Dannyxtra

They are all at it, and the politicians aren't just letting it happen they are actively opposing any kind of negative impacts on the business. I remember when apple were told they werent allowed to funnel there taxes through Ireland anymore at some ridiculous amount and the Irish government were trying to find ways for apple to get around it

@Kaloudz, they do, it's called fast travel... Haha.
Actually to be fair, when you leave to go to another system you initiate something called a gravdrive (I think), but fundamentally it's the same as moving between planets in a system and it's just a cutscene and a 5-10sec load screen. To be fair, as much as it "takes you out of the immersion", I'd rather spend my time actually playing the game than sat waiting for my ship to arrive at its destination.

The problem for me here is that these companies have gone from having a tight budget and timescale, which they have to adhere to or could be in trouble, to Microsoft just throwing a load of money at them and told them to make the game they've always wanted to. By the looks of things they've gone far too big with feature creep and then not been able to get it in a state that's fun to play, so now we'll all have to wait for 6-12 months for them to add what they initially wanted in

Wouldn't surprise me if halo just got put under Activision and became part of their roster. Lot of synergies to be had there I reckon

This game can probably be ported over to the Xbox in a couple of weeks. I think they don't like the proposition of game pass until they've creamed off the ones willing to pay. I reckon eventually this will land day 1 on gamepass on the Xbox. They get all the sales from other platforms, and then the gamepass revenue and aren't bothered if people play it either way

Although I agree that indie games should be easy to find, I disagree that all should be seen front and center and should have the same amount advertising space. They should all be easy enough to find, but the amount of crap that gets put on all the game stores today would just make it a quagmire of shovelware. I think Microsoft do a pretty good job of advertising good indie games I just hope they aren't making them pay through the nose to do it. I think that gamepass is also a good way of pushing these games through, as only 3-4 games at a time drip through max each time, so it ensures that people will at least give them a go

Kaloudz
24Kaloudz53 minutes ago
Get a load of this! Sony implying MS will ship buggy PS5 versions of CoD.

"Microsoft might release a PlayStation version of Call of Duty where bugs and errors emerge only on the game’s final level or after later updates. Even if such degradations could be swiftly detected, any remedy would likely come too late, by which time the gaming community would have lost confidence in PlayStation as a go-to venue to play Call of Duty. Indeed, as Modern Warfare II attests, Call of Duty is most often purchased in just the first few weeks of release. If it became known that the game’s performance on PlayStation was worse than on Xbox, Call of Duty gamers could decide to switch to Xbox, for fear of playing their favourite game at a second-class or less competitive venue."

What I find wierd about this statement is this could happen with any game with any developer (see Skyrim on PS3 with the memory leak), and also, Sony already have contractual guarantees in place that Xbox versions of games can't be of a better quality than there's and must have at least parity (see resident evil village), so if Microsoft were to make the Xbox version better, why would that not be acceptable just because the shoes on the other foot? These documents are gonna be very interesting

It's doesn't suit Sony's business model because they don't want a subscription game service. The fact of the matter is though it's already here which is why they've got the half arsed one, and are trying their best to not have to go all the way. They can't now complain that Microsoft have a better offering when they are actively opposing the model in the first place

@fenbops. Makes me wonder if they tried to self publish that way but didn't realise that when the game was done the majority of people who wanted it had already bought it leaving them in a situation where they needed money quick, hence why ps5 is coming out the same time.

By the way did anybody else see the tweet from someone in larian telling people they need preorders. Sounds to me like they may be struggling financially which is a shame. Explains why it's been in early access development for pc for years and then suddenly is coming out the same day on playstation

This is what makes the Activision blizzard acquisition investigation such a joke. Sony are that far ahead of Microsoft that as well as paying for exclusives, they have that much of an install base that some developers will actually favour them and improve their offering.
They are looking to see if the deal could create a monopoly and an anticompetitive environment and it's already here, and worse the regulators are trying to stop anyone else joining the party

This reminds me of a similar situation with the company I work for. We merged with a major competitor, but the CMA said that the UK arm couldn't merge because of the lack of competition. They've now been spun off as a new company and can't compete with us because they have access to very little of the things that the big companies do (such as capital), and that business will probably be on shaky ground in 12-18 months time.
Spin COD off on its own and it's got to keep 3-4 developers going at the same time with 1-2 games being released a year. It generates massive amounts of money now, but a couple of dodgy games and all those developers go to the wall

@Sam_TSM what I find bizarre in this whole discussion is that call of duty is probably the least innovative game made now bar FIFA, yet people are moaning about it being stifled...

@Would_you_kindly, nope, based on income and profit, they would still lag behind Sony and Nintendo. Just because there is a large selection of ips to go at doesn't mean that they will be selling them all at once

Jet set radio future and sega get bundled with the original Xbox, which I could only afford on its own to begin with so these were the only games I could play before I could afford halo. What a time that was. I remember putting my own music into sega get and being absolutely blown away, then slightly annoyed as every race started with the same song. That song still reminds me of racing even to this day and its not even a racing kind of song (stone sour -bother) haha

@brilliantbill totally agree. All "triple a" games being released as an annual franchise now are just constant reskins and it's only really FIFA and cod that seem to be getting away with that now. Sony are in danger of falling into that trap now, constantly trying to create sequels to the same 4-5 games

For me, there is a huge lag between him buying studios ( some of which had exclusivity deals which had to be honoured), but now (especially if Activision/blizzard goes ahead) there are a massive amount of studios all working on games which should mean at some point we start to see a steady stream of games coming through

I personally don't see how any of the regulators can stop this acquisition. Especially when the top dog is kicking off. Microsoft are currently 3rd in the race and this wouldn't even see them top, but all regulation is in place to stop them ripping off consumers not making it harder for the competition (in fact competition is what they want). Just seems to me that the CMA and the FTC have got a few Sony fan boys on the team and are trying their best to stop this even though there is no legal precedent to allow them to. I don't think Microsoft will be making any similar acquisitions after this one though, they will be much smaller moving forward

I think part of this is a bit of a reset in the industry which is affecting all companies at the moment. I work for a waste company, and during the pandemic we were really struggling to get/retain IT staff to help with our online billing portal, and our IT support team. We were constantly having to up people's salaries to stop them leaving (whilst other parts of the business got nothing) and also paying top whack for any new employees. Now that we're back to a sense of normality and a lot of our development has been completed, combined with the number of IT staff now in the market, means that there are a lot of our staff looking over their shoulders now as a lot of their positions are now no longer required and they now appear to be overpaid.

I personally think just make a pool of games free if your on gold and leave it at that. I haven't touched a games with gold game since gamepass and although they are a nice to have, I'm not sure what purpose it serves when you have access to a massive library of games already...