RazputinAquato

@InterceptorAlpha clearly you're not paying attention to the news. In case you missed it, Microsoft just aquired Activision for ~70 billion dollars, BUT in order to appease the CMA, they don't own the cloud streaming rights for Call of Duty.

For the next 15 years, Ubisoft owns the cloud streaming rights for every ABK worldwide, except for Europe. In Europe Xbox has the cloud rights for ABK games, but they are forced to licence them for every cloud streaming service that requires it.

So, no, Xbox will not go full cloud for the next 15 years. That would mean pretty much incinerating 70 billion dollars.

@InterceptorAlpha I didn't buy Lies of P, but I actually "sold" at least two copies to my friends who own Playstations. Maybe Lies of P would not sell one million copies so fast without Game Pass and the word of mouth it brings to the table.

My friends were on the fence about this game, but I told them how much it looks like Bloodborne and how good this game is and they decided to buy it right away, instead of waiting for a sale.

Not to mention that no company is forced to sign a deal to put their games on Game Pass. The studio received an offer and they decided to accept it.

@hbkay I'm not very fond of most of Activision output in the last decade either, but you can't deny that Call of Duty and Candy Crush print money... it's not about the depth of ABK's portfolio, it's about the constant cash stream it brings to the table.

That's a really great game. Probably the best soulslike not developed by From. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft went after Neowiz for an acquisition after this hit, Phil Spencer talked about pursuing more studios in East Asia.

I am nostalgic about "Pitfall! A Mayan Adventure", from the 16-bit era. It's a loooooong shot, but I'd be happy if it came back. I wouldn't mind the original Pitfall! from the Atari 2600 with achievements either

@Deshalu I'm aware of those e-mails you're talking about, but the way I see it, he wasn't frustrated about CoD remaining multiplatform and Bethesda games being exclusive. He was frustrated because he wasn't communicated about that at the time, and as someone whose job involve communicating with the public and the media, he didn't like being kept in the dark.

@evan23 I really love Starfield, despite of all its flaws, yet I completelly agree with you. This game has loads of issues. And according to Todd Howard, Starfield was pretty much ready for launch in late 2022, but they decided to delay its release for one year in order to polish and fix bugs. Can you imagine how Starfield would look like if they didn't get more time?

@Dan1283 while it does crash a lot, and that whole talk of being "Bethesda's most polished game to date" is a very low bar to clear, I only started getting frequent crashes in the late game, 50+ hours in. I wouldn't say the game is unplayable now that I'm beyond 150h in, but it does crash every couple hours or so and it's annoying. Hopefully Bethesda can fix that soon.

@GrumpyDev as far as monetisation goes, I think early access is one of the least egregious that publishers have come up with. I'm okay with waiting 5-7 days more for a game I don't want to buy the premium content for (I bought it for Starfield, won't buy it for Forza). I only hope that they don't extend that period further, if it gets to 8+ days it will start to bother me.

Cyberpunk 2077 had a very rough release. I actually pre-ordered it on my PS4 and shortly after asked for a refund, because it was a mess, a barely playable blur. I haven't touch it ever since, but it seems like it's time to give it another chance now, with all the praise that update 2.0 is getting.

But it took three years for Cyberpunk to get to its current stage, so I don't think it's really fair to compare it to Starfield right now.

I can say that Starfield today is in a much better state than Cyberpunk 2077 was in 2020. And most of my issues with Starfield are easily fixable QoL stuff.

Today Starfield is an 8.5/10 game for me, but I believe it can easily become a 10/10 in three years. Whereas Cyberpunk 2077 was a 3/10 for me in 2020. I can't score it now, since I haven't played it, but by the online discourse, it feels like it climbed all the way up to a 9/10. Starfield has a much smaller gap to climb.

@robe Day 5 on Game Pass still beats Day 365 on PS Plus, though...

"Sarah Morgan disliked that."

@DoctorJohnDisco indeed, Dishonored has a great level design with lots of paths between any point A and B, it sells very well an illusion of freedom in what is actually a linear game.

But how do you take Dishonored 3 to the next level? How do you differentiate it enough from Dishonored 1 & 2? And can you immagine how great it would be to explore Dunwall, Karnaca or a completelly new city with liberty to go any where, taking missions in any order?

I really hope Dishonored 3 is true, I thought they were done with that franchise after Death of the Outsider.

Not every game needs to be open world.
That said, Dishonored 3 NEEDS to be open world!
Hopefully one much better than Redfall, though.

I don't find time. I'm only playing Starfield right now.

Wow, that dream house surely is expensive! Thankfully, I can confirm that getting the Professor background doesn't come with the requirement to pay for your student loans 😜

And you can see that this game was made in the USA because you have to pay for healthcare...

Great tip, but I missed my chance of signing up for Vanguard before triggering the mission where I'm undercover in the Crimson Fleet. The game does not prohibit me of joining UC Vanguard while I'm at that mission, but I think it would be bad role-playing to do both quest lines at the same time.

The "Donny Brasco" mission where we are moles in the Crimson Fleet is awesome, by the way.

A lot of folks seem to be jumping to the conclusion that the Xbox Series S cannot handle splitscreen in Baldur's Gate 3. It might not be true, though.

Xbox allowed Larian to ship BG3 without splitscreen on Xbox Series S so that the game could be ready to release on Xbox consoles in 2023. Otherwise, it would release in 2024 with full parity across both Xbox SKUs.

As far as we know, Larian could keep working on patching splis-screen on Xbox Series S later next year.

Lack of split-screen co-op is not a deal breaker for a 100+h RPG... In the end of the day, I believe less than 1% of Series X or PS5 users will use it anyway. Xbox never should have enforced parity in this particular feature.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I don't think any Xbox specific site got review codes for this game: "at the time of writing, it has a Metacritic score of 87 for the PlayStation 5 version and 88 for the PC version (nothing for Xbox yet)."

@Krzzystuff or Xbox is being left to the end due to having a smaller market share and small developers without enough resources to port games for multiple platforms at the same time choose to focus on the best selling console...

@StylesT it's kind of similar, but also very different... Humankind is a turn-based 4X in the same vein of Civilization. AOE is a Real Time Strategy game, more like Halo Wars.

But they're similar nonetheless, in the sense that they're both historical strategy games about forging empires...

How weird both Humankind and AOE4 being shadow-dropped on Xbox consoles in the very same day without any notice!

@BacklogBrad not only cloud stream a game, but cloud stream Call of Duty of all games, a competitive twitch shooter where the kind of lag you get in cloud gaming nowadays would make the online component pretty much unplayable...

I think we, as a society, should accept that piracy is completely okay when the media we're emulating is not for sale anywhere.

@somnambulance I think Baldur's Gate 3 will be the Game of the Year. Yes, Zelda is great and it sold very well, but it's a sequel to another Zelda that won multiple GotY awards already, so I think most publications and award shows will choose to honour BG3 instead, specially because it has a good story behind it, it's an indie underdog made with care and love thanks to a successful kickstarter campaign.

As for Starfield, I hope it will be amazing, and I think it's very likely to be nominated for GotY, but in order to have a shot at winning, it will need nearly perfect metascore just to compete with BG3 and Zelda. In which case, 2023 will officially be the best year ever in the history of videogames.

@DarthAmmii Bethesda usually only allows reviews on the release date... which people see as a red flag, but Bethesda does it for every game, good or bad. Redfall or Doom Eternal.

Maybe under Microsoft's management they will lift the embargo a few days before the release date, but I wouldn't read too much on the reviews popping only on the release date.

Alien Isolation is one of the most terrifying games I've ever played. Fantastic videogame, seriously deserves a sequel!

@emj2010 I, for one, am happy that the Xbox version was delayed until 2024, so that I can play Starfield first and then have another fenomenal RPG to play later!
I just hope there is a nice gap between BG3 and Avowed as well!

@GhanaViking I'm with you on that matter. Limbo and Inside are fantastic games and I'm happy Phil Spencer thinks so as well.

Planet of Lana, albeit from different developers, is another awesome gem that plays a lot like those Playdead classics, and it's one of the highlights of Xbox Game Pass this year.

@emj2010 that is true.
On Opencritic it has 26 reviews so far and it's scoring 95, one point lower than Zelda, with 96 and 144.

That's a spectacular score nonetheless.

@InterceptorAlpha not going to happen, since Microsoft has heavy stakes on the PC business as well. But they surely seem to believe that cloud gaming is a good strategy to make a dent on the mobile market. If they are right, the benefits they could reap should be huge.

I wonder if all those YouTubers who were "worried" about Starfield being in trouble because of the lack of marketing will manage to sleep well at night now...

This game is a 10/10 and it is just a couple hours long. And an easy 1000G for achievement hunters (which can extend the play time in an hour more). You all should play it.

@Grumblevolcano Starfield will be out one week later (on early access), though...

@Jaxx420 you are right. Microsoft payed for timed exclusivity of Rise of the Tomb Raider back in 2014. And you know what happened next? It attracted so much negativity, so much bashing from the media, that it never did it again. Not with AAA games, anyway, both platforms frequently have some sort of timed exclusivity with indie games.

But since 2014, how many 3rd party exclusives have Sony moneyhatted? And have you seen any reaction from the games media against that? It seems like it is completely okay for Sony to take games away from Xbox, but it's an awful crime when it's the other way around.

If Xbox had not buyed Bethesda, Starfield would be a Playstation exclusive now. The only way to be safe against Sony using its market position to take games away from you is outright buying publishers.

Offtopic: well, thanks to that Pizza Pony guy, I changed my username. From Magabro to RazputinAquato. Hopefully no one will mistake me for a Trump supporter again 😃

@PizzaTime109 you know what? My account name really does sounds like I'm a Trump supporter! MAGA Bro 😂

That was never my intention, I'm not even American! I'm a leftist, for crying out loud! Magabro is a pun with my first name in my native language, which is not English.

But anyway, being a Trump supporter has nothing to do with that matter.

My point is that Sony takes games away from Xbox all the time. Street Fighter V was not a timed exclusive. SF6 is already out, but Xbox never got SFV. Same for Final Fantasy 7.

But when it's Xbox that takes games away from Playstation, then Microsoft is an evil corporation that's ruining games... oh, please!

@PizzaTime109 good. Because Sony was negotiating to pay for exclusivity for Starfield, just like they did with Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo.

Thank you, Phil Spencer, for taking Starfield away from Playstation. Not for one year, for good. I had enough of Sony moneyhatting games like Street Fighter 5, Final Fantasy 7, FFXVI...

I hope all Activision Blizzard games Xbox is not contractually mandated to port to Playstation are taken away next.

They should finish Xbox Live Gold with a banger and give two amazing games in August as a goodbye.

Are you sure we are really missing 2 games per month with the end of Xbox Live Gold? What if those two end up in Xbox Game Pass anyway?

Microsoft has to pay a lump sum in order to put games on XLG, why not use the same resources to put 2 additional indie games on Game Pass?

Of course, once you claim a game on Xbox Live Gold it's yours for as long as you subscribe to Gold, whereas Game Pass games rotate every few months. But then you get more options on Game Pass anyway.

And for those of you asking for Xbox to keep Xbox Live Gold, but put "good games" on it... those good games are all going to Xbox Game Pass instead. They want to keep the appeal on their main service. If Guardians of the Galaxy was gifted on Xbox Live Gold instead of hitting Xbox Game Pass, and every month we got a game as good as GotG with Live Gold, there would be less value on Game Pass.

Many mentions to Fallout 76 and Redfall here. Guys, those games, as well as Wolfenstein: Young Blood, are all from a period when Bethesda was chasing the trend of Games as a Service.

Other than the Bethesda Game Studios RPG's, most single-player games Bethesda published were commercial failures. Dishonored, Prey, Wolfenstein... all critically acclaimed but the did not sell enough. That's why Bethesda pivoted to online multiplayer games, something they had no experience with.

But now that they are under Microsoft's umbrella, Bethesda can focus on what it's actually good at, which is single-player games.

How to make dinosaurs boring:
1) put them in a co-op PVE full-priced live service game.
2) that's it, you did it!

You guys should read the full IGN report linked above.
It looks like Microsoft's lawyers have done a much better job than the FTC's. But Microsoft is fighting an uphill battle. The judge is not deliberating on whether the deal should be blocked or not, but on if FTC needs more time to rule. And the judge could easily agree with FTC on that even if their lawyers did not make a good case against the deal.

I have trustworthy information that Banjo Kazooie 3 is definitely happening, but only if Tottenham wins the Premier League and England wins the World Cup... in the same year.

Is it really a surprise that a trillion dollar company that bought Bethesda for 8 billion and is trying to buy ABK for 70 billion has a list of pros and cons for buying pretty much every major delevoper in the world?

@Reptilio yeah, but that's because that's the way game development usually goes. It's normal to reboot the development and even cancel games before they're even annouced. But since those games were announced really early on, we're aware of the all the drama.

@Reptilio good for you, I hope you enjoy your new system.
But regarding your comment that Xbox cannot get games out of the door, here is my opinion:

Xbox screw up really hard last generation. They closed a lot of studios and were on the brink of quitting the console race. Under Phil Spencer's leadership, they eventually started investing in game development again, but Xbox dark ages left an impact. For years they had nothing in the pipeline to release. And we are experiencing that right now: no AAA game in 2022, only the abysmall Redfall in 2023, and coming from Bethesda, not Xbox Game Studios.

In order keep its fans engaged, Xbox had no other choice, but to announce games years in advance. Perfect Dark, Fable, Everwild, State of Decay 3, Avowed... they were all in early development when they were announced.

But what could Xbox do other than show games that were many years away? The brand would be dead if they waited until those games to be almost ready before announcing them. Do you think the Xbox drought of 2022 and 2023 is bad? Imagine that drought and not knowing about half the games we know are in development right now. We would be under the impression that Xbox is about to quit the console race altogether.

Last year Bethesda promised a native current-gen update for Fallout 4 as well, I was hoping they would mention it in the Xbox showcase, but they have been radio silent about it...

@Darude84 I only played Ground Zeroes and MGS V.
The gameplay of V is still unmatched. That's easily the best stealth gameplay I have ever played, period. But there was a lot of drama behind the scenes, as you're probably aware of, an it clearly effected the game. The open world feels empty, the story is unfinished and they forgot to design clothes for Quiet

Without the Kojima-Konami meltdown, that game would be truly legendary.