In an Activision conf call it was mention a new cod is coming 2013, but i suspect it will be a last gen game farewell?

@BH:

Real are hot fav's for the CL

Yeah thats true.

Most consumers will never know to treat this as a negative, nor will they ever know nor care who Adam Orth is. It matters not to them what a bunch of hardcore gamers are arguing about on a couple of internet forums they likely don't even bother to read, much less know about. As far as most consumers are concerned, most everything today is online and connected. If some of these things turn out true, which I have my doubts about, and the console still sells as strongly as it's expected to, or on even footing with the PS4, then it won't be the first time hardcore gamers were way off in their predictions on what consumers would do, and why they would do it.

The positives of Microsoft's reveal and the marketing push behind it will be what ends up filtering through to most consumers. The only way most consumers would know to associate the new xbox with negative things is if Microsoft's new xbox reveal is a total and utter disaster and they have nothing worthwhile to show in the process of that reveal. People forget how many "negatives" were attributed to the Xbox 360 even after its reveal and while it was being compared to the PS3. It was the system stuck on last gen DVD and without Blu Ray, the system without a hard drive as standard, the system that wasn't Full HD 1080p, the system without HDMI, the system up against the mighty Cell Processor, the system without built in Wifi. Hell, a lot of sites even claimed that the 360 was the next Dreamcast and that Peter Moore's mere presence was a weakness for the system. If some of this sounds silly based on what we know today, it's actually something a lot of game sites and forums were seriously entertaining as legitimate weaknesses. The 360 and Peter Moore had to earn the respect that they got. It wasn't just handed to them.

For example, Peter Moore even did a sit down interview where he was being blatantly heckled and disrespected by the interviewer in a way I've rarely ever seen done for someone at his level, and he just kept his composure and professional attitude the entire way through. That's how the landscape was for the Xbox 360, where their top executives were literally, at times, not shown even an ounce of respect in face to face interviews. In fact, I seem to recall Peter Moore even having enough class to come out and defend the interviewer when he was being torn to shreds by people on forums for approaching that interview the way he did. In other words, compared to what the Xbox 360 was up against, the new Xbox is having the equivalent of a honeymoon, even in spite of negativity around always online or used games. How consumers perceive Microsoft's next system is all in Microsoft's hands. If they fuck up, they pay the price.

@Optimus

There was an article about the Xbox 720 on one of Germany's most read newspaper website's frontpage.

You could translate the title like: "Xbox-fans disappointed before the NextBox's reveal".

It was about always-online and the lack of backwards compatibility...


Personally I was kind of surprised that stuff like that makes it into main-stream-media, but that's an example for negativity towards the NextBox outside of "narrow-minded" gaming-forums...

That testy video interview with peter moore and that interviewer made national news. There was zero criticism for the interviewer's disrespectful tone and conduct, but plenty of criticism for Moore for refusing to admit ways that the PS3 was a better product than the 360. And that was here in America, the most vital market for Xbox.

They even pulled one of those post presidential debate attention to detail style segments, where they basically compared Moore to a slick politician lol.

Exactly, and thats why MS should reveal the damn thing as soon as possible!

True, Phaethon is right, but I think the numbers won't be enough to be significant. Microsoft still very much controls their own destiny on their next console's reveal. How good or bad they do will depend on how Microsoft handles themselves. Sony brought it at the PS meeting, doing a very good in all the ways where they seemed extremely cocky with the PS3. They did about as good a job as you could expect from that kind of event.

It's interesting to see this in action. Microsoft with the Xbox 360 technically came at the PS3 in ways they felt Sony was a paper tiger. They felt that Sony's greatest strength was all their strong third party developer support, and if they challenged that, they could prove that the Playstation brand wasn't as unstoppable as Sony themselves thought. With the PS4, it seems Sony has determined that the only reason why Microsoft isn't eating their dust is because their (Microsoft's) systems have been much easier to develop for and they've had a GPU advantage each time. Sony feels by taking command of those two areas, they can expose Microsoft and the Xbox brand as much less than what it truly appears to be while seemingly securing high ground with big devs and indie devs. Korn is right that Sony's event seemed much more about the developers than the gamers, and what's good for developers by extension can be good for gamers.

There's more to each side's strategy, but I think those are the big takeaways.

Negative press is negative press no matter how you look at it, and if it does turn out that in order to play ANY game you have to be online that will be a big issue for allot of people, if it turns out that games can be played offline then that's great, but the bad taste will still remain. As for sales i think both will do well either way, as one thing we do know is that Microsoft know how to market the hell out of there consoles.

I agree with most of what you said, except the bad taste part. The bad taste will remain for who? Hardcore game forum posters that feel disappointed Microsoft didn't give them the answer they wanted when they wanted it? I think people will just move on if it plays games offline, which I think it will.

Yea, I find that much more a problem than persistent online, to be honest, because it'd be a huge shakeup for me personally if you can't lend someone a game that you bought. In fact, practically every 360 game I own has been lent to a friend or family member at some point or another, with the exception of two: Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. Now, most people in my family would never have any interest whatsoever in Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey, with the exception of my nephew who I have to hide Blue Dragon from everytime he comes over, but a lot of my friends are jrpg gamers such as myself, and have made many unsuccessful attempts to borrow those two.

I even let people borrow my Halo games. Halo 3 I let a relative keep, don't miss it all that much. I got reach back already (definitely wanted this one back), and a friend recently borrowed Halo 4, which I will get back in 2 weeks. I don't buy very many used games, because I just don't like not getting them new. I'm someone who likes to collect a lot of stuff and I like to have all the stuff that comes with the games. I even keep barcode stickers lol. One of the walls in my room has just about everything relating to games I have ever owned, from a Sega Game Gear, oldschool black and white Gameboy, both my genesis systems, original and redesign that came with Sonic 2, Saturn, NES, N64, Dreamcast etc, with all the games for each system organized into a specific color code. I even still have all my peripherals, like the multi-tap for my PS1. There's only one device on that entire wall that is broken and not working, my SNES. I broke it playing with a clapper as a kid. "Clap on, Clap off over and over till sparks fly, SNES that is connected to it dead." :P

Well, they have Halo and Gears of War as exclusives that people will presumably still eat up, as well as Call of Duty. But they definitely need some damn new IPs... you can only make so many Halos before nobody cares anymore (except Optimus, who will always care)

Warning this post will be fucking long lol

What's wrong with caring about Halo? It happens to easily be one of the strongest console shooters you could ever own. It's a hell of a lot better than caring about Killzone, which, honestly, is about as generic as it gets, but nothing seems to stop people from drooling over that franchise. The most fun thing about Killzone is the graphics. I genuinely think it's the only reason people pretend to like Killzone. I find the games themselves pretty terrible. Halo is also sure as hell way better than the Call of Duty games. Although, in my honest opinion, and I even said this at the time, COD4's campaign took a gigantic crap on Halo 3's campaign, as far as I'm concerned. I found MW2 pretty awesome, too.

And I'm no Gears of War fan. I liked the first one. I thought it was nice in the context of what it was doing, and felt what they did design wise worked out pretty well, but I feel it was exposed in the sequels as basically not having much else to offer. I feel it lost the little luster that was clearly there in the first. It isn't a franchise I look forward to on a next gen xbox unless something can be done with it to make me take interest in it again, which I don't have much faith will be the case. That franchise, to me, has fallen into a similar generic category as Killzone (although still a much more fun game to play than killzone will ever be). Uncharted is much more in line with my personal taste than Gears of War. It's also the only Playstation first party game that I really can't do without, and the primary reason I'm buying the PS4.

It's always so easy for people to pull the more Gears, more Halo, more forza card on Xbox, but what about the more uncharted, more killzone and more Gran Turismo card on Playstation? People are every bit as guilty of wanting more and more sequels of popular games on both sides. I may not like Killzone all that much, but I understand that people apparently enjoy it, and as long as people enjoy a franchise and the franchise is selling, I don't see what's wrong with more of them being made.

I agree completely on Microsoft's first party needing to be better. There just isn't enough variety or quality for my taste. There's one thing I want more than anything else out of Microsoft's first party, and I want it even more than Halo. When I talk about Microsoft's first party, I talk about Halo first because it just so happens to be the one thing in their first party that I both really love and that I'm also certain is going to get made. I've never anticipated a Halo follow up more than I am now after Halo 4, which was my favorite campaign of them all. I'm not as blindly loyal to Halo as you would think, however. I don't buy anything just because it has Halo in the title. I absolutely refused to buy Halo 3: ODST on principle alone. I saw it as a cheap cash in then, and I still see it that way now. Even after people telling me it was a great game, I still can't bring myself to do it. I didn't buy Halo Wars either. So I may love Halo, but there are still lines that even I wont cross to play a halo title. I'll always care about Halo as long as the campaigns continue to be so damn good.

What I want more than anything else out of Microsoft's first party is more Sakaguchi/Mistwalker jrpgs. If it's a Blue Dragon sequel, fantastic. If it's nothing to do with the Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey IP, but is still a brand new jrpg from Sakaguchi and Mistwalker, I would automatically want those far more than Halo or anything else the xbox has to offer. Sakaguchi's jrpgs were among the best this generation, including Last Story on the Wii, so more Sakaguchi and Mistwalker jrpgs are my #1 next gen wish, regardless of which platform they are made on, since Mistwalker is independent and can work with whoever they choose.

Fable, which was one of the few xbox franchises I was excited for coming to the 360, was a disappointment this entire gen, so I don't have much faith in the newer ones. Fable 2, in my opinion, after the game breaking bug I encountered, had no business even making it out of certification.

Forza kicked ass this gen, so I'm up for some more of that, without a doubt. I just wouldn't buy a console for Forza.

PGR is a franchise I'll prob pay attention to, but I've never exactly been crazy about the franchise, but I do enjoy it for what it is.

Crytek is making that exclusive for the next gen xbox, but I don't like their games, so no faith in that one either.

Crackdown I think blows. It gives you little to no good reason to even want to play through the damn thing. Had high hopes early on, thinking it could be Microsoft's GTA, but not even close. I've rarely played a more pointless and soulless game.

I do hope Rare can get their ass in gear this gen. I still want to believe in them, even after everything lol. I loved viva Pinata, and while Kameo doesn't get a lot of people excited, I hope they look to make more games that are along those lines. Rare should be making games like Kameo more often. Not interested in Perfect Dark and not all that excited about some next gen Killer Instinct, if they're even remotely considering those.

Alan Wake is one of the real gems of this generation, so I hope they make a sequel to that. It's seriously one of the strongest games that was made this generation, hands down. It got a lot of shit for not being 720p, but nobody seemed to take issue with that when they couldn't even tell the game was low resolution, because it always looked incredible. It's quite a bit below 720p and is still one of the most beautiful and technically impressive games this generation.

Mass Effect started on Xbox and that first one is still one of the best games this generation. So, yea, Microsoft's first party portfolio (and management of their first party) as a whole needs huge improvements, and there isn't too much there that interests me going forward, but the things that do, I think are more than worth it. But, as I said, Halo is the safe bet, because more sakaguchi jrpgs aren't guarantees and neither is another Alan Wake. I love Forza, but it isn't a system seller for me personally.

On the PS4 side of things, it's all about Uncharted. God of War I think has been done to death, to the point that I no longer see it as all that special, but a PS4 version certainly has my attention, simply because I want to see what kind of crazy shit they come up with. So it's more or less my inner graphics whore, which isn't that dominant, maintaining what shred of interest I have left in God of War.

I don't sound like much of a first party gamer, because the fact is that I've never really been a huge first party gamer most of my gaming life. Most of the games that usually get me going nuts are big third party releases. I'm talking GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Watch Dogs, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy (although the FF games have sucked for quite some time now), Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Persona, World Ends With You, NBA 2K (Yes, NBA2k!) Fifa, Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, and all kinds of other third party titles, including some super niche games. I've always been more of a third party gamer than a first party gamer, but there are first party games, to me, that are good enough to get me to buy a console. So, I would obviously be on good standing for third party gaming with either a PS4 or a next gen Xbox. I think Microsoft sees their first party vulnerability and will take serious steps to address it.

I am dumbfounded that you responded to my 1 sentence post with a 2 page essay. Holy smokes you must be bored tonight

Hey, I'm at work, and my role in a project we're working on was finished almost 2 weeks ago, so dropping some admittedly long at times thoughts on a gaming forum might be the highlight of my day once I have nothing to do lol. Today is manga day, so I'll be preoccupied with the latest Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach manga chapters in due time, which will take me to a forum where I discuss those. :p

And it technically wasn't just a response to your post, but was also a general response giving my opinion on the state of first party on Xbox and to also highlight the fact that I've always been, and will likely continue to be, a gamer mostly attracted to third party titles more so than I am to first party titles. The other goal of the post is to showcase that Halo is far from the only thing to be hopeful about or encouraged by on a next xbox, but simply that it's the most realistic expectation as far as games likely to be given the greenlight for development. I will likely own my fair share of first party titles on both the next xbox and the ps4, but chances are slim that I will find all that many that I would go out and purchase a console just to play. I'm more likely to want to purchase a console for third party releases, as that has been the case for me historically. There's only two times in my life where I purchased any console for first party exclusives and the first time was a Dreamcast for Shenmue and Sonic Adventure, and the second time was with the Xbox 360 for Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. The final, but less important point, was to briefly highlight that it isn't just on an Xbox platform where users are constantly fed sequel after sequel and expect that to continue, it's also very much on a Playstation console as well. In fact, that sequel after sequel mentality is also very much the foundation of Playstation First Party efforts, too. The edge Sony has is that there's a greater degree of variety to their offerings, they have more overall talented and console centric development teams, and I generally feel that Sony's franchises are more evenly spread out in more historically popular or appealing looking genre types.

Also, it barely took me 6 minutes to type all that. :p

why warn us long post? like saying the sky is blue.

i love halo op .. me and my little kid adore it, but.. lets face it dude.. its over man.

game over.

Nope, Halo 4, to me, was the best campaign experience of them all. #dealwithit :p

Well, I gave a warning on that one, because I planned on it being extra long.

I thought Halo was possibly headed down hill after Halo 3, but not immediately after playing Halo 3. I thought this after playing COD4's campaign. It stunned me that COD4 could seem so much more epic and exciting than Halo 3 could. The ODST cash in attempt didn't give me much confidence. Halo Reach redeemed the series somewhat and was obviously a far superior game to Halo 3, but I still saw very small signs that Halo could be in trouble as a franchise. Halo 4's campaign gave the franchise new life. Any worries about its long term viability disappeared entirely after experiencing it. And maybe this is unfair considering how many 360 owners there are, but it's also the best selling Halo title ever so far.

Mangas are late!!!!!! *hulk smash*

halo 4single player was great.. but wth comments like "halo iis perfect for micro transactions"
and the abortion of online play

rumored xbox 3 issues..

to me halo 5 will not be in my house on its launch and that will make it th first halo to achieve that.

both brands are at this moment in time are dead to me.

and since when does sales figures reflect anything