Gamer's Outpost Press (Archived)

by Jason Evangelo

Despite its enormous footprint, Microsoft has always been the underdog in the console space. With Xbox, they had something to prove. With Xbox 360, they challenged the mighty PlayStation brand and emerged mostly victorious. With Xbox One, however, the company has had to self-correct while Sony watched them in their rearview mirror.

The tide might be turning. Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President of Devices and Studios at Microsoft, published a blog post today expressing excitement over the company’s string of exclusives (such as Sunset Overdrive and Halo: The Master Chief Collection) and high-profile releases for Xbox One.

Within the update there’s an underlying message for Sony which seems to say “We’re coming for you.”

One temporary price drop (can they honestly spike it back up to $399 after this?) to $349 and a few compelling bundles later, Microsoft’s Xbox One has outsold Sony’s PlayStation 4 for the past two weeks according to internal Microsoft numbers. Of course we’re not privy to how large that lead was, but Microsoft did say the Xbox One sold three times as many units following its November 2nd price drop.

Mehdi also stated that “more than” 10 million Xbox One consoles have been shipped through to retailers. It’s worth mentioning that it took the Xbox 360 1.5 years to reach the same milestone.

By comparison, Sony shipped through 13.5 million PS4 consoles to consumers by the end of October, and they hit their 10 million milestone at the end of August (again, shipped through to consumers and not merely to retail). They’re still comfortably ahead. But Microsoft is gaining through a combination of aggressive marketing, exclusives, and of course that timely price drop. Regardless of who’s at the top of the podium, Microsoft has done exceptionally well for itself in its first year shepherding the Xbox One, especially when compared to Generation 7 (Xbox 360).

“Almost one year ago, I had the honor of shaking hands with hundreds of fans at our Xbox One launch in New York City,” Medhi writes. “We have listened to your feedback and have worked hard to deliver hundreds of improvements to Xbox One, celebrated the launch of amazing new games, and sought ways to offer more value for you. As we reach this milestone, I remain awestruck by your passion for games and your support of Xbox One. Thank you for an incredible year.”

But as you all know very well, it’s the next two weeks that are crucial for both companies. This week, Microsoft launched the well-received, nostalgic, and valuable Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Halo is their flagship franchise, it’s recognizable, and the disc itself is a ridiculously strong value. Historically it’s the reason Microsoft has found such success in the console business. Though only anecdotal at this point, it seems to be the tipping point many Xbox 360 holdouts were waiting for to jump into the new generation. (I do wish Microsoft would tell us how the white Sunset Overdrive bundle did, as it seemed to disappear quickly…)

Next week, the mighty Grand Theft Auto V hits Xbox One and PS4 with a seriously upgraded graphics engine and a brand new first person view. Sony is offering Rockstar’s open world blockbuster as part of a bundle. That’s the kind of hardware that gets noticed on Black Friday.

Then again, Microsoft has great momentum headed into the holiday season, and they have the price advantage. It will be fascinating to see how it all shakes out.

I know it’s always tempting to get sucked into the notion of a “console war,” (and as press, we absolutely instigate it) and I’ve not been shy about my overall preference for the PlayStation 4 this generation. But milestones like this aren’t just good for headlines, or for Sony and Microsoft, or for their shareholders. They’re good for gamers. The larger the installed base, the more attention publishers, developers, and app creators give to our new boxes, the more competitive the landscape gets, and the more we tend to see price drops, bundles, and features that take full advantage of our hardware.

Tell me, if you’ve yet to upgrade to PS4 or Xbox One, will anything releasing this holiday compel you to take the plunge?

by Chris Reed

For console gamers, the most important difference between the Xbox One, Wii U, and PlayStation 4 is the games. Sure, they differ in CPU and graphical power, but none of that matters unless it’s used to fuel awesome gaming experiences. To find out which console is worth your hard-earned cash, we’re going to look at what exclusive games are in the works for each system. Here are five of the most exciting upcoming Xbox One games you won’t find on any other platform.

Quantum Break
Release Date: Q2 2015

If you’re wondering just how ambitious Xbox One developers are, wonder no more. Quantum Break, by the makers of Max Payne and Alan Wake, is a third-person shooter that’s being made alongside a live-action television series. You’ll play a section of the game, then watch an episode of the show, then lather, rinse, and repeat. Some of the scenes in the episodes presented to you, however, will depend on the choices you make in the game.

While this isn’t the first video game to have a TV show tie-in (Defiance is a current example), the way the two interact here sounds very interesting. Don’t expect innumerable branching pathways, because then they’d have to film an ever-expanding set of alternate scenes. But if this multimedia project coalesces into a powerful whole, it could turn out to be a very interesting project. Look for Quantum Break sometime in the middle of next year.

Halo 5: Guardians
Release Date: Q4 2015

Coming late next year is the next major episode in what is arguably the most beloved first-person shooter series of all time. The Halo franchise is nearly synonymous with Xbox, so Halo 5: Guardians is a huge deal for Microsoft. Developer 343 Industries is taking its time with the game, not rushing to get it out before it’s ready, or to bolster sales of the Xbox One hardware.

This may be why very little has been revealed so far, aside from a pair of cryptic teaser trailers. But based on the way Microsoft is treating this game, all signs point to Halo 5: Guardians as being a very big hit.

Fable Legends
Release Date: (TBA)

Another long-running Xbox exclusive series is Fable. While designer Peter Molyneux has a long history of promising more features than he delivers, his Fable games have always been a lot of fun. Typical to the fantasy genre, in these games you start as a nobody and work your way up to being a major celebrity by doing either heroic or villainous things, depending on the choices you make as you play.

Fable Legends is set in the same fantasy world of Albion, but it’s a different sort of game from its predecessors. Instead of a single-player action role-playing game, the developer calls Legends a “multiplayer online quest adventure game.” To cut through the jargon, four players (or AI-controlled characters) will act as heroes in the game, while a fifth player takes the role of the villain. The villain’s job is to set up the quest, deploy the enemies, and trigger traps as the heroes play. It sounds kind of like a dungeon master in a game of Dungeons & Dragons, which could work out very well on Xbox One.

Scalebound
Release Date: (TBA)

Developed by Platinum Games, the makers of such excellent action games as Bayonetta 2 and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Scalebound looks like a fantasy game of epic proportions. You play as an adventurer who travels to a distant world full of enormous monsters. Luckily for you, you soon befriend a dragon who helps you take on these vicious beasts.

Really, that’s about all we know so far about the game, but the trailer looks suitably grand. If the game is anything like that (or like the excellent titles Platinum has made in the past), it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Crackdown
Release Date: (TBA)

The Crackdown series follows a futuristic cop in a corrupt, open-world city overrun by violent gangs. What’s remarkable about it is how you start out as a pretty normal guy, but thanks to incremental upgrades, by the end of the game you can leap up the sides of skyscrapers and wipe out swarms of bad guys single-handedly.

We haven’t seen much of the third installment (which will not be called Crackdown 3, according to EuroGamer), but we do know that it will offer a cooperative campaign, destructible environments, and will take advantage of the Xbox One’s cloud computing feature. Watch the cinematic trailer to get an idea of what to expect once the game comes out.

by Tom DiChristopher

Activision Blizzard launches the latest expansion to its blockbuster World of Warcraft series this week, but some wonder whether the fantasy role-playing game still has the magic.

World of Warcraft remains the top performing subscription-based online role-playing game, and it’s a huge moneymaker for Blizzard Entertainment. But the decade-old massively multiplayer online title, or MMO, is shedding subscribers as the video game market evolves and some fans lose interest.

“Part of what we’re seeing is the game was so successful for so long. It’s just the natural evolution of the product that the base players will end up declining,” BMO Capital Markets managing director Edward Williams said.

At its peak in 2010, 12.3 million subscribers logged on to role play in the immersive fantasy world populated with elves, trolls and orcs, according to digital research firm SuperData Research.

“We’re in what’s likely to be a pretty significant state of decline,” Williams said. “The overriding direction is going to be down, with exceptions every now and then around product releases, which will reinvigorate the subscriber level.”

Subscriptions are indeed ramping up ahead of the release of Warlords of Draenor, the fifth expansion to the original game launched in 2004, but significantly fewer gamers are paying the $15-per-month subscription since Blizzard last released an expansion in 2012.

At the end of the third quarter, World of Warcraft had more than 7.4 million subscribers, compared with 6.8 million the previous quarter. Following the last expansion in 2012, subscriptions grew to more than 10 million from 9.1 million.

These subscriber spikes are historically short-lived, analysts said.

“Of course more people will sign up this quarter, but I doubt it’s going to last,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. “It will start to fade the next quarter.”

Activision Blizzard did not respond to several requests for comment.

Wedbush projects World of Warcraft will lose about 100,000 subscribers per month through 2015. In a recent research note, Pachter and his team said Blizzard “can stem declines by introducing a new game to keep World of Warcraft faithful engaged.”

For years, many thought a project called “Titan” would be that game, but Blizzard recently announced it was suspending development. At the time, a spokesperson said ” ‘Titan’ just wasn’t the game we wanted to make.”

But the industry also changed while Titan was in development, which may have made a subscription-based MMO seem less profitable, said Joost van Dreunen, founder of SuperData Research.

For one thing, audiences have flocked in recent years to multiplayer online battle arena games, a very different style of game. These “MOBAs” are action-oriented strategy games in which opposing teams attack one another’s bases.

The most-played MOBA is League of Legends, with 67 million monthly users, according to developer Riot Games. About 7.5 million gamers play during peak hours, more than the total number of World of Warcraft subscribers.

Another thing: These games are typically free to play, with developers making money when players buy premium virtual goods and upgrades. League of Legends (made by Riot Games) earned $946 million through October, according to SuperData Research, compared with World of Warcraft’s $728 million haul. That’s particularly important in emerging markets, where subscription costs can be a significant barrier to entry.

SuperData Research expects revenue from free-to-play games to grow nearly 50 percent to $11 billion in 2017. During the same period, it sees pay-to-play sales slipping about 40 percent to $1.7 billion.

Blizzard is expected to launch its own MOBA called Heroes of the Storm, featuring characters from its World of Warcraft franchise next year, and it’s widely expected to be free-to-play.

“It’s a big play for them. It’s also a tough play. How do you break into a market that’s so saturated with League of Legends and Dota?” said van Dreunen, referring to the second most popular MOBA.

Pachter said that only a small minority of League of Legends players are Blizzard fans, but those who are will likely try Heroes of the Storm. Blizzard can attract others by leveraging its experience operating tournaments, he said, adding that top MOBA players could be enticed to switch games with the prospect of big cash prizes.

Blizzard has already had success with free-to-play games. About 20 million people have registered to play its new digital card game, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Launched in March, it has earned $114 million through October, according to SuperData Research.

It’s possible that World of Warcraft will eventually transition to free-to-play, but analysts said Activision Blizzard won’t make that decision soon.

“It’s unlikely we see a dramatic change on the World of Warcraft business model any time soon,” said Williams. “World of Warcraft is unique in terms of its ability to grab a large base of players who are willing to pay a relatively substantial monthly fee.”

by Emanuel Maiberg

Several short snippets of Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer gameplay footage have leaked online, and some fans are worried since they show the player sprinting and aiming down sights, abilities that weren’t included in the early Halo games.

The game’s Executive Producer at developer 343 Industries Josh Holmes took to Twitter to put fans at ease. “No penalty to hip fire in H5, no movement penalty when scoping/zooming, no flinch,” he said. Holmes added that Halo fans should tune in to the proper beta gameplay reveal during HaloFest, a live-stream event the night before Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s release on November 11 for Xbox One.

Viewers will get to see developer interviews, the first footage of Halo 5: Guardians gameplay, and the debut episode of Halo: Nightfall. You can tune in through Twitch, Xbox Live, and Xbox.com.

The Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta will begin December 29 and run through January 18. Owners of the Halo: The Master Chief Collection are guaranteed access to the beta, though it sounds like there might be other ways to get in as well. The beta will focus on four-versus-four arena matches with seven maps, three modes, and 11 weapons.

by Jonathan Leack

The first gameplay ever seen of Halo 5: Guardians has found its way online. Although it isn’t high quality, thanks to being being off-screen footage, it has shown enough to make fans lose their cool.

The video in question (now removed) shows six seconds of Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer gameplay, featuring what appears to be a battle rifle and even an energy blade. What really stands out is the movement and gunplay. The footage clearly shows the player using aim down sight (ADS) to look through a red dot style of sight before taking out an enemy. The player then sprints and jumps down to a lower level.

It’s worth noting that the battle rifle has always had a zoom, although previously it would show a full screen perspective rather than this aim down sight style. It is unconfirmed if other weapons, such as the assault rifle, will have a similar system in place.

What has fans worried is how much it resembles Call of Duty’s formula. Truth is, Halo 4 is by far the most poorly received game by Halo fans. Many felt it lacked the soul of Halo, and took far too many cues from Call of Duty, although it would score very well critically earning an 87 Metascore rating. You wouldn’t expect to see that score if you asked those who spent time playing multiplayer what they though of it, though.

Halo 4 was developer 343 Industries’ first crack at Halo, and would make fans of the franchise lose some of their confidence in its future. While the studio would acknowledge the mixed reception from fans, this brief clip shows that it may not have learned too much (assuming aim down sight is in for all firearms). Halo fans have made it clear that they don’t want sprint or aim down sight.

A teaser trailer for Halo 5: Guardians showed that the game will have powers akin to Mass Effect. An ability where the player smashes hard into the ground causing area of effect damage around him was shown in the trailer, and there are sure to be more usable abilities. Since nothing else has been seen of this, we’ll have to see if it similarly causes uneasiness from fans after this week’s full reveal.

It’s tough to feel out exactly what all this means. I’ve seen a lot of hyperbole from gamers lately, acting like it’s the end of the world when a game is good or great instead of being one of the best titles of all-time. Nonetheless, the Halo franchise is in decline, and nobody wants to see it become irrelevant. Halo 5: Guardians will decide its fate, and that’s the truth. In the meantime, it’s only fair to let 343 do what it feels it needs to do to usher the Halo franchise to the next era. There were five Halo games with no aim down sight, and those served their purpose. It’s not easy to keep an IP moving along into the modern era, so maybe these FPS standards are necessary to keep it alive.

The full gameplay of Halo 5: Guardians will debut this week. A multiplayer beta will become available in December. All Halo: The Master Chief Collection owners will be granted access to the beta.

by Jeff Bakalar

We’re coming up on an entire year since Sony and Microsoft both released their latest video game consoles, the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. That’s a perfect time to reevaluate where each console stands and — more importantly — how their respective game lineups shake out.

When they were first released, we gave the edge to the PS4 over the Xbox One. And at this point in time, the PS4 is still looking good. It continues to improve thanks to regular system firmware updates and a consistent stream of console-exclusive independent games. Exclusive AAA-titles are more infrequent, but the PS4 has some promising titles coming down the pike, including Bloodborne and The Order 1886, both scheduled to arrive in February.

A year ago we recommended holding off on the new-generation gaming systems. The PS3 and the Xbox 360 still present compelling values, but as 2015 progresses, you’ll start to see major titles (such as those listed above) only available on the newest consoles. With that in mind, we now think PS4 and Xbox One are finally ready for your living room.

To be clear: the PS4 and the Xbox One are very closely matched. Both offer a growing library of third-party games — mainstays like the Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and Madden series, as well as newer titles like Destiny. And both double as full-service entertainment systems, with built-in Blu-ray players and streaming services like Netflix, YouTube and Hulu Plus.

But even with Microsoft’s tempting holiday-only price cut on the Xbox One, we’re still partial to the PlayStation 4. Our reasoning is below — along with a few caveats where we’d like to see the PS4 improve.

Editors’ note (November 7, 2014): We’ve reformatted and updated our review of the PS4 so that we can make updates more often and keep up with the constant evolution of the console. As of this update, we’ve also raised the rating of the PS4 from 3.5 to 4 stars. This review includes firmware version 2.01.

by Rashid Sayed

For those of you who are unaware, PlayReady is a content protection solution from Microsoft. The technology enables encryption and Digital Rights Management. The technology was first launched by Microsoft in 2007 and is currently being used in several other services provided by the Redmond based company.

According to a job listing, Sony might be using the technology in all its platforms including the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. Sony are currently looking for a Principal Engineer that has specialization in PlayReady and implement it in multimedia applications across its three consoles.

It seems that this technology will be limited to multimedia such as music and video and most likely won’t make its way across digital games. Having said that, it’s no surprise that Sony may be borrowing technology from its competitor. Microsoft is best at software applications and Xbox is only a small part of their business.

What are your thoughts on this build up? Let us know in the comments section below.

by Bill Bradley

The “Warcraft” movie just leveled up.

Saturday at the BlizzCon gaming convention, the characters for the upcoming movie based on the “World of Warcraft” games were finally announced. Though details were previously being kept under wraps, it was confirmed that the specific characters would be divided between rival armies Alliance and Horde.

The parts announced for Alliance are Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel), King Llane Wrynn (Dominic Cooper), Medivh (Ben Foster), Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), Lady Taria (Ruth Negga) and Garona (Paula Patton), while the Horde will be made up of Durotan (Toby Kebbel), Orgrim (Rob Kazinsky), Blackhand (Clancy Brown) and Gul’Dan (Daniel Wu).

Duncan Jones (“Moon”) is set to direct the film, and below released posters indicate it will hit theaters March 2016.

by Ron Duwell

In an interview with Re/code, Fils-Aime says that Nintendo’s refusal to play by the rules puts them in a position that Microsoft and Sony should be envious of. Why? Because those two have nothing to set each other apart from one another other than their brand names.

“If you look at the other two competitive platforms, fundamentally, what’s the difference. They have a lot of shared content. Look at it from the standpoint of, what don’t they have? They don’t have our games. They don’t have Mario and Zelda. I’d much rather be where Nintendo is, with a differentiated platform, differentiated set-up experiences that we can provide uniquely to the consumer.”

While he wishes more third-party companies would take advantage of the Wii U, he says that sharing too many titles would cause Nintendo to lose its important distinction from its competition.

That’s one way to look at it, and I agree. What is the difference between the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One? Two or three exclusives a year? So far, all the rivalry has really produced is a lot of arguments over resolutions and frame rates. Neither really has a gaping advantage in terms of exclusive games yet, and the Kinect wasn’t as successful as Microsoft had hoped.

If you want to play Nintendo games, you have to buy Nintendo products. Plain and simple. This philosophy has allowed it to make a wonderful social network which connects all of its first-party games together, and it gives it the ability to give benefits to third-party companies who happen to jump aboard. Nintendo also has the ability to lure in new generations of gamers with accessible games and cement a lasting sense of nostalgia that older Nintendo fans like myself now have.

The idea that Nintendo is down and out or should fall in line with the mobile market is silly, and it stems from the naive idea that “if you are not in first place, why even bother?” Not everyone is on top 100 percent of the time, and Nintendo has enough money to weather the storm until it can find a new way to move forward without sacrificing its values.

Good on them, I say.

by Brian Crecente

Earlier this week the Windows PC versions of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Unity, The Crew and Far Cry 4 were no longer being sold through Valve’s Steam distribution service. But this morning they appear to have returned on the U.S. store. However, it’s unclear if the games have returned yet in other regions.

On Wednesday, Ubisoft told PCGames that it was “in discussions with Valve about Assassin’s Creed Unity” on Steam’s store, but offered no clear explanation for why the title nor the other two had been pulled. Today, you can hop onto the site and pre-purchase the new Assassin’s Creed for it’s Nov. 11 release. The Crew and Far Cry 4 are also both available for pre-order. Neither Ubisoft nor Valve responded to us for comment.

This isn’t the first time Ubisoft-published titles have been missing from Steam. In 2012, the PC versions of Assassin’s Creed 3 and Far Cry 3 were slow in coming to Steam in the U.K., despite being available in other regions. Valve and Electronic Arts clashed over how in-game downloadable content was sold the year prior, which led to Crysis 2 being removed from Steam for a while.