Wouldn't that be crazy if their shadow drop this year after the Direct was Indy. Unlikely to be sure, but theoretically possible, Shinobi was making release sound very close, and if it began development earlier than we thought (almost immediately after Wolfenstein Youngblood released Summer 2019, instead of Wolfenstein 3 being developed for like 1+ year after Youngblood and then being cancelled/postponed in favor of Indy in 2020 or 2021), a shadowdrop release in January could potentially happen. But if Indy development didn't start until 2020 or early 2021, late 2024 release seems more likely than an early 2024 shadow drop.

We need a poll on what Xbox's Q1 AAA release will be, or if they will fall short of their 1 AAA per quarter goal yet again this year.

I think they could definitely drop one of the 3 AAA's from this upcoming direct in Q1, probably March, but it's probably more likely that we won't see any of the 3 until Q2. 

Hoping for a 80+ tells volumes. I don't think they were the right choice for this franchise.

Well, I don't think Disney had any better options when they made the Indiana Jones deal with Zenimax sometime between 2019 and early 2021. They were kind of desperate to license out their IP after foolishly closing down their own gaming division several years prior. Starting around about 2019 or 2020 we saw Disney chucking out IP licenses left and right to whichever studios made the best offer presumably. 

In an ideal world I'm sure that Disney would have wanted the Indy license to go to Crystal Dynamics or Naughty Dog since both studios already had experience making the style of game that works best for Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider reboot trilogy and Uncharted respectively, but Disney had kind of got burned in their previous Crystal Dynamics Avengers deal when that game flopped hard, and Crystal Dynamics seemed to want to get back to Tomb Raider after taking that Avengers break. Meanwhile Naughty Dog has moved on from Uncharted and seems to only care about TLOU these days, so I doubt they even put in a bid for Indiana Jones when they heard Disney was looking to license it out. Zenimax presumably made the best offer in terms of licensing cost percentages and such out of all of the interested parties for Indiana Jones. 

Is Machine the ideal studio for Indy? Maybe not, they have never made a single 3rd person game, have never made an action-adventure game with puzzle elements incorporated, etc. However, they are a technically proficient studio that has proven capable of pulling off good graphics within the id Tech engine, and they have had some games review well. Assuming they made smart hiring choices for lead and senior positions on Indy early in it's development, preferably some former Naughty Dog or Crystal Dynamics/Eidos devs who worked on Uncharted or Tomb Raider reboot trilogy games previously, they may just be able to pull off a good 80+ or even 85+ Indy game imo. Alot will be clearer once we actually see the game in action next week.

Well, I think I have settled on the specs for my PC upgrade now. Don't have a huge budget, but I think I can manage to pull off:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 4500

RAM: 16 GB DDR4 3600

SSD: 1 TB PCIe Gen 3

GPU: Intel Arc A580

Such a system would be roughly capable of PS5 tier performance (in all areas except for load times), while costing me around $400 since I will be reusing my case and power supply and windows install from my old build. The riskiest part by far is that Intel GPU, Intel is new to the GPU game and have struggled with drivers, struggled with performance on older DirectX 9 games, and struggled with convincing developers to use their DLSS/FSR competitor XeSS, but Intel has been putting in alot of work to fix their driver and DX 9 issues over the last year since they entered the GPU market, and they have the money to be able to afford to drive higher marketshare, which in turn will improve XeSS support for future games. I think going with Intel for my GPU may be worth the risk since the A580, when properly utilized, outperforms every other sub-$200 GPU by quite some considerable margin, the similarly priced Nvidia GeForce 1660 S, 1660ti, 3050 and AMD RX 5600 XT don't even come close to touching it's performance in games where it is properly utilized, you need to pay about $50 more for a RX 6600 to match it while Nvidia's cheapest card that matches or exceeds it is like $90 (Nvidia badly needs to get the 4050 out asap and price it lower than $200). AMD and Nvidia both have really dropped the ball when it comes to low end GPU's in recent generations, just about every GPU both have released in the last 3 years or so has been a $200+ part, they left the sub-$200 market largely uncovered for Intel to swoop in with better performing GPU's than their older generation sub-$200 offerings.

Looking forward to joining the ranks of the PC master race, where multiplayer is free, Steam sales are often and have big discounts, modding is fairly easy, and we get ports of just about every game in existence.

Part of my concerns come from the id Tech engine which I don't think they will be using since it's only for FPS. If they are using another engine that's another hurdle.

Technically only 1, MachineGames have developed the following...

• Wolfenstein: The New Order - 81 Critic Average
• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - 78 Critic Average
• Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus - 87 Critic Average
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood - 67 Critic Average
• Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot - 49 Critic Average

Youngblood was co-developed with Arkane, a spinoff and a co-op title. Cyberpilot was led by Arkane and assisted by MachineGames, a spinoff and a VR title. They both released in the same year and only two years after Wolfenstein 2. I don't think we can hold either of these two games against MachineGames or Arkane, they come across like rushed projects and Zenimax telling them to "go do VR/Co-Op"

Add on them being spinoffs, them being outside of Arkane and MachineGames wheelhouse.

Even The New Order and The Old Blood are generally considered as being underscored by reviewers in the same way Prey was.

Indiana Jones is more back to what MachineGames knows, an action-adventure, single-player only, story focused game.

Also, I'm fairly certain Shinobi is speaking from knowledge, he has industry sources, he works in the industry even, he doesn't tend to leak stuff but when he does he is usually very spot on, he has been teasing Indiana Jones a little bit lately, he knows when it's releasing, he knew it would be at the Direct, he has likely seen it first hand.

I think they can make id tech work for 3rd person, even if they have to customize it first like Tango did when they made their STEM engine, which is an offshoot of id Tech 5. Job listings at Machine at least suggest they may be using it, as id tech experience is listed as a preferred skill on their job postings.

They hit 3/4 last year.

So far it sounds like they have Avowed (AAA), Hellblade II (AAA), Flight Simulator 24 (AAA) and Indiana Jones (AAA).

I don't think they'll be one, Lol.

Q1 seems cursed for Microsoft in terms of AAA releases, Lmao. I do think Hellblade II will be Q2 though, then Flight Sim in Q3, possibly alongside Avowed, then Indiana Jones in Q4. They'll likely only have a smaller project in Q1 but that's only if they manage to shadow drop something at the upcoming Direct.

Not sure why an 80+ is bad, Lol.

The design is being led by the same guy who somehow gave the world an 89 critic score Riddick game, Lol.

They have the most important thing, how to kill Nazis

ID Tech was used for The Evil Within 1, Stem Engine used for Evil Within 2 was adapted from ID Tech. The Void Engine used by Arkane on Dishonoured 2 is a modified version of ID Tech. I don't think going from 1st to 3rd person perspective would be too drastic of a change for an engine Tbh, it's more when it becomes a completely different genre or scale.

But a lot of people are moving to Unreal Engine nowadays cause it's easier.