I think Ori and the Will of the Wisps handled it well. It starts you off relatively weak again, but you get most of the abilities from the first game Very quickly. Maybe it wouldn’t work here, but for the metroidvania genre at large it worked well I thought. Allowed you to re-acclimatise after the time since the first…

Incels: *Cry about being involuntarily celibate*

I feel like it’s either fuck MS, Sony and Nintendo, or fuck none of them. Hate the game not the player sort of thing.

Sony were the first to narrow the scope to “high end consoles”

They’re waiting for the moment that they think the re-releases will make them the most money

True, however MS would then be making 100% of the profits rather than just 1/3rd of them they currently get as a “Platform Tax”, which shifts the numbers a little. Not enough to be worth it as laid out in your scenario, but if say they could make a 35-40% shift in players? Well then it probably would be, from a…

Maybe, but there 10000 employee’s would inevitably get royally screwed in the process. I know MS just laid off a bunch of people, but it was still only a few percent of their total workforce, however if the sort of breakup you’re suggesting occurs, then there would almost certainly be WAY higher proportionally layoffs…

It's like an $8 dollar upgrade I think. Basically nets you some extra Skins for Chai and 808 and some shirts. Maybe more? I'm not super sure

In this case, they're owned by Xbox. In most cases of smaller games Xbox basically straight up cover the development costs, and then any excess sales are their profits. Which generally works well as GP often drives sales rather than cannibalising them. 

It did slightly leak. A day before the title, studio and a rough idea of the artstyle and gameplay leaked, but it was still pretty much an unknown. They didn't leak that it would be at the show for certain, and DEFINITELY no hint of the shadow drop. 

It's likely CPU limitations. Everything going on in the world, all the timings, alpha effects etc... can really be more taxing than might appear on the surface. 

If you have GamePass Ultimate you can stream it to your One X? I played a little of it via steaming and it works well as long as you have an absolutely rock solid connection. It requires too much timing and precision for a worse connection in this game.

Yeah, I think everyone groaned a bit there. It’s not actually even a moment in the game and was done purely for the trailer. In hindsight I think was done to be somewhat self mocking, but that doesn’t really work when it’s literally the first thing people are ever seeing of your game! They can't tell if it's a joke or…

I found that he was significantly less annoying after the first hour, but it’s maybe still not going to be to your taste.

What system are you on? It is technically Series X/S and PC only, so if you're on an older Xbox One then tlno, there's no download option. 

I mean, the boring part is your opinion, personally I disagree but fair enough. However Bioshock? Really can’t say I’m picking up Bioshock vibes. Much more like a cross between Far Cry, Borderlands with a touch of Left4Dead in my mind

Yeah, but they announced up front that they were going to focus on a smaller number of first party games over the next few months. 

True, but scalpers are to blame for that. In theory it’s actually not too bad an idea other than that.

Fair, though I give them somewhat of a pass this year, given that 2 of their more major games got delayed by the war in Ukraine. If they don’t absolutely nail 2023 and 2024 to be honest, at this point there’s just no excuses.

To be honest, it probably gave Disney a bigger share of the industry than buying Activision would give Xbox in gaming. Because mobile. Plus, the gaming industry is alot more “indie friendly” than the film industry.