Xbox and Bethesda Showcase 2022 | Showcase and Extended Stream links in 1st post

[Flanders]

17 minutes ago, deerokus said:

Sea of Thieves is the best game Rare have made this century.

 

And Sony have already saturated the market in Sony-style games. The closest thing from a MS-affiliated team* is the Plague Tale series, but I'm glad they've never really gone heavily into that style cause I don't think they'd do it very well (and it's already a pretty boring style of game to me even though I keep buying them). The fact everyone knows what a 'sony-style' game is says everything.

I mean, yeah? I know what a Nintendo-style game is as well. And a Capcom-style game. And a Sega game, and a Rockstar game. Stylistic coherence is generally a good thing when it comes to creative pursuits. 
 

I dare say one of the main difficulties modern-day Microsoft has with development is that it doesn’t have that coherence. There isn’t any mission statement of what games it wants to make. 
 

Funnily enough, I’d argue the original Xbox had a much more clearly distinctive voice than its successors. It fused PC and console sensibilities to create a suite of games that really felt unique and, well, Xbox-ey.

[TehStu]

Does it need a mission? Doesn't seem very inclusive. Well, unless you mean a style, because I love that about Nintendo 1st party titles. But that doesn't extend to 3rd party content. 

 

Xbox brought a lot of technology that console folks weren't used to at the time, so it had that going for it too.

[Clipper]

ALso I thought they did have an identity, everyone always says they do Halo, Gears and Forza over and over - which they do. They now also do a whole load of other stuff which doesn't fit that mould and isn't always AAA.

 

Not convinced that is a bad thing.

[deerokus]

26 minutes ago, Flanders said:

I mean, yeah? I know what a Nintendo-style game is as well. And a Capcom-style game. And a Sega game, and a Rockstar game. Stylistic coherence is generally a good thing when it comes to creative pursuits. 
 

 

Not really. Most of those make a wider variety of games than Sony's cinematic third person games with a sad story thing, and none of them are as good at it as Sony are when they try it. I mean, Sega? The same company that makes a Warhammer licenced Boomer Shooter, Football Manager, Company of Heroes, Sonic and Yakuza? What's the unifying theme there? Sure, they're primarily known for pc strategy games obviously but it's not all they do.

[Flanders]

7 minutes ago, TehStu said:

Does it need a mission? Doesn't seem very inclusive. Well, unless you mean a style, because I love that about Nintendo 1st party titles. But that doesn't extend to 3rd party content. 

 

Xbox brought a lot of technology that console folks weren't used to at the time, so it had that going for it too.

A style, a sense of what you want to achieve. It’s not about genre. You can play Mario Kart, Zelda and Metroid and instantly tell they’re all from the same company. Nintendo are the greatest example but most of the top publishers have it. 

[Majora]

19 minutes ago, Flanders said:

I mean, yeah? I know what a Nintendo-style game is as well. And a Capcom-style game. And a Sega game, and a Rockstar game. Stylistic coherence is generally a good thing when it comes to creative pursuits. 
 

I dare say one of the main difficulties modern-day Microsoft has with development is that it doesn’t have that coherence. There isn’t any mission statement of what games it wants to make. 
 

Funnily enough, I’d argue the original Xbox had a much more clearly distinctive voice than its successors. It fused PC and console sensibilities to create a suite of games that really felt unique and, well, Xbox-ey.

 

I don't see why you would want stylistic coherence when you have about 30 different development studios. I want diversity, I want their output to feel unique. I like that one studio can be making Pentiment while another is making Minecraft while another is making Redfall while another is making Psychonauts 2. Homogenising everything under one kind of Sony third person action adventure  house style sounds boring as fuck.

 

But that's both Microsoft's strength and their weakness. You'd never see Sony funding half the stuff Microsoft does these days. They've became way too conservative and wedded to prestige blockbusters. But the range of stuff Microsoft backs means that you're far less likely to find it all compelling whereas if you like Sony's house style then you'll probably love the majority of their output.

[TehStu]

Just now, Flanders said:

A style, a sense of what you want to achieve. It’s not about genre. You can play Mario Kart, Zelda and Metroid and instantly tell they’re all from the same company. Nintendo are the greatest example but most of the top publishers have it. 

They've had a long time to polish that approach though. Do Sony studios have that? In fact, in asking that, I don't even know if Nintendo have named studios. Doesn't that further emphasize the point? They're "all Nintendo" as far as I know. Now knowing what you mean, I hope Microsoft get there, especially in terms of features (accessibility front and center, etc.) but, man, it'll take years. 

 

How many publishers have found themselves at the helm of so many studios in short order? That's the Microsoft conundrum, as they heed the (conflicting, recall) advice of "no games", etc.

[TehStu]

5 minutes ago, Majora said:

You'd never see Sony funding half the stuff Microsoft does these days

Some of the stuff at the show had a whiff of "this is going on a subscription service" about it. Like that weird game which looked like the Bayeux Tapestry come to life. Or the FMV one. The latter looked very personal to the presenter (we don't want presenters! just games </conflict>).

 

I'm glad they exist.

[Graham S]

1 hour ago, Lovelyman said:

That's terrible management. Loads of industries with sensitive subjects managed to find a way. 

I find it hard to believe that MS of all people just shut down for two years, given primary school kids managed to work MS Teams. I think something must have got misunderstood somewhere.

[Uncle Mike]

50 minutes ago, TehStu said:

I think Microsoft are terrible at managing consumer-facing products and services. Sure, right down in the weeds you can see that they'll take feedback on a specific button and maybe move it elsewhere in an app, but holistically, they generally don't understand the consumer space.

 

I don't know if that's entirely correct (although I've said similar on here before.) Xbox overall seems to have a great setup for the consumer. Game Pass is really delivering, the roadmap for Xcloud and streaming direct to TV apps all looks really sensibly setup (even if I'm somewhat sceptical about streaming) the Xbox itself and so on. All great, all consumer-facing.

 

I do think there's valid questions about how Microsoft Games Studio is run and managed and whether it's helping games get made, but the people running Xbox overall seem to have a good handle on delivering to consumers in a way I don't think is true of the rest of MS.

[Mortis]

Pentiment will no doubt have an excellent story and range of choice for the player being by Obsidian.  Graphically it’s doing it’s own thing but obviously it’s not enough - it should look like something AAA because they are now a MS studio.  Honestly if everything looked like Sony output some of you would be moaning that there’s no originality -it’s what this place does best. 

[Lovelyman]

25 minutes ago, Graham S said:

I find it hard to believe that MS of all people just shut down for two years, given primary school kids managed to work MS Teams. I think something must have got misunderstood somewhere.

Yeah I was responding as if it were true. I didn't think it was...(well, I was sceptical I suppose it's possible).

[Uzi]

Game Pass has given them enough good will to get a PASS (ahahahaha) from me but yeah, stuff that should not be a fucking disaster given all the resources and funds behind it, like a free to play Halo MP game on PC in 2022, is a fucking disaster. Look at the state of these numbers on PC. My god. The game is basically dead. 

 

[TehStu]

13 minutes ago, Uncle Mike said:

I don't know if that's entirely correct (although I've said similar on here before.) Xbox overall seems to have a great setup for the consumer. Game Pass is really delivering, the roadmap for Xcloud and streaming direct to TV apps all looks really sensibly setup (even if I'm somewhat sceptical about streaming) the Xbox itself and so on. All great, all consumer-facing.

Yeah, I definitely didn't mean to imply everything. The Xbox division has been on the right track for perhaps the latter half of the last gen.

[TehStu]

12 minutes ago, Mortis said:

Pentiment will no doubt have an excellent story and range of choice for the player being by Obsidian.  Graphically it’s doing it’s own thing but obviously it’s not enough - it should look like something AAA because they are now a MS studio.  Honestly if everything looked like Sony output some of you would be moaning that there’s no originality -it’s what this place does best. 

Was that for me? I wasn't having a go, I think it looks great. My post was in support of potentially oddball titles being allowed to go ahead, supported by the subscription model rather than the usual "sell X million units" metric.

[Mortis]

16 minutes ago, TehStu said:

Was that for me? I wasn't having a go, I think it looks great. My post was in support of potentially oddball titles being allowed to go ahead, supported by the subscription model rather than the usual "sell X million units" metric.

no not aimed at you - just the general tone in this place these days is starting to get to me. 

[footle]

1 hour ago, Flanders said:

I mean, yeah? I know what a Nintendo-style game is as well. And a Capcom-style game. And a Sega game, and a Rockstar game. Stylistic coherence is generally a good thing when it comes to creative pursuits. 

I’m not sure Sega have a style now. They did twenty years ago.

now, if you’d like to discuss cases which disprove your rule, I believe Ubisoft have just announced a showcase for tomorrow…

[Flanders]

I think the fact that a discussion about why Microsoft has trouble getting games out and maybe it would help if they had some kind of guiding vision in place has immediately triggered semi-hysterical responses about sad dad third person blockbusters rather makes my point about there being a weird defensiveness around this topic. 
 

You don’t even have to compare Microsoft with another company if that upsets you, you can compare it with itself! Like Uncle Mike said up there, the service side of Xbox is an extraordinarily cohesive well oiled machine. You ask me about Xbox’s vision for content delivery and I know it’s about accessibility, it’s game pass on everything, it’s the cloud, it’s about empowering the user. 
 

Ask me about what Microsoft’s vision for how they think videogames should be made and I’m drawing a blank. Something like Halo Infinite doesn’t get made the way it did by a publisher that knows what it wants. 

 

[deerokus]

Semi hysterical responses? Projecting a bit there.

[Flanders]

10 minutes ago, footle said:

I’m not sure Sega have a style now. They did twenty years ago.

now, if you’d like to discuss cases which disprove your rule, I believe Ubisoft have just announced a showcase for tomorrow…

Well come on it’s clearly blue skies Sega that I’m talking about. 
 

And as for the other point, say what you like about the tenets of national socialism Ubisoft checklist games dude, it’s an ethos. Their games get released and you can sure as hell tell it’s them that made it. 

[sandman]

Just imagine where Xbox would be WITHOUT Gamepass. 

[Boozy The Clown]

1 hour ago, Graham S said:

I find it hard to believe that MS of all people just shut down for two years, given primary school kids managed to work MS Teams. I think something must have got misunderstood somewhere.

 

1 hour ago, Lovelyman said:

Yeah I was responding as if it were true. I didn't think it was...(well, I was sceptical I suppose it's possible).

 

If their developers weren't walking around the house in their pants watching Netflix for 2 years why are all their games (and others) delayed by years then ?

 

I don't think they'd be able to just transfer critical code and assets over the internet in emails or discuss anything over Teams for fear of leaks.

 

It was just my attempt at figuring out why this show and the next 12 months was missing so much of the content we already knew about.

[Lovelyman]

6 minutes ago, Boozy The Clown said:

 

 

If their developers weren't walking around the house in their pants watching Netflix for 2 years why are all their games (and others) delayed by years then ?

 

I don't think they'd be able to just transfer critical code and assets over the internet in emails or discuss anything over Teams for fear of leaks.

 

It was just my attempt at figuring out why this show and the next 12 months was missing so much of the content we already knew about.

No, they'd use a secure VPN to, or virtual desktop on, the Microsoft network. 

 

I do wonder why gaming has been impacted so much by the pandemic. Maybe office collaboration is really a dependency for large game studios. Or maybe the staff have realised there's more to life than the constant crunch.

 

I don't work in games but it would be interesting to hear people's opinions. 

[Boozy The Clown]

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/a-tale-of-two-cities-software-developers-working-from-home-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

 

Not game developer exclusive but might give some insight.

[bear]

7 hours ago, RubberJohnny said:

I'm all for only showing gameplay for titles a year in advance, but switching to it after several years of CG trailers for titles apparently stretching years ahead is probably the worst way of doing it, because not only is there a list of titles as long as your arm that don't show up, but next years show is also going to be without surprises because everything has already been announced.

 

I'm not sure there's any way of transitioning smoothly from one strategy to the other. To me it feels like MS knew that the reaction to this showcase was largely going to focus on the rest of the year being a bit of a wasteland (theres really just Pentiment and Grounded 1.0, the games might be great buts that's a pish lineup) and decided to take another hit this year on the lack of new announcements. They still announced three games this year so it's possible they'll have more than that to announce next year while also taking the wraps off stuff like Perfect Dark and Contraband properly. 

 

 

 

[El Spatula]

1 hour ago, deerokus said:

Semi hysterical responses? Projecting a bit there.

 If I could be arsed I could search how many times you've posted the same thing. I can't be arsed though. It's a lot.

 

[SMD]

Not really sure what people are arguing about when it's a fact that covid impacted everyone in terms of work, some more disruptive than others. It's okay, it's a pandemic, people's health and wellbeing is more important.

[SeanR]

How many pirate games does one platform need anyway?

[Mr Do 71]

We’re still waiting for Ubisoft’s pirate game. 

[TehStu]

1 hour ago, Flanders said:

has immediately triggered semi-hysterical responses

Link?