In the pre NES days, marathon gaming sessions were tough on a body. No pause button, you see. No way to freeze your game in time while answering your body's unrelenting needs and functions... so to speak. When the Atari 5200 was released as an upgrade to the 2600, one of the major system features was the first ever "pause". This feature was carried over to Atari's next opus; the 7800. I remember being excited since the 7800 also played all of those 2600 classics, but alas... Only newer 7800 games programmed to take advantage of the pause worked. 2600 endurance gluttons still had to save up free lives and run full speed to the bathroom during a gaming session.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
On Amazon, you can't get an RTX 4090 for less than this one from Gigabyte, which now offers great value after an eye-catching April deal.
If you're like me then you started gaming on the Atari 2600 back when gamers were gamers and men were men"
Indeed, I remember when people thought only nerds played video games. Today, someone called me a poser cause I supposedly dont own Fable 1, or even played it and called me a poser. LOL! If being a gamer is cool now, then Im the LL Cool J of gaming. Hahahaha!