GAMING NEWS PART DEUX

Some more info which seems to be NLife over-blowing it.

...or... not? It's all really confusing now. I mean I hope y'all are correct (and after the Switch I don't really see Ninty going back to pure home consoles for a while), but why not leave that message until after you've launched your current one? Surely the shareholders will worry more if they see an apparent lack of faith in this console? (Or maybe not, I've got no idea how yer average moron shareholder thinks.)

Like I said it was a difficult question to answer as it could be taken anyway from whatever he gave.

I was watching IGN's Game Scoop this morning and they talked about Metacritics, 2016 end of year publisher rewards which look like this:

Major Publishers 12+ games
Number 1 Electronic Arts
2 Square Enix
3 Nintendo, The Big N released the most games with 30
4 Sony
5 XSEED Games (Marvelous USA)
6 Capcom
7 Activision Blizzard, Blizzard on their own have average of 85 but would drop down into minor which they will be the highest off
8 Bandai Namco Entertainment
9 Telltale Games, I think this one is a little bit of a cheat as their best game was Batman: The Telltale Series - EP 2: Children of Arkham
10 Ubisoft

Minor Publishers with less then 12 games the Top 5 look like this:
Number 1 Paradox Interactive
2. SEGA
3. Microsoft Game Studios
4. Take-Two Interactive
5. Warner Bros. Interactive
23rd Digerati Distribution

Now I want to have a rant from what was brought up about this on IGN's Game Scoop, when they got to XSEED they had a chuckle but when the host went through the Top 5 Minor Publishers and they got to Microsoft, they sniggered at the thought of XSEED could be considered a bigger publisher then the likes of Microsoft, Warner, SEGA with them basically them saying without saying it because MS is this huge company and XSEED is this little weird publisher they should be switched.

The host did bring up they brought out more games then Microsoft and of a decent standard. Then what made me laugh more then anything and bugged me more then them applying a big publisher should be considered by their name is?! That MS published AAA games which cost more money to make then the weird games XSEED who published, which is true but cost of a game to make isn't reflected in a review score.

Should MS be the number one publisher in 2017 then, because they only have 5 games but all cost 100m+ to make but someone like XSEED has 20 games but all only cost 10m+ to make, so because those cost more their better.

I was thinking they could scrap the whole amount of games thing but then for instance Team 17 may only publish Yooka-Laylee in 2017 which lets gets 8's and EA brings out 20 games with an average of 7, I'm not sure that makes Team 17 a better publisher.

Triple Post but a important one for me and Cappa

GAME from the end of the month will NOT price match other stores, some stores have been doing this since January as a trial but seem all will be doing it soon.

So get rid of those trade ins for the Switch now people!

Oh, crap. Now I've really got to beat DQVII before the end of the month...

WB has confirmed Shadow of War the sequel to Shadow of Mordor will be this August for PC, Xbox One, PS4 (PS4 Pro support) and then also mentioned is Scorpio that it is seems WB has confirmed Scorpio is this year.

Also it is a Xbox play anywhere title, very interesting indeed.

Some things maybe worth having a chat about:

COD: WWII is a real thing, what's everyone's thoughts on the series going back to it's roots?

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Phill Spencer did a interview this week and lets just say it's interesting - First of he thinks gaming will or should go the Netflix like model, I said this will be the path Xbox goes all the way back when the Xbox One was first shown.

Companies like EA have dipped their toe into it with Access and MS now have game pass, The thing I'm thinking is how much will it cost though will it be included with Xbox Live or is it on top and how much is it as lets say this happens the next generation with Xbox.

Halo 5 for instance has sold 4.7 million copies at let's say £40 each, that's £188 million. How does MS get that sort of money from Halo 7 in this Netflix like model?

The next thing he talked about was Single Player games and how likes of Zelda & Horizon are great games and have done well but now that sort of game is irrelevant and don't carry the same weight as they used to and service based games are the way forward.

I can sort of see his point as Overwatch has 30 million active users, which if only 10% bought loot-boxes that's 3 million a month buying stuff, where Zelda and Horizon will sell 3.5 million each and that be it.

I think that's how MS, will get the same sort of money from Halo 7 as Halo 5 with a Netflix like model as you'll pay your monthly fee/s and then buy stuff on top.

Also he downplayed E3, and I don't know now what to think on what we get part from Halo 6, Forza 7 and the rest of norm as I can't see us getting a big single player game from MS.

COD WWIII: I'm slightly more interested than in previous years, but that still doesn't add up to much. I'll probably pick it up in 2018 or something.

Irrelevance of singleplayer games: Financially yes, artistically no.

Capitalism must die.

Trump hasn't even started WWIII yet, Drunka.

I think single player games can be financially viable, just look at Uncharted 4 with its near 9 million units sold. Only thing is MS, may see it as a game has to do a number like that to be viable.

I can see it now though the spin at E3 will be Scorpio is the best place to play Destiny 2, COD: WWII, FIFA 18 etc

Today if you're a Gold Member you can start using Game Pass on Xbox One (I think it might anywhere as well) for just £9.99, what do we all think of this and will any of you be using it or hope we get similar on PS4 (we sort of have with Now but that's pants compared to this) or Switch?

I'm not gonna jump on board right away, but if there's a game on there I want to play (or my brother does when I move home) I'd definitely like to try it out.

This morning during a Persona fan conference thing Persona Q2 was announced for 3DS and seems to be focusing on P5 from the one image. Also two dancing games are coming one based on Persona 3 the other on 5, they're both coming to PS4 & VITA in Spring 2018 (Japan).

Trailers for each game are out, they look almost identical and from the image and names they seem connect to me but no word on that but I wouldn't be surprised if they're Fire Emblem Fates or Oracle Age/Seasons like.

masofdas wrote:

Trump hasn't even started WWIII yet, Drunka.

Let's Sing 2018 will be coming to PS4 and Wii, yes Wii this October and then at Christmas for Switch where it will be (well unless something comes out before it) the first console only Switch game.

I saw a tweet where someone pointed out that as it's a Wii game, you can play it on the Wii U too. It makes sense, in a way.

The biggest news from TGS has to be this for PS4 and PC, coming in 2018:


We know almost nothing about it but that picture which looks very MGS which makes sense from the all-star team Square Enix has assembled which includes Shinji Hashimoto (he runs Final Fantasy) as executive producer, Toshifumi Nabeshima as director who was part of From Software especially Armoured Core (he did write DSII) and last but not least Yoji Shinkawa the character artists of basically all the Metal Gear games and everything Kojima made (includes Death Stranding).

It's being called a survival action shooter and some are saying it could be the spiritual successor to Front Mission which is mainly a RPG but had Mechs, from all we do know I'm thinking this will be very Metal Gear like, possibly MGS4.

Basically I'm hyped, only way I could be more so if Kojima was involved some how.

Not sure where to put this but is sort of news, as we know at the moment single player games are dead (I'll just forget about Zelda, Mario, Persona, Horizon) and it's all about gaming as service and why Destiny 2 was the biggest game of the year just in its first week.

Someone who's talked about this before is Phil Spencer, who recently got promoted and reports to the big boss now of Microsoft (I think). Anyway he now sees his job not to sell you a Xbox One but to grow Xbox Live as a service.

Xbox games on PC, I believe use Xbox Live and Minecraft on Switch you have to have an account to play cross-play (Still unsure if this is paid or not as seen no one talk about the feature). Now Spencer has talked about bringing other first party titles like they've with Minecraft to rival platforms to grow Xbox Live.

Basically he sees 70m PS4 and 8m Switch users as customers for Xbox Live, I don't know if we see more Microsoft games this generation of systems and Sony not allowing Xbox Live at the moment is also a issue.

I did say years ago that I saw Xbox going the Netflix route and you bought the console and then just subbed to play games (more like a Now TV box to think of it), this sort seems similar.

Where from the sounds of it they want to bring likes of Halo 6 for instance to PS5 (like I said can't see this all happening soon) and if pay my £60 for Xbox Live for year to have an account I can log in and play it.

I don't know where this would leave Xbox as a console though, maybe likes of Halo 6 on PS5 even if you're just playing Single Player you still need to pay for Live but on Xbox you don't and it could be cheaper a year on like £40 instead of £60.

But hey if half of the 3 current install-bases subbed to Live at £50 a go would be £2.7billion then add PC players.

Think I'm going to put this here. 'That' is the news that Detective Pikachu is going to be voiced by Ryan Reynolds, the Deadpool ( ) and Green Lantern ( ) actor. I have a feeling he can pull it off, although we're all slightly disappointed that Danny DeVito wasn't chosen.

The whole detective Pikachu thing is so weird, but if it means a little glimpse of a well-realised live-action Pokémon world, I'm all for it.

Microsoft is changing the game as today they announced starting with Sea of Thieves all 1st party games will launch on Game Pass the same day as retail.

Meaning on March 20th, you can either walk into GAME and pay £40+ for Sea of Thieves or pay £8 for a month of Game Pass and play it.

I've played some Sea of Thieves and wasn't going to buy it but for £8 I'm playing it and I feel the same with Crackdown 3. I could see this also benefiting the first party line up as likes of Sunset Overdrive flopped but would a game like that do well on Game Pass now, would a subscriber, see it and go I'll give that a play and Mircosoft take more risks if they know they've got 30m people signed up to Game Pass.

MS went on about how this is changing digital distribution and so on, also they even said themselves you could sub to a month of Game Pass for £8 play the new Halo single player and enjoy a month of multiplayer then cancel if you wish.

This was hinted last week by an insider this news was coming and likely be the future direction of Xbox going into the next generation (whatever that means for Xbox).

The same insider also pointed out the avg gamer doesn't buy many games and Microsoft wants to keep them in the ecosystem and paying money that you can see people paying the £96 a year for Game Pass + £50 for Gold which £146 if you have 30 million people do that, that's a lot of money and then DLC etc on top.

I said it back in 2013 when the Xbox One was first shown the Netflix model is where they will go, sure as Fronk pointed out twitter this is downloads not streaming but I can see the next Xbox just being a box with a 1tb, 5tb and 10tb version where you just pay your £8 for Game Pass to play any game then £50 (I think it costs that much) on top for Gold if you want to play online.

I like and I said this before all 3 taking different approaches to gaming and their systems as 3 boxes doing the same thing would be boring as hell.

I do wonder where this leaves likes of GAME though.

It's interesting, been quite a while since I've bought an Xbox One game as there aren't a huge number of exclusives, but now I dont really see myself ever buying one again.

Me neither and seen the best comparison not to Netflix but to the WWE Network. I used buy PPV's and would only buy Royal Rumble, Maina and maybe SummerSlam giving WWE £60 but now I give them £120 a year and watch the PPVs I wouldn't have been as keen on.

Halo, Gears and Forza Horizon is the 3 PPVs I would buy and likes of Crackdown 3 is roadblock.

It's a development to keep an eye on, for sure. I wonder if this is the sort of thing Nintendo are planning for the Switch VC (or equivalent)? I also would like to know if y'all think Sony could go down this route.

I've said it before and in my original post of the news, I think Sony will stay traditional which is a good thing if they're different as three things doing the same is dumb, of course this until gaming goes digital only like all analysts reckon.

I could see virtual console going service route but really I think it depends on what the online actually is from Nintendo first.