We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

If I'm reading right, games can be installed somewhere else for free if they've been uninstalled from the first profile, meaning you can give them to your friends or trade them in without needing anyone to pay the fee, which was put in more to account for installation of games than to murder the used market.

I'm not going to lie that sounds literally no better at all.
Considering that with any other games console ever I don't need to do that.

Well the system's built around installing the game and then not requiring the disk anymore which I have to say is a really nice step since with the remote controller in charge of everything at this point skipping the switching out of physical disks just completes the transition.

And with this they need some way to ensure the system doesn't fall into mass Gamefly-enabled piracy.

Can I opt out of installing the game and not requiring the disk? I have the disk right here, I'd rather not pay a fee than it provide a service I am not asking it for and do not require.
You can't answer that question I just pray the answer is "yes" because otherwise I am just going to continue saying that it's a fucking stupid system.

I don't have all the answers because not all of the detail is out yet. Until then I'm going to say that no one knows if it's good or not and we should wait until we know enough before we start ranting about it :P

no I
think it's pretty reasonable to rant about having to pay a charge to play a game I already paid for, when this was not the usual state of affairs?
The only mitigating factor will be if it is optional but like, I can say that conditionally upon it not being it is an awful idea (and I did)

the system donks in general though

it pretty much means that the physical format is largely useless other than to speed up the time it takes to install the game

in the future you won't be able to actually play the game, when it is older, because the authentication will no longer be active

which makes all of the systems effectively USELESS after support for them is removed

(until somebody spoofs an authenticator and renders THIS ENTIRE CHARADE POINTLESS)

sure, the wii's online support being disabled effectively renders the downloadables inaccessible from the wii, but at least it ALLOWS ME TO PLAY GAMES THAT I HAVE JUST INSERTED INTO IT

overall, it's like taking the stupidest parts of a console, and steam, and mashes them into a thing that has no sustainability and only serves to benefit the distributor, who will not even lower the prices to compensate

boy, that got into damage control quickly

from what i can tell, you NEED a user profile to actually install the game, meaning that if you don't have one set up, and if that account hasn't been cleared by the online thing, you will be completely unable to play any games with it

they have essentially turned it into a cellphone, which will only be useful as long as they can charge full or near full price for everything

no matter how you cut it, they are taking a heavy toll from the consumer, and they aren't giving anything in return other than their misguided attempts at what they think gaming is supposed to be

the real reason nintendo's going to win is the lack of non-copyright-infringing action figures in microsoft/sony marketing

I feel bad for anyone who legitimately likes the microsoft IPs. The wounds of abandoning Forza when I jumped ship from my 360 are healed over, but I'm sure there are those who feel a begrudging duty to swallow these draconian DRMs and downright convoluted features that aren't even glazed over with a gossamer air of being "for" them.

Though bravo for using a word for shameless ads that wasn't "Ads" exactly. Using the word "Trending" to shove ads down people's throats as genuine suggestions based on their tastes is deliciously malevolent. Like, machinations thought of by a lich who drinks in the black souls of the betrayed.

his driveway is paved with the remnants of a million dead xboxes

Red rings run deep through the river Styxbox. On the horizon there is only CEOs spitting in the gaping mouths of the customers who paid the boatman the stiff fee of $600 (Citation needed though).

no matter how you cut it, they are taking a heavy toll from the consumer, and they aren't giving anything in return other than their misguided attempts at what they think gaming is supposed to be

Yes, this is a new requirement for its scale, but we’ve been heading down this road ever since consoles were a thing, and especially since personal computing rolled around and consoles were still a thing. The whole point always was to keep the system locked.

I thought the entire point of a console was to offer a streamlined, compact gaming experience that wasn't as heavy as the personal computer but still delivered on the funtimes. This whole thing is roughly as clunky as a computer without any of the benefits consumers would get from a computer over a console.

The Macintosh, the Apple II, the Commodore 64, the Amiga—these are not particularly heavy systems, and they ran on disks (and lots and lots of piracy). You did not usually have to do this, for the most part, back when those were in vogue.

er, i was referring to the technical weight, not the physical one

I can’t even guess what that means, unless by “heavier” you mean “not locked” :\

You see, that kind of PC (IBM PC would not be that kind of PC, at least not the way it’s been since IBM stopped being the primary source of them) could be used in a manner little different from a console, if you wanted to. Indeed, a lot of people used them that way, and a lot of them were intended to be plugged right into the TV set. Then as now, you did pay more for being able to type into it, plug in extra things, and more or less do whatever you want within the machine’s capabilities, but again, that’s the locked system paying off.

Why is the PS4 terrible now? I'm admittedly not up-to-date on all the everything, and I may have missed something, but from what I remember it seemed a decent enough choice.

Ps4 is also not backwards compatible, the online and market will be as bad as before, there is only a slim chance of them finally getting a system for a person to talk to their friends in voice that isn't broadcasting over games. But it's not as bad as the One Box to Soil 'em All.


Yet.

I just don't understand why Dillon's Rolling Western was given an average of 65% by reviewers.

It is a very solid game, and it's actually pretty damn great. I understand the complaint of it being really hard to marathon on account of it being mildly repetitive, but I played it for an hour at a time, for a total of 20 hours, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of the game.

I would highly recommend this game to anybody who has a 3DS. It's $9 on the eShop, and the sequel is $11.

(Well okay the 65% is from Metacritic, who usually give lower reviews than most other reviewers. It got an 8 out of 10 on IGN, which I agree with. Maybe 8.5?)

Metacritic doesn’t do reviews; they deal with scores, which is one of the least important parts of a review.

You know what? I’m going to go ahead and call it the very least important part of a review.

Anyway, they don’t even give out the scores, they just take other scores and mash them up with a secret formula.

then they turn that shit right around and start screwing developers with contracts based on that score

frankly it's just disgusting because the companies know they can get away with it instead of paying them like normal people

they won't even keep them around long enough to make this pithy judgment of their performance meaningful, since they'll just toss them out on their asses and hire a new team which will be able to sell the game at reduced salaries, and as long as it gets out the door with a name that sells money, the company could care less about there being any actual content

Yeah okay. I think that DRW is pretty much the biggest proof that scores are bullshit.

I can't help but think of a game's scores every time I play it though. I need to stop looking at scores, dangit.

So, can I just point out how they have an entire section of the dashboard for ads.

They just glossed over it by calling it "Trending".

For a paid service, you sure are consuming a lot of advertisement, a feature that's usually removed in return for paying for a service. They're just giving it a user-friendly name and saying it's FOR you.

I'm getting mad fahrenheit 451 shivers going up my spine right now.