Support NeoGAF

[GHG]

I was thinking more of how games are pushed on people. All trailers are flashy, colourful (like a gambling machine in vegas) set to pounding pop DnB style music, the hype, the marketing campaign, it's all becoming very pop-culture and mainstream.

I don't know how to explain it, but it's more like preying on an individuals vanity and FOMO vs "here's a game with an interesting story/combat, here's the things you will like.

Style over substance

Ah gotcha. I was referring to the tweet above on Tesla. The whole idea that you get your biggest fans to do your batting for you. They act as support and it fosters an environment where people feel like they are "part" of something bigger.

"The community around this product are so helpful and nice to me - we are good people"

Yeah, with some pop-ins

Remember when it was "disappointing" because it had pop in and lower resolution ray traced reflections? Remember when that was a sign that the PS5 couldn't really do ray tracing and that the SSD isn't so great. Now suddenly it's fake footage.

It's unbelievable how quickly things change.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Ah gotcha. I was referring to the tweet above on Tesla. The whole idea that you get your biggest fans to do your batting for you. They act as support and it fosters an environment where people feel like they are "part" of something bigger.

"The community around this product are so helpful and nice to me - we are good people"

Good point.

The cultivating of a cult culture. Bring in people that will sell your crap so that they fit in with the consumerist cult. Yeah i get what you're saying. Funnily enough, it's that mentality and cult that has caused the Xbox to be so shit for 10 years.

 

[BlackTron]

Ohh it’s one of these post


shouldn’t have responded...

I literally do not care about all this console war stuff. I like games though and find the tech interesting.

I just call em as I see em. Sorry. Mind you, I'm not adding any opinion over which avenue is better, whether as a business strategy or for gamers (MS with their platform-spamming, Sony with their defined gens and exclusive titles). This convo is purely technical.

 

[Nikana]

Lay it on me muchacho

When Sega sent out copies of AI for review they asked a lot of specifics in this instance. ( I can confirm this as I too received a review copy back in the day.)

One in particular was asking people, but not demanding by any means, that reviewers play their game on Hard mode as it was the "intended way the developers wanted people to play Alien Isolation."

The problem was that on Hard the AI was extremely unfair especially early game. A lot of the scenarios that led you hiding in a locker and such ended with the Alien simply finding you with no good indication of to how it found you along with what you could have done differently. Tis persists through almost the entirety of the first half of the game.

If you have played AI you know that eventually the Alien disappears for awhile and you fight the Robots (blanking on the name) for awhile instead, which most agree is the low point of the game. With the final quarter of so being a lot easier due to the flamethrower against the alien but also on Hard the facehuggers that show up in the final quarter attack you from farther distances, and face huggers like the Alien were basically 1 hit kills on the player.

Ryan chose to stick with hard as Sega had asked and wrote his review based off of that. While most other reviewers did not do that and played the game on normal.

You could argue Ryan should have bumped it down and not played the game as Sega wished but he didn't.

Personally I am with Ryan in that AI on hard is much worse game that feels more like a random encounter simulator with no control over when/how the alien gets you.

 

[D.Final]

Cool to know

 

[GHG]

Good point.

The cultivating of a cult culture. Bring in people that will sell your crap so that they fit in with the consumerist cult. Yeah i get what you're saying. Funnily enough, it's that mentality and cult that has caused the Xbox to be so shit for 10 years.

Cults only eat what they are fed unfortunately.

If you make a cult accustomed to bad food then eventually they will believe they don't need better food. New members know no different, older members forget what it is supposed to taste like, nobody asks any questions anymore.

 

[Agnostic2020]

Good point.

The cultivating of a cult culture. Bring in people that will sell your crap so that they fit in with the consumerist cult. Yeah i get what you're saying. Funnily enough, it's that mentality and cult that has caused the Xbox to be so shit for 10 years.

Can't agree more. I used to be hard-core xbox fan BTW. Seeing what has happened to the brand pains me but oh well I said my goodbyes to xbox 9 years ago sold my 360 due to non stop focus on kinect and got ps3 and haven't looked back since then .granted that ps4 launch for 1 year and half the library was not good but sony pulled through like always.

 

[Thabass]

At least he admitted he was wrong.

 

[Shmunter]

When Sega sent out copies of AI for review they asked a lot of specifics in this instance. ( I can confirm this as I too received a review copy back in the day.)

One in particular was asking people, but not demanding by any means, that reviewers play their game on Hard mode as it was the "intended way the developers wanted people to play Alien Isolation."

The problem was that on Hard the AI was extremely unfair especially early game. A lot of the scenarios that led you hiding in a locker and such ended with the Alien simply finding you with no good indication of to how it found you along with what you could have done differently. Tis persists through almost the entirety of the first half of the game.

If you have played AI you know that eventually the Alien disappears for awhile and you fight the Robots (blanking on the name) for awhile instead, which most agree is the low point of the game. With the final quarter of so being a lot easier due to the flamethrower against the alien but also on Hard the facehuggers that show up in the final quarter attack you from farther distances, and face huggers like the Alien were basically 1 hit kills on the player.

Ryan chose to stick with hard as Sega had asked and wrote his review based off of that. While most other reviewers did not do that and played the game on normal.

You could argue Ryan should have bumped it down and not played the game as Sega wished but he didn't.

Personally I am with Ryan in that AI on hard is much worse game that feels more like a random encounter simulator with no control over when/how the alien gets you.

I finished it on hard first playthrough. They must’ve patched it because it was tense and challenging, but on balance an amazing experience all the way through. Did you need to hold your breath or am I thinking some other game? Can’t remember.

But then why would they recommend the difficulty upfront if it was broken?

Also, thank you for taking the time to explain it.

 

[Esppiral]

There were plenty of ps2 games that also got a Ps1 version, but those where developed separately in no way shape or form TH3 could run on pS1 but it got a version tailored to its hardware that's they only way to keep maintaining the XBOX ONE a cross gen game will hold back next gen.

 

[Nikana]

I finished it on hard first playthrough. They must’ve patched it because it was tense and challenging, but on balance an amazing experience all the way through.

But then why would they recommend the difficulty upfront if it was broken?

Also, thank you for taking the time to explain it.

CA to my knowledge never admitted they tweaked the AI but there are various threads in the usual places saying that the AI felt different after patches. So its really hard to say if it was ever changed.

I really don't know why they suggested hard mode. To put on my conspiracy theory hat I personally think it was to mask the run time if you played it on Normal or Easy. If you know how to you can exploit the Alien and simply run away on Easy. On Normal it doesn't require too much to trick it into going to the other way and you simply run through the game minus the puzzle solutions.

On Hard it forced you to do certain things you probably wouldn't do on normal. On easy even more so, and considering having 1 Alien with this supposedly next level AI was "THE" pitch of the game I would theorize they said play it on hard to try and make the AI of the Alien still be the center of the image they wanted to sell and not the run time. If you got through the ALien part of the first half quick that image of it being the focus of the game is basically gone.

But honestly I thought the game was too long on normal to begin with. On Hard mode I can only imagine it would have been stupid frustrating especially at launch.

I never went back and played it since so I can't comment on the feel of the hard mode from launch to now. But I believe they added a new difficulty at some point making it even more difficult.

 

[dead monkey uk]

Spider man is an expansion pack to a PS4 game.
Demon's souls is a remaster of a 2 generation old game and not first party, made by bluepoint
Horizon 2 I already mentioned....
GT7 - i wouldn't be betting on that lol. Have you ever heard of Polyphony Digital? We haven't seen anything in game, and they are the slowest developers in the world.
Astrobot is a pre-loaded pack in.....
Sackboy probably, ill give you that.
Destruction allstars isn't first party.
Ratchet and Clank I missed, my mistake.

So yes, I'd say my statement is pretty correct.

What do you mean, we have not seen anything in game of GT7? We have seen gameplay.

Demons Souls is a Remake not a Remaster and is a Sony IP developed by Bluepoint and Japan Studios.

Spider-Man is an expansion pack now, is that better or worse than being DLC?

 

[DarkMage619]

Doesn't new Halo supposed to run on Xbone?

The 'new' Halo has been in development for over 5 years. Do you really think the XSX was a mature development platform 5 years ago? It is an X1 game getting a patch.

 

[SlimySnake]

What do you mean, we have not seen anything in game of GT7? We have seen gameplay.

Demons Souls is a Remake not a Remaster and is a Sony IP developed by Bluepoint and Japan Studios.

Spider-Man is an expansion pack now, is that better or worse than being DLC?

Dont bother.

 

[Warnen]

Can't agree more. I used to be hard-core xbox fan BTW. Seeing what has happened to the brand pains me but oh well I said my goodbyes to xbox 9 years ago sold my 360 due to non stop focus on kinect and got ps3 and haven't looked back since then .granted that ps4 launch for 1 year and half the library was not good but sony pulled through like always.

Switched one cult for another lol

 

[Hendrick's]

God this can't be how people are on here? You can't be this dense. They literally showed games running at 4k, with Ray tracing. Maybe there were corners cut, like we saw in digital foundry breakdown for GT7. But you can't run games "well" natively on PS4PRO at 4k. And those chips in PS4PRO xbox One x don't support ray tracing.

On top of of fast asset loading.

These posts are not going to age well I can bet my account on it.

Can't wait, next couple weeks are going to be fun for people like me to watch these threads become a melting pot.

What games are you talking about exactly? I saw a lot of cutscenes outside of R&C, and while that looked good, it wasn't anything that screamed next gen. R&C on PS4 looks pretty damn good already.

Also, google melting pot before using it next time.

 

[hard_boiled]

I do not understand why backwards compatibility in new games is desirable. Why make a game backwards compatible when the console generations will continue move forwards? It seems like a much smaller payoff for a lot more technical debt & development cost.

 

[M1chl]

Well as we witnessed all of this "pro-consumer" move is nothing more than "we are not ready bois", since those games which are comming in later date, is XSX only... It's just a positive PR spin on bad thing.

 

[Hendrick's]

I do not understand why backwards compatibility in new games is desirable. Why make a game backwards compatible when the console generations will continue move forwards? It seems like a much smaller payoff for a lot more technical debt & development cost.

Wouldn't that be forward compatibility? Regardless, I think the only reason MS would want this is because of Game Pass. They certainly should be rethinking that strategy, but also need to be careful not to alienate that base.

 

[Agnostic2020]

Switched one cult for another lol

Just to be clear I didnt say I agree to the cult part as yea both can turn into cults if u want it. I agreed to the part where he said none of the fans tend to keep the execs at ms accountable for all this issues the brand has gone through.they protect Phil& co at all costs instead of asking him few questions as to whats up .

 

[Papacheeks]

What games are you talking about exactly? I saw a lot of cutscenes outside of R&C, and while that looked good, it wasn't anything that screamed next gen. R&C on PS4 looks pretty damn good already.

Also, google melting pot before using it next time.

GT 7 literally showed you gameplay at the end on top of showing you the menu system for your garage, races ect. Go get your eyes checked.

Kena also showed gameplay mixed into the trailer. Horizon and Demons souls were the only ones where there were not video clips mixed into their trailers of recorded gameplay.

Your post will be fun to look back on soon.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Proves new games should be the favorite.

 

[Warnen]

Just to be clear I didnt say I agree to the cult part as yea both can turn into cults if u want it. I agreed to the part where he said none of the fans tend to keep the execs at ms accountable for all this issues the brand has gone through.they protect Phil& co at all costs instead of asking him few questions as to whats up .

Can't agree more. I used to be hard-core xbox fan BTW. Seeing what has happened to the brand pains me but oh well I said my goodbyes to xbox 9 years ago sold my 360 due to non stop focus on kinect and got ps3 and haven't looked back since then .granted that ps4 launch for 1 year and half the library was not good but sony pulled through like always.

Best not to tie your identity to the box on the tv that plays the games....

 

[Agnostic2020]

Best not to tie your identity to the box on the tv that plays the games....

I don't tie it to box at all. I go where games are. Only skipped ps2 for xbox which was not cause of games but rather the tech(ended up loving many games like ninja garden and hunter the reckoning etc.. on xbox) but after that it has been about games I like .like x360 being untouchable in 2005 to 2010 etc... Let's see if ms can dazzle me 2023 when their games will he ready

 

[Plague Doctor]

I trust Phil though.

The first 6 years he was hindered at the most profitable company in the world.

Now, now is his time to shine. He has all the money in the world ever from MS and will deliver in another 6 years. For really realz this time.

You just all need to be patient and wait for 2023, okay?

 

[Agnostic2020]

I trust Phil though.

The first 6 years he was hindered at the most profitable company in the world.

Now, now is his time to shine. He has all the money in the world ever from MS and will deliver in another 6 years. For really realz this time.

You just all need to be patient and wait for 2023, okay?

Of course. All of this is don mattrick fault. That shameless bastardoo

 

[Elder Legend]

there is a reason why they have the IGN in the name...it stands for IGNorant.

 

[THE DUCK]

If he was wrong before he could be wrong now.

I find it very interesting that we have amazing looking games on xbox one x and ps4 pro despite the developers having to develop for ps4 and xbox one. So even if it "held it back" it wasn't to the crippling degree that many here love to overemphasize.

 

[Kerotan Frog]

I'm glad he could admit it, but how did he not see this..? It's obvious to everyone. Sony is banking their entire next gen strategy on the fact that they will not be held back by PS4. People are down with this because the games look incredible

That is why Infinite looked like arse and got delayed from the Series X launch. Phil is going down with his parity ship and is trying to take as many people as he can with him. He's the ultimate charlatan and even McCaffrey, who snorts Xbox branded cocaine before every podcast, has FINALLY seen through the bs. Console generations are important because it allows all adopters to achieve the same massive bump in quality and developers can splurge creatively during the development.

When you have scalable games that can range from 2012 era hardware to 2020 tech, you cripple the scope to account for limitations (hiding loading screens with claustrophobic crack in the wall traversal and long elevators, texture pop-in, huge file installs and dedicated data discs, and semi-open worlds). Yeah, the 2020 ver will look better, but its fundamentally a last gen game.

"Let go of the past, kill it if you have to."

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Cults only eat what they are fed unfortunately.

If you make a cult accustomed to bad food then eventually they will believe they don't need better food. New members know no different, older members forget what it is supposed to taste like, nobody asks any questions anymore.

Brilliant analogy, i think this is what is happening at Microsoft.

Can't agree more. I used to be hard-core xbox fan BTW. Seeing what has happened to the brand pains me but oh well I said my goodbyes to xbox 9 years ago sold my 360 due to non stop focus on kinect and got ps3 and haven't looked back since then .granted that ps4 launch for 1 year and half the library was not good but sony pulled through like always.

I'm with you 100%. I bought an X because it is a good console, backed up by gamepass because i'm a cheap arse gamer.

From the launch of the Dreamcast to the launch of the kinect, signalled the start and end of the greatest period of gaming ive known. (Started gaming in the late 80's)

 

[Hezekiah]

What do you mean, we have not seen anything in game of GT7? We have seen gameplay.

Demons Souls is a Remake not a Remaster and is a Sony IP developed by Bluepoint and Japan Studios.

Spider-Man is an expansion pack now, is that better or worse than being DLC?

He literally admits he forgot about 2 games, 'confirms' GT will be delayed, calls Spiderman an expansion pack, says Demon Souls and Astro Bot don't count, then says he was 'pretty correct' after all that. He must be a wum .

 

[treemk]

If he was wrong before he could be wrong now.

I find it very interesting that we have amazing looking games on xbox one x and ps4 pro despite the developers having to develop for ps4 and xbox one. So even if it "held it back" it wasn't to the crippling degree that many here love to overemphasize.

The differences are marginal compared to ps4 vs ps5, we've also never seen what an exclusive for the one x or ps4 pro would look like. You can look at a cross gen game like Destiny, eventually the old gen was dropped for future updates because it was too limiting.

 

[Bolivar687]

I searched for thicc_girls_are_teh_best in this thread.

"No results found."

 

[NullZ3r0]

So now being pro consumer is seen as bad because Sony's not doing it? The hypocrisy of the media and fanboys is becoming tiring.

Sony's taking every stance that Don Mattrick would have taken last gen and no one bats an eye at it.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

So now being pro consumer is seen as bad because Sony's not doing it? The hypocrisy of the media and fanboys is becoming tiring.

Lying, using media-shills and forum plants to continue those lies, using strong-arm tactics against those who point out the possible flaws with the plan of 'supporting previous hardware' and the accompanying "everyone is a fanboy" is getting tiring.

but, you do have the second most attractive woman in the world as your avi, so i can't even be mad

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I searched for thicc_girls_are_teh_best in this thread.

"No results found."

Yeeeeeaaaahhhhh....I'm...kinda gonna disagreee with Ryan on this one.

He's not 100% wrong but...we're also talking about 343i here. There's a lot of other things that've made HI the mess it is you can focus on well before pointing a finger as current-gen hardware.

I get it tho; better to lay the blame on XBO than a dev studio with hundreds (thousands) of employees even if the problem is only with maybe 10 or so of those employees at the top of management

So now being pro consumer is seen as bad because Sony's not doing it? The hypocrisy of the media and fanboys is becoming tiring.

Sony's taking every stance that Don Mattrick would have taken last gen and no one bats an eye at it.

It's more because of the severity of the messaging switch, and how quickly it's happened, why it looks a bit suspect. Right up until the July event Phil, Matt, Aaron etc. were hyping up cross-gen and not really doing the concept of "generations" etc. Then the July event happens: HI has a mediocre showing. Many of the 1st-party games are next-gen exclusive with no XBO versions listed, so on and so forth.

Literally only days later talk of problems with 343i start emerging, and then comes the delay announcement. Word of XBO version struggling, proof it was the base version and Series X was just getting a resolution/texture upgrade. Everything about HI has only reaffirmed the earlier discussions about cross-gen "holding games back", and the fact so many of MS 1st-party games had no cross-gen versions shown only affirming it.

So now it just looks like MS were trying to talk up a different message than Sony but were doing the same thing the whole time. Kind of like a reverse of 2013 in a way. The fact that in both cases they've quickly changed tone upon wider backlash is honestly troubling, it means they've made the same mistake of not reading the room. If their overall strategy WRT cross-gen wasn't much different than Sony's then they shouldn't of talked it up like they were going to be so different.

Because they did, and now things are happening as they are, they have egg on their face and it'll take a while to wipe off. I've been very optimistic with MS's next-gen efforts (same with Sony's), but this current situation with the whole cross-gen stuff and HI is a fat L they have to hold for a minute.

 

[mckmas8808]

So now it just looks like MS were trying to talk up a different message than Sony but were doing the same thing the whole time. Kind of like a reverse of 2013 in a way. The fact that in both cases they've quickly changed tone upon wider backlash is honestly troubling, it means they've made the same mistake of not reading the room. If their overall strategy WRT cross-gen wasn't much different than Sony's then they shouldn't of talked it up like they were going to be so different.

Because they did, and now things are happening as they are, they have egg on their face and it'll take a while to wipe off. I've been very optimistic with MS's next-gen efforts (same with Sony's), but this current situation with the whole cross-gen stuff and HI is a fat L they have to hold for a minute.

The biggest thing that's troubling is that for 2 generations in a row MS doesn't seem to have a solid plan. The issue isn't that they can't read the room, it's that they don't even know what building to be in. They are trying to serve too many masters at once.

 

[FranXico]

So now it just looks like MS were trying to talk up a different message than Sony but were doing the same thing the whole time. Kind of like a reverse of 2013 in a way.

What?

 

[AGRacing]

We had a LOT of people buy One X consoles over malware quarantine under the promise of years of 1st party support. If they reverse that decision that's a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.

I know if I were one of those people I'd never buy something with an "Xbox" name on it again.

If they decide to reverse that decision I'd have a "sorry" program in the wings.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

The biggest thing that's troubling is that for 2 generations in a row MS doesn't seem to have a solid plan. The issue isn't that they can't read the room, it's that they don't even know what building to be in. They are trying to serve too many masters at once.

That's always somewhat a potential problem with companies the size of Microsoft. IBM had similar issues a while ago in this regard, you get so large that parts of the company get bogged down by corporate bureaucracy, so some divisions may not know what the other is doing.

Sony isn't a small company per-se but they're overall smaller than MS in terms of scope. They may have a movie division, music division, games division etc. but they're all in the entertainment field and rather closely linked with each other. It's to their benefit more often than not.

MS may not be in some of those fields (though apparently studios like 343i were dabbling with entertainment options for Halo Infinite, in the TV series still in limbo), but in terms of scope they are a bit broader. They have to service entertainment options (Xbox), consumer electronics (Xbox, Surface, etc.), consumer and professional PC markets (Windows), business software markets (Office 365, etc.), server and cloud distribution business sectors (Azure, etc.), and more. Their investments are spread out across more segmented fields, sometimes it can be an issue to fully synergize everything together like that.

For next-gen gaming I really feel their best shot for messaging is to do what they were doing from December last year up to around April or so: put the spotlight on Series X. Center the value proposition around that system. Everything else, including Gamepass, need to be secondary. Things like Xcloud and Gamepass should, if anything, be positioned as value-adds for investing in a Series X, not treat Series X as an "well yeah you can also pick it up if you want it but we're really not requiring you to get it" kind of thing. Doesn't mean those services have to be exclusive to Series X, but any messaging and marketing for them should primarily be built around that system. Later down the line once Series X establishes its market presence, is when they can start messaging about Gamepass, Xcloud etc. leaning more into what it can do for mobile markets, etc.

I actually kind of think, in that respect, they could be moving a tad too fast on those services. I think if they weren't as focused on Gamepass and Xcloud for non-Xbox devices they'd of had more resources at the Xbox division for the 1st-party teams and maybe we would've had a few other next-gen 1st-party games coming even if HI got delayed. In fact I'm almost pressed to say their focus on Gamepass and Xcloud might be the reason why there wasn't as much QA and oversight onto what was going on with 343i, the former may've distracted from the latter in terms of ascertaining how dev was really going over the past two or so years.

Welp, here's hoping MS can re-strengthen their messaging going forward. They still have time, tho it's not as much as they might like to think.

What?

Huh?

 

[mckmas8808]

That's always somewhat a potential problem with companies the size of Microsoft. IBM had similar issues a while ago in this regard, you get so large that parts of the company get bogged down by corporate bureaucracy, so some divisions may not know what the other is doing.

Sony isn't a small company per-se but they're overall smaller than MS in terms of scope. They may have a movie division, music division, games division etc. but they're all in the entertainment field and rather closely linked with each other. It's to their benefit more often than not.

MS may not be in some of those fields (though apparently studios like 343i were dabbling with entertainment options for Halo Infinite, in the TV series still in limbo), but in terms of scope they are a bit broader. They have to service entertainment options (Xbox), consumer electronics (Xbox, Surface, etc.), consumer and professional PC markets (Windows), business software markets (Office 365, etc.), server and cloud distribution business sectors (Azure, etc.), and more. Their investments are spread out across more segmented fields, sometimes it can be an issue to fully synergize everything together like that.

For next-gen gaming I really feel their best shot for messaging is to do what they were doing from December last year up to around April or so: put the spotlight on Series X. Center the value proposition around that system. Everything else, including Gamepass, need to be secondary. Things like Xcloud and Gamepass should, if anything, be positioned as value-adds for investing in a Series X, not treat Series X as an "well yeah you can also pick it up if you want it but we're really not requiring you to get it" kind of thing. Doesn't mean those services have to be exclusive to Series X, but any messaging and marketing for them should primarily be built around that system. Later down the line once Series X establishes its market presence, is when they can start messaging about Gamepass, Xcloud etc. leaning more into what it can do for mobile markets, etc.

I actually kind of think, in that respect, they could be moving a tad too fast on those services. I think if they weren't as focused on Gamepass and Xcloud for non-Xbox devices they'd of had more resources at the Xbox division for the 1st-party teams and maybe we would've had a few other next-gen 1st-party games coming even if HI got delayed. In fact I'm almost pressed to say their focus on Gamepass and Xcloud might be the reason why there wasn't as much QA and oversight onto what was going on with 343i, the former may've distracted from the latter in terms of ascertaining how dev was really going over the past two or so years.

Welp, here's hoping MS can re-strengthen their messaging going forward. They still have time, tho it's not as much as they might like to think.



Huh?

The bolded is the problem in my opinion. Why does "EVERYTHING" have to be synergized? I agree with you 100% that Gamepass and XCloud should have been value-adds and not the "primary" reason to buy an XSX. And yes they were distracted, because their need to synergize superseded their need to create and provide top-notch AAA games.