@Kingthrash360

"They've spent this whole generation telling people to wait. Why would anyone support them next gen?"

Because Phil Spencer created/acquired a LOT of new studios and actuall gamers (not the haters) has this notion that quality games aren´t made overnight.

@Obsure_Observer Phil has been head of software since 2009. Can you honestly tell me what hes done ? Since even becoming the head of xbox all hes done is buy studios which 90% percent of people here never played their games or even heard of them outside of ninja theory.

So you take these relatively obscure studios ,basically because your competitions in house devs were absolutely delivering, and combine them with Spencer who's basically rode the waves of halo gears and forza no new mainstay ips releasing games with original assets and calling it for the fans.

Then this e3 all trailer no gameplay and battletoads was MURDERED lol

Wait till *next* E3 you mean.

Or buy your multiplats for the PS4 too and support a company that actually cares about the industry.

Oh boy someone is on the Sony wagon. Yea a company who barely started accepting cross play on their console cares about the industry.

@mandingo:
In that they make exclusives, don't only look at online multi, yeah.

Oh wow... A new bended definition. Have some self respect and dignity.

Thundercat77 as a self-professed console gamer I'd think you'd know better but apparently you only have a jacked up powered up super PC Rig when it comes to Xbox games. Do you rent it from RENT A CENTER?

And, your point? Much of what MS showed at E3 will be playable on a Playstation. That's including Psychonauts and PSO2.

When was the last good exclsuive to xbox from 1st party? As far as "bolstering" services even psnow brings in more money than gamepass.

You say they're about games but the only gameplay we saw if any was 3rd party and yet again all xbox had exclusively was halo and gears . . . Again.

As for playstation massive exclusives (some relatively) have been pumping out because along with the regular triple a exclsuives a ton of great psvr games and content has come out. It's been a whole generation and there been no sticking new ips even the flagships have kinda stalled except forza horizon.

I mean think about it the gen is coming to a close xbox has videos of halo and gears and a bunch of 3rd party games and as I've commented before an absolutely horrendous battletoads reveal it felt like a corny Saturday morning cartoon generic rock music and all thats not battletoads. And Sony has 3 major exclsuives still to release. Theyve guaranteed psvr compatibility whereas Microsoft killed it supposed cant work without peripheral kinect. Closed off or not Phil Microsoft whoever hasnt shown they know what they're doing. The cloud took 5 years and was quickly forgotten. And all these studio acquisitions so quickly shows how desperate they are. They're hoping they can just pump money into them and get a great game.

All that said Sony could definitely fumble going into next gen if they dont have the content and halo being an xbox launch title but facts are facts Microsoft hasnt given any indication in the past 6 or so years that shows they're actually serious or just know what they're doing. Just look back at the ps3 launch and first few years it sucked to be honest but Sony stuck with it and eventually things came around.

@Jukins

Forza Horizon 4, SoT (may have started rocky, but has turned into a great game).

Are you sure PSNow brings in more money, I mean we do know that GamePass has a lot more subscribers. But you could be right. The difference there is one service has been around for 5 years, the other only a couple, yet one was first to offer native downloads and way more relevant new games. There is no question which services will end up on top unless Sony starts adding better titles and expands it to more devices.

And you're right, they didnt show much actual gameplay. Hell, E3 in total was a bit let down by that fact. And the exclusive thing is a bit dicey, but as far as games that wont be on PS4 or Nintendo was Battletoads, Blair Witch, Bleeding Edge, Gears 5, Halo Infinite, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Minecraft Dungeons, Ori and the Will of the Wisps.. plus DLC for various games like Forza Horizon 4, State of Decay 2, and SoT. Timed exclusives like CrossfireX and Phantasy Star Online.

But yeah all they showed was Halo and Gears. Shoot.

That's the thing Microsoft have included their flagship exclsuives in gamepass and still it trails behind psnow without as you say relevant games which is basically a selling point for me on psnow. A whole catalog of games I probably would never play. And I'm sure they'll enhance psnow with better titles and performance especially with the others going that route.

But as you listed Microsoft basically has tried and true franchises and indies most besides forza halo and gears have basically failed

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.

They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.

If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.

It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie

Yeah with FSR 5 they should be able to offer a much cheaper version of Helix.

Series S is what has killed Xbox Series so... Will they dare?

The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.

Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.

Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.

LucasRuinedChildhood,

For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:

1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.

2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".