Support NeoGAF

[pixelation]

Pretty much echoes the response that Microsoft's presser got from a lot of gamers out there.

However, in the lead up to any next-gen console, I want a thrill. I want to see games running at their very best rather than being told that they can. The Xbox Series X gameplay didn't lean on next-gen gameplay. It didn't aim to stagger us with the power of the Series X console, instead we were ploughed away with trailer after trailer which were cut together in such a way that we rarely truly got to see how the games play. There was no very little 'X-factor' for a console with so many 'Xs' to its name.

More at the link: https://www.techradar.com/news/xbox...ach-is-robbing-players-of-the-next-gen-thrill

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

meat of the article

article title

Xbox Series X's cross-gen approach is robbing players of the next-gen thrill

But we didn't get that from Microsoft. Instead we got 13 game reveals with 'Xbox Series X Optimized' badges and a lot of talk about Smart Delivery. We don't want to be told that these games will look better, we want to see it. I (personally) want a reason to upgrade, not to be stuck in a limbo between this generation and the next. All this focus on cross-gen by Microsoft is robbing us of that initial next-gen thrill.

I hoped the Xbox Series X gameplay reveal would be the event that made me say "I need to get that console". But it wasn't. And, following the dry PS5 specs reveal, I'm starting to lose hope that an event like that will ever happen. Especially as this was only the first of Microsoft's Xbox 20/20 monthly streams.

Microsoft missed a huge opportunity on May 7 and hopefully it's something it learns from and tackles in its Xbox Game Studios focused stream in July - where we'll see the like of Halo Infinite and Hellblade 2.

 

[Dory16]

The author doesn't know what he's talking about. There was no X factor for the PS4 at launch. At least one game ran better on the 360 before being patched. And it still became the historical success that we know.
Great games with the X factor take time to make.

 

[Wandering Leopard]

Really just a provocative filler article before we start seeing headlines like "next gen redeemed..."

 

[CobraXT]

if we want 4k/60 fps as a standard next gen .. i dont know how much will left for improving graphics .. 4k is a performace killer and i doubt even 5 % of players have 4k tv/monitors .. next gen should target 1080p or 1440p/30 fps .. 60 fps is must only for racing games .. most games will be fine with 30 fps

 

[SleepDoctor]

Click bait article for a flamebait thread. Nothing to see here.

 

[Nikana]

I have to say this type of n4g headline grabbing trash hasn't been nearly as prevalent so far and I am ok with that.

Don't give this article a click.

 

[mckmas8808]

He does have a point about focusing too much on "cross-gen" games though.

 

[Stuart360]

meat of the article

article title

Xbox Series X's cross-gen approach is robbing players of the next-gen thrill

Games press at its finest. All the games shown were 3rd party games, i.e. not part of Xbox's 2 year cross gen initiative..

 

[Danteyke223]

So is that why The Medium is only getting an Xbox Series X version? Same goes for Scorn? What the hell are these tech sites huffing and where can I get some ?

 

[Hostile_18]

The author doesn't know what he's talking about. There was no X factor for the PS4 at launch. At least one game ran better on the 360 before being patched. And it still became the historical success that we know.
Great games with the X factor take time to make.

Can't you remember that Shadow Fall gameplay demo? The graphics were unreal (pun maybe intended I'm not sure).

 

[The Hamburglar]

The author doesn't know what he's talking about. There was no X factor for the PS4 at launch. At least one game ran better on the 360 before being patched. And it still became the historical success that we know.
Great games with the X factor take time to make.

The xfactor is already in the Xbox by default.

 

[mckmas8808]

So is that why The Medium is only getting an Xbox Series X version? Same goes for Scorn? What the hell are these tech sites huffing and where can I get some ?

Is this true? I didn't see this posted anywhere else?

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Is this true? I didn't see this posted anywhere else?

Scorn and The Medium are only on XsX and PC from what I understand

 

[Stuart360]

Is this true? I didn't see this posted anywhere else?

The devs confirmed that The Medium is next gen and PC only. And Scorn was always a PC only game, built from the ground up for PC, until it showed up at the XSX show.

 

[onQ123]

Only the uninformed thought that Xbox SX was going to magically make games into next gen games.

You will see the difference when games are being made around the specs of Xbox SX.

 

[Orthodox Gaming Dad]

I, like many of you here i'm sure, felt underwhelmed by the "gameplay" showcase. Am I devastated? No. Great titles will come eventually (graphically/gameplay or both). But these journalists must be pretending. Am I to believe that they cant reconcile the reality of CROSS GEN titles not looking like XsX exclusives? Just seems like click bait journalism to me.

 

[Potato Chip PRO]

All these articles remind of that toxic dude from Cinema Blend named "William Usher".... Did he get hired to write for TechRadar????

 

[Gavon West]

Is this true? I didn't see this posted anywhere else?

It Is. Its a Series X exclusive. Same as Scorn.

 

[Gavon West]

That article is nasty though. Y'all smell that shit? Ewww!

 

[ToadMan]

The problem is right now neither MS nor Sony seem to be in a position to pimp our their next gen 1st party wares.

When the last gen was coming there were some big 1st party franchises (KZ, GT, Forza, Halo) people were excited for - not to mention some major 3rd party stuff like MGSP.

This new gen is supposed to be in stores in 5 months or so and I can’t think of a single big announced, trailed hyped game for PS5 or Xsex. There’s “games coming” but we haven’t seen anything so presumably they’re not coming at launch. I mean Sony 1st party is totally quiet - seems like ND are gong to be quiet after TLOU2 lunches for a good few years, Media Molecule just got done with Dreams - maybe PD are into a new GT but they’re so slow who knows when we’ll see that. MS have Halo Infinite with nothing much else to go on.

That MS presser seemed like a bunch of cobbled together 3rd party stuff just to show something and hope it hit - the lack of actual gameplay makes me feel it was either last minute rushed or COVID affected. Sony have done even less so far.

Unless something changes, if these consoles really do get into stores this year it feels like it’ll be a “soft launch” - there’ll only be a whole bunch of cross gen and 3rd party indie games to play.

 

[DrScissorsMD]

Nah fam this ain’t it.
It’s perfectly understandable and reasonable to be disappointed with that last showcase but it was what it was: third party, and a mix of AA and AAA. The overwhelming majority was disappointed by then hyping up gameplay and then showing very little, not about it being cross gen stuff as that was kind of expected given it was all third party. And as a friendly reminder, if E3 was still a thing this year and is where we would typically expect to see the biggest blowouts of new third and first party games, we’d still be waiting up to a month from now.

The good stuffs coming from both Sony and MS. People just gotta be patient.

 

[Shmunter]

Even if you show a game that doesn’t strictly lean on the new tech it needs to be captivating in some way. Instead, the MS gameplay reveal had me reaching for the iPad to browse Apple news that’s how detached it all felt.

Hopefully Sony is paying attention. Although I suspect they’re on top off it anyway.

 

[KlickKlack]

omg every day this stupid articles

sony must be really in trouble

 

[TheGreatYosh]

Good thing Sony isn't doing the cross-gen approach.

 

[Mr Hyde]

Maybe MS gave away a couple to Sony because they felt bad for them after their tech talk.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Only the uninformed thought that Xbox SX was going to magically make games into next gen games.

You will see the difference when games are being made around the specs of Xbox SX.

Yeah I saw tht with crackdown 3 and recore. You wnt see that much of a difference we've been hearing this shit almost every gen. You'll get a decent looking forza and Halo here abd there but majority will be AA filler. And thts not enough.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

The author doesn't know what he's talking about. There was no X factor for the PS4 at launch. At least one game ran better on the 360 before being patched. And it still became the historical success that we know.
Great games with the X factor take time to make.

Maybe there wasn't one for you but there were launch titles for PS4 that absolutely looked amazing like Killzone: Shadowfall. Also on the One they had stuff like Dead Rising 3 handling more zombies on-screen than the prior gen could.

 

[mckmas8808]

Scorn and The Medium are only on XsX and PC from what I understand

This is good to see. Now I'm excited for both of these games.

 

[onQ123]

Good thing Sony isn't doing the cross-gen approach.

But most games on PS5 in the 1st few years will also be cross-gen & made to run on PC's with lower specs



The only hope is that devs love the SSD & higher powered CPU/GPU enough to bite the bullet & make games that will be too much trouble to run on older consoles.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Maybe there wasn't one for you but there were launch titles for PS4 that absolutely looked amazing like Killzone: Shadowfall. Also on the One they had stuff like Dead Rising 3 handling more zombies on-screen than the prior gen could.

Tht wasnt just the only game launch window. Infamous still shits graphically on most games from the competitor and Drive Club although had a rough online launch its campaign was gorgeous at the time. Ppl just spit bs to make their console of choice seem better. Years out and other consoles only have one or two lookers and rest look meh and are mediocre. No excuses for that.

 

[Dory16]

Maybe there wasn't one for you but there were launch titles for PS4 that absolutely looked amazing like Killzone: Shadowfall. Also on the One they had stuff like Dead Rising 3 handling more zombies on-screen than the prior gen could.

Shadowfall was far from an X factor. As for its looks, the Ascent and Scorn look impressive too. You’re not exactly helping the author make his case

 

[Explosive Zombie]

Shadowfall was far from an X factor. As for its looks, the Ascent and Scorn look impressive too. You’re not exactly helping the author make his case

We saw zero gameplay from Scorn. The Ascent doesn't look any more impressive than many isometirc view games I can currently own on Steam. I'm not sure what X factor you're asking about but we're arguing visuals and Shadowfall still has those.

 

[Bernkastel]

Yeah I saw tht with crackdown 3 and recore. You wnt see that much of a difference we've been hearing this shit almost every gen. You'll get a decent looking forza and Halo here abd there but majority will be AA filler. And thts not enough.

Every gen ? Bit of a history revisionism gone of here. Sony fans do love talking about Crackdown 3 a lot.
Also, Halo Infinite, Hellblade 2, Forza Motorsport 8 and Playground Games RPG project are AA filler? And those are just the stuffs in the first 2 years.

Even if you show a game that doesn’t strictly lean on the new tech it needs to be captivating in some way. Instead, the MS gameplay reveal had me reaching for the iPad to browse Apple news that’s how detached it all felt.

You guys love to latch on to whatever you can use right ? It was 3rd party reveal in Inside Xbox, they have been saying it since announcement. Even then they showed Medium, Scorn and Bright Memory Infinite, the former two are console exclusive to XSX(not even Xbox One).

 

[Pallas]

He does have a point about focusing too much on "cross-gen" games though.

Well to be honest there is always a lot of cross generational titles when a new console launches but as already pointed out The Medium and Scorn is next gen only for PC/Series X(no idea about PS5 since it hasn’t been formally displayed)

 

[Gavon West]

Every gen ? Bit of a history revisionism gone of here. Sony fans do love talking about Crackdown 3 a lot.
Also, Halo Infinite, Hellblade 2, Forza Motorsport 8 and Playground Games RPG project are AA filter. And those are just the stuffs in the first 2 years.

You guys love to latch on to whatever you can use right ? It was 3rd party reveal in Inside Xbox, they have been saying it since announcement. Even then they showed Medium, Scorn and Bright Memory Infinite, the former two are console exclusive to XSX(not even Xbox One).

Crackdown 3 was banger. I hope they make another for Series X. Fun fucking game man..

Anyhow, what they showed was fine. Plenty of dope games to look forward to. And these weren't even 1st party. That's the meat and potatoes.

 

[TheGreatYosh]

But most games on PS5 in the 1st few years will also be cross-gen & made to run on PC's with lower specs



The only hope is that devs love the SSD & higher powered CPU/GPU enough to bite the bullet & make games that will be too much trouble to run on older consoles.

I get that. I'm talking about Sony's first/second party strategy.

 

[Codes 208]

It didn't aim to stagger us with the power of the Series X console, instead we were ploughed away with trailer after trailer which were cut together in such a way that we rarely truly got to see how the games play

We don't want to be told that these games will look better, we want to see it.

these snippets are all I agree with, the rants regarding cross-gen are irrelevant. Halo Infinite is currentlythe biggest game on my radar and im totally fine with it being cross-gen.

 

[Little Chicken]

I guess they hated cross-gen games like Breath of the Wild.

 

[mckmas8808]

Well to be honest there is always a lot of cross generational titles when a new console launches but as already pointed out The Medium and Scorn is next gen only for PC/Series X(no idea about PS5 since it hasn’t been formally displayed)

True, but MS needs to "FOCUS" on their next-gen games more than cross-gen titles if they want to really impress gamers.

 

[Bernkastel]

Regarding Cross gen, anything that comes out on the first year or two was probably already in works before Series X was a concept, so it was already made with Xbox One in mind. Also,

Again the same old FUD spread by console warrior. Again, to make it clear, maybe then people will understand and stop spreading this bullshit:

In November 2019 Booty said that for two coming years all Xbox Studio Games will be released on all Xbox One and Xbox series consoles. Why? Because if someone buys an Xbox one X NOW, would they want them to be left out in the dust so quickly? No! That's why, for the FIRST YEAR of XSX ONLY those Xbox Studio games will be released on Xbox One, too.

This means:

MS confirmed that ONLY FOR THE FIRST YEAR OF XSX - SO ONLY UNTIL HOLIDAY 2021 - and ONLY XBOX STUDIOS GAMES will come to XBOX ONE too.

3rd Party devs can start creating XSX only games DAY ONE, at launch of XSX, so holiday 2020.

XBOX Studio games start creating XSX only games on holiday 2021.

It's not 2 years, it's not 3 years, it's not 4 years.
It's just a single (ONE ) year.

 

[JLB]

You'll call me crazy, but I lived on a parallel universe where Resogun was unanimously acclaimed. God lord is not in this one, it would be a tragedy.

 

[Bernkastel]

You'll call me crazy, but I lived on a parallel universe where Resogun was unanimously acclaimed. God lord is not in this one, it would be a tragedy.

If something like that came to Xbox, GAF will call it "Gamepass filler".

 

[Pallas]

True, but MS needs to "FOCUS" on their next-gen games more than cross-gen titles if they want to really impress gamers.

They are, we know of a few like Hellblade 2 and Project Mara. We also know that Playground Games is doing an open world fantasy RPG rumored to be Fable IV or a reboot.

Unfortunately it looks like it’ll be a year or two into next gen before see these games and whatever else they are cooking from their other studios.

 

[LMJ]

Seems a tad premature to jump to this conclusion for three important reasons...

#1 new gen means cross gen titles that will NOT come close to taking full advantage of the new tech to it's full potential, same as it's been since the seventh gen..

#2 as previously mentioned this was a showing of AA and indi studios, if anything we should be thrilled their games look as good as they do this early

#3 Can we wait at LEAST a few months before we whine about these systems "not being taken advantage of", Christ the system isn't even out and the usual suspects "media and so called journalists" are already fanning the fanboy flames

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Yeah the MS show may have been underwhelming but these articles are getting a bit much.

I mean just look at the title of the article:

Xbox Series X's cross-gen approach is robbing players of the next-gen thrill

Jesus christ.

The same shit is going to apply to PlayStation and the transition will be just like when last gen started. Lots of cross gen games in first year and then proper next gen titles hit a year or two later.

Did these guys writing these articles just start getting into console gaming?

 

[Pimpbaa]

4k is a performace killer and i doubt even 5 % of players have 4k tv/monitors .. next gen should target 1080p or 1440p/30 fps .. 60 fps is must only for racing games .. most games will be fine with 30 fps

Why the fuck would have Sony and MS released the PS4 pro and XB1X if only 5% of gamers had 4K TVs? You can’t even buy 1080p TVs anymore, it’s 4K from budget to high end. Fucking 1080p for next gen, Jesus christ.

 

[Jtibh]

if we want 4k/60 fps as a standard next gen .. i dont know how much will left for improving graphics .. 4k is a performace killer and i doubt even 5 % of players have 4k tv/monitors .. next gen should target 1080p or 1440p/30 fps .. 60 fps is must only for racing games .. most games will be fine with 30 fps

Anything from 1440 p to 4k AT 30fps is fine with me.
I rather take a clean image quality and high fidelity over high fps with a lot of shimmer.

I dont expect next gen to be 60fps at all ,that dream died with the ps2.

 

[Jtibh]

Yeah the MS show may have been underwhelming but these articles are getting a bit much.

I mean just look at the title of the article:

Xbox Series X's cross-gen approach is robbing players of the next-gen thrill

Jesus christ.

The same shit is going to apply to PlayStation and the transition will be just like when last gen started. Lots of cross gen games in first year and then proper next gen titles hit a year or two later.

Did these guys writing these articles just start getting into console gaming?

We need to move on from ITS MA'AM to something new to bitch about for the next while.
We are not allowed to be happy or excited. Media has to tell us what and how to think.

 

[sinnergy]

It are mostly Indie games .. wtf.

I thought almost all looked better than this generation. It always the same with a new gen .. did reporters get reset ? And start blank? Just curious ?

I mean it’s been this way since snes, looks hardly better than NES.