A rare, levelheaded take.

The changes are fine. Nothing earth shattering, nothing wildly or fundamentally broken, just a visual update to better fit with Google’s new material design language.

Wii U too!

They’re shutting down Assistant everywhere, in favour of Gemini.

Right. There’s plenty to criticise Apple for, both in general and for chasing the AI trend, but looking at it purely in terms of user privacy within AI features they’re miles ahead of the competition.

Vampire Survivors

Nothing out of the ordinary for Nintendo, unfortunately. Even the blockbuster Wii Sports was an aberration that they had to be convinced about.

[Reggie] Fils-Aimé pushed for [Wii Sports to be bundled free with the Wii], and initially company President Satoru Iwata turned the proposal down: “Nintendo does not give away precious content for free.”

The approach isn’t what became a joke, it was the absolutely unhinged way in which it was presented in that famous Ballmer stage appearance.

Gabe Newell?

Not that I agree with it, but isn’t this what other consoles have done for about a decade already?

Physical media for games is on its deathbed.

There’s a price on the UK official store: £395.99 for the system. £429.99 including digital copy of MKW.

Preorders open on 8th April.

Edit: Physical copy of Mario Kart on its own is £74.99. Woof.

Yes, for all but the simplest games it will be one or the other, not both at once. That’s how it tends to work even on the flagship XB/PS systems.

Horrendously editorialised, too; it’s written in such a way as to specifically get people riled up. Tabloid-style rubbish.

It’s pretty funny how much the tone shifts if you play with the co-op mode they added in a later patch. Suddenly, sci-fi horror turns into Benny Hill in space.

I’m guessing that’s one feature they won’t include in the remaster, haha

Both funny and sad how quick folks are to comment just so they can dunk on Thing They Dislike, without bothering to look past the headline that misrepresents the point of the article.

‘Bluesky bad, updoots to the left’ mentality that I naively hoped had been left behind on Reddit.

YouTubers - especially large channels like this - constantly A/B test with different thumbnails and stick with whatever one drives the most traffic (no pun intended) to the video.

You might not like it, but it’s unfortunately the reality of operating a content creation business on an algorithm-driven platform.

There are plenty of channels I follow that make fantastic videos, but sometimes you have to tolerate the shitty thumbnails because that’s just the reality of the system they’re operating within.

If anyone else is wondering, I’ve not found a verbatim quote of the steps but I did see an article that mentioned the consequences. It seems like you will be able to turn this off but it will disable Voice ID:

anyone with their Echo device set to “Don’t save recordings” will see their already-purchased devices’ Voice ID feature bricked. Voice ID enables Alexa to do things like share user-specified calendar events, reminders, music, and more. Previously, Amazon has said that “if you choose not to save any voice recordings, Voice ID may not work.” As of March 28, broken Voice ID is a guarantee for people who don’t let Amazon store their voice recordings.

If you do not want to set your voice recordings setting to ‘Don’t save recordings,’ please follow these steps before March 28th:

Am I the only one curious to know what these steps are? The image cuts off the rest of the email.

I grew up on Double Dash, but MK8D offers so much choice and variety that nothing else comes close - at least for pick-up-and-play casual games.

I think the Atari XEGS probably wins the battle for ‘ugliest grey box’

Similar to how the NES was made to look like a VCR, the PlayStation was made to look right at home as part of a fancy 90s home hi-fi setup. Functional/industrial grey was the aesthetic du jour, and gave it a look that said this isn’t just a toy; it’s the future of home entertainment.