Medic_alert

@nomither6 still doesn't change the fact that rarely has power been the main draw of a console.

And I have no idea why you are throwing the competitor/not competitor argument at me. It isn't one I'm making. When you are talking about selling over 100m machines all media is in competition for your time and money whether directly or indirectly. How you want to classify those things is of no interest to me.

And handhelds don't always outsell the home hardware. The Vita being the easy response but the 3ds didn't outsell the Xbox 360, PS3 or PS4.

@Millionski this is my feeling too. Coming up to 4.5 years and this gen feels like we are just getting into it.

This is also part of the reason I think you're seeing the numbers above. The cross-gen period has just about faded out now but for many the PS4 and X1 will still play fortnite etc and the current machines have seen no price drop as would normally be the case and have actually gone up in price on the background of some of the hardest economic times since the 80s.

Neither Sony or MS have played a good enough hand to justify massive console sales at this point.

It's fine my biggest issue with the OS is not the UI but the inconsistency in the way it runs.

It doesn't seem to have consistent rules to when a button press takes you back one screen or back to the home screen.

It also still does weird things like getting stuck on 'finishing up' games. It just has random little errors and as such feels very 'windows' to use.

Also why doesn't scrolling with the triggers work in the store?

It just feels a bit inconsistent all round to me.

@nomither6 because that's not why people buy consoles.

Power has rarely if ever been the driver of sales hence why the Series X made no inroads on PS5 and the Switch is on course to be the best selling console ever. Even the PS2 wasn't the most powerful that gen.

The idea that anyone outside the enthusiast crowd is dropping console hardware for PC is just not realistic.

@nomither6 I have no numbers to back this but my guess is that it has absolutely nothing to do with PC and a hell of a lot to do with the Switch 2 announcement.

For just a second I thought Xbox was publishing an official release of Fallout London....

Colour me disappointed...

Interesting idea and one that feels like a good fit for AI.

I wonder if more long term the system could basically re-write any code to run on modern hardware? Albeit that that would be the end of the remaster we currently get... or it could mean hundreds more of them.

Interesting to see where this goes.

Very early days for me but I just don't like the combat and the respawning enemies that means more tedious combat.

7 for me so far, preferred Outer worlds

@armondo36 then I will move away from all of it.

But I have heard this assumption before and it only works if consumers buy into it - which i won't.

I don't agree that the others will follow. Both Nintendo and Sony are much much smaller than MS and their business model relies on being a platform holder - they don't have a trillion dollar business backing them to drop that revenue.

They could, I suppose end up just being an app on other devices but again that isn't something I'd support.

@armondo36 because you don't have to do what some exec says and 'embrace' it.

If you don't like it then tell them where to stick it and the best way to do that is with your wallet.

For me, I won't buy the next Xbox because it looks like they are prepping to move away from dedicated hardware into a purely digital space and that's not something I want for my gaming.

I don't see how any company can balance being a platform holder with strong dedicated hardware and a 3rd party publisher so I don't want to support something that is that uncertain with my money and my game library.

Embrace it or, like every consumer has the option to do, wave their middle finger at them and not buy their stuff...

I just want all of this to be totally transparent from here on in.

No more marketing fidgey-widgeyness, it just stops us all making informed decisions.

Waving the white flag high on the console business.

Less trouble, less investment and easy cash to end up third party.

Amazing to hear someone with some sense!

As long as everyone is getting paid and there is a bit over for reinvestment then any extra is pure vanity and greed.

Cater to your audience, make the best games you can and everyone walks away happy.

@Jenkinss you gave me nothing in your previous post that made no logical sense. You can't run this back to an absurdity and expect it to make sense.

Your last post however is evidence of a game that appears to have had its potential scope reduced to make the Series S viable.

History is littered with the 'absurdly obvious' being proven wrong and so i work with evidence not some guy on the Internet's opinion.

@Jenkinss so no you don't have any examples or actual evidence. It is just your opinion.

The 'logic' you speak of fails because you still need to know that a developer somewhere had a vision that couldn't be accomplished because of the series S and again as far as I have seen no such comments have been made.

This is just another one of those tired d gamer narratives that have nothing but feelings to back them.

@StonyKL but the game still came out complete on every other platform. Nothing was cut from the design and nothing was held back from anyone else because of the series S - which was the point the other person was making.

There may be instances we don't know about but I don't think we have any evidence that the series S has changed developers' plans/designs and given that the Steam deck is also now a target platform the Series S fares pretty well performance wise.

@Jenkinss is it though? Says who?

I haven't heard a single developer say they have had to cut an idea from a game this gen due to hardware limitations.

Happy to be proven wrong if you have examples.

@WildConcept6 fair enough, however we have heard from developers under the Xbox banner that they are prioritising visuals over performance to 'fully recognise their vision this gen, thinking particularly Starfield and Hellblade when in my view it really isn't a great position to be in considering that this generation was all about higher frame rates and faster load times.

Interesting take.

I guess like all things there is no black and white here and lots will depend on how the devs focus their efforts and the way they work.

But it is awesome that someone has found a way to use the Series S as a base level to bench from and work up making all other versions better rather than worse.

Hopefully this is a sign that Xbox have listened and will not allow their devs to simply prioritise visuals over gameplay performance.

These options need to be standard across the whole 1st party catalogue.

Exactly the sort of game i would have bought 6 months ago with it being so critically acclaimed and all.

But I'm being way more fussy these days. My backlog is probably a lifetime's worth already and to be honest my tastes are narrowing in the current market.

Games for me have become too complex and take too long to get to the point I'm enjoying playing it and not learning every system.

If I want complex I'll pick up a medical book for work. For my relaxation, give me simple to pick up and play with a nice amount of depth attached to a gradual learning curve.

@Ricky-Spanish I have only ever played the first one.

It is my opinion that Rapture might be one of the best settings for a game ever. It is a little bit of a shame the first game relies quite heavily on the story twist which for me somewhat kills the replayability of it.

But a definite Xbox 360 great.

I am making a very long overdue visit to Rapture for Bioshock 2!

@Gkobz yes indeed! What part of the world do you work in?

I'm not a MP guy at all, but I do think there could be some room for a good MP RE experience.

I always felt that the opening of the Division with the deserted city showed real promise as a possible zombie game - as well as its bullet sponge enemies.

I'm not sure about the asymmetrical gameplay thing though frome REverse.

@JamesOtown nice, definitely one to keep an eye on.

Thanks!

I'm so tempted to play it just to see if I can choose the right options without the handbook - I am a Paramedic and an advanced practitioner.

I have always wanted a really good game about being a medic. A proper combat medic game could be really cool.

For 3rd parties I absolutely see this to be true.

There is no sense in limiting your market for a quick pay day when there is other big piles of cash out there!

I wonder what the industry would look like if the red ring of death had never happened....

And then Mattrick on top of that...

@Isolte I'm sure mine will be too. But that's because I'm s**te and only really taught myself to impress girls at parties!

@Isolte couldn't agree more. My 9 year daughter started playing guitar this term and it has prompted me to start looking for stuff she might enjoy.

@Isolte good for you mate. At least you will have them as long as they last for.

I have recently started building my cd collection again because I had forgotten the joy of listening to a whole album because of Spotify.

What I'd really like though is a stereo unit with recordable mini-disc unit in it, (a) because of my nostalgia and (b) because I loved making the digital mix 'tapes'!

@Coletrain thanks. I can't remember honestly.

I type so much junk on here from time to time I may have said something profound on the subject once upon a time. Haha!

@Isolte oh yes of course. It's like the audiophile who 'needs' vinyl for the authenticity, or the PC gamer that will trade a 4090 for a 5090 to squeeze that little extra out their machine - they are a tiny minority and most can't tell the difference.

I just think that will be more limited with games and certain games are going to be really problematic on streaming regardless of your standards.

But maybe those games will just vanish and things that work for that system will be normal.

@Coletrain I've not used Geforce. That said i sold my portal because I could still feel the difference and that was in my own living room.

As I say, maybe I'm wrong. It has been known and I am prepared to accept that some of my views are influenced by the fact it isn't what I want - i have particular issues over lack of ownership and environmental damage here.

@Isolte I don't buy that at all though.

I agree we are likely to be more picky but for some games streaming is pretty much unusable.

Maybe games like dark souls will become more forgiving to allow for lag and signals more consistent so progress is such a game wouldn't be lost? Maybe.

It is totally sub-optimal and I think for a long time yet to come always will be because unlike movies and music etc the unpredictability of playing a game means there can be no buffering in advance and so disruption is always possible.

I may be wrong, technology ends up doing mind blowing things but this seems almost beyond possibility to me.

@Kaloudz when you mention swapping eco-systems you do realise that that is exactly what the platform holders don't want though?

As for this continued assertion that streaming will one day be good enough to replace native gaming, I find it hard to believe.

You will always have lag because you have a picture beamed to you, then you have your reaction time and then the input you make has to be beamed back to the server and the picture of that happening back to you again. That cannot ever be as quick as a device that is hardwired in 6 feet away - unless we are getting into the realm of true quantum computing where every possibility is calculated in a moment and therefore every possibility is available even before you have done it.... but that's not happening at this level in our life time.

@Kaloudz we will see. Do you envisage that each platform will simply be a store front or an app then?

Because they will still need a walled off eco-system of some sort or they won't get the billions from their 30% cut - if indeed that still exists.

It will be interesting to see if the public pick up on the subs model over the current one because so far they haven't and I don't currently believe they will. There will always be problems with streaming and my tolerance for it is certainly not there, whether others will get past that remains to be seen.

@Kaloudz I think the rage is because they can't see how the eco-system on dedicated Xbox hardware continues.

Fewer and fewer reasons to buy one with each release and eventually that means it won't be worth making consoles if that continues and people don't want that to happen.

I've been expecting it for a while but I didn't think it would just be dropping onto the platform just like that so soon with so little fanfare.

@IOI it is still worth playing in my opinion but it has a lot of elements to the gameplay which in my view start to feel fiddly.

The platforming in particular is probably over played.

Some love it though and would say it improves on everything. I didn't like the season pass content though.

@SMJ @Kaloudz @Hurblyburbly i really enjoyed it too.

I played it quite recently and while it is ugly as hell and is quite cheap in enemy placement I like how much of Doom 2016 I could see in it - like a prototype game.

I hope the tank like battles mean this will be more 2016 than Eternal.

It took me so long to get into Eternal. It is still a pretty great game but too contrived. So many different ways you have to kill things for power ups and the Marauders are almost quick time lame in how you beat them.

Doom 2016 is one of my favourite games ever - definitely top 10 so Dark Ages has a lot to live up to in my eyes!

@DKG-85 I remember when people were saying Xbox hardware sales would catch up this gen.

Who cares? People make incorrect predictions all the time.

I must be missing something. All these people in support of this model and yet because Sony has a strong platform and has managed to build a solid customer base, they are able to rake in literal billions off other people's work.

In 2021 PlayStation made around $7.5bn off of microtransactions. If you know PS games you will know they hardly have any, so they are making literal billions off the work of others by being a platform holder.

Why risk that for some extra game sales?

Simple answer to this is either MS didn't think it was worth putting the money on the table for it again or MLB/Sony think they can make more cash without gamepass, with sales on either Xbox or PS.

@DKG-85 as per the video posted to me above, Phil Spencer appears to be saying they won't go through the back catalogue for PS games - if I'm honest my guess would be it would be too much effort.

But the series X and PS5 are so similar in so many ways that it is easy enough to do for new titles.

But the reason I think this game is different for Xbox than for PS is simply the sales of hardware. As much as they like to scoot around it being a platform holder is massive if you are selling 100m+ consoles. 30% of every game, dlc and microtransaction sold going into the bank for basically maintaining servers - it is a huge money spinner and why Sony were so worried about COD.

And while Sony have dug themselves a live service pit in the last few years, they have made significant cuts to devs and staffing and will no doubt have a road map back to better days, we will see if it works but with PS5 tracking above PS4 they should be fine without any more mistakes.

And this is why I don't see any games going from PS to Xbox for the foreseeable future, it makes no sense to degrade one of their biggest income streams by giving up their competitive advantage - their first party library to Xbox.

We will see. Until Xbox clarifies their position we won't know for sure until then we just watch for the next Xbox tent-pole. If Gears e day or Fable come to PS then all bets are off!

@fatpunkslim he didn't say no at all. He said not all Xbox games going all the way back would come out on PlayStation.

Then he gave the usual case by case basis waffle.

@fatpunkslim I mean i just listened to the clip you sent me that gave precisely zero assurances of whether games were coming to other platforms or not except to say they wouldn't be going through the whole back catalogue.

Yeah there is some speculation, extrapolating out from current trends and the general refusal to out and out deny it just like Phil did in that interview.

But it is no more speculation than your interpretation.