AverageGamer

@Banjo- Why waste time during the showcase for that? Xbox always have an after event show where more announcements can be made.

@themightyant This is most likely the case...

We saw the same thing last gen. Xbox is just not a priority.

@smoreon "Will it be more of a reimagining, then, with actual gameplay changes and new content? Anything else would just be redundant."

A reimagining would be cool... Pull stuff from the book, explain that John-117 wasn't the only spartan aboard the the pillar of autumn, show how John-117 and got off Avery Johnson got off Installation 04... etc

@Medic_alert “ Why wouldn't Rare be on the chopping block if this becomes the next big failure?”

Sea of Thieves… As long as a studio has something successful to fall back to. I don’t think we’ll see Microsoft closing down that studio.

@NEStalgia "I think most of the selling point of the X Elite is the transition layer though. Most of these games, especially BC will be through that layer."

Microsoft and Qualcomm have improved the emulation, but we'll see if it as good as Rosetta. They have tried multiple time and have failed... But there will still be a performance hit vs native ARM apps.

I don't see them making the ARM jump simply because they would be too lazy to recode their bloatware and other pointless junk just yet for ARM. Better to stay with x86 for compatibly reason until the market increases.

We already see where at least Asus is going. They plan to repackage basically the same hardware in a slight nicer package for $800

"I mean I would hope your $1000 ipad pro could beat a $250 Series S..... Though with Apple I wouldn't doubt if it didn't. "

We're not talking about price... We're talking about the massive technical improvement that we've seen in mobile chip. Where a tablet can now beat out a system with active cooling. It doesn't matter what my iPad cost since it has a screen, camera, speakers... etc. It also isn't being subsidized like Series S.

@NEStalgia 30FPS in BG3 is super impressive. That a very heavy CPU game, not necessarily GPU bond. They ran AI upscaling mostly due to the fact a lot these snapdragons chip is going to be put into laptops with ridiculously high near 4k panels. Games won’t look good on these panels without the AI upscaling. Even on Ally with a 1080P screen you need to run BG3 with FSR to get “higher” than 30FPS.

Also, I would like to note that their performance test is most likely using an x86 to ARM translation layer, not a native ARM version of BG3 that can port from Mac. So, there is definitely going to be some performance loss there.

“"800p at 60fps medium settings" would far exceed a Series S, so I'm dubious of that.”

I wouldn’t doubt that. The Series S wasn’t that impressive of kit when it released, and we are easily reaching the point that it can be surpassed by these mobile chips… People say the Series S GPU is the equivalent of 5500xt. At this point, the M4 in my iPad Pro is faster than the Series S.

If Microsoft stop subsidizing hardware. We can really say goodbye to Xbox hardware. No one is going to bother buying overpriced Xbox hardware. Even Valve realized the importance of subsidizing hardware which is why they did that with Steam Deck.

@NEStalgia “ Only thing right now I can think of is something to do with their Qualcomm partnership and some sort of Snapdragon X Elite handheld, which could probably get 15 hours of battery vs 60-90 minutes on the Z1E at full tilt. But graphics are not the strong suit of those things, leaning hard into the NPU based AI upscaling, and those are quite pricy, appearing, for now, only on $1k laptops”

While graphic performance aren’t a big part of those chips. They are very potent chips performance wise. They should have no issues running most games at 800P with medium settings and hit 60FPS. But we have to wait for independent reviewers to get the full picture.

As for appearing only in $1k laptop… That cause laptop/hardware manufacturers aren’t subsidizing the cost of components. Those are designed strictly to make money off the hardware.

Xbox can and will subsidize the hardware cost… That is something Asus and Lenovo also aren’t doing with their handhelds. So Xbox could easily release a stronger handheld at a cheaper price point.

With all the news about the new ARM chip from Qualcomm. I would love to see an ARM based Xbox portable announced.

@InterceptorAlpha Yeah. The Xbox leadership at that time was great. They wanted to deliver a great console, and they did. It crazy to think what they accomplished with less than what current Xbox has.

@oopsiezz I never saw hype for this game. The only people who was pushing this game was twitter and YouTube Xbox fanboys who wasn’t playing on buying the game anyway…

The game had barely no marketing, was only barely shown to the public, and the release date was announced less than 3 months before the actual release. Add in the fact it only $50, this was never made to be a top list seller.

@Banjo- Exactly! People don’t seem to realize that studio like The coalition have been running around and basically been assisting everyone with UE development. At this point, they’re basically the go to studio for UE right behind Epic themselves.

@InterceptorAlpha @Fenbops You think with how many people have lost their job. As a community, we shouldn’t be here joking about that. What is wrong with y’all.

The game was great. Every once in a while, I boot it up back and replay it. Sad that it will never get a sequel

@MaccaMUFC "I think the graphics look great but it can be off putting when textures can look flat and bland and it can look fuzzy/blurry, even with the motion blur turned off "

I think i a lot of this is due to the fact the game relies so heavily on photogrammetry. There something like over 370 pieces of photogrammetry in the sequel, compared to just one in the first Hellblade... So, you can easily tell what was created by a 3d artist in the studio, and what was photographed during trips to Iceland. The stuff that is photogrammetry is probably going to have a softer fuzzier appearance.

So excited to finally get my hands on this!! I hyped after the announcement especially when I found out my favorite band was doing the soundtrack.

Whether or not this will be a success is entirely based on budget… The first was considered a success and it only probably sold less than 2 million.

Also people stating that Ninja Theory could end up like Tango, don’t realize that games sales isn’t the only reason a studio get closed…

@BacklogBrad People were expecting MS to do a Sony level marketing campaign... Ads on bus, massive statues in the middle of nowhere, McDonald's happy meals... etc

It a $50 game with no physical edition... Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice had a nonexistence marketing campaign and did really well. This will do fine as well.

@Banjoisfanboy 7 to 8 is ridiculous for a AAA game that cost $70+... This is sits more in the AA range and has a $50 price tag, so 7-8 hours is fine.

Man... Everyone talking about the review embargos. I'm pissed that the game doesn't go live till 4AM EDT. I was hoping to get off work and play some. 4AM is when I'm just about ready to go to bed.

This is giving me strange Cubix: Robots for Everyone flashbacks

What I’m about to say probably isn’t related to main article at all… But as the days go by, I’m starting to get why MS closed the studio that they did from a business perspective.

Alpha Dog Games was offering literally nothing of value… Their mobile games aren’t need when you now own king.

Roundhouse Studios was struggling before they were even bought out by Zenimax when they was still known as Human Head (original creators of prey). While the studio was closed… The team was moved to work on Elder Scrolls Online

MS only closed a satellite office with Arkane Austin. But that means they can focus all resources on the main office, Lyon.

While Tango made great games… It located in Japan. Xbox is not growing in Japan. Meaning anything located in the country is not going to get the proper support it needs. I’m sure Xbox Japan offices is pretty much empty with only a single person hired to just clean the halls and offices for when Phil can find time to fly over.

That bring up how often is Phil and other Xbox management able to visit Japan? Probably not often cause they also have families that they want to spend time with. You can basically visit any of the America offices in an afternoon, and be back in WA before dinner.

That means Tango is basically operating independently, without the proper leadership and supervision from head office 85% of the year.

Had tango probably been an American studio… They could have downsized or sold off/partnered with.

It better to spend that Japan budget on get Square Enix or supporting Kojima.

@thefly0810 “ Sure, Redfall stunk up the joint, but Arkane Lyon also made Deathloop, Prey and Dishonored too.”

Arkane Lyon only made Deathloop and Dishonored. Working on the upcoming Blades game.

Arkane Austin made Prey and Redfall… Austin is the studio that closing

@Ricky-Spanish True… But games only make profit once every couple of years. Merchandise is an endless profit machine especially if you release a highly popular TV show.

@endlessleep @Ricky-Spanish 343 isn’t just responsible for the halo games. They are responsible for any and all relationships with 3rd party companies… Aka they handle halo merchandise, books, tv shows… etc. And while the games haven’t been up to par. They still push a lot of sales.

Tango just didn’t have any value… Unless they planned to make action figure using the HiFi Rush ip.

@thefly0810 “ If I was MachineGames, I would be sweating bullets over the upcoming release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.”

Machine Games at least have wolfenstein to fall back to.

@NEStalgia And that only cause most businesses are too cheap to upgrade, or the professional grade display they bought like pre 2010s is still fine for modern work loads.

Most high-end modern Pro Display, studio displays, and Apple’s XDR display is 16:9. Even something like the EIZO ColorEdge is 16:9 display

@NEStalgia "Most monitors are 16:10, not 16:9 so it makes it even worse on normal PCs vs TVs"

What monitor is 16:10? Most monitor are 16:9... This isn't pre 2010. 16:10 is a dead aspect ratio only really still found in photographers, video editors, digital artists, and businesses... Like super old stuff.

@antifyre The only issue with a New Vegas sequel is that the TV show isn’t exactly paint a pretty picture for the City. Granted, there still 12 years of unexplored events between the game and the time the show takes place… But how do you get players excited about exploring the area again if it goes to crap later on?

Xbox has so many developers that they can easily task someone else to work on the franchises.. I mean what is Roundhouse Studios doing at the moment? If they give it the right studio, they could easily have a game out soon… New Vegas was made in 18 months and is considered the best game of series.

@GamingFan4Lyf Nintendo don't even need their games to sell. They don't sell their hardware for a lost like Microsoft or Sony... Who need to make up lost profit through games sale. Nintendo is the richest company in Japan with zero debt.

@datamonkey Yeah. Isn't the saying that Nintendo has enough cash that they could lose 300 million for 50+ years, and still not be broke; and survive through multiple generations of console failures.

@Fiendish-Beaver It not due to tension between Larian and Wizard… It the tension between Larian and Hasbro. Hasbro has been doing massive layoffs especially within Wizards of the Coast. This had caused many of the contacts that Larian worked with during development to be let go.

Larian has been very vocal about the layoffs affecting the game industry, and their decision to move away from the franchise is probably cause of this. They don’t want to bring massive profit to a company who still turns around and fires people who the part of the team that help achieve this.

In most case buying the game is the tip in and of itself. But there are a lot of very good indie developers who vastly under value their work to be able to break into market.

These small studio and team should definitely be tipped. Maybe set up a ko-fi or buymeacoffee.

But TBH... I already view microtransactions or DLC/expansions as "tips". Which is why I tend to buy a lot of microtransactions or DLC since I don't think most companies warrant further support.

@CutchuSlow Cause not everyone interested in the current set of title available on the market or one set to release, so people are ready for the next big event to see if more titles get announced that they’ll enjoy.

@NintendoByNature Man… I wish we existed in the a different timeline where Insomniac Games wasn’t owned by Sony, and was stuck in Marvel Game mine pits.

@BAMozzy They was rumor to be working on 2 unannounced games other than gears 6. Both has now been canceled which why they were affected by the layoffs last year. They are now full speed ahead on Gears 6.

@Neither_scene "They have no experience of managing development studios, but I doubt they could do any worse than Microsoft has been for the last decade."

They actually do have some experience managing a development studio... They have their own internal studio, NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios, who have been responsible for a lot of RTX remakes, the Wii ports to the Nvidia Shield, and other ports.

@OldGamer999 Wasn't the whole point of making Phil CEO of Microsoft Gaming, and separating the Xbox division from the Windows division to allow more freedom in decision making? The only person higher than Phil is Nadella... Phil probably does get to make a lot of the decisions. So, I wouldn't count Phil out so easily of these not being his choices. Granted his decision have to make shareholders happy.

@RIghteousNixon Yup. Financial stability vs creative freedom.

@LX_FENIX Not every studio wants to be independent. Gearbox was independent before the Embracer purchase, and it seems it just not the life they want.

@GamingFan4Lyf Yeah… This a Sony style purchase. Borderlands has literally been a backbone franchise of 2k for over a decade. The fact it took them this long to purchase gearbox is amazing. But Take-Two is stingy, so not surprising.

@CutchuSlow There is still plenty of reasons to get a steam deck without needing a steam account. The Steam Deck make for a very good Linux machine, and you don't need a steam account for that. There also come issue of parents/grandparents trying to buy them for younger folks.

@CutchuSlow I never said only accessible through a PC... Even downloading the app or buying it from their website still requires a Steam account. Even almost 3 years into the Steam Deck life, it is still very restricting on who and where people can purchase the steam deck. It not available in major store or retailer. Good luck buying one if you outside of Steam region of support. Australians still can't technically buy one without a bunch of hassle.

@CutchuSlow I think it could sell if done well. Most handheld PC are vastly out of most people’s price range, and the Steam Deck can only be purchased through Steam… So that only accessible by PC gamers.

A lot of the rumor are saying a native device, so no relying on the cloud and console. MS need to make this a Xbox OS device, not a Windows PC. We don't windows hogging system resources and having to put up with its terrible sleep/hibernation. MS funding and partnerships with hardware manufacturers will allow them to get the handheld into an affordable price range something the Asus and lenovo can't really do. Plus it will probably be available in more stores unlike the Steam Deck which is still limited to Steam...

@TheSimulator First, it would probably be 343 directions and not Phil’s. But they’re not gonna limit their potential audience by making it gory.

@TheSimulator They're not going to do an adult gory one cause Halo is not adult orientated. Even the games aren't rated M anymore. They're rated T now.

@TheSimulator They mostly already did that with Halo Legends

Ubisoft can finally move pass this game and the baggage associated with it. Hopefully the singapore government is happy with their trash game.

Only 10 years… It feels so much longer ago. x-x

@Widey85 So quickly to reply unnecessarily to every comment.

Microsoft has repeatedly stated multiple time during the ABK purchase that this was not their last purchase. Moving their games to multiple platforms is a way to avoid the regulatory clashes and legal costs. As the only thing the regulator cares about was whether or not those games stayed available on multiple platforms. The ones who are scaling back are the one not flushed with cash.

But who was expecting ABK games on game pass this early? The deal only closed October then we went into the holiday season. Even before the deal closed we was advised to not expect anything till 2024. It takes time to go through the catalog and deal with licensing to get the games on the subscription.

Microsoft still has interest in purchasing more publishers and studios. This way they’re pleasing regulators since they won’t be removing game ms from other platforms.