Resetting Xbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Resetting Xbox

#461

Post by ColdStream » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:01 AM UTC

grg0 wrote: post #148

z3phyr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also dazzling graphics has been mostly visual instead of experiential, that is, with the advances in GPU capabilities, we do get beautiful effects, but the intractability with the said infra is seems to be stagnant (and in some cases regressed) The way things interact in the game world peaked around mid 2000s, just in time when CPUs started to not follow moors law. As of now, interactive environments are still almost…

I think graphics peaked ~2015. But interaction still leaves a lot to be desired; we still have slipping and characters who can't walk stairs in AAA games to this day. Making characters more physically grounded and present seems like the obvious thing to improve to me.

This is something 'The Last Guardian' absolutely nailed! Everything was just so grounded.

Yes, as a game it had a lot of flaws that many other games also had, but the things it excelled at were absolutely unique.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#462

Post by ColdStream » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:03 AM UTC

z3phyr wrote: post #128

tracker1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the graphics abilities have been there for a decade... what we need are better games and gameplay. More fun games without gotcha, pay to win, loot box efforts. Too much effort is going for dazzling graphics at the expense of overall gameplay. How many people are still playing CoD, WoW and so many other games from over a decade ago? How many refreshes of Final Fantasy have we seen? The graphics can only carry y…

Also dazzling graphics has been mostly visual instead of experiential, that is, with the advances in GPU capabilities, we do get beautiful effects, but the intractability with the said infra is seems to be stagnant (and in some cases regressed) The way things interact in the game world peaked around mid 2000s, just in time when CPUs started to not follow moors law. As of now, interactive environments are still almost…

Still occasionally fire up Red Faction Guerilla just to see the promised future we never got.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#463

Post by markus_zhang » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:03 AM UTC

Scott Miller on X said that many, if not most of ID was also let go.

https://x.com/ScottApogee/status/2074198967550685268

Re: Resetting Xbox

#464

Post by blanched » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:04 AM UTC

cardy31 wrote: post #388

blanched wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Halo 14-39? Google wasn’t helpful for me.

I think they are just saying MS will rush out yet more Halo games, ie Halo 14, Halo 15, etc

Oh haha, kind of embarrassing on my part. Thank you!

Re: Resetting Xbox

#465

Post by markus_zhang » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:05 AM UTC

zzixp wrote: post #43

Impacted non-studio dev here. It's a bloodbath like some of the leaks in the past few weeks have said. Many important platform/infra teams getting gutted, even in areas where there's supposedly a ton of future investment.

Thanks for sharing. I heard that ID also got gutted, from Scott Miller on X: https://x.com/ScottApogee/status/2074198967550685268

Is it true?

Re: Resetting Xbox

#466

Post by TheBigSalad » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:05 AM UTC

Telaneo wrote: post #206

Can't say I'm surprised. I can't see a reasonable path for Xbox to do anything but just stay alive other than as MS's overarching gaming brand. Xbox is on the losing side of the consoles, with no distinguishing features to speak of. You buy a console to play games and for it to be convenient. Xbox is no more or less convenient than a Playstation, and what few exclusives there are left are on Sony's side of the fence.…

I like the idea of the next console supporting PC games. Xbox with steam and emulators right on my tv would be a dream.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#467

Post by markus_zhang » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:06 AM UTC

bronson wrote: post #228

> In addition, Mojang and King will now report directly to me. Darn it! The ONE studio that I really wanted them to set free and go back to how well things worked before, and they tighten their grip. Whyyyy?

Probably because their game made the bucks?

Re: Resetting Xbox

#468

Post by ColdStream » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:08 AM UTC

mvdtnz wrote: post #451

tracker1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the graphics abilities have been there for a decade... what we need are better games and gameplay. More fun games without gotcha, pay to win, loot box efforts. Too much effort is going for dazzling graphics at the expense of overall gameplay. How many people are still playing CoD, WoW and so many other games from over a decade ago? How many refreshes of Final Fantasy have we seen? The graphics can only carry y…

> Too much effort is going for dazzling graphics Could have fooled me. I haven't seen a meaningful improvement in game graphics for at least a decade.

We are well into the diminishing returns era now. It not done via better art designs, now you have to push significantly significantly harder to get improved results via brute forcing it.

I am very cautiously optimistic about this. It seems there has been a lot of tooling change over to integrate ray/path tracing into systems.

Once this becomes a little more ubiquitous we might start to see some decent stuff but so far it has been 7-8 years since the first ray tracing hardware came along and it is still far from implemented consistently.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#469

Post by Sebguer » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:09 AM UTC

WarmWash wrote: post #382

Sebguer wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you think you have some amazing analogy but it's utterly nonsensical. where is microsoft putting this money that is going to earn it more? are they low on cash on hand? why are they not investing every dollar they have on these magical free returns that just need more cash?

>where is microsoft putting this money that is going to earn it more? Sure, https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/07/06/resetting-xbox/

yeah good post, it does nothing to support your point or answer my question, thanks for sharing.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#470

Post by esprehn » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:11 AM UTC

DanHulton wrote: post #422

bobbob1921 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely correct, I game on Xbox pretty much every day or every other day, I have been with Xbox since 360 or whatever the first one was called. I am still constantly confused by the naming. There also was another revision to the top of the line Xbox series X and the Xbox series X digital edition. I can’t imagine someone looking at the naming scheme pre-release and saying yes, let’s go with that.

I mean, the first one was just called Xbox. (Tiny rant - and even THAT name sucked. Internally, since it ran on DirectX (already a name that only a mother could love), it was called the DirectX Box. And rather than come up with a real name, they got attached to their lazy idea and shortened it to Xbox. They have made miserable naming choices for this thing since day one. Since BEFORE day one.)

Is Xbox really worse than Play-Station?

It's a pretty good name actually because it's unique, easy to Google, and is never ambiguous in conversation. It's all the suffixes that made a mess of it.