ApatheticCactus
@ApatheticCactus@lemmy.world
- Comment on For a while Microsoft was the King of PC stuff. How come they didn't just cozy up to the PC but had to do the XBOX and pretty much lose their ass with all the cash grabs? 2 weeks ago:Microsoft’s strategy has never really been to compete on quality, it has always been to be the only game in town. Microsoft loves to buy out the competition and kill it so they’re the only real game in town and then passively milk it forever as a captured market. Zune never really took off because microsoft didn’t actually care about music players, they just didn’t want the iPod to be the defacto option. Microsoft didn’t make Bing to be the best search engine, they just didn’t want google to be the default. They don’t really care about making edge the best browser, they just want chrome to not be the default. The list goes on. When Sony made the PS2, some countries had import laws where a game console as a luxury item would be prohibitively expensive, but computers were not. So Sony made a PS2 linux version so it could “Technically it’s a computer, not a game console” to sidestep the law. Didn’t really work, and they dropped it pretty hard. They didn’t really want to be a computer. They tried again with the PS3, but they didn’t really care about making a linux console, so it had basically zero support. Now Microsoft saw Sony making a game console, but it could sorta be a computer. They were scared that Sony may make office applications as “games” and threaten the PC market. Microsoft couldn’t just buy out Sony to make them stop, so they decided to enter the market with a far superior machine that was priced super cheap for what it was to try to bully Sony out of business. It was never really about the games, it was about trying to bully potential competition. It didn’t matter they didn’t make money, it was a bill to pay to block competitors. They’re just competing to make sure that future PlayStation systems don’t just add PC features until people wonder if they should even buy a computer and a PlayStation if the console does everything they’d need a computer for. Also people tend to favor the xbox name and branding over windows, so they have incentive to keep the brand alive even though they really do not care at all about gaming. 
- Comment on Lasagnaius 2 weeks ago:Enchiladius 
- Comment on 'Borderlands 4 is a premium game made for premium gamers' is Randy Pitchford's tone deaf retort to the performance backlash: 'If you're trying to drive a monster truck with a leaf blower's motor, you're going to be disappointed' 1 month ago:I just got a new GPU, and they gave me a coupon for the game for free. My system should be able to run it great, but I’m not even sure how good it actually even is. All the reviews I see all look like paid reviews or early access folk, or people that claim to love it to justify their overpriced rigs. I loved 1 and 2, and then the series went downhill for me. Now I guess I have 4 but might wait a while to play it because I know a ton of patches are coming. Besides, there are a ton of other great games on my backlog that I’d much rather play with my limited free time. 
- Comment on Sony is releasing a new PS5 console, but it's a downgrade 1 month ago:So, back to cartridges. Honestly I’d be totally fine with that- but the issue isn’t quite with my end. Some game is made, and is sold for $70. A disc costs under a dollar to produce. A cart is significantly more, and digital is just paying upkeep on a server. Digital has the highest profit margin, and carts the lowest. Discs are great for physical distribution. That said, I would totally love collector editions in the form of a figurine with storage media built in. 
- Comment on How about I just find a bush outside? 1 month ago:This is what made me laugh about when drones first became a thing and everyone thought it was for spying on people for lewd reasons. Like, the Internet exists, and there is a LOT of porn on it. Never once have I watched porn on the internet and thought, “You know what would make this better? If it was shot from about 800 feet away and 200 feet up from a really obnoxiously loud device from an arguably worse camera.” 
- Comment on Can you share 1 month ago:“Great shot kid, that was one in a million!” 
- Comment on What game sequel ruined a beloved franchise or character for you? 2 months ago:Destiny. Played the heck out of 1, and 2 is just… Annoying. I still play, but I actively disuade people from picking it up. It went from a mechanically fun game with garbage storytelling but amazing lore, to mechanically complex and hyper specialzed, still mostly garbage storytelling, and lore that is trying to constantly one up itself or nonexistent. The seasonal model was a mistake and it’s grindy for the sake of money. It really took a terrible turn down sitcom alley of having the seasonal content need stakes, but also not really change anything drastic. So it just feels like tasks for the sake of tasks… Which it is. A neverending treadmill where grinding has only very short lived rewards. 
- Comment on I Saved a PNG Image To A Bird 2 months ago:I wonder how many birds it would take to transfer GTA6. 
- Comment on Name Your Favorite Marvel Movie: Wrong Answers Only 3 months ago:All the Terry Crews Old Spice commercials. Admit it, swapping him in for captain marvel in Endgame would be an amazing swap that I lack the skill to edit. 
- Comment on Everything is a problem 3 months ago:Mine is LG. I really really hate the privacy invasion software, but no internet for the tv and it shuts up. No ‘no internet’ popups at least. 
- Comment on Everything is a problem 3 months ago:I recently got really tired of my TV constantly nagging me to update the firmware for all the newest features. I just disconnected it from wifi instead. I do not use my TV for smart features, I use it as a display. I update the things plugged into it, because that’s their job. If i need to stream something, I will use a box. A box that can be replaced or easily updated or changed out. A display has one job, to display whatever. 
- Comment on How does AI use so much power? 3 months ago:Would AI inferencing, or training be better suited to a quantum computer? I recall thouse not being great at conventional math, but massively accelerates computations that sounded similar to machine learning. 
- Comment on Founder of Arkane Studios: "I think Gamepass is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade"; impacts sales 3 months ago:I worked at BlockBuster back when Netflix came out. It was legit a great contender, and an awesome service. BB had their own mail service, but it was just seen as a copycat. Also the franchise had a LOT of bad blood, and sometimes rightfully so. Depended on local management how much leeway you could have. The most lax stores that were lenient did the best. The reason it worked was because physical media is protected by the first sale doctrine. So if you could buy a disc, it could be under one roof as rentable inventory. Streaming and licenses is what fragmented everything and greed gave the appropriate incentive. It also somewhat killed direct competition. When everything was physical on a shelf in front of you, all for the same price, you had direct comparison and competition. You could have any show or movie from any studio all side by side. That $2-5 could get you anything, across the board. I saw this all coming from miles away. I don’t blame anyone, every step sounded like a great deal. I see a lot of the same things with Gamepass. It’s a great deal, and I don’t blame anyone for using it… But I don’t see it as being a long term net positive for the industry. 
- Comment on Casual wear 4 months ago:What about the god of stepping in spaghetti? Maybe fapping to that is like, prayer or something. 
- Comment on That's a good question 4 months ago:You think if he was shot the gun manufacturer would use that in their advertising? 
- Comment on The PS3's comeback was insane 5 months ago:I have two working PS3s and one broken 360. One of the PS3s is a launch unit. Impressive machine. 
- Comment on great shoe idea 5 months ago:So the dog prints are 3-4 prints relatively closely spaced, then a 2-3 foot gap and then 3-4 prints slightly offset from the first set. 
- Comment on This is why we have a defense budget 6 months ago:I have no idea who most of those characters are- which gives me an idea. What if I just made a bunch of AI generic anime characters and symbols and put those stickers on my car? The hardcore anime guys would be like, “Wait, what show is THAT from!? That looks awesome… What’s it from?” Just to passively drive a very specific type of person crazy trying to look it up. 
- Comment on Do you use your blinker in a car? 6 months ago:I always do. Feels wrong not to. Just get in the habit of ALWAYS using them and it becomes a no-brainer. It’s just a good habit to have. 
- Comment on Did Apple kill iTunes for windows? 9 months ago:I had an iPad tell me I didn’t have permission to delete a photo that I took with the iPad. Somehow I didn’t own the picture I took of my own dog. 
- Comment on Mobile drive-in cinema 10 months ago:Imagine he’s playing Eurotruck simulator. 
- Comment on You best start believing in a cyberpunk dystopia 10 months ago:Ugh, I hate those missions. 
- Comment on That's right! 10 months ago:Same. I know my red flags, you don’t. If I were a used car I’d strongly recommend against getting it. 
- Comment on What are your favorite "gotta go in blind" games? 10 months ago:Nobody said Firewatch yet? I’ll also add To The Moon as well. I could list more, but almost any game where narrative is the main focus and gameplay is secondary. 
- Comment on To the Moon - Console Announcement Trailer 1 year ago:I still get hit hard from just the trailer. 
- Comment on Real Facebook ad that doubles as a god-tier shitpost 1 year ago:It’s also funny because most of my heavy conservative coworkers all have beards, trucks, and country stuff because that’s the image. Now that I think about it, quite a few are bald and shave their heads, sooo… Maybe that’s an angle they could shoot for? Those could be some wild ads. 
- Comment on She did her best ok? 1 year ago:“I contributed a bag of quickrete!” Yeah that wouldn’t work here. 
- Comment on [deleted] 1 year ago:Well, sort of. Thing is time flows at different rates for different things. There is a lot of relativity shenanigans that kinda breaks the idea of a universal clock. 
- Comment on stupid smart TVs 1 year ago:You would think that with all that demographic data and spying on everything they’d have a clue, but it’s like they’ve not been using it to make products better at all. It’s like they’re finding out just exactly how awful something has to be until we complain.