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Angelus said:
shikamaru317 said:

Didn't realize that Apple wasn't making any 7nm chips currently. Well in that case Samsung or IBM then, MS needs to break open their fat wallet and offer IBM or Samsung enough to let them use their foundries for some extra chipsets in addition to what they are getting from TSMC, since TSMC clearly can't meet their needs currently, due to Sony presumably getting a better contract. You may be right that MS can leverage their current partnership with Samsung to make a deal to use their foundries. 

They definitely need to do something, with each passing week Sony pulls further and further ahead thanks to 2:1 or more fabrication for PS5. Even an extra 50k chipsets per week in addition to the 100k-120k per week that they've been getting from TSMC would help for now, even if Sony would still be making more. I just hope that this semi-conductor shortage ends this summer, though I've heard some rumors that it may now last another full year, ending Summer 2022. If TSMC won't be able to meet their needs until Summer 2022, they definitely need to make a deal with Samsung and/or IBM for some extra Series S/X production. 

MS isn't going to do that. They don't value the actual console sales enough for it to be a priority.

Agreed, when even Linus is recommending moving over to streaming services, I think even MS is going to put all their eggs on xCloud. I myself could end up gaming Xbox solely through xCloud, if their repertoire is curated well and I get an xCloud specific sub since I officially quit the major PC storefronts for censorship (I'm on PC now, my tolerance for censorship went from "restricted justifications" to "nonexistent". 



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I don't have a data cap, but I still catch those jerks throttling me down.



...to avoid getting banned for inactivity, I may have to resort to comments that are of a lower overall quality and or beneath my moral standards.

US sounds like a 3rd world country with those datacaps and insane prices.



trunkswd said:

Switch is still there. 

There’s a lot of custom controllers there. Hopefully it means that they’re expanding the design lab for the Series X controller.



I finally completed Halo 2 Monday evening with my son. He loved it. I'm not a big fps fan so it was whatever for me. But he loved it so much he jumped straight into Halo 4 playing by himself( he said he started Halo 3 but couldn't continue because it's too ugly) I think I'll download Halo 5 for him to play once he's finished with Halo 4



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Ryuu96 said:

Rahni Tucker who was Creative Director for DmC, Bleeding Edge, and Senior Combat Designer for DmC has been promoted to Game Director of Hellblade II.

Hopefully this means that Hellblade 2 will have deeper combat this time, it was really my only problem with the 1st game.



Ryuu96 said:

Welp! I'd bet on The Coalition but he isn't really clear what area it is coming from, XGS? Publishing? Maybe it's even 3rd party, Lol.

I would say the Coalition as well but the fact that Matty hinted at it makes me think that it could be a Bethesda Studio.



Ryuu96 said:
EspadaGrim said:

I would say the Coalition as well but the fact that Matty hinted at it makes me think that it could be a Bethesda Studio.

Dunno who would fit with a Mandalorian style game, though Human Head's (now Roundhouse) concept of Prey 2 was all about playing as a bounty hunter but it was cancelled, it sounded pretty awesome too, maybe it could work with them, if Bethesda doesn't want to reboot Prey again but give them something similar to their cancelled pitch, a less risky proposal too as Star Wars IP is huge.

True but would you have ever guessed that Machine Games would be the ones chosen to do Indiana Jones?

I really hope that it’s the Coalition though.



Shaunodon said:
y-koron said:

Monster Hunter Rise Special Edition (Switch bundled version) has been just announced. Preorder number of it will be getting up speed.

Oh man, it's beautiful. I may have to get that pro controller. I need to quickly try the demo while I can too.

Nice that the Switch will be kicking off the year strong once again. Though hopefully there'll be a lot more to look forward to on the back end this time.

Barozi said:

Damn, there is quite a difficulty spike in Octopath Traveler.
The first chapter of every character was pretty easy. Only the boss caused minor problems (downed maybe one of my party members if any).

Started the first main mission in chapter two and the regular enemies are already quite a bit more challenging (but fair regarding the recomended level) but holy smokes the boss is way out of my league. The recommended level for the mission is 23 which is exactly the level of my main character (with the others being one or two levels below).
The boss and his two lackeys inflict about 50% damage to one of my characters in one blow, so everyone is down in two hits. Also his lackeys are preventing my efforts to "break" the boss. In the end I couldn't even take out one of the three enemies.

It feels like I'm either 10 levels too low or I'm badly equipped. Here's the thing though, equipment is really really expensive. Since monsters barely drop any money and the rewards from side quests are 

shikamaru317 said:

Thing is xCloud simply isn't a great option for many people in their largest market, the US. The largest ISP in the US, Comcast, just put in place an extremely restrictive 1.2 TB per month data cap, for every 50 GB you go over that cap you have to pay an additional $10, or you have to pay an additional $30 a month to get unlimited data. xCloud will be using something like 8-9 GB per hour once 1080p streams are added and 14-16 GB per hour once 4K streams are added. At those data rates, you can use up your entire 1.2 TB cap with about 80 hours of playtime per month at 4K and about 140 hours at 1080p, and of course people will have other things using up data as well, including tv streaming. To get a plan fast enough for 4K xCloud streaming as well as unlimited data will now cost you $111 per month on Comcast. And many other US ISP's have caps just as restrictive and unlimited data pricing just as high as Comcast.

Game streaming simply isn't a great option for anybody who lives in a country with bad data caps. Then there are the gamers who live in rural areas that don’t have access to high speed internet at all, at least until Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet or the 1Gbit DSL over copper phone line initiatives are completed. Game streaming is at least 5 years away from becoming the primary form of gaming, until then Microsoft needs to compete with Sony on consoles, and they can’t do that without better production capability.

A gamer who plays more than 50h hours a month will most likely have the console and use xCloud as a secondary option in case eh/she doesn't have access to the console. Cloud based gaming won't be the norm anytime soon. We're 5-10 years from that.



shikamaru317 said:

I'm going to guess Coalition are developing this Mandalorian game if it indeed exists. I could see them making an excellent 3rd person shooter Mando game (possibly with co-op allowing multiple playable characters), and they have a new team now so the timing lines up perfectly.

But on a personal level, I find it a little hard to get hyped for a Mando game, I loved the hell out of the first 2 seasons of the show, but the firing of Gina Carano from the show devastated me, as Cara Dune was one of my favorite characters on the show. A Mandalorian game without her in it would just depress me honestly, I don't think I could play it. The only hope of her being in it is if the current campaign to get her rehired succeeds. Her fanbase recently succeeded in getting her cancelled episode of Bear Gryll's Running Wild uncancelled, thanks to Bear himself going to bat for her, and Disney owns National Geographic, so maybe there is some hope that Disney will reverse course on dropping her from The Mandalorian.

Bro, Cara Dune was barely even a factor in season 2 of the Mandalorian. The average viewer probably isn't even aware she got fired. They could likely watch a whole eventual season 3 without her, and wouldn't notice she was gone until someone else pointed it out to them. That's not even me hating on Gina. I don't think she deserved to be fired either, but she simply wasn't a very integral part of the show.

And that's not to even mention, that just because there may be a game in development which is in some way based off the Mandalorian, it wouldn't necessarily mean it'll follow the same Mandalorian from the show, or - even if it did - follow said character at a point in time where he'd even met Cara Dune.

Honestly, the second season of the Mandalorian was a bit of an odd one, because most of it was clearly set up work for spin offs, and then they concluded on what felt like more of a series finale than a season finale. The show's popularity was dependent on baby Yoda (or whatever the fuck his actual name turned out to be) just as much, if not more, than Mando himself. Taking him out of the equation, for what would presumably be quite some time, puts the show in a bit of an awkward situation.