JPDunks4

A lot of Microsoft's early 1st party PC ports were pretty rough as well, and they've only gotten better with each release. I remember the first Forza Horizon's having stuttering issues for awhile.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-08-06-xbox-game-pass-could-be-a-boon-for-indie-developers Obviously large Publishers won't need this type of deal, but for medium or smaller developers, this is the type of thing I was thinking about when it came to some of the Xbox Console Launch Exclusives. I don't necessarily think they are simply deals blocking the game from going to PlayStation, but rather deals to secure them for Game Pass Day and Date for launch. Whether they would include stipulations that it has to be exclusive to Game Pass for a time period or not, who knows. But many devs did mention the opportunity to develop for Game Pass allows them to take more risks and make games they otherwise may had never been able to make.

Well unless Apple allows xCloud, I'm not sure you'll even see a Razr Kishi for Apple Devices anytime soon.

A bit more pricey, but it also looks like it might be able to grip a mini tablet better than the Kishi, which as rounded edges on the grip which may not fit larger devices?

Ah okay, I'll test it a little later to see. I felt to aim in Destiny I had more success strafing left and right over manually aiming, but I am still adjusting to the way you have to hold the controller. I am actually really interested in this as it looks like it'll feel like a traditional controller moreso than the Kishi while still having the same basic design.

I'd count Jackbox, forgot about those. They aren't so much traditional mini games though as they are like Trivia and Ad Libs. Still love Jackbox though.

It's great to play a few rounds occasionally. When they introduce Custom Games and you can play with a community that could be a lot more fun as well. But it's also something that will get old fairly quick, I'm not sure how many mini games there are but there don't seem to be a ton. Games like this always make me wonder why more studios don't churn out more Mini Game Collections. They don't seem like they'd be overly difficult or expensive to make, but are a great addition to a library. Nintendo butchered Mario Party's online functionality. Still seems like a lot missing. There's Pummel Party on PC right now. Not sure of others.

It's not something I'd do over actually using my PC or Xbox, but when I visit family for Holidays, or casually trying to knock out daily missions in certain games that I can quickly do on the couch while watching TV. Another use for it could be for multiplayer gaming. Now when my nephews and niece visit and we may only have the one Xbox, they could use their tablets to play Sea of Thieves with me in the same room on their tablets. I think things like that are awesome if it can all work on the same network. It's not quite as convenient as the Switch due to needing good internet connection, but if you're someone that uses a Switch at your home a lot due to the conveniences of it, xCloud on my phone feels pretty similar. I may end up picking up a mini tablet though for a slightly larger screen specifically for xCloud, as my Note 10 is still a little on the small side. They aren't loose. A little less loose than the Xbox One.

They are clickable. I played some Destiny 2 on xCloud last night with it. Still getting used to it but it's a very solid solution for mobile gaming.

Yeah I read afterwards he did PoE 1/2 and Fallout New Vegas. I also saw he said they prob wouldn't be doing another PoE after 2 didnt sell well, and would have to rethink the entire game if they were to do another.

Yeah,I read that entire thing as an unfortunate Crystal Dynamics employee trying to explain and address a bunch of angry fans. The same kind of thing Bungie employees said they hated trying to deal with because the deals made were things they did not want to do or have a say in. Unless Sony's license agreement with Marvel in games gives them the right to control him in every single Marvel game going forward. I highly highly doubt Marvel would be dumb enough to sign that away as well given the value of Spiderman. Spiderman is in a ton of the other Marvel games. So Sony has said its okay for him to be in every other Marvel game on all platforms, but for this Avenger game we are going to block it and make it exclusive to Playstation? I think it's a lot of PR speak trying to calm down all the pissed off fans. Crystal Dynamics tried to say the same thing about Tomb Raider too when they were getting a bunch of anger. That they may not have made another Tomb Raider without the help of Microsoft. Then they try to move on and talk about how its a game for everyone, and they already have hundreds of hours of content and 2 new characters announced in a few days. It's all just trying to brush this issue over since so many people are upset. Even a lot of Playstation owners are pissed that also have gaming PCs. Now they can't play with Spiderman on their beefy PC's at 144fps because Sony blocked it, even though they also are also Sony customers. The only people that are okay with this are Sony fanboys that feel like it's an extra bullet point for their Console War Checklist.

Okay back to Marvel Avengers... haha Reading impessions things seem pretty mixed. A lot say they see a lot of potential but with lots of problems. I still look forward to the beta to try it out myself. Any Playstation guys gonna be trying it this week?

Marvel + *Square Enix Typically in these types of the deals the Publisher make the call, not the Developer. See the Destiny exclusive content on Playstation for a year. Bungie had openly said they hated doing it, but Activision made those decisions and made the deal with Sony. As soon as Bungie cut ties with Acitvision, they stopped doing the exclusive content. The developer is the one left trying to defend the decision to do it, and have to explain to angry fans on other platforms why their version of the game they are paying the same money for is gimped. You can already see it from Crystal Dynamics trying to explain why this deal is in place, and promising no other characters will be released this way.

https://www.pcgamer.com/obsidian-is-working-on-something-that-isnt-avowed-or-grounded/ I'd have to assume it's Outer Worlds 2, right.

Yeah, I thought Rise of the Tomb Raider was a pretty dumb thing too, and it was after that deal, and the reaction to that deal, that Phil Spencer said he'd prefer not to do those deals in the futture. That game, being the Tomb Raider IP, is what made the outrage justified. That is a known IP coming off the big success of the first reboot. I'm pretty sure it was still being published by Square Enix. No one believed that game needed Microsoft's help to get made. So it was a bullshit deal that deserved the outrage, Microsoft paid simply to block it from being on Sony's platform to have an answer for Uncharted 4 most likely. I see a lot of gamers saying Microsoft needs to start doing this deals too to combat Sony's. I don't care if Microsoft get an exclusive character, that doesn't make me enjoy that character more. It doesn't make the game play better that it's not on Sony's console. If they develop other characters, have it be on all platforms and have crossplay and cross save, that's all I want. If Micrsoft choose to buy WB games and get the licenses for Batman and other properties and decide to keep all them exclusive, it's a bit different, but even that I've seen a lot say they hope they'd keep Mortal Kombat and Batman multiplat, but just have it on Game Pass Day 1. We'll see if that deal ever gets done. Microsoft could also be huge dicks and just pull all future Minecraft content off Playstation, but they don't, even if doing so may help sell more Xbox Hardware.

Layers of Fear 1 and 2 had a Publisher supporting their development. Blair Witch Project was self published, also came to Microsoft 1st and Game Pass day and date. So Bloober Team didn't have to get a publisher to get the extra financing to make Blair Witch. As far as I can tell, Medium is self published, probably due to the extra resources they attained from Microsoft. They obviously made the same arrangement this time so it worked out well enough for them last time. If an Independant Studio being able to self publish a project and having a bigger project for their game is at the cost of a Timed Exclusivity deal, I and I think many gamers would be okay with that. I don't know enough about the other games listed. I'd assume something like a Warhammer game and Tetris game have sufficient funding on their own. I just personally see a very distinct difference between a Timed Exclusive which I don't spend money on and wait a year for access to, and a game we all buy for the same price and one platform holder paying the developer to block access on other platforms. Its my personal opinion on it, and based on the outrage online, I think many have the same feelings. I was hoping to get this on PC with cross platform play to play with ARZ and Skillz on Xbox, but hadn't seen any announcements around Cross Platform play. I'm more upset about the lack of Cross Platform play or saves being announced, and I mainly think its probably because Sony's deal with them. I maybe wrong, but Destiny didn't have cross save until they got themselves out the bullshit timed exclusive DLC.

I'm not saying that Microsoft is completely innocent of buying timed exclusives for its platform. When they do it, it's dumb as well. I am saying that I don't believe that every single console exclusive, be it timed or not, is automatically the case of Microsoft or Sony just paying a perfectly capable and financially stable team to keep the game off other platforms. Bloober Team is a smaller independent studio, and as far as I know, they didn't have a publisher backing them on Medium. If Microsoft partnered up with them to fund them and help them make the game they wanted to make, and part of that deal is some timed exclusivity and having it on Game Pass Day 1, most gamers I've seen never have an issue with these arrangements. Smaller to mid size studios that may need some extra financial help to make a proper game, and therefore giving timed exclusivity, at least for me, is a perfectly fine practice. Double Fine and inXile recently came out and said Wasteland 3 and Psychonauts 2 were being made with chunks of the game being left out due to financial strains of being an smaller studios. So Sony and Microsoft stepping in to help get these games made properly should be welcomed by most. Especially since in most cases, it's a Timed arrangement, they aren't fully stopping the development or release on other platforms in the future. In this instance, you have Crystal Dynamics, a fairly large studio with the support of a large publisher, Square Enix. They are developing content I think most assume they were going to produced no matter what. Spiderman is one of the most popular Avengers, and was probably going to be in the game regardless as a new character. Sony is paying to stop it from gong to Microsoft and PC on a multiplat game all owners of the game are paying the same $ for. If a game is a Timed Exclusive on Microsoft, Sony owners aren't paying for that game and being restricted access to portions of that game. They are waiting a year to pay for the game and having access to play it. CoD on 360 had Xbox partnerships for DLC. The partnership as far as I remember, was Xbox got 1 month early access to paid Map Packs. That is a pretty stark difference to what Square Enix is doing here with Sony.

Spiderman is a Sony owned IP for Films by most reports. They don't own the IP for games, they just had the deal with Marvel for the Spiderman game.

I bought it and played yesterday. It's a fun simple mini game type game. Love the aesthetic as well. My main complaint right now would be they have a lot of team based games which feel completely random on if you succeed or not, and generally they control the worst. If they keep adding more content it'll def be a fun game to throw on with friends.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/04/microsoft-reveals-more-details-about-its-xcloud-game-streaming-service.html 3 Months Free Game Pass Ultimate with Samsung Note 20. Phone also has tech to reduce input lag.

Is every console exclusive due to a paid deal though? I personally never believed a lot of the PS4 3rd party games that didn't come to Xbox at launch were due to Sony paying for them to be on PS4. The developers just developed for the most popular console, and had a good relationship with Sony. Over time, they also released on Xbox. I could be wrong on that, but I also feel the same way about certain games coming to Xbox first. Some smaller devs may prefer to work on one platform specifically first. And maybe Game Pass is a selling point some devs may want to launch on initially to try to help generate extra hype around a smaller game by having access to that 10-15 million subscriber base. Look at Rocket League releasing on PS+ at the start of the PS4 gen and how that helped push that game to quick popularity. Also, there is a pretty significant difference between paying for a time exclusive, I don't think many gamers give a shit anymore about time exclusives that eventually all platforms will have access to. This is Sony paying to stop PC and Xbox from permanently having access to a playable character on a multi-platform game that everyone is paying the same $ more. If Sony want to put up the cash and say the Spiderman character will be Free on Playstation, and make the Xbox and PC players pay for it, then so be it. But to straight up block content permanently out of a multi-plat game is straight scummy bullshit. Especially if it possibly is the reason we wont have cross-saves or cross platform play in this game.

This quote from the IGN Impressions has be concerned. Gear and Loot games need interesting loot that both change up the appearance of the character to look more bad ass as you progress, as well as possibly change up your gameplay or abilities. It sounds like this game has it do neither.

Why not? I have hundreds of games I own on Xbox that I still need to play through. I know I will be buying an Xbox Series X at some point, whether it would've been at launch or sometime after. If my choice is, do I want it at launch or can I wait for some bigger new next gen games to drop, the fact it can play mu full library of current Xbox One games, and play them better than they play on my Xbox One, why is that not an added selling point? When I bought my PC with a 2080ti, it's not like I didn't also buy it to improve the performance of all my existing games I was currently playing or needed to play on PC. Sure I also got it so that I can play future games with better performance, but I also loved I got better performance out of all the current library of games I had as well. I don't get this Console Gamer mentality of, who cares about he hundreds of amazing old games I invested in and still need to play. Let's not allow the fact this new console can play those old games with added HDR, better load times, and possibly better resolutions and frame rates than my current Xbox One X to be a factor in my decision to buy this new Console.

Didn't Bungie say the fact Activision made them do exclusive content for one platform over the others was a big reason they wanted to kill that deal and start operating independently. And that was all timed exclusivity, not straight up locking other platforms out of content permanently for the same product. I doubt Crystal Dynamics wants to do this shit, but Square Enix and Sony have been tight for years. They better hope this game nails the gameplay, cause otherwise I can see this game dying quick cause 2 of the 3 platforms already have a bad taste in their mouth for it.