Expect false contrition. Expect empty PR speak. Expect hollow promises.
Expect Modern Bioware.
Given how convoluted and confusing the story is to the people who've played XIII and XIII-2, having PC players go in without any context would be insane. Only the western arm of S-E is really pushing to improve on PC, too.
This is a reasonably good list, though I'd definitely want one of the Legacy of Kain games and Planescape on there. The quality of the writing in those two series is mindblowing. Also heartening that BioWare was entirely omitted.
Can hardly blame them. A number of services - Gamefly, Goozex, Redbox, Livefilm - are all threatened by Microsoft's policy decision. They must've been cut out of the loop to be taking so direct a stand.
Streams are so widely available that this shouldn't be a problem to the kind of enthusiast that wants to watch the conferences. People aren't exactly going to stumble on this while trawling for something worthwhile to watch and decide to stay tuned in.
I guess it was inevitable that fighting games started to go down this route - multiplayer focussed genre, after all. Very little point to single player content. As long as their monetization strategy is smart, it should pan out alright for them.
We don't know that they've been forced to do anything. Microsoft are perfectly capable of making bad decisions all on their lonesome.
They need something remarkable for Wii U in order to salvage it. 3DS alone could definitely push them ahead if Microsoft and Sony don't have strong showings, though.
"High profile" is a good get out of jail card here - I was expecting a list of obscure PC strategy games. I think Assassin's Creed is uniquely good at creating interest in the time periods the games take place in amongst the people playing it.
Not a list I'd entirely agree with. I mean, Resistance 3? Really? The absence of GTAIV is quite remarkable also. The reasoning's there, though, however much I disagree with the conclusions.
I'm sure that someone, somewhere is totally psyched for this.
I don't think I'd want modern Square-Enix remaking it. They won't know to leave it well alone and we'll end up with Genesis nonsense and worse.
This is a good list. Well reasoned.
I think this is one of the few games that suffers for losing the 3D on 3DS. It works remarkably well with 2D games.
This is just so they can rebrand it FFXV alongside the game. Right, guys? Right?!
Also reasons to watch the Endurance Run.
I don't think the complaint is really "games borrow things from movies and are therefore bad", it's more that some games will basically duplicate a character, scene or apply a trope from a popular movie without understanding why they work (and *that* us bad). When they lift character archetypes, they often forget to follow through on the arcs needed for the character to be interesting. It leads to the story sucking.
The Normandy thing I mentioned is symptoma...
Enthusiasts are also your early adopters, who are sorely needed to evangelise to ensure a product gains traction. People rely on word of mouth over marketing when making purchasing decisions. They need gamers, regardless of whether they or the press are prepared to acknowledge that.
See: every WW2 shooter that lifted the Normandy landing from Saving Private Ryan because they thought it was "cool".
This is a problem for AAA games, certainly; rooted in a desperate need to be cinematic to ensure sales and disregarding the strengths of the medium. But not a universal one. We do get titles like Ico that do things right. They're just a minority, sadly.
A bit of subtlety wouldn't have gone amiss.