big baby beluga

MARATHON LIVESSSSS (atleast for another year)

need a project hail mary edit to the marathon soundtrack, both feature Tau Ceti

Exclusive video report: Previously I revealed Halo Studios is outsourcing a lot of Campaign Evolved’s development, and people want to know why. So I spoke to former Halo developers who say it’s because studio leadership (Pierre Hintze/Publishing team) is implementing their publishing mentality of outsourcing to drive the studio. But, Halo Studios still handles certain development themselves. I explain everything in my report: youtu.be/2_D_L62uBbs?si…

Marathon has sold 1.2M copies across Steam, PS5, and Xbox (@alineaanalytics estimates). It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted, even if the game underneath the surface is a MASTERWORK of design. Looking at the split between Steam, PS5, and Xbox, Steam is clearly the main platform for Marathon, accounting for a little under 70% of the audience (800K copies sold). Meanwhile, PS5 takes about 19% (217K) and Xbox (including console, PC, and cloud) accounts for a bit over 11% or 133K. Marathon is technically a first-party Sony title, so seeing the home console struggle to break 20% of the volume is a notable data point for the ongoing platform-agnostic debate. PlayStation Studios online games will almost certainly continue being multiplatform (despite Sony reportedly pulling back on PC releases). One topic that came up in a lot of conversations at GDC this year was why Marathon hasn’t hit the same stratosphere as Arc Raiders. On paper, they’re both extraction shooters, and Marathon has the Bungie pedigree – the house that built the gold standard for gunplay in Halo and Destiny. My answer: Players understand the Arc Raiders loop within 30 minutes, while Marathon's UI acts as a massive filter, chewing up newcomers and spitting them out before they can experience the depth of Bungie’s signature gunplay and Marathon's awesome gameplay loop. The Steam copies sold during each game's respective Server Slam paint a picture there. Arc Raiders saw a massive 80% jump in copies sold during its three-day Server Slam. Marathon, meanwhile, saw a 49% increase in the four days following its Slam (Day -7 to -3). Despite the friction-heavy start, the data suggests that those who survived Marathon’s onboarding are loving life. We’ve been tracking cross-platform DAUs, and while there’s the expected post-launch leakage, many players are sticking with it. After peaking at 478K total DAUs on its first Saturday, Marathon has settled into a respectable rhythm, holding 345K DAUs as of yesterday and averaging 380K DAUs across the weekend. On Steam, Marathon’s average playtime has climbed to 27.8 hours, significantly outpacing the console averages on PS5 (16.5h) and Xbox (17.3h). Even more telling than the averages: 22% of the Steam audience has surged past the 50-hour mark, and nearly 7% have already logged over 100 hours. PlayStation and Bungie are at a crossroads here. They can: 1. Double down on Marathon with a long-term Rainbow Six Siege- or No Man’s Sky-style recovery plan, which is something I heard @ChrisRGun smartly mention last week on Sacred Symbols. While this could be a sunk-cost fallacy in action, it could eventually yield the audience the game’s mechanical depth deserves. 2. Shift focus toward the inevitable Destiny 3 or another project, mitigating the escalating opportunity cost and cutting their losses, so to speak. Doing both is an expensive proposition, given the high overhead and burn rate of operating out of Bellevue, Washington. With Sony recently demonstrating a lower threshold for underperforming studios and projects, the margin for error has vanished. Whatever happens, the next six months will determine whether Marathon becomes a cornerstone of Sony’s live-service portfolio or a cautionary tale of vision exceeding accessibility. I’m hoping it’s the former, because Marathon fucking rocks. Big analysis on the free Substack, with lots more data and thoughts (link in bio)

@JakeSucky @Splitgate To learn more about our new movement shooter and become a playtester, you can sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

Capitalism is so fucking stupid that were really postponing wars from when the market opens to when it closes on Friday dog

Around 25% of Lebanon’s population has been expelled from their homes by Israel in the last three weeks.

1047 games is working on a new game thats a movement shooter youtu.be/g02FPHt05m0?si…

ICE is not at airports to help TSA and reduce lines. They are there (without identification) trying to arrest people, exactly as I predicted. ICE must be abolished.

California governor is top 3 executive positions in the most powerful nation on earth and nobody cares about the race including California voters

A nurse attempting to assist a woman who was attacked and injured by ICE thugs was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head in broad daylight FOUR DAYS after they wrapped filming for Season 2.

@Hollowtide with a better tutorial too

I think Bungie needs to do more free weekends and things like that for people to get in and try the game. I genuinely think if people could play and experience it, they would see why the game has so many people who love it.

Pete Hegseth: The problem with Iran is it spends money on weapons and missiles instead of improving life for their people. Self awareness of a potato

BREAKING: The Pentagon is preparing detailed plans for a possible U.S. ground force deployment in Iran, sources say. cbsn.ws/4bsFiCw

Microsoft is ending the Windows Update nightmare — and letting you pause them indefinitely 🥳 theverge.com/tech/898082/mi…

We spoke to multiple game devs and all of them hate DLSS 5: "What the fuck, Nvidia?!" One person currently attending college and studying game development, told Kotaku that after seeing DLSS 5, "it feels like there is no future for me." kotaku.com/we-spoke-to-ga…

Daniel got important clarifications from NVIDIA. TLDR: the "DLSS5 skeptical" were right about *everything*. 1⃣ It's a 2D AI Filter. Input is only color buffer & motion vectors. The model doesn't see geometry, lights, PBR properties, normals, anything🧵 youtu.be/D0EM1vKt36s

it’s incredibly blackpilling to me that it takes rising gas prices and rising gas prices alone to have people turn against the war in iran, and not the american government murdering thousands of children and civilians in iran. americans are incredibly selfish

Son the Devs didn't even know about DLSS5. What the FUCK LMFAO

few things better embody the mentality these tech billionaires have than when William Shatner tried to have a moment of reflection on man's place in the world after going into space — only for Bezos to cut him off and pop champagne in his face