Christopher Mims with Quartz writes:
It’s a tough time to be a hard-core gamer. Veterans of the gaming industry are declaring that we are in the midst of the death of “console gaming” itself—i.e. the end of those set-top boxes made by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo that have long been the staples of video gaming. Sales of video games have been in a tailspin for the past four years, and in April sales of both software and consoles were down 25% from a year earlier.
So when Sony today launches a “price war“ by announcing that its next-generation PlayStation 4 will retail for $399, $100 less than Microsoft’s next-generation console, the Xbox One, it’s hard to see it as anything other than a retreat by the industry, designed to lure people back to consoles by making them cheaper.
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
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 ☝️
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.
All these naysayers better hope that the last of these next-gen consoles (PS4/ Xbone) sell like shit, because they're certainly talking a lot of trash based on next to nothing. The last console generation cumulatively sold more than any previous one. Of course sales have been steadily declining (see this crap article for reference), that's what happens when a generation goes on 2-3 years longer than people have come to historically expect.
This will be a massive generation. I can feel it!
I'm sick of hearing about how the "mobile devices" will be the death of consoles. People have been writing articles about the death of consoles for years. First they said gaming consoles were just a fad. Then it was the PC that was going to be the harbinger of death. Next up were the handhelds and now bring on the "mobile devices". Give me a break. Same crap different decade. There are also a good number of financial reports and forecasts showing that mobile gaming is in no way eating into the console market and won't for years to come.