Topic: The everything Xbox thread

@ThanosReXXX: Rewinder! That's the word. It was automatic, but it often got stuck.

I'm not particularly into cars, but I can appreciate a special edition that thinks outside the box.

@Yosheel Aha, so did more damage than good then...
And yeah, I also like weird designs. Not that I'd buy them, mostly because they're usually ridiculously expensive, but I can appreciate and/or admire them nonetheless.

@BlueOcean ffxiii has never been on the ms store. Similar to dx: human revolution directors edition. Dxhr normal edition can be bought digitally. Directors remains physical only. Just another confounding squre enix decision. Not even for 360.

They may add it but given Deus ex directors is bc supported but not available digitally i doubt it will be added. (The sequels are available however and have always been for 360)

@NEStalgia Depends if they wanna program a download to work with a multi-disc game, so it continues instead of requests you "put disc 2/3 into the drive". Its why some multi-disc games have no download version.

Some companies do produce a new download version however, just a matter of if Square think FFXIII is worth doing or not.

@NEStalgia But you are answering your questions, there were two editions of that game and they just decided to release one digitally, FFXIII only had one edition. Where's the business for Square Enix if they can't sell the game (their game) again? Why would they announce it like this if you couldn't buy the game? It doesn't make any sense, they don't manufacture 360 games these days. If they made XV X-enhanced and are going to release all the 3D games (except VIII) they will also make a digital version of XIII for Xbox One, don't you think?

EDIT:
I just remembered that backwards compatibility doesn't use the discs at all, just as a licence key, so a digital version of Final Fantasy XIII must be programmed anyway for Xbox One S and X. Actually, two digital versions, one for Xbox One S and another for Xbox One X, because it is X-enhanced.

"Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2, and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII will all be playable on Xbox One, with Xbox One X enhancements, beginning next Tuesday, November 13".
(Ign)

I had missed that part so I'm even more excited now.

I enjoyed the show for the most part, although admittedly skipped a lot of the ‘people talking’ parts.

I thought for a minute they were going to announce the KH remixes were coming to xbox which would have been nice but alas no, i’ll just have to dig out the ps4 as it’s getting closer now that launch date!

Hard to throw anything negative at games pass when it offers that level of value but i did admire how they tries to keep sounding so enthusiastic as the later reveals became increasingly obscure (the xcom-a-like was interesting though!); I personally still haven’t used it as there’s few games at present I don’t own/desire to play but with FH4/Crackdown it’s edging closer to the time i’ll take the plunge.

On the subject of Crackdown, i’d consider myself one of the biggest fans but it’s still not grabbing me like I hoped it would? Not sure i like the dark aesthetic? Time will tell i guess and it’s quite low risk if on game pass anyway!

What did people think of Void:B*******? Looked Borderlands meets FTL meets... other things?

Interested to see how Obsidian go, they’ve always made games that have some great ideas/concepts but maybe never quite get the recognition (perhaps Pillars aside) because they lack a bit of polish or they’ve been rushed to the point they couldn’t finish properly (kotor 2, alpha protocol, new vegas etc).

Biggest surprise for me personally was my reaction to Just Cause 4. Think i’ve played a total of 2 hours across the entire series till now, but it just kinda looked like they’ve nailed the non-superpowered-superhero loop now & it definitely has my interest whereas before this there wasn’t even a twinge. Am aware it’ll probably sell badly & be on sale in a couple of months too, seems to be how the earlier titles have gone (although they obviously haven’t sold that badly else we wouldn’t be at a 4th iteration!).

Still haphazard with timing so sorry if im slow to reply/catch-up! I am still reading what you’re all posting though so go nuts!!

@ThanosReXXX Yes, the HDD spun up while watching mixer.........................

@Ryu_Niiyama I've been through that same sony/MS exclusive debate with Blue before....he's in our camp of hating the DS4....so much so I think it blinds him to the games that are on the PS4 Part of the difference is he's only counting actual first party owned studio content, and not third party exclusive, for some reason.....so Sony has a ton of stuff that's 3rd party exclusive that isn't part of that list for him. Though thanks to Square a MASSIVE chunk of that list has dissolved. Weirdest of all, FFXIII BC means the HD trilogy on Switch + XBox + PS4 + PC everyone expected is unlikely to materialize any time soon, meaning for now FFXIII trilogy is now, of all things, XBox exclusive at least in terms of current gen consoles. How weird is that? But yeah, Blue's the only person I know, on any side of the console wars, that doesn't think XBox has a genre diversity gap filled in (though it looks like they're (finally) ) working on that.

@ThanosReXXX So...."biggest show ever" I admit it was a fun show, it was a great time, it was one of the best presentations of the past few "E3" type events. But the big news was FFXIII BC. The show met my expectations though. New studio stuff, a bunch of third party deep dives, DLC, a focus on X as a 1 year anniversary (no way they're replacing it in a year without massive backlash....I think the tone says Scarlett isn't 2019, not that that's surprising to anyone but @grumblevolcano ) Crackdown 3.....is anyone worried that we still haven't seen the actual campaign? MP looks fine...but.....where is the campaign? And they keep talking Azure cloud....is this an online only game? This year I don't care but that would be a bitter pill to my 1-year-ago self. The other big news was inXile and Obsidian under one roof. I really am not comfortable by these major studios like Obsidian being bought out by MS....that's moderately distressing, however, I was a little stoked to hear those two being brought back together......until Mr. Booty (has he found Mrs. Booty yet?) made sure to go out of his way and point out that despite their shared history, they're going to be kept separate. The one best thing of the show, was given that downer )

(If you're unfamiliar with the history, ineXile and Obsidian are more or less two halves of the original whole that was Black Isle and Interplay Interactive. ineXile founder, Brian Fargo is the founder of Interplay/Black Isle and the creator of Fallout (the real original Fallout, not the effed up Bethesda version that urinates all over the original material.) Those guys were the soul of the old Bioware games (MDK, Baldur's Gate), other D&D games, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, Freespace, some weird experimental stuff.) There was a whole hostile takeover mess of Interplay, lousy corporate decisions, Brian was exiled from his own company (thus his indie studio "ineXile"....he used to refer to himself as the "Interplay CEO in Exile"). When everything fell apart, he went indie, Chris Taylor went freelance, and a few of the original key players of Fallout joined ineXile. The rest of the Black Isle staff formed and went to Obsidian, including Feargus. Merging those two studios together under MS would be effectively an almost complete restoration of the original Interplay/Black Isle......they would be RPG gods and Bethesda would weep. The focus on keeping them seperate is needless to say an arrow through the heart that grew three sizes with the announcment. "KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!"

@BlueOcean "What would the business decision be"
You answered your own question: It's Square-Enix. Their strategy planning involves identyfying the slowest paths to shooting themselves in the foot, and then following it to the letter. This is the company that took a $33M dump on knee-jerk restructuring, and insane budgeting decisions, and given three platforms to treat as second class for WoFF, an ultra cute saccharine chibi retro fan service FF game featuring Pokemon clone gameplay that was designed around playing both and home and on the go......the console they shaft is Switch........

Seriously though, I hadn't thought about the whole digital download for BC thingDeus Ex still perplexes me). They did it with Deus Ex HR that way, but maybe, just maybe they'll actually allow digital purchase for 13. I'm not holding my breath. It hasn't been digitally available for a decade.....I can't imagine they start now, and they have precident of not doing that for one other game. As of today (and 3 months ago) it's not digitally available. If that changes on Tuesday I'll be ecstatic! I want you to be right, but I'm not going to get my hopes up too high for something that doesn't seem too immediately likely. It would be weird though making big fanfare about something you have to scavenge used discs for. (I don't have a copy, I played 13 on PS3 since FF not on PS just felt so wrong at the time (that was the first FF to leave PS since FF left Nintendo.)

No Seikiro, I was hoping to see more, but the DMC5 segment made up for it. That was slick.

Edit: Also......is the blonde perhaps the voice of Horizon Pulse?? The thought struck me earlier in the show....but I thought "nah, just similar-ish" until they had her talking Forza, and it clicked.....I bet that's her! It's weird because if so, she looks precisely the way I imagined from the voice she'd look....which is kind of freaky. Usually I picture VA's to look like one thing and they end up looking entirely different.

@DarthNocturnal I didn’t watch it but they do love Terry Crews....(old spice commercials are terrifying, do they inspire men to go buy that junk?)

@NEStalgia Meh I don’t care. Once you go to insults and projecting bias convo is over and no point in continuing. I have seen him do it to others, you included, but I was hoping for a conversation and that didn’t happen. Moving on.

Anyway my original comment was to you as is and my point still stands. One hour left at job number two and then I shall lookup highlights of the show. If I find something interesting I shall return.

@DarthNocturnal lol, i didn't think the old spice thing, but... Now that your mention it....

Yeah ffxiii for unknown reasons has simply never been digitally available on any platform except pc. It makes no sense, but, again, square enix...... I figure 25% chance they do it Tuesday. Weird to do a live show and proclaim bc for an out of print game no longer for sale..... But.... Squeenix....

At least 13-2 and lightening returns can be bought.

Keeping up with e3 level threads by phone is painful!

@grumblevolcano i hope you're right. But would you feel right if sqeenix started doing the obvious? I mean what's next, Nintendo releasing roadmaps?

Got a used copy of FF13-2 for £3 on ebay. Not bad for a game I've wanted to play for years.

Did they not announce anything new at all though?

I thought it was a good presentation. Granted, part of that might be thanks to only half-paying attention to it while on Forza Horizon 4. I managed to watch almost all of it on my laptop, but had to swap to the Xbox on the final 20-25 minutes as my power had gone.
Crackdown 3 is looking good, the first expansion of Horizon 4 has me excited already, and count me as another who thought they'd be announcing The Story So Far after that Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer. I also found some interest in Just Cause 4, but I know that's never going to be played by me.

2020 seems the most likely at this point which could become problematic for Microsoft if Sony reveals the PS5 to be 2019.

@Grumblevolcano Going first certainly has its positives, just look at the Xbox 360, but it also has its negatives. Sony revealing the PS5 for a 2019 release would give Microsoft a year to tinker their hardware and services along with launch lineup.

Also Sony doesn't seem to be the kind of company that is in any desperate rush to get the next generation started although it is clear that all their internal teams are working on games to launch alongside the PS5 and I am sure there will be next generation ports of some of the remaining PS4 first party titles too, even if the system does have backwards compatibility.

Make no mistake, both Sony and Microsoft are already hard at work eyeing up a multi billion dollar blowout for 2020 from a marketing point of view for the next generation systems. If anything, I think it will be Nintendo whom will be in a tricky spot that year no matter what they have slated.

@NEStalgia I wouldn't lit that fire again. He is playing dirty. He is manipulating my words and lying about me like a sick fanboy, he is rude and he accused me of insulting other people including yourself, manipulating my words as you know we were just kidding about each other when we talked about OCD, something that I don't even started, I just joined the joke. Because of that, he is a nasty liar, that's the only point that he has proven, so the discussion is over. My first reply to him was because his arguments including third-party games in the first-party games list are kind of a joke and he felt attacked and started with the personal attacks (that I didn't and that I never start in spite of his lies about myself) and, worst of all, he keeps lying and offending if you ask him about it so let us just leave it there as it won't bring anything good. Let's just wish him that he finds a peaceful state of mind.

Back on topic, I said that I am missing Banjo and Fable though... You say that everybody thinks that Xbox exclusives are not diverse except me and before that you said that it is a homogenous pool of shooters and racers. As genre I can only think of RPG and the only racers and FPS I can think of are Halo, Gears and Forza, so still don't get you.

@BlueOcean If Microsoft did make a new Banjo game, who would you see them getting to make it? Somehow, I don't think Rare has the talent they used to that could pull off such a game.

@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.