themightyant

@Kaloudz But my point is he would have access to builds of the new unreleased version if it was imminent, he'd surely be playing that not the old 360 games.

I don't know about you but if I knew a remake / remaster was coming I WOULDN'T be playing the old versions. Seems more like evidence it isn't coming to me.

Watch it live. 6pm UK time is very civilised.

Just let Team Cherry cook. It will be ready when it's ready. Must be super annoying to have the internet go crazy every time you dare breathe... or change a profile picture on your personal Twitter.

They said "studio’s brand new game". Not sure this applies, would be a bit disappointed if it's in the Direct, it's a remaster not a new game.

@Weebleman Much like this HDMI bandwidth 'problem' it's a niche issue with things like 3D discs that will only affect a tiny subset of an already tiny proportion of users. Not a big deal imo, but it all adds up.

@Weebleman I think @bazchillin was talking about certain 4K UHD Blurays which are incompatible with PS5. Though I 100% disagree with him that this is a "key feature that matter to consumers", it's a niche use case for a small minority at best.

EDIT: though there are pros and cons to each system as a Blu-ray player. Both What Hi-fi and Forbes did a comparison if you want to read more. Spoiler: neither are great but they think PS5 edges it.

Looking forward to this immensely. The Dev Direct format is great and all the announced games are hot.

@Medic_alert In reality in the vast majority of use cases it will make no difference as to exceed the 32Gbps bandwidth you have to be using 4K + 120fps + VRR + HDR at RGB/444. Very few games do that.

In the few cases where you are running the game at 4K + 120fps etc. there might be some additional artifacting from the chroma subsampling, though as games already have artifacts from DRS (Dynamic resolution scaling) and other upscaling technologies and games are usually in motion you have to have a trained eye / be VERY finicky to pick up on this. I suspect most users wouldn't even notice.

It is an advantage on paper, but in reality won't make much of a difference. But it is still strange the PS5 Pro didn't ship with a full 40Gbps HDMI 2.1 port as there is slightly more chance for the games to be hitting that on the Pro model.

Last year was Square Enix (Mana) I thought it might be again, but "studio’s brand new game" is throwing me off. Look forward to finding out on Thursday.

I can understand that the ABK deal was potentially good for business for Microsoft's bottom line, but as an Xbox fan it has been really disappointing so far.

We've only had a handful of ABK games added to Game Pass, but meanwhile there were two Game Pass price hikes, multiple Xbox strategy changes, and a lot of jobs lost. From a gamer standpoint, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.

Looking forward I don't think ABK have announced ANY new games for 2024 and beyond. Of course there will be a new CoD but what else? What does $70bn actually get an Xbox gamer? Hopefully ABK have a lot to show off at E3.

Assuming it's true just the fact that these games can run on Switch 2 is great for the industry, it means significantly raising the lowest hardware specs that games are built around. Especially Flight Sim, which shows the CPU must be OK. A rising tide lifts all boats

Nowadays I am much more honest about what games I might ACTUALLY play in the next few months and mostly only download those. You can still pin a tile of a game to your dashboard or groups if you don’t download it so it isn’t forgotten. It has required a shift of mentality, because with 15+ years of games and Game Pass you can’t realistically have everything downloaded.

Yet even with a 1TB Series X, a 1TB expansion and a 4TB USB HDD I am usually pretty full. I try to always leave at least 200gb on one of the nvme drives to install any new games.

However from time to time I do a bit of a clean up by going to my library, sorting by largest install and either deleting or archiving to HDD any games I don’t think I will play in the next 3 months. It helps for a while.

Some brilliant games there. Can only echo what others have said, Deaths Door is a masterpiece. One of the best games I’ve played in years. Tight action gameplay, stunning 2D graphics, amazing soundtrack and a lovely little story. Replayability too. 85 on Metacritic. Worth a buy at £15.

Broforce is great too, and Maquette is fun if a bit more niche.

@Kezelpaso I genuinely feel we could have a situation where GTA6 announces a date, everyone avoids it / delays to next year and then GTA6 gets delayed. I hope that TakeTwo and Rockstar give us a date as soon as they are confident, and stick to it.

@WildConcept6 I agree people can be too hyper-fixated on the business performance, and a lot of that is just from point scoring fanboys who want a metric they can shake in their 'enemies' faces.

But I do think it's more than that too. Microsoft have been ripping up the rule book with things like Game Pass and Cloud, but with that comes potential instability and worry. Whether rightly or wrongly many Xbox gamers are concerned Microsoft will forget the console, which is where their interest is. They made their choice of platform and it is tied to Microsoft's business decisions.

More widely I like to see publishers like Sony making large profits because it likely means they will invest more money back into games and the larger the profits the more risks they are likely to take. Granted those risks may not be what I personally want, like live services, but I am glad they are trying to break their mould somewhat, else you end up stagnant like Ubisoft.

And on an individual game/studio level profits and success usually mean larger budgets and larger scope for their next game.

So I do think there are many valid reasons for gamers to be interested in business performance, even if some take it too far and for the wrong reasons.

That would be a massive d***-punch for this gen.

@Fiendish-Beaver @Rog-X If we take the being an Xbox gamer out of it, as a purely business decision it would have been crazy if Nadella DIDN'T consider shutting down Xbox. His whole career has been about looking through their portfolio and removing anything he thought was not pulling it's weight. That doesn't mean he was going to do it, only that it is right to CONSIDER it. That's just sensible business.

@Ricky-Spanish I keep meaning to make a note each time one of these leakers speaks up to track and see who is actually accurate, and then present the results. Perhaps an annual ranking. But frankly who's got the time. If someone with time want's a project, knock yourself out.

I've seen this view pushed forward a lot. And the reality is almost anything they charge people will pay. BUT I don't think they need to. They sell tens of millions of units make massive profits from that business model on day 1 alone. But more importantly they make even more money off MTX. It's important they get people in the door to make that happen.

I hope they stick with the current model, it has bought them record breaking success, why change it?

@Titntin I’m not sure I am correct. lol. As ever you make some great points.

But I was thinking that switch 2’s SoC is rumoured to be on a 8 nanometer process according to Digital Foundry, though that’s not confirmed. There’s quite a lot of efficiency that can be gained with a newer process, both in CPU power and battery life. Additionally Xbox usually pushes the envelope with tech, whereas Nintendo doesn’t. If Xbox is a year or two later it could be a reasonable jump.

@Titntin Possibly. But I suspect the Xbox handheld will be significantly more cutting edge than Nintendo's "yesterdays hardware repurposed for tomorrow" approach.

@Kilamanjaro I've found ebay to be a good place to find third party repair shops with good ratings and cheap deals. I had my launch XSX controller's sticks replaced after they started drifting for £15. Similar with DualSense if a bit cheaper.

@FraserG Never trust an eye witness testimony!
AKA We all forget stuff the whole time. lol

@InterceptorAlpha I always thought is was additional screen burn in protection.

No, not really unless it’s a remaster or existing release coming to Game Pass. The reason why is, as cool as it was as a gamer to get a shadow drop, I don’t think it did the developers any favours. Just look what happened to Tango Gameworks after Hi-Fi Rush.

EDIT: seems many others share the same sentiment

We are past the peak for this console generation so sales were EXPECTED to be down. But they weren't expected to be down 48% that's huge. Xbox series is trending behind the Xbox One but the rate of decline is even steeper. It's not good news for console.

@OldGamer999 It's less about network max. bandwidth (like 200mbps) and more about consistency e.g. speed of ping (latency) and how consistently it can keep high speeds and bandwidth. But this is the core problem with cloud gaming there are too many variables that can change this, some of which are in your control, like what router you use, and others you can't like physical location. This is why for some people it's fine and for other's it's not... on top of subjective perception.

I'd also say playing on a 65" 4K TV is going to highlight some of the worst aspects of it, as it's max. 1080p with video artefacts like Youtube. But playing it on a smaller device like a Steam Deck is much more favourable.

Most of the job cuts were from Xbox and Bethesda/Zenimax studios, give it a year or two until they really get onto ABK. There will be more.

@TeiGekiLord Why can't it be both? They put in a LOT of money into 343, The Coalition, created The Initiative, etc. It isn't JUST buying studios it's both. I don't like consolidation generally, but after Don Mattrick left them with almost no studios buying was necessary.

At the end of the day CHOICE is good. I don't care if they default to "play with all" but they should give players the option to only play with similar controls.

@Kezelpaso Not to mention cheating is far more rife on PC.

@Fiendish-Beaver They are all ridiculously over-involved. Back in my achievement hunting phase they used to make a lot of people tear their hair out. If I remember correctly the first game was 10,000 ranked kills which was already OTT, the second was 100,000 kills in any mode and they kept getting more and more ridiculous with each game often taking years to complete.

EDIT: I just looked it up, that's right. Gears 5 was 50 re-ups (get to lv100 50 times) and a lot of other BS. Only 0.02% of players have it or 1 in 50,000 making it one of the rarest achievements.

The account banning seems harsh, but it did require account hacking to do at the time, a silly way to go for a needless gamer pic.

Seriously? (5.0) 👍

@OldGamer999 As you said they run on forecasting. Most modern retail is usually a Just in Time (JIT) or Just in Case (JIC) model meaning they DON'T have massive stores of products to fall back on. The downside to this is if you got your forecasts slightly wrong, or sales suddenly spike, you can end up short for a while, first while you wait for restocks, and second while the backlog of sales is caught up.

While it's not a great look, but it isn't the end of the world, it's not like there is no stock, you can still get an Xbox if you want one, it's just limited stock.

Additionally as I pointed out above it's not just Xbox. E.g. PS5 Disc Drive is completely sold out and sells out within minutes of a restock. and PS5 Digital also had this problem for a while here, until the new model.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Obviously I didn't check everywhere but I did check USA, France, Spain, Germany, Poland and a few others on Amazon before posting, they all had stock on several models. Many smaller European countries don't have their own dedicated site.

The only other country I searched and did see a shortage was Italy which also has a higher Xbox percentage. It may be more widespread but doesn't appear to be the majority on my limited testing.

I don't know enough about the Saudi and Indian markets to know what retailers they use and if and perceived shortage is is standard or part of a wider problem.

@IOI Sony have misjudged the number of disc drives needed and have been virtually sold out for 3 months even with restocks. The reality is even big businesses get estimates wrong. PS5 Digital was almost permanently unavailable for a long time too until they switched to the slim model.

@OldGamer999 All we really know is that there is a low amount of stock in the UK, but not a lot more. It could be for a whole host of reasons, and we can only speculate if this is for good or bad reasons.

What is clear is it doesn't appear to be a global problem that seems to rule out that they are ramping down production or something more interesting like that.

We already know the UK is one of Xbox's more popular territories outside the USA so it might just be that sales exceeded expectations, perhaps Indiana Jones did shift the needle more than anticipated in the UK, which would be a good thing not a bad thing, right?

What do you think is the cause?

Not sure if it will be the same for everyone as it was a "Just for you" but the Bruce Lee DLC was free for me this morning too.

@Lup @Fiendish-Beaver The Coalition’s last full game they made solo was Gears 5 in 2019. It will be 6 years since the last mainline Gears later this year. It’s about time.

I know they’ve also been working on DLC, helping other studios like Splash Damage on Gears Tactics, 343 on Halo Infinite, Epic with Matrix Awakens etc. but they have multiple teams and it feels like another game is due soon. Are we not going to see a Coalition game launch this gen?

Really hoping Eternal Strands lives up to expectations. Combining and manipulating the environment like this feels very "next-gen" in terms of gameplay.

Covid lockdowns were the perfect time for this but I’ll take it anytime. Loved it back in the day.

They seem like very different systems with different architectures, from different providers etc. If leaks are to be believed the Switch 2 will have more RAM than Series S, which is it's main issue, but a slower CPU. So they will have different requirements.

But more broadly I agree that by already having to target a lower baseline of hardware like the Series S, or Steam Deck will make ports more frequent and help Switch 2 out in that regard. Though if it sells anything like the OG Switch devs will want to port to it anyway, it's too many potentially missed sales otherwise.

@themcnoisy assuming others were the same we weren’t watching “solution videos” we were watching a recap video of the “best games of 2024” to maybe find some hidden gems we’d missed. But the creator annoyingly explained the trick to solving the game.

@WildConcept6 @TheGiraffe I can understand what you are both saying, but I think an article like this IS news and will likely draw quite a bit of engagement from Dishonored fans, if only to decry the lack of a 60fps patch.

Sort it out Microsoft it’s the only game in the series you can’t play at 60fps on Series X and you own Bethesda / Arkane now.

February is so busy March is a more sensible release date... and a month of extra polish, seems like a sensible decision.

Twitter is the absolute worst place to view videos, everything becomes a blur, but it looks OK. It also looks like it needed a LOT of work. Still sad to see.

I expect it to be an already announced third party title.

And it's unlikely to be a shadow drop if it's a new game. As much as fans and critics enjoyed Hi-Fi Rush I don't think the shadow drop did it any favours and some of the devs even spoke out against it.

@electrolite77 No doubt some jobs would have been gone from the M&As, but thousands upon thousands, studio closures AND a strategy rethink... that isn't the actions of a company succeeding in their plans.

I agree Microsoft is well placed for the future, though I wouldn't say they hold all the cards, they are currently the most at risk of just becoming a publisher with a subscription service like Ubisoft or EA. If they can't inspire confidence in Xbox gamers and the next Xbox sells significantly worse than Xbox Series Consoles then third party devs will support it less and less, and Xbox as a console platform will wither and die.

To be clear I don't think that will happen, but I don't think they "hold all the cards" at all either, they still only publish a handful or two of games a year even with all those studios, that isn't all powerful.

@Jenkinss I agree it only works (at those costs) with a massive subscriber base... but what is massive? Personally I would say 25+ million monthly subscribers is pretty massive. But is it enough?

On the one hand game pass subscription fees have also doubled for Day 1 games in just over a year, from $10 to $20, that likely reduces the numbers needed significantly, as does removing almost all the cheap ways to get it. On the flip side, as we both said, they now have a LOT more studios and mouths to feed which will only increase the number of subscribers they need.

I don't pretend to know what the magic number they need to hit is, how many million subscribers and at what tier "massive" is. However I agree Game Pass is currently not enough to cover all their costs AND make a decent profit. I suspect they make a profit, but not enough of one considering the billions they spend. That seems wildly obvious considering all the changes to their business plans. They wouldn't be branching out to multi-platform and wouldn't have had to sack so many employees had it all been a breakout success.

@Banjo- Thanks. Appreciated.

@Fiendish-Beaver No worries dude. It's one of the things I like about this show they set expectations and stick to them (plus one mystery) and let the devs talk about their game.

@Jenkinss That's not what I said. I said the 100 million was never what they needed to be sustainable and profitable, it was just a goal of theirs. Yes having ABK increases the numbers needed significantly but whether that is 25 million or 50 million, who knows?

This is the third developer direct in this format and so far they have only shown the games announced PLUS one surprise - Hi-Fi Rush in the first year, Visions of Mana in the second - so I don't expect there to be other games, unless they have a "just one more" thing.