Xbox has an expectations problem and it’s self inflicted

In this case people should be fine with CGI at tga :slight_smile:

I don’t agree with you at all on this, sorry. Most of it wasn’t CGI but gameplay the only issues was it wasn’t made clear what Hardware the game was captured from. I didn’t think Halo Looked that bad and many games looked quite brilliant.

And the Xbox does have the most powerful GPU and hopefully, we see that 4 months down the line which it what it took for us to start to see what the 360 could really do. Also, you make it sound so clear cut when it not in some modes the Series X does better and in others the PS5

I think come March we should start to see what the system can do, when asked

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I always say that awesome Sony press conference where they had The Last Guardian, Shenmue 3 and Final Fantasy 7 remake has forever set gamers expectations way too high for gaming press conferences. Not everything can and will be a big blow out like that. That was a once in a generation kind of a conference where all the stars aligned.

Well back then CGI was apparently ok I guess

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It’s quite funny a presentation of game logos and a Kickstarter campaign gets the perception of an “awesome press conference“, but when Xbox announces a new Fable, the next big RPG by Obsidian or State of Decay 3 via actual pre-rendered trailers, it’s suddenly the end of the world.

Double standards.

The July Xbox Games Showcase had some crazy game announcements and we’ll look back at it in 2 - 3 years as the show that started it all early and I’ll die on that hill.

While maybe it wasn’t the show people expected at that time (“we want gameplay running on my new Xbox”), the actual game announcements they packed into one show were pretty amazing.

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Too bad there’s a single like I can give to this post.

I heartedly agree. I was coming out of the show completely floored by the amount of announcements just to find the whole internet disappointed that there was no gameplay which never has been a problem at other conferences.

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Exactly! The double standards and shifting goallposts is so annoying. Sony can show a remote control and that is suddenly on the level of Half Life 3.

The July Showcase was awesome, so many BIG games was revealed and even the production/format was great.

When I went online after watching it, I have never felt so disconnected from the narrative as I did then…

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Yep! Sony reveals a lot of games 3-4 years before launch with CGI trailers or titles. God of War 2 is the latest example, just a title.

Nintendo does it as well, Metroid Prime 4, Smash Ultimate, BotW2, etc.

But when it’s Xbox, it’s bad. When we point out the double standard, it moves to “yeah but people care about the Sony/Nintendo IPs, not Xbox”. Meh…

Thing is in retrospect that thing was a bunch of empty promises and serious let downs. Very typical of Sony’s blow out E3’s, over promise, under deliver, ride the hype, rinse and repeat.

No one ever goes back to call them out on it either

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OP tells us to check fanboyism out of the door,

Then proceeds to say that the Series X being the most powerful console is not true…

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I agree and two of those three games ended up being either hated or receiving a mixed reaction. I was mostly referring to the conference in the moment, not in retrospect. It’s aged poorly but at the time was exciting.

It was but FF7 also was just a CGI trailer. So was Fable.

3 games that I couldn’t care less about and will never, ever ever play.

So I think the generalisation that it set the bar for gamers applies to an incredibly narrow, tiny minority online.

For majority of gamers seeing some new cool minecraft thing is far better than those games.

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There is a lot of truth there. As an E3 show I think it would have gone down brilliantly. But Covid and it being a summer of online presentations meant it became a de facto ‘next gen showcase’ and in reality that isn’t what it was.

In hindsight Xbox made some errors leading into it not the least Phil Spencer’s line in the interview ‘We’ve seen what Sony have and I’m very confident that the fidelity of our first party will be better’ or words to that effect…then a few weeks later showing only really Halo and even that not running on console…but the show as an E3 games conf was top top tier.

I completely agree I think the problem that some people had was that it gave no idea when these things were coming out. Like sonys show they gave an indication of what would be coming out the first year of ps5, even if it doesn’t end up being true, like with god of war, no one cares, because if it’s not 2021 it’s 2022. But everything that Xbox showed could have very easily been 2024 at the earliest, I’m sure that’s not the case, but we have no idea when anything is coming out, officially anyway, I know you’ve said that avowed is a 22/23 game for instance.

I think because there are no dates attached to anything its all just a bit abstract I guess? a release window, even if it’s not 100% locked would have made the show much better received IMO, even if basically everything was 2022 at the earliest, at least people would have an idea.

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Thank you for the compliment. In general, 2020 has sucked for obvious reasons with gaming being the one major positive overall. Plus, we’re 21 days away from starting 2021 and at this point, I don’t care about what either platform has shown, done, said, whatever…I just want to get back to playing some games and three months not playing a game has been a record for me. LOL.

Despite PS4 being my #1 all time gaming console, I actually picked Microsoft as the “winner” for E3 2013/2014/2015 as they simply had better overall showcases. If it wasn’t for Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn and if I remember correctly, Mad Max, the PlayStation E3 2015 showcase would have been a complete flop for me.

The reason why people “marked out” for those three games is simple - it’s giving what fans have asked for mixed with nostalgia and in terms of FF7R, a remake of an all time classic JRPG. It’s simply those “wow” moments that Microsoft/Xbox rarely if ever give their fanbase.

In general, I hate CGI and in-engine trailers regardless of who does it. I see it as a waste of money, time and resources plus you’re not showing me how the game looks/plays as if I was playing it. Not only that but even actual gameplay ends up being “downgraded” and whatnot so imagine seeing a CGI or an in-engine trailer for a game that you know is being “downgraded” at some point.

I look at State of Decay 3 with that CGI trailer and while it looked great and I love the meaning behind it, I know the game isn’t going to look anywhere close to that trailer and that’s why people don’t like those kinds of trailers and why people including me will feel letdown because it’s like, if you can’t reach that goal, don’t show it because showing a trailer like that only does one thing which is setting expectations higher than what the developer/publisher can meet.

Another factor is that Xbox fans don’t seem to realize one major thing - unlike Microsoft and Xbox, Sony has dominated the gaming industry for 25 years to where you rarely if ever see PlayStation fans get disappointed so they get a lot of leeway because of that excellent history.

Microsoft has to get Xbox to that level and as of right now, they simply haven’t since the first half of Xbox 360. So while people want to say this or that, the fact of the matter is that Sony has earned gamers confidence over the last 25 years where as Microsoft simply hasn’t. They had gamers confidence with Xbox 360 for the most part and regardless of the reasons, it was flushed down the toilet with Xbox One so now, they basically have to get back all of what they lost with the Xbox 360 generation.

Microsoft has the greatest most powerful gaming console of all time but let’s be honest, if they didn’t say it repeatedly, we wouldn’t think it or believe it because we haven’t seen anything that truly showcases that power and by that, I mean actual gameplay, not a CGI or in-engine trailer that the actual game probably won’t get close to matching let alone surpassing.

On the positive side, Xbox has a lot of huge and major shit in their favor and they simply need to execute on all of it as the generation progresses. Despite the disappointment of Halo Infinite being delayed a year, it’s actually a step in the right direction because it shows gamers that they give a damn about their overall number one franchise and what makes Xbox, Xbox which is Halo.

They have pretty much everything needed and set in place and now, it’s all about execution going into 2021 and giving Xbox fans amazing games and experiences that you’ll forever remember. They have the money, the time, the resources, the studios, etc. It all comes down to if they execute.

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This is not a challenge unique to xbox, but to the industry as a whole. The bar set by games like RDR2, TLOU2, fortnite, warzone etc are extremely high, so there is a huge amount of pressure for all devs and platforms. On the specific point about the seriesX not living up to “the worlds most powerful console” statements, well theres nothing more to really say, a lot of knowledgeable people are saying factors outside of hardware are causing the seriesX hardware to underperform. So people can either wait and see if it improves or sell there seriesX and get a PS5.You even say that we should return to this issue so I don’t know why your even bringing up.

We’re in the era of hype and every announcement needing to be ground breaking. I mean Disney just announced like 20 different projects that may or may not come anytime soon and all they showed was a logo. Twitter and reddit is still blowing up with excitement regardless. CGI / Logos can be effective but it depends on the property. State of Decay isn’t a game I think that can get away with just a CGI trailer where as a fan favorite like Final Fantasy 7 can. In an ideal world we wouldn’t have CGI trailers.

The only downsides were Infinite and the lack of gameplay. Past that it showed how bright Xbox’s future is.

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We probably won’t be having these conversations once Xbox’s AAA games start coming out, so I expect to see a lot of concern until at least 2022.

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