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Forbes - Microsoft’s ‘No Xbox Series X Exclusives’ Philosophy Is Not As Wild As It Sounds

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Revisionist history won't save you from reality my dude. 2019 was not a great year for them, a low 70's scoring game, a high 60's scoring game, and what was supposed to be this groundbreaking revelation in gaming that people talked up to no end for years ending up in the low 80's.

P.S. Shenmue III did not, they completely omitted Baisha Village from the game which was a stretch goal that the campaign reached.

Days Gone surely cares about the score it got... or maybe people who played it and bought it in droves have a different opinion.
Death Stranding winning awards or getting its nomination must sting after every award it gets: oh well, will have to keep enjoy the jaw dropping presentation and immersive atmosphere as well as peaceful collaborative async multiplayer aspects without knowing it got a 100/100 ;).

Seriously (I really like DS though ;)), well received titles that show a company willing to take risk and go out of their comfort zone too. One more company going the live services multiplayer route is not what I think gaming needs. If 2019 is. A bad year, again boy can’t wait for just their merely decent ones again ;).

Shenmue wise, they also added tons of stuff not in the goals and communicated early on. Too bad it did not come out on Xbox too like NMS eventually did, it would have reduced a lot of the shit flung to it over and over and over ;).
 
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Gavon West

Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
Except you can't, All of Sony's studios perform. I really want to know what makes you so adamant about Microsofts position and why you're so loyal to them?
They don't have a very long history, we've yet to see what these studios they bought can do, their output this gen has been pretty weak all things considered. They've done some good things to benefit the consumer but that's about it. Unless you really love Gears, Halo, or Forza which is totally fine I don't see what the attachment is all about
Not even looking for flamebait or anything. I really wanna know. I'm listening.
First, its an American company. Just putting that out there. Second, imma watch my Hawks game before I respond to you.

Last, most of your post in conjecture unless you're talking about 2012 - 2013. That Xbox is a thing of the past. This is a whole new ball game broski!
 
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Days Gone surely cares about the score it got... or maybe people who played it and bought it in droves have a different opinion.
Death Stranding winning awards or getting its nomination must sting after every award it gets: oh well, will have to keep enjoy the jaw dropping presentation and immersive atmosphere as well as peaceful collaborative async multiplayer aspects without knowing it got a 100/100 ;).

Seriously (I really like DS though ;)), well received titles that show a company willing to take risk and go out of their comfort zone too. One more company going the live services multiplayer route is not what I think gaming needs. If 2019 is. A bad year, again boy can’t wait for just their merely decent ones again ;).

Shenmue wise, they also added tons of stuff not in the goals and communicated early on. Too bad it did not come out on Xbox too like NMS eventually did, it would have reduced a lot of the shit flung to it over and over and over ;).
Ignoring critical reception is not new when comments fall under criticism, the game is about zombies and it dropped in price sharply, not shocking that it sold perceptually well but it's still quite the janky and unpolished experience that few will remember. Shenmue III has a lot of problems and the reviews reflect that, the game got its entire third act cut out so stop making excuses. Death Stranding in my view is a great game, but my view is just one of many and for the level of reverence that game garnered it underperformed both critically and commercially.

If you think 2019 was a great year for Sony or gamers under their veil; you're smoking rocks. Middling experiences two of which fall into an extreme niche of appeal.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Yeah 2019 was Sony executing alright, Days Gone was terrible, Shenmue III was terrible and bombed, Death Stranding was decent and charted at #7 for one week and then vanished because of how niche its appeal is.

Sony can't execute every year, there's holes, I mean they really didn't take off game wise and find a rhythm until 2017 for the PS4. Sure there was Bloodborne and Uncharted 4 but that's two games over three years.

No one can consistently deliver with things that take years to make, no one is free from this and that includes Sony.

Well, Days Gone actually sold really well and was my personal GOTY, so I can't complain. As to Death Stranding it basically was one of Sony's periodic "prestige" releases; like Ueda's stuff it was hardly pitched at the mainstream market but was a great thing for setting a tone of creative credibility for the platform. The gaming equivalent of Oscar bait, and no doubt solidly profitable for all concerned thanks to Kojima's name value. Great game too.

Either way, both were new IP and so expectations wouldn't be the same as a Spiderman or God Of War. The bottom line is that in an "off year" Playstation had yet another strong showing.

My point about execution was meant specifically in terms of handling PS5 launch right. The messaging and above all else the price must be on point. They nail that and they are in a very strong position. They fumble it and obviously the door is open for the competition to take the initiative.

That being said considering how well they rebounded after the calamitous early years of PS3, I think the strength of Playstation as a global brand makes them hard to beat without some sort of seismic shift in the scene.

And for the record, no I don't think MS Gamepass/Cloud combo is going to get it done. Its a disruptive strategy that puts them in competition across too many fronts simultaneously, scattering their messaging and ultimately is too dependent on IP strength, the thing that has been Xbox achilles heel since day #1.
 
For me the CPU jump of the new consoles is the most exciting element of their release. From my little understanding of the topics it seems like GPU power is something that is relatively easily scalable from low to high GPU power systems. However seeing as the CPU controls much more technical aspects of the game like physics, AI, etc, I just don't see how a game could be released on something as weak as the base X1 without impacting the design on the series X. We need big jumps in processor employment in games that push us into legitimate new areas of gameplay, not just shinier graphics (although don't get me wrong I love prettier graphics as well). I want better AI and more interactive environments. I love games that rely heavily on the physics engine.

Can they really push into a new era of gaming and have that scale down to those Jaguar cores? I understand the business strategy, but from a technical standpoint it seems like a game like Infinite would definitely benefit from not releasing on the X1.
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Revisionist history won't save you from reality my dude. 2019 was not a great year for them, a low 70's scoring game, a high 60's scoring game, and what was supposed to be this groundbreaking revelation in gaming that people talked up to no end for years ending up in the low 80's.

P.S. Shenmue III did not, they completely omitted Baisha Village from the game which was a stretch goal that the campaign reached.

:pie_roffles: :messenger_ok:
 

Pimpbaa

Member
For me the CPU jump of the new consoles is the most exciting element of their release. From my little understanding of the topics it seems like GPU power is something that is relatively easily scalable from low to high GPU power systems. However seeing as the CPU controls much more technical aspects of the game like physics, AI, etc, I just don't see how a game could be released on something as weak as the base X1 without impacting the design on the series X. We need big jumps in processor employment in games that push us into legitimate new areas of gameplay, not just shinier graphics (although don't get me wrong I love prettier graphics as well). I want better AI and more interactive environments. I love games that rely heavily on the physics engine.

Can they really push into a new era of gaming and have that scale down to those Jaguar cores? I understand the business strategy, but from a technical standpoint it seems like a game like Infinite would definitely benefit from not releasing on the X1.

The CPU cores on next gen systems are going to be mostly idle on cross gen games (unless they are pushing ridiculous framerates on TVs that can handle it). I doubt their SSDs would get much of a workout either.
 
Revisionist history won't save you from reality my dude. 2019 was not a great year for them, a low 70's scoring game, a high 60's scoring game, and what was supposed to be this groundbreaking revelation in gaming that people talked up to no end for years ending up in the low 80's.

P.S. Shenmue III did not, they completely omitted Baisha Village from the game which was a stretch goal that the campaign reached.
Revisionist history? What are you even talking about?

Sony had a better year than Xbox in 2019, end of story.
 

Otterz4Life

Member
So the best versions of cross plat and multiplat games, as well as future console exclusives aren’t enough reason to buy a Series X?

Im guessing the people that are saying this were never going to buy one in the first place.
 
I'll just respond what I said in another thread (paraphrasing):
Most games do not need that much power and they will be well served with a resolution/effects quality/framerate bump (overcooked scales pretty well from the Switch all the way to a PC with a 2080 TI or whatever it the top card now)... so faster loading it is, or optional raytracing.

A lot of AAA games would be cross gen anyway, especially third party titles, so for them having to manage only a PlayStation and Xbox version is kind of a benefit (I say kind of a benefit because the consoles are backward compatibles owners of the new machines will not experience a drought early on, so there won't be extra visibility - unless your title target the new capabilities of the console).

So this is mainly left to platform holders to demonstrate the capabilities of their new consoles, the series X could end up looking worse in some situations because of games taking better advantage of the PS5 early on.
Can't believe I spent all this money on my 1080ti to have a downgraded experience because of owners with their 580s fucking plebs :messenger_pouting:
Your card doesn't perform worse, but games are made with a subset of the gamers out there, if the minimum specs is a 1080ti with 8GB of memory aired with a 8700k32GB of RAM + NvME SSD the game being developed could potentially offer more and better everything as a base level, not just bells and whistles added on top of the base game to make it look slightly better... especially with the faster CPU + NvME drive, open world games could let you move around at a much more impressive pace while retaining plenty of details.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
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rise of tomb raider actually looks cross gen as fuck. shadow of tomb raider looks almost a gen ahead of rise. u4 and lost legacy show what you can do with linear games like that and we didnt have any games that looked that good last gen.
 
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rise of tomb raider actually looks cross gen as fuck. shadow of tomb raider looks almost a gen ahead of rise. u4 and lost legacy show what you can do with linear games like that and we didnt have any games that looked that good last gen.
You can't draw a parallel between completely different game engines, also forced perspective cutscene shots or photomode angles do you no favors in terms of trying to garner someone taking what you're saying seriously or objectively. Also no.

Gameplay versus gameplay.

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Did all of those games release in 2019? Try to stay focused, I know you're having difficulty with that.
Try to articulate yourself as well because it wasn't clear lol.

I'll give you the metacritic score aspect of 2019, and I genuinely respect what The Coalition did with Gears 5 in terms of reinventing the franchise and graphically pushing the envelope of current gen systems.
 
Try to articulate yourself as well because it wasn't clear lol.

I'll give you the metacritic score aspect of 2019, and I genuinely respect what The Coalition did with Gears 5 in terms of reinventing the franchise and graphically pushing the envelope of current gen systems.
It was fundamentally clear from the onset. Don't act all confused now because you made a dumb post.

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It was fundamentally clear from the onset. Don't act all confused now because you made a dumb post.

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For the life of me, I can't seem to think what good reason was there to have you back on GAF after getting permabanned.

This is the most petty reply I've ever received back from anyone here on GAF. The fact that you screenshot it as if GAFers are retarded enough to not check the previous posts proves you're just simply being petty.

My response still stands and I never underestimate the hyperbole that's said on any gaming forum, so excuse my "faux pax", Mr. Inarticulatation.
 
For the life of me, I can't seem to think what good reason was there to have you back on GAF after getting permabanned.

This is the most petty reply I've ever received back from anyone here on GAF. The fact that you screenshot it as if GAFers are retarded enough to not check the previous posts proves you're just simply being petty.

My response still stands and I never underestimate the hyperbole that's said on any gaming forum, so excuse my "faux pax", Mr. Inarticulatation.
That's neither here nor there, ignore me if you don't like what I'm saying because I couldn't care either way.

Having said that; if you can't keep the cohesion of the very discussion you're actively engaged in then how do you expect that others would as well? Your confused posting breeds confused readers which in turn produces more confused discussion.

This is rectified by slotting in the conversation in its entirely in one isolated post so people can easily consume and understand it and how you caused it to diverge.

He cherry picked my post, read my actual post.

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MiyazakiHatesKojima MiyazakiHatesKojima See? you're already confusing people.
 
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That's neither here nor there, ignore me if you don't like what I'm saying because I couldn't care either way.

Having said that; if you can't keep the cohesion of the very discussion you're actively engaged in then how do you expect that others would as well? Your confused posting breeds confused readers which in turn produces more confused discussion.

This is rectified by slotting in the conversation in its entirely in one isolated post so people can easily consume and understand it and how you caused it to diverge.
Step back a little bit and read what you're saying because all I see is someone who's trying his hardest to defend himself when, in reality, no one gives a shit about our little debating.

We were both confused by each other's posts, dude. Get over it lol.
 
No, I didn't.

You just poorly articulated yourself in that post when you decided to use hyperbolic rhetoric to prove your point.

It backfired on you, and now you've rectified it. Get over it.
Incorrect, the very first reply from you cited 2019 so you full well knew exactly what was being discussed but went off into a tangent which I culled.

Who cares? He's not a developer, he's not a hardware engineer, he's a guy who makes YouTube videos discussing the operational parameters of other peoples work.

Developers on Era are already shooting this down.
 

Ryu Kaiba

Member
Incorrect, the very first reply from you cited 2019 so you full well knew exactly what was being discussed but went off into a tangent which I culled.

Who cares? He's not a developer, he's not a hardware engineer, he's a guy who makes YouTube videos discussing the operational parameters of other peoples work.

Developers on Era are already shooting this down.
You don't have to be a dev to know that scrawny mobile amd jaguar cpu is gonna bottleneck their future games.
 
You don't have to be a dev to know that scrawny mobile amd jaguar cpu is gonna bottleneck their future games.
It doesn't have to bottleneck anything, It's like you truly know nothing. Environments can be more closely culled or scaled back, loading can be introduced, geometry can be lessened, LoD's and draw distance can be dialed back, the framerate can be cut in half, AI present in a scene can be scaled back, distant animations can be lower FPS, textures can be lower resolution, reconstruction and dynamic scaling can be put into effect and so on and so forth.

There's a host of things that could be done to the main build of a game which not only doesn't compromise it but allows the downward verticality for function on considerably weaker hardware.
 
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Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Because I love a good flame war and this news was to :messenger_fire:

So you admit that you are a fanboy and just here for console wars. Why does a fanboy need to figure out why to buy the competing console when the very basis of said fanboyism is that the opposing console should not exist(leading to all those mental gymnastics for you not having a reason to buy Xbox, when you really mean "I cant figure why a perfect world with no Xbox does not exist")?
 

Ryu Kaiba

Member
So you admit that you are a fanboy and just here for console wars. Why does a fanboy need to figure out why to buy the competing console when the very basis of said fanboyism is that the opposing console should not exist(leading to all those mental gymnastics for you not having a reason to buy Xbox, when you really mean "I cant figure why a perfect world with no Xbox does not exist")?
You're making a lot of assumptions there, I never said Xbox shouldn't exist, to me you sound like the fanboy. Xbox matters, Sony needs competition so they don't go all anti-consumer, all corporations do.
 

Mass Shift

Member
Except those games were designed for Xbox One when the Project Scarlet was not a thing.

Everyone should stop pretending to be ignorant. This isn't the first time games in long development near the end of a console's lifecycle became next gen launch titles. Sony, Nintendo and MS do it all the time.

WHY DO YOU THINK SONY SKIPPED E3?I

Doing it that way allowed Sony to just take whatever they were working on for late generation PS4 and just boot it over for next gen PS5. I'm going to watch for the pretended shock when the vast majority of PS5 games look like 4K dress ups.

Enough with the phony outrage and hysteria.
 
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Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Stop pretending to be ignorant. This isn't the first time games in long development near the end of a console's lifecycle became next gen launch titles. Sony, Nintendo and MS do it all the time.

WHY DO YOU THINK SONY SKIPPED E3?I

Doing it that way allowed Sony to just take whatever they were working on for late generation PS4 and just boot it over for next gen PS5. I'm going to watch for the pretended shock when the vast majority of PS5 games look like 4K dress ups.

Enough with the phony outrage and hysteria.
Why am I the only one who has to take shit from both the sides ?
 

Mass Shift

Member
Why am I the only one who has to take shit from both the sides ?

General statement. Not targeting you specifically. Already amended to reflect that. By replying in your commentary I avoided the ridiculous back and forth with the console warrior.

Sorry I should have been more clear.
 
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Ryu Kaiba

Member
It doesn't have to bottleneck anything, It's like you truly know nothing. Environments can be more closely culled or scaled back, loading can be introduced, geometry can be lessened, LoD's and draw distance can be dialed back, the framerate can be cut in half, AI present in a scene can be scaled back, distant animations can be lower FPS, textures can be lower resolution, reconstruction and dynamic scaling can be put into effect and so on and so forth.

There's a host of things that could be done to the main build of a game which not only doesn't compromise it but allows the downward verticality for function on considerably weaker hardware.
Sounds like a lot of work mate, we'll see if MS does that or if they just make shittier games. considering the capabilities of the studios they bought, and that their Xcloud service will be running on current gen hardware they will probably target that and scale up.
 
Sounds like a lot of work mate, we'll see if MS does that or if they just make shittier games. considering the capabilities of the studios they bought, and that their Xcloud service will be running on current gen hardware they will probably target that and scale up.
Let me again reiterate, these are professionals, they're competent engineers, they can manage these situations effectively. Man you've got to do some research, the service hasn't even officially launched yet, it's just in test phases which is why Xbox One hardware is presently deployed in the limited test markets.

"We designed Scarlett with the cloud in mind as well, and just as you’re going to see our console product family evolve with that next generation, the cloud is going to evolve along with it."

 

Ryu Kaiba

Member
Let me again reiterate, these are professionals, they're competent engineers, they can manage these situations effectively. Man you've got to do some research, the service hasn't even officially launched yet, it's just in test phases which is why Xbox One hardware is presently deployed in the limited test markets.

"We designed Scarlett with the cloud in mind as well, and just as you’re going to see our console product family evolve with that next generation, the cloud is going to evolve along with it."

Yeah eventually.
I'm in the Xcloud beta, and I'm not too stoked on it the way its performing right now. This threads getting boring lets wait for more news yah.
 
Do people honestly think that MS is going to do a top down development? That is going to be near impossible. If they were only making the game for the Scarlett family, Series X and Lockhart, it would be possible. Just drop the resolution, maybe a lower framerate and take out a couple bells in whistles. What they are talking about is making sure a game can run on old, outdated Jaguar cores and a much weaker GPU.

This isn't like going from XBO to Switch, which is easier because not only are the games usually released months/years later so they have time to tweak the game, but the Jaguar cores aren't really that much above the Switch's CPU and the XBO GPU is like 3x that of the Switch's. What we're talking about is a CPU that is a giant leap over the Jaguar and a GPU that is more than 8x that of the XBO's. You can't just simply reduce the resolution, framerate, and take out a few effects. You'd probably have to reduce the game down to being barely noticeable, read as not desirable as a purchase. There's also the fact that most likely these games are going to be releasing at the same time, meaning they won't get as much time to work on all versions.

You can look at cross-gen games from this gen, like AC:BF and BF4 as examples. They start with the lowest common denominator, then work their way up. For the most part, geometry stays the same. Some textures, not all, are improved. Maybe some more foliage is added. And a few better effects here or there. The biggest change comes from the higher resolution and framerate. That's not to say these games are ugly, far from it. But, they do not look as big as a night and day difference from the previous gen as the games built on just the next-gen systems, like Killzone:SF or Infamous:SS.
 
Do people honestly think that MS is going to do a top down development? That is going to be near impossible. If they were only making the game for the Scarlett family, Series X and Lockhart, it would be possible. Just drop the resolution, maybe a lower framerate and take out a couple bells in whistles. What they are talking about is making sure a game can run on old, outdated Jaguar cores and a much weaker GPU.

This isn't like going from XBO to Switch, which is easier because not only are the games usually released months/years later so they have time to tweak the game, but the Jaguar cores aren't really that much above the Switch's CPU and the XBO GPU is like 3x that of the Switch's. What we're talking about is a CPU that is a giant leap over the Jaguar and a GPU that is more than 8x that of the XBO's. You can't just simply reduce the resolution, framerate, and take out a few effects. You'd probably have to reduce the game down to being barely noticeable, read as not desirable as a purchase. There's also the fact that most likely these games are going to be releasing at the same time, meaning they won't get as much time to work on all versions.

You can look at cross-gen games from this gen, like AC:BF and BF4 as examples. They start with the lowest common denominator, then work their way up. For the most part, geometry stays the same. Some textures, not all, are improved. Maybe some more foliage is added. And a few better effects here or there. The biggest change comes from the higher resolution and framerate. That's not to say these games are ugly, far from it. But, they do not look as big as a night and day difference from the previous gen as the games built on just the next-gen systems, like Killzone:SF or Infamous:SS.
Microsoft already does top down development relative to the One X on their games, so not to avoid anything else you're saying but this has been gone through.
 
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