We know absolutely nothing of the sort. We don’t know they are having any further series X showcases or showcases of any kind. We know they intend to announce the Series S and will have to announce price at some point. But the Xbox insiders don’t seem to be forecasting an event with gameplay - they don’t even seem to be forecasting an event…
Yes we do. Phil Spencer has said it was coming in August, and a ton of industry insiders have confirmed that that event has been moved to September. We might not have an official announcement yet, but we all know it’s literally 100% coming.
I believe Phil Spencer said we have more to share on that in August…that’s not confirming an event. They’ve done an OS blow out - something that was rumoured to be in the August event already via wire. So I’m far, far from convinced they have a glitzy event with gameplay and proper console stuff planned. I hope I’m wrong but reading the tweets from likes of Jez and Klob they don’t seem to be saying ‘don’t worry gameplay is coming’ - quite the opposite.
I’m with you.
It’s likely that they were planning a more traditional roll-out and COVID screwed it up. Both consoles have had an odd lead up but Sony showing gameplay footage that actually looked pretty good yesterday has seemed to get people riled up. There’s a bit of a double standard. PS4 had no games but the narrative was it was more powerful and cheaper. It looks like XSX will launch with a comparable lineup to PS4 but it will be more powerful in this generation. If the system is cheaper, they need to get that out there before the snowball effect takes over and exclusive games becomes the new narrative.
What we are seeing is closer to Nintendo’s reveal of the Switch which was announced just four months before it was launched. Similar to XSX, the killer app was on a previous generation console. Sadly for Microsoft they don’t have a killer app to sell the system now. They messed up by having nothing at launch. They are solely relying on third party and timed exclusives now and that’s going to be the narrative. Sony has an unfair advantage because the loudest voice in gaming CLEARLY likes them more in Geoff Keighly. He doesn’t even attempt to hide it.
Aaron Greenberg has done an awful job with communications and often when he speaks, he ends up putting his foot in his mouth. They have a whole crew set up for Inside Xbox and they don’t even use it. Jeff Rubenstein, Julia Hardy and Rukari Austin are all very likeable but they don’t ever get to shine. Inside Xbox needs to have real reveals in the future and they need to make them shorter and more frequent.
They should have held on to some of these August releases until launch. Tell Me Why and Battletoads would have been great smaller titles to launch with. Flight Sim and Age of Empires should have been ready for launch on XSX. There was a quote at one point saying all exclusives will make their way to Xbox, they can’t just do a take back on that. Well they can, but people will remember.
I have a gut feeling based on absolutely nothing other than a feeling that all is not quite well with Xbox. Whether that is purely down to Covid or internal stuff or otherwise. I hope they prove me wrong and come out swinging. I honestly do. I will buy a series X at launch but I can’t remember ever being less excited for a console than this.
Ms positioned their ecosystem to be similar to pc. So they don’t need to force new software to align with the console launch.
It’s why we saw a huge amount of releases leading up to SX and why they are OK to delay games that didn’t make it to launch.
Games are games and they all play best on SX. That’s how they are positioning themselves. And yeah eventually the cross gen period will be over but by then there will be Xcloud integrated to the system in a way that S and X will automatically play the cloud version if they are unable to run locally, so their motto will still be valid.
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??? We have snippets of Gears 5 and Minecraft rtx which altogether is less than what was shown of Ratchet
They’re blurring the lines between consoles and PC. That means they have the best backwards compatibility program in the console market. All games, first or third party, will play the best on the SX. The Series X will give much better performance for significantly less money than a PC with similar specs. That alone is a compelling reason to buy.
We’re still living with the decisions of past management. Not just from Mattrick, but from people like Terry Myerson that didn’t give Xbox the resources they needed to be successful and make games. The process of creating exciting new games didn’t really begin until 2018 when Xbox began adding outside studios. We’re barely 2 years into that and new games don’t appear overnight. Halo will be coming within the first 6 months of 2021 and I wouldn’t be surprised if Forza makes it out in late 2021.
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Can you point to those games? Halo I finite was shown and delayed, and we got the medium. And even that wasn’t on series x.
Halo Infinite might still release in the loosely defined ‘launch window’ period. So it’s Halo vs Ratchet and Clank in that scenario. That’s less of a competition and more of a slaughter in terms of popularity. Halo is the bigger title, I’m surprised how many people think Rachet and Clank is in the same league.
Halo Infinite looks more and more like a year delay at best…
Well, there’s Horizon in the launch window as well right? The game is confirmed for 2021, don’t know how late into 2021 it is though, but it’s as ambiguous as Halo’s release date, which has good chance to go into Q4 as well.
I’m not sure how’s that relevant to my question 
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What do want to know OP?, they have done 2 game events, so we have an idea of whats coming we just need firm dates, which neither company has given. They have also done detailed hardware + feature breakdowns (more than sony in some areas).
So OP is spreading misinformation by saying ms have not done things when they actually have.
Halo had footage shown as did Ratchet and Clank. Based on both of the footage of those games I am willing to bet my house that Halo will be a bigger success. It’s just a Rachet and Clank game at the end of day.
TL;DR Why Xbox releases 2020. Because a new console (generation) is just a hardware update going forward. The artificial barrier between generations is a thing of the past at least for the Xbox ecosystem.
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Just talked about it on Twitter. Will repeat it here:
The simple reason is:
In this day and age the hard break between console generations isn’t anymore. You just getting better hardware to play your games catalog. At least this is valid for the Xbox ecosystem going forward. The “next gen” games will arrive, I never expected them ready for launch anyway!
Furthermore gamers always say: “release it, when it is done”, but complain if developers are executing exactly on those principles.
It is more a problem of gamers getting inpatient in the midst of a pandemic. People underestimate the need of close collaboration in game development. Using cloud/online methods can’t cover all required tasks to get games done
Why should a developer produce gameplay demos if the game is not done yet and not ready for the showtime. The level of expectation of some communities are insane, imo.
My 2 cents
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What are the launch titles? What do they look like on the system? What features do they support?
Right now, every company is struggling between the safety of their employees and meeting the demand of their customers. It’s not an easy task to launch a product in a global pandemic.
That said, I’m more concerned by the messaging of Playstation. Their console design is bizarre to say the least and the machine looks massive. And they seemed to keep their cards close to their chest until the last minute for some reasons. If they were confident in their product, I think they would have ignored Xbox and already announced the price.
It’s a matter of perspective.
I’m pretty sure Xbox Series X price is already settled between 500 and 600. But they are waiting for Playstation to be first no matter what. It’s so silly.
And honestly, I was there at Xbox One launch and I was excited, but I couldn’t deny that Xbox was kind of letting me down. Here, it’s the opposite scenario. They have the best console on the market, not doubt about it. And they will have the games, just not right on time, but they are coming.
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It’s hard to understand what MS is doing if your head is still stuck in the old paradigm of console warz mode of thought. I think most ppl are still thinking this way, fwiw.
MS will be marketing XSX as something you buy for $35/mo bundled with Gold and GP and EA Play and xCloud, or XSS for $25/mo with same bundled setup (guessing on exact prices obv). I bet that is the primary method they push for buying the console, and treating the full on purchase as the optional secondary method. It will be framed like cell phone purchases. When it comes to messaging everyone will ‘get it’. It genuinely only seems strange if you are trying to force their moves to fit into how things have worked in the past.
Their marketing challenge, once it actually gets started properly (which it hasn’t yet), will be in snapping consumer mindsets out of the old way of selling a platform and redirecting them towards the cell phone model.
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I agree with a lot of this. Sony is delaying their price announcement likely because they know MS is going to counter punch by throwing Xbox All Access in their face and they do not have anything to compete with that directly. Console+Gold+GP+EA Play (probably)+xCloud for no money out of pocket is an insane offer. If that becomes the primary push from MS marketing, Sony is in a rly tight spot for the value proposition argument.
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