The Thursday letters page is upset the Assassin’s Creed Shadows reveal was spoilt, as one reader hopes for Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks 2.
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Last chance saloon
Why do I get the feeling that Project Latitude is going to be Xbox’s last roll of the dice? Looking back now, I don’t know what they were expecting to achieve by buying Activision Blizzard. They can’t afford to make the games exclusive and it’s clear by this point that nothing is going to make a difference to Game Pass.
So why did they do it? For the money Call Of Duty brings in sure, but how long before that adds up to $69 billion and they actually start making a profit?
Their only hope is to go multiformat for all games, but you do that and then what point is there in owning an Xbox console, especially for a newcomer? I hate to break it to Microsoft, but streaming is not there yet and PC gamers hate extra launchers and complications like that.
Xbox can be plenty successful just publishing games on every format but then they’re basically just Activision Blizzard with a different name, and maybe Halo every five years or so. It’s a sad end that I have a nasty feeling Microsoft are going to make even messier than it needs be.
Grackle
Eventual announcement
My guess is that Xbox probably won’t announce any new multiformat games at the showcase in June, or at least not many. They’ll keep this charade going on for even longer and then we’ll get Starfield Gold Edition or whatever next year, alongside probably Halo and Gears Of War compilations.
That’s my prediction but whatever happens at some point Phil Spencer is going to have to go back on his word about big name games not going multiformat. Everyone knew he was lying when he said it and they’ll certainly know when he goes back on it, so what was the point? They should’ve been honest with us from the start.
Courser
Throw the book at them
That Assassin’s Creed Shadow reveal was the perfect example of everything that’s wrong in gaming announcements right now. Every single detail had already been leaked out ahead of time, from the date (leaked by Ubisoft themselves!) to the characters to at least the basics of the special editions.
Everything that could be spoiled was spoiled and then to top of it off the trailer was all pre-rendered and did nothing but show the two characters doing vaguely Assassin’s Creed type stuff. As for the game… well, they didn’t show it. So how am I supposed to know? All that time and effort and I still know nothing more about it than I did on Monday.
I always wonder what happens to developers that leak information, I’d like to think they get into serious trouble – industrial espionage or something – but I get the feeling publishers don’t even really care, but they should because stuff like this is so annoying.
Susgo
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Good excuse
I wonder if the failure of Mortal Kombat 1 will be the final excuse to do a sequel to Shaolin Monks? I think it’d be a bit odd to just put out a new one-on-one fighter again and either reboot a second time or pretend everyone loved Mortal Kombat 1 and carry on with a sequel.
Surely the best answer would be a nice little breather with a different style of game? A co-op brawler where you get to wander around like Streets Of Rage sounds pretty darn tempting to me, with top end graphics and Mortal Kombat gore. It’d stop them from having to make another Injustice game as well.
Pascal
Hint of a promise
Reading different reports about Call Of Duty coming to Game Pass but I feel if they don’t it will be the final nail in the coffin of many Xbox core gamers. Many people I know kept up their Game Pass with the promise of the Call Of Duty games coming to Game Pass.
Phil Spencer hinted heavily that it would be and promised news, then went quiet. I feel that the broken promise of Call Of Duty on Game Pass will be the final letdown for many and I’m an Xbox gamer and never known things to be this bad since the Kinect days. So many dropped balls and games not living up to the hype.
TWO MACKS
GC: Nobody knows if they’re going to do it; Microsoft probably doesn’t know if they’re going to do it. But a promise and a hint are two very different things.
Clinical suggestion
Love all the speculation about Resident Evil 9 at the moment. See how much fun this sort of thing is when we don’t know anything? My feeling is that it will be third person again, because they’ll want to make a clear break from the last game and what’s the point of playing as Leon if you can’t see his floppy hair?
I can see why they’d want that Resident Evil 4 connection but Village was already inspired by it so I can’t see them going too hard on the homages for a second game in a row.
Village was pretty low tech though, even if they were making robot men or whatever was going on in that industrial area. So I think a good way to switch it up would be going more sleek sci-fi again. They haven’t done that in a while – the whole cynical, Apple style laboratory set-up – and yet it’s kind of important to the whole Resident Evil look and feel.
I’d welcome a stronger horror atmosphere but one thing I hope they do is get back to more of a survival angle. It was like it was raining ammo in Village but to me Resident Evil should be the opposite of that. It’s always worth swapping things up now and again but I think these are some elements we should get back to eventually.
Oh, and bring back Wesker. We are long overdue gaming’s cheesiest villain making a full comeback.
Lowkey
Studio loyalty
Did GC see the rumours about their being a Lego Horizon game? Seems pretty weird to me, I wouldn’t have said Horizon was anywhere close to being well known enough for something like that. It makes me wonder what kind of influence Hermen Hulst is going to have now he’s the joint boss of PlayStation. Are we going to see even more Horizon games because they’re made by his old studio Guerilla Games?
I guess it doesn’t really matter but it doesn’t seem like he’s quite impartial, if you know what I mean. Maybe the other guy should’ve been in charge of everything.
Paulie
GC: We did see that, but it wasn’t clear what it was referring to. It could just be a Lego set and not even a game. Our best guess would be something for Lego Fortnite.
Everything or Nothing
What I don’t get about the recent PlayStation 5 hardware numbers is that overall they’re pretty good. If it wasn’t for the 29% drop they’ve be really good. As I understand it that drop has come a year or two early in the cycle but otherwise everything is looking fine.
So… do we know anything unusual that’s happened to PlayStation in the last two years? Oh, that’s right, that’s exactly when they stopped announcing and releasing first party games. Now, tell me that’s a coincidence.
People are trying to work out what Xbox is going to do but personally I don’t really care. The only Xbox console I’ve ever owned is the Xbox 360 and they’ve done absolutely nothing since to make me regret that.
But what is Sony’s next move? Xbox is obviously in trouble, but PlayStation 5 isn’t really, or at least not anything that requires a complete rethink. But it sounds like they’re preparing some kind of scorched earth policy that may or may not involve live service games.
Xbox is planning a next gen console within the next two years but there’s been no sign Sony is doing that with the PlayStation 6. It seems very likely given they have the PS5 Pro this year, so they won’t want to make people think that a Pro only has a short lifespan before its replaced.
I really don’t know what they’re up to or why everything is suddenly all or nothing. Gaming has got so weird recently, and not in a good way.
Tim Rogers
Inbox also-rans
All I can say is that it’s probably a good idea that these showcases aren’t live events anymore, because if Sony put on another one like last year they’re going to get booed off the stage.
Sausage
Little Kitty, Big City is two hours for £20+?! I was going to get that for my girlfriend but no thanks at that price. Shame, as I bet she’d love it.
CrichtonKiss
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MORE : Games Inbox: Hopes for PlayStation’s new bosses, Assassin’s Creed Shadows DLC, and Fallout 4 updates
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