[HN Gopher] Xbox has accused Sony of paying Game Pass 'block fee...
___________________________________________________________________
Xbox has accused Sony of paying Game Pass 'block fees' to
developers
Author : thesuperbigfrog
Score : 84 points
Date : 2022-08-11 18:50 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.videogameschronicle.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.videogameschronicle.com)
| sylware wrote:
| where are the glibc/linux native builds of the games from the
| studios microsoft owns?
| ccouzens wrote:
| A lot of double fine games are on Linux. Hopefully Linux
| support continues for games funded post MS purchase.
|
| https://www.doublefine.com/news/mac-and-linux-baby
| andrewia wrote:
| Linux builds are nice, but they are a ton of work. It basically
| doubles the workload testing for PC, which is already complex
| due to the thousands of hardware configurations out there. It's
| one of a few reasons why Nvidia GeForce Now has more games than
| Google Stadia - Stadia requires porting the game to Linux (and
| they are an "easier" target since devs only have to support
| Google's hardware configurations). Valve gave up on convincing
| studios to port their games to Linux and just forked Wine to
| make Proton.
| Andrex wrote:
| Proton (and SteamOS) are the bootstraps that will lift native
| Linux gaming ever higher.
|
| Yes, I've metaphorically had my face stepped on over and over
| for this thought, but I do see some winds of change blowing.
|
| Steam Deck is an inflection point.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > It basically doubles the workload testing for PC, which is
| already complex due to the thousands of hardware
| configurations out there.
|
| This is only true if your engine is abstracting nothing away
| and there wasn't any common denominator in APIs across
| systems.
|
| Given that neither is the case for popular game engines, the
| statement is wrong. You also don't have to test gameplay
| related things on both systems, only technical aspects, and
| only a small subset of them.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| A recompile doesn't mean it works. You have to test the
| result.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| This is completely wrong and doing the bare minimum of
| research will show you the nightmare native linux support
| has been for some games
|
| The most high profile case I recall is Rust, but there've
| been others
| adanto6840 wrote:
| Proton is very good.
|
| The current reality is that it really does increase the
| testing surface area by a substantial amount. Even if it's
| only +10-20%, the addressable market on Linux is nowhere
| near that size, so it is really difficult to make a good
| business case for supporting Linux natively. Large studios
| could certainly do it, though it'd basically be getting
| "subsidized" by other target platforms; small studios
| though, not so much, the math just simply doesn't make
| sense currently.
|
| The engine abstractions only do so much for you - at the
| end of the day, it's another thing you have to test and
| provide support for, with the latter being the most
| troublesome and resource-intensive, in my experience.
| initplus wrote:
| At the same time though, building a game that is easy to
| port is good engineering in the first place. Even if you
| only release on mainstream platforms, writing platform-
| agnostic code can save you so many headaches down the
| line when you want to release on console/mobile etc.
| [deleted]
| norwalkbear wrote:
| Sony needs to be broken up. They are trying become a an ultra
| mega corp on anime, videogames, streaming, etc Everything they
| touch goes to shit with censorship.
| PostOnce wrote:
| Microsoft's list of faults would make this comment several
| megabytes. Sony is not without fault either: they're already
| selling a PlayStation with no game slot for a disk or cartridge,
| it's download only. They're killing the secondhand market, and
| probably the long-term availability of many titles, which in the
| future will not be playable (since they'll be lost), only
| watchable on YouTube.
|
| In the game industry specifically though, Microsoft has many
| faults:
|
| Microsoft made Halo an Xbox exclusive when people were waiting
| for it on PC, so how can they complain about anyone blocking
| anything? This wasn't the only time:
|
| Halo 2 was a Windows 7 exclusive because they soft-locked it to
| some version of DirectX they wouldn't release on XP, and it took
| the pirates 5 minutes to make it work on XP, clearly that was
| artificial.
|
| Microsoft promised that Rare's upcoming game Kameo would be on
| the Xbox, but they converted it to a 360 exclusive to try to drum
| up sales for 360.
|
| They started charging people to use their own internet
| connections with Xbox live, so we all played on VLANs with the
| games on LAN mode, now every game company charges to play online.
|
| Anyway, Microsoft is a terrible company, always has been, always
| will be.
|
| They also invented Pluton, put ads in the start menu, blah. Don't
| give them money.
|
| This push to move to subscription may ruin gaming as an artform,
| and the more these companies fight and fuck that up, the better.
| Hopefully if they bicker enough it'll ruin the whole concept of a
| subscription.
| [deleted]
| Andrex wrote:
| > Microsoft's list of faults would make this comment several
| megabytes. Sony is not without fault either: they're already
| selling a PlayStation with no game slot for a disk or
| cartridge, it's download only. They're killing the secondhand
| market, and probably the long-term availability of many titles,
| which in the future will not be playable (since they'll be
| lost), only watchable on YouTube.
|
| You lost me here. The solution is to improve library
| portability and backwards compatibility, not clinging to
| increasingly-obsolete physical formats.
|
| Imagine putting a cartridge in your phone for every app.
| Insanity.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| This is all a race to the bottom and we're all going to be worse
| off for it. These subscription services started off innocuous
| enough by recycling old content, injecting life and cash into
| nearly dead (but good!) titles. And the subscriptions ate and ate
| and ate. And now they sign deals with studios before the game is
| even off the ground. Don't even get me started on all the
| acquisitions.
|
| In the modern world of the internet, providing both a platform
| and a service ultimately stifles competition which ultimately
| harms consumers.
|
| It's great that small studios are reaping the wild cash
| injections due to Game Pass, or PS+ or Apple's thing. It can be a
| life changing amount of funding. I'm happy for them. But it can't
| continue indefinitely without extinguishing the entire industry.
|
| It's getting harder and more expensive to publish, whether
| bootstrapped or otherwise. And the publishers are rapidly
| conglomerating.
|
| The early 21st century was ripe with rampant piracy and
| unbundling. And now we're practically worse than where we
| started. We own less, nothing is portable, we are slaves to the
| recurring subscription, and we must sell ourselves to the
| platform to put food on the table.
|
| It's all so depressing.
| [deleted]
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| Companies paying for exclusives so customers will pay to access
| exclusives feels like bad economics. It's reduces the number of
| people something can be sold to. My best explanation is that
| it's developers and content creators selling potential upside
| in return for reducing their risk - Microsoft can diversify
| between multiple games.
|
| I suppose it's a bit like advertising a platform that makes
| money via advertising, which hasn't collapsed yet.
| Victerius wrote:
| I haven't bought a new game since 2021. At this point, I'm
| prepared to give up on video games completely. Once the
| multiplayer servers of the 2-3 games I still play[1] are shut
| down.
|
| Now I'm growing my book collection instead. No subscriptions,
| DLC or microtransactions for those at least.
|
| [1] Star Wars Battlefront II (2017), Ace Combat 7, and Mass
| Effect Legendary Edition
| eertami wrote:
| > Now I'm growing my book collection instead. No
| subscriptions, DLC or microtransactions for those at least
|
| No subscriptions, DLC, or microtransactions... yet.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| > > Now I'm growing my book collection instead. No
| subscriptions, DLC or microtransactions for those at least
|
| > No subscriptions, DLC, or microtransactions... yet.
|
| Hopefully not the future:
| https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html
| blargey wrote:
| "You see, your honor, it would foster more competition if we
| owned the developers/publishers outright and decided their
| distribution platforms unilaterally, instead of having to price
| our distribution platform to compete with other company's
| exclusivity deals"
| blargey wrote:
| Legal slap fights aside, it's interesting to hear about these
| "block fees" that target this specific subset of Microsoft's
| platform. Since it isn't involved in the big launch sales, and
| feels more common among smaller budget / indie games, it may be
| much cheaper for Sony to offer this deal to many prospective
| Games Pass games.
|
| (Though the laissez-faire answer to Microsoft's frustrations
| remains "well Microsoft's publishing platform should pay more
| than a figment of Sony's marketing budget if it's actually a
| profitable/sustainable business unit")
| [deleted]
| daoist_shaman wrote:
| Shhh, don't point fingers at their anti-competitive
| acquisitions and mergers. It's clearly the people paying fair
| wages in a free market who are at fault. /s
| prvit wrote:
| Did Xbox spin-off from Microsoft?
| [deleted]
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| When it suits them: "exclusive deal"
|
| When it doesn't: "IT'S A BLOCK FEE"
| aardvarkr wrote:
| I recommend that you read the article. Sony is trying to block
| the activision merger on grounds that Microsoft could block
| Sony from having access to Call of Duty on their platform.
| Microsoft is countering by submitting evidence that Sony
| actively employs the very same strategy of blocking games from
| being played on rival systems that they're claiming is
| anticompetitive, demonstrating the hypocrisy of their claim.
| [deleted]
| causi wrote:
| Look I love Game Pass as much as anyone but it's a true act of
| cuntery for Microsoft to do things as heinous as making Elder
| Scrolls 6 a Microsoft platform exclusive and then cry foul when
| Sony does the same. "Cries out as he strikes you" indeed.
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| Isn't it the other way around? Sony pushes hard for platform
| exclusivity and deals that work against Xbox and now Gamepass.
| It's only natural that Microsoft will want to compete and get
| leverage.
| 015a wrote:
| Everyone has been doing this since forever. Halo was
| originally supposed to be released on MacOS (!!); then
| Microsoft bought up Bungie and made it an Xbox exclusive.
| Sony paid Call of Duty / Activision millions to get exclusive
| content (like maps, cosmetics, marketing, etc) on
| PlayStation; before Microsoft bought up Activision. Epic is
| infamous for their massive spend to gain exclusive
| distribution of PC games; in only one example, it was
| revealed that they paid ~$10M USD for one year of exclusive
| distribution of Control (the game's budget was only ~$36M
| USD, if that's any indication of how insane these deals are,
| but oftentimes they're structured in-part as a pre-payment of
| sales, not just a big free check).
|
| All of this is shitty, but its like two pigs arguing who is
| more covered in mud.
| ace2358 wrote:
| Halo was released on Mac OS X though. I have the game on
| dvd.
| lilyball wrote:
| 2 years later though.
|
| Bungie used to make games for macOS. The predecessor
| Marathon Trilogy was originally released on macOS (and
| only Marathon 2 was ported to Windows). Halo was supposed
| to be originally released on macOS too, and then
| Microsoft bought the studio and turned it into an Xbox
| game, leaving all of the existing macOS userbase out in
| the cold.
|
| Their purchase of Bungie also screwed up the IP rights to
| Oni. Wikipedia says that when Microsoft acquired Bungie,
| negotiations with Take-Two Interactive (which owned a
| share of Bungie) left Take-Two with the rights to Oni,
| and the sequel was eventually canceled. I don't have a
| citation on this but from what I understand, nobody is
| willing to touch Oni again (not even for an HD remake)
| because something about the IP rights is so messy that
| nobody wants to (or maybe nobody is even able to)
| untangle it. Which really sucks because it was a great
| game.
| 015a wrote:
| Right yeah, that's my mistake; it was showcased for
| release on both OSX and Windows at a MacWorld conference
| in the late 90s; Microsoft purchased Bungie in like 2000,
| and after that acquisition they added on an Xbox release.
| flutas wrote:
| Realistically, didn't most of this _start_ when MS paid
| massive amounts for time exclusive DLC in the 360 era for
| some of the biggest games like Skyrim[0] or COD (5 years in a
| row)[1], or flat out exclusive content in GTA IV[2]? To me
| this seems like MS is crying that Sony stole their playbook
| and is doing it better. Granted either of them doing it is
| bad for consumers in general.
|
| [0]: https://www.eurogamer.net/skyrim-dlc-timed-
| xbox-360-exclusiv...
|
| [1]: https://www.eurogamer.net/after-five-years-of-xbox-
| exclusivi...
|
| [2]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2007/06/gta-iv-
| downloadable-c...
| girvo wrote:
| No, Sony has always had exclusive agreements with certain
| studios properties (and then purchased those studios later
| on) going back to the late 90s, before Microsoft ever
| entered the console market.
|
| This sort of behaviour was well established in the
| industry.
| [deleted]
| cammikebrown wrote:
| As a big PlayStation fanboy who pretty much hates Microsoft...
| Sony aren't saints either. The stuff Microsoft attempted with
| the Xbox One being online only, Kinect only was really bad
| though
| henriquecm8 wrote:
| I think Microsoft is claiming that Sony is paying for third
| parties not to go to Game pass, while Microsoft bought
| Bethesda, so now it will be first party.
| gjs278 wrote:
| partiallypro wrote:
| The complaint is against paying 3rd parties though, not owning
| your own first party and doing it. I guess it would be like if
| Apple paid Uber, Whatsapp etc to only make their apps for the
| AppStore and not Android. I don't know if that's a good
| argument though because music streamers do it all the time.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| Do you believe that Apple does _not_ participate in this sort
| of behavior? Because they do.
| [deleted]
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It is "exclusive" to Xbox and PC.
| Rackedup wrote:
| PC/Windows? or PC/Linux?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Unless they only distribute it on the Microsoft store does
| it matter? I play a lot of Windows "exclusives" on my Linux
| desktop.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Should work just fine on Proton, previous-gen Creation
| Engine games worked fine with Wine and DXVK. A few games
| even have Linux-exclusive patches to prevent crashing on
| alt-tab, as well as a few performance improvements under
| the hood.
| BudaDude wrote:
| It really depends on much more locked down the engine
| will become with ES6. Fallout 4 was notoriously hard to
| mod for and the modding community suffered for it.
|
| Of course modding difficulty doesn't translate directly
| to how well Proton will run it, but I fear it will make
| it difficult for it to be optimized.
| kistaro wrote:
| The article suggests that Microsoft is attempting to defend
| against a lawsuit by Sony attempting to block an acquisition
| here, in which Sony is suggesting it would be anticompetitive
| because it would make a popular franchise platform-exclusive.
| This doesn't look to me like Microsoft is "crying foul" at all
| - instead, they're "crying fair", arguing that they should be
| allowed to do it because Sony is doing something similar.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| "Sony's desire to impede such growth has prevented Microsoft from
| expanding Game Pass. To stop content creators from adding to Game
| Pass and other rival subscription services, Sony pays for
| 'blocking rights.'"
|
| "These kinds of platform agreements are common in the games
| industry, and in documents made public as part of the Epic vs.
| Apple lawsuit last year, PlayStation was even mentioned as
| blocking the appearance of third-party games on Game Pass."
|
| How are "blocking rights" legal?
|
| Don't they violate anti-trust / competition laws?
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Yes, they do violate antitrust. But there are two problems with
| enforcement:
|
| 1. The arrangement in question relates to trade of copyrighted
| works; which means that any antitrust lawsuit has to jump over
| the hurdle of not restraining the copyright monopoly.
| Separability of copyright and exclusive licensing are also
| considered to be well-established components of the copyright
| monopoly.
|
| 2. The consumer welfare standard is so high a bar to antitrust
| enforcement that a lot of clearly illegal behavior is never
| prosecuted.
|
| That last one deserves more explanation. In the 1980s a bunch
| of federal judges decided to repeal US antitrust law from the
| bench. They argued - with scant evidence - that antitrust
| action had to prove that consumers were harmed by monopolistic
| action. This is the exact same argument Apple and console
| vendors use to justify locking down their products; that it
| actually benefits consumers to have to buy their software from
| sources authorized by the hardware manufacturer.
|
| In practice, there is no monopoly that does _not_ improve
| consumer welfare. Monopolies are the most stable business
| arrangement and can bully the rest of the economy into doing
| what the customer wants. The whole point of antitrust is that
| we don 't want to live under privately-owned government, not
| that avocados could be 2 cents cheaper.
| jfim wrote:
| Are they really a violation of antitrust? They're not really
| different from exclusive supplier relationships or
| exclusivity deals in other industries.
|
| As you point out, it's pretty accepted in the copyright
| industry to have exclusivity deals. If I want to get Katy
| Perry's album, then I buy the Capitol records one, I can't
| get it from Sony. Or I can only stream on services where that
| artist is available, so if it's not on Tidal, then tough luck
| for users of that service.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Music is a little different because you don't need
| proprietary hardware in order to listen to music.
| Everything plays an MP3. A CD is a CD and all CD players
| play CD's.
|
| With console video games, you can't just pop the game disc
| into any disc tray that plays games. You can't run your
| downloaded Xbox game on the PlayStation. The thing you
| licensed (since we don't own them technically) is tied to
| proprietary hardware.
|
| Imagine if you had to own a Mac in order to listen to your
| music you bought on iTunes/Apple Music
| Animats wrote:
| Microsoft tried that with Zune.[1] It was unpopular.
|
| [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/support-
| for-rights...
| blargey wrote:
| In the videogames industry, it's fundamentally the same
| category of competition (or stifling thereof) as an
| acquisition.
|
| When Sony or Microsoft acquire game studios or publishers, both
| the goal and method is the same - giving their platform an
| advantage by paying a lump sum for control over the target
| platforms and storefronts of one or more games.
|
| So it's presumably also a case-by-case thing, like other big
| acquisitions / cumulative patterns of acquisitions.
|
| So far, the industry seems to be "healthy enough" in spite of
| these sorts of deals. The big storefront/console competitors
| that are attacking each other are all huge and evenly matched,
| so none of them can exert this sort of control over anywhere
| near a majority of the market.
| kahrl wrote:
| Probably, but do laws actually matter in white-collar America?
| As long as the right groups get the right cut, the system will
| continue.
| [deleted]
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| Yes, laws do matter. Were it otherwise civil courts would
| have lots of free time. The legal system isn't known for
| being the corruption oasis that movies make it out to be.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > Were it otherwise civil courts would have lots of free
| time.
|
| Laws don't have to matter for you to waste a court's time.
| In fact dragging out court cases is a common legal tactic.
|
| > The legal system isn't known for being the corruption
| oasis that movies make it out to be.
|
| Your experience differs from mine. It also differs from
| most lawyers I know. Lawyers aren't famous for drinking
| heavily because they think they're making the world a
| better place.
|
| Why do you think the court system works? What country do
| you live in?
| ineedasername wrote:
| >How are "blocking rights" legal? Don't they violate anti-trust
| / competition laws?
|
| Unfortunately it doesn't seem like it. It's not uncommon in the
| pharmaceutical industry either: When a drug patent expires the
| company will sometimes pay generic manufacturers _to not_
| manufacture the drug for a period of time.
| rexf wrote:
| I don't see a problem with Sony (or MS/Nintendo/Apple/etc)
| _paying_ game developers to keep their games exclusive to a
| platform. Game creators make decisions on where to put their
| games and how to monetize.
|
| Epic Games is notorious for giving "free games" where consumers
| get the game for free, but EG is paying the publisher/developer
| behind the scenes. So the game creators are getting paid.
| breakingcups wrote:
| Amazon does it for their K&P / Kindle Unlimited offering to
| authors. If you want your book to be available in this program
| (and you _do_ want it because it accounts for a huge chunk of
| your income on Amazon, depending on genre) you need to agree to
| not have your book be available _anywhere_ else. Not on Apple,
| not in Barnes and Noble, nowhere.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| I think the exclusivity only applies to the eBook versions. I
| know Will Wight is able to sell hardcover copies of his books
| on Kickstarter, but mentioned he couldn't give eBook versions
| because of his Kindle Unlimited deal.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Assuming Sony is paying the publisher some _fairly negotiated_
| compensation for what they'd have otherwise project earning
| from GamePass presence, what's the anti-competitive element?
|
| Just that the game is available through some channels and not
| others? Because that's normal in retail. There are exclusivity
| deals _everywhere_.
|
| Or is there some reason to believe Sony is somehow pressuring
| publishers to take an unfair deal? It's possible, but I haven't
| read about that yet.
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| I don't think it is per se. Exclusive dealing is a common
| practice in many sectors.
|
| Circumstances can make it illegal, however.
| Kukumber wrote:
| Microsoft is choosing the wrong enemy to fight
|
| Nintendo is the only winner, and i suspect Apple in the coming
| years will be the only one competing with Nintendo, since Sony
| abandoned the handheld market, and Microsoft has no interests in
| the mobile market
|
| GamePass is the bastardisation of gaming, that'll end up killing
| gaming as we know it, and the Xbox brand, it is not even
| profitable for game studios, it's just an attempt for Microsoft
| to pump a meaningless number, and it doesn't even help their
| earning reports
|
| EU is moving to force Apple/Google to open up their ecosystem for
| 3rd party stores, Sony/Microsoft have 0 presence there, if steam
| doesn't try, then it's game over for all 3 of them
|
| I suspect in the mid-long term, Apple, Google, Epic will be the 3
| main actors of the gaming industry
|
| Microsoft will give up and focus on their cloud gaming
| infrastructure
|
| Looking at console and game sales, it is clear that Microsoft is
| not a strong gaming brand; even when their competitors are
| struggling with supply chain issues, they fail to capitalize on
| that
|
| https://www.vgchartz.com/ a great website to gain some precious
| knowledge about their individual performance
| AJRF wrote:
| > I suspect in the mid-long term, Apple, Google, Epic will be
| the 3 main actors of the gaming industry
|
| - Apple - the perennial "also-ran" name in gaming fundamentally
| don't get gaming. Never had, never will.
|
| - Google - Stadia will die within the next 2 years. Wager my
| house on that.
|
| - Epic - Yeah they will be around.
|
| I don't want to sound offensive but you sound like you know
| close to nothing about the game industry. You've not even
| mentioned Valve and you discount the fact that Microsoft have
| bought up multiple huge gaming studios in the past few years -
| deals worth multiple billions. Anyone with even a brief
| interest in the market would likely find your prediction
| nothing short of delusional.
| pandemicsyn wrote:
| > Nintendo is the only winner, and i suspect Apple in the
| coming years will be the only one competing with Nintendo,
| since Sony abandoned the handheld market, and Microsoft has no
| interests in the mobile market
|
| Valve? MS will compete that way indirectly. I snagged a
| SteamDeck - I haven't played games this much in a long time.
| Since getting it I've played through a bunch of triple A games
| (God of War, replayed the mass effect trilogy, etc), and a
| whole host of Nintendo exclusives via emulation.
|
| The fact that Nintendo lawyers are working overtime taking down
| youtube SteamDeck videos that barely even mention emulation
| feels like an admission that they know the steamdeck is a
| threat. They sure didn't seem to work as hard to take down
| videos showing emulation for other platforms like the Aya Neo.
| [deleted]
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I think you're right that Game Pass is a terrible idea.
|
| It reminds me of what happened to cable TV. Back in the 1980s
| cable channels all had definite brands to uphold. The cable
| bundle meant, however, that you had to take them all or leave
| them all. You couldn't pick your favorite news channel, you had
| to get all of them. Like the Discovery Channel? You pay for the
| Hallmark Channel.
|
| Cable channels thus don't have any motivation to be any good.
| They get paid whether or not you like them, whether or not you
| watch them. So why bother?
|
| The cable industry "thrived" for many years by simply jacking
| up the price, something that people tolerated for a while but
| each time they increase the price they lose a few subscribers,
| every time there is a funeral a cable TV subscriber is gone and
| they don't get replaced by anyone new.
|
| It irks me that young people who didn't live through this think
| anything is going to be different with GAME PASS. Each time I
| see that logo on my Xbox it makes my blood boil -- I am
| thinking about getting rid of it since it doesn't play music
| well, doesn't play HEVC videos at all, and there aren't that
| many games I want to play on it. I still keep it though because
| it plays Blu-Ray.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > still keep it though because it plays Blu-Ray
|
| You pay a monthly subscription fee in order to watch your
| Blu-Ray movies? You know you can pickup a used Blu-Ray player
| at goodwill and friends for like $20?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I don't pay a subscription to watch Blu-Ray movies, it is
| just Microsoft advertises GAME PASS so hard it's like they
| are trying to shove that logo up my nostrils. (Microsoft
| has a long history of killing products by selling them too
| hard; for instance everybody thinks that "OneNote has to be
| awful because Microsoft shoved three links to OneNote in
| the taskbar" whereas if you'd actually tried OneNote you
| might have liked it.)
|
| For a while my main use for the XBox has been as a media
| client for Jellyfin but it's pretty annoying because it
| doesn't play HEVC files. Microsoft changed something about
| its music player and it doesn't work with Jellyfin anymore.
|
| I haven't played games on the XBox for a while. It's not
| like I might not play games on it again but I still have a
| Nintendo 3DS, Steam, both of which have a considerable
| backlog for me.
| glitchc wrote:
| Well except advertising dollars did flow to viewer eyeballs,
| and it's cable advertising, not subscription fees, that came
| to dominate the revenue model.
| gengear wrote:
| you are forgetting the largest gaming company is tencent.
| ineedasername wrote:
| The Steam Deck-- at least among PC gamers-- is an extremely
| attractive option over Nintendo. Bring your existing game
| library with you, play much more demanding games, benefit from
| deep discounts on PC games that almost never make it to
| Nintendo versions.
|
| I bought a switch to play portable versions of PC indie games
| but since I got the Deck I haven't touched it.
|
| Production of units has picked up so the order bottleneck is
| easing up, which is part for the course with Nintendo as well:
| I couldn't find on OLED model anywhere for months & months
| after it's release for my kid.
|
| The downside of course is significant bulk. Battery is less of
| an issue, despite what some people say. If I'm playing a
| demanding game away from a power source I just tweak the power
| settings, sometimes lower the resolution and let FSR (which
| works great) help improve the visuals, and getting 2-3 hours on
| even the most demanding games is then not an issue. 4-5 hours
| on less demanding games. And carry a battery pack that will
| supply an extra charge. But yeah, definitely it doesn't work so
| well if you _have_ to have something that will fit in a pocket.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Posted yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32418130
| [deleted]
| pvg wrote:
| These make sense when there's discussion to read at the
| previous post and there isn't in that one.
| Ekaros wrote:
| At least Microsoft has good grace to buy the entire studio...
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| Exactly! I find if funny that Microsoft is complaining about
| Sony buying "blocking rights" when Microsoft is doing
| effectively the same thing. It just costs them more money.
| girvo wrote:
| You know Sony has also been purchasing studios left right and
| centre for... well, literally forever? And each one of their
| exclusive games from other studios has money behind the
| scenes to convince them too? Microsoft absolutely does the
| same shit, of course. None of these companies are our friends
| lol
| sylens wrote:
| I'd much prefer Microsoft buying a studio right now than
| Sont. When Sony buys a studio, I'm required to buy a $500 box
| and pay $70 to play future games from them.
|
| Microsoft lets me play it on PC or stream it for $10 or $15 a
| month. The lower barrier to entry has let me try out and
| discover a bunch of new titles I actually enjoy.
| cma wrote:
| Sony has been doing PC releases recently of many former
| exclusives from studios they own, like with Horizon: Zero
| Dawn and God of War.
| Narishma wrote:
| The entire publisher even.
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