@MightyDemon82 Ha ha yep those were indeed the worst ones to deliver. I remember some people on my round used to have the smallest letter boxes and if it was a particularly rainy day trying to shove an already damp newspaper stuffed to the gills with extra rubbish through a wet postbox was not good. There was one guy who used to leave me a tip for my troubles every Sunday, it had to have been any spare change he could muster up as it usually amounted to 10p. Guess it was nice that he went to the trouble of putting anything out but it did feel like a bit of an insult at the time.
I just had to lookup what a Magnavox Odyssey 2 was as I can't believe I've never heard of it before. With a name like that it sounded like it must have been pretty awesome? Or was it on a par with a lot of those caravans you see on the roads in the UK where they've got really cool names like Challenger Sport or Lunar Quasar but are anything but cool 😂
@MightyDemon82 lol, I had to Google that… and turns out that I have hazy memories of me being babysat by my uncle when I was around 3 or 4. And he dug one of those out from his storage cupboard to keep me occupied for the evening. Never knew what it was called until now.
That's why all this talk about monopolies right now is ridiculous - not to say that it couldn't eventually get to that point.There are numerous other publishers each with their own studio's as well as a lot of independent studio's with a lot of 'choice' with whom to try and get their games published too.
If MS were to try and buy Sony for example, the monopolies commission could (and probably would) decide that its creating a 'console' monopoly that no other, inc Nintendo could realistically compete in and that gamers would have 'no' choice but to buy an Xbox for 'console' gaming. They wouldn't be a 'publisher' monopoly because MS would still have competition from all the other Publishers.
Nvidia was prevented from buying 'Arm' because in that 'sector', there are only 2 main options (AMD & Nvidia) and buying Arm technology could basically kill off AMD from being 'competitive' and therefore give nVidia the monopoly.
What does monopoly mean in business? A monopoly implies an exclusive possession of a market by a supplier of a product or a service for which there is no substitute. In this situation the supplier is able to determine the price of the product without fear of competition from other sources or through substitute products.
A monopoly is where one company controls 'everything'. At the moment Sony has the 'monopoly' on VR in the console space - however, its 'not' a monopoly because their competition 'could' release a competitor to PSVR. MS could make 'CoD' exclusive, but that doesn't prevent Sony, TenCent, Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft, SE, Capcom, Sega, Bandai Namco,Nintendo or ANY game studio from making a FPS competitor and publishing that on Playstation hardware. Game Pass too isn't a 'monopoly' because Sony/Nintendo and other Publishers (like EA, Ubisoft) can also offer a 'subscription' like service as a Competitor.
A 'monopoly' is being the 'only' big fish in the Pond. Even if a 'few' smaller fish swim in it, they are too 'small' to be caught in the net so don't really give people a 'choice'. It isn't being one of quite a few large fish, or even the 'biggest' fish in that pond, as long as there are at least 1 or 2 other 'big' fish, then you have 'competition'. Its not like having 2 or 3 companies to pick from for your 'broadband' supply and then one decides to buy up another which gives them a massive advantage over the one remaining supplier that just 'cannot' compete anymore so disappear leaving just 1 'remaining' supplier to have a monopoly.
As I said, Nintendo and Sony have been successful primarily on the strength of their award winning 'first' party Studios/games. The Switch is now the fastest and best selling console of all time being the quickest to reach over 100m and could well go on to selling the most units ever too. All that with a 'relatively' weak 3rd Party support and certainly 'not' the best place to play those either. Its Unique Selling Point, that Hybrid design has really helped - just like the Wii's USP of Motion Controls helped that sell with 'weak' 3rd Party support.
Sony's PS3 had superb, award winning first party games too but its design was 'difficult' to port multi-platform games to and often had the 'worst' versions - yet still managed to outsell the 360 despite the 'disaster' launch price and later release window that allowed 360 to storm ahead. Sony also (currently) have the monopoly on VR experiences too - the only place you can play ANY VR game on Console is on Playstation. If Sony wanted to make 'Destiny' exclusive, it would ONLY be on Playstation so you'd have to buy a PS5 to play - that would be yet another USP specifically for Playstation.
When you look at Xbox as a platform - yes it may have all those games available to play and of course 'Game Pass' too, but its USP isn't that 'strong' compared to both Nintendo with its Hybrid nature and Sony with their PSVR. Both Sony/Nintendo hardware has games that are 'only' on that hardware but you can't say the same about any of Xbox studio's games, the likes of Halo, Forza, Gears, Starfield etc as USP's for 'Xbox Console' hardware as they are ALL released on PC and Game Pass platforms (inc iOS/Android Mobiles/tablets). You don't need to buy 'specific' MS hardware.
If Sony made Destiny Exclusive, it would ONLY be available on PS5
If MS made CoD Exclusive, it would be available EVERYWHERE to 'every' gamer except those on PS/Switch hardware exclusively.
PS gamers would have the 'monopoly' on Destiny but XB gamers wouldn't have the monopoly on CoD
I'm not saying one is better/worse - I'm just showing that Sony and Nintendo have their own 'strong' USPs that will give them a competitive edge regardless of what MS (or others) do. Want to play the new Zelda or Mario and/or play on the go, have to buy Nintendo, want the new Uncharted, GoW, LoU, Spider-Man etc and/or experience VR has to be a Playstation. Whatever MS does for 'Game Pass' which may benefit their console users too, it doesn't have to be the Xbox console. You could just have a PS5 and mobile with a Game Pass subscription and use your DS5 to play Forza, Halo, Gears etc.
Whatever MS does, it still doesn't take away from Sony's USP's,their history and legacy. Sony are in a 'stronger' position than they were a few years ago having acquired Insomniac, Nixxes, Firesprite and soon Bungie but they are still 'stronger' now than before. MS and the Series X in particular are much more 'competitive' now, a much stronger opponent than they were, but that doesn't stop Sony being Strong too. Its that 'focus' on the opposition that I think makes people forget what made the Playstation and Nintendo so successful and 'strong' today, why people bought these hardware before because their First Party games are the 'best' games in the industry and can only be played on that hardware...
A pessimist is just an optimist with experience!
Why can't life be like gaming? Why can't I restart from an earlier checkpoint??
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Wow, those are really cheap! I'm sure we could all scrape together four bucks for SEGA, at least. Not surprised to see that EA is worth less than a brand new copy of one of their games, though. That's exactly the kind of greedy pricing I expect from them.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@colonelkilgore what's mad about that list of publishers is that roblox market cap is nearly as much as ea ($36.9)!! That's one product is nearly as much as the whole of ea, their licenses and ip. It goes to show why gaas has been such a trend. I'm hoping that whatever happens going forward, their is still a market for story driven, single player AAA experiences.
Media feeding-frenzies galore when GT7 goes offline for 30 hours and 5 games are temporarily unplayable on PS Vita… yet nothing but crickets in regards to the current Xbox DRM issue that has prevented many Xbox players from playing any games (be they digital or physical) for 4 days and counting… 🤔 says all anyone needs to know about the disparity in reporting between the two companies right now.
@kyleforrester87 I read a lot of cross platform stuff to be fair nd any articles I’ve seen on the subject have seemed a little ‘tip-toey’ to me… the media seemed to ‘strut’ when discussing any negatives about Sony.
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Topic: Is Sony having much bad news or are just people trying to make PS5 seem like a bad console?
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