Crazy how so many issues in the industry stem from "overinvestment". Now, time to take a big sip of water and see what all those people who made such a strategic blunder, clearly in other jobs, are doing now...
@bigsocrates: I'm not disputing any of that, but this was such a weird setup and delayed timing for the content of what they discussed. It also doesn't really change much, as people seem to have made up their minds about what Xbox is actually planning and will probably come away thinking anything that contradicts that in the podcast was a lie from Xbox leadership. This could have easily been a screenshot of a Notes app from Phil Spencer's phone like a week and a half ago.
I guess the funniest part is how they dropped the info that Diablo IV is coming to Game Pass in March. Thanks, I guess?
Well I don't know what anyone was expecting from today's Xbox podcast, but it sure seems like this whole kerfluffle was for nothing. They announced that 4 unnamed games will come to other platforms (but not Starfield or Indiana Jones), and everything else seemed like vague assurances you can still buy hardware. Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of any of this. It doesn't seem like anything of substance came out of this, but there sure was a lot of online panic. What isn't clear is whether Xbox is being oblivious to that panic, or if they just felt that it didn't reflect the majority of their audience. Certainly doesn't feel like anything was shared that's worth delaying a Nintendo Direct over.
I dunno, what do you all make of this? It didn't seem like it was substantial enough to be labeled a "business update" to me.
@bigsocrates: I agree with all your points. I enjoyed my first half hour a lot, but I found my interest waning pretty strongly after that point. I was hoping things would get more interesting after the first boss, but it was more of the same. The roguelite elements really did it a disservice here, as others have pointed out.
On the humor, I can't put my finger on it but it felt a very mid-2010s style of dated. Nothing offensive or groan-worthy, but I rolled my eyes at pretty much every line.
Good for them. Unions aren't perfect and won't "solve" layoffs, but it's the best option available. If nothing else, this will slow the gutting of the games journalism industry and allow anyone who is laid off more room to breathe than anyone gives them now.
@bigsocrates: I think your point about the shrinking marginal benefit of new console upgrades is a good one. This is probably a tangent, but I wonder how closely previous graphical upgrades followed TV tech getting dramatically better for a couple of decades. I remember the first time I plugged a 360 into an HDTV, and it felt like the next gen was the first to really take advantage of it. There's some benefit to 4K (not enough to seek one out for most people), but 8K really feels unnecessary. Puts a lot more pressure on the console design to do something more, and I don't think Sony or Microsoft have really delivered on that front.
Strategy-wise, I truly don't give a shit what the richest company in the world does, particularly after they decided they absolutely needed to lay off nearly 2,000 people. I know there are concerns based on hypothetical scenarios (PS has a virtual monopoly being the one I've seen people wring hands over), but the discourse around it is so polluted that I'm fairly disengaged with that aspect. A lot of it probably stems from the hardware being an expensive investment and the fear of losing access to a digital library built up over decades. It's understandable but litigated to death online.
Personally, I feel like top of the line consoles are becoming more inessential by the year, at least within my social and work circles. Most of my friends have fully abandoned the console space, and those that haven't are mostly Switch owners. Anytime I encounter someone who likes video games at work, it's almost always mobile or Switch as the preferred platform. The sales numbers seem good for the consoles, but it also clearly feels like they exploit the most hardcore userbase. I find my own reasons to have a PS5 or Series X are fully inertia-based, as I don't care about most of the AAA properties either company produces (God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn have been gathering cobwebs in my Steam library for years now). If the Xbox released no hardware at all for the next gen, it would probably have minimal impact in my gaming life.
All that being said, if they invest in a multiplatform strategy and don't dramatically rehaul the Xbox PC app, they're fully deranged. You can see how Epic Games Store has fared with a miserable UX.
First, sorry to hear you're still feeling this way. My instinct is usually to attempt to offer encouragement or advice, but I don't think they'd be useful here. I hope you either find something that does reignite your passion (which it sounds like the two games you listed have done, to a minor degree) or find something different that gives the good brain zaps.
I think the biggest change in this way for me has been that I almost never replay older games anymore. I used to get really excited to start a new game of a single-digit Final Fantasy on a Friday night, or begin a new run of the original Mass Effect trilogy, or even attempt to beat the entire campaign of an older Heroes of Might and Magic game. Most of the reason I dropped this habit was having kids, but I tried to break into both FF8 and Chrono Cross again last year, figuring they were pretty benign things to play when the kids were calm. I lost interest in both fairly quickly, despite calling them two of my all-time favorites. I think I'm at peace with that; I've milked just about every experience I could out of both, and there are so many other things to do nowadays.
Music has also evolved for me, although it's mostly that every place I used to get my recommendations from has closed up shop or changed how they cover things. Maybe for the latter, they felt the same way you described, and the old way of coverage was getting depressing for them.
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