Xbox needs Narrative driven exclusive games

Mister Wolf said:
The world and story of Halo is larger than any of the games you listed.
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Yeah but if someone was in the mood for a great sundae, and you gave them a massive sundae made out of scoops of poop and they responded, but I wanted a good sundae, your response wouldn't be ...

"But this is the largest sundae you've ever seen."

To wit, Halo has always had very bad character development and plots. Pretty much nonexistent. But that's ok because the game is about the pure fun of the game mechanics. Plus if you require someone to go read books to get all that "expansive (evil?) lore" I would highly recommend said person using that time to read something actually worthwhile.

Also I don't agree with the premise of this thread. MS should be aiming for good games of any kind. Whatever is in the creators hearts to really make. That's when quality will shine through, people working on projects they care deeply about.

Just bring on fun games Microsoft!:messenger_beaming:
 
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Imo ms needs varied AAA ips in general. Right now they are looked at as a halo/ gears/forza company and there is nothing wrong with those AAA ips they are solid.


As a gamer in general I look at Ms's exclusives and it isn't great.

I hope all these studio accusation truly bare good fruit and not made into a bunch of mid tier studios to produce for gamepass fodder to keep a steady stream on that service.
 
A few thoughts:

Holding up a single title (Halo) as a counter to the shopping list of narrative based titles on PlayStation is in itself an unbalanced comparison to draw~ it's also a bit awkward because as popular as halo has been for multiple xBox generations, it's rarely held up by third parties (as far as i can remember, which could be flawed) as a leader amongst the pantheon of great videogame storylines, across platforms~

The OP is right, xBox could use more iconic franchises.

But, you know, i don't think we need to have an unwritten rule that says serious consoles need the same game library touchstones as PlayStation. Nintendo has a different model, whereby the franchise and its touchstone features are the selling point, rather than the individual games' characteristics~ xBox could well just be a console for carting around, chucking on TVs and playing multiplayer with friends on.

Or some other non-PS inspired approach.

There's no rule that says the narrative-centric PlayStation is the only format that works for top of the range hardware oriented consoles.

That said, as an individual buyer, I'm more interested in the depth and ambition of PS titles.

What's the point in xBox having such brain bending power if all they're gonna put through it is CoD and Fifa and whathaveyou? CoD is hella optimised for smooth online play, it is never going to be a resource hog. They need some big sexy exclusive title that makes the unreal demo look like it was built for an inferior console.

I can imagine an article 10 years from now, looking back on another underwhelming xBox generation, saying: "while xBox delivered the most powerful conole ever, they never really produced many games that took enough advantage of that power to convince neutrals to buy their console over the more popular PlayStation brand"

Surely game developers won't design something that requires more than the PS5 to run? They would alienate well over half of their audience~ not only might the PS5 simply work better than the series x (uncertain), it would also force non-exclusive titles to make sure they run on the more popular console, first - making, on some level, even non-exclusive titles PS-centric~

The above is heavy on speculation, and I'm not prepared to fight to the death to defend any inaccuracies or big jumps of assumption i may have included. Might be happy to exchange a few civil words~
 
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I've felt for years now M$'s biggest genre void has been 3rd person, melee focused action games. Something akin to a God of War type game.
 
KaKaRi said:
First of all, i am currently invested in the PlayStation platform, but at the same time rooting for Xbox to step up with Next Gen (competition will benefit all of us).
I like Phil Spencer direction and their approach on making Xbox a platform that is accessible for everyone no matter where you are playing (current gen, next gen, pc, game pass, xcloud etc.)

So to my point...
I believe Xbox is very strong on the shooter side, but lacks narrative driven games in the likes of Horizon, God of war, uncharted, Last of Us etc.
My hope is they will surprise us with these types of first party IPs and tease them sooner than later to get us hyped up for the future.

Bonus: while you are at it, buy WB games unit and get some (timed) exclusives out of that
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Hellblade and Project Mara might be up to the task. We'll see.
 
Nah... MS delivered some good Sony style games other than halo, gears and fable:

Alan Wake
Quantum Break
State of decay
Sunset overdrive
Ryse

Not as many as Sony but the games are there. And we all know that all of the games above would get a 10 to 15 bump on metacritic just by being part of Sony's portfolio.
Before speculating what MS should be doing it's necessary to acknowledge the elephant in the room first:

MS WILL NEVER BE A GAMING PRESS DARLING NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO!

Most journalists are folks in their 30s 40s that grew up with Sony electronics, so they have a positive image of the brand : Japanese quality, wise, honourable... while MS is this evil AMERICAN monopolistic company that sells the boring office suite you must use on your job.

Besides let's face it:

If you are European: you basically jerk off to Yoshidas or Kutaragis pics. All the advertising money Sony poured in champions league matches since the first PlayStation have worked wonders.

If you are Latin American/Middle East/African Sony brought you dirt cheap games due to piracy in the ps1 and ps2 days. Bold strategy but it payed off on the long run as folks are hooked to the brand even if that would mean buying a game a year.

If you are Asian and more specifically Japanese, you are going to buy the PlayStation out of sheer nationalism and because it suits your tastes better.

Summing up: MS should do their thing and never cater to the press or gaming "experts" they are going to twist the narrative one way or another to dislike MS games.
 
treemk said:
Mismanaged IP that lost it's magic after Bungie. The 360 did not need 4 big Halo games, they milked it dry like most of their good IPs for short term profit.
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Halo still good and still profitable. If players jumped ship so be it. As the saying goes "one monkey doesnt stop a show"
 
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Mister Wolf said:
Halo still good and still profitable. If players jumped ship so be it. "As the saying goes "one monkey doesnt stop a show"
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You know now that I look at it, I didn't realize Halo 5 sold as well as it did. Maybe it's already turned around I still have the Halo 4 taste in my mouth.
 
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D3SCHA1N said:
I've felt for years now M$'s biggest genre void has been 3rd person, melee focused action games. Something akin to a God of War type game.
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RUJG5kI.jpg
 
treemk said:
Mismanaged IP that lost it's magic after Bungie. The 360 did not need 4 big Halo games, they milked it dry like most of their good IPs for short term profit.
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Weren't there close to as many Uncharteds and God of Wars in that gen (if we count remasters and the PSP games?)
 
Kagey K said:
Weren't there close to as many Uncharteds and God of Wars in that gen (if we count remasters and the PSP games?)
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Well there was more Halo games too, I just counted 3, ODST, Reach and 4. I know there was at least a Halo arcade game and the RTS games, maybe more that I am forgetting.
 
treemk said:
Well there was more Halo games too, I just counted 3, ODST, Reach and 4. I know there was at least a Halo arcade game and the RTS games, maybe more that I am forgetting.
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Even if you count them all they come out close. The main difference being that Uncharted started on the PS3 while God of War and Halo had 2 games on the gen earlier.
 
Yeah this topic gets brought up alot.

But on the converse, Sony could really use some exclusives that have quality online experiences/components.

I know that often doesnt get discussed because if you want that you "get COD"
But same can be said about story games.

At the end of the day....Microsoft = bad.
 
Personally I'm not expecting for Microsoft to start delivering games based on a similiar template to what PlayStation is currently doing. That doesn't mean however they shouldn't try making high budget singleplayer games. I'm not that interested in a console that has its exclusives focused on the online / social aspects. Give me more games like Hellblade 2 and I'll consider buying XSEX down the road.
 
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I agree. But let's have something different from the usual cinematic qte button mashers.
 
ManaByte said:
....
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haha, some other bozo blocked me because I did that, so now I'm dug in, I can't not do it. Point remains though, xbox needs a really good, high quality melee centric action adventure game. Ninja Gaiden on the og xbox was awesome, they all went downhill after that, but... yeah. My wish would be that something like this is what the Initiative were working on, but more and more that seems to be perfect dark or some shit.
 
93xfan said:
Couldn't you also say Sony needs more exclusive multiplayer games and shooters like Xbox with their half a dozen Halo games and Gears games?

Sony also needs more tactical games like Gears Tactics and Halo Wars.

Both have their strengths. Anyway, I'd far prefer a fun game like Ratchet than another narrative single player game anyway.
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I think anyone would welcome a greater diversity of game choices but strategy/tactical games don't quite have the same market on console. Also they're still making factions for TLOU II, people keep ignoring that and that it had a pretty dedicated community in the first. You mentioned Ratchet at the end, what is the XBOX equivalent to Ratchet? What's their Quantic Dream? Their Death Stranding? (Please don't bring up that these have gone to PC because that ruins any argument in favor of XBOX "exclusives" right out of the gate and nullifies the argument)
 
D3SCHA1N said:
I've felt for years now M$'s biggest genre void has been 3rd person, melee focused action games. Something akin to a God of War type game.
Click to expand...

Now would be a good time for XGS to reboot the Otogi and Ninja Blade IPs.
Either build or buy a Japanese developer and get these games released.
 
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