Comments 3,850

Re: Poll: Xbox Mini Fridge Owners, How Is Yours Holding Up In 2024?

MinervaX

I bought it never intending to use it. It’s still in the box and someday I might place it somewhere just for show, or to store ambient temperature drinks.

I have never had any luck with these small mini-fridges, not even the bigger square ones that are the size of two microwaves stacked on top of each other. Condensed water leaks are always a problem.

Re: Xbox Owner Receives Year-Long Ban After Uploading Baldur's Gate 3 Clips

MinervaX

@J_Mo_Money he is more likely to learn to play on a different platform, unfortunately.

This player might not get their account restored in appeal, but he can always just get the game on PS5 or PC and play there due to the way I understand cross-progression works on that game.

MS really needs to address this, the rating of a game should be factored while auto-sharing clips and their audience.

Re: Fallout: London Finally Makes Its Long-Awaited Arrival In April 2024

MinervaX

@somnambulance The Forgotten City we got on console was an entire re-make of the original mod created as a stand-alone game by an independent studio with full time employees and developed on Unreal Engine.

It's going to be very hard to get this mod in any legal capacity released in consoles, the best chance is if the rumored remaster of Fallout 4 throws out all the limitations of mods that hindered the PS4 and XBox One versions of the game.

Re: Soapbox: Xbox Play Anywhere Is Fantastic, But I Wish It Supported More Games

MinervaX

Personally, I doubt we will see it. A big reason is that the game will need a Windows Store version of the game, and a lot of publishers don't want to bother doing that. Other is simply desire to tap on double-dippers. From the publisher's perspective, they are making the game twice and the only ones ripping the rewards are Microsoft and end users, not them.

Perhaps MS could sweeten the deal, if the game is offered as a Play Anywhere title, they get a few extra percentage points in rev-share above the standard 70%/30%.

@ZYDIO My understanding is that the holdup on this is due to legalities, not technical issues. Just as how Nvidia cant stream to you games you own without the authorization of the publisher.

Re: Former Xbox Dev Insomniac Suffers Devastating Leak From Hackers

MinervaX

@themightyant about that $567 figure, do note their royalty for that tile was 0%. I'm actually curious what the 567 was over, likely some accounting adjustment.

This is usual for a project that is outsourced instead of published. Like, if I was to go to a publisher with my IP and a half-done game seeking it to be published and marketed, I would expect a percentage share. If on the other hand the publisher paid for all development for day one, I could see a zero percent split, but also zero risk to the studio. It would be a "keep the bills paid for 3 years" kind of contract.

Re: Former Xbox Dev Insomniac Suffers Devastating Leak From Hackers

MinervaX

@J_Mo_Money

They also need to start putting games on PC WAY sooner and take that market seriously.

This is a big one right here. Recently we heard noise that Xbox is actually more profitable than PlayStation, and a big part is likely that they are not limited by their console install base to sell units. Shipping games to PC day one gives them a huge budgetary advantage as it drastically increases their market reach, without necessarily feeding competitors.

PlayStation should start releasing their games on PC day one, AND they should have their own PC storefront. They still need those games on Steam, but having their own storefront is key to their PC profitability, even if just a small chunk of their players end up signing up for it, since this allows them to also sell third party games for a revenue share of those.

Re: Former Xbox Dev Insomniac Suffers Devastating Leak From Hackers

MinervaX

@themightyant I'm sure the deal with Xbox has different clauses. MS would never sign a deal that requires a minimum number of sales when they know a huge chunk of their base will be playing the games on Game Pass.

6 million, at $70 per launch copy means $420 million in revenue associated with the games. So long as Marvel gets the minimum they expect for licensing, they likely not care about count. Even that is sketchy since 6 million might be lifetime sales, and not all copies will sell at $70.

If their concern is reach, and just want anything associated with their brands to reach 6 million users, then that will be met easily thanks to Game Pass.

Either way, I'm certain MS wont have to sell 6 million copies to make Disney happy with exclusivity.

Re: Former Xbox Dev Insomniac Suffers Devastating Leak From Hackers

MinervaX

@Kaloudz Take that "concern" with a grain of salt.

From the little I have managed to see so far, their worry is not losing revenue or losing sales, their concern is that someone else can potentially sell more than them.

Their worry is someone else will perform competitively. This is one of the things I really dislike about Sony, they are not happy performing well, they are only happy if they can make sure they are #1 and everyone falls behind.

They also mention worries about mobile games (something they already should had been worried about) and PC games (something they again should had been worried about since their approach at PC sucks due to their PS5 exclusivity windows) and service games (something once more they have personally failed at and entirely relied on third parties to bring in the cash).

MS has had service games in their DNA nearly from the start, with Halo, Gears, Forza and XBox Live. Almost all their games have always had service in mind to a fault. They were always likely going to be ahead of Sony with internal service games, and always have.

Re: Former Xbox Dev Insomniac Suffers Devastating Leak From Hackers

MinervaX

@J_Mo_Money

we only ever got a cgi trailer recently

"Recently" was 2018.

Not a reply to you, and have not bumped into the documents myself yet, but perhaps the ratchet and clank game is closer than we think... those get announced within 9 months of release, usually. The Venom game could be akin to Miles Morales, but that still took 2 years from the release of the first Spider-Man, so expecting it before fall 2025 might be wishful thinking.

Re: Former Xbox Dev Insomniac Suffers Devastating Leak From Hackers

MinervaX

Not going to mention the other titles in the spoiler, but Wolverine being expected 2026 is a big setback for Sony. What is PlayStation expecting for a big title this year? So far I expected Wolverine to be their big 2024 title. What will it be now? Death Stranding 2? They going to rely on third party deals and taking previously multi-plat announced titles in as second party exclusives? Remasters of even more PS4 games?

Microsoft is potentially going to have a couple of years to play catchup.

Re: Former Xbox Dev Insomniac Suffers Devastating Leak From Hackers

MinervaX

@themightyant That's a very interesting tidbit, thanks for mentioning it.

I guess this means it would be hard for MS to revive old Activision X-Men licensed games as remasters, even if they also were willing to remaster them for PlayStation?

Sucks because I was really hoping for a remaster (and sequel to) 2013's Deadpool.

Re: SEGA Announces Five New Games, All Based On Classic Franchises

MinervaX

So quick run down of what we see from Sega, including very recent releases:

  1. Crazy Taxi
  2. Jet Set Radio
  3. Streets of Rage
  4. Shinobi
  5. Golden Axe
  6. Sonic Dream Team (Apple+ exclusive)
  7. Like A Dragon: Ishin!
  8. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased his Name
  9. Like A dragon: Infinite Wealth
  10. Persona 5 Tactica
  11. Persona 3 Reload
  12. Unicorn Overlord
  13. Metaphor: ReFantazio

They have a nice and strong lineup... And there are rumors of a Virtua Fighter revival on top of all of this...

Re: Xbox Fans Left With Questions Following Strange 'Marvel's Blade' Reveal

MinervaX

@K1LLEGAL Thing is I really doubt its about Disney demanding anything. MS could reveal today its coming to Xbox, and if they were to reveal a PlayStation version later, they could reveal it when it was decided. They paid Sega to do precisely that with the last Persona announcements.

I really think the reason they are not saying what platforms its coming for is precisely hoping to exploit the usual noise that comes with not saying a thing.

Re: Xbox Fans Left With Questions Following Strange 'Marvel's Blade' Reveal

MinervaX

@K1LLEGAL counter theory:

So long the developer pays the appropriate licensing fees, Disney does not care if the developer makes the game exclusive. The up-front fee might be higher. The fact that MS renegotiated Indi to make it Xbox/PC exclusive means they are willing to pay such fees. Even if Disney cared about sales, Xbox + PC results in higher sales than PS5 alone. If Disney never cared about Spider-Man skipping PC, then they won’t care about Xbox games skipping PS5.

That all aside, Bethesda is usually very good at marketing. It’s very likely they have come to realize that keeping it quiet for now, regardless the platform target being set in stone to skip PlayStation, will result in increased noise on news sites and social media. Until it’s clarified, the game will get free publicity from PlayStation outlets that love to capitalize on the click bait (you know the ones) plus the usual social media Sony “influencer” tweets and videos.

Re: GTA 6 Launches In 2025, Watch The Official First Trailer Here

MinervaX

@HonestHick The PS5 itself is $550 in most regions and they are not launching the PS5 slim any cheaper. They are only keeping the lower tag in the US, something that has been largely attributed at it being the one market where Xbox actually is giving Sony some solid competition.

If it's true we will not see an XBox mid-gen upgrade, that gives Sony even less reason to keep things cheap in the US.

If they just do overclocking, then the performance gain honestly wont be worth it, IMO. There **is** a chance they sell it for $700 with a bundled game, but it will likely be a game everyone already owns by its launch (Spider-Man 2 or God of War Ragnarok).

Edit:
At the end, I doubt the price difference between both consoles will be lower than $100. with the PS5 starting at 550 in most regions, the minimum I expect is $650 (even the US despite lower slim price) and then only if the boost is simply marginal.

Re: GTA 6 Launches In 2025, Watch The Official First Trailer Here

MinervaX

@HonestHick My thought is that either the hypothetical PS5 Pro will be a minimum of $700, or it wont actually be as big a leap as many hope. Even accepting losses, there is only so much they can take before it eats into their profitability. Sony already is running on way thinner profit margins than Xbox and Nintendo, and felt forced to increase the price of their PS5 (twice!, the slim is actually another price increase!) not lower it.

So, regardless power, I doubt they will try to eat much of the cost of producing a PS5 Pro. This is why I feel $700 is as low as they can go with any significant performance gains.

As for the playing in console thing, I hear you. I still play primarily on consoles, generally am not crazy about playing on PC, but I have been playing Starfield on my PC. I get to have 60fps AND ultra-wide resolution. Yes, some games launch way buggier on PC, but it goes both ways. Lets not forget what mess Cyberpunk was on consoles. The PC version was considered "good" (performance wise, the game did have other logic issues that were universal regardless of platform).

Re: Sea Of Thieves Adds Private Servers In This Week's 'Safer Seas' Update

MinervaX

Unlike others, I don't think the 30% rewards is too low. Just think about how much time you are likely to lose simply fending off other players if you play during active hours, and its likely the same goals will take you way more than 3x the time to complete. That stuff is usually factored in how rewards are awarded from content.

My concern is no access to captaincy, that I understand is what gives you access to ship customization. That, IMO, should be part of this mode too.

Re: GTA 6 Launches In 2025, Watch The Official First Trailer Here

MinervaX

@HonestHick Yea, I predict MS will simply start updating their hardware "generations" at a faster rate than competitors, allowing for full native backwards compatibility.

It has done no favors to MS to be on the same update cycle as PlayStation, if anything, it has made the Xbox look like its competing for the same exact audience and press attention.

Will be interesting to see all 3 consoles launching entirely out of sync, people already twist themselves backwards trying to box the Nintendo consoles in the made up Generational brackets.

Interesting thought: remember when Windows went from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, under some crazy logic about it being the 10th major release or what not? I would not be shocked if they do something similar and the next XBox is called something akin to XBox G6, counting the One X as a "major release".

Would be interesting to see such a hypothetical XBox G6 launch in 2025 just in time for GTAVI.

@HonestHick

That is not a good idea in my book for MS, but they have their plan and are sticking to it it seems

Honestly, the XBox One X was way more powerful than the PS4 or PS4 Pro, and that didn't make a difference. Despite their power, the best selling console month to month was still the PS4 slim. Few players actually care about the super-pro power. This is precisely why the Series S exists, MS saw the same in the Xbox also sold more One S consoles than One X.

And of those that care for power, they can get so much more out of PCs. The Pro consoles wont be cheap this time around. Expect to pay $700 or more for those, when you enter that realm, you might as well start looking at a PC. I have a 4070 TI PC that puts my XSX and PS5 to shame, and no pro console will likely match it (then again, it cost me $1800 so there is that too).

Re: Microsoft Spends 'Over A Billion Dollars A Year' Bringing Content To Xbox Game Pass

MinervaX

@themightyant But as you said, DLC, microtransactions, and other additional subscriptions.

I keep telling people, stop hoping, WoW will continue to charge its monthly fee as usual, even when fully integrated under Microsoft, same way as Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76 still charge for their premium MMO modes.

They will also make a ton of money from CoD on microtransactions alone, not to mention the mobile games.

At the end of the day, MS is not in this for charity, I am sure they are more than breaking even.

Re: Microsoft Rewards Begins Adding 15-Minute 'Cooldown Time' In Some Countries

MinervaX

Never bothered pursuing these points. All the points I got have been by naturally playing, or using Bing, which I unironically use as my default search engine, on my browser of choice: edge, that I have been using since it switched to Chromium due to Chrome being a horrible resource hog.

Anyways, it never crossed my mind before... but I am shocked MS had such a generous program. Lets face it: when there is a way to make money, its exploited by fraudsters. I am 100% certain there are reward point farms out there, with hundreds or thousands of VMs farming points on alternate accounts just to redeem the cash-back. This timer, more than anything else, might be designed to put a halt, or slow down, that.

Re: Xbox Series X Drops To Less Than $350 In Post-Black Friday Deal

MinervaX

@NintendoByNature Honestly, as someone that owns both and still thinks the S is a great console to play games on, the upgrade is still worth it. The S is a great machine, many genres of games you simply lose a bit of visual fidelity, but for this price? Definitely worth it. Plus you can always sell or hand-down the Series S to get some of it back.

I don't predict stock on this to last through the day, though.

Re: The Game Awards Host Reminisces About 'Special' Moment With Phil Spencer & Rival Execs

MinervaX

@themightyant I think it’s possible. MS and Nintendo still have a close relationship, and I can see Bowser going in on such an appearance. The issue is all on Sony leadership, and that is about to change early next year, so who knows. Maybe next year or the following. Whomever is lead at Sony will be highly incentivized to work with MS due to CoD, and depending on attitudes, things might work again.