BacklogBrad

Once playstation goes fully digital, 3rd party will also go digital. Even if xbox includes a disc drive, there won't be very many new games getting physical releases. The hypothetical and unlikely xbox disc drive would be mostly for back compat and limited run type of publishers.

It doesn't really matter what xbox does at this point. Playstation ending discs is basically the industry ending discs. Nintendo will probably keep their strange forms of physical games going but who knows what that will look like.

Nascar 26 on sept 18th too. That's the sports game I am looking forward to. I dont know why they choose to release near the end of the racing season.

Im still peeved that there is no PvP multiplayer involved. If not for gamepass, I wouldnt touch this one for $50. I dont see the value in yet another Halo 1 campaign touch up.

Will there be a limit to the number of 1 hour sessions per day?

Hopefully these kind of issues are resolved for the day 6 gamepass release.

Early access is a scam

@ILuvGames yes it is xbox's fault because they fixated on the immediate results instead of building a successful franchise. xbox has had plenty of recent debut ip that were well received and were canned because it didn't sell like the already built up IP.

Im cheering for Hi Fi Rush to become a longstanding global IP just to highlight how terrible xbox is at building and sticking with anything new.

At least they bought a bunch of already established IP that they can apply the Disney treatment to.

Pending price increases will do that. Switch 2 is probably seeing a decent boost while we approach that price hike too.

Its sad that xbox decided it doesn't want to make games like this anymore.

Removing day 1 would be an instant unsub for me. Its the best feature by far.

Xbox has hit a homerun with gamepass and day 1 needs to remain the central feature.

Hopefully my favorite IP get multiplat releases because its the multiplat games that are going to survive.

The first test is going to be gta6. Will people without a current gen console really fork up $700 + the $80 game just to play it?

Consoles live and die by the casual users and they will be the first to go.

Its not surprising that the reports were so wrong. It seemed like there was some ill intent there.

It would be a terrible choice to make these games exclusive.

I doubt having a disc drive would really attract a notable amount of people to abandon playstation. Even the diehard physical collectors would be leaving their friend list, trophy collection, etc behind. And xbox has a bad physical game experience already. A lot of games dont get physical and if they do it is just a fraction of the game on the disc.

Xbox knows the math on how much more money they get from a digital sale versus a physical. If xbox offers an external drive it would probably be more of a backwards compatibility move than a lure people away from playstation move. They won't be making new games on physical and neither will 3rd party.

The "win" for xbox is to remain silent and let playstation take the heat of this one then quietly mention next year that helix is following industry trends of digital only.

Its a licensing issue that they are working on. Xbox responded to the windows central article. It is still coming to gamepass at some point.

Microsoft have provided Windows Central with a statement clarifying that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 has not been canceled for Xbox Game Pass. According to an Xbox spokesperson, the company is "continuing to work through the necessary licensor approvals" and will share an update as soon as it has one.

The player voice portal will not last long at this rate.

I cant imagine how frustrating it would be to have to deal with xbox support for a serious issue like this. In my experience, dealing with xbox support makes even minor inconveniences feel like torture.

I also doubt everything from reddit. This is probably made up.

There should be a claim all free content button.

Call of duty will probably take 3 of the top 4 spots for best selling games on playstation this year.

I replayed the original a couple months ago. It holds up extremely well.

I have been watching some of resynced on twitch. It looks great but I question if its worth the $60 price tag for someone who has beat the game a few times. I will wait for a sale. The original when its on sale for $3.99 is an easy recommendation.

Asha being appointed to a Federal task force on "price stability and maximum employment" is the craziest thing I've heard all year. Not even a week after taking the axe to so many jobs, she becomes an advisor to the government on "maximum employment."

Windows central is putting the new overall headcount at id software as similar to what it was for doom 2016 development.

I hear a lot of people say gamepass is just xbox training people to not buy games. Now everyone seems to expect them to be the savior of physical games.

Jason Schreier broke down some math on physical games revenue. They save a lot by eliminating the retailer's cut.

1st party $70 games (sony, xbox, nintendo)
Physical $45.50
Digital $70
54% increase for digital sales

3rd party $70 games
Physical $35
Digital $49
40% increase for digital

Nostalgia should never be the lone strategy but that seems like xboxs plan. All the franchises they highlighted as their new focus peaked a long time ago. Reviving these franchises made a lot more sense when new stuff was coming as well. Its hard to see the younger generations paying any attention to what xbox is doing. #Boomerbox

I really want them to continue with avowed 2. The first one was great. I really hope this doesn't turn into another IP that was never given the chance to grow into a real franchise.

But as we now know, xbox is retreating to a very small selection of old franchises. Im not sure their plan to focus on all their IP that peaked 15ish years ago will pay off more than trying to establish new IP.

I wonder how much money they would save if they got away from the American west coast. Seattle and LA seem like two of the worst possible places to have a large volume of employees collecting salaries for 7 years before releasing a game.

@Millionski which is just as true for the games that currently have HALF as many wishlists as State of Decay 3.

You dont find it interesting that, as it stands right now, twice as many people are wishlisting SOD3 on steam with no release date than a brand new Gears which comes out in a couple months?

Include the fake twitter accounts pushing the xbox is dead narrative and we are already there.

They teased me with the quake is a key franchise shout out then canned half the studio.......

State of decay 3 has nearly twice as many steam wishlists as Gears E Day, Clockwork Revolution and Halo CampAgain. Do they realize what they are giving up there?

Fable is the only xbox game ahead if it.

With all the cuts at xbox and them saying they will be cutting back on external project investment, this looks like a longshot.

The worrying part is that none of this "reset" seems to make the xbox platform more attractive to consumers. It is mostly just corpo speak to try to justify the fact that they are firing 20% of their employees to improve margins. All the roads she laid out today lead to less content.

This is essentially the Ubisoft template for their reorg. Will any of their IP match the 9 assassins creed projects that were in development as of last year. Im not a huge fan of this hyper focus on the most successful titles. It kills creativity and we dont get anything that is actually new.

@ZeD the King and Mojang piece is kind of unique. Essentially these are just supporting the existing cash cows of Minecraft and Candy Crush. In my opinion they shouldn't even be under the xbox CEO.

Didn't expect quake in the key franchise discussion. Im glad that franchise is still on their radar.

Personally, I want more dishonored, evil within, Indiana Jones, etc. It makes me much less excited for the future of xbox knowing that they are only focusing on a small number of franchises.

@ZeD the strangest part of that layered management thing is that the general opinion of xbox is that they gave the studios too much freedom to do whatever they wanted. Its quite the paradox to have this level of micromangement but also not have sufficient oversight.

I doubt they ever get away from the layers though. That is a byproduct of major corporations. Even in the most streamlined structure, you would have studio creatives reporting to a studio head that reports to xbox game studios that reports to the xbox ceo that reports to various other aspects of microsoft and finally the shareholders.

The problem with xbox is that each grand plan for the future only seems to last a year or two. We have no reason not to expect another brand reset in the near future.

It is good to be adapting or evolving as times change but plans also take time to make an impact. Are they going to look at this from a longterm lense or will they be short-sighted and change course immediately again.

@IronMan30 psychonauts 2 probably wouldn't have been as good as it was without xbox's support. They gave them a lot of money and extra time to make the best game possible.

Otherwise I agree, double fine is probably going to make better content if they have to worry about finding someone to fund it. It should lead to better ideas being pitched than Kiln.

The studios remaining open (for now) and no game cancellations are positive outcomes. I dont think being independent is a enviable position right now but its better than being shutdown.

My initial impression, this is not the doomsday event that was predicted. It sucks about the layoffs but I expected multiple games canceled and multiple studios to no longer exist. Xbox is really only losing some of the more AA studios but gamers are not losing them.

The issue is that people want the option to buy physical but hardly anyone uses the option. Digital owners are getting some benefits from physical being an option but not enough people buy physical to justify it.

It sure sounds like they are flying by the seat of their pants. Every report is "xbox hasn't decided ___ yet."

Xbox one at 186. It was the first time I had real disposable income. I have a pretty decent 360 and og collection too but not as many as xb1.

Overall it is PS2 though and ps1 close behind. I wish I had more from the early nintendo days but those prices were already too high when I got into collecting and I had sold most of the childhood collection.

I have been in emulation mode for a few years now so my collecting has slowed way down.

@OskarRex yeah, it sure seems like they are moving backwards and going back to the days of a few key IP that are beat into the ground.

They cant really do anything new with these IP either. Halo needs Master Chief, Gears needs Marcus Phoenix, COD doesn't want to do anything but Black Ops and Modern Warfare. They are just going to make the same game over and over again, with remasters of these same games thrown in.

It sounds an awful lot like Ubisofts reorg. Pull way back and focus only on what they deem the core IP. Throw creativity to the wind and churn out the usual suspects.

Halo, forza, gears, COD factory with Fallout and Elder Scrolls switching off on a once per decade cadence.

I adore Halo infinite and still play it pretty regularly but clearly it is a very small community right now. I doubt Halo Re-Remaster will do very well either.

This one would hurt especially bad. I love obsidian. The outer worlds 2 is amazing, grounded 1 is amazing (havent played much of 2).

I would have a hard time forgiving xbox if this one is closed.

They seem hellbent on returning to the "xbox has no games" days.

They look at the same figures that Sony looked at. The amount of people that buy physical is so low (especially on xbox). I dont think they keep physical as option beyond this generation.

It is also such an easy way to cut a few bucks off the new consoles steep price. If they are concerned about getting the system as cheap as possible the disc drive is such a logical choice to go.

I liked collecting discs but I understood that I was a weirdo compared to how 90% of gamers buy games. We were lucky it lasted this long.

This is a decent solution to the problem. Now make them pc compatible.

Im actually kind of excited for this in terms of my current collection. The discs arent rendered useless, I no longer have to switch discs anymore, and my series S gets to play more of my library. Still a bummer that the physical collecting is ending though.

It sucks that it won't be in GP. I won't be playing it.

The real console war seems to be which one can achieve the most negative press.

Every awful news from one platform is countered with awful news from the other. It's a race to the bottom for both xbox and playstation.

The riskiest game in development is safe but state of decay 3, psychonauts 3 (potentially), and a Marvel game are not. What a world we live in. Its never been harder to be an XBOX fan.

The chatty CEO has gone missing too. She hasn't tweeted in 3 weeks.

If they are not reducing their investment budget but they are canceling projects that are years in the works, arent they just adding time until any of this bears fruit? Might as well see some of these projects through to the end instead of starting from scratch and hoping that 6 years from now the new project is something people want.

I have not been impressed with the direction of this new regime. It genuinely felt like xbox had finally established itself as one of the better publishers out there with a strong cadence of big releases. It took just one retirement to undo everything.