Community Post-it Wall

Disney+ launched today and predictably it had some big technical issues most of the day but that's every big service launch these days. As a service though, Disney+ is very robust out of the gate, having no 4k up-charge, 4 streams, profile support, offline play, all at launch. Device support they nailed too, launching on nearly every major platform. Even works decent on PC web. Disney did a great job overall on putting out a really solid foundation an hopefully it will push the industry to make these features standard.

 

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GameFreak has been under fire online the last few days after it was revealed Pokémon Sword/Shield are using the same Pokémon models as the 3ds games. This contradicts the previous statement that the game is using all new models and using new models was the excuse for cutting so many Pokémon from the game. This is the latest in a long line of controversies, it’s so weird such a big franchise is struggling so much. In any case, Pokémon Sword/Shield launches tomorrow. Personally I’m still hopeful it’ll be a great game.

Star Wars: Fallen Order also releases tomorrow but sadly no reviews until midnight. I wanna believe Respawn will knock it out of the park but this is EA we are talking about, I feel like this game could go either way. Best to be cautious imo.

Last, a Twitch ad seemed to reveal that Witcher 3 is coming to Xbox Game Pass, this is a great addition for Game Pass. Xbox has been teasing Game Pass announcement for XO19 tonight, so it’ll likely be confirmed then and hopefully some more games too. Ultimate Game Pass is also on sale for new members, 3 months for a $1.

 

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Played Pokemon to death the last two days and yes the game is a bit lazy but I still really enjoy it. I'm a bit concerned about the length of the game and the depth overall but it's been good fun. That said, they better step it up for the next game, some of these issues are just plain silly... like the pop in. Game Freak needs some serious help in the technical department... an it's been this way for years now. With how big the Pokemon IP is, I can't believe none of them are ponying up whatever it takes to fix this.

I would love to see what monolith soft could do with Pokemon, they already got the open worlds with lots of creatures down... I think they'd make an amazing game.

 

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Google Stadia launches tonight, I haven’t really read the reviews but have been following the news leading up to now an it seems the service is quite bare bones an almost still beta like. A lot of the best features won’t even work until at least next year, and it has some early unexpected limitations like no 4K on PC browsers (until next year), extremely limited phone support, the WiFi easily play on any device controller only works wirelessly with chromecast at launch.

Google also doesn’t really have any big exclusives nor have they they announced anything specific that is coming... just that they are working on games themselves. I don’t mean to rain on Stadia but it’s a pretty lackluster launch to be honest. The full free for everyone launch will be next year sooo it really seems like people getting in now are paying to beta test.

I’m looking forward to some technical analysis of it, I’m sure Digital Foundry is on it. An it’s cool it exists but I’m not sure I’d really want to use it though.

edit - apparently Digital Foundry did it written review already and while streaming itself is very solid, the games are not delivering anywhere near the promised quality. Red Dead 2 at 1440p 30FPS or 1080p 60FPS apparently people have seen both. Destiny 2 is running at 1080p! That’s honestly kind of shocking to me as I can sorta push 4K with my budget gpu. Very odd. Quality settings seem to be turned down too.

 

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Just got into the xCloud beta, sadly it’s android only right now so I can’t compared directly to the Stadia beta but what I have played has ranged from pretty good to absolutely awful. Part of the problem is it’s all WiFi an another is you really don’t have any control over stream quality, it seems to adjust a little on its own but you can’t just lock it to 720p or whatever.

The service itself though is pretty slick, the app is decent an in the in game Xbox ui is familiar but modified to fit xcloud. You don’t ever see the full Xbox UI. They seem to have a solid foundation here. An not having to rebuy my games is a great perk.

 

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I’ve experimented more with xcloud over the last week, not as much as I would have liked because the phone clip got delayed and then caught up in Thanksgiving but yeah. The video quality they are pushing out is very good, it’s a big deceptive because it’s on a small screen but it definitely seems to be a pretty high bit rate. Latency is hit an miss, it’s not the best I’ve used but it’s playable. Some games are better than others for some reason. An it seems 60FPS games are way more responsive than 30FPS games.

I’ve also been playing with using my home console as a server an the whole thing is pretty slick, turning on the Xbox automatically without a chime or light. However, for whatever reason the latency for me is worse than xcloud itself. It seems it my be my network but I don’t have issues with any other in home game streaming, like steam. Nor had any issue under the old Xbox streaming system either. Can’t find others complaining so I really dunno, hopefully an update will fix it.

edit - apparently I was completely wrong, it’s 720p and the bitrate could be better. It’s so hard to tell on these small screens but yeah. I guess they have a lot of work to do then because I’m still having issues streaming an definitely don’t on any other service like this.

 

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Didn’t get much from Black Friday, picked up Table Top Simulator and another game. Do some more looking but honestly the deals have been very underwhelming if you aren’t looking for a TV. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places or the right things *shrugs*

Codemasters of F1, GRID and DIRT fame have purchased Slightly Mad Studios, makers of Project Cars. I’m not sure what to think of this. Codemasters use to be an excellent developer and I still do really like their F1 series but the other games have been releasing low on content an then filled up with tons of DLC... in the case of DIRT, it was even content from the previous game. This plan is fine if the game is cheap but they aren’t, they are still $60 releases. Hopefully this doesn’t find its way into Project Cars 3.

 

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I finished up Pokémon in the last few days in terms of story stuff. Clocked in around 40 hours. Still a lot of Pokémon I can catch, but not a ton else to do. I could see myself going back and playing the online a bit more. Speaking of online, it really sucks they got rid of the... the uhh, grand exchange for Pokémon? You can’t put Pokémon up for trade async wise anymore, gotta trade with people manually. I think this type of thing will be part of the app next year so maybe that’s why but still it’s a loss for sure... honestly most of the online stuff is a step back from previous games.

 

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F1 season wrapped up with a rather uninteresting race, which isn’t entirely unusual for this track. I was hoping for more from this season, it was fairly bland overall with RedBull just not quite good enough and Ferrari making so many silly mistakes. Hopefully with no huge changes next year the teams can continue their progress, clean things up, an maybe it will be more competitive next year.

 

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Halo Master Chief Collection is launching tomorrow on PC via Game Pass and Steam. It will only include Reach at launch but the rest of the games will be added for no extra charge over the next year. On Xbox this new version will replace the existing MCC, it will include all Halo games prior to 5 and the newly updated Halo Reach at launch. Previous owners of MCC on Xbox will get Reach multiplayer for free but the campaign will be a $10 add-on. Like on PC it will also be on Game Pass.

 

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