@Fiendish-Beaver I have a feeling (might be very wrong) that the PS6 won’t launch next year. Sony plans to halt physical disk sales at the start of 2028, and my hunch is they want that normalized before the PS6 launches later in the year.
I do think the constant attempts to have PS and Xbox launch at the same frame, and with comparable specs, has hurt both of them. Nintendo been marching at its own rithm and with their own spec sheet and they only seen success from working differently.
Is this counting the whole year and comparing it to the previous one or is this a quarter year over year comparison?
If full year, wonder how much of PS boost was during the eve of the price hike. I myself upgraded my unused PS5 to a Pro based on that (and didn’t open it until Wolverine launched).
There is likely no single entity with the financial capability to buy Xbox as a whole. Hell, MS was likely the only entity capable and in a position to buy ABK.
Some think the recent reorg was a hint at making it easier to sell things off, but if anything, it made it harder as it made both ABK and Bethesda even larger.
Only way MS can offload Xbox is either spinning it off into a fully or partially owned subsidiary, or by slicing it into smaller buckets that can be sold independently. But the platform warriors (especially editors for certain sites) won’t stop having humid dreams of covering another Sega scale console industry exit regardless how harmful such a thing would be for the entire industry.
@Sindayl same. I only subscribe to the lowest tier for the online and would gladly get rid of the game library if it means it becomes even cheaper. I simply buy the games I want to play.
Curious what shape this will take. I could see them rolling this out before Fable so they can justify “day one” promotion was not a lie, it’s just going to be a huge commitment (either it comes as part of a yearly bundle or a very high cost tier).
I never understood what people love about the blades UI. Even when I first got my 360 back in the day I found it clunky, but obviously it resonated with many gamers. I see nothing wrong with dashboard customization options.
Even better if this somehow lead to a storefront for devs to sell their own dashboards.
Interesting. Look forward to see what impact this actually has on games. The recent PS5 demos for their implementation had me squinting to try notice any improvements.
Would be more interested to see this leveraged in ways that allow more persistent frame rates than an attempt at increasing resolution.
I used to work in a video club. DVDs used to have these. I would just used to make a small cylinder out of the plastic wrapper and use the security label as a tape to keep it contained, keeping my garbage bin usable. Enough disk wrapping quickly became overwhelming otherwise as the things puffed up.
@Fiendish-Beaver (sorry for the wall of text) Personally I'm of a split mind. On the one hand, I really think the service works as is but has some big flaws. If people can just subscribe for a month, yea many just sign up the month the big title drops and essentially play a $70 game for $22 (assuming they don't stick around due to multiplayer modes creating attachment).
Ultimate might in theory work better if the commitment forced a bigger window. If you are forced to get a 6 or 12 month subscription to access Ultimate at all, you quickly alleviate the biggest flaw of the system [from Xbox accounting side].
Still, this requires them to be willing to do accounting properly and it seems Xbox refuses to. I don't think the current management is willing to see it as shared revenue that gets redistributed to studios based on game engagement and instead insist on seeing it as passive income that should only use a fraction of its revenue to buy third party deals.
If we look at other services, I think EA has had success with EA Play, and that program puts every game exactly 12 months later (give or take a week due to timing). I have heard from multiple industries how back catalog sales drop significantly 6-12 months after launch. At that point any publisher relies on high number of back catalog titles to get any meaningful revenue and it's why constantly publishing new content is important. So, a service that gives access to all back catalog after such a large window is not likely to harm sales outside very rare situations (recently, Metroid Dread saw a huge spike in demand thanks to the reveal of Metroid Ravenous, but that was like 5 years after the fact?).
Based on this, I see a few possibilities being dropped on us in February, the rumored change timeframe:
Ultimate goes away entirely (only Premium remains as it is now)
Ultimate Remains but demands 6-12 months prepaid, no chance for refunds), this would allow them to keep the "Fable is day 1" promise
Ultimate changes to a plan that simply is Premium but adds Ubisoft Classics, EA Play and some indie day ones as the cherry on top.
Ultimate changes to a 6 month wait, while Premium remains a 12 month wait
I also expect the PC Game Pass tier to go away on all these scenarios.
@Trojan honestly don’t know what you refer to. What did Xbox did after Minecraft came on 360? I never been a strict follower of the series besides knowing it’s successful. Hell, didn’t know it was 360 console exclusive at any point.
I’m sure the main target audience for this are people that play on tablets and laptops on the go. The Xbox controller is the gold standard for pc gaming [in the west] and bought by thousands that don’t even use the Xbox ecosystem. For decades Xbox has seeded ground to the likes of 8bitdo when it comes to offerings that are more travel friendly. I guess that’s the main focus here.
Oh and being Bluetooth, it might also work on Switch?
This sounds like a lot of spinning to: we going to throw a ton of AI at our own games to generate new games, ideally ones that also support player generated content.
Or even shorter: we using AI to create our own Roblox.
@Microsawft context is everything and we are only getting quotes here. Look at Grounded. I think the point is not to make big monetary gambles on unproven IP and instead keep such projects small and agile. If they earn a sequel (like Grounded) then the budget can expand accordingly.
Under the previous management, unproven projects were given as big a budget as triple A counterparts. And by unproven I mean both: moderate sellers like Hellblade and brand new ones like Avowed. It was ok for these to exist, just not with such high budget investments.
A key to creating successful new IP is to keep budget under control. Look at Grounded. It’s new IP this gen and likely the only reason Obsidian survived the snap. Thing is, the first game was done on a very small budget.
Then turn to Hi-Fi Rush, that one was a great game that just didn’t recoup its budget.
Better management and keeping experimental IP development costs low is extremely important.
I think every studio should be allowed to have a 5 person team working on such experimental projects, with early access models where it makes sense.
Personally, I don’t subscribe to GP, and not likely to again because with my play habits, I find it’s more expensive than just buying what I want. So, I bought it and also bought the controller (gorgeous thing that belongs in a museum).
If you only play about a game a month on Xbox, the GP rental is not worth it. If, like me, you take more than one month to really play through a game, you are likely to at least spend two months worth only on the game. Add to that the potential of the premium upgrade (that seems to have been rather popular) that’s at best a minor discount.
We talking $53 for US vs buying for $70, and only if you are done with it in the month (if you only care for the campaign, I guess). I fell for that trap with AC Shadows and Ubisoft+. Ended up “renting it” for so long I paid more than I would had by just buying it and ended up not owning it!!!
If anything, the biggest issue is how Xbox seems to do its internal accounting and attributions. They don’t seem to give enough credit to the titles people invest time into and THAT hurts the teams. It’s the one reason I feel Ultimate should be phased out and just keep Premium. Not because GP day one don’t work, but because Xbox does not want to make it work.
Anyways, said this before and say it again: going to PlayStation would not likely had done much for this game. The PS audience already rejected Gears of War Reloaded and Halo Campaign Evolved. It’s time to recognize that Forza Horizon garnering attention was an anomaly.
I h a ve not played as many games as I wish this year, but I would say Pragmata was one of the best things i experienced in a long time. Fresh IP, fresh combat mechanics, and the fantastic visual quality we have come to expect in the last decade out of Capcom.
I’m sure I’ll play some “better” games this year, but despite any flaws the game has, all its virtues will likely keep it above the rest for me for this year.
A lot of people will scream that the possibility of WoW Forever only going to Xbox and not going to other consoles is dumb, but they would be ignoring how Robolox was PC/Xbox only during its popularity peek despite not going to Switch nor PlayStation. In fact, it seems its decline started around the time it went to PS and that port didn't help it. It's still huge, but investors are not happy. PS is not the lifeline many seem to think it is.
I caught up all of this today and am so confused right now… are they saying people can’t stream the Xbox GP cloud streaming version from PC? Or is this just unfortunate wording?
@RTGX year to year growth of third party platform share. This year Capcom literally got 50% of their sakes out of Steam alone. Don’t even have to do math there to see PC is more than all consoles combined.
Ignoring Shawn’s statement: if Xbox was to abandon consoles, it likely means ALL consoles and focusing entirely on PC. Not becoming a third party publisher for consoles that are dying. Because let’s face it: **all** consoles are dying as PC (mostly Steam) take over third party sales.
Dedicated consoles will survive (not dominate) only on the shoulders of exclusive content. Something Sony is exponentially getting worse at producing at a fast pace and Nintendo getting better at.
I’m extremely conflicted by this. On the one hand, yes, they sealed their own fate by making one of the most expensive walking sims ever. But… no one told them not to. No one limited their budgets or asked for a more mainstream approach with more focus in combat.
This, sadly, is more on Xbox previous leadership than in their own. The studio has made at least one fantastic action focused game with Enslaved. They could do it again. But their pitch for Hellblade 2 was approved with full creative freedom because GamePass would subsidize it. Then GamePass stopped growing.
Even if the expectation was for GP to subsidize some games, their budgets should still have been more carefully allocated.
As for cooperation: all of these companies are aware service games can’t really be exclusive, at least not ones planned to primarily make their revenue via ongoing monetization. Of course they will continue to cooperate with PlayStation for those.
@BAMozzy collectors edition stuff aside: D2D dies grant you the play anywhere entitlements. So if you do see that as a reason to start buying physical, I guess you are not too far from seeing why so many of us are also likely to expand purchases on back catalogs we been waiting to hit a decent sale but either have not or came with poor timing.
Btw on your comparison with PS3, that’s an interesting case. Sony has been closing the PS3 digital store and even before closure people have reported issues with downloading their purchased games. I would expect that to become impossible sooner or later.
Yet, emulation has gotten extremely reliable to the point that we can literally run games directly from the disk! Although that does not compare to Xbox disks (that rarely have the data in the disk) it still is something to keep in mind: eventually stores shut down or drop generational support, but emulators pick up the slack and owning those disks become as meaningful as your CD collection.
This is, as she herself said “the plan until it’s no longer the plan” but it’s still somehow somewhat comforting to hear this stated by her.
Mind you, given how Xbox is more than just consoles (regardless how many console only players want to ignore the PC side), I don’t see Xbox going away. It’s too important for the health of windows as a whole. SteamOS can become a real risk for Windows dominance of the home computer market if Valve becomes the only way to play the top PC games. Even if Steam dominates, having major releases not be SteamOS compatible keep many users locked in on Windows.
They need to own some of the largest pC game houses for that to work.
@BAMozzy based on all the positive press coverage and community reactions, I am willing to bet it will be a lot more than “a few” people. Even if it was just a few, been to a GameStop lately? As sad as it makes me, I still do a walk by every time I’m at my local mall, so I see it rather regularly. They are what feels like 80% T-shirt, collectibles and Funko Pops. Their used game sections (in most stores) are extremely tiny and a small increase in demand would be enough to drain them of their in-store supply rather quickly.
Personally, I rather do my best to hunt copies on eBay because GameStop used copy “savings” are laughable at best, but that’s a separate topic.
I just don't understand why you didn't buy those games before if you wanted to play so I don't see why this suddenly changes the desire to play or buy those games just because of Disk to Digital.
My take: since I “went digital” (mostly for the Xbox benefits that never applied to physical) I only would buy a digital game if:
A) I had to play it NOW
B) It’s on a deep (sub 50%) discount
C) It’s getting delisted
There was no reason to buy games I was casually interested on since digital don’t run out of stock.
Now that I can have disks AND all the digital benefits, I’m way more likely [again] to buy a physical copy in case it sells out physically and never gets reprints. I also get the benefits of sharing that disk with friends and family without the clunky game-share primary console configuration (yet still can do that!)
This is why I personally will be buying games (even at full price) that I’m just vaguely interested in but don’t fall in the bullet points I wrote above. I know some people personally that are on the same boat as well as some that don’t care, so expect there to be many that agree with you as well as many others that don’t.
I would certainly love this even more if more games were full on disk, but this is still fantastic for me.
If this was someone that worked on Halo post-Bungie (likely since they left in 2023) I don’t care about their take.
jJust as a disclaimer, I’m not a huge Halo fan. I did play the MCC and cleared all the FPS Halo games except Infinite. Unlike most, I actually liked where H5 was going and my favorite entries have all been games where I get to play as someone other than Master Chief. That means H2,Reach,ODST & H5.
That said, I want less focus on Master Chief. It’s a huge universe and sticking so much to him is holding it back. This isn’t Metroid where the games ARE about Samus. These are games where the hero just happened to be a badas Spartan.
Not only do I want less Master Chief but at the same time I want commitment to story arcs. It annoyed the hell out of me that Halo 5 was finished off-screen and apparently the ending for Infinite also ended up being in a book… even if just via DLC, give us closures!
Oh, and stop listening to the loyalists that want H1 all over again. Games evolve and so should gameplay.
Preordered a physical copy off Best Buy. Will be picking it up day one, no early playing.
This is going to be my first Gears game and am quite excited for it. Also preordered the controller (non-elite).
Sadly, picking up at BestBuy is not the same as picking up at GameStop back in the day. Having yjr game handed to you by an employee that don’t care about games, in the same line as the returns and support are processed… right in the middle of the refrigerator section… just isn’t the same. Still, less chance of package arriving damaged.
And I won’t preorder stuff from GameStop because they done me dirty too many times over the decades. No longer trust them.
Hope they can get Bandai-Namco and Square on board. I been holding out on some games (Blood of the Dawnwalker) hoping I can hop on the physical edition and have it be D2D.
This system has made me enjoy preordering physical games again, at least if they also support play anywhere.
To each their own, but I love this and brings the best of both worlds. I shifted to digital on Xbox this gen because it was just too convenient compared to physical thanks to play anywhere. Now I can have disks again AND have my digital perks!
You know, say what you will about Activision but they helmed two 3 successful nostalgic IP resurrections:
Tony Hawk, Crash and Spyro. I can see them steering a Banjo and Conker return even if its via external contractors now that they technically manage the IPs.
Some of this is very confusing. I thought Age of Empires was doing very good numbers… but perhaps it’s through GamePass and new management seems to not do proper accreditation/distribution of GP user share.
Coalition puzzles me a lot too… should they not first wait to see how sales go once EDay launches? If they cutting now, feels like they are not too confident on hitting the ground running with a sequel.
Tereyarch and Raven though… why downsize a CoD studio when Activision is looking to create a NEW studio for Halo? Shouldn’t they be on a hiring spree instead of a layoff one within Activision right now? Do wonder if these specifically are one of those “fire then as quarter ends and rehire them as next quarter starts” deals public companies tend to do to look good on their quarterly reports…
@abe_hikura everyone has their own way to look at achievements. I like to think of them as meta-quests. Many games had built in trackers for such challenges even before achievements.
100% completion is something I only pursue for games I’m completely passionate about, personally.
I have in occasion pursued a nonsensical achievement, even if hard, just to piece myself.
I kinda wish we had some way to “showcase” specific achievements we are most proud of somewhere in our profile.
This popped up recently in social media. My take then was: no corporation is a charity. Even non-profits need to get enough revenue to offset costs.
F2P games have been starting to see revenue go down. As this happens, developers and platform holders will seek ways to keep the revenue stable. At the end of the day, console F2P gaming has always followed after the steps of mobile counterparts. It has been a thing for years now on mobile for games to inject ads in between rounds. So, it’s inevitable that this will, sooner or later, come to console F2P gaming.
It might even drive 100% free GamePass tiers (not streaming, that’s separate).
So long this does not infest paid games, I don’t care.
Sadly, until yesterday, they were getting patrolled by Microsoft. Now they are just operating out of whatever revenue is coming their way from previous State of Decay entries and whatever deal they struck for GamePass day one. Job losses were inevitable. Other studios like Double Fine also had to let some people go.
Here is hoping the game can launch soon, and can become a source of enough recurring revenue to not just keep them afloat for years but also to grow back up.
If Xbox has metadata on what achievements are tied to what DLC, I hope they go the extra mile and give us additional completion achievements for each completed DLC on a game.
I’ll keep repeating myself: if all they do is stop at copying Sonys extremely old homework, they are not doing enough.
I did some armchair digging about French job protections, by asking some people (not lawyers) and from what I hear Arkane can’t just be shut down overnight. In fact, an optimistic best scenario time table (for Microsoft) would be 6 months, and most pessimistic would be a 3 year process.
It would literally be easier to ship the games, or just cancel Blade and force them to work on some project that’s not encountered by licensing fees.
Mind you, for Xbox, best case would be finding a buyer or finding the means to allow Arkane to buy themselves into independence (that would require they had cash-flow, though).
I think we will be pondering the fate of Arkane for a LONG time to come.
It’s clear by the time this is taking that Asha is going down the spinoff or shutdown path. She seems adamant of cutting out anything she perceives as a weak link. This also should speak volumes about the value she holds on the things that remain.
I do wonder, though, if it would not just be easier to repurpose Arkane. One of the paths to shut down a French subsidiary is to offer retraining AND job reassignment programs. At that point, may as well take advantage of the talent and assign that team to work under Activision’s supervision on the Halo IP. That GOT to be easier than the individual tasks of starting a studio from scratch and navigating the French job protection laws.
Either way, as a gamer, I would give up hope on Blade coming out unless it’s near being completed.
@themightyant my point is that he has not just been wrong, but he tends to be exceptionally stubborn at ever admitting so. Just this weekend he doubled down despite Kojima shutting down his inaccurate reporting.
I agree he tends to be right a lot more often than not, but when he is wrong he tends to be massively wrong.
On the one hand, building a brand new studio is hard. On the other: Bungie did fire a ton of Destiny talent that’s likely still looking for a job.
I’m still a bit puzzled about Rare under Activision, but it does make sense that they might be the best at managing the service side of Sea of Thieves.
@themightyant well, no blizzard cuts at the end of the date. Given recent revenue reports and announcements, he was very wrong or VERY out of date, and if out of date he should had known better than to say anything given all recent positive Blizzard news made the claim highly unlikely.
According to this site, Halo Studios has 339 employees. They could be the sole source of job losses and still leave “a small team” of 70 IF the site data is reliable.
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Re: Xbox & Nintendo Console Sales Suffer YoY Decreases In New September 2026 US Report
@PsBoxSwitchOwner thank you or the clarification. I’m sure most of it is the force of GTA6 then.
Re: Xbox & Nintendo Console Sales Suffer YoY Decreases In New September 2026 US Report
@Fiendish-Beaver I have a feeling (might be very wrong) that the PS6 won’t launch next year. Sony plans to halt physical disk sales at the start of 2028, and my hunch is they want that normalized before the PS6 launches later in the year.
I do think the constant attempts to have PS and Xbox launch at the same frame, and with comparable specs, has hurt both of them. Nintendo been marching at its own rithm and with their own spec sheet and they only seen success from working differently.
Re: Xbox & Nintendo Console Sales Suffer YoY Decreases In New September 2026 US Report
Is this counting the whole year and comparing it to the previous one or is this a quarter year over year comparison?
If full year, wonder how much of PS boost was during the eve of the price hike. I myself upgraded my unused PS5 to a Pro based on that (and didn’t open it until Wolverine launched).
Re: Mass Effect 5 Cancelled As Legendary Developer BioWare Closes Down
@Nakatomi_Uk I was going to say the same. It shocked me EA didn’t shut them down right after Anthem and baffled they still survived Veiguard.
Whomever was protecting them within the executive tier was either terminated, retired, or demoted after the recent acquisition.
Re: Report: Xbox Valued At Over $100 Billion By Private Equity Firms In 'Short-Lived' Discussions
There is likely no single entity with the financial capability to buy Xbox as a whole. Hell, MS was likely the only entity capable and in a position to buy ABK.
Some think the recent reorg was a hint at making it easier to sell things off, but if anything, it made it harder as it made both ABK and Bethesda even larger.
Only way MS can offload Xbox is either spinning it off into a fully or partially owned subsidiary, or by slicing it into smaller buckets that can be sold independently. But the platform warriors (especially editors for certain sites) won’t stop having humid dreams of covering another Sega scale console industry exit regardless how harmful such a thing would be for the entire industry.
Re: Report: Xbox Planning Major Overhaul Of Game Pass With 'À La Carte' Options
@Sindayl same. I only subscribe to the lowest tier for the online and would gladly get rid of the game library if it means it becomes even cheaper. I simply buy the games I want to play.
Re: Report: Xbox Planning Major Overhaul Of Game Pass With 'À La Carte' Options
Curious what shape this will take. I could see them rolling this out before Fable so they can justify “day one” promotion was not a lie, it’s just going to be a huge commitment (either it comes as part of a yearly bundle or a very high cost tier).
Re: Xbox Exec Shows Off New Version Of The Blades Dashboard They've Been 'Cooking Up'
I never understood what people love about the blades UI. Even when I first got my 360 back in the day I found it clunky, but obviously it resonated with many gamers. I see nothing wrong with dashboard customization options.
Even better if this somehow lead to a storefront for devs to sell their own dashboards.
Re: AMD FSR 4.1 Announced For Xbox Series X|S And ROG Xbox Handhelds
Interesting. Look forward to see what impact this actually has on games. The recent PS5 demos for their implementation had me squinting to try notice any improvements.
Would be more interested to see this leveraged in ways that allow more persistent frame rates than an attempt at increasing resolution.
Re: Final Fantasy Resonance Is Launching On Xbox To Extremely Impressive Reviews
Really wish Square supported D2D… not that they even bothered to make a physical version of this one for Xbox…
Re: Xbox Appears To Be Ditching Security Seals From New Physical Releases
I used to work in a video club. DVDs used to have these. I would just used to make a small cylinder out of the plastic wrapper and use the security label as a tape to keep it contained, keeping my garbage bin usable. Enough disk wrapping quickly became overwhelming otherwise as the things puffed up.
Anyways, won’t miss these.
Re: Talking Point: Are You Expecting Any Surprises For Xbox's 25th Anniversary?
Not expecting anything, if there are any surprises, they will be welcomed but not going to spend time or energy speculating or hoping.
Re: Xbox Asks Fans How They'd Feel About A Really Bold Approach To Exclusive Games
@Fiendish-Beaver (sorry for the wall of text) Personally I'm of a split mind. On the one hand, I really think the service works as is but has some big flaws. If people can just subscribe for a month, yea many just sign up the month the big title drops and essentially play a $70 game for $22 (assuming they don't stick around due to multiplayer modes creating attachment).
Ultimate might in theory work better if the commitment forced a bigger window. If you are forced to get a 6 or 12 month subscription to access Ultimate at all, you quickly alleviate the biggest flaw of the system [from Xbox accounting side].
Still, this requires them to be willing to do accounting properly and it seems Xbox refuses to. I don't think the current management is willing to see it as shared revenue that gets redistributed to studios based on game engagement and instead insist on seeing it as passive income that should only use a fraction of its revenue to buy third party deals.
If we look at other services, I think EA has had success with EA Play, and that program puts every game exactly 12 months later (give or take a week due to timing). I have heard from multiple industries how back catalog sales drop significantly 6-12 months after launch. At that point any publisher relies on high number of back catalog titles to get any meaningful revenue and it's why constantly publishing new content is important. So, a service that gives access to all back catalog after such a large window is not likely to harm sales outside very rare situations (recently, Metroid Dread saw a huge spike in demand thanks to the reveal of Metroid Ravenous, but that was like 5 years after the fact?).
Based on this, I see a few possibilities being dropped on us in February, the rumored change timeframe:
I also expect the PC Game Pass tier to go away on all these scenarios.
Re: Xbox Asks Fans How They'd Feel About A Really Bold Approach To Exclusive Games
@Trojan honestly don’t know what you refer to. What did Xbox did after Minecraft came on 360? I never been a strict follower of the series besides knowing it’s successful. Hell, didn’t know it was 360 console exclusive at any point.
Re: Xbox Asks Fans How They'd Feel About A Really Bold Approach To Exclusive Games
Roblox became a world domination game while only being on Xbox and PC. Multi-console is not necessary for success.
Re: Talking Point: Gears 6 Or An E-Day Sequel: What Should The Coalition Make Next?
I think EDay sequels are the most likely, but maybe they can give Gears 5 closure via DLC?
Re: Xbox Unveils New Nano Controller Perfect For 'Smaller Hands'
I’m sure the main target audience for this are people that play on tablets and laptops on the go. The Xbox controller is the gold standard for pc gaming [in the west] and bought by thousands that don’t even use the Xbox ecosystem. For decades Xbox has seeded ground to the likes of 8bitdo when it comes to offerings that are more travel friendly. I guess that’s the main focus here.
Oh and being Bluetooth, it might also work on Switch?
Re: Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Is Getting Some Brilliant Review Scores Ahead Of Launch
Preordered a physical copy a while back. Really looking forward to launch day!
Re: Asha Sharma Announces Xbox Labs To Turn 'Emerging Ideas' Into New Experiences
This sounds like a lot of spinning to: we going to throw a ton of AI at our own games to generate new games, ideally ones that also support player generated content.
Or even shorter: we using AI to create our own Roblox.
Re: Asha Sharma Tells Employees That Xbox Won't Survive By 'Only' Relying On Past Franchises
@Microsawft context is everything and we are only getting quotes here. Look at Grounded. I think the point is not to make big monetary gambles on unproven IP and instead keep such projects small and agile. If they earn a sequel (like Grounded) then the budget can expand accordingly.
Under the previous management, unproven projects were given as big a budget as triple A counterparts. And by unproven I mean both: moderate sellers like Hellblade and brand new ones like Avowed. It was ok for these to exist, just not with such high budget investments.
Re: Asha Sharma Tells Employees That Xbox Won't Survive By 'Only' Relying On Past Franchises
A key to creating successful new IP is to keep budget under control. Look at Grounded. It’s new IP this gen and likely the only reason Obsidian survived the snap. Thing is, the first game was done on a very small budget.
Then turn to Hi-Fi Rush, that one was a great game that just didn’t recoup its budget.
Better management and keeping experimental IP development costs low is extremely important.
I think every studio should be allowed to have a 5 person team working on such experimental projects, with early access models where it makes sense.
Re: Analysis Firm Shares Their Sales Estimates For Gears Of War: E-Day
Personally, I don’t subscribe to GP, and not likely to again because with my play habits, I find it’s more expensive than just buying what I want. So, I bought it and also bought the controller (gorgeous thing that belongs in a museum).
If you only play about a game a month on Xbox, the GP rental is not worth it. If, like me, you take more than one month to really play through a game, you are likely to at least spend two months worth only on the game. Add to that the potential of the premium upgrade (that seems to have been rather popular) that’s at best a minor discount.
We talking $53 for US vs buying for $70, and only if you are done with it in the month (if you only care for the campaign, I guess). I fell for that trap with AC Shadows and Ubisoft+. Ended up “renting it” for so long I paid more than I would had by just buying it and ended up not owning it!!!
If anything, the biggest issue is how Xbox seems to do its internal accounting and attributions. They don’t seem to give enough credit to the titles people invest time into and THAT hurts the teams. It’s the one reason I feel Ultimate should be phased out and just keep Premium. Not because GP day one don’t work, but because Xbox does not want to make it work.
Anyways, said this before and say it again: going to PlayStation would not likely had done much for this game. The PS audience already rejected Gears of War Reloaded and Halo Campaign Evolved. It’s time to recognize that Forza Horizon garnering attention was an anomaly.
Re: Talking Point: As Things Stand, What's Your Game Of The Year For 2026?
I h a ve not played as many games as I wish this year, but I would say Pragmata was one of the best things i experienced in a long time. Fresh IP, fresh combat mechanics, and the fantastic visual quality we have come to expect in the last decade out of Capcom.
I’m sure I’ll play some “better” games this year, but despite any flaws the game has, all its virtues will likely keep it above the rest for me for this year.
Re: Xbox Has Two More First-Party Releases In 2026, And They Could Be The Most Lucrative
A lot of people will scream that the possibility of WoW Forever only going to Xbox and not going to other consoles is dumb, but they would be ignoring how Robolox was PC/Xbox only during its popularity peek despite not going to Switch nor PlayStation. In fact, it seems its decline started around the time it went to PS and that port didn't help it. It's still huge, but investors are not happy. PS is not the lifeline many seem to think it is.
Re: Xbox Denies Landing Exclusive Streaming Deal For GTA 6 At Launch
I caught up all of this today and am so confused right now… are they saying people can’t stream the Xbox GP cloud streaming version from PC? Or is this just unfortunate wording?
Re: 'Pick A Lane' - Ex-PlayStation Boss Thinks Xbox Either Needs To Be A Top-Tier Platform Or Publisher
@RTGX year to year growth of third party platform share. This year Capcom literally got 50% of their sakes out of Steam alone. Don’t even have to do math there to see PC is more than all consoles combined.
But if you want to read an article:
https://www.alextech.ai/en/news/steam-hits-record-revenue-as-console-giants-struggle/
Re: Poll: How Many 'Mythic' Xbox Achievements Do You Reckon You'll Have?
35 if TrueAchievements is accurate. Compared to 26 Platinums on PS (most of them PS4 gen when I mostly abandoned Xbox).
Re: 'Pick A Lane' - Ex-PlayStation Boss Thinks Xbox Either Needs To Be A Top-Tier Platform Or Publisher
Ignoring Shawn’s statement: if Xbox was to abandon consoles, it likely means ALL consoles and focusing entirely on PC. Not becoming a third party publisher for consoles that are dying. Because let’s face it: **all** consoles are dying as PC (mostly Steam) take over third party sales.
Dedicated consoles will survive (not dominate) only on the shoulders of exclusive content. Something Sony is exponentially getting worse at producing at a fast pace and Nintendo getting better at.
Re: Senua At Risk Of Cancellation As Ninja Theory Employees Announce They've Left The Studio
I’m extremely conflicted by this. On the one hand, yes, they sealed their own fate by making one of the most expensive walking sims ever. But… no one told them not to. No one limited their budgets or asked for a more mainstream approach with more focus in combat.
This, sadly, is more on Xbox previous leadership than in their own. The studio has made at least one fantastic action focused game with Enslaved. They could do it again. But their pitch for Hellblade 2 was approved with full creative freedom because GamePass would subsidize it. Then GamePass stopped growing.
Even if the expectation was for GP to subsidize some games, their budgets should still have been more carefully allocated.
Re: Xbox Boss Acknowledges Competition With Sony, But Says Collaboration Can Exist As Well
The “apology” request is beyond condescending…
As for cooperation: all of these companies are aware service games can’t really be exclusive, at least not ones planned to primarily make their revenue via ongoing monetization. Of course they will continue to cooperate with PlayStation for those.
Re: Over 1,500 Games Are Now Supported With Xbox Disc To Digital
@BAMozzy collectors edition stuff aside: D2D dies grant you the play anywhere entitlements. So if you do see that as a reason to start buying physical, I guess you are not too far from seeing why so many of us are also likely to expand purchases on back catalogs we been waiting to hit a decent sale but either have not or came with poor timing.
Btw on your comparison with PS3, that’s an interesting case. Sony has been closing the PS3 digital store and even before closure people have reported issues with downloading their purchased games. I would expect that to become impossible sooner or later.
Yet, emulation has gotten extremely reliable to the point that we can literally run games directly from the disk! Although that does not compare to Xbox disks (that rarely have the data in the disk) it still is something to keep in mind: eventually stores shut down or drop generational support, but emulators pick up the slack and owning those disks become as meaningful as your CD collection.
Re: 'Xbox Is Not For Sale' - Asha Sharma Issues Confident Statement On The Future Of The Brand
This is, as she herself said “the plan until it’s no longer the plan” but it’s still somehow somewhat comforting to hear this stated by her.
Mind you, given how Xbox is more than just consoles (regardless how many console only players want to ignore the PC side), I don’t see Xbox going away. It’s too important for the health of windows as a whole. SteamOS can become a real risk for Windows dominance of the home computer market if Valve becomes the only way to play the top PC games. Even if Steam dominates, having major releases not be SteamOS compatible keep many users locked in on Windows.
They need to own some of the largest pC game houses for that to work.
Re: Over 1,500 Games Are Now Supported With Xbox Disc To Digital
@BAMozzy based on all the positive press coverage and community reactions, I am willing to bet it will be a lot more than “a few” people. Even if it was just a few, been to a GameStop lately? As sad as it makes me, I still do a walk by every time I’m at my local mall, so I see it rather regularly. They are what feels like 80% T-shirt, collectibles and Funko Pops. Their used game sections (in most stores) are extremely tiny and a small increase in demand would be enough to drain them of their in-store supply rather quickly.
Personally, I rather do my best to hunt copies on eBay because GameStop used copy “savings” are laughable at best, but that’s a separate topic.
Re: Over 1,500 Games Are Now Supported With Xbox Disc To Digital
@BAMozzy
My take: since I “went digital” (mostly for the Xbox benefits that never applied to physical) I only would buy a digital game if:
A) I had to play it NOW
B) It’s on a deep (sub 50%) discount
C) It’s getting delisted
There was no reason to buy games I was casually interested on since digital don’t run out of stock.
Now that I can have disks AND all the digital benefits, I’m way more likely [again] to buy a physical copy in case it sells out physically and never gets reprints. I also get the benefits of sharing that disk with friends and family without the clunky game-share primary console configuration (yet still can do that!)
This is why I personally will be buying games (even at full price) that I’m just vaguely interested in but don’t fall in the bullet points I wrote above. I know some people personally that are on the same boat as well as some that don’t care, so expect there to be many that agree with you as well as many others that don’t.
I would certainly love this even more if more games were full on disk, but this is still fantastic for me.
Re: Former Halo Exec Outlines 'Three Paths' That Could Lead To Successful Games In The Future
If this was someone that worked on Halo post-Bungie (likely since they left in 2023) I don’t care about their take.
jJust as a disclaimer, I’m not a huge Halo fan. I did play the MCC and cleared all the FPS Halo games except Infinite. Unlike most, I actually liked where H5 was going and my favorite entries have all been games where I get to play as someone other than Master Chief. That means H2,Reach,ODST & H5.
That said, I want less focus on Master Chief. It’s a huge universe and sticking so much to him is holding it back. This isn’t Metroid where the games ARE about Samus. These are games where the hero just happened to be a badas Spartan.
Not only do I want less Master Chief but at the same time I want commitment to story arcs. It annoyed the hell out of me that Halo 5 was finished off-screen and apparently the ending for Infinite also ended up being in a book… even if just via DLC, give us closures!
Oh, and stop listening to the loyalists that want H1 all over again. Games evolve and so should gameplay.
Re: Gears Of War E-Day Release Date, Release Times & Everything You Need To Know On Xbox & PC
Preordered a physical copy off Best Buy. Will be picking it up day one, no early playing.
This is going to be my first Gears game and am quite excited for it. Also preordered the controller (non-elite).
Sadly, picking up at BestBuy is not the same as picking up at GameStop back in the day. Having yjr game handed to you by an employee that don’t care about games, in the same line as the returns and support are processed… right in the middle of the refrigerator section… just isn’t the same. Still, less chance of package arriving damaged.
And I won’t preorder stuff from GameStop because they done me dirty too many times over the decades. No longer trust them.
Re: Xbox Disc To Digital Is Now Live For Everyone, But You May Need To Force It Through
I been waiting for this feature so much!!!
Hope they can get Bandai-Namco and Square on board. I been holding out on some games (Blood of the Dawnwalker) hoping I can hop on the physical edition and have it be D2D.
This system has made me enjoy preordering physical games again, at least if they also support play anywhere.
To each their own, but I love this and brings the best of both worlds. I shifted to digital on Xbox this gen because it was just too convenient compared to physical thanks to play anywhere. Now I can have disks again AND have my digital perks!
Re: Report: Xbox Studio 'Rare' Working On Various Projects, But Activision Will Decide Their Future
You know, say what you will about Activision but they helmed two 3 successful nostalgic IP resurrections:
Tony Hawk, Crash and Spyro. I can see them steering a Banjo and Conker return even if its via external contractors now that they technically manage the IPs.
Re: Devs From The Coalition, World's Edge, And Other Xbox Studios Confirm Layoffs
Some of this is very confusing. I thought Age of Empires was doing very good numbers… but perhaps it’s through GamePass and new management seems to not do proper accreditation/distribution of GP user share.
Coalition puzzles me a lot too… should they not first wait to see how sales go once EDay launches? If they cutting now, feels like they are not too confident on hitting the ground running with a sequel.
Tereyarch and Raven though… why downsize a CoD studio when Activision is looking to create a NEW studio for Halo? Shouldn’t they be on a hiring spree instead of a layoff one within Activision right now? Do wonder if these specifically are one of those “fire then as quarter ends and rehire them as next quarter starts” deals public companies tend to do to look good on their quarterly reports…
Re: Unlocking Xbox's New Mythic Achievement Sounds Incredible, And Here's How It Might Work
@abe_hikura everyone has their own way to look at achievements. I like to think of them as meta-quests. Many games had built in trackers for such challenges even before achievements.
100% completion is something I only pursue for games I’m completely passionate about, personally.
I have in occasion pursued a nonsensical achievement, even if hard, just to piece myself.
I kinda wish we had some way to “showcase” specific achievements we are most proud of somewhere in our profile.
Re: Microsoft Files Patent Which Could Bring Game-Pausing Ads To Xbox
This popped up recently in social media. My take then was: no corporation is a charity. Even non-profits need to get enough revenue to offset costs.
F2P games have been starting to see revenue go down. As this happens, developers and platform holders will seek ways to keep the revenue stable. At the end of the day, console F2P gaming has always followed after the steps of mobile counterparts. It has been a thing for years now on mobile for games to inject ads in between rounds. So, it’s inevitable that this will, sooner or later, come to console F2P gaming.
It might even drive 100% free GamePass tiers (not streaming, that’s separate).
So long this does not infest paid games, I don’t care.
Re: Former Xbox Studio Suffers 'Significant' Layoffs Hours After Going Independent
Sadly, until yesterday, they were getting patrolled by Microsoft. Now they are just operating out of whatever revenue is coming their way from previous State of Decay entries and whatever deal they struck for GamePass day one. Job losses were inevitable. Other studios like Double Fine also had to let some people go.
Here is hoping the game can launch soon, and can become a source of enough recurring revenue to not just keep them afloat for years but also to grow back up.
Re: Unlocking Xbox's New Mythic Achievement Sounds Incredible, And Here's How It Might Work
If Xbox has metadata on what achievements are tied to what DLC, I hope they go the extra mile and give us additional completion achievements for each completed DLC on a game.
I’ll keep repeating myself: if all they do is stop at copying Sonys extremely old homework, they are not doing enough.
Re: Arkane Studios' Future With Xbox Remains A Total Mystery
I did some armchair digging about French job protections, by asking some people (not lawyers) and from what I hear Arkane can’t just be shut down overnight. In fact, an optimistic best scenario time table (for Microsoft) would be 6 months, and most pessimistic would be a 3 year process.
It would literally be easier to ship the games, or just cancel Blade and force them to work on some project that’s not encountered by licensing fees.
Mind you, for Xbox, best case would be finding a buyer or finding the means to allow Arkane to buy themselves into independence (that would require they had cash-flow, though).
I think we will be pondering the fate of Arkane for a LONG time to come.
It’s clear by the time this is taking that Asha is going down the spinoff or shutdown path. She seems adamant of cutting out anything she perceives as a weak link. This also should speak volumes about the value she holds on the things that remain.
I do wonder, though, if it would not just be easier to repurpose Arkane. One of the paths to shut down a French subsidiary is to offer retraining AND job reassignment programs. At that point, may as well take advantage of the talent and assign that team to work under Activision’s supervision on the Halo IP. That GOT to be easier than the individual tasks of starting a studio from scratch and navigating the French job protection laws.
Either way, as a gamer, I would give up hope on Blade coming out unless it’s near being completed.
Re: Report: Xbox Layoffs On The Way This Week, Multiple Studios To Be 'Consolidated'
@themightyant Kojima did emphasize the cancelation was from his perspective entirely unexpected, and that’s a claim Jason insisted was no surprise.
Re: Report: Xbox Layoffs On The Way This Week, Multiple Studios To Be 'Consolidated'
@themightyant my point is that he has not just been wrong, but he tends to be exceptionally stubborn at ever admitting so. Just this weekend he doubled down despite Kojima shutting down his inaccurate reporting.
I agree he tends to be right a lot more often than not, but when he is wrong he tends to be massively wrong.
Re: Activision Issues Statement After Taking On Some Of The Biggest IP In Xbox History
On the one hand, building a brand new studio is hard. On the other: Bungie did fire a ton of Destiny talent that’s likely still looking for a job.
I’m still a bit puzzled about Rare under Activision, but it does make sense that they might be the best at managing the service side of Sea of Thieves.
Re: Report: Xbox Layoffs On The Way This Week, Multiple Studios To Be 'Consolidated'
@themightyant that’s what he would say to anyone that calls him out IF he does not block them first.
Re: Report: Xbox Layoffs On The Way This Week, Multiple Studios To Be 'Consolidated'
@themightyant well, no blizzard cuts at the end of the date. Given recent revenue reports and announcements, he was very wrong or VERY out of date, and if out of date he should had known better than to say anything given all recent positive Blizzard news made the claim highly unlikely.
Re: Xbox Confirms Activision Will Develop The Next Halo Title
According to this site, Halo Studios has 339 employees. They could be the sole source of job losses and still leave “a small team” of 70 IF the site data is reliable.