Backlog: The Embiggening –August, 2026
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/26/26 at 03:57 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Happy Birthday to me... again. As I spend my special day boiling in mid-western humidity, are there any new games coming out that I can gift myself and have an excuse to stay inside in the A/C? Probably not, but we’d better take a look anyway...
Ugh. For the second month in a row, Shovel-ready slop is HALF the release schedule. In Licensed Swill, Disney is well represented with both a new ‘Star Wars’ Strategy thing and a new ‘Marvel’ Fighting thing. The ‘Captain Tsubasa’ Soccer anime is also getting a... nother game, while the cult-favorite ‘Scott Pilgrim’ is getting another game too. In Annualized Swill, there’s the predictable release of a new ‘Madden Football.’ Lastly, in Noteworthy Ports, there’s a second volume of the ‘Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection’ (though I’m of the opinion that, if your ‘Master Collection’ has multiple volumes, it wasn’t particularly masterful in the first …
Rumor: Xbox to Introduce Disc-to-Digital Feature with Transferable Licenses
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/18/26 at 03:08 PM CT
Back when the Xbox One – or XBONE as everyone called it, because it was “boned” from day one – originally revealed Microsoft’s plans to tie physical games to users’ Xbox Live accounts (and to require frequent online DRM checks to keep those licenses working), gamers revolted, and Sony even made a snarky little video about how easy it was to share physical games on the PS4 compared to the nightmare Xbox was building. Well, now the Worm has Turned, and it’s Sony planning to take away gamers’ ability to either share games or buy and sell them on the second-hand market.
In response to Sony making the first (disastrous) move this time, Xbox has been leaking rumors that, not only will the Xbox Helix include an optical disc drive, it will also include a revamped – and allegedly incredibly user-friendly – version of the XBONE disc licensing scheme. According to the rumors, people who insert a physical XBONE or Xbox SeX disc into the Helix will have that disc …
Xbox’s ONLY Profitable Products are “Minecraft” and “Candy Crush.”
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/12/26 at 03:07 PM CT
The new head of Microsoft’s Xbox Division, Asha Sharma, has been taking the scythe to the division and its studios lately, cutting down to the veritable bone in a (vain) attempt to reset Xbox into profitability – an impossible task considering it has NEVER been profitable. We’ve gotten news about some of the smaller Indie studios Xbox gobbled up being given their freedom again, as well as other studios – even big ones that we might expect to be immune – having their staff drastically cut and their projects canceled.
None of that should be surprising, after all. This IS Xbox we’re talking about.
However, a little tidbit of news managed to slip past my filter and made an impression by just how ludicrous it is. According to Sharma herself, the only profitable products in the Xbox portfolio are “Minecraft,” which Xbox acquired in 2014 when they bought out the Sweden-based Indie developer behind it, Mojang, as well as “Candy Crush,” which was, seemingly, an …
Sony = Finished
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/05/26 at 02:30 PM CT
Just a few weeks ago, we learned that – against all better judgment – we are, indeed, set to be subjected to another Generation of Console Wars. However, it seems that Sony is trying to sabotage its 10th Gen efforts before they can even get off the ground.
As if the PlayStation company delving into the evils of Dynamic Pricing wasn’t bad enough, they’ve recently announced that, starting in 2028, there will be NO MORE PHYSICAL PLAYSTATION GAME DISCS... EVER! 2028 seems to be a reasonably-distant point in time to consider the release of the unfortunately-planned PlayStation 6, so this announcement is an obvious declaration that the PS6 will not have a disc drive, and that any cross-gen games released after the launch window of Sony’s 10th Gen console will only be available as digital downloads, even if you own a PS5 with a disc drive or a PS5 Pro with an external disc drive.
Why would Sony make such a horrible decision? After all, the awful experience of the PlayStation …
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