This is the Playeressence Vidcast where every week Furious Francis and Hero the Impaler discuss the hottest gaming news for the week, CES 2013, favorite cartoons that should be made into video games, and ……the Philips CD-i.
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 ☝️
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.
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.
Microsoft's future in the video game space is murky right now, so let's break it all down.
Not anytime soon. But they're on that path.
One thing not mentioned in the article is Microsoft's money bags. If Sega had Microsoft's money, they would have still been around as a hardware manufacturer. Xbox as a platform only survives because of the money bags. They can continue making consoles for the core and port to PC.
The multiplatform strategy is only the result of arrogance and misguided leadership that blew up in their face. They thought gamers would jump on Xbox in droves if they knew that many of their favorite games would be only on Xbox. But that's not happening at all. Sales didn't increase. They decreased. Why? Because the dumb asses thought giving away these expensively made games in a cheap service would also turn the tide.
Gamers on other platforms are willing to buy quality. They don't need to be handed nearly free games in a service that aren't even finished and sometimes average in their development. Gamers buy Nintendo games. They buy Sony games. Microsoft groomed their base to not buy games. Even the quality ones. It has always been their plan to go digital. But most gamers still like single player gaming. Still like physical releases.
Microsoft's problem has always been that they don't produce high quality games at the same output as Nintendo and Sony. Actually, they should be producing quite a lot more because they're worth over 2 TRILLION. How they don't have more is ridiculous and no excuse. Buying publishers to take away from competition only backfired. Because it still takes millions of dollars to continue to make those games from the publishers they snatched. Their only choice was to crawl back to their competitors to help sustain those developers because Nintendo and Sony platforms were the ones buying games.
Am I sorry for Microsoft? Hell no! They deserved last place for putting in the least effort. They deserved the fallout for buying up the industry and didn't make a single blip on the radar against their competitors where they now need those same gamers they took away games from to support them. Part of it may have been to cash in on their competition. But the result is the slow death of their platform. They may go 3rd party. They may keep making hardware. I don't give a shit about them to worry about it. I only give a shit about the destructive nature of their industry moves that only negatively affect gamers. They could sell and drop out of the industry and I wouldn't blink. Probably laugh. But not blink. They deserve whatever comes to them. At least Sega put in the effort when it came to games. They just had poor leadership. Microsoft has poor leadership and barely makes memorable games. That's a killer combination. And not in a good way.
Not sure about that. It's been two decades and I still think about Power Stone, Shenmue, Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Seaman and others, but I'm not sure I'll remember Xbox Series X/S games in a few years from now... Maybe I'll remember about the franchises that the Xbox brand spawned, but I don't believe that the Xbox Series lives up to the late Dreamcast or even to the Xbox name itself. I do have great memories about the 360 with Blue Dragon, Gears 2 and Lost Odyssey though
No, Dreamcast was ahead of it's time and most still have very fond memories of it that had one. It also had some good games on it even in it's short lifespan. Xbox has none of these qualities.
Microsoft has announced the Microsoft Rewards app on Xbox will be discontinued in April and has confirmed that weekly streaks will also be coming to an end.
I don't dissagree that the nVidia Shield is likely to be the so-called "console" that won't last out of the five consoles that will be out within the next year and a half, but I think that you are wrong regarding the WiiU.
I think that the majority of the WiiU consoles that are selling like hotcakes right now are being bought by hardcore Nintendo fans, and surely when they release a Zelda game, that will keep Nintendo going for a while longer. But the main problem that I see is the under-powered hardware (as far as next gen consoles go), and the fact that the PS4 and the Xbox 720 will be releasing sometime around the next holiday season (or so the industry analysts seems to think).
The Wii was popular because it was cheap, and because it was attractive to casual gamers. I don't believe that casual gamers are going to fork out money for a new console when they probably only break out their Wii when they have gatherings in their homes with their friends and family. Casual gamers are not the kinds of consumers who are always looking for the next major leap in technology, or even the newest versions of a product that they might have bought 2 or 3 years ago. The casual gamer will stick with their Wii that they purchased until it breaks, because they don't follow game franchises like you or I do, they could care less about the latest Mario or Zelda game.
Casuals pushed the Wii to its success this generation, but things have changed since 2006/2007 when the Wii was super popular. Smart Phones, Tablets and Facebook have become havens for casual gamers who will probably not see the point to buying a new console when they already have a Smart Phone, Facebook account or an old Wii that they can play some games on. My opinion of the WiiU is that it will be relevant up until the much hyped PS4 and Xbox 720 get released. Its possible that even the announcements from E3 regarding the imminent release of Sony's and Microsoft's consoles will heavily dilute any excitement that might be left for the WiiU. I predict a future for Nintendo that is not far from what happened to Sega, except I think they will continue to be very popular in the handheld market with the 3DS/3DSxl.
I love Steam, and I think they are a bit of a wild card, so in all honesty I'm not too sure what kind of an impact the "steam Box" will have on the console industry. But Francis, like you said, if Valve releases Half Life 3 or Left 4 Dead 3 as Steam exclusives, then Valve will sell a hell of alot of Steam Boxes.