Games Inbox: Is a portable Xbox a good idea?

Christmas present
I hadn’t occurred to me that the Xbox portable might be something that is coming out this gen, perhaps soon. I think it would be a good idea to have it come out this year, since clearly not many people are interested in the Xbox Series X/S. I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen though, as they announced the all-digital Xbox Series X already and that seems to be their new hardware for Christmas.

It’s definitely a good idea for next gen though, I imagine their only concern is that more macho Xbox owners aren’t going to want a little portable. But then there have always been rumours of a home version as well and that’s easy to imagine given how much Microsoft likes different models being out at the same time.

I definitely like the return of the blades though. I never understood why they got rid of those, as they were so distinctive. More importantly, the Xbox dashboard has been awful ever since.
Miller

Kindly Miquella
Sidestepping the argument over difficulty for a moment, I will say that Shadow Of Erdtree is one fine piece of DLC. It’s huge, with lots of new features, but it also does a great job of making you remember what it was like to play the original game for the first time – which you loose sight of after a few New Game+ runs.

Even some of the minor optional stuff is great. Fog Rift Catacombs is one of the best of those mini-dungeons in the whole game and there’s lots of optional bosses (no spoilers) that are just as good as the main ones.

Yes, it’s hard, and the story is very difficult to follow, but I’m not sure what else you would really expect. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys the main game.
Bowie

Losing hope
I’m still surprised that after all these years we’ve never had a Soul Reaver remake or even a remaster. Maybe it was just me, but I thought the games were pretty massive back in the day. At least around my parts, it was discussed as the PlayStation equivalent of Zelda, especially the second. It wasn’t really very similar, but I think because they were both action adventure puzzlers that had a lot more gong on than other similar games.

I’m beginning to worry it’s simply getting too old now for them to bother with, but if they are planning anything it’s the 25th anniversary of the first game this year (on August 16, to be precise). If I was them, I’d skip straight ahead to remaking the sequel but I’ve got a nasty feeling they’re just never going to bother.
Austin

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For the love of the game
Love the preview of Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess, which I admit I forgot they even announced. I give a lot of kudos to Capcom for doing something out there, that they obviously know isn’t going to sell. If only more publishers were into making games just for the art of it, instead of how many microtransactions you can jam into it.

I would guess it’s a big moral booster for developers they want to keep motivated too, instead of just having them work on endless Resident Evil sequels, year on year. That just seems like good business to me but I’m sure the EAs and Activisions of this world would just see it as a sign of weakness and a waste of money.
Cankle

Ring of power
I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer but I really can’t see an Elden Ring TV show working. It would cost a fortune to make it look like the game – at least as expensive as Lord of the Rings show on Amazon and yet far fewer people will have heard of it. Even fewer people will know the basics of the plot, which is one of the reasons why companies like to keep reusing the same franchises again and again.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see it work, but you are going to need a whole crew working at the absolute top of their game to get there and I’m not even sure George R. R. Martin has it in him anymore, let alone anyone else.

I want to see it though, just to know whether they show the protagonist fighting and losing against bosses multiple times, before giving in and cheesing it with some overpowered co-operators. You know, to make it as authentic as possible.
Korey

Cinematic universe
I know GC are big DC Comics fans so I’m sure they’ve seen the leaked publicity photos of the new Superman film, which, in my opinion, look really great. I love the cape and I’m certain GC will, like me, agree that he should be wearing the red shorts on the outside of his outfit.

Which leads me to my Inbox question: are we going to see a new Superman game? There’s been rumours of Rocksteady wanting to do one for years, but the last one is still Superman Returns in 2006. When James Gunn first announced taking over he talked about games as well, but I don’t think he mentioned any by name.

There’s the Wonder Woman game but that was announced before Gunn started and I don’t think there’s any plans for a new movie anyway. Would love this to be an excuse to get regular games coming out for all big, and some small, characters but the lack of word is already a bit worrying.
Jawknuckle

GC: We are firm proponents of undies on the outside. We have a few minor nitpicks about the outfit but overall we’re very encouraged so far, and we’re not even big James Gunn fans.

Just in time
I find it hard to agree with the idea that the current generation of consoles came too soon. After all, they’ve both sold millions of units and I never once regretted buying mine.

The old devices were showing their age with slow hard disks that were essentially out of date at launch and low memory that meant the gap in performance between console and PC was getting larger. Cyberpunk 2077 is the obvious example, where this had become an issue, but even smaller games like Planet Coaster had to have quite a small park size limit to run on last gen. Let’s face it, loading times last gen were a joke, meaning there was nothing fast about fast travel in a game.

But if I accept for a moment that the graphics jump has come too soon, resulting in a sharp increase in dev cost, then should the standard for this gen have been the Xbox Series S? A lower jump in graphics would have lowered that increase in dev costs while fixing the last gens biggest issues. The devices could have all been £100 cheaper too.

Personally I’m quite happy with the devices that got released.
Tim

Infinite generation
RE: Sony sticking with PlayStation 4 and not releasing PlayStation 5. Sony has stuck with the PlayStation 4. We’re only now in the fading embers of an industry wide extended cross-gen period. Major first party releases were still being released on PlayStation 4, recently with God Of War Ragnarök. Here’s Jim Ryan’s words from a Washington Post interview a couple of months before the PlayStation 5 released:

‘The PS4 community will continue to be incredibly important to us for three or four years,’ and that while ‘many will transition to PS5 […] tens of millions will still be engaged with the PS4.’

This cross-gen stance has received a lot of backlash though. The PlayStation 5 reveal about believing in generations, as a riposte to Xbox’s approach of no Xbox Series X/S exclusives for the first two years was widely applauded.

But for those who missed Sony’s memo about cross-gen support viewed that statement now as a lie. The chorus of voices saying they’ve no need to get a PlayStation 5 or for Sony to stop making cross gen games that don’t take advantage of the new hardware has been loud. The more-powerful-than-a-PlayStation 4 Xbox Series S with an SSD has been pilloried by devs and customers alike for holding back gaming.

Even as a measure to control budgets sticking with PlayStation 4 is flawed as they were already very high on the PlayStation 4 at around $220 million for the The Last Of Us Part 2, as seen form the FTC leaks during the Microsoft case.

But a game is as expensive as you want it be and I think where the industry could learn from Nintendo is not in releasing less powerful hardware but having a more balanced suite of budgeted games. A few less Spider-Men and a few more Astro Bots. I personally would be much more excited by the latter.
Simundo

Inbox also-rans
I quite like the prospect of an Elden Ring TV show, as long as they maintain that beautiful, decayed feel of all of From’s stuff and have characters laugh like utter weirdos. Of course we’ll have to read the IMDb entries to fully understand the plot.
Euclidian Boxes

What worries me about the nine Assassin’s Creed games is when are they coming out? It’s not going to be one of year, so what is that? Two? Three? Too much of an okay thing is much too much.
Lumpfish

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