Michael Futter writes: No gamer, pundit or casual observer can deny that mobile platforms have become serious contenders in the realm of interactive entertainment. My own children have driven that point home for me, with my three-year-old able to deftly manipulate touchscreen devices as if he were born with one in hand.
This is a stark contrast to my own childhood, when only a single weekly encounter with my assigned Apple IIe in the computer lab, glowing a dim monochrome green, meant I would have the chance to chase down Carmen Sandiego one more time.
As part of its plans to cut 1,900 jobs, Microsoft has reportedly shut down operations at Bethesda France, letting go roughly 15 people
Bethesda France was made up of roughly 15 people... they couldn't of being doing much
Bethesda France mainly did publishing and marketing within the region
Bethesda France focused on publishing and marketing in the region. And 15 people lost their jobs as part of the closure.
I wonder if this is part of Microsoft's strategy to abandoned physical media or possibly gamepass advertising makes their roles redundant you don't need to market a game as hard when the majority of players get the game as part of a sub which already promoted upcoming games
Tbh Microsoft I think Bethesda being 3rd party same with Activision would probably more competitive than thus scenario imo
Sony has recently published a new patent that wants to dynamically handle the games' difficulty and gameplay based on the player's emotions.
This is something I might use. Sometimes I play some good games but they don’t have difficulty option and are a little too easy.
Hanzla from eXputer inquires: "If Xbox can care about preserving its games and legacy, what exactly is wrong with Nintendo, trying to kill game preservation single-handedly?"
Ahh yes the good old game preservation of saving all your games to a removable hhd on the Xbox 360, taking it round your mates house, setting up multiple tvs to
Be met with “save data corrupted, please re download”
Or how about removing 360 games
From the store
, download them now or else, and, better hope to god that save data doesn’t corrupt, or it’s lost for ever
Nice one ☝️
It's better than what Nintendo and Playstation is doing. It might not be perfect but at least they are TRYING. Unlike the others.
Trying? Take off the blinders for a moment, mate.
1. A failure to preserve games is just that: a failure to preserve games. Don't try to sugarcoat it: NO ONE is doing it properly. Better than awful is nothing to write home about.
2. At the time of this comment, isn't it the case that you need an internet connection to play Xbox games even if you buy physical discs that are hardly in circulation anymore? I don't have a Series X and I can't verify, but I think that is correct. I'm fairly certain you can at least play PS5 games at version 1.0 (not much of a win really when many games require day one patches). I think Microsoft's all digital, licensing approach is by far more aggressive than anyone else's. They really try to push you to game pass where you lose your entire library by umm.... Skipping a month of payments.
I don't think anyone is doing it right whatsoever. Don't get me started on Nintendo, who goes after anyone looking to preserve their games better than they ever would with extreme litigation.
Don't be a simp for any of these companies. Get it together.
@DarX never speak on Xbox again. You lost all credibility with your internet connection comment. Smh you have 0 clue and misinformed yet speaking on something you don't no squat about.
What has Sony done exactly? You guys keep deflecting to Sony but I am not actually seeing any results, and ai am certain nothing that you can come up with even comes close to what Microsoft has done and what they have tried and failed to do, like tie all your disks to your account on xbone.
Microsoft removed their whole indie section when they moved to the xbone because they were going to only allow games on the service that came from a publisher, id@xbox started after xbone launched and it only exists because Sony embraced indie and Microsoft was forced to cancel their plans and reverse course.
And every single game that was part of games for windows live including disk games (I have gta 4 on disk that won't work) so hundreds of games that use that DRM no longer work unless the company themselves patched it out which of course very few did.
Not trying. Tried. they killed of the backcomp program years ago. They set something up again, but sounds like it's more of an attempt to save the current library on whatever they are planning next. With luck they save everything and more, but let's see. I could see them killing off parts of the OG xbox and 360 libraries. Can't imagine that they would allow us to play Forza 5-7 in the future.
With that said, I do like what they've done and really wish they could have done more.
Zeref
So killing off physical media is trying what exactly. Ms don't really give a fk if you think they do your kidding yourself.
They are not trying this team is established for forward compatability the team is. It interested in preserving Xbox or 360 games.
Just because it's digital only doesn't mean you can't preserve it. Just put it on an external and you have the exact same functionality of what a disc does.
This is just a scammy PR move to distract from the fact they are going digital only and trying to push streaming and subscriptions only.
No gaming company has pushed harder to remove ownership than Microsoft.
Without discs there is no preservation, preservation can't be done by the rights holders it can only be done by the consumers, anything else is a lie.
Replies(3)Anyone remember xblig which Microsoft removed their whole 360 indie section removing hundreds of games from people?
Do you know you can put your games on an external and preserve them that way? There are no benefits to discs. ZERO. Idk why some of you are still obsessed with them.
Because games like Persona 5 exist. It's STILL V1.00. On Playstation, that's a win because 1.00 is installed on the disc—no need to download anything.
If a game does not require any updates, it's all on the disc.
Extremely low bar in the modern era, of course. It's not much of a win by any stretch.
But for now, physical media does have a purpose, at least on Playstation.
That is factually not how game licensing works, try plugging your hard drive into someone else xbox, It's not going to work, and it won't work if the licensing servers ever go down.
Anyone remember games for windows live.
I have around a dozen games, some on Steam itself that will not work because Microsoft shut off the licensing servers.
I do. I STILL have games (Gears of War being the big one) I cannot access because Games for Windows LIVE is total garbage and no one has held Microsoft accountable.
You don't have an Xbox apparently. Because you can 100 percent plug in your external and play games from it on any Xbox console lol. You just have to be logged in to prove ownership.
"You don't have an Xbox apparently. Because you can 100 percent plug in your external and play games from it on any Xbox console lol. You just have to be logged in to prove ownership."
Damn how many times do people got to explain your idiocy to you? You can take a copy of Persona 5 like someone used as an example and play that game on ANY console WITHOUT logging in which means I can lend the game to a friend without internet and they can play my game. Can you lend your hard drive to anyone without logging in for them to play? NOPE. That is a huge difference and if you think otherwise then sorry you're an idiot.
"No gaming company has pushed harder to remove ownership than Microsoft."
Ubisoft is literally erasing games people bought from their libraries... My PS1-3 discs are useless on modern hardware. Nintendo's re-published and resold almost their entire Wii U library, and the eShop is completely dead with no BC mechanism in the Switch software. Microsoft publishes everything they make today day one on Steam and Xbox/Windows. Sony only brings to PC the titles they think you might want some years later and Nintendo won't even design a functional long-lasting joystick.
You're absolutely trolling and not serious if you think Microsoft today is the worst offender.
Yay steam
Not everyone fks with computers though. The disc is still the best way as a console player. Period.
How do Sony and Nintendo feel about these discs from 2001-2013?
Don't be stupid, you know Xbox is the best at this today.
Nobody wants this. Sales or the lack of it in the case of XBOX is very telling. I wonder how the adorably all digital series X will fare. Adorably dismal perhaps?
Only time will tell, but for from someone like me suspecting that Xbox is trying to gracefully exit the console market, that "forward compatibility" team is trying to get Xbox games playing on Windows PCs. I mean, it's nice that they're not planning on exiting with a "enjoy your games while the hardware still works" message, so that's nice. They still have a brand to protect via Microsoft so probably feel obligated to have a better exit strategy.
That is not their plan, their plan is to transfer users accounts to the cloud.
Phil Spencer himself said as much a few months back, plans could have changed but I think people are reading way too much into one statement where Phil said he would allow Epic on xbox because he wants to be able to sell xbox games directly on other platforms. Aka, instead of selling Sea of Thives through PSN he wants to have an xbox store to sell his games on PlayStation without giving PlayStation any money.
Again, it's extremely unlikely that Phil plans to put PC on xbox and licensing would prevent them from just giving out other publishers games purchased on xbox copies of thier games on PC, Microsoft does not own their games.
The thing that doesn't align with the cloud strategy is the giving up on exclusives. You'd still need strong exclusives for cloud streaming - it's still a "platform" , just with a lower upfront hardware investment. I feel like they've learned what PS learned with PSNow long ago. We're not ready to stream games and it's only gonna lose them money to try at this point
I would love that, I'd buy up some of the Xbox games if they could run on PC, like the Rare Replay, Lost Odyssey and Dead or Alive Ultimate, probably a pipe dream though.
Great article! This is something I've been concerned about for a while.
Mobile games will just kill itself. lol
the 3ds is the number 1 system in the world. That shows you how little impact mobile has
Feel sorry for the idiots who Reacted by trashing ios and android games. Smartphones have good games and is as convient as can be but they are in no relation to consoles.
Look, I understand that most mobile gaming devices aren't killers who ascribe to a radical ideology, but a disturbing number of them are, and they receive little in the way of ridicule from supposedly mainstream mobile gaming devices.
Innocent consoles are dying! This senseless violence needs to stop.