I wonder how extensive of an upgrade this will be, considering the Xbox 360 version was already 60fps, is on back compat, and only costs a few dollars ($3 or so, when it's on sale).
Actually, the originals all tried to do 60fps as well, but the PS2 especially struggled, and I think only the PC can run it stably enough.
So if I'm understanding this correctly, all of the bonus content (KI 1&2, behind-the-scenes stuff, soundtracks) is being permanently delisted for anyone who doesn't own it?
This is a tough decision... I was considering the Steam version, but it lacks the classic games. On the other hand, the Xbone is unbearable with its long load times.
@rustyduck Yeah, the 360 era arguably saw Xbox at its strongest, but man, that was a rough time for gaming in general, largely because the hardware wasn't suited to delivering those HD graphics that it was supposed to. I stopped buying consoles at that point.
Turns out that many of the games from back then are actually quite good on PC (or XSX), now that they don't have slideshow framerates and long loading screens!
I'm tempted to get a Series X eventually, as it looks like a great way to experience most games, but getting back into consoles is a hurdle I haven't really cleared. For now, I'm voting for the OG Xbox.
@Banjo- The HD Collection (2 and 3) was thorougly delisted, with even the Xbox 360 Marketplace version disappearing. Peace Walker is still available, though.
@OrfeasDourvas And downloading the games would be so fast that you usually wouldn't even notice that it's happening, seeing as most of them are smaller than one second of streamed video!
In all seriousness, it feels a bit weird for a nostalgic throwback to be coming out so soon after Fortnite's initial launch. On the other hand, this game has morphed into an enormous amalgamation of different elements, and I'm just sitting here on the sidelines, repeatedly baffled that xyz is being added to a supposed battle royale- so I can see why some would want the no-nonsense simplicity of the original.
@Gollum Have you seen just how bad this collection looks at times? MGS1 is literally as jagged as pixel art, but with blur on top of the jaggies.
And as a lesser issue, some of the textures in the PS2 games look like they're out of a Nintendo 64 game in the Series X version, despite looking much better on the 360... or even on a real PS2, for that matter.
I can understand shutting down the servers for a 15-year-old game that people have mostly stopped playing.
The bigger, and much less excusable, issue is when games effectively become inaccessible, like if:
The single-player is locked behind unnecessary server checks
A now-defunct online store was the only way to buy the game
Though I can also see it being frustrating (to a lesser extent) if there's no option for local multiplayer, or if the company is really aggressive towards people who are trying to recreate the servers.
@johndoe89 I do think it's great that the NES games are available in Volume 1 now, and if this upcoming Vol 2 has a solid port of MGS4, then that's even better. I like to see as many old games re-released as possible, even if they are largely unchanged.
However, Konami has apparently done the absolute bare minimum here, and it's disappointing. Getting all of the 3D games (including MGS1!) running in 4K or at least 1080p should take almost no effort, as emulators have already been doing this for years. And I know that making MGS1 run at 60fps without bugs would take some work, but it still would have been a welcome upgrade, and I would have been willing to buy it again for that reason.
But instead, upgrades are almost non-existent here (with the Switch versions being downgraded from previous releases!), and so I'm concerned as to how MGS 4 will be handled. Will they just slap a 30fps cap on it, and offer it at 720p, with any PS3-specific references ripped out?
@Banjo- It really is a shame that they've done so little with their IPs for all these years (and the few games they have made are just not to my tastes).
And they did so many great games back in the day, like you said! I feel like a few of them are carried more by their graphics and/or personality than the gameplay itself (Conker, SFA, Kameo), but the gameplay in most of the games you mentioned is really good, and sometimes doesn't get the credit it deserves. Things like how DKC is fine-tuned to facilitate fast, smooth gameplay. Or how DKR has accessible controls, yet a high skill ceiling, with its ludicrously fast boosts and drifts. Or how GE and PD's flexible level design allows for smart, creative approaches to the challenges. The presentation is consistently great in these, but there's a great core there, as well!
Jet Force is great, too. The controls are admittedly a little weird on the N64, but I thought they're basically just like Call of Duty on Xbox (in the modern scheme, that is), so I'm curious as to where you ran into issues.
@Banjo- Guess Nintendo got to keep any games that included their characters, even if there were also Rare-owned characters involved. Again, speculation, of course.
As great as it would be, I highly doubt that Rare could just go ahead and release Dinosaur Planet on Xbox without Nintendo's permission. We already know that Nintendo got to keep Krystal and Tricky, and has used them in later games. Plus, if our theory is true, and Nintendo got to keep all of SFA minus most characters, then that means they own a large chunk of the code, scenarios, and music from DP, making it impossible to release without again cutting out half the content- just that it'd be the half that didn't get cut in the move to the GameCube, making it like a negative image of SFA!
@johndoe89 That's what they claim, but the screenshots and trailer clearly show that MGS1 is only in 240p. (If there was a 1080p option, I assume they'd show it off.) I suspect that this "1080p" figure refers to some upscaling nonsense, kind of like how you can have pixel art games in "4K". There's nothing remotely HD about it, aside from the final video output signal being HD, so this comes just short of a blatant lie.
This has me wondering if MGS 2 and 3 are similarly running at an internal res of just 720p, which is upscaled (i.e., enlarged and blurred) to a faux 1080p.
@Banjo- Right, Tiptup is why I suspect trademarks: he's effectively an Xbox character now, yet he can stay in- but I strongly doubt that this minor character's name has been trademarked. (Or, I suppose the more subjective issues of importance and prevalence could have been the deciding factor.)
Has it been confirmed that Nintendo owns DP/SFA? I thought it was speculation. If true, though, it could be simply that Nintendo got to keep all scenarios and code from games that their characters appeared in (i.e., anything Donkey Kong or Star Fox). That would explain how they got DKR.
But even if they do own SFA (and Krystal, and apparently Tricky), it seems less likely that they own, say, the unused content that stayed on the N64. Or any other characters used and unused alike: Scales, Drakor, Randorn, Shabunga, and so on.
@Banjo- Common knowledge has been that Nintendo owns the Donkey Kong characters (including the Rare-designed Diddy and Krunch), whereas Rare (and by extension, Microsoft) owns Banjo and most of the actual content of the games themselves. But the reality would seem to be more complex than that.
It's safe to say that Rare got to keep Banjo in the end, despite what the 1997 manual says. (He's in several Xbox-exclusive games, for instance!) That lines up with his removal from DKR DS. But then, if Rare still owns certain characters in DKR DS, then it's interesting that they got to stay in, even though Banjo and Conker had to go. A trademark issue, perhaps?
Considering all this, I can't even imagine how convoluted the rights must be for Dinosaur Planet!
@y2jarmyofficial Yeah, and Rare already took 2-3 years to make each game, even back in the N64 days. But they used to have several studios working on different projects at the same time, which allowed for the rapid-fire release schedule. Apparently, they stopped doing that at some point? (Unless one studio is stuck doing Sea of Thieves content for a full decade, and another studio is locked in the basement at Microsoft HQ, doomed to work on avatars, Kinect, TVTVTV, or whatever else no one wants to do!)
@Banjo- I just looked in the manual for DKR DS, and it says: "Copyrights of Game, Scenario, Music and Program, reserved by Nintendo. Copyrights of certain Characters reserved by Rare."
So did some IP change hands around the acquisition by Microsoft? Obviously, the copyright info from 10 years later is more likely to be accurate, but it's interesting.
PS: On a related topic, I also noticed recently that Sega owns the code for F-Zero GX, with the soundtrack being owned and licensed by Daiki Kasho, and many other elements apparently being jointly owned with Nintendo. Not like we're going to find full-fledged legal ownership documents in our instruction manuals, but there seems to be a lot of interesting info right under our noses!
@Juanalf Yeah, it seems a little odd to call it a partnership. "We have a great partnership with Microsoft: they let us have their games, and we... uh, have a great partnership with them in return."
In all seriousness, though, MS does benefit by selling way more copies of Cuphead, Ori, etc., than they would by locking them to Xbox only. And I don't know how much Nintendo gave them for Banjo-Kazooie in Smash, but it's basically free money for MS.
And I'd hope that in return, Nintendo would be willing to at least loosen up on their Rare-developed games (especially the ones that MS partially owns), but I'm not holding my breath!
@Dan1283 With Rare... I believe there's a lot more to the story, but yeah, they clearly felt some pressure (external or self-imposed) to make changes to better conform to the Xbox dudebro image at the time. And then their output dropped from 2-3 games every year to what, 1 game every 8 years?
Do you think there's any company out there that could manage some of the business and hardware sides of Nintendo better than Nintendo themselves, though? Nintendo's obviously doing really well, regardless, but many of us are frustrated to see their quality exclusives shackled to weak hardware that can't do them justice. Or banished to the Nintendo Vault for decades at a time. I'm not sure Microsoft is the one for the job, but there must be someone.
I somehow never heard about this until now, surprisingly! (Or maybe not so surprising, since so many early adopters apparently never noticed, either?)
I definitely wasn't a day one purchaser, though: between the whole announcement/launch fiasco(s), the technical performance, and the price, I stayed far away in 2013. It was five years later that the combination of Halo MCC, Rare Replay, and a robust back compat catalogue (plus a nice price drop!) won me over.
@abe_hikura The great thing about options is that they're optional! Those who want worse gameplay and slightly better graphics can have that, and the rest of us can just ignore the setting.
And conversely, if the devs intend for a game to be a 30fps "cinematic" experience by default, there's another, smoother option for those of us who aren't interested in that default. It's win-win, with next to no downside!
@Princessmadllama Game optimization does seem to have taken a big hit in recent years, but rather than "lazy devs", we're likely looking at a mix of:
higher budgets, longer development times... and overly tight deadlines to mitigate the previous two factors!
bigger, more complex games, meaning it's not as feasible to spend time optimizing every little thing
a shift towards the "real" versions of effects, like ray tracing and real-time shadows, as opposed to clever approximations
I could also point towards a growing acceptance of poor framerates, long loading times, and overly large installations, but these all go back 10-20 years, and if anything, we've recently started to bounce back on 2/3 of these issues!
PS: I have to call out those Zelda specs: Both N64 Zeldas ran at 20fps, not 30, and they weren't doing 12,000 polygons per frame. IIRC, Majora's Mask sometimes broke past 5,000 in Clock Town, but it tended to slow down when that happened.
@GuyinPA75 Digital Foundry keeps us informed. If people want to run with that information and fuss over it (which they absolutely do!), then that's on them, not on DF.
Personally, I don't care about all the nitpicking regarding resolution, AA, ray tracing, and other visual details, but whether a game is capped at 30fps or not is absolutely a big deal to me, and I always look into that (via DF or other means) before buying games. But that's just me, and everyone is free to ignore that info if they don't care!
@evan23 Yeah, I don't think a lot of people get that there's always some degree of compromise- you can't have an expansive world with all of the latest graphical bells and whistles, and 4K, and 60/120/144fps, all at the same time. Especially not on mid-range hardware.
Of course, optimization and careful choice of priorities both go a long way, and I'll be the first to point this out whenever someone goes "oh, this game had to be 30fps because-".
But it was clear from the initial UE5 demo, as well as the Matrix demo, that current consoles can't harness all of the latest tech without cutting either resolution or performance.
@Wheatly As far as I'm concerned, this became clear as soon as Assassin's Creed: Valhalla was revealed to run at 30fps on Series S (though I believe they patched it later).
Series S would be quite appealing if it actually delivered the full Series X experience, just at a lower resolution, as the early claims went. But no, a considerable handful of games now play worse than their X counterparts, blurring the line between current- and last-gen experiences. This new split-screen development is the next logical step on that path... with the conclusion ultimately being that Series S retires a couple of years before the X.
The issue with MGS1 isn't that PS1 graphics look bad today, but that it's shown running in its original 240p, which looks awful on any modern screen. Most ports and emulators offer options to play in 1080p/4K/etc., and this makes things a lot cleaner, regardless of the quality of the assets themselves.
Xbox obviously doesn't need a straight port, but it does need a 60fps patch. I assume that the PS4 and especially Switch versions will still be 30fps, with no upgrades, and that kills any chance of a simple remaster happening anytime soon.
It's cool that Microsoft is doing this, and it has a lot of potential to be pro-consumer, while cutting down on waste as well!
Are they not selling the membrane that goes under the buttons, though? I've rarely seen the actual buttons on a controller wear out- it's always the membrane that tears after enough use.
Also, these parts look like they'll be about $30-40 once they're available in Canada... that's much less than a new controller ($80?), but maybe just a bit too close to the price of one that's on sale. Still, it's a great start!
It seemed like barely anyone I knew had an Xbox back in the day... I was very late to the party, but I have to say the OG Xbox is a very cool system!
I got a couple of dying Xboxes for free, and tried to fix them, but had no luck... I guess they technically count as my first Xbox console, though. First one I bought new was Xbox One S, however.
First Xbox memory is of some of my fellow teens at the time, arguing whether Halo is the most enjoyable activity in existence or not... let's just leave it at that.
Lots of retro games??? "As part of the cloud-based Antstream Arcade" Oh.
The pricing sounds like a great value, if you're into cloud (or even subscription) gaming. But I want to buy and keep my games, not get a subscription that vanishes as soon as I stop paying for it! And of course, this has the additional issues brought on by streaming.
@DdG1408 It's great that the whole set is finally coming to more platforms, but the original MGS doesn't really replace Twin Snakes or make it redundant, seeing as the latter has much better graphics, running at 60fps- not to mention all of the other changes (whether good or bad, they still make it different)!
By the way, has the resolution of these games been confirmed, besides MGS1 (plus MG1 and MG2, of course) being an eye-gouging 240p at 30fps? I'd expect 4K60 on Xbox, seeing as this is a separate release from the backwards compatibility versions.
@NEStalgia Yeah, if anything, I'd say PC gaming peaked during the past generation (2013-2020). Driver and compatibility issues were at a minimum (only case I personally encountered was Deadly Premonition), and even the lower-end cards were well above what the consoles were offering.
Now, between ridiculously high GPU prices, all-around terrible optimization, and consoles being good again, PC isn't quite as attractive as before.
That said, the whole thing about PCs not lasting as long as consoles is a misconception: Yes, if you NEED to be on the cutting edge, then you have to upgrade constantly, and also replace your whole rig every few years. But if you just want a decent gaming experience- which must be the case, if you'd consider a console- then you can easily get 5-10 years without upgrading.
I'm still rocking a GTX 960, a lower mid-range card that I got 8 years ago. Is it too old to run the latest games at 60fps? Yes, but it still fares better than its rival consoles (base Xbone and PS4), and isn't too far behind today's lower-end Xboxes and PCs. Had I splurged on a 980 (or waited another year for the 10 series), I'd be golden.
RDR needs a 60fps upgrade, one way or another. I'm assuming that FPS Boost somehow didn't quite work perfectly. (Wasn't a similar or identical technique successfully used on the 360 emulator, Xenia, as well as on RPCS3?)
A full remake, though? Maybe not quite as redundant as The Last of Us, but still unnecessary at this point.
@BrilliantBill Oh yeah, those character models are pretty bad, even compared to other games from that year (or from 5 years earlier, for that matter).
I wonder if the rigging system could allow for the models to be swapped out for higher-poly versions, at least during cutscenes. Basically a more in-depth remaster, without rebuilding everything from scratch. Because now that you mention it, H3 was really jarring at first, especially seeing the downgrade in Johnson's face compared to H2 Anniversary!
You consider H1 Anniversary's cutscenes to have aged poorly compared to Reach and H4, though? It didn't strike me as having issues, whether compared to the others or on its own (besides changing H1's art direction a bit much), though I did start with H1A before moving on to the later ones.
@BrilliantBill The 10 years figure definitely made sense in the past... Resident Evil and Conker's Bad Fur Day received remakes after just 6 and 4 years, respectively- and the audiovisual upgrades were more than enough to justify it. There are plenty of other games from that era that arguably deserved remakes in the '00s as well, for graphical and gameplay reasons, because things were changing so quickly.
But now? Wasn't Halo 3 still perfectly enjoyable and accessible in 2017, a decade after its release? And why wouldn't it still hold up on its 20th anniversary as well? I don't think games have evolved much since 2007, though I'm curious if you feel differently- and why.
@Banjo- MGS 2 and 3 are listed as the HD Collection versions, so it'll basically be the original graphics, but in HD. 1080p60 seems likely, since the 360 and PS3 were able to do 720, but the trailer's quality is too low to tell.
Not sure why they're showing off MGS1 in its original 240p. Are they really not going to make it HD as well? (Either way, I think it's hardcoded to 30fps.)
Yeah, Twin Snakes is a full remake of MGS1, but Nintendo's involvement apparently prevents it from being ported to anything but a Nintendo system... not like they've been jumping to release it on Switch themselves.
@Zoidpilot4 I really hope they capture what made the original Perfect Dark so good. Part of it was that wacky side that you mentioned, but Zero was also wacky, and it somehow missed the mark. I think the original had just the right amount of wackiness, with a bit of subtlety and restraint- maybe that's it? Or maybe it's just that it was a certain British flavour of weird.
I'd also be down for a more serious thriller sort of spin on things, but it would have to be handled well, and feel somewhat authentic to Perfect Dark. Definitely looking forward to seeing how this turns out!
PS: The N64 needed a RAM upgrade to run Perfect Dark. That's what the Expansion Pak was.
@Feffster Why be sorry for them? Maybe we should be jealous instead, as they can play their games on bargain-bin potatoes, and not be bothered at all by how these games run. It sure would save a lot of money!
@Enigk Haha, what I meant by "brings back" was using Godsmack's music in another Prince of Persia game- I had no idea whether they were still around. Good for them, I guess?
@SuntannedDuck2 Some good points, and some great choices. I always hear about how Blur is an underappreciated gem, and though I'd completely forgotten about Pitfall, I'd heard it was pretty good as well. I'd definitely pick them both up if they were on BC. Probably a few others that you mentioned, too.
Gunvalkyrie is already available, though: both via the disc and through the store!
I wish Microsoft would revisit the back compat program in general. Not just so I can play my physical games in HD (though that is a bonus!), but so I can buy more of the classics that I missed. Too many games are exclusive to a dead console, or their PC port is delisted.
Some candidates that come to mind: Chronicles of Riddick Condemned 2: Bloodshot Outrun 2/2006 Simpsons Hit and Run/Road Rage Vexx XG III
There were others that I would have wanted, but I just ended up getting physical copies. MS's loss!
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Re: Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition Xbox Listing Appears On Microsoft Store
I wonder how extensive of an upgrade this will be, considering the Xbox 360 version was already 60fps, is on back compat, and only costs a few dollars ($3 or so, when it's on sale).
Actually, the originals all tried to do 60fps as well, but the PS2 especially struggled, and I think only the PC can run it stably enough.
Re: Killer Instinct: Anniversary Edition Announced For Xbox And PC
So if I'm understanding this correctly, all of the bonus content (KI 1&2, behind-the-scenes stuff, soundtracks) is being permanently delisted for anyone who doesn't own it?
This is a tough decision... I was considering the Steam version, but it lacks the classic games. On the other hand, the Xbone is unbearable with its long load times.
Re: Gabe Newell Reflects On Exiting Microsoft To Go Make Half-Life
@Savage_Joe
That actually explains a lot, when you think of MS's ability to count:
Re: Poll: Which Has Been The Best Generation Of Xbox So Far?
@rustyduck Yeah, the 360 era arguably saw Xbox at its strongest, but man, that was a rough time for gaming in general, largely because the hardware wasn't suited to delivering those HD graphics that it was supposed to. I stopped buying consoles at that point.
Turns out that many of the games from back then are actually quite good on PC (or XSX), now that they don't have slideshow framerates and long loading screens!
I'm tempted to get a Series X eventually, as it looks like a great way to experience most games, but getting back into consoles is a hurdle I haven't really cleared. For now, I'm voting for the OG Xbox.
Re: Review: Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 - A Fantastic Collection Presented With Minimal Effort
@Banjo- The HD Collection (2 and 3) was thorougly delisted, with even the Xbox 360 Marketplace version disappearing.
Peace Walker is still available, though.
Re: Antstream Arcade Unveils New Games Coming To Xbox, Including An Unreleased SNES Title
@OrfeasDourvas And downloading the games would be so fast that you usually wouldn't even notice that it's happening, seeing as most of them are smaller than one second of streamed video!
Re: Fortnite Revives Chapter 1 In Its New 'OG Season'
OMG, this was my childhood! So much nostalgia!
In all seriousness, it feels a bit weird for a nostalgic throwback to be coming out so soon after Fortnite's initial launch. On the other hand, this game has morphed into an enormous amalgamation of different elements, and I'm just sitting here on the sidelines, repeatedly baffled that xyz is being added to a supposed battle royale- so I can see why some would want the no-nonsense simplicity of the original.
Re: Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 Is 'Anything But Masterful', Says Digital Foundry
@Gollum Have you seen just how bad this collection looks at times?
MGS1 is literally as jagged as pixel art, but with blur on top of the jaggies.
And as a lesser issue, some of the textures in the PS2 games look like they're out of a Nintendo 64 game in the Series X version, despite looking much better on the 360... or even on a real PS2, for that matter.
Re: Ubisoft Ending Online Services For Three Xbox 360 Titles Early Next Year
I can understand shutting down the servers for a 15-year-old game that people have mostly stopped playing.
The bigger, and much less excusable, issue is when games effectively become inaccessible, like if:
Though I can also see it being frustrating (to a lesser extent) if there's no option for local multiplayer, or if the company is really aggressive towards people who are trying to recreate the servers.
Re: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 Officially Arrives On Xbox This October
@johndoe89 I do think it's great that the NES games are available in Volume 1 now, and if this upcoming Vol 2 has a solid port of MGS4, then that's even better. I like to see as many old games re-released as possible, even if they are largely unchanged.
However, Konami has apparently done the absolute bare minimum here, and it's disappointing. Getting all of the 3D games (including MGS1!) running in 4K or at least 1080p should take almost no effort, as emulators have already been doing this for years. And I know that making MGS1 run at 60fps without bugs would take some work, but it still would have been a welcome upgrade, and I would have been willing to buy it again for that reason.
But instead, upgrades are almost non-existent here (with the Switch versions being downgraded from previous releases!), and so I'm concerned as to how MGS 4 will be handled. Will they just slap a 30fps cap on it, and offer it at 720p, with any PS3-specific references ripped out?
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@Banjo- It really is a shame that they've done so little with their IPs for all these years (and the few games they have made are just not to my tastes).
And they did so many great games back in the day, like you said! I feel like a few of them are carried more by their graphics and/or personality than the gameplay itself (Conker, SFA, Kameo), but the gameplay in most of the games you mentioned is really good, and sometimes doesn't get the credit it deserves. Things like how DKC is fine-tuned to facilitate fast, smooth gameplay. Or how DKR has accessible controls, yet a high skill ceiling, with its ludicrously fast boosts and drifts. Or how GE and PD's flexible level design allows for smart, creative approaches to the challenges. The presentation is consistently great in these, but there's a great core there, as well!
Jet Force is great, too. The controls are admittedly a little weird on the N64, but I thought they're basically just like Call of Duty on Xbox (in the modern scheme, that is), so I'm curious as to where you ran into issues.
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@Banjo- Guess Nintendo got to keep any games that included their characters, even if there were also Rare-owned characters involved. Again, speculation, of course.
As great as it would be, I highly doubt that Rare could just go ahead and release Dinosaur Planet on Xbox without Nintendo's permission. We already know that Nintendo got to keep Krystal and Tricky, and has used them in later games.
Plus, if our theory is true, and Nintendo got to keep all of SFA minus most characters, then that means they own a large chunk of the code, scenarios, and music from DP, making it impossible to release without again cutting out half the content- just that it'd be the half that didn't get cut in the move to the GameCube, making it like a negative image of SFA!
Re: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 Officially Arrives On Xbox This October
@johndoe89 That's what they claim, but the screenshots and trailer clearly show that MGS1 is only in 240p. (If there was a 1080p option, I assume they'd show it off.)
I suspect that this "1080p" figure refers to some upscaling nonsense, kind of like how you can have pixel art games in "4K". There's nothing remotely HD about it, aside from the final video output signal being HD, so this comes just short of a blatant lie.
This has me wondering if MGS 2 and 3 are similarly running at an internal res of just 720p, which is upscaled (i.e., enlarged and blurred) to a faux 1080p.
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@Banjo- Right, Tiptup is why I suspect trademarks: he's effectively an Xbox character now, yet he can stay in- but I strongly doubt that this minor character's name has been trademarked. (Or, I suppose the more subjective issues of importance and prevalence could have been the deciding factor.)
Has it been confirmed that Nintendo owns DP/SFA? I thought it was speculation. If true, though, it could be simply that Nintendo got to keep all scenarios and code from games that their characters appeared in (i.e., anything Donkey Kong or Star Fox). That would explain how they got DKR.
But even if they do own SFA (and Krystal, and apparently Tricky), it seems less likely that they own, say, the unused content that stayed on the N64. Or any other characters used and unused alike: Scales, Drakor, Randorn, Shabunga, and so on.
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@Banjo- Common knowledge has been that Nintendo owns the Donkey Kong characters (including the Rare-designed Diddy and Krunch), whereas Rare (and by extension, Microsoft) owns Banjo and most of the actual content of the games themselves. But the reality would seem to be more complex than that.
It's safe to say that Rare got to keep Banjo in the end, despite what the 1997 manual says. (He's in several Xbox-exclusive games, for instance!) That lines up with his removal from DKR DS. But then, if Rare still owns certain characters in DKR DS, then it's interesting that they got to stay in, even though Banjo and Conker had to go. A trademark issue, perhaps?
Considering all this, I can't even imagine how convoluted the rights must be for Dinosaur Planet!
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@y2jarmyofficial Yeah, and Rare already took 2-3 years to make each game, even back in the N64 days. But they used to have several studios working on different projects at the same time, which allowed for the rapid-fire release schedule. Apparently, they stopped doing that at some point? (Unless one studio is stuck doing Sea of Thieves content for a full decade, and another studio is locked in the basement at Microsoft HQ, doomed to work on avatars, Kinect, TVTVTV, or whatever else no one wants to do!)
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@Banjo- I just looked in the manual for DKR DS, and it says:
"Copyrights of Game, Scenario, Music and Program, reserved by Nintendo. Copyrights of certain Characters reserved by Rare."
Pretty clear-cut. But the original N64 version said:
"©1997 Rare.
[Diddy Kong is a] trademark of Nintendo.
Diddy Kong, Banjo, and Krunch characters licensed by Nintendo."
So did some IP change hands around the acquisition by Microsoft? Obviously, the copyright info from 10 years later is more likely to be accurate, but it's interesting.
PS: On a related topic, I also noticed recently that Sega owns the code for F-Zero GX, with the soundtrack being owned and licensed by Daiki Kasho, and many other elements apparently being jointly owned with Nintendo.
Not like we're going to find full-fledged legal ownership documents in our instruction manuals, but there seems to be a lot of interesting info right under our noses!
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@Juanalf Yeah, it seems a little odd to call it a partnership.
"We have a great partnership with Microsoft: they let us have their games, and we... uh, have a great partnership with them in return."
In all seriousness, though, MS does benefit by selling way more copies of Cuphead, Ori, etc., than they would by locking them to Xbox only. And I don't know how much Nintendo gave them for Banjo-Kazooie in Smash, but it's basically free money for MS.
And I'd hope that in return, Nintendo would be willing to at least loosen up on their Rare-developed games (especially the ones that MS partially owns), but I'm not holding my breath!
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@Dan1283 With Rare... I believe there's a lot more to the story, but yeah, they clearly felt some pressure (external or self-imposed) to make changes to better conform to the Xbox dudebro image at the time. And then their output dropped from 2-3 games every year to what, 1 game every 8 years?
Do you think there's any company out there that could manage some of the business and hardware sides of Nintendo better than Nintendo themselves, though? Nintendo's obviously doing really well, regardless, but many of us are frustrated to see their quality exclusives shackled to weak hardware that can't do them justice. Or banished to the Nintendo Vault for decades at a time. I'm not sure Microsoft is the one for the job, but there must be someone.
Re: Nintendo Boss Showers Praise On 'Great Relationship' With Xbox & Microsoft
@GeeEssEff When I read Bowser's statements, I hear them in a gruff Scott Burns (Bowser from Super Mario Sunshine) voice.
Re: Less Than 1% Of Xbox Players Own The Coveted 'Day One' Achievement
I somehow never heard about this until now, surprisingly! (Or maybe not so surprising, since so many early adopters apparently never noticed, either?)
I definitely wasn't a day one purchaser, though: between the whole announcement/launch fiasco(s), the technical performance, and the price, I stayed far away in 2013.
It was five years later that the combination of Halo MCC, Rare Replay, and a robust back compat catalogue (plus a nice price drop!) won me over.
Re: Digital Foundry's Lies Of P Review Points Out One Clear Performance Mode Winner On Xbox
@abe_hikura The great thing about options is that they're optional!
Those who want worse gameplay and slightly better graphics can have that, and the rest of us can just ignore the setting.
And conversely, if the devs intend for a game to be a 30fps "cinematic" experience by default, there's another, smoother option for those of us who aren't interested in that default. It's win-win, with next to no downside!
Re: Forza Motorsport Launches With Three Performance Modes On Xbox Series X
@Princessmadllama Game optimization does seem to have taken a big hit in recent years, but rather than "lazy devs", we're likely looking at a mix of:
I could also point towards a growing acceptance of poor framerates, long loading times, and overly large installations, but these all go back 10-20 years, and if anything, we've recently started to bounce back on 2/3 of these issues!
PS: I have to call out those Zelda specs: Both N64 Zeldas ran at 20fps, not 30, and they weren't doing 12,000 polygons per frame. IIRC, Majora's Mask sometimes broke past 5,000 in Clock Town, but it tended to slow down when that happened.
Re: New Starfield Test Suggests It Could Run At 40-60FPS On Xbox Series X
@GuyinPA75 Digital Foundry keeps us informed. If people want to run with that information and fuss over it (which they absolutely do!), then that's on them, not on DF.
Personally, I don't care about all the nitpicking regarding resolution, AA, ray tracing, and other visual details, but whether a game is capped at 30fps or not is absolutely a big deal to me, and I always look into that (via DF or other means) before buying games. But that's just me, and everyone is free to ignore that info if they don't care!
Re: Immortals Of Aveum On Unreal Engine 5 Is 'Cutting Edge', But Overall Xbox Visuals Suffer
@evan23 Yeah, I don't think a lot of people get that there's always some degree of compromise- you can't have an expansive world with all of the latest graphical bells and whistles, and 4K, and 60/120/144fps, all at the same time. Especially not on mid-range hardware.
Of course, optimization and careful choice of priorities both go a long way, and I'll be the first to point this out whenever someone goes "oh, this game had to be 30fps because-".
But it was clear from the initial UE5 demo, as well as the Matrix demo, that current consoles can't harness all of the latest tech without cutting either resolution or performance.
Re: Immortals Of Aveum On Unreal Engine 5 Is 'Cutting Edge', But Overall Xbox Visuals Suffer
@RIghteousNixon True. Of course, there will be new features, effects, and visual standards by then, and the struggle will start all over again!
Re: Baldur's Gate 3 Confirmed For Xbox In 2023, Series S Version Ditching Local Co-Op
@Wheatly As far as I'm concerned, this became clear as soon as Assassin's Creed: Valhalla was revealed to run at 30fps on Series S (though I believe they patched it later).
Series S would be quite appealing if it actually delivered the full Series X experience, just at a lower resolution, as the early claims went. But no, a considerable handful of games now play worse than their X counterparts, blurring the line between current- and last-gen experiences.
This new split-screen development is the next logical step on that path... with the conclusion ultimately being that Series S retires a couple of years before the X.
Re: Konami Drops 18 Minutes Of Metal Gear Solid 1 Gameplay Ahead Of Xbox Debut
The issue with MGS1 isn't that PS1 graphics look bad today, but that it's shown running in its original 240p, which looks awful on any modern screen.
Most ports and emulators offer options to play in 1080p/4K/etc., and this makes things a lot cleaner, regardless of the quality of the assets themselves.
Re: Microsoft Announces The Xbox 360 Store Will Close In July 2024
Not bad for a console that's older than the Wii!
I still wish MS would reopen the back compat program and add more games to it, though.
Re: Rockstar Announces New $50 Port Of Red Dead Redemption, But Xbox Doesn't Need It
Xbox obviously doesn't need a straight port, but it does need a 60fps patch. I assume that the PS4 and especially Switch versions will still be 30fps, with no upgrades, and that kills any chance of a simple remaster happening anytime soon.
Re: Activision May Have Access To 'Lost' Transformers Titles After All
Were the past comments about losing the source code actually wrong, or was the error simply that they upset Activision?
This is more of an apology than a correction.
Re: Microsoft Now Selling Xbox Controller Replacement Parts
It's cool that Microsoft is doing this, and it has a lot of potential to be pro-consumer, while cutting down on waste as well!
Are they not selling the membrane that goes under the buttons, though? I've rarely seen the actual buttons on a controller wear out- it's always the membrane that tears after enough use.
Also, these parts look like they'll be about $30-40 once they're available in Canada... that's much less than a new controller ($80?), but maybe just a bit too close to the price of one that's on sale.
Still, it's a great start!
Re: Talking Point: What Are Your Earliest Xbox Memories?
It seemed like barely anyone I knew had an Xbox back in the day... I was very late to the party, but I have to say the OG Xbox is a very cool system!
I got a couple of dying Xboxes for free, and tried to fix them, but had no luck... I guess they technically count as my first Xbox console, though. First one I bought new was Xbox One S, however.
First Xbox memory is of some of my fellow teens at the time, arguing whether Halo is the most enjoyable activity in existence or not... let's just leave it at that.
Re: Ubisoft Reportedly Cancelled 'Immortals Fenyx Rising' Sequel Earlier This Month
So Ubisoft releases what looks like a Zelda rip-off, people are understandably skeptical, and then it turns out to actually be good.
And now they're surprised and disappointed that everyone wasn't rushing out to buy this on day one?
Re: Xbox's 'Biggest Content Drop In History' Sees Over 1400 Retro Games Arrive Next Week
Lots of retro games???
"As part of the cloud-based Antstream Arcade"
Oh.
The pricing sounds like a great value, if you're into cloud (or even subscription) gaming.
But I want to buy and keep my games, not get a subscription that vanishes as soon as I stop paying for it! And of course, this has the additional issues brought on by streaming.
Re: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 Officially Arrives On Xbox This October
@DdG1408 It's great that the whole set is finally coming to more platforms, but the original MGS doesn't really replace Twin Snakes or make it redundant, seeing as the latter has much better graphics, running at 60fps- not to mention all of the other changes (whether good or bad, they still make it different)!
By the way, has the resolution of these games been confirmed, besides MGS1 (plus MG1 and MG2, of course) being an eye-gouging 240p at 30fps? I'd expect 4K60 on Xbox, seeing as this is a separate release from the backwards compatibility versions.
Re: Microsoft Is Expecting Two New PS5 Models In The 'Near Future'
@NEStalgia Yeah, if anything, I'd say PC gaming peaked during the past generation (2013-2020). Driver and compatibility issues were at a minimum (only case I personally encountered was Deadly Premonition), and even the lower-end cards were well above what the consoles were offering.
Now, between ridiculously high GPU prices, all-around terrible optimization, and consoles being good again, PC isn't quite as attractive as before.
That said, the whole thing about PCs not lasting as long as consoles is a misconception: Yes, if you NEED to be on the cutting edge, then you have to upgrade constantly, and also replace your whole rig every few years. But if you just want a decent gaming experience- which must be the case, if you'd consider a console- then you can easily get 5-10 years without upgrading.
I'm still rocking a GTX 960, a lower mid-range card that I got 8 years ago. Is it too old to run the latest games at 60fps? Yes, but it still fares better than its rival consoles (base Xbone and PS4), and isn't too far behind today's lower-end Xboxes and PCs. Had I splurged on a 980 (or waited another year for the 10 series), I'd be golden.
Re: Microsoft Is Expecting Two New PS5 Models In The 'Near Future'
All of the good announcements really are coming from Microsoft lately.
Now they're the ones announcing new PlayStation hardware!
Re: Red Dead Redemption Rumours Point Towards Upcoming Remaster
RDR needs a 60fps upgrade, one way or another. I'm assuming that FPS Boost somehow didn't quite work perfectly. (Wasn't a similar or identical technique successfully used on the 360 emulator, Xenia, as well as on RPCS3?)
A full remake, though? Maybe not quite as redundant as The Last of Us, but still unnecessary at this point.
Re: Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Remake Supposedly In Development At Ubisoft
@BrilliantBill Oh yeah, those character models are pretty bad, even compared to other games from that year (or from 5 years earlier, for that matter).
I wonder if the rigging system could allow for the models to be swapped out for higher-poly versions, at least during cutscenes. Basically a more in-depth remaster, without rebuilding everything from scratch. Because now that you mention it, H3 was really jarring at first, especially seeing the downgrade in Johnson's face compared to H2 Anniversary!
You consider H1 Anniversary's cutscenes to have aged poorly compared to Reach and H4, though? It didn't strike me as having issues, whether compared to the others or on its own (besides changing H1's art direction a bit much), though I did start with H1A before moving on to the later ones.
Re: Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Remake Supposedly In Development At Ubisoft
@BrilliantBill The 10 years figure definitely made sense in the past... Resident Evil and Conker's Bad Fur Day received remakes after just 6 and 4 years, respectively- and the audiovisual upgrades were more than enough to justify it.
There are plenty of other games from that era that arguably deserved remakes in the '00s as well, for graphical and gameplay reasons, because things were changing so quickly.
But now? Wasn't Halo 3 still perfectly enjoyable and accessible in 2017, a decade after its release? And why wouldn't it still hold up on its 20th anniversary as well? I don't think games have evolved much since 2007, though I'm curious if you feel differently- and why.
Re: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 Officially Arrives On Xbox This October
@Banjo- MGS 2 and 3 are listed as the HD Collection versions, so it'll basically be the original graphics, but in HD. 1080p60 seems likely, since the 360 and PS3 were able to do 720, but the trailer's quality is too low to tell.
Not sure why they're showing off MGS1 in its original 240p. Are they really not going to make it HD as well? (Either way, I think it's hardcoded to 30fps.)
Yeah, Twin Snakes is a full remake of MGS1, but Nintendo's involvement apparently prevents it from being ported to anything but a Nintendo system... not like they've been jumping to release it on Switch themselves.
Re: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 Officially Arrives On Xbox This October
@Banjo- Seeing as the previous HD collection already ran at 720p 60fps, the Switch should be able to get good results.
Re: Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 Officially Arrives On Xbox This October
The NES games are unironically a big draw, as I already have the others.
Re: Xbox's Matt Booty Has Played The Perfect Dark Reboot And Is 'Very Excited'
@Zoidpilot4 I really hope they capture what made the original Perfect Dark so good. Part of it was that wacky side that you mentioned, but Zero was also wacky, and it somehow missed the mark. I think the original had just the right amount of wackiness, with a bit of subtlety and restraint- maybe that's it? Or maybe it's just that it was a certain British flavour of weird.
I'd also be down for a more serious thriller sort of spin on things, but it would have to be handled well, and feel somewhat authentic to Perfect Dark.
Definitely looking forward to seeing how this turns out!
PS: The N64 needed a RAM upgrade to run Perfect Dark. That's what the Expansion Pak was.
Re: Starfield Will Run At 4K / 30FPS On Xbox Series X, 1440p / 30FPS On Series S
@Feffster Why be sorry for them? Maybe we should be jealous instead, as they can play their games on bargain-bin potatoes, and not be bothered at all by how these games run. It sure would save a lot of money!
Re: Ubisoft's New Prince Of Persia Game Is Getting Blasted On YouTube
@Enigk Haha, what I meant by "brings back" was using Godsmack's music in another Prince of Persia game- I had no idea whether they were still around.
Good for them, I guess?
Re: Ubisoft's New Prince Of Persia Game Is Getting Blasted On YouTube
@Enigk Now watch as Ubisoft grants you a monkey's paw wish, and brings back Godsmack instead. That's not modern, is it?
Re: Talking Point: Is There An Xbox Classic You Wish Was Backwards Compatible?
@SuntannedDuck2 Some good points, and some great choices. I always hear about how Blur is an underappreciated gem, and though I'd completely forgotten about Pitfall, I'd heard it was pretty good as well.
I'd definitely pick them both up if they were on BC. Probably a few others that you mentioned, too.
Gunvalkyrie is already available, though: both via the disc and through the store!
Re: Talking Point: Is There An Xbox Classic You Wish Was Backwards Compatible?
I wish Microsoft would revisit the back compat program in general. Not just so I can play my physical games in HD (though that is a bonus!), but so I can buy more of the classics that I missed. Too many games are exclusive to a dead console, or their PC port is delisted.
Some candidates that come to mind:
Chronicles of Riddick
Condemned 2: Bloodshot
Outrun 2/2006
Simpsons Hit and Run/Road Rage
Vexx
XG III
There were others that I would have wanted, but I just ended up getting physical copies. MS's loss!