Grungie

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/what-is-an-esim-card Looks like the problem is through carrier resistance. It’s also annoying if you’re a phone reviewer, but that’s a job specific quirk. Cell carriers are annoyed by it, because there’s no physical foot traffic to their stores. eSIMS are also not carrier locked, unlike traditional SIMS, so you don’t have to go through your carrier to unlock your phone if you have an eSIM.

You can get rid of the physical SIM card and replace it with an eSIM card. You can swap carriers with eSIM cards, and store multiple carriers with eSIM cards. Instead of taking up space in your phone with dual SIM cards, (or store your other SIM card somewhere when it's not being used). The iPhone 14 utilizes an eSIM card, so your complaint about being trapped by your carrier is null (tbh you have to swap to a carrier that does support eSIMs, but as it becomes the new standard, it won't be an issue). So honestly, it's actually more beneficial and convenient for international travelers. Though like I mentioned earlier, it looks like it's slim pickings outside of America at the moment: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209096

I’m not being a shill. My mindset is based on being in cybersecurity, and sysadmin type work, and doing audio production as a hobby, where I’m used to being around specialized equipment that have features that the average person doesn’t know/care about. Some of this was never available for regular consumer products, or have been long gone and only available in enterprise products. So for the three things I mentioned earlier, I’m used to having to get equipment dedicated for each one. Except the audio production stuff, the other two are purchases where we save money (or make it back) for getting the specialized equipment. There’s a lot of “I need this at work, but I sure don’t need it at home”. Even at home I do things I’m aware that not many people do. I own 8 computers and 5 tablets, whereas most people just need a computer that gets on the internet, and does word docs unless they’re doing something more specialized like gaming, audio or video production. So having a product that’s generalized enough to cover more niche crowds feels like a jack of all trades, but master of none. Tbh I didn’t think about getting out of your contract and getting a new phone. I’ll admit that will be a shit show for people. I’ve been on the same carrier for 15 years, so it’s something that you forget about after awhile. Though something like going on a lot of international business trips to me feels like the equivalent of thinking every laptop needs to be like a Panasonic Toughbook, or have the Thinkpad nub.

The SIM card part is how many people actually swap SIM cards out on a regular enough basis. For the average person, the first and last time they touch their SIM is when they pop it in their new phone and that’s the end of it. Also, some phone models have different SIM cards than others, or even the previous model, so you end up getting a new SIM card anyway. So unless you’re like a reviewer, or go on international travel that’s outside of your carrier’s coverage, does it really affect the person?

It’s a small use case problem for me though. I also don’t mix audio on my phone. Neither are most people. Tbh I don’t get what’s wrong with your logic: >Big company tries to save money >feature most users don’t care about >removes feature >????? >profit Though I will say the headphone jack is controversial, but the SIM card is irrelevant to average person. I personally don’t see a problem with removing features that aren’t used by a lot of people. I do recall all of these phone manufacturers claiming the headphone jack removal was for real estate in their phones. I also don’t know how much money they save by putting the headphone dongle in the box. Samsung was the biggest one to shit on Apple for it, but quietly tried to hide their ads after they too dropped the headphone jack on products. It was also super sleazy when they claimed it was for real estate, but their first headphoneless phone was a Note. The comments were “so you can fit a stylus we won’t use, but not a headphone jack?” I will say, tablets missing headphone jacks are sleazy, but I haven’t seen teardowns of those like I have phones. I should hit up ifixit to see if they’ll fit.

This is something that annoys the hell out of a small group of people, but doesn't effect the large majority. I've also never had Bluetooth latency while watching streaming videos, and it only affects my audio production after like 15 tracks.

Doesn't bother me, I like the clean feeling afterwards.

If you don't want your kids to be playing certain games, you should look into the game before you get it for the kid. That's part of the reason why the ratings systems exist. Maybe research why that M rated game is rated M, or just make it easier if they're under a specific age to just say no to M rated games.

My favorites are “hey look, a dangerous wild animal. Let’s get close to it”.

I liked colored pencils. It was like a better crayon. I didn’t like how markers bleed through

Panzer Dragoon Saga would be great if it was remade. Panzer Dragoon was remade, and allegedly Zwei is coming out, so I’m crossing my fingers.

The Sonic stages were fine, some great, but there was a bunch of bullshit in both. Especially in the first one. I think the Chao Gardens caused people to just replay their favorite stages on repeat and that caused people to forget about the shitty parts. I personally don’t think it’s much of a competition on the 3D side when most of the 3D games are infamous for how terrible they are.

America doesn’t have to deal with Scott, who’s a dick.

I just own one of each (except the PS5, but I’m just waiting on more games to come out). I’ve never been one to collect console variants.

I personally don’t care whether a game is adult oriented or not, I just want the game to be fun.

I'm not personally fond, but if the games are getting more expensive to make, then whatever. Still cheaper than some of those cartridge prices from back in the day. I remember $80 games.

I don't have that issue, so no problems for me. I also only collect games I'm actually interested in playing. I've never been the type to grab ones just for the sake of grabbing them, so that gives me the added benefit of having a smaller collection, and also I don't have to buy the expensive games that I'm not gonna play.

I have a lot of OG hardware, but I personally enjoy collecting that stuff. I have flash carts for consoles I want, but not interested in actually collecting. I do have a modded Saturn memory card for playing burned games, because fuck paying second hand prices for the good Saturn games.

I don't think they censor violence as much as in the 90's, especially before the ESRB was created for the US. The sexual stuff definitely gets more media coverage, and the stuff I've seen from the Censored Gaming Youtube channel does seem to have a lot of games that have primarily sexual stuff censored in Western releases. Especially when a lot of those games have characters that either look really young, or are canonically young. You can find old forum posts of people throwing a fit over games like Xenoblade Chronicles X for removing skimpy outfits for the 13 year old girl. Wow, so outrageous. I do agree that censorship is kind of dumb if it's rated T or M (or the equivalents from PEGI for the Europeans), but I wouldn't get my knickers in a twist for covering up some unnecessary skin, especially if it's not that kind of game.

I enjoyed Xenogears, but I can’t get into Xenosaga. I keep trying to push myself to finish Xenosaga 1, but it’s such a drag. I feel like I just walk a few feet to unlock an unnecessarily long cutscene. You know it’s bad when they have save points between the cutscenes.

I think most Japanese games in the past few years that get censored get a lot of unnecessary drama. The vast majority of the censorship involves them adding more clothes to either questionably aged female characters, or blatantly underaged characters. So there’s an irony seeing people claiming “I’m an adult, I don’t need censorship” while they throw a childlike tantrum.

I have a few shelves for it. I have one of those tiny corner bookcases for my PS1 RPG collection.

I think moderation is key. To make things less of a headache, prohibit stuff that's generally illegal in a lot of places, and also prohibit porn outside of porn sites. I'm also not a fan of places banning people for not agreeing with the site's politics. It feels all fine and dandy if you're in alignment with their politics, but the site owners' could change out and have a new political agenda, and now you're in trouble of getting banned for not agreeing with the new owners' politics.

Yeah, I’ve seen more old mags at a doctor’s office than any Goodwill.

Idk, I rarely see mags in general at second hand stores. I think the only second hand mags being sold were Playboys.