Yeah no point having the Series S sitting on shelves like it has been since launch here in the UK get stock to Japan whilst it's selling to get a small foothold in the region.

Depends on what they want, in a long term perspective I'd say keep shipping more XSX than XSS over to Japan. From what I gather a big % of the JP getting the Xbox Series S do it because it stays in stock longer (not much longer tho) than the Xbox Series X. 

Now if Microsoft simply wants to sell more consoles, in the short term that's a good strategy. In the long term, Xbox lacks retail presence, and one of the main reasons is lack of retail game releases, even high profile games like Tales of Arise, Lost judgement, Kimitsu no Yaiba are being released as digital only. If the X continues to grow a bigger physical base I can eventually see this getting slightly better over time, but Series S because of the nature of it won't help at all.

So we have a scenario where the hardcore gaming population in Japan knowns and seems interested in getting the Xbox this generation, but they only account for so much, in my view they need that retail presence to start at least existing in the run of the mill JP citizen mind, and then go from there. 

Yeah that award show segment was just silly.

Finished Mafia: Definitive Edition.

Back when I was a little boy I played this game called Mafia on my PC, which came out only a few month after the PC version of GTA III. It featured a big city and some countryside and was equally impressive as GTA III in that regard.
Almost 20 years later, the remake appears and boy is it good. Visually the game belongs to the best last gen can offer. There are some drawbacks though. Some graphical issues are present, especially regarding the edges of moving objects. And obviously the fact that it only runs at 30 FPS.

Story-wise the game is about as good as it gets. Never boring, great characters and very good mission design ranging from investigative to stealthy to combat heavy to racing.

The biggest issue with the original game hasn't been addressed but I can't blame the devs here. That would've taken an insane amount of work and would've resulted in a reboot rather than a remake. It's the open world. Other than doing the main missions there's just nothing worthwhile to do. No side missions no shops to buy guns or clothes etc,. It didn't have to be an open world back then and it doesn't have to be one now. The game would've worked just as fine as a linear experience.
But that criticism is comparable to offering a great meal on a golden plate when a regular plate would've done the job just as well.

This ties a little into the other part of the game that isn't as great. The story is a little short. I completed it in about 10 hours but there's just nothing to do after that. The remake added tons of collectibles but eh... it's not really a meaty addition. Looking at the Howlongtobeat.com the remake is about 5 hours shorter than the original but that's only due to the adjusted difficulty and checkpoint system.

Other than the better graphics the remake also changed parts of the story slightly and added some new conversations during rides through the city. They also made it much easier to win the insanely hard race from the original. I could never made this part as a kid and I know many adults were having enormous troubles as well. A shame that this mission was so early in the game. Later on, I got my hands on a save file after the race. However, the original was a much harder game in general. Not a lot of health but tons of enemies at once equipped with Thompsons. Thankfully the remake is not nearly as hard but there's no regenerating health and ammo is a little scarce so you might have to pick up weapons that you aren't familiar with.
It's now also possible to skip the driving part completely unless you're chasing someone or are getting chased for story reasons. No need to drive from one side of the map to the other and waste several minutes in the process. I wouldn't recommend it at first since the city is nice to look at. Still, this feature would've been absolutely necessary in GTA V where one fourth of the game consists of driving from one side of the map to the other.

The gunplay itself is fine but nothing special. They added cover mechanics to it which is fine. Not having those were certainly a reason why the game was so hard back then. I'm also fine with the driving physics. The cars are from the 20s and 30s.. Don't expect to take corners like in modern cars.

Overall a great remake of a fantastic game. Can't recommend it enough.
9/10

Not bad :).

Maybe I’m the minority but that special console looks fugly to me. Also my text is bold for whatever reason.

That was my fault. Fixed it.

I'll give you a thumbs up here. You are getting slaughtered in the article comment section, lmao. 

Of course. Now cross gen games are just fine and dandy! Kudos to Sony for supporting two platforms, how awesome of them.

It almost makes you wish goopy hadn’t gotten himself Thanos’d, just so we could see how he would spin it.

Starfield is my most anticipated game for next year, the first real next-gen game that I’m hyped for.