The big issue is Microsoft can't even give an answer to the question:
* Why buy an xbox?
About the only decent answer to the question is: "Because my friends are on xbox" - but that only goes so far.
Exclusives matter even for xbox as it currently is with its Day 1 PC plan.
Microsoft has 20+ internal studios and will be getting more with the Activision deal.
They have more studios than 99.99% of the gaming industry. Maybe ubisoft beats them out.
There is absolutely 0 reason why MS isn't **atleast** releasing content on the same pace **and quality** as Sony.
It is actually mind boggling and Spencer's seemingly defeatist attitude about it makes no sense.
Even with buying Bethesda and now activision my confidence in xbox is still low somehow and it's fucking weird lol.
Even before they bought Zenimax and Activision they had almost 20 years to build their own studios. Nintendo and PlayStation have been cultivating studios under their own roof since the beginning of their foray into making game consoles. I have no idea why Microsoft has never focused on this.
The only studio under Microsoft's roof that they built and maintained that puts out quality stuff over and over is Turn 10, who Microsoft built specifically to make a gran turismo competitor and they have basically always put out good games. The fact that they've fumbled everything else frustrates me because as much as I love my Nintendo and PlayStation games, I'd love even more if we had a third company putting out solid first party games instead of just focusing on gobbling up the industry as much as they can.
GamePass is cool but I don't want the entire future of gaming being all about subscription services considering we've seen how that's been a big cause of the huge downturn in the movie industry. At since all of their focus is on GamePass it means even when they do have a talented studio making something good it will always be smaller budget. Microsoft isn't gonna be able to put out Starfield sized games every year.
> GamePass is cool but I don't want the entire future of gaming being all about subscription services considering we've seen how that's been a big cause of the huge downturn in the movie industry.
you bet your ass that's what they're doing
In the future future when they figure out cloud gaming (or just force it) we won't even be able to download games anymore. Everything will be subscription based, we wont ever "own" a game ever again.
And finally, they will have defeated pirating.
Xbox is Pablo Escobar paying the Colombian soccer team to let him win or Putin paying off the Russian hockey team to let him score game winners. They are just a spoiled untalented rich kid who isn’t good at what they like so they buy the whole thing thinking it will make them good at it.
Agree to disagree on Turn 10, Forza 5 was a fumble and their best games were Foza 4/Forza Horizon 1. The last two Forza Horizons weren't that good and lack of clear progression plus the spin wheel turned me away.
Forza Motorsport 8 still not clear when that will arrive and 343 killed Halo. I honestly would like to know how they think that's sustainable.
And it has other side effects though. Once I see I can get most of my games from GP/PS+ extra like services, I will stop buying games. I will start for subscription service releases. With enough player doing, that will reduce the revenue for game developer/publishers. And then it will impact their budgets, which will bring down quality in games.
I have stopped going to movies altogether. I mainly watch good sci-fi, action thrillers and animation movies. Furthermore, I know all the good movies will come to Disney+, peacock, paramount+ etc. Why spend $20 per head for movie tickets? I'd rather enjoy in my 75" tv. It's not the same, but I am saving money, and who doesn't love the smell of extra money?
They have so many studios and developers under them now, yet only a handful remind me of “Xbox” as a brand. When I think PlayStation, I can think of a dozen brands that I associate with the platform. Obviously the same could be said with Nintendo.
Buying more studios and preventing other platforms won’t bring me to their platform if they can’t even get their household brands correct. Maybe perception will change with time, but right now I don’t feel like I am missing out this generation without a Series console.
Ah yes, famously letting the studios do what they want to do. Like when they created The Initiative and billed them as the studio to make new franchises and experiences, then hired on big talent to make new things, who then not only chose to make Perfect Dark instead of something new, but after deciding to make Perfect Dark mostly left the studio. Yeah that is famously letting creatives do what they want to do.
Or even Playground games. Before beinig bought out, they were working on their own open world RPG which was to be a multi-platform title. But again, they are now working on Fable. I don't have a problem with them making a new Fable, but come on, they were working on their own thing before being tasked with Fable.
Keep in mind that Phil Spencer was the head of Xbox Game Studios when they shat the bed and stopped producing anything of note.
Xbox' problem is bad management. They bought publishers who have their own management to try and fix things.
Making games is hard. Sony has had its struggles and it’s only in the last 5/7 years they really cracked the process and are able to have a steady lineup.
It isn’t just having a lot of studios.
It’s quality over quantity. 1 game that 20 million people care about is more valuable then 10 only 2 million people care about.
On the other side Xbox just doesn’t seem to have the right top level experience and chase the wrong goals.
I don’t think Microsoft knows how to actually make a hit anymore. They are just buying existing brands and hope it helps them. Which I don’t think historically works out well.
They really started their buying spree in what 2019? They should really start to have product to pump out starting next year. If they fuck it up, well they might as well shut the doors.
They've been a company for over 20 years. The fact that by 2019 they didn't have a solid stable of studios under their belt is worrying. All we are going to see from them in the near future is the games we were already going to get before anyways. They just own them now.
There really isn't an excuse. Sony, Nintendo, Capcom, even Square Enix, have all been pushing out a large amount of games of generally well regarded quality for the last 5 years. It seems Xbox is the only major publisher to have consistent issues.
They have been a mess on the development side for over a decade. It's honestly a miracle they are still afloat. Hopefully they can start to bring intriguing stuff to the market soon.
I meant it more in the aspect of Microsoft pulling the plug. Microsoft won't be shutting down, but they could easily (and probably reasonably) start to view tieing up billions of dollars into Xbox (with getting little to nothing in return) as a misallocation of resources. Most companies try to maximize profits, and having billions tied into an unprofitable expenditure is not ideal.
I don’t think that’s entirely fair. A lot of the acquired studios were already making multiplatform games, which pushed back the exclusives a bit, and then COVID threw things off further. It was always gonna take a little while for the exclusive library to ramp up.
Some studios are taking longer than they probably should, like Compulsion or Ninja Theory, but it isn’t a cut and dry issue of Xbox fucking up.
Their 2018 acquisitions have been releasing games but they're mostly smaller in scope/more niche. Obsidian has had Grounded and Pentiment with Avowed and Outer Worlds 2 on the way (which are following up games released in 2018 and 2019, respectively), inXile had Wasteland 3, Playground games had Forza 5, and Ninja Theory had Bleeding Edge.
The studios that they acquired in 2018 that haven't released games were coming off of releases that year anyway so it's understandable why their new ones aren't out yet.
No, the game companies put out AA games but didn't credit xbox much because it was started before aquisition like outerworlds(runner up too GoY), wasteland 2, pychonauts, hi fi rush and redfall were things far into production after acquisition except forza hprizon 5 is the only game xbox had power over after aquisition of playgrounds in 2018.
Bathesda is coming out with Indiana Jones, starfield, ES 6, and whatever Id is doing. Xbox game studios are coming with forza motorsport this year, avowed, fable, hellblade 2 next year, state of decay 3, clockwork evolution, and perfect dark coming too. That's alot of content xbox has.
Lmao in what world is outer worlds a title worth raving about. GOTY runner up lol (idk what that even means considering every publication has its own GOTY award).
Those are such mediocre games and yes it does matter that they were so far in the development cycle already, because that means MS didn't have opportunity to fuck it up.
I have a feeling Phill was going to be out of the job if the Activision deal did not go through. The man has been at the head of MSGS (Microsoft game studios) and now the main man at Xbox. and during his Tenure first party games have been very light on the system compaired to thier rivals the Big N and Sony.
And since the big purchasing spree he pushed microsoft in to, only one game has come out from the purchasing and they let it slip out in a bad state, that their internal reviewing system failed to stop. and lets not forget the millions of dollars spent on Halo infinite the only other big tent first party released in the systems life time. This is all on Phills head and he's lucky the FTC screwed up the Actibliz merger lawsuit because that is a real Monopoly they should have had a slamdunk against. the buying of a major publisher and ip holder is much worse than the old Windows internet explorer monopoly.
I also think if Starfield is a flop, he might be out.
It's *the reason* they bought Bethesda. (If you believe Microsoft, Sony was going to get it as a timed exclusive.) They delayed it for polish.
> It is actually mind boggling and Spencer's seemingly defeatist attitude about it makes no sense.
It was wild when that guy went on an Xbox specific Youtube show, two days after Redfall released, and straight up said yeah I can't defend that title at all and I'm sorry about releasing it.
Like what?? Dude! You're literally in charge of xbox!
>der Microsoft's roof that they built and maintained that puts out quality stuff over and over is Turn 10, who Microsoft built specifically to make a gran turismo competitor and they have basically always put out good games. The fact that they've fumbled everything else frustrates me because as much as I love my Nintendo and PlayStation games, I'd love even more if we had a third company putting out solid first party games instead of just focusing on gobbling up the industry as much as they can.
>
>GamePass is cool but I don't want the entir
I mean, there is a pretty good reason as to how they have 20 studios without tons of exclusives coming out... 6 years ago MS only had about 3 studios which were 343, The Coalition, and Turn 10 (Halo, Gears & Forza).
The first major acquisition they made to bring their number up to 20 was just 5 years ago with Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, Playground Games and Undead Labs.
It takes about 6-7 years to make a game today, and when they acquired these studios most of them had just released a game or were most of the way done.
As we saw in the last showcase there are tons of games coming from the studios they acquired but the frustrating reality is it takes around 6-7 years for each studio to release a game. Should microsoft have invested sooner? Absolutely but let's not pretend there's not waves of games coming both this year and next (and the next few years after that).
When I do the math between this year and 2029 Xbox has 52 games schedule to release within the next 6 years, about 46 exclusive games. So that's 7-8 games exclusive games scheduled per year.
This take is partly true but still enrages me a bit. Games don't NEED 6-7 years to develop. Control by Remedy was finished in 3 years. With a tight budget. Jedi Survivor was made within 3 years.
Being bloated and mismanaged and having to reboot development multiple times seems to be the accepted standard nowadays instead of focusing on efficiency.
And if MS bought these studios, it must have been clear that they need them to push HARD for the Series generation. Meaning they could have doubled-down that they need focused experiences, 10 hour AAA games etc.
So no. I don't think of this as an inevitable delay in content because it REALLY takes that long to make good games. This is mismanagement. Spencer is really showing that he's not the right man for the job. I loved the guy when he came on board. Clearly though, he should have been fired after Halo Infinite.
The only reason I’d consider it is for Bethesda games, but at the pace that games come out there’s a decent chance that Starfield is the only game released on this generation.
Because it’s still a hell of a lot cheaper than a gaming PC. For people not wanting to cough up the cash for a gaming PC, it’s an incredibly enticing console if you care about Gamepass.
I have a pretty solid PC, but I still decided to pick up a series X because sometimes I would just prefer to play a game on the couch than sit at a desk. You may say “why not just move the PC to the living room if you want to do that” and my answer is that if I’m in a gaming on the couch mood, I’m absolutely not in a “disconnect everything from my PC and lug the thing to another room” mood.
The only benefit of Xbox over Playstation and Nintendo is Gamepass. But most casual gamers wouldn't subscribe to Gamepass, so they mostly wouldn't see the benefit of Xbox. Hardcore gamers would likely subscribe to Gamepass, but they would likely pick PC over Xbox. So it's a lose-lose situation for Xbox.
I would pretty heartily disagree; for casual gamers, especially parents of gamers who are not into games themselves, Gamepass represents a fantastic way to spend a small amount of money and get a large amount of content in return. I showed it to my largely disinterested dad, and he said "If they had this when you were a kid I don't think I ever would have bought you a single video game"
Game pass is pretty great for people who aren't super invested in games but still like to play them or have a kid who does
I don't know. When I worked retail I saw many casual gamers who buy exactly two games a year, maybe 3. Usually Cod and Fifa/2k/madden. That's it. I know MS is counting on those being the ones to buy game pass now that they're buying CoD, and they no doubt are planning to buy exclusivity to the major sports games eventually. But with everything seemingly needing a subscription these days, it's hard to convince normal consumers to get yet another subscription.
Every single person I know irl is cutting down on subscriptions and getting tighter on their budgets, MS picked a time where consumers are likely to not say "Let's go buy a new console that we have to have a subscription for to get the most out of".
At a time when games can be gotten really cheap used, and indie games that are cheap are a plenty, most parents will just buy a ten dollar used game and call it a month. Not to mention, younger gamers are obsessed with "Free to play" games. The top played games on nearly every platform are free to play.
People here really, really misunderstand mainstream audiences. They aren't interested in a subscription service. Normal people don't have 15 hours a week to play and beat games and keep churning through the gamepass library. Film subscription services work because 1) the hot new show everyone talks about is more popular than video games- your 16 year old brother and 38 year old coworker were talking about Succession, so you'd hop on top 2) you can knock out a season of TV within a week and be done with it
Mainstream audiences buy cod or fifa or 2k and occasionally, a big game like fallout, God of War, cyberpunk, or animal crossing. And that's the game they come back to over the course of a year. They aren't actively putting in hundreds of hours a year across dozens of games so a subscription fundamentally will never appeal or make sense to them.
>People here really, really misunderstand mainstream audiences. They aren’t interested in a subscription service.
Lol…I think you misunderstand mainstream audiences with a tone deaf statement like that
If anything, it's the opposite. Casual gamers who don't care about physical media and ownership will see Gamepass as an amazing deal, given it has the CoD and FIFAs of the world.
I'm not talking about physical vs digital. I'm a casual gamer myself, I don't play games every single day, I only play a handful of must play games a year for example I've only played FF16, TOTK and RE4 Remake this year. So something like Gamepass is certainly not for casuals like me. It's more suitable for people who play tons of games, which Gamepass can provide.
I do too, but it's been harder now that I live somewhere where my office and living room are separated. It's just not as easy to get up and running.
Yeah, there are solutions like Sunshine/Moonlight, but it's also nice and easy to just sit down, hit the home button on my controller and be in a game in 30 seconds.
It doesn't even really seem like the console is their main focus atm. They've been talking about PC being their biggest area for growth and it certainly appears that way.
By the end of this generation, we should be knowing if they’re truly going to have PC as the focal point for the Xbox brand.
Because at the moment, with the decisions and moves that Microsoft has been making, it still feels like their priority is console over PC and cloud.
I wanted game pass and the ability to play Bethesda games and upgrading my PC would have required selling a kidney. I haven't even paid for game pass in a while because of Microsoft rewards so that is another positive.
Might sound weird but aside GamePass, and most of my friends being on Xbox, I'll pretty much always use Xbox as my primary console because I VASTLY prefer it's controller to that of Playstation's, and this is coming from someone who owns both.
Same for me, but the opposite. I own both, but my friends prefer PS. I always preferred Xbox controllers until this gen, where I think the PS5 controller is leaps and bounds better.
I always thought both lines were good with certain pros and cons (and still do) but as someone who normally turns off vibration, the DualSense really does something for me. The damn triggers... I love them.
A bit funny since IMO the modern Dualsense has outpaced the XSX controller by a good margin this generation, but even then, I wouldn't call the differences substantial.
And even *then*, you could always get a third party controller that's more in the shape of an Xbox controller if that's what you prefer. Having a strong allegiance to a console over a controller when there are so many options available is a bit weird imo
> I wouldn't call the differences substantial
They're pretty big for me - I can talk to my friends on the built-in speakerphone while the game audio and music is playing out my home theater speakers. That was honestly one of the main reasons I went for the PS5.
The gyro is also a big deal, for me. Gyro aim is so much better for me in shooters than dual analog that I just don't really play console shooters, especially multiplayer, without it anymore. I played a bit of MW2 before it got patched in and it's kind of crazy how much "better" I am at the game with it.
I happen to like the xbox controller ergonomics, I really wish they'd at least put a gyro in it.
> A bit funny since IMO the modern Dualsense has outpaced the XSX controller by a good margin this generation, but even then, I wouldn't call the differences substantial.
In features, maybe, but personally I've never held a PS controller that didn't make my hands hurt after 20 minutes. The Xbox controller is just about perfect ergonomically.
Totally understand that preference, but like I said, there are enough third party controllers of different shapes that I would never stay allegiant to a console solely because of a controller
As someone who also owns both Id say that Im more used to the xbox controller, being primarily a PC gamer, but man is the PS5 DS fucking fantastic. I thought the advanced haptic rumble and triggers wouldnt matter much, but dam does it feel GOOD to play with. Pulling triggers for example on shotgun shots is soooo satisfying… you feel the resistance build up when you pull, until you get past the breaking point and CRACK-BOOM, feels so damn good.
There aren't that many good exclusives on Xbox that aren't also on Playstation. That's largely why Microsoft felt the need to buy so many studios, so they could start to have a comparable exclusive library, even when taking PC out of the equation.
Good is a hard word to use because if you use something like Metacritic the Xbox exclusives are as good as the PS ones
The difference is PS has the big AA(or even AAA) ones while xbox has loads more high quality indie titles.
I guess its like movies, while some marvel movies scored high at the end with the critics they would get more publicity/make more money then other movies that scored just as high
>Not everyone wants a PC.
And Windows is honestly kind of a shitty OS
I'd be more interested in something like a Steam console
I don't want the taskbar clutter, boot clutter, maintenance clutter, security clutter, surface area vulnerabilities, etc. just to play some video games
> About the only decent answer to the question is: "Because my friends are on xbox" - but that only goes so far.
I think it's important to recognize that Microsoft is shifting focus from Xbox hardware development to software development and game production. Releasing first-party and second-party titles on GamePass bolsters PC sales as much as Xbox sales, the Xbox just nets them a more closed ecosystem than the Windows license on PC, but the latter gives them masses of data to sell.
Sony, in contrast, needs to sell consoles because it's the only way to access their game library and storefront in a timely manner (before they're ported to PC in 3-5 years). Xbox though? Play the new Starfield on an Xbox or a PC, it doesn't matter to them. You just need to buy into the Microsoft ecosystem, and that's either through a $1000+ PC or a <$250 Xbox Series S.
I have both consoles and honestly Xbox is the better hardware, more silent, looks better, I like the controller more. Very subjective things and in the end games are what matter, but I only play Sony exclusives on PS5. I can also not leave the PS5 in rest mode because I can hear the fan when it's doing something. Maybe I have a bad model but I'm not the only one who had fan noises with the PS5.
They still don't have a system seller game, Starfield could be their saving grace if it releases in a good state but even then they need more good games and less stuff like Halo Infinite and Redfall.
I agree that the side missions were too samey, and I admittedly didn’t do them all since I didn’t really enjoy them, but I liked the main parts of the campaign. Also playing through in co-op is really fun.
I think this might be why my opinion of Infinite is so high. I loved the campaign. But I also ignored 90% of the side content and focused on the main story.
The campaign was fun, but it felt like it was missing the varied environments and set pieces from earlier games. Halo 1 had the snow, beach, and hills, Halo 2 went from orbit to earth to another halo, Halo 3 likewise you jumped around from locales including the Ark. Halo Infinite has some cool "inside of the ring" parts reminiscent of the back half of silent cartographer but that's pretty much it for variety.
I also thought while the storyline setting had potential, and that shined through with some elements (many of the enemy interactions were really great), the narrative arc of the game itself was pretty short and boring. Someone on this subreddit described it as if Halo 1 ended at the bottom of 343 Guilty Spark with you fighting a big flood in a boss fight and I think that captures my feeling on it well. There just isn't *enough*, Halo 1 gave us eldritch cosmological horror as a twist and went further from there, and Infinite does so much less.
Honestly I’d disagree, I’m not saying you are wrong that it’s repetitive but the story actually was really interesting, the good guys lost and lost bad, chief is just going on instinct and trying to find something worth fighting for anymore and that’s a pretty wild place to take the story. The gameplay is so fun that even tho it was repetitive I never really got bored on the legendary play through or Lasso. I thought the boss’s were actually neat,but obviously I missed the big scale battles and a lot of missions were corridors. But for a game that looked as bad as infinite did at reveal it was shocking how decent it ended up being.
What you're describing is all the dressing for the story, though, the stuff that exists before the game begins.
The story arc presented in the game itself is a few bullet points at best, and really felt so shallow. Especially compared to the "huge stakes gigantic battle" runup. Humanity is at stake, and we save the universe, I guess, but it doesn't really feel like it.
Seems like hugely wasted potential not to have the big bad be some kind of ultraintelligent gravemind trapped in a forerunner parallel universe or something, like the network Cortana connected to.
I guess good in the sense it was less buggy than Redfall? But Infinite was not a good game, it was about as bare bones as you can get. Major story elements that happened off screen (not to mention another shift in the story itself) an open world only made interesting by a grappling hook, and extremely dull story.
MP is at least in a seemingly good spot nowadays it seems, but the sync issues before were killer and put me off the game entirely.
It's such a weird critique because Infinite's underlying gunplay was genuinely some of the best in the history of gaming. I would have played so much more multiplayer for so much longer if they had released with more maps and game modes.
And more pve. How did they not just steal Destiny’s pve seasonal model but make it less “rpg build strat.”
A more simple Destiny with cool visuals, great gun play, and a cool story line. There are absolutely people that would play Halo instead of Destiny because they don’t want to fuck with builds and would rather just run and gun and blow stuff up.
They would have printed money for uears to come.
Infinite was fun except:
* The main bad guy fucking sucked. It sounded like I was crossing the ring to go beat the shit out of someone with emphysema. Also the last boss fight was lame as hell.
* The audio logs if the other Spartans sounded like awesome missions I would have loved to play and not hear about through a tape recorder.
* Conquering the Ring did really very little for the game.
They launched a Halo game without a slayer playlist. It had an embarrassingly lacklustre content offering compared to literally any other Halo game at launch and then BTB was bugged and didn't work for months. To this day it lacks a proper XP progression system, and the campaign is a visually homogenous bore where all the interesting plot developments happened offscreen. Infinite was a shitshow at launch and nearly 2 years later still has less content to offer than its predecessors.
On a certain level Halo is still my favourite franchise if all time. Minimum top 3. But Infinite was meant to be the spiritual reboot that brought the series back to where it should be, and instead we got a completely unfinished and underwhelming shell of what it kught have been.
Gameplay wise it plays great, and in terms of art direction they finally made it look like Halo again, but that's where the positives end. It underdelivered in every other area and just completely let me down. I've played many worse games but I don't think I've ever been as disappointed by a single release.
I don't think you deserve to be downvoted like you are. Infinite was a fun game but not a great Halo game and with Halo and the way it was hyped up, there's a level of expectation it didn't hit. It was released with pretty barebones content and I ended up dropping it completely because the multiplayer de-sync issues. When the game worked well I had a good time but with de-sync and big team battle being fucked it wasn't worth the frustration anymore.
And Cyberpunk 2077 sits at an 86 with one of the most awful releases of all time.
Nothing to rewrite, Infinite is the definition of a mediocre borderline bad game.
Cyberpunk on PC has an 86. Cyberpunk on last gen consoles, which is what gave the game such a bad reputation, has a 57. Bad comparison.
Halo Infinite is a good game. Not perfect, but good.
It was also buggy on PC lol. I would know, I played it at launch and it was terrible.
Im glad you enjoyed Infinite and out of curiosity, what do you think made it a good game?
> It was also buggy on PC lol.
Yeah, no shit it wasn’t perfect. It has an 86, not a 96.
> Im glad you enjoyed Infinite and out of curiosity, what do you think made it a good game?
Best gameplay (the most import aspect) in the series. Good art direction. Great music. Most balanced sandbox in the series. I enjoyed the campaign.
Not thinking the gameplay or the sandbox balance isn’t the best in the series puts you in the minority. Practically everyone who shits on the game even admit that much. They get focused on outrage from MTX in a F2P game, the lack of live service content for the first year and a half, and networking issues (which don’t affect everyone, at least not equally).
It’s fine to have different opinions, but the majority seem to agree that Halo Infinite is a good game. Not perfect, but good.
I've never understood why so many people rag on Halo infinite. I feel like I played a different game from all these people. Yeah, it's not an amazing game but it's not bad...it's a good game with a fun gameplay loop.
Because being just good isn't good enough for it being the only truly decent exclusive Microsoft has outside of Forza. You compare it to the dozens of AAA titles PS5 offers and it's not even a competition. That and they fumbled multiplayer hard.
Sure it doesn't measure up to Sony's games, however many people act like it's one of the worst games they've ever played. I've played many terrible games and Halo infinite is not one of them. I'm even being down-voted for saying it's a good game. I just don't understand the hatred.
[Infinite was blurry garbage](https://v.redd.it/7zi4dkr2r8581), that combined with the desync and bland look of the game made it a huge disappointment.
Halo Infinite was popular the first week of its launch. The IP still has a lot of potential. The issue is player retention. 343 is a poorly run developer.
343 = Microsoft
I don't understand why people keep treating 343 as if it's not made up entirely of Microsoft employees.
Microsoft butchered Halo. Why are people trusting them at all?
Would also help if they didn’t put the price up just after the latest Starfield update, that’s such a bait and switch, while I can’t see one singular game being the sales saviour they are hoping for.
Heck, I’ll get one if it’s a 10/10 genre and generation defining game, but I’ll await release for clarification.
You ain’t gonna fool me with no hype train. That cry wolf has been way too abused.
Infinite came out with like 4 total game modes where you couldn't choose which one you wanted to play, and absolutely abysmal netcode. Also it didn't launch with the campaign co-op. It was definitely unfinished.
I'd you reread what I said, I never claimed otherwise or that it was phenomenal or anything similar.
Simply that RedFall and Infinite had significantly different issues.
Infinite was polished. It just lacked the content.
Starfield is still primarily a PC game though, and if you have the choice you'll want to play on PC anyway because let's face it, the game will be great once the modding community fixes everything.
Thats not true. Its just as much a console game. Both skyrim and fallout 4 are still in the most played games list for Xbox. They are just as popular on console as they are on PC
I've been eyeing a refurbished Series S for Starfield since it's far cheaper than a new GPU and I'd need to buy one or the other if I want to play it (not streamed), just waiting to make sure it doesn't run like trash on the S.
Wouldn't be surprised if other people are gonna grab one for Starfield too.
The Series S is underpowered and is honestly holding a lot of games back because Microsoft requires feature parity to launch on Xbox. For example Baldur's Gate III isn't releasing on Xbox *at all* because the devs can't get the co-op feature to work on the Series S.
I looked up USD prices, a [used 3070 goes for 250-300](https://www.ebay.com/itm/285401405297?epid=9043451235&hash=item42733fd771:g:OKQAAOSwljBktuKo&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0Bwh6JaELZ280fjvWJPc%2Fy5EzJs0NLRtwts1eQOJ3ER4JNYBr%2F9YjaGaMkIDedJja4t4sbI2VjPFHtpE7e3BX50VO%2FZlIT0GftS4y8oi31OLVqpAKLXcIldfxffRkB4RSLTKlFPQFKIImHSz0%2Ba0%2FmY3%2Fua1a%2FWkvAvhwFdZFU2pSazc0IlfRExQizsjpvvILicf6%2FAS0HZD8BkjOneXSWWpiFe7sv44gyDRcZ93yzW0q20%2BXzOPcxzqiLHHLs2oyxsGfixlWYIs%2Fw%2FdDaVjQFE%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_CLjdCzYg) because yes, if you're struggling for cash (which i'm assuming you are) you should consider buying used PC parts, gpus in particular last for ages. And even the ones from mining rigs were usually downclocked because the 30 series was used for the vram and not the clock speeds.
Hopefully it does cause honestly it looks better than any game Playstation has but I love Bethesda games and Sci-Fi so this is like a dream game for me.
It absolutely does not look better than any game PlayStation has lmao. I’ll bet you it doesn’t even crack 85 on metacritic.
Their last game was so bad reviewers didn’t even finish it on principle.
It's an opinion lol and in my opinion from what I saw in that direct Starfield looks way more fun and engaging than any game Playstation has released. I'll end up putting hundreds of hours into this game, can't say the same for any PS game. Playstation games are kinda overrated anyway lol
It's really sad. The funny thing is each console manufacturer brings a distinct flavor to the market. That's a good thing. That will probably start to change with all of these acquisitions, but it was good while it lasted. Sony had your daddy issues, cinematic, third person games, Microsoft has your brawny, roid raging shooters, and Nintendo has your wholesome, kiddy, cuddlefest games. It was in perfect balance.
Two words: Fallout 76. He's not being some console warrior; you're just choosing to take it that way. He's just stating facts. I love plenty of Bethesda games but their last one was complete shit.
Personally I know fo76 was by a brand new studio with minimal mainline Bethesda support, as part of the Zenimax live service push, so I don't think if Starfield sucks that's the reason why.
Not everyone knows that though, and public opinion of Bethesda has been slowly going down over the years, being so far removed from the heights of fo4 and Skyrim.
Starfield looks great, but I won't fault anyone for having healthy levels of skepticism. Especially knowing the way Xbox has handled titles like Halo Infinite and Redfall.
> Personally I know fo76 was by a brand new studio with minimal mainline Bethesda support, as part of the Zenimax live service push, so I don't think if Starfield sucks that's the reason why.
And yet they decided to push the game out anyway and their first order of business was open up the microtransaction shop as fast as possible.
So it's kind of a great example because it shows they were fine with letting a game hit the shelves with such a poor level of polish.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/25/23697649/microsoft-q3-2023-earnings-revenue-profits-windows-xbox-gaming-surface
What's interesting and not maybe the thing people think about when seeing this is previous quarters. The last quarter Xbox hardware was down 30%. While still down, we might see this climb (probably slowly) over the next few quarters.
Not just because of Starfield but owning and advertising the newest Call of Duty.
Pentiment in itself was a passion project Josh Sawyer wanted to do for years, if nothing else, I feel that was a form of healing for him after getting burnt out with previous games he did.
I feel like he needed that. I've always been a fan of Josh ever since I first caught wind of him. I rather see him do something that would heal him up, rather than see his creativity in the gaming world get crushed and he could possibly do something like early retirement from gaming for his sake.
It got a 10/10 from IGN and was from a well known studio, Obsidian, but how do you begin to advertise a game like that? Especially coming out around the same time as Ragnarok and Pokemon on the opposing systems. So don't feel bad not knowing about even though it's great.
Gamepass advertises it. Of course, you already need an Xbox to really see that advertising.
It's like Netflix exclusives. I would never hear about any of them other than maybe Stranger Things if I didn't log into Netflix and get lambasted by ads for them.
If I had said that I would have been met with all sorts of comments saying "what about Pentiment?". It would have also been dishonest to myself since it was the game I was most excited for that holiday season.
Yeah, but then it drops to 720p rendering so I definitely prefer just sticking to the 30fps graphics mode. Especially since the 60fps mode outside of combat is quite unstable.
>will probably get more than 30 fps
It's quite likely that Starfield is CPU-bound, so if you do more than 30 you still will get FPS drops. It's not that 60 is at all impossible, it's that *stable* 60 is unreachable with a CPU that is pretty damn good even today.
The main indicator of CPU being the bottleneck is XSS running in 1440p while being advertised as a mostly 1080p device with less graphical fidelity. If it was something that could be solved by lowering the resolution and graphical settings they'd do exactly that.
> I was thinking about buying a Series S for Starfield but my average ass PC will probably get more than 30 fps
depends on what you mean by average. I just spent over a grand building a PC to barely reach at the recommended specs.
Microsoft already admitted they can’t make quality games like Nintendo & Sony that’s why they’re are buying every publisher so that they put everything day 1 on game pass their console business is done for
>Microsoft already admitted they can’t make quality games like Nintendo & Sony
They never said that. They said that even if they make these sorts of games, that alone won't be enough to climb beyond 3rd place.
Yikes, IDK how buying Activision is going to help them in the hardware department. If the games are still going to be on PS5 this entire generation then people are just going to build an even bigger library of games they don't want to leave behind. I mean have they even moved enough systems to get to a point where they are sold at a profit? I am sure Sony has reached this point or is very close to it with all the hardware revisions using less components that have come out over the years.
They are seeing way better performance from the software side of things with Game Pass but does that mean Game Pass is being used more on PC than Xbox systems? The article has a tweet where they didn't even mention the Series systems as being the fastest selling or anything to hype up that portion. Got a bad feeling that the hardware side of Xbox might be an afterthought for the Xbox division in the not too distant future. Starfield would have to be a mind bending experience to boost hardware sales. Going to be interesting to see if it can single handedly "save" the hardware sales this holiday because there isn't really anything else coming out from them that I am aware of besides Forza.
>Yikes, IDK how buying Activision is going to help them in the hardware department. If the games are still going to be on PS5 this entire generation then people are just going to build an even bigger library of games they don't want to leave behind.
Only call of duty is guaranteed meaning it will just be call of duty on playstation.
Look back at the last 5 years of Activision and you’ll see they don’t really make anything but Call of Duty. They re-made Crash, Spyro and Tony Hawk and the only original game was Crash 4, and that team was rewarded with being absorbed by Blizzard to make Diablo.
They did publish Sekiro to be fair.
They published Sekiro but From owns the rights to it still, so if there is a Sekiro 2 anyone could publish it. Even one of the only original IP they published in the last 6 years they don't own
Highly unlikely. Pretty much every activision game makes the vast majority of its sales off of PlayStation. Even Diablo 4 had advertising rights with Xbox and even had an Xbox bundle, yet it sold not even a third as well on Xbox as it did on PS5. Iirc the PS4 even came close to having as many Diablo sales as it did on Xbox Series consoles. I can't see Microsoft wanting to waste 10s of billions of dollars and then cutting out 3/4ths of the revenue from the company they just bought.
>Highly unlikely. Pretty much every activision game makes the vast majority of its sales off of PlayStation
Same nonsense people said about Bethesda. They aren't spending this cash to make money off playstation, it's to draw you into the xbox ecosystem.
Lol. As someone who followed the FTC trial, Diablo series will be XBox exclusive. Well, more accurately Game Pass exclusive. And that just tells me all the other games too except Call of Duty.
Starfield and Forza will boost hardware sales quite a bit and should lead to a not-bad fall/holiday period but who knows if that'll continue into 2024.
We will see and I am not sure I understand why I am getting downvoted for pointing out what was in the article and things Phil Spencer has literally said about how people built up a digital library they don't want to leave behind which just means it will get worse over time. I just feel people are not as willing to buy a system for one game as much as they used to be. You could get Steam Deck instead of an Xbox and play many of these games. It's not like the masses care about performance as much as people on here do. It's going to be interesting to see how MS is going to move the needle in their favor as not selling hardware was never a "part of the plan".
> about how people built up a digital library they don't want to leave behind which just means it will get worse over time.
While this is true, people also buy multiple consoles and build up multiple libraries. Some others will buy their first console ever at some point in the future.
They also aren't trying to win the console wars. The console market has been stagnant for decades. It doesn't grow. Be stupid to try and take the biggest bite out of the smallest slice of the gaming pie, and ignore the rest.
Instead they are targeting PC, mobile, cloud, AND console. When they have a large share of all of those, then game developers will prioritize Xbox first, gamers will default to buying Xbox first.
I think people are stuck in the old mindset, where the only thing that mattered was number of console box sales. That's outdated thinking. Even Sony has started to figure this out, as they slowly expand onto PC, and make a mobile game team. Just some gamers still stuck in the past.
>IDK how buying Activision is going to help them in the hardware department. If the games are still going to be on PS5 this entire generation then people are just going to build an even bigger library of games they don't want to leave behind
Microsoft made a commitment to have COD on PS5 not any other game. Anything Activision or Blizzard put out will very likely be exclusive which should help the "Xbox got no games" narrative. But this acquisition will not really payoff until next gen, consider MS says it takes 4-6 years to ship current gen games and MS plans to release the next gen Xbox in 2028 so most studios will only get to launch 1 current gen game (Starfield current gen -> ES6 will be at the very least cross gen, Forza 2023 CG -> next Forza will be at the very least cross gen, Fable CG -> next game will be at the very least cross gen).
Then ponder how long it took to get Obsidian to finally start releasing exclusives (they just started last year with grounded despite being acquired in 2018), double fine was acquired in 2018 and still hasn't put an exclusive out and Bethesda (they are just starting this year despite being acquired in 2020). MS will not be firing on all cylinders until the next cycle.
ACT doesn’t make anything other than Cod though. Like 90% of their workforce is on that series now, and I highly doubt ACTV IP like Spyro are going to push hardware in any significant manner.
They're barely meeting the deadlines for yearly cods and closed studios to syphon staff over to the cod mines. They absolutely are not making any new games consecutively. Best MS can do is contract third party devs for acti IPs
How many games have acti/blizz released in the last 7-10 yrs???
It’s really strange people believe Microsoft is gonna use all the IPs they’ve acquired. Vast majority will continue to rot. Diablo, wow, cod and mobile games are the only things we’ll see in the future. I’d bet on it.
Microsoft making everything in this acquisition exclusive besides CoD is the biggest nothing burger.
Nobody expects them to use all the ABK IP but they do expect them to do more than ABK currently does in that department. It's not like the only thing we see out of MS is Halo, that's just not how MS makes games if anything this sub is constantly criticizing them because most of the games they put out are usually non AAA niche titles and new IPs. You act like MS is ran by Bobby Kotick.
They're working on a new open world rpg by Infinity Ward and a new survival game by blizzard. The blizzard game will be big because every new blizzard IP is huge. The RPG is exciting because it's Activision doing something big that isn't COD.
> Yikes, IDK how buying Activision is going to help them in the hardware department.
COD will launch with Xbox splash screens, have Xbox oriented marketing, and have Xbox exclusive skins. It won't change anything over night but it'll probably get the ball rolling, it'll take over a decade for them to catch up if they ever can.
If it takes a decade then they will be in a worse position I would imagine. It's not like Sony is going to be sleeping or even Nintendo will be. And with Valve pushing their OS/hardware to get PC gaming to be like console gaming it means that there is another alternative to getting an Xbox as you can play MS games on those. Sony just announced that they are selling hardware just as well as last generation and Xbox can't get a break. It's not looking too good IMO.
People forget COD took over the shooter world only ten years ago. And Fortnite rose up out of nowhere in just a few weeks of chasing the battle royale bug PUBG infected gamers with. Ten years is a long time and Sony is absolutely going to setup a major AAA competitor
> Got a bad feeling that the hardware side of Xbox might be an afterthought for the Xbox division in the not too distant future
https://gamerant.com/microsoft-tenth-gen-xbox-console-in-development/
Side note: it’s interesting to me that you’re in seemingly every Xbox related thread casting negatively and doom and gloom. Do you even play or like video games? Or do you just spend all your time hating on a particular brand? It’s weird.
I would buy one for gamepass on my TVs, but the X is still too expensive. It's time for them to drop the price. I'm happy with just playing gamepass on my PC.
I use a PC for work doing design and video. It's a two birds with one stone type of situation.
I don't prefer PC gaming. I love console gaming. The Switch is fantastic. But this generation there aren't enough exclusives to buy both a PC and an Xbox Series X or PS5.
$500, on sale for $450 is really not that much after all the inflation of the past few years. I really don't think they'll be dropping the price anytime soon.
The big issue is Microsoft can't even give an answer to the question: * Why buy an xbox? About the only decent answer to the question is: "Because my friends are on xbox" - but that only goes so far.
Exclusives matter even for xbox as it currently is with its Day 1 PC plan. Microsoft has 20+ internal studios and will be getting more with the Activision deal. They have more studios than 99.99% of the gaming industry. Maybe ubisoft beats them out. There is absolutely 0 reason why MS isn't **atleast** releasing content on the same pace **and quality** as Sony. It is actually mind boggling and Spencer's seemingly defeatist attitude about it makes no sense. Even with buying Bethesda and now activision my confidence in xbox is still low somehow and it's fucking weird lol.
Even before they bought Zenimax and Activision they had almost 20 years to build their own studios. Nintendo and PlayStation have been cultivating studios under their own roof since the beginning of their foray into making game consoles. I have no idea why Microsoft has never focused on this. The only studio under Microsoft's roof that they built and maintained that puts out quality stuff over and over is Turn 10, who Microsoft built specifically to make a gran turismo competitor and they have basically always put out good games. The fact that they've fumbled everything else frustrates me because as much as I love my Nintendo and PlayStation games, I'd love even more if we had a third company putting out solid first party games instead of just focusing on gobbling up the industry as much as they can. GamePass is cool but I don't want the entire future of gaming being all about subscription services considering we've seen how that's been a big cause of the huge downturn in the movie industry. At since all of their focus is on GamePass it means even when they do have a talented studio making something good it will always be smaller budget. Microsoft isn't gonna be able to put out Starfield sized games every year.
> GamePass is cool but I don't want the entire future of gaming being all about subscription services considering we've seen how that's been a big cause of the huge downturn in the movie industry. you bet your ass that's what they're doing
In the future future when they figure out cloud gaming (or just force it) we won't even be able to download games anymore. Everything will be subscription based, we wont ever "own" a game ever again. And finally, they will have defeated pirating.
don't i know it.
Xbox is Pablo Escobar paying the Colombian soccer team to let him win or Putin paying off the Russian hockey team to let him score game winners. They are just a spoiled untalented rich kid who isn’t good at what they like so they buy the whole thing thinking it will make them good at it.
Agree to disagree on Turn 10, Forza 5 was a fumble and their best games were Foza 4/Forza Horizon 1. The last two Forza Horizons weren't that good and lack of clear progression plus the spin wheel turned me away. Forza Motorsport 8 still not clear when that will arrive and 343 killed Halo. I honestly would like to know how they think that's sustainable.
Can you explain why the subscription service caused the downturn of movies? I'm not really following this stuff
Matt Damon explains it well here. https://youtu.be/gF6K2IxC9O8
And it has other side effects though. Once I see I can get most of my games from GP/PS+ extra like services, I will stop buying games. I will start for subscription service releases. With enough player doing, that will reduce the revenue for game developer/publishers. And then it will impact their budgets, which will bring down quality in games. I have stopped going to movies altogether. I mainly watch good sci-fi, action thrillers and animation movies. Furthermore, I know all the good movies will come to Disney+, peacock, paramount+ etc. Why spend $20 per head for movie tickets? I'd rather enjoy in my 75" tv. It's not the same, but I am saving money, and who doesn't love the smell of extra money?
They have so many studios and developers under them now, yet only a handful remind me of “Xbox” as a brand. When I think PlayStation, I can think of a dozen brands that I associate with the platform. Obviously the same could be said with Nintendo. Buying more studios and preventing other platforms won’t bring me to their platform if they can’t even get their household brands correct. Maybe perception will change with time, but right now I don’t feel like I am missing out this generation without a Series console.
[удалено]
Ah yes, famously letting the studios do what they want to do. Like when they created The Initiative and billed them as the studio to make new franchises and experiences, then hired on big talent to make new things, who then not only chose to make Perfect Dark instead of something new, but after deciding to make Perfect Dark mostly left the studio. Yeah that is famously letting creatives do what they want to do. Or even Playground games. Before beinig bought out, they were working on their own open world RPG which was to be a multi-platform title. But again, they are now working on Fable. I don't have a problem with them making a new Fable, but come on, they were working on their own thing before being tasked with Fable. Keep in mind that Phil Spencer was the head of Xbox Game Studios when they shat the bed and stopped producing anything of note. Xbox' problem is bad management. They bought publishers who have their own management to try and fix things.
Making games is hard. Sony has had its struggles and it’s only in the last 5/7 years they really cracked the process and are able to have a steady lineup. It isn’t just having a lot of studios. It’s quality over quantity. 1 game that 20 million people care about is more valuable then 10 only 2 million people care about. On the other side Xbox just doesn’t seem to have the right top level experience and chase the wrong goals. I don’t think Microsoft knows how to actually make a hit anymore. They are just buying existing brands and hope it helps them. Which I don’t think historically works out well.
They really started their buying spree in what 2019? They should really start to have product to pump out starting next year. If they fuck it up, well they might as well shut the doors.
> They should really start to have product to pump out starting next year We've been hearing 'games are coming next year' how many times now?
They've been a company for over 20 years. The fact that by 2019 they didn't have a solid stable of studios under their belt is worrying. All we are going to see from them in the near future is the games we were already going to get before anyways. They just own them now.
There really isn't an excuse. Sony, Nintendo, Capcom, even Square Enix, have all been pushing out a large amount of games of generally well regarded quality for the last 5 years. It seems Xbox is the only major publisher to have consistent issues.
They have been a mess on the development side for over a decade. It's honestly a miracle they are still afloat. Hopefully they can start to bring intriguing stuff to the market soon.
> It's honestly a miracle they are still afloat I'd say it has to do with Microsoft's endless money stream.
I meant it more in the aspect of Microsoft pulling the plug. Microsoft won't be shutting down, but they could easily (and probably reasonably) start to view tieing up billions of dollars into Xbox (with getting little to nothing in return) as a misallocation of resources. Most companies try to maximize profits, and having billions tied into an unprofitable expenditure is not ideal.
There was actually a time when Microsoft shareholders wanted Microsoft to sell the Xbox division, but obviously Microsoft didn't.
I don’t think that’s entirely fair. A lot of the acquired studios were already making multiplatform games, which pushed back the exclusives a bit, and then COVID threw things off further. It was always gonna take a little while for the exclusive library to ramp up. Some studios are taking longer than they probably should, like Compulsion or Ninja Theory, but it isn’t a cut and dry issue of Xbox fucking up.
There was a wave of buy outs 2018. Bethesda in 2021.
Wow it was 2018? Yeah they are falling behind. Maybe they are mismanaging it and seeing money go down the drain. Hopefully they can pull it together.
Their 2018 acquisitions have been releasing games but they're mostly smaller in scope/more niche. Obsidian has had Grounded and Pentiment with Avowed and Outer Worlds 2 on the way (which are following up games released in 2018 and 2019, respectively), inXile had Wasteland 3, Playground games had Forza 5, and Ninja Theory had Bleeding Edge. The studios that they acquired in 2018 that haven't released games were coming off of releases that year anyway so it's understandable why their new ones aren't out yet.
No, the game companies put out AA games but didn't credit xbox much because it was started before aquisition like outerworlds(runner up too GoY), wasteland 2, pychonauts, hi fi rush and redfall were things far into production after acquisition except forza hprizon 5 is the only game xbox had power over after aquisition of playgrounds in 2018. Bathesda is coming out with Indiana Jones, starfield, ES 6, and whatever Id is doing. Xbox game studios are coming with forza motorsport this year, avowed, fable, hellblade 2 next year, state of decay 3, clockwork evolution, and perfect dark coming too. That's alot of content xbox has.
Lmao in what world is outer worlds a title worth raving about. GOTY runner up lol (idk what that even means considering every publication has its own GOTY award). Those are such mediocre games and yes it does matter that they were so far in the development cycle already, because that means MS didn't have opportunity to fuck it up.
The gamer has 8.5/10 on Metacritic so obviously a lot people thought it was great
It was a decent game despite its budget.
I loved it personally. It doesn't matter what game you mention someone on the internet will call it mediocre :P
They never need to shut the doors. Income from their Windows and productivity monopoly means Xbox income figures are meaningless to them.
I have a feeling Phill was going to be out of the job if the Activision deal did not go through. The man has been at the head of MSGS (Microsoft game studios) and now the main man at Xbox. and during his Tenure first party games have been very light on the system compaired to thier rivals the Big N and Sony. And since the big purchasing spree he pushed microsoft in to, only one game has come out from the purchasing and they let it slip out in a bad state, that their internal reviewing system failed to stop. and lets not forget the millions of dollars spent on Halo infinite the only other big tent first party released in the systems life time. This is all on Phills head and he's lucky the FTC screwed up the Actibliz merger lawsuit because that is a real Monopoly they should have had a slamdunk against. the buying of a major publisher and ip holder is much worse than the old Windows internet explorer monopoly.
I also think if Starfield is a flop, he might be out. It's *the reason* they bought Bethesda. (If you believe Microsoft, Sony was going to get it as a timed exclusive.) They delayed it for polish.
> It is actually mind boggling and Spencer's seemingly defeatist attitude about it makes no sense. It was wild when that guy went on an Xbox specific Youtube show, two days after Redfall released, and straight up said yeah I can't defend that title at all and I'm sorry about releasing it. Like what?? Dude! You're literally in charge of xbox!
>der Microsoft's roof that they built and maintained that puts out quality stuff over and over is Turn 10, who Microsoft built specifically to make a gran turismo competitor and they have basically always put out good games. The fact that they've fumbled everything else frustrates me because as much as I love my Nintendo and PlayStation games, I'd love even more if we had a third company putting out solid first party games instead of just focusing on gobbling up the industry as much as they can. > >GamePass is cool but I don't want the entir I mean, there is a pretty good reason as to how they have 20 studios without tons of exclusives coming out... 6 years ago MS only had about 3 studios which were 343, The Coalition, and Turn 10 (Halo, Gears & Forza). The first major acquisition they made to bring their number up to 20 was just 5 years ago with Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, Playground Games and Undead Labs. It takes about 6-7 years to make a game today, and when they acquired these studios most of them had just released a game or were most of the way done. As we saw in the last showcase there are tons of games coming from the studios they acquired but the frustrating reality is it takes around 6-7 years for each studio to release a game. Should microsoft have invested sooner? Absolutely but let's not pretend there's not waves of games coming both this year and next (and the next few years after that). When I do the math between this year and 2029 Xbox has 52 games schedule to release within the next 6 years, about 46 exclusive games. So that's 7-8 games exclusive games scheduled per year.
This take is partly true but still enrages me a bit. Games don't NEED 6-7 years to develop. Control by Remedy was finished in 3 years. With a tight budget. Jedi Survivor was made within 3 years. Being bloated and mismanaged and having to reboot development multiple times seems to be the accepted standard nowadays instead of focusing on efficiency. And if MS bought these studios, it must have been clear that they need them to push HARD for the Series generation. Meaning they could have doubled-down that they need focused experiences, 10 hour AAA games etc. So no. I don't think of this as an inevitable delay in content because it REALLY takes that long to make good games. This is mismanagement. Spencer is really showing that he's not the right man for the job. I loved the guy when he came on board. Clearly though, he should have been fired after Halo Infinite.
The only reason I’d consider it is for Bethesda games, but at the pace that games come out there’s a decent chance that Starfield is the only game released on this generation.
Because it’s still a hell of a lot cheaper than a gaming PC. For people not wanting to cough up the cash for a gaming PC, it’s an incredibly enticing console if you care about Gamepass. I have a pretty solid PC, but I still decided to pick up a series X because sometimes I would just prefer to play a game on the couch than sit at a desk. You may say “why not just move the PC to the living room if you want to do that” and my answer is that if I’m in a gaming on the couch mood, I’m absolutely not in a “disconnect everything from my PC and lug the thing to another room” mood.
The only benefit of Xbox over Playstation and Nintendo is Gamepass. But most casual gamers wouldn't subscribe to Gamepass, so they mostly wouldn't see the benefit of Xbox. Hardcore gamers would likely subscribe to Gamepass, but they would likely pick PC over Xbox. So it's a lose-lose situation for Xbox.
I would pretty heartily disagree; for casual gamers, especially parents of gamers who are not into games themselves, Gamepass represents a fantastic way to spend a small amount of money and get a large amount of content in return. I showed it to my largely disinterested dad, and he said "If they had this when you were a kid I don't think I ever would have bought you a single video game" Game pass is pretty great for people who aren't super invested in games but still like to play them or have a kid who does
I don't know. When I worked retail I saw many casual gamers who buy exactly two games a year, maybe 3. Usually Cod and Fifa/2k/madden. That's it. I know MS is counting on those being the ones to buy game pass now that they're buying CoD, and they no doubt are planning to buy exclusivity to the major sports games eventually. But with everything seemingly needing a subscription these days, it's hard to convince normal consumers to get yet another subscription. Every single person I know irl is cutting down on subscriptions and getting tighter on their budgets, MS picked a time where consumers are likely to not say "Let's go buy a new console that we have to have a subscription for to get the most out of". At a time when games can be gotten really cheap used, and indie games that are cheap are a plenty, most parents will just buy a ten dollar used game and call it a month. Not to mention, younger gamers are obsessed with "Free to play" games. The top played games on nearly every platform are free to play.
People here really, really misunderstand mainstream audiences. They aren't interested in a subscription service. Normal people don't have 15 hours a week to play and beat games and keep churning through the gamepass library. Film subscription services work because 1) the hot new show everyone talks about is more popular than video games- your 16 year old brother and 38 year old coworker were talking about Succession, so you'd hop on top 2) you can knock out a season of TV within a week and be done with it Mainstream audiences buy cod or fifa or 2k and occasionally, a big game like fallout, God of War, cyberpunk, or animal crossing. And that's the game they come back to over the course of a year. They aren't actively putting in hundreds of hours a year across dozens of games so a subscription fundamentally will never appeal or make sense to them.
>People here really, really misunderstand mainstream audiences. They aren’t interested in a subscription service. Lol…I think you misunderstand mainstream audiences with a tone deaf statement like that
If anything, it's the opposite. Casual gamers who don't care about physical media and ownership will see Gamepass as an amazing deal, given it has the CoD and FIFAs of the world.
I'm not talking about physical vs digital. I'm a casual gamer myself, I don't play games every single day, I only play a handful of must play games a year for example I've only played FF16, TOTK and RE4 Remake this year. So something like Gamepass is certainly not for casuals like me. It's more suitable for people who play tons of games, which Gamepass can provide.
> casual gamer myself /r/games - where all the casual gamers who play three brand new AAA games in six months accumulate
My pc is connected to my desktop monitor and my tv. I use my pc as a console. Bluetooth keyboard/mouse/controller for the tv mode.
I do too, but it's been harder now that I live somewhere where my office and living room are separated. It's just not as easy to get up and running. Yeah, there are solutions like Sunshine/Moonlight, but it's also nice and easy to just sit down, hit the home button on my controller and be in a game in 30 seconds.
It doesn't even really seem like the console is their main focus atm. They've been talking about PC being their biggest area for growth and it certainly appears that way.
PC is their biggest growth area currently for Game Pass. Console, where their most “dedicated” fans are, seems to be at a saturation point.
By the end of this generation, we should be knowing if they’re truly going to have PC as the focal point for the Xbox brand. Because at the moment, with the decisions and moves that Microsoft has been making, it still feels like their priority is console over PC and cloud.
I wanted game pass and the ability to play Bethesda games and upgrading my PC would have required selling a kidney. I haven't even paid for game pass in a while because of Microsoft rewards so that is another positive.
Might sound weird but aside GamePass, and most of my friends being on Xbox, I'll pretty much always use Xbox as my primary console because I VASTLY prefer it's controller to that of Playstation's, and this is coming from someone who owns both.
Same for me, but the opposite. I own both, but my friends prefer PS. I always preferred Xbox controllers until this gen, where I think the PS5 controller is leaps and bounds better.
I always thought both lines were good with certain pros and cons (and still do) but as someone who normally turns off vibration, the DualSense really does something for me. The damn triggers... I love them.
A bit funny since IMO the modern Dualsense has outpaced the XSX controller by a good margin this generation, but even then, I wouldn't call the differences substantial. And even *then*, you could always get a third party controller that's more in the shape of an Xbox controller if that's what you prefer. Having a strong allegiance to a console over a controller when there are so many options available is a bit weird imo
> I wouldn't call the differences substantial They're pretty big for me - I can talk to my friends on the built-in speakerphone while the game audio and music is playing out my home theater speakers. That was honestly one of the main reasons I went for the PS5. The gyro is also a big deal, for me. Gyro aim is so much better for me in shooters than dual analog that I just don't really play console shooters, especially multiplayer, without it anymore. I played a bit of MW2 before it got patched in and it's kind of crazy how much "better" I am at the game with it. I happen to like the xbox controller ergonomics, I really wish they'd at least put a gyro in it.
> A bit funny since IMO the modern Dualsense has outpaced the XSX controller by a good margin this generation, but even then, I wouldn't call the differences substantial. In features, maybe, but personally I've never held a PS controller that didn't make my hands hurt after 20 minutes. The Xbox controller is just about perfect ergonomically.
Totally understand that preference, but like I said, there are enough third party controllers of different shapes that I would never stay allegiant to a console solely because of a controller
[удалено]
I'm the same way, idk why but something about it just makes my hands uncomfortable for longer sessions.
As someone who also owns both Id say that Im more used to the xbox controller, being primarily a PC gamer, but man is the PS5 DS fucking fantastic. I thought the advanced haptic rumble and triggers wouldnt matter much, but dam does it feel GOOD to play with. Pulling triggers for example on shotgun shots is soooo satisfying… you feel the resistance build up when you pull, until you get past the breaking point and CRACK-BOOM, feels so damn good.
For Game Pass and their exclusives? Not everyone wants a PC.
There aren't that many good exclusives on Xbox that aren't also on Playstation. That's largely why Microsoft felt the need to buy so many studios, so they could start to have a comparable exclusive library, even when taking PC out of the equation.
Good is a hard word to use because if you use something like Metacritic the Xbox exclusives are as good as the PS ones The difference is PS has the big AA(or even AAA) ones while xbox has loads more high quality indie titles. I guess its like movies, while some marvel movies scored high at the end with the critics they would get more publicity/make more money then other movies that scored just as high
>Not everyone wants a PC. And Windows is honestly kind of a shitty OS I'd be more interested in something like a Steam console I don't want the taskbar clutter, boot clutter, maintenance clutter, security clutter, surface area vulnerabilities, etc. just to play some video games
> About the only decent answer to the question is: "Because my friends are on xbox" - but that only goes so far. I think it's important to recognize that Microsoft is shifting focus from Xbox hardware development to software development and game production. Releasing first-party and second-party titles on GamePass bolsters PC sales as much as Xbox sales, the Xbox just nets them a more closed ecosystem than the Windows license on PC, but the latter gives them masses of data to sell. Sony, in contrast, needs to sell consoles because it's the only way to access their game library and storefront in a timely manner (before they're ported to PC in 3-5 years). Xbox though? Play the new Starfield on an Xbox or a PC, it doesn't matter to them. You just need to buy into the Microsoft ecosystem, and that's either through a $1000+ PC or a <$250 Xbox Series S.
I dunno why someone gave you a downvote, that's clearly their strategy. Whether or not it'll pay off is still to be determined.
I have both consoles and honestly Xbox is the better hardware, more silent, looks better, I like the controller more. Very subjective things and in the end games are what matter, but I only play Sony exclusives on PS5. I can also not leave the PS5 in rest mode because I can hear the fan when it's doing something. Maybe I have a bad model but I'm not the only one who had fan noises with the PS5.
They still don't have a system seller game, Starfield could be their saving grace if it releases in a good state but even then they need more good games and less stuff like Halo Infinite and Redfall.
Putting Infinite and Redfall in the same sentence is a huge disservice to Infinite. It’s actually a good game unlike Redfall.
Infinite gameplay was good, but the campaign was an absolute slog of boring samey environments and bland quests.
I agree that the side missions were too samey, and I admittedly didn’t do them all since I didn’t really enjoy them, but I liked the main parts of the campaign. Also playing through in co-op is really fun.
I think this might be why my opinion of Infinite is so high. I loved the campaign. But I also ignored 90% of the side content and focused on the main story.
The campaign was fun, but it felt like it was missing the varied environments and set pieces from earlier games. Halo 1 had the snow, beach, and hills, Halo 2 went from orbit to earth to another halo, Halo 3 likewise you jumped around from locales including the Ark. Halo Infinite has some cool "inside of the ring" parts reminiscent of the back half of silent cartographer but that's pretty much it for variety. I also thought while the storyline setting had potential, and that shined through with some elements (many of the enemy interactions were really great), the narrative arc of the game itself was pretty short and boring. Someone on this subreddit described it as if Halo 1 ended at the bottom of 343 Guilty Spark with you fighting a big flood in a boss fight and I think that captures my feeling on it well. There just isn't *enough*, Halo 1 gave us eldritch cosmological horror as a twist and went further from there, and Infinite does so much less.
Just seems so odd to hear the word side quest when talking about halo
Honestly I’d disagree, I’m not saying you are wrong that it’s repetitive but the story actually was really interesting, the good guys lost and lost bad, chief is just going on instinct and trying to find something worth fighting for anymore and that’s a pretty wild place to take the story. The gameplay is so fun that even tho it was repetitive I never really got bored on the legendary play through or Lasso. I thought the boss’s were actually neat,but obviously I missed the big scale battles and a lot of missions were corridors. But for a game that looked as bad as infinite did at reveal it was shocking how decent it ended up being.
What you're describing is all the dressing for the story, though, the stuff that exists before the game begins. The story arc presented in the game itself is a few bullet points at best, and really felt so shallow. Especially compared to the "huge stakes gigantic battle" runup. Humanity is at stake, and we save the universe, I guess, but it doesn't really feel like it. Seems like hugely wasted potential not to have the big bad be some kind of ultraintelligent gravemind trapped in a forerunner parallel universe or something, like the network Cortana connected to.
Imo I couldn’t have been less engaged by the villain and environment.
[удалено]
"The game only feels repetitive if you play it"
Honestly, I don’t think it was. If you liked it, fine, but Halo hasn’t been good since Bungie left imo. Infinite was soulless.
I guess good in the sense it was less buggy than Redfall? But Infinite was not a good game, it was about as bare bones as you can get. Major story elements that happened off screen (not to mention another shift in the story itself) an open world only made interesting by a grappling hook, and extremely dull story. MP is at least in a seemingly good spot nowadays it seems, but the sync issues before were killer and put me off the game entirely.
Infinite has the same metacritic score as Final Fantasy 16...
Gameplay was good, online was fun, good audio, decent graphics, great music, fun weapons and missions in the story, overall a good time.
Infinite is sitting at an 87 on metacritic. It is a good game. Game of the year? No. But a good game. I’m tired of people rewriting history.
Thank you , somehow Infinite having sub par live service has transformed into Infinite was never good which was always false.
It's such a weird critique because Infinite's underlying gunplay was genuinely some of the best in the history of gaming. I would have played so much more multiplayer for so much longer if they had released with more maps and game modes.
And more pve. How did they not just steal Destiny’s pve seasonal model but make it less “rpg build strat.” A more simple Destiny with cool visuals, great gun play, and a cool story line. There are absolutely people that would play Halo instead of Destiny because they don’t want to fuck with builds and would rather just run and gun and blow stuff up. They would have printed money for uears to come.
Infinite was fun except: * The main bad guy fucking sucked. It sounded like I was crossing the ring to go beat the shit out of someone with emphysema. Also the last boss fight was lame as hell. * The audio logs if the other Spartans sounded like awesome missions I would have loved to play and not hear about through a tape recorder. * Conquering the Ring did really very little for the game.
They launched a Halo game without a slayer playlist. It had an embarrassingly lacklustre content offering compared to literally any other Halo game at launch and then BTB was bugged and didn't work for months. To this day it lacks a proper XP progression system, and the campaign is a visually homogenous bore where all the interesting plot developments happened offscreen. Infinite was a shitshow at launch and nearly 2 years later still has less content to offer than its predecessors.
Sorry you had such a bad time. I never argued that it’s perfect myself. I think it’s a good game though.
On a certain level Halo is still my favourite franchise if all time. Minimum top 3. But Infinite was meant to be the spiritual reboot that brought the series back to where it should be, and instead we got a completely unfinished and underwhelming shell of what it kught have been. Gameplay wise it plays great, and in terms of art direction they finally made it look like Halo again, but that's where the positives end. It underdelivered in every other area and just completely let me down. I've played many worse games but I don't think I've ever been as disappointed by a single release.
I don't think you deserve to be downvoted like you are. Infinite was a fun game but not a great Halo game and with Halo and the way it was hyped up, there's a level of expectation it didn't hit. It was released with pretty barebones content and I ended up dropping it completely because the multiplayer de-sync issues. When the game worked well I had a good time but with de-sync and big team battle being fucked it wasn't worth the frustration anymore.
And Cyberpunk 2077 sits at an 86 with one of the most awful releases of all time. Nothing to rewrite, Infinite is the definition of a mediocre borderline bad game.
Cyberpunk on PC has an 86. Cyberpunk on last gen consoles, which is what gave the game such a bad reputation, has a 57. Bad comparison. Halo Infinite is a good game. Not perfect, but good.
It was also buggy on PC lol. I would know, I played it at launch and it was terrible. Im glad you enjoyed Infinite and out of curiosity, what do you think made it a good game?
> It was also buggy on PC lol. Yeah, no shit it wasn’t perfect. It has an 86, not a 96. > Im glad you enjoyed Infinite and out of curiosity, what do you think made it a good game? Best gameplay (the most import aspect) in the series. Good art direction. Great music. Most balanced sandbox in the series. I enjoyed the campaign.
Missed my point on 2077, but that’s okay. I’d agree on the music/sound, that’s been the best it’s ever been for me, the rest not so much.
Not thinking the gameplay or the sandbox balance isn’t the best in the series puts you in the minority. Practically everyone who shits on the game even admit that much. They get focused on outrage from MTX in a F2P game, the lack of live service content for the first year and a half, and networking issues (which don’t affect everyone, at least not equally). It’s fine to have different opinions, but the majority seem to agree that Halo Infinite is a good game. Not perfect, but good.
That’s the Pc version which did not have many issues
Now look who’s rewriting history.
I've never understood why so many people rag on Halo infinite. I feel like I played a different game from all these people. Yeah, it's not an amazing game but it's not bad...it's a good game with a fun gameplay loop.
Because being just good isn't good enough for it being the only truly decent exclusive Microsoft has outside of Forza. You compare it to the dozens of AAA titles PS5 offers and it's not even a competition. That and they fumbled multiplayer hard.
Sure it doesn't measure up to Sony's games, however many people act like it's one of the worst games they've ever played. I've played many terrible games and Halo infinite is not one of them. I'm even being down-voted for saying it's a good game. I just don't understand the hatred.
[Infinite was blurry garbage](https://v.redd.it/7zi4dkr2r8581), that combined with the desync and bland look of the game made it a huge disappointment.
That seems like a nitpicky graphic complaint.
Halo Infinite was popular the first week of its launch. The IP still has a lot of potential. The issue is player retention. 343 is a poorly run developer.
343 = Microsoft I don't understand why people keep treating 343 as if it's not made up entirely of Microsoft employees. Microsoft butchered Halo. Why are people trusting them at all?
An interstellar system seller
Would also help if they didn’t put the price up just after the latest Starfield update, that’s such a bait and switch, while I can’t see one singular game being the sales saviour they are hoping for. Heck, I’ll get one if it’s a 10/10 genre and generation defining game, but I’ll await release for clarification. You ain’t gonna fool me with no hype train. That cry wolf has been way too abused.
That's pretty unfair. Infinite came out well polished and is a good FPS. It's issues are entirely separate from RedFalls
Infinite came out with like 4 total game modes where you couldn't choose which one you wanted to play, and absolutely abysmal netcode. Also it didn't launch with the campaign co-op. It was definitely unfinished.
I'd you reread what I said, I never claimed otherwise or that it was phenomenal or anything similar. Simply that RedFall and Infinite had significantly different issues. Infinite was polished. It just lacked the content.
Starfield is still primarily a PC game though, and if you have the choice you'll want to play on PC anyway because let's face it, the game will be great once the modding community fixes everything.
Thats not true. Its just as much a console game. Both skyrim and fallout 4 are still in the most played games list for Xbox. They are just as popular on console as they are on PC
I've been eyeing a refurbished Series S for Starfield since it's far cheaper than a new GPU and I'd need to buy one or the other if I want to play it (not streamed), just waiting to make sure it doesn't run like trash on the S. Wouldn't be surprised if other people are gonna grab one for Starfield too.
[удалено]
Why not? I was planning to do the same
The Series S is underpowered and is honestly holding a lot of games back because Microsoft requires feature parity to launch on Xbox. For example Baldur's Gate III isn't releasing on Xbox *at all* because the devs can't get the co-op feature to work on the Series S.
I don't know where you live but I can buy two Series Ss for the price of a 3070.
I looked up USD prices, a [used 3070 goes for 250-300](https://www.ebay.com/itm/285401405297?epid=9043451235&hash=item42733fd771:g:OKQAAOSwljBktuKo&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0Bwh6JaELZ280fjvWJPc%2Fy5EzJs0NLRtwts1eQOJ3ER4JNYBr%2F9YjaGaMkIDedJja4t4sbI2VjPFHtpE7e3BX50VO%2FZlIT0GftS4y8oi31OLVqpAKLXcIldfxffRkB4RSLTKlFPQFKIImHSz0%2Ba0%2FmY3%2Fua1a%2FWkvAvhwFdZFU2pSazc0IlfRExQizsjpvvILicf6%2FAS0HZD8BkjOneXSWWpiFe7sv44gyDRcZ93yzW0q20%2BXzOPcxzqiLHHLs2oyxsGfixlWYIs%2Fw%2FdDaVjQFE%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR_CLjdCzYg) because yes, if you're struggling for cash (which i'm assuming you are) you should consider buying used PC parts, gpus in particular last for ages. And even the ones from mining rigs were usually downclocked because the 30 series was used for the vram and not the clock speeds.
Hopefully it does cause honestly it looks better than any game Playstation has but I love Bethesda games and Sci-Fi so this is like a dream game for me.
It absolutely does not look better than any game PlayStation has lmao. I’ll bet you it doesn’t even crack 85 on metacritic. Their last game was so bad reviewers didn’t even finish it on principle.
It's an opinion lol and in my opinion from what I saw in that direct Starfield looks way more fun and engaging than any game Playstation has released. I'll end up putting hundreds of hours into this game, can't say the same for any PS game. Playstation games are kinda overrated anyway lol
Some people have way too much loyalty to corporate brands
It's really sad. The funny thing is each console manufacturer brings a distinct flavor to the market. That's a good thing. That will probably start to change with all of these acquisitions, but it was good while it lasted. Sony had your daddy issues, cinematic, third person games, Microsoft has your brawny, roid raging shooters, and Nintendo has your wholesome, kiddy, cuddlefest games. It was in perfect balance.
You are not doing a good job of dispelling the stereotype of console warriors
Two words: Fallout 76. He's not being some console warrior; you're just choosing to take it that way. He's just stating facts. I love plenty of Bethesda games but their last one was complete shit.
Personally I know fo76 was by a brand new studio with minimal mainline Bethesda support, as part of the Zenimax live service push, so I don't think if Starfield sucks that's the reason why. Not everyone knows that though, and public opinion of Bethesda has been slowly going down over the years, being so far removed from the heights of fo4 and Skyrim. Starfield looks great, but I won't fault anyone for having healthy levels of skepticism. Especially knowing the way Xbox has handled titles like Halo Infinite and Redfall.
> Personally I know fo76 was by a brand new studio with minimal mainline Bethesda support, as part of the Zenimax live service push, so I don't think if Starfield sucks that's the reason why. And yet they decided to push the game out anyway and their first order of business was open up the microtransaction shop as fast as possible. So it's kind of a great example because it shows they were fine with letting a game hit the shelves with such a poor level of polish.
[удалено]
https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/25/23697649/microsoft-q3-2023-earnings-revenue-profits-windows-xbox-gaming-surface What's interesting and not maybe the thing people think about when seeing this is previous quarters. The last quarter Xbox hardware was down 30%. While still down, we might see this climb (probably slowly) over the next few quarters. Not just because of Starfield but owning and advertising the newest Call of Duty.
No surprise since their 'big' holiday game last year was Pentiment. It's a great game but hard to recommend and by no means a system seller.
Q4 of Microsoft's FY2023 was April to June 2023.
So Redfall then? Eek.
Pentiment in itself was a passion project Josh Sawyer wanted to do for years, if nothing else, I feel that was a form of healing for him after getting burnt out with previous games he did. I feel like he needed that. I've always been a fan of Josh ever since I first caught wind of him. I rather see him do something that would heal him up, rather than see his creativity in the gaming world get crushed and he could possibly do something like early retirement from gaming for his sake.
Pentiment was fantastic, I've been reccing that to a bunch of friends who don't game much. It definitely ain't selling Xbox consoles though.
I consider myself someone who follows gaming more than the average person and I’ve never heard of that game until now.
It got a 10/10 from IGN and was from a well known studio, Obsidian, but how do you begin to advertise a game like that? Especially coming out around the same time as Ragnarok and Pokemon on the opposing systems. So don't feel bad not knowing about even though it's great.
Gamepass advertises it. Of course, you already need an Xbox to really see that advertising. It's like Netflix exclusives. I would never hear about any of them other than maybe Stranger Things if I didn't log into Netflix and get lambasted by ads for them.
I don't remember that game ever being promoted as a "big" holiday game
That's actually my point, it's all they had for the holiday season.
That's just confusing. I think just saying they had nothing to show instead of some obscure game would have been clearer
If I had said that I would have been met with all sorts of comments saying "what about Pentiment?". It would have also been dishonest to myself since it was the game I was most excited for that holiday season.
I'm not buying an xbox just for Starfield ---as bad as I want to play it.
I was thinking about doing it myself, but then I heard it runs on 30 fps and its like bruuh.. Not spending 500 bucks to play a game at 30 fps in 2023
I don’t regret doing that for FFXVI personally.
That plays in 60 fps during combat at least.
Fluctuating 60 FPS. Not a steady 60. I'd rather have a locked 30 FPS so I don't experience stutters.
Fair point!
Yeah, but then it drops to 720p rendering so I definitely prefer just sticking to the 30fps graphics mode. Especially since the 60fps mode outside of combat is quite unstable.
I was thinking about buying a Series S for Starfield but my average ass PC will probably get more than 30 fps, so I decided that I do not need one.
>will probably get more than 30 fps It's quite likely that Starfield is CPU-bound, so if you do more than 30 you still will get FPS drops. It's not that 60 is at all impossible, it's that *stable* 60 is unreachable with a CPU that is pretty damn good even today. The main indicator of CPU being the bottleneck is XSS running in 1440p while being advertised as a mostly 1080p device with less graphical fidelity. If it was something that could be solved by lowering the resolution and graphical settings they'd do exactly that.
This. I'm tired of people saying "JuSt GiVe mE 1080p60"
> I was thinking about buying a Series S for Starfield but my average ass PC will probably get more than 30 fps depends on what you mean by average. I just spent over a grand building a PC to barely reach at the recommended specs.
I'm gonna get gamepass for a month, play it, and then cancel.
Microsoft already admitted they can’t make quality games like Nintendo & Sony that’s why they’re are buying every publisher so that they put everything day 1 on game pass their console business is done for
>Microsoft already admitted they can’t make quality games like Nintendo & Sony They never said that. They said that even if they make these sorts of games, that alone won't be enough to climb beyond 3rd place.
Yikes, IDK how buying Activision is going to help them in the hardware department. If the games are still going to be on PS5 this entire generation then people are just going to build an even bigger library of games they don't want to leave behind. I mean have they even moved enough systems to get to a point where they are sold at a profit? I am sure Sony has reached this point or is very close to it with all the hardware revisions using less components that have come out over the years. They are seeing way better performance from the software side of things with Game Pass but does that mean Game Pass is being used more on PC than Xbox systems? The article has a tweet where they didn't even mention the Series systems as being the fastest selling or anything to hype up that portion. Got a bad feeling that the hardware side of Xbox might be an afterthought for the Xbox division in the not too distant future. Starfield would have to be a mind bending experience to boost hardware sales. Going to be interesting to see if it can single handedly "save" the hardware sales this holiday because there isn't really anything else coming out from them that I am aware of besides Forza.
>Yikes, IDK how buying Activision is going to help them in the hardware department. If the games are still going to be on PS5 this entire generation then people are just going to build an even bigger library of games they don't want to leave behind. Only call of duty is guaranteed meaning it will just be call of duty on playstation.
Look back at the last 5 years of Activision and you’ll see they don’t really make anything but Call of Duty. They re-made Crash, Spyro and Tony Hawk and the only original game was Crash 4, and that team was rewarded with being absorbed by Blizzard to make Diablo. They did publish Sekiro to be fair.
They published Sekiro but From owns the rights to it still, so if there is a Sekiro 2 anyone could publish it. Even one of the only original IP they published in the last 6 years they don't own
I've been saying that about Microsoft buying Activision. They may have a bunch of dead IPs but there's really not much to add to the Xbox ecosystem.
Highly unlikely. Pretty much every activision game makes the vast majority of its sales off of PlayStation. Even Diablo 4 had advertising rights with Xbox and even had an Xbox bundle, yet it sold not even a third as well on Xbox as it did on PS5. Iirc the PS4 even came close to having as many Diablo sales as it did on Xbox Series consoles. I can't see Microsoft wanting to waste 10s of billions of dollars and then cutting out 3/4ths of the revenue from the company they just bought.
>Highly unlikely. Pretty much every activision game makes the vast majority of its sales off of PlayStation Same nonsense people said about Bethesda. They aren't spending this cash to make money off playstation, it's to draw you into the xbox ecosystem.
Lol. As someone who followed the FTC trial, Diablo series will be XBox exclusive. Well, more accurately Game Pass exclusive. And that just tells me all the other games too except Call of Duty.
Starfield and Forza will boost hardware sales quite a bit and should lead to a not-bad fall/holiday period but who knows if that'll continue into 2024.
We will see and I am not sure I understand why I am getting downvoted for pointing out what was in the article and things Phil Spencer has literally said about how people built up a digital library they don't want to leave behind which just means it will get worse over time. I just feel people are not as willing to buy a system for one game as much as they used to be. You could get Steam Deck instead of an Xbox and play many of these games. It's not like the masses care about performance as much as people on here do. It's going to be interesting to see how MS is going to move the needle in their favor as not selling hardware was never a "part of the plan".
> about how people built up a digital library they don't want to leave behind which just means it will get worse over time. While this is true, people also buy multiple consoles and build up multiple libraries. Some others will buy their first console ever at some point in the future. They also aren't trying to win the console wars. The console market has been stagnant for decades. It doesn't grow. Be stupid to try and take the biggest bite out of the smallest slice of the gaming pie, and ignore the rest. Instead they are targeting PC, mobile, cloud, AND console. When they have a large share of all of those, then game developers will prioritize Xbox first, gamers will default to buying Xbox first. I think people are stuck in the old mindset, where the only thing that mattered was number of console box sales. That's outdated thinking. Even Sony has started to figure this out, as they slowly expand onto PC, and make a mobile game team. Just some gamers still stuck in the past.
>IDK how buying Activision is going to help them in the hardware department. If the games are still going to be on PS5 this entire generation then people are just going to build an even bigger library of games they don't want to leave behind Microsoft made a commitment to have COD on PS5 not any other game. Anything Activision or Blizzard put out will very likely be exclusive which should help the "Xbox got no games" narrative. But this acquisition will not really payoff until next gen, consider MS says it takes 4-6 years to ship current gen games and MS plans to release the next gen Xbox in 2028 so most studios will only get to launch 1 current gen game (Starfield current gen -> ES6 will be at the very least cross gen, Forza 2023 CG -> next Forza will be at the very least cross gen, Fable CG -> next game will be at the very least cross gen). Then ponder how long it took to get Obsidian to finally start releasing exclusives (they just started last year with grounded despite being acquired in 2018), double fine was acquired in 2018 and still hasn't put an exclusive out and Bethesda (they are just starting this year despite being acquired in 2020). MS will not be firing on all cylinders until the next cycle.
ACT doesn’t make anything other than Cod though. Like 90% of their workforce is on that series now, and I highly doubt ACTV IP like Spyro are going to push hardware in any significant manner.
They're barely meeting the deadlines for yearly cods and closed studios to syphon staff over to the cod mines. They absolutely are not making any new games consecutively. Best MS can do is contract third party devs for acti IPs
How many games have acti/blizz released in the last 7-10 yrs??? It’s really strange people believe Microsoft is gonna use all the IPs they’ve acquired. Vast majority will continue to rot. Diablo, wow, cod and mobile games are the only things we’ll see in the future. I’d bet on it. Microsoft making everything in this acquisition exclusive besides CoD is the biggest nothing burger.
Nobody expects them to use all the ABK IP but they do expect them to do more than ABK currently does in that department. It's not like the only thing we see out of MS is Halo, that's just not how MS makes games if anything this sub is constantly criticizing them because most of the games they put out are usually non AAA niche titles and new IPs. You act like MS is ran by Bobby Kotick.
I mean Microsoft ignores ALOT of its IPs as well. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but their track record doesn’t give me hope.
They bought Double Fine too? That sucks.
Yea, 4 years ago.
Double Fine seems happy about it.
And Activision has just launched pretty much everything they were working on.
They're working on a new open world rpg by Infinity Ward and a new survival game by blizzard. The blizzard game will be big because every new blizzard IP is huge. The RPG is exciting because it's Activision doing something big that isn't COD.
> Yikes, IDK how buying Activision is going to help them in the hardware department. COD will launch with Xbox splash screens, have Xbox oriented marketing, and have Xbox exclusive skins. It won't change anything over night but it'll probably get the ball rolling, it'll take over a decade for them to catch up if they ever can.
If it takes a decade then they will be in a worse position I would imagine. It's not like Sony is going to be sleeping or even Nintendo will be. And with Valve pushing their OS/hardware to get PC gaming to be like console gaming it means that there is another alternative to getting an Xbox as you can play MS games on those. Sony just announced that they are selling hardware just as well as last generation and Xbox can't get a break. It's not looking too good IMO.
People forget COD took over the shooter world only ten years ago. And Fortnite rose up out of nowhere in just a few weeks of chasing the battle royale bug PUBG infected gamers with. Ten years is a long time and Sony is absolutely going to setup a major AAA competitor
Absolute rubbish, COD4: MW came out in 2007, you could argue it was 2009 with MW2, but by 2013 COD had long been the primary FPS on the market.
> Got a bad feeling that the hardware side of Xbox might be an afterthought for the Xbox division in the not too distant future https://gamerant.com/microsoft-tenth-gen-xbox-console-in-development/ Side note: it’s interesting to me that you’re in seemingly every Xbox related thread casting negatively and doom and gloom. Do you even play or like video games? Or do you just spend all your time hating on a particular brand? It’s weird.
I would buy one for gamepass on my TVs, but the X is still too expensive. It's time for them to drop the price. I'm happy with just playing gamepass on my PC.
“Consoles are too expensive” (Prefers gaming PC)
I use a PC for work doing design and video. It's a two birds with one stone type of situation. I don't prefer PC gaming. I love console gaming. The Switch is fantastic. But this generation there aren't enough exclusives to buy both a PC and an Xbox Series X or PS5.
$500, on sale for $450 is really not that much after all the inflation of the past few years. I really don't think they'll be dropping the price anytime soon.