Topic: Official Push Square Xbox Thread

@FullbringIchigo Trilogy? I thought there were only two mainline LoS games.

@Jaz007 Lords of Shadow, Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate and Lords of Shadow 2, you can't count MOF as a spin off or side game because it's story is integral to the series, thus a trilogy

@FullbringIchigo I have always been intrigued by the story of the LoS kinda of a neat twist on the Castlevania storyline so I will probably be checking them out

@Tasuki it's a pretty interesting twist actually and they are fun games too

_{Sorry but that sort of discussion is not allowed here I am afraid. Thanks for understanding -Tasuki-}

MS has announced 2 new studios they have acquired - inXile (Wasteland series, Bards Tale series) and Obsidian (Fallout, New Vegas, South Park: Stick of Truth, Alpha Protocol, Knights of the Old Republic 2)...

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2018/11/10/obsidian-inxile-join-m...

Also Keyboard and Mouse support is coming soon and 14 games (inc Fortnite) have been announced that will support Keyboard/mouse on console.

All the XO18 news here - https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2018/11/10/x018-inside-xbox-news-...

Their funeral I guess.

@AdamNovice Hardly - its probably saved them!! They have been on the verge of disappearing so MS's support and money has probably just saved their future!

Someone sounds bitter!!

@bamozzy Lol you wish. I just think it's sad that independent and creative studios get swallowed by companies like MS who are only interested in pushing subscription services above actually making high quality games.

@kratosMD I fail to see how Sony have been "arrogant" their gaming output has been as good as always and they've been making additions and features based on consumer demand. Cross play, PS Now downloads and name changes. If Sony were indeed arrogant I don't think they'd making such decisions.
As for Xbox dominanting well it's a tall order for them cos Xbox has largely become a regional brand where they only really have any kind of success in America and possibly UK but PlayStation has far more global appeal and with digital IDs and purchases becoming more important, a lot of people will be reluctant to move over.

@AdamNovice Cross-Play, Name Changes and PSNow downloads are all things that Xbox had and Sony have been pressured into relenting on. They could have continued to refuse to offer these despite the constant criticism from the media and pressure from its user base but that would possibly have led to even more negative press. Consumer demand was helped because Xbox offered all of these features. It also added external HDD support long before Sony did and again 'pressure' from gamers forced Sony's hand. You can argue that they didn't have to concede but their competitors offered these and that led to negative press which probably had a bigger impact than listening to their users.

I can't deny that Sony's first party studio line-up is great - finally catching up to the console and making the type of games they were known for on PS3 - took a while. MS certainly needed to up their studio count to catch up with Sony's studio count - its a lot easier to release more quality games with many more studios!

Sony has a longer history in gaming and the Japanese are very loyal so its always going to be difficult for MS to do well in Japan. Europe are more discerning and likely to pick the console that has the best overall games and Sony's Japanese games don't sell that well - regardless of how 'good' they may be - outside of Japan. Considering the population of Japan, the Japanese games often sell more in Japan than the rest of the world. Its often their European and American based studio's that sell the most games - Games from Naughty Dog, Guerilla Games and Sucker-Punch for example - 3rd party exclusives from Insomniac and FromSoftware have helped too of course bolster their worldwide exclusive game sales but games like Persona, Gravity Rush and Nioh haven't sold that well considering the size of the user base and their review scores. That also helps Sony in Japan of course and I wouldn't be surprised if Sony continues to dominate in Japan and orient - even if MS does make a far superior console with a much bigger library of quality exclusives. VR is the only area that I can think of that Sony has been particularly innovative and forward thinking on - All the features and updates are playing catch-up to Xbox and/or Nintendo. Even Nintendo's Switch had cross-play with other consoles before Sony. Maybe they are not so arrogant that they stick to their guns on things, suffer the consequences of negative press and eventually added features that other consoles offered.

BC may well be something that Sony may need to keep its user base - not the fanboys that would buy Sony regardless but the ones that want to buy the best console they can for the money - the reason why a lot of XB360 console owners jumped to PS4 - but then they may just keep their PS4 and library and jump to Xbox for the library that offers - especially if it's also the 'best' console for all their multi-platform games. I will own both next gen consoles anyway. I hope they are both equally as good as I prefer to use my consoles evenly - not have one for exclusives and old games (BC and free PS+/GwG games) and the other for all the new releases and its exclusives. I want a difficult choice as to which console to buy games for but right now, its an easy choice.

@kratosMD What would you perfer, that Sony not relent to the backlash at all? A lot of things had to be figured out before they could allow it, so executives just towed the company line.
You mention lack of exclusives compared to PS3 but the vast majority of those game didn't sell.
Back in 2012 IGN PlayStation's Greg Miller had a pizza bet with IGN Xbox's Mitch Dyer where he bet that the collective sales of PS3 retail exclusives would outsell Gears of War 3...he lost. This was the year where it seemed like Sony had an exclusive every month.
Games like: Starhawk, Sly Thieves in Time, PS AllStars, Twisted Metal and LBP Karting and all of the flopped.
Sony took a different approach "Quality over quantity" and it's mostly worked this gen. As for 3rd party exclusives well most of them Sony got by default from Japan due to Xbox have a poor market there and Nintendo for a long while didn't have a console that was financially viable to put those games on in the first place so PS4 was literally the only show in town.

@bamozzy Not sure I agree about Europe, the EU has been a PlayStation bedrock for 3 generations now so MS will have to work hard to make inroads but I have a feeling they will be largely looking at America first.
Also you say MS forced Sony's hand but it's not that different from when Sony got them to change their DRM and always online stance, it's swings and roundabouts and companies are just adapting.

@kratosMD It's much better now then when they said things like "the generation starts when we do" and "You'll need two jobs to get PS3" also come on Sony not investing in more games is bloody rubbish, they have delivered a huge amount of exclusives over the generation from big and small so I don't know where you got that idea from. Games are taking a lot longer to make so when we were used to studios releasing 3 or 4 games in a generation we now get 1 or 2 instead, also some of Sony's focus has been on VR where studios like London and Japan have been working. And if PS5 is coming next year then it makes no sense to fund PS4 at this point when PS5 becomes the priority.

@AdamNovice The EU has had some areas that are more 'Sony' than MS but last gen, MS had the lead for years in Europe - I know they caught up. Its not Swings and Roundabouts as MS has been far more forward thinking. Sony didn't get them to change their minds on DRM and Always online, that was the public. Sony just continued to do things the same way they had done with the PS3 and the same as the XB360 had done before. That was a feature that MS thought was a 'good idea' to implement but the public didn't agree and so backed down before it released and went back to doing things the way they had done before with the 360.

It would be 'swings and roundabouts' had we had DRM and always online - but Sony decided to break away from that and then MS followed suit afterwards. However MS had offered name changes (and have for years), offered cross-play and Nintendo too and MS's Game Pass had downloading from the start - Sony are playing catch-up. Its like Sony copying the Wii motes with its PS Move, building in a HDD like the Xbox instead of memory cards like Nintendo had. Sony obviously led the media playing capability with the PS1 playing CD's although are now 'behind' as a media player as the Xbox offer 4k HDR Bluray, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos spatial audio so I expect they will 'catch-up' with the PS5 there. Unless Sony comes up with a 'must have' feature first, then it could well be swings and roundabouts where MS will have to consider adding that feature - VR is the only thing I can think of right now that would be 'swings and roundabouts' if MS do add it but DRM/always online is not an example at all - Sony certainly didn't have that feature first and lead MS to implement that feature.

@Kidfried Mojang just announced that Minecraft has 91 million monthly users! That's bigger that fortnite or any other game, so it's obviously working for gamers and still getting new updates and content. Rare released a very popular game which we maybe don't like but it's obviously very popular for many people and they are still getting updates for that game and finally it's not a game for kinect while gears had a very good 4th installment and on the way to an amazing 5th one with two spin offs so I'd say that's pretty good for gamers.

I'd say let's enjoy good games regardless of platform and let competition bring the best for us customers.

@Kidfried I'm also not a fan of sea of thieves but it obviously works for many people. I played gears 4 and it was great, basically more gears 1, 2, 3 and they made it like that intentionally, while they're going for something different for gears 5.

When Microsoft acquired Mojang they stated it doesn't make sense to make mine craft 2 so they obviously still work on the first game and Mojang enjoys that. They are also a very small team with some 50-60 people so they can't make another big ip, maybe only some small games.

Sony have many more studio's but gave also closed down a few in recent years too - Guerilla Cambridge and Evolution stidios for example. MS is building up its library to increase its first party library and Sony's investment in studio's is likely to increase the size and quality of games without necessarily increasing the development time. I doubt we will see games from GG every year for example but we could see more than 1 or two big games a year from MS and we won't just be getting Forza Motorsport and Halo or Forza Horizon and Gears with the odd game from Rare, 3rd Party, timed exclusives or ID@Xbox releases supplementing the exclusive line up. Now we could get games from Obsidian, Ninja Theory, inXile, the Initiative, Playground games (other than FH games as they have expanded) etc - not every year of course but a couple of these devs a year releasing games should have an impact on the the perception of MS's first party line-up.

Believe it or not, GG was independent and made a multi-platform game before being contracted by Sony to make exclusives and then a year later in 2005, became owned by Sony. Sucker-Punch were like Playground games in that they were independent but only made games for Sony after their first game was released on N64 until Sony acquired them in 2011. Those 3 Sly Cooper games and the first 2 Infamous games were made whilst Sucker Punch were 'independent' - Festival of Blood released a month after Sucker Punch became owned by Sony. Naughty Dog joined Sony in 2001 and their first release as a Sony Studio was Jak and Daxter - All the Crash games were made in partnership with Universal Interactive Studio's and Sony whilst ND were independent. Three of Sony's biggest studio's were independent with Sucker Punch only joining Sony 7yrs ago. They may have partnered with Sony before but they were independent.

The acquisitions by MS now puts them on a par with Sony's first party studio's - although Sony do have partnerships with studio's like Supermassive, Quantic Dream, Kojima Productions etc and some good 3rd Party partnerships too which will add games to their exclusive line up. MS had to build up their studio portfolio, had to invest in their first party games - not just for the console for their ecosystem. Gamers need MS to be competitive to push Sony to be competitive too - not have the monopoly to be complacent and/or greedy.

Guys, Microsoft wants to become Netflix for gaming, their strategy is different from Sony's and that's why they're acquiring smaller studios mainly, so they can push new games frequently to Gamepass.

@NecuVise Whilst MS may well be pursuing alternatives to ownership of games with their subscription service, they are also offering these as traditional purchase options too. You can still buy all their exclusives in physical/digital formats to own them outright. If you want to buy any 'GamePass' game so you own it, you also get a Discount from the MS store and discounts on DLC too.

Of course having more exclusives can mean that they can build up their GamePass library and its clear they want to offer more games across more media but if you wish to purchase your games in a more traditional format, you can. There are advantages to buying Digital from MS or Subscribing to GamePass - maybe more so than buying on disc which has its own advantages - especially if you game on multiple devices - like PC and/or Mobile phone/tablet, but that doesn't mean that MS will limit the options to acquire these games to just GamePass.

If you buy Digital or Subscribe to GamePass, you should have access to your games, your save points and progress regardless of whether you play on Console, PC and even mobile devices. Just sign into your MS account on any MS device and play your games - whether that's 'streamed' on mobile devices or local on Console/PC. Maybe it is a bit 'Netflix' but where PC/Consoles install the whole box set to your HDD with mobile devices relying on an internet service to stream and regardless of where you watch, your progress through the box set is kept. Of course you still need to have an internet connection to update your progress, your save point but you can still watch the episodes on your HDD if you lose internet for a bit.

You need to be online to play PS+/GwG XB1 games, need to keep your subscription up to keep playing these. PSNow may well be 'similar' now you can Download (not that I know too much about it) and maintain an online connection and active subscription - although that seems to be just 'Old' games rather than brand new releases - also a bigger library. GamePass is just MS's alternative and doesn't affect those that wish to use their devices in the more traditional manner. The option though still exists for those who want to buy the games outright.

Point is, its beneficial for MS and MS's gamers - not just GamePass, but all MS gamers - whether they subscribe or not, whether they have multiple MS devices or just 1, whether they prefer to buy Physical, digital or not bothered about buying some games at all. GamePass is an option not the only option so more exclusive games from MS will benefit ALL of MS gamers regardless of how they consume games.

There’s a weird bug/glitch on Fallout 76. Whenever I go to fast travel anywhere my XB1 X shuts down, when I power it back up I get a message saying it was shut down to prevent overheating. I was enjoying the game but now I’ll just uninstall it, it’s not worth it risking it damaging my X.