Stardew Valley Splash Screen

Everything is new to me past a very early point in the game and when an event comes up I will stop and wait until she can log on both to ensure she has seen it as well as making sure I understand what is important.

So while I play on our save during weekday evenings, I will stop and wait for the weekend for us to get in sync.  And so it was when I was notified that the annual luau was coming up.

When we got on together… we call to talk while we play… she explained that the focus of the luau was the soup, which was not something I would normally associate with a luau, and I have been to more than a few over the years.

The soup depends on adding in quality ingredients, so as the day of the luau started she went looking around for the right item while I grabbed a gold star radish I had harvested the day before.  It took a bit, but she finally found what she was looking for, so we headed towards the beach and… the luau was over.

The luau runs from 9am to 2pm, which is also a bit out of character for a luau, my experience being that they tend to be evening events.  But those people in Stardew Valley have their own customs I guess.

Not that the residents of Pelican Town can’t stay up late.  I went to the Moonlight Jellies event when it rolled around, and that ran from 10pm until midnight.

Staying up late for the jellies

So we both exited the game to restart the day. Saves only occurring when you go to bed at night, so if you quit mid-day you start back on the same morning.

This time we move a bit more quickly and were there early… and had to wait a bit.  But we were soon at the luau.

The luau in progress

The plan seems to be to add your special ingredient to the soup, then to go talk to everybody, but specifically speak to Mayor Lewis twice, once for the general social interaction and then again to get the soup tasting under way.

The governor, the guy in the purple up at the top of the screen shot, shows up for this special day and to judge the soup.  He was not enthusiastic.

Who’s the soup nazi now?

If he had been enthusiastic about the soup I would have gained rep with everybody in town.  Of course, if he didn’t like it, the whole thing would have been neg rep.  Everything hangs on your one ingredient I guess.  But an average soup… well, things go on as before.

Also, despite being scheduled into the early afternoon, the day is over once the governor renders his verdict.  We were sent back home and it was time for bed.

The morning brought a new surprise, a green rain.

While our daughter was knowledgeable about the luau, this was something new to her.  The town was in a bit of a panic and most everybody gathered at the Stardrop Saloon, exchanging conspiracy theories, while we went out to see what this green rain meant.

It was probably not encouraging to find Demetrius out in the green rain in a full hazmat suit.

But how long will that lifetime be?

As it turned out, the green rain just makes trees and bushes and grass grow very fast.  Also, there was a lot of moss to collect, an ingredient for later things.  Meanwhile Mayor Lewis got word from the governor that there was nothing to worry about.

The phones were still working at least

I will note that the governor was well out of town while saying this.

Anyway, we were out harvesting when we got the message that a train was passing through town.  This was back on familiar territory for our daughter, but something new for me.  So we ran up to where the train passes through to collect things that fell off.  For us it was coal.

The train in the rain stays mainly on the plain

This did remind me a bit of some things I had read about the Soviet Union in the 30s during the famine about children checking along the railroad tracks for lumps of coal or anything else they could find to help their families… and getting sent to the gulag if they got caught.

Fortunately, the governor’s regime is not so heavy handed.

But that was two new things for me and one for both of us.

Forza Horizon 6

There is also the issue of having something to say.  My previous post about the title was devoted to its open world nature that continues to reward you even if you decide to roam around, driving down every road while knocking over mascots, sign boards, and whatever gets in your way.

A 5,000 point sign board in a stadium

This time around, as the title of the post strongly suggests, I want to talk about actually racing.

There is a whole progression/story line that you need to follow to fulfill your completionist desires.  In fact, there are two parallel progression lines.

Inside you there are two progression paths

Discover Japan is its own thing, and I will post about it later.  But the Horizon Festival path is the usual race focused advancement that you have to follow if you want to unlock all of the crazy, flying through the air, racing against airplanes and mechs events.

Damn Daniel, at it again racing airplanes

That means doing at least some of the race events.  You have lots of options on the map.  That map is littered with races.

Things to do while driving in Japan

The thing is, all race events are not equal.  There are some at which I am… I was going to say “good,” but that overstates my ability… adequate, and others at which I struggle.  I am prone to arriving in last place in street race events on windy roads in wet weather at night… especially when the cars in the race are somewhat over powered.

Honestly, I am absolute crap when driving super cars or anything that has a high power to weight ratio on anything with tight corners.  I tend to be heavy on the throttle which, in a car that spins the tires and breaks loose if you lack a delicate touch, tends to end up with me facing the wrong way or off in the bushes or what not.

This is not helped by the fact that I turned off the rewind button, which will roll you back a few seconds of driving time, because I kept hitting it by accident.  So, in opting to commit to my mistakes, I have hamstrung myself a bit.

I also tend to treat racing as a full contact sport, my favorite routine being to come in too hot on a corner on the inside when there is somebody I can slam into in order to help myself through the bend and off to the next straight away.

Generally I am best served with modest to under powered cars; the James May philosophy of it being more fun to drive something common to its limit than to fiddle with the super cars.

Where I tend to do better is when things are at least a bit off road.  Putting me in a Subaru or a Mitsubishi AWD sedan and pointing me towards the dirt is more fun for me.

Went pavement for an off road rally start

Even better is something where big off road vehicles are involved.  That Jeep I mentioned a post or two back, that will go go go across the landscape and over hills and off of jumps like no other.  All I need to do is keep enough control to get through the checkpoints.

Off we go in some more durable off road vehicles

So you would think I would just stick to my strengths.  But that would require planning and focus and I can’t even do a three race series.  I hate those.  I do the first race and then meander off and run the next race I land on and get this warning that if I do this race, the one right here in front of me, then I will lose all progress towards whatever it was I just started but completely lost the thread for because the other races were on the other side of the map.

So what will happen is that I will get an off road race or two and the game will chide me for playing in the kiddie pool, encouraging me to step it up a bit.

Hey, you’ve been winning!

So I do it.  And then I’ll hit a set of road races or things on the track and I’ll come in 10th place out of 12… or maybe 12th place if I really got myself stuck… and then the game comes back and tells me I suck and maybe I should stay in the kiddie pool.

Hey, you’ve been losing!

Here’s the thing.  If you run enough races you’ll still unlock the next festival event and get to go jump through the air as you race against planes or mechs, and you’ll come out the other side with the next wristband.

It says “expert,” but not expert at what!

And even when I am not doing so well… it is still fun.  Maybe a bit frustrating when I’ve slid through a turn too fast and wedged myself against another bridge abutment and have to scramble to catch up to the pack, but it is all a good time.

Behold the Steam Machine

And by “arrived” I mean you can now queue up to be on the randomized-order list of people who will get to buy one whenever they are available.  But to get in on that first group you need to go there and sign up by 10:00am Pacific Time on June 25th, which is freaking Thursday, so go do it if this is Steam machine is your dream machine.

The whole things is… about as rumors suggested.  I mean, in looking at the order page over on Steam, there is nothing outlandish or really surprising.  It very much follows on from the success of the Steam Deck, going from the handheld form factor to a console form factor.

It runs SteamOS, a flavor of Linux, which Valve has been honing for a while now to run Windows games using Proton.

Valve makes a pitch that it is really a PC, and certainly the host of connector options on the device speak to that level of flexibility.

The i/o layout of the Steam Machine

They even invite you to install your own apps and operating system, because why limit your target audience or throw a fit like certain console makers about what you do with the hardware you have purchased?

Really though, this is a PC games console, and Valve says, “Your Games on the Big Screen!” right up front.  As somebody who recently wrote about the joy of playing Stardew Valley on our TV (rather than on the tiny Switch Lite screen), I can certainly get behind that.  Somewhat.

There are two configurations available, one with 512GB of storage for $1,049.

Base Model Steam Machine

And for $300 more you can get a 2TB model.

Somewhat more Steam Machine

They also throw in a couple of other faceplates for the device at that price point.  I am going to guess that soon Etsy will be teeming with cute faceplate options, but for now you get black, walnut, and red fabric.

Each configuration is also available with a Steam Controller, which knocks $20 off the price of buying them separately.  I haven’t been convinced of the need for one, but Valve sold out of Steam Controllers the moment they landed.  I assume they held some back for these bundles. Meanwhile the word is that the Steam Machine itself will start shipping on June 29th.  However they haven’t said how many units that first batch would entail.  It is probably a small number, something in the low to mid three digits.  So who knows who is getting what and when?

There is that, plus whole thing feels a bit pricey, running a bit more than $6 per cubic inch for that 6″x6″x6″ cube.  The price seems to be at the core of most reactions to the announcement.  People expected it to be less, and I suppose I did too.  I mean, last November EuroGamer was wishcasting the idea that it ought to be “$400 with a controller” to send a real message.

Yeah, it ain’t that.  And the actual price sends its own message.

I will admit that my PC parts price tolerances are from a time before we had a madman setting tariffs at random and disrupting trade by losing wars, all while a host of billionaires are out buying up RAM futures and GPUs to feed the seemingly endless need for data centers to build out their dystopian vision of the future where they own everything and we have to say “please” and “thank you” for merely being allowed to exist on their planet.

Everything costs more now, so one would expect this would as well.  I haven’t tried to build out one on my own based on parts, but I bet I wouldn’t do a lot better.

And there is some value in the compact size alone.  The Steam Machine would fit nicely on the shelves on our TV stand.  And nothing says that you’re going after the living room market dominated by consoles than the form factor.

But, as a console, it also doesn’t bring me anything new.  The Steam Machine merely locks me into a subset of the PC games I already play.  While you might note that the two titles I have mentioned playing on my new Switch 2 are ALSO titles I could play on my PC (Stardew Valley and No Man’s Sky), there is at least access to an ecosystem of Nintendo titles, including some Pokemon titles I might actually invest in.

And the Switch 2 plays on the TV like a console or as a hand held.  I already use it in both modes.  Oh, and it was $449, less than half the Steam Machine price.  I feel confident I would make the same purchasing decision today.

(Nintendo is no doubt subsidizing the hardware price, and Valve says we shouldn’t want that.  But I wouldn’t expect subsidies from Valve either.  Nintendo lives or dies on the number of hardware units they ship to support their software ecosystem.  Valve lived high on the hog with Steam software sales alone long before it went after hardware.  And hardware subsidies don’t buy mega yachts for Gabe.  So I am a bit mixed on the subsidy thing.  Valve could certainly afford it… if they were serious about breaking into the market.)

All of which means that the Steam Machine, at least this first iteration in this particular point of time, is not for me.  It doesn’t deliver enough for the price being asked.

Not that I don’t feel a bit of desire.  I appreciate the design and if I wanted to do co-op PC gaming on the TV, this would seem an ideal candidate.  But the base model would need to be… $650 to keep a Playstation 5 from being in contention.  I wouldn’t consider an XBox for sure, given where all of that is going.

If you are eager to get one, I won’t be cluttering up the queue trying to get on the list, so there is at least that.  I’m just here to see how this plays out.

I bet Valve will sell/ship all they can make for the rest of the year.  After that… we’ll see.

Related:

• Steam – The Steam Machine Page
• Ars Technica – Valve’s Steam Machine ships June 29 for $1,049
• WCCFTech – Valve’s Steam Machine Pre-Orders Open at $1049
• WCCFTech – Steam Machine Either Hides a Fat Margin or Got Rinsed by Suppliers
• Massively OP – Valve’s wild Steam Machine price tag has gaming consumers balking
• In An Age – Steam Machine is $1000+
• Aftermath – The Steam Machine Is An Iconoclastic Computer Born In Unforgiving Times

I mean, when Asha Sharma, the new head of XBox Games, wouldn’t commit to the $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition being a good thing… that was a sign.

Sad AI Slop Xbox Games logo generated by Co-Pilot because that is what MSFT is really losing money on

If things are normal, execs always say that whatever deal they just did was great and expanded the brand and whatever BS they can think of in the moment.  When the chief of the division equivocates… that is bad.  That is a signal that she possesses information that might contradict that point of view and, as a senior individual at a public company, they cannot just lie with the ease of your typical billionaire.  (You must be “billionaire” rich for laws an consequences to not apply to you, and Asha is not in that in pay range.)

Asha Sharma has been a bit of a question mark since her move to the position back in March, a change that saw the long serving Phil Spencer pushed out the door.  Aside from the usual sexism and claims that she wasn’t a “real” gamer, there was some trepidation as to what plans an exec from the AI group of Microsoft might be bringing with her.

While she floated something about “Project Helix” and next generation consoles back then, so far her key achievement unlock has been changing the brand from “XBox” to “XBOX” in a poll over at Elon Musk’s Nazi friendly social media site, where Microsoft remains entrenched, supporting all that goes on there by implication.  That seems trivial, but at least she hadn’t laid anybody off… yet.

Last week’s news made it clear that layoffs were coming.  Finding out that XBox was running at a 3% profit margin rather than the 30% required of all MSFT divisions (that has got to be some creative accounting over in the Co-Pilot group) and that CEO Satya Nadella was declaring that XBox must finally become a sustainable business could mean no other course of action was being considered.  There was no “if” anymore, only “when” and “how much?”

This past week we did find out that there was an additional course of action on the agenda.  In addition to the looming studio closures and layoffs, which are going to happen no matter what, CEO Satya was also out there declaring at a live event that the company was really failing monetize XBox and its offerings sufficiently, going so far as to claim that the company was really subsidizing the brand.

So that is going to end and Microsoft is going to monetize gamers back to the stone age.  They won’t be so dumb as to raise the price of the XBox Game Pass again… once bitten and all that… but I expect that they will find a whole host of things that won’t be part of the game pass to sell you.  Hell, EA is committing to putting live ads directly into game play… again I think… so why not get on board with that?

That was the extent of the reflection on the state of the business at XBox, which doesn’t add up to a business plan.  It is all just a knee-jerk reaction to the current situation.

Anybody applying even an ounce of thought the situation might quickly wonder aloud why Microsoft is even in the console business.  They haven’t done very well in the end.  25 years of work has garnered them the position of having the 10th best selling console of all time, the XBox 360, mostly famous for the ongoing red ring of death problem and the support nightmare that issue became, which puts it behind every single generation of competing PlayStation console produced… as well as both the Nintendo Wii and Switch.

Microsoft tries to do all the console things, like buying up game studios… arguably the Activision Blizzard purchase was just to get the Call of Duty franchise… so they can have exclusives for their console, to give gamers a reason why they HAVE to have an XBox.

But then the Windows division gets grumpy and so there has to be a PC version of a lot of titles.  Forza Horizon might be the only title that would get me to even look at an XBox, but there it is on PC… on Steam… so I grabbed it there and Valve got its cut.  No XBox for me.

And then some fresh faced MBA in finance points out that putting a title on PlayStation would yield more money than an exclusive on the XBox would yield in console sales, so they roll up a version for Sony.  Sure, maybe they delay it a bit.  Forza Horizon 6 isn’t on PlayStation TODAY, but it will be soon enough.  And if you’re going to that then why spend the money buying up studios in the first place?

Even when they get serious about the exclusives thing, they go about it in such a ham fisted way that we’re all reminded at what a monopolistic shit bag of a company Microsoft has traditionally been such that they manage to rile up public opinion against them and have to soften their line.

Meanwhile Nintendo… which owns four of the top ten best selling console positions on the chart I referenced above… moves along rarely deigning to allow any of their key exclusive to even make a cameo on hardware besides their own.  It was revolutionary that Pokemon Go ever became a thing.  And it probably never would have been had Microsoft or Sony been major players in the mobile phone market.  Apple and Google’s Android customers are not in the claws of a competitor, but potential buyers to lure to Nintendo platforms.

Of course there is a huge difference between Nintendo and Microsoft.  Video game consoles are Nintendo’s life blood, all the company really exists to do.  Meanwhile over at Microsoft, which has 30x the annual revenue of Nintendo, video games are practically a hobby.

Looking at the breakout, somewhere after Azure (where Satya has stuffed AI in order to hide its losses), Office 365 products, and Windows, which together cover nearly three quarters of the company’s revenue, we finally land at XBox with a little under 9% of the company’s annual revenue.

I mean, looking at the numbers, $21 billion in revenue for XBox and other gaming is not nothing.  If it were an actual independent company it would still be nearly 3x Nintendo in revenue.  And the Activision acquisition, which came in after that chart I linked, will probably increase that, but at the cost of nearly $70 billion invested.

I know, I know, acquisitions are revenue neutral on the books as every asset is assumed to be worth exactly what you paid for it so all revenue from it looks net new when it lands.  Look at how Daybreak numbers improved when they bought Singularity 6 and Palia.  So Activision Blizzard might let XBox surpass Windows for revenue when the current fiscal year is tallied up, but having Windows and owning the OS on nearly every corporate and government workstation and laptop is a strategic position that Microsoft will die defending because its integrations with Azure and Office 365 make it vital to enabling other revenue.

Meanwhile, as noted, Microsoft continues to pour money into AI, a completely money losing venture, both internally and via investments in OpenAI and Anthropic.  That is Satya whole plan, pile all the chips on the AI square, spin the wheel, hope the marble lands in his spot… which is why he gets so whiny when people use terms like “AI slop,” because it implies he is a complete moron who has been taken in by hucksters.

(Also, in making that bit of AI slop at the top I asked Co-Pilot to make it, because no other service would do for this post, when I asked it to alter its first pass it opened up the whole exchange in a new window, told me it was working on it, then showed me nothing.  When I asked it where the updated image was it told me it could not display images in this particular window, which is just about as illustrative of AI logic as I could ask.  It is all slop, all the way down.)

But, as I have said previously, big tech doesn’t have another new scam to sell us, so they have to keep being all-in on AI while they look for whatever comes next after crypto, cloud computing, VR, and the metaverse,

So here we sit, waiting for the commencement of the bloodbath.  I had predicted more layoffs back at the first of the year, but with Asha coming on board and talking about Project Helix I thought maybe they’re done with that.  But no.  The layoffs will continue until Satya’s morale/bonus improves, because we have learned that the primary rule of capitalism is that corporate CEOs must never face any consequences for their actions.

Related:

• Ars Technica –  Xbox leaders lay out “hard truths” behind sagging brand
• Game Developer – Xbox CEO unsure whether Activision Blizzard merger is paying off
• Game Developer – MSFT to pay $250M to settle lawsuit filed by aggrieved Activision Blizzard shareholders
• Game Developer – Microsoft CEO says Xbox must become ‘sustainable’ as it reportedly considers major spinoff
• Game Developer – Two former Rare execs are leaving Xbox
• Game Developer – Former Xbox employees warn of potential for retaliation in rumored impending layoffs
• WCCFTech – Microsoft CEO Says Xbox Must Finally Become a Sustainable Business
• WCCFTech – Xbox Layoffs Just the Beginning of a Publisher-Wide Catastrophe
• WCCFTech – Analyst Says Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s Next 100 Days Are About Making Xbox Smaller
• Polygon – Microsoft should sell Xbox before it ruins everything
• Massively OP – Xbox’s ‘reset’ will reportedly mean layoffs
• Massively OP – Microsoft-owned studios negotiate to avoid closures as CEO wants *more* monetization in games
• Bloomberg – Studios in Microsoft’s Xbox Division Brace for Closures (limited gift link)
• PC Gamer – As Xbox eyes layoffs, Microsoft’s CEO says its videogames aren’t monetised enough
• Kotaku – Microsoft CEO Complains About Poor Gaming Profits
• Tech Dirt – Xbox: A Mess, Moving Back To Exclusivity Deals, & The Layoffs Microsoft Promised Wouldn’t Happen
• Games Industry.biz – Report: Microsoft weighing up spinning off Xbox

Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video Games

This week had two titles lined up for release, plus a third from the week before that was still missing a score.  And I guess we’re still waiting on Ghost of Yotei: Legends, but I fear that ship may have sailed at this point.

But before we get into that, this is where we left off last time around for scores.

Week 24 Scores

Going into what looked to be a quiet week, what with the Summer Game Fest dates having all been announced, we didn’t see an update until Tuesday when Archey, who is the one waiting on that Ghost of Yotei: Legends score, got not respect as his Warhammer pick took another hit.

• Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II
  • [Picked by Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 73.1 to 71.7

While it is still not at zero value, it is certainly flirting with that.

Wednesday saw the first new score roll in for the week.

• The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales
  • [Picked by Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)]
  • Now has a score of 80

That is a solid score for a game with that name.  Also, the title card… does he even look like an Elliot?

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales

That was followed up later in the day with a small bump in the score, then another drop, which added up to a small net gain.

• The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales
  • [Picked by Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)]
  • Score has gone UP from 80.0 to 81.5
• The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales
  • [Picked by Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)]
  • Score has gone DOWN from 81.8 to 80.6

The next day saw the title release with enough strength to move Corr a notch up in the standings.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)
    • Score has gone UP from 43.4 to 54.1
    • Moved from 5th place to 4th place
  • Green River Gaming (Nimgimli)
    • Moved from 4th place to 5th place

Dave the Diver – In the Jungle also released at the same time as Elliot, but we had to wait another day for it to get enough reviews for a score.

Dave the Diver – In the Jungle

But when the score arrived it was worth the wait.

• Dave the Diver – In the Jungle
  • [Picked by Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)]
  • Now has a score of 93.3

Dave the Diver came in hard and that was enough to jump Arhanta from 13th to 6th position.

• Publisher Score Updates
  • Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)
    • Score has gone UP from 11.8 to 38.5
    • Moved from 13th place to 6th place
  • Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane)
    • Moved from 6th place to 7th place
  • Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)
    • Moved from 7th place to 8th place
  • S Class Warfare Studios (p0tsh0t)
    • Moved from 8th place to 9th place
  • Crash and Burn Games (Shawn)
    • Moved from 9th place to 10th place
  • Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod)
    • Moved from 10th place to 11th place
  • Frabjous Day Enterprises (Archey)
    • Moved from 11th place to 12th place
  • Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais)
    • Moved from 12th place to 13th place

That meant three quarters of the board had moved by Thursday.  But would Dave the Diver hold out?  We have seen big opening reviews get pulled down by later, less enthusiastic write ups.

While it did drop off a bit, it still held onto a score of 92, which left it ahead of Mina the Hollower and Forza Horizon 6 for the time being.

And that was it for the week when it came to scores, with the board ending up like this.

Week 25 Scores

There was also a single title being bid upon this week, though three of us turned out to be bidding on it.

• Bids in TAGN League
  • Final Fantasy Resonance
    • Won by Hidalgo Trading Company (Pallais) with a bid of $17
    • Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)’s bid of $6 did not succeed: Publisher was outbid.
    • TAGN HQ (Wilhelm)’s bid of $1 did not succeed: Publisher was outbid.

Pallais took it with a $17 bid.  I threw in for a dollar mid-week just to see if it was in play.  Apparently it was.

Then there was an administrative update.

• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (2026)
  • [Picked by Corr’s Creative Collective (Corr)]
    • Game name changed from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake
    • to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (2026)

So there we go.  With that the next ten titles coming up are.

Coming Up for Week 26

That has another two titles dropping next week, Deltarune Chapter 5 and Star Fox (2026), the latter being a remake of Star Fox 64, one of a number of titles in the Star Fox series.

While Star Fox is one of my picks, I am also interested in how Deltarune Chapter 5 plays out.  Corr has picked this in both leagues I am playing in, and I counter picked it in the other league, on a gut feeling and little more.

While Deltarune received excellent reviews at launch, the additional chapters for the game have been somewhat ignored by reviewers.  Metacritic did get enough mainline reviews to give any of them a score, so there is a possibility it might be yet another title that fails to get enough reviews to generate a score.  I’d like to say that was my plan all along, but I only bothered to check up on this once it got a release date as part of the Summer Game Fest.  And Open Critic casts a much wider net and got enough for reviews for all past chapters.  So I could be cooked in the other league.

My eye will be on both titles this coming week.

Related:

• TAGN Fantasy Critic League
• TAGN Discord Server
• Fantasy Critic Site
• Fantasy Critic How to Play
• Fantasy Critic FAQ
• Fantasy Critic Most Desired Reviews
• Open Critic Review Site