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Post by Ex on May 8, 2024 11:57:34 GMT -5
Infogrames games I like:
Alone in the Dark Alone in the Dark 2 Jack in the Dark Mandragore North & South Shufflepuck Cafe The Vera Cruz Affair
But the real question is... how much of their original talent is available to the restart?
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Post by Ex on May 9, 2024 9:43:35 GMT -5
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Post by Sarge on May 9, 2024 11:59:03 GMT -5
Good read, and exactly Microsoft's problem - they've put the cart before the horse, as the saying goes. They're trying to skip steps, effectively.
If I were to put it in a film vernacular, it's the Marvel Cinematic Universe versus the DCEU. Marvel did a lot of work leading up to the big tentpole Avengers releases, and culminated in Endgame. They didn't skip steps. DC, on the other hand, basically jumped very quickly to Justice League in an attempt to achieve parity with Marvel in a shortened span. But in doing so, they didn't do the work, didn't build up the characters, and folks just didn't care as much. If they'd done individual films leading up to that big tentpole release, they might have actually done really well, but nope, they were chasing more immediate profits and the whole thing (outside of a few exceptions) crashed and burned.
(Also, the MCU shows how you can be a victim of your own success - they've hit a sort of brick wall in terms of creativity as well as product churn. They're chasing their old numbers instead of doing a proper build again after the Endgame culmination.)
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Post by toei on May 9, 2024 12:01:41 GMT -5
Sarge Maybe the MCU just ran its course, or least, is out of its prime? It dominated mainstream cinema for many years. Anything will lose steam sooner or later.
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Post by Sarge on May 9, 2024 12:12:37 GMT -5
I think they're pretty directionless right now. I get being in a sort of limbo after a huge culmination like Endgame, but I feel like their chase for profits is causing a different issue right now. Folks are still going to see good comic films (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was excellent), but the fact that they've overextended chasing more and more money has diluted the entire product. At least that's my read on it. It would be like Sony or Nintendo stretching out their development studios too far, focusing only on pumping out games as opposed to making those games great. Basically fixating on the profit side and not the quality side - both are tightly integrated, and finding that balance I suppose can be quite tricky. It's not like you can just keep dumping money into a game that's going through dev hell, either, in many cases.
Basically, we need less MCU that is better on an individual basis. Gaming is the same way, in my mind - only so many resources to throw at a problem.
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Post by toei on May 9, 2024 12:32:19 GMT -5
That sounds even truer for MCU than gaming. With gaming you have tons of different genres, so producing a larger number of games rather than focusing on just a handful (Nintendo-style) has its good points (as long as they're not completely rushed) - more variety. But since MCU is all superheroes, it's much more important to put quality over quantity.
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Post by Sarge on May 9, 2024 13:45:03 GMT -5
Definitely. Of course, what's fun about the superhero genre is that it can explore deeper themes than just "biff, wham, pow". Heck, some of the best-written comics have done exactly that.
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Post by Xeogred on May 9, 2024 19:59:43 GMT -5
Also saw a stat going around that Nintendo has a 93% retention rate. Xbox will never have quality games when they're cutting off legs as fast as they do, preventing creators/teams from growing stronger in experience and all that. Cutting out the smaller teams and games does them no good in the long run growing brand recognition and attracting fans of various genres. I'm kind of starting to agree in regard to Halo, it's not quite 343 with blood on their hands, it's Microsoft. It always comes back to Microsoft.
Games Pass is one of the biggest culprits here. This model has absolutely failed and is counter productive to getting money in the pockets of these developers/publishers. It very well could be one of the main things here that's killing studios. Why buy games when you can just play them on some service? The growth is failing and not what MS was hoping for, right on the heels of them spending $70 BILLION on Activision. I don't feel bad for them because these idiots got themselves into this mess.
All eyes should be on Call of Duty right now. If they don't put it on Games Pass, that means Games Pass is a total failure and they aren't willing to lose millions of sales on Call of Duty. If they do put it on Games Pass, their sacrifice won't be sustainable. They checkmated themselves.
Think we're nearing 5,000 layoffs in gaming alone in 2024? Just like Hollywood, I am now 200% convinced that 99% of the execs in this business don't have a damn clue what's going on or what gamers want. I wish normal people saw this 5-10 years ago when I and others were putting up the red flags against all these stupid acquisitions, but now we're seeing it crumble and you can't just spend your way to success. Normal people are finally waking up to the fact that these big publishers aren't their friends.
Xbox needs to fire their entire team around Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, Aaron Greensburg whatever, etc and they need to stop making hardware immediately. Them going third party is the only potentially positive route they can take at this point in my eyes. They have been on a warpath of failures and destruction, pushing others into the fire they created. If they really think the "~five big games" model is the future, then this is the quickest way to that model. Stop burning money on hardware nobody cares about anymore.
Makes me sick to my stomach that id/Doom is now buried in MS's stench for life. You can't really convince me any IP they own right now is "safe", even DOOM.
Starfield flopped. Bethesda is lucky to have Fallout/Elder Scrolls.
Hellblade 2 is going to TANK. I doubt anyone can argue that will sell better than Hi-Fi Rush. Already new reports of the Perfect Dark reboot being "in troubled development" for the last 3 years. Total waste of time and money that's probably getting canned.
Xbox indoctrinated gamers into believing they need to pay for Xbox Live on top of their ISP, now the other hardware manufactures followed suit. That's what Xbox did for the industry. I'm pretty sure if we rewinded time 25 years ago and had an alternate timeline without Xbox... gaming would have been fine, probably in a better state now than it is.
Anyways yeah, I'm fuming over this dread and it felt personal to me. Loved Arkane Lyon's Prey. I also want to point out that Microsoft did a bait and switch once they hired Shinji Mikami and forced him to make something Resident Evil-esque, when it wasn't the pitch when he was being hired on initially. I'm a fan of The Evil Within's, but that's twisted. Even worse though is that Shinji spent "8 extra years" of his life building up Tango and right when they were starting to direct their own games and move on without him, they burned his old house down. That's gotta hurt. I doubt him and a lot of others Japanese devs ever entertain working with MS again.
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Post by Ex on May 9, 2024 21:50:20 GMT -5
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Post by toei on May 10, 2024 9:27:33 GMT -5
Xeogred That ipad ad - at first I was reminded of the whole hydraulic press niche on youtube and how those videos could be somewhat entertaining, but then it started to look fake as hell. "The most powerful Ipad is also the thinnest". Okay? That's the selling point? Ex That talk about the untranslated Phantasy Star Vita game reminds me of some recent-ish Sega ARPGs. I noticed they were working with Media.Vision (formerly of Wild ARMs fame) for a while on some of those - Shining Resonance, that Valkyria Chronicles spin-off. Any thoughts on these? My guess is you're going to say that you own the later for PS4 but haven't tried it yet, but I thought I'd give it a shot.
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