Sheikah

It says "meet in" a group of no more than 2 households, so 3 households wouldn't be allowed to meet. And 20 (mostly kids) from 2 households could meet, but I suspect police might call bullshit if they caught whiff of some mass gathering. As to the support group clash, that's a good question. But possibly very fringe, as I doubt you'd have a support group with only 2 households but with such large numbers of adults. I get the impression that explaining that exception would probably not be worth it (in terms of keeping the message fairly short).

Oh yeah, they change frequently, and that can be confusing. But some people who say they are confused probably feel that way because they haven't actually bothered to check the rules recently. I guess my point is that if people are truly confused and are about to do something they're not sure is allowed, it's something really easy to rectify (at least if you're computer literate).

Have to agree on this. In my own experience, often when people have said to me it's confusing they haven't actually bothered to check the rules in any great detail. I get the impression that some people don't want to check the rules because the ignorance benefits them (they can break the rules and just say the rules are confusing). There's definitely some aspects of the rules that have been confusing but limits on who and how many can meet up are laid out pretty clearly right now.

The design of them becoming separate controllers for multiplayer is nifty (as is their replaceability) but unfortunately they are just not sufficient or comfortable for serious long term play. They're the kind of thing that are perfect for quickly playing with some friends in a pub or something, but not great for actual gamers to play on for long periods of time (which is why many invest in the Pro controller). Which is a bit of a shame.

I don't think that's fair - it's something that was originally assumed to be a dumb buzzword but is now clearly actually a useful thing, and is being proven game after game to be helpful. There's a lot of multiplatform games that are getting Xbox upgrades very quickly, while the PS5 has to wait for a dedicated version. As described by Psyonix when updating Rocket League to enable 120fps on PS5, it "requires a full native port", whereas they said it's just a "minor patch" on Xbox Series X and S. Then you also have this issue with upgrading saves being difficult for some games between PS4 and PS5 versions. In fairness having two simple words to describe what Microsoft have here makes referring to it easy, albeit a bit buzzword sounding. It's a bit like saying you didn't like the marketing term "HD Ready" back in 2007; but there's no denying it was a helpful term to have exist so that you could look for this slogan on a new TV you might have been purchasing.

Definitely this. Thought I might be doing something wrong but you've noticed it too. Wish you could see a list view with small icons, makes scrolling through the trophy list a bit laborious. Seeing the percentage completed so far for each trophy is nice though.

Yeah this article was a pretty great read - I ended up googling Invisible Inc. to see what was so hard about it. There's some games in particular where I just know I'll never have a chance of getting the platinum - Nuclear Throne comes to mind. I have got some of the hard trophies on it and I do love the game, but yeah.... apparently only 0.48% have the Nuclear Throne plat.

These games are totally free, if anything Microsoft have a way to go to deliver similar freebies like Sony and Epic are. Not everyone wants to sign up for a monthly subscription. PS5s are also flying off the shelves, there's no advantage to them putting their first party games directly into a subscription at launch and slashing their profits like Microsoft do.

This is more like competing with Epic, these games are completely free, unlike Game Pass.

Ah, this is one I'm looking forward to. Thanks for reminding me!

Boss deals on eBay are indeed Simply Games. They also got my copy of AC Valhalla to me a few days before the official release date too.

All about manipulating people...not to get an Xbox because they're not spelling out clearly that Elder Scrolls will be Xbox exclusive? I'm more willing to put this down to the reasons Dcubed is giving on this one, rather than cleverness.

Yakuza LAD didn't hit Xbox first, it released on Sony and Microsoft consoles on the same day (just the marketing wouldn't have you think that). It's just that a dedicated PS5 upgrade took a few months to come. Either way, you don't see Microsoft bringing as many new Japanese games to fruition as you do Sony. Microsoft have never had their own equivalent of Persona or Tales, or anything like what Studio Japan (RIP) put out. And now they won't be getting FF16 for a while either. You're saying they're better than years ago but in some ways they've regressed. There was a time they actually had some proper Japanese exclusives on 360 like Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, and Eternal Sonata (the latter eventually went to PS3). How many exclusive full scale Japanese games have they brought to us in the past few years?

Yep. Same for holding down a button for 3 seconds to select things while a radial wheel fills up. Think of how many minutes, nay hours, must have been wasted by us all selecting things for needlessly long amounts of time.

I really wouldn't trust Microsoft to help in this regard, rather have the opposite effect. Most of the studios Microsoft acquire don't go on to get better.

It feels needlessly verbose to me, as an explanation. In fact his English is a bit broken in his explanation of the Game Pass thing (or rather the sentence is convoluted), which makes it difficult to understand what he's saying: "But if you're an Xbox customer, the thing I want you to know is this is about delivering great exclusive games for you that ship on platforms where Game Pass exists, and that's our goal." So if you're an Xbox customer, you're getting exclusive games that ship on platforms where Game Pass exists? If you're not an Xbox customer, does that mean you're getting the games after a year? Who knows. The term "exclusive" is used in the most trivial ways these days. I'm not sure why they don't just spell out that Elder Scrolls will be an Xbox exclusive for life. That's the main one that everyone cares about. They'd massively sway people over to Xbox in one move by saying that; people love Elder Scrolls. The fact they're not saying that outright is what fuels speculation.

See that quote makes it sound like Elder Scrolls will still be on PlayStation (particularly in reference to the existing communities on those platforms).The fact they haven't explicitly stated which series will be exclusive doesn't put anything to bed, in fact keeps the guessing going. If they plan to make all future games exclusive then why not explicitly say so? If that was the plan then surely they'd say it, we are at a point where people are picking their next console and such an announcement could make all the difference in swaying people to go with Xbox.

How are you finding Apex on Switch? I heard about the 30 FPS and sub 720p and thought it wouldn't be viable.

Nice summary. I thought you might like it!

Agree with you here. Absolute smeeee. Smeeeeehhh...heaaaaa.

Haha. Purists gonna hate.

I'm not confident about when Switch 2 will launch but it's worth noting that what went before (and particularly what went down decades ago) doesn't necessarily predict what will happen now. If you bear in mind as well that we might be seeing a Switch Pro, that could well extend the length of the generation. I'd also argue that Nintendo aren't chasing graphics to the extent Sony and Microsoft do, and Nintendo often achieve a lot with a little, so a Pro unit may well satisfy for a while longer.

Have Nintendo ever had a generation lasting 8 years (as in, time between console launches)? I also think if that a Switch Pro launches late this year then 2022 might be too early for Switch 2.

Ah, it's like reliving my past by reading that. I don't suppose your lab has sealed bottles of RNAse free water that you could use to make buffers instead?

I enjoyed reading this. I agree with a lot of your points, particularly those shockingly low-res distance shots of Midgar when you were high up (had to double take when I saw that). I think your fresh perspective of the remake without knowledge of the original is very interesting, and probably gives us a more honest look of the game without relying so heavily on nostalgia. The more time I've had to look back on this first remake the less fond I am of it; I think the actual gameplay in a lot of parts was not great (particularly trudging around Mako reactors), and I'm very concerned that Nomura is taking the story in a ridiculous direction akin to Kingdom Hearts. I don't have faith in him to keep the story grounded; I can't stress how utterly absurd Kingdom Hearts has become and it felt as though he's doing this again with FF7. One of the beautiful things about the original game was how well it it wrapped up and didn't overstay its welcome; something I believe won't at all be the case with the remake series.