Too tired to look this up but I called this!!! I said many times that should they be forced to divest some rights in the UK, they would sell those rights to UBisoft!
I think this is a good counter to Sonys plates. I recall stating a while back that Xbox should at least make official custom decals, but this sounds cooler.
I know a lot of people are exited for this but as someone that has not played the first one, I’m very indifferent and a lot more excited about Alone in the Dark.
I have no titles of the top of my head but know that some BC games I already own (that can run on One|Series) I had to go buy on the 360 storefront, so I’m sure there are at least a handful (unless those got added more recently.)
@Kaloudz What i would like is means for a banned account to permanently lose access to online. As if, I own x game, and i get banned from online, it wont be fixed because I sign up with another account and keep the game there.
I think that could be done easily by banning any console that is set as Main/Primary Console of a banned account from jumping online, or any console that currently has a banned account signed-in.
By online I just mean online multiplayer/matchmaking.
@Kaloudz I thought that at first (too lenient) but sounds like different offenses come with higher number it strikes. Maybe hate speech can jump you from zero to 4 (maybe) while quitting matches because you loosing or feeding might get you a single strike.
@Kaloudz same. UBisoft has a nice list of games coming up soon, if they keep it up a steady flow of games and premium DLC, I might actually keep my UBISOFT+ subscription going indefinitely. If not, we’ll I can always cancel and renew when new games show up!
My one worry is I might not be done with Starfield even after a month!
For me it’s a means to resume playing games if I don’t have immediate access to a console, or to try a game off game pass before downloading it. In those cases, I always ended up streaming from the console itself.
Don’t think anything would make me stream more games other than losing access to my console for long periods of time. Like mid-move, during some long trip, etc.
I guess i would stream more if my purchased library was also available, not just GP titles.
But disappointed. Yes, we can play the BC version, but BC has some limitations, like, BC games tend to have a habit of quitting when they go to the background (because the 360 would quit games when you went to the dashboard).
Still good we can play the game, but I would have appreciated a native port.
While I'm certainly not all doom & gloom regarding the Series S, I do think Microsoft needs to rethink "feature parity at launch" requirements between Series X and Series S
They already allow for some variation in feature parity. The Series S is not required to have the same performance modes as the Series X, for instance, nor things like same level of detail in worlds. I could see them extending the list to things like "split screen" specifically at some point, but even then there is no telling if the publisher would be willing to do that. Some might still be stubborn, like all the publishers that insist on forcing 1440p games at 30fps on the Series S and refuse to sacrifice visual fidelity to offer 60fps.
You can't just leave all optimisation on lower powered systems to the last minute, assuming you will be able to get it to work on blind faith alone. They laid their own bed.
About a decade and a change ago I worked on an indie game, nothing big, very minor stuff, but the game was entirely developed and play-tested on a computer. Once the game was complete, naively we thought "OK now we just export this to mobile and ship it on iOS!!!" The idea was that we were going to wait until the last minute necessary to pay for Apple's dev program, and the Unity pro needed at the time to export to mobile.
Well, we did this and the game ran like at 4 frames per second on an iPhone 3Gs that was already a couple years old but still in wide enough usage to ignore. We had to spend 3 more months entirely re-implementing big chunks of the game systems to account for many unforeseen limitations. 3 more months might not sound like much, but this was a very small project, and it took about 4 months to develop. That nearly doubled development time. The issue was not that the target was weak, the issue was that we didn't take the target platforms into account from the get go.
Baldurs Gate 3 is an early access game, that has been developed "in the open" for quite a while. I doubt the split screen was even a thing during all of that development, then they decided to port it to console and throw split screen in there. That's not a trivial thing, in many aspects it can double memory and CPU requirements. Unlikely to be the same thing, but I still would not be shocked if they didn't bump into similar things my tiny team bumped into when we tossed a PC game at an iPhone 3Gs.
Have not sat down on any of my consoles recently, been playing FFXIV on PC. I rarely buy any digital games if I’m not sitting in the Xbox already preparing to play some game.
This is, I guess, why engagement is so important a metric for MS (or anyone) as it increases spending opportunities on the platform.
I already voted 0 but might jump tomorrow and see if there is anything on my wish list on sale.
@Trmn8r didn’t you read how this all works? Even MS does not have the resources to keep audio of every single player. This or not unlike recording a clip of what just happened in your game and uploading it to YouTube, only here you are uploading it to Xbox support.
Hell, unlike a YouTube upload, this is restricted to the last 60s of in-game voice chat, not even Party chat.
FFXIV is my most played game on PS5. I would had always prefer to play it on Xbox, and I'll very likely be switching to the Xbox version once the expansion launches. Not likely to buy the Xbox version until then, though, unless they do a very good sale.
@Trmn8r if someone attempts to lure me into committing verbal term of service violations, i can just block them, because there is little else I can do about that.
If someone in my party start throwing insults and bigotry, I will report them using this tool. I won’t let them just move on to do the same to others if I can help it.
If it’s a group of friends, I’m sure no one should be worried about getting reported, and if someone is, then they need better friends, or likely they themselves consider lines were crossed and friendship over.
@Trmn8r if someone bites you, mute them or block them.
As you say: we play to relax. Tolerating being harassed and insulted is not relaxing. Too many players consider their fun to just come out of harassing others, or simply think everyone else should grow a thicker skin because they don’t want to stop being [bleeps].
No, chats should not be private. The second anyone starts talking to a stranger they should stop expecting any level of privacy.
This is not Xbox always monitoring, this is giving players a tool to be able to record what happened without having to be constantly recording every single game they play, something they already were able to do before.
@Zenszulu biggest difference between this and console EA play is that console EA play does not bring games until a year later. UBisoft+ adds all games day one, with all DLC as they are released.
Maybe compared ro game pass, it’s not that great of a deal, but it’s a good deal for anyone that is enough into UBisoft games to want to buy them day one. For those players, it can be huge savings, although ideally not a “subscribe and forget” thing. Just keep subscribed as long as one plays games, unsubscribe whenever one is done.
@Lightning720 a lot of people here miss that this is not a new service. This is not Xbox Console version of Ubisoft+. It is just an added feature to Ubisoft+ (that allows play on PC and streaming via Luna) to allow members to also play their games on Xbox.
EA Play is part of Game Pass, but their equivalent to this (EA Play Pro) also costs $15 a month to get all games day one, with DLC, but is only available on PC. EA Play on Console is basically 1 year old games, not exactly that far from some of their older games already being added to Game Pass.
Devil's Advocate time: I didn't see much value on this service because I already owned most the Ubisoft games I cared to play, and their expansions. Add to it that Ubisoft's output has been a bit slow lately.
There is a lot of awesome stuff coming up during this fiscal year, though. I already had decided I'm not buying more Ubisoft games and instead subscribing to this service, but not until games start to show up, mainly: Mirage and Frontiers of Pandora.
I'll simply subscribe, play for that month, and unsubscribe whenever there are no more games or DLC for me to play. I dont need to own these games, I just want to play them, and Ubisoft+ seems like the cheapest way for me to do so.
Bonus points: I will be able to play the games either on PC or on Xbox with cross-progression.
I was going to pay the full amount, but I'll definitively be playing Mirage for a pound, I guess.
Agree lines between gens are thinner, especially on the graphics front, but this has been amplified due to the mid-gen consoles last gen.
I don't personally think the lines between gens is much thinner given the leap from PS3 to PS4 was similarly small. You are right, though, that mid-gen consoles did smooth out the curve, making it harder to notice the difference across gens.
At the end, though, gens are usually way more differentiated not by the power, but by evolution in game design, as well as a few things that just were not possible before. The biggest leap ever was the introduction of pixel shaders in the X360/PS3 generation, something that we didnt see in real action until mid-gen (compare how amazing Halo 4 looks compared to Halo 3.
We will never see another leap of that visual magnitude, I don't think. Ray tracing has the potential to do that, but it is still in its infancy and we are getting gradual steps. By the time its making a big difference, we will have seen plenty of iterations, so there wont be any single giant leap. Wont ever be as incredible as the leap into pixel shaders.
Things we can expect to make huge differences are more in the game design department. Larger areas thanks to higher memory pools, faster transitions and more complex open world experiences thanks to faster storage solutions and technologies like Direct Storage, and way more natural procedural animation techniques thanks to more CPU processing power. Characters that move more organically and react more realistically to the world around them, etc. Still, all of this will be gradual, and has been going on for the last decade and a half.
I just hope devs stop designing above the specs just because of how amazing a static screenshot can look. I will be extremely disappointed if we fall back again on a 30fps standard.
@themightyant as @Balta666 stated, it’s been hard to get your hands on Xbox series x in the US for the last 12 months. It did seem to improve after the showcase. The UK (nor EU) has never been a strong market for Xbox, American countries always been a lot more friendly towards Xbox, though. So, in the west, it’s been a lot more supply constrained.
I do expect Starfield, Forza, ABK games in GP, all of that should boost the games going forward, but I doubt MS cares to try catch up with PS on console sales. So long they have a healthy gaming business, they don’t mind it being split between console and PC users.
@AverageGamer different quarter, but continuos sales of those across multiple platforms (pc, switch, and PS for Minecraft) likely contributed to that 1% growth. Being off-quarter means they didn’t add that many sales, though.
@Cashews not only does Nintendo push their Nintendo Online + “Expansion Pack” (ie: premium/ultimate tier) but they are the only ones that force you into that membership if you want to play any of the games offered in its library.
@CutchuSlow technically, no. They have a lot of voting power, but they don’t actually make all calls in a vacuum. They do have enough voting power to threaten the CEO out if they are not satisfied with their work, but at the end of the day the CEO works for all the shareholders, not just the majority one, and must look out for all of their interest.
@Cashews Facebook only renamed the parent company, though, not the product. Technically it’s never a great idea to have a company named after your flagship product, because it becomes much harder to be taken seriously when you try to branch out or diversify your busyness models. Also risk catastrophic stock price drops if the flagship name product stars to show its age and die off. Like, imagine if Apple was named after the iPod.
@NEStalgia Musk is not against AI, he is against “it moving forward too quickly”, which is simply code for “I want to get into AI but everyone else has a head-start so I want the government to put regulations to slow it down so I can establish a company and catch up”.
@BAMozzy co-op experiences still need balance, especially once they start doing leader boards and all that (a form of indirect PvP).
Even without leader boards, players always create their own meta-PvP, almost always some sort of speed runs or DPS metrics. If only a handful of builds can be extremely superior to all others, by 2x margins or more, players slowly are demanded to roll specific builds.
Sometimes you can just buff, but that's really not that much of an option when we are talking about 4 paths out of potential hundreds being superior by large orders of magnitude.
I am not playing D4 and don't know what their current balance situation is, but balancing multiplayer games, even PvP ones, is necessary to sustain a healthy and varied environment where build choices matter, else you might as well just offer 5 classes with no variations or customization and let it be there. This is why making RPGs is not easy.
Also, a huge aspect of Diablo-like games and the seasonal content is that you re-roll characters on every season, starting from scratch. Things change enough every season, be it due to buffs, nerfs, or simply new gear that entirely flips things on its heads, that things will always play differently on the new content. Expecting characters to play the same season after season is not a realistic expectation on any ongoing multiplayer RPG.
I love how many that claim they love to support devs and pay for their games twisted their pantries in a bunch over the game costing the same amount it costs on Xbox and Steam.
Like, if this is a game you think you won’t enjoy, that would hold true at any price. If you would enjoy it, then “support the devs” and pay the price?
@Moonglow My point is that the Xbox Live brand might die, and renamed Battle.net.
PC "Xbox" will likely integrate. Few people "like" the Xbox and GamePass apps, but Battle.net seems to be highly liked, at least compared to Xbox Live in the PC world.
Would not be shocked if in a few years its called Xbox Battle.net.
@Moonglow given recent trends, I think it’s Xbox live that has its days numbered. Would not be shocked if they plan to merge/turn both systems into simply “Battle.net”
@BBB that “cancelation” of PvE was poorly communicated. They didn’t cancel it at all, it’s still coming. They only canceled the talent tree progression system every character was going to get. The way it was communicated, everyone just thought every aspect of it was canceled.
Although I know Steam tends to indeed drive installs, I don’t understand why. Games like this one will still require installing Battle.net, so why insist on it being listed on steam?
Interesting thought: It's very likely that, should the deal not close by October, ABK will start its marketing cycle for MW3 under its current terms regardless what MS and Sony agreed.
This would likely mean locking the game at a 20%/80% rev share, and no Game Pass until fall 2024, this would actually be a win situation for MS, since they would get more money, and at least for one more year GP wont be "cannibalizing sales", helping MS replenish its saving accounts.
Wish it was real. I played the Master Chief Collection and the first two games looked fantastic. Played still with that clunkyness that is natural to a classic game, but looked fantastic. Launching Halo 3 was very... jarring.
So much for the CMA being ‘pathetic’ and ‘little England’ and ‘bending the knee’ and all the other repetitive cut & paste nonsense I’ve read in 100 article comments sections.
Both MS and the CMA wanted to just expedite the new review and have it done to close yesterday (the 18th) but it was now the judge that was not convince of CMA's sincerity. For one, he didn't seem to buy the FTC case (that should not influence the CMA) was not part of their determination given how the CMA announced their change of heart basically an hour after the FTC lost their case.
The CMA main concern during the whole thing was also fear of the judge crushing the CMA's previous decision in a way that would leave, on the record, that they made a bad call. They wanted to make sure any move by the appeal judge would not keep such a stain on their record.
Now that the appeal ball is rolling, the CMA cant stop it, and are forced to go through some additional hearings before being able to just just let the ABK merger happen. I would still say all the descriptions of "CMA bending the knee" fit very well, so well that even the judge wont let them off that easily.
@Kaloudz I was talking based on the early article that didn’t have any mentions of retaining the yearly $60 bundle discount. I still not crazy about the relative value compared to GP Console, but no longer as concerned.
@Kaloudz Honestly, the entire industry went after MS for the same effective move a couple of years ago. I hope they do again because this is not good value. That Core tier needs a lot of re-evaluating.
Never played the previous entries precisely thinking its always been a MP only game. I don't have any interest i playing this anyways, but sucks for those that enjoyed playing previous entries solo.
Perhaps we will hear of an additional benefit or perk coming our way?
Doubt it. It seems they consider that static 25 title list to be the "additional benefit" of the tier. Well that and Gold Deals, I guess.
I would be a bit more forgiving of this change if all xb game pass tiers added online play, but then its even harder to justify $10 a month and just a few games for just $1 less than the basic GP tier.
The scheme is all over the place and honestly makes everything confusing. Each Xbox tier should be a superset of the previous one, for one.
Comments 3,850
Re: Microsoft Announces Plan To Sell Activision Cloud Gaming Rights To Ubisoft
Too tired to look this up but I called this!!! I said many times that should they be forced to divest some rights in the UK, they would sell those rights to UBisoft!
Re: 'Xbox Console Wraps' Are Launching This Year, Pre-Orders Available Now
I think this is a good counter to Sonys plates. I recall stating a while back that Xbox should at least make official custom decals, but this sounds cooler.
Now… where is the Forza one?
Re: Bethesda Exec Responds To 'Unprofessional' Criticism Of Starfield's Menu Screen
@mousieone that’s why I ask, I don’t know and was too lazy to look it up. Just remember it was a former blizzard employee.
Re: Bethesda Exec Responds To 'Unprofessional' Criticism Of Starfield's Menu Screen
Is this the same clown that said all YouTubers covering Xbox news were paid by Microsoft?
Re: Alan Wake 2 Delayed Due To Other Big Game Launches This Fall
I know a lot of people are exited for this but as someone that has not played the first one, I’m very indifferent and a lot more excited about Alone in the Dark.
Re: A Bunch Of Great Xbox 360 Games Will Be Delisted Forever Next Year
I have no titles of the top of my head but know that some BC games I already own (that can run on One|Series) I had to go buy on the 360 storefront, so I’m sure there are at least a handful (unless those got added more recently.)
Re: Xbox Introduces New 'Strike' System For Handling Bans / Suspensions
@Kaloudz What i would like is means for a banned account to permanently lose access to online. As if, I own x game, and i get banned from online, it wont be fixed because I sign up with another account and keep the game there.
I think that could be done easily by banning any console that is set as Main/Primary Console of a banned account from jumping online, or any console that currently has a banned account signed-in.
By online I just mean online multiplayer/matchmaking.
Re: Xbox Introduces New 'Strike' System For Handling Bans / Suspensions
@Kaloudz I don’t think anyone should lose their convent over behavior. Losing access to play online is punishment enough.
Re: Xbox Introduces New 'Strike' System For Handling Bans / Suspensions
@Kaloudz I thought that at first (too lenient) but sounds like different offenses come with higher number it strikes. Maybe hate speech can jump you from zero to 4 (maybe) while quitting matches because you loosing or feeding might get you a single strike.
Re: Assassin's Creed Mirage Will Launch Earlier Than Planned On Xbox This October
@Kaloudz same. UBisoft has a nice list of games coming up soon, if they keep it up a steady flow of games and premium DLC, I might actually keep my UBISOFT+ subscription going indefinitely. If not, we’ll I can always cancel and renew when new games show up!
My one worry is I might not be done with Starfield even after a month!
Re: Talking Point: What Would Convince You To Use Xbox Cloud Gaming More Often?
For me it’s a means to resume playing games if I don’t have immediate access to a console, or to try a game off game pass before downloading it. In those cases, I always ended up streaming from the console itself.
Don’t think anything would make me stream more games other than losing access to my console for long periods of time. Like mid-move, during some long trip, etc.
I guess i would stream more if my purchased library was also available, not just GP titles.
Re: Rockstar Announces New $50 Port Of Red Dead Redemption, But Xbox Doesn't Need It
But disappointed. Yes, we can play the BC version, but BC has some limitations, like, BC games tend to have a habit of quitting when they go to the background (because the 360 would quit games when you went to the dashboard).
Still good we can play the game, but I would have appreciated a native port.
Re: Remedy Dev Reckons There's 'Nothing Surprising' About Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox Series S Debacle
@GamingFan4Lyf
They already allow for some variation in feature parity. The Series S is not required to have the same performance modes as the Series X, for instance, nor things like same level of detail in worlds. I could see them extending the list to things like "split screen" specifically at some point, but even then there is no telling if the publisher would be willing to do that. Some might still be stubborn, like all the publishers that insist on forcing 1440p games at 30fps on the Series S and refuse to sacrifice visual fidelity to offer 60fps.
Re: Remedy Dev Reckons There's 'Nothing Surprising' About Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox Series S Debacle
@eduscxbox
The Steam Deck version does not support split-screen.
Re: Remedy Dev Reckons There's 'Nothing Surprising' About Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox Series S Debacle
@themightyant
About a decade and a change ago I worked on an indie game, nothing big, very minor stuff, but the game was entirely developed and play-tested on a computer. Once the game was complete, naively we thought "OK now we just export this to mobile and ship it on iOS!!!" The idea was that we were going to wait until the last minute necessary to pay for Apple's dev program, and the Unity pro needed at the time to export to mobile.
Well, we did this and the game ran like at 4 frames per second on an iPhone 3Gs that was already a couple years old but still in wide enough usage to ignore. We had to spend 3 more months entirely re-implementing big chunks of the game systems to account for many unforeseen limitations. 3 more months might not sound like much, but this was a very small project, and it took about 4 months to develop. That nearly doubled development time. The issue was not that the target was weak, the issue was that we didn't take the target platforms into account from the get go.
Baldurs Gate 3 is an early access game, that has been developed "in the open" for quite a while. I doubt the split screen was even a thing during all of that development, then they decided to port it to console and throw split screen in there. That's not a trivial thing, in many aspects it can double memory and CPU requirements. Unlikely to be the same thing, but I still would not be shocked if they didn't bump into similar things my tiny team bumped into when we tossed a PC game at an iPhone 3Gs.
Re: Talking Point: What Have You Bought In The Xbox Ultimate Game Sale 2023?
Have not sat down on any of my consoles recently, been playing FFXIV on PC. I rarely buy any digital games if I’m not sitting in the Xbox already preparing to play some game.
This is, I guess, why engagement is so important a metric for MS (or anyone) as it increases spending opportunities on the platform.
I already voted 0 but might jump tomorrow and see if there is anything on my wish list on sale.
Re: Here's A First Look At Xbox's New Voice Chat Reporting Feature
@Trmn8r didn’t you read how this all works? Even MS does not have the resources to keep audio of every single player. This or not unlike recording a clip of what just happened in your game and uploading it to YouTube, only here you are uploading it to Xbox support.
Hell, unlike a YouTube upload, this is restricted to the last 60s of in-game voice chat, not even Party chat.
Re: Square Enix Is Bringing Final Fantasy 14 Online To Xbox In Spring 2024
FFXIV is my most played game on PS5.
I would had always prefer to play it on Xbox, and I'll very likely be switching to the Xbox version once the expansion launches. Not likely to buy the Xbox version until then, though, unless they do a very good sale.
Re: Here's A First Look At Xbox's New Voice Chat Reporting Feature
@Trmn8r or i could report them and try to make sure they don't keep berating other players AND block them.
"Big brother" is not always listening. Players are listening, and they get to tell "big brother" about it, with receipts.
Re: Here's A First Look At Xbox's New Voice Chat Reporting Feature
@Trmn8r if someone attempts to lure me into committing verbal term of service violations, i can just block them, because there is little else I can do about that.
If someone in my party start throwing insults and bigotry, I will report them using this tool. I won’t let them just move on to do the same to others if I can help it.
If it’s a group of friends, I’m sure no one should be worried about getting reported, and if someone is, then they need better friends, or likely they themselves consider lines were crossed and friendship over.
Re: Here's A First Look At Xbox's New Voice Chat Reporting Feature
@Trmn8r if someone bites you, mute them or block them.
As you say: we play to relax. Tolerating being harassed and insulted is not relaxing. Too many players consider their fun to just come out of harassing others, or simply think everyone else should grow a thicker skin because they don’t want to stop being [bleeps].
No, chats should not be private. The second anyone starts talking to a stranger they should stop expecting any level of privacy.
This is not Xbox always monitoring, this is giving players a tool to be able to record what happened without having to be constantly recording every single game they play, something they already were able to do before.
Re: Ubisoft Plus Introduces New $1 / £1 Offer For First Month On Xbox
@Zenszulu biggest difference between this and console EA play is that console EA play does not bring games until a year later. UBisoft+ adds all games day one, with all DLC as they are released.
Maybe compared ro game pass, it’s not that great of a deal, but it’s a good deal for anyone that is enough into UBisoft games to want to buy them day one. For those players, it can be huge savings, although ideally not a “subscribe and forget” thing. Just keep subscribed as long as one plays games, unsubscribe whenever one is done.
Re: Ubisoft Plus Introduces New $1 / £1 Offer For First Month On Xbox
@Lightning720 a lot of people here miss that this is not a new service. This is not Xbox Console version of Ubisoft+. It is just an added feature to Ubisoft+ (that allows play on PC and streaming via Luna) to allow members to also play their games on Xbox.
EA Play is part of Game Pass, but their equivalent to this (EA Play Pro) also costs $15 a month to get all games day one, with DLC, but is only available on PC. EA Play on Console is basically 1 year old games, not exactly that far from some of their older games already being added to Game Pass.
Re: Ubisoft Plus Introduces New $1 / £1 Offer For First Month On Xbox
Devil's Advocate time: I didn't see much value on this service because I already owned most the Ubisoft games I cared to play, and their expansions. Add to it that Ubisoft's output has been a bit slow lately.
There is a lot of awesome stuff coming up during this fiscal year, though. I already had decided I'm not buying more Ubisoft games and instead subscribing to this service, but not until games start to show up, mainly: Mirage and Frontiers of Pandora.
I'll simply subscribe, play for that month, and unsubscribe whenever there are no more games or DLC for me to play. I dont need to own these games, I just want to play them, and Ubisoft+ seems like the cheapest way for me to do so.
Bonus points: I will be able to play the games either on PC or on Xbox with cross-progression.
I was going to pay the full amount, but I'll definitively be playing Mirage for a pound, I guess.
Re: Talking Point: Do You Feel Like You're Still Waiting For 'Next-Gen' To Arrive?
@themightyant
I don't personally think the lines between gens is much thinner given the leap from PS3 to PS4 was similarly small. You are right, though, that mid-gen consoles did smooth out the curve, making it harder to notice the difference across gens.
At the end, though, gens are usually way more differentiated not by the power, but by evolution in game design, as well as a few things that just were not possible before. The biggest leap ever was the introduction of pixel shaders in the X360/PS3 generation, something that we didnt see in real action until mid-gen (compare how amazing Halo 4 looks compared to Halo 3.
We will never see another leap of that visual magnitude, I don't think. Ray tracing has the potential to do that, but it is still in its infancy and we are getting gradual steps. By the time its making a big difference, we will have seen plenty of iterations, so there wont be any single giant leap. Wont ever be as incredible as the leap into pixel shaders.
Things we can expect to make huge differences are more in the game design department. Larger areas thanks to higher memory pools, faster transitions and more complex open world experiences thanks to faster storage solutions and technologies like Direct Storage, and way more natural procedural animation techniques thanks to more CPU processing power. Characters that move more organically and react more realistically to the world around them, etc. Still, all of this will be gradual, and has been going on for the last decade and a half.
I just hope devs stop designing above the specs just because of how amazing a static screenshot can look. I will be extremely disappointed if we fall back again on a 30fps standard.
Re: Xbox Gaming Revenue Up 1% YoY In Latest Earnings Report
@themightyant as @Balta666 stated, it’s been hard to get your hands on Xbox series x in the US for the last 12 months. It did seem to improve after the showcase. The UK (nor EU) has never been a strong market for Xbox, American countries always been a lot more friendly towards Xbox, though. So, in the west, it’s been a lot more supply constrained.
I do expect Starfield, Forza, ABK games in GP, all of that should boost the games going forward, but I doubt MS cares to try catch up with PS on console sales. So long they have a healthy gaming business, they don’t mind it being split between console and PC users.
Re: Xbox Gaming Revenue Up 1% YoY In Latest Earnings Report
@AverageGamer different quarter, but continuos sales of those across multiple platforms (pc, switch, and PS for Minecraft) likely contributed to that 1% growth. Being off-quarter means they didn’t add that many sales, though.
Re: Xbox Gaming Revenue Up 1% YoY In Latest Earnings Report
Surprised at seeing any growth given the only “big” game released so far has been RedFall.
Next earning report will be very interesting, post the release of Starfield.
Re: Tencent Will Soon Become 'Majority Shareholder' Of Dying Light Developer Techland
@Cashews not only does Nintendo push their Nintendo Online + “Expansion Pack” (ie: premium/ultimate tier) but they are the only ones that force you into that membership if you want to play any of the games offered in its library.
Re: Tencent Will Soon Become 'Majority Shareholder' Of Dying Light Developer Techland
@CutchuSlow technically, no. They have a lot of voting power, but they don’t actually make all calls in a vacuum. They do have enough voting power to threaten the CEO out if they are not satisfied with their work, but at the end of the day the CEO works for all the shareholders, not just the majority one, and must look out for all of their interest.
Re: Random: Twitter's New 'X' Logo Is Getting The Attention Of Xbox Fans
@Cashews Facebook only renamed the parent company, though, not the product. Technically it’s never a great idea to have a company named after your flagship product, because it becomes much harder to be taken seriously when you try to branch out or diversify your busyness models. Also risk catastrophic stock price drops if the flagship name product stars to show its age and die off. Like, imagine if Apple was named after the iPod.
Re: Random: Twitter's New 'X' Logo Is Getting The Attention Of Xbox Fans
@NEStalgia Musk is not against AI, he is against “it moving forward too quickly”, which is simply code for “I want to get into AI but everyone else has a head-start so I want the government to put regulations to slow it down so I can establish a company and catch up”.
Re: Blizzard Addresses Fan Complaints About Controversial Changes To Diablo 4
@BAMozzy co-op experiences still need balance, especially once they start doing leader boards and all that (a form of indirect PvP).
Even without leader boards, players always create their own meta-PvP, almost always some sort of speed runs or DPS metrics. If only a handful of builds can be extremely superior to all others, by 2x margins or more, players slowly are demanded to roll specific builds.
Sometimes you can just buff, but that's really not that much of an option when we are talking about 4 paths out of potential hundreds being superior by large orders of magnitude.
I am not playing D4 and don't know what their current balance situation is, but balancing multiplayer games, even PvP ones, is necessary to sustain a healthy and varied environment where build choices matter, else you might as well just offer 5 classes with no variations or customization and let it be there. This is why making RPGs is not easy.
Also, a huge aspect of Diablo-like games and the seasonal content is that you re-roll characters on every season, starting from scratch. Things change enough every season, be it due to buffs, nerfs, or simply new gear that entirely flips things on its heads, that things will always play differently on the new content. Expecting characters to play the same season after season is not a realistic expectation on any ongoing multiplayer RPG.
Re: High On Life No Longer Xbox Exclusive As 'High On Knife' DLC Nears Release
I love how many that claim they love to support devs and pay for their games twisted their pantries in a bunch over the game costing the same amount it costs on Xbox and Steam.
Like, if this is a game you think you won’t enjoy, that would hold true at any price. If you would enjoy it, then “support the devs” and pay the price?
Re: Xbox's ActiBlizz Deal Is 'Good News' For Multiple Reasons, Explains Ubisoft CEO
This sounds like they are looking for a buyer, since its mostly focused on the sell value of IPs, plus the value of their investment on mobile.
Not shocking given all the rumors a few months back about them wanting to sell, but no one wanting to buy.
Who knows, maybe sooner or later EA and UBisoft end up merging. I still dont see MS buying Ubisoft, but who knows.
Re: Blizzard Games Announced For Steam Ahead Of Xbox Acquisition
@Moonglow My point is that the Xbox Live brand might die, and renamed Battle.net.
PC "Xbox" will likely integrate. Few people "like" the Xbox and GamePass apps, but Battle.net seems to be highly liked, at least compared to Xbox Live in the PC world.
Would not be shocked if in a few years its called Xbox Battle.net.
Re: Blizzard Games Announced For Steam Ahead Of Xbox Acquisition
@Moonglow given recent trends, I think it’s Xbox live that has its days numbered. Would not be shocked if they plan to merge/turn both systems into simply “Battle.net”
Re: Blizzard Games Announced For Steam Ahead Of Xbox Acquisition
@BBB that “cancelation” of PvE was poorly communicated. They didn’t cancel it at all, it’s still coming. They only canceled the talent tree progression system every character was going to get. The way it was communicated, everyone just thought every aspect of it was canceled.
Re: Blizzard Games Announced For Steam Ahead Of Xbox Acquisition
Although I know Steam tends to indeed drive installs, I don’t understand why. Games like this one will still require installing Battle.net, so why insist on it being listed on steam?
Re: Xbox Boss: We Could Close ActiBlizz Deal In US, But We're Waiting On UK
Interesting thought: It's very likely that, should the deal not close by October, ABK will start its marketing cycle for MW3 under its current terms regardless what MS and Sony agreed.
This would likely mean locking the game at a 20%/80% rev share, and no Game Pass until fall 2024, this would actually be a win situation for MS, since they would get more money, and at least for one more year GP wont be "cannibalizing sales", helping MS replenish its saving accounts.
Re: Random: Fake 'Halo 3 Remastered' Ads Appear On Times Square Billboard
Wish it was real. I played the Master Chief Collection and the first two games looked fantastic. Played still with that clunkyness that is natural to a classic game, but looked fantastic. Launching Halo 3 was very... jarring.
Re: Xbox Extends Activision Blizzard Takeover Deadline To October
@x3King84
Both MS and the CMA wanted to just expedite the new review and have it done to close yesterday (the 18th) but it was now the judge that was not convince of CMA's sincerity. For one, he didn't seem to buy the FTC case (that should not influence the CMA) was not part of their determination given how the CMA announced their change of heart basically an hour after the FTC lost their case.
The CMA main concern during the whole thing was also fear of the judge crushing the CMA's previous decision in a way that would leave, on the record, that they made a bad call. They wanted to make sure any move by the appeal judge would not keep such a stain on their record.
Now that the appeal ball is rolling, the CMA cant stop it, and are forced to go through some additional hearings before being able to just just let the ABK merger happen. I would still say all the descriptions of "CMA bending the knee" fit very well, so well that even the judge wont let them off that easily.
Re: Xbox Extends Activision Blizzard Takeover Deadline To October
Surprised they didn't just close, but I guess they see a path to have the CMA simply agree and save themselves some future headaches.
Re: Poll: Are You Buying The 'Early Access Upgrade' For Starfield?
I purchased the PC Constellation edition, but I don’t expect it to arrive in time, to be honest.
Even if it arrived in time I am not sure I’ll have the time to play it, not even actually on day one.
Re: Xbox 'Game Pass Core' Reportedly Replacing Xbox Live Gold This September
@Kaloudz I was talking based on the early article that didn’t have any mentions of retaining the yearly $60 bundle discount. I still not crazy about the relative value compared to GP Console, but no longer as concerned.
Re: Xbox's New Game Pass Tiers Are Causing Confusion Around Online Multiplayer
Saw someone say this somewhere else: they should just get rid of Game Pass Console. Grandfather existing accounts but stop offering it.
Re: Microsoft Confirms Xbox Live Gold Is Being Replaced This September
OK, there are yearly options, that changes my opinion on the whole deal.
Re: Xbox 'Game Pass Core' Reportedly Replacing Xbox Live Gold This September
@Kaloudz Honestly, the entire industry went after MS for the same effective move a couple of years ago. I hope they do again because this is not good value. That Core tier needs a lot of re-evaluating.
Re: Payday 3 Dev Says 'We Need You To Be Online' For Upcoming Xbox Game Pass Title
Never played the previous entries precisely thinking its always been a MP only game. I don't have any interest i playing this anyways, but sucks for those that enjoyed playing previous entries solo.
Re: Xbox 'Game Pass Core' Reportedly Replacing Xbox Live Gold This September
@Kaloudz
Doubt it. It seems they consider that static 25 title list to be the "additional benefit" of the tier. Well that and Gold Deals, I guess.
I would be a bit more forgiving of this change if all xb game pass tiers added online play, but then its even harder to justify $10 a month and just a few games for just $1 less than the basic GP tier.
The scheme is all over the place and honestly makes everything confusing. Each Xbox tier should be a superset of the previous one, for one.