Comments 382

Re: Physical Game Sales Took A Nosedive In The UK Last Year

PKDuckman

Sadly most of the physical Switch games I buy are AAA first party titles like TOTK, which works out of the box and require very little updates. What annoys me are:

1) Major publishers going the cheap route by using the smallest cards and expecting the user to download the rest. For instance, with the latest updates, Monster Hunter Rise requires another 10 GBs of downloads.

2) Specialist publishers like LRG cheapening out on their customers and thriving on artificial scarcity. Often I have to pay double the price for a physical copy of a game I like compared to the eshop, and then I have to wait for deliveries which often goes unfulfilled.

Re: Tencent Labeled A "Chinese Military Company" By US Government

PKDuckman

@Ashunera84 Lots of countries in the world have protectionist economies, not just China. France has quotas on foreign films imported into the country for instance.

As for American companies, you don't think that they engage in their own propaganda, like virtue signalling about being inclusive of minorities yet it's still the same people controlling from the top?

Tencent's rapid expansion is shady and deserves questioning, but the way the US government acts shows it's tied with the incoming Trump government's xenophobia. They're not concerned about corporate responsibility and good governance, seeing the amount of bailouts and lobbyists in Washington.

Re: Opinion: Nightdive Studios Had Its Best, Most Prolific Year Yet In 2024

PKDuckman

@Grail_Quest It's worth noting that the remaster is actually based on the PC version which has completely different, more open levels, although you can play with 3DO monsters and weapon models. The 3DO version has more enclosed maze levels more akin to Wolfenstein 3D, and I hope that version gets added to the remaster eventually.

Re: Nintendo Switch Online Services Will End In China In 2026

PKDuckman

@SearchingS The eshop wasn't banned at all. The store is closing because it's not making money due to its paltry selection of less than 100 games, with Pokemon Let's Go being released this month.

https://www.nintendoswitch.com.cn/software

The Switch itself is rather popular as an import or hacked device, and as a result most third party developers simply didn't bother to put their games on the Chinese eshop.

Re: Nintendo Switch Online Services Will End In China In 2026

PKDuckman

@axelhander Most of the games that are supposedly banned weren't even considered for an official release to begin with, largely due to the large spread of piracy there. There's a reason why most popular games there are PC, F2P MMO games, which are pretty much the only means for developers to make money.

Re: The Entire Tales Of Kenzera: Zau Team Has Been Put On Redundancy Notice

PKDuckman

@jowy_sw Yep the lists are just laughable at the moment. One I saw actually claimed that Civ 6 is woke because it includes female historical leaders and non-European civilizations which the writers claim are "historically insignificant". And there's the can of worms know as transvestigation, where even fictional female characters like Lara Croft from the upcoming animation are supposedly given masculine features.

Re: The Entire Tales Of Kenzera: Zau Team Has Been Put On Redundancy Notice

PKDuckman

@Tobiaku

*Claims that there is no conspiracy theory
*Uncritically cites the Gamergate mouthpiece Niche Gamer

You are engaging in what is essentially cherry picking. You deliberately exclude Alan Wake 2 and GOW Ragnarok because don't fit your "go woke, go broke" narrative, with both being critically acclaimed and sold well. And then you falsely blamed SBI for Suicide Squad flopping, even though the biggest criticism against that game is its reliance upon microtransactions despite being a single player game, something that is heavily criticized even by the likes of Jim Sterling. Concord flopped because frankly it was a paid hero shooter when its competitors like Overwatch 2 are free to play. And even Overwatch 2 has its fair share of LGBT characters, but of course since it's still widely played it goes against the SBI conspiracy narrative.

Re: The Entire Tales Of Kenzera: Zau Team Has Been Put On Redundancy Notice

PKDuckman

@Tobiaku Yawn more conspiracy theories and half truths. SBI is simply a consultancy agency which are a dime a dozen. Plenty of multinational companies hire them as some sort of image enhancing exercise, to pretend that they care about social justice, but in the background it's the same old corporate structure.

Yet according to chuds, SBI is some sort of shadowy conspiracy organization trying to take over gaming and brainwash everyone, the gaming equivalent of George Soros. Yet there is nothing that suggests that SBI is responsible for gameplay changes, nor that all of their suggestions are implemented 100%. I've seen the same people blaming SBI for Suicide Squad's microtransactions, which was 100% WB's doing. And there are plenty of games that SBI consulted in that came out quite successful, like Alan Wake 2 and GOW Ragnarok, so there goes the notion that the majority of gamers give a damn about SBI.

Re: The Entire Tales Of Kenzera: Zau Team Has Been Put On Redundancy Notice

PKDuckman

@Anguspuss Ahh so do you take everything the chuds claim seriously? What's so preachy about the game? The same people crying about SBI/DEI also think that a game is "woke" simply by having a POC or an unattractive woman as a protagonist.

Zau is based on Bantu mythology and set in Africa. What do you expect the protagonist to look like?

Re: Soapbox: Sony's Insane PS5 Pro Price Highlights The Delicate Balance Nintendo Must Strike With 'Switch 2'

PKDuckman

Sony's arrogance knows no bounds. Remember when everyone was sucking up to them after E3 2013? They responded by charging for online, blocking crossplay, and censoring games. And even this year they spent millions on that flop Concord and barely marketed Astro Bot, and even screwed with their one success Helldivers 2 with the forced PSN requirement.

Sony is never a consumer-friendly company.