Xbox Series X

[elevators_rule]

6 hours ago, Xmad said:

What really bugs me is apparently want to make this the only game for the next decade and make this a "games as a service" type game. I'd guess they go the Destiny route which like not terrible but like.......maybe no.

Microsoft talks a good game but their actual showings for this gen are leaving me 50-50. But owning a bunch of promising studios is a lot better than last gen assuming half the games don't cancelled like last gen lol.

I agree. Their showing wasn't amazing, but they're definitely trending in the right direction which is really good. Both Avowed and Hell Blade are more promising AAA single player games for Microsoft than anything we've seen in the last decade maybe. The Halo MP show be good as always, and all of their other studios look like they're working on something decent.

Kinda wild, but I think Microsoft honestly doesn't care about beating Sony anymore in System sales. They seem to be all in on the PC route and it's probably smart. Think about it: since the Xbox 360, I've always heard that Sony/Microsoft sell their consoles often at a loss because they make their money on software. If Microsoft gets a foothold in the PC space, that takes a lot of pressure off the Xbox having to succeed as hardware because they could make just as much if not more via PC sales. This lines up with some of the strategy we've seen recently with Microsoft releasing all of their games on PC. Also, there are heavy rumors that Microsoft plans on bundling Xbox Live with Game Pass. They know they can't charge PC players for Live (nobody would pay for it as all other PC gaming is free online) but many PC players would be glad to pay for Game Pass as it's a pretty great deal. Bundling them both together could be Microsofts way of unifying the services to be both less confusing and maybe at a higher price. That could be Microsofts way of getting those huge subscriptions from the PC space that they otherwise wouldn't be able to touch with just Gold.

Edited July 26, 2020 by elevators_rule

[Kiltman]

7 hours ago, elevators_rule said:

Yeah, them designing it originally for the Xbox One makes a lot of sense. It definitely looks dated. With that being said, I'm still sure the game play will be fun. My only problem is that Microsoft has been really leaning on this game as their system seller. All the hype leading up to this event and advertising was about seeing the first look at Halo Infinite. When you're selling a console and your systems selling point over it's competitor is power, the flagship title better look great. Halo doesn't fit that mold at all.

I wish they showed more of the games that look spectacular like Hell Blade or Avowed. I guess they're not far enough in development, though. I'm eager to see what Microsoft shows in the next few months, but I think Sonys lineup of games is still superior as of now.

Yeah, if I try to go into the mind of the xbox team...the job of Halo is to sell you on Xbox.
Not Series X, not PC. But Xbox as a breadth of services. That is their goal now.

They want people to play the game and get into the ecosystem. They have so many price points and ways to do it now.
At launch you'll be able to play Halo Infinite on PC, Series X, Lockhart (cheaper next gen version), One (X), or xCloud.
They want people to get in and see how good gamepass is, how good Microsoft Rewards are in conjunction with Gamepass. And then realize that maybe they should have a version of Xbox in their life. Each new subscriber makes this plan more viable.

Looking at some videos it's clear that they have some current gen lighting techniques that are starting to age, and they failed in the shadows that a lot of the gameplay took place in.
In the sun on the 4K video...it was fine.
It's the downside to open world gameplay with dynamic lighting. You can't really bake in lighting like you would on a linear story (which itself has issues)
This is why raytracing will be great when it becomes standard. It makes things so much more natural looking in the shadows.
Apparently they pushed ray tracing for closer to launch for next gen and pc. Why they even showed it without it? I don't know. Multiple other reports are this was the demo made back in the spring for e3, so it's indeed older. But again, why show something incomplete? I have guesses but no real answers, they'd get roasted worse had they not shown anything.

 

The graphics aside, it still sounds like a really fun take on Halo game. 

[Kiltman]

7 hours ago, Xmad said:

What really bugs me is apparently want to make this the only game for the next decade and make this a "games as a service" type game. I'd guess they go the Destiny route which like not terrible but like.......maybe no.

Microsoft talks a good game but their actual showings for this gen are leaving me 50-50. But owning a bunch of promising studios is a lot better than last gen assuming half the games don't cancelled like last gen lol.

It'll be interesting what that ends up being, they built the engine to be adaptable (most halos have)

With Gamepass it kinda removes incentive to make a brand new game, they can just build onto things.
My guess would be other rings or planets would come as expansions. There was a rumor that this ring won't be the only place we play in.

Yeah this last gen was a failure for games. The terrible launch killed off a lot of good games. Then Phil took over and they chased trends that were doomed to fail like asymmetric multiplayer (Fable Legends), deck building (Phantom Dust), and trying hard to get the Japanese devs on board and betting on the wrong horse (Scalebound).

I think after that we started to see some growth, the issue is around that time they closed studios like Lionhead, 343 misfired on Halo 5, There was just not a ton they could do.
So they bet small, made Ori, made Cuphead. Finally actually did stuff universally praised. Finally landed something new with Sea of Thieves...after a rocky start. Really all they had going for them this gen was Forza being amazing and Gears being Gears outside of those indie tier games.

I think you can see the break where Phil decided they needed studios. It was 2017-2018. Sony had had good exclusives all gen. But it wasn't Horizon, God of War, Spider-Man, Ghosts... it was like The Order 1886, Bloodborne, Uncharted. A good output, but not the universal hits the later years would deliver.

I think he's delivered the chance for it, Halo Infinite could very easily be an awesome game, graphics like this really wouldn't hold that back.
You have Hellblade II, Avowed, Fable all coming out by 2023. The Coalition will either have Gears 6 or perhaps the Perfect Dark reboot out by then potentially. And then you have The Initiative's huge game whatever that ends up being. That'll all be in the first 3-4 years unless delays hold one back. Then you have other great more niche stuff like State of Decay 3, both Forza franchises, smaller teams within the studios making AA games.  Chance is there to obliterate the "Xbox has no games" thing., just have to hit on them.

When you look at that above, I think it shows why Microsoft would be particularly interested in buying WB interactive. Almost all those studios are putting games out this year.
So if you give them the 3-5 year dev time, their next games would be hitting right after this current slate of Xbox studios would be done.. Any deal would come with licensing to the WB IP for X amount of time...so those next games could be sequels or big new exclusives. You'd add in Monolith's next game being exclusive in a year or two. NetherRealm popping out games every other year, adding Lego games to gamepass would be huge...I suspect both would stay multiplat and just be on gamepass. Maybe Netherrealm makes a Killer Instinct crossover between MKs, or an Xbox Mascot Fighting game that is exclusive. Technically they could buy the studio/publisher tomorrow and make every game they have exclusive, but I doubt they'd do that.

[RJ_11]

On 7/23/2020 at 4:27 PM, RJ_11 said:

I'm like 90% convinced I'm switching sides from Xbox to Playstation in the new generation. Show me what you got Xbox, win my money, I dare you.

100%*

[Kiltman]

Some info about Avowed from resetera, apparently the guy has been correct on stuff in the past

Quote

 

As I previously mentioned before the announcement, Obsidian is working on Pillars (I assumed this regarding the info) game as back then I did get confirmation that game contains “spore-like” creatures with few other vague descriptions of The Living Lands.

So, I did get new informations about Avowed:

• fully open world, much much larger than Skyrim (very differently “larger”, more proper word would be “denser” and “more contrasted” at the same time)
• primarily set in the The Living Lands region of Eora (not sure if it’ll go like that as explicit later on, but that was starting point)
• big focus on world-reactivity, lighting and next-gen AI systems and physics (special focus on physics with magic systems - have no clue what would that mean)
• realtime whether system (don’t have full details but fog is very important as realtime element, rivers will have specific micro physics systems regarding this)
• very advanced character creation tool (didn’t get more info)
• mod support (for now PC is/will be very dominant as creation tool, but I’ll be playable fully on Xbox)
• very large number of fractions but very different approach than with Skyrim
• you’ll be able to have companions (different than Outer Worlds)
• storyset: fight against incoming threat of tyranny (independent from previous stories)
• game has bosses planned and some of them are very very large
• Gods will have special say in the game
• great focus on iconic landmarks, statues and buildings
• two large cities planned with many smaller ones with strong focus on contrasting wild-areas, rivers, mountains and desolated areas (yes, you’ll be able to swim)
• fully respecting POE (Pillars of Eternity) creatures lore with new additions
• dynamic presentation of dialogue
• for now idea is to keep “you can kill everyone in the game” option
• around 100 people are on the project for 2y (smaller number for 7m of preproduction), in total 2y 7m
• full production is already a thing
• team will still grow
• target date: late 2022/early 2023

Keep in mind that some parts of this can change during the development process.

 

always a pound of salt that comes with leaks like this. But if it's even 75% of this, it should be a system seller. 

[Danger]

Confirmed what they showed was for Halo Infinite was an old build, hopefully we see improvement in any subsequent gameplay.

[Kiltman]

4 hours ago, Danger said:

Confirmed what they showed was for Halo Infinite was an old build, hopefully we see improvement in any subsequent gameplay.

Hoping the September event/show is just a Halo deep dive. October would be fine too.

 

[JBURGE]

On 7/26/2020 at 9:27 AM, RJ_11 said:

On 7/23/2020 at 11:27 AM, RJ_11 said:

I'm like 90% convinced I'm switching sides from Xbox to Playstation in the new generation. Show me what you got Xbox, win my money, I dare you.

100%*

If you have a PC (I just got one) I don't see much of a point in getting a Series X. Playstation will keep their exclusives (which is an issue of its own) but it makes the PS5 a must buy. Especially if essentially everything next gen will be going cross platform. 

The two companies have chosen totally different paths. Microsoft is essentially offering consoles as a cheap up front PC, and Sony is keeping their exclusive model (at least timed) and making their console essentially a must purchase for fans of their exclusives. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by JBURGE

[Danger]

11 minutes ago, JBURGE said:

If you have a PC (I just got one) I don't see much of a point in getting a Series X. Playstation will keep their exclusives (which is an issue of its own) but it makes the PS5 a must buy. Especially if essentially everything next gen will be going cross platform. 

It's more likely than not that Playstation eventually releases all of their exclusives on PC as well frankly. 

[JBURGE]

40 minutes ago, Danger said:

It's more likely than not that Playstation eventually releases all of their exclusives on PC as well frankly. 

I'm assuming they will, seeing Horizon just came out for PC. But it looks like they will continue on with the at least timed exclusives for a while

[elevators_rule]

4 hours ago, Danger said:

It's more likely than not that Playstation eventually releases all of their exclusives on PC as well frankly. 

Yeah, I agree. I think both are realizing just how huge the PC audience is and how much it's growing. I think Sony will always keep some level of timed-exclusivity to their games (well, as long as Xbox exists), but they definitely will be pushing into the PC world more and more in these coming years.

I think it's important that Microsoft makes the Windows store better for gaming. As of right now, it's still pretty trash; it's super bloated and not user friendly. They might be the only realistic game store that can compete with Steam seeing as everyone has it downloaded already. That's probably their ultimate goal in my mind, as Valve is effectively just printing money by owning the Steam store.

[Kiltman]

9 hours ago, elevators_rule said:

Yeah, I agree. I think both are realizing just how huge the PC audience is and how much it's growing. I think Sony will always keep some level of timed-exclusivity to their games (well, as long as Xbox exists), but they definitely will be pushing into the PC world more and more in these coming years.

I think it's important that Microsoft makes the Windows store better for gaming. As of right now, it's still pretty trash; it's super bloated and not user friendly. They might be the only realistic game store that can compete with Steam seeing as everyone has it downloaded already. That's probably their ultimate goal in my mind, as Valve is effectively just printing money by owning the Steam store.

the new app is a step in the right direction...hopefully they can remove the shutter when you quickly move through it by the time it leaves beta.

[Knowledge]

Halo multiplayer will be F2P.....

Microsoft not ******* around this gen!!!!!

[Xmad]

4 hours ago, Knowledge said:

Halo multiplayer will be F2P.....

Microsoft not ******* around this gen!!!!!

Microsoft is the reason we have paid online AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

but das nice.

[43M]

On 7/27/2020 at 1:06 PM, JBURGE said:

I'm assuming they will, seeing Horizon just came out for PC. But it looks like they will continue on with the at least timed exclusives for a while

Youll never see major Sony exclusives go straight to PC.  Ever.   They arent going to hand Microsoft that type of advantage. 

The biggest exclusives likely will not make it to PC for 3 years.  2 at the earliest.