Daweii Posted March 15 Share Posted March 15 (edited) Starfield was a victim of having to create wholly new systems to facilitate what they were trying to do. I imagine 70% of the dev time was spent on engine level upgrades and experimenting with the best way to take a largely on-ground set of tools and making them work in space. Starfield itself likely had the same 2-3 year dev cycle that all of their games get once the game engine was up to speed, which is why I think Elder Scrolls 6 is closer than people think (2026, not 2030 like I have some people suggest online). That said, I think Starfield will go down as a neat experiment. I think it'll go down as something Todd Howard wanted to make for 25-years, something he finally got to make, and he likely won't make another one. I wasn't huge into Starfield. I played it for around 13 hours, and I might dive back in when they add vehicles and when the expansion comes out, but until then navigating planets felt like a waste of time. I was just running around when a vehicle was sorely needed. Edited March 15 by Daweii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talldarkandransome Posted March 16 Share Posted March 16 Started Control last night, went for the Ultimate edition for series x and graphics mode which offers 30fps and ray tracing. The gameplay is really good, nice and simple. Interesting story and not overly difficult to get into. Little disappointed with the graphics, but that could be my HDR settings. Blacks are washy and blurry so will have to revisit that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted May 8 VT Supporter Share Posted May 8 Microsoft spends eleventy billion on buying Activision, today closes 4 studios - Tango Gameworks (Evil Within, Hi-fi Rush), Arcane Austin (Prey, Redfall), mobile dev Alpha Dog and Roundhouse Studios, which has been merged into Zenimax Online Studios. Complete mess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 21 hours ago, Chindie said: Microsoft spends eleventy billion on buying Activision, today closes 4 studios - Tango Gameworks (Evil Within, Hi-fi Rush), Arcane Austin (Prey, Redfall), mobile dev Alpha Dog and Roundhouse Studios, which has been merged into Zenimax Online Studios. Complete mess. It gets worse https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bradhilderbrand_there-are-two-reasons-why-all-those-bethesda-activity-7193668143305670657-wUSw?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop Quote There are two reasons why all those Bethesda studios closed, and neither of them have anything to do with Bethesda (directly)... Game Pass and Activision. The biggest paradox with Game Pass is that basically every game that launches on the service badly misses its sales goals. Makes sense though, why pay full price to buy a game when you can play it for "free" as part of your subscription? This is accounted for somewhat by attributing portions of revenue to top-performing Game Pass games every month, but there are factors working against games. Namely, the fact that most games don't stay at the top of the chart for more than a month or two, and also that Game Pass growth has stagnated. So games like Hi-Fi Rush, which is incredible mind you, gets a very small bump in revenue from being the hot Game Pass game for a month, then it falls off a cliff when everyone moves onto the next thing. Poor Redfall had it even worse since it launched so rough, it never had a chance. This system was fine for a while when Game Pass was growing like gangbusters, but now it's slowed way down and the amount of revenue it's attributing to games isn't keeping up with the budgets to make them. But, all that wouldn't have mattered even 3 or 4 years ago because back then Xbox was basically a rounding error on Microsoft's books. The division made some money, but more importantly, it didn't cost that much and other parts of the business easily covered the gap. Then Xbox went on a buying spree and spent a lot of money on Bethesda, but orders of magnitude more on Activision. Now, the Eye of Sauron has turned, and Xbox is expected to start making that $70B back, or at least cut expenses to the bone (and then some) while they try. That brings us back to Game Pass. So far, the big bets on driving new subscriptions (Redfall, Starfield) haven't spurred near enough growth, and there's not much on the horizon that is likely to restart the momentum. The best bet is COD, but do you really risk the guaranteed sales revenue that franchise brings by putting it on Game Pass on Day 1 and potentially lose massive sales? I don't know what the plans are, but either you put it on Game Pass and lose money, or you don't and the subscribers revolt because they think that's what they signed up for. COD will be fine though, as will the other mega-studios with huge IPs, but you're seeing the impact; all those smaller studios making really interesting games are going to fall away, simply because as good as games like Hi-Fi Rush are, they're never going to make enough money to make up that $70B hole that Xbox now has to dig itself out of. News that will surprise no one , game pass isn’t sustainable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 (edited) everything xbox, it would be if they had games... the crazy thing about this is that maybe me misunderstanding it is that these studios could potentially turn round some "indie" games relatively quickly, they're scrapping their gap pluggers while having no big titles xbox don't seem to know what they want or need, they'll churn out some AA games instead while sony churn out AAA big budget narrative games and the market for indie games cracks on there's a their version of state of play i think on the 9th june, same as it feels like 4 years running now a massive must do something show, instead it will be very good 7 hour long senua and a load of 7/10 stuff coming in 2 years time - and either a disc less series x and / or an xbox portal hopefully some more exclusives going to playstation but as i sit here now im not even sure which one id want Edited May 9 by villa4europe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted May 9 VT Supporter Share Posted May 9 Gamepass was always unsustainable. But it's definitely not helped by Microsoft apparently being unable to to produce anything worthwhile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daweii Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 Xbox leadership need to start being combative. The current leadership are all nice people, but nice guys always finish last. What are Sony doing? They are aware that AAA games take upwards of 7-years to make now. We're 3-6 years from another God of War, Spider-Man, Last of Us, Uncharted, and whatever else, but that doesn't matter because this year alone from third party studios, we have seen, FF7: Rebirth, Rise of the Ronin, Helldivers 2, Stellar Ass, and more to come. Why is this important? Sony don't care about Xbox gamers, so they do what is best for PlayStation. They make third party games that were potentially multiplatform at one point, and make sure they only release on PlayStation. The issue is Xbox knows this works. Xbox 360 was a success on the back of massive exclusivity deals. People bought Xbox 360 for GTA IV because it was known that GTA IV DLC was Xbox timed exclusive. Same for Call of Duty with the timed exclusive map packs on Xbox. Xbox understand that in this industry you have to be a word removed to succeed, and yet Phil Spencer is all about this kumbaya, sharing is caring bullshit that is eroding the very foundations of the Xbox brand. Phil Spencer keeps saying that Xbox lost the worst generation to lose last generation, but he's speaking as if the "war" is lost when it isn't. Xbox just spent $70 billion on ABK which is insane. Xbox could turn this shit around overnight and it's not hard at all. Get on the phone to Strauss Zelnick and get GTA 6 as a timed exclusive, and yeah it'll cost a couple billion dollars, but that's fine for a company with infinite money. Start making Xbox exclusive content for Call of Duty. Get on the phone to Andrew Wilson at EA and do a deal for free Ultimate Team packs every month in EA Sports FC for 10-years for all Xbox owners. Series X|S would be the top selling console globally within 3-4 years if Xbox put the money into making deals in the same way they used to. I hate how companies moneyhat and take games from people on other platforms, but that's just how the game is played in this industry, and Xbox trying to be the nice guy is killing them. Stop being the nice guy. PS. Xbox are very good at being the bad guy when it comes to lay offs. Same as Sony who did the same shit a month or so ago, but they need to keep that energy going when it comes to things intended to keep Xbox alive and to keep everyone in a job. PPS. I don't want more Xbox games on PlayStation because I don't want a future where Xbox decides to go full 3rd party. I don't want a future where Sony can charge whatever they like for hardware and software. Competition keeps Sony honest, and stops them ramping up the price on everything. Without a real competitor in the AAA hardcore gaming space we'd have a £900+ PlayStation within a decade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daweii Posted Tuesday at 21:25 Share Posted Tuesday at 21:25 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be a day one release on Game Pass when it releases later this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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