Geoff Keighley gives his thoughts on PS5 + XsX

There is a difference between strategy and things not being ready. But I do agree that Xbox needs to show games running on their system. They needed to do that a month ago at the latest. Crazy they still haven’t. It’s out in potentially just over two months time. I’m not really sure what their thinking is in not showing off next gen gameplay running on their hardware.

Great response here Tavish.

Agreed 100% on all points here. Frankly speaking here I think a lot of people out there will judge Xbox on its output this last generation and rightly so to be fair to them. XGS needs to establish itself as an industry leader critically speaking, which it looks like it’s already doing with Flight Simulator, Wasteland 3 etc.

The gears are already churning for the studios and I feel like once we have games like Avowed, Everwild and Halo in the wild the narrative will shift very quickly especially with these being available on Game Pass. They have an industry changing business model here, and the genres XGS are poised to shine in (ie ALL OF THEM!) I feel like the competition will be playing catchup in the coming years.

I mean, yes Sony does cinematic action very, very well. But where is their strategy series? WRPG? FPS? A question I’m positive will be asked once these new titles start rolling out. I don’t think the Netflix vs Hollywood analogy is appropriate here as there are just too many genres and it undersells these other areas. And Yes I’m almost certain XGS will start pumping out critical ‘cinematic’ darlings too by virtue of Initiative and other teams. Netflix wouldn’t be where is now is without top rated shows and movies on there.

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its the marvel movies effect. alot of them are ok to good but the few awesome sauce ones theyve had in the slate gereate all the hype and provide movie goers with brand loyalty to purchase tickets. the thing is even if you compare that philosophy with a netflix binge what you want they arent exactly competing per say. They both make a bunch of money for their companies doing completely different things in the same space.

the games industry isnt as niche as it was in the 90s where compaines were fighting for a really closed off pie, all 3 big 1st parties are doing completely different things and succeeding in doing so

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I dislike this dude so I don’t really care what he has to say. Neither company has showed anything remarkable, yet he goes out his way to diss the Xbox and claim the PS5 will sell more. He also seems to dislike gamepass. I wish the industry would find another host because he sucks.

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I’m just here to wonder how one could legitimately believe Hollywood is synonymous with quality? Lmaoooooo

Big blockbusters pushing the medium of movies and television is a false paradigm.

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I believe this is MS strategy. But whats even more impressive that this is just one of the many strategies that Xbox is investing in.

Comparing PS5 to Hollywood is in good taste and tells what Sony wants to do, but comparing gamepass to Netflix is just half of the picture and there is more to the Xbox.

The biggest difference is that unlike Netflix, you can own the games on Xbox.

Xbox first party games quality are always questionable when compared to PS first party games.

The xbox vs PS games situation is almost similar to Marvel vs DC movies in Hollywood.

So here what i think :

Xbox is DC and Netflix of gaming industry and Sony is Marvel. It basically explain the stature, quality, market share, buisness strategy and user base of both the platforms.

Just like it’s hard for DC to come above Marvel movies because of the movies in this decade, it will be hard for Xbox to come above PS. But still, DC movies are great and so does Xbox games.

Gamepass comes in to capture an entire different market. Just like Netflix doesn’t go up against Box office or traditional cable TV services to offer media content, Xbox via gamepass is not going up against PS’s traditional games offering.

This is good for consumers(atleast for me). Now it all depends on economy and first preference of the consumers. Either they want to spend money on Box office movies or there cable TV subscription services, it’s there choice. They may choose both or maybe go with stadia for a change(lol)

Idk, Xbox release 3 first party 90+ AAA this gen (FS2020, FH3/4), Sony release 4 (U4, GOW, Bloodborne, TLOU2).

How the “great Hollywood of video game” deliver only one more 90+ AAA than Netflix ? It make no sense. I like Geoff Keighley but I think he just prefer Playstation and can’t be objective. With 5 studios, Xbox deliver 3 90+ AAA, with 14 studios, Sony deliver 4 90+ AAA. Now Xbox have 15 studios, they can deliver more 90+ than Sony and I think they will.

Gamepass need system seller more than PS5.

Be interested in Geoff’s thoughts in a few years after Fable, Avowed, Perfect Dark, Hellblade etc etc…

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I usually give Geoff the benefit of the doubt but… Dude…

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Doritos King is still as clueless as ever and still trying to be the cool guy of gaming. Next!

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I think Keighley is being fair here, but is forgetting one critical thing: Sony had the same strategy this generation.

First off, MS simply hasn’t demonstrated that the XSX is more powerful. DX12U will change games drastically, much like how the 360 had hardware shader support which changed visuals across console and PC. DX12U with its ML, RT, texture sampling, etc will have the same industry changing effect.

But no 3rd party is going to make a game designed ground-up taking full advantage of those features because few PC gamers own DX12U capable cards, and right now there are 0 XSX units sold.

In 2 years I imagine will be a different story. MS’s XSX only titles and 3rd party titles should look incredible. As such, it was MS’s responsibility to do this and they actively decided not to for likely the same reasons 3rd parties aren’t making ground-up DX12U games (had Halo Infinite been next gen only, only a relative few PCs could run it).

Sony did something smart, they took a previous gen game and all its same assets (all the buildings, cars, characters, audio, physics, etc) and added next gen gloss and created a short game (even shorter than their DLC for Spiderman) in the form of Miles Morales. This was genius.

Sony knew that no 3rd party would take advantage of the SSD and made a tech showcase game themselves in Ratchet and Clank (a game that is a solid franchise even without this tech). MS decided not to have a technical showcase title focused on its advantages.

All that said, the PS4 relied a ton on Indie developers and 3rd parties at the PS4’s launch. MS invested in having titles ready at launch and within the launch window. Dead Rising, Killer Instinct and Forza being heavy hitters, and Ryse being a technical showcase. Killzone was a great technical showcase for Sony. Sony then relied on a TLOU remake as their most premiere title the next year. Up until then what helped Sony was that every 3rd party game ran better on the PS4.

Xbox had continued with Sunset Overdrive, Forza 2 and Halo MCC in 2014. It wasn’t until 2015 when Bloodborne came out where the dominos started to fall for Sony. Even then it’s Winter 2015 wasn’t at the level we see now. That E3 they used Shen Mue 3, FF7 Remake, and The Last Guardian to build excitement for 2016 and the years after. They really hit the ground running in 2016. 3 years after launch. In those 3 years MS has the better 1st party output, but great indie games and better running 3rd party games, and a cheaper cost made the PS4 the must own console.

I expect the same with the XSX. We’ll have 1 or 2 AAA games each year, but in 3 years I expect 3-4 system sellers from these studios on a yearly basis. Sony has a stable of devs firing on all cylinders where I expect 3-4 system selling games from now and more onwards as it sounds like they’re buying some big 3rd party exclusives to be full exclusives. I’m not sure if better 3rd party titles can help the Xbox in this case because of the levels of hype Sony exclusives get.

But what’s lost in all this is how other factors not related to games made a significant difference. The PS4 was $100 cheaper than the X1 for years. The X1 featured anti-consumer policies. The X1 struggled hitting 1080p for the great majority of games.

This time around, MS is going to feature wide support for BC on day 1, a catalogue of enhanced AAA X1 games ready on day 1, the ability for a PlayStation owner to buy an XSX and access 270+ games on day 1 for $1 through Gamepass. If the console and controllers end up being cheaper, it’s these factors that can get people taking the XSX seriously.

Price is the x factor because (and this may deserve its own thread) right now $499-599 might seem within our means but in exactly 3 months if the future economy still looks bleak that might change. $1 Gamepass sub to take me through Christmas with 270+ games and 10 of them being next gen games could be bigger than we think.

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I wonder what will be the narrative when XGS start to drop their big games (Fablle, Hellblade, Avowed, Initiative project, etc). I’m not saying I disagree with him, however I would like to see what he used to say, back in the day, about power differences on PS4/XB1.

Plus, XGS is in a row lately, dropping games consistently with good to great reviews. Not every game needs to cinematic. Yes, Sony does a great job on cinematic games, however, we don’t see anything else from their studios. XGS lineup is by far more diverse then Sony offerings.

Not saying XGS games are perfect, but it deserves some praise for what is doing now, but I only see (along these midia guys) complains about where are Hollywood titles on Xbox.

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He’s totally right. Right now, they’re going for a quantity vs quality approach. I don’t see that changing either.

If those games are even any good. MS has a weird sense of what a good game is. They released Crackdown 3, knowing how mediocre to awful it was. And it was in development for years.

It’s strange…

They’re going for quantity and Sony for quality… But this year, MS release two 90+ and Sony one.

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There was a period of time, last generation, when Sony had no real 1st party content to leverage their power advantage over the X1. At that time, they did a heavy push to showcase their 3rd Party, multiplat advantage. CoD, Destiny, RDR - all had some sort of marketing deal and exclusionary exclusivity to tide them over until they hit their stride with 1st Party content. I know XSX wanted to launch with Halo, but emulating Sony here isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And GamePass accentuates that push.

For years the commentary is that “Xbox has no games”, now the issue is that “Xbox has too many games”? There’s rumors out there of some huge 3rd Party GamePass announcements brewing. Who’s to say it’s not part of using GamePass to buy time until the 1st Party content comes out?

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Xbox Studios have already dropped ALOT of high quality games this year

Ori, Wasteland 3, Grounded, Minecraft Dungeons, Flight simulator, Grounded (Preview), Gears Tactics, BattleToads, Tell me Why (Coming soon)

That is ALOT of high quality games this year and not just Gamepass fodder. The only reason this is ignored is because these are not 3rd person over the shoulder walking sims that currently serve as award bait and seem to be the only genre the media focuses on.

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Precisely.

And the “Game Pass fodder” babbling is just one more narrative.

Crackdown could be better? Yes. MP was a huge let down? Yes. But is it an awful game? No it is not imo, I had fun playing the campaign, it is what crackdown was supposed to be, a mindless fun game. But it is one game among several other that XGS published. Look, I’m not being apologetic for Crackdown (defo believe it belongs to 7 to 7.5 range), however I didn’t find it awful.

However, XGS has a few games over 90s recently as well, such as FH4, Ori and FS. It would be interesting if we had an average scores comparison between Sony and XGS games (if that matters so much?). My guess is the difference is no where near as big as the falacy that was formed on “Xbox doesn’t have first party quality games”.

I also want a AAA cinematic experience other than Gears of War on Xbox (but, it is only one genre imo), however I wont neglect the variety and quality XGS is offering now. Other than that, there is a big possibility that XGS turns into a game powerhouse soon, due to the acquisions, the stupid amount of IPs they have and, judging the last few releases and the consistency of them, I think the future is bright. That’s said, I don’t think the whole thing is as dramatic as some ppl paints. That’s just me tho.

And let’s be fair here, none of the new systems showed so far what their HW can do. Hell, have we not even maxed out the one X, I would guess.

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Unsurprised by his sentiment but it’s Keighley so I expect that bias. There’s a whole discussion to be had about how he is regularly used as a marketing tool or ingratiates himself with whoever is on top for access to content, and at the same time pretends to have journalistic integrity clinging to his Final Hours docs. Fact is the guy is nearly hostile to brands he sees as uncool for his viewership. It’s all the small digs too like Netflix vs Hollywood as if Hollywood is just better or something, it always comes backs to comparisons to the film industry. Games are a hell of a lot more than shiny visuals but to him that’s the bar and currently only Sony has the shiniest photo mode. I think it’s a mistake to trust him with fair coverage if you aren’t the market leader or aren’t Sony, or Kojima dear lord the cringe from that saga…

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