It's a nice thought, but it's hard to see how there won't be shortages and scalpers taking advantages of those shortages. Although hopefully those will just be "normal" shortages and not something on the scale of the PS5 and Series X launches where they were almost impossible to find.

Thirty hours into Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Main story has started to ramp up, but I keep getting distracted by the business management mini-game and the kart-racing minigame that I just discovered while wandering around the map. It never ceases to amaze me just how dense these games are and just how many side activities they managed to pack into one game.

This is what happens when you wish for the resurrection of a beloved IP. Another finger on the monkey's paw curls. The idea of a Crazy Taxi live service game is weird enough, but it's just bizarre that they are using Fortnight as a major inspiration for the Jet Set Radio reboot. I guess at the very least we are getting proper remakes of these games alongside the live service reboots. It will be interesting to see how the games do head to head, especially with the difficulties live service games have been having lately.

It's a shame that people are being laid off, especially when it seems like it's retaliation for complaining about working conditions. Still, I don't think I'd ever be able to buy anything from ZA/UM after they kicked most of the creators out of the company and took control of the IP.

Good. I'm sure the chatbot will be back up and running soon, but anything that reminds companies there are risks to replacing humans with "AI-enhanced" chatbots is good. Unfortunately, I'm sure the lesson companies are going to take away from this is to include a disclaimer that the chatbot isn't always correct. Which kind of defeats the whole point of using a chatbot to me. Why would I want to use something to try and solve a problem that you just told me could give me inaccurate information?

It's crazy how far micro-transactions and monetizing games have come since Bethesda charged $2.50 for cosmetic armor to put on your horse. If you'd told someone back then that one day an in-game mount would cost more than the game itself they would have laughed you out of the room.

Latter-stage of its life cycle? It feels like it just came out. I haven't even bought a next-gen console yet. I know that there are mid-gen refreshes supposedly in the works, but sometimes it feels like both Sony and Microsoft are just kind of checking out of this generation

Back to Yakuza: Like A Dragon after a week of playing steam demos from the Next Fest. I was surprised at just how many I ended up enjoying. Crypt Custodian is a neat little metroidvania about a cat sentenced to be the underworld's janitor. Nice art style, sense of humor, and good puzzles. Cryptmaster is a typing-based dungeon crawler where every enemy you defeat gives you letters that you use to spell out the names of the skills you use in combat. It's certainly an inventive take and I'm looking forward to the release. Surprisingly, my favorite demo ended up being for a platformer called Happy! the Hippo. It's based on janky PS2-era platformers like Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly. The game is purpose built for you to pull off those kind of tricks where you skip chunks of the level or even break outside the bounds of the game entirely. It's really fun to play, but what I'm really enjoying about the game is the weird, almost horror game stuff that shows up the longer you play. It feels like an ARG game in a way, like Crow 64 if anyone remembers that. Or something like Shipwreck 64, a game that is a platformer on the surface but is actually a horror game once you get in far enough. Except Happy! the Hippo never turns into a horror game. At least not in the demo. There's plenty of strange stuff the more you explore, but it never descends into an outright horror game. It feels like all the talk about how old 3D platformers could be unsettling and odd was a major inspiration for the game. Hoping the finished the game keeps that tone when it releases.

Hard to say if he's right given how much of this is behind-the-scenes business dealing. I honestly didn't think much about them ending support for the game, since it had been so long since it was released. Still, announcing they were going to support the game until 2025 and then ending updates the same year their sequel game is supposed to launch isn't a great look. Especially since Evil Empire was still talking about continuing updates last year. Makes it seem like a sudden decision on Motion Twin's end. It's impossible to say for sure, but it really feels like they didn't want their old game serving as competition. Hopefully Evil Empire is able to recover and start work on their own project.

The gaming industry is dying is an ice-cold take at this point, but I really don't see how it's sustainable in its current form with the way things are going right now. Sure, the analysts are saying things will course correct, but how is that supposed to happen if nothing in the industry changes? Games are just going to get more expensive to make and it feels like the cost-cutting is only going to get worse as more companies invest in AI tech.

They're charging people higher prices and refusing to allow them to keep their digital content? They're basically just handing out the pirate hats and eye patches at this point.

That's fine. Everyone knows handcrafting those poison swamps takes time.