AV_Gamer

Microsoft is all over the place. They don't know what they want to do. They never recovered from the hit they took with the Xbox One debacle, and they have been slowly sinking ever since. I would compare it to the Titanic, but unlike that tragic event, Microsoft doesn't get my sympathy.

It's funny, because I tried to play Killzone 3, but couldn't. The gameplay was too sluggish for my taste. I never played Killzone 1 or 2, but I watched Lets Plays of them. But I did get and played Killzone Shadowfall when I got my PS4, and I think that game has one of the best single player campaigns in a first-person shooter. But a lot of people act like Shadowfall was not as great as those previous Killzone games, go figure.

And as much as I like the Horizon series and look forward to the final game in the trilogy. I also would love a follow up to Shadowfall.

This is nothing new. Women and people of color have been harassed in online gaming since Xbox Live became a thing decades ago. It got to the point that the whole thing about the bratty white kid spewing racial nonsense has become a meme. But, of course, it's mostly adults doing it. This is why many women and people of color usually don't speak in their mics in a public online game, because as soon as they do, some bigot or creep goes in on them with most people during the session laughing and encouraging it. There have been so-called steps taken to combat this, the problem is, most of these game developers don't enforce their own rules. They claim to have zero tolerance for harassment of any kind, yet rude gamers still come go on their servers, spew a bunch of nonsense and get away with it. And reporting them doesn't work either. Sadly, you have sexist and racist who work for many of these game companies, so they claim to fight bigotry and sexism for PR, but nothing more.

So the sad answer is, it can't be dealt with, because the people who could do something about it, really won't. But they make a PR statement and act like they're doing something to fool people. And many of these online pricks know this.

Here we go! Here we go! Here we go! Steelers! Here we go. Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl! Here we go!

@thepanzini: Glad it worked out for them, but I also noticed how the article ends with Insomiac pretty much saying "whoa we need to slow down some. No major releases anytime soon". Hope 2025 is another good year for them. I can certainly go on another adventure with Rivet and crew.

Yeah, the issue isn't the tech. The tech today is easier than it has ever been for developers to use. The issue is publishers they work for wanting bigger and bolder games to compete in the AAA space, which cost too much money, and the sales after the game is released don't turn a profit. Spider-Man 2 supposedly cost 300 million dollars to make, and despite it already being a big seller, it still hasn't gotten close to making back 300 million dollars. This is why Sony keeps whining about their games, despite them also selling millions. The latest one being Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which I personally got day one, and I'm sure many people here did too. Like someone in this thread already said, the answer might be to scale back, but these major companies are not going to do that. It's like how Elon Musk is losing money with Tesla for all kind of reasons, but he is still pushing the company full speed ahead. The only thing those people know how to do is go forward, and if things good bad, the ordinary people suffer, hence all the layoffs.

Nintendo seemed to have avoided this for the most part. A console with low tech, but with talented artist who still know how to make their first party games look pretty. And a dedicated fanbase who will buy anything Nintendo puts out, even if it's a Pokemon game with PS2 quality graphics. But we'll see what happens with the Switch 2.

The sad reality, is that gaming has become just like any other major institution and all the corruption that it details.

Yeah, we knew Sony was going to go about this whole Helldivers 2 thing in a bitter way after what happened. Instead of the big time guys doing the right thing, they find ways to be petty and screw people another way. And like Gertmann said, they eventually are still going to force a PSN requirement in the future, they are just looking for a more clever way to do it.

Overall, it's looking like gaming has gotten too big and too costly to sustain. And the fact a lot of corpo sharks are now running many aspects of the business, certainly doesn't help. Are we in for another gaming crash like in the early 80s? Maybe not, and this is mainly because of small studios keeping gaming alive through indies. But it's not looking good, and it's only going to get worse.

This is mainly the reasons Nintendo is still doing so well, despite having an underperforming console compared to the rest this generation. They still make excellent first party games you don't get anywhere else. The reason the Xbox360 was so successful for Microsoft, was one, Sony's hubris causing them to make foolish decisions with the PS3, and Microsoft having a great number of exclusives, and more importantly, them being able to keep it up throughout the generation.

The Series X is not outputting enough great games for people to care. In fact, most people who own a Series X/S, say the number one benefit is having access to Microsoft's full library of game thanks to Game Pass. But there is also PC Game Pass, and while you don't get the full Xbox library of games like on the console version, for most people, it's good enough. And now, thanks to these recent studio closings, the benefit of Game Pass is being put into doubt.

Sadly, I predict when Hell Blade 2 comes out, its not going to matter how well it does. It's still going to result in some negative outcome from Microsoft, and I believe at this point, they will slowly begin to go the way of Sega. They may still put out a console, but it will be more like a gaming PC, and none of their games will be exclusives anymore. Yes, Starfield and even Halo, Gears, and so on will become multiplatform.

Jeff Gerstmann and other gaming developers are pretty much echoing what I said in the beginning. The lesson is not to sell your developer studio to a big time publisher if you can help it. Sometimes all money isn't good money. Because like Jeff said, you can do everything right (in the case of Tango and Hi-Fi Rush) and still get screwed in the end. It's sad when everyone is now looking towards Hell Blade 2's release and how long it will take before Microsoft shuts that studio shutdown, regardless of how bad or good the game does.

And yeah, Spencer is going to come on with that "give me a break guys, gaming is hard" expression on his face, and sadly, people will once again give him a pass. It's all starting to get silly.