BrilliantBill

@ParsnipHero Probably Microsoft believes that this game cannot bring any new players into its install base and all the potential audience is already aware of it/playing it anyway. So no reason to give it a marketing push. Also, we still don't know what kind of numbers the game is brining in terms of player base.

@HonestHick I guess Gears of War 1-3 UE on UE5 is in the same heaven that the full RDR1 remake lives in. It is just a rumour constantly repeated by leakers and us fans wishing to manifest it into reality.

Interesting line-up of content, specially excited about Stalker 2. Regarding Hellblade 2 I genuinely hope it's not another "look at our motion capture rig" videos. Delve into storytelling, combat, music even?

It feels like at various points their concepts for several other games have also been joined into the project.What they pulled off with live-action in QB was, despite the flaws, very competently done and well-made. But ofc I will be waiting for reviews and a steep sale, because the "cinematic style" games have burnt me in the past.

These games would only look "good" for today's standards with a full remake. In this state, they are only for the nostalgia factor and to be "re-experienced" by those who already played them ages ago. It is not really ideal for the first experience.
@BacklogBrad The argument for emulation is valid. But don't you need a PC and a legal copy of the OG games on the OG platforms to do this? How I am as a console gamer with no access to OG copies supposed to do this?

@Moonglow Honestly 2023 is looking great but do you remember the Great Famine of 2022? Personally I am most pumped about the ABK deal going through and getting a huge dump of games on GP.

I will probably skip watching all of them. With Geoffs you know it will be another cringey horribly presented showcase ruining the 1 or 2 decent trailers that show up in his events.

@Feffster I may be wrong but I think Sony still has a deal for CoD 2023 (this one) so it won't go on GP. But future CoD from 2024 onward should easily go on GP. Meanwhile all older CoD games should show up on GP as well?

Overall the game looks good but two things worry me. First is that almost every frame in that trailer reminds me of a mission in the OG MW 1 or 2 or 3, giving off this vibe that it is going to be another case of them just recycling missions from old games in the name of fan service and homage. But I hope it is just a cinematography/framing thing and the missions are all new and fresh.
2nd issue, the obsession that new MW games have with the sort "stealthy" and "no one should know we are here" missions with night vision goggles at times makes you feel like you are playing a Ghost Recon or Splinter Cell game. I hope that is also kept in a reasonable amount and not overdone.

I can barely think of a single worthwhile game from X360 era that isn't already remade/remastered or is available on BC. Ofc there are tons of slightly less known games etc. But overall, I guess PC is there with GoG and Steam etc for people who really have serious dedication to game preservation.

@Fiendish-Beaver Every Xbox exclusive receives added scrutiny and harsher review than those of other platforms, best example of it is Gears 5 and its DLC, which got waved off really hard.
I think with all of these issues however, this game is probably, just like Cyberpunk, too big to fail. It will find an audience and a large one too.

Really excited to see how all of this plays out

Firewatch is definitely worth playing if you haven't played it before. But I guess Xbox is sticking to smaller games and repeats for now since they know they have a juggernaut coming soon in Starfield.

@EVIL-C The deal hasn't gone through yet, Xbox's claims is for after they fully own ABK. So at earliest next year?

Given how CoD is supposed to release on Switch 2 for ages to come. They will have to make their engine scalable enough to the point that it runs on PS4/X1 level hardware.
@JetmanUK I have put +250hrs into MW2 on a dusty One S. The game fundamentally looks very very scaled back but it still is good looking enough given the limitations (unlike for example Jedi Fallen Order which looked terrible). I have played it with cross play with people on PS4, PS5 and Series X in the same party and game functions pretty well. CoD doesn't get enough credit for how well it "just works".
I think the eventual Switch 2 version will also look pretty handsome for that platform, specially for handheld mode.

I mean, the bar for graphics on Switch isn't exactly high. Probably this is one of the best looking games on it. Plus, the quality of the game as a whole with its story, music, characters etc also contributes.

I would totally be down for a Digital Version of it as the one publisher who never has a proper digital sale is ABK and now they are being absorbed under Xbox so I won't have to worry about that.

Its predecessor is by far the worst-looking and worst-running game I had on One S, given all its issues on current gen as well, this is just Disney being greedy for those extra copies sold.

@ParsnipHero Sadly yes, Infinite is only for the small dedicated Halo fanbase that still cares about it due to their past investment in the franchise. Halo has struggled with becoming a "thing" for the masses for more than a decade now. Halo 5 being an exclusive on the worst-selling console of the previous gen and the misgivings of development/launch/support of Infinite surely hasn't helped things either.
On the topic of announcement of details, I don't think any gamers outside of the ca. 1 million subscribers of r/Halo and its sorrounding Reddits (like r/HaloStory etc) are keeping tabs on the game/franchise. Investing large sums in lavish trailers/teasers will not bring more people.

@ParsnipHero I mean, if by any other live-service game you mean likes of R6, CoD etc. The numbers and money they are pulling is orders of magnitude higher than Halo.
I think that 343 is being kept under a strict financial diet after all the money that has been pumped into them over the past couple of years. The fact that they had to cancel the CGI cutscenes for seasonal content clearly shows that there is very limited money on the table for them.
With the time and money and 343 had the higher ups probably expected to get a huge live-service game and the best they got was a game played by a small dedicated community. So 343 will probably not have a big budget unless they really convince the higher ups that they can get it done. But with the new management and some of the better decisions over the past few months I think they are on the right track.

Coalition did release the Hivebuster campaign DLC and then ported the game to Series X/S. In between they helped with Matrix demo and based on some rumour even helped out 343 with Halo Infinite?
4 years is quite a while and I also wish they had revealed a sequel in this E3. But given how solid their 2 entries into the franchise have been I am eager to give them some leeway.

@Kaloudz "They're showing they can be worked with and trusted so that in the future, they won't have as much crap as they'll simply be able to point to how they dealt with ABK."

It is as if the legal team of a trillion dollar corporation has a little more wisdom in these matters than the average "Just close the deal" crowd. Bro close what? It's not fridge door 😂

Halo 3 is probably the best game in that trilogy or arguably even the entire roster Bungie made. Honestly while I would love to see a remaster/remake of it, I would hate to see another outpour of the typical toxicity that Halo fandom has. Given status and legacy of this game any mistakes or screw ups will cause some serious outrage.

@HonestHick Also a very nice sneaky trick to just make the numbers of GP subs almost double at least in one easy move. Between this and CoD showing up on GP it could push GP to some ridiculously high number of subscribers.

@InterceptorAlpha The whole deal is just there to boost you further towards paying for Ultimate tier. I am also thinking how important this requirement for MP even is today. Tons of people play F2P games which do not require you such access on console (Like Warzone).

@Utena-mobile I mean, it is better than most games they offered on the GWG for sure. Firefight and Infection were well crowded on 5 a while back. I guess when they add Firefight to Infinite (which might be fairly soon) Halo 5 will become emptier.

In the past 3 years of me owning the GWG I only found one game I liked and wanted to play, Telltale's Batman. So at this ratio I don't see any "loss".

@Kaloudz The argument can be made that these 25 games are the same tired line-up that Xbox has been counting on since 2019ish. Like I love Gears 5 but I have played it to death. It works for users new to the ecosystem however.

@Fiendish-Beaver Basically, I think the idea is that the Core never gets day and date releases of the biggest titles (like Starfield) rather it is like the approach Sony had with their collection of "PS4 games for PS5" collection. A small selection of very solid games that people new to the ecosystem can bite their teeth into. Once they get an appetite for it a portion of them upgrade to base GP.

@Sakai I mean, it depends, which era of Halo are they referring to? While Halo 1-3 are universally loved, the rest of the franchise is very divisive both under bungie (ODST, Reach) and 10x more under 343i (5?).
You would assume that 343 now has a clue what needs to be done for future of Halo but given how many times they have shot themselves in the foot in the past. I am also very cautious.

@Solidchief It never stops being funny how back in the day Killzone, Resistance, Crysis, Haze and probably many others were make to kill "Halo" only to have CoD switch from WW2 to modern times and just wipe the floor away so hard that out of all of them only a shell of Halo remains. It is still one of the biggest "Surprise Madaf***" moments in gaming industry.

It is slightly hard to believe how long and arduous the journey towards this point has been for fans of both consoles. Now I am just eager to see that huge GP dump of ABK titles.

@Kaloudz Ubisoft will give you enough AC games for sure, last rumour some 11 of them are in various stages of development 😝. In a couple years they might have milked it so hard that you regret what you wished for haha. But I also love AC and prefer it multiplat.

@Scummbuddy Also wasn't that games supposed to be shut down and delisted?

@Dragonsbane I think they are really trying to distance themselves from this being a Bioshock clone. They clearly should have done better in the trailer creation and edit to avoid this in the first place.

@HonestHick Also on a second note, I think Sony could revive Killzone and Resistance but even at their peak these franchises were not even close to CoD, Halo etc in terms of the quality. The only thing KZ had going on was graphics and Resistance, while initially very promising and of decent quality squandered its potential. I don't know much about SOCOM.
I guess what they are doing now, funding new online-only FPS games is probably their safest bet.

@HonestHick This is less about making a CoD killer. I think this game is just trying to appeal to the audience that CoD left behind after Black Ops 2-3 era. Plus, CoD has shifted its focus away from arena and classic MP and the DMZ (extraction) and BR is where most people are (Halo Infinite is an example of game with only arena MP and see how they are doing).
Probably extraction shooters are going to be the next big thing after BR. CoD and many other big IP with just move their focus to that. Meanwhile some other IP can pickup the old-school arena shooter.
We have to see just how big this audience actually is when the game releases. However I don't think anything is toppling CoD now, specially with how popular it is in the recent years after MW2019.

@Kaloudz So basically around what era? MW 2007 ?

@Solidchief But wouldn't that be a complete reboot of the RE universe then?

@somnambulance I think they try to remake a game that is already good enough at least. If you remake a terrible game in a way that needs you to build a completely new game, you could essentially just invest that money into making Resi 9 10 etc right?
@InterceptorAlpha It kind of reminds me of people wanting a remake of Halo 1's remake "but done right".

A while back they said they will stop releasing cutscenes for seasonal story of Infinite to save on resources (once again leaving another plot line unfinished, under new management as well, which establishes that they have never learned anything from their previous failures). But they have resources enough to release cut-content from 20 something year old games on PC of all places. Selling member-berries won't turn Halo into the next CoD or Battlefield Microsoft. You would think a trillion dollar corporation knows that.

It is kind of funny how such basic animated series "around the Halo universe" has been going on for so long while the new P+ TV show with 90 million dollars in budget got lambasted to hell and back by critics and fans alike.
Meanwhile the games from 1-3 in MCC are being played more than Infinite apparently. The franchise is stuck in a place where neither the old fans support it nor new fans are added to it. I wonder how much longer before Xbox etc decide it is time to sunset the whole thing.

@Markatron84 Same here, the 007 IP is so massively underutilised with 1 movie per decade cadence and no video games.
@Kaloudz They have pulled off a genius move by snatching a 007 project but they can also totally screw up and burn themselves. They can probably transplant a ton of their Hitman IP into it by nature. Hitman is a guy in a suite mingling with rich/corrupt/affluent/political in parties/homes/yachts etc and eventually killing them in exotic and nice locations. Bond is broadly the same story in terms of gameplay, environments, level-design etc. What they need to nail is the casting and voice acting of Bond and his teammates (M, Q, Moneypenny etc) and the whole Bond girls aspect. I haven't played Hitman games but I guess cinematic action story-telling is probably not their forte.
About that fantasy game though, I don't know, I guess they themselves don't even know much yet and are just brainstorming its direction.

@HonestHick To be fair, isn't the "her face has so many emotions and she hears voices in her head" the whole schtick of the original game? I think that clip really zoomed in on what is special about Hellblade in a way.

360 was definitely an exciting era for video games and really the turning point into videogames becoming main-stream entertainment. The improvements in graphics meant you no longer needed to use your imagination to make video games realistic, rather they just were realistic. That and the rise of cinematic style, story telling and cut scenes, really got the ball going for gaming.

@evan23 I think a major problem here is that in this gen, or the next or the next after that, you will always have games on console that tradeoff that frame render time for higher visual fidelity, bigger environment, raytracing, better AI etc. People that hope for a Native 4K or 60FPS or both across all games all the time will be disappointed on consoles, always. Because consoles always aim to be cheap and affordable and "good enough", the aim is never achieving peak performance independent of pricing.

It is only in PC gaming that due the unlimited hardware access you can always build something strong enough and just brute-force your way into whatever framerate or resolution you desire.

@gollumb82 Yes, unfortunately Xbox doesn't have that many teams that truly know how to squeeze a console and get stunning graphics out of it. We are still waiting for Hellblade 2, Gears 6 etc to do that. So an even more powerful console won't change Xbox's fortunes much.
On the contrary Sony has many of these teams and if they really push that Pro console all the way they might be able to produce some stunning output. Meanwhile Multiplatform games will probably take the lazy way out as they did back then with Pro/One X and just give you slightly higher res and frame rate.

@HonestHick Personally I think that while the situation with Series S and PS5 DE is very bad for Xbox, at the end of the day the decision between Series S vs PS5 DE comes down to the games. The slightly cheaper Series S doesn't give you GoW: Ragnarok, but the vastly superior hardware in PS5 DE won't be running Starfield, Avowed etc. The audience first chooses the ecosystem and then picks the lowest barrier of entry they can afford (or the highest with a PS5 Pro).

So if the corporate intelligence says there is a PS5 Pro, and Phil Spencer confirmed there is no equivelant on Xbox, we are heading into interesting territory, as once again Sony will have "theoretically the most powerful" console on the market. Which is a bit redundant as Series X and sales of Series S clearly proved being the most powerful console is broadly speaking worth nothing and doesn't help with a console's fortunes one bit.

@gollumb82 It seems like Sony believes a 700-1000 euro console will fly somehow (at least in limited numbers), whether it does the full RTX etc will be interesting to see.

I am kind of interested in picking up one or two games from the past couple of years, but only if price is decent.

Since RDR2 is the #1 game of all time for me, I am ready to part with my hard earned cash and hand it to the evil corporation for this.
On a side note it is sad that the state of the Single-player gaming is so dire that we constantly need to pull games from the past to keep the ball rolling. Several RE games, multiple re-releases of LoU etc.

@smoreon It still holds up very well in gameplay, not so much in the cutscenes department. The problem now is that if someone wants to dig into Halo in 2023, it is a messy ride. You start with a remake of CE that is very serviceable but with the old-school cutscenes, then you step into Halo 2 with a great remake and stunning CGI cutscenes and then you step into 3, where gameplay, graphics and art design do hold up well-enough for a game from 2007, but that's about it. The cutscenes are a massive downgrade off the back of Halo 2. Meanwhile Reach is still top-notch and very enjoyable IMO. 4 and 5 are ofc also holding up very well. If I wanted to suggest a friend to get into Halo, a Halo 2-level remake of 3 would be very helpful.
I got into the games in 2020 and while 3 was still an enjoyable ride, it clearly showed some age. Since Microsoft hopes to maintain Halo as a big brand (at least that's what I hope that they hope 😂) a remake of 3 can go a long way.

@somnambulance I think any game older than 10 years can be eligible for a remake, depending on how well it has aged and how popular it is. Halo 3 is around 16 years old now and probably within a couple of years it is hard to enjoy it without a full remake.
MGS3 is 19 years old now and I think 20 years is prime time for full remake.

@Kevw2006 Trick here is that many games these days either are outright very long (Starfield will probably easily be around 50hrs and AC Valhalla was 60ish?) or they have a multiplayer/live-service component that keeps going. So most people will probably need to be subscribed for a while to get through these games.

@FenIsMightier Honestly that hardly changes the big scheme of how Starfield will perform. Almost any of the so-called "system-sellers" are only successful because they appeal to a very broad audience and are eye-catching enough to attract a large audience.
For me the Horizon games from Sony have broadly been the same, all I see is glorified tech demo attached to a gameplay that you have probably seen better elsewhere, featuring a deeply irritating protagonist. But it is ultimately just my opinion and has no bearing on how the game sales and moves consoles. Same goes for people that might wave off Gears, Halo, Forza etc as more of the same and old and tired. It doesn't matter that "someone" find sHalo or Forza outdated when they register 25 million unique players in a matter of weeks.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner That is still a 16M gap and in some sense almost double the units sold, but it is closer than what internet makes you think. More so considering Xbox hasn't had a single hit system seller yet (while Sony had a few already).

@gollumb82 Man you really went through all possible combos I guess, would you advise someone to just buy a Series S or is it a must to own the X? In terms of game performance and graphics.

Considering all the difficulties so far in this generation with several of the promised system-sellers like Infinite, Redfall etc the numbers are still fairly good. Specially interesting is 48% of S owners being new to Xbox. With a packed 2023 and 2024, Xbox has real chance to move towards parity with Sony.
Anyone has the last numbers of how many PS4 and PS5s are out there? For the sake of comparison.