Gizorama explains the top five ways the videogame industry is collapsing in on itself.
The Xbox brand has done a lot of good over the years, but their various blunders are pretty wild to look back on in their magnitude.
Ironically number 9 can save them at this point (releasing games on multiple platforms)
By “save them” you mean make more profit for Microsoft. Xbox will still be a dying hardware platform.
You could add the naming scheme for the consoles, it just confuses customers. I know they wanted to avoid traditional numbering bc it would always be lower than their competitor, but this whole 360 then One then Series thing is confusing af. Imagine a Soccer Mom trying to figure this stuff out. I still mistakenly call the Series X the One from time to time on accident.
Don't forget about the Xbox One, Xbox One X and Xbox Series X! Good luck to Soccer moms around the world.
They did that on purpose to confuse and direct attention away from the generational numbering.
MS doesn’t like reminding people that they joined the industry after others had already been involved in gaming.
For instance, they called the xbox “360” to combat PlayStation “3” because they wanted to seem like “more” than “3”, so instead of xbox 2, they opted for xbox 360. Also this had the additional benefit of selling consoles to uninformed parents who might purchase a “360” instead of a “3” by mistake, or because they thought 360 was more than 3. Kind of a disingenuous move.
They have been continuing with their confusing naming patterns for pretty much the same reasons. Frankly, it fits with who and what they are as a brand.
I can understand their reasoning, but whoever came up with that naming scheme should be fired, bad naming schemes have killed consoles (I'm pretty sure it was the major reason for the downfall of the WiiU). They should have had unqiue names like Nintendo and Sega have had for their consoles, far less confusing for the consumer.
Phil Spencer is the worst that has happened to Xbox.
They built a respectable brand up to Xbox one. Then this guy took over and things became a joke
I didn't like either person, both people damaged their respective brands and produced worse outcomes, but Phil did save the Xbox brand from being retired by Microsoft. Although in hindsight, he should have just let it die, rather than languish in limbo like it is now.
Phil Spencer was also on the team back when 360 was around, alongside Shane Kim, Peter Moore etc. I think the damage that did the most harm was the Don Mattrick "Always Online" console (ahead of its time basically). They handed Sony and Nintendo a free-pass when that was revealed. It went downhill from there. Then the corporate machine went into full swing to try and recover. They have to a degree as a games company for the masses, and less so for the core gamer. Outside USA, the Xbox brand does not sell as well as Japanese based consoles (citation needed).
Want a decision maker. The always online and TV plans was a disaster yes, but they caught up by announcing 1st party games that gamers actually kept the hype going.. until this moron took over and introduced the PC day one release.. e all know where that ended..
I dont think they were ever a respectable brand, not since the beginning, when their goal was never to be involved and share in the gaming space. I think the OG xbox was an exception because MS as a brand was still getting its foot in and so the people behind that were people of the gaming industry.
The 360 was the brand in its prime though, everything went downhill towards the end of that generation. Its staple games like Halo, Forza and Gears are what kept the console relevant and afloat for so long.
Really good video.
I remember the days with RRoD was big news on here, N4G.
Microsoft had it turbulence number of years.
Looking at the success of Sea of Thieves despite being 6 years old, time to release Halo, Forza horizon 4 & 5 on PS5. It'll help their revenue
2 of the 4 games they did already sold really well. So it's definitely going down. Idk about halo or forza but I feel those studios they've bought in the last 5 years, their coming
I found this video painful to watch. Can someone list them out?
Top 10 for me from are:
1. 2013 reveal presentation
2. Bundling Kinect 2 with Xbox One
3. RRoD or why rushing to market with hardware is always a bad idea.
4. Buying studios only to close them.
5. Ads on the Home Screen
6. Letting Halo die.
7. Letting Geard of War die.
8. Every console name
9. Charging for Xbox Live on Xbox 360 when Sony let PS3 players play online for free.
10. Cancelling release of OG Xbox games after the Xbox 360 launched.
"AI is not a substitute for human creativity. We position it as a technology that supports creativity. Creativity resides in people. We will continue to contribute to people's creativity through technology," the CEO said.
...not yet but 100% within the next 10 years!
..Then Sony will use it like the drop of a hat. They're no different to the others.
They used to be 😞 sure it was always a business, and money's always the priority, but they used to have a very strong stance on supporting artists and creativity. "Dont f#@k with the artist" was a phrase they touted a few times back in the ps1-ps3 era, a philosophy carried over from their music branch PlayStation was created from. It's not COMPLETELY gone, but it's barely there compared to what it was back then, i just want them to return to that.
I am highly encouraged by their statement about human creativity. "Dont f#@k with the artist" is exactly what they are saying. But at the same time, I don't think people understand that Sony is a corporation. If they don't realize growth, they don't get to exist. When you say 'Sony', you are talking about a bunch of investors. To speak about them any other way is a illogical and incorrect. They haven't changed. They have been a group of investors since they became a public business.
Ugh, i really wish people would stop gambling people's livelihoods by turning a project/game into their political soapbox. Im all for statements and having your own opinion, but there's more people working on this than just druckman, ham fisting your political beliefs onto just seems inconsiderate for everyone elses job security when it can result in a failure due to people avoiding it for that reason.
I play games for escape, im so tired of nearly every AAA game blatantly dragging real world issues to shove in my face when I'm trying to take a break from it all. They don't even bother to be subtle about it, quite the opposite, it's blasted and force fed to you and it's just getting exhausting
People are taking a whole interview and cutting it down to clips that make him look bad and take what he actually was saying out of context. For example he also said things like this AI has "ethical issues we need to address"
@Einhander
Why defend him at this point?
It’s not taking things out of context, he said what he said.
Old ND would never talk about soulless AI taking over so many creative things they are well known for. The whole “ethical issues” is just a good PR spin people who push this crap fall back on to make their statements not seem as bad. So many AI lovers do this.
AI has no place is so many creative based things.
Well yeah, because everyone else is using it so they need to stay competitive. It's the same as paid online, they didn't want to go that route but their competition was making so much money they needed to add paid online just to keep up.
AI will never replace humans in game development in terms of conceptualizing new games. Humans still need to come up with the ideas and what they want to implement. However much of the day to day menial coding could be AI driven to reduce production time and team size. I could also see AI being used for bug testing/optimization that could lead to better quality games at launch. I'm actually very optimistic about how AI can positively impact game development.
People that aren't software developers just don't understand the benefits of AI. People who's only exposure to A.I is the Terminator movie and other related sci fi films won't understand the benefits it provides.
It's not about replacing human labor. It's about making human labor easier.
Many years ago, I had laser eye surgery done. It was performed by a robot. The doctor took my measurements and calibrated the machine to make sure it would do what needed be done. And then the robot corrected my vision in 10 seconds.
15 years later and I still have 20/20 vision.
AI in and of itself is not a 'bad'. Money is bad. Money is evil, and corporations will do whatever they can to get more of it. They will find ways to implement AI to replace as may jobs as possible. This isn't even up for debate. It is the charge of the corporation to maximize returns for the investors. They have no choice. I'm a developer and I know that my job will absolutely be replaced. Therefore, I have decided to become an AI dev. AI has a lot of potential to help us solve problem on a scale most can't even imagine. The issue, as ever is that our monetary system only ever allows us to focus on greed and fiscal growth.
But I am a pragmatist. Perhaps an AI model can be built to help protect us from our most dangerous instincts and habits. And perhaps Congress can pass laws to protect us from people who would use AI to manipulate and control us (spoiler: they wont).
Progress is inevitable. Nobody driving cars today is complaining that the horse and buggy is no longer around. Yes, some jobs will be lost but guess what? With innovation comes new job opportunities. It's how the cycle of the job market works.
Nintendo Has Acquired Shiver Entertainment From Embracer Group
Great news it shows that Nintendo intends to continue developing ports of AAA games to its next gen platform
Buying studios from embracer now is a great deal, they must be dirt cheap at this point, Nintendo is a opportunist, they wait until someone fall so they get their best deal
I didn't do any gymnastics I can assure you, honestly I don't know why you think that, not hating I seriously don't see why you think that
Yeah I don't know where that came from. It's rare for Nintendo to flat out aquire studios. Guess they were trying to be edgy but why flex on this studio. 🤣
I hope someone buys Piranha Bytes, their future isn't looking good right now. I love their RPGs, they're janky as f***, but they have heart and soul.
Nintendo saw the Mortal Kombat 1 Switch port and were like, "Yeah, these guys are worth acquiring."
You can't make this crap up lol
Mortal Kombat 1 was never going to port well I'm sure they told wb it wasn't going to work but wb wants that sweet sweet 140 million install base
In the end wb approved the project cleared the milestones and allowed the product to release
Yeah this guys ported MK11 which is great, Hogwarts Legacy which is great, and MK1 is now ok, play it every day
Yeah maybe spec wise not a huge difference between the two consoles but beyond that they are very different. If one of them didn't exist that would be killing the industry because there would be no competition and no reason to further have more innovative consoles.
Telltale episodic games are some of the best games I've ever played. In no way are they garbage even if you didn't like them, they are far from being trash games. "By allowing consumers to become complacent with just watching a videogame". Well you might as well add streaming and videos to that list.
While there are some good points, specifically about some companies abusing DLC and others releasing very broken games, I can't take this article seriously when pretty much the sole reason for #3 is that he hates games from Telltale. Makes the article come off as a spoiled, petulent child crying because the industry doesn't give him exactly what he wants it to.
There have always been point-and-click and other similar styles games where they're not as interactive. Myst, Escape from Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, the list goes on... and guess what? Here we are decades in the industry's life and it's still going just fine.
One of the truly great things about gaming is that there is diversity for all the different tastes. Frankly, not everyone wants to play GTA, Halo, COD, etc. Not everyone wants to be that "busy" while playing. Sometimes I myself really love a game where I can relax and have my decisions influence the story that plays out.
On-disc FLC is inexcusable and day-1 is extremely suspicious. Microtransactions are dangerous, too. Overall, DLC should be reserved for episodic titles and true expansions, with sone exceptions. In concept, DLC is great, but devs abuse it.
Let me run down the list and tell you why the article is wrong.
5. Consoles being the same isn't the end of the industry, it's possibly the end of the console industry but not video games on the whole. If consoles go away, there's still a vibrant world of PC and mobile gaming.
4. No doubt, bad DLC is bad, but I'd point out that the author is exaggerating a lot here. If you cut out the catwoman DLC from Arkham City, you're missing...roughly five missions and some collectibles, I spent maybe three hours as Catwoman and something like thirty as Batman. The most recent study done (in 2011) on DLC found that 49% of console owners didn't buy any DLC whatsoever. Generally speaking, I've found gamers will only buy DLC for games that are good, and even then only DLC that sounds appealing to them. People aren't purchase robots.
3. Yeah, you can go fuck yourself. I'm not a huge fan of Telltale's game style, but this isn't the apocalypse; games similar in nature have been around for decades and haven't caused a collapse. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they are bad.
2. The flood of indie games is bad, but it's a fad and it will fade; even if every indie game disappeared tomorrow you've still got a very large number of publishers putting out scads of games.
1. Unity was released broken, their sales suffered for it. Chances are good the next game people will be even more wary of pre-orders. Unfinished games have been released for pretty much the entire history of the industry, it hasn't killed the industry yet.
Look, ever since the first crash people have been predicting another industry crash. Every year we hear people shouting that the industry is going to crash, every year it turns out that things worked out just fine. There will be ups and downs, but a major collapse of the industry is unlikely. And here's the thing, the initial "crash" didn't kill video games, not even close; PC games were still going strong, and video game arcades were still popular, it just killed consoles. Relax, buy the games you enjoy and things will turn out okay.
I want whatever SKUs this guy has that are pushing out 4k graphics.