Topic: Official Push Square Xbox Thread

@AgentCooper another one that only knew that meaning for ‘touching cloth’. Some great shows mentioned there… something that probably isn’t quite in that class but gave me and the missus a load of giggles when we revisited it recently was Phone Jacker. Might be worth adding to Sol’s Brit-com edufication.

@Th3solution well now i'm interested to know which parts of the shows got you to guffaw like a madman 😁 and, oh, we are only just scratching the surface, but these were but a few that had some links to the current conversation.

I actually tried playing a bit more of Fable 2 today, and boy is it janky and awkward to control and incredibly blurry (it probably would be better on a small screen) but I know it's old, so it is what it is. I'm just really impatient for the reboot by now, because these old ones aren't good enough (circa 2026) to satisfy my silly fantasy urges, but it clearly always had something unique about it and i'm all-in on the actual concept. It's just very fiddly and awkward to play games that feel so ancient in how it looks and controls... and it's UI... and it's general awkwardness to play and lots of its design decisions.. 😅

Something that may intrigue you, though (it certainly intrigues me):

I would assume the new one also has this feature🤞and now I can't wait to experiment with having a vast property portfolio built on the foundations of the bodies of my enemies/people that stood in my way by not selling to me at a lower price 👀

I am starting to understand that 'Hero' is just the generic word they use about people with literal powers, too, and thus they tend to earn fame or infamy based on their ability to either help people or f*** s*** up for everyone else with reckless abandon, and no-one can really challenge them. Lots of fun could be had with that concept in a new game. Like, whatever we choose to do society will basically just have to put up with us, for the most part. (Huge crossover to celebrity culture) and there is lore about other such heroes who may or may not have taken advantage of their standing and power.

@CaptD @AgentCooper @psmr shhh, I think I actually had 'em with that one 😭😂 although now I can check, Sol, had you genuinely bought in or were you playing along, I was 50/50 on if you were? 🙈 but i'm dissapointed in everyone, I would have thought someone else might have understood the assignment of taking advantage of an innocent American mind 😁 god, damn! i'm off to buy some bubbles for the spirit level and a long weight.

All good show suggestions, at least. But come on, now we could have done him up like a kipper 🙈

@Ravix That’s unfortunate that the gameplay of the earlier Fables isn’t up to snuff (😄 how do ya like that use of a Brit turn-of-phrase born from early Brit parody… 😜) and that’s partially why I’m holding back on full investment until we get some reviews. It seems to check all the RDR2 boxes, and even more, for a deep open world adventure with sim and interactive world elements, set in a fantasy setting which ramps up the possibilities immensely. But there’s always a chance they can’t nail the appropriate gameplay feeling and so I hope for more info to come and some hands on impressions before committing.

I’m not necessarily into sim-style games per se, but this feels like a nice alternative where it’s baked in and can be enjoyed as side content from a main storyline or fully immersed if one wants to just experiment around with a certain town. I like that you can wipe clear your reputation by paying the town cryer and it also sounds like maybe if you flee to another town that maybe all your reputation won’t follow you? It would be nice to have the ability to clear your rap sheet if you get bored of one playstyle and try another type of style within the same game. I assume it a really long game, and doing a full replay probably takes a long time, so I’d like to try the virtuous route for my main playstyle but if I want to experiment with being a nefarious crooked schemer, I’d like to be able to sample how that goes too. I wonder if you can leave a string of romances along in every town, and them not know about one another. Actually may be even more hilarious fun if they do find out about each other somehow. Do you know if the other games were set up so your reputation and actions follow you from town to town or is each a fresh start?

@CaptD @AgentCooper @psmr Thanks for the recommendations. I’ve looked into some of those shows too and almost all of them are unavailable for me, although I haven’t gone into the archives of YouTube yet. That sounds like the place where they might be available. For some reason the exception is The Mighty Boosh which is available on Hulu. I think Noel Fielding has a budding American following because his new show The Complete Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin is being promoted here on AppleTV and Peacock. And Bake-Off is fairly popular on Netflix.

And relating cloth touching, Ol’ Rav had me going there. The common meaning of the phrase is one that I’ll have a hard time finding a use for. I can’t recall the last time I had to announce such a thing in public, but I’m certain it will be great fun amongst friends the next time I do. I have heard the term ‘turtling’ or ‘I’m turtling’ for a similar meaning. 😂 So I’ll give you that one for free Rav. 😁 Next time you’re frantically searching for a commode use that phrase instead. 🚽

@Th3solution I think it was probably the funniest I've ever been and they ruined it 😭 I would have liked to imagine a world where you had used it and got those funny looks and a wide-berth given to you before the rumours started to spread about your lack of care for your pants 😭

I mean, it isn't the 'common meaning' it is the only meaning. It was full bull**** on-the-fly. The fact snooker tables have cloth felt like a good way to draw you in and make you want to believable me (always the key) and thus I could fully commit to my delivery. I guess you won't be believing the also totally real and common Snooker phrase "More cushion for the push-in" now, either 😭😂 I suppose in the days of the internet it is hard to be so tricksy, but I tried, haha. And again, boooo to the fun police over here.

Did I genuinely have you, or did you just google it right after? (It is 2026 😛)

As for Fable, I don't think I will mind if the new one is Janky, it is just because the old also looks like a blurry mess that it is hard to play now on a big screen. Back in the day I imagine it was fine for people. I think some reviewers will probably focus on jank if it does feel that way, but I think it is a game more for just having fun in, rather than it being a technical marvel. And if it looks good and is fun, ee can forgive the odd weird element. I fully expect the UI and QoL will be far better though, a lot of old games are uniquely bad in those regards, it is just how games were. Like there was no proper map, the menus are convoluted, the control assignments are weird, it has a POV-like camera button for god knows why, because you can't move or do anything when you press that button and i'm not sure there is anything that needs to be looked at in detail anyway 🤷‍♂️ locking on to talk to NPC's was also very random. But they will, I assume, take the things the old games wanted to do, and use RDR2 as a framework for making it function better in the reboot in a lot of those regards. The old games also are not open world, but the remake potentially is? I won't commit to that being the case, as it may still be open world areas joined by fast travel gates (but Yotei did that well recently, anyway, so it can still work) but console power will help a lot with everything they are trying to do. A lot of things just weren't that possible back then and they still made games that seem engaging and fun and ambitious, whilst being janky and unique.

I'll definitely give the old games a bit more of a play, as I still haven't discovered the meat of them, yet. I put in about another hour into 2 and 3's intros over the weekend as I do want to see where they go and how the gameplay loops present themselves. Exploration seems a part of it, and it is kind of cool. But honestly, I just want to see this fantasy land rendered in modern graphics and to go on to make my own fun with the systems and the story.

Well, if you want a string of relationships from town to town, there is 1000 unique NPC's. I'm sure someone will try to catch them all 😂

There are rumours that the long exclusivity period is over, which seems crazy to suggest but let’s face it they are selling off or closing (I don’t like the word shuttered) a studio a week after they announced their new title.
My feeling is that they have decided to drop exclusives behind the scenes and, as if by magic, Gears appears just in time for Chrimbo.

Crazy scenes going on at Xbox atm (if true)....do take with a big pinch of salt.

In the thickest cockney-accent of a Jackson-designed Uruk-Hai “Looks like Gears is back on the menu boys!”

Yeah it seem it was an announcement that was geared towards fan boys, as it made no sense to anyone else.

@Ravix Kudos for the attempt, and although no, I didn’t immediately google your crafty little setup, but I will from now on! 😂

Regarding Fable, the one thought that occurred to me while watching the preview footage was how critical it seems to be to have money in the game. Buying businesses, homes, gifts, and doing charitable donations, all takes in game gold. And a lot of it! Although it seems like doing a job nets a good amount of gold pretty quickly, I wonder if there’s a trap to include microtransactions into the game. If it costs 100,000 gold to buy one of the nicer homes, I worry that they’ll tempt you to just bypass grinding for the coin by paying some real world money. I sure hope not. Such things can just ruin the economy of the game and lock the best content behind paywalls or huge time investments. I don’t know if any other Xbox games have ever done MTX (does Forza have them?) but the thought occurred to me that they could do it if they’re desperate enough to generate first party cash flow.

@Ravix Haha, both of them trying to act like a bit of a cult leader seems like an apt comparison. I am generally a more optimistic person than you, I think... but just a week later, it seems like you had the better read on it. It's funny you mentioned their bad habit of closing studios as well with the news that they're doing exactly that... again. Double Fine, Compulsion Games AND Ninja Theory? The last of which they just unveiled a whole new game for? Xbox truly gets more and more baffling as they go. That shows me for having the audacity of optimism! Sounds like they're still on their fast-tracked ride to doom. Just what they needed after all. Even less studios to make exclusives for them! I wonder where Asha is going to get these exclusives from that she speaks of.

As for some context on Megan Ellison, she's the founder of both Annapurna Pictures and Annapurna Interactive. She's also the daughter of Larry Ellison, who is currently buying out Warner Bros and already bought Paramount, which he handed the reins of to his son, David Ellison. He's also hoping to turn the combination of those studios into a conservative hellscape, yay! And if it wasn't obvious enough, they're one of the richest families on our planet.

@Ravix A thousand apologies my liege, for crashing your attempt at tomfoolery. I just don't have it in me to deceive my dear @Th3solution.

Soz.

@AgentCooper how will they ever learn the way of the bantz if not from first hand experience 😢 but I suppose you are right... @th3solution is a delicate flower who needs all of our protection 😛

@Tjuz oh :[ I like Annapurna releases in film and games. But I do remember there being news about them (her, I suppose) f***ing everyone about at a corperate level and everyone resigning, actually. So... yeah 😮‍💨 it's that lot, is it? (I've heard tell of the ones buying up the media to change the landscape to suit their views) but I wonder why Annapurna always tended to publish more liberal and arthhouse adjacent entertainment products.

As for Asha and xbox, I noticed something else from an interview. She has the trained politician style of conversation where she is asked something and replies: "look, the thing with that is this..." and proceeds to make a statement to paint something in a positive light and never really address the question asked. I don't know if she also acompanies it with the hand movements, too. But I assume so. It's all an act, unfortunately - they are like a really boring bunch of magicians who focus on misdirection, those types.

Like you, I also don't know what all the multiple exclusives will be, if all their remaining studios are mostly making games for PS, and if the focus has switched to basically being all-in on Fallout, Elder Scrolls and CoD, alongside Halo and Gears and Forza, 2 of which are already on the way to PS. And they legally can't make CoD exclusive yet, either. And it would be incredibly stupid to make Elder Scrolls exclusive if it ever comes out. Same as Fallout as again they are franchises that were available to all, and so people would be pi$$ed - and Sony would probabaly take legal action again if they did try that approach 🤷‍♂️

Obviously, that is what they should have always done from the start (buy studios to make new and exclusive games) but there was always going to be a counter for them if they did that with massive publishers and big existing IP. But there is also literally no point in buying them to share them, unless you are planning on only being a publisher yourself 🙃

I suppose them having been so clueless is why it is still so confusing to work it all out as there is no logic to follow any more.

If they really do keep closing studios the only thing I can imagine is they try to throw money at third party for exclusives (or it was all just a lie before they fully implode and blame 'the market' again) But I can't imagine many studios wanting to do that with them, as Sony are far better at marketing games anyway, and always do more with their partnerships beyond just selling the game on their console.

I also wonder what will happen to people that subscribed to game pass for multiple years as that kind of makes them bound to keep providing it. But if they change how it works too much more, or took more away from it you'd expect maybe a class action lawsuit too 🤷‍♂️

Enough hypotheticals, anyway. Maybe they do know what they are doing 😳

@Ravix Indeed, less Yennefer and more Nenneke for our dear Sol 😉

@Ravix Yeah, I'm not really sure what's going on with Annapurna Interactive at the moment. Like you said, there was the mass resignation... and since then they seem to have been releasing games as usual. I guess they were able to fill the spots quickly? Or at least well enough to be able to get the games they currently had in production out the door? I suppose the real test will be to see where the publisher stands years from now, when everything that was already in the pipeline at that time is out. No clue why Annapurna in general is so left-leaning despite the Ellison affiliation. Maybe it's fair to say that Megan herself isn't like that, but that still doesn't really take the bad taste of my mouth where she's an active part of that family and their businesses nonetheless. I'm at least happy those views haven't infiltrated her work so far, so keep that going!

For someone who used to love doing magic tricks as a kid, I sure am easily fooled by magicians. I have a hard time taking people not at face value if I'm honest. It's the optimism vs. cynicism debate, and I'm leaning strongly towards the former. I always want to see the best in people, so I generally will unless they give me an incredibly obvious reason not to that I simply can't deny! Now they're trying to get rid of State of Decay as well? What will even be left? I'm just happy that Clockwork Revolution is highly likely safe, because it's the one I'm easily most excited about. If they're gonna cancel just about everything and anything, I guess the safest bets on what remains will be what they actively advertised as Xbox exclusive fare. And hey... even if they'd want to make Elder Scrolls exclusive, they'd still have to make the game first. Judging by their track record as publishers, give it a few more decades.

It's funny, because to some degree I do think their initial ethos was to make exclusives from the ground up. It just hasn't worked out with the games they've worked on where many of the concepts were... ill-advised. They didn't launch Arkane into sequel fare, they made them develop Redfall. Ninja Theory focused on trying to launch a new IP with Bleeding Edge initially. They let inXile finish their work on Wasteland 3, then let them take a crack at a new IP with Clockwork Revolution. They let Double Fine's Psychonauts 2 stay multiplatform, then had them make an exclusive with Keeper. They kept working on Gears and Halo in the meantime, which were exclusives to start with, Compulsion made an exclusively new IP with South of Midnight. Hell, even Starfield was a new IP despite the Bethesda baggage, and that launched as an exclusive. Obsidian most successfully made Grounded a thing on the multiplayer side, and still made Pentiment and Avowed as (timed) exclusives while letting The Outer Worlds remain multiplatform.

I feel like when you put it all side to side like that, there seems to be some method to their madness. They let existing IPs stay multiplatform to appease fans, but they focused mostly on creating new IP to start a larger exclusive ecosystem within the Xbox brand from scratch. It's just unfortunate for them that the selection of games was overloaded with bad calls. I was going to say in hindsight, but I think I could've told you about most of them being a bad idea beforehand. It's also just the fact that each studio has taken way too long to have any output. Why did it take Compulsion Games 7 years to release a game after their acquisition? They let inXile complete their work, and now it's taken them them another 7 years to release an exclusive as well? The hands-off approach really has not worked for them. So, in short, I think the right mindset was there in trying to create new exclusive brands, yet the execution was lacking in just about every area that mattered.

@Tjuz it's almost like you can't just buy a bunch of publishers and studios and plop out exclusives without the actual ground work and investment into the creative side 💀

They had the blueprint in front of them with Sony. Oh, Crash Bandicoot is fun, hello Naughty Dog, would you like to make some games with a budget? Go ahead and cook. Couple of Jak and Daxters as they honed their talent and planned to make something with a human element, then the budget and backing to make a playable summer blockbuster. The rest is history.

I feel like Xbox always tried to force things rather than let talent work and grow. It is why they are notoriously a 3 game brand. And then eventually they use daddy MS money to buy two of the world's biggest publishers to take an even bigger shortcut...

It's hard to know what is the reason behind Annapurna. The game publishing staff seemed to hate her 😅 f*** it i'll do a cursory google... "Ellison is openly LGBTQ+ and has a history of identifying as a progressive Democrat, which often influences the kinds of bold, culturally critical, and socially driven auteur films the studio champions."

Well now i'm baffled 😅 their family dinners must have been something else. Although it seems the other two may basically be being just very rich c***s and using whatever they can to get richer because of all the financial deregulation, rather than being actually radical themselves. Ah, but who cares as long as only millions of normal people get stepped on as we pander to the idiot king, am I right! Yeah!

I don't know if that is better or worse than actually believing in something 💀

@Ravix In some ways I think you could compare the Xbox vs. Sony in terms of their creative ambitions to Marvel vs. DC. Marvel laid the groundwork. They took their time, then they folded all their cards together in one and watching the money pour in. DC saw that and was like: ''What if we just skipped all the groundwork and went straight to the blockbuster ensembles?'' Surprisingly, it hasn't worked out. And surprisingly, it didn't for Xbox either. You're right. Sony honed their talent and as they got more experienced and more talented, they give them the ability to level up. Housemarque is probably a great more recent example of that. Team Asobi got to dip their feet into smaller experiences with the Playroom and Astro demo stuff, then they got a budget for a big game and nailed it.

I guess you could make the counter-argument that as opposed to those studios, pretty much every studio Xbox acquired already had experience with bigger budget games. They were bought for their experience, not honed to become experience like the above. And in all fairness, in many cases they did turn out critically well-received games. They were just too few and too far between, which I can only imagine was both the result of mismanagement and an ill-advised live service push in the case of Bleeding Edge and Redfall. It's like each and every studio they acquired got stuck in the ''getting their feet wet''-stage of being an Xbox subsidiary. Hell, Undead Labs hasn't even released anything really since their acquisition. State of Decay 2 was basically nearly finished when they were acquired already. Only Obisidian has really had a consistent output to their credit, but then many of those games were met with underwhelming reactions.

Frankly, I didn't even know Megan Ellison was LGBTQ+. Sure must be interesting family dinners. I guess money can soothe over basically everything. Maybe Annapurna was the little pet she received from daddy Ellison to keep her busy and not bother him. Seems like she's been doing a great job there ultimately... (not on a mangerial level clearly, where she seems to have pulled a Kristi Noem)