Microsoft Consoles and Updates

[Jimboxy]

14 hours ago, HandsomeDead said:

Ninja Theory are UK based

 

12 hours ago, Maryokutai said:

Rare and Playground operate from the UK as well

Yeah I'd forgotten about that to be fair. Would be especially shitty and spiteful if they closed or relocated those developers over this

[DisturbedSwan]

7 hours ago, retroed said:

 

 

 

 

It's pretty funny they're carrying on like nothing's happened with these pointless partnerships with Cloud Tech firms no one has every heard of lol. 

 

21 hours ago, shinymcshine said:

I get a familiar feeling that in trying to do something good (and prevent a majority share / monopoly) it'll end up with something actually worse for the consumer.

 

Like when Sky TV had all the live football, then they weren't allowed to bid for all the packages, so Prem Plus (PPV) was born - and you had to pay more as it was separate to the SkySport subscription - then they sold games to BT

 

Yep, so you can have your separate elements, all at piecemeal prices, to prevent a monopoly, but it's not actually helping the consumer if you end up paying out more.

 

So you'd rather have a monopoly for convenience? I loosely get what you're saying in that paying for 3/4/5 different subs for Sports rather than the one is annoying but if Sky had been allowed all the TV rights what do you think they would've done with the subscription price year-by-year? It would've skyrocketed is the answer, so instead of paying £25 for Sky Sports, £8 for Amazon, £10 for BT you likely would've paid £80-£100 a month + for Sky, is that what you would've wanted? With big companies too, once they've got a share of that market it's difficult to wrestle back control so to speak and redistribute rights, it's why Sky Sports have such a hold on PL games even today with by far the largest games package of all the rights holders. 

 

I will say though that I don't really see there is much relevance to the games industry in this analogy. Game Pass exists, sure, and is a Sub service, sure, likewise with PS+ and Nintendo Online but that's really as far as it goes. With TV and Sports subscriptions you can't just go and buy the game(s) you want to play piecemeal, you don't have to have a Sub for any of the platforms to play certain games like you do to watch certain movies/tv shows on certain apps and Sports on the differing services available. Sub numbers in games are largely tied to consoles sold as well, movies/tv and Sports don't have that issue, as long as you have a TV and Internet which almost everyone has then you can Sub to their particular services.

[regemond]

Off the back of that, I can almost see a world where, let's say for argument's sakes, you get FIFA 25 only available via an Ouya+ subscription. (I'm using a dead format and a series that doesn't technically exist anymore to keep bias out of it)

 

No way to physically buy the game. Only on a sub. And it's pegged as 'better value for the players' because they don't have to buy into the whole 'buy the latest game that will only see minor changes in the next iteration' cycle, however it's also worse because unless you're willing to shell out for the right console, and the right subscription, you're essentially locked out of playing it.

 

It's an extreme version of exclusives. Multiple layers of gatekeeping.

[DisturbedSwan]

I'd say we're almost there already and that's Microsoft's end goal really. They don't make as much in comparison to rivals in physical game sales and Game Pass is already way ahead of rivals in terms of being 'that' gaming subscription. I'd argue even now their goal to sell people Xbox's is primarily to sign them up to GPU where they are heavily incentivised to stay by Day 1 1/3P exclusives throughout the year. The caveat to that is obviously that you can still buy those games digitally and physically and 3P titles are available elsewhere either day 1 or after a short period of exclusivity. I can definitely see a world where Game Pass Ultimate exclusives are a thing, Microsoft don't make as much in terms of physical sales as rivals already and some of their 1P physical releases seem a bit of an afterthought in terms of a small percentage of the actual game being on disc etc. People already are heavily incentivised to go digital and sign up for GPU on Xbox, buying a Day 1 1P exclusive physically is almost nonsensical at this point when you can get it for next to nothing with a GPU sub. 

 

I think this is ultimately why it's so important that games keep selling really, I also don't think gaming subscriptions long-term may be desirable from a business perspective, there is a glass ceiling and that ceiling is you can only have as many subs as consoles sold, if your console isn't selling well then you'll plateau your sub numbers, it's what GPU is experiencing at the moment.

[Nag]

2 hours ago, DisturbedSwan said:

there is a glass ceiling and that ceiling is you can only have as many subs as consoles sold

 

That's not really true when you can play just by buying a Samsung TV....

 

7 hours ago, DisturbedSwan said:

It's pretty funny they're carrying on like nothing's happened

 

I've seen reports that these deals still happen even if the merger fails... how true that is is anyone's guess though.

[one-armed dwarf]

imo, there might be something to the way CMA looked at the cloud gaming aspect cause it definitely does not seem like they want Gamepass to just be about how many xbox they have sold

 

Also, as mentioned, gamepass is on PC. It's shit on PC, but it's on it, they could improve it and it will scale from laptop to desktop.

 

I think in general it would be a mistake to look at the platform holders and only think that MS is interested in getting as many people as possible onto service based digital ecosystems. PC is already like this, Xbox is getting like this. Playstation will try and get there as well. It's kinda the natural evolutionary trend for the way these corps are going imo. Physical games are going to be extinct in the next gen, I'm sure of it

[DisturbedSwan]

4 hours ago, Nag said:

That's not really true when you can play just by buying a Samsung TV....

Yeah that’s fair enough, I completely forgot they can do that to be fair. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Df have a bit here on the cloud gaming part of the CMA argument, they're of the view that the latency issue is almost 'solved' by the higher tier offerings from Geforce Now

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2023-cloud-gaming-can-work

 

Ultimately though, if you're on your local wifi there's so many ways cloud gaming can go wrong that a vendor like Nvidia, MS or Sony will never be able to control. I guess that's just another development area for the time being though, but IMO even with their excellent analysis DF seem a bit optimistic or devil's advocate here. I agree with the top comment in the thread under the article (except the bit about OnLive being fine, it was shite. I played it on 2011 era fibre at the time and it was still shite and floaty feeling)

 

Quote

I believe it CAN work, I thought it was fine on OnLive almost a decade ago. But the trouble is it's too reliant on internet infrastructure and in all my uses there is always a time when it doesn't work as expected. The friction and frustration this adds makes gaming worse.

 

Sod's law states that "if something can go wrong, it will"and Finagle's law states that it will happen at "the worst possible time". In my experience of Cloud this is the problem. It will break immersion at a key moment, or get blocky at the moment you are about to beat a boss.

 

So while I still believe is CAN work, i'm still not sold that it works reliably enough... YET. The problem isn't the streaming tech, it is everything in between you and the server.

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[Nag]

It'll be the first one in a few years I won't be watching "live" as I'll be sunning myself and drinking cold beer in Zante at the time...🍻

[DisturbedSwan]

Lovely stuff, went there in my 'Youth' well 22-odd anyway  not sure you'll be going anywhere near Laganas though on your trip lol.

[Nag]

17 minutes ago, DisturbedSwan said:

Lovely stuff, went there in my 'Youth' well 22-odd anyway  not sure you'll be going anywhere near Laganas though on your trip lol.

 

Tsilivi, Zante, Ionian Islands, Greece

 

Copied straight from Google... the Missus generally sorts out trips and such, half the time I have no idea where I'm going.🤣

[DisturbedSwan]

Wow that sounds great! Weather should be absolutely banging as well 👌

[one-armed dwarf]

Take pictures and drink lots of mojitos. 

 

I was in Athens a few years ago, it's very run down now. The islands are beautiful tho, island hopping is the way

 

Interview with Phil about xbox, but it's primarily centered around Redfall's quality. I guess it belongs here or in the other thread.

 

The TL;DW is a whole lot of 'my bad', he seems really tired. A lot of bad things happening all at once over at xbox with some candid takes on what that has been like on a personal level.

 

Apparently Redfall did better in internal reviews. There's a bit split in the published reviews so I guess there was more of a baseline average in the internal ones.

 

His leadership could score a big win out of a bad situation if Starfield exceeds expectations. I still feel people are a bit overly down on that one, cause they are burnt out on Bethesda's approach in general. But you don't get more interactive open worlds than Bethesda games generally do, outside of BOTW which does not have the depth of storyline so it's still a different thing.

 

 

edit this thumbnail of Phil is going to be photoshopped a lot I think. 'Punished Phil' with bloodshot eyes and a shrapnel horn

[Nag]

8 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Take pictures and drink lots of mojitos. 

 

I think I can manage that...😁

 

I really hope Xbox has some good stuff to show at their June event, they could do with a win but I've got to admit that my expectations are at there lowest for quite some time... some State of Decay 3 news would help with that immensely.

[HandsomeDead]

 

 

Phil talking about stuff.

 

I do appreciate the frankness.  I did the wrong thing and looked at the replies and god I hate gaming Twitter.

 

To me Nintendo put out very strong first party games on the Wii U but it didn't change its fate.  One of the replies has the audacity to bring up the PS3 as an example of how just making great games can improve a consoles standing, A CONSOLE THAT REMAINED IN THIRD PLACE!

 

You can maintain relevance with great games but it will never drastically move the needle.  When has it ever?

 

It's why I just think this is the most pointless shit.

[mfnick]

1 hour ago, HandsomeDead said:

One of the replies has the audacity to bring up the PS3 as an example of how just making great games can improve a consoles standing, A CONSOLE THAT REMAINED IN THIRD PLACE!

Not quite. The PS3 ended up at 87.4mill and Xbox at 84mill. Got to imagine a lot of those 360’s were repeat purchases too thanks to RROD. & if the PS3 didn’t have such a strong library of exclusives there’s no way it would have overtaken like it did.

 

The Wii U can’t really be counted in the same argument IMO. Nintendo alienated a lot of customers with the casual approach of the Wii plus they’re more gimmicky. I think if Nintendo were more “traditional” the exclusives would have mattered more and without them that console wouldn’t have even sold what it did. 
 

Of course exclusives matter, if Xbox had a steady stream of them at high quality, all on GP day 1 it absolutely would be doing better. The whole narrative changes. 

[mfnick]

Regarding losing the worst generation to lose, I think he’s got a very good point there too. Now that digital game libraries are moving forward with us (hopefully that continues) people had loads of PS4 games they take with them to the PS5 whereas they’d have to start again with the Xbox. That’s one of the reasons I use the Xbox as my main console now because I decided to start buying multi format games there on the One X when they were a lot more forthcoming about it. Back then it wasn’t a given Sony would let you do this - & I doubt they would have if it wasn’t for Xbox doing it. 

[Nag]

Thanks to the brand loyalty of certain territories Microsoft will forever be on the back foot and forever in third (maybe second) place if they're lucky... I don't care if they drop exclusive after exclusive at a perceived level of God of War or Zelda... brand recognition is a hell of a thing.

 

Also I fully agree about the digital library thing... that makes a lot of sense.

[mfnick]

I agree the brand loyalty is a hell of a thing. But its possible, very unlikely and they’d have to be extremely lucky though. Kind of like the 360 gen before they threw it away. 
 

Xbox 360 had the exclusives (to begin with), better performing versions of games, cheaper and Sony were being very arrogant and stupid at that time with no good exclusives either (again to begin with). That was the ideal time for Xbox to take a huge lead. Unfortunately they blew it & screwed over the loyal fans they had gained with Kinect and the One. I doubt they’ll have the cards played in their deck like that ever again.