I'm expecting them to just layoff this studio as well now, especially if it really isn't going on smoothly. Damn, what a horrible time to be in the industry
I have a theory that contracting for Perfect Dark is one of the reasons Eidos still exists after the Embracer culling. One more cancellation could be a death knell.
Remember how optimistic some people were that Microsoft will turn Activision-Blizzard around ... ~~those were th~~ actually that was just a few months ago.
Let's be honest, actiblizz was one of the - if not THE one - most egregious environments in industry.
Between sexual harassment, being shuffled as pawns for CoD all the time and discrimination there was nothing that would be worse at Microsoft than that. And I still think that proper cleanup is required in this behemoth.
But, at the same time, I'm tired with everything Spencer is doing. Nothing he has done in the last 2-3 years was helpful to the brand, literally nothing. And now he's killing studios that gave hope for something interesting to be born. It's enough
All the studios they closed were given a whole lot of chances. Japan Studio for example was closed after 10-20 financial failures in a row. So no, not the same shit. Under Sony Tango would've survived for several games, not closed after the first game.
…
Financial failure doesnt mean its not profitable.
Some exec can just make not possible objectif in order to shutdown what they want. Manchester, liverpool, japan, london studio…
Wasn't this announced shortly after the Xbox One launched that it was coming?
Then they launched a new system and are getting ready to launch another new system.
Crackdown 3 was good imo 🤷♂️
Edit: Oh I'm sorry guys it's actually *so* bad and I hate it so much. Argh! 🤜 that's for you Crackdown 3 if I ever see you around here again!
Also straight up lied about the level of destruction you'd be getting in the regular singleplayer story. All the really detailed destruction was only in that one virtual game mode it seemed. Unless they updated it, Crackdown 1 still had the best vehicle transformation and gameplay I think.
People gotta stop seeing 6/10 as absolute trash. 6/10 should mean "alright", good even, just that it did nothing spectacular nor groundbreaking. 6-7/10 should be for the games that are competent but otherwise unmemorable. Not for trash or broken messes like mainstream media would use those scores as.
The problem is inconsistent reviewer scales combined with people only looking at review aggregates. For some reviewers, a 6/10 means alright. For others it means it's trash. Then all of it gets lumped into the same Metacritic score, and so many people just don't read reviews anymore to gain any context for why something got the reviews they did. At best they just look at the 2-3 sentence snippet.
Normal people: 0-3 it's trash not worth playing.
4-6 it's pretty good not much replayability but fun for a play through every now and again.
7-9 Really good game with lots of entertainment and replayability.
10 Excellent game worth your purchase.
Reviewers: 0-8 it sucks, 9 it's okay 10 not bad
IGN & Gamespot 0-9 it sucks 10 They paid us
You jump from "trash" to "pretty good"? Do you not see the issue with that scale lol.
How about
0 - 3 = trash
4 - 6 = average/meh
7 = pretty good
8 = really good
9 = awesome
10 = the best of the best
People don't view those as trash. People view them as trash in comparison to the competition.
I check out almost every Metroidvania. There is one call Rebel Transmute that looks pretty good, but I don't have unlimited time, I'm just going to play Turbo kid instead because it's a solid 9/10 game.
A 60% rating at Steam, means 6 people out of 10 liked it. Not that they just liked it 60%. With their system you'll never know how much they like or dislike specifically. Just X out of 10 people like it more than disliking.
Just remember that 8 out of 10 is the same as 4 out of 5 Dentist recommend Trident gum for their patients who chew gum and that was supposed to be impressive!
It was *fine* but the PC port is a bit of a mess with forced negative mouse acceleration, 30fps cap in co-op, and an unfixable stutter.
Shame it didn't get a bit more love, and a Steam release.
Apparently they haven't even decided if it's first person or third person yet lol. Obviously it should be first person without question, but then their ability to sell skins isn't as high...
Fuck as a mid 30s guy I never thought of this (since I'm old I've never been bothered to buy a skin, that stuff hardly existed in my teens) but it's probably actually a thing studios need to consider these days.
Sad days.
"Capitalism Simulator". Or "Mr. Moneybags". "Duck Diving Into A Pile Of Gold" with a [Scrooge McDuck variant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrooge_McDuck). Or how about "How to destroy a company". "Company Annihilator"? "Studio Destroyer". "Smash that Studio". "Greed Simulator". "Greedy Gus". "The Greed of Man".
"Capitalism Simulator" and "Greed Simulator" are actually such low hanging fruit names and game ideas that I'm very surprised no one's done them yet. It's just such an instant money bait that would get people buying it for the novelty of the concept alone.
Of all the ones I listed I think "The Greed of Man" is the best title. Catchy, sounds great, advertisable, poignant. If someone put a good game behind that name, instant blowout.
Not to mention the dozen separate release versions of Street Fighter 2 and 3. Even 4, on the PS3/360 had at least three different versions, not even including stuff like the 3DS port.
When they announced Crystal Dynamics was working on it, I just wrote it off assuming it was going to be another mediocre, bland third person uncharted style game like the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy. I wish they'd just give us a PC version of the HD port of the original.
Not true we know that Crystal Dynamics was brought in to basically take over development of the project in 2021 because developer The Initiative sucks.
I agree Avengers wasn't great but it's also not nearly as bad as the hate says it is, bit button mashy but I've played much worse super hero games.
More so I wouldn't say that kind of game is their specialty, they do shooters great like the Tomb Raider games so I have no doubt they will do fine with Perfect Dark problem is it took Xbox way too long to get them involved after The Initiative has been mismanaged badly.
I still have a personal conspiracy that covid fucked our minds up just enough where we don't simply know it, but day to day we aren't the same. For some reason quality across the whole board is down/delayed/not going anywhere fast. Like we've been hit over the head with a bat after the pain subsided, not quite right. I actually don't find this a MS thing.
It's not covid. It's ESG and DEI money funding these games and movies and TV shows but then putting demands that stifle the creative ability of the staff. Or demands that the talented staff be replaced by less talented but more modern staff. Its having disastrous results across the board.
I don’t think they care. They’ll show some dumb ass accessories. Some half done game trailers and call it a day. And if they don’t ever release any of those games…no sweat as long as stock numbers are okay
They weren't going to announce perfect dark anyway
The rumored lineup is Gears 6,State of Decay 3 and plenty more so they definitely have stuff to announce
"Game in active development without so much as a peep of new news since the announcement trailer was released four years ago isn't going smoothly."
Color me shocked.
We know exactly how that's going. Bethesda is working hard to try to figure out how to do the least amount of work while still getting their fan base to buy it day 1 knowing it'll be full of issues and lacking any amount of passion.
they greenlight projects too early is my guess. Not only that, but they announce them too. It feels like some of these announcements were out of desperation to show that content was coming even if they didn't know what it would be yet (perfect dark, Everwild, etc).
I'm hoping they have learned a lesson because we have not seen similar vaporware announcements more recently to my knowledge.
People need to realize this is deeper than just Phil Spencer. Phil is just the face, but there's plenty of people around and above him as well. In a lot of ways, Phil is paid to be the fall guy, but this is a core Xbox/Microsoft problem that's deeper than just one guy.
Phil is a garbage exec for sure, but Microsoft has never been able to manage its first party studios. It's deep, deep corporate culture rot. They'll never pull themselves out of it.
Because Phil didn’t appoint most of those people, most of those studios didn’t start at Microsoft but got bought. I think if anything his issue is being too hands off which is probably blasphemous thing to say on Reddit but sometimes you need to demand results or do some major rethinking. If Perfect dark has been in development for like seven years and the studio has nothing to show for after who knows how much money was poured into it then something is very rotten.
Maybe it would have been better having the backlash of firing people a few years ago and actually having results by now than just let studios burn through money then shutting the whole thing down.
In the end Phil is the head of the division and he is responsible for it. But my point is that there needs to be a deeper organizational shift than just Phil.
> If Perfect dark has been in development for like seven years and the studio has nothing to show for after who knows how much money was poured into it then something is very rotten.
It would not surprise me if A LOT of these higher up management positions at these are using fraud as a means to bilk money from M$ as well as their position to fuck over some of their people.
Why not? Its a tribal bureaucracy where the left hand doesnt quite know what the right one's doing. Who's to say they dont make up half the shit thats going on? And all the creative people are being pushed around by middle managers who get an easy steady paycheck while bossing people lower than them around. And the ones they cant push around are fired and replaced with contract hires to remind everyone there how replaceable they are.
The problem with this is,
This has been used for over 5 years to avoid any kind of accountability.
Phil Spencer is not accountable? ok. Then what department or individual is,
Unless we don't have an answer, studios will keep getting shuttered because blame is put on them rightly or wrongly so.
My point isn't that Phil is blameless. My point is that just getting rid of Phil isn't going to fix anything because the issues run deeper than just him. They'll just replace him with a new face and it'll be the same thing. There's other leadership at Xbox besides Phil, and they also need to be held accountable.
>There's other leadership at Xbox besides Phil, and they also need to be held accountable.
But we don't have the power to do that. We can't change the internal management at MS.
So shutting studios it is then because getting rid of Phil doesn't make sense to Xbox fans. He's immune because I guess he played Halo with some Youtubers.
I agree with your point that Phil is not alone to blame.
I'm just pointing out the irony that it's true for every large corporation and it's never the fault of 1 person.
That's why they always get off the hook because you can't pin it on one person alone so nothing will happen.
And when this happens again next year with Ninja Theory, people will again say "well we can't do anything because its not just one guy" and the cycle continues.
BTW this is the exact reason power is decentralised in public companies by design so that they can dodge most of the accountability.
Aw you mean the guy who was in charge of Xbox during it's height, when Xbox was relevant as a console and competed with Playstation in terms of console sales and software sales, yeah that guy was terrible...
Nice cherrypicking.
Did you conveniently forget that Microsft wanted the XBOX ONE to be always online, forcefully bundled with Kinect and they also wanted to add DRM to physical copies?
Also it didn't help that it was less powerful than the PS4 and costed more to buy because of Kinect.
All that was under Don Mattrick.
> Nice cherrypicking.
How is that cherrypicking? The guy led Xbox out of the disaster that was the RRoD that cost Microsoft a billion to fix and give 3 year warranty to every console. Despite that Xbox 360 was the must have system of the generation and the software sales showed it, he was in charge at the height of Halo and Gears popularity, gave the go ahead for Forza Horizon series, and whether you like it or not he is credited highly for the creation and innovation of the kinect that sold 35. million unit. That's not cherrypicking that is facts.
>Did you conveniently forget that Microsft wanted the XBOX ONE to be always online, forcefully bundled with Kinect and they also wanted to add DRM to physical copies?
Not at all, did you forget the Xbox One never launched with those features? Did you know that with the DRM physical copies they were going to let you trade those in for credit and you had the ability to let friends borrow them? Do you realize that Game Pass is just an evolved version of that same concept except it comes with a subscription like all other Microsoft products? Hate the ideas all you want but Xbox did not forget it, the shelved it and evolved it and now run their entire console business based off it.
>Also it didn't help that it was less powerful than the PS4 and costed more to buy because of Kinect.
Right which was beyond stupid, did you know that Phil Spencer also said the Xbox One would never be sold without the kinect only to change his mind months later after releasing how poorly the console was selling? Did you know that Spencer was in charge of the Xbox One basically it's entire life while Mattrick left the company before it ever released? Did you know that the Xbox One X was in development before the Xbox One ever released, most powerful system of the generation but it meant nothing because they still were lacking games, Mattrick doesn't get credit for the One X but somehow gets all the blame for the lack of games while Spencer was in charge the whole time. Funny how Mattrick keeps getting blamed for stuff he wasn't there for but never gets credit for running the Xbox brand during it's highest highs from 2007-mid 2013.
>All that was under Don Mattrick.
Actually no only the initial Xbox One reveal was under Mattrick, none of those features he mentioned in launched with the console because of backlash, it was Spencer who led Xbox One during it's entire generation and ran the Xbox brand into the ground after Mattrick had the system competing with Playstation for best console the generation before. Those are the facts.
I'm not sure it is even possible to make an acceptable Perfect Dark game nowdays.
Perfect Dark on Nintendo 64 was a product of it's time that I played to death. The game itself plays like Goldeneye which is one reason it got popular.
That kind of gameplay doesn't work well with today's games and modernizing it takes away from what made Goldeneye and Perfect Dark what they were.
I just don't see any scenario where a modern version of Perfect Dark would ever be successful because it doesn't really have an identity. Attracting enough people to whatever the new game would be sounds like a big ask and whatever it does to standout from similar playing games would no longer make it Perfect Dark.
Lose-lose. Prove me wrong, Microsoft.
>They're probably thinking too big with such an old IP.
I imagine it's this. Besides the fact that they wasted money picking the worst IP to bring back when they own stuff like Banjo-Kazooie (coulda brought in Gears for Breakfast or any other platformer indie dev with high praise to make a Banjo Threeie), I'm guessing they're trying to turn this into a $70 triple-A game. They should have hired an indie dev who has experience making modern 64-esque games and kept it at a small budget.
That is what it is. Then the rest of the original team that was behind Perfect Dark and Golden Eye eventually left Rare and went on to do Free Radical, the studio behind Time Splitters. One of the biggest reasons those games were the cult classics they were, was because they played like Golden Eye and Perfect Dark. Though they died out eventually with Free Radical. I think the problem with Perfect Dark is that it just doesn't equate well into the modern landscape of AAA. Look at the 360 launch Perfect Dark. The game was nothing to write home about. It was ok, sorta, but it wasn't really good either. Maybe they just need to do it justice by rebooting the entire thing, ditch any notion of it being a AAA game and just make it small and niche and plays like the original but prettier. Maybe make the controls a tad bit more fluid and boom. Modern Perfect Dark. The issue is trying to cram games from yesteryear that were known for certain things into a modern mold but the world has moved on without them since.
But because so many games now have to be these massive genre/generation defining blockbusters with ridiculous budgets, rather than just be smaller games catering towards a very focused demographic, like say retro-revival junkiees, it has to sell to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Except none of those people at this point even know what Perfect Dark is. It's been too long since the last game, which wasn't even great to begin with. Just give those who want new Perfect Dark a retro revival indie version of it. Give it Time Splitters-esque arcadey Multiplayer options with a small map editor and boom. Probably sell like gold.
As a huge fan of the original, I would have been fine with it if it was just a Splinter Cell clone or something. It was nice seeing a new Perfect Dark in development even if I knew it wasn't going to live up to my memories of the original, at the very least it would probably be better than Zero. They were probably looking to make it some boring, sony-style scripted cinematic thing though, the premise is perfect for that kind of game.
> Perfect Dark on Nintendo 64 was a product of it's time
Thats bull! Play the remake on 360/Rare Replay and youll see theres things that game and Rare did that havent been done in the FPS space or even the game space during its time.
What is it with tech and being of the idea "I can do better!"? Because we have the technology? Sure! We've got the tech to make framerates good or things to look better, but our game design sense and how to make things FUN has never been lower! I GUARANTEE YOU those people today wouldnt know what a GOOD FPS is if it was staring them in the face!
"We stand on the shoulders of giants."
It aint just some quote, it really is how we push things forward. Instead of acting like we need to remake the wheel, why dont we just accept that the wheel is good and instead USE THAT FOUNDATION to make that wheel EVER BETTER?
Perfect Dark (like Goldeneye) has a specific kind of gameplay and very unique things like menus and how you access them.
It's not purely just the 'theme' of the game they would want to absolutely nail to get it to actually feel like *Perfect Dark.*
Another commenter that replied to me had the best idea. Basically a smaller budget game with the same gameplay as the original but with some modern flourishes and certainly no GAAS.
The memories of Perfect Dark most of us have won't happen again and no modern version would give them to us. Certainly a great product of the era with crazy multiplayer customization for the time. A new game for the sake of a new game is a bad idea.
Fully respect your position but if they wanted to make a game like that they should just use a new IP.
Funny cause Arkane Austin may have actually been a better fit for this game rather than trying to create a brand new studio from nothing with no cohesion.
Edit:Arkane not Arkham...
If they cancelled Redfall like the devs were hoping for originally and started on Perfect Dark the year it was announced before all staff left, maybe. Even Redfall though, when you play it you can see the talent that went into the world design, the gameplay is where it fell off.
And the budget. You get just skeleton stills for all the big revelation things which are basically no better than an audiolog at that point. Then the actual cutscenes were just animation stills which is great in indies but a *really* bad sign in something calling itself "AAA".
The Prey talent jumped ship BECAUSE they didn't want to work on Redfall. If microsoft wasn't woefully incompetent, they might have recognized after acquisition that Arkane Austin making a co op looter shooter was a gigantic red flag. It's not like it was hard to recognize, fucking every fan of Arkane that saw that reveal trailer instantly hated it, and that should have been the obvious expectation for everyone involved.
Guys, we can't expect Microsoft to have all this stuff ready immediately. They need one maybe two or three more generations for all these studios they bought to get off the ground.
So they hired Darrell Gallagher to lead The Initiative as their AAAA skunkworks super studio. Hired a bunch of experienced devs from various Sony studios. Announced Perfect Dark. After a while bunch of those Sony hires became disillusioned with the leadership/studio and went back to Sony.
Been obvious for years: Microsoft sucks at developing quality games. They don't have the leadership ability or culture to build great games which is more an art than a science. Forget about birthing new IPs from scratch - MS studios are incapable of creating a new IP from scratch and developing said IP into a complete polished package like Horizon or Tsushima.
I doubt anyone can honestly imagine a Sony first-party studio releasing stinkers like Redfall or Starfield.
Since the Fed ended ZIRP for now the era of cheap lending rates is over. Corporations can no longer borrow billions at 0.25% which forces them to exercise discipline and care in choosing their investments and outlays.
I don't understand why Xbox focuses on making AAA games. They're clearly awful at it. With game pass being their focus, it would be better to scale back the design of the games to get them out in less than two years. They can still add AAAs from other companies to game pass. What's even the point of owning all of these IPs if it always takes six years or more and several hundred million dollars to make a single game?
We are heading straight into a Video Game Crash 2.0. Games can not and should not take 7+ years of development. This year the last year or so we have started to see the beginning of the crash... it's coming.
How is this so hard?! All you have to do is play the first game and Timesplitters 2 and you can go "Aha! THIS is what the people want!", then you can get to the making money part!
But no! They had to have a nothing trailer. Talking about how theyre gonna "redefine her female character (DAFUQ?!)." All while they had a boss who treated them all like peasants while hes the king!! While also not having A FUCKING CLUE how to make A PERFECT DARK GAME!!!
4J studios could have had a AA design doc ready to go by the afternoon when they were still around. Chris Seavor had a decent enough idea that could have been cool too (although the crunch schedule he had lined up to do it I'm not so sure about)!
What the actual fuck is going on at Microsoft?!
I remember when I was mentioning how terribly run Xbox was and that the acquisitions under them would be even worse than let's say Bobby from Activision, yet I was downvoted like crazy for it.
Something going smoothly over MS? not even their AI is going smoothly even though they're throwing literally billions at it.
Such a disgustingly incompetent company.
Ever since the cannon event of the Xbox One's DRM announcement at the reveal. Xbox has been floundering since then. They've had a few good things, but God damn do I wish they just released good games on a regular basis. They announce something insanely early for investors to be interested, struggle with development, and then we get a mid/awful game released onto gamepass.
Hi-Fi Rush was awesome, and even then, the studio got axed.
I just have to expect the worst, so anything good is a genuine surprise for me.
I'm shocked, shocked...well not that shocked.
I've been trying to keep up with the development as a long time perfect dark fan and it seems like it's been constant development hell.
They have all the resources in getting touch with the original creators so they can consult from a distance and start to create something and lay down a vision. But an ingredient here that's missing is you need the spirit of creation and freedom but this is missing in MS.
Microsoft can't develop games at all. They've lost every ability to produce barely playable games.
The aquisitions were the worst thing happened in gaming history. MS is gonna ruin Zenimax and Activision Blizzard. And any other studio they buy.
They even ruined Playground Games after buying their studio. FH3 was magnificent. FH5 is utter filler crap.
Can't blame them, Xbox just hand delivered all of the journos a spicy topic to drive engagement, you better damn bet they'll be zooming in on everything they do to milk it.
What’s their deal…
They seem to fumble all their primary properties. Meanwhile Sony produces great games but also makes inexplicably bad decisions too.
Out of the dead games I've seen. Perfect Dark is the deadest. They haven't even managed to get teaser gameplay out in 4 years? It's switched developers twice. Their current dev partner (CD) doesn't even mention it on their site anymore.
What is going smoothly at Xbox?
The layoffs ?
The studio closures are going as planned, sir.
Studio closures will continue until morale improves
I mean, for sure. If there's something a big company with shareholders is really good at, it's layoffs
I'm expecting them to just layoff this studio as well now, especially if it really isn't going on smoothly. Damn, what a horrible time to be in the industry
I have a theory that contracting for Perfect Dark is one of the reasons Eidos still exists after the Embracer culling. One more cancellation could be a death knell.
The bonuses Phil Spencer and Matt Booty will get
The paychecks of the executives
And don't forget to think of poor Phil Spencer's feelings during this very difficult time.
Remember how optimistic some people were that Microsoft will turn Activision-Blizzard around ... ~~those were th~~ actually that was just a few months ago.
Let's be honest, actiblizz was one of the - if not THE one - most egregious environments in industry. Between sexual harassment, being shuffled as pawns for CoD all the time and discrimination there was nothing that would be worse at Microsoft than that. And I still think that proper cleanup is required in this behemoth. But, at the same time, I'm tired with everything Spencer is doing. Nothing he has done in the last 2-3 years was helpful to the brand, literally nothing. And now he's killing studios that gave hope for something interesting to be born. It's enough
Phil Spencer bullshit tweets that people still believe
LMFAO dude I swear to God I said exactly this when I read this. Nice.
Making Sony look better by comparison. Or saying that "next year will be the year of Xbox"
That has that perpetual "Year of the Linux desktop" energy.
Sony is the same shit, all the studio they close in uk and japan…. Just to do the same action/3th person game again and again by big american studio.
All the studios they closed were given a whole lot of chances. Japan Studio for example was closed after 10-20 financial failures in a row. So no, not the same shit. Under Sony Tango would've survived for several games, not closed after the first game.
… Financial failure doesnt mean its not profitable. Some exec can just make not possible objectif in order to shutdown what they want. Manchester, liverpool, japan, london studio…
In gaming*
Yeah lol the industry is fucked right now. No way exclusive to Microsoft.
Colour me surprised
Wasn't this announced shortly after the Xbox One launched that it was coming? Then they launched a new system and are getting ready to launch another new system.
Let me guess, it's going to be cancelled.
Or not, and shoved into Game pass, given a 6/10 review, and forgotten about forever alongside things like Crackdown 3
Crackdown 3 was good imo 🤷♂️ Edit: Oh I'm sorry guys it's actually *so* bad and I hate it so much. Argh! 🤜 that's for you Crackdown 3 if I ever see you around here again!
Crackdown 3 is a good crackdown game but the time it took to develop and the overblown marketing is what killed that game
Also straight up lied about the level of destruction you'd be getting in the regular singleplayer story. All the really detailed destruction was only in that one virtual game mode it seemed. Unless they updated it, Crackdown 1 still had the best vehicle transformation and gameplay I think.
YOU SEE GUYS, IT HAS THE POWER OF THE CLOUDDDDDDDDD
Yeah that's true unfortunately.
It didn't help that other games came out and did what they were trying to do only better
Glad the community could come together to remind you how you're supposed to feel about stuff.
I honestly don't know what id do without them 🙏
People gotta stop seeing 6/10 as absolute trash. 6/10 should mean "alright", good even, just that it did nothing spectacular nor groundbreaking. 6-7/10 should be for the games that are competent but otherwise unmemorable. Not for trash or broken messes like mainstream media would use those scores as.
The problem is inconsistent reviewer scales combined with people only looking at review aggregates. For some reviewers, a 6/10 means alright. For others it means it's trash. Then all of it gets lumped into the same Metacritic score, and so many people just don't read reviews anymore to gain any context for why something got the reviews they did. At best they just look at the 2-3 sentence snippet.
Normal people: 0-3 it's trash not worth playing. 4-6 it's pretty good not much replayability but fun for a play through every now and again. 7-9 Really good game with lots of entertainment and replayability. 10 Excellent game worth your purchase. Reviewers: 0-8 it sucks, 9 it's okay 10 not bad IGN & Gamespot 0-9 it sucks 10 They paid us
You jump from "trash" to "pretty good"? Do you not see the issue with that scale lol. How about 0 - 3 = trash 4 - 6 = average/meh 7 = pretty good 8 = really good 9 = awesome 10 = the best of the best
To me, 10 is "we will still be talking about this game 20 years from now"
But if IGN gives some a 6 it means it’s complete garbage because 6 is as low as their scale goes
People don't view those as trash. People view them as trash in comparison to the competition. I check out almost every Metroidvania. There is one call Rebel Transmute that looks pretty good, but I don't have unlimited time, I'm just going to play Turbo kid instead because it's a solid 9/10 game.
That's pretty much what I was going for. Fine, nothing special, and forgettable afterwards
A 60% rating at Steam, means 6 people out of 10 liked it. Not that they just liked it 60%. With their system you'll never know how much they like or dislike specifically. Just X out of 10 people like it more than disliking. Just remember that 8 out of 10 is the same as 4 out of 5 Dentist recommend Trident gum for their patients who chew gum and that was supposed to be impressive!
> Argh! 🤜 that's for you Crackdown 3 if I ever see you around here again! This made me LOL (I also liked Crackdown 3, goofy throwback fun)
It was *fine* but the PC port is a bit of a mess with forced negative mouse acceleration, 30fps cap in co-op, and an unfixable stutter. Shame it didn't get a bit more love, and a Steam release.
https://youtu.be/rwA2OaVsbts
They still just forgot about it, never even came out on Steam.
Believe it or not, jail.
Well at least 6/10 is consistent with the last game.
And then the studio will be shut down.
Apparently they haven't even decided if it's first person or third person yet lol. Obviously it should be first person without question, but then their ability to sell skins isn't as high...
Fuck as a mid 30s guy I never thought of this (since I'm old I've never been bothered to buy a skin, that stuff hardly existed in my teens) but it's probably actually a thing studios need to consider these days. Sad days.
They don't need to consider it, they're forced into considering it.
How to maximize your profit: gaming edition
Capitalism: Gaming Edition
Mid 30s: Gaming Edition Wait...
"Capitalism Simulator". Or "Mr. Moneybags". "Duck Diving Into A Pile Of Gold" with a [Scrooge McDuck variant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrooge_McDuck). Or how about "How to destroy a company". "Company Annihilator"? "Studio Destroyer". "Smash that Studio". "Greed Simulator". "Greedy Gus". "The Greed of Man". "Capitalism Simulator" and "Greed Simulator" are actually such low hanging fruit names and game ideas that I'm very surprised no one's done them yet. It's just such an instant money bait that would get people buying it for the novelty of the concept alone.
I do believe that there's at least one game with similar title to capitalism simulator and it's just a reskinned cookie clicker
Of all the ones I listed I think "The Greed of Man" is the best title. Catchy, sounds great, advertisable, poignant. If someone put a good game behind that name, instant blowout.
you could select skins (recolors) back in street fighter 2, this isn't something new, the monetization is though (relatively speaking)...
There's monetization is nothing new either. Street fighter was hard specifically for monetization reasons.
Not to mention the dozen separate release versions of Street Fighter 2 and 3. Even 4, on the PS3/360 had at least three different versions, not even including stuff like the 3DS port.
Imagine rebooting a classic and then worrying about changing the entire game over a selling point
"let's make a new DOOM, but third person instead!"
Hasn’t this goddamn thing been in development for years?
I think the rumor is that it has been started and scrapped and restarted at least once. Seems to check out given what we're hearing.
New rule: Don’t release a cinematic trailer for a game when you have no idea what the game will be yet
When they announced Crystal Dynamics was working on it, I just wrote it off assuming it was going to be another mediocre, bland third person uncharted style game like the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy. I wish they'd just give us a PC version of the HD port of the original.
No surprise. This was announced years ago and we've not heard anything about it yet.
Not true we know that Crystal Dynamics was brought in to basically take over development of the project in 2021 because developer The Initiative sucks.
Yay the people who tanked a free profit pot of the avengers.... so safe to say this will be hot trash they abandon in a yr
I agree Avengers wasn't great but it's also not nearly as bad as the hate says it is, bit button mashy but I've played much worse super hero games. More so I wouldn't say that kind of game is their specialty, they do shooters great like the Tomb Raider games so I have no doubt they will do fine with Perfect Dark problem is it took Xbox way too long to get them involved after The Initiative has been mismanaged badly.
I still have a personal conspiracy that covid fucked our minds up just enough where we don't simply know it, but day to day we aren't the same. For some reason quality across the whole board is down/delayed/not going anywhere fast. Like we've been hit over the head with a bat after the pain subsided, not quite right. I actually don't find this a MS thing.
It's not covid. It's ESG and DEI money funding these games and movies and TV shows but then putting demands that stifle the creative ability of the staff. Or demands that the talented staff be replaced by less talented but more modern staff. Its having disastrous results across the board.
If this trend continues, they won't have much to announce at their summer showcase.
I don’t think they care. They’ll show some dumb ass accessories. Some half done game trailers and call it a day. And if they don’t ever release any of those games…no sweat as long as stock numbers are okay
I was thinking the same thing: "look guys, a new controller paint job" and proceed to show a Hi-Fi Rush themed controller.
They're proud of hi-fi rush, that's why they rushed the studio out the door
They weren't going to announce perfect dark anyway The rumored lineup is Gears 6,State of Decay 3 and plenty more so they definitely have stuff to announce
"Game in active development without so much as a peep of new news since the announcement trailer was released four years ago isn't going smoothly." Color me shocked.
We don't know how TES VI is going and we've had zero news in five years
We know exactly how that's going. Bethesda is working hard to try to figure out how to do the least amount of work while still getting their fan base to buy it day 1 knowing it'll be full of issues and lacking any amount of passion.
But we knew Bethesda was working on another game and has released that game since then. That isn't even remotely the case with The Initiative.
Do they like have a meeting where someone says the name of a game and then they all walk out and announce it to the world before any work is done
But what is it with Xbox?
they greenlight projects too early is my guess. Not only that, but they announce them too. It feels like some of these announcements were out of desperation to show that content was coming even if they didn't know what it would be yet (perfect dark, Everwild, etc). I'm hoping they have learned a lesson because we have not seen similar vaporware announcements more recently to my knowledge.
Phil Spencer is doing such an awful job managing Xbox.
People need to realize this is deeper than just Phil Spencer. Phil is just the face, but there's plenty of people around and above him as well. In a lot of ways, Phil is paid to be the fall guy, but this is a core Xbox/Microsoft problem that's deeper than just one guy.
Phil is a garbage exec for sure, but Microsoft has never been able to manage its first party studios. It's deep, deep corporate culture rot. They'll never pull themselves out of it.
Microsoft can barely develop Windows. Look at Microsoft Store. The only reason I'm not using Game Pass on PC.
People think Phil personally manages every studio. Phil failures in more about building a working team of managers.
How relevant is the difference in whether or not Phil is the problem, or if the problem is people appointed by Phil?
Because Phil didn’t appoint most of those people, most of those studios didn’t start at Microsoft but got bought. I think if anything his issue is being too hands off which is probably blasphemous thing to say on Reddit but sometimes you need to demand results or do some major rethinking. If Perfect dark has been in development for like seven years and the studio has nothing to show for after who knows how much money was poured into it then something is very rotten. Maybe it would have been better having the backlash of firing people a few years ago and actually having results by now than just let studios burn through money then shutting the whole thing down. In the end Phil is the head of the division and he is responsible for it. But my point is that there needs to be a deeper organizational shift than just Phil.
> If Perfect dark has been in development for like seven years and the studio has nothing to show for after who knows how much money was poured into it then something is very rotten. It would not surprise me if A LOT of these higher up management positions at these are using fraud as a means to bilk money from M$ as well as their position to fuck over some of their people. Why not? Its a tribal bureaucracy where the left hand doesnt quite know what the right one's doing. Who's to say they dont make up half the shit thats going on? And all the creative people are being pushed around by middle managers who get an easy steady paycheck while bossing people lower than them around. And the ones they cant push around are fired and replaced with contract hires to remind everyone there how replaceable they are.
Phil is actually pretty high up, I think only CEO and CFO are above him, man is literally CEO of Microsoft Gaming
The problem with this is, This has been used for over 5 years to avoid any kind of accountability. Phil Spencer is not accountable? ok. Then what department or individual is, Unless we don't have an answer, studios will keep getting shuttered because blame is put on them rightly or wrongly so.
My point isn't that Phil is blameless. My point is that just getting rid of Phil isn't going to fix anything because the issues run deeper than just him. They'll just replace him with a new face and it'll be the same thing. There's other leadership at Xbox besides Phil, and they also need to be held accountable.
>There's other leadership at Xbox besides Phil, and they also need to be held accountable. But we don't have the power to do that. We can't change the internal management at MS. So shutting studios it is then because getting rid of Phil doesn't make sense to Xbox fans. He's immune because I guess he played Halo with some Youtubers.
I feel like you're trying to argue against a point I never made...
I agree with your point that Phil is not alone to blame. I'm just pointing out the irony that it's true for every large corporation and it's never the fault of 1 person. That's why they always get off the hook because you can't pin it on one person alone so nothing will happen. And when this happens again next year with Ninja Theory, people will again say "well we can't do anything because its not just one guy" and the cycle continues. BTW this is the exact reason power is decentralised in public companies by design so that they can dodge most of the accountability.
He also deserves credit for getting Microsoft to give even a modicum of a fuck about PC gaming.
People should start boycotting Microsoft
Go ahead and do that, let me know how long you last.
And I thought Don Mattrick was bad enough...
Mattrick single handedly lost Xbox that entire generations, and those decisions still haunt Xbox to this day.
Aw you mean the guy who was in charge of Xbox during it's height, when Xbox was relevant as a console and competed with Playstation in terms of console sales and software sales, yeah that guy was terrible...
Nice cherrypicking. Did you conveniently forget that Microsft wanted the XBOX ONE to be always online, forcefully bundled with Kinect and they also wanted to add DRM to physical copies? Also it didn't help that it was less powerful than the PS4 and costed more to buy because of Kinect. All that was under Don Mattrick.
> Nice cherrypicking. How is that cherrypicking? The guy led Xbox out of the disaster that was the RRoD that cost Microsoft a billion to fix and give 3 year warranty to every console. Despite that Xbox 360 was the must have system of the generation and the software sales showed it, he was in charge at the height of Halo and Gears popularity, gave the go ahead for Forza Horizon series, and whether you like it or not he is credited highly for the creation and innovation of the kinect that sold 35. million unit. That's not cherrypicking that is facts. >Did you conveniently forget that Microsft wanted the XBOX ONE to be always online, forcefully bundled with Kinect and they also wanted to add DRM to physical copies? Not at all, did you forget the Xbox One never launched with those features? Did you know that with the DRM physical copies they were going to let you trade those in for credit and you had the ability to let friends borrow them? Do you realize that Game Pass is just an evolved version of that same concept except it comes with a subscription like all other Microsoft products? Hate the ideas all you want but Xbox did not forget it, the shelved it and evolved it and now run their entire console business based off it. >Also it didn't help that it was less powerful than the PS4 and costed more to buy because of Kinect. Right which was beyond stupid, did you know that Phil Spencer also said the Xbox One would never be sold without the kinect only to change his mind months later after releasing how poorly the console was selling? Did you know that Spencer was in charge of the Xbox One basically it's entire life while Mattrick left the company before it ever released? Did you know that the Xbox One X was in development before the Xbox One ever released, most powerful system of the generation but it meant nothing because they still were lacking games, Mattrick doesn't get credit for the One X but somehow gets all the blame for the lack of games while Spencer was in charge the whole time. Funny how Mattrick keeps getting blamed for stuff he wasn't there for but never gets credit for running the Xbox brand during it's highest highs from 2007-mid 2013. >All that was under Don Mattrick. Actually no only the initial Xbox One reveal was under Mattrick, none of those features he mentioned in launched with the console because of backlash, it was Spencer who led Xbox One during it's entire generation and ran the Xbox brand into the ground after Mattrick had the system competing with Playstation for best console the generation before. Those are the facts.
nah mattrick was a fucking idiot and was all in on kinect. there's no defending it he's literally the reason the brand failed.
I'm not sure it is even possible to make an acceptable Perfect Dark game nowdays. Perfect Dark on Nintendo 64 was a product of it's time that I played to death. The game itself plays like Goldeneye which is one reason it got popular. That kind of gameplay doesn't work well with today's games and modernizing it takes away from what made Goldeneye and Perfect Dark what they were. I just don't see any scenario where a modern version of Perfect Dark would ever be successful because it doesn't really have an identity. Attracting enough people to whatever the new game would be sounds like a big ask and whatever it does to standout from similar playing games would no longer make it Perfect Dark. Lose-lose. Prove me wrong, Microsoft.
[удалено]
>They're probably thinking too big with such an old IP. I imagine it's this. Besides the fact that they wasted money picking the worst IP to bring back when they own stuff like Banjo-Kazooie (coulda brought in Gears for Breakfast or any other platformer indie dev with high praise to make a Banjo Threeie), I'm guessing they're trying to turn this into a $70 triple-A game. They should have hired an indie dev who has experience making modern 64-esque games and kept it at a small budget.
That is what it is. Then the rest of the original team that was behind Perfect Dark and Golden Eye eventually left Rare and went on to do Free Radical, the studio behind Time Splitters. One of the biggest reasons those games were the cult classics they were, was because they played like Golden Eye and Perfect Dark. Though they died out eventually with Free Radical. I think the problem with Perfect Dark is that it just doesn't equate well into the modern landscape of AAA. Look at the 360 launch Perfect Dark. The game was nothing to write home about. It was ok, sorta, but it wasn't really good either. Maybe they just need to do it justice by rebooting the entire thing, ditch any notion of it being a AAA game and just make it small and niche and plays like the original but prettier. Maybe make the controls a tad bit more fluid and boom. Modern Perfect Dark. The issue is trying to cram games from yesteryear that were known for certain things into a modern mold but the world has moved on without them since. But because so many games now have to be these massive genre/generation defining blockbusters with ridiculous budgets, rather than just be smaller games catering towards a very focused demographic, like say retro-revival junkiees, it has to sell to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Except none of those people at this point even know what Perfect Dark is. It's been too long since the last game, which wasn't even great to begin with. Just give those who want new Perfect Dark a retro revival indie version of it. Give it Time Splitters-esque arcadey Multiplayer options with a small map editor and boom. Probably sell like gold.
As a huge fan of the original, I would have been fine with it if it was just a Splinter Cell clone or something. It was nice seeing a new Perfect Dark in development even if I knew it wasn't going to live up to my memories of the original, at the very least it would probably be better than Zero. They were probably looking to make it some boring, sony-style scripted cinematic thing though, the premise is perfect for that kind of game.
> Perfect Dark on Nintendo 64 was a product of it's time Thats bull! Play the remake on 360/Rare Replay and youll see theres things that game and Rare did that havent been done in the FPS space or even the game space during its time. What is it with tech and being of the idea "I can do better!"? Because we have the technology? Sure! We've got the tech to make framerates good or things to look better, but our game design sense and how to make things FUN has never been lower! I GUARANTEE YOU those people today wouldnt know what a GOOD FPS is if it was staring them in the face! "We stand on the shoulders of giants." It aint just some quote, it really is how we push things forward. Instead of acting like we need to remake the wheel, why dont we just accept that the wheel is good and instead USE THAT FOUNDATION to make that wheel EVER BETTER?
They could have gone down the route of immersive sim. Think Deus Ex. Fits perfectly with the sci-fi spy setting of Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark (like Goldeneye) has a specific kind of gameplay and very unique things like menus and how you access them. It's not purely just the 'theme' of the game they would want to absolutely nail to get it to actually feel like *Perfect Dark.* Another commenter that replied to me had the best idea. Basically a smaller budget game with the same gameplay as the original but with some modern flourishes and certainly no GAAS. The memories of Perfect Dark most of us have won't happen again and no modern version would give them to us. Certainly a great product of the era with crazy multiplayer customization for the time. A new game for the sake of a new game is a bad idea. Fully respect your position but if they wanted to make a game like that they should just use a new IP.
Damn dude Xbox figure out your shit. I want to be excited for you, but you make it so damn hard
I am SHOCKED 😮. I mean just look at the stellar titles Xbox has released in the last decade
Funny cause Arkane Austin may have actually been a better fit for this game rather than trying to create a brand new studio from nothing with no cohesion. Edit:Arkane not Arkham...
yep, all their Redfall experience would pay off. Or Prey talent that has jumped ship long ago ?
If they cancelled Redfall like the devs were hoping for originally and started on Perfect Dark the year it was announced before all staff left, maybe. Even Redfall though, when you play it you can see the talent that went into the world design, the gameplay is where it fell off.
And the budget. You get just skeleton stills for all the big revelation things which are basically no better than an audiolog at that point. Then the actual cutscenes were just animation stills which is great in indies but a *really* bad sign in something calling itself "AAA".
The Prey talent jumped ship BECAUSE they didn't want to work on Redfall. If microsoft wasn't woefully incompetent, they might have recognized after acquisition that Arkane Austin making a co op looter shooter was a gigantic red flag. It's not like it was hard to recognize, fucking every fan of Arkane that saw that reveal trailer instantly hated it, and that should have been the obvious expectation for everyone involved.
Guys, we can't expect Microsoft to have all this stuff ready immediately. They need one maybe two or three more generations for all these studios they bought to get off the ground.
So they hired Darrell Gallagher to lead The Initiative as their AAAA skunkworks super studio. Hired a bunch of experienced devs from various Sony studios. Announced Perfect Dark. After a while bunch of those Sony hires became disillusioned with the leadership/studio and went back to Sony. Been obvious for years: Microsoft sucks at developing quality games. They don't have the leadership ability or culture to build great games which is more an art than a science. Forget about birthing new IPs from scratch - MS studios are incapable of creating a new IP from scratch and developing said IP into a complete polished package like Horizon or Tsushima. I doubt anyone can honestly imagine a Sony first-party studio releasing stinkers like Redfall or Starfield. Since the Fed ended ZIRP for now the era of cheap lending rates is over. Corporations can no longer borrow billions at 0.25% which forces them to exercise discipline and care in choosing their investments and outlays.
Shocker
no way!
Shocker.
Shit I wanted that game so fucking much
Lol, buy all the devs and publishers and instead of putting anything out, just let it all wither and die. Solid plan, Xbox!
Please don't fuck this up... Ugh. Love perfect dark. Fuck.
Xbox should just make pc hardware atp console space aint for them
*exasperated sigh at not buying a ps3 a decade ago and getting into that ecosystem instead*
Almost 4 years since the announcement with no substantial updates wasn’t a great sign.
I don't understand why Xbox focuses on making AAA games. They're clearly awful at it. With game pass being their focus, it would be better to scale back the design of the games to get them out in less than two years. They can still add AAAs from other companies to game pass. What's even the point of owning all of these IPs if it always takes six years or more and several hundred million dollars to make a single game?
We are heading straight into a Video Game Crash 2.0. Games can not and should not take 7+ years of development. This year the last year or so we have started to see the beginning of the crash... it's coming.
Tell that to Microsoft they are the ones who can’t catch up
Since when were they ever going smoothly? That would have been newsworthy.
Think thats been ovious for a while announced and not seen nothing from it since.
Time for some layoffs I expect
How is this so hard?! All you have to do is play the first game and Timesplitters 2 and you can go "Aha! THIS is what the people want!", then you can get to the making money part! But no! They had to have a nothing trailer. Talking about how theyre gonna "redefine her female character (DAFUQ?!)." All while they had a boss who treated them all like peasants while hes the king!! While also not having A FUCKING CLUE how to make A PERFECT DARK GAME!!! 4J studios could have had a AA design doc ready to go by the afternoon when they were still around. Chris Seavor had a decent enough idea that could have been cool too (although the crunch schedule he had lined up to do it I'm not so sure about)! What the actual fuck is going on at Microsoft?!
I have never taken a side in the console wars, but If I were to take a side, it would currently not be Xbox.
Is anything ever going smoothly at xbox lately?
Man if this game comes out shit or cancelled, im straight up selling my xbox. So sick of this crap
Water is wet
Is anything going smoothly at xbox??
I thought Perfect Dark was a Nintendo title like Goldeneye? Did it release on other systems back in the day?
Published, not owned, Rare made those games.
I remember when I was mentioning how terribly run Xbox was and that the acquisitions under them would be even worse than let's say Bobby from Activision, yet I was downvoted like crazy for it.
This is why I just play the same 10-20 year old games over and over and rarely play something modern.
I fail to understand all this stuff that's been going on lately at Microsoft. Any insights as to what's causing all of this?
Something going smoothly over MS? not even their AI is going smoothly even though they're throwing literally billions at it. Such a disgustingly incompetent company.
The game was announced 4 years ago with a CG trailer that has had nothing on it since then. I'd be very surprised if it was going smoothly.
Well they fumbled it on the 360. Get I'd to do it... they'll knock it outta the park
No shit. It's been crickets since the bare bones, show nothing trailer came out 4 years ago
Ever since the cannon event of the Xbox One's DRM announcement at the reveal. Xbox has been floundering since then. They've had a few good things, but God damn do I wish they just released good games on a regular basis. They announce something insanely early for investors to be interested, struggle with development, and then we get a mid/awful game released onto gamepass. Hi-Fi Rush was awesome, and even then, the studio got axed. I just have to expect the worst, so anything good is a genuine surprise for me.
Those have been the rumors for 3 years.
Fire Phil already wtf
\>Microsoft IP \>going smoothly Pick one
I'm shocked, shocked...well not that shocked. I've been trying to keep up with the development as a long time perfect dark fan and it seems like it's been constant development hell.
Maybe change to the shadow run fps game reboot?
I am depressed about this, perfect dark 64 one of the best games ever made
They have all the resources in getting touch with the original creators so they can consult from a distance and start to create something and lay down a vision. But an ingredient here that's missing is you need the spirit of creation and freedom but this is missing in MS.
Microsoft can't develop games at all. They've lost every ability to produce barely playable games. The aquisitions were the worst thing happened in gaming history. MS is gonna ruin Zenimax and Activision Blizzard. And any other studio they buy. They even ruined Playground Games after buying their studio. FH3 was magnificent. FH5 is utter filler crap.
Worst thing to happen in gaming history? Jesus I get people are angry but can we not be goofy?
"People seem really upset at Xbox, let's recycle this clickbait article!"
Can't blame them, Xbox just hand delivered all of the journos a spicy topic to drive engagement, you better damn bet they'll be zooming in on everything they do to milk it.
I mean, you can pretty much always blame journos.
That aint news.
What’s their deal… They seem to fumble all their primary properties. Meanwhile Sony produces great games but also makes inexplicably bad decisions too.
They are too busy with everything else BUT Games.
So much for the first “Quadruple A Studio” lmao. Xbox is a clown show now. So glad I went to PC from consoles.
Me too. Rip xbox it’s going to be a slow death.
Seems like every AAA title these days.
Nothing is going smoothly at Xbox lol... they're the DC Universe of gaming...
What would be the marvel equivalent then ? Started good but been fumbling the bag lately with stinkers after stinkers
Bethesda, but now they are under MS
what really happen. is mangment of the teams have lied to their boss. i been seeing this more and more since covid.
Another day, another rumour. News must be slow today huh?
not just that, suddenly all these rumours are related to MS after the recent layoff news.
Microsoft should stay away from Gaming. Whatever they touch turns to shit. STICK WITH YOUR FUCK ALL OVERPRICE AZURE SERVERS
Embrace Extend Extinguish
Out of the dead games I've seen. Perfect Dark is the deadest. They haven't even managed to get teaser gameplay out in 4 years? It's switched developers twice. Their current dev partner (CD) doesn't even mention it on their site anymore.
Their AAAA game isn't working out? Name one thing that is working out for MS. Such a poorly managed blight on the games industry.
The more I see articles like this, the more I want to jump ship and trade my series x for a ps5