Nintendo’s market cap is similar to ABK’s. Microsoft could have afforded them. However, it would have been a complicated international purchase, extremely controversial (politically in Japan), and probably would have to be a hostile takeover. It’s financially plausible, but not realistic.

What I don’t understand is why they think Sony is going to be a more benevolent task master than Microsoft was. Congrats, you went from producing Halo over and over again to making Destiny over and over again. Not exactly a huge win... except for the owners of Bungie, who I presume made a killing.

The way it become aerosolized is a pretty big deal, too. Breathing that stuff in is pretty disorienting.

I have some training with shooting handguns in cars. In particular, a fair bit of it was through windshields and sideglass. (Some of that training even involved the driver shooting out the passenger side window _with me in the passenger seat_, which I can assure you is quite invigorating on its own merits.)

The 360 was BC with 200+ Xbox games from day one. It ended with like 400 something. So, no, BC is always something the 360 had to varying degrees.

“There is no reason why the banks who nearly caused a second Great Depression should get .75% interest and students are getting 6% and up.” Banks have like... billions of dollars and actual financial regulations they need to comply with. Students and recent grads do not. That’s the difference. The difference in risk…

The NLRB has some teeth. ABK probably wants to avoid tussling with them in the middle of a sale.

My prediction is that they spin off QA and a couple other unwanted depts as their own entity (due to “industry trends”) and then let it live or die (but probably die) on its own merits. You can’t just fire everyone in the union.

Can’t wait for the next round of delusional thinking that Microsoft bought these guys to go put their games on the competition’s systems.

The PS3's launch debacle demonstrated quite conclusively that people _are_ price sensitive.

I don’t disagree. Current supply chain issues are no doubt making it difficult on them to production-optimize this thing enough to get their costs down enough to drop the MSRP.

If you have millions available and tens of millions want, it’s going to be hard to find. That is not the same as “not being produced”, I would agree. It took me months of stock checking before I lucked into one.

Sony needs a platform at the $300 price mark. Microsoft has it already with the XSS, and can thus dump the X1. Sony doesn’t with the PS5, so they need the PS4. When the PS5 can be made widely available at $300, the PS4 is going away. It’s really that easy. When did PS3 production stop? In 2016, when the PS4 hit $299.

Plenty of people here in the US voluntarily quarantined themselves. I know I certainly did. I am unsure how the world news presents that, but if it’s anything like our news, I’m sure it’s sensationalized. I would also point out that some autocratic regimes (like... the Chinese) took measures that never would have been…

I don’t know, man. Two weeks to stop the spread sounds good on paper (albeit it really would have been six weeks), but you simply can’t shut it all down to the degree you would have needed to to halt COVID-19 spread. Too many essential services. Further, I don’t think compliance ever would have been there anyways.

I have two kids. It is scary, albeit, statistically, they are at far less risk of all of this than me and my wife. But life is scary. One of my kids has epilepsy. He’s been on drugs for years for that to keep it under control. There is only so much I’m willing to demand of society for me and my kids. If they had develo…

Better that than someone who just decides human rights can be waived forever by governments.

I got Omicron at almost exactly two weeks after I got my booster. I barely noticed it and cleared it (to a negative rapid test) within a week. My vaccinated kids definitely didn’t notice it until surveillance testing at their school caught it. If companies need to require proof of vaccination and boosting or whatever…

Reeks of the “two weeks to flatten the curve” nonsense, sorry. Shutdowns don’t work because people don’t comply, even in relatively liberal countries. Trying them over and over just destroys businesses.

The right of peaceful assembly is a _human right_. I am not indefinitely relinquishing that, and neither should anyone else. Acting like the ability to interact with a crowd is just a convenience completely obfuscates the complexity of the problem.