So it's a great day to be a gamer. There's a nice long weekend afoot, and though there will be lots to do with family and friends and the like, there will also be plenty of time to throw in on a few games and have a nice, relaxing weekend, at least part of the time. I've personally been neck deep in "Escape Dead Island" for the last day and half or so. But given the season of the year, and the general inclination that most anyone should have toward counting one's blessings, I took a page from fellow blogger Peter Radizeski, and figured it was a good time to take a step back and consider the things I was thankful for, with this particular post.
Some might remember that I've done this before. Twice before, in fact, with earlier releases focused on Bethesda Software, the MMO, the growth of open world gaming, and so on. But this year, we've got some different things to be thankful for, so let's have a look at what made the list.
Xbox Live Marketplace
I'm thankful for the Xbox Live Marketplace deals section, including the free games offered bi-weekly. When I first got an Xbox 360, the first thing I said was, who's going to use 250 gigabytes of storage space on one of these things? A few months of Xbox deals later, and wham-o...there's the upper limit, and I'm clear through. Games I hadn't touched in years were suddenly available instantly for prices so catastrophically low that it would almost cost more just to ship the disc to my house, and that was a delightful development.
Microsoft's First Price Drop
Microsoft has had a lot of opportunities for growth and development since the launch of the new console generation, and it's made clear use of each of these. Divorcing the Kinect from the system and offering a budget-friendlier price has been a welcome development. It's also one that proves Microsoft is taking community concerns very seriously, and that's an even more welcome development that will hopefully give the company some extra room to grow.
The 2015 Delay
That's a development that will likely slap a few people in the face, but in all honesty, I'm thankful that so many games were delayed to 2015. Why? Simple; it's given me more time to get better acquainted with the stuff I've missed in the last generation before making a fuller transition to the new generation. There were a lot of Xbox 360 titles out there...they're still coming out to a certain degree. But the key point is that we now have the time to wrap up the loose ends before stepping into the next round.
I'm also thankful for having a great place like this to put up opinion on games issues; it's not just every place that has such a crew about, and thanks for coming by to see what a fellow has to say about this sort of thing. I'm thankful for having done this fully three times now. I'm hopeful that, when Thanksgiving 2015 comes around, you'll find me right here, weighing in on the issues of the day for gaming. So have a happy Thanksgiving, play all the games you can reasonably wedge into the time off, and get ready; there's a lot more to come that's going to be truly staggering.
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