Does anyone AT MICROSOFT have any idea what Xbox is actually for? How are they planning on selling any Xboxes in future?
I'd be shocked if they had any kind of long-term plan. The short-sightedness of the current crop of tech execs is focused entirely on Number Go Up, which is more or less incompatible with investment in anything except the biggest-headline future (see the current AI gamble, or the Metaverse before that, or the blockchain before that).
People talk up the PS5 controller, meanwhile I have like my 11th or 12th variant of Xbox controller arriving today! (the translucent blue one)
I get the overall point mind.
Does anyone AT MICROSOFT have any idea what Xbox is actually for? How are they planning on selling any Xboxes in future?
It's starting to really look like they're planning to exit the console race after this generation, isn't it? Everything they're doing is designed to make money out of what they've already got, rather than build any kind of loyalty or reputation for the future. They're releasing their biggest games on their competitors' machines. They're buying studios for the games they've already got, rather than the games they might produce in the future. They're shutting promising teams down. They've got no plans for a mid-gen hardware refresh. Even their cloud gaming solution, which for a while looked like it might be a key part of their strategy going forward, seems to be being downplayed in favour of their new partnership with GeForce Now.
I mean as an Xbox owner I'm still happy enough with what I've got this gen - I've got more than enough to play, I still think Game Pass is pretty great, the PC/console interoperability is genuinely neat and I really like the hardware - but it's going to be a tough sell next gen for sure. They just don't seem to have any sort of plan for the future at all.
Sony putting PS4 prices UP in Japan for the second time? That's certainly a marketing strategy as the machine ages.
Concord. OOOOOF.
I hadn't even heard of Concord until just now. Another live service game shoved out to publicly wither and die.
(For anyone else in the same boat as I was three minutes ago, here's a Eurogamer article.)
I watched the launch trailer and I'm glad it's dead.
I watched the launch trailer and I'm glad it's dead.
It's odd how blind these big companies can be sometimes. Everyone knew this was going to fail, so why on earth did Sony spend eight years on it?
I watched the launch trailer and I'm glad it's dead.
😆
I'm joking of course, the whole thing is really sad. I really feel for the developers who's world has crashed in such record time. I can't imagine what such a disaster feels like for them. Hopefully it will be back in another form.
The miserable thing is that some people will blame the whole failure on the commitment to diversity that was part of the game's marketing. The worst people will say it failed because of the inclusion of pronouns. It didn't - it failed because of that awful launch trailer. I mean, it's like they said, "Chat GPT, make a dull characterless version of Guardians of the Galaxy."
I’d genuinely never even heard of it. Perhaps that’s because it’s a genre I don’t really play on a platform I don’t own, but I’m still surprised it hadn’t managed to register at all.
Part of the problem of course is that games take so long to make these days, and GaaS shooters seemed pretty neat in 2016. In 2024, not so much.
Nobody on the Soc is really a target market for this sort of thing anyway. I think one of the issues with comp shooters of any sort, is that realistically you can only engage with a couple at most as a gamer in any serious way.
For many people this will maybe be one tac shooter (CS2/Valorant etc) and one movement shooter/hero shooter (Apex/The Finals/Overwatch etc). Once you've invested serious time into any game the lure of new mechanics for new mechanics' sake doesn't tend to outweigh the sunk cost and investment in an existing title.
I do think Valve's Deadlock might stand a chance, as it's an odd mix of MOBA and hero shooter which I think is getting some really good traction - but you need a free bar of entry and sufficient content to lure people across and I just wonder how entrenched the online shooter market is now into existing pillars. I'm exactly the same, I could pick up another tac shooter, but Valorant bringing out a new hero or map is far more interesting as it's a language I already understand and something I can interact with others on a level playing field. Deadlock's massive user base this early is people panicking and getting in at the ground floor so they're not left behind. Concord didn't even have that moment.
Nintendo releasing the new trailer for the (excellent looking) new Mario Bros RPG being set in a place called Concordia of all things on this exact day was a moment I was glad to be alive for honestly. Fucking incredible.
All planned. Definitely not just poor/perfect timing coincidence. Honest.
Astro Bot seems to have lived up to expectations, judging by the reviews. And considering expectations were at new-3D-Mario levels, that's saying something.
Tomorrow can't come soon enough. Potentially my game of the generation.
The RRP is certainly a thing though.
It's in my wait for £35 range.
Why is it more egregious than any other game charging 60 quid? (Genuine question, I haven't heard any concerns about length.)
It looks like the game of the year, and it's priced at less than most other Sony first party games.
Ol' MPH over here dropping £26 and £60 like he's a money air cannon at a baseball game.
He’ll be first in line for the PS5 Pro, then, which has just been announced at £699. Without a disk drive. Or a stand. It’s nearly £825 all in if you want the set.
I think any interest I may have had just evaporated.
At €800, it's literally more than a month's rent in my previous flat. Jesus wept.
Funniest thing I've seen in ages
This is why games are still being released for the ps4
Great news. Now no bugger will buy it and they'll keep prioritising the regular PS5.
It's going to be an interesting test to see what people actually want though. Because the price point is so high, it really does split the market and I suspect the result will be that Sony quickly learns that very few people (at least in the console space) are prepared to pay such a premium for some ray tracing features and a better framerate. Like MPH says, it'll probably just drive development on the regular consoles and the current split between quality and performance modes that seem to keep most people happy.
Furthermore, assuming the Switch 2 comes out soon and as expected is an underpowered hunk of junk a modestly specced games machine, that's another differentiator and I expect it'll be very much at the expense of Sony's Pro model too.
Because the price point is so high, it really does split the market and I suspect the result will be that Sony quickly learns that very few people (at least in the console space) are prepared to pay such a premium for some ray tracing features and a better framerate.
Wait, wait… didn't they literally just learn that with both PSVR2 and the Playstation Portal? Or did I imagine both of those things?
Never seen so many people recommending getting a custom PC
Was literally anybody asking for this? Almost certainly not at this price point, at least. Surely a smaller form-factor version of the existing hardware would have been a better use of resources.
Until the price announcement I was at least passingly interested in this - I don’t have a PS5, there are several exclusives I want to play now, and I very much like shiny graphics. I bought a PS4 Pro last gen and (barring the horrendous fan noise) was generally very happy with it.
Obviously at £800 plus the cost of games they can fuck right off. My main concern is now that this normalises super-expensive consoles without disc drives, and next gen is hobbled before it even begins.
Of course there’s always a chance that it tanks completely and gets a rapid price cut, like the original Xbox or the 3DS did; but that doesn’t seem to be Sony’s style somehow.
It's a baffling price point - I know people buy iPhones and Samsung Galaxys for big moniez but the justification for those is largely around it being the device you use most of the time for a majority of your comms needs. This is a games console. £700 for a marginal performance bump, no disk drive and no other benefits I can really see (beyond the "AI" based scaling stuff, which will surely become ubiquitous across all platforms via one of a myriad of methods).
I'd assume a price cut within 3 months.
The big thing for me though. The ones without the disc drive still ain't small enough anyway. Then factoring in having an external drive bolted on and I can't help but wonder what piece of furniture this would ever neatly fit.
I've decided I'm going to get a Mart's Flat instead.
Were the shadows in your flat ray-traced though, Mart?
I've decided I'm going to get a Mart's Flat instead.
Only for a month.
Were the shadows in your flat ray-traced though, Mart?
Only for a month.