove head first to new style of humor and it clearly didn’t work for them.
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