More incentive for people to go to PC and chances for Linux gaming to grow. We'll get a Linux GOG client someday and drag EGS kicking and screaming to Linux too. Steam lets devs generate keys for free for deva to sell on other stores with no Valve cut. Bundle sites like Fanatical, Humble Bundle, Digiphile
Closed hardware platforms with closed software distribution loops are destined for enshittification
They're hosting their own Forgejo. Forgejo is easy to self host. There's even easier simpler stuff like Gitbucket. If you want something with a ton of features, Gitlab self host but that takes way more resources. Personally I have Gitbucket on my NAS for my basic stuff but am thinking about giving Forgejo self hosted a try. It looks better than gitbucket
Something I think is that back in 2008, I'm certain Hilary Clinton would have won and possibly won by a bigger margin than Obama. Practically anyone that won the dem primary in 2008 would have won after the start of the financial crisis and the albatross of middle eastern wars, but Clinton in 2008 hadn't been so successfully smeared and there wasn't 8 years of continued middle eastern wars and widening income inequality discontent under a dem president where interest in party outsiders exploded. Plus the significance of social media was so much more important in 2016 than 2012 and 2008 and Clintons poor adaptability to the daily internet mood swings wouldn't have been a problem in 2008 when Facebook was still duking it out with MySpace and didn't really have middle aged and older people yet, youtube was 2 years old, twitter was niche, reddit was really nerdy, instagram wasn't a thing yet
I'm certain in 2008 Clinton would have won easily, won by a larger margin, faced less unified opposition from republicans in congress. 2024 ended up so close that I'm sure if there was a democratic primary, Harris would not have won but whoever did win, would have beaten Donald Trump. Like if the Michigan governor ran and won the primary, Gretchen Whitmer would be president
Tech writers consistently suck. We've had 3rd party app stores for a long time. Googles trying to make them worse, not welcoming them
Microsoft Xbox hardware wasn't going to be competitive in sales with Sony or Nintendo. Maybe now they can be competitive with ASUS ROG and Lenovo Legion and Dell Alienware
All I care is how open of a hardware and software platform it is. Being a European phone is not a plus to me. It's a neutral. Still leaning towards the Motorola GrapheneOS in the short term as a primary device and a side device PostmarketOS/Ubuntu Touch/Mobian for the long term
That's not going to get me to buy a PS6. PS5 is at least my only (UHD) Blu-ray player that I rarely ever play games on. Not buying another PlayStation in the future for not even averaging 1 exclusive game a year that I'd want to play
The only solace is that wireless operators are becoming competitive for me. Like all these companies suck but now I can use Cox, AT&T, EarthLink as the mediocre to crappy wired options and then Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile for 5G internet options which are good enough for me
Everyone always complains like the only thing people will try and play are AAA graphics champs. Hades isn't hard to run. You can play the old Flatout games. Stardew Valley and Terreria with your cloud saves. There are tons of games coming out every year that looks like they could run on anything from a SNES to a PS Vita. Pretty much any game available on the Switch that is on Steam is super easy to run. Like the Ys games I've tried in Gamehub
On mobile Wuthering Waves, Zenless Zone Zero, Genshin Impact, etc are super popular. Warframe just released for mobile. Albion Online. People have some 5+ years outdated opinions mobile gaming
Xbox as a 3rd party publisher can succeed. As a console vendor, it's too late to stop the multiplatform strategy this gen. They're not Nintendo. At least on the Wii U, Nintendo was still releasing great games and the 3DS sold like 80 million units and Nintendo were also releasing great games there and all those studios would converge on the Switch. They can't be serious launching a console without a great launch year lineup of exclusives marketed well to convince people that they won't cut tail and run if a new console doesn't take off.
The advice for the new Xbox CEO that I believe in is to rip the bandage off and embrace 3rd party publishing. Timings for a new console seem awful. Fable is supposed to release this year. Forza Horizon Japan this year. Obsidian has already released their two big games last year. Perfect Dark cancelled. Forza Motorsport studio seemingly on life support rather than working on a new entry. New Gears of War should release soon. Elder Scrolls VII I'm not betting on that before the 2030s. Also these unreleased announced games are marketed as multiplatform already. Is it going to be another attempt at a Halo as the launch title after a string of crowd goes mild Halo releases. The hasty media work being done now with the new CEO is going to be thrown back in her face within a few years as some sort of hypocrite critique rather than someone speaking before they built up their Xbox strategy and was pretty much kind of winging it on short notice
As unhinged as social media gets, this is pretty much why so many end up trusting it over traditional media. The internet broke the veil of commercial reporting/journalism - media in general. Broke the trust on accepting public personas and not being suspicious of them behind the scenes. Sell out reporters/journalist/artists/etc are like scabs to labor strikers
You can always keep a look out for deals
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/romancing-saga-2-revenge-of-the-seven/history/
I enjoyed it. My first romancing saga game. At first you get attached to your first character and set of characters but after the first one dies or passes of old age, you get used to cycling through leaders. It's a fun mechanic since it makes you change up how you play. I've read people really going at optomizing builds around the changing of king/queens and the skills that are passed down the line