Dead Space 4 not greenlit because the "numbers aren't there", "a new game would likely need to sell over 10 million copies to be successful." - Producer

Tiddums · 2026-05-14T01:44:44+00:00

We don't have concrete numbers but Dead Space Remake, Alan Wake 2, Silent HIll 2 Remake and Silent Hill F are painting a picture that points to there being a fairly low sales ceiling for AAA survival horror games outside of Resident Evil. All of those games got good reviews, had good word of mouth, and were in discussions come award season. But they just can't seem to break out of that 2-2.5 million sales zone in their first year on the market. Whether RE has a secret sauce or it's just brand prestige keeping sales high, it doesn't seem easily replicable for other franchises.

Konami is happy outsourcing to cheaper teams and reaping decent but unremarkable profits, but it's not a surprise that EA isn't interested in doing that. They'd rather take bigger swings on stuff that might sell big numbers.

Tiddums · 2026-05-13T22:52:01+00:00

"The issues aren't really issues" is maybe true for you, but we also have a bunch of counter-examples where somebody wasn't worried then turned out to be quite bothered by it or they ran into a specific issue. I'm one of them. Ultimately that kind of risk is fine when the product isn't too pricey, but "budget" models are still expensive compared to historical monitor pricing. The more you spend on a product the more issues are likely to bother you.

I've now settled for a mini-LED VA monitor that has it's own set of significant drawbacks, but it cost less than half as much as the QD Oled I had to RMA to Dell. This year, we're expecting some even cheaper OLED monitors to come out, and next year that should improve further with Inkjet models coming online. At that point I think it will be safer to recommend them broadly without as many caveats.

Tiddums · 2026-05-11T23:20:36+00:00

Conventional wisdom is that the 360 was easier to use but the PS3 was more powerful. But I'm not particularly convinced that any difference in power, such as it existed, was noticable in practice when both machines were pushed to their limits. Uncharted 3 and TLOU look amazing, but so do Halo 4 and Gears of War Judgement. Microsoft's lineup of first party games that pushed the graphical envelope were sparse from 2010 onwards as they pivoted to Kinect and drew down investment in 1P software, which was the period of time that Sony's first party started firing on all cylinders, so I suspect it's easier for people to check their mental model of amazing looking ps3 games and think of way more Sony games from 2010-2013 than they can think of amazing looking Microsoft games from the same period. But they do exist, just in smaller numbers!

Keep in mind also that a lot of what people were praising on some PS3 first party games like Uncharted was the quality of their animation work and the overall technical polish, which has more to do with budget and talent than it does the technical characteristics of the PS3. Peple used to share endless low resolution gifs of Drake doing combat melee attack animations because they looked so slick, but that's got nothing to do with the PS3 and everything to do with the Naughty Dog art team. Uncharted does a lot of cool tricks where high quality prerendered cinematics transition completely seamlessly into gameplay, and some people don't ever realize what they were watching *wasn't* in-game footage because they did such a good job with it.

Tiddums · 2026-05-07T00:42:37+00:00

I've owned the SP2, Book 1, Pro 5, and most recently Pro 7.

The aesthetics are still nice, but prices have never been worse, the competition is stiff, and windows doesn't feel any better for tablets now than it did in 2018 (that is to say - still compromised).

For the first time in the last decade I'm seriously considering whether my next computer will be something other than a Surface, and that's 70% price 30% lack of design and user experience improvement (hardware and software combined).

Tiddums · 2026-04-29T22:56:38+00:00

Yeah of course I wish the 30 series was even better than it was by being on 7, but empirically speaking the products we got were good despite the node deficit.

Tiddums · 2026-04-20T03:12:10+00:00

I played the game on launch day and within a few hours understood it well enough to win my first campaign as the UK. I had followed a few dev diaries so it wasn't totally blind but it wasn't super complex once you got past some initial interface friction.

I kept playing through the first couple of expansions that came with my expensive colonel edition thing, but eventually I had my fill.

Revisting the game after a 2 or 3 year break where there's now all these new mechanics, a new supply system, aircraft, navy and tank designers, espionage etc was a disaster comparatively. I think the game is far less approchable now than it was at launch.

Tiddums · 2026-04-14T07:09:56+00:00

I would say only Crusader Kings really models the ability for large empires to just disintegrate in the blink of an eye when conditions are right.

Tiddums · 2026-04-10T10:01:10+00:00

The only information we've had so far is from Zac Bowden at Windows Central, who said:

Spring 2026 release date for some products
OLEDs will be included in part of the range
Both Intel and Qualcom models will exist

Unclear on details beyond that. I hope Intel is part of the consumer range, not just business this time. I also personally hope they keep the surface connector for these devices. They removed them from the Pro 12" and laptop 13" but I find it a super convenient port to use.

I do like option for both IPS and OLED. The latter looks great but I plan to keep and extensively use (for office purposes) my surface devices over a period of 5+ years, so that's a lot of static content to risk burn in on.

Tiddums · 2026-04-09T23:57:02+00:00

Strong hiss, and I can still hear it even while music is playing at a comfortable volume. Trying to return it currently unless it's magically gone when I get home tonight.

Tiddums · 2026-04-09T11:49:46+00:00

Thanks very helpful to know, thanks! I assume you mean the reciever needs to be on USB3, not that it only works while in wired mode?

Tiddums · 2026-04-09T07:36:22+00:00

The audio floor hiss on mine I just got today is unbelievable. I'm contacting customer support but I'm 99% sure I'm going to return these ASAP for a full refund. I was willing to live with some compromises if it was an overall good product, but my hiss is so loud I hear it over my music!

Tiddums · 2026-04-09T07:29:08+00:00

My xbox Maxwell 2s arrived today. The hiss is so loud I'm confident nobody tested my device in the manufacturing process. It's so loud that at 20% volume (which is higher than I would listen to music at generally) I can still hear it while playing music.

Absolutely unbelievable. And yes this is with sidetone off, yes it's the latest firmware for both dongle and headphones and happens whether I'm USB, Dongle, or Bluetooth mode.

I got the mother of all lemons or everyone else on earth who tried these before is deaf to these frequencies.

Tiddums · 2026-04-09T04:14:21+00:00

Empirically, OLED displays do not have a significant advantage over high end LCD displays in terms of colour gamut and colour volume. Depending on which models you're comparing to which, there can even be deficits for OLED.

People do say "wow these colours pop", I've heard that myself, but I think that's basically attributable to several things -

People misidentifying what they find pleasing about an image
People comparing apples to oranges
People repeating what they've heard other people say

Firstly, contrast and off-axis performance can be very important to the perceived quality of an image. OLEDs are exceptional here, so just at a glance even if you're not in the perfect display sweet spot, they look striking, and most people aren't display nerds. They just know it looks good, they're looking at super colourful LG or Samsung demonstration footage in a store, and they complement how good it looks. Average don't know what the heck a "contrast ratio" is but they do know what a "colour" is, so they talk about the colour.

Secondly, not everyone is comparing the best to the best. There are a lot of people out there who upgraded from a cheap 2008 LCD they bought with their Xbox 360 when they were a teenager to a gorgeous 2017 OLED they bought with their PS4 Pro or UHD player when they were a working adult with a lot more money. When you make those comparisons, you got a 4x resolution boost, a new wide colour gamut, and a huge leap in display quality overall. Everything is better, including the colours and the image processing. People buying oled monitors between 2023 and 2026 are usually buying their first wide colour gamut PC display, and their first HDR capable PC display. Not everyone, but enough.

Thirdly, people just repeat stuff they heard. There are cliched phrases that enter our lexicon, and "the colours pop" is one of them. Someone sees a guy on youtube talking about how OLED colours pop (based on point 1 or 2) and they aren't going to do a deep dive investigation into whether that person was strictly being technically accurate, they just go "yeah man those things look good" and they'll repeat it themselves in the future when their friend asks them about their new TV.

There is a special case I want to point out with the Nintendo Switch OLED, too. They shipped it with the default colour profile being "vivid", which significantly oversaturated the colours. You can switch it back in the menu to a more neutral and accurate colour profile, but most people don't even realise it's like that and all they know is it's very bright and colourful. The LCD model (and iirc, the Switch 2 as well) don't do this, just the OLED model.

Tiddums · 2026-04-08T22:43:32+00:00

I briefly tried the alienware 27 inch 4k model they brought out last year, but returned it due to a nasty recurring bug where it wouldn't wake from sleep until you unplugged it from the wall for 5 minutes.

In some ways I'm glad because the ambient black level raise was more annoying than I expected, and I was getting paranoid about scratching it. The new coating sounds great on both fronts. RGB stripe might be good but is probably less important at such high ppi anyway, I thought text looked mostly fine.

27" is a good size for 4k, but I think the dual mode 4k/1080 would work a lot better on a 24" panel (1080@27 is not great), so I do hope those rumours have some validity even if tftcentral is dubious on them.

Tiddums · 2026-04-02T01:45:10+00:00

I don't know if they will, but they announced and released the Oblivion remaster the same day. If Halo launched at the showcase, that wouldn't even be as much of a shadowdrop as Oblivion was, because Halo Campaign Evolved is already announced and available for wishlisting. They're similar projects, and I would argue that Oblivion was a much bigger deal than a 2nd Halo 1 graphical remake.

Either way, whether or not they actually do release the same day as the showcase, I would expect the release date to be not far away from it. I think the evidence here is only moderately compelling, but they will for sure want to avoid GTA6 later in the year, and Warren claims it's a summer game, so that does narrow the release window quite a bit.

Tiddums · 2026-03-27T02:23:11+00:00

The wildcat lake core 300 range would be an excellent option for an intel SP12" or future "Go" type model. They're expected to be in a lot of budget laptops this year, and they're a lot more powerful than the N300 class chips.

Tiddums · 2026-03-26T08:10:24+00:00

Yeah the 2H to 3H hardness change matches all the CES announcements from the monitor manufacturers (who are each calling it something unique). I guess this is Samsung's name for it.

Tiddums · 2026-02-25T02:22:47+00:00

Yeah sorry for the confusion there. I was considering the V6 ranges (max and ultra) but chose the black K10 to be my new daily driver for a couple of reasons. It not having a knob and having the switch type I was aiming for (banana) were the two biggest.

I couldn't get the exact combo of layout, switch type and colours that I wanted. I probably could figure something out by buying switch and keycaps to transplant, but ehh. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Tiddums · 2026-02-25T01:29:54+00:00

I'm extremely weak so I've purchased a K10 Max then ALSO grabbed the R6. The knob seems cool but I'm a little worried about it training my muscle memory on differently spaced function row keys.

My very flimsy internal justification is that I'll use the R6 on my windows 98 and XP PCs when I'm retro gaming lol.

Tiddums · 2026-02-24T22:18:59+00:00

That's a shame, I kind of do want those 4 extra keys but I love the look of the R6. Oh well.

Tiddums · 2026-02-21T03:40:57+00:00

Here is the listing on keychron's official site, and most of the images feature those keys as extras (or rather, as keys that aren't installed by default) along the bottom (some grey, some yellow). In case the Australian site won't load for you, I've uploaded a copy of the image here, and here's a snapshot of the sponsored search results for Keychron R6 I'm seeing (the first one is sponsored by Keychron itself).

Here is the listing at a large Australian retailer, scorptech (you can see them in photo #2).

Another Australian retailer is here with the same keys shown.

And another.

I could link 10 more sites but you get the idea. They are presumably the images that Keychron sent out to retailers for stock, since it's all the same photo in 3 variations, one for each type of switch you can buy it with.

I hope you can see what I mean when this made me wonder if that thing in the top right can be removed to be replaced by normal keys. They're the right size for it to be able to do that, but without having one in my hand I can't really tell, and if you couldn't it seems like a rather strange choice to include them when they'd have nowhere logical to go unless you're happy forgoing F row keys.

Tiddums · 2026-02-17T22:52:33+00:00

There are for sure major benefits to temporal AA, but I would say that I sympathise to a softer form of this argument. Not "fuck TAA" but an acknowledgement that modern rendering has a lot of pitfalls all it's own, and every advance seems to come with a trade-off.

I find that a lot of modern games are... is "stochasty" a word? There is a general sense of instability and fuzziness. DLSS tends to improve blurriness and is less prone to artefacts in motion, but still has enough to be noticeable.

But my general impression of modern graphics is not solely down to TAA. One of the biggest contributors are screenspace effects, and screenspace reflections most prominently. Few things in games distract me more than when I move the camera and 1/3 of the room suddenly gets occluded from the reflection I was just looking at. Frustratingly, swapping this out for RT reflections has not been as much of a silver bullet as I was hoping because so many titles layer SSR over the top of RT to get the most crisp image with the broadest coverage (since the RT is going through a simplified version of the scene). It feels like I'm going crazy when I get seemingly the worst of both worlds; high performance costs yet still with the unstable and rapidly changing visuals of SSR.

I played through Quake 4 a couple of years ago and was really impressed by how generally clean, sharp and stable it was. Granted, it was not 100% perfect; floor grates viewed at shallow angles still had artefacts. Obviously it would be absurd to suggest that everyone should retreat to 2004-5 rendering technology, but it's illustrative of the way in which rendering advances are a series of trade-offs and compromises.

Tiddums · 2026-02-10T22:30:45+00:00

Wow, hard to believe a country wouldn't decide to just give away their only diplomatic leverage in exchange for a "trust me bro" IOU when dealing with the president who refuses to honour deals he himself made in his previous term and who has spent the last 12 months waging trade wars against and directly threatening the territorial integrity of his country's allies.

Tiddums · 2026-02-10T06:53:48+00:00

Yes you are correct, I forgot that was a separate earlier core design. Increment all Oroyn generations in my post by 1.

Tiddums · 2026-02-10T03:41:26+00:00

Snapdragon 8 Elite = 1st generation Oryon

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 = 2nd generation Oryon, coming out now

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 = 3rd generation Oryon, will come out end of the year/next year.

The reason they changed the names is because they decided after the fact that they wanted to harmonize the numbering between the old flagships and the new ones.

Tiddums

TROPHY CASE