@NEStalgia This is interesting to hear, but something's not adding up: SMT came out in 1992, didn't it? Pokémon was planned out in 1990 (though not finished until 1996, of course), and the monster capturing/trading mechanics were described in detail in its original design doc- with storyboards and everything!
GF also released their first game (Mendel Palace) in 1989.
So if Tajiri looked at SMT, it may have been more of a comparison thing, and not so much about drawing inspiration from it.
Seems that they might've jumped the gun on calling the previous version "Deathinitive", then. Is this one even more deathinitiver?
Great game(s), but I hope they finally fix the glitches this time. DS2 easily crashes (at least on PC) if you try to shoot a certain DLC boss while it's flying, and this reportedly carried over from the original release. DS1 also had smaller bugs that persisted in its remaster, like a treasure chest that couldn't be opened.
@BAMozzy Yeah, I'm all for last-gen games finally being able to run smoothly, now that they've been unshackled from their potato console limitations. Seeing a huge leap forward and 60fps (like we did in the PS2 generation) would be great, but that kind of thing rarely happens now, so I'm fine with smaller visual upgrades if that's what it takes to keep things running smoothly. It's not as if most last-gen games are ugly!
I actually didn't buy a console... or a modern PC. All of the options right now are too expensive, and all of them (short of a 4090, apparently) get lacklustre performance in many of the latest games.
The problem isn't just with the consoles being too weak, as this time around, they're actually pretty capable. Plus, even beefy PCs are struggling more than they have in a long time. It's fine if ultra deluxe settings don't work well on today's hardware, but if you have to turn the game into a blurry mess just to hit 60fps, then something's wrong (especially considering how good a lot of cross-gen games look by comparison).
So I'm just staying on decade-old hardware for now, wondering if my next PC build will even be able to run today's games properly, or if I'll have to wait for the next one after that!
@BAMozzy More games should just target Xbox One and PS4 specs, and then they'll have the room to scale up from there.
But when they do that, people just complain that it's not "next-gen", so I guess there's no winning here. (Personally, just give me 60fps every time... preferably with decent visual quality, but last-gen graphics are perfectly fine.)
@RadioHedgeFund Good point, and a lot of people seem to miss that: a more conservative approach to graphics tech lets you crank the framerate, resolution, draw distance, texture res, etc., up to the max, whereas going all-out on fancy RT or whatever forces you to rein those things in.
The high-end game can actually look worse as a result, especially when it has to be scaled down for Series S, etc.!
@GamingFan4Lyf I heard a quote somewhere, along the lines of: "When a studio makes a properly functioning game, it's a miracle. If it's fun to play, that's another miracle."
It makes my head spin, seeing the number of moving parts that all have to come together to make a game work, like all of the assets that have to be created, imported, and then dynamically loaded and unloaded. Or the flags that keep track of the states of a thousand different events and objects (and where the game can become unwinnable if just one of these flags is set incorrectly).
However, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect games to run smoothly today, and that's solely because we've seen it done so many times before, on equal or weaker hardware.
In a vacuum, I might say it's impressive to make the Series S display anything at 60fps (at least when any coding is involved, as it's not like I could do better at this point), but we've seen gorgeous games running at 60fps on the Series S, One S, OG Xbox, etc., so the bar has been set.
@ZYDIO To be fair, the past two generations had pretty abysmal performance: almost all large-scale games ran at 30fps and lower, and the Xbone/PS4 in particular had painfully slow load times.
This current generation has got to be up there with the 6th gen for performance: 60fps is commonplace again, and loading is back down to a few seconds in most cases.
I do agree, though, that every new game should have been 60fps (or included it as an option), starting in 2020. We already know that open-world games with beautiful graphics can do 60fps on a potato system, so hardware isn't the issue.
To be clear, I'm not saying "devs need to stop being lazy", but rather that 60fps needs to be a priority/baseline for every game, without exception. Yes, the graphics will be a little less fancy, and I'm okay with that.
I have mixed feelings regarding Series S, but I'm really skeptical about the idea that it's causing games to run poorly on Series X.
If anything, it should be the opposite: if devs can get their games to run at 30fps on Series S, then that guarantees a ton of headroom (especially on the GPU) to get these games looking and running better on Series X.
I suspect that games are instead targeting hardware above Series X's capabilities. Then, they have to be optimized- or just as likely scaled down- for XSX, and then further downgraded to get some semblance of stability on XSS.
If devs targeted XSS, or Switch... or GameCube specs (as an extreme example!), then it'd be a piece of cake to hit 4K60 consistently without sacrificing clarity or draw distance. But it would be at the expense of all the bells and whistles, of course.
@Fiendish-Beaver If you remember Pong (which was 60fps), then you must also remember the 8-bit and 16-bit days, when 60fps (or I guess 50fps in your region) was the norm on consoles! 30fps was always a compromise used to push graphics that the hardware couldn't comfortably handle, whether that be early 3D before 2000, "HD" rendering in the 7th gen, or slightly "juicier effects and lighting" today.
I understand your point- that poor performance was commonplace from 2005-2020 or so- but it's really not accurate to speak of 60fps like it's some new invention that we didn't already have 30+ years ago, or that only young people would care about.
As for what changed to make people start caring about 60fps, that's a topic for a whole other rant. Personally, I've been grumpy and entitled for ~20 years, ever since I figured out why some of my games were so juddery and hard to see, while others looked smooth!
@FatGuyInLilCoat Unfortunately, a lot of people have become aware of this and started keeping sealed copies of things in more recent years, so these kinds of items aren't going to be so rare in the future.
On the other hand, I've been telling myself that, and certain products have still managed to increase in value, so...
@darkswabber Thanks for bringing up DoesItPlay- it's good to have a source with actual facts regarding this! However, as the numbers on that site show, there are many games that don't work fully without a download, even on PS5 and Switch. Yes, it's a major exaggeration to say that physical games are all just tokens now, but there's still some truth in it.
@Pabpictu It makes sense the first time around, when there's just a single S and a single X. But once the new consoles come along, the high-end machine (e.g., Xbox One X) then turns into a low-end/budget option, and now players are getting either the budget experience or finding out that they can't play at all... despite having the premium "X" edition.
@BAMozzy I agree that there's lots of room for technological advancement, and there always will be. There's always the possibility of larger crowds, more extensive RT, etc... and of course, true 4K at 120fps! Even today's games could be easily tweaked or expanded to make use of at least 4x the resources... but then, that just goes back to the issue of diminishing returns. How much better would they look and play? Would we even notice?
At this point, I feel that the hardware is good enough, and it all comes down to priorities: today's systems (even Series S!) can already produce gorgeous graphics at upwards of 1080p and 60fps, so as long as devs choose performance over pushing past the limits, I'm fine with where things are for now.
Regarding RT, "fake" shadows and reflections have been used very effectively for decades, long before RT was viable. In fact, those exact examples you gave were both in the Resident Evil remake on GameCube! RT offers greater fidelity, but it's an incremental thing. (RT seems like a bigger upgrade than it is, only because modern games all use techniques like SSR, which is so much worse than what Resident Evil and Mario Sunshine did in 2002!)
AI, on the other hand... I find that idea intriguing. I don't know if it would actually make the games more fun, but it would definitely be interesting if more games could allow the player to go "off-script" and then react accordingly.
@masofdas @BAMozzy Yeah, it's easy to forget how short each generation used to be. 5-6 years was the norm, but the Xbox only lasted 4 years until the 360 showed up, and GBA only got 3 years before the so-called "third pillar" DS started killing it off.
But this one still feels short. I chalk it up to a mix between getting old (5 years feels a lot longer when it's a third of your life!) and the diminishing returns of new hardware.
We're never going to see another leap like N64 to GameCube, and new generations don't really bring new gameplay or even presentation innovations that the previous gen couldn't already do, so why bother pushing a 5-year cycle at this point? I would be okay with 10-year generations, as long as devs stay within the systems' limitations, and I can't be the only one who feels that way.
As a few others have mentioned, it's not so much that these kinds of games have disappeared. Rather, it's mostly indies that cover that ground now. But indies don't always scratch that itch, the way an actual 6th-gen game can. I think the AA and AAA games of yesteryear sit in a no man's land: between today's monstrous AAAs on one hand, and most indies on the other. There's something different about non-AAA games (at least by today's standards) that were given a AA/AAA budget.
@NicolausCamp Some games were passed over by MS, despite the publishers being willing to put them on BC. In Blur's case, among many others, it was most likely a licensing issue, but I'm sure there are plenty of other games (especially on the original Xbox) that MS could've added before closing the back compat program.
@NEStalgia Hm, that's a fair point about the production runs. The OG Xbox infamously had a lot of variation in its quality/durability, thanks to the three or more DVD drive manufacturers. And various consoles have had die shrinks, sound chip replacements, etc., throughout their lifetime. Still no performance variation outside of actual revisions (e.g., Xbox One S), though.
Is it normal for consoles to actually heat up enough to start throttling under normal use, now? This used to be unheard of. If so, I could see that costing a few frames for some less-lucky owners.
PS: About binning (or the lack thereof), some of the better ones are already overclocked a fair bit, even out of the box- or maybe you were already taking that into consideration. Hey, remember the Pentium G3258? At least some of those must've been top-of-the-line i7s with half their cores disabled, as they were absolute beasts. They already punched above their weight at stock speed, and could reportedly approach 5 GHz with some luck. That was a cool little CPU. And its name and pricing indicated that it was pretty much bottom of the barrel.
@NEStalgia @themightyant @Th3_Highlander The thing with the silicon lottery is that the better chips for PC will typically be overclocked and/or sold as a higher-end OC-friendly model ("Turbo OC Xtreme Edition" or whatever).
But with consoles, all of them are clocked to the same frequency, regardless of what they're capable of. Sure, some PS5s could probably get a nice overclock going, whereas others have next to no headroom before they become unstable, but you won't see any of that unless you mod your system. Sony made them all the same.
The complexity of modern environments (esp. having an OS in the background) does introduce a lot of variables, and I have had games malfunction (run extremely slowly, glitch out, or outright crash) on Xbone, especially after resuming a session- whereas these issues were both rarer and more predictable on old consoles like GameCube. So maybe there's more variance than I've observed so far. I just doubt that the hardware itself is the culprit in most cases!
@dskatter In fairness, I also find that their nitpicking over minor image quality details can be boring. I follow DF mainly for their DF Retro episodes, where they explain and appreciate the ingenuity of devs squeezing the most out of limited hardware. And I'll occasionally refer to them to find out whether a game runs at 60fps on a certain platform or not.
But for those who own a PS5 and Series X, and want to know where they can get the best experience with a specific game, I can see how even the nitpicking would carry some appeal. Seems that DF covers a few different niches, and not all of them are for me!
@Th3_Highlander This doesn't make sense to me. How can two of the exact same console perform differently? Manufacturers set the components to a specific speed, a lowest common denominator that every unit can safely hit. So if some units can do 2.5 GHz safely, while others will become unstable above 2 GHz, then manufacturers will just cap them all at 2 GHz for stability and consistency. (There may be defective units that can't even maintain that lower speed, but those will be rejected.)
Not disputing that you've gotten different results than others have reported, but the explanation for this is usually subjective statements (e.g., someone saying "it runs fine for me", when they just don't notice the performance issues). Or besides that, performance could be affected by settings like output resolution, or even variations in the game scenario that cause a heavier load on the hardware (lots of characters gathered in one space, or a lot of smoke briefly covering the camera, etc.).
If you have examples of the exact same scenario running differently on the exact same hardware configuration, then that would be very interesting to see, and I'd be curious to hear more! But that has never happened in consoles, to my recollection (outside of a system outright malfunctioning, due to issues like overheating or a dying disc drive).
@Thumper And that's the high-end console. The Series S is doing 450p and sub-30fps, like a Switch game. Then there were games like Sonic Adventure, which delivered a full 480p at a mostly stable 30fps... in 1998!
@Trmn8r I'm not sure I follow. You're talking about game streaming, right? XCloud just has to send a half-decent video feed. Streaming a video is very different from, and much less intensive than, sending high-resolution assets to the player's console. Or does XCloud also have more specialized capabilities that I haven't heard about?
I get that the cloud can do all kinds of intensive processing, pre-calculating physics and visual effects (or running entire games remotely), but ultimately, that stuff all has to get sent to the console in a compact form after it's rendered, and that bottleneck prevents most of the really game-changing proposals from being as grand as they're supposed to be.
Are you picturing the environment textures essentially being replaced by a giant FMV (which is itself pulling from a high-fidelity rendered environment on the server)?
@Trmn8r Oh, I get that. But even streaming (some of) the textures would take a crazy amount of bandwidth, well beyond what a typical internet connection can handle. Consider how many games already struggle to load their textures off an HDD with gigabit+ transfer speeds!
If the textures are so big that disk space (and streaming speed) is an issue, then anything the internet can do is just a drop in the bucket.
This whole thing just seems strange, like an excuse to be always-online... or if nothing else, it's a solution in search of a problem.
This makes no sense. If you have a 100 Mb/s internet connection (which many people don't), that works out to just 12 MB/s, which is slower than an Xbox 360's DVD drive. For an idea of what internet-based texture streaming would typically be capable of, just look at RAGE's megatextures when run directly off the DVD (it's not ideal).
Even a regular 7200 RPM hard drive can load data at upwards of a gigabit per second, which is faster than pretty much anyone's internet connection.
@HonestHick Not even the 5th gen? To be fair, I've never played on a real Saturn, but the PS1 controller was solid, decently comfortable, and great for older games- and the "Dual Shock" specifically was more ergonomic, durable, and... well, normal than the N64's controller.
But yeah, I don't care for the left stick being so low in general, nor for the mushy pressure-sensitive buttons on the PS2, nor for the small, angular form factor on the first several versions. And especially not for the convex, downward-tilted, hard plastic triggers on the PS3! Baffling that it even reached QA, let alone passing!
@HonestHick What, you didn't like having your fingers slip off the triggers and almost make you lose your grip on the controller every time you tried to shoot something?
What would this even be? There's already a full graphical remake on the MCC, and you can flip back to the original graphics for what's effectively a 4K HFR remaster.
Will it be more of a reimagining, then, with actual gameplay changes and new content? Anything else would just be redundant.
@BAMozzy It puts the whole physical vs digital debate in perspective, doesn't it? We all know the downsides of digital (particularly when DRM and live services are involved) by now. But on the other hand, a digital game keeps producing endless copies until its delisting, which can be decades after release!
@themightyant Part of me wants to agree with you about the hoarding, especially when I see people celebrating over some lost shovelware being recovered, or a ~100% complete "beta" build being dumped.
But then I remember how some of my favourite games aren't all that popular, and they wouldn't make the cut if we were to only preserve the best and most important items.
Like Vexx, an Xbox platformer that boasts an impressive pedigree, and which was supposed to be a next-gen showcase of streaming and portal rendering tech, but got cut down and turned into a fairly typical game of its era. The end result didn't make any top 10 lists, nor would most people consider it historically significant. But its background is fascinating, and a build with the missing content would be my holy grail of prototypes. Not to mention that I enjoy the game itself!
So I have to wonder how many other games out there are cult classics, or have hidden historical connections and significance, or offer fascinating development stories. I might not specifically care, but others do.
@Pastellioli Keep in mind that this article is only covering the exclusives- and fortunately, there aren't that many!
All in all, I see 1,279 games on the Xbox 360 Marketplace, all of which are being delisted when the store shuts down. That includes the 200+ digital games we've seen mentioned in previous articles, as well as digital versions of disc-based games.
@rustyduck The Xbox 360 Marketplace is effectively a separate storefront from the modern Xbox store. Keeping this separate store up takes resources, and MS no doubt sees the diminishing returns that it brings. I don't know all of the inner workings, but I'm sure it's a lot simpler and cheaper to just keep a few distribution servers running, compared to having those plus the storefront and all of the payment processing stuff.
Many 360 games (the back compat ones) will remain available on the modern store for the foreseeable future.
I'm always disappointed to see games being delisted, and I still want MS to reopen the back compat program and add more games, but it is understandable that they'd shut down such an old service that barely gets any use. This store is nearly 20 years old, and it exclusively runs on a console that's older than the Wii!
The One S has been solid so far, but I've only had about 5 years or so.
I got a bunch of OGs, on the other hand, and 3 or 4 of them have problems with the DVD drive (one is even a Samsung, i.e., the good kind... go figure).
You know what system is tied with the OG Xbox for problems, in my experience? The GameCube. Yes, the same console that's proven to survive a 15-foot drop onto concrete. I had to return mine twice within the warranty period, as the first one was prone to random crashes, and the second developed disc read errors in under a year. The third one is fine... but I later got a spare console, and it had a dead power supply!
PS: In case it needs to be said, I don't drop my consoles onto concrete! I let others do it. For science.
Regarding open-world fatigue: one thing that's neat about Mad Max is that you don't have to spend much time on open-world busywork. Max is already pretty powerful from the start, and the Batman-like combat isn't all that difficult, so you could probably get to the end in 10 hours if you ignore all the side stuff.
For what it's worth, this game held my interest long enough for me to do the majority of the side content anyway, but I haven't played all that many open-world games (yet)!
PS: Side note: I had a lot of fun blowing things up in Just Cause 3, another Avalanche game from the same year(!), but that one artificially gates all of the story content and forces you to clear a certain percentage of fluff from the map. That one started to overstay its welcome, unfortunately.
@Darude84 Yeah, I suppose his review can be a bit wordy at times, now that I'm looking at it again. I made an attempt at rewriting the last paragraph:
Hellblade 2 is the best-looking game we've ever played. It sounds incredible, Melina Juergens puts a lot of skill and effort into her acting, and technically, this game is above all others.
However, we still don't feel that turning Senua's struggle into a longer journey/series is a good idea. As we had feared, this sequel does the same things as the original, but it's not as powerful this time.
It's no longer unique or important in 2024, and it tries to compensate by being louder and more intense. It's a good and interesting game for eight hours, but it's not a "must-play". Weak combat and boring puzzles only hurt it more.
I'm one of the weird ones who started with an Xbone!
It was a combination of Rare Replay, Halo MCC, and backwards compatibility, plus Blu-Ray support and that low price (half as much as a Switch!) as bonuses.
I got a couple of OG Xboxes for free later on, and it has been fun to do a bit of catching up on this great system that I didn't play much during its time.
@BAMozzy You brought to mind a quote that I can't remember exactly, but it was something along the lines of, "Our job is to help the studios make their games, not to force them to make ours."
There have been so, so many times that- like you said- publishers and bosses have not lived by this, choosing to force their people/companies to do things they're not good at, instead of harnessing their passions and skills.
Really not interested in portable systems in general... but if I did need one for some reason, it would have to run the games natively, as that's the whole point of being portable! Apparently, there's a larger market for a cloud-based handheld than I had thought, but regardless, it has absolutely zero appeal to me, both in principle and in practice.
@AshKirin19 The mention of "suffering" was a bit much, I agree (assuming there isn't some missing context that drastically changes everything!), but when they're spending $500+ on a console, are they not entitled to good games and good technical performance?
I'm sure we could all stand to be more thankful in general (I know I could), but these are expensive products, not gifts. That's where I take issue with the whole "entitlement" spiel.
Comments 291
Re: Random: Xbox Extends Phil Spencer's PS5 Controller Joke
@PsBoxSwitchOwner
https://i.imgur.com/Rsiv7bx.png
Re: Nintendo And The Pokémon Company File Lawsuit Against Palworld Developer
@NEStalgia This is interesting to hear, but something's not adding up: SMT came out in 1992, didn't it? Pokémon was planned out in 1990 (though not finished until 1996, of course), and the monster capturing/trading mechanics were described in detail in its original design doc- with storyboards and everything!
GF also released their first game (Mendel Palace) in 1989.
So if Tajiri looked at SMT, it may have been more of a comparison thing, and not so much about drawing inspiration from it.
Re: Darksiders 2 To Receive Free 'Remastered' Upgrade For Xbox Series X|S
Seems that they might've jumped the gun on calling the previous version "Deathinitive", then. Is this one even more deathinitiver?
Great game(s), but I hope they finally fix the glitches this time. DS2 easily crashes (at least on PC) if you try to shoot a certain DLC boss while it's flying, and this reportedly carried over from the original release. DS1 also had smaller bugs that persisted in its remaster, like a treasure chest that couldn't be opened.
Re: Ubisoft Hints At Potential 60FPS Xbox Update Coming To Assassin's Creed Syndicate
@evan23 @themightyant Yes, Unity has supported 60fps on Series S/X for a few years now, as part of the FPS Boost program.
Re: Starfield's 60FPS Mode Put Through Its Paces On Xbox Series S
@BAMozzy Yeah, I'm all for last-gen games finally being able to run smoothly, now that they've been unshackled from their potato console limitations. Seeing a huge leap forward and 60fps (like we did in the PS2 generation) would be great, but that kind of thing rarely happens now, so I'm fine with smaller visual upgrades if that's what it takes to keep things running smoothly. It's not as if most last-gen games are ugly!
I actually didn't buy a console... or a modern PC. All of the options right now are too expensive, and all of them (short of a 4090, apparently) get lacklustre performance in many of the latest games.
The problem isn't just with the consoles being too weak, as this time around, they're actually pretty capable. Plus, even beefy PCs are struggling more than they have in a long time. It's fine if ultra deluxe settings don't work well on today's hardware, but if you have to turn the game into a blurry mess just to hit 60fps, then something's wrong (especially considering how good a lot of cross-gen games look by comparison).
So I'm just staying on decade-old hardware for now, wondering if my next PC build will even be able to run today's games properly, or if I'll have to wait for the next one after that!
Re: Starfield's 60FPS Mode Put Through Its Paces On Xbox Series S
@BAMozzy More games should just target Xbox One and PS4 specs, and then they'll have the room to scale up from there.
But when they do that, people just complain that it's not "next-gen", so I guess there's no winning here. (Personally, just give me 60fps every time... preferably with decent visual quality, but last-gen graphics are perfectly fine.)
Re: Stalker 2 Hits The Headlines For Apparently Running At '25FPS' On Xbox Series S
@RadioHedgeFund Good point, and a lot of people seem to miss that: a more conservative approach to graphics tech lets you crank the framerate, resolution, draw distance, texture res, etc., up to the max, whereas going all-out on fancy RT or whatever forces you to rein those things in.
The high-end game can actually look worse as a result, especially when it has to be scaled down for Series S, etc.!
Re: Stalker 2 Hits The Headlines For Apparently Running At '25FPS' On Xbox Series S
@GamingFan4Lyf I heard a quote somewhere, along the lines of:
"When a studio makes a properly functioning game, it's a miracle. If it's fun to play, that's another miracle."
It makes my head spin, seeing the number of moving parts that all have to come together to make a game work, like all of the assets that have to be created, imported, and then dynamically loaded and unloaded. Or the flags that keep track of the states of a thousand different events and objects (and where the game can become unwinnable if just one of these flags is set incorrectly).
However, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect games to run smoothly today, and that's solely because we've seen it done so many times before, on equal or weaker hardware.
In a vacuum, I might say it's impressive to make the Series S display anything at 60fps (at least when any coding is involved, as it's not like I could do better at this point), but we've seen gorgeous games running at 60fps on the Series S, One S, OG Xbox, etc., so the bar has been set.
Re: Obsidian Confirms That Avowed Runs At 30FPS On Xbox Series X|S
@ZYDIO To be fair, the past two generations had pretty abysmal performance: almost all large-scale games ran at 30fps and lower, and the Xbone/PS4 in particular had painfully slow load times.
This current generation has got to be up there with the 6th gen for performance: 60fps is commonplace again, and loading is back down to a few seconds in most cases.
I do agree, though, that every new game should have been 60fps (or included it as an option), starting in 2020. We already know that open-world games with beautiful graphics can do 60fps on a potato system, so hardware isn't the issue.
To be clear, I'm not saying "devs need to stop being lazy", but rather that 60fps needs to be a priority/baseline for every game, without exception. Yes, the graphics will be a little less fancy, and I'm okay with that.
Re: Talking Point: Does Microsoft Have A '30FPS' Problem With Its Xbox Series X|S Output?
I have mixed feelings regarding Series S, but I'm really skeptical about the idea that it's causing games to run poorly on Series X.
If anything, it should be the opposite: if devs can get their games to run at 30fps on Series S, then that guarantees a ton of headroom (especially on the GPU) to get these games looking and running better on Series X.
I suspect that games are instead targeting hardware above Series X's capabilities. Then, they have to be optimized- or just as likely scaled down- for XSX, and then further downgraded to get some semblance of stability on XSS.
If devs targeted XSS, or Switch... or GameCube specs (as an extreme example!), then it'd be a piece of cake to hit 4K60 consistently without sacrificing clarity or draw distance. But it would be at the expense of all the bells and whistles, of course.
Re: Obsidian Confirms That Avowed Runs At 30FPS On Xbox Series X|S
@Fiendish-Beaver If you remember Pong (which was 60fps), then you must also remember the 8-bit and 16-bit days, when 60fps (or I guess 50fps in your region) was the norm on consoles!
30fps was always a compromise used to push graphics that the hardware couldn't comfortably handle, whether that be early 3D before 2000, "HD" rendering in the 7th gen, or slightly "juicier effects and lighting" today.
I understand your point- that poor performance was commonplace from 2005-2020 or so- but it's really not accurate to speak of 60fps like it's some new invention that we didn't already have 30+ years ago, or that only young people would care about.
As for what changed to make people start caring about 60fps, that's a topic for a whole other rant. Personally, I've been grumpy and entitled for ~20 years, ever since I figured out why some of my games were so juddery and hard to see, while others looked smooth!
Re: Random: Xbox Fan Discovers Their '$13K' Copy Of Halo Is Only Worth $25
@FatGuyInLilCoat Unfortunately, a lot of people have become aware of this and started keeping sealed copies of things in more recent years, so these kinds of items aren't going to be so rare in the future.
On the other hand, I've been telling myself that, and certain products have still managed to increase in value, so...
Re: GameStop Takes Jab At Xbox 360 Store Closure, Backfires Immediately
@darkswabber Thanks for bringing up DoesItPlay- it's good to have a source with actual facts regarding this!
However, as the numbers on that site show, there are many games that don't work fully without a download, even on PS5 and Switch. Yes, it's a major exaggeration to say that physical games are all just tokens now, but there's still some truth in it.
Re: Xbox 360 Store Completely Removed From Console Dashboard After Shutdown
Hey, Microsoft finally managed to deliver an ad-free dashboard, and it only took what, 13 years?
Re: Four Years Later, People Are Still Getting Confused By Xbox's 'Horrible' Console Names
@Pabpictu It makes sense the first time around, when there's just a single S and a single X.
But once the new consoles come along, the high-end machine (e.g., Xbox One X) then turns into a low-end/budget option, and now players are getting either the budget experience or finding out that they can't play at all... despite having the premium "X" edition.
Re: Talking Point: Do You Think This Generation Will Be A Short One?
@BAMozzy I agree that there's lots of room for technological advancement, and there always will be. There's always the possibility of larger crowds, more extensive RT, etc... and of course, true 4K at 120fps! Even today's games could be easily tweaked or expanded to make use of at least 4x the resources... but then, that just goes back to the issue of diminishing returns. How much better would they look and play? Would we even notice?
At this point, I feel that the hardware is good enough, and it all comes down to priorities: today's systems (even Series S!) can already produce gorgeous graphics at upwards of 1080p and 60fps, so as long as devs choose performance over pushing past the limits, I'm fine with where things are for now.
Regarding RT, "fake" shadows and reflections have been used very effectively for decades, long before RT was viable. In fact, those exact examples you gave were both in the Resident Evil remake on GameCube! RT offers greater fidelity, but it's an incremental thing. (RT seems like a bigger upgrade than it is, only because modern games all use techniques like SSR, which is so much worse than what Resident Evil and Mario Sunshine did in 2002!)
AI, on the other hand... I find that idea intriguing. I don't know if it would actually make the games more fun, but it would definitely be interesting if more games could allow the player to go "off-script" and then react accordingly.
Re: Talking Point: Do You Think This Generation Will Be A Short One?
@masofdas @BAMozzy Yeah, it's easy to forget how short each generation used to be. 5-6 years was the norm, but the Xbox only lasted 4 years until the 360 showed up, and GBA only got 3 years before the so-called "third pillar" DS started killing it off.
But this one still feels short. I chalk it up to a mix between getting old (5 years feels a lot longer when it's a third of your life!) and the diminishing returns of new hardware.
We're never going to see another leap like N64 to GameCube, and new generations don't really bring new gameplay or even presentation innovations that the previous gen couldn't already do, so why bother pushing a 5-year cycle at this point? I would be okay with 10-year generations, as long as devs stay within the systems' limitations, and I can't be the only one who feels that way.
Re: Soapbox: I Miss The Type Of Pick-Up-And-Play Games We Got On Original Xbox
As a few others have mentioned, it's not so much that these kinds of games have disappeared. Rather, it's mostly indies that cover that ground now.
But indies don't always scratch that itch, the way an actual 6th-gen game can. I think the AA and AAA games of yesteryear sit in a no man's land: between today's monstrous AAAs on one hand, and most indies on the other.
There's something different about non-AAA games (at least by today's standards) that were given a AA/AAA budget.
Re: 'Blur' Is An Xbox 360 Classic That Deserves Backwards Compatibility
@NicolausCamp Some games were passed over by MS, despite the publishers being willing to put them on BC.
In Blur's case, among many others, it was most likely a licensing issue, but I'm sure there are plenty of other games (especially on the original Xbox) that MS could've added before closing the back compat program.
Re: Digital Foundry Explores Why Some Games 'Run Better' On PS5 Than Xbox Series X
@NEStalgia Hm, that's a fair point about the production runs. The OG Xbox infamously had a lot of variation in its quality/durability, thanks to the three or more DVD drive manufacturers. And various consoles have had die shrinks, sound chip replacements, etc., throughout their lifetime.
Still no performance variation outside of actual revisions (e.g., Xbox One S), though.
Is it normal for consoles to actually heat up enough to start throttling under normal use, now? This used to be unheard of. If so, I could see that costing a few frames for some less-lucky owners.
PS: About binning (or the lack thereof), some of the better ones are already overclocked a fair bit, even out of the box- or maybe you were already taking that into consideration.
Hey, remember the Pentium G3258? At least some of those must've been top-of-the-line i7s with half their cores disabled, as they were absolute beasts. They already punched above their weight at stock speed, and could reportedly approach 5 GHz with some luck. That was a cool little CPU. And its name and pricing indicated that it was pretty much bottom of the barrel.
Re: Digital Foundry Explores Why Some Games 'Run Better' On PS5 Than Xbox Series X
@NEStalgia @themightyant @Th3_Highlander
The thing with the silicon lottery is that the better chips for PC will typically be overclocked and/or sold as a higher-end OC-friendly model ("Turbo OC Xtreme Edition" or whatever).
But with consoles, all of them are clocked to the same frequency, regardless of what they're capable of. Sure, some PS5s could probably get a nice overclock going, whereas others have next to no headroom before they become unstable, but you won't see any of that unless you mod your system. Sony made them all the same.
The complexity of modern environments (esp. having an OS in the background) does introduce a lot of variables, and I have had games malfunction (run extremely slowly, glitch out, or outright crash) on Xbone, especially after resuming a session- whereas these issues were both rarer and more predictable on old consoles like GameCube.
So maybe there's more variance than I've observed so far. I just doubt that the hardware itself is the culprit in most cases!
Re: Digital Foundry Explores Why Some Games 'Run Better' On PS5 Than Xbox Series X
@dskatter In fairness, I also find that their nitpicking over minor image quality details can be boring. I follow DF mainly for their DF Retro episodes, where they explain and appreciate the ingenuity of devs squeezing the most out of limited hardware. And I'll occasionally refer to them to find out whether a game runs at 60fps on a certain platform or not.
But for those who own a PS5 and Series X, and want to know where they can get the best experience with a specific game, I can see how even the nitpicking would carry some appeal. Seems that DF covers a few different niches, and not all of them are for me!
Re: Digital Foundry Explores Why Some Games 'Run Better' On PS5 Than Xbox Series X
@Th3_Highlander This doesn't make sense to me. How can two of the exact same console perform differently? Manufacturers set the components to a specific speed, a lowest common denominator that every unit can safely hit. So if some units can do 2.5 GHz safely, while others will become unstable above 2 GHz, then manufacturers will just cap them all at 2 GHz for stability and consistency. (There may be defective units that can't even maintain that lower speed, but those will be rejected.)
Not disputing that you've gotten different results than others have reported, but the explanation for this is usually subjective statements (e.g., someone saying "it runs fine for me", when they just don't notice the performance issues). Or besides that, performance could be affected by settings like output resolution, or even variations in the game scenario that cause a heavier load on the hardware (lots of characters gathered in one space, or a lot of smoke briefly covering the camera, etc.).
If you have examples of the exact same scenario running differently on the exact same hardware configuration, then that would be very interesting to see, and I'd be curious to hear more! But that has never happened in consoles, to my recollection (outside of a system outright malfunctioning, due to issues like overheating or a dying disc drive).
Re: Digital Foundry Tests Ark: Survival Ascended On Xbox, And The Results Are Pretty Shocking
@Thumper And that's the high-end console. The Series S is doing 450p and sub-30fps, like a Switch game.
Then there were games like Sonic Adventure, which delivered a full 480p at a mostly stable 30fps... in 1998!
Re: Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 Will Require A 'Continuous' Internet Connection (Yes, Even Campaign)
@Trmn8r I'm not sure I follow. You're talking about game streaming, right? XCloud just has to send a half-decent video feed. Streaming a video is very different from, and much less intensive than, sending high-resolution assets to the player's console. Or does XCloud also have more specialized capabilities that I haven't heard about?
I get that the cloud can do all kinds of intensive processing, pre-calculating physics and visual effects (or running entire games remotely), but ultimately, that stuff all has to get sent to the console in a compact form after it's rendered, and that bottleneck prevents most of the really game-changing proposals from being as grand as they're supposed to be.
Are you picturing the environment textures essentially being replaced by a giant FMV (which is itself pulling from a high-fidelity rendered environment on the server)?
Re: Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 Will Require A 'Continuous' Internet Connection (Yes, Even Campaign)
@Trmn8r Oh, I get that. But even streaming (some of) the textures would take a crazy amount of bandwidth, well beyond what a typical internet connection can handle. Consider how many games already struggle to load their textures off an HDD with gigabit+ transfer speeds!
If the textures are so big that disk space (and streaming speed) is an issue, then anything the internet can do is just a drop in the bucket.
This whole thing just seems strange, like an excuse to be always-online... or if nothing else, it's a solution in search of a problem.
Re: Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 Will Require A 'Continuous' Internet Connection (Yes, Even Campaign)
This makes no sense. If you have a 100 Mb/s internet connection (which many people don't), that works out to just 12 MB/s, which is slower than an Xbox 360's DVD drive. For an idea of what internet-based texture streaming would typically be capable of, just look at RAGE's megatextures when run directly off the DVD (it's not ideal).
Even a regular 7200 RPM hard drive can load data at upwards of a gigabit per second, which is faster than pretty much anyone's internet connection.
Re: Report: Xbox Is Working On A Halo Remaster, Also 'Considering' PS5 Release
@InterceptorAlpha I, for one, can't wait to play a remake of the remaster of the remake of the port of the original!
Re: Report: Xbox Is Working On A Halo Remaster, Also 'Considering' PS5 Release
@HonestHick Not even the 5th gen? To be fair, I've never played on a real Saturn, but the PS1 controller was solid, decently comfortable, and great for older games- and the "Dual Shock" specifically was more ergonomic, durable, and... well, normal than the N64's controller.
But yeah, I don't care for the left stick being so low in general, nor for the mushy pressure-sensitive buttons on the PS2, nor for the small, angular form factor on the first several versions. And especially not for the convex, downward-tilted, hard plastic triggers on the PS3! Baffling that it even reached QA, let alone passing!
Re: Report: Xbox Is Working On A Halo Remaster, Also 'Considering' PS5 Release
@Grumblevolcano So do you think this will be a remake, or just a basic remaster? I don't quite follow.
TLoU on PS4 was a straightforward remaster, whereas everything was rebuilt for the PS5 remake. But in Halo's case, it already had the remake in 2011!
Re: Report: Xbox Is Working On A Halo Remaster, Also 'Considering' PS5 Release
@HonestHick What, you didn't like having your fingers slip off the triggers and almost make you lose your grip on the controller every time you tried to shoot something?
Re: Report: Xbox Is Working On A Halo Remaster, Also 'Considering' PS5 Release
What would this even be? There's already a full graphical remake on the MCC, and you can flip back to the original graphics for what's effectively a 4K HFR remaster.
Will it be more of a reimagining, then, with actual gameplay changes and new content? Anything else would just be redundant.
Re: Here's The Complete List Of Xbox 360 Exclusives Disappearing This July
@BAMozzy It puts the whole physical vs digital debate in perspective, doesn't it?
We all know the downsides of digital (particularly when DRM and live services are involved) by now. But on the other hand, a digital game keeps producing endless copies until its delisting, which can be decades after release!
Re: Here's The Complete List Of Xbox 360 Exclusives Disappearing This July
@themightyant Part of me wants to agree with you about the hoarding, especially when I see people celebrating over some lost shovelware being recovered, or a ~100% complete "beta" build being dumped.
But then I remember how some of my favourite games aren't all that popular, and they wouldn't make the cut if we were to only preserve the best and most important items.
Like Vexx, an Xbox platformer that boasts an impressive pedigree, and which was supposed to be a next-gen showcase of streaming and portal rendering tech, but got cut down and turned into a fairly typical game of its era. The end result didn't make any top 10 lists, nor would most people consider it historically significant. But its background is fascinating, and a build with the missing content would be my holy grail of prototypes. Not to mention that I enjoy the game itself!
So I have to wonder how many other games out there are cult classics, or have hidden historical connections and significance, or offer fascinating development stories. I might not specifically care, but others do.
Re: Here's The Complete List Of Xbox 360 Exclusives Disappearing This July
@Spider-Kev Advent Rising is on the modern store (through the modern back compat program), so it won't be affected. It's also available on PC.
Re: Here's The Complete List Of Xbox 360 Exclusives Disappearing This July
@Pastellioli Keep in mind that this article is only covering the exclusives- and fortunately, there aren't that many!
All in all, I see 1,279 games on the Xbox 360 Marketplace, all of which are being delisted when the store shuts down.
That includes the 200+ digital games we've seen mentioned in previous articles, as well as digital versions of disc-based games.
Re: Here's The Complete List Of Xbox 360 Exclusives Disappearing This July
@rustyduck The Xbox 360 Marketplace is effectively a separate storefront from the modern Xbox store. Keeping this separate store up takes resources, and MS no doubt sees the diminishing returns that it brings.
I don't know all of the inner workings, but I'm sure it's a lot simpler and cheaper to just keep a few distribution servers running, compared to having those plus the storefront and all of the payment processing stuff.
Many 360 games (the back compat ones) will remain available on the modern store for the foreseeable future.
I'm always disappointed to see games being delisted, and I still want MS to reopen the back compat program and add more games, but it is understandable that they'd shut down such an old service that barely gets any use. This store is nearly 20 years old, and it exclusively runs on a console that's older than the Wii!
Re: Talking Point: Which Has Been The Most Reliable Xbox Console For You?
The One S has been solid so far, but I've only had about 5 years or so.
I got a bunch of OGs, on the other hand, and 3 or 4 of them have problems with the DVD drive (one is even a Samsung, i.e., the good kind... go figure).
You know what system is tied with the OG Xbox for problems, in my experience? The GameCube. Yes, the same console that's proven to survive a 15-foot drop onto concrete. I had to return mine twice within the warranty period, as the first one was prone to random crashes, and the second developed disc read errors in under a year. The third one is fine... but I later got a spare console, and it had a dead power supply!
PS: In case it needs to be said, I don't drop my consoles onto concrete! I let others do it. For science.
Re: Mad Max Dev Takes Offense At 'Nonsense' Criticism Of The 2015 Video Game
Regarding open-world fatigue: one thing that's neat about Mad Max is that you don't have to spend much time on open-world busywork. Max is already pretty powerful from the start, and the Batman-like combat isn't all that difficult, so you could probably get to the end in 10 hours if you ignore all the side stuff.
For what it's worth, this game held my interest long enough for me to do the majority of the side content anyway, but I haven't played all that many open-world games (yet)!
PS: Side note: I had a lot of fun blowing things up in Just Cause 3, another Avalanche game from the same year(!), but that one artificially gates all of the story content and forces you to clear a certain percentage of fluff from the map. That one started to overstay its welcome, unfortunately.
Re: Mad Max Dev Takes Offense At 'Nonsense' Criticism Of The 2015 Video Game
@TJ81 Wait, what? Next, you'll be telling us that there are two game studios named Monolith.
Re: Review: Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 (Xbox): An Incredible Spectacle That Lacks An Essential Hook
@Darude84 Yeah, I suppose his review can be a bit wordy at times, now that I'm looking at it again. I made an attempt at rewriting the last paragraph:
Hellblade 2 is the best-looking game we've ever played. It sounds incredible, Melina Juergens puts a lot of skill and effort into her acting, and technically, this game is above all others.
However, we still don't feel that turning Senua's struggle into a longer journey/series is a good idea. As we had feared, this sequel does the same things as the original, but it's not as powerful this time.
It's no longer unique or important in 2024, and it tries to compensate by being louder and more intense. It's a good and interesting game for eight hours, but it's not a "must-play". Weak combat and boring puzzles only hurt it more.
Re: Hypercharge: Unboxed Dev Reveals FPS & Resolution Targets For Xbox
60fps even on last-gen consoles? Split-screen support? Are we back in the '00s again?
Re: Talking Point: What Convinced You To Pick Xbox In The First Place?
@armondo36 So it was actually Dead or Alive 3 that convinced you, but Rallisport makes for a convenient cover.
I just picked them both up somewhat recently. Haven't properly gotten into either, but they both look great!
Re: Talking Point: What Convinced You To Pick Xbox In The First Place?
I'm one of the weird ones who started with an Xbone!
It was a combination of Rare Replay, Halo MCC, and backwards compatibility, plus Blu-Ray support and that low price (half as much as a Switch!) as bonuses.
I got a couple of OG Xboxes for free later on, and it has been fun to do a bit of catching up on this great system that I didn't play much during its time.
Re: Talking Point: What Convinced You To Pick Xbox In The First Place?
@Pastellioli Interesting to hear a different perspective from a latecomer appreciating those quality games from Rare's golden era!
Re: Random: Phil Spencer Seems To Be Preparing His Own Nuke Launch In Fallout 76
@Decimateh I think his villain arc has been going on for a while now.
When does his redemption arc start?
Re: Ex-Blizzard President On Xbox's Future: 'Xbox Can Find A Path To Great Success'
@BAMozzy You brought to mind a quote that I can't remember exactly, but it was something along the lines of, "Our job is to help the studios make their games, not to force them to make ours."
There have been so, so many times that- like you said- publishers and bosses have not lived by this, choosing to force their people/companies to do things they're not good at, instead of harnessing their passions and skills.
Re: Report Claims Xbox Is Planning More Cuts Following Studio Closures
Option A: Shut down two of the best studios, who have released critically acclaimed games and want to do more of what they're best at.
Option B: Switch Call of Duty to a biennial release schedule
Microsoft:
Re: Talking Point: Would You Mind If The Next Xbox Was A Portable Console?
Really not interested in portable systems in general... but if I did need one for some reason, it would have to run the games natively, as that's the whole point of being portable! Apparently, there's a larger market for a cloud-based handheld than I had thought, but regardless, it has absolutely zero appeal to me, both in principle and in practice.
Re: Talking Point: Would You Mind If The Next Xbox Was A Portable Console?
@AshKirin19 The mention of "suffering" was a bit much, I agree (assuming there isn't some missing context that drastically changes everything!), but when they're spending $500+ on a console, are they not entitled to good games and good technical performance?
I'm sure we could all stand to be more thankful in general (I know I could), but these are expensive products, not gifts. That's where I take issue with the whole "entitlement" spiel.