As if high-def DVDs weren't already a consfusing enough sell to consumers.
Starting in September, home media buffs in the U.S. and Europe -- Denmark, Finland, France, Poland and Sweden, specifically -- will have a third HD disc format to choose from, the HD Versatile Multilayer Disc VMD).
Debuting a full year and a half behind HD DVD, the fledgling HD VMD -- being championed by U.K. technology company New Medium Enterprises -- is starting almost from scratch in the U.S. in terms of both distribution and content.
No major U.S. studio has aligned itself with HD VMD yet (although one indie has). And so far, just one U.S. retailer, Web site PCrush.com, has formally agreed to sell the HD VMD player.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
On Amazon, you can't get an RTX 4090 for less than this one from Gigabyte, which now offers great value after an eye-catching April deal.
Oh please god no, No more HD formats PLEASE. Can we stop beating the dead horse already. Bury it please the whole thing is starting to stink.
@Diselage
Be kind now.
@HD Versatile Multilayer Disc
Welcome to the format wars. Even though, in my opinion, the war is kinda over pretty much now.
Edit: @Diselage(below)
We gamers need to stay strong during these difficult times of format wars. lol
if it has strong securities then it will be embraced by Hollywood. If it doesn't it becomes a causality of free HD movies on the internet.
which defeats the purpose of new formats, besides HD and deeper storage.
I just got rid of my HD DVD add-on for my 360 and finally excepted blu ray as my choice of movie viewing. There is no way that I'm going to start over after the decision I made and adopt a new way of viewing movies and I hope that the film industry does the same. Enough with this bullsh!t of what is going to be the best way to look at HD movies.
this will sink sooo fast its not even funny