Pure Evil - Microsoft Still Doesn't Get It
 

I posted all the stuff Microsoft announced during their London game conference (Grounded, Everwild, Bleeding Edge & Tell Me Why) and there is really nothing there for real gamers to get excited about and certainly nothing that matches the quality of Sony's first-party stuff like Spider-Man, The Last of Us 2 or Death Stranding.

During the show, Aaron Greenberg was bragging about how Gears of War 5 has an 84 on Metacritic. 84? That means it's "Good, but not great." Hardly a score worth bragging about.

Their biggest title is another Halo title and Age of Empires IV, a game from a company that Microsoft CLOSED right when they were being successful. I went to visit Ensemble Studios before the release of Age of Empires 3 and they had some great stuff in development behind the scenes that was just lost when Microsoft closed the company. I like the Warhammer 40k titles Relic did, but they are no Ensemble.

They also seem to be really worried that the PS5 is going to eclipse the Scarlett in performance.

It feels like the Xbox division lost their way somewhere and despite throwing a bunch of money at little indie studios they still have a long way to go before they are ever more than the 3rd place console again.

Even their Games Pass can't save them. What good is getting everything Microsoft makes if everything they make is something you would never want to play? As soon as my free two months is up, I'm canceling Games Pass.

I've got to agree with you that this XO19 thing was a bust. I didn't even watch it, there has never been anything remotely interesting coming out of these events. But I also am not at all feeling down on Microsoft in regards to gaming. They've got a shit ton of AAA studios working on games right now, and Gamepass just gave me Rage 2 which I have been waiting on a sale to get (get in line though). Also I'll be able to play Halo Reach on Steam in a couple weeks with friends, which is awesome. MS really has changed to a company that just wants to make consumers able to play games, wherever, whenever, and on whatever. I'm in the Xcloud streaming beta and that is a cool way to have access to games while away on a tablet or phone. They're just pumping up the options, and I love having more options than being forced to be in close proximity to my console.

I'll always love buying and owning consoles, but I am loving the move to being able to play my games wherever I want. I'll be looking forward to E3 before making a final decision on what console to buy first next gen (because I will eventually buy all of them), but with all the various options and ways to play, Xbox already has the lead. I respect Sony's first party content, but it rarely is for me anymore. I've bought nearly all of them this gen and only finished Infamous Second Son, Until Dawn, and Killzone Shadowfall. I'm not even going to buy Death Stranding unless I see it on deep discount, and am not anticipating Last of Us 2. But I still am happy to have the console because I like having the option to play games there when I want. Some games, like Mortal Kombat 11, I bought on every platform, and am therefore able to play it in many different locations.

Also I read somewhere that Sony was planning a handheld console to compete with the Switch, and if that was the case it would get me really excited. I love handhelds in general, and at this point it would have to be a handheld PS4 or 5, which would immediately draw me away from the Microsoft stuff, at least timewise. It would be competition to the "play games wherever etc" feeling that MS is giving right now.

The XBone is simply one of the worst consoles ever made. I went from buying almost all my games on XBox with the 360 to owning 5 xbone games this gen. I will now likely not buy the next xbox until it has proven itself a success.

I think the next gen is the last roll of the dice for MS. If the PS5 wipes the floor with them they will walk away.

This would be a terrible situation. the 360 showed MS know how to do this but for some reason they just make terrible mistakes again and again. If they leave then it will also allow Sony to become arrogant pricks again. Microsoft should simply buy Capcom, hey presto you have an unreal back catalogue to draw upon and a foothold in Japan.

Honestly, thanks for reminding me, I almost forgot. I just turned off the recurring billing for the gamepass trial. After trying Outer Worlds (was nice but meh, wasn't enough meat for me), the only other thing there of interest was Forza Horizon and it's just not enough to pay even the 5 bucks a month for.

There is a difference how the Xbox brand feels overall, from the first to latest...

On the first xbox it felt more like this





Now it's more like this:

That second commerical with the finger guns embodies everything I loved about Xbox back in the day. It was just flat out fun and the first Xbox and the 360 were both systems about having fun and bringing people together. It was Xbox Live that really created gaming as a community and not just a hobby. If it wasn't for Xbox Live, gamers would still be nerds instead of the cool people.

Once the 360 got huge, they just forgot everything. Started closing studios and relying on 3rd party games and just trying to shove their idea of the hardware as a service down our throats.

Having decent quality hardware is a nice step, but they still seem to be a long way away from those fun commercials and that spirit of play.

You are not objective at all, you HATE Xbox and they will never do anything right in your eyes. You would have canceled Game Pass out of spite even if it include all games on the platform. :rolleyes:

And the X1X is one of the best. They are correcting their mistakes but you guys are too blind and hateful now to see it.

Now I can't help spam two more legendary commercials.

win 10 has the forza , gears, and a few other games that are exclusives. What does Xbox have? The switch has more unique content at this point , and nintendo has always been bad with third party support.
im mostly pc/ps4 these days with some vita in between.

Seems like it's time to remake Quake. Doom seemed to work pretty good.

The X1X is just more power, which while good does not correct Microsoft’s problems. They still have a garbage console UI and they still have no exclusive content. Also the X was too little, too late, everyone had already deserted the platform. Whenever I turn on my xbone my once vibrant friendliest is a sea of ‘offline’.

I have to admit I enjoy the thought of Microsoft still being punished for ‘that e3 reveal’. Fuck that anti consumer shit and enjoy reaping the consequences for years after.

Don't matter. Maybe MS did something along the way to piss him off and he doesnt want to give them his money. Maybe its the way console looks, maybe he doesnt like the Xbone UI.

I will never buy another EA game unless its $5 on ebay because of BF5. And im waaay past the point of caring about missing out or not being there on day one. Means nothing to me.

MS is in a tough spot. The market is contracting, and its Nintendo at one end and Sony at the other.

I've heard people say good things about Microsoft's game streaming service so far.

Google's Stadia launched just now, and it's getting slammed pretty hard. The amount of dumb fail is quite unbelievable. It's not just the launch issues for the service, that might get ironed out in time, but plenty of conceptual problems how they set up their service so far.

So that looks to be one score point for Microsoft as of now. Maybe that's gonna be the leg up that Microsoft needs for next gen. Curious how Sony gonna do in this.

The Xbox streaming stuff is quite good. It's a cool secondary way to have access to games when away from the house. That's how I view streaming in general. The Stadia is DOA for me, I would never buy a system that only streams games. Maybe in 100 years, when I'm 138, but not now.

But I know better than to talk too much or too often about Xbox on here. I like all of the things (except Stadia I guess), but that is forbidden on the internet. You must choose sides! None of this "I like them all" blasphemy! If I like one platform 2% more than another, that doesn't mean the other is a stank ass pile of shit. It means that I probably play one 2% more than the other.

Switch: Badass
PS4: Badass
XB1X: Badass
PC: The most badass, usually.

I have arcade machines, retro mini consoles, all kinds of older generation and Neo-geo Gold weird consoles. I have an Onlive and Ouya and Nvidia Shield and whatever else. I am a fan of games, not companies. Right now I'm playing on an Xbox One S, the weakest current gen thing I have, because it's plugged into the monitor next to me.

All of them are good for different reasons!

Yeah, is a cool way to approach gaming, if you can afford that and have the time. Otherwise, you look at what platform offers more of what you like, and stick to that. For all intends and purposes it is the best then.

Regardless though, people have different values in what gaming is about for them. There are those that pick specific games and then dedicate themselves to becoming very good at them. It often goes along with being part of a clan scene and partaking in organized competition. The games of choice for that usually have a very high skill ceiling, from mechanics to strategy. The mindset is sort of comparable to a guy who spends his life becoming as good as possible at Chess/Go/Poker. Sure there are other card or board games, but why bother? Everything else is sort of a downgrade. You don't have to be anything as extreme actually, but roughly speaking there are those with a personal tendency for strong preferences in the games they play, and this very much dictates their platform preference in what best suits that. Once they focus on a particular game, it automatically means the platform it plays best on, is the best.

I'm more of a PC guy for the things I like playing most, playing on console feels like someone smashed my hands with a sledgehammer, and drowned my character in molasse. The exception is BeatEmUp games, where the argument reverses, and as you know there are people very dedicated to those games as well. Maybe sports and racing games too. 3rd person stuff is a bit ambiguous on what works best, but those are more casual games anyway.

There is an argument to be made who misses out on what. I see it as a give or take. There are many things I never played, and you can count that as a loss, but there is some incredible things you never played either, gaming experiences you never even knew existed, because you never went into the hard underground scene of mods, aside from never knowing what it feels like being so dedicated on a high level with a team of trust. You can't really have it all. It's always a trade-off. And once you get used to the frenzy of play like this, it's hard going back to other stuff.

The thing with Xbox Games pass is that it is mostly old 360 games. The few 360 games worth playing I still own (Gears, Halo, etc) and as long as you have the disc you can get access to the upgraded versions.

Beyond that, you mostly get older games (Rage 2, Tomb Raider) or the Microsoft exclusives. The problem here is that the MS exclusives are not that great or are running so cheap that it isn't worth $15 a month.

I already own Gears of War 4 and I picked up Halo 5 for like $5 and the Master Chief Collection for like $15. That just doesn't leave much. Outer Worlds was really the first title to make the games pass worthwhile and I can wait to play it till it's cheap.

I agree. I just happen to not have kids yet due to unforeseen circumstances, have a decent job thanks to my time in the Army, and my job basically forces me to spend my free time up late at night. At which time my wife is asleep so I just play games and watch stuff. So I am not the common gamer I guess. I am probably more like Metal Jesus, where I love to collect and play everything I can. I can totally understand being in different circumstances and having to commit to one platform, so that makes sense.

I wouldn't consider Rage 2 to be an "older game." Didn't it come out in May, about 6 months ago? Tomb Raider was 2013, which makes sense. But saying "Rage 2, Tomb Raider" lol. A six month old game vs a 6 year old game.

But regardless, I am still getting gamepass free until next July, so it's not a decision I have to think about right now. I got in on an insanely good deal, a year for $1, so I can't hate on someone not wanting to keep paying for it. Take that into account if I seem to be praising it, I basically get it for free for a year. When my time is up, not sure what I'll do. I like having it, it's cool to see when they add new games to it, it's cool to get big games occasionally like Gears 5 and Outer Worlds, but $15 a month is a bit much, unless I decide there is one must play game a month being added to it. So we'll see.

I think if you didn't already own Gears of War 5, it might seem like a pretty good deal for sure for a while, the problem I'm seeing is that those $15-a-month charges start adding up fast and when you consider that I've purchased most of the MS exclusives for $15 or less it just seems smarter to keep picking up the discs on the cheap and ending up with a nice little collection instead of paying for a service and owning nothing down the road a bit.

That is one of the great things about the Xbox One being really a decently powered system, I'm not expecting to see anything really push the hardware limits for a while.

Rage 2 isn't really that old, it just wasn't that great of a game. It kills a few hours, but I was expecting a lot more from the people who made Mad Max. I've read if you stick to the main quests, that it's pretty short. I wouldn't know, I can't resist trying to do just about everything in those open world games.