The original was even cheaper, 29.99 at launch, so this is now less budget. I'm glad they didn't push for 70 which I think would have resulted in a backlash, however, given the length of the game.
Xbox Game Studios + Bethesda + ABK |OT30| Why So Series X|S?
- Thread starter Andrei Rublev
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The original was even cheaper, 29.99 at launch, so this is now less budget. I'm glad they didn't push for 70 which I think would have resulted in a backlash, however, given the length of the game.
Hot take: State of Decay 3 isn't going to be Xbox's Helldivers 2 moment because there's actually going to be hype and excitement about it before it launches, unlike Helldivers 2 which felt like it had a universal "eh" to it until it launched and everyone went "holy shit this is actually amazing"
You may be right but i don't see it gaining mainstream hype before release, but I do after the fact if it's well received.
I think that's being overly optimistic hero. Like, both States of Decay did fine, decent metacritic, but I just don't see 3 being the game to take the property over the top. I think it'll do fine, but just be another Xbox Game Studios game that doesn't expand far out of its niche.
I'm not going to go that far, but I do think there will be more disappointments (Critically and commercially) than not.
imo if an xbox game may have a helldivers2 moment i would say its contraband, i mean i think it will be dead 12 months after release as all or most gaas tend to do but i thought the same with hd2 so who knows lol.
sod3 i think will do fine mostly because sod2 has not that bug but really hardcore audience that keeps on playing, so i think the next one will do more than ok unless they totally revamp the formula.
Which do you expect to be disappointments? I think im pretty comfortable with the studios outside of Compulsion (who I think nerds to prove themselves), The Initiative (for obvious reasons), and Avalanche.
Tho I am approaching this from being good games rather than being system sellers or hitting 90+ Metacritic.
As far as I can tell, that poster has never said a single good thing about an Xbox studio's production or outlook so I wouldn't really pay them mind.
Don't have high hopes for Indy--it looks fun and all, but there's something about it. Avowed is a complete wildcard. I think it'll be dinged for being smaller in scope and not a huge sprawling thing like Skyrim, sorta like how Outer Worlds got some backlash for not just being New Vegas in SPAAAAACE. Hellblade might end up being critic catnip but t's going to tank so hard.
I'm a natural pessimist, I admit. I tend to react to bad news with a "Yeah, that tracks" kinda resigned sigh rather than surprise (these closings were the first bad news that actually made me angry). And like, since February, the thread's mainly been "I can't believe Xbox is shifting strategy when their previous strategy has failed for the entire generation, because they have absolute bangers coming", and my perspective is we've spent literal years right on the cusp of there being real great exclusives, and they either get delayed, or come out compromised in some way. And seriously, since the release of Hi-Fi Rush, how much legitimately good news has there been on the Xbox front? And, ignoring Hi-Fi Rush in light of the recent fact that Xbox killed its creator, when was the last good news before that? I think you might have to go back to the hype around Infinite's launch, which again, very quickly was undermined by reality.
If you need positivity before I can be responded to:
- I loved Hi-Fi.
- I really like Halo, even if I think it really needs to go away fro a while. From the Halo OT, I'm quite down on the player metrics but I don't find the game nearly as miserable to actually play as the average poster (I actually rather liked it)--it sucks that it's not popular and I think it's time to move on from the franchise, but I legit don't get posters who have absolutely nothing positive to say about the game but constantly have to grind it (like literally, the two topics I bring up there are "why the hell do you keep playing if it's so miserable? I like the game and I've fallen off" and "I really think they should put Halo on ice and figure out a clean-sheet reboot, rather than do another wild pivot to try and please the shrinking fanbase").
- Crackdown 3, despite being nowhere near as great as the initial pitch of cloud-based fully destructible city was, is actually really really fun and I don't get its dire metacritic.
- Only Xbox adjacent because they're the licenseholder and not the dev or pub, but I love Mechwarrior 5. Playing dressup with my MAD-II is fun.
- In summer 2021 (ish) I did a full runthrough of the entire Gears series and thoroughly enjoyed it, even if I thought 1 was super dated and limited and 4 got dull.
- Recore was fun.
- State of Decay, even if I don't see how it's going to be a big crossover hit, still fun to just run around and hit zombies with random blunt or bladed implements. Not quite Dead Rising, but still real fun.
- Gamepass has been a wonderful way for me to find new games, and it kinda sucks that it appears that was a bad idea all along for Xbox.
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I think all those studios will end up delivering. It's just The Initiative and Compulsion who have something to prove. Avalanche has a good resume, although Contraband is their most ambitious game yet and had been MIA for awhile now.
Saw this on twitter and immediately thought about this thread lmao
View: https://twitter.com/SopranosShot/status/1789328361791042041?t=a-adEIij4MRosoL07ru0RA&s=19
View: https://twitter.com/SopranosShot/status/1789328361791042041?t=a-adEIij4MRosoL07ru0RA&s=19
It's obviously not the 'good' choice, but there is something very righteous about dressing up as the Sorrows' god and using his gun to destroy their enemies in Honest Hearts.
You sound like me! I always find negatives more interesting to talk about then positives. Every flaw I like to examine and scrutinise, because flaws themselves are interesting in their own ways. It annoys my girlfriend to no end when I point out the flaws in our relationship like it is a good thing. I also think it makes me very good at my job though.
I do disagree on Crackdown 3 though :P The 3rd most disappointing game ever. Xbox should be ashamed of themselves for wasting such potential.
I don't know about scrutinizing flaws, but it's always boring when everyone agrees all the time. That's why a circlejerk is always considered negative. I think with Era, there are areas of groupthink where large groups agree, but that doesn't mean it's correct. When it comes to critically looking at a hobby a person should be able to enjoy the hobby, while also being honest about the negatives, and acknowledging their bias. A lot of comments miss those last two.
Making me sad. But I am genuinely concerned, I have been a XBL member since 06 I don't want all the gone. And I'm starting to fear if they go full third party that is a possibility in the future
Me reading about the death of Xbox on all websites.
I genuinely worry that if COD doesn't drive massive gamepass subs or the impact on sales is too great we will see the end of gamepass as we know it.
COD is simply not the type of game that a vast a majority of people are going to join a subscription service to play when they will happily buy full price one time and be one or two of the only games they will play for the year until the next COD. Gamepass will not get some massive boost in subscribers from the average COD player.
MS themselves are making it easy abuse Gamepass with the current 1$ deals going on right now which I myself will take advantage of just to play and beat Hell Blade 2 and simply unsubscribe before the month ends. Shit like this is great for me and consumers but simply isn't sustainable for devs/companies.
MS themselves are making it easy abuse Gamepass with the current 1$ deals going on right now which I myself will take advantage of just to play and beat Hell Blade 2 and simply unsubscribe before the month ends. Shit like this is great for me and consumers but simply isn't sustainable for devs/companies.
I think bolded is almost certainly happening in next couple years.
I don't think it will go away but there will be a significant price bump and only the top tier will get first party day one
I am not a gamepass subscriber so maybe I don't quite get it, but PS Plus has something like 47 million subscribers without day one, with barely any day one third party really (they get the occasional indie). Gamepass has a better line up of third party, they have in theory great first party coming out, and yet Parris and others talk about how it would just collapse if CoD wasn't on there. Is there a reason why gamepass can't just be a better version of Plus and have most first party with the occasional skip? (namely CoD, but Elder Scrolls as well, etc etc).
If Phil came out and said sorry, we can't make CoD work on gamepass financially, but it will still continue as normal in every other way, would that really change much?
If Phil came out and said sorry, we can't make CoD work on gamepass financially, but it will still continue as normal in every other way, would that really change much?
Yeah, that would change a lot, that was the whole premise and they've spent years assuring people it would work. It would kill them.
Went through all of yours answers how you feel about Xbox (55 in total!) but I don't think I really have a good way to present the results, as it was an open question. The recurring topics were sadness about Tango's closure, quite a few of you expressing doubts what to believe about MS strategy anymore, many said they are sticking to Xbox due to Game Pass (either riding it out or still emphasizing how good of a deal it is), going third party is an expectation and go/be more on PC is a plan or already the reality for some. It would be interesting to have a proper questionnaire on this topic, I think.
For me, it seemed that if they fuck with Game Pass, many here will be out; and it appears you guys want the promises on the announced games to be fulfilled, and there was definitely doubt and bitterness about this week in many answers.
For me, it seemed that if they fuck with Game Pass, many here will be out; and it appears you guys want the promises on the announced games to be fulfilled, and there was definitely doubt and bitterness about this week in many answers.
Because Microsoft keeps telling everyone they'll get every first-party games with Game Pass Day one. If they change that, people will be upset because they were promised those games on Game Pass Day one. That's very bad for MS PR.
The 47 million is just because it's also the online paywall. At last check, and without folding in Gold/Core, Game Pass was a significantly larger service than Extra+Premium, especially given the disparity in install base. Like 25 million to 14 million. I'm not sure pulling back to a PS Extra level service would be cost free.
It gets muddy to compare the numbers when they combine paying for online with paying for a content library into the same numbers. A quick Google search shows that an overwhelming majority if the PS Plus subscribers are the Essential tier, whereas I believe most Game Pass subscribers are the GPU tier.
Release great games and stop with the layoff's
Think that comparison doesn't really work without extra insight that leads to what % of the xbox console audience has GP vs PS console. You also probably would like to account for the tiers.
Just saw others just kinda beat me to the point.
They don't have to do anything really just wait until the next big news cycle to occur.
Which sounds like the PS showcase, once that hits most of the threads outside this one likely won't be talking about Xbox anymore.
All they need is half a dozen AAA games that are 90+ on metacritic released in a 2 year period.
It's that simple. Everything will be overlooked as long as you have enough AAA games rated 90+, as far as I can tell anyway.
Oh, and they have to be exclusive.
This is also why MS lesdership really just need to shut up and not be constantly talking about stuff. Nintendo knows this and Sony has learned it. This is also why people were so pissed about recent studio closures.
"Oh yeah Hi-Fi rush did so well on our metrics"
"We have no plans to close Arkane"
"Gamepass is doing great"
"We wanna ensure our studios have creative freedom etc"
And i am not saying they were lying. It is just that now those statements are hitting them back big time.
Well their studios did have creative freedom so the last one isn't a lie still. Microsoft has from all reports, let their studios (aside from Coalition and 343i) work on whatever projects they want to work on and given them a blank check to spend what resources they need to get the game made with no corporate interference.
But as we've seen with Tango, they might work on their passion project just to be closed down a year later.
They sold Game Pass on the premise of first party games Day One back in 2017. If they then go back on that for certain franchises like COD and say Elder Scrolls like you say it's an admission the model doesn't work for all games and games can be "too big" for Game Pass. Their PR for the ABK buyout was about making Call of Duty cheaper for gamers via Game Pass and available in more places. COD is day 1 Xbox/PC/PlayStation as far as we know so has the best retail selling potential of every game from Microsoft Gaming. Other games don't have that luxury. How do you then draw the line at what games can be day one Game Pass? The sales of the last entry? The revenue the IP generated? It would create a two tier system between games from Microsoft Gaming which would just cause headaches. It has to be all or nothing for Game Pass in my opinion.
I do agree with this tbf. Outside of Forza Horizon, I don't think Xbox has had a AAA exclusive (console) in a long long time
They could make tentpole franchises that make more money (COD, Fallout, TES, DOOM, etc) exclusive to Game Pass Ultimate for $18/month (day one). That would probably help. then people on the $11/month tier have to wait a year or so before the game comes to Game Pass standard.
They'll have to be patient and wait for all the current GPU to expire though since most people just converted their Xbox Live Gold months into GPU for free.
Like i said. I did not say they were lying. It is just that now that stuff looks just utterly stupid. This is why Nintendo and Sony do not really speak about those stuffs.
Er, Starfield? Unless you mean 90+ then yeah, only MSFS and Horizon 5 have been as such this gen.
This is what they have to do if they want to regain console hardware market share. PS5 already has Ghost of Tsushima, TLOU, Spider-Man, Horizon and God of War as system sellers and those games aren't on Xbox, so people buy a PS5 to play those games. It's really that simple. But that's only if Xbox wants to regain console hardware market share, which they may have given up on.
Just Starfield and HiFi Rush being exclusive wasn't (particularly when Starfield didn't set the world on fire and in the eyes of the general gaming sphere, did not live up to the hype but even if it did, people aren't buying Xbox consoles for one game only) enough.
I would say to look at Nintendo. Their strength is in first party, they always have at least a couple games every year that are both critically and commercially successful. They also release MANY. MANY. smaller games that are not AAA range but as long as they have 2 90+ MC games that sell millions of units every year or so, people want to buy the Switch for those games. Whether it's Tears of the Kingdom, Pokemon, Mario Kart, Smash, Super Mario, Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem, Splatoon… these games are all critically successful and commercially successful and you often hear people who don't own a Switch saying they wish they had a Switch to play these games.
I think Xbox's only exclusive games with this power really are Forza Horizon, Ori and Sea of Thieves but SoT is multiplatform and Ori is multiplatform and Moon Studios is not working with MS anymore. I think Fable COULD be a system seller but that's only if it's exclusive to Xbox, if they choose to bring it on PS5 or give people any reason to believe it can come to PS5, it probably won't sell consoles.
That's the power of having consistently good quality exclusive games. And mind you, Xbox DOES NOT have to make the games exclusive. If they make good quality games and market them, they will sell well on whatever platforms they are available on but throughout history, no one has ever been enticed to buy a console that doesn't have a strong library of exclusives. So as for being a major platform holder or a major player in the console space, if they go that route, the market share of Xbox will be so small that only the biggest games will come to Xbox, and you can bet every single Japanese game will skip the platform, including the ones they've made progress on with a much smaller next gen install base. I think the third party support from other countries would be worse than Nintendo's Western third party support, but compounded by the fact that the first party lineup is playable on other consoles so the first party can't hold up the console like the Switch.
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Nail the June show, that's it. People have short memory, so they'll mostly remember the last big news, so MS better deliver. And no more fuck ups, you don't want to get the negativity back lol.
I think they will nail the June show, make everyone forget about the closures and have some optimism and then they will have some more bad PR to announce in July (whether it's studio closures, layoffs, or announcing first party games like Hellblade II or Indy coming to PS5) that erodes trust in Xbox brand again. It's like a rollercoaster. Seems like every good news has to be followed by a PR disaster and every PR disaster is followed by good news a month later and vice versa. It's been like that for what seems like at least the start of this gen.
Some more positive updates on PD and some other Xbox games from Grubb. Gears, id etc.
View: https://youtu.be/BPtzkxO0Ges?si=os_vjHot4EhPkySV
View: https://youtu.be/BPtzkxO0Ges?si=os_vjHot4EhPkySV
Starting to lose faith on TOW 2 being at the showcase after how many other major games/announcements are rumoured to be there lol
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