Why didn’t it make more of a difference? (pic: Microsoft)
The Monday letters page is very impressed by Gran Turismo 7’s VR mode, as one reader is unconcerned about Tears Of The Kingdom dungeons.
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Guaranteed hit
I thought the Reader’s Feature at the weekend made a lot of good points about how Xbox is never likely to unseat PlayStation. One thing it touched on, which I’ve wondered about a lot lately, is why Game Pass hasn’t been a bigger deal than it is. Forget buying Call Of Duty, I thought Game Pass would be the thing to turn Xbox into an unstoppable force that Sony would have no way to counter.
That never happened though. Game Pass has been relatively successful but hasn’t put Xbox ahead of PlayStation or anything close to it, and apparently new subscriptions are slowing down, not speeding up. It’s not even an Xbox-only thing, as PS Plus Extra seems to have hit a glass ceiling that it can’t expand beyond, no matter how successful the PlayStation 5 is.
It seems people just don’t want to shell out for yet another subscription. Especially given that when it comes to video games there are plenty of free games anyway. Maybe it’ll make a difference when Xbox gets more exclusives but I’m willing to bet that whatever gains it makes from Starfield, for example, will quickly fade away once people don’t renew.
I think the main problem is simply that whether it’s free or not people only have time for a relatively small number of games at a time, so whether there’s 10 or 100 other ones on Game Pass it doesn’t matter, there’s just no time to play them, whether you want to or not. I don’t criticise Microsoft for going with the idea, is seemed a dead cert to me, but now it’s proven not to be I wonder if and when they might start to move away from it.
Tolly
Too big to sell
People complain about Xbox buying publishers but consider where they’d be today if they hadn’t bought Bethesda. Without Starfield coming up and things like Hi-Fi Rush they’d have virtually nothing at all in terms of exclusives. I actually think they’re a pretty good match for Microsoft. Most of their stuff is very ‘American’, just like Xbox and if Bethesda use Microsoft’s QA department to get rid of bugs that will be a great benefit for them and us.
I think the problem with Activision Blizzard is that they’re just too big. It’s so many studios and so many games that it really does tip the balance in Microsoft’s favour. None of Blizzard’s stuff seems very Xbox friendly too and if I were those developers I’d worry about how much Xbox really cares about things like World Of Warcraft and Hearthstone.
It’s just much too big a chunk of gaming to be passed around like that. Most people don’t remember now but it was controversial when Activision and Blizzard merged, as it was thought they were too monolithic. How things change, eh?
Go-bling
New niche
Played the Street Fighter 6 demo and was really impressed. There wasn’t enough of the single-player to really gauge whether it was a gimmick or not but they certainly seem to be putting the effort in, I’ll give them this. It’s still pretty much just Street Fighter though, so I wonder if we’ll ever see it be as successful as Street Fighter 4 again.
I think fighting games have to go away for 10 years or so for that to happen, just like they did last time, so people are hungry for them again. That doesn’t seem likely to happen though, especially with Mortal Kombat being so popular still.
Hopefully Street Fighter can maintain a niche for itself though and I’m still surprise they’ve never had any spin-offs for individual characters and such. At the very least you’d think there would’ve been a Street Fighter Kart by now. Especially after Street Racer tried to pretend that’s what it was.
Deckard
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Armchair executive
I was surprised that PlayStation 5 is doing so well and that there is an expected large gap between PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles. I like to play armchair executive every so often and with the knowledge Sony seem to do so well, instead of spending tens of billions on acquiring a games publisher I’d have used that cash to sell Xbox Series X for £99. something so dramatic Sony couldn’t hope to compete with
I’d imagine lots more sales and winning the generation!
It’s a solid tactic, go sooo much cheaper, put your competition out of business then raise the price!
Of course, I wish both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X were less than £100 as they’ve well and truly priced me out of this gen!
Rob
GC: We’re not sure that’s legal. It’s certainly not sustainable or the sort of thing to please investors.
Too real
I think there are some questions about whether that bodycam game Unrecord is real or not but that’s not really the point. Soon enough all games are going to look that real and that is going to open up some serious questions about what kind of video games we can even make.
When everything looks completely real horror games are going to become unplayable. War games are going to become very disturbing, and anything set in the real world is going to be very iffy. Imagine if GTA looked indistinguishable from reality and you could do all the things you currently can in it.
I know edgelords will claim it will not make no difference to them but I very much doubt that’s true. Heck, even Super Mario is going to be weird when the games look as good as the movie, for the sense of vertigo if nothing else.
Tombol
Scary driving
Last night, battling in a 20 F1 car, 15 lap night race around the Nürburgring, with no headlights, only prior knowledge of the track and a huge dose of ‘in the zone’, I realised that I was playing through a driving experience that finally surpassed Burnout 3.
It’s taken two generations to overtake it, but Gran Turismo 7 achieved the unachievable. All it took was the VR update. The original game is good, but playing through that last night elevated it to truly great. Only a few games ever leave me breathless. The original run through Returnal was one. That feeling of terror, confidence, confusion, and paranoia of instant death was brought forth again as I tore around at 180mph in almost total darkness, with the firework display of sparks from the other F1 cars careering towards me like the bullet hellfire from the Nemesis boss.
VR really elevated the whole race to an almost otherworldly experience. A genuinely true gaming moment pour moi. Heaven knows what a Burnout 3 Road Rage race would feel like in a headset.
Just have to make sure I have clean underwear on before making my way to the starting grid.
Wonk
Fair comment
Just writing in to say that I am still having problems with my comments being rejected on your site, I notice a lot of other people are having the same problem too.
These two messages got rejected after I posted them for some reason: ‘Yes, I found the map was not great in God Of War (2018), haven’t played Ragnarök yet. Good game though’ and this post: ‘You didn’t mention Ghost Trick in your post, I highly recommend it when it is re-released on current formats.’
Andrew J.
Currently playing: Borderlands 2 co-op Tiny Tina’s DLC (Xbox Series X)
GC: We’ve passed on the complaints and hopefully the moderators should be far less zealous in the future.
Magic number
I know a lot of people are saying they missed dungeons in Zelda: Breath Of The Wild and want them to return in Tears of the Kingdom. Well, for me there already were dungeons in Breath Of The Wild. They were mini-dungeons, and there were 120 of them.
I am of course talking about the shrines and I genuinely thought that they were the best part of an already amazing game. Some of these places had my jaw dropped with the ingenuity that went into them and I was often stuck for more than an hour trying to figure them out. Never mind figuring out how to make them appear. I much preferred them to the Divine Beast dungeons.
Of course traditional dungeons would be great and I’d love to see them return, but please bring the shrines back too!
JDB
PS: Isn’t it funny how there’s 120 shrines in Breath Of The Wild, and 120 stars in Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, and 120 shines in Super Mario Sunshine. 120 must be some lucky number in Japan.
Inbox also-rans
A game taking 10 years to make seems an inevitably, but it’s also stupid. Just think how much trouble Sony is likely to blunder into with its new live service game focus, which managed to go out of fashion in just a couple of years.
Casper
Got my copy of Advance Wars 1+2, so I’m doing my part. Just to point out, it’s still £10 off at Argos too.
Gantz
This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader TheTruthSoul (PSN ID), who asks how often you play a video game to completion?
What is it that inspires you to finish some games and not others? Are there common elements which influence your decision, or does it depend purely on the quality of the game and external factors?
Do you usually aim to complete a game, and do you have any examples of times when you unexpectedly changed your mind, one way or the other? What do you consider completing a game to mean, and how often do you try to 100% one?
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The small print
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You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.
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MORE : Weekend Hot Topic: Rebooting your favourite video game series
MORE : Games Inbox: Justifying a PS5 Pro purchase, Beyond Good And Evil 2, and Mega Man Battle Network 7
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The Monday letters page is very impressed by Gran Turismo 7’s VR mode, as one reader is unconcerned about Tears Of The Kingdom dungeons.