Microsoft Can Stick It (or, One Giant Leap)

Attention, fighting game fans! Evidently, these are the new rules for playing video games on the Xbox, effective November 12th.

(image from Rabbits Full of Magic)
(also, that's Kerri Hoskins)
(yes, Sonya Blade from the early MK games)

 

It's not what you agreed to when you bought your Xbox Series, but Bill Gates has altered the agreement. Pray he doesn't alter it any further. 

Needless to say, I'm pretty cheesed off at this development. Look, I've got a ton of game controllers for various consoles. Many of these have USB cables, and many of them can be used on Xbox systems with the aid of an adapter, like the ones manufactured by Mayflash. This gives me the freedom to play any Xbox game with any controller I please, be it a six button Saturn joypad best suited for fighting games or a perfectly functional arcade joystick whose sole fault is being designed for the orphaned Xbox 360. When this new rule and the firmware update that enforces it goes into effect on the 12th, I'm going to lose a lot of that flexibility, and will be expected to shell out hundreds of dollars for licensed controllers, just to get some of it back. 

(Some. Not all. I've got a clicky stick Neo-Geo controller coming in the mail that will be useless on the Xbox in two weeks. Frankly, it's doubtful that 8BitDo will pay a licensing fee to make that controller specifically for a machine that's already laid down its arms in the console wars of the 2020s. They're third place in a three man race. You know what that makes them? Last place. Sorry Microsoft, but nobody in last place gets their own game controller.)

Poorly played, Microsoft. You can't just cram the controller genie back in the bottle after letting it roam free for years. By your own admission, the Xbox Series is well behind its competitors in this console generation, and this move will not go over well with the few fans you have left. What's the point of buying every game publisher you can get your filthy, blood-stained claws on if you're going to chase away Xbox owners with draconian policies like this?

Now it plays your favorite Supervision
games! I can't wait for the update that
opens the doors to the exciting HyperScan library!

Hmph. In more open source news, fans of the Data Frog SF2000 were given a massively expanded software library, thanks to a Multicore firmware developed by Adcockm and his team of hackers. Officially, the SF2000 can run games for the NES, Genesis, Super NES, and three flavors of Game Boy, but unofficially, with the aid of this firmware, the system can handle Sega CD, TurboDuo, Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Game Gear, Atari Lynx, and Neo-Geo Pocket games as well. 

I've said in the past that the SF2000 is the king of el cheapo handhelds, and this only strengthens that opinion. Say what you will about emulation, especially on a handheld you might find at the bottom of a cereal box, but I owned an Atari Lynx years ago, and Data Frog's system is every bit as good a Lynx as an actual Lynx. Heck, it's better, because you've got save states handy for longer games like Slime World, and aren't risking your vision trying to make out details on the washed out Lynx screen. 

And that's just the Atari Lynx! The Data Frog can do a pretty convincing imitation of a Neo-Geo Pocket, a TurboExpress, a Supervision (for those of you, ahem, into that sort of thing...) and even a couple of CD-based systems you wouldn't have dared imagine playing on the go in 1993. It may be only twenty dollars, but the SF2000 is punching so far above its weight class it could send Mike Tyson into orbit.

Lucky Number Thirteen

These blog updates are getting pretty slim, aren't they? I guess I just don't have much to talk about lately. One thing that does bear mentioning is that after two years of battling regulators, Microsoft has finally laid claim to Activision, the world's first third party game publisher. This of course means that Activision no longer is one, although it's likely they'll still publish games for the Nintendo Switch. The Switch is regarded as something of an industry neutral zone, even if Sony has shown little interest in publishing games for the system.

Microsoft will still be obligated to make Call of Duty games for the Playstation 5 as part of the terms they agreed to honor with both Sony and government regulators, but that's hardly a concern for me. First person shooters aren't my bag, baby... I can't even play a boomer shooter like Doom without getting hopelessly confused as to where I should go next. I need a red keycard to get to the end of the stage? But it's guarded by a series of crushing walls that I can't seem to dodge? Lovely. By the time I've reached that keycard, I won't even need it... I'll be flat enough to slide under all the doors.

In other slightly worrying merger news, there are reports that Disney's CEO is being pressured by investors to purchase Electronic Arts. Bob Iger has claimed in the past that Disney's never had much success in the video game industry, and indeed, their stab at the toys to life market in the 2010s ultimately didn't amount to much. However, Disney has never given up on video games completely, as evidenced by the upcoming remaster of the old Gargoyles game for the Genesis. Personally, I'd suggest resurrecting the LucasFilm Games label (yanno, the brand they already own) or investing in long time partner Capcom instead, but hey, it's not MY billions and billions of dollars they're spending.