IMO E3 was pretty good this year. Not stellar like the last year or or two, but satisfyingly solid. My gaming interests are wide and I wasn’t expecting a new KI announcement yet anyway, so I don’t feel burned by it.
I’d agree on all three of these points. I still have my Day One XB1 and I’m perfectly happy with that for several years to come. I didn’t upgrade to the 1X, but if they’re seriously bringing a next gen console to market three years after bragging about teraflops and releasing the worlds most powerful console, I’d personally feel cheated.
Yeah, we all make our own decisions. But if they’re so eager to leave this generation behind, then they shouldn’t have bothered with the 1X at all. You get players to pay a premium price for a premium console, and then it’s obsolete in three years? Some might think that’s okay and some might look at the PC market or the cell phone market as justification, but the console market is neither of those and it never has been.
Anyone wants to complain about a ten year console life cycle, fine. But three years? No thanks. The 1X (and the Pro for that matter) should be on the market for at least five years IMO, and not just because of the money players have spent on these machines.
As you said, there’s still a lot that this generation could still offer or that hasn’t been done yet, especially when you’re talking about the mid-generation consoles. Developers are really starting to hit their stride with these machines. Let’s see what else they can do with them before we put out something brand new that they’ll have to get used to all over again a year and a half from now.
I’ll be shocked if they don’t have backward compatibility with all three of the previous generations right out of the box for Scarlet. They’ve hammered that point home nonstop, and while getting 360 games and OG Xbox games turned out to be great, surprising announcements for the XB1, I don’t think they’ll get that same reaction if they do that all over again a few years in to Scarlet’s lifecycle.
As for their commitment to software, that was really the one big thing that interested me coming out of their showcase at E3. Four new studios with good to great track records, plus the creation of a fifth studio for “AAAA” games. Now, I don’t think we’ll see the benefit of those studios (outside of We Happy Few, Horizon 4 and probably Horizon 5) this generation, but while none of them were the big, jaw dropping purchase of something like Capcom or Sega or whatever that I wanted, the sum total of these announcements at least gives me hope that they’re adequately staffed up to bring the software heat next generation.
I know that doesn’t help us a whole lot right now. But personally, given how long MS has been trying to salvage this generation in the face of getting absolutely destroyed by Sony in terms of sales, I can’t overly blame them for wanting to turn the page and start the proverbial score back at zero-zero.
I’d love to see a new KI game. I’d be real bummed if they brought this current game along for four years, poured tons of creativity in to some amazing modes and characters, just to put this series back on the shelf again. But that’s from a player perspective; a player that loves fighting games and loved what they did with this game.
From their perspective, I’m sure they have plenty of games they could bring back to make their fans happy, and I’m sure that many of them could potentially sell more than KI. So even though this game scratched and clawed for every fan it got for four years, maybe it has to move to the back of the line again?
All I can say to that is I really hope that’s not the case. I hope that @TempusChaoti knows how much we appreciate what he, Ken Lobb, MS, DH and IG were able to do with this game and I hope it makes him want to lobby for a sequel, because I really really feel that a game with so much creativity and so much fun, unique gameplay, deserves another game.
That’s not to say that other games don’t deserve to be brought back. I’ll be over the moon the day they announce that Crimson Skies, MechAssault, Lost Odyssey, Kameo, Fable, Banjo, Perfect Dark and many others are making their return.
But while I know I’m biased toward KI, I’m biased because of the amount of experience I’ve had with the game. I really think it’s a truly special experience and I say that as objectively as humanly possible. I can’t wait for Soul Calibur VI, Dead or Alive 6 or Mortal Kombat XI. I’ve been fans of those series since the beginning. But I’d trade each of those sequels for a new KI, and four years ago, I never thought I’d have said something like that, as those were probably my three favorite fighting franchises.
So yeah, from a business standpoint, I totally get what you’re saying. Fighting games aren’t cash cows. But there’s still something to be said for having quality franchises across multiple genres, both to attract those niche fans at a more specific level as well as to show potential buyers that you have something great to offer them no matter what their taste happens to be on a more general level.
I think my favorite experience on the Kinect was probably Child of Eden on the 360. That was really the first time I played a game and thought “wow, this is a really cool use of this system.” My wife absolutely loved the Dance Central games and they’re the main reason why we still have a 360 hooked up. Same goes with Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.
For a while, whenever we’d have friends over, we’d play Kinect Adventures or Kinect Sports / Kinect Sports Rivals.
Still, I never quite understood what they were trying to do with the Kinect. Did they just want a hands-free answer to the Wii’s technology? Because a lot of it just seemed like party games, shovel-ware, and what not. The Wii was able to offer some core experiences using the Wii-mote and motion controls thanks to their first party games and franchises, while MS never really seemed to make that kind of investment, presumably because shooter fans likely would’ve lost it if they needed a Kinect to play Halo or Gears.
So I still kinda wonder what MS really wanted the Kinect to be for them, or what they envisioned as a fully realized Kinect experience. I don’t think 3rd party developers really knew either. What is it that makes you disappointed by MS abandoning the technology? I’m just curious. What would you have wanted to see from the Kinect eventually or what did you like about it already?
The problem with figuring out MS’s vision for anything, let alone Kinect, is that it’s a big company. It’s filled with individuals including cogs in the wheel, visionary leaders, bean counters, dead weight, impractical dreamers, visionless leaders, nerds and all the different personalities you see in any organization with more than three people. In the absence of a clear, meaningful and stated vision from the top, the vision for Kinect is then a negotiated consensus of all these people’s views. Realizing that vision, is another question entirely.
The biggest problem with Kinect, in my opinion, is not lack of noticing it’s potential. It’s that the ■■■■ thing doesn’t work. People had great ideas about how to implement the functionality in the machine - but execution of those great ideas is impossible of the machine is unreliable. Games like Kinect Sports, the Gunstringer, and even Ryse (originally a Kinect title) are awesome concepts. And I really believed that the Kinect 2.0 was going to improve on the poorly functioning original. But it didn’t. Without boring you with the details, I have a pretty decent setup and not unrealistic expectations for how Kinect might work. But no matter what I do in my house, the results are unreliable at best - and atrocious most of the time. Even simple things like running the controls for Just Dance are a nightmarish chore and the motion detection for those simple games is bad enough that you are better off ignoring it than worrying about your score. If the technology doesn’t work, there’s no vision in the world that is going to save you. And Kinect doesn’t work.
The only semi-functional thing about it is voice control, and even that you usually have to yell two or three times and end up opening up Neverwinter by mistake because it didn’t understand you…
1 Like
Yeah, I finally disconnected the Kinect from my Xbox One because A: The voice commands only worked about 30% of the time and B: It kept signing in my wife’s account when it would see me and we look absolutely nothing alike.
I didn’t really have a ton of problems with the Kinect working for games though. I was able to play Child of Eden just fine, and my wife’s never had a problem with the Kinect on 360 or XB1 recognizing her movements in the Dance Central or Your Shape games. We had a few slight issues with the Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sports games, but those were usually pretty rare.
1 Like
I wouldn’t expect an annoucement for a KI4 until 2020 at the latest.
Yeah, my guess is that they’re already starting to gear down production for games on the Xbox One and gear up their studios for Scarlet, especially if that rumor of a 2020 launch is true. I’ll bet Halo Infinite is a launch title, and once Forza Horizon 4 comes out, I’ll bet Playground will be working on Horizon 5 and the next Fable for Scarlet as well. Same goes for whatever Ninja Theory, Undead Labs and the Initiative might be doing.
Once We Happy Few from Compulsion and the three Gears games The Coalition is working on arrive, I’m guessing they’ll be focused on next gen as well. Turn 10 will probably put out another Motorsport game in 2019 before focusing on Scarlet, though it wouldn’t shock me if MS bolstered this team to handle multiple games as well.
I know Rare has two more DLC packs for Sea of Thieves on the way and I’d imagine that’ll be at least part of their focus for years to come. Perhaps they devote some of their team to keeping Sea of Thieves thriving and perhaps porting it up to Scarlet while another part of the team focuses on a new project?
Either way, this is all a long way of saying that two years and some change isn’t that far off. If MS is truly interested in focusing on the future and leaving this generation behind, as could easily be suggested given their recent bevy of acquisitions along with specifically mentioning the development of a next gen system in their E3 briefing might suggest, then I tend to doubt anything KI related or similarly related to any of their other franchises will be announced for XB1.
Maybe I’m completely wrong on this, but let’s not forget the fact that when the Xbox 360 came to market, the library of original Xbox titles was more or less complete. Same goes for the 360 when the XB1 launched. MS has never really been in the habit of spending the time developing games for the last generation when the next one arrives. I believe they’ll support the XB1 to the end, as indicated by Ori 2, Gears 5, Horizon 4, Cuphead DLC and more coming in 2018 and 2019, but I’d imagine they’re also trying to get as much as they can started up and raring to go for the next generation as well.
For me there is already several I’m looking for.
I really liked the Kinect, save for one thing: How it functioned in KI. ■■■■ thing deleted my progress upwards of 3 to 4 times because someone else in the family walked in front of the Kinect and it signed them in and KI swapped to their profile. Once it even gave all my progress to @Thunderb3E’s profile!
1 Like
Oh man, I forgot about that! Happened to me a bunch of times. Boggled my mind. Now that I think about it, that’s actually why I used to put the front of it face down so that it couldn’t see anything unless I was specifically using it. I wasn’t worried about Bill Gates spying on me, I was worried about my wife getting signed in while I was playing and the stupid game booting me out lol.
1 Like
While the better games are coming down the line and sad that we haven’t heard anything regarding the future of Killer Instinct, at least we finally have Metal Wolf Chaos in the US now! Well, not until later this year but it’s coming!
I already asked about KI @ E3 on the forums. I’m pretty sure No one expected KI4. Besides, we got DBZ fighter, Mario Party SSMBros, Anthem and a whole lot of other really interesting game. Seriously, people still think of games the way they did when Atari was a thing. How can one of the fastest growing, best sources of entertainment can be dying. Just cause a Microsoft exclusive that didn’t even get a new game for 17 years wasn’t announced for ONE E3 event. And trust me KI is my favorite(Fairly certain everyone here loves the game.) but it doesn’t carry the entire gaming industry and neither does VR.
Not to beat a dead horse but I think it was far too soon to expect anything KI related at E3, maybe in a year or two…or three 
As for the games there were a few that both looked and (seemed) to play really well, Ghost of Tsushima for instance was nicely atmospheric, beautifully crafted and brutally no nonsense in regards to combat. I was a little disappointed that Fable 4 never made an appearance, hearing the gasps from the audience when Phil mentioned an open world RPG Playground were working on made my heart jump a little.
I think we really need to stop hoping for another KI and enjoy the one we have, I mean blimey VF fans have been waiting ages for a new one and there’s no signs of that happening soon. At least KI fans have a game that is relatively fresh in people’s minds and played more often than not online.
Agree with OP on his wishes that did not come to fruition…and a bit of exaggerating and letting off some steam at times within the forum rules doesn’t hurt…
Whew…I really couldn’t disagree more with this thread.
This E3 was fantastic (especially for MS), there was some really encouraging stuff coming from Phil Spencer regarding Xbox’s future and the direction the gaming division is going.
As for ‘KI4’ I feel like some people are really really shortsighted…think about this…why in the HELL would you want a new KI at THIS E3???
That would mean the game would be graphically handicapped by current gen and forced to run on the OG XB1…lol no thanks. What an I’ll-timed and I’ll-advised project that would be. Instead I believe MS is doing the smart thing and planning on an all new KI for launch with the next-gen Xbox…probably for Fall 2020. Id like to see MS get Double Helix back and maybe even have then collab with IG for the next KI.
As for VR…honestly no one cares about it, the sales are abysmal and a lot people I know that have it say it started collecting dust after a couple weeks when the novelty wore off. MS should’nt waste any time on VR IMO, it’s almost dead already.
1 Like