General Gaming News.

[Dirty Hipsters]

Brad Hilderbrand on LinkedIn: There are two reasons why all those Bethesda studios closed, and neither…

There are two reasons why all those Bethesda studios closed, and neither of them have anything to do with Bethesda (directly)... Game Pass and…

www.linkedin.com

Short version: Game Pass and Activision really fudged things up for smaller studios.

Like some people assumed or already predicted. I remember back when the buyout/merger happened, people in the industry and talking said how this was a good thing and "paving the way" for the gaming future. Even people at the Escapists or Max Dood said how it wouldn't be that big of a deal or let the lawsuit go on as long as possible. "They got the money to waste it!" Apparently not! I knew not much good would come from this, but I was hoping it would not be this disastrous. I will never touch MS's console ever again. I don't even want look at it in any capacity. The good news is that I don't have a Series X, so it makes thing really easy and cathartic right now.

Yup, I knew that the acquisition was going to be an overall negative for the games industry, but people are so blinded by their hate of Bobby Kotick that they assumed anything would be better than having him at the helm. Well, now he's gone and there's tons more layoffs and studio closures than there would have been otherwise, and studios that had nothing to do with the acquisition are in the line of fire.

Tango Gameworks didn't do anything wrong, they got axed because Microsoft got too spend-crazy.

And how does Microsoft plan to earn back that $70 billion that they spent on Activision Blizzard when they're just shutting down any new games that were being worked on? Even if Call of Duty brings in a billion in profit every year that would still take Microsoft 70 years to make its money back at that point, and Call of Duty definitely doesn't have 70 more years in it.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Hey I got a question.

Hellblade 2 is out in 12 days and there is no marketing anywhere for it. Is MS trying to set this game up to fail so they can shut the studio down too?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Hey I got a question.

Hellblade 2 is out in 12 days and there is no marketing anywhere for it. Is MS trying to set this game up to fail so they can shut the studio down too?

I don't think they need excuses to shut down studios. Based on their treatment of Tango Gameworks and Hi-Fi Rush, even if a game is a success that doesn't mean a studio is safe.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Warner Bros. Says the Failure of Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League Contributed to a $200 Million Hit to Revenue - IGN

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has disappointed Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of developer Rocksteady, to the tune of a $200 million hit to revenue.

www.ign.com

WB either axing Rocksteady, or forcing them to make another soulless cash-grab

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

just a tad nice surprised to find it accessible from whatever idiot PSN sub I presumably paid on one fateful distant drunken night probably long ago for

 

[CriticalGaming]

just a tad nice surprised to find it accessible from whatever idiot PSN sub I presumably paid on one fateful distant drunken night probably long ago for

It looks really interesting so i wishlisted it.

 

[BrawlMan]

What is the point of Xbox?

Xbox has repeated the same terrible mistakes for over a decade. The reason is simple: its priorities are back-to-front.

www.eurogamer.net

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise Of The Dragons - Minor Bug Fixes Patch (5/8/2024) - Steam News

Dragon Warriors, We've got a minor update addressing quality of life changes and a few bug fixes! Check below for the full details. 🐉🐉 Patch Notes Leaderboard has been fixed for Survival Mode users with over 250+ Tokens Special characters are now displayed properly in Sonny Lee’s character...

store.steampowered.com

Update available for Double Dragon Gaiden

gonintendo.com

• Leaderboard has been fixed for Survival Mode users with over 250+ Tokens
• Special characters are now displayed properly in Sonny Lee’s character description
• Characters and upgrades chosen for Survival Mode will no longer overwrite characters and upgrades in Story Mode saves
• ‘Double Tap to Run’ setting now retained when loading into new stages
• Added the ability to kick users from multiplayer lobby (behave!)
• Added latency/ping icon to search results UI for online multiplayer
• Added ability for the user to cash out early in Survival Mode instead of quitting to Main Menu
• Updated Sonny Lee’s action display picture
• Fixed a phenomenon where enemies get trapped at the top of the screen in Survival Mode
• Exchange rate in Survival Mode has been updated
• Increased difficulty of enemies (stats and overall quantity) past Wave 15 in Survival Mode

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

 

[FakeSympathy]

And just like with Arrowhead, I feel Sucker Punch (or GMG) had no control over this. Fuck you, Sony

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

If Microsoft keeps closing down studios to save money due to their Activision Blizzard purchase soon their entire gaming division will just be Activision Blizzard, and Activision will have subsumed Xbox. Honestly kind of a funny outcome.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Microsoft and Sony just being in competition with eachother on who can be the biggest douche nozzle, huh?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

He also said some terrible takes in the past, such as how we should "tip" the creators

Which is extra-hilarious, because he was general manager of Blizzard when it was exposed that some employees couldn't afford to eat at the company cafeteria because of low pay.

 

[BrawlMan]

Microsoft Is Launching Its Mobile Game Store Rivaling Apple and Google in July - IGN

Xbox President Sarah Bond revealed that Microsoft plans to launch its mobile game store rivaling Apple and Google this July.

www.ign.com

Phil Spencer and the Battle for Xbox’s Soul - IGN

Has the rapid growth of Xbox made the ship too heavy? Following the closures of Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, and Roundhouse, we explore what the future of Xbox could look like.

www.ign.com

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

What is the point of Xbox?

Xbox has repeated the same terrible mistakes for over a decade. The reason is simple: its priorities are back-to-front.

www.eurogamer.net

I’ve been asking this since the 360 showed up after they rushed it to market to get a jump on Sony. Microsoft is a software company that really should’ve just made gaming software or supported studios that did vs creating a new hardware platform. This goes back to Gates being convinced at the potential of having a *PC* “in every living room”. Shit leadership happened from there, or it might’ve turned out better.

I know people like to say there needs to be competition, but that’s really only true of business in a vacuum and doesn’t take into consideration the greater picture as a whole. Too often competition can be cancerous, as it feeds off of humanity’s baser instincts linked to survival of the fittest to no end without an overseer, as was proven with the approval of this buyout.

As a whole we really haven’t learned much the last century or so, largely beginning with the Industrial Revolution. All humans seem to do is complicate the fuck out of shit and leave a mess behind. The pockets of sanity and rationality that exist need to overtake the more widespread insanity before anything improves. Impossible, I know.


Anyways,

 

[BrawlMan]

I’ve been asking this since the 360 showed up after they rushed it to market to get a jump on Sony. Microsoft is a software company that really should’ve just made gaming software or supported studios that did vs creating a new hardware platform. This goes back to Gates being convinced at the potential of having a *PC* “in every living room”. Shit leadership happened from there, or it might’ve turned out better.

I've been asking that since Microsoft tried to kill used games at the start. Congrats on calling it way ahead of time. I pretty much agree with everything you just said.

 

[FakeSympathy]

While Microsoft is getting all the heat, EA CEO also has been spweing some nonsense. I mean what else is new?

EA CEO Says Devs Feel "Hunger" for Using AI & Talks about In-Game Adds

"There's a real hunger amongst our developers to get to this as quickly as possible."

80.lv

 

[CriticalGaming]

I am glad I wasn't the only one wondering what the fuck is happening with this game.

 

[FakeSympathy]

.snip

Well, at the very least 360 had plenty of first-party exclusives; Gears, Halo, Forza, Dead Rising, Fable, and even Kinect games. Not all of them were success, but they were exclusives regardless and it did gave them the edge to compete with sony.

Then that d*ckhead of a xbox head (whom I shall not name because I am quite tired of saying it) decided to kill used games, make kinect mandatory, and add multi-media feature for Xbox One. Phill Spencer after his takeover seemed to care, because xbox one still had some exclusives; Sunset Overdrive, Gears 4 and 5, Halo 4 and 5, more Dead Rising, etc. Shallow, but still exclusives.

For both 360 and XB1, I do think there were at least some great exclusives.

But these days, all of Spencer's directions seem to fail hard:

• Releasing games both on Xbox and PC market ON RELEASE is kinda stupid, because why would anyone buy it on both platforms at launch? Sony understands this, and release their games on PS consoles first, and then on PC while later.
  • The rare exclusives that do get released usually are mediocre. I.E. Starfield
• Acquiring as many studios as much as possible without considering the return; I.E. the Major purchase of both Bethesda and A/B
• Over-reliance on game pass; It should be a supplementary feature, not the main gimmick
• Multiple Xbox Console versions, which I believe makes it hard for developers to make their games work for all of the consoles

But the biggest issue IMO is how he gave up after Redfall; I am never gonna let this one down, and no one should either. Admitting Xbox is falling behind? That's good part, and he acknowledged the loss. Not even gonna consider supporting new exclusives? That's the crappy part. I mean FFS, PS and Switch both are steadily releasing exclusives; why not for Xbox? If you guys are at the last place, might as well as save your faces with some exclusives

NGL, it kinda hurts to see Xbox in such state. Because despite all the BS, I and a lot of fond memories of getting online with buddies and socializing

 

[BrawlMan]

I am glad I wasn't the only one wondering what the fuck is happening with this game.

I called this out all the way back in 2021. No promotional websites. No links to anything. No preorder pages. I don't know why people are noticing now. When it's been apparent for a good while.

 

[FakeSympathy]

A dungeon crawler + typing game? Neat idea, and actually might help people improve their spelling