Xbox Series X/S (Official Thread)

[Leynos]

I will probably get some heat for this but I just have to say it. While I will forever maintain that I loved the original Xbox and Xbox 360. I have not been impressed with the brand since about 2010. 2010 was Kinect and then in 2013 everything about XBO just turned me off. I'm not impressed with Spencer either. He is great at over-promising then massively underdelivering. Yes, he is great as the nice guy act but that's not enough. The MS studio acquisitions. Eh. He bought the We Happy Few devs before their game was out and the game ended up being a POS. Ninja Theory. They make technical showpieces with mediocre combat. Hellblade 2 won't be a massive system seller. Hellblade barely broke 1 million on 3 platforms combined. Obsidian. They are hit and miss but Outer Worlds is like Fallout. So they bought a dev to make more of what is already out there? Besides I thought they bought the Wasteland devs. Wasteland 2 didn't set the world on fire either. Then they bought the studio that only made Forza for them...so now they will...make more Forza for them. Ok then. Now Phil thinks he just wants to buy a bunch of Asian developers. Why not just stop buying everything. Work with them instead and built a partnership. Having a giant checkbook isn't exactly great leadership to me.

Even for those who like these games and that's fine. I just don't see them as massive system sellers. Sony and Nintendo are great at having a few big system sellers then filling the rest with smaller but solid titles to keep momentum plus the 3rd party titles. A lot of these games for MS seem like the smaller titles you keep the momentum going but are forgetting the real big system sellers to go with it. I think they also fail to realize Gears/Halo are not the juggernauts they once were. Cover shooters have fallen out of favor in recent years, now things like Doom Eternal are the modern shooter. Gears hiding behind walls seem dated. Gears 5 the big reinvention for the series, did it win anything at the TGAs? Halo..it's Halo. Fans will buy it but not much industry buzz outside of that last few entries.



Phil seems so reactionary. Sony made 1 studio purchase. Nintendo, none. Both doing much better in getting games out and in sales. Phil tried to jump the gun with the Xbox SeX announcement. I don't think it created nearly as much buzz as MS hoped. Reactions range from. Cool to ..meh. Overall it just seems lukewarm at best. Not to mention the name is horrible. It's better than the XBO reveal at least. More of wait and see. There was more buzz about the NX even when people knew literally nothing about it. Just rumors and speculation. Don't get me wrong Phil is much better than Don and he is genuinely trying. I just don't see it as being enough unless Sony massively drops the ball with their reveal. I don't dislike Xbox brand. I'm just not overly enthusiastic about it like I once was.

[SegaAMD]

I've been gaming since 1984 and been so used to console makers hyping up their systems, using theoretical limits, rather than in-game limits with AI and player control Ect. My main issue with SONY is their fake demo's and how they seem to be able to get away with fake demo's, horrible systems to develop for, spin with regards to SONY PS2 Online plains. It's hard to beat SONY or 3DO for sheer spin and lies

But when you're number one, you can get away with it.

I disagree, abusive marketing needs to be grounded in something real, not just the lie by the lie, Sony at the time of the PS2 came from an excellent phase Playstation 1 was a success, so even these excesses were thought to build an elite sense on their consumers, and it worked.

I recognize that there are two very nasty strategies that can only be used in early generation, I call it freeze, it's a strategy based on future promises that blinds people from current situation, Dreamcast was a real console that could be bought and sold. I was playing high level games like Soul Calibur and Sonic but the promise of a PS2 with DVD stole the heart of the people and they just didn't buy one single dreamcast in Japan, the second strategy I call it projection, is where these fakes E3 demo come in. Sega also used it with Sonic X-treme, it's about selling ghost an illusion as a real game, until people wake up, many consoles will have been sold, well that's from the time when there was competition in the market now it doesn't matter who came out front whether it's Sony or M $ in the end both end up happy with the result.

[gamevet]

Metal Gear Solid 2 was going to sell PS2s, before the console ever landed in North America. DVD was a Japan thing for the console.

[Team Andromeda]

I disagree, abusive marketing needs to be grounded in something real, not just the lie by the lie, Sony at the time of the PS2 came from an excellent phase Playstation 1 was a success, so even these excesses were thought to build an elite sense on their consumers, and it worked.

I'm sorry that makes no sense. Nothing grounded in real by some showing off fake footages of Killzone 2 or speeding up footage of The Last Guardian. It is what it is a lie or at worst spin
What was shown of Sonic X was real, the game was just crap and so dropped. Mind you SEGA did use footage of the Arcade versions of VF and Daytona when showing off the Saturn for the 1st time the CES January 1994 show.

DVD helped a bit in Japan with the PS2, but it was still all about the games and well to me the E3 2000 trailer of Metal Gear Soild 2 sold the PS2 and killed the DC in the west, at least that was real.

[Team Andromeda]

Of course. If you guys wanna see bullshit marketing, why don't we post that 3D0 M2 gameplay footage?

The so-called footage of an FPS shooter for the M2 was a disgrace and so fake

[Black_Tiger]

Metal Gear Solid 2 was going to sell PS2s, before the console ever landed in North America. DVD was a Japan thing for the console.

Everywhere I went, leading up to, during and after the PS2 launch, I talked to and heard random people in public and in stores talking about planning to buy a PS2 just to play dvds.

It was all over the news, in random non-gaming magazines, everywhere. The hype was that the PS2 was cheaper than most dvd players, even if that wasn't true.

The same thing happened with the PS3 and bluray, only to a far lesser extent because North Americans, especially in the United States, were slow to adopt bluray as they didn't care about quality very much and dvds with multiple low bitrate films on a single discs became popular.


EDIT: I forgot to say that the true killer app at the time was the release of The Matrix on dvd. It must have had the highest attach rate to PS2s over any other media for the first year or so.

[gamevet]

I got a Sony DVD player @ 2000 for $150. It was much less than the $300 I’d spend on the PS2 several months later. Yes, the Matrix was my 1st DVD. There wasn’t a lot of movies to chose from at the time. Blu-Ray was different for me. The PS3 was my only BR player in the house, until we got a junky Visio player for the master bedroom. My PS4 became my BR player in the living room later on. The PS3 and PS4 were better BR players than most of the top of the line ones available at launch.

Zone of Enders sold like crazy, because it had a MGS2 demo disc included. Gamers were that excited about playing the game. MGS2 was a day one purchase for me.

[Leynos]

I got a Sony DVD player in 2001 for $150 as well. Lasted me 10 years. They did the same thing with ZOE HD collection with a demo of MGR. Why Dragon Quest 8 sold well on PS2. Demo of FFXII and of course maybe the most famous of them all. Crackdown with a demo of Halo 3. It's funny people bought these games for a demo only to find the game they bought is also good. I kinda wish we were still in an era like that. If ZOE did not come with an MGS demo I doubt we got one of the best games ever made in ZOE 2. Crackdown likely falls under the radar and never becomes a series. Makes me wonder what other games would have had more success if they had some mega hyped game packed in as a demo.

[axel]

Everywhere I went, leading up to, during and after the PS2 launch, I talked to and heard random people in public and in stores talking about planning to buy a PS2 just to play dvds.

It was all over the news, in random non-gaming magazines, everywhere. The hype was that the PS2 was cheaper than most dvd players, even if that wasn't true.

The same thing happened with the PS3 and bluray, only to a far lesser extent because North Americans, especially in the United States, were slow to adopt bluray as they didn't care about quality very much and dvds with multiple low bitrate films on a single discs became popular.


EDIT: I forgot to say that the true killer app at the time was the release of The Matrix on dvd. It must have had the highest attach rate to PS2s over any other media for the first year or so.

I have the same recollection about the PS2, lots of people bought it because it could play DVDs out of the box. It was a brilliant move on the part of Sony and a blunder by Microsoft and Nintendo not to design their consoles with this functionality. Yes the XBox had a kit you could buy but it should have been built-in.

[Team Andromeda]

Everywhere I went, leading up to, during and after the PS2 launch, I talked to and heard random people in public and in stores talking about planning to buy a PS2 just to play dvds.

In Japan sure. I was on holiday in the USA (San Francisco) and even in 1999, I saw DVD players being sold for less than what the PS2 would retail for in the USA. I think in the West in was more the hype over the power of the system that one the day and the unmatched 3rd party support. For me too that E3 MSG 2 trailer for a killer for SEGA, even I wanted a PS2 after seeing that trailer TBH.

[axel]

In Japan sure. I was on holiday in the USA (San Francisco) and even in 1999, I saw DVD players being sold for less than what the PS2 would retail for in the USA. I think in the West in was more the hype over the power of the system that one the day and the unmatched 3rd party support. For me too that E3 MSG 2 trailer for a killer for SEGA, even I wanted a PS2 after seeing that trailer TBH.

If all you wanted to do was watch movies then yes a standalone DVD player cost less, if you had any interest in games and movies then the PS2 looked like a bargain compared to any other console + DVD player. Having the first console that could play high quality movies out of the box was a big deal. I think the Xbox kit was $30 at launch, within a year they were giving it away or offering a rebate (I forget which because it's been so long). Ironically Nintendo had a GC+DVD system sold as the Panasonic Q but only in Japan, they should have made it like that from the beginning.

[Team Andromeda]

If all you wanted to do was watch movies then yes a standalone DVD player cost less, if you had any interest in games and movies then the PS2 looked like a bargain compared to any other console + DVD player. Having the first console that could play high quality movies out of the box was a big deal. I think the Xbox kit was $30 at launch, within a year they were giving it away or offering a rebate (I forget which because it's been so long). Ironically Nintendo had a GC+DVD system sold as the Panasonic Q but only in Japan, they should have made it like that from the beginning.

I really don't think DVD playback inthe west was that a big of a deal. For me, it was the hype of the supposed power of the system that won the day and that killer MGS 2 trailer, which was utterly incredible

[SegaAMD]

let's forget the PS2, if we end up derailing the topic, basically the subject started due to the promises that consoles or rumors make before each generation, but in this one it will make no difference who is stronger who is not, in the end will change resolution and filters, which will determine who will have the most beautiful games will be the ones that invest the most in the production of the games.

[gamevet]

If all you wanted to do was watch movies then yes a standalone DVD player cost less, if you had any interest in games and movies then the PS2 looked like a bargain compared to any other console + DVD player. Having the first console that could play high quality movies out of the box was a big deal. I think the Xbox kit was $30 at launch, within a year they were giving it away or offering a rebate (I forget which because it's been so long). Ironically Nintendo had a GC+DVD system sold as the Panasonic Q but only in Japan, they should have made it like that from the beginning.

The DVD titles available at the time was pretty abysmal. It made perfect sense that DVD sales increased in Japan, after the launch of the console, because really, the launch titles for the console were pretty pathetic. Japanese gamers needed something else to pass the time with their console, because they really didn't have much to play on their rushed to market PS2. When the PS2 launched in North America, they had Madden, along with Ridge Racer V and a total of 29 titles, compared to the pathetic 6 titles in Japan. Everyone in the west was hyped for MGS2 and they had a decent library to hold them over until it was released.

https://www.mobygames.com/game-group...tation-2-japan

I ended up getting my PS3 in the summer of 2007, because I had an HD CRT that was being used for 480p games on the previous generation of consoles and I wanted to experience movies in 720p/1080i. I didn't have a lot of PS3 games to play, but I did have access to some pretty good Blu-Ray movies at the time. I ended up getting an Xbox 360 Elite, because it had a much larger library of games that I'd wanted to play. The PS3 didn't become my primary gaming console until late 2008, but it was my go to setup for High Definition movies.

[Kaze Okami]

I really don't think DVD playback inthe west was that a big of a deal. For me, it was the hype of the supposed power of the system that won the day and that killer MGS 2 trailer, which was utterly incredible

It def was about the DVD playback here in Aus. Most people I knew back then that got one had no games for ages except for the included demo disc and just rented DVD movies for it every weekend. Plus the drones would shit on the GC for not having DVD playback.