The lack of exclusives is a big deal though, it's what has them firmly in third place and spending billions trying to buy big exclusives to claw out of it. It's the one thing their competitors excel at. This gen has played out almost exactly like last so far, where the built in Xbox audience of 20-30 million pick up the console in the first couple years, then it falls way, way behind Sony as time goes on.
Their Game Pass numbers aren't where they want them to be either:
Why? Well, the big draw is exclusive first party games coming on day one, which there hasn't been any of note recently. There's only so many people and so long they'll subscribe for to play indie games and AA's -- and now Sony is offering a decent version of that service too.
I don't think Starfield being a bomb is a make or break for a company with as much money as MS, but they really need something to start shifting the narrative and driving people to the Xbox / Game Pass platform, and everything else they're working seems years away at this point. And no, it's not just about the games and selling games, otherwise it would be on PS5 too.
I'm still of the belief that Microsoft will be the last man standing in all this video game stuff once we get past the days of consoles and move towards cloud based gaming and Smart TV gaming, etc. They now own a significant portion of the AAA game franchises and that's where the money is at.
I'm still of the belief that Microsoft will be the last man standing in all this video game stuff once we get past the days of consoles and move towards cloud based gaming and Smart TV gaming, etc. They now own a significant portion of the AAA game franchises and that's where the money is at.
I don't think that time is anywhere close, people have been prognosticating the death of game consoles for at least 15 years and they're doing better now than ever. Nobody wants to stream games.
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I have Bell MTS Gigabit Fibe and would still rather download games than stream. The only benefit to me and streaming is I can use the Classics catalog on PS+ because there's no other option.
I don't think that time is anywhere close, people have been prognosticating the death of game consoles for at least 15 years and they're doing better now than ever. Nobody wants to stream games.
I think it will be sooner than later.
10-15 years ago nobody wanted to stream movies, either. Who's even left that sells physical media today? Sunrise Records, Walmart? Amazon? Discs have become incredibly niche.
We're headed that way with games. Toys R Us is out, GameStop and Best Buy aren't long for this world, if Walmart pulled the plug that would basically be the death of physical media on the brick and mortar front. Game companies are already halfway there with regard to digital distribution/streaming, and the track is laid to go all out.
10-15 years ago nobody wanted to stream movies, either. Who's even left that sells physical media today? Sunrise Records, Walmart? Amazon? Discs have become incredibly niche.
We're headed that way with games. Toys R Us is out, GameStop and Best Buy aren't long for this world, if Walmart pulled the plug that would basically be the death of physical media on the brick and mortar front. Game companies are already halfway there with regard to digital distribution/streaming, and the track is laid to go all out.
For sure I agree the death of physical games is on track in the next while -- but I said nobody wants to stream games, not that nobody wants to buy them digitally.
They've even had it working really well with Stadia and proved that nobody cares. There's just too many hurdles compared to TV / movie (latency, lag, huge bandwidth requirements) that are always going to be problems on the consumer side compared to just owning a game.
In fairness, the latency, lag and large bandwidth requirements indicate that it's not actually working really well yet. There's a threshold that needs to be cleared where it's easy and generally just works, and on the other side of it, streaming games might be a thing that gains traction. If you're an enthusiast you can already get great mileage out of it; e.g. having a desktop with a skookum GPU that you stream to your Steam Deck to save on battery.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I have Bell MTS Gigabit Fibe and would still rather download games than stream. The only benefit to me and streaming is I can use the Classics catalog on PS+ because there's no other option.
That's only true for PS3 games. You can download any PS1 or PS2 game on the classics catalog to your PS4/5 and play it locally
In fairness, the latency, lag and large bandwidth requirements indicate that it's not actually working really well yet. There's a threshold that needs to be cleared where it's easy and generally just works, and on the other side of it, streaming games might be a thing that gains traction. If you're an enthusiast you can already get great mileage out of it; e.g. having a desktop with a skookum GPU that you stream to your Steam Deck to save on battery.
Streaming from my PC or my PS5 to my steam deck is so damn slick. The battery lasts forever and graphics look great.
I would do it all the time but I've tried multiple methods to get it so I can remotely turn on my PC or PS5 to use it to stream and then turn it off when I'm done and it's just never worked properly for me.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I don't think that time is anywhere close, people have been prognosticating the death of game consoles for at least 15 years and they're doing better now than ever. Nobody wants to stream games.
Yeah I agree. I've tried cloud streaming a few times and while it might work for some games, it doesn't for most. With good internet, input latency is very slight, but still extremely noticeable and jarring
Anyone have any recommendations for a good, newish, dystopian-leaning game on the Playstation? Something that might scratch a similar itch to Cyberpunk, Death Stranding, Stray, or Disco Elysium.
Anyone have any recommendations for a good, newish, dystopian-leaning game on the Playstation? Something that might scratch a similar itch to Cyberpunk, Death Stranding, Stray, or Disco Elysium.
I haven’t seen a lot that interests me lately.
Deus Ex? Not sure if that counts as newish, last one was PS4 I think, but awesome series
Anyone have any recommendations for a good, newish, dystopian-leaning game on the Playstation? Something that might scratch a similar itch to Cyberpunk, Death Stranding, Stray, or Disco Elysium.
I haven’t seen a lot that interests me lately.
Dysmantle was my favorite game of last year and nobody has played it. Not nearly as much story as those but I really found it engaging and fun.
And a longer more in-depth look at it if you're interested:
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Deus Ex? Not sure if that counts as newish, last one was PS4 I think, but awesome series
Already played and loved those, definitely what I’m looking for though.
I’ll take a look at Dysmantle and Atomic Heart for sure.
Anything else? I guess a bit older is fine, too. I’ve been playing some older games and feel that anything pre-2016 or so starts to feel super dated and unplayable to me, but games after hold up more often than not.
