The Tuesday letters page struggles to see a way forward for Microsoft and Xbox, as Kickstarter responds to Sony’s new digital-only policy.
Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Shrinking franchise
So Xbox has done exactly what we all knew they would and sacked even more people and lost five studios in the process. I can easily see why they picked on these ones, because they only made art house games no-one ever played. You can’t even say that Microsoft shouldn’t have bought them, because it was the new boss’ idea anyway.
But where do they go from here? They haven’t got any studios left that make anything other than Halo, Gears Of War, and Forza, so are they stuck doing that forever? I totally believe the rumours that studios are being moved to work on Halo and nothing else, but what I don’t believe is that there’s enough people left that care.
The peak of these games was in the mid-2000s, so you’re talking 20 years ago now. Anyone that liked them then is going to be in a totally different place in their lives now and I don’t see any evidence that anyone younger cares about those franchises. Xbox is backing itself into a corner, banking on nostalgia that I don’t think is really there. It really does feel like the whole business is doomed.
Cranston
Chain of command
Absolutely disgusting that Microsoft can just lay off 3,200 people like that. As far as I understand around 200 people is pretty big for a triple-A studio, so just imagine what they could’ve used all those talent developers for if Xbox wasn’t run so badly.
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All those people who have their livelihoods taken away, although they may almost feel it was worth it if they’re dealing with 14 layers of management every day. How that could’ve been going on under Phil Spencer, and he thought was alright, I don’t know. But as far as I understand Matt Booty was in charge of games and he’s still there! That company has been run so terribly the last few generations.
Benson
Just one more remaster
I don’t know how Bethesda has got away with doing so little for so long. I can imagine the Xbox boss asking for an Elder Scrolls update and being given various elaborate excuses while nothing gets done. Not even a short preview.
They’ve been riding their luck, and I think Microsoft are on to them and will demand results. Or maybe they’ll just do another Skyrim remaster or anniversary edition to buy time.
Mark Matthews
GC: We said exactly as much in our article today.
Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Never again
With regard to only digital games in the future, I’m not too surprised. The choice between physical and digital is being removed, that’s a shame. Pros and cons for both methods. The obvious pro for physical is being able to trade in. What’s needed when things do go completely digital is a refund policy that is fair, many more, than are currently available, free game demos to try before you buy and a trade-in system for digital vouchers to spend in the store. If one company implements such a trade-in system then I’ll guarantee that the other will follow suit.
The ability to trade-in might well encourage me to buy more digital games at, or near to, full price than I do at present.
Paul C.
PS: Currently playing Project Cars 3 again on Xbox Series X. I love this game (it was much maligned at release for various reasons). The game has a tendency to drop frames, very badly, if it’s running from a full-ish hard drive. I have 360GB of free space at the moment and the game is running perfectly.
GC: Publishers pushed for digital in large part to kill the concept of trade-ins, they’re not going to willingly bring them back.
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New small print
This thing with games on disc isn’t Sony’s fault, it’s the people that bought them digital only from the very start of gaming. If you didn’t walk down to your local shop and buy the game, guess what? You didn’t play it and now no one can be bothered to walk to a shop to buy the game.
Sony showed you the problem of digital years ago, when they was removing digital movies and TV shows you had bought already. The amount of gamers that have written in saying I download has done this. Sony has just updated their terms and conditions, saying if your account isn’t used within 36 months you may lose your account all together, including games and other stuff. Why don’t people learn that, yes, digital games are better for the planet but if you don’t own something it’s not yours to keep.
David
Destined replacement
I played Borderlands 2 but not to any serious degree. But I played a lot of Destiny 1 and 2 and Diablo in the time between that and Borderlands 4, and I have to say I’ve found it great fun. The campaign was OK but some of the side missions were genuinely funny. The ones with the guy being weirdly obsessed with mating his pet thresher and the existential rocket were highlights.
But I am not level 60 on my first character on UVH5 (Ultimate Vault Hunter 5) and still seems like a huge amount left after 90 or so hours – including getting to UVH7, about 30 missions/side missions, tons of collectables and the takedown to do still. And that’s not even thinking about a second or third character.
The amount of different builds you can make is also superb, with so many options (although as usual only a few top tier ones for the highest difficulties).
I would highly recommend if you like looter shooters and maybe coming off the back of Destiny 2.
Tom
Kicked to the curb
This is one of the other Kickstarter campaigns I am going to back, which I will probably late pledge, it is called Dark Queen of Samobor and it is a side-scrolling action combat puzzle game with amazing visuals, inspired by classic Disney animation and dark fantasy movies of the 80s for PC. I will probably go for the digital copy with my name in the credits for £23. There is an option for a digital copy for £9 too.
With the announcement of Sony ending the production of physical PlayStation discs this is affecting Kickstarters too, as a way to raise money for a Kickstarter campaigns you can usually can buy a digital copy or spend more to get a physical copy on Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation.
A couple of the Kickstarters I have seen mention what will happen with the PlayStation physicals in the rewards of their campaign. I have seen one Kickstarter creator say they will have to research about what to do with the PlayStation 5 physicals in their rewards because of Sony’s announcement.
Andrew J.
Legend of Goemon
The first Super Famicom Ganbare Goemon has always been one of my favourites. I had rented the Western version of Legend Of The Mystical Ninja and then saw the Japanese version cheap and it became one of the few imported games I had for the SNES; I loved that it had bits that were removed for our version. I knew that a sequel existed from magazines at the time and was disappointed it never got released over here.
Owned the first N64 game and loved that, it was the first time I’d seen some of the other main characters now being shown as allies and my introduction to the giant robot Impact. Dash dash dash.
It was years later that I discovered there are multiple Super Famicom sequels plus loads of games before and after on other consoles.
The Japan-only Goemon collection is fantastic, some of the games are pretty much locked away from me as they are full role-playing games and being unable to read Japanese is a hindrance. But the way Konami experimented with the franchise was great, just chuck in platforming, minigames, role-playing, whatever else and just see if it works. It did mean the games could be a bit hit and miss depending on your preferences, but when they hit the spot they really are brilliant.
Konami also smashed it out the park with the graphics and sound on the four main Super Famicom games, for a company that really knew how to get the best out of the SNES sound chip I would say the soundtracks for all four games are possibly the best they ever did in that era.
Enough waffle, if you are interested in slightly obscure (in the UK) games from that era, I would definitely recommend getting a copy of the new collection, I even enjoyed fumbling my way through the menus just to get the display settings I wanted, it reminded me slightly of carefully writing down the enormous save codes for my import copy of Goemon, all in kanji. All I learned from that experience was that battery backed saves were better.
John Atkinson
Inbox also-rans
So who do we think has bought Undead Labs and Ninja Theory? I don’t actually care about State Of Decay 3 but I wonder if Sony will buy Ninja Theory and have them make a new Heavenly Sword? I’d be up for that.
Johnson
So I guess Psychonauts 3 isn’t happening now. Oh well, I’ve much more faith in Double Fine surviving on their own than if they were still under Microsoft.
Breaker
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