4529

I wish I had an XBox One just for Zoo Tycoon, Kinect Sports, and better looking Madden/EA Hockey.

4530

It’s not clear from the article, but what constitutes a “premium racecar” to Eurogamer? Forza has always kept the high-end supercars and pro racing cars locked away until the player has driven a few lower-end series. If you don’t count the free/promo/preorder cars that Forza 3 onwards has launched with, players didn’t get to drive specc’ed racecars for hours. That’s not a new thing.

4531

When you’ve already paid £429.99 for a new console, £44.99 for the game and maybe even £349.99 for the only steering wheel that the game supports at launch, such tricks appear a little unsavoury, and in Forza 5, mechanics greedily smuggled from free-to-play games trample over the elegant RPG elements the series once embraced so effectively.
That’s my worry in a nutshell. I don’t object to in-app purchases so long as they don’t impact game design. Given a choice though, I’ll always prefer a game that doesn’t contain them. In this case, considering this first-party flagship title basically sets the tone for the xbone, I’m turned off completely.

4532

Madden looks a bit shit. EA is phoning it in mostly for launch sports games. Check out this NBA comparison, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8OBiMMo7Ao

4533

Why won’t they allow surround sound through the XBox One? Is that a mistake?

I think it’s a limitation of the HDMI passthrough tech they’re using. It seems to be pretty common for lots of devices that theoretically pass through HDMI sound. Not technically insurmountable, but very widespread.

4534

Kotaku describes how to get Surround Sound working for HDMI-pass-through stuff. It’s a bit buried in menus, and it’s still in beta, but it looks like they are working on getting Surround working.

4535

One of the Gran Turismos (I think it was 2), had the perfect balance of unlock/ win a car/ money to buy a new car, as you got better at the game ratio. Having a “good” car at the start or close to the start of that game would have absolutely ruined it. I may have to go back and replay that from the start again, that was a great gaming experience. I actually “cared”, and took time to tune my honda civic so I could get a good enough time to win a car, sell it, and buy a slightly better one I could start over again on. Magic.

It’s one of the things that every car game since (that I’ve played) has lacked for me, a well organized progression that really made sense to your skill level/hours with the game. That is one of those things that is very difficult to produce, and so my hat is off to people when they actually pull it off.

As far as the Xbox 1 stuff goes…I keep doing one of those cartoon ‘what the’ head shakes to try and bring myself out of it being in the era of an xbox 360 release… Not meaning to bash anyone that frequents these boards and works for MS, but what is it about that company that always seems to be so insular and out of touch when in development? I’d hazard a guess it’s the sheer behemoth size and the village like (prisoner reference) “community” that Microsoft has (complete with specific transportation for villagers). Bonus points for anyone that actually knows who Patrick McGoohan is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14eUKogPF7s

TLDR: Fuck the entitlement/right now/me generation (mandatory soap boxing for why games suck now scapegoat)

4536

I think that Forza 5 will feel more grindy due to the lack of cars and tracks. Having to do races over and over is cool but not when its with the same few cars and on the same few tracks over and over. Thats what willm ake it feel like a grind.

Forza 4 got a lot of stick based on not enough tracks and repeat tracks yet 5 has half the amount of tracks.

My initial worry is the new gen consoles will all be just about graphical updates and not new and different content. I am sure down the line it will be but for now just graphics and gimmicks.

I really like Forza but have hung on to my PS3 in the hope GT6 is the business but we shall see.

4537

Adam Sessler’s review of Ryse for Rev3 accidentally got published early tonight. He gave it a 2/5.

It also features tons of microtransactions/in-app purchases. It seems the entire first party slate of Xbox One games is full of F2P style monetization strategies. In Crimson Dragon it sounds like you literally hit PvZ2 style progress locks you have to either grind, or pay to get past.

4538

Yeah, so about that surround thing…

Full Dolby Digital audio via digital optical will be added to Xbox One at some point after launch, Microsoft has confirmed.

Xbox director of product planning Albert Penello took to NeoGAF after it emerged Xbox One’s digital optical output only delivers sound in stereo, not a true Dolby Digital 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound signal.

“Dolby Digital is coming post launch,” he said. "This was a SW scheduling issue pure and simple, and I know people are disappointed, but we will have it.

4539

That’s good that it will be there, but it’s a little weird that DTS was higher on the priority list than AC3 which is far more widely used.

4540

So following EA lead Microsoft decided to have micro-transactions in every game, reports on how easy it is to ignore seem to depend on the reviewer and the game , the most egregious is Crimson Dragon, so much that they already announced a balance patch for day one. Sony that avoided that on there lauch games also announce in game credits for GT6 we will see if it just this game or if they follow the trend in the future. This is an very unfortunate trend, but the incentive is very high to do it because it only takes a small amount of users to use that purchases to make the work in implementing it profitable, and is hard to measure how many people avoid the game because of it.

4541

Youtube app is coming day one to the X1. Google and Microsoft are in huge battle with Google not supporting Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 with any of there apps, but X1 gets the youtube before the PS4 were Sony is an actual partner of Google in many android devices, weird.

4542

Yeah in game micro transactions do not need a lot of payers to be successful, Puzzles and Dragons apparently makes 90% of its money from 10% of the buyers.

I really don’t mind micro transactions for skins, looks etc but buying money to buy cars and even upgrade them sucks if it is taken over to multiplayer.

4543

So, “XBOX ONE™; Its like playing games on your mobile*¹² : With Microtransactions!”

¹) Even has the same interface for the 3% who own a Windows Phone
²) Except most modern mobile phones support 1080 :)

4544

Giantbomb look at watching TV with Xbox One.

Not convinced, some of that behavior would drive me batty. Is it a usage/phrasing/pronunciation thing? Will people need to ‘learn’ how to talk to the Xbox One to get it to do what they want when watching TV? Will they even bother trying, or just be dissatisfied from the get go and go back to status quo?

4545

Funny!
I just listened to that part of the Bombcast while walking to work.
Sounds pretty complicated especially having to add channels to your favourites that might otherwise be not understood (example given: ESPN, ESPN Classic).
If you say “ESPN Classic” Xbone will already have switched to “ESPN” as it stopped listening afterwards.
The other example was “TVG” (The Horse racing channel). Xbone will understand “TV”.
Those things need to be idiot-proof or the broad majority of people will not use it apart from freaks like us (which Microsoft is not aiming for this time).

4546

Scott Dobros on xbox live, just putting it out there ; )

Would love some QT3 xbox friends.

4547

Sounds easy to fix. “XBox ESPN classic please”, “XBox ESPN please”… the only problem if any channel have the word “please”.

non related:

4548

Voice recognition isn’t there yet. Not surprising, it’s difficult. I bought a Garmin GPS with voice recognition because driving is a prime example of when your hands (and eyes!) have other priorities. I don’t use it because it almost never recognizes a command in a timely fashion. What I saw in that video was an unresponsive interface that makes frequent errors.