I really like Windows 7 and Microsoft Office myself. And I'm very satisfied with my XBox 360.

So yeah, I'm also disappointed to see where Microsoft has gone with its products over the past year or so.

Microsoft's biggest problem is that they've lost sight of customer/user-friendliness, which honestly I think used to be a strength of theirs.

I probably need to give up caring about that show one way or the other.

You're likely much more tech savvy than I, so maybe there's some things I'm just not getting here that you are getting. However, I hope you would agree, at least, that the XBox One certainly raises eyebrows at least, from a privacy standpoint.

Right now, I own a XBox 360, and a few games for it. Prior to the XBox360, my last console system was the original Playstation. Most of my gaming has been on the PC.

My all-time favorite gaming franchises:

NHL games
Sid Meier's Civilization series
Command and Conquer
Age of Empires
Heroes of Might and Magic
Suikoden (I completed the first, fourth, and fifth ones; almost completed the 2nd)


There are a lot of other games I've tried (Mass Effect, Soul Calibur, WoW) in a lot of different genres, but I tend to prefer RTS games, and games where you're basically building a society.

There have also been a fair number of RPGs I've played and/or completed (some of the Final Fantasy games, a couple of the "Tales" series of games, the first Xenosaga game, etc...)

But what I find is that I just don't have enough time for work, anime, gaming, and fanfic writing. I like anime, gaming, and fanfic writing about equally, and gaming is the most expensive of the three, so I don't game all that much. But it's certainly possible I might get more into gaming again one day (it'll probably happen once I tire of fanfic writing). It's only recently that I tried Mass Effect.

Just so you know, I've probably gotten a bit too emotional in the XBox One thread. I'm going to try to take a break from it. I just find what Microsoft is doing very distasteful, and wanted to vent a bit about it. I want to thank you for being relatively unemotional about things, since it did steer discussion in interesting ways at times.

I'm not sure, but Falcom's putting the next Ys game on the Vita, the Vita runs a shit-ton of PSP games from PSN... it'll be the go-to place for the strange, niche and indie JRPG I'm sure.

Yup that's exactly why I haven't done it yet.

A Vita might actually be a better investment since more of the niche/pseudo-indie JRPGs end up on the Vita and the Vita can also play a lot of PSP games as well.

I'd really like to pick up a PS3 to play a lot of those obscure/exclusive JRPGs, like the Atelier of Arland series and such. The major-studio triple-A stuff all gets ported to PC, anyway, with the exception of single-player Final Fantasy games.

But yeah, finding them cheap is... not always easy.

Ok, thanks for clearing that up.

As for "rants against the usual whipping boys", well here's the thing:

1. The criticisms are largely valid. You have to admit a lot of this stuff is pretty dumb and highly repetitive. Even some fans of it admit that.

2. You're probably more well-versed in the general geek fandoms than I am, but in my limited experience with them, this sort of content really is what's holding anime back a bit amongst North American general geek fadoms. To comic book fans who debate over Power Girl's "Boob Hole" on her costume, a lot of this Ecchi material is just way too much. It does make them more reserved about giving anime in general a chance.


Now, speaking personally, I gave up on anime going mainstream in the west about a year or two ago. For that reason, I now find this stuff pretty easy to ignore (you'll probably notice I've had very little to say on To Love-Ru or Queen's Blade). My view is that "Anime isn't going to go mainstream in the west anyway, so we might as well let the ecchi fans enjoy their shows in peace". I mainly commented on that Ecchi thread because I wanted to head off the common misconception that if you dislike Ecchi it's because you're a prude. To be fair, I also realize that many smart and decent people can and do like ecchi. There was a time in my life when I myself was in the mood for it every now and then.

Do you really think that those who don't like ecchi are annoying elitists?