Kaloudz

@Fiendish-Beaver You could be right, it could very well be two years into next gen before we see anything - especially if the job listing is hiring for work yet to begin (on ports) but the question is no longer a case of if, but when. Sony's intent is clear right now - which is big news. Questioning when something will come over is irrelevant because we know that their plan is to multiplat to some degree.

As for the cost of next gen, I think we're looking at a price factor of £550. Perhaps at an absolute push, £600.

@IOI I get your point, totally, but I still think from what I've read, it did more than the first game (with a few deviations) to warrant not entirely being more of the same. If that was the general rule of thumb, most sequels would fall short (CoD, AC etc...) :/

@DaPrince Echoes isn't on Game Pass bud, so I wouldn't be able to try it. I tend to wait for feedback for a lot of games and rarely buy any these days given the price hikes. Not only that, but as someone with seizures, and with there being no real digital returns process (that make sense), I like to see how "flashy" games are first

Echoes looks good but I'll wait for feedback first. As for GP, I'll no doubt turn to Alien Fireteam whilst watching Alien Earth!

I saw the word Expedition and nearly had a heart attack lol.

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm going to side-step the whole debate about when Sony will bring them over because we know that it will happen - which is big enough news in itself, and I cant offer any specifics on the "when" lol, because I'm not Mystic Meg.

How much I will I pay? Well I don't think we will get the same option next gen that we got this gen (two consoles - one budget and one not). I think we will get two versions of the same machine - one with a disk drive and one without - same specs.

How much I'm willing to pay will probably sit between the 400-550 range.

@Ricky-Spanish Lmao. Got to ask you your fave NB song now! Yeah the first one was pretty grim, but I nearly avoided it simply because of the mental health tone (for personal reasons). Glad the second one is more supernatural. That's actually right in my wheelhouse!

@Master_Cthulhu70 Hellblade 1 was praised for being a linear, minimalist, immersive experience that blurred the line between game and psychological "art piece". Hellblade 2 doubled down on that same vision and people act like they were betrayed or something lol.

Exactly. I just get the feeling sometimes that if this exact game was made by a Sony studio, the weighted score would be way more positive. That could just be me being sceptical about how things are viewed, but, this is hardly an isolated incident lol.

@DaveTheRave GP is costing them a fortune? If GP was costing more to run than it was making, they'd have sunset it a long, long time ago... MS went in the direction they've gone in for the same reason most (once) exclusive developers / publishers have now gone multiplat - because the market is only getting more and more expensive. It costs hundreds of millions to run a studio, so much so that one failed project can make or break even a longstanding studio. The amount of closures, cancellations, price hikes, and more, should tell you that.

@Millionski I know right? It's just baffling to me that when MS did this, people were more than keen to sharpen their pitchforks. Sony does it? Not a peep... In fact the loudest demographic are those trying to downplay it. You just cant make this up.

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm not making up a narrative, I'm going off what we know. We know Sony has a position going for multiplat support (including Xbox and not specific to live service). We know Sony is bringing over HD2 and according to the developer, it was all Sony. Just these two snippets (out of many) alone is telling enough in itself.

@Fiendish-Beaver I would say the opposite is true. I think people are flapping around trying to damage control a situation that is as blatant as blue in the sky. Hell, even Sony's lack of clarification on the matter is telling in itself.

@Ricky-Spanish Yeah I played the first game but just never bothered with the second game. I heard the length was like, 8 hours or something? I just mentally shelved it as a "one day I'll get to it" sort of thing and never bothered lol. The first game was shrouded in mental health if I recall. Is the sequel the same?

Oh man, a fellow Nickelbackion! <3

@Fiendish-Beaver It is not what he said, Kaloudz. Don't get carried away yet again...

Ugh. It's not just about the context of this one piece of intel, it's about the movement on the whole. HD2, job adverts that clearly point to multiplat support (including Xbox), the fact that nowhere did they state live-service only despite having ample time to do so.

@Ricky-Spanish I think it's just one of those things isn't it. The Nickelback or EA effect. It's cool to hate on something that other people are hating on, so lets hate on it for no reason... :/ Lol.

@cragis0001 Yeah I've read that too, and I'm all for it. The possibilities will be sky high if they have really gone that route and given their work as of late, I wouldn't be surprised.

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm not into PC gaming at all - in the sense that I'd have to mess about with settings and drivers etc... Now if the next Xbox has gone the route I think it has (having the ability to play Xbox PC games) I wont need to - I'd have the best of both worlds - especially if they have multiple storefront support.

Sadly I cant remedy how your mind works when it comes to trying to pull random dates out of random people. You're turning the discussion from "Sony will release on Xbox and other platforms" (which is huge news in and of itself) to "let's see when people think it will happen" which is just impossible to predict because it will be determined based on how well things sell to begin with.

I enjoyed BF1 quite a lot.

Currently re-running E33 at the moment, but if this is well received, I might make it my next project.

I imagine sales will sky rocket once it leaves EA. Obsidian just keep cranking out solid games. I'm holding out for full release, and absolutely cannot wait. It looks amazing.

I've yet to pick this one up, but it's definitely on my to-buy list before the year is out.

Most of the feedback I've seen paint a very positive picture. It's nice to finally have a game that keeps CoD on its toes.

Ha, I remember SSX - I also remember how much I sucked at it.

@TrollOfWar True. I haven't tried the second game myself because I'm not really into the whole walking-sim experience, but I do wish NT would go back and create a new IP in the hack and slash genre. I personally thought their take on DmC was remarkably well done.

@Ricky-Spanish Lol. It's funny, but there's parts of me that think that that's actually the case ...

@cragis0001 That's very true - and I'm all the way in for it. I think it'd be a wonderful addition myself. It opens up more ports, more avenues, and more possibilities.

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm not sure why you're so keen to have a time-frame bud. No one can predict that accurately because it will depend on the sales of titles that come beforehand. It will be dictated by what games make sense, and whether there's a gap for it in the market on other storefronts.

Yup. Like many of us have said - the writing is on the wall - and this is only a good thing. The market (and game dev) is only becoming more and more expensive, so unless we want a future where we are paying north of £100 for a game, multiplatform releasing is the way forward. Microsoft were the first to do it, but not the last.

It wont be just live service games either. In time, anything will be on the slate - across the board.

The scores don't surprise me. I am surprised, however, that the first game was absolutely championed for all the negatives we're seeing here lol...

@themightyant That's the one! Thanks man.

@cragis0001 Exactly. Further, if the next Xbox can play Xbox PC games as well as console games, it would add weight to the suggestion that there will be multiple storefronts next gen. It all just adds up to one hell of an exciting prospect.

@Fiendish-Beaver It's guesswork. It could be two years away, it could be five years away, but the timing doesn't matter as much as the fact. We wouldn't have been entertaining this conversation at the beginning of the gen; it was unheard of. All I'm saying with certainty is that it's going to happen. Not in 10 years time, not in 20 years time, but within the next few years.

It wont be live service only.

@cragis0001 That's not too long at all. I do wonder how quick ports will be next gen for Xbox (if they do indeed make the console close to a PC architect).

Is this the game that was giving Marathon a run for its money?

@WildConcept6 Exactly. Couldn't have said it any better myself. And things might change and pivot in the next few years in the market, but one thing will remain - and that's that exclusivity (at least how we've always known it) is going out the window. I think the only thing that will exist (first and third party) is timed exclusivity.

@johndoe89 I mean you're right, it's free, but it's just not at all exciting. At least it wasn't for me. Try it out my friend but I'll be surprised if you like it more than Valhalla, despite its length.

@Fiendish-Beaver You're asking me for windows I cant give my man. I cant tell you when the games will come because that will largely depend on how well they sell on the platform. I'd hazard a guess and say we see one either before the end of this gen, or the first year of the next. I cant speak for the when, but they will come. That's almost a certainty at this point.

@SuntannedDuck2 I'd agree, and for me that's where half the issues sit. The amount of work that it must take to get track measurements right, realistic conditioning in different weathers, physics etc... must take some real lengthy time.

I played FM5 a lot, and FM6 a fair bit, but after that I fell off because everything just felt the same but a tiny bit prettier. Like I said upwards, I think they should have spaced out releases more but then who knows how things would have turned out lol..

@WildConcept6 I don't think it's a case of being liked more. I think the issue sits with the state of the market and the habits of the consumer. This alone dictates how they operate, and unfortunately the state of the market is only going to get worse. Moves like this should be championed IMO, not ridiculed...

@AverageGamer Yeah I guess there's a point there, but it's not like keeping up with the times has done them any favours. Games in general are ridiculously expensive to make, but games like this, which require heaps of licensing and tech work (such as design, track measuring etc...) are no doubt wayyyyy more expensive to make.

I'd rather have seen less with more, than more with less, if that makes sense - with bigger gaps between.

@Fiendish-Beaver I can tell you with 100% certainty that you cannot tell the difference between the two consoles. They feel and play pretty much identically.

While that's true, I would bet my life that in a lot of cases, it's down to the developers choosing to keep parity - but who knows. I say the same thing about 30fps and 60fps - for the life of me I just don't see the difference no matter how hard I try.

It's like when my wife tells me to listen for the mystical "bite" in a car when she's shifting gears... (I cant drive) I don't hear it. Perhaps our minds are just numb to certain things lol.

Sony will absolutely use exclusives as a model to sell consoles, but that's not to say that they will remain exclusive for the long-run. It's just not logical anymore. Studio costs are on the rise - they always have been and they always will be - so unless we start forking out £100 per game, this multiplat strategy is one of the only avenues left.

Console userbase has reached its limit last I read, with PC and mobile users on the rise. MS is clearly tapping into both PC and Mobile and pushing for a future where (as we've seen) anything can be an Xbox. Their next gen will be big, I can bet my life on it. It'll be big, far reaching, surprising, feature rich / competitive, and support a lot of games (not forgetting it's rumoured to have more than one storefront).

On that basis, PS throwing games at Xbox is not bad decision making on Sony's part. Quite the opposite - because consoles will no longer be competing for just having the most units sold, but biggest userbase too and the most reach.

I disagree on the "PCBox" too. I think Xbox will be able to play Xbox PC games (natively and/or stream) and perhaps have access to other storefronts too. I think Xbox is trying to unify its ecosystem and tear down barriers. That said, we can guesswork until the cows come home, but certain facts stick in the mud, and here, as @HonestHick and many other say, it's blatantly evident that Sony are going multiplat.

They've had ample time to say otherwise and have not (they may try padding the flames with well worded statements but that wont matter) and their own job board (and HD2) states otherwise. PS games are coming to Xbox - and no, not just LS games... Count on it.

@J_Mo_Money Precisely. Now try telling that to the same people that were hammering about how Xbox was dying when the shoe was on the other foot. Lol. You cant make this stuff up...

@tho_mi Stands to reason that when they partner and fund a studio for a project, goals need to be met. We consumers only ever know half the story - and even then, we only know bits and bobs of that half. MS aint closing down projects that will make them money, they're closing down projects and studios that are costing them too much money... Hell, recent layoffs showcase that exact reality.

@BAMozzy It doesn't matter how much MS has written off, sometimes its better to cut your losses as soon as you can than keep ploughing money into a Project that will never be profitable. If they spent 40m On Contraband but believe it will only make about 50m back, you aren't going to spend another 40m+. That's money they can put into games like Fable or Clockwork Revolution to ensure they release on time.

Exactly this. 100%. People get too chewed up about business decisions that any sane person would commit to if something was costing them money rather than making it. It is what it is. It's ugly business, but clearly goals were not being met.

@Elbow Second party absolutely needs to become a "thing" lol, because it makes perfect sense. That said, the industry we're all fond of just keeps twisting and turning with new phrases at every hurdle - so god knows what the heck we're suppose to call this - but second party fits it like a glove if you ask me.

@FuzzieGinge88 Exactly, and do you know what? I think it was due. I personally think they should have halved the amount of FM games they were releasing, but that's just me. I think it became too oversaturated to the point every time they announced an FM, it just wasn't as exciting.

WOAH! I did not see that coming! Gutted it's not Q3A but this certainly makes up for it!

@Markatron84 Yeah I thought as much. Thanks buddy. Sure it sucks but from a business standpoint - if targets were being met and the game was healthily on track - this wouldn't have been shuttered. That's just a fact of reason. It's a shame but it is what it is.

@J_Mo_Money Exactly. People need to cope lol. It's going to happen, and in a way, it's already started. Folks just like to move the goalposts as and when it suits but ah well... time will show the fruit.

@AdamNovice I'll give it a peek shortly but in or out of context, I think the point still stands. I mean it's pretty clear where things are heading. For the whole industry.

@Ricky-Spanish Yeah mine go back September 1st and I can't wait lol. They fight like cat and dog all day round. The faster time moves the better 😁

Don't even mention Xmas 😞

Doesn't surprise me in the least. Development must have been troubled for us to have not seen a lick of it in the last few years - and MS ain't gonna foot the bill forever. Small news IMO. MS has plenty (plentyyyy) of other things going on right now.

Edit - Looking at the comments, correct me if I'm wrong, this isn't an Xbox Studio-developed game...

Wow is Super Animal Royale still going?? 😧

Why would they rope PG into it? Lol. They're safe. More than safe. The question is... will there be a sequel to FM? I personally don't think there will be. I think T10 gets shuttered soon after FM has been sunset.

I'll be here day one for this. I love a good party game.

@Questionable_Duck I didn't see that but thanks for pointing that out and sharing it. It just paints a very clear picture doesn't it? And funnily enough, the people screaming from the rooftops when MS made similar statements, are painfully absent now...

It's just the state of the market. Many of us have said this for a long time now. The industry is volatile, harsh, and hella expensive. Money needs to be made on a larger scale, especially as the costs of development are only going up. If that costs more, then it's either going to cost us more (which isn't going to happen given the pushback on price hikes) or they're going to have to sell more across other platforms.

@Fiendish-Beaver I don't think the 20% makes the world of difference but then, we don't know how or where that 20% difference will factor in when it comes to next gen. One thing is for sure, if it was the other way round (PS5 or PS6 20% more powerful) people would be much louder about it... ironically.

And no, I wholly mean native PS games on a native Xbox. We will (if Xbox PC / Steam is true, and the next Xbox can play both) see the variation of Xbox playing PS games through varying storefronts via varying means (which has also been rumoured) but we will also have PS games natively too.

Multiplatform is the way forward, the state of the market dictates this. People are just going to have to cope with that in (hopefully) a more mature fashion than they did when MS took similar steps.