Joe Lewis of The Koalition writes:
Video games have come a long way since the flickering arcade displays of Computer Space and its kin, and there’s been no better indicator of the industry’s progression than the demos released alongside the games themselves. At the start of the eighth generation of home consoles, it may be time for developers to say goodbye to the demo, but not without something new ready and waiting to take its place.
In the golden age of the arcade, and even in the dwindling arcades of today, non-interactive demos displayed constantly on unoccupied cabinets to present a game’s visual flavour to a prospective player. Since then the use of demos has fluctuated, but as physical media plummeted in price – the compact disks of the PlayStation era were particularly popular – demos flourished becoming a key part of video game marketing.
The newest From Software game is just around the corner. These are five excellent games to play while waiting for Armored Core 6.
With the release date being just a little over a week away, it may not be a good idea to burn yourself out on mech games until then.
Surprised that the article didn’t mention Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries if we’re talking about mech-related games.
It was an odd article imo. Like why are games that feature a handful of mech themed levels in there. When I think of mech games I don't think Halo and Wolfenstein no matter how fun those levels were.
These are some of the best and most popular video game franchises now owned by Xbox Game Studios and Microsoft.
Microsoft was involved with Halo, Gears, Forza, Ori, Flight Simulator and Fable from early development, I will give them credit for those franchises. Fallout, Elder Scrolls and Doom were established franchise before being acquired by MS.
Exactly. They had nothing to do with their most popular franchises now.
Their old franchises are dwindling and pretty much non-existent.
They've had perfect dark in the chamber this whole time and haven't done squat...that tells you the kind of company they are. Fable is another franchise that's been destroyed and ignored...let's see how the new game turns out.
Yeah perfect dark, banjo conquer ms seems to kill more franchises then they like to admit while pretending to care about others like hexen
Given the article specifically says "now owned", what made you feel the need to do a break down?
Sit-down,
Because it's N4G and any opportunity to shit on MS is never missed.
Ah yes, feels like forever ago since Microsoft created Skyrim. So much so, I had actually forgotten they had created it and the other Elder Scrolls games! 🤔
*They really shaped my preteen years w the original Doom too!
I fully expect all these popular franchises to be killed off by Microsoft. Just a matter of time.
Unless they take a huge distance approach which pretty much means they don't ba e anything to do with the games being made ...in that case the franchises should be fine. But then...they shouldn't really get credit.
"I fully expect all these popular franchises to be killed off by Microsoft. Just a matter of time."
Based on what?? Microsoft usually gets stick for releasing too MANY games in their franchises, to the point where it's quite a long-running joke - one I'm sure you've partaken in before.
Pretty much all of their major IP has had releases in the last five years or have upcoming releases scheduled so I see no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
"Unless they take a huge distance approach which pretty much means they don't ba e anything to do with the games being made"
But.. They HAVE been very hands-off for a long time and have drawn lots of criticism for it?
I really wouldn't say that MS have let Rare franchises die. They've just had the freedom to create new IP in Sea of Thieves and Everwild. MS are currently developing a Perfect Dark game, licensed Killer Instinct out, Rare themselves released several compilations and several Banjo games as well as PDZ in the past.
I'm not sure what else you could want. They can only make one game at a time. You can't say MS let all their franchises die but also be annoyed that they allow their studios to make new IP.
If that's the case where my banjo or conquer sequel why didn't I get sunset overdrive 2 oh yeah not enough bro in those games
EA is a good example of what can happen to a franchise when a larger corporation buys up studios from a smaller corporation. Quarterly earnings should never matter more than quality.
@Crows that is the case , Zenimax is operating independently of MS and have full creative freedom to do what they want. Zenimax games aren’t being published under XGS ,
Soon Microsoft will be known for making Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Candy Crush, Call of Duty etc. Lmao they know what they're doing. Especially with the archiving issue the gaming industry has.
Microsoft built the game industry. Microsoft invented games. Didn't you know? ;)
**What a bizzaro world we live in where the losers can become the winners overnight.
@ravens52
What are those franchises you're talking about?
Activision/Blizzard only makes Call of Duty and Bethesda has Elder Scrolls and Starfield only, stop making it seen that is much more anti competitive/consumer than it actually is.......
Zero creative vision and the ability to bankroll it by purchasing everything that everyone else had success with even Halo wasn't technically theirs Bungie had to sell it to them to become independent
You mean any studio Microsoft could acquire to flog last gen games on game pass ... What happened to HD-DVD that Microsoft pushed so hard ...
Non-playable characters in certain games are meme material, thanks to their foolish behavior. These are the big-budget games with the dumbest NPCs.
Bethesda makes the most consistently stupid NPCs, like really bad... yet I still can't help but love playing their games. Guilty pleasure, I guess. *sigh* 😩
Every Bethesda game and Every Halo game. This list needed to have Cyberpunk somewhere.
Funny enough The Crew "Open Beta" begins 25th of November. Then 2 weeks later the full game gets released
i'm still disappointed that matchmaking in Halo: The Master Chief Collection wasn't fixed prior to launch. This is the biggest franchise on the Xbox One and therefore Microsoft should take their time to make sure its perfect right out of the gates. A demo or beta would have helped this process and probably made the launch issues close to nonexistent.
While I do like betas I miss my demos. I loved buying playstation mag and getting to play like 5 demos o still have the tomba demo :)
I can't wait to buy type 0 just to play ff 15. There's just something awesome about demos.
I will always miss demos. I still have demo discs for PS1 and PS2
Awesome article, man. I lived off the PS demo disk! Makes me miss those day, but I'm excited for what beta can potentially offer the masses in the long term.