You've seen it, thought about it, pondered it in your mind. You see a game you might like to get and you flip it over to see if more than one person can play it at a time.
Sometimes this is the deciding factor for purchasing a game. Maybe you want to play it with your son, daughter, sibling, significant other, mom, or granddad. So you stand there at your favorite retailer and the game clearly states: 2 players.
Yep, you decide to grab the game, pony up your hard earned dough and head home for some local multiplayer mayhem. Only... it doesn't really turn out that way. You get the game in your favorite console, turn on the controller, and click start.
Only, now the game starts and there are no options for a 2 player game. What gives? Where is the other player?
Sometimes you have just been duped like in BattleField Bad Company 2. You get the "Ultimate Edition" that boasts the "Onslaught Mode" which has an "action packed co-op mode."
I was told that "Co-op" didn't mean local two player, but rather that you could play together with someone else online. REALLY!?!! It already states on the back "Network Players 2-24."
What a rip!
Saddened, you return to your favorite retailer and your 5 year old grabs a Wii game that has (comparatively for Wii games) gotten a good rating. You flip it over and lo! The number 2 is on the back. In fact, one of the screen shots shows 2 players and states play with a friend in 21 dedicated levels. Does this mean you are playing with your son? Nope. The two player mode is in "Eggman's Sonic Simulator." Is it truly 2 player (ala Super Mario Bros.)? Nope. If one of you falls behind, then that player is "dragged forward until stopped by a wall." Whatever that means.
These two are hardly the only culprits. There is not enough time in the day, or enough TB on this server to dedicate to all the games that purposefully advertise 2 or more players only to have the game be single player.
It is very simple, publishers. If a game is a single player game, don't try to gimmick it up to make it look like or seem like more than one player on a console can play it at a time. It is lying and doesn't encourage brand loyalty.
If you make a quality 1 player game and it wouldn't take too much to make it split screen go ahead... I am looking at you NFS: Hot Pursuit. Hell, if Toy Story 3 can do it, so can you.
But this is a serious plea for those of us who don't have limitless budgets: Please, just put the number of players on the back. Just the number that will play the main game.
For instance: Sonic Colors should say 1 Player.
BFBC2 Onslaught mode should clearly state "Co-op Online Only." Which is what it had anyway.
Shaz from Pixel Swish: "The ROG Xbox Ally is another step towards Team Xbox’s 'Play Anywhere' strategy, and perfectly embodies the company’s future and how we’re all going to be playing an 'Xbox' in the future."
The funny thing about Xbox going more PC-like is that I’ve been saying this for over a decade and finally seeing it come to fruition. People use to hate the idea, but now are embracing it, and all I want is to be put on the payroll lol.
On a serious note, I think this is the best route going forward for MS. They don’t have to get out of the hardware game altogether. They can make their home console $300 entry & $600 premium home consoles and from there partner with other hardware makers for anything beyond that. Focus on being a publisher and creating a strong OS / Cloud option for other devices like desktop, handheld PCs, streaming devices, etc…
I honestly think they should also look into NVIDIA as well, with NVIDIA starting to make their own CPUs. Their CPU is already on par with AMDs best laptop CPUs of the previous/current generation which is more than enough, and a RTX 5000 / 6000 laptop GPU hybrid (DLSS 4 / DLSS5) could do wonders for them, and bring some much needed diversity back to console hardware.
https://n4g.com/user/blogpo...
I don't know why you'd expect them to still develop new consoles at this point. Ditching all exclusives and putting the Xbox logo on a ROG Windows device is a pretty clear message.
This isn't a good thing for Xbox. It's a long winded goodbye.
For the same reason they still have a laptop hardware lineup even though they have Windows.
Having some kind of retail presence for visibility and marketing won’t really affect them in any way.
I still expect them to have 1 or 2 SKUs that they won’t sell at a loss but will continue the trend of selling way less than the competition (though its still selling millions), just like they have their Surface laptops even though they could happily coast knowing practically every third party out there (or the end consumer) will pay them for the Windows license
You realise thos indicates that their next xbox will be an xbox branded pc right? And will cost pc prices as a result. So look forwards to a 600 dollar and 1000 dollar version with vast performance differences, with the upper range having similar performance to the ps6 that will be like half its price. The 800 dollar rog ally x makes this abundantly clear.
I saw this years ago. I don't see how it took this long for people actually close to the industry.
I said this years ago, mind you I know nothing about computers, but I always thought Xbox would go more PC-like.
As I said, and always said, I know squat about PCs, so I thought Xbox would become modular. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I thought they would build a basic frame/shell and gamers would be able to configure their Xbox how they wish, similar to PC and buy motherboards, sound cards and graphic cards. I don’t know if that’s practical or even possible though.
This was when they first entered the gaming space.
I think consoles are so cheap and punch above their weight is because everything is so tightly designed around each component. Opening up to multiple permutations with modules would probably make it more expensive to build, develop for, and manage. It's not impossible, but probably gets in that gray area where it's not much different than a garden variety PC.
Well to clear up my thought process on the matter, I figured they would every so often within a gen like a pro model system, give gamers the proprietary parts.
Let’s say the original Xbox they built it modular in mind, so certain parts they would manufacture newer slightly more powerful components. That way you can either stay with the original configuration, or swap out the parts you choose, building your own pro. Then when the next gen comes around a new even more powerful components that would put the system in the Xbox360 range. Then another half step to tweak your system to a pro of that gen.
I guess similar to how I see people here talking about new 4080 cards, I’m just making up an example, and every so often people mention nother with a number larger than the last indicating it’s more powerful.
I understand what you’re saying about how it’s much easier to just have a closed system, and much cheaper. It was just something I thought might happen when Microsoft introduced the first Xbox.
"First-person roguelikes like Gunfire Reborn and Roboquest can be quite fun when done well. Another such game is MythForce, which comes from Beamdog, the developer that brought Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 to modern platforms (while mostly ditching the co-op). MythForce features cartoon-like visuals and a fantasy theme, making it quite different from most of its peers. It will soon reach its "final form" via the upcoming Version 1.2 update," says Co-Optimus.
Today, SCS Software officially announced Project Coaches, the next evolution for Euro Truck Simulator 2, adding buses to the game.
I don't really see what you mean. From my experience anyway with Playstation games, it always states on the first image (near the bottom-left of the box) how many players can play it on one system (i.e. "1-2 Players"), and then if the game has some sort of network features / compatibility, it will state in the image with the network-player image (and in a different colour to the other images that are all related to playing the game on the one console) how many players can play together online (i.e. "Network Players 2-18").
If it's different for other consoles then fair enough but I know it's stated on PS3 game-boxes how many players can play together both at home on one console and online.
Edit: I just checked a few of my X360 games and they're the same. It has one line of info about how many players can play together on one system (in green) and on the line below it it has online information (in orange).
For the Wii, Super Mario Galaxy says it's two players.. but then you come to find its just a pointer to pick stuff up instead of running over there. I agree with this blog.
http://multiplayerblog.mtv....