Gaming is becoming an unaffordable mess
How much do you think a video game is worth? $60? $70? Maybe try $80. At least that’s according to Xbox, which will follow Nintendo in raising the cost of new AAA releases by an additional 14% this holiday season. The company also hiked console and accessory prices across the board by 20% on average….
Fans versus fanboys
The Nintendo Switch 2 was unveiled this month to the collective butt puckering or millions of gamers. The console would be considerably more expensive than its predecessors, and first-party games would receive a whopping 33% price hike on top of that. Needless to say, a lot of gamers and non-gamers alike were pretty upset. Well,…
Switch 2 brings more sticker shock to price weary gamers
Nintendo officially revealed the Switch 2 today, and the new handheld is already getting mixed reactions online. Let’s get to the elephant in the room. It will cost $449 (CAD 629) for the base system and $499 ($699) for the Mario Kart World bundle. That officially puts it at the same price as the all-digital…
The industry is upset gamers are finally rejecting slop
When you picture slop, you probably think of a pig trough. One long tub packed full of rotting vegetables and other garbage, mindlessly devoured by domesticated animals. The term now has come to refer to so many AAA games we’ve been seeing, or any of the “endless trash” (as Mike Stoklasa put it) getting pumped…
Stupidly weighing in on the AI and games debate
I’ve recently been using Grammarly to clean up articles on the blog. It’s AI scans your posts and points out grammar errors (duh) and offers suggestions to improve wording. I just have the free version, so I only get a few suggestions. Though it will still highlight problem areas, making them stand out easier for…
Studios can’t keep riding on long past successes
Obsidian’s Avowed launched this week to a dull splat. You know, sort of like that sound when you accidentally spill yogurt on the floor. While billed as the next Skyrim, the game hasn’t even managed to beat Elder Scrolls V’s concurrent player count. No, not its all-time count, but the number of people who are…
Western gaming is dead
I posted an article nearly five years ago now that I was burnt out on Western gaming. My primary complaints were over the lack of innovation, rampant political correctness, and the industry’s insatiable avarice. So from that point forward, I resolved to stick with Eastern games. So far it’s been great. I discovered the Xenoblade…
The Real Game Awards a diamond in the rough
I watched the Real Game Awards last night. The inaugural presentation was pretty much what I expected, which is to say rough around the edges but showing a lot of potential. The show was born from “Stuttering” Craig Skistimas’s dissatisfaction with corporate award shows like Geoff Keighley’s. Craig is royalty when it comes to independent…
$100 games are another sign of AAA rot
Grand Theft Auto 6 could cost $100. That’s according to video games analyst Matthew Ball in a recent report. Ball says there is “hope” within the industry that publisher Take-Two will take the lead and raise the price to a crisp Benjamin. The hope is this could help ease financial pressures over spiraling development costs….
Wii U: A retrospective on Nintendo’s worst console
With the announcement that Xenoblade Chronicles X is finally coming to Switch, it’s the final nail in the coffin for the Wii U. It was the last major release still stuck on the console. So there’s no point in owning one. The Switch is a far superior system in just about every way. Was the…
