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[alabtrosMyster]

, especially if it's way smaller than the tombstone sized PS5. Portability matters to some of us.

Xbox owners now caring about size! That did not take long!

 

[Sethbacca]

What does PS5 have to do with a XSS? Does PS5 have Game Pass, Xbox exclusives or be able to run Xcloud? There is a market for both platforms and if all of that power only gives you a higher resolution, people content with 1080p like my kids won't care. It isn't one or the other, I am getting both. A XSS will be perfect for my kids and for when I am stuck at work on a 1080p monitor, especially if it's way smaller than the tombstone sized PS5. Portability matters to some of us.

All I'm saying is that if it's within a certain $ amount of the low end ps5 it doesn't make sense except as potentially a second system or the few of you who need portability. Pricing is key to this whole venture is all I'm saying.

 

[ZywyPL]

All I'm saying is that if it's within a certain $ amount of the low end ps5 it doesn't make sense except as potentially a second system or the few of you who need portability. Pricing is key to this whole venture is all I'm saying.

You'd be surprised how appealing a really low price can be - my brother-in-law thinks video games are stupid, for kids, a waste of time, but when he sees a commercial of X1S for like 175$ he decided to get it later in the year anyway, so just imagine how appealing such a low price point can be for someone who actually is into gaming, but cannot afford 400-500$ or just doesn't want to spend that much on a gaming device for one reason or another, A 200-250$ console has a potential to bring people to current XB ecosystem who would otherwise stand in the back just watching, or just catching up with the PS4/XB1 generation instead of being up-to-date with the games.

 

[Nikana]

All I'm saying is that if it's within a certain $ amount of the low end ps5 it doesn't make sense except as potentially a second system or the few of you who need portability. Pricing is key to this whole venture is all I'm saying.

That's true to an extent. To a consumer who gaming isn't their main hobby $50 is enough to sway them one way or another. To someone in the hobby it's a no brainier but to others a 20 percent difference in price is the difference between getting something and not.

 

[DavidGzz]

Xbox owners now caring about size! That did not take long!

Don't lump me in with everybody else besides you call me an Xbox owner like I am constricted to only one platform when I own them all besides the switch because I don't do Nintendo games anymore. I take a console to work everyday, of course a smaller one would make it easier to transport.

 

[DavidGzz]

All I'm saying is that if it's within a certain $ amount of the low end ps5 it doesn't make sense except as potentially a second system or the few of you who need portability. Pricing is key to this whole venture is all I'm saying.

I will have to buy 3 consoles. I will get a PS5 and an XSX. Do I buy two PS5's or a XSX and a XSS? My kids only play the mainstream 3rd party games really. So a second cheap Xbox is smarter in my position.

Price is a huge deal to the average gamer. $150 less is a big deal and it could potentially be $200 less. We'll see in July, hopefully.

 

[Tulipanzo]

If less ambitious stuff like Sackboy and Returnal "count" then I would say yeah you should expect the same.

Well, in my quote I specifically left those two out

You're gonna have to provide receipts on cross gen games losing money because that isn't something I have ever heard major developers say. The reason cross gen games go away is because as the user base moves over, so does the development. It makes sense early on as not every adopts the new hardware.

I assume you mean publishers here, but last-gen games sold fractions of their current-gen counterpart. Even this gen, after a first unsuccessful last-gen port, companies moved fully to next-gen as the economics were obvious.

Consider we kept getting Fifa on PS2 until Fifa 14: if last-gen ports were profitable, we'd still be getting them.

Them being butchered is your opinion. current gen games that go down in the 20 FPS range at times. And I didnt use just good ports. Shadow of Mourdour is a terrible port. So don't accuse me of stuff that isn't true. I used those ports because they were the ones that were most notable and that stuck out in my head as being good and bad.

Shadow of Mordor is the only bad port you brought up. ACIV, MGS5, BLOPS 3, DAI and plenty others were not only worse on last-gen, but arguably a straight up terrible way to experience the games.

I know Rise, Titanfall, and FH2, because those are the handful of ports not considered unplayable garbage by most, but highlighting them as representative is wrong, just looking at statitics...

I have said MANY times as well that we need to wait and see how Microsoft approaches it. Not that they will approach it the same way. I am not pretending anything. Lay off the aggressiveness.

I haven't seen anyone flat out denying it will take less time and money. Maybe I haven't seen the right posters but its fair to say that I am on a lot of threads and they are the minority and probably fight for one side or the other. That shouldn't make the general consensus be that people are saying it wont take time and money.

Given how many MS Studios' game run on an OG X1, my expectations are fairly low there. Minecraft Dungeons (not exactly a next-gen experience) drops frames and hiccups a bunch. I'm not expecting radically improved optimization for far more complex games.

While we'll have to see, I'm just highlighting how most cross-gen titles play out: either unambitious, or running poorly on last gen (if not both). By presenting only the best case scenarios, you are indeed presenting this strategy as far more favorable than it really is.

How does a non system seller in Battletoads make more sense to put the work into to make vastly different ports when its not going to push sales like a Halo would? Just because its cheaper and faster doesnt mean you will see a ROI like you would on a Halo.

Supporting your old gen with smaller, less intensive titles is a much better strategy than tying your half a billion project to seven years old hardware. Especially when you should be pushing your new box

Bolded is BS . Sorry. But an architecture change is vastly capable of being a jump in what a developer can do. Specializing software to run on an engine due to an architecture is time and physical and digital resource intensive. Scaling across a similar architecture is vastly easier to do VS having to change an entire architecture plus scale. I also haven't seen any developer say cross gen is getting harder.

It's less of a jump, and more of a side-step. Obviously coding for x86 is easier and more established, but that alone isn't going to improve things beyond that (as we've seen with the weak CPUs this gen).
Still, tech-wise, this is the biggest jump since PS2->PS3, and I don't see the point in arguing it somehow isn't.

I dont think this is OT either as Lockhart plays into cross gen as well and the OP didn't even have any news or substance meaning there isn't much of a central topic.

The topic is about the rumoured price-points; I argued that given they won't make next-gen exclusives for "one to two years" that spoke to an unwillingness to take huge losses to move audience quickly.

After misreading my original post, you then moved on to argue about the feasibility of cross-gen, which had nothing to do with my point. You did that by presenting the few known decent cross-gen ports, and ignoring both the costs and high likelihood of disappointing last-gen versions. Lockhart, as a platform, present a whole different set of challenges.

Whether or not cross-gen plays out well, Lockhart at $200 with SeX at $400 is a fantasy, with no correlation with MS' strategy.

 

[T-I-N-M-A-N dX]

I’d be all for a $200 and $400 console but I don’t think that’s it.

Their “mic drop” will be pushing their Xbox All Access plans harder and getting people on 2 year plans like a cell phone and only playing $35 a month for a console. Hell they might not even mention the overall price and say you can get X plus 2 years of game pass ultimate, and Xcloud for only $35 a month and or get an S and the same for $25.

 

[Tulipanzo]

You'd be surprised how appealing a really low price can be - my brother-in-law thinks video games are stupid, for kids, a waste of time, but when he sees a commercial of X1S for like 175$ he decided to get it later in the year anyway, so just imagine how appealing such a low price point can be for someone who actually is into gaming, but cannot afford 400-500$ or just doesn't want to spend that much on a gaming device for one reason or another, A 200-250$ console has a potential to bring people to current XB ecosystem who would otherwise stand in the back just watching, or just catching up with the PS4/XB1 generation instead of being up-to-date with the games.

The problem here is that the really low-price comes with substantially less value.
Worse CPU, much worse GPU, "substantially less RAM" and no disc-drive are a real deal breaker.
Being somebody who genuinely had to budget for a console, I know that a much worse system isn't a good idea, even if cheaper.

$200-250 is also farcical; MS would be taking a sizeable loss even putting Lockhart out at $300-350 (unless it has an HDD, then god help us.)

Really, the reality is evident: if MS had an incredibly good yet cheap box, with no downsides, they would have shown it alongside the XSX.
Similarly to how the PS5DE was shown with the regular, if this option were just as valid they would be marketing it, not hiding it.

 

[Nikana]

Well, in my quote I specifically left those two out


I assume you mean publishers here, but last-gen games sold fractions of their current-gen counterpart. Even this gen, after a first unsuccessful last-gen port, companies moved fully to next-gen as the economics were obvious.

Consider we kept getting Fifa on PS2 until Fifa 14: if last-gen ports were profitable, we'd still be getting them.


Shadow of Mordor is the only bad port you brought up. ACIV, MGS5, BLOPS 3, DAI and plenty others were not only worse on last-gen, but arguably a straight up terrible way to experience the games.

I know Rise, Titanfall, and FH2, because those are the handful of ports not considered unplayable garbage by most, but highlighting them as representative is wrong, just looking at statitics...


Given how many MS Studios' game run on an OG X1, my expectations are fairly low there. Minecraft Dungeons (not exactly a next-gen experience) drops frames and hiccups a bunch. I'm not expecting radically improved optimization for far more complex games.

While we'll have to see, I'm just highlighting how most cross-gen titles play out: either unambitious, or running poorly on last gen (if not both). By presenting only the best case scenarios, you are indeed presenting this strategy as far more favorable than it really is.


Supporting your old gen with smaller, less intensive titles is a much better strategy than tying your half a billion project to seven years old hardware. Especially when you should be pushing your new box


It's less of a jump, and more of a side-step. Obviously coding for x86 is easier and more established, but that alone isn't going to improve things beyond that (as we've seen with the weak CPUs this gen).
Still, tech-wise, this is the biggest jump since PS2->PS3, and I don't see the point in arguing it somehow isn't.


The topic is about the rumoured price-points; I argued that given they won't make next-gen exclusives for "one to two years" that spoke to an unwillingness to take huge losses to move audience quickly.

After misreading my original post, you then moved on to argue about the feasibility of cross-gen, which had nothing to do with my point. You did that by presenting the few known decent cross-gen ports, and ignoring both the costs and high likelihood of disappointing last-gen versions. Lockhart, as a platform, present a whole different set of challenges.

Whether or not cross-gen plays out well, Lockhart at $200 with SeX at $400 is a fantasy, with no correlation with MS' strategy.

Again you'll have to provide receipts on cross gen games losing money. Theres a difference between losing money and moving on because the user base has moved on. Simply saying because we got Fifa17 on one platform for so long means that cross gen games as a whole are not profitable is laughable. They obviously have a more prominent presence at the beginning of a cycle as a lot of users will not adopt new hardware right away. The audience for Fifa is not the same as Dragon Age.

Will have to disagree on ACIV and DAI. Both were more than playable. MGS and Blops 3 not so much. Again thats your opinion that they were unplayable but saying I am only pointing to good ports and say this is how its going to go is wrong. For the 4th time now I think, we need to wait and see how they handle the ports. You seem to be hellbent on them being bad which is your right but trying to push that as how its going to go is disingenuous when there is evidence to show that a cross gen game doesn't have to be unplayable. I never said it will go the "good" way. I said its unfair to say it will automatically be bad when theres evidence for them going good.

I never said the strategy is more favorable than anything. All I said was that there is a path to where the strategy makes sense and cross gen doesn't automatically mean a nail in the coffin.

On the bolded, will have to disagree. If Microsoft was in the business of just selling boxes then you would be correct but they have clearly showed and stated they are not all about the box anymore. Them selling you the software on whatever platform you have makes them more money long term than getting you to buy a box with one game.

Second bolded, Again this is wrong. It does more than make things easier and more established. It provides far better optimization for engines. Which will result in better performance in games. Next gen will be better GPU's and far better CPU's with a jump in storage which will result in a lot of new things. Spec wise its large but theres far more that goes into creating games other than the number of Teraflops and threads on the CPU core. Capabilities of the hardware in terms of features is also very important. But its clearly not worth arguing because you feel strongly you are correct. And I would agree that spec jumps and GPU feature capabilities are not in the spirit of the topic.

Third bolded, I didn't misread your original post. You stated something that wasn't clear and I responded asking how that made sense. To which you then edited and then said you thought it was obvious. Which it wasn't and clearly you thought so as well or you wouldn't have felt the need to go back and correct it. That conversation then turned into me replying about a different post about cross gen games being on the books for years and their quality. Seems totally reasonable to me in the spirit of Lockhart Not sure why you are upset about it.

If you dont feel like debating then dont respond. Pretty simple.

 

[Tulipanzo]

Again you'll have to provide receipts on cross gen games losing money. Theres a difference between losing money and moving on because the user base has moved on. Simply saying because we got Fifa17 on one platform for so long means that cross gen games as a whole are not profitable is laughable. They obviously have a more prominent presence at the beginning of a cycle as a lot of users will not adopt new hardware right away. The audience for Fifa is not the same as Dragon Age.

Will have to disagree on ACIV and DAI. Both were more than playable. MGS and Blops 3 not so much. Again thats your opinion that they were unplayable but saying I am only pointing to good ports and say this is how its going to go is wrong. For the 4th time now I think, we need to wait and see how they handle the ports. You seem to be hellbent on them being bad which is your right but trying to push that as how its going to go is disingenuous when there is evidence to show that a cross gen game doesn't have to be unplayable. I never said it will go the "good" way. I said its unfair to say it will automatically be bad when theres evidence for them going good.

I never said the strategy is more favorable than anything. All I said was that there is a path to where the strategy makes sense and cross gen doesn't automatically mean a nail in the coffin.

On the bolded, will have to disagree. If Microsoft was in the business of just selling boxes then you would be correct but they have clearly showed and stated they are not all about the box anymore. Them selling you the software on whatever platform you have makes them more money long term than getting you to buy a box with one game.

Second bolded, Again this is wrong. It does more than make things easier and more established. It provides far better optimization for engines. Which will result in better performance in games. Next gen will be better GPU's and far better CPU's with a jump in storage which will result in a lot of new things. Spec wise its large but theres far more that goes into creating games other than the number of Teraflops and threads on the CPU core. Capabilities of the hardware in terms of features is also very important. But its clearly not worth arguing because you feel strongly you are correct. And I would agree that spec jumps and GPU feature capabilities are not in the spirit of the topic.

Third bolded, I didn't misread your original post. You stated something that wasn't clear and I responded asking how that made sense. To which you then edited and then said you thought it was obvious. Which it wasn't and clearly you thought so as well or you wouldn't have felt the need to go back and correct it. That conversation then turned into me replying about a different post about cross gen games being on the books for years and their quality. Seems totally reasonable to me in the spirit of Lockhart Not sure why you are upset about it.

If you dont feel like debating then dont respond. Pretty simple.

Please split the quote if you're replying to each part individually...

Since you seem lost on the point I'm making: there's plenty of good reasons to have doubts about a forced cross-gen period.

The reasons:
- Most cross-gen titles run really bad on last-gen (here's DAI's "more than playble" version); DF said "there's no joy to be found" in analyzing cross-gen ports, so it's far from just my opinion

Lots of graphical problems with Dragon Age: Inquisition on Xbox 360 - Gaming Nexus

Go to GamingNexus.com for news and reviews on video games, consoles, and PCs.

www.gamingnexus.com

- They don't make money: again, with DA:I, support was dropped mid DLC; MGSV blew way over budget and last-gen versions sold pitifully

'Metal Gear Solid 5' Sales Show PS3 And Xbox 360 Are Finally Getting Left Behind

Market research company GfK has been tracking the sales of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain in the UK and Ireland since launch. Their data has shown a few interesting points, one of which seems to imply the domination of last-gen consoles is becoming no more than a distant [...]

www.forbes.com

- This is a MS company mandate applying to every game they develop, and one other devs and publishers aren't keen on replicating

Resident Evil 8 Reportedly Isn't Cross-Gen To Avoid Loading Screens

Resident Evil Village is only for next-gen and PC

screenrant.com

- MS has problems getting working OG X1 games running well right now, so optimization isn't at the forefront already

Still, will this affect every game equally? NO.
Some titles will be easier to run, and others might mitigate issues successfully, maybe by hiring extra studios.
For this very reason however, it remains a costly and risky endeavor.


To get back on topic, irrespective of this strategy's value, it is clear, as you said, MS has little interest in just selling new boxes, meaning a huge loss on both hw skus is very unlikely.

 

[mckmas8808]

As a person who is planning to buy a PS5 this could be good news. Competition may lead Sony to take a hit on PS5 Digital Edition.

Let's say Lockhart is $299.
PS5 Digital needs to atleast be $350 to compete.

This will make things interesting and Sony not showing the price makes it obvious they are waiting on Microsoft.

This is INSANE thinking. The PS5 digital is literally the same PS5 as the main one. It just missing the disk drive. That's not the same as Lockhart.

 

[Nikana]

Please split the quote if you're replying to each part individually...

Since you seem lost on the point I'm making: there's plenty of good reasons to have doubts about a forced cross-gen period.

The reasons:
- Most cross-gen titles run really bad on last-gen (here's DAI's "more than playble" version); DF said "there's no joy to be found" in analyzing cross-gen ports, so it's far from just my opinion

Lots of graphical problems with Dragon Age: Inquisition on Xbox 360 - Gaming Nexus

Go to GamingNexus.com for news and reviews on video games, consoles, and PCs.

www.gamingnexus.com

- They don't make money: again, with DA:I, support was dropped mid DLC; MGSV blew way over budget and last-gen versions sold pitifully

'Metal Gear Solid 5' Sales Show PS3 And Xbox 360 Are Finally Getting Left Behind

Market research company GfK has been tracking the sales of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain in the UK and Ireland since launch. Their data has shown a few interesting points, one of which seems to imply the domination of last-gen consoles is becoming no more than a distant [...]

www.forbes.com

- This is a MS company mandate applying to every game they develop, and one other devs and publishers aren't keen on replicating

Resident Evil 8 Reportedly Isn't Cross-Gen To Avoid Loading Screens

Resident Evil Village is only for next-gen and PC

screenrant.com

- MS has problems getting working OG X1 games running well right now, so optimization isn't at the forefront already

Still, will this affect every game equally? NO.
Some titles will be easier to run, and others might mitigate issues successfully, maybe by hiring extra studios.
For this very reason however, it remains a costly and risky endeavor.


To get back on topic, irrespective of this strategy's value, it is clear, as you said, MS has little interest in just selling new boxes, meaning a huge loss on both hw skus is very unlikely.

First, the point you are trying to make is all over the place. Nothing is lost, your argument just has a ton of Cherry picked information and you're looking at it from a negative stature instead of neutral.

I get it. You don't like the cross gen approach. But again you have no proof that cross gen as a whole lost money. Because of two bad ports, one we agree on and the other we disagree on, doesn't prove your point.


If you're gonna cherry pick here and there about bad ports then so can I. So let's take a look at simply Microsoft published cross gen games from the start of this since this is about Microsoft games.

Rise of the Tomb Raider
Forza Horizon 2
Titanfall

All published by Microsoft and we're solid ports that had features stripped away specifically so next gen versions weren't held back along with hiring a developer outside of the core team to do the work.

So it's fair to say that Microsoft has done this before and they might do it again. We don't know.

PERIOD.

Since you want to keep reiterating points we already agree on this conversation is best to be over.

 

[Tulipanzo]

First, the point you are trying to make is all over the place. Nothing is lost, your argument just has a ton of Cherry picked information and you're looking at it from a negative stature instead of neutral.

Your point is cross-gen will have little to no repercussions because a couple games did it well, but actually we don't know how MS is doing it so we can't speculate.
My point is it may create issues, based on plenty of available data: it's not that complex.

I get it. You don't like the cross gen approach. But again you have no proof that cross gen as a whole lost money. Because of two bad ports, one we agree on and the other we disagree on, doesn't prove your point.

I brought up several cross-gen games, covering a period from launch to 2015, from a number of different publishers and developers, with links to relevant topics. You said "DA:I is fine" and didn't elaborate further than that.
While I might not be able to prove each one lost money, you've not even attempted to counter that all of these sold pitifully, and none got cross-gen sequels, even on the same engines.

If you're gonna cherry pick here and there about bad ports then so can I. So let's take a look at simply Microsoft published cross gen games from the start of this since this is about Microsoft games.

Rise of the Tomb Raider
Forza Horizon 2
Titanfall

All published by Microsoft and we're solid ports that had features stripped away specifically so next gen versions weren't held back along with hiring a developer outside of the core team to do the work.

So it's fair to say that Microsoft has done this before and they might do it again. We don't know.

You've literally brought up the same three ports since the start, yet I'm cherry picking here?

As I already explained, these games were handled by separate studios, often with a longer pre-existing development on last-gen platforms.
Yes, if MS were employing independent studios, for fewer games, over more years and with large independent studios, then I'd be more optimistic.
Realistically though, we're looking at more games, working across a larger generational divide, with no mass hiring of independent studios. Plus, plenty known current OG X1 games from MS being poorly optimized right now: that system is old.

I'd be more than happy if they kept up the standard based on these 3 games, but they're hardly representative of most cross-gen games, or even MS's recent publishing efforts.

P.S. I couldn't fit it in, but this is really OT, you didn't even mention Lockhart at all in your post...

 

[Nikana]

Your point is cross-gen will have little to no repercussions because a couple games did it well, but actually we don't know how MS is doing it so we can't speculate.
My point is it may create issues, based on plenty of available data: it's not that complex.

I have literally said the opposite.

Possibly but we also dont know how much work they are putting in. It could be a FH2 or Tfall situation. Just because its on both doesn't mean they aren't going to make sure each platform isn't properly utilized.

And again in the bolded, that all depends on how they handle the ports. Microsoft and other devs have removed features before on previous gen versions simply because they weren't possible.

I have said MANY times as well that we need to wait and see how Microsoft approaches it. Not that they will approach it the same way. I am not pretending anything. Lay off the aggressiveness.

 

[Md Ray]

My post from June actually:

99% sure Lockhart is $299

75% XsX is $499

Bang on the money!