Bruh, lmao… This is why console exclusivity really makes no sense. This game is almost 3+ years old at this point. It wasn’t even a big game… truly aiming for the 1% that somehow who didn’t own a switch or a garbage bin computer, and still want to play this.
@Kaloudz The issue js you can’t really halved the amount of FM… Car games are like sports games. People want to drive the next big new vehicle, just like they want to play the new player roster for that year. New cars get every years, and old ones get face lifts.
Unless they continually dumped dlc… It really only made sense to release a new game every 2-3 years to keep up with the car industry.
Disney has been putting big money into the Predator and Alien franchises recently... I know that Motive Studio is currently working on Iron Man, but an Alien game in the style of Dead Space would be cool. We have a new Tron movie coming out... Maybe another attempt at another big budget tron game. The most recent tron game wasn't great
@Ricky-Spanish Yeah, I don't think people have realized that stuff like Alien and Predator are Disney IP as well. It been a while since we had Tron game, maybe another Avatar game... Star Wars and Marvel aren't the only thing Disney owns lol.
@Fiendish-Beaver tbh… I wish the US did that. Just one flat rate added already into the price, but every state wants to different, and every county in every state wants to be different, and every city in every county in every state wants to be different.
But you also can’t have one flat rate because of the massive disparity for income depending on where you live in the US.
Places like Redmond, bellevue, Seattle have like a 10-11% sales tax due high city and state tax. But the general income is also significantly higher due to those cities being the home of Amazon, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Nintendo of America, The Pokémon Company International… etc. So that extra $8 in taxes doesn’t hurt. Washington also doesn’t have a state income tax, so you don’t have to worry about $100-200 of your check going poof every pay check.
@Fiendish-Beaver “ US market we often see people cite additional taxes are added to their purchases, meaning that maybe a $70 game costs more, but how much more I don't know. Anyone in the US care to tell me how much you would pay for a $70 game, please...?”
The US sales tax system is a very funny system… You can be paying anywhere from $70-78 depending on what state, county, and town you live in.
@CaptainCluck Not if it plan to be to PS5 and UE5… This is most likely a test bed game for them. Introduce the PlayStation audience to Halo, and get your studio up to speed on UE5 and PS5 development. You don’t wanna have a studio develop a brand new game for a console environment they never released a game for on a game engine they’re not 100% comfortable with.
@abe_hikura It really put perspective on how long video game development has gotten since the 360/PS3, and why these companies CEO start getting upset and start canning everything.
@Llamageddon "Weird that he almost frames it as a choice. Obviously they had to fix their broken product."
They didn't have to fix it. It was a choice to fix it. Trust me. Their legal department would have found a way out to not fix it.
Yeah there would have been an uproar, but most people would have been like you shouldn't have bought an American console in the first place, much less a Microsoft one, so you made your own bed. Now lie in it kind of deal.
@Questionable_Duck Microsoft went into that gen already $5 billion in the hole add on another $1 billion from the 360 plus R&D. I’m not gonna mention the Kinect. But it took was until 2008-09 for the Xbox division to finally stop being in the red. That was basically almost 4 years before the Xbox One. And the 360 basically felt like it ran its course by 2011.
Yeah the 360 sold well (due to people having 2 or 3 cause RROD) and it was selling games and DLC… but 360 broke even, and had the Xbox One actually been successful. It would been the first truly successful Xbox.
“ At the time, Sony reported that they had made $871.2 million in profit through games, and this was just in one quarter”
That number is count profit across not just PS3… But also PSP and PS2. Sony gaming profit is heavily inflated due to multiple platforms. PS3 + Vita or Vita + PS3 + PS4 or VITA + PS4.
@Questionable_Duck Zune and the like never got the chance cause they never had the billions of dollars spent of them before they end entered the market...
Microsoft spent 1 billion to fix the RROD for the 360 which they never truly recovered from. So the 360 was neither a flop or a success, it just broke even. Xbox should have axed there.
"Satya Nadella was apparently this close to shutting Xbox down after the launch of the Xbox One."
And that mostly due to pressure from investors would also want want bing and Surface... But the investor have basically argued for Microsoft to axe Xbox for years, and every CEO since Bill has refused.
"Microsoft wouldn't have to axe Game Pass entirely if they want to keep xCloud around. They could just turn it into a PS Plus-like service and get rid of day-one releases"
A PS Plus-Like Model doesn't work unless you start offering all games for direct purchase and streaming for cloud user without console/PC so basically moving to a Stadia like model. Right now, the Game Pass Day-One releases is the only way for a of lot the games to be stream-able. You can't stream none of Microsoft's games even if you own them.
@Juanalf Cause I can then grab my Switch 2 and play Cyberpunk while on the go like at work, at a family member place; or basically any where my Jeep Wrangler Rubicon can take me in PNW...
@Questionable_Duck “ Microsoft was willing to invest in long-term business strategies in the early 2000s. ”
Tell that to Zune, MSN Music… and all the other stuff Microsoft killed off early in the 2000s.
Xbox is the only division that no matter how many billions and billions it continues to Microsoft in the hole. Microsoft continues to pull out the cheque book.
“Satya Nadella, would never do anything like the original Xbox. Satya and the Microsoft shareholders clearly only care about one thing: how to make as much money as fast as possible. They don't like long-term business strategies.”
Yet, Satya Nadella and Co gave Phill and Team how many years after he came in to fix the ship after the Xbox One launch? If they didn’t like long-term business strategies… Why not pivot then?
But services like xCloud are reliant on Game Pass which is probably the biggest reason why they haven’t axed the service yet. Microsoft knows that eventually physical hardware is going away… it not an if, but a when. Axing the service to only turn around in couple year to bring it back under a different name makes no sense. Better to ride out the unprofitable and the first to market instead of play catch up gains like they currently are with AI, ARM… etc
@Fiendish-Beaver " AB games would turn around the fortunes of Game Pass by bringing in still more subscribers. When that didn't happen, and Starfield failed to move the dial, that is when Microsoft said enough is enough and told Spencer that he was to take Xbox multiplatform."
The funny part about this statement is that... The ABK purchase was completed until Oct 13 2023, and we still don't real have any game from them in the service yet. So, of course the ABK purchase didn't bring in more subscribers.
@Questionable_Duck "seriously expect the Microsoft of today - a company who immediately cuts support for stuff that doesn't make profit immediately - to burn endless cash on a unprofitable subscription service for 8 years."
Granted, Microsoft entire ecosystem has shifted to a subscription-based... Office 365, Visual Studio Subscription, Azure Subscriptions.... etc. The list goes on and on.
They are trying to find a way for Xbox to neutrally fit into that model. I think they understand that Game Pass profitability isn't a race; it a marathon cause gamers are tricky bunch. But also like a loving parent, Microsoft have been very lenient with Xbox's short comings. Xbox has been a money pit for Microsoft since day 1. Xbox should've been axe after the original Xbox going off your standards and expectations of Microsoft.
@nomither6 “ compare it to the steamdeck, it’s actual competitor in which it’s absolutely inferior to”
How can something be on almost on par with Series S which is better than the Steam Deck, but absolutely inferior to the Steam Deck… and we’re not we’re not talking about libraries wise
@Kraven “ Microsoft themselves have stated profusely this generation that they are strongly pursuing the Japanese market. They want(ed) to tap into that market. ”
They say that every generation… It really just means they’re working to keep square Enix, Bandai namco, Sega… etc games on their platform. Not develop their own Japanese games.
@Kraven Dishonored was made by Arkane Lyon (OG studio) not Austin. Austin is/was a satellite studio. Deathloop is also made my Arkane Lyon, again not Austin. Marvel Blade is being made by Arkane Lyon… again, not Austin.
“didn’t make crap” I meant that as Austin didn’t make the games that Arkane is renowned for Dishonored, Deathloop, Wolfenstein Youngblood & Cyberpilot
EDIT: Would like to add this: “ Around 70% of team members who had worked on Prey had departed the studio by the time Redfall was ready for store shelves, and the company struggled to replace their expertise.”
So, Arkane Austin was basically a corpse by the time red fall released, and only remained opened that long to see Red Fall shipped… They couldn’t hire anyone.
@Kraven Arkane Austin didn’t make crap… They made Prey and Redfall. That it. The real Arkane is still around the one who made a ton of great games…
I think in the end, the MMO market is too crowded and we’re seeing declining interest in new live service game. Releasing a new MMO would also mean pulling away resources from Elder Scrolls Online.
Tango Gameworks is a no brainer… Japanese studio. It just not a market Microsoft is really putting any effort into.🤷♂️
When Microsoft bought was on the verge of buying Blizzard, they were a mess. They was losing market share to FFXIV, OW2 was and still is a mess… Diablo 4 has come and gone with a massive meh. They should have not been working on a new IP. They should have been focusing on fixing house. So good on Microsoft for canning that game cause do we really need another Blizzard game on the market while their current one struggle?
Motorsport has been on the decline since the 5 one. This reboot was their last real chance in a dying market. I mean… Read the room, you don’t just get to stay around cause you help build a brand. Motorsport is very expensive to operate due to licensing. You have bring money, and sells start to slump… well… Games like Motorsport aren’t really wanted by the general population. They want their Mario Kart, Need for Speed, and Horizon. Simple grab and pick up games. Unless you simply good hardcore for PC sim crowd. There really no where else for you to operate. Gran Turismo is just luckily enough to have a very very passionate community and fanbase.
@Nalverus No, what I’m saying is that 9GB of LPDDR5X (mobile memory) is not the same thing as 8GB GDDR6 (high speed graphics memory). I’m not specifically talking about SF6. I’m just talking about the Switch 2 design in general. It getting 1GB of ram was most likely to compensate for overall slower memory… It no different than the XBox One’s 32 MB of eSRAM to address a potential bottleneck in its memory bandwidth compared to the PS4. The Xbox One used slower DDR3 RAM, the eSRAM, acted as a high-speed cache, offerinb significantly higher bandwidth for specific tasks, like rendering graphics.
The higher textures of switch 2 vs series s… could be down to a number of things. Not higher ram. Engine improvements, Architecture differences between Nvidia and AMD. Switch 2 most likely use NTC ( neural texture compression ) which definitely would allow lower bandwidth machine like Switch to offer better textures. AMD still working on their answer to that, and Series S could definitely benefit from something like that…
You saying more ram = more space for detailed models is basically saying that every game realistically should have better texture on switch. But that is simply not true.
“ internal resolution running lower an upscaling to 1080p with 8GB of ram.”
The Series S is a native 1080p. The only thing upscaler is handling is noise, aliasing and flicker. DLSS just provides a cleaner image, and that nothing to do with ram. That just DLSS being OP.
But there are moments where that DLSS fall short compared to the native image of the Series S.
Memory speed and bandwidth is why Series S is native 1080P and Switch 2 is native 960x540 upscale to 1080P.
What really happened is that Capcom realized their internal scaler is terrible. Decided to hit a native 1080P resolution on the Series S which took much of the graphic budget so went with lower quality textures. Could have went 900P and higher textures 🤷♂️
The native resolution is disgusting on Switch 2, so many of these games are relying on DLSS to do the heavy lifting… But I guess higher textures than Series S is great. A 720P or 900P upscaled with lower textures would have been a far better decision
@Kraven “ The Initiative haven’t had the chance to release a game yet, so they could have been worth saving”
The studio was not worth saving. It was a massive flop of a studio. The studio was a rotating door of massive talent leaving and joining. Just look up how many people have left the studio. Half the studio left before 2022. That the reason for Perfect Dark was in development so long. Development had never actually started. There was never anyone at The Initiative long enough to start development. That why Microsoft had to bring in Crystal Dynamics, an established studio with a functional development team.
The Initiative is also located in Santa Monica, a place that has a very, very, very high cost of living even compared to Microsoft own home city of Redmond which already has a ridiculously cost of living.
The Initiative employees was burning money, they’re not paying the office rent, gas, electricity, water, cleaning staff, lunch… etc and what ever other benefits that come with being apart of a big fancy FANNG company, but they wasn’t delivering on their end of the deal.
When it comes time to make cuts, do you cut the expensive flop of a studio, and do you cut the studios who was actually delivering games?
@IronMan30 I think back when there was a massive restructuring of 343i due to Halo Infinite. News basically came out that 343i had no oversight from Xbox/Microsoft at all. It was basically like they was completely two separate companies going in completely different direction. Even tho 343i office is right on Microsoft's Redmond campus.
“Microsoft is inconsistent, so you can never know what they'll do next quarter“
You can replace Microsoft with any massive big tech company. I’m so scared every day I going into work at AWS that I’ll be put on some type of PIP or Focus, I really should have just done want my father and both my sister did… Go do tech work for one of the big local county governments. Forget West coast and Seattle life.
@S1ayeR74 I mean... Yeah, they laid people off. But that doesn't really mean they can't hire people back when it time to ramp up production of the next FM game. These lay off at Turn 10 really just mean that the content pipeline for FM2023 is over. The remaining developers will be heading back to the drawing boarding and see how they can bring back the franchise. (reboot #2 baby)
@Millionski "So many layoffs across MS, google and amazon"
The funny part about those lays off at Amazon... Is that I work at AWS (Data Center/infrastructure side)), and we've been on a massive hiring spree for the last 8 months it been crazy. We just had some join my team who was an XGS layoff from Seattle.
@Fiendish-Beaver " "thousands" of layoffs focused mainly around sales"
With the Xbox Ally X and the Xbox Quest 3S, it seems that Microsoft is moving away from manufacturing a lot of their own hardware. With that... You don't need a large sales team. You can rely on the sales team of the partner your working with (ASUS, META, Samsung...etc)
Microsoft is also someone who mainly relies on contractors anyway. They don't do a lot internal hiring.
@TheGameThrifter Sony and Nintendo aren't extremely bloated companies. But Playstation did lay off at Bend and Blue Point games. They also laid off a number of people in their Visual Arts Group and Malaysia Studio. Who know how many people the larger parent company has laid from across their mobile, TV, and movie... etc divisions. And that was just from this year. Nintendo on the other hand doesn't publicly admit when they lay people off you have dig through lays of NDA to find lay off information.
Funny that it took this long for a Xbox branded Quest. Facebook/Meta/Oculus collaboration with Microsoft/Xbox goes all the way back to the original Rift. They use ship Xbox One controller with original Rift before they had introduced their own controllers that also borrowed a couple designs elements from Xbox.
@bazchillin Studio is actually working on multiple game at once. Mindseye was initial a proof of concept for their real game Everywhere, and originally suppose to be a Episodic video game... this was back in mid of 2023. So between mid 2023 and mid 2025. It went from an episodic video game to a GTA clone?
@Neither_scene Yeah… It suck. I would love to see what a modern Nvidia base console (non-handheld) would be capable of. Nvidia just didn’t have anything on the market during designing of the PS4/Xbox One. Now it too hard to make the change from AMD to Nvidia for compatibility reasons.
lol. They said the exact thing I’ve been telling people. OLED is great, but the tech specs just aren’t there yet at any reasonable price. You don’t want to dump your entire R&D budget into display tech. The funny part is by the time tech does probably catch up… Mini LED will probably be in a good enough spot for it to be the goto handhelds over OLEDs.
@Fiendish-Beaver Grant. We don't know how steam would work on xbox The only reason you can get the game cheaper on PC isn't cause of Steam. It cause you can buy 3rd keys online for vastly cheaper price, and redeem it to be playable on Steam. There is no guarantee that will be possible through Steam on Xbox... If buy the game through steam direct it the same price as Xbox.
@Coletrain It is exactly this... The moment that SteamOS reviews went live this week for Asus and Legion devices. Microsoft/Window 11 was absolutely crapped on to the point that only an idiot would buy a Window 11 handheld PC over a SteamOS one. They're cheaper, get better performance, and is way more energy efficient.
Microsoft need to put more energy towards improving Windows 11 gaming performance across all devices, not just handhelds. Cause all it would take is SteamOS coming to desktop for gamer to jump ship
@Titntin “ who actually consist of 74 people and not the hundreds you stated”
That based on actively employed, probably doesn’t exactly count contractors, and people they were still actively hiring or onboarding. As the information about employment count is based of ‘associated member’ on LinkedIn information… So you wouldn’t be counted if you haven’t updated your employment information on your profile. And even the LinkedIn page says 50-200 employees.
“I wonder at the sanity of those that decided she was the correct hire for that post.”
Probably a white hiring manager who probably only hired her cause she was a black PoC. Given that Black Panther is a black PoC character and entire existence is based around Afro-culture. Their goal would have mostly been to hiring someone who can bring that first hand experience of that culture. Cause believe it or not, white people don’t know the nuances of that culture. The gaming industry doesn’t exactly have a lot of black PoC narrative designers. It basically slim pickings on that front.
@Titntin Dani Lalonders wasn’t even the hiring manager or part of hiring team for Cliffhanger games. So you’re talking about one person out hundreds. Their comment was when they was apart of validate joy studio, an indie studio who main focus was about making a game about people of color. So I wouldn’t jump for joy about the closures of studio cause one developer said something years ago.
@Cakefish With the way things are going… No one in their right mind will be purchasing an Xbox next gen. The only people who would be purchasing an Xbox is people who cling to game pass. The amount money they would be making from store purchases would be so insignificant.
@TheGameThrifter Ultimate is $10 more than PC game pass not just cause of online… It the only sub that offers cloud gaming (both xCloud and GeForce), EA Play, Day 1 on all titles… Plus other perks.
Paid online will still be there if you decide to purchase the game Xbox store or game pass… They could easily lock their Steam games behind an online pay wall. Steam operates on an open infrastructure/platform base on trust… There is no one single entity controlling multiplayer. Developers could have easily charged players an online fee to access their games. Developers just don’t do it cause the backlash is not worth it.
@Titntin Quote Phil “ [Subsidizing hardware] becomes more challenging in today’s world,” Spencer said. “And I will say, and this may seem too altruistic, I don’t know that it’s growing the industry. So I think, what are the barriers? What are the things that create friction in today’s world for creators and players? And how can we be part of opening up that model?”
They’re already think about getting rid of that model, and pushing to allow other store front will allow them to drop that… But knowing Xbox and Phil, they say one thing one month then change their mind next month.
@Coletrain Yeah… It still a massive misconception that you always have tinkering with settings. The game will do itself. You really just have to dial to your preferences… In my case set the setting higher cause the games keeps only doing high settings even tho I have a 4090.
@Coletrain It will probably come xbox where it only offers big screen mode. Then from there you just launch the game… 99% of games are good at detecting hardware and configuring the game settings based off of that. No need to have a team do that since it not a handheld.
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Re: Square Enix's Triangle Strategy Is Shadow Dropping Today On Xbox
Bruh, lmao… This is why console exclusivity really makes no sense. This game is almost 3+ years old at this point. It wasn’t even a big game… truly aiming for the 1% that somehow who didn’t own a switch or a garbage bin computer, and still want to play this.
Re: Forza Motorsport Team 'Assures' Players That Support Will Continue
@Kaloudz The issue js you can’t really halved the amount of FM… Car games are like sports games. People want to drive the next big new vehicle, just like they want to play the new player roster for that year. New cars get every years, and old ones get face lifts.
Unless they continually dumped dlc… It really only made sense to release a new game every 2-3 years to keep up with the car industry.
Re: EA Is Working On 'A Few' Unannounced Games Based On Disney IP
Disney has been putting big money into the Predator and Alien franchises recently... I know that Motive Studio is currently working on Iron Man, but an Alien game in the style of Dead Space would be cool. We have a new Tron movie coming out... Maybe another attempt at another big budget tron game. The most recent tron game wasn't great
Re: EA Is Working On 'A Few' Unannounced Games Based On Disney IP
@Ricky-Spanish Yeah, I don't think people have realized that stuff like Alien and Predator are Disney IP as well. It been a while since we had Tron game, maybe another Avatar game... Star Wars and Marvel aren't the only thing Disney owns lol.
Re: Rare Comments On Everwild Cancellation For First Time Since Xbox Layoffs
@kmtrain83 Granted, Concord at least got to released... and was on the market for 2 weeks.
Re: ASUS Seems To Have Accidentally Leaked The ROG Xbox Ally Prices (In Europe)
@Fiendish-Beaver tbh… I wish the US did that. Just one flat rate added already into the price, but every state wants to different, and every county in every state wants to be different, and every city in every county in every state wants to be different.
But you also can’t have one flat rate because of the massive disparity for income depending on where you live in the US.
Places like Redmond, bellevue, Seattle have like a 10-11% sales tax due high city and state tax. But the general income is also significantly higher due to those cities being the home of Amazon, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Nintendo of America, The Pokémon Company International… etc. So that extra $8 in taxes doesn’t hurt. Washington also doesn’t have a state income tax, so you don’t have to worry about $100-200 of your check going poof every pay check.
Re: ASUS Seems To Have Accidentally Leaked The ROG Xbox Ally Prices (In Europe)
@Fiendish-Beaver “ US market we often see people cite additional taxes are added to their purchases, meaning that maybe a $70 game costs more, but how much more I don't know.
Anyone in the US care to tell me how much you would pay for a $70 game, please...?”
The US sales tax system is a very funny system… You can be paying anywhere from $70-78 depending on what state, county, and town you live in.
Re: Rumour: Halo 1 Remake/Remaster Started Development In 2023, May Not Include Multiplayer
@CaptainCluck Not if it plan to be to PS5 and UE5… This is most likely a test bed game for them. Introduce the PlayStation audience to Halo, and get your studio up to speed on UE5 and PS5 development. You don’t wanna have a studio develop a brand new game for a console environment they never released a game for on a game engine they’re not 100% comfortable with.
Re: Marvel's Blade Seemingly Entered Full Production At Xbox In Late 2024
@abe_hikura It really put perspective on how long video game development has gotten since the 360/PS3, and why these companies CEO start getting upset and start canning everything.
Re: Former Exec Says He's 'Not Sure Xbox Would Be Around' If Microsoft Didn't Fix 360 RROD Issue
@Llamageddon "Weird that he almost frames it as a choice. Obviously they had to fix their broken product."
They didn't have to fix it. It was a choice to fix it. Trust me. Their legal department would have found a way out to not fix it.
Yeah there would have been an uproar, but most people would have been like you shouldn't have bought an American console in the first place, much less a Microsoft one, so you made your own bed. Now lie in it kind of deal.
Re: Is Xbox Game Pass Unsustainable? Arkane Founder Sparks Huge Debate On Social Media
@Questionable_Duck Microsoft went into that gen already $5 billion in the hole add on another $1 billion from the 360 plus R&D. I’m not gonna mention the Kinect. But it took was until 2008-09 for the Xbox division to finally stop being in the red. That was basically almost 4 years before the Xbox One. And the 360 basically felt like it ran its course by 2011.
Yeah the 360 sold well (due to people having 2 or 3 cause RROD) and it was selling games and DLC… but 360 broke even, and had the Xbox One actually been successful. It would been the first truly successful Xbox.
“ At the time, Sony reported that they had made $871.2 million in profit through games, and this was just in one quarter”
That number is count profit across not just PS3… But also PSP and PS2. Sony gaming profit is heavily inflated due to multiple platforms. PS3 + Vita or Vita + PS3 + PS4 or VITA + PS4.
Re: Is Xbox Game Pass Unsustainable? Arkane Founder Sparks Huge Debate On Social Media
@Questionable_Duck Zune and the like never got the chance cause they never had the billions of dollars spent of them before they end entered the market...
Microsoft spent 1 billion to fix the RROD for the 360 which they never truly recovered from. So the 360 was neither a flop or a success, it just broke even. Xbox should have axed there.
"Satya Nadella was apparently this close to shutting Xbox down after the launch of the Xbox One."
And that mostly due to pressure from investors would also want want bing and Surface... But the investor have basically argued for Microsoft to axe Xbox for years, and every CEO since Bill has refused.
"Microsoft wouldn't have to axe Game Pass entirely if they want to keep xCloud around. They could just turn it into a PS Plus-like service and get rid of day-one releases"
A PS Plus-Like Model doesn't work unless you start offering all games for direct purchase and streaming for cloud user without console/PC so basically moving to a Stadia like model. Right now, the Game Pass Day-One releases is the only way for a of lot the games to be stream-able. You can't stream none of Microsoft's games even if you own them.
Re: Xbox Series S Is More Powerful Than Switch 2, But 60FPS Games Should 'Easily' Port Across
@Juanalf Cause I can then grab my Switch 2 and play Cyberpunk while on the go like at work, at a family member place; or basically any where my Jeep Wrangler Rubicon can take me in PNW...
Re: Is Xbox Game Pass Unsustainable? Arkane Founder Sparks Huge Debate On Social Media
@Questionable_Duck “ Microsoft was willing to invest in long-term business strategies in the early 2000s. ”
Tell that to Zune, MSN Music… and all the other stuff Microsoft killed off early in the 2000s.
Xbox is the only division that no matter how many billions and billions it continues to Microsoft in the hole. Microsoft continues to pull out the cheque book.
“Satya Nadella, would never do anything like the original Xbox. Satya and the Microsoft shareholders clearly only care about one thing: how to make as much money as fast as possible. They don't like long-term business strategies.”
Yet, Satya Nadella and Co gave Phill and Team how many years after he came in to fix the ship after the Xbox One launch? If they didn’t like long-term business strategies… Why not pivot then?
But services like xCloud are reliant on Game Pass which is probably the biggest reason why they haven’t axed the service yet. Microsoft knows that eventually physical hardware is going away… it not an if, but a when. Axing the service to only turn around in couple year to bring it back under a different name makes no sense. Better to ride out the unprofitable and the first to market instead of play catch up gains like they currently are with AI, ARM… etc
Re: Is Xbox Game Pass Unsustainable? Arkane Founder Sparks Huge Debate On Social Media
@Fiendish-Beaver " AB games would turn around the fortunes of Game Pass by bringing in still more subscribers. When that didn't happen, and Starfield failed to move the dial, that is when Microsoft said enough is enough and told Spencer that he was to take Xbox multiplatform."
The funny part about this statement is that... The ABK purchase was completed until Oct 13 2023, and we still don't real have any game from them in the service yet. So, of course the ABK purchase didn't bring in more subscribers.
Re: Is Xbox Game Pass Unsustainable? Arkane Founder Sparks Huge Debate On Social Media
@Questionable_Duck "seriously expect the Microsoft of today - a company who immediately cuts support for stuff that doesn't make profit immediately - to burn endless cash on a unprofitable subscription service for 8 years."
Granted, Microsoft entire ecosystem has shifted to a subscription-based... Office 365, Visual Studio Subscription, Azure Subscriptions.... etc. The list goes on and on.
They are trying to find a way for Xbox to neutrally fit into that model. I think they understand that Game Pass profitability isn't a race; it a marathon cause gamers are tricky bunch. But also like a loving parent, Microsoft have been very lenient with Xbox's short comings. Xbox has been a money pit for Microsoft since day 1. Xbox should've been axe after the original Xbox going off your standards and expectations of Microsoft.
Re: Xbox Series S Is More Powerful Than Switch 2, But 60FPS Games Should 'Easily' Port Across
@nomither6 “ compare it to the steamdeck, it’s actual competitor in which it’s absolutely inferior to”
How can something be on almost on par with Series S which is better than the Steam Deck, but absolutely inferior to the Steam Deck… and we’re not we’re not talking about libraries wise
Re: Former Xbox Dev Claims Turn 10's Forza Motorsport Team 'Is No More'
@kuu_nousee “ I guess now we can say the brand officially transitioned to these games as pillars: Minecraft | COD | Horizon”
Horizon is still Forza…. It call Forza Horizon. So Forza is still a pillar franchise for Xbox.
Re: Perfect Dark Actor Calls On Fans To 'Speak Up' And Help The Game Survive
@Kraven “ Microsoft themselves have stated profusely this generation that they are strongly pursuing the Japanese market. They want(ed) to tap into that market. ”
They say that every generation… It really just means they’re working to keep square Enix, Bandai namco, Sega… etc games on their platform. Not develop their own Japanese games.
Re: Perfect Dark Actor Calls On Fans To 'Speak Up' And Help The Game Survive
@Kraven Dishonored was made by Arkane Lyon (OG studio) not Austin. Austin is/was a satellite studio. Deathloop is also made my Arkane Lyon, again not Austin. Marvel Blade is being made by Arkane Lyon… again, not Austin.
“didn’t make crap” I meant that as Austin didn’t make the games that Arkane is renowned for Dishonored, Deathloop, Wolfenstein Youngblood & Cyberpilot
EDIT: Would like to add this: “ Around 70% of team members who had worked on Prey had departed the studio by the time Redfall was ready for store shelves, and the company struggled to replace their expertise.”
So, Arkane Austin was basically a corpse by the time red fall released, and only remained opened that long to see Red Fall shipped… They couldn’t hire anyone.
Re: Perfect Dark Actor Calls On Fans To 'Speak Up' And Help The Game Survive
@Kraven Arkane Austin didn’t make crap… They made Prey and Redfall. That it. The real Arkane is still around the one who made a ton of great games…
I think in the end, the MMO market is too crowded and we’re seeing declining interest in new live service game. Releasing a new MMO would also mean pulling away resources from Elder Scrolls Online.
Tango Gameworks is a no brainer… Japanese studio. It just not a market Microsoft is really putting any effort into.🤷♂️
When Microsoft bought was on the verge of buying Blizzard, they were a mess. They was losing market share to FFXIV, OW2 was and still is a mess… Diablo 4 has come and gone with a massive meh. They should have not been working on a new IP. They should have been focusing on fixing house. So good on Microsoft for canning that game cause do we really need another Blizzard game on the market while their current one struggle?
Motorsport has been on the decline since the 5 one. This reboot was their last real chance in a dying market. I mean… Read the room, you don’t just get to stay around cause you help build a brand. Motorsport is very expensive to operate due to licensing. You have bring money, and sells start to slump… well… Games like Motorsport aren’t really wanted by the general population. They want their Mario Kart, Need for Speed, and Horizon. Simple grab and pick up games. Unless you simply good hardcore for PC sim crowd. There really no where else for you to operate. Gran Turismo is just luckily enough to have a very very passionate community and fanbase.
Re: Xbox Series S Compared To Switch 2 In Hogwarts Legacy Analysis, And The Results Are Surprising
@Nalverus No, what I’m saying is that 9GB of LPDDR5X (mobile memory) is not the same thing as 8GB GDDR6 (high speed graphics memory). I’m not specifically talking about SF6. I’m just talking about the Switch 2 design in general. It getting 1GB of ram was most likely to compensate for overall slower memory… It no different than the XBox One’s 32 MB of eSRAM to address a potential bottleneck in its memory bandwidth compared to the PS4. The Xbox One used slower DDR3 RAM, the eSRAM, acted as a high-speed cache, offerinb significantly higher bandwidth for specific tasks, like rendering graphics.
The higher textures of switch 2 vs series s… could be down to a number of things. Not higher ram. Engine improvements, Architecture differences between Nvidia and AMD. Switch 2 most likely use NTC ( neural texture compression ) which definitely would allow lower bandwidth machine like Switch to offer better textures. AMD still working on their answer to that, and Series S could definitely benefit from something like that…
You saying more ram = more space for detailed models is basically saying that every game realistically should have better texture on switch. But that is simply not true.
“ internal resolution running lower an upscaling to 1080p with 8GB of ram.”
The Series S is a native 1080p. The only thing upscaler is handling is noise, aliasing and flicker. DLSS just provides a cleaner image, and that nothing to do with ram. That just DLSS being OP.
But there are moments where that DLSS fall short compared to the native image of the Series S.
Memory speed and bandwidth is why Series S is native 1080P and Switch 2 is native 960x540 upscale to 1080P.
What really happened is that Capcom realized their internal scaler is terrible. Decided to hit a native 1080P resolution on the Series S which took much of the graphic budget so went with lower quality textures. Could have went 900P and higher textures 🤷♂️
The native resolution is disgusting on Switch 2, so many of these games are relying on DLSS to do the heavy lifting… But I guess higher textures than Series S is great. A 720P or 900P upscaled with lower textures would have been a far better decision
Re: Xbox Series S Compared To Switch 2 In Hogwarts Legacy Analysis, And The Results Are Surprising
@Nalverus “ more ram = more space for detailed models”
Granted, 1GB more RAM is more to make up for the overall slower memory in terms of speed and bandwidth. It not entirely a 1to1 comparison.
Re: Perfect Dark Actor Calls On Fans To 'Speak Up' And Help The Game Survive
@Kraven “ The Initiative haven’t had the chance to release a game yet, so they could have been worth saving”
The studio was not worth saving. It was a massive flop of a studio. The studio was a rotating door of massive talent leaving and joining. Just look up how many people have left the studio. Half the studio left before 2022. That the reason for Perfect Dark was in development so long. Development had never actually started. There was never anyone at The Initiative long enough to start development. That why Microsoft had to bring in Crystal Dynamics, an established studio with a functional development team.
The Initiative is also located in Santa Monica, a place that has a very, very, very high cost of living even compared to Microsoft own home city of Redmond which already has a ridiculously cost of living.
The Initiative employees was burning money, they’re not paying the office rent, gas, electricity, water, cleaning staff, lunch… etc and what ever other benefits that come with being apart of a big fancy FANNG company, but they wasn’t delivering on their end of the deal.
When it comes time to make cuts, do you cut the expensive flop of a studio, and do you cut the studios who was actually delivering games?
Re: Perfect Dark Gameplay Trailer Wasn't 'Indicative' Of Its Progress, Claims Reporter
@IronMan30 I think back when there was a massive restructuring of 343i due to Halo Infinite. News basically came out that 343i had no oversight from Xbox/Microsoft at all. It was basically like they was completely two separate companies going in completely different direction. Even tho 343i office is right on Microsoft's Redmond campus.
Re: State Of Decay 3 Has Gone Quiet, But Apparently It's Safe At Xbox
“Microsoft is inconsistent, so you can never know what they'll do next quarter“
You can replace Microsoft with any massive big tech company. I’m so scared every day I going into work at AWS that I’ll be put on some type of PIP or Focus, I really should have just done want my father and both my sister did… Go do tech work for one of the big local county governments. Forget West coast and Seattle life.
Re: Forza Motorsport Team Reportedly Loses 'Nearly 50% Of Staff' In Xbox Job Cuts
@S1ayeR74 I mean... Yeah, they laid people off. But that doesn't really mean they can't hire people back when it time to ramp up production of the next FM game. These lay off at Turn 10 really just mean that the content pipeline for FM2023 is over. The remaining developers will be heading back to the drawing boarding and see how they can bring back the franchise. (reboot #2 baby)
Re: Report: Xbox Suffering Major Layoffs Next Week, Microsoft Declines To Comment
@Millionski "So many layoffs across MS, google and amazon"
The funny part about those lays off at Amazon... Is that I work at AWS (Data Center/infrastructure side)), and we've been on a massive hiring spree for the last 8 months it been crazy. We just had some join my team who was an XGS layoff from Seattle.
So it a strange revolving door.
Re: Report: Xbox Suffering Major Layoffs Next Week, Microsoft Declines To Comment
@Fiendish-Beaver " "thousands" of layoffs focused mainly around sales"
With the Xbox Ally X and the Xbox Quest 3S, it seems that Microsoft is moving away from manufacturing a lot of their own hardware. With that... You don't need a large sales team. You can rely on the sales team of the partner your working with (ASUS, META, Samsung...etc)
Microsoft is also someone who mainly relies on contractors anyway. They don't do a lot internal hiring.
Re: Report: Xbox Suffering Major Layoffs Next Week, Microsoft Declines To Comment
@TheGameThrifter Sony and Nintendo aren't extremely bloated companies. But Playstation did lay off at Bend and Blue Point games. They also laid off a number of people in their Visual Arts Group and Malaysia Studio. Who know how many people the larger parent company has laid from across their mobile, TV, and movie... etc divisions. And that was just from this year. Nintendo on the other hand doesn't publicly admit when they lay people off you have dig through lays of NDA to find lay off information.
Re: 'Xbox Edition' Meta Quest VR Headset Leaks Ahead Of Rumoured Release Next Week
Funny that it took this long for a Xbox branded Quest. Facebook/Meta/Oculus collaboration with Microsoft/Xbox goes all the way back to the original Rift. They use ship Xbox One controller with original Rift before they had introduced their own controllers that also borrowed a couple designs elements from Xbox.
Re: It Sounds Like MindsEye Is Leading To Major Layoffs At The Studio
@bazchillin Studio is actually working on multiple game at once. Mindseye was initial a proof of concept for their real game Everywhere, and originally suppose to be a Episodic video game... this was back in mid of 2023. So between mid 2023 and mid 2025. It went from an episodic video game to a GTA clone?
Re: Xbox Announces Next-Gen Console Strategy, Promises 'Deeper Visuals' & Backwards Compatibility
@Neither_scene Yeah… It suck. I would love to see what a modern Nvidia base console (non-handheld) would be capable of. Nvidia just didn’t have anything on the market during designing of the PS4/Xbox One. Now it too hard to make the change from AMD to Nvidia for compatibility reasons.
Re: According To Sales Estimates, Final Fantasy 16 Had A Rough First Week On Xbox
@dreadful Hey, I take offense to that… There are plenty of people under 30 that adore Final Fantasy. Just not this one…
Re: According To Sales Estimates, Final Fantasy 16 Had A Rough First Week On Xbox
@Fiendish-Beaver “ Many Xbox owners also own a PlayStation, and so will have played it there already.”
Many Xbox owners also own a PC and have played it there as well.
Re: ASUS Explains Why The ROG Xbox Ally Doesn't Have An OLED Screen
lol. They said the exact thing I’ve been telling people. OLED is great, but the tech specs just aren’t there yet at any reasonable price. You don’t want to dump your entire R&D budget into display tech. The funny part is by the time tech does probably catch up… Mini LED will probably be in a good enough spot for it to be the goto handhelds over OLEDs.
Re: Amidst Price Increases, Expedition 33 Developer Says $50 Tag Was A 'Win-Win' For Everyone
@Fiendish-Beaver Grant. We don't know how steam would work on xbox The only reason you can get the game cheaper on PC isn't cause of Steam. It cause you can buy 3rd keys online for vastly cheaper price, and redeem it to be playable on Steam. There is no guarantee that will be possible through Steam on Xbox... If buy the game through steam direct it the same price as Xbox.
Re: Xbox Has Reportedly 'Sidelined' Plans For A 2027 First-Party Handheld
@Coletrain It is exactly this... The moment that SteamOS reviews went live this week for Asus and Legion devices. Microsoft/Window 11 was absolutely crapped on to the point that only an idiot would buy a Window 11 handheld PC over a SteamOS one. They're cheaper, get better performance, and is way more energy efficient.
Microsoft need to put more energy towards improving Windows 11 gaming performance across all devices, not just handhelds. Cause all it would take is SteamOS coming to desktop for gamer to jump ship
Re: Amidst Price Increases, Expedition 33 Developer Says $50 Tag Was A 'Win-Win' For Everyone
@somnambulance Luckily on PC you can still pick it up for $30. I bought it for $30, my friends bought it for $30... Another win for PC gamers
Re: Former Game Pass Title Atomic Heart Has Been So Successful It's Spawned A New Publisher
Greatly enjoy it, but I played it on a high performance PC… Basically the way it was meant to be enjoyed. The Twins were great 😏
Re: Marvel's Black Panther Game Reportedly Cancelled As EA 'Sharpens Focus' On Its Lineup
@Titntin “ who actually consist of 74 people and not the hundreds you stated”
That based on actively employed, probably doesn’t exactly count contractors, and people they were still actively hiring or onboarding. As the information about employment count is based of ‘associated member’ on LinkedIn information… So you wouldn’t be counted if you haven’t updated your employment information on your profile. And even the LinkedIn page says 50-200 employees.
“I wonder at the sanity of those that decided she was the correct hire for that post.”
Probably a white hiring manager who probably only hired her cause she was a black PoC. Given that Black Panther is a black PoC character and entire existence is based around Afro-culture. Their goal would have mostly been to hiring someone who can bring that first hand experience of that culture. Cause believe it or not, white people don’t know the nuances of that culture. The gaming industry doesn’t exactly have a lot of black PoC narrative designers. It basically slim pickings on that front.
Re: Marvel's Black Panther Game Reportedly Cancelled As EA 'Sharpens Focus' On Its Lineup
@Kaloudz “ Doesn't bother me at all. There's far more interesting Marvel characters to make use from.”
Goes on to name one of the most water down mainstream comic books character. 🤣
Re: Marvel's Black Panther Game Reportedly Cancelled As EA 'Sharpens Focus' On Its Lineup
@Titntin Dani Lalonders wasn’t even the hiring manager or part of hiring team for Cliffhanger games. So you’re talking about one person out hundreds. Their comment was when they was apart of validate joy studio, an indie studio who main focus was about making a game about people of color. So I wouldn’t jump for joy about the closures of studio cause one developer said something years ago.
Re: Report: Xbox Elite Series 3 Is Real, And It's Improved 'Leaps & Bounds' Over The Elite 2
@Kaloudz I thought the same thing too, but the added weight from the more premium martials is so nice
Re: Avowed Game Director Leaves Xbox & Obsidian For Netflix Studio
@BacklogBrad They got nothing cooking… They closed their one big studio in 2024, and the rest are indie/mobile studios.
Re: Xbox & Bethesda Say DOOM: The Dark Ages Is id Software's 'Biggest Launch' Ever
@BAMozzy “ even nVidia so they can 'stream' it with nVidia”
What does this even mean? Really just sound like you’re making stuff up.
Re: Xbox Reportedly Been 'In Talks' Over Putting Steam On Next Console
@Cakefish With the way things are going… No one in their right mind will be purchasing an Xbox next gen. The only people who would be purchasing an Xbox is people who cling to game pass. The amount money they would be making from store purchases would be so insignificant.
@TheGameThrifter Ultimate is $10 more than PC game pass not just cause of online… It the only sub that offers cloud gaming (both xCloud and GeForce), EA Play, Day 1 on all titles… Plus other perks.
Paid online will still be there if you decide to purchase the game Xbox store or game pass… They could easily lock their Steam games behind an online pay wall. Steam operates on an open infrastructure/platform base on trust… There is no one single entity controlling multiplayer. Developers could have easily charged players an online fee to access their games. Developers just don’t do it cause the backlash is not worth it.
@Titntin Quote Phil “ [Subsidizing hardware] becomes more challenging in today’s world,” Spencer said. “And I will say, and this may seem too altruistic, I don’t know that it’s growing the industry. So I think, what are the barriers? What are the things that create friction in today’s world for creators and players? And how can we be part of opening up that model?”
They’re already think about getting rid of that model, and pushing to allow other store front will allow them to drop that… But knowing Xbox and Phil, they say one thing one month then change their mind next month.
Re: Xbox Reportedly Been 'In Talks' Over Putting Steam On Next Console
@Coletrain Yeah… It still a massive misconception that you always have tinkering with settings. The game will do itself. You really just have to dial to your preferences… In my case set the setting higher cause the games keeps only doing high settings even tho I have a 4090.
Re: Xbox Reportedly Been 'In Talks' Over Putting Steam On Next Console
@Cakefish “ Xbox actually make money from this? ”
Simple. They’ll stop subsidizing the hardware. They’re turning Xbox into the Surface. If you want a cheaper console, buy Nintendo or PlayStation…
Re: Xbox Reportedly Been 'In Talks' Over Putting Steam On Next Console
@Coletrain It will probably come xbox where it only offers big screen mode. Then from there you just launch the game… 99% of games are good at detecting hardware and configuring the game settings based off of that. No need to have a team do that since it not a handheld.