Ralizah

I guess now that Microsoft's games are gonna go to Playstation, it makes sense to design the sort of games people on that platform enjoy.

@NEStalgia I don't play games on the couch tbh. Not even my home consoles. I've consolidated my setup around a computer desk.

I know people do it, though. There are workarounds, for sure.

@NEStalgia "things for Nintendo were twice as bleak as they are for Xbox now"

Not really. That's sorta like saying Sony was on the edge of the abyss due to the failure of the PS Vita.

Nintendo has always survived on the sales of its handheld console line. Aside from Wii, their home console sales were in freefall from generation to generation.

Also, the Wii U actually had a lot of great first-party games, unlike Xbox. Nintendo's ability to output fantastic software wasn't in contention like it is with a lot of MS' studios.

I mean, things are obviously much better now, but it's not like we wouldn't have gotten more portables from them in the future.

Now if the Switch had failed...

Big credit to Sony for keeping the PS3 and Vita storefronts up (after pushback) while Nintendo and Microsoft cast countless smaller, digital-only games into purgatory by closing their digital stores on 3DS, Wii U, and Xbox 360.

@NEStalgia In terms of PC:

• You don't have to pay hundreds of dollars over the course of a generation to play your games online or back up your saves.
• You have thousands of older and indie games that'll never see console releases.
• More stability in terms of availability of your digital purchases. ESPECIALLY when you consider services like GOG that'll let you just own the digital games you buy.
• Way more freedom and customizability when it comes to control methods.
• The option to play across a variety of device types, including handheld PCs, laptops, and desktops.
• In general, cheaper prices when comparing across multiple storefronts.
• Full freedom to mod most of your games.
• Easy ability to emulate games from most older consoles.
  etc.

PC gaming is a life-style and long-term investment in the hobby outside of the confines of the increasingly exploitative ecosystems maintained by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

Consoles are always gonna be cheaper and more convenient if you want a quick, easy way to play the latest thing, of course. They have their place.

Ultimately, though, none of these arguments will matter. People have preferences and will look past problems and hangups in order to maintain those preferences, because their tastes ultimately aren't driven by reason. Just look at how Sony's faithful have changed every single one of their talking points about why Playstation is the superior ecosystem since Sony has changed course this generation.

@JonBoyJ What's not to get? It's virtual photography. Fun challenging yourself to find amazing looking snaps. Fun editing parameters to bring out new elements of the shot.

I got some crazy shots from the original Hellblade, but this level of customizability is... wow.

People with a lot of patience and an eye for a good shot are gonna be creating some wild screenshots with this game.

@NEStalgia Steam is pretty consumer-friendly. Once they've ironed out this new system, I'm sure it won't be all that confusing to people.

The entire reason games end up being so much cheaper in general on PC is because of competition from a variety of storefronts. If you're just gonna stick to Steam sales and nothing else, then yeah, it's not gonna look much better than PSN or Xbox Live.

Although tbf, a big reason you have massive digital sales on console storefronts is because Steam popularized the idea in the first place.

For free from EGS, I've redeemed, among other things: Cat Quest II; The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition; Ghost Runner; Saint's Row (the new one); Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy; A Plague Tale: Innocence; Murder by Numbers; Death Stranding; Bioshock: The Collection; Daemon x Machina; all three of the AAA Tomb Raider games; Control; various Borderlands games; and about 100 other indies I'm not gonna list out. I think they were also giving away GTA V at one point, but I missed that.

@NEStalgia I'll have to experiment with playing the game in offline mode on Steam when someone else is running it! That's an interesting question. Could be a neat loophole.

Steam sales are fine, but the majority of the good sales are coming from official key re-sellers like Fanatical and GMG, bundle deals, etc. If you don't mind slightly less above board storefronts, you can get tons of games at amazing prices.

That said, check Steam when one of its many storewide sales are happening, and tell me how many of those same games aren't heavily discounted then.

I've also noticed many games getting strong pre-release discounts on PC, but not on console. I bought RE2R for, like, 20% off before it even came out.

Oh, and you're getting your free games from EGS, right? I have no interest in shopping with them, but they're regularly giving away older AAA titles, new-ish indies, etc.

@Banjo- I desperately want the equivalent of Pixel Remasters for the older, hard-to-access DQ games.

This confusion in strategy has been frustrating for years, and has also contributed to perceptions of Phil Spencer as being dishonest, since the company often behaves in contradictory ways. I'm happy to see Ybarra speaking plainly and from an informed position, as there's a lot of... gaslighting and self-deception in the Xbox community around issues of console sales, exclusivity, and so on. They need to pick a lane.

Microsoft can thrive in this industry without being part of the generational console manufacturers. That said, they need someone willing to impose limitations, deadlines, and so on to keep their teams in shape and on-track to delivering compelling commercial software products. Spencer's hands-off approach to management clearly hasn't been working. Hopefully there's a shift in leadership soon with the gaming division.

@Lanmanna I think Nintendo and Disney are comparable insofar as both have historically maintained a strong 'family friendly' image and rely heavily on the nostalgic appeal of iconic mascots in terms of merchandising.

Although I'd say Switch-era Nintendo is more comparable to 90s renaissance-era Disney.

Not putting CoD on GP day one doesn't make sense to me, because, as far as I understand it, they're not one and done games. People don't play CoD for the campaign. So wouldn't you want them to stay subscribed to Game Pass for months or years on end in order to play this game?

@NEStalgia Game compatibility with Linux is constantly improving with Valve's Proton push.

Yeah, it's not the most convenient OS for accessing PC games, but it's a viable option if you actually care about not filling Microsoft's coffers. shrug

I'll be sticking with Windows because convenience and familiarity are more important to to me, but it's quickly becoming a much more gamer friendly environment.

As people have said, plenty of games just... don't have Xbox versions. They probably don't expect to make a proper return unless Microsoft puts it on Game Pass. And you'll probably see less of them since Microsoft is clearly tightening the belt and isn't being as generous with GP deals these days.

Pretty sad to see the state of the brand these days, considering how instrumental Xbox Live Arcade was in popularizing indies in the first place.

@NEStalgia

"And $150 of each of those PCs still goes to MS for the stupid Windows key."

Linux.

It's been pretty clear for a while that they want their gaming brand to be hardware agnostic. Keep selling Xboxes as an option, sure, but also put Game Pass everywhere, expand into mobile, and sell first-party games on competing platforms.

They've pretty much given up competing in the home console space as is, so why not?

In this case, they probably want a continuity of experiences in terms of saves and game accessibility between platforms. Basically what they're already doing with PC, but across many different platforms.

@Ooccoo_Jr Nintendo has consistently been my refuge from the very worst practices in this industry. They're also the last ones to adopt terrible industry trends. Not perfect, by any means, but this generation has demonstrated why, for me, they're the last worthwhile bastion of console gaming.

Otherwise, I stick with PC and Valve, which is leagues ahead of Microsoft and Sony in terms of consumer-friendliness and features.

lol What a nightmare.

I'm so glad most Japanese devs are safe from being swallowed up by these sharks.

@NEStalgia I like being able to provide overhead for better performance by lowering settings and the resolution. I also like having my games tied to a more stable online service. And being able to play nearly everything on my Steam Deck. And customize controllers how I like (NEVER going back to playing games with shooting on consoles, ugh). etc. etc.

But yeah, the consoles will be your best option for cheap 4K gaming. I have no use for 4K, though, and am not really looking to increase my expenses unnecessarily.

Maybe it's the Nintendo fan in me, but I'm just not that concerned about visual fidelity.

@NEStalgia Eh. The GPU is good enough. For example, I can play Cyberpunk 2077 at med-high settings at 60+ fps with little issue. Elden Ring ran at decent settings with 60+ fps as well.

Actually, looking at benchmarking videos, it seems like pretty much every current-gen game with an adequate PC port runs well enough (around 60fps) on my setup, even if not all of them can be graphically maxed out at the same time.

Upscaling tech will also make it where older cards can perform adequately for longer. Although NVIDIA cards have a leg up with that, since DLSS is quite a bit better than FSR.

Although you are right that the majority of the games I play are lower spec. AAA stuff just doesn't appeal to me. But I do like having the ability to play those games if I want to.

You can save a LOT of money building modestly and not dumping resources down the 4K rabbit hole.

@NEStalgia Well, the GPU was under $300 (RX 6650 XT). Under $100 for my processor (Ryzen 5 3600). New mobo was probably $100 or so. RAM and SSD were a little over $100. My power supply was already adequate with my previous rig.

Budget build, obvs, but I'm only going for 1080p60.

@NEStalgia My setup has been doing pretty well for me since 2021 or so. My 2015 rig was pretty viable for around six years or so tbh. It's more expensive than just buying a console, but you also have a lot more freedom of choice. Especially if you build your own.

if you don't cheap out on components, there's no reason you even have to upgrade most of em when you change out your GPU, either.

Games like this and Metroid Prime 4 illustrate the dangers of announcing games too early in development.

@NEStalgia Dunno what to tell you. My drivers need to be updated once in a while, but otherwise, my PC doesn't give me any problems.

That's how it used to work. Within the last month, they added the Steam family group option in a beta release that allows you to share games you're not actively playing with other people in your group. Still not quite as good as game sharing on Switch, but makes sharing games on Steam much more doable!

Now, the kicker is that the developer can choose to opt out of this. So far, only the few EA and Ubisoft games I bought on Steam are excluded. No surprise there.

Ultimately, I guess, just go wherever you enjoy playing your games. For my part, I'm just too disgusted with Sony and Microsoft these days to want to play within their walled gardens. Valve has been doing so much cool stuff with their platform in the last several years: making Linux viable for gaming with their Steam Deck push; heck, putting the Steam Deck equivalent of the Switch OLED out for even more reasonable prices on the higher ends; allowing full customization for all of the major controller types, including gyro for PS and Nintendo controllers; allowing games that wouldn't be allowed on any of the other platforms; Valve's fair refund system; etc.

@NEStalgia You sound really traumatized by some old computer you used to own. Quite frankly, I spend as much time "maintaining" my gaming PC as I do my consoles. Install an update once in a while. I guess I do sometimes look up optimal settings for PC games, which takes all of five minutes, and it's done forever lol.

You can't play a Steam game from one account on multiple accounts at once, but you can enable a family sharing function that allows people to access your games that you aren't playing, and visa versa.

Buy a Steam Deck to go along with it, and you get a handheld that can run a gigantic chunk of the games on Steam, and the functionality is being worked on and improved constantly.

I mean, your choice, but it sounds like you're very tired of the dystopian realm the console gaming space is turning into!

@NEStalgia The 4K Console Twins suck, dude. The sooner you switch back to PC and embrace Gaben as your Lord and Savior, the happier you'll be.

Nah. Between Steam Deck and Switch/Switch 2 I'll have access to pretty much any game I want in portable form. I can't imagine what Microsoft would do to tempt me away from those ecosystems.

@Ricky-Spanish I don't know what the point of making this tremendously different from the original would be.

Anyway, existing footage shows it's much in line with the original: grim, weighty, and atmospheric.

While I understand why it didn't, not launching on Steam was probably really, really bad for its sales on PC. I know I won't buy anything from the EGS.

Not doing even a small physical print run was also leaving money on the table.

Crazy to think it has taken console players this long to get a version of the game that runs at 60fps.

I have the feeling video game adaptations are going to be the new trend in TV and cinema, sort of like superheroes were in the 2010s. The success of adaptations like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Fallout, Sonic the Hedgehog, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and their ability to generate interest in the associated games anew, is going to make every sizeable publisher want adaptations of their work, and Hollywood will want to cash in on the new craze.

I eagerly await the revival of Gex once all major extant properties have been sufficiently milked.

@MetalGear_Yoshi I'm not surprised. It's a mascot platformer with a sub-par mascot (at least design-wise).

@GuyinPA75 In this case, it's more like a Mexican restaurant selling two versions of the same meal: one that's more expensive but using better ingredients, and the other cheaper and using worse ingredients.

There is a market for people who want the best, of course, but most people grab the cheaper version because they can't really taste the difference anyway. Also, back when the meal was first introduced, it was easier to source ingredients for it, which was allowed the restaurant to serve any food at all.

Now, the cheaper food is what's keeping the restaurant's sales from collapsing, but you have people who claim the cheaper food was a mistake, even though that flies against basic common sense, given the facts of the scenario.

@RIghteousNixon Well, yes, there will be a media bias against companies that publish games in less favored genres for those who make games that Western critics are more likely to be wowed by. God of War is simply going to turn heads more than racers, flight sims, and the like.

Still doesn't mean there is a media bias against Xbox, which implies favoritism aside from quality and type of output.

All you're really saying is that publishers who push out more conventionally popular content will attract more positive attention, which seems like a patently obvious state of affairs.

Finished up Maneater on PS4 this morning. Moving on to Yakuza Kiwami 2 on my Steam Deck.

@RIghteousNixon If it's a bias against certain kinds of games, then it follows that it's not a bias against certain companies, friend. Certain types of games sway critics more, and those aren't flight sims or racers. Mario Kart 9, whenever it comes out, could very well be an incredible game, but it would never snag GOTY.

Even putting aside genre preferentialism, though, Microsoft simply isn't developing games that deserve to be included in GOTY lists very often. Of the big three, they're easily the most prone to continually disappointing their base when it comes to big releases. So, yeah, a lack of presence during awards season should be expected.

@NEStalgia Pretty much everything that's not a mainline Mario or Zelda game. Nintendo publishes quite a number of games across a variety of genres, but the media largely ignores those releases beyond the forementioned games.

3D platformers and action-adventure games are two of the 'approved' genres. Once even a gigantic franchise like Super Mario ventures into foreign territory (strategy games; jrpgs; etc.), there's a lot less interest.

@NEStalgia Eh, no, the majority of Nintendo's releases score in the 80s on Metacritic. Even thoroughly incredible games like Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

There's no Nintendo or Sony bias. There's genre bias. Which is why stuff like Breath of the Wild, God of War, and The Last of Us enjoy so much attention, and why Microsoft's few good games struggle to attract similar attention.

The first game had some cool ideas, but I wouldn't even put it in my top ten for that year. Certainly not above Horizon Zero Dawn, let alone NieR: Automata, BotW, Persona 5, Mario Wonder, etc.

Users allege anti-Xbox bias, but we see game after game come out from Microsoft that ends up disappointing people in some way. Even Halo Infinite, which initially was met with a wave of fan enthusiasm, has been getting roasted the last year or two.

We're left with a scattered assortment of games in genres that don't typically wow critics. Is Forza Horizon excellent? Maybe, but it's a car game. Microsoft Flight Simulator is self-explanatory. Something like Hi-Fi Rush, as well-received as it was, isn't the sort of big release that garners GOTY accolades. Pentiment, Grounded, etc. are all tiny or niche.

Microsoft doesn't enjoy much attention during awards season because they're simply not publishing games that excel and excite the industry.

All that being said, TGA tends to like having big releases from the manufacturers in the final list, so if Hellblade 2 turns out well, it'll probably be on the shortlist. Especially seeing as how this is an off-year for Sony and Nintendo, so there won't be any fan favorite franchises from them on the list.

@NEStalgia Ehh, Sony needed new hardware. The PS4 was looking pretty wimpy by that point and sales were flatlining. I'm sure their market analysts saw this dip coming and rightly advised Sony that they needed a next-gen hardware launch by then.

The issue is one of expectations. The largest demographic purchasing consoles are millennial men in their 30s and 40s who watched the modern console market grow from its infancy, when every new hardware release meant a revelatory shift in what was possible in the medium. That's just not the case anymore, which is why I've argued you'll increasingly see manufacturers go sideways in their evolution. Granted, Nintendo was smart, lowered expectations for cutting-edge tech in their consoles since the Wii era, and went sideways with tech capable of running seventh-gen games, so they still have room to surprise people with how much better games look on the Switch 2.

@NEStalgia That's what this generation has been, though. PS4/XB1-tier games, but at higher framerates and resolutions. And I've heard endless griping from enthusiasts online about how this doesn't feel like a real console generation, it's just an extension of the last generation, everything that's on these consoles could have been on those consoles, nothing has really pushed the hardware, etc.

The side effect of those games 'not pushing the hardware' is that performance modes can be offered for them, allowing them to run more smoothly on modern hardware.

We're beginning to transition back to '30fps, but gosh these games sure are expensive looking' again. It just took longer than previous gens because modern AAA games take ungodly levels of dev time.

I can't wait for SMT V: Vengeance.

Hopefully JRPG fans on Xbox show it some love.

Well, people wanted games that push next-gen hardware, so... here you are. In all of its lower-resolution, lower-framerate glory.

@ShadowofTwilight The original wasn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination.

It's not my sort of thing, but the original was well-crafted for what it was, and I expect the same will be true of this sequel.

Microsoft Rewards was unironically what initially motivated me to look more into Game Pass. It was shockingly generous for a rewards program and rewarded consistent engagement. Not surprised it's getting nerfed.

As others have said, they had actual exclusives at the time. Real exclusives, but also the sort of timed exclusivity that Sony has managed to great effect as well. They worked with Japanese publishers and developers to get great games on their platform that probably wouldn't have existed otherwise, like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

Games ran best on 360, generally.

They were ambitious with their promotion of unique indies, which weren't as much of a thing back then.

The console was cheaper at the start of the generation.

Just a great console all-around. They felt competitive, bold, and ambitious. and really ate into Sony's market share.

yay free Persona 3 DLC~

@ShadowofTwilight It was smart overall. Really helped to expand their pool of owners when it was also the go-to console for a bunch of big Japanese releases as well.

I don't understand why Microsoft isn't partnering more with third-parties like Nintendo and Sony are. I guess all the money they're pouring into the console division is going toward supporting and expanding Game Pass.

@ShadowofTwilight Really wish Microsoft would help fund exclusive Japanese releases for the system like they did during the 360 era. Games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey were dope, and a big part of what made the 360 the more attractive console that generation.

@AlwaysPlaying Games can be fun, even with substandard performance. What's to be confused about?