AverageGamer

“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.

So it a strange revolving door.

@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.

@dreadful Hey, I take offense to that… There are plenty of people under 30 that adore Final Fantasy. Just not this one…

@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.

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

@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

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 😏

@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.

@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. 🤣

@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.

@Kaloudz I thought the same thing too, but the added weight from the more premium martials is so nice

@BacklogBrad They got nothing cooking… They closed their one big studio in 2024, and the rest are indie/mobile studios.

@BAMozzy “ even nVidia so they can 'stream' it with nVidia”

What does this even mean? Really just sound like you’re making stuff up.

@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.

@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…

@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.

@Millionski “ have things like DLSS that none of the existing consoles have except ps5 pro”

Xbox Series S/X and the base PS5 support FSR, which was recently updated to FSR3 with frame gen. Both console will probably see support for FSR4. The only benefit of PSSR is that Sony beat AMD to the punch with using AI, and decided to make it proprietary. But the PSSR2 will be based on FSR4… which will be on base consoles.

@S1ayeR74 “It is most certainly not a company you go to for work in for life.”

Most people who work there already know they’re not a company you retire from… None of the FAANG companies are. You get the job, gain the experience, make bank… and leave. Rinse and repeat. Anyone who think they retiring from Microsoft and didn’t climb the corporate ladder to senior management level is fooling themselves.

@themightyant Granted, it could be cheaper than the normal ROG. Microsoft already making money off these PC handhelds due to window licensing cost, so they don’t necessarily have to take more money on top of that… They could also give Asus a licensing deal at lower cost to push this handheld which in turns means Microsoft makes more money through the Windows cost since more units are being sold, and they make money off users signing up for game pass.

@RadioHedgeFund Fable trilogy would be banging… Forza Horizon 1 will never happen cause the cost for the cars and music would massively eat into any actual profits.

@BacklogBrad Has any of Microsoft’s studios announced a switch 2 game yet? It probably just simply come down to Nintendo not proving a dev kit in time. There has been rumors that Nintendo was really selective in who they provided devs kits to… They even refused to give Embracer Group any.

@StonyKL If they did that... We would need a PC Ultra tier, High-end tier, mid-high tier, mid tier, low-mid tier, low tier, and extra low tier... Then a Series X tier. Series S tier, and then a tier for just streaming. It would be absolute madness.

@ganonms Alex did test it. He has tested the PC version for every game digital foundry has done over the last several years… At this point tho. I think he just over everything. His PC video has basically been boiled to either the game is complete trash or it a technical marvel.

@ganonms Yeah I’ve watched the video when it went live Saturday. I still don’t think it’s worse than something like Gotham Knights was on PC.

Also, my experience with the game hasn’t exactly been the same on 4090 with an aging i7 11700k. Like they noted in the article on eurogamer site. The DLSS feature are now broken in Game Pass which is not the case in other PC versions.

@ganonms I don’t even get how it the worse game he has ever tested… The performance issues is basically the same issues PC gamers has been complaining about for the last 6 years, and the game does require beefing hardware… But they did use UWP/Game Pass version instead of the actual PC version for testing.

@Romans12 “ I didn't even think Doom Eternal was great. Way too hard on easy mode.”

That really sounds like a personal issue… I think phrase “Git Gud” definitely fits here

@BacklogBrad “$32 for two days early access and dlc of unknown length, quality, or release date seems like a ripoff to me”

I would have 100% agreed with you had it been any other developer… But ID has 100% earn gamer’s respect, and we know that whatever they release will be top tier quality and worth the price.

@Millionski Cause people still have a large game collection on battle.net… and a lot of blizzard games on the back still rely on battle.net.

@themightyant The issue is that people want to be able to afford luxury items, and telling someone to go buy the old model... Is basically telling someone they're too broke or poor. No one like to be told their too broke or too poor to afford something. You're probably also not from the US where people are general obsessed with owning things they can't afford, and calling someone broke or poor is a good way to get stabbed or shot in the streets.

@Residentsteven People will be interested in this once the Switch 2 is announced, and it still weaker than the Steam Deck.

@darylb24 It doesn’t really free them up… As I’m pretty sure the DLC and definitive edition was being worked on by Rocksteady primarily.

@VeganHerpes “ But having valve not make sony's games playable on certain "pcs" will not be possible.”

Valve doesn’t necessarily control what hardware a game can and can’t be ran on… If Sony want their games to be not playable on HWID relating to anything “Xbox” they can. We had games and game modes made exclusive to Intel CPUs before.

I’m surprised they haven’t already released one…. In many ways, the Series X/S feels too much like a repeat of the Original Xbox… and that was only on the market for like 3-4 years before being replaced.

@themightyant I doubt Ubisoft would sell Assassin Creed, but a Rainbow Six game made by one of the billion CoD studios that Microsoft owns would be interesting… or maybe buy splinter cell and let a 3rd party company on the IP.

@Rog-X @IOI A lot game streaming has nothing to do with your internal home setup. I had 20mb DSL and it streamed just as well as my now 500mb fiber connection. A lot of it is out of user control cause it heavily depends on whether or not your close to an actual server or how your ISP handles traffic like that through their equipment (modem, ONT, ISP Network…etc)

@BacklogBrad It wouldn’t have taken that long for the 360 to gain an install base… It took the 360 less than 3 years to out sell the original Xbox

The big issue wasn’t the install base… But the fact Microsoft went an announced the 360 a month after it release. That basically had killed any momentum this game had sale wise since most people would had started saving for the 360, and Xbox would had started to see a decline in software sales. Being a launch title for the 360 would have helped long term sales.

@BacklogBrad @krzysztof81 Most of Netflix game adaptations have been A+… I see no reason to not pick them over anyone else?

@Banjo- I wouldn’t say that there a good chance since when they said that… 343i was 343i. They are no longer 343i, and studio plans have probably vastly changed since then.

@Markatron84 Doubling down on license game would have been the death of the company. That what killed THQ... License games was at a massive decline during the 360/PS3 gen outside of the evergreen title like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Spider-Man... etc.

That would have been a crazy what if. They probably wouldn’t have bought Dice and BioWare then? Activision wouldn’t have probably survived the 360/PS3 generation

@StonyKL “ Obviously the developers would never say it but wonder if this is the reason Local multiplayer was dropped from Halo Infinite? No chance its because the Series X can't handle it, but maybe not worth the effort to get it onto Series S? ”

Halo infinite not having local multiplayer would have nothing to do with the Series S in the first place. Since that game was also on One/One X. Local multiplayer in Halo should have been built with consoles in mind unlike BG3 that initially never planned to have consoles ports.