After beating Final Fantasy XVI I resubscribed to FFXIV and played the latest patch’s story updates. It’s interesting to go back to XIV after playing what feels in many ways like it’s successor. XVI has problems, but they’re the a subset problems that XIV has, and it shores up so much. My main thing is the almost complete lack of engaging combat scenarios in XIV’s MSQ. There’s so much fun in the endgame that it’s hard to complain too much, but I hope they fix that in Dawntrail.
They’ve been investing way more in gaming lately, but I imagine their long-term plan involves setting up Apple Arcade as a premium brand for high-end titles in a way that might be undermined by promoting their “competition” now. Like if Apple promoted a lot of shows that were available on iTunes shortly before launching Apple TV+. No idea, though, I’m just wildly speculating.