Questionable_Duck

@FraserG Oh, that's great news!

@FraserG Did you confirm if Atelier is coming to Xbox? I can't find proof of it anywhere else yet

@Weebleman Well I guess you could say they're still deciding what games to make exclusive or not, so they haven't fully decided their exclusivity strategy just yet. So technically speaking, you could argue that it's not a complete contradiction

Though Matt Booty said there wouldn't be any strategy updates during the showcase, and yet there indeed was... So there's that, too

@Fiendish-Beaver Me too, I can't wait lol, hope it actually lives up to the hype

@Fiendish-Beaver You make a good point about Gears 5 and it's install base, but I think E-Day has the potential to match or even slightly exceed Gears 5 in sales if and only if it is as good as we are hoping for it to be. But we'll see

@Weebleman Agreed. Btw according to a post that Greenberg made just now, he was informed of the decision to make E-Day exclusive about a month ago. So this was done in early May, if he is to be believed

@Fiendish-Beaver I completely disagree with you, but I respect your take.

I personally think that Microsoft isn't trying to sell consoles with just these two games. They made E-Day and Clockwork Revolution exclusive not to convince PlayStation owners to buy an Xbox, but to convince Xbox owners to not buy a PlayStation.

I obviously don't have access to Microsoft's data, but I wouldn't be surprised if the multiplatform initiative led to a decline in active users on Xbox consoles. Maybe more Xbox gamers decided to play their games on PS5 instead due to it having the most support. If that's the case, then this move would make sense.

There's also the matter of Game Pass. Personally, I think you're overblowing the impact that Game Pass will have on the games' success. Gears 5 launched on Game Pass day-one, and it clearly performed well enough to keep The Coalition alive. E-Day will probably do about as well as Gears 5 did, if not better. Harder to say how well Clockwork Revolution will do.

Persona 6 being on Game Pass is the real surprise, I didn't think SEGA would go that far

@Tasuki You missed the part where she said "increasingly becoming a platform"

@Tasuki Dude you must be an expert at mental gymnastics because you are pulling every trick out of the hat you possibly can to discredit anything Asha does. Come on now

And btw you are saying this about Balaam, who is infamous for making virtually zero positive comments on all of the Hookshot sites. Ofc he's gonna be negative

@Sindayl I still remember how people on Push Square and Nintendo Life got so pissed when Microsoft signed a 48-hour deal to ensure that the PlayStation and Nintendo versions of Persona 3 Reload were not mentioned after the Xbox showcase.

They literally tore Microsoft to shreds for that, because they were appalled that a brand not associated with JRPGs had the marketing rights for one of the biggest franchises in the genre.

Meanwhile, Sony does the exact same thing with Rev.Noir (that Konami JRPG that's likely multiplat) and no one on Push Square says a word about it. Hell, what Sony is doing is even worse, because it's been months, and no new platforms have been confirmed for that game yet.

@Jenkinss The problem is both saying and doing. Porting your own first-party games to rival platforms is obviously a bad thing, yes, but so is telling people that third-party games advertised in your showcase are coming to PS5/Switch 2. Microsoft is literally telling people they can buy these games on rival platforms, where they won't make a single cent off of the sales there. It's just bad business, and it flies in the face of the whole "return of Xbox" thing they're doing.

This is equivalent to Burger King telling people you can buy burgers at McDonald's, or Pepsi saying you can get Coca-Cola instead in their own advertisements.

@Swandivetotheasphalt Well it's a better plan than what they currently have lol, and to be fair Klobrille is not some Twitter random

It's a shame "bring more Japanese games to Xbox " isn't higher. And by that I mean games like those from Falcom, NIS, etc.

@darylb24 Asha also was apparently big on exclusives during her time at Instacart. She signed a bunch of exclusivity deals to attract people to the service

@Weebleman @johnedwin Most of Xbox's games haven't really sold that well on PlayStation, though. Pretty much all the singleplayer games, like The Outer Worlds 2, Avowed, and Doom: The Dark Ages, didn't make much of a dent on the PS5 best sellers charts. It's only the multiplayer, live service games that have done exceptionally well. Those, I imagine, will remain multiplatform.

I also want to point out that many of Microsoft's studios have not released games day-and-date on PlayStation yet (such as Halo Studios, The Coalition, Playground Games, etc.). I find it hard to believe that these studios would suddenly collapse without the meager sales they have received on PS5 so far. They've survived this long on just Xbox and PC already, I think they can survive without PlayStation long into the future.

Oddly negative comment section here

@LeonR No thanks, I'd rather Xbox keep the indies on Game Pass. I don't exclusively play AAA games

@AverageGamer I suppose that may be the case. Mixtape is getting way more eyes on it than the average "interactive movie," hence why it's getting so much hate. To be clear, I haven''t played the game, so maybe I also wouldn't like it. I just don't like the excessive hate that "interactive movie"-style games get as a genre.

Also, speaking of weird, artsy games, there was an action-adventure game that came out a few years ago called The Vale: Shadow of the Crown. This game has absolutely no visuals or artwork, other than the title screen. You only play it by listening to your surroundings. Some may argue that it's not a true video game, since it doesn't even have any "video" in it! Despite this, I still think weird games like this deserve a spot alongside other more traditional, action titles. Maybe if The Vale got tons of 10/10 reviews from critics, it would also be trashed repeatedly, just like Mixtape. But idk.

As for visual novels, yes, a lot of them are niche and filled with gooner fan-service stuff, but there are games like Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, Zero Escape, AI: The Somnium Files, etc. that have decently large fanbases, and not primarily because of said fanservice.

Mixtape's quality aside, I never understand the "interactive movie" criticism that people levy at some games. Maybe more gamers need to realize that some genres of video games are simply not meant to have conventional gameplay in them. If you were going into a game like Mixtape and expecting it to have deep combat, puzzles, or intricate gameplay elements, then I don't know what to tell you.

Just because a game doesn't have traditional gameplay, doesn't mean it's not a game. We still consider visual novels games, don't we, even though you mostly do nothing but read in all of them?

I think "interactive movies" and other non-conventional video games deserve a place in the video game industry, despite the harsh criticisms that they often receive. There are more than enough video games out there that involve killing enemies, beating up bad guys, etc, would it hurt to have some experimental, artsy games that don't include any of that stuff?

@Supergreen 100% this. Microsoft needs to do something to stop Japanese publishers from exclusively skipping Xbox. Falcom is most guilty of this, along with D3Publisher, NiS America, FuRyu, and lately Playism

@themightyant I've seen a lot of people complaining about this remake, since I think they already re-released the first game on PS4/Switch/PC in the past. But honestly I don't care, I'm just glad to see that this is finally getting an Xbox port with an English translation included

This looks absolutely incredible, and it's just the kind of creativity I wanted to see from AAA gaming!

The grounded nature of the game's story (you play as a showman instead of some guy trying to save the world or something), the fact that it spans over 50 years, the unique Tekken-style combat system, the inclusion of Italian mafia and an entire song-making side game, the vibes, etc. it all sounds perfect. Easily the best Xbox Developer Direct-style event yet.

I know I'm sounding a bit like an ad, but this seriously impressed me. I hope this is as good as it looks.

@Tasuki You want a news website that exclusively covers Xbox to not make articles about things that the new CEO is doing? Especially something as infrequent as introducing a new start-up animation?

Yes, this is not a big deal, but of course a site like Pure Xbox would cover this

It's true, I buy basically every game only when they're on sale. Last game I remember buying full priced was Metaphor Refantazio.

I already have more than a thousand games in my backlog, so waiting to buy a game until it gets discounted and gets all the DLC/updates makes way more sense for me than buying it at launch, in most cases.

I only buy games at full price if I'm super excited for them. I'll probably get GTA 6 at launch, but that's about it

@RiverGenie I didn't take much offense by your comment, I just thought it was a bit silly to take a jab at this.

But I hope you have a nice day too

@RiverGenie People will complain about everything, huh?

@datamonkey Of course they weren't. Didn't Satya Nadella say last year that they were trying to "redefine" what it means to be an Xbox fan? That clearly didn't work out for them.

Microsoft needs to try the exclusives strategy again, even if most of the games are only timed exclusives, but this time they need to be in it for the long haul and actually let their acquisitions bear fruit. I don't want Microsoft to flip-flop with their strategies over and over again. If they genuinely release several system-selling games as Xbox exclusives and STILL fail to sell consoles, then I could understand them going back to the current multiplatform approach.

However, I don't want to see them release one divisive game like Starfield, and then give up on the exclusives strategy entirely, all because it didn't sell that many consoles.

@Kobeandodom If they're that desperate, then maybe not

@cragis0001 I agree. Hiring Mena Sato Kato was a good first step, in my opinion, but they need to get more Asian talent on their side.

During the OG Xbox and 360 days, Microsoft actually had a studio called Microsoft Game Studios Japan that primarily consisted of local Japanese talent and helped with getting Japanese games on Xbox (they also made some games of their own, I believe). They should consider doing something like that again, maybe for all the major gaming markets in Asia this time.

If Shuhei Yoshida joined Xbox, he could probably help with a lot of Xbox's woes in Japan and Asia at large

@Banjo- Kiln is basically Microsoft's Drag X Drive, though I think this game had more passion put into it than that Nintendo title

Given that they specifically talk about accelerating "growth where organic paths are too slow," I wonder if this means they're looking into acquiring studios in Asia again? Not sure if that would be a great idea, since I think Xbox is big enough as it already is, but we'll see what happens, I guess

Btw I do NOT want Xbox to acquire any more publishers, after seeing what happened with ABK. But maybe an independent studio or two would be nice

@Jenkinss Nintendo and Sony actually had some pretty edgy marketing during the GameCube/PS2 era. Have you seen that poster of Mario with the tribal tattoo on his arm?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mario/comments/1j8zdl5/do_any_of_you_remember_the_lawless_time_of_2004/

There was also that infamous case of Sony using a real decapitated goat as a part of a promotion stunt for God of War 2:

https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/slaughter-horror-at-sonys-depraved-promotion-stunt-with-decapitated-goat-7178355.html

You're right, though, that just because everyone else was doing something, doesn't mean it gave them the justification to shift to corporate, sanitized marketing during the Don Mattrick era. But even the Kinect stuff was a case of Microsoft just copying what the biggest leader in gaming (Nintendo) was doing at the time. Little did they know that this strategy would backfire for both Nintendo and Xbox

@Jenkinss The only reason why every company abandoned the edgy marketing gimmick of the 90s and early 2000s is because everyone was trying to do it all at once, to the point that it got kinda boring and oversaturated

I genuinely think that if Microsoft started doing edgy marketing for Xbox again like they used to do back in the day, it would be a net benefit for them. So long as everyone else doesn't copy the same exact shtick, that is

@HonestHick Thank you, I really appreciate the kind words! I like reading your comments on Push Square and Pure Xbox too btw

@J_Mo_Money True 😂

Same could be said for the Xbox guys who were all in with the multiplatform strategy. I think a decent amount of them will go back to bragging about exclusives now.

@IronCrow86 Funny how the same people celebrating Xbox games coming to PlayStation are now all like "meh, I never cared about Xbox games anyways" (which obviously isn't true, considering they were touting how much money Microsoft has been making on PlayStation as proof they can never go back to exclusives). They're doing the same exact thing they just criticized PC gamers for doing when Sony decided to walk back on PC releases.

Granted, the Xbox userbase has also had its fair share of hypocritical sentiments, but this is something that pretty much every platform fanbase does

@pamonmedia Since there weren't a lot of people who subscribed to Game Pass just for CoD in the first place, I don't think there will be a lot people who'll unsubscribe. Also, CoD fans may still sub to Game Pass for older CoD games. Activision notoriously doesn't discount the games much on digital storefront, so unless you want to buy physically, you'd still save money by playing this year's CoD on Game Pass next year

Honestly, I don't mind the change. I guess Bobby Kotick was right about CoD on Game Pass being a bad idea.

The only concern I have is that this may lead Microsoft to reconsider putting other major games, like The Elder Scrolls 6, on Game Pass at launch. So long as they don't do this with any first-party game other than CoD, I'll be perfectly fine with this. I only play CoD for the campaigns anyway.

Worth noting that this is still an improvement over what Activision offered pre-acquisition, because older CoD games rarely ever came to subscription services like Game Pass (PS Plus received a few, I think). Modern Warfare 2019 hadn't been available on any subscription services since its release, up until this month. At least to my knowledge. Heck, it wasn't even available on GeForce Now!

@Markatron84 You know, the thing that really baffles me is that Microsoft still hasn't added Xbox Game Studios logos to their Bethesda and Activision games.

Sony just released Marathon, and guess what, despite the game being self-published by Bungie, it still has a giant PlayStation Studios intro every time you boot it up on Xbox. That's what Microsoft should be doing with all of their games, whether they're published by Xbox Game Studios or not. They need some brand synergy.

@BacklogBrad Ehh, I dunno, I would argue that Xbox hasn't had a system selling game in more than a decade. And that's not solely because no one wants to buy an Xbox (even though there are a lot of people that truly think that), but also because Xbox hasn't released an outstanding, generation-defining game in a long time.

Halo Infinite and Starfield were both really good games in my opinion, but it's evident that many people do not share the same opinion that I do. Both games were controversial among their respective fanbases, they weren't exactly universally lauded games like Breath of the Wild, God of War (2018), etc. were.

Hi-Fi Rush and Indiana Jones WERE almost universally-lauded games, but the first game was far too niche and low-budget to be a system-seller, while the second game was already confirmed to be multiplatform prior to its Xbox release and thus not a true exclusive.

If Xbox had a series of amazing, 10/10 AAA games that released back-to-back and all appealed to a large audience, then I think they would be able to convince people to buy their consoles. So long as said consoles aren't all $1000, that is.

I actually thought this was a pretty decent showcase, for what it's worth. Yes, no games from any major developers, but if you were looking for cool indie games, then I think you may find something you're interested in here. Way better than the recent Triple I showcase, at least

You make good points, @Fiendish-Beaver and @PsBoxSwitchOwner, but I can't see Sony allowing a subscription service that contains major day-one releases to be available on PlayStation. It is nothing but a lose-lose situation for Sony, and is only beneficial for the owner of the subscription service.

The only Game Pass I could ever see Sony allowing on PlayStation is a version of the service that has no day-one games whatsoever. So basically a Microsoft version of what EA Play and Ubisoft+ are on PlayStation right now.

Also, making 2-3 bucks a month from a few million subscribers is a lot less money that Sony would make, compared to if people just bought the games on PlayStation outright.

@Fiendish-Beaver Sony wouldn't allow that to happen imo, it would harm sales for Xbox games on PS5, while Microsoft gets to make most of the money. I believe Sony had previously rejected Game Pass on PlayStation during the ABK trial.

That said, if a version of Game Pass on PlayStation didn't include any day-one titles whatsoever, I could see it happening.

Worth noting that the EA and Ubisoft subscriptions on PlayStation do not have any day-one games either (even though Ubisoft+ does include day-one games on Xbox).

@Balaam_ This is a pixel art game that could run on Switch 2 or PS4, is this really a problem that should happen?

It seems there's some major problems with this game on Series S (game-breaking save bug that's going to get fixed tomorrow, as well as unfinished ending cinematics only on this console for some reason), so I guess I'll hold off on playing the game until these things get fixed, despite the good reviews

Glad you understand @Fiendish-Beaver, and appreciate the kind words @Feffster!

@Fiendish-Beaver No worries. Maybe I kind of misunderstood what you're saying, as well.

You said this in one of your previous comments; "I think the problem is that Microsoft have tasted some success with some of their former exclusive games releasing on PlayStation, and none of those games have been day one releases"

Reading this, I thought you were implying that Microsoft hasn't released any games on PlayStation day-one yet. So I responded to point out that, yes, they have actually released some games on PlayStation simultaneously so far, and none of them have been particularly successful.

But, after reading your comment more carefully, I now realize that you weren't saying "they haven't released any games on PlayStation day-one." Instead, you were saying that none of the successful PS5 ports so far were day-one releases, which is true. So apologies for the confusion here.

@Coletrain In this context, I think it means Xbox and PC (including Steam). Microsoft isn't gonna stop doing PC ports, especially not when their next console is literally a PC-console hybrid