I loved the first Division game. It had a great community, great gunplay, and prior to the crafting nerf(s) a really good loot/crafting feedback loop. But it could have just as easily been made as a local co-op or self-hosted game. I have yet to encounter a game that can only exist as a live service game, unlike e.g. Eve Online which can only exist as an MMO.
Stop making live service games and “shared world” faux-mmos. If it’s not single player, P2P multiplayer, or providing the server executable for me to host, I’m not buying it. There are already enough good MMOs anyways.
SH2 is my partner’s favorite game, and I’ll be interested to hear their assessment of this. I tried SH2 on PC a few years ago, and the tank controls were just so outdated it took me out of the game.
I’m all for AI being available to replicate VO voices… but it should solely be owned by the performers, just as their likeness would be, licensable out by them.
“You want to use my voice in your game or movie? Sign this license, and here’s a list of words you cannot make it say, and things the character using it cannot do.”
The innovation vs stagnation debate has been had across all sectors, but it’s imo also an effect of cost-cutting and risk-minimization. Every time something new fails, you lose money, which means you have to cut more somewhere else if you want to keep your profit margin the same. So instead, you don’t try new things, you fire your creatives, you make every product more safe and bland.
Of course that’s a bad plan, but that’s where being drawn to reuse and reboots and endless sequels comes from.
We can’t fix stagnation until we fix mindless profit-seeking to appease mindless demands for infinite stock price growth.
I would not be surprised if the negative backlash about their closure forced Microsoft’s hand, because imagine if it came out that this group wanted to give those devs their jobs back with the same company identity, and maybe even work more on the game they built, and MS just was like, “nah”. Absolute PR bloodbath.
Going to stick with portable systems, because a box is a box is a box, even if some are cooler than others (PS2 slim with attached screen, and N64).
#3 Gameboy Advance SP
Loved the compactness of the clamshell design. So much more portable than other systems at the time.
#2 Steam Deck
Windows games on a Linux handheld, plus it runs old games that Win 10 can’t.
#1 PlayStation Portable
This was and will always remain my favorite gaming system. So many great games, movies, a cool disc/cartridge hybrid media format, SD card support for all sorts of stuff, custom firmwares… man, such an amazing system.