theduckofdeath

@fbnaulin Howard & crew want the game to look a certain way. If they could make it look better and perform better on consoles, they would, but...they're consoles. Somehow that continues to escape people. The 60 FPS/performance modes that are coming will not look as good (frame for frame) as the original 30 FPS mode.

Depending on the type of game and performance on console, I opt to play on PC. If I have to shoot, overwhelmingly I play on PC, driving & sports games I play on console. 2K always tanks the PC version with last year's engine, away. Play Anywhere is a godsend. On PC, I'm shooting for 90-244 FPS, depending on the display I'm using.

Got back into Wasteland 3 this week. Put in a good amount of hours, making solid progress for the first time since 2020. Then two of my crew became stuck in place.

Also playing LAD: IW, Harold Halibut, Forza 5, and Tekken 8 this weekend.

In the 80's, we had some of the most brilliant market campaigns ever, executed by Hasbro; G.I. JOE and Transformers. Toys with comic books, TV shows, and movies to back them up. The first G.I. JOE 5-part mini-series aired on immediately after school on the last day of school in NYC. I can home from finishing 1st grade and that is how the summer started.

The director, Abubakar Salim, played "Father" in Raise By Wolves on HBO. He does VO for a number of games.

@Meehanuk_1987 Huh? What's the difference between PS and Xbox? I could see playing it on a portable like Switch might somehow feel more compelling. I completed Sea of Stars on Steam Deck over XCloud; not sure when or how often I would have fired it up on the big screen. I played while using the TV for watching other sports, series & movies.

@Nintendo4Sonic Most people in the West wouldn't give it a chance without a Game Pass residency. What is a "Suikoden" or "Eiyuden," anyway? I tried one of the previous games on Game Pass. There may have been rewards points attached to game objectives, specifically.

I swear, it feels like 4 or 5 of these games have been announced in the last 2 years. The name(s) keeps popping up.

@Fiendish-Beaver Yes, there has been a lot of false equivalency and "one-sidedness" regarding Xbox 1st party ports to competing platforms.

I bought into early access and will check it out this weekend.

@cardcrusher29 I used to earn about 35-36k every 6 weeks. That's without trying get to score an achievement every day. I knocked $25-50 off of SF6 & MK1 ultimate and Tekken deluxe editions.

It's all funny money; I'm not complaining. There still plenty of points to be made. My GPU membership (28 months) still grows.

@RexPowercolt Yes, I agree, it could be a contender. As you said, it could be a light year for releases, with MS/Xbox publishing a good amount of the competition. Then consider the technology on display (lifelike visuals, light & sound), along with the mental health theme, the depictions of hallucinations being integral. The team would have paid careful attention to the story because of this responsibility. The previews seem positive on everything, including the combat.

@OldGamer999 Ninja Theory is focused on telling a unique story with Hellblade and it was never going to get turned into Ninja Gaiden (any of the versions). That would be pretty silly and trivialize the theme. Senua is a normal woman (physically) suffering from psychosis, not a cartoon ninja, armored super-soldier or a mythical roided-out god. The premise that she is on a trek of revenge is pushing it far enough.

Xbox has 5+ weeks left advertise HB2; the visuals will grab a lot of eyes.

@GeeEssEff While that is entirely reasonable, this happens with every game. TotK was preordained to be nominated and likely win GoTY two years ahead of release, and the media kept up that energy. Mario Sunshine just showed up late and waltzed into the category.

@IOI I have seen posts even on this site where people wanted HB turned into something "God of War"-like. As absurd of a tonal swing as that would be.

Which makes me wonder about the other GoW, Gears of War. Yes, it has an action theme for gameplay...but what happens when the graphics are far more realistic (like the UE5 demo shown a couple years ago)? Will the characters still use goofy dodge roll and wall-bounce animations?

@Lup Nintendo will release 5 Mario and Mario-adjacent games for the Switch (the games media won't know what to do with themselves), sweeping the GoTY nominations. J/K.

I think Hellblade 2 has a good chance of being (begrudgingly) nominated this year. Xbox will be releasing much of its competition. CoD and Tekken will be silently disqualified. Probably the same for Helldivers 2 and Palworld.

@GuyinPA75 I just double-checked when I saw your message. There was no full button reassignment interface as there is for the Elite controller. You can remap the share button and change its behavior, swap sticks & triggers, as well as invert sticks. That's all the app on my machine will allow at the moment.

Two questions:

1) Will the PC version be updated?
2) Will there be cross-save/cross-progression?

Some people seem to want to turn it into Days Gone. I'd rather SoD2 retain its gameplay elements and improve upon them. The overall presentation, quests, and characters could use an uplift, too.

@FatGuyInLilCoat I don't buy 1st party Xbox games anymore because I'm stocked up on Game Pass. I was stubborn about joining for a while, finally giving in around June 2020. What a great service. I used to buy every Xbox ultimate edition at $99. The money wasn't a problem, but hey, why not take the offer?

I still buy a lot of games, mostly older ones, on Xbox. Newer games I tend to buy on PC.

When I see $70 games now, I usually hesitate, save for favorite franchises (SF, MK, VF, Tekken) and special cases. Most times I wait for sales ($10-$35).

When I was a kid, games were over $70. My brother and I would scrape money together to buy games. We got into importing, too. Japanese games were $80-$120 (SFII worked out to $150).

If the System Shock remake is the same one that came to PC, it is highly regarded. I haven't had a chance to start it.

YouTubers and Game sites are scoffing at this and not stopping to think, as usual. Bond said the largest "technological" leap, not discernable graphical leap. What technological advances have ramped up in the last 5-10 years?

AI (NPUs doing into PCs as we speak). MS invested $10 billion into Open.AI, and billions more into their company and others.

AI supersampling effects.
Frame generation.
Ray-tracing.
Noise reduction for ray-tracing.
More TFLOPS and way more TOPS.
Even faster load times (a given)
A new controller (Will they ditch analog sticks after 27 years?)
A separate SKU for portable Xbox (possible PC-hybrid).

Bringing MILO back (LOL j/k...but they could do it for real this time)

@K1LLEGAL He has been gone at least prior to Gamescom last August. The Senua actress says so herself in an interview at Gamescom (and it did not appear to be news even then). She was working with a new director for the game, who you see in other "behind the scenes" footage. The media is using it for controversy clicks now that the game is near.

@armondo36 Twenty-six years at one company, dude.

The expected length depends on the game. If Dragon's Dogma 2 or LAD were 8 hours, that would be really weird and $70 would feel too high a price. Even $50 would feel too high a price.

@Tyrant_T103 It is just the reality of consoles. I've consistently built and upgraded PC for 30 years because as you can see, we are still waiting for consoles to hit and hold the 60-fps mark. Thirty FPS is simply inevitable on consoles.

In fact, PCs have blown so far passed it, 60-fps is a "something's wrong" warning. Console game libraries came to PC and PC still has their "exclusives" due to resource requirements and happenstance.

I plan to bounce between PC and Xbox when playing Hellblade 2, starting on Xbox to examine performance and use the larger display.

This was painfully obvious the focal frame rate in all the reveals. Just based on the graphics, console platform, games like Starfield, and reality...I don't know how anyone could be shocked.

@OldGamer999 @somnambulance Xbox has a good chance picking up significant momentum in 2024. Unfortunately, during the quiet 5 month wait for HB2, they have stymied themselves again and damaged confidence with the porting effort. I don't know who thought this was a good idea or how it truly came about, but the timing was horrendous. It reminds me of Ghostbusters when the jerk forces them the open the ecto-containment unit.

@somnambulance The fanbase is divided because of the porting program. Specifically, porting to PS — I get it. Xbox is a public company and under a massive company in MS. Spencer has to answer to Satya and shareholders.

The sales divide between PS and Xbox is too great (again) to avoid MS scrutiny. If both were at 40 million units then PS5 would be pushing harder to PC. Spencer would have more breathing room. Buying ABK shown a spotlight on Xbox inside MS. Execs will ask, "if we are making CoD for PS, why not make other games for PS?" Sell s/w on consoles MS/Xbox did not have to produce and combine to be more console than they could ever sell.

As far as devs voluntarily skipping Xbox, those are rumors, and goofy ones at that. Unless the dev is paid by Sony or so small they can't develop all versions simultaneously in a reasonable time period, it is senseless. A healthy developer would not target 67% of consoles over 100% of consoles unless paid to do so. Xbox is a platform holder and even they are second-guessing absolute exclusivity.

@Doomcrow That is not what he said. He said Starfield being 10/10 would not stop the momentum that was built by PS4 in the previous gen. Xbox needed to keep their momentum from 360, and Mattrick squandered it. The next best thing would have been to be in the position (studio and project-wise) that they are in now when the Series gen started. It was not possible.

@somnambulance You can't blame him for that. Mattrick pulled the pin, popped the handle, and chucked him the grenade. He's done an admirable job thus far.

@AlienigenX The Housers, Leslie Benzies, and Lazlo have all departed Rockstar. Top it off with "modern sensibilities" and the humor/writing will likely be hamstrung.

@northernmonkey75 Capcom said framerate would improve, but not greatly. They have direct plans for improving optimization in the future.

@AnVold We don't know the specs. Could be cheaper than Series X, could have 2 TB SSD and other upgrades at $500. If you already own a Series X, there's little point in upgrading with next gen coming in 2026-2027. This is for new buyers and may save MS some cash in production.

How is AEW still so expensive?

@Phil-Spencer-Gate Regarding #2, Sony has a history in TV, film and music, so they tried to apply a pop culture approach to games. They try to make games look cool to people who don't play games. They started by "borrowing" from popular movies & IP (e.g. The Getaway imitating popular Guy Ritchie movies).

MS just did not seem to want to spend money on this. They focused on gameplay and were pretty tight with the wallet for too long. Services and multi-player were an important tool in bringing in more customers.

I already on Diablo on PC. The other two are not sufficiently interesting to me. Hot Wheels could get 20-60 minutes, I suppose.

Got DD2 on PC for $60.

D4 was released in June of last year and I bought it for PC. Good to see people on Xbox getting to try it out.

@Wardstone234 I'm still using the rewards for this. My GPU sub should have expired in June 2023 and instead has been extended to August 2026 and counting.

@PhileasFragg It is not so bad — the game pass achievement requirement was dropped from 45 to 36 which is reasonable. I didn't have a problem achieving it in January or February. These are rewards points, so it is not something we are entitled to or have to do; it is just an option to save some money.

If it is savings you're after, you can earn more rewards by using the other apps (Bing phone, Xbox phone, Xbox Profile Rewards Tab, MS Rewards, Bing/Edge PC search, Edge quizzes).

@ScoTTieDLighT That all depends on the game and how you play it. If you play a game on easy or normal, then yeah, someone who plays games at all could probably shlub through it in a timely manner. Don't use the majority of game mechanics, make tons of mistakes, and still succeed.

As for Ready or Not, releasing on PC is simpler and far less restrictive than publishing to consoles. A dev doesn't even have to use a storefront, necessarily. The PC is wide open and has state-of-the-art consumer tech.

@UBERSICKO If the FFVII Remakes' sales continue to underperform, Square will become increasingly dissatisfied and ask for more money from Sony or drop the practice altogether. The Rebirth exclusivity is supposed to be 3 months, and I doubt we will see a PC version immediately afterwards. We'll see. That will restrict sales and dampen interests for the eventual PC release.

@rustyduck Davinder. I played as him solo, also.

Code: Veronica is in far greater need of a remake. I'd argue that RE5 does need it and RE6 was so bad that it doesn't deserve it.

@MaccaMUFC I have to disagree — the difference is readily apparent. Not the leap from 30 to 60 fps, no, but I've had games on PC drop to 60 (due to a config bug) from the normal 90-120 at the time, and immediately felt something was visual wrong.

@themightyant The game is funny and you build stuff. Similar to Grounded and other survival games. I guess the crafting/basebuilding/shipbuilding aspect of Starfield is another comparison. You have objectives, crafting materials to collect, unlockable technology, and captured pals that can work on your base.

The pals have different fighting and assistance abilities. They also have different personalities and suffer real world ailments and exhibit behaviors (slacking off at work, lazy, ulcers, stressed out). When assigned to a camp, they automatically help you out.

That's the hook. The "Fauxkemon" and what you can do to them is kind of funny. The player works on their base & improving combat effectiveness. Slowly you realize there are a lot of layers the devs put in. I've seen photos/clips of people who are way ahead of me, and it is surprising the things you can do.

@Weebleman I, too, think Sony will (begrudgingly) do something similar to a different degree over time. Xbox is acting erratically. They just had a big Direct show and 2024 is FINALLY lined up for them to start firing on all cylinders. Then within a couple weeks they pull this. If this decision is tied to not moving enough consoles (let's be real) then be prepared to move even less consoles.

Their timing is horrendous. Get a few solid years in the bank first, just maybe? They seem to suffer from cognitive dissonance or something. If you saw a couple grand on raft in the middle of an alligator pond, would you try to get to it or just leave it be? LOL

Could be someone else (MS suits) is grabbing at the wheel while they drive down the highway.

@SodaPop6548 I beat Sea of Stars over XCloud. The network performed pretty well the vast majority of the time. Time-to-completion was 65 hours. I did not expect that.

Eh...I already bought it on greenman...