Jar Time w/ Jeff: 09/12/2016

The lack of hand wringing is something I love about the site. On the Bombcast especially I really enjoy the candid tone without trying to cover up your disappointment in lackluster games or forcefully attempting to not hurt someones feelings by skirting around the issues of certain titles. It's a real refreshing change of pace in an industry where it seems most people still put on this "tv face" of sorts when openly discussing anything.

That said it can set a bad precedent. Very recently I got into some serious trouble on these forums because I very similarly stated an opinion in a "forceful way" and it was deemed inappropriate. Now I'm not going to say "I learned it from you dad!" or anything of that manner - I'm obviously responsible for my own actions, but that unique approach you have when speaking about games can rub off a bit. I definitely wouldn't want you to tone anything down, but I think Vinny does strike a good balance of once in a while cutting in with a "thats how I feel about it anyway" or something like that. People like myself who have been coming to the site for years and know your demeanor don't need to be reminded, but newcomers might definitely feel differently about it. Whether you think it's worth the effort or not is definitely up to you.

Either way I really enjoy hearing you talk about the video games, so keep doing what you're doing.

hahah you made me laugh hard. Jeff being responsible is boring....

The problem is 99% of people wont build a PC, none of my friends are willing to, I had to buy a PS4 so I could play games with them. I keep telling them to just build a PC, but they never will, it's been the same argument for 16 years from me.

Would it make sense for Microsoft to turn the Xbox brand into an OS that can be installed on any PC (meeting certain hardware requirements)? Either in a dual boot scenario alongside Windows 10, or in a VM within Windows 10? Boot times are fast enough now that rebooting a computer to switch modes would not be much of an inconvenience, especially if they can squeeze out performance gains by stripping away the overhead of a full OS. Scorpio could just be a nice looking PC in a small form factor with the Xbox OS pre-installed alongside Windows 10. It would be a gentle introduction for console gamers into PC gaming. "Hey, you can play Xbox games on this thing just like you always have, or you can boot it into Windows 10 mode and play them that way, if you need some extra tools or you want to get some work done"

Also, do you think we will eventually see third party titles supporting Microsoft's Play Anywhere initiative? If they could mandate that every Xbox game after a certain point had to support this, I'd probably buy most of my games this way. We're currently without a standard way of running games on PC - Origin, Uplay, Steam. I'd love to see everything in a tidy basket with a unified achievement record like we have on console.

In any case, I have trouble believing that Scorpio is just going to be a traditional console. A year is a long time and it seems they are quickly converging Xbox and PC already. Who wants an expensive Xbox when you can buy a PC for a little more and play all the Xbox games that way? To be attractive as a console it would likely have to be $500 or less and that seems unlikely with their 4K ambitions.

That's a Samsung flatscreen circa 2003 right? I have my old one saved for PS2/GCN play. Good choice.

Jeff, thank you for Jar time.

-Luke

Signed up for premium this week and listening to this Q&A was a nice welcoming treat. Loved this and hope there's another one soon.

I do not understand the negativity towards Shenmue, not liking it ok but a broken project? Jeeeeeez...

I just watched this along with Jeff's recent C64 video, however the comments were locked on that one. Did angry Shenmue fans attack, perhaps? ;)