MrGawain

Realistically we aren’t far away from there not being a ‘XBox’ box. If you can eventually play everything elsewhere, not enough people will see the value of owning a Microsoft console, which will make it financially unfeasible.

The problem also with this, is that without competition, Playstation will become greedy and lazy, and in time will become unappealing to the consumer. I think in 10 years you will have people gaming on portable handheld, tablets or phones, through subscription apps on TVs, and the extreme fan playing on high end PCs. The end is nigh for the box that plugs into your telly.

In general big budget console gaming is a bust this gen. Both Xbox and PS5 have less games, and only a few you can call next gen. Meanwhile a lot of people are asking what is the point of a graphics arms race if it doubles the cost?

If console gaming wants to survive (beyond Nintendo), both Sony and Microsoft need to listen to the consumer and rethink their business plans.

I knew it would all end in tiers.

Let’s be honest, this is just another nail in the coffin for triple A gaming. Add this to Price increases, little visible difference in game quality, less games that take longer to arrive, little variety in genres, less brand identity, younger players not playing on new consoles, failed new business strategies, mass layoffs, games that fail before arrival, and a general arrogance of executives.

It really isn’t a good look for triple A anyway you spin it.

Is there a correlation between Halo being cancelled and Microsoft Web worldwide outage though?

Top tier is now £180 a year, somewhere around 3 new AAA party games. You have to ask yourself are you confident you will play more than 3 new games on the service day one and enjoy them, or if you could get better value buying a little bit later in sales or missing things you don’t need?

And that doesn’t just go for Microsoft or gaming in general. It counts for Netflix and all the other subscriptions.

This game sounds like it will reignite the question ‘can a video game be art instead of entertainment?’

Anyone noticed Xbox saying they want a Fortnite/Roblox/another Minecraft sort of game in the media? I think it’s pretty obvious (and sensible) that Microsoft wants to appeal to a younger gamer.

Not sure why they needed to buy and then decimate Bethesda to do that, but let’s be honest logic and Xbox don’t often go hand in hand.

I get the feeling the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing with XBox at the moment. How can anyone employed there say anything with any certainty when they could be relieved of employment an hour later?

Microsoft thinks gamers only care about First Person Shooters. That’s why they wanted COD, Doom, Starfield and Fallout to go with Halo.

And that’s the reason why the XBox player base doesn’t grow.

Owning a games console meant you could experience all the different genres of games, now I think each of them focuses on a certain niche- be honest there’s A LOT of brown and grey FPS’s on Xbox these days because that’s what the core audience likes to play. It makes sense to put those ‘un-Xbox games’ on other platforms, because they sort of fit.

If Nintendo ported Kirby, Animal Crossing, and Xenoblade would the general audience of Xbox care- if they didn’t already own a Switch to play those games?

Let’s be honest, Microsoft have bought a lot of developers recently (and not so recently), and XBox has not reaped the benefit. There are very few games that have materialised, and those that have have been late, broken, or disappointing to the larger consumer base. I doubt many people were convinced to buy an XBox to play Redfall.

I’m not sure the security of Microsoft paying for ‘CONTENT’ to put on gamepass hasn’t affected production of ‘ART’. Instead of having to make a great game that needs to be great so it sells, some developers have… ‘phoned it in a bit’ to reach a deadline (which of course is made harder with higher production costs of the new generation).

But now they have a bunch of ‘CONTENT’ that isn’t selling that well on their own platform, so it makes sense to offer it elsewhere to make money on it.

I’ll be curious to see if some of those less than stellar games actually sell elsewhere?

These countries are questioning if Microsoft games is becoming a monopoly and has too much power. All these comments suggesting certain countries don’t matter or that Microsoft is just going to steamroller over legislature implies that they are too powerful. Having Microsoft as the only game in town would not improve gaming quality- we need competition to keep standards high and prices low.

I don’t think you can have two more diametrically opposed business plans than MS and Nintendo. Microsoft is all about the power to play 3rd party games, Nintendo is all about quirky stuff to make their perennial franchises slightly different. Without the quirky stuff like motion control and dual screens, I don’t think Nintendo would have kept things as fresh in their games.

And it’s not like they’ve suffered too much in the bank by not chasing graphical power.

Releasing the thing a month before Christmas is going to cause shortages and disappointment. If the new consoles were released in March, then there wouldn’t be the pressure to have one for Timmy to open on Christmas Day, and supply lines wouldn’t be bogged down with other Christmas products. Plus by the time you got to next Christmas, core gamers would have the thing, production would increase after ironing out the faults, plus there would be actual worthwhile games to market for release at a key time.

Seeing it was announced and designed for this gen, can they really use that as an excuse? They knew the consoles power, it’s just the scope of the project exceeded their resources, hence the crunch and delay now.

Seeing a lot of the more colourful and cartoonish games ended up being released on the Switch where they sold really well (perhaps better than on the XB1), I wonder if this year XBX can move the needle in this category?

All those episodes of Oprah at the press of a button.

If Microsoft wanted more studios to produce more variety than their key first person shooters, Bethesda isn’t the answer.

I like AC more than AA because I played AC on the Wii U with passable framerate, where I played AA on the PS4 and almost had a seizure from the flickering.

If the game isn’t ready, then it shouldn’t be released.

But likewise, if there isn’t anything worth buying at launch, then you should hold back on buying the console. Let’s see if Sony have anything really worth playing as well.

@KelticDevil

Trust me, I have no deep affiliation to Sony, but if they announce a big title we’re all familiar with like Uncharted or Metal Gear or Resident Evil in their first reveal, psychologically it makes a bigger impact. It’s Mindshare. You don’t announce a music festival starting with your opening acts- you show the headliner.

I just think it would make sense to delay announcing things that people think are ‘okay-ish’ until you can show the ‘wow’. And if XBox has another gen of people not being wowed by their product, then people won’t buy their console and it’ll be less appealing for developers to put games on. You don’t want XBoxto become Betamax.

@KelticDevil

Yup, I’m a commenter on the sister sites. But I am a prospective customer for XBox. As a purely advertising standpoint Xbox had a chance to show me why this console is worth me buying where the XB1 wasn’t for me. Yes it was just 3rd party games, but why particularly THOSE 3rd party games? XBox had a captive audience to show things that were exciting for everyone, and continued to sing from the same hymn sheet of the XB1which lots of us didn’t buy. You can argue ‘It’s just not my sort of thing’, but if they want to grow their business then they need to draw customers from Nintendo and Sony.

This is the opening salvo to next gen content, and Microsoft have given me the impression it’s the same old song and dance. They may have the most exciting games to announce in June, but why start off
with the 3rd party business as usual message that limited the XB1? In fact they could of just waited until June if they have something 1st party that will put them in the game with their rivals.

I have never been an XBox player. I own a Switch and a PS4. But due to the lockdown I gave my attention to the stream, open to the chance all the money Microsoft has spent on developing new games meant they might be trying to appeal to me this time around.

They haven’t so far. They focused on some grey/brown trailers and traditional shooters and games about killing. If you like that great, but in my opinion it isn’t going to grow the player base by drawing in people like me.