Aielman15

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

Imagine saying that one of (if not the most, we’ll see how it goes) successful consoles of all time should follow Microsoft’s example when it comes to administering their consoles and exclusives.

Like, wow. I despise Nintendo and everything they stand for, but this is just delusional on so many levels.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

The strategy worked for Xbox because the alternative was to curl up and die. There’s no reason for Nintendo to give up their 30% sales cut to reach audiences in their system of choice.

Nintendo also has a lot more visibility and brand recognition (and generally speaking, more prestige and goodwill) compared to whatever Microsoft is attempting to sell at the moment, which again, means there’s little reason to reach people who bought into other systems. People already know Pokémon and Mario, and know those are good games. If they wanted to play them, they would’ve bought a Nintendo console.
Porting Mario and Pokémon to PS and Steam would certainly bring in more sales, but it would also devalue a console whose entire shtick is that it lets you play games you can’t play anywhere else.

The only concession Nintendo has done so far is to bring some spin-off titles to mobile, possibly in an attempt to corner the younger market that seems to be less interested in traditional consoles, and hook them with their games in the hope of them buying a Switch and doing their purchases on the Nintendo store.

Whoever says that Nintendo should follow in the steps of one of the biggest failures of today’s console market, instead of doing what they’ve done so far with resounding success, is nuts, especially since the “data” MS has released so far about their consoles and the revenue is muddy at best - they say, for example, that GamePass is profitable, but we don’t know how much profitable it is, nor how much does it cost for them to bring into the service all those games, nor the opportunity cost of releasing those games on the service instead of selling them, nor… Anything at all, really. Like, how many players are on GP that play regularly? How much money did those players spend on the store before subscribing to GP? How much do they spend now? How many of those players are subscribed for Gold and Call of Duty, and how many are interested in other titles? What’s the difference in sales between GP and selling the same game on a successful platform, ie Steam/PS? Is GP the fault of other titles selling poorly on the console, and if so, doesn’t that threaten the stability of the console, when the developers refuse to optimize or straight up release their game on the platform because it’s a waste of time and money to do so?

Microsoft knows that data and refuses to tell us, so we’re left wondering what “profitable” means. What we know for sure is that Xbox is dead, and Nintendo isn’t.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu (edited 3 miesiące temu)

And instead he’d say that people are happy where they are and would buy the game if it came to them, as evidenced by how high something like Stellar Blade or Forza Horizon 5 shoot up the charts when they get a port

Comparing Forza Horizon and Stellar Blade to the likes of Pokémon, Mario and Zelda is, frankly speaking, an exercise in futility. You can’t extrapolate useful data by comparing completely different products, catering to completely different audiences.

FH5 already became one of the best-selling PS5 games for the year almost immediately, even though PS5 owners could have bought an Xbox to play it at any point.

Why would a PlayStation user buy an Xbox, like, ever? It’s the same platform, doing the same thing, but worse. Heck, even Xbox users aren’t buying Xbox at this point. PS users waited for FH5 to come to them, because nobody in their right mind would buy a $500 console for FH5 alone, and there’s little from what the Xbox offers that entices them to buy their console.

Nintendo, meanwhile, offers them a different experience (handheld console) playing completely different games (a lot of award winning Nintendo exclusives).

not mentioned in the article, there’s the night and day financial difference that a PC port makes for the likes of a mainstay franchise like Final Fantasy.

Third parties have nothing to gain from exclusivity deals but the initial paycheck, while console manufacturers keep cashing in from people who bought into their ecosystem and are now locked into paying them a 30% cut for all their purchases. Final Fantasy went multiplatform because the exclusivity cash from Sony was not enough to offset the missed sales from other platforms. There’s also something to say about a shrinking playerbase which makes the franchise less prestigious in the long run (as less players grow up playing FF titles, they won’t develop interest in/nostalgia for the franchise and won’t buy future entries).

That has nothing to do with the argument at hand, though. It’s a completely different situation for two very different players in the market that have nothing to do with one another.

Speaking for myself, I’d have bought Tears of the Kingdom if it came to PC, and instead I was happy to just not play it at all.

A lot of people would be content playing Zelda on their PC, that’s the entire point. A Nintendo console has as much value as the exclusive games you can play on it. Port them over, and a lot of people would just… Not buying the console at all.

There is if the volume of what they’re taking 30% of doesn’t make up for the money they would have made by making Mario Kart, Zelda, and Smash Bros. multiplatform releases.

There is no chance in hell that 30% from all purchases from a healthy fanbase on all games, DLCs and subscriptions (and that’s not factoring in hardware sales, like consoles, Amiibos and other overpriced plastic thingamajig Nintendo fans spend their money on) is even remotely comparable to a 70% cut on some titles, especially if taking that 70% cut risks lowering the interest and engagement on their main platform. Basically, MS had nothing to lose, their 30% cut was shit anyway, but Nintendo’s cut is far more valuable and, at least so far, more enticing than the other option.

And again, that’s also comparing different products. Mario Kart, Zelda and Smash are not even remotely comparable to Forza Horizon. Most players either don’t know that FH exists, or know it but aren’t interested enough to buy a console just for that game. I know plenty who regularly buy Nintendo consoles because of their games.

They can hope that, but as Piscatella sees in the data, getting people to move largely isn’t happening.

Except that it is. Of the 70-80M XboxOne users who bought that console, only half that much have decided to stick with Microsoft through the next gen. Those people didn’t disappear, they moved onto other (more enticing) consoles. WiiU was a dumpster fire and Switch went on becoming one of the most successful consoles ever: where did all those people come from? Did they stop gaming altogether while waiting for Nintendo to put their shit together? No, they bought a different console, and came back for the Switch because what they saw interested them.

There is certainly a lot going on in the younger market and the generational shift will be something to analyze in the years to come, but Nintendo’s strategy is not without reason.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu (edited 3 miesiące temu)

But that’s exactly the same reason I stopped buying any console. I was more than happy to let the handful of Sony exclusives pass me by, and then they started coming to PC. Now I’m more than happy to let a handful of Nintendo exclusives pass me by.

I agree with you here and I wish more people did it as well, but it’s not how it works. Millions of people buy a Nintendo console for their exclusive title of choice, be it Pokémon or Mario or whatever. That’s how it’s been for the past decades, and judging from the 20M 3.5M consoles sold in a few days, that’s how it’s going for the Switch 2 as well.

Those people had plenty of alternatives, be it a traditional console (PS/Xbox), a PC, or a handheld (Steam Deck). They went and bought a Nintendo on day one, despite the alternatives offering equal or better performance, similar form factor and in the same price range.

But that’s not driving console sales like they used to. The last few Final Fantasy games seemed to do quite well on PC, indicating that people did not buy a PS5 to play them, and PS5 is having difficulty matching PS4 units sold even with the utter decimation of their closest competitor.

Yes, but again, that has nothing to do with the argument at hand. Third parties don’t have a horse in the race, they are content selling as many copies as they can because that’s their only revenue stream. It’s a completely different situation for console manufacturers, to the point that they are not even remotely comparable.

That’s another point you made later in your post; wherever Xbox players went, it wasn’t to PlayStation. Data would seem to indicate that not even all of the PlayStation players stuck with PlayStation.

Exactly, which shows that players do move to whatever platform is more enticing to them. There is certainly a “core” fanbase that sticks to their console - either because they have invested in a digital library, or want to stick go their profile and the achievements/trophies built over the years, or simply because of blind brand loyalty - but there are also lots of people who jump ship and take their money elsewhere. And judging from the numbers, it’s not a small amount.

Exactly, but potentially, they would stand to make way more money by selling more copies of those games than by selling more Switch 2s and getting those customers locked in.

That was never the question. Of course they would sell more copies of those games by porting them elsewhere. The question is, does that risk them losing more money in the long run, as players buy their games elsewhere?

A Nintendo player gives nintendo 100% of the cut in any Zelda sale (and other first party titles), and a 30% cut on any other third party game bought on their platform. Conversely, a PlayStation player will give Microsoft 70% of the revenue for one single sale (Forza Horizon 5) and 0% on anything else.

If your user base is small (the Xbox user base certainly is) and not accustomed to buying games (which many devs have lamented over the years - I remember this article from 2022, for example), then it’s a no brainer: port your game to the rival console and enjoy that 70% cut. It’s not as cut-and-dry for Nintendo.

Yes, there is. If you got 30% of all sales from games on an install base the size of the Wii U, it’s not going to make up for a game like Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros. selling 100M additional copies on extra platforms. We don’t know yet how well Switch 2 will do (probably better than Wii U and not as well as the Switch 1), but at certain thresholds, that 30% leaves them worse off than that other 70 that reduces the value of their platform.

If your/Piscatella’s argument is that they should give up a 30% cut on all sales because of the possibility (insofar, with no backing) of their console selling less units than the predecessor, then it’s a bad argument.

Even if they somehow lost 10/20% of their previous user base, that’s still gigantic enough to make their 30% cut (and all adjacent revenue streams, like online subscriptions, hardware sales, etc) enticing, especially if those people are accustomed to buying games at full/near full price. Suggesting that the alternative - taking a 70% cut on a few select titles - would be better for them sounds, frankly speaking, ridiculous to me. I would be willing to hear that argument a few years down the line, after seeing how Switch 2 is really doing, but for now, there is simply no reason at all to even entertain such an absurd notion.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

The Switch 2 has not sold 20M units yet. They just hit 5M, and they’re projecting they’ll sell 15M by the end of the fiscal year, which is by March.

Whops, sorry about that. Didn’t mean to inflate it voluntarily. I remembered 3M from the first few days, then checked update sources, got numbers mixed up in my head and somehow came up with 20M. That’s surely a wild number lol

Thanks for catching that, would hate to spread disinfo like that.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

CrossCode is one of my favourite games ever. I can barely contain my excitement for this one!

P.S: Alabaster Dawn is from the same developers as CrossCode, but it’s not a sequel, it’s a new IP.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

Italy is a joke. Our politicians call us lazy, the rich go on TV crying because they can’t find people willing to work for minimal (or below) wage, and then a young person manages to carve themselves a path outside of the ‘norm’, our state immediately shows up and curb stomps them.

I was talking with a colleague of mine the other day. They work two jobs to make a living. The state taxed them so much, they are paying more for the second job that they are gaining, basically working for free. Tax the poor, let the rich off the hook.

Fuck Italy.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

It’s a bit of a complicated situation and I wouldn’t go into much detail, but basically, they live in Italy, but one of their job is (work from home) in another country. They are taxed by the other country, then taxed by Italy as well.

After that, Italy fined them on some bullshit grounds and forced them to pay a ridiculous sum of money. Needless to say, they never attempted to skirt or evade taxes or anything. They worked their ass off and the country said “fuck you in particular” because Italy.

I specifically remember them telling me that, despite being half Italian, they wanted to live in Italy because they love the country and have friends and family here, but now they don’t know what to do. It’s heartbreaking seeing how our country treats its citizens, then our politicians going on TV and lamenting the fact that young people choose to go live elsewhere. Italy as a country doesn’t see you as a citizen to protect, it just wants to squeeze you dry and leave you for dead.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

John Wick Hex has been sold as a completed product and will remain playable (for people who have already bought it, and people who track down a physical copy) even after the publisher pulls the plug. This is not planned obsolescence, their license for the movie rights has expired.

Stop Killing Games has NOTHING to do with this.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

Oh, I’m very sorry, it’s my fault. I misinterpreted your comment.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

The over-the-top edgy/“how do you do, fellow kids?” vibes of the early y2k years is definitely something that I don’t miss from that era.

I can somehow hear Linking Park in the distance while scrolling this post.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

Is that the edgy vibes that you miss, or just generic childhood nostalgia?

Everyone has it, me included. I miss playing Tekken with my brother, and comparing our progress in Sacred, and generally speaking, nerding together. We are both adults and employed, and he’s got two kids as well, now. We barely have time for a brief phone call to check on each other over the weekend :(

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

Japanese Drift Master seems interesting. I enjoy open world racing games ever since I fell in love with Test Drive Unlimited back in the days, but I can’t vibe with Forza Horizon because of the constant “Congratulations, you just drove 5 meters in this direction! Take this awesome car for free!” wherever you go. It completely robs me of the enjoyment of progressing through the game.

Wishlisted it, I’ll probably buy it as soon as I have some free time.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

3 in the ideal situation, requires the user to have played like i dont remember, 10 different games.

Or watch a 30-minute recap.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

I trust these people with every cell of my body.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

This is wonderful advice! Thank you, John Xbox! I may be without a job, but I will keep on using your products like the mindless consumer I am, so that your paychecks will keep on growing.

God, this is so out of touch that it stops being funny and becomes genuinely uncanny. Like, are these people even real? Are they robots piloted by Skynet? Am I the only real person on the entire planet?

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

This is top quality journalism offered for free. We don’t deserve you.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

I swear this is not me doomering (I very much support this campaign and even signed it myself half a year ago), but I strongly suspect that at least a good chunk of those are fake. The issue is very hot in “terminally online” circles and those are the kind of people who don’t really think things through before acting.

I hope the number will keep on growing until the “legit” votes make up for the fake ones.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

I’m pretty sure that, in this specific case, the delay was mandated by the game’s publisher, Sony. I doubt the Series S has anything to do with it.

Aielman15, 3 miesiące temu

Don Mattrick left Xbox in 2013. It was more than a decade ago. He may have ruined the XOne launch, but Spencer has had all the time and money in the world to rectify his mistakes and, so far, has only worsened them to the point that most doubt that a new Xbox will exist at all. Nintendo was on the brink of disaster after the Wii U, and managed to turn their fates around in half the time and with a fraction of the money. Why couldn’t Spencer?

In all these years, Spencer’s legacy has been of failed deals, shutting down/letting go multiple studios, and moronic attempts at building AAA and GAAS games on the back of seasonal contractors. We should stop blaming Mattrick for things that happened a decade after he left the company.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu (edited 4 miesiące temu)

News of Everwild’s cancellation arrives amid more layoffs at Microsoft; the company is reportedly slashing nearly 9,000 jobs as part of new cuts at Microsoft.

Wow. It was rumored to be a big layoff, but 9,000 is way over any forecast. And this is what? The third so far since Covid? Is there anyone left working for them, at this point? Or is it all seasonal contractors?

EDIT: turns out that they gutted The Initiative (the supposedly AAAA studio that never released anything), cancelled Everwild, cut 50% of Turn10, 10% of King, and cancelled an unknown number of unannounced games, including one MMO title developed by the TES Online devs.
What a bloodbath. But hey, at least Phil is safe.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

Considering that it skipped the last showcase despite reportedly releasing next year, I don’t have high hopes for that one.

Wouldn’t be surprised if it was built on the backs of seasonal contractors. Seems like that’s the strategy they have chosen for their other big IPs as well (Forza Motorsport 8 and Halo Infinite).

It’s incredible that the clowns in charge of the gaming division and responsible for dragging it through the mud for all these years get to keep their job and will probably see an increase in their salaries as well, while the people that lost their jobs because of their incompetence will get nothing but a sad press release from Uncle Phil the HR department.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

The problem at this point is not so much that they don’t have games - they have released plenty in the past few years and most have been received positively.

The problem is that they released those games too late, and by that point, the ship had already sailed. After a streak of disappointing years with the XOne, they needed strong titles to pair up with XSeries. Instead, they released jack shit for an entire year, and after that the disappointment just grew further with the likes of Halo Infinite, Starfield and the weird vampire game nobody asked for.

By that point, everyone already got themselves a PS5, a Switch, a gaming PC or a handheld device. Xbox needed to show their fans they believed in their mission and were capable of delivering strong titles on their platform, but everyone saw their releases and said “Meh”.

The strong titles eventually came, but by that point they had already decided to port them over to the competition to offset the cost, and everyone saw the writing was on the wall for the platform.

Spencer can go on stage spewing whatever bullshit he wants, but nobody outside of the most diehard Xbox fans believe that the platform has a future - and it’s very hard to convince people to invest on your platform when it’s not certain how many more years it will be supported, and whether your store will remain accessible or shut down a few years down the line.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

Thank you for another post! Whenever the next one comes, I’ll be there to read it. Wish you the best!

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu (edited 4 miesiące temu)

It saddens me that my country (Italy) has such a low percentage of signatures. Most of us are either ignorant of anything happening outside of our borders, or straight up doomers who don’t believe anything can ever change for the better.

Big congrats to my fellow northern cousins. I was expecting Poland, who has a healthy videogame industry, to gather a good enough number of signatures, but 160% is wild! It’s refreshing seeing so many people joining the petition - It’s not even about videogames: this initiative will have huge repercussions on the lifespan of other, unrelated products and, in general terms, planned obsolescence.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu (edited 4 miesiące temu)

Unfortunately, that’s not my area of expertise. I don’t follow streamers or YouTubers (Italian or international), nor do I have a close enough relationship with any of them that I’d be able to talk to them and convince them to mention this petition to their fans.

The one and only time some friends and I attempted to interact with a few local content creators (to publicize our free fan games we poured hundreds of hours into and NEVER attempted to monetize in any way), we either got ignored, insulted, or received vague answers that went nowhere. It soured me towards Italian content creators and vowed to never interact with them again.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

Why, yes, I’m broke, but I doubt Stellar Blade has anything to do with it. It’s mostly because of the shifting economic and political landscape of today.

Thanks for asking, though!

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

To be honest that would just be the end of the consoles system as there is a reason Sony is selling the PS5 for so cheap.

They stopped selling them for cheap as soon as they reached market dominance, so good riddance I say.

I’m also not sure how much the PS exerience differs from Xbox, but my last console was an XOne (got it for cheap) specifically because I wanted the “no fuss” experience, and it was such a headache that it convinced me to switch to PC instead.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

Skyscrapers at night are always a sight, but they especially shine in pixel art! There’s something weirdly retro-futuristic in those pictures.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

I don’t play MH, so take my words with a grain of salt, but a friend of mine told me that they were hoping for more frequent and robust title updates to keep the game fresh.

According to them, there’s just not enough end game content for the game to remain interesting in the long run, and that’s on top of a gameplay loop far less rewarding/challenging than previous titles.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu (edited 4 miesiące temu)

Congrats on your 20th post! Now onto adding a 0 to that number! :P

What have you been playing?

I’ve recently finished Resident Evil 2 Remake for the first time. I’m a longtime RE fan (the original trilogy being one of the earliest gaming memories that I have), and the remake of the first title is one of my favourite games ever, so I was kind of curious to see how the second one would be.

I’ve never been more torn on a game. The moment-to-moment gameplay is great! The environment is greatly improved from the original, the creatures design is awesome, the horror aspect has been done well, and it mostly doesn’t overstay its welcome. I can see why people enjoyed it so much when it was released.

As a remake, it fails spectacularly. The story makes no sense, the writing is abysmal and made me hate most of the characters. And of course there’s that thin-veiled misogyny that’s become (unfortunately) fairly common in most recent entries of the franchise. It’s a sad day when a game from the 90s can boast being more progressive than its counterpart from 2019…

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

And Crawford is an incompetent smartass. I honestly don’t know what any TTRPG would have to gain from including him in the team.

If they hope to chase 5e’s success by following in its footsteps - piss poor adventure modules, nonexistent DM support, unbalanced player options, and a game designer that contradicts himself on Twitter every other post while attempting to explain why he isn’t wrong - then good luck to them, I guess.

I very much doubt that 5e became the juggernaut that it’s now because of Crawford. If anything, it’s despite of him - mostly because of the free publicity granted by things like Critical Role and Stranger Things, and DnD being the default option for anyone who develops an interest in roleplaying for the first time.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu (edited 4 miesiące temu)

Ha! I heard of this one, but haven’t been able to try it yet. As a huge fan of old school RE games, it piqued my interest. Thank you for reminding me of it. I shall pick it up as soon as I have some free time.

I’ll also mention another, even lesser known title: Kabus 22. It’s an old Turkish videogame that’s clearly inspired by classic RE titles. Not very good, but I have a soft spot for games that were developed with more love than knowledge on game design. Also the developer is a really nice dude who re-released the game for free as a thank you to the fans who reached out to him, and that’s such a sick move that I can’t help but have a lot of respect for him.

There’s a good retrospective in YT about the game here, if anyone’s curious.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

I’m very sorry to hear about your situation! I wish you a quick recovery. Your posts are my favourite part of this community, so thank you very much for taking your time to ramble with us for a bit :)

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

The bestest deal in gaming!

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

Wasn’t expecting another one, considering how the last one ended.

But hey, I loved the first two games, I’m ready to cry in this one as well.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

I had this on my wishlist for a while. Art style is really nice. I’ll wait and see if the horror component is good as well.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

Tentatively curious.

What was shown of the hotel reminds me of REVII. I’m not sure how it ties to Raccoon, aside from the fact that the protagonist is the daughter of a character from Outbreak, but Raccoon City post-nuke is an interesting setting to explore — and regular zombies seem to be a returning enemy? I’m not sure if they are planning to have flashback sequences during the outbreak, or if the zombies will make an appearance in the present day timeline).

Happy to see a new MC. Ethan was okay-ish but painfully bland, I hope she’ll be more interesting.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

Björn Ruther has worked on this as mo-cup supervisor and historical advisor, so I’m kinda curious to see the end product! (Pseudo-)Historical accurate medieval games are hard to come by, surprisingly.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

“It’s real xD” at the end referencing the first and second delay announcements cracks me up.

Aielman15, 4 miesiące temu

The catch is that each of them has to come up with a different anagram each time.

Aielman15, 5 miesięcy temu

I don’t know if it’s just me, but formatting after the Deck Cube title gets wonky.

EDIT: NVM, I think it’s my app (Summit). Firefox displays the page correctly.

Aielman15, 5 miesięcy temu

Hey, don’t worry, it’s not your fault. I love your posts, thanks a lot for another great one!

Aielman15, 5 miesięcy temu

What was so bad about it? Was it worse than other F2P MMOs?