Serpentes420

@theduckofdeath Sony also didn't own those studios or publish those games. They paid for exclusivity, which means they wasted money on those games, but those games aren't going to harm their reputation as a game publisher.

@jordan1992 The weird thing about it too, in sports when one team wins, the other loses. Business competition isn't such a zero sum game. Like with Marvel and DC when one of those companies is doing good work it raises interest in all comic book properties. I guess with console wars, many people (especially kids) can't afford to get all the systems, so it pushes people into corners to pick a side. I just wish people could be fans instead of fanboys. I prefer Playstation, but I own a Switch and a Series S too. However, when I criticize Xbox because I want them to do better the fanboys want to shove me into one of those corners.

@BAMozzy You make a great point and I think it would be interesting and smart if Sony puts some of these (ugh) live service games they intend on publishing on PC and Xbox same time as they release on PS5. They grew the Last of Us brand with the show, imagine if they released their upcoming multiplayer TLOU game on all the platforms. Sure keep the eventual TLOU Part III on PS and then maybe someone gets into that franchise because of the show, then they enjoy the MP game n Xbox. Maybe that person buys a PS5 to go with their Xbox to play the story TLOU games.

Even though MLB The Show is only on Xbox because MLB made Sony do it and a baseball game is pretty niche. I'd love to know what it has done for the financials of the franchise and if it (or maybe Destiny 2 money) will convince Sony to be a little more modern with their ideas of exclusivity.

@Sol4ris Yeah I don't think SSOD 2 will ever see the light of day. Insomniac is too busy making all those Marvel games and Ratchet and Clank. Its kind of a shame too, during that brief period when Insomniac stopped being a Sony second party studio and before becoming part of Sony officially SSOD was the only great game they made. However, I'll still take Spider-Man and R&C over SSOD.

@Kaloudz Of course Activision is happy, MS (for some reason) is paying above market price per share to acquire Activision. Kotick and the rest of those aholes running that company are about to make out like bandits.

I hope Activision's studios don't become more creatively bankrupt like Xbox's current (non-Bethesda or Obisidian) studios. Like for goodness sake come up with a new IP for us to play already instead flailing to keep old franchises going.

In the end, I don't think any publisher gaining more and more studios is great, but in the end I guess instead of borrowing the yearly CoD title from my local library, playing the campaign and returning it, I can play it on Gamepass and then delete it. Though could someone teach those CoD studios to make a game that doesn't take up a ridiculous amount of storage space, the Series S barely has any as it is!

@Sebatrox Sony plans on publishing a bunch of live service games because the goal of any corporation is to make money. Sadly, one massive live service game thats a hit can make more money than several high quality, well rated single player games. A fool and their microtransaction money are easily parted.

@Tharsman @Banjo- Xbox fanboys like to act like every Sony game is Quantic Dreams game while ignoring things like how Spider-Man has perhaps the best movement and action game mechanics ever. If you think R&C is an interactive movie and not loaded with fun gameplay you are clearly parroting a tired talking point. If you claim to like something like Mtal Gear Solid but can't recognize Last of Us' good stealth mechanics your fanboying.

But if you really hate Sony games get ready to be disappointed with much of Xbox's future output because your Uncle Phil agrees with the majority about the quality of Sony made games and wants that for Xbox desperately.

@NeoRatt For Gamepass games, its not a big deal because its like a rental anyway. But for any game that has any sort of story or single player its just a bad move. For example, Avengers has a decent Kamal Khan story someone might want to play again or maybe for the first time after The Marvels releases and they won't be able to because the game's servers are shutting down.

Us old folks are just too used to actually owning the things we purchase I guess, instead of renting them until a company decides they aren't making enough money any more.

@Banjo- Your comment is a fine example of telling me you've never played any of those games without telling me you've never played a Sony game.

@Balta666 0 horror in my opinion (even though I wasn't the one you asked). At best there are some side missions that are a little creepy, but it is not a horror game by any stretch of the imagination. It is a straight up shooter with "magic" taking the place of traditional guns.

@somnambulance I like the setting, a couple of the powers, and many of the weapons/upgrades for Atomic Heart. Its a weird game in that I hated it at first, but stuck with it and about half-way through until the end of the game I was pretty much enjoying it for the combat. Its a game I would have been very upset about if I had bought it, but with it being on Gamepass it was OK. I'm also a big fan of weird sci-fi single player shooters in the vain of Bioshock, Prey (more the original than the Arkane game), etc.. so Atomic Heart didn't have to do too much for me to rate it as being worth the play through.

But also please make no mistake, I don't want to replay either Atomic Heart or Ghostwire, but I found Atomic Heart to be the less disappointing of the two.

I didn't feel the mid-gen upgrades were needed last gen either. However, when I was able to trade in my day 1 PS4 for a Spider-Man PS4pro with the game for just a couple hundred bucks more I was pretty happy with the pro.

So I think the upgrades are nice if your current xbox or ps needs replacing before the next generation is out or if you are adding another console to your household it is nice to have an update, but they totally aren't necessary.

If you go into this game looking for a single player FPS in a mediocre open world, you'll be pretty happy with this game. Go in expecting more than that and prepare to be disappointed.

I just finished Atomic Heart and as many problems as I had with parts of that game I'd rather replay it than replay Ghostwire

@BrilliantBill Is that like the Xbox guys that claimed they don't care about exclusives, but are super thirsty for MS to acquire ABK? Or maybe the fanboys that declared that the PS4 was the indiestation, but now gush about how gamepass is great because of all the indie games on it?

I am a consumer of both consoles so I'll call everyone out on their BS. Sony needs to quit paying for exclusive missions in games and wasting money on Square Enix exclusives and Xbox should get the studios they already own to put out a great product before they go around gobbling up every studio they can.

Of course Sony doesn't want to just agree to a 10 year deal. At the pace Xbox first party studios release games that will only be 2 CoD titles. Lol

Yay, I'm looking forward to less production from more development studios!

@Brue The big difference is that Nintendo and Sony are perceived as developing their own IPs, whereas MS is perceived as buying IPs to keep them from Sony. As people have pointed out, Sony does indeed buy some exclusivity, but its biggest as most famous IPs are made in house or by second party studios. Thus, as is often the case, perception doesn't completely match reality.

This game will benefit greatly from the Gamepass effect. Its a dull mediocre game at its core, but once it is included in a subscription service people will say how great it is.
I played through it by borrowing in from my local library and it being included with something I already pay for didn't make it any less of a bland open world shooter pretending to be something different.

@Cikajovazmaj Exact same story here. So far, its a pretty game, but it plays like absolute garbage and has the wors dialogue that I've encountered in a SP game in recent memory. It makes a bad dialogue game like Outriders (for example) seem like Shakespeare in comparison. This game is a 4 for me thus far.

@BrilliantBill Xbox can be like their main competitor and let creative developers make new IPs instead of assigning them to work on a single franchise until they quit. I'll agree that the 2nd remake of TLoU was just milking things, but you're comparing a franchise with 2 games compared to one with 8 to 10 (if you want count the Halo Wars or not). Plus, Naughty Dog manages to maintain development on at least 2 franchises at once.

Man, could you imagine being one of the few people who bought Halo Infinite to then see every bit of post launch support to go to the FTP multiplayer? I'd be so angry. I bet that discussion we t something like "sure go ahead and make the majority of the game free-to-play microtransaction laden trash. Everyone plays our games on Gamepass anyway"

@Swirly They have to be counting all the Zenimax games that became theirs after that acquisition. If you look at MS studios production previous before that, I struggle to name 58 games period.

Man MS sure is desperate to get this ABK acquisition past the regulators. CoD on Switch will be a money loser. But with the way Xbox runs its first party studios the next 10 years will only be 2 CoD games lol.
Jokes aside, I have all the consoles and the only Activision/Blizzard game I play is Overwatch so I don't really care much what happens with this takeover so long as that franchise remains multiplatform.

Halo Infinite is dead to me until there is new campaign content. As far as multiplayer shooters go there are too many better options out there.

@Kaloudz I think you're on to something and its probably part of the reason none of the modern Left4Dead type games have really hit. Getting to get together with 3 friends and s ashing some AI isn't novel anymore. Some styles of games just don't play as well since tech ology has advanced.

@EliJapan Anytime someone buys an online game or in game transactions they should know it can go away in an instant. KO City at least had a 2 year run. People aren't due refunds everytime CoD moves on to a new game or servers shutdown on a decade old game someone paid for.

@EliJapan Wow that's the first I heard about KO City, so thanks for that info. However, I think that's a different story since it was always just a competitive online game without a single player campaign. This is yet another warning about buying games as a service games. If Redfall wasn't going on GP, I wouldn't buy it because you have to be online to play singleplayer. I'd wager, in fact, they wouldn't try to get away with that garbage if it weren't for Gamepass, but that's a whole other discussion.

Putting Elder Scrolls 6 on there smells of fanboy desperation. It'll release in maybe half a decade from now. Of all the upcoming games, I want to see something, anything, to give me an idea of what the Indiana Jones game is. If they don't have a trailer to show around when Indy 5 releases they are blowing it.

I bet Hellblade 2 is suffering from the pressure to make it Xbox's GoW. If I was a betting man, I'd wager Contraband never happens.

All this graphic shows me is that Xbox has a lot of promises, but anyone who's followed them since the last couple years of the 360 generation knows that's nothing new and not get too hyped about a list of possible vaporware.

@Sol4ris The answer is all of them, because they are corporations. They all exist solely to make money, none of them are your friend. By the way you don't consider a company that is fighting to spend $70 billion, but just fired 10,000 people scummy?

I'm a little disappointed Captain Marvel and the story stuff teased that would involve her never bot released, but not at all surprised.

When your marquee franchise has to be delayed a year from launch and then needs almost another year to add features all the previous games in the series has had you deserve an F. Just to compare, Horizon Forbidden West is going to have a major expansion DLC just over a year after release. In the meantime 343 is farting around making skins for battle passes for the free MP that is so popular you never hear about it mentioned in the same breath as other games like it (Apex, Fortnite, CoD, Overwatch 2, etc..) MS likes to brag about the number of studios they have, but the output and management of those studios is shambolic! Its ridiculous to me that Xbox thinks that just buying up more studios like some corporate Pac-man will solve their issues.

@NEStalgia When Sony purchases a studio, for the most part, they've at least "dated for awhile before putting a ring on it", so they seem to have a notion as to how these studios will fit into their ecosystem and what they'll produce. MS acquires studios like a drunk at 2AM trying to buy as many girls as they can shots in order to try and score.

So when trying to sell gamers on why they should subscribe to Gamepass MS is all about touting how many Xbox studios there are, but when selling this acquisition to regulators its all about how they have so few exclusive games.

I don't know WTH goes on at Xbox studios, but they have to be the easiest publishers to work for (other than RSI where all one has to do is pump out concept art to entice whales to keep giving you money).

Even when it comes to trying to buy their way into some exclusives MS doesn't seem to know how to spend. Insomniac, which Sony made 1st party for only $229 million has matched Xbox studios output this generation, by itself. Don't even get me started on 343 Industries, which has one f'n job they can't do right, make Halo games!

This is why I can't get excited for MS to Acquire ABK, Xbox doesn't have its own house in order, yet just keeps taking on studios like it will fix everything.

@UltimateOtaku91 The size. Bethesda is tiny in market share compared to just CoD

@InterceptorAlpha What does MS being a US military contractor have to do with anything? Do you really think it will intimidate a court or that MS would drop billions of dollars they make from the military because they were denied an acquisition for the loss leader of their company?

@BrilliantBill That's because Sony makes 1st party games that are award contenders while Xbox studios like 343 waste a year getting Halo: Infinite to where it should have been with launch and creating stuff for battle passes. Looks like HFW is going to have a DLC expansion about a year after release. Where's new Halo Infinite single player stuff? Sony put out 2 of their big franchises this year, one of which would have been GOTY, if not for a little generational phenomenon called Elden Ring. I don't know who is responsible for directly managing xbox's 1st party studios, but they are not doind a good job.

The only ABK game I play is Overwatch 2, but I sure hope that the merger won't go through if it means ABKs output is going to match that of other Xbox studios. This Xmas it will be 1 year since I locked into 2 years of Gamepass and I'm still waiting for Xbox studios to put out something worth playing

@Kaloudz Not at all. MS response that Sony can just put more 1st party games on PS+ or acquire more 3rd party games for PS+ is BS reasoning. Playstation and PS+ isn't a loss leader for a trillion dollar company like Xbox and GP is for Microsoft.

It reminds me of when billionaires born from means say crap like "I got my start with a small (multi-million dollar) loan from my family." So because Xbox has a rich daddy all other game publishers should too. The only people who should be rooting for this acquisition to go through are fanboys. Frankly as a GP subscriber I don't want this to go through because I don't want to have to pay more for the service to pay for this acquisition.

I downloaded it, but between GoW:R and my Overwatch2 addiction, I don't see me playing Pentiment anytime soon. Hopefully with this and Grounded out of the way Obsidian can get the games people actually want made like Avowed and Outer Worlds 2.

@Nightcrawler71 I've kept it downloaded since I finished my free 10 hours trial because I expected it to hit GP 6 months ago. Anyway, its just under 71GB on my Series S

I need more single-player FPS games in my gaming life, so looking forward to this and High on Life. Especially since Take-Two can't get their crap together and get a Bioshock out.

@Techno92LFC With Overwatch going with a FTP model there is no way it is becoming exclusive.

Sounds like CoD finally came up with a multi-player mode I might actually play, but I'm still not giving ABK any money so maybe I'll try it if it ever hits Gamepass

@Ashadelo You need to convince the dude-bro casuals and the kids that buy CoD, Madden, FIFA, and NBA2K every year. That scum is ruining gaming.

For those for whom Persona 5 is too long or that can't stand turn based combat, I hope Game Pass gets P5 Strikers at some point. Same characters, but with a different combat style and its a much shorter story. I haven't been much into JRPGs since the PS2 days, but Persona 5 and Strikers both managed to grab and hook me for some reason.

@Solidchief Yeah at least Scorn has an interesting looking setting whereas Crossfire X was a game that seemed like someone that had been repeatedly struck in the head tried to make a CoD game.

It took me one match of Crossfire to delete it whereas with Scorn I got through the first puzzle then decided I never wanted to go back and deleted it. They'll probably tie for worst Game Pass game of the year.

@UltimateOtaku91 I'm with you. This game screams "I'll be $30 - 40 by Christmas" to me. I've got enough to play until GoW: R comes out and by the time I finish that there are some Game Pass games I've been waiting for, like High on Life and WH:40K Darktide. So an after Christmas sale seems like the right time to try Gotham Knights

@XxEvilAshxX So long as MS first party games start coming out and play well on the Series S I'll be happy, but yes I think that will shut up some of these developers too.

@Jimez There are more of us Series S owners out there because it is cheaper which I assume was why it is less powerful. But if streaming is supposed to be the future of gaming anyway, why does the power of the Series S matter to begin with?