The PS5 and Xbox 2 thread - it's happening

[Tehdagah]

Which would explain them removing the always online requirement at launch, but it being so late it had to be a day one patch requiring internet activation. I simply do not think it is possible to recover as a brand, at least in a reasonable amount of time, from the sheer level of retardation that way trying to push an always online console, single use discs, region locked hardware, and mandatory spy camera (not to mention the stupidest name ever) all at once. Spencer may not have saved the brand, but Mattrick definitively killed it.

Xbox One launched in November 2013. Spencer took over in March 2014. With the exception of a few months, Spencer was in the driving seat for the entire Xbox One generation. He had six years to course correct. He could have changed the strategy. Xbox One was a failure. Spencer then had the chance to try again with the next Xbox.

He chose to handicap the Xbox Series platform from day one with Series S (enforced parity was an admission that Series S was the base Xbox for this gen). He chose to continue with the stupid console names. Apart from Forza Horizon 5, he had no strong first party exclusives, no triple A exclusives from Japanese partners, nothing despite years of saying the games are coming. Game Pass was his idea. Porting existing exclusives to PC and other platforms was also his idea.

The last two have helped to diminish the value of the Xbox console platform to the point where people don't even need to buy an Xbox console. Series X|S is a bigger flop than Xbox One, which is quite remarkable, and it all happened under Phil Spencer's leadership. But the fact that he is still in charge and still being allowed to engage with the media as the face of Xbox is for me more evidence that the decline was part of a wider plan to transition Xbox to a platform agnostic service. Every capable device is now an “Xbox” under the new strategy. As I said in an earlier post, I don't believe winning the console war was part of Xbox's plans for this gen.

I agree that the Xbox console brand won't recover. I think Microsoft will eventually leave the console business officially. It also wouldn't surprise me if they end up dropping the Xbox branding at some point since it is now associated with two generations of failed consoles.

How did the Gamepass diminish the value of the Xbox? Gamepass was best thing Microsoft did in the past 10 years.

 

[Tehdagah]

NOOOOO! We need 128TB of RAM and PCIe 8.0 SSDs to be able to make our games.

Developers soon will have to port their games to the Switch 2, the Series S will be barely an issue.

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

Not enough RAM sounds like a skill issue

 

[911 Jumper]

How did the Gamepass diminish the value of the Xbox? Gamepass was best thing Microsoft did in the past 10 years.

Game Pass and xCloud were Microsoft's way of declaring that the Xbox home console is no longer central to the platform. Game Pass decouples the Xbox ecosystem from the Xbox console. Thanks to Game Pass, you no longer need an Xbox to access the Xbox library and you don't even need to buy Xbox games. So yes I would say it has diminished the value of owning an Xbox.

Game Pass hasn't improved Xbox's situation. Xbox software sales are down. Hardware sales are down. There's nothing positive about Xbox's current situation. I don't see Microsoft reaching 100 million subs by 2030 (this is the target Spencer hopes to reach). I think Microsoft will eventually exit consoles, kill Game Pass, and just become a third-party multiplatform game publisher.

 

[ferratilis]

Todd is so cool that all the other MS developers want to be like him.
https://wccftech.com/senuas-saga-hellblade-ii-30-fps-xbox-series-x/

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II Will Only Run At “Cinematic” 30 FPS on Xbox Series X|S​

 

[911 Jumper]

yeah, I thought of that point, but with what studios? they have two japan studios left, and one of those is polyphony.

Two years later, developers were still describing it as a “pain”

yes, heard of it, but i still maintain what i said because it has more to do with how desperate they are willing to be. developers port shit that shouldn't run on switch to switch all the time. it sucks ass and it's a fourth rate experience, the same will happen to XSS over time. i think the complaint comes more from developers wanting to offer something that's still next gen and close enough to XSX just at a lower resolution, but that's just not feasible.

Larian had to drop split screen co-op from Baldur's Gate 3 to get the game working on Series S.

fair, but a game like this is an edge case since these types of titles with heavy simulation rarely ever end up on console to begin with.

I think Sony has to start exploring the possibility of expanding their Japan-based operations. Not only are these Western-made movie games expensive, they also limit the scope of creativity. You can't have experimental gameplay or do unusual stuff in these games because you have to keep things realistic. Imagine games with Nintendo-like creativity but with a more mature, bizarre, otherworldly aesthetic. I'd like to games like that from Sony. As I said in my previous post, I think there has to be some kind of significant change in strategy. I suspect the rumoured handheld is part of that. I do think the future for PlayStation is some kind of Switch-like hybrid.

Regarding the XSS/Switch comparison: the thing is people don't buy a Switch to play those inferior Switch ports. The third party ports aren't important to Nintendo fans and Nintendo knows that. They are more of a “nice to have” rather than essential additions to the Switch library. With Series S, the third party games are a core part of the Xbox software library. Xbox has always been heavily reliant on games from third parties, even during the Xbox 360 “golden era”. So bad third party ports are a bigger issue on Xbox. The problem for Microsoft is that they can't drop support for Series S because most of the Series Xboxes out there are S units. Series S is just another decision that will handicap the Xbox console platform this gen. It'll be interesting to see how and if Rockstar's manages to get GTA VI running on Series S. If it happens, it will undoubtedly be the worst way to play the biggest game this gen on a home console.

 

[911 Jumper]

And another one departs...

 

[Tehdagah]

How did the Gamepass diminish the value of the Xbox? Gamepass was best thing Microsoft did in the past 10 years.

Game Pass and xCloud were Microsoft's way of declaring that the Xbox home console is no longer central to the platform. Game Pass decouples the Xbox ecosystem from the Xbox console. Thanks to Game Pass, you no longer need an Xbox to access the Xbox library and you don't even need to buy Xbox games. So yes I would say it has diminished the value of owning an Xbox.

Game Pass hasn't improved Xbox's situation. Xbox software sales are down. Hardware sales are down. There's nothing positive about Xbox's current situation. I don't see Microsoft reaching 100 million subs by 2030 (this is the target Spencer hopes to reach). I think Microsoft will eventually exit consoles, kill Game Pass, and just become a third-party multiplatform game publisher.

It isn't the Gamepass that devalues the Xbox, it's Microsoft releasing all their games day-1 on PC.

Also, killing the Gamepass would suck, Sony would kill the PS+ Extra too. That service only exist to compete with the Gamepass.

 

[Melcar]

Microsoft's problem is that they want both PC and console. The only edge they have on PC these days is gaming, so if they push hard with their console (making games exclusive to Xbox) they will lose their grip on PC almost overnight.

 

[911 Jumper]

It isn't the Gamepass that devalues the Xbox, it's Microsoft releasing all their games day-1 on PC.

Also, killing the Gamepass would suck, Sony would kill the PS+ Extra too. That service only exist to compete with the Gamepass.

Day One on PC has only devalued it quicker. Even if you took that away and delayed releases, all first party Xbox exclusives are, unlike third party games, permanently available on Game Pass once they are added [to the service]. Exclusives are the main reason to own a console. When you can access all the first party exclusives on PC via an opt out at any time sub service, why bother buying the console hardware?

Game Pass is even available on Xbox One, which will have only further discouraged people from upgrading to a Series console (Jez Corden, Xbox commentator at Windows Central, recently mentioned on his podcast that a significant number of Xbox gamers are still on Xbox One).

 

[911 Jumper]

Sounds as if the rumoured switch to ARM CPUs is going to happen with whatever hardware they release next

 

[911 Jumper]

He thinks Game Pass subs will be at 200m+ in 10 years, lol

 

[Alienman]

Wow, Mchael Pachter. Talk about old bones.

 

[soutaiseiriron]

Sounds as if the rumoured switch to ARM CPUs is going to happen with whatever hardware they release next

doubt it, unless they go cloud gaming only which would still be insane.
arm doesn't really have any benefits, only downsides for the headache of providing compatibility and doing chip design themselves or paying somebody else for a full custom design, instead of the usual semi-custom AMD stuff.
if you go arm AMD might be hesitant to offer GPU IP, at which point you're gonna have to use either qualcomm adreno (utterly meh) or imagination's IP (only used in moore threads GPUs and possibly a customized version in apple devices)
unless qualcomm just really feels like they HAVE to burn money on low margin products like game consoles and MS gets a steal of a deal on their chips, it's not happening

 

[soutaiseiriron]

Cohesion please use your words to explain how an arm cpu would be a rational, meaningful, or worthwhile decision in any way for a console that has significant motive to have backwards compatibility for the last 10 years of console games
also my rationale/extra points for why i believe what i believe:
arm doesn't have any benefits = power consumption is actually not a benefit (because it doesn't exist, it's a myth related to software, not hardware, instruction set architecture has negligible effect on modern microprocessors) and even the highest performance ARM cores are not exceptional compared to zen 4 (and zen 5/6 in the future)
amd might be hesitant to offer GPU IP = amd has offered GPU IP to samsung for exynos, but doesn't mean they have to for xbox series two since why would they? they have an active interest to keep doing bundle deals to sony and MS for semi-custom designs, and developers are familiar with how to optimize for RDNA WGPs/SIMDs already
adreno and imagination IP = adreno hasn't done much to revamp their uarch for ages. imagination IP is potentially good, but unproven in high performance applications.
unless qualcomm just really feels like they HAVE to burn money = there's precedent for this because with the recent oryon SOC there's been some seriously dumb nonsense going on

 

[deuxhero]

Sounds as if the rumoured switch to ARM CPUs is going to happen with whatever hardware they release next

If it's neither (Direct)X, nor Box, is it really an Xbox?

 

[soutaiseiriron]

^directx has nothing to do with CPU ISA
isa could be MIPS or VLIW for all i know, but there's no significance for whatever for whatever consoles could or could not do

 

[TedNugent]

https://www.windowscentral.com/gami...hetic-and-need-to-be-scrapped-we-pay-for-this

Microsoft has fired thousands of customer service employees in recent years, and replaced them with AI.

Tldr; people are getting unfair bans on Xbox due to Microsoft's broken AI moderation system. Even saying "free company" in Final Fantasy 14 can get you banned (???)

Kind of hilarious in the context of their original XBox Live promotional material



Can't wait to see what Windows looks like in 5 years. Anyone ever tried installing Windows 10 or 11 lately? It's quite a hassle, constantly badgering you to sign into various accounts and sign up for subscription services, Cortana voiceovers badgering you, before it even lets you past the privacy screen into the operating system Then you open Edge to download Chrome and it tries to get you to sign into your Microsoft account, no wait, don't you want to sign in to your Google account, would you like us to constantly datamine all your bookmarks and history into Edge pleaseplease use Edgelol.

I can't wait until ChatGPT starts locking people out of their OneDrive accounts for verboten behavior

Then I 100% blame Mattrick for the death of Xbox.

Dan Mattrick got shitcanned a long time ago for this:



Some blast from the past

Just reminded me that the original Xbox One required the fucking Kinect, I think that was the real reason Mattrick got slapped like a bitch



The crucifixion

 

[Ezekiel]

• The Last of Us Part II Remastered – Jan 19
• Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy – Jan 25
• Hitman Blood Money – Reprisal – Jan 25
• Persona 3 Reload – Feb 2
• Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered – Feb 14
• Mario vs Donkey Kong – Feb 16
• Brothers A Tale of Two Sons Remake – Feb 28
• Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster – Feb 28
• Final Fantasy Rebirth -- Feb 29th
• STALKER: Legends of the Zone Trilogy – March 6
• Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection – March 14
• Gigantic – April 9
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants – April 23
• El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron HD Remaster – April 28
• Braid: Anniversary Edition — April 30
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door – May 23
• Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD – June 27
• Age of Mythology – 2024
• Beyond Good and Evil 20th Anniversary – 2024
• Epic Mickey Rebrushed – 2024
• Gothic remake – 2024
• Lollipop Chainsaw Repop – 2024
• Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater – 2024
• Riven remake – 2024
• Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland – 2024
• Shadows of the Damned Hella Remastered – 2024
• Silent Hill 2 remake – 2024
• Sonic Generations X Shadow -2024
• Until Dawn remaster – 2024

 

[Ezekiel]

The crucifixion

Moment was deflated when they said shortly thereafter (the same presentation) almost in passing (barely touching on it) that multiplayer would be subscription-based on PS4. I think that was actually the last press conference I ever watched.

 

[TedNugent]

Moment was deflated when they said shortly thereafter (the same presentation) almost in passing (barely touching on it) that multiplayer would be subscription-based on PS4. I think that was actually the last press conference I ever watched.

Yeah, one of the high points of PS3 was free dedicated servers. Warhawk was actually a super fun game, especially for split screen online gaming. One of the last few. 24 player dedicated servers on console at the time definitely made me lol at Xbox Live.

But then they shut down the servers.

Community run servers or go fuck yourself is generally my mantra, but if you game primarily on consoles you're already a retard, so IDK what to say.

 

[Tehdagah]

It's over, no more Little Big Planet, never ever...

 

[Cyberarmy]

This is such a huge decline and fuck you too all players who made awesome levels....

 

[Caim]

"Ongoing technical issues"

Aka the game wasn't being profitable anymore.

 

[Tehdagah]

This is such a huge decline and fuck you too all players who made awesome levels....

Yes. 10 millions levels lost forever