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This Week in Games - The First Nintendo Direct of 2023

Man, Rex grew up nicely. Anyway, I completed XC3 back when it came out, but I always thought I'd replay it when all the DLC was released. I'm glad that seems to be inching closer to reality.

Full credit to the original Metroid Prime, but I had to look closely to see any visual improvement. The GameCube original is a beautiful game and has aged amazingly after all these years; there are improvements, but it's easy to miss them because the base game was that pretty.

A new Direct is always a lot to process. I'm going to need at least the weekend to process most of it. Especially that Xenoblade trailer. I can get Level-5's offerings out of the way, though.

A new Fantasy Life was long overdue, and bringing in Dark Cloud mechanics feels like a no-brainer (or Akihiro Hino trying to update the ideas that put him and Level-5 on the map to begin with). DecaPolice already got me on aesthetic (as Level-5 games usually do), but I'll have to see more of how it plays. A new Layton? With Hershel, and not Katrielle? Are game-onlies like me ever going to get any kind of closure for Millioniere Conspiracy's tease of an ending? Probably not. (And no word on the new Inazuma Eleven until later this month, but the gameplay footage finally looks exactly like it should. I think it's in good hands.)

As for Nintendo's big surprise:

Quote:

Full credit to the original Metroid Prime, but I had to look closely to see any visual improvement. The GameCube original is a beautiful game and has aged amazingly after all these years; there are improvements, but it's easy to miss them because the base game was that pretty.

The base game was indeed very pretty, but I popped in the Metroid Prime Trilogy disc just to fact-check myself on the following wall of text. I'll break down what I've noticed in the few hours I've played, because this game got a hell of a face lift for a game turning 20 this year:
- Full pixel-shaded graphics and completely redone environment textures/shaders. The original areas were vertex-shaded (which is hard to explain concisely but you can look it up), and only had diffuse textures (but were very good at faking it). The new areas look like a game made in 2022, and probably were.
- Boss enemies redesigned from scratch. I've only fought Flaahgra and Sheegoth so far, but both had entirely new models and textures. Flaahgra is much greener and actually looks like a plant now. On that note, Samus and her ship were redone as well.
- Volumetric lighting. The same big graphics touch-up Skyrim got with Special Edition. Also hard to explain concisely, but colors sort of... hang in the air in a way they didn't before. Phendrana is very moody now.
- Too much post-processing to list. Think of your favorite ReShade or ENB presets and you won't be too far off. Water now has ripples, reflections, and distorts light that passes through. The lava effects especially are quite different, and you can even see distortions from the heat rising off of it.
- And more, probably. This is just what a rank amateur like me was able to pick up in a few hours with it. I'll have more to say on the water effects once I get the Gravity Suit.
- Most importantly, the music is entirely untouched. Why change perfection? The only notable difference from the original NA GameCube release so far is Flaahgra's boss theme using the correct loop timing, which was fixed in every release after (including Trilogy, which used the EU version as a base), a relic of the days before you could just deploy a patch.

Man, Rex grew up nicely. Anyway, I completed XC3 back when it came out, but I always thought I'd replay it when all the DLC was released. I'm glad that seems to be inching closer to reality.

Aw man, thanks for the comprehensive breakdown! I really wanna see the Volumetric lighting in action now. I loved tiny details from the original MP like the charged beam shot distorting space around itself, it's exciting to hear they were able to implement even MORE lovely details like those.

-MS/ActiBlizz: This thing is still a hilarious circus. It's gotten to the point where Kotick is going on CNBC to whine about how they're just a poor widdle Western publisher and Microsoft needs them in order to fight again mean old Asia. Because if there's anything that gets people going, it's stoking fear of Asia. Pathetic. I hope this deal flops and Kotick loses so much money for the company that investors finally boot him.

Antitrust expert who defeated Microsoft says FTC's Activision deal strategy is 'nutty' - FTC head Lina Khan is pursuing a stated strategy of bringing cases even with little evidence.

Lina Khan, head of the FTC, has publicly stated she wants the agency to bring cases forward even when the evidence isn't strong.

Many are casting doubts that the FTC has the facts on its side to win one or both of these cases against these tech giants. Among the skeptics is Douglas Melamed, dubbed the Michael Jordan of antitrust law. Melamed is a former acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice. He was principal deputy assistant attorney general when the DOJ successfully sued Microsoft over antitrust violations in the 1990s.

Melamed, who is now a professor at Stanford Law School, said FTC Chair Lina Khan is willing to lose cases to demonstrate to Congress that the country needs new antitrust legislation.

“I think that’s kind of nutty,” Melamed said. “I think if you lose cases, the most likely inference Congress is going to draw is either you brought bad cases or you don’t know how to litigate them.”

As has been reported before, FTC staff did not want to pursue the case against Meta but Khan reportedly overruled them. That said, Melamed thinks Microsoft’s case might be an even tougher challenge for the FTC than the one with Meta and Within. He said based on the complaint, the agency seems to lack rigorous economic analysis to back up its claims against the tech giant.

“In this case, the commission really doesn’t seem to care about economics at all. This seems to be built entirely on anecdote. And the storytelling about it – I think all good litigators tell a good story, but in antitrust, typically you back that up with some numbers and some rigorous economic analysis and there’s no indication of that in the complaint.

FTC won’t appeal court decision permitting Meta to buy Within. The decision could spell trouble for a separate FTC suit challenging Microsoft’s purchase of Activision.

The FTC's course of action is incredibly rash and premature. While the commission's concerns about Activision Blizzard game exclusivity are understandable, it's hard to believe that the FTC truly cares about anything other than political grandstanding.

Ultimately, the contrast between the FTC's approach and the EU's could not be sharper. While the EU no doubt has its concerns, the fact it's actually trying to work them out with Microsoft signals that it's doing what a regulator is supposed to do: carefully considering the merger and working to ensure it will help, not hurt, consumers. Meanwhile, the FTC has clumsily barreled its way into a full-blown lawsuit, complaining about ZeniMax exclusives that Microsoft never said it would make multiplatform in the first place and manipulating the EU to try and keep a settlement from developing.

Microsoft Case Poses Crucial Test for FTC’s Fight Against ‘Vertical’ Mergers - Antitrust-enforcement agency seeks to block Activision purchase with arguments similar to those that have failed in the past

The concerns from the FTC are further diminished by the fact that Microsoft and Activision are not in direct competition with each other, but rather interact with the market at different levels. Vertical mergers, which see companies operating at different levels of production in an industry combine, are trickier to build an antitrust case against than horizontal ones that see direct rivals combine

It’s the biggest test yet of Ms. Khan’s effort to overhaul antitrust law. In recent decades, courts have tended to approve so-called vertical mergers, like the Activision deal, that unite two related companies in an industry, rather than putting together direct competitors.

Ms. Khan has acknowledged that the strategy may not win in the courts every time. But she has defended filing long-shot lawsuits if they expand the boundaries of competition regulation, including by persuading Congress to change antitrust law.

Still, some critics are unconvinced. These kinds of non-competitor transactions —“vertical” mergers — are difficult to challenge and have a long track record of success. Indeed, as Meta explained in a recent court filing, “there has not been a single successful antitrust challenge to a vertical acquisition litigated in 50 years.”

However, in the scenario in which it falls apart due to concerns over market competition, it seems that we can expect Kotick to remain at the top of the company for some time. This is despite being implicated in several abuse and harassment allegations within the company, and heading it while many of these incidents were said to have taken place.

Despite this, Activision Blizzard's shareholders have continued to give Kotick their full backing, overwhelmingly supporting his bid to stay on the board of directors last year. So if the Microsoft acquisition falls through, it doesn't seem that there will be much internal pressure to oust the CEO, or at least not from those with a great deal of influence within the company.

Kotick owns 25% stake of Activision and has been its CEO since 1991 - if Activision can't get rid of him out of all that time, they'll never get rid of him! So if the merger deal fails, Kotick stays - and who would want that?