Xbox chief Phil Spencer is leaving Microsoft

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• W3dd1e@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Spencer leaving Microsoft: Yay!

  Spencer being replaced by a Marketing Exec who leads an AI division: FUUUUUUCK

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• jontree255@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I’d be surprised if Xbox is a thing in 5 years after this news. The way things are right now Microsoft can’t make an Xbox console that will succeed by any metric. Maybe it’ll stick around as software.

  Phil had to salvage the brand after the fucking disaster that was Xbox One and I don’t think he was terrible but it clearly wasn’t working out.

  Replacing him with the head of Core AI is a fucking joke though.

  With the cost of hardware skyrocketing and Sony closing studios gaming is in a really dark place right now.

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  • LurkingLuddite@piefed.social ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Gaming is in a great place. AAA gaming is not, because of-fucking-course corpos don’t understand art.

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    • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It’s in a dark place because it is going to eventually become unaffordable to those who haven’t purchased a console or pc or handheld. I guess mobile gaming will become the main focus like it is in China.

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  • lilPossum@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I see it as a good thing, maybe another videogame market crash is exactly what we need so they’ll understand that not every game needs to have an overblown budget, bloated content, micro transactions, massive player retention, sell a billion copies and win awards to be a good game, it’s about time videogames are recognized as being pieces of art first and products second

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  • scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I wonder if this is a huge demotion for the AI guy. AI teams in Microsoft are “good” right now, I wonder if he fucked up in some way and they put him on xbox.

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    • jontree255@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yeah I don’t know. The knee jerk reaction Is “hey make Xbox have more AI”. She at least has the sense to have her first press release say “we’ll have no AI slop in our games” but we’ll see if that lasts.

      CoD has been caught using AI art already.

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  • darkstar@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Gaming is most definitely not in a dark place right now

    Steamdeck, Gaming on Linux, indie games, Arc Raiders, skies are blue and the sun is shining my friend

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  • bitjunkie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    A silver lining is that the NVIDIA/OpenAI deal was cut by ~70% this week, so hopefully the reality of AI not being a panacea sets in for those who have been driving the prices up. If the planned data centers never actually get built, production will shift back and consumer pricing should adjust accordingly. The MBA class will keep trying to manipulate it, but they’ll only be able to keep the ruse this far from reality for so long.

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  • OscarRobin@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Xbox is just going to be a brand/publisher I reckon.

    There’ll be ‘Xbox verified’ console PCs or somesuch that aren’t necessarily made by Microsoft, and there’ll be the Xbox app for games and streaming, and Xbox published games.

    And then another 5-10 years later they’ll phase that out and just be ‘Microsoft Gaming’ or somesuch branded, and the last traces of Xbox will be gone.

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    • zaphod@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It’s already just a brand, Xbox is just their gaming brand. Xbox Game Pass isn’t limited to Xbox hardware. The first Xbox branded computers not made by Microsoft are already available (Asus, ROG Xbox Ally). The real question is how long will Microsoft make hardware under the Xbox brand.

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• RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Literal definition of Monkey’s Paw:

  All the Phil Spencer haters get to rejoice that he is gone. But now he is replaced by a woman who has only ever had AI related positions at Microsoft, and previously worked at Meta.

  Even her letter to employees sounds AI generated.

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  • JDPoZ@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Exactly.

    People forget that the Xbox game division is only a subset of Microsoft so Phil always had to answer to the bigger suits.

    Phil actually made games. Phil came from a pretty cool era and I’ve seen him interviewed over the years by people who you only go talk to if you liked games.

    As far as US game company execs go, Phil wasn’t the worst.

    Also as far as I know, unlike the head of a certain studio who ruined WoW and CoD and more, he wasn’t mentioned recently on a certain set of files that were made public recently.

    I know it’s not exactly a high bar, but Phil actually seemed like someone who cared about gaming in general, but he probably also didn’t get to be in charge by pushing back and sticking his neck out to save everybody else whenever it came to making the Xbox division as profitable as the suits above him demanded.

    Whoever is next will be likely switching from a shovel to an excavator to dig the Xbox brand’s grave.

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    • Aielman15@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Phil actually made games

      He did???

      Like, seriously. The guy was in charge for 10 years. He did jack shit, and none of his first party studios managed to create something worth under his leadership.

      A few years after shutting down Lionhead, he and Bond talked about “learning from past mistakes” so that it wouldn’t happen again. Years later, he shuts down Tango (the day before praising their game as something Xbox needs more of), Toys for Bob (and then, when they buy back their independence, contracts them for an Xbox game, because what is consistency?), Turn 10 (now a support studio), Arcane Austin. Rare spent half a decade working on a game that never got past its pre-production phase. He hyped Coalition as the “world’s first AAAA studio”, then unceremoniously shut it down with nothing to show for it despite working for 7 years and with outside help on one game.

      343 was mismanaged for years and he never did anything to fix that, either. Of course that bit him in the ass when he bet everything on Halo Infinite, the only first party game to launch alongside the Series X, which was eventually delayed a year later. An entire year without first party games for their console. (Yes, Covid was bad for everyone in the industry, but their competition was able to release games in that timeframe). He then hoped for Starfield to save the day, which obviously didn’t happen, and by then everyone’s patience was over. 80 billion dollars down the drain for what? If I was anyone in a position of power at Microsoft, I would be pissed too.

      He spent a decade pushing for GamePass and Xcloud, but never marketed it outside of niche audiences. I live in Italy and I’ve never, ever seen an Xbox ad in the past ten years. I can assure you none of my “normie” friends and family know what the current Xbox is called, let alone what the fuck GamePass is. The shit was so bad, my brother thought Cyberpunk 2077, a game that premiered on an Xbox E3 and that Microsoft had exclusive marketing rights for, was a PS exclusive. Could you believe that? Heck, everyone I talk to is surprised to hear that the Xbox One and Series offer retrocompatibility for OG Xbox and X360 games because, guess what, they never ran ads for that, either.

      So many things went wrong with Xbox under his leadership, you could probably convince me he was working undercover for the competition to tank the brand. I honestly fail to think of one thing he did that worked. Like, I could go on for days. Heck, I’ll do one more: he spent the last few years attempting to merge the Xbox, PC and mobile audiences, yet using the Xbox store on PC is still a miserable experience that makes you wish you were using any other storefront. Ten years! He couldn’t find the time to fix that? Did he forget? Did he even care in the first place?

      Spencer did jack shit for Xbox. The guy made promises every year, every year delivered nothing but lies, corporate bullshit and “how do you do, fellow gamers?” moments.

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    • Batmorous@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      If anything Phil deserves his own company. If he made the call I’m sure many he got to know at Xbox and Microsoft would answer the call and make a new company with him

      Hoping he would especially one like Valve. But it all depends on if he would be up for that and if everyone asked him to to show he would have huge support from day one

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    • Sineljora@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Also keep in mind, all those Blizzard people are now under Microsoft.

      We need a global boycott of: WoW, Overwatch, CoD, Candy Crush, Elder Scrolls, Halo, Fable, Forza, Gears of war, etc.

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  • Grass@sh.itjust.works ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    maybe the woman is actually AI as well

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    • scala@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Cortana is that you?

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  • Batmorous@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Who replaced him?

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    • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Her name is in the 3rd sentence of the article posted by OP.

      But, as a special treat for the lazy, her name is Asha Sharma.

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• tuckerm@feddit.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Crazy how Microsoft spent the GDP of a decent sized country on acquiring game developers to bolster Xbox, then gave that strategy about 25 months to actually work before deciding “nevermind, pivot to AI then sell it for parts.”

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  • maplesaga@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The CEO gets a bonus if he increases the stocks value. They dont care if its actually profitable, as long as they get paid before it fails.

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  • P00ptart@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They really fucked up on their marketing by saying everything is an Xbox. Confusing non-gamers, annoying real gamers, and disappointing aspiring gamers.

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    • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I wonder if the incoherent Xbox names hurt them too. I’m not into Xbox, but I couldn’t tell you what is the latest model, or which model follows which. This is a barrier for entry to the ecosystem.

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• QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Considering how the person replacing Spencer has been known from leading Microsoft’s AI division and isn’t much of a gamer, this doesn’t make Xbox’s future rosy. Dwindling sales, large layoffs and RAM prices skyrocketing… I highly doubt they can build a competitive console.

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  • scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Hey don’t discount them that much, they also can’t make games either. They’re going for full on business-only approach, consumers are not a priority for them at all anymore.

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    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      You can sell consoles with advertisement and marketing. The product is a secondary concern.

      And with AI + bunch of privately owned mass media, you can saturate the brains of the next generation of gamers with endless targeted ads.

      Fully expect Discord to begin vomiting ad spam into random chat streams like Reddit channels are getting bombarded with Crypto Casino ads.

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    • frank@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      It really does seem to follow the classic arc of going from marketing to consumers to B2B but like, you can’t sell games B2B can you? It’s so direct to consumer

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    • bitjunkie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Because we don’t have any fucking money

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  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    My guess?

    Former AI guy’s job is to figure out how to make AI make video games, and in the meantime, figure out how to cram AI data scraping into absolutely every possible element of … whatever Xbox Live is called now.

    The first will almost certainly fail, the second is much easier and will make the division more profitable untill it gets axxed after the first thing totally fails.

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  • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I was honestly surprised when we got the Series. I was pretty convinced that they were done with consoles after the One X|S and that Xbox would become more of a Steam competitor as a brand. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Series ended up being the last console.

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  • Rooster326@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    They are already tending towards “Everything is an Xbox”.

    Now that you will own nothing because of AI. This is fantastic for them

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• EvilBit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I would leave a flaming wreck too.

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• absquatulate@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  They’re gonna fuck up Forza Horizon 6 and Fable, aren’t they? I was cautiosly optimistic about those two under Phil, but I’m pretty sure they’re doomed now

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• Batmorous@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Phil if you somehow read this then please make a new company!!! Many will follow you from Microsoft and Xbox to whatever you decide to do. It is time for a new company similar to Valve to rise up!

  If you don’t want to then that makes sense. You have enough at Xbox and with Microsoft over the years

  Thanks for doing your best under the slop that Microslop has dumped on Xbox over all these years

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  • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Phil sucks. Gamepass was a failure. He should have focused on getting their studios to make actual good games.

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  • entwine@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Please explain yourself. I’m not going to judge you, I’m genuinely curious where you got this perception of Phil Spencer from?

    From my perspective, he was in charge during the fall of Xbox. There may have been a few good decisions he made, like backwards compat or whatever, but on the whole he destroyed Xbox. I don’t understand how some people can simultaneously be pissed at all the terrible decisions that company has been making for over a decade while also glazing the guy in charge of making those decisions.

    If Xbox wasn’t part of the monopolist that is Microsoft, they would’ve gone out of business after the Xbox One. Instead, as is usually the case for orgs/people like this, they’ve been able to fail upwards all while dragging the entire gaming industry through the dirt (eg the horrible Activision acquisition, among many others). It’s actually incredible how, despite not even needing to worry about competitive pressures, Xbox still failed so badly.

    So again, what circumstances have lead you to see Phil Spencer as anything other than an incompetent moron?

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  • Clbull@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Phil Spencer was a shit CEO. He absolutely cucked the shit out of Microsoft by releasing all their exclusives on competing platforms and eliminating any reason to even buy an Xbox Series S or X console.

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    Newsflash: Exclusivity sells games consoles. It’s why you don’t see Sony pushing their IPs on other platforms other than in very exceptional circumstances, i.e. Helldivers 2 and MLB The Show.

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    • HK65@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Exclusivity is still a shitty thing. How does it make the service better for consumers?

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• TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Phil was probably the last thing keep Xbox from fully imploding. You could tell he was an actual gamer that cared about the Xbox as a games console and not whatever Frankenstein they are going to turn it into.

  It’s sad but Xbox had a really good run. Xbox won’t exist beyond the next console generation, it may not even make it that far before it just becomes gamepass.

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  • paraphrand@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yeah, I’m glad I’m not alone in having that vibe about Phil.

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• zewm@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  PlayStation outlives yet another competitor.

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  • moakley@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Another?

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    • Damage@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      SEGA?

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    • zewm@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Sega, 3DO, Atari just to name a few. Soon will be adding Microsoft to the list.

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    • ieGod@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Aside from Sega I was going to toss Atari on that list but TIL they are very much still making new hardware, except it’s all targeted for retro gaming. Different focus and not a true competitor to Sony but technically still kicking.

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    • MurrayL@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Sega, I guess?

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• devolution@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Microsoft needs to have a sit down with Sega on how to become a decent 3rd party developer.

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• Aielman15@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I was going to say “good riddance”, but considering that his replacement is a former AI exec… Lol.

  To be fair, I don’t envy anyone who is put in charge of the mess that is Xbox right now.

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• Tamps@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I wonder how much of this is the big bet that they placed on buying up Activision Blizzard (plus other studios) and not being able to show enough growth on Gamepass?

  And now of course, with skyrocketing hardware costs, and the ripple effects of tariffs before that, even putting MS’s preoccupation with cloud services and AI to one side, the console business probably isn’t the money spinner it once was.

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• commander@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  After Mattrick, they probably shouldn’t have promoted internally from the executive class that went along with the pivot of internal studios to kinect and home theater media center. They needed leadership that knew how to deliver quality games on time. Saw Sony hit its stride mid-PS3 era with the advent of the AAA narrative action adventure game and could never adjust to that. I know American company, but maybe they should have looked to Sega, Capcom, Koei Tecmo to lead Xbox game studios and someone else to lead hardware and services. Xbox was at its best when it was paying for timed exclusives in the 360 era from third parties and funding 2nd party exclusives. Their internal studio production has been weak for like 20 years. Halo, Gears, Forza Motorsport, Fable has fallen to all of them in the doldrums and Forza Horizon being their only high tier Xbox associated IP now

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• ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  A simultaneous retirement/resignation says to me that the two of them were asked to do something very stupid or very unethical. And they’ve stomached a lot of unethical lately.

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• KiwiTB@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Makes sense, Xbox is barely a thing anymore

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• SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  How sad for Obsidian Entertainment to go the same way as Black Isle Studios… but they probably will when the Xbox division completely fails.

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• michael@piefed.chrisco.me ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  So….is Xbox done?

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  • IntrovertTurtle@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Image

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• Tronn4@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  If Spencer couldn’t keep the Xbox machine alive, an outsider who’s not a gamer is gonna ruin it more so than it is

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• cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Good. Phil Spencer may have been a better lead for Xbox during the OG and 360 years, but the XB1 was a joke and the Series X, while pretty good, could have been better. And doubling the price of GamePass Ultimate made it a non-starter for a lot of people. Half the price of a game every month and I don’t get to keep any of them? Huh? At $15 it was a no-brainer; at $30, it’s a non-starter. And they sold the Series S on GamePass.

  Sarah Bond always annoyed me. Seemed like she was always badly trying to put out a fire. I don’t know where she was before, I’m sure she earned her spot somehow, but she always seemed like the “bad cop” in most situations.

  As for PlayStation, they’re run by bankers and lawyers, not gamers. I liked the first two PlayStations. PS3 was definitely better than XB1 (even though XB1’s contemporary was the PS4… PS3 was still better). I haven’t had a PlayStation since PS3, but I don’t like how Sony does business. That said, they’re Japanese, and they make/own a lot of the anime and music I listen to (I listen to a lot of Japanese music). But, that’s like saying Samsung phones are good because their refrigerators are. It’s a fallacy at best, but it’s mostly bullshit. PlayStation is very much its own thing at Sony. And I don’t agree with most of their decisions.

  Steam looks like the least crappy option right now, with the Switch 2 being fully last-generation and costing like $500… and the games being $80 each… Screw that. (Switch 1 is still cool for what it is, the 2.5D Zelda games, and Animal Crossing. If you’re into cosy/chill games.) I kinda want a Steam Machine but I won’t pay $1000 for one. I think people thinking it will be $500-600 are huffing some serious hopium. $700 feels like a compromise between what gamers want it to be ($500) and what it probably will be ($1000). They want Valve to take a loss on each unit because they kiss up to Valve on social media, but Valve has already said they are not going to sell it at a loss. So all I’m saying is… get ready for a four-digit price tag. Especially if it’s gonna run modern games at good framerates and resolutions. The one thing I can say for the “it’ll be $500” guys is, the M4 Mac mini is $500 and that can run Cyberpunk. And it’s a whole Mac, so you know it’s a good computer. Thing is, most game devs aren’t friendly to people who actually put their money where their mouth is and actually kick Microslop to the curb. They’ll support Linux hoping you’ll just go back to Windows on the same machine, but you buy a computer that (AFAIK, until Windows for ARM comes out) can’t run Windows… then it’s FU in particular. (And honestly, no one really buys a Mac for gaming. They’re just cool computers that aren’t PCs.)

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• rtxn@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  His name was Ozymandias, King of Kings.

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