The fact that there's two heads of xbox studios, with one reporting to the other, aside from the head of xbox, and all report to the head of gaming is everything that's wrong with Microsoft.
@S1ayeR74 It wasn't Spencer and his team, it was MS corporate (Amy Hood) that approached ABK first. This was an MS play to strongarm into mobile, and they eagerly sacrificed Xbox, a minimal profit generator, to do it. They'd been desperate for a way to get into the mobile space as they were the only one among their big data peers that were not in it.
ABK is the buyout that killed Xbox. Microsoft spent 70b to buy King to force their way into mobile and leveraged Xbox to get the deal, and killed anything Xbox had going for it that made it special just to facilitate the disposal of all the excess games clutter to make way for mobile.
They'll reboot the brand next gen, but just like X1 they'll be starting from behind, but with corporate looking over their shoulder this time, they won't have the advantage of being the plucky underdog again.
That aside I feel like I may put pancake gaming behind me for a long time except certain titles. Getting used to full pcvr means do turning back. Elden Ring, flight sim, racing, Elite, Sniper, LaD Ishin, Assassin's Creed, Hitman I'll jumping around titles like crazy, it's insane. Skyrim....ohh man Skyrim modded. I'm adding the AI mods so you can have full verbal conversations with NPCs.... That's the true next gen right there. DD2 supposedly has a mod but runs very poorly. Cyberpunk.
I probably have 10,000 hours of games just from that small selection of games without ever needing to buy more. It's insane.
@Titntin That's a cool take to hear on Avatar! I actually bought it a few weeks ago on ubis store because it was dirt cheap in their fall sale and although I care so little and avatar I've never even seen the movie the game world looked interesting enough. It's in the backlog though. With like 5 AC games....
Otoh while I had zero interest in outlaws, the vr modder guy just released an outlaws VR mod.... Judging by how awesome elden ring and got is in his mod, that's gonna be a must!
(Side note about Ubisoft launcher I actually almost liked it until I found out it logs you out on every machine when you log in on a different one, including console, and makes you type your password every time.... And they tricked me with a 40% sale on Rocksmith only on PSN and the ad hyped that the subscription is valid on every platform. What they didn't tell you is that you have to keep logging in on PS to validate your subscription every time you launch on PC. Wish I could refund and pay full price to avoid that. Could just play on console but audio interface is pc only, and ubis cable that works on console just sucks)
@Ralizah Yeah massively stupid that suddenly and for no reason, one once more basically stops working just for one fight. Worse they made the fight totally depend on max baton pass bonus, just for one flight, when you may very well not have spent calendar days playing darts. Insanely dumb. If I'd played darts and stocked up on one off elemental items you can cheese it.
@Ralizah lol yeah I hated that thing with a passion.. I tried for days, nearly gave up the game. Tutorials said that the hardest mode actually was the easiest lol but the final round in hard I think I didn't have something I needed to do it in the hardest mode. I think I ended up having to do it in casual/story mode and that took a million tries too, but that's the one I got lucky and got past it on so my save file was junk after that. But it was better than missing the rest of the game.
Square Enix won't be there that's for sure. Com they're finally getting to this. Not cool it's literally days after I cancelled GPU and switched to PCGP 😂
@OldGamer999 Yeah I think this is a case where the traditional "non AI" scaler in the TV is already a very good scaler, so any improvement from a better scaler might be minimal. Just because ai scalers can have superior results doesn't mean really good scalers never existed before. Back in the day the scaler in an AV receiver was a big part of it's price tag, and component rack scalers were in the thousands for the custom theater crowd. High end scalers aren't new, just ai powered ones that actually do a bit better for cheaper. If the TV has a particulary good image processing engine inside, then yeah having a batter scaler on the console may yield marginal results. Buying a new PlayStation mostly to get a good scaler may not be that useful if you already bought a good scaler at the output.
The only difference then is that as long as the game has a performance mode at low resolution, it can get you mostly the same place, but if the game only has a 30fps mode on base PS5 but a 60fps mode for pro then you're stuck.
And studios will pull that (+1 for PC, just set what you want, they don't get to tell you ) but yeah when you get the option, you already have a high end scaler in the chain. You don't need another. Unless the games force you to.
@Jenkinss IDK if I'd the games are "young adults" necessarily. But even if so that's just Studio Zero, not Atlus as a whole. SMT games vary from dark to seriously disturbing, DDS is dark, Catherine is.... Well, lol... 😂
@Ralizah Except Okumura. F" that stupid battle. Almost quit the game there.
@OldGamer999 DF has been testing Rebirth, not Remake. Remake was a late PS4 game, it runs fine. Rebirth is the explicitly horribly optimized UE engine PS5 exclusive. . Maybe they've tested remake, too, but PS5 already handled remake fine. The one they keep making all that noise about is rebirth where performance mode looks like Vaseline on the lens (games fault not hardware.)
That said yes, pssr, dlss, is a good scaler with the AI logic but at the end of the day it's still just a scaler and if you already have a great Scaler at the output, you're just buying 2 high end scalers. Is pssr or dlss even better? Probably, but by how much? Hard to say.
That's why I'm annoyed at the pro at that price point. Is a scaler, a minor performance bump, and a forced SSD upgrade.
Now, should you cancel? Depends how much the money is worth to you. Will you get somewhat of a boost? Yes. Do you already have a good scaler in your output chain? Yep. Is the difference in appearance (knowing it'll be variable difference depending on game?) worth it? Depends how particular you're going to be.
Given your indecision on these things this generation my gut says, if you don't get it you'll find annoyances in games and wish you got it. If you do get it you'll get fed up with it not delivering enough difference for the money and sell it. 50/50 after that if you buy another one or not. 😂
@HarmanSmith Yeah, Royal was really weird, and while the end result is fantastic, I really don't understand why they did it the way they did it where you have to replay the whole entire game, even if you buy twice to see the new stuff. It's nicely cohesive, but it doesn't make much sense for people that played it already. Basically it has that new semester after the main game ends, and yeah, they had to weave in the new characters so that you can rank up their relationships and also have them feel like part of the main game so it all blends when you get there. I like the end result, but I would not have liked that had I finished the game prior. I bought it twice. Physical Take Your Heart edition PS4 (Morgana plushie!!), digital P5R on PS4 that I never played, and then finally got the new 60fps version on Xbox/PC and it took me 7 months to play through the whole thing lol. Metaphor may end up being worse! I'm hoping they treat it like P3R with proper DLC next time. I get why they did what they did with Royal. They had a vision for how to add it into a bigger cohesive game, but it just sucks for existing players. Make it DLC, and add a way to just play the new stuff while people playing the whole game get it woven in, like be able to just play the activity events with the new characters as a stand-alone sequence if you have a save game state that's past them. I love and hate Royal for that reason.
@HarmanSmith LOL, yeah, I hate that Atlus does that. I wouldn't mind if it were DLC, but no, you have to rebuy and replay the whole game! At least Vengeance you didn't have to replay the OG campaign. IDk if they'll do that this time. Royal was absolutely WEIRD for P5. At least for the other ones the new content was part of a platform jump (Switch only to multiplat etc.) Maybe they'll get their act together and sell DLC instead of a whole new version of the game this time.
A JRPG review on an Xbox site is, by itself, a moment to cherish forever. Excellent review as always, PJ.
I don't buy games at full price ever as a rule, and have a ton of Atlus games already only barely started (P3R, SH2, SMTV), but after spending 17 hours in the demo, I was hooked and just had to get more. Ended up pre-ordering on a $9 discount.
@OldGamer999 Well, keep in mind the ratio of game pass attachment to consoles. That multi year recurring revenue can easily make the ROI work out. Plus Phil hinted no more hardware subsidy, and we see Sony already doing that, so I think even with small sales numbers, the revenue, and brand value created by consoles existing probably works out for them. But I don't think they'll push it as the purpose of the brand just line surface isn't pushed as the purpose of windows, it's just an easy on ramp to access it. And then stick with windows. I think the handheld is where they'll make their push. Sony has the TV market locked up and honestly the TV market is smallish. Phil previously said there's no point competing will Nintendo in handheld but I think Nintendo opened the door to a new type of handheld in the Deck and Ally. I think how the handheld does will inform their hardware strategy going forward
@OldGamer999 I don't think it's next year, I think next year will be the (dockable) handheld and start the brand reboot through the new form factor, and ride the Switch 2 hype train with a competitive platform. That way they can ride Nintendo's handheld wave with an "adult" platform that's similar, and has GP, and try to be the value option etc and not have to take on Sony's entrenched market directly. I think the "console" will be a year or two after that to better time with Sony, and in theory have a more established base through the handheld to market to.
I definitely think they're not going to try to sell the platform by the "exclusive games" route and will aim more for the "platform services" route, consistent with how they market their other platforms. I agree, it's more like Surface Pro. It'll never sell more units than HP, but it's not meant to. It's meant to do thing thing it does very well as an option in the ecosystem. I expect/hope they meld the platform with PCs. It makes sense, was always supposed to be the point of XB from the start, and really makes it a much more appealing ecosystem when you have "PC/Xbox=everyone" and Sony/Nintendo doing their own little bespoke thing. Part of the larger whole definitely suits MS more than little corner products disconnected from the rest of their services. Heck, it's why I bought back into XB to begin with was because it was "PC like but cheaper and simpler", though I ultimately went back to true PC.
IDK that "Halo" means much anymore. Halo started as a game. Then they tried to make Halo into the "CoD killer" for online MP. Then they forgot about the game. Then they made Infinite to match the trends of the last gen, but released it mid through this gen. Now it's owned by the CoD company. I'm not sure what they do with Halo from now on.
@Balaam_ That summarizes every single gaming hardware forum thread ever.
@OldGamer999 They've given upon Series at this point. Awful as it sounds, that's the right thing to do. This generation is nearly over for them and Series lost all momentum. It would cost a fortune to try to dig it back out of its ditch and the effort would be unlikely to succeed. Business-wise the only solution even if they wanted to make a hard play for the console space again is just coast the end of the gen out, stop spending money on it at all, and "reboot" the brand with the next platform launch. It's ugly, but it's really the only practical strategy at this point.
@MrFrosty "id Tech" YES, I don't understand why Microsoft is not leveraging id Tech across the company. They bought one of the very best engines, arguably even better than Unreal, and could have it license-free as an internal engine.......and they are not leveraging it at all?! I would have thought buying the engine tech was a major reason for purchasing Bethesda.
Starfield is one of those "why did they make this?" games. Their studio invented a deep, rich, lore-soaked gaming world in TES. Much as studios don't want to be a one trick pony, the heavy world they created and the scope of making games in it kind of necessitates it. Then they bought Fallout which then caused enough problems trying to balance that with their TES series. Ok so then they're a 2 trick pony that can't really find time for both tricks. Then for some reason they decided to create a sci-fi space game with too much scope to ever fit, at the cost of BOTH their major worlds. Just....why would they plan to do that to begin with?
@GamingFan4Lyf "Fans really, really, really want a new game engine."
And given times modders will remake the game in one!
Dang, I never buy full price games but I'm so tempted. I already have too many Atlus games barely started to even consider finishing. P3R, P5 Strikers, Soul Hackers 2, SMTV, and yet, that demo seriously hooked me on this much more than I expected and I'm so tempted.
@UBERSICKO Xbox has the marketing, but they didn't market it very well. They sent it in the TGS blast emails and all so it's there, but they don't really have marketing that reaches outside the customer base, they didn't highlight it outside "Japan games"....heck they're barely marketing CoD.... Xbox marketing just sucks, and this game didn't get the marketing they paid for, even though they did some.
Plus most of Atlus' install base is on PS (or Nintendo but this game's not on Nintendo (yet)), just historically, predating Xbox' existence.
@FarmDog08 Persona is all about the social sim aspect, it's the core of the game as a genre bend between social sims and dungeon crawlers. SMT is pure dungeon crawler with no social element. From the demo, I'd say Metaphor takes a line between. They include some amount of Persona's "you can take one action every half day and some of that involves interacting with a character to build a bond" but it's not emphasized as the core game like Persona. But it's also not pure, raw, dungeon crawl like SMT either.
I did my part to support Ubisoft. Mirage, Avatar, pop: lost crown PC are cheaper on Ubisoft store than on the key sellers and they have a weekend promo for $15 off your cart 😂 have to use their launcher anyway so literally no down side.
@CutchuSlow "Devices" so I'm thinking more the Firesticks, Kindles, Kindle Fires, etc. Those little reorder buttons you put on the laundry detergent, the automatic amazon garage door opener thingies, that kind of stuff probably. Maybe gaming/Luna controllers too, but I think this is more about general devices than gaming, considering even at MS he worked on Zune and tablets after Xbox.
@WildConcept6 Yep, all known and agreed (Though I didn't realize the rest of the world didn't have that same experience. I didn't know Whatsapp was standard in EU, and I thought Line was only texting, not voice/video.
I use Apple products on occasion, mostly old cheap phones to use for music players and the like. Mostly because some apps only exist on it, or are only stable on it while crashing all the time on Android because the maintainers just don't care about non-Apple (looks at SiriusXM.) But yeah otherwise, I wouldn't touch Apple with a 100ft pole for all those reasons. And it makes me sad watching both Sony and Nintendo try to become like Apple.
@HarmanSmith Yeah, I just caved and bought Vengeance on Steam. It wasn't the best sale ever, but it's Atlus and considering it matches the lowest price I've seen for P3R, I think it'll be a while before it was a better sale. I kicked in the extra $7 to get deluxe with all the DLC, even though I have a hard time getting into the game, because, I'm an Atlus sucker.
Yeah, I heard some reviews say the prologue was a 5 hour demo, but there's just no way. If you're grinding back MP with mage, and especially if you do the optional dungeon (I did the dungeon but had to run past some monsters because I was out of MP and no way to refuel in there, and left the dungeon after realizing I was getting 1-shot by the boss. In the full game I think that dungeon is meant to be tackled AFTER the story dungeon, but in the demo the demo ends when you beat the miniboss in the story dungeon so you can try it first. Story dungeon has a 10-day deadline, that side dungeon has no deadline at all so you can do it late-game if you want.
Yeah, I'm convinced Refantazio is as long as or longer than P5R and that already set records for how long it is.
@InterceptorAlpha Only problem with black is you have to get an actual comfortable strap, and none of those come in black, and if you want a custom interface, you're stuck with white frames too, so it'll look kinda bad no matter how you do it.
I think the problem for Xbox VR (at least for actual VR) would be on the software side. They don't have a native Windows/Xbox VR kit, and the one they had (WMR) they not only discontinued but are ripping out of windows in an update. They talked about that direct line to Windows for Quest, but then Windows has no support and relies on 3rd party kits, with the total cancellation of their own so that makes no sense. The other is just the consumer support side, that built in wi-fi sucks, and supporting it where they have to point people to routers and such probably is far more cost than the benefit of VR support. Even on PC it's dodgy with various router brands not playing nice, etc (I made sure to get a Qualcomm based router since QC's seem to play nice with their own XR2 chip.)
If I ever get a high res Pimax set though I might start using that as my monitor as well!
@HarmanSmith Yep, that's the life of an Atlus fan lol.
I originally bought SMTV on Switch and a mix of the gameplay not gelling, and the 15-20fps slideshow performance, I just could NOT play it. Never even got to Tokyo tower. Picked it up every few months to give it another go, and it just didn't work.
I actually JUST rebought it recently for the Vengeance version but got derailed giving it a serious go by the Metaphor demo dropping. At proper fps it's a MUCH better game than it was on Switch already, but I still find "something" about the gameplay not clicking. I didn't realize what at first but I think the problem is having too few ways to regain MP. Persona games are kind of balanced so you have to be frugal and use your MP well. Metaphor has the ability to use Mage to grind some MP. SMTV has the little crystals you too rarely find, and the restore for macca at the founts, but at least in the early game, MP is too low, macca to scarce, and in a battle system that seems to have more trial and error MP use as you get going with weak demons, it feels like a frustrating slog. I'm sure it improves after a while, and that's the early game woes, but it's amazingly frustrating.
I also think the ambient soundscape soundtrack irritates me at least in that area which drags me out of the experience lol. I played a while last night then switched to P3R again lol.
@Utena-mobile If Micrsft could make $20 shaving the "o"'s off their name, Nadella would do it.
@InterceptorAlpha I still find it hilarious there's an "Xbox Quest 3" when all the Xbox part is is playing pancake games in big screen. I laugh every time I see the GP icon on my Quest, like, why would I play GP games on here when I could play VR games?
@Ralizah Yeah the third party apps like Whatsapp exist, but you'd think at this point that would just be the default rather than weird proprietary apps you can only call people who use the same brand of phone. Like, I know Apple is a cult, but do Apple people seriously only ever communicate with other Apple people? Do they all wear the same clothes and order the same coffee at the same coffee chain together?
@HonestHick I can get preferring note taking an productivity apps, and I also don't really video call outside my PC for productivity stuff, but I still think it's absurd that it's not a standard protocol, that video calling can only work to call someone of the same brand platform. Imagine if AT&T customers could only call other AT&T customers, and if you want to call a Verizon customer you need a separate Verizon phone. That's how the video calling works and it's so stupid.
And there's not much to prefer about one app or the other, it's a video player with a hang up button.
I never buy games at full price, and I already have a massive pile of unfinished Atlus games (P3R, P5S, SMTV, SH2) and yet I'm tempted to buy Metaphor right away. IDK why but I was instantly hooked completely, and find it much more satisfying than SMTV which still doesn't click for me like SMTIV did. Only fear is I spent 17 hours on the prolog DEMO...this thing might be more huge than P5R which too me 7 months to work through!
It's like the perfect blend of the best parts of SMT, Persona, classic FF (Jobs system), and even a hint of Etrian Odyssey. Like a love letter to Atlus fans who also love FF.
This was a given, they already announced WMR was ending which killed multiple major headsets. Shame, MS had a good footing on VR and is just scraping the future away to buy more cash in the present.
@HonestHick one thing that kills me is the exclusivity of "face time". It's not like Android doesn't have video calls. Instead of a standard video call protocol for all phones we have this hideous proprietary system where Apple people can only video call Apple people and Android people can only video call Android people and if you need both you need two phones and two contracts. How has a universal third party video call app not replaced both yet?
@GamingFan4Lyf All very true. That's the sad part. Xbox had the better product, the better service, and the better prices. And the market rejected it. I'm convinced that console gamers overall just aren't a group that thinks very much at all anymore. It's basically just Twitter. When you consider the majority of console gamers are just devotees of the big platform online games obsessed with paying to keep up with their friends, and are just followers that just do whatever everyone else does, it's not the most thoughtful group in terms of majority buyers. Compare to the start of last Gen when gamers revolted against matrick. Dunno if it's gamers or kids getting endlessly dumber despite seeming every academically more intelligent than anyone else ever. Maybe it's genius syndrome and all kids are geniuses. They can design rocket motors on a napkin but lock them in a room and they'll never figure out a way out.
@Ralizah I wish I could remap switch, because im mostly playing with PC/XB controllers 75% of the time, and PS shapes are fine so switch is the only one that's a total mental freeze for me. Though that would break the feel of, say, jump, so maybe that wouldn't work either.
X is modestly irritating between xb and ps but it's still xb to Nintendo that drives me absolutely nuts. Everything mirrored. I'll never adapt. And since the Xbox/Sega layout is now the standard PC layout for nearly all third party controllers and the PC handhelds, AND Nintendo even copied the Xbox controller but left their own SNES button mapping it drives me even more crazy. Ps being completely different with shapes doesn't give me too much trouble but I do still stumble on x sometimes.
@Ralizah Don't retcon, you were a pony before you were a nintendrone
@HarmanSmith Well, it's relevant for VR, though I wouldn't say it's relevant for PSVR at least this generation....4k isn't really relevant there, lol, but in the up and coming near to long range future in VR, it'll be relevant with some true 8k and above headsets coming up, and a 12k one on the horizon.
About 60ppd gives you 'retina display" or "true to life" imaging in VR, and 8k or so gives you about 50-53ppd depending on display and lens. So close though not technically quite there. But in terms of GPU it needs more than that, you need to generally render higher than the actual display resolution because in software it needs to do postprocessing to each frame for lens correction (barrel distortion, chromatic abberation, all the stuff photographers use Photoshop for to correct for a specific lens design.) So to get 8k out you need more like 9 or 10k rendering.
I'm a huge VR fan personally, but it's still in that early tech era for sure. High cost is a big barrier, but Meta is lowering that barrier similar to Series S for 2D, and even with that people aren't biting, similar to Series S for 2D. Some of it is the tech and cost to do "really really good VR" is probably 20 years away for the average person. Some of it is people just not liking the wearable nature of it, and some due to the nausea phenomenon some have, etc....it's hard to get it to take off. But, man, once you get used to it, 2D gaming feels like a different medium entirely, and kind of quaint. But some people just don't take to it.
The tentpoles that sent me back to PC after swearing it off in 2010 or so were: Xbox consoles getting dubious, the PS5 Pro rumors and my (spot on) expectation on the future trajectory of console pricing, and the one-foot-in nature of PSVR2 vs what you can do (for a price) with PCVR. Between that and the PC handhelds being the GameBoy I always wanted, I made the jump.
@Fenbops Also FWIW, 8k matters for VR. It matters a LOT actually. Right now current GPUs are holding back VR because they only have Displayport 1.4 and 4k is already saturating the bandwidth and can't push proper 8k, or soon, 12k, at all. In VR, 8k=4k per eye, at about an inch away from the eye, and it really takes about 9 or 10k for "retina" performance. Since PS does VR it's almost relevant, except that link protocol they're using doesn't support it, their headset can't use it, and there's not the slightest chance the hardware can render it.
@Fenbops People are unnecessarily harsh on FSR. Yes, people on the PC side complain about FSR because compared to DLSS it's bad. People on the console side say FSR is bad because, well, just look at it, but FSR has multiple modes, and both consoles seem to be using the performance mode most of the time which, yes, looks absolutely horrible, across the board and nobody should use it ever, the Ultra mode (on PCs) looks quite good. As good as DLSS? No. But a heck of a lot better than the console mode used. FSR isn't the best, but it gets an unfair rep because of how consoles abuse it, and because of just how good DLSS is.
I'm the first person to say everything said here and more in every article about the PS5 Pro. It's absolutely true, and people do need to be informed about it. More importantly prospective buyers need to be truly informed about what they're really getting vs what the marketing has a lot of buyers thinking they're getting. It isn't that. It's a $700 scaler with a mostly insignificant performance bump and a larger SSD. If a better scaler is worth $700 to people, fine, it's a terrible, horrifying value proposition but if that's what people want, fine, but they need to know thats what they're buying. 1TB and an AI scaler. The GPU bump is marginal and mostly just able to smooth out framerates a little better.
The problems with the pro are that the base console was released too soon before tech was where it needed to be to be a valid leap, and thus as new games came out these base consoles both look awful. Then the second problem is not ENOUGH time has gone by since then at the current evolution of tech to have a meaningful upgrade from it so it feels like a half-step for a whole price. Selling that as sort of a "do over" so the games "suck less than before" feels wrong on both counts. The ROOT problem is that both consoles are just PCs now, and developers don't truly make versions of the game meant to run at it's best on the hardware at hand, all games are made for some future hardware that doesn't exist yet and/or PCs.
Even so, it just seems like bad form for an Xbox site to have a whole article putting down a PS model. Even though it's true, even though the rumor of the PS5 pro and my expectations on price being spot on being among the things that pushed me to PC to begin with...just seems...wrong. It's a discussion to argue from within the PS community but seems a bit cheap to argue about it from without.
I think this is a conversation that WILL come back across all parties during the run up to next gen though, where we know both companies will now be looking at those $700+ price points as valid. People insist "no, Sony knows that's enthusiasts and they need an affordable console for the masses." Many of these are the same people that insisted "No PS5 Pro won't be $750 LOL, they know better, it'll be $550-600 and the base console will be $450-500!" Phil already lubed us up for "consoles will be, maybe, more expensive than people are used to paying." We know what's coming from both of them.
@Fenbops Yeah, the Ubisoft scenario is as far as I know, unprecedented. IDK what happened, they used to be amazing. Sometime after ACII took off and they realigned the whole company around cranking AC games out annually to rival CoD, something in the company just broke in a way that never went back together again.
I know a big part of their problems was the Vivendi hostile takeover attempt and their attempts to try to avoid that, and I applaud them for succeeding, and I think things are way better because of it, but I also think in that effort they made a lot of horrible decisions that maybe really were necessary in that moment to do what they needed and keep from being taken over, but in the long term still caused catastrophic damage.
@Fenbops With a lot of companies especially in the gaming sector, you'd be right, but in this case I'm not so sure Ubisoft chose Yasuke for "DEI"/culture war/pandering/projecting reasons. I think that was their attempt to "differentiate" themselves from Ghost, because Ghost was basically the AC:Japan everyone wanted since it was teased at the end of AC1 and for some reason they slept on it until after Sucker Punch beat them to it. So it made this "different", and also I think intentionally sparked outrage and conversation which helped promote the game above the noise, because, without the controversy, it would have seemed like a less interesting Ghost. I think they knew what they were doing. I don't think they were promoting culture wars, I think they were using culture wars as a tool to float their game's mindshare up when it already has a competitor they knew was much more unique.
And for whatever reason, Ubi uses American rap music in ALL their trailers, so I think that's neither here nor there. It's the usual Ubisoft Yves take on what the kids today seem to like.
The internet trying to make it this weird "people hate it because racists don't to play a black assassin" thing is what's really weird though. It ignores that Origins happened and Bayek is one of the fan-favorite characters (I think most would have preferred Origins 2 with more Bayek to this...or Odyssey......or Valhalla....) Also ignores that there's no controversy over Aveligne, even though, that's mostly because few played that game because it was a console port of a Vita game that failed on a dead console. But also because her story fit her time appropriately. Maybe, just maybe the problem here is...people wanted to play AC Japan...with believable characters for Japan. (Yes, I know Yasuke is real, and also was not a famous front lines warrior changing history. They just found something that would cause controversy and ran with it.)
I also agree, the "exclusivity" pushes have mostly pushed things into shining a spotlight on every checkboxed "included" figure just to highlight they've been included so the hecklers don't go nuts. Instead of actually including things as natural it feels like the old circus tents showcasing the 2 headed baby and bearded woman. LOOK EVERYONE, WE'VE GOT A REAL LIVE [insert inclusion demographic individual here] TAKE A LOOK, COME ONE, COME ALL!"
@cardcrusher29 Why have Jackie Chan when you an have Van Damme, amirite?
Comments 6,846
Re: Talking Point: How Do You Feel About Xbox's ActiBlizz Deal One Year On?
@S1ayeR74 Yep. It's all textbook Nadella. Fixate on one thing only and sacrifice everything else to make it happen.
Re: Rare Boss To Become New Head Of Xbox Game Studios
The fact that there's two heads of xbox studios, with one reporting to the other, aside from the head of xbox, and all report to the head of gaming is everything that's wrong with Microsoft.
Re: Talking Point: How Do You Feel About Xbox's ActiBlizz Deal One Year On?
@S1ayeR74 It wasn't Spencer and his team, it was MS corporate (Amy Hood) that approached ABK first. This was an MS play to strongarm into mobile, and they eagerly sacrificed Xbox, a minimal profit generator, to do it. They'd been desperate for a way to get into the mobile space as they were the only one among their big data peers that were not in it.
Re: Talking Point: How Do You Feel About Xbox's ActiBlizz Deal One Year On?
ABK is the buyout that killed Xbox. Microsoft spent 70b to buy King to force their way into mobile and leveraged Xbox to get the deal, and killed anything Xbox had going for it that made it special just to facilitate the disposal of all the excess games clutter to make way for mobile.
They'll reboot the brand next gen, but just like X1 they'll be starting from behind, but with corporate looking over their shoulder this time, they won't have the advantage of being the plucky underdog again.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (October 12-13)
Metaphor. OMFG Metaphor. Thing will destroy me.
That aside I feel like I may put pancake gaming behind me for a long time except certain titles. Getting used to full pcvr means do turning back. Elden Ring, flight sim, racing, Elite, Sniper, LaD Ishin, Assassin's Creed, Hitman I'll jumping around titles like crazy, it's insane. Skyrim....ohh man Skyrim modded. I'm adding the AI mods so you can have full verbal conversations with NPCs.... That's the true next gen right there. DD2 supposedly has a mod but runs very poorly. Cyberpunk.
I probably have 10,000 hours of games just from that small selection of games without ever needing to buy more. It's insane.
@Titntin That's a cool take to hear on Avatar! I actually bought it a few weeks ago on ubis store because it was dirt cheap in their fall sale and although I care so little and avatar I've never even seen the movie the game world looked interesting enough. It's in the backlog though. With like 5 AC games....
Otoh while I had zero interest in outlaws, the vr modder guy just released an outlaws VR mod.... Judging by how awesome elden ring and got is in his mod, that's gonna be a must!
(Side note about Ubisoft launcher I actually almost liked it until I found out it logs you out on every machine when you log in on a different one, including console, and makes you type your password every time.... And they tricked me with a 40% sale on Rocksmith only on PSN and the ad hyped that the subscription is valid on every platform. What they didn't tell you is that you have to keep logging in on PS to validate your subscription every time you launch on PC. Wish I could refund and pay full price to avoid that. Could just play on console but audio interface is pc only, and ubis cable that works on console just sucks)
Re: Six Games Are Confirmed For Xbox Game Pass In November 2024 So Far
Want to revisit Star Craft so badly, but no mouse or keyboard setup. But MSFS24 with VR..... My HOTAS is ready!
Re: Review: Metaphor: ReFantazio - Atlus Proves It's Still The King of JRPG-Land
@Ralizah Yeah massively stupid that suddenly and for no reason, one once more basically stops working just for one fight. Worse they made the fight totally depend on max baton pass bonus, just for one flight, when you may very well not have spent calendar days playing darts. Insanely dumb. If I'd played darts and stocked up on one off elemental items you can cheese it.
Re: Review: Metaphor: ReFantazio - Atlus Proves It's Still The King of JRPG-Land
@Ralizah lol yeah I hated that thing with a passion.. I tried for days, nearly gave up the game. Tutorials said that the hardest mode actually was the easiest lol but the final round in hard I think I didn't have something I needed to do it in the hardest mode. I think I ended up having to do it in casual/story mode and that took a million tries too, but that's the one I got lucky and got past it on so my save file was junk after that. But it was better than missing the rest of the game.
Re: Xbox Cloud Gaming Will Reportedly Let You Stream Your Own Games Very Soon
Square Enix won't be there that's for sure. Com they're finally getting to this. Not cool it's literally days after I cancelled GPU and switched to PCGP 😂
Re: One Lucky Xbox Owner Could Become A Millionaire With Microsoft Rewards
@OldGamer999 Yeah I think this is a case where the traditional "non AI" scaler in the TV is already a very good scaler, so any improvement from a better scaler might be minimal. Just because ai scalers can have superior results doesn't mean really good scalers never existed before. Back in the day the scaler in an AV receiver was a big part of it's price tag, and component rack scalers were in the thousands for the custom theater crowd. High end scalers aren't new, just ai powered ones that actually do a bit better for cheaper. If the TV has a particulary good image processing engine inside, then yeah having a batter scaler on the console may yield marginal results. Buying a new PlayStation mostly to get a good scaler may not be that useful if you already bought a good scaler at the output.
The only difference then is that as long as the game has a performance mode at low resolution, it can get you mostly the same place, but if the game only has a 30fps mode on base PS5 but a 60fps mode for pro then you're stuck.
And studios will pull that (+1 for PC, just set what you want, they don't get to tell you ) but yeah when you get the option, you already have a high end scaler in the chain. You don't need another. Unless the games force you to.
Re: Review: Metaphor: ReFantazio - Atlus Proves It's Still The King of JRPG-Land
@Jenkinss IDK if I'd the games are "young adults" necessarily. But even if so that's just Studio Zero, not Atlus as a whole. SMT games vary from dark to seriously disturbing, DDS is dark, Catherine is.... Well, lol... 😂
@Ralizah Except Okumura. F" that stupid battle. Almost quit the game there.
Re: One Lucky Xbox Owner Could Become A Millionaire With Microsoft Rewards
@OldGamer999 DF has been testing Rebirth, not Remake. Remake was a late PS4 game, it runs fine. Rebirth is the explicitly horribly optimized UE engine PS5 exclusive. . Maybe they've tested remake, too, but PS5 already handled remake fine. The one they keep making all that noise about is rebirth where performance mode looks like Vaseline on the lens (games fault not hardware.)
That said yes, pssr, dlss, is a good scaler with the AI logic but at the end of the day it's still just a scaler and if you already have a great Scaler at the output, you're just buying 2 high end scalers. Is pssr or dlss even better? Probably, but by how much? Hard to say.
That's why I'm annoyed at the pro at that price point. Is a scaler, a minor performance bump, and a forced SSD upgrade.
Now, should you cancel? Depends how much the money is worth to you. Will you get somewhat of a boost? Yes. Do you already have a good scaler in your output chain? Yep. Is the difference in appearance (knowing it'll be variable difference depending on game?) worth it? Depends how particular you're going to be.
Given your indecision on these things this generation my gut says, if you don't get it you'll find annoyances in games and wish you got it. If you do get it you'll get fed up with it not delivering enough difference for the money and sell it. 50/50 after that if you buy another one or not. 😂
Re: Review: Metaphor: ReFantazio - Atlus Proves It's Still The King of JRPG-Land
@HarmanSmith Yeah, Royal was really weird, and while the end result is fantastic, I really don't understand why they did it the way they did it where you have to replay the whole entire game, even if you buy twice to see the new stuff. It's nicely cohesive, but it doesn't make much sense for people that played it already. Basically it has that new semester after the main game ends, and yeah, they had to weave in the new characters so that you can rank up their relationships and also have them feel like part of the main game so it all blends when you get there. I like the end result, but I would not have liked that had I finished the game prior. I bought it twice. Physical Take Your Heart edition PS4 (Morgana plushie!!), digital P5R on PS4 that I never played, and then finally got the new 60fps version on Xbox/PC and it took me 7 months to play through the whole thing lol. Metaphor may end up being worse! I'm hoping they treat it like P3R with proper DLC next time. I get why they did what they did with Royal. They had a vision for how to add it into a bigger cohesive game, but it just sucks for existing players. Make it DLC, and add a way to just play the new stuff while people playing the whole game get it woven in, like be able to just play the activity events with the new characters as a stand-alone sequence if you have a save game state that's past them. I love and hate Royal for that reason.
Re: Review: Metaphor: ReFantazio - Atlus Proves It's Still The King of JRPG-Land
@HarmanSmith LOL, yeah, I hate that Atlus does that. I wouldn't mind if it were DLC, but no, you have to rebuy and replay the whole game! At least Vengeance you didn't have to replay the OG campaign. IDk if they'll do that this time. Royal was absolutely WEIRD for P5. At least for the other ones the new content was part of a platform jump (Switch only to multiplat etc.) Maybe they'll get their act together and sell DLC instead of a whole new version of the game this time.
Re: Review: Metaphor: ReFantazio - Atlus Proves It's Still The King of JRPG-Land
A JRPG review on an Xbox site is, by itself, a moment to cherish forever. Excellent review as always, PJ.
I don't buy games at full price ever as a rule, and have a ton of Atlus games already only barely started (P3R, SH2, SMTV), but after spending 17 hours in the demo, I was hooked and just had to get more. Ended up pre-ordering on a $9 discount.
Re: One Lucky Xbox Owner Could Become A Millionaire With Microsoft Rewards
@OldGamer999 Well, keep in mind the ratio of game pass attachment to consoles. That multi year recurring revenue can easily make the ROI work out. Plus Phil hinted no more hardware subsidy, and we see Sony already doing that, so I think even with small sales numbers, the revenue, and brand value created by consoles existing probably works out for them. But I don't think they'll push it as the purpose of the brand just line surface isn't pushed as the purpose of windows, it's just an easy on ramp to access it. And then stick with windows. I think the handheld is where they'll make their push. Sony has the TV market locked up and honestly the TV market is smallish. Phil previously said there's no point competing will Nintendo in handheld but I think Nintendo opened the door to a new type of handheld in the Deck and Ally. I think how the handheld does will inform their hardware strategy going forward
Re: One Lucky Xbox Owner Could Become A Millionaire With Microsoft Rewards
@OldGamer999 I don't think it's next year, I think next year will be the (dockable) handheld and start the brand reboot through the new form factor, and ride the Switch 2 hype train with a competitive platform. That way they can ride Nintendo's handheld wave with an "adult" platform that's similar, and has GP, and try to be the value option etc and not have to take on Sony's entrenched market directly. I think the "console" will be a year or two after that to better time with Sony, and in theory have a more established base through the handheld to market to.
I definitely think they're not going to try to sell the platform by the "exclusive games" route and will aim more for the "platform services" route, consistent with how they market their other platforms. I agree, it's more like Surface Pro. It'll never sell more units than HP, but it's not meant to. It's meant to do thing thing it does very well as an option in the ecosystem. I expect/hope they meld the platform with PCs. It makes sense, was always supposed to be the point of XB from the start, and really makes it a much more appealing ecosystem when you have "PC/Xbox=everyone" and Sony/Nintendo doing their own little bespoke thing. Part of the larger whole definitely suits MS more than little corner products disconnected from the rest of their services. Heck, it's why I bought back into XB to begin with was because it was "PC like but cheaper and simpler", though I ultimately went back to true PC.
Re: New Rumour Claims 'Halo Infinite 2' Slipspace Project Was Axed
IDK that "Halo" means much anymore. Halo started as a game. Then they tried to make Halo into the "CoD killer" for online MP. Then they forgot about the game. Then they made Infinite to match the trends of the last gen, but released it mid through this gen. Now it's owned by the CoD company. I'm not sure what they do with Halo from now on.
@Balaam_ That summarizes every single gaming hardware forum thread ever.
Re: One Lucky Xbox Owner Could Become A Millionaire With Microsoft Rewards
@OldGamer999 They've given upon Series at this point. Awful as it sounds, that's the right thing to do. This generation is nearly over for them and Series lost all momentum. It would cost a fortune to try to dig it back out of its ditch and the effort would be unlikely to succeed. Business-wise the only solution even if they wanted to make a hard play for the console space again is just coast the end of the gen out, stop spending money on it at all, and "reboot" the brand with the next platform launch. It's ugly, but it's really the only practical strategy at this point.
Re: One Lucky Xbox Owner Could Become A Millionaire With Microsoft Rewards
Enter for a chance to win Arkane Austin Studios!
Join lucky winner Kim Chang-han who won Tango Game Works in last month's contest!
Re: Halo Dev Explains Decision Behind Ditching Its Old Game Engine
@MrFrosty "id Tech" YES, I don't understand why Microsoft is not leveraging id Tech across the company. They bought one of the very best engines, arguably even better than Unreal, and could have it license-free as an internal engine.......and they are not leveraging it at all?! I would have thought buying the engine tech was a major reason for purchasing Bethesda.
Re: Starfield Taught Us That Fans 'Really' Want Elder Scrolls 6, Jokes Bethesda
Starfield is one of those "why did they make this?" games. Their studio invented a deep, rich, lore-soaked gaming world in TES. Much as studios don't want to be a one trick pony, the heavy world they created and the scope of making games in it kind of necessitates it. Then they bought Fallout which then caused enough problems trying to balance that with their TES series. Ok so then they're a 2 trick pony that can't really find time for both tricks. Then for some reason they decided to create a sci-fi space game with too much scope to ever fit, at the cost of BOTH their major worlds. Just....why would they plan to do that to begin with?
@GamingFan4Lyf "Fans really, really, really want a new game engine."
And given times modders will remake the game in one!
Re: Roundup: Metaphor: ReFantazio Is An Xbox GOTY Candidate As Early Reviews Roll In
Dang, I never buy full price games but I'm so tempted. I already have too many Atlus games barely started to even consider finishing. P3R, P5 Strikers, Soul Hackers 2, SMTV, and yet, that demo seriously hooked me on this much more than I expected and I'm so tempted.
@UBERSICKO Xbox has the marketing, but they didn't market it very well. They sent it in the TGS blast emails and all so it's there, but they don't really have marketing that reaches outside the customer base, they didn't highlight it outside "Japan games"....heck they're barely marketing CoD.... Xbox marketing just sucks, and this game didn't get the marketing they paid for, even though they did some.
Plus most of Atlus' install base is on PS (or Nintendo but this game's not on Nintendo (yet)), just historically, predating Xbox' existence.
@FarmDog08 Persona is all about the social sim aspect, it's the core of the game as a genre bend between social sims and dungeon crawlers. SMT is pure dungeon crawler with no social element. From the demo, I'd say Metaphor takes a line between. They include some amount of Persona's "you can take one action every half day and some of that involves interacting with a character to build a bond" but it's not emphasized as the core game like Persona. But it's also not pure, raw, dungeon crawl like SMT either.
Re: Halo Enters 'New Dawn' With New Studio Name, Engine And Games
Phase 1: Bungie before they snapped the cord
Phase 2: Number Two.
Phase 3: Rebrand and outsource!
Re: Report: Ubisoft Is Considering A Buyout From Tencent & Partners
I did my part to support Ubisoft. Mirage, Avatar, pop: lost crown PC are cheaper on Ubisoft store than on the key sellers and they have a weekend promo for $15 off your cart 😂 have to use their launcher anyway so literally no down side.
Re: Xbox Co-Founder Joins Amazon, Says He'll Be Working On 'New Ideas'
@Jaxx420 Yeah, they pushed those things so hard, for so long it surprised me.
Re: 10 Great Games That Have Been Added To Xbox Play Anywhere In 2024
Then there's some games like FFXV that aren't xpa, aren't cross buy, but are still cross save.
It's all so messy.
Re: Xbox Co-Founder Joins Amazon, Says He'll Be Working On 'New Ideas'
@CutchuSlow "Devices" so I'm thinking more the Firesticks, Kindles, Kindle Fires, etc. Those little reorder buttons you put on the laundry detergent, the automatic amazon garage door opener thingies, that kind of stuff probably. Maybe gaming/Luna controllers too, but I think this is more about general devices than gaming, considering even at MS he worked on Zune and tablets after Xbox.
Re: Xbox Wants More Feedback From Devs, Including Why Some Are Avoiding The Platform
@WildConcept6 Yep, all known and agreed (Though I didn't realize the rest of the world didn't have that same experience. I didn't know Whatsapp was standard in EU, and I thought Line was only texting, not voice/video.
I use Apple products on occasion, mostly old cheap phones to use for music players and the like. Mostly because some apps only exist on it, or are only stable on it while crashing all the time on Android because the maintainers just don't care about non-Apple (looks at SiriusXM.) But yeah otherwise, I wouldn't touch Apple with a 100ft pole for all those reasons. And it makes me sad watching both Sony and Nintendo try to become like Apple.
Re: Metaphor: ReFantazio's First Review Is Getting Everyone Hyped For The Full Release
@HarmanSmith Yeah, I just caved and bought Vengeance on Steam. It wasn't the best sale ever, but it's Atlus and considering it matches the lowest price I've seen for P3R, I think it'll be a while before it was a better sale. I kicked in the extra $7 to get deluxe with all the DLC, even though I have a hard time getting into the game, because, I'm an Atlus sucker.
Yeah, I heard some reviews say the prologue was a 5 hour demo, but there's just no way. If you're grinding back MP with mage, and especially if you do the optional dungeon (I did the dungeon but had to run past some monsters because I was out of MP and no way to refuel in there, and left the dungeon after realizing I was getting 1-shot by the boss. In the full game I think that dungeon is meant to be tackled AFTER the story dungeon, but in the demo the demo ends when you beat the miniboss in the story dungeon so you can try it first. Story dungeon has a 10-day deadline, that side dungeon has no deadline at all so you can do it late-game if you want.
Yeah, I'm convinced Refantazio is as long as or longer than P5R and that already set records for how long it is.
Re: Microsoft To Stop Selling HoloLens Headsets, Public Security Updates To End In 2027
@InterceptorAlpha Only problem with black is you have to get an actual comfortable strap, and none of those come in black, and if you want a custom interface, you're stuck with white frames too, so it'll look kinda bad no matter how you do it.
I think the problem for Xbox VR (at least for actual VR) would be on the software side. They don't have a native Windows/Xbox VR kit, and the one they had (WMR) they not only discontinued but are ripping out of windows in an update. They talked about that direct line to Windows for Quest, but then Windows has no support and relies on 3rd party kits, with the total cancellation of their own so that makes no sense. The other is just the consumer support side, that built in wi-fi sucks, and supporting it where they have to point people to routers and such probably is far more cost than the benefit of VR support. Even on PC it's dodgy with various router brands not playing nice, etc (I made sure to get a Qualcomm based router since QC's seem to play nice with their own XR2 chip.)
If I ever get a high res Pimax set though I might start using that as my monitor as well!
Re: Metaphor: ReFantazio's First Review Is Getting Everyone Hyped For The Full Release
@HarmanSmith Yep, that's the life of an Atlus fan lol.
I originally bought SMTV on Switch and a mix of the gameplay not gelling, and the 15-20fps slideshow performance, I just could NOT play it. Never even got to Tokyo tower. Picked it up every few months to give it another go, and it just didn't work.
I actually JUST rebought it recently for the Vengeance version but got derailed giving it a serious go by the Metaphor demo dropping. At proper fps it's a MUCH better game than it was on Switch already, but I still find "something" about the gameplay not clicking. I didn't realize what at first but I think the problem is having too few ways to regain MP. Persona games are kind of balanced so you have to be frugal and use your MP well. Metaphor has the ability to use Mage to grind some MP. SMTV has the little crystals you too rarely find, and the restore for macca at the founts, but at least in the early game, MP is too low, macca to scarce, and in a battle system that seems to have more trial and error MP use as you get going with weak demons, it feels like a frustrating slog. I'm sure it improves after a while, and that's the early game woes, but it's amazingly frustrating.
I also think the ambient soundscape soundtrack irritates me at least in that area which drags me out of the experience lol. I played a while last night then switched to P3R again lol.
Re: Microsoft To Stop Selling HoloLens Headsets, Public Security Updates To End In 2027
@Utena-mobile If Micrsft could make $20 shaving the "o"'s off their name, Nadella would do it.
@InterceptorAlpha I still find it hilarious there's an "Xbox Quest 3" when all the Xbox part is is playing pancake games in big screen. I laugh every time I see the GP icon on my Quest, like, why would I play GP games on here when I could play VR games?
Re: Xbox Wants More Feedback From Devs, Including Why Some Are Avoiding The Platform
@Ralizah Yeah the third party apps like Whatsapp exist, but you'd think at this point that would just be the default rather than weird proprietary apps you can only call people who use the same brand of phone. Like, I know Apple is a cult, but do Apple people seriously only ever communicate with other Apple people? Do they all wear the same clothes and order the same coffee at the same coffee chain together?
Re: Xbox Wants More Feedback From Devs, Including Why Some Are Avoiding The Platform
@HonestHick I can get preferring note taking an productivity apps, and I also don't really video call outside my PC for productivity stuff, but I still think it's absurd that it's not a standard protocol, that video calling can only work to call someone of the same brand platform. Imagine if AT&T customers could only call other AT&T customers, and if you want to call a Verizon customer you need a separate Verizon phone. That's how the video calling works and it's so stupid.
And there's not much to prefer about one app or the other, it's a video player with a hang up button.
Re: Metaphor: ReFantazio's First Review Is Getting Everyone Hyped For The Full Release
I never buy games at full price, and I already have a massive pile of unfinished Atlus games (P3R, P5S, SMTV, SH2) and yet I'm tempted to buy Metaphor right away. IDK why but I was instantly hooked completely, and find it much more satisfying than SMTV which still doesn't click for me like SMTIV did. Only fear is I spent 17 hours on the prolog DEMO...this thing might be more huge than P5R which too me 7 months to work through!
It's like the perfect blend of the best parts of SMT, Persona, classic FF (Jobs system), and even a hint of Etrian Odyssey. Like a love letter to Atlus fans who also love FF.
Re: Review: Starfield Shattered Space (Xbox) - Bethesda Fumbles A Big Chance To Reignite Starfield's Thrusters
Oof. What has happened to Bethesda? They used to make amazing worlds. Now they make this.
Re: Microsoft To Stop Selling HoloLens Headsets, Public Security Updates To End In 2027
This was a given, they already announced WMR was ending which killed multiple major headsets. Shame, MS had a good footing on VR and is just scraping the future away to buy more cash in the present.
Re: Xbox Wants More Feedback From Devs, Including Why Some Are Avoiding The Platform
@HonestHick one thing that kills me is the exclusivity of "face time". It's not like Android doesn't have video calls. Instead of a standard video call protocol for all phones we have this hideous proprietary system where Apple people can only video call Apple people and Android people can only video call Android people and if you need both you need two phones and two contracts. How has a universal third party video call app not replaced both yet?
Re: Xbox Wants More Feedback From Devs, Including Why Some Are Avoiding The Platform
@GamingFan4Lyf All very true. That's the sad part. Xbox had the better product, the better service, and the better prices. And the market rejected it. I'm convinced that console gamers overall just aren't a group that thinks very much at all anymore. It's basically just Twitter. When you consider the majority of console gamers are just devotees of the big platform online games obsessed with paying to keep up with their friends, and are just followers that just do whatever everyone else does, it's not the most thoughtful group in terms of majority buyers. Compare to the start of last Gen when gamers revolted against matrick. Dunno if it's gamers or kids getting endlessly dumber despite seeming every academically more intelligent than anyone else ever. Maybe it's genius syndrome and all kids are geniuses. They can design rocket motors on a napkin but lock them in a room and they'll never figure out a way out.
Re: Random: Xbox Extends Phil Spencer's PS5 Controller Joke
@Ralizah I wish I could remap switch, because im mostly playing with PC/XB controllers 75% of the time, and PS shapes are fine so switch is the only one that's a total mental freeze for me. Though that would break the feel of, say, jump, so maybe that wouldn't work either.
Re: Random: Xbox Extends Phil Spencer's PS5 Controller Joke
X is modestly irritating between xb and ps but it's still xb to Nintendo that drives me absolutely nuts. Everything mirrored. I'll never adapt. And since the Xbox/Sega layout is now the standard PC layout for nearly all third party controllers and the PC handhelds, AND Nintendo even copied the Xbox controller but left their own SNES button mapping it drives me even more crazy. Ps being completely different with shapes doesn't give me too much trouble but I do still stumble on x sometimes.
@Ralizah Don't retcon, you were a pony before you were a nintendrone
Re: Opinion: As The Dust Settles On PS5 Pro, I'm Still Glad Xbox Didn't Bother
@HarmanSmith Well, it's relevant for VR, though I wouldn't say it's relevant for PSVR at least this generation....4k isn't really relevant there, lol, but in the up and coming near to long range future in VR, it'll be relevant with some true 8k and above headsets coming up, and a 12k one on the horizon.
About 60ppd gives you 'retina display" or "true to life" imaging in VR, and 8k or so gives you about 50-53ppd depending on display and lens. So close though not technically quite there. But in terms of GPU it needs more than that, you need to generally render higher than the actual display resolution because in software it needs to do postprocessing to each frame for lens correction (barrel distortion, chromatic abberation, all the stuff photographers use Photoshop for to correct for a specific lens design.) So to get 8k out you need more like 9 or 10k rendering.
I'm a huge VR fan personally, but it's still in that early tech era for sure. High cost is a big barrier, but Meta is lowering that barrier similar to Series S for 2D, and even with that people aren't biting, similar to Series S for 2D. Some of it is the tech and cost to do "really really good VR" is probably 20 years away for the average person. Some of it is people just not liking the wearable nature of it, and some due to the nausea phenomenon some have, etc....it's hard to get it to take off. But, man, once you get used to it, 2D gaming feels like a different medium entirely, and kind of quaint. But some people just don't take to it.
The tentpoles that sent me back to PC after swearing it off in 2010 or so were: Xbox consoles getting dubious, the PS5 Pro rumors and my (spot on) expectation on the future trajectory of console pricing, and the one-foot-in nature of PSVR2 vs what you can do (for a price) with PCVR. Between that and the PC handhelds being the GameBoy I always wanted, I made the jump.
Re: Opinion: As The Dust Settles On PS5 Pro, I'm Still Glad Xbox Didn't Bother
@Fenbops Also FWIW, 8k matters for VR. It matters a LOT actually. Right now current GPUs are holding back VR because they only have Displayport 1.4 and 4k is already saturating the bandwidth and can't push proper 8k, or soon, 12k, at all. In VR, 8k=4k per eye, at about an inch away from the eye, and it really takes about 9 or 10k for "retina" performance. Since PS does VR it's almost relevant, except that link protocol they're using doesn't support it, their headset can't use it, and there's not the slightest chance the hardware can render it.
Re: Opinion: As The Dust Settles On PS5 Pro, I'm Still Glad Xbox Didn't Bother
@Fenbops People are unnecessarily harsh on FSR. Yes, people on the PC side complain about FSR because compared to DLSS it's bad. People on the console side say FSR is bad because, well, just look at it, but FSR has multiple modes, and both consoles seem to be using the performance mode most of the time which, yes, looks absolutely horrible, across the board and nobody should use it ever, the Ultra mode (on PCs) looks quite good. As good as DLSS? No. But a heck of a lot better than the console mode used. FSR isn't the best, but it gets an unfair rep because of how consoles abuse it, and because of just how good DLSS is.
Re: Opinion: As The Dust Settles On PS5 Pro, I'm Still Glad Xbox Didn't Bother
I'm the first person to say everything said here and more in every article about the PS5 Pro. It's absolutely true, and people do need to be informed about it. More importantly prospective buyers need to be truly informed about what they're really getting vs what the marketing has a lot of buyers thinking they're getting. It isn't that. It's a $700 scaler with a mostly insignificant performance bump and a larger SSD. If a better scaler is worth $700 to people, fine, it's a terrible, horrifying value proposition but if that's what people want, fine, but they need to know thats what they're buying. 1TB and an AI scaler. The GPU bump is marginal and mostly just able to smooth out framerates a little better.
The problems with the pro are that the base console was released too soon before tech was where it needed to be to be a valid leap, and thus as new games came out these base consoles both look awful. Then the second problem is not ENOUGH time has gone by since then at the current evolution of tech to have a meaningful upgrade from it so it feels like a half-step for a whole price. Selling that as sort of a "do over" so the games "suck less than before" feels wrong on both counts. The ROOT problem is that both consoles are just PCs now, and developers don't truly make versions of the game meant to run at it's best on the hardware at hand, all games are made for some future hardware that doesn't exist yet and/or PCs.
Even so, it just seems like bad form for an Xbox site to have a whole article putting down a PS model. Even though it's true, even though the rumor of the PS5 pro and my expectations on price being spot on being among the things that pushed me to PC to begin with...just seems...wrong. It's a discussion to argue from within the PS community but seems a bit cheap to argue about it from without.
I think this is a conversation that WILL come back across all parties during the run up to next gen though, where we know both companies will now be looking at those $700+ price points as valid. People insist "no, Sony knows that's enthusiasts and they need an affordable console for the masses." Many of these are the same people that insisted "No PS5 Pro won't be $750 LOL, they know better, it'll be $550-600 and the base console will be $450-500!" Phil already lubed us up for "consoles will be, maybe, more expensive than people are used to paying." We know what's coming from both of them.
Re: Black Myth: Wukong Sells 20 Million Copies Before It Even Comes To Xbox
@MsJubilee @Kieduss Xbox version is confirmed just delayed.
Re: Assassin's Creed Shadows Delayed To Feb 2025, Partly Due To Poor Start For Star Wars Outlaws
@Fenbops Yeah, the Ubisoft scenario is as far as I know, unprecedented. IDK what happened, they used to be amazing. Sometime after ACII took off and they realigned the whole company around cranking AC games out annually to rival CoD, something in the company just broke in a way that never went back together again.
I know a big part of their problems was the Vivendi hostile takeover attempt and their attempts to try to avoid that, and I applaud them for succeeding, and I think things are way better because of it, but I also think in that effort they made a lot of horrible decisions that maybe really were necessary in that moment to do what they needed and keep from being taken over, but in the long term still caused catastrophic damage.
Re: Assassin's Creed Shadows Delayed To Feb 2025, Partly Due To Poor Start For Star Wars Outlaws
@Fenbops With a lot of companies especially in the gaming sector, you'd be right, but in this case I'm not so sure Ubisoft chose Yasuke for "DEI"/culture war/pandering/projecting reasons. I think that was their attempt to "differentiate" themselves from Ghost, because Ghost was basically the AC:Japan everyone wanted since it was teased at the end of AC1 and for some reason they slept on it until after Sucker Punch beat them to it. So it made this "different", and also I think intentionally sparked outrage and conversation which helped promote the game above the noise, because, without the controversy, it would have seemed like a less interesting Ghost. I think they knew what they were doing. I don't think they were promoting culture wars, I think they were using culture wars as a tool to float their game's mindshare up when it already has a competitor they knew was much more unique.
And for whatever reason, Ubi uses American rap music in ALL their trailers, so I think that's neither here nor there. It's the usual Ubisoft Yves take on what the kids today seem to like.
The internet trying to make it this weird "people hate it because racists don't to play a black assassin" thing is what's really weird though. It ignores that Origins happened and Bayek is one of the fan-favorite characters (I think most would have preferred Origins 2 with more Bayek to this...or Odyssey......or Valhalla....) Also ignores that there's no controversy over Aveligne, even though, that's mostly because few played that game because it was a console port of a Vita game that failed on a dead console. But also because her story fit her time appropriately. Maybe, just maybe the problem here is...people wanted to play AC Japan...with believable characters for Japan. (Yes, I know Yasuke is real, and also was not a famous front lines warrior changing history. They just found something that would cause controversy and ran with it.)
I also agree, the "exclusivity" pushes have mostly pushed things into shining a spotlight on every checkboxed "included" figure just to highlight they've been included so the hecklers don't go nuts. Instead of actually including things as natural it feels like the old circus tents showcasing the 2 headed baby and bearded woman. LOOK EVERYONE, WE'VE GOT A REAL LIVE [insert inclusion demographic individual here] TAKE A LOOK, COME ONE, COME ALL!"
@cardcrusher29 Why have Jackie Chan when you an have Van Damme, amirite?
Re: StarCraft Remastered & StarCraft 2 Coming To PC Game Pass This November
Ooohhhhhhhh mann.....I think I need to get a keybo/mouse setup now And here I was being happy to be controller only and then they do this....