By acquiring CoD, Overwatch 2 and King's F2P, Microsoft actually just got worse than it was before.

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Quoting: devlandMacOS, iOS & Safari are the modern equivalent for Internet Explorer 6.

As much as I dislike modern Apple software, there is a fundamental difference between Safari & IE: the engine is FOSS and is used by many open source projects, whereas IE was an enemy of interoperability.

Quoting: M@GOidAFAIK Apple started the Metal API more or less the same time AMD released their Mantle API. When Vulkan appeared, they had already invested a lot in Metal, so they made the call to continue that path.

In the past they invested in Rave then OpenGL, yet they dropped all these. The main motivation for them is the convergence with iOS and tvOS, and forcing metal upon users and developers is a way of both reinforcing and taking advantage of the domination of smartphone gaming.

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Well for once I'm a bit more positive than others on this one, I'd gladly buy it when it's on sale.

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Quoting: poiuz

Quoting: omer666Good job fining Valve for region-locking, while Germany continues censoring games and Microsoft buying Activision is tolerated.

Only one of the three broke the law.

Germany does not censor games. Certain presentations are banned but that rarely happens (only 40 games - if the list is complete - were ever banned, 11 bans rescinded). Many games (but even that now rarely happens) were indexed which imposes major restrictions but technically it was still possible to buy the games. Publishers then censored games to allow a mainstream release. This happens in the US, too: e.g. movies are censored in production for an R rating & avoid NC-17. But unlike German releases this usually affects all releases.

You can't buy Postal Redux in Germany at all for example, even if you buy a legit key and try to activate it on Steam. But your statement is right: it doesn't break the law because it is precisely the law in Germany.
As to whether Microsoft is breaking the law or not, as far as we're dealing with antitrust laws or European competition law, that's quite debatable if you ask me. To see that it was problematic up until they got away with an agreement on game streaming is a bit confusing to say the least.
I am also not trying to compare the EU to the US, as the later is not a model to me either. I am french and I see EU doing stupid things sometimes, but they also do get many things right. That today's news got me thinking of these is not that far fetched, is it?

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Good job fining Valve for region-locking, while Germany continues censoring games and Microsoft buying Activision is tolerated.

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I bought it for my new rig with the upcoming DLC, but the controller icons and the fact some keys can't be remapped (especially troublesome for AZERTY keyboards like mine) outdid my patience quite quickly...
I installed 1.63 using the beta tab, edited the keyboard mapping file manually + in-game, and in the meantime I keep my fingers crossed for seeing an update fixing those things before the actual DLC release.

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Quoting: basedOh, another Microsoft studio

I thought studios bought by Microsoft were more about seeing their creators depart willingly, cf. Rare, Lionhead, Bungie...

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I'm a fan of Introversion Software, bought their full shareware catalogue back in the day (way before Steam on Linux.) Uplink more particularly holds a special place in my heart, and IMHO has never been dethroned as the best hacking videogame ever.

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: omer666

Quoting: LoftyHonestly AAA gaming is pretty much dead to me right now, it's not the Size of the games, the lacklustre optimisation, the exorbitant pricing models on unfinished releases with DLC being used as a patch, or the not actually owning it, or even the DRM anti-cheat spyware.. let alone the way these companies treat their staff. It's actually because most (not all) of these games frankly suck.

I agree. I'm looking into building a new rig soon and I was looking for a recent game to benchmark the whole stuff. Turns out there's no interesting title for me that's less than 2-3 years old. I'd want to try Cyberpunk 2077 now that it's less bug-heavy but turns out it's still 60 bucks and with the upcoming extension being quite pricey as well, I guess it's a no-go for me.

I slapped a 7900XT in my system after pulling out my 3080 RTX. Instantly enjoyed having just normal desktop stuff run smoother. Randomly(not really) Wayland started working in Debian as well. So, if you're currently running an nvidia card, upgrading just for some bug fixes in software and smoother desktop usage, the upgrade is worth it! One problem I had with the upgrade though; the 7900XT was vastly larger than the 3080 RTX. Funny enough, the PCB was the same size, but the heat sink just hung off of it about 4 inches further. It came with a bracket to stabilize it better... GPUs are just getting silly in size.

I am planning on building a full AMD setup indeed. Nvidia is such a frustration for me... Being more into low-consumption setups I will go for a Ryzen 7 7700 and Radeon RX 6600 that will be upgraded if 8000 series is worth the investment.

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Quoting: LoftyHonestly AAA gaming is pretty much dead to me right now, it's not the Size of the games, the lacklustre optimisation, the exorbitant pricing models on unfinished releases with DLC being used as a patch, or the not actually owning it, or even the DRM anti-cheat spyware.. let alone the way these companies treat their staff. It's actually because most (not all) of these games frankly suck.

I agree. I'm looking into building a new rig soon and I was looking for a recent game to benchmark the whole stuff. Turns out there's no interesting title for me that's less than 2-3 years old. I'd want to try Cyberpunk 2077 now that it's less bug-heavy but turns out it's still 60 bucks and with the upcoming extension being quite pricey as well, I guess it's a no-go for me.

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