Bobfoc

The third round of matches will have Australia v Wales and Ireland v South Africa, at least. The one after that is likely to be another series of one-sided affairs, before the last pool matches that will include Ireland v Scotland and possibly Argentina v Japan as significant games.

A remastered Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is very welcome. I don't know how well it will go down as a final announcement, though.

Just like last September, Sony is putting on a State of Play showcase on the same day as a Nintendo Direct. This one will focus on third-party games, however, so adjust your expectations accordingly. I wonder if it's not too early to see more of the Silent Hill 2 remake.

Given that Sony and Microsoft, as distributors, would have to foot the bill as distributors of games on PS Plus and Game Pass, it's hard to see this getting very far. Actually going through with this would ensure that nobody ever uses Unity ever again.

The full list of games in the Game Pass Core service, which is replacing Xbox Live Gold, has been revealed. It's a very good crop, all in all.

A Nintendo Direct is going to take place at 3pm UK time tomorrow.

As an update, Unity has changed its policy to charge only for the first installation, avoiding the original possibility for users to constantly install and delete games to rack up the developer costs. However, installations on different operating systems and consoles would still count as separate instances, and so the fee would be charged multiple times. Unity's current CEO is John Riccitiello, the former EA boss who wanted to charge users for in-game ammunition in Battlefield games. He had that idea back in 2011, so you can probably say he was one of the driving forces behind the exploitative microtransaction model some games use today.

So can you play Netflix games on a television or computer?

Can you play Netflix games with a proper controller or keyboard? Controlling Football Manager without it sounds like a nightmare.

They've said that the same user installing the game on multiple operating systems or consoles would count as separate instances, so it's definitely open to a lot of abuse. Whatever the case, it would still be possible for a group of people angry at a game for having preferred pronouns or whatever else to install a free demo just to force the developers to lose more money. The kind of people who like to support review bombing or DDOS attacks would have a field day.

Unity announced yesterday that it plans to charge game developers and distributors monthly fees for every user who installs their games if they made at least $200,000 in revenue. The rule would extend to services like Game Pass and even free demos. In theory, a user could delete and reinstall a game over and over again just to force the relevant parties to give more money to Unity. Predictably, this has been a PR disaster and developers are very unhappy. I'd be amazed if they stuck to the plan because it would mean nobody would bother to use the Unity Engine any more.

Luxembourg lost 9-0 to Portugal and are now somewhat less in contention to qualify.

I'll be interested to see how Fiji get on against Australia. Beating them will be unlikely, but Australia, like Wales, haven't looked good in the last couple of years.

Those trivial errands are a video game absurdity I can't help but like. "I know you're trying to save the world/universe, but would you mind picking up my copy of War and Peace that I left on another planet?" is such ridiculous, but lovable mission design.

I wonder how Saka feels about Pitt the Elder.

Italy slipped up against North Macedonia again.

The robot butler in Fallout 4 had a long list of rude names as well. I did wonder if this game had the same feature when it called me Captain Bob.

I must say that the person who thought floating to the sparkly bits in the ring temple thingies was in any way enjoyable needs a talking to.

I'm finding this game to be best described as Bethesda comfort food. I can't argue with any of the big complaints people have about it, but there's a familiarity about it that I like. I've always preferred the side content in these games, and this is no exception. Pottering around and doing minor errands is a simple, yet appealing use of my time. The ship building is something I enjoy as well. While I'll never be creatively minded enough to make the sort of things some other people can, adding a few bits and bobs here and there satisfies that part of my brain.

England's biggest problem over the last four years has been poor discipline, but they were very solid in that department following the red card. It was a surprisingly 2003-esque approach.

For a team that recently managed to beat both Australia and New Zealand, as well as only losing to South Africa by a point, Argentina have been really poor.