Doofcake

Huge props to Xbox for making the transition from current to next-gen as smooth as possible, with your games carrying over and getting "Optimized for Series X" for no extra cost, but that's not gonna sell that hardware for a loooong time to come. Most people will look at Madden 21 and see that they could play it on an Xbox One or buy a Series X for god knows how much it'll cost but it'll have more detailed individual blades of grass and they won't give a damn and buy/stick to the Xbone instead.

I share the sentiment that this event would've been better if they showed off the actual next-gen benefits instead. Like, show the load times for these games or something. Have AC:Valhalla in their suspend mode while another game is running and do the quick resume to show how fast you can get back to doing viking stuff.

The biggest thing holding me back from playing more of Odyssey is that the initial load time is so long and every time I die, I actually feel punished because I have to load for so long to get back to playing.

But alas, there was no gameplay shown for almost any of the games and none of the trailers showcased really any benefit of next-gen.

Some pretty neat games though. Looking forward to playing some of them on PC when they come out I guess.

I was a big Half-Life fan through all those years. Kinda lost my excitement some years ago since it was clear that there won't be another game in the series and Laidlaw releasing "Epistle 3" gave me closure.

Now I'm incredibly excited again. Sure, it's not a continuation of the story, but it's more of the Half-Life universe and its story, so I'm totally down.

Personally got a Rift a couple of years ago and I have a lot of fun with it in Beat Saber, VRChat, Euro Truck Sim 2, Dirt Rally, and Elite Dangerous. But there hasn't really been any single-player story-based game yet that really grabbed my attention. And the only VR games I really enjoy playing that make use of standing and the Touch controllers are VRChat and Beat Saber. Definitely feel that has been underutilised for me.

So bring it on HL:Alyx! I'm ready to go and cannot wait!

@oursin_360: It looks like this will be a core feature. That is, it's on ever platform.

The Destiny comparisons seem fair and accurate.

Indie games, more like...

I couldn't think of anything.

Basically what goosemunch said. We already have to use all these methods to get the latency low enough when playing locally. Doing all of that over streaming just cannot be possible yet. Maybe if 5G is as incredible as people say, we might get there.

@luthair: VR needs more than just rotational movement. Your solution only solves rotational movement. Head translation still needs new frames to be rendered and that's where the motion sickness would heavily set in, instantaneously, if there were to be that kind of latency.

That's a sweet notebook tbh

Disclaimer: I have no first-hand experience. I am speaking entirely based on years of reports from friends and dozens of internet strangers.

"-What's it like moving to a country where you don't speak the language?"

Difficult, especially when it's a country like Japan where barely anyone speaks English and the writings are incredibly difficult to decipher. You might have a hard time communicating with your landlord, your neighbours, your coworkers, and overall finding anyone to spend time with besides other foreigners. And depending on where you end up, you might just end up completely alone. You can feel very isolated and that may lead to great unhappiness. You could straight up have difficulty even buying groceries.

"-How hard is it getting around in a country you don't know"

Depends where you end up and how good you are at orienteering. It could be really easy in a small town and impossibly difficult in a large city.

"What should I expect?"

Low wages, cultural barriers, and an overall hard time. If you don't speak the language, definitely expect isolation from coworkers.

I don't want to scare you away from this idea. But I beg that you think this through thoroughly, do a LOT of research and don't make a big decision like this on a whim. I see posts on Reddit almost daily from JETs who are disappointed, burned out, and incredibly unhappy, begging for an easy way back home, because they liked Japan and decided the JET programme was a fantastic idea to go to Japan and experience everything firsthand. More often than not, it's obvious that they would've been better off just visiting for a week or so as a tourist.

More than anything, you should definitely just visit first. Travel, be a tourist, enjoy the quirks and wonders of Japan's city life, beautiful landscapes and humble rural areas. If after that you still wish to join the JET programme, do your research, make all the necessary preparations and think things through.

Good luck!

@adamstambaugh: But that's illegal unless you own the console and the games ;)

I really hope there is a push for some form of video game preservation being put in place. Official archival, museums, stuff like that.

I'm just terrified of the idea that if a game is exclusively on a streaming service like Stadia and then gets taken off that service, it's gone forever.

Even if we can't necessarily archive and preserve the game in our home, at least archive and preserve the game in a museum. I don't want games that are taken off sale to just disappear entirely forever. I want it to be possible to see and play the game somewhere, somehow.