Escapist Magazine: Microsoft is promising a whole new Xbox, with multiple new services and consoles in the works. But has Microsoft really learned from past mistakes? Microsoft made the second-biggest Understatement of the Year last week when Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox said, “We’ve not always lived up to our aspiration of keeping gamers at the center of everything we do when it comes to the experience they’ve had on Windows.” I think it would be more accurate to say that they’ve failed at living up to the most basic expectations of consumers, but I guess the other way sounds nicer. I’d prefer it if the company admitted to specific mistakes so we knew what faults they were supposedly trying to improve.
A new survey from Microsoft has further hinted at the possibility of an Xbox handheld being in development.
This is definitely happening, I just hope they have 2 versions one with a much bigger screen.
I'll be happy with this, and a PC console hybrid that rivals anything we have power wise
The problem with bigger devices is playing them on your side in bed, Vita and before that was fine. Since the Switch you gotta have a gooseneck holder & controllers detached so you can lie down holding them, or your arm will quickly get tired.
i have that logitech g-cloud. Its a sweet little piece of kit. I like that it can also install games from the play store unlike the other android based handheld.
It sure is! Don't understand why you get the down-votes. Whoever does not like the G Cloud must have been dropped down a well, head first, when they were of a younger age.
I wonder if Microsoft will perform better in Japan if they do actually make a handheld since everyone says handheld and mobile are king over there.
This looks like the future of the game industry... all three platforms with a handheld option.
I wonder if the Playstation Portal is a technology test-bed/prototype for a future Playstation handheld?
It’s a possibility but I can’t help but think would that be the best way to go about it? Though it would give you data on how much it is used and game type. It’s still not a true portable device and so people approach it differently. I think that data on phones, tablets, and of course the competition would give a better indication.
But I really think if Sony is considering a new PSP that could play ps5 games, now would be the time to dive in. Honestly, if they do this, it would be huge.
Doubt if Sony PS wants to support a new handheld with first party games. Something they lacked with the Vita. What they should do is have a handheld that is like the PS Portal which can play all games but play those games on the go as well as at home. Something like that is a better investment.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth publisher Square Enix has declared a $140m loss based on a shakeup of its internal development pipeline.
What are they doing over there? Sounds like they canceled something big. I read a rumor a while back about ff9 remake . Here "Final Fantasy IX has gone through a very challenging development, the game is still in progress but may undergo changes drastic enough that we won't hear about it for a couple of years."
This could be one of the reasons if the rumor is true. That was Silknight i don't know how credible he is but it's something and it would make sense.
I hope IX is still on the cards
Just a straight up remake which they expand a little bit nothing over ambitious
If IX dosent happen then VI and VIII will never be thought of.
What are they doing? Sales are falling and the costs are out of control. Big releases need to be absolute sales home runs now, and Final Fantasy sales have stagnated.
Now we know why Square didn’t fall over themselves to remake the original FF7 all these years ago. It certainly wasn’t a license to print money, at least not with what the expectations were. Each of these full on remakes drains an enormous amount of company resources for a razor thin profit margin.
I'm waiting for them to release the complete edition bundle, but it's definitely on my list.
Not rocket science. Compare sales numbers, development cycles, and budgets to the previous gens. We are all collectively burning up the industry from the inside out. Expectations are ludicrously high now for every release and sales are dropping for even the most prestigious of series.
We used to be satisfied paying $50-60 for a game that took 1/100th the budget and staff to make. Now gamers feel cheated if they have to pay the same for a game that took 100x the budget. We may be reaching the end of the line for this model of gaming.
@tiredgamer I think your point is one that ppl don’t understand and you hit it on the nose .. some gamers don’t want to take accountability but it’s some of the gamers fault the industry is where it’s at .. we as gamers set the standards for the industry not the shareholders , ppl forget that the shareholders and the industry want and need OUR Money. Both the Xbox and PlayStation are seeing a drop in hardware , the industry is very stagnant right now.
Speaking to Square:
Turns out their mismanagement wasn't related to the western studios they dumped to Embracer, but their own fault.
With regards to Xbox - a good way to kill your brand is to pull support on high quality titles and only dump B and C-tier titles to it
With regards to PC - Epic Games Story exclusivity for any duration and piss-poor optimization will hurt you.
With regards to FF Pixel Remasters - y'all messed up by barely releasing them on physical, like wtf that was free money!
And lastly, you don't help a franchise by releasing a mainline title that undermines every title that came before it. FFXVI was a DMC-like with bottom-of-the-barrel side quests and I can't imagine that helping Rebirth at all considering its marketing is directly tied to how big that game is.
Sony is getting their best titles and with the most polish, so what about it? Nintendo gets their top properties too, for titles that can run on Switch hardware.
It's the other fanbases that get the second- and third-class treatment from Square. If that's due to agreements with Sony, that's not a Sony issue but a Square one for accepting those terms. Sony is doing its best to look out for Sony.
The industry implosion is continuing. Sky high budgets, prolonged development windows, stagnant sales numbers, and falling currency values (inflation) are wreaking havoc on the legacy industry. AAA games will slowly become the rarity.
Oh I’m with you. What’s worse is they can say, “Well we tried to make this amazing game and spend all this money on, but not enough people showed an interest. So no more of these since we can’t take a hit like that.”
The industry is going to take a dramatic shift. Mark my words on this.
I think there is quite a large portion of individuals like myself who held out on buying it on PS5 because I can get it on PC eventually. To be able to mod the game and also have custom graphical settings to my liking
- Xbox Wire - Mark your calendars! The Xbox Games Showcase followed by [REDACTED] Direct airs June 9. More info inside.
And maybe Clockwork Revolution, South of Midnight, Contraband, Project 007 & OD? lol
and whatever happened to Everwild ?
+ that rumored Wu Tang RPG
Tell me what a smarter comment is.
If they don't sell game pass the entire time, then I will be wrong. All of this can be proven once the show gets underway. Let's wait and see.
Replies(1)Wow too easy.
You went from MS going all streaming to selling gamepass content in which we all know they are.
Which one is it?
Pretty clear you don't know what a smart comment is at least you admit you don't know.
"Another game pass event with their plans to go all streaming."
It's both. I would worry about your own intelligence at this point. It seems that there is not enough to go around for you to worry about how smart other people are.
It's just a regular event announcing games. Nice one captain obvious they're gonna mention gp stuff like they do every year what else is new.
The all streaming part is just you, being you I guess. They have streaming options but going all streaming again is just you pulling stuff outta thin air.
For a brief moment I thought we might get a whole Direct for Gears 6 - seems like it's COD though!
"(For nitpickers who want to claim that Microsoft doesn’t control PC gaming: I realize that people do sometimes play games on MacOS and Linux, but those platforms have such a tiny market share that they just don’t matter to big publishers when deciding where to release their games. )"
Microsoft does not control PC gaming and not because of the existence of Mac and Linux. Because Windows is an open platform and becasue of the existence of platforms such as Steam, GOG, EFS, Origin, Uplay, etc. where Microsoft receives none of the revenue and dictates nothing to those companies.
"Putting Microsoft first-party titles on Steam makes it seem like Microsoft is conceding. Is the company really going to swallow its pride and pay tribute to Valve? Is the company ready to accept that, despite its best efforts, it will never control the marketplace on PC?"
lol.....way to just contradict the hell out of your previous statement. So somehow MS controls PC gaming but doesn't control the PC gaming marketplace? Come on. If there is one company who can be described as having the most control over PC gaming it is Steam and that is because of its marketplace.
"I seriously doubt that Microsoft is changing plans due to a change of heart. My guess is that the company is changing strategies not because we didn’t like the old strategy, but because the old strategy wasn’t working. This is the equivalent of “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”"
They are adapting. MS is going to Steam for its marketplace for the same reason Sony may be going to MS for Azure. Because someone else does that job better than they do. Phil Spencer admits they have done a poor job with PC. These are good steps in the right direction.
"The company that made Games for Windows Live is once again promising to serve PC gamers. Based on their track record, I’d feel safer if they went back to ignoring us."
Games for Windows Live? Uh.....a lot has changed since then. Time to move on. Regardless, the fact remains whether MS ignores PC gaming or not, PC gamers are 100% free to ignore MS if they choose to.
Jesus how much did MS pay this site to write this sh*t?
When we play together we all win.
Xbox is going to suck next gen too. Body products instead of games. What a joke.
Microsoft doesn't make a difference when it comes to PC games, they just provide an operating system. Whether they focus on it more or not is irrelevant really, provided they don't break the OS with something stupid (likely). Steam, Origin, etc, etc are the main delivery vehicles for games. They have tried with Games for Windows and the new Windows Store, but its all crap and always will be crap.
What matters is how they focus on their Xbox system, which has been terrible in recent years, because of conflicting priorities.
For MS, as their history shows, the Xbox Console is lost in the woods most of the time. It will do ok for a while, then get kicked aside for some other higher priority project in the company that is being run/pushed by some pet President that currently has the focus of their Board and is getting all the funding. Microsft has a history of running like this, in all divisions for over 15 years now.
This is why the Playstation brand is always better. Sony isn't dealing with conflicting priorities, they need to make a console and games and this is what they do. Sony runs into trouble when they decide to be different and make things like the Cell Processor, but that isn't happening with the PS5.
We might get 2 or 3 years of focused attention out of Microsoft for making better games, but that can and will change and the quality level will drop right after. Disagree? Sure go ahead, but history proves me right.