As Team Insignia further develops the Original Xbox Live 1.0 replacement service currently supporting 169 games, the much anticipated return of Halo 2 online play is nearing the horizon. While no official date has been set, it seems Halo 2 will once again be playable online via Original Xbox consoles and Xemu emulation in the somewhat near future, via "Xbox Live".
Insider reveals Xbox's Perfect Dark reboot struggles in development, far from ready despite ongoing efforts.
The hits just keep on coming. Will not be surprised if this gets canned. It already got rebooted and they had to bring on an outside studio to try and help developement. Some of the original creatives have left the project.
But I will say, just wait until the MS showcase. If you don't see it there, then alarm bells should start ringing.
God, please don't screw this one up Microsoft! I am keeping my expectations super low, but Perfect Dark (the original) holds such a special place in my childhood. I want this to turn out well SO bad.
Just cancel it because we know you won’t be happy with its sales performance while giving it away on GP day one. GP is the biggest issue for developers and that affects the sales. No one can deny that now. GP equals to good deal for gamers and bad deals for AAA development. Take two CEO said it and he was 100% right. There are certain games that make sense on GP but not every game. 20 million gamers playing a game on GP doesn’t mean much to MS it seems because they still want sales. Just please start releasing all games on other platforms otherwise Phil is next now. You can’t spend 80 billion and be this bad
The studio was founded in 2018. It's still not adding up in my head how it can take 6 years to develop a game, with a whole dev studio working on it.
For Xbox’s hugely expanded gaming division, anything that isn’t Call of Duty is now a failure, and that’s a problem…
Honestly, If I worked presently for Microsoft's gaming division, I would update my CV and look for work elsewhere...
I would do the same, because MS will most likely pull-off more stunts like this in the near future...
"Now"?
How about "ever"?
They closed so many of their dev teams during the second half of the Xbox 360 era. Have we forgotten history so quickly?
Dummy fake journalists acting so surprised over these recent closures, when this is something that's been going on for well over a decade now with MS.
Nirav from GL writes: "If the makers of a GOTY competitor that outdid sales and Game Pass expectations and owned by the richest company in the world cannot stay open - what hope is there for everyone else?"
***If the makers of a GOTY competitor that outdid sales and Game Pass expectations and owned by the richest company in the world cannot stay open - what hope is there for everyone else?***
None if you stay in an arena of corporate driven metrics. And this is what happens when you allow publishers to buy up massive amounts of studios and IPs. There's only so much internal competition and the focus in the end will remain on those who look best on a spreadsheet.
Players can be so driven by what is best for them and only see what is put right in front of them. But that's not what is best for them. They are being lied to constantly, as seen by Microsoft's ridiculous praise for Hi-Fi Rush and Phil's lies about Redfall prior to release and how big of a supporter of both studios he has been. But, instead of thinking "wait, this corporation wants me to think this way, should I be listening to them and believing them?" players eat it up and go "OMG, did you hear what they said! They're just like us and they know what's best for the industry."
And because of this single-mindedness of the majority of gamers, we are where we are now. Massive layoffs. Massive studio closures. Games that we were told were representative of the core values of said corporations shelved and studios behind them shuttered. The truth is coming to bear because the truth all along was only what the numbers in an excel spreadsheet told the corporate suits.
If you truly want what is best for the industry, what is best for developers, then you need to support Indie games, support developers that maintain control over their IPs and direction, support boutique publishers who only exist to help Indies make it out the door and don't own the IP. Stop supporting major corporations with your money or you devotion. Stop playing their games, and I don't mean video games, but their marketing, their double speak, their guy without a tie who says things you want to hear PR, their future of video gaming concepts as if we were hurting for new ways to play games other than installing/downloading and playing them, and especially any slogan from them that gives the impression that they are for you, the consumer. They are not. You're merely a value on a spreadsheet.
Sure, I'm the one drinking the koolaid. Keep believing in the corporations. They definitely have your best interests in mind. All hail the Big Green, For You Blue, and Nostalgia Red! All praise big corporations buying up other publishers. All praise the inevitable spreadsheet adjustments. For greed, not the players.
I don’t always agree with you. But you are correct and well said. It amazes me on what used to be a pretty straightforward industry has turned into such a greedy mess. Layoffs galore across the industry and corporates pushing/firing whatever is going to move the bean counters. With no regard for the people making the games. I’m tired of hearing these rich companies saying it’s just business, or an adjustment needed to be made, but it’s not personal. Then on top of it they have to inject corporate inclusivity into every game. On top of releasing broken games and expect people to pay top dollar.
But again well said and we as the consumer need to not only speak up but vote with our wallets.
This should not be surprising to any of you. We have been saying for MONTHS that Game Pass is not sustainable and that these acquisitions will come at a massive cost to the industry. People refused to grasp the difference between buying and investing in a developer like Insomniac or Housemarque, and buying the entire publisher. People refused to accept that spending billions to acquire the biggest publishers in gaming means you have to RECOUP those costs, and you aren't going to do it without consolidation, focusing on core IP that sells, creating revenue streams via ownership and releasing on other platforms, and closing down studios that are superfluous to the budget requirements. You will not recoup those costs by investing in risky new IP or creative new games and studios.
No, people cheered Microsoft on like they were delivering GOTY titles to their door and pouring money into the industry to grow Indies and triple A projects.
You are getting what you deserve. You take the consequences of the practices you supported.
Layoffs happen. Some games don't succeed. Everyone has seen it happen. Happens even to the winners.
This, however, is goddamn shambolic and if you can't see it now then there's no helping you and you should keep enjoying the "value" of Game Pass while contributing nothing to this industry.
I've never seen the developer of one of the best games of the year get axed before.
Ninja Theory is next after Hellblade 2, I can see them going independent again. There's more to come from MS.
This is exactly it. There is more of this coming. MS runs from one bad idea to the next, and GamePass is an unsustainable train wreck that we get to watch in real time.
GamePass is stalled for subscriber growth, and all that they can hope for is to either A) Reduce the quantity of games (i.e. shutter game studios), B) Reduce the quality of games (to make more mediocre but lower budget offerings), or C) Raise prices on existing customers. Or some combination of those.
MS does not have a passion for the industry. The XBox project, from the beginning, was sparked from the fear that someone else would eat their PC market lunch by making a games machine that replaced the PC. THAT was the entire motivation for getting into the games industry.
I saw it from the outset of day 1 on Xbox it's unsustainable no one was buying their games and a noticeable decline in quality and a push to live service elements to keep subscriptions active was obvious.
I saw it every time I'd go to a physical game shop for a Multi plat pre order no one was there for the Xbox version.
I'd go to CeX or other used game stores and be able to pick up the full range of Xbox studios first party games for 20 bucks and change while on the PlayStation side 20 bucks might get me two PS4 launch games and wouldn't even get me a single Nintendo first party game.
"Ninja Theory is next after Hellblade 2"
Anyone think it's weird it comes out in 2 weeks and there's hardly anything on it
Actually Foxtrot, I don't find it weird. When last has Microsoft thrown advertising weight behind one of their releases? Long gone are the days where their games had the sheer presence of Halo 3 or Gears of War 2. It's all been replaced with "play it day one on Games Pass."
Why spend millions on marketing a product when you aren't SELLING it? The Xbox faithful aren't going to buy it, they're just going to see it on the splash page of Game Pass.
They know what they are doing. If 'you' treat them like "good 'ol simple minded folk", then 'you' are relieving them from blame via ignorance. They knew that they were going all live service, streaming and mobile a long time ago, The Oracle tends to see the obvious. While companies patronize gamers like they are children, which most of them are, may be confused for stupidity, they are also not so stupid they don't understand the decisions that they are making toward the overall direction of their company.
*None of their games were even close to competing for GOTY. They paid for names to be mentioned.
Xbox survived it's first gen by pure luck halo became a hit and it was huge followed up by halo 2 which had one of the biggest marketing campaigns I can remember seeing in the early 00s we had guys in master chief outfits on the sidelines of state of origin as a promo it blew my mind.
Then the 360 fell under the excellent leadership of Peter Moore and outpaced the PS3 for the first three quarters of that generation the only time anyone has ever done that.
Since losing Peter Moore it's been a rapid decline and buying up the industry stank of a desperate move along with the idea of gamepass itself stank of desperation to me no one was buying the X1 they needed something to get people interested and here we are.
I would happily lose gamepass if Xbox could go back to the 360 era style of focused heavy hitters and solid games.
The championing of consolidation they did was disgusting and what's happened as a result is proof they never had gamers or the industry at heart they need their ROI and that's all they cared about big daddy ms has signed a number of blank checks getting them here and it's coming to collect on their debts
Well, MS bought Bungie to get Halo (and shut down the Mac version), which is a big reason they were as successful as they were. And the PS3 actually outpaced the 360, which is why it eventually outsold it despite releasing more than a year later. So really, not much has changed if you think about it.
Let's gooo
If you are interested in setting up your Xbox for online, the process is very easy: https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Here is footage of a Halo 2 Rumble Pit match online via matchmaking (first since April 2010): https://www.youtube.com/wat...