–BTW this article looks like an ad for Jason Schreier’s new book about this topic, that releases soon and is mentioned as the last sentence in the article with a single link that spans across 4 lines.–
Nothing much. Microsoft put out one of the worst Call of Duty games in history (Modern Warfare 3 in 2023) and couldn’t save Overwatch 2 from being totally ruined. Console sales and Game Pass didn’t grow as expected I guess. And then the layoffs… Funny enough the releases on PC and Playstation (by Xbox) doing well. At the moment its a total disaster and we question if Xbox will survive until next gen (off course it will, there is Microsoft behind it). Once again Xbox players are told to wait until next year; basically since the launch of the recent console.
(Note, I don’t hate Xbox and even own the Series S as a backup console if my PC explodes or a game I want to play doesn’t work on Linux. I hate Playstation probably even more for what Sony is doing. Just mentioning this as a context, because I’m so negative in this post towards Xbox, but more specifically Microsoft.)
I play most PC games without modding, especially because I’m on Linux. I’ve compared and read about the improvements, and to its just minimal changes. Only the first game got huge improvements, but I’m more interested into playing 2 only. And as someone playing lot of old games and emulate old systems, its totally fine with me. I even played GTA 4 (last year and this) without modding on PC, but still have to finish it.
The main gimmick is that it has tracking features builtin and will stop alarming when you go out of bed, without interaction. I tracks you in bed. To me this sounds alarming, because it collects data, so you can analyze your sleep, and has connection to the internet. Absolutely nogo.
I can just hit the button manually on my phone and its done. And I can already use any song I want.
Me too. I have the “old” versions “Mass Effect 2007”, “Mass Effect 2 2010” and “Mass Effect 2 (2010) Edition” (for some reasons there are two versions of old ME2) on Steam and was about to buy Legendary Edition and finally getting started to play. But I’m not happy with the additional requirements of it, as it requires Origin client and an EA account to play this single player game. This is unacceptable to me. Old versions do not require this.
So after my research and being confused of multiple versions and if the Legendary Edition is worth it, lost interest. But ME2 is still on my list to play soon.
Besides those toxic people who claim something and everyone else is wrong, its not too bad. In the end, all it is about is just one tells someone else a specific definition of a word. And in a sense he is always right, because he (or she) is defining it at that moment.
I understand what you are saying there (last paragraph), but, there is context if one says Wine is not an emulator (not because of its name). The reason is, we are talking about software emulation in the sense of gaming. And there are emulators to play videogames literally emulating other systems. And we have other words to make a category for distinguishing reasons such as Virtual Machines or API compatible or ABI compatible too. I’m fully aware of the fuzzyness of the terms. I’m also fully aware what upsets you when people tell others Wine is not an emulator. But they do it with intentions to teach (such as you and me here), at least usually. Trolls aside or “idiots” aside.
So looks like you are right; we agree each other us here.
The term “Emulator” is not well defined and the boundaries are not always clear. But in computer hardware and software, emulation usually refers to CPU emulation. Overall one could argue that WINE is an emulation, because it emulates a certain “thing”. But as said in computer science it has accepted by most people (for the sake of having categories) that CPU emulation is emulation, and otherwise its not. Especially if we talk in context of videogame emulation. Like Virtual Machines are no emulators, because they do not emulate the CPU itself.
Slightly offtopic: I often discuss and justify why I do not consider FPGA an emulator. Sure it emulates another hardware, but in the terms of console emulation of videogames, FPGA executes the CPU cycles native. There is no middle layer in between that needs to be interpreted, it runs the CPU commands that was “programmed into”. So FPGA is mimicking, not emulating.
Just like with many other words in human language (which also is not clear across all translations and dialects of human language), the term “emulation” is just not 100% defined and there is nobody who has the definitive answer to it. And that’s okay. It’s a “domain specific” language; which means, you have to specify it before in order to make use. Otherwise you can assume it from context its “usual” meaning. Does not mean its clear, but it means nobody has the right to act like having a clear definition and saying anyone else is wrong.