It’s like Snap has an update.
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Stumbled upon this:
https://x.com/nyc_prophet/status/1860078819924926560?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
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Did you completely miss that whole live stream about ihop and the Xbox marketing push with them haha
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No I am aware of it. Just thought how neat it is in person instead of commercial.
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Last Thursday and Friday we had snow and it was cold, like 1 degrees or so.
Today it’s going to be 16 degrees and tomorrow too. Wtf is going on? Just walked the dog and yep, the air clearly is a lot warmer, wtf is going on? This is far from normal.
Think Storm Bert, it’s probably pushed higher temperatures your way as it’s currently over us - 2.5cm of rain due today and really high winds, I’ve spent the morning repairing fences and walking then drying the dogs as it’s been torrential lol
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Climate change baby.
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FFS I was quite enjoying reading about Stalker 2 and how it’s tough with the player and a bit rough - then when discussing fears for the future this randomly gets dropped in:
“and the monopoly of Microsoft—a publisher whose absurd expectations have already killed off some incredibly talented and successful development teams, even as it continues to invest in the same old tired stuff from the likes of Bethesda and Blizzard.”
WTF?! I notice he doesn’t talk about other bigger companies like Tencent, or that Rockstar treats PCs like an afterthought they can rip off later, or that Square are well known to have the most absurd expectations.
This kind of drive by shit is why I’ve stopped subs to nearly all gaming media… Twats
Source (not that I want to give them clicks):
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Microsoft is a monopoly again?
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Apparently so lol - if they were on about operating systems or office software I could at least tend to agree, but gaming?
If they were they’d be able to make Xbox the dominant console by far, or have the dominant game distribution platform on PC by strangling their competitors - which they don’t do and couldn’t do
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No mention of the famous biggest flop of the year and the fastest shutdown of a studio…
Man, it must be nice being other companies in the industry because most (all) of them just do all the shit that sucks in capitalism but at the end of day they can rest assured because really only one of them will get scrutiny, MS.
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That would make a lot of sense yeah. Man I was enjoying the snow so much, my dog too. I’m very fine with colder temperatures too, it’s normal. Let’s see if we’re gonna get a normal winter at all, sigh.
PC gamer as actual magazine was fine back in the day but boy have they become utter garbage online for a good while now. It’s best ignored.
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PCGamer is very silly these days sadly.
It does take a certain lack of self awareness to complain about investing in tired BGS and closing exciting Arkane Austin when more people played Starfield yesterday on Steam at the same time than Redfalls peak CCU. Would be nice if these folks could stop speaking for the industry and instead embrace speaking for themselves.
ETA: Redfall is good to be clear, it just very obviously was a commercial flop that they couldnt turn around even after a year.
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Agreed, and they’re a bit hypocritical when even the slightest bit of Elder Scrolls 6 news they do a hundred articles on it - same for WoW.
Not bad for “tired” franchises and studios…
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Admittedly i’ve not read the article and i’m not going to bother but out of interest, i wonder if the irony is lost on them just how much help the devs said Microsoft gave them when it came to Stalker’s development.
It’s beyond a joke now but it’s amazing the amount of strays Microsoft and Xbox catch from the media. Even in an article where they probably should be mentioned in a positive light…they still get mentioned negatively 
Sad journalism for the most part these days in games is about clicks. I’d even say the only reason Jason is such a “revered” journalist is because he’s almost like a big fish in a small pond - i.e. there’s not exactly a long list of well known gaming journalists these days.
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Didn’t PCGamer themselves tear Redfall apart? And then he’s say MS closed talented and successful studios? Lying is so easy. Those studios were not successful since last-gen, only continued to make games because Bethesda actually cared enough to keep them, but no, Bethesda instead got blamed for tryin to make some money with gaas games to stay frickin alive, and media were not even the bit forgiving of Prey on release and it hurt it and Arkans Austin’s chances of making another imm-sim. These people expect companies to just keep things alive because they’re good never mind if no one’s buying them and they’re on net loss, and they never stop and ask themselves how their coverage of stuff influences people’s buying games or not.
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Xbox Most Played Games in USofA:
MSFS2024 ranked at #17. In the word of HHH, if I crash knowing I have too many people, I’m good.
Stalker 2 ranked at #19. Nice. Old school gaming is back!
Genshin Impact ranked at #23. It’s #1 in Free Games. Xbox was right to get this on the platform.
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A few tidbits -
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Why are you guys still going to all these websites that do nothing but shit on Microsoft and Xbox? What’s the point? They’re not changing. You’re just wasting your time which could be better spent playing games.
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Stalker 2 has it’s issues but GSC deserves some slack because they weren’t exactly developing the game in a perfect scenario. It’s amazing they were even able to release the game. And they’re already patching it less than a week after release and will continue to do so which will make the game better. I played Stalker 2 for about an hour and the only technical issue I had was the right analog stick drifting without me even touching it. I did drop and uninstall the game because holy crap, people weren’t joking when they said it’s very heavy on survival elements. I was expecting a little more hardcore than Metro but it’s way beyond Metro. I was bleeding after every enemy encounter, then I had to watch my weight limit and then im pretty sure it told me I had to eat/drink. I was like, im out. I don’t have the patience for all of that. lol. I do hope that those who are playing the game enjoy it and that GSC continues to improve the game itself because the foundation is easily there.
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I don’t disagree but it’s hard not comment when they come by. I don’t visit any and avoid them as much as possible, my block list is full, but the hot and weird takes always make their way around it seems 
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I don’t do that myself, not for videogames, but it’s important to have a general idea on what the media is talking about instead living in our own bubble. The reason being is that this media is incredibly influential and will end up affecting us at the end of the day.
I volunteer with a media watch org dealing with racism and politics. We leverage pretty expensive tools to scour newspapers for coverage to analyze. The reality is that, whether we like it or not, the media shapes public opinion. My handle “nrXic” even touches on the concept that the media even affects our own self perception. Anyways, we find problematic articles and ask other volunteers to write letters to address such articles that carry harmful misinformation and sometimes disinformation.
For me, that is a topic far more important than video games but I can understand if people have a general interest in how the Xbox is being portrayed. Especially when the console is getting outsold by a great degree and the future of which is being questioned. Not to say that we have anything to worry about but if this was any other company they would have jumped out of the market a long time ago. (Also, I’m not saying this is the only issue Xbox has, many of its issues are self-inflicted)
PC Gamer is a pretty storied outlet. It’s as long running as they come. Secondly, with Xbox trying to become more synonymous with Windows gaming, it’s extremely relevant to the Xbox brand now (this wasn’t the case 10 years ago). So coverage from the outlet matters a lot.
As someone who grew up in the heyday of gaming print media, I saw how fanboyism and bias negatively affected the perception of consoles like the Sega Dreamcast. I distinctly remember being in college and taking the bus home and seeing some of my former high school classmates and they knew that I had the Japanese Dreamcast imported (my friend wrote an article in the city paper about me owning one) and they were telling me that GamePro said that the PlayStation 2 was way better. And this was a full 2 years before the PlayStation 2 would ever come out in the US. And at this point the Dreamcast was only out in Japan and it would take another year for it to hit the US. But they already had their minds made up about which console to buy because Game Pro told them that.
I’m seeing the exact same sentiment today in the claim that there is no point in even considering an Xbox.
So I don’t blame people for being interested in this topic and being concerned. I do think that many in the legacy gaming media are acting in bad faith. I think it is hurting the industry. I also think it should be called out. We seem to call out bad reporting in all other news media, from politics to entertainment and I wish someone did the same with gaming media.
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