Yeah, maybe it does still happen, but just because that's what happened with Persona doesn't necessarily mean anything concrete.
Really hope this hits like a Lego Movie or a Barbie. Not optimistic though.
I think they are, though. Visions of Mana day 1 on Xbox, Octopath 2 coming and FFXIV on Xbox, all of those as of right now aren't on Game Pass.
Yeah, it's just when the games are ready. Sony typically leans more on Q1 and Q2 and Xbox on Q3 and Q4. It's probably just how their pipelines are set up. I'm sure Xbox would love big games all the time but the games are ready when they are ready.
It's true though. They wanted first half of 2023 to be a banger with Starfield, Redfall (lol) and Forza (and HFR) but that had to change because Starfield and Forza weren't ready and there was nothing else to slot in there. Best laid plans and all that. It's easy to say "well they should have planned for that" but it's not like they can go back in time. Things change all the time and some things are difficult to predict. It takes years to build cadence.
There's definitely accountability issues in Xbox though with studio leadership. I agree that the games are ready when they're ready, but that doesn't fly when they've frequently released not ready.
Agreed. No excuse for it. Especially when you are trying to push a sub. I think they will fix this but I was hoping this would be the year.
Sony and Nintendo compensate those gaps with big third party partnerships - so if Xbox doesn't want to do that, they should fix the pipeline.
Sure but it still takes 4-8 years to develop games and we've seen how long it took to get the first wave of 2018 games out, let alone the second wave of Bethesda games or whatever is in the pipeline for ABK. I expect 2025 and 2026 to not have this problem, but even then, if they get to December 2025 and realise that whatever game is targeting February 2026 needs more time, they're going to delay it (and they should) and they probably won't be able to conjure something first party to fill the schedule. It's not ideal but it's also not the end of the world.
They have 40 studios. They shouldn't have to do that. But hey I'll definitely take Ninja Gaiden 4 or Splinter Cell that they could've easily had made by now. But now that you mention it…when was the last time they did that? It's been years
Post-Animal Crossing was very empty, but obviously AC blew up so it wasn't as big of a deal. But people who weren't into AC did complain.
I think it is kind of disingenuous to act like Nintendo and Playstation aren't releasing games in Q3 and Q4 just because they haven't announced them. It's the expectation that both companies will have games every quarter like it should be the expectation Xbox has games every quarter.
Don't do this to yourself lol
Hellblade 2 definitely gonna be the visual benchmark for this gen…or so I thought until Shinobi talked about Gears 6 👀👀
For Sony, sure (rumours of Astro and such, and Concord) but since Nintendo delayed Switch 2, it's very realistic that they have nothing.
Again, seems pretty flimsy. Playstation funded the games we are talking about that are releasing Q1 and Q2. Xbox just had an EA program for Palworld. Towerborne and Contraband are analogues.
i do count those. stalker 2, too. manor lords (that's already confirmed for xbox series). imo they are really strong with those smaller (but not so small) partnerships. i don't expect much in the size of stalker 2 anymore tho.
i mean, PS didn't fund FFVII Rebirth. but i see your point. i was talking about third partnerships like those (stalker 2 in the case of xbox, as an example)
Maybe not to Sony, but to the people who complain about Sony's output, it does. Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade don't "count" for them. The perception is reality at a certain point, just like how Xbox actually did have games in 2022, but the story became that they didn't.
Rectify this immediately. Its the best game of 2021 and prob the best game out of XGS since the generation
Starfield still has a really good Opencritic score though. It doesn't have to be 90 to be prestige. Fallout 4 won a major GOTY award with an 87. Dragon Age Inquisition did it with a 89. Horizon (Sony) is prestige and it's never been a 90.
My point is that they can do a better job of releasing first party games throughout the year and we should expect better when they have so many studios, especially going forward. Nothing to do with what one person might like and another might not. They have a sub service they need to feed with their own content. I think they have done an excellent job supplementing it with third party games but to me that should be additive in the future.
I think my main problem is that Xbox seems to be okay with massively delaying games (which is a good thing! Give games as much time as they need) but they also seem to want to release their games as soon as they're in what they consider to be in an acceptable state. Like, I think most people would agree that Forza Motorsport needed a bit more time in the oven. Delaying Forza from its October date which kinda overlapped a bit with Starfield's September date until say January or February this year would have led to a better launch for Forza and a more consistent release cadence as opposed to the 7 month gap in first party releases we've had. It's not like holding onto finished games is some insane thing I'm suggesting, Nintendo does it quite frequently, to the point where they can make up for game delay by swapping internal release dates (see Xenoblade 3 and Splatoon 3).
Should they have delayed Forza to Q1 this year? Maybe they should have, so the game might have released in a better state and Q1 this year was filled, but then people would have complained about no Q4 game and criticised another Forza delay. They kind of can't win.
