No. It's simply a choice. Sweeney didn't have to restrict his options at all. I think it was a mistake.
How is it extortion? If anything, I think Sweeney blundered here. If Valve actually take him up on his offer, then he has to either drop the aggressive competition, or take back what he said--which would make him a liar. He planted himself on the hot seat for no good reason.
Terrorists don't pay you millions to denounce the Great Satan.
Yeah, that malicious disinformation has done its damage. If you can't beat them in the marketplace, destroy their reputation.
They're still a monopoly, which means they hold all the cards and dictate all the terms. That's never good for anyone except the monopoly. Yeah, I know there are other services; but none of them is actively trying to eat into the big pie that Steam has hogged all to itself. Epic is the first to issue a strong direct challenge.
And Steam has all the belligerent, irrational dittoheads on their side too. Yeah, definitely a tough nut to crack.
Amazing how competition works, isn't it? When you're undisputed top dog, you don't have to do anything outside your comfort zone--no improvements, no innovations, no better deals. Ask Intel how they feel about Ryzen right now? Suddenly, they're forced to up their game. So is "Pappa Gabe".
Last I heard, hostages aren't hired to the tune of millions of dollars.
It is common practice for a big business to undercut smaller ones, drive them out of business, then jack prices back up to more than make up the initial loss of profits. Here, Sweeney is tempting fate by asking for precisely this. I think it was a dumb move. He didn't have to promise Valve, or any of us, anything. Now he's on the hook.
No, don't do that. What if they actually take you up on the challenge? Are you really going to stop competing for store-exclusive releases? Valve can lower their fees, marginalize the Epic store, then once you're not in strong-enough financial shape to eat into their market share, go right back to charging what they were before. Everyone loses, except them, of course.
I wasn't expecting a pdf, in good English to boot. Thanks for posting this detailed look at Nintendo's financials. Those guys are doing really well right now.
No, they haven't. They've narrowed the player base for their games, and they've missed out on me buying them. That's about it.
Not true. Almost all software comes in digital form these days. The difference here is that one company, Sony, controls your access to it. But on open platforms, once you have the software (game or otherwise), the seller, developer or platform creator can't take it away from you. The legalese may say it's a use license (as it also does on physical game releases), but we have full possession of it--so morally, ethically, and in practice, it belongs to us.
". . . what the hell is hate speech? "
That's exactly the sticking point. Hate speech is whatever the political factions currently ruling the roost say it is. "Hate speech" is in fact a made-up term of recent vintage. It does not appear in the Constitution, and you will see no mention of it in anything published in the 20th-century or before. It is a dangerous avenue to censorship, since it isn't restricted to a set of few words, but can be i...
It may be a dumb article. (Don't know; haven't read it.) But how is a piece about Xbox support not game-related?
They already do that as a matter of course. In Asia, much of the game market has long been illicit. I don't think they even see piracy as an immoral act. It's just what they have to do to get what they want--and now, even more so.
That's more than a little bit different. You can choose another gaming platform if you don't like Sony's restrictions. In China, you have no (legal) choice.
I think this is, as someone else called it, a toe in the water. If this thing sells in large quantities, at the same price as the normal S console, then Microsoft will know that a good percentage of their market doesn't give two whits about discs. If so, they'll pursue that even more vigorously. If not, they'll drop the price to make it more attractive, and see if then enough people will be willing to surrender physical games releases. I think they're pushing an agenda, an...
Unsubstantiated fear mongering. I could say you work for the Chinese government, and have as much proof of it as you do about your claim.
Who says the entire community doesn't want this? There is always a contingent of loudmouths that doesn't want an ounce of change in their world. Most of us will go where prices are best, or where the games get released.
You had it right at first. None of these companies are there to support us. They're there to make money. So what we need to do is patronize the companies that provide the best deals for us. The more of them, the better our choices.