Questionable_Duck

@RoomWithaMoose Halo: CE is the worst of the Bungie Halo games, in my opinion. Never liked it that much.

@Korgon @zhoont @AK4tywill Halo Studios is working on a standalone multplayer game that's going to have an evolving ecosystem, like Fortnite. That's why they're not including multiplayer in this remake because it would detract from their next game.

@Rich33 Yeah, that's basically what I was getting at. I don't have any concrete evidence to prove that this was the case, but I'm basing my assumption off the statement that Phil Spencer made about how Xbox needed to enter the mobile games market. I think he said something along the lines of how a company cannot survive without getting into mobile.

@Nyne11Tyme Yeah no worries I get it lol

@Rich33 You gotta wonder, though: would Microsoft even be willing to keep Xbox around if they DIDN'T buy Activision-Blizzard? Knowing how greedy Microsoft is, it could have been a lose-lose situation for Xbox. Either buy Activision and go multiplatform while deprioritizing hardware, or don't buy anything and wind the gaming business down (or at least don't invest in it much anymore).

@Haruki_NLI I don't know how true this is, but apparently Activision had higher profit margins than Nintendo does prior to their acquisition by MS. They were averaging around 25-35% profit on a quarterly basis. So I guess Microsoft wants their entire gaming business to be more like Activision.

Keep in mind that Activision on its own makes just about as much money as Nintendo does, with far fewer games and no hardware. So it makes sense why their profit margins would be higher.

@Nyne11Tyme Microsoft has owned the rights to Halo since the release of the series' first installment, though.

@SeaDaVie What I'm about to say is sacrilegious to popular opinion, but I don't think that's as a wild or as biased of a take as you say it is. BG3 just isn't my type of game, and I enjoyed Starfield more than most people did, so I'd probably rank it above that game too, tbh.

Would I consider Starfield my 2023 GOTY or some genre-defining masterpiece? No, but I'm fine with people having unconventional opinions, since I share some myself, and I don't take it as a sign of some massive fanboy bias or something.

@Weez I'm well aware of that. I used that 94% user score to show that the game is well-received, not that everyone thinks it's a 9/10. There aren't a lot of games, though, that get 94% user scores on Steam while also receiving a middling reception.

@SeaDaVie Comparing South of Midnight to a literal porn game is pretty disingenuous IMO, but hey, what do I know?

Yes, South of Midnight isn't some game of the year contender or anything, but my point is, there isn't anything weird or unusual about them giving the game a 9/10. Reading the reviews on Steam, you would see a bunch of people who do share similar opinions and view it in high regard. So I find it odd that you singled out this game in particular, as an example of why you shouldn't take Pure Xbox's reviews seriously.

Using your logic, I could make the same argument about Push Square and say that they're biased towards PlayStation games, considering that they've only given reviews of 6/10 or less to five first-party PS titles this gen (Until Dawn, Rise of the Ronin, Destruction All-Stars, Lost Soul Aside, Firewall: Ultra).

Compare this to Pure Xbox, which has also given five first-party titles a score of 6/10 or lower in the same time frame (Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, The Order of Giants DLC, Starfield: Shattered Space, CoD: MW3, and Redfall). Sure, you could argue that some of these are DLCs and don't count or whatever, but in reality, the two sites are not that far off when it comes to reviewing first-party titles.

@SeaDaVie Why should a review that gives South of Midnight a 9/10 not be taken seriously? The game isn't perfect, of course, but that's not that far off from the general player consensus. On Steam, South of Midnight has a 94% Very Positive user score, which is pretty much a 9/10.

@RoomWithaMoose It was Jim Ryan who said that in an interview, not sure if it was before or after he retired

@PuppetMaster I would say yes simply because it's a live service game

@Deljo You can get an early glimpse at how Death Stranding 2 will look like on a Series S

@rjejr So many Japanese games, manga, and anime try to tackle dark subjects while also having the most cutesy art styles possible, and it usually doesn't work that well. Except when it's a deliberate subversion of genre tropes.

@PuppetMaster I made a mistake in my previous comment, I shouldn't have said they have a monopoly on anime, but rather that they have a monopoly on Western anime streaming services. To be clear, you can still watch anime on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc. like you said, but in terms of dedicated anime services, there aren't really any major ones out there that aren't owned by Sony.

There's Hidive and Retro Crush I guess, but they don't have nearly as much anime as Crunchyroll does.

Very funny how the people so vehemently against Microsoft having a monopoly on gaming with the Activision/Bethesda acquisitions (even though they're still considerably behind PlayStation in terms of revenue), are also the same people that are okay with Sony having a monopoly on anime.

Anyone who actually uses/used streaming services like Funimation and Crunchyroll would know that Sony's consolidation hasn't been that great for Western anime fans. Ever since Sony merged the two services, Crunchyroll has gone dramatically downhill in terms of quality. Their subs are now largely trash, and the merch that they sell has declined in quality, as well.

This is happening because Sony fired all the old Crunchyroll execs and replaced them with the Funimation ones, which are far worse at their jobs.

@PuppetMaster There's also 007 First Light, Fable, Forza Horizon 6, Gears E-Day, Marvel 1943, Prince of Persia Sands of Time Remake, Yakuza Kiwami 3, The Blood of Dawnwalker, The Duskbloods, High on Life 2, Code Vein 2, Monster Hunter Stories 3, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, Gothic 1 Remake, Lords of the Fallen 2, Super Meat Boy 3D, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Professor Layton, Fatal Frame 2 Remake, Dynasty Warriors 3 Remake, Star Wars Zero Company, Subnautica 2, The Adventures of Elliot, Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, Tides of Annihilation, and Beast of Reincarnation.

Also Danganronpa 2x2, which is not a big deal for most people, but it is for me personally.

So yeah, 2026 is stacked.

@Max_the_German Quantic Dream was acquired by NetEase in 2022, so maybe they're the ones making them do it. NetEase does primarily publish live service games, after all.

@get2sammyb Bruh imagine if Tencent made a Last of Us game set in China

@Stevemalkpus Even though Microsoft owns the As Dusk Falls IP, the game was actually self-published by Interior/Night on PlayStation. The Xbox and PC versions, on the other hand, were published by Xbox Game Studios. As Dusk Falls was technically the first of the Xbox games to go multiplatform, before Hi-Fi Rush

@themightyant Planet Earth 1&2 and tbh Chernoybl do not deserve to be that high imo, but that's IMBd for you

@PuppetMaster She doesn't even look remotely African, she literally looks like a generic anime waifu Dead or Alive character but with slightly darker skin

@dskatter The PS6's disc drive will probably be sold separately, like with the PS5 Pro. I don't think there will be any model of the PS6 with a built-in disc drive. That said, there's a pretty good chance that the next Xbox doesn't have any disc drive whatsoever, given how Microsoft hates physical media.

@UltimateOtaku91 Thing is, I don't think the PS6 is going to be particularly cheap, either. It'll be less expensive than the next Xbox, for sure, but I imagine it will cost at least $700 at launch, without a disc drive. There's no way Sony is going to sell a console that's considerably more powerful than the PS5 Pro at an affordable price point.

If the next Xbox is a glorified PC with several storefronts on it, then Microsoft probably won't expect it to sell that well and they therefore probably won't subsidize it. That means its price will probably be similar to that of the ROG Xbox Ally X, so around $900-$1000.

Due to their egregiously expensive prices, I think the PS6 and the next Xbox will be the worst-selling home consoles in Sony and Microsoft's history. A lot of people will just stick to last-gen consoles, and some will still be on PS4 and Xbox One.

@RBMango I see, thanks for the explanation

@RBMango I don't even see how this would be a middle finger to Xbox? What would PlayStation be trying to say, in that case? "Hahaha we have a deal with AMD and Xbox doesn't (even though they actually do)?"

What's interesting is that Giant Squid recently confirmed on Twitter that they're working on a Switch port of Sword of the Sea. So even if Sony does acquire the IP/studio, they're still gonna bring it to other platforms eventually. Presumably after the one-year exclusivity deal expires.

I honestly think it looks great, I'd buy it if I needed a new PS5 controller.

Bruh I can't believe they have a Forspoken section on the site. Imagine buying a Forspoken Denim Jacket for $110, or a mediocre Forspoken Water Bottle for $30. They would have been lucky to sell even one of those each lol

Also, if they're gonna shut down the store, you would think they would give everything deep discounts, like 60-80% off, but I guess not.

@Oram77 Sadly, there aren't really any actual statistics from trustworthy sources that definitively prove that Xbox gamers do or do not buy games. But I'm just basing my assumption off of reasoning.

Yes, we've seen reports that have said that Game Pass cannibalizes sales of games in the service (which makes sense, of course; why would you buy a game that you finished through Game Pass?). But I couldn't find any report that says Game Pass has caused Xbox gamers to stop buying games entirely, or that it drastically reduced buying rates for games on the platform as a whole.

Here's my take on the matter: if Xbox gamers really bought no games because of Game Pass, then why has there been no decline in third-party support since the introduction of the service? On the contrary, there are so many franchises and game developers, who were never on Xbox in the past, that are now coming to Xbox.

In my opinion, it would make no sense for third-party support to improve considerably on the platform if no one was buying games. I do actually think the "Xbox gamers don't buy games" thing is something that was largely exaggerated by Twitter trolls.

@Oram77 That's the thing, contrary to what you think, most Xbox gamers never stopped buying games in the first place. Not every game was on Game Pass to begin with.

@Oram77 It seems most late ports of AAA games sell just fine on Xbox, since I don't see publishers moving on from the platform.

Also the "Xbox gamers wait for everything to come to Game Pass" argument doesn't hold as much water now, since many Xbox gamers have canceled their Game Pass subscriptions. Or, at the very least, downgraded from Ultimate.

@Propaperpusher To claim that "Xbox gamers don't buy games," even though third-party support on the platform has dramatically improved since the introduction of Game Pass, is laughable, to say the least. There is no definitive evidence that proves that no one buys games on Xbox, or that the Xbox ports for most third-party games don't sell well enough to turn a profit. Saying that this is a fact is disingenuous.

But it isn't surprising that you would make a statement like this, seeing as you are in the console war trenches.

@UnlimitedSevens I agree with what you said in the last paragraph, but to be fair, Jez outright denied that hardware plans are up in the air in his article.

While I get where you're coming from, the two rumors do contradict each other. Jez is saying that Microsoft's hardware plans have not changed at all at the moment, and that they aren't even debating whether to release next-gen hardware or not. He also claims that Microsoft, for the time being, has no plans to stop distributing hardware to certain retailers.

SneakerSO, on the other hand, is saying that Microsoft is currently debating whether or not to release a next-gen console, and that they plan to distribute Xbox consoles to less and less retailers in the future.

@Oram77 I see what you're saying. It would be great if Sony were to keep the costs low, even if Xbox left the hardware business.

Although it may not seem like it, I think Sony is actually trying their best not to raise PS5 prices. They keep doing console revisions with cheaper internal parts, and they released that new PS5 with less internal storage, but they've still had to raise the PS5's prices consistently in order to keep the hardware business sustainable.

That, to me, suggests that the chances of the PS6 being affordable are pretty slim. Honestly, unless something changes, these ridiculous console prices will probably kill the traditional console industry as we know it. If the PS6 becomes the worst selling PlayStation home console, due to its presumably high price tag, the days of "console generations" will probably be numbered.

@SamMR Problem is, the overwhelming majority of Game Pass subscribers are on consoles, not PC and cloud. And Game Pass isn't growing on PC as fast as Microsoft would like it to. So, if they do cut consoles entirely, they would probably be saying goodbye to at least 60% of Game Pass users.

@Oram77 Personally, I don't think there's any way that the PS6 will be affordable, at least not in the usual sense. It will most likely be cheaper than the next Xbox, but given the state of the world right now, I can't feasibly see Sony selling a PS6 that's considerably more powerful than a PS5 Pro for less than $700.

If it does actually provide a generational leap in power, the PS6 will probably be $750 or $800 at launch, and there's a good chance that it will receive price increases later in the gen.

The only way Sony could sell the PS6 for $500-600 is if they are willing to lose hundreds of dollars on each console sold.

@get2sammyb Are you going to update the article with Jez's report? He says that, contrary to what SneakerSO said, Xbox hardware plans are not even "up in the air, and remain firmly Xbox's path forward. Xbox Series X|S hardware production has not ceased, and new stock will go out to retailers at its usual cadence." But plans can change.

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/no-xboxs-next-gen-console-hardware-plans-arent-cancelled

Lina Khan was right, the ABK deal had terrible ramifications on Xbox, but she did a pretty bad job at trying to prove her point in court. She and the rest of the FTC spent most of their time arguing about how unfair the ABK deal was to PlayStation (it wasn't), not consumers.

Like many of the commenters on Push Square, Khan largely based her argument around how terrible it would be for Microsoft to make ABK games exclusive to Xbox (even though Xbox has a fraction of the exclusives that PlayStation does) and how Xbox would become a monopoly in the console market, rather than how damaging the price increases, layoffs, etc. would be to Xbox consumers.

Turns out people's biggest fear from the ABK deal didn't even happen. Instead, the exact opposite occurred.

Ironically the ppl who said Game Pass was killing developers because they made no money off their games should actually be thrilled about this news. If you thought playing a $60-70 Xbox first-party game for $15 was unsustainable, no worries, you can now pay $30 for the exact same thing and save less money than ever before!

@Dogbreath This is the first time I've heard that a platform can be dead or alive in two different ways. IMO, you're making this seem a lot more complicated than it actually is.

There is no such thing as something being a dead platform in one way, but not a dead platform in another way. Either it's a dead platform or a not-dead one lol.

I think you're confusing the weaknesses of a platform and its lower install base with the viability of the platform as a whole. Saying a platform is dead, all because it's not the lead platform for a timed exclusive release, is hyperbole at best, in my opinion.

The fact of the matter is, third-party support is currently better on Xbox than it has been in over a decade. If Sony is porting some of their old games to Xbox "just to milk a few final bucks out of them," then why didn't they do this during the 360 gen, when Xbox had a larger install base? If Xbox is on its last legs, wouldn't it make more sense for Sony to not support the platform at all and just let it die, so that they can convert the existing Xbox owners into PlayStation users?

Lastly, I don't think Forza Horizon 6, a new installment in a series that's done incredibly well on Xbox and PC alone for 2 decades, is going to be harmed much by releasing on PS5 a few months later. FH5 and Indiana Jones have proved that games will still sell well on PlayStation, even if they're late ports. Ironically, a day-one game like Doom: The Dark Ages seems to have sold worse on PS5 than either of those two titles. By doing a slightly staggered release with a highly-anticipated title like FH6, MS can get people to double-dip on both PS5 and Xbox/PC.

@get2sammyb Yeah, that sounds about right. A shame they didn't give it better visuals, though.

I don't understand. They say it's a remake, but it looks almost exactly the same as the original game?

@Dogbreath If they can shift a few hundred thousand copies of an old game on Xbox, then that means Xbox isn't a dead platform. Simple as that.

If Xbox was dead, there would be no incentive for Sony to bring Helldivers 2 or any other game to Xbox whatsoever. No ifs, ands, or buts. Did you see Sony and Nintendo porting their games to the Dreamcast before Sega pulled the plug on it?

You can spin it as much as you'd like, by saying "well at least Sony isn't bringing their games to Xbox day-one!", but expect to see more first-party PlayStation titles on the "dead" platform known as Xbox in the future.

Also worth noting that more and more third-party developers, like Square Enix, are opting to release their games on Xbox day-one, rather than release it years later. Third-party support shouldn't be improving on a dead platform.

It's doing so well that they decided to make it multiplatform.

@EfYI Sure, whatever you say.

@Dogbreath If it's so dead, then why is Sony releasing games on it?

@UltimateOtaku91 Seriously, this show was really disappointing third-party wise

Cool, but where is the 2D God of War game? Are they saving that for a Game Awards announcement?