b0r1s wrote:

MS best tack is to come on have Phil whatshisname just open with “We know you want games and we’ve listened. Here’s all the games...” Then shut up for the rest of the pres.

  

Yes 

LivDiv wrote:

Won't happen. I'm expecting a 20 minute section on the history of Halo.

 

More likely

I dont know if its the publishers or if its the developers but for some reason they seem to think that rambling bullshit about the development of the games is what people want along with lots of talking heads, orchestras, story boards, monitors (so many monitors) with people touching up the grey model of master chief or what note.

Imagine if movies took this approach. When Disney wants to get you to the cinema, they show you a banging trailer. Leave the making of stuff for those who want it (I'm not saying it has no value, it just is very much out of place as part of a showcase)

And dear god, the footage better be mostly in game. We've had lovely rendered cut scenes for years now. It's not impressive and usually does not sell the game at all.

Hey man.

Hey Unlikely

Great to have you back unlikely, youv been sorely missed

Good to see you mate. Hope you and yours have been keeping well.

I have not watched anything yet. Not expecting too much either.
Welcome back Unlikely!

New console gen brings all the boys to the yard.

Welcome back chap.

Been a busy day, but just managed to watch the Xbox show. Decent effort I’d say overall.

I can’t say that any particular title grabbed me in a, oh my god I have to play that way, and I was a little unclear about how exclusive those games were? There was also a few games shown where the actual game wasn’t obvious - Everwild and The Gunk spring to mind.

Nevertheless, their comms and strategy were clear - here’s a bunch of games you can play on our subscription service and Series X will be the best way to do that. I can see that being a draw for many people in the Xbox ecosystem and some on the fence, so fair play.

Whether or not that strategy converts people from PlayStation to Xbox is something that remains to be seen. It hasn’t changed my mind at this stage, but then knowing more about the pricing may do that down the line.

The game that XBox has is that it has gamepass. It might be an important part of budgeting.

Hello Frank here. Nothing shown by Sony or Microsoft matches a Quest for fun, plus if you have a decent PC? Then you're gonna have a party. Next Gen, my arse.

I think that article might be close to whats happening. The Microsoft Video was as much about whats on Gamepass as whats coing to Series X. Sure Microsoft will sell you the machine if you want, but if you dont want a high spec monster under the you can have gamepass on windows, on your bone s and now with xcloud coming, whats the odds that gamepass streaming isn't too far from mid to high end tvs? No need for any console, just have the account and stream.

On a side note, I'd really expect the next range of Surfaces to feature at least one model which is optimised for gamepass. Probably not a true gaming beast but the surface 4 was about 360 level graphics. I'm sure there is a bone level gaming machine possible in a surface format at this point.

Going a little further, I wonder will the series X start to be a new outlet for MS office. As some have said, its looking like it will be a great price for a pretty good spec'd gaming pc. Maybe MS will allow light PC work through office apps and a bluetooth keyboard. Not aimed at the office person but aimed at someone who needs a pc from time to time. Put in a proper good browser, a decent OS (I know, I'm reaching there) and why not. It would probably cost them nothing as a test run and if there is an uptake then they have a new angle to sell the machines on. Plus it might provide the userbase to actual get other companies making more and better windows apps.

It’s certainly an interesting strategy from Xbox.

I think the thing I struggle with is the economics of it all, but I’m guessing they are making it work somehow (or at least have a target number of subscribers to hit that will make it work in the future).

If you have 10m subscribers paying a penny short of £11 a month, you have £110m of revenue a month. That’s a decent number, but you also have to either pay for the third-party games to be on the platform, or pay for the development of your own titles to be on there.

Most major titles would aim for between 1-2m in sales, which at £50 a pop, would be roughly equal to £50-100m in revenue - or around 1 month of Gamepass subscriptions at the top end of boxed sales. But what slice of the £11 a month per user are those studios now getting?

How much would a game like Halo Infinite cost to develop? Halo 5 was supposed to be $100m dollars - that’s 1/12 of the Gamepass revenue. Is 1/12 of the revenue from Gamepass going to 343 when the game releases? It can’t, because they’ll be more than 12 other games on the platform developed by Xbox studios (and of course those third-party titles too) that need to be supported.

None of the above implies it can’t work, more I can’t get my head around it at this stage. It’s also possibly a boring topic, but it’s the sort of thing I like to chew over.

Did Halo ever have any kind of recurring purchases this gen?

343 is owned by Microsoft, so nothing goes back to them. That's just internal accounting.

I imagine older games on the service get a lot less, and I read a thing recently that by being on Gamepass it upped the actual sales of a title, so the fee paid to 3rd parties is probably not an equivilent of projected sales.

FranticPea wrote:

I cant see many PS only owners being swayed as there was a shortage of 3rd person action adventure games.

Maybe if they'd shown more of Fable?

Haha. Vvv good. Unfortunately I’m that man who like the third person adventures so I really was a little um at times. Hoping Everwild is that game for me!