@Cashews I’m guessing we will see some fun stuff for Xbox in Tokyo game show, my guess is the highlight will be Shin Megami Tensei III+IV+IV Approcalypse+V. Don’t see them revealing anything first party.
Then we will likely see something akin to last year, nothing or minor presence in Games Award but a soon-after Dev Direct, potentially diving deep on Avowed.
@Amigator @Echtzeit No clue what you guys talking about. This game looks fantastic. Also, its WayForward making it! They have a fantastic track record with side-scrolling games. Honestly looking forward to this Contra, and hopefully it does well enough to get them more Contra contracts.
@themightyant I honestly expect Unity to be legally challenged on this whole retroactive thing.
I see only two potential impacts from this:
Larger developers will likely either be able to afford the costs of porting to another engine OR sue Unity.
Smaller developers that were barely making a living will no longer be able to make a living.
A lot of existing successful indie devs are openly talking about porting their games to another engine given how it will be cheaper to do so than to submit to this. The issue is they only have 3 months to do so before they are subject to monthly fees until they finish such port.
Some weeks I get to spend nearly 16 hours a day gaming, others I’m lucky if I can play a full hour the entire week. This week has been on the later side, unfortunately.
This is a bit of a historical glitch for Creation Engine games. Vendors inventories are usually bound to an “invisible” well hidden chest that sometimes can be accessed. Why don’t they put them extremely under the world is unknown to me, but might have something to do with the inner workings of the engine or debugging.
I remember using this on Skyrim to get an achievement, one about either selling a lot or making a ton of money… don’t remember the specific achievement, but remember the vendor. Was in a town near the final Dark Brotherhood base, and the vendor was a traveling Kajit and the chest near some rocks by a mine entrance.
@Cashews I see people ask for minimap, honestly I don’t want one. I just want a real local full screen map when in a planet surface. If I hold that… what’s the 3 line button called? I want to see real local maps. Not the star-chart, and not a grid of dots with a handful of discovered landmarks.
@101Force depends what kind of game you are looking to make. GODOT had made some strong progress and is 100% open source and free. It won’t be as robust but you just know no one will ever come and inject costs.
Never dealt with GameMaker but it exists. There is also RPGMaker, with a very very narrow focus. Not sure how the licensing or quality for either of these two work.
And, of course, there is always the “just make your own engine” approach. It would take a ton of time but might be acceptable for smaller arcade-style retro games. You can’t get more “I own this” than that.
I keep thinking it might be on Xbox’s best interests to start making free licenses of iD Tech or some other of their internal engines now that they own so many, but exclusively for PC and Xbox development.
Edit to add: there is also Cocos engine. Again, I have no much knowledge on that one either, but seen some impressive showcases.
@Titntin it does not matter if PS dominates the generation as much as wether Xbox is in a healthy position. You don’t see Pepsi removed off the shelves simply because Coke dominates the cola market share. So long as they carve themselves enough revenue to keep a healthy business going, they will be fine.
That said, never say never. PS3 was behind for years but managed to catch up to the 360 in the end, internationally. I think XBox still has a chance to catch up with PS5 on the NA market, so long they actually deliver solid game after solid game in the next few years. That would leave them in a position to start the following Gen on very strong footing.
@Cashews I personally use (used) Unity not because it was cheap but because it was simple. Unreal (the only viable alternative when I started) charged a 5% royalty after hitting certain revenue threshold. Although I never expected to hit that threshold, the complexities of keeping accounting for it was beyond what I was willing to consider.
When you think about it, Unreal is actually cheaper. No seat license, and a 5% only if you become wildly successful. Unity was an up-front subscription fee in exchange of not having to worry about tail-end finances.
This change entirely throws the Unity advantage out the window and adds a lot of complexities and risk on indie developers. The ones that will be hurt by this will be the smallest of indie devs. Ones that potentially barely make enough to pay their rent.
This will also disproportionately hurt mobile devs. I am already evaluating just going Unreal or perhaps GODOT. Maybe both depending on the type of project, but I’m never touching Unity again for anything other than non-profit development. It’s not the cost, but the “we will retroactively change terms on everyone” thing.
Side note: last night I went to check Unreal licenses and it seems these days they do offer a “hefty” yearly fee with no royalties. We talking about 1500 per license (dev seat) so suddenly Unreal sounds a lot more appealing than Unity, and provides a way more powerful product.
Edit: btw not saying you have to care about the story, just noting the main reason so many use Unity was not “it being cheap”, but having more control on the future control, and that is now gone.
@Jimboss even if they literally just make all the “low earners” multiplat and the high earners exclusive, it would be true.
If sounds that your issue is that that won’t tell you that high profile games will be exclusive. And honestly, I think all high profile games going forward will be Xbox console exclusive, the only game I see potentially making it to PlayStation is Wolfenstein 3 and the rumored Spyro “4”, if it’s real.
@themightyant due to leaks, we know Redfall was planned with micro transactions. It was only post acquisition that the team managed to convince management to drop them since Zenimax was no longer in the position to demand such service game models. But basically, the day Phill walked in and said “you are no longer doing a PS version”, the plan was still a standard multiplayer service game.
This is what leads me to believe that “new IP”’ is key for acquired publishers going exclusive. That is not to say all legacy IP will remain multiplat. Can see Wolfenstein 3 going either way, and Elder Scrolls 6 going full exclusive.
@themightyant “it’s about giving players choice” is basically a marketing slogan by this point, and on most situations it comes followed with the “streaming/PC/Xbox console” as “choose”.
It’s almost like BK’s “make it your way (so long your way is that we fire-grill the meat)”.
As for the multiplayer games, I think it’s going to depend heavily on whom is making it. For all purposes Redfall was a multiplayer game, even solo play demands being online, yet it’s still Xbox console exclusive.
I think multiplayer games from existing IP, from Activision (not all of ABK) or Zenimax will be multi-platform. New IP will likely remain Xbox console exclusive. Anything done by pre-existing Xbox games studios (coalition, 343, etc) will be Xbox exclusive regardless what form such game takes.
Edit: anything with the name Minecraft on it will likely also be forever a multi-console release.
@OldGamer999 I’m afraid to look at the Push Square article on this weeks charts. How much would I win if I bet usual suspects will make up excuses and rationalize it as anything but a success?
@Martsmall that is more common with the licensed “toy” sets like Star Wars and Marvel stuff. It’s more common with other IPs for them to simply vanish and then be at the mercy of poachers on eBay.
@Martsmall Lego are expensive and I would expect this to be at minimum $100 extra if it came from them, but that comes with quality. Also they have not called either the NES or Atari sets “limited editions” and the NES has been available since before the pandemic. Would not be shocked if it gets discontinued soon.
@Jaxx420 I usually avoid it as much as I avoid the term “Xbot” for extreme xbox fans (I don’t even know what the word is usually for Nintendo equivalents), but lord the extreme Ps fans have gotten annoying as hell this week.
Also a bit of a separate thing, as much as some want to say they are all equal, I beg to differ. Maybe it’s due to the size of the audience, but the Sony extremists tend to be a lot more click-baity and toxic, and somehow actually be in journalistic positions. You know what… take back that size of the audience thing, because Nintendo fan base is even larger and they don’t resort to as much toxicity.
Anyways when I use a term like that i am not generalizing, im talking precisely about the extremist subset of the audience.
@Sakai I have spent too many hours exploring planners trying to get all the data. I kinda get what some people complained about this game not encouraging exploration the same way previous Creation engine games do, but the game still encourages exploration on its own way. Yea, I’m not likely to bump into a full city or camp full of quests just by exploring the wilderness, but the pokemon-like “got to explore them all” feel is a strong driver for me.
I’m still too early in the game for to this exploration, so maybe there will be some more content rewards hidden behind exploration, but if not, maybe we do get them via DLC or mods.
Oh I did bump into a voice acted quest from a guy that needed saving. Sounded like a simple enough quest, hurt, not able to fend for himself, all friends died and needed help to his ship. On the way there I got on a fight and died. Never got to see if there was a twist or if it was a boring escort quest. When I reloaded and got back to the guy, he was not there. It was randomly added there. I was impressed at voice acting actually being involved on random quests like that.
I want to be a cynic and say the real reason is any land vehicle would had been annoying to deal with in most planets since a simple crater would force you to continue on foot or go around a larger detour.
I still hope we get to see vehicles either on DLC or mods.
My biggest grudge right now is total lack of maps outside planner surfaces. Caves and cities having no maps is a crime. Not asking for mini-maps, just maps that get revealed with store and zone line markers as we discover them.
Don’t get me wrong, still love the game but still question the lack of maps.
@Cashews some paid $100, but there are more variables like international price fluctuations and who knows how many of those collectors editions were made, since they sold out. Those PC versions were all Steam, if delivered in time they all counted and cost $300 a pop.
As I expected, my fancy collectors edition is not going to be here until Saturday. Didn’t stop me from being an idiot and buying the $100 digital edition on the windows marketplace. So… I’m a $400 payee… unless you count how much I paid for other “junk” like the Starfield controller and that Starfield cover/wrap/skin for my Series X…
For me, the only reviews that mater are the one that tell me a game is a technical mess that should be a voided. If I'm interested, no review will stop me from playing a game that is on game pass so long as I am interested.
That said, looking at the current state of the reviews, I ignore the percentage average and focus on the positive/mixed/negative ratio since the average gives too much weight to a single person with a biased take (in either direction.)
I’m not shocked. I said a long time ago (too lazy to dig it up) that I bet Sony regretted even offering yearly discounts on their Extra and Premium tiers.
I am a bit shocked they dared bump the price on the base plan, though. Xbox Game Pass Core is still the direct competitor to that and now is $20 cheaper. If you want to play CoD soon, not only will you pay a lot more for the game (since it won’t be on game pass) but also have to pay $80 a month to just hop online?
But I’m sure Sony fans will get a second job to pay for this.
The amount of concern trolling I seen over this is baffling. Recently even saw someone try to claim this now means you can’t expect the same frame rate on Series S… when the Series S rarely offered the same frame rate options!!!
Some people just want to find a way to make Xbox look bad, no matter how ridiculous the argument.
@Lightning720 I’m sure eventually that $1 trial will somehow be limited only to the currently logged-in account to stop the infinite $1 renewals. Likely will take some re-engendering of how the console handles authentication, though, reason it has not happened yet.
Makes total sense. I honestly was expecting the return of the $1 deal to be a “seasonal” thing to encourage growth during slow periods.
UBisoft was doing the same with their UBisoft+, only they put it in their fine print how long their $1 offer would last for (not long enough for the launch of AC: Mirage).
There are things we can accuse MS of being greedy about, but complaining about this $1 deal being only available then there are no strong new titles in the service is a rather entitled take. It’s bad enough that so many whine about not every damned game landing on the service. Now we going to whine that what is basically a free trial isn’t a permanent thing?
I bought:
My 360 specifically for GTA4
My XBOne X for Red Dead Redemption 2
My PSX for FF7
My PS2 for FFX
My N64 for Mario 64
My Wii U for Mario 3D World
My 3DS for Zelda Link Between Worlds
My Xbox Series X and PS4 are the only consoles I ever bought without any specific game in mind.
My PS3 was given to me as a gift, so was my Wii and Switch. My GameCube was a hand-me-down.
Edit:
My Atari 2600 was also a hand-me-down.
My NES was a Christmas gift, as was my SNES.
@GamingFan4Lyf Was mostly saying it because of Sekiro, that will technically come under MS umbrella once the ABK acquisition closes.
@Wheatly You are talking about the closing paragraph that links to a 2022 article when it was unknown how long the marketing agreement with Sony was. The Sony agreement is the quoted reason. Today we know "a number of years" ends one year post the launch of this year's Modern Warfare 3. It might actually end sooner if Sony manages, since they seem to want the full 30/70 split over the agreement now that MS will be the one getting the 80% cut (the higher royalties earned by ABK under the marketing agreement).
@abe_hikura And how different is that from Series X|S? It's the same code, each console simply runs with different profiles that enable/disable features, potentially lower res assets, etc, but the code is the exact same.
But it was published by Id Software. Raven Software was bought by Activision in 1997.
Having publishing rights does not automatically give the publisher ownership. For example, as part of the exclusivity deal, Dead Rising 3's publishing rights are on Microsoft's court. Capcom cant really get that single entry on PlayStation without MS agreement, and it's not like they didn't want to. They remastered every Dead Rising for PS4 except 3.
Sekiro is another game that comes to mind. Was published by Activision, but the IP is still owned by From Software. It's a game that will likely require additional negotiations to go into Game Pass, depending how the publishing contract was written. Basically, if the subscription service rights were not specifically written into the contract, they don't have those rights.
@Wheatly where did you read anyone claim CoD games would not come to GP for two years? When the whole thing started, Sony had the marketing rights for CoD for a couple of years. This is their last year.
Sony wanted to scrap that marketing deal, but given the timing its likely they got stuck with it. Either way, we are talking just one more year tops. Not as bad as having the game entirely skip the platform for a year, as it was with Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo.
@GamingFan4Lyf Raven Software never belonged to iD. As far as I understand, they were contracted to work on Quake 4, but Hexen and Heretic was their own doing. They did license the doom engine to make the game, but it was their game.
Larian was adament they wouldn't ship without coop on any platofrm and MS certain this was a tech problem with a tech solution.
Yet, they shipped the Steam Deck certified version without split screen coop. Any statement that they would not ship without coop on any platform likely was them saying they would not ship without it on Series X. So long a version of Xbox can have the feature, they will ship, just like non-Steam Deck PCs can run it fine.
So now we can't even expect all first party titles day and date with retail release?
Phil is talking about the time from closing acquisition to finally being able to put their games on GP. Once dust settles, do expect all ABK games to start launching on GP day one (minus any early access anyone feels like whining about.)
@GamingFan4Lyf
Even still, not every Bethesda game is on Game Pass PC: Hexen and Heretic are still only available for purchase.
Although Bethesda has the publishing rights for Hexen and Heretic on PC, those rights very likely do not include the rights for subscription services.
Those games actually belong to Activision, having both companies under the Xbox banner means they might finally enter Game Pass.
I have a Series S and a Series X. The Series S is the one in a room where I would ever bother with split-screen coop. I still am perfectly cool with this direction.
The S is the equivalent of an undocked Switch, or undocked Steamdeck, and some features simply are too much to ask of the device.
@NEStalgia Highly disagree with that take. For years, even before they unveiled their streaming initiatives, MS has been talking about the power of the cloud as something that would help games. Streaming is the extreme implementation were everything, even graphic rendering, is offloaded to the cloud, but that’s just one application.
Remember when they were hyping Crackdown 3 and it’s “revolutionary” server side tech to offload physics processing to the cloud? It ended falling apart (in part because the owner of the tech was acquired mid development) but it was the biggest “power of the cloud” campaign I can recall in gaming.
I dare bet the Kojima cloud based project with Microsoft is similarly so. Not a streaming-only game, but a game with heavy focus on cloud based processing and offloading.
When we talk streaming, we are talking about game streaming. When we talk cloud, we mean anything that is offloading processing to remote servers. It just happens that streaming is one of those things.
@NEStalgia I understand if that’s what you mean, but that’s not what MS means at any level in their corporate structure and I deal with them on a daily basis.
Subscription services, server technologies on the backend, that’s the core of MS “cloud” infrastructure and strategy.
@NEStalgia they are not giving up on cloud. Cloud is a big umbrella and MS is all on that thing. They just don’t see much potential on the game streaming side of it. Multiplayer? Cloud saves? That stuff is still on their bag. You want to play CoD, buy it or subscribe to GP. Want to play it multiplayer? Then you need GamePass Core unless all you want is Warzone, either way, micro transaction revenue will come their way.
MS already stated the only part of the Xbox business that is not really turning a profit is actually the streaming stuff, at the end of the day.
@Kaloudz I don’t think they have the same rights as MS. In theory, UBisoft can sub-license to others, like Sony. MS can’t continue to sign streaming deals, thought the ones that were already signed will be honored.
So, if Netflix was to start streaming games tomorrow, UBisoft could in theory license to them CoD.
@Kaloudz I’m sure the permission was part of the agreement itself. I don’t think UBisoft has its own cloud streaming backend so the game will likely still be using xcloud to stream the games, you just will end up being able to do so regardless if you only pay for GPU, or UBisoft+ (to play multiplayer you still will require either GPU ot GPC).
Comments 3,850
Re: 'Immortals Of Aveum' Studio Announces Layoffs For 45% Of Staff
Sad but… 45% means 40 employees? That means 48 or 49 employees left? Sounds like it was a rather small studio.
Re: Roundup: All The Xbox Reveals From September 2023's State Of Play Event
@Cashews I’m guessing we will see some fun stuff for Xbox in Tokyo game show, my guess is the highlight will be Shin Megami Tensei III+IV+IV Approcalypse+V. Don’t see them revealing anything first party.
Then we will likely see something akin to last year, nothing or minor presence in Games Award but a soon-after Dev Direct, potentially diving deep on Avowed.
Re: New Games Announced For Xbox Following September 2023's Nintendo Direct
@Amigator @Echtzeit No clue what you guys talking about. This game looks fantastic. Also, its WayForward making it! They have a fantastic track record with side-scrolling games. Honestly looking forward to this Contra, and hopefully it does well enough to get them more Contra contracts.
Re: Unity Responds To Major Concerns About New 'Runtime Fees' And Xbox Game Pass Titles
@themightyant I honestly expect Unity to be legally challenged on this whole retroactive thing.
I see only two potential impacts from this:
Larger developers will likely either be able to afford the costs of porting to another engine OR sue Unity.
Smaller developers that were barely making a living will no longer be able to make a living.
A lot of existing successful indie devs are openly talking about porting their games to another engine given how it will be cheaper to do so than to submit to this. The issue is they only have 3 months to do so before they are subject to monthly fees until they finish such port.
Re: Talking Point: Xbox Fans, How Do You Find Time For All These Amazing 2023 Games?
Some weeks I get to spend nearly 16 hours a day gaming, others I’m lucky if I can play a full hour the entire week. This week has been on the later side, unfortunately.
Re: Starfield Puddle 'Glitch' Allows You To Make Unlimited Money On Xbox & PC
This is a bit of a historical glitch for Creation Engine games. Vendors inventories are usually bound to an “invisible” well hidden chest that sometimes can be accessed. Why don’t they put them extremely under the world is unknown to me, but might have something to do with the inner workings of the engine or debugging.
I remember using this on Skyrim to get an achievement, one about either selling a lot or making a ton of money… don’t remember the specific achievement, but remember the vendor. Was in a town near the final Dark Brotherhood base, and the vendor was a traveling Kajit and the chest near some rocks by a mine entrance.
Re: Bethesda Announces Six 'Top-Requested' Features Coming Soon To Starfield
@Cashews I see people ask for minimap, honestly I don’t want one. I just want a real local full screen map when in a planet surface. If I hold that… what’s the 3 line button called? I want to see real local maps. Not the star-chart, and not a grid of dots with a handful of discovered landmarks.
Re: Bethesda Announces Six 'Top-Requested' Features Coming Soon To Starfield
Maaaaaaaaaaps please?
Re: Unity Responds To Major Concerns About New 'Runtime Fees' And Xbox Game Pass Titles
@101Force depends what kind of game you are looking to make. GODOT had made some strong progress and is 100% open source and free. It won’t be as robust but you just know no one will ever come and inject costs.
Never dealt with GameMaker but it exists. There is also RPGMaker, with a very very narrow focus. Not sure how the licensing or quality for either of these two work.
And, of course, there is always the “just make your own engine” approach. It would take a ton of time but might be acceptable for smaller arcade-style retro games. You can’t get more “I own this” than that.
I keep thinking it might be on Xbox’s best interests to start making free licenses of iD Tech or some other of their internal engines now that they own so many, but exclusively for PC and Xbox development.
Edit to add: there is also Cocos engine. Again, I have no much knowledge on that one either, but seen some impressive showcases.
Re: Starfield Has Given Xbox Series X|S Sales A Huge Boost In The UK
@Titntin it does not matter if PS dominates the generation as much as wether Xbox is in a healthy position. You don’t see Pepsi removed off the shelves simply because Coke dominates the cola market share. So long as they carve themselves enough revenue to keep a healthy business going, they will be fine.
That said, never say never. PS3 was behind for years but managed to catch up to the 360 in the end, internationally. I think XBox still has a chance to catch up with PS5 on the NA market, so long they actually deliver solid game after solid game in the next few years. That would leave them in a position to start the following Gen on very strong footing.
Re: Unity Responds To Major Concerns About New 'Runtime Fees' And Xbox Game Pass Titles
@Cashews I personally use (used) Unity not because it was cheap but because it was simple. Unreal (the only viable alternative when I started) charged a 5% royalty after hitting certain revenue threshold. Although I never expected to hit that threshold, the complexities of keeping accounting for it was beyond what I was willing to consider.
When you think about it, Unreal is actually cheaper. No seat license, and a 5% only if you become wildly successful. Unity was an up-front subscription fee in exchange of not having to worry about tail-end finances.
This change entirely throws the Unity advantage out the window and adds a lot of complexities and risk on indie developers. The ones that will be hurt by this will be the smallest of indie devs. Ones that potentially barely make enough to pay their rent.
This will also disproportionately hurt mobile devs. I am already evaluating just going Unreal or perhaps GODOT. Maybe both depending on the type of project, but I’m never touching Unity again for anything other than non-profit development. It’s not the cost, but the “we will retroactively change terms on everyone” thing.
Side note: last night I went to check Unreal licenses and it seems these days they do offer a “hefty” yearly fee with no royalties. We talking about 1500 per license (dev seat) so suddenly Unreal sounds a lot more appealing than Unity, and provides a way more powerful product.
Edit: btw not saying you have to care about the story, just noting the main reason so many use Unity was not “it being cheap”, but having more control on the future control, and that is now gone.
Re: Xbox Boss Reiterates Platform Exclusives Will Be Determined On A 'Case-By-Case Basis'
@Jimboss even if they literally just make all the “low earners” multiplat and the high earners exclusive, it would be true.
If sounds that your issue is that that won’t tell you that high profile games will be exclusive. And honestly, I think all high profile games going forward will be Xbox console exclusive, the only game I see potentially making it to PlayStation is Wolfenstein 3 and the rumored Spyro “4”, if it’s real.
Re: Xbox Boss Reiterates Platform Exclusives Will Be Determined On A 'Case-By-Case Basis'
@themightyant due to leaks, we know Redfall was planned with micro transactions. It was only post acquisition that the team managed to convince management to drop them since Zenimax was no longer in the position to demand such service game models. But basically, the day Phill walked in and said “you are no longer doing a PS version”, the plan was still a standard multiplayer service game.
This is what leads me to believe that “new IP”’ is key for acquired publishers going exclusive. That is not to say all legacy IP will remain multiplat. Can see Wolfenstein 3 going either way, and Elder Scrolls 6 going full exclusive.
Re: Xbox Boss Reiterates Platform Exclusives Will Be Determined On A 'Case-By-Case Basis'
@Jimboss
Yet they releases Quake 2 remaster on all platforms. It’s a lower profile release, but it’s proof that they will indeed work on a case-by-case basis.
Re: Xbox Boss Reiterates Platform Exclusives Will Be Determined On A 'Case-By-Case Basis'
@themightyant “it’s about giving players choice” is basically a marketing slogan by this point, and on most situations it comes followed with the “streaming/PC/Xbox console” as “choose”.
It’s almost like BK’s “make it your way (so long your way is that we fire-grill the meat)”.
As for the multiplayer games, I think it’s going to depend heavily on whom is making it. For all purposes Redfall was a multiplayer game, even solo play demands being online, yet it’s still Xbox console exclusive.
I think multiplayer games from existing IP, from Activision (not all of ABK) or Zenimax will be multi-platform. New IP will likely remain Xbox console exclusive. Anything done by pre-existing Xbox games studios (coalition, 343, etc) will be Xbox exclusive regardless what form such game takes.
Edit: anything with the name Minecraft on it will likely also be forever a multi-console release.
Re: Starfield Hits New Peak Player Count On Steam During Opening Weekend
@OldGamer999 I’m afraid to look at the Push Square article on this weeks charts. How much would I win if I bet usual suspects will make up excuses and rationalize it as anything but a success?
Re: Reaction: Spyro's New Sales Milestone Gives Us Hope For An Xbox Revival
@Kienda @Kaloudz the toy to lose thing is definitively dead, but thinking about it… Skylanders could make for an interesting Gatcha game.
Re: Create An Entire Replica Xbox 360 Console With This New MEGA Building Set
@Martsmall that is more common with the licensed “toy” sets like Star Wars and Marvel stuff. It’s more common with other IPs for them to simply vanish and then be at the mercy of poachers on eBay.
Re: Create An Entire Replica Xbox 360 Console With This New MEGA Building Set
@Martsmall Lego are expensive and I would expect this to be at minimum $100 extra if it came from them, but that comes with quality. Also they have not called either the NES or Atari sets “limited editions” and the NES has been available since before the pandemic. Would not be shocked if it gets discontinued soon.
Re: Oh Look, Starfield Is Getting Review Bombed On Metacritic
@Jaxx420 I usually avoid it as much as I avoid the term “Xbot” for extreme xbox fans (I don’t even know what the word is usually for Nintendo equivalents), but lord the extreme Ps fans have gotten annoying as hell this week.
Also a bit of a separate thing, as much as some want to say they are all equal, I beg to differ. Maybe it’s due to the size of the audience, but the Sony extremists tend to be a lot more click-baity and toxic, and somehow actually be in journalistic positions. You know what… take back that size of the audience thing, because Nintendo fan base is even larger and they don’t resort to as much toxicity.
Anyways when I use a term like that i am not generalizing, im talking precisely about the extremist subset of the audience.
Re: Create An Entire Replica Xbox 360 Console With This New MEGA Building Set
Dear Microsoft: please drop mega and make a deal with Lego!!! Mega quality is… not great.
Re: Oh Look, Starfield Is Getting Review Bombed On Metacritic
@Darylb88 verify and time/achievement tracking should also be a requirement for profesional reviewers, imo.
Re: Oh Look, Starfield Is Getting Review Bombed On Metacritic
Shows how salty ponies are about Xbox getting a fantastic console exclusive.
Re: It Looks Like Hideo Kojima Is Spending His Spare Time On Starfield
@Sakai I have spent too many hours exploring planners trying to get all the data. I kinda get what some people complained about this game not encouraging exploration the same way previous Creation engine games do, but the game still encourages exploration on its own way. Yea, I’m not likely to bump into a full city or camp full of quests just by exploring the wilderness, but the pokemon-like “got to explore them all” feel is a strong driver for me.
I’m still too early in the game for to this exploration, so maybe there will be some more content rewards hidden behind exploration, but if not, maybe we do get them via DLC or mods.
Oh I did bump into a voice acted quest from a guy that needed saving. Sounded like a simple enough quest, hurt, not able to fend for himself, all friends died and needed help to his ship. On the way there I got on a fight and died. Never got to see if there was a twist or if it was a boring escort quest. When I reloaded and got back to the guy, he was not there. It was randomly added there. I was impressed at voice acting actually being involved on random quests like that.
Re: Todd Howard Explains Why There Aren't Any Land Vehicles In Starfield
I want to be a cynic and say the real reason is any land vehicle would had been annoying to deal with in most planets since a simple crater would force you to continue on foot or go around a larger detour.
I still hope we get to see vehicles either on DLC or mods.
My biggest grudge right now is total lack of maps outside planner surfaces. Caves and cities having no maps is a crime. Not asking for mini-maps, just maps that get revealed with store and zone line markers as we discover them.
Don’t get me wrong, still love the game but still question the lack of maps.
Re: Sony Veteran Becomes Xbox's New Director Of Partnerships In Japan
I'm going to take a wild guess that Mena Sato Kato has a "better pulse on Japan" than random posters on a forum. Me included.
Re: Starfield Is Hitting Impressive Concurrent Player Numbers On Steam Already
@Cashews I also forgot to mention the Starfield headphones and that new song by Imagine Dragons being on iTunes for sale 😅
Oh and the funko pop….
I passed on those… well I did buy the song 🙃
Re: Starfield Is Hitting Impressive Concurrent Player Numbers On Steam Already
@Cashews some paid $100, but there are more variables like international price fluctuations and who knows how many of those collectors editions were made, since they sold out. Those PC versions were all Steam, if delivered in time they all counted and cost $300 a pop.
As I expected, my fancy collectors edition is not going to be here until Saturday. Didn’t stop me from being an idiot and buying the $100 digital edition on the windows marketplace. So… I’m a $400 payee… unless you count how much I paid for other “junk” like the Starfield controller and that Starfield cover/wrap/skin for my Series X…
MS is making a lot of money out of this one.
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Think Of Starfield So Far
For me, the only reviews that mater are the one that tell me a game is a technical mess that should be a voided. If I'm interested, no review will stop me from playing a game that is on game pass so long as I am interested.
That said, looking at the current state of the reviews, I ignore the percentage average and focus on the positive/mixed/negative ratio since the average gives too much weight to a single person with a biased take (in either direction.)
So far:
90.2% positive
9.8% mixed
0% negative
Sounds like a highly recommended game.
Re: PlayStation Plus Joins Xbox Game Pass In Raising Subscription Prices
I’m not shocked. I said a long time ago (too lazy to dig it up) that I bet Sony regretted even offering yearly discounts on their Extra and Premium tiers.
I am a bit shocked they dared bump the price on the base plan, though. Xbox Game Pass Core is still the direct competitor to that and now is $20 cheaper. If you want to play CoD soon, not only will you pay a lot more for the game (since it won’t be on game pass) but also have to pay $80 a month to just hop online?
But I’m sure Sony fans will get a second job to pay for this.
Re: Xbox Is Working With Larian To Bring Split-Screen To Baldur's Gate 3 'Post Launch'
The amount of concern trolling I seen over this is baffling. Recently even saw someone try to claim this now means you can’t expect the same frame rate on Series S… when the Series S rarely offered the same frame rate options!!!
Some people just want to find a way to make Xbox look bad, no matter how ridiculous the argument.
Re: Microsoft Pulls Xbox Game Pass Trial Ahead Of Starfield Release
@Lightning720 I’m sure eventually that $1 trial will somehow be limited only to the currently logged-in account to stop the infinite $1 renewals. Likely will take some re-engendering of how the console handles authentication, though, reason it has not happened yet.
Re: Microsoft Pulls Xbox Game Pass Trial Ahead Of Starfield Release
Makes total sense. I honestly was expecting the return of the $1 deal to be a “seasonal” thing to encourage growth during slow periods.
UBisoft was doing the same with their UBisoft+, only they put it in their fine print how long their $1 offer would last for (not long enough for the launch of AC: Mirage).
There are things we can accuse MS of being greedy about, but complaining about this $1 deal being only available then there are no strong new titles in the service is a rather entitled take. It’s bad enough that so many whine about not every damned game landing on the service. Now we going to whine that what is basically a free trial isn’t a permanent thing?
Re: Talking Point: Have You Ever Bought An Xbox For One Specific Game?
I bought:
My 360 specifically for GTA4
My XBOne X for Red Dead Redemption 2
My PSX for FF7
My PS2 for FFX
My N64 for Mario 64
My Wii U for Mario 3D World
My 3DS for Zelda Link Between Worlds
My Xbox Series X and PS4 are the only consoles I ever bought without any specific game in mind.
My PS3 was given to me as a gift, so was my Wii and Switch. My GameCube was a hand-me-down.
Edit:
My Atari 2600 was also a hand-me-down.
My NES was a Christmas gift, as was my SNES.
Re: Xbox Boss Warns Of Potential Delays With ActiBlizz Titles On Game Pass
@GamingFan4Lyf Was mostly saying it because of Sekiro, that will technically come under MS umbrella once the ABK acquisition closes.
@Wheatly You are talking about the closing paragraph that links to a 2022 article when it was unknown how long the marketing agreement with Sony was. The Sony agreement is the quoted reason. Today we know "a number of years" ends one year post the launch of this year's Modern Warfare 3. It might actually end sooner if Sony manages, since they seem to want the full 30/70 split over the agreement now that MS will be the one getting the 80% cut (the higher royalties earned by ABK under the marketing agreement).
Re: Baldur's Gate 3 Confirmed For Xbox In 2023, Series S Version Ditching Local Co-Op
@abe_hikura And how different is that from Series X|S? It's the same code, each console simply runs with different profiles that enable/disable features, potentially lower res assets, etc, but the code is the exact same.
Re: Xbox Boss Warns Of Potential Delays With ActiBlizz Titles On Game Pass
@GamingFan4Lyf
Having publishing rights does not automatically give the publisher ownership. For example, as part of the exclusivity deal, Dead Rising 3's publishing rights are on Microsoft's court. Capcom cant really get that single entry on PlayStation without MS agreement, and it's not like they didn't want to. They remastered every Dead Rising for PS4 except 3.
Sekiro is another game that comes to mind. Was published by Activision, but the IP is still owned by From Software. It's a game that will likely require additional negotiations to go into Game Pass, depending how the publishing contract was written. Basically, if the subscription service rights were not specifically written into the contract, they don't have those rights.
Re: Xbox Boss Warns Of Potential Delays With ActiBlizz Titles On Game Pass
@Wheatly where did you read anyone claim CoD games would not come to GP for two years? When the whole thing started, Sony had the marketing rights for CoD for a couple of years. This is their last year.
Sony wanted to scrap that marketing deal, but given the timing its likely they got stuck with it. Either way, we are talking just one more year tops. Not as bad as having the game entirely skip the platform for a year, as it was with Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo.
Re: Xbox Boss Warns Of Potential Delays With ActiBlizz Titles On Game Pass
@GamingFan4Lyf Raven Software never belonged to iD. As far as I understand, they were contracted to work on Quake 4, but Hexen and Heretic was their own doing. They did license the doom engine to make the game, but it was their game.
Re: Xbox Boss Warns Of Potential Delays With ActiBlizz Titles On Game Pass
@GamingFan4Lyf it does not matter who developed it. Quake is an IP that belonged to iD and was owned by Zenimax/Bethesda.
Hexen as an IP is owned by ABK.
Re: Baldur's Gate 3 Confirmed For Xbox In 2023, Series S Version Ditching Local Co-Op
@abe_hikura
Yet, they shipped the Steam Deck certified version without split screen coop. Any statement that they would not ship without coop on any platform likely was them saying they would not ship without it on Series X. So long a version of Xbox can have the feature, they will ship, just like non-Steam Deck PCs can run it fine.
Re: Xbox Boss Warns Of Potential Delays With ActiBlizz Titles On Game Pass
@Wheatly
Phil is talking about the time from closing acquisition to finally being able to put their games on GP. Once dust settles, do expect all ABK games to start launching on GP day one (minus any early access anyone feels like whining about.)
@GamingFan4Lyf
Although Bethesda has the publishing rights for Hexen and Heretic on PC, those rights very likely do not include the rights for subscription services.
Those games actually belong to Activision, having both companies under the Xbox banner means they might finally enter Game Pass.
Re: Baldur's Gate 3 Confirmed For Xbox In 2023, Series S Version Ditching Local Co-Op
I have a Series S and a Series X. The Series S is the one in a room where I would ever bother with split-screen coop. I still am perfectly cool with this direction.
The S is the equivalent of an undocked Switch, or undocked Steamdeck, and some features simply are too much to ask of the device.
Re: Hyperkin Announces New Xbox Controller With Hall Effect Sticks And Impulse Triggers
That controller should make fans of the PlayStation “2d first” design happy.
Re: Microsoft Announces Plan To Sell Activision Cloud Gaming Rights To Ubisoft
@NEStalgia Highly disagree with that take. For years, even before they unveiled their streaming initiatives, MS has been talking about the power of the cloud as something that would help games. Streaming is the extreme implementation were everything, even graphic rendering, is offloaded to the cloud, but that’s just one application.
Remember when they were hyping Crackdown 3 and it’s “revolutionary” server side tech to offload physics processing to the cloud? It ended falling apart (in part because the owner of the tech was acquired mid development) but it was the biggest “power of the cloud” campaign I can recall in gaming.
I dare bet the Kojima cloud based project with Microsoft is similarly so. Not a streaming-only game, but a game with heavy focus on cloud based processing and offloading.
When we talk streaming, we are talking about game streaming. When we talk cloud, we mean anything that is offloading processing to remote servers. It just happens that streaming is one of those things.
Re: Microsoft Announces Plan To Sell Activision Cloud Gaming Rights To Ubisoft
@NEStalgia I understand if that’s what you mean, but that’s not what MS means at any level in their corporate structure and I deal with them on a daily basis.
Subscription services, server technologies on the backend, that’s the core of MS “cloud” infrastructure and strategy.
Re: Microsoft Announces Plan To Sell Activision Cloud Gaming Rights To Ubisoft
@NEStalgia they are not giving up on cloud. Cloud is a big umbrella and MS is all on that thing. They just don’t see much potential on the game streaming side of it. Multiplayer? Cloud saves? That stuff is still on their bag. You want to play CoD, buy it or subscribe to GP. Want to play it multiplayer? Then you need GamePass Core unless all you want is Warzone, either way, micro transaction revenue will come their way.
MS already stated the only part of the Xbox business that is not really turning a profit is actually the streaming stuff, at the end of the day.
Re: Microsoft Announces Plan To Sell Activision Cloud Gaming Rights To Ubisoft
@Kaloudz I don’t think they have the same rights as MS. In theory, UBisoft can sub-license to others, like Sony. MS can’t continue to sign streaming deals, thought the ones that were already signed will be honored.
So, if Netflix was to start streaming games tomorrow, UBisoft could in theory license to them CoD.
Re: Konami Confirms Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Performance Targets On Xbox
Isn’t the existing MGS2 and 3 HD via BC running at 4k?
Re: Microsoft Announces Plan To Sell Activision Cloud Gaming Rights To Ubisoft
@Kaloudz I’m sure the permission was part of the agreement itself. I don’t think UBisoft has its own cloud streaming backend so the game will likely still be using xcloud to stream the games, you just will end up being able to do so regardless if you only pay for GPU, or UBisoft+ (to play multiplayer you still will require either GPU ot GPC).