JPDunks4

I actually really enjoy these games. Haven't finished 5, but played all the other mainline titles in the series. Co op is always fun too. I have to still play Primal, Blood Dragon. Never bought New Dawn or whatever it was called.

This game never ends. Playing it on Survivor, it's been relatively easy, but with it dragging on a bit, I've grown a bit bored of playing stealthy, and have started dying more going a bit more Rambo style. I must be getting pretty close to the end, and I've been really enjoying it. Game play is definitely improved from the first just about all around. I do feel like I am firmly in the camp that the 1st game was overall the better game though, and not sure anything will change that in the last few hours. As a few others have said, the pacing is just better, characters and interactions between characters better. Even the world as you travel cross country, was more interesting. Even if the actual level design is more open and dynamic in this game. By design, I just feel like I'm in the same general area, the entire game, with little variety. Another thing, which isn't really a spoiler, but the key difference thus far in my preference for the original Can't wait to finish it, hopefully today.

Miles Morales Special Edition

The article was specifically asking about the Xbox One's though, and Microsofts continued support for at least another year or whatever it is. All Xbox 1st party also releases on PC, so their 1st party games will all be supporting regular HDD's and lower end PC specs for at least another year or so as well. So I think that probably played a big role in their decisions not to have XSX or XSS exclusives for a year or so. Also, they don't want to abandon a huge number of hardware owners on both PC and Xbox that are Game Pass Subs, and suddenly tell them, yeah, your subscriptions now require a big investment in hardware to still carry the same value. You now no longer get MS 1st Party games day 1 unless you buy the latest and greatest hardware.

Well won't PC's be the lowest common denominator before the Lockhart when it comes to game design? Unless high speed SSD's are the min spec for PC's in the next few years.

And people wondered why some questioned Tim Sweeney's wishy washy answers about things that weren't Sony regarding the Unreal 5 demo. There were no Secret Deals in the works.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-09-how-minecraft-and-mojang-taught-xbox-how-to-buy-studios Really good read. Great to hear they are taking a far different approach than how they used to handle 1st Party. Also, sounds like we can definitely expect more acquisitions.

Gotta laugh at the headlines these sites are running with. The general public reads this and just sees more powerful and run with it.

https://www.gamesradar.com/amp/xbox-is-holding-a-week-long-summer-games-fest-demo-event-with-over-60-games/?__twitter_impression=true Saying between 75 to 100 games.

As a Game Pass subscriber I am vested very much in Microsoft putting out quality 1st party content. As gamers I think we all should want their July show to be impressive. They have some quality developers. And seeing as they aren't locking their content to their hardware, just about every person on the board should be excited to see what they have to show.

Forgot Switch...

Yes, they still want to be in the hardware space, because they know there are still tens of millions of people that don't play on PC. So walking away entirely from the hardware space would be absolutely idiotic. Especially when its another big distribution point for Game Pass. But it's also not their primary focus. They are not primarily focused on selling hardware, if they were, they wouldn't put their exclusives on PC Day 1. They haven't been focused on hardware since they made that decision. They shifted their focus to building their Xbox ecosystem and brand to be as accessible and with the most distribution points possible. xCloud will only further push that initiative to more distribution points. Micrsoft's primary goal is Game Pass, and has been for years now. They invested in 15 1st party studios the same way Disney invested in making the Mandalorian for Disney+. They know they will need the content to keep growing their subscriptions. It's why I think we haven't seen the end of Microsoft's investment into 1st party or 2nd Party deals. They want a healthy dose of content continuously flowing into Game Pass to keep people subbed.

You keep circling back to hardware. Why? Who cares about the hardware. When I said they are looking to the future, I don't mean in terms of hardware. I mean in terms of Game Pass and trying to be the Netflix of Gaming. They care more about building subscribers to Game Pass than they do selling Xbox Series X's. If you don't understand that, then it's over your head.

Apparently it's over your head. You're Blockbuster... You want the old business model of closed gated hardware with exclusives to the hardware itself, for whatever reason. You want to them to limit access to their content.

Tell that to Blockbuster when they laughed Netflix out of the building when Netflix asked for $50 million to sell their entire company back in the early 2000's. The future comes fast when it comes to tech. Blockbuster was the billion dollar giant in the video rental space. Netflix was the little tech based start up trying something new. https://www.cnet.com/news/blockbuster-laughed-at-netflix-partnership-offer/#:~:text=Blockbuster laughed at Netflix partnership offer Netflix proposed,out of the office%2C" recalled Netflix's outgoing CFO.

You also have these kinds of stories... Microsoft has been doing a lot right, but lets bring up hardware sales.

Once against, Microsoft has been really open about not caring if you buy their hardware or not. What profit does Microsoft and Sony make off their hardware? Hell, going into this gen, they will both probably be losing a pretty penny on each piece of hardware sold. They want to give people convenience and accessibility to their content. They want people to be able to access their content whenever and wherever they want it. They are moving away from being tied to a single piece of Hardware. You know another company that went with that model, Netflix. They were never tied to a brick an mortar or hardware. I never needed to buy a Netflix box to stream Netflix. They put their App on as many devices they possibly could. And Netflix Originals and exclusive content wasn't a thing initially. They first had to prove their service and model, and build up subscriptions, then they heavily invested in exclusive content for their platform. Now Netflix has 180 million subscribers. That's what Microsoft wants. They spent this generation investing in their cloud gaming, and investing in Game Pass. They now have 10+ million subscribers on the service, even with what many would say is piss poor 1st party exclusive output for most of the last 3 years. In 2017, Microsoft finally gave Phil a seat at the table as VP, and probably opened up the checkbook a bit, and Microsoft bought up a bunch of new studios. They bought those studios not to sell more Xbox hardware, but to sell more Game Pass subscriptions, both on Xbox and PC. Of course they probably believe that people that own Xbox hardware will most likely also subscribe to Game Pass, so they want to move hardware, but that's not the primary goal anymore. Having their 1st party games coming out day and date, they know they need quality content into the service to continue growing the subscription base. The more subs they get into the service, the more money they'll have to play with adding more studios or investing more into their studios to keep adding more content. Just look at how much exclusive content Netflix has these days compared to years ago. That's their play, and that's why its so small minded to see the same people come into Xbox threads and simply spew, "I have a PC there's no reason to own an Xbox.". Cool story.

We get it. The reason this narrative is so aggravating at this point , is it's been brought up for 3 years since MS has announced they are putting their games on PC Day 1. It's somehow been turned into a negative against Microsoft and Xbox with the same usual characters coming into threads with the same copy and paste.. I have a PC so I don't really see why I need an Xbox. No shit. No one's argued against that and Microsoft doesn't care if you buy an Xbox. They are fighting for what they see as the future, which is ecosystem and services. So it's great you have a PC, congrats. The discussions about the consoles themselves don't really have to do with people like you they have no interest in an Xbox cause you don't need one.

That console definitely had some secret sauce.

Too late, already getting a PS5 like any smart person would do. In all seriousness really eager to see what their 1st Party is up to. They invested heavily into smaller studios that have shown they can do a lot with a little. Now that they have some financial backing, hopefully they take it to the next level.

That's the point. A 2nd Xbox that was $300. Buying mutliple Xbox's and having them around for convenience is far more realistic than buying mutliple gaming PCs and having them scattered about. Especially when my friend has an Xbox account he can login to to have access to his games, as he's not a PC gamer. All my gamer friends are more casual gamers that typically just play CoDs or whatever the big mutliplayer games are. None of them gamed on PC or even know what Steam was. That was until I told them to download it on their shit PCs to buy C&C Remastered cause we all played that back in the late 90s. Also introduced them to Discord. It's not really a PC vs Console debate. They both have their advantages for me. I do think generally speaking big solo experiences like Cyberpunk I will probably get on PC. I played Fallen Order on PC. And as you said, with Cross Play, I may tend to get more multiplayer games on PC now too. I love gaming on my PC and do hope cross play and cross progression is the standard going forward. But some other games I know my nephews will enjoy I buy on Xbox as well for game share, or if cross play isn't a guarantee. My sister won't buy games for them, so typically what I buy is what they get to play. I just really enjoy all the platforms. Wherever you prefer to play to suit your needs doesn't make where someone else plays any less "serious".

I have a bad ass PC yet my Xbox still gets the most playtime, simply because I still buy most multiplats for it. Why? When I buy a game, my 3 nephews have access to it on their Xbox at home. They are here visiting for 2 weeks for the 4th if July, and I have an extra Xbox here at my parents home that I can simply plug my external SSD into and game with them here. I have friends sometimes visit and stay with me on weekends, and having an Xbox in the family room and office allow us to game together. If all I had was a Gaming PC, those experiences go away. PC gaming is great, but the conveniences that my Xbox gives me in sharing that gaming experience with my nephews and other family and friends is far more valuable to me than the added frames or graphical features. If it's a game I truly love and want to play it at the best possible performance I'll also buy it on PC, but so far very few have been enough to make me do that. My PC is mainly used for some competitive multiplayer games where I want the best frames and performance, which coincidentally means the game looks rather shitty cause I turn most settings down. I also had a friend that tried to move to PC gaming. He's a bit on the older and inpatient side. He's had numerous headaches with his PC, getting errors kicking him repeatedly from games, audio issues, ect. Trying to trouble shoot with him he's been ready to throw the thing out the window mutliple times. He's already decided he's probably going to just go back to Xbox as the improved performance isn't worth it to him. I like the improved performance from my PC, but still completely understand why so many prefer console gaming over PC.

Well this guy started a shit storm on Twitter.

Saying one wants a Sony console because it's 1st party output is perfectly fine. Saying one wants a Sony console because Xbox's 1st party doesn't interest them, before Xbox has even had it's 1st party show, is pretty odd. I just got a PS4 Pro to play some of the exclusives I've skipped, so I'll prob wait for PS5 to have a decent lineup of games, as the launch lineup right now looks really weak.

Check out Brime (@WatchBrime): https://twitter.com/WatchBrime?s=09 Look at who it's following... Could it mean something, who knows