2024 VIDEO GAMES CATCH ALL THREAD

[Andrew POE!]

43 minutes ago, Casey said:

A lot of talk online from leakers that Xbox is about to go multi-platform with their first party games, like Starfield after the Shattered Space DLC releases, and possibly Blade & Indiana Jones. It’s already been leaked that Hi-Fi Rush is coming to Switch and PS5.

Tom Henderson is one of the people claiming all of this, and Insider Gaming isn’t known for pushing bullshit. The Verge is reporting it, too.

So that means Microsoft saw the sales numbers for Starfield and weren't happy. Coupled that with retailers removing physical versions of first party Xbox Series games, it makes me wonder if Microsoft will start early on pushing for a digital only next-gen Xbox console in 2026 or 2027.

Sony and Nintendo would end being the only places for physical copies of games (unless Sony adopts the same approach too).

Since Microsoft is doing that, it would only be fair if PlayStation would release Xbox Series versions of their first party games like God of War Ragnarok and The Last of Us Part I.

[Kevin Wilson]

51 minutes ago, Andrew POE! said:

So that means Microsoft saw the sales numbers for Starfield and weren't happy. Coupled that with retailers removing physical versions of first party Xbox Series games, it makes me wonder if Microsoft will start early on pushing for a digital only next-gen Xbox console in 2026 or 2027.

Sony and Nintendo would end being the only places for physical copies of games (unless Sony adopts the same approach too).

Since Microsoft is doing that, it would only be fair if PlayStation would release Xbox Series versions of their first party games like God of War Ragnarok and The Last of Us Part I.

Well that was always the thing with GamePass. How would Microsoft be able to (fairly) determine how successful a game was when the majority of people are playing it as part of GamePass? Do they only look at new sign-ups that month, or how long people stay signed up, etc.  I've always felt that GamePass was "too good" of a deal, but I am glad Microsoft is handling that not by making GamePass worse but potentially releasing their games on other systems too.

[RIPPA]

For those interested in these sort of things, Jason Schreier announced that his next book will be about the history of Blizzard

It is called PLAY NICE: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment and is out in October.

He said on Twitter that he is indeed writing the entire end of the book to include the events of the last month

[Eivion]

16 hours ago, Casey said:

A lot of talk online from leakers that Xbox is about to go multi-platform with their first party games, like Starfield after the Shattered Space DLC releases, and possibly Blade & Indiana Jones. It’s already been leaked that Hi-Fi Rush is coming to Switch and PS5.

Tom Henderson is one of the people claiming all of this, and Insider Gaming isn’t known for pushing bullshit. The Verge is reporting it, too.

I always got the feeling that Bethesda games at the very least were always planned to timed exclusives only. There was an annoyance in Spencer's eyes when they were talking about this kind of stuff when Bethesda/Zenimax got bought a few years back. It felt like Microsoft didn't get everything they wanted despite the purchase. I have a feeling pure exclusivity was one of those things. 

[Coletti]

Re: all the rumors... Phil Spencer on Twitter - "We're listening and we hear you. We've been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox. Stay tuned."

It would be very easy to just dismiss the rumors if they were untrue, no? 

[Craig H]

I don’t see stuff like Halo being multiplatform, but it’s still kind of bananas that Bethesda would be tied to only Xbox and PC. 

Timed exclusives seems more likely than anything.

[twiztor]

i don't think this was mentioned here, but if it was, mea culpa. 

Blizzard has made Diablo (I), the Hellfire Expansion, and WarCraft II available on their BattleNet service. i've heard these have been available on GOG or Steam or something for awhile, but this is the first time Blizzard has made them available again. Also interesting to note that they are acknowledging Hellfire for basically the first time since its initial release. i still have the discs for both of these games sitting next to my PC, even if they haven't been playable for many, MANY years. so i am excited. 

[Coletti]

1 hour ago, Craig H said:

I don’t see stuff like Halo being multiplatform, but it’s still kind of bananas that Bethesda would be tied to only Xbox and PC. 

Timed exclusives seems more likely than anything.

Chances are you could be right, but I also remember a time where you would be considered insane to say that one day, Sonic would be in a Nintendo game. 

Honestly, I just want the Ori games on my PlayStation, dangit. 

[Craig H]

Well, to be fair, Sega got out of the hardware business so it was publish their games elsewhere or die. And a lot of us near the end of the Dreamcast were saying the same when 3rd party support for the Dreamcast sucked.

Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that it looked like Nintendo could have headed down the same path until the Switch changed everything.

[Death From Above]

Just another reason to hate the switch, as it once again delayed the inevitable of the Nintendo catalogue being actually available on PC

[assfax]

forza and gran turismo on the same system.  Who gets edged out? 

[Casey]

I think it’ll just be confirmation that new Zenimax & Activision stuff will be on PlayStation (and maybe on Switch and run like ass) but there’s also talk about Sea of Thieves being ported to PS5 so who knows. So, I mean, if Microsoft Games Studios is doing it… it’s entirely possible (but I don’t think so personally).

I don’t think Microsoft gets out of the console business. There’s probably a significant amount of money that they make from their digital storefront. My prediction is that they might walk back the “Day One on Gamepass” stuff for new first party titles after Hellblade 2 (since they’ve already advertised it being so). And I’m sure they make a decent chunk of change off Gamepass subs, too.

It’s not like Microsoft/Xbox is bleeding money, it’s apparently just a realignment of their business strategy since the Series consoles didn’t do as well as they hoped. Trying to beat Sony at this point, to me, is like AEW trying to beat WWE. It’s not gonna happen. Even though there’s this weird thing where non-gamers (usually older) immediately think Xbox when you mention video games.

I’ll just say that I’m really happy with my Series X, because they actually continued on with backwards compatibility from two generations ago (three technically but it’s not a huge OG Xbox library). Kind of lame that if you have a disc PS5 you can’t play anything besides 4/5.

Edited February 6 by Casey

[Villanova Grad]

Really curious to see where this goes.  I think it’s going to be a more sweeping change than a lot of people expect.  I’m ambivalent on whether we get Halo and Gears of War on PlayStation, but I definitely think most of their new releases will be timed exclusives then show up on other platforms a few months later. I think that’s probably a good thing.  Xbox install base just isn’t big enough to support triple-A gaming costs.

i’m more interested in the why (assuming the rumors are true and Xbox is about to become a third-party publisher).  The Bloomberg article is going to be wild. Seems likely that, if Xbox is pivoting their strategy, it’s not Phil Spencer’s idea.  Timing is really strange if third-party is where we are going.  Xbox was still trumpeting exclusivity at their showcase a month or so ago.  Xbox is a,so finallly developing new games that are generating some buzz and has the potential - thanks to acquisitions - to keep some system sellers like CoD from PlayStation.  Speculation is Microsoft is dictating strategy to the gaming division.  Can’t blame them.  They’ve poured an enormous amount of capital into the gaming division and the room has been less than hoped.

From a business standpoint, I think becoming a third-party publisher and starting to transition away from consoles to whatever digital model will replace consoles is a smart idea.  But I’m not at all sure it will work.  Xbox has a devoted fanbase. Third-party publishers don’t tend to engender the same fanaticism as console makers. Sega became an afterthought after they got out of the console market. Market is very different than it was in 2000, but I’m not too optimistic.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is rumored to be in among the first wave of games going to PlayStation.  I normally dislike ports and stick to whatever console the game was developed for, but I’ll gladly make an exception here. Legit excited about the prospect of having MFS on PS5.  Fingers crossed.

Edited February 6 by Villanova Grad

[Casey]

Smart idea or not, regardless of one’s feelings about them buying up studios - nobody should want Microsoft to pivot away from consoles. That just leaves PlayStation for console only gamers, since Nintendo/Switch pretty much exists in its own world for the most part.

[Cliff Hanger]

2 hours ago, Coletti said:

Chances are you could be right, but I also remember a time where you would be considered insane to say that one day, Sonic would be in a Nintendo game. 

Honestly, I just want the Ori games on my PlayStation, dangit. 

I am old enough to remember the days of Atari, Mattel and Coleco putting their biggest hits on each other's systems, and while Nintendo will never play along it'd be neat to see more cross-pollination like that.

[Death From Above]

Has anyone played Portal: Revolution? It's some Portal 2 mod that's supposed to have like 40 new chambers and it's free so obviously I'm going to play that.

[SirSmUgly]

15 hours ago, Death From Above said:

Just another reason to hate the switch, as it once again delayed the inevitable of the Nintendo catalogue being actually available on PC

Nintendo says they'd go out of business and take their IP with them and I believe them. Nintendo has zero fucks to give.

 

15 hours ago, Craig H said:

Well, to be fair, Sega got out of the hardware business so it was publish their games elsewhere or die. And a lot of us near the end of the Dreamcast were saying the same when 3rd party support for the Dreamcast sucked.

Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that it looked like Nintendo could have headed down the same path until the Switch changed everything.

Nintendo is sitting on so much cash that they could run into repeated failures and still load up again for the next console generation with some new idea for awhile. They won't be going anywhere even if they have two failures in a row (which they've done before as the N64 underperformed against the PSOne and the Gamecube was such an awful device that it got beaten worldwide by OG Xbox).

[Raziel]

Gamecube was that weird mix of the hardware was probably the only time Nintendo had hardware comparable to the rest of the generation, but its architecture was fucking spaghetti and it's amazing as much stuff ran on it as it did.  The ridiculous controller didn't help, ridiculous controllers is Nintendo's bag since Gen 5.  But Nintendo found it's groove if hoarding it's IP, gimmick controls, and creating artificial scarcity that it ends up sitting on money.   

[Tabe]

3 hours ago, Raziel said:

 The ridiculous controller didn't help

Nintendo hasn't had a good controller since the SNES. The N64 controller is one of the worst ever. Throw it on the pile with Jaguar. 

[Zimbra]

I'm willing to give them some grace on the N64 controller since there wasn't an established design language for 3d controllers yet. 

It's better than the Saturn's weird Nights controller and works fine to play AKI wrestling games, at least.

[Craig H]

The Switch Pro controller is…alright. At the very least it’s their best normal controller ever simply because it just copies the other two companies. Even still, the d pad stinks and the buttons are too squishy, but I’ll take that any day over using Joycons.

My daughter likes the Joycons if they’re in the little handle for them, but even she is using the Pro controller more and more.

[Tabe]

2 hours ago, Zimbra said:

I'm willing to give them some grace on the N64 controller since there wasn't an established design language for 3d controllers yet. 

It's better than the Saturn's weird Nights controller and works fine to play AKI wrestling games, at least.

The Saturn Nights controller is great. I used it constantly... 

 

... 

 

... to play pinball. The triggers on it did a nice job of replicating the feel of flipper buttons. 

[tbarrie]

3 hours ago, Tabe said:

Nintendo hasn't had a good controller since the SNES.

The Wiimote was from Nintendo, and it's still the best video game controller of all time. Simple, elegant, and versatile. Not its fault that so many game designers didn't know what to do with it.

[Tabe]

19 minutes ago, tbarrie said:

The Wiimote was from Nintendo, and it's still the best video game controller of all time. Simple, elegant, and versatile. Not its fault that so many game designers didn't know what to do with it.

That controller sucks for traditional controls. Yeah, it "works" but it's not even close to a real gamepad. 

[tbarrie]

9 minutes ago, Tabe said:

That controller sucks for traditional controls. Yeah, it "works" but it's not even close to a real gamepad. 

It works fine when held sideways and used as a traditional controller. Doesn't even destroy your thumbs on long play sessions the way all modern gamepads do.