The Big ol' Xbox 3rd Party Releases Discussion Thread (HiFi, SoT, Pentiment, Grounded) (Part 1)

Gaming
6013

The time is almost here. A new week is about to begin. Who knows when Xbox holds the business event. Whatever it is, it’s one of if not the most crucial moment of its company. Quite honestly, I’m only basing off of the hysteria that the social media has caused. While yes, Xbox should have said something to end the commotion, this is their decision. So what is there to expect?

I don’t think I have ever experience business event from gaming until very soon. I honestly don’t know what to expect. Is there going to be a video to explain? Is it’s a simple blog post? For that matter, why call it business event and is it really towards us? The way Phil responded to us in social media sounded like something for us to look out as well; insinuating this is something us core base really needs to focus. Again, why call it business event?

What will be covered at the business event? If it simply about the whole rumor, would it be best to say it and leave a simple blog post? Rumor has it the event was discussed back in summer but cancelled it only to bring it back? It is possible that it will be more than addressing the rumor.

The only question I do have if the rumor is true, will they explain the reason why. Will they give the current consumer something to compensate? The post over X sounds like he gets it, so what’s in it for us? I understand someone here would say they won’t have to address it, but if it’s business event, wouldn’t business speaking address on the reason? For that matter, to lessen the damage, it would be best to address the why, even if it’s a bad one.

If there’s anything i learned over the week is it’s no different from 2016 election where many true color was shown. Sure, it can be excused as meltdown, but as some would say, drunk doesn’t make you different, it exposes you. In any case, lots of twists and turns have happened.

Wherever the road takes us, I won’t blame you if you decide to change course. I’m still here and continue to do what I like. I’m still glad to be part of here, good and bad times.

6014

We don’t even have a date for this either!

6015

I hope Microsoft is a fan of Chiefs.

1 Like
6016

The whole topic about Xbox console sales is a bit convoluted.

I’ve been told many times (in different forums etc…) that the reason Sony doesn’t put its games on PC day one is to protect its console business. And to that I agree and would never argue that point. Specially when it’s obvious it works.

Now, that very principal and logic also applies to Xbox. So what we’re seeing here is that while Microsoft putting its games on PC day one is seen as a good thing it is quite obvious that it has impacted its console sales.

So is it really that surprising that the company that puts its games on PC day one sells less consoles than the company that doesn’t? Add to that the fact that you can play Xbox games via XCloud (Game Pass Ultimate) without needing neither a console or PC and you have further reasoning as to why Xbox consoles don’t sell better.

So for Microsoft to look at console sales (or lack thereof) as a reason for going multiplatform is quite baffling. Specially when it was your own policies that have stunted your own console sales. You really can’t have it both ways.

8 Likes
6017

Has it though, Series X is 2m behind the XB1 roughly and the shortages at the start of the gen probably didn’t help with that. I think all the people who were going to go PC or switched did so already in the XB1 gen. The crossgen game period is also much longer than previous so there’s no need right now for those on XB1 to buy a Series X yet, people are calling it way too early when FIFA, COD and games like Forza Horizon are all still crossgen.

I don’t think you can really start to compare until those mainstream games go current gen only and something like GTA6. I know people love to leave out context and just go dis number smaller den dis number so bad, context around numbers also matters.

1 Like
6018

I think series would be past one if we didnt have all these pockets of bad news. It makes people not trust the brand and just less likly to buy it

1 Like
6019

To be fair the Saturn did great in Japan ( funny enough the Mega Drive wasn’t a huge hit there as it was in the west) and lasted much longer there than it did in the west. One would argue it was a bigger success than the Dreamcast in some ways.

6020

Yes it has. There was a point in time where the Series X|S was actually out selling the 360 within the same time frame and now it’s behind. Sony has done a better job at converting PS4 users to PS5. An Xbox One user can just subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate and play Series X|S games without needing to upgrade.

6021

Helldivers 2 is going to plummet the PS5. What has Sony done!?

6022

I know you’re being sarcastic but let’s be real. Have Sony release all their heavy hitters on PC day and let’s see if it doesn’t start affecting it’s console sales.

Helldivers 2 ain’t it.

6023

The Xbox One was also outselling the 360 for like the first three years and Xbox One sales were always strong in the USA and UK, Xbox One was especially strong here (USA) during the holidays, the Series consoles had an abysmal holiday in 2022 but Idk how they did in 2023, Idk how accurate it is but I think I read they sold the most since 2021 which is good I think, anyway in the USA and UK combined Xbox One had like 38-39 million Xbox sold by the end and I’m just not sure if Series will get even close, it should in theory especially because Xbox should have a ton of exclusives now but consumer interest in the brand legitimately worries me, just doesn’t seem good now, they really some critically acclaimed games and I mean on the level of Zelda and Elden Ring.

I know they had stock issues but I also think they didn’t prepare well for a new generation, Halo Infinite should’ve been S/X exclusive, Gears 5 pushed to 2020 as a S/X exclusive and any other game in that period but the lackluster launch was mostly because they didn’t really start investing in studios until 2018.

6024

I mean they are trying to do just that. Releasing their games a couple years later on PC hasnt been working.

6025

Right because releasing a game two years later just doesn’t have the same impact.

So the overall point is that either:

  • You sell more games by putting them on PC day one (and potentially sacrifice console sales)

Or

  • You sell more consoles because of those exclusives but overall sell less games because they weren’t on PC day one.
6026

Unfortunately, Starfield really was a disappointment compared to the hype levels.

I loved Oblivion and Skyrim, and enjoy Fallout, but Starfield was just… Okay.

It made me realise Bethesda desperately need to modernise - the upgraded graphics in the Creation engine might be pretty but being unable to go in a tiny shop without yet another loading screen is immersion-breaking and a pain in this day and age (when Hogwarts Legacy managed to do their whole world without one and back port it to Xbox One).

The game was as wide as the universe but as deep as a puddle - it frustrated me no end that for every decent quest (the UC Terrormorph storyline for example) there was a side mission like the ECL Constant where all the choices were bad, you had little agency and the chatter from the crew and passengers barely changed.

They still had the Skyrim approach of most NPCs having 3 lines to say, companions often didn’t react to new locations (even if it was where they grew up!) and many missions didn’t have much variety, coming down to a dungeon underground that you had to fight your way through to the bad guy.

If it had been released in 2013 not 2023, I think it may have been considered great (and yes I agree gaming media would have been nicer back then to Xbox too).

Instead, I really wanted to love Starfield (and I do love my ship in it), but for me it showed Bethesda are dangerously behind the times, both technology-wise and design/immersion wise…

1 Like
6027

I get 2022 was bad console sale wise but some of y’all make it seem like they’ve sold a total of 10m consoles and they’ve fallen off a total cliff and not selling any. They need to drop the price for sure as it helped a lot during the past few months. The period we’re in now was when Xbox One actually fell off a cliff, but Series consoles gonna have way more content compared to Xbox One and I actually see the reverse that it gets better later on. They haven’t announced their actual console seller game yet being FH6, can we not call it sales wise when we’re like 2-4 years out from the next gen haha.

If you ever thought Series consoles would suddenly turn the 50m ish Xbox One sales into 80m-100m I have a bridge to sell you. With games taking 700 years to make they’d probably be happy with keeping the Xbox One sales while they get all these studios up and running since almost all of them were already working on games before Microsoft bought them.

6028

Hate to use a PlayStation site as a source (but they’ve got a larger reporter base than PureXbox so have the stories quicker) - from Take Two’s financial statement to the market (77 million Gen 9 consoles sold) and Sony trumpeting 50m PS5s sold on December 9th, we can extrapolate that it’s roughly likely to be:

  • 52 million PS5s
  • 25 million Series consoles
6029

I dont get why we still compare number of Xbox consoles sold vs. Playstation consoles sold when Sony business is based on selling consoles and MS isnt.

6 Likes
6030

Goddamn, that’s one of the better sources!

https://x.com/EmbeddedNextGen/status/1756622163598037193?s=20

6 Likes
6031

Damit uncle

2 Likes
6032

Because the number of Xbox consoles sold dictates how big the install base is - which dictates the return-on-investment calculations of third-party publishers when deciding whether to port games to Xbox.

It also makes it much cheaper for Sony to pay for third-party exclusivity (as they only have to cover potential lost sales to a third of the market) than Microsoft (who have to cover potential lost sales to two-thirds) - and Sony sure do make good use of that fact.

In reality though, Sony doesn’t need to pay for exclusivity for many games - too often, the smaller install base of the Xbox is reason enough in itself, as seen by the number of games that skip us…

7 Likes