Games Inbox: Will Call Of Duty ever fall out of fashion?

The Monday letters page asks whether datamining is ruing the fun of game announcements, as a reader tries to imagine Xbox without Microsoft.

To join in with the discussions yourself email [email protected]

War without end
Now that we know Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be out this year we’re going to have leaks for months on end until it’s released in the autumn and the whole thing starts again. Then in January we’ll find out it was the first or second most successful game of the year, just like always. So… will this ever stop?

Microsoft were hinting they might put a halt to yearly releases before they bought Activision but naturally that’s all stopped now that it’s one of Xbox’s main sources of money. But ignoring all that, is there anything that will ever put a dent in Call Of Duty’s popularity? So that it’s not always one of the biggest games of the year?

Personally, I don’t see it. If something as bad as Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t put people off then nothing will. And while playing soldiers is, in theory, something easy to copy nobody’s managed it in the last 20-odd years and every year Call Of Duty is massive the mountain to climb gets bigger and bigger. I truly think Call Of Duty will still be around in another 20 years, and just as big as ever.
Campbell

Data leak
Personally, I agree with the idea that datamining, and most leaks in general, ruin the fun for fans but I put the blame for this entirely at the feet of publishers. For one thing, they seem to make no effort to hide any of this information, implying they want it to be found, and secondly the complete lack of any official announcements nowadays means we’ve got to get our information from somewhere.

I only wish there was some way to datamine PlayStation and find out what on earth Sony are playing at, at the moment. Although I suppose nobody’s quite crazy enough to put their corporate plans into random computer code for anyone to find. No, they leave that for the job ads.

Oh and, once again, guess who never gets datamined? Nintendo. What a shocker it is to find out that they’re sensibly careful with their information and nobody else is.
Gnasher

The people in charge
I liked the Reader’s Feature at the weekend about the people in charge of gaming and how they clearly have no personal interest in video games. I’d go a step further and say that the real problem is that they have no interest in the long term health of the industry. Bobby Kotick would laugh while it burned, if it meant he got to earn $1 extra from it, but even people like Phil Spencer clearly don’t really care.

What’s he going to think when he’s looking back at the industry in 10 years and everything is in tatters? The whole industry unbalanced by him pushing to buy Activision Blizzard and yet in the process destroying the future of Xbox hardware. Or Jim Ryan as he realises he was the one that destroyed 30 years of dominance with the mad rush to make risky live service games.

The truth is no one should be in charge of creatives but creatives themselves, and yet they’re often useless at it. That’s not a problem unique to gaming but gaming is particularly bad at handling it.
Angla

Email your comments to: [email protected]

Mad George
The Mad Max game by Avalanche Studios was great. I wish they would remaster the game, with all the DLC they had planned. No disrespect to George Miller, who is a world class movie director. But he clearly doesn’t know video games. I can’t think of anyone worse than Hideo Kojima to do a Mad Max game. It would be a cut scene fest, with Kojima doing his best to impress his hero.

I’ve never been on the Kojima hype train but acknowledge his talent for directing actions scenes. I’ve never understood why he hasn’t turned his talent to directing movies? Put it this way, I would be more interested in his directorial debut, then his next video game.

Good on the ex-Avalanche Studios developer for speaking up and defending the game. I would describe the game as a cult classic. I won’t hold it against George Miller, I can’t wait to see Furiosa. Mad Max: Fury Road was amazing.
Anon

Turning point
With the rumours about a Blue Dragon comeback (a remaster, I’m assuming?) I think we might be underestimating just how influential that game was on Xbox. Microsoft put a lot of effort into funding that and marketing it at the time and… it did absolutely nothing for them.

I’ve never played it but every comment I’ve ever heard about it, is that it wasn’t very good and just kind of generic, despite being done by the creator of Final Fantasy. I wonder whether its failure, despite appearing to tick all the right boxes, is what caused Microsoft to just give up on Japan and not think it’s worth it.

I’m sure there were lots of other things leading to that decision, but it did seem to have an impact.
SterlingC

Too much money
I realise it’s just a false rumour but even the idea of Microsoft buying Valve gives me the heebie-jeebies. If it happened, I assume either the FTC would win this time and prevent it or (perhaps more probably) after a few years of it proving an utter disaster, in terms of competition in the industry, Microsoft would be broken up and forced to sell off Xbox as a separate company.

What interests me is if they would have more luck like that? It seems increasingly obvious that a lot of their recent decisions are being driven by people above Phil Spencer but if they were separate they wouldn’t have even been able to afford Activision Blizzard or maybe even Game Pass.

I know he’s an easy punching bag at the moment, but I still have a lot of time for Phil Spencer and I suspect that if he was making decisions on his own he’d probably be able to work things out better. More importantly, he wouldn’t have Microsoft’s infinite funds to fall back on and would’ve had to build up first party studios much more quickly and organically than he is.

I honestly think that having too much money is Xbox’s biggest problem and knowing they can always raid their parent’s bank account if something goes wrong has held them back rather than helped. Although I suppose most of the damage is done now.
Focus

Total cat-astrophe
Just wanted to commend you on your review of Little Kitty, Big City and the fact that you didn’t make a single cat-related pun during it, not an easy feat for a journalist.

Anyway, seems like a fun little game, if not quite purrfect.

Stephen, Manchester

GC: That tagline for the review was ‘the cat’s meow’.

Forever self-defeating
So we are only a couple of weeks away from the Xbox summer showcase and if rumours are to be believed they are going to be a hot mess of mixed signals on their future in the business and capitulation that more of their games need to be multiformat.

The thing that makes that so bizarre to me is that for the first time Microsoft have a stream of diverse and interesting games coming out this year and both Sony and Nintendo currently have absolutely nothing of note on the slate for the rest of the year. One would have thought this would be the sigh of relief from the Sbox camp that finally things were going their way and they can claw back some ground.

Hellblade 2
Avowed
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2
Indiana Jones And The Great Circle

The only problem I see is that Microsoft aren’t Nintendo and struggle to produce the 9/10 games necessary to carry the console to new heights.

Hellblade 2 is a bit of a Marmite game and I respect that some, like yourselves, find very little entertainment in it, whereas others find it exceptional as a visual and storytelling package with functional but unremarkable gameplay that doesn’t tarnish its other qualities .

Avowed is by Obsidian and the heritage of Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2, Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick Of Truth, and The Outer Wilds should have role-playing nerds salivating… just there seems to be complete indifference online and from critics (maybe everyone is just thinking about Alpha Protocol).

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, with the original being put in high regard and the added gravitas of coming from a Ukrainian developer should have a massive buzz around it and has real potential to be a very good game.

Then Indiana Jones, which I’m sorry but the idea of MachineGames doing an Indiana Jones game in first person is as close to a ‘take my money’ moment that you will ever see.

If everything comes together properly you are looking at a first party output of three Metacritic 90%+ games and one 80%+ game

But this is Microsoft…. on current form nothing is bankable and chances are one of those games will be woeful (please not Indiana Jones) and the others will turn out to be 70% type games.
Irve77 (gamertag /PSN ID)

GC: If there’s one point of consistency between all video game companies it’s their unerring ability to miss an open goal. The indifference towards Avowed is purely due to the fact that nobody knows anything about it – Microsoft has barely ever mentioned it and yet apparently it’s out this year. Ditto with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

Inbox also-rans
My predictions for the Switch 2 are as follows: it will be an enhanced version of the current Switch with additional upscaling of existing Switch games. That is all.
Francis

GC: You’re really going out on a limb there.

100% agree on Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door being the best Nintendo game. I’m playing the remake right now and it’s exactly what the game deserves.
Townsend

Email your comments to: [email protected]

The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

MORE : Games Inbox: Is Hellblade 2 worth playing, Black Ops 6 teasers, and Doom: Year Zero anticipation

MORE : Games Inbox: Helldivers 2 in decline, Paper Mario continuity, and Hellblade 2 vs. Ryse: Son Of Rome

MORE : Games Inbox: The best video game graphics ever, Paper Mario future, and Hellblade 2 gameplay