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Single player games rarely need or demand “continued support” and player numbers aren’t indicative of that
Sure maybe if the gaming industry didn’t constantly release buggy broken messes. But alas that’s not the world we live in and is very much a metric I care about to know whether or not a game is going to become abandonware or at least have community support if the developer won’t. These metrics allow that community or developer to understand if there is a player base which would benefit or a market to keep selling to. So yes they add value for players.
Single player player numbers aren’t indicative about things getting a sequel, low player count games get sequels, high player count games don’t get sequels. It has no direct bearing.
They very much are if the game is single player based. Acting as if demand is not a reason for games to get sequels or the budgets which come from player sales is not relevant is completely naive. Yes companies can run into financial hardships, get acquired and all manner of other circumstances that can lead to development being stopped whether there was an active player base or not. That’s not what these metrics represent and can give you an idea of what ip might get cut if a studio is acquired. They are useful and helpful, and I like to see those counts for my own understanding.
If you want to check if there are guides you can just Google it, it’s a lot more useful to just Google it. Then you’ll actually know instead of guessing.
Sure that used to work before SEO has killed search results, it’s quicker to check a player count on steam then to wade through garbage ai generated articles to find out if there is an active community following the game. It’s not a guess either if there are many people playing then there will be demand for content on YouTube or other platforms which means I can find guides.
Knowing single player, player counts is really just for vague curiosity. There’s no real use to it.
The only reason to hide it is to trick users to get abandon ware games or obscure how bad a game is doing. Keeping those stats up gives you valuable information, as I have pointed out. You are arguing in bad faith here and I honestly don’t know why unless you have some gatcha game on steam that you want to hide player stats on to hopefully drive some sales which is disingenuous.
Correct but that screen real-estate isn’t the biggest issue as you generally have the phone and controller fairly close to your eyes, at an optimal viewing distance. Plus, I can stream up to 4k on my device or 1080p at 120fps if I wanted to stream from my pc. Think monitor vs TV gaming. Viewing distance is much more important than screen size on its own.
The thing is they are only targeting that small market for PS5 gamers, they don’t want to compete in the handheld market and possibly loose those customers who would be happy with just a ps5 remote play experience vs a better more expensive device. I get it, they don’t have to have as many competitors and it makes it slightly cheaper versus the non dedicated competitors giving them a niche area to sell to.
I mean it’s an 8in 1080p touch screen display at 60hz, the panel is probably around $60, the hardware is probably like a pi zero so $20, and a controller $70. So just on hardware this is probably around $120 after taking into account supply chain discounts. Then, manufacturing costs, and they probably don’t even have that high of a profit margin on the device. Add in a $100 for the actually chip set and yeah you get more features but it’s not that crazy imo. Just a niche market for sure.
It’s just a $200 pro controller with a screen. I don’t think it’s gonna have a massive market, but for what it is, it’s not entirely terrible. Not everyone has a phone with a large screen so upgrading to a $1k phone is not a move they can make, but $200 for what’s basically an extra controller with an 8in display is not terrible just very niche.
Edit: If you just want a screen controller combo for streaming, there are a myriad of android based options littered in the space for nearly the same cost and similar screen size.
They do sell like $5 phone clips for controllers now a days as some mobile games are adding more controller support. But if for you an extra inch or two of screen real estate for the display is worth $200 then that’s your position, it just seems like the market share for that will be pretty damn niche. Like the nvidia shield I don’t expect it to be around for to long so if you do want this you better get one while they make em but know once the ps5 is done support for this will die out as well.
My phone is nearly a 7in screen, I could Bluetooth connect a Playstation controller and have the exact same functionality, using the hardware I already have. I get that if you don’t have a phone with a bigger screen then this becomes more of a proposition as getting a newer device with a larger screen is gonna be north of $1k USD, so spending $200 to get a portable display and extra controller in a sense is not that bad value wise. I do see where people are seeing it being wasteful as other devices are capable just not at the same level, the only thing I’m wondering is how big is the market of people who wouldn’t rather get a $5 phone holder for their ps5 controller and just use their phone. I see a couple people in this thread here but if most realized they could get a similar experience for $5 for a plastic phone clip would this really look as enticing?
Switching engines also depends on how portable your work from the old engine is with regard to the new engine. It may not be impossible but can still be a lot of work. The earlier that decision is made, the better.
Not to mention I’m guessing a good amount of indie devs are not abstracting every detail of interacting with the engine from the getgo in the chance they want to swap engines down the line. I’m sure some more experienced studios due for that just incase measure or to make migrating past breaking changes a bit easier when they crop up. But generally speaking I can’t imagine that’s a common tactic. But even if it did your still going to have to recreate every new implementation for your interfaces and there are bound to be differences here that are gonna take some time.
We can tell it’s already effecting you by trying to suggest nasa is a waste, when we spend 100 times it’s budget on wasted military contracts or the fact we do have a tax bracket that allows someone to even become a billionaire instead of taking back excessive wealth stolen from workers in predatory labor markets. There are other areas we should be getting this money for the public and it sure as hell shouldn’t be from aeronautic or space research ffs.
Great it’s cool research though and should continue, if you want to bitch about wasted taxes go comment on military threads and comment there where billions are wasted on shit contracts that never materialize due to incompetent base mangers who can’t distinguish vapor ware proposals from real tech. Don’t bitch about scientific research that’s just fucking dumb.
If you have seen the crunch before demos for military projects you might start to think the other way. I doubt the bigger vendors will change much but you definetly could see contracts being won for shit that will just be ai generated because they got some base manager to eat up their proposal filled with buzz words. I’d be more worried about it, causing more contract bloat and wasted resources in critical systems going to these vapor ware solutions. Then you take general government contracts which go to the lowest bidder and you are gonna see a ton of AI bullshit start cropping up and bloating our systems because some high-school kid got chatgpt to make a basic website and no thinks he is the AI website God. Plus I work in the financial sector now and they have been eating up all the AI buzzwords like fucking hot cakes, the devs all know it will be a shit show but the ego from the executives thinking it’s a great idea won’t hear any of it, because think of the efficiency and bonuses they could get if they cut the implementation timeline down to a quarter. Not realizing the vulnerability, maintainence cost, and lack of understanding from the llm that will cause massive long-term issues regardless if they can get a buggy alpha created.
You also had them redefining what a recession is so they can say the US is not in one. For the longest time it was defined as 2 consecutive quarters without gdp growth. Now that’s only the case sometimes according to them, at least i think the article still states that its a new US opinion but the edit war on that one was insane. We need more accountability for this for sure.
Thanks, fixed!