Category Archives: Gaming

December 8, 2022 · 23:30

Shortcut gaming ends

Yes, this is actually a setting that was a while in the making. To be honest, I had no idea what I saw in my dreams. Things did not make sense to me at that point, but the afternoon changed things for me. You see, streaming consoles are the solution to shortcut gaming like we see on the tablets and mobiles. A shortcut to funny money and advertisement dollars. Consider the games you played last week, how many had an advertisement every 90 seconds? Every level? Streaming ends that, you see streaming is paid for, and as such like console gaming no advertisements. The larger issue with streaming solutions that they can hold much larger gaming needs, gaming needs that is not solved in a few hours. Games to bring achievement, real achievement and real joy. Like in the old days. Games like Railroad tycoon, Theme hospital, Theme park. Games that we can play a long time and show off as what we created. That was in the back of my mind, but I ignored it. It all starts with the image below

A simple grid, but one with a difference. You can create a maze, an intricate path but every point is significant. It can connect to a path below and there are in total three levels. And it is not one grid, there are four. Green, Red, Blue and Purple, each a different area. And it does not start easy, it does not start at all. Places like the Efteling (Netherlands), Phantasialand (Germany) and so many others, they all needed time and that is what you will need. You draw the plans, you make the place and perhaps a little basic at the beginning. Yet the game allows for so much more. Graphic files to be uploaded to your solution, the personalisation of a theme world like Anton Pieck did for the Efteling. This is not a simple game and it is not a short game. This brings fulfilment and it takes time, but that is the challenge. Not to make some short term gaming experience, but one that lasts a long time. My mind saw it, but the brain never communicated it to me (in a way I understood). The pursuit of shortcut gaming needs to end and lets be clear, this game is not for everyone. And the nice part with streaming games, you can try them all. And when you have 4 of these sot of games, you end up with 4 times the populations than these short cut game makers have. Perhaps Idle games is the only one with a real population, but that is because they have 20 variations on the same theme, and after an hour they all feel the same and unrewarding. A game like Dungeon Master (FTL games 1988) broke the mould and became the forefather for 3d gaming everywhere. Why? They did not offer a shortcut and in those days 40,000 games sold was a big thing, because it was. We need to change the way we see gaming, not how we see games (that I an art issue). You see the BI manager that push short term gaming are at the end of their feed, they end up pushing and nagging some mobile game, and with every streamer that enter a household the lifecycle of these games end. And whilst we create a new fantasy theme park with mazes, rooms and challenges, some will take the option to create in something like Adobe illustrator a new kind of door, and export it to their game, and soon that place will take on a new life. A personalised life where we create the new challenge and let the NPC’s wander around. A machine learning battleground where it is about the art, not the shortcut. Yes, we can add the usual gimmicks, but the ability to truly personalise a game is coming because streaming makes that possible. A cauldron in the making and Google tapped out of that equation, now it becomes the gaming field of Amazon (and that other wannabe) before Tencent drops in. 

Do we not owe it to ourselves to create the best gaming environment we could ever have? We can look at the games that were and remaster them, or see them as the groundbreaking tools they were and see if we can do that one more time and truly create something new?

I believe that the second one will create more followers. Don’t get me wrong, to see the Witcher 3, a 2007 game getting renewed in 2022 for PS5 is awesome. It could be seen as evidence just how groundbreaking that game was that it can till inspire gamers right next to Horizon Forbidden West (2022), 15 years and Witcher 3 can till hold grounds, that is amazing gaming. That shows you what a 90%+ game is capable of and that is what too many game makers have forgotten. 

I believe and I hope that the next generation games will push maximisation on streamers because that I where we are heading. Do not get me wrong, I will never leave my PS5, but there can be more and the Amazon Luna is in a much better position to prove that at present. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 7, 2022 · 15:03

Poking the monstrous

Yup, my life (as it is) revolved around Pokemon Violet and Scarlet (Scarlet first). I am having a ball, the game is open, looks awesome, even on a Switch lite and there are all kinds of new Pokemon’s. Yet it is more than that. The graphics, the storyline and the open approach is just fun. I is havening a blast and it is a nice way to pass the time. I am definitely short a few Pokemon’s as the journey is more than just get the mile markers. And this game delivers in a few ways. It is one of these games that as made for the young and the mature are getting more than their fair share.

I saw the messages of bugs, but I never experienced them. I have seen a few glitches yet more than one is only debatable a glitch. I am willing to accept that the game has bugs, because it is bog, really big. As such bugs will appear, I just did not encounter one at present. 

Am I missing things? Well personally yes and I will follow on that shortly. The game is just so much fun, there are a few sides that have yet to be explored and I am not yet sure how to explore them. Perhaps it depends on getting to certain places, it is exciting to see these moments where you see a shield of poisonous purple in a wall and you have no idea how to open it yet. And with the three lines to follow (gym badges, star bases and herbs) you get to choose where to go next and that makes it a lot more fun. In addition there is a special Pokemon that sets the stage of where you can go next and that I equally fun, and therefor the old way of the Water Pokemon with Surf and Waterfall is a think of the past. Yay! New challenges. 

I like the new Pokedex, but I seem to be unable to filter by kind, as such finding how much of a kind I have (Steel, Ground, Dark) is a little harder. The map is cool and as it can zoom you can now see a lot more than ever before. So what am I missing? Well, I like my Evee collection and I have them all, but it would have been nice to get an additional flying, ground and poison Evee. Perhaps next time. There is also the call to have the Pokemon additions. For example if you have a Sableeye (a personal favourite) AND you have another like a Dark/Fire Pokemon, the Pokemon gets additional options. The first is 5% more happy, the second Dark/Water, or Dark/Grass would make Sableeye 10% stronger. Now this is one hell of a challenge, but the Switch is powerful enough to make it work. As such it isn’t merely about having 6 strong Pokemon’s, but the idea that the right team could make the overall team 10% stronger. It was just a thought to play with.

This game is a lot more open than the previous games and I believe that there is more to see (I only have 7 badges, 2 bases and 2 herbs) so I have plenty to explore and plenty to see. But the larger story is clear, this game is another champion game and a reason to get a Nintendo Switch. 

Still the game brings the punch, it brings the challenge and that funny feeling when you have 100+  of these little critters wondering where some of the others are. What is clear is that in the week I have played it, I did not once feel bored or unchallenged. Yes, some were a little expected, but the new parts overshadowed that rather quickly. So far I am still trying to find a Ditto (people who played the game know why) and there is a lot more to the game that I have not tested to my knowledge previous to Scarlet and Violet. When you considered that this game started in 1996 and merely grew over time through technology and gaming evolution, we see a game that has been round for 16 years, perhaps one of the most important games in the Nintendo arsenal. And the fact that it still calls the gamers to play is quite the achievement. Oh and there is every chance that there are parts of the game I haven’t even seen yet, quite the achievement indeed. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 5, 2022 · 17:55

Remastering Classics

This all started this morning. I am not entirely sure how I got there, but it started with recalling an old St. Nicholas present. It was a book by Hector Malot called ‘Sans Famille’ (the original Dutch version) I think I was 12 or 13 when I got it (see cover below).

It suddenly dawned on me that the stage of reading books is falling away, we need to temper it, we need to alter the perception of people, but how to do this? Then I suddenly realised that Ubisoft has an inside track here. You see, we can do more with streaming systems, especially Amazon. Consider the game AC Origin, the first DLC adds a travel option, to go to certain parts of the game and do a walking tour. Embalming, beer brewing and several other parts were added. Now you might think it was trivial, but it was not. I had partially missed it, but these parts were all added to the game, the game was almost flawless and had several additional parts to the game we never realised before, Ubisoft with this game hd outdone themselves. Yet when you combine the ideas you get something more. First we take the environment of AC Unity (buggiest game ever) and we use the environment to set the story of Hector Malot in motion. It will be a little more than a walking tour, but as you complete the chapters, you get a whole book and optionally, you could unlock the book in your Kindle, Amazon would have a massive advantage here, and it would not be bad for Ubisoft either. AC Syndicate would allow for Oliver Twist (and a few other books), AC2 or Brotherhood could add several Italian works including those of Master Machiavelli. And it would not be part of the game, and the full game would not be included, merely the environment. Games and challenges to unlock books you can then read on your Kindle. These are mere top notions. The settings allow for so much more and it could gently push the gamers (especially the younger ones) to start reading more. We see environments as a set stage, but they do not need to be and in the streaming environment all elements are non connected and are merely that, elements to use in other ways. I wonder if Ubisoft and Amazon have considered that option at all. It is a side towards a direction I do not think anyone ever considered taking at present and the stage could grow from there.

What if books are for a system like this achievements? Consider Watchdogs: Legion. Consider that they add 3-4 relics which are in facts unlocked books when you complete the relics, in that case books on London, on London history, or some setting thereof. Interesting that thee two didn’t consider projects on the side to fatten the chest of users and their love for free stuff. Just a thought.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

December 1, 2022 · 22:10

The games we desire

We desire games, we all do. In Star Trek we were once told “the more complex the mind, the more essential the need to play” (Star Trek, season 1, episode 15). I always embraced that. Gaming was my large escape and I have enjoyed it for decades. Yet the foundation of gaming changed after the Playstation 2 came (and all other systems). Gaming became big business, people with business degrees got involved and soon it went from art to business needs. Gaming suffered and it has suffered for quite some years now. Micro transactions is merely part of it. The larger stage was that art was taken out of the equation. This is why games like Elden Ring, God of War, Horizon Forbidden West are such successes. They embraced art and artsy sides to a much larger degree. This is the reason why places like Ubisoft went from great to below mediocre. There are the games that will always have appeal because of secondary reasons. Sport games being a clear first example.

When we look back to the days of Bullfrog, there was almost no game we did not desire, art was the driving force and it drove our needs deliciously and amazingly. Consider Populous, Flood, Populous 2, Magic Carpet (1 + 2), Dungeon Keeper and some (including me) still worship those times, those games. EA went and created some exploitation version of Dungeon Keeper. Yet they could repair the damage, and they are running out of time. They will need those who played the original to give rise to the next generation. They now require credibility. And it is not the weirdest idea. Six games that represents millions in revenue. Some can be re engineered, yet the larger setting will come from re engineering driving evolution of the game. This reminds me of another good Ubisoft game (they had a few). It was Conquest: Frontier Wars, the review gave it (for the most) 78%-88%. I would set it to around 85%, a game that makes the gamer want more. And there was another side, you could set up a battle game with two other Computer players and you had some options. What was important, you could spend hours in a new galaxy again and again, with two other races, each with intelligence settings. Now what if that concept is remade and also remade in games like a remastered Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper and Populous. Three games that were initially less than 1MB and could optionally keep gamers busy for years. That could spark a new wave of gamers and that is what the streaming services need, fresh blood and returning blood. And the need to play will draw them in. You still need decent games, and I just handed them 6 of them. Well, handing is a stretch, EA has the rights as far as I can tell, but consider that Yesterday I handed the option for 50 million gamers and consider that many games never get anything near that amount. I reckon that my solution with the additional games is a step into the direction of the number I predicted. That solution still needs the first phase, but without the second and third phase it will never grow to the degree required or is that desired? And there we have it, a stage we grow and a stage we create by looking backwards. The six games I mention are most likely IP protected, yet The Commodore Amiga had 2198 games, The Atari ST had a little over 1000 games, close to 10,000 games, If we rate from the highest and look at 10% we get to 219+100+1000 we end with 1319 games and that is if we merely look at the highest 10%. Now some will have protection, but not all will and there is the solution for streaming systems. Upgrade what was and get more people feeling the joy of gaming, not the challenge of some flawed Assassin’s Creed Valhalla game. Even now we get ‘The final Assassin’s Creed Valhalla update has launched a week early’, the fact that it is for some systems 13GB does not lead to questions, the fact that the game was released on November 10th 2020 is a much larger issue. It is over 2 years old and still requiring patches. It is one of the reasons that streaming systems will win over time. But a system that has good games will endure a lot longer and the games from the old systems remain superior to many of the games released today, not all, but a lot of them. It sets the need for more play, and Streaming systems will deliver there. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 30, 2022 · 11:06

The Kay Pea equation

There is a setting I have skated on a few times. This is not the first time I raise it, but I feel strongly about certain options. A first was a puzzle I enjoyed. It came with a book. The story was a murder mystery, but there was no solution in the book. The added part was a jigsaw, the image would reveal the actual culprit. I had 6-8 of them and they were fun. But it was something someone (I do not remember who) made on the Commodore 64. They were Kinetic Puzzles. To explain that is simple. A jigsaw is the puzzle made from an image or photograph, I still enjoy jigsaws with some regularity. A Kinetic puzzle is not based on an image, but on a film clip, hence every puzzle piece is always showing you part of the clip and it makes for a somewhat ore challenging puzzle. The weird part is that this should have been on the eyelids of Netflix from the start. Movies are their bread and butter, what better that a puzzle that represents a clip from an upcoming movie? The solution tends to be the same, edges first, then you work your way in and when the image on EVERY piece is in motion, the challenge is soon felt and endured. Marketing through a game, it would be the cornerstone of Netflix and even as the puzzle part is not the hardest part, putting this all in a puzzle is still a challenge. But they did it on a Commodore 64 with a mere 38Kb of RAM. As such evolving towards 4K puzzles is not a leap of technology. And this came to my mind again as I was crossing the ‘i’ and dotting the ’t’ in the equation that is coming. Inversion is in part the name of any game and it helps when you are your own devils advocate. So when they consider this and add the simple Jigsaw part, Netflix will have a whole score of puzzles and the fans of movies will enjoy a game that reflects their passions. Streamers had this option from day one and some did not go in this direction for all kinds of reasons, but were some of the valid? They might think so and I am not debating that part, but what about the audience you are addressing? Did you think of them? Are they not your consumer core? 

Did you think that a Netflix customer might not like a puzzle regarding the Batman (who looks a lot like some famous Hufflepuff student), or any league of other heroes or villains? I wonder what these bosses were thinking when they pushed people out stating they needed super cool games, was a better question not ‘A game that could appeal to our core clients’ The KP or Jigsaw will not do it alone, but people will always return to something they enjoy, especially when they are fighting the hours, at that point they will revert so something simple like Chess, Checkers or Puzzles. And with an additional mode that is not seen anywhere, this might be an Initial solution all might fancy. Perhaps the idea of adding books to the jigsaw equation should have been on Amazon’s mind. There is not a soul who does not know what a Jigsaw is (aka puzzle) and they go back to 1760, a very long time before the house of Pong made its entry. Did anyone even consider to cater to puzzles to create awareness? Netflix has been in a prime position for the longest time and they never acted on it. They have the largest arsenal and they left it untouched, weird, is it not?

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

November 20, 2022 · 19:43

Euphemism for the sake of reporting

It happens, there is no fault, at least often enough there isn’t one. In this case I have issues and it is withe the BBC who gives us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-63649695) ‘Gambling: Boy, 16, lost thousands after seeing advert’. In this, did he lose it, or did he steal it? Lets look at the reported facts. In the first we are given “Nick Phillips, from Swansea, said the boy opened an account in his father’s name an hour after a match.” As such the boy committed identity theft. Then we get “after seeing the gambling ad”, here we have a problem. Yes it is an advertisement and we can argue that the advertiser is not at fault, yet the ‘boy’ needed an hour to arrange for the opening of an account. So where were the checks and balances? Why is there no mention of the lack of checks and balances by the banks? Then we get (of course) the reference to loot boxes. I do not agree with these assessments, but I get that some see it different than me and that I fine. Then the BBC gives us the part that is indeed important. With: “Every video game console has a parental or family settings area. One of the things I really like is the ability to say ‘can this account make transactions? can it spend money? Also, how much can it spend?’” That is true, as such safeties can be imposed and I am fine with that, but the stellar amount of non-accountability is not OK. The boy was a thief and it had nothing to do with the advertisement. He took an hour to get an identity and get spending, according to the article thousands. I do not see, or agree with ‘this poor lad’, no it is ‘the degenerate criminal’. OK, the word ‘degenerate’ is optional, but it is a setting that we need to heed. In an hour a family member took the identity of another family member and how was that possible? How was it possible that credit cards, identity papers were so readily available? They mentioned he had a gambling problem, so why were certain blocks not in place? And we still haven’t seen anything on HOW it was done in an hour and what facilities gave rise to this stage? I am assuming that there were bank issues, but that is merely an assumption. I reckon that the credit card, if suddenly a certain amount goes into a non usual place alarms go off, did they? 

So why is there such a lack of information, and we see ‘poor boy’, references to loot boxes and whilst we agree that kids need to be protected, my personal view is that if they were so easily swayed to crime, the problem resides equally somewhere else and in this the parent get the blame. To be honest, I am not entirely sure that this is fair, but when a 16 year old can overcome legal loopholes and enter the field as an identity thief, we can agree that the parents failed to some degree at this point. I am not willing to fully blame them as peer pressure could be massive at that age (I was a teenager once, yes it is true, I was). 

But there is a lot more going on and the BBC (as I personally see it) intentionally decided not to inform you on that. And I wonder why.

I have no issues with euphemism. There is nothing to gain by telling someone that their child was decapitated. It makes sense to phrase it more like ‘He got ahead of himself and was unfortunately a casualty of events’, but when factual parts are misplaced and not reported on, is it still to serve the greater good, or to cater to an agenda? I will let you decide.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

November 19, 2022 · 15:25

Correlating the mode

A weird term to say the least, but it will soon make sense. I was watching the Patriot today (the Mel Gibson version) which I had not seen in over a decade and something came over me. I suddenly wanted to play Assassins Creed 3 again.

One called or the other. I did not think it was a bad game, it had interesting elements and for one, the intro was brilliant. Yet the game had a missing part. It was a lot less AC then the previous ones and that is not bad, the game was not bad. It was merely less great. Yet one called for the other and I needed to recognise that. As such I wondered if BOTH directions work. You see the PS5 and Streamers (soon enough) have an optional additional side. To get there you need to answer a question. Have you ever watched a YouTube with cutscenes? What if there was another mode with more? To keep in the AC line, what if there wasn’t some DNA you were filling, but film reels? Consider any game, you have a main line and side lines (in RPG’s at least). So what happens when we find all the reels, more important when we find them all a new mode opens up that we can see at the end of the game. The movie! Not merely the cutscenes but a complete movie in 4K based on cutscenes with additional footage, footage that tells part of the story, but we never played that part of the story, it merely completes the entire storyline. Now consider that we play a game like Diablo 3, the cutscenes are fabulous, but what if the acts become additions to the movie and we have a wizard edition, a necromancer edition, a barbarian edition and so on. A game, nearly any game giving us a 4K movie to watch. Streamers are better equipped for it, but I am willing to bet that any Horizons Forbidden West gamer will go nuts when they complete the game and are then treated to the HFW movie. What surprises me is that this feature was never part of any game, why not? We can argue that previous editions weren’t ready for this, but these systems (Nintendo Switch gets an exemption) are and this option could be available in the next decent RPG game. 

I wonder who will bring us the most exciting game movie next. 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, movies

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

November 16, 2022 · 21:35

I do not believe it

Yes, I am in disbelieve. This is actually a first for me and it started when I saw the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63631877) there we are given ‘Amazon staff laid off as tech giants cut costs, according to LinkedIn posts’. I saw a tweet from Jeff Bezos pass by, but it read like it was a warning for others, not massively affecting Amazon. There we are given “Posts seen by the BBC include those from employees in Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant business, Luna cloud gaming platform division and Lab126 – the operation behind the Kindle e-reader” and here I am with IP that brings $6,000,000,000 annually in the first degree and another $4 billion in total for the second IP and Amazon is in the dark. They aren’t seeing what I saw and the meeting with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is hopefully Friday. So both Google and Amazon did not see what I saw and I am a little doozy with euphoria. It is the win I never expected, never wanted and here it is knocking on my door. With a starting first phase of 50 million subscriptions I have more than the golden goose, I have the entire goose coup. Actually, are geese placed in a coup? 

So as we are given “Amazon’s share price has fallen by more than 40% this year as it grapples with a slowdown in online sales” all whilst Andy Jessy seemingly did not see my offer as a valid or realistic one, they will stand to lose a decent amount of revenue to others. In my books, I do not care. I care for my retirement and the ski-slopes of Canada. And as I saw it, it started to snow two days ago, so the new season is but a week away and I want in. First year in the Blue Mountains of Ontario, after that, we will see. The idea that they haven’t seen what I saw and what I so far have defined is nowhere to be seen. Even as only one part needs the Unreal Engine 5, the rest does not opening all kinds of options and it is not even close to the end. My mind did construct other parts, but I am also weary that this could accelerate congestion and that is to be avoided at all costs. 

But last week there was Google, and now the confirmation that Amazon missed the same stage, whether they are blind for the option is beyond me, but at this point I feel pretty hyped and that counts for something. Anyway, this was the setting 6 hours ago and my meeting is in 39 hours (not that I am counting the seconds) On the downside, it implies I will have another sleepless night.

Wish me luck!

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

November 14, 2022 · 19:40

The games one yearns for

We all have that. We focus on a game and that is our push point. It is a rather large issues when it is set to exclusives. In there Sony has a massive advantage over Microsoft, but Microsoft is not out of the race yet. Delay after delay, there are now more indications that Redfall and Starfield will get to the Microsoft community in 2023. I saw a first part of Starfield today and I will immediately admit that it looks really good. I am still not getting the Xbox contraption, trust lost is trust close to never regained, I am wired weirdly that way and the BS I once got from the Microsoft Helpdesk gave me that they really do not know what they are doing. Or better said, they know what they are exploiting but they keep their customer service department in the dark. Still, that is not what it is about. Redfall will come first (as several sources state), and it is Starfield that will be taking the cake It is definitely not some Skyrim version of a space game. It is much larger and there is a lot more. Yet that also comes with issues, but I will not speculate on what could be, what might be. It will be about the game and what I saw looks impressive.

In 2023 for me there is merely Hogwarts legacy waiting. I am unsure of other titles at the moment. I tend to not look too much forward. 2022 was AWESOME. Horizons Forbidden West and God of War brought gaming for me to a new high. I am merely looking at the exclusives. Yes there was also Elden Rings and Returnal but I never played these two. We all have our preferences. I am currently on the fence for Diablo 4, some news that reached me did not make me happy, but I am keeping it to myself. I have questions on that source too and I do not want to spread something inaccurate.

You will have them too and others will love their Xbox, they made their choices and as I see it they will go nuts over Starfield. I applaud all excellence in gaming, whether I support the system or not.   I revere games, not the system. As a system I am merely disgusted with the stupidity of Microsoft, so there.

We are now 3 days away from the next Pokemon, so my Switch will get some game-time too. Nintendo has its own release list, some not exclusive but that doesn’t matter. I still enjoy the games I have there and one more is added this week. For the most I have been thinking of what we can do more. Yearning is not limited to what comes NEXT week, NEXT month and NEXT year. Yearning also looks at the past. A spectacular moment there was Golden Eye (N64) and a few others. And there is where we see some news, some news that saw delay after delay (all the way from 2020) System Shock, the remake from 1994 will come to PS5 in March 2023. The notion alone is making me happy and with the hours I played the game (three times over at least) gives me butterflies (yes, I need help). Gaming gets a new lease on life as some makers are seeing the reengineering options unfold. The first feeling was when I saw my beloved (yes, I need help) Elite from the CBM64 getting remastered. I hoped for more of the same and David Braben would not have that. What he gave us blew most our minds away and it took some a decent amount of time to get a handle on that game. It had proper teachings, but the game combined Elite, Privateer and  added 21st century graphics, in addition the game became well over ten billion times larger than the original. Now consider that concept to some other games. That is where streaming games can take us. Yes, we can wait for the next mediocre program by Ubisoft. Yet would you not want to feel actual butterflies when you hold your controller? And that I not all, this will be possible for well over a dozen games all before 2024. Is that not the real feeling we wait for as a gamer? Lets be clear I am decently anxious to get to Hogwarts legacy. The little I saw (I try to avoid as much as possible) blew me away and it is still blowing me away. Yet I want it to freshly hit my eyes in February 2023.

We all want that, the people seeking every spoiler will lose larger than they imagine and in this Starfield might give the Xbox community the game they dreamt for, for well over three years. I hope they get that feeling too, because they too are gamers, they are in a sense family.

Leave a comment

Filed under Gaming, IT

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 13, 2022 · 01:47

Repetition or confirmation?

I was a little on the fence whether I should write this article. It felt a little repetitive and I hate repetition, hell is all about it. But it was the fortune article that made me go for it. There was a bonus involved. The article (at https://fortune.com/2022/11/04/cloud-video-games-future-stadia-xbox-microsoft-google-sony/) gives us ‘Cloud video games have a rocky history, but could have a bright future’, as such I agree. But apart from Google throwing in the towel (a mistake, but their choice). We get “In May, the company announced its Xbox Cloud Gaming program had attracted over 10 million players spread over 26 countries since opening its beta up a year prior. And the numbers are growing.” This and “You need to have a console solution and you need to have a cloud solution, because as gaming continues to expand, you’re going to need multiple options for each market” made me roar (with laughter). Not directed at the statements. I kinda agree with the second statement, although it is early days for that. It is the first that made me howl. Microsoft the company who ‘evangelised’ the fact that they had the most powerful console in the world was surpassed in lifetime sales by Nintendo within 2 years. Apple made a mess of the  Microsoft tablet, Amazon made a joke of Azure and now we see this, all whilst I am offering a solution to Amazon which could add 50 million subscriptions amounting to $6,000,000,000 a year.  So not only did Microsoft became largely irrelevant in Console gaming (all whilst spending $75,000,000,000 for Blizzard and Bethesda) Amazon does not have to go to anywhere near that that degree and will surpass Microsoft (if they buy the solution) by well over 40 million subscriptions. I reckon that if Amazon accepts the deal, the new years party at Microsoft will end up being more dreary than a funeral. Oh and that is before we consider the market share that Microsoft loses to Adobe. Cloud services, gaming, tablets and office losses. Life could not feel better for me at present and that is off course linked to Amazon (or another third party currently approached) buying my solution. It feels perfect slapping that smug company. I was clear 10 years ago that they were making too many BS mistakes, mistakes that gamers were not accepting (like always online). And Sony took them to the cleaners (OK, Sony had sheer gaming perfection in house, so that helped). 

Cloud gaming is the future that was never in doubt, yet it does rely on national deployed 5G networks. It can work on lesser, but congestion becomes a real issue at that point and there I have a few other ideas for Amazon (but these ideas are a little out in the open at present). 

And I believe it will go further, but that might be overly optimistic, and I hate being overly optimistic, but the numbers are seemingly in my favour at present, still I will hang onto ‘merely’ the 50,000,000 subscriptions.

It feels a little repetitive, but until today I did not have any numbers by Microsoft and they are only at 10 million over 26 countries. Not only can I do better, I would be able to hand the wooden spoon to Mr Spencer, that feeling is better than sex, I shit you not. In addition I would end my career on a massive high and that counts too, as such I do hope that Amazon reacts quickly. I have no problems with the third party, yet these two players are new to me and I am not sure how close they are to Microsoft and I do not want them part of this. Just mutually assured dislike. 

Sunday is turning out to have a nice start. Time to do some snoring (it is 01:44)

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT

Tagged as , , , , , , ,