After weeks of rumors detailing a push towards multiplatform first party Xbox games, Xbox has announced that the big 3 of leadership will sit down for the Xbox Podcast to inform fans on the future of the business.
I'm more expecting Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves and maybe even Pentiment to go multiplatform. Would definitely play one or two of those three. If I had any hopes, it'd be Hi-Fi Rush running well on Switch if it happens.
Either way, Microsoft has to be very clear and upfront with what they're gonna do here regarding their first party games. Maybe they might delve beyind that like thei stance on physical media, but they gotta be honest, even if it's harsh and cruel. It'll be an interesting watch either way.
Side note: if the Partner Direct is today as rumored, I wonder if it'll be out before during or after this podcast...
This podcast can be a giant industry shift or a lot of nothing. I am leaning more towards the former since you don't do stuff like this just to say Hi-Fi is going multiplate.
They'll talk about strategy but I'm not sure they'll announce specifics about what game coming to what platform. This doesn't seem to be the hype announcement vibe.
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"Thanks to Craig96024 for the $50 donation. Craig says: 'Hi-Fi Rush going to the PS5 is the worst betrayal of my entire life and last week I caught my wife cheating on me with my dad. I will unalive myself if The Master Chief Collection comes to PS5.' Thank you again for your donation, Craig. We don't have anything to announce today about The Master Chief Collection or other titles and we want to assure our fans that Xbox will continue to receive great games from Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, Activision, and our partners. This donation does give us a good segue to talk about this episode's sponsor: Better Help. Better Help is a--"
"Thanks to Craig96024 for the $50 donation. Craig says: 'Hi-Fi Rush going to the PS5 is the worst betrayal of my entire life and last week I caught my wife cheating on me with my dad. I will unalive myself if The Master Chief Collection comes to PS5.' Thank you again for your donation, Craig. We don't have anything to announce today about The Master Chief Collection or other titles and we want to assure our fans that Xbox will continue to receive great games from Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, Activision, and our partners. This donation does give us a good segue to talk about this episode's sponsor: Better Help. Better Help is a--"
I'm more expecting Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves and maybe even Pentiment to go multiplatform. Would definitely play one or two of those three. If I had any hopes, it'd be Hi-Fi Rush running well on Switch if it happens.
Either way, Microsoft has to be very clear and upfront with what they're gonna do here regarding their first party games. Maybe they might delve beyind that like thei stance on physical media, but they gotta be honest, even if it's harsh and cruel. It'll be an interesting watch either way.
Side note: if the Partner Direct is today as rumored, I wonder if it'll be out before during or after this podcast...
Strong recommendation to Pentiment. Gem of a game.
My expectations:
- The 1st batch of Xbox multiplatform titles consists of previously rumored games: Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and potentially Grounded and Pentiment.
- Besides the first wave of titles, they don't make any definitive statements about what titles will or won't be multiplatform releases in the future.
- Regardless of the shift, Phil confirms Microsoft is still very much committed to the Xbox hardware.
- No news as of now about any changes concerning GamePass (even though those are surely coming down the road)
They'll talk about strategy but I'm not sure they'll announce specifics about what game coming to what platform. This doesn't seem to be the hype announcement vibe.
I expect they will affirm that certain titles out of Bethesda will go multi-plat, most Activision output will *remain* multiplat, and that certain games that are not tentpole Xbox IPs will be ported, and finally service games like Sea of Thieves will be looking to go multi-plat.
But tent pole IPs otherwise will remain staunchly Xbox.
Really they needed this event no matter the sudden public outcry because they had to set expectations for where ActiBlizz output would go post-acquisition. IMO, it never made sense to tie most ActiBlizz games to one platform (or even just two, incl PC).
Some IP are valuable in part because they are available for everyone to enjoy. MS has already demonstrated recognition and deft handling of this by way of Minecraft.
Other than software, they may also intro at new price/feature tiers for GamePass, and hint at new hardware. I really think an Xbox-branded gaming PC would be a cool and welcome product.
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... also let me say this whole escapade has been worth it for me personally just thanks to the litany of "this podcast brought to you by" jokes that have flooded discussions.
I've seen the whole rogue's gallery brought up, aka Better Help, Manscaped, SquareSpace, Purple Mattress, SkillShare, AG1
skimmed it. 4 titles coming to other platforms but he wont say which (lol). The hardware part, they mentioned investing in a next gen roadmap and "the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation" or something. Which I'm in favor of
4 Xbox titles are coming to other platforms, which Phill will let the devs announce on their own terms:
- Starfield and Indiana Jones are NOT among these fout
- all of them are over a year old
- Two of them are "community driven games" - he says "service based" later on (My guess: Sea of Thieves, ???)
- The other two are "smaller games that were never meant to be billed as platform exclusive" (My guess: Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment)
They've all realized their full potential on Xbox and PC, so they're going to other consoles. And just because these 4 are coming does NOT mean that more are coming in the future.
It's so strange that they're putting out a long video that's mostly damage control when apparently the entire point is to earn more money by broadening their reach to other platforms. It's pretty ridiculous that they didn't even name the four games.
he mentions the industry isnt really growing, and the result is layoffs (he painstakingly points out not just at xbox lol). mentions lisa su saying their will be less amd powered consoles in 2024. then says there focus is not on getting more revenue from existing users but growing the industry (nice to say, but we've heard that before)
If the summaries in this thread are all, then Phil/Microsoft screwed up the message here. This is still way too vague. Did they not directly adress the "Xbox leaves the console-business" rumors?
Also a Xbox-handheld ist dumb. I mean, either it's a really limited XBox-only handheld at which point I can't see many people have an interest in it. Or it'S basically a Microsoft-built SteamDeck-alternative. Which makes me wonder why MS wouldn't work together with Valve. Well, maybe they really don't want near any Linux-device.
Oh man, it'd be hilarious if MS entered the handheld-business after Sony decided to leave it.
he mentions the industry isnt really growing, and the result is layoffs (he painstakingly points out not just at xbox lol). mentions lisa su saying their will be less amd powered consoles in 2024. then says there focus is not on getting more revenue from existing users but growing the industry (nice to say, but we've heard that before)
Bro also said they had their own hard decisions to make about building a sustainable business for themselves. Just make a variety of good games, man. A few can be big but more can be smaller. They just have to be good.
You mentioned that Starfield and Indiana Jones aren't part of the four despite rumors, but will those ever come to PS5? Can you rule that out?
I don't think we should as an industry ever rule out a game going to any other platform. We're focused on these four games and learning from the experience.
But I don't want to create a false expectation on those other platforms that this is somehow the first four to get over the dam and then the dam's going to open and that everything else is coming, that's not the plan today. I also don't want to mislead customers on those other platforms. We're launching these four games, and we're excited about it. We're excited about the announce and everything else, but we'll see what happens for our business.
Large technical leap for next generation? what? 8k 120fps /s
What do you plan to upgrade for "large" ?
You're having a hard time making games that challenge Xbox Series X (unless it's have zero optimization)
If the summaries in this thread are all, then Phil/Microsoft screwed up the message here. This is still way too vague. Did they not directly adress the "Xbox leaves the console-business" rumors?
I mean, that's definitely not happening what else do you need? Almost nothing changes in fact. But they specifically mentioned, again, that they're doing next gen hardware.
Anyways good write up from the verge on the very miniscule hardware tidbits
"We've got more to come. There's some exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we're going to share this holiday. We're also invested in the next-generation roadmap. What we're really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation, which makes it better for players and better for creators and the visions that they're building."
I think here they mean integrating cloud and AI specifically. Exciting stuff, but we'll have to see what it ends up looking like in practice.
There have been persistent rumors of an Xbox handheld, and Spencer has been liking posts on X that mention the possibility of this hardware. "I'm a big fan of handhelds," says Spencer. "I'm a big fan, but nothing to announce." He does admit that there's still a lot of work to do on the Windows side for handheld gaming PCs. "One of the weak points in the experience on a ROG or the Lenovo [Legion Go] is Windows," says Spencer. "How Windows works on controller input only on that kind of DPI, on a smaller eight- or seven-inch screen. That's a real design point that our platform team is working with Windows to make sure that the experience is even better."
I've been thinking the time is right for Sony/MX to revisit a dedicated handheld. There isn't much there to this statement though. And on windows, they are really lagging. Steam Deck has gained a niche precisely because Windows doesnt have a decent handheld or tablet mode and despite all MS resources, the fact they've made zero progress in that direction is very damming imo. They love to talk but seem incapable of doing much about that.
There was some discussion of whether the 34 mil gamepass number included Core (xbl gold), but there were comments from Sarah Bond mentioning 34 million people being able to play Diablo 4 soon so probably not unless they're bringing D4 to the core tier.
In a certain sense, it was. The problem is that diminishing returns is in extreme effect here. And that's why the industry will likely need to re-evaluate the hardware business sooner rather than later.
There was some discussion of whether the 34 mil gamepass number included Core (xbl gold), but there were comments from Sarah Bond mentioning 34 million people being able to play Diablo 4 soon so probably not unless they're bringing D4 to the core tier.
In a certain sense, it was. The problem is that diminishing returns is in extreme effect here. And that's why the industry will likely need to re-evaluate the hardware business sooner rather than later.
That’s why that line stood out to me. They barely did anything with this generation and they’re bragging about technical advancements for the next. Especially with how the Series flatlined.
Series X was pretty ambitious hardware and arguably more powerful than PS5 (even if we havent seen it a lot, a bit more lately on ue5 games etc).
I think the X in particular was great hardware that delivers huge value at the price point. A 8 core 16 thread (!) Zen CPU, SSD, and 12 TF GPU. You couldn't buy an equivalent Pc anywhere near $500 at launch (may still not be able to three yrs in, of course, we know theyre subsidizing it). "biggest graphical leap" is undefinable anyway, but do you have a link to that statement?
The SSD revolution alone paid off any lofty claims about this gen IMO. Of course it was a product of the times and not a revolutionary engineering feat.
If the summaries in this thread are all, then Phil/Microsoft screwed up the message here. This is still way too vague. Did they not directly adress the "Xbox leaves the console-business" rumors?
I mean, that's definitely not happening what else do you need? Almost nothing changes in fact. But they specifically mentioned, again, that they're doing next gen hardware.
Anyways good write up from the verge on the very miniscule hardware tidbits
"We've got more to come. There's some exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we're going to share this holiday. We're also invested in the next-generation roadmap. What we're really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation, which makes it better for players and better for creators and the visions that they're building."
I think here they mean integrating cloud and AI specifically. Exciting stuff, but we'll have to see what it ends up looking like in practice.
"exciting stuff comin out in hardware" "sharing this holiday" has to be the adorable all digital right? Way too early/doesnt make sense to unveil next gen.
If PS5 Pro is still coming out (I'm unconvinced) that will certainly nip it though, to already start talking about a much much more powerful next gen console, why would anyone invest in PS5 Pro?
There have been persistent rumors of an Xbox handheld, and Spencer has been liking posts on X that mention the possibility of this hardware. "I'm a big fan of handhelds," says Spencer. "I'm a big fan, but nothing to announce." He does admit that there's still a lot of work to do on the Windows side for handheld gaming PCs. "One of the weak points in the experience on a ROG or the Lenovo [Legion Go] is Windows," says Spencer. "How Windows works on controller input only on that kind of DPI, on a smaller eight- or seven-inch screen. That's a real design point that our platform team is working with Windows to make sure that the experience is even better."
I've been thinking the time is right for Sony/MX to revisit a dedicated handheld. There isn't much there to this statement though. And on windows, they are really lagging. Steam Deck has gained a niche precisely because Windows doesnt have a decent handheld or tablet mode and despite all MS resources, the fact they've made zero progress in that direction is very damming imo. They love to talk but seem incapable of doing much about that.
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