mejin
Member
Their only directive is to not launch their games on PlayStation which is enough. Their sole reason to be acquired is just that.
Microsoft's currrent Full First-Party Organisation is mind boggling
Their only directive is to not launch their games on PlayStation which is enough. Their sole reason to be acquired is just that.
Famipan
Member
The problem with MS is that they get exclusivity on good indie games that would do much better on Sony's consoles.
Hi-Fi Rush is the most apparent example, and I bet the developers are frustrated over how most Japanese players never will play nor hear about it.
Sony had time limited exclusivity on Stray and Kena but it's now available on Xbox.
It's good Tunic finally came to PS5 but the hype died since almost everyone except me had played it cheap on GP.
But MS has a few other still exclusive indie games that would do so much better on PS5/PS4 —reaching a larger audience and spreading new creative ideas better!
Hi-Fi Rush is the most apparent example, and I bet the developers are frustrated over how most Japanese players never will play nor hear about it.
Sony had time limited exclusivity on Stray and Kena but it's now available on Xbox.
It's good Tunic finally came to PS5 but the hype died since almost everyone except me had played it cheap on GP.
But MS has a few other still exclusive indie games that would do so much better on PS5/PS4 —reaching a larger audience and spreading new creative ideas better!
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Thirty7ven
Banned
So you spent over 100 hours on one of the most cinematic RPGs ever made. Congrats, you just unlocked Tone Deaf.
Point fingers all you want but all I'm reading is a PC player who has a bone to pick with PlayStation because reasons.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
And denial is not just a river in Egypt.
But I digress, your personal level of acceptance is irrelevant to the matter.
Xbox Game Studios - Wikipedia
NickFire
Member
Of course they are first party now. But gloating over it makes me think you cheered when Francis stole Pee Wee's bike.And denial is not just a river in Egypt.
But I digress, your personal level of acceptance is irrelevant to the matter.
Xbox Game Studios - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Edit: you posted 13 minutes of Christian being a positive role model though. So you are kind of ok I suppose.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
No gloating, just replying to a user who straight up says "they're not first party regardless of what people claim".
NickFire
Member
Christian would be so disappointed in you if you aren't gloating. He did cheer when Francis stole the bike for sure.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Buggy Loop
Gold Member
Oh, you think that the Sony cinematic experience critique means that any games with cutscenes fits that description?
One is trying to be a movie and so much mainstream/critique friendly that it takes its almost insulting to intelligence. The Zelda Skyward Sword level of hand holding + the Medal of Honor nearly on rail action. BG3 replacing cRPG text dialogues with a close cut to characters is not "cinematic" as in trying to be a movie, when the rest of the game respects intelligence. Narrative driven is not the same as cinematic.
Or that enjoying Doom Eternal is "congrats! You just enjoyed the most cinematic Doom ever made! LOLOLOL"
The Sony recipe is the equivalent to a ghost train ride. Its a spectacle. Little to nothing remarkable in the story. The Marvel movie equivalent to videogames. Shallow quick mindless consumable entertainment that don't want to tax the brain too much.
They exist and I own most of those "cinematic" experiences, I'm not saying they shouldn't exist or that they are shit, they are not, I just don't think its any metric to aim for because they are super popular. That's what I find puzzling with this forum's boner on them.
I much preferred the Sony PSX/PS2 output days. Ico & Shadow of the colossus are like in my top 10 GOAT. Parappa the Rapper, Twisted Metal, Wipeout, Wild Arms, Jak & Daxter, Ape Escape.
The resulting massive success of the western "cinematic" games resulted in Sony shutting down Japan studio, mind blowing. That's very fucking sad.
Thus i hope Microsoft is not chasing this for all their devs. I hope they let inXile be inXile, and so on for the devs, rather than benchmark them against the likes of CoD and that they're in danger of being closed. You might be just looking at numbers as success, I'm more interested in getting a good varied palette of games. I don't want all music to sound like Taylor Swift.
Yeah, I just like wasting my cash on them.
Can I enjoy some of it without thinking its the best fucking thing? There's no possible critique to be had about them? Is such a thing possible? Did they set the PC world on fire? No? Well I must not be alone then.
I would LOVE to get Gravity Rush, The Last Guardian & Bloodborne on PC. Less of the big blockbusters.. I don't think its even in the cards for Sony, its as if those games are GONE.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
They do have a role in ABK selling to Microsoft though
...Yeah they were; their previous owners were becoming less interested in funding their projects, in fact I'm willing to bet that's why Sony offered to help with funding and marketing on Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo. Things Microsoft could've also done, if they were actually in-tune with the 3P gaming market ahead of the new console launches.
No, it's not the only reason. But it's a big reason why they did. And, not "investing", BTW; they just outright purchased them. Microsoft purchased Zenimax and ABK because they were struggling financially and/or in terms of market optics (the sexual harassment scandals with ABK rocked them in terms of ESG scores making them very unattractive for investors).
Microsoft saw opportunities to buy these companies on the cheap, and they did. Buy as low as possible, to maximize profits and revenue in the longer-term. I think the only big question here is if Microsoft also manipulated public perception of ABK with plants (i.e Mike Ybarra) in order to drive down the stock price and put the BoD in a place where selling seemed like the best option.
And while that may sound farfetched to ask, keep in mind Microsoft did something VERY much like that with Nokia.
If the market wasn't turning towards mass consolidation? Yes, I'd have concerns if Sony were making these aggressive buys especially if Microsoft were not. But that's not the market we're in anymore.
And while I would still have some concerns with Sony buying publishers, they were NOWHERE to the level with Microsoft. Why? Because unlike Microsoft, Sony have shown they can grow and nurture acquired talent, and improve them so they can produce bigger & better games vs. when they were independent. And in virtually all of their cases gaming-wise outside of Bungie and Psygnosis (who were acquired when PlayStation was just starting as a platform, so completely different circumstances vs. today), Sony's gaming acquisitions have NEVER focused on removing once-3P games from other platforms, or devs who were strongly tied to other platforms.
Insomniac have more or less worked exclusively with Sony for 24 years before they were acquired. Just because they made one game for Microsoft (which was not commercially successful), doesn't mean they were a multiplat developer on the regular. Console-wise, Naughty Dog only made a (failed) game on 3DO before working exclusively with Sony for several years, before Sony then acquired them. Microcomputers didn't "lose" any Naughty Dog IPs when Sony acquired them, because ND had already been moved on from those IP even by the time they made stuff for the 3DO, let alone the PS1.
Sony have shown they are much better at studio management than Microsoft; for that reason alone I obviously have more faith in them making acquisitions than MS and it'd seem a majority of people feel similar for that same reason among others.
With ABK, they are within spitting distance of SIE's annual gaming revenue; statistically a tie when accounting for margin of error. In fact they would theoretically be ahead if Zenimax were pulling their weight, but somehow Xbox annual fiscal revenue saw slowed growth post-Zenimax than what many (including I'm sure, market analysts) forecasted.
Which for me brings into question if MS's acquisitions are hurting the market in terms of overall market revenue stability and growth long-term, but we can talk about that some other time. Also you dudes are obsessed with monopolies as if all are inherently bad; majority market share earned by customers choosing one product over another due to said product excelling in a fair competitive market is a reward for competing well, that regulators generally don't have an issue with. It's why there weren't investigations into Sony for PS dominance over multiple generations, or why there aren't any for Valve with Steam on the PC side of things.
Microsoft have a history of using anticompetitive practices and habits in order to push their way to majority market share in multiple industries, with Windows being the most obvious example. Their Windows monopoly is what helped fund their pushes into gaming, cloud, office software etc. too, so those could be considered products of an anticompetitive monopoly if someone wanted to argue such.
Literally just explained it above. Have fun reading
Lol what "empirical facts"? The ones I just provided a rebuttal towards? I've given evidence to the reason I feel the way I do on Microsoft's acquisition strategy; in addition to the above, there's also the fact they have had very little time to integrate or fix up corporate culture and production pipeline bottlenecks with Zenimax. Yet, now they want to add another 20,000 employees across ABK to deal with too?
Microsoft's upper management at the gaming side simply is ill-equipped to handle all of this, and get things between the XGS studios, Zenimax, and now ABK running at maximal, optimum levels. They have a history of mismanagement with their studios, and struggles to help them grow after inorganic acquisitions (let alone organic ground-up efforts i.e The Initiative). Microsoft can barely walk, but they're trying to run a marathon, and they will kill themselves of exhaustion sooner or later if they don't make some real changes at the root.
Those are the kind of changes that take time and, I will keep saying, need top people at the gaming division to step aside. Ego won't let them, though.
People will associate CoD with MS when they boot up MW3 and see the Xbox Games Studios splash screen
That already exists with Minecraft and yet look at the non-association Microsoft gets through that.
Their corporate brand is just not seen as cool or stylish; people don't think of fun and entertainment when they think of Microsoft. They think of business software. Microsoft have spent so much time and money trying to combat that image through manufactured coolness but at the end of the day, they're kind of the modern-day version of IBM.
Forza has "gimped gameplay loop for GaaS monetization"thicc_girls_are_teh_best ? What does that even mean? You do realize that between Forza and GT, that GT is the one that will sell you credits for real money? Please explain what kind of "GaaS monetization" you're upset about here.
You're right; I meant to say "progression". While you don't have to pay real money for credits in GT7, I'll admit some of the car costs are a bit insane. But at least you don't have to waste your time grinding for that car or, more importantly, to upgrade that specific car, the way Forza's car EXP progression system is set up.
Again, I meant to say more "progression" than monetization, but the way Forza's car EXP system is designed, is just needlessly grindy. Time is even more valuable than money, IMO, or at least it can be. The car EXP stuff is extremely rigid and done that way by design, and I feel that's a consequence of the Game Pass model where player retention is necessary to boost reported metrics.
I know your car can upgrade in EXP within even just a single lap, but the rigidity of the upgrade system is still ridiculous. EXP isn't shared across a car class or manufacturer class, just that particular vehicle.
Even on paper, that sounds like a needless, pointless, arbitrary limitation just to pad player time. It'd be like playing an RPG where your character gets EXP through not only what items they have equipped but how often they had every individual item equipped and used during battle and exploration...
...and then locking the EXP to the items instead of the character.
Bumblebeetuna
Banned
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
so just to be clear, you're complaining about the FM progression system, where XP is tied to each individual car because you claim it is "too grindy" and "GaaS progression". But you're fine with GT7, where you have to grind not only to buy the cars, which you admit some are super expensive, but you also have to grind to get credits to upgrade those cars, lots of which can run you over a million credits. But that's ok, because you can just buy some credit packs with real money, right? Nothing free to play or "GaaS progression" about that at all. I'm not defending the FM progression system, I think it has its flaws and it has good things going for it. But your critique is nonsense and made funnier by the fact that you don't mind any of this in GT7, you don't even mind credit packs being sold like GT7 is an EA game or something
Also, when you're trying to doodoo on FM because you have to grind for car levels to unlock upgrades, please remember that in other racing games, you have to grind for money for upgrades. These racing games are all full of grinding. In a majority of racers, you grind for money to spend on upgrades. In FM, you grind for car XP to spend on upgrades. You don't spend money on upgrades in FM. You don't seem aware of that.
Your idea that this "GaaS progression" is a direct result of GamePass is just another in a long line of GamePass FUD coming from you and it makes as much sense as when people claimed MS would churn out endless amounts of short shitty filler titles just to have games on the service. You aren't going to purposely put things you think are bad into your game to retain players because then those players won't come back.
I guess T10 just needs to sell car XP packs and they're all good in your book.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
The difference is in GT7, your credits are universal to any cars and upgrades you as a player want to buy, as long as you have enough to buy them. With Forza, your car EXP is locked to that specific vehicle. It isn't transferrable to other vehicles, even of the same type or manufacturer.
That part right there makes zero sense, and seems like it's present simply to artificially extend play time and engagement. Also, only a very small number of cars in GT7 are priced massively high, it's reserved for the rarest of vehicles usually. They wanted to create a rarity system simulating the real world and while its flawed, again it only affects a very small number of the cars.
But FWIW the issues were a lot more at launch and Polyphony patched them with updates; the same opportunity exists for Turn 10 with their game's particular issues, if they wish to do so.
I'm not defending the FM progression system, I think it has its flaws and it has good things going for it. But your critique is nonsense and made funnier by the fact that you don't mind any of this in GT7, you don't even mind credit packs being sold like GT7 is an EA game or something
No I just mentioned that at launch it was kind of ridiculous for GT7. In fact, I'm sure I have posts here mentioning how bad some of the monetization was. But the problem you're referring to now only pertains to a very small number of the cars, and it's based on a rarity system.
Could it use improvements? Sure. But it's not a problem with every single vehicle in the game, like the EXP system in the new Forza is.
Yes but the money grinding in other racing games simulates something closer to the real world, and that also means the money is universal. That system is less rigid, more flexible, so you can do with that money more or less whatever you want. Just make sure you have the right type of car in your garage for certain racing events.
Even with those very small number of cars in GT7 that cost like 2.5 million credits or whatever, you technically don't have to spend any real-world money on them. You can just grind for the cash; maybe the grind is a bit much for some, maybe it isn't for others. But, the option is still there.
You're right that Forza doesn't monetize getting the cars or getting upgrades for them, but the EXP is locked to each specific car model. That makes the EXP a lot less flexible and so you have to do a lot of grinding to upgrade things for each car.
You gonna pretend the Game Pass model isn't a factor in the new EXP system? Playground Games have said that Game Pass influenced FH5 because they wanted to make "snackables"; there's no way Turn 10 weren't influenced by Game Pass in some fashion for certain gameplay changes to the new Forza. There are features missing from Forza at launch that were present with other games, similar to what happened to Halo Infinite.
If RedFall didn't have a subscription service to fall back on, there is 0% chance Microsoft would have released it the way they did for people to spend money on, full-price, to access that game. But Game Pass probably makes them think they have breathing room and can just fix everything that's missing, with patches and updates months later.
What's wrong with options? If they're not gonna fix the EXP system, at least give the option to skip the grinding.
Bumblebeetuna
Banned
Yes yes, games released without certain things and then those things being patched in later are 100% exclusive to GamePass. Did the world even know what an update was before GamePass? Damn, we can keep adding to your pile of negative things GamePass created
Grinding is grinding, no matter what excuses you want to try and make for why it's suddenly a terrible thing in Forza. But the fact that you're fine with MTX for in game credits just because GT has them and Forza doesn't, just wow, chefs kiss. No point in debating any further with that level of nonsense.
Grinding is grinding, no matter what excuses you want to try and make for why it's suddenly a terrible thing in Forza. But the fact that you're fine with MTX for in game credits just because GT has them and Forza doesn't, just wow, chefs kiss. No point in debating any further with that level of nonsense.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Yes yes, games released without certain things and then those things being patched in later are 100% exclusive to GamePass. Did the world even know what an update was before GamePass? Damn, we can keep adding to your pile of negative things GamePass created
Patches are patches, sure. But this year in particular, a few of Microsoft's biggest releases have had things missing or quirks WRT bugs that, if Game Pass weren't so prominent in the distribution pipeline, would have likely not gone missing or been more polished upon release. Offering the games in a subscription service reduces the need for those games to succeed in B2P sales revenue, so standards may drop for Day 1 stability and features.
Problems with missing content or bugs, aren't exclusive to Game Pass. But Game Pass as a business model, emboldens developers and publishers to let those problems occur more frequently because getting "all these games Day 1 for super cheap!" can be used as a mask of justification. Just patch in everything later.
Like I said, if Forza isn't going to change the way the car EXP system is handled, the least they can do is let you buy EXP. Not everyone's got hours and hours of time to just grind. Forza's way of grinding is rigid and inflexible; the way in which it enforces grinding is the problem, not the presence of grinding in and of itself.
But now this is turning into another Forza thread, so I'll just stop here about that specific game.
yurinka
Member
Record sales in hardware, accesories, games and game subs, record engagement and social media metrics, upcoming announced games like Helldivers 2, Rise of the Ronin, Wolverine, Death Stranding II, Marathon... sure, the destruction of PlayStation is here thanks to Jim Ryan, Sony is doomed! xDDD
He bought a lot of studios, and in the future who knows, but right now isn't industry-leading.
In fact doesn't even lead any gaming category/submarket either after having spen almost $100B on acqusitions. MS bought a lot of names, now have to turn them into results.
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