General Gaming News

[Raid]

Everything about the new MSFS' scale is mind-boggling, but I don't really see how they're going to recoup their investment - civilian flight sims are a really niche market. I can only assume that there's some sort of commercial revenue stream involved. 37,000 airports, all of them traced and defined by hand (albeit from high-quality satellite imagery); I'd assumed that stuff like this would have been entirely automated (at least for the smaller airports, the bigger ones would probably be too complex), but I guess they just didn't think the results were good enough.

...and I still have absolutely zero interest in playing it, and this is coming from someone who plays flight sims. I'm impressed, but unless you're giving me something to bomb at the end of my flightpath, I'm just not going to bother.

[Lee]

I muck around in the free tool Blender and it's very easy to take satellite data and google maps to make exact matching height topography of a pretty big area. I'll assume you can't really enter the buildings so it's just texture work and adding in parts on the outside. I'd suspect a really talented artist on the team is knocking them out every couple of days.


To be honest I think they must be making big bucks with these games to really justify the expense. Sim fans spend on their games (periphals/new models/dlc) that makes the joke about buying a £2,000 pc to play just games a bit of joke

[Raid]

Yeah, but every couple of days equates to 74000 days, that's 200 years of work. That's what I mean about the scale - replicating the Earth is just a staggering undertaking even if 95% is automated.

[Alan]

They just ported over all that Minecraft Earth data.

[Achtung Englander]

The Xbox division is heavily subsidized by Microsoft. The bulk of Microsoft money comes from enterprise and cloud based solutions. If Xbox ran itself as a separate entity I do not think we would have GamePass or the beast of machines that will be Series X. Microsoft is in the game to diversify its portfolio and to create brand awareness and loyalty with the young (and thus future adults) who have to create Xbox profiles and become part of the Windows ecosystem.

This is why Sony and Nintendo are less generous in their offerings. They run their gaming divisions as a business that cannot afford to lose money since they make up the majority of their revenue.

[Achtung Englander]

Bladerunner is getting the remastered treatment

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020 ... remastered

[Medicine Man]

Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX...

[Alan]

[Medicine Man]

[Raid]

As someone with absolutely no nostalgia for the original, it looks... fine. The Wonder Boy remake was much nicer looking.

[Achtung Englander]

Bad blood

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ ... t-it-to-be

[Raid]

I am shocked. Shocked!

[Achtung Englander]

I am going to be on this Gamesindustry.biz panel on Thursday

Feel free to ask a question - like do you think gaming forums are necessary ?

[Snowy]

Like this forum do you mean?

[Achtung Englander]

yeah I was joking !