Mike and Alex return to the concept of “the Game Pass Effect”. Games, the argument goes, designed for consumption on a subscription service alongside dozens of others a month will need to be conformed to this mode of consumption. They will lack the grandiose worldbuilding, demanding mechanics and novel-style writing of the best the medium has to offer. They will, instead, be shallow, light-hearted, toy-like experiences designed for piecemeal engagement, likely with loot-based progression. This (evidently) detracts from the quality of a game.
Frame generation technology has arrived on consoles, amplifying frame-rates and potentially transforming experiences.
Impressive results... sadly I don't have a 120hz display. I was thinking this technique could increase fps on any game that supports it regardless of the display.
Now I've extensively tried it I'm not too fussed about 120 fps. Give me a locked 60 and more details and I'm more than happy
Former Activision studio Toys for Bob partners with Xbox to publish its first game as an indie. This is something of a homecoming, as Microsoft owns Activision.
Manages to buy their freedom especially after all the shit Microsoft has been doing with its studios lately
...
Goes right back to them as partners.
Okaaaaaay...
Xbox’s gaming division seems to still function as 3 semi-autonomous sub-divisions, Xbox Studios, Bethesda and ABK. The three main sub-divisions can seemingly shut down or build studios and set up partnerships independently. This would explain why Bethesda can recently shutdown studios, while ABK spins off one studio, while building a new one. Plus, Toys for Bob could be spun off by ABK, only to immediately re-partner with Microsoft.
YouTube is probing its employees following the PlayStation State of Play leak that revealed all announcements ahead of the presentation.
I’m pretty sure leaks or not, by the end of the show people will still be disappointed. The only highlight for me was MH: Wilds… everything else was mid to forgettable. Hope them HaaS games you got lined up really work out for you, Sony. Everyone asking for Bloodborne Remake, Wolverine, and, uh, well other games like that could’ve made this epic. Instead we get Concord, some derivative Souls-like games, that were fine looking, and a Silent Hill 2 Remake with horrible character designs and janky combat animations… great.
And why are we only seeing this type of article now, when this has been obvious for years?
Is it suddenly OK to kick MS now that they are on the floor?
'The Gamepass Effect' is 'The Netflix Effect' with a different name.
First they lure you in with lots of content and a cheap price, then they cheapen the content and raise the price. Some people leave, but many forget to cancel the auto-renew subscription and haven't checked in to notice it's mostly crap, old and/or filler now. It's a classic bait and switch and it relies on known human behaviours.
Sea of Thieves, Halo Infinite, Redfall - this is just how it is at MS now. They've chosen their path.
"They will, instead, be shallow, light-hearted, toy-like experiences designed for piecemeal engagement, likely with loot-based progression. This (evidently) detracts from the quality of a game."
No, they are incomplete, broken, low effort, designed to be heavily monetized, oddly with the microtransactions and storefront working flawlessly day 1 yet the games need a "roadmap" to get them to a state they should have been in at launch. But game pass (evidently) makes that ok even though outside of game pass they are still charging $70 for it.
In much the same way that low budget bad films were 'straight to video', we now have the concept of 'straight to streaming' in which we can see the same formulaic rubbish films appearing on Netflix, AppleTV etc.
Following from that, we know have 'Gamepass Day One!', which was considered a highlight of being a subscriber until it's become apparent that day one games are typically lightweight rubbish shovelware.
'Straight to Gamepass', 'Good enough for Gamepass', and now 'The Gamepass effect' describing this current mediocrity.
This isn't the "Gamepass effect". This is MS both not fully implementing while shortchanging it. "Rushing it market, fixing it later" like they've always done. Only rather than a "one time thing" like with a Windows release, its multiple thing like Halo Infinite, Sea of Thieves or this game.