By Furious Francis, editor in chief
If all the internet rumors are to be believed, the PS4 and Xbox 720 are right around the corner. Major E3 unveilings could be coming in a little over half a year’s time for Microsoft and Sony. The industry needs new consoles, and I am really excited to get my hands on the PS4 and Xbox 720. However, there are a few concerns I have about these systems. Cost of Development, and Japanese game support to name a few.
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.
Sony has recruited Bungie's head of revenue Jaremy Rich to head up its live-service gaming division, Rich has announced on social media.
Please do not put Destiny’s monetization into Sony’s first party games. The monetization is what’s driving players away from Destiny.
The new temp boss is the sony cfo bean counter so i can see this being a thing get every penny.
@car
The new boss did a interview in japan he wants to tap into the mobile market like nintendio so he give 0 fucks about gamers/fans
https://www.pushsquare.com/...
@Cacabunga
You only speak for you and those who think like you, but most fans will support what they want. Playstation and PC fans are literally supporting Helldivers 2 and that is a gaas. Maybe you wouldn't, but many more would if they like it.
@Redemption-64
Look, Im not making any judgement calls about this guy, but I will say that Helldivers 2 GaaS model is unique to Helldivers, and legit the only other game I can think of thats similiar was the Avengers game except HD2 pass is still better.
The fact that you can earn in game currency in a way that doesnt make you feel like you have to grind forever, as well you being able work on that pass that you bought...on your own time without a time limit...that right there is fucking huge to me, and I can't name any game other than avengers that avoided trapping players with FOMO logic...I think GaaS on HD2 shouldn't be compared to the rest of the industry...it should be copied.
Cacabunga
Helldivers 2...
Redemption-64
In Europe it's a 60 40 split favoring PC.
In the US its a 60 40 split favoring PS5.
So PlayStation owners supported the game just fine, it's not getting carried by PC or anything like that.
@just_looken,
I'm perfectly fine with the way Nintendo entered the mobile market, I never touched their mobile games, meanwhile, the console/handheld stayed the way it is. As for being a bean counter, he's probably going to reel in these massive budgets that Sony's studios have had lately, I haven't played Spiderman 2, but I cannot see how they almost tripled the budget for that game.
@Redemption-64,
That's an exception to the rule, I'm expecting a lot of these GAAS games from Sony to fail, to be fair, they only need a few to succeed, but I would have preferred that they put more of their resources into other types of games.
True their monetization is driving players away and at the same time, their decision to chop out content and convoluted systems is keeping new players away from the game.
I don't think that will happen based on how things worked out at Naughty Dog now that we know what we do, seems they had the option to fully commit to live service games or stay making single player experences so they gave up on their live service game. We are not sure how things came about with Bend making a live service game but I hope that was not a forced situation. Sony doesnt seem like they are forcing studios to switch up but we will see, Sony's bread and butter is single player games it is how they dominated the console market.
Yeah, I though Sony learned something from all their failures in the LS segment under Bungie´s disastrous leadership and supervision which led to games been cancelled, studios closed and all the people laid off.
Looks like Bungie still plays a major role in Sony´s LS initiative and Sony is not backtracking on their GaaS plans.
Are we forgetting that Destiny is also a highly successful franchise? I feel like that definitely deserves mention here.
Besides, there is no reason why a person cant learn from past experiences.
I agree, people act as if Destiny flopped when it came out lol it took 9 to 10 years for the numbers to fall yet people are still playing it add the success of Helldivers 2 no wonder Sony is going forward down this path.
Personally, I see no problem with Sony also having service games as long as they make good ones, and more importantly they deliver the AAA story driven games that they are known for. So yeah, I agree 100% with you.
I mean, this person made some pretty bad decisions at Bungie. I hope they've learned from them because I definitely don't see those type of ideas as good for PlaySation in general.
Honestly, what’s to learn from? How to make people happily continuously dump money into a single game over its life-time? Buy season passes continuously for several years with a smile on our faces?
GaaS is a design decision that is everything wrong with this industry. The fact that Helldivers 2 did so well and people defend the monetization because it was $40 and is a fun game, scares the sh*t out of me to see that the door is open and all shift will probably be to replicate that in future games. We already know the ROI for traditional game dev cost isn’t doing it for them.
I thought with Jimbo leaving we’d see a change for the better… I’m not so sure now.
Service games are being offered by everyone. Sony cannot afford to only create single player AAA games. No one can. They already said they will be doing both.
Ps5 gamers in 2023 seemed to play more live service types of games, so regardless to how people feel about them, numbers don’t lie and Sony is going where the money is. I mean look at the excitement around Helldivers2, people are showing that they want live service games.
They play long-time existing live service games like CoD, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Destiny 2, and the like. Mass majority of new live service games are considered failures and aren't moving gamers away from older games.
Yep the huge issue with live service is they need paid players along with a reason to play them.
You forgot mobile market that also taps into that player base as well as the eve online style games there is only a certain amount of krakens/whales blind supporters compared to the amount of live service games we have its not sustainable math wise.
700 restaurants making food for every seat for 1000-3000 eaters just does not work out
Christopher
I am not a big live service fan and literally own zero of the games you listed, but that is not true, unless you call games that aren't the top games to be failures.
There are tons of live service games that are profitable.
Games don't have to be the biggest game ever they just need to make more than they cost.
I challenge you to show professionally prepared data that shows that more live service games fail than make enough to keep going.
Because all the data that I have seen shows that live service is less of a gamble than making a big AAA budget game which needs to survive off retail sales.
I sometimes wonder if we're at saturation point, where it's hard for a new game to join those ranks unless it's particularly exceptional, people only have so much time and money to devote to these types of games.
Lol it's not even a quarter of the ps5s sold. Helldivers may have been a hit but let's not say most are enjoying it because truth is most(the real most ) don't care about it.
I play what is fun. If a live service game is good I’ll play it as long as its not a money scheme which Helldivers is not.
And Im a single player gamer.
How do you kill a franchise that already been killed?
Destiny’s grind, cash-in-on-playbass-cha-Ching, and pop-culture-insertion mainstream-me-too bs totally killed any rep Bungie had. Sony/Bungie, if you are doing this to ward-off players, it’s already working.
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.
That would be an insult to Dreamcast.. it had a crazy line up of legendary critically acclaimed games.
I was thinking the same. Dreamcast had incredible games in such a short amount of time. It was truly exceptional.
...and yet all those great games were not enough to sway people from the looming release of the PS2 at the time. Sony just has that kind of brand loyalty.
Darth
I do not agree.. Sony had even better games thanks to an unprecedented 3rd party support..
DC had amazing lineup but 90% were arcade games..
@darth:
And Sony showed off "The Emotion Engine" and their real time demos that made everyone think they would miss out on REAL next gen 128bit magic if they jumped in before PS2s polygon pushing monster (and early lack of anti-aliasing with a healthy heap of shimmer + DVD playback) stepped up. PS2 was a fantastic system though with amazing games.
That's not true. Just because Microsoft has the money doesn't mean Microsoft can allow xbox to bleed entire Microsoft money. It doesn't work like they. Also SEC will be watching and investor won't allow it. Lot of reasons why Microsoft can not continue even if they wanted to. SEC regulations is expensive.
Exactly this... Microsoft is a publicly traded company, mostly owned by their shareholders (Approximately 59.24% of the company's stock is owned by Institutional Investors, 7.73% is owned by Insiders and 33.03% is owned by Public Companies and Individual Investors.). Their shareholders call the shots on the business decisions, and their shareholders want one thing and one thing only, for their stock price to go up. Losses do not make stock prices go up... so if the division continually posts losses on hardware, but shows profits on software and services (which has been the case with Xbox its entire lifespan, for over 20 years now), the shareholders are going to grow impatient and demand they stop making hardware and focus on the only thing that has ever made them money, software and services.
When Microsoft bought Blizzard and Activision for almost 100 billion, I knew that was the nail in the coffin for Xbox as a console... as the shareholders were going to expect a quick return on that investment, and when it didn't materialize, they were going to be out for blood... out to force Xbox to sell those games on as many consoles as possible, "and while you're at it, sell those first party exclusives that aren't selling well on other consoles as well... hell, just stop making consoles and sell games."
If there is another Xbox console generation, it will definitely be the last, but I doubt there even will be one at this point. I think the Xbox division planning on it just in case, but I don't think the project has been greenlit from Microsoft itself. The rumors that they have not yet even secured the chips needed from the chip fabrication facilities ties into this.
While I usually agree with you . Alot of what was said can just also be asked before any of that.
How long will the shareholders wait? It doesn't appear long at all
I think I get your point. Like just because MS has money does not mean they are content to throw it away on a dying ecosystem. Xbox has to be profitable or “what’s the point?”
Money bags, yes, but are we ignoring that Xbox actually makes a profit on games and GamePass? Hardware is often a loss leader, and they're probably making profit 4 years into the life cycle, but games and services revenue have been very profitable while other parts of Microsoft's business is struggling. Say what you will about the quality of those games, of course, but this is kind of a reverse Dreamcast situation, where the console was dragging down the company and put it at risk of shuttering entirely. Killing that console saved the business and allowed it to continue to make games on multiple platforms. In this case, the service is very profitable, as are the games, and they're also double-dipping into Multiplatform to extend this further, while their hardware is just sort of what they believe to be the best for gamers and their own titles (whether that is the case or not...)
The issue is, they aren't selling enough hardware to make their exclusives profitable, and now that they've bought half the gaming publisher/dev industry, they have no choice but to go third party to make a profit... and that is making their shareholders take a real close look at their hardware division under the microscope... why keep making the hardware if the software is all that is making them money, and they continually, generation after generation come in dead last with hardware sales?
Look at a game like Spiderman 2... if it had been an Xbox exclusive, with the amount it cost to develop, it would have been a huge failure... simply not enough consoles out there to sell it on. They would have been lucky to break even.
@fr0sty agreed completely, which is why they're hedging by releasing other games to multiplatform, plus they have PC to make up for the difference in a lot of ways, which is why their games are not complete money pits. It brings up the question of whether or not those exclusives would drive sales of consoles, though. Let's say Spiderman 2 was an Xbox exclusive, it would certainly have pushed console sales, though who's to say how much is anyone's guess.
That's why you can't rely on just one exclusive, Sony has always delivered on a wide range of solid exclusives, even this generation (even if they haven't been strong on the first party exclusives, they've made up for it with third party). They don't rely on just one "system seller", they have a portfolio of them.
ApocalypseShadow To be honest Sony has more of a chance to go 3rd party because like you said Microsoft has money, Sony does not. Sony does not have games, Only games they have come from 3rd party. Sony has been losing money for years and you. Saying Microsoft has been putting the least effort just proves you have no idea what's been going on. All Sony has done is repeat and recycle, never innovating or doing something new. All Sony has is brand loyalty nothing else and it shows.
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.
I remember it coming out at the time in a really bad place they hit the market before the PS2 but it was during this transitional time when Sony was promoting the power of the PS2 and so many of the Dreamcast games were awesome but often third parties simply ported the PS1 version increased resolution and performance but rarely fully utilise the capabilities of the console.
I think in the end bad marketing done it in and like the GameCube so many people are fond of it now but at the time it was looked at in the lense of the day and it didn't stack up.
Personally I miss Sega in hardware they took risks that many companies won't
I never owned it, and got the PS2 right when it launched. But there were certain games it had that I was always jealous of that I didn't have access to - Sonic adventure, crazy taxi, power Stone, code Veronica, shenmue, skies of Arcadia. I always thought it was a really cool machine though. I've never heard a bad thing about it though from those that had it.
I only ever saw one Dreamcast, and that was one my friend owned, pity I never got to play it, I wonder what games he had for it?
It would be nice if some of those games got ported to modern systems.
Oh man sonic adventure on the Dreamcast made me so jealous as a huge sonic fan on the mega drive who also moved to PlayStation 2 I never got the chance to play it back in the day either. The Dreamcast in Australia where I am was always relegated to the smallest corner of EB Games it was kind of a strong first indicator that things were not going well at the time.
"However, there are a few concerns I have about these systems. Cost of Development, and Japanese game support to name a few."
Cost of development is a myth, the sad reality is millions of USD these days are spent marketing a game. Marketing budgets are infact double or quadrupole the cost of making the game specially in todays AAA releases. Take a game like COD, it costs Activision about 50million usd to make the game (i dont see how though since its just a copy and paste job), Marketing the same game costs them 200million usd.
Its the gamers in the end who have to pay.
Crysis 1 from 2007 is still one of the best looking games out there, from a technical perspective nothing on console can touch it even today. Guess how much it cost to develop a game with Crysis level graphics? It cost 20million usd.
Games like Witcher 2, Metro 2033 are about the best looking games in recent years, even they didnt cost more than 20 million usd to produce.
My belief is developers cry costs, so they can increase prices of games, when really they need to find a way to better manage how they market games.
Edit:
"The HD era raised development costs to unseen levels back in 2005 with the Xbox 360."
Please this is about the most retarded thing i have heard. HD is simply a term given to graphics being rendered at 1280*720. Just because a game is going to run in a particular res doesnt increase its development costs. Us PC gamers have been seeing games run way beyond 1280*720 way before the HD term was created. Personally i been playing at resolutions close to this back in the late 90's. Hence games going HD for consoles is just an excuse for developers to raise prices, its not like consoles introduced games running at these resolutions, its been done long before console Makers / developers are only looking for way to milk the console crowd be it with:
charging to go online,
DLCS (no mods),
over priced accessories
Imo they only need an excuse to some how raise prices.
One of these things is not like the other thing.
Its nice to finally see someone looking at stuff more realistically. Funny enough these points are exactly how I am looking at things.
I think Japanese support for PS4 will be fine. Its 720 you should question. With Nintendo set to dominate Japan with Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter and Xbox not being accepted there, I see it ending exactly the same as the first Xbox. If Wii U and PS4 are sustainable enough for companies like Capcom and Namco as multiplat devs they could choose to exclude 720 altogether in some cases.
More and more, signs are pointing to the next generation of consoles not being the significant leap everyone thought they would be. But I'm not all that worried, I have a gaming PC if I want amazing graphics @ 60fps.
But if the past is any indication, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo's first party developers will make exclusives that will make those consoles sing and make them worth owning. Exclusives are the main reason to own a console anyway. I grew up on Sony and Nintendo and they haven't let me down yet when it comes to their games so I'm pretty much guaranteed to get a Wii U and a PS4 for exclusives. Will most likely use my PC for multiplats.
im not worried about ps4 but more for the devs..
i lost count how many had to leave this gen crazy!
Now with the better grafics it will be even worse..