Topic: Official Push Square Xbox Thread

@KidBoruto What about Stalker 2 (Dec 8th -although would be very Understandable if this is delayed), Warhammer: Darktide, Slime Rancher 2 etc. 3rd Party exclusives, timed or otherwise, are still part of the release schedule - and we have had Tunic, Shredders etc too.

As for Game Pass, its NOT just for first party Exclusives for Day 1 releases. Its already offered R6: Extinction and MLB22 with Plague Tale: Requiem, Atomic Heart etc coming Day 1 to Game Pass as well older but still great AAA games - Guardians of the Galaxy and AC: Origins, For Honor etc. GPU gives EA Play too so you have ME:L added to the list of great games you can play...

I'm sure that as soon as MS decided to delay Redfall & Starfield, decided to put more time and Money into ensuring they are 'ready' to release, they were looking at the release windows and contacting other Publishers to negotiate releasing their projects into Game Pass to fill those gaps - maybe not exclusive, but still offer Great gaming experiences and 'value' for GP subscribers...

@KidBoruto July 28th was the Grounded early access release in 2020, currently the only news on when it's leaving early access is sometime in 2022.

Personally i really like my Xbox Series X its a great console Reward points are fantastic and basically paid for my console and a bunch of games and my gamepass sub I would like sony to do something similar

Im looking forward to the new PS+ premium service as that will hopefully allow me to try loads of games and play then much like i do with gamepass. I liked PSNOW but the games being added to it wernt enough to keep me subscribed so i would just sign up as and when a game was added i was interested in

I'm not interested in any of those games so I didn't include them, sorry about that.

My bad, I pulled the release date from a random website! Shame we don't have a solid date yet.

@KidBoruto The purpose was to show that there are MORE than just Grounded and Scorn as 'exclusives' timed or otherwise) releasing in 2022. Whether you're interested in them or not, there was more than 'just' Redfall & Starfield due to release this year.

Yes those two may well of been the 'biggest' First Party releases from MS and now, until we hear otherwise, they may not have a 'big' first party game. Of course Forza Motorsport is 'expected' after being given 3 extra years (so far) to make a 'new' game. Playground were given an extra year for FH5 as both studio's turned around award winning racing games every 2 years until 2018 when FH4 released. Hellblade 2 has been in development quite a while and had Game-play shown off back in December so maybe that might release this year too. Deathloop is expected too after honouring Sony's 'year' of exclusivity - whether you played it or not on PS5 (the advantage of owning multiple Hardware platforms) its still 'likely' to be released on Xbox for ALL those who have waited (or PS owners who wish to play again on Xbox via Game Pass so no extra cost). Maybe the Coalition have 'something' - maybe not Gears 6 (although I can see them announcing it) but maybe a UE5 remaster of Gears 1-3 could release this year...

On top of that, we don't really know what ID@Xbox or Xbox Publishing may have. We know some games - like Scorn, Slime Ranchers etc from ID@Xbox, but apart from Contraband, which I don't think we will see, we don't know if they'll have anything yet. I am expecting to see more ID@Xbox titles coming this year exclusively to Xbox - again whether you're interested in these or not, they still count as 'Xbox' exclusives for 2022.

If you're not interested in God of War or Marvel, you could say Sony has NO games coming out in 2022 or beyond by that same Logic. Sony had NO PS5 exclusives at launch because I'm not interested in a PS3 era game - especially not Demon Souls, Only had R&C (because I don't play Rogue like games) in 2021 and none in 2022 because H:FW & GT7 were on PS4 too like Miles Morales... Point is, you can make sweeping statements that create the impression that Sony has no PS5 exclusives either and 'nothing' to look forward to from their Studios (at the moment). As it stands right now, there is a LOT more exclusives I'm looking forward to playing in the future on Xbox than on PS5 but I'm not going to make sweeping statements that Sony has barely any games coming - dismissing all the ones I'm not personally interested in at all - like Stray for example.

All I was trying to do was show that MS has more than just the 2 exclusives (timed or otherwise) releasing before the end of the year than Grounded and Scorn - which is what your post actually stated. The 2nd paragraph - to quote:- Beyond [those 2 games] we know 'nothing' of their 2022 line-up...

So I gave you some other games that ARE Exclusively coming to Xbox in 2022 that we do know about right now!!

@BAMozzy I believe Stalker was delayed to December just before the invasion in Ukraine and they officially put it on hold shortly after. That’s most likely not coming out this year.
I’m sure Game Pass will still have some good stuff but I think it’s safe to say the first party output hasn’t been up to expectations.

@BAMozzy I apologize for leaving out the other games, my mistake. Sorry for upsetting you, didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings.

@Voltan Has any publisher actually managed to get games out when they initially said they would?

Take this year from Sony, H:FW, GT7 and God of War were all delayed and initially expected before 2022 - so IF those hadn't been delayed, what would Sony have this year? The only other games we know of are both Insomniac games and its not looking like 2023 will have many 1st party games - maybe Spider-Man2, maybe not...

Switch owners were expecting Breath of the Wild 2 this year - delayed...

most of the games coming this year were delayed from EVERY publisher.

Since the release of the PS5/XSX - who has released the most 'new' 1st Party console games? Sony has MM, R&C, Returnal, H:FW, GT7 - 5 'new' games (not counting any PS5 ports of older games as MS tends to give them 'free' and they are not 'new' games). MS has released Gears Tactics, MSFS, H:I, FH5, Psychonauts 2, Grounded (in Beta) as well as both Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo (albeit not on their platform but are still First Party releases and both expected to come to console in the next year - although can still play on PC). Looking ahead, Sony has '3' first party exclusives announced - GoW, SM2 & Wolverine. I know they'll have more but whether Sucker-Punch, Guerilla etc have a new game for a while seeing as games seem to be taking over 3yrs to make now. I obviously don't need to list MS's upcoming games as we know they have a lot more.

As for 'expectations', MS ended up as the publisher with the 'highest' average metacritical score so I would say they 'exceeded' expectations - the delay to Redfall and Starfield may well mean they don't get that accolade this year, but BOTH these are still expected in the first half of 2023, that means both should still release in the 'same' year going E3 to E3. There is still time for GoW to be 'delayed' again into 2023 too and MS could still have a few 1st Party releases coming in 2022 - Forza, Hellblade 2 and Deathloop for example...

Every Publisher at the moment seems to be 'struggling' to meet the Release date they initially stated - even missing the 2nd or 3rd before it finally comes out. Its not 'just' MS. Those that don't - the likes of CoD, BF etc have not been 'great' - especially at launch. Therefore, I would rather wait until a game is Ready than have rushed and/or messy games.

I am not bashing Sony, I have a PS5 and have owned EVERY Playstation console. I just think its 'hypocritical' to criticise delays and/or output when Sony must be very thankful right now that their 2022 line up was delayed otherwise, what games would they have had this year? Some 'remasters' of old games??

I'm betting that the majority of 2022 'big AAA' releases across ALL publishers were originally intended to release in 2021 but have been 'delayed'. Its just the way of the world right now and looking ahead into 2023, I am more 'concerned' about what Sony's 1st Party have than MS...

This is why I find it somewhat hypocritical for Sony Fanboys to make something out of this Delay. They too have 'benefited' from 'delays' to their games, meaning that when those games released, they were released running at a 'decent' standard (still required patches/fixes to minor bugs/glitches etc - so NOT perfect). They wouldn't have a First Party release at all in 2022 if those games released in the year they were initially targeting...

Point is, basically every game has been 'delayed' from their initial target window from basically every publisher. Whatever the reason, this isn't 'just' a MS issue, its a 'Global' issue...

@BAMozzy The biggest problem with the delay is that it continues in the trend of them announcing things and fans still sitting here not having any idea when they are coming out. True, Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok got delayed, but Sony wasn't dumb enough to announce a release date for either game a year and a half before it was supposed to release that had shown absolutely nothing before a CGI trailer announcing the release date.

It's hard to really have a whole lot of confidence in the brand when there's plenty of mismanagement so far, with Everwild totally up in the air now, State of Decay 3 in who knows what shape, and the worst of them all 343 being an obvious total mess. As good as Halo Infinite should be, all you read is how poorly managed the multiplayer is, and we're still waiting on two major features of the game that weren't ready at launch after the game was already delayed a year. I'd much rather take almost guaranteed quality over a bunch of quantity based solely on a bunch of acquisitions, especially when Sony has shown that can easily manage their studios. Big time acquisitions and a bunch of CGI trailers for games with no release dates only goes so far.

@BAMozzy Nintendo are the most reliable with release dates being accurate but they also generally don't give release timings until they know they're ready for release. This year the only delayed ones so far are Advance Wars (because of current world events) and BotW 2 (appears to be related to new hardware).

A big part of the problem comes down to the fact once you've started revealing stuff too far in advance, it's hard to stop because not announcing unannounced stuff kills momentum of showcases.

Switch starting from scratch allowed Nintendo to change and there's only been a few Nintendo published Switch exclusives that were revealed way too early (SMTV, Metroid Prime 4, Bayonetta 3, BotW 2).

Sony is getting there, HFW and GT7 were only delayed out of 2021 by a few months and in general the 2020 showcases 1st party list has been almost completely exhausted (only GoW Ragnarok left) but on the other hand Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine were revealed too early (maybe a requirement by Marvel rather than a Sony choice?). We'll see whenever Sony decides to do a Showcase.

With Microsoft, they're infamous for announcing games that aren't Forza or ports/remasters at least 3 years in advance. If you look back at E3 2021 for example, a big chunk of the XGS games that had 2021/2022 release dates were announced in 2017/2018 meanwhile the big surprise new announcement releasing soon was Forza Horizon 5.

Regarding the showcase next month based on that I think the XGS lineup will be Forza Motorsport reboot, As Dusk Falls, updates/DLC for existing live service games and a load of ports/remasters. Then at E3 2023 we start seeing release timings for stuff like Hellblade 2, Fable, etc.

@KilloWertz That is an INDUSTRY wide issue and no different from the majority of Publishers. God of War: Ragnarok was revealed as just a CGi title screen and with 'year' to indicate when we should expect the game and how many more times are Sony going to show a CGI trailer and not release exactly when they initially said? Its an 'industry wide' issue with many publishers giving some 'indication' - it doesn't matter if its an 'exact' date or particular Quarter, its still being delayed from when people 'expect' it to release and when it finally does release.

Sometimes, CGI trailers are NOT meant for Gamers, they are also used as recruitment tools - look at what IP we are starting to Work on and if you want to be involved, then come work for us. 20 years ago, those would at most be a paragraph in a Magazine as games in 'pre-production' because the ONLY way the public would hear about them was through Magazines. E3 coverage could be spread out over 'months' of Magazines, with the 'expected' newer games coming this Holiday being the Focus.

The Problem is that nowadays, its almost impossible to 'keep' secrets and still try and recruit because even recruitment ads, linkedin profiles etc are scrutinised by Public to try and find out what's happening, what's devs are working on etc and want to be 'first' to leak news to get the maximum attention on their 'media'.

As soon as a game is revealed, Gamers are constantly asking 'when' its out, when are you going to announce a date, when can they play it. Gamers are part of the Problem too. E3 was a Trade only show so the Public only heard what the Journalists wanted you to hear and when. When they acquire Studio's, Gamers 'demand' to know what they are working on and WHEN they can expect to play it. People want them to 'Justify' why they purchased these studio's and 'when' will it actually benefit them...

There are things that are far worse than delays - especially in an industry that is not as simple as some seem to think. As anyone who knows about coding, you may 'fix' one issue, but that then creates several other issues. I'd rather MS took a page out of Sony's books and ensured their games are 'ready' to release - even if it means delaying again. As for Everwild, they had an idea of a Visual identity, but making a game, with objectives, with more mechanics than walking around and in a way that 'people' want to play, that is where that project has stalled - what we saw was a pre-production 'concept' reveal - its not that different from the Matrix demo at the end - a 'pretty' world but no game-play. 343 have 'never' impressed me - but I think they can also never live up to Bungie.

It's funny though that few ever bring up Turn 10, Playground or the Coalition though. Turn 10 always released their games every 2yrs and won best Racing Game of the year, Playground too have gone from strength to strength since their first game (Forza Horizon) and also released every 2yrs and won awards too. The Coalition took over from Epic and perhaps played it safe with Gears 4 in terms of story/game-play, but despite the 'lack' of power relative to PS4, still managed to make some of the best looking games of the generation. All of these released multiple games over Last gen and all were very solid games at release - not buggy messes.

There isn't many others to talk about - only Mojang who keep doing what Mojang do. The majority of other studios only joined in 2017 or after. Bethesda only joined last year and more a Subsidiary - albeit still under MS. The only difference is that MS will fund delays to ensure the game is ready rather than push games out to start recuperating development costs, rather than 'spend' money with little revenue coming in...

Undead Labs have never been a first party studio with a decent budget so they may of started from Scratch on 3, on a 'new' engine which takes time to get up to speed, and aiming for a AAA game requiring their studio to 'grow' - hence that reveal trailer to get recruitment going. As we are seeing, games are taking 3years at a minimum with some taking 5 or more years - especially big open world games built from scratch.

I don't 'get excited/hyped' by a CGI trailer - I don't really care about Fable or Perfect Dark yet - certainly not hyped about it. Yes its a positive to know these games are in development, but doesn't mean a lot to me until I can get my hands on it. I am not excited by GoW, SM2 or Wolverine either because they haven't given me 'enough' information to be excited and there are a LOT of games coming between now and then.

When games come out, that's the time when we actually can judge for ourselves. That's when all those development issues, concerns etc are either an excuse or prove to be unfounded, forgotten about. If Starfield releases to 'great' acclaim by gamers, the delay and any concerns will be forgotten about. Like I said, I prefer to hear that a game is delayed rather than release and be 'disappointed'.

She makes great points that applies not 'just' to Starfield/Redfall or MS, but the INDUSTRY as a Whole - inc Sony too...

@BAMozzy No offense as some of it had absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about, but the points I actually read make sense. My problem with Microsoft is that they have all of this potential lined up after the acquisitions, but even after last year's E3 showcase showed that, we are still left with very little even a year later. 3 AAA titles in a few month's time in 18 months of a new generation. In other words, basically anything that's come out on the Series X so far this generation has been 3rd party titles and indie 3rd party titles on Game Pass. Some of them have turned out to be good, but that shouldn't be the vast majority of what has made up the Series X's library so far. Sure, they have plenty of announced titles, but when are they coming? Do we have any reason to have that much confidence that most of them will be good? Once again, I'll take nearly guaranteed quality over blind faith required quantity right now.

That's not an issue with Sony as their output has been much more stellar than disappointing. They've built the reputation, but Microsoft has not. Yes, Turn 10, Playground, and The Coalition are their cream of the crop so far, but those are 3 games. That's all they ever make. Now 4 since Playground is making Fable, but still, their best developers are stuck making one franchise instead of being expanded to have their talents do more than just the same game.

Yes, everybody releases CGI trailers for their teaser reveals, but when that's literally all we've basically gotten for their entire upcoming catalog (outside of a HUDless Hellblade 2 game sequence), that's a problem.

I've watched Alanah's video. I like most of her videos like that and I'm a subscriber, and she's not wrong that it's good when a game gets delayed instead of releasing broken. That's not what I'm criticizing Microsoft for though. It's the fact that I've already said that this just compounds their problem of having very little AAA output at all so far this generation, forcing fans to continue their blind faith that the games we've seen virtually nothing of will eventually come and will end up being good much more often than not.

@KilloWertz I do hear what your saying about the 'lack' of games thus far and that the majority have come from those developers who were already under Microsoft (essentially as both Playground and Undead were only making games for Xbox - like Housemarque were) but that is somewhat understandable. Rare has continued to support Sea of Thieves and that is still going strong for them.

InXile finished off Wasteland 3 and haven't revealed what their next project is, Obsidian finished off Outer Worlds, made Grounded in Beta and are working on Avowed (from Scratch) and a follow up to Outer Worlds, Compulsion weren't a AAA developer and we don't yet know what their follow up is. Ninja Theory have been working on Hellblade 2 and Project Mara, Double Fine recently released Psychonauts 2 which they were working on after being acquired (turned out great) and the ONLY other Studio that has been set up was the initiative - not only set up and staff a studio, but also make a AAA game in 5yrs is pushing it when games are taking longer and longer to develop -especially starting from scratch.

They only acquired Bethesda just over a year ago -Tango and Arkane were working on, and now have released (both after delays) games on PS - honouring that agreement. Doom was still relatively new out so maybe too soon for Id Software to even reveal what their next project is, MachineGames announce Indiana Jones 'before' the MS deal went through and haven't heard any more about it yet, Arkane and Bethesda as we know just delayed their next games - both Exclusives.

Point is, unless you buy a studio 'deep' into development of a Game that hasn't yet made some publishing/exclusivity deal, the chances are that you will have to wait a while for them to actually start making games 'exclusively' for your platform. 2017 E3 was when Undead, Playground (both had made games for Xbox anyway), Ninja Theory, Compulsion and the initiative were announced as part of Xbox Studio's with inXile and Obsidian joining several months later - both of whom were working on multi-platform games at the time so had to finish off those first.

I just don't see how you can realistically expect a mass of games to be releasing and why Forza, Gears and Halo have continued to be relied on for releases - much like the XB1 era. SuckerPunch took 6 yrs between Infamous and Ghost of Tsushima, Its been 5yrs between Horizon: Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West and yet you expect MS to have honoured all those games those Studio's were making that have now released and then gone on to make New AAA games and release exclusives for Xbox in that time too?

As for 'quality', some of that is personal preference of course. If you don't like Racing Games, it perhaps doesn't matter that FH5 was a critical success and for many, their Game of the Year. All I can say is that MS was the publisher who had the highest critical acclaim of 2021 - even if a couple of those weren't exclusive to Xbox, one didn't even release on their Hardware (Deathloop) but they were still award winning games - as was MSFS too of course. Ninja Theory's Hellblade was a Critical success, so why won't Hellblade 2 be? As MS have 'grown' and now investing more into studio's, into their games, gaining much more knowledge and experience they can 'share' around - like the Coalitions knowledge of UE5 (after all it was them that basically developed a Hardware accelerated version of Lumin - not Epic) that will help all those Xbox studios who are using UE5. If you want to take MS's last 'year' of releases as an indication of 'quality', and the fact that they are willing to delay Starfield despite knowing what the backlash to that would be, knowing that the development costs will continue to rise instead of pushing Bethesda to 'crunch' out the game, get stressed and rush, make mistakes and perhaps release another Fallout 76 just to appease 'fanboys' and bring in revenue, then I think the future looks great for Xbox.

However, I tend to take EACH game on its own and make my own judgement on whether I want to play - regardless of critical score or being taken in by 'flashy' visuals with repetitive game-play/predictable stories. Just because someone has a poor history, doesn't mean that defines their future. If MS are willing to invest in their gaming in the way they have in recent years, then why can't they invest the time and resources into their Software to ensure its a polished game at launch? After that, its up to you to decide if its something you want to play or not. Like I said, if you don't like Gears or Forza, then maybe Xbox hasn't been 'great' for you, but that doesn't mean that those games were not solid, polished games at launch - equally as polished as anything Sony released, the only difference is subjective preferences...

I can't or won't convince you to look at every game, regardless of platform, individually. You aren't going to get that 'history' of consistent, polished games like Sony has within this 'short' time frame and unrealistic to expect Quantity & Quality of releases in such a short time. Like I said, Games are taking longer and longer to make (SP 6yrs between Infamous and GoT, Guerilla 5yrs between H:ZD & H:FW) and most 'new' studio's have released games they had to 'finish' first before making 'exclusives' and haven't even been at MS for 5yrs themselves yet.

I personally don't have anything against Game Pass (I subscribed to it last summer to try out cloud gaming, which I thought worked a lot better than I thought it would), but I thought this was a thoroughly interesting read in it (and subscription services in general).

https://www.digitallydownloaded.net/2022/05/subscription-serv...

Anyone else planning on watching the Xbox show this evening (6pm UK I believe)? If it's anything like previous years there should be quite a lot third-party stuff, even if won't be explicitly advertised as such tonight. I'll probably just watch it on YouTube as it's (understandably) not on here.

I intend to watch but I also have a Series X & Game Pass Ultimate so I'm interested in more than just the 3rd Party 'multi-platform' releases that will also release on PS5 (whether day and date or after a period of Exclusivity).

From a PS perspective, I expect more answers after the Xbox Showcase. Games will no doubt only carry the Xbox logo and probably feature Xbox/PC game-play so may need to wait for 'official' confirmation they are planning a PS release too.

I wouldn't be too surprised though if the Show today is purely 'Game Pass' focussed - as in the Games we can expect to see on Game Pass on Day 1 - inc 3rd Party Multi-platform games like Plague Tale: Requiem for example. They have another Show in a couple of days too with NEW content so they could keep just marketing deals (not Day1 Game Pass games but have the marketing deal - like AC: Valhalla was) for that show. Their 'big' show today could be used to promote Game Pass and its 'value' after some people questioned it after delays to Redfall & Starfield despite the fact that both are still coming Day 1 to GP in the 'near' future.

I'll be watching just out of curiosity

I'll be watching it live with some friends hopefully, just waiting for one of them to wake up and get online.

So far this show is exactly what I expected - some cool looking games, most of which are definitely not my thing - and literally everything is on Game Pass.
Looking forward to finally seeing Starfield though.