I have noticed that towards the end of this incredibly long generation of gaming (which is, in my opinion, a good thing), gamers are more and more focused on the one aspect that haunts every game out there (well, at least the ones with a story): the ending. So how should developers handle it?
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
you should apply in MS PR team buddy, I think you will do a great job in my humble opinion :)
MS: "Xbox services and content without AB up 1%, with AB up 62%. Hardware down 31%. In total a loss of 350 mill."
darthv72: "Seems about right."
MS: "Excuse m ..."
darthv72: "I don't hardly play on my consoles directly."
MS:
I can tell people like you are an absolute minority..
If service is up means their fans and fanboys accepted this model and subscribed to it. The near future you will see a big decline because the service is saturated.
But that's been ms for years. When things aren't going their way they try to change the way things are said. For instance console sales are down, they stop telling how many sold instead telling us how many hours spent in halo or headshots. So it makes sense console sales down just say people are playing on more devices then previous. What they won't say is how many xbox players jumped ship to ps5.
Hardware sales are so bad that Sony and Nintendo are blowing the sales off the water with their hardware.
If Xbox are losers, others aren’t..
Xbox already tried everything with Xbox live then subscriptions went down so much that they had to find something else. Their fans subscribed then reached saturation rather quickly.
Hardware and exclusive games is where it’s at! Keep gamers excited, announce decent software and people will support you
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
Activision: "we gonna need a bigger rucksack/backpack please"
Microsoft: "why's that"
Activision: "to carry yo' weak ass'
Top brass have also wanted to start seeing returns on the 100 billion they have put into various Xbox related moves so seeing more multiplatform games is highly likely especially from abk
It's basically saying that PlayStation is the reason Xbox is afloat right now thinks to Ps5 versions of COD
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
Eventually they’ll realize the value is with the employee not the company. Buying an IP means nothing if the people who contributed are let go. They’ll get it one day.
tech is different because they buy threats and then kill them. Twitter bought Vine and did nothing with it. Despite people seemingly liking it. Could've had tiktok a decade before bytedance. go figure.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
Personally I didn't throw my controller out of the window for RDR or LA Noire but was glad it was over. Those two games failed fundamentally at one thing that is important to an ending. Prior to an ending the game needs to be paced correctly. LA Noire was a slow placed game (also repetitive) from the get go and so I was glad it was over so I can review it. RDR was a good game except for the beginning and the ending where the pacing dropped. On paper doing family things is great to try and get an emotion response to what happens next but in practice it is incredibly dull (which isn't helped by your son being so unlikable). I was glad that there were no more family stuff to do. I didn't feel sad because I was so enraged by the monotonous task before it
This " What I’m trying to say, is that players should be rewarded for investing hours upon hours of their lives with, at least, a fitting end to their own tales. " only works for games with choices which doesn't work for every type of game. Some games need a ridged structure to tell a story.
An ending needs to have prior build up before the ending is executed. You need to feel like you are building up to the end and the tempo needs to increase. I think endings can be cinematic as long as the bit before it is done well (pacing wise because that is fundamentally important for a game/movie)
I agree the ending is vital and some poor endings have ruined the overall experience for me.
Mass Effect 3's ending was a complete failure, both in gameplay and story wise. Even though it was a fight with every species in the galaxy vs the Reapers, it never felt like it. It just felt like another battle. Story wise, it was complete garbage.
With the indoctrination theory, it actually makes sense, but besides that, nothing about the three endings (that area all pretty much the same) even have much to do with the whole trilogy. I chose to pretend the indoctrination theory was Bioware's idea and that's how I can still manage to play through the games.
I think in turns of pacing and story i think the Lord of the rings the return of the kings is a good example of how ending should be in games. I know its a movie but if game developers can transfer that level of pacing and story into an epic game there won't be any trouble.
Theres' only a few game & game franchises that i felt had a fitting ending and these were Max payne 2 (before the 3rd), RDR i feel had a good ending (son got revenge end of) and Bioshock 1. So fitting endings is possible
Red Dead Redemption: The ending was superb and fit the game's theme perfectly. There is no reason why anyone would be disappointed unless they didn't pay any attention to the game and only treated it like a run&gun/shoot-em-up while ignoring/skipping cutscenes.
LA Noire: Another very fitting ending to the game as it fit the noire genre and Cole Phelps' character. The only reason one would be disappointed is, like I said previously, they paid no attention to Cole Phelps' background or how he perceives himself as a result of that background, which makes it clear he will get himself killed if it meant redeeming himself.
Borderlands 1: You don't find out what was in that vault? That monster in the end was the only thing in that vault! The vault was essentially a prison to keep this thing inside and all the vault hunters were essentially being sent to destroy it, despite being lied to about what they're actually fighting towards. This is more a case of a lack of storytelling than a bad ending.
There are many games that deserve to be pointed out as having a bad ending, but RDR and LA Noire are certainly not anywhere on that list. Borderlands 1, maybe but that is a case of a lack of storytelling/foreshadowing throughout the entire game.
Bye answering all questions you opened up in he start of the story and throughout the adventure. Making sure all character development is complete. If there are muiple games and you promise from the first game the choices of that game will effect the ending of the third be sure to KEEP that promise. Don't cheap out on the ending, a powerful ending is very important to have satisfying results. It's also more than okay to follow up on the characters to see how they were effected and what they did after the main plot. Doing the same to cities planets and governments is also a good idea especially in a game like mass effect because of all the choices.
When creating an ending not only does the creator need to be happy with it but the fans.