Xbox writes:
"What is the happiest sound in the world? The roar of coins pouring into a metal tray when you hit a jackpot playing slots? The final school bell of the year, signaling the start of summer? The cheer of the crowd when your team wins a match?
Sure, all those things are great, but I think the happiest sound is one heard over 4 million times a day, all over the world: the notification beep that your Xbox makes when you earn an achievement. (Yes, it’s the same sound you hear when getting a friend request or a game invitation, but those things just make the sound even happier.)
Did you know that the “Achievement unlocked” toast and the happy sound that goes with it were a last minute addition before we released the Xbox 360?"
Pure Xbox writes: "Microsoft has appointed Alan Hartman as the new Head of Xbox Game Studios. If you're not familiar with Hartman, he's been part of Forza Motorsport team at Turn 10 Studios since 2005.
Over the past couple of years he's led as Corporate Vice President of Forza and Fable, and before this was the Forza Studio Head at Turn 10."
Seems like a solid choice considering Forza and FH have been the only high quality studio, consistently for Microsoft.
*Forza and FH are the most consistent high quality and this guy ran Turn 10. Playground did FH but still high quality. Let's see if he can get some quality production out of the rest
He´s been doing an excellent job ahead of both Forza franchises integrating those studios to work together by sharing knowledge, technology and manpower.
The new ForzaTech is amazing and I can´t wait to see what it can do for the new Fable.
Phil Spencer has been promoting a huge shake up at Xbox with new leadership hopefully full of fresh ideas!
I hope Alan Hartman as head of XGS to keep the focus on single player games and RPGs. Fable looks absolutely stunning, so we can expect Forza Horizon´s level of excellence for Playground´s first RPG.
I can´t wait!
What a nice reward for the latest Forza, which is probably the most mediocre of the lot so far.
@redgrave not an excuse an explanation for why this game has less features. Not my problem you don't understand how game development works or development in general. When you move to a knew platform some things need to be rebuilt from the ground up.
I am currently migrating one of our services we provide to our customers to the cloud version and having to rebuild a lot of the add-ons we had built for them over the years.
But go ahead and keep criticizing devs when no one here has any clue what it actually takes.
Still think Rod Fergusson would have been a good shout. He's got a track record of fixing stuff and I assume he's still at Blizzard.
Not heard of this guy but I feel like anyone is better than Matt Booty
I thought Dan Greenawalt was head of Turn10 though (although I noticed he didn't do the on stage stuff at e3 this year). Is he not there anymore?
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! This is the best news I've heard since the last piece of xbox news!
Go team xbox! Xbox will rule the world!
He's over overlooked The Forza games which have been consistently good through our the years. Hopefully he has the same eye for quality for the rest if the studios going forward.
How can anyone deny that Forza has been a quality franchise for almost two decades?
“How can anyone deny that Forza has been a quality franchise for almost two decades?“
Forza Motorsport declined after FM4. And this release was one of the worst in the series.
Online multiplayer is back for 11 more games thanks to Insignia's XBL 1.0 replacement service running on Original Xbox consoles and the Xemu emulator on PC. Multiplayer, voice chat, leaderboards, etc. have been a monthly addition for many games from Xbox's past library thank to the team at Insignia.live! The 11 new games are now playable online once again after 13+ years.
Nah they will be tho look at rscs3 they have psn made in there emulator why not xenia bro?
Booo!! I was hoping that was Rainbow Six: Black Arrow...Boo!! again. I thought this coming to Xbox. I don't even read it I was so excited.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps has crossed 2 million players since its release. This news comes via an infographic shared by Moon Studios.
Good news is that it will be optimized for XSX @120fps. I will get it a second shot then.
The game is an absolute wonder from the visuals to the music score and gameplay. It really is a console show off.
Give hollow knight a try. Ori used to be my favourite metroidvanis side scroller but hollow knight has taken it's place by an enormous margin. For me.
Both games are from different genres, so they aren't comparable and shouldn't be compared quite frankly.
It's genuinely one of this generations most underrated games and in my book a masterpiece
Agreed the game is great and i didnt think they would be able to outdo part 1, i was wrong. Cant wait for part 3.
I think Ori’s story is over. Another game in series would likely be a spin-off.
That's kind of bad. When it's a multiplat and it's free on gamepass also. PLUS it's a sequel, it's not a new IP. The IP has already been established. Not to mention it's a quality game. Just kind of sad really.
"PLUS it's a sequel, it's not a new IP" you just described any game that has more than one game in the series, well done
Well.....it is a metroidvania type of game. That isn't exactly the most popular genre these days so 2 million looks pretty good to me.
since you're referring to the genre, is 2 million players better than Bloodstained's 1 million sales?
EDIT: I mean what do you consider a better metric of success? I hope this mini resurgence of the genre leads to greater things but we'll see. I don't take stock in MAUs as a quantifiable measurement of success
@CBaoth
The real question is which generated more revenue, right? I don't see how we can answer that without having a better understanding of Game Pass internal economics along with actual Ori sales data.
one of the great MS exclusive that I bought on PC to play it and it is a fantastic game! Sony fans would've love it for sure.
2 millions for a small non "AAA" game. You tell me how many small game on Gamepass can achieve this feat.
man...not every game has to sell millions upon millions. Seems like they are doing very will with this one.
Continued success Moon Studios, Ori is a fantastic IP and the game is one of the years best. Waiting for your next project reveal.
Not bad. I haven't gotten around to playing it yet, but I really enjoyed the first game.
The sequel was great too. I preferred the first, but 2 is not far behind IMO. Enjoy!
Pretty cool. Microsoft made one hella addictive innovation this gen with achievements.
love this blog
You do something and it gives you points.