This industry needs personal responsibility. Needs people in deciding positions to be accountable for.
As long as CEO can wrap up any crap imaginable to excuse failure to their shareholders, without slightest risk to be kicked out of the office and without golden parachute, this will be happening again and again.
All the power to make worst possible decisions when it comes to game development, marketing and general concept DLCs, micros etc), and no responsibility when sh*t hits the fan. That is what happened.
@Vodoo: Well, OK... It doesn't have to be one console, but one standard. You could "computerize" platform - allow 3rd party OEMs to make their versions and compete under the set specs. Small variations in size and speed of storage, added value (Netflix subscriptions and such), quality of execution - hey, I'd like mine made of aluminium, with silent cooling and with Ford racing stripes! ;)
Plus, one platform would reduce manufacturing costs and water down development costs, too. Current desktop consoles are based on the same tech, but not exactly on the same parts. It would be cheaper to make, could be cheaper to sell, and guaranteed larger user base for games. Which is where the money is.
But you are right - someone would at least try to turn idea sour. IF they could ever get to the same table in a first place.
Jon wants to kill Dany but can't, because of his honor and bent knee (in good or bad, right?). He just doesn't strike me as Kingslayer. He might rather give up on everything and go back to Night Watch - he was freed from his vow when he conveniently died and came back, but he can take another vow, after all.
Arya takes over when he fails and ends Dany. They might all die in the process. Dragon should die, too - it is thing of the past, an anomaly.
Sansa ends up on the throne. Maybe with Tyrion. She doesn't care about men anymore, anyway, and they were married before. Was their marriage ever officially nullified?
I would like to see X-Station, or PlayBox, or whatever else a standard console with all the Sony and MS exclusives would be called. And, while we are at it, make it PlayBox Switch.
I'm not expecting to see this, but I'd love to. All the exclusive and multiplatform games on one standardized platform. One network behind them. All friends can play together on single machine.
I don't think it is impossible, I just think owners don't have interest to do it. Or, at least, those on top of food chain (at any given moment) don't, underdogs might be different story. But it would be possible. MSX platform, back int he days, was it. And why going that far back - PC is and ever was it. Except that PC is too disorganized, a proper IT anarchy within a platform. This mega console, in my mind, would still be tightly locked down, with something like current approach - new upgraded and backward-compatible machine every 3-4 years, guaranteed support for every machine at least 8 years. As what we currently have with PS4/Pro, X1/X1X. But easier for multiplat developers as they have only two different performance profiles for every game (though they can opt to support older hardware, if they wish).
For brand loyalists, all involved companies can release "special editions" with proper branding... but I think for most, generic nameless console would do - I would definitely trade Sony/Playstation brands for possibility to play MS and Nintendo games on it, in addition to Sony franchises.
@lucidique: My problem with Steam - if I were developer - would not be that they are any better or worse than others, but that Steam is a bit bloated these days with lot of early release development-in-progress titles that never turn gold. Or turn up really bad.
Smaller, less branched stores have better visibility, imho. I mean, there might be a reason why some companies want to try with Steam alternatives, if everyone asks for same money.
@cboye18: Exactly. I did play it with 3 friends and it was really entertaining experience. Especially when one of mumpties would do something silly like stray away for no reason at all, and got killed/ambushed couple of miles away from actual mission (didn't realize no-one is following him for 10 minutes). Or good old Leeroy-ing. Or do anything else laughter-worthy (got run over by our vehicle or get killed in other most ridiculous ways). We also did a bit of improvising, using vehicles in alternative ways and what not. Like creating road blocks to prevent Unidad reinforcements to join the fight. Like, big roadblocks made of dozens of damaged and abandoned vehicles.
I played a bit with AI and it was nowhere as good. When team was not available, I would limit AI teaming to fetch some guns and attachments, but overall this wasn't even close to real people teaming fun.
It was not classic old school GR game, but... naming aside... it was fun game in its own rights, when played right.
@openmind23: I have disabled my clients' auto-start - don't want to clog system's boot time too much... so the worse case scenario I have is missing on large update until I want to play something (and then realize I'll have to wait a bit for the DL to complete).
I can live with that. Yes, in perfect world there would be one client for all the publishers - even if they each have their own tab/page inside the client. One of the reasons I like consoles and their centralized approach.
But we don't live in perfect world, do we. And it's still just a first world "problem".
@jbreez00: If I remember correctly, there was some discussion, in the books, if winter brings White Walkers, or if they bring winter with them. It seems to be a bit of symbiotic relationship - they need or at least prefer cold weather, but also they generate extreme cold - and that is easier to achieve when it is already cold.
But you are right - if my memory of books serves, they are refereed to as a specie, not one magically turned ex-human who has created all the others. I am also under impression that in books, White Walkers will not crumble if their leader dies. Wights, maybe? Not even sure about them.
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