BrilliantBill

@DennisReynolds Yes but again GoW is yet another example of Top-Tier IP that has universal pop culture significance. What I am trying to say is that for a combination of reasons some games are easier to market to the "masses" including everyone's Mum than others. Also, I think that Starfield did get a fair bit of marketing, not quite the same level but a decent amount.

It is crazy how much time they take to make each game when all of their games are essentially the same game these days.

Side note: Star Wars characters in Disney era have the most made-by-AI sounding names.

Well, my personal experience tells me that corporate reshuffles and restructures are mostly meaningless. But if it helps things moving a little more smoothly, why not.
@DennisReynolds But Spiderman and Mario are ... Spiderman and Mario. Regardless of how much marketing you do Starfield and Forza Motorsport are not going to reach the same level of status in the pop culture. It is like those times that a studio makes a Batman movie and some kid comes screaming how their favourite obscure D-list Superhero "Ketchup King" or something deserved the same budget and marketing. Starfield is made 150% to appeal to the fans of Bethesda-RPG only and racing games such as FM have their niche fandoms anyway.
Marketing of Xbox should revolve around titles that are actually pop culture heavy weights like Halo, CoD, etc.

@Cherip-the-Ripper Don't you mean that FEAR clone called Trepang 2 ?

@somnambulance If it is just a skin over the old game, and it is the same game, how can remake be soulless? Unless the game itself was soulless?

@somnambulance Yeah, that Kojima-factor spice is hard to pin down and recreate but I believe they probably will remake it very faithful, not out of sheer respect or something. Rather out of laziness and worry of breaking it.
So it will probably be very close to original, for better or worse. I wonder how the average gamer of today would react to it after playing it for the first time.

@Lightweight Did MW2 actually fail? Didn't it sell 1 billion dollars in 10 days? Which is then followed by millions upon millions via Goofy skins that people buy for 20 bucks? (which lots of players buy, contrary to what internet makes you think).

RoboCop continues to look great for a AA game. MGS3 looked stunning ofc, but real test of it is to see how they handle the more goofy and whacky aspects, and how it runs on consoles actually.
Still Wakes the Deep was underwhelming for me.

I mean, Halo 5 was 100GB way back in the day, is it that strange FM is 136GB? I mean no sarcasm, genuinely wondering.

@Tharsman Mods = Fanmade show.

@BAMozzy I think the problem is that ever since 2019's Gears 5, it has taken till 2023 for Xbox to ship out a truly solid game out in shape of Starfield. The "one every 4 years" is not the best cadence. It is true that Halo Infinite and some Forza games also launched in this period but. But Halo was bogged down by issues at launch and racing games generally are more niche.
However, I hope Xbox can at least reach a status where there is one big exclusive every year. Planning for future is all nice and well, but a large chunk of fans are hoping to see fruits of all these planning on the S/X console they own rather than the eventual Xbox Next.

I wonder how long Dead Space would stay on GamePass, usually they do around a year right?

@Titntin Even as a "Look at those graphics" flex it is hardly something that groundbreaking now, had it launched with the Series X back in 2020 or maybe 2021, it would have been something mindblowing. But by that time in 2024, a fair share of games have delivered some stunning visuals across different platforms. A maxed-out Cyberpunk on PC, Horizon 2 and Spiderman 2 on PS5 and probably Stalker 2 on Series X have all already shown superior graphics to HB2.

@Kaloudz Yes and No. The first one was this almost-indie thing that showed up and impressed people. This game was the very first game revealed for X/S back when they revealed X and has been a pillar in their marketing content ever since. Meanwhile, we still haven't seen proper gameplay of it and the wait is too long now.
If this was a PS exclusive the entire internet would be in support of more movie-like games. But obsession for interactive movies as games is something that is more welcome on the Sony team than it is on Xbox. You are 100% right, there is an Xbox stigma (has been since Xbox One launched and has never been fully lifted), but Hellblade 2 is also taking a questionable approach to its marketing I think.

@AccessibleDaydream I am not aware of what are the details of their arrangement, but I guess when you create something in Forge you don't have much of a "rights" to it. I don't think these creators are getting paid for the maps. But I may be wrong.

The idea that is somehow shifting the burden to the players is there yes. But on the other hand, Halo fandom is generally very complex and hard-to-please, sometimes downright toxic (via legions of fans that continue to believe that Bungie's reign with Halo is yet to be surpassed by any other IP). So by giving them the tool to just make their maps as they please, 343 has in a sense relieved itself of the pressure.

@AccessibleDaydream I mean, their whole "big brain" move has been to invest a lot of time to create Forge, so that then people make the maps for them and they just put them there. At some point with so many Forge maps in rotation, they themselves can also just use Forge to make their own maps and probably few people will know or care about the difference.

I wish they could also offer us an estimate of when the Firefight drops. But I will certainly hop on when it is there.

Well well well... I guess this is just Corpo-speak. Ok suppose it is just there to sell more GamePass subs, other than spending 2000 dollars to get a gaming PC, where can you use this GP thingy? Ofc on a budget oriented S or a more premium series X. It is the same thing.
@Banjo- Almost every worthwhile game is cross-play these days. R6,Destiny and CoD are all Cross-play. This whole "My friends are on PS4" argument is redundant these days. Except when it is throughly an exclusive like Halo.
@BAMozzy I fundamentally wish and also believe that Xbox shouldn't touch how CoD is managed however. People keep hating on it but it is stunning how every year around the clock it releases a game with 3 times more content at twice the level of polish that many XGS teams manage. Can we even dream of a world where Halo drops games with that amount of content and polish every holiday?

@pip_muzz That kinda requires a much larger install-base of active players so that by separating the PC and Console crowds the matchmaking still works well and fast enough. Infinite has been struggling over the past years, not to mention the regions where there are generally less Xbox and Halo fans. Maybe if they keep this recovery tour and reach some consistent 40-50K players they can do that.

The amount of corpo-speak and paperwork and meetings between ABK and Xbox will be staggering over the next months.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner You are correct.
They want to use those games to pad out their 2024 line up too. They have Hellblade 2 and Avowed for 2024, but neither is quite as big a deal as Starfield or FM so better keep some CoD games (both newer ones and old ones) in the bag for the rainy days in 2024.

@Kaloudz Yeah, I am all in support of devs not having to crunch etc. But I sometimes miss the good old days. You would get 3 Halo games in 6 years. 3 Uncharted games in a similar window of time etc. There are still some devs that work very quick like Insomniac games. But there are few of them .

It is cool how back in the day games had levels or missions that "a few people" on the team could put together in a week. Nowadays that tank would be a whole year of development of a 300-people studio I bet.

@BobaTheFett I guess since this new campaign is probably another good 2-4 years away, Infinite will probably last a good 5 to 7 years as the only running Halo multiplayer (technically MCC is also there but if you count the new stuff). If it lasts that long while it is not 10 years, it isn't half bad.
Also, they might do a big-brain move and keep Infinite as the Halo multiplayer while their single-player campaigns are released separately and made with UE5. Or they might at some point make this Halo 7 where both campaign and multiplayer is on UE5.
Regarding CD Projekt, yes ! I guess they will definitely add some of their RPG game making tools back into UE5 to make it more robust for that genre.

@themightyant I believe given the state in which Fallout 76, Redfall and to some degree even Starfield launched, Bethesda don't manage themselves that much actually. Phil alluded to this in that infamous interview he had.

@GamingFan4Lyf I think that you have to consider that so far, Immortals of Aveum and Remnant 2 used it and in both cases I doubt these studios are really cutting edge developers with the proper skillset or the proper utilisation of UE5. A tool is only as good as the people who use it. I believe in the long run UE5 itself will get better but ultimately it is on dev's hands to improve themselves as well. I doubt that CD Projekt and others (like developers of Tomb Raider) and even 343 itself have taken this switching strategy lightly.
Out of all studios that are switching to UE5 probably 343 is the most logical one cause they literally have nothing to lose. They have been developing their engine for years and it has been a thorn in their feet the whole time, it is difficult to work with, buggy and broadly generates the most basic and "barely acceptable" level of visual fidelity. To this day Infinite has no proper raytracing in its campaign. At least with CD Projekt or Tomb Raider you could be sad about switch to UE5 cause their engines were great. 343 loses nothing. They can only go up from here.

Cool stuff all around. I reinstalled the game last weekend and have played some matches. The game finally feels like it is in the right place, now just need Firefight to get my PvE fix.

Bruh I bet Kotick himself was the one preventing these remakes from happening.

More quality CoD content that is less "cash grab"
Halo ODST games from Infinity Ward
Several new IPs

@Kaloudz Just now a buddy of mine predicted that we are witnessing the beginning of the end for Call of Duty and House of CoD is doomed. Ofc they will tell you they never play/played any game from ABK or even Bethesda back then and they point out to Aloy's peach fuzz rendering in Horizon 2 as how Guerrilla Games and Naughty Dog alone are bigger than entire current Xbox line up of studios.
P.S: Trolling is harsh to recieve, but fun to dish out.

That trailer is oddly poetic and well made.
Here ... we ... go ... !

@HonestHick Tribalist support for a million/billion dollar corporation is generally cringe anyway. While Microsoft is a behemoth, it is not like Sony and PS are a small indie group working out of their mom's garage or something. Sony is a long-standing brand. One part I hated the most about the debacle around the acquisition was this "Oh don't hurt my sales I am smoll and I might starve " attitude from both parties.

Ok now that all the pedantic hassles are taken care of. Give us the games!

Speaking of this, wasn't the deal supposed to be finalised by this week? We only have tomorrow.

@themightyant I wish someone could explain to me in a "for dummies" way how these values work. For example, how is Microsoft paying the 69B for Activision? Because Phil once said it is not a money transaction per se.

@Kezelpaso Yeah, it is far far likelier to sell millions more of it if It is a numbered entry, and each is sold at a much higher price than if it was a DLC. I still believe the whole idea of it being a DLC never went beyond a discussion at ABK (maybe developers discussed it and ofc the big wigs shot it down), yet the "insiders" reported it as a solid rumour.

For me, no. The future of gaming is clearly purely in digital and subscription-based models. The writing is on the wall for years now. Specially with GP, Xbox gamers are very much getting used to playing the games on the service Day 1 and not buying them separately, either digital or physical. Barring the odd cases where you find a game on decent price in a random physical shop, there is no benefit in it for me.
Whatever solution that is chosen in this gen, such as external drive, will probably be absent from next-gen which will go fully digital. The idea of these external drives only delays the inevitable from 2024 to 2028.
@Kaloudz I think an eventual external disk drive would then work with both S and the eventual Cylinder-shaped X, unless Xbox directly blocks it from use with Series S.

Preach!
And we need SP content too 343! Keep the content coming!

The game looks very good but sadly it has that signature "I will play it on GamePass" energy.

Well, we have waited this long and with the super-packed October of this year, there is certainly enough to keep us busy until the paperwork on those titles is figured out.

@ParsnipHero Halo 5 had Warzone, which was PvPvE, and then it also had Warzone Firefight which was PvE classic, by the time I got into Halo in 2020 the servers were barren and I couldn't get a match for the normal Warzone thing (in EU), so I don't know what really happened in it.
I played around a 100 matches of Warzone Firefight and it was a solid experience overall.

@ParsnipHero I would guess that it is PvE but the KOTH element is also in it as you said. Bringing in players and making it PvPvE would indirectly mean that some players would play as Covenant? Cause otherwise you have Spartans and Covenant on one team vs a team of Spartans which is, well it is MP so everything goes but still a bit weird.
@Kaloudz The whole reason I want a PvE mode is not to get rolled over by those 1000hr playtime laser-aim sweaty players 😂.

@Kaloudz Just getting it, the game had one gruelling road to get here but recently it has been finding its footing.
@Benjamin I am a CoD player for the most part and haven't played any Halo MP except Infinite, it feels fine to me in general, if a little too bouncy and float-y in comparison to CoD, but again that is kind of the feel of Halo in general I guess, because it is similar in SP of all previous games too.

@ParsnipHero Just give me Firefight 343

Here comes the wood so that we can start the weekly "Series S Bad" fires.
I would much prefer at this point developers just focused on doing their jobs instead of consistently talking about it to gamers. You make the games and we buy them. How you make that work is your problem. We live in a world where many AAA games landed on the potato hardware of switch and the palm-of-your-hand hardware of an iPhone recently. Acting like Series S is the big hurdle is just "people whining about their jobs". The argument is getting really tiring at this point.

@themightyant Yeah, I am totally with you on those early access posts on Instagram and Twitter about "that scene" in every game. It is annoying and disappointing and clickbait-y. But once again it is something from masses of content creators, at this point gaming landscape has 4 groups, developers + publisher, player, journalists, content creators. The interaction and behaviour of each group towards the other one can at times get really messy.

@themightyant To go to a lawyer war with Microsoft isn't the smartest fight sadly. The wording of early access implies that for an extra fee you get earlier access to the game, while the game's real and original "normal access" release date is also when it is available on GP. I have often played games several months after release with no harm or spoiler. 5 days isn't going to change much. This is also partially a bait for dozens of content creators that want to get their hands on it early to make content out of it.

@BacklogBrad The game clearly was a DLC to Valhalla in the start, my tinfoil hat theory is that they pivoted this into a semi-full price title to bridge the gap and just put a new AC game on the shelves after so long. Also it acts as a bit of "AC is going back to its roots" marketing stunt before we go back to 100hr RPG-lite again.

Words of a lacklustre story and a an uninteresting protagonist are enough to drive me away from this one, meanwhile the rest of aspects are clearly just serviceable. After plowing through 80 hrs with the most vanilla flavoured viking in history (Eivor) with the scheming and annoying Basim in Valhalla, I have no desire to get involved with this universe and characters for now. I guess I am burnt out.

• In King Julian's voice* How long is this going to taaakeeee?