Grumblevolcano

@somnambulance Looking back it turns out that Game Awards 2019 nominees were announced on November 19th (the show aired December 12th).

Taking into considering that 2020 onwards had the deadline be the Friday after the nominees are announced, it seems like they're waiting for some sort of shadow drop or they're waiting for Flight Sim 2024/Stalker 2.

@somnambulance @Decimateh It would explain why the Game Awards nominees haven't been announced yet. If Silksong was to shadow drop this week, it would likely be nominated for several awards.

May be about Ubisoft, they own the cloud streaming rights for Activision and there's been plenty of articles posted about the recent state of Ubisoft.

Microsoft seems to want parity between console and cloud when it comes to 1st party releases which means Ubisoft problems are also Microsoft problems.

I wonder if the 1st half of 2025 for Xbox multiplatform releases is something like this:

• February - Fallout 3 (PS4/PS5/Switch)
• March - Oblivion (PS4/PS5/Switch)
• April - Indiana Jones (PS5)
• May - DOOM The Dark Ages (PS5)
• June - Flight Sim 2024 (PS5)

It would be a way in which it would appear things are slowing regarding Xbox exclusives to PS (only 1 more game to announce that hasn't previously been on PS) but the reasoning being a lot more believable (that they're choosing to port some games that are currently trapped on PS3 if you're not a Xbox player) and it ramps back up again in the 2nd half of 2025.

The very small difference in price between the old 1TB disc Series X and the new 1TB digital Series X makes it seem like they're going to discontinue the old models such that the new 2TB model is the only disc one.

I think each multiplatform announcement this year has been presented in such a way to get people gradually used to that even bigger stuff is going multiplatform in the future.

They went from announcing 2 in a Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase to the initial 4 for PS5 in random trailers later that day.

Then DOOM day 1 on PS5 happened but the PS5 announcement wasn't in the Xbox showcase, it was a random trailer after the event.

Finally Indiana Jones on PS5 which not only was announced before the Xbox version released but also was treated as the "one more thing" gigantic announcement of the event it was in.

So yes, I do believe that Halo is coming to PS5. As for a fitting announcement timing, maybe the Game Awards as it's the 10th anniversary of the event?

I think this increases the possibility of that rumoured Halo 1 remake for PS5 being real.

@IOI Judging by how they handled MW3 (2023), I think Game Pass will see:

• September 30th - October 18th will be relatively normal for Game Pass
• After that, Black Ops 6 is the only release for PC/Ultimate until November 5th
• In the timespan where Black Ops 6 is the only addition for PC/Ultimate, maybe Standard gets some legacy titles that are already in PC/Ultimate

I wonder if this means Avowed will be delayed again considering it was delayed because the holiday season was so packed and now February's looking even more packed.

@themightyant I'm thinking Early 2026 or sometime in 2027 (leaning towards former). They didn't give a release year which I think rules out 2025. But Fall/Holiday 2026 is already taken up by annual CoD and Halo 25th anniversary.

I think Foamstars and Forspoken are pretty much guarantees. Former is going FTP in October so they'd release on Xbox to try and increase the playerbase. Meanwhile the latter's exclusivity ends in January 2025 and sounds like the kind of situation where Game Pass may give the game a second wind.

@SleeplessKnight I think it might be that they wanted day 1 on PS5 (like DOOM The Dark Ages) but the only way to achieve this would've been to delay the PC/Xbox version to Spring 2025, hence they settled for PC/Xbox timed exclusivity.

@x3King84 The Forza forums has this official post about a new game mode:

"FH5 at Gamescom 2024
See you at Gamescom!

Our booth will be showing a completely new, exciting game mode inspired by our community and their creations.

Plus, we will also be showing our latest in-game partnership!

Visit us at Gamescom and stay tuned to our official channels for more announcements happening at the event.

Tune in August 21 for FH5 on the Xbox @ gamescom Livestream"

https://forums.forza.net/t/fh5-at-gamescom-2024-new-game-mode-tba/727847

The game probably will come to PS5 at some point but unlikely to be announced this week.

It got delisted from the XB1/Series X|S store around the same time it got delisted from the 360 store.

@themightyant I figure things will change from parity clauses to the handheld just not running more demanding games well as that's what is expected on the PC side of things.

@InvaderFromSpace GTA6 is likely going to cause complete chaos with release schedules. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if Game Pass gets another price increase in September 2025 but the only 1st party game for the rest of that year is CoD 2025.

Considering Activision always gave Geoff a long gameplay demo of CoD's campaign for Opening Night Live, I figure the tease is about Black Ops 6's campaign.

@somnambulance Shattered Space DLC, Avowed and Indiana Jones have stage presentations on the show floor. You just can't play it yourself much like Starfield couldn't be played last Gamescom.

@NEStalgia @HonestHick Microsoft's outdated controller decisions are also holding back PS. Like the gyro situation, gyro in shooters is expected by the Switch audience thanks to the gigantic success of the Splatoon franchise and 3rd parties usually deliver but gyro support rarely happens on PS because of parity with Xbox controllers.

@Markatron84 They wouldn't be consoles though.

@Markatron84 The comments still fit if future Xbox hardware is just a line of PCs.

When a release year isn't given, that has always meant 2+ years away in the past so I figure this'll be a next gen launch title alongside FH6.

@smoreon Naughty Dog remastered TLoU for PS4 which was playable on PS5 via backwards compatibility and then did a $70 PS5 version with no upgrade path. I figure if this rumour is true, it would be something like that.

@NEStalgia It's an honest comment. If Operation Latitude is real, it makes sense to just put PS5 logos next to the games that are coming to PS5. Announcement after the event only really makes sense if there's only a few multiplatform 1st party games.

As for the hardware, I've said previously about how I think Xbox's future is a PC that can run Xbox games in the cloud. It would explain the teases about the subsidized model not working and PC stores on Xbox, fit in with the already announced announcement of all owned games playable in the cloud later this year and make the jump to ARM easier.

Native support for Xbox console games on ARM devices sounds like a licensing nightmare.

@NEStalgia It's an easy setup regarding appearance in the showcase, the handheld gets used to explain the multiplatform strategy. You have lots of PS5 logos in the showcase and then the Xbox handheld is revealed to be a PC (including access to the multiple launchers like Steam and EGS) that can also play your Xbox console library via the cloud.

Then whenever Switch 2 is announced, those games coming to PS5 are also coming to Switch 2.

Xbox being present is probably about CoD this time as that franchise commonly appears at Geoff's events.

@NEStalgia I think they'll approach it that the yearly CoD releases from now on are just paid DLC for Warzone (like what Ubisoft does with Just Dance). That voids the whole day 1 on Game Pass argument considering Game Pass doesn't get Forza expansions, Starfield Shattered Space, etc.

People really need to stop standing up for Phil Spencer, this is the same person that wanted to use share manipulation via a former Microsoft board member to force Nintendo into being acquired. He is a vile person and the sooner he's fired the better.

This trailer reminds me of when 343 ended Halo 5 support to return to MCC. I feel they'll try to revive Halo by bringing MCC to PS/Nintendo.

Horrific that this keeps happening and this case in particular is no doubt a result of Microsoft being allowed to acquire Activision. Phil Spencer gets his growth from CoD/WoW/Candy Crush so everything else rots away.

@HonestHick The impression I got was that the future of Xbox console is PC. You get a Xbox branded handheld that's basically the ROG Ally with the Xbox logo on the device and some Xbox branded desktop PC that's super powerful and expensive. If you want your Xbox library, you can play it via the cloud but you can also play PC games natively via Steam/Microsoft Store/Epic Games Store.

It would be nice if they gave some updates on the games they announced in 2019/2020.

If you look very closely at the image (the large version on Xbox Wire is easiest to see), the second redacted part says Black Ops.

Interesting about the hardware side of things, they predicted that hardware would decrease for January - March back in January which naturally turned to be a result of the multiplatform rumours and announcement. Further decrease in April - June makes it seem like the next batch of multiplatform games will be announced in May/June.

@GamingFan4Lyf Revitalizing the multiplayer. There's very few people around in the 360 originals (mostly bot only lobbies) and if you do find larger lobbies, there's usually a cheater problem (360 online in general has a problem with cheaters nowadays).

The Coalition's announcement timing in the past was announce at E3, release during the Fall the following year. Gears of War 4 was announced at E3 2015 and released in October 2016 meanwhile Gears 5 was announced at E3 2018 with September 2019 release date.

So this timeline would suggest that Gears 6 releases Fall 2025. Maybe there's some truth to the 2026 next gen rumours considering Gears 5 acted as the final major release before Series X|S.

I wonder if this will be able to play games. From what I recall, the last limited edition Xbox branded hardware that could play games was the Halo Infinite Series X in 2021.

Basically do what they did to make original Xbox games work on the 360 but for both original Xbox and 360 games working on newer hardware. You didn't have to worry at all about stuff like Project Gotham Racing licensing running out affecting backwards compatibility, you just stuck your Xbox disc in your 360 and it ran.

Clearly that isn't their strategy though given all that "adorably all digital" nonsense.

Hate the current Xbox OS to be honest, pretty much only exists to force more ads on the user. You can avoid some of the problem with the OS if you only play at max a few games, but some obnoxious things remain like the full screen ads on console startup and games getting the "too long to start" error.

Switch is the only current system with a fantastic OS though with the only problem being the eshop is too slow. Very basic but that's a good thing as the focus is getting you into your game as fast as possible.

@NEStalgia Surely they must have known that leaving the door wide open such that anything could be ported after the initial 4 would result in the narrative that most is coming over? So if it isn’t most, wouldn’t it have made more sense to set some boundaries to prevent that narrative.

@S-Bacc My owned library is why I stuck with Xbox (backwards compatibility both in the traditional sense and edge cases where it’s more than just being able to play old games on new hardware at no extra cost). If exclusives went fully multiplatform I’d buy the exclusives on Nintendo hardware (prefer the ecosystem over Xbox) but still use Xbox for specific 3rd party games that have always been multiplatform.

What I was trying to get across was about the news cycle. I think all this trying to hype up next gen is a result of the exclusives going multiplatform situation and all the news surrounding it. If the multiplatform situation didn’t happen I doubt next gen would’ve even been teased by now outside of the accidental September leak about 2028.

@HonestHick We don’t know specifics but I would say that if it did end up being that multiplatform as a whole was smaller scale, their messaging on the matter was poor.

@awp69 I disagree, I think at some point in time it’ll be day and date just like what happened for PC. They’ll see the big money from shorter gaps until there is no gap.

As for your other point, the whole situation is pretty much that dependent on what people invest in the Xbox ecosystem for will decide how Microsoft’s multiplatform experiment turns out.

@GeeEssEff I think it’s to do with the news cycle, the kind of news which came after the February podcast was:

• Rumours about lots more Xbox exclusives coming to PS5
• Xbox exclusives run best on PS5
• Some major 3rd party games like MH Stories 1+2 skipping Xbox
• 3rd parties question if there’s any point releasing games on Xbox
• 3rd party Game Pass deals drying up

Combined with that currently the only XGS release this year before Fall is Hellblade 2 next month (which is already getting blasted for not being 60fps), I can understand the strategy for hyping up next gen to try and focus the news cycle away from stuff that can be interpreted as the end of the Xbox platform incoming.

@GeeEssEff I don’t think they have much of a choice at this point given they chose the multiplatform option.

• Want to play Xbox exclusives with the best performance that consoles can offer? You can buy a PS5/PS5 Pro and also get access to PS exclusives
• Want to play Xbox exclusives anywhere? You can buy a Switch 2 and also get access to Nintendo exclusives

So the teasing seems targeted at trying to convince people that it’s worthwhile investing in the Xbox ecosystem even in the absence of exclusives.

@ZYDIO Most is an exaggeration. Yes, they did do a good job with backwards compatibility in 2015 - 2019 and the bonus batch coinciding with Xbox’s 20th anniversary in 2021 but there is still a lot being lost. Not just games but DLC too.

Granted, if this announcement turns out to be a tease where at the June showcase they announce that Series X|S is getting full backwards compatibility with all 3 previous Xbox generations (even stuff like Project Gotham Racing, peripheral games like The Beatles Rock Band, Kinect 360/XB1 games and broken games like Sonic 06) with that being their workaround for the 360 shutdown in July then fair enough.

But their current actions are leaning in the opposite direction. Killing off physical and closing down stores that haven’t been rescued on modern platforms yet.

As for your comment about Sony and Nintendo, you can currently still redownload Wii/3DS/Wii U content you purchased and Sony backtracked on the PS3/Vita store shutdowns (PSP content can still be bought and played on PSP via the PS3 store). I wouldn’t be surprised if things change in the near future though.

Not really sure what to make of this because the immediate preservation problem is self-inflicted, namely Microsoft shutting down the 360 marketplace in July. “Adorably all digital” is also a really bad look on that front.

They likely chose Sea of Thieves as the key test because PS5 preorder numbers probably already exceeded Microsoft’s expectations.

@NEStalgia I think if the problem was already solved for Xbox/360 backwards compatibility versions natively on PC, we would’ve had a Rare Replay PC port by now considering that it and Halo 5 are the XB1 XGS games that aren’t on PC which don’t require Kinect and aren’t delisted.

Halo 5 would’ve needed fixing up the XB1 version first meanwhile Rare Replay already runs very well on Xbox.

@NEStalgia I was looking at it more like a result of architecture differences much like how Microsoft couldn’t do proper full backwards compatibility for Xbox and Xbox 360 games on XB1/Series X|S. The best they could do is a case by case scenario where if a game ran properly and Microsoft managed to get the licence, it could be released via the backwards compatibility program.

In addition we've found out that some 3rd parties hate backwards compatibility because it decreases potential sales for ports/remasters/remakes of games that would be already available via backwards compatibility which would make the licensing part even harder.

So it doesn’t really sound feasible for any kind of Xbox console/PC merging other than a PC that can play Xbox console games via the cloud.

@NEStalgia PC is a Microsoft platform because of Windows. On the hardware side you’d have PCs that can play PC games normally and your Xbox library is in the cloud.

@somnambulance To be fair, I’m not sure Game Pass is a focus for them anymore. Of course they’ve made deals with 3rd parties in the past which still need to be honoured but between Activision games being an extremely sluggish rollout and the article about Game Pass deals drying up, it doesn’t feel like Game Pass is a focus anymore. I think the focus is being a multiplatform publisher and that’s why they’re having to be careful about messaging.