New steam controller please!!

As for Steam machines: A bit of a harder sell.

One of the big value adds of the steam deck is people can't make their own deck in the same way they can't make their own laptop. So the deck, and devices like it, offer a different way to play PC games and that's valuable to many people.

One of the big reasons steam machines failed was there was just no value added. Just use a normal PC. Stick linux on it if you want. A steam machine is just a PC that runs Steam OS. Or any Linux distro with steam running on it really. Of course Linux was in much worse shape gaming wise too: Proton wasn't even a thing back then.

Still: If they made something like a mini PC with a beefed up steam deck SOC for 300-400 bucks...would that be of interest to many? Not sure to be honest. With the way PC hardware pricing has gone though, it may be nice as an entry level option for people. However you can kinda already get systems like that. So i'm not sure what a steam machine would add.

Still, I can't emphasise it enough valve, new steam controller please. That thing was class. I think they need to give Scuff a bloody nose over a patent first though. Fingers crossed they can get a judgment from a few years ago overturned.

Also standalone VR headset!

9 hours on the original Baldurs Gate. I thought i'd have a quick game before breakfast around 9AM. Stopped playing around 6PM. oops :P.

Second longest would be 6 hours in Sins of a solar Empire. Sure i'll just take over 1 more system. Hold on i'll buff up the defences and economy of the system. Oh hold up....getting attacked on the other side of the map. I'll just deal with that. What time is it?....

Yay! GOW didn't give me high hopes initially. Visually stunning but meh. However once the game opened up at the Lake of the 9, the game really clicked and I enjoyed it. So looking forward to this.

GOW:R, GOT, Spiderman 2, Horizon 2....Yep someone getting a few quid from me later in the year. Apparently Gravity Rush 2 (but not 1?) is also on the way...but apparently that's a shadow of the first game. I may still take a punt.

However I think I really know what PC gamers really want from Sony.

Loco Roco.

Also Knack!

Who said anything about hardware exclusive? MS should continue to get gamepass everywhere it possibly can. That's part of the trick to getting netflix numbers. Get it on switch, PS, phones, TV OS, toasters, fridges, frickin vending machines.

There would be short term pain, as i say, but if the gamble pays off and you have rapid growth in subscribers and little in the way of unsubs.....worth it (from corporate shill point of view :P)

But why would it fail? Look at the industry. Look at what's selling. Look at history. People are spending 350 bucks on a decrepid 8 year old console that only plays games. It's still selling well which is bonkers. It ain't selling just because it's a portable PS3. PC gamers run after hardware upgrades when something like a Crysis type game (haven't had one in a while) arrives. Software sells hardware. Every successful platform is there because of it's games. Having the right games. Even MS were at their strongest when they were delivering the content. Making the right deals. Gears, Halo, Forza, Mass effect....big hits. I think it was braid that really put xbox live arcade on the map back in the day too.

"But look what happened with Helldivers 2" i hear someone say. The only reason Sony had to back peddle there was because they sold the game in a bunch of countries where PSN is not actually available. That was the screw up. If PSN was available in every country then they would have gone ahead with it. Gamers would moan and pout and stomp and shout.....and in the end they would have signed up to PSN to continue to play. Valve did the same thing with HL2 for Steam and look at it now.

You have the right content (and, on paper at least, MS have a crap load of the right content) and, in the end, gamers will subscribe/buy what they need to to get access to that content. Arguably a gamepass sub is a much lower barrier to entry than needing to buy a console or even pay the 70 quid for a game. If it's everywhere....who knows?

As for your second paragraph......streamlining tools and processes is certainly a good idea in theory. But I think EA tried that last gen by trying to get everyone to move to frostbyte. It caused a lot of issues and they needed to backtrack in the end.

That's not to say MS shouldn't do anything: but it's a massive challenge. On paper you basically have ID make the MS engine (based on ID tech) and have all internal studios move to It and other developers have mini engine teams that take a build of IdTech and customise it to their own requirements. Then it's the same tools for 3D modelling, texturing, animating, sound production etc. across the board. But it's far more difficult to make work in practice. People get used to their tools and their workflows and yanking that out from under them can cause....er....fussin.

On your last point: i mostly agree. MS (and sony for that matter) could definitely do with more variety. More AA experiential and indie type games too. Not every game needs to be a AAA blockbuster. It does get tiresome. But AAAs definitely do have their place. They are headline grabbers and head turners. As platform holders though (and MS have been very poor at this aspect in recent years) their AAA games should be setting the state of the art in tech and production values. When they come along they should be a big deal.

However when i say state of the art i don't just mean graphics. Everything should be pushed. E.g. the next elder scrolls should not only set a new bar visually for open world games, but also the underlying simulation should be making people jaws drop in awe. E.g. take that Skyrim NPC mod and run with it with big MS FU money so that NPCs not only look fantastic, but also do a far far better job of feigning intelligence (Of the big 3, MS are uniquely positioned to pursue such an endeavour. Sony and Nintendo are not chasing the AI crowd overall as businesses). If it needs an NPU in your PC or a new Xbox then so be it....get it done.

Quite frankly if ES 6 plays like ES5 and NPCs basically have the same behaviour and it's just pretty-ish then it's going to be another swing and a miss from Bethesda. Don't even bother....just re-release ES5 again :P.

On a game not needing to be exclusive to be successful: Yes that's true of course. From our point of view, exclusive games are not inherently superior to multiplats. It makes no difference. There are many cases where current exclusives would be better if they were multiplat (looking at you Nintendo!). From our point of view it's better to keep everything multiplat. All the current consoles are functionally basically the same and the PC can also do a dam fine impression of a console when needed.

But you are not looking at this from corporate enough. This is SW Gods dammit!! :P

Historically the only successful way to build a platform has been exclusive content. Having the right content exclusive to your platform. Halo 2 showed MS that Xbox Live was onto something back in the day. Nintendo...all of it. Steam was just a patching service for counter strike before HL2 was released (which needed Steam to run, thus compelling loads of people to sign up). PS lived on it's exclusives and got battered during the PS3 era because 3rd parties went multiplat and Sony were not making many of their own games (a mistake they spent the gen setting right).

The thing is there is not a single example of a gaming platform I can think of that is successful simply because it exists. Anyone that tried that went bust.

200 million paying 15 quid a month (subject to change) year in year out. Circa 30 Billion a year in revenue at least. Lots of mindshare too. Lots of user data to sell. Lots of opportunities to upsell other services. That's what MSs top brass are looking at.

Yes: there is currently a cost of production problem for exclusives and, at the moment, MS and Sony are cracking under the pressure. Currently consoles can't support their own production costs. You have a service bringing in at least 30 billion+ a year: all of a sudden billion dollar productions don't look so scary.

But the only way Gamepass will see any rapid growth is if MS make better games and put them behind the paywall. By all means bring gamepass to every platform possible....but people need to subscribe to access them. That's how to grow the service.

The big difficulty, of course, is define "Make better games". As you say: it's subjective. That's the challenge for MS. The general consensus around MSs releases generally seems to be "meh" though. Sometimes they score well or make a good first impression....then the reaction changes to "oh....that's it". They are not landing hits at the moment. I hope that changes but, so far this gen, not a lot of positivity around MSs output. Making well loved, highly successful, mega selling hits is not an exact science (that's probably a good thing mind :P). But it's something MS needs to get better at.

@Pedro: Oh i know. Not good for us humble consumers. Ideally MS would make better games, some more interesting gaming hardware, develop the services and have each live or die on it's own merits. Generally, industry wide, i'd prefer to see the content, hardware and services/sales business completely decoupled.

But, historically, the way to attract people to something, whether it's a console or a service, is content locked to a thing. Great games, well advertised that gets people excited. It's the only proven way to do it. Every successful platform holder did it. Those that failed, failed due to lacking exclusive compelling content. It's just the nature of the business.

There are 2 ways i looks at this. From my point of view and from Copororate (which, as we all know in SW, is the most important :P).

From my point of view: No. I think it's great that MS are bringing their games to the PC and other platforms. More games for everyone, less pointless buying of boxes.

I just wish they made better games and more interesting devices to play them on. They are a bit too much "content/services delivery" rather than "Make fun toys".

From MS standpoint: MS are a services company so the success of gamepass and it's growth is critical to Xbox. Frankly MS is not that interested in that 60-70 bucks at retail. They want subs. They want 200million people paying 15-20 bucks a month to play their games.

If MSs top priority is growing Gamepass then their current strategy is not going to work. They need to make better games and (as much as it pains me to say it) they need to lock everything they can get their mitts on behind gamepass. Continue to make gamepass available wherever possible....but everything will be gamepass exclusive. Circa 30billion in reliable revenue per year in subs + Advertising + data sales + licensing revenue (no more MS paying devs to be on gamepass...they will pay MS instead) + services upsales (e.g. Have gamepass? Why not 365 also for half price on top?). Big big money to be chased here.

Short term it will hurt as game sales would dry up. But if it means more subscribers then, over time, the pain will be more than worth it. The thing about subs is, once people are subscribed, they are unlikely to unsub. If i add access to WOW as standard and maybe Elder scrolls online too (bloody hell MS owns both) then people will always have something to play and get invested in (note to MS: achievements for WOW as an ongoing project if that's not already a thing). The more invested they get in it, with their friends lists and trophies and save files etc...the even less likely they are to unsub.

So from corporate shill point of view: I think it's time for a change. In terms of growing the service: the current strategy is not doing the job at all. It's looking more like MS have also bought some very expensive lemons. That money could have been better spent. Still, on paper there is a lot of very valuable IP so not a complete disaster.

Good to keep expectations in check on Announcement dates at least. Man the switch still keeps on trucking. A bit like the PS2, I suspect Nintendo will continue to produce the switch for quite a while after the 2 releases. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few games are also cross gen for the next few years.

Also great to see Pikmin 4 trucking along. Almost 4 million for Pikmin is great. Also a great game and very much recommended.

As for the Switch 2:

The facts:

1. Nintendo is the designer of the Switch 2.
2. ......I got nothin.

Wild speculation:

1. It's probably a hybrid like the Switch. More than likely is.
2. It will probably be similar to the Steam Deck in raster but with around 2X the RT performance (still not great) and with access to the best upscaler in the business in the form of DLSS. It could end up putting out a nicer image than the Xbox series S on 4K tellys despite being less powerful.
3. It's probably using the T239, or a slight variant of it. I suspect the CPU core count will be 8 instead of 12 and the shader count will be closer to 1500 instead of 2000 (just saw an old DF article and I think they are on the money there). This will improve yields
4. Overall power management strategy will be similar to the switch:
   1. CPU clocks will be the same regardless of docked or portable. Like the switch, I think they will be quite below what the CPU is actually capable of.
   2. In portable mode I suspect Nintendo are going to completely bottom out the GPU in terms of clocks to save the battery. It will be to a point where going any lower makes no difference to power draw.
   3. Following from ^^^^: I think it will be a 720P Screen: Again, reduces the workload and helps with battery life.
5. 6GB of ram with 1GB reserved for the OS. Hopefully they do splash out a bit and get the fastest portable ram they can get their mitts on. It can always be downclocked for portable mode but memory bandwidth was the biggest bottleneck for many games on the Switch. I'd prefer to see 6GB of faster ram instead of 8GB of slower ram.

Hopes:

1. Better build quality. Especially with the new Joycons. Ideally Hall effect sticks will be standard but that's probably a fools hope.
2. 3D screen. I was just playing my 3DS a bit over the weekend and, yknow what? I'm going to say it: i miss 3D. For portable devices especially: it's great.
3. A surprise. Something that sets it apart more from the switch 1. I'll be a bit disappointed if it really is just a switch 2.0.
4. Metroid Prime 4 is a launch title.
5. Robust BC where it not only plays Switch games but also improves them where possible. Plays them at higher resolutions etc.
6. I hope Nintendo can find some other interesting uses for the tensor cores in the GPU. DLSS is cool n all, but what else could they be used for in a game?

That would be the ideal. If they want more PC gamers to look at PSN then use the carrot instead of the stick.

However I think the lesson they will take instead is: "Don't make games, especially live service games, available in territories that don't have PSN". Also "Don't release until the services are ready to go".

What really screwed them is a bunch of people bought the game where PSN is not available. So making PSN a hard requirement after launch would essentially be theft.

Well looks like sense prevailed...eventually. Hopefully the game goes back on sale in the countries it was delisted from too.