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They kind of been for a while. At least architecture wise but with the new Xbox ROG handheld you can access your steam library or install a different OS like Bazzite altogether. You can‘t play your Xbox games on it though, which probably means the days of Xbox as a console are over. But Xbox players must‘ve known they won‘t be able to transfer their game library to new device anyway.
It‘s empty because you ignore a shit ton of studios including Embark themselves. Mass layoffs are an industry wide problem with no direct correlation to live service. There is a correlation between live service and AAA studios as well as AAA studios and layoffs though. That doesn‘t apply to Embark. So feel free to eat a shoe when they didn‘t fire 100 people by the end of the year.
Not a big surprise. The genre is a niche, the hype has been building for years, and Arc Raiders looks like it scratches that itch many players want right now. Especially disillusioned Tarkov and Hunt Showdown players have high hopes for it. Anyone who‘s into multiplayer FPS knows The Finals is the freshest game in it‘s genre in over a decade so the devs have already proven they can make things at least interesting and fresh.
But again, the genre is a total niche with not much competition as of now. I think that‘s mostly why.
I doubt they have a huge marketing budget. Perhaps they‘re using it in a clever way but I doubt Nexon bets everything on 0 here when The Finals only did ok. Extraction shooters is a niche that‘s starving for content. Somehow it gained a reputation for being everywhere when in reality there don‘t even exist 5 of them with a decent player size. The shooter genre is huge and people want something that isn‘t just a battle royale for once.
Larian also had to sell 30% of their company to Tencent to raise more money during development after they already raised money on Kickstarter. If it was a case of WotC just giving money they probably wouldn‘t have had to do that. Good games take time but also a lot of money. Let‘s hope they‘re not selling more of their company any time soon because they could end up being the one being pointed at.
To be fair it‘s as absurd as it was inevitable. Gamepass was always meant as this temporary thing you can try out to play some new games until everyone jumps ship because of increased prices. It has been preached for years. No one could‘ve seriously thought this was a long term alternative to buying games or at least buying licenses to games on Steam. All online subscriptions are scams in the process.
I didn‘t see footage or screenshots where they literally stole the likeness of a character. It would be bad if they did that but I‘ve seen no evidence of it. As far as I know mixing generic tribe aesthetic with generic sci-fi aesthetic can‘t be protected either. I don‘t want to repeat my previous comment but I don‘t see the issue here. It would open a barrel of worms for the entire industry if vague aesthetics are suddenly protected. The lawsuits would never stop and small dev teams would make concessions left and right to fence off armies of lawyers.
Which still should not be illegal, right? And believe me I have no problem when Sony and Tencent go at each other‘s throat. Let them fight. But I remember reading the same type of discussion about Palworld. You can‘t protect a style or a genre. Especially when said genre is as old as the medium. Unless Tencent stole code or use the exact same names it should still be legally distinct enough to be perfectly fine. It‘s up to consumers if they want to buy a blatant ripoff.
I don‘t think it does anything for game preservation. What is it preserving exactly? Not the titles. Those are subscription based. A piece of plastic where you can insert your handheld in? Just get a cheap VR headset for your phone. And if Nintendo thought Wario Land was so great then why did they stop making those games like 2 decades ago?
I‘ve read some complains directly from people when it was happening. It‘s honestly not hard to believe that people get frustrated when a service with a good track record on availability spontaneously goes down for a few hours. It‘s okay when you say that you don‘t care though. I wasn‘t personally affected. But it did happen.
That will backfire hard when AAA gaming implodes next year and consumers will demand quality over quantity. But I expected no less from a bunch of execs high on profits who never even booted up a game in their life. The bonus crap they promise you for a pre-order or a deluxe edition at the end of many trailers paint a grim picture. We’re not just talking about cosmetic either and I know some games have done this for a while but it’s across the board now when AAA sales are actually going down. Nobody has time or money for that slop.
Which is why the free democratic world has to keep subsiding quality journalism that sticks to the facts. Sadly that‘s dying along with private newspapers because governments believe people just don‘t want it and it‘s not worth keeping. They treat it as entertainment and that‘s a huge problem because it‘s a pillar of democracy. Defunding it is dangerous.
As for games… well, there‘s plenty of ways and different mediums to consume games nowadays so it makes sense magazines are vanishing along with game events despite the medium being bigger than ever. Most of the older game news outlets have overstayed their welcome.