Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: remakes

More talk on remakes and Xbox, probably

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Well. Sarah Bond, the missing ex-president of Xbox, has finally spoken. She issued a carefully-crafted statement about being appreciative of her time with Xbox, but it was time for her to move on to new things. Here is her statement in full. Not one single person believes it’s true for several reasons. One, there was a post on her LinkedIn just a few hours before Phil Spencer (her boss) “retired” that was about accessibility. The way it was stated made it clear that it was just a common post and that there was no hint of her resigning. The post was taken down several hours later, so clearly, Sarah Bond ‘resigning’ was not planned.

People in the industry have pointed out that while there’s a lot of love being given to Spencer (by the Xbox team as he “retired”), but there was no mention of Sarah Bond. At all. It was as if she never existed. And today, not only was there the statement above by her, but there was a piece about her in the Verge by Tom Warren that talks about how she was not well-liked by Xbox employees. I can’t link it because  I don’t have a subscription, but I have included a Kinda Funny Games video below that talks about it at length.

It talks about how she was the one who pushed the ‘everything is an Xbox’ idea (meaning, you don’t need an Xbox console in order to play their games). Except, Phil Spencer was the one who came up with the idea; he was the one who brought Sarah Bond in; and he was the one who nudged her in that direction. She was presumed to be his handpicked successor, which means that she probably didn’t do much without his approval.

I want to say that I have no insider knowledge I am not in the industry, so this is all my personal observation. I want to make that clear.

There is no fucking way she left of her own volition. There just isn’t. I understand why Microsoft might choose to play it that way; really, they didn’t have much of a choice. So, as far as I have read/heard, they were planning on doing this today (Monday), but they got word that IGN was going to post something about it on Friday, so they had to act quickly.

Look. I have no love for Sarah Bond or Xbox. I dropped Game Pass once they made the boneheaded decision to hike up the prices, especially the ultimate or whatever the highest level is called. I never really used it, anyway. I mean, I tried out one or two games every other month or so. It probably was worth it in the long run, but I still was just sick of their shit.


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More speculation about remakes, remasters, and sequels

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I want to talk more about remasters, remakes, and sequels. I talked about it a bit in the past post beacuse I was ranting about PlayStation closing Bluepoint Games. I did not think it got enough ink because of what happened the next day (Phil Spencer ‘retiring’ and Sarah Bond ‘resigning’–from Xbox.) It never fails. Every time PlayStation fucks up, Xbox is determined to one up them. It’s as if Xbox could not stand to give up the limelight for a second, even if it’s for a negative reason.

I’m tired. It’s hard being a ‘gamer’ these days. I put that in quotes beacuse I have never really concerned myself a gamer. I mean, I play games, yes, but I don’t like the whole gamer life. Come to think of it, I don’t like any fandom. It’s not a Groucho Marx thing (does anyone know who he is these days?), but just that I don’t like to conform to other people. I don’t like people telling me what to do, and I certainly don’t like people telling me what to think.

In addition, I can usually see all sides to things, which makes it hard for me to be a team player. Some people say I’m contrary. Some people would be right. Though I’m not contrary on purpose. What I mean is that I’m not doing it to be a dick. I’m not doing it just to be contrary. I just see things differently. I try to keep it to myself most of the time because I know it’s not welcome in polite company.

Side note: I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I learned at a very young age to hide my true feelings. I buried that shit deep because the reaction if I didn’t was very negative. It’s one reason I live alone. I can’t let my mask down if there is anyone else around. Even online. I put it on so automatically, it’s just a part of me by now. It’s only when I’m at home alone that I can be myself. Or when I had my cat/s. They accepted me as I was (as long as I fed them and gave them love, obviously).

I had never felt as accepted as I did by my cats. They were very different, but they both had positive feelings about me. In fact, I lived with both Raven and Shadow for nine years and with Shadow for an additional seven+ years. I lived with Shadow longer than I have with anyone else. I used to say Raven was my heart and Shadow was my soul.

It’s only in the last few months that I’ve even thought of adopting another cat, but every time, I start casually looking, my heart squeezes and says no. I know some people adopt new animal friends soon after losing one, but I just can’t. I wish I could because I think I would like to share my space again, but I just can’t.


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Why I don’t play certain games (part four)

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I have more to say about games I play/don’t play/the state of the industry. I mean, there’s a lot going on there. Most of it is extremely shitty at the moment. I wrote about it in yesterday’s post, but I have more to say today. It’s pretty fucking bleak. I can’t stop thinking about how PlayStation announced on Thursday, February 19th that it was closing Bluepoint Games. People were talking about it (of course), and I thought it would carry us to the weekend. Most people were furious about it, and I thought that would take us into the weekend.

But, no. Xbox, as they have done for the past few years, said to PlayStation: Hold my beer! In their 25th anniversary year, on a Friday, Microsoft announced that Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox had ‘retired’ and that the second in command (president), Sarah Bond ‘resigned’.

Look. This is just bullshit. I mentioned it yesterday, but I wanted to say it again. It’s fucking bullshit. I don’t doubt that Phil Spencer was planning on retiring sometime soon, but I highly doubt that he would choose to it right before the 25th anniversary (November). And Sarah Bond ‘resigning’? Naw, son. She was presumed to be Spencer’s heir apparent, and there’s no way she would resign abruptly on a Friday night.

This is all ridiculous. And I’m mad that PlayStation seems to be getting away with shitcanning Bluepoint Games.

Side note: Ok. We have to talk about the elephant in the room. A Bloodborne remake. Bear with me. Ever since remakes have become the rage, there’s one that comes up time and time again. Bloodborne (FromSoft). It’s actually pretty funny to watch From fans bring it up every time there’s a big event, only to have their hopes dashed once again.

I’m not in the know at all, but it has always been obvious to me that From did not want to do a remake/remaster/touch it at all. In fact, I would gather than Miyazaki did not like to think of a game once he was done with it. He doesn’t like to do sequels. He had someone else direct Dark Souls II and some say Dark Souls III, though Miyazaki is credited with being the director of the third game. With the latter game, there are conflicting opinions on why he did that game. Some think he did it to make up for the shortcomings of the first game because he did not have the time to finish that one in the manner in which he would have preferred.

Others think that it was just a cynical cash grab. Or rather, that they did the third game in order to make money to do other things. I have not seen anything that supports or validates the second opinion, but of course people are going to say that. I’m not saying that it’s not true. It does seem like he doesn’t like to repeat himself, so I can see that he might have done the sequels begrudgingly. But he did do them.

This is my long-ass way of getting to the point. Which I’m not there yet.


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