But the thing is, you generally don't just magically have the ability to seamlessly plop an ad into a part of the game. That kind of thing needs to be purpose built, to either have the option to plop an ad on the main menu + map, or to (more heinously) plop an ad ANYWHERE in the game.
So worst case scenario (well, not WORST because the game doesn't, like, go back in time to kill your grandfather or something) is that someone higher up said "Hey, what if we could put an ad anywhere in the game? Get the team working on that" and it was done... best case scenario is that I guess their games are coded so well that they can just seamlessly plop in a chunk of code that doesn't break anything else and just works?
But going off of past experience with Ubisoft games, that best case scenario is kind of laughable (insert a screenshot of the guy's face texture not loading for AC Unity here).
They are just lying. I don't trust this response for a single moment. We have seen how the slope as far as game monetization practices goes is in fact slippery.
Sports games already use in-game ads. They will keep going for as long as players take it.
Let’s hope they can chew what they’ve attempted to eat. They can barely manage their first party studios, and now they’re going to attempt to manage one of the biggest publisher/studio.
I mean yeah, that’s how acquisitions and exclusivity works. It’s not like PlayStation bought Bungie to lose money or make exclusivity deals with third parties to bring games to Xbox. That’s just how this industry works.
By manage I mean, they’re gonna handle so many companies without a good track record of being able to do it. To make the money from King they will need to be able to retain talent and steward its properties properly.
they’re gonna handle so many companies without a good track record of being able to do it. To make the money from King they will need to be able to retain talent and steward its properties properly.
No they don't. As we've already seen, MS doesn't have to do anything in regards to development. Promotion, marketing will get a boost but they can be hands off most of the technical details and still make bank. Bethesda, King and Activision are all quite profitable on their own. Now they simply can't develop for Sony and they get distributed on Game Pass day 1.
Also, exclusionary buy-outs are bad for the market and should not have been allowed. MS buying up huge game competitors and then restricting their choice on which platforms to develop for is clearly anti-competitive behavior.
You’re right, they’ve been hands off and basically done bare minimum for marketing and promotion. And it hasn’t been working well for them at all, exhibit A: Halo Infinite, exhibit B: Redfall. Clearly they can’t sustain this anymore.
Starfield has been probably the first example where they actually got invested in the production, delayed a game by a year, got their entire QA team test it. Layoffs from top to bottom at 343 is probably another example of them intervening.
Regarding exclusionary buyouts, I don’t know if you aren’t aware of it. But it has been a thing in this industry for decades. This is how Sony got where it is today, by being highly competitive by making exclusionary deals and buying studios with whom they had exclusionary deals with for years. Sony entered this industry out of nowhere and bought their way into success, and everyone agrees that only made the market more competitive. Xbox had no games and was not bringing competition in market, and now that it has more games, it’s anti competitive?
The difference with MSFT is that they bring their games to PC (an open platform) via Steam, and to Xbox, along with a price accessible service of GamePass, so it doesn’t force a gamer into first buying a $400 console and then a $70 game to play on it.
We can agree to disagree, my original point is primarily around lack of confidence in MSFT’s ability to manage these studios and do justice to their legacy. Sure making workspaces less toxic and inclusive for everyone is a massive win, but will employees stick around under a new management that seems pretty incompetent to eff up their own flagship series (Halo).
I’m sure they could have a partnership with them without having to purchase them. They could just fund some games for console exclusivity or something similar.
Yeah, look at how almost every game in the Yakuza become permanent residents on Game pass. One of the next game will even be on GP on day 1. They must be in a very good relationship
There doesn’t need to be one. Any windows handheld can run Microsoft’s first party games.
Microsoft are having enough trouble with home consoles, we don’t need them spreading themselves thin with an underpowered handheld too.
A mate of mine has the ROG Ally and while it’s a damn nice device, when playing uncharted 4 on it to show the performance to me it chewed through like 25% battery in about 15 minutes. You can’t have high performance handheld while having even remotely good battery life.
Maybe they can stick the landing this time. All they needed to do was show one shot of the pack of four cats reunited during the credits. The parallel theme between the pack of four stray cats and the crew of four robots called the outsiders was an essential part of the plot and then they just leave it hanging.
Volition has been a long standing company with a slew of awesome games. They did a ton with THQ like 20 years ago that were amazing.
Summoner is one of my favorite games to date. It didn’t age well, but the story was amazing.
The descent games were intense as well.
I couldn’t find it on their wiki page, but I’m pretty sure they had a hand in loads of wrestling games in the late 90’s early 2000’s. WWF no mercy, smack down 1-4 as well.
As for saints row, I beat 1-3. The storyline to the first was unmatched by any GTA storyline. It was a shame to see them slink away from the original due to ridicule of being a “GTA clone.” The story was compelling, the voice acting outside of johnny gat was decent. The multiplayer experience offered far more than anything GTA had at the time. The best we got for GTA was in 2008 when they released their free roam multiplayer with GTA 4. By then saints row 2 had full coop.
Case and point. You’re either too young to know this developer in their prime, too retarded to recognize the loss of a good developer (albeit they haven’t put out much in the last few years), or both.
"oh shit we drove away our core user base by making our site actively hostile and it turns out the end result of that is no money"
It's interesting that they plan to just milk remaining nostalgia rather than move forward by converting games to HTML5, etc., as that indicates no new games. Or, being more optimistic, maybe the plan IS conversion and new games but this is a stop-gap?
Neopets has changed hands so many times. I was there from the beginning, when it was more of a weirdly British satire site (the original Bruce was not a penguin FYI), and watching everything unfold has been so weird.
I was just thinking recently about how amazing this channel is. They provide such a valuable service, and the space is so much better off with them as a part of it.
I suspect handhelds are going to be the future for awhile now. It’s not just out of a growing demand or simply because portable graphics processing and battery power have improved (although those factors do help) but it’s another chance to:
Push locked hardware
Funnel to controlled storefronts
Bring down and moderate the increasingly unsustainable AAA development costs
Those first two aren’t particularly surprising, they’re the key elements that Nintendo has honed in on while Sony and particularly Microsoft continue to struggle. Microsoft feels like they’ve just left XBox to languish while they focus on Game Pass as a means to ensnare you into their economy which is why they’re first down this path, but I think Sony will follow shortly. In an ideal world, I’d love to see Sony get back to hardware manufacturing with a Vita like device you could load Linux/SteamOS onto. Vita was a great little product, done so dirty. EDIT: I know the Portal exists, but that’s mostly just a dumb receiver as far as I understand it. Still, they’re already not too far off … come on guys, just a little further.
But moreover it’s that last point, really. It’s hard to continue to push out these extraordinarily big budget, bordering on AAAA (lol) territory games that continue to flop. I know the Switch 2 is already doing stuff like Cyberpunk 2077, but that stuff can still be hell on battery life as well as requiring lower resolution and lowered visuals in portable mode.
I feel like Nintendo is making a big mistake pushing that 4K60 envelope with the Switch 2, although I see why they made that maneuver. The Switch was perpetually underpowered and they felt the need to close that gap, but they already struggle to push out big budget tentpole franchises as is illustrated by Mario Kart World being the only big release title. Also, I just want to generally point this out, Nintendo suffers from needing to up the stakes. It’s what lead to Mario Galaxy being such a grand adventure, then Odyssey going even bigger than that. Now we have Kart World because … gotta get bigger than 8 Deluxe somehow I guess.
I don’t know what any of this means or where it’s going, I just wanted to try and call out some of these observations. Turbulent times ahead, I don’t know that anyone really knows what the next 2-3 years will look like.
I know the Switch 2 is already doing stuff like Cyberpunk 2077
It’s 4 1/2 years old and already runs on other handhelds. Not really an impressive feat.
they already struggle to push out big budget tentpole franchises as is illustrated by Mario Kart World being the only big release title.
Yeah, I read that they only released something like 22 original titles in the 8 years the Switch has been around. That’s not counting any ports, remasters, and the like, which make up a hefty chunk of their Switch releases. They got away with it before because so few people had a Wii U, but they need to up their game to make the Switch 2 appealing to the masses, especially with the high price tag. It’s not a promising start, with announced titles being Donkey Kong Bananza (which looks great) and a whole bunch of Switch 1 upsells, including Metroid Prime 4, which will be released for both consoles. Feels like they’re trying to cannibalize their Switch 1 releases the way they did their Wii U ones, but 150 million Switches were sold. People already played these games if they were interested in them.
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