Big name, but random googling says Half Life Alyx sold 50k vs.... Animal Crossing at 11 million+ by March 31.

I'm not sure Half Life Alyx has any relevance as far as volume of play goes ;)

You really don't. I have a 3ft by 3ft playspace (at most), and I played through Alyx (as well as tons of other VR games) just fine. Sure, having more space would've made it a little bit better, but the overall experience is just as great.

Most companies when they introduce a platform do try to push it with some of their own high profile content. Valve not so much until recently.

It's only been the past several years that Valve has completely stopped making games, and started working on other things.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

It's easy to estimate roughly from the steam data that is publicly available.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m67wYSTgvus

Much like music, movies, pretty much all media.

Not that you are wrong, but i feel like it would be more interesting to see those numbers in the context of the entire install base. Like, number of sales compared to the number of those devices in people’s hands.

I saw a news article a couple of weeks ago that in my city, Xboxes, Switches and PlayStations are very hard to come by. I don't think people are dropping hundreds of dollars mid-cycle to buy new machines for the games.

To a much lesser extent, I have done this, too. My local used video game store started doing free home delivery, and I picked up a half-dozen Atari 2600 carts that were missing from my collection. But for me, in addition to needing the distraction a game provides, I need the comfort and familiarity of the big wood-grain beast and simple joysticks.

I haven't played games in 10 years. But during lockdown here in South Africa, the only way to stay in touch with my friends 20km away is to have a fat chat on Discord and play some games.

One friend even mentioned he hasn't been nearly this excited about video games since childhood.

There's a few new releases I'd like to get, but I'm too busy with the games I already have, so I'm holding off.

Lockdown has increased video game consumption beyond newer releases, the price of Wii consoles and Wii Sports has increased, for example, which shows an increased demand for a console that came out 14 years ago.

So it's a combination of a strong new releases, a big reduction in options for other leisure activities, and literally millions of newly unemployed people.

It's still not SOR2, but one of the best sequels ever.

Playing lately Phoenix Wright, Cities Skylines, Alien Isolation (snagged it at $2), RDR2.

Actually, I understand exactly what you mean. I spent yesterday trying that game. I ended up getting it for free. In the beginning it was fun, I was excited to watch the city grow. By the time I finished, I felt like I'd just wasted hours doing absolutely nothing. Everything was shallow and pointless. Didn't help that all the stuff I wanted to do and thought I might be able to do was stuff that was locked behind a bunch of dlc, that I didn't find out about until I'd gotten kind of sick of it and read a bit about the game.

But then I also started playing Minecraft again on server set up by a friend of a friend. And the feeling is completely different. While most of us (5 players) spend out times doing our own thing much of the time, just the occasional visit (and surprises left behind) makes all the 'pointless' home improvement feel worthwhile.

And it actually is, to a degree. I'm chatting with the other players (some of whom I've never met IRL) about strategies, what to get where, and interesting things to do. And while our homes are far apart and we rarely visit each other, we're working on a massive railroad project to connect all of these homes.

I forgot how much fun this 'pointless' stuff can be when there's a social component to it!

Beyond that, I've been sharing an island with my partner, and it's just been a joy-filled adventure getting to see the work each day that the other has done on the island and their house.

That being said, I do agree with the emptiness of the accomplishments feeling. I suspect that it comes from putting a lot of effort into creating something only to realize that it has no value outside of the game itself.

I suspect Amazon's numbers for this quarter are going to surprise a lot of people

So yes, Amazon may well be a winner because of the shift, but they are winning a larger fraction of a smaller pie.

I never thought I'd have child-like excitement for an upcoming game again until I entered the world of Paradox.

Paper Mario: Origami King was announced yesterday.

Personally, I'd forgotten there was a MS store until I looked this up just now.

All this on top of the fact that my c:/ drive is tiny and I want to install my games on an external harddrive. In fact I think I had a double install going at one point.

Long story short the microsoft store sucks.

Lately I’ve been playing Wolfenstein Youngblood in co-op with a friend on the Left Coast, and Phantom Doctrine also (neither of which are new games), and having a blast with both.

Animal Crossing... I just don’t understand the appeal

It's basically The Sims mashed up with Minecraft mashed up with a cute animal aesthetic. Those things are insanely popular, but it's totally understandable that they're not universally appealing either.

Doom 2016 v Doom Eternal: same shit Valorant: it's in beta so I'll give it some slack but it's pretty boring Half Life: Alyx: a VR game. lol Valve. Much rather get a Source 2 update for CSGO

Atleast GTA V is free on the Epic store.

Gears 5 was CoDified, still happily playing Gears 4 though.

MCC for PC just came out. Can't believe I can play Halo 2 again!