AverageGamer

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Returnal did run at 60FPS… but it also ran at 1080P internally

Man, 15 years... That sounds like such a long time ago. I still have the Game informer magazine (RIP) back from when it was the cover game and was known as Halo 3: Recon.

@NEStalgia Cause native ports are better for smaller and lighter games. It makes no sense to stream something like among us. When that'll run just fine on native mobile hardware. Cloud stream should be a last-ditch effort to play game that literally can't be run on the hardware.

@Markatron84 Capcom and Ubisoft ports was $30($40 in the case of RE7) for games that barely ran and was limited to the highest end devices. People will buy games if they make sense for the platform, cheap, and run well. Older games are perfect for this as they are lighter on the hardware and can be price between $5-10.

"if you can't get Assassin's Creed to sell, what can you?"

The funny parts it that the SpongeBob remake ports on mobile have sold better than Assassin's Creed...

@NEStalgia I mean... Yeah. But Microsoft has a ton of stuff that isn't King or Minecraft that could benefit from a native port. There is always that strange possibility of them just having us stream games. With us just download a separate client app for each game.

I'm still very much excited to see how this turns out. I really hope they plan on native games, and not cloud games for this mobile store. A native port of the old halo games would be great as well as a more mobile friendly port of the Forza games.

@Savage_Joe Given how close these studios are to each... A ton of these ex-Bungie devs are probably already ex-343i devs and vice versa... So, it probably not going to really help 343i.

@Pigrotto idk… Do any body think the Samsung Galaxy phone are superior to iPhone cause it the S24 instead of the S14? or that the the red magic 8 pro is inferior to the iPhone 15?

Xbox would have been fine going with a number.

They’ve need a cloud tier since like forever. I would gladly subbed to that to play games on my iPhone and iPad. Buying ultimate has always been a waste of money for me since I don’t have an Xbox and I don’t use the Xbox app on PC (Steam forever!!!!)

@NEStalgia They also aren't just pushing Cloud gaming through Amazon. They've been pushing it through Samsung, and Meta with the Quest 3 getting support last year in December.

The issue is that MS themselves can't directly support their own game stream service. The EU and Uk regulators won't let them. So, Microsoft are stuck having to find ways around that... MS technically don't even own the right to stream their own games. Ubisoft own the cloud streaming right to CoD.

@NEStalgia I just want to point out that Series X hardware blades launched it 2021, with the upgrade being completed by Oct of that year.

This is also when they were splitting up the Series X blades into running 2-3 Series S instances instead... This was around the time of Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite launch as everyone (myself included) was complaining that games weren't the Series X version. So that had nothing to do with the ABK purchase and was something they was doing years before.

@Xbox_Dashboard "Cloud gaming will never hit the desired levels of latency that on board gaming can."

Cloud streaming could never beat the latency offered by a Native PC game with keyboard and mouse, but cloud streaming services like GeForce Now has already come close to and have beaten latency offered by consoles 2 years ago. I don't know the modern number now, but with stuff like Reflex and the new gen of GPU it probably better than anything we have on Xbox Series X and PS5.

@OldGamer999 They keep pushing cause it a viable solution when everything works well.

The big issue is that companies are all failing on one or more aspect that could make streaming great.

Stadia = Great hardware, terrible game library. xCloud = Great library, terrible hardware. GeForce = Fantastic hardware, an okay library but too heavily depended on you already owning the games which make it a big ask for people who don't already have a massive steam library.

It also doesn't help that these low-cost streaming devices like Firestick aren't all great for game streaming. Game stream still require decent hardware with a very good NIC/Wifi Card and an SoC cable of good decoding. Most devices don't have this.

Not surprising considering the recent everything must go sale, and the fact FH5 is still Xbox best racer. Due to FM being a massive disappointment considering the development time.

@Banjo- My dream car is a manual Mustang GT in Ben 10 green (lol) with black stripes. I know, pretty basic, but I enjoy mustangs. But car in game was the PP1 with the 2018 refresh they did for S550 generation. I added sport spring in game, so it was slightly lowered.

But in 2019, the speciality color for that year was a green that basically matched the green that I picked in game and came stock from factory with black stripes. I ordered one brand new from Ford it the same PP1 configuration, active exhaust, with the upgraded interior, and of course in manual.

@Banjo- Damn. Six year!?!?!? It feels like this game just came out yesterday. I remember picking the game up, creating my dream car, then purchasing the exact same dream car a couple months later in the same car, and configuration

@Kezelpaso @GuyinPA75 BF3 was so bad on consoles that it used to make me physically ill from playing it.

Even Anno is coming to consoles day and date. That crazy.

@teknium_ They could definitely filled another hour. I’m guessing they don’t want to avoid fake cinematic trailer from their in house studios this year

@northernmonkey75 “ No mention of Activision additions to Game Pass, no shadow drop, no Xbox portable and no Banjo”

Doesn’t Xbox usually hope after showcase events where they do deep dives on game, and announced further thing? Pointless to waste time announcing that stuff doing the main showcase

@Banjo- Why waste time during the showcase for that? Xbox always have an after event show where more announcements can be made.

@themightyant This is most likely the case...

We saw the same thing last gen. Xbox is just not a priority.

@smoreon "Will it be more of a reimagining, then, with actual gameplay changes and new content? Anything else would just be redundant."

A reimagining would be cool... Pull stuff from the book, explain that John-117 wasn't the only spartan aboard the the pillar of autumn, show how John-117 and got off Avery Johnson got off Installation 04... etc

@Medic_alert “ Why wouldn't Rare be on the chopping block if this becomes the next big failure?”

Sea of Thieves… As long as a studio has something successful to fall back to. I don’t think we’ll see Microsoft closing down that studio.

@NEStalgia "I think most of the selling point of the X Elite is the transition layer though. Most of these games, especially BC will be through that layer."

Microsoft and Qualcomm have improved the emulation, but we'll see if it as good as Rosetta. They have tried multiple time and have failed... But there will still be a performance hit vs native ARM apps.

I don't see them making the ARM jump simply because they would be too lazy to recode their bloatware and other pointless junk just yet for ARM. Better to stay with x86 for compatibly reason until the market increases.

We already see where at least Asus is going. They plan to repackage basically the same hardware in a slight nicer package for $800

"I mean I would hope your $1000 ipad pro could beat a $250 Series S..... Though with Apple I wouldn't doubt if it didn't. "

We're not talking about price... We're talking about the massive technical improvement that we've seen in mobile chip. Where a tablet can now beat out a system with active cooling. It doesn't matter what my iPad cost since it has a screen, camera, speakers... etc. It also isn't being subsidized like Series S.

@NEStalgia 30FPS in BG3 is super impressive. That a very heavy CPU game, not necessarily GPU bond. They ran AI upscaling mostly due to the fact a lot these snapdragons chip is going to be put into laptops with ridiculously high near 4k panels. Games won’t look good on these panels without the AI upscaling. Even on Ally with a 1080P screen you need to run BG3 with FSR to get “higher” than 30FPS.

Also, I would like to note that their performance test is most likely using an x86 to ARM translation layer, not a native ARM version of BG3 that can port from Mac. So, there is definitely going to be some performance loss there.

“"800p at 60fps medium settings" would far exceed a Series S, so I'm dubious of that.”

I wouldn’t doubt that. The Series S wasn’t that impressive of kit when it released, and we are easily reaching the point that it can be surpassed by these mobile chips… People say the Series S GPU is the equivalent of 5500xt. At this point, the M4 in my iPad Pro is faster than the Series S.

If Microsoft stop subsidizing hardware. We can really say goodbye to Xbox hardware. No one is going to bother buying overpriced Xbox hardware. Even Valve realized the importance of subsidizing hardware which is why they did that with Steam Deck.

@NEStalgia “ Only thing right now I can think of is something to do with their Qualcomm partnership and some sort of Snapdragon X Elite handheld, which could probably get 15 hours of battery vs 60-90 minutes on the Z1E at full tilt. But graphics are not the strong suit of those things, leaning hard into the NPU based AI upscaling, and those are quite pricy, appearing, for now, only on $1k laptops”

While graphic performance aren’t a big part of those chips. They are very potent chips performance wise. They should have no issues running most games at 800P with medium settings and hit 60FPS. But we have to wait for independent reviewers to get the full picture.

As for appearing only in $1k laptop… That cause laptop/hardware manufacturers aren’t subsidizing the cost of components. Those are designed strictly to make money off the hardware.

Xbox can and will subsidize the hardware cost… That is something Asus and Lenovo also aren’t doing with their handhelds. So Xbox could easily release a stronger handheld at a cheaper price point.

With all the news about the new ARM chip from Qualcomm. I would love to see an ARM based Xbox portable announced.

@InterceptorAlpha Yeah. The Xbox leadership at that time was great. They wanted to deliver a great console, and they did. It crazy to think what they accomplished with less than what current Xbox has.

@oopsiezz I never saw hype for this game. The only people who was pushing this game was twitter and YouTube Xbox fanboys who wasn’t playing on buying the game anyway…

The game had barely no marketing, was only barely shown to the public, and the release date was announced less than 3 months before the actual release. Add in the fact it only $50, this was never made to be a top list seller.

@Banjo- Exactly! People don’t seem to realize that studio like The coalition have been running around and basically been assisting everyone with UE development. At this point, they’re basically the go to studio for UE right behind Epic themselves.

@InterceptorAlpha @Fenbops You think with how many people have lost their job. As a community, we shouldn’t be here joking about that. What is wrong with y’all.

The game was great. Every once in a while, I boot it up back and replay it. Sad that it will never get a sequel

@MaccaMUFC "I think the graphics look great but it can be off putting when textures can look flat and bland and it can look fuzzy/blurry, even with the motion blur turned off "

I think i a lot of this is due to the fact the game relies so heavily on photogrammetry. There something like over 370 pieces of photogrammetry in the sequel, compared to just one in the first Hellblade... So, you can easily tell what was created by a 3d artist in the studio, and what was photographed during trips to Iceland. The stuff that is photogrammetry is probably going to have a softer fuzzier appearance.

So excited to finally get my hands on this!! I hyped after the announcement especially when I found out my favorite band was doing the soundtrack.

Whether or not this will be a success is entirely based on budget… The first was considered a success and it only probably sold less than 2 million.

Also people stating that Ninja Theory could end up like Tango, don’t realize that games sales isn’t the only reason a studio get closed…

@BacklogBrad People were expecting MS to do a Sony level marketing campaign... Ads on bus, massive statues in the middle of nowhere, McDonald's happy meals... etc

It a $50 game with no physical edition... Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice had a nonexistence marketing campaign and did really well. This will do fine as well.

@Banjoisfanboy 7 to 8 is ridiculous for a AAA game that cost $70+... This is sits more in the AA range and has a $50 price tag, so 7-8 hours is fine.

Man... Everyone talking about the review embargos. I'm pissed that the game doesn't go live till 4AM EDT. I was hoping to get off work and play some. 4AM is when I'm just about ready to go to bed.

This is giving me strange Cubix: Robots for Everyone flashbacks

What I’m about to say probably isn’t related to main article at all… But as the days go by, I’m starting to get why MS closed the studio that they did from a business perspective.

Alpha Dog Games was offering literally nothing of value… Their mobile games aren’t need when you now own king.

Roundhouse Studios was struggling before they were even bought out by Zenimax when they was still known as Human Head (original creators of prey). While the studio was closed… The team was moved to work on Elder Scrolls Online

MS only closed a satellite office with Arkane Austin. But that means they can focus all resources on the main office, Lyon.

While Tango made great games… It located in Japan. Xbox is not growing in Japan. Meaning anything located in the country is not going to get the proper support it needs. I’m sure Xbox Japan offices is pretty much empty with only a single person hired to just clean the halls and offices for when Phil can find time to fly over.

That bring up how often is Phil and other Xbox management able to visit Japan? Probably not often cause they also have families that they want to spend time with. You can basically visit any of the America offices in an afternoon, and be back in WA before dinner.

That means Tango is basically operating independently, without the proper leadership and supervision from head office 85% of the year.

Had tango probably been an American studio… They could have downsized or sold off/partnered with.

It better to spend that Japan budget on get Square Enix or supporting Kojima.

@thefly0810 “ Sure, Redfall stunk up the joint, but Arkane Lyon also made Deathloop, Prey and Dishonored too.”

Arkane Lyon only made Deathloop and Dishonored. Working on the upcoming Blades game.

Arkane Austin made Prey and Redfall… Austin is the studio that closing

@Ricky-Spanish True… But games only make profit once every couple of years. Merchandise is an endless profit machine especially if you release a highly popular TV show.

@endlessleep @Ricky-Spanish 343 isn’t just responsible for the halo games. They are responsible for any and all relationships with 3rd party companies… Aka they handle halo merchandise, books, tv shows… etc. And while the games haven’t been up to par. They still push a lot of sales.

Tango just didn’t have any value… Unless they planned to make action figure using the HiFi Rush ip.

@thefly0810 “ If I was MachineGames, I would be sweating bullets over the upcoming release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.”

Machine Games at least have wolfenstein to fall back to.

@NEStalgia And that only cause most businesses are too cheap to upgrade, or the professional grade display they bought like pre 2010s is still fine for modern work loads.

Most high-end modern Pro Display, studio displays, and Apple’s XDR display is 16:9. Even something like the EIZO ColorEdge is 16:9 display

@NEStalgia "Most monitors are 16:10, not 16:9 so it makes it even worse on normal PCs vs TVs"

What monitor is 16:10? Most monitor are 16:9... This isn't pre 2010. 16:10 is a dead aspect ratio only really still found in photographers, video editors, digital artists, and businesses... Like super old stuff.

@antifyre The only issue with a New Vegas sequel is that the TV show isn’t exactly paint a pretty picture for the City. Granted, there still 12 years of unexplored events between the game and the time the show takes place… But how do you get players excited about exploring the area again if it goes to crap later on?

Xbox has so many developers that they can easily task someone else to work on the franchises.. I mean what is Roundhouse Studios doing at the moment? If they give it the right studio, they could easily have a game out soon… New Vegas was made in 18 months and is considered the best game of series.

@GamingFan4Lyf Nintendo don't even need their games to sell. They don't sell their hardware for a lost like Microsoft or Sony... Who need to make up lost profit through games sale. Nintendo is the richest company in Japan with zero debt.

@datamonkey Yeah. Isn't the saying that Nintendo has enough cash that they could lose 300 million for 50+ years, and still not be broke; and survive through multiple generations of console failures.

@Fiendish-Beaver It not due to tension between Larian and Wizard… It the tension between Larian and Hasbro. Hasbro has been doing massive layoffs especially within Wizards of the Coast. This had caused many of the contacts that Larian worked with during development to be let go.

Larian has been very vocal about the layoffs affecting the game industry, and their decision to move away from the franchise is probably cause of this. They don’t want to bring massive profit to a company who still turns around and fires people who the part of the team that help achieve this.