Destructoid Checkpoint: The lines are being drawn

The war for the next generation is kicking off earlier than I would have thought. Despite hardware prices doing insane things, it’s clear that Microsoft and Sony are both looking at the maps from the current war and deciding what fronts to shore up and what to abandon. 

Sony's biggest weakness might be its history of winning, and Xbox’s biggest strength might be that it is sick of losing. Are we witnessing the opening shots of the battle for the next generation of gamer dollars already?

Project Helix

Last week, we talked about the Xbox situation and how the change in management was shocking, but maybe not all that surprising when you spend your entire product life coming third in the market, including blowing the generation where you had a one-year lead. 

It’s a bit like reading tea leaves, or getting grimy for some scrying, but we can perhaps look at the new CEO, Asha Sharma, announcing Project Helix, which basically confirms that there will be next-generation Xbox hardware—an indicator of what senior management was unhappy about.

I think it should be obvious that Xbox lost control of its message toward the end of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond’s time, so coming out and instantly announcing that, yeah, there will be a new console is a smart play when a huge portion of your online fanbase was pushing the rumor that you were going to abandon the market. 

With Project Helix, they also instantly set the boundaries that the new hardware will play both console and PC games. What does that really mean? Nothing. It could just be clever wording, it could mean that the console will actually run the PC build, it could mean that the architecture will basically be identical to one and you can run any PC game on it. We have no idea right now. 

There is also a promise that Project Helix will “lead in performance,” which is a nod to the die-hard brand warriors who always need to believe that they are buying the best, but once again means absolutely nothing when you have no specs, your competition has no specs, and hardware prices are going insane. 

The thing is, none of this NEEDS to mean anything, nor should it. This is merely the start of simplifying and focusing the messaging that has gone awry for Microsoft, particularly Xbox. Itis reminding us that it's in the business of making games, and it wants us to buy a big lump of hardware to play them on. They’ll stay in the space because they understand that fans place value on the hardware and enjoy the history of it, the memories of it. It matters to fans, and they won’t just walk away.

It’s confident and assured messaging to start the tenure of a new CEO that the internet is doubtful about, which is the best way to go. Now they just need to worry about the overinterpretation of said message and that they may have fired the starting gun on the next generation a little too early, with not much else to show for a while. 

PlayStation appears to be rethinking PC

Reports surfaced this week that PlayStation is no longer eager to move big single-player titles over to PC. It looks like the juice just may not be worth the squeeze, as low sales figures and worries about brand dilution have led to a rethink of their current policy.

It seems that games with multiplayer components will still make their way over, but dedicated single-player experiences will not. Now, it’s easy to see what the above two concerns really matter, but you could also argue that the previous news about Project Helix playing PC games is part of the issue.

Would Sony have been 100% sure that Xbox was moving into a hybrid hardware space next generation? Nope. But they would have been 99% of the way there, and I think we can all agree it was a logical move for Microsoft. 

In my opinion, it has not been a great generation for Sony, culturally. Yes, they have massive outsolf the Xbox, and I am unsure they really consider Nintendo to be a rival, given the two float in very different markets. Sony will likely worry about Nintendo a lot more if they ever try to get back into handhelds, but until then, they don’t really seem to be too willing to tangle with King Mario. 

Where Sony has messed up this generation is the poor direction around live service games, bad investments like Bungie (more on them later), a lack of any new cultural juggernaut releases beyond mere sequels or tie-ins, and seemingly just surviving on inertia. It has not been an exciting generation to be a Sony fan, in my honest opinion. 

Now, part of this is because AAA gaming is going through its worst era in a while. Layoffs, abandoned projects, garbage releases, and generally being distracted by trying to build IP instead of games have sucked the joy out of the industry. Meanwhile, the indie scene is absolutely thriving, producing banger after banger. Is that Sony’s fault? Well, as one of the most powerful entities in the space, yeah, they gotta eat some responsibility here.  

Walking away from PC releases doesn’t make me happy, as I like it when as many people as possible can play games, but I understand that Sony will likely need to make some unpopular decisions as they redraw their plans for the next generation. 

Bungie, you gotta be kidding me

Bungie has reportedly asked reviewers not to publish any finished reviews of Marathon until later in the month. This is despite the fact that the game has launched and costs money. Call me old-fashioned, but I think reviews are there to help people out before they part with their hard-earned cash, and if a piece of content in a game was so vital to the finished product that it likely should have been included in that same game from launch. 

Reviews need to be reflective of what the product is on launch day, not what you hope it will be after an update, DLC, or patch. This feels like the last picture in the meme of Bungie applying their clown makeup, frankly. 

I will also be a little embarrassed if any reviewer or outlet agrees to do this, as it is eschewing the concept of consumer protection, which reviews are meant to be a foundational aspect of, just to curry favor with a company. 

The issue here is that Bungie has one single model now, and that model is stretching across Destiny and Marathon, and having a detrimental effect on both. Seasonal content is drip-fed to keep engagement numbers up while an overpriced MTX shop tries to ring yet more cash out of the playerbase.

I say, launch the review and let the chips land where they may. And yes, the argument can be made that this is just a request, but the simple fact is that this is a question that never should have been asked.

What’s happening, Destructoid?

Nobody wants Slay The Spire 2 to release and not talk about it, so Bhernardo Viana had a chat with the developers - ““We’re microtransaction haters,” Casey Yano, STS developer and co-founder of Mega Crit, told Destructoid, adding that, still, “a lot of our players threaten to buy all and any cosmetics we may ever release.”

Andrej Barovic jumped back into CS:GO. It was familiar, and maybe that’s what makes it all so interesting. - “The jump between engines preserved most of what made CS:GO, well, CS:GO. The animations, the shooting, and the spray patterns all remained in place, and even when there were alterations, they were so slight that we could barely notice. And that only became more apparent when I returned to the old game to check out what it was that the new one was missing.”

Drew Kopp explores an interesting fan theory around the Winds and Waves starters - “Browt, Pombon, and Gecqua are rapidly becoming one of Pokémon’s most popular starter trios. Fans adore the Bean Chick, Puppy, and Water Gecko Pokémon’s designs, and many can’t help but wonder what their final evolutions might look like. If a fan theory is true, they might be some of the coolest in Pokémon history.”

And that’s it for this week!