I haven't played on home consoles in decades. Sega Genesis was the last one I most recently regularly played back in the 90s. I got an XBox S Series for 2024 Christmas from my family but it wasn't something for which I asked. I was surprised to learn it doesn't use cartridges and have to this day not played anything on the console thought I still have it and the box.
I’m not a big gamer. yet this is kind of similar with Amazon. I stopped buying digital movies and using my money for anything digital on Amazon. I’ll take digital credit to delay a shipment. That’s the only way I’ll purchase digital media. Otherwise I buy DVDs or Blu-ray. That way I know I own it and don’t have to worry about being cut off for My stuff that I paid for.
I already saw a post on Instagram where they said what happens if Sony decides to stop supporting the old PlayStation and come out with a new one in the future. Does this mean you have to buy the games over again? There’s a lot of variables here.
A little bit off the beaten track, but I refuse to buy a vehicle where I have to pay a subscription for what used to be in every day option like heated seats or such. I understand paying extra for music service because that’s separate. I don’t want to rent options for something I already own.
And if for some reason the player gets banned on Xbox Live or PSN, sometimes with a fake report or a system glitch, all your game library is gone in a second forever.
@bear this is why I prefer PC gaming. Never have to worry about old games working anymore.
Also on steam even if a game gets pulled from steam, if you own it you still have access to download it.
@Pasquia I heard you have a PS3. For starters that's cool because I wore mine the hell out back in 2018. It had a good 8 year run, but I digress...if you have any digital games in your PS3, DON'T GET RID OF THEM! Sony announced they will be closing the PS3 and Vita stores by next Summer so when that happens, you lose access to the store and won't be able to reinstall those games again if something were to happen to them. Games from the PS3/Xbox 360/Wii era are the only games I know where majority of games aren't dependent on online connection so preserve those the best you can.
@Bear That IG post is indeed true. Many of the retro games and even digital only PS3 games I once had in my PS3 you can find them again in the Playstation Plus Premium lineup...of course it rehashes the dilemma of you not really owning those games like you could with the prior system so there would be a time where those might wind up missing. Same scenario happened with Nintendo when they shut down the Wii, Wii U and 3DS store, so basically the heavily favored Virtual Console is now extinct.
@wilderdude My emulation station is a terrabyte deep and spans a multitude of games and consoles from many generations including many arcade hits from Final Burn Alpha. I've been sailing the emulation seas for 25 years and it's a godsend. It's not only about convenience but also preservation. A good sum of retro games have been long forgotten and emulation helps retains their existence. Which makes this even more of an important topic as lack of ownership and companies calling the shots on how games are managed threaten the longevity of games as a whole.
@KindredSpirits - Funny that back then people wished they could play those games at home. Now they wish the arcades were back. They kinda are but in the form of barcades now.
@SelfMadeJay i'm absolutely loving my AYN Thor. Ayn has been knocking it out of the park lately. Have a preorder in for their odin 3 latest batch which ships in august.
It's incredible how small controls are on the Thor but yet playing street fighter games etc the moves are super easy to do/super responsive.
I haven’t played video games since high school, when the first OG XBox was out. So, I may be a little disconnected. But, I’m still a gamer at heart. My plan is when I’m old, instead of crossword puzzles and bingo nights, I will just catch up on the decades of video games that I’ve missed.
However, I think that it will hurt businesses in the short term, but make a resurgence like most retro games, as people start to yearn for those unfiltered nostalgic feelings of popping in a disc, or even a cartridge. Look at how N64 has retained its value after all of these years.
Then again, that depends on the gaming industry’s due diligence against emulators. Because, a large part of N64’s value comes from the fact that they were suing the pants off of everyone who tried to emulate their games, characters, and trademarks without their permission.
@BR123 Nintendo has always been very aggressive against emulation devs. Doesn't matter though, switch emulation is very robust.
I remember ps1 era Sony was hardcore against emulation. Sued a company that made a commercial emulator (bleem) out of business.
I can see why they are against it, while emulation preserves it also encourages rampant piracy lol. You can download pretty much any switch 1 game off the web for free and play it on your phone, computer or android device.
Found this interesting:
Some of these missteps can cost a console maker big-time even if they backtrack. Gamers can hold a grudge, Xbox was well ahead of PlayStation before Xbox one/ps4 release. Microsoft declared Xbox one would have to have Kinect connected all the time in order to work and it gave the ps4 the lead even though they backtracked.
Not only that, they took away 550 movies that people paid for. This is why I mod my game consoles, the golden age ended at the 360 and ps4. The vita is being kept on life support by the homebrew community, sony wanted everyone to forget about that system.
https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/germanys-1-5-million-project-to-build-the-worlds-largest-game-archive-collapses-after-funding-dries-up
I have mixed feelings. I have long since gone digital, and it’s been that way on PC for a loooong time (I play on all platforms). But it is also sad to see another physical medium going away. I wish there was a way to preserve games for the average consumer, like a cart that you can download the game/updates/patches/dlc to (outside of a flash cart or rom/iso file) so you could still buy a game with a case and physical media in some form that would allow you retain a copy of the fully game in an official format (legally).
Disc games are cheaper after a while, not the same for a digital download most of the time.
It really is time for the INDY market to grow, for somebody who loves games to start making games for people who love gaming.
I'm amazed at what happens when a giant in business abandons it's customers by actions that point to the business eating itself. This happens over and over again.
Our world is now managed by databases (that get hacked) and log ins. If I have to log on to one more thing I'm going to de-rez.
@wilderdude hmm, so that’s what happened to XBox. I was always an Xbox guy, and kinda wondered why nobody ever mentions it.
I don’t think Nintendo fights as hard to preserve modern era games as it does OG Mario and Pokémon titles. I may be wrong, because it’s been a while since I’ve been privy to the gaming industry. Last time I checked, they were shutting down legit tournaments just because they didn’t ask for permission first. Nintendo was a tyrant, lol.
@br123 it was that plus they had announced Xbox one would basically have no used games. Remember back in the day you'd buy a PC game and each disc had a "CD key", it would run on a system like that where your copy of the game would be locked to your specific console. Ms got absolutely skewered over that and the Kinect thing.
https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/19/digging-into-xbox-ones-used-games-policy
@wilderdude oh wow. Seems like Xbox was the trial run. Now, PlayStation knows it can get away with it. And, soon there will be an entire generation that won’t know anything else.
Plus, there’s no other real competition, because Nintendo is kind of in a league of its own.
Seems like digital games will be the new normal. Unless Elon Musk wants to jump into the gaming market, and create a console that could rival Microsoft and Sony, by offering physical games to major titles. Highly unlikely, but would be extremely interesting.
Either way, major changes like these opened up so many markets. Torrents are going to take off… gaming black market’s going to be booming! Console jail breakers are going to figure something out sooner or later, lol.
I’m tempted to brainstorm some ways I could financially benefit from this.
I don't think people will be going back to piracy anytime soon, at least not for modern games. Retro, piracy is the norm right now.
Too much malware risk and a pain to update and get dlc's.
I think this is going to turn a lot of people onto PC gaming. No longer locked down to one machine you play at a TV. Can play anywhere and your entire library follows you across generations. No more having to re buy.
Eneba/cdkeys etc make massive discounts possible and steam is a very pro gamer platform/company (so long as gabe Newell is still running things.)
This new thing where you can run PC games on android devices is a massive game changer.
I thought this was smut the world cup lol….whoops
Sony fumbling and Microsoft looking to scoop it up and head for the end zone.
Xbox has been the better platform really but Microsoft messed the message during Xbox One era
Yeah same thing Sony is doing now. Alienated fans before launch.
I saw some comments mentioning arcades. I'm glad that it's not that long of a drive to go to one of (if not THE) biggest arcades in the world: Galloping Ghost Arcade. I believe they have over 1000 games and everything is set on free play, you just pay $25 for the day and can play everything as much as you want. They also close pretty late at night. If I lived closer I might get an annual pass or maybe even a lifetime pass so I'd pay once and be able to go the rest of my life. They seem to really have a passion for this.
I am almost tempted to get an Xbox next for the disc drive... but then I have to start my collection all over and if the console after that doesn't have a disc drive I might regret it, so I might just go the route of PC to have at least some other options.
I'm just happy PlayStations are fairly easy to jailbreak.
I have an external blu-ray drive that I drag out on occasion for my laptop. I'll have to see if it works with my PS5 one of these days.
Yes I'm.surprised to see a small uptick in arcades returning. They are usually fairly small though.
So don’t buy a PlayStation. Xbox will still have disk drives if that matters to you.
@trysdet I've seen "adult arcades" in portland and Phoenix. Serving up microbrews and have arcade machines catering to Gen x nostalgia.
@wilderdude Plus they’re developing a new Fable game. Fable was for Xbox what God War is for PlayStation. If there’s anything that could get me back into gaming before I become a senior citizen, it would be Fable. Ahhhh, the nostalgia.