Game News 2.0

Microsoft have done an excellent job on making Gamepass a service with a wide variety of different experiences, and it’s always a really nice surprise to find out when an indie game you’ve been following is day one there. For me, most big name Xbox titles hold no interest, and I would love a cheaper tier of GP that excluded them(which obviously isn’t going to happen).

But, given the amount of studios at their disposal, their production of new IP has been really poor. The upcoming AAA games are games that had been in development prior to the takeover from Bethesda, and a new(and seemingly delayed) Forza game.

Sony might play it safe with their big franchises(Open world story driven with RPG lite mechanics) but they manage their releases in a much better fashion, having a couple of big releases each year that they market very well. No reason why Xbox can’t do that itself, really.

Hi Fi Rush is produced by Bethesda.

I know, I just mean that it's not one of the big franchise games from their big teams that they've bought, but instead a smaller studio (within Zenimax) that they were able to give the resources to to make a new, unique game just for them. I'd rather if MS focused on helping to build up smaller studios, either just signing them up to make a few exclusives for them or even buying the smaller studio, and build those studios up into their own version of Naughty Dog/Insomniac/Santa Monica, rather than just buying Zenimax/Acti-Blizz to make their previously multiplatform franchises exclusive to Xbox.

I know it's more a rare thing these days but without the push from Sony and being given on Plus, I doubt Stray would've got the reaction it did.

But I do miss games like Concrete Genie and Rain.

There is a clear difference between working with a studio to create a new IP and buying a publisher that owns hugely popular IP that has up until now been multi platform.

There’s nothing stopping MS from working with smaller studios to create new IP and they’ve done it pretty well recently with the Ori games. But from a big, system seller perspective they’ve relied too much on years old IP that hasn’t really changed that much apart from a boost in graphics.

I don’t think anyone is calling Sony a saint but when it comes to working with developers on creating exclusive games for their platform, they seem to be miles ahead.

Headline: 'New technology developed by Sony has effectively cured cancer'

Retr0gamer: Yea but the first PS3 controller didn't even have rumble.

I'm not disputing or defending those things, but I also don't think they're wholly comparable. Sony bought timed exclusivity for the Crash remakes (considering those games were only on Playstation anyway). MS are trying to buy Acti-Blizz and therefore the rights to the Crash franchise. Sony bought timed exclusivity for Deathloop and now MS have bought Bethesda.

Again, of course both Sony and MS do sh*tty things for sh*tty reasons, sometimes it's to benefit themselves, and oftentimes it's to hurt their competitors.

Ultimately, I want a good enough reason to buy an Xbox. I want great games on Xbox that I can't get on Playstation. I want games and franchises on Xbox that excite me the same way as Sony first-party exclusives do. I think that's what would lead to the best competition between Sony & MS. My criticism of MS buying huge studios/franchises rather than build up their own new studios/franchises is based on disappointment that MS are just making existing multiplatform AAA games/franchises exclusive, rather than give us something new. It's not a defence of Sony.

I didn't say that they won't, I just said they aren't. And I don't think artistic merit really comes into it with either company(and is, in any case, entirely subjective).

Absolutely Sony went to try and compete with the 360 titles during their disastrous PS3 years, but they did it by creating their own IP. It didn't work so we haven't seen anything of those franchises in years, but I think they learned a lot from that time, from working with studios, tools support, marketing etc. I do think there was a big push to win back developers after the PS3 era, and the PS4 had pretty consistent(if fairly similar) new first party releases throughout its lifetime. Regardless about what you think of those games, they're polished, they review well and it's been a financial success for them(to the detriment of their smaller titles which is a shame).

Microsoft have had some great games in the last few years but not that many considering the amount of studios they have, and their big-hitters haven't really set the world on fire. Buying successful franchises seems like a cheap way out - not growing your own market share, just limiting everyone else's. Sony does love timed-exclusives which is crap(maybe this is something to do with being the market leader as I recall MS doing similar with Bioshock), but I don't think you can argue that buying a franchise and keeping it off other consoles is just the same.

Lastly - I really don't think arguing that a company has done something well can be considered revisionist or white-knighting. It's perfectly reasonable to discuss a certain subject without bringing up the entire companies history. All of the major gaming companies are profit driven machines that don't care about you, but just care about extracting as much out of your wallet as they can.

But this is kind of the point - if MS hadn't bought Bethesda HiFi Rush would still exist and would almost certainly be on all platforms right now instead of only one. They're not contributing anything to the industry with these acquisitions, just taking away. Unlike Nintendo and Sony who have spent decades nurturing and building their own studios and creating their own IPs that never would have existed without them.

We've still not seen anything worthwhile come out of any of the major acquisitions, just games that were already in development getting released on fewer platforms than they would have been otherwise, and other games getting delayed or stuck in development hell. The only real quality release I can think of that's come out of any of the acquisitions that was developed entirely under MS is Obsidian's Pentiment, and even in that case the game lead Josh Sawyer shared anecdotes with the press that his team developed it for nearly a year in secret before letting MS know about it at a point where it was quite well developed, as he believed it never would have been greenlit otherwise. I'm glad Obsidian haven't lost their identity because they've always been a great studio, but it's not a great sign that they have to deceive their owners in order to keep it that way.

MS have continued to do a great job getting third party stuff onto Gamepass, albeit engaging in the usual tactics of paying to keep all sorts of games from Tunic to Powerwash Simulator off other platforms for timed exclusivity. But deals for third party timed exclusivity is small fry compared to taking competition out of the market entirely with big acquisitions, which is why regulators are interested in one but not the other.

Approx 6 week delay for Jedi Survivor

Servers for Rumbleverse shutting down. Looked fun, but just seemed like it was trying to be Fortnite with wrestling instead of guns.