AverageGamer

I can’t tell if I’m supposed to like the game or not. 🤷

On one end you have the “10/10” crowd on the other end you got the “ insufferable characters” idiot crowd. Then you have everyone else in the middle like “It just a game bro” crowd.

@Master_Cthulhu70 “ However, having spent a few hours with the game now I can say Unreal Engine 5 hasn't harmed Halo in any way whatsoever.”

This cause the game wasn’t built in UE5. It still using the same outdated Blam engine that powered the OG game… Just with a flashy UE5 paint over top.

@ThatFilbo

You know what I don't need when I'm playing the digital games I bought from Steam on my PC? An internet connection. Steam doesn't care. My Steamdeck doesn't care. It's basically "Yeah, this is yours, you own it now."

That cause Steam doesn't necessarily force DRM, it basically on the developer of the individual game to enforce their DRM. Steam is just the middle man in this regard, and the not the police officer like Xbox, Playstation, or NIntendo. There are single player game on the steam that do require an internet connection for single player play.

@JustBusiness They can't change the entire story without reconning a ton of stuff. Halo is having the same issue at Star Wars... Too much side media that important to the whole story, and reconning it will angry a lot of people

@Fiendish-Beaver "albeit they had more staff"

They most likely didn't have that much more staff working on subsequent games. When you have to take in account they was helping with Rage 2, working on DOOM VR, helping Bethesda with the shooting system in StarField, and Quake Champions... etc

@Fiendish-Beaver Realistically, it didn’t take 8 years to make DOOM 2016. It took less than 5. That 8 yrs number came from the time they spent working on DOOM 4 combined with the time they spent working DOOM 2016.

Also, if you looked at how many side projects and other projects ID software assisted with or worked on while also creating the other two DOOM games. Mean that they mainly staffed up to be a support studio while still developing in house projects. If their goal going forward is to just deliver in house projects… then all those extra employees probably wasn’t needed.

@NeoRatt Recore was made by Armature Studios, not Asobo.

@Coletrain Yeah. Everything is just a case of Microsoft trying to free up cash flow. If Microsoft wasn't trying to free up cash flow... Xbox could have probably continued on like nothing is happening.

@Coletrain The thing is... It crazy when you get one post about Microsoft laying off 1000s across it game studio, but you're also getting post about Microsoft committing $2.5 Billion to the Microsoft Frontier Company

@Ryu_Niiyama The fact that you are looking at AAA massive budget, big company space for fresh idea and creativity is your own fault.

Gaming isn't going to get any more boring. indies and Independent studio, and 2nd party spaces is where the creativity should come from.

@trev666 I wouldn't worry too much about InXile. They probably could be shifted to assist with Fallout given that a chuck of the team are people who created Fallout.

@ZeD They did have one... Craig Duncan and Chief of Staff Louise O'Conno, who used to report to Matt Booty. Both have non left, so Matt Booty is overseeing day to day stuff for now.

@tho_mi With Destiny gone… Those fans, which was majority was ex halo fans will need someone where to go. Right now would be the perfect time to spit and polish the good old Mjolnir armor and get Master Chief back into the public light.

@alasakarama idk. It hard to gage what should and shouldn't warrant a large budget and long development time. South of Midnight had a very unique theme, art style, and story. A game that did very good job at getting it setting correct. It one of those things that a lot of the budget and time maybe went to hiring, and speaking to the right people to make sure that what they was aiming for was authentic as possible. Probably a lot of traveling to onsite locations to get visual examples.... etc

@Balaam_ If it wasn't for Gamepass... The studio probably wouldn't have been bought by Microsoft, and would have probably closed down years ago after the mix reviews of We Happy Few

@HonestHick Of course every company is trying boost profits and up sell user into higher tier. If you aren’t doing that… Then you aren’t running a business. But again, PS Plus isn’t the core of Sony business. PlayStation isn’t prop up on the success of PS plus unlike Game Pass was for Xbox. The fall out we are seeing with Xbox is cause Game Pass isnt working. They now have to pivot back to console being the main profit for their eco system. Had Game Pass continued to be successful and bring profit. Xbox wouldn’t be in shape.

@HonestHick But Sony isn't banking on PSN being a big hit. They aren't pushing those services as the back bone of their entire console eco system. It just an extra on top of a already good console and library of games. Xbox/Microsoft was very much banking on their service. Game Pass was supposed to be the saving grace of the Xbox eco system, it was their entire marketing. It was supposed to push the entire industry in a very different direction

Wasn't Ori 2 on Game Pass? So he basically saying his game was the equivalent of slop then?

Better to leave of your own accord instead of going down with the ship.

Hopefully they enjoy their retirement 🫡

@Skinny-Pete They most likely don’t own Brutal legends IP. So they best thing they got going for them is another psychonauts

@Sol4ris Maybe Microsoft is planning to sunset Gamepass. Recent price cuts, studio closure... etc.

Game Pass was a product of Phil Era. That will be his legacy for the xbox brand. Now that Phil is gone, time to phase it out and move on.

Interesting statement. What is the potential if the deal works? Do they potentially spin off the org and write it off... or do they eventually see a downsizing and reorganization, with them selling some parts off?

@themightyant I already know the pros/cons of Auto SR. You just made a longer more detailed version of my comment. Now mine just looks like a TLDR comment. 😂

@DesertRanger Microsoft’s Auto SR isn’t even remotely on the same level as DLSS, FRS, PSSR2, or even intel’s XeSS. Auto SR will be good for BC games 360/One/OG Xbox games.

But they will be going the universal route and sticking with whatever AMD has instead of custom in house like Sony prefers to do.

@cragis0001 Horizon Zero Dawn hit 4.5 million, but it took five years to hit that number. God of War also took 3 yrs. Forza and Sea of Thieves hit their number in faster period and a far less time.

HellDivers is expectation, not the rule, but that game was a cultural phenomenon.

@Banjo-

look at Forza Horizon 5 selling more than Sony's output. However, it's the only port that sold over one million on PS, and it could be affected by the novelty factor

Isn't Sea of thieves sitting at 3 million sales on PS5. I think Oblivion Remastered also reported 1.2 million copies on PS5. The last I heard Grounded was in the 700K+ range, so probably has crossed that 1 million mark by now. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was selling faster on PS5 than it did Xbox and Steam.

This isn't the same situation that Playstation games are selling poorly like on PC. Xbox games are selling actually well on PS.

Extremely poor decision from Microsoft. See y’all in 12 month when they layoff more people and close more studios/satellite offices.

@darylb24 The purpose of a platform is to make development easier for developers. If the developer needs enough time, more money, or better talent then the issue the system.

We know that theoretically the Series S is strong enough, so why are developers having issues achieving good results? That fall back on Microsoft and Series S

@themightyant "Might some do better in November, not everyone likes or plays GTA."

Everyone may not like or play GTA6, but media take over that will have will be crazy... I can already see and hear all the ads, news articles, video, my parents calling me to see if I bought it cause they done seen a nightly news segment on it about how a man murdered 3 people to obtain his copy of the game.

@ZeD And this doesn't include any smaller projects that they could still have planned for this year that hasn't been announced, and also the PS5 version of FH6... Which I assume they would also like to market.

@Decoy_Snake No body has that expectations of console. Which is why they should be prices accordingly. Not at the price point of entry of mid-high desktop or laptop.

"Photoshop or 3D rendering on a handheld that'll be used primarily for gaming."

There is probably more people buying these devices as laptop than there are people primarily buying as gaming devices.

If you want a handheld primarily for gaming... These are terrible devices. Buy a Switch 2 for that.

@Decoy_Snake Cause home consoles can only play videos games… I can answer emails, write word documents, do photo shop, 3D rendering… etc on these devices.

$1k for basically a laptop isn’t bad.

$1k for a glorified toy (console) is bad.

"Steam for 21.6%. That’s a console-heavy split, which makes sense given Lego Batman’s position as a more family-oriented title with deep history on console platforms"

It also cause TT games scared away every PC gamer on the market with the spec list they released. Had everyone think it was gonna need a 5090 to be even remotely playable without frame gen. Then the reviews dropped and the performance was fine and spec sheet was a lie...

Not surprising… First it was the fraud calls. Now it sms messages. I get so many call and texts that it basically impossible to determine what real or fake anymore. At this point, using my phone for actual business things is a nightmare. I only basically now have 1 group family chat with my elderly parents and sister. Everyone else messages me through discord.

@themightyant "Game Pass Starter (Discord), Essential, Premium and Console (legacy) all don't include EA Access"

Are all very much recently new introductions within the last 7 months. We are talking about something the was cancel over 3 yrs ago... Game Pass is in a currently very different state now vs then, and the market was currently in a very different state.

@Skinny-Pete Gamepass needed as many companies on board as possible. That the issue with subscription services. Content drives subs. Hence why Netflix has suffered due to most of their main content pulling out. Given that this was 2022/2023 and before the completion of the ABK purchase. The inclusion of stuff like Battlefield and the likes were important content for the service.

"there are rumors of customizable gamepass plans coming soon"

There are rumors now, but we clearly seeing Microsoft winding down with Gamepass being a main pillar of the Xbox ecosystem vs during 2022/2023 that was not the case. Microsoft also owns enough studio to feed the content machine that is Gamepass, so not needing EA now isn't much of a lost now.

@themightyant ""remove them from the service", we're suggesting having a family tier that doesn't include EA Access"

That basically removing them... from the service. You're just talking semantics.

@themightyant @Skinny-Pete Cause that how you burn bridges. How you think EA is gonna feel if Microsoft was basically was like “Okay then. We’ll remove you from the service, and go ahead with our plan”. Potentially leading to most people going with the Friends and Family plan over traditional plans. Meaning loss revenue for EA on declining platform. Microsoft doesn’t have the weight they had in the 360 era no more. They can’t play hardball with EA. Microsoft needs EA more than EA need Microsoft.

@themightyant In Playground we trust.

This is gonna make the wait for the Playstation release difficult.

@J_Mo_Money "all solidly scored" is not the same thing as AAA critically acclaimed tho. Is Obsidian a solid studio. Yes. But can they stand on the same stage as Playground Games. HELLLL NOOOO!!!

@danny19901 "I kinda went off FH when they introduced a you can't buy your car you need to win it in a wheel and you never know you may get horn sound effect or something you just don't care about.

FH1 I loved then i didn't really play the others till 4 came out and while 4 wasn't bad it just didn't feel as good as what FH1 did back on Xbox 360."

I think you may need to actually go and play the games then cause you can buy any car you want as long as you have the money... Nothing is locked behind Wheel Spins.

@J_Mo_Money I don't know if Avowed, Grounded, and The Outer Worlds can really stand on the same stage as "AAA critically acclaimed"

@TheGameThrifter Hopefully they can keep it up wit Fable.

@Questionable_Duck Funny enough. No major review team ever reviewed The Vale: Shadow of the Crown... The only review it got on Metacritic are basically small or no name review sites. lmao.

Of course there are visual novel that have decently large fanbases not cause of fanservice. But you can't argue that they don't have ton of fanservice or stay relevant cause of fanservice. Fanservice isn't just sexual images. There are undertone that can easily be fanservice as well. Character arch types. How a character dresses or act can be fanservice. There is a lot of charcters in games like Danganronpa that fit this. Enough that people goon after a certain character. I mean... we did get Danganronpa S after all. Even stuff like Ace Attorney has it own fair share... cough cough Clown balloons cough cough

And you would be hard press to find someone who enjoys those games who doesn't have a favorite waifu or husbando they goon after.

@Questionable_Duck This is one of those situations that the only reason that this game is gaining attention about being a non traditional game is cause of it being reviewed by mainstream outlets. A lot of those visual novels and cozy narrative games avoid public criticism cause they don’t usually get reviews on site like IGN and the likes. Game journalists decided that for some reason this game was the hill they wanted die on especially during the same week they wanted to criticize Lord of the fallen 2 female armor.

TBH. All of this feels like nothing more than human engineered engagement. Cause ya know… “ Bad publicity is good publicity”. Xbox also had to money behind the title considering it a Day 1 on gamepass title and i think it was announced at one of their showcase.

Edit: Also, a lot of those visual novels are filled with some kind of fan service or waifu to goon after… so that also why no blinks an eye too much.

@Balaam_ “Full game on disc” is just as scummy/Slimy considering we know that games nowadays release in such a poor state that “full game on disc” may as well be called beta/alpha.

@AllCandyTimes And you got some many games that use built in DRM like Denuvo… Console drm and online checks are no where near as egregious as PC.

@AllCandyTimes You can not bypass steam DRM. You still need have steam do an online verification check. You can’t even use Steam offline mode without being online then going offline. GoG barely see a fraction of games releases so that very much a moot point.

@AllCandyTimes PC also DRM and Online Checking in… So that not the reason any one is jumping to any of those platforms.