Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is Halo 14-39? Google wasn’t helpful for me.
Rapid release schedule
Also, this old idea called "sequels" back before "reboots" and "remakes" things used to keep going in numbered order~
Resetting Xbox
361–370 of 981 posts
Re: Resetting Xbox
#362Reading this made me remember why I stopped playing my Xbox One: never-ending updates. I never played it very frequently so I disabled the sleep mode so it wouldn’t just stay on in my media cabinet heating my house. But of course that meant any time I spontaneously felt like using it there were 10 minutes of updates to download, so I would get annoyed and just do something else. Oh it can also play movies? Sorry movi…
Same boat as you. It's wild that I can turn on the xbox, wait 20-30min for mandatory updates, then need to re-sign in or occasionally reset my wireless mac address due to some bug, then re-sign into my Xbox account even if I am fine playing offline but of course I forgot my password so now I'm on my phone doing 2FA to remember which email I used to reset the password. Then I will need to update the game I want to pla…
I wonder how many of these updates are security fixes. I wouldn't be surprised if a majority were.
Re: Resetting Xbox
#363At some point, the games industry decided it wanted to be interactive Hollywood, and the consequences are entirely predictable. Meanwhile, Nintendo just quietly shipped 3.8 million units of Tomodachi Life in two weeks, and 4 million of Pokopia in five. They're making actual games. Sony's obsession with prestige cinematic bloat, like Xbox, has also put them in a slow-motion death spiral that's going to become painfull…
Elden Ring sold 30 million copies. Even Bloodborne, a PS4 exclusive, sold over 9 million copies.
Re: Resetting Xbox
#364Reading this made me remember why I stopped playing my Xbox One: never-ending updates. I never played it very frequently so I disabled the sleep mode so it wouldn’t just stay on in my media cabinet heating my house. But of course that meant any time I spontaneously felt like using it there were 10 minutes of updates to download, so I would get annoyed and just do something else. Oh it can also play movies? Sorry movi…
I've had the same experience with my PS5. It wouldn't even let me play 007 First Light a few weeks ago because it needed to update the system. Starting to wonder if I should/could just keep it offline to stop it from updating incessantly.
Re: Resetting Xbox
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nintendo also shipped Metroid Prime 4, with massive delays and unsatisfied customers, following the same "interactive Hollywood" philosophy which disappointed Metroid fans. I'm not convinced that Metroid at least really is a great data point for "Nintendo is ruining things in-house". From Wikipedia[1]: > Nintendo announced Metroid Prime 4 with a teaser trailer during the Nintendo Direct presentation at E3 2017, and…
My point wasn't about Nintendo ruining things in-house rather than them following the exact same trends than Sony & Microsoft, only a few years late. MP4 is what OP was talking about, an "interactive Hollywood" experience that betrays previous Metroids, adds discutable open-world design cues, and locks features behind $30 figures.
Metroid is a secondary or tertiary IP, and the Metroid Prime subseries has always had more smoke online than its sale figures would ever suggest, with only the original on Gamecube selling north of 2 million, and it was a pack-in title.
Re: Resetting Xbox
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
To some extent - but you can't get away with Hollywood Accounting Practices in the same way. Also one must consider the likes of Hideo Kojima who can sell ~7 million copies of a new IP that is effectively a cinematic Walking Simulator as an Auteur acrimoniously splitting from the traditional studio system. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 also shipped over 5.4 million copies as a AA, in what is also arguably an interactiv…
> acrimoniously splitting from the traditional studio system. Yeah, he split from the traditional studio system to create... his own traditional studio system. Kojima is precisely what happens when you stop thinking of games as actual an interactive entertainment format and start thinking of it as a "cinematic experience" instead. Death Stranding is only a game by the narrowest of margins. What it is is a movie with…
> Kojima is precisely what happens when you stop thinking of games as actual an interactive entertainment format and start thinking of it as a "cinematic experience" instead.
And for Western devs, we have Rockstar doing that. RDR2 is a wonderful movie, but a pretty poor game. Unfortunately, they forgot what medium they were working with.
Re: Resetting Xbox
#367It was pretty rich seeing armchair video game industry analysts act like the new CEO was gonna usher in a new age for Microsoft's gaming division because she got to announce the updated logo and some games that would have obviously been in development long before she became CEO. Microsoft is never going to figure out gaming. It's more art than engineering and they can barely manage the engineering with all the interv…
> Microsoft is never going to figure out gaming.
I feel they kind of did in the Xbox 360 era. Maybe it was just down to luck because Sony dropped the ball in the early years of the PS3 and Microsoft got the jump on them a bit.
The 360 was amazing looking back on it, Xbox Live, trying out innovative ideas like 1vs100, attracting lots of publishers to the platform for games, Xbox Summer of Arcade.
I was a big OG Xbox fan but even then I knew deep down it was never going to catch up to Sony with the PS2. Then the 360 came out and it was brilliant.
Sadly they threw it all away with the Xbox One and while recovered some credibility somewhat with the Series X, it's definitely not the same as those golden years of the 360.
Maybe the 360 was an aberration in Microsoft's history and the years since then have just been a regression
Re: Resetting Xbox
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
No missing "k", really just 191 players. https://steamdb.info/app/3043580/
Could this be due to the games being available on Game Pass? Why would anyone buy them on Steam if they can play them on Game Pass for "free"?
You've got that backwards. It's free and STILL has no players.
Re: Resetting Xbox
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
With due fairness, these are two different sets of leaders and two different strategies. A lot of the strategy you outlined -- buying all these studios, replicating netflix, giving away day one games, raising game pass -- was a strategy put in place by Phil Spencer. Phil pushed for this investment with the promise it would pay off later for MS. He's talked publicly about having to convince Nadella to put up ungodly a…
I never understood the esteem Phil Spencer was held in, seemingly both by fans and industry insiders. I never understood Phil’s strategy. Buy a plethora of studios. Pay an order of magnitude over the odds for the big ones - just to be sure you get them! ‘Rescue’ smaller ones of questionable financial value - as part of Xbox they’d somehow be successful enough to justify the price paid. Heavily manage the studio heads…
> Buy a plethora of studios.
To be fair to Phil Spencer, this was the strategy across the industry right after COVID. Remember the shopping spree Embracer Group went on between 2020 and 2022? I think we were in an e-sports & live service bubble that has now popped.
Re: Resetting Xbox
#370In this economy, if you're playing catchup to competitors you really can't have growth AND large profit margins. Why is that not obvious?
XBOX brought in 5 billion, and after all development costs, marketing, operating expenses, investment in research, etc., they are STILL left with 200 million dollars.
What's the problem here? Shareholder value? (as in the mythical/speculative value of MSFT, because OF COURSE they don't want/care for part of the profits/dividends)
If the money being invested in research has a good return - i.e. a great product/service is created - then you will grow.
Chopping down the employees here is a horrible move. Besides crashing employee morale into the ground, losing hard-to-replace developers/staff, it also generally gives off shitty vibes to consumers.
People will think why invest more into a failing entity? I can see people worried about the future of their "purchases" (if you can call them that these days).
This announcement so soon after XBOX had to start yelling "we are not shutting down" from the roof tops doesn't look good.