Elbow

So, the gist I'm getting is-- Sarah is doing the heavy lifting (for good and bad) and Phil is just... spitting word salad at people and not being direct in what should be going on? This is so weird. Between this, and that old article (linked on this page, the Hypercharged one) where Sarah reached out to talk to the devs while Phil wasn't present. That was around the time of the studio closures earlier this year, so he was just cowering while he let Sarah face the public.

What the hell is going on?

@NEStalgia I hope, but knowing how people in charge act.. they probably blame it on the dev team and act innocent.

At least someone in an official capacity finally said the quiet part out loud. I think NetEase said the same thing about Grasshopper Manufacture, and I'm sincerely hoping this turns out for the best with both parties.

@InvaderFromSpace I would advise at least a bit of caution. It's good they did this, but Krafton also forcibly rushed The Callisto Protocol out months before it was ready, knowing it wasn't finished but needing something to release in the calendar year. They were guilty of the very same "numbers must go up to feed the endless appetite of our shareholders" thing that's going on with Xbox.

@Old_Man_Harper Thank you! I wasn't sure what to make of it, I might keep my eye on this for the next time it's on sale.

Wow. That's a huge difference. I remember when The Coalition reduced the HD space of Gears 4 and I think it went from 100GB to 73? This makes that seem like childs play lol

@Old_Man_Harper How is that game? It caught my eye because I'm a sucker for WW2 themes, but it seemed fairly new and didn't have any reviews out last time I checked.

Owch. I knew it wasn't a great situation for Xbox, but that does make it seem dire. While I'm not surprised Playstation is in the lead, seeing that wide of a margin is concerning.

@Mustoe No one is arguing the concept is original, but "capturing critter with object" is not unique to Pokemon. Pokemon blatantly ripped off Dragon Quest's designs back in the day, while Palworld, conceptually, is a dime-a-dozen idea. Or are you referring to the designs of the pals? Because I can agree they do lean towards an obvious inspiration that can't be denied.

I'm not trying to sound hostile I just legitimately want to know exactly what you mean by ripping off Pokemon.

@Banjo- I have heard horror stories of the companies Nintendo outsources repairs to in EU. It's interesting to see how Sega and Nintendo are complete polar opposites when it comes to fan works/deviations on their games (well, within reason-- no selling fan made Sonic games is obvious, but Sega otherwise is incredibly friendly to fan projects.)

Sonic Mania and some ports of their older games to modern devices only exist because they hired the guy who was making impressive Genesis-accurate recreations of the original Sonic games on his own custom-made engine. That would get someone sued by Nintendo and a permanent portion of their earnings forever stipend by the company.

I do still love Nintendo's games, but I've always hated their business side.

(Edit: I posted two comments back-to-back so condensed my replies into one, realized I was borderline spamming, sorry about that.)

@AlwaysPlaying OH, I missed the FF games! Very interesting. Thank you for pointing those out

@Banjo- a reminder that Akira Toriyama was such a powerhouse that his art for one of the spinoff DQ games was heavily lifted by Gamefreak. He had the midas touch, even when he wasn't involved.

Edit: For those unaware of the name, Akira Toriyama was the creator of the manga Dr. Slump, and then went on to create the Dragon Ball manga (later anime juggernaut), and was the artist for the Dragon Quest series. Later, he worked on art for Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon (Xbox 360). Most recently, his manga Sand Land was turned into a game by Bandai Namco. He was a titan, and of course he did more than just what I've mentioned, but these are his bigger hits.

Not listed here, and I don't blame the writer of the article since it might be in a separate sale, but Kingdom Hearts is also on sale right now. 1&2 HD Remix (Square is trying to beat Capcom with the stupid names) is on sale for $20 USD, with some other KH games at discount too!

Visually this game looks incredible. I hope it does well for Devolver and the dev team, this is very much not the typical kind of game they put out but looks SO good.

(Am still on an Xbox One so I miss out, RIP.)

I got really bored with this game, yet I've played Darksiders 1 about five or six times since its been out. I'm really glad they're sticking with the series and giving it love, it deserves to thrive, even with my own mixed feelings on 2.

I haven't played any new games that have dropped this year, but that's moreso due to a double hit of still being on an Xbone, and grabbing indie/smaller games that go for stupid-cheap prices. That alone has kept me insanely busy. Could probably stream Hellblade 2 at least..

I just wonder if the market isn't already saturated. Nintendo, of course, are the big boys in the handheld market. Then you have Steam Deck making waves, and the third party handheld devices. Although I understand a handheld would also make Xbox more appealing overseas, and if the thing is basically a handheld "series s" to the main home console of next gen, that is SUCH a better idea than what we got this gen.

I've ended up replaying No More Heroes 3. I pray at the altar of Suda51 frequently, and just noticed this was on Gamepass. So... even though I got a Switch for TSA and NMH3, I'm grinding it out all over again to get all the Xbox achievements.

The Lollipop Chainsaw re-release also spurred my interest, as that was something he worked on. But it seems he hasn't had a hand in this remaster, so I don't know how to feel.

I saw this on sale but I didn't know what to make of it. The screenshots weren't doing much for me, but this article is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Might toss this in my cart tonight, thanks!

I honestly didn't expect it to even get reviews this "high". While this game kind of gives me the same visceral reaction that I would have after seeing a pet use the carpet as the bathroom, I'm trying really hard not to be excessively negative about it.

I hope it does well enough to keep the devs going.

@Banjo- Everyone saying "do you really want another Banjo game?" and acting like we only want another N64 tier platformer literally made beat for beat like those games are infuriating. Man, no one says that about Mario, but there are some chuckleheads in charge at Rare that seem to willfully ignore or step around it to act like it can't be more than just another N64 collectathon.

@Markatron84 oof, that Superstars coop comment hits hard. From one to another, I'm sorry. And I live that.

@kevinm360 I'd recommend at least checking a YouTube upload of Frontiers DLC cutscenes. It's wild, and the remix is great for the final boss.

@Secryt Those that care are in the comments here. It's an increasing minority, yeah, but they often put money where their mouths are and show up for the physical copies. That's why LRG has seemed to step in and become much more prominent as a physical publisher as of late.

The current hardware hasn't even proven itself. Sony is nuts to do this, imo. This is the one thing Xbox would be smart NOT to follow on, so probably prep for the announcement of an xbox Series Double X in 3... 2...

Prices should be going down, this generation is the most stagnant I've ever seen. It doesn't even feel like most games have taken advantage of anything other than the new disc cases. Xbone and PS4 almost feel like they're stronger than they've ever been four years after their replacements waddled out onto the market. I seriously think this generation will be extended, just by how dire everything has been.

@Markatron84 All you had to say was you're a Sonic fan, the rest is assumed automatically. (Note for admins this isn't an insult, I've been diagnosed with autism and love Sonic so it's a self jab more than anything.)

@Markatron84 Hey, HEY. As someone who is not a fighting game fan, Sonic Fighters is great.

Now don't get me wrong. It's not a great game, but the stupidity and wonky controls make it almost feel like a party game, especially with online play added. (Also just clarifying yes it's a bad game, but it almost gets to "so bad its good" territory.)

I want to argue for SA1&2 but I know better...

Grew up watching Rugrats. To this day, my mom will text me every so often with the "making chocolate pudding at 3AM" clip. It cracked her up when I was a kid, and still holds a spot even to this day. I'll play this just to take a trip down memory lane!

I have no idea what to make of Hamster Playground, but it's adorable so I can't blame anyone for checking it out.

@Banjo- I can side with this. I didn't really care for the campaign in either 4 or 5, but 5 was actively bad story wise after Act 1. The multiplayer in both was pretty decent though.

Yeah, basically the PS2/Dreamcast days. But we saw how it worked out for Tango...

@Dimey Can't speak for him, but Impossible Lair is much more in line with Donkey Kong Country; its a 2D sidescroller platformer. It's creative, has great level design, and the music is superb. If you ever played DKC and enjoyed it, I think you'll dig this too.

@Banjo- Oh yeah, I've been watching sales on a lot of games like a hawk. To the best of my knowledge, unless it's a game on a newer console or has a version bundled with all DLC, most companies just seem to forget 360-era DLC exists. Some exceptions (Take Two is great with this actually) but I have to assume it's something with the existing 360 storefront that they just don't want to mess with anymore.

@Banjo- Do you know if there's any reason companies never also put DLC for older games on sale? Underworld, the Dragon Age games, etc. Any DLC from the 360 Era so rarely, if ever, gets puts DLC on sale.

@Banjo- it wasn't clicking for me on what the issue was until you said this. I don't follow Apple stuff all that much nor how things work on their platform, but I never knew there was a difference between streaming fees and just regular app purchases. Thank you!

@VoidPunk Which means Legends is in the top 3 best (still legally available) Minecraft products available! LEGENDS BROS WE DID IT

This is the second similar case of a game dev having issues with Microsoft in a short span of time. Sometimes I wonder if they just wait around for fires to put out. It feels like it with cases like this.

Also it's good this got resolved, but this is giving me flashbacks to when Phil promised the PC Xbox app would be improved and then never was. Here's hoping this won't be a sequel to that.

Some of these end up being interesting from time to time, but when so many perks are for free to play games that don't even require a subscription.... it makes ya think.

Persona must have been such a big ticket offering that it wiped their budget for the GP perks for the rest of the year.

Steve was essentially a blocky Tommy Vercetti, so that is a very interesting pick to personify him lol.

Wow, those animals look bad. The visuals in this movie actually look like those old creepypastas of someone playing a SNES "and then Mario fell down the hole and SUPER REALISTIC BLOOD SPRAYED ALL OVER MY SCREEN".

Hopefully this gets the Sonic treatment, because those visuals are uuugggllllyyyy. It looks like a Disney Channel original series parody of what video games are.
...It looks like the CGI in an insurance commercial. (I can keep going.)

Probably have to wait for the inevitable mods on PC to get the original music. I really hope this doesn't mean Jimmy Urine's music is being stripped out, though. Suda51 and Mindless Self Indulgence were basically my power duo throughout my teenage years and seeing them work together on something blew my <HEAVY USE OF EXPLETIVES YOU CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT'S BEING SAID BEHIND THIS CENSOR> mind.

@GeneJacket Oh, that's a shame. I swear it was Beenox that made Web of Shadows, and I really liked that game, but I just checked and it's Treyarch (I think primarily, at least). I guess it depends how rushed the others were.

I didn't know Waltz wrote the games plot! I knew they at least had an artist from the IDW series, that's sick. I missed out on MiM since they pulled it from sale so quickly, but I still have Out of the Shadows... ha. If a miracle happens and they pull some of the good TMNT licensed games out of oblivion (would be nice to see Wayforward's TMNT metroidvania game too) I will buy them in a heartbeat.

This, if all this smoke leads to fire, is EXACTLY what I was hoping but would never expect them to do. For those unaware, Activision was a HUGE licensed game developer in the late 00s and 10s. Some of the games weren't great, some were fantastic, and some were average. But there was SO much. And even with the mixed average, the output doesn't deserve to rot and be forgotten.

Deadpool, Ninja Turtles, Spider-Man, Marvel itself. Before Activision was the CoD machine, it was putting out tons of comic-book games.

@anoyonmus Ahh, combined with the sales, that helps explain it. Thank you. I do still hope the games that never saw an Xbox port see one perhaps next year, shadow drop them with the other incoming Capcom ports.

@GeneJacket I don't mind dated games, and Shattered Dimensions still seems like a fun time, even if just once through for the novelty. I'm surprised MIM actually took after the IDW comics, too!

@xboxjapanfan Though I don't play Halo in Japanese, I'm sorry you had to deal with VA changes. I hope it was for a good reason, but I doubt it was. 343 though is known for being downright sloth-like when it comes to sorting issues.

@Utena-mobile You and me both.

@anoyonmus I actually wasn't aware Great Ace Attorney wasn't on Xbox, so I would also add that to my list of games I hope now come over if Microsoft footed the bill for them to fix up the compatibility issues with Xbox.

Did they move their ports/collections to a new engine recently-- like is everything just on their RE engine now? If so, maybe that's why the newer ones are still releasing, though I'm just randomly guessing.

This is good news, however what of the unreleased Mega Man Battle Network collections? Will this finally follow, or was that not made on MT Framework?

Again, this is really good news, but if Capcom is just going to let prior collections never be released on Xbox even after this, that's not too reassuring.

@Utena-mobile I think it's still him trying to be the relatable/down to earth big chungus exec that is at least humble with flaws he's well aware of.

..Which, while nice on paper, not so great when perception around what he's in charge of has been so consistently poor outside of a few things (their summer event) they've almost eagerly tried to sabotage not long after showing. (Indy PS5 port confirmation before the Xbox version is even out.)

These were not all great games (referring to all games, not Transformers solely), but just bringing back all the licensed games Acti made would be great. I still kick myself for never picking up the Spider-Man games or TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan.

@themightyant Current live service games didn't begin as them, to the best of my knowledge. Fortnite didn't start as one, it was just a hail mary toss to copy PUBG's success but free to play, and it took off.

Starting a game from the jump as a "service" is what kills the game.

Also, I feel bad for the devs who got laid off. Rotten corporate world, where they keep their paychecks but fire people who had no choice with the decision of making XYZ.