TrollOfWar

@KillerBoy

The game could easily fit on ultra blu ray disk which can hold 100gb data and with ps5 kraken compression technology the file size could easily be less than 100gb. If that still didn’t work then they could have released on 2 disks.

The game's install size is between 119 and 125 GB on all platforms, so you would require at least 2 ultra HD blu ray discs with a 100 GB capacity.

Ultra HD blu ray discs are way more expensive than regular blu ray discs and they also require special covers to accommodate the 2 discs. The game would need 5 standard 25GB blu ray discs or 3 double-layer 50GB blu-ray discs.

The only 2 games released on 2 ultra HD blu ray discs are Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. I assume in both cases Sony was involved, as they are part of the Blu Ray Disc Association and they are manufacturers of the discs, so they might get different conditions/prices than a third party like Microsoft.

@FrenchVaniIIuxe Buy Evercade 😏

I'm interested. It's a free beta so there's nothing to lose.

@Weebleman

I kinda feel for phil a bit. ... I dont agree with all the buying up of companies, but I do get why he did it.

@themightyant

It was great while Phil was still firmly at the wheel and seemingly making decisions more freely. But since Zenimax, and particularly ABK the whole direction of Xbox has shifted and it's FELT like a different company run by Microsoft and it's shareholders, no longer putting gamers first

According to a Eurogamer article, the decision to buy Activision came from Satya Nadella back in 2020 when Bobby Kotick got in touch with him regarding a potential TikTok acquisition. Phil Spencer didn't drive that decision. Here's the link to the article: https://www.eurogamer.net/microsofts-activision-blizzard-takeover-sparked-by-both-companies-failing-to-buy-tiktok-kotick-says

@AverageJoseph

An endorsement from Peter Molyneux is dubious at best

I stumbled upon a documentary video about Peter Molyneux a week ago, which explains how he started as a nobody. It kind of goves a better impression of what kind of person he is: https://youtu.be/H1jwoyBRYcU

I have the first Broken Sword games on Evercade, but I am happy to see these classics remade for current gen hardware. I remember replaying the demo of Broken Sword 2 over and over, back when it released in 1997.

Well, people can also choose not to subscribe to GamePass. It's optional. 😉

@Zeta Isn't that a conflict of interest? /sarcasm 😄

I wonder if this acquisition will face them same scrutiny by all the worldwide regulatory groups as the ABK acquisition by Microsoft did? 😁

@Sol76 "Social Media Influencer Moves to Dubai Simulator" 😉

"This survey is not available in your country."

@johnedwin

because why own a ps then if there first party games are going to other consoles

You don't see any reason to own a console other than it's exclusives? Like the ease of use, backward compatibility, your personal digital library, platform services, hardware specific features (controller, disc drive, portability), friends on that platform and the price of the hardware? If what you are saying is true then everyone will move to PC as you can play all PlayStation 1st party (and Xbox and Steam) titles on PC, it's just a matter of time when they release.

If PlayStation would start releasing some of their 5+ year old 1st party titles, how likely do you think it is that people will abandon the PlayStation platform for Xbox?

@andrewsqual I don't see anyone here getting excited. Even the article title tells readers to "don't get excited". 😄

And even if someone gets excited, does it matter? They will be disappointed if it turns out not to be true, they will be happy if it turns out true. People are entitled to make their own experiences, we shouldn't dictate them how they should feel.

@WildConcept6 Yes, I agree, they shouldn't have aimed for a AAA or AAAA project.

Definitely odd, as in the past Microsoft would have newly formed teams work on remasters, before they could create a new entry, as it was the case aith both 343 Industries (Halo: CE Anniversary) and The Coalition (Gears of War: Ultimate Edition).

But I believe the IP would have worked well, as there are apparently decent Perfect Dark books and comics to rely on. They could have done a small-scale game, similar to MGS Ground Zeroes as a foundation to build upon. Or have a smaller team create a top-down stealth-oriented tactical game, like the Commandos series.

@FraserG True, Metal Gear Solid and James Bond are back. But I have to say, after watching the most recent video from the YouTuber Raycevik about Perfect Dark Zero, I think he has a point that the Perfect Dark universe had a lot of potential, as currently there is no "Cyberpunk espionage" game, apart from the Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty DLC. If the developers would have followed the template of Deus Ex, they could have released a timeless hit.

Such a shame that this Perfect Dark reboot didn't work out. According to the Eurogamer article (which comes from the same source as this one), this game should have filled a gap by the absence of Metal Gear Solid and James Bond.

It's kind of a proof how Microsoft/Xbox managed this project poorly: instead of focusing on creating a good, traditional game with a more limited budget/scope, they instead chose to have a new large studio with some of the biggest ambitions. Sometimes you need to learn to walk before you can run.

@Fiendish-Beaver While this case is a nothingburger, I think the buzz generated around this sorts of topics is good, as it keeps the conversation about the value of "exclusives" going and might help get Sony/PlayStation's attention to release some of their "exclusives" on additional platforms since there is clearly demand for them.

Duke Nukem 3D Total Meltdown on Evercade and Still Wakes The Deep: Siren's Rest DLC.

@Coletrain I don't know how it will work with Steam's own cloud save feature, but based on what is in the official articles: Yes, if you play a game which has this cloud save feature implemented (no matter the publisher) it will sync your progress between Steam, Xbox PC, Xbox consoles and Xbox cloud, probably via Microsoft's cloud servers.

I just checked and apparently there are quite a few games which support cross-platfrom progression, like Halo Master Chief Collection and Baldur's Gate 3.

I very much hope there's going to be a release of Earthion on Evercade.

The sound design is quite impressive. I think I might enjoy the game, I do like quirky puzzle adventure games, like an Cocoon or The Last Campfire.

Also an interesting part from the official page:

Pricing

For titles in the Xbox ecosystem, the cost of PlayFab Game Saves is covered by Xbox, even for players outside of the Xbox ecosystem. For titles not shipping in the Xbox ecosystem, we plan to announce pricing when we make the service generally available.

@Elbow This is less of a service that people will need to "jump on" and more of a service for developers to license and integrate into their games. The players will automatically benefit once it's part of a game. Though I wonder if it has any drawbacks for game preservation, as save games will be synced to an online cloud.

@Coletrain @abe_hikura From what I know, up until now this only worked in Microsoft 1st party games, between Xbox and PC, where I think the game had to be bought from the Microsoft store. Not sure if there are any cases, where it works between Xbox and Steam, maybe Sea of Thieves might be a rare exception. Other developers/publishers need to come up with their own custom solutions and infrastructure, if they want to support cross-platfrom save progression.

This reads like a feature which will allow not just 1st party, but also other parties to easily integrate cross-platfrom save progression into their games and Microsoft offers the technology and the cloud infrastructure to store and sync save files.

It looks interesting, makes me consider buying an ROG Ally.

I think the Xbox Series S is a good budget friendly console for the current gen... But the Evercade is the best value proposition in 2025. The cheapest device, the Super Pockets, are only £ 49 and have games installed and most cartridges include multiple games and cost between £ 20 and £ 30. With timeless classic like Metal Slug, Tomb Raider, Duke Nukem, Legacy of Kain. No live services, no micro-transactions, no forced online connections, just pure fun. 😁
#BuyEvercade

@WildConcept6

Games still aren't making the most of the PS5 and certainly aren't hitting the promises we were sold on for the system.

Also keep in mind that visual fidelity isn't just about the technical performance. It's also very expensive, only a few studios can afford a fidelity like in those PlayStation 1st party titles. So even if the hardware is capable of more, often the dev teams are limited by budget. They try to compensate by using Unreal Engine 5 and stock assets from the Unreal asset store, which works to a certain extent.

That's why sometimes an Xbox 360 game running on Xbox Series X with FPS and resolution boost can look better than a more recent game.

@DJKingaling I remember getting to the end of FF7 on PSone. I couldn't get past the final dungeon as all enemies felt like boss fights. A friend from back then, who was a huge FF7 fan, told me that I apparently messed up the leveling of my characters and I am missing crucial materia. So he intended to show me the end of the game via his own save game. After 50 minutes trying to defeat the last boss, he lost and we gave up. Had to look up the ending online. A big disappointment. 😅

@Coletrain @WildConcept6 @Pat_trick
The truth about Xbox Series S "holding back the generation" is kind of in the middle:

1. What defines this generation?
4K resolution, 60 frames per second, ray-tracing and faster loading speeds? Visual fidelity was alread strong last gen. In that regard the Xbox Series S doesn't push the generation forward as most games big-budget games are 1080p / 30 fps without ray-tracing. The 10 GB RAM is a restricting limit, where other devices (PS5, Series X, Steam Deck) have 16 GB.

2. Development challenges:
On the one hand univeral multi-platform engines like Unreal Engine, Snowdrop, Frostbite, Unity, Anvil, Decima, etc. make game development easier, reducing the need for expensive proprietary engines developed in-house. On the other hand studios might lack in-house talent which knows how to optimize the engine for lower spec hardware. So these engines should already support Xbox Series S by default, but teams might lack the costly talent or time to implement custom optimizations for Xbox Series S, when the game's scope grows.

3. Priorities & Scope:
In the past few years many indie studios were established. They often design games with big-budget visuals and large scopes, with high-end PCs as the target systems. Only at a late stage they start thinking about console releases, at which point optimizations for lower spec hardware like Xbox Series S becomes difficult. Best examples are Black Myth Wukong and Baldur's Gate 3, which both had PCs as their target and required more time to optimize the game for Series S. But even PS5 and Series X didn't offer a perfect performance in those cases.

4. Optimizing for Series S helps other systems:
There are several cases where the optimizations for Xbox Series S and Steam Deck helped the Xbox Series X, PS5 and PC, such as Baldur's Gate 3, Final Fantasy 16 and now Battlefield 6. So Series S can help to improve this generation.

I think this generation was oversold. Many people were expecting 4K ray-tracing at 120 fps on all games with photorealistic visuals. Most of the ray-traced games don't run well, Unreal Engine 5 is very resource demanding. While I get the cost/benefit issue of having to optimize for Series S, I think it's limitations helped to keep the performance on PS5 and Xbox Series X in check.

This is just how Larian Studio explained how optimizing Baldur's Gate 3 for the Xbox Series S helped to improve the performance on other systems.

These low-level optimizations take time, but in the long run the performance of games benefits on all systems and helps to make games accessible on more low-level platforms including Steam Deck, Switch 2, etc.

@Banjo- Yes, but the challenge I see is that most people will choose to wait for a discount rather than paying the standard price, as they already waited 5 years. So be prepared for initial sales to "not meet the expectations". 😉

For whatever reason, you cannot preorder the standard edition on Xbox af the moment, which is $39.99 on PSN. I assume most people on Xbox and Switch already own the original FF7, so they would prefer the standard rather than the Digital Deluxe Edition.

@Banjo- It's cheaper now at $59.99. It used to be $89.99. It includes the original FF7 game (Xbox and Windows). But the PS5 version is frequently discounted at $34.79 on the PSN store. See: https://psprices.com/region-us/game/4546676/final-fantasy-vii-remake-intergrade-digital-deluxe-edition

@Banjo-

That said, instead of a fully priced shadow drop like XVI, they should do like they did on PC and offer a 30% discount for pre-orders when they release Rebirth and Remake on Xbox or anything to give it a boost and make up for the late release, as they also did when they released the Pixel Remaster bundle on Xbox.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the preorder page is up on the Xbox store and there's no discount. It's the same price as on PSN.

@themightyant Thanks for adding more context. It's all good if Sony/PlayStation helped make the Remake possible in the first place. Without them Death Stranding also wouldn't exist.

The baffling thing about FF7 Remake is how it was known from the beginning that it's only time-exclusive to PlayStation, but it never released on anything other than PC. It's weird. But Square Enix is known for doing weird business decisions (like releasing Octopath Traveler 1 on Xbox but not PS and Octopath Traveler 2 on PS but not Xbox, and releasing Kingdom Hearts 3 on Xbox and KH 1&2 only a year later).

@RegnumSolipsi That's impressive, you have quite a lot of achievements unlocked in Sea of Thieves. Good job. 👍

@RegnumSolipsi I love Sea of Thieves, spent over 2000 hours playing it over the past 5 years. But it's such a time sink. 😄

Data East Arcade Collection 1 on Evercade: Gates of Doom, Sly Spy and Wizard Fire

@Sindayl I am also curious to know if Sony's exclusivity deals are less lucrative than what they used to be. It was leaked a few years ago that for the Rise of the Tomb Raider's 1-year exclusivity, Microsoft paid $ 100 million (that's a budget which could fund an entire game) and I can imagine that Sony might have paid similar figures for certain deals. Usually these deals would cover the "lost sales" from the other platforms. Now that Xbox console are less relevant and not competing with PlayStation anymore, how much is Sony/PlayStation willing to pay to keep games off Xbox?

@masofdas After seeing the success of Baldur's Gate 3 and Elden Ring, I believe Final Fantasy could as well do 10m+ sold units, but a lot of factors would need to fall in place, one of them being a multi-platform release.

It would need to be fresh and bold, a completely new gripping, immersive story without any previous baggage. It needs to exceed the trends of the moment it releases and needs to build up a positive hype like never before.

It's not an easy task, but smaller dev teams managed to achieve that.

@Questionable_Duck I don't know what the internet made up, it was just my expectation that there might still be some contract between Square Enix and Sony for the exclusivity of the entire trilogy. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake has been in planing since that PS3 launch demo, so I was expecting some contract to cover the whole project.

But I am happy for all players. Better late than never. 😉

Well, color me surprised. I expected Square Enix to have some PlayStation exclusivity deal for the whole remake trilogy signed, before they decide to release their games multiplatform. Though the wording in the Twitter message is very awkward, as they don't mention a simultaneous release.

Now I wonder how successful they will be in convincing players on Nintendo and Xbox to buy the remake games. 🤔

@andrewsqual

FFVII Remake is the best FF game in years because they focused on a making a GREAT GAME FIRST on one single platform before multiplat crap. And the same with Rebirth.

So you are trying to say, that FF7 Remake could only become a successful game, because it was developed exclusively for a single platform? Then why did Forspoken or Foamstars fail? Why did Destruction AllStars fail? Why did Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring , Split Fiction, Hollow Knight, succeed despite being multi-platform?

Stop trying to create utter lies and false narrative. ALL you are doing and others here are doing is pre-empting the flop it's going to be on Xbox and are already making the excuses. And THAT'S a truth.

By writing things like that, you became part of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It has been almost a decade without any mainline Final Fantasy games on Xbox. Those who care about the franchise moved to PlayStation and PC. For those left on Xbox, who haven't experienced the game on other platforms, the game will need to impress them. Having someone tell them, they are "creating utter lies and false narratives" won't convince anyone to get excited for this game. Don't you agree?

And why would it be 19.99 lol?

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Integrade has frequently been discounted to as low as $15.19 since January 2024 on the PSN Store. Those who are interested and have been waiting 6 years for the game to release, can wait another 1-2 months until it's at a lower price. It also worked in Death Stranding Director's Cut's favor when it released on Xbox at half the price, selling many units.

Hopefully it does well on Xbox and Nintendo, even though having to wait 6 years is quite a long time.

I hope that Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection also releases on Evercade. 😄

@Coletrain Of course it would be a poor move by Square Enix if they didn't offer the 2 games bundled. IMO they should also release the games at a discount for a limited time (like Death Stranding Director's Cut did on Xbox).

@Questionable_Duck

I assume FF7 Remake Part 3 will be on all platforms day one

I personally wouldn't bet on it. I guess Square Enix probably signed a time-exclusiv deal with Sony/PlayStation for all the 3 parts when they initially started with the first one, or the contract was updated when the Integrade version was released on PS5.

That would have happened before Square Enix decided to release their games multiplatform and now they need to honor those contacts.

@Coletrain

My big big question here is whether there's any point picking up remake intergrade when it comes out. When Rebirth released on ps5, if you pre-ordered it digitally you got remake intergrade for no extra cost, so I'd prefer that route really

Hmmm... Final Fantasy 7 Remake has been given away as part of the PS+ Essential subscription for a month, so for many it was more like they saved the costs of getting the Integrade DLC content.

@Sol76

Funny how MS talks about game preservation when they still release owned ip’s like the Forza (Horizon) games with licenses that expire after a couple of years and they delist them never to be seen again

Microsoft/Xbox always talks about the technical side of game preservation, not the licensing challenges.

That being said, I do wonder how the 2015 released Need for Speed game is still available for purchase on Xbox, while FC 24 or indeed Forza Horizon 4 (2018) are not anymore.

Would love to play Project Gotham Racing again. PGR4 was my first game on Xbox 360. Such a good game.

Regarding Marvel games, I remember from the Insomniac Games leaks that apparently PlayStation has exclusive publishing rights for certain time frames around the release of their games. I wonder if it would impact the re-release of Activision published Marvel games.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

But everyone on this site says don’t believe this analytic company.

Not only on this site. And people should be skeptical of what Alinea Analytics shares.

But in this case you can check other websites which share player statistics like trueachievements.com / truetrophies.com or exophase.com and calculate yourself, based on the total tracked userd per platform and users per game, how well the game did. Helldivers 2 sold more units in 1 week than Death Stranding Director's Cut in 10 months on Xbox. While Kojima Productions didn't directly share how man units exactly they sold on Xbox, they did share that the total number of players grew from 19 millions to 20 millions 5 months after the Xbox release.

Helldivers 2 on Xbox at this point might have possibly sold more than 1.5 million units (at full price).