Starfield was delayed partly because Xbox has "experienced shipping games too early"

[Hezekiah]

When you only have 5 studios going into 2018 and then 13 including The Initiative going into 2020, I don't see buying Bethesda as being worse at all. First, they were for sale regardless of who likes that or not. Second, Microsoft direction and strategy is subscription based and it makes no sense to keep paying for licensed content when you acquire IP's and thus, have ownership of the content that you're putting on your subscription service. Third, while those games are locked to the Xbox eco-system, you still have more ways to play those games if you so choose. It's simply not on your preferred platform.

I don't see Microsoft saying that they're in the market for more acquisitions as a bad thing because first, it should be expected because how does anyone ever expect them to grow their platform and eco-system? Or did people think they could accomplish that with only 5 studios pre-2018?

Second, of course, im in favor of more acquisitions because as a consumer/gamer, it's better for me because I wouldn't have to buy those games anymore. While I buy games day one, im not stupid. I prefer to pay $10 for a monthly rental because why wouldn't I? Microsoft making profits and whatnot is their problem. Not mine. I don't sit on the board. lol

As for Cloud Streaming, it's probably 20 years away give or take but you can't get it where you want it to be if you don't start it to begin with. This aspect is for the future, not now. And too many people believe that this is around the corner when it's not.

So they had no choice to buy Bethesda, and now Activision lol. Being for sale doesn't suddenly make industry consolidation better btw.

The reason they were in that situation was entirely of their own doing. They could have easily got out of it without buying huge publishers - working with, starting up, and buying their own development teams. Regardless, consolidation is not excusable because of previous mismanagement.

"More ways to play" - most of the timed exclusives Sony has are available on PC. So the extra way is x-Cloud which we know is shit, regardless of having a fast broadband connection. Spencer and his goons love to play up this dog and pony show, but a shit option isn't something to put on an checklist of any worth.

So many MS fanboys can't see the bigger picture and can't see beyond their subscription service library (in the real world nothing good good is given to you on the cheap without a sting). I wonder if they will bring that same energy when MS starts jacking up prices left, right, centre and it suddenly dawns on them that they would be paying significantly more on GamePass than they ever did buying a large library of games. Newsflash: That $10 isn't going stay $10 for long. And MS owning a plethora of large publishers is terrible for the industry.

 

[peter42O]

So they had no choice to buy Bethesda, and now Activision lol. Being for sale doesn't suddenly make industry consolidation better btw.

The reason they were in that situation was entirely of their own doing. They could have easily got out of it without buying huge publishers - working with, starting up, and buying their own development teams. Regardless, consolidation is not excusable because of previous mismanagement.

"More ways to play" - most of the timed exclusives Sony has are available on PC. So the extra way is x-Cloud which we know is shit, regardless of having a fast broadband connection. Spencer and his goons love to play up this dog and pony show, but a shit option isn't something to put on an checklist of any worth.

So many MS fanboys can't see the bigger picture and can't see beyond their subscription service library (in the real world nothing good good is given to you on the cheap without a sting). I wonder if they will bring that same energy when MS starts jacking up prices left, right, centre and it suddenly dawns on them that they would be paying significantly more on GamePass than they ever did buying a large library of games. Newsflash: That $10 isn't going stay $10 for long. And MS owning a plethora of large publishers is terrible for the industry.

Microsoft wasn't the only bidder for Bethesda. Google and EA were both confirmed to be in the bidding but they didn't want Bethesda as much as Microsoft and while EA would have a limit, Google could have easily matched Microsoft if not surpassed them if they so choose. People talk about consolidation but yet, no one looks or mentions Embracer and that's for the simple fact that PlayStation won't lose any of their games which is why no one ever mentions them despite the fact that they've acquired more studios than Microsoft has. Even after acquiring ABK along with what Microsoft has already acquired, it's literally under 5% of the entire industry which is not consolidation.

They did work with other studios like Remedy, Crytek and others yet they didn't work out and Microsoft wasn't going to approve any acquisitions pre-2018. This is a fact. Not fiction. So while you and others say that they should do it the Sony way, why? So they can take another 20 years to get where they want to be while everyone still complains about them? Microsoft can't win either way.

Shit option or not, it's still an option. And streaming isn't for now, it's for the future but they can never get to that future without starting it now.

I know Game Pass won't stay $10 a month and will eventually increase in price but that's no different than any other subscription service in general. Even if you say the base goes to $15 a month, $180 a year, that's literally just over 2 fully priced $70 games so for most people, Game Pass would still be the far better deal because there's hundreds of games on the service and not everyone has played all of the games available on the subscription service.

For me, I don't care about Game Pass Ultimate as I don't play online and have no interest in game streaming or EA Play. I do however care about the base Game Pass subscription. Since not every game is $70 yet, I will use $60 as the base line. Two full games gives me a year of Game Pass, however, I don't subscribe to Game Pass until there's a day one game that I want to play. The most recent is A Plague Tale Requiem which saved me $50 as it was a $10 monthly rental. And even if I ended up buying the game, since I stopped collecting physical games two generations ago, it would have been traded in after completion for at least $20-30 making the game cost $30-40. Game Pass saved me more money and my time by not having to go to the store to pick up the game and trade it in. Point of this is that Game Pass can go up to $30 a month and I would still at the very least break even while saving my time from having to go to the store twice.

 

[Hezekiah]

I don't think anybody has come in support of consolidation by Embracer. It's bad. And even worse when it's MS as they are a platform-holder. Xbox gamers don't care? Surprise, surprise....

"Microsoft wasn't going to approve any acquisitions pre-2018" - what kind of argument is that? Anything they did in this period was their decision. Nobody is saying that they have to do things exactly as Sony did it. But whatever route they could have chosen, blowing tens of billions generated by other areas of the business to buy multiplatform publishers is terrible for the industry.

Only short-sighted fanboys argue otherwise. And let's be clear, MS's goal here is to have people paying more on their subscription than they do solely buying games. Whether that's more tiers, cut content, that service model will only serve those who spend a ton of time gaming and have few other hobbies and are happy to spend lots of money doing it. This is a move to freeze out competition and rinse as much money as possible from gamers - and some people have still fallen for the nice guy Phil persona.

 

[KiryuRealty]

Personally, I don't see where the hype comes from for this game, same for Redfall, the marketing and hype machine for MS games is just insane, but the results are always way below those expectations. Starfield is no less hyped than Star Citizen, Evolve, Anthem etc.......As for MS. everything is hyped, even the Medium was hyped, Halo infinite was hyped, Fable was hyped, Avowed is hyped.

When I looked at MS's Starfield presentation, I saw nothing that's exciting either visually or gameplaywise, the game looks as plain and boring as day, hyped under the guise of ambition. We all know how many of these "so called ambitious" games go. Lots promised, barely anything delivered. Infinite was supposed to be this "game changer" Halo game with lots of biomes, Anthem was supposed to be this huge AAA king with lots promised. Pretty much none of the MS marketing lived up, not forgetting Crackdown 3 and Sea of Thieves....

Starfield from what I've seen would be slaughtered by honest reviewers if released this year, boring gameplay with sub par character animations and visuals and that framerate was awful, so you could have expected many chokepoints at 0fps in typical Bethesda style. Redfall, if released would just be another game that looks no better than World War Z, Vampyr or State of Decay in what it brings to the sub genre, so nothing to really ground the hype on. Fable was always a no show after all those years at MS conferences, it was not because things were going great. All these Starfield delays or Halo Infinite delays or Crackdown delays, it's not because it's going good. Even Forza Motosport from the trailer I've seen looks unimpressive against GT7 for a so called next gen only game that's been in development for a while. Even a remake in Perfect Dark seems to be in development trouble...

Saying "Game will come out when it's ready" is nice and all, but that is just PR talk usually for games in development hell...

With MS having had the American mainstream gaming press bought off for over 2 decades at this point, good luck finding honest reviews of anything they produce. Remember, they were the MetaCritic Publisher of the Year 2021 on the back of Forza Horizon 5 and the late, incomplete and incompetent Halo Infinite!

 

[thelastword]

With MS having had the American mainstream gaming press bought off for over 2 decades at this point, good luck finding honest reviews of anything they produce. Remember, they were the MetaCritic Publisher of the Year 2021 on the back of Forza Horizon 5 and the late, incomplete and incompetent Halo Infinite!

No doubt, Gaming Press is widely inconsistent. They give substandard MS games a pass and critique high quality Sony games for the most inane reasons. Yet, if Starfield's performance and general gameplay is like Fallout 76 quality, they will be raked. Of course many Xfans will say "they are having the most fun ever with the game", just like crackdown, sea of thieves, state of decay etc.....Tbh, Starfield may be good, but I have not seen it yet. A new Mass Effect would make much more sense than Starfield tbh....

 

[KiryuRealty]

No doubt, Gaming Press is widely inconsistent. They give substandard MS games a pass and critique high quality Sony games for the most inane reasons. Yet, if Starfield's performance and general gameplay is like Fallout 76 quality, they will be raked. Of course many Xfans will say "they are having the most fun ever with the game", just like crackdown, sea of thieves, state of decay etc.....Tbh, Starfield may be good, but I have not seen it yet. A new Mass Effect would make much more sense than Starfield tbh....

Mass Effect is BioWare, and their last Mass Effect was worse than a Bethesda bugfest.

View attachment 109
I think they should use the synergies inside the Xbox Game Studios and take the brand new next gen SpitRoast engine from 343i for all the games.

They're holding out for the DVP engine, Spit Roast is too basic for their needs.

Every person who justifies the shit quality of Bethesda games with the tired line about how it doesn’t matter because of mods needs a good slap to wake up and realize that they are enabling Bethesda to stay lazy and incompetent and get paid for clearly sub-par products.

 

[thelastword]

Mass Effect is BioWa

Yeah, I'd rather play a new Mass Effect game than whatever Starfield is....I know they are different Publishers, but there's lots of similarities to Mass Effect's planet exploration in Starfield. Seems like it's borrowing from Mass Effect and NMS, but at least Mass Effect had some noteable characters...

 

[KiryuRealty]

Yeah, I'd rather play a new Mass Effect game than whatever Starfield is....I know they are different Publishers, but there's lots of similarities to Mass Effect's planet exploration in Starfield. Seems like it's borrowing from Mass Effect and NMS, but at least Mass Effect had some noteable characters...

My face is tired after reading this. ;p

 

[Gamernyc78]

i had no problem with Witcher 3 combat at all on PC. not sure how it was on consoles. but maybe gonna play it on PS5.
yes, it isn't best thing from sliced bread, but still it was good. not impactful as could be, more like loose..

Has nothing to do with pc or console. I hated the combat as well because it's floaty ass fuck and couldn't stand his ballerina twists every three secs! It's what caused me not to enjoy and finish the game.

 

[PropellerEar]

They're holding out for the DVP engine, Spit Roast is too basic for their needs.

 

[Vertigo]

With MS having had the American mainstream gaming press bought off for over 2 decades at this point, good luck finding honest reviews of anything they produce. Remember, they were the MetaCritic Publisher of the Year 2021 on the back of Forza Horizon 5 and the late, incomplete and incompetent Halo Infinite!

Just the gaming press?




Microsoft and bill gates have their money in everyone’s pockets in all facets of media and governments.

MS is a threat to society at this point. Most evil POS company there is. Bill Gates is a kiddy diddler Epstein island garbage human being too. Dude was getting pie thrown in his face before he started buying the media. Boycotting Xbox is the right way

 

[KiryuRealty]

It just occurred to me, but Microsoft actually has experience releasing a game too soon and too late at the same time in Halo: Infinite. Shipped a year late, but still needing at least a year of work to make it what they promised.

Makes you wonder WTF they were doing for 5 years at 343...