Xbox Series X / S

[AlphaJohn]

I've been seeing these roadmaps ever since I can remember. But it doesn't seem to translate into anything as spectacular.

I'll give you that
Wasn't a fan of Avowed, Indy Jones, Hellblade or such.
The only game on that list that I enjoyed was Starfield (Yeah, I know the game that everyone seems to hate)

If the games aren't being delayed, it's released with bugs, or cancelled outright. This whole generation just seems to be a massive disappointment, despite the consoles having so much promise. Again dev timelines to blame...

Only "current" game I am playing off & on = Diablo 4 and that's more because of the group than the game. Spend most of my time playing older games. Esp JRPG's that seem to be lacking on Xbox.

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Yup game time lines are now longer than 2 console generations by the looks of it. Perhaps devs need to start bringing out smaller games, or try keep things going so people don't loose interest. This and honestly even the previous generation were like eh if you think about it.

How much smaller can it get?

We had 3 Uncharteds, 3 Mass Effects, 3 Dragon Ages and 3 Gears of War in a single generation, and each game in those trilogies was pretty big. I have no idea what they're spending their time doing.

Maybe new IPs need to be planned as a trilogy to be released within a single gen, I dunno, but at this rate I'm not buying into the next gen until things change, especially with the way console prices are going...

 

[SauRoNZA]

How much smaller can it get?

We had 3 Uncharteds, 3 Mass Effects, 3 Dragon Ages and 3 Gears of War in a single generation, and each game in those trilogies was pretty big. I have no idea what they're spending their time doing.

Maybe new IPs need to be planned as a trilogy to be released within a single gen, I dunno, but at this rate I'm not buying into the next gen until things change, especially with the way console prices are going...

I think part of the problem is that there really wasn’t a generational lockout like there had been in the past which blurs the line somewhat.

It’s been much more akin to the PC market with games straddling multiple generations and even the Switch being in the multi-platform space keeping games available across that span.

Many people even now still stick with the PS4 and Xbox One quite happily as they have most of the games still, so especially your more casual market just doesn’t care.

Adding to that the fact that the biggest games are all free people aren’t really bothered to upgrade.

 

[Lupus]

How much smaller can it get?

We had 3 Uncharteds, 3 Mass Effects, 3 Dragon Ages and 3 Gears of War in a single generation, and each game in those trilogies was pretty big. I have no idea what they're spending their time doing.

Maybe new IPs need to be planned as a trilogy to be released within a single gen, I dunno, but at this rate I'm not buying into the next gen until things change, especially with the way console prices are going...

Smaller as in not a 6 year development cycle, like we need something like the Gears series, how did they manage to throw out 4 of those on 360? Plus 3 Halos, plus as you said 3 Mass Effects, each game looking and handling far better than the previous.
Now we wait years and years for games?

 

[SauRoNZA]

Smaller as in not a 6 year development cycle, like we need something like the Gears series, how did they manage to throw out 4 of those on 360? Plus 3 Halos, plus as you said 3 Mass Effects, each game looking and handling far better than the previous.
Now we wait years and years for games?

Scope creep/difference.

Games now need to do far more in a flooded market to harbour the same attention and therefore take much longer to make.

When the Halo’s and Gears of Wars came out they were really the only ones of their kind and therefore pretty much only competed with themselves.

Fast forward to now and everyone is on the wagon making similar stuff so the competition needs to be addressed.

You and I will be quite happy with another Gears or Halo following the exact same formula, but the masses want something new or extra.

I mean I just look at how excited we Gears die hards are for the 28th of August to go back and do it all over again with newer more modern mechanics and graphics, but any new kid on the block couldn’t care less I bet.

Which is also why they fail more because someone plays it once and then jumps back to Fortnite or Call of Duty or wherever and forgets about it immediately.

 

[Lupus]

Scope creep/difference.

Games now need to do far more in a flooded market to harbour the same attention and therefore take much longer to make.

When the Halo’s and Gears of Wars came out they were really the only ones of their kind and therefore pretty much only competed with themselves.

Fast forward to now and everyone is on the wagon making similar stuff so the competition needs to be addressed.

You and I will be quite happy with another Gears or Halo following the exact same formula, but the masses want something new or extra.

I mean I just look at how excited we Gears die hards are for the 28th of August to go back and do it all over again with newer more modern mechanics and graphics, but any new kid on the block couldn’t care less I bet.

I am so hoping they put in newer mechanics for the new Gears, not like the one from 2015 where they just spruced up the graphics but kept the original gears mechanics. Which were clunky compared to 3s . But yeah I am definitely looking forward to it again .
I also feel that devs are over-exaggerating that, people want games, if it's Halo or Gears or Uncharted, it's games. Currently there are no games, unless you look at third parties and cross platform.
I mean just look at Nintendo, they have pretty much spewed out their games over and over, yet still keep selling.

 

[SauRoNZA]

There’s also something to be said for games that catered to our generation who started playing them in our 20’s and then targeted us as the demographic into our 30’s/40’s even 50’s.

Now the market has kind of reset and is catering to the 20’s again and a lot of those we simply have no interest in.

There was a big drive for multiplayer when we all had the time for it, but now being older we gravitate towards simple single player experiences instead.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I am so hoping they put in newer mechanics for the new Gears, not like the one from 2015 where they just spruced up the graphics but kept the original gears mechanics. Which were clunky compared to 3s . But yeah I am definitely looking forward to it again .
I also feel that devs are over-exaggerating that, people want games, if it's Halo or Gears or Uncharted, it's games. Currently there are no games, unless you look at third parties and cross platform.
I mean just look at Nintendo, they have pretty much spewed out their games over and over, yet still keep selling.

I think Nintendo’s secret sauce is really selling the same stuff to the newer generations only finding gaming now, while also playing on the nostalgia with the old guard like us.

By and large their stuff is far more accessible to more people across age groups which can’t always be said for the rest.

In many ways if you think about it Nintendo hasn’t done AAA games but always really skirted a sort of Indie flavour to their entire catalog which is also why they get them out much faster.

 

[Lupus]

I think Nintendo’s secret sauce is really selling the same stuff to the newer generations only finding gaming now, while also playing on the nostalgia with the old guard like us.

By and large their stuff is far more accessible to more people across age groups which can’t always be said for the rest.

In many ways if you think about it Nintendo hasn’t done AAA games but always really skirted a sort of Indie flavour to their entire catalog which is also why they get them out much faster.

See that is what Sony and MS should be doing, sure keep the big AAA games in long cycles if you want. But throw some bones, they have the engines even if they are old, throw some games together just to keep things ticking. If Nintendo can do two Zeldas in one generation and it looks barely different and runs like crap on the original system, but people chomped them up.
MS and Sony could throw together another game out of their IPs just to tide things over, doesn't need to look as pretty as they would want to.

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Scope creep/difference.

Games now need to do far more in a flooded market to harbour the same attention and therefore take much longer to make.

When the Halo’s and Gears of Wars came out they were really the only ones of their kind and therefore pretty much only competed with themselves.

Fast forward to now and everyone is on the wagon making similar stuff so the competition needs to be addressed.

You and I will be quite happy with another Gears or Halo following the exact same formula, but the masses want something new or extra.

I mean I just look at how excited we Gears die hards are for the 28th of August to go back and do it all over again with newer more modern mechanics and graphics, but any new kid on the block couldn’t care less I bet.

Which is also why they fail more because someone plays it once and then jumps back to Fortnite or Call of Duty or wherever and forgets about it immediately.

I don't see it as flooded, that 360/PS3 era established some major new IPs which are now well recognised brands. And those IPs were released almost without fault. But for some reason they can't keep those brands going even with the extended dev timelines.

They tried to release a new ME, took ages, and still fcked it up. Same with the latest Dragon Age. Sony can't even keep their IPs going, they have to keep remastering the same thing. GTA would have skipped almost 2 whole generations. I just hope they don't screw up the new Gears.

The market may be flooded in terms of genre and mechanics, but it can never be flooded in terms of storytelling. Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon ZD proved this. What happened is they just ran out of creativity and spend years trying to come up with ideas to keep the IP going. The industry has a creative talent problem...

 

[Lupus]

I don't see it as flooded, that 360/PS3 era established some major new IPs which are now well recognised brands. And those IPs were released almost without fault. But for some reason they can't keep those brands going even with the extended dev timelines.

They tried to release a new ME, took ages, and still fcked it up. Same with the latest Dragon Age. Sony can't even keep their IPs going, they have to keep remastering the same thing. GTA would have skipped almost 2 whole generations. I just hope they don't screw up the new Gears.

The market may be flooded in terms of genre and mechanics, but it can never be flooded in terms of storytelling. Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon ZD proved this. What happened is they just ran out of creativity and spend years trying to come up with ideas to keep the IP going. The industry has a creative talent problem...

Andromeda isn't actually that bad, having played the Legendary Edition of ME after Andromeda you realise how clunky 1 and 2 of Mass Effect were. People kept comparing Andromeda to the rose tinted versions of the original 3, storyline of Andromeda could've been a bit better, especially if they didn't hide the Quarian seed ship behind DLC and if we had more bloody aliens from the new galaxy.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Andromeda isn't actually that bad, having played the Legendary Edition of ME after Andromeda you realise how clunky 1 and 2 of Mass Effect were. People kept comparing Andromeda to the rose tinted versions of the original 3, storyline of Andromeda could've been a bit better, especially if they didn't hide the Quarian seed ship behind DLC and if we had more bloody aliens from the new galaxy.

Mass Effect 1 was truly terrible even when I played it the first time.

Andromeda’s mistake I think was simply being too big but also having new characters which just made it an obvious cash in.

Looking past that I was also one of few people who really enjoyed it.

Mass Effect 2 was still the best of them all and 3 could have been DLC for that game really.

Games being too big has really been a struggling point for me. I feel it’s the same reason I didn’t enjoy Halo Infinite nearly as much as the games before it.

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Andromeda isn't actually that bad, having played the Legendary Edition of ME after Andromeda you realise how clunky 1 and 2 of Mass Effect were. People kept comparing Andromeda to the rose tinted versions of the original 3, storyline of Andromeda could've been a bit better, especially if they didn't hide the Quarian seed ship behind DLC and if we had more bloody aliens from the new galaxy.

The problem with Andromeda is they ran out of ideas, struggled with the engine and were forced to release whatever they had. EA also wanted them to focus on graphics, which ironically is what led to the memes. I agree it wasn't bad, but it just didn't have the same sort of storytelling that the originals did because they were focusing on the wrong crap...

 

[Lupus]

Mass Effect 1 was truly terrible even when I played it the first time.

Andromeda’s mistake I think was simply being too big but also having new characters which just made it an obvious cash in.

Looking past that I was also one of few people who really enjoyed it.

Mass Effect 2 was still the best of them all and 3 could have been DLC for that game really.

Games being too big has really been a struggling point for me. I feel it’s the same reason I didn’t enjoy Halo Infinite nearly as much as the games before it.

I played Mass Effect when it came out and on PC for the first two times and the PC experience was better than the 360s. When I played it on the 360 when I got it to try go through the trilogy on the 360, man it was bad, but I pushed through it. The second one was a lot better and ran a bit better somehow. Third one I did enjoy it, but only with the updated ending.
Andromeda I did enjoy as well, yes the bugs with the faces and sometimes odd HDR issues (early days of HDR as well I guess), I enjoyed the new experience and sure it wasn't Shepperd but it wasn't that bad.
Yeah I'm feeling it now on big games as well, playing GTA 4 on my Rog Ally and man the game just feels big, even though it's smaller than 5 which I finished 10 years ago already.
Even Assassins Creed Origins is like why is all this crud added? And sadly my brain wants to try get it all.

 

[Lupus]

The problem with Andromeda is they ran out of ideas, struggled with the engine and were forced to release whatever they had. EA also wanted them to focus on graphics, which ironically is what led to the memes. I agree it wasn't bad, but it just didn't have the same sort of storytelling that the originals did because they were focusing on the wrong crap...

Once it was patched the graphics could be really really pretty. Like damn, but yeah on the other foot it also could look like arse. Some of the planets were gorgeous. Just people kept comparing it to the first trilogy is like guys, honestly if this was released alongside 1, it would've received a much better reception. Combat a 100 times tighter and easier to do, the driving worked, the planets were better explorable for actual things not just the same base and space ship over and over.
Storyline wasn't that bad either really, a little more average compared to ME but I mean technically MEs wasn't exactly ground breaking, ME was to me as if Star Control was a third person RPG and I loooooved Star Control 2 and enjoyed Origins, we don't talk about 3.

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Mass Effect 1 was truly terrible even when I played it the first time.

Andromeda’s mistake I think was simply being too big but also having new characters which just made it an obvious cash in.

Looking past that I was also one of few people who really enjoyed it.

Mass Effect 2 was still the best of them all and 3 could have been DLC for that game really.

Games being too big has really been a struggling point for me. I feel it’s the same reason I didn’t enjoy Halo Infinite nearly as much as the games before it.

I loved ME1 when I first played it upon release. And that's because there really wasn't anything to compare it to at the time. The main criticisms were the Mako and the overheating weapons which were very divisive.

The reason why we now think 1 was so bad, is because 2 came along and improved on it in literally every single way. So obviously if you play 1 again after playing 2, it's going to suck because you have a point of reference now...

 

[SauRoNZA]

I loved ME1 when I first played it upon release. And that's because there really wasn't anything to compare it to at the time. The main criticisms were the Mako and the overheating weapons which were very divisive.

The reason why we now think 1 was so bad, is because 2 came along and improved on it in literally every single way. So obviously if you play 1 again after playing 2, it's going to suck because you have a point of reference now...

Yeah I’m referring to purely gameplay.

The rest of the game made up for those failures for like you say being completely unique so it’s not like I hated it overall.

But straight off the bat it wasn’t great gameplay wise.

 

[Lupus]

I loved ME1 when I first played it upon release. And that's because there really wasn't anything to compare it to at the time. The main criticisms were the Mako and the overheating weapons which were very divisive.

The reason why we now think 1 was so bad, is because 2 came along and improved on it in literally every single way. So obviously if you play 1 again after playing 2, it's going to suck because you have a point of reference now...

Reminded me of Star Control 2 in away . Man if that could be remade. I know it's 33 years old now, I know they tried to reboot it with Star Control Origins. But without the Spathi, Vux and Syreen it wasn't the same.

 

[Lupus]

Yeah I’m referring to purely gameplay.

The rest of the game made up for those failures for like you say being completely unique so it’s not like I hated it overall.

But straight off the bat it wasn’t great gameplay wise.

Plus the choice between Ashley and Kaiden, it wasn't really much of a choice really.

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Plus the choice between Ashley and Kaiden, it wasn't really much of a choice really.

In legendary edition I tried choosing Kaiden to see the difference, really wish I didn't. Can't think of a more boring character in all of gaming...