Exactly. I think there are legitimate usages for this technology (eg voices for dynamic content, or when the original voice actor is dead or not available to voice again his/her characters). But everything should be done with the consent of the voice actors, and not in an attempt to replace the work that could be done by a voice actor in the first place.

It probably won’t happen, since money leads the way :/.

The difference is that developers in the past were much more involved in the games. Nowadays, they are just following instructions of a few people and their scope is extremely limited.

At the same time, if a game does not sell well, they are the first to be punished, not the ones who designed the game.

Moreover, the games are not designed only by passionate people. They have to think about DLCs at the beginning, deciding which part of the whole game must be cut and how to frustrate gamers just enough to buy them. It’s no more an add-on for a game that sold very well, or adding things that could not fit into the game at the time.

Ubisoft has also a structural issue because it optimized everything too much. All their games are similar, because it’s easier to use again and again the same game structure than trying new things. Their teams are built for developing such games. Sadly, when they try they generally fail (like the last Prince of Persia or Mario & Rabbids).

But as I said, it’s not the fault of the developers themselves, but the people managing them. And those have too many constraints from people who want to make as much money as possible. Bugs are acceptable, games should be filled a with DLCs from the start, and repeat the same formula for every game so that production cost can be as low as possible. And if it fails, it’s the developers’ fault who just followed orders, even he can’t have a say about the game.

Same for me. I wanted to upgrade from 3070 to 5080, but missed it. I was too afraid to wait for the 5070 TI release, so I instead bought one of the last 4070 Ti Super at MSRP.

I will stop trying to upgrade on day one. Just buy the previous gen a few months before the new one, and it will be perfectly fine.

I do not understand how such practice is still legal. No one care, and it is a plague in more and more fields (I really hope Nintendo will produce enough machines to avoid the PS5 launch fiasco which lasted 2 years).

I think it’s famous because it was first released on Dreamcast, and than released once again on GameCube, where there is not many JRPGs. Besides, the game is expensive nowadays.

If you see no problem when TOTK is playable on an emulator a few weeks before its official release, thanks to specific patches provided by some emulator developers behind a paywall, I cannot say anything else. For me it’s unethical to promote such thing when the console is still in activity.

I say « unethical » because even if it’s legal, it has the same negative impact as piracy, and that’s why I think it’s a problem. I have no problem with emulation when the console is « dead » (and I think it’s even necessary for preservation).

Nintendo would not be as aggressive if Switch emulation waited 10 years. Developing an emulator for a machine that they are still selling, running commercial games even better then their own system, and allowing to play new games that are not even released officially yet, I do not expect another outcome.

In addition to that, some people got paid for that. It’s a very different situation than any other emulator in my opinion.

Again, I am not against emulation, but the timing for Switch emulation is very bad and unethical. It’s not only about Nintendo, but also third party developers. A situation where Switch emulation is very easy (especially with all those handheld PCs) would greatly impact game sales. It won’t kill Nintendo of course, but third party on the system will just leave because they will not sell anymore (see what happened to the Nintendo DS because it was easy to pirate any game).

Exactly. I do not understand people defending this. An emulator playing games that are not even released, it’s a step too far. What’s the difference with piracy?

And I say this as someone using emulators on a regular basis for 15 years. Emulation is good (and necessary) for preserving video games, but the timing is important not to cross the (thin) line between « preservation » and « piracy ».

I got rid of most of my physical games, and built a lovely GameBoy & N64 collection. I consider those as goodies, expose them on shelves. Of course, I also use them and would be sad if they do not work anymore, but their value is not only linked to that. I don’t consider the monetary value the games have. I will never buy a game because it’s rare and expensive. I only collect games I love, and sometimes yes, I have to pay a high price, but it’s just because I have to deal with the system.

Exactly. As long as the games can bought (preferably physically, but at least digitally), I see no issue for this.

People should stop to keep their subscriptions when they do not use it. I subscribe to gamepass for 1 or 2 months, play all the games I am interested in, then stop it. If more people do that, the only way for Microsoft to keep subscribers is by improving its service to stay relevant.

Me and my family are all on Apple products since ~2014 (or even before). We never paid for iCloud. I opt in this year because (I) the 1st tier costs me 1€/month for 50Go and (II) it’s very convenient to get auto backup for the whole phone (except photos / videos, we are using a family plan with Google Drive for that).

But I admit that enabling iCloud by default and frequently showing a pop up because you are beyond the 5Go plan is pretty bad. But you can disable it at anytime, and there is no more pop up when you have done it.

It’s more complicated. Apple allows it, but apply a lot of fees so that it is really expensive (and probably not viable). If I remember correctly, you can propose your own store but you have to pay a fee for every download on the store (even for free apps).

I could be interested in Overcooked :).

For me it’s Taiko no Tatsujin 😅. I will never stop the subscription 🤣.

I think it’s much more difficult to find people to follow. I personally struggle a lot, and will likely either gave up the micro-blogging system or try another platform. It was great on Twitter before Musk bought it, but since I left, I have yet to find an alternative.

I do not think they should be afraid of Analogue. It’s not like they release a new machine in 2 weeks. Also, they much prefer to sell 1 machine per console rather than an all-in-one machine.

Regardless of what they have, as a consumer, the SuperSega looks like a vaporware. It’s a very ambitious project and we have almost nothing that confirms they are able to build such machine.

Analogue is also very bad when communicating, but they have a good-enough track record (at least hardware-wise, software is usually bare-bones at launch).

I am very excited. I am reading the comics at the moment, it’s a real pleasure to discover a new aspect of the licence I loved during my childhood. If they can keep up with what’s shown in the trailer, the game will be pretty fun :).

It’s great news because it will now be available in other countries which ban F2P games with « gacha » mechanics. I think I will give it a try in December (but I have to get some info on it first, I like Animal Crossing games but I have no idea how good this mobile version is).

I tried to replace Twitter by Mastodon but, in the end, I just left Twitter and don’t use Mastodon at all. The main reason I think is because the « onboarding » is painful. I never succeeded to find interesting people to follow. I faced many ghost accounts from people posting once a month or stopped a few years ago.

If you don’t find people by yourself, no one is going to see your posts and so, you won’t be able to find new people to follow by posting.

I don’t like what Twitter became, but the base principle of the algorithm (before it became X with the paid subscriptions) was working great for me. I was constantly adding new people to the mix, and removing inactive ones every month.

If I struggled this much with Mastodon, I am not surprised many people create an account and leave a few days / weeks later.

I do not disagree about the fact that people are free to say what they want. It’s just that, as a user appreciating Nintendo, I am facing very negative comments on most (if not all) subjects even when Nintendo is not doing anything (like my example above about a romhack). For some people, it seems like it’s not about expressing your opinion about the subject, but your opinion about Nintendo on any subject merely mentioning Nintendo.

And it’s like that for many companies (Nintendo is just one example). As a consequence, I do not participate at all (I am just reading the news, trying to avoid the comment section). It’s not very healthy, and I hardly believe people discovering the fediverse will stay long if most messages they see are hating comments about what they like.

I think it’s even more common among more general communities. But even niche communities like retrogaming can be like that.

Just to give a concrete example, I have seen a post about a pretty cool mod on Zelda ocarina of time where they integrated Pikmin, it has 50+ ups, and a single comment saying they can’t wait for Nintendo to shut it down. What’s the point ? And I see this more and more. It’s not the minority but the majority of the replies I see on such posts. It’s not healthy at all.