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A native handheld gaming platform would be a tough sell in today's market. Either expensive like a Steam Deck (basically the high end of new console prices) and it plays digital versions of the same games on the consoles OR a new platform that is underpowered compared to the consoles and gets...

Sounds a lot like the leak from the FTC documents last year. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alleged-xbox-series-x-refresh-revealed-in-colossal-ftc-court-docs-leak

This was quite the weekend for Microsoft news. Apparently they're looking to essentially turn into a 3rd party publisher. Put all, or at least most, of their games on PlayStation and/or Switch while shifting to a digital-only release strategy for Xbox (and possibly other platforms, too). The...

Xbox just cut their physical retail division and I just read that 10% of retail physical game sales were from Xbox. I wouldn't be surprised if they're pushing into a digital-first or even digital-only future now. That leaked new Series X from last year with no disc drive is likely being...

I saw someone write under an article about this stuff on facebook something along the lines of "you never see Nintendo having mass layoffs, instead their CEO took a huge pay cut when the Wii U bombed."

The reason the focus has been on Call of Duty is because it's an annual franchise that continuously sells very well on multiple platforms. Most of the other ABK franchises are 4-5 year releases or basically dormant, living off remakes/remasters. People are upset that like Elder Scrolls 6 will...

It's more like the death knell of ABK. Once MS buys a studio, they seem to mismanage it until it's a shell of its former self, they implode it to generate one or two live service games, and live off the back catalog on Game Pass. Which is fine because ABK is essentially already a dead husk...

The biggest mistake with the revised X is that it's looking like full price despite losing the disc drive. If you're taking something away, consumers are going to expect a lower price. I think its a good idea to have an option without a disc drive at a lower price for people who want that and...

Yeah, the leaks definitely expose the fact that Microsoft kind of lied about their reasoning for acquiring ABK. That said, it also shows that they've kind of stagnated as a development/publishing company. What's really interesting to me is that the data from the leaks regarding GamePass...

https://www.eneba.com/us/xbox-xbox-game-pass-ultimate-3-month-membership-xbox-one-windows-10-xbox-live-key-global/gcmgames With code UltiUS you can get 3 months of GamePass Ultimate for about $24. The monthly price is rising to $17/mo very soon so this is a HUGE savings. Most of the value I...

Ideally, consoles would have an exceptionally low barrier for entry and low maintenance/upkeep over time for the convenience of simply working on your TV. I actually don't own a PC (just a sub-$200 Chromebook that I've had for 2+ years, which was preceded by a sub-$200 Chromebook that lasted 5+...

It seems like developers used Xbox's show to announce games, then their own shows to show off gameplay...which is a good strategy all around, really. It gets people hyped and curious but then they tune in to the developer's show. It's also hard to rag on MS too much when neither Nintendo nor...

I find it very funny that Microsoft basically bungled the entire Xbox One generation and their big lesson learned will manifest in them proudly launching FOUR games per year starting in 2024. Nothing says "we got our stuff together" like finally delivering FOUR ENTIRE GAMES PER YEAR from all of...

I really think you're conflating different things. The PS4 eliminated some features to save licensing fees on codecs to keep the profit margin high (the fee isn't that big, but Sony already loses money on console hardware sales so they want to minimize that loss). And they probably had data...

The PS3 was $600 because of the CELL architecture. Those other features were added/marketed to try and justify the price while also following from the PS2 selling well because it was a cheap DVD player. And in the end...the PS3 outsold the Xbox 360 regardless of the price/features.

I am the same, I have a PS5, Switch, and Series X. I have PS+Premium, Switch Online+Expansion Pak, and GamePass Ultimate. I play God of War, Zelda, Halo, Ratcher & Clank, Mario, and Gears of War. I'm not really knocking the history of Xbox consoles/games in terms of quality or value. I'm...

Bryan - Redfall wasn't rushed though, it released late. The game had already been delayed. Spencer is trying to do damage control. The problem is that MS bought Arkane after Arkane was already put on a path to make a bad product, then MS let them release it. They could have delayed it more...

The PS3 lagged the Xbox 360 in sales because the 360 came out first. In terms of capabilities, it was a CD/DVD/bluray player that played PS1 and PS2 games natively, connected to the PSP and PS Vita, played nearly every video/audio format in existence, and even let you install your own OS onto...

If the 360 was able to get a full year head start against the PS3 while also releasing at a lower cost, get sales boosts from Kinect (which was pretty big at the time, much bigger than PS Move), and have a long tail on software sales...to end up selling fewer units than the PS3 is pretty...

Cartridge games in the 90s had variable prices, with some being $50 and some being $80. The PlayStation/Saturn era saw a standard $50 price that went up to $60 for the PS3/360 and now $70 for current gen. If a game was $40, it was used or old. (Right now, games go down to $40 or even $30...

Bryan - yeah I'm still disappointed PS5 doesn't have a quick resume feature, but it also loads games so fast and has the activity cards that load to whatever you're up to in a game that it's less painful to lose. The other stuff is non-gaming functions and I feel like anyone who cares about...

When I refer to "reviews" I don't consider user reviews primarily because of review bombing. The Metacritic and Opencritic averages for Redfall are abysmal. GameSpot gave it a 4/10. Bryan - what featured do you think the Series X has that put it above the PS5? Just asking because I have both...

I thought Redfall looked bad from the start and I had no idea why people got excited. Not surprised with the reviews. That said, it was made by Arkane Austin which has only made Prey so far. Dishonored 1/2 and Deathloop were made by Arkane Nice in France. We'll see if that matters in the...

GamePass Ultimate has a ton of value because there are just so many games on it, but realistically I have very little interest in most of them. For the $180ish that I paid for 3 years upfront, it's totally worth it. But they got rid of the $1 conversion deal and it is absolutely not worth...

I got a Series X in January along with 3 years of Gold, converted to Ultimate for $1. It was pretty easy to just buy it even then. I will say that I'm generally not a huge fan of the Xbox platform (the UI is terrible, I find the controller to be just okay, the exclusives are lacking) but...

Microsoft had their not-E3 event yesterday. They certainly had a lot of announcements and the fact that so many are attached to GamePass is great, but it felt kind of disappointing. It seems like most of the games were 2D (which isn't a bad thing but it is underwhelming for a $500 next-gen...

I've thought about the acquisition a bit more and I wonder if it will affect console sales much. So long as Call of Duty stays on the PS platform for the next few years (which everyone has already said will be the case), I don't think this whole thing will make a difference. Keep in mind that...

Microsoft announced today that they have 25 million Game Pass subscribers. Game Pass costs $15/month so this is around $375M a month, $4.5B a year. Sure, a lot of that is lost to licensing deals that get games on Game Pass but that's a TON of money. There's also Xbox Live Gold, Game Pass...

Apparently the deal doesn't finalize until summer 2023 and any existing contracts will be honored until then. This is what happened with the Zenimax deal. I could see MS keeping Call of Duty and any games-as-service stuff running multiplatform for a while (I mean, they published a handful of...

So Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard today for $70B. That's absolutely massive.