Wow!

Larger than EA?

Recently learned the actress who played Samara was the same actress who did the voice of Lilo in Lilo and Stitch.

That’s some casting whiplash right there!

Destiny 2 died because the studio was more interested in chasing F2P microtransactions than story content.

They cut the paid story content so they could go F2P, then the new players had no idea what was going on or how to engage.

What they SHOULD have done was this:

Fork Destiny 2 into 2 games, each balanced separately. A) PvE Paid Story Content B) F2P PvP microtransactions.

Let the same character bounce from one to the other.

In fairness, the Linux feature was half baked. I got YellowDog running on it, but because of the goofball CPU, you had to recompile everything to get it to run, which it did poorly.

Because stopping disc production has worked so well for Microsoft…

Here’s the bit both are forgetting:

The hardware is still sold at retail.

So you go into a store, you see a console for sale but no games. Or, worse, a shelf of old games on the “Discontinued” rack (the Xbox section in most Targets and Walmarts now.) Do you feel inclined to buy that hardware?

How is that working out for Microsoft?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/06/26/xbox-sales-are-its-lowest-ever-this-month-playstation-its-lowest-since-2000/

Valve can get away with it with the Steam products because they are sold in the same online store that sells the games.

I mean, palm oil is technically a real ingredient and all natural. Then again, so are cyanide and arsenic. 😉

https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/emergency/chemical_terrorism/cyanide.htm

https://archive.cdc.gov/www_atsdr_cdc_gov/csem/arsenic/where_arsenic.html

No. Not a fan. I bought IV out of curiosity and I had a review copy of Chinatown Wars. That’s it.

From a comic book called The Tick. I believe that’s #3 or #4.

Hmmm… I wonder if there’s a market for pre-installed Win11 boot SSDs then. 🤔

$800 for 1 TB… so the 2TB version would have hit $1,000 or more.

So how much is my old 1TB version with 2TB expansion card worth now? 🤔

It won’t and here’s why…

Game development is done for known quantities, the RAM in an Xbox Series X/S, PS5/Pro, Switch, Steam Deck, now Steam Machine isn’t changing. It’s a fixed, known quantity, and they code for that.

Storage is a different issue, and can be expanded many ways, but the processors and RAM isn’t going anywhere.

If anything, what we’re going to see is an extended gaming generation where the Next Gen machines can’t be successfully launched or supported.

That’s been true for years now! 😉

Knowing is half the battle!

It will probably have a boot to desktop mode like the Steam Deck and then you can run any stream in a browser.

They will sell out instantly and this blocks the scalpers.

Native on the Deck is 1280 x 800. Slightly more than 720p, but not by much!

I mean, the Steam Deck can dual boot Steam OS and Windows 11. I have a 2TB USB C SSD that is a full Win11 install.

I expect I could use that same SSD on the Steam Machine.

Instructions:

Win 11 Install:

https://www.aomeitech.com/clone-tips/install-windows-11-on-external-ssd-8523.html

Steam Deck Boot Menu:

Turn off your Steam Deck entirely.
Press and hold the Volume Down (-) button and press the Power button.
Release the buttons when you hear the chime. This will load the Boot Manager.
Select your External USB/SD Drive using the D-pad and press ‘A’.

SSD:

https://www.kingston.com/en/external-ssd/xs2000-external-usb-c-solid-state-drive?capacity=2tb

As did Covid.