Nowadays, 6. As a kid, 9, 11 or 12.

Because they can release a game sooner and at a lower quality. In fact a day one patch is standard for nearly every game nowadays.

Before being patchable games were definitely still released with bugs, but it was rare for them to be truly game breaking.

They want the companies that make the games to release patches for any bugs that are discovered

Technically someone who buys a game just wants it to work. Many generations of games were released without the ability to patch them after release. Games had a higher quality to them before being released.

While I won’t disagree that there is a benefit of this feature for consumers, the larger benefit it to the company creating the game.

Just to be fair, the Nintendo Switch 2 does support “Game Key Card” games. Such that you still must download the game and use the card to authenticate your game.

However there are zero first party* Nintendo games that are “Game Key Card” games. If you buy Mario or Zelda you do get the game on the card.

I do expect that will change in the future and follow the trend Sony is taking to be 100% digital. So you’re right to be concerned that they are heading in the same direction.in fact with Sony already heading that direction it’s even more certain.

*(Pokemon, which feels like a first party and Nintendo owns a large portion of, is technically third party.)

I looked it up, since I wasn’t sure, it looks like online launched about two weeks after the single player game. But it also was console exclusive for two years. When it came out for PC is when it actually began to catch my attention, and it launched on PC as both GTA5 and Online.

So that’s probably where my confusion came from. I already hadn’t played GTA4 so it wasn’t high on my list to investigate further.

It’s funny I looked into GTA4 and GTA5 support on the Steam Deck. GTA4 says playable and online reviews say it works well. GTA5 says unsupported but online reviews say it also works great, but you can’t play it online. So both are options for me.

The stories and single player is definitely what interests me, so maybe someday.

No, but also I was never going to buy GTA6.

I loved GTA3, Vice City & San Andreas. Played for hundreds of hours. I played GTA4 for a few hours but it never really clicked the same. I also played Saints Row 2 and Saints Row 3, which I really enjoyed and scratched that same itch (those games eventually went a little over the top, but I still had fun.)

When GTA5 came out all I ever heard about it was it being “online” which turned me off of the series completely. I think I later understood that there is a single player component and an online component, but by then I didn’t really care.

If anything I’m likely to try revisiting GTA4 this year. Maybe.

A bottle garden can also be sealed.

I have a degree in Internet oddities if that counts. I know bottle gardens are a thing, where you have a sustaining ecosystem of plants inside a bottle. Could you make them small spheres instead? Maybe?

GTA5 on Steam says it requires 105GB. It’s not unreasonable to think that GTA6 would take more than 128GB.

Of course with compression (at the cost of longer load times) and/or lower quality textures, I would bet you could make it fit.

I also seem to recall some disk based games in the past containing a subset of the full game. Although at that point you don’t really “win” by having it on disk of isn’t the full game.

Or you could do multiple disks.

Ok, you’re the boss peanut butter. You tell me what to do.

We don’t control the sheriff’s budget. We give him X number of dollars, he does with it what he wishes.

Ok then, I’d like to open discussion about the sheriff’s budget. Time to make some cuts.

That’s my hope too. Basically you can’t pretend to use real people if someone would reasonably think they are real people.

But I hope they’ve worded it well.

There are specific carve outs listed in the law to exempt ads for movies, television shows, streaming content, video games and other works that feature synthetic performers in the entire work.

That seems like a pretty big carve out.

I don’t think that would change anything. The valuable part is the collected data. Even if the way that data is collected is open source or even if the data itself is open source, the issue is misusing that data.

Super Mario 64 DS has new levels & you start the game as Yoshi. It’s a reimagining.

Ocarina of Time 3D just has some QoL changes like making the iron boots an item (and different graphics).

“Switch 2 Remake” to clarify from the “3DS Remake”.

This is why it’s important to isolate your children from life as you speedrun them through YOUR childhood first. You’re not just giving your kids one good life, but two bad ones!

2019 Yahoo

My immediate thought, there is no way Yahoo! Screen survived into 2019.

I looked it up and Yahoo! Screen (which featured Community season 6) was shutdown in January 2016. But Yahoo! View launched in late 2016 (as a Hulu-like replacement), and that did shutter in mid 2019.

So Yahoo! was already dead, but it also died for real in 2019.

It’s important to differentiate between being a monopoly, and engaging in monopolistic behavior.

Valve, to the best of my knowledge, isn’t doing anything that prevents or stifles competition. As a monopoly it’s important to investigate them from time to time to ensure this remains true. But if they’re just putting out the best product and everyone is choosing to use them, then it’s not really a problem.