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They were fun, the first time. But how many iterations does someone need of the same game?
People complain about the latest game in a series like Tomb Raider or Assassin’s Creed going “OMG, IT’S JUST THE SAME THING AGAIN!” It’s literally a joke with Madden or Call of Duty, but for some reason Nintendo gets a pass.
It’s cool if you’re a kid and Breath of the Wild is the first Zelda game you ever played… For anyone else? Unless you have on the nostalgia goggles, there are better things out there.
Nintendo titles are, essentially, very good introductory video games. If you’ve played, well, pretty much any RPG, there’s no point playing Zelda or Pokemon. Same for fighting games and Smash Brothers or racing games and Mario Kart.
Everyone has to get started gaming somewhere, but beyond nostalgia? The rest of gaming has moved in from Nintendo.
Based on the original trailer, they not only eliminated PvPvE, they also removed a whole character, “The Hood”.
OG trailer:
By specifying first person shooters, they are ignoring all the dual analog games that started coming out in 1996.
People forget the first Playstation dual analog controller:
But primarily used in shooters for space sims like Colony Wars or mech combat like Iron Soldier, which aren’t first person shooters.
Pre-dating this was Sega’s Virtual-On arcade machine in 1995:
Personally, I think GamePass is a terrible idea.
The money developers get for GamePass “sales” isn’t enough to keep them in business, look at Tango Gameworks, who did Hi-Fi Rush. Great game, well received, lots of players.
Studio closed 4 months later.
If someone like Tango can’t survive on a game like Hi-Fi Rush, it doesn’t speak well for the business model.
So what you end up with are fewer games and lower quality games, it’s a race to the bottom.
Also, the push to digital only reduces the footprint in stores, so when people go to buy consoles, all they see are a bunch of old games, or (worse) no games at all, as we see in the Xbox section in Target and Walmart recently.
So GamePass encourages fewer games, lower quality games, a reduced footprint at retail, and ultimately, lower sales.
Aliens: Total Conversion - 1994:
There was a huge kerfluffle at NeurIPS last year involving statements about China, so they were already walking a fine line:
Apologies all around:
https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/neurips-apology-moving-forward/
I was released from major invasive surgery on 2/23 and had a bleeding event that night followed by a 2nd event where the bleeding had stopped.
So I gave the details to chat gpt to see if there was a concern and it went HAM mode. “Call 911! This is not a ‘best of three’ thing! You could bleed out! Call 911!”
I did not call 911, the bleeding stayed stopped, I’m fine.
But that would give players a sense of, gasp, ownership! Can’t have that!
https://thegamepost.com/sony-cracks-down-concord-custom-servers-dmca-takedowns/
I can’t help but think there’s money in acquiring all these completed assets and coming up with a story based single player game around them.
The creative part is already done! Pop it into a non-GaaS structure and see what happens!
I’d have LOVED to explore the world of Brink and it was set up to be another Assassin’s Creed Assassins vs. Templars vibe… and it all fell apart…
Xbox One X is still a better choice than the Xbox Series S.
Let me explain:
It has more RAM than the Series S, so Xbox One titles and backwards compatible titles will run with Xbox One X enhancements that the Series S cannot run.
It has a physical disc drive for backwards compatible titles, DVDs, Blu Rays, and 4K UHD movies. The Series S is discless.
The only downside are newer games that are exclusive to Series S/X, but really, how many are there? Cyberpunk 2077 plays on the One X.
The new Forza won’t run, but the older ones should!
Source: Put the Xbox Series X and PS5 in the living room, moved the Xbox One X and PS4 to the bedroom. Still use it!
Not at all wrong, just showing what can be done with virtually zero effort and time.
I could most likely perfect it in a few minutes more, still a fraction of the time of doing it by hand. I’m not extending a proof of concept to win arguments on the Internet. 😉
But as I noted at the bottom of the comment, which apparently nobody bothered to read, there are ALREADY royalty free libraries for this kind of thing. So it also has to be faster than searching libraries that are already there.
Of course that action is it’s own time sink as anyone who has gone looking for “the perfect font” can tell you.
It did get maybe 90% there in a minute which is faster than a person would do it. Not a perfect tile, maybe take a few more interations. But not awful for cobbled together in a minute, and if your job is to come up with 50 or 100 different textures, still better than doing it by hand.
But as I noted, there are also already royalty free libraries for this stuff as well.
I could see using AI for tasks that are so mind numbing and mundane it might actually be cruel to make a human do it.
“I need a perfectly tileable concrete wall texture for a video game, make it light gray with random spots of yellow and white paint.”
Took about a minute.
But then, if you’re going to do THAT, there are already royalty free libraries where it’s already done.
There was a quickplay where someone figured out how to beat the game in something crazy like 10 or 12 minutes.
I tend to agree with this. I had given up on PC gaming by 2004 so did not play HL2 until the Orange Box on Xbox in 2007 and my reaction was “Jesus this is boring!”
I’ve tried to replay it a couple of times since then, most recently on Steam Deck, but it just doesn’t click with me and I give up around the Canals.
I picked up Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot for my kid for Christmas. $60 still after coming out in 2023.
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/advance-wars-1-plus-2-re-boot-camp-switch/
(* “My kid” - He’s 29, he should be buying his own games! LOL.)
The Switch 2 is the first console I’ve just outright skipped in… well… years now. I guess since the Wii U?
Just every piece of news about it as it was coming out made it sound less and less appealing…
$70 games (that never get discounted because Nintendo.)
Games aren’t “games”, they’re download keys.
Special SD cards that are more expensive.
Microphone support requires a subscription after 1 year.
Charging $10 for a hardware demo that should be included, like Desk Job on the Steam Deck.
And, like you say, the remote detonation option, which is burning legitimate players:
https://www.gadgetmatch.com/nintendo-switch-2-lawsuit-bricked-consoles/
Generally with new hardware it’s “Hey, what’s not to like?”
With the Switch 2 it’s more “What is there to like?”
The mere presence of griefers eliminates this from PVE:
Until they come up with servers where PvP is prohibited, PvE isn’t worth discussing.
With current pricing, it’s going to be tough and that’s no joke.
Even the new Steam Machine is being predicted to be around $1,000.
https://www.indy100.com/gaming/steam-machine-price-cost-release-date-2674829977
The era of $600 gaming PCs is 1-3 years ago now.
(NGL - I still want a Steam Machine. :)
Same, dropped it like it was hot.
I had friends on both PS5 and Xbox too…