@thefourfoldroot1 specs are still a trade secret, but Xbox tends to have most its defining features on the software side. Things like Smart Delivery and Quick Resume being known with enough time in advance could had made Sony re-engineer their software stack to have a much more robust cross-gen deployment strategy instead of their upgrade scheme that was obviously designed in reaction post-announcement and was buggy for over a year post launch.
Had the PS4 launched with 4GB of GDDR, the entire generation would had been flipped on its head. Rumor has it that Xbox also knew about Sony's lower memory plans, and thats why they felt so confident doing crazy stuff with digital DRM, TV and all that garbage that ended up pushing many like me away from their platform.
@Kevw2006 Thinking logically, Game Pass on PS5 would simply mean XBox first party/owned games come to PS5 and those titles, only, are available to play as part of the subscription similar to EA Play.
What would PS Plus realistically bring to Xbox? They are not even adding their first parties to their PS Plus Extra tier. PS Plus on Xbox would do nothing on its own.
Neither service would grant players to play third party titles on the competitor's hardware.
At the end it’s only PlayStation that suffers the impact of that. As it stands, Apple has for years shared top secret information with Samsung to have them fab their chips, despite them being a direct competitor.
You do this with contracts that forbid division sharing trade secrets with the remainder of the company. If they refuse to do similar things, again, it’s Sonys fault and proves it’s Sony that can’t be trusted.
You understand that such an amendment to the contract requires both parties to agree, right? This is not against the spirit of the statement. MS didn't break
the contract and cancel the game, nor did Sony had any legal claims for the title.
Had Disney disagreed with the amendment, the game would still be coming to PS5. But Disney said "k, we cool".
Edit: This game is now on the same boat as Spider-Man. Let the hypocrisy on either side start now. Either both are bad, or both are ok. How many will insist only one of these things are acceptable?
@Qu1n0n3z Personally I disagree xbox lacks quantity or quality games. What they lack is big triple A console exclusive games, that tend to have much broader appeal.
It might be a matter of taste, but Xbox has a significant number of first party, high quality, but lower budget exclusive games right now. Games like Hi-Fi Rush, Tell Me Why, Forza, Age of Empires, Grounded, Pentiment, As Dusk Falls, Flight Sim, etc (wont list everything here.) These are all high quality, very well made games with lots of polish, they are just not gigantic triple A narrative adventure games.
@RobN Minecraft on XBox, as far as I understand, only got a 60fps patch. Such apps show as "Series X otpimized" even if they are simply "aware". The PS4 version of Minecraft also got a 60fps mode.
Mojang has been dragging their feet on a true Series X update with Raytracing support on console for years now. Only windows has been given access to those next-gen updates so far.
As I stated on PureXbox: at the end it’s only PlayStation that suffers the impact of that. As it stands, Apple has for years shared top secret information with Samsung to have them fab their chips, despite them being a direct competitor.
You do this with contracts that forbid division sharing trade secrets with the remainder of the company. If they refuse to do similar things, again, it’s Sonys fault and proves it’s Sony that can’t be trusted.
If Sony really are so paranoid they think they cant trust MS to honor any such contract clauses, well... I seriously hope they don't use Windows, Outlook or Office anywhere in their headquarters.
Imagine being the third biggest in something and saying you've lost the console wars, when competitors such as Ouya and Stadia have found gaming is a highly competitive venture and lost.
Imagine bringing up a decade old kickstarter project and a cloud service into a conversation to try to claim the third place in a 3-participant race isn't considered the "loser". At least bring up contemporaries like the Atari VCS and the Evercade VS (not that anyone would consider either a serious modern console either.)
@Qu1n0n3z I for one don't care who is number one. I have my own reasons to prefer playing on XB this gen, and Game Pass is only a minor one, but it still a reason.
I have no clue what kind of person only buys and uses products only if they are the #1 top sellers in their respective markets.
Future games from ABK? Yea all that other stuff will be exclusive, but nothing other than CoD is impactful enough to tilt the market, not even a potential Diablo 5.
@PsBoxSwitchOwner Xbox technically has had their all access model for years. It’s technically the opposite: sign up for a couple of years (I think) of game pass at a small markup and get an Xbox “for free” so long you don’t stop the payments. It’s kinda like getting a new phone from your carrier without buying it, in fact I think phone carriers are among those selling the all access Xbox thing.
Technically you just save a few bucks, but it is not the same to pay 500 in one sitting than splitting it over 2 years.
Chances are by the time this game comes out, extraction shooters are all old news and the new meta service games are, I don’t know, vertical hack and slash climbers or apocalyptic destruction derbies.
@NEStalgia All the 2D Metroid games have chronology, the SNES one even makes sure to recap what happened in Samus Returns, without it, the ending makes no sense.
Sooner or later, I do expect Far Cry to loosen its numbering. Given the last entry didnt perform great, it's very likely the next entry will be the first "mainline" entry to do so.
Interestingly, I feel Titan Fall as an IP would had succeeded had it not named the second entry Titan Fall 2. The first entry was online only, no single player campaign, and exclusive to Xbox. When the sequel came out, I recall a lot of people not having any interest because it was ... well "Titan Fall 2", a sequel to a game no one played (because... It didn't exist, and I don't mean just to PS4 owners, but there was no actual campaign.) I'm envisioning a world where Titan Fall 2 had been called something else, marketed as the first chapter story wise, it might had been given a chance.
Adding a number at the end can sometimes capitalize on the success of a previous entry, but it also might doom your chances and lock you to a sub-set of your previous audience, unless its very well communicated that the sequel is very stand alone (like Final Fantasy mainline entries.)
And yeah overall I think this series shows the success of mobile games more than it shows the success of GaaS specifically.
I feel I could just paste my previous reply here... but I wont... mobile games are basically all GaaS. Paid up front mobile games are not that competitive (Minecraft being the biggest exception.)
@NEStalgia the practice of not using numbers is definitively not a new one, at least outside of gaming. None of the Indiana Jones have a number, for example, Star Trek dropped the numbers after their 6th movie and series like Fast and the furious have jumped back and forth from using the numbers or not using them, and I'm sure if I took longer to think about it I would find other examples.
Books have basically never used numbers to denote their chronology either.
As for games, going all the way back to Metroid we have a series that does not use numbers outside of the rare Metroid 2, that dropped that number on its remake, plus all the other ones I mentioned.
Assassin's creed is even more interesting because for all purpsoses, if you follow Desmond's arc, the entry numbers are all wrong.
Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed 2
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Assassin's Creed III
And interestingly, Assassin's Creed IV: Blackflag, was past Desmond's arc. And it's not like the other games don't follow the modern time storyline, they all do. Characters from all games keep coming back, and the arc continues, but its there mostly for those players that play every entry. A new player that simply jumps into a random entry can entirely ignore what is going on in present time besides what is presented to them in that entry.
Collector's editions are rubbish these days. No disc, a statue you could get from any comic/pop culture store, & just awful, bland box art.
I was giving this some thought.... people that are willing to buy these collectors editions are likely the kind of player that are big spenders. Maybe their logic is that if they persuade such users to spend big money on these editions, and sneak in a digital code, they start making them more likely to buy digital games in the future... a way of encourage them giving up on physical disks so they can sell them more digital games at a higher profit margin they cant resell down the line.
Or maybe I'm overthinking it and its just them hoping to not exclude owners of the disk-less PS5 from buying this edition...
They should just sell the thing [statue] independently and be done with it, IMO... but then again I think Disney has all rights to sell merch on Marvel properties, and Sony might be able to get away with this because its "a game with extra stuff in the box".
Ah the memories when sony invested in the Genshin development and put the game on display in one of the biggest Chinese expos and the internet freaked out because "Sony had a Zelda clone" and white people started destroying ps4 outside the venue.
I don't know if this was more widespread, but I only recall one incident and it was also a Chinese individual that did this. I did go googling up before posting this, and the articles I found noted that most of the negative reaction was centered in China.
@NEStalgia The only thing I feel can be confusing is the "Yakuza" vs "Like a Dragon".
The numbering thing, IMO, is overrated, especially for long running series. Maybe its different in Japan, but in the west, its proven that at some point numbers just intimidate. Movies, books, and games all tend to drop numbers past the 3rd or 4th entry because eventually it just intimidates new players from jumping on board on a new entry "because they need to play 5-18 older games".
Hell even if Japan is more accepting of these numbers, some long running series like "Tales Of", "Atelier" and "The Legend of Heroes" have intentionally avoided them. They might have some sub-series sequels (like Trials of Cold Steal, and Atelier: Ryza) but only for a limited number of entries.
Assassins Creed is doing fantastically well with no numbers, with every entry outselling previous ones, precisely because no one feels they have to go play previous entries.
Getting rid of numbers imo is a smart move. It’s just a bit “sad” it’s not easy for them to go back and rename all previous entrees, at least not without yet another re-release. But hey, they can always re-release 1-6 on PS5 white label with the “Like a Dragon” title, and subtitles instead of numbers.
@UltimateOtaku91 tagging you but this applies to many others here: I doubt MS paid simply for this embargo. As far as we can see, MS negotiated the entire marketing deal for this games, not unlike they did for Cyberpunk and how Sony has done with Hogwarts and CoD.
The difference is that this deal also had a small embargo clause attached to it. As @nestalgia noted, even with leaks this helps the public know that Xbox is very serious about bringing Japanese titles that are typically not associated with Xbox to the platform.
About time, but got to say will be interesting if they manage to catch up with GamePass on current Gen streaming and at the same time they leap frog them by offering streaming of any digitally owned game.
Phil Spencer teased that coming to Xbox Game Pass but still nowhere in sight.
From what I remember when SEGA and MS struck a deal on Yakuza Like a Dragon, the PS5 version came out several months later due to a next gen timed exclusivity deal - yet MS kept quiet about it and may do the same here.
Yea, if there is a timed exclusivity here, I expect it to be just a few months. Maybe 3, 6 tops.
Everyone keeps the terms of platform exclusivity quite, though. Would love it if there was more transparency on the industry, not no one ever comes out and tell us “yea, you can play this on our competitors hardware next year”.
I doubt they will make ir exclusive, this game was in development well before Sega/Atlus relationship became this close, but let’s stop the whole “they will regret it” thing. If a Japanese game ends up being Xbox exclusive it’s only happening because Xbox ended up financing the entire development, marketing, and then extra for profits. It would not even be the first time, they did it in the 360 days with 5 games, 3 of them from Square Enix.
It’s basically not happening without it being work for hire and at that point it would had been labeled an Xbox Games Studios title and gone day one to Game Pass.
@Daan6661 @PegasusActual93 Agree with you both. I love star wars, unlike many, I enjoyed the entirety of the new trilogy, but my favorite part of the whole universe was never the Jedi stuff, it was the Han Solo stuff. The Empire foot soldier stuff. The corruption within the ranks of the empire, the life in the "frontiers" of barely settled worlds.
Of all the movies, my least favorites remain the prequels simply because they take place on boring shiny cities with rounded buildings. Meh. Give me sand, give me forests, give me broken down ships and salvaged robots!
This game seems to have all my favorite themes from that universe. Add on top that it's a Ubisoft game, I know how most hate them, but man, I love me an open world Ubisoft game...
And a lot of people didn't note it but.... you can actually run from a hover bike, get to your ship, point your sights up, and seamlessly exit the planet and out of orbit... Yea I know No Man Sky has done it before, but its still not an easy thing to do. Starfield, among all things it offers, is not offering that seamlessness transition.
@OrtadragoonX the new AC games would be a lot more bearable if players could skip the open world stuff, but the leveling requirements force players to do open world stuff just to level up and be able to tackle the next story chunk, and that turns many players from ever finishing the thing at all.
@NEStalgia A bit of a sad thing is we are seeing more and more games with amazing starts and dull endings, and it seems to be missed by many of these devs that an amazing ending might not be seen by most players, but will impact those that see it turning them into evangelists that make the game go more viral.
The two most important parts of a campaign-focused games should be the start and the ending. This does not mean the middle does not mater, but its the start and the end that need to be extremely memorable. Case in point: The Last of Us.
@IndoorEnthusiast A big part of their point, I'm sure, is that players and journalist both keep demanding XBox delivers new games with all those studios they acquired. The acquisitions started in 2018, and many of these studios even at the time were bound by pre-acquisition obligations. Even if you ignore those obligations, we talking about 5 years, so he is basically saying that we should finally start seeing the delivery of the 2018 acquistions next year.
@Triumph741 ok you are obviously just trolling now. Look: I'm as excited for Starfield as anyone else, hell I just spent $300 on the Constelation edition, bought the controller and bought a new PC just for that game... but you are just for some unknown reason trying to defend a game I didn't even mention until you brought it up.
I said every game is trying to be Starfield. I didn't say every game is starfield. And even that was a figure of speech, given Starfield didn't even exist at the time. The point is every game wants to be that big, and keep bloating their development cycles to become as big as games that come just once every 10 years, and the result is obvious: they are creeping into also becoming 10 year cycle games.
Go read game reviews of sequels that are smaller than the previous version (if you can find them - Mile Morales is the exception rather than the rule). SOOOOO many will complain that the sequel is smaller. Don't add enough new mechanics, and they'll complain it's the same.
Yea, that's part of what I stated above when I said people tend to cry as if they were mugged when a game is not big enough. Funny is they also tend to complain about padding and bloat. There is simply not satisfying players. And maybe you missed it, but Miles Morales also got its share of complaints, at least from the community, even if not from reviewers.
It goes hand in hand though. Those 8 hour story games used to be $40 or 50.
Might be misremembering but I think prices have been $60 standard since the 360 days. Even so, that is the thing: the current increase in price is precisely being justified by the fact that we are getting bigger games, and its becoming unsustainable.
Edit: I'm throwing my money behind Mirage. Hopefully its successful enough to at least convince Ubisoft that smaller projects are still desirable.
GOOD. Let developers create new ambitious games like Starfield instead of recycled crap like AC and Horizon.
There are games, and then there are open world rpgs. Games like Starfield have always taken ridiculous windows of time to develop, precisely because they have always been huge. The problem is that now every single game wants to be Starfield-scale.
For the love of games, let developers make games like Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush, Uncharted Lost Legacy, etc. Not everything has to be a giant open world game with 300 hours of gameplay.
@NEStalgia I edited my post but I refuse to accept this is about better graphics. This is about insisting on making games bigger, making sure players are hooked for more hours every single iteration. Used to be a solid story game was 8 hours to beat. Now if its less than 20 people scream like they got mugged and stabbed. Slowly that keeps going up. 40 hours, 60 hours... 300 hours...
And its not like devs want to do this, not all, they simply feel forced to do this, because again, players keep whining if a game does not give them at least one hour gaming per hour or some other arbitrary metric.
I honestly wish this trend would stop. I don't want bigger bigger bigger games. I want more games like Uncharted Lost Legacy, Spider-Man Miles Morales and Assassin's Creed Mirage.
Edit: I also refuse to believe its about "the fidelity" or "the power of new consoles", but instead that devs want to make every game bigger than the last. More story, bigger map, more missions, more scripted encounters, more mechanics, etc etc.
Look at the likes of Call of Duty. We still get an entry every year, 3 teams, working each on 3 year cycles. Yes, they get tons of support studios, but the real key is they don't add gigantic campaigns. The campaign length in CoD games has not increased since the X360/PS3 days. The visuals have definitively improved.
If I understand correctly, and I probably don’t, the idea here is that the injunction would be long enough to prevent MS from closing the deal prior to the deal’s expiration dated. Meaning that if MS try to close without the CMA’s approval, this injunction would block it and cause the deal to expire at which point MS would have to pay ABK the $3B. MS could then either drop the deal or choose to start the process over again.
Nah. The injunction does prevent closing before that date, but ABK and MS area already likely discussing extending the deadline.
Deadline extensions on deals like this are common but do tend to come with increased payouts should the deal fall through, but I'm sure neither party expects that to happen. Expect something along the lines of a 6 or 12 month extension along with an increased fall-through penalty of 4 or 5 billion.
The process does not need to be restarted when the injunction is granted, injunctions tend to simply prevent things that are being fought in court from happening while the case is still being argued.
Additionally: the hearing is with FTC's internal court. That court does not really have that much power. If they agree with MS, the FTC heads can actually override it, but at the same time, that resolution does not stop the acquisition. They would have to sue in actual federal court and win there, and then go through a long chain of appeals all the way to the supreme court to be able to stop the deal.
It's highly unlikely that a second injunction would be granted if the FTC internal courts side with MS, though.
Mirage: hype Codename Jade: open minded, will try Nexus: I have no VR Outlaws: hype Avatar: I’m in Prince of Persia: looks good Skull and Bones: was open minded but not feeling it XDefiant: not my thing The Crew: not my thing Riders Republic: not my thing
Overall, a solid show. at least 3 games I plan to be buying.
@twitchtvpat We did get update on 2 other ones besides Mirage: Nexus (vr, oculus exclusive) and Codename Jade (smartphone exclusive, hopefully once it launches its playable on windows 11 via the android compatibility stuff, and gamepad friendly)
@Shepherd_Tallon two companies belong each other via investments is not rate at all, anywhere. MS did it with Apple back in the day too, and they were rivals.
As for the article, it does not seem to contradict what I stated. I never stated they sold due to bad blood, simply due to bad financial standing. Crazy given this was already about one year into the PS4 generation.
The quote also does not claim Square bought the shares back. They could just see it as them helping Sony via the stock sales. Large stock sales like thad tend to have negotiations involved. Sony had like, 18%? Just throwing that into the stock market without taking to SE and making public statements can really hurt the value of stock, as it can lead the market to over-react to the sudden burst in availability.
Deep down SEGA directors hate Sony for killing their console business.
I doubt Sega hates Sony, although they don’t have many reasons to love them. You are right about Altus games coming to Xbox have to do with Sega parent company. It took a long time, but Atlus has slowly been integrating more into Sega proper, and Sega had a cozy relationship with Microsoft since the Dreamcast days.
@Shepherd_Tallon “no demands” other than Square being so restricted that they had to create subsidiaries to even develop games like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for Nintendo platforms.
It is absolutely true that after the huge box office bomb from the Final Fantasy movie, Square almost went bankrupt. That investment indeed save the company. But “no demands” is not accurate.
Edit: Also, I would have to dig more, if it’s available, but as far as I can tell they didn’t sell the stock “back”, they simply sold it on the stock exchange. I doubt Square-Enix had the spare money lying around to buy their stock back.
Comments 1,678
Re: Sony 'Can't Risk' Sharing PS6 Details with a Microsoft-Owned Activision
@thefourfoldroot1 specs are still a trade secret, but Xbox tends to have most its defining features on the software side. Things like Smart Delivery and Quick Resume being known with enough time in advance could had made Sony re-engineer their software stack to have a much more robust cross-gen deployment strategy instead of their upgrade scheme that was obviously designed in reaction post-announcement and was buggy for over a year post launch.
There are also some claims that the PS4 last gen was going to launch with way less ram than it launched with, but they increased it almost at the last minute, to the point that devs with dev kits were pleasantly surprised when the console was officially revealed, because they somehow found out Xbox was going to have more memory than PS4.
Had the PS4 launched with 4GB of GDDR, the entire generation would had been flipped on its head. Rumor has it that Xbox also knew about Sony's lower memory plans, and thats why they felt so confident doing crazy stuff with digital DRM, TV and all that garbage that ended up pushing many like me away from their platform.
Re: Indiana Jones Game Deal Amended to Exclude PS5, PS4
@Kevw2006 Thinking logically, Game Pass on PS5 would simply mean XBox first party/owned games come to PS5 and those titles, only, are available to play as part of the subscription similar to EA Play.
What would PS Plus realistically bring to Xbox? They are not even adding their first parties to their PS Plus Extra tier. PS Plus on Xbox would do nothing on its own.
Neither service would grant players to play third party titles on the competitor's hardware.
Re: Indiana Jones Game Deal Amended to Exclude PS5, PS4
@UltimateOtaku91
You understand that such an amendment to the contract requires both parties to agree, right? This is not against the spirit of the statement. MS didn't break
the contract and cancel the game, nor did Sony had any legal claims for the title.
Had Disney disagreed with the amendment, the game would still be coming to PS5. But Disney said "k, we cool".
Edit: This game is now on the same boat as Spider-Man. Let the hypocrisy on either side start now. Either both are bad, or both are ok. How many will insist only one of these things are acceptable?
Re: "We've Lost the Console Wars," Says Trillion Dollar Underdog Xbox
@Qu1n0n3z Personally I disagree xbox lacks quantity or quality games. What they lack is big triple A console exclusive games, that tend to have much broader appeal.
It might be a matter of taste, but Xbox has a significant number of first party, high quality, but lower budget exclusive games right now. Games like Hi-Fi Rush, Tell Me Why, Forza, Age of Empires, Grounded, Pentiment, As Dusk Falls, Flight Sim, etc (wont list everything here.) These are all high quality, very well made games with lots of polish, they are just not gigantic triple A narrative adventure games.
Re: Sony 'Can't Risk' Sharing PS6 Details with a Microsoft-Owned Activision
@RobN Minecraft on XBox, as far as I understand, only got a 60fps patch. Such apps show as "Series X otpimized" even if they are simply "aware". The PS4 version of Minecraft also got a 60fps mode.
Mojang has been dragging their feet on a true Series X update with Raytracing support on console for years now. Only windows has been given access to those next-gen updates so far.
Re: Sony 'Can't Risk' Sharing PS6 Details with a Microsoft-Owned Activision
As I stated on PureXbox: at the end it’s only PlayStation that suffers the impact of that. As it stands, Apple has for years shared top secret information with Samsung to have them fab their chips, despite them being a direct competitor.
You do this with contracts that forbid division sharing trade secrets with the remainder of the company. If they refuse to do similar things, again, it’s Sonys fault and proves it’s Sony that can’t be trusted.
If Sony really are so paranoid they think they cant trust MS to honor any such contract clauses, well... I seriously hope they don't use Windows, Outlook or Office anywhere in their headquarters.
Re: "We've Lost the Console Wars," Says Trillion Dollar Underdog Xbox
@BeerIsAwesome
Imagine bringing up a decade old kickstarter project and a cloud service into a conversation to try to claim the third place in a 3-participant race isn't considered the "loser". At least bring up contemporaries like the Atari VCS and the Evercade VS (not that anyone would consider either a serious modern console either.)
Re: "We've Lost the Console Wars," Says Trillion Dollar Underdog Xbox
@Qu1n0n3z I for one don't care who is number one. I have my own reasons to prefer playing on XB this gen, and Game Pass is only a minor one, but it still a reason.
I have no clue what kind of person only buys and uses products only if they are the #1 top sellers in their respective markets.
Re: "We've Lost the Console Wars," Says Trillion Dollar Underdog Xbox
Of course you guys picked this up!!! 200+ comments, here we go!
Re: Starfield, Redfall Exclusivity 'Powerful Evidence' Against Xbox's Activision Buyout, Claims FTC
Counter point: Minecraft, Minecraft Legends, Minecraft Dungeons. CoD will remain multiplat.
Future games from ABK? Yea all that other stuff will be exclusive, but nothing other than CoD is impactful enough to tilt the market, not even a potential Diablo 5.
Re: Rumour: Bungie Wants Marathon on PS5 to Be the Ultimate Live Service Game
@NEStalgia competitive pvp sabotage mine sweeper with gatcha waifus is the future, I tell you!
Re: PS5 Bundle with Two Years of PS Plus Premium Appears to Leak
@PsBoxSwitchOwner Xbox technically has had their all access model for years. It’s technically the opposite: sign up for a couple of years (I think) of game pass at a small markup and get an Xbox “for free” so long you don’t stop the payments. It’s kinda like getting a new phone from your carrier without buying it, in fact I think phone carriers are among those selling the all access Xbox thing.
Technically you just save a few bucks, but it is not the same to pay 500 in one sitting than splitting it over 2 years.
Re: Rumour: Bungie Wants Marathon on PS5 to Be the Ultimate Live Service Game
Chances are by the time this game comes out, extraction shooters are all old news and the new meta service games are, I don’t know, vertical hack and slash climbers or apocalyptic destruction derbies.
Re: Gorgeous Gacha Tower of Fantasy's PS5, PS4 Ascent Begins on 8th August
No cross-progression sounds like a huge downside, although it’s a bit understandable given it’s a different publisher.
I still might stick to PC/Mobile if I decide to try this one out.
Re: SEGA Word Salad Attempts to Explain Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Name
@NEStalgia All the 2D Metroid games have chronology, the SNES one even makes sure to recap what happened in Samus Returns, without it, the ending makes no sense.
Sooner or later, I do expect Far Cry to loosen its numbering. Given the last entry didnt perform great, it's very likely the next entry will be the first "mainline" entry to do so.
Interestingly, I feel Titan Fall as an IP would had succeeded had it not named the second entry Titan Fall 2. The first entry was online only, no single player campaign, and exclusive to Xbox. When the sequel came out, I recall a lot of people not having any interest because it was ... well "Titan Fall 2", a sequel to a game no one played (because... It didn't exist, and I don't mean just to PS4 owners, but there was no actual campaign.) I'm envisioning a world where Titan Fall 2 had been called something else, marketed as the first chapter story wise, it might had been given a chance.
Adding a number at the end can sometimes capitalize on the success of a previous entry, but it also might doom your chances and lock you to a sub-set of your previous audience, unless its very well communicated that the sequel is very stand alone (like Final Fantasy mainline entries.)
Re: Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail Dev's Profits Eclipse Even PlayStation
@NEStalgia
I feel I could just paste my previous reply here... but I wont... mobile games are basically all GaaS. Paid up front mobile games are not that competitive (Minecraft being the biggest exception.)
Re: SEGA Word Salad Attempts to Explain Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Name
@NEStalgia the practice of not using numbers is definitively not a new one, at least outside of gaming. None of the Indiana Jones have a number, for example, Star Trek dropped the numbers after their 6th movie and series like Fast and the furious have jumped back and forth from using the numbers or not using them, and I'm sure if I took longer to think about it I would find other examples.
Books have basically never used numbers to denote their chronology either.
As for games, going all the way back to Metroid we have a series that does not use numbers outside of the rare Metroid 2, that dropped that number on its remake, plus all the other ones I mentioned.
Assassin's creed is even more interesting because for all purpsoses, if you follow Desmond's arc, the entry numbers are all wrong.
And interestingly, Assassin's Creed IV: Blackflag, was past Desmond's arc. And it's not like the other games don't follow the modern time storyline, they all do. Characters from all games keep coming back, and the arc continues, but its there mostly for those players that play every entry. A new player that simply jumps into a random entry can entirely ignore what is going on in present time besides what is presented to them in that entry.
Re: Where to Pre-Order Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Collector's and Deluxe Editions on PS5
@Ichiban
I was giving this some thought.... people that are willing to buy these collectors editions are likely the kind of player that are big spenders. Maybe their logic is that if they persuade such users to spend big money on these editions, and sneak in a digital code, they start making them more likely to buy digital games in the future... a way of encourage them giving up on physical disks so they can sell them more digital games at a higher profit margin they cant resell down the line.
Or maybe I'm overthinking it and its just them hoping to not exclude owners of the disk-less PS5 from buying this edition...
They should just sell the thing [statue] independently and be done with it, IMO... but then again I think Disney has all rights to sell merch on Marvel properties, and Sony might be able to get away with this because its "a game with extra stuff in the box".
Re: Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail Dev's Profits Eclipse Even PlayStation
@NEStalgia
I don't see how all those things are mutually exclusive...
Re: Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail Dev's Profits Eclipse Even PlayStation
@GymratAmarillo
I don't know if this was more widespread, but I only recall one incident and it was also a Chinese individual that did this. I did go googling up before posting this, and the articles I found noted that most of the negative reaction was centered in China.
Re: Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail Dev's Profits Eclipse Even PlayStation
...and I would not be shocked if the bulk of that revenue is coming from Android and iOS.
Re: SEGA Word Salad Attempts to Explain Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Name
@NEStalgia The only thing I feel can be confusing is the "Yakuza" vs "Like a Dragon".
The numbering thing, IMO, is overrated, especially for long running series. Maybe its different in Japan, but in the west, its proven that at some point numbers just intimidate. Movies, books, and games all tend to drop numbers past the 3rd or 4th entry because eventually it just intimidates new players from jumping on board on a new entry "because they need to play 5-18 older games".
Hell even if Japan is more accepting of these numbers, some long running series like "Tales Of", "Atelier" and "The Legend of Heroes" have intentionally avoided them. They might have some sub-series sequels (like Trials of Cold Steal, and Atelier: Ryza) but only for a limited number of entries.
Assassins Creed is doing fantastically well with no numbers, with every entry outselling previous ones, precisely because no one feels they have to go play previous entries.
Re: SEGA Word Salad Attempts to Explain Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Name
Getting rid of numbers imo is a smart move. It’s just a bit “sad” it’s not easy for them to go back and rename all previous entrees, at least not without yet another re-release. But hey, they can always re-release 1-6 on PS5 white label with the “Like a Dragon” title, and subtitles instead of numbers.
Re: Where to Pre-Order Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Collector's and Deluxe Editions on PS5
No disk on the collectors edition is absurd… seriously why even include a steel case???
Re: PS Plus Premium Will Allow for PS5 Game Streaming in Future Update
@NEStalgia I thought it was something that actually came up during the early stages of the ABK acquisition case, but would have to google it up.
Re: Xbox Had Embargoed Persona Dev's Metaphor: ReFantazio After All, as Fantasy RPG Is Confirmed for PS5, PS4
@UltimateOtaku91 tagging you but this applies to many others here: I doubt MS paid simply for this embargo. As far as we can see, MS negotiated the entire marketing deal for this games, not unlike they did for Cyberpunk and how Sony has done with Hogwarts and CoD.
The difference is that this deal also had a small embargo clause attached to it. As @nestalgia noted, even with leaks this helps the public know that Xbox is very serious about bringing Japanese titles that are typically not associated with Xbox to the platform.
Re: PS Plus Premium Will Allow for PS5 Game Streaming in Future Update
About time, but got to say will be interesting if they manage to catch up with GamePass on current Gen streaming and at the same time they leap frog them by offering streaming of any digitally owned game.
Phil Spencer teased that coming to Xbox Game Pass but still nowhere in sight.
Re: There's Growing Concern Over Persona Dev's Metaphor: ReFantazio Being an Xbox Exclusive
@Darylb88
Yea, if there is a timed exclusivity here, I expect it to be just a few months. Maybe 3, 6 tops.
Everyone keeps the terms of platform exclusivity quite, though. Would love it if there was more transparency on the industry, not no one ever comes out and tell us “yea, you can play this on our competitors hardware next year”.
Re: There's Growing Concern Over Persona Dev's Metaphor: ReFantazio Being an Xbox Exclusive
I doubt they will make ir exclusive, this game was in development well before Sega/Atlus relationship became this close, but let’s stop the whole “they will regret it” thing. If a Japanese game ends up being Xbox exclusive it’s only happening because Xbox ended up financing the entire development, marketing, and then extra for profits. It would not even be the first time, they did it in the 360 days with 5 games, 3 of them from Square Enix.
It’s basically not happening without it being work for hire and at that point it would had been labeled an Xbox Games Studios title and gone day one to Game Pass.
Re: Star Wars Outlaws to Feature GTA-Style Wanted System to Punish Your Intergalactic Crimes
@pharos_haven
I never played them... but I guess this is a good reason to give them a try...
Re: Star Wars Outlaws to Feature GTA-Style Wanted System to Punish Your Intergalactic Crimes
@Daan6661 @PegasusActual93 Agree with you both. I love star wars, unlike many, I enjoyed the entirety of the new trilogy, but my favorite part of the whole universe was never the Jedi stuff, it was the Han Solo stuff. The Empire foot soldier stuff. The corruption within the ranks of the empire, the life in the "frontiers" of barely settled worlds.
Of all the movies, my least favorites remain the prequels simply because they take place on boring shiny cities with rounded buildings. Meh. Give me sand, give me forests, give me broken down ships and salvaged robots!
This game seems to have all my favorite themes from that universe. Add on top that it's a Ubisoft game, I know how most hate them, but man, I love me an open world Ubisoft game...
And a lot of people didn't note it but.... you can actually run from a hover bike, get to your ship, point your sights up, and seamlessly exit the planet and out of orbit... Yea I know No Man Sky has done it before, but its still not an easy thing to do. Starfield, among all things it offers, is not offering that seamlessness transition.
Just give me this game already!!! I need it!
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
@Flaming_Kaiser
Indeed, I did get to that in another comment. The reason games end up being made big is because players keep demanding bigger games.
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
@OrtadragoonX the new AC games would be a lot more bearable if players could skip the open world stuff, but the leveling requirements force players to do open world stuff just to level up and be able to tackle the next story chunk, and that turns many players from ever finishing the thing at all.
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
@NEStalgia A bit of a sad thing is we are seeing more and more games with amazing starts and dull endings, and it seems to be missed by many of these devs that an amazing ending might not be seen by most players, but will impact those that see it turning them into evangelists that make the game go more viral.
The two most important parts of a campaign-focused games should be the start and the ending. This does not mean the middle does not mater, but its the start and the end that need to be extremely memorable. Case in point: The Last of Us.
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
@Triumph741 ok blocking you now. Enjoy Starfield.
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
@IndoorEnthusiast A big part of their point, I'm sure, is that players and journalist both keep demanding XBox delivers new games with all those studios they acquired. The acquisitions started in 2018, and many of these studios even at the time were bound by pre-acquisition obligations. Even if you ignore those obligations, we talking about 5 years, so he is basically saying that we should finally start seeing the delivery of the 2018 acquistions next year.
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
@Triumph741 ok you are obviously just trolling now. Look: I'm as excited for Starfield as anyone else, hell I just spent $300 on the Constelation edition, bought the controller and bought a new PC just for that game... but you are just for some unknown reason trying to defend a game I didn't even mention until you brought it up.
I said every game is trying to be Starfield. I didn't say every game is starfield. And even that was a figure of speech, given Starfield didn't even exist at the time. The point is every game wants to be that big, and keep bloating their development cycles to become as big as games that come just once every 10 years, and the result is obvious: they are creeping into also becoming 10 year cycle games.
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
@RobN
Yea, that's part of what I stated above when I said people tend to cry as if they were mugged when a game is not big enough. Funny is they also tend to complain about padding and bloat. There is simply not satisfying players. And maybe you missed it, but Miles Morales also got its share of complaints, at least from the community, even if not from reviewers.
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
@NEStalgia
Might be misremembering but I think prices have been $60 standard since the 360 days. Even so, that is the thing: the current increase in price is precisely being justified by the fact that we are getting bigger games, and its becoming unsustainable.
Edit: I'm throwing my money behind Mirage. Hopefully its successful enough to at least convince Ubisoft that smaller projects are still desirable.
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
@Triumph741
There are games, and then there are open world rpgs. Games like Starfield have always taken ridiculous windows of time to develop, precisely because they have always been huge. The problem is that now every single game wants to be Starfield-scale.
For the love of games, let developers make games like Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush, Uncharted Lost Legacy, etc. Not everything has to be a giant open world game with 300 hours of gameplay.
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
@NEStalgia I edited my post but I refuse to accept this is about better graphics. This is about insisting on making games bigger, making sure players are hooked for more hours every single iteration. Used to be a solid story game was 8 hours to beat. Now if its less than 20 people scream like they got mugged and stabbed. Slowly that keeps going up. 40 hours, 60 hours... 300 hours...
And its not like devs want to do this, not all, they simply feel forced to do this, because again, players keep whining if a game does not give them at least one hour gaming per hour or some other arbitrary metric.
Re: Sorry, But Games Are Probably Going to Take Longer Than Ever to Make on PS5
I honestly wish this trend would stop. I don't want bigger bigger bigger games. I want more games like Uncharted Lost Legacy, Spider-Man Miles Morales and Assassin's Creed Mirage.
Edit: I also refuse to believe its about "the fidelity" or "the power of new consoles", but instead that devs want to make every game bigger than the last. More story, bigger map, more missions, more scripted encounters, more mechanics, etc etc.
Look at the likes of Call of Duty. We still get an entry every year, 3 teams, working each on 3 year cycles. Yes, they get tons of support studios, but the real key is they don't add gigantic campaigns. The campaign length in CoD games has not increased since the X360/PS3 days. The visuals have definitively improved.
Re: Poll: Was Capcom Showcase 2023 All Killer, or Mostly Filler?
Overall, I give it a “good”. Definitively not as good as Xbox’s or UBisoft showcases, but I’m glad I saw it. It also was relatively short.
Re: Round Up: What Was Announced at Capcom Showcase 2023?
No mention of the Dragon Dogma 2 stuff?
Edit: I see its now been added.
Re: USA's FTC Poised to Drop Injunction on Xbox's $69 Billion Activision Blizzard Buyout
@Shstrick
Nah. The injunction does prevent closing before that date, but ABK and MS area already likely discussing extending the deadline.
Deadline extensions on deals like this are common but do tend to come with increased payouts should the deal fall through, but I'm sure neither party expects that to happen. Expect something along the lines of a 6 or 12 month extension along with an increased fall-through penalty of 4 or 5 billion.
The process does not need to be restarted when the injunction is granted, injunctions tend to simply prevent things that are being fought in court from happening while the case is still being argued.
Additionally: the hearing is with FTC's internal court. That court does not really have that much power. If they agree with MS, the FTC heads can actually override it, but at the same time, that resolution does not stop the acquisition. They would have to sue in actual federal court and win there, and then go through a long chain of appeals all the way to the supreme court to be able to stop the deal.
It's highly unlikely that a second injunction would be granted if the FTC internal courts side with MS, though.
Edited for clarity.
Re: USA's FTC Poised to Drop Injunction on Xbox's $69 Billion Activision Blizzard Buyout
This injunction will very likely be granted. There is no point on legal procedures if the deal is allowed to go through.
I don't think they will be able to win the legal cases, though.
Re: Round Up: What Was Announced at Ubisoft Forward 2023?
Mirage: hype
Codename Jade: open minded, will try
Nexus: I have no VR
Outlaws: hype
Avatar: I’m in
Prince of Persia: looks good
Skull and Bones: was open minded but not feeling it
XDefiant: not my thing
The Crew: not my thing
Riders Republic: not my thing
Overall, a solid show. at least 3 games I plan to be buying.
@twitchtvpat We did get update on 2 other ones besides Mirage: Nexus (vr, oculus exclusive) and Codename Jade (smartphone exclusive, hopefully once it launches its playable on windows 11 via the android compatibility stuff, and gamepad friendly)
Re: Sony's Partnership with Square Enix Has Never Been Stronger, Says Jim Ryan
@Shepherd_Tallon two companies belong each other via investments is not rate at all, anywhere. MS did it with Apple back in the day too, and they were rivals.
As for the article, it does not seem to contradict what I stated. I never stated they sold due to bad blood, simply due to bad financial standing. Crazy given this was already about one year into the PS4 generation.
The quote also does not claim Square bought the shares back. They could just see it as them helping Sony via the stock sales. Large stock sales like thad tend to have negotiations involved. Sony had like, 18%? Just throwing that into the stock market without taking to SE and making public statements can really hurt the value of stock, as it can lead the market to over-react to the sudden burst in availability.
Re: Sony's Partnership with Square Enix Has Never Been Stronger, Says Jim Ryan
@Sil_Am
I doubt Sega hates Sony, although they don’t have many reasons to love them. You are right about Altus games coming to Xbox have to do with Sega parent company. It took a long time, but Atlus has slowly been integrating more into Sega proper, and Sega had a cozy relationship with Microsoft since the Dreamcast days.
Re: Sony's Partnership with Square Enix Has Never Been Stronger, Says Jim Ryan
@Shepherd_Tallon “no demands” other than Square being so restricted that they had to create subsidiaries to even develop games like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for Nintendo platforms.
It is absolutely true that after the huge box office bomb from the Final Fantasy movie, Square almost went bankrupt. That investment indeed save the company. But “no demands” is not accurate.
Edit: Also, I would have to dig more, if it’s available, but as far as I can tell they didn’t sell the stock “back”, they simply sold it on the stock exchange. I doubt Square-Enix had the spare money lying around to buy their stock back.