There's nothing wrong with wanting to watch older content (most of the content I watch is older content), just if you arent watching it but still paying for it....why bother?

Now if you are actively watching/using the service while paying for it, that isnt an issue.

Its like subbing to PS+, Gamepass or NSO - if you arent using it, why bother paying for it.

I just dont see it being cost efficient as a consumer to be subbed to more services than you can consume. Its like my earlier example, you go to a restaurant to consume what you want for that moment, you wouldnt buy everything on the menu, it'll be too much to consume and waste of money (and likely you wouldnt be able to finish it all).

Well, I don't know what your definition of actively using it entails. Should i be using the service everday, week, or just a few times a month? Just in regards to games, I'm not actively playing something in GamePass Ultimate month to month and yet I've stayed subbed to it for the past 4 years straight

Plus I also don't really agree with your comparison of being at a restaraunt and just paying for what you're going to eat. At a restaruant I'm going to get charged for each item I consume. Streaming I'm just charged a flat rate and can consume as much or as little as I want (until they decide to raise it at least).

Side note, when I say I've soured on sub services, that was only in reference to streaming movies/tv shows. Gaming subs aren't at an irritating level yet since Game Pass is kind of the only good option at this point (PS+ isnt' bad but it's lacking compared to GamePass).

The Expanse is one of my favorite TV Shows. But alas, it's concluded with no new seasons.
So Physical is the way to go for that now... That way you can experience it with better fidelity.

But my point is the fragmentation of the market has resulted in a need for multiple subscriptions to enjoy content that appeals to an individual.

PC started going this direction with Steam/GOG/uPlay/Origin/Impulse/Epic/Desura and more just coming out of nowhere... But now there is consolidation with mostly Just Steam/GOG/Epic in the race primarily.

Unfortunately, if I was to turn my Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One X, Series S or Series X on, majority of the games are unplayable because my subscription isn't current.
So it's easier just to game on PC where those issues don't exist.

I think Steam offers the right balance, no subscriber bullshit, unlimited play... And that is what I want Xbox to bring forwards instead of Gamepass which is useless to me.

But you are right, that it's asinine to subscribe to everything at once, but I would also argue sometimes that it's a requirement in larger households.

Then you still have the issue of having a thousand different accounts for everything where you have to remember your details when you go to re-activate your subscription... Or the issue that for every "service" you sign up to and hand over your details, the larger the chance of having your information leaked/stolen/sold online.

I’ll probably sub to GP for a month at the end of the year when they’ve released everything and just play everything all in one go. I barely played anything on GP last year as is.

Pretty much why I stopped subbing over 3 years ago now It seemed cheap to start with but at the pace I watch things I ended up spending £100 to watch Star Trek The Next generation on Netflix with how long it took me to watch it I since bought it on blu-ray for £40 and it's better quality and I don't have to keep re-renting it when I want to watch my favourite shows which I do quite often and it has led me to buy a lot more series on blu-ray this past few years than I ever did.

The only video streaming sub I still have is Crunchyroll because the entire anime market has been bought into a monopoly so you know whatever you want to watch will be there instead of checking a dozen other services to find the 5 shows you want to watch are all on different subs and it still is cheap at £39 a year.

The more I read about Dragon's Dogma 2, the less I like, lots of design decisions that have been discovered recently that aren't great imo. A shame really, the combat and character creation look good, I would have played it if the director wasn't so dead set on bringing back poor design mechanics from the first game which were already outdated at the time, 12 years ago, mechanics which cost it alot of review points at the time.

Guess maybe I will play it on PC where mods will likely drop to fix those mechanics.

You a Bethesda fanboy, outdated mechanics shouldn’t bother you. 

Active as in if you use it at all in the month you paid for the sub which you and me do which is fine - I know some people who never use it but still actively pay for it lol - and usually are the ones that complain about not being worth it because they are the same people who sub to all of them.

I guess my restaurant example wasnt a good example for streaming, oh I guess you could say Costco/Sam's Club membership would have been a better example, if you paid for the yearly membership but never go to the stores lmao.

Anyways, I would have jumped to Game Pass but there's so many other games I have, doesnt feel justified to sub to it personally (since I'm mostly gonna be focusing on playing 1-2 games now instead like 5-6 like before).

Well my response was mainly to about streaming TV shows/movies, not gaming.

And ya, I agree about Steam offering the right balance, but it looks like they are open to offering sub services just as a host (which I think is kinda weird considering there's already an outlet for it but I guess its to get people to know it exists from Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/subscriptions/ea

^ Probably something on agreement when they brought back EA games on Steam maybe.

Larger households who actively use the services is fine, there's some people who live alone or live with just one other person have twice the number of sub services I have lol.

Yeah, about information being out there....a little too late for that for anyone who goes online lol.

Sure, Bethesda games are outdated in some ways, but most of the areas where they are outdated don't really bother me much, loading screens aren't a big deal when they are so quick due to a modern SSD, lesser graphics aren't a big deal because gameplay and story matter so much more in an RPG (and honestly Starfield was far closer in graphics to other 2023 games than previous Bethesda games were to other AAA games the year they released).

These things I've been hearing about Dragon's Dogma 2 though are a bigger concern to me. Apparently, like the first game, they are keeping only a single save state shared by both manual and autosaves, meaning no save scumming without a much larger time loss. They are keeping the first game's poor fast travel options (fast travel is point to point only with very few fast travel points, and requires an expensive and rare single use item each time), in spite of making the map 4x larger, which means that the issue the first game had with frequently needing to backtrack through areas of the map you already explored, while being slow due to the carrying weight system, fighting the same enemies you have already fought countless times, will be even worse than the first game. Those 2 mechanics were noted in many of the lowest reviews for the first game and it's Dark Arisen re-release, 6 and 7/10 reviews, and were a contributer to Dragon's Dogma only averaging about 77, and Dark Arisen only about 80.

Lastly, we have heard that the final preview build code had major framerate issues, hovering around between 30 and 40 fps mainly, too low for VRR to work effectively leading to noticeable stutter, and one site reported that Capcom has made the decision to lock to 30 fps now on consoles. Definitely disappointing to be locked to 30 fps in 2024, especially since other RE Engine games from Capcom like Res 4 Remake last year offered both Performance and Fidelity modes. Even if they couldn't hit 60 fps it would have been nice if they had lowered the resolution a bit and offered an unlocked 40-60 fps mode as an option in addition to the locked 30 fps, as 40-60 fps would have been high enough for VRR screens.

But, like I said, I'm sure that PC modders will quickly implement both improved fast travel with no item cost and more fast travel points, and multiple save slots. And of course on PC you can always customize graphics settings to get a higher framerate instead of being locked to 30 fps, so I will likely grab DD2 on a sale once I do my PC upgrade,, because the gameplay does look crazy fun, loving that Spear wielding magic + melee class.

I wonder how much of it has to do with this version of RE Engine being at least 7-8 years old now and was originally designed for very linear games instead of open world games. DD2 is the engines first game to exclusively be on current-gen consoles. Everything else the engine has been built on has been cross-gen up to this point. Even the Monster Hunter Wilds reveal graphically looked fine, but didn't blow me away. We do know that Capcom is currently working on an upgraded version of RE Engine though, but unknown when that will be ready.

The single save slot is the most bizarre though. Almost seems like a design choice this time around. 

My PC specs are from 2018, and I'm hoping the requirements aren't going to be insanely heavy.