Ronnie

Watched (most of) the major arcs of The Clone Wars finally, though I'm only half way through the second arc of season 7. I enjoyed some episodes (the first Mandalore arc where they introduce Dutchess Satine, the one where Ahsoka got framed for the council bombing, and a few other random ones), and really, really didn't like others (the Nightsister ones I actively hated). LOVE the narrator at the start of each one. I'd never seen or heard that was a thing before, very cool! Fits in perfectly with the three paragraph crawls for the saga films. Season 7 is a big step up from what I've seen so far. I can't say I've fallen in love with the show as much as I hoped I would but maybe that comes from not watching it all properly. I do like Ahsoka a lot more at least. Anakin's good too, so much cooler than his prequel form. Conversely I can't stand Yoda in TCW. Dull, only there for exposition, no personality and they cranked his inverted sentences way of talking up to 500%, which really grates. The only characterisation of Yoda I've loved since the originals was in The Last Jedi. Perfect. I'll finish season 7 and probably leave it at that for TCW. I like the multi episode arc structure but at the same time, the time period just doesn't do it for me, but they HAVE legitimised the prequels a tad in my eyes, which is great. Watched the first two episodes of The Bad Batch, will watch the third tonight. Absolutely loved the first one, so cinematic and well produced! It felt a bit like an animated film at times. I was worried the show would be lacking in personality, but thankfully there's a ton of that. Wrecker is great. Love his bromance with Tech. Hunter and Omega have a good thing going too. Hopefully the storyline will stand a bit apart from Mando as the show goes on. Gotta say, don't know what Echo is doing there. Seems a blank slate compared to the others. The second episode was a lot slower, I think I was pretty taken back by that, but still good. Only watched it once though so maybe I'll prefer it on second viewing. Oh and the visuals, my god. Yeah for sure but if they can do it justice in live action then fair enough. I'm sure Dave will tell a good story, especially as it feels like they have big plans for Thrawn. Kessel Run Transmissions who have a good track record casually put into conversation a month or two ago that there's going to be an Ezra Thrawn Disney+ show on the way. Can't remember if they stipulated live action or animated, but either way I'm in! I don't know how Dave and Jon are juggling all these series. Disappointed no Twitter reveals on May the 4th but I figured they might happen with a new show launching that same day. They don't want to take attention away from it, fair enough. Hope we get some Visions news soon. As @Julius says Lost Stars is apparently excellent. I really enjoyed the first Aftermath book too, but reviews on that series are a bit mixed I think. Light of the Jedi is excellent if you want to jump to the High Republic era. Avoid Resistance Reborn, terrible.

It's all over social media, them making such a powerful Mii creator will probably mean another million sales

Wow, that really, really didn't need to be a "State of Play" , put Ratchet on its own, and group 5 or 6 indie games in a separate Indie showcase. And maybe don't bother including Among Us at this point lol. Anyway, Ratchet looks amazing, visually. Looking forward to it!

Nice. Been tempted to replay it on PS5. Free too, feels like publishers are running scared to charge for a next gen upgrade after what happened with Control.

Same, I'll wait for the predictable price drop down the line. Glad it's reviewing pretty well.

It's funny how Anakin not being played by Hayden Christensen (with a terrible script to work with) makes Anakin more endearing. I'm liking him a lot, a dozen episodes in. Ahsoka's great too! Obi-Wan meanwhile has lost all personality and seems to only be there to berate or roll his eyes again at Anakin's hotheadedness. Not a fan.

The trouble I have with Blessing is he has no idea how to articulate his thoughts in a concise way, and when he does, his actual contribution doesn't really add up to much and way below that of others like Greg and Tim. I find I tune out when he waffles on about nothing in particular, but tbf I agree his enthusiasm and personality are great. Also, when Kinda Funny aren't knowledgeable about an aspect of the industry I think they're good at saying so. They'll often hold their hands up and say they're not experts in a particular field. Agree on Gary Whitta though, I don't watch any episode he's on. Shame for the man who helped give us Rogue One.

Fair enough. He does lay it on thick when he hosts for EA or award shows. Watching him on Kinda Funny every week it's like a totally different person. He's good man though imo.

Nice. Big fan of Greg, he'll do a good job as ever

Thanks very much, I'll probably stick to that. If I get through the above list I'd be surprised if I'll be keen to go back and watch what I missed. I really have a hard time enjoying this era in SW, not to mention the characters. Even Mace Windu in animated form made me roll my eyes. Looking forward to the improved quality of later seasons though. I'll take your word for it on Ahsoka! In twenty minutes of the film she showed more personality than all of her Rebels appearances so that's a positive! An hour long conversation with my 11 year old nephew on the phone yesterday talking about that Disney Investor livestream and how excited he was for all the shows coming up. Especially Obi Wan. When things open up a bit more I might have to take him to Galaxy's Edge, what a hardship

Sold 0.2 million more than the PS4, totally insane!

Started The Clone Wars today, but only as far as the first two episodes in chronological order + the first 20 mins of the film. Really wasn't feeling it at all and was about to give up when my nephew called and guilt tripped me, so I'll push on and try and watch the rest of the show I was wondering if there are any less important arcs that I can skip? At least for now, cause I've obv left it quite late to catch up before Bad Batch starts, oops.

So basically the same approach as every anticipated game from any publisher?

Really weird how it isn't

I get the impression there's some updating going on behind the scenes at the moment because that log-in box that appears feels more like a web dev thing than an actual customer log-in. Maybe keep trying, must be a bug.

#ForThePlayers

Not exactly the counter to Game Pass that was rumoured but we'll see how it turns out I guess.

It was half price 4 months after release. And kept falling. It's one of the most popular game series in the world, of course it sold at release. No one suggested this, that would be stupid. Of course games sell at release. Common sense? Luigi's Mansion 3 sold 10 million copies, all of which were at full price. Horizon and God of War sold 10 and 12 million, a chunk of which came from slashed prices. Erm, says the man who's equating cost with game genre a bit further up? Well, obviously. Nice of you to say after you've been doing just that this whole time. This has never been a topic about personal subjective choices whether to buy a game or not, it was about objective game worth and devaluing of the industry. I'm out, thanks for the discussion. We won't agree as usual.

Great. Now what about Doom Eternal? Or Assassin's Creed Odyssey? That was being sold at half price (or less) 4 months later. Nintendo have always done it. Gamers have been trained to never expect price cuts. The opposite is true of Sony, they can't suddenly course correct, it's too late for that. Now that Sony are revered for their first party software I'm sure they WISHED they were in a position to never discount, but sadly... And all this talk about £60 or £70 games is disingenuous, as if that's been the price for years. 70 is a recent thing, on the console own's digital stores. Days Gone was £45 at retail at release. That's the price the Director is asking people to pay. If you don't think a big openworld game with dozens of hours of content is worth 45 quid then there's no point carrying on. It's not a question of individual quality of that one title, I'm talking about the AAA industry as a whole. Hopefully retail prices will adjust soon enough because £70 games at places like Amazon I agree is too much, but that's a separate conversation.

God of War saw big price drops weeks after release and that was a GOTY winner. Same with Doom Eternal, which is now practically being given away. If what you say is true then those shouldn't have happened. But it does happen precisely because publishers train people to hang on for a few weeks/months and the price will tumble. This forum is full of people saying they'll wait for a price drop they know is coming. It happens all the time, and it's something Nintendo have resisted for that very reason. If slashing prices = more profit in the long term they would have done it. But with Nintendo people have been similarly trained, only to expect the opposite. No price collapses = buy a game at launch + huge software sales. That's all their games, not just the critically acclaimed ones like BOTW. Anyway at this point we're going round in circles.

You don't know that. And the "asking price" at release was the same as big AAA games have cost for multiple generations, at retail at least, and with far more content included. People say "I'll wait for the price drop" all the time. If that isn't an industry being devalued I don't know what is.

This whole debate started because a AAA game director was pleading for people to buy games at full price, not to wait for the usual slashing of prices.

This whole conversation started because a AAA dev was pleading with people to buy games at launch, and not wait for sales/PS+. You keep saying £70 but until 6 months ago games were £45 at release on Amazon. And of course people have become trained to wait for sales, how it that even a debate? You constantly see posts on here where people say they'll wait for a sale before getting a game. Ubi's timing with that game was because they're aware this is how the industry now works, with years of gamers being trained to expect price cuts. Like I said, there's no quick solution, the industry has already been devalued. That's one part of it yeah, but no one's waiting to play Returnal because of bugs the game may or may not need fixing, they're waiting for the inevitable price drop. You've multiple people in the thread saying as much. Same with Immortals before it was released.

I don't know what the solution is, I'm merely debating how the state the industry has gotten itself to this point. It's obviously far too late to now make it so that games hold their value, if it was going to happen it should have done 2 or 3 gens back. My point is simple, people have been trained to wait for bargain basement prices. It's a shame for devs and publishers, but that's the state we're in. The devaluing of the industry is something I'm somewhat glad Nintendo have played no part in, even if it hits my bank balance more, because ultimately the majority of the games I buy are worth the £40-60 I'm asked to shell out for them. Media may depreciate over time, but not to the point where a game is half the price 2 months later like Immortals Fenyx Rising as one of many examples. A quality game is a quality game regardless of if it's played in Nov 2020 or Jan 2021.

If only every AAA game could be of the quality and hype of Witcher 3, but sadly that isn't how it works. The entire point is that people have been trained to expect discounts because that's how the industry has been for a long while. Rare exceptions exist, eg: two of the most critically acclaimed games of last gen, Witcher 3 and RDR2, but they're outliers and shouldn't be considered the standard, that's just not feasible. I rarely buy non-Nintendo AAA games at release any more because history has told me to wait for discounts. It's why I waited for Immortals to be half price a month or two later. I'm not the only one. It's also why I rarely buy indies on Switch anymore, because I've been trained to wait until they find their way to Game Pass.