God this just reminds me of paid online. I hate that crap. That’s the price of a full game every year just so you can keep playing a game you already own. It’s a total scam.
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Oh agreed, but keep in mind, the cost of a case and disc overall is not much at all. For the publisher buying in bulk, it’s probably a buck or so.
Premium Multiplayer is awful, it’s something that died in the '90’s, and sadly, Microsoft brought back with Xbox LIVE.
That’s another pro for PC gaming, free multiplayer. Outside of MMOs. Which is one reason I don’t bother with them.
Sometimes it’s worth it. Like i looked into DC Universe Online (because I’m such a huge DC fan) and saw that it’s free on consoles but needs paid online to work.
IMO, any game that requires paid online should be free to play, basically.
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One thing I truly love about video games is that there really is options for everyone, be it platform, genre, etc.
For MMO’s, the only one that tickled my fancy is The Elder Scrolls Online, it’s simply to play, can be played solo if you wish, and doesn’t have a mandatory subscription fee.
I’m interested in picking it up on PC at someone point, but I know I’d start playing and it’d be hard to stop. I’m also still enjoying a playthrough of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, and I want to finally finish my playthrough of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - Game of the Year Edition first.
I’m pretty psyched for Series X, even if the name gives me a slight Wii-U vibe. If the average, non-gaming mom and dad are in shopping for their kid and they see Xbox One X and Xbox Series X, are they going to know the difference? Well, probably… But who knows. It just seems a tad unnecessary, but oh well, no big deal.
As for the games, I’m sure MS will blow the doors off at E3 and Gamescom 2020. They’re not even taking preorders yet (I don’t believe) so there’s really no reason to generate a ton of hype one year out. They announced the console, we knew that was coming at some point, and now they have 11 months to fill us in on all the reasons we should want one.
So far, we have Halo Infinite and Hellblade 2. That’s a nice start. A new Fable game seems to be a foregone conclusion, though who can say if it’ll be a launch title. I tend to doubt it. We’ll also get the next Forza game, presumably Motorsport. Rare also has their new game, Everwild. I believe they’re also working on another game too, but I could be mistaken. After that though, all bets are off.
I think that’s kind of exciting. Sure, I’m interested in Fable and Hellblade 2 is nice to see, but I feel like I’m in a position right now where MS really needs to sell me on their next system. I loved Killer Instinct, and as much as I prefer Xbox’s controllers and UI, there weren’t a lot of reasons to specifically buy in to Xbox’s ecosystem, especially over Sony’s.
So with 15 studios and who knows how many 2nd party or even 3rd party deals they’ll have, what are they going to do to keep me? Ori is a nice game, but not enough by itself to make me preorder a $500+ system. Sunset Overdrive 2 might’ve made me consider it, but clearly that’s just going to be a one-off, or perhaps even a Sony exclusive (doubtful, but who knows).
Will we finally see them go back to their catalog in earnest? A sequel to Killer Instinct, Crimson Skies, Jade Empire, Lost Odyssey, Kameo, MechAssault and so on, or will they just go forward with Halo, Forza, Fable, Hellblade and a bunch of new IPs? I’d personally like to see a better mix of old and new, but I guess we’ll see.
Personally, when I buy a system, I consider the ecosystem I’m buying in to and what’s likely to happen. Sure, there will be new IPs and some will be good and some won’t, but when I buy a Nintendo system, I know I’m getting a unique Mario game, a unique Zelda game, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Smash Bros and several other titles that are from series that I already know I enjoy, but done in new, fun and compelling ways.
Sony’s been a little less predictable in this regard, but for the most part, they’ve been solid about carrying over franchises from one generation to the next. If you liked Uncharted on PS3, you knew what you were getting in to with PS4. Same with God of war, The Last of Us, Infamous, Killzone, Ratchet & Clank, etc. Sure, they came out with a lot of great new IPs throughout the PS4’s lifecycle, but if you were buying early on, you still knew what you were getting into because you knew what franchises they have and what they’d be pushing.
MS on the other hand struggles mightily when it comes to giving players a true picture of what they can expect at minimum when a player from previous generations buys in to the next one. If you were an original Xbox owner, you didn’t see Crimson Skies, MechAssault, Blood Wake, Tao Feng, Rallisport, Quantum Redshift, High Heat Baseball, Wreckless, Jade Empire, Buffy, Phantom Dust, Brute Force, Blinx, Kakuto Chojin, Conker or the multitude of Sega exclusives on 360.
Similarly, Xbox 360 owners never got another Alan Wake, Lost Odyssey, Banjo, Amped, Ninety Nine Nights, Blue Dragon, Fable, Perfect Dark, Kameo, Fuzion Frenzy, Infinite Undiscovery, Project Gotham or Too Human, in addition to getting none of the previously mentioned original Xbox games.
So will Series X leave Killer Instinct, Ori, Quantum Break, Sunset Overdrive, Sea of Theives, Cuphead, Crackdown, ReCore and others in the past as well? We already know the answer to Quantum Break and Sunset Overdrive, of course, but given MS’ track record, I’m more in a “wait and see” mode than ever before.
I need a core group of titles that I can rely on; stuff that was good in the past and looks good in the future. I don’t play Halo, Gears or Motorsport, and Horizon’s not enough to get me to buy in. They have a ton of IPs that have been withering on the vine for generations now, so it’d be great to see them finally lend action to their previous lip service and bring back a lot of those great series so that there are fans of several genres that have multiple reasons to be excited for something they know is good, not just something they hope will be good.
For every great new IP like Horizon: Zero Dawn, there’s The Order: 1866; games that both looked great in previews, but turned out rather differently. So while new IPs are great and I hope they bring em on, I still need more reasons to reenter their ecosystem; core “Xbox” games that are as close to a sure thing as possible. I shouldn’t have to guess what those core games are beyond Halo, Gears and Forza on a console manufacturer’s fourth generation, but it is what it is.
TL/DR: Hopefully MS shows us some stuff that makes us all want to buy in.
Yeah, I kinda figured that’s what you were referring to. But I was just commenting on the hardware involved in the Steam Machine incident. The design of the system they were working on with Alienware, Alienware went ahead and released it without the SteamOS or any of that nonsense anyway, and it’s not too shabby.
A lot of that is just going to be down to marketing and how well they inform the mass consumers of the difference between the two. ONe of the biggest reasons why Nintendo screwed up with the Wii U was that they didn’t do a good job of differentiating the Wii U from the Wii, so the average non-gaming parents thought it was just an expensive controller add-on.
Of course, those kind of parents would likely be getting their kids a Switch or an Ipad as opposed to a Xbox anyway.
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If parents are confused all they have to do is ask a salesperson “which one is the newest one? The one that just came out.”
Plus, I personally buy into the theory that it’s called “series x” because there will be multiple models and each one will have a unique name.
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Goodness I hope not o_O
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Why not? There would be the disc-less one that would be less expensive, there would be the normal one, and then there would be the super mega powerful one for the graphics whores. It’s giving people options. Series X would then just be the umbrella term for this whole line of systems. That’s why it’s SERIES X.
I probably care less about hardware and more about software for their next gen platform. A few things I will be looking for:
- Quality launch titles & backup by major studios, for example will a Bloodborne title be on MS platform?
- Similarly for FGs, will major fighting games like a SFV and SFVI make an appearances on the Xbox series? Does MS back the FG scene or will devs support the XB?
- How much MS will be able to realize cross platform enabled games.
- Censorship on top of normal rating systems. I like certain EA and WB games but cannot escape the fact of increasing politically correctness in their games, character design being one of the worst offenders. My question is how MS’ stance will be toward developer creativity going forward. I like what I heard from Nintendo, and loathe Sony’s new stance. Waiting on clarity from MS.
It really is just wait and see because MS has so much to prove going forward. They don’t have nearly the storied history of diverse, reknowned, and exclusive franchises like Sony or Nintendo, and the history of the exclusives they have released is quite spotty. The studios they’ve aquired in the past year are largely proven in their skills, but we’re yet to see how that will support the Series X’s’ lifetime.
Though to be honest, I expect the first year or so to be a lull as that’s usually the case for new consoles generations. Whatever MS has to show for everything may have to wait until after that period.
I doubt they’ll address it anytime soon, mainly because it’s a question that hasn’t been especially relevant to them. The niches of games that often get censored for their peculiar take on sexual content have pretty much never been on Xbox, mainly being from Japan where Xbox barely has a presence at all. And otherwise MS hasn’t done anything themselves I can recall to spur the question.
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I’m gonna just call it Project Scarlet. Sounds cooler imo.
For sure, but would they even need to do that kind of marketing at all if they named it Xbox Infinity or Xbox anything else that doesn’t have an X in it? I mean, I suppose that comes under general marketing, but if you have to get the word out, at least in part because the name of your system is a little too close to your previous offering, then maybe it’s not the best name to go with?
I dunno. I think there are parents that would buy their kid an Xbox or Playstation or Nintendo. I don’t think confused parents would be the sole audience of Nintendo products. Maybe the majority… Perhaps? I’m not 100% certain on that because I honestly don’t know. But I do know that it’s easier for parents who aren’t gamers to say “Playstation 5 comes after Playstation 4” and act accordingly as opposed to “Xbox Series X comes after Xbox One X.”
Some folks don’t ask for directions when they’re lost. Some people also grab the first thing they see and assume that’s it. Some might just shrug and pick one. I mean, MS gets their money either way, but I’m just saying that it creates needless confusion. Xbox One X and Xbox Series X… It’s just not the biggest delineation and certainly not as easy as picking an entirely different name (Switch versus Wii U) or doing a numbered iteration (PS5 versus PS4).
I know MS doesn’t want their system to look lower by calling this Xbox 4 while Sony has the PS5, but if that’s the case, then give it a name that fully distinguishes itself from the last generation. Xbox Infinity, Xbox Next… Something that indicates to even the dumbest, laziest consumer that Series X is the new toy and everything else that’s labeled Xbox is the old toy.
It’s certainly possible given that we know Lockheart still exists. It’s been long rumored that they’ll have a lower end model that has no physical media. People are already speculating that this console will be called the Series S, which again… If it’s going to share shelf space with the Xbox One S and the Xbox One X in the first year or two just creates needless confusion. If you knew nothing about video games and your kid said “I want the new Xbox” and you walked up and saw Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X, are you really going to know what to buy them?
Agree 10,000%. When Xbox One launched with Killer Instinct, Dead Rising 3, Ryse, Forza 5 and Crimson Dragon and then had D4, Titanfall, Sunset Overdrive, Dance Central and Halo MCC in its first year, I didn’t care that Sony had the more powerful hardware or even that it was less expensive, because I had a TON of great games that I personally wanted to play.
Granted, not all of these were five star games, but these were games that I personally liked and was interested in. Unfortunately, after 2014, there haven’t been a ton of Xbox exclusives that I’ve really wanted to play outside of Ori and the Blind Forest. The fact that I’ve basically used my Xbox as my multiplatform system and my PS4 as my exclusives platform since then really makes me reconsider the idea of getting a Series X at launch in favor of taking a wait and see approach and I’m willing to be that I’m not the only one.
I’d love to see a Bloodborne sequel on Series X. If Xbox One can be the lead console on Dark Souls 3, I’d have to think that they can at least get console parity when it comes to Bloodborne. Honestly, as good and as big as Bloodborne was, it wouldn’t be the worst idea to offer to fund the game and see if From Software takes them up on it.
But yeah, quality titles spanning several genres at launch and within the first year is paramount. I know that MS is aware of the hole they dug themselves this generation, but while having studios again is great, they have to churn out great titles that people actually want.
I’d also add that they need more deals with 2nd and 3rd party studios for both new and existing / dormant IPs. There were specific reasons to own an Xbox One, an Xbox 360 and the original Xbox. Fans in their 20’s and 30’s remember many of those games and remember their quality. It’s great to have studios like Ninja Theory making Hellblade 2 because the first one was outstanding, but they should also be working with studios that can create sequels to Crimson Skies, MechAssault, Lost Odyssey, Banjo, Conker, Perfect Dark and more.
This was one of the stranger things this generation. Xbox was THE home for the FGC during the previous generation and they basically abdicated their throne. MS absolutely needs to form a better relationship with Capcom in this regard. I know they got two Dead Rising games and that’s great, really, but if you put out Killer Instinct and that’s your ONLY exclusive offering in an entire genre for 7 years; a genre that has a smaller, but no less dedicated following that you capitalized on in the previous generation, then that’s a problem.
If Capcom needed Sony to make Street Fighter V, then MS should step in and fund Street Fighter VI and if Sony already has that deal locked up, then they need to fund a new Darkstalkers and/or a new Marvel Vs Capcom game. MS should also be looking to other companies such as Namco (Tekken 8 and Soul Calibur VII), Sega (Virtua Fighter 6, Fighting Vipers 3, Last Bronx 2, Eternal Champions 2), as well as contracting with 2nd party devs for Killer Instinct 4, Tao Feng 2, Kakuto Chojin 2 or a new fighting game IP (or more).
They also need to try and work with Arc System Works to make sure that every game Sony gets, they get as well. I know that DBFZ came to Xbox One, but Sony had a substantial advantage when it came to their other titles. I know anime fighters are even more niche than regular fighting games, but if you’re a genre fan and you see that one system has 7 exclusive fighters and the other system has 1, you’re going to go with the one that has 7 even if you don’t intend to play all seven of them. That’s more or less a given.
This I kinda disagree with, if only due to the fact that we as fans largely don’t know what decisions are made due to censorship and what decisions are made due to creative freedom. We’ve heard people on the KI team talk about how women are depicted and how Thunder and Eagle are depicted and why they chose to go that route and it wasn’t becuase the SJW police were hot on there tails. It was because that was their vision. Of course, that didn’t stop people from crying censorship.
Ed Boon has talked about how they went a bit overboard with the women in MK9 and while I know he’d never admit that he “caved due to fan outrage” or anything like that, I don’t recall a metric ton of internet outrage cowing them in to making the character designs they made in MKX, but maybe I’m just not as attuned to that part of the internet? If anything, I saw more internet anger at how characters look in MKX and MK11 than I ever saw in MK9, but maybe that’s just me.
Granted, I thought the way SFV handled women was kinda goofy, and I did notice some people talking about that on Twitter. But SFV has still trucked along, doing their thing. If anyone caved, it was likely the DOA team. When they first announced DOA6 and talked about how they would depict women, fans were furious. Of course, what we wound up with was a typical DOA game. So were the devs hands forced by fans? Is that any better than fans forcing devs to cover women up and objectify them less? Is it ever good for developers to be cowed by an angry mob of their fans?
If we’re truly talking about developers needing the creative freedom to realize their own vision, then it has to work both ways. There will be anger from a small, but loud minority of fans no matter what, so they might as well choose their path and stick to it. As for political correctness in terms of inclusiveness, political bias, etc… I still think that falls under creative vision. If I don’t like the politics pushed by a game, I won’t play it. I might complain about it on Twitter or whatever. But I’m not going to try and tell them that they need to change their game to suit me.
I think MS has a lot of good IPs though, even if I’ll concede that the list isn’t as long and as varied as the other console makers. The problem for me comes from the fact that they abandon so many of those quality IPs from one generation to the next. I get the allure of new IP and the hope that they’ll take off the way Halo did on Xbox and Gears did on 360. But for every Halo and Gears, there are efforts that didn’t stand up from a quality standpoint or didn’t sell.
What bothers me about MS this generation especially is that they haven’t been able to leverage the quality in their catalog. Even if we disregard the games that I personally enjoyed but weren’t of the highest quality like Tao Feng, Blood Wake and Kakuto Chojin, there are still tons of IPs like Crimson Skies, MechAssault, Jade Empire, Amped, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Perfect Dark, Banjo, Conker, Fable, Infinite Undiscovery, Kameo, Ninety-Nine Nights, Project Gotham, Rallisport, Quantum Redshift… These are all titles that actually scored really well and they span multiple genres. Where have they been?
I agree that MS does have a lot to prove. My worry is that they’re going to be so focused on bringing great new IPs to market that they’re going to continue to ignore these when many of them were reasons why people bought in to the Xbox and Xbox 360, even if they might not have been the main reasons. Sure, I bought an Xbox for Halo, DOA3 and the Sega exclusives, but I stayed in no small part because of those titles I listed above and more.
Killer Instinct was one of the best games they released this generation, and now, due to their track record, I have to worry that it’ll be abandoned to the dustbin of dormant IPs with that group above. Same goes for Ori. We know we’re not getting a new Sunset Overdrive or Quantum Break already for obvious reasons, so for me, the big test isn’t in seeing what their 15 studios churn out and whether they have good stuff, it’s whether they can find a real balance between games I want to play that are new, and bringing back franchises that I already like and want more of.
Okay. Maybe this is just me. But I don’t think people should allowed to be dumb. If people are confused because of the name it’s their fault that their not educated. We can’t let stupid people get away with being stupid.
Really? I only ever recall an Xbox 360 being used a tournaments when it was side tournaments and that’s what the organizers had. I recall the PlayStation 3 always being the tournament standard last gen.
^Agreed 100%.
As a big Mortal Kombat guy, there was indeed people who were angry for the female designs in Mortal Kombat X. I recall when Kitana was revealed and Derek stated that “women would be represented more realistically” (paraphrase), people did indeed complain.
It went to a whole other level with Mortal Kombat 11 though, with people absolutely freaking out and going on long-filled hate rants about how the women were ugly, they’re covered up, they have no breasts, etc. The amount of outlash was as funny as it was sad.
If a developer wants their characters to look normal and proper, let them. If they want them to look ■■■■■■, let them, so long as their following the design that they want to follow and have good reason for it.
Oh yeah, I’m not saying that everyone was cool with the way women were depicted in MK9. I just don’t recall the outrage and vitriol about it and whatever I did see certainly wasn’t on the level of fan rage over the way women looked in MKX and moreso in MK11. That’s more what I was getting at.
I’d see people say stuff like the women look ridiculous in MK9 and why do they all act so ■■■■■■ when they’re supposed to be ninjas and what not. It felt more like conversation and feedback that can certainly take the form of complaining, but I don’t think there was nearly the level of negativity involved as there was when people saw the women in MKX and MK11.
To be clear though, NRS could’ve easily stuck with their MK9 vision for the women. They’d have had the same feedback, but I can’t imagine it would’ve hurt sales in any meaningful way. But NRS made the choice to make some design changes and make the characters a bit more reflective of who they were, which, if anything, probably gave them more freedom to create some interesting concepts for characters. They still showed some skin, but they weren’t over the top with it.
Of course for some, that choice was them giving in to “censorship,” and they assume NRS gave in to the SJW brigade. I don’t see them making a choice as restricting their creative freedom, but that’s just me. If they had stayed with those designs, I don’t think it would have been NRS caving to the non-SJW part of the fanbase. It’s their creative vision. Their choice. So why would the other way around not be true as well? Again though, that’s just me.
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I also believe NetherRealm Studios made the choice that was best for them.
For me, I personally prefer the designs of Mortal Kombat 11 the most, and Mortal Kombat (2011) the least.
Some MK9 designs are good. But none of them were the women.
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You and BoJima both realize Sony owns the Bloodborne IP right? It was a joint project between FromSoft and Sony’s own JapanStudio, just like Demon’s Souls way back when. So unless they give it up (which they’re never gonna) there is no chance of a non-PS Bloodborne title happening.
Now I could see MS doing a deal with From to make an Xbox-exclusive game, as they have done in the past, but as history has proven that can go either way (Steel Battalion on the Kinect, ugh).
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Anyways, I just wanted to chime in on the MK9 issue by saying that a lot people (myself included) didn’t like the female designs because, just like the men, they roided out the characters with large amounts of muscles and heavily chiseled facial features. IMO SF4 did a far better job modeling their women characters, despite also having roid rage for their bodies, since they at least didn’t mess with the faces too much.
No amount of breast/hip sizes could hide the fact that it looked like Kitana and Jade were just straight-up juicing before each match, just like Chun-Li’s tree trunk thighs in SF4. But those mooskles did make them stronk enough to beat characters like Baraka and Goro, so I guess it paid off?
Also I found it funny people were complaining about Kitana’s design in MKX, since IMO it’s still her absolute best design in the 3D games (MK9 wasn’t the only 3D MK game with bad female designs). I guess I liked it since for the first time she looked closer to her original MK2 actor, give or take (the original actor had a slightly longer face).
MK11 took things to an opposite extreme though; whereas MK9 had revealing outfits and MKX had a balance of both revealing and covered outfits, MK11 is mostly samey looking leather armors for the Edenian/Outworld females (at least before Sindel happened). It feels like NRS struggles to achieve a proper balance once again, while making some weird outliers like Cetrion having the largest chest size/cleavage (again, before Sindel happened).
But what do I know, I’m more angered that they bleep dialogues in a game that has a Strong Language tag. If tournaments were the issue they could have done what other competitive games did and add a filter just for the game’s Tournament mode, thereby making it so terms deemed “offensive” in those environments would only be censored there.