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Xbox Studios Boss Admits Lagging Behind Sony In Terms Of Big Tentpole Games

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
People who say things like "xbox has saying they have games coming for a decade now" are acting in bad faith. Yes xbox had always over promised and undelivered. But that was back when it had like 5 studios. They used to just be rare ,mojang, 343 the coalition and turn 10. Now they have 23. Likes games ARE coming. Bethesda by itself is gonna deliver that not to mention their other dozen new studios

Games have been coming (flight sim, psychonauts 2, the ascent, 12 minites)
Also people seem to forget that these are included with gamepass, i have played all these games, but i have not played returnal or rift apart because i did not want to spend the £50-70 lump some. Of course some people will counter with "but you can resell those ps5 games after u played them a few moths later" yes i can and i have been looking on ebay for returnal, but its hassle and i have plenty to play. So for me personally, having all these games come with gamepass is a positive thing that my PS5 does not offer.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
yeah I remember when MS had all the tent pole games like Halo and Gears that used to be huge events when they released. Now they are just sort of meh.

incredible how badly they stagnated for a gen and a half. I hope they can get it together but it’s going to take over a generation to build something respectable, I hope they are able to achieve that and make MS first party exciting again
It's good to see the exec finally admit something we have been bitching about for almost a decade now. First step is to admit you have a problem so at least they are no longer in denial.

That said, I am with you on just how long it will take. Yes, Starfield is coming out next year and will be amazing, but what about all the stuff they showed off? Everwild is apparently still in design phase. Last we heard, they didnt even know what that game was going to be. But I am hopeful about Ninja Theory, Obsidian, and Playground Game's Fable. Those studios are on the verge of greatness just like ND was before Uncharted and GG before Horizon. They just need support from MS to take them to the next level.

Good thing is that all these games are next gen so they wont be held back by any kind of hardware limitation. I would love to see at least some of these games at the VGAs because CG trailers dont really mean anything.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
You dont have a shot.


dumb-and-dumber-lloyd.gif
 

ACESHIGH

Banned
Hopefully they don't try the Ubisoftian approach from modern Sony. Microsofts games have a lot more depth and replay value than Sonys and I like them for that. The 2 lineups complement each other perfectly on PC.

If they want higher MC scores they know what to do with media outlets. Their games are a massive success on steam already.
 
It's good to see the exec finally admit something we have been bitching about for almost a decade now. First step is to admit you have a problem so at least they are no longer in denial.

That said, I am with you on just how long it will take. Yes, Starfield is coming out next year and will be amazing, but what about all the stuff they showed off? Everwild is apparently still in design phase. Last we heard, they didnt even know what that game was going to be. But I am hopeful about Ninja Theory, Obsidian, and Playground Game's Fable. Those studios are on the verge of greatness just like ND was before Uncharted and GG before Horizon. They just need support from MS to take them to the next level.

Good thing is that all these games are next gen so they wont be held back by any kind of hardware limitation. I would love to see at least some of these games at the VGAs because CG trailers dont really mean anything.
Jez has played avowed and says it looks great. I think that's set for 2023? That's my most hyped xbox first party game. Obsidian with a budget is my jam.
 

truth411

Member
Sony has nothing this fall.
You may not personally like forzaH5 but it has loads of fans and reviews very well. I agree not seeing campaign footage of infinite is a little concerning but at least the MP gameplay shows improved visuals. Regarding infinite I think its about what expectations you have, if you expecting a 90-95 metacritic and praise similar to halo when bungie made it, you will likely be disappointed, if you expect something as good as Halo 5 you will probably have a good time.
Its Funny that people put huge expectations on infinite but games like Ghosts of tishima score 80-85 and they get lots praise.

Also I never said sony had a bad 2022, on the contrary they have a very good 2022. The difference is so do xbox.
Xbox also had a pretty strong 2021 also, with flight sim, the ascent,psychonauts 2, FH5 and infinite.

Playstation does not have that clear first party lead like they had in the past (of course we cant know how good the games are going to be until we play them, but that applies to sony too, obviously we are making euducated guess based on studios previous work)
??? Sony for years don't release big exclusives for the holidays and rely on 3rd party. Sony release there games throughout the year which is the norm. Also We just had Kena and Deathloop.

And dont play word games, Sony still as usual has an exclusive games advantage Since launch last year which has been the case for over a decade now.

Sony has nothing to prove, but MS do and as I was saying its INSANE that we STILL have not seen any campaign footage of Halo Infinite running on the Series X! Even last year it was running on PC. We are 2 months out from Launch of a game that spent 6 years in development.
 
??? Sony for years don't release big exclusives for the holidays and rely on 3rd party. Sony release there games throughout the year which is the norm. Also We just had Kena and Deathloop.

And dont play word games, Sony still as usual has an exclusive games advantage Since launch last year which has been the case for over a decade now.

Sony has nothing to prove, but MS do and as I was saying its INSANE that we STILL have not seen any campaign footage of Halo Infinite running on the Series X! Even last year it was running on PC. We are 2 months out from Launch of a game that spent 6 years in development.
November 15th is looking like the date.
 
??? Sony for years don't release big exclusives for the holidays and rely on 3rd party. Sony release there games throughout the year which is the norm. Also We just had Kena and Deathloop.

And dont play word games, Sony still as usual has an exclusive games advantage Since launch last year which has been the case for over a decade now.

Sony has nothing to prove, but MS do and as I was saying its INSANE that we STILL have not seen any campaign footage of Halo Infinite running on the Series X! Even last year it was running on PC. We are 2 months out from Launch of a game that spent 6 years in development.
Exclusive advantage? Seems a pretty even split to me. By the end if the year it will be :

Ps5- Rachet, returnal, demon souls, death loop, kena, bugsnax

Xbox series- the ascent, flight simulator, forza horizon 5, halo infinite , deaths door.

Maybe a slight edge to ps5 if you hadn't played demon souls before but other than that it's pretty fair. Not to mention the pirates life expansion which was basically its own 8 hour campaign and was fantastic
 

truth411

Member
Exclusive advantage? Seems a pretty even split to me. By the end if the year it will be :

Ps5- Rachet, returnal, demon souls, death loop, kena, bugsnax, Spiderman Miles Morales, Little Big Planet adventure.

Xbox series- the ascent, flight simulator, forza horizon 5, halo infinite , deaths door.

Maybe a slight edge to ps5 if you hadn't played demon souls before but other than that it's pretty fair. Not to mention the pirates life expansion which was basically its own 8 hour campaign and was fantastic
Fixed. Never heard of death door, Halo and Forza are not out yet. Forza will be fine but 343 has alot to prove with Halo campaign.
Its not even at all since Launch last year unless exclusives don't count.

Edited.
 
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Also if you're counting miles morales then pirates life counts for xbox and that would be my Goty. That campaign was so well designed and polished it blew my mind. There is an "end game " esque moment at the end that had me up out of my chair.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
??? Sony for years don't release big exclusives for the holidays and rely on 3rd party. Sony release there games throughout the year which is the norm. Also We just had Kena and Deathloop.

And dont play word games, Sony still as usual has an exclusive games advantage Since launch last year which has been the case for over a decade now.

Sony has nothing to prove, but MS do and as I was saying its INSANE that we STILL have not seen any campaign footage of Halo Infinite running on the Series X! Even last year it was running on PC. We are 2 months out from Launch of a game that spent 6 years in development.
Im not playing word games, i say xbox first party is competitive starting this fall because that seems to be the case. This does not negate sonys exclusives that have released earlier this year.

Sony has nothing to prove?
What does this even mean?
You seem to think that because I say one thing it also means something else.

Sony may not release games in the fall,
That does not make having an uncompetitive fall line up a good thing... The same way its not good that the first 2/3rds of xbox's 2020 was lacking big games in comparison to sony.
 
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Kerotan

Member
isnt that for ps+? so my point stands.

It needs to sell.

If animal crossing, a 3d farming game can get 30m in 1 year, why cant gow get that number? Especially, when the playstation has more numbers than switch?

The answer is simple. Not many people love heavy story games.

Even me now I am staying away from those games, due to low free time.

My time is fifa only. Even with gamepass, my ps4 games, rd2, I cant play them. As a university student, its hard to play them.
I'd say 80% of ps5 owners have plus. Your point is terrible. Sony isn't struggling.
 

Alan Wake

Member
They dont need their own Uncharted or Horizon. What they have announced is good enough. They just need deliver like Sony studios so consistently did last gen.

- Starfield
- Hellblade 2
- Perfect Dark
- Fable
- Avowed

All of these games have the potential to be just as good as Uncharted and Horizon. They are on the right track. They just need to put all their resources towards making these studios bigger so they can release games faster.

I kind of agree. I want really good third person adventure games in single player mode. That's been lacking on Xbox since forever.
 

mckmas8808

Banned
There is no magic formula to the last of us or gow, these games are made by talented devs with big budgets and creative freedom, the folks over at playstation management dont have some special method which allows them to have great games, they have just aquired talented developers over time.
TLOU2 or horizon would be just as great if Microsoft or Activision, the same with the elder scrolls and forza horizon.

This is NOT true at all!!! Stop trying to not give Sony credit. This stuff doesn't happen by accident.
 
The only real area MS doesn't have a strength in is single player, 3rd person, story driven titles. It's hard to argue they are falling behind when they produce titles other platforms don't make at all. They should continue to do what they do best and keep putting out titles like Psychonauts 2 and the new Forza. They are on a good track currently.
 

Topher

Gold Member
If sony had some consistent 85+ metacritic formula , then we would not get games like the order, days gone, drive club.

Where is this "consistent 85+ metacritic formula" nonsense coming from? You made it out like anyone could have made TLOU or Horizon. The fact that Sony has studios that do not meet the standards of Naughty Dog, GG, or Santa Monica Studios doesn't mean those studios do not make great games. They absolutely do.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Where is this "consistent 85+ metacritic formula" nonsense coming from? You made it out like anyone could have made TLOU or Horizon. The fact that Sony has studios that do not meet the standards of Naughty Dog, GG, or Santa Monica Studios doesn't mean those studios do not make great games. They absolutely do.
Yes, but, by sony first party (and other publishers of great games) not always delivering a smash hit it shows that the game quality is more dependent on the studios then the publisher/platform management.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Yes but by sony first party (and other publishers of great games) not always delivering a smash hit it shows that the game quality is more dependent on the studios then the publisher/platform management.

Ok......but that is a long way from suggesting anyone could have made TLOU or Elder Scrolls and they would have been "just as great". If you mean any publisher could have taken the place of Sony or Microsoft assuming the studio team stayed the same then that is just a massive supposition. You don't know anything about the culture that is there. That's like saying you would be just as effective working for any other company doing the job you do. That's just not necessarily true.
 
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Yoboman

Member
Well recently they did put their money where their mouth is and went out and bought an entire publisher. They also created new internal teams and bought several other teams like Ninja Theory, Playground Games and Obsidian.

Two years ago, I'd agree with you, but they have made some moves since and now comes the waiting game. I was asking for these acquisitions and exclusives way back in 2015, and had they listened back then, they wouldve been far more competitive today. In two years, I think both Sony and MS will be seen as more or less equal.

Starfield alone might win some GOTYs at the very least which is very unusual for MS first party games. As far as I am concerned, Starfield is the favorite to win GOTYs and that will put MS first party studios right up there with sony.
Bizarre take based on Bethesda's recent failures to have such blind faith in them

There is plenty Starfield has to even show before its talked about in GOTY circles in a year where GOW2 and BOTW2 are coming out

Eg have they improved their story telling, is their animation going to catch up to modern standards? Can they pull together a responsive and addictive gameplay loop that they never managed in Fallout or Skyrim? Can they make vehicles and vehicle physics that are interesting? When the game is multi planet this will be essential and they've never done it before. Will it be a vibrant world they are building or a wasteland like Fallout games and if so will it end up falling to the trap of No Man's Sky in not having enough to do?

The bar is so much higher than 2011 and just having a large open world doesn't cut it when its contemporaries like Witcher 3 have done it better than Bethesda ever have and even non RPGs are open worlds now and like BOTW will probably be alot more alive and emergent
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Ok......but that is a long way from suggesting anyone could have made TLOU or Elder Scrolls and they would have been "just as great". If you mean any publisher could have taken the place of Sony or Microsoft assuming the studio team stayed the same then that is just a massive supposition. You don't know anything about the culture that is there. That's like saying you would be just as effective working for any other company doing the job you do. That's just not necessarily true.

Naughty dog and Bethesda could make those games, but who pays the bills and enables there creative freedom is not of great importance. We know this because some games from the same publisher are considerably worse.
Big studious like naughty Dog and Bethesda are really independent, they do there do there own hiring and they manage the day to day operations.
With a company like zenimax, today at Bethesda or id will pretty much identical to prior the Microsoft aquisitions. Then only difference would be financial, MS may now do all the accounting and expenses inhouse where it makes sense, but even then some things would make sense for those studios to manage.

To conclude I agree that sony are great partners, but today I dont think that is a competitive edge. There are a lot of great partners for studios today. Sonys competitive edge was in the talent of studios like naughty dog, ssm , insomniac etc but that is not an edge anymore against Microsoft because they also have many talented studios.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Can they pull together a responsive and addictive gameplay loop that they never managed in Fallout or Skyrim?
Skyrim has many issues but man the gameplay loop is addictive as hell.

The rest I agree with. They have a lot to prove, but I think they will get there. They made the right decision by making this game next gen only. It shows me that even back in 2017 they knew last gen consoles werent good enough for the vision they have. Unlike some devs that started dev around the same time and even a year later. It shows me that the game is far more ambitious than GoW, BoTW, Horizon and whatever other cross gen games are releasing next year.

I personally pick ambitious games for my goty which is why i picked horizon over botw back in the day. Though I guess critics dont seeing as how they all awarded BOTW GOTY that year. Still, I think they value bethesda games far more than games like Horizon seeing as how they gave Skyrim GOTY over Zelda Skyward Sword.

Eg have they improved their story telling, is their animation going to catch up to modern standards? Can they pull together a responsive and addictive gameplay loop that they never managed in Fallout or Skyrim? Can they make vehicles and vehicle physics that are interesting? When the game is multi planet this will be essential and they've never done it before. Will it be a vibrant world they are building or a wasteland like Fallout games and if so will it end up falling to the trap of No Man's Sky in not having enough to do?

P.S Similar questions can be leveled at Horizon and especially BOTW2. BOTW with its mute protagonist and mediocre storytelling won over critics when Horizon with its far better storytelling (in comparison) did not. You think Skyrims animations are bad, have you seen BOTW's visuals? Horizon's cities were lifeless and boring to explore. Their world design had a lot to be desired outside of fighting dinobots which I personally loved, but even I know you need to do more than just litter the map with enemies. BOTW's dungeons were a massive downgrade, will they be improved? One would hope so given every company's track record. And thats why I have faith in Bethesda.
 

ACESHIGH

Banned
Fire his ass... MS should be the WRPG, FPS, RTS, and Racing powerhouse. Sony can't put together games like AGE 4, Flight simulator, Forza horizon or Halo MCC. Gears is still best in class when talking about multiplayer TPS. Story went down the drain so they should repurpose the game as a F2P TPS.

MS can't release cinematic one and done games like Sony, they are also in the movie business and have their advantage there. I don't want MS to copy Sony... the gaming landscape would suffer as a whole.

Remember Sony trying to copy Nintendo with Smash Bros great value edition or dollar store Mario/Mario kart ...that didn't go well. Their bread and butter is cinematic one and done, now evolved to Ubisoftian open world with XP bars that go up.
 
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Yoboman

Member
Skyrim has many issues but man the gameplay loop is addictive as hell.

The rest I agree with. They have a lot to prove, but I think they will get there. They made the right decision by making this game next gen only. It shows me that even back in 2017 they knew last gen consoles werent good enough for the vision they have. Unlike some devs that started dev around the same time and even a year later. It shows me that the game is far more ambitious than GoW, BoTW, Horizon and whatever other cross gen games are releasing next year.

I personally pick ambitious games for my goty which is why i picked horizon over botw back in the day. Though I guess critics dont seeing as how they all awarded BOTW GOTY that year. Still, I think they value bethesda games far more than games like Horizon seeing as how they gave Skyrim GOTY over Zelda Skyward Sword.



P.S Similar questions can be leveled at Horizon and especially BOTW2. BOTW with its mute protagonist and mediocre storytelling won over critics when Horizon with its far better storytelling (in comparison) did not. You think Skyrims animations are bad, have you seen BOTW's visuals? Horizon's cities were lifeless and boring to explore. Their world design had a lot to be desired outside of fighting dinobots which I personally loved, but even I know you need to do more than just litter the map with enemies. BOTW's dungeons were a massive downgrade, will they be improved? One would hope so given every company's track record. And thats why I have faith in Bethesda.
Yes every game has weaknesses and strengths. BOTW has weak visuals and a basically non existent story. But the gameplay and world are excellent and the systems in play beat out any other open world

Horizon (which i wouldn't have in GOTY talks) has weak world building and not enough interesting things to do but succeeded with excellent unique gameplay, presentation and a solid story.

GOW has few weaknesses IMO, mainly increasing the scope of enemy encounter variety.

But the weaknesses those games have to cover are smaller and can be improved just by iterative improvements that all sequels make

Bethesda's unique strength has always been to build the bigger worlds than everybody else. Its no longer a unique selling point. And their weaknesses are so glaring that they have a monumental task to catch up to their contemporaries in. And I've not even touched on the general buginess and poor performance of their games which people are much less accepting of these days

Bethesda basically have to reinvent everything to be in the GOTY circles. They could do it but putting them above BOTW2 and GOW2 at this point just makes no sense. At least wait till we see gameplay
 

Vaelka

Member
I just want to see something new that isn't a '' gritty pseudo-open world muh realism cinematic action experience ''.
Let Sony do that shit and do something more original, maybe hire some Eastern devs and just give them a big budget and let them do their thing ( especially since the Xbox isn't very popular in the East ).
 

Topher

Gold Member
Naughty dog and Bethesda could make those games, but who pays the bills and enables there creative freedom is not of great importance. We know this because some games from the same publisher are considerably worse.
Big studious like naughty Dog and Bethesda are really independent, they do there do there own hiring and they manage the day to day operations.
With a company like zenimax, today at Bethesda or id will pretty much identical to prior the Microsoft aquisitions. Then only difference would be financial, MS may now do all the accounting and expenses inhouse where it makes sense, but even then some things would make sense for those studios to manage.

To conclude I agree that sony are great partners, but today I dont think that is a competitive edge. There are a lot of great partners for studios today. Sonys competitive edge was in the talent of studios like naughty dog, ssm , insomniac etc but that is not an edge anymore against Microsoft because they also have many talented studios.

We've also seen where studios like Blizzard and BioWare have become shadows of their former selves once acquired by or merged into another company. The cultured changed and so did their games. So no, the difference was not just financial as you assume.

Whether or not MS has come up to Sony's level in studio output remains to be seen. Naughty Dog and Santa Monica Studios alone have produced more consensus GOTY winners than all of MS/Bethesda studios combined last gen. So no, again these assumptions are not necessarily true. I hope you are right though as that would mean we have some more awesome games to play.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
We've also seen where studios like Blizzard and BioWare have become shadows of their former selves once acquired by or merged into another company. The cultured changed and so did their games. So no, the difference was not just financial as you assume.

Whether or not MS has come up to Sony's level in studio output remains to be seen. Naughty Dog and Santa Monica Studios alone have produced more consensus GOTY winners than all of MS/Bethesda studios combined last gen. So no, again these assumptions are not necessarily true. I hope you are right though as that would mean we have some more awesome games to play.

Yes, studios can change, regardless of how there publisher treats them. Also I didnt say finacials is the only thing that impacts a studio, I said in my prior post that creative freedom is also needed and probably a few other things, my point is Sony do not have some upper hand in this area compared to other good publishers.

"Whether or not MS has come up to Sony's level in studio output remains to be seen. "

I disagree with this statement, Microsoft studios prior games, Doom, fallout, elder scrolls, forza horizons, gears of war, the outer worlds, psychonauts 2, hellblade, Wolfenstein can stand toe to toe against sonys portfolio imo. You see with conversations like these you need to establish some kind of competitive criteria. Sony is ahead if 90+ meta scores and GOTY awards is the criteria in which your making a judgement, but I think fallout 4 is better then god of war and zero dawn, I just prefer the story, the world and gameplay. So gow + horizon zero dawn can win a million awards and score 99meta, it does not change my personal tastes and now Microsoft have a different enough portfolio some people are going to prefer there line up regardless of slightly higher review scores and awards.
We can only make assumptions on how good future games are going to be based on the devs previous work. This applies for sony devs aswell, not that you are saying it does not, I think.
 
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CatLady

Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
Skyrim has many issues but man the gameplay loop is addictive as hell.

The rest I agree with. They have a lot to prove, but I think they will get there. They made the right decision by making this game next gen only. It shows me that even back in 2017 they knew last gen consoles werent good enough for the vision they have. Unlike some devs that started dev around the same time and even a year later. It shows me that the game is far more ambitious than GoW, BoTW, Horizon and whatever other cross gen games are releasing next year.

I personally pick ambitious games for my goty which is why i picked horizon over botw back in the day. Though I guess critics dont seeing as how they all awarded BOTW GOTY that year. Still, I think they value bethesda games far more than games like Horizon seeing as how they gave Skyrim GOTY over Zelda Skyward Sword.



P.S Similar questions can be leveled at Horizon and especially BOTW2. BOTW with its mute protagonist and mediocre storytelling won over critics when Horizon with its far better storytelling (in comparison) did not. You think Skyrims animations are bad, have you seen BOTW's visuals? Horizon's cities were lifeless and boring to explore. Their world design had a lot to be desired outside of fighting dinobots which I personally loved, but even I know you need to do more than just litter the map with enemies. BOTW's dungeons were a massive downgrade, will they be improved? One would hope so given every company's track record. And thats why I have faith in Bethesda.
I liked BotW quite a bit but I liked HZD a lot more. HZD and Quantum Break had my favorite stories last gen (Prey was good too) and they kinda of reminded me of each other. I played HZD right after QB and saw similarities.

In QB the story was racing hopelessly towards the end of the world and in HZD the the story unveiled how hopelessly the world had raced to it's end in the past. I also like the combat in HZD much better than any of the other Sony games. Plus they both had Lance Reddick - no way BotW could compete with that. :messenger_beaming:
 

Topher

Gold Member
Yes, studios can change, regardless of how there publisher treats them. Also I didnt say finacials is the only thing that impacts a studio, I said in my prior post that creative freedom is also needed and probably a few other things, my point is Sony do not have some upper hand in this area compared to other good publishers.

"Whether or not MS has come up to Sony's level in studio output remains to be seen. "

I disagree with this statement, Microsoft studios prior games, Doom, fallout, elder scrolls, forza horizons, gears of war, the outer worlds, psychonauts 2, hellblade, Wolfenstein can stand toe to toe against sonys portfolio imo. You see with conversations like these you need to establish some kind of competitive criteria. Sony is ahead if 90+ meta scores and GOTY awards is the criteria in which your making a judgement, but I think fallout 4 is better then god of war and zero dawn, I just prefer the story, the world and gameplay. So those gow + horizon zero dawn can win a million awards and score 99meta, it does not change my oersonal tastes and now Microsoft have a different enough portfolio that people are going to prefer the line up regardless of slightly higher review scores and awards.
We can only make assumptions on how good future games are goong to be based on the devs previous work. This applies for sony devs aswell, not that you are saying it does not, I think.

Actually your previous post said "only difference would be financial" and that's what I was replying to. But regardless, these are all assumptions and suppositions. Neither us are developers or have any understanding of the dev/publisher dynamic.

But metacritic was something you brought up. If those games are more to your "personal tastes" then that is fine but it doesn't mean anything to anyone else. Not sure how it is even relevant at all. What I said about GOTY was factual and that is a bar that MS/Bethesda have not surpassed the entire previous generation. In fact, the only franchises in that list that have won consensus GOTY are Fallout and Elder Scrolls, but Elder Scrolls has been missing for 10 years while the last Fallout was a swing and a miss and Fallout 4 fell short of what Fallout 3 accomplished. Frankly, Bethesda needs to stop resting on their laurels because they have been surpassed by Naughty Dog and Santa Monica. Hopefully that starts to change with Starfield.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Actually your previous post said "only difference would be financial" and that's what I was replying to. But regardless, these are all assumptions and suppositions. Neither us are developers or have any understanding of the dev/publisher dynamic.

But metacritic was something you brought up. If those games are more to your "personal tastes" then that is fine but it doesn't mean anything to anyone else. Not sure how it is even relevant at all. What I said about GOTY was factual and that is a bar that MS/Bethesda have not surpassed the entire previous generation. In fact, the only franchises in that list that have won consensus GOTY are Fallout and Elder Scrolls, but Elder Scrolls has been missing for 10 years while the last Fallout was a swing and a miss and Fallout 4 fell short of what Fallout 3 accomplished. Frankly, Bethesda needs to stop resting on their laurels because they have been surpassed by Naughty Dog and Santa Monica. Hopefully that starts to change with Starfield.

Dont lie.
I said
"but who pays the bills and enables there creative freedom is not of great importance."

Stating my game preference is relevant because plenty of people prefer games like fallout, elder scrolls, halo, doom etc over gow, TLOU, uncharted even though some of those games scored more.
GOTY and reviews are just opinions anyway, granted there is a certain quality that can be identified, but when games get into the 80s it is very subjective.
Its also your opinion that slightly higher reviews and GOTY awards means that xbox needs to catch up still, so your opinion is relevant but mine is not? That is a double standard.
Lol @ you trying to spin Bethesda in a negative way. Fallout 4 reviewed very well higher then ghost of tshima and the same as Spiderman, fallout 3 got 91, so about 4% higher then fallout 4, so its margin of error type stuff where it is small enough where there will be people who think its as good, saying F4 fell short is hyperbole. Fallout 76 has been a bit of a mess, but, it is a mmo, somthing pretty different to what they have done before.

Saying naughty dog + ssm have surppased Bethesda makes no sense, they make completely different games, they are all fantastic. You are getting something very different in fallout 4, they are not comparable, but in there respected genres they all have high quantity in all there components.

Bottom line is anyone who cant aknoledge that playstation studios and xbox studios are both competitive with each other are letting there personal opinion effect there judgement. They both have there strengths and not so strong aspects.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Dont lie.
I said
"but who pays the bills and enables there creative freedom is not of great importance."

Do not accuse me of lying when I certainly did not. I said I was referring to this:

"With a company like zenimax, today at Bethesda or id will pretty much identical to prior the Microsoft aquisitions. Then only difference would be financial, MS may now do all the accounting and expenses inhouse where it makes sense, but even then some things would make sense for those studios to manage."

.....and that was what I quoted. If nothing else you contradicted yourself. At this point, I have no more desire to discuss this with you as you are getting strangely personal for some silly reason.
 
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T0minator

Member
Exclusive advantage? Seems a pretty even split to me. By the end if the year it will be :

Ps5- Rachet, returnal, demon souls, death loop, kena, bugsnax

Xbox series- the ascent, flight simulator, forza horizon 5, halo infinite , deaths door.

Maybe a slight edge to ps5 if you hadn't played demon souls before but other than that it's pretty fair. Not to mention the pirates life expansion which was basically its own 8 hour campaign and was fantastic
With that Sea of thieves expansion on Xbox you have the Ghost of Tsushima Iki Island expansion on PS. Both companies are doing really well. Sony is starting 2022 off really really strong but hopefully have something next holiday to continue to compete because the games still be non stop pretty soon
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Do not accuse me of lying when I certainly did not. I said I was referring to this:

"With a company like zenimax, today at Bethesda or id will pretty much identical to prior the Microsoft aquisitions. Then only difference would be financial, MS may now do all the accounting and expenses inhouse where it makes sense, but even then some things would make sense for those studios to manage."

.....and that was what I quoted. If nothing else you contradicted yourself. At this point, I have no more desire to discuss this with you as you are getting strangely personal for some silly reason.


Context lol

You miss out this part

"MS may now do all the accounting and expenses inhouse where it makes sense, but even then some things would make sense for those studios to manage."

Its obvious im talking about how the day to day costs of these studios are paid.

Before that I also say

" who pays the bills and enables there creative freedom is not of great importance."


You are confusing two things

I said two things which are talking about the same outcome.

1. Which publisher pays the bills and enables creative freedom is not important.


2. The only things that changed at Bethesda since the ms aquisition is imo how the financials were handled.

That 2nd statement is not saying that all a publisher needs to do is pay the bills, its saying that they need to pay the bills and not interfere, by things not changing at Bethesda apart from financial methods after the ms aquisition, that is ms not interfering and letting the current culture and management remain the same as Bethesda were pre aquisition.


Interestingly enough sony and Microsoft now treat there studios in a similar way, i listened to ted price and phil Spencer podcast and they both talk about xbox and playstation letting the devs have creative freedom. They also have like mini internal E3s where all the devs meet and share ideas and give advice.
 
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