The Wednesday letters page is not impressed by Xbox boss Phil Spencer’s latest comments, as a reader tries to avoid catching Dragonsplague.
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Funny alternative
It’s pretty worrying, and depressing, times for gaming at the moment. Microsoft and Sony like to think they’re industry leaders but they’re acting more like absent landlords. And there’s so little to look forward to in the schedules at the moment; the best I can think of is the Elden Ring DLC and the remaster of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door – neither of which are technically new games.
My big hope is that the Nintendo Switch 2 will help to brighten the mode. It’s a real shame it’s apparently been delayed into next year, not simply because I’m looking forwards to it, but because it would be a positive in gaming for once, instead of Xbox’s constant goal pole shifting and Sony’s stony silence.
Nintendo had a great year last year, when really the Switch should’ve been winding down, and while this year is certainly a lot quieter I’m still looking forward to Paper Mario and Luigi’s Mansion HD. It helps that they’re funny, cheerful games. I think that’s what we all need at the moment. I’m not saying Switch 2 will save all of gaming or anything… but it might.
Campbell
Unstoppable force
It’s painfully obvious that the PS5 Pro is another PlayStation VR2 situation, where Sony has had it planned out in development for so long, they think it’d be a waste of money if they didn’t go through with it. I don’t know whether the numbers support that but I bet they don’t, it’s just the sunk cost fallacy in action.
I had no idea the PS4 Pro was such a low proportion of sales though, less than 15%? If that’s the case I really don’t see why the PS5 Pro even got greenlit. All it’s going to do is get people angry, create a negative mood, and make things difficult for developers who now have to support two different models.
It’s pointless to argue though. Sony are obviously going ahead with it. I imagine they’ll announce it in the summer and we’ll still be wondering why by the time it’s out in the autumn.
Cranston
Remember the dongle
I’d quite like the idea of a handheld Xbox and I can believe there’s some prototypes going around Microsoft’s office. However, there’s also been prototypes for a TV dongle for around 5 to 6 years now and nothing ever came of it.
The biggest issue I can see is the market for handhelds (outside of Nintendo) is tiny. There’s quite a few devices around at the moment, of which the Steam Deck seems the leader. But in reality, they’re estimated to have only sold 3 to 4 million, which in comparison makes the Xbox look like a huge success.
If publishers are questioning why they support the Xbox, when it’s around half the user base of the PlayStation 5, why would they support a device where realistically achieving a 10th of the PlayStation 5 userbase would be an amazing success.
Tim
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Scraping the barrel
A remake of Sonic Heroes?! How desperate are Sega going to get? How about a remake of Lost World or the 2006 game? They’re terrible but I’m sure someone must be nostalgic about the somewhere. Even a remake of Sonic Adventure is pointless given how flawed the two games were but at least that ones worth a try because even I’d feel a twinge of nostalgia for that one.
Personally I think Sonic Frontiers was unfairly criticised and is by far the best 3D game. They should just stick with that and make a sequel that addresses the issue and makes things even better. All these remasters and remakes are just a distraction. Even Superstars was a waster of time, although I bet it won’t be long until they just straight up remake the original games in 3D as like a do-over.
Frontiers was the new blood the franchise needed and they just have to iterate on that and make it better. No more looking back and keep going forward.
nullpoint
Random illness
This Dragonsplague thing in Dragon’s Dogma 2 sounds very odd, is it something that was purposefully put in there or is it a bug? I really don’t like the idea of games that suddenly make themselves super hard at random because of something that’s completely out of your control.
The idea of invasions is what put me off playing Dark Souls and similar games. I don’t want all my hard work ruined because of some random event that I had no control over. Even if it’s reversable it seems like a lot of work to sort it out.
Tomo
GC: It’s an intentional thing, yes. Although it is pretty rare.
Company spokesman
I wonder at what point Microsoft is going to realise that Phil Spencer is not working out for Xbox? Not only is he constantly making bad decisions that cost the company a lot of money but the way he runs his mouth is making me want to have nothing to do with Xbox all on its own.
Back in February he assured fans – as if it was absurd to suggest it could ever happen – that Starfield and Indiana Jones are not going multiformat. What’s the bet that they both will be by the end of the year? Spencer says all this is happening because of a lack of growth but what happened between February and March that was so drastic that he’s now dropping the world’s least subtle hints that everything is going to go multiformat?
I just don’t trust the man. I mean, I don’t trust any exec but Spencer keeps putting on this man of the people routine, where he pretends he’s just a gamer like us, but I don’t buy it. I’d much rather Microsoft just put a faceless suit in charge, who’s good at his job.
Maybe the problem is that Phil Spencer is too much of a gamer and not actually a good businessman. I don’t know, but I’m done listening with him and I’m done even considering getting an Xbox until either he’s gone or he’s implemented enough changes that he can finally justify being in charge.
Goslord
Shooters assemble
I love how that description of the new Marvel game sounds so much like Suicide Squad. Is there any bad idea that publishers won’t steal off each other? It’s like they go out of the way only to make the dumbest decisions and shoot themselves in the foot.
Unless it’s a game only featuring gun-wielding characters, but I severely doubt that. I guess the idea is a lot of them do shoot projectiles of some sort but the idea of making a multiplayer online shooter based on Marvel it’s very obvious that the game first and they slapped the licence on after.
Austin
Understandable apathy
I can understand developer’s apathy towards the PS5 Pro. The problem is the CPU, which only has a boost mode of 10% to 3.85GHz (standard PlayStation 5 is 3.5GHz). Otherwise, the CPU is identical and will run the same, unless in boost mode. When you consider the Xbox Series X CPU is 3.8 GHz/3.66 GHz w/SMT. Yet those slight performance advantages haven’t really transpired in most games. Essentially, the PS5 Pro is a resolution box, with better ray-tracing performance. The CPU being the main limiting factor when it comes to frame rate in most games.
I personally think what Microsoft did when they moved from Xbox One to Xbox One S would have been a better alternative. They simply increased the clock speeds on the GPU and RAM by 7%, which resulted in slight performance gains over the original model. If Xbox Series X digital is a thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if the die shrink has allowed for increased clock speeds for the GPU and CPU. This will allow for some increased performance, without resorting to producing a more expensive model.
These are the type of modifications I would prefer throughout a generation. Minor performance gains that don’t require additional work from the developer.
In hindsight, the biggest mistake Xbox made this generation was having two models with different development profiles. This strategy didn’t please developers, so it’s no surprise PS5 Pro isn’t being greeted with open arms.
I don’t think Microsoft will repeat the same mistake next generation, even if it includes a handheld/hybrid device. How they will manage to develop for one profile that scales to a portable device is beyond my understanding. But we kind of see it with PC games running on Steam Deck.
Anon
Inbox also-rans
For anyone interested, the Katamari Damacy soundtrack remaster is now on Spotify. It didn’t turn up for me in a search but when you click on Bandai Namco as an artist you should see it.
GoblinFeral
That Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) cross Resident Evil 4 video was brilliant.I was crying with laughter! Many thanks to Garfield2 for sending it in.
Currently playing Resident Evil 5 The mercenaries (for 15 years now on and off!)
Adams6Legend
GC: We looked and there’s lots of others from the same guy.
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