And then watch both of them again to see if you can spot all the single-frame gags.

I’ve seen ones modded into a laptop form factor. Does that not count?

A new take on the Steam Machine could potentially knock Xbox out of the market in their current state, and I’m okay with that.

I could generally take or leave their clutter items, but persistent NPCs with dynamic schedules or the full stat and inventory systems of the PC are still extremely rare, never mind both. Most games simplify NPCs such that they don’t actually have equipment or just have one item (typically an unlootable weapon) and reduce their stats to just HP and defense stats. By contrast, the only difference between an NPC and the PC in a Bethesda game is that the player has controll over the PC.

For me, if they moved to a new engine it would need those persistent fully-featured NPCs to feel like a Bethesda game. Ten years ago, there wasn’t really anything else that did that. Now, there’s got to be something they can make work. Hell, BG3 has all this stuff, it’s just from a top-down perspective. And it can handle ladders, which Bethesda’s engine still can’t do.

And later, Torres explicitely not doing that.

IIRC, neither was wearing armor in the book, but it’s been a while so I may be wrong.

People have argued nobody would buy AAA if it’s not an open world with XP, skills and crafting.

See, I hate crafting systems. A game advertising its crafting system makes me less interested. Too many things to remember and the game grinds to a halt for several minutes while I navigate menus. Dragon Age Inquisition was particularly bad with entire sessions lost to inventory management. The Horizon games are bearable just because I can generate pointers to the stuff I need and I’m generally swimming in components anyway.

I’m the opposite. I prefer the fem VA, but I like Panam just a bit more than Judy.

The Wiimote worked with a pair of IR blasters to locate your screen. Joycons have no idea where your screen is. In that light, that they work as pointing devices at all is actually rather impressive.