Koerri & KJ give their take on the latest game play reveal for the Xbox Series X. KJ also clears up a major boo boo from last weeks podcast and Gremlik stops by with a new “Make it Grumpy" segment.
The Play Legit Podcast Drops Every Thursday.
Gareth writes: Crow Country is an excellent homage to the games found in the early survival horror market.
Just how shock-ing is it?
With Microsoft’s long list of poor messaging and poor decisions this week, combined with rumors of behind-the-scenes problems with some of its top games, one frequent point that keeps coming up is how much weight has been thrown behind Xbox/PC/Ultimate Game Pass.
Well fancy that. A Forbes article with common sense.
Microsoft's only shot to get more gamers, being the devils advocate, is to go Mobile and free to play with ads to grow their fan base. With maybe a subscription to games like cod on Mobile to get more to buy in what they are offering.
But mobile isn't like consoles or PC at all. You can't charge huge amounts for games because that platform is used to cheap or free content. Can't go to Nintendo and Sony with game pass because they'(competitors) aren't stupid to destroy their own platforms with Microsoft's rental service. And PC gamers dabble with it but they're fine with Steam and other, similar offerings. Casuals are their target but do casuals really care because up to this point, they haven't.
They put themselves in a bind and I'm not sorry for them in the least. When you kill your own sales of hardware and software, you groom your base to not buy but to rent, and do everything you can but do what works for Nintendo and Sony in creating games that grow the industry, this is the results. Dead last.
Why was/is it so hard to just make great games and from that, EARN respect that would lead to an increase in consumers? Never made sense how stupid they are when they had the finances to compete and pretty much outdo Nintendo and Sony combined. They just chose greed and annual fees and lack of effort instead.
Touche, Forbes did it at last.
Remember that in addition to having no appetite to invest in new IP and no creative vision to recognise potential winners or refresh their existing portfolio, Microsoft simply can't manage or lead their studios.
I repeatedly find it ridiculous that The Initiative was formed in 2018 when it was announced at E3, and now five years later they haven't even managed to release a trailer let alone gameplay content of anything they're working on. If they don't show off something at the upcoming Xbox showcase, it would be absurd.
But you're right, Microsoft has groomed their fanbase to behave the way Game Pass makes them, but what we've been telling people for years is that "value" or quantity will never ever subsidise or replace a good product.
Give me God of War over the entire Game Pass catalogue, I'll jump to spend on Hades 2 but only sub to Game Pass once or twice a year, and likewise I'll spend a night with Godzilla Minus One over hundreds of B-class shovelware on Netflix.
They have little choice but to double down on their greed, passive revenue streams and ownership cut.
Home console sales seemingly peaked with PS2 20 years ago. Even if a console does outsell it now, it's going to be by a small amount.. like, what I mean is we aren't suddenly going to get a console that sells 400 million units out of nowhere. So yes, I think the article is spot on with their assessment.
Microsoft 365 had 155 million subs in 2018. Today it sits at just shy of 300 million. The games industry was never going to be able to have growth at those levels, not to mention how much more expensive development is.
MS went all-in with Game Pass (and Xbox Series S) and now they're stuck. The model has failed and it's difficult to see what they do from here. They either carry on digging in, kill it completely (which will be a PR disaster for people who have paid to stack up years of service or purchased a Series S with the promise of being able to play all games this generation) or copy Sony and do away with Day One Game Pass and change their Series S policies.. Option 1 & 2 kills Xbox off overnight and Option 3 makes it utterly irrelevant.
The future of everything is subscription. Or at least that's the plan they have for us. Own nothing, rent everything.
They can up that vision where the sun doesnt shine. I have a collection of games going back to 8bit systems and I have no qualms going retro.
