Zenimax thought redfall was ready to release and Xbox took them at their word
And then post redfall they changed reporting structures, I wonder why 🧐
Xbox Game Studios + Bethesda + ABK | OT29 | The Temple of Doomers
- Thread starter Andrei Rublev
- Start date
- Status
And then post redfall they changed reporting structures, I wonder why 🧐
yeps indeed they are, although i think FS and AGE would be good fit
I get that it might seem that way, but that's something I've been saying long long before, probably even before Halo Infinite launched (as I was clear in the lead up to launch that to me they didn't have a lot of content or variety or else they would have shown it).
In fact, Helldivers 2 actually helps in showing why I think that way, it's not the main driver behind that thought.
My main first thought was on converting people into GP users. Helldivers 2 isn't part of that discussion.
Last edited:
The Game Pass app should really have a tab to view the number of players currently connected to a game, similar to what SteamDB does. The number displayed next to the game could be a unique total of Xbox + PC + Cloud, to clearly demonstrate the unification of ecosystems.
If Microsoft aims to become a serious competitor to Steam, I believe this is an important feature.
If Microsoft aims to become a serious competitor to Steam, I believe this is an important feature.
Sweeney was pretty blunt about this in the past.
Heck, Tim Sweeney talked about it and mentioned it as one of the reasons why they sold Gears and changed business models.
"The very first Gears of War game cost $12 million to develop, and it made about $100 million in revenue," he says. "It was very profitable."
"By the end of the cycle, Gears of War 3 cost about four or five times more than the original to make," he says. "The profit was shrinking and shrinking. We calculated that, if we built Gears of War 4, the budget would have been well over $100 million, and if it was a huge success, we could break even. Anything less could put us out of business.
"That's what caused us to move and change business models."
The four lives of Epic Games | Their future is Epic: The evolution of a gaming giant
Take an exclusive in-depth look at how Epic Games has evolved from Gears of War into “Epic 4.0.www.polygon.com
It still amazes me that Gears of War had a budget of 12 million USD, and that budget had quadrupled by the time the third game came out only five years later, in the same console generation.
The more I read about it, and I just saw this Sony thread, made me acknoledge Iwata even more, to realise in 2003 how this would become a threat to this industry and shifting Nintendo to low-powered consoles and, with the exception of the WiiU, are easy to develop.
Really hope that SMTV (the new version that has leaked) comes to Xbox.
Switch 2 is ~PS4 power level per leaks, though. They'll face similar issues.
I agree in principle, because I like that kind of transparency, but it's also pretty bad for developers and publishers if the numbers don't align with what people are expecting or if a game flops. That's probably why it's not a public-facing Steam feature and is only accessible through a third-party site.
Starfield has lost 97% of its Steam players in less than six months
In the six months since it launched, Starfield, Bethesda's long-awaited space RPG, has seen its Steam player count drop by over 300,000
www.pcgamesn.com
Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League has good reviews but less than 1,000 players
Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League, from Rocksteady Studios, is struggling to maintain its player count on Steam despite good reviews.
www.pcgamesn.com
Palworld Lost 70% Of Its Players Since Launch, The Biggest Two-Week Drop In Steam History - MMOs.com
Palworld sees a significant drop in its player numbers since its early access launch, losing 1.3 million players in two weeks.
mmos.com
"Palworld has lost X per cent of its player base discourse is lazy," says developer Pocketpair
Palworld developer Pocketpair insists it has no reason to be alarmed about the hit game's dwindling player count.As Pal…
www.eurogamer.net
If the numbers are good and noteworthy, publishers will report them. If they don't, it shouldn't be our problem, even if I like the numbers because it's something fun to talk about.
What? You can absolutely see the number of concurrent players playing/connected to a game directly through Steam. Don't need a third party site (SteamDB) for that.I agree in principle, because I like that kind of transparency, but it's also pretty bad for developers and publishers if the numbers don't align with what people are expecting or if a game flops. That's probably why it's not a public-facing Steam feature and is only accessible through a third-party site.
Starfield has lost 97% of its Steam players in less than six months
In the six months since it launched, Starfield, Bethesda's long-awaited space RPG, has seen its Steam player count drop by over 300,000
Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League has good reviews but less than 1,000 players
Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League, from Rocksteady Studios, is struggling to maintain its player count on Steam despite good reviews.
Palworld Lost 70% Of Its Players Since Launch, The Biggest Two-Week Drop In Steam History - MMOs.com
Palworld sees a significant drop in its player numbers since its early access launch, losing 1.3 million players in two weeks.mmos.com
"Palworld has lost X per cent of its player base discourse is lazy," says developer Pocketpair
Palworld developer Pocketpair insists it has no reason to be alarmed about the hit game's dwindling player count.As Pal…
If the numbers are good and noteworthy, publishers will report them. If they don't, it shouldn't be our problem, even if I like the numbers because it's something fun to talk about.
It'll be powerful enough for Nintendo to keep making their bangers, but the base is a 2013 power-level console. The difference is that the current development engines available will help to make visuals not so distant from the Series S. Just like the switch Doom port, for the first sight, was not so different from the PS4/XBone versions.
I'm not sure why I was thinking of sales numbers, but you're totally right. The CCU count alone is accessible. I probably conflated it with SteamSpy.What? You can absolutely see the number of concurrent players playing/connected to a game directly through Steam. Don't need a third party site (SteamDB) for that.
Ok but my point is that things began to get really expensive in the xbox one/ps4 era... nintendo is getting there. late, but they are.
oh yeah that makes more sense! i can see myself getting confused with both of those too lol
What happened with the 3DS after the ultra successful DS? It's easy to praise Iwata's vision when discussing his successes or pivots but it hasn't been a bed of roses for them. WiiU was a total failure following the same principles and vision.
It is. Having this ability to see how many players play each game, wishlists and follows is one of the big reasons what makes Steam so popular.
Fans don't expect Gears/Uncharted graphics from Nintendo however. Animal Crossing doesn't have to be a graphical banger.
And Nintendo platforms give devs a second chance with handheld ports giving them another chance to recoup budgets.
On top of that, unlike Sony and MS, Nintendo will make a profit on consoles sold day 1 while still being affordable ($~399).
The 3DS problem was the initial high launch price, it had nothing to do with the specs. When Nintendo lowered the price to what it should be, the sales were at the level expected by Nintendo.
Yes Nintendo likes to make money. Think how that fucked up their margins by having to discount their console. The 3DS's flat launch caused them to shift resources and hampered the WiiU. Ultimately they folded two consoles into 1 for the Switch to be able to keep up with the new game development demands.
Last edited:
So is your argument that financially they would have been better off, even if the player base trajectory fell off the same cliff?
I don't see it. A $60-70 barrier to entry to a game with a multiplayer component that did not have the meat and potatoes necessary to justify spending that money, would not have been great financially either.
When you look at Halo 5, it didn't sell many units (for a Halo game). Its financials were saved by what was essentially a p2w scheme in Warzone- a scheme that only worked because 343 was able to remedy their lack of launch content with monthly updates.
The only way Infinite could have worked as a full price game is if it launched w/ the MP suite we got 2 years later. And the only way it could have worked as f2p is if it was able to satisfy the quarterly seasons originally planned from day1. The common denominator is that studio didn't have the bandwidth to deliver a sustainable MP suite by Holiday 2021- and ironically, it's because all the bandwidth went into being overly ambitious w/ the campaign before gutting it and selling it at full price.
Last edited:
Infinite was awesome and got many awards and a fan favourite.
Infinite is not a bad game. It just isn't the savior Halo 1-3 were. If it had similar engagement to Halo 2, 2022's lack of games wouldn't have mattered as much. 343's inability to keep up with content demand killed any chance the F2P experiment had of succeeding.
TBF it was never going to be Halo saviour like 1/3 were as that was a very different time, and different FPS fans, it was still a GREAT game but let down on the MP side with a lack of initial content
Agree that it was the content roadmap that killed Halo Infinite, although Microsoft's 18/6 contractor rule really seems to kneecap their internal studios even if they have the best of intentions.
I still maintain that it was incredibly bizarre they didn't outsource the porting of classic maps to infinite to provide a steady stream of content post launch while waiting for new maps.
Either way, after 6 years the game should have had a ton of content locked in and polished to be their marquee next gen launch title. It's such a shame because the gameplay fundamentals of Infinite really are stellar.
A question for anyone who would like to answer: Has the discussion around Sony's costs and profitability recontextualized Phil Spencer's comments regarding the long-term health of the Xbox platform for you?
Yes in terms of the overall discussion, but no for me personally because I was already aware of the challenges Sony are facing. I think a lot of people just saw Sony's console sales up until now and assumed everything is dandy when that just isn't the case.
Content wasn't the sole issue. The design model of Infinite's MP was also 15-year old and it's why it couldn't keep players interested even when the content was finally here. It severely lacks ambition and doesn't offer anything new or exciting compared to old games like Halo 2, Halo 3 or the MCC. Trends have changed a lot and 343 and Xbox moved backwards instead.
It was also hurt by Halo becoming a somewhat irrelevant IP in Europe, Asia and the rest of the world (and the PC numbers showed it), but that's because the current Xbox leadership doesn't care about these territories in the first place.
343 were mess for a long time but I'm more confident in them today than I was before Infinite. Refreshing the leadership and allegedly changing the engine are both promising developments for them that'll hopefully pay off with the next one.
Only thing I really fear at the moment is the cost of managing to launch with Forge + co-op + multiplayer + a fully featured campaign keeps increasing every generation and the community doesn't seem amicable to accepting any of those modes being even delayed, let alone cut, which is a lot of pressure on the studio and may not make sense for the IP financially anymore. CoD is the only comparable shooter I can think of where people expect so many distinct modes at launch and obviously earns vastly more to be able to justify the dev costs involved in achieving that.
Only thing I really fear at the moment is the cost of managing to launch with Forge + co-op + multiplayer + a fully featured campaign keeps increasing every generation and the community doesn't seem amicable to accepting any of those modes being even delayed, let alone cut, which is a lot of pressure on the studio and may not make sense for the IP financially anymore. CoD is the only comparable shooter I can think of where people expect so many distinct modes at launch and obviously earns vastly more to be able to justify the dev costs involved in achieving that.
Streaming your library will go a long way for me on the front of making sure my purchases in the Xbox ecosystem are secure longterm. Let's see if licensing older games from consoles like OG and 360 is the full BC catalogue. That would assuage most all of my fears in that aspect. Hope we get that announce by E3.
I understand what you're saying but the excitement for Infinite at launch was largely BECAUSE it wasn't following trends and it felt like a return to classic Halo. That's why people flocked to it and they left because of the content problems. The gameplay of Infinite is the best in the entire franchise and it's the perfect marriage of classic Halo with modern sensibilities. Chasing trends is how you piss off the core fanbase, the people who evangelise Halo, and that would be an even worse situation than we're in right now.
No matter how good future Halo games are, it's never going to be as big as it was in 2007. NEVER. It's not possible with the gaming landscape of today. Back then, no other games offered what Halo was offering, whereas now every multiplayer game offers that experience. But that doesn't mean Halo can't still be relevant and big and successful. They have a lot of goodwill right now from the core gameplay of Infinite and the content rollout since autumn 2022, and that puts them in a great position to (hopefully) hit the ground running with the next big game.
I'm just gonna say this and this is literally not a console war thing.
The Xbox issues had people laughing in some snarky, subtle "warring" but now this last couple weeks we're getting stories of struggles with all three, including Nintendo delaying their system and the news of Sony's own flattening margins. Analysts were saying the Xbox doing third party was a sign of not just Microsoft's struggles, but the industry, but people were so quick to dunk on Xbox that they didn't see the bigger problems.
--
Now, that aside, back on topic, I was upset to learn the reward from this boring Cryptid event in MWIII is a gun blueprint and not a wrap because the wrap is sooooo fucking good. But it's going to be locked to a gun I have zero interest in using (especially since I don't need to level it for interstellar anymore).
That said, the other cosmetics are incredible. The chibi mothman, the Bigfoot and Nessies best friend decal, and that great creepy Hopkinsville goblins-like "they're watching you" wrap.
The Xbox issues had people laughing in some snarky, subtle "warring" but now this last couple weeks we're getting stories of struggles with all three, including Nintendo delaying their system and the news of Sony's own flattening margins. Analysts were saying the Xbox doing third party was a sign of not just Microsoft's struggles, but the industry, but people were so quick to dunk on Xbox that they didn't see the bigger problems.
--
Now, that aside, back on topic, I was upset to learn the reward from this boring Cryptid event in MWIII is a gun blueprint and not a wrap because the wrap is sooooo fucking good. But it's going to be locked to a gun I have zero interest in using (especially since I don't need to level it for interstellar anymore).
That said, the other cosmetics are incredible. The chibi mothman, the Bigfoot and Nessies best friend decal, and that great creepy Hopkinsville goblins-like "they're watching you" wrap.
Did he say Xbox platform (as in consoles) or Xbox business? That's two different things for me.
I was aware of these developments especially after reading that excellent piece on the state of gaming in 2024. You can draw different conclusions from it though, and I think Xbox and PlayStation will not tackle "make games more broadly available" in the same way, and you can have different opinions on that again. It's also not clear where this all leads, but things are definitely changing, that's clear.
The real problem halo infinite had was the fact they didn't fork everything into its own separate release because people expect a suite of five fully fleshed out modes with each release
It was a good release, the lack of mp content can't be used to say it was a bad release. It just had slow legs
And now that problem has been rectified
And charging for another full suite next time wouldn't suddenly make halo be a big brand name again. I don't think it ever will be but it will have a legion of fans that keep it going and that's all that matters
I think if they want to dramatically change things up with the next Halo they should make it something like Star Wars Battlefront or a classic Battlefield game. Massive maps, 64v64 players, lots of customization and load out possibilities, maybe even distinct classes. I feel like trying to break into the BR space or the survival space is way too difficult these days so it would be a huge gamble to make one of those.
People are really thirsty for a good Battlefield type of game. We saw Battlebit blow up for a short time last year and that was a simple little indie game made by a tiny team. I think a AAA game in that genre done well would be huge.
People are really thirsty for a good Battlefield type of game. We saw Battlebit blow up for a short time last year and that was a simple little indie game made by a tiny team. I think a AAA game in that genre done well would be huge.
The most threatening thing for the Xbox platform/console would be the Xbox business overall doing poorly. They are interrelated.
A lot has been said in the last few months about how exclusive games are becoming unsustainable. I think it's common knowledge by now, and I believe Sony's numbers are only more evidence of that.
That doesn't mean Phil's strategy is right, but it's pretty obvious something needs to change in gaming. MS is being more aggressive, Sony is being more cautious, but both are trying to change. Time will tell which approach is best, but I like to believe both are doing the right thing and will eventually succeed.
Next Halo needs to go hard. They are fully aware of everything and I think a lot of things will change. I'm confident in 343 and CA.
Also, Halo needs more games. I can guarantee you a good co-op PvE game would be massively succesfull or a large scale PvP game. There's a huge demand for games like that in Halo universe and it keeps increasing.
Also, Halo needs more games. I can guarantee you a good co-op PvE game would be massively succesfull or a large scale PvP game. There's a huge demand for games like that in Halo universe and it keeps increasing.
I mean it also had the biggest launch in Halo history if i remember rightly and was second in sales only to COD in Dec of launch, so you know not to shabby! :)
Almost as if people, in general, don't know shit about the market and a staggeringly high no. of them (atleast online) would prefer that Xbox shut down long ago.
The talk about pitched/abandoned ideas this weekend makes me think the next Halo just needs to be another soft reboot.
Chief wakes up, give us a time skip, Covenant are all religious fanatics again and the Brutes are their own faction with their own agenda, new Cortana has been gathering data as you slept and is no longer a kid but closer to the pre-corruption Cortana, we get to play as an Elite again against the Brutes in some levels as the Covenant look for MacGuffin Device. New Spartans were created while he slept since Earth thought he was dead, so now you are trying to find the last survivors, etc etc.
Basically a full on reboot with very little evidence it's actually a sequel.
You're insinuating that fans don't actually look at numbers, but are only obsessed with their own personal ecosystem and experiences and instead of looking at the gaming industry as a viable market, they still treat it like an immature teenager console warring at the lunch table...!?
That's bitter, man.
Chief wakes up, give us a time skip, Covenant are all religious fanatics again and the Brutes are their own faction with their own agenda, new Cortana has been gathering data as you slept and is no longer a kid but closer to the pre-corruption Cortana, we get to play as an Elite again against the Brutes in some levels as the Covenant look for MacGuffin Device. New Spartans were created while he slept since Earth thought he was dead, so now you are trying to find the last survivors, etc etc.
Basically a full on reboot with very little evidence it's actually a sequel.
You're insinuating that fans don't actually look at numbers, but are only obsessed with their own personal ecosystem and experiences and instead of looking at the gaming industry as a viable market, they still treat it like an immature teenager console warring at the lunch table...!?
That's bitter, man.
What you're describing is Halo 4 and also Halo Infinite. They can't do that again, especially not so soon after Infinite.
I believe very strongly that a full reboot is the wrong move. It would be like rebooting Star Wars. It just doesn't make sense.
Halo needs to break new ground, not retread old ground.
Eh, not nearly as severely. Nintendo's strategy hybrid strategy goes a long way toward them able to dodge modern dev costs.
Whilst Nintendo's dev costs will definitely increase, being effectively 1.5 generations behind (accounting for Pro consoles last-gen) goes a long way in offsetting costs. It's undeniably far cheaper to create 'PS4 quality assets' and production values in 2024, than it was in 2013 when the system first launched.
At its core Halo MP is PvP focused not all that different than annual COD (outside of zombies) or CS. Infinite stumbled off the blocks on PC due to a variety of matchmaking and netcode issues. Combine that with a pretty barebone release from a content perspective and you have the situation 343 finds itself in now. I will point out that even if a company launches a content rich game (see TD2 for example) you need to support it with continuous monthly or at least quarterly content. 343 was not ready for that. PC word of mouth should have helped but instead it poisoned the well further.
None of what I suggest is about making Halo into a big brand again.
It's actually the opposite (though I wish it was a big brand). It's about banking on Halo nostalgia to turn people into general long-term GP users.
Where have I suggested what I proposed would make Halo bigger?
Your suggestion of Infinite being a good game with bad legs is exactly why it shouldn't have been F2P. Make a lot more money upfront by including multiplayer into the 60$, or turn a lot of people to GP upfront, since they don't have enough content to sustain it another way.
I think the industry as a whole would be better if Steam removed concurrent players from their public API. It has done more harm than good IMO. Too much of the value or worth of games has been placed upon the singular number. Yes it is great when that number can help a particular game take off due to word of mouth, but I think the negative aspects outweigh helping a few already successful games become a little more successful.
I actually kind of agree. People always use Steam concurrents to make wild sweeping assumptions about games even though it's only one platform and only one data point.
Pretty big SoT update that redownloads the whole game essentially. It's a new gdk version support, supports DX11 and DX12, and some other pc client support changes. Changes moving forward will be smaller than this of course
- Status