Sony’s cloud gaming efforts are starting to ramp up. PS Plus subscribers will be able to start streaming big-name games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales and the Resident Evil 4 remake directly to their PlayStation 5s in the coming weeks. The company also hints that PS5 cloud gaming might be coming to other devices, like smartphones, at some point in the future.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
“Starting this month, we will begin launching cloud streaming access for supported PS5 digital titles within the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog and Game Trials, as well as supported titles in the PS5 game library that PlayStation Plus Premium members own,” the company wrote over on the PlayStation Blog today. This new feature goes live in North America around October 30, and will be exclusive to the Premium tier of PlayStation Plus, which is now $18 a month or $160 a year (Sony raised the price last month).
Though remote play, which allows PS5 owners to stream games from their console to smartphones and PCs, has been around for a while, this new cloud gaming feature will let paying subscribers stream games to their PS5s from Sony’s servers and play them without downloading. Here are some of the games Sony said will support cloud gaming at launch, with more being added later on:
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Horizon Forbidden West
Ghost of Tsushima
Mortal Kombat 11
Saints Row IV
Resident Evil 4
Dead Island 2
Genshin Impact
Fall Guys
Fortnite
Game trials will also be available to stream, including Hogwarts Legacy, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and The Callisto Protocol. Streamed games will support resolutions ranging from 720p up to 4K, as well as 60fps and HDR output where applicable. Players can also take screenshots and record video clips up to three minutes long.
While the quality of game streaming still varies a lot, especially based on the speed of your home internet, it can be a major convenience when it comes to trying games out before starting a lengthy install process or quickly dipping into a live-service game like Destiny 2 to finish a daily or weekly challenge. As blockbuster game file sizes have ballooned to over 100GB, juggling installs has become an annoying minigame in and of itself. Cloud streaming is one way to alleviate some of the frustration.
Cloud gaming of most of the Game Pass library has been widely available on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One for years now, and competing services like Nvidia’s GeForce Now provide the same functionality on PC. It’s nice to see Sony finally catching up in that regard. As The Verge reported earlier this year, the company’s job listings point to a major new push to invest in and grow its cloud gaming capabilities. PS5 owners appear to finally be seeing some of the benefit of that.
Larger install sizes and the diminishing role of physical media in modern games means that you can almost never have too much storage. Fortunately, adding another terabyte (or two) to your console’s capacity is way more affordable than it once was.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
Whether you’re looking for a new drive for your PC, PS5, or Xbox, or just a new SD card for your Switch, these are the best deals running during Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days on October 10 and 11, 2023.
PC Storage Upgrades
Samsung 970 EVO 2TB – $79.99 (October 10 & 11) – Buy here
After months of silence, vampire shooter Redfall is receiving its biggest update yet following a disastrous launch back in May. The second big patch will add the Game Pass multiplayer game’s long-awaited 60 frames-per-second mode on Xbox Series X/S, as well as a host of gameplay improvements and bug fixes.
Why The Hot New Redfall Gameplay Trailer Left Us Feeling Cold
“Today’s update brings Performance Mode to Xbox Series X/S, stealth takedowns, a bevy of new controller settings, and a lot more changes to Redfall,” the development team wrote on Bethesda’s website. While the 60fps mode is the biggest addition, a raft of accessibility features and improvements to stealth gameplay and aiming sensitivity are also welcome changes. Whether it’s enough to begin addressing some of the deeper disappointment around Redfall’s lackluster enemy encounters and unfulfilling progression system remains to be seen.
Redfall was panned by many critics and players when it launched earlier this year. Expected to be the first-party blockbuster that would end Microsoft’s drought of console exclusives, it instead failed to live up to the months of marketing hype that preceded it. In addition to bugs, performance issues, and complaints about the core gameplay loop, it also launched on the “next-gen” Xbox Series X/S with a “next-gen” price tag of $70 but without the 60fps performance option that players on PC would have access to.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer apologized for the situation at the time, but a report by Bloomberg later revealed other issues underlying the game’s rough development. Made by Arkane, best known for immersive sims like Prey and Dishonored, Redfall was instead an online multiplayer game that at one point was planned to include microtransactions as part of a push by parent company ZeniMax into live-service monetization. While those features were stripped out, a lack of development resources and constant turnover reportedly made it hard for the studio to deliver on Redfall’s confusing blend of genres and gameplay mechanics.
Recently, Bethesda marketing head Pete Hines said in an interview that despite the harsh reception, Redfall wouldn’t be abandoned. Instead, he expected new players joining Game Pass a decade from now to give the game a shot and enjoy it thanks to ongoing post-launch support. With Cyberpunk 2077‘s recent 2.0 victory lap after a botched release, many are wondering if Redfall can pull of something similar, or if Microsoft will pour the money into it required to make that happen.
If it does, it will still have a big uphill battle to fight. The game only has a few dozen players on Steam at any given moment. Still, Redfall’s second update is a start.
The head of PlayStation is stepping down, Sony announced in a press release today. Jim Ryan, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s CEO, is retiring after just four years on the job. The massive shakeup in leadership comes as the PlayStation 5 breaks sales records and as Sony has doubled-down on prestige blockbuster games like The Last of Us Part 1 and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
“After 30 years, I have made the decision to retire from SIE in March 2024,” Ryan said in a statement. “I’ve relished the opportunity to have a job I love in a very special company, working with great people and incredible partners. But I’ve found it increasingly difficult to reconcile living in Europe and working in North America.”
Ryan will officially leave the position in April, 2024. Hiroki Totoki, Sony Group Corporation President, COO and CFO, will help with the transition and take on the role of interim CEO of PlayStation once Ryan leaves, and will help with the search for his successor. The news was first reported by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier.
A 30-year veteran of Sony, Ryan was promoted to the top PlayStation job in 2019 after a re-organization saw head of CEO of Worldwide Studios, Shawn Layden, step down, and President of Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, transition into a more background role working with indie game developers.
As head of PlayStation, Ryan oversaw the launch of the PS5, which despite pandemic-era shortages, is now on pace to break sales records thanks to an ongoing lineup of first-party exclusive blockbusters like Horizon Forbidden Westand God of War Ragnarök. His tenure also included the launch of PS VR2, as well as a major pivot by the subscription service PS Plus to more directly compete with Xbox Game Pass’ Netflix-like library of games.
Sony Group Corporation and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) today announced that SIE President and CEO Jim Ryan has made the decision to retire in March 2024 after almost thirty years with the PlayStation business. To support Mr. Ryan in his transition, Sony Group Corporation President, COO and CFO Hiroki Totoki will assume the role of Chairman of SIE effective October 2023. Effective April 1, 2024, Mr. Totoki will be appointed Interim CEO of SIE while he continues his current role at Sony Group Corporation. Mr. Totoki will work closely with Sony Group Corporation Chairman and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida and the management team of SIE to help define the next chapter of PlayStation’s future, including the succession of the SIE CEO role.
Jim Ryan joined Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Europe-based legal entity, Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe (SIEE) — which was then Sony Computer Entertainment Europe — in 1994. Since then, he has held a number of senior positions at the company including President of SIEE, Head of Global Sales and Marketing at SIE and Deputy President of SIE since January 2018, before being appointed SIE President and CEO.
Comment from Kenichiro Yoshida
“Jim Ryan has been an inspirational leader throughout his entire period with us, but never more so than in overseeing the launch of PlayStation 5 in the midst of the global COVID pandemic. That extraordinary achievement made by the entire SIE team has been steadily built on and PlayStation 5 is on track to become SIE’s most successful console yet. I’m immensely grateful to Jim for all his achievements. Respecting Jim’s decision to finish his long career at Sony leaves me with an important decision regarding his succession given the significance of the Game & Network Services business. We have discussed intensively and have determined the new management structure. We aim to achieve Sony Group’s further evolution and growth through bringing even greater success to the Game & Network Services Business.”
Comment from Jim Ryan
“After 30 years, I have made the decision to retire from SIE in March 2024. I’ve relished the opportunity to have a job I love in a very special company, working with great people and incredible partners. But I’ve found it increasingly difficult to reconcile living in Europe and working in North America. I will leave having been privileged to work on products that have touched millions of lives across the world; PlayStation will always be part of my life, and I feel more optimistic than ever about the future of SIE. I want to thank Yoshida-san for placing so much trust in me and being an incredibly sensitive and supportive leader.”
Comment from Hiroki Totoki
“I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Jim Ryan for his outstanding achievements and contributions over his 30-year career at Sony, including the great success of launching the PlayStation 5. The PlayStation business managed by SIE is an essential part of Sony Group’s entire business portfolio. I will work with Jim and the senior management team closely to ensure our continued success and further growth. I am also looking forward to creating the exciting future of PlayStation and the game industry together with everyone at SIE and its business partners.”
You probably saw a ton of headlines about Xbox leaks this week: new hardware, upcoming games, Game Pass costs, acquisition strategies. A trove of unredacted documents accidentally uploaded to a federal court’s case server gave the world an unprecedented look into the secret machinations of the gaming wing of a $2 trillion tech giant. But if you check out just one leak from this historic week for Xbox it should be Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer’s analysis of what’s currently plaguing triple-A video game publishers.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
His analysis was in an email exchange from March 2020, in the midst of the Xbox team planning ahead of a feedback meeting with Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two. “In terms of subscriptions and the impact on larger publishers I realized that I haven’t really done a good job sharing our view on the disruption AAA publishers potentially see and how their role in the industry will likely change with the growth in subscription platforms like Xbox Game Pass,” Spencer wrote (the memo was directed to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, CFO Amy Hood, then-executive business VP Peggy Johnson, and head of marketing Chris Capossela).
The head of Xbox, who first joined Microsoft as an intern back in 1988 and has been working on the gaming side of its business for over 20 years now, proceeded to diagnose the current state of big publishers as they face wave after wave of market disruption. It was a cogent, incisive commentary on the fears driving an ever-shrinking class of mega gaming companies that are clinging harder and harder to the few big-budget franchises they have that still pay out.
Spencer lays out how publishers once existed to leverage scale in negotiations with retailers for shelf space. Then everything changed. “The creation of digital storefronts like Steam, Xbox Store and PlayStation Store eventually democratized access for creators breaking physical retail’s lock on game distribution,” he writes. “Publishers were slow to react to this disruption. The AAA publishers did not find a way to leverage the moat that physical retail created in the digital realm in a way that had them continue their dominance of the game marketplace.”
Companies like Activision, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft eventually made their own middle-man clients to try and get around platform fees, and a few later followed up with their own subscription services. None of them were built early enough or offered a compelling enough alternative to get big. Players complained about bad UI and bad deals. Franchises like Call of Duty and Madden that had once abandoned Steam returned. Game Pass got big while EA Play and Ubisoft+ stayed small. The only competitive advantage publishers have left is being able to pour more money than anyone else into annualized blockbusters.
Spencer writes,
Over the past 5-7 years, the AAA publishers have tried to use production scale as their new moat. Very few companies can afford to spend the $200M an Activision or Take 2 spend to put a title like Call of Duty or Red Dead Redemption on the shelf. These AAA publishers have, mostly, used this production scale to keep their top franchises in the top selling games each year. The issue these publishers have run into is these same production scale/cost approach hurts their ability to create new IP. The hurdle rate on new IP at these high production levels have led to risk aversion by big publishers on new IP. You’ve seen a rise of AAA publishers using rented IP to try to offset the risk (Star Wars with EA, Spiderman with Sony, Avatar with Ubisoft etc). This same dynamic has obviously played out in Hollywood as well with Netflix creating more new IP than any of the movie studios.
Specifically, the AAA game publishers, starting from a position of strength driven from physical retail have failed to create any real platform effect for themselves. They effectively continue to build their scale through aggregated per game P&Ls hoping to maximize each new release of their existing IP.
In the new world where a AAA publisher don’t have real distribution leverage with consumers, they don’t have production efficiencies and their new IP hit rate is not disproportionately higher than the industry average we see that the top franchises today were mostly not created by AAA game publishers. Games like Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, Candy Crush, Clash Royale, DOTA2 etc. were all created by independent studios with full access to distribution. Overall this, imo, is a good thing for the industry but does put AAA publishers, in a precarious spot moving forward. AAA publishers are milking their top franchises but struggling to refill their portfolio of hit franchises, most AAA publishers are riding the success of franchises created 10+ years ago.
Microsoft’s answer to this is Game Pass, not out of the goodness of its heart but because it sees a new platform it can scale to feed the financial growth demanded by investors. “Our goal is to find a way to both grow our subscription (which is our new platform) and help the AAA publishers build towards a successful future,” Spencer writes. “For publishers with 2-3 scale franchises that’s a difficult transition. Again, taking a clue from Hollywood, it’s not clear how a standalone subscale media publisher grows is this world without adapting to new paradigms or getting consolidated but we believe we can help a Take2 by increasing monetizable [total addressable market] across more endpoints inside of a global platform like Xbox Game Pass (inclusive of xCloud).”
The suggestion here is that the type of game that can thrive on a subscription service is either a small one that benefits from better curation and visibility or a live-service one that can make up revenue on the backend by charging all the new players microtransactions (the new store shelves are inside the games themselves). That’s also a pretty grim assessment, and probably part of the reason Sony has repeatedly said that bringing its big first-party exclusive games like Spider-Man 2 and The Last of Us to its competing PS Plus service day-and-date would cripple the economics of blockbuster production.
Spencer’s email was written over three years ago at this point, and was aimed largely at trying to summarize the current state of the industry for his bosses. We can see how things have played out since, though. Take-Two, Ubisoft, and Electronic Arts have decided to collaborate with Game Pass, and EA Play is now part of the service. Microsoft, meanwhile, gobbled up ZeniMax (including Bethesda Game Studios), and is now on the cusp of doing the same with subscription holdouts Activision Blizzard. All while smaller competitors like Embracer go into a tailspin.
It’s not clear who the big publisher model was serving after physical games died, outside of the richly compensated CEOs and occasional shareholder buybacks. But it’s also not yet clear that whatever replaces them will serve anyone—developers, players, fans—any better.
You can see the email exchange in its entirety below:
French gaming accessory distributor Nacon opened preorders for its Revolution 5 Pro controller for PS5, PS4, and PC. The officially licensed, polished-looking product is listed at €229, or $245, approximately half the cost of a new PlayStation 5. But if you can’t stand stick drift, maybe that’s a small price to pay.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
For a while, it’s seemed like no modern controller could escape stick drift, or phantom joystick movement that affects in-game actions. Nintendo offers Switch owners free repairs for its freewheeling Joy-Cons, and Sony similarly covered drifting DualSense controllers under its warranty. But there are few permanent fixes for any controller.
Nacon, then, attempts to cut the problem out at the root. Like a growing number of other manufacturers (and Sega back in the ‘90s, with its Saturn and Dreamcast controllers), it uses contactless magnet technology, powered by a phenomenon called the Hall effect, to track the movement of its analog joysticks and triggers. This is in contrast to the degradable potentiometers and springs living in a typical Joy-Con or DualSense controller.
“This asymmetric controller offers revolutionary features to improve precision and gaming performances,” Nacon writes on its website. “Exceeding all expectations with its technology optimized for the PS5. Enjoy an enriched configuration interface, improved and ergonomic modular design, all wrapped in premium materials for unparalleled comfort.”
Aside from utilizing the magnetic Hall effect for its sticks, the Revolution 5 Pro controller also uses magnets to supply its trigger stops. The company touts its odd-looking d-pad for apparently being made in collaboration with its sponsored fighting game player, which it suggests imparts “exceptional control and precision.” As for the battery, $245 gets about 10 hours of playtime, which is comparable to a DualSense controller (that gives up around the 12-hour mark).
As with many of these high-end “pro” or “elite” controllers the Revolution 5 Pro has various modular pieces you can swap in as you’d like. It offers “four profiles saved per platform, three sets of weights, three stick sizes, three sets of stick heads, one external microphone jack and no less than 60 customisation options,” according to Nacon. So, go crazy.
The expensive controller, available in white or black, will start shipping in October.
This week brought us a wonderful treasure trove of leaks from deep inside the highest echelons of Microsoft’s Xbox division, accidentally shared online as a result of the company’s legal battle with the Federal Trade Commission over its now-greenlit Activision acquisition. These confidential emails, slides, and images of potential new products from the Xbox manufacturer reveal the inner workings of Microsoft’s gaming division, as well as whispers of some possible new games from Bethesda.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
The leaks happened courtesy of Microsoft itself, as it provided these sensitive documents to the court via a publicly accessible link. Yesterday Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer reacted to the leaks, saying that it “was hard to see our team’s work shared in this way.”
“At some point,” Spencer wrote, “getting Nintendo would be a career moment.” He speculated that the Japanese games giant could become more open to acquisition offers in the future due to changing pressures on its board of directors. “It’s just taking a long time for Nintendo to realize that their future exists off of their own hardware,” he wrote. “A long time… 🙂
The emails also reveal that Microsoft thought about purchasing Valve and Warner Bros. Games.
Bethesda might be working on an Oblivion remaster
Because I decided to flip my Xbox 360 from vertical to horizontal while it was running Oblivion, my adventuring in Tamriel was cut short via a huge circular scratch on the disc that no amount of toothpaste could remedy. Maybe I’ll get another chance; while it’s still up in the air, the 2006 Elder Scrolls adventure might get a fancy new remaster in which I could make up for those lost years.
Bethesda’s roadmap was among the many recently released Xbox documents. It includes a sequel to Ghostwire: Tokyo, a Dishonored 3, and remasters of Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Also, don’t expect The Elder Scrolls VI for quite a while.
Spencer: AAA game publishers lost their mojo
Phil Spencer stated that “AAA publishers were slow to react to [the disruption]” of digital storefronts like Steam and the shops built into Xbox and PlayStation.
In a leaked email, Spencer wrote that third-party publishers were unable to replicate the “dominance” they established back in the days of video game retail. After losing their advantage of highly exclusive access to consumers in brick and mortar stores, they “have not found a way to effectively cross promote, they have not found a way to build publisher brands that drive consumer affinity (the way Disney has in video).”
He noted that instead they’ve adopted a strategy of making huge bets on highly expensive prestige projects, relying on those risky, all-in bets to establish and maintain publisher brands. He concluded that “the role of a AAA publisher has changed and become less important in today’s gaming industry.”
Microsoft expected a Red Dead Redemption 2 next-gen refresh
The Xbox Series X and Series S consoles hit the market in 2020. Since then, the lower-powered, disc-less Series S actually makes up the majority of units sold. As of April 2022, 74.8 percent of Xbox Series owners were gaming on a Series S, suggesting just a quarter of the base left gaming on the more-powerful Xbox Series X unit.
Microsoft dramatically underestimated Baldur’s Gate 3
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a super good time. But Microsoft didn’t seem to think the D&D RPG would amount to much. In leaked comments, Microsoft estimated a $5 million expense to get the game on Game Pass, justifying the low monetary amount by describing Baldur’s Gate 3 as a “second-run Stadia PC RPG.”
Reacting to this statement, Larian’s director of publishing noted that Microsoft was far from alone in underestimating the appeal of Baldur’s Gate 3.
Phil Spencer wasn’t impressed by PS5 reveal
In an email to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Phil Spencer described the Xbox Series X/S line as a “better product than [what] Sony has, not just on hardware but equally important on the software platform and services.” He continued, “we have the ingredients of a winning plan […] today was a good day for us.”
Microsoft accidentally got an ‘exclusive’ Sega game
As the next-gen consoles launched in 2020 fans of Sega’s long-running Yakuza series were surprised that its latest entry, the RPG Like a Dragon, was available on Xbox Series X/S but not PlayStation 5. The Yakuza series had long been associated with PlayStation; what was up?
Yesterday’s leak revealed that Microsoft was just as surprised, and it turns out the reason for Like a Dragon landing on Xbox first was due to two competing regional exclusivity agreements Sega made essentially short-circuited each other. The result? Xbox players ate well while PlayStation fans wept into their DualSenses.
The Xbox Series X might go all-digital in 2024
We didn’t just get scans of emails from very serious people, we also got some images and details of possible forthcoming hardware, including a cylindrical-shaped Xbox Series X that won’t include a disc drive.
Code named “Brooklin,” the leaked data indicates that the possible hardware refresh will include “more internal storage, faster Wi-Fi, reduced power” and a “more immersive controller.”
The potential 2024 hardware refresh might also see a new Xbox gamepad hit the market. The image of a controller codenamed “Sebile” shows a two-tone color design and promises modular thumbsticks and features that many a PlayStation fan have known for a few years now: “lift to wake,” “precision haptic feedback,” and an accelerometer.
Despite how the controller may look in this image, the copy indicates that it will feature the “same ergonomics” as the current Xbox Series X/S controller (codenamed “Merlin”).
Microsoft sees its next Xbox as a cloud ‘hybrid’ machine
Slides projecting the future of the Xbox platform indicate that Microsoft is very much looking to the cloud (where have I heard that before?) to help power its post Xbox Series X/S console, for which it’s looking at a 2028 release.
Microsoft describes such a machine as a “next-generation hybrid game platform capable of leveraging the combined power of the client and cloud to deliver deeper immersion and entirely new classes of game experiences.” Cool?
So while we might get some sequels to beloved games like Dishonored and a fancy new controller for Xbox and PC, the leaked Microsoft materials also portend another nail in the coffin for physical game media . But hey, maybe Mario and Master Chief will get to go on a little adventure together at some point.
Remember when the Xbox Series X and S launched with a Yakuza game, but the PS5 didn’t? That was weird, right? For such a long time the Yakuza franchise had been closely tied to PlayStation. But, at least for a few months, the then-latest game in the series skipped Sony’s next-gen machine for Xbox’s fancy console. Why? The answer just came to light today, and it’s both complicated and silly.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
Back in November 2020, the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 launched with a handful of exclusives and a lot of ports. (It was mostly ports…) One of the oddest next-gen exclusives at the time was Yakuza: Like a Dragon, which was available at launch on PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. A few months later, this odd new entry in the popular Yakuza series finally landed on PS5. At the time, folks online assumed Microsoft had cut a deal with Sega to keep the game off the next-gen PlayStation. Others suggested the PS5 version had technical issues that forced it to be delayed. The real reason? Sega signed a few too many deals with too many companies.
In leaked emails from June 2020, Spencer is seen sharing this IGN tweet and asking if the game was “next-gen exclusive.” Another exec responds by telling Spencer that it isn’t, and that it will be available on PS4 as well as Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Spencer then replies how it’s “funny” that Sega doesn’t even list the PS5 on its website.
Screenshot: Kotaku
How two separate deals delayed the PS5 port
After some further chatter about possibly doing a Sega-themed Xbox in Japan, Damon Baker—then in charge of global gaming partnerships and development—laid out why Microsoft was going to have an exclusive next-gen port of Yakuza: Like a Dragon.
According to him, Sony had a 12-month exclusivity deal with Sega for the PlayStation release of the game in Japan and Asia.
This meant Microsoft couldn’t release an Xbox version of the game in Japan until that deal ended.
However, Microsoft also had a contract with Sega that included a parity clause that prevented Sony from releasing a next-gen SKU of Like a Dragon in Japan until Xbox did, too.
And because Xbox couldn’t release any version of the game in Japan until the PlayStation deal was done, Sony was unable to release a PS5 port in the region.
In that same email, Baker shared the news that Sega had no plans to launch a PS5 version in the United States, adding: “Sounds like we now have a timed exclusivity for next-gen.”
Screenshot: Kotaku
At this point, after pointing out that Microsoft had the rights to market the game outside of Japan, Spencer wondered if Xbox could advertise that the next Yakuza game was a next-gen exclusive on Series X/S, adding that it’s a “big deal” and later saying that it “might even be worth some money from us” if they can push that news in future marketing. Which happened, with Microsoft posting blogs talking about how the game would utilize the “next-gen” power of the Series X/S and hyping up the game’s release on its consoles.
In February 2021, about three months later, the Sony exclusivity deal in Japan expired, and Yakuza: Like a Dragon finally launched on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in Japan. The next month, it launched on PS5 in Japan and everywhere else, ending one of the weirdest bits of corporate contractual silliness I’ve seen in a long, long time.
Fans have long wanted Rockstar Games to release a next-gen patch or updated version of Red Dead Redemption 2 that would let the large game take advantage of the more powerful PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. That’s not happened yet, even though many have speculated about it. And new documents reveal that even Microsoft was expecting a next-gen RDR 2 to be out by now.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
Released in 2018, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a massive open-world western and a prequel to the original, critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption. When RDR 2 was first launched, there weren’t any next-gen machines out yet, so the game only came out on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. However, after Grand Theft Auto V and GTA Online received fancy next-gen upgrades in 2022, many assumed RDR 2 would get similarly improved ports. Five years after its initial launch, it still hasn’t happened, leaving many fans disappointed and frustrated.
In newly leaked documents and emails, it turns out the folks at Xbox were, like so many Rockstar fans, also expecting a next-gen update. In a document showing Summer 2022 emails between Xbox boss Phil Spencer and other execs about acquiring more games for the company’s subscription service, Game Pass, we see a chart that is basically a wishlist of potential games to add. And listed in that chart is an entry for RDR 2’s “gen 9” release.
Screenshot: Kotaku
According to Microsoft, the company expected Rockstar Games to launch this “gen 9” version of RDR2 in FY23Q2 aka between October and November of 2022. In the doc, Microsoft suggests that Rockstar and parent company Take-Two Interactive will want around $5 million a month to bring the next-gen version of RDR2 to Game Pass on day one. Further, it estimated around 10 million hours of the game would be played each month.
Based on the chart, Microsoft considered its chances to secure RDR2’s next-gen port as a day one Game Pass launch “very low” and listed its “Wow Factor” at medium. It also wasn’t sure if it would be able to get RDR2’s 2 PC port as part of the deal.
Of course, all of this planning and preparation was for nothing, as Red Dead Redemption 2 still doesn’t have a next-gen update or port. It’s a shame, as the game would look wonderful on the more powerful machines and would likely be able to run at 60fps, a big upgrade over the 30fps the game is currently locked to. Alas, it seems Rockstar is focused on the future and is busy developing the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, which we know quite a bit about thanks to a separate, different leak from last year.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is an excellent game. The PC version of Larian Studios’ D&D epic will easily be a frontrunner in game of the year discussions come December, and the PlayStation 5 version is a comparable experience, at least if you don’t have a beefy enough PC to run the game well. That said, it definitely has more technical troubles than the PC version, although most of what I’ve come across hasn’t been game-breaking.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
The biggest culture shock between PC and PS5 is playing with controller, which uses the same control scheme as the one you can use on PC now. Having put over 100 hours into the game on PC with mouse and keyboard, I do find the DualSense is hurting for buttons in a game with this many actions to use and menus to scroll through, but the more time I spend playing Baldur’s Gate 3 with a controller, the quicker my mind instinctively relearns how to pull off my favorite spells, access different features, and navigate Faerûn from the comfort of my couch. Baldur’s Gate 3 still feels most sensible when you can easily point and click on the enemy you want to blow away with your Eldritch Blast, but Larian has done the best it can with the means of input it’s been given.
Combat and movement are serviceable, but I’ve had much more trouble with minute tasks like examining small items in a cluttered environment. In one of the early sidequests in Baldur’s Gate 3’s first act, my party of Mind Flayer tadpole-infected weirdos was looking through a hag’s lair and had to find a specific wand in the villain’s belongings. Combing through a desk covered in trinkets is much easier when you can just click on them, but while using a controller, it took several more button presses to just grab an item off the table. Pressing on the d-pad lets me focus on items in my surroundings and scroll through them like any other menu, but it definitely feels like an accommodation for not having a mouse to just click on things. Luckily, there is a cursor mode that lets you emulate having a mouse, but it’s not quite as precise or snappy. I definitely think anyone who is playing Baldur’s Gate 3 for the first time on console will be more than happy with these tools; I just catch myself experiencing momentary frustration with the adjustment from time to time.
Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku
While playing with a controller has been an adjustment, I’ve noticed some general technical issues on PlayStation 5 that haven’t been game-breaking, but have at the very least represented a noticeable dip in performance and fidelity compared to the game’s PC counterpart. Each issue has been small on its own terms, but over time they’ve compounded to have a noticeable impact. There are some graphical troubles like texture pop-in, and elements like certain characters’ faces are just presented at a reduced level of detail. I’ve especially noticed this during some sidequests, in which even characters you get some lengthy face time with just don’t look as great as they do on PC. In that same quest with the hag, I saved a girl named Mayrina from the witch’s clutches, and had some lengthy conversations with her in which it was clear the detail on her face and hair had been scaled back a bit for PlayStation 5. These kinds of accommodations are pretty standard, and in return, Baldur’s Gate 3 runs at a pretty solid 60fps in its performance mode, though if you want something with a little bit more fidelity at the expense of framerate, that option exists as well.
The more questionable issues have been less about general technical performance and more about a higher frequency of bugs than I experienced when playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on PC. The first was strange sound mixing in the final act. I loaded a save to play through Baldur’s Gate 3’s endgame and during some of the big climactic moments, the music was muted, and the sound effects of spells casting and swords swinging were delayed or nonexistent. It wasn’t a regular occurrence, but it was drastic enough that the entire vibe of the section was off.
Sound mixing is a weird technical flub, but it doesn’t derail the Baldur’s Gate 3 experience on PlayStation 5. The strangest, unfortunately regularly-occurring glitch I ran into was in choosing dialogue. As I jumped around saves throughout my Baldur’s Gate 3 run, I ran into a few moments where the dialogue options were broken in a way I couldn’t overcome with a dice roll. A few times I would be engaging in a conversation (luckily nothing that could devolve into hostility) and instead of giving me several options to pick a response, I’d be met with only one option: “1. Continue.” Choosing this apparently counts for a dialogue option that should be showing up, but is hidden by a bug. Every instance this has happened to me has been a minor interaction and if I reloaded a save it would (sometimes) fix the issue, but if it persists into life-changing decisions or relationship-altering moments, this could fundamentally undermine the Baldur’s Gate 3 experience. I spoke with some folks who apparently encountered this glitch sparingly on PC, but I never saw it myself, then experienced it a handful of times in rapid succession in just a few hours of playing on PlayStation 5.
Screenshot: Larian Studios / Kotaku
Whether or not you experience video game bugs, especially in a game with as many systems as Baldur’s Gate 3, is often about luck. I had a relatively painless experience playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on PC, and yet Larian was able to deploy a patch that fixed over 1000 bugs, the majority of which I’d never seen. I can’t say for sure if running into these issues on PS5 is just a poor dice roll on my part or speaks to some bugs being more prominent in this console port, but I’ve at least told Larian Studios about this specific issue, because its prevalence in my PS5 playtime is probably the biggest caveat as to whether or not I’d recommend playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on the system.
All that being said, it is a relief to finally be able to play Baldur’s Gate 3 from my couch. I’m still chipping away at my second playthrough, and being able to sit back and relax a bit as I work my way through all the quests and stories I missed the first time around is a real treat. But more than that, I’m looking forward to more people getting to experience this game. Its rougher edges on PlayStation 5 are most likely at the forefront of my mind because I’ve spent so much time playing on my decent PC, but if you were worried the console version was going to be a subpar experience, you won’t find that here.
Ever since Baldur’s Gate 3 exploded in popularity after its August 3 release date, the fact that it’s not coming to Xbox Series X/S the same time as PS5 has reignited the controversy around Microsoft’s console strategy and its commitment to a policy that seems like it will become increasingly unworkable in the years ahead.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
Baldur’s Gate 3 supports local co-op splitscreen, and developer Larian Studios has been very public about its struggle to get that feature working on the less powerful Series S. Microsoft requires games to launch with the same modes on both Series X and S, and despite Baldur’s Gate 3’s popularity, no exceptions were made for the critically acclaimed Dungeons & Dragons RPG until now.
Larian director Swen Vincke said the studio had arrived at a solution after meeting with Phil Spencer, Microsoft Gaming’s CEO, at Gamescom this week. “Series S will not feature split-screen coop, but will also include cross-save progression between Steam and Xbox Series,” he tweeted, with the games now confirmed to arrive before the end of 2023.
Spencer was asked about the apparent Series S conflict in a Eurogamer interview earlier this week. “I don’t see a world where we drop S,” he said. “In terms of parity, I don’t think you’ve heard from us or Larian, that this was about parity. I think that’s more that the community is talking about it. There are features that ship on X today that do not ship on S, even from our own games, like ray-tracing that works on X, it’s not on S in certain games.”
It’s unclear if Spencer means that split-screen gameplay in Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t a requirement on Series S. Kotaku reached out to both Microsoft and Larian Studios to clarify the situation. What is clear is that the company doesn’t plan to abandon Series S support for games in the near future. “We’re going to learn from this experience as well because we don’t love that [Baldur’s Gate 3 isn’t on Xbox yet],” Spencer told IGN in a separate interview. “But I don’t think it’s something that’s a fatal flaw in the system. It’s partners prioritizing their time, us listening and being a good partner to them.”
Image: Larian Studios
The Series S has been raising questions from the very start. As Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier pointed out on August 24, even prior to its 2019 release there were concerns from game developers that the difference in performance could make realizing their full “next-gen” ambitions more difficult on Xbox. Anecdotal reports from Gamescom are that developers there have been privately sharing frustrations about the challenges presented by the Series S as well.
Spencer noted to IGN that games like Diablo IV work fine across both platforms, and reiterated that Microsoft wants to open up gaming to more people, and sees the Series S’s low price as a cornerstone of that strategy. At $300, the less powerful console is the same price as the Nintendo Switch and $100 cheaper than the disc-less PlayStation 5. Over the recent holiday period, it was briefly marked down even further to $250. And the option to subscribe to Game Pass means Series S owners can access a huge library of games, including new blockbusters like Starfield, without shelling out hundreds more.
The popularity of the Series S for players might also be what makes it that much harder for Microsoft to leave it behind. “I also wouldn’t expect and don’t think it makes sense for Microsoft to drop Xbox Series S support or have some titles only ship on Xbox Series X,” tweeted Niko analyst Daniel Ahmad. “The primary reason being that Series S makes up a significant part of the Xbox Series X|S install base and people did indeed buy it to play ‘next gen’ games.”
Don’t expect big price drops
As laudable as the goal of an affordable next-gen console is, we’re already nearing the three-year anniversary of the Series X/S, traditionally the halfway-point in a console’s lifecycle. If there are already rumblings of some games struggling to support certain features on Series S, it seems likely to get worse by 2024, especially for timed exclusives getting ported directly from the PS5. That would be the same year in the Xbox One’s lifecycle that Microsoft released the Xbox One X mid-generation refresh that aimed to offer 4K resolution and higher framerates. A similar new console has already been ruled out this time around, however.
Spencer told Bloomberg in June that he doesn’t feel an “imperative” to release a more powerful version of the Series X, and reiterated that at Gamescom. We’re focused right now on the increased storage Xbox Series S,” he told IGN. “But no, like I said, we’re kind of at the end of the beginning in my mind. So I think we need to let devs settle on this hardware and get the most out of it.”
Image: Microsoft
Sony, meanwhile, appears set to launch a PS5 Slim within the next year. While it’s not clear if that console will have meaningfully different specs than the existing ones, it would still be a significant iteration on the hardware, especially if reports of a standalone attachable disc drive for the PS5 are also accurate. Microsoft hinted at the new console in a Federal Trade Commission court hearing in June, and footage of what’s believed to be the case at a manufacturing plant in China recently leaked as well.
Whatever new console or hardware refreshes arrive in the years ahead, Spencer warned players not to expect prices to significantly drop like they have in previous generations. “You’re not going to be able to start with a console that’s $500 thinking it’s gonna get to 200 bucks. That won’t happen,” he told Eurogamer. “It’s not the way it used to be where you could take a spec and then ride it out over 10 years and ride the price points down. It’s why you see console pricing relatively flat.”
In fact, prices have been going in the opposite direction. Microsoft raised the price of the Xbox Series X/S abroad, following in Sony’s footsteps from a year prior. Even the Nintendo Switch, released over six years ago, remains the same $300 today that it was then. The Mario maker has now sold over 125 million units. So far at least, Microsoft doesn’t seem on track to hit even half of that. It’s currently at 21 million according to a presentation slide that leaked earlier this summer, with hardware sales slowing down instead of speeding up.
Starfield could change that when it arrives on September 1. Director Todd Howard says he plays it almost exclusively on his Series S and it works just great on the cheaper console.
Update 8/24/2023 11:59 a.m. ET: Added new information about Series S version of Baldur’s Gate 3.
The first thought that came to mind when starting Red Dead Redemption on PlayStation 5 is how well the 13-year old game holds up visually. The second one was that there was still no way in hell I could recommend it to anyone for a “next-gen” price tag of $50. The graphics are clean and crisp, but otherwise it’s the same game that’s been available for years on Xbox One without the Undead Nightmare DLC for almost half that price.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
The cinematic scenes and character interactions still draw you in, and the performances remind you why Rockstar Games’ open-world Western was a worthy GOTY contender (Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Mass Effect 2 also came out in 2010). It still feels like an old game, especially with the original interface, occasionally clunky action, and less-than-snappy controls. Look out across sprawling prairies or cactus-filled desserts and you’ll immediately remember this is a PS3/Xbox 360-era world. Then the sun starts to go down behind the clouds and you remember how special it was at the time and immediately feel pulled back into its drama.
Red Dead Redemption 2 – 5 Minutes of PS5 Gameplay
Red Dead Redemption 2 – 5 Minutes of PS5 Gameplay
I spent a couple of hours with the game on PS5, a clip of which you can see above, and didn’t run into any real issues. It’s locked to a disappointing 30fps, but keeps a consistent performance outside of some occasional stuttering during cutscenes. According to Digital Foundry’s analysis, the PS4 port resolves to “full 4K resolution” and even looks slightly better on PS5 than the backwards compatible version on Xbox Series X/S, especially when it comes to shadows. But the differences are mostly limited to minutiae that few people are likely to notice. “It’s the kind of game that doesn’t really need a major overhaul to work well on modern systems—but even so this is a very barebones effort,” wrote Oliver Mackenzie.
The port would be a home run if not for the $50 head scratcher. It’s not the sort of thing I usually like to harp on, and if you have the money to spare, and never played Red Dead Redemption before, and only have a PS4 or PS5, go for it! But for anyone who just wants to revisit the game or is overwhelmed by the surprising bounty of great new games this year, it’s likely an instant deal breaker, and nothing during my time playing it convinced me otherwise. Maybe the game will come to PS Plus in a few months, or go on sale during the holiday. For now it’s just a pricey trip down memory lane with nothing new to offer.
A new online video appears to show what looks like a PlayStation 5 Slim, the heavily rumored but not-yet-announced smaller version of Sony’s current-gen console.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
Rumors of a sleeker, slimmer PS5 have been floating around online for about a year now, but things really heated up in July. That’s when court docs from the Microsoft v. FCC hearing seemed to confirm its existence, suggesting the device would cost $400 and that it would be released later this year. Now, a new video seems to give us our first look at this slimmer PS5, while also confirming that it might have a detachable disc drive.
On August 10, as spotted by The Verge, an image of the alleged PS5 Slim leaked out via a Chinese forum. That image got shared all over X, formerly Twitter, attracting a lot of attention. But now, the recently surfaced video gives us an even better look at the (still not officially announced) console variant.
The video, posted by Better Way Electronics on Twitter, seems to confirm that not only is the PS5 slim…well, slimmer, but that it will also feature some kind of detachable disk drive. This had first been reported back in September 2022 by Insider Gaming. The new smaller PS5 also sports two USB-C ports on the front of the console, unlike the current version which only has one as well as a USB-A port.
Kotaku has contacted Sony about the leaked console.
Last year, Insider Gaming also reported that Sony was planning to release this new PS5 Slim with a detachable drive in September 2023, which lines up with what Microsoft believed in the previously mentioned court docs. Rumors suggest the PS5 Slim will be sold two ways, one console without the disc drive attached and one in a bundle that comes with it. It’s also believed that Sony will sell the drive itself separately.
At the moment, Sony is selling two versions of the PS5: The $399 PS5 Digital Edition and the $499 PS5 with a disc drive. It’s possible that this new Slim could become the only PS5 in the future, with Sony letting people buy a disc drive if they want or skipping it if they don’t care. The rumored $400 price for the Slim seems to back up that possibility.
Today, during a Take-Two earnings call, the publisher’s CEO, Strauss Zelnick, responded to the $50 price tag attached to the upcoming PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch ports of beloved cowboy adventure Red Dead Redemption. According to him, that’s the right price. And he had no additional news for PC players hoping to play the classic game on their preferred platform.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
On August 7, following endless rumors online, Rockstar announced new PS4 and Switch conversions of the original Red Dead Redemption. The PS4 version will also be playable on PS5 and, alongside the Switch port, will launch on August 17. Fans weren’t happy though, as the ports appear to be just that, rather than a more ambitious remake or remaster. Sure, it’s nice that a beloved game like RDR will now be available on more platforms, but the $50 price tag, along with news that these new versions wouldn’t include multiplayer or any enhanced visual options, led to plenty of people online being (rightfully) disappointed. And now, the day after announcing the news, Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive held an earnings call in which its CEO seemed impassive to the fan disappointment and backlash.
As reported by IGN, after the earnings call, Zelnick was asked why the publisher had picked such a high price point for the relatively barebones ports, especially as the 2010 Xbox 360 version is cheaper and has been out for years via backward compatibility.
“That’s just what we believe is the commercially accurate price for it,” Zelnick said.
Rockstar Games / Nintendo
Take-Two’s EVP of finance, Hannah Sage, mentioned that the newly revealed releases aren’t just the original Red Dead Redemption, but also include the DLC expansion, Undead Nightmare. When Zelnick was asked if the expansion being included was the reason for the $50 price tag, he didn’t give a straight answer.
“[Red Dead Redemption] was a great standalone game in its own right when it was originally released, so we feel like it’s a great bundle for the first time, and certainly a great value for consumers,” the CEO replied.
The original Xbox 360 Red Dead Redemption is currently $30 on the Xbox store and Undead Nightmare is $10. That adds up to $40, less than the $50 price tag of the upcoming, plain-jane ports. (And keep in mind that many players already bought the Xbox 360 version back in the day, so won’t have to rebuy the game to enjoy it via Xbox Series X/S backward compatibility.)
Take-Two dodges questions about Red Dead Redemption coming to PC
When Kotaku asked for a follow-up statement via email, a Take-Two representative declined to comment further on the game or Zelnick’s answer. Take-Two also ignored questions about the existing backward-compatible Xbox 360 version.
Continuing the trend of ignoring or dodging questions, during the post-call meeting, Zelnick was asked by IGN about a possible PC port of RDR,and answered vaguely, telling the outlet he leaves those announcements for studios to make.
“It depends on the vision that the creative teams have for a title,” said Zelncik. “And in the absence of having a powerful vision—for something that we would do with a title—we might bring it [back out] in its original form. We’ve done that. And in certain instances we might remaster or remake, so it really depends on the title and how the label feels about it, the platform, and what we think the opportunity is for consumers.”
I didn’t spot an answer in that mess of vague words and sentences. Perhaps, after Red Dead Redemption re-releases on PS4 and Switch on August 17, we can get a PC version, or at least a better answer as to why there might never be one.
“There was a sense that video games were toys. And Sony is not a toy company.” That’s how a new mini-oral history about PlayStation revolutionizing console gaming begins over at IGN. The words belong to former head of Sony Worldwide Studios, Shawn Layden, and they ring true for anyone who grew up with an NES or SNES.…
Baldur’s Gate IIIarrives on PC on August 3 and is right around the corner on PlayStation 5. But what about Xbox Series X/S? The sprawling role-playing game still doesn’t have a release date on Microsoft’s console, and developer Larian Studios still isn’t sure if that version of the game will be ready before the end of 2023.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
It’s a massive bummer for Xbox fans. TheDungeons & Dragons-based game has been in Early Access for several years, with fans patiently waiting to dip their toes into the deep end of its massive world full of hidden secrets and branching storylines. A console version of the game will arrive on PS5 on September 6, just in time to take advantage of Starfield’s absence from Sony’s “next-gen” platform. Larian says it needs more time to finish the Xbox version of the game, but hasn’t yet been able to commit to a firm launch date, only promising to update fans on the timeline later in the year.
Is Baldur’s Gate III a PS5 exclusive?
The short answer is: no. While the RPG is coming to PS5 first, Larian has been clear that there’s no timed-exclusivity deal in place or favoritism going on. It’s simply that the PS5 version is ready now and the Xbox one isn’t yet.
“There’s no platform exclusivity preventing us from releasing BG3 on Xbox day and date, should that be a technical possibility,” the studio wrote at the time. “If and when we do announce further platforms, we want to make sure each version lives up to our standards and expectations.”
Originally set to come out on August 31, Larian actually pushed the PS5 release date back a week so it would have more time to fine-tune its performance on that platform (the game is targeting 60fps).
Why isn’t there an Xbox Series X/S version yet?
The real culprit is the Xbox Series S. Larian mentioned back in February that it was still having issues with Baldur’s Gate III’s splitscreen coop on the less powerful hardware. Since Microsoft requires feature parity between the Xbox Series S and X, Larian seemingly didn’t have an option to change or cut things from the one version to get it out the door quicker.
“We’ve had an Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate III in development for some time now,” Larian wrote in February. “We’ve run into some technical issues in developing the Xbox port that have stopped us feeling 100% confident in announcing it until we’re certain we’ve found the right solutions.”
Studio head Swen Vincke elaborated on the nature of some of the issues again in July, pointing to the challenge of optimizing a game for consoles that kept growing throughout development like Baldur’s Gate III. Players are free to explore its central hub city, and the game tracks tons of decisions made in order to create a more immersive playthrough as if you were part of a real-life D&D session.
“On Xbox, it’s a different platform, it has, as you know, there’s two platforms really,” Vincke told Kotaku. “And so we have to see where we ended up. And the team is committed to working on it, it has for a long time already. So they’re going bit by bit, you know, like, you tear down one performance barrier and go to the next one.” He added that Microsoft’s engineers have been helping Larian, but also pointed to the reality that it’s an independent studio with finite resources.
“Everybody wants this out on Xbox. It’s not that we don’t want it out on Xbox,” Vincke told IGN. “It’s just that, our problem — and this is us, Larian — is that we just made a very big game. And it’s a very complicated game.”
Baldur’s Gate III might not come to Xbox before 2024
So where does that leave the Xbox Series X/S version? The studio has said in the past that it’s hoping to get Baldur’s Gate III on Xbox by the end of 2023, but can’t commit to a hard date yet, especially as it prepares to juggle post-launch updates as the full game goes out into the wild. That hasn’t stopped the studio from getting hammered by angry Xbox owners, however.
“We have quite a few engineers working very hard to do what no other RPG of this scale has achieved: seamless drop-in, drop-out co-op on Series S,” Larian’s director of publishing, Michael Douse, tweeted on July 30 in response to the backlash. “We hope to have an update by the end of the year.” Hopefully, the studio continues to make progress on getting the Series S version up to snuff. It would be a nice holiday surprise to take Xbox owners into the post-Starfield winter.
Whether in seriousness or jest, best to just leave all vaguely unorthodox Halo opinions at the door. Halo: Combat Evolved’s campaign is an all-time classic. We shall never gaze upon the likes of Halo 3’smultiplayer community again. Do not say you loved being able to sprint in Halo 5, let alone that you thought the first Halo without Bungie was the GOAT. Master Chief himself, space hockey pads and all, would not survive the psychic damage.
At long last, Xbox owners will soon get to enjoy the MMORPG PlayStation players have enjoyed for nearly a decade. Final Fantasy XIV is headed to Xbox Series X/S in spring 2024 after being a PlayStation console exclusive since 2014.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
Producer and director Naoki Yoshida made the announcement on stage at the game’s 2023 fanfest in Las Vegas, NV alongside Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. The Xbox Series X/S version will offer 4K graphics and faster load times, like its PlayStation 5 counterpart. While the full release is still almost a year away, an open beta will be available for players to try much sooner when patch 6.5x arrives in the months ahead.
For those who have been living under an adamantoise shell, Final Fantasy XIV has you complete fetch quests, dungeons, and raids across the dazzling world of Hydaelyn, full of political intrigue and mythical wonder. The game was one of the first live-service disasters when it first launched in 2013, and was even entirely shutdown for a time before re-releasing as A Realm Reborn.
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
It’s recieved increasingly excellent expansions ever since, each introducing new characters, classes, and conflicts. And while it’s an MMO, a Duty Support system lets you play solo with AI-controlled NPCs. By the time Final Fantasy XIV comes to Xbox Series X/S, Square Enix says the feature will enable players to complete everything from the start of the game up through its most recent Endwalker expansion without ever needing to interact with another human being.
Why did it take so long to get FFXIV on Xbox?
The story of how we got here, however, is a long one. Yoshida was asked as early as 2013 why the game wasn’t on Xbox One. His answer at the time was that Microsoft’s stance on crossplay was too restrictive. “The main reason from our side is that I don’t want the community to be divided; to be split into two or more. For example, one player might be on the PC version, another might be on the PS4 version, and I’m playing the Xbox version – but we’re not able to join the same game servers,” he told RPGSite at the time. “That is just… I just don’t like the idea. I disagree with it.”
That was back when Microsoft was the company seemingly standing in the way of crossplay between the two consoles. Years later, roles were reversed, with Sony pushing back against crossplay for games like Fortnite. Yoshida repeated his requirement for crossplay in a 2017 interview with Kotaku, and things seemed to be progressing in that direction not long after.
Spencer publicly promised to bring the game to Xbox at the X019 fanfest event in London. “We have a great relationship with Yoshida-san and we’re working through what it means to bring a cross-platform MMO, that they’ve run for years,” he told VGC at the time. “It will be one of the games that’s coming and it’s something that I know our Xbox fans will be incredibly excited to see.”
No deal immeidately materialized, however. Yoshida was asked again what the problem was during a 2021 interview around the time Final Fantasy XIV came to PS5. “So I feel bad for saying the same thing every time,” he told Easy Allies. “But we are still in discussions with Microsoft and I feel like our conversations are going in a positive tone.”
The positive tone of those conversations seemingly wasn’t enough to finally get Sony to agree to crossplay though, until now. The two companies also recently reached a 10-year agreement for Call of Duty to keep coming to PlayStation after Microsoft’s acqusition of Activision Blizzard is finalized. Purely a coincidence, I’m sure. Sony, Microsoft, and Square Enix did not immediately respond to requets for comment.
Sony’s big press conference at E3 2006 rapidly became the stuff of legend. Awkward, baffling, hilarious, and stilted all at once, the presser—which touted the PSP and revealed the price point for the PlayStation 3—was easily one of the company’s most memorable, albeit unintentionally so, spawning an early, viral YouTube video memeing its most absurd moments, as well as other widespread mockery. And now, thanks to the preservation work of documentarian Danny O’Dwyer, you can watch the broadcast in stunning 4K.
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
Through his crowdfunded documentary channel Noclip, O’Dwyer has been slowly digging up and publishing decades of video game history. From gameplay of unreleased titles to a scrapped 10-year-old Hideo Kojima interview to never-before-seen trailers, he’s got it all. And on July 21, he uploaded Sony’s two-hour E3 2006 presentation in the highest possible quality: 2160p at 60fps. Y’all, this is a time capsule worth watching for the first time if you’ve never seen it,, or reliving in HD if you have. Trust me, you’re in for a great time. So strap in, and let’s briefly remember this silly conference.
Noclip Game History Archive
The presentation had some cool games
There were some pretty cool games shown during the presentation. Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, the fifth entry in the now-dormant third-person stealth-shooter series, was featured, along with PS3 launch title Genji: Days of the Blade. The best God of War clone, Heavenly Sword, was revealed with some cinematic gameplay. And we got our first look at what would become Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, a game that would go on to introduce one of Naughty Dog’s most iconic IPs. On the games front, Sony’s E3 2006 press conference was serving it up, period.
The awkward moments were memeable
But in between these gameplay demos and teaser trailers were some truly stilted moments. Then-president and CEO Kaz Hirai trying to hype the crowd up by yelling, “It’s Riiiidge Racer!” The Genji: Days of the Blade presenter touting the game’s historical roots before fighting a giant enemy crab with a weak point you could strike for massive damage. Some random guy on the street talking about how it’s going to hurt when he beats you in PS3 games because “I don’t know.” It was a bonkers presentation that was as legendary as it was hilarious.
Donovansan
The price of the PlayStation 3 was a ‘yikes’
While the presentation opened with the high of Hirai talking about the fantastic success of the PS2, the best-selling console of all time, the ending was a serious dud. After all this boasting about the previous generation and showing off dope games for the next, Hirai revealed the PS3’s price: $500 for a 20GB console and $600 for a 60GB one. The announcement went over like a ton of bricks, perhaps in part due to the fact that the Xbox 360, already on the market for months, was considerably cheaper. It was a baffling price point that left me gagging, but the PS3 still wound up selling slightly more units than the Xbox 360 across its lifespan.
Saving footage that could have been lost forever
In an email to Kotaku, O’Dwyer detailed the work that went into uploading this memorable press conference. Saved on two HDCAM tapes by a video game website and bound for the landfill before O’Dwyer rescued them, he said that he “did basically nothing” to the footage, merely ripped it from the tapes and converted it to HD.
“The process is pretty simple, we use a professional HDCAM tape deck to pull the signal from [Series Digital Interface (SDI)],” O’Dwyer said. “I used a converter to swap that to HDMI and use a high-grade capture device to record that. Once I have it on a PC, I export a 4k version for YouTube (to access the higher bitrates available) and a 1080p version for archive as that’s its native resolution and we can upload the file to archive without it being re-rendered.”
Noclip
Asked why he thought Sony’s E3 2006 presentation became so notorious, O’Dwyer theorized that because memes were a lot rarer back then, it was easy for phrases as simple as “Riiiidge Racer” and “giant enemy crab” to live rent-free in our heads. Whatever the forces behind it, conferences like these are among the coolest pieces of video game history he’s stumbled upon since embarking on preserving the “few thousand tapes” that were almost lost forever.
Speaking of other favorites, O’Dwyer said, “The Nintendo Spaceworld demo is another because it’s such a beloved piece of footage that nobody had a clean copy of,” O’Dwyer said. “My personal favorite may be the Knights of the Old Republic E3 demo that had never been seen before. Especially given where that franchise is.” [A remake announced in September 2021 has been indefinitely delayed.] “I know that fandom has loved dissecting that video. A few days ago, I found a cache of E3 2004 press kits full of screenshots and videos, too. So every day we stumble on exciting new stuff.”
What O’Dwyer is doing is incredibly important work. Considering that 87 percent of classic games are being lost to time, mostly because old hardware is difficult to find and hard to maintain, there’s some comfort in knowing that there are folks out there working to preserve video game history. Because if we don’t remember where we’ve been, we can’t ever know where we’re going.
The Xbox app has a section called “popular with friends” that shows you the games your buddies are playing. It can be a handy little tool for bothering your friends about their progress in Diablo IV or needling them over their refusal to stop playing Overwatch 2 (it’s me, I’m that friend).
But based on a picture shared on Reddit, it looks like at least one person has early access to Starfield: Phil Spencer. The screenshot shared shows Spencer’s Xbox profile picture, an Xbox Avatar version of him (notice he’s also wearing a t-shirt and jeans, so it’s lore-accurate) against a purple background, underneath both Starfield and Exoprimal, a dinosaur shooter from Capcom that came to Xbox Game Pass on July 14.
While Spencer playing Exoprimal checks out as the game just launched, his apparent access to Starfield is interesting. It makes sense, though—Spencer and Todd Howard have worked closely together to promote the upcoming Bethesda RPG ever since Microsoft bought Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax in 2021. At Summer Game Fest, they sat down for a press presentation alongside the head of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty, and head of Xbox’s gaming ecosystem, Sarah Bond. If you’re the head of Xbox, you can have a little Starfield early access as a treat.
Based on the Reddit post, it seems like Spencer was playing Starfield on July 14, the day the news dropped that the FTC failed to pause Microsoft’s $69 million purchase of Activision. Maybe he was celebrating the lengthy battle by hopping from planet to planet in Starfield, his mind finally free from fretting over whether Microsoft would get another jewel in its gaming Infinity Gauntlet or not. In space, no one can hear you gloat.
