Yeah, I saw Matty mention this in his video yesterday :(

Gonna make it short guess people must be tired of our discussion:

1 Elden Ring was just an example that investing in Japanese studios is not done just for the Japanes market. Demon souls was also a niche game that was the start of an insane huge franchise.

2 People barely got an xbox for the Japanese content but they did for the X360 and you could attract an audience for the series/Gamepass if you invest.

3) Playstation is hardly dominant in Japan, software sales are abysmal and it is basically Switch that dominates but Sony keeps investing because they know their is an audience in the West that they can attract. 

4) About the last part, back in the day a ton of crunchyroll fans did not enjoy Netflix because it was basically only Western Hollywood crap but because Netflix invested they attracted globally a lot of fans.

Because it is Xbox, they said a lot and especially said 'it will be better later' it is a recurring theme. The fact that Sony/Nintendo have conferences during the year and announce a ton that releases soon why MS basically has their E3/Summer conference only shows their is not much going on for the near future. This in combination with taking a long time to fix Halo Infinite issues ..... Well ofcourse people become vocal. Kotaku made the mistake to launch this article now. Atleast wait till the conference is over and see what they have to offer this year.

Fair enough. But, many forget that we're only now getting to the time where the studios they've acquired are getting their games ready for release. Microsoft only started their spending spree in 2018 and that was with 4 original studios in Obsidian, Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, and inXile, whereas the other 2 purchases were partner studios like Playground Games and Undead Labs. 4 years is usually not enough time for a AAA game these days. I mean, it'll have taken Nintendo 6 years to make a sequel to Breath of the Wild, and that's with an asset and engine flip and it took Guerrilla Games 5 years to make a sequel to Horizon, which the first Horizon took 7 years to make, and many were expecting Microsoft to be busting out games in even less time than that and half of that development time was during a pandemic??? Those vocal people don't really consider anything outside of their own bias. 

I'm personally not expecting much for the remainder of 2022. Couple surprises like Pentiment, Forza Motorsport, or that Gears Collection will be nice for sure for 2022, but I won't be surprised if 90% of announcements are 2023. 2023 can very well be that shotgun blast to the chest of 5 years worth of buildup. 

you cheeky fucker, this is almost hype worthy

Anyone going to check out the new Fracture event?

Tbh, the KOTOR Remake being handled by Aspyr and now Saber, doesn't inspire me with great confidence lol. Aspyr has done nothing substantial but port old games and Saber has for the most part just ported games as well or co-developed games with the occasional original IP that are.....okay at best. World War Z and Evil Dead: The Game are Sabers actual creations with co-developed games like Quake Champions or Killing Floor 2 that are very, meh.

It's a very real possibility that the game turns out to be crap or middling. I certainly hope not by any means as KOTOR is one of my favorite games ever, but, seeing the developers doesn't make it look very promising. For all we know, Microsoft had seen what Aspyr had worked on already or heard what their plan was and didn't like it at all.

I'm personally not a huge Gears fan. I remember enjoying the original trilogy, but it wasn't really my thing. That being said, Gears is still a core Xbox franchise. I would love if The Coalition worked on other projects, like their rumored new IP, alongside Gears 6 because they're a very talented studio, but you gotta keep the Xbox franchises going. Even if that meant a soft reboot at some point.

It would be like telling Square to stop making Final Fantasy games or Game Freak to stop making Pokémon games lol

Hmm, that's a good point. I do wonder where could they actually take the Gears franchise that would make the IP feel new and refreshing again? Maybe take the same premise and setting and just put it into an actual FPS  

I reeeeeeally liked Gears Tactics. Idk how many else did, but it does show that Gears can be taken in different directions if Coalition wanted to try new things than what Gears has traditionally been. I do know that the Hivebusters DLC for Gears 5 was very widely praised, so the studio could really be hitting their stride. 

I say end Gears after 6, or at least this current trilogy. And either soft reboot it, or focus on something else. Coalition is way too talented to only be working on one IP. I think that's the issue for me. If they were doing at least two it wouldn't be that big of an issue.