What video games are you looking forward to in 2017?

[Mr Allen]

The only reason the Xbox version of Tekken 7 is not getting exclusive content is because of butthurt Sony zealots bitching about it.

These people fail at life IMO.

 

[VenomousAlbino]

There isn't a company in existance who would decide not to put exclusive content in the Xbox version of a game just because PlayStation owners might ***** about it, or vice versa. That anyone might think otherwise is literally one of the most stupid things I've ever seen or heard.

 

[Xenocity]

I was looking around online at people that had gotten them and loads of people are being extremely disappointed in them... :/ we'll see what happens if suppose...

People purposely go online and "down rate" products because they don't want it to succeed and/or paid to do so.
Companies pay people to negative trash a competitor's product.

People also buy the product just report on how "bad" it is.

All products have a failure rate, 5% is the max legal limit for electronics.

I have none of the reported issues with my Switch.
It's a well built system.
Though if you are expecting a traditional console or handheld then you will be disappointed.

Just like plenty of PS4 owners didn't have hardware failures and those controllers that would break after a few hours of gaming.

Hell Xbox One is still known for controllers both wired and wireless being dropped by the console.
But some users don't have this issues.

 

[Xenocity]

The only reason the Xbox version of Tekken 7 is not getting exclusive content is because of butthurt Sony zealots bitching about it.

These people fail at life IMO.

Actually 90%+ of Tekken sales are on PlayStation each generation.
Sony also helping them release it in the West.

So obviously the PS4 version was going to be the best version by far.

Nothing is stopping Microsoft from helping the Tekken Team bring over the Xbox version.
Microsoft is only interested in games that sell Halo and Call of Duty levels.
This is why they pulling support and money from lesser games.
They are also canceling games in development for the same reasons.

Literally Microsoft's board and a CEO are putting massive screws on the Xbox people to make profits and to better spend their resources.

If Scorpio fails this fall, there is a very good chance of it being the last Xbox hardware.

Microsoft's shareholders literally are pushing for management to get rid of Xbox (it's lost over $10 billion since the original Xbox released)

 

[Misery]

There isn't a company in existance who would decide not to put exclusive content in the Xbox version of a game just because PlayStation owners might ***** about it, or vice versa. That anyone might think otherwise is literally one of the most stupid things I've ever seen or heard.

Actually, yes, there is.

Having heard it directly from developers, giving exclusive content is often something that devs DO NOT want to do. It alienates part of their fanbase (as in, "Why cant WE get X thing too just because we didnt buy the correct 300-400 dollar machine? That's not fair at all") which is never good in any business and in some cases means ALOT of extra development work. You have to worry about different versions needing to be balanced differently, if the content is not just some cosmetic thing, and you then also have to worry about there being multiple different versions to keep track of beyond even just the usual "different versions for each system but they're all really the same game" bit, which is hard enough as it is. Makes bug-tracking harder too, depending on the game and it's engine.

It ALSO means that they have to work on additional content that could get profit from EVERYONE, but nope, it's just an arbitrary thing for ONE specific group simply because Microsoft says so, which is a pretty dumb reason to add something and spend time/money doing so.

This all in addition to the difficulty/time/cost of porting stuff to begin with.

And of course, there's also developers that wouldnt want to do something like that ENTIRELY because it wouldnt sit well with them. They dont think it's the right thing to do, so they refuse to do it (this is how I would approach it myself as well, yep).


In other words, there's quite alot of devs that wouldnt do exclusive content: MOST, not just some, but MOST, want to have their content be uniform across all versions (of course, there are some that dont get a choice in the matter...). It's easier, it's usually better, and it keeps the playerbase from flipping out (and a good rule of business in general is: do not repeatedly anger your customers!). It all depends on the individual developer, they all have their own reasoning when it comes to this. And there's probably yet more aspects beyond just this that goes into the decision-making process for this bit, even for those developers that might be willing to do this sort of thing. It's not the sort of decision you make quickly.

Game development as a whole is NOT a simple thing.... not any aspect of it. And groups like Microsoft pulling stuff like this just makes it ever more complicated.

 

[Misery]

If Scorpio fails this fall, there is a very good chance of it being the last Xbox hardware.

Microsoft's shareholders literally are pushing for management to get rid of Xbox (it's lost over $10 billion since the original Xbox released)

Huh, yet they always make it seem like it's just doing so well and is so amazing. Granted, AAA stuff can be like this... it can seem to be selling so well but the costs of development are so ridiculous that it doesnt even matter, it can still be a constant drain anyway.

I have a hard time imagining the market without Xbox. Seems like it's been around for so very long now, though I do still remember when the very first one came out.

 

[Xenocity]

Huh, yet they always make it seem like it's just doing so well and is so amazing. Granted, AAA stuff can be like this... it can seem to be selling so well but the costs of development are so ridiculous that it doesnt even matter, it can still be a constant drain anyway.

I have a hard time imagining the market without Xbox. Seems like it's been around for so very long now, though I do still remember when the very first one came out.

Microsoft has yet to make a dime on any of their gaming hardware.

Microsoft has been able to sell Xbox (and many other products) at steep loses.
Bill Gates protected Xbox and gave them unlimited resources and encouraged them to undercut the rest of the industry.

With Gates and Ballmer out of the picture, no one is left to shield Xbox.

Xbox has literally lost over $10 Billion American since 2001.
It's probably closer to $15 Billion if not higher now.

Microsoft literally buried the Xbox products into the same division that hold their Mac software division and cell phone patents, so the division would show a profit.
This is why we don't know how much money they've actually lost.

If Xbox belonged to any other company, it would have have bankrupted said company.

Microsoft makes between $10 Billion and $20 Billion in profit each year just on Windows and Office.

Hell Sony nearly bankrupted itself with PS3 (it was close to $8 Billion in loses)

The Xbox loses has nothing to do with AAA development.
It's literally Costs>>>>>revenue

 

[VenomousAlbino]

Actually, yes, there is.

Having heard it directly from developers, giving exclusive content is often something that devs DO NOT want to do. It alienates part of their fanbase (as in, "Why cant WE get X thing too just because we didnt buy the correct 300-400 dollar machine? That's not fair at all") which is never good in any business and in some cases means ALOT of extra development work. You have to worry about different versions needing to be balanced differently, if the content is not just some cosmetic thing, and you then also have to worry about there being multiple different versions to keep track of beyond even just the usual "different versions for each system but they're all really the same game" bit, which is hard enough as it is. Makes bug-tracking harder too, depending on the game and it's engine.

It ALSO means that they have to work on additional content that could get profit from EVERYONE, but nope, it's just an arbitrary thing for ONE specific group simply because Microsoft says so, which is a pretty dumb reason to add something and spend time/money doing so.

This all in addition to the difficulty/time/cost of porting stuff to begin with.

And of course, there's also developers that wouldnt want to do something like that ENTIRELY because it wouldnt sit well with them. They dont think it's the right thing to do, so they refuse to do it (this is how I would approach it myself as well, yep).


In other words, there's quite alot of devs that wouldnt do exclusive content: MOST, not just some, but MOST, want to have their content be uniform across all versions (of course, there are some that dont get a choice in the matter...). It's easier, it's usually better, and it keeps the playerbase from flipping out (and a good rule of business in general is: do not repeatedly anger your customers!). It all depends on the individual developer, they all have their own reasoning when it comes to this. And there's probably yet more aspects beyond just this that goes into the decision-making process for this bit, even for those developers that might be willing to do this sort of thing. It's not the sort of decision you make quickly.

Game development as a whole is NOT a simple thing.... not any aspect of it. And groups like Microsoft pulling stuff like this just makes it ever more complicated.

All those reasons you mentioned? All those scenarios in which a developer might not want to develop console-exclusive content for a game concern money, resources and labour, not moaning fans.

And despite all the reasons why they might not want to put in console-exclusive content into their games, they do anyway.

 

[Misery]

All those reasons you mentioned? All those scenarios in which a developer might not want to develop console-exclusive content for a game concern money, resources and labour, not moaning fans.

And despite all the reasons why they might not want to put in console-exclusive content into their games, they do anyway.

Actually, those reasons... or I should say, the biggest reason... DOES involve moaning fans. Like I said, a major rule with business of any sort that involves the production and sales of any type of product: The #1 thing you DO NOT WANT TO DO is constantly anger your consumer base. It doesnt matter what you are selling, it doesnt matter how it's distributed: customer anger can do tons of damage. If you want to see a hyper-blatant example of this, look at the No Man's Sky fiasco. The game itself? It's actually not bad. I went into that without being affected by the hype, and while I think it was released a bit early, I think it's quite nice. But the sheer blazing hatred of the Internet Hate Train did a TON of damage... so much so that frankly I half-expected HG to completely collapse. They somehow didnt, but they still took a collossal blow from that, and it's likely to haunt them for the rest of forever. That may be an extreme example, but devs get understandably nervous about irritating the hell out of players. Even small indie devs wont risk that in many cases (though again, there are rare exceptions).

USUALLY, when you see a developer do something ANYWAY despite knowing it'll tick people off, there's often two reasons for it: 1, the game is so bloody huge that they *know* they can get away with it, and 2, some big, uncaring publisher is forcing them to do it. Almost every single freaking time, #2 is the actual reason (which is why more and more developers these days DO NOT want to get involved with major publishers: Because they can and will screw them over with bad decisions, while then blaming the developer for the move that they, the publisher, forced them into). Reason #1 almost always comes with reason #2.

However, for all the invincibility the big publishers think they have, well... they arent. For the big guys, it may take more time to bring them down, but eventually enough customer-related loathing will start to knock them over through sheer attrition. It's happened in the past. Sometimes, it's not the COMPANY that gets brought down... it's the series. For example, I remember reading a developer post on the forums for the Sims 4 (which received boatloads of anger upon release) saying that, from internal discussions, he was aware that there was a possibility that there would be no Sims 5, because the series was looking more and more unviable. The publisher had gotten WAY too greedy for WAY too long, and the stupidity that surrounded (and continues to surround) Sims 4 is downright nasty; it's done alot of damage to the franchise, and could well be the end of it. Particularly since, without a doubt, they WILL continue to milk the hell out of it (again, the publisher gets money out of it either way... even if the developer crashes and burns). Simcity suffered a similar fate (that series, which had lasted for a very long time, IS dead, and it was killed by the very thing I'm talking about).


Now for something like Tekken? Namco is a huge company... I could see them doing the exclusivity thing anyway. At the same time though.... they arent as A: nasty and B: bold as EA and Activision. They may decide against it. Impossible to know. Though, if what Xenocity said is true, about 90% of the profit being from the Sony versions, I'd not at all be surprised if they took a pass on it. It seems like by far the smartest choice to where even a big uncaring publisher can see the advantage in NOT doing it.

 

[Misery]

Microsoft has yet to make a dime on any of their gaming hardware.

Microsoft has been able to sell Xbox (and many other products) at steep loses.
Bill Gates protected Xbox and gave them unlimited resources and encouraged them to undercut the rest of the industry.

With Gates and Ballmer out of the picture, no one is left to shield Xbox.

Xbox has literally lost over $10 Billion American since 2001.
It's probably closer to $15 Billion if not higher now.

Microsoft literally buried the Xbox products into the same division that hold their Mac software division and cell phone patents, so the division would show a profit.
This is why we don't know how much money they've actually lost.

If Xbox belonged to any other company, it would have have bankrupted said company.

Microsoft makes between $10 Billion and $20 Billion in profit each year just on Windows and Office.

Hell Sony nearly bankrupted itself with PS3 (it was close to $8 Billion in loses)

The Xbox loses has nothing to do with AAA development.
It's literally Costs>>>>>revenue

Ya know, this brings up an interesting question: If they continuously take such monstrous losses... why in the bloody hell do they continue anyway? What is the reason for pushing forward?

I get the feeling there's a part of the hardware-specific equation I'm missing here (not an aspect of the industry I've ever really paid much attention to).

 

[VenomousAlbino]

Actually, those reasons... or I should say, the biggest reason... DOES involve moaning fans. Like I said, a major rule with business of any sort that involves the production and sales of any type of product: The #1 thing you DO NOT WANT TO DO is constantly anger your consumer base. It doesnt matter what you are selling, it doesnt matter how it's distributed: customer anger can do tons of damage. If you want to see a hyper-blatant example of this, look at the No Man's Sky fiasco. The game itself? It's actually not bad. I went into that without being affected by the hype, and while I think it was released a bit early, I think it's quite nice. But the sheer blazing hatred of the Internet Hate Train did a TON of damage... so much so that frankly I half-expected HG to completely collapse. They somehow didnt, but they still took a collossal blow from that, and it's likely to haunt them for the rest of forever. That may be an extreme example, but devs get understandably nervous about irritating the hell out of players. Even small indie devs wont risk that in many cases (though again, there are rare exceptions).

USUALLY, when you see a developer do something ANYWAY despite knowing it'll tick people off, there's often two reasons for it: 1, the game is so bloody huge that they *know* they can get away with it, and 2, some big, uncaring publisher is forcing them to do it. Almost every single freaking time, #2 is the actual reason (which is why more and more developers these days DO NOT want to get involved with major publishers: Because they can and will screw them over with bad decisions, while then blaming the developer for the move that they, the publisher, forced them into). Reason #1 almost always comes with reason #2.

However, for all the invincibility the big publishers think they have, well... they arent. For the big guys, it may take more time to bring them down, but eventually enough customer-related loathing will start to knock them over through sheer attrition. It's happened in the past. Sometimes, it's not the COMPANY that gets brought down... it's the series. For example, I remember reading a developer post on the forums for the Sims 4 (which received boatloads of anger upon release) saying that, from internal discussions, he was aware that there was a possibility that there would be no Sims 5, because the series was looking more and more unviable. The publisher had gotten WAY too greedy for WAY too long, and the stupidity that surrounded (and continues to surround) Sims 4 is downright nasty; it's done alot of damage to the franchise, and could well be the end of it. Particularly since, without a doubt, they WILL continue to milk the hell out of it (again, the publisher gets money out of it either way... even if the developer crashes and burns). Simcity suffered a similar fate (that series, which had lasted for a very long time, IS dead, and it was killed by the very thing I'm talking about).


Now for something like Tekken? Namco is a huge company... I could see them doing the exclusivity thing anyway. At the same time though.... they arent as A: nasty and B: bold as EA and Activision. They may decide against it. Impossible to know. Though, if what Xenocity said is true, about 90% of the profit being from the Sony versions, I'd not at all be surprised if they took a pass on it. It seems like by far the smartest choice to where even a big uncaring publisher can see the advantage in NOT doing it.

But - in the case of Tekken - what are we talking about, realistically? An Xbox-exclusive character? A stage? Alternate skins? You can't compare that to something like the No Man's Sky fiasco; all the bad press and consumer backlash that game was subject to was the result of massive omissions in the shipped product, features and gameplay mechanics and - in hindsight - unattainable ambitions that were promised and showcased and shoved down our throats constantly for a number of years.

In the case of No Man's Sky (regardless of how I personally feel on the matter of how idiotic it is for people to be giving a company their money for something before they even really know anything about it) of course there was a backlash from paying consumers because they were paying for promises that weren't kept and things that weren't there. But in the case of Xbox- or PlayStation-exclusive content in a multi-platform game, I still maintain that the "fan backlash" from owners of the opposite console wouldn't influence the developer or publisher.

 

[Misery]

But - in the case of Tekken - what are we talking about, realistically? An Xbox-exclusive character? A stage? Alternate skins? You can't compare that to something like the No Man's Sky fiasco; all the bad press and consumer backlash that game was subject to was the result of massive omissions in the shipped product, features and gameplay mechanics and - in hindsight - unattainable ambitions that were promised and showcased and shoved down our throats constantly for a number of years.

In the case of No Man's Sky (regardless of how I personally feel on the matter of how idiotic it is for people to be giving a company their money for something before they even really know anything about it) of course there was a backlash from paying consumers because they were paying for promises that weren't kept and things that weren't there. But in the case of Xbox- or PlayStation-exclusive content in a multi-platform game, I still maintain that the "fan backlash" from owners of the opposite console wouldn't influence the developer or publisher.

That's why I specifically said that NMS is an "extreme" example. I use it because it's the most obvious of them all, so it works with my laziness in that I dont have to explain it as much. But yes, smaller-scale stuff adds up in nasty ways. Things dont have to be a huge fiasco to cause trouble. Something like the Sims series, if it really does fall, will fall due to an overload of smaller things that have built up over the years. That one series had no TRUE fiasco... yes there was anger upon it's release, but it was a normal level of anger. However, the franchise is in risk because this is about the 204571057th time that EA has irritated the community for that game. People are fed up with it. Even die-hard fans are sometimes just saying "you know what, screw it. I've got Sims 3. I dont want EA's stupid crap". Which of course wont hurt EA, but it'll smash up the development team of that series.

But let's also look at things from a design perspective: An exclusive character in a fighting game, right? Nothing but trouble. Why? Because the addition or subtraction of even just ONE single character in a fighting game can change the balance of the ENTIRE game. If you're familiar with the genre enough, I doubt I have to explain why that happens. If not, well... the explanation is a bit too long (okay, way too long), but as someone with a HUGE amount of experience in the genre, I can tell you that yes, just ONE extra character can mess with things. And no, they dont have to be a broken or OP character to do it. A single perfectly normal character will do it. Dont ask me to explain how it works, because my explanation would be like 5 pages long.

The problem with this from a development point of view is that it doubles the hassles that the developer has to deal with. Not only are they going to already have a version of the game that's outright inferior to the other (because the Sony version would be missing a character) but they also have a risk of one version having much worse or just really different balance. And THAT kind of crap angers the hell out of fighting game fans. Heck, they tend to get up in arms as it is over the concept of exclusive ANYTHING. Or DLC characters, which is even worse. But beyond that, it's also a development headache: They now have two versions that, from their point of view, are very, very different internally, and now they have TWO versions that must be constantly managed and updated in terms of balance.... and I can tell you from personal experience that balancing a game, ANY game, is one of the absolute most difficult parts of development as a whole. This type of thing costs money, and that has to be factored in with all of this. People SERIOUSLY underestimate the cost of any type of development that is not graphics-related. Trust me, the things that go into making a new character are EXPENSIVE. Not to mention gobbling up time. This is similar to the reasons why some games dont get ported from one machine to another (PC to or from consoles being the most infamous example). It means two versions to deal with, and it's costly as all heck.

Though again, a big publisher might not give a fart about ANY of that and might say "You guys dont like it? Well guess what: YOU'RE DOING IT ANYWAY. GET TO WORK". Which is the problem in this stupid industry. I'm soooooooo glad I never went forth with a career in it, I can say that much. I've heard too many horror stories from devs at this point and seen too much evidence of things gone horribly wrong. In this case, Tekken is owned by one of the Big Guys, so what the devs want, and what the smart move actually is, may not matter whatsoever. The publisher might just say "DO IT ANYWAY, OR ELSE!" and that'll be that.

 

[Xenocity]

Ya know, this brings up an interesting question: If they continuously take such monstrous losses... why in the bloody hell do they continue anyway? What is the reason for pushing forward?

I get the feeling there's a part of the hardware-specific equation I'm missing here (not an aspect of the industry I've ever really paid much attention to).

Microsoft wants control of the living room and wants all your devices that run on OSes to run Windows.

The strategy is to make ever more powerful hardware and undercut the competition by ever increasing margins.

This forces the competition to match you and Bleed money they don't have.
It's a classic monopolistic tactic

 

[zeroninja]

Mostly this:
Dogma: Eternal Night | Modern Gothic MMORPG

 

[Fullmetal]

All of these:

Also, Breath of the Wild (but I don't even have the Switch yet), and Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom. I don't feel childish for liking colorful / animated things at my age, especially since I also love gore and horror.

 

[Mr Allen]

Ya know, this brings up an interesting question: If they continuously take such monstrous losses... why in the bloody hell do they continue anyway? What is the reason for pushing forward?

I get the feeling there's a part of the hardware-specific equation I'm missing here (not an aspect of the industry I've ever really paid much attention to).

Because if MS dropped out of the gaming Market, Sony would have a Party in theuir underwear, Nintendo would too no doubt.

 

[tee]

Ni No Kuni 2

Ni No Kuni is one of my favorite games! It was kind of an obsession of mine for a while and I took the time to get the platinum trophy on PS3. I was excited to learn recently that Ni No Kuni 2 will be ported for PC and I won't have to miss out since I don't have a PS4.