Quoting: dosWhy does pocket money like this grant Microsoft so much PR fuss? There are companies out there that fund GNOME development with multiplies of that amount *each month*.

It reminds me of them investing money in competitors in the past in order to show that they really truly weren't a monopoly honest, so if I had to guess, maybe it's somehow related to the antitrust issues of old?

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Quoting: slaapliedjeAs I grew up on the Ultima series, and never really had a NES, I have not played any of the Final Fantasy games. Even during that era I had a Sega Master System, so Phantasy Star was what I played (though I never did finish it).

If you're from a PAL region, Final Fantasy never came here until 7 anyway.

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It's got a 10% launch discount until June 23rd, too, which makes it even better!

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Just got a Steam e-mail to confirm that the game is now out. Looks like there's a 10%-off launch offer too, leaving it at £20.24 until June 23rd, instead of the usual £22.49.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyHeh. Technically, that would be amazing assonance.
Anyhow, I do my alliteration in classic Old English poetry style, where you alliterate the first syllable with the next stressed syllable: Packing . . . pal.

... Is it bad that the "pal" part made me read your entire post in the style of Detective Gumshoe from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney?

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyHuh. Where does Digimon fit into this history?

As eldaking notes, it started off as a "For Boys"-labelled equivalent to the more neutral Tamagotchi (both are by Bandai, and the first Digimon play out very similarly to the first Tamagotchis), with the addition of two metal contacts on the top of the device so that they could connect and battle. Obviously this was a bit of a response to the then-new-in-Japan Pokemon, which pre-dated Digimon, too. Digimon's later TV adaptation ended up outshining the original virtual pets (and overtaking the early lore, which the PlayStation Digimon World games were tied to, though I gather that they may have reconnected it all later on), and it then went as eldaking described, with all the gadgets.

Virtual pets have been one of my favourite game-genres since their prototypical era with Activision's Little Computer People for the Commodore 64, so I actually have some of these little guys sitting on my desk right now.

Quoting: eldakingApparently they even tried smartwatches and smartphones with later entries, though I wasn't really following digimon by then.

There's currently a phone-app-connected fitness-band called the "Digimon Vital Bracelet" as well, which is very recent, though it's remained Japan-only thus far.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyPacking some gorgeous alliteration there, pal.

Amazing alliteration, surely?

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Oh this looks fab. Rocket League being bought up by Epic left a gap, and though this isn't the same thing, for me the mechanics being broadly similar is enough, so I'm really looking forward to seeing more about this one.

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Quoting: eldakingApparently "retro physical media + monsters" is an entire sub-genre of pokelikes, with Cassette Beasts, Floppy Knights, and Disc Creatures.

Monster Rancher sort of did this when CDs were the norm, too - in the game you generated creatures by having the game read physical music CDs, and the later television adaptation therefore depicted them as being retrieved from stone artifacts that resembled optical-discs. Sadly but understandably, the modern reissues of these games replace the scanning of physical discs with a searchable online music-CD database, instead.

This was one of the earliest iterations of the "summoning beasts from physical media" idea (which always felt like it had its roots in that time when the general public's mindset about computers was that they were almost "magical"), though I don't know if it was the first.

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Adorable! And please tell me that they'll be making merch based on this game - I neeeeeed one of these bunnies in my collection of plush gaming/computing characters!

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Quoting: shorbergThe Microsoft Monopoly's propaganda machine is stronk.

That, or a lot of folks just think that what came on the machine is all there is, and that spreads like calling all vacuum-cleaners "a hoover" and similar.

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