LogicStrikesAgain

MSFS, Hellblade 2, Starfield, Halo

This is why i was saying that player count is the worst metric to use for succes, as many of those players may have left the game after 30 mins, which can hardly be called successful. I got a lot of pushback for that statement. I’m not saying its not an interesting metric, but at least couple it with ‘hours played’ like they did here, that way we get a lot more relevant information 😉

For now, Sony will increase its prices as well soon enough

@Tyrant_T103 Yes, i understand what you’re saying, but thats not what i was getting at. I am not comparing the causes of these increases. I am talking about the value proposition for the consumer, i.e. price and what you get for it.

Some people complained that $699 for that particular set of specs (PS5 Pro) was ridiculously poor value. Now regardless of why the 2TB Xbox is now more expensive should not matter, they should still feel its too high of a price for those specs, if they are consistent that is

@Tyrant_T103 Thats not really what i meant though. If people thought that was too high of a price for a console with those specs, then they should feel the same way about this price, regardless of the corporate reasoning behind the price increase

Sony will definitely follow suit eventually. However i wonder if the people who were dunking on PS5 Pro’s price reveal, will keep the same energy now that the 2TB Xbox costs $730.

If people thought $699 was too much for a console with those specs, certainly a lower specced console costing even more should make those same people speak out now

Didn’t expect to see this article back again 🙃

But i guess Xbox did get some new exclusive games. Unfortunately this list will probably be thinning out in the coming months and years

@JustinCase I think it’s more about pacing, though. As i understand it, much of the content and cars are available very shortly after the beginning, which doesn’t really give much sense of progression. I can see how some people might see that lack of progression as a negative

Not saying Sony is going to or even could make games on Steam unplayable on Xbox. But y’all need to use some better words than petty 😂

If Sony would do something like that, it wouldn't be out of spite, it would be trying to protect it’s ecosystem, business model and intellectual property, just like any other business would. They’d be trying to keep competitive advantage and that’s called good business sense, especially cause it can’t afford losing money like Microsoft aka the richest company in the world (cycles between #1 and #2)

Sony will be caculating the risk and reward of letting their games be playable on Xbox hardware, and act accordingly within their power. That’s not petty, thats just how businesses operate. Petty implies that large scale companies make multi-million dollar decisions based on childish emotions, which is totally unrealistic

@RPGsus “They are actively building an audience amongst PS players with this strategy. People that never look beyond their own console, are buying and playing xbox games new and old”

Well, the audience was already built by Bethesda, ABK and other former 3rd party studios like Obsidian, Microsoft just purchased them. In stead of paying Bethesda and ABK for their games, PS players now have to pay Microsoft. But not really because Microsoft actively created a new audience. It’s the same people who like those games.

Thats why i find comments like “oh, so now PS gamers like Xbox games all of a sudden” so weird. Not saying you said that, but thats just a running narrative people have.

Of course thats gonna happen, some of their games were from 3rd party studios until recently, so yeah of course some will be into those games.

For example, there will be many PS players who grew up playing Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein or Diablo, so if a new IP like Starfield or Indiana Jones comes out or an Oblivion remaster from the same studios, many PS players might be into it. Not because Xbox created a new audience for those games. It’s the games that created the audience, not the platform

But i get what you’re saying about if they went the exclusive route again with the next console they may have attracted some new costumers from their competition. And frankly, i think going the exclusive route is the only way their next console would succeed, but i’m afraid the damage to the brand will have been so that it’s almost impossible for them to pivot back to going exclusive.

Edit: Unless you were talking about Forza going to Playstation, then yeah with that title they are creating a new audience

@Sol4ris @Kaloudz You’re both absolutely right, i wasn’t claiming otherwise, though. I was only reacting to someone who said: “Yes, Sony can bleat about how their version of Forza Horizon or Doom Dark Ages is the best version, but they're still lining their rival's pockets.”

Which is why i said that Microsoft is also lining their rivals pockets. He kinda makes it seem as if it goes only one way, but it goes both ways

@ValentineMeikin Microsoft is also lining their rivals pockets. Sony doesn't have to develop the games, but gets their 30% cut

Game Pass is great, but what does this all mean for Game Pass when most subscribers come from Xbox owners? The way i’m seeing it, they need people to keep buying Xbox consoles to keep subscribers up, but they’re also losing people to other platforms with this 3rd party publisher strategy. Man, it’s a real predicament they’ve got themselves in

Definitely amazing value, unfortunately i’m not interested in most of the games on it myself. The one game i was interested in got pushed out to next year, Fable. Also Clair Obscur looks cool

@Millionski I agree with the pricing with lesser remasters. But i respectfully disagree about the full blown remakes. In my opinion full remakes usually do deserve a full price. Remakes can be almost as expensive and take similar amounts of work as a new game, since everything is built up from scratch. Of course this is arguable, since there are caveats, like length of the game and not having to create a new story etc, but most of the time i think full price is warranted

Regarding RE2 Remake, i feel it did deserve its price point. They completely modernized the game, even overhauled the whole gameplay with the new camera system and updated combat mechanics, making it feel like a whole new game.

But i also think Oblivion remastered deserves the price they’re asking, since they went way beyond just overhauling the graphics.

Just wondering, if you feel a full blown remake should be priced at $50 max. What do you think of the pricing of Oblivion remastered?

@Aniscape Yeah, i agree with this. Why not acknowledge that this is what a true Remaster is supposed to be like and call lesser remasters upscaled or indeed definitive versions.

For the people who’d like to read a bit more about it, here’s a link from an article on IGN posted 2 days ago, about a tweet where the developers say that this isn’t a remake: https://www.ign.com/articles/bethesda-comments-on-the-elder-scrolls-4-oblivion-remastered-changes-we-never-wanted-to-remake-it

@Evilinsane Actually it was, it’s all in the name. Oblivion wasn’t called remake because it wasn’t fully remade. These aren’t my opinions, these are just facts i’m stating. I’m not trying to dunk on this remaster or anything, it’s very well done.

I was just mentioning the fact that they decided to compare pricing between two games, that aren’t made in the same way, it just seems like a bit of an unjust comparison that’s all.

Edit: If you’d like to check it out, here’s a link to an IGN article of 2 days ago where the developers tell that they never wanted to remake the game: https://www.ign.com/articles/bethesda-comments-on-the-elder-scrolls-4-oblivion-remastered-changes-we-never-wanted-to-remake-it

Hmm, comparing pricing of a full remake and a remaster is a bit sus 🤔

I’m sure y’all know that fully remaking a game is different than a remaster, even if its a pretty extensive remaster, the game is not fully remade from the ground up like Demon Souls.

Not knocking on the quality of the Oblivion remaster btw, it even comes close to remake territory and its very well done and even has gameplay tweaks, however its technically not a full recreation made from scratch

Were there any murmurs this wasn’t coming to Xbox? I thought it was announced a long time ago that it would

@themightyant Good points! And absolutely true

@BAMozzy Fair enough, i agree with ur last paragraph. I may have brought the discussion needlessly over to a wider debate about what metrics can define whether a game is a succes or not. If they feel this is a succes for them because of how many people have tried it, then i respect that

@BAMozzy You explained perfectly well how those metrics could be seen as succes for different people, like sales for publishers, engagement for players, critical acclaim for devs etc.

But can you explain what a high player count is a succes of? Does it have anything to do with a teams creativity like the devs said in their tweet? Or is it a metric of good marketing maybe? Is the opposite also true if a game doesnt reach that many people? Like for games exclusive to a platform, which will automatically have a smaller reach. Would that be considered a flop? You see how many variables and inconsistencies you get with this metric? Its hard to even define what they have succeeded in.

But the other metrics can be easily explained and defined, as you did

This metric still confuses me of what succes they are trying to convey with it, especially since its not accompanied by other metrics like time spent playing. For all i know most people stopped playing after 30 mins and hated the game. Is player count now the most important factor to determine succes and we just brush all other information aside?

But yeah, i will conceed, i have come to terms that i’m probably being pedantic here and i dont want to dunk anymore on the studios achievement. I never intended to come across negatively towards their achievement, i am merely debating the the validity of player count as a way to define success

@themightyant Fair enough, i did make a bit of an extreme example there 🙃

To me, if games are purely subscription based, we’d still look at user scores, but more importantly player retention to see if games are a success. As you also said, the addition of hours played would make more sense than just the amount of people who started the game.

That would be the equivalent of Netflix releasing a season and people stop watching after the first episode, i’d bet Netflix internally wouldn't call that show a success, even if it had many people watching the first episode, because of hype and marketing for example

@themightyant Idk man, i’m not saying these metrics are a science, but i believe combined they do give a clearer picture, than just counting the people who started the game. That gives an even more incomplete picture.

For example, hypothetically, what if a game has a 65 metacritic score, a 50 user score, most people don’t play longer than an hour or so (no player retention) and hardly sold on any other platform it released. Can we still call the game a succes if it was booted up by 20 million people on a subscription service?

Personally, i think user scores add another metric to gauge succes with. Many people may try a game, especially if its on a subscription service, but what if everyone who tries it hates the game? It would be kind of tone deaf for a developer to call it a raging succes if most people stopped playing after 30 mins.

Yes, this game might have broad exposure and may reach a lot of people, but what im hearing and reading is that critics and users are finding the game pretty mediocre, mixed at best. Hardly a game i would describe as a massive success myself. Maybe only if you have to confine it to one metric, namely player count. Yes, than this game is a huge success.

I know we’re talking semantics here, and maybe i am being a bit pedantic. I just think seeing only player count numbers adds no information at all, and should not be one of the most important metrics used to define succes. By definition, a game thats exclusive to a platform is going to have a lower player count than a game which releases on all consoles, PC and even last gen. Still tells you nothing about how good a game is, if people liked it, if it had any sales or if people are truly engaging with it long term rather than just casually testing it once for an hour and quickly leaving it behind.

@themightyant You’re absolutely right. However i do want to point out that i’m not saying sales alone should be the defining metric. I actually said sales, critical and user reviews and player retention. Those combined, to me, is what defines a succesful game.

Counting the people that started a game, maybe even just once, is an interesting metric, and it may play a part, but it’s not one of the most important in defining succes, at least to me.

I agree that the addition of hours played would be better than just counting the people that started the game, as that metric would fall under the category player retention

I was going to say yes, definitely, Xbox gonna announce Starfield and Halo for Nintendo. But then i read the above comment, which makes way more sense 😝

@FraserG Fair enough. It may be pedantic of me, or semantics, but i feel there seems to be a change in how “succes” is defined. Using factors that hardly define succes, at least in my book.

I mean, for releasing on almost all platforms (including last gen) and a subscription service with 30 million subscribers it’s seems reasonable that a lot of people will have tried the game once, even just out of curiosity. I almost feel that because of the large potential playerbase this number could be somewhat expected, rather than it being surprising or indicative of a massive succes.

Even if we were only to use player count as a metric to define succes, i wouldnt even be sure if this warrants the moniker collosal. There are games that get tens of millions player count after a few days. If this is already called collossal than we must invent new words for those other games. I know i know, semantics

Im so weirded out by using player count numbers to define any kind of succes. What if people who played it, hated it? Doesnt that factor in before calling something a succes. Sorry not trying to start something, its just that we’ve gone from perfectly viable ways to define succes such as sales, critical and user reception and player retention to just counting the amount of people who’ve tried a game. Some of which may have stopped playing after 30 mins. It’s just such an incomplete metric to define any type of succes by, at least to me.

And also, while the numbers sound good, what can we benchmark it against to truly get a picture of how succesful it is? I’m sure it pales in comparison to some other titles, so how do we define succes of a game through these metrics? It seems, like its a better benchmark for succesful marketing and exposure, rather than anything else.

The game has pretty average critic reviews and a mediocre mixed user score. Let’s see if people even remember this game a few months from now before we call a game a massive succes just because a bunch of people decided to boot the game up once

@Millionski Yeah, you’re probably right of course. I’m just wishful thinking, and just can’t see how their next console could succeed otherwise at this point

@OldGamer999 Agree with you there. Exclusives sell consoles. If they don’t go back to exclusivity next gen, i’m wondering what would even be the point in releasing new hardware. I’d like to see them start strong with a fresh exclusive games line up next gen. At least, for me, that would certainly pique my interest

I must say, Xbox hired some funny folks for their marketing, they always have funny memes and responses for things 😂

Anyway, i’m more interested to see what their own handheld (2027) will be. This one doesnt really interest me, but will pay attention to official announcements to learn more

@IOI It’s hilarious to look back on cuz of how they wanted to spend Sony out of business, because they actually thought everyone would move to Game Pass and it was gonna reach 100 million subscribers before the end of the decade. It just didnt quite work out yet for them, so they had to change gears and now they have to port their exclusives.

To be fair, Sony probably wants the same thing, but that is true for almost every company in existence to want their main competitor out of the game so 🤷🏻‍♂️

People need to stop thinking that companies would somehow just share things with their main competitors. Xbox wouldn’t be porting their games to PS and Nintendo if they didn’t have to. Next thing we’re gonna ask Nvidia to share their tech with Amd, because that’s apparently how business works now?

I voted “No, stay away” before i read the “Maybe an ip or two” option. Acquiring a few ip’s would be fine, but fully acquiring them? I’m with Layden on this one, that would be a bad decision

@HonestHick “Now i think more people would prefer Steam, so yes MS losses some sales on its own store”

Honestly, i think they will lose pretty much all, or definitely the majority of sales to Steam, not just some.

But yeah, i’m also interested to hear more about this console, i skipped out on Xbox for the first time this gen, but i’m still open for them to convince me to buy an Xbox again next gen

@HonestHick Of course they get a cut when they sell their own games. I’m talking about every other game sold on it that isn’t a Xbox game. Would they still get a cut from Steam for those? Does Asus get a cut for every game sold on their device?

This would render their own Xbox store useless. And they wont even make money on the games sold on it, except for the Xbox titles. I’m just trying to make sense of their strategy.

Edit: Since you mentioned “Playstation leaving money on the table” to me over at PushSquare. What do you think about MS leaving money on the table here if they integrate Steam?
I’m sure you can see that earning a 30% cut on all games sold, and a 100% for your own games, in their own store, will always be better than making 0% on all 3rd party games and only 70% on your own games.

Btw, i’m not saying this is how it will work, thats why i said in my comment that i might be way off here. Honestly, i’m just trying to make sense of it all

@SMJ I didn’t say you were talking about streaming, i was just giving you my take on the future of consoles 😅

Unless streaming with low latency becomes widespread and reliable, there will still be a need for some sort of hardware and processor to store and play those games on locally, even if it’s all digitally

@SMJ I think it’s likely there will still be consoles after the PS6 generation, unless streaming with very low latency becomes widespread and reliable by then.

I do think the future, whether that’s the PS7 or PS8 generation or beyond, will eventually be cloud streaming. And that future, similar to tv streaming, will be a battle of content. And if Sony doesn’t act and acquire some important ips, developers or publishers for itself, it could seriously affect its future position in gaming

@RZ-Atom I’d say paying developers to make exclusive games, to entice people in buying your platform isn't petty, it’s just called business.

Also, a bit ironic you say that, seeing as MS arguably started this practice of aggressively making 3rd party exclusivity deals during the 360 era

@themightyant My thoughts exactly. I dont think Sony would mind this device (2025) to have Playstation games on it, since it’s basically a Steam handheld.

I’m still baffled by what Xbox is trying to accomplish here. This would be like Xbox creating a handheld with the Playstation store and call it an Xbox, while the revenue of every game sold on it would go to Playstation and their respective developer/publisher in stead of Xbox.

I will admit however, that my ignorance regarding how all of this works might cause me to be overlooking something here

I dont know how all these things work, so i may be way off here. But i’m guessing if Steam is the main store used on this upcoming Xbox branded PC handheld, then MS doesnt get a cut from each sold game, right? So what is their play here? Do they expect to make money from the hardware sold? Didn’t the SteamDeck only sell like 3 million devices or something? I’m so confused by this move

@GamingFan4Lyf Hmm, i’m not that familiar with it actually. I thought games needed to be tweaked a lot to work well on a SteamDeck. So some games are verified so that they automatically work well on a SteamDeck, is that correct? That does sound good. I dunno, that may work.

My question would be how they would sell their games. Because if they do sell it through Steam, then how is this still a Xbox rather than a Steam console. I just can’t see it clearly now, but hopefully when we get more info on everything it’ll be more clear

@GamingFan4Lyf Yeah, that sounds good, you may be right! But i think they would still need to optimize it for it to run in a way that they would want it to run. For example, to run at 60fps with a certain fidelity on that hardware configuration they would still have to develop the game specifically around that set of specs in mind.

I’m far from an expert on this, so i may be talking nonsense here. Honestly this whole thing is still so vague, i don’t know what to think of it. I will reserve further judgement until i know more of their plans

@Millionski I don’t think stock issues are the problem rather a consequence of no one buying a Xbox. But i do agree with the marketing, that has definitely not helped.

Ironically Xbox, by acquiring two of the biggest publishers, now does have a lot of games. But they (understandably) decided to go multiplatform. And i don’t know if they can go back from this decision next gen

@Seioni Sure, but i disagree that those games are the reason they chose Playstation, because those are available as well on Xbox. They could have easily bought a Xbox to play their Fortnite and CoD right? And yet they didn’t.

Most people are overwhelmingly choosing Playstation because of their reputation of delivering high class exclusives, and since Xbox started porting their games last year, you now have acces to both Sony’s exclusives and Xbox games.

It’s similar to the tv streaming world. Even if you only watch a couple of shows, you still have to pick a subscription. For example, why would you subscribe to Netflix if every show they make comes to Disney+. You’d just subscribe to Disney+, that way you have acces to Disneys catalogue and Netflix’s.

Look, i may be wrong. But the way i see it, one way to entice people to buy their next gen console is to offer good exclusives games.

Edit: However, i will say you’re right that exclusives aren’t the only reason. Some people consider Playstation out of convenience, as it might be more readily available in some regions of the world, some (especially younger people) will look at what their peers have and some are just loyal to the brand or have built up too big of a collection in their ecosystem to switch to something else

@GamingFan4Lyf I just don’t really see the difference between Xbox making a “PC like” console, if it still has a fixed set of specs they will need to develop for, compared to a regular console also with a fixed set of specs you need to develop for.

People will still want to buy a PS6 for their exclusives, and if Xbox keeps porting their games to PS, who is this targeted towards?

It’s honestly really vague to me what they are trying to accomplish here, but if true, it really looks like they are just building a console for Valve. Because who would still continue to buy games from the Xbox store if Steam is available on it? It’ll effectively just be a new Steam console

@SMJ I don't know man, maybe you’re right. But having exclusives is basically Sony’s modus operandi and the reason they sell consoles. I have the feeling they would step in if all their games could be played on a Xbox. Because that would indeed be disastrous for Playstation

I still don’t quite understand their play here. Is the Steam integration the only thing that is supposed to save Xbox? Is this their trump card? Are there even any notable games on Steam that aren’t available on console? Football Manager hardly gets me excited.

I’ll say it again, they can do whatever Steam integration they want, but if they want to sell Xboxs, they need to have exclusive games. Exclusives sell consoles

What i’m learning from this article and Phil’s quote is that they’re learning and growing, slowly gaining confidence. Which gives me confidence that they are learning and continuing to learn from what they are doing. Gaining confidence through learning and learning to grow. And gain confidence

This is pretty cool to see, i wish someone would to this for Playstation. Only thing i don’t get is why the previous 4 years always need to be included with the roadmap.

Oblivion remake will probably also soon be announced