Game News 2.0

Kevin McCarthy (house speaker) was just on cnbc saying he found it very suspicious that there was a phone call between the FTC and CMA and as a result of that phone call the deal was blocked. He went as far to ask the question whether something illegal has taken place if they were somehow colluding together.

I can see a case for appeal building to be honest.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120527612#Comment_120527612

Kevin McCarthy is not someone to side with. The Republicans are cartoonish supervillains who'd literally rather let the planet burn rather than introduce a regulation that mildly inconveniences a megacorp.

Sephiroth_dude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120509363#Comment_120509363

I'd have killed for that tech module as well in school, I found Qbasic by complete accident back in the late 90's and that's what got me interested in coding, loved messing around with it and making small programs. After a long break from coding I got back into it a few years ago and now I wanna get into game programming but not sure where to start being honest.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120527677#Comment_120527677

If you want to get paid well and not treated like **** my advice is either don't, or make sure you are financially stable enough to start an indie.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120527673#Comment_120527673

Oh yeah I know that. But he has power as do the GOP. Despite the politics, there is a question to be answered about the FTC calling the CMA especially when it's followed up with a u-turn in sentiment and a rather left field reason for blocking the merger.

He did also say they want to see less regulation, not more. So there most definitely is politics involved. Also Don't forget the "Japanese" company trying to block the big American merger.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120528136#Comment_120528136

The Republicans are just interested in this because it sets a precedence for their mega corporation and oil corporations to carry out their own monopolistic practices.

McFly85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120528136#Comment_120528136

The idea that there’s something suspicious about regulatory agencies speaking to each other is pretty flimsy.

Its typical of the GOP these days to turn something routine into a huge issue without any evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120528245#Comment_120528245

The regulatory agencies and market regulations are too woke these days.

RedXIV

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120527677#Comment_120527677

As @Retr0gamer said, don't do it for a career, it's just too soul destroying and once you get a taste for enterprise software development, you'll realise how well you can be treated.

In saying that, I'm a big fan of tinkering with personal projects. Been looking at finally playing around with Unreal after years of being too intimidated by it and it's AAA studio standard reputation but if you want something to chuck together a game quickly you can polish for a bit, I'd stick with 2D games, maybe something like godot?

https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/asus-rog-ally

Steam Deck competitor launch May 11.

TitianGerm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120537800#Comment_120537800

If it's priced well I could be very tempted. I expect it to be 750+ here though.

sniper_samurai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120537848#Comment_120537848

There are 2 models, the one at $699 is using the Z1 Extreme and there is a lower model with an unknown price point using the Z1 cpu.

The Z1 is a 6 core Zen 4 cpu with 4 RDNA3 CUs, the Z1 Extreme ups that to 8 cores and 12CUs. The Z1 is expected to essentially be an underclocked Ryzen 9 7940HS.

It will be interesting to see full reviews once it is out. Especially battery life.

McFly85

The deck is so good not so much because of raw power, moreso the integration with steam and the work on listing compatibility, the automatic integration of custom control schemes from the community for older games, and that it’s very competitively priced.

Valve hit the sweet spot with a console experience for PC games.

No doubt other handheld PCs will have better raw specs but so much more is needed to make it worthwhile.

sniper_samurai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120543311#Comment_120543311

The desktop mode for the previous Windows handhelds is better than the Deck but they really need their own deployment of W11.

The lower model Ally should have slightly better performance than the Steamdeck but will most likely have significantly worse battery life due to the higher TPD ceiling.

It should be possible to install Steam OS onto this but don't expect a great experience.

Zero-Cool

Dredge devs release roadmap of content for the year ending with paid dlc. I still need to pick this up.

https://blog.playstation.com/2023/05/01/get-ready-to-dredge-more-eldritch-aberrations-from-the-deep/?sf266379237=1

Mr Crispy

There's a new Shadow Man game on the way, from Blowfish Games. I remember Valiant Comics announcing plans to bring more of their characters to games a few years back and at the time Blowfish were supposed to be working on a Bloodshot game. Don't know if that's still happening as well, or has been shelved after the Vin Diesel movie did so badly. Anyway, here's the teaser. I don't know much about Blowfish and their output, but they better bring back Jaunty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOmky34JgZ8

recyclops

So gamestop are, shame for bricks and mortar users and those who trade. be interesting to see what happens to ps vr now

https://twitter.com/GameStopIE/status/1654153999988211712?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Grumpypants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120555156#Comment_120555156

90 cent off Funkos!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120555218#Comment_120555218

This sums up gamestop. The amount of times I've gone in with money burning a hole in my pocket itching to buy something, anything, only to walk away empty handed because there was just nothing worth buying.

I even tried to buy a Series X off them. I had €500 cash in my hand and was going to spend it there and then and they refused. Not because they didn't have any stock, they told me they had a bunch of them in the stock room. It was because they were all on order. Seriously, they kept nothing, not a single one reserved for walk ins. The next day I got a phone call, they had a cancellation and was I still interested. No ****? A cancellation on an xbox pre-order? You must be sh!tting me! But by then I had already ordered direct from Microsoft.

I also went into one of the closing down sales and it was just one shelf in the corner with Funkos nobody wanted for 10% off. There was literally nothing I wanted to buy so I thought I'd chance my arm and asked them if I could buy the poster above the door. They wouldn't sell me that either.

Long story short, I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did.

Also, somebody got the poster, it was still there long after they were gone so they didn't take it with them. I'll bet you anything the new proprietors either just took it for free or chucked it in the bin.

Grumpypants

Pricing was very off putting. Like you I had zero interest in browsing the store. Unless they had a silly trade in offer going on hardware I wasn't ever in there.

recyclops

That's it unless you were going in and trading you'd never buy a thing off them. Never liked how they would usually bundle up consoles with controllers etc. I got burnt by the dun laoghaire shop with the 360 launch with that.

super_furry

Stuck my head in one on the way home when I saw the closing down sale sign. 10% off is the extent of it and everything they have is still cheaper in Smyths.

CatInABox

They really needed to look at what the Waterstones CEO did to turn that company around, but were just to caught up in the corporate sphere to contemplate it. What that guy did was to make every Waterstones store into what was essentially an independent store, staffed with knowledgable people who love books. Instead of head office making deals with publishers so that stores had to display X book in Y position, they let the staff decide what went where, etc. Without the need to tell stores what to do, it allowed him to slash the corporate head office staff instead of the retail workers.

Turned it around completely, a company that was on the ropes is now expanding again, so much so that he got headhunted by Barnes & Noble in the US, and has turned that company around too, while still being CEO of Waterstones.

Too late now I think, and a somewhat different market dynamic, but yeah, I think it's finished, and they'll keep losing their way

Retr0gamer

I'm out in the relative sticks that is Wexford now and was looking for a physical store to get Zelda on launch day since the local gamestops closed and argos. There's really nowhere other than Smyths and it's over three hour round trip to the nearest one.

RedXIV

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120557879#Comment_120557879

This guy occasionally gets new releases in, may be a bit closer to you? -> https://theretrogamingstore.com/

But as someone moving from Dub to Gorey in the next few weeks (hopefully) I understand your pain, smyths carrickmines is likely to be the nearest place to pick up a decent game

Exclamation Marc

Gamestop were great for trade-ins, particularly for some of their console trade in deals which were incredible at times. Game trade-ins were similarly very very good.

Outisde of that, new game prices were awful (always €10 more expensive for games than Smyths) and second hand game prices were awful (frequently only €5 less than a new copy).

I will miss them for the trade ins but they never really adjusted for the new age.

Zero-Cool

Yeah, was hoping to trade my ps5 on for the pro when it's out bit more it's whatever cex will give or the wild west of Adverts.

TitianGerm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120557879#Comment_120557879

Ken Black in Wexford town or Argos isn't closed until June?

Retr0gamer

Wexford town is still a bit of a trek. Dublin would be closer.