When someone says that they are going to play a multiplayer game, it is automatically assumed that person is going to play online. Whether it is with friends or complete strangers often times multiplayer is played on a server. Local multiplayer has been a big part of my life growing up with a Nintendo 64, and for some of the older gamers reading this it was probably a big part of your childhood too.
For Southeast Asia, new price changes.
Prices effective starting May 1st, 2026.
Replies(1)Looks like PlayStation took a hit with Marathon and is now quietly adjusting prices worldwide to recover the losses
Lets be honest raising prices doesn't do that when no one's buying it. I imagine the profit it greater selling 10 times more at a lower price
LMFAO Your comment alone says a lot more about you than anything else. When has one game not selling 10 million copies made a company raise the prices of their console? Then Xbox would be costing $5000 by now lol. You remind of the crazy drug addicts on the street rambling on about conspiracies. xD You sure you don't need a hug, buddy?
The price increases are due to the RAM demand associated with AI and the US-Iran war. You can look to any business news website and local news to see that. Heck, even the 2026 Asus Zenbook Duo I've been eyeing has faced delays and has had a price increase of $400; that laptop has two specs. Asus is doing a staggered release with per-orders for the lower spec now and shipping in May and pre-orders for the higher spec that I'm eyeing starting in June. Basically, all computer manufactures are affected. It'll most likely start affecting smart phones too if it hasn't already. I can't remember the last time any major console maker (Nintendo, Sony, Sega, etc) increased the price of their console mid cycle outside of Microsoft just to make more profit.
Xbox boss Asha Sharma has discussed how component shortages will impact the company's plans for Project Helix.
This kind of proves this is an after thought product, most products like this are in r&d 5 years before they start mass producing. So they typically have the cost of components and things worked out long before assembly starts.
This is an assumption still, but I wouldn’t be surprised if project helix is similar to Scalebound,perfect dark and sod3. They had an idea but no actual execution other than concept stage. Being impacted by the ram shortage likely would also put this device 3-4 years out.
I’m not even sure MS has that endurance with Xbox yet
I mean.... what?
We're at a point that Samsung wont even provide their own phone department ram because they can sell it at higher prices to 3rd parties (AI). Its more profitable to sell the ram than make their own devices with it.
You think because R&D starts 5 years ago the 3rd party component manufacturers will honour that price? They'll sell it to whomever is paying the most today, not some gentlemens agreement they made years ago. AI farms will buy more volume at higher prices than any console manufacturer will. It'll be the same for Playstation.
Helix is going to be stupidly expensive
Instead of leaning into smarter upscaling techniques they're brute forcing hardware that will cost them dearly and it remains to be seen if it's genuinely going to provide a meaningful differential
I know in the oc.doace people like to brag about not using frame gen or dlss to get to high on a game but for the majority of players they happily use those technologies without a second thought
That's going to be ps6 vs Helix
It's called systematic inflationary. Yes we get it Microsoft, keep raising in the name ofall kinds of stuffs
Honestly if there was thing I learned from this generation is that new consoles arnt day one anymore.
I can wait 1-3 years.
Another important lesson from this generation: while Nintendo showed us that prices don't necessarily need to ever drop, we've now learned that waiting 1-3 years does carry some risk that prices increase. This generation is just bizarre in all the wrong ways.
The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.
Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.
Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.
In an exclusive interview with Game File, new(ish) Xbox boss Asha Sharma and Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty explain their vision for Microsoft’s gaming division
A good start would be to release games to go with the console. My Xbox Series X has gathered dust virtually from launch. My advice would be to ditch a next console and release games on PC, PlayStation and Switch. Another idea would be a hybrid console based on Xbox Series X tech and go the same route as Nintendo. Another idea would be to pull out of gaming altogether. Plenty of options there.
The main reason a man got wiiu is because of local MP support
I absolutely agree with this article. It is a shame that there aren't more offline multi-player games out there on next gen. I picked up Knack and Rayman (besides my usual sports games of course)for that very reason. It would be nice to see reboots of multi-player games like Timesplitters on next gen.
Local multiplayer is something I enjoyed as a kid having 4 brothers and sisters who all played video games. Nothing like playing halo 1 together or old wrestling games.
Honestly I don't bother with it anymore ever since we grew up and even all my friends we all just get the same games and play. Only games I play local multiplayer in really is just my fighting games like injustice or tekken tag 2.
More games need local but I don't think i'll use it much
There are some multiplayer games out there. I'm not sure I agree entirely with the article. Thinking back, while many games did have 2-player multiplayer, I don't recall coming back to that many games then either. A handful of the best of them was enough. We'd take turns playing the others.
Games like Bomberman and Worms exist today as well, and there are some "new" franchises like Spelunky and Towerfall which seem to do very well on the multiplayer front. Games like Castlevania HD do very well in including both local and online multiplayer. I had loads of fun playing Trine and Trine 2 with my friends. Mario Kart 8 recently came out, and even Mario Kart 7 for the 3DS had great local (network) multiplayer. Even CoD: Ghosts has local split-screen.
You can still play some old games through eShop and PSN if you miss those. I think the old 2D platformer genre is not as prevalent today as it was back then. 3D platformers have not traditionally had multiplayer support, although some did battle modes, like Conker's Bad Fur Day.
While it certainly would be great to see all the games that could have local multiplayer implement it, there are various reasons to why it doesn't happen. There might be constraints on the hardware for games that would require split-screen, while others might simply not have been developed with multiplayer in mind.
local multiplayer was fun.
i remember playing def jam: fight for NY on the original xbox with friends.
good times.