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Last reply was 3 months, 25 days ago.
Last reply was 3 months, 25 days ago.
Forum - View topicThis Week in Games - Sony Sacking, Microsoft CEO Walking, and the US$20 Question
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AiddonValentine
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"Please consider that this article is over 1 month old before starting a discussion."
Well, we got some technical issues it seems. -Bluepoint: To make the contrast even worse, the same day Bluepoint closed Monolith Soft released a Switch 2 upgrade for Xenoblade X. One company knows why investment in studios is important, the other doesn't seem to know what to do in general -Xbox: And the only reason Sony didn't have the biggest bungle of the week is because of MS, of course! What else is there to say other than MS doesn't know what the hell they're doing? Sharma's first mission statement is basically a bunch of nothing repeating buzzwords, so already starting rough. Look, Xbox is eventually just going to become a third party publisher and maybe still have Gamepass, the question is if the Xbox Series is the swan song or the next system, because they are most certainly getting out of hardware. And then there is the question of how many of their studios are going to shutter Blech, that ActiBlizz deal was a disaster -Pokemon: My bigger issue is they've split the ROMs depending on language. Anyway, back to Daemon x Machina: Titanic Scion |
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Greed1914
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Considering Blue Point's history, and people calling for it, there must be reason(s) that Sony is just plain not doing anything with Bloodborne. Even with all the wasted time on a live service, I can't believe Bluepoint spent a year pitching ideas with that not being one of them. What is even odder to me is that Sony has been using remasters, some of which are pretty unnecessary, to offset not having as many games coming out of its studios. It's weird that a studio that is probably the best at doing just that was closed instead of being put on any sort of remaster or remake.
Spencer and Bond being being out definitely doesn't come off as all that voluntary. Similar retirements have been announced months before the effective date with the company head doing press tours and patting themselves on the back. The plan was to announce the retirement the same day it too effect and then it got a rushed announcement because word had already leaked. The way things transpired, it looks to me like Bond believed what everyone else did, which is that she would replace Spencer, and when that didn't happen, she walked out. Aside from Sharma fitting Nadella's pushes for AI, I think this is more of a sign of asserting more direct control of Xbox from higher up. A lot of the moves made under Spencer's tenure seemed right at the time, only for them to not work. The flailing we saw later on was more desperation after being expected to somehow make back that $70 billion. We're already seeing signs of things to come with Sharma assuring that the games won't have "bad AI." An assurance coming to you from the same company that wants you to pretty please stop calling AI Slop AI Slop. |
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BadNewsBlues
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Err why is the article listed as being one month old despite containing recent information?
Why remaster it again when you can pull a Square-Enix and do a full on remake.
The duality of man
It’s in my ever growing backlog don’t remind me. Last edited by BadNewsBlues on Fri Feb 27, 2026 2:54 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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PilotPayback
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i wanna talk about microsoft this time around...
i've never really seen a company fall harder than the xbox brand...it's kinda like icarus. i feel like both sony and microsoft have been struggling in their own ways (sony with bluepoint and that rumor about single player games not releasing on PC, and microsoft with everything) but it's hard to trust and expect anything positive from xbox... copilot sucks (i mean, most ai chatbots suck, but copilot's freakin' dreadful.), the game pass price increase sucks, the rog ally is...there (but how "xbox" is that?), the "next gen xbox" being a pc is technically not a bad idea (but i feel like, at that point, just get a pc or steam deck), the 30% profit margin isn't helping (and was confirmed by an interview with obsidian entertainment of all companies), and i wouldn't recommend an xbox series console to anyone these days. i'd just say to get a ps5, switch 2 or pc. i'm struggling to think of anything GOOD that went down for microsoft in 2025 and the github controversy from a few weeks ago doesn't help. i've just gotta ask this, who does microsoft THINK it's helping besides itself by doing all of this to the xbox brand? even with the whole "investors" thing...like, the xbox brand hasn't turned a profit...just- like- who is all of this for, microsoft? because it ain't for a majority of people, and i don't think your audience likes it. Last edited by PilotPayback on Fri Feb 27, 2026 2:50 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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AsuraTheDestructor
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Small counterpoint: The Switch 2 upgrade was apparently so awful Nintendo is actually taking refunds for it until it gets fixed, so It's still not quite perfect, TBH. |
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BadNewsBlues
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I have access to a least two of these. Still bought an X to have access to my Xbox 360, One, and Xbox PC stuff. And play on it when I can’t use my Laptop or the PS5. Of course though I get to enjoy the fun of not being able to use my Xbox controller wirelessly because the rechargeable battery pack is apparently defective/dead (which has been a problem for years with them but of course I didn’t find this out until long after the manufacturers warranty had past). And won’t keep a charge when unplugged nor can be used with the controller’s proprietary cable. Which causes the controller to randomly lock up when used with it.
FFVII PC version : What a shame. |
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
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Correction: people are asking Customer Service for refunds, the source being this guy on Reddit who asked for a Refund. Nintendo hasn't issued any statement regarding giving people refunds going forward. |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2952 |
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Sounds about right. My guess is the last few quarters have been atrocious and Spencer didn't want to take the fall, so a lot of it fell to Bond when she decided to leave. There is also no way this was a long term decision and was probably made quickly, right down to it being a Friday news dump. Just messed up all around.
MS encountered the same thing every other platform holder has had which is they overstepped or blundered and had to learn from their mistakes. MS just didn't, they were shellshocked from the XB1 being rejected and are still stunned they haven't achieved complete dominance in gaming. They could have just refocused on their 1st party lineup, instead they doubled down on bad ideas, including thinking they could just buy their way to victory and that turned into a massive monkey's paw. Congrats, guys, you got your ActiBlizz deal, now you're in a $70 billion hole you will never crawl out of
I am shocked, SHOCKED, that a single Redditor's own word is completely overblown |
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Zased
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Admittedly, the attempt of trying to glaze Nintendo by using a broken product was a bit funny. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 7201 |
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Which encompasses Halo a series they more or less screwed the pooch on narratively with Infinite. And judging by reviews on Xbox which are generally nonsense not too many people were pleased with Infinite’s microtransactions and fomo aspects. Gears Of War a series they seem to have no clue on where to take the series after ending on a cliffhanger with 5 but hey how about those prequels filling in belated or unnecessary gaps and another release of the Gears 1 remaster? Foza MS/H for the racing fans Outer Worlds which had a notable underperformance with the 2nd game. Fable which has a rather “checkered” past Perfect Dark which they just killed the reboot of. Safe to say there’s not much to focus on. Last edited by BadNewsBlues on Fri Feb 27, 2026 3:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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PilotPayback
Posts: 139 |
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in retrospect, i feel like that was a mistake. it's kinda like what embracer group did when they bought a ton of studios (such as deep silver, thqnordic, saber interactive, eidos mntrl and gearbox). the thing that annoys me is that...acquiring studios didn't really...fix anything. maybe it did a little company pr and even then, it feels like a regulation nightmare...like, yeah, nobody really liked bobby kotick, but the situation that actiblizzy was in NOW wasn't all that different from the situation they were in PRE-acquisition. just different owners...oh, and microsoft can lose $400 million by putting black ops 6 and *pfft* black ops 7 on game pass. same goes for bethesda, so...again, i feel like it was a mistake and now microsoft is scrambling for SOME KINDA SANITY. huh...i feel like i'm getting deja vu for something that happened pretty recently... |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2952 |
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It was definitely a mistake, a gigantic one that has had knock-on effects for the entire industry. All they did was shrink the industry and now they're stuck with a bloated apparatus with so many properties when they were already having trouble getting properties out in the first place. It seemed to be born out of nothing more than MS' insecurity over being beaten by two far smaller companies. |
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BadNewsBlues
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Don’t know if this is true though. |
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Greed1914
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There are reasons why Xbox started making moves that didn't seem to make much sense after that purchase. It's the kind of spend where the bosses aren't going to wait for the returns on it, and it didn't help that what they bought were not reasons to buy an Xbox. King makes mobile games for phones. Blizzard's games were already multiplatform. They may have wanted COD to be exclusive, but they also said that it wouldn't be in order to help get the deal through regulators, so they committed to letting people buy it on competing platforms. It's no wonder that Microsoft games started going multiplatform and "everything is an Xbox" They bought the biggest third-party publisher in the industry and the options were to either become one themselves or explain to shareholders why they spent $70 billion just to cut off every revenue source that wasn't an Xbox. |
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FilthyCasual
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In other tragic news, US customs savagely destroyed incredibly rare VN history: https://xcancel.com/TehKeripo/status/2027171532825571678
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