If an indie studio can produce this, why not create a AA CRPG? Do you really need the third A?

Yeah, but I see it as a “premium” product going forward.

AAA used to be about creating fun games. The Super Mario and Mario Kart games, for instance, are AAA games.

It just happens to be that you can create a lot of complex and fun games today without pushing the edge of technology. That wasn’t always the case.

I feel like that with a lot of gaming, though. It feels like a lot of the industry has progressed where AAA gaming isn’t worth it while A and AA games are just as, if not more, entertaining.

It feels more like Nintendo is building the engine for the next decade, but I’m still happy with last decade’s engine.

Looks like they had to do something different than Mario Kart 8 and they did. The game looks interesting.

It isn’t interesting enough to buy, but then I figured I might sit this generation out.

Yeah. I’m just speaking to how China would implement this law.

Likely, they won’t enforce it unless it is problematic content. Once the content becomes problematic, they can get rid of it.

I feel like any MMO is like that. A significant number of players focus on that game above playing any other, so those gaming communities become insular.

I thought Android’s market is people who don’t want to pay for iOS for various reasons, mostly due to cost.

I look at the Steam Deck less as an end product and more of a means.

The Steam Deck is absolutely getting slaughtered by the Switch in terms of sales, but it gives Valve an alternative to the Windows ecosystem that is becoming more hostile as Microsoft tries to muscle in on gaming. I also think that Valve could have designed a Steam Deck variant to compete with the Switch 2, but hasn’t for various reasons

Already, Valve has the technology to create a console to compete with a PS5 and Xbox Series X, but doesn’t seem to want to.

I can’t imagine it would be that much harder to make a Chromebook equivalent, giving it access to the PC market without Windows.

Since Valve is using Linux, developing the tech stack is cheap. Also, Valve seems to be selling hardware for a profit, so it may be more comfortable with slimmer margins.

Not wasting the money would be making something else that was at least revenue neutral.

The Switch was Nintendo giving up the spec race entirely to create an ok console and good handheld device.

The Steam Deck copied the design ethos of the Switch. It is an ok gaming PC that is great for mobile gaming.

A Steam console would be slightly different, but I could see it doing well, especially if it can become an entertainment center.

People didn’t want to pay for it.

Yeah. Super Mario Bros. 3 cost $50 on launch. This inflation in game price is horrible!

I don’t think Nintendo ever tried to be a tech company. They have always been a game company first and foremost. If they were ever a kind of tech company, the closest analogy would be Apple, another company that focused on consumer electronics.

Nintendo collapsed its console and handheld product lines for the Switch. We’re also seeing large parts of the gaming industry adopt the Switch form factor for their products. I don’t think there is anything that Nintendo could innovate on that would sell.

But it is instructive on what FOSS development can be. Parts of the development are made open source to encourage adoption, then jet parts aren’t to ensure that forks aren’t successful.

The Deck basically validated the handheld industry

I feel like the Nintendo Switch did that more, since it collapsed its console and portable lines into a single product. A Steam Deck doesn’t look that much different than a Nintendo Switch in its portable form.

To address other points, Microsoft has used Xbox as a trojan house into console gaming, using its PC gaming development to subsidize Xbox development as Sony used its hardware division to subsidize PlayStation development.

The strategic deployment of Xbox on the PC is probably the largest strategic threat to Valve and Steam, which is why Valve developed a way to play Steam games on a self controlled OS.

That already happened with Android.

Successful deployments of Linux for consumers are going to include a DRM app store.

You’re not wrong.

But I point it out because a lot of these decisions to create freer platforms without advertising puts the cost of creation on the creator without a way for them to make money. People want their high quality content without paying for it.

Why should the goal be engagement? Why not have the person provide the media for free via Peertube and accept that capitalism is bad?

Few people want to pay full price for their phone.

I find that most of them hangup when they hear Google Assistant pick up.

How did they gimp it?

You’re also hitting issues with asset creation. You need a larger team to create assets for AAA games than an indie game.

That may be the way consoles go.

We aren’t seeing the kinds of innovation happening in hardware that justifies dropping backward compatibility and the AAA gaming market hasn’t released games in the quantity they did before.

So Sony and Microsoft can update the hardware in a way to maintain backwards comparability and game companies have the option of developing to the current generation only, both generations with different graphics, or the older generation.

England sacrificed a lot for their two world wars and one world cup.

It kind of does.

You get user lock-in as users buy more games, making it so Steam is always a store to buy from. You can’t deplatform from Steam. At that point, you can’t replace Steam with another DRM platform to pay existing games. That creates a large customer base which becomes a must add for vending new games.

It isn’t a hard monopoly, but it helps create a soft monopoly.

There is already a lot of work in generative game design that doesn’t involve AI, including a lot of procedurally generated items. There is also a lot of bad generated designs as the inputs allowed to be changed are not sufficient enough to create enough variance.

The Nintendo 64 was really the last time Nintendo tried competing on hardware specs for the console market.

After that, you had a major electronics company subsidizing hardware to gain market share and a major software company subsidizing development and software graphics tools to be used also on their computer systems as the two different competitors.

Google publishes an API for different transit agencies to follow. If you can parse that, you’ll have the same information Google has.

Note that not all transit agencies provide the same data.

You can do that without AI.

Video games in general were able to develop within walled gardens.

It feels like the problem with consumer grade VR has less to do with being in a walled garden and more to do with not being a compelling product.

Especially since Paradox already destroyed SimCity and is publishing Life by You.

What?

I would have upgraded if they didn’t include the UI changes. I don’t know why Microsoft keeps trying to make these big UI changes given that they have a built-in audience of power users that have optimized since XP.

I’m honestly surprised Valve doesn’t buy out the company.

If anything, I see this as Microsoft trying to kill what the Steam Deck can become.

Right now, the Steam Deck is one of the best selling Linux computers. You are also starting to see other manufacturers look at the Steam Deck and compete against it in hardware while using Valve’s free software. From that, it isn’t much of a jump to putting Valve’s Linux stack in desktops and laptops.

Honestly, it doesn’t make sense at this point. Warner Bros Discovery is burning the place down to sell the remains as charcoal.