Tag Archives: Everwild

This is the setting that Forbes (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/07/05/how-can-we-trust-anything-xbox-says-now/) gave me. You see Microsoft (always happy to get slapped around) gets the crooked eye from Forbes. The article ‘How Can We Trust Anything Xbox Says Now?’ late last night (might have been early this morning) and whilst I am always in the mood to slap Microsoft around, I do have an issue with fairness. As far as I feel it, I have decently slapped them silly on more than one occasion. Yet I have a few issues with this article. They aren’t lying, merely focussing on the wrong side of the dice. The dice states ‘six’, but we could assume the setting that ‘one’ fell, because that is what is below ‘six’ I a not telling you that six is the wrong number. But we tend to see the side of the dice that is up. Yet in early life I learned that randomization is an exact science (I couldn’t resist saying this), you see, the internet is full of dice games. And that is where the problem lies. You see a dice, you think a dice, but in automation, there are no dice. It is a random generator (overly simplified stated STATE(RANDOM(1,6)) and that is what you think happens, but if the result depends on settings and we get STATE(RANDOM(WhatWeSayLow, WhatMightBeHigh)) the numbers get fixed and that is what happens in gaming. This is not a gaming setting as Forbes gives us “After the launch of Hi-Fi Rush, Aaron Greenberg, VP of Xbox Games marketing, said: “Hi‑Fi RUSH was a breakout hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release.” The studio, Tango Gameworks, was shut down a year later, and was only saved by a third-party purchase.” You see, there are a few issues with this. The first is that it comes from marketing, a member drenched in wishful thinking (by order of his superior) and ‘advocates’ that setting. Then there is the setting of what happened in that year? Was the market wrong (undecided is a better term) and that gives us two settings that is merely the start. The setting had a future, because a third party scooped in. Then we get “During its FTC trial, Microsoft presented a diagram attempting to prove that it would keep Call of Duty multi-platform, a key point of doubt. The idea was that existing huge franchises like that would stay multi-platform. Some current IPs that Microsoft has bought would be released on other platforms on a case-by-case basis. Then there would be a classification of games, original IPs like Starfield and Avowed, that would stay exclusive to Xbox. While that’s true for those two games so far, this concept has now joined a statement from Phil Spencer: “I do not see sort of red lines in our portfolio that say ‘thou must not.’”” This setting is a little different. We should see a larger setting. Like, Microsoft never expected that its system would become the joke it has become. I merely raise the setting of 3 Sony’s (or 5 Nintendo Switch) to every Xbox series X, and it is about to get worse for Microsoft (Amazon and Tencent will be joining us soon and in bigger numbers). The market didn’t set the premise that some set their sights on. And the spin isn’t what it used to be. It seems to be the setting of the boy who cried console a little too often. And as I see it, the massive mistakes made aren’t small ones. Only last week were we given “Fable 4 will be released in 2026. An Xbox Game Studios update confirmed the game needed “more time,” pushing it back from its original 2025 launch window.” As such this game is now up to 18 months away. And the world is changing and Microsoft needs every penny it can get. You do remember that they bought $100 billion in IP and the return on investment doesn’t seem to be coming (at present). Now consider the setting that EA, Ubisoft and Bethesda all have shifted timelines and the larger IP deliverers now need a year more and that has got to hurt the Microsoft stage. It doesn’t matter what Game pass does. When the games aren’t coming you get the setting of a courtesan that forgot that it was the maids night out and all her laundry is still out to dry. That might seem like weekend lost, but Microsoft is looking to a lull of 52 weekends in a row. In the meantime Nintendo and Sony are making headway in games and the Microsoft gamers are feeling the pinch. A thought for Microsoft is to offer its population the series Halo and Fallout as free downloads, which might lessen the pressure (a simple but not essentially effective deal) as I see it, these two could lessen the pressure by an expected 16%-20% (up to two months) and it could be spread to one episode a week 8 for fallout and 17 for HALO, it wasn’t difficult, but it is a first thought. It might result in additional sales. Perhaps someone already mentioned it to Phileas Foggy Spencer, he can adjust even more red lines. 

So whilst Forbes is telling us no porkies, the article is missing a few items like time lines and as such the marketing impact. As Status Quo gave us in 1988 burning bridges is a state where actions that make it impossible to return to a previous state of a relationship. At least that was what I got out of it and it still largely applies. The consumer is a fickle beast and it adheres what tantalizes it and that is where the media tends to find its digital dollars. Cyberpunk got that slapped on its chest by adhering to the media in stead of telling everyone that the game will be ready when it is ready. Ubisoft got that with the first Watchdogs and the examples are legion (intended pun). What is on Microsoft that they didn’t have a stronger push for more games. Game pass is only good to a certain degree and when EA, Ubisoft and Bethesda lack releases, the console gets to be a pretty boring place. Microsoft is finding that out the harder way. And still the mismanagement issues do not stop (read: fuck ups) as we are also given “Now, in this latest story, reports have emerged that Phil Spencer “couldn’t stop playing” a new MMORPG codenamed Blackbird from ZeniMax’s Elder Scrolls Online team and was incredibly impressed with it. That was in March, and three months later, Blackbird was cancelled this past week.” In this the fuck up is plural. When he can’t stop playing a game it should be ready, as such when it gets cancelled three months later the question becomes “What on earth are you playing?” You see, when it is an MMORPG it needs to have systems in place and when something like that gets cancelled three months later it can’t have been any good (or so I personally think). 

And in addition we are given “In the same batch of cancellations, we had Everwild, where after a recent visit to Rare, Spencer said: “It’s nice to see the team with Everwild and the progress that they’re making,” Spencer said. “It has been [a while]. And we’ve been able to give those teams time in what they’re doing, which is good, and still have a portfolio like we have.” That was in February, and Everwild was also cancelled last week.” So what was Spencer doing? As such we have several failures and two cancelations and the other big boys are at least a year delayed. So, I see the setting that these people will optionally see their Xbox gathering dust for a year. Not the reason I buy a console. I have both the PS4 and PS5 and at least one of them is working on a daily basis. Even with the delays I see coming. As I personally see it Microsoft has had a bad decade and when you consider that the bad blood started with the Xbox One gathering momentum over the series S and series X there are a few things going wrong and Spencer would do well to nip this in its tracks (it is too late to nip it in the butt). I cannot see the setting of “whether Spencer is still the best choice to lead this ship”, I would need more reliable data to support that setting and lets face it, it is more than marketing. There is a failure on several levels and as Microsoft is seemingly losing more and more media friends their bad settings will merely continue at present.

So I see that the waves are against Microsoft, but the need to slap them shouldn’t overwhelm warning of ‘needless-slapping’ Microsoft. I don’t think I did that and in this day and age, your console is as much as you can get as the America administration are throwing entertainment in America in a messy situation, that being said, Microsoft is global so as I see it all countries (except Japan) can learn from this. As I see it, Microsoft needs to look at the bridge they burned and consider what can be fixed and what cannot. There is no guarantee that these bridges could be fixed, as their population are consumers, yet when they say “yeah sure okay”, your population is about to go somewhere else and that will be (as I personally see it) the end of Microsoft gaming. 

I might not be a Microsoft fan, but Microsoft pushed Sony to create the PS3 and PS4, when Xbox falls away, I will fear for the setting that PS6 could bring and I like the path PS3, PS4, and PS5 gaming got me. 

Have a great gaming day today