150°

Enough is Enough Gamers Deserve Better

Books Based on Games are basically Fan-Fic sanctioned by developers. This atrocity must be stopped!

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epicslash.com
60°

Nordic Game has just revealed the winners of Nordic Game Awards 2024

"Nordic Game has revealed the winners of this year’s Nordic Game Awards, which took place on Thursday, May 23, during NG24 Spring and streamed live from Slagthuset in Malmö, Sweden." - Nordic Game.

140°

10 Biggest Xbox Mistakes of All Time (So Far)

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.

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culturedvultures.com
piroh1d 8h ago (Edited 1d 8h ago )

Ironically number 9 can save them at this point (releasing games on multiple platforms)

ChasterMies2h ago

By “save them” you mean make more profit for Microsoft. Xbox will still be a dying hardware platform.

OtterX14h ago

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.

RNTody14h ago

Don't forget about the Xbox One, Xbox One X and Xbox Series X! Good luck to Soccer moms around the world.

S2Killinit1h ago(Edited 1h ago)

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.

Cacabunga14h ago(Edited 14h ago)

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

Reaper22_9h ago

He still has his job. Something you can't say about Jim Ryan.

Cacabunga9h ago

Both bad execs. One is on job and one thankfully retired.

bunt-custardly4h ago

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).

Cacabunga3h ago

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..

S2Killinit1h ago

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.

MaximusPrime_12h ago

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

shinoff21839h ago(Edited 9h ago)

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

ChasterMies5h ago

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.

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400°

Anyone else not blown away with graphics these days? Me neither

Talal writes: "I'm talking about having that rush of excitement - that feeling you get when you know you've just made a memory for a lifetime."

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videogamer.com
OptimusDK1d 4h ago

There are different games. Some have gamplay at it highest priority, some have the story, some have the replay value and choices... There are a lot of different game experiences.

It is laughable that just now graphics does not have anything to do with that experiene. We have had many games of that type over time. This is just the one that have come closest to feel like playing an actual movie. Just look the the Digital foundry walkthrough it is a masterpiece in that perspective and hence wrth trying. But yes do not do it for the gameplay - but that was never the goal of this experience.

GamerRN20h ago

It's because it's on Xbox. When Xbox has amazing graphics, they don't matter. When PlayStation does, it's a game changer!

Lightning7720h ago

Pretty much my thoughts. They were technical marvel's on PS and still are. The moment Xbox puts out a graphically intense game is doesn't matter suddenly.

4 years ago this month would the UE5 tech demo debut with the girl flying (tech demo said it was only possible on PS5 because of the SSD. Glad to finally see it in its glory.

fr0sty19h ago

FFS, gaming journalism has really gone downhill. At least hire people with a basic grasp of grammar... "Me neither" means the exact opposite of what the "author" is trying to say. That's like saying "I could care less"... lol.

S2Killinit19h ago

Maybe because the gameplay being dull allowed it to have the amazing graphics and people are not as impressed by graphics alone anymore? I mean there is a lot of sites saying the story and the gameplay are lackluster. So what are we supposed to enjoy then? Cgi graphics are beautiful but since they arent interactive, they dont impress me as much as they used to. Thats an extreme example, but you get my drift.

Terry_B14h ago

When Playstation (Sony) does it..its usually a great game and not a cinematic experience..or at least something new at the time..like Until Dawn back in 2015.

1Victor12h ago

@gamer:” It's because it's on Xbox. When Xbox has amazing graphics, they don't matter. When PlayStation does, it's a game changer!”

The game looks as good as any other PlayStation game in my eyes why can’t you and the other hardcore Xbox be happy about it and drag PlayStation into every conversation and force PlayStation hardcore to look into the game and find flaw that most games have in one way or another.
@light: “ 4 years ago this month would the UE5 tech demo debut with the girl flying (tech demo said it was only possible on PS5 because of the SSD. ”
Yes at that time it was only possible on PlayStation SSD how ignorant of you to think that after 4 years the technology wouldn’t evolved and move to a industry standard 🤦🏿I wish your mentality wasn’t so naive and narrow to post stuff like that 😩 in a year or 2 a new game will come out that might look better, it’s the nature of the industry.

Now that the distraction is gone I feel that is a good thing that the graphics in games are starting to hit the rooftop and hopefully the developers will put more thoughts into story and gameplay mechanics than just the next shiny oily skin of old.

Reaper22_12h ago

So true. Not surprised by all the negativity. It's a really good game and looks better than any game I've ever seen. GOTY nominee for sure. Like I said before, sony screwed up big time by not purchasing Ninja Theory.

Asplundh6h ago

Pretty much. It's like how the Switch and Steam controller using haptic feedback in their controllers wasn't a big deal but then Sony did it and it was then a "game changer".

fr0sty6h ago

The game runs at as low as 21fps... That isn't much to brag about no matter how good it looks.

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 6h ago
MajorLazer11h ago(Edited 11h ago)

We've had graphical gamechangers before, such as Crysis but those games still had gameplay to compliment it. Hellblade pretty much has none, and only achieved such graphics through being incredibly linear and having very small, closed off environments where very little is happening.

Vx_7h ago(Edited 7h ago)

GFX does not mean anything if the game is boring. It is simple like that and these major companies need to understand this simple concept.

Games are like your lady, she may be beautiful to look at for a while but then it gets boring if her character isn't interesting and fun to be with.

1d 4h ago Replies(7)
Kneetos1d 3h ago

Mario kart 8 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Sonic18811d 3h ago

Horizon forbidden West has great graphics and great gameplay

GamerRN20h ago

Yeah but graphics don't matter, remember?

anast5h ago

@RN

I've been pretty consistent in saying that we need both.

VincentVanBro22h ago

I agree and I actually think Forbidden West looks better than Hellblade 2. I easily prefer looking at it at least.

Sonic18817h ago

It does look better in my opinion as well. I don't know why it looks better but there's something about the Decima engine or that guerrilla games is using tricks that we don't know of

Abear213h ago

Can you fly a mount under water in Hellblade 2? I think not! One of the best moments this Gen

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