Topic: The everything Xbox thread

@DarkRula @BrainOfGrimlock Count me in too, I had streaming issues in the beginning of the show but I watched a part where it looked like they were building momentum for a Kingdom Hearts The Story So Far announcement. Good to see that I am not the only one. So yeah, will keep playing the games on PS4. Anyway, the only one that I love so far is Birth by Sleep (played the three stories getting almost 100%) but I haven't played all of them yet. Kingdom Hearts I is the first game they made and it's a bit rough and Chain of Memories is getting on my nerves because of the gameplay (the story is based on past events). Next one to play is KHII. Regarding the show, it didn't disappointed me because I wasn't expecting much from a minor show.

@FragRed I also think that PS5 and the next Xbox will arrive around the same time, probably in 2020. I also agree with you that some first-party games that we know about will be featured on them or on both generations. For instance, The Last of Us II could be Sony's Breath of the Wild (dual release the same day) and Halo Infinite could be Microsoft's. Now that Microsoft has 13 first-party studios, I assume that there won't be any lack of diversity or genres in the near future and I also expect Xbox One S and X to be supported after Scarlett, even if the older consoles get downgraded versions. Microsoft is focusing on backwards/forwards compatibility and more games. Nintendo, that's a tricky one. Switch had an amazing start, like Wii U, but Switch kept selling and surpassed Wii U, which is not exactly a great achievement. Now it seems that sales have been stabilised and I think that they are making an upgraded Switch that could launch in 2019, but that revision will be powerful enough to just run current games better, so they could be in a tricky situation if the following year Scarlett and PS5 arrive. My guess is that Nintendo will keep the focus on first-party games and just upgrade hybrid Switch console as it looks like they are more successful in the handheld market and they won't make separate handheld and home consoles anymore. Or they could stop making hardware altogether and become an independent publisher and become more successful than Ubisoft, who knows.

EDIT:
@FragRed If Microsoft makes a new Banjo, I would like Rare to make it. Rare still has Banjo-Kazooie designer, Gregg, and the visuals of Sea of Thieves prove that Rare has amazing art designers, while the super smooth performance proves that they have good programmers. It's true that some (not all) of old Rare's members work at Playtonic, but some work elsewhere, so not sure that Playtonic is the best choice, especially after Yooka-Laylee but, then again, it was their first game. Ideally, I would like Rare and Playtonic both work on a new Banjo game and I would love Leigh Loveday to write the script, because he is the best. Of course, Grant Kirkhope would be delighted to be the composer, so he would do it if asked.

@FragRed I agree that Nintendo's going to have the most trouble either way because of 3rd parties abandoning them as a result of the much larger power gap. They'd need a 2017 type 1st party lineup to keep momentum going.

@BlueOcean It makes perfect sense. Microsoft and Sony will have a good idea from insider knowledge when each other are planning to release, as well as a good idea of what hardware each other will be likely using. As for cross platform games, that just makes too much sense. It worked incredibly well as gap fillers during the first half of this generation, even after some were introduced as backwards compatible. So I can only seeing them doing it again. People will always double dip and there are always those are coming of age of which they can own a console for the first time.

As for the Switch, I don't know if what they are doing in 2019 is an upgrade. I think it more likely it's going to be along the lines of how Sony and Microsoft released cheaper versions of last generation consoles. I can see it as a cost cutting measure that will also enable them to give it a price cut to customers all the while being the same system.

@Grumblevolcano I think Bethesda will continue supporting Nintendo, as long as future console hardware continues to be something they can easily adapt id Tech and whatever Bethesda uses as a game engine. Ubisoft will also support Nintendo one way or another, and that may well be doing more crossover games as that seems to be working well for them so far. The only other certainty as far as Western publishers is concerned is Warner Interactive as they will always port Lego games to Nintendo platforms.

But yes, Nintendo may well need to be looking at its first party lineup more than usual going forward when both Microsoft and Sony release their next generation consoles.

@FragRed @Grumblevolcano Nintendo seems very happy with 2DS, New 2DS, etc., in other words, cheaper versions of the original systems and Switch is a tad clunky as a handheld so I think that that is a solid option too, a cheaper, smaller Switch with a longer battery life. I know many people that are waiting for this, mostly people that are happy with their 3DS model (whatever model).

Mario + Rabbids was a huge success so I expect similar projects in the future plus Just Dance, that still spawns Wii releases . Mario + Rabbids is the only game that appears along first-party games on Switch's best-selling lists.

Bethesda has supported Switch in a way they have never done before, but I'm not sure if Doom, The Wolfenstein II, Skyrim, etc. have sold enough units on Switch. They haven't said much about this as far as I know. Warner's support is basically Lego because Batman, etc. are out of reach. Ironically, Wii U received the best console version of Arkham City. Sega and Capcom have supported Wii and Wii U but they seem quieter on Switch. But all these facts could be explained by the much larger power gap as Grumble mentioned. At the end of the day Wii U was the most powerful console for one year while Switch was released the same year as Xbox One X.

@BlueOcean We shall see what Nintendo does with the Switch. I am sure they will announce it either just before or just after E3.

With Bethesda, the games must have done well enough if they are still happy to not just port Doom Eternal but also have it outright be developed with the idea of coming to the Switch day one. Then there's the statement about how the next Wolfenstein will also be coming to the Switch. I get the feeling Skyrim did incredibly well even if numbers were never revealed. Do Bethesda ever release numbers for the game sales?

Aside from Sonic and Football Manager 2018 (did they do a 2019 for the system?) the only other series to come to mind is Valkyria Chronicles 1 & 4. Capcom started real slow but they are slowly ramping up releases, though mostly digital (at least here in Europe) and they are mainly releases of older games, but that is kinda mainly what they are doing with the other systems too.

Nintendo will never be in a position to go up against either Sony or Microsoft in terms of pure raw power, more so now they are focusing on a hybrid system. As a developer, Nintendo struggled with entering the HD scene and for this reason, I think they will want to stick with this level of power for as long as they can possibly get away with. Baring in mind, they still look at their in house games first and foremost when creating hardware. I can see Nintendo not wanting to rush into PS4/Xbox One level of power anytime soon if they can get away with it.

That will create problems as Microsoft are certainly going to be looking at Xbox One X as the base system for the next generation of consoles though some easier to down port games will still come to the Xbox One S for the first couple of years at least. There is only so long they can stick with supporting these consoles for before they need to leave them in the past. In fact, looking at my Xbox One X console, the engraving on the top of the system doesn't even use it's full name. It just says Xbox with the logo which seems to be them preparing for the future.

@Grumblevolcano no, Microsoft's ideal should be to go after ps5. Yeah ps gets that initial push, but Sony had always thrived on the opportunity to look at the competition and the market and undercut it just right. Denying them that gives ms the guarantee of having the stronger hardware, which is their schtick now, and with them already having a newer console that's stronger with x, that leaves only a short window for Sony to havea stronger machine before leapfrogging it.

Plus, there's just not as much inventive for buyers or developers to push to new hardware as last time. Rushing it isn't really beneficial to either of them.

If sony went that early, i think they'd have the new wiiu:. Hype for one season followed by being overshadowed by the new hotness. Heck, x did that to pro, but the effect was mitigated due to Sony dominating already. Overall that wouldn't be bad for ga.ers and fans. Sony was stupid taking the ms bait and playing the power arms race. Their best days were when they had weak hardware. Psx was a dog next to Saturn and n64. Ps2 was worse next to gcn, dc, and og xb..... But they're legendary. They need a good gimmick, not an empty arms race against the company behind pc gaming. They won't win that.

@BlueOcean banjo and fable are missing this gen (so far anyway.). If i look at the xb games we have Forza 6 Forza 7, fh2, 3, 4. Racing. For shooters, we have halo mcc, halo5, halo infinite, gears remaster, gears 4, gears 5, quantum (kind of experimental, mostly a shooter), recore (action adventure shooter), sunset overdrive (arcade shooter), state of decay (arcade shooter). I'm probably forgetting something. That's a lot of shooters and racers. Outside those genres we get ryse (action), super lucky, ori, ori2 (platformers), screamride (experimental/puzzle/building?), Ki (fighting), sot (weird social sandbox mmo thing). And crackdown3, an open world action game.. the list is getting better, but theres a big gap of rpg, jrpg, sim, adventure, puzzle games compared to both sony and Nintendo. I know you're technically looking at owned studio output, but whati was really referring to is for consumers looking so "what games can a play on system a that i can't play on system b". Most "if you only but one system" conversations usually end up pointing to ps because there's more games for it that you can't play on xbox than the other way around. Some people might not like their games, but for the bulk of consumers, that means a lot.

Xbox feels like a system for gamers that are already committed gamers. There's a lot of sort of "classic gameplay" and experimental gaming with ms games. Sony does a lot that can appeal to everybody, versus xbox and toa degree Nintendo that doesn't hesitate to say "git gud" while sony always offers "would you like us to tell youa story and play for you" mode. In that sense it makes sense a veteran gamer may not like the sony approach, but that it easily captures mass market. I do appreciate them preserving single player gaming at a time when even Bethesda is wandering. Ms has donea little to much multiplayer focus for my tastes, yet ms had also done more for campaign coop than even Nintendo which i appreciate.

@DarthNocturnal So I'm a little confused on crackdown 3's destruction aspect. Is that only multiplayer?

@NEStalgia @Grumblevolcano I feel Sony has to enter the power race against Microsoft if they want to stay relevant. Marketing and media have pushed the whole idea of being more powerful equals better games so much this generation that stepping away from that will be foolish going forward. Nintendo gets away with it because of the type of console they have produced in the Switch and the first party games they create don't rely on raw power the same way Sony's and Microsoft's does.

@Ryu_Niiyama From what I understood from the word go when it was revealed in 2015, total construction was only in multiplayer due to the power of the "cloud". However, I always thought they said there would still be some kind of construction in single player. The problem I have, and I say problem - it is really more of a worrying concern, is that yesterday Microsoft was all about the multiplayer aspect and only talked very briefly about single player. That is never a good sign to me.

@NEStalgia I don't think Sony would waste a 1 year lead if they had one, compare that to 2013 Wii U being pretty much a wasteland until Wind Waker HD.

@DarthNocturnal @FragRed Hmm, thanks for the replies. It sounds like they are being a bit unclear on purpose. I mean I can understand why you wouldn't want to have total destruction in the SP game as you could just take out a faction boss by blowing up their tower from 100 yds away and be done with it. (granted crackdown has always been decent at scaling so you couldn't just bulldoze your way through) Honestly I like the series for two reasons, unlimited power as the "good guys" and the plot twist in 1 and 2 were decent enough that I want to know how it is resolved. (if it is resolved...I am a little worried that SP will be an after thought. I only play fighting games online for a reason, I can't deal with crazies hiding behind an IP addy.)

Oh well we shall see. It is at a point that I'm not really excited for it, but since I bought the xbone when I did rather than waiting (you know before all the delays) because of the franchise I have to see it through.

@Ryu_Niiyama Have you used your free 14 day trial for Game Pass yet? Because if not, I recommend waiting for Crackdown 3 to launch and using the Game Pass trial to try the game. That way if you don't like the final product then you haven't wasted any money but if it is something you do actually like then you have the option of purchasing Game Pass or outright buying the game itself. That's what I am doing.

@FragRed they're the ones that helped push the piwer thing. But they already changed after x to being "all about the games" (where have i heard that before?)

They were destroying Nintendo back when Nintendo was way more powerful. The arms race is idiotic because one company will always simply win and the other loses. They need hooks beyond power, a race theyre unlikely to win now. If they bet on power alone 9th gen will suck and be lopsided dominated by Microsoft the same way 8th gen was lopsided for Sony.

@Grumblevolcano ps4 year one was worse than wiiu. Don't overestimate them when they're arrogant

Yeah I'm worried abiut crackdown single player. I don't give a hoot about online arena anything. If they blow crackdown 3 after the delays i wont have much hope for ms exclusives after that other than Forza and halo.

@NEStalgia We all know what Microsoft is using for the hooks of their next console - cloud gaming and whatever games their new studio acquisitions and one in house built studio (forget its name) have in development.

Sony has something incredibly powerful - the brand PlayStation and incredible first party studios with Naughty Dog sitting at the top and, at the moment, endless exclusive marketing deals which can do wonders in selling consoles if used right.

Sony also seems to be in a much more comfortable position of knowing it’ll get all all third party games with the exception of some indies and exclusives. Microsoft has struggled to get Japanese publishers on board because the system doesn’t sell well over there and I don’t think the typical Xbox fans care enough to buy the games when they do come to the system.

@NEStalgia I disagree, you had huge game droughts (Wii U) vs. last gen ports (PS4/XB1) of which the latter is better. That said, the only winner of 2013 was 3DS.

@Grumblevolcano

The first year(2012/2013) of the Wii U was great IMO.
It was kind of 80 physical games released in a lot of different genres.
The first year for me was :

Assassin's Creed III
Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Scribblenauts Unlimited
Darksiders II
Mass Effect 3: Special Edition
New Super Mario Bros. U
Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge
Nintendo Land
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper
ZombiU
Lego City Undercover
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Need for Speed: Most Wanted U
Injustice: Gods Among Us
Resident Evil: Revelations
Sniper Elite V2
Game & Wario
Pikmin 3
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist
New Super Luigi U
Rayman Legends
The Wonderful 101
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut
Batman: Arkham Origins
Sonic Lost World
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Pac-Man & The Ghostly Adventures
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
Super Mario 3D World

I would love to have the same kind of "droughts" with my Switch this year.

I also remember Wii U's first year like something special, much more than Switch's, while Sony later admitted that they were selling PS4s "without games" in its first year. Xbox One's troubled launch skyrocketed Sony's sales, obviously.

Last generation was almost a tie for Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3. That one was very interesting. I expect next one to be more balanced than the current one in market share terms.

@FragRed cloud isn't really a hook for the consoles, just the brand ecosystem. The xbox hook is increasingly pc like nature including every closer synergy with pc, and seemingly steam like backward compatibility. Which is a huge hook in the digital space. But it still speaks more to existing gamers than getting new blood. PSs hook has been their highly rated games, but, imo, with losing squeenix as their official unofficial water boy, they'll need to step up their game next time. They really have no hardware or ecosystem hook post Vita. They'll have to come up with something. But arrogant sony gave us ps3. Arrogant ms gave us "xbone" and arrogant Nintendo the wiiu. I never have high hopes for a defending champion.

@Grumblevolcano wiiu got a lot (a lot) more playtime than ps4 did year 1 from me. It was after year one that it became a paperweight. Ps4 stopped a paperweight year 2.5...

@NEStalgia 2013 was horrible until September for Wii U, year 2 was when the console really got exciting.

But in the end regarding year 1 Wii U, XB1 and PS4 you're just basically comparing different levels of terrible.

@Grumblevolcano why do i have this terrible feeling that, coming from you, "got exciting" means "smash was a thing"?

Wiiu year 1 was good. Year 1 ps4 was a barren wasteland. Year 1 x1.... Wait this is year 1 for all practical purposes.

I'll give you 3ds though. Gen8 was weird, bad, rushed to market for no reason but to get rid of ps3 and bring console to x86 parity for aaa publishers. 3ds was the only gen8 console for half the gen.

@NEStalgia Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8, Hyrule Warriors, Smash 4, Nintendo realizing that DLC is a good thing, etc. Wii U year 2 was so good that some games including Bayonetta 1+2 had to be put on backlog for years meaning the Switch versions took over.