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[yurinka]

The Xbox release trailer itself.

Ah, yes. I thought it had a typo and was talking about a Forza Motorstorm supposed to be released in 2020. Sure, Flight Simulator will come to Xbox soon.

 

[Papacheeks]

Im not going to embarrass you any further but here’s a picture of my original Shenmue as well as JSRF and Lost Oddyssey, guess I’m at least old enough to have those. I started with the NES actually but it’s too expensive to collect those days.



The rest of your post is just incredibly ignorant of previous Microsoft generations and what they did in the 360 years. For example you say Microsoft’s contribution at the time of the OG Xbox was Windows, did you know they were publishing games even by 1996 on PC? Midtown Madness is an example of an MS game that was successful before the XBox.

Also Nintendo has had 7 generations so far, have they been in the gaming business since 1950?

A little taste of my collection, sorry for the shit pics, I just took them real quick and I literally only have a desk lamp on my computer desk for light in this room:

.

I still stand by what I said about how Xbox as a division has been run, and how I believe this is too little too late with all these studios.

 

[Shrennin]

I still stand by what I said about how Xbox as a division has been run, and how I believe this is too little too late with all these studios.

The Xbox 360 generation was run incredibly well, especially compared to the PS3 generation. The OG Xbox also had a great generation. Most people I knew switched from PlayStation to Xbox during the 360 generation. Cheaper hardware and better exclusives did that. Conversely, a lot switched from Xbox back to PlayStation after the Xbox One debacle. The management team behind Xbox is completely fixed now and technically has the fabled Microsoft warchest behind it as well.

The floundering generation was Xbox One. But too little too late? Not even close. When Starfield, Elder Scrolls VI, Doom 3, among others start releasing on day and date with Game Pass there will be quite a bit of pressure on the competition. Those games will not be releasing on anything but Xbox and PC. As it stands, Microsoft is technically a larger publisher than Sony now with its amount of studios. Once they all get up and running, the content will be non-stop to fuel Game Pass. That content stream probably starts next year, not in 2022. We just can’t be sure because ZeniMax will be fairly silent until the acquisition is finalized. Starfield and Wolfenstein 3 likely release next year (unless delayed due to COVID). If I were to guess, one benefit of the ZeniMax acquisition will help pad their 2021 output. Unlike the others who were restricted by publishing deals elsewhere, Microsoft suddenly has unannounced games in ZeniMax ready to go — aside from those with marketing/timed exclusivity deals already like Death Loop and Tokyo. Starfield itself was almost the target of a timed exclusivity deal with Sony before the ZeniMax acquisition.

Xbox will ultimately attract those who want western RPGs and FPS games at the very least as those two genres are completely locked down, similar to how Sony locked down the cinematic single player game.

 

[Papacheeks]

The Xbox 360 generation was run incredibly well, especially compared to the PS3 generation. The OG Xbox also had a great generation.

The floundering generation was Xbox One. But too little too late? Not even close. When Starfield, Elder Scrolls VI, Doom 3, among others start releasing on day and date with Game Pass there will be quite a bit of pressure on the competition. Those games will not be releasing on anything but Xbox and PC. As it stands, Microsoft is technically a larger publisher than Sony now with its amount of studios. Once they all get up and running, the content will be non-stop to fuel Game Pass. That content stream probably starts next year, not in 2022. We just can’t be sure because ZeniMax will be fairly silent until the acquisition is finalized. Starfield and Wolfenstein 3 likely release next year (unless delayed due to COVID).

What your saying and what Im saying are from two different perspectives. The early xbox and xbox 360 days were good and that would be because j allard and his team were instrumental in that. Hence why the first couple years for 360 were banging. But the higher up who over saw everything was Mattrick among a couple of others. And after the first couple years after 2010 it kind of just started going in a different direction with Kinect, their developers, and how they were going all in on app services to the point of drastically trying to change their OS to resemble windows 8.

Then mattrick appointed couple other people with marc witten and the likes who was spearheading all the tv stuff. So it started way before xbox one.

OG xbox and first couple years of 360 were the best years to be a fan for xbox. Me included. Issue was it could change on a dime, and it did. They stopped investing in studios, and didnt look at the division like a games division. They looked at it as a product to just sell services and digital content. Playstation, Nintendo, Sega have different views on how they treated their divisions.

And if people like J allard, shamous blackley, maybe phil ran the division for longer I feel they could have stopped people like Mattrick turning it into the shitfest it became. And unfortunatley it took way too long in my opinion to course correct, and that was because they didn't have a IWATA, or Kaz, andrew house, tom kalinske.

I really hope Im eating crow and every project comes to fruition and gets an audience from their internal studios. But my issue is time is not on their side.

Starfield, and elder scrolls are a ways off. And I believe todd even said as much not to expect anything anytime soon.

 

[Shrennin]

Starfield, and elder scrolls are a ways off. And I believe todd even said as much not to expect anything anytime soon.

From what I gather, you’re just saying Xbox One (and the dark Kinect days of the 360) set them back, which I agree. They have a lot of catching up to do, hence why they are purchasing like crazy. They can’t just internally build studios as those take a lot longer. They did try to buy studios like BioWare back then, which would have helped but then again who knows if they could have survived Myerson (who I blame more than Mattrick tho Mattrick was awful too).

The leadership structure of Xbox now within Microsoft is way different than it ever was, even in the OG Xbox and Xbox 360 generations. For the first time, Phil Spencer answers directly to the CEO, and that structure only began in 2017. In three years, it’s easy to see that change too. Xbox is considered a core pillar of Microsoft and no longer brushed aside by executives there, only being kept alive due to Gates or Ballmer.

I do just want to comment on Starfield though. The Bethesda leaker (who leaked those photos) said the target was 2021. Todd even said Fallout 4 was a long ways off before announcing it and releasing it the following year. That’s just how he works. I fully expect Starfield to release in 2021. ESVI is definitely a 2024/2025 title tho. Those both will just be huge event games, putting a feather in the Microsoft portfolio which will bolster the desire of that ecosystem. Phil has already been hyping Starfield up quite a bit, even in articles not really related to ZeniMax.

It is possible though, now that Starfield will be an Xbox ecosystem exclusive, that they delay to 2022 to really work on making it the best they can with an expanded budget. I would like to see a relatively bug free BGS game.

 

[Papacheeks]

From what I gather, you’re just saying Xbox One set them back, which I agree. They have a lot of catching up to do, hence why they are purchasing like crazy. They can’t just internally build studios as those take a lot longer.

I do just want to comment on Starfield though. The Bethesda leaker (who leaked those photos) said the target was 2021. Todd even said Fallout 4 was a long ways off before announcing it and releasing it the following year. That’s just how he works. I fully expect Starfield to release in 2021. ESVI is definitely a 2024/2025 title tho.

Mid Xbox 360 days was not xbox one. Their issues started much earlier, and go all the way back to early OG xbox. It was luck of the draw of having j allard and shamous blackley . J allard put them on a good path for xbox live, and a lot of the PC dev connections they had from OG xbox carried over to 360. But instead of having these long list of connections over time, they basically got to the point where they could not get people like Epic to make games for them. When they outsourced to people can fly, I THINK thats when they decided at some point to buy the IP. Which is why gears is in the weird state its in creative wise. They could have had other titles from epic but didn't have the best relationship after certain people left.

And a lot of the PC devs they had relationships with also left since no games for 360 were being brought over. Look at the guys who made mechassault for og xbox. Crimson skies, blood wave etc.

2022 is at the earliest for some of these projects like fable. Everwild could come out sooner in a early access type of state similar to sea of thieves. From my perspective they kind of lost me in being excited when they closed lion head studios instead of trying to save it, and cancelled scalebound. I mean if a lot of stuiff was further along, we would have seen some snipets of gameplay, but dev kits were behind, development in some of these projects because of that and covid are behind.

 

[MasterDerico]

Only interested in Hellblade 2...

 

[Shrennin]

Mid Xbox 360 days was not xbox one. Their issues started much earlier, and go all the way back to early OG xbox. It was luck of the draw of having j allard and shamous blackley . J allard put them on a good path for xbox live, and a lot of the PC dev connections they had from OG xbox carried over to 360. But instead of having these long list of connections over time, they basically got to the point where they could not get people like Epic to make games for them. When they outsourced to people can fly, I THINK thats when they decided at some point to buy the IP. Which is why gears is in the weird state its in creative wise. They could have had other titles from epic but didn't have the best relationship after certain people left.

Ehhh, Epic was changing (I’d say when Tencent invested in Epic in 2012... that’s when things changed for them). It had nothing to do with Microsoft. Rod Fergusson came back to Microsoft to work on Gears (and Fergusson left Epic... because Epic was shifting). Cliff Blezinski left Epic. Epic didn’t want to develop Gears or seem to want to put much effort in triple A games anymore. Their strategy became games as a service (see a little game called Fortnite). That is completely disconnected from Microsoft. Microsoft bought Gears in 2014, by the way. A year after Xbox One. I don’t know when talks actually started (it would have had to be after Judgment released in March of 2013) but Epic barely released anything of note before Fortnite (and after Gears Judgment) and the games they did release were sort of tests to see what could catch on.

It was during the later 360 days that they started to falter. Gears 3 released in 2011. The Xbox One released in 2013. The Xbox 360 released in 2005. It was really near the end of the 360’s life cycle where they lost the path. Peter Moore left in 2011, Terry Myerson gained control of Xbox in 2013... that’s where things went downhill. Again, I blame Myerson more than Mattrick. It almost felt like Myerson wanted to kill Xbox, and he restricted the budget a lot. Now Phil basically has Myerson’s control — not the same position, but Myerson reported directly to Ballmer whereas Phil would have reported to Myerson. Now Phil reports directly to Nadella. And Phil Spencer’s vision is actually straight in line with Bill Gates’ vision for Xbox all the way back when Xbox was conceptualized. Spencer is realizing that vision. As kind of a fun fact, Bill Gates wanted Xbox and PC to share an ecosystem (as an example, Xbox games would be available on PC), that was his original vision of Xbox — along with expanding Windows to every living room. When, I believe it was J Allard, he (Gates) was told (by Allard) that it wasn’t possible, Gates unleashed on Allard.

On Gears: Judgment was never intended to be Gears 4 either. It did a lot of new things, which is why they made it a spin-off. Epic owned People Can Fly (up until 2015) and Rod Fergusson still worked on it. To say Epic didn’t want to work with Microsoft which is why People Can Fly made Judgment is just wrong since Epic technically did make it. They just used one of their other studios to do so, but also had Gears vets still involved. Judgment released in 2013. Epic owned a majority share in People Can Fly in 2007 and then outright bought them in 2012. People Can Fly most likely got that opportunity after the success of Bulletstorm in 2011.

Creatively for Gears, Fergusson was a co-creator of it, really. With Cliff. Fergusson has worked on all Gears games to date - Gears, Gears 2, Gears 3, Judgment, Gears 4, and Gears 5. He won’t be working on Gears 6 as he’s with Blizzard now, but he taught Coalition how to make Gears and I think some fresh ideas could be good. I haven’t played the Hivebusters DLC yet, but it’s supposedly as good as a typical Gears campaign.

As far as the PC dev connections.. I mean that was a reason given by Bethesda for them joining Microsoft. Microsoft was the reason Elder Scrolls came to console. They came to Bethesda to get Morrowind on Xbox.

Every company though has had horrible leadership at one point or another. I’d say Phil Harrison was awful for both Sony and Microsoft and I’m not particularly fond of Jim Ryan. Just look at some of his tone deaf comments (like on backwards compatibility in 2017). And for reference, Harrison joined Microsoft in 2012 (and left in 2015), but was with Sony since 1992. Now he’s in charge of Google Stadia.

2022 is at the earliest for some of these projects like fable. Everwild could come out sooner in a early access type of state similar to sea of thieves. From my perspective they kind of lost me in being excited when they closed lion head studios instead of trying to save it, and cancelled scalebound. I mean if a lot of stuiff was further along, we would have seen some snipets of gameplay, but dev kits were behind, development in some of these projects because of that and covid are behind.

I hate that Lion Head was closed, but to be honest I’m more excited to see PlayGround Games’ take on Fable. Microsoft still fostered relationships with developers. They got Double Fine, THE independent studio, to join them, after all.

As far as Scalebound, Platinum has gone on record saying that it wasn’t the fault of Microsoft. It just didn’t work out. Obsidian also had a project cancelled with Microsoft (that almost bankrupted them) but they still joined Microsoft so there obviously wasn’t a grudge there either. I say that to say that we can’t really say whose fault it was or if it was just something that didn’t work out because we weren’t there. I doubt Obsidian would have joined with Microsoft had they disliked the management style though.

Aside from that, if Wolfenstein 3, Halo Infinite, and Starfield release in 2021... that alone would make Microsoft’s year packed. As I said, I think we may see a few ZeniMax titles next year... but they have to keep quiet until the acquisition is finalized. Even Microsoft said they couldn’t talk about whether BGS games would be exclusive until after the finalization of the acquisition (which I believe should happen in March 2021). ZeniMax was a huge publisher that released a lot of games. They even have a second MMO (original IP too) in development.

We’re also already seeing good fruits from the acquisition too. Shinji Mikami has already implied he’d come out of retirement from directing games if he got to make what he wanted (clearly a signal to Microsoft to allow him to do just that). He never said that when ZeniMax was independent, likely due to budgetary concerns.

....and wall of text done =P

 

[mortal]

5:01

The team that developed MFS are technical wizards.

The realtime volumetric clouds system is probably the best I've ever seen in a playable game to date. Extremely impressive work.






Also admire their creative use of data from Google Earth to help make much of that work load feasible. Considering it's meant to be a 1:1 scaled simulation of Earth's surfaces.

 

[Bernkastel]

Also admire their creative use of data from Google Earth to help make much of that work load feasible. Considering it's meant to be a 1:1 scaled simulation of Earth's surfaces.

Its Bing Maps.

 

[Shrennin]

Its Bing Maps.

The worst part about Flight Simulator =P

 

[ShadowWolf712]

What about this "appears to be true"?

-Obsidian is not a studio that's meant to handle two games, let alone drop Avowed in 2021.

-Age of Empires 4 isn't even done yet, so how is 5 being made?

--The game engine Hellblade 2 is supposedly being made in/for isn't even out til late 2021 so that seems SUPER optimistic.

-Forza most certainly did NOT drop with the Series X.

-Everwild is so early in development the devs said they still aren't sure what it's gonna be yet.

-All these definite June reveals turned out to either be bogus or be CGI trailers.

-No Forza Horizon 5 reveal.

So... it's true because it got a couple of things right?