I fully agree that game preservation is not a priority for any gaming company. The playability of old games and not requiring paying again for a remaster/ release can only hurt their bottom line.
The good thing is that they don’t have to like preservation, or even support it, when there’s physical game disks. In 40 years if I have a copy of Breath of the Wild and a working Switch, I can still play it; but the same likely cannot be said of a digital copy.
The fact that companies care so little for (or actively dislike) game preservation is the very reason physical games are so important.
It seems like it there might be a number of updates about the FTC leak, but the notable highlights of this email from me are the plotted purchases of Nintendo and WB Games.
The way they discuss the purchase of Nintendo as if it is an inevitability and how they may need to purchase it in a hostile manner really cements to me that they are utilizing Microsoft’s immense capital to obtain a gaming monopoly.
I know it is an unpopular position because of how beloved a Gamepass is, but this really solidifies how shady Xbox/ Microsoft is; and I really hope the acquisition of ActiBlizz is blocked.
The all digital design would certainly prevent me from buying an updated model, which is unfortunate since I do appreciate the backwards compatibility.
It’s a cynical move to get all game purchases done through their storefront and eliminate game reselling, and it will lock out a lot of price-conscious consumers who need to wait for a good sale, or buy used games.
On top of that, it’s a huge blow towards game preservation, since the logical next step would be to stop producing physical games. Even other publishers might think twice before producing a physical game if only a third of the base can even use disks.
Often people bring up that games can ship incomplete and need updates; but even a non-updated game is still more playable than a digital one when the servers aren’t maintained, and there’s no reason to remove the disk drive. You can still play digital games on a console with a disk drive.
All in all, this is a pretty disappointing update for me.
Based off the article, it sounds like it was purchased quite recently as well. My personal guess is Embracer was buying up studios faster than it could support, counting on getting more funding down the line. Then Embracer had a deal fall through and realized they were laden with debt and had to drop the load.
Maybe Gearbox was giving the worst return on investment since it was such an expensive purchase which made it the prime target to sell.
While I personally really enjoyed playing Stray, I’m having a hard time imagining it as a straight narrative.
While the setting was immersive and gorgeous to look at, and the gameplay was quite enjoyable; the narrative was quite light. The cat cannot speak and doesn’t have much motivation beyond going home. Though the robot companion does have motivations and the ability to speak, it is not the main character of the game.
Regardless, I will be interested to see how the movie turns out.
While this is specifically for SAG; anecdotally, it seems the WGA/ SAG strikes have inspired other unions to stand up for themselves too (auto workers and flight attendants unions).
Hopefully this might inspire the video game industry workers to unionize as well.
It definitely doesn’t look like it would be fun to play; but having played PowerWash Simulator, there is something very relaxing about the gameplay loop.
It definitely isn’t for everyone, and it isn’t the most challenging game; but that doesn’t mean it can’t be relaxing and fun.
In any case, I don’t expect this to turn you around on the game, but it’s not as ridiculous a premise as you’d think.
Honestly, I would hope for that as well; but it seems very similar to the enshittification of Amazon (Wired link, archive link):
Marketplace sellers reached huge audiences and Amazon took low commissions from them.
This strategy meant that it became progressively harder for shoppers to find things anywhere except Amazon, which meant that they only searched on Amazon, which meant that sellers had to sell on Amazon. That’s when Amazon started to harvest the surplus from its business customers and send it to Amazon’s shareholders. Today, Marketplace sellers are handing more than 45 percent of the sale price to Amazon in junk fees.
Basically the notion is once a storefront has captured the bulk of potential customers, they are able to extort their suppliers however they want, since it’s the only way the suppliers can reasonably reach the customers.
Hopefully in this case, the publishers can explore other sales avenues; but it all depends on the reach of the subscription service.
Part of this article just feels like the capitalistic notion that profits should only increase and anything but that is failing:
"Expectations for Devolver this financial year were $115 million to $120 million, and they’ve had to go back to $90 million. The majority of that is the delay of big releases into 2024. I think those are decision for the right reasons, although investors won’t like it in the short term.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if the subscription model WAS actually hurting smaller developers. I remember hearing people hypothesizing that would be the case for a long time.
If you have Gamepass or PlayStation Plus Ultra, you can play almost any small publisher game for free. With that set up, there’s a very large incentive to only play the games on the subscription service, instead of buying a full priced game to try out.
The problem is that once a small game is on the service, a large number of potential sales are going to be cannibalized by people playing on the subscription service instead of buying the game.
This leads to a scenario where your game needs to be on the subscription service and you have less sales because of it. This means that Microsoft and Sony have a large amount of power over the small publishers’ vitality, since a lot of money now needs to come from deals with them.
As Microsoft starts tightening its purse strings trying to make Gamepass profitable, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more small publishers suffering as a result.
I think it has the reactive triggers too, but as you said, that doesn’t feel like a 200USD feature.
I am hopeful they might introduce a WiiU style connection down the line, since if I recall correctly it just needed a 5GHz WiFi connection and I am fairly positive both devices have the appropriate antenna for that (though it would limit their 5G WiFi connectivity while in use). Maybe they could implement it through a wired connection, too. This would be less convenient than wireless, but would certainly have lower latency. Having said that, until they announce a low latency connection, I wouldn’t count on it.
Cloud streaming would be a nice feature, especially since you can get it using the unofficial PSPlay app; but it would probably require a mobile data connection (and I’m not sure how much data it would use, honestly).
So I see why they wouldn’t include the cloud streaming feature, but as you said, it feels pretty feature light without it.
Do you know what aspects of Roblox you’re brother likes (crafting, game building, the social aspect, etc)?
For a more crafting heavy game, there’s Minecraft or Terraria (I think). For game building, Game Builder Garage on Switch, or Dreams on PlayStation might be nice. Unfortunately, I don’t have any good social game recommendations, though.
While cash is the most useful gift, gifts aren’t a utilitarian practice. A gift is an opportunity to show someone that not only do you really know them enough to choose something they would enjoy; but also that you’re thinking about them, and that they are worth effort and thought to you.
Of course, good gifting gets harder as your giftees can afford what they want on their own, but that just makes the sentimental aspects even more important (in my opinion).
Personally, I’m not much of a PC gamer, so I don’t have a lot of personal experience with Denuvo; but this sounds pretty concerning.
My understanding is that by Denuvo LoJacking into every part of the game, it seriously hampers performance; and the Switch is underpowered enough as it is. I can only imagine how poorly games will run if the Switch has to devote resources to Denuvo as well.
Plus, from a preservation standpoint this is terrible too. Even if the studio drops Denuvo down the line, it will forever be included on the cartridge. This means that in the future, the only way to play this game will have to be an emulated copy, since you won’t be able to get the update to clear the (no longer supported) Denuvo from the game.
Personally, I don’t see any draw over just using a Kishi style controller with your phone.
Even if you wanted a standalone device. It would be cheaper to buy a cheap phone to go with the controller, and then you could use it for local emulation.
I wish it had the WiiU style connection (instead of going through WiFi), since at least then it could be used for interesting asymmetric multiplayer games, or multiplayer games without screen splitting. Maybe they’ll add that down the line, though…