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@ZuneTattooGuy @Fiendish-Beaver there is a significant difference between approaches though. Sony is mostly paying for timed or full platform exclusivity to INDEPENDENT studios. All consolidation was on a smaller scale compared to MS. While that influences the current state, it does not directly dictate future position. The same developers can take their next project elsewhere (Kojima) if that is a better fit. Sony does not own the market itself.
MS approach is to directly acquire and own all big and active market participants. That is a definition of monopoly.

Technically they were not in a great situation at the time, so it makes sense. Also, this is exactly the type of investments MS should be doing, acquiring and funding smaller talented teams, growing them into something bigger, AAA ready. Instead of buying and consolidating giants (and monopolizing market using capital brute force).

Hopefully and helpfully, maybe patch 1.12 deletes this game and frees up space for Starfield on my SSD.. as I don't see how it can be fixed through minor patching.

Man, MS is something else..

Not surprising that there are people on this site that are actually defending this move, because fan site... But damn. Combined with price hike in face of first decent game release in years, MS managed to lose good will they earned on my end through that last showcase in record time.

Basically MS is openly saying we invested money for 4 generations and lost as we were not able to create/design competition. So allow us to buy external competition and market advantage. And some are eating that up..

They schedule first decent game for release to GP in 3 years.. they also announce price hike. I don't extend my subscription. That simple.

There are some good games here.. but it is ok. A lot to look forward to in the near future (and can't be bothered with anything except TotK immediately).

What would have been cool MS, would be permanently discounting storage cards to make this console not needed in the first place.

@Banjo- at least personally, 40fps option has been blessing. It's enough to makes things feel smooth and keep decent fidelity (most of the time full).
However, I understand not everybody has such a display, and can see why it's not considered a primary target :/

Feels like this has to be said.. framerate issue is surely not (or it shouldn't be) caused by the scale of the game world. Agreed, just the currently loaded piece of the map is complex enough, but the fact there are 1000 worlds present unrendered does not task the system as much as you think.
As evidence, I'll use exhibit A: Tears of the Kingdom. It has a huge world that tracks if 2 branches interacted on the other side of the map due to winds.. and it works on a 10-year-old tablet. CPU-s in this day and age are far too powerful, with way too much computing power to be limited by such background tasks. (admittedly it could have been a problem 20 years ago, but with XSX/S issue should be in designing all that complexity, not executing it)

@Kevw2006 depends how you choose to read it. I read it as "we weren't able to achieve stable 60 fps so we opted for 30." That seems like exactly what every other developer does when they settle on the 30 lock.
Related, I can't play 30 frame locked FPS games, so this might be problematic for me. Given the scale and awesomeness presented in that showcase, I'll give it a go anyway. But I might be a casualty of "creative choice".

Xbox Games Showcase has been hyped to such absurd levels, that I doubt it can fulfill those expectations now. Even if it ends up being the best show ever.
Can everybody just relax, do the presentation, and tooth their own horn once it is done?

There were some good games, especially if you are platform agnostic.

Starfield is the game I expect to be disappointed by the most. I have been tricked by Bethesda too many times to fall for it again.
However, showcase in general I expect to be awesome.

All for it, these events should use as much in-game footage as possible. Given how much Sony misfired with their latest showing, I'm really banking on this being a success..

Yeah, been a huge fan of Diablo series in early days (D1 was an addiction among my friends in 90-s), but for some reason I ain't feeling it for D4. Maybe Blizzard has finally depleted my good will well with all the shenanigans lately. Anyway, I'll wait to see player reactions 6 months down the line to evaluate if I should jump in.

Just wanted to remind everyone this game still looks sketchy as hell, just as it did when it looked like Sony exclusive.
Keeping my expectations low, but would love to be pleasantly surprised.

Technically, Sony put on a better Xbox showcase than Phil... (although it was boring)

Instead of introspecting at the fact Xbox is undoubtedly third out of three console space competitors, leave it to purexbox comments section to make this news about "Sony lied about Nintendo".

Seems correct. MS has seriously botched current gen (while at the same time having highest potential to succeed at it's beginning), to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if some bigwig heads started to fall soon.

@Spider-Kev at the time BotW was a weird game to get into. Everything else in existence was going for a tailored, limited, and directed experience. And here came BotW, a game with almost no limitations, no "invisible walls".
Also, story was told similar to how "kaleidoscope" series works, there is no "correct" order to consume it through. All of that brought on a choice paralysis to many gamers, myself included. It took me about 10 hours to get properly oriented in that great world, but once I did.. man. I played that game for 200-300 hours (which for me is about 6-8 times more than usual).

It doesn't feel reasonable to expect Starfield to be on Tears of the Kingdom level. TotK is a masterpiece followup to a masterpiece, in one of the greatest series in gaming history. Even if Starfield is a 10/10 game, it can't realistically achieve same amount of popularity and general acceptance.
Starfield should concentrate on delivering excellent Xbox experience, and the rest will come with time..

Funny, I was literally just watching Charlie play Redfall, exploiting poor AI, running next to enemies and talking to them without them registering him.. and then Phil says their games are judged differently. Yes they are. Because if they were judged as any third party was, there would have been nobody defending this dumpster fire.

Definition of insanity: promising same thing over and over again without delivering, expecting people still believe it.

@NEStalgia keeping inhouse technology up to date and fresh is studios responsibility. Getting stuck in a situation where you have not done so and are now "locked into legacy ancient tooling" is a sign of poor management and product prioritization. Just saying, these are patterns that should not manifest on such a high level as Bethesda is/should be.

What is going on with default latency settings on Xbox lately? Are they not testing games before releasing? When it was external studios, I believed it to just be lazy wrapping from other platforms, but this is internal game. Come on..

I felt like Redfall was not going to be for me from the initial announcement, so no surprise here. My only regret is that it shall become a permanent stain on Arkane's portfolio.
One thing to point out, Arkane was very capable of producing polished and entertaining experiences rather consistently in the past. I would look for a culprit in the circumstances that changed since their last success (hint: MS management) on how to right the ship in the future..

Honestly, I can understand the lack of reviews, as I have tried out the game and am not sure what to think of it. Setting and mechanics should be tailor-made for me, but there are performance issues and odd delay in controls.. it just feels off. Doesn't help that introduction to the world has been basically skipped.
Anyway, I found it hard to connect and immerse into the experience and everything else is irrelevant at that point. I might give it another go after few patches and tweaks

Force is strong with this one... (incoming tomatoes)

@themcnoisy I played all the games you mentioned, but I don't feel like those are even highlights of GP. There are some extraordinary games on service, don't get me wrong.
But indies are on every platform, and they perform pretty much the same elsewhere. What gives Big N the edge is a playful approach to first-party games (neither MS nor Sony will spend 5 years making a playground like Tears of the Kingdom).

@themcnoisy I am aware of it being a stereotypical claim, but there is more to video games than framerate and shadow quality. Personally, I would forgive MS any such issue if they were to create and innovate something on level and scale BotW was in 2017./2018.
If you are after graphics and bleeding edge technologies, you should sell your Switch while you still can. (full disclosure, out of my 3 current gen consoles, NS is my favorite)

Probably just a spin to get the ABK deal closed easier.
But I will say this, it is funny seeing all people in the comments section talking about MS making a play for cloud gaming and not caring about console sales. How many of you are actually using cloud gaming regularly? Or better yet, as your only option? I have not yet seen a poll/survey where happy cloud gamers represented more than a couple of percents..

Going over the number of negative comments on this thread, I kind of hope they deliver. It's really not for me (I believe I have been scared and worn out of zombies and vampires for life), but everybody has already moved away from this game, weeks before release.

Asking an obvious question, but which first party day 1 releases would that be? I don't feel like maybe 1-2 games per year would be the needle mover for me, but I'm out either way once my current sub runs out..

I don't understand Jeff's argument here.. the game was shadow-dropped to GP, and no sane company would expect it to make a high number of traditional sales.
Now, if it wasn't downloaded as many times as expected, or it didn't move the GP subscription needle as much.. I can see that perspective. But I highly doubt that (hands down best Xbox thing in 2023.).

Seems to me that Netflix blocking game from Xbox at this point would do them more harm than good.
And I have not seen a release saying Xbox will never be supported. It could be just the most obvious thing, small indie studio optimizing their resources toward realistic targets (something MS should try themselves, with all delays and late feature drops lately)
P.S.
This is a single, better than average, indie game. There have been few cases, that don't yet make a trend. Reaction here is completely blown out of proportion. Xbox has not been doomed. It's ok to not get all the games in the universe day 1.

@grumpypotato simplest solution might be the correct one..

Tried the demo on Switch, it's not bad at all. But I'll wait with my purchase for eventual GP addition.

Putting yourselves in the shoes of an indie developer, initially skipping Xbox makes perfect sense (unless you go GP day 1). Smaller install base, with users mainly consuming content through the service. How many people actually buy indie games day 1, with such a library already on GP?
Instead releasing later on for extra cash, and maybe even directly to GP, not delaying initial release is a sound business move. S*cks but also smart.

@NEStalgia I'm not sure about the details either, but I could swear XBX & PS5 are using the same CPU architecture, both supporting SMT. Difference is that XBX uses fixed clocks, while PS5 also choose to support Boost mode (temporary core boost/overclock depending on heat conditions).
I can respect not using that technique in home console though, as it is susceptible to unpredictable behavior.
P.S.
Boost mode and thermal throttling (dynamic frequency scaling) are actually dominantly used in desktop CPU-s, and are the future if you ask Intel and/or AMD.

@NEStalgia I don't get your 8th, 9th, 10th gen chatter, as it is an engineering fact XSX and PS5 are consoles based on similar components. Raw power, difference is almost negligible. Differences lay in extensions and software, and neither took a future proof or legacy approach.
From what my understanding is, based on developers interviews, MS toolkit is a bit more complicated and challenging to work with, which is what sometimes causes cases like Ghostwire. How much that can be improved and polished mid-gen, I do not know.
However, in case of Ghostwire: Tokyo it probably doesn't matter, as the game is mediocre on any platform.

For a first time in a while, games leaving are actually not bad. Shame. Hopefully replaced by some great ones in May.

Just copy Switch or PS5. Anything targeted primarily at the games, just not this bloated multilayered mess. And limit the customization options, with great power comes great clumsiness!

Omg, I thought this was being added as a perk to GPU. That is quite a price... Good luck Ubi, you'll need it.

@Kaloudz I feel it's mostly about definition of "done". If Redfall is released in such state, it sets an example of not implementing a promised FPS mode being acceptable for final "done" release. Which if successful can and will spread to other releases/products in the same space.

Ain't gonna play until they release 60FPS mode, so it's practically delayed already for me. It's just self-imposed.
I just hope 60FPS mode does not fall of the roadmap in post-launch support craziness, or even worse lack of mode in general somehow becomes industry acceptable compromise for the rest of this generation. That would be devestating.

@Widey85 @NickramCTID most likely not an age or PAL thing. You might just not be sensitive to it.
60 FPS (or 50 on PAL) was actually very common and almost universal up until PS3/Xbox360 era. That is when somehow 30 FPS became "good enough" and the rest is as they say "choppy history". So in a way, most older gamers are more sensitive to lower framerate cap.

Looking forward to 720p/60fps performance mode introduced in patch 1 on my Series S.

So, since it has been out for a while and issues are not Xbox specific, it's kind of a known by now this game is not great. Not sure why Xbox community was as excited about it, it's just hyping up expectations that were never going to be met.
Putting that aside, it seems like there is some real issues with integrating controls lately on Xbox. I've tried Guilty Gear recently, and it's unplayeable on my Series S. Controls are so lazy and dead zones huge, not sure how the game even passed QA. (similar for RE4)

Feels like a bad thing, Xbox 360 games are still selling because there is no new AAA games!

@uptownsoul agreed. And it will be interesting to see how many "fans" stick around for "unbelievable value" afterwards.