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Forums - Microsoft - Xbox Empire - New thread up soon!

GTAexpert on 24 December 2014
shikamaru317 said:
GTAexpert said:
Shika if you need to play Japanese games without having a PS4 a PS3 would be nice option too. PlayStation consoles are a requirement to havea variety of Japanese games and you would need to get one Shika, unless you think Japanese games aren't worth buying a console for.

I plan to get a PS3 as soon as I can find one for $100 or less (refurbished or new), and I hope to get a Wii U, PS4, 3DS,and maybe even a Vita or Vita TV eventually. I'm just disappointed that Xbox One is recieving so little Japanese support, especially after Phil promised Japanese support last year, which was the final deciding factor in my decision to buy an Xbox One instead of upgrading my PC (even PC is getting more Japanese games than Xbox One is). I know I'm not the only one dissapointed by it either, I've talked to alot of fans of Japanese fans who bought 360 last gen who are dissapointed by Phil's lack of Japanese support so far, including several others here in this thread.

I just hope he comes through for us at E3 and TGS this year, at the very least with some new Japanese multiplat announcements. I don't really need Japanese exclusives, I just want more Japanese series to go multiplat, particularly JRPG series such as Tales. With the reduced porting costs between PS4 and Xbox One compared to PS3 and 360 due to the similarities in architecture, I feel like Japanese devs should be going multiplat for increased sales of their games in the west. If Phil isn't willing to buy Japanese exclusives (which as Seece said might be a waste of money), I feel like he should at least be offering some kind of program to incentivize Japanese devs to go multiplat. 

Tales might go to XB1 once it comes to current-gen, till then its a waiting game. As for $100 PS3, I doubt you'll ever be able to get a PS3 for that cheap new. You should bite at the current-price, you'll never have a shortage of Japanese games even though you might have a shortage of money



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gooch_destroyer on 24 December 2014
shikamaru317 said:
gooch_destroyer said:

Vita sounds nice too.

I actually just edited Vita and 3DS into that post xD I dream of owning all of the 8th gen platforms, making that a reality is a bit harder though. 


Welp. Nevermind. lol



MoHasanie on 24 December 2014
shikamaru317 said:
Seece said:

What's the point for such little pay off? Even with Japanese exclusives WiiU and PS4 are gonna sell half of what their predecessors will. You have to face the facts, the Japanese home console is dying rapidly and Xbox isn't popular over there anyway, it's a waste of time and money for Microsfoft.

The payoff is the ability to sell you console to the several million Western fans of Japanese games. You can't sell your console to westerners who like Japanese games if you have far less of them than your chief competitor. 360 sold to over 3m western fans of Japanese games, if Phil continues this current level of Japanese support he'll not only lose about 1.5m of the people who bought 360 in Japan, but also about 2m of the 3m western fans of Japanese games who bought 360. 3.5m may not sound like alot compared to the fact that Xbox One will likely sell over 60m lifetime with or without Japanese support, but those 3.5m would also account for over 30 million games sold (Xbox has an attach ratio of over 10). That's when the losses start to look pretty significant imo. 

There aren't that many Western fans of Japanese games. If there were then many more Japanese games would get localized. 



    

NNID: FrequentFlyer54

Linchpin on 24 December 2014
shikamaru317 said:

There are that many or else games like FF13 and RE5 wouldn't have sold 2m and 3m copies on 360 in the west, it's just that not all of them like the more niche Japanese games. Still the number that like the more niche games is fairly significant, Tales of Vesperia sold over 500k on 360 in the west, Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon sold over 600k in the west.

Have you heard anything about Mistwalker working on Blue Dragon 2?



MoHasanie on 24 December 2014
shikamaru317 said:
MoHasanie said:

There aren't that many Western fans of Japanese games. If there were then many more Japanese games would get localized. 

There are that many or else games like FF13 and RE5 wouldn't have sold 2m and 3m copies on 360 in the west, it's just that not all of them like the more niche Japanese games. Still the number that like the more niche games is fairly significant, Tales of Vesperia sold over 500k on 360 in the west, Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon sold over 600k in the west.

FF and RE are the big Japanese games though. The other ones don't sell that well. 

And 500k and 600k are not very good sales. Its just not worth the effort and cost to make an exclusive Japanese game that ends up only selling 500k. MS wouldn't be happy with 500k sales either.  



    

NNID: FrequentFlyer54

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Samus Aran on 24 December 2014
MoHasanie said:
shikamaru317 said:
MoHasanie said:

There aren't that many Western fans of Japanese games. If there were then many more Japanese games would get localized. 

There are that many or else games like FF13 and RE5 wouldn't have sold 2m and 3m copies on 360 in the west, it's just that not all of them like the more niche Japanese games. Still the number that like the more niche games is fairly significant, Tales of Vesperia sold over 500k on 360 in the west, Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon sold over 600k in the west.

FF and RE are the big Japanese games though. The other ones don't sell that well. 

And 500k and 600k are not very good sales. Its just not worth the effort and cost to make an exclusive Japanese game that ends up only selling 500k. MS wouldn't be happy with 500k sales either.  

A certain character in your avatar is in a big Japanese franchise. ;) 



darkenergy on 24 December 2014

Rare’s Next Xbox One AAA Game Will have “Quadrupeds;” Unreal Engine 4 Confirmed and More

by Giuseppe Nelva (2 hours ago) 5 @abriael

XBOX ONERUMORS

We know that Rare is working on at least a new game, that they recently pitched to Phil Spencer, and the historical developer recently published a batch of career opportunity ads, going on a veritable hiring spree.

The first ad, seeking an Animator, mentions that the game will be an AAA experience and will make use of motion capture. There’s also a quite juicy detail:

High quality animation skills that include experience in bipedal animation,quadruped and facial animation.

I don’t know about you, but the mention of quadrupeds definitely evokes a certain game by Rare. Of course it’s not a given, but…

Two ads, for a Technical Animator and a World Artist, confirm the use of Unreal Engine 4. Previous ads weren’t as specific, mentioning experience with Unreal “or equivalent,” but these nail it down, explaining explicitly that the two candidates will use Epic’s popular engine.

Push the limits of what is capable in Unreal and constantly strive to find better solutions.

Work with the discipline lead to deliver content in UE4

The World Artist ad also mentions the use of outsourced art assets.

A Concept Artist ad explicitly specifies that the game is going to be for Xbox One.

An ad seeking an Engineer mentions “secure and scalable web services” and “reliable high-traffic web application to support console and multi-screen end points.” It also confirms the use of Microsoft’s cloud in some form:

Experience developing, deploying and supporting applications on the Microsoft Azure platform.

An ad for an Engine Programmer confirms the fact that Rare is interested in games provided as a service, constantly updated:

The future of games development is building games that can be continually updated and delivered as a service. Rare is seeking an experienced and forward-thinking programmer who will help it to engineer scalable, high-performance games that take advantage of the flexibility this future holds.

It also mentions “development of an online multiplayer game at scale,” among the required expertise points. Unreal Engine and Xbox One/Xbox Live experience is also mentioned.

An Audio Software Engineer ad mentions the use of an in-house engine for sound and the audio middleware Wwise by Audiokinetic.

It worth mentioning that not all the ads are necessarily related to the same game, so it’s very possible that the studio (which counts about 200 developers) is working on multiple experiences. For example, they may very well be working on a single player experience and an online game at the same time, even if we have no way to know for sure.

Phil Spencer mentioned that the game he saw was “a uniquely Rare game.” It’ll be interesting to see what he means, but I’m definitely keeping my fingers crossed.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/12/24/rares-next-xbox-one-aaa-game-will-have-quadrupeds-unreal-engine-4-confirmed-and-more/



Proud to be a Californian.

SuperShrooms on 24 December 2014
Versus_Evil said:
Ryuu96 said:
 7h7 hours ago

Will there be anything noteworthy concerning the Xbox One at the Windows 10 event taking place on January 21?

I think what we will show will be interesting to both Windows and XBOX gamers.

-

Calling it now, cross platform play and they'll announce cross platform play titles.


Cross platform play? You mean like, PC games on Xbox One?? :O or do you mean being able to play online with PC gamers playing the same game?




SuperShrooms on 24 December 2014

Merry Christmas fellow Xbox gamers! :D




Jadedx on 24 December 2014
darkenergy said:
Rare’s Next Xbox One AAA Game Will have “Quadrupeds;” Unreal Engine 4 Confirmed and More

by Giuseppe Nelva (2 hours ago) 5 @abriael

XBOX ONERUMORS

We know that Rare is working on at least a new game, that they recently pitched to Phil Spencer, and the historical developer recently published a batch of career opportunity ads, going on a veritable hiring spree.

The first ad, seeking an Animator, mentions that the game will be an AAA experience and will make use of motion capture. There’s also a quite juicy detail:

High quality animation skills that include experience in bipedal animation,quadruped and facial animation.

I don’t know about you, but the mention of quadrupeds definitely evokes a certain game by Rare. Of course it’s not a given, but…

Two ads, for a Technical Animator and a World Artist, confirm the use of Unreal Engine 4. Previous ads weren’t as specific, mentioning experience with Unreal “or equivalent,” but these nail it down, explaining explicitly that the two candidates will use Epic’s popular engine.

Push the limits of what is capable in Unreal and constantly strive to find better solutions.

Work with the discipline lead to deliver content in UE4

The World Artist ad also mentions the use of outsourced art assets.

A Concept Artist ad explicitly specifies that the game is going to be for Xbox One.

An ad seeking an Engineer mentions “secure and scalable web services” and “reliable high-traffic web application to support console and multi-screen end points.” It also confirms the use of Microsoft’s cloud in some form:

Experience developing, deploying and supporting applications on the Microsoft Azure platform.

An ad for an Engine Programmer confirms the fact that Rare is interested in games provided as a service, constantly updated:

The future of games development is building games that can be continually updated and delivered as a service. Rare is seeking an experienced and forward-thinking programmer who will help it to engineer scalable, high-performance games that take advantage of the flexibility this future holds.

It also mentions “development of an online multiplayer game at scale,” among the required expertise points. Unreal Engine and Xbox One/Xbox Live experience is also mentioned.

An Audio Software Engineer ad mentions the use of an in-house engine for sound and the audio middleware Wwise by Audiokinetic.

It worth mentioning that not all the ads are necessarily related to the same game, so it’s very possible that the studio (which counts about 200 developers) is working on multiple experiences. For example, they may very well be working on a single player experience and an online game at the same time, even if we have no way to know for sure.

Phil Spencer mentioned that the game he saw was “a uniquely Rare game.” It’ll be interesting to see what he means, but I’m definitely keeping my fingers crossed.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/12/24/rares-next-xbox-one-aaa-game-will-have-quadrupeds-unreal-engine-4-confirmed-and-more/

Best news there is Unreal Engine 4. Rare has extremely talented graphics devs, but their problem is that they have been using the same old re-purposed engine since the early xbox days if not earlier.