On the plus side of going with Unreal, they can perhaps focus more of their efforts on making a good game with a good story vs. the hard work of managing your own engine.
When those dev insider leaks starting coming out about how they outsourced big swaths of the game to external contracting companies... That seems to indicate the management there didn't know what it took to make a good game. Name change is a good way to project a change, but they desperately need a change in leadership more than anything I think
Yup. They want a Ready Player One meta where they own the meta. In that world, Fortnite turns into the platform and maybe companies can sell games within that platform. Of course they would see that the future since they have Fortnite.
I think the biggest changes have been like you said companies trying to chase Fortnite and failing, and the GamePass/PS Extra effect where gamers are spending less money on new games and just waiting for them to hit the sub service.
I think it's a sign they're still considering a traditional console as a next step. Mixed signals.
You didn't have to imagine... The price of a Big Mac has increased by 20% in just 5 years.
Inflation impacts nearly everything
I'll tell you what... I'll sell you one with a disk drive attached for just $25 more.
If you don't want it to be detachable, I'll super glue it for another $5.
The way inflation has been going that's the reality whether we defend it or not.
In fairness I think we all have some confirmation bias on how we perceive things.
At a macro level none of us really know what the Xbox financials look like. There are still millions of people with Xbox consoles and new games are still coming to their platform.
So while they continue to trend on the wrong direction, the wheels haven't fallen off yet ...
An Xbox fan might say we've been predicting their demise for many years now.
"People need to stop saying it's not for everyone and options are good.
BTW, I'm getting it but it's not for everyone and options are good"
:-\
What a great game this was. Man we could use some more of these...
So the upcoming COD will have a Pro version? That's kinda big
Do you think Sony will require all new games have a Pro enhancement? I can't remember if they did that with the PS4 Pro ..
Ray tracing is pretty cool, but I think the real game changer for RTX is DLSS.
It's so good that it kinda reduces the need to get more powerful cards.
It's definitely not for everyone, as some people won't notice added graphic elements and/or frame rate differences or maybe not even care. Others will feel that it's worth it to trade up and upgrade a 4 year old console to something more state of the art, just like people do with graphic cards.
If I didn't already have a more powerful PC, I'd be trading my PS5 for this for sure.
@darth do you not believe that inflation is to blame for all of this?
The only ones angered by more choices are the ones that can't make them
@mitch, "Unfortunately the short-term money men seem to be in control rather than the more balanced, mid to long term thinker"
I would argue your suggestion is more short -term money making as it would hit a lower price point. The long term approach of packing in better hardware with the anticipation of costs going down over time.
Dead Space is a quality add. Gonna play that one
Any exec at Phil's level knows they need to paint a good financial picture to stay in their seat. I think when GamePass leveled off in revenue growth is when he started shifting strategies. I wouldn't think Satya would have a lot of passion around Xbox direction, other than insisting it make a reasonable profit.
@einhander, I don't mean to imply engine developers would be writing the story lol. Focus in terms of money, team makeup, and complexity. A lot can be gained by making the problem set smaller.