@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.
Sounds like The Evil Within all over again. Fortunately, that one ended up with options to disable the letterboxing and, more importantly, the 30fps cap!
No love for Funko Pops, but this actually looks like it could be good. Like a crazy Lego game with a ton of franchise crossovers, and shooting mechanics which add a bit more depth to the formula.
More games (especially from OG Xbox), and FPS Boost to bring as much of the library up to 60fps as is possible! Not just so I can carry my physical discs over, either: I'm interested in buying some of these if they're made available!
This idea has a lot more merit when you consider it in the context of getting a game at a deep discount, or for free. There have definitely been times that I've thought that the devs deserved more than I paid for a game.
On the other hand, there are so many ways that this can (and surely will!) go wrong, if companies actually implement it! (See the comments above for a few examples.)
Sounds like good news so far, whatever this is- even if details are non-existent. Hopefully, they'll bring more 360 and especially OG games to current platforms! And if not, at least it shows that they're taking the matter seriously and future-proofing today's games.
@Vaako007 We've already seen that today's hardware is capable of running gorgeous games at 4K60, so it's not a matter of it being impossible- just that things have to stay within certain limitations (and be decently optimized, of course).
Personally, I don't even care about resolution. Give me 1080p60, and I'm happy. Even 480i60 was perfectly fine on the TVs of yesteryear.
60fps has been possible for as long as video games have existed. There always has been- and always will be- the possibility of pushing the graphics/features harder, and settling for a low framerate, but many of us don't want that. Just do what it takes to keep it running at 60, and if it looks like a high-end PS4 game, so be it!
@AlienigenX There will always be someone who wants more, but I'm confident that it's only a small minority who think 60fps is inadequate, and that this will remain true during the next gen!
There's a big difference between 30 and 60, but even diehard framerate snobs will admit that going into the hundreds yields diminishing returns.
Most of us just want modern games to run at the same smooth rate as Devil May Cry (2001), Golden Axe (1989), etc.! It's not an especially high standard, nor is it remotely new, so it's all the more frustrating to see today's games still fail to hit that bar.
People kept saying that nothing pushed the limits of the PS5 or Series X, and that they wanted a "truly next-gen" experience. This is it: slightly better graphics, at a sluggish framerate that crawled out of the PS1 era.
I'll take slightly enhanced PS4 graphics at 60fps, any day! This generation isn't able to handle much more than that.
@RBRTMNZ That's odd- all I found was an infographic by Nintendo, showing that 20-somethings were the largest group. (That is also apparently skewed slightly, with a noticeable spike where younger kids reported their birthdate as 2000.)
I'll have to see what else I can dig up, but thanks for the tip on it being an investor report, as that should help with the search.
@RBRTMNZ If we're thinking about the same data that produced that average age, then there are some major caveats, most notably that it was a survey of adults: countless millions of kids and teens were excluded, drastically inflating the average!
Anecdotally, I'm inclined to think there are more gamers under 18 than there are over 30, but even if my observation is wrong, the average has to be lower than 33 (35, 36, whatever they're saying it is), especially if we're tracking core/frequent gamers.
@Neither_scene Interesting, indeed. Now that I think of it, it would be a reverse of the 7th gen, when PS3 used Nvidia graphics, and Xbox 360 had AMD (I guess it was ATI at the time, but still)!
Wonder what that would do to backwards compatibility...
Backwards compatibility (along with Blu-Ray playback, to a much lesser extent) was a key factor in purchasing a One S, and the BC games I play are split between physical and digital.
I'd have jumped on a Series X already, if it wasn't so expensive ($650 in Canada), but the lack of disc drive is a dealbreaker.
@armondo36 Just want to comment on this, as you're right, but there's one frustrating caveat: Games still don't universally offer a 60fps option, as devs continue to push past the limits of even what the Series X can comfortably handle. So while I'm not a hardcore, premium user by any stretch (my screens are 1080p and lower!), I find myself needing to go with high-end, premium hardware just to get decent performance. Except it's too expensive, so I usually just skip it altogether!
PS: In a bizarre twist, games like Starfield don't even take full advantage of a 70-year-old CRT's capabilities. It's just bizarre how we're seeing higher and higher resolution targets (or at least were, until ray tracing came into play), but can't even match 20th century temporal resolution standards.
I would mention how 60fps is available in the majority of games now, but I'm still on a last-gen potato, so that doesn't apply! 😅
Besides that, there's backwards compatibility, the comfortable controllers (which are also backward and forward compatible!), the ability to play any disc from CDs to UHD Blu-Rays, and the Rewards program!
Having watched through the video, this is not so much a Series S porting issue, but rather poor overall optimization. If even the Series X can't do 1080p 60fps consistently, then there's a problem! (If the X already struggles, then the S will inevitably be hit that much harder.)
@Felinox Judging by the system requirement sheet for DD2 that's been circulating, they're not even building for high end PCs- as not even a 4080 can run this very well!
They're building games for the future- kind of like Crysis, but without the cutting-edge graphics.
@VoidPunk That's a great point. It's ridiculous that some re-releases are effectively "demasters", which simply take an older game and make it worse. (See also: Silent Hill HD, etc.)
Even besides those really egregious cases, I've noticed that almost every remaster and remake in existence will omit, break, or change some small (or large!) element that people like: maybe the enhanced textures look less gritty, there's new censorship, the funny/charming dialogue was redone, a fun bug was patched out, or a graphical trick was lost in translation.
Even a really good remake can never replace the original, so the original should always remain available. And it goes without saying that remasters should strive to be faithful to the original- though ideally offering optional enhancements to try to deliver the "definitive" version.
@Fiendish-Beaver The Kinect doesn't work with Series S or X. In fact, the Kinect-based games are the only ones in the Xbone's entire library that can't be played on current-gen consoles.
Comments 321
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.
Re: Hellblade 2 Will Display With Black Bars Outside Of Ultrawide Mode
Sounds like The Evil Within all over again.
Fortunately, that one ended up with options to disable the letterboxing and, more importantly, the 30fps cap!
Re: 'Funko Fusion' Is Bringing Loads Of Licensed IP To Xbox In September 2024
No love for Funko Pops, but this actually looks like it could be good. Like a crazy Lego game with a ton of franchise crossovers, and shooting mechanics which add a bit more depth to the formula.
Re: Talking Point: What Do You Want To See From Xbox's New 'Game Preservation' Team?
More games (especially from OG Xbox), and FPS Boost to bring as much of the library up to 60fps as is possible!
Not just so I can carry my physical discs over, either: I'm interested in buying some of these if they're made available!
Re: Former Xbox Exec Likes The Idea Of 'Tipping' Developers After Beating Their Games
This idea has a lot more merit when you consider it in the context of getting a game at a deep discount, or for free. There have definitely been times that I've thought that the devs deserved more than I paid for a game.
On the other hand, there are so many ways that this can (and surely will!) go wrong, if companies actually implement it! (See the comments above for a few examples.)
Re: Xbox Establishes New Team Dedicated To 'Game Preservation And Forward Compatibility'
Sounds like good news so far, whatever this is- even if details are non-existent.
Hopefully, they'll bring more 360 and especially OG games to current platforms! And if not, at least it shows that they're taking the matter seriously and future-proofing today's games.
Re: Xbox Series X|S Versions Of Hellblade 2 Confirmed To Run At 30FPS
@Vaako007 We've already seen that today's hardware is capable of running gorgeous games at 4K60, so it's not a matter of it being impossible- just that things have to stay within certain limitations (and be decently optimized, of course).
Personally, I don't even care about resolution. Give me 1080p60, and I'm happy. Even 480i60 was perfectly fine on the TVs of yesteryear.
60fps has been possible for as long as video games have existed. There always has been- and always will be- the possibility of pushing the graphics/features harder, and settling for a low framerate, but many of us don't want that. Just do what it takes to keep it running at 60, and if it looks like a high-end PS4 game, so be it!
Re: Xbox Series X|S Versions Of Hellblade 2 Confirmed To Run At 30FPS
@AlienigenX There will always be someone who wants more, but I'm confident that it's only a small minority who think 60fps is inadequate, and that this will remain true during the next gen!
There's a big difference between 30 and 60, but even diehard framerate snobs will admit that going into the hundreds yields diminishing returns.
Most of us just want modern games to run at the same smooth rate as Devil May Cry (2001), Golden Axe (1989), etc.! It's not an especially high standard, nor is it remotely new, so it's all the more frustrating to see today's games still fail to hit that bar.
Re: Xbox Series X|S Versions Of Hellblade 2 Confirmed To Run At 30FPS
People kept saying that nothing pushed the limits of the PS5 or Series X, and that they wanted a "truly next-gen" experience. This is it: slightly better graphics, at a sluggish framerate that crawled out of the PS1 era.
I'll take slightly enhanced PS4 graphics at 60fps, any day! This generation isn't able to handle much more than that.
Re: Xbox & PlayStation's Most-Played Games In 2023 Were Averaging Seven Years Old
@RBRTMNZ That's odd- all I found was an infographic by Nintendo, showing that 20-somethings were the largest group. (That is also apparently skewed slightly, with a noticeable spike where younger kids reported their birthdate as 2000.)
I'll have to see what else I can dig up, but thanks for the tip on it being an investor report, as that should help with the search.
Re: Xbox & PlayStation's Most-Played Games In 2023 Were Averaging Seven Years Old
@RBRTMNZ If we're thinking about the same data that produced that average age, then there are some major caveats, most notably that it was a survey of adults: countless millions of kids and teens were excluded, drastically inflating the average!
Anecdotally, I'm inclined to think there are more gamers under 18 than there are over 30, but even if my observation is wrong, the average has to be lower than 33 (35, 36, whatever they're saying it is), especially if we're tracking core/frequent gamers.
Re: 'NVIDIA Buys Xbox' Begins Trending As April Fools' Day Jokes Run Wild
@Neither_scene Interesting, indeed. Now that I think of it, it would be a reverse of the 7th gen, when PS3 used Nvidia graphics, and Xbox 360 had AMD (I guess it was ATI at the time, but still)!
Wonder what that would do to backwards compatibility...
Re: Talking Point: Would You Be Interested In Microsoft's White Xbox Series X Revision?
Backwards compatibility (along with Blu-Ray playback, to a much lesser extent) was a key factor in purchasing a One S, and the BC games I play are split between physical and digital.
I'd have jumped on a Series X already, if it wasn't so expensive ($650 in Canada), but the lack of disc drive is a dealbreaker.
Re: Rumour: Resident Evil 9 Could Go Open World Thanks To Dragon's Dogma 2
Some of the comments above have me thinking that an open-world RE could maybe actually work! Maybe.
But who in their right mind would look at DD2 and say, "we want to build our game on this tech"?
Re: 'Squirrel With A Gun' Is One Of The Weirdest Xbox Games We've Seen In A While
All right! Finally, the Conker sequel we've been waiting for!
Re: With A 'PS5 Pro' Now Rumoured For 2024, Where Does That Leave Xbox?
@armondo36 Just want to comment on this, as you're right, but there's one frustrating caveat:
Games still don't universally offer a 60fps option, as devs continue to push past the limits of even what the Series X can comfortably handle. So while I'm not a hardcore, premium user by any stretch (my screens are 1080p and lower!), I find myself needing to go with high-end, premium hardware just to get decent performance. Except it's too expensive, so I usually just skip it altogether!
PS: In a bizarre twist, games like Starfield don't even take full advantage of a 70-year-old CRT's capabilities. It's just bizarre how we're seeing higher and higher resolution targets (or at least were, until ray tracing came into play), but can't even match 20th century temporal resolution standards.
Re: Talking Point: What's Your Favourite Thing About Xbox Right Now?
I would mention how 60fps is available in the majority of games now, but I'm still on a last-gen potato, so that doesn't apply! 😅
Besides that, there's backwards compatibility, the comfortable controllers (which are also backward and forward compatible!), the ability to play any disc from CDs to UHD Blu-Rays, and the Rewards program!
Re: 'Brothers' Remake Analysis Hails Xbox Series X As Top Performer, Series S Struggles
Having watched through the video, this is not so much a Series S porting issue, but rather poor overall optimization. If even the Series X can't do 1080p 60fps consistently, then there's a problem!
(If the X already struggles, then the S will inevitably be hit that much harder.)
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 Launches With Uncapped 30FPS Performance On Xbox
@Felinox Judging by the system requirement sheet for DD2 that's been circulating, they're not even building for high end PCs- as not even a 4080 can run this very well!
They're building games for the future- kind of like Crysis, but without the cutting-edge graphics.
Re: Poll: How Often Do You Buy Games That Have Been 'Remade' Or 'Remastered'?
@VoidPunk That's a great point. It's ridiculous that some re-releases are effectively "demasters", which simply take an older game and make it worse. (See also: Silent Hill HD, etc.)
Even besides those really egregious cases, I've noticed that almost every remaster and remake in existence will omit, break, or change some small (or large!) element that people like: maybe the enhanced textures look less gritty, there's new censorship, the funny/charming dialogue was redone, a fun bug was patched out, or a graphical trick was lost in translation.
Even a really good remake can never replace the original, so the original should always remain available. And it goes without saying that remasters should strive to be faithful to the original- though ideally offering optional enhancements to try to deliver the "definitive" version.
Re: Amazingly, Xbox's 'Kinect' Is Still Being Used For CT Scans In Hospitals
@Fiendish-Beaver The Kinect doesn't work with Series S or X. In fact, the Kinect-based games are the only ones in the Xbone's entire library that can't be played on current-gen consoles.