Xbox E3 2017 (Starts Today)

Off-Topic
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As you may know E3 is right around the coroner and since Sony is bringing back Wipeout, Crash Bandicoot & Parapper The Rapper. Phil Spencer (Head of Xbox) saw that Halo and Gears of War is not doing it for Microsoft anymore but ever since they announced Voodoo Vince Remastered and Phantom Dust Remastered, People have been begging Microsoft to bring the Classics back that entertained millions from Blinx the Cat, Quantum Redshift, Brute Force etc. Of course Microsoft brings new IP’s which is fresh and new but they do need to bring back the nostalgia at the same time. If you would like to watch their live stream at E3 2017 it begins at June 11th 2017 2PM PT, 10PM GMT ,7AM ATC. Live Stream -

Leave your thoughts and opinions if you want :slight_smile:

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What? Seriously…I don’t think he said that. I’m digging through his most recent news and interviews and can not find this anywhere. Now while I believe he’s actively valuing Indie developers and classic titles from older IPs, I don’t seriously think he would purposely abandon two flagship titles the Xbox brand is known for, especially since both have story arcs that have begun new series, with the new Halo franchise supposedly reaching a conclusion in Halo 6.

If you can find the article or video that makes this quote or backs this claim, I’d be interested in reading it to discover it’s full context, because if something like that was said, there’s more details behind it.

Personally, I think the loot based rewards systems Halo and ESPECIALLY Gears 4 has in place need to be changed out. I can not stand this luck based microtransaction system of packaged purchases, and it really burns me out on the game at times. Gears 3 got so many things right, it’s like Gears 4 is purposely trying to undo all of that for the sake of esports and trying to monetize the games more heavily beyond the $60 price tag investment. I could go into further detail, but that’s diving heavily off topic at that point.

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All i remember is that Phil Spencer was on a podcast hosted by IGN but what i do remember is that he acknowledged the fact that Halo and Gears of war are getting more negative responses due to bad discussions and he said that “We will do better to make our fans happy when it comes to games like that”

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Now that I can believe he said.

Halo 5 was a well received multiplayer experience, but was one of the poorest quality stories within the franchise history, to which there has been a lot of backlash over, and Gears 4 was similar in nature but had unique problems all its own, which if you ask me, again goes back to the loot system and its pretty outlandish pricing, as well as it’s heavy emphasis on an esports crowd rather than for the widest audience possible.

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Multiplayer wise; in my opinion Forge and the weapon variet was the most redeeming factor, lack of playable Elites and no splitscreen are what overall dissapointed me, I only kept coming back because the forge is so ■■■■ good! I hope they keep that up with Halo6, Forge is perfected in my book, but seriously I hope Halo6 actually makes Sanghelli playable and splitscreen back again.

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You know whats funny when Halo 5 was announced i knew something wasn’t right with game and to no surprise i was right good thing i didn’t buy it.

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I’d just like to see them bring back some games that, in my humble opinion, never should’ve left the video game landscape to begin with.

Lost Odyssey: This could’ve been their Final Fantasy series. As much as everyone loves action RPGs, I still think that there’s a solid market out there for a JRPG / turn-based battle style game and I’d love it if MS could somehow turn this in to an exclusive series.

MechAssault: These games were AWESOME! Had an absolute blast playing the first two. While I’m betting they’d turn them in to a first person TItanfall-esque games, I’d love it if they brought these back and kept them third person.

Crimson Skies: Easily one of my favorite games on the OG Xbox. I wish they’d bring it back as a sort of hybrid flying/dogfighting game mixed with a run & gun action / 3rd person action game like Uncharted or Tomb Raider. They could structure levels as well as the story so players could routinely fight on the ground and take to the air like Battlefront wanted to do back in the day.

But yeah, I’m hoping for some good stuff out of MS this E3. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, but with a relative dry spell lately coupled with some relative fatigue on some of their major titles as well as a new system they need to sell this fall, E3 seems like a good time to come in guns blazing on some quality exclusives. :slight_smile:

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If MS is bringing back old IPs, bring back Circus Maximus!
A Co-Op Combat Racing game would be much cooler than just “another car SIM”.

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*Coughnosplitscreenmultiplayercough *

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Bless you, and good point.

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Wish Scalebound wasn’t canceled

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Yeah the lack of split-screen multiplayer is why I pretty much stopped playing Halo. Starting with Reach I had been playing local 4-player everything with my wife & older 2 kids, but when it came to H5, we simply couldn’t on 2 XB1s, so interest just waned, everyone found other things to do.
At this point I don’t even know if adding it back to Halo 6 would even bring back interest enough to get us all playing again.

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It’s unfortunate that people struggle so much with change and/or get hung up on the smallest stuff. Halo 5’s multiplayer is outstanding and it’s story actually moved forward with both a very personal and serious threat.

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Some of these companies need to just focus on making a great game, over how to get microtransactions in the game and how to sell the items. The microtransactions would not be bad if they didn’t make it such a grind to get the items if you don’t want to pay for them.

Some games might not get so much grief if they didn’t charge $100+ for the game, and then still hold items behind a pay wall.

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Yeah, I mean I didn’t see the interview. Phil Spencer says a lot of things, and I think a lot of them make good sense. But I don’t count myself in the sort of “cult of Phil Spencer” that a lot of Xbox fans have adopted as the new fanboyism.

I do think he’s a genuine fan of good games, and he’s not faking it when he talks about what he likes. But its worth noting that Phil is pretty astute with managing the press and the public, so people have a tendency to hear what they want to hear from him. That’s intended as a compliment (it’s a skill) but it means you might want to temper your expectations.

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Having to shell out hundreds of dollars extra for multiple XB1s, copies of the game, and connecting equipment to be able to play local co-op is in no way, shape, or form “the smallest stuff”

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I would kill for that kind of skill that Phil Spencers has. Of course you couldn’t get that high up in MS without not knowing how to play people.

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I’m also really upset that most modern shooters don’t even have simple setup options for system link LAN support. I used to get together with a bunch of friends, and we would link our Xboxs together, play Halo 3 or Gears on a local LAN without internet connectivity. I miss simple conveniences like that as well. In Halo 5, you can’t even access multiplayer features without internet connectivity, at all, not even to go through the maps solo and explore.

In the case of Gears 4, you can’t even grind to get the items without buying them. They have a crafting system, but most things available to craft aren’t the items you truly want, and can only be acquired through either acquisition of in game currency or microtransactions.

RAAM for instance, has been available through this special promotion pack twice now only for a limited time, but can NOT be crafted at all. Any game where he’s available, he’s usually my Locust side character pick, but this time I have to earn him through random luck. To make things worse, he’s not in one of the $1 (400 in game credits) pack, but a $5 dollar (2000 credits) pack, so you have an artificial price hike that carries with it little meaning, since the Marcus pack before it offered about the same amount of rares and skins. It also has duplicates, which is the worst part of all, where you could potentially get anything you’ve already gotten and increase the odds of NEVER getting the item you want. I’ve gotten several Kantus and Savage Kantus characters already grinding for these packs, and since you earn credits at an insanely slow pace at the higher levels, I got frustrated at a certain point and said to myself, “this just isn’t worth it.”

So since you can’t craft it, and you are basically 100% reliant on shear blind luck of RNG. Bungie learned with early Destiny that pure RNG isn’t going to make people happy, it only frustrates and adds needless repetition, eventually driving people away. Yet still, these loot based systems are completely built around it. I’ve seen my friends burn hours away trying to earn exclusive weapons on Black Ops 3 and Infinite Warfare multiplayer only to come up with nothing time and again for their troubles. They are built to take advantage of microtransactions in a manner that is IMO underhanded.

So that said, I’ll never get to play as RAAM probably on Gears 4, unless I’m willing to pay out hundreds of dollars and grind more hours away that I don’t have of either. If there were a guaranteed method of claiming an item, it would undermine the microtransaction system in play, and that’s why they will never put RAAM up for crafting.

He’s done a lot for the brand, and he really saved the Xbox One from the slippery slope of Don Mattrick’s bad calls, but his record isn’t perfect. However, I do trust him as he is a gamer himself, and he understands what people want, being someone who identifies with the consumer base himself, and helps deliver. I do understand though, any promise from a spokesperson should be taken with a little skepticism and cautious approach, and never blindly accepted at face value.

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Right. It took me years to get my second X1, so I could play certain games with my son. The nice thing is that if you buy digital copies, then you only need one for it to play on both. I stopped buying disks when in found this out

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Fixed

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