Xbox Showcase 2023 (June 11th)

[cheapchips]

The two characters look and speak very differently to me. The hero character isn’t hollywood pretty (like most ppl) but that by itself shouldn’t be an issue. Hollywood isn’t all pretty anymore either in the classic sense. The cast of Stranger Things won’t be winning any pageants for example.

My first reaction to the hero was that she didn’t look like a real person. The combination of facial structure, complexion and hair texture almost seemed too exotic. Granted, exotic is perfectly fine in a game named Fable. The giant character was far more normal looking.

She looked like a typically sturdy English wench to me, which seems perfectly appropriate for a Fable hero.

For those who don't know, the giant is Richard Ayoade, who's in plenty of UK TV comedy shows. I thought it was a really good real-time representation of him.

The trailer should be a good one for DF to pick apart, since it is 'in-game footage'. In-between the real-time cutscenes and alternate camera views, there a plenty of snippets which suggest what the actual game will look like.

It was a fun opener to the show!



edit: small pic!

 

[chris1515]

She looked like a typically sturdy English wench to me, which seems perfectly appropriate for a Fable hero.

For those who don't know, the giant is Richard Ayoade, who's in plenty of UK TV comedy shows. I thought it was a really good real-time representation of him.

The trailer should be a good one for DF to pick apart, since it is 'in-game footage'. In-between the real-time cutscenes and alternate camera views, there a plenty of snippets which suggest what the actual game will look like.

It was a fun opener to the show!

View attachment 9034

I remember him from the Tv series the It crowd.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This showcase has more interesting games announced and in more numbers. But the majority are actually multiplatform

Sony shuld do just like MS did and post a Tweet about the great games coming to PS!

 

[fehu]

Just two disappointments:
- A more expensive Series S? Really?
- Phil put on a Hexen tshirt, I was expecting an announcement, a reboot with id7 maybe

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You’re thinking they just remove the existing white sku out?

Like what happens after 1TB comes out will they still have a white 512GB model?

we knew this would come, was just expecting it at $299 and the 512model to drop to $240.

Is this factoring in a price increase? Just moved onto a new SKU so a little more opaque. Point being, a price increase isn't unusual at the moment. MS may be wanting to eliminate the loss-leader. Nintendo were looking at a price hike and moved it onto the software instead, with their attach ratio that's likely the smarter choice! MS hiking game prices won't help if everyone's on GP which is what they want. If they don't want to bleed on the hardware, they'll need no losses shifting it.

Which is a shame, and kinda confusing, as the Series S was the budget model to win over budget gamers. A price-reduced SKU would reach a price-sensitive next-gen audience. Now there's no option for the price sensitive who'll be using last-gen hardware I guess - this gen isn't going to get cheap and accessible.

 

[iroboto]

Is this factoring in a price increase? Just moved onto a new SKU so a little more opaque. Point being, a price increase isn't unusual at the moment. MS may be wanting to eliminate the loss-leader. Nintendo were looking at a price hike and moved it onto the software instead, with their attach ratio that's likely the smarter choice! MS hiking game prices won't help if everyone's on GP which is what they want. If they don't want to bleed on the hardware, they'll need no losses shifting it.

Which is a shame, and kinda confusing, as the Series S was the budget model to win over budget gamers. A price-reduced SKU would reach a price-sensitive next-gen audience. Now there's no option for the price sensitive who'll be using last-gen hardware I guess - this gen isn't going to get cheap and accessible.

In my mind the most obvious option was to drop the price of Series S by $50 or more, and move this SKU in at the $299 price point. And I suppose with seasonal mark down sales, this will could be a reality, it's just not the same as an official price drop, and they are more focused leveraging a sale model to entice users to get into the ecosystem. It may just come down to realities that logistics and procurement makes it impossible for MS to officially drop the price. If the amount of units you are moving is not consistent quarter to quarter in each region, and you're still trying to figure out what is going to get people to buy, having a mark down sale is probably safer, than dropping MSRP. You can drop a sale for a quarter, clear excessive inventory if it exists, and if it doesn't, you can keep the price high if you're seeing sudden demand.

The only thing is, and I suppose we are all seeing it, I guess the idea is that Series S is in a weird spot where it's struggling to differentiate itself from the more powerful SKUs at it's current price point. It coming in at 1TB is helpful, but it being $50 less than PS5 DE is not ideal. But PS5 DE never goes on sale, and PS5 gets at most a bundle, where as Series S regularly does go on sale, and Series X can as well.

 

[fehu]

I'm watching the Starfield special only now, an idea: buy CD Project, add Bethesda's experience, create the most ambitious, detailed and bugged rpg.

 

[eastmen]

My thoughts:
I'm old, these shows dont do it for me anymore. Standard disclaimer nowdays.

Starfield looked nice graphically, scale etc but honestly the No Mans Sky setting just screams procedurally generated planets and I'm just not a huge fan of that, which has been my problem with the game since the beginning. I far prefer hand tuned content. Plus, I feel like theres no way they had time to do the concept justice, without a 20 year dev cycle in todays age. That said, with like 3 big hand tuned planets and the rest just procedurally generated background, it's possible it could work I guess.

Dont even wanna get into the 30FPS faux controversy. Like 10 billion people didnt just buy TOTK and critics didnt love it. The response was "well Switch is 10 year old mobile hardware and doesnt have 60 FPS standard" and my reply is so, what does any of that have to to do with millions of players and critics enjoying a 30 FPS game just fine? Sigh.

Forza looked great as expected. I'm not exactly a huge racing sim fan, but the visuals mostly impressed as expected. Playground seems one of the few Microsoft devs that really push Xbox hardware consistently. Excited to see more on the 13th.

Avowed well, I havent kept up with this one and just skimmed the trailer. Looked...low budget?

Saw there was a Fable trailer, didn't bother since it's not gameplay.

Sennua, never have cared too much but I'll look at the visuals. Skimmed that trailer didn't notice much.

Pretty disappointed with the hardware announcement. Thought there was gonna be a Starfield themed console? And Xbox getting pasted in sales WW, IMO needed a total hardware rejigger, Maybe a 349 Xbox series X DE or something, and what we get is a 349 (??? Not even 299??) Series S 1TB? Seriously? I was shocked at first, but the internet didnt even seem to notice so whatever. I'll say it's just more proof what a bad idea the S was because why wouldn't you spend just 50, or 14% more and get 2X more powerful PS5 DE? You would. The whole concept of the S was always rubbish because a slightly smaller SOC saves bubkiss in the end as we see with this pricing. AND it only gets worse the longer then gen goes because the full fat consoles will always have more room to come down in price than the S. But seriously, where is the X DE? The PS5 DE sells great. This pricing shows Phil thinks the S IS the X De, as there's no way a X DE can exist now because at 399 it would just embarrass the S. Just sadly deeply misguided. At least Phil said they are increasing X production/supply (good idea since you know, people actually want that one)

Not sure if I've ever mentioned I'm not a S fan

Microsoft has the only ecosystem where day one I can play the game how I choose in the budget I choose. starfield 1440p 30fps on the series s , 4k 30fps on the series x and if I want more flexibility its on pc. If I want too I can launch xcloud on any device with a modern browser and stream it to there to play. People are just trying to find anything to throw shade at the game.

I think avowed looked good. It's obviously a lower budget than something like starfield but it also had a much shorter development time frame and team size vs Starfield. The game is also at least 9 months out from release and could have what 14 -16 more months of development time if it comes out in the fall of next year.

I agree there isn't enough about fable to really say much. Sennua is another game that I'm not really into. Not a big 3rd person action game type person myself

 

[Nesh]

Sony shuld do just like MS did and post a Tweet about the great games coming to PS!

Thats exactly what I was thinking

 

[see colon]

Xbox series S games can actually be the smallest editions of the games. The series s has less ram and runs at lowe resolutions do they don't need the same quality of texture

Star Wars Jedi Surviovr is 44GB on the S , 140 on the X and 147.577 on the ps5

This might be true for Jedi Survivor, but it isn't always the case, unfortunately. It should be, but it isn't.

You dont actually get the full 1TB on Xbox, either. Actual real use difference is PS5: 667GB, Xbox: 802GB. So about a 20% advantage, which really isn't that much.

20% is still substantial. If you fill your PS5 with 5 games, you can have 6 on a 1TB Series console, but that's assuming they are the same size. As @eastmen pointed out, the Series S version of Jedi Survivor is about 1/3 the size of the PS5 version. White that isn't always true, it only takes a couple of games that have that sort of size ratio, plus the 20% size advantage to make it much less likely that little Timmy doesn't have to beg his mom for extra storage. It might be even more on Series S, as a Series X has 222GB of it's TB storage as non-user reserve, while Series S 512's reserve only 148GB.

 

[JoeJ]

The two characters look and speak very differently to me. The hero character isn’t hollywood pretty (like most ppl) but that by itself shouldn’t be an issue. Hollywood isn’t all pretty anymore either in the classic sense. The cast of Stranger Things won’t be winning any pageants for example.

I had no audio, to my defense. And it's a really bad example about the beauty topic anyway, since characters are underage.
But i disagree about Stranger Things. Idk the show, but i saw a story about one actress on Kotaku: https://kotaku.com/faze-clan-stranger-things-grace-van-dien-rain-santana-1850480356
That's a very beautiful girl, and also natural and likeable, no? Good example for what i would like to see in games too.

But what i get is Aloy from HZD. She's not ugly, no, but she isn't natural or likeable. She has a totally stupid haircut, and the male characters of the game have even worse, stupid haircuts.
Imagine you're in a post apocalyptic future, which looks like a beach paradise, and AI driven robo dinosaurs with laser eyes try to kill you. Would you spend 3 hours a day to braid your hair so it looks fancy and draws attention?
No. It's ridiculous bullshit only nerdy gamedevs who never have left their basement can come up with, i would say.

We also have the (now outdated) other extreme. Take some eastern RPG / MMO. It's all goddesses in daring outfits, and eventually there are no male characters at all.
That's just as ridiculous. Ideally we could claim it's even worse, but imo. both is just as bad as the other.
Games still have not grown up.

At least many of them. A good example for 'correct' amount of beauty would be Death Stranding imo, just to list one.

If i dare to expand the topic further, including color of skin, it does not get better.
But i can use Hollywood examples. Like the new Arielle movie. That's a danish fairytale. So imo there is no point to put a black cast on it, if you don't add some explicit reason as well. What we get is black washing, and it feels ridiculous and wrong.
If i was black and i wanted to see more black cast in movies, then i would still feel both misunderstood and disrespected from the movie and games industry.
I would not want Arielle. I would want some story inspired from my culture, not just my color of skin in a white story. Disney has created an iconic white, red haired character for Arielle. I would be fine with that. No need to suddenly swap it out with a black girl.
There was another movie, 80's or 90's, 'Crossroads'. It was a movie about blues guitarists, with Steve Vai. And it was white washed. You can not make a movie about blues with all white guys. That's ridiculous bullshit. Just, i don't see how the modern movement of black washing does any batter than that. It sucks just as much, almost, and they should do better.

It's good to see some manage to do better. E.g. the second game shown, 'South of Midnight', with the film noir blues guitarist. Just a cgi trailer so far, but regarding those society topics it feels well done and good progress. \/

 

[BRiT]

. It might be even more on Series S, as a Series X has 222GB of it's TB storage as non-user reserve, while Series S 512's reserve only 148GB.

I believe part of that is down to the size of the QuickResume segment. Since the Series S provides less memory to games it requires less storage space when snapshotting the games to QuickResume. Instead of using the same amount of storage space to provide higher number of QuickResume titles, they scale it down. I think the math works out to Series S only needing needing ~ 60% of the QuickResume storage space of the Series X (8 gig / 13.5 gig).

 

[eastmen]

This might be true for Jedi Survivor, but it isn't always the case, unfortunately. It should be, but it isn't.

I mean that comes back to my unpopular lazy dev comments right. If devs took the time the series s should be the smaller install size. I would suspect that to be the case with any games MS has marketing deals with.

20% is still substantial. If you fill your PS5 with 5 games, you can have 6 on a 1TB Series console, but that's assuming they are the same size. As @eastmen pointed out, the Series S version of Jedi Survivor is about 1/3 the size of the PS5 version. White that isn't always true, it only takes a couple of games that have that sort of size ratio, plus the 20% size advantage to make it much less likely that little Timmy doesn't have to beg his mom for extra storage. It might be even more on Series S, as a Series X has 222GB of it's TB storage as non-user reserve, while Series S 512's reserve only 148GB.

Diablo is 40.1GB on series S and 74gig on the X and ps5.

It's just going to come down to the dev. I am sure Ms is trying to get companies to optimize install sizes.

 

[GhostofWar]

I dont see why Gamepass should be a reason for third party titles to be less relevant for other platforms.

I didn't mean the 3rd party games were less relevent on other platforms in general. When I said in this context I ment seeing them in a first party showcase there was a little more relevance to the showcase because it normally means they are going to be a part of gamepass which people watching a microsoft showcase might want to know whats coming to gamepass outside 1st party. I'm talking about 3rd party games that don't have any kind platform exclusivity like plaguetale requiem, something like Final Fantasy was definitely relevant to the playstation showcase.

 

[cheapchips]

Fable trailer confirmed to be running on Series X by the (a?) Lead Lighting Artist.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1668006331075133441

 

[Seanspeed]

Just two disappointments:
- A more expensive Series S? Really?
- Phil put on a Hexen tshirt, I was expecting an announcement, a reboot with id7 maybe

A Hexen reboot is a whole lot more exciting to me than a Quake reboot. So much more possibilities in terms of gameplay and progression. I think following up the insanity of Doom Eternal with another somewhat straightforward shooter like Quake will be difficult.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Starfield looked nice graphically, scale etc but honestly the No Mans Sky setting just screams procedurally generated planets and I'm just not a huge fan of that, which has been my problem with the game since the beginning. I far prefer hand tuned content. Plus, I feel like theres no way they had time to do the concept justice, without a 20 year dev cycle in todays age. That said, with like 3 big hand tuned planets and the rest just procedurally generated background, it's possible it could work I guess.

Keep in mind Bethesda has been doing procedurally generated content since 1994 (when they were still Bethesda Softworks ) when they released the original The Elder Scrolls: Arena, and they've been using it in all of their mainline TES games and Fallout games. So, noone should have been surprised that they'd be leveraging their experience with that method of creating content.

So you could say that No Man's Sky is like Bethesda made games in its use of procedurally generated content. Although NMS goes a bit further with also using it to create their planetary lifeforms.

Oh, and all planets will be procedurally generated and more than 3 big planets will have hand tuned content. The quantity of hand tuned content? Who knows. I imagine all cities and towns (but not outposts) and some dungeons. Just like the map of TES 1-5 were procedurally generated with some hand tuned content placed in them.

Avowed well, I havent kept up with this one and just skimmed the trailer. Looked...low budget?

I'm probably one of the few that breathed a sigh of relief that Obsidian is still a gameplay first and graphics second company. So, the reveal gets me even more excited that not only will the story and gameplay remain the top priorities, but that any expansion of the development team was used for a larger world instead of better graphics.

I'm almost at the point where I look at a game and if the game is incredibly good looking, I'm already assuming that the gameplay is going to bore me to death.

Saw there was a Fable trailer, didn't bother since it's not gameplay.

There was actual gameplay in the Fable trailer. Just not a lot of it.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

In my mind the most obvious option was to drop the price of Series S by $50 or more, and move this SKU in at the $299 price point. And I suppose with seasonal mark down sales, this will could be a reality, it's just not the same as an official price drop, and they are more focused leveraging a sale model to entice users to get into the ecosystem. It may just come down to realities that logistics and procurement makes it impossible for MS to officially drop the price. If the amount of units you are moving is not consistent quarter to quarter in each region, and you're still trying to figure out what is going to get people to buy, having a mark down sale is probably safer, than dropping MSRP. You can drop a sale for a quarter, clear excessive inventory if it exists, and if it doesn't, you can keep the price high if you're seeing sudden demand.

The only thing is, and I suppose we are all seeing it, I guess the idea is that Series S is in a weird spot where it's struggling to differentiate itself from the more powerful SKUs at it's current price point. It coming in at 1TB is helpful, but it being $50 less than PS5 DE is not ideal. But PS5 DE never goes on sale, and PS5 gets at most a bundle, where as Series S regularly does go on sale, and Series X can as well.

The pricing on the S as well as throughout this gen (Sony getting out 559 PS5 Ragnarok, MS with 559 Forza Series X) just basically tells me this hardware is still quite costly this gen and MS is still struggling with that. They presumably priced the 1TB S at 349 because they had to, the cost to produce it is high.

This is yet another pace where the S is a bad idea though as MS has to split their already paltry sales between two SKU, two SOC, two motherboards, and all the issues thats gonna entail with getting the mix right. Sony only has one PS5, even if they have a Blu Ray in it or dont thats modular. And it's also selling massively more volume. My guess is Sony is struggling much less with cost of PS5 (well they already said in interview they were profitable on the blue ray edition a long time ago)

Keep in mind Bethesda has been doing procedurally generated content since 1994 (when they were still Bethesda Softworks ) when they released the original The Elder Scrolls: Arena, and they've been using it in all of their mainline TES games and Fallout games. So, noone should have been surprised that they'd be leveraging their experience with that method of creating content.

So you could say that No Man's Sky is like Bethesda made games in its use of procedurally generated content. Although NMS goes a bit further with also using it to create their planetary lifeforms.

Oh, and all planets will be procedurally generated and more than 3 big planets will have hand tuned content. The quantity of hand tuned content? Who knows. I imagine all cities and towns (but not outposts) and some dungeons. Just like the map of TES 1-5 were procedurally generated with some hand tuned content placed in them.



I'm probably one of the few that breathed a sigh of relief that Obsidian is still a gameplay first and graphics second company. So, the reveal gets me even more excited that not only will the story and gameplay remain the top priorities, but that any expansion of the development team was used for a larger world instead of better graphics.

I'm almost at the point where I look at a game and if the game is incredibly good looking, I'm already assuming that the gameplay is going to bore me to death.



There was actual gameplay in the Fable trailer. Just not a lot of it.

Regards,
SB

I've come around quite a bit more on Starfield since that comment. Watching the Todd Howard interview you're reminded just how iconic and long lasting his games like Skyrim are. He certainly has a track record. It is funny crowbcat made a infamous video mocking Howard overpromising and underdelivering, but the flip side of that he didnt mention is these games were so good they became iconic. I'm also pretty pleased with the GFX, it looks nice everytime I see it at a glance. I'm personally always in favor of 30FPS when it comes to single player games. It's a tradeoff, not just more graphics but more complex systems. As far as the procedural generation issues, sure still there, but I realize they can do a nice hand crafted storyline of planets and the procedural generated stuff can just be extraneous and that makes me feel better about it. I'm not sure how much I'll actually engage with it, as always given I'm a Destiny main, but yeah, I'm considerably more hyped now than when I wrote that. I would say I'm going to buy it but it's on Gamepass. Although I will have to renew before then as I think mine ends in August (I still do the Live conversion trick so its a bit of a hassle).

Weirdly, some of the graphics and locales somehow remind me of Cyberpunk 2077, even though they're totally different games.

And now the crowbcat vid just cus I love it lol for anybody who hasnt seen it. todd so dreamy

 

[ZebMacahan]

Did anyone else find this show a little bit cringy?

I get the feeling too many marketing people, and not enough game enthusiast, has too much say when it comes to these trailers and games. Seems like theres just a bunch of plastic boardroom people using a lot of buzzword. Jeff Keighleys summer game fest was breath of fresh air, he and most other people on stage felt like genuine people. Jeff is great at what he does and everyone seemed to have a great time.

Regarding the Fable trailer, Forza horizon looks amazing but I have a hard time enjoying it because of the AWFUL music, and because so much about it just feels so cringy, and I get similar vibes from this. Fable has never taken itself too serious, but this seems a little to whimsical for me. On the other hand its nice they´re doing something different from the generic fantasy stuff, but this doenst seem to appeal to me I´m afraid. And why on earth have they made the protaganist so ugly? In the last scene where she´s eating a sandwich it litteray looks like a guys face. Paus the video at 1.58. Reminds me of Isacs wife in DP remake. I wonder how decisions like these are made?

-"Ok boss, here´s the latest face model for Isacs wife. I tried going for a more natural look, kinda how a normal woman in her late 30s would look. In the original game she looked kinda like an anime girl, so I went with something more natural to match our improved realistic graphics"
-"No, she still looks too pretty. Tone down the feminine facial features No, more. Listen, when I say tone them down I mean remove them all together. And also picture a 70 year old wich and make her look like that as well. Ok, close. Make her a little more ugly. I little bit more. Ok, thats it."
-"But boss, no women in their late 30s look like this. Its actually uncomman for women in their late 60s even to look like this. And wouldnt we make it harder for the player to care for Isacs wife if she looks like this? I get the natural look thing, but this is just silly, boss"
-"No, this will teach those pesky gamers! Take that, male gaze!"

I´m getting off topic.

I would have liked to see more gameplay overall.

Senuas saga might be great, but watching her talk to a puddle in a cave for 2 minutes didnt make me intressted in the game. To me that trailer just seemed pretenious.

Forza will probably turn out great, but whats with that voice over? "Come on, you´ve got this!"

 

[iroboto]

Regarding the Fable trailer, Forza horizon looks amazing but I have a hard time enjoying it because of the AWFUL music, and because so much about it just feels so cringy, and I get similar vibes from this. Fable has never taken itself too serious, but this seems a little to whimsical for me. On the other hand its nice they´re doing something different from the generic fantasy stuff, but this doenst seem to appeal to me I´m afraid. And why on earth have they made the protaganist so ugly? In the last scene where she´s eating a sandwich it litteray looks like a guys face. Paus the video at 1.58. Reminds me of Isacs wife in DP remake. I wonder how decisions like these are made?

In Fable you make your own character. So that's not the protagonist.

Her being not model attractive actually makes it more interesting if I'm being honest. Fable is about Fables, and not every Fable should be about a beauty queen that can wield a sword. It being different makes it more interesting than the plain old normal imo super hot model face + guns blazing wearing a teenie tiny top. It's cliche, and honestly it's heavily overdone.
I've seen enough Disney princesses in my time, we could use more interesting stories; I want to see the girl with the warped hand, and the wrecked teeth save the world. Because that's a much interesting story.

If you goal is to just get off on looks, there is Instagram and other things out there for that. I don't need instagram models in my video games too.