I think when you have a game that continues to sell well and engage players, it is good to give it a new lick of paint every few years. Even small things like Xbox's resolution increases or FPS Boost help greatly.
@abe_hikura And I recently read RDR2 has also sold 50 Million copies. It was an insanely good looking game to boot already but I would love a high-fidelity 4K version on Series X.
@Kaloudz There are a lot of moral and legal and financial question marks all over it, but these AI voice generators are becoming deceptively good. But I personally also hate to see that happen to get a synthetic replacement of the actor's voice. However Disney is going to do it with Darth Vader as the voice actor is now too old and retired.
@BAMozzy From another perspective, Microsoft needs CoD to be on as many platforms as possible in order to start recouping their 68 Billion investment, preferably as quickly as possible. Given the size of the purchase making the ABK games "exclusive" in any form is probably impossible and the best place to sell them is PS consoles. The idea of brining CoD to Nintendo is similarly aiming to bring it to a far wider audience. So I think Xbox would have done such deals even if there were no regulatory hurdles. Exclusivity worked with Bethesda because at 7.5 Billion it was almost 1/10 the purchase size. So all in all I don't see why Sony focused so hard on blocking a merger. It is more silly when you consider that even Sony itself has turned to releasing their exclusives on PC for extra profit and better coverage of development costs (with a several-year gap but nonetheless those games released with a great feature set on PC).
Problem of this generation is that they borrowed the concept of 60FPS and 120FPS gaming from PC space. But in PC world you have highly-powered GPUs and NVIDIA DLSS which allows you to have high graphical settings and a high framerate. In these consoles the 60FPS choice dictates a big hit to visuals, and many gamers don't find 30FPS as an acceptable trade-off. Therefore we are in a bit of pickle here. Having consoles that can give you 2160p + raytracing at 60FPS is a tantalising prospect. For gamers obsessed with visual fidelity it is cool to have and it will find an audience. The real question is, with the rising costs of everything, what are they going to charge for it? 600? 700? Also, just like base PS5 and Series X, it is a question of how much you are truly pushing it and using it well. Rather than how much raw power it has.
Gotta catch up on finishing True Colors. Damn time flies! Are there instances of third-party games staying more than a year? I know Arkham Knight has been there for ages.
Very cool and iconic game. It is the sort of game between AAA and AA that I wish we could see more of. Currently industry is divided into 150-200 million dollar AAA super games and "indie game made by a guy and her girl best friend over a weekend" type of game. I mean, there are ofc a lot of games in between the two. But good and exciting ones are not common enough.
I almost love all the halo games, except for some harsh criticism that I have at 5, but even with that, I don't hate 5. Reach, Halo 4 and Infinite take the cake for me. Halo ODST and Halo 2 are also very cool. I have less love for Halo 3 and CE.
@senote Generally these successes have to be organic. If you try to engineer a rival to a successful game it almost always fails. Anthem vs Destiny Killzone and Resistance vs Halo
@GamingFan4Lyf That showcase will be the next Gears game. The Coalition is the only studio under Xbox that can keep up with Sony's best in terms of graphics.
This June's show is in a weird place. I don't know if I want to see full reveals for the already announced games like Hellblade 2 or Avowed, or just announcements from studios we are curious about. Machine Games, The Coalition, etc. I would personally love more on the following games: Avowed ,Hellblade 2 ,Perfect Dark. Indiana Jones and announcement of Gears 6.
Just release it so that it can fail and shut down its servers in 2 years. Then they can go make a proper Batman game again. Just get it out of their system. At this point every studio and executive board has to try it and fail and then they will know, EA with Anthem, WB with this, Xbox with Halo Infinite.
@themightyant If after 8 years they are here, they cannot mitigate much of anything that makes people mad. The anger is pointed at it being a live-service game and every character using guns and having the same gameplay, both of which cannot be changed in a matter of months.
@ParsnipHero I think it is kinda funny how Halo diverges. Most of its legacy is thanks to its MP, launching Xbox Live with Halo 2, boom of Live with Halo 3 etc. But then you have the campaigns, more than 30 novels, comic-books and an Encyclopaedia all delving into the Halo universe canon. Not to mention the super iconic soundtrack. It is really quite an IP. I think no other SciFi video game has quite the same wealth of story, lore and content.
@Spaceman-Spiff I don't know if they originally wanted this to be a live-service, or when they saw that they can launch only the skeleton of a game in 2021, they decided to just go like: "yeah btw this is live-service so more content will come over time". Or maybe a combination of both. Even in live-service model the game should have launched with Forge, Co-Op and Split-Screen. Even something as basic as "cool CGI cutscene for the new season" wasn't really there in a quality way until this season and it is something they just need to storyboard and outsource. It tells you so much about what a leaky ship Bonnie Ross was running for years.
Haha, as a One S user myself, I haven't played this game but the issue is certainly not new, it is not that common though. Jedi Fallen Order also looked like doo doo on my console. Similarly with Atomic Heart (which wasn't helped by those microscopic subtitle sizes). In a world where developers and gamers whine about Series S being underpowered, ofc One S is a struggle.
@DeeSnuts But parallel to Wii U being a disaster, wasn't Nintendo selling 3DS like hot cake? I always assumed they were doing well despite the Wii U problems.
@Kaloudz Yeah, Fortnite, PUBG and then in the more military shooter you have Warzone. If you want with SciFi universe there is Halo and Destiny and if you want a tactical and deep one there is R6 Siege. All in all every big player has already planted their flag and it is very cutthroat business.
@BAMozzy Probably they are taking this one day at a time. But if the deal goes through and there is no contract with Sony for releasing CoD on PS5, they will release the games on PS5 without any bonuses (won't be available on Sony subscription etc). Then start a new round of negotiations about it.
@Kaloudz The point is that they are not painting themselves as the little guy, when in a group of over 20 friends I am the only one with an Xbox, they are the little guy. This is proven by them being third behind Sony and Nintendo on global scale as well.
Sony's whole argument is that the currently little guy should not be given any chance at growing up because we say so. While in fact given the staggering domination of PS over Xbox in popularity, essentially even if CoD went full Xbox exclusive they could pretty well survive, don't they have like, 11 live service games in development? even if 1/3 of those stick the landing it should cover for CoD. Also, knowing the PS fanbase they will eventually claim that they never liked and played CoD anyway 😝.
@BlackMayge Isn't Redfall in May? And there is probably not much overlap between Zelda and Starfield in terms of release platforms and type of game either.
@Benjamin Honestly, I don't think he wants anything to do with Halo anymore anyway and also game development in general. If you think about it. Didn't he and Marty O'Donnell and rest of Bungie drop Halo and rocket towards making Destiny, only for both him and Marty to be fired/to quit Bungie later on? Marty famously having a dozen legal battles with Bungie etc. So his career as a developer and writer past Halo wasn't exactly a roaring success either and it is in no shape fault of Microsoft and 343. Bungie eventually figured out Destiny but not with him or Marty on board. His involvement with 343 was also probably an idea from Spencer or other higher ups to appease the fans and put a trustworthy face in 343 after the disaster of the 2020 gameplay demo.
"He was a writer but his story was scrapped during difficult development and then retconned by others."
Which time window does this refer to? His story for Halo 3?
@Smigit I think back in X360 era these ideas worked better where every game took 2 years to make. So when 343 needed 4 years for Halo 7, you could have another studio take 2 years and make a spin-off. Nowadays every AAA game, at least from Xbox is taking between 4 to 6 years. Even if they hired a studio to do it "today" you would not see results until 2027 to 2030. Also, I don't think 343 ever promised SP content. It was always about the live-service aspect which they are delivering. They are essentially taking an approach similar to R6 Siege, where events that you see in those seasonal story trailers are canon. So it kinda sorta counts as story. But the idea of SP DLC was just wishful thinking and fans trying to manifest something out of thin air.
At this point 343 probably can't catch a break in the comments/feedback sections across all the internet. I think back in 2020 there was a claim from them that campaign raytracing will come later. I think it was even before they announced delaying it to 2021. Either way they should add raytracing to their campaign too. The art design of Infinite is almost flawless, but its technical graphics leave a lot to be desired. RT, whether people find it cool or not, is one of the key "visual features" this console gen promised. If you take RT away this gen is just slightly higher native resolution and 60 and 120fps. All nice upgrades but a gen-on-gen progress needs more.
@themightyant Hahaha... I remember the good old days of "stunning" games running on PS3 for 20FPS occasionally dipping to 15, I think Crysis 2 was the worst for that. X360 definitely had issues too and games generally rarely went beyond 30fps, CoD was the only exception I remember, but that often meant it internally rendered at 480p or something? Then upscaled to 720p.
@themightyant Basically the DigitalFoundry is overall a brilliant journalist group but outside of their lead (Richard Leadbetter) the rest have a tendency to be dramatic and the sort of "PC Master Race" gamer that makes you hate PC gamers. They are still very solid journalists and great people. But boy do they sometimes get emotional. They mention that Microsoft could send an assist team to the studio to help get it running. So what's next? Microsoft has a responsibility to get every developer's code running? It is such an absurd suggestion. Maybe in between the internal studios it could make sense in emergency cases. @StrawberryWave Problem is less the struggle from the console's part and more of developers treating Series S as an unwanted child. If you look at Atomic Heart (a game heavily marketed by Xbox and day one on gamepass), it had a buggier version on Series X than PS5 which also ran worse. Clearly showing that it is not a hardware issue and a "priority" issue. Ofc with Series S they can get away with it more easily by mentioning the hardware limitations.
It is kind of absurd that after billions of investments on exclusive games from both Xbox and Sony over the years, it is still the CoD,FIFA,Fortnite and a few others that are essentially the "oxygen supply" of the entire console gaming business.
@ActionPanther I think CoD and FIFA and some other Big franchises will probably still keep releasing some cursed ugly versions on old-gen consoles. Simply due to sheer number of potential buyers. I had a friend who used to play FIFA with his dad on a PS3 until like last year.
@themightyant It is a different gen too. Up until a month ago Series X and PS5 were hard to purchase still and only recently their availability issues got sorted. Something that wasn't the case in previous generations. Also, the gap between the new current gen and old gen is the slimmest it has been from generation to generation IMO. In other words, outside of that one UE5 demo which was like a Tomb Raider thing, I am yet to see a game this gen that screams next-gen. Often it feels like you are seeing a PS4 ProVeryPro game so to say, even including the next-gen only games. Part of this is ofc due to the madness about 60 and 90 and 120fps, limiting the "graphics" in console games. I hope the true next-gen graphics shows up soon enough.
I really enjoyed Rise and Shadow a lot. Not so much the 2013 one. But generally I think these games were something that they had to do and just kind of getting it out of their system. Addressing some underlying paradoxes about Lara as well. But it is about time they bring it back to the OG style and vibes. The "predator" gameplay from Shadow was very solid however. Also, maybe a different voice actress could be good too. There is something about Camilla Luddington that doesn't really work well for me.
There is really no major point to this. Racing games can rarely go in new directions. We haven't had a Forza Motorsport in ages and upon its final return it is ...wait for it.... exactly the same but higher graphics. What it can fix however, is that it needs far better human models and far better voice acting, given the amount of talking you hear in those games and their sales and money there is no excuse for bad VA.
RE4 is like that time when Sony showed Deathloop for 30 minutes in every press conference. I wish we could see that odd game they announced called Pragmata.
@themightyant I was generally wondering about scope of it yes. To me outer worlds also looked and felt like a "smaller" game. Opposite of the Elder Scrolls games.
@Kaloudz I mean, we don't know in what scope it has been and generally game development is confusing as hell. Was it a team of 100 people working? 300 people? Or was it just 20 guys making a proof of concept that convinces Phil to give them the budget? And they announced it the moment it was approved for becoming a full production? I don't know about Indiana Jones, it is kinda strange, it was the inspiration behind both Tomb Raider and then Uncharted and having a game based on it kind of brings things back full circle. But still, what will it offer that TR and Uncharted didn't?
@elpardo1984 I mean, if they get Redfall, Starfield and FM in one year and all three are good to great games I am happy. Besides, there is nothing wrong with getting just a Forza. The attitude that getting a Forza/Halo/Gears doesn't count is strongly hurting Xbox and sadly it mostly comes from fans themselves. These franchises carried Xbox through OG Xbox and X360 pretty well. Why not through this gen? Sony has surely been riding with GranTurismo and God of War for ages now.
Comments 1,174
Re: Talking Point: One Year Later, What Do You Think Of GTA 5's Xbox Series X|S Upgrade?
I think when you have a game that continues to sell well and engage players, it is good to give it a new lick of paint every few years. Even small things like Xbox's resolution increases or FPS Boost help greatly.
@abe_hikura And I recently read RDR2 has also sold 50 Million copies. It was an insanely good looking game to boot already but I would love a high-fidelity 4K version on Series X.
Re: Another Seven Games Will Leave Xbox Game Pass Soon (March 31)
@Dezzy70 I think technically they can after a year.
Re: Lance Reddick, The Voice Of Commander Zavala In Destiny 2, Has Passed Away
@Kaloudz There are a lot of moral and legal and financial question marks all over it, but these AI voice generators are becoming deceptively good. But I personally also hate to see that happen to get a synthetic replacement of the actor's voice. However Disney is going to do it with Darth Vader as the voice actor is now too old and retired.
Re: Lance Reddick, The Voice Of Commander Zavala In Destiny 2, Has Passed Away
He was a fantastic actor with amazing screen presence and gravity. Loved him in Bosch and also in good'ol X1 exclusive Quantum Break. RIP.
Re: Microsoft Offers ActiBlizz Remedies To EU, Deadline Pushed Back Yet Again
What is the timeline on the UK and US sides? I wonder if they can seal this in 2023.
Re: Xbox Teams Up With 'Ubitus' For Latest 10-Year ActiBlizz Partnership
@BAMozzy From another perspective, Microsoft needs CoD to be on as many platforms as possible in order to start recouping their 68 Billion investment, preferably as quickly as possible. Given the size of the purchase making the ABK games "exclusive" in any form is probably impossible and the best place to sell them is PS consoles. The idea of brining CoD to Nintendo is similarly aiming to bring it to a far wider audience. So I think Xbox would have done such deals even if there were no regulatory hurdles.
Exclusivity worked with Bethesda because at 7.5 Billion it was almost 1/10 the purchase size. So all in all I don't see why Sony focused so hard on blocking a merger. It is more silly when you consider that even Sony itself has turned to releasing their exclusives on PC for extra profit and better coverage of development costs (with a several-year gap but nonetheless those games released with a great feature set on PC).
Re: Reaction: Should Xbox Produce A Mid-Gen Upgrade If Sony Launches 'PS5 Pro'?
Problem of this generation is that they borrowed the concept of 60FPS and 120FPS gaming from PC space. But in PC world you have highly-powered GPUs and NVIDIA DLSS which allows you to have high graphical settings and a high framerate.
In these consoles the 60FPS choice dictates a big hit to visuals, and many gamers don't find 30FPS as an acceptable trade-off. Therefore we are in a bit of pickle here. Having consoles that can give you 2160p + raytracing at 60FPS is a tantalising prospect. For gamers obsessed with visual fidelity it is cool to have and it will find an audience. The real question is, with the rising costs of everything, what are they going to charge for it? 600? 700?
Also, just like base PS5 and Series X, it is a question of how much you are truly pushing it and using it well. Rather than how much raw power it has.
Re: Here's What Might Be Leaving Xbox Game Pass In April 2023
@Kaloudz Did Outriders ever pick a large enough audience? It seems to still be running and it is not shut down yet.
Re: Here's What Might Be Leaving Xbox Game Pass In April 2023
Gotta catch up on finishing True Colors. Damn time flies!
Are there instances of third-party games staying more than a year? I know Arkham Knight has been there for ages.
Re: Microsoft Signs Another 10-Year Deal In Its Bid To Buy Activision Blizzard
Soon CoD is gonna be on every Chinese knockoff no-brand console but not on PS.
Re: Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Achieves His Second 100% Completion Of 2023
Very cool and iconic game. It is the sort of game between AAA and AA that I wish we could see more of. Currently industry is divided into 150-200 million dollar AAA super games and "indie game made by a guy and her girl best friend over a weekend" type of game. I mean, there are ofc a lot of games in between the two. But good and exciting ones are not common enough.
Re: Reminder: Eight Games Are Leaving Xbox Game Pass This Week (March 15)
Off topic but will Guardians of the Galaxy also eventually get delisted and stop selling because it is a Marvel licensed game?
Re: Pick One: Which Is Your Favourite Halo Game?
I almost love all the halo games, except for some harsh criticism that I have at 5, but even with that, I don't hate 5. Reach, Halo 4 and Infinite take the cake for me. Halo ODST and Halo 2 are also very cool. I have less love for Halo 3 and CE.
@Kaloudz rainy jazz sounds intensify...
Re: Former Xbox Game Pass Time-Loop Shooter 'Lemnis Gate' Shutting Down
@senote Generally these successes have to be organic. If you try to engineer a rival to a successful game it almost always fails. Anthem vs Destiny
Killzone and Resistance vs Halo
I am sure there are other examples I am missing.
Re: Former Xbox Game Pass Time-Loop Shooter 'Lemnis Gate' Shutting Down
@Solidchief How are people blaming GP for these issues?
Re: Six Things We're Hoping For From Bethesda's Starfield Direct Showcase
@GamingFan4Lyf That showcase will be the next Gears game. The Coalition is the only studio under Xbox that can keep up with Sony's best in terms of graphics.
Re: Six Things We're Hoping For From Bethesda's Starfield Direct Showcase
Hot take: 30FPS is superior to 60FPS as it allows a richer visual presentation and more graphical effects.
Re: Talking Point: What Do You Want To See Most From The Xbox Games Showcase 2023?
This June's show is in a weird place. I don't know if I want to see full reveals for the already announced games like Hellblade 2 or Avowed, or just announcements from studios we are curious about. Machine Games, The Coalition, etc.
I would personally love more on the following games: Avowed ,Hellblade 2 ,Perfect Dark. Indiana Jones and announcement of Gears 6.
Re: Capcom Dino Shooter 'Exoprimal' Launches On Xbox Game Pass This July
This is gonna be an acquired taste.
Re: Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League Reportedly Delayed (Again)
Just release it so that it can fail and shut down its servers in 2 years. Then they can go make a proper Batman game again. Just get it out of their system.
At this point every studio and executive board has to try it and fail and then they will know, EA with Anthem, WB with this, Xbox with Halo Infinite.
@themightyant If after 8 years they are here, they cannot mitigate much of anything that makes people mad. The anger is pointed at it being a live-service game and every character using guns and having the same gameplay, both of which cannot be changed in a matter of months.
Re: Lots Of New Xbox Games Get Release Dates At Nacon Connect 2023
Robocop and Gangs of ... have that AA look.
Re: Halo Infinite Season 3 Is Going Down Well, Despite Xbox Performance Issues
@ParsnipHero I think it is kinda funny how Halo diverges. Most of its legacy is thanks to its MP, launching Xbox Live with Halo 2, boom of Live with Halo 3 etc.
But then you have the campaigns, more than 30 novels, comic-books and an Encyclopaedia all delving into the Halo universe canon. Not to mention the super iconic soundtrack. It is really quite an IP. I think no other SciFi video game has quite the same wealth of story, lore and content.
Re: Halo Infinite Season 3 Is Going Down Well, Despite Xbox Performance Issues
@Spaceman-Spiff I don't know if they originally wanted this to be a live-service, or when they saw that they can launch only the skeleton of a game in 2021, they decided to just go like: "yeah btw this is live-service so more content will come over time". Or maybe a combination of both. Even in live-service model the game should have launched with Forge, Co-Op and Split-Screen. Even something as basic as "cool CGI cutscene for the new season" wasn't really there in a quality way until this season and it is something they just need to storyboard and outsource. It tells you so much about what a leaky ship Bonnie Ross was running for years.
Re: Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Looks Shockingly Low-Res On Xbox One S
Haha, as a One S user myself, I haven't played this game but the issue is certainly not new, it is not that common though. Jedi Fallen Order also looked like doo doo on my console. Similarly with Atomic Heart (which wasn't helped by those microscopic subtitle sizes). In a world where developers and gamers whine about Series S being underpowered, ofc One S is a struggle.
Re: Sony Just Wants To 'Block' Merger, According To Activision Blizzard CCO
@DeeSnuts But parallel to Wii U being a disaster, wasn't Nintendo selling 3DS like hot cake? I always assumed they were doing well despite the Wii U problems.
Re: Is Free-To-Play FPS 'The Finals' Coming To Xbox Consoles?
@Kaloudz Yeah, Fortnite, PUBG and then in the more military shooter you have Warzone. If you want with SciFi universe there is Halo and Destiny and if you want a tactical and deep one there is R6 Siege.
All in all every big player has already planted their flag and it is very cutthroat business.
Re: Report: Resident Evil Creator Shinji Mikami Is Leaving Xbox Studio Tango Gameworks
@Banjo- But did the Evil Within games enjoy financial success? I think they never quite registered the way you expected from a Mikami game.
Re: Sony Just Wants To 'Block' Merger, According To Activision Blizzard CCO
@BAMozzy Probably they are taking this one day at a time. But if the deal goes through and there is no contract with Sony for releasing CoD on PS5, they will release the games on PS5 without any bonuses (won't be available on Sony subscription etc). Then start a new round of negotiations about it.
Re: Sony Just Wants To 'Block' Merger, According To Activision Blizzard CCO
Jim Ryan going for that straight "sci-fi movie evil CEO" persona. Walking around the board room shouting: My CoD....My Shooter...My Platform....
Re: Sony Remains 'Extremely Sceptical' Of Reaching ActiBlizz Agreement With Microsoft
@Kaloudz The point is that they are not painting themselves as the little guy, when in a group of over 20 friends I am the only one with an Xbox, they are the little guy. This is proven by them being third behind Sony and Nintendo on global scale as well.
Sony's whole argument is that the currently little guy should not be given any chance at growing up because we say so. While in fact given the staggering domination of PS over Xbox in popularity, essentially even if CoD went full Xbox exclusive they could pretty well survive, don't they have like, 11 live service games in development? even if 1/3 of those stick the landing it should cover for CoD. Also, knowing the PS fanbase they will eventually claim that they never liked and played CoD anyway 😝.
Re: Xbox Games Showcase 2023 Will Officially Take Place On June 11th
Just announce a release date for Hellblade 2 and then wake me when you need me Xbox.
Re: Starfield Is Launching On Xbox This September, Developer Direct Arriving In June
@mousieone Maybe, but since Starfield drops on GP, it will either way not be "affected" by people choosing between buying Zelda or Starfield.
Re: Starfield Is Launching On Xbox This September, Developer Direct Arriving In June
This studio releases one game per decade don't rush them in the last 5 month people.
Re: Starfield Is Launching On Xbox This September, Developer Direct Arriving In June
@BlackMayge Isn't Redfall in May? And there is probably not much overlap between Zelda and Starfield in terms of release platforms and type of game either.
Re: Yes, Halo's Joe Staten Really Has Rejoined Xbox Publishing
@Benjamin Honestly, I don't think he wants anything to do with Halo anymore anyway and also game development in general. If you think about it. Didn't he and Marty O'Donnell and rest of Bungie drop Halo and rocket towards making Destiny, only for both him and Marty to be fired/to quit Bungie later on? Marty famously having a dozen legal battles with Bungie etc. So his career as a developer and writer past Halo wasn't exactly a roaring success either and it is in no shape fault of Microsoft and 343. Bungie eventually figured out Destiny but not with him or Marty on board. His involvement with 343 was also probably an idea from Spencer or other higher ups to appease the fans and put a trustworthy face in 343 after the disaster of the 2020 gameplay demo.
"He was a writer but his story was scrapped during difficult development and then retconned by others."
Which time window does this refer to? His story for Halo 3?
Re: Ray Tracing Is Coming To Halo Infinite On Xbox Series X
@StrawberryWave I think the whole thing is part of a deal with AMD, they revealed this at an AMD conference for new Radeon cards. So PC gets it first.
Re: Ray Tracing Is Coming To Halo Infinite On Xbox Series X
@Smigit I think back in X360 era these ideas worked better where every game took 2 years to make. So when 343 needed 4 years for Halo 7, you could have another studio take 2 years and make a spin-off.
Nowadays every AAA game, at least from Xbox is taking between 4 to 6 years. Even if they hired a studio to do it "today" you would not see results until 2027 to 2030.
Also, I don't think 343 ever promised SP content. It was always about the live-service aspect which they are delivering. They are essentially taking an approach similar to R6 Siege, where events that you see in those seasonal story trailers are canon. So it kinda sorta counts as story. But the idea of SP DLC was just wishful thinking and fans trying to manifest something out of thin air.
Re: Ray Tracing Is Coming To Halo Infinite On Xbox Series X
At this point 343 probably can't catch a break in the comments/feedback sections across all the internet. I think back in 2020 there was a claim from them that campaign raytracing will come later. I think it was even before they announced delaying it to 2021. Either way they should add raytracing to their campaign too. The art design of Infinite is almost flawless, but its technical graphics leave a lot to be desired.
RT, whether people find it cool or not, is one of the key "visual features" this console gen promised. If you take RT away this gen is just slightly higher native resolution and 60 and 120fps. All nice upgrades but a gen-on-gen progress needs more.
Re: Video: Digital Foundry Questions Whether Features Should Be Dropped On Xbox Series S
@themightyant Hahaha... I remember the good old days of "stunning" games running on PS3 for 20FPS occasionally dipping to 15, I think Crysis 2 was the worst for that. X360 definitely had issues too and games generally rarely went beyond 30fps, CoD was the only exception I remember, but that often meant it internally rendered at 480p or something? Then upscaled to 720p.
Re: Video: Digital Foundry Questions Whether Features Should Be Dropped On Xbox Series S
@themightyant Basically the DigitalFoundry is overall a brilliant journalist group but outside of their lead (Richard Leadbetter) the rest have a tendency to be dramatic and the sort of "PC Master Race" gamer that makes you hate PC gamers. They are still very solid journalists and great people. But boy do they sometimes get emotional.
They mention that Microsoft could send an assist team to the studio to help get it running. So what's next? Microsoft has a responsibility to get every developer's code running? It is such an absurd suggestion. Maybe in between the internal studios it could make sense in emergency cases.
@StrawberryWave Problem is less the struggle from the console's part and more of developers treating Series S as an unwanted child. If you look at Atomic Heart (a game heavily marketed by Xbox and day one on gamepass), it had a buggier version on Series X than PS5 which also ran worse. Clearly showing that it is not a hardware issue and a "priority" issue. Ofc with Series S they can get away with it more easily by mentioning the hardware limitations.
Re: Report: Xbox Feels UK CMA Has 'Significantly' Overestimated The Impact Of COD Exclusivity
It is kind of absurd that after billions of investments on exclusive games from both Xbox and Sony over the years, it is still the CoD,FIFA,Fortnite and a few others that are essentially the "oxygen supply" of the entire console gaming business.
Re: Hogwarts Legacy Xbox One Version Delayed, Again
@ActionPanther I think CoD and FIFA and some other Big franchises will probably still keep releasing some cursed ugly versions on old-gen consoles. Simply due to sheer number of potential buyers. I had a friend who used to play FIFA with his dad on a PS3 until like last year.
Re: Hogwarts Legacy Xbox One Version Delayed, Again
@themightyant It is a different gen too. Up until a month ago Series X and PS5 were hard to purchase still and only recently their availability issues got sorted. Something that wasn't the case in previous generations.
Also, the gap between the new current gen and old gen is the slimmest it has been from generation to generation IMO. In other words, outside of that one UE5 demo which was like a Tomb Raider thing, I am yet to see a game this gen that screams next-gen. Often it feels like you are seeing a PS4 ProVeryPro game so to say, even including the next-gen only games. Part of this is ofc due to the madness about 60 and 90 and 120fps, limiting the "graphics" in console games.
I hope the true next-gen graphics shows up soon enough.
Re: Talking Point: Where Do You Want 'Tomb Raider' To Go Next?
I really enjoyed Rise and Shadow a lot. Not so much the 2013 one. But generally I think these games were something that they had to do and just kind of getting it out of their system. Addressing some underlying paradoxes about Lara as well. But it is about time they bring it back to the OG style and vibes. The "predator" gameplay from Shadow was very solid however. Also, maybe a different voice actress could be good too. There is something about Camilla Luddington that doesn't really work well for me.
Re: Resident Evil 4 Is Now Available To Preload On Xbox, And You Can Install Before You Buy
Cool. Wonder if they go ahead and remake 5 and 6, or the remake-train stops here.
Re: Forza Motorsport Developer Update Hints At Post-Launch DLC Plans
Modern game has "modern gaming" things. FH5 was kinda generous with those free cars and if they adopt the same approach it will be fine I believe.
Re: Soapbox: I Hope Forza Horizon 6 Goes In A Different Direction For The Series
There is really no major point to this. Racing games can rarely go in new directions. We haven't had a Forza Motorsport in ages and upon its final return it is ...wait for it.... exactly the same but higher graphics.
What it can fix however, is that it needs far better human models and far better voice acting, given the amount of talking you hear in those games and their sales and money there is no excuse for bad VA.
Re: Capcom Showcase To Feature Resident Evil 4, Exoprimal & More Later This Month
RE4 is like that time when Sony showed Deathloop for 30 minutes in every press conference. I wish we could see that odd game they announced called Pragmata.
Re: Halo Infinite Season 3 Maps Detailed As Forge Passes One Million Creations
One million creations is quite something I guess. I wonder how are the player numbers now in general. Are the people who kept saying it is dead right?
Re: Rumour: Fable Reboot Is 'Miles Away' While Xbox Focuses On Hellblade 2 And Avowed
@themightyant I was generally wondering about scope of it yes. To me outer worlds also looked and felt like a "smaller" game. Opposite of the Elder Scrolls games.
@Kaloudz I mean, we don't know in what scope it has been and generally game development is confusing as hell. Was it a team of 100 people working? 300 people? Or was it just 20 guys making a proof of concept that convinces Phil to give them the budget? And they announced it the moment it was approved for becoming a full production?
I don't know about Indiana Jones, it is kinda strange, it was the inspiration behind both Tomb Raider and then Uncharted and having a game based on it kind of brings things back full circle. But still, what will it offer that TR and Uncharted didn't?
@elpardo1984 I mean, if they get Redfall, Starfield and FM in one year and all three are good to great games I am happy. Besides, there is nothing wrong with getting just a Forza. The attitude that getting a Forza/Halo/Gears doesn't count is strongly hurting Xbox and sadly it mostly comes from fans themselves. These franchises carried Xbox through OG Xbox and X360 pretty well. Why not through this gen? Sony has surely been riding with GranTurismo and God of War for ages now.