You claimed that my criteria (market share) for “major” was nonsense. I’m wondering what criteria you would use to determine if a company is “major.”

Switch 2 isn’t going to cannibalize PS5 customers. The target audiences have very different priorities. People buy a Switch for its portability and Nintendo’s IP. People buy a PS5 for its library of high-end AAA games which don’t exist on Switch.

It’s a massive and incredibly complex RPG that does far more right than it does wrong. That’s why people were willing to overlook the bugs and polish issues.

Suicide Squad started development years before Hogwarts released so that’s not really relevant. They weren’t going to cancel SS after investing $100m+ into it.

I agree. However, what you’re describing is the reality of every industry so boycotting videogames won’t really change anything.

However, your “regulators” comment is gibberish. There are no regulators that tell people what they can have on their proprietary operating system. Why do you think there are? Which regulators do you think cover that? Be specific please

Studios need money to thrive. Developers need salaries and benefits. They also need hardware and software licenses. If people aren’t working from home, then there are office expenses too. Don’t forget HR, IT, biz dev, etc.

The Saudi Arabian government, apparently.

Except we’re talking about next-gen consoles which won’t come out until 2026 at the earliest. If the PS5/XSX are equivalent to a 2080, the next generation will need to be at least equivalent to a 4080, especially if they want hardware-driven upscaling and frame generation (both of which are needed to get good…

They picked smaller, more niche games to start with because they wanted to ease their user base into the idea of going multiplatform. I’d be shocked if the bigger games didn’t eventually show up on Playstation.

Basically. There are more developers making games and competing for sales than ever before and development costs are constantly rising for AA and AAA games. It’s only sustainable if the market growth is keeping pace.

A lot of brand new players tried the game because there was no barrier to entry and got obliterated by players who had been playing the game for years.

Except Activision likely already had a much larger analytics team before the MS merger. So, given the state of the market, Blizzard’s underwhelming performance and Activision’s desire to cut costs, the likelihood of them laying off Blizzard’s analytics team was very high even before the merger. Same goes for the…

Yeah, it makes sense that Activision would get more involved when Blizzard isn’t generating the desired results. However, the problem is that blaming the layoffs on Activision requires certainty that said layoffs would not have had happened if Blizzard had never merged with Activision.

It can be depending on whether or not the other person is arguing in good faith. But I enjoy doing research and validating my own opinions. It either strengthens the valid ones or discards the invalid ones.

I enjoy scrutinizing opinions or claims. It’s kind of my thing. My own interest in the product or service being discussed isn’t really relevant to that. If you say something that I can refute, I’ll probably refute it.

The outcome would have been the same regardless of the merger. Both companies were looking for ways to cut costs and that generally results in layoffs. Said layoffs would have happened regardless of the merger.

I’m not defending the release. I’m refuting your specific claim that “these Tomb Raider’s “Remasters” are a money grab at best, and a complete farce at worst.” When you look at all of the additions and improvements as a whole, that claim falls apart. Yes, the lack of PC video options is definitely a flaw but it’s just…

That’s not entirely accurate. The first TR launched on Saturn first. Also, did the PC versions of TR1-3 even have resolution settings back then?

MS has never had a monopoly in the console market. That’s why the FTC’s case failed. Anti-trust law really only applies to companies with dominant market shares. If you don’t have that, you can do all sorts of anti-competitive shit and regulators won’t bat an eye (see Epic).