Over the past months, when all the Blizzard stuff hit, and then the past week when Activision-specific news hit, it really looked like Kotick might get away Scott-free, just like he has many times in years past.

Equating sinking ships with Bobby Kotick is an insult to sinking ships everywhere!

That would be a great day. I’m not holding my breath, but that would be a great day.

What? The off-chain network? That doesn’t solve anything, it just delays the confirmation of the transaction within the blockchain. Which means that there will be an ever-growing queue. A queue that grows by a year every day. So after a few months, you’re free to spoof any and all transactions, because the system…

On the Bitcoin network, the average confirmation time for a BTC Payment is about 10 minutes. However, transaction times can vary wildly.

Is that perhaps just a result of the relative console power? I own a base Xbox One and the UI is incredibly clunky and slow, to the point that I dread browsing the game store, it chugs so much. Certainly that experience is a lot smoother on the Xbox One X, just like it’s a lot smoother on a PS4 Pro.

Some clarifications/additions:

In essence, yes. I was implying that they may lean into microtransactions for those games if they plan to make them Xbox exclusive.

Yeah, sure, but is that with or without caveats? My post was about Microsoft adding microtransactions to their games because they don’t make enough money being released for free on Game Pass.

Huh, did you misread my post? I said companies taking multi-platform developers and turning them exclusive. All of the Sony games you listed have always been exclusive to Sony consoles.

Microsoft purchased Bethesda. They have every right to keep Bethesda games to themselves. My only issue is their refusal to admit the truth we all know, that they want to keep their toys to themselves, instead of doing silly dances like this.

Sony plays the game of buying up major multi-platform developers and then making all their future products Sony exclusive?

One might initially think that, but based on recent games Microsoft doesn’t see “on Game Pass” as pure win. Their recent games have a lot of microtransactions. So unless Starfield does the same, I don’t really see Microsoft having in the mindset of “being on Game Pass is a valid replacement for lost sales.”

Eh, you don’t think Bethesda already had working Starfield builds for PS4 (and likely PS5)? Of course they did. At this point, Starfield being exclusive literally means wasted resources plus loss of sales.

There is also a delay to crypto transactions... Since each one is added a to a queue, then each item needs to be ‘solved.’ So if you’re fine waiting three days for your game purchase to finally go through.... And we all know how patient gamers are.

You are implying that cryptocurrency is trusted? Each transaction is more expensive than the last... Which will eventually become unsustainable.

Yeah, but... So can a sale.

But that’s also flawed logic. If a player would cumulatively spend 1000 hours across a console’s library of exclusives, that’s just as relevant as someone playing one game for 600 hours.

Did... Did you forget to explain why this game is best suited for Switch?

I didn’t know about that! But AD&D had a proficiency system which in many ways was the precursor to feats.