Why can't we have both? With Gamepass you don't need to worry about sales anyway, and having 2 options to bundle with their 2 consoles would be great and make a killing for MS.
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I just want Starfield to not be rushed in anyway. We should expect Microsoft backed QA to the point there's no game breaking glitches. Games have to be careful here (CP77) and I just don't want an unfinished game.
I doubt they would delay a big NEW IP for Xbox because they feel it would take "shine" away from Halo. Especially if it could bring more people to gamepass and sell more Series X/S.
Bethesda was already scheduling for QA, Microsoft adding any QA assistance only helps expedite it. It just comes down to the developers having enough bandwidth to get the fixes in place. I don't think a CP2077 situation is possible, because while Bethesda games are notoriously buggy CP2077 was the first of its kind for that studio in terms of density, complexity and speed of streaming assets bc of the driving.
I get it, but personally, I think Starfield was originally a Fall 2020 console launch game that was delayed due to Covid and the acquisition. There are indications that Bethesda was gearing up for a marketing campaign in early 2020. Hillary Huskett, former senior brand manager at Bethesda, left Bethesda for Bioware in May 2020, and yet she supposedly "led a global marketing campaign for Starfield" prior to leaving. Which doesn't make much sense, considering that the global marketing campaign for Starfield hasn't even started back then--unless it was about to start in 2020 before the game was delayed.
Either way, I really doubt Starfield will have glitches and bugs like Cyberpunk does. Cyberpunk's worst bugs and performance issues are on last gen consoles, and if Starfield is a next gen only, it won't be a problem and they can just focus on the new gen versions.
I really just hope that Starfield has more interactive conversations with NPC's than in Skyrim and Fallout 4. That's my favorite part of these games.
What if Microsoft invests into the Dino craze and makes games like Turok (2008) or a Bethesda style RPG of the Cretaceous period?
Man I remember Turok on the N64, what a game that was. Never played anything like it back then.
It would be a nostalogia win if they did.
Jawmuncher still waitin on that Dino Crisis reboot from Capcom haha..
The game had bugs, but as you said the most uproar was about the performance of last gen consoles and nothing indicates Starfield is coming to last gen consoles. I don't think Halo needs breathing room either, because in the past Xbox released multiple games in holiday and it worked out for them.
I'm kinda shocked by how much this statement has killed the rumour. It's a little worrying actually, because these sort of statements are everywhere - politically or by much more important, dangerous companies than Square Enix.
In the first instance, the statement said they hadn't announced anything, which is the biggest non-sentence they could have possibly gone with. If it'd been announced, it wouldn't have been a rumour. Something being announced or unannounced has no bearing on it being true.
Secondly they said they'd had no offer or intention to sell, but both of these are things that would need to be publically announced. There could still be not-as-official discussions happening behind the scenes and that statement would be 100 per cent true. I'm not saying under the table or covert, just no official intent to sell or buy as of yet.
It doesn't mean that the rumour is inaccurate (or, indeed, accurate), but people have really latched onto it.
On the QA front, I read something once that completely changed my perspective on it. It's obvious, but it's just a different way of thinking about it.
If you've got a team of, whatever, 40 people doing QA on a game for the whole working week every day for 3 or 4 years, that's hundreds of thousands of manhours, just dedicated to finding bugs.
The second it hits shelves, a popular game could be bought by let's say two or three million people. If 10 per cent of those buyers play it for an hour, it's already been played more than it ever was by the QA team internally. And let's face it, it'll probably be way more than that.
I wouldnt rule it out but I suspect Sony will be camping outside the Epic offices to get a clean sweep on timed exclusives from them
I hope that Starfield will have great and rewarding Items management, great world exploration and environment storytelling.
Basically those are reasons why I love BGS games. Rest is cherries on the cake.
I am really fascinated to see how they have the world-building/quest stuff of Fallout/Skyrim etc and put it all in space. The chance to explore and see what is out there, on a massive scale, is exciting.
it is exciting and I wonder if we can fly from a city into the space without any loading and then to another planet.
Place your bets!
In Starfield will you be able to fly your space ship or will it be out of your control(Mass Effect/Outer Worlds style)?
In Starfield will you be able to fly your space ship or will it be out of your control(Mass Effect/Outer Worlds style)?
I have so many questions on how Starfield will work in general. This is going to be quite the departure for BGS (at least, I think it will be), and that's very exciting. Can't wait to see the next 20-minute Todd Howard demo showcase.
I hope for a pilotable spaceship. Mass Effect/TOW style of "space flight" is little better than a loading screen. Isn't immersive at all and would feel like a theme park instead of a sandbox where you can go wherever you want--which is Bethesda's philosophy, unlike Bioware's and Obsidian's. Everything we've heard about Starfield is how ambitious and epic it is. So I hope that means there will be pilotable ships we can upgrade and customize.
I think you'll be able to pilot your ship.
I think it will be just like an ES game, except instead of just one big landmass you will have a load of explorable planets, space stations etc. Basically replace the horse with a space craft.
I hope we will be able to fly around space and travel between galaxies but who knows. We have seen absolutely nothing from this game so I am hoping for a blow out in less than 90 days.
I hope they do but I honestly don't see it happening just due to technical limitations.
I can't think of many games with highly detailed worlds which allow you to drive a vehicle/animal at high speeds due to loading. I can imagine maybe allowing control when you are just in space, but not landing on planets, but allowing one and not the other would likely cause a weird disconnect.
I still can't wrap my head around the idea of a true BGS game in space, their strength is creating worlds that are fun to explore but space is just so vast that it usually dilutes exploration and you easily end up with boring landscapes. Maybe they do it like Destiny and each planet is limited to a small explorable area? I can't wait to see how they tackle this, I can't imagine them going fully procedurally generated worlds like No Man's Sky.
When was Microsoft close to acquiring Hazelight? Between Brothers and A Way Out?
I just finished It Takes Two and it was incredible, makes me wonder what could have been with them an Xbox. Such an improvement over A Way Out (which I also enjoyed, but not nearly this much).
I just finished It Takes Two and it was incredible, makes me wonder what could have been with them an Xbox. Such an improvement over A Way Out (which I also enjoyed, but not nearly this much).
When the rumours about MS looking to acquire big and small in japan comes up it always feels like it's the same companies that get the spotlight in discussion, i.e. Sega or konami for the big and Kojipro or Fromsoft for the "small" but there exists so many game studios that MS could be looking at. I really don't think they'll just grab the biggest and best ones, it's not like their earlier acquisitions has been just the "top" or most predictable studios with stuff like Compulsion or Ninja theory not being the most obvious ones.
I could see studios like Grasshopper, Itagakis new studio (please no), Mistwalker (talked a bit about here but not in general, and it's based in Hawaii?) or White Owls being studios that is more left-field but is in the ballpark of what I expect from MS acquisitions in Japan.
I could see studios like Grasshopper, Itagakis new studio (please no), Mistwalker (talked a bit about here but not in general, and it's based in Hawaii?) or White Owls being studios that is more left-field but is in the ballpark of what I expect from MS acquisitions in Japan.
Hazelight went to microsoft before EA for a way out, but microsoft didn't want them ( not buying, but doing the game, i don't understand why).
It's crazy that they refuse them, i m sure now, they must have some talk ( but EA also must have a contract like with respawn )
Edit : After some other answer, it was more like they just choose EA instead of Microsoft .
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I thought Josef said he had a great talk with Phil but they decided to go with EA instead rather than MS not taking them up?
Part of the reason big Japanese publishers come up in acquisition conversation is because of what the Microsoft CEO said in regards to wanting more established names, referencing the Bethesda deal.
If SE, Capcom, Sega, or other well known publishers with household name IP are entertaining offers you can bet MS will be one of the interested parties at the table.
Maybe an incredibly unpopular opinion but personally I hope not, I feel like even with the best flight mechanics possible it would basically be just like sailing (point at the direction you want to go and wait until you get there, occasionally avoiding small rocks or islands (or asteroids/planets in a spaceship setting), or if something really cool happens you can do something then, plus however good combat may or may not be, but most of the time I feel like it would be just a waste of time when I'm trying to get to the next planet or whatever. If they do it, I hope it's awesome because I know I'll spend 100+ hours playing this game, but personally I feel like it either it will be decent at best, or they will have spent too much time on that aspect as opposed to the other stuff that makes their games so awesome. Hopefully I'm wrong though if they do decide to go that route. I think spaceship flying on/in the immediate vicinity of a planet could be cool, but I don't know if I'd be excited to be able to fly between them
But that's the thing: we're talking about piloting a vehicle at high speed not in highly detailed worlds but in space where there are little to no objects. That would be much simpler to implement than driving a car in a city.
Yeah for sure, I just don't believe they are "up for sale" so to say. I know that everything is for sale at the right price, especially so with public companies but I think expecting everything to be on the zenimax level is not realistic either. Though I do believe Sega's portfolio would fit incredibly well into the holes in MS first-party.
As someone who used to work in QA who went on to managing QA and is now in the business side of the industry, this is completely true!
40 people is conservative for a QA team though. QA teams these days often involve developer QA teams, publisher QA teams and one (or multiple) external partners. I've worked on a AAA project where more than 500 people had touched it from the QA perspective before it released.
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For all the talks about consolidation, Japan is a country with very major independent developers. They're pretty much all subsidiaries under a larger parent company
No surprise there, EA was only looking to make the money back, then would transfer all revenues to the developer. This plus more platforms made it difficult to beat for MS.
Yeah, very few smaller studios doing their own thing. Can't actually come up with that many more than the ones I mentioned up there that isn't owned by a bigger company. There might be a few more but not that has actually shipped games that are prominent. It kinda feels like Kojipro is the only studio in japan that is doing the Remedy or IOI level stuff.
Honestly, I took a punt on a number that didn't sound unrealistically big or small and completely showed my ignorance. Thanks for the correction!
You weren't that far off for some stuff though!
I worked on a MMO-lite AA project once and my external QA team, which should have easily been 10-20 people..was 4 including myself as the lead.
QA also requires a budget and proper management of course :)
I'm just getting into Minecraft Dungeons (fun game!)
But can someone explain the basic details about how mission progression works? After the tutorial it threw me onto this huge map with many missions to pick from. I'm not sure what to pick or why.
And then when I do finish a mission, how do I tell which missions I've completed and what's left?
And is there any mid-mission saving? I'm surprised at how long some of these levels are, requiring a 30-60 minute sitting.
But can someone explain the basic details about how mission progression works? After the tutorial it threw me onto this huge map with many missions to pick from. I'm not sure what to pick or why.
And then when I do finish a mission, how do I tell which missions I've completed and what's left?
And is there any mid-mission saving? I'm surprised at how long some of these levels are, requiring a 30-60 minute sitting.
I can't imagine having pilotable spaceships and keeping any reasonable sense of scale. What are you thinking you would be piloting between? Each planet?
Perhaps i need to check out No Man's Sky
I played at launch but I think you can choose any available mission? Once you select the mission you can choose your difficulty so they should all be doable. The game opens more up when it's time to move with the story. Eventually the map should be opening up to the top. I think it lets you know what you've already done but I can't recall.
Yeah I know I can pick any mission, but it's not clear what I need to do to progress, or which missions I've already completed
I can relate to that. My team currently has 4 people, myself included, working for multiple projects at once :b
I don't know enough about their financials to begin to assess if they're each on a path to continue increasing shareholder value or otherwise.
I also don't expect all additional Xbox acquisitions to be on the same level as Zenimax, but given the MS CEO's statement there is certainly an appetite to do another large publisher deal if the right opportunity comes along.
I guess you don't play space sims? It's been done before. Heck, Freelancer managed to do it well 20 years ago. You don't need to pilot between something, not necessarily. Space exploration alone can be very exciting (pirates, abandoned mysterious ships with creepy Alien-like creatures, exploring space anomalies, searching for valuable asteroids to mine resources, upgrading your ship, space stations, etc).
Personally, from what little Todd actually said about the game, it seems space will play a much larger role in Starfield than in games like Mass Effect and The Outer Worlds, where space is just a setting for the story with next to no gameplay.
No, not really. Sounds interesting. I guess i really don't have an idea of where this game is headed. In my mind it was always sci-fi Elder Scrolls but they will probably be much more to it than that.
Todd said that Starfield would still have a Bethesda DNA but that they're also doing things they've never done before. I think that's why they said that "it's the most epic sci-fi thing you can imagine": they might be attempting to make a game that has a space sim part+RPG like Fallout/Elder Scrolls. That kind of game was literally never attempted before, and I hope that's what they're doing.
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