Yeah, MS did make some changes.. The thing is, in my opinion, a business is informed by the top ranks. If they were pulling, say, "one disk, one console" schemes, it backfires, and someone gets fired over it, that smells like passing the buck to me.
Generally, these things are systemic.. Everyone from the top executives to the board are onboard with nickeling and diming in "clever" ways.
So I don't really trust ms, just like I don't trust Keurig after they wasted money on infra-red drm lockouts for competing K-cup brands..
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
All business are informed by the top ranks. You think Sony is any different?
I'm not sure why you are singling out Microsoft for decisions made 7-8 years ago (when Xbox One was being developed) by an executive group that doesn't exist anymore. Since the release of the Xbox One, how has Microsoft differed in screwing over the customer from it's competitors? I believe each company roughly acts the same.
I think it's naive to think Nintendo and Sony do not follow the same shady business practices that Microsoft is alleged to have done (even though they reversed the decision to allow online checks prior to release).
I'd say that MS has become very consumer friendly since their initial stumble when it comes to the Xbone. Implementing backwards compatibility is a big thing, allowing you to play a game on the PC or the console via one purchase is very nice, and having reasonable prices for the consoles that are very competitive and fair, and finally, the Gamepass program is simply an absurdly good deal for gamers. MS has done very well, all they need are some good exclusives to compete with Sony's and they'll essentially be neck and neck as far as console quality goes. MS may even have the upper hand in that case.
Nintendo and Sony are both on the record for price fixing.
Yes, there are no heroes here. The main difference, imo, is..
Put it like this: If this is professional wrestling, then Nintendo is ECW, Sony is WWF (Pre loss to the tree hugger group), and MS is World Championship Wrestling.
Two of them are games oriented, and the third is suits who happen to deal in games. Two of them have people who care, one of them doesn't.
So anything MS does right, is in spite of whatever the execs think is good business, and not because of it.
I say that as someone who's last console was an MS one.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
That's not really accurate cdtm. As Smas pointed out, there has been a huge shift in executives in MS from when the Xbone was initially announced, it's essentially an entirely different group of people making decisions, and the decisions of this group have been very good thus far and they really do seem to care.
I cannot believe Microsoft Xbox division is not games oriented. Evidence suggest that is not the case.
They have clearly made mistakes but so has the other two companies. Nintendo is everybody's favourite darling but they have been against consumers for years and have made more mistakes than anything Microsoft has done.
I think its disingenuous to believe Sony cares more about their consumers than what is best for the company. I think both companies are in the same boat, it's just the Xbox One reveal is still somewhat fresh in peoples mind.
You know the common "gimped for pc" complaints? I found out the opposite happened to Doom on the Saga Saturn. It actually looked far better then the PC version, so the programmer was told not to use the processors dedicated to video, and we got the mess we got.
I don't really get it either way. I mean, the software companies stand to lose money. And so does the platform getting "gimped". So why didn't Sega say "We'll pay you a lot extra for this much better version".
It's not like MS would have cut off ID, that was their bread and butter at the time.
The same holds true today: MS could have insisted on the PC getting that much much better version of Watchdogs. Why wouldn't they, if they care enough to have it at all?
I mean, aren't these companies in competition with each other? Or are they just in cahoots, and have this informal understanding of how the market is divided up, trading the security that everyone gets a piece for all out war?
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Bad comparison. Doom was released on the PC in 1993 while released on the Saturn in 1997. That's 4 years. It's a port of the PS1 version of the game. The difference is that ID Software never updated the original version so it's not strange for the Saturn version to look better than the PC.
PC gaming and console gaming are not direct competitors (or at least back then) so I highly doubt a company would insist for a better version of the software.
Microsoft isn't the company that would try to get a developer to make a higher quality game for the PC market. It would be either AMD or Nvidia to be the platform on what the game/engine is based on. You would see games perform better based on what company paid the most.
However.....most games are developed from top down so PC would most likely always be superior if the PC market was part of the development.
I agree it wouldn't be strange for the Saturn game to look better.
But for some reason, the lead developer, or someone up the chain, thought it looked TOO good. They were ordered to use the worst processors in the system, so it didn't outshine the PC version.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
It's kind of funny to read reviews of games of old games, and see what they thought then.
Twisted Metal Black was lauded as some kind of visual breakthrough in 2001.
Come 2003, and it looks "A bit shit".
I guess after GTA took off, it would, but it's still funny what a difference a year made even back then.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Nintendo welcoming crappy freemium games onto their prestine platform. I don' care if they're retooled, that's just stupid.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Hopefully it's just that, but I think they might just be moving towards a blizzcon type thing, like a Sonycon in the west or something. I hope not, because I like E3, and without Sony it will take a big hit.
Well...they cancelled their PlayStation experience as well this year.
I wonder how many games are in the hopper for Sony in the next two years.....they have Last of Us 2 and I think that's it. All the major studios have recently released games. However, they did do that weird press conference last E3 and I don't believe it was received well.
But I assume Sony will come back in 2020 when they might announce the PS5.
Well... I could be good for MS to have centre stage and if they can back it up with games and announcement..might be awesome.