Cliff Notes – Has Xbox lost the console war to PlayStation?
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Shift in Console Dynamics: Xbox has transitioned from a traditional console manufacturer to primarily a game publisher and streaming service provider, indicating a significant shift in the competitive landscape against PlayStation.
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Consumer Sentiment on Pricing: There is growing concern among gamers regarding the high costs associated with new releases, particularly remakes, with many unwilling to pay premium prices for nostalgic titles.
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Indie Games as a Viable Alternative: The success of indie games, such as Tormented Souls 2, highlights a potential shift in the industry, suggesting that smaller developers may offer innovative experiences without the excessive budgets typical of major publishers.
Games Inbox: Has Xbox lost the console war to PlayStation?
The war that ended all console wars? (Sony/Microsoft/Metro)
The Monday letters page thinks Sony should lower its budgets, but not as low as Nintendo, as a reader enjoys being scared by Tormented Souls 2.
The happening
So there it is: Halo on PS5. We all knew it was coming but even so, seeing it confirmed is so crazy. Who would’ve imagined at the height of Halo 3 happening? Even as recently as last gen it seemed impossible and yet now we face the fact that Xbox has gone third party. They’ve lost the console war.
They‘re not even pretending that the next gen is going to be a normal-priced rival to PlayStation 6, it’s just going to be some kind of mega expensive PC in a box. So you can count me out on that.
I’m not going to crow about it though. I imagine Xbox fans have had it rough enough lately and this has all become so inevitable it almost doesn’t seem like a big deal. But it is. Xbox no longer exists as a proper console manufacturer, they just publish games and have a streaming service. That’s wild and not really good for anyone when it comes to keeping Sony in check.
Benson
Turning competent
Only remaking the story campaign of Halo: Combat Evolved is one thing but how much is it going to cost? If it’s mid-price then I might be interested, but I can tell you now I am not going to pay £70 for a remake of Halo. I don’t care how much they try to improve the Library level.
If there’s a free multiplayer game then that could work well, but they already had one that was perfectly fine, back when Halo Infinite first came out, and they completely whiffed that one. I haven’t got much faith that they won’t do the same thing again, because it’s still 343 Industries, just with a different name, and they have been messing up for so long now I don’t think they know anything else.
Tacle
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
A Link to It Follows
I have just watched a very strange film called Under The Silver Lake (2018), starring Andrew Garfield. The reason I am sending this letter about a film into a gaming site is because the film has some references to Nintendo in it and one of the plot threads involves Zelda: A Link To The Past! Even the star of the film, Andrew Garfield, says it is a strange film in the extras on the Blu-ray disc.
Not everybody will like it, and it is very violent and graphic, but I was very surprised about the main reference to Nintendo in such a strange film. The film is by the director of the horror film It Follows. It’s got a review score of 6.5 on IMDb but I thought it was funny in places.
Andrew J.
Currently playing: Bioshock 1 Remastered (PC)
Fallout Zero
It wasn’t until I was reading a Retro Gamer article recently (ironically, a very old Retro Gamer article: a retro Retro Gamer article, if you will) that I learned that Obsidian Entertainment was formed by ex-Black Isle Studios staff, who developed… Fallout and Fallout 2. So, it’s not as if Fallout: New Vegas was made by some plucky upstart, it was literally people that had been with the series from the beginning, so you’d think Bethesda would be a big more respectful.
On another note, Baldur’s Gate 3 recently got a Steam Deck native version. Apparently, an employee took it on as a pet project which I thought was quite cool, as a major disadvantage of the handheld PCs (versus console) is that they rarely get bespoke versions of games. That might change with the new Xbox handheld though, if Xbox support it properly.
Magnumstache
GC: Fallout 1 was also a spiritual sequel to Wasteland, which was directed by Brian Fargo – who runs developer inXile Entertainment, which is also owned by Microsoft. They made Wasteland 2 in 2014 and Wasteland 3 in 2020.
Baron von Blubba
Bubble Bobble doesn’t run on Switch 2 from Arcade Archives. Devastated! Always like a play here and there, just for the music. They need to sort that!
Thanks to the guys and gals who read my beat ‘em-up feature.
Nick the Greek
Top three: 3, 2, 1 Dusty Bin… how old do we go? Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Mega Bomberman (we had the four-way play, it was outstanding). Micro Machines Turbo Tournament ’96… mate’s mum used to let us all in if we were quiet. WCW Revenge on the N64 as well, as a fourth shot. I could reel off my top 50 dead easy.
Independent voices
Thanks for the Tormented Souls 2 review. I’d never heard of it, or the first one before, but I downloaded it to play over the weekend and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. It’s obviously super reliant on Resident Evil, and never quite as good, but I’m really enjoying it.
I also noticed it was made in Chile, which is not something I’ve ever seen before. Once again, we see that indie games do things that you’d never get with triple-A games. I agree with the Reader’s Feature at the weekend, that said that game publishers are out of control and the only hope for the future is indies.
That doesn’t mean bad graphics or low production values though. Tormented Souls 2 looks and sounds great, and it’s not even a particularly big budget example. I think we’d do a lot better in general if there were lots and lots of companies releasing their own games however they want, rather than a handful of publishers trying to control everything.
It’s not even a question of monopolies or whatever, it’s just that they’re doing such a bad job of controlling the industry that we need to make sure other people can do their own thing without having to do whatever Microsoft or EA wants.
Kimble
GC: ACE Team are Chilean and a lot of their stuff is good, especially The Eternal Cylinder.
Fluff free
I also wanted to give a shout out to Old School Rally after the Friday Inbox letter about it coming to Switch. I played the PC version after it hit 1.0 earlier this year and it’s currently my game of the year.
It’s so much fun to play and really does harken back to the old PS1 Colin McRae games. It was also really nice to have a straightforward career mode for a change, instead of all the extra fluff modern racers have.
Angry_Kurt (Twitter)
Pocket monsters
I can only imagine how angry Nintendo is knowing that the budget for Pokémon Legends: Z-A has been leaked. In one week they’ve made enough money to make Spider-Man 2 but of course they won’t make anything like that. I’m sure they have bigger budget games but nothing that comes close to Sony’s excesses or anything like that.
Pokémon’s not really my thing, so I’m not that bothered about the game itself, but I’ll be honest and say that I’d rather see Nintendo saving money like this, and not spending ridiculous amounts of money, or taking half a decade to make something. Both those things are ruining gaming, and it seems much better to me to go more in the other direction.
Maybe Nintendo (or The Pokémon Company or whatever) has gone too far the other way but that still seems healthier to me. They’re not going to shut Game Freak down because they’re costing them too much money, let’s put it that way.
The problem is that just by going with the flow Nintendo is making their games more expensive, even as the amount they spend on them doesn’t go up. That’s not fair but I’m still not willing to get out the pitchforks, because I see what the alternative is.
Sony don’t need to be exactly like Nintendo, but they do need to be more like them and do something about their ridiculous budgets, before the whole concept of a console becomes not cost effective.
Walker
Inbox also-rans
What happened to that rumour of Leon being in Resident Evil Requiem? Considering the game’s out quite early next year I’m going to guess that reveal is going to be at The Game Awards in December. You heard it here first!
Focus
Just as a note to the Reader’s Feature about PS1 fighting games, there’s going to be official remasters for Battle Arena Toshinden. It wasn’t very good but it is kind of important, so I’m glad it’s happening.
Oscar
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