Whatever happened to the games that live between something like Journey and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim? Do those games even exist anymore? CraveOnline examine.
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.
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.
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.
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" -
GL compiles a list of some of the most mind-blowing video game narrative twists in recent memory, from The Last of Us to Outer Wilds
With articles like these cant you tag the games mentioned so that we can know ahead of time if there’s a spoiler to avoid?
Not clicking on your article otherwise.
RIP middleclass
I imagine most people won't spend £40 on a lesser product when there are enough top class games out there. You wouldn't pay £15k for a mondeo if ferraris were the same price
Great piece. My wife and I actually have to budget my gaming in yo our monthly budget because they are so expensive. Though games do quickly go to deal pricing so that is re invigorating that middle class in a way
Isn't this exactly the situation that the major kickstarter projects are trying to resolve?
Project Eternity, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns, Torment ect are all games that are made by experienced studios and are looking to provide much more content than a typical indie title can and yet are clearly not a AAA title in terms of production values. That sounds like mid-tier development to me.
I think the days of large publishers funding mid tier games are dead, at least for the moment, but I don't think that means mid tier development itself is dead.
My solution usually:
* Buy 1-2 games you really want that will last you a bit.
play those and wait until the other 4-5 games you want drop in price.
* Either trade in games or wait for a deal at Gamestop and get the games much cheaper only 1-2 months later.
Having a backlog helps with this. There are tons of 3DS games I'm going to want but don't have the money to get right now. So I'll play my DS games I've yet to beat in the mean time until those game prices drop or GS has a deal or trade in deal or I'll use a coupon from the powerup rewards or something.
If you plan around your purchases you can get amazing deals.
I saved $300 at GS last year using the Power up rewards thing.
I know GS isn't for everyone and some hate it but the option is out there to get games you know you want, for much cheaper, either used or new.