PixlBit

I like a lot of your picks, especially the Wii U stuff. I liked Hyrule Warriors (but I do like Musou games anyway; I plan on picking up Dragon Quest Heroes if it ever comes out in the US and One Piece Pirate Warriors looks interesting). I just bought the Wii U version of Shantae. I was going to go with the 3DS version but before I did that I chanced upon the "coming soon" for the Wii U version. My favorite RPG of the year was Bravely Default, hands down.

My overall game of the year was Bayonetta 2.

I don't think they really care about whether they're ready, or whether we're ready as long as we're willing to pay them. Remember, the Xbox One was originally designed around the premise of requiring constant online tethering. They only backed down after a huge public outcry, and you can bet it's not the last you'll hear of the idea, either from Microsoft OR Sony.

And that's just from the hardware front of things. On the software side, Ubisoft has tried repeatedly to require online tethering for its games, and EA had the Online Pass in 2010 and has tried to shoehorn online into all of its games since then in the hopes of keeping you and your debit/credit card tethered to Origin, as well as a persistent fear that the reason for their poor profits is folks reselling their games.

The game companies, both in hardware and software, are trying their damnedest to herd gamers into being online-dependent. That's what the industry wants desperately.

Yeehaw. The 1UP spambots finally caught up with us!

I definitely agree on Ubisoft. I never liked Ubisoft anyway, but they can't even get Tetris right.

Square Enix, however, has been fairly satisfactory to me with games like Bravely Default, and they've got a release window nailed down for FFXV. I even kind of like their Batman design, but then, I don't care about comics to begin with, so my opinion isn't really worth much here.

Sega... they're brilliant when they actually bother to release games outside of Japan, so they're often a source of aggravation for me.

Good rant blog.

This year was a huge step down from last year, except for Wii U, which has been great.

Final Fantasy XI was supposedly the most financially successful Final Fantasy game ever, and by quite a sizable margin at that. There's a reason why they made FFXIV, and a reason why they decided to retool it rather than scrap it.

Sadly, nope. They are porting Final Fantasy VII to PS4, but it's going to be a port of the PC version. I guess because the PS4 is x86-based and the PC version was designed to run on that architecture.

I'm with you on this one. I have no reason to buy Xbox One, because the PS4 and the Wii U have me covered. PC, too, I guess, but I'm not a PC gamer. And if I miss out on Rise of the Tomb Raider,

I like what you're getting at, but please, not streaming. For games, it sucks.