MinervaX76

@UltimateOtaku91

Judging by phils comments today though it seems some Bethesda games will be coming to playstation in the future, most likely ones that are already established franchises on playstation like Fallout, Doom and Elders Scrolls, which the latter he refused to comment if it was still coming to playstation or not when asked by the FTC.

I would not interpret it that way. I do expect the Quake 2 remaster to come to PS5, but the statement i read was worded in such a way that basically meant they would only keep games that are as internationally large as CoD and Minecraft are. His reluctance to talk about ES6 is simply because that game is likely 10 or 15 years away, and who knows if by that point there would be a PS7 or an XBox Series X3, or if consoles have become irrelevant. He specifically said he didnt want to make a call because who has a clue how the market looks once that game comes out.

@PhileasFragg I think you are right. Planets will likely be huge square map patches on certain spots of a planet, not total planet exploration. Either that or planets will be very very tiny ( for a planet).

@Kaloudz being pre-recorded, would be hilarious if his statement brings up exclusivity concerns again despite the emails brought up quoting him as not concerned at all.

I wasn’t expecting land vehicles, but was hoping for small aerial traversal of the planets, not with a jet pack, but either in the ship we create or on a mini-shuttle or something.

Maybe we get something in the form of DLC or Mods. More reasons to play this on PC.

Don’t be shocked if we get Skyrim horses via mods rather quickly. Just slap an extra set of eyes and paint them green, call them alien horses.

The FTC is claiming Microsoft could repeat the same patterns with Activision Blizzard games - essentially locking the company's titles to Xbox, PC and the Game Pass subscription service if the deal is passed.

This is very illogical, someone at Disney might end up having to testify, but an amendment to the licensing agreement is not something a single party can do unilaterally.

Similarly, the Xbox cant back out of the deal they signed with Nintendo, or any deal Sony signs (if they decide to sign it) to keep CoD multiplatform. Thats not to mention that Jim Ryan himself was quoted as stating that he has no worries about exclusivity and that CoD will remain multiplatform.

@UltimateOtaku91 honoring a contact means you are not going to breach it. When you "don't honor a contract", you usually end up in court. A renegotiation that is agreed upon by all parties is not against the spirit of such statement.

I'm sure you already made your mind on this, though.

@UltimateOtaku91 How many contracts have you signed in your life? Serious question, because an amendment to a contract is not "breaking a contract".

Breaking a contract means you don't honor the terms and either go to court or pay whatever penalties are outlined in a penalty clause.

@themightyant I just poked my head and dropped a few comments but already see the place will look like armageddon in an hour. I'm almost done with work so I'll be jumping back into Tears of the Kingdom in a bit and just check the post count later. I feel today Push Square has had more xbox news than PS news posted (hyperbole, of course.)

@UltimateOtaku91 they didn't break the contract. Disney agreed to this. So yea, they are honoring the terms Disney agreed to.

@themightyant saw about the exclusivity earlier.

I been saying since the day the game was announced that the game would be platform exclusive unless Disney literally forced them to ship it to PlayStation.

I am surprised there is no article in PushSquare for that yet. Thats going to make many console warriors from both sides flame each other for a few hours.

@RadioHedgeFund

Microsoft only have themselves to blame. They shut down all their 1st party studios knowing full well people buy consoles to play first party exclusives.

This is a bit of a separate topic but... did they?

How many studios did they shut down? As far as I can recall, they only shut down one: Lionhead studios. They also allowed Bungie to buy their independence, but they didn't shut it down.

The real question, I guess, is... where did xbox exclusives used to come from?

• Halo obviously came from Bungie, and they sold them, but got "replaced" by 343.
• Fable came from Lionhead, got shut down for some reason when Fable Legends got canceled. Not sure why they didnt attempt to salvage what was done and just produce Fable IV with those assets but /shrug
• Gears of War came from a third party deal with Epic Games
• Forza Motorsports came from a first party, is still around
• Rare made various games, none wildly successful until Kinect and then Sea of Thieves, still around

Almost everything else I can think of was done via third party deals. Dead Rising, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery, Gotham Project Racing, Dead or Alive 4, the already mentioned Gears of War... all made as third party deals. Some IPs owned by MS, other retained by the publishers, but still, not done by xbox.

The thing that did happen early in the XBox One generation (given how timelines work, this means it actually stopped about 3 years earlier) was that they stopped making third party exclusivity deals, because "data showed" that 360 users spent more time watching movies and playing third party games. 🤦

At the same time, though, the only one that relied heavily on first party games used to be Nintendo. Sony didn't get to where they got via first party games, they got there via third party exclusivity deals. It was not until Uncharted that they started creating a true first party identity. God of War 1 and 2 were great, but they were end-of-life PS2 games.

@themightyant

The point is Microsoft basically NEVER talked about the "console war" in fact they have done their best to distance themselves from it and point to other metrics like engagement instead. Now however they want to pretend they are a small belittled startup fighting against the big monopolistic bad. Ha!

Well, they stopped talking about the console wars on the XBO generation, because they didn't see any further chance of staying competitive in console warfare. They had to seek a different business model (simply gaming, across PC, Console,
Cloud and eventually mobile.)

As for the "pretend they are small belittled startup", well, that is also extremely hyperbolic. Claiming to be in last place is not claiming they are a small startup, its stating a fact. MS is not claiming they are not profitable in console gaming. That fact is never going to help them with investors or market growth, but it is a fact that will help them during a legal case that is focused around consoles.

But that doesn't mean there aren't many others from Sony's perspective.

Sony's concerns continue to be exclusively CoD, not it's exclusivity perhaps, but "parity", marketing rights, the mere thought that someone will prefer to play it on Xbox due to GP or what not. Sony's obsession with CoD and nothing but CoD, IMO, is extremely frustrating from a gamers perspective. How can we blame ABK themselves for over-focusing on CoD when Sony is obviously equally hyper focused on just that?

Edit:

As for X360 as I said above they marginally came third in console sales but easily beat Sony in almost every other metric. I wouldn't say they 'Lost' that gen.

Agree. In fact, by the end of the generation XBox still had more software units sold than PS3, and that's where the actual money is. I would say that points at the 360 winning that generation. And when you look at individual markets, the 360 was significantly ahead of the PS3 in the American regions, making claims of anyone winning or losing a generation weird.

At the end it’s only PlayStation that suffers the impact of that. As it stands, Apple has for years shared top secret information with Samsung to have them fab their chips, despite them being a direct competitor.

You do this with contracts that forbid division sharing trade secrets with the remainder of the company. If they refuse to do similar things, again, it’s Sonys fault and proves it’s Sony that can’t be trusted.

Curious: if the game comes out and the 30fps turns out to not actually be “smooth” with plenty of dips, would anyone defending it with “so long it’s locked 30fps” actually call them out, or just continue to say “well, so long the universes is huge!”?

@Wheatly

I'm sorted to October 2025 at this point but Xbox aren't in a strong enough position to be pulling out price increases.

This sentiment has been expressed through the comment section so far, but I have a counter argument to this: Xbox are not in a strong enough position to have volume of sold software make up for the losses they are facing in the hardware sales. Despite higher volume, Sony was not able to find that sustainable almost a year ago.

@SplooshDmg

But I think this seriously paints an ill picture for a Pro console.

I was thinking about this too. If they are doing this now, there is no chance they are anywhere near close enough to introduce a slim series x at lower cost, so a "Pro" console would likely be an extremely high cost premium product.

@NEStalgia

This also means PS5 will finally rise in price in the US since they only kept it static because of MS pricing.

Maybe, maybe not. MS is a US based company, they will always prefer to use the US dollar as their baseline currency. Earning money overseas has costs, currency values fluctuates, and bringing money earned overseas comes at high tax penalties.

Not sure what Sony considers their primary bank account these days, but MS will likely continue financing with the USD as their base, and be less likely to want to increase the price in this region. Of course, that can always change, but doubt Sony will want to boost the price here when Xbox is more competitive and less encumbered by the local currency.

Then again, I was entirely wrong about the game pass price increase strategy (canceling $10 tiers and go Ultimate exclusively) so don't listen much to my ramblings.

@BANJO

I'm subscribed up to December 2025 so I'm good for a while yet but didn't Microsoft recently just say they wouldn't increase Gamepass prices as they didn't want to lose momentum

Too lazy to look it up but I bet if we hunt down the quote its full of qualifiers like "at this moment" or "right now".

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

Problem is you are now talking £150+ for a yearly sub, for casuals that’s quite the premium now. (Less likely to know about stacking) on top of all other increases in tv subs and so on, it gets expensive.

There is a reason they sell it only on a monthly sub format, they don't want anyone thinking about the total yearly costs. $120 a year also sounds expensive to anyone.

Edit: I think the plan is still at a point that simply 3 full priced day one games a year make one break even. Might need to play more indies to make it worth it. And going month to month also allows to unsub as soon as you are done a game you wanted to play and only resub whenever something worth-while gets added.

@Titntin

Weird timing, but I guess they are riding the wave of positivity after the show.

I keep repeating myself, I'm not a fan of this move, BUT this is the perfect timing if they are going to do this. They would look very very bad if they increased the price after they are given a green light to move forward with the merger, something that could happen as early as tomorrow if the temporary injunction is denied.

Hell, increasing the price after the merger would had likely resulted in anti-competitive inquiries on most major regions, even if they only did so to match PS pricing.

@gollumb82

While definitely a move with the famed 'bad optics' I have to say I haven't seen people react so violently when cars (a standard commodity these days) have become absurdly expensive. Nobody saying they will just walk lol. So once some people overreact it will be business as usual I guess.

For better or worse, Sony proved increasing prices on games does not hurt their revenue. Any loss in sales results in a net gain thanks to the raise (and they did show fewer software sales in their reports.)

They also didn't seem to face any mainstream backlash at all over their hardware price hike. I honestly dont expect this to change much the minds of anyone wanting an xbox, and anyone that didn't want one already is not going to be persuaded by lower prices, they are going to be persuaded by more first party games and exclusives.

I'm not a fan, but this is likely going to be just a long comment section in various news sites and nothing else. Sony already cleared the way for Xbox to get away with this.

@UltimateOtaku91

This will be fine for the die hard fans but not the casuals,

I feel the opposite. This is more likely to have hardcore gamers (that often still buy the games after a while when the prices go down, or because they really want to own x game) are way more likely to cancel.

A casual user that does not spend time in forums wont likely mind a 1 or 2 dollar increase in their monthly statement so long the kids got games to play without having to buy them new games all the time or renting games every week (if that is still a thing.)

@FraserG for the benefit of audiences that might not be familiar with regional prices, can the article be updated to show the previous prices of Series X in the regions that got the price increase?

On the topic:
I got to admit I am a bit surprised, but only a bit. I stated plenty of times that I expected a price increase not to occur until they simply first killed off the platform specific tiers, forcing everyone into the GP Ultimate tier.

That said, always believed that should they increase the price, it would be in this vein: a dollar or two increase, not the $5 increase that everyone fear-mongered.

The deal is still great, Ultimate goes up by about $24 US a year, GP regular goes up by $12 US a year. Not a bank-breaking amount by any means, but I'll be way more likely to pursue seasonal sales in the future instead of keeping my account on auto-renew.

@FraserG not for my use since I plan to buy the whole collection, but do we know if the 2D games are also going to be listed separately, as a mini bundle, or only available under the collection?

I'll likely be picking the whole collection despite owning the old HD versions of 2 and 3. Love BC, but will always prefer native versions due to multiple nuances of BC, like achievement tracking and BC titles not being designed to be in the background (making quick resume fail very often).

@Nintendo4Sonic

Physical release???

yes, although the Nintendo Switch version is basically just 2gb in cart and you got to download basically everything (total download is 24.1gb)

Square once more selectively ignoring XBox, this time with Star Ocean, I see.

Bit disappointed it seems MGS1 is stuck at its PSX resolution. I played this game on PC back in the day and it looks so much better at higher resolution. Hope there is an option to increase resolution.

I love AC Odyssey, but not sure I would box it under RPG, despite progression systems.

@Wheatly few games give us a count of how many gamers actually played them, so not an easy ask. We do can look easily at any game's achievement percentages, but that will rarely result in player counts.

Regardless, these numbers are only important to xbox and investors, headlines like this just help spread the voice a bit and make players aware of the game so they might try it out.

On Xbox, most games that hit game pass get big dropoffs on complete clears. Its a bit annoying to look this up, though, because achievements can give anyone a lot of spoilers.

Without player counts, one example I can think of is A Plague Tale: Requiem:

• Ch 1: 82.9%/55.13% (ps/xb)
• Ch 2: 66.9%/35.45%
• Campaign beat by 45.5%/17.63%

It should not be a shock to anyone that the game has higher dropoff before even finishing ch1 on xbox given of Game Pass, if someone does not click with a game in the first few minutes, they might just drop off (not a bad thing, although I'm sure some would try to paint it as such.)

On XBox, PT:R had about 3x the retention rate from finishing ch1 to clear compared to GW:T.
On PS, PT:R had a 2.16x retention rate (again, consider much longer time in the platform for players to come back for Ghost Wire, equal time for Plague Tale, and Plague Tale was not on PSN Extra.)

Overall, I would not consider GhostWire a failure. Financially, they likely got enough sales on that first year, plus whatever Sony paid for exclusivity, for the project to be worth the development, and hundred of thousands of players likely had a blast with the game to completion, and cant ever tell how many that didn't beat it still had fun with the time they spent on it. Not everyone plays games to beat them.

@Wheatly According to achievement ratios:

• Chapter 1 was finished by 72.5%/56% of players on PS/XB respectively
• Chapter 2 was finished by 32.8%/15.5%
• Campaign was finished by 18.4%/6.17% (not going through every single story achievement)

Now, min-max possible numbers mean:

• Chapter 1 beat by 2.8 to 3.6 million players
• Chapter 2 beat by 0.775 to 1.64 million players
• Campaign beat by 308.5 to 920 thousand players

Note that minimum range is only likely if no one actually bought or played the game on PlayStation, but chances are the game saw more play there given it had a year head start, larger install base, and the game also being added to PSN extra, so its on even grounds with Game Pass.

If anything, lower numbers on Xbox are likely due to the game being in the platform for shorter time, so many that decided to play go deeper into it might not have gotten around to it, or Game Pass library being much more competitive than PlayStation's due to all the Day One launches, so players might opt to play the next new thing instead of playing longer. My point here is that the range is likely closer to above the middle point of those ranges. If I ventured a guess, I'd dare say:

• Ch 1: 3.35 million
• Ch 2: 1.35 million
• Cleared 716 thousand

@NEStalgia

Vehicle based games, Starfield, shooters, Starfield, racers, Starfield, Flight Sim, Doom, Halo Starfield, Minecraft, Sea of Theives, Minecraft, Starfield, Minecraft, Dishonored, Oblivion, Starfield. MS has TONS of existing games that are practically built for VR already.

I honestly dont think VR is that good for FPS, for one due to motion sickness. It's also not a trivial thing to turn every FPS game into a game that can render 90fps in VR.

For me, I find games that have the player inside some static cockpit of sorts (like a car or a plane) to be ideal because they are way less likely to trigger motion sickness. The static first person view of a driving wheel and the inside of a car are less likely to trigger motion sickness, at least from what I have read on the topic.

Imo there are not many games that truly shine in VR. Maybe racing games and… flight sim?

MS should just develop VR modes for these games on Steam. Maybe add support for Steam or Meta (or both) headsets to also unlock those modes on Xbox. Don’t think they should waste resources making their own headsets, though, nor making “vr-only” games.

I’m hoping to see Xbox again at the Tokyo show in September, finally revealing Shin Megami Tensei 3/4/4a/5 and maybe more third party partnerships with traditionally Japanese games that usually avoid the platform, maybe more Rune Factory games. Low chance, but maybe getting Atelier games on Xbox.

@Zenszulu I really dont see it that way, honestly. Like everything, MS execs are very careful (especially lately) to try to set statements to make it clear things change.

Only way I see them closing down the studio is if they keep bleeding talent to the point they can no longer replenish it, since this project made them lose (reportedly) already about 75% of their original workforce.

@BAMozzy

Also shows they have released '23' games (according to the graphic) in 3.5yrs - not too bad...

Yea, MS owned studios have indeed delivered a good amount of games, the perception problem right now lies in that the titles are either not xbox exclusives (Deathloop/Psychonauts/Ghostwire), or not triple A (Pentiment/ Hi-Fi Rush/Grounded) or simply not narrative games (Flight Simulator/Age of Empires/Forza Horizon)

For some reason, the console warrior segment of video games only cares about narrative games, fighting games, or multiplayer shooters.

@somnambulance

I don’t think they’re lying, I’m just hoping we get another game or two next year.

I did not mean to imply you stated they were lying, but you seen the reactions. If they think a game will make it November 24 but unforeseen situations force them to delay to March, you know a bunch of players will come out screaming that Phil lied and he should be fired. So I am holding my hope that anything they slapped with a 2024 date is indeed expected to launch next year for certain, without any doubts, and for that, it must mean they are (so far) internally expecting early-ish next year.

BTW I too miss the days that games were smaller and come out more regularly.

@Zenszulu what makes you think they considered closing them?

I just went to the original quote to see exactly what Axios posted, just in case I missed something, but this is what it says (emphasis mine)

On Redfall: The most recent major Xbox release was a critically panned vampire-hunting game from the critically acclaimed Arkane Austin studio. “I feel accountable that we could have done a better job with Arkane,” Booty says, describing a failure to set expectations around what the game needed to be as a first-party release.

On the bright side, Redfall is getting “good play” in Xbox Game Pass, and Booty’s not writing it off. “It was a miss, but how much of a miss?” he says. “I want to support them to be able to keep working to deliver the game they had in mind.”

And to fans of Arkane Austin hoping the studio will stay open despite the game’s initial reception? “That is the plan right now. They are hard at work on updates and continued content for Redfall.”

The only point this came up was because they were specifically relied the hopes of fans of the studio that it stays open, and their reply was a clear "that's the plan right now" (keeping it open).

@PsBoxSwitchOwner a game does not have to be in the top 50, hell it does not have to be in the top 100, to necessarily be considered to “play well”.

Here is an example: it’s well perceived that Fallout 76 was a disaster, but Elder Scrolls Online is a decent MMO. Now go to the Xbox top played games, you won’t see ESO anywhere in that list, yet FO76 is there near the end. Despite not being anywhere in the top 50, ESO still gets yearly expansions and multiple updates a year.

@Zoidpilot4 either you read this wrong or I did: they basically said they have no plans to close the studio, nor even to abandon the game. They are working on fixing and updating the game. They are also likely deliver the promised DLC (they did sell a season pass.)

I would had not been shocked had this released before acquisition, Zenimax would had shut the studio down, but Microsoft tends to give projects more of a chance. Look how much work they put into Sea of Thieves despite its poor reception at launch.

Plus; he went on to state Redall has significant play activity in Game Pass, so although disappointing, they might not consider it a “failure”.

@NEStalgia the truth will come out very quickly after the game comes out. All someone needs to do is run the game on a PC that matches (not exceeds) Xbox series x specs and try to replicate the Xbox settings. Once that’s done, we can see what is being hit harder, CPU of GPU. That alone hints as to if the issue is indeed all the stuff tracking or it’s simply over-focus on graphic settings.

I tend to like DF, but they have proven I the past they will rush to defend things they are biased in favor of, while draconianly destroying stuff they don’t care for over a few frames dropped. John in particular tends to let his emotions paint his opinions.

@somnambulance some might still be expected to release in 2024, but they are not certain enough to slap a date there. It’s not unrealistic to expect some of the undated stuff to potentially arrive fall 2024.

Honestly, some of the 2024 stuff might not make it until fall, but dare bet the reason they got listed with a 2024 date is because they actually expect most of them to release by summer. If they slip a few months, they still won’t be accused of “lying again”.

@Amigator smaller titles tend to be announced way closer to release. I expect obsidian at least to always have at least one small project cooking.

Still not expecting this one any earlier than fall 2025, most likely 2026.

@BAMozzy the message is actually very clear. There is no mention of ownership because there is no chant in ownership. Amazon is simply going to publish the game (pay for development and publishing, because it’s become clear since then that Embracer is broke and can’t finance their own games anymore.)

I do think they have also struck a deal for TV/Movie content.

Edit: link

Amazon indeed is making a TV show; and a movie. Netflix is making an anime.

Lets see... my most hyped for titles right now (that have at least some realistic release dates) are, in order of hype:

• Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
• Assassin's Creed Mirage
• Starfield
• Star Wars Outlaws
• Persona 3 Reloaded

Thats the list of games that I feel I need to play at launch.

There are other games I am hyped for but not enough to pay full release price for. If they became "free" (somone gifts them to me, or they in GamePass) I would play them at launch, or as soon as I have time:

• Spider-Man 2
• Final Fantasy XVI
• Avatar Frontiers of Pandora
• Sea of Stars
• Persona 5 Tactica

I just want more halo games that are not about Master Chief, as much as I want more Star Wars content that is not focused on Skywalkers, Jedi or Sith.

@Banjo-

I'm pretty sure that there is a select/create your character when you start the game.

Maybe I'm wrong but doesn't Fable historically just offers you a choice of gender with 2 pre-designed characters? Would not be shocked if its the same here.

@themightyant @Ocat

Damn, now support you’re comment with showing some pre-footage if it’s true. Just a few frames or seconds. It wil give extra hype.

He did, the tweet has 3 shots of the trailer that already were presumed to be actual gameplay footage by players familiar with the IP.

But I also believe they are playing with the camera in ways that are unrepresentative of the game as it will actually be played, and making it look far more dynamic. (E.g. even when that fireball is thrown the camera is panning out and swinging around etc.)

I'm now looking at the video again, trying to repeat that one shot of the fireball. There is no panning out, there is a camera swager that is no much more drastic than the camera swager we get in games like Far Cry as we simply walk or sprint.

There is a camera span on the scene where she kick-trips a guy down, but that is also slow motion and very likely real game play (not that different from kill shots in Fallout.)

The parry zoom in is likely the same, generally its safe to do fancy stuff with the camera in scenes segments that you either slow down time or simply don't have full control of the character due to being animation-locked in a move.

@Cashews

you say you can't wait - why?

Regardless what anyone feels about the future of subscription programs, there is a strong case to be made that many many individuals will benefit from the addition of all ABK catalogs, past and future, being added to Game Pass under a convenient low fee. This includes the ability to stream the games without having to buy an expensive computer or console.

Personally, I have friends that work in ABK and they cant wait for Kotick to go. Even if he ends up sticking around, they still expect a huge improvement in the work place simply by having Microsoft HR taking over HR operations.

And some might argue against this, but ABK coming under XBox will strengthen Xbox enough, in some markets, to balance competition. Right now Xbox is too far behind and it would take decades for them to get close to Sony and Nintendo via "organic growth". Even other publishers have expressed that this deal would help the industry. They wont spell this out, but having Sony as dominant as it is right now makes it harder for third party publishers to get a fair deal out of Sony.

It is also very possible (although lets face its not granted) that under Xbox ownership, ABK wont feel forced to spend every cent in CoD and mobile, increasing the budget invested in developing other games. Maybe CoD will remain a yearly thing, but they still would be able to increase the budget allocated towards things like Crash, Spyro and other more varied IPs.

Plus I honestly trust MS wont ever take CoD away from competitors, and actually bring it back to future Nintendo consoles. Yes, I also do think anything not called CoD will become Xbox console exclusive, but as it stands, those games were not having much of a future under current ABK management.

Mine arrives tomorrow. Wont be opening it any time soon. I might open it at some point to claim the theme (although not wild about that theme) and to use perhaps use it to play Starfield on my new PC.