Xbox Game Studios Stupidity Hate Thread Game Pass Edition

The industry is shit now and having exclusives doesn't help anyone in 2024.
I'd be fine if both Xbox and Playstation went down in flames and everyone was forced to either play on Switch 2 or PC. Just removing Xbox off the market would be a good start, because it's just a giant waste of everyone's time. We already have Flight Simulator on PC, and it's not like they have anything else of worth on the horizon.
 
I don't think we should be pushing the max graphix out of every game. Give me a Crysis or Space Harrier every few years as a demo/land-mark of what can be done. For the rest? 720p or 1080p. Add physics and destruction if it's an FPS war game.

I think the hardware is way beyond what the software needs.
So... you knowingly want wacky non-x86 compatible, less powerful hardware that costs more money than off-the-shelf components because you think it will somehow magically breed innovation in an industry where it's already a struggle to get most games to run well at all, even on components/ISAs that are standard across the industry?

I'm out. This has gotten too stupid for me to even entertain.
 
So... you knowingly want wacky non-x86 compatible, less powerful hardware that costs more money than off-the-shelf components because you think it will somehow magically breed innovation in an industry where it's already a struggle to get most games to run well at all, even on components/ISAs that are standard across the industry?

I'm out. This has gotten too stupid for me to even entertain.
No I don't think that.
 
Historically most of the best games have been exclusives, most of them just timed, and some permanently locked to their platform. When a game comes out on many platforms day one, you usually have some or most of the versions being a bit shit, whereas a more staggered release has usually resulted in better quality for everyone.
Historically the cost of porting a game from one platform to another was high and historically one platform or another was so dominant you didn't really need to. NES up to 1991 and then PlayStation 1, 2 from 1998 to ~2006 you could be joe blow inc and just not bother worrying about anything else.

How does that jive with in a world where the cost to make "an game" is high, the cost to port to another platform is low, and hell everything is made using middleware that makes it all dead easy unless the people making it are borderline retarded.

The reason games aren't good isn't because of a now artificial platform/userbase restriction, it's because the people making it are incompetent and believe deeply in woke horseshit.

I'd be fine if both Xbox and Playstation went down in flames and everyone was forced to either play on Switch 2 or PC. Just removing Xbox off the market would be a good start, because it's just a giant waste of everyone's time. We already have Flight Simulator on PC, and it's not like they have anything else of worth on the horizon.
Xbox and Sony are doing a great job of turning everyone away from their games so just give it time.
 
The difference is disney slop (Quackshot, MM:castle of Illusion) was much better than the disney slop of today.
mate, I'm don't wanna give you trashcans but calling 90's disney "slop" either means you're fucking underage or retarded. sure it was mainstream, but there was still the aspiration around to produce quality, which is the complete opposite of what slop means.

besides, you're screaming into a void. you want exclusives? PC has exclusives. you want good games? PC has loads of them, including the consoles of old (and new, just follow the nintendie tears). but even outside that most games come to PC anyway, the rest is filled by indies. you do play indies instead of waiting getting shit in your mouth by sony or microsoft, right?

I've heard for years now that if you have any programming skill whatsoever, you don't make fucking games because it's such a bullshit career for programmers. And if you can code and really want to make games, you do it on your own time and for fun and hopefully turn it into something independently.
vidya programming is just a shit job.
- low pay
- shit hours/crunch (often due to shit management, which is the dumping ground for diversity hires when they can't cut it technically - no hard performance numbers)
- shit job guarantee when whole teams get canned regularly after the game is finished.
- and thanks to DIE now also shit climate, where you have shaniqua constantly fuck with your work and you can't complain before labeled racist and forced to sit through hours of sensitivity training.

why deal with any of that shit when you're actually good? just take a corporate gig somewhere else. sure it's not as "exciting" as making vidya, but you'll have more money, more time and will keep your job longer, so might as well work on vidya as a side-project, with actual more passion than any studio could muster these days.
in return you only get shit devs, newbie devs fresh out of college or the starry-eyed retards thinking it's a "privilege" to work for less pay and more hours, you should be thankful! blizzard is notorious for that line of thinking, and now look at the state of it...

There's probably a reason that the "titans" of the industry are writer/director faggots like Hideo Kojima and Neil Druckmans now instead of programmers/designers like John Carmack and Will Wright.
because they're still easily replaceable or in kojima's case marketing. after 1-2 hard bombs they'll become a kevin levine, druckman is basically already there. corporations don't want actual rockstar devs like carmack with a unique vision and talent because they are harder to replace and often butt heads with management to see that vision through. this is not only risky, but often more expensive than having a committee of aforementioned suckers that will just nod to everything least they lose their fancy job and get replaced by the horde of suckers just waiting for their turn. it can work (usually because there's a good exec above it whipping them in line. say what you want about kotick but you saw at lot less of those antics in the COD sweatshop studios), but most often don't, best example being ubisoft games being all over the place, even when the individual parts are good.
 
Last edited:
Half Life wasn't even made for high end rigs at the time and got a PS2 port you stupid faggot.
A port three years later on a generation of consoles that didn't exist when it was released on PC. And even then, performance wasn't the best - it would've been impossible on Playstation or N64.

Half-Life was definitely a PC exclusive in all the ways that matter.
 
A port three years later on a generation of consoles that didn't exist when it was released on PC. And even then, performance wasn't the best - it would've been impossible on Playstation or N64.

Half-Life was definitely a PC exclusive in all the ways that matter.
Game sales at the time weren't as front loaded as they are today. Half-Life's popularity took years to really establish.

Consider that Blue Shift came out the same year as the PS2 version.

The PS2 version is also great btw, the game runs well, plays well, looks better than the PC version, and comes with a cool exclusive cooperative expansion.
 
Game sales at the time weren't as front loaded as they are today. Half-Life's popularity took years to really establish.
That's ridiculous. Half-Life got heaps of critical acclaim, won game of the year from nearly every publication out there, and sold very well for a PC exclusive in the late 90s.

It didn't get a PS2 port multiple years after its PC launch because it was some unknown hidden gem - it got one because it was basically THE marquee PC exclusive of that time.
 
All I know every Yakuza game used to run flawlessly on PS3 and PS4 until they started publishing on PC and Xbox as well.
They moved over to Dragon Engine starting with 2016's Yakuza 6. That has much higher system requirements than the old one, and is developed in-house. It's very rare to see new in-house engines for modern games, considering just about everyone else uses Unity, Unreal, etc. Apparently 6 was buggy on PS4, but I played it on Xbox Series X and it ran well for me. Can confirm that it's pretty lo-fi on a launch-era Xbox One, though.

In the behind the scenes footage for Yakuza 8 they mentioned it's now quite a challenge publishing on 8 platforms simultaneously. Both Yakuza Isshin and Yakuza 8 had moments where they run like shit, in contrast to the quality they were putting out before.
Yakuza 8 ran great from start to finish for me, but I played it on a very powerful computer. And, uh, 8 platforms? What?

I'd be fine if both Xbox and Playstation went down in flames and everyone was forced to either play on Switch 2 or PC. Just removing Xbox off the market would be a good start, because it's just a giant waste of everyone's time. We already have Flight Simulator on PC, and it's not like they have anything else of worth on the horizon.
What would make me happiest with Xbox is if they just let you run Windows 11, much like how the Steam Deck works. On Steam Deck, you can restart into Desktop Mode, which lets you run it like a normal PC, installing whatever software you want. But, the whole machine is built around Steam, and it's infintiely easier to install games from Steam than anything else. Xbox should be the same way, funneling its users towards the Microsoft Store, with the option of just using it as a PC. Lord knows it's not a very compelling machine as-is.

Half-Life's popularity took years to really establish.
I didn't actually know about it until it was a few years old. I think it was my first WASD game.
 
That's ridiculous. Half-Life got heaps of critical acclaim, won game of the year from nearly every publication out there, and sold very well for a PC exclusive in the late 90s.

It didn't get a PS2 port multiple years after its PC launch because it was some unknown hidden gem - it got one because it was basically THE marquee PC exclusive of that time.
I was there, gandalf.

It won awards but it didn't immediately become a hit. It was included in demo cds for years, word of mouth travelled, and it slowly worked its way up to being a very popular game.

Same thing happened with DOOM. Does it really matter that it came out in 1993? It probably hit peak popularity in 96.
 
And, uh, 8 platforms? What?
Xbox One, One X, Series S, Series X, PS4, PS4 Pro, PS5, PC. I played Isshin and 8 on PS5, and both dropped to like 15fps-20fps at worst, although rare. I never remember that happening in Yakuza 6, Judgment, or Lost Judgment when I played them on PS4.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Pissmaster
I've seen the analogy that game development is the music industry for programmers, ie most programmers actually want to make games, but they don't want to work in the games industry. Extending the analogy, everyone looking forward to Stellar Blade and only playing japanese games is the same as only listening to kpop and jpop. I guess this is proof the decline of western games is a symptom of cultural rot, as you see it affecting every medium simultaneously. Who knew rap metal would be the peak of western cultural achievement before the decline?
 
I've seen the analogy that game development is the music industry for programmers, ie most programmers actually want to make games, but they don't want to work in the games industry. Extending the analogy, everyone looking forward to Stellar Blade and only playing japanese games is the same as only listening to kpop and jpop. I guess this is proof the decline of western games is a symptom of cultural rot, as you see it affecting every medium simultaneously. Who knew rap metal would be the peak of western cultural achievement before the decline?
Playing Japanese games is 100x more mainstream than listening to Jpop. It's in no way comparable.

Maybe it's more like watching Anime or only watching Anime.

Japanese music is almost never translated so you have to get used to listening to music in a language you don't understand which is an immediate no for most people.
 
To bring this back to doomscrolling about Xbox and the future of games. Here's an article about Xbox Inclusion Framework https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-...elp-developers-add-inclusion-into-their-games

They mention "door" and "doorways" about 16 times in the article. The Doorway to Gaming. Looks pretty gay to me.

gaydoor.JPG


Here's how DEI is rationalized. This sounds nice and all: "It's not about making every game for everyone, it's about making gaming for everybody. It's about how can we bring that level of intentionality, so you as a developer can make the right decision for your experience." But it then leads directly to making everything comically diverse and ugly, because that's what their studies say everyone wants. Ignore the chuds, we have the data! "Wright shares a stat from a survey where 71% of players say that diversity in stories and characters is either 'very' or 'extremely important' to them."

A cope about releasing games nobody plays: For representation, that would include the ID@Xbox game Venba, which is about an immigrant Indian family living in Canada. "Even if people don't play it," says Wright. "Knowing it's there makes them feel like they belong."

I had a quick look at Xbox GDC sessions for more thread content, and I found this: "Xbox’s new GPT-powered Content Moderation functionality offers innovative solutions and unprecedented community insights, paving the way for a safer and more engaging digital environment."
 
Both Yakuza Isshin and Yakuza 8 had moments where they run like shit, in contrast to the quality they were putting out before.
It's because both Ishin and 8 run on Unreal, since for some reason RGG ditched their in-house Dragon Engine which was heaps better than Swiney's astroturfed bullshit.
They moved over to Dragon Engine starting with 2016's Yakuza 6. That has much higher system requirements than the old one, and is developed in-house. It's very rare to see new in-house engines for modern games, considering just about everyone else uses Unity, Unreal, etc. Apparently 6 was buggy on PS4, but I played it on Xbox Series X and it ran well for me. Can confirm that it's pretty lo-fi on a launch-era Xbox One, though.
See above. They ditched it too and joined team Unreal which is a goddamn shame. Dragon Engine was fucking solid for an in-house engine. I can understand Croteam ditching their Serious Engine if the state of Serious Sam 4 was related to it, I can understand CDPR ditching redEngine when they fired all the people that worked on it, I can understand GSC ditching X-Ray because the people who worked on it left before SoC was released and they've went under in 2011, and that engine was always a hot mess, but RGG ditching Dragon Engine? It must've been some retarded higher-up decision.
 
Japanese music is almost never translated so you have to get used to listening to music in a language you don't understand which is an immediate no for most people.
considering lot of music is in english, and even popular outside the anglosphere, this sounds more like a burger problem.

So... you knowingly want wacky non-x86 compatible, less powerful hardware that costs more money than off-the-shelf components because you think it will somehow magically breed innovation in an industry where it's already a struggle to get most games to run well at all, even on components/ISAs that are standard across the industry?

I'm out. This has gotten too stupid for me to even entertain.
he's not wrong, he just has the wrong approach. as someone else said limitation breeds creativity, having to work with the constraints of a weaker system means devs have to make it up on the gameplay, story or graphical side etc. to sell the system (hence good exclusives) - just look at the switch which is far weaker but not only sells more but has an attachment rate sony and microsoft dream of.
however that only works in theory. neither sony nor ms have the talent or ambition when quantity over quality works just as well if not better for the bottom line.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Whoopsie Daisy
Back