I agree completely in regards to no showing TGA but at the same time, none of us can do anything about it. I was disappointed but at the same time, im willing to wait (which im used to anyway, lol) through January and see if they have an actual showcase or at the very least, just announce the release date for Redfall with a trailer which to be honest, is all I really need for the first half of 2023 from Microsoft. I'm hoping and believe that Starfield is November. One game for the first half and one game for second half will satisfy me.
It's good to hope for things and be optimistic but MS has to realize their goodwill with even other diehard fans is dwindling. So whatever they bring for 2023, be it in terms of games or events, has to go above and beyond, if they want to keep up.
As for Hellblade 2, I don't believe that it was revealed early because it was before Covid and due to that, Ninja Theory couldn't do any motion capture or really anything major so I can't get mad at them for showing it early especially since it was along side the Series X reveal. I believe that it's a November 2024 release. I see Avowed being Spring 2024. Contraband maybe early or summer 2024. Slim chance of 2023 but I'll play it safe and go with 2024.
Again, I know they (Ninja Theory) were hit by the COVID lockdowns but so were every other studio. We got a look at it before we did HFW and yet HFW will have released a full year before Hellblade II at the very least (we can argue if it would have benefited with a 2-month delay to sort out some of the tech issues at launch, maybe even a 4-month delay, but they still got it sorted out pretty much and still well ahead of any point we can guess HBII is releasing). We might even up getting Spiderman 2 in a shorter time between it and its predecessor than we get Hellblade II after its predecessor!
I don't disagree with your dates for it, Avowed or Contraband btw; they are all very likely 2024 games at earliest. But as usual, gotta ask: will it be enough for the majority? I don't think it will.
I agree. It's just that I don't expect third party AAA titles in Game Pass day one so whenever I do get one, it's an added bonus. They do give me a good amount of AA titles which is great because a lot of them, I probably wouldn't buy especially if they're $50+. Just nah.
Well if not 3P AAA games, MS themselves should have more 1P AAA games coming regularly to the service. That's part of what they sold its future on in terms of promises, but have come up short.
The traditional business model is great and all as an option but in 2022, it simply shouldn't be the only option and for Microsoft especially, that business model hasn't worked for a long time and I want them to be competitive and going with a subscription based model is what's going to help them accomplish that. When I see so many people against Microsoft's business model, it just makes me believe that these people truly don't want Microsoft to compete and just want to see them "hang around" and that's it.
Let's be real here: the reason that business model didn't work so well for Microsoft is because they simply did not have enough compelling content appealing to a majority customer base willing to buy that content in healthy numbers. And the other issue from that is, them shifting to a subscription model doesn't suddenly fix it.
If the content didn't have enough mass appeal (whether due to quality, lack of marketing, bad release timing, bad pricing for perceived value, lack of big story/character/lore/aesthetic beats or some combination of any of those things) to move numbers at retail, it doesn't suddenly become that much more compelling for driving growth in a subscription service. Ultimately people are still going to look at the specific game content and figure that it isn't appealing to them, so if there's no standout then they're still likely to not pay for the service just as likely as they were to not buy the game.
MS's lack of marketing (or should I say, appealing/presentable marketing...I still think their 360 days were the best in this regard) for specific games just isn't a good strategy. Then when they do it, like recently with Starfield, it's as a missed opportunity. Why didn't they have that Starfield news paired with some new gameplay as a cut at the TGAs? They could've thrown in the obligatory "Play it Day 1 in GamePass" at the very end, it would've been significantly better than the commercials they actually had at the event!
As to people being against MS's business model with GamePass, I don't think it's actually because of GamePass itself, but rather what it seems like MS has to do in order to justify it, how those things pose a threat to the market stability of companies like Sony, the lack of (in various people's opinion) actual big games borne of the GamePass model, and the hypocrisy in some of MS's defenders arguing that MS should be allowed to buy up big publishers to compete, but when they talk about Sony, the answers are always "they should just [make] a COD competitor (as if it's that easy)" or "they should just make more variety of games.". Basically, none of their answers for Sony EVER resemble anything like "they should buy (x) publisher", but they routinely suggest MS buy publishers because they act as though Sony has no money...yet they apparently have enough to pocket the CMA & FTC into ruling decisions in their favor?
I don't think a lot of people like those double standards in particular, myself included, and I think it's really those things which surround GamePass as to why MS's model is under so much scrutiny, not GamePass's existence in and of itself.
High on Life wasn't a stealth drop. It was announced for December 13th months ago and they've been advertising it on social media almost daily for weeks. Microsoft advertised the shit out of Persona 5 which to be honest, is far more valuable to Microsoft, Xbox and Game Pass than what High on Life is or will be. They also advertised Requiem pretty well too. Not every game is going to get the same amount of advertising and marketing. Some simply aren't worth as much as others. It's that simple. I disagree in regards to the service and platform being secondary because while games are great and all that, none of them are forever but a platform and eco-system can be especially if it has a successful subscription service that drives consumers to it.
Okay, fair enough with High on Life not being a stealth drop. Technically it wasn't. However, when's the last time they had a big push for the game, the June Showcase? That was six months ago. They may've had some quick previews here and there at some other events but that felt like the extent of it. And so, the week before it goes into GamePass, they couldn't afford it some final marketing push? That's why it feels like a stealth drop to me.
They did promote Persona 5 a lot, I'll give them that, but it's also technically a remaster of a 5 year old game. Requiem did get some good advertising, I might've even caught a TV spot for it as it released, but with MS that's the exception, not the rule. My thing is that they should standardize that level of advertising for more of the big 1P & 3P games, and focus on the game itself when doing so, not as some amalagamation of GamePass.
It's really in stark contrast to how Sony does their advertising. I've been seeing adverts for GOWR, Callisto Protocol, other PS exclusives etc. both online and on TV for the past couple of weeks, gearing up for those Christmas sales. And the games are front-and-center; you get that PS5/PS4 featured near the end but its extremely brief. It's also the style in how they do their advertisements that's so well, and something MS could take some lessons & inspiration from IMHO.
Microsoft will market and advertise their first party games but what's the point in doing it months in advance when they're not 100% certain of when they're releasing? Not to mention the fact that they obviously didn't really have anything "big" for 2022 in the first place.
I mean for the years where they knew games were releasing and yet even close to release advertising felt light, particularly in traditional advertising spaces. But if we're focusing on 2023, have they not already said that Starfield, RedFall & Forza Motorsport are all "H1 2023" releases? We've seen trailers and promotion, even preorders, open for several other games releasing by June 2023, so why can't Microsoft do similar for those three games?
As for pushing the service meaning nothing, when people sign up to a subscription service, they're going to scroll through what the service has to offer. This is where every game gets highlighted. It's the same as Netflix or Disney or any other subscription service. You sign up and the first thing that the vast majority do is browse through the catalog of available content.
Yeah but there's nothing inherently special about that. You already get a similar effect browsing the storefront, or looking through a catalogue of games online to buy or rent. The only difference is the price: you aren't paying ala carte for the games in GamePass since they all come available with the subscription, and I can see how that's appealing to some.
But if most of those games are older titles that a large segment of people will have already played, or indie games that can be found for cheap on Steam, then just how effective is that appeal really?
ABK is first and foremost to break into the mobile market because how else would they do it?
Make original mobile games with the teams they already have? C'mon, just think of what they could have already BEEN done with their current teams. A Banjo-Kazooie endless runner. Some mobile game with simple 2D graphics having all their 1P characters in some MMO-style kind of thing. Some Viva Pinata thing for mobile!
Either have the 1P teams do it, or license out the IP for 3P devs to work on and bring them to mobile. This was an option for MS that they decided not to do, because apparently simply buying a 3P publisher with all the hard work already done for $69 billion is easier.
Having King along with Diablo Immortal and COD mobile game is going to be huge for them as they want to grow and expand as opposed to just staying with the plastic box that so many can't seem to let go of as if it's the only thing out there when it's not. Needing and wanting are two very different things. Does Microsoft need AB? No. Does Microsoft need King? Yes. Because they're not going to break into the mobile market without them. They're just not. Just like they're never going to sell 100m+ consoles or billions of copies of their games. They just aren't. And because of that, they need to do other things in order to be successful.
Sorry, I just don't buy this idea that MS need King to get into mobile. Does Minecraft not already have a mobile version? How is that not enough already? They had Gears Pop, but instead of iterating and improving it/growing it to be bigger, they just shut it down. Same with the Forza mobile game. There's a definite pattern that emerges where MS seems to not be interested in spending much time cultivating certain efforts from small beginnings; either they break out in terms of popularity/revenue in very short timetables, or they get shut down.
We saw this play out with Mixer, and again with stuff like Gears Pop, Forza mobile etc. I could argue Sony have exhibited this type of problem too when it comes to multiplayer-centric games; look at how they abandoned SOCOM after the PSN hack, or Driveclub as another example. But at least with Sony the issue is confined to a specific type of game model (albeit one they need to fix). With Microsoft it runs kind of deep among virtually many types of things, not as simple as saying it's isolated to a specific game model like with Sony.
Spider Man is massive and all that but is it going to win hundreds of GOTY awards? Nope. Not even close. It will win 20 or so and be largely forgotten if the template and formula is exactly the same as 2018 and Miles which let's be honest, is exactly what im expecting it to be. Zelda would be the closer one but like Elden Ring this year against a sequel in GOWR, majority will go with the new IP especially if Starfield ends up being like the first BOTW or Elden Ring where it's doing something different.
Spiderman forgotten? By who? Maybe some pretentious critics, but gamers themselves will definitely keep it going. Keep in mind, it & Miles Morales have sold more copies combined than Skyrim. Maybe that doesn't seem like a fair comparison, but considering Miles Morales is an expansion, I think it is. As for what the gameplay for Spiderman 2 will be, at the very least I'm expecting it's going to be very fun, and have a couple of innovations thrown in there to serve it well.
I keep seeing people say ER "does something different" and TBF I haven't gotten around to touching it myself yet (I might pick it up after getting some deeper time in with GOWR), but from the outside looking in it seems like the Dark Souls formula, just open world. Everything else is exactly the same. The animations are the same, the physics are the same, the game mechanics more or less function the same. The quirks are the same, etc. So is that difference only in relation to other open world games?
I agree that open world games are a dime a dozen but if Starfield has a "hook" like BOTW 2017 and Elden Ring had, then it's going to end up being a 95+ rated game and end up sweeping everything.
This just reads like a big hope on your end because nothing revealed for Starfield thus far suggests it will have that type of impact. It looks a lot like Fallout in space, and that's not a bad thing. But it's not looking like anything particularly special, either. In fact there's a game that was revealed for PC at the PC Showcase a couple weeks ago that looks kind of like Starfield, that actually looks better IMO, but I have to try finding its name to see more of it.
Aside from that, personally I don't put a lot of stock into MC. I've mentioned in the past what I feel are flaws in its aggregate process, flaws that persist to this day, and the lack of internal consistency from quite a few reviewers going from game to game or the lack of honesty in updating reviews to reflect patches (considering so many games these days get patches, you'd think that would be more commonplace). And when it comes to certain Xbox games we've seen how MC can give scores that are simply way too high compared to the actual fan feedback even shortly after launch, just look at Halo Infinite.
So I honestly don't care if Starfield gets a 95 MC same how I didn't really care GOWR got a 94 MC or HFW getting an 88 or Halo Infinite an 87. It's more about the actual quality of the review for me and that means if the reviewers are being fair, having some consistent internal logic and aren't making up BS to justify pegging the game down or boost it for optics.
As for BGS getting back their RPG crown, Elden Ring won because it's similar to BOTW.
Won what? GOTY at the TGAs? I mean I guess, not like the TGAs are the only awards show though. And it's kind of hilarious that it won GOTY considering GOWR won most of the categories that would constitute the GOTY winner, but that's just an aside. There's always some form of theater involved in these shows but I don't feel that it's win for GOTY was bad or anything. It's just amusing, slightly, given the other stuff mentioned.
Not much story or characters, clunky gameplay and combat but the freedom in regards to exploration and discovery like BOTW is what got the game the GOTY award. As for The Witcher 3 which was my PS4/XBO game of the generation, it's not that it does anything truly unique or original or innovative. It's just what it offers is simply far superior level than the vast majority of games released last generation and since then. Gorgeous open world, excellent music and sound, top tier voice acting, some great side quests but most of all, superb story, characters, writing, dialogue and performances. Combat and gameplay was the weakest aspect of the game but even then, it's still good to great depending on the individual. If Starfield can nail the story elements and everything associated with it while also giving you freedom of exploration and discovery, yeah, it's going to win. And im saying this as someone who's only played a few hours of Fallout 4 and has never ever given two shits about Bethesda Game Studios.
I mean, it sounds like a prerequisite for GOTY at the TGAs is that you don't need actual good engaging gameplay or game mechanics, which is ironic considering how some of Sony's games are criticized as being movies (not by you; there are others who've said such things though)
I do believe that Spider Man 2 will be September or November 2023. I can see Stellar Blade being a summer game. FFVIIR will definitely be 2024. I don't see Square Enix releasing both FFXVI and Rebirth in the same calendar year. Forspoken is out in like six weeks and yeah, I guess you could count it. Of course, I don't see it scoring higher than low to mid 70's because after playing the demo, I don't even know what Sony saw in the game to pay for it to be a timed exclusive and for two years no less. Personally, I believe that the game is going to bomb. Between MH Rise a few days earlier, Dead Space a few days later and Hogwarts Legacy two weeks later, I don't see Forspoken doing anything. I can already see SE coming out saying it failed to meet their expectations. lol
Well, if Forspoken ends up being a game that offers some variety to the library for an audience invested into those types of games, then alongside distinguishing PS's library from Xbox's it serves it purpose in being another game offering variety to the platform. I'm also sure they've paid Square-Enix good for the game, and if early sales are sluggish then they'll pick up with a price cut.
