EA going bust... and nothing of value will be lost.

Some good will come of it, a large player going bust and all their servers getting turned off will finally force governments (well I mean the EU and possibly Australia and Canada will join in) to address the issue with ownership of games. No one will want to acquire EA as it'll have a load of potentially toxic debt in the form of refunds, class actions, et al. from games that are no longer playable.

Did you not play Mass Effect Andromeda?

It was a case study in how a game designed by committee is terribad.

Lets make a game that is as inoffensive as possible but also try to make it cool and edgy. Make a bad guy that looks like an overgrown infant and use all the same tropes from the previous game yet pretend it hasn't been done before. Also make the gameplay as fun as gouging your eyes out with a rusty fork but above all else we must not, never, ever, ever, ever, upset the most fragile minority of all... White Male Americans.

Graphics were eye meltingly great but the rest was pure crap. I hold it up as key evidence in my theory that graphics don't matter. You can't pretty a bad game into success.

Bioware was dead long before then, same with Mass Effect, we should really let it rest in peace.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha... tell me another one.

Consoles are usually using out of date hardware by the time of their release. The PS5 was released with a Zen3 CPU and RDNA2 GPU. Sure good biz for AMD but it Zen 4 was released nearly a year before the PS5, it was less powerful than a gaming PC I built 2 years earlier and I've just bought a new one using a Zen 5 CPU (Zen6 is just around the corner though). Be careful not to cut yourself on that edge, it's so old you'd need a tetanus shot.

This is true though, they generally aren't able to handle supply chain disruption but that is really true of any business using JIT supply chains.

The big problem is that the PS and XB hardware was always sold as a loss leader with the expectation to make that money back by ripping off the owners at every turn. High fees for publishers and developers, monthly fees for basic functionality, sub standard hardware that would regularly break (usually a week or so after the warranty expired, it's called the Sony timer for a reason). This worked fine for years but now belts are tightening both Sony and Microsoft are finding that they're not making ends meet by nickel and dime'ing the punter at ever turn as the punter is doing everything they can to avoid it.

So the next logical step is to stop selling the hardware at a massive loss, which both Sony and Microsoft are testing the waters on. Sony with a $900 PS5 and now MS with this.

Also, if you're looking for a next gen console, they're already here... have been for ages... they're called a gaming PC. With things like the Steam Deck and Steam Machine being targetted as "living room" machines, they are in a position to eat Sony's and Microsoft's lunch as there is no monthly Steam fee (not to mention GOG, Epic, et al.).

For once Trump is being honest... He's preparing for war except the war is going to be against the US and it's people. Billionaires can't dare be questioned.

From what I've read this seems more targetted at the kind of host that thinks they can save a few shekels on cleaning by making the guest do it.

This doesn't mean hots can't request the letting be "left as they found it" so to speak but it does mean that they can no longer charge an additional fee or force a guest to forfeit their deposit for a few dirty dishes or not taking the rubbish out.

Given that many AirBNBs are now essentially professional lettings as opposed to someone renting out their spare room for a few quid it seems reasonable to start treating those listings that way... That means they'll have to start ensuring that some minimum standards are met... which means that hosts who wanted a money printing apartment can't cheap out any more.

Of course I get the other side of the argument, I've seen how some people leave their workplace or car and hate to think of the pig sty they live in (which means they'll also treat someone else’s place with as much if not more neglect)... but there are already rules in place for that, this is more for the people who think they can charge an arm and a leg because of a few dirty dishes.

That being said, I think AirBNB is on it's way out, slowly but going as it's just a platform for professional lessors at this point and it's not a very good one any more.

It doesn't have to last forever... it doesn't even have to last for years... it just has to last long enough for a replacement to be out... or at least long enough that the hard of thinking won't think twice about paying another grand for a phone.

Yes, but not to park.

My first question is... why do you even need a server? Especially for single player games.

I can't wait to read the headline "Uber Robotaxi Responsible for Gridlock in Greater Manchester" as it just stops when it doesn't know what to do... Plus I suspect it won't understand the Manc accent.

UK road markings are not stellar at the best of times and road designs are dealing with hundreds of years of organic growth (so no nice square street layouts like in the US) plus we all know that Uber et al. will cut every corner they can to save money.

If there is no speaker on the outside telling pedestrians to "calm down" I shall be disappoint.

At this point, it really doesn't matter what they think. By adding more security and ads, they're just forcing more and more people to the alternative, which is piracy when you're running a media cartel where everyone is in cahoots.

I never got the hate behind self service checkouts, they've done wonders for the old long lines at manned checkouts. People forget that bit when they complain about them, back in the olden days it was like winning the lotto if you could find one without a line. I'm old enough to still remember the bad old days of having to decide if the longer 5 items or fewer lane would be faster than a normal checkout with a shorter line.

Same with smartgates/autogates at airports. Long gone are the days of spending 2 hours in customs and immigration waiting for a surly Border Farce agent to check your passport. Landed on a full QR 777 in Adelaide a few weeks back and got through immigration in 10 minutes, same with landing in London, 30 mins gate to kerb. If you're an American you can come to London and experience this for yourself as US Biometric passports are accepted at the UK border autogates. Sadly, you have to return to the US at some point.

People said that self service checkouts would decimate jobs but the opposite happened, all the people who were previously manning checkouts were suddenly available for other tasks, supermarkets could now offer more options, products and services because they had additional staff and no drop in sales. Supermarkets ended up hiring more staff because they were doing more, deliveries, instore bakeries, et al. So the death of jobs didn't happen and supermarkets became less painful because there was little to no line at the self service checkout.

And that's the thing with this supermarket. Automation (lets face it, that's what AI is, just automation) doesn't result in job losses if a business is profitable, it just means you move staff from BAU work to things that are more productive. AI is not replacing jobs, it's being used as an excuse for downsizing and not to us, employees and little people, they couldn't give two shits about us... It's being used to disguise mass sackings because a mass sacking is a huge sign a business is in trouble which sends share prices plummeting, which is what they care about.

That is until they jack up the monthly prices. Which will happen, then they cheapest way to get a service will be bundling... then bundling will be the only way to get it, no Disney without having to buy a package that includes a bunch of crap you don't want, 2 dozen reality TV services to get the one service you do want. It'll be like cable again

Right now we're in the consolidation phase where established players take over smaller ones, after that comes the monetisation phase and that's when enshitification solidifies. In the old MS style Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, we're at the Extend part.

I've already run up the Jolly Roger again, sigh, streaming was good whilst it lasted but sadly it was never going to last that long.

More likely a response to PS5 pre-orders not being anywhere near what they expected let alone wanted. Console exclusives are now just excluding potential customers.

I'm beginning to wonder if this GTA is going to be a massive flop. It's happened before with GTA 4. It could easily be a lacklustre game they're asking upwards of £70 for.

It's not just the US, all of Europe's far right parties are suffering, AFD in Germany, National Front in France, Reform/Restore in the UK. All of them seeing huge drops in social media engagement without the Russian bots. Hell, even the Daily Mail comments section is clearer without it and calling that a wretched hive of scum and villainy is to do a huge disservice to scum and villainy.

For the most part, they're trying to convince themselves.