Just chiming in to recommend the RUIZU X52 as I’ve been using it probably a year or two now and absolutely love it. It’s small and lightweight and has a clip on it like the old iPod shuffle. Interface takes a little getting used to like trying to get back to the main menu from the depths of the mp3 library menu requires a learned order of operations but other than that, it’s perfect. I purchased it from Amazon Japan so it might not be as prevalent in online stores elsewhere.
From the perspective of a game developer, I dislike the big 3 because they take money from consumers of their products to play games with online multiplayer features while ALSO not providing any support to the developers of those online games with regard to server costs, LET ALONE the crazy amount of work it is to add online multiplayer support to a game. I don’t think a lot of consumers realize this because there are so many people flaming developers for not adding online multiplayer support to their games without considering A: How much work that is or B: How expensive server costs are. If consumers became aware of the fact that NONE of their subscriptions for online access actually went to supporting server infrastructure for online games, they would probably all move to PC/Steam.
Metal Gear Solid 5.
How can you just ditch your main character’s voice actor? As a Metal Gear completionist, how do I even play this traditionally linear game now that it’s open world and packed with repetitive side missions? Why am I building a strut base and hiring staff that I magically airlift to a chopper out on the battlefield? Overall a disappointment, not because of bad graphics or bad controls or bad gameplay, just a hodgepodge of content that was too much of a departure from the format of the first 4 linear games. I never finished it and probably never will. I know Konami threw multiple wrenches in Kojima’s gears during development but I feel the overall direction was still flawed from the onset. Open World was just so popular at that time and maybe they forced it on Kojima, who knows. I know he didn’t want to make a 5th game anyway so I’m gonna just pretend it never happened and be happy with the first 4 and the PSP titles.