Game designer examines games' cultural impact, BioShock's shortcomings and other design pitfalls in second MIGS keynote.
In the second keynote at the Montreal Game Summit, games designer Jonathan Blow dissected modern game design and offered up thoughts on the future of the games medium - warning that "designers lack discernment" and are in danger of offering up experiences only akin to a McDonald's meal.
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes the next Xbox console might be already dead due to Microsoft embracing Game Pass at $30.
You know the world is f’d up when Michael Pachter has given up cheerleading Xbox.
Wouldn't it be the case of Pachter finally agreeing with parts of us rather than we agreeing with him?
I remember vividly that back in the day when GP was introduced and shaped further, many of us were saying that it's a great service on one hand. But were also already skeptical, too, as to how Microsoft would be able to keep the service running financially in the future.
Or/and how it would affect studios and game development in general.
As of March 2026, I think we have the answers some of us anticipated back then, when it was still Pachter who had forecasted «100 million subscribers».
Likely the next Xbox will have a premium price tag so they have some profit margin on the low numbers they sell. We all know that the bulk of revenue will come from 3rd party sales on other devices and perhaps some from game pass.
And even Gamepass flopped. The end goal of Gamepass was to be hegemonic, to kill game purcahses with subscriptions. But that never happened. Game sales are still thriving, Gamepass' subscriber count has stalled, it's costly for MS and studios and its price is increasing.
The purchase of Activision allows them to hide Gamepass' failure. Not suprising that gamepass was removed from Nadella yearly bonus, they knew they would never hit the targets.
Nintendo announced Friday that several of its long-time partners, including DeNA, will sell off some ¥300 billion in company shares.
Digital intelligence and analytics firm Sensor Tower has released its State of Gaming 2026 report, revealing flat growth in mobile game revenue, double-digit growth for PC and console gaming, and another record year for PC, with more games sold on Steam than ever before.
size of that kid!!!!!, funny article
bioshocks shortcomings? did i miss something their, i thought bioshock was great.
i see why they are so popular in the US then.
Hmm the truth does hurt sometimes but I'm sure nobody listen to him while he was talking because he was basically saying good job on the games guys but really do better.
He wasn't saying that Bioshock sucked he was saying that 2k gave all of us this illusion of personal struggle and all it gave us was the ability to headshot someone.
He certainly is an idealist though what he's trying to get games to become won't happen for 20+ years. Gaming Industry is quickly becoming about what sells even if 7 other similar games are coming out that same month.
The gaming industry is like the movie industry: 95% is utter crap, but there's some good stuff if you know where to look.
And sorry, but it will always be like that, just like the movie industry, book industry, etc, will keep beying like that.