@Spade love to see it, I have nothing to be ashamed about.

Damn that audit was kinda scary but impressive

also Leon is goated for what he did

Been grinding SoT nearly every day OOOF, what I like about it is there's no other game quite like it. The risks vs reward, the sneaky or guns blazing approach. The dopamine hit when you are finally done grinding some ridiculously hard/time consuming cheevo.

I also started Bugsnax and what I like about that game is despite it's non-serious nature the characters have a lot of personality and are fun to talk to, the gameplay is giving me pokemon snap vibes which was a game I played a lot as a kid. Gotta grind that out before it leaves goatpass tho

Lulu deleted her tweets.

We're doomed.

Cause he knows Bolsonaro will take his chair

I really don't buy the idea that Microsoft self-sabotaged hardware sales on purpose. For one I don't think they have ever directly mentioned 2023 sales to the CMA so it seems a bit of a silly move in the off-chance that they look at it and it is decisive in their final decision. Especially as the first time Microsoft has publicly acknowledged a decline for Q3 themselves was the day before the deadline. But secondly and more importantly their growth forecast for this current quarter is again predicting hardware being down YoY. I think there is a genuine problem.

They are forecasting "low to mid teens" growth for content and services in this current quarter but "mid to high single digits" growth in gaming revenue as a whole. So a range of 11-16% for content and 4%-9% for gaming.

Only the absolute best case scenario for hardware that fits this forecast, maximum gaming growth and minimum content growth, results in growth for hardware. If gaming revenue grew by 9% and Content revenue grew by 11% then hardware would see 2.1% growth. Anything else that fits the numbers Microsoft gave will see a decline in Hardware. So it wouldn't seem a massive improvement to the hardware situation is imminent.

FY23 Q4 Forecast Possibilities

If we continue to drop the "mid to high single digits" growth for gaming below 7% it obviously just gets even worse for hardware. Unless MS is knowingly putting out false forecasts which I believe would be illegal then they are not expecting hardware to suddenly return to growth.

And to answer Spades question (more like begging) of what people are playing and say something “nice” about it; I’m replaying games I’ve enjoyed in the last couple years.

XSS - Rime, the OST is still a banger, ah .. it looks pretty and running at 10fps really lets me appreciate every frame.

PC - Va-11 Ha-11a, still the best bartending game out there.

I don't believe Microsoft is holding back stock for the regulators either.

False forecasts would be illegal, I'm also fairly sure that I've read before that console ordering takes months-a year from ordering to delivery as well. Microsoft can't just say tomorrow to the manufacturer that they want millions of Series X by June, Lol. Whatever Microsoft has planned for Holiday season as an example was likely ordered months in advance, maybe even a year.

They also wouldn't intentionally kneecap their business for an acquisition, in an acquisition you have to continue business as normal, they especially wouldn't do it when they thought the acquisition would sail through, despite things maybe working out in the end, this has not gone to plan for Microsoft, they aimed for a closure in January, the extensions are delays to the aimed for closure date.

And orders that Microsoft has for Holiday will be known by the CMA as well. Microsoft doesn't need to kneecap themselves on console hardware, with more stock they would sell better but Sony would still dominate them, Lol. Microsoft won't be able to hide any secret plots to hurt themselves either, the regulatory bodies will find out, they can force Microsoft to tell them their future plans.

Something is up with Xbox Series X manufacturing, none of us know for sure what it is but it's not Microsoft intentionally self sabotaging, Imo.

I think the recent number should probably dispense with the notion that Xbox players don’t buy video games. If hardware can be down 30% but they are still posting the 2nd best Q3 ever, then content and services revenue most be really high. A lot of that is game pass subs, but I think a lot more of that is just people straight up buying games.