Guess I’ll take this opportunity to say that some days it seems like Ashcraft gets the morning rolling, but then things die around the time everyone on this side of the planet starts waking up. It was at some point in recent months that I thought almost everyone had been fired because one writer had covered things…

They’ll get with the program eventually, and I’ll emulate to my heart’s content in the meantime. 

Thankfully, I already have Sephiroth’s bust. All I have left to find is his left leg, including the adjacent butt cheek. Still, I’m confident that with all the renewed interest in the character, I’ll have a full, two-cheeked Sephiroth by year’s end.

This has been the case for years and years. It’s never as bad as it looks. It’s not going to be the end of this or that. There are no frogs in the stockpot, and the burner isn’t on.

The fact that a market can only exist if it lacks meaningful competition should be a big red flag for consumers. You’re talking about the current system, and how things probably couldn’t be different within it.

Sony used the PS3 to Trojan horse the Cell processor into broad use. Except the Cell was a flop, and eventually the only thing using it was the PS3. It also had the pleasant knock-on effect of disincentivizing ports on account of its unique architecture. That didn’t work out either, and the PS3 ports of many games…

Be that as it may, the lack of meaningful competition in the console space, along with the accompanying circus of ever more anti-consumer practices, has long been a part of pop gaming culture. We celebrated it on a broad scale. People complained about the sideshow of the month because there always needs to be…

Don’t let Sony off the hook here. They want the exact same thing, and while Microsoft gets all the heat from gamers over what they almost did with the XB1, the far more spectacular failure to exert control was what Sony did with the PS3.

We have paid lip service to competition with one side of our mouths, and gladly handed Sony and Microsoft the keys to the castle with the other. I have been arguing against consolidation since the beginning of the digital age, back when I was young and pissed off at everything. The writing has most likely been on the…

Absolutely, they would. I’d be just fine with that, too. I’ve been beating that drum in one way or another for like 15 years now.

Of course they are. Microsoft has been placing huge bets on services becoming for gaming what they became for much of the entertainment industry. They don’t want people to buy an Xbox so much as they want people signing up for their service. Purchasing Actibliz positions them well to be the first name that comes to…

There may have been a point in the past where Microsoft would want to sell something like Call of Duty on Sony consoles if they owned the franchise, but I think we’re past that point. Microsoft sees which way the wind is blowing, and it would probably be more profitable in the long term for them to use the franchise…

Microsoft has a lot of money and a history of questionable ethics. Now, does that mean that when Kotick is fired, Microsoft could be convinced that it makes good business sense to fire him into the sun?

Call me a radical, but I’m all for this. Consolidation was an inevitability given the way the gaming industry is structured. I’m fully on board for Microsoft putting its money where its mouth is, and just buying publishers instead of making stupid sweetheart exclusivity deals with them.

Maybe I’ll be able to buy a PS5 in 2022.

They probably wouldn’t have rehired Kevin Pereira, either. I wish I had all the allegations from his old Twitch channel saved somewhere, because to my recollection, he let some pretty ugly stuff transpire under his watch, turning a blind eye.

You want more RDO content? Spend more money on microtransactions. They were always going to chase the money, and RDO was never, ever going to print it the way GTAO has. The common denominator just isn’t low enough. Maybe Rockstar could meet people halfway and make a rocket horse ranch in GTAO. Gas up your talking,…

Free to play is funny marketing language for Part time job. 

A Square Enix game running poorly on PC? Surely, you jest.

“If you’re not a racist white person, there’s no reason for the word cracker to offend you. It is not, and never has been, directed at you.”