Backlog: The Embiggening – June, 2026
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/24/26 at 03:27 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Summer’s nearly upon us, once again, and from the look of things, this year’s Summer Game Drought is going to be a dire one. The entire Industry is in chaos, with one debacle after another putting the future of every major platform on a questionable foundation that seems like it could erode-away entirely without even a moment’s notice. Let’s take a look at the few meager droplets falling on us in June that we’ll have to make due with until – or if – things start to get better.
Over half of the new releases in June fall into the Shovelware category, with three of the four major sub-types represented. In Licensed Swill, there’s a ‘Star Wars Monopoly’ game. In the Annualized Swill category, EA is pooping out another ‘UFC’ entry. There are no super-casual non-games, at least... but there are a couple of Noteworthy Ports: “Gothic,” and ancient (and terrible) Fake RPG is getting a remake, and the 30th …
Can Windows 11 K2 Stave-off the Year of the Linux Desktop?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/17/26 at 03:19 PM CT
For the last couple of YEARS, it has seemed like Microsoft was entirely impervious to any and all criticism of their endeavors with changing Windows into an AI-and-advertisement-infested disaster and crashing Xbox into the ground in a misbegotten attempt at proving that Software as a Service is still a good idea that will rake-in steady profits hand-over-fist. Fortunately, enough tech journalists, bloggers, and influencers have heaped negative press on the disastrous leadership of Satya Nadella that the Redmond tech giant is actually starting to partake in some introspection.
First, the Xbox Division forced out the old leadership (Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond) and replaced them with Asha Sharma, a former AI CEO with no gaming experience. At first this seemed like a dubious play and an admission that Xbox was completely dead, with Sharma sent in to liquidate what she could and write off the rest. However, in the handful of weeks since she took command of the Xbox Division... things …
Bungie is in a 3/4 Billion Dollar Hole
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/10/26 at 02:55 PM CT
Ah, it seems like it was just yesterday when the stupid one-upmanship of the Console Wars saw Sony spending nearly $4 billion to secure Bungie as a first-party PlayStation studio after Microsoft spend $69 billion in order to feed Activision-Blizzard to the Xbox Division. Both platform-holders seem to be regretting their decisions, with Xbox teetering on the brink of destruction, and all its hopes pinned on a new, non-gaming executive at Xbox, while Sony is already adopting the same kinds of hubristic behavior it always adopts when it thinks it doesn’t have any competition.
But Sony really doesn’t have anything to crow about, considering that it assigned a $200 million “impairment loss” to Bungie in the face of falling “Destiny 2” player counts and recurring revenues. Recently, that loss was re-adjusted... by more than double its original assessment, bringing Bungie’s total impairment loss to $765 million. That’s over THREE-QUARTERS OF A BILLION DOLLARS!
Of …
Backlog: The Embiggening – May, 2026
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/01/26 at 01:21 AM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Spring is almost over, which means Industrial Gaming should start winding down for the annual Summer Games Drought. What with the global economy in chaos, will we see our Industry continue to stay the course with its traditional – and not particularly successful – ritualized behaviors, or will we see a shake up? Let’s take a look at what’s coming down the (sewer) pipe in May.
Oof! There’s quite a bit of Made-to-be-Mocked shovel-ready crap coming in May... and ALL of it falls into the Licensed Swill category (or maybe we should start calling it Licensed Slop to keep up with trendy terminology). There’s yet another ‘LEGO Batman’ game, a ‘Bluey’ game, and the first new ‘James Bond 007’ game in a coon’s age (with no movie tie-in to be seen... which seems dubious), all hitting multiple platforms. PC is getting the timed exclusive release of a new ‘Nickelodeon Sports’ game (other platforms will be assaulted …
Final Fantasy is in a Catch-22 Situation
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/26/26 at 04:39 PM CT
Alas, ‘Final Fantasy’ has been in freefall for FAR too long now, as I’ve pointed out previously. Each time a new game is announced, there’s the fleeting possibility that it will redeem the last TWENTY YEARS of flops and garbage, but it never manages to deliver.
Inexplicably, the second MMO entry in the series - “Final Fantasy 14 Online: A Realm Reborn” – seems to be the most recent title to garner a substantial amount of praise, even after flopping at launch and needing a complete revision into its more-or-less current incarnation. This praise comes in spite of the fact that the game is a) an MMO RPG, b) a subscription-based MMO RPG, and c) incredibly EFF-ing boring. Yet it is still getting plenty of support, with a new expansion, “Evercold,” revealed at the recent North American Fan Fest.
Of course, the game’s director, Naoki Yoshida, had a lot more to talk about than just the newest expansion for the last surviving revenue stream with ‘Final Fantasy’ …
Gaming’s Newest Curse: Dynamic Pricing
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/19/26 at 03:53 PM CT
It seems that we are just flat-out not allowed to have nice things, peace, or happiness anymore. Just when it seemed that Industrial Gaming had already plumbed the deepest depths of enshittification, something new is on the horizon, and it seems that Sony is leading the way into even greater hostility toward its customers.
As reported by Bellular News, it seems that Sony is going to be the first major gaming company and platform-holder to start adjusting prices based on what each individual can be expected to pay, rather than offering products at fixed prices with occasional blanket discounts. It’s entirely possible that we’re witnessing the beginning of the end for MSRP - Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price – as, if Sony and other like-minded corporations get their way, all product pricing will change from “MSRP” to “How Much You Got?”
Unfortunately, HMYG dynamic pricing isn’t actually a “new” thing. It has existed for decades under the guise of …
Amazon Luna to Follow Google Stadia on June 10
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/12/26 at 02:59 PM CT
Remember Google’s disastrous attempt at transforming gaming into a Cloud-based experience? Remember how it flopped after a single year and how Google kept it going as a backend service for a while after that before shutting it down altogether?
Well, apparently, Amazon thought they could do better when they launched their Luna game streaming service. Presumably the online retail titan thought they already had the gaming rep needed to launch such an endeavor due to having a de-facto monopoly on the other kind of game streaming through their Twitch platform. Amazon even tried partnering with the (sometimes inexplicably) well-liked DRM-free PC game shop, GOG.com, in order to help new Luna users flesh out their streamable libraries with a bunch of dubiously-Good, definitely-Old, Games.
Too bad for Amazon, but great news for us: Luna has been a complete failure and will be going away on June 10, 2026. Amazon has officially stopped selling new games through the Luna interface, and …
Microsoft: Co-Pilot is Mandatory, but “For Entertainment Only.”
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/05/26 at 09:48 PM CT
It seems that ever since Windows 11 launched, Microsoft has been obsessed with cramming their AI assistant, Co-Pilot, into every facet of the OS, including bizarre and nonsensical appearances in such barebones programs as MS Paint and Notepad. These OS-level AI features have also had a grating tendency to re-install themselves during updates, even if the user has gone through the effort of trying to remove them.
And if Windows 11 is beyond saving, then Windows 12 is positively sunk, because Microsoft is currently planning to make it an entirely “agentic” OS, in which AI agents within the operating system interpret the user’s intents and desires, then manipulate the system based on these interpretations instead of allowing the user to manipulate the system directly. Indeed it looks like the future of Windows MS has been building towards is one entirely driven by AI...
... Which is why it’s so strange that, in their Autumn 2025 EULA update for Windows 11, they snuck in …
Backlog: The Embiggening – April, 2026
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/28/26 at 02:56 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! The most foolish month of the year is almost upon us, once again. So I guess we shouldn’t expect the Games Industry to act in any other way as it continues to destroy itself through greed, overreach, and bandwagoning. Let’s look at the crap we are being so graciously offered for consideration.
At least there’s not a ton of shovelware coming in April. In Licensed Swill releases, there’s a new ‘Winx Club’ game for little girls, based on a a Nickelodeon TV show that started in 2004 (when today’s little girls’ moms were little girls) and ran until... wow! 2019? So maybe there are still a few little girls who are both old enough to remember this IP and young enough to want to buy this game... maybe. There’s also a 3v3 Fighting game based on the Amazon streaming superhero deconstruction show, ‘Invincible.’
The other April shovelware all comes in the form of Noteworthy Ports... and saying these compilations of …
nVidia Reveals DLSS5 Tech: Civil War Ensues
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/22/26 at 03:20 PM CT
It seems that the massive AI investments are starting to bear their first fruits in the realm of videogaming. nVidia recently revealed the brand-new, bleeding-edge 5.0 version of their DLSS upscaling software. DLSS has been around for a few years, mostly as a frame-generator or resolution upscaler, with functionality that “fudges” game visuals on low-end PCs or in games set to “low” in order to stabilize frame-rates and smooth-out low-end visuals on large, Ultra-High-Definition displays. DLSS5, however, aims to use AI for much deeper image analysis, allowing it to enhance the lighting and textures in a game to be closer to “photorealistic” than they actually are.
Unsurprisingly, in our idiotically-polarized world, the Internet has already drawn a line and chosen sides in a civil war over whether or not the results of DLSS5 look good or not.
For the record: They DO look good!
We have seen several examples of DLSS5 in action that were shown off by nVidia, and older …
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