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Does this mean we are getting Halo 4 HD on the next XBOX?
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Xbox Xbox is failing so horribly, its kind of unbelievable
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RochHoch
Koopa
They've fallen into practically all the big pitfalls of AAA development and don't have an answer for any of it.
Glacial output, announcing games a million years in advance and then having nothing to show for ages, GAAS crashing and burning (which they did to their golden goose, of all things). The whole things reeks of poor management, Halo, of all things, should not be left floundering like this for years at a time
Hi Fi Rush is the light in the darkness here, a great, smaller scale game bursting with creative talent. They should be greenlighting more games like this instead of tons of projects that get announced and then vanish for 4-5 years at a time
Glacial output, announcing games a million years in advance and then having nothing to show for ages, GAAS crashing and burning (which they did to their golden goose, of all things). The whole things reeks of poor management, Halo, of all things, should not be left floundering like this for years at a time
Hi Fi Rush is the light in the darkness here, a great, smaller scale game bursting with creative talent. They should be greenlighting more games like this instead of tons of projects that get announced and then vanish for 4-5 years at a time
Nintendo still put out tons of killer games in that time period, though. Xbox has Hi Fi Rush, and.....
Hailinel
Musou Mania!
The crazy thing to me is how apparently mismanaged 343 was, if reports are to be believed. A lot of contractors cycling in and out, which, if done at a large enough scale, would obviously affect things.
Microsoft banked hard on the Activision merger, and if that ends up blocked, they're going to be out billions of dollars paid to Activision in consolation with nothing to show for all of that song and dance.
Armoured_Bear
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Yes, a belter of a game. We need more of games like this instead of the endless AAAAAAAAAAAAA++++++++++ nonsense.
Lugia667
Inkling
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huh, they dont get all the money back?
Instro
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While there's something to be said about Xbox being their first attempt as a hardware manufacturer, Microsoft had been a major publisher in the videogame business for like 20+ years by that time. It's kind of hard to say they were some kind of upstart or non-entity in the gaming sphere. Of all challengers in the gaming hardware race, hey had like massive advantages as a favored western publisher, huge ties to the PC gaming ecosystem and the related developers, and massive amounts of capital to burn to make it work.
As far as their current situation, all of these acquisitions will take like a full generation to start to pay off in terms of software quality. Most of them were developed under the conditions of a 3rd party and everything that comes with that. Similarly Microsoft has very little valuable IP, and the ones that were, are failing. That's part of the reason the AB acquisition was so important to them. They would have had access to a trove of IP to throw their dev resources at, vs trying to come up with new IP, or mine their existing IP that no one cares about.
The big problem has always been that Microsoft is constantly changing gears as to what is or is not important, what the goals for their gaming unit are, etc. which often sets them back to zero in terms of video game development. Instead of just focusing on making good games first, they are often chasing some larger boondoggle like "winning the living room", "cloud", "subscription model", etc., and that flows down to what games they make, what features they've required of their games development, etc. Things will probably start to work out for them if they stay the course with Spencer. At least as a publisher if not a hardware manufacturer.
As far as their current situation, all of these acquisitions will take like a full generation to start to pay off in terms of software quality. Most of them were developed under the conditions of a 3rd party and everything that comes with that. Similarly Microsoft has very little valuable IP, and the ones that were, are failing. That's part of the reason the AB acquisition was so important to them. They would have had access to a trove of IP to throw their dev resources at, vs trying to come up with new IP, or mine their existing IP that no one cares about.
The big problem has always been that Microsoft is constantly changing gears as to what is or is not important, what the goals for their gaming unit are, etc. which often sets them back to zero in terms of video game development. Instead of just focusing on making good games first, they are often chasing some larger boondoggle like "winning the living room", "cloud", "subscription model", etc., and that flows down to what games they make, what features they've required of their games development, etc. Things will probably start to work out for them if they stay the course with Spencer. At least as a publisher if not a hardware manufacturer.
Hailinel
Musou Mania!
They do not. There's a standard clause in the merger agreement that if the merger does not successfully close by a certain date (in this case, I believe the date is July 18th, 2023), Microsoft must pay an amount to Activision (I believe it's $10 billion in this case) essentially as consolation for the deal failing to close.
Ozeiyo
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Gears 5 is pretty good, though. It's just not relevant.
Being fair to Microsoft, they've published games like Psychonauts 2, Flight Simulator, Pentiment, and yes, Hi-Fi Rush. Frankly, in terms of gameplay variety, I like current MS over current Sony. The problem is for the market at large, Microsoft's offerings pale in comparison to Sony's. They need one of their games to break out, and be something a lot of consumers really, really want.
They spent money on all the lawyers and other personnel that were drawing up those contracts, plus they have to pay Activision 3 billion if the merger gets blocked.
It's approximately 3 billion.
That's the thing, right, MS is a tech company trying to make games, and that's why their approach is so reliant on the tech involved. Sony was in the same situation and it took a while for them to find their footing, first party-wise.
PixelKnight
Observing the process
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Nintendo always had the portables though- Zelda LBW was 2013 and was warmly received then (and is still seen as great now, it’s an awesome game). Same for 3D Land (2011), plus OOT 3D (2011 too). You can’t really view the home consoles in isolation in terms of series strength.
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I'm really interested in seeing what the next Halo game is going to be. Was leadership there an albatross weighing the creatives down? Some of the big names that left, Bonnie Ross, Frankie, Staten, were with the franchise for a decade or more.
Hailinel
Musou Mania!
Thank you for the correction!
Yeah I mean I'm a happy Xbox Series X owner. Don't regret the purchase. Don't wish I had gotten the Ps5 whatsoever. With that said I never got the Series X for Microsoft's 1st party stuff. I do not care about Halo. I do not care about Forza. I barely care for Bethesda games. I care about gamepass. And I've played enough games on it that has eclipsed the value that I've spent multiple times over lol. Now I may not care about the games I listed above but gamepass has made me interested to at least give them ago. Would I had played the last Forza game without GP? No. But I did play it for 30 hours.
Based on what Grubb said, Microsoft saw the game after they purchased Bethesda and were not convinced by it. I do not know why they didn't kill it. Which is funny because of the recent story from a former Sony CEO I believe it was. He said they killed games to save the devs. Microsoft should've done that.
As for Starfield I ain't expecting a masterpiece. Looks like a solid 85 metacritic scored game tbh. It being Bethesda I expect there to be weird glitches but I actually think it'll be a pretty clean game. I have to think the year delay was specifically to keep the game from having too many glitches or immersion breaking bugs.
Based on what Grubb said, Microsoft saw the game after they purchased Bethesda and were not convinced by it. I do not know why they didn't kill it. Which is funny because of the recent story from a former Sony CEO I believe it was. He said they killed games to save the devs. Microsoft should've done that.
As for Starfield I ain't expecting a masterpiece. Looks like a solid 85 metacritic scored game tbh. It being Bethesda I expect there to be weird glitches but I actually think it'll be a pretty clean game. I have to think the year delay was specifically to keep the game from having too many glitches or immersion breaking bugs.
Christo750
Source of the Right Arm
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Funny thing is it absolutely happened inside Nintendo. Mario didn't push Wii Us and Zelda sales were fine but probably below expectations for what was considered their second biggest franchise. Everyone was calling for Iwata and Reggie to get replaced at the time.
Even funnier considering the whole Switch era is basically Iwata's last seedling. Leadership knew they were dealing with a dud of an era at the time.
I mean ... I assume a big reason most people buy XBox (or even Playstation for that matter) is to simply have access to the big 3rd party games which the XBox gets.
1st party stuff is kind of like a bonus.
If you like GamePass + you like Bethesda games and/or Halo and Forza are your jams, well then XBox is kinda the best choice for you.
1st party stuff is kind of like a bonus.
If you like GamePass + you like Bethesda games and/or Halo and Forza are your jams, well then XBox is kinda the best choice for you.
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I love my Series S but it's definitely a Capcom, Indie and retro (and multimedia) device. It’s not like XBOX/Beth haven’t released good games this gen but their output is too sparse to have this many high-profile failures. Sony also only releases a few games per year but they’re extremely consistent. Nintendo has duds but they tend to make up for it with a higher number of releases. XBOX is currently worst of both worlds.
Lugia667
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Zelda didn't have a Wii U release until Botw lol
No, I don't agree. Of course the goal of everyone in the end is to get you to spend money so they make money, but I think there's a lot of people at Sony, Nintendo, and even a lot of third parties that are still committed to games being fun, games being art, and games being special.
To Microsoft it's all just numbers -- they don't care about games or gaming, just the bottom line and how much they can control it. I legitimately feel bad for any developer purchased by them.
Dcubed
Paratroopa
Microsoft was not a major games publisher at all. They had only one major PC franchise under their belt prior to the release of the Xbox (Age of Empires), and that stayed PC exclusive all the way up until 2023 with the remake of AoE 3 (not counting that weird PS2 port of AoE 2 that nobody remembers or cares about). Throughout the early-late 90s, Microsoft was a small fry publisher in the PC space.
The original Xbox started from basically zero, and they did an amazing job of breaking into an industry that was basically completely shut out to outside competitors (and indeed one that had just shed a major platform holder in the form of SEGA).
Oh, and you know how Microsoft bought their way into the industry by buying up developers and exclusive deals? Guess who else did that? Yup. Sony. They got their start as a platform holder by buying out Psygnosis, the single biggest publisher in Europe, before the PS1 had even launched. And it was Psygnosis that gave Sony the ability to publish games worldwide and develop dev kits for 3rd party studios (Psygnosis were the ones who made the PS1 dev kits and development documentation). And they made their fortune off the back of purchasing exclusivity on games like Crash Bandicoot (which they did not own), Spyro, Final Fantasy 7 and the Tomb Raider series (after the first game)... not to mention later buying studios such as Insomniac, Sucker Punch and Naughty Dog.
Nintendo and SEGA were the only ones who could possibly start a video game console business off the back of their own internal development studios because they came into the market when console gaming was literally dead and basically non-existent (and developing games could reasonably be done in mere months with just a handful of people). When you're coming into an established industry against pre-existing industry titans, and where games took years and millions of dollars to make, you can't come in starting from scratch. M&A and moneyhats are literally your only option when you're starting out.
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Christo750
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Skyward Sword sold pitifully considering Wii’s install base and the amount of time it was in development for and the 3DS games didn’t light the world on fire either.
Also this is wrong. Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD existed. the latter of which also sold pitifully and the former sold maybe half of what it did on GameCube.
Dcubed
Paratroopa
It came out at the end of the Wii's life when the console was totally dead and also required a peripheral which was not bundled with the game...
... coincidentally, it came out under exactly the same conditions as Majora's Mask... and ended up selling pretty much exactly the same amount.
Christo750
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and considering the posture of the Wii vs the N64 at the time, that's not really in favor of SS. idk if you're saying it is, but i feel like saying "at the end of the Wii's life" is only a qualifier in hindsight. The Wii's successor wasn't out for another year and surely Nintendo expected more from arguably their most esteemed franchise on their most successful console to date.
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JazzPotatoes
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One of the main issues that all that platform developers are having to deal with, not just Microsoft, is the demand for big impressive first party games is going up, but development times are getting longer.
It's easy to say that Xbox needs more first party games, but it can take anywhere from four to six years to get a new project off the ground and through development. It's not like the old days where you can crunch and push your way through to getting new games out inside a year or two.
Xbox isn't going anywhere. Even though hardware numbers are down, GP revenue is big enough for havingy to be a core part of the business, Nadell would be an idiot to bin it off.
That being said, there are absolutely things Microsoft could be doing to improve things with their development pipelines:
1) Focus on getting all their studios up and running with user friendly tools and systems. ID are happy using their own engine? Great, leave them to it. 343 are struggling with Slipspace? Bin it and pivot to Unreal: it has more features, better support and quicker iteration times. MS cannot afford to have different studios pissing about with different engines and not getting results
2) Focus on getting a consistent production pipeline installed across studios. From what we do hear of canned projects, it seems as though there is a genuine issue with studios not getting basic concepts nailed down, and struggling to get their projects into workable products. This needs to stop. Studios need to start following a pipeline that encourages them to get their gameplay concepts nailed down early, and develop from there.
Rare actually did this for Sea Of Thieves, and while it had a rocky start, it's become one of Rares most successful games and one of the best first party games under Microsoft.
3) Give developers space to work on smaller projects. This can be both original small scale IP, or expansions or iterative releases to existing games. There's no reason Fallout 4 couldn't have had a New Vegas style spinoff, or that Playgrounds couldn't use all the assets they've for the Horizon games to make a cool walking sim. Nintendo absolutely understand the importance of this.
Ironically, Gears Tactics is an example of doing exact this, and they did bugger all to market it.
4) Actually put emphasis and marketing into the scope of games they have. Yes, compared to Sony's offerings, their big budget third person action blockbusters are lacking. But if you look at the scope of titles they have available, they include: Hi Fi Rush, Flight Sim, Sea of Thieves, Gears Hive busters, Gears Tactics, Pentiment, Wasteland 3, Grounded, Forza, Ori, Cuphead... That's not a bad list of games, they're just rubbish at marketing to people to let them know how varied their first party line up is
It's easy to say that Xbox needs more first party games, but it can take anywhere from four to six years to get a new project off the ground and through development. It's not like the old days where you can crunch and push your way through to getting new games out inside a year or two.
Xbox isn't going anywhere. Even though hardware numbers are down, GP revenue is big enough for havingy to be a core part of the business, Nadell would be an idiot to bin it off.
That being said, there are absolutely things Microsoft could be doing to improve things with their development pipelines:
1) Focus on getting all their studios up and running with user friendly tools and systems. ID are happy using their own engine? Great, leave them to it. 343 are struggling with Slipspace? Bin it and pivot to Unreal: it has more features, better support and quicker iteration times. MS cannot afford to have different studios pissing about with different engines and not getting results
2) Focus on getting a consistent production pipeline installed across studios. From what we do hear of canned projects, it seems as though there is a genuine issue with studios not getting basic concepts nailed down, and struggling to get their projects into workable products. This needs to stop. Studios need to start following a pipeline that encourages them to get their gameplay concepts nailed down early, and develop from there.
Rare actually did this for Sea Of Thieves, and while it had a rocky start, it's become one of Rares most successful games and one of the best first party games under Microsoft.
3) Give developers space to work on smaller projects. This can be both original small scale IP, or expansions or iterative releases to existing games. There's no reason Fallout 4 couldn't have had a New Vegas style spinoff, or that Playgrounds couldn't use all the assets they've for the Horizon games to make a cool walking sim. Nintendo absolutely understand the importance of this.
Ironically, Gears Tactics is an example of doing exact this, and they did bugger all to market it.
4) Actually put emphasis and marketing into the scope of games they have. Yes, compared to Sony's offerings, their big budget third person action blockbusters are lacking. But if you look at the scope of titles they have available, they include: Hi Fi Rush, Flight Sim, Sea of Thieves, Gears Hive busters, Gears Tactics, Pentiment, Wasteland 3, Grounded, Forza, Ori, Cuphead... That's not a bad list of games, they're just rubbish at marketing to people to let them know how varied their first party line up is
Ozeiyo
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Microsoft has published Pentiment, Psychonauts 2, and Hi-Fi Rush in the span of a couple of years. These 3 games would not exist if not for them, and they would have failed -or at least underperformed- were it not for an evil corporation that only cares about the bottom line. Every company has employees that care about releasing good games.
The argument of MS being uniquely evil is weird, though. Nintendo has been notoriously monopolistic when they had the chance, especially in the 80s and 90s, forcing third parties to jump through hoops in order to get their seal of approval. Even now it is pulling off some of the most evil sh*t imaginable (there's a kid in prison that will owe Nintendo money for life as we speak!!!). Sony continuously moneyhats exclusives, and pushes deals with third parties that they cannot refuse. The PS5 being the top dog is effectively turning the console market into a space where only one console exists, with the switch allowed some room because it isn't seen as a threat. Microsoft absolutely sucks, but it isn't special in being terrible.
Christo750
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edit: not a good reply, nvm.
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Looks like June 11 for the big Xbox Not-E3 presentation, with a Starfield Direct to follow. Here’s hoping things are looking a little better after that 
Beanstar40
Chain Chomp
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As an xbox fan myself, im pretty dissapointed at the state of the brand. They are still struggling to get their triple a games out. And those games often release unfinished even after sizable delays. Thats to say nothing of the complete absence of titles announced 3-4 years ago. But they are killing it with backwards compatibility and services in a way that no one else is. They just need to get into a cadence of releasing “complete” triple a video games on a regular basis like sony can
SpaceGodzilla
Did You Get that Thing I Sent You?
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I'm just kinda getting sick of it, at this point Phil Spencer is a much better pr spokesmen then a actually leader
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wakko
Cappy
I also think Series S/X is a great Sega system. (Which falls under the "retro" category that you mentioned)
It's the only current-gen system where you can play Sega games like Gun Valkyrie, Sonic Generations, Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Nights Into Dreams, Virtua Fighter 2, Daytona USA, Guardian Heroes, Crazy Taxi, Otagi: Myth of Demons, Sega Bass Fishing...
Dcubed
Paratroopa
Honestly? Most of the reason why I even own a Series X is to play OG Xbox and 360 games on it.
wakko
Cappy
I'm in the same boat as you. I bought my Series S specifically to play old classic games.
For example, it's crazy how many Nintendo 64 games are available on Xbox.
GoldenEye 007
Perfect Dark
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Tooie
Conker's Bad Fur Day
Blast Corps
Jet Force Gemini
Killer Instinct Gold
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
Doom 64
Quake
Star Wars Episode 1 Racer
Shadow Man
Forsaken
That's a surprisingly strong lineup of N64 games for a non-Nintendo system.
I've been with xbox since 360 and I've been really patient with them. Last year when then announced redfall and starfield delays something broke inside me. I stopped following xbox news, forum topics and podcasts because I got fed up with people making constant excuses. Now I'm reading redfall is a mess... Jesus. Maybe its time to change heads of xbox division? Phils has been the head of xbox for almost a decade and he has delivered nothing. NOTHING. Gamepass won't work. It was fun playing games for cheap by using the conversion trick but to tell you the truth I'd rather buy what I want. Next generation Im probably switching to nintendo + playstation. Too bad xbox gobbled up obsidian, inxile and bethesda.
This will be a nothing burger "interview". Prepared questions filtered by microsoft pr. Another pr stunt by good uncle Phil.
Hailinel
Musou Mania!
Yeah. I expect absolutely nothing of substance and only PR spin.
Mekanos
300 Years Of Gyudon
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Frankie got banned like 10 times for racism on ResetERA before being permabanned so I cannot imagine he's great to work with.
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I honestly don't think MS deserves credit for HFR - it was in dev for years before the acquisition. Similarly, I think MS only deserves half-credit for the state of Redfall - the core of the game is fucked but that was decided beforehand and the acquisition may have actually had positive effects (specifically supplying enough stability for Bethesda to remove the MTX), while rushing it out in a broken state is completely on MS. I see three paths for them now that they only have Starfield left for this year:
- Starfield hits November and is good, buying Xbox some time
- Starfield hits November and is bad, starting a death timer on the whole Xbox brand barring a miracle
- Starfield is delayed out of 2023 for maximum quality control following Redfall's awful launch, Xbox has extreme egg on its face but maybe can salvage their situation
Zeal543
Paratroopa
Wii's active userbase was done for after ~2010
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Phil is gonna need his absolute coolest Cool Dad Leather Jacket for this one. It’s damage control time!
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Better to delay it another 6 months and have it launch to rave reviews and no technical issues over being another mess.
Microsoft should gift xbox and their studios to sega and let them rebrand console to dreamcast xd
9-Volt
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This reminds me how aggressive Microsoft was during the first two years of Xbox 360. Exclusives all around, even the big name japanese ones. MS published many of them: The Last Story, Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, Eternal Sonata, Tales of Vesperia, Rumble Roses, Ninety Nine Nights, Dead or Alive 4... This was addition to their own stuff like Viva Piñata and Fable 2. I'm starting to think Phil is not as good as people think...
I wonder if Konami would consider remastering Ninety Nine Nights and its sequel. Those were the best musou clones around.
I wonder if Konami would consider remastering Ninety Nine Nights and its sequel. Those were the best musou clones around.
Lugia667
Inkling
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is that the one million troops game?
Hailinel
Musou Mania!
That was Ninety-Nine Nights II, specifically. The original was an early-gen 360 game.
9-Volt
Adept
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Yeah, Tak Fuji's musou clone. First one was published by Microsoft but both of them were console exclusives. Battles lasted longer than contemporary musou titles.
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The question form for that Kinda Funny stream includes such hardballs as “Tell us your favorite Gamerscore memory and/or special achievements story?” There is a blank form to submit your own (brief) question but still lol. Seems like there won’t be much substantive discussion
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It's a Bethesda game. They could delay it 100 years and it will still have many technical issues at launch.
One thing I've loved with Xbox lately is how close they work with Sega now. All the Yakuza games, Sonic, Atlus RPGs-- they're all either on Gamepass or best on the series X. Hopefully we get the Smt games on gamepass soon to go along with the persona games.
