With the launch of the ROG Xbox Ally only a few weeks away on October 16, the fantasy of a portable Xbox is about to be a lot more real. As a recent video from YouTuber James Channel shows, though, with a first-generation Xbox and the right components, you can make your own version of an Xbox handheld right now. Just don’t expect it to be pretty.
James’ “portable monstrosity” strips away the original Xbox’s large plastic casing and thick internal cables and preserves the bare essentials: a motherboard and the console’s disk drive, with a new flash drive and a display from an iPod video accessory. All those components are precariously mounted between the left and right halves of an Xbox controller, for a complete package that seems less easy to hold than ASUS’ current handheld PCs, but only marginally so. It’s a quick and dirty assembly with a surprising amount of super glue — a far cry from the polished Xbox 360 handheld created by YouTuber Millomaker — but it gets the job done.
You can already stream Xbox games to a multitude of screens, or play their PC versions on a growing number of handheld PCs. You don’t need to turn an original Xbox into a portable device, but considering Microsoft and ASUS have yet to announce pricing for their new handhelds, maybe keep this cheaper alternative in your back pocket.
Microsoft shutdown the Xbox 360’s marketplace this week and nearly two decades after the console first launched it feels like the final nail in the coffin for a particular era of gaming we’ll probably never see again.
The Best Reveals From The Game Awards 2023
The Xbox 360 came out a year earlier than the competition and $100 cheaper than the base PlayStation 3. It seemed to make all the right moves, using Halo, Gears of War, and Call of Duty to jump start online multiplayer into the soon-to-be dominant form of gaming, while investing it all back into indie curation, big exclusives, and marketing deal that made the console feel like the place everyone had to be.
In some ways it felt like the best of all worlds, and by the end of the generation you could pick up an Xbox 360 for just $100 and play dozens of the best games ever made. The culture was far from healthy, and some of the places making everything were a mess to work for. But it was also a fun time, and a weird one. Here’s what we’ll miss about it and why the Xbox 360 still feels so special to us.
Carolyn Petit: The first E3 I ever attended was in 2005, with the Xbox 360’s launch still some months out and I have to say, the games I saw on the show floor looked amazing. It’s hilarious to me now considering I haven’t even thought about this game in probably 15 years, but at that time, the game that blew me away the most was probably GRAW. Interestingly, though, despite my initial excitement about the console being rooted in its graphical power and my lust for next-gen spectacle, now, when I think back on what made the console so special to me, it’s not really about that aspect of it at all. What about you Alyssa?
Alyssa Mercante: I’ve told mine on Kotaku.com more than once, but I had borrowed my high school sweetheart’s original Xbox to play Halo 2 when he went away to college, but not long after that Halo 3 came out, which wasn’t backwards compat. So I went out during my free period in high school (we had an open campus for seniors, you could take your car and leave if you didn’t have class), and drove to a Target where I spent my summer job savings on a 360, Halo 3, and Xbox Live.
Ethan: I have zero recollection of the Xbox 360’s launch. What was I even doing at the time? 2005. Hmm. I was going into my senior year in high school, barely playing anything except for the occasional late-stage PS2 game—Shadow of the Colossus and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, followed eventually by Okami and Final Fantasy XII. My only real memory of the beginning of that console cycle is my brother getting a PS3 and me having almost no interest in it. It wasn’t until my girlfriend’s roommate’s boyfriend in college got me hooked on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that I finally picked up a super cheap used Xbox 360 arcade edition for like $150. That four years after the console launched but still somehow only the mid-way point.
Carolyn: Yeah, I don’t remember exactly when I finally got one myself—I certainly couldn’t afford one at launch, and my memories of the time around release have a lot to do with playing Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (lol) at GameStop kiosks.
Moises Taveras: The first time I ever played an Xbox 360 also had to do with Call of Duty: MW2. It was all the rage with the kids in my middle school, but I was largely looking from the outside in as a) a PlayStation kid since my youth and b) someone who came from a family too poor to afford more than one console. But eventually, I made friends who had 360s and I remember us all cramming onto a couch in the smallest bedroom imaginable at our friend Howard’s house and playing local multiplayer matches till we lost our voices from shouting. I learned really quickly then that the 360 was synonymous with multiplayer and socializing with folks and it made me want one so bad. Little did I know I wouldn’t get a 360 till the very end of the console generation!
Carolyn: I think part of the Xbox 360’s dominance in that era can be attributed to the fact that it offered the best online experience for folks wanting to play Call of Duty, but it also did something incredible that totally won over people like me. I’m not saying I didn’t have an amazing time playing Gears of War co-op, I absolutely did, and huge credit to Microsoft for putting out a steady stream of banger exclusives that really made Xbox Live feel essential. But for me, when I think about the Xbox 360, what still gets me excited most is Xbox Live Arcade, and particularly amazing games like Pac-Man Championship Edition. Games like this took the arcade leaderboard competition of my childhood and absolutely exploded it. Suddenly I was staying up nights pouring everything I had into beating my friends’ high scores on online leaderboards for all the world to see. Man, it was incredible.
Moises: Supergiant Games’ Bastion absolutely blew my mind as far as what I thought games could be. It being a console exclusive to the 360 through XBLA broke my heart and kept me from the portfolio of what’d become my favorite studio, and then Xbox just kept pumping out indie titles like it. Honestly, my working definition of an indie game was largely informed by this era of XBLA games.
Xbox Dashboard Evolution 2001-2019 (Xbox Original, Xbox 360, One)
Kenneth Shepard: The Xbox 360 was the first console launch I was really tuned into the industry for. I was full-blown sicko mode for that thing as a kid, and was counting down the days. I was a huge Rare fan at the time and Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero were a huge deal to me. But broadly, I think I fell off video games for a bit because the system just didn’t speak to my tendencies. As Moises said, the 360 became the multiplayer system and I preferred gaming in solitude, and eventually pivoted to the PS3 in the final years of that generation. But I played the Mass Effect trilogy on the 360, so I ended up keeping an old 360 in my home longer than any other system. I had to replace the household 360 more times than probably any other system my family owned.
We got a launch window system that died by the time Halo 3 came out, so we had to replace it swiftly. Then I got my own 360 for Christmas 2009, just before the launch of Mass Effect 2. That sucker lasted over a decade. It gathered dust for large swaths of the time, but since I didn’t own an Xbox One, it was the only way for me to go back to my old Mass Effect trilogy saves until the Legendary Edition came out in 2021. So while I had mostly abandoned the system by the end of the generation, the 360 is still a defining system in my life because it gave me one of the most important video game experiences of my life. I’ll always be grateful for it, even if I think the Microsoft was a trailblazer for some of the industry’s worst modern tendencies with it.
Ethan: That was the other thing that I think tipped me in the direction of the Xbox 360 besides the price and walled multiplayer gardens. As someone coming from the PS1 and PS2, it just had more of the RPGs I was craving earlier or in better condition. I came to the original Mass Effect late but it blew my mind. I got to catch up on Star Wars: The Old Republic. It was synonymous with retro and couch-coop indie games for me like Castle Crashers and Super Meat Boy. It really did just nail a lot of the same things that the PS4 did a generation later and which ultimately helped Sony to reverse the tide.
Moises: it’s so weird to think about now given Xbox’s current situation and catalog, but the 360 was where all the games were!
Carolyn: Another thing that was a big factor for me, I have to admit, is that I was totally cheevo-pilled. The Xbox 360 brought about the advent of achievements and I got extremely excited about pulling off absurd things like beating Call of Duty campaigns on Veteran to get all the achievements. I no longer put much stock in achievements or trophies, but to this day I greatly prefer the at-a-glance number that reflects your achievements compared to all the trophies of PlayStation’s system. And on top of that, the whole interface on Xbox just felt so much more inviting to me than that on Sony. I think avatars were really smart of them to introduce in that era. I loved signing on and seeing little cartoon versions of all my good friends online, playing games of their own. In comparison to that, the whole interface of the PS3 just felt cold and impersonal to me, and that console would end up gathering dust in my entertainment center.
Ethan: The Xbox 360 home screen definitely felt a lot more inviting and hit that sweet spot of clutter to chill. The controller was also very solid. Have any of you gone back and tried to hold a PS3 DualShock? It feels like you’re being pranked. I take it none of you ever had an issue with red-ringing or other hardware failures?
Photo: Mark Davis (Getty Images)
Moises: Nope! Correct me if I’m wrong but those issues got ironed out with later iterations of the console, so by the time one of my best friends let me indefinitely borrow his 360, it was smooth sailing for me.
Carolyn: I did have to send mine back for repairs once, and for a while there at least, it felt like everyone I knew who owned one was hitting the red ring. There was a period there, at least in my circle of friends, where there was real disbelief and anger that Microsoft had sold us all a product that was so prone to failure. I think it speaks to just how fond people were overall of the console—its library, its interface, its online features—that today, when you bring it up, you’re far more likely to get fond recollections than bitter complaints. It was so good that even the considerable irritations so many of us experienced with it are now just a footnote in our memories.
Ethan: My console ended up red-ringing in like, 2012? But then I read that you can just put it in the oven and bake it at a low temperature to loosen up the glue. Has worked like a charm ever since.
Carolyn: Wow, I never knew that!
Ethan: I think one of the reasons people look back so fondly on the Xbox 360 is that, in retrospect, it felt like the last time you could contain the entirety of what was going on, coming out, and being talked about in your head at any given time. It was still very intimate and physical, with midnight launches and stacks of controllers in the split-screen coop session. There was spectacle with E3 but also the feeling you alone were discovering these incredible hidden treasures on Xbox Live Arcade, which was like a return to finding the internet for the first time again.
Carolyn: I agree. And they just had so many games that became sensations for a time, from Braid to Geometry Wars. The curation was exceptional, and it was an era in which it still felt like the whole culture, or much of it at least, could still come together for a few weeks around some exciting new downloadable game.
Moises: Yeah. By comparison, when the PS4 really started to pivot to those smaller more intimate games early in its lifetime, it wasn’t that those games were lesser, but it did feel like they were being more haphazardly thrown on the platform to fill gaps between big exclusives. Meanwhile XBLA had these clearly thought out rollouts and events that made a big deal of Arcade titles. Also everything was less shitty. Xbox Live Gold was the original multiplayer subscription, and the only one for quite some time, but it at least seemed to provide value with great deals and a platform that produced rock solid multiplayer hits. It also wasn’t as expensive as anything is nowadays.
Carolyn: Before we wrap things up here, I think we can’t talk about what an amazing console the 360 was without saying a little more about its games. Are there any games y’all want to shout out as particular favorites that really helped make that library great or were emblematic of what the console was doing? When I think about the 360, I think about how the grittiness of Gears of War coexisted harmoniously alongside the whimsy of Viva Pinata, and I’ll never forget the dozens of hours my friends and I spent driving around doing challenges together in Burnout Paradise. It really did feel, more than a lot of other consoles, like it offered something for everyone, and like the people behind it thought deeply about how to bring people together to share in the experiences it offered.
And even though some of its games were also on PlayStation, at least everyone in my friend group, won over by the cheevos and online features of Xbox, always bought multiplatform games there, which perpetuated the console’s dominance in that generation. It’s a little wild to think how this generation it feels somewhat the opposite for me, like most people I know play most multiplatform games on PlayStation. Wild how the tables have turned. But yeah, any other 360 shoutouts?
Moises: I cannot separate the 360 from the stunning role it did in promoting so many smaller studios to the mainstream. I already invoked Bastion from Supergiant Games, but I can’t not shoutout Limbo and Playdead, which has now delivered two absolutely singular game experiences in a row. Oh and Shadow Complex does still own.
Ethan: Limbo was incredible. While the indie darling backlash was fair and warranted, it was really an incredible run of curation there for several years. The Dishwasher games were great, and really spoke to that sense of Newgrounds 2.0 animating the grungy vibe of XBLA. It’s also wild how much Microsoft tried to court Japanese RPG fans with Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. For me personally, Dungeon Defenders is still an all-time great. One of the last times I was able to rope friends into playing something for hours with me on a couch.
I was trying to think of my top five favorite 360 games, exclusive or no, and couldn’t stop listing stuff. The end of that console generation was so strong, on both 360 and PS3, maybe there’s hope that the Series X/S and PS5 pick up in their final years. But with massive budgets, long development times, and so much risk-averse consolidation, I’m not hopeful.
Carolyn: Whether it picks up to some degree or not, I think it’s safe to say that there will never be an era quite like that exemplified by the 360 again. The console was just perfectly poised to take advantage of a given moment in gaming culture and technology, employing exciting new ideas like achievements to build a sense of both community and friendly competition around games in ways that its library and online service leveraged brilliantly. Also, Sneak King was great.
Ethan: Any parting thoughts since you vanished, Alyssa?
Alyssa: LMAO. The time my 360 red ringed right before I went up for senior year of college. The day before. And I went out and bought another because not having one wasn’t an option. That or the time my mother heard me cursing out misogynists in Italian?
Ethan: Was it on the $3 phone bank operator Xbox 360 headset?
We’re now halfway through the life-cycle of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, but Call of Duty doesn’t appear to be giving up on the last-gen consoles that preceded them yet. A leak out of GameStop suggests that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will still come to PS4 and Xbox One, but continue to cost the same as the $70 “next-gen” versions.
The Best Reveals From The Game Awards 2023
An apparent photograph circulated by CharlieIntel shows the SKUs and prices for 2024’s Call of Duty in GameStop’s inventory system. The image lists Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PS4, with a $70 price tag for each, and the Xbox One version seemingly included via Smart Delivery. Insider Gaming reports that it’s been able to independently verify that the data in the image is real, and two GameStop employees Kotaku spoke with corroborated the claim as well, confirming that pre-order SKUs are currently live in their system.
If made official, this would be the longest that Call of Duty has ever remained cross-gen. When the series originally made the jump to PS4 and Xbox One back in 2013 with Call of Duty: Ghosts, it remained on PS3 and Xbox 360 for two years after that until Activision ditched the older consoles with Call of Duty: InfiniteWarfare. With Black Ops 6, PS4 and Xbox One will have continued receiving last-gen versions for a surprising five years in a row.
If you’re wondering why this might be the case, look no further than the fact that roughly half of PlayStation users are still playing on a PS4. The last-gen install base remains huge, and cutting it off from one of the most expensive games to make would be leaving a ton of money on the table. PS5 exclusives like Spider-Man 2 and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth already appear to have suffered poorer sales as a result of that.
Of course, Xbox players aren’t likely to notice the price hike anyway since most of them will be able to play Black Ops 6 with a paid Game Pass subscription. Microsoft is reportedly planning to bring the series to the Netflix-like library later this year, though there are also rumors that it might raise the monthly service’s price once it does.
Activision declined to comment.
Update 5/24/2024 5:45 p.m. ET: Added Kotaku’s own sourcing and independent corroboration.
It’s the middle of May 2024 and that means we’re nearly halfway through the year. What has this year been like in video game news? Tons of layoffs (sad), lots of new games (glad), and some weird outliers, as usual. This week, we saw set photos and official shots from The Last of Us season two, dove back into the GameStop stock market, and asked the dude who nuked Phil Spencer in Fallout 76 about his motivations. Click through for all of this week’s best breaking news.
Last week, thanks to the Final Fantasy VIIRebirth demo, some old video game discourse returned and overtook social media: The use of yellow paint to mark certain in-game objects or ledges. All it took was a now-viral tweet of Cloud climbing some yellow rocks in the new demo and a comment about how yellow paint was a “virus” and, bam, the debate is raging all over again. Like a comet returning for another scheduled pass by Earth, the yellow paint topic has once again predictably appeared, leading to endless takes, jokes, threads, opinions, and arguments. Why is this topic so incredibly capable of sucking in everyone around it for days or weeks on end? Well, it’s not really because of the paint, but everything the yellow splotches represent. – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Image: Kotaku / Xbox / Thomas Mucha / Lukasz Pawel Szczepanski (Shutterstock)
Over the February 3 weekend, reports from different outlets and insiders claimed that a number of big, Xbox exclusives—like Starfield and Gears of War—could possibly end up on PlayStation 5 in the near future. Once the news spread around the internet, the most Xbox-pilled users and creators began theorizing, denying, mourning, and ranting to those within their Church Of Xbox circle and beyond. Then, Xbox boss Phil Spencer posted a vague statement, seemingly confirming something was happening but the faithful would have to wait until next week to hear what. Perhaps he thought this would calm the masses. It didn’t. Instead, for some devoted Xbox fans, it was confirmation that the brand they worshiped was leaving them behind. And they aren’t taking it well (though some remain pretty chill about the prospect of Starfield coming to PS5). – Zack Zwiezen Read More
Xbox & Playstation Source: Future Publishing / Getty
After decades of console wars, Xbox will allegedly concede and bring its exclusives to Sony’s Playstation 5 platform.
For decades we’ve been entertained by the console wars mainly between Sony and Microsoft. In the early days of Xbox 360, it seemed Microsoft couldn’t be touched. However, after the successful launches of the PlayStation 3, 4, and 5 Sony reigned supreme while Xbox tried to keep up. When the PlayStation 5 launched it was clear to everyone paying attention it was the superior console. According to Forbes, Microsoft will allegedly begin letting their once coveted exclusive release on Sony’s PlayStation platform.
While this has yet to be officially announced an announcement could come as early as next week reports The Verge.
This would mark the waving of the white flag by Microsoft unless Playstation gives over their exclusives which isn’t likely. When Microsoft purchased gaming company Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion they promised they would play nice with Sony as it pertained to Call of Duty. This update would certainly make good on that promise. Furthermore, speculation has pointed to Hi-Fi Rush, Starfield, and others coming to Playstation and Switch soon. As gaming and streaming continue to grow this will undoubtedly provide a significant boost to all the titles released on other platforms for the first time.
All eyes will be on Microsoft’s announcements next week as gamers pray Halo is included in the titles coming to PS5.
In September 2011, I was a college junior very willing to waste away the early days of her fall semester playing Epic Games’ new third-person shooter, Gears of War 3. I pre-ordered the highly anticipated title so I could guarantee I got the gold Retro Lancer skin for my multiplayer battles, and threw myself into the beta earlier that year with more energy than I put into my entire undergraduate coursework combined.
Firefight’s Back In Halo! What Is Firefight?
The following year, my fondness of Gears 3 grew and absorbed the place once reserved in my heart by the Halo franchise after the disappointment of Halo 4.
But, like all multiplayer games with finite resources trying to keep the attention of a fickle fanbase, Gears 3 eventually faded away. I focused more on Call of Duty releases, then eventually on Overwatch 2 and the battle royales that began popping up like lanternflies on New York City vegetation in the early fall.
Occasionally, my mind would wander to Gears of War 3 and its unique, somewhat disorienting camera angle, the satisfying crunchiness and weight of its gameplay, and all those gleefully gross executions. Nothing ever felt remotely like Gears 3, not even the sequels (which came after long-time game lead Cliff Bleszinksi left Epic Games) that followed in its wake. Recently, those occasional daydreams of Epic’s third-person shooter became more frequent and, finally, I downloaded it via Xbox Game Pass and booted it up again.
Screenshot: Microsoft / Kotaku
Gears of War 3 online is a 2011 time capsule
Several things shock me in the seconds after I start up Gears of War 3. First, the Xbox 360 online interface greets me, like I applied a retro theme to my Xbox Series S in a fugue state. When the old pop-up appears to let me know that I am, indeed, online, I do the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme alone in my living room. My old profile picture is there (my Xbox avatar wearing an Optimus Prime helmet), and so is all the information about the 360-era games I played. It’s a lovely little detail that threatens to derail my Gears gameplay, as I get lost in the old menu for far too long.
Then, as Gears 3 loads up and the familiar horns of the opening theme fade in, I’m shocked by the memory that the score stirs in me. Suddenly, I am 21 years old and very stoned, likely wearing a pair of leggings and a t-shirt I’ve cut the sleeves off of to make a muscle tank—maybe I’m even wearing my Gears 3 one—and I’m waiting for my friends to meet me online so we can run a five-stack in Team Deathmatch. Time flattens into a circle, just like the one Rust Cohle warned us of, and I am briefly, blissfully unaware of how my rent will be going up in my Brooklyn apartment, because I’m in upstate New York, living off my student loan.
The final thing that shocks me is that I can actually play Gears 3 online. The menu says “0 players online worldwide,” but it’s lying—I load into a Team Deathmatch game in seconds, filling in for a bot Locust (the beefy, scaly bad guys of the Gears universe) upon its death. As I step into the huge shoes of this subterranean (and for some reason bipedal) beast, I realize I’m gonna need a second to get my sea legs.
Gears of War doesn’t feel anything like the games I play now—aside from when I choose one of the heavier, tankier Overwatch 2 characters, most of the time I’m playing as someone who’s lithe and lightning-fast. When compared to modern games like Apex Legends or Modern Warfare III, Gears 3 is gluey and clumsy, like someone mixed a shooter with Ambien and a glass of wine until everything got a little wavy. It takes several gory, squishy deaths (Gears of War 3 is probably best-known for its violent multiplayer executions which include swinging your gun like a golf club and taking off someone’s head in a spray of brain matter) before I remember how the controls work.
Once I get my active reload down (a mechanic by which your weapon damage or fire rate increases if you time your reload correctly), I really hit my stride. I split a snub-nosed grenadier in half with a Gnasher Shotgun, I pop the head off of a peeking Carmine brother with a Boltok Pistol from halfway across the map, I impale Marcus Fenix on the end of a Retro Lancer. I remember that the cover-based shooter has tons of movement tricks and hacks, and soon I’m gliding around the map like my character isn’t wearing a ton of heavy armor and boots that sound like they’re made of steel.
Gears 3 multiplayer’s visceral audio brings back the same intense wave of nostalgia as the starting menu’s soft horns. There are the gushy, mushy sounds of shotgun shells embedding themselves into flesh, the nerve-wracking rev of the Torque Bow winding up its shot, followed by the high-pitched, heart-stopping audio cue you hear when one of its arrows sinks into your leg. The horrid, wet gurgling that bursts forth from Locust characters stomping about the map and the metallic clangs of menu sounds whisk me away to a simpler era. For the entire time I’m playing Gears of War 3, I am in 2011.
But it is, alas, 2024, and the other people still playing Gears of War 3 are either newcomers who can’t tell their incendiary grenades from their Boomshots or seasoned veterans who are a nightmare to play against. Matches end fast, and there’s little room for the weak in them. Despite quickly remembering how to make the most of the game’s movement mechanics and gunplay, I am still repeatedly owned by players who have no problem picking up my downed body and miming humping me against a wall.
In that way, and in many others, Gears of War 3 is a perfect 2011 time capsule, full of blood and guts and badly behaved boys, and, of course, Cole Train expressions.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows (Steam Deck OK)
My current goal: Conquer every Stronghold
You read that right, on Steam Deck baby! The step-by-step process to get the just-released Diablo IV working on the Deck took me a little over 30 minutes and was relatively painless. However I do highly recommend using a Steam Deck dock and USB mouse, as there’s a decent amount of copy-pasting and the Deck’s touch-screen controls can be finicky.
Since installing, I’ve played nothing else. Partly because I accidentally unmounted my Steam Deck library so it no longer recognizes what I’ve already installed on there through the store (oops) and partially because Diablo IV on the Deck is simply that rad.
It’s impressive how well the Deck’s default controller scheme jells with Diablo IV. Blizzard’s action-RPG is perfect to play while listening to a podcast or catching up on the borderline dispiriting amount of quality spring anime series I have to watch.
How’s performance you may ask? Pretty good, actually. After tweaking some essential settings, and turning off Cross-Network Play (yes that really did make a difference) I consistently get 40-60FPS let’s say…80 percent of the time. However, entering or leaving a major hub (Kyovashad for example) or a hectic world event has my poor base model Deck wheezing and running at single digits. Using an ultimate spell in a large crowd of enemies will also have your audio popping off, and not in a fun way either. And as you can imagine D4 is a battery Greater Evil. I recommend playing with your AC charger plugged in for sessions longer than 30 minutes.
But like cmon, being able to tackle a Stronghold while laying on my couch? That’s objectively awesome and I look forward to parking my ass on aforementioned couch after I send Claire this blurb. Bye! — Eric Schulkin
Microsoft revealed some exciting new first-party games like InExile’s Clockwork Revolution and Compulsion Games South of Midnight at its June 11 Xbox Showcase. But others like Fable and Avowed were first teased years ago and still don’t have clear release dates. What’s taking so long?
Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger
Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty recently said in interviews with Axios and IGNthat the industry is still catching up to a new reality that major projects are simply more complex due to new hardware and rising audience expectations. 4K graphics, ray-tracing and other graphical improvements have made development harder and more expensive, while Microsoft itself had to manage a transition period beginning in 2018 when it snatched up tons of new studios, including those under the Zenimax acquisition like Bethesda, id Software, and Machine Games.
“I think that the industry and the fans were a little behind the curve on sort of a reset to understand that games aren’t two or three years anymore,” Booty told Axios. “There are higher expectations. The level of fidelity that we’re able to deliver just goes up.”
“One, gen 9 hardware is awesome—ray tracing, all the stuff we can do,” he told IGN. “But that trickles down through everything through how the assets are build. Like in Forza Motorsport, how the cars have to be built, how the lighting’s got to be done, how the track’s got to be set up, all the detail. The expectation is very high. Games are just getting more complex in terms of the interactions that are expected.”
There are plenty of examples that back up Booty’s point about games taking longer. Ghost of Tsushima took Sucker Punch six years, the longest the studio had ever spent on making a single game. Final Fantasy XVI is in a similar boat, arriving seven years after the last game in the storied fantasy-RPG franchise. Exceptions like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, a dense 35 hour action adventure and game of the year contender made in just three years, only undermine how rare that turn around time has become.
At the same time, it’s clear Microsoft in particular has struggled to iron things out in its post-acquisition production processes. Halo Infinite’s anemic post-launch support and the poor state of Redfall at release have shown that even when a big game finally arrives, it’s not without problems. Microsoft founded The Initiative back in 2018 but we’ve yet to see anything vaguely tangible out of Perfect Dark. Instead, it’s now reportedly relying on a partnership with Crystal Dynamics to push development forward on the game.
While games like State of Decay 3, Gears 6, and Everwild were all missing from the Xbox Showcase, Microsoft is hinting that they could make an appearance at other events throughout the year like Gamescom or The Game Awards. Even so, it’s not clear their re-emergence will include substantial gameplay reveals or definitive release dates versus CGI trailers. In the meantime, fans finally have Starfield and Forza Motorsport to round out the year. And if Booty’s right, a parade of hits will begin to follow shortly after.
While Japanese games of varying genres are enjoying success these days, the 2000s and 2010s weren’t as kind, especially in Western markets. Since then, there’s been a lot of speculation as to why Japanese games struggled during these years, often from westerners themselves, with some pointing to key game design trends. But recent comments from Final Fantasy’s creator Hironobu Sakaguchi suggest that the decline of unique console hardware, exclusives, and cultural differences is the likely cause.
By the late 1990s, Japanese games like Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger, or Castlevania had become must-play experiences for their inspired stories, excellent technical presentation, and engaging gameplay. But the following two decades were a different story. Anticipated entries like Final Fantasy XIII failed to reach sales expectations with the rise of Western RPGs such as TK (and many felt that train came off the rails starting with 2001’s Final Fantasy X). Newer attempts at franchises like Sakaguchi’s Blue Dragon on Xbox 360 in 2006 were met with lukewarm reception at best. Meanwhile, Western-made games like Mass Effect had become the new gaming sensations. While some may point to declining interests in traditional, linear forms of storytelling in games as a likely reason, Hironobu Sakaguchi suspects that dramatic changes in the hardware used to play games presented a tough road for Japanese devs to follow.
Sakaguchi: ‘Consoles like the NES and PlayStation were very specific hardware’
Speaking to IGN along with Castlevania senior producer Koji Igarashi, Sakaguchi discussed why he feels Japanese games were of “higher quality” for systems with ‘“specific hardware”’ like the NES or PSX. The answer, as many students of video game history might suspect, has to do with those very consoles. With specific hardware configurations produced by Japanese manufacturers, devs at the time had to become experts in how to best utilize these devices, and there was no language barrier to gaining these skill sets. Sakaguchi said:
“[Specific, Japanese-made consoles] made it easier for Japanese developers to master the hardware, as we could ask Nintendo or Sony directly in Japanese. This is why—I realize it might be impolite to say this—Japanese games were of a higher quality at the time. As a result, Japanese games were regarded as more fun, but when the hardware became easier to develop for, things quickly changed.”
Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi added that the “long history of PC culture” in the West was better adapted to the hardware trends that would follow in the 2000s, a trend which continues to this day. The PS5 and Xbox Series consoles more closely match PC hardware than dedicated gaming boxes perhaps ever have. That change wasn’t easy.
Igarashi describes the journey as a tough growing pain. “Japanese developers could no longer rely on their speciality as console developers,” he said, “and had to master PC development.”
While some may be quick to point out, perhaps, that the PS3’s unique and troublesomeCell Broadband Engine certainly fits the criteria of “specific hardware,” it was maybe too specific. Though Sony made incredible promises for its performance (and odd commercials), its unique architecture was a chore for developers around the world, leading Sony to pivot away from it for the PS4. But the 2000s and 2010s were also a time where Japanese games, particularly Final Fantasy, made the switch to multi-platform releases. Devil May Cry 4 was another notable series that made the jump to other platforms. This shattered the trend of focusing on a specific set of hardware constraints. And at the time it didn’t really go over too well. It seems natural now to expect a Final Fantasy to appear on multiple consoles, but the announcement of XIII coming to Xbox 360 was quite the surprise in the 2000s.
Sakaguchi believes that where we play our games also makes a difference
Sakaguchi also said that the “cultural differences” between Japan and the West make meaningful differences in what kinds of games are made. “In the West,” Sakaguchi said, “children often get their own room from a very young age, whilst in Japan the whole family sleeps together in the same room.” He continued, “such small cultural differences can be felt through the games we make today […] I believe that cherishing my Japanese cultural background is what attracts people towards my games in the first place.”
While I for one can say that my private bedroom probably enhanced my experience of Final Fantasy VII, Sakaguchi’s comments concerning focused mastery of specific hardware likely explained why such epic experiences often felt so unique to the platforms I was playing them on. Or maybe that’s just the nostalgia talking.
