Tag Archives: Switch

March 5, 2023 · 05:57

Merely a story

It was 862 AD, in a meadow stands a man, you would think he is in his early 20’s, but this man does not reveal age. He stares over the meadows watching people running at each other. One group seems to be viking, the other guards are local, or at least from the area. He watches as the turmoil of greed goes by wave after wave. It sickens him and it is not hard for him to avoid the people and the turmoil. He could move from place to place, but he is here for a reason. He was given word that a Northern Hawk Owl had been spotted. The setting was almost unbelievable, but he had to check it out. It was a magnificent type of owl and it was one he would love to have. It would be even better if he could both genders, so that they could reproduce in safety. As such He looked for signs but saw none and he carefully moved towards the forest, trying to keep all the animals in some form of observation. He moved along the forest lines and saw that the fight was moving away, then he noticed an arrow in a tree, but the arrow looked weird, like it was not shot from a bow and then he saw it, at the end of the arrow was the Northern Hawk Owl, dead. These stupid muggles, all greed driven and not one was responsible, from servant to king, all too stupid to consider nature. He would never accept muggles in his presence.

It was a decade later when Salazar looked back to the valley, he was very well aware on the valley and it was glorious, yet he considered what was out there and he considered a few items. It was time to set trials, to let the worthy acquire knowledge and that was the exercise. He created the first tower, dark stone, smooth as glass and within the stones were protection spells and rejection spells. No broom could be guided here and the walls could not be scaled. There were steps around the tower that went up a little bit, but he decided to use nature to guide the magic people. The Serpent must be passed on the left, the ermine on the right. As such the steps were either scaled or massive bad luck would hit the person going the wrong way. The two ascendance points were all marked and they all approached the same entrance, one route the right way, the other not. The door was a new puzzle. He had seen the bluntness of muggles and the door was a different kind. All who would hit it, or violently approach it would find themselves on the short list of pain. He looked at the door again and it opened in the simplest manner. A simple Alohamora would do it, the lock was invisible and magical, the smallest spell would work, muggles had no clue and he was in the tower. He tried several ways to see how he was hurt, but it was not intense. The tower worked and he went the right route, with ropes and invisible supports and he got to the next floor. He then applied his want to remove single stones all around the platform and he replaced them with stones now carrying a gem and all had precise applications. From there there were a few more small blockades, blockades that any decent wizard could pass and from there the shrine was created. A blood shrine with one item, the item was carrying magic, specific magic and anyone who did not have that magic would acquire it and they merely had to master the spell and place that spell back into the holder and return the item, a way to make sure that magic would remain and always grow. It was the first tower of accomplishment, a first tower of several that would become the legacy of Salazar Slytherin. 

Yes, this is a simple story and it was Hogwarts Legacy that inspired me to write it. I have no claims here, it was a simple idea and as this is linked to JK Rowling, I consider this now to be her IP. Hogwarts Legacy has its strong and less strong moments, but the largest part is that the sandbox approach allows this game to grow towards the future and the past. Salazar is a pureblood lover, but I wondered how he got to be there. One out of four is weird, but the reasons could be all over the field and our need for greed might be a strong reason. 

The game is out now, but in a year what will come? I reckon that they could build on this and create more, I made that in a previous article, but that was set around the character you played and enabled. The stage could be larger by incorporating lore no one considered. And that is where I found myself. That is apart from the setting that I didn’t want to think of technology today, we all have these moments and I have mine today. That being said, a game like Hogwarts Legacy is opening doors, it is by far the most amazing Potter styled game ever and the hundreds of videos are proving me right. In this I wonder what more I could learn in that game. I am nowhere near done and that makes the game more than one stage, it makes it amazing on several fronts and the game is as a game like that needed to be. And always when a game like that becomes available I will be happy. In that regard more happy feelings are coming my way, Metroid Prime my favourite game on the gamecube was remastered for the Switch, as such this year might be better than I imagined it to be. Happy happy joy joy.

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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. 

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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. 

 

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May 31, 2022 · 19:43

9 options were lining up

Wow! I got some feedback from yesterday, mostly from people who want a free ride and had no idea what they were watching. The sudoku part is a handlebar, an optional shortcut to a much larger stage that was a puzzle and I turned it into an almost simple exercise. But for the Microsoft minded (the non thinkers) lets go over it.

Story
No matter what the story is, there are plenty of elements that can be generated. It’s like creating 180 unique chapters and you only need 9 of them, basically you might create 81 at launch time and get the others created whilst the program is running. Yet getting the 180 (or so) done beforehand makes lighter work afterwards. You see, any story is set to chapters, each chapter is set to paragraphs. So why this many? In case you want a never ending start of quests, you need the ammunition. 

No matter how clever you are, there is always another way and I merely presented one. In the previous image you saw the stage of what story to run, it HAS to start with ‘1’, so whether you take the row or the column, you will have one of each. In my example the blue one is less appealing as the second number is an ‘8’, so it will be a lot less in line. The green one (a coincidence, I swear) gives us 1,4,5,7,2,6,8,9,3 so there is more line and per location you will get one part of the story (via interactions) and the story will shape for the player. So after the third world the player will have parts 1,4 and 5. This is one of the effects of anachronism and linearity is utterly pointless in that setting. And as we realise that we have 150 chapters, we merely randomise the chapters, we sort them and select the 9 highest (or lowest) and as such you would have to play the game 20 times to see EVERY story at the earliest. 

Items
This is a different setting. Let’s state that all the items are the numbers (another use of the SAME numbers). So all the items for world 1 are all the ones in play, but not every world needs to have 9 items. And you might want to focus on what numbers are in play, but remember, each number is only used once, so the Sudoku method HELPS us to shape what we want, but it is not a solution for everything, and every sudoku is different. 

We have Items, people, the story, the location puzzles and the whole comes to a point when we unite them. A new version and a unique version of a game that started in 1988, and with the Forgotten city we are optionally breathing it new life. The Sudoku part is just a handlebar to create a station of almost never ending originality. Especially when you realise that there are “6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 possible solvable Sudoku grids”. I used a simple way to create in simplicity what too many will try to complicate. Not a bad hour, was it? 

And this can be done on the streamers, it can be done on a PS5. I reckon that this is also possible on the Nintendo Switch. All this and all done in the limit of a TV show. Can life get any simpler? Well yes, but that is up to Adobe (for a price) and I think I have a nice idea for them to really screw up the margins of profit for Microsoft (because that is how I roll). And now it is time for a healthy meal (chicken rolls). 

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January 16, 2022 · 22:25

The images came

Yes, they came, the images. My mind played out the beginning of a new movie, one with Owen Wilson in the lead. I am not ready to tell that story yet. During that escape I also saw a few other things, it is there that we find ourselves. In the middle of a story not to be told, but with images that make sense in gaming. You see, in the early years (1993) Origin made a game that had potential, the game did not really exploit it, but it had created an optional new wave and even as the finale implied things in the end, they never came. Yet it is only one side. Games are always about options, but nothing ever comes from the tail side of that coin. What if choices are set upon us? More important what if the other side has equally strong negative sides? We can select the internet to do our work for us, or we can go forwards embracing the choices we have made. Too many games forget about that. I believe it was the wrong take to make on gaming. We grow and we get clever through adversarial settings. That as been proven for the longest time, yet we overlook it because it is not what the gaming community wants. By whose standards? Players like Ubisoft and Microsoft have no idea what gamers actually want and they have shown that lack over and over agains for at least 10 years. So let’s take this up a notch. You are at a shrine, there is a camera, a book and a potion. You can only select one, what do you take? When the clue is unfolded it makes sense to take one of them, yet each give a formidable advantage, yet you lose the other two. In the age of Gauntlet and Diablo based games we might take that part later, but what happens when the choice if final and the others are removed from choice? As I see it it enables replayability, it grows a much larger value in any game. You see a game that does everything will basically please no one. We forgot that the founders of gaming like Infocom with Zork enabled us to think things through, a side in gaming we tend to forget. And I did too, for the longest time I merely went from achievement to achievement. I forgot to have fun, I forgot what replayability enables, not the same track again, but another path towards the same destination. More to see, more to experience and more the encounter. Most game makers are about story experience and one story fits all, but that is seldom if ever the case. For the same reason two role playing gamers might select different races (orc, dwarf, human, elf). All part of the package, all part of 4 learning experiences. Yet most people stick with the one choice and work from there, yet I believe that they take the one path because no one explained that they can get more by taking another path the next time around. It does not fill the revenue bill and that is a shame, yet in the new stages, in streaming stages that option will become increasingly important. Streamers have a monthly fee, so if one game can be played 4 times the revenue meter fill up larger. More importantly the games would have to become a lot better, a lot more immersive and the stories would need to become a whole lot better. I do not believe this to be a bad thing, this is how evolution of gaming starts and it does need to start, you see fully deployed 5G is no more than 3 years away and at that point the console wars will go into a new dimension with the streamers (Google Stadia, Amazon Luna) will become fierce and a lot more decisive. I do not believe that they will replace the Nintendo Switch or the Sony PlayStation 5. Yet they will be next to a lot of these systems and that is where the $200,000,000,000 revenue ticket for 2022 is at, and with the Amazon Luna with an optional 50,000,000 more consoles that war takes a hard turn into better gaming and the ones not ready for upgrading gaming will lose out to a lot of revenue clambakes. It will not start drastically, it will be all nice, but it sets the stage for 2024 and there the numbers do add up to failure or success and none of the players are embracing failure, or so they seem to think, but which of these systems have truly embraced upgraded gaming?
Not many, I can tell you that much and that is merely the first wave, the second wave will add the previous revenue success to the next one and those who missed out on pile one, have little to no option for an increased pile two. That is where they all are, in denial. Phrases like ‘We are working on it’ or ‘this will sort itself out’ but behind the curtains they sweat, they have no idea where to take it next and I wrote about at least half a dozen options, and they all laughed, but in November 2023 they will stop laughing. They will face the shortcomings of choice and the lack of options they left their gaming community with, so these people will dump that system and cancel that prescription. So these people will face 2024 with limited revenue and no plan of implementation. That will be the losing streamer. The other one will take a bow and head for revenue piles two and three, at that point Sony will face a true contender for the first position in console wars, the field is wide open, but I believe that Microsoft has already lost, they did this to themselves. To be honest, as the information goes at present the Amazon Luna is the most likely winner in that direction, but I have no idea where Netflix is going, so there are options in a race where some horses cannot compete and some horses are unknown. In that race I see Nintendo in third position, with their gaming attitude they could go higher and they have what it takes, but they work on a formula that is almost guaranteed to keep them in the race, yet like any formula, it has limits and that is not a bad thing, it is what they chose and so far they kept 93,000,000 gamers happy with the Switch overtaking Microsoft by a lot, the weakest system defeated the strongest console in the world. Why is that? Technology? No, Nintendo listened to their gamers, gave their gamers what they needed. That was the simple truth since before the Switch arrived and when it did in 2017 the world saw a winner and Microsoft became the number one loser. This is about to happen again yet in 2023/2024 it will be the streamers who fight over the initial number three position, but some will have it within them to get to second place. And good games is where they get the winning positions, the better the games, the more the gamer wins and that is my stage,
I want gamers to win, because if they win, I win. I am after all a gamer.

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July 8, 2021 · 22:42

The Wheel (reinvented)

I happened to stumble upon 9 to 5 Google, with all kind of non-Google news. The article (at https://9to5google.com/2021/06/25/bandwidth-xbox-game-pass-and-amazon-luna-announce-july-2021-game-additions/)

We see titles like:

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction
Saints Row The Third: Remastered

Some of them are really great, but I am missing something, a new dawn, an actual new dawn, a setting we have never seen before. I am a little bit surprised, none of them have anything really new. I am not talking about new games, new titles, new originals. I am talking about a new stage of gaming, cloud gaming made it possible, so what is stopping them? I even dropped a few ideas in previous articles (go look for them). Cloud gaming allows for a new stage, so why do we see the same stage props that we saw on PS2, PS3, PS4, Xbox, Xbox360, N64, Wii even Nintendo Switch. Cloud gaming allows for a different station a larger setting with optionally a private set social media option, none of them are going there, they all seem to be much more relaxed in reinventing the wheel. None of them show us a station that is actually new. Perhaps it is still to come, but it is day 1 where you show that you are not the sheep or it’s herder, you are new, you are unique. So why do they not see that option? I am pondering it, I actually do not know. But to see some level of herd mentality is a little disappointing. Will it be up to Netflix to teach them that? 

The Amazon Luna has a refreshing amount of new games, yet there is an overwhelming presence of Ubisoft, not that this is bad. There are plenty of titles I never saw before and that is good, but so far cloud gaming shows more of the same, nothing refreshingly new and that is a disappointment. And with Luna starting at $6 a month and Ubisoft+ at $15 a month Amazon will soon need to reconsider what they have (without Ubisoft) and see how they are different from Google, Microsoft and Netflix. Being different is at times scary and it does have its own unique set of challenges. Yet we have seen how exclusive games make a console, Xbox proved it, Xbox360 continued it, Xbox One wasted it. Playstation 1 through 5 have shown that exclusive games make the difference and Nintendo did this as well. Now consider that cloud gaming is more than a console, it offers a few unique settings that others cannot offer, the cloud gives the makers a unique advantage, so why was this not drilled on? Why was that source not tempered into a powerhouse? 

Cocoon (at https://cocoon.com) shows a ‘new’ kind of social media, not unlike what Google Plus offered. It seems that none of them adjusted those two ideas in a stage where the gamer can talk to friends, can optionally open up to talk to fellow gamers of a game. All options were there and it seems no one took that. No one took the idea that games can have a larger impact on more settings and it seems to me that these makers are all about others doing the work and no innovation comes forward. Achievements can be traced back to 1982 (Activision) and we have seen the evolution on systems, yet as far as I can tell no one in cloud gaming land had the idea to evolve that into something more. It was the Xbox360 that had the last evolution, it was Ubisoft that reinvented the badges and none of them took it to the next step, so why would anyone consider cloud gaming when we see: “Cloud gaming enables you to play games on devices you already own, without the need to purchase a gaming console or gaming PC” yet if we already have a gaming solution, why go there unless it offers more and in this I do not mean the same games and more games. Cloud gaming needs more and so fr I see none of this happen, I left the ideas months ago and so far none seem to be clued in on what others seemingly throw at their feet. At best we are most likely to get a ‘we are looking in that direction’, which is like marketing telling Jaguar that they are waiting for more customers, it is innovation that drives a system to customers, when innovation is absent the customer merely looks form a distance and considers ‘I can already do that’. It is innovation that drives the games, the hardware, the technology and from there the customers flock. Yes there is an equal chance that they distance themselves, but the true innovator can see the chances that are out there. So what is keeping them?

Consider that we see Ubisoft+ at $15 a month, yet on consoles Amazon (the dot com version) offers the Division for $10, The Division 2 for $13, for Honor $12, the Crew $15, Black Flag $11, and in this case the subscription only pays if you pay more than one new game every month, so how long until the mediocrity of Ubisoft games (and its glitches) gets to you? Yes, it seems interesting when you consider the latest games, but still, you break even in month two, after that the cost continues and any delay will set you off, that is the setting we all ignore and their marketing hopes we ignore it. And when we take notice of Android Central and with “Ubisoft is dedicated to cloud gaming, specifically Stadia and Amazon Luna, and that was reflected in numerous announcements”, so what happens when they service the consoles, PC’s, Stadia, Luna and xCloud? What happens when patch after patch is required? How happy will you then be? This is not on Ubisoft, this is the cost of doing business and I expected that Stadia and Luna were ready, yet all I read is that there is a ‘more of the same’ approach and games alone will not get you there. Luna has a fair amount of titles that I see nowhere else and as such they have an advantage, but none of them took the environment to the next level and that is a bit of a disappointment, and there were options. There were ideas that I (others too) threw out there for them to pick up and they did none of that. Perhaps it is not the mission statement (which already cost one firm billions), perhaps it was not their technology, which shows us that they were optionally not ready and there was no brainstorm on what else is possible and that is the foundation of ANY game. 1984 gave us (unknown to George Orwell) Elite, Ultima, Archon, Spy hunter, and Lode Runner. Some of these games still have a following today, some of these games reinvented themselves (Elite Dangerous is the most visible one). They all set a new standard, the hardware evolved and now we see the makers of that hardware show us that they can do it using our PC, MAC, Console. But they had the option to give more and they seemingly neglected that.

New hardware that brands ‘itself’, yet they ignore the path of awareness. When we look at awareness, perception, and cognition we see mere words, but any market researcher will look deeper and the makers of cloud gaming seemingly learned nothing, not even from their marketing department. Perception without awareness, cognition without perception and awareness with no lead towards cognition. Three elements that they do not connect but that is the larger mistake, one leads to the other. It is almost a Pokemon setting water beats fire, grass beats water and fire beats grass, yet what do we get when we reverse that? No one looked at that part and in the Pokemon setting it does not really work, yet in consoles we see what lacked (even though there was a hidden hint with Sony) they never pushed through, now cloud gaming has the opportunity to make it all a reality and it seems that they are not doing that. Perhaps Netflix will and make a clean sweep, or perhaps Nintendo will. We cannot tell, but the one that does will have a massive advantage, a place where others seemingly dreaded to go, and now that setting changes the game completely. Yes number one and two will remain the positions for Sony and Nintendo, but the number three (most likely Amazon Luna) is not secure, so the one who innovates the cloud the most will head for position three with the option to gain and optionally overtake position 2. Will that happen? I cannot tell, because Nintendo has been innovative and it has a massive advantage, even before their second version is out. Yet personally I feel that one thing is clear. More of the same will not hack it, not in this economy of people trying to pay their bills, unless there is a massive upside the consoles will remain the largest players in game land. That part is almost certain. There is a clear space for cloud gaming, but not in the ‘more of the same setting’ not for 1-2 years to come. 

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May 26, 2021 · 02:00

On the Plus side

My mind has been busy on a few levels. The first is that the new system that I name ‘Fibretech’ is currently standing still, It is partially by me, it is partially by the ned to connect two elements, it is both hardware and software, not sure how to see the solution yet, but I am in no hurry, my initial focus is now and remains the 5G parts. The three devices (one now Public Domain) is in a stage where I want to add another device, or another system. I see loads of POS (Point of Sale) advertisements, but they are all in a stage of previous tech, basically setting a stage of 30 days free and then no longer free. I am not against the capitalistic view, but it is based on what was and that no longer suffices. As I was thinking things through, I remembered that I had these thoughts before, in another stage and yes, on November 25th 2020 I wrote ‘An idea is born’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/11/25/an-idea-is-born/), the idea went in a different direction, yet the foundation was the same. What happens when we do not carry a shopping basket, but what happens when WE are the shopping basket? It is a different key system, a system that recognises what we bought in rollover settings (weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annual and annual), that systems has a check in a locked stage, only accessible by YOU to set a stage of creating internal awareness towards what MIGHT interest you.

As such, you get to alter and edit the list, I for one am NUTS about liquorice, especially K&H currency liquorice, not sure why, I merely am. We have all kinds of needs, cravings and interests. The problem is that most people under 4G are all about centralising knowledge, it made Facebook superrich, so what happens when we set a stage where we take it away on one end and give the people that stage? Consider that you are now directly advertised with 90% relevant advertisers, no matter how many push advertisements to everyone, it will never reach you. Is that not what you wanted all along? If Domotics is making the house smart, what if we make the user the people smart? What if your wearable, your mobile or your personal smart drive gets a filter direction from a tag on perhaps your keychain that filters? 

It might also be an evolutionary stage to limit, or at least diminish to some degree skimming. We cannot stop all events, but as the key is highly encrypted, we get a setting where the POS systems is facing two levels of encryption, more important, it might not decode one, but it can register one, the skimmer will merely try to capture the Credit Card details (its limited), and as such we will be able to see a larger stage of where and who is getting skimmed, optionally where it got skimmed too. It is a side effect, but a nice one. 

So as domotics and personal shopping identification tags evolve we see a new stage, a stage where the people ONLY (or at least mostly) get relevant advertisements, decentralisation is key there, centralisation has not worked, not for some time and the new 4G systems are merely making matters worse. Why? Because they were set up that way, iterative thinkers trying a new jacket all whilst the couture of the jacket went out of fashion half a decade ago. It is not all bad news, these POS systems are still evolving and they will also evolve in the 5G era, I am merely considering a few options to get ahead of the game. I have awareness creation of the user, recognition and awareness levels of the shops, especially in a stage where the shops is in control, so as domotics is in the frame of too many makers, the personal tag made sense. Especially in malls and larger cities. Consider the average Westfield Mall, we know that JB Hifi and EB Games sell games, but there are plenty of cases where others do too (small shops, Target, etc), the tag will create a situation where the interest in PS5 games is detected (in an encrypted way) and that tag will allow for the arrival of advertisement, even as the advertiser has no clue who they were reaching, the person would have been made aware of the other shops, more importantly a stage of special PS5 deals would be visible, if there were any. The consumer is kept informed. 

The stage of recognition and awareness creation will be key in 5G, as 4G was all about ‘Wherever I am’, 5G will push ‘Whenever I want it’ and the consumer always wants it now. The setting makes sense, but in this age, it will be more powerful in a decentralised setting, give the shopkeepers the power back, and those who do not care? They will miss out on all kinds of revenue, I believe it is time for lazy people to feel that pain. Whenever I see some shopkeeper be active 12 hours a day to get a larger chunk of the revenue pile  I see a need to cater to that whilst not stocking up on more and more work, but a workflow that makes sense and shows to be its own reward. Even as some might say that Google Lightbox Advertisements were the answer, it was, but it could go so much further and that is what I aimed for, and so far I reckon I am on the right train, yet in this I wonder will Google or Amazon make the larger steps to head the technology drive? In this there is a larger debate going on, it is no longer merely whether Google Stadia or Amazon Luna will occupy the third position in gaming, there is every chance that Netflix is pushing to become a contender too. You see, when we consider IGN with ‘Xbox Series X DRM Makes It Near Impossible to Play Games Offline’, Microsoft is till playing its games, and now it will hurt them massively. What happens when the weather is taking its toll on landlines in Australia, UK, US and parts of the EU? If you cannot be online, what then? That is the shortsighted view of Microsoft. Now, let’s face it, when that is down cloud gaming is also not an option, but in all this, there are a lot of players that would have their cloud system next to a Switch, or a Sony and that is when Microsoft falls away. It is currently losing to Sony in a 2:1 stage, I personally reckon that it is 2:2:1 (Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft), as such it will not take long for the ‘most powerful system in the world’ to become player number 5, or perhaps even 6. These pushes all matter, it is last decade thinking ‘always online’ and it is not always possible with ransomware and hackers making life hard on too many systems, there is a larger need to decentralise and those who can will be around, those who cannot will slowly perish. 

In that stage I see tagging systems evolve, not because we are online, but because we should not always be online. It is a failing that is getting more and more exposure and those making the claim that this is essential and it will always be, those are the one relying on 10 year old technologies trying to fuel their needs a little longer. In that stage we see the media, all dressed up and ready to make digital claims, all whilst they weren’t even relevant, Google and Amazon made sure of that, so whilst the media was chasing a path that was not realistic, I was considering a path that gave the power back to the people. And I think I am on the right track, or perhaps better stated ‘I am personally and speculatively considering a different path that might work’, will I be correct? I hope so, but I cannot vouch for that. No person can, time will prove me right (or not).

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March 28, 2021 · 02:16

A repetitive bashing

Yup, I will admit this upfront, that what I am writing is a little repetitive, yet when I stated it initially we were before the Bafta nominations and we were before the actual winners, now that they are out, the repetition sets in. 

So as we took notice of those who made it and those who did not, let’s be sure that being nominated is already a huge step forward, yet there can only be one winner, or in this case two. 

So when we see Nintendo with its switch and we see the wins that Hades and Animal Crossing New Horizons, we see groundbreaking moments in more than one way, Hades where dying is part of life and part of the game, which is a first, then there is the addictive Animal Crossing (I know, as I am as hooked to this just like the other 19,999,999 players), two games taking home multiple awards, yet that was not enough, Sony was there too, taking trophies for the Last of Us part 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Sackboy and Spiderman: Miles Morales. All great games, all getting awarded and in some cases Nintendo and Sony were vying for the same title, the moral of this story, Microsoft might buy all the talent (that $8.5B invoice) but in the end the story and originality are everything and the games that the two houses brought did just that. Microsoft (Rare Studios actually) had one win with Sea of Thieves and Ubisoft was absent, my predictions are in part seen in the Bafta’s as they are massively absent, it is the consequences of not comprehending your audience. My advice to Ubisoft? If you try to make a game that should appeal to all, you end up with a game that pleases none. It is a flaw they have shown again and again, yet I must also allow for a part that is not of my liking, it is Rainbow Six, it is not my cup of tea, but for those who do like it, they are raving, as such I was expecting to see them show up, because fair is fair, they have poured a lot of talent into a game that is showing appeal to millions, as such I was a little surprised. 

Another prediction I made was the fact that indie developers would become more and more important and Supergiant Games showed that, it took home 4 bafta’s, a company with 20 people took the limelight away from a multi billion company named Ubisoft, that has got to hurt. And as the media is all about the impact of lockdowns, they better realise that these games were there, lockdown or not, the games were about fun and in that regards both delivered, it seems essential that some of the players start to realise that small lesson, the fact that I (over a few articles) set the stage of a unique RPG game should tell these people that their time is up, they tried and failed (and now these software houses are dying), it matters because I never wanted Ubisoft to go under, I needed them to make gams better, because good games is what we all want, yet last week we were given ‘Ubisoft removes some new Assassin’s Creed Valhalla quests and decorations to address crashing issues’, we are till seeing these things all whilst the game was released on 10 November 2020, a week early because they were ready, well we know how that is ending, do we not? And as we contemplate “Based on the latest financial disclosure, UBISOFT ENTERTAIN has a Probability Of Bankruptcy of 36.0%, significantly higher than that of the Electronic Gaming & Multimedia industry” (source: microaxis.com), as such a software house that was nowhere near collapse is now regarded as a lace where their downfall is almost one in three, a stage that they did themselves, but I am not happy, like any other junk I hope for another AC Origins, another Far Cry 3 and I loved Watchdogs: Legion. But I also warned all last year that their next two products better be beyond good and Watchdogs: Legion was, the other (AC game) was not, so as we are treated to ‘Try Ubisoft+ for a week for free’ might be the last attempt by their marketing to stop the flow going somewhere else, but I think it might be too late, if they had a massive great announcement during the Bafta’s, there was a small chance, but when we see special forces comment on Breakpoint on Youtube to the degree I saw, they better realise that the gig is up. They had good game and then they got lazy (optionally Rainbow Six and For Honor excluding), not my kind of games, but I want to make sure that the truth as I see it is given to you as complete as possible. And as we see that subscription services are getting more and more sides, we might realise that Ubisoft is one of many and they are not in a good place at present. 

A stage they could have prevented years ago, if only they had listened to their gamers, things would be different, very very different. Together with Microsoft they are pushing gamers somewhere else and that I still important, You see, Sony is now great, but they became great because the competition was fierce and Microsoft forced them to become good, the gap between Sony and Nintendo is too large making me worry about the PS6 (a extreme future view), in addition, Ubisoft forced both to keep their game high and indie developers are less likely to do this as they often are set to a specific system (example Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch Productions, Guerrilla games, Santa Monica Studio), and I do not mind, but when there is no competition, the high enders tend to get lazy as well, not the software houses, they are competing with each other. 

I still fear a lull in Sony because Microsoft consoles might fall away in 2022/2023, that part is seen as they are more and more promoting streaming gaming on your mobile, it seems that they are trying to get their streaming solution on PC, Android, iOS and other places (not on my system they will), and in all this other sources give me an implied state that sales of Xbox to PS5 is 1:2 moving towards 1:2.5, so I have reasons to doubt the existence of a Microsoft console in 2023, all because (my personal speculation) because the makers were asleep at the wheel from 2012 onwards, all the pushy games they played with their always online whilst that adjustment should have been fixed no later than 2014, that is now 7 years ago. They lost the field and I am actually not that happy, because it optionally takes the fire away from Sony in the longer run. Yet for now, all we can do is be happy for the Bafta Winners and enjoy the games they made, I am still missing Sackboy, but I have all the rest, so I am good for now and as I am replaying God of War in easy mode, so I can focus on exploration and the story this time around, that is besides the amazing views the game gives and lets not forget that this game is almost 3 years old. As such, I end this article hoping you all have a great day and I hope you will enjoy a game or two on whatever system you prefer. 

Have a great weekend!

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March 25, 2021 · 03:33

The brain race

I am not sure how familiar you are with the ‘race brain’, yet mine went nuts two hours ago. It was a set of circumstances, the first was Dragon Quest Builders 2, I restarted the game only to fall over on the second island (again). As I learned to ‘follow’ the orders nearly precisely I got a bit further, but I was thwarted by the game makers who got overconfident and that is where the wheels came off the car, or was it the train went of the rails? It is almost a crossing between a close question and an open question. If you confine yourself to closed questions, you tend to miss the desired direction, and when you confide in the response of open questions you go in EVERY direction, except the right one. It is a shame really, because the game (island 1) was heaps fun, you are in a stage where the second island seems fun but frustration sets in too quickly and you go nowhere, a game that relies on fun and delivers, at least the first 2 hours, after that it goes nowhere. But that set my brain in motion, or better stated it went into overdrive. As I was relaxing I looked at the new Hogwart Legacy trailer for PS5, within seconds my mind was devising all kinds of trails to make the game ‘better’, and I could not stop it. 

A game that I have not seen yet, I have not played yet and I am already trying to improve on it, 

In one part with an adaption (or DLC) that gives a setting that a group of four one in each house are linked, an idea that has links to an old WW2 movie, but the stage never left me and now it delivered something different. It seems a silly way to waste time, but my brain would not stop. My mind went on towards the stupidity of EA and their sport games. You see, I do not agree with some voices, Their packs are not gambling and I, for the life of me cannot understand why EA is not on the offensive. 

To understand this, you need to see the stage devised by Julius Caesar, I believe it was in De Bello Gallico, he stated that a soldier is in attack, in defence or awaiting response and each links to the other, as such the attack can move to defence or anticipation, defence can move to anticipation or take the offence and so on, as all three states are covered the soldier that can move between the three without pause and move from any stance to attack, that will be the winner. EA seems to be unaware of this option and seems to be between defence and anticipation only. It is a choice but it will be the stage that always and forever leads to losing. I came up with an idea to take the offence in this. Of course as all marketing costs, it might not be cheap but it beats getting slapped around by those giving voice to idiots spending $12K on packs for a $55 game, that is more than ludicrous and the media is eating it up, something they can flame and no one is asking the questions that matter, not even the legal department of EA, or at least they do it in a way no one can hear.

Even the Times gave us 3 days ago ‘YouTube stars ‘lure Fifa gamers into gambling’’ (at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/youtube-stars-lure-fifa-gamers-into-gambling-dwk8tcx3g), a stage that beckons response but it seems that EA remains largely silent. So as we get “The company behind the Fifa football video game has been accused of using “exploitative” marketing techniques to lure children into gambling”, so where is the response and the campaign by EA? I wonder where they are? You see, loot boxes are not gambling.

Why?
To call it gambling you need to consider that you lose your money, this would only happen if you buy a loot pack and the only thing you get one card stating ‘Thank you!’, but that is not the case. In my case (NHL19), I get a free pack every 8 hours, then each pack has also coins and a token, there are each month 3 packs that can be gotten with these tokens and they are three good packs. Beyond that you get non trade-able cards and the coins can be used to buy or bid for items in the auction part. When you hit a milestone (some small achievement, you also get options for packs and in some cases a specific player.

Within a month I had all 30 arena’s, all NHL home and away jerseys and in three months I also had all the NHL goalie masks and a ton of other stuff, I never spend a dollar on this. One site tells me that FIFA21 does not offer this, I am not sure about NFL21, so why not? It would solve all issues for EA. You see, people are staring blindly on the alleged gambling, but the stage of gambling is never truly properly investigated. You see when we gamble we see two options. The first is ‘play games of chance for money’, but that stage has the unwritten law that you can lose and this never happens, you always get cards, common, uncommon and one rare card. The second version of gamble is ‘take risky action in the hope of a desired result’, that part too is not met, because the desired result is always the same, one rare card, several uncommon cards and the rest are all common cards. This stage is not the one we consider because the outcome is always the same. What most people forget is that in FIFA 21 (allegedly) we see “30 official leagues, over 700 clubs, and over 17,000 players”, if that is correct, there is every chance that there are 2,000 rare players, which means that any rare card has a 0.05% chance of coming out, so if you want Messi, Beckham or Ronaldo you need to get really really lucky and lets face it, every club in the world wants these three players. But that part is close to never considered, and when we go back to the adult idiot spending $12,000 on packs, that person need to get his credit score adjusted to -15000. Is there an issue? Perhaps there is and I think that EA made a few blunders on several levels, but that does not make it gambling, and as we never see anyone receiving a pack with only a thank you card, the stage of gambling is, as I personally see it never reached. 

So how did I get there? 
Well my brain will not stop thinking things through in creative ways and it is reason for another case of insomnia. I watched the trailer of the Unholy (which looks awesome) and immediately my brain went towards a remake of Stigmata (a Rupert Wainwright gem), why? I have no clue, when my brain is in this mode it needs to run its course, which is keeping me awake pondering N+1 issues all whilst N was the maximum I could contemplate. So at present I am typing this whilst I am trying to calm down my brain by listening to the Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan). 

The creative brain can be a curse, not an unholy one, but a curse none the less. So whilst we see what is next my brain (overzealously) adapted Hogwarts legacy before seeing the final product, I considered a new version of Stigmata, I am still contemplating a backdrop for ‘How to assassinate a politician’, which at present is set in the Hague and Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Then there is the idea I had regarding ‘Keno Diastima’, here I believe they should nearly all be new actors, no famous people there, I will not say to much because the cliffhangers 2-3 and 3-4 will be brutal, which is how it should be. 

An idea came to mind on a prequel to ‘Soylent Green’ with Chris Hemsworth in the lead (almost 2 years ago), yet here I fear that the story is just not good enough, the setting is great but I feel that it would end up being some cult movie and not a real breaking movie, a stage that precedes near perfection is also a dangerous step to make and it could backfire in a horrible way, which is why my mind remains the great dangers. I considered the idea before (2019-2020), but I never figured out the part that matter, no matter how good the prequel is, the stage needs to go beyond something nice, and Richard Fleischer did set the stage in a phenomenal way. One can say it is like buying a raincoat to warn against the rain that has been going on for weeks, the flood will drown you long before the usage of a raincoat is validated. There are other idea’s and I wrote about them before, so I want to avoid repetition, but the stage will soon come that Hollywood will look in other directions for new idea’s. Outside of the Marvel and DC range and there have been so many really good idea’s, I merely wonder why that path was not traversed before by Hollywood, Bollywood or Nollywood. And as my brain is seemingly slowing down, I end today’s article and will try to get some sleep (one can dream, can one not?)

Consider the two sidelines that are hidden between the lines and contemplate why it was done, because there might be madness in my methods, but there is also methodology in my insanity, it is merely what we aim for and whether we realise what we were aiming for in the first place.

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February 8, 2021 · 05:57

Colour the stage

I was almost asleep when an article in the Guardian passed my eyes. The article was from Feb 3, but I read it only now. This happens, there is only so much my eyes can deal with and this is one of those moments I am catching up, it is 05:15, as such I am still ahead of the curve. 

The article called ‘Amazon, Google and why you can’t just invent a blockbusting games developer’ is an excellent piece by Keith Stuart. There might be a few quotes in there, but I will try to avoid it as the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/games/2021/feb/03/amazon-google-and-why-you-cant-just-invent-a-blockbusting-games-developer) is a gem from start to finish. You need to read it. 

You see, we are looking who wins the Cloud gaming rush, but even I forgot the setting that is forgotten. I touched on it in the past and I did point out that Amazon is doing much better than expected against Giant Google, yet that is not enough. The lesson that Microsoft refused to learn is upon all three of them. In my view these three are staged in a mindset of ‘Business staging art’, which is the wrong setting. It is now and has always been ‘Art pushing business’, it is the one side that they all forgot (Nintendo and Sony as an exception). Art is the power over business, not the other way around and Ubisoft is learning that the hard way. They forgot the station they were in when they got their business executives push the thought ‘A new Assassins Creed every year’ that is when they lost the plot and if Google and Amazon do not learn that lesson quick enough they will be out of the race too. At present there are thoughts that Amazon is now in the lead. I cannot tell as I do not have certain links and connections, but those who voiced it have a decent case, Amazon might win this, a race I actually never saw. I thought that the people at Google were googly and artsy enough to see that, yet I could be wrong there.

So as cloud gaming is taking a slow stage towards the gaming of tomorrow, the stage is larger and it needs to be painted. Not by some painters R Us franchise, but by kids and dreamers who dream of tomorrow, who dream of what might be and then we see if the artsy people can guide these younglings into a frame of gaming, not the business executives on what looks cool, but art people on feels cool and what plays truly cool, a stage ignored too often and also pushed into silence by the wrong people. Keith makes mention in his article on the business stage of AAA game development, yet the business needs will be the collected data and cloud services and the art of gaming falls away. Just as Microsoft was blinkered into the Azure stage, we see Google and Amazon making similar if not too identical moves. Parts were seen almost a year ago in Forbes when they gave us ‘The Console War Is Over Because Sony Left Microsoft Behind From The Start’ (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2020/02/28/theres-never-really-been-a-console-war-because-playstation-left-xbox-behind-from-the-start/), a stage most saw coming a mile away. Only because Microsoft still doesn’t get it, they never did. Not for almost 7 years, they lost the plot and they had to answer to board members who never understood it in the first place. That is the stage that Google and Amazon face at present and the one getting it last (or not at all) will be the loser in this. To be honest I expected Google to win this, I did not expect Amazon Luna to be on par with Google but they were and if they can solve the software issue, they will be ahead of both Google and Microsoft which is a race result I would never have bet on a year ago, but there you have it.

So when we look back at a quote in the Forbes “the console war is over and Microsoft has moved on, leaving Sony in the dust”, we see the problem. It is a business quote, it is a cloud quote and it is a presumptive quote on what gamers need. Yet the gamer wants a good game, it does not matter where it is and they prefer to play on THEIR system. By making the cloud the axial and not the game Microsoft lost and it will lose bigger because cloud gaming requires a good connection which takes out well over 30% of Europe and well over 35% of the US, so these executives are running in a race with both hands tied behind their back, they will claim that their legs do the running, but the arms are required to keep balance, and without balance they do not stand much of a chance. Even now, as we see congestion after congestions, they keep on saying it is about cloud, but the stage of the cloud is the internet and the connections and they are not on par, 5G is too far away, so those with the options will look at cloud and there the games matter, so Microsoft is out of the race and it is now between Google and Amazon and the Amazon horse has now optionally an advantage.

So even as Forbes is setting the (wrong) stage by consoles and how Microsoft only has one console on that list in the top 10, the Xbox360 in 8th position. We forget that time was an issue, and in a short time Xbox 360 became an actual contender, after that the wrong people at Microsoft started to talk and others were told to listen, it gave folly to the Xbox One and more folly to what came after. All whilst Nintendo completed the Switch and that ended Microsoft. Now Microsoft is a mere distant third and if Amazon gets its game right, optionally Microsoft becomes 4th at that point the people will abandon that system. The titan that was created in 7 years was utterly destroyed 8 years later, and as I see it there will be no coming back from that. This saddens me, not because of Microsoft, but with Microsoft where it was Sony had to up its game and that is the part that matters. It is not about the PS5, it will be about the PS6 in 2028 and without Microsoft the difference between PS5 and PS6 might not be to the degree it should be. I look at the future and gamers, true gamers will look at the games that are dreamt up right now, the dreamers will require hardware that does not exist yet pushing consoles and optionally cloud systems, but any gaming cloud system set to the premise of business people will not have that much of a chance. 

I might be wrong, but so far in gaming I have been right a lot more than wrong, so I feel confident in my view of the matter.

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