It’s better than PlayStation, but seems to be dying. Might lose Halo and Gears of War to PlayStation as well.
Video games are still fun, but the novelty has been a little stale. It's time for another gigantic technological leap or gaming leap forward that disrupts the industry somewhere. An xbox holodecks would be such a thing. Ray tracing is great, but it doesn't change my fun factor for long enough.
I don't know, I am probably old school, this photo realism did not get me like others.......more retro.
MS/Xbox seems to be reconsidering how the business model works, and that's probably the right idea. I've been in-and-out on rumors and whatnot, but I believe they essentially want to do a handheld and/or other generic devices where they can sell Xbox games, services, etc. If the idea is to do a Windows version of the Steam Deck with Game Pass and other stuff, I think that's probably better than just doing another Xbox that's just a slightly better version of the Series X/S (which arguably is just a slightly better version of the Xbox One platform, same as PS5 is a slightly better version of PS4). Now I don't know if they can actually do that (Windows + Gaming on a handheld has been challenging thus far), and that would be a different business to go after, but I could see some potential in that area. And yeah they're putting games on PlayStation or other systems (including PC), but honestly you just have to do that these days. PlayStation should be doing the same (and they are on PC). Nintendo probably should too, but they can probably get by for now without putting Mario/Zelda/etc on non-Nintendo platforms (including PC). Console wars were fun in the past, but there's really no point to that now (if there ever was a point). Ray tracing is fine, but yeah as mentioned it isn't really a game changer in its current form. Part of that is because these consoles came out just before ML really hit it big, and so they're having to brute force things vs taking advantage of tech that would allow for better results via smarter rendering techniques. PS5 Pro has a band-aid for this, and the newer systems from both manufacturers will likely go harder at ML (for good reason), but I agree that there's really only so much more you can get from increased visuals. If anything, maybe the ML can help with framerates, which might be more impactful given certain limitations these machines might have with CPUs. Games in general just cost way too much money to make, take way too long to make, and that is leading to games that don't really take a lot of risks. Which typically means less creativity. If there was some way to scale back the demands on high end fidelity and re-focus efforts on innovative gameplay and good game design, we'd probably be in a better place. And this is coming from a guy who loves high end rendering tech. Damn Nintendo had it right after all.
asking mom for ps5 or xbox x... should i hold off on this? i already have a switch, which kinda suxs in terms of games.
AAA gaming probably needs a mini collapse to get back on track IMO. The focus on the "blockbuster" game is choking it. I remember GTA, Metal Gear and Final Fantasy being my favorite franchises on the PS1 and PS2. I got 13 main games and some spin offs in less than a decade, every single one a unique story and experience even if the bones of the game were similar. The looooooong and expensive development times, and desire(need) for monetization beyond purchase price leads to whole bunch of sameish, safe games. Even when a banger does drop, it feels like I'm waiting a whole year until I get another game I'm truly hyped for. Microsoft as a developer has become the worst offender of the bunch. They contribute absolutely nothing in the way of engaging games and its why they are getting their ass kicked, Sony at least occasionally drops some good games (although they are far from innocent in the larger issues) It is possible to still make high level games on a reasonable timeline, Fromsoft doesn't take 8 years between releases. People need to study what they're doing.
It's crazy. The one X Box game I always find my way back to is Skyrim. Mostly I just play FIFA or Road to the Show, after a couple of rips on the bong and the wife is in bed on a Friday night.
Honestly (and I'm probably in the minority) I don't think going open world really helped Elden Ring, and that likely added a year or so to the development of that game. So I think even From is falling for some of the mainstream trends of other developers, though they run such a tight ship normally that they still come out ahead relative to other projects. Of course they also put out games with meh visuals and generally poor performance (Elden Ring in particular), and I suppose the combination of those makes me think From should take a bit more time with their games. I can accept the less-than-stellar visuals (Elden Ring can still look nice even if it doesn't match Demon's Souls Remake), but I am less forgiving of terrible performance. The latest Astro Bot is probably an example devs should look at. ~3 years of development with ~60 people on the team. Looks, plays, and performs great. Maybe can look at some of the Remedy games as well. Their budgets and possibly development schedules are bit bigger than I'd like, though still seemingly far off the $100M+ of some other games. Yet they do offer essentially top-of-the-line visuals and pretty solid games overall (at least Control and Alan Wake 2 in recent memory). If you're going for that AAA high end narrative feel, they seem to be doing it well (though maybe they are just benefiting from cheaper labor?). I think some Nintendo games are well made with tight budgets/development schedules, though I suppose the big Zelda games take a ton of time and money still.
Folks may have seen this. Adding to M$oft's woes. "The members of ZeniMax Workers United-CWA, one of the largest video game unions in the United States, have gone on strike. ... ZeniMax Workers United is made up of approximately 300 quality assurance testers. When the union was formally recognized in January 2023, it became parent company Microsoft’s first union..." It's unclear how much this will delay any of their projects. But after MSoft spent billions buying studios, they are trying to tighten the belt in other places. The sticking point seems to be workers fighting to keep remote work. MSoft could be doing it just so they have reasons to trim head count.
Xbox? Yea no consoles in general. Its all private equity pumped BS. None of it is remotely entertaining. The PS is probably experiencing a faster decline than the xbox, which at least has gamepass
As an ex-gamer, gamepass and rentable GPU power is the way to go. I would pay $50.00 a month to play the top 25 games based on internet connection and a screen.
I don’t play a lot of video games and haven’t had a system since ps3. Is it a licensing thing or a coding thing, in regard to why they’re leaving x for ps? In my younger days, I preferred the Xbox controllers but I seek to have been an outlier in that regard.
I don't know if I'll ever buy a console again, but I still game. Having a pc that can game, do "real" work, do casual stuff, I can upgrade if necessary, etc. all in one place is enough for me.
Just to clarify, they won't be "losing" those games. At least for now, there will be an Xbox platform, and you can still play Halo, Gears, Forza, etc on Xbox platforms. The only difference is *maybe* some/most/all of these games might also show up on PlayStation and/or other platforms. As for why they're doing this, it basically comes down to this: you can either sell your game/services to 10M Xbox owners or 10M+10M Xbox+PS owners (20M total). And you better sell 2M-3M at least, or your project is a failure. Which one makes more sense? (the actual numbers are different with PS having a larger userbase, which means it makes even more sense to release on that platform) Oh you also have tens of millions of PC gamers, tens of millions of Switch owners, and....a lot of Android/iOS gamers (I don't even know what number to use). It just doesn't make sense to release your $100M+ project on a single system as that severely limits your total sales potential. This applies to more than just games of course, and obviously MS wouldn't really care much if they could get 50M-100M additional Game Pass subscribers by porting games to other platforms. And as I noted above, this logic applies to all the console manufacturers. Sony is already putting their big games on PC and experimenting with other platforms (MLB kinda because they have to, but also testing out Horizon IP on Switch). They have a slightly different business model than MS (along with better hardware sales), but long term I'm pretty sure they'll have to embrace something similar (unless there are other changes in the market). We grew up with all these console exclusives, and it was kinda fun, especially since each console had its own strengths and weaknesses. Nowadays, while there is some innovation, these machines are starting to seem more like DVD/Blu-ray players or media streaming devices. You buy whichever one seems slightly better than the others, but don't worry about it much because they all do pretty much the same thing. And I'm not even really getting into cloud streaming for games. MS is accepting the new reality and making the necessary adjustments to stay profitable.
The XXBOX for females and the XYBOX for men. Also, the XXXBOX brings the XXBOX and XYBOX together for the complete experience.
