The rebirth of Halo?

 

Come to me but a handful of years back and ask me what I think about the current state of Halo and I would stare you blank in the face until you just assume that I died and left the room- but since then I've availed myself of the entire Halo saga short of Infinite- simply because Infinite wouldn't load on my computer for some reason- otherwise I've played them all. And to be honest with you, even lacking the multiplayer experience for these games which are half known for their online community, I can taste the downfall of quality. Genuinely. Those first few games hold up incredibly, I still get the itch to go through Combat Evolved to Reach every now and then- but from the very moment that 343 took the reigns- the games started to stink. And remember- I went in thinking that 343's first game was Guardians- I hated 4 before finding out they worked on it! That ain't bias, that's straight game, baby!

The truth is that ever since Bungie left Halo the franchise has been on a downward trajectory that has coincided rather roughly with the collapse of Microsoft as a super power in the video game space. Super sad, all round. Oh, and now Bungie is currently being fed through a wood chipper by their new Sony bosses- with Marathon as their only saving grace providing it is a slam dunk mega hit... which it actually might be because that Studio is a generally trustworthy sort that can slap together a decent title even when they're on the backfoot. (You know, providing that Sony left enough remaining staff after the layoffs.) Which is to say, there ain't no 'call back the parents' to try and breathe life into Halo once more. Heck, a decent chunk of 343 were Bungie staff branching out to dedicate themselves to the Green man. Didn't turn out too well.

Halo Infinite is where the ball was supremely dropped, however. After game after game of disappointment, usually followed by some sort of broken promise around post launch support (Not that anyone was crying about the lethargy inducing Spartan Ops being quietly downsized)- they decided to put all their eggs into a Live Service focused Halo entry... and then forgot the live part. Seriously, Infinite's Support was glacial ontop of being underwhelming, and it resulted in a confused audience that very much wanted to engage with the solid foundation provided- but with precious few avenues through which to do so. They led with gregarious predictions of years worth of support, earning the name infinite- only to peter out within a few months and drag themselves the rest of way to achieve the bare base requirements to make a complete Halo product. Again, big shame.

And in the face of something like that, knowing that Halo is no longer really worthy of being called Xbox's flagship: honestly, I'd want to change my name too. Then leave the country and take up a new profession serving sweet treats in a mall, before my ever-present self-destructive thirst for excitement wrapped in a veneer of false-greed calls me to a series of petty heists that end up getting my back on the radar of those I was trying to escape from all this time... what was I talking about? Oh right, so 343 literally changed their name to 'Halo Studios'. And it makes sense- there hasn't been a single good Halo game with 343 printed on the box art. I think. (Did 343 manage to get their name on Creative Assembly's Halo Wars 2? I can't confirm.)

Still- that's a little cyncial- wouldn't you say? "New name, new me"? As if! Still, it's heralding a slight change in leadership and a capitulation to the gait of the industry in that Infinite's heavy investment custom made engine (which won't run on my bloody computer) has been scrapped in favour of the single most over pivoted-to engine in Gaming right now. That's right, Halo 6 is going to Unreal Engine! Of course it is- have you seen how many rendering triangles that thing can fit onto a single screen? Witchcraft I say! Automatic LOD? Sign me the heck up! And I'm sure Master Chief will look all nice and pretty with the cutesy new ray tracing bouncing majestically of his dome visor as realities slowest Sci-Fi plot lurches forward another few inches before flopping down and hibernating for the decade. That seems to be the 343 MO, afterall. 

But the game looks so pretty now, doesn't it? I mean- from the sweeping vistas they showed off... well, rock formations and... Combat Evolved locations? They look good, I guess... is this a remake? Nah- there was one Flood locale they showed off- this is new stuff... why does it look so retro then? Is it Chief's Armour? I think it's the armour. regardless- the question is whether or not 'making the game look good' is the end goal of this change up- because there are so many more questions when it comes to what would make a good modern Halo game. What kind of interesting sceanrios can you cook up, how can you make the conflict with the Covenant still feel fresh, will this be the first time in the past 10 years the core narrative takes a significant step in a direction without walking it back? Can we please never see the Prometheans again, pretty please- that faction and all their weapons suck.

In all seriousness- It is nice to see there be some sort of recognition from the former 343 that something has got to give, and making some sort of effort to detail out a then and a now indicates awareness and planning that is, sadly, uncommon admits spiralling game developers. That might because they no longer have an auto-sell evergreen franchise on their hands anymore, they might not even have a Microsoft exclusivity deal anymore if things are going the way they seem to be- Halo Studios may no longer be the face of Xbox- which means these games need to stand on their own merit and to achieve that is going to take some effort. And giving off the bulk of the bitch-work to Unreal Engine whilst you focus on the actual designing- that's a sensible place to start.

Indiana Jones and the console wars

 

So with the rapid coming of the new Indiana Jones game, we have a lot of uncomfortable confrontations to... well... confront given the very apparent nature of what the game represents and how Xbox studios are choosing to handle it. All that without even mentioning my trepidations about the game itself and how actually good it will be considering the absolute rafters that Machine Games are known to usually be shooting for- I want it to be good, but I'm not getting those sparks of wonderous excitement. I have a feeling that next years Indiana Jones is going to end up as yet another Xbox first party studio that is smothered so far under controversy that the wider and more pertinent conversations are lost until the next age wherein we look back unburdened by the politics of the time. Can't wait for the "Starfield was actually pretty good" video essays in a couple of years- like clockwork.

Firstly, I don't think Indiana Jones looks like a bad game. This isn't a Ubisoft scenario where we're observing the team struggle against their own innate mediocrity to make something that isn't total bloated hogwash- Machine Games are respectable developer with an impressive cattle in their yard. Farm yard? (Stop letting me use metaphors, I'm terrible at them.) The modern Wolfenstein games propelled that boomer shooter into one of the most fun alternative history dramatic bullet-rain games on the market- and though they're made some curious steps in that franchise recently- ('New Blood' was a choice to be sure) no one dares doubt their pedigree. Plus, rumour has it they've had plenty of time to make the game so we're not going to stumble upon a Cyberpunk at launch debacle. Hopefully.

But it's hard to shake the feeling that this Indiana Jones game isn't quiet seizing an identity all of it's own- at least from the previews. When we heard that Jones would be getting the Machines Games treatment there was off-hand joke about "Oh what, are they going to turn the game into a first person shooter with a fedora on top". and whilst that might have been conceived as facetious... umm... yeah, that really does seem to be what they're doing. Only this looks slower and clunkier than Wolfenstein, with bizarre leaps between first and third person so that you can watch Indie swing with his whip or climb down a ladder? Nah, that hybrid stuff doesn't work. Pick one of or the other, it looks goofy otherwise!

Add to that initial unease that fact that Machine Games appear deeply insecure about the choice to go first person for one of the most iconic characters in movie history and keep trying to justify it whenever they open their mouths. They even had Troy Baker insist how immersive and quintessential it was in the latest trailer- how about letting the game talk for itself? (Ya'll ain't scared of that, are ya?) I'm just not sure if this game is going to sit right in the hands of the players- which is a shame in a studio that were once so very good at gamefeel. Maybe that's what makes them so conscious of it in the public limelight? We'll have to see. Besides, arguably the more substantive story here relates to the publishing plans for this highly marketed Microsoft first party title.

It's coming to Playstation. Tucked away to no fanfare at the end of this trailer was the realisation that this game would be launching on all platforms seemingly without even so much as an exclusivity date. Which means that in this console war of ours, within which Hardware specifications have grown so insular that only exclusives count for anything anymore, Xbox has fully dropped the ball on exclusivity without gaining literally anything in return- essentially murdering the last reason anyone has to own an Xbox over a Playstation. At the very least they could have held this release over Sony's head to try and twist their arm into an exclusive port of something. The Final Fantasy VII Remake, God of War, Horizion Zero Dawn- literally anything. Instead- they've given all the rest of the ground that they have.

Xbox is hurting right now, but only in the sense that exists in the punishment rooms of perverted executives. Microsoft is not on-the-dole, they aren't struggling to pay their staff, they aren't even worrying about being able to afford their next mutli-billion acquisition- they are Microsoft. But just like separate law enforcement agencies in a cop drama- that all around strength is not shared with every branch of Microsoft. Sure Xbox exists under them but if Xbox has had a few shaky years, like they have, then Microsoft have no trouble treating them like a particularly disobedient plague-dog who peed on the carpet. And like a self fulfilling prophecy this flagellation of a company that had the sheer gall to exist during an international global financial downturn is now feeding into terribly regressive practices that further stunt the studio.

Sony, on the otherhand, are growing fat and careless on the failures of their biggest competitor- to the point where they don't even consider Xbox to be their chief competitor anymore and are now setting sights on- I dunno, the entire PC market? (Certainly feels that way.) It truly is horrific when Xbox lack faith enough in the size of their own userbase that they're pimping out a first party game to Playstation in order to make a profit- seemingly ratifying the odious Sony sentiment that they are 'The best place to play.' What's next? Are we going to see a Starfield port to Playstation as many have already speculated? Is the next Halo going to go limping over to the blue-side with their DMR between their legs? Are Xbox going to retire as a console company altogether? (They better bloody not!)

Downplay it though they might Indiana Jones is shaping up to be a battlegrounds that is surely going to overshadow the efforts of the team and it's because Microsoft can't get their damned self-competitive crap in check. Although that is the nature of the corporate world, is it not? Bite down and gorge on your own tail until you reach the point of hurting yourself, and then keep going into you go up like a raging inferno of stupid choices. And while we're at it, screw Xbox for getting themselves in this position to begin with, and screw Sony for goading on the collapse of the console market as though losing Xbox wouldn't shudder the ground beneath them too. God, I hate this industry sometimes.

Game pass is bleeding

 

Game Pass is known as 'the greatest deal in gaming' for a good reason. For a nominal fee you get access to a simply obscene amount of games that you can play without restriction as though you were logging into the 'Netflix-of-gaming': as it is sometimes charitably called. And that deal is made all the more exciting by the fact that many of these games are literally day-one releases dropping on the platform and on Gamepass at the exact same moment. Throw into that the fact that PC players can throw themselves in too with the Ultimate edition (although that does necessitate use of the Microsoft storefront which might actually be the single worst launcher on the PC) and there really is nothing like Gamepass. It's a deal that seems too good to be true. And that's because it is. And when a deal is too good to be true, it's only a matter of time before that deal will no longer be true.

What makes Gamepass so utterly ridiculous is the fact that given the price you have to play anyone would be saving almost hundreds for access to AAA tier games, albeit at the whim of Microsoft and their unclear deals which can sometimes line up that one game you were interested in to be pulled off the platform when within the next few weeks when you aren't expecting it. I think most would consider Game Pass to be one of those 'dip in services' to go through a lot of those games that they would otherwise never buy themselves. That was how I got around to playing through 'Lords of the Fallen' and... yeah, I would probably feel pretty jipped if I played full price to play a Soulslike played by a team who seem to deeply dislike the genre and what it stands for. But at least I can experience it's very good control scheme for myself!

But what does this deal mean on behalf of the actual people who make and sell the things? I mean sure they get their money and an influx of players- but can they rely on that small percentage of players to stick around and buy the game after they're done with it? Or can Live Services depend on that audience when the next update rolls around and the game is no longer on the service? And what happens when the culture on Xbox starts to disincentive the buying of games altogether? All pertinent and worrying queries at present. Some developers have even grumbled if the deal is wholly worth it on their end- although that doesn't seem to be the overwhelming opinion as of yet.

Still- Game Pass exists as perhaps the sole bastion of the Xbox platform worth flocking to, given that their first party deluge of upcoming games is still too far away to rely on. Which of course means it is going to be the pressure point that the Xbox team steps on when they need to justify themselves to Microsoft in the midst of a slow growth season. And yet- one might argue that stepping on such a system, the sole one you rely on, would be the single best way to- how do they say- bite the hand that feeds you? Really a 'push and pull' dilemma with this one, it would seem. I suppose we'll learn which way this ends up leaning for Xbox given their coming changes to pricing.

Yes, you've probably already heard. Game Pass is currently undergoing a total restructuring of it's plans in order to make itself actively worse all around whilst scoring major 'asshole' points by spouting out that "this is for player choice" bull that every cretin parrots whenever they're sticking their hand in your pocket and trying to get out clean. Game Pass is losing it's console only version of it's service and now offering a new tier of subscription that forgoes the single best perk of Game pass- the ability to play fresh games pretty much right away. The allure of being able to rattle through 200 dollars worth of games on a cheap subscription that you hop off of when you're done is pretty much the golden goose of the Xbox platform and sacrificing that is kind of like murdering your cash cow.

Now the Ultimate Subscription remains untouched- we still get day-one games as soon as they drop, but we're getting a cost increase punishment for our sins of simply enjoying the service because, you know, 'player choice' and all that. What's crazy is that Game Pass is following the 'slowly bleed out our accessibility' path that Netflix has been doing for years now, having just removed the Netflix basic subscription plan, only Xbox has no competitors to fall back on for a straw-man. They made this choice all of their own and we're suffering the consequences- all so that Xbox can justify that unhinged spending spree form a few years back to their investors. All to pay for not-even-exclusive access to Call of Duty. Was it worth it?

The new Game Pass deal moves in a direction that takes away from players, guts the service they've grown used to and ups the price around the board for everyone except the PC exclusive Game Pass users. All whilst the company are seemingly trying to increase the coverage of Game Pass to other consoles- if that's not something they have altogether given up on at this point. So what does this realistically leave Xbox fans with? The gnawing sensation that their deals are moving towards the worse-off end of things and Xbox is in trouble, eating at it's own tail in order to make ends meet. The same feeling we've had over us ever since studios started shutting down earlier this very year.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to call this the slow death of the Xbox brand continuing, or a stimulus package for the upper parties at the expense of us lesser- but I do know that I hate coming back to Xbox and seeing it's value shrivel more and more with each passing month. Nothing substantive coming with a real release date, their only unique offerings becoming worse and more expensive- what real reason is there to own an Xbox in the modern age? It's smaller than the PS5 and thus can fit on your desk much neater. Really wish there was more to it than just that, to be honest. Really wish I can say something mattered underneath the hood.

We live in a time of shifting realities. Where institutions are falling to the unexpected other choice. Indie Games make up the majority of most played games on Steam, Crime Boss Rockay City is out stripping Payday 3 in recurrent numbers and Xbox are making all the kinds of greedy goodwill-rotting decisions that a company only really has the luxury to make when they are the number one- whilst they currently sit dead last in the console race. Time and time again we ask ourselves why. There was a time when Gamepass really did have a shot at rising the Xbox brand- but at the first sign of trouble Xbox does what it always does- freak out and start making panic cuts. One of these days those panic cuts are going to hit an artery, and then all we'll be able to do is watch with our arms crossed as the great beast gurgles on it's own life juices shaking our heads and muttering "We told you so."

No-fi Blush

 That's a terrible title

We've all heard what happened to the Tango Gameworks for the crime of making an award-winning game- taken behind the barn and shot in the back of the head- a warning for everyone out there to pack up and give up if you find yourself under the Xbox banner. A move that very much seems to have been not appreciated by the former employees of the gameworks as they've let their opinions be sprinkled across social media, postulating on what might have been the cause but lamenting it either way. Above it all, however, is the big green X themselves doing their best to just forget the problem ever happened and praying that makes it go away. It will not. Obviously. This is growing into a bigger black stain with every passing moment.

Let us not forget the moment with President Bond where she was ambushed with this question regarding the reason for Tango being killed off- at least I can call it an ambush for the way she stumbled a response despite the fact it was the most foreseeable talking point in all known existence. Where it comes to Bond and Phil Spencer, their reticence to speak straight, and to squirm around the matter, has led to beliefs on the consistency of the Xbox brand dropping, people speculating how dire circumstance are and just the all around situation worsening. Hell, Phil tried to marble mouth his way out of a response and ended up saying that it's his responsibility to ensure Xbox gamers are afforded everything they expect with the brand, heavily implying that Xbox is so hard up that they needed to kill studios in order to keep the service at status quo- improvements aren't even on the table!

And in this comes a fear. Probably a justifiable one. A fear that this dire, such to the extent that succeed or fail you are up for extermination, then surely anyone could be next on the block. At the very least Xbox had the good grace to tell their team of the shutdown privately before leaking it out to the press, now if only they could exposit what was wrong clearly it would really help cut down on all the rumour and speculation flying about. I feel there's such an unjust level of secrecy that is implicitly tied to corporate movements for literally no reason- where everything from conduct expectations to success quotas are left to the imagination for fear of ever having your own standards held against you. It's the same sort of culture that disincentivises employees discussing wages with on another- it's a supremely outdated and insular move that only fosters distrust and misinformation.

Of course, let me not give off the impression that I am any better a source for elucidating Xbox's actions than the average observer! I've only the bitter cynicism to taint my distrust. For all I know Xbox could be on the verge of tilting off the edge at Microsoft places a boot on their back and asks them "What are you gonna do, little fish?" But what I can comment on is the recent sprinkling of supposed context of yet another Xbox source that, big surprise, contradicts what we've already been told. Because being vague and unspecific has worked out so well for everyone this far, hasn't it? Matt Booty, not exactly in a public setting but rather a 'Variety Business Podcast', spoke someone's truth on the matter. 

Matt acknowledged the success of the studio but went further to analyse what exactly went into that success and the factors that contributed to it, positing the many features that could go in to making a title successful. Of course, I'd imagine this was an attempt to remain somewhat aloof and unspecific that totally fell apart when Matt just came out and said- "What leadership do you have? What creative leadership do you have? Is it the same team that shipped something successfully previously?" And those are the metrics by which the future of studios are apparently weighed, and in this instance, cut short. One might call it a 'lack of faith'.

Essentially what this is slyly referring to is the fact that the founder of the studio, industry legend Shinji Mikami of 'Resident Evil' fame, left the studio after the release of Hi-Fi Rush in order to pursue newer ventures- and that is now being pointed to as the catalyst for the studio's demise. In the same way that losing Kojima was the end of Konami's credibility, a powerful creative lead like Mikami was so intrinsic to the studio, as well as those other heads around him of course, that in his absence Tango Gameworks just weren't the same studio anymore. At least that's what we're supposed to believe and I have to say- I never liked this train of reasoning no matter how many times I hear it parroted.

It's like what everyone has been saying about Bioware whilst casting side eye. "They're not the same studio! All the legends are gone, you can't expect anything out of them anymore!" Which compounds a more complex issue into deeply reductive boxes that restrict the future genealogy of the industry. We're talking about a studio full of people who perfected their craft under the supervision of these 'legends', who worked with them, would have been taught by them, and in some cases probably expected to take what they learnt and added something new now that the stage was open for someone new to take the reigns. We can't have the old legends around forever- they'll need successor's someday! And even if that is too much credit to give a team of colleagues- at the very least these studios by reputation alone would attract a similar style of team to that which existed before. You're not going to get a team of Live Service knuckledraggers signing up to work at FromSoftware, now are you?

Out of all the possible excuses for the firing I think this may just be the most headscratching. Sure, the former team may contest that they had serious plans for the future- but of course they would say that, maybe their upcoming projects sounded weak to someone with an objective look from the outside. Maybe they were juggling the next Redfall and were too self conscious to admit it. But saying they were no longer worthy of keeping alive because some of the make-up of the studio is different now just boggles the mind- at the very least you have to give a bit more to go on. If not, then you owe them the chance to prove themselves. Or you would, if you cared about the industry. Which is becoming increasingly the question we pose when considering Xbox these days...

I did a sin

 

I am a fossil. A relic. An antiquarian. An ancient. An old fogey. An irate man shouting at the clouds. Whenever I play New Vegas, you bet I pick the 'I'm slow to embrace new ideas' option. But every now and again the needle pushes itself forward, without my say so. Or with my say-so, but the cajoling is heavy. Largely I like to consider myself immune to the snake like charm of marketers, being fully cognizant of the worm like grip of 'guidance' those creeps try to employ- and perhaps it's in begrudging knowledge of that which I made my great shame. Or perhaps I am just a shameful person. Either way I would like to admit that great shame in front of all of you today, and then maybe chat a little about my great shame for the room. Savvy? Good.

So you may have picked up on my manners of playing throughout the years but I've never outright stated it. To be clear, I like to primarily game on my PC. I used to keep that specifically for older games and RPGs, things that my relic of a system wouldn't have any trouble with (although I modded my Skyrim playthroughs so much they ran like slideshows!) But around about my incredible choppy playthrough of Final Fantasy VII Remake I decided a change had to be made, and then last year I totally decked out my PC and now I use it to play literally anything. However I do also have a Series X and a Switch- for which I use mostly at times when I'm doing stuff on my PC such that it can't also play a game. Or if I'm not home. And it was here that my issues began.

You see, I recently blogged about the upcoming Elden Ring release and it's significance to myself. The whole 'playing through previous games' predicament was slightly muddied by the annoying fact that Dark Souls 1 places a lot of it's most important items behind Covenant rewards, which can only be achieved through online play. Frustrating as that is, I find myself disadvantaged even greater by the fact I had run out of 'online membership' for my Xbox and simply refused to get it updated because I was busy elsewhere. Which is why I was quite surprised to find that Xbox Gold had been totally rebranded to 'Game Pass Core' when I was signing up... typically I would avoid the thing like the plague for that naming convention alone, but I didn't want to miss out... but then- because I was diving into purchasing options I'd never experienced before I started looking at the other options and then...

As embarrassing as it is to say, for the first time I actually sat down and purchased Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Yes, you heard me right- I haven't actually played with Game pass before and caved in on something of a whim this time around- and thought I don't exactly intend to keep it as a recurrent subscription all year round- I have to confess that this really was the kind of service I should have been involved in from the start. All I really wanted was online access, but it hardly took four minutes of browsing the Game Pass store before several dozen games I wanted to try but never got around to stood out to me and I'm fully intending on knocking them down my list. Which is really what the entire purpose of the thing is- and I sound like a cruddy commercial saying it. (Crap! Balls! There- that should chase away the sponsors!)

Because to be utterly honest with you all- was I ever really going to sit down and play Callisto Protocol? The pretty looking, but not quite successor to Dead Space? I mean I love Dead Space, but I love Dead Space as... you know... an Alien send up! Callisto Protocol just brought Melee combat and... Karen Fukuhara. Don't get me wrong, I love Karen Fukuhara in my game but... not enough to drop a sixty. But if you offer it to me for alongside my subscription? Why wouldn't I say yes- that game's got Karen Fukuhara! And that's really the sweetspot target demographic for games that makes the product such a tantalising proposition.

Now I'm still very much 'old school' in that there are a certain breed of games I want to have and own for myself so that I can pick them up at any time. I don't want to have some overshore sever farm decide what I'm playing- and I get that mood to strike up a FromSoftware Souls playthrough at all strange times of the year. Also I would never do that to ATLUS because I simply respect them too much to not give them my money straight up. I would pay them a monthly wage if I could- I love them. But Lords of the Fallen? Pff, I don't respect them! I've literally never managed to complete the original game, and I'm pretty sure I only got it on games with Gold anyway so I've literally never spent a dime on this franchise. (That actually makes me feel bad. I should probably buy a DLC or something. I won't. But I should.)

In fact, I do wonder if the Gamepass promise doesn't veer into the territory of too good to be true, based both on my now first-hand account and the things that I've read about in various coverage piece over the years. On my own account- The price of a single AAA game covers about 5 months of Gamepass. I, and bare in mind I'm a lot more active than your typical gamer, could probably dish out about 10 triple AAA games in that time. Forty if I'm hustling. (And particularly unoccupied in those months.) On the outside, there's pretty decent evidence to believe that the lack of growth in Gamepass is what put the strain on Xbox forcing them to close a studio who game them an Award Winner. It seems to be a product that demands perpetual growth to be considered successful and... that's not always possible.

So for the time being I've joined the legions of plebs who are smart with the way they spend their money- and I have to say- not loving how it feels. Even the slightest amount shift in the winds is wont to get my Rheumatism acting up, and my lumbago. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't currently have about 200 Gb of game that I'm going to gorge on over the next... actually I have two weeks off; wow, I'm going to be drowning! Still, I doubt that Xbox could afford to buy exactly my taste of game all year around so consider this a temporary courtship to a brand I'm still pretty sure is currently afflicted with a terminal illness. Sure there's a kink for that, but I'm rarely proud to boast I don't know it's name.

Okay... so Perfect Dark proved me wrong.

 

In the leadup to the Xbox conference I made a few predictions about what we would be seeing, and I'm proud to say I only got one of them horrendously wrong- the other two were only mostly wrong! I thought we would get a hail-mary years-too-early announcement for an interim Fallout project being developed by a studio in order to capitalise off the last few dying embers of hype from the show- and instead we got Gears 0... (Yay?) I also figured we would get a commitment to hardware from Xbox considering with everything that has happened over the past few weeks it has really felt like this is their last generation- so I expected an announcement of some brand new console, or maybe a tease of the next generation. We got a half-hearted full digital Series X which spits in the face of all their jabbering about 'game preservation' and a slight sneeze about a next generation 'at some point'. And lastly, I predicted we'd finally see Perfect Dark again, and it would be such an insubstantial teaser with the slightest huff of gameplay that we'd be disappointed, and it wouldn't have a release date. (2/3 ain't bad.)

Perfect Dark is the debut game of 'The Initiative', the supposedly vastly funded AAAA studio (yes, that term was coined before Ubisoft said it. Of course it is, those gibbering buffoons can't even grift in an original fashion.) which went 'perfectly dark' years ago after announcing this game and no one had seen hide nor hair of them since. I speculated that the team had died mysteriously, but unlike when I said the same about Team Cherry I might have been a little off pace. Instead it would seem that 'The Initiative', an idea I think most knew was doomed from the start, (blank cheques rarely equal better art) had been wrapped in a turbine of development hell from whence there was seemingly no escape. That was part of the reason I expected absolutely nothing at all- we'd heard so many members of the original team had bailed- I assumed this project would get a reboot because Xbox would be far too embarrassed to cancel the thing. I was very wrong.

When that logo came up during the conference I braced myself for the trainwreck trailer and... I sat up straight the moment we saw actual gameplay. I can't say whether or not it was intentional, but having the first thing we see be a near-futuristic train station immediately drew a parallel to the very first gameplay footage of the last Cyberpunkian immersive sim we had- 'Deus Ex: Mankind Divided'. Us stealth fans have wept in the absence of our core franchises, and Deus Ex's hiatus has stung the most often and fully. I want to be the super ordinately powerful solider throwing all manner of cool gadgets and insane gizmos in order to run circles around heavy security checkpoints! Perfect Dark was never really about that, being the predecessor to Golden Eye it was more of a spy-themed 'shoot 'em up'. This gameplay looked nothing like the original game to be honest- and I couldn't be happier!

In my wildest dreams I imagined what Perfect Dark could have been in it's best possible showing. I imagined a fantastic looking Immersive Sim with creative world design and complex layouts. What I didn't imagine was mirror's edge style parkour- blasting the exploration vertical wide open! Nor did I expect gun-fu style first person gameplay making the close quarters engagements look like something out of a high-budget action movie! What I'm trying to say is- Perfect Dark looked better than what I whimsically theorized it could have been on it's best day! The Initiative may have crumbled out of the gate, but they put together a dream game for me on their way to dust- and it has no release date... bugger.

That strange looking woman they've got cosplaying Joanna (they couldn't even match her hair colour, really?) seems to be every bit as resourceful as the original if not more so- recording the voices of a conversation in a crowd in order to use that one as a voice activate lock is such a uniquely interesting gameplay concept- I wonder if that is purely contextual or if they went the Metal Gear route of having that kind of system be nearly fully dynamic. Like playing a voice down an alley to draw attention from guards- that's the kind of gameplay interactions which blow stealth games past the basic set-up tools that Ubisoft always develop for their games- and then call them 'stealth friendly'.

And I simply must extol how simply gorgeous the game looks! I was expecting some form of stylised character design choices but no- they really seem to be making this a high fidelity looker- with the exception of perhaps some later action sections that seem to veer a bit more into the cartoonish, but in the effort of expanding the range of crazy-cool action moves Joanna is feasibly able of pulling off. Even the little touches in the heat of action sell the game- from the way that balcony crumbles when a shot-guard collapses on it, puffs of strategically blasted extinguisher smoke, that snazzy AR vision that gives beyond-wall vision; everything tells me that I was wrong to ever doubt The Initiative... or was I?

Because you see- despite spending all the money and goodwill trying to make this game on their lonesome- Perfect Dark has been half-surrendered to Crystal Dynamics to help bring it life, which is why they share developer credits. And given that team has just finished with the rebooted Tomb Raider trilogy (and Marvel's Avengers) they're a proven enough commodity to push through development of a title like this. So are we really looking at a AAAA swanswong game developed by an XBOX birthed studio? Not really. But then again, do I really care about the circumstances of it's conception when this is a title that is, you know, literally everything I could ever ask for out of entertainment?

Immersive Sims are an incredibly difficult style of game to create, which is probably why we see so few of the buggers. CDPR thought they could make an entire open world game into one through Cyberpunk- but that turned out to be a tragic miscalculation. Perfect Dark seems cognizant of it's ambitions and simply wants to stun- and with everything I've seen so far I not only think it will, I know I'm going to play it as soon as the thing hits shelves. Or theoretical shelves, with how 'full digital' Xbox is heading. I just can't believe after all this time we still have no damned release date- good god, why show us the promised land if we cannot enter?

Is Ninja Theory cooked?

 

Over the past few weeks it has become abundantly clear that there's no more dangerous a position in the games industry then being employed at Xbox Studios. Whereas in any other studio they're waiting for a pin drop to get you out the door, at Xbox they're just trolling around trying to remember who they've hired to kick them out. These fools have absolutely no qualms with destroying a successful company and then whine about how they haven't got enough prestige builders in their camp. Which, I might add, is the exact same conduct that EA popularised all those years ago to solidify their reputation as the most hated company admits gamers and developers! Now Xbox seems to have eclipsed EA at their worst in many regards and I can't help but wonder if we're ever going to get a developer we can trust ever again! But those are big-picture issues, let's focus on the now.

Ninja Theory have been a studio that always seems to have earnt furrowed brows as they've truckled along despite always trying to create something spectacular- and I mean that genuinely. I don't think there was ever a time they tried for a game of muted ambition, or put something out that is below their weight level in hopes of cutting down on manpower and maybe even keeping the lights on. They were the developer behind the underloved Heavenly Sword which I recall being spoken about heavily in the months before it launched for it's striking female protagonist and grand sweeping scale- and then was lost in history just a few months after dropping. The same could be said of 'Odyssey: Journey to the West'- but I've never forgotten about that game and the promise it held as a sort of 'Horizon-style' revival of one of the best loved stories in history. And they straight up got themselves booed after putting out the unfortunately angled 'DMC: Devil May Cry'- which probably would have been perfectly fine if they just didn't call the protagonist Dante. Or just made it a prequel. Neither of which would have been decisions made by Ninja Theory themselves. What they worked on, the game itself, they crushed!

In many ways the Hellblade franchise seems to be something of their swansong- as a piece of content they fully developed in house, at their relatively small scale, which has earned them near universal praise for it's artistry, tact and creative ambition- if not for it's meagre length. Telling a story mixed in fantasy and analogy delving into the protagonists struggle with mental illness on the path to confronting the death of her lover- which she bitterly confronts in flashes of denial that ultimately shape her path through that in an evolving story. It really is peak interactive fiction on a narrative level, and whilst the gameplay might leave a little to be desired, some might say, the worth of the art alone makes up for that deficit, which is a praise I don't always visit upon the gaming world. They are Storytellers- with the capital S.

But within that space of game developers a certain contingent of gamers that feel a certain animosity. I'm talking about the people who denigrate narrative based games as pretenders upon the industry- and to be fair I can actually make out where it is these folk are coming from. Afterall, we're not just talking abut games that features themselves prominently around a central narrative. We're talking about the kind of games wherein the 'gameplay' is summed up as watching movies and making dialogue choices every now and then. Maybe an odd QTE is chucked in to make players remember they have some agency over the action. I'm talking about David Cage games- and whilst I disagree with the sentiment that such a breed of games is somehow inherently low quality- There's often a wanting amount of interactivity in this 'interactive' medium.

This is not necessarily a criticism levied at Ninja Theory, but it touches on a certain perception around their newest games. That the Hellblade games carry a kind of 'lazy gameplay' aspect to them which dumps complexity in the hands of the player in favour of telling a story. Now again, the Hellblade games tell good stories, but this is the games industry. If you want to show us a really pretty movie, then become animated movie makers. If you want to make games, then you need to focus on what makes a fun game to play. Hellblade 1 featured a pretty shockingly sad combat system which the player had very little interaction with but which pretty disappointed pretty often. And after all the growth, feedback and development years that Ninja Theory have gone away with- what the gave us seemed to have improved in none of the core-most critiqued areas. 

Hellblade 2 is a looker, and it tells a story that some think is quite engaging, but the general perception seems to be that Ninja Theory has delivered another 'lazy game'. 5 hours of gameplay the prioritizes it's visuals above all else, lacklustre gameplay, pathetic puzzles and some lovers of the first game even say the game's heart doesn't beat quite the same way that the original did. Of course, there are those so dazzled by the technical showcase that they call it the second coming, but the same could be said about Starfield- it's still not winning over the average gamer's heart. And in the wake of this, Xbox's latest not-so-spectacular exclusive, it seems somewhat prudent to ask whether or not Ninja Theory as still in a good place of standing with Xbox.

Having put out a thank-you statement to the community, and then vigorously defended that the statement was purely a 'thanks for the support' and not an elaborately disguised 'goodbye'- it would seem that Ninja Theory have been given no indication that their neck is on the line. But then neither was Tango Gameworks. Tango were actually in talks about their next game and led to believe all was trucking along swimmingly before their hardwork and success was rewarded with an unemployment slip. Hellblade 2 feels like another game failing to push the needle, even after years of being flaunted around Xbox showcases as the belle of the ball- who's to say they're not next?

Personally I think there always needs to be space in the industry for the middle weight class of games. The non-block busters who punch in at their weight and maybe try a little something new every now and then, keep the enfranchised on their toes just that little bit. Smaller games really are the lifeblood of the industry, and if you are trying to build the value of a publisher it really helps to acknowledge and feed into that. Under Xbox, making smaller games gets you punished, and if Hellblade 2 doesn't manage to strike out and shirk this initial non-plussed reputation it's been laboured with that is exactly what is going to happen to the Ninja's- sad as it is to say.

The death of the 'Exclusive'

 

Somehow within the past few console generations, measurements of 'Exclusives' have become a litmus test for how that respective company is performing within this 'console war' that we all like to pretend isn't real because in such a world- wars have losers. Securing award winning games that push the needle forward really symbolise the fact that you (Nintendo, Playstation) are leaders of the industry securing all the best reasons to play and positively growing the industry that raised you. Whilst struggling to put out anything worth a damn in the AAA space (Xbox, Stadia) is seen as a emblematic of a collapsing model that is failing to keep up with the demands of an industry that pushes ever forward. Creating fear and uncertainty for those that lag behind. Is the biggest and most powerful company in the world really headed towards shutting their gaming arm? If they continue to flounder like this, possibly!

Thus games of such huge renown as 'The Last of Us' and 'Starfield' have become soldiers in a battle far beyond themselves, ranked up for their ability to drive entire console purchases and lambasted for every way they fail to rewrite what it even means to be a gamer. But in that same breath, they've also become symbols of the giant wall that 'marketing' and 'finance partners' have forcibly erected between gamers and games. So many titles are sequestered to forgettable parts of the ecosystem that are then retired, losing great experiences to the void of false 'progress'. I had to wait years before I could play the Persona games because of exclusivity. Fans of Samurai are just getting Ghost of Tsushima this month. And now, after so many years of suffering, the shoe is starting to drop at the one place producers fear most- their bottom line.

Xbox was the first to really give up when it came to trying to create a brand of exclusive titles to combat the Playstation supremacy. They purchased studio after studio, dropped a metric bomb worth of funding behind a nowhere project that we're still heard no update on, and they put actual billions into their buying spree stealing exclusivities off of Playstation. And it hasn't moved the needle Xbox's direction any significant manner. Maybe if Starfield was more of a world beater like it was originally proposed to be, but without any significant gains, Xbox is looking more and more like a financial burden. Now that Game Pass is starting to slow down, they've run out of ways to prove themselves equals in the playing field, and it's all falling apart.

We're already seen a slate of Xbox exclusives spit their way onto Playstation in a desperate bid to try and score some more players and buyers, with Sea of Thieves being the biggest to make the leap so far. Reports claim that Xbox are being pressured to port everything eventually, with absolutely nothing held back. Look out for the incoming Starfield port, Indiana Jones may just launch multi-platform, and then what? Gears of War? Halo? It's probably coming. All because the exclusivity model has proven to be unsustainable in the modern age. And, of course, we've had pointless layoffs thrown in the mix for good measure because this is the worst timeline, of course! 

And what of Final Fantasy? The biggest JRPG franchise in the world, and probably the biggest RPG franchise straight up- Final Fantasy has jumped back and forth between which studio it better favours over the year, being first a Nintendo exclusive before being pushed onto Playstation thanks to the lack of N64 innovation before fliting with Xbox for 13 and 15 and now sleeping with the ex over at Sony once more. Their games launch as exclusives so often it's a genuine mystery where one would even need to go to begin building something resembling an exhaustive collection of their games. (I think even Steams remaster collection misses out on a few choice titles over the years.) But maybe this has started to catch up with them.

Both Final Fantasy XVI and VII Rebirth have been reported to be underperforming compared to their previous counterparts, even when taking into account exclusivity hold-ups. These titles have already surrendered to timed exclusivity with the PC market, but even that doesn't appear to be cutting it when many players, such as myself, hold no interest in getting the game until it's made available on Steam leading to a lack of engagement. I don't even think the community has been as rampant about VII rebirth as they were for Remake, and the wave of excitement around XVI dissolved long before XV had done it's rounds. Something needs to be done!

During it's financial round up the last year, Square included a little note about their future strategies, revealing an intention to focus more on releasing games on multiple platforms going forward, perhaps even including the Xbox! This would be a drastic shift from the Final Fantasy strategy of the modern day, which has been so hardline that the director of XVI still refuse to acknowledge whether a PC port even exists as a possibility. But Rebirth was announced upfront with at least three months exclusivity. But from here we may just be getting full cross-console parity to feast on with our hungry-hungry eyes! (Goodness knows we thirst for it!) 

So does this finally mark a shift in the perception around the role of 'the exclusive' within the games marketing world? What once existed as a testament to the broadening of brand value is now considered a wayward relic of previous generations, a roadblock in profitability that benefits nothing. Perhaps the death of Xbox's competitiveness might just be push everyone needed, as now that there's no-one to compete against Sony as no reason to keep it's toys in it's own playpen anymore. Of course, that doesn't mean we should be crossing our fingers that big boy Nintendo starts sharing, that spoilt brat has been stuck on his lonesome for so long I doubt he even knows other consoles even exist in the modern day!

A smidge of hope in the Wasteland

 

It hasn't exactly been a fun couple of days to engage with the Xbox ecosystem, and by extension engaging with Bethesda has felt a little awkward. Theirs was the home to the award winning studio that Xbox callously murdered for no discernible reason before immediately coming and declaring they needed more studios just like the one they destroyed a few days earlier. Incredible. And within that debris questions have been asked about who would be next, what other legends would find themselves jobless for the foolhardy whim of having worked with Microsoft? How much more grandly could Xbox damn themselves before a seemingly inevitable exit from the console market that seems all but confirmed at this pace- regardless of whatever, increasingly futile, lip service the team constantly feeds our way. But through it all, I hear that Fallout seems to be doing okay.

I mean it should be, right? Fallout is the face of video games breaking into the mainsteam right now and the surging player count's for the entire franchise are a startling example of that. Fallout 4 is getting updates again, that break all current mods but it's the thought that counts, people's twentieth New Vegas playthroughs are kicking off with gusto. Fallout 76 is actually seeing a rise in players that are somewhat galling about all the hate the game received back in the way, blissfully unaware of all the actual pain they missed getting involved so many years down the line. They don't even have to experience the dead Wasteland before the 'return to Appalachia' update. Truly they are the winners of the Fallout fanbase. But all of that only really goes so far, now doesn't it?

When The Last of Us dropped it's series the creator's were ready with a rushed and messy port of the iconic game finally coming to PC after all these years that people absolutely wharfed up with abandon- rocketing the game up the charts despite it's shoddy QA work. That is a tangible boost in profits that can be traced directly back to the show. And Fallout? Well, I'm sure they've made a pretty penny from people catching up with the games- but there isn't anything new in the Fallout world, is there? You can't really get away selling even Fallout 4 for full retail after all this time, so people are picking up inexpensive collections for a fraction of 60$ and filling themselves up on all the Fallout hype. I would call it an unexploited marketing opportunity.

What Bethesda really needs is a fresh product they can sell the heck out of. A remaster would be nice, but what they need is a fresh new game that soars in the spotlight- a great game that is rocketed into superstar status by merit of association. What they need is Fallout 5.  Which is ironically the only thing that they can't have. Fallout 5 isn't on the docket until after The Elder Scrolls 6, as probably Todd Howard's last game before retirement. Which means we won't be seeing the Wasteland again until at least the 2030's. What we need is something in the interim to keep people busy. An in-between game. A 'Fallout 4.5' so to speak. And whole could possibly be employed to create a little something like that? Oh yes, the rumours have started once more.

Obsidian have been sitting patiently on the sidelines for what feels like half their lifetime. Gone are the days when they were pushing the boundaries of the Classic RPG genre, reviving it with a gusto- now are the days when it feels like they're pushing what's possible from a AA perspective- proud work, to be sure, but not enough to get their name in lights for the new generation. And dammit, they deserve to be! Obsidian have yet to put out a bad game, even if I think The Outer Worlds wasn't really what I wanted, it's still a cracker of a title! Whatsmore, they've always demonstrated a deeper understanding on what makes Fallout special than Bethesda ever has- we need them back around again!

Fallout New Vegas was their last go around, given the tools that made Fallout 3 and given a little over a year to smash together those elements into something new, Obsidian put out the single best game the franchise had ever had, and still has ever produced. The created an RPG of choice and consequence, a world of purpose and weight and value and the tools to destroy it all as much as you wanted. New Vegas put Bethesda to such shame that they attempted to ape it's systems with Fallout 4, to honestly somewhat amateurish (in comparison) results. Give them the Fallout 4 engine and who knows? Obsidian might even be able to make a real RPG out of it! And what a way to send up the Fallout franchise, than giving it back to the people who made it to begin with!

Of course there's nothing real in the works yet. Xbox have declared that they're aware of the feelings about Fallout, particularly given the popularity of the TV show, but playing it coy is the name of the game so that no hopes are drawn up. However, I would say that recent happenings may end up expediting the process a bit. Xbox is desperate, looking for a way to justify itself underneath a parent who is placing ever more attention on their goings ons. In fact, following the surprise layoffs of Bethesda award winners, one might say that the next few projects might end up being influential in deciding whether or not Xbox even makes it to the next console generation or not. It's times like these, you need to start cashing in the chips at your disposal.

The stars seem to be aligning. Xbox is too desperate to say no, Bethesda are too busy to multidevelop, Obsidian are reaching the end of work on their current RPG and Chris Avellone has been cleared of all those misconduct allegations he had thrown his way. This is the time to bring the band back together for one last go around, smash out a Fallout game like the world has never seen before and give this franchise the absolute rocket high it deserves! And if ever it was going to happen, it's going to be now! I usually don't fan the flames of speculation, I'm usually the first to douse cold truth over it all- but today of all days I'm daring to dream. Bring us back to Fallout, Obsidian- I know you have it in you!

The Future of Xbox

 

So the fated date has come and gone and Xbox have revealed their grand plan to slowly destroy any competitive edge they ever had in the industry in a slow wind-down to getting rid of their console altogether. And sure, that isn't how this was presented- but that is merely because saying such out loud would cause a panic. But let's be honest, what else would be the reason for going the direction that they are going in? Remember, out of all the big three that are scared of consoles becoming obsolete, Microsoft are the ones who literally own the majority of the PC market. All they have to do is start working on beefing up their online Microsoft store to not be utterly atrocious. (Treating game files like App files and locking them away in hidden systems folders is so painfully out of touch it isn't even funny.) This is how it happens, this is how the Xbox man dies.

It was already leaked well in advance that Xbox was looking at bringing some of their exclusive games to other consoles in an attempt to double dip their popularity. At the time fears were abound for some of the big platform identity holders making the jump, but whether because the backlash came from a calculated leak and the team decided to pull back, or simply because people ran out of control- such plans were not revealed to the public. Yet. But bare in mind- that is the only direction that this could possibly go. You don't start handing out console exclusives only to start and stop with the four announced today. This is a precedent set by the person in the weakest position to try and manifest a reality that only they see for the future of the industry. One day, Halo is going to at least be on the negotiating table with Sony.

As for the four games? Microsoft were quick to try and downplay their importance whilst softening the field for the next pitch of much more consequential heavy hitters somewhere down the line. The stipulations were piled on top of one another- these are older games from more than a year ago since their launch- they're already reached their 'community potential' in the eyes of Microsoft and can't pick up significant traction on their own anymore. (Maybe give them a promotional boost on GamePass then, I dunno.) Oh, and then there's the headscratching claim that some of these games were 'never meant to be exclusive'- which sounds like crap to me. So what, you forgot to port them to other consoles until just today? Did someone file the port request to the wrong office? Nah, this is just some gaslighting, isn't it?

According to reporting from the Verge the games we are looking at start with Hi-Fi Rush- something of an underground hit which sparked the first serious interest in this new era of Xbox exclusives when it launched the same day as the inaugural Microsoft Bethesda conference. A testament to the long time prospect of that exclusive partnership, now being pimped out to Sony and probably Nintendo for a quick buck. (Great look, guys.) Then there's the very niche 'Pentiment', second game developed by current in-house Microsoft developer 'Obsidian'. Not really sure if this one has a big future on Playstation, felt like a game more directed towards a PC audience to me- but who knows- maybe the lacklustre sells will find a pertinent boost from the novelty of playing a strict Xbox exclusive alone. Sea of Thieves is a big one- a giant ecosystem-game with a healthy community made by an Xbox partner of over a decade- now a pawn in a bigger game. Oh, and Obsidian's other exclusive Xbox title, Grounded- basically making every bit of Xbox value the company had generated since their purchase utterly moot. Good job, team.

Now those of us with delusional syndrome have breathed a sigh of relief at all of this news. Taking solace from the fact that Xbox promised only 'small games' would ever be in consideration of being ported over. But here's the thing- Xbox has no 'big' exclusives aside from Starfield. This year's Indiana Jones is going to be their second big exclusive in half a console generation- they don't have the weight to throw around like they seem eager to pretend that they do. With this new medium an Xbox exclusivity deal is going to become as worthless as an Epic Games exclusivity deal- because nobody third party is going to sell off their big AAA exclusive game and all medium developers simply need to weigh up if the Microsoft payday is enough to cover that first year of minimal sales before it's handed off to the real markets. Xbox will never develop a worthwhile buyer base again.

Now for their defence, Microsoft think that they're stepping ahead of the curve with this decision. In the mind of the Xbox hierarchy they believe that console exclusivity is on the way out and they're simply leading the charge by example- but who's going to tell that to Sony? Sony have the market completely in their grasp, Nintendo maintains their niche- neither platform holds anything to gain from giving their games to the Xbox marketplace. In fact, both would lose everything in an ecosystem where consoles dissolve entirely in the wake of computers. Xbox is betting their weight on a future that only they want- forgetting how outnumbered they are on the board- which essentially sums up to the company pushing themselves out of the market.

If you want ironclad confirmation that this is going to rock the game development world- just look no further than Ubisoft. In an unsolicited comment on the goings-on, a Ubisoft executive offhandedly remarked that if Xbox were to start going multiplatform it wouldn't have a significant effect on the market. Which executive said this? Yves Guillemot. Now, barring for a moment the fact that the guy is a pathological liar- he's also chief of a company renowned for being guided by the least intelligent, unintuitive backwards worms of creation- evolutionary rejects bred in the recesses of the Paris Catacombs since the neolithic age and dragged out into the light to run the most backwards game developer into the ground. If they say that Xbox isn't going to change the balance of the market, you can bet it's going to rock the industry foundation to it's core.

So peering past the pomp and circuses, wiping that Microsoft-branded cake crumbs off your mouth and looking at the whole picture- it's easy to see what is really going on here. Microsoft is battling over how it's wants to monetise itself which is leading to these inane decisions that foster not confidence, but profitability. Who cares about sustainability when I have the chance to effect a boost in revenue in my age? And after that scuffle is wound down, will there be anything left worthy of choosing an Xbox over? Playstation won't surrender it's exclusivities- so all the Xbox will be is a console for beta-testing Microsoft studio games before they get perfected and ported to the Playstation- turning one-time industry players into witless masterless cattle. And as for Sony and Nintendo? With a little bravado, maybe tomorrow they'll strike atop the heap. Nature abhors a power vacuum, the future of Xbox belongs to them.

Xbox is over?

 

What makes a brand? What special piece of twisting logic defines the intangibility of recognisable icons across a commercial industry, that places steel wings on the lapels of the shoulders of the army of capitalism? What indeed! For me, I would say it is 'identity'. Identity is the means through which individuality is denote, under which worth and distinction is built, and without which purpose and belief is left to rot and fade. We build brands with powerful identities that can stand the test of competition, and the grand brands cement into household staples, irrevocable from the property itself, whilst the watery flitter and warp in flux, constantly vying for a glimpse of attention and notoriety with a new face or a twisted reimagination there. Lasting brands are strong, they are unbending, they have a will and spine of mountainous bedrock. And they, it is becoming clear, share little in common with modern Xbox.

Xbox has for a very long time been one of the fathers of the modern video game landscape, helping to shape the solid position within which console gaming still finds itself in the 2020's. With the 'Direct X' Box launch came a new era of casual games with accessible online features and co-op functionality that birthed the party game social aspect of gaming that we've all apparently decided to weed out over the decades since. In that time Xbox gathered quite a solid brand out of itself with monoliths like Master Chief from the Halo franchise wearing the consoles colours and defining multiplayer games all the way until COD 4 came out. Gears of War was quite a strong showing too, creating a standard for 3rd person shooters we're still trying to unilaterally evolve from. And Rare. They became an Xbox standard too after being unceremoniously brought off by the green X and raised by the proverbial wolves over there. These are the backbone of the house 'Xbox'.

Of course the very reason I bring them up is to contrast them with their blue-flavoured alters- Rachet and Clank, Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War- franchises of unending appeal and acclaim that transcended the borders and became widely celebrated. What else are they all? Exclusive to the Sony console for as long as they can manage. Sony jealously squeeze the absolute life out of exclusivity to the point of actively sabotaging the potential success of some of their less than award winning titles like 'Days Gone'. But you know what? It works. People know you can't get Spider-Man anywhere else. Or Final Fantasy 16. So they flock to Playstation and associate those brilliant, industry-leading experiences to the Sony brand. Suddenly 'Sony Original' becomes synonymous with 'quality'- and where does that leave the perception of modern Xbox?

Well they try a lot, don't they? They tried to get their very own Bethesda smash-hit just like Skyrim and ended up with Starfield- a game that wasn't really what their fanbase wanted for all of it's quality achievements and failures. Halo Infinite managed to successfully translate the franchise to an open world format, but failed to push the story forward to any meaningful degree. (Also, it's going to fail to live up to it's Live-Service inspired naming convention as the team are already moving onto a sequel rather than building their sequel into the Halo Infinite template like they originally intended to.) The Initiative tried to rewrite the book on quality high-budget game development with their debut game 'Perfect Dark' (Remake) and that mess of a product hasn't be heard of since it's announcement- so a development hell-bound disaster no doubt. Xbox is the studio of attempts.

And nowhere is that more evident then with recent leaks about their upcoming attempt wherein Xbox are essentially throwing in the towel and killing the brand of Xbox after all these years. Which is not to say that they're retiring the X- at least not yet- but they are surrendering everything that makes the name 'Xbox' significant in the gaming space- they're handing out their exclusives to Sony. Yes, that means we're going to see Starfield, Sea of Thieves and probably Gears of War make their way over the fence to the otherside of the battlefield- pretty much white-flag in hand as Microsoft settles into selling their products to their direct competitor And after this- well, what's really the point of an Xbox anymore? Multimedia functionality? The console will just become a more expensive Blueray player- and the value of the brand will hit a zero.

Without any ounce of hyperbole- this is about the single most 'short term' move Xbox could make if they intend to grow the brand of Xbox. Because sure- they'll be able to reduce their costs and make passive money off of licencing their brand, but then guess-what: Xbox branded games will have nothing to compete with over Playstation games than their quality. Right now, Xbox Studio games have the lure of exclusivity to stick out to purchasers- Xbox owners buy these games knowing that they won't exist elsewhere. Once they do start hopping over the iron curtain, then what are gamers going to buy? 7/10 Starfield or 9/10 Spider-Man 2? Xbox games have yet to reach that level of quality to sell on their own merits- Xbox is about to devalue not only it's own brand but the products they intend to sell through their licensing!

And what happens then? Do the studios under Microsoft just sit back and watch as their games slowly become overshadowed on other competitors platforms? Maybe they will, or maybe they'll get a bit disquiet and end up seeking ways to break up their partnerships and go solo- reasoning a better chance on their own, funding themselves, than labelled with the stigma of the Xbox brand. Without the quality of being on the big three backing their brand, the Xbox label will come to mean nothing. Tell me, do you care about the new Crazy Taxi that Sega is making beyond a passing rush of nostalgia? No, because Sega is just another developer. They don't make consoles or unique ecosystems anymore- you can pick up their games for cheap on a third-party key sellers website if you really want to. That is the fate facing Xbox right now.

It is such a shame to see the dissolution of a brand of gaming royalty. Like watching a dynasty burn whilst everyone stands around the moat with their shoulders shrugged. And all of us with our Xbox's wondering what the future pertains to for us? Well, I think we should be justified in being a little worried. Perhaps not as worried as we would all have to be if Google owned the brand, (god forbid) but I can definitely see a lot of history on the line when this new era of the Xbox company is put into effect. I just hope the damage is seen before the act is irreversible, because god knows we don't need a games industry with a monopoly lead by the Live Service obsessed cretins who somehow convinced the world that games need to be $70 in order for developers to be paid a fair wage. (Newsflash: they're the multi million hoarding creeps who cut the damn cheques- they could charge $200 for every new game and developers would still be living off foodstamps- you're fighting the wrong battle!)

Microsoft and the digital frontier

 

We live in a world of flesh prisons, shackled to weak boned and prone-to-breakage mechanisms dragging slowly rotting slabs on oh too delicate frames. We are the very soul, the absolute conceptualisation of impermanence. But do you know the one thing in the world even more transient than the lives of the beings who dwell within it? The digital world we've reared and shaped and play-acted as some un-breakable cloud of perpetuity. Do you really have faith in the ever shifting sands of finance? Think that money drifting about it going to last longer than you? Than your memories? Foolishness, Dante! The second a cloud service rubs in the way of profits your ever precious data is first on the chopping block and you'll be privileged if your data holders alert you before they get deleting. Which is why you should never fall for the lie of the 'digital future'.

Never really suspect that any company decision is ever made with the benefit of the customer in mind. The absolute best anyone can hope for with a relationship like that is vested interests, and what exactly are the interests of Microsoft? Of any game publisher? They want users. Perpetual. Unfailing. And then want those users to be subscribers. Recurrent payment models are so much more attractive then winning over the needy by trying all the time- Bleagh! Who has the time to go around making content that earns it dues? So much work! It's so much easier if you can force people to pay for access to content already provided! Thankfully we have idiots like Stadia tipping their hand early in that regard and alerting the public of the endgoal of games hosting. But don't think that means they've shifted goals.

Microsoft have recently unveiled the ways in which they are edging towards this eventuality with the excess and frankly shocking amount of layoffs they thrown down within the first few weeks of 2024. It's a wonder that anyone is still left at the company after the several hundred jobs that have been cut, all around Xbox and the brand new studios they spent years trying to purchase. Which is a little galling when you remember that Microsoft recently crossed another milestone towards becoming the most profitable company in the world briefly. Although to be fair I guess no corporation is a charity, and if there's any long standing division of Microsoft that hasn't exactly been proving it's value to the collective recently- it's Xbox. (Not to say that justifies the insane number of layoffs, but at least I can understand it.)

One such heavily effected aspect of Microsoft have been those that handle physical distribution of games. Jez Cordan reports that Microsoft has laid off entire departments dedicated to maintaining relationships with retailers and manufacturers, basically cutting off contact with perhaps every aspect of physical media as they stalk towards an all digital future. The Series X is heavily rumoured to be receiving a digital-only counterpart in the near future- (which will ruin the console's viability as a 4K Blue-ray player: but go off, I guess.) and this is just more evidence that this isn't a case of catering towards a niche, but rather forcing the hand of availability to be more in line with their own plans. Microsoft appear to have run short on their plan to frame themselves as 'the peoples' champion'- now they're just making power moves regardless of who's in the way.

Now the immediate effect of this is somewhat unknown. Xbox with Microsoft over them is one huge company with a lot of weight under it's belt, which likely means the example they set is going to have a ripple across the industry. As people become more aware of the costs that go into physical manufacturing, as well as the third party cuts they could potentially be getting a deal off on, they'll move to digital. But what do you think is going to happen once the physical market is erased completely? Then hosting costs are going to start going up, developers are going to end up with a worse deal then ever, discoverability will become a total nightmare and they'll have nowhere to go because the big boys like Microsoft and Sony own the entire market.

Speaking of discoverability- where does that factor into these discussions? As the video game landscape becomes more and more crowded, the struggle for talented developers to stick head and shoulders above the crowd becomes more vicious. Store shelves were already a fight and a half, both those who made it there were going to get some amount of interest. With the digital market, no barrier to entry, these indie darlings will be in the hands of store runners to show off the gems- and if we're talking about Microsoft's own storefront- well, they ain't nothing to write home about! The Xbox store is a mess of user unfriendliness, with practically everything being a chore to explore and targeted searches being even harder to pull off than on the Nintendo E-Shop! (Insult very much intended!) Whereas the Windows store shamelessly throws it's best quality games in with it's piss-poor quality apps- no care given! Developers would be on their own to advertise with Microsoft running the scene.

And of course there is the second hand market, which is a huge avenue into the gaming hobby for newcomers. Do you think casual gamers rock up to becoming lifelong fans by buying a new $70 game to see if they like it? No! They pick up old second hand legends and fall in love with the great stories of yesteryear, slowly find themselves drawn into grander and grander experiences until they slip into the money-grind of modern recent release gaming. The more you erase the low-cost entry into gaming, the more you make the ever increasing retail prices of games a distant prospect for the next generation of gamers- this is bullet-meets foot levels of stupid right now and I don't think anyone is really acknowledging what it happening right now! Short term decisions with horrific ramifications shouldn't be the norm of an industry this big!

But what is there really to do in recourse? It has become increasingly clear, from the machinations of Twitter to the woes of Facebook that the people in charge of these large media machines stopped instinctually developing the year they rose to prominence and thus fall further out of touch with each passing year. The obvious pitfalls we pitiful commoners see coming a mile away are totally outside the viewport of these razor-focused imbeciles, and the consequences are wiped away from the mouths of the infirm by their sycophantic underlings too cowardly to point out the mountain the industry is heading towards. So Microsoft will kill the physical medium, then they'll realise their folly in a decades time, 10 years too late to reverse course. Well down, Xbox- you've played yourself again.

The all-digital future

 Are friends electric?

So is Xbox just screwed then?

 Maybe...

Candour is a gift in times of strife and turmoil, where the truth of a matter can be as ephemeral as a phantom's breath in a Bîaŵac. (Does... does anyone get that reference other than me?) What I'm trying to say is that is can be refreshing to hear someone state the truth how it actually is after living for so very long under the delusions of what everyone wants the world and it's truths to look like. And who better to elucidate the situation than that one person placed at the very top to be aware of every side of the matter? Yes, I'm talking about Phil Spencer and the real state of Xbox outside the pomp and marketing and all of that guff- that in reality Xbox might not actually be the place to buy and play your games despite having what I believe is the objectively most powerful console on the market right now in terms of hardware capability. The power is there, but if the numbers are to be believed than the market share just isn't.

And as 'sterile' and 'uninteresting' as terms like 'Market Share' can be to the layman; everything we love within the entertainment industry is a balancing act of popularity. Being a hipster can only work up to a certain degree, because at some point the thing you love diverges from popular success so much that it becomes no longer profitable to pursue and thus is eventually discontinued. That one online game that you and only some small handful of people really saw the potential of, and which you flocked to in hopes it would grow into something the world would love one day? Yeah, when that game got shut down, consider that heartbreak a mere shadow of the absolute chaos awaiting for the day when Xbox slips too from the popular eye. You know, assuming that the powers that be would allow the console to get that far. But then, by Phil Spencer's account we may be beyond that point already.

Recently we talked about Phil Spencer's comments regarding the failure of Redfall and his failures in managing that game and allowing the Xbox community to become disappointed once again- now we've become a bit more clear on why that happened. Bethesda is apparently not as lock-step with Microsoft as marketing might suggest with their dual showcase events and playful synergy-named events. The merger is a slow and ongoing process and the two different corporate entities have yet to combine their vastly different styles to content creation- though they're working on it. And within all that movement it could be considered actually somewhat understandable for a game which was being developed under the supervision of Bethesda to somehow fly under the radar of Phil and even Bethesda themselves, as it morphed into an absolute monster of design. Of course, there's still the missing piece of the recipe explaining how Redfall itself became such a disaster- but at least we know why the safety rails were uninstalled on that fateful day.

But the conversation has since moved on to other, much more dire, comments that Phil has made considering the wider Xbox infrastructure as a whole and though the man doesn't say it, from the outside it's hard not to hear the resignation between the lines. He bemoans the fact that Xbox just isn't in the races compared to Nintendo and Playstation, and how the common adage of 'just make good games' would be insufficient to bridge that growing chasm because as he says "There's no world where Starfield is an 11/10 and everybody just sells their PS5s". Of course, he is very right. Starfield probably isn't even going to be a 10/10 knowing Bethesda's track record, and with the ongoing pressure that Sony is placing with it's dedication to high quality AAA defining games- Xbox doesn't currently have the talent pool to even stand up to what the Station is swinging around. But then... what hope does Xbox really have of toughing out this generation?

The Xbox one famously gave a lot of ground to the Playstation market, what with it's wild veering away from being a gaming console to instead becoming a 'multimedia device'. A direction that would have perhaps been a decently fine step if it came hand-in-hand with the same sort of support that the 360 got in terms of games, or even a dedication to that aspect of console market building. As it was, the Xbox one couldn't sustain itself in any direction to any degree and ended up floundering in the face of it's peers. Recovering from that would entail rewriting the prejudices summoned up from that 'mistake in direction' and reaffirming that Xbox is still the place for games. Which, for the moment, would actually be somewhat untrue. Playstation is the place for games and gamers. So why do we believe that adding games wouldn't go some way to changing that perception?

Afterall it was great exclusives like The Last of Us, like Ghost of Tsushima, like God of War; games that redefined generations, those are what gave Sony the boost it needed after the messy PS3 era which cost the Playstation name it's luster. Final Fantasy 7 Remake has married itself to PlayStation, with 16 coming for Playstation first too. It doesn't even feel like there's any room for Xbox to wiggle it's way back into the competition. But by god have they gone to buy the studios to make those games0! It feels like half of all the medium-weight developers to ever grace the industry have been swallowed up by Xbox and must be toiling away at some crazy titles to have not produced so much as promising trailers for any of their products. The most we've gotten is an announcement for 'The Outer Worlds 2' from Obsidian which... yay. That slightly mediocre RPG is getting a sequel; let me hold myself before all the excitement just spills out.

To that end, I can kind of understand what Phil means when he says that good games just aren't going to change a generation worth of bad direction. There is a shadow hanging over the Xbox brand right now, tainted by bad releases and let-downs, telling the gaming audience not to trust their logo as the seal of approval on a brand. The best we can hope for right now is what 'Halo: Infinite' achieved; which is still only just working the growing pains to becoming somewhat what was promised. (Sans core features like split screen) But then, what is the future in his eyes? Because Phil is not someone to shrug his shoulders and give up. How can Xbox change it's image completely in the eyes of the millions? Game Pass seems like a step in that direction but what's next... wait, you don't think Xbox is going 'STADIA'; do you?

Why not? Cloud gaming, the ability for people to play high quality Xbox titles without having to invest in an expensive console- it's been a hypothetical up until now but we've already seen Microsoft's experiments and betas in production. I can totally see Xbox expanding this out to be their newest direction, expanding the potential base of gamers beyond anything Sony can mimic with their limited infrastructure. But that direction would most likely come at the cost of matching Sony's slate of games, which is going to frustrate the existing audience and I think Microsoft knows that. Reading between the lines and somewhat expecting the worse, I think the future of Xbox is them fully conceding the dedicated gamer market in order to appeal to the underserved casual demographic. And I hate how plausible that sounds as much as you do.

But until that end it very much does seem that Xbox is solidly sat on the back foot of this console generation with no means of fixing itself. Whether he meant to imply it or not, Phil has cast further doubt on the quality of Starfield, implying that even doesn't believe in it at this point, and given that Xbox doesn't have anything else due for the rest of the year, and Sony has two Final Fantasy games, I wonder if the rest of the Series X is destined to be nothing but a wash. You know what could change the world's mind on this matter? Providing some update to prove that their apparent system crushing game 'Perfect Dark' still exists. And the new Obsidian open world fantasy game actually coming out. And that Activision deal coming through. And dad coming back from the shop with those cigarettes. And...

Phil Spencer and Xbox

 What is in an apology?

Phil Spencer has been the image of the trendy game icon for years now, perhaps even decades. We've seen his picture up next to the big sign of Microsoft and unlike many stuffy suited CEO's; I think most of us can actually identify with the man and see- yeah, this is a guy who actually cares about and plays games. It's just a shame then, that he is also a CEO doomed to be in charge of a company that absolute cannot turn it's fortunes around to be a force to be reckoned within the gaming market. They don't have the exclusive dedication of Nintendo, nor the catalogue of S-tier exclusives like PlayStation- and though Xbox has been trying so very long it's hard to objectively look at the pedigree of current Xbox and pretend it bodes well for the coming future. In fact, that would probably be considered a straight-up delusional prospective to maintain, and for good reason.

Of course this came to a head once again with the release of one of the most hyped-up Xbox exclusive of the past few years, a game that was being developed by a studio that Xbox just brought abroad as a follow-up to a Playstation exclusive they had just made which critics called 'a masterpiece'. Arkane has a pedigree that other developers can only dream about- know for quality management, sophisticated game design and a marriage to the greater tenements of the immersive sim genre- they've single handedly affected the action adventure genre with the quality of their games in the past and will undoubtedly do so again in the coming future- as soon as they're out of the rut that Redfall dropped them into. I don't think there's a single person out there that saw potential in that game being anything worth even thinking about prior to release, but after- damn...

Redfall is going to be a become for generic development at a AAA level, a damning indictment of the lack of creative ingenuity input from a core level, seemingly tell-tale hallmarks of a rushed development and warped sense of direction and a spit in the face to everyone foolish enough to slap down £70 for the game. That's right, it was one of those 'above market price' games. (Just stick it on the pile next to 'The Last of Us: Part 1' and 'Babylon's Fall') for reasons why that pricing model shouldn't even exist. It's gameplay is generic for the most part, whilst also quietly below the standard of equivalent first person shooters; its world is barren and designed without any understanding of the flow of open worlds, (after Dead Island 2's recent release, I'm starting to wonder if open world design is becoming something of a lost art) and the execution and presentation of the game is simply amateurish even when compared to Arkane's previous works! This is the first Arkane game to substitute stills in place of full-motion cutscenes- redflags abound!

But that hasn't been the only blow that the Xbox ecosystem has received. Additional to that is the apparent British blocking of the Activision/Blizzard merger with Xbox- something which I'll bet Microsoft has already filed away as a 'done deal' before our courts got their snouts involved. (We don't do anything about actual lootboxes but we jump on this merger deal? Way to have the public priority down, Britain!) Perhaps the one move that could really have thrust Xbox into lockstep with where Playstation currently is, probably the key-most reason why Sony launched themselves to try and prevent the deal, killed off by clueless Brits that hear the word 'monopoly' and perform kneejerk reactions instead of basic revision. I'm not a fan of corporate consolidation, but Activision needs to be reigned in- for god's sake!

Oh, and now there's another Xbox exclusive which was heavily advertised but is now being roundly panned by critics; although admittedly 'Ravenlok' isn't quite as high profile in comparison. Itself meant to simply be a stylish indie-style action adventure game with a Souls-like feel to the trailer, no one was expecting the world to be set on fire by Ravenlok, but I think there was an assumption for something different and unique. Whilst I haven't had the pleasure for myself, early reviews have hardly been glowing, calling the game somewhat bland and lacking that revolutionary spark of ingenuity. It's such as shame too, considering how gorgeous that 3D pop-out book voxel art style came out- you just assume creative visuals means creative game these days but I guess that's not always the case now, is it?

All and all, it's not looking particularly fruitful for the Xbox ecosystem. What's their next big exclusive? Starfield? The next attempt by Bethesda to convince the world that they haven't lost their creative spark completely? And aren't they the one's who published Redfall in that utter state? Yeah... it's really getting hard to believe in the spirit of Xbox these days. Don't get me wrong, I want to believe in Bethesda and I'm going to be playing Starfield the moment that it launches... but what else does Xbox have to match up to Playstation's 'God of War' or 'The Last of Us' or 'Ghost of Tsushima'? Pff... 'Perfect Dark'? Is that game still even being made? What can our CEO in chief say to douse the flames of derision spawning around him?

Phil Spencer was surprisingly forthcoming on his thoughts about the struggles facing Xbox right now. He apologised, claiming the fault was on him for not doing something about the Redfall situation before launch. Not really sure what he could have done, mind you; he himself noted that extra time for polish wouldn't have achieved much- but accepting some responsibility for the quality standards of your platform dropping off a cliff is a good start at the very least. Of course, he also reaffirmed the dedication of the studio to commit to supporting Redfall for as long as possible, which is just the worst possible way to handle this situation. Redfall isn't a diamond in the rough. It's not a situation of a 'near success' that collapsed into a failure. It's a miserable, mediocre mess. There's not a pot of gold at the end of the deluge of faeces and disappointment- just more disappointment. Why can't these companies ever know when it's time to just drop the game?

Once again Xbox has another false start to it's race and with all due respect for a company as venerated and special as theirs, it's nearing a hopeless state of being. Murmurs have drawn the rather dire conclusion that Phil Spencer needs to go and whilst I'm not really one for corporate punishment of such a degree for a man who doesn't himself seem to be the problem- it's clear that something about the Xbox family is rotten and he has been the common denominator in the past few years. The Bethesda purchase was a good move and Obsidian make for great bed mates, but someone even in 2023 all we have are the promises of in-house studios with apparently fruitful pedigrees behind them- nothing exists for the here and now.