I’ve only got a few. Several of them don’t really track hours, but I know I’ve put over 1000 into them. Games like Super Smash Bros. (Melee, Brawl, and 4) and Rock Band 2.
Other than those, the only one I’ve measurably put 1000 hours into is Skullgirls, but Guilty Gear Strive will likely get there in a few years. Skullgirls is a game with so much depth that I can’t imagine ever getting bored of it. If anything, I’d just lose motivation because I can’t see the path to improving, but I’ll definitely never see every permutation of strategies you can employ by combining characters together. Guilty Gear Strive has so many creative ways to use its expanded Roman Cancel system that any Evo highlight reel is full of creative ways out of situations that you’ve never seen before.
At this point, I’m aching desperately for that linear shooter. They have other strengths. Halo Infinite offered a ton more freedom than the old games, but it was worse off for it.
I’d very much prefer to not even have them take up shelf space, but it’s the only way that exists to actually own a copy of a movie or TV show. I have ripped a number of them, but if someone made the GOG for movies, I’d move all of my purchases over there.
I’d be happy with DRM-free video purchases, but they don’t exist like they do for video games, and even video games aren’t available DRM-free across the board.
I don’t think I ever pitched a subscription as being better than ownership, just that your joke is divorced from the reality of the situation and the way Microsoft has operated for over a decade, and that’s why the joke didn’t land. Microsoft won’t get a stranglehold on the market, despite their best efforts.
What do you think consoles are? They are just a pc with proprietary software and hardware.
You are missing the distinction by several miles. A short list includes the lack of cert, the availability of competitors on the same platform, and backward compatibility whether they like it or not. If the value proposition is as poor as you expect it to be, then the launch of a portable Xbox will hardly be noticed next to the Steam Deck, but the more likely scenario is that it’s basically a Steam Deck that plays nicer with Game Pass and anti cheat technologies because it’s actually Windows under the hood. You’ve demonstrated a large lack of understanding about what’s changed between 6th gen consoles and today, but the short explanation is that I don’t see a reason to expect Microsoft to charge you for Halo again on this new platform, because it would be marketing suicide among plenty of other reasons.
There seem to be a lot of people here who haven’t gotten the memo that future Xboxes are likely to just be disguised Windows PCs, because they’re mostly interested in Game Pass and know they can’t compete otherwise. On an open platform, they couldn’t stop you from continuing to play your old games. They really don’t care about you re-purchasing their old games because they want you to rent a library. That’s why your joke was bad.
Those are supported platforms, yes. Many of them are redundant because the same license gives to access to the game on multiple platforms. I’m not defending them; your joke didn’t land because they don’t typically make you buy the same games over again. I’m a Linux fanboy and don’t own a Series X; I have no reason to defend Microsoft. Just make better jokes next time.
You can tune out and do something passive while the ad plays, and eventually the information you wanted will appear, as opposed to trying desperately to find your article as you scroll and having pop ups and other things interrupt you as you read. Perhaps this is all just a matter of perspective though.
From the reader’s experience, sites like IGN became completely unusable without ad blockers; I still remember the X-Men (2? Origins: Wolverine?) ad where Wolverine slashed through the page in a flash animation that prevented you from clicking on the thing you wanted to read underneath it. Then the information that you wanted could have been communicated in a headline, and it just becomes frustrating. That said, I’ll still reviews if they didn’t annoy me too much on my way there. I’ll still read Schreier when it isn’t paywalled. I read NY Times articles like the one they just did on Alexey Pajitnov. Rebekah Valentine and Jordan Middler do great work. In a lot of other cases, opinionated essays on video games benefit greatly from supporting footage in video format, and even without ad blockers, the YouTube experience is far less annoying on average.
I believe in you! Personally, when I find someone charging me subscription prices for something that should have a one-time fee, I flip the bird and run to the nearest competitor, but I can’t speak for your line of work. For my amateur needs, open source alternatives have gotten the job done, and I wish you the best.