narc0tic_bird

narc0tic_bird, rok temu

While everything is crackable, if it’s anything like Denuvo DRM for PC, it can take weeks or months on a per-game basis until cracked ROMs of games become available.

Not many people actively crack games utilizing Denuvo DRM, and some year-old games are still uncracked.

narc0tic_bird, rok temu

Oh yes please! Might be nostalgia, but I absolutely loved the original. Will check this out.

narc0tic_bird, rok temu

It depends on the type of game for me. For (competitive) multiplayer games, I don’t really care much. As long as it looks coherent and artistically well done, I’m fine with it.

For single player games, especially story-based games, I like when there’s a lot of emphasis on graphical fidelity. Take The Last of Us: Part II for example. To me, especially in the (real-time) cutscenes, the seemingly great synergy between artists and engine developers really pays off. You can visually see how a character feels, emotions and tensions come across so well. Keep in mind they managed to do this on aging PS4 hardware. They didn’t do anything revolutionary per se with this game in terms of graphical fidelity (no fancy RT or whatever), but they just combined everything so well. Now, would I have enjoyed the game if it looked significantly worse? Probably yes, but I have to say that the looks of the game likely made me enjoy it more. Low resolution textures, shadows or unrealistic facial impressions would’ve taken away from the immersion for me. Now, some would say that the gameplay of TLoU:II was rather bland because it didn’t add or change a lot over TLoU (1), but for me, bringing the story across in this very precise way was what made it a great game (people will have other opinions, but that’s fine).

I agree with you on the power consumption part though. Having GPUs consuming north of 400 watts while playing a game is insane. I have a 3080 and it’s what, 340 watts TDP? In reality it consumes around 320 watts or whatever under full load, but that’s a lot of power for playing games. Now, this generation GPUs are a lot more efficient in theory (at least on the Nvidia side, a 4070 uses 100-150 watts less to achieve the same output as a 3080), which is good.

But there’s a trend in recent generations where manufacturers set their GPUs (and CPUs) to be way beyond their best power/performance ratio, just to “win” over the competition in benchmarks/reviews. Sure you can tweak it, but in my opinion, it should be the other way around. Make the GPUs efficient by default and give people headroom to overclock with crazy power budgets if they choose to.

I remember when AMD released the FX-9590 back in 2013 and they got absolutely laughed at because it had a TDP of 220 watts (I know, TDP != actual power consumption, but it was around 220). Nowadays, a 13900K consumes 220 watts out of the box no problem and then some, and people are like “bUt LoOk At ThE cInEbEnCh ScOrE!!111!111”. Again, you can tweak it, but out of the box it sucks power like nobody’s business.

This needs to improve again. Gaming GPUs should cap out at 250 watts at the high-end, and CPUs at like 95 watts, with mainstream GPUs targeting around 150 watts and CPUs probably around 65 watts.

narc0tic_bird, rok temu

Torrenting their free-to-play games?

narc0tic_bird, rok temu

2280-sized SSDs are significantly cheaper than 2230-sized ones.

narc0tic_bird, rok temu

I think people would be mad. Imagine you play a game at your friend’s home on his Series X, and then proceed to buy the game so you can play multiplayer online, only to then have a certain features or game modes missing (say you get team death match but not battle royale because it uses too much memory).

It’s not that easy to communicate feature disparity. Some people probably don’t even know which Xbox they have.

narc0tic_bird, rok temu

I don’t think it’s hardware. It’s a differentiator. Tell me why I (or whoever) should pick an Xbox over a PlayStation?

Microsoft tried to answer that question with Game Pass, seemingly going all in on that concept, paying or outright buying publishers to bring their games to Game Pass. Some people may love Game Pass, but most people I know either never subscribed to it or only tested it when it was like 1,-€ for a month or whatever.

What else differentiates it from the PS5 in a positive way? Sure, the Series X is a bit more powerful than the PS5, but it’s close enough that it basically results in slightly different behavior for games with dynamic resolution scaling, with the PS5 sometimes even pulling ahead oddly enough (probably a more mature SDK, not sure).

The controller is…well, a decent controller. It doesn’t do anything special like adaptive triggers, yet it costs almost the same as a DualSense, and if you count in the optional (!) battery pack, it’s quite a bit more expensive even.

Playing online costs just as much as on PS5 (why do you have to pay extra to play online in 2023, anyways?).

Of the few mentionable exclusive games, most are honestly just mediocre (also in terms of critical acclaim).

What’s left? Backwards compatibility for 360 games? Sure that’s nice, but surely not a system seller for most people, especially when they don’t already have a ton of 360 games.

I just don’t see many cases where someone would prefer the Xbox Series X to a PlayStation 5, without even taking into account what platform their friends are on.

If you want to win market share, deliver a better product. With better services. With better conditions. For lower prices.

That is how it works. Crying to the public about how unfair it is because Sony has such a large installed base already because of how Microsoft fucked up the Xbox One generation (at or even before launch) is NOT how it works.

narc0tic_bird, rok temu

I’m not. I’m playing on PC 95% of the time, and I play the Sony exclusives only in single player on my PS5 anyway.

What I’m saying is that this could be a differentiator for Microsoft that they just don’t seem to be interested in (it would obviously lose them a lot of revenue from existing customers at first). I feel like more people would get an Xbox for multiplatform games if they save over 50 bucks a year because they don’t have to pay for online play. Heck, I’d probably spring for a Series S for the odd round of Sea of Thieves and the likes on the big screen TV (I know, I could connect my PC, but it’s just very comfortable that way). But having to pay for online is a no-go for me, especially because it’s not my primary platform.

I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the folks that only play FIFA or the likes would get a Series S if it’s marketed correctly, and they didn’t have to pay for online play.

narc0tic_bird, rok temu

You do realise that the game developers/publishers need to host the actual game servers themselves, and they don’t get any piece of the PS+/Xbox Live subscription cake, right?

Yeah sure, the store, friends network, voice chat and what have you do cost money to keep operating, but how does it all work so well on PC then - where it’s free - yet on console they want >50 bucks a year for it? They get 30%+ from game sales, you can’t convince me that paying for online is anywhere close to being required for sustainability of the service.

narc0tic_bird, rok temu

I was talking about the ability to simply play games that I already purchased online. Game Pass was a different paragraph and context.

If you really think Microsoft or Sony requires this yearly subscription fee to keep the service running, just look at equivalent PC services like Steam (or, you know, Xbox Live online play, which is free on PC) and realise how wrong you are. Microsoft and Sony get a big chunk of game sales (30%+), they are fine.

Actual game servers are hosted by the game publisher, not by Microsoft or Sony (unless it’s a first party title, of course). Publishers don’t get a single piece of the subscription.