For a good while, there was a bit of hype built around the Xbox Series S, in particular for the retro gaming scene. It was a cheaper device that offered a small form factor. Likewise, it allowed consumers to download emulators and enjoy various retro video games. But while this process was available, some consumers were skeptical. Of course, it didn’t take Microsoft too long before they outright banned emulators from being available in the marketplace, making it impossible to download and enjoy. That’s just the emulators being used in the Xbox Series X/S retail mode.
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RETAIL MODE ON XBOX IS DEAD!
- 15-day suspensions handed out to users of retail emulators as a warning shot from Microsoft.
- Devs warning users to delete emulators
- Retail Mode team disbanding and shutting down the Patreon. Sorry to bear the bad news. RT to warn others
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It just sounds like console gaming is getting shittier as the years go by. Like now I can’t do what I want with it? They know the only things keeping old games from the void are emulators and enthusiasts right? Are they making these old games available? No? Then they should fuck off.
They dont want you playing the old games, because the old games were good with high replayability and staying power. The new games are designed for you to drop it before you mindlessly buy the new one hoping it will be better (it probably won’t).
Or the endless microtransactions. Oh god the hideous microtransactions! These two things are why I stopped playing new shit.
My App Store is a graveyard of games I deleted the moment they showed me an ad. I don’t care how good the game is, I’m not watching ads in order to play. I’ll happily pay a fixed price because developers and designers need to eat, but I play games to have fun, and constant ad interruptions are the opposite of fun.
Even worse, many games now want like $10 a week. Bitch, that’s more than I pay for Sibelius and the full Adobe suite.
Micro transactions, subscriptions, and ads absolutely ruin gaming. I’ll happily pay $10 for a decent game and $20 for a good one, but fuck off with the ads or ridiculous subscriptions. (I’m talking mobile. Like $60 for a console game, but you’d better not nickel and dime me after that.)
/rant
Lol don’t even get me started on phone games, last game I played on a phone was fucking Bejeweled 3 ffs! Been done with those!
Honestly, that’s why I’ve been liking Apple Arcade so much. $5 a month, tons of quality mobile games with 0 micro transactions. Most games work across my phone/iPad/MacBook. I know that subscriptions kinda blow. But I don’t have Netflix or Hulu or any of the big streaming sites.
They just recently added Stardee Valley, and it’s also where I found out that Slay the Spire is fucking awesome. On top of that, there’s many updated classic mobile games that had all the micro transactions ripped out and put on there.
I’m no Apple shill, but I give credit where it’s due. Apple Arcade fuckin slaps
Don’t forget the best invention mankind has come up with: loot boxes! Where’s your sense of pride and accomplishment?
I don’t think they care about the void, honestly. There was a story last week pointing out that like 87% of games are being lost to time. They don’t seem to care. They’ll just keep churning out clones and bullshit so long as the money keeps flowing. And it will.
Its a slow motion septic pipe burst. I’m just watching as 80% of people don’t care and neither to 100% of organizations. These are pieces of our digital history. They matter. We can’t see how things were before all the bullshit profit squeezing if no one preserves them. Even my “techie” friends don’t give a shit. “Why would I care abiut old games?” Its so much more than that.
I totally agree. It’s not frivolous; it’s an important part of who we are now, and it’s a real shame we’re already losing it.
In case you’re interested, there’s a fantastic video by NeverKnowsBest on the entire history of video games that I watched yesterday and found fascinating. There’s lots of vintage footage and interviews that I’d never seen before. It’s six hours long and I watched it in one go, it was so interesting.
I hope there are enough independent people saving at least some of our gaming history, because it’s a shame to see it evaporate like this.
Watched that documentary a couple months ago (also all at once) and can vouch
It’s a great video
I have a buddy who had fond memories of an old Apple ][ game, but he couldn’t find it anywhere. No copy of the software existed anywhere he could find, for sale or otherwise.
After a literal decade of searching, he finally found a copy of the game disk on eBay! He picked up a 5.25" floppy USB drive, hooked up an Apple ][ emulator… And nothing. The disk was encrypted in some way that made it unreadable.
Not one to give up easily, he then found and purchased an Apple ][ with a working drive.
The disk worked!
He started researching old copy protection schemes and it turned out that the disk had information written between the standard tracks to make it unreadable by standard hardware, but accessible to the software on the disk when it manually tweaked the drive head’s position.
One USB driver patch (and a couple months) later, he was able to extract the original software from the disk for archival. It works in emulators and is finally archived.
That’s amazing. I’m glad some independent people are doing things like this. Kudos to your friend.