Why would the layoffs be bad if Microsoft are getting rid of all the people who are contributing to the terrible company culture at Activision? Because that's how I perceive that, it doesn't make sense to acquire a publisher and lay off people immediately for no good reason. I don't remember that happening to ZeniMax after the acquisition.
@AFCC The problem is that PS users don't know anything about Microsoft and their work, and genuinely don't care about learning about them. Yesterday I presented a post on Push Square stating dozens of examples of why Microsoft is good for gaming and people just shrugged it off, weren't even willing to listen to what I had to say. So yeah, if you're not going to widen your perspectives and only restrict yourself to one company, then you're going to get a skewed view of the gaming industry.
Both companies have good aspects and both have bad aspects, and the scales of who's the most good right now shift every generation it seems like. Microsoft was the bad guy when Xbox One came out, and Sony was the good guy throughout most of the PS4 generation. These past few years, Sony has been perceived to be the bad guy due to a lot of awful decisions, while Microsoft has been recovering and doing a lot of good moves. This could always change in the future, PlayStation becomes good and Microsoft becomes bad again due to arrogance.
But as of right now, I find the good outweighs the bad in terms of Microsoft while my opinion of Sony hasn't changed much because they've been awfully quiet the past six months or so. And this is how I view things as both a PlayStation and Xbox supporter.
I remember when Nintendo started releasing amiibos on Wii U and that became a huge thing at the time. Microsoft could definitely do something similar with Skylanders but expand upon that with all of their franchises. I'm sure people would love to collect figures of Master Chief, Doomguy, Crash and all these other characters.
@isturbo1984 Last month I played through Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 on Cloud Gaming on my base Xbox One with a wired connection and 250 mbps download speed and it worked almost flawlessly. There's no lag at all, the only issue I've experienced is that the image will refresh from time to time, which usually happens during cut-scenes for me for some reason. Other than that, Cloud Gaming has been absolutely phenomenal and this will enable me to play all future Series X titles on my base Xbox One without having to buy a next-gen system. I highly recommend checking it out as long as you have a wired connection and fast internet.
Edit: I realised now that you meant Cloud on mobile devices, so please feel free to ignore my post.
Lots of great games that are most likely coming to Game Pass and hopefully with this acquisition, Microsoft might be able to release another batch of backwards compatible games now that they own Activision Blizzard.
This shouldn't be seen as a big deal since the stock value will recover over time. However, it is still a significant drop and will be a wake-up call for Sony. I'm interested to see how they will respond to this.
That's the thing with these acquisitions that most people seem to forget: Activision Blizzard WANTED to sell. It's not like Microsoft forced them to do anything. It's the same thing with ZeniMax, I believe there were reports stating that they were having financial issues and wanted to sell as well.
If anything, I'm glad that Microsoft bought them instead of Facebook, Google, Tencent or what have you. At least this way they can be given more creative freedom considering e.g. CoD is just the same game every year, workplace culture can be improved since Microsoft is a company that cares about its image a lot, and we consumers will be getting more games on Game Pass, which is available on numerous platforms. This was honestly the best outcome of this whole story.
@isturbo1984 Nowadays when somebody says "exclusive to Xbox", it means exclusive to the ecosystem, which consists of the Xbox console(s), smart devices through Cloud Gaming and PC, which can be either Microsoft's own platform and/or Steam as Microsoft's IPs are also being released on there. Steam isn't a competitor:
Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Sea of Thieves, Master Chief Collection and more are available on Steam.
In terms of Quake, it's not a new game so I guess that's why it came out on all consoles. Either that or it was already in development for those systems. We'll have to see more examples to gain a better understanding of Microsoft's strategy.
Come on, let's not repeat the same thing like with Bethesda. Back then everyone was asking if Elder Scrolls VI or Starfield would come to PlayStation.
Starfield is Xbox exclusive and so is another ZeniMax title, which is Redfall.
All new Activision Blizzard games will be exclusive to Xbox, while remasters might come out on other systems just like Quake 1 did. That seems to be the pattern that Microsoft is following.
Microsoft is a company that cares about its image a lot. They're not going to acquire Activision Blizzard and not have a plan of what to do with Bobby and the overall company culture. Things will definitely get better.
Well the Activision acquisition is absolutely going to make that number increase even faster now. The audiences for those franchises are absolutely huge and imagine knowing that you only need to pay €10 to play the next Call of Duty on Game Pass. A lot of people are going to flock to Xbox now. Insane.
Holy crap, there are actually lots of great games on sale here that I've still not bought yet, such as the Timesplitters games and Nights into dreams. I've been also in a mood to play Midnight Club Los Angeles. I had that game for a while on 360 but I regrettably sold it off. Might have to get it now! Not to mention titles like XCOM Enemy Within that are like €25 for a used copy and now it's only €8. I'm so glad that Xbox has backwards compatibility so that we can have sales like this.
@Medic_Alert Well I mean, physical game preservation makes less sense for companies than digital because they can't keep producing e.g. PS1 or GameCube games physically forever since demand will eventually become too low that it's not worth it anymore. I think it makes more sense to focus on digital because you don't have to worry about constantly manufacturing more copies, the material is always available online for purchase. That's how it's been with PC all this time after all. Servers can be shut down on PC as well and suddenly there are no games to purchase. Not to mention that physical games will eventually deteriorate. So there are definitely pros and cons with both methods, but overall I think digital preservation is the best approach. Which is why it's important to have a universal system. If Sony decides to shut down the PS3 and Vita store, then we are all out of luck. But if Microsoft shuts down the 360 store, then we can at least play a good amount of our 360 games on One and Series X/S.
@themightyant You were talking about how there isn't full backwards compatibility on Xbox. You said that there is only a certain amount of Xbox and Xbox 360 games. I responded directly to that by saying those are 700 more games on Xbox than on PlayStation. We're discussing Xbox and Xbox 360 games, therefore in the context of what we're discussing, what I said made sense. However, if you were to read my post separately from all the other ones we've made, then yes I can understand why there would need to be clarification. But you're an active participant in this discussion so I shouldn't need to be pointing out everything word-by-word for you to understand what I mean. If you're not paying attention to what we're talking about, then that's completely on you.
@themightyant You pointed out Xbox and Xbox 360 games, the correspondents are PS2 and PS3 titles. Why would you think that I meant Xbox One and PS4 as well?
@themightyant It doesn't matter how many BC titles there are in total, what matters is which systems they are from. As I said, those are 700 more Xbox and Xbox 360 backwards compatible games than what PlayStation would correspondingly have in terms of PS2 and PS3 titles.
PlayStation Game Pass is necessary for increased competition in order to keep Microsoft on their toes. More competition means that Microsoft will have to make Game Pass even more compelling, which will benefit us consumers in the long run. More games, more perks, more features and so on. It's simply good stuff all around.
@themightyant I feel like we're not quite there yet with PlayStation because you can't play PS1, PS2 and PS3 games on PS5. They had a good thing going for a while where you could play PS1 games on PS3 and Vita but then they abandoned that going into PS4. Nintendo is especially bad because they too had a good thing going with Wii and Wii U but messed it up with Switch. The fact that you can't play any of the games you've bought on past Nintendo systems on the Switch is absolutely terrible. It highlights one of the main issues that consoles have struggled with for so long and that's creating a universal system. You can't be forced to constantly repurchase the same game over and over every time a new system comes out.
It's stuff like "Ronald assured Xbox fans that backwards compatibility will continue to be an influence when Microsoft decides to create the next set of consoles" that makes me glad to be purchasing games on Xbox. If someone buys a game like Jade Empire or Gears Tactics today, they can expect them to be playable on the next-gen Xbox system. It's having a universal system like we see on PC that makes Xbox a great ecosystem to invest in.
I guess we'll just have to wait for the games that are leaving on 31st January to be announced and see if A Plague Tale, Control and The Medium are some of them.
I feel like this is something that Microsoft should be doing normally in order to help people make better decisions in terms of what to play next. It's a common complaint that you never know when games will leave, so having a list like this would definitely be reassuring for a lot of people.
I wholeheartedly agree. I've played through all mainline Halo games and the only one that's managed to stick in my mind all these years later is Halo Reach. Then Infinite came along and I was immediately impressed by it. The grappling hook is a game changer and having an open world to explore was super refreshing.
Naturally, if you compare Infinite to other franchises then it won't sound as impressive. But compared to all the previous entries in the Halo series, it truly is the best one so far.
@NEStalgia It's actually crazy to think that the last Forza Motorsport came out in 2017, almost five years ago. What has Turn 10 been up to all this time? Each FM game has only taken two years to develop, so for the newest one to take more than twice that long is weird. It better turn out to be the most revolutionary racing sim the world has ever seen, lol.
@Medic_Alert Well one argument is that it's much easier to sample these games if you have access to all of them through a service instead of having to buy them individually, even if they're cheap. But that's just one aspect of the service. If they add PS1, PS2 and PS3 games as well then they can attract even more subscribers. And who knows what else they might add. Microsoft likes to add perks such as Crunchyroll and Disney+ to Game Pass, and considering Sony now owns Crunchyroll they can just bundle it in with their Game Pass service.
Also, not all PS exclusives are available in the PS+ Collection. Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider-Man, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last of Us Part II and more aren't on there.
I definitely think this will have an impact on Microsoft because they're in the same market. Like I said before, Microsoft hasn't had much competition against Game Pass and the only company that's able to give them a proper run for their money is Sony.
@Ralizah @Medic_Alert Oh no, I definitely don't think Sony will add first-party games day one on its service. But I mean, imagine if PlayStation Game Pass came out next month and Sony advertised it as a €10/month service where you can play titles such as God of War, Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted, The Last of Us and all these great PlayStation exclusives. Because we all know that that Sony excels over Microsoft when it comes to high-quality first-party exclusives and if they play their cards right, they can march right into Microsoft's territory and claim a lot of ground that has taken years for Microsoft to get. It's all about the timing I think, and with less exclusives coming out on Xbox the coming months, the timing is great for Sony.
@xMightyMatt14x I agree, but it's all about keeping the momentum going. Microsoft has said that they want to release at least one exclusive on Game Pass every quarter and it was looking like that was going to be the case this year, but not anymore. It's important to release exclusives on a regular basis in order to keep people subscribed to Game Pass. Otherwise the consumer will just choose another service that has more exclusives, even if they aren't being released day one (i.e. Sony).
@Medic_Alert The bigger issue is that Sony could potentially steal the spotlight from Microsoft this year if they went ahead and launched their Game Pass competitor in the next couple of months. With no exclusives on Xbox, there's a chance people will turn to PlayStation Game Pass instead. I feel like this year will be more critical to Microsoft than we might think.
Obviously we still don't know anything about what Sony's service will actually be like, but the possibility is still there. Up until now, Microsoft really hasn't been met with that much competition in terms of game subscription services and the momentum for Game Pass has been good. But that could all change now that there are less exclusives coming out and more competition on the market.
@MaccaMUFC Agreed, or at least add some heavy-hitters like they've done with Mass Effect and Hitman this month. I don't know how long it takes for deals to be made with regards to Game Pass, but there's definitely a high likelihood that we won't get as many compelling games during those months compared to the rest of the year, and that's also bad.
Not good at all. Considering Stalker 2 has been delayed and now Redfall might be delayed as well, we're looking at basically nothing in terms of major exclusives on Xbox for the first 10 months of 2022. This will definitely hurt Game Pass unless Microsoft is able to make deals with third-party studios to release more games on the service that will replace them.
@NEStalgia That's why I asked people on Push Square about this and then I found out that these games are heavily reliant on an online connection in order for progression to work. Not to mention that physical copies are a mess in terms of what's on and not on the disc. At least this way I don't need to worry about any of this and I get to (hopefully) play all of them through Cloud Gaming.
I think it's good that they're focusing on current-gen systems now. It's also important that they stop selling Xbox One systems because people will confuse them with the Series models. Now there will only be two models to choose from in stores, which will makes things easier for consumers.
@JayJ I definitely don't think the Series S would be as popular if it weren't for Game Pass. If you remove that then there's very few options of how you can get access to games on that system. Just goes to show what a great idea Game Pass is.
@Fenbops What does that have to do with anything? If both parties broke the rules, then both of them will suffer the consequences. The problem is that online communication has long been minimally unregulated and people are allowed to say whatever they want without consequences. More changes need to be made, I'd even love to see these people who make these remarks be reported to the police. Just because you're online doesn't mean that you can say whatever you want!
If people actually bothered to read the article instead of replying to the headline, you'd see he mentions multiple measures of taking action against people who are breaking the rules.
Also I find this comment section in very poor taste, especially considering we had an article a couple of weeks ago about a woman who experienced sexist remarks on Xbox Live and now that Spencer actually want to implement changes, people are against it.
The fact that this has gotten such a negative reaction makes me think that maybe there are people here who are rude online.
@Dezzy70 Well if you ask me, Game Pass is still in its infancy stage. We aren't getting many new first-party games day one on a frequent basis because Xbox Game Studios has pretty much just started and Microsoft still wants to acquire more studios in order to release more first-party titles on the service. Cloud Gaming is still in the beta phase and I feel like that feature is going to be absolutely necessary for Game Pass to truly succeed. After all, the mainstream audience doesn't want to wait hours for 100+ GB games to be downloaded. They just want to jump right in and play, the process needs to be instantaneous just like with music and movie/TV show services. Doesn't help either that Game Pass is still not available on smart TVs. And finally, they need to make Game Pass available worldwide and market it heavily. There are still many countries that don't have the service or have it but it's not heavily marketed. I think Game Pass would be very popular in e.g. Japan since Japanese people love to play on their smartphones and Microsoft has been increasing its efforts of adding more touch-control supported titles on Game Pass.
If they could add many more games, including exclusives, improve Cloud Gaming, and reach more nations and people in general through marketing, I think there's definitely a chance for the service to become very successful.
@Dezzy70 If Xbox continued just like before, then yeah it would still be considered a "small side project". However now with Game Pass, that's all changed. I mean, let's say hypothetically speaking that Microsoft reaches a point where Game Pass has 100 million subscribers and they're all paying €10 each month. That's 1 billion euros in pure revenue each month, and 12 billion each year. I don't think Microsoft would consider Xbox as a small side project at that point.
@Balta666 Glad to see another person who liked Andromeda. I'm 15 hours into the game right now and I'm absolutely loving it. The gameplay is the best the series has seen so far. Combat is much more fun and exhilarating compared to the previous titles which were cover-based shooters. Being able to jump and dash makes firefights more fun, and then you have the ability to hotkey three powers, which makes the gameplay much more interesting. I'm focusing on biotics powers right now and it's so satisfying being able to combine attacks and create combo detonators.
Then you have the open worlds and they're great to explore, especially with the improved 'Mako' vehicle. There's so much stuff to do and it's all interesting and fun. This game is just great and so underrated if you ask me.
Is there a rule that says you shouldn't make games too long? Should developers not be allowed to create whatever games they wish? Because here's the thing, if you're intimidated by long games like this one, rest assured there are hundreds of other games for you to play both now and in the future that will be of a length that satisfies you. Not all games are for everyone, but that doesn't mean that these games shouldn't exist. It's important that we have both short and long experiences for those people who want them.
Mass Effect 3 is easily the best one of the three. Mass Effect 2 just doesn't offer anything in terms of story, you're just doing loyalty missions in order to recruit people for the suicide mission. While ME3 on the other hand actually has epic story missions where you do stuff that has been hyped up throughout the entire series. Not to mention the excellent Citadel DLC, which is the best DLC in the series.
It's too bad that Andromeda isn't included in the poll because I've been playing it for 10+ hours this past week and it's such a good game. If I would rank it now, I would definitely put it as the second best ME game after ME3.
Will be playing Mass Effect: Andromeda, Steins;Gate 0 and Sonic & Knuckles. Really liking the first two games so far and it's fun checking out classic Sega games.
@Magabro I don't agree that it's all about games, it's also about creating good will with your customers. A lot of Xbox 360 owners decided to get a PS4 instead of an Xbox One because Microsoft ruined the trust they had with their customers. They've been slowly gaining back that trust by doing stuff like adding backwards compatibility, introducing an affordable subscription service and next-gen hardware, focusing a lot on accessibility, making their titles available on other systems such as PC and smartphones, and so on, i.e. things that benefit consumers a lot. These things are all very important and will give Microsoft an edge over Sony in Japan.
I think it's easy to forget that not all Japanese people want to play only Japanese exclusives. There are so many Japanese people who play on smartphones and play other kinds of games in general. They don't care about exclusives, they just want to have fun in a cheap and convenient way. That's where Xbox and Game Pass will come in.
@Snake_V5 Because they moved their PlayStation HQ from Japan to California, downsized their Japan Studio and let go of a lot key Japanese employees, they're focusing on producing more Hollywood blockbusters instead of a mix between Western and Japanese titles, they've done stuff like force PS5 users in Japan to use X button as accept and O button as decline in order to adhere to the Western standard when it's always been the opposite in Japan (and this ticked off a lot of Japanese users) and so on.
It's not about the games, it's about each company's actions. Sony has clearly been distancing itself from Japan while Microsoft wants an even bigger presence there due to the potential of Game Pass and Cloud Gaming.
@Carck You're right, being able to jump, hover and dash in a Mass Effect game is garbage. They should just go back to making the series a boring cover-based shooter.
Comments 962
Re: Activision Blizzard Employees Dissatisfied With Kotick At Internal Meeting
Why would the layoffs be bad if Microsoft are getting rid of all the people who are contributing to the terrible company culture at Activision? Because that's how I perceive that, it doesn't make sense to acquire a publisher and lay off people immediately for no good reason. I don't remember that happening to ZeniMax after the acquisition.
Re: Xbox Boss 'Trusts' Nintendo & PlayStation, More Concerned About 'Other Tech Competitors'
@AFCC The problem is that PS users don't know anything about Microsoft and their work, and genuinely don't care about learning about them. Yesterday I presented a post on Push Square stating dozens of examples of why Microsoft is good for gaming and people just shrugged it off, weren't even willing to listen to what I had to say. So yeah, if you're not going to widen your perspectives and only restrict yourself to one company, then you're going to get a skewed view of the gaming industry.
Both companies have good aspects and both have bad aspects, and the scales of who's the most good right now shift every generation it seems like. Microsoft was the bad guy when Xbox One came out, and Sony was the good guy throughout most of the PS4 generation. These past few years, Sony has been perceived to be the bad guy due to a lot of awful decisions, while Microsoft has been recovering and doing a lot of good moves. This could always change in the future, PlayStation becomes good and Microsoft becomes bad again due to arrogance.
But as of right now, I find the good outweighs the bad in terms of Microsoft while my opinion of Sony hasn't changed much because they've been awfully quiet the past six months or so. And this is how I view things as both a PlayStation and Xbox supporter.
Re: Activision CEO Wants Guitar Hero & Skylanders To Return On Xbox
I remember when Nintendo started releasing amiibos on Wii U and that became a huge thing at the time. Microsoft could definitely do something similar with Skylanders but expand upon that with all of their franchises. I'm sure people would love to collect figures of Master Chief, Doomguy, Crash and all these other characters.
Re: Touch Controls Are Coming To Nine More Xbox Game Pass Titles
@isturbo1984 Last month I played through Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 on Cloud Gaming on my base Xbox One with a wired connection and 250 mbps download speed and it worked almost flawlessly. There's no lag at all, the only issue I've experienced is that the image will refresh from time to time, which usually happens during cut-scenes for me for some reason. Other than that, Cloud Gaming has been absolutely phenomenal and this will enable me to play all future Series X titles on my base Xbox One without having to buy a next-gen system. I highly recommend checking it out as long as you have a wired connection and fast internet.
Edit: I realised now that you meant Cloud on mobile devices, so please feel free to ignore my post.
Re: These 50+ Activision Blizzard Games Could Be Heading To Xbox Game Pass
Lots of great games that are most likely coming to Game Pass and hopefully with this acquisition, Microsoft might be able to release another batch of backwards compatible games now that they own Activision Blizzard.
Re: Sony Stock Value Drops By $20 Billion After Microsoft Buys Activision Blizzard
This shouldn't be seen as a big deal since the stock value will recover over time. However, it is still a significant drop and will be a wake-up call for Sony. I'm interested to see how they will respond to this.
Re: Activision Looked For Other Buyers Before Accepting Xbox Offer
That's the thing with these acquisitions that most people seem to forget: Activision Blizzard WANTED to sell. It's not like Microsoft forced them to do anything. It's the same thing with ZeniMax, I believe there were reports stating that they were having financial issues and wanted to sell as well.
If anything, I'm glad that Microsoft bought them instead of Facebook, Google, Tencent or what have you. At least this way they can be given more creative freedom considering e.g. CoD is just the same game every year, workplace culture can be improved since Microsoft is a company that cares about its image a lot, and we consumers will be getting more games on Game Pass, which is available on numerous platforms. This was honestly the best outcome of this whole story.
Re: Deals: 250+ Games Included In This Week's Xbox Sales (January 18-25)
Already bought nine games from the backwards compatibility sale! Best sale in a long time
Re: Talking Point: Will Call Of Duty Become An Xbox Exclusive In The Future?
@isturbo1984 Nowadays when somebody says "exclusive to Xbox", it means exclusive to the ecosystem, which consists of the Xbox console(s), smart devices through Cloud Gaming and PC, which can be either Microsoft's own platform and/or Steam as Microsoft's IPs are also being released on there. Steam isn't a competitor:
https://www.purexbox.com/news/2021/11/halo-infinites-multiplayer-is-already-xboxs-most-successful-title-on-steam
Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Sea of Thieves, Master Chief Collection and more are available on Steam.
In terms of Quake, it's not a new game so I guess that's why it came out on all consoles. Either that or it was already in development for those systems. We'll have to see more examples to gain a better understanding of Microsoft's strategy.
Re: Talking Point: Will Call Of Duty Become An Xbox Exclusive In The Future?
Come on, let's not repeat the same thing like with Bethesda. Back then everyone was asking if Elder Scrolls VI or Starfield would come to PlayStation.
Starfield is Xbox exclusive and so is another ZeniMax title, which is Redfall.
All new Activision Blizzard games will be exclusive to Xbox, while remasters might come out on other systems just like Quake 1 did. That seems to be the pattern that Microsoft is following.
Re: Phil Spencer Will Lead Activision Blizzard Teams As CEO Of Microsoft Gaming
Microsoft is a company that cares about its image a lot. They're not going to acquire Activision Blizzard and not have a plan of what to do with Bobby and the overall company culture. Things will definitely get better.
Re: Xbox Game Pass Now Boasts 25 Million Subscribers
Well the Activision acquisition is absolutely going to make that number increase even faster now. The audiences for those franchises are absolutely huge and imagine knowing that you only need to pay €10 to play the next Call of Duty on Game Pass. A lot of people are going to flock to Xbox now. Insane.
Re: Activision Blizzard Games Will Come To Xbox Game Pass As Part Of Acquisition
Really hope they add a lot of classic CoD, Spyro and Crash games on Game Pass in that case.
Re: Microsoft Is Buying Activision Blizzard, Reportedly For $70 Billion
I think the craziest takeaway from this for me is that Microsoft now owns Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon.
Re: Microsoft Is Buying Activision Blizzard, Reportedly For $70 Billion
OMFG, this is insane!
Re: These Seven Games Are Coming To Xbox Game Pass (January 20-31)
Death's Door! Awesome news!
Re: Deals: Xbox Is Having A Massive Backwards Compatibility Sale This Week
Holy crap, there are actually lots of great games on sale here that I've still not bought yet, such as the Timesplitters games and Nights into dreams. I've been also in a mood to play Midnight Club Los Angeles. I had that game for a while on 360 but I regrettably sold it off. Might have to get it now! Not to mention titles like XCOM Enemy Within that are like €25 for a used copy and now it's only €8. I'm so glad that Xbox has backwards compatibility so that we can have sales like this.
Re: Xbox Backwards Compatibility Is Teaching The Industry About Game Preservation, Says Exec
@Medic_Alert Well I mean, physical game preservation makes less sense for companies than digital because they can't keep producing e.g. PS1 or GameCube games physically forever since demand will eventually become too low that it's not worth it anymore. I think it makes more sense to focus on digital because you don't have to worry about constantly manufacturing more copies, the material is always available online for purchase. That's how it's been with PC all this time after all. Servers can be shut down on PC as well and suddenly there are no games to purchase. Not to mention that physical games will eventually deteriorate. So there are definitely pros and cons with both methods, but overall I think digital preservation is the best approach. Which is why it's important to have a universal system. If Sony decides to shut down the PS3 and Vita store, then we are all out of luck. But if Microsoft shuts down the 360 store, then we can at least play a good amount of our 360 games on One and Series X/S.
Re: Xbox Backwards Compatibility Is Teaching The Industry About Game Preservation, Says Exec
@themightyant You were talking about how there isn't full backwards compatibility on Xbox. You said that there is only a certain amount of Xbox and Xbox 360 games. I responded directly to that by saying those are 700 more games on Xbox than on PlayStation. We're discussing Xbox and Xbox 360 games, therefore in the context of what we're discussing, what I said made sense. However, if you were to read my post separately from all the other ones we've made, then yes I can understand why there would need to be clarification. But you're an active participant in this discussion so I shouldn't need to be pointing out everything word-by-word for you to understand what I mean. If you're not paying attention to what we're talking about, then that's completely on you.
Re: Xbox Backwards Compatibility Is Teaching The Industry About Game Preservation, Says Exec
@themightyant You pointed out Xbox and Xbox 360 games, the correspondents are PS2 and PS3 titles. Why would you think that I meant Xbox One and PS4 as well?
Re: Xbox Backwards Compatibility Is Teaching The Industry About Game Preservation, Says Exec
@themightyant It doesn't matter how many BC titles there are in total, what matters is which systems they are from. As I said, those are 700 more Xbox and Xbox 360 backwards compatible games than what PlayStation would correspondingly have in terms of PS2 and PS3 titles.
Re: Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Reveals His Thoughts On A PlayStation Game Pass
PlayStation Game Pass is necessary for increased competition in order to keep Microsoft on their toes. More competition means that Microsoft will have to make Game Pass even more compelling, which will benefit us consumers in the long run. More games, more perks, more features and so on. It's simply good stuff all around.
Re: Xbox Backwards Compatibility Is Teaching The Industry About Game Preservation, Says Exec
@themightyant Explains the lack of PS3 BC on PS4, but not the lack of PS1 and PS2 BC on PS4.
No, you can't play PS1 games on PS5 via PS Now and you can only play a handful of remastered PS2 games on PS5 via PS Now.
Those are 700 more games that are backwards compatible on Xbox than on PlayStation.
Re: Xbox Backwards Compatibility Is Teaching The Industry About Game Preservation, Says Exec
@themightyant I feel like we're not quite there yet with PlayStation because you can't play PS1, PS2 and PS3 games on PS5. They had a good thing going for a while where you could play PS1 games on PS3 and Vita but then they abandoned that going into PS4. Nintendo is especially bad because they too had a good thing going with Wii and Wii U but messed it up with Switch. The fact that you can't play any of the games you've bought on past Nintendo systems on the Switch is absolutely terrible. It highlights one of the main issues that consoles have struggled with for so long and that's creating a universal system. You can't be forced to constantly repurchase the same game over and over every time a new system comes out.
Re: Xbox Backwards Compatibility Is Teaching The Industry About Game Preservation, Says Exec
It's stuff like "Ronald assured Xbox fans that backwards compatibility will continue to be an influence when Microsoft decides to create the next set of consoles" that makes me glad to be purchasing games on Xbox. If someone buys a game like Jade Empire or Gears Tactics today, they can expect them to be playable on the next-gen Xbox system. It's having a universal system like we see on PC that makes Xbox a great ecosystem to invest in.
Re: Xbox Store Hints At Potential Leaving Dates For Many Game Pass Titles
I guess we'll just have to wait for the games that are leaving on 31st January to be announced and see if A Plague Tale, Control and The Medium are some of them.
I feel like this is something that Microsoft should be doing normally in order to help people make better decisions in terms of what to play next. It's a common complaint that you never know when games will leave, so having a list like this would definitely be reassuring for a lot of people.
Re: Random: Legendary Filmmaker Thinks Halo Infinite Is The 'Best Of The Halo Series'
I wholeheartedly agree. I've played through all mainline Halo games and the only one that's managed to stick in my mind all these years later is Halo Reach. Then Infinite came along and I was immediately impressed by it. The grappling hook is a game changer and having an open world to explore was super refreshing.
Naturally, if you compare Infinite to other franchises then it won't sound as impressive. But compared to all the previous entries in the Halo series, it truly is the best one so far.
Re: Rumour: Xbox Exclusive Redfall Could Be Next In Line For A Delay
@NEStalgia It's actually crazy to think that the last Forza Motorsport came out in 2017, almost five years ago. What has Turn 10 been up to all this time? Each FM game has only taken two years to develop, so for the newest one to take more than twice that long is weird. It better turn out to be the most revolutionary racing sim the world has ever seen, lol.
Re: Rumour: Xbox Exclusive Redfall Could Be Next In Line For A Delay
@Medic_Alert Well one argument is that it's much easier to sample these games if you have access to all of them through a service instead of having to buy them individually, even if they're cheap. But that's just one aspect of the service. If they add PS1, PS2 and PS3 games as well then they can attract even more subscribers. And who knows what else they might add. Microsoft likes to add perks such as Crunchyroll and Disney+ to Game Pass, and considering Sony now owns Crunchyroll they can just bundle it in with their Game Pass service.
Also, not all PS exclusives are available in the PS+ Collection. Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider-Man, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last of Us Part II and more aren't on there.
I definitely think this will have an impact on Microsoft because they're in the same market. Like I said before, Microsoft hasn't had much competition against Game Pass and the only company that's able to give them a proper run for their money is Sony.
Re: Rumour: Xbox Exclusive Redfall Could Be Next In Line For A Delay
@Ralizah @Medic_Alert Oh no, I definitely don't think Sony will add first-party games day one on its service. But I mean, imagine if PlayStation Game Pass came out next month and Sony advertised it as a €10/month service where you can play titles such as God of War, Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted, The Last of Us and all these great PlayStation exclusives. Because we all know that that Sony excels over Microsoft when it comes to high-quality first-party exclusives and if they play their cards right, they can march right into Microsoft's territory and claim a lot of ground that has taken years for Microsoft to get. It's all about the timing I think, and with less exclusives coming out on Xbox the coming months, the timing is great for Sony.
@xMightyMatt14x I agree, but it's all about keeping the momentum going. Microsoft has said that they want to release at least one exclusive on Game Pass every quarter and it was looking like that was going to be the case this year, but not anymore. It's important to release exclusives on a regular basis in order to keep people subscribed to Game Pass. Otherwise the consumer will just choose another service that has more exclusives, even if they aren't being released day one (i.e. Sony).
Re: Rumour: Xbox Exclusive Redfall Could Be Next In Line For A Delay
@Medic_Alert The bigger issue is that Sony could potentially steal the spotlight from Microsoft this year if they went ahead and launched their Game Pass competitor in the next couple of months. With no exclusives on Xbox, there's a chance people will turn to PlayStation Game Pass instead. I feel like this year will be more critical to Microsoft than we might think.
Obviously we still don't know anything about what Sony's service will actually be like, but the possibility is still there. Up until now, Microsoft really hasn't been met with that much competition in terms of game subscription services and the momentum for Game Pass has been good. But that could all change now that there are less exclusives coming out and more competition on the market.
Re: Rumour: Xbox Exclusive Redfall Could Be Next In Line For A Delay
@MaccaMUFC Agreed, or at least add some heavy-hitters like they've done with Mass Effect and Hitman this month. I don't know how long it takes for deals to be made with regards to Game Pass, but there's definitely a high likelihood that we won't get as many compelling games during those months compared to the rest of the year, and that's also bad.
Re: Rumour: Xbox Exclusive Redfall Could Be Next In Line For A Delay
Not good at all. Considering Stalker 2 has been delayed and now Redfall might be delayed as well, we're looking at basically nothing in terms of major exclusives on Xbox for the first 10 months of 2022. This will definitely hurt Game Pass unless Microsoft is able to make deals with third-party studios to release more games on the service that will replace them.
Re: Hitman Trilogy Releases Next Week, Launching With Xbox Game Pass
@NEStalgia That's why I asked people on Push Square about this and then I found out that these games are heavily reliant on an online connection in order for progression to work. Not to mention that physical copies are a mess in terms of what's on and not on the disc. At least this way I don't need to worry about any of this and I get to (hopefully) play all of them through Cloud Gaming.
Re: Hitman Trilogy Releases Next Week, Launching With Xbox Game Pass
I was just asking people the other day if it's worth buying these games and now they're coming to Game Pass! Absolutely brilliant!
Re: Microsoft Is Officially No Longer Manufacturing Xbox One Consoles
I think it's good that they're focusing on current-gen systems now. It's also important that they stop selling Xbox One systems because people will confuse them with the Series models. Now there will only be two models to choose from in stores, which will makes things easier for consumers.
Re: Reaction: Sony Continuing PS4 Production Shows The Xbox Series S Was A Great Move
@JayJ I definitely don't think the Series S would be as popular if it weren't for Game Pass. If you remove that then there's very few options of how you can get access to games on that system. Just goes to show what a great idea Game Pass is.
Re: Phil Spencer Wants The Gaming Industry To Implement Cross-Platform Bans
@Fenbops What does that have to do with anything? If both parties broke the rules, then both of them will suffer the consequences. The problem is that online communication has long been minimally unregulated and people are allowed to say whatever they want without consequences. More changes need to be made, I'd even love to see these people who make these remarks be reported to the police. Just because you're online doesn't mean that you can say whatever you want!
Re: Phil Spencer Wants The Gaming Industry To Implement Cross-Platform Bans
If people actually bothered to read the article instead of replying to the headline, you'd see he mentions multiple measures of taking action against people who are breaking the rules.
Also I find this comment section in very poor taste, especially considering we had an article a couple of weeks ago about a woman who experienced sexist remarks on Xbox Live and now that Spencer actually want to implement changes, people are against it.
The fact that this has gotten such a negative reaction makes me think that maybe there are people here who are rude online.
Re: OG Xbox Creator 'Feared It Was All Over' At The Xbox One Launch
@Dezzy70 Well if you ask me, Game Pass is still in its infancy stage. We aren't getting many new first-party games day one on a frequent basis because Xbox Game Studios has pretty much just started and Microsoft still wants to acquire more studios in order to release more first-party titles on the service. Cloud Gaming is still in the beta phase and I feel like that feature is going to be absolutely necessary for Game Pass to truly succeed. After all, the mainstream audience doesn't want to wait hours for 100+ GB games to be downloaded. They just want to jump right in and play, the process needs to be instantaneous just like with music and movie/TV show services. Doesn't help either that Game Pass is still not available on smart TVs. And finally, they need to make Game Pass available worldwide and market it heavily. There are still many countries that don't have the service or have it but it's not heavily marketed. I think Game Pass would be very popular in e.g. Japan since Japanese people love to play on their smartphones and Microsoft has been increasing its efforts of adding more touch-control supported titles on Game Pass.
If they could add many more games, including exclusives, improve Cloud Gaming, and reach more nations and people in general through marketing, I think there's definitely a chance for the service to become very successful.
Re: OG Xbox Creator 'Feared It Was All Over' At The Xbox One Launch
@Dezzy70 If Xbox continued just like before, then yeah it would still be considered a "small side project". However now with Game Pass, that's all changed. I mean, let's say hypothetically speaking that Microsoft reaches a point where Game Pass has 100 million subscribers and they're all paying €10 each month. That's 1 billion euros in pure revenue each month, and 12 billion each year. I don't think Microsoft would consider Xbox as a small side project at that point.
Re: OG Xbox Creator 'Feared It Was All Over' At The Xbox One Launch
@Dezzy70 It could've absolutely been over for Xbox: https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-head-phil-spencer-told-microsoft-go-all-gaming-when-brand-was-threatened
"'Satya was transparent that there could be a future where gaming isn't a business that Microsoft should be in,'"
Re: Pick One: Which Is Your Favourite Game In The Mass Effect Trilogy?
@Balta666 Glad to see another person who liked Andromeda. I'm 15 hours into the game right now and I'm absolutely loving it. The gameplay is the best the series has seen so far. Combat is much more fun and exhilarating compared to the previous titles which were cover-based shooters. Being able to jump and dash makes firefights more fun, and then you have the ability to hotkey three powers, which makes the gameplay much more interesting. I'm focusing on biotics powers right now and it's so satisfying being able to combine attacks and create combo detonators.
Then you have the open worlds and they're great to explore, especially with the improved 'Mako' vehicle. There's so much stuff to do and it's all interesting and fun. This game is just great and so underrated if you ask me.
Re: Dying Light 2 Will Take About 500 Hours To 100%
Is there a rule that says you shouldn't make games too long? Should developers not be allowed to create whatever games they wish? Because here's the thing, if you're intimidated by long games like this one, rest assured there are hundreds of other games for you to play both now and in the future that will be of a length that satisfies you. Not all games are for everyone, but that doesn't mean that these games shouldn't exist. It's important that we have both short and long experiences for those people who want them.
Re: Pick One: Which Is Your Favourite Game In The Mass Effect Trilogy?
Mass Effect 3 is easily the best one of the three. Mass Effect 2 just doesn't offer anything in terms of story, you're just doing loyalty missions in order to recruit people for the suicide mission. While ME3 on the other hand actually has epic story missions where you do stuff that has been hyped up throughout the entire series. Not to mention the excellent Citadel DLC, which is the best DLC in the series.
It's too bad that Andromeda isn't included in the poll because I've been playing it for 10+ hours this past week and it's such a good game. If I would rank it now, I would definitely put it as the second best ME game after ME3.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (January 8-9)
Will be playing Mass Effect: Andromeda, Steins;Gate 0 and Sonic & Knuckles. Really liking the first two games so far and it's fun checking out classic Sega games.
Re: Xbox Made Progress In Japan Last Year, Despite Being Heavily Outsold By PS5
@Magabro I don't agree that it's all about games, it's also about creating good will with your customers. A lot of Xbox 360 owners decided to get a PS4 instead of an Xbox One because Microsoft ruined the trust they had with their customers. They've been slowly gaining back that trust by doing stuff like adding backwards compatibility, introducing an affordable subscription service and next-gen hardware, focusing a lot on accessibility, making their titles available on other systems such as PC and smartphones, and so on, i.e. things that benefit consumers a lot. These things are all very important and will give Microsoft an edge over Sony in Japan.
I think it's easy to forget that not all Japanese people want to play only Japanese exclusives. There are so many Japanese people who play on smartphones and play other kinds of games in general. They don't care about exclusives, they just want to have fun in a cheap and convenient way. That's where Xbox and Game Pass will come in.
Re: Xbox Made Progress In Japan Last Year, Despite Being Heavily Outsold By PS5
@Snake_V5 Because they moved their PlayStation HQ from Japan to California, downsized their Japan Studio and let go of a lot key Japanese employees, they're focusing on producing more Hollywood blockbusters instead of a mix between Western and Japanese titles, they've done stuff like force PS5 users in Japan to use X button as accept and O button as decline in order to adhere to the Western standard when it's always been the opposite in Japan (and this ticked off a lot of Japanese users) and so on.
It's not about the games, it's about each company's actions. Sony has clearly been distancing itself from Japan while Microsoft wants an even bigger presence there due to the potential of Game Pass and Cloud Gaming.
Re: Three Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (January 6)
@Carck You're right, being able to jump, hover and dash in a Mass Effect game is garbage. They should just go back to making the series a boring cover-based shooter.
Re: Three Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (January 6)
@Magabro Which Andromeda improves upon! But because that game had a poor launch, nobody talks about it even though it's really good.