Grumblevolcano

Given an upcoming 2023 XGS game wasn't at the showcase (the console version of Age of Empires 4), I honestly think there'll be another Xbox event later this year. Gamescom is probably focused on Starfield so maybe something for November?

I'd say it was a solid showcase, ranked it a B. Nice variety of games shown more in depth and some of the surprises like the Hi-Fi Rush update and the ID@Xbox stuff were cool but I would say a fair amount of the surprises should've been in the main showcase instead of Extended.

Perhaps this gives some validity to those 2024 mid gen revision rumours.

B or 6/10, a solid showcase with a variety of games even though I was only interested in Fable, Clockwork Revolution and the Atlus stuff. Was surprised we didn't see Age of Empires 4 for console given that's currently scheduled for 2023, there was a large focus on 2024 and beyond as well as not enough gameplay.

But it's entirely possible that all my issues with the showcase gets resolved with the Extended showcase on Tuesday.

I have no expectations as I could see it go either way. I could see a very good showcase where we finally see a load of those 2019/2020 announcements return among some new stuff. On the other hand, I could instead see a really bad showcase where Forza + Starfield is doing all the heavy lifting while Microsoft pulls a "imagine what would've been on Game Pass if the CMA didn't block the Activision acquisition" because they expected to close the acquisition by now.

@Green-Bandit The point I was trying to get across is that Square Enix have already taken into account the PS5 exclusivity for their expectations. If it was multiplatform day 1, yes of course there would be more preorders but Square Enix's expectations would also be higher hence resulting in the same panicking that's currently being reported on.

Multiplatform would of course be the better outcome, all I was saying is that it wouldn't solve Square Enix's specific problem. Meanwhile if they revealed FFVII Rebirth in September 2023 instead of June 2022, that would've solved their problem.

@Green-Bandit Release pacing is FFXVI's biggest problem, namely that FFVII Rebirth's launching a mere 7 months later (early 2024 means January/February 2024).

Powerwash Simulator seems like a guaranteed game that's leaving Game Pass given it's the only Square Enix game left on Game Pass.

Since their acquisition of Bethesda, all the showcases have started and finished with Bethesda. So my predictions are:

• Showcase starts with Wolfenstein III
• XGS updates: Forza Motorsport release window, Hellblade 2 release window, Avowed trailer but no release window, AoE 4 console release date, ARA release date, ESO trailer, next Sea of Thieves season content, next Fallout 76 update
• XGS new announcements: Gears collection, Fable collection, Hi-Fi Rush DLC, some kind of Double Fine collection or remaster, 1-2 Xbox Games Studios Publishing releases
• New hardware and services announcements (e.g. multiple new controllers, some already existing games being added to Game Pass, perhaps a new Game Pass tier)
• Close the showcase with a Starfield trailer which then goes straight into the Starfield Direct

Don't think Halo Infinite or Redfall will be present, instead them being blogpost announcements whenever the time is suitable for more news.

Don't have specific 3rd party predictions but I feel there'll be a wide variety of 3rd party presence.

@NeutronBomb It's all down to Microsoft's acquisitions. Sony are going all in on live service games of their own because Microsoft are acquiring the big 3rd party multiplatform ones. You can't trust Microsoft to keep releasing games on Playstation beyond anything legally forced and day 1 Game Pass will skew players of those games more towards Xbox.

Watching it live unless Nintendo decides to shadow drop something like Metroid Prime 2 or the next wave of MK8 Deluxe DLC a few days prior to the showcase.

I feel it'll be a collection of the previous games. While Halo Infinite itself didn't deliver, MCC's 2nd life (the collection being fixed for console in 2018, more stuff added and the PC journey from 2019) was a very effective method in getting people excited for Infinite.

@Cherip-the-Ripper Sadly it's not the case. While there's workarounds for some 360 peripherals like adapters were created for Rock Band 4 to be able to use a large selection of 360 instruments, what I have in mind is more being able to just sync up any 360 controller or peripheral to your XB1/Series X|S and without the need for any adapters.

Doubling down on preserving the legacy of Xbox. Stuff like the return of the backwards compatiblity program, an official announcement committing to not shutting down the 360, the release of a Gears collection (including all 4 360 games), being able to easily use Xbox 360 controllers on XB1/Series X|S, bringing back 1 vs. 100, etc.

I don't know what but I feel it's instead something to do with the next Game Pass batch. The previous batch has its last game being added tomorrow (Chicory) and I really doubt there'd be no Game Pass additions between that and the showcase on June 11th.

I'd guess Stacking and The Cave Remastered. Costume Quest got added to Game Pass last year and Stacking had the same publisher. As for The Cave, you can't buy it anymore on Xbox so if it was to appear on Game Pass it would be in the form of a remaster.

@GiveMeMoney Good call, a collection of their pre-XB1 Xbox games that aren't Kinect or licensed games (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, Costume Quest, Stacking, The Cave, Iron Brigade) would fit that hint well.

I honestly get the impression that if there's no Nintendo Direct, Nintendo will popularize the "do no big event, just do a Partner Showcase and mostly dripfeed 1st party info on social media" approach to the summer that they used in 2020 and 2022 because after all the big showcases all attention is still on TotK as if the showcases never happened.

So like for example in 2024 for events you see:

• January - Xbox Developer Direct
• February - Nintendo Direct, State of Play
• April - ID@Xbox Showcase, Nintendo Indie World
• June - Xbox Developer Direct, Nintendo Partner Showcase, State of Play
• August - Nintendo Indie World
• September - Nintendo Direct, State of Play, ID@Xbox Showcase
• November - Xbox Developer Direct
• December - Nintendo Indie World

360, didn't have stick drift problems back in those days.

@NEStalgia I think this news gives us the real reason FFVII Remake isn't on Xbox. It's not because Sony is blocking the release (all exclusivity deals for it were over in June 2022) but rather Microsoft's basically saying "if you won't let us have it on Game Pass day 1, we have no interest in a Xbox release happening".

Wouldn't be surprised if Series X|S is the last Xbox console.

@Kaloudz Yeah, the fan favourite mode which appeared in previous Halo games (mostly at launch but 7 months after launch with Halo 5) is coming to Infinite 19 months after launch.

Gears 5 is an interesting starting pick given the franchise currently is MIA. Does make it seem that there's big Gears news in the showcase (perhaps the combination of a collection and Gears 6).

@Fiendish-Beaver Given Series S is mostly used as a Game Pass machine, leaving Series S native releases behind resulting in cloud via GPU being the only way to play upcoming games on Series S like how Starfield would be playable on XB1 could also prove the CMA's argument about the cloud market.

While the EU did approve the deal, they are doing an antitrust investigation into Azure (Microsoft's cloud service) which is rather interesting.

@Banjo- @NEStalgia 2022 was mostly a normal year for Square Enix support on Xbox, you got a bunch of games throughout the year and even a game that was day 1 on Game Pass in July (Powerwash Simulator). What would've changed is later in the year because there's no 2023 Xbox releases and Diofield Chronicle got leaked for Game Pass in early January 2023 but never came.

@themightyant Saying the showcase would focus on the next 12 months would do the trick because a focus doesn't mean everything has to be in that time window. Like how the February 2023 Nintendo Direct was announced to be focused on the 1st half of 2023 and naturally had some games that were releasing later:

• Pikmin 4 - July 21st
• Fashion Dreamer - 2023
• Decapolice - 2023
• Splatoon 3 Side Order DLC - TBA (there is a chance it releases May 31st though)
• Disney Illusion Island - July 28th
• Sea of Stars - August 29th
• A bunch of GB/GBC/GBA games being added to NSO - TBA (though some of them did release in February and March)
• Baten Kaitos 1+2 - Summer 2023 (though June is still summer so could be 1st half)
• Fantasy Life i - 2023
• Professor Layton and the New World of Steam - 2023/2024

Everything else comes out before the end of June 2023.

@S1ayeR74 It's probably CMA looking long term meanwhile EU looking short term. When you've got games like GTAV and MK8 being the current entries in their respective franchises nearly 10 years after launch, 10 years is a rather short amount of time.

@Moonglow I would say Spring 2015 - Spring 2017 was by far the best part of the Phil Spencer era of Xbox. While there were some missteps from Xbox back then like the story of Halo 5's campaign being terrible, for the most part that time period had a really strong Xbox lineup and also got supported with stuff like the backwards compatibility program.

@Bleachedsmiles It did get a delay already but if Microsoft had learned anything from Halo Infinite, they'd have delayed it again. If anything, Redfall showcases that Microsoft have learned absolutely nothing from the Halo Infinite mess.

Delay is better than a buggy game, a delay is the path Redfall should've taken. I really hope from all this that Microsoft learns their lesson and doesn't make another 12 month promise at next month's showcase. It's fine to focus on the next 12 months (like how Nintendo Directs are announced to be focused on the next 6 months) but all promising everything in the showcase will release within the next 12 months does is damage reputations.

@themightyant If the focus is on closing the content gap between console and PC, Fable trilogy would fit. I recall someone on this site saying that Fable 3's no longer playable on PC so much like Gears you have a situation where only the first game is playable on PC from the pre-XB1 era.

Hopefully it's real, my excitement for Xbox is really low (lowest it's been since E3 2013) but something like a Gears collection would convince me to consider re-subscribing to Gold.

Wii U did worse than the XB1 yet the Switch is currently the 3rd most successful console ever (could even overtake PS2 and DS someday if the Switch's successor is years away) so that take is very questionable.

Realistically though, the take is likely nothing more than Microsoft's continued narrative to purposely look weak to try and get regulators to pass the Activision acquisition.

@Sebatrox There's 2 main things to consider in which a Gears collection makes a lot of sense:
1. When you can find multiplayer matches with other players in the 360 versions, they're crawling with cheaters (like with most 360 games in general)
2. PC is a major part of Xbox nowadays and the only 360 Gears game on PC currently is Gears 1 so it's similar to how things were for the MCC PC situation

Mentioning that collections of games are incoming is rather promising. A lot of the exciting Xbox stuff this generation has been about making older games even better and bringing old games to Xbox for the first time. Hopefully that rumour about Marcus Fenix Collection turns out real.

@Kaloudz The 1st half of 2023 lineup feels very like Microsoft wanted to release a load of games even if not ready to make room for Activision (i.e. they expected the acquisition to be completed at such a time that Diablo 4 + Crash Team Rumble would be day 1 on Game Pass). They released 3 ready games in the space of a week (Hi-Fi Rush, Goldeneye, AoE 2) back in January, Ghostwire Tokyo was more rough than the PS5 version and Redfall is a mess.

You've also got Microsoft making threats against the UK because the CMA blocked the acquisition. That kind of pathetic behaviour further suggests that Microsoft's plans were centralized around owning Activision by June.

@kyleforrester87 The cross promotion was likely planned back when Starfield was scheduled for 1st half of 2023 and couldn't be delayed when the game was delayed. The same thing happened when Halo Infinite was delayed a year.

I don't think we've learned anything new from this info so it feels like nothing more than Microsoft trying to distract people from the recent stuff like the state of Redfall.

It feels like a statement Phil Spencer made back in 2011 is ringing extremely true as time moves on through the Series X|S generation:

"If we lose our way with Halo, we lose our way with Xbox"

Given Microsoft basically killed off Halo to make room for owning CoD, I get the feeling they did the same for Gears.

@BRT15 The Developer Direct in January delayed it to just "2023" so it's likely an October/November release. Maybe September if Starfield gets another delay.

Very much looks like lobbying. CMA approves in return for the UK government getting a load of expensive Microsoft products for free.

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2023/04/microsoft-reportedly-invited-to-showcase-its-products-at-uks-10-downing-st-next-week

@BrilliantBill I wouldn't be surprised if Master Chief's story is ended in novels. It really does seem like Microsoft is replacing Halo with CoD on the games front.

@NEStalgia With Sony, I'm pretty sure they're waiting for the CMA and EC decision about Activision. If the deal goes through, Sony's share price will plummet given how much CoD is associated with the Playstation brand and Sony will need something to make it rebound so that's where a showcase comes in. Do note though that what the fans hope for and what shareholders hope for aren't necessarily the same. It could easily be a monkey's paw type situation (here's your showcase but most of the 1st party announcements are live service games as teased a year ago).

Meanwhile Microsoft seems to be a case of rushing games out to make room for the next acquisition. If the Activision acquisition passes in the timeline Microsoft expects, the June Xbox showcase will probably be focused on what the Activision acquisition means for Game Pass. Redfall's release timing was probably to avoid being buried between Activision on Game Pass and Starfield.

@Kaloudz Depends on how long the Starfield Direct is, if it's 30 minutes then the main show is around the same length as last year.

@BrilliantBill Plenty of times Microsoft has chose to kill off their own stuff so they can acquire their bigger competitors in that space. Like that time they killed off Mixer so they could try and acquire TikTok.

Killing off Halo to be able to own CoD seems very much a Microsoft-esque decision.

@NEStalgia Maybe it has something to do with Game Pass deals blocking PS. Octopath was no doubt blocked from releasing on PS4 because of the 2 year Game Pass deal. It's possible that skipping Xbox completely and releasing a PS4 version in 2021 instead would've been more successful for Square Enix.

Meanwhile other games may have been blocked from releasing on PS+ Extra/Premium because of a Game Pass deal that was made at a time when PS+ Extra/Premium didn't exist. See how PS+ Extra/Premium have been getting lots of Square Enix games recently when the 1-2 year Game Pass deals have expired.

@NEStalgia There's also the patent from last week:

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/03/uh-oh-sony-patents-nft-trading-framework-for-gaming-platforms

@themightyant @NEStalgia Judging by Jim Ryan's recent actions, I have a bad feeling Playstation will follow Square Enix down that route. People already were worried about PS Stars and GT7's adjusting car prices in line with real world car prices becoming that kind of thing.

@Wakkawipeout It's rare but sometimes backlash works with Nintendo. They delisted Pikmin 3 and its DLC on the Wii U eshop the day they announced Pikmin 3 Deluxe for Switch (the Wii U version was a lot cheaper as part of the Nintendo Selects line). Backlash resulted in them re-adding the game and DLC to the Wii U eshop.

Hopefully IV + Apocalypse get a Switch physical version if this rumour is true (the others are already on Switch with physical versions). Next week's eshop shutdowns showcase further why Nintendo's the most unreliable when it comes to digital. While Jim Ryan did try to shutdown the PS3 and Vita stores in 2021, the backlash reversed the decision meanwhile the backlash over the 3DS/Wii U eshop shutdown did absolutely nothing.