Vordus

I give it a 2.529032258/5, apparently. Or at least, that's what my big spreadsheet says.

I'm willing to bet that internal metrics shows that this is one of those non-issues that only the die-hard core userbase actually get angry about, and that the average user tends to choose quality over performance, but I doubt that's something we'll ever actually know for sure.

@Titntin Honestly, as much as I joke about the man, I very much miss having the old Molyneux around, outlandish claims and all.

You know the 'Fast, good, cheap: pick two' triangle? Well for every game this generation the choice is 'Framerate, resolution, detail: pick two'.

It's set in Albion, definitely. I mean, sure, we can't use any of the existing geography, the characters, the organisational structure, half of the bestiary, the iconography or anything trademarked, but it's definitely the same place! And if you say it isn't, I'll get a bunch a games journalists to sign a whiteboard saying it is!

Sometimes 60fps is important and necessary. Sometimes it just makes you lose a lot of visual fidelity only to make things look like your dad hasn't turned off the uncanny Motion Smoothing on big fancy new TV.

@Doomcrow Structurally more similar to Outer Worlds, iirc. It's reasonably open, but across multiple smaller maps rather than one big one, and with a focus on a central plot rather than a sandbox.

Have fun folks, I'm going to bed.

@Ricky-Spanish $16 million out of $115 million seems like a good start, but it's not even half of the story. That $16 million first is subject to regional sales taxes (for the sake of simplicity let's average those out to around 10%), and then the theaters will likely be taking at least 45% of the first weekend sales. Meanwhile, the marketing budget for this kind of movie is astronomical. A rule of thumb is that they will spend the budget of the movie again on marketing.

So that makes it more like $7.9 million out of the $225 million it needs to break even.

@bestuardo Harry Potter is something they licence rather than own, which raises the question of who pays JK Rowling if a third party makes a Harry Potter game. Same for Game of Thrones and George RR Martin. Monsterverse they co-own with Legendary, using monsters they licence from Toho. Considering Kong is public domain, it would probably be cheaper to deal with Toho directly there.

Looney Tunes is a good call though, although whether they'd really sell in large quantities these days is questionable. Hanna Barbera is in the same category; lots of IP but not very culturally relevant right now.

Mortal Kombat, well. NetherRealm pretty much has that handled. But I'm sure Zaslav can always make some terrible decision to outsource their most reliable series.

Even with the coat of paint, Crash 1 has aged poorly. I can forgive the unforgiving difficulty, but the weird clunky physics, the most awkward camera angles, and racist stereotype side characters are some of the worst things that late 90s gaming had to offer.

Other than DC Comics, what do they own outright that people would buy video games based on?

@OldGamer999 We're reaching a point where development times for AAA games rival the length of entire console generations, so I'm not sure it's going to get better any time soon.

Neon White occupied a big chunk of my time. Utterly excellent game.

@PhileasFragg The trademarks have expired, but the copyrights will last to the latter part of this century.

22 years? That can't be right; Jango was a character from... oh. oh god. I'm so old.

@fizban3332 I suspect spacing games out is exactly what this is about; now that day-one games are a specifically stated premium feature of GPU they actually have to be able to provide them on a regular basis. Can't just lump them together in the last three months of the year as per gaming industry tradition, else folks won't subscribe for other months.

@NEStalgia It's sort of the gaming equivalent of one of those adult colouring books that were a big thing a few years back.

This is, I suspect, less down to 'breathing room', and more down to pacing major Game Pass releases. If MS are going to charge a monthly premium for major day one releases, they need to actually be able to provide said releases across the year instead of lumping them all in the months before Christmas.

THQ Nordic has a showcase on Friday, which I'm guessing is why stuff like Saints Row and Dead Island 2 is here.

Who's got two thumbs and forgot to check the DLC requirements back when the summer sale was on?

@Dan1283 I would take any one of these over a million Call of Duty games.

It would have been fine if they'd gone for a less generic word than 'Series'.

Ack. I've been so busy lately that I haven't even managed to start this one yet.

I'm selling these fine leather jackets...

@themightyant As far as I understand it, the deal means they have to negotiate with Ubisoft for the streaming rights to ABK games. Presumably if they appear too desperate, it'll push the price up.

Barely bothering my wishlist, as per usual.

@Gabrielmpf The really interesting thing is that not only do they actually have a new game in the works, but that the new world generation tech was built primarily for the new game, then backported into NMS.

I suspect that it might be getting easier to sell folks in those regions on the immediate access of cloud gaming, and then upsell them on the console rather than vice versa, so it's potentially more of a cart/horse dichotomy than a retreat.

Games have long been the least profitable aspect of GAME, so it's not really much of a surprise that they'd want to get rid of the damn things.

It's just ironic, because, well gestures at big purple sign proclaiming 'GAME'

Back in the 360 era there was a period where if you knew how to shop around you could often get up to around 40% off on a preorder. Those days are long gone.

I preordered the DLCs for Forza Horizon 5 and Starfield because I fell into the early access rabbit hole for those (and honestly, being able to play Starfield for a week before the internet's collective ****-ing on it was a much more pleasant way to play Starfield) and knew they were both games I would put hundreds of hours into, but they're about the only things I remember preordering this decade.

Edit: made the autocensor made more sense.

Presumably they'll wait until sales figures start to flatline. So the quickest way to get games on Game Pass will be to avoid buying them.

@dskatter As Ultimate is staying as-is, they have to honour the amount of time that's stated on the card.

@johnK Absolutely brilliant puzzler, though. I suspect the intentionally jarring ugly Amiga style was inspired by Return of The Obra Dinn's 2-bit Macintosh inspired look, what with that being the game's biggest influence.

@UltraGuy If you're in a country that supports rewards but it isn't playing nice with your ISP, you can claim the points using the Xbox phone app, but only when connected via mobile data.

@RIghteousNixon Absolutely. They're some of the best in the business.

"New Zealand developer Wētā Workshop"

New Zealand movie special effects, prop house, and first-time indie developer, Wētā Workshop, surely? They're the guys that designed a whole bunch of the practical effects, costumes and models for Pete Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

For the record, the Summer Showcases are still going, there's been around 1150 games, and I'm not sure I can keep my semblance of sanity for much longer.

@nomither6 Avatar checks out.

Absolutely nothing like Palworld. Not even close. Palworld is an open-world survival crafty game with Pokémon-like creatures tacked on, whereas this is a plot-heavy action-adventure game. Literally the only similarity is that there are fictional animals that can be befriended.

@rustyduck Are you really that afraid of colour?

@Kezelpaso This does seem to be the big difference ultimately. Which makes sense; they've made S vs X confusing enough, no need to make it even more baffling to folks who don't know the differences.

Nice that there's a new Davey Wreden game coming. That's... pretty much it.

Guess who pulled the 2am baker's shift for the morning after? As much as enjoy Xbox's showcases, I think not being completely dead in the morning is probably a priority.

@Gamer_X The industry in general is losing exclusives. The market isn't large enough to sustain them in the way it used to be.

I wasn't even aware this one was still alive!

June 9th: O P T I M I S M

@eSocrates I am sorry to inform you that this isn't a remaster of Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Game (2005), but a wholly original brand new game made and released in 2023.

For the best results, I'd recommend roping in a friend or partner to play this one with you. Having someone to bounce ideas off of and discuss solutions with really helps elevate the experience.

Played through this one with the same friend as I played through Obra Dinn with. Both excellent deduction puzzlers.

If anyone's wondering why this is happening now; it's the end of Microsoft's fiscal year in less than 2 months, which means they have to get everything all looking sleek and efficient to keep the investors happy.

Ah, Capitalism. Don't you just love it.