Comments 271

Re: Sorry Folks, BioWare Is Officially Ending Development On Anthem

RedShirtRod

@Tharsman I would have been cool with a $40ish "expansion" that both fixed game breaking bugs and added much needed content. To me, making a bad game isn't a sin. It's making a bad game, dropping it, and moving on that frustrates me. I mean, look at ME3. At the time it was supposedly the end of the trilogy and they still went back and put effort to fix the ending. It's why I have Andromeda a shot.

It's like they're saying "sorry we sold you a lemon, but the next one you buy will be great!" No, I'm going to remember that the last one was worth less than I spent and will adjust my spending accordingly. What's sad is I would happily spend more if I felt the company was trying to improve.

Re: Sorry Folks, BioWare Is Officially Ending Development On Anthem

RedShirtRod

@BrilliantBill it's just strikingly different leadership at EA and Ubisoft are. Andromeda is a singleplayer game so I understand calling the quits early but an open world multiplayer game is different. Both Divisions came out in a sorry state but the teams were given the resources to improve. I have no problem paying more when a company has earned my trust.

@Trmn8r I bought it for $8. I wouldn't have paid that. I meant I wouldn't pay over $10 from a perfect game from Bioware. That's how low I consider them.

Re: Sorry Folks, BioWare Is Officially Ending Development On Anthem

RedShirtRod

Wow. I bought the game under the impression they were going to improve it. It wasn't wishful thinking, they literally said they were going to redesign and make changes. With them walking away from Andromeda and now Anthem I have absolutely no faith in the Bioware team. For me personally, I won't spend over $10 on any new release they make. Their quality no longer matches their asking price.

Re: BioWare Explains Why Mass Effect Legendary Edition Won't Receive An Xbox Series X Version

RedShirtRod

@endlessleep @FraserG very cool. Must have missed that reveal.

I'm not sure I'm tracking EA's logic then. Why release a remaster right when the next gens come out and years before the new one is released? It doesn't bother me that it won't be optimized for ps5/series s&x, but they had to know that people would want the game to be maximized for the console they bought it for.

Re: Phil Spencer: 2021 Is Going To Be An Incredible Year For Xbox Game Pass

RedShirtRod

@12TerribleFLOPS Not sure which game you think isn't published by Microsoft. The only one not specifically listed on Metacritic as such is Wasteland 3, but it's listed as inXile (which of course is an Xbox Games Studio developer). Just in case you don't know where to look I've included links.

  • Ori and the Will of the Wisps (critic score 90/user 8.8)

https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/ori-and-the-will-of-the-wisps

  • Bleeding Edge (critic score 66/user 6.2)

https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/bleeding-edge

  • Gears Tactics (critic score 82/user 7.3 )

https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-series-x/gears-tactics

  • Battletoads (critic score 72/user 6.5)

https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/battletoads

  • Microsoft Flight Simulator (critic score 91/user 7.2)

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/microsoft-flight-simulator

  • Tell Me Why (critic score 74/user 6.0)

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/tell-me-why

  • Grounded (early access) / (critic score TBD)

https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/grounded

  • Wasteland 3 (critic score 83/user 7.7)

https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-one/wasteland-3

https://www.inxile-entertainment.com/

The ratings tend to disagree with your opinion. Granted the user one is lower but they also gave TLOU2 a 5.7 so not sure it's such a reliable source. You're of course entitled to your opinion but it makes it harder to take it serious when you include it with false claims and lies.

Re: Phil Spencer: 2021 Is Going To Be An Incredible Year For Xbox Game Pass

RedShirtRod

Games published by Xbox Games Studios in 2020

  • Ori and the Will of the Wisps
  • Bleeding Edge
  • Gears Tactics
  • Battletoads
  • Microsoft Flight Simulator
  • Tell Me Why
  • Grounded (early access)
  • Wasteland 3

That's a game every month and a half from Xbox to Gamepass. I think anyone arguing that Xbox isn't making games just doesn't like what Xbox is making. There's a big difference.

Re: CD Projekt Will 'Vigorously' Defend Itself Against Recent Lawsuit

RedShirtRod

@Kefka2589 Definitely don't think you're vilifying CDPR. They deserve scorn right now. I was only discussing what I know the precedence is. I've been out of the entertainment industry for roughly a decade but I never saw a successful investor lawsuit for a company marketing their product better than it actually was. Doesn't mean it's right to do so, it just hasn't been something I've seen judges react on. I have no problem being wrong, I'm only going off what I know.

Re: CD Projekt Will 'Vigorously' Defend Itself Against Recent Lawsuit

RedShirtRod

@Kefka2589 The problem with your point is perceived value and financial statements are two different things. Companies can't convince people that they are worth more than popular opinion. While the stock dropped $31 down to $19, Cyberpunk sold 13 million + copies. CDPR can easily argue that the investor opinion of the stock does not accurately depict the state of the company. CDPR did their part. They promoted a product. They made the product. The product works (once again, inconsistent crashing doesn't count). It sold well. Until their next earnings call this investor doesn't have grounds that CDPR lost them money. Public perception did.

@XBontendo Not showing footage doesn't mean they lied. So long as they didn't specifically say that the footage shown would be the same quality across all devices then it's not lying. If implying was a factor then any investor could sue Nintendo for the lack of 3rd party quality compared to Xbox and Playstation.

Overall it's the timing of this lawsuit that makes it frivolous. If absolutely zero ps4/xbox one copies worked there would be grounds but once again, a poor product is still a product. If CDPR comes out and says that they took a huge hit financially because of it then yeah, this lawsuit has grounds.

Re: CD Projekt Will 'Vigorously' Defend Itself Against Recent Lawsuit

RedShirtRod

@nessisonett @XBontendo look at the precedence. In the entertainment industry as a whole marketing deceit is common. How many trailers for movies showed you the parts with good graphics and strong acting only to be terrible? Disney is notorious for holding reviews until they feel like it.

The game is playable. Doesn't matter if it crashes a lot. Did marketing bend the truth? Sure but so do most others. Halo 5's had it seem like Locke and Chief would be in some epic battle. TLOU2 had Joel in a couple of scenes that he wasn't in. This doesn't give investors the right to sue Microsoft and Sony. No judge would entertain such a ruling.

Re: Former Microsoft CEO Reportedly Gifts NBA Players With PS5s

RedShirtRod

@Xiovanni I won't argue that the 360 did very well. It gave Microsoft the confidence that Xbox was a viable division. The thing I was discussing was the long term strategy. Selling a bunch of consoles doesn't mean much when revenue only lasts 7 years. It has to be consistent. Companies don't care about the money they made yesterday. They stay in business by the money made today. Ballmer's strategy led to drop of revenue after xbox one. Satya's Saas will prevent the same for series s/x.

Re: Former Microsoft CEO Reportedly Gifts NBA Players With PS5s

RedShirtRod

@S1ayeR74 absolutely. It's clear Ballmer was a hardware guy. Don't think he fully understood the potential of Saas. Satya fully embraces it. It's why gamepass and office 365 are so effective.

Ballmer thought to be the best you needed to do what the competition is doing but better. There is no way that Xbox could have competed with Playstation by playing Playstation's game. It would have dwindled, died out, and been replaced by Google or Amazon.

Re: Pick One: Which Of These Halo Xbox 360 Games Was Your Favourite?

RedShirtRod

@John117 That's what worries me a bit. Trying new things with your main protagonist can really bite you in the rear. Just look at Halo 5. People didn't like the campaign because it weirdly focused on Locke rather than Chief and did the 4 man squad thing from Republic Commando. I think if Locke's story was a standalone game it would have been recieved well.

They need to do the same thing as Playground Studios and Turn 10 does with Forza. Motorsports focuses specifically on making what they know works better and Horizon is allowed to go off the deep end and try new stuff.

Re: Xbox Exec: People Were Worried Game Pass Would Devalue Games

RedShirtRod

It's impossible to argue the positive impact gamepass has had on indie titles and studios without big marketing. The only negatives I hear are from people thinking it's not financially viable and those people don't have any stats to back it up. Gamepass is a great avenue for the industry. It shouldn't be the only one but I'm glad it's an option.

Re: Halo Infinite Will Launch In Fall 2021

RedShirtRod

@BrilliantBill yeah the $7 billion price tag for Zenimax will have to show revenue growth in the xbox economy. Microsoft could have easily shifted those assets towards Azure and their competition with AWS. If they don't pursue a larger share of the console market then that expected growth will need to be from pc/mobile. Neither one of those screams great news for the Series, even with Xcloud.

Re: Halo Infinite Will Launch In Fall 2021

RedShirtRod

Ouch... hard pill to swallow. I think Microsoft owes consumers an explanation of their plan until Halo hits then. "Buy Gamepass" isn't a good enough reason for millions of PS4 owners to start picking up Series X/S's

Re: Assassins Creed Valhalla Reportedly Has A Spoilerific Endgame Bug

RedShirtRod

@BAMozzy yeah I had that one happen to me as well. Gotta wonder how that guy thought of setting the trap. Pure genius.

I would argue though that the issues with Valhalla are not standard with Ubisoft games. I'm not a huge fan of division 2 but it seemed like a much smoother game at launch and breakpoint was pretty good too when I played it (it was a month or two after launch so they might have had bigger issues). Even Odyssey's issue with the mid game level gap wasn't as significant as Valhalla's problems.

I think it's unfair to compare games across generations but it's pretty easy to see the differences in quality from the same publisher. My complaints come solely from my expectations of Ubisoft, nothing more.

Re: Assassins Creed Valhalla Reportedly Has A Spoilerific Endgame Bug

RedShirtRod

@Tharsman yeah bugs. Most of the time the ability to select an object would just go away. An enjoyable one would be when I used feint death in combat. Eivor would lay on the ground still getting attacked but I couldn't get him back up. I also love how I've got the complete all zones achievement but apparently I've never done a standing stone. The game just seems half baked.