Hit Points by Nathan Brown
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hitpoints.bsky.social
Hit Points by Nathan Brown
@hitpoints.bsky.social
3.9K followers 110 following 160 posts
A newsletter about the game industry, by consultant, writer and former Edge editor Nathan Brown.

Sign up for free: https://newsletter.hitpoints.co/
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hitpoints.bsky.social
Oh hey I write free ones every Friday now, tell your friends newsletter.hitpoints.co/352-dark-nig...
A screenshot of a paragraph from the Hit Points newsletter that reads: Little remains of Meta’s VR-game acquisition spree, which began in 2020. Ready At Dawn was closed down in 2024, and Downpour Interactive followed last year. According to the in-the-know cats at UploadVR, Meta’s only remaining studios are Beat Games, maker of the colossally successful Beat Saber; BigBoxVR (me neither); whoever’s left at Camouflaj; and Ouro Interactive, which I’m not sure counts because it exclusively makes games for the Horizon Worlds legless-metaverse-thing. You do not need to put on a headset to see the writing on the wall, which is just as well because all the headsets are in cupboards or lofts or little storage boxes, and would need digging out and charging and who can be bothered with that? In a way, I suppose, that’s been VR gaming’s story all along.
January 16, 2026 at 6:29 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
👋
January 12, 2026 at 7:37 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
I often kick an idea around for ages but never write them because I doubt it'll resonate with people. I must stop doing that because this — on how test match cricket is secretly the perfect Roguelike — got more love this year than anything else I wrote: newsletter.hitpoints.co/345-from-the...
December 31, 2025 at 1:57 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
On the folly of pretending games are a single, $200bn industry: newsletter.hitpoints.co/298-carve-it...
December 31, 2025 at 1:54 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Trying, and mostly failing, to make sense of the 770-odd games shown at not-E3 2025: newsletter.hitpoints.co/320-sensory-...
December 31, 2025 at 1:53 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Reaction to Microsoft's latest bit of shit-the-bed horror, when it shuttered more studios and cancelled more games back in July: newsletter.hitpoints.co/324-going-da...
December 31, 2025 at 1:51 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
A brief selection of things I wrote and liked this year, all now paywall-free. There'll be much more free stuff coming in 2026, but if you subscribe RIGHT NOW you get 50% off your first three months.

First, a tribute to the late, great Tomonobu Itagaki newsletter.hitpoints.co/341-itagaki-...
December 31, 2025 at 1:50 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
I’m doing my part!
December 16, 2025 at 9:05 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
A thousand thanks to the consulting client earlier this year who insisted their game needed 64GB of RAM. (It really didn't.) Had no idea prices had gone this insane. Fuckin AI!
November 25, 2025 at 8:58 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
The perfect dad-joke doesnt exi-
November 1, 2025 at 8:36 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
I wrote about that yesterday too! newsletter.hitpoints.co/339-objection/
October 4, 2025 at 12:12 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
A rare sojourn outside the paywall to explain why it's okay not to care about the EA buyout. Go! It's free!
October 4, 2025 at 8:09 AM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Very good comment that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter
September 29, 2025 at 1:31 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
A 2TB Series X is now $50 more expensive than a 2TB PS5 *Pro*. Microsoft is actively trying to not sell consoles
September 19, 2025 at 8:29 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Wrote about the idiot

newsletter.hitpoints.co/336-boss-bat...
September 17, 2025 at 5:25 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Randy! Please stop posting!
September 16, 2025 at 5:52 AM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Will someone please find iNiS and show them this
September 12, 2025 at 9:51 AM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Going for Completionist++ is almost certainly the stupidest decision I've ever made. But I have done it.
September 8, 2025 at 8:12 AM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Solid imo
August 15, 2025 at 9:38 AM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Oh hey I did this! On why we all slow down to rubberneck at public game-industry drama
August 4, 2025 at 1:17 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Basically punched the air at every bullet point on this list until I got to this bit, at which point I screamed ‘YES’ repeatedly. Graham is the best
July 27, 2025 at 1:44 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
July 8, 2025 at 4:35 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
A free one on how these clowns can get absolutely fucked newsletter.hitpoints.co/324-going-da...
When Tango and Arkane Austin got whacked last year, I called it cultural vandalism. This is too, of course, but I have a simpler description for it. This is loser shit. Phil Spencer has spent ten years and, at a conservative estimate, eighty billion dollars taking Xbox from last place to last place, and now the game is up he is systematically dismantling the largest and most powerful videogame business the world has ever seen like he’s on some anti-Brewster’s Millions shit, torching the legacies of endless cherished studios and game series while trying to convince us all that everything is going to plan. He is fucking useless and it is all absolutely pathetic, though that doesn't make it any easier to witness. A quarter of a century ago, Microsoft entered the videogame industry with an eye on global domination. Today it is merely a stain on it.
July 4, 2025 at 4:02 PM
hitpoints.bsky.social
Somebody ring the bell
July 4, 2025 at 10:41 AM
hitpoints.bsky.social
I will obviously write a newsletter about all this in a day or two, but equally I could just copy/paste what I wrote the last time and be done with it. Pricks newsletter.hitpoints.co/261-dishonou...
July 2, 2025 at 6:47 PM