Titanfall Schmitanfall. I agree that Infinity Ward arguably made the best COD games under the direction of Respawnâs Jason West and Vince Zampella but Titanfallâs effect has yet to be seen. It all sounds like a bunch of hype to me. It isnât likely but the game could be dud. It could be as buggy as GOW online and people still buy it however. The only thing we know for sure about Titanfall is that Microsoft is going to promote the hell out of it in every fashion possible.
Thatâs not Nintendo brutal (especially given that MSâs dev-tool similarity means that ports from the PC, or XBone games partially rationalized by the expected PC port are likely); but thatâs a pretty good sized whuppinâ.
And after MS ran away crying from their initial bold post-ownership plans. I guess people still donât really care about âmedia centerâ featuresâŚ
Their Vita-as-indie-box turnaround and PS4 as gaming station, not entertainment all-in-one is what has me hooked. Iâll be voting with my dollars, I tell you h-what.
Also: Sucker Punch. Iâll follow them anywhere, even dystopian Seattle.
Xbox. Sell.
Titanfall is also being released on PC, so the effect on Xbone sales will probably be minimal.
And seriously? Does anyone expect the release on ONE game to turn around the sales of the X1? Now, if they release Titanfall in conjunction with a cheaper, Kinect-free X1 that may spur sales somewhat⌠But my money is still on the PS4 âwinningâ this console warâŚ
Sucker Punch and Naughty Dog.
Especially outside the US. In Europe and Japan most of those fancy media center features donât work properly and over here no-one cares about those silly US-Sports tie ins like âNFL on Xboxâ.
I think Titanfall looks cool, but I lean toward PS4. Does it seem like the type of title that will eventually lose Xbox/PC exclusivity, and make its way onto PS4 in a year or whatever? Or is the publisher aligned with MS in such a way that that would be extremely unlikely?
I wonder if part of whatâs at work here isnât the audience speaking loudly and clearly âDO NOT WANTâ to that entire line of reasoning. MS dropped it, but dropping it isnât going to undo the fact that you proposed it, and that enough people at your company thought it was a good idea in the first place that they might try it (or something like it) again. Your initial audience for a next-gen console are hardcore gamers who could totally use that as a reason not to purchase a console.
If that is a big part of whatâs at work, Titanfall isnât going to fix it. Only a bold, clear, unambiguous change in corporate direction would fix it.
Of course, if most of that failure is just a lack of good games (which the PS4 ALSO suffers from), Titanfall might nip that in the bud. But given that neither console has really awesome games, and that arguably the Wii Uâs game line up for 2014 looks better than any of theirs, Iâm inclined to think that thereâs something else in the mix here other than awesome games.
Not that an awesome game would hurt.
While these are interesting numbers, Iâm not sure theyâre as telling as you might think. Sonyâs numbers are impressive, but donât underestimate the effect of a $100 price difference, something Microsoft will almost certainly chip away at by the end of the year. Likewise, Titanfall IS the kind of flagship title that sells consoles. The very fact that there are people mentioning stuff like Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch in this thread are examples of folks whoâll follow certain studios and who sell consoles. TItanfall is such a release. Will it be enough to MS dominance in the market? Very unlikely.
But hereâs the thing all these articles seem to forget: it isnât 1989. It is far less likely for a console manufacturer to drive another out of business in this market. Nintendo has lost 3 out of the last 4 console releases in terms of numbersâŚbut they never lost money. The Wii U is never going to match the Wiiâs sales numbers, but it will likely follow the Gamecube into profitability without market dominance. The PS3 and Xbox 360 eventually plateaued against each other, sharing most titles. The PS4 and Xbox One are slated to repeat that exerciseâŚmeaning only the exclusives will matter, eventually.
Honestly, Titanfall is the first thing about the Xbox One that has me considering a purchase of either console. The PS4 sounds all good and well, but my PS3 soured me on Sonyâs online execution. The 360 and PS3 also still have plenty of games I havenât gotten to (Hello, Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite and others), which makes it hard to justify purchasing a new consoleâŚespecially when I know they simply wonât support some of the video features Iâd like, yet (and possibly ever).
What media center features? The xbox one canât function as a media center extender. From the perspective of a HTPC enthusiast, the console is basically a brick with a couple hdmi ports.
If the xbox supported cable card and had dvr features, well that would be a different story.
It also doesnât help that Microsoftâs previous bold vision of post-ownership consumer cloud buzzword something something was âGames for Windows Liveâ, a service so terrible that I donât think Iâve ever seen even one fanboy defend it. (So bad that Microsoft took it out and shot it like PlaysforSure, sorry anybody who cared or relied on it, better get those cracks ready if you need to reinstall, and no, just because the servers are dead doesnât mean the in-game nagscreens go away!)
Thatâs not a good glimpse of the future if you want to sell people on the cloud-managed diskless profile etc.
The other thing to remember is that most of the hyped media center features donât work well or at all with cable boxes rendering the features useless for most.
Oh, goodness, none of those filthy, piracy-enabling features! Or, um, even feature parity on local streaming with last generationâs console! But, but, streaming Skydrive from the Cloud, man(because it is every manâs dream to upload and then download his digital media for a better viewing experience! And, um, how about channel listings overlaid on the video provided by some other device entirely(sold separately) that you plug into the HDMI port and, if the stars are right, get to control by waving your arms around for the Kinect?
And that Halo TV show that is supposed to be a thing at some point!
Microsoftâs actions even before the XB1 shows a lack of understanding of what would make their console a useful media center. On the 360 you canât play music files that are stored on SkyDrive. You can play them on Android devices from SkyDrive but not on Microsoftâs own device. If you want to watch YouTube, youâre required to have a Xbox Live Gold account. The YouTube app on AppleTV doesnât require a monthly payment like it does on Xbox. The list goes on and on of things that work on other platforms (like podcasts) that donât work on Xbox or require a subscription. If youâre not interested in playing online games but simply want a media center, the Xbox line is a terrible choice.
Titanfall is a system seller no doubt about it. However, historically Sony does better in other countries, Xbox really only ever excels in America, and at the moment it is a much closer race that it was between the PS3 and the 360. The true numbers that are going to be interesting are when the PS4 is released in Japan, where no one buys an Xbox unless they are an alpha-otaku.
Anyway good. There might be some truly excellent games for xbox coming, but Microsoft should be punished for trying the crap they tried to pull. An always on, always connected system with a biometric camera sitting in my living room with games I donât truly own. They might have gone back on a bunch of that stuff, but any shred of consumer faith I had in them is gone.
So itâs itâs worth noting that these January number actually represent very little sales â on the order of 1/10th of December sales.
And to make these numbers even harder to understand, PS4 is still supply constrained. Iâm sure that PS4 will do much better than XB1, but itâs really hard to tell how much better.
You know apparently, Titanfall betas on Xbox One are running at a pretty crappy resolution. And itâs not exclusive to Xbox â itâs also out on PC. It may turn out to be not as much of a system seller as we were led to believe.
