“First-party games often risk what others can’t, so what kind of games will Xbox produce as a multiplatform company?”
Oh yeah this generation’s risky, full of original ideas Sony 1st party games like Ghost of Yotei, Horizon: Forbidden West, GT7, Demon’s Souls Remake, R&C: Rift Apart, GoW: Ragnarok, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man: Miles Morales and the “I’ve lost count” TLoU remakes/remasters.
The only game that resembles what is said in this “opinion” piece is Returnal (and funnily enough Saros is a Returnal sequel in all but name), Astrobot is debatable since it borrows a LOT in terms of design from the Super Mario Galaxy games so yeah that leaves us with two games “not by the book design wise” at best if we want to be generous. I bet Xbox will easily do much better than that even as a fully multiplatform (potentially more conservative) publisher. If anyone wants games that feel fresh/riskier/with original ideas e.t.c. Playstation this gen has been atrocious.
And of course as you pointed out that leaves out all the underappreciated at best or shitted upon at worst Xbox published games from 2013 and onward from the general gaming media. We all know that games like Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment and even the recent Keeper would score very differently if they were Sony published games…and since we are talking about VGC a quick look at how they scored Playstation and Xbox games this generation is a proof of that.
Nintendo & Sony (also known as EVERY OTHER FIRST PARTY PUBLISHER):
This is especially a crazy claim when Pokémon exists, and when Sony made it public that their strategy was to produce basically the same high quality narrative game and they were praised for it (they either made it public or everyone recognized it). Like that was literally the strategy during the PS4 Gen. Such a statement is also just a massive insult to all the fantastically creative and unique and risky indie and third party games this generation. Hell, we have Nintendo actively in a legal rooms to patent game mechanics and monopolize Pokémon so they get rewarded for not having a competitive high quality game that differentiates itself.
The words themselves are certainly a wonderful sentiment, but I have difficulty believing Satya actually believes in gaming (even in its financial opportunities) like he says he does. But I have difficulty believing any CEO of a public stock company believes in anything. The actions will speak louder, and I think whatever may come the next 2 years will be an exciting time to be an Xbox gamer.
After the last paragraph in VGC’s The Outer Worlds 2 review, I don’t know why anyone would even waste their time with that gaming media site. Once I read what they posted in that review, I stopped following Andy Robinson and VGC because I see them as a joke now. What happened to just reviewing the game itself for what it is? SMH
It’s a sequel, it’s literally better than the first game in every way possible while maintaining the same atmosphere it is elevating: anyway, it’s a 4/10. Also, “Something something something, I miss that feeling when I played Fallout New Vegas for the first time.”
People have been really quiet about the Xbox Game Studios releases this month, even though I’ve seen generally really glowing reviews and word of mouth when people aren’t being disingenuous. I can’t wait for December or whenever (probably next month) when everyone decides that “Xbox has no games.” again .
I thought New World was actually starting to find an audience?
I don’t know why these companies like Amazon and Google even bother to try to break into gaming if the expectation is “Fortnite on day 1 or we pull the plug.”
Because they see the “POTENTIAL” but it’s a lot harder to break into then they imagine, it’s a bigger investment with slower returns than they imagine, and they are all super corporations whose shareholders would rather they invest that money into something that is bringing in money NOW. It’s very telling when Google abandoned Stadia (what is still the best game streaming platform in terms of quality and price and the first to be an actual platform (like Nvidia required owning the game elsewhere)) and immediately pivoted more to mobile games and bringing the play store and mobile games to PC. Traditional console and AAA gaming is a lot more niche while also being more expensive. What companies like Amazon and Google are really seeking to do, and have to do, isn’t to break into the existing market but expand outwards and reach all the potential gamers consoles don’t. But that’s a huge undertaking and requires a lot of investment and slow social changes (there’s barriers even in how people perceive gaming).
I mean it’s credit I HAVE to give Microsoft: people think more money = companies more willing to take risks and money hat stuff, but that couldn’t be further from reality. These big companies are the ones with shareholders who demand massive returns and infinite growth and such they aren’t willing to take their time and build stuff up or tank losses. For all their faults, Microsoft is still here. Even when their shareholders have demanded they cut Xbox and reinvest that money into another business unit so so many times. By whatever miracle they are still here. And they aren’t doing a bad job really.
For anyone that’s played BG3, who was the first companion to decide they wanted to be in a relationship? For me it was Lae’zel, which came as a surprise as I got just as many disapproves (more really) than approves (less than other characters) from her throughout my short time running around in act 1.
Lae’zel and she’s notoriously easy. Her entire personality is that she LIKES it when you stand up to her and disagree with her. That’s not like a demerit either. Once you have her she has a big deal on loyalty (there are opportunities to cheat…). She’s just someone who really likes confidence. I tried going for Shadow heart and couldn’t my first play through. Still trying on my second play through (but that’s indefinitely on hold as I did something magical with BG3 and actually beat it (super uncommon for me) and there are many games I haven’t beaten ).
Oh and for me (my first play through) the next easiest was Astarion. He might have actually been first and I’m confusing things. He just also doesn’t like “actually” like me. Astarion is a whole thing when it comes to relationships and trust issues and trauma.
Good to know, I was mostly playing it by the ear and doing what I felt was right, like I indulge her in some of her customs but I make sure she doesn’t take it too far yet.
It’s also a little weird that Lae’zel and Shadowheart had an entire conversation on her sex life with my character when were still running around the first day and haven’t had a full rest yet. I’m just moving around hoping that whatever sex scenes happen, my guy doesn’t need to roll, because my rolls can be pretty bad and I usually need Shadowheart to give me some guidance.
I was going to say there’s no rolling for sex scenes, but my memory isn’t that good. I’m pretty sure that once you’ve done the hard job of getting them to like you and request the deed, then it just happens.
I agree completely. Funny part is that my top 3 review sites - GamingBolt, Noisy Pixel and XboxEra’s own Jesse all gave the game a 9/10. From what I played, the game is really good but they do need to patch the hit detection when shooting at times because I can be point blank range and shoot an enemy in the chest and it doesn’t register. Other than that, my biggest issue is the difficulty. Normal is too freaking easy. I was slaughtering everyone but hard becomes a bullet sponge grind. It’s almost as if normal was meant to be story mode and they forgot to have a normal balanced mode. lol
Otherwise, the game is really good but since I really want to get into Arc Raiders on Thursday and be at least decent at the game, my playthrough for TOW 2 is on hold until 2026. I’m looking at Dying Light: The Beast, The Outer Worlds 2 and Ghost of Yotei as the games that I will start in January with the goal being to complete all three by the time Resident Evil Requiem releases as that’s my first new release of 2026.
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