I'm sure there will be podcasts. I don't think they've missed a week yet but they might be pre-recorded rather than live which is usually what shows up in the upcoming.
I found watching Twitch a terrible experience when I first came to it for many of the reasons mentioned: the flow being interrupted every 10 seconds for a shoutout/donation, the chat constantly telling the streamer they are playing 'wrong' etc.
Then when the pandemic hit and I was at home alone all day I tried watching again just to have some background noise. Since then I've found watching small streamers to be a much more enjoyable experience. When the audience is <100 you have a small group of maybe 20 in chat and you recognise the same names in each stream and it can be a fun environment where anyone that comes in and upsets the vibe of the stream is quickly shut down. Obviously having an audience that small isn't the way to be successful as a streamer but I find most people at that level aren't trying to make a living on it anyway and just enjoy playing a game with a small community watching and engaging.
I think you are massively overestimating a) the actual number of people that upgraded to the Pro/X and b) how much the average consumer notices/cares about the performance of games on the older systems. Most people couldn't tell you what framerate a game is running at or what other graphical 'imperfections' it has.
@m0nty: Thats interesting. I got onto the EB Games website about 6 hours after they went up and was able to get one with no problems at all. Went in and traded the last of my PS4 games to pay it off this week and had it confirmed that I'll be getting it on the 14th
But it's dissapointing that it straight up works and signals that expensive remakes like Crash, THPS & Spyro could just as well be straight ports for modern resolutions. You'd lose out on some customers that have no love for the original game but are into it's new production, but the core market is okay with rebuying the older games they know and love. People want to have access to good games on their current systems.
I feel like this is something that specifically Mario & Nintendo can get away with that no other game franchise or company in the world can. There's a nostalgia factor and wide market appeal that I don't think exists outside of it, and they know it & are exploiting it to the fullest.
Came here to say exactly this. Theres a few internet complaints about it but absolutely nothing on the scale EA would get if they tried to pull something like this and I bet Nintendo will just look at the sales numbers which will be huge and laugh all the way to the bank.
I'm really interested in how this does. Even the mainstream sports games have gotten pretty complex over the years just by virtue of having to add something new every year. FM Touch kind of feels like a classic Championship Manager/early Football Manager game and I think that could appeal to a lot of people for whom the full PC game has become a bit much. If they can take the Switch/iOS game and beef it up a little bit to take advantage of the extra power of the Xbox I think it could do really well
I'm mostly fascinated by how this could possibly be a money making exercise for Microsoft and the other developers they have putting their games on gamepass longterm. Maybe they have it figured out but it really does seem too good to be true, taking games that were selling for $60 (now $70 from the looks of it) and having those share the $15 subscription money with all the other developers on the service. If they can do it then fair play to them as it's a great deal for players.
My only other concern is how does it impact the quality of games if you start development on something knowing it's going to go on gamepass. Do you put in the time/money/effort making a generation defining masterpiece or do you half arse it and be happy with a 7/10 and reviews that say 'it's worth giving a go if you subscribe to gamepass'? which has unfortunately been the general consensus on recent Microsoft first party games
I do have an issue with the general attitude across the games industry and many hardcore fans of 'just get a PC'. The PC is no doubt fantastic value however as the OP said $1200 is a significant amount of money compared to the $300-500 of these new consoles. Even if in the long run a PC would work out better value many people (myself included) simply can't justify that sort of upfront cost versus the lower investment in a console.
Then you have 'what are you going to play on them?' at the same time people are considering spending the cost of a console on just a new graphics card which is essentially the same thing of taking games that could be played on old hardware but having them play better. Why is buying a graphics card to make games look better fine but buying a new console to have games look/run better looked down upon?
Overall though I have no issues with the crew having their preferred way to play and generally just skip over those discussions. I'm sure console sales numbers will prove out that among the wider market and not the hardcore niche consoles will still do very well. We've been hearing for 3 generations now that 'these are the last consoles, everything will move to PC' but that just hasn't happened.
His streams aren't for me but I have no issues with him going down this path. The whole issue with it seemingly being a complete change from how he acted at GB is the whole difference between being out on your own on Twitch/Youtube vs being paid a salary by a company. Streamers make their money by engaging the viewers to sub/donate which can be achieved in a bunch of different ways and Dan has found something that works for him. It's easy to say it'd be cool to just watch him sit and play games and have a good time and there are streamers who do that but they aren't the ones making good cash out of it which is what Dan is clearly after.
There's infinite hours of content from so many different places out there that it's just up to you to find what appeals to you and I don't think it's worth spending any time thinking about something that isn't for you.
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