I don’t pre-order but I do buy early access games. Unless it’s something genuinely limited edition and unique there is not reason to risk buying before release.
I have mixed opinions on physical media but. I’m starting to agree with you on this point. In the past I’m all for having the option to buy it on disc/cartridge but when you have to install the game anyway and download a day one patch it kinda defeats the purpose of it. Also offline mode on consoles if just a joke at this point.
If I didn’t already have a Miyoo Flip v2 I would buy this version in a heartbeat. The love the clamshell design and portability of these things is a huge upside and I take it everywhere with me. I have been using MinUI on mine and it works great (especially quick save state and resume on open) but after reading your article I decided to change it up and move over to Knulli which has a lot more options.
It didn’t really take off to begin with but dual screen support like Supreme Commander had with the real-time map overview on the 2nd monitor. It could be a skirmish map or live track map for a racing game, live scoreboard, player status or inventory system.
That is a reason why offline installers are so important. At the very least we should be able to disable auto updates and still launch the (outdated) game.
I’m not sure what Halo has to do with it? Also from what I remember Gears was a huge franchise back in the peak Xbox 360 days so of course it got sequels