#Microsoft Game Studios

[mvfm-25]

" Are you good or evil? " Surge Magazine n04 - Fall, 2004.

[vgprintads]

'Jade Empire'

[XBOX] [TAIWAN] [MAGAZINE] [2005]

"Art director Matt Goldman took inspiration from multiple eras of China's history when designing various aspects of the world, focusing between the Han and Ming dynasties. The environments were modeled on landscape artwork from the Song dynasty, while the color palette drew from the green-hued art of the Tang dynasty. For ancient artifacts based in an ancient civilization, Goldman drew inspiration from bronze artifacts dating from the Shang and Zhou periods. The wild areas were directly inspired by the Huangshan region. Different regions of the game were designed to reflect the differing social classes present in the Jade Empire. In addition to its Chinese inspiration, Goldman drew styling elements for both clothing and scenery from Japan, Thailand, Tibet, the Khmer Empire, and unspecified areas of South and West Asia. The monsters, while taking inspiration from brief descriptions in Asian literature, were mostly original creations for the game's world. Speaking of his experience on the game years later, Goldman described "fond memories" of the Canada-based development team working to create an Asian epic." ~Wikipedia

Source: Soft World Magazine, June 2005 (#193) || Internet Archive; NashG

[whisperingrockandroll]

Raz and Duke Nukem team up and at first Raz is excited to blow shit up with a cool guy but halfway through it becomes an extended therapy session for Duke.

*Da Da Dun Da Da Dun*

Duke: I feel like women like me, but they don't respect me.

*Da Da Dun Da Da Dun*

Raz: Well, do you respect them?

*Da Da Dun Da Da Dun*

Duke: I mean, I like to think so, but I am a playboy, y'know? Haven't had many serious relationships.

Raz: I'm sorry if this is crossing a boundary, but how's your relationship with your mother?

Duke: Oh, just terrible. It's that obvious, huh?

*Uncomfortable Silence*

...

[MEGADETH THEME KICKS IN]

[demifiendrsa]

Publisher Xbox Game Studios and developers Playground Games and Eidos Montreal have delayed Fable from its previously planned 2025 release window to 2026.

“I just want to start with, [we’re] really excited about progress, really excited where Playground are,” head of Xbox Game Studios Craig Duncan said in the latest Official Xbox Podcast. “We previously announced the date for Fable as 2025—we are actually going to give Fable more time and it’s going to ship in 2026 now. While I know that’s not maybe the news people want to hear, what I want to assure people of is that it’s definitely worth the wait.”

Duncan continued, “I have unequivocal confidence in the Playground team. If you think about their history and legacy for Forza Horizon, the last two games—critically acclaimed, award-winning, beautiful, played great. And just what they’re bringing to Fable as a franchise, just think of the visuals of what you expect of Playground Games, plus amazing gameplay, British humor, Playground’s version of Albion—so inspired by what’s gone before with the franchise, but their take. And quite frankly, the most beautifully realized version of Albion you’ve ever seen. So really excited about the plans and really excited about the future and I want the community to understand that we do these things for the best of the games, and the teams, and ultimately that results in the best games, or the best game for the community.”

Fable will be available for Xbox Series and PC.

New pre-alpha footage (from 15:56 to 17:02)

[lumi-klovstad-games]

Hey, 343. We call "expanded universes" that for a reason.

It also hurt for those of us who actually LIKED Fireteam Osiris and saw potential in the characters. Halo 5 sets up a neat "Brothers in Arms" relationship between Chief and Locke like Chief had with Arbiter in 3, maybe even a little bit of Master & Apprentice, with Locke standing to learn a lot in the days and battles to come from the much older and more experienced Master Chief. But then the next game comes and... wait where is everyone? 343 wants me to buy more books?! A lot of fans already had to buy half a library's worth just to grock Halo 5, and here's 343 repeating that mistake again!

The Halo games really have just become a means by which 343 plugs the Halo novels. "There's a book that explains that" is the constant refrain I hear these days. No. I WANT THE GAMES TO EXPLAIN IT. The games are the only thing literally EVERY Halo fan buys. EXPLAIN IT IN THE GAMES.

I will give the audio logs in Infinite SOME credit for answering SOME questions I had, but mostly it was used to introduce irrelevant subplots that actually WOULD be better as a novel. Escharum doing his damnedest to keep the ragtag and ill-fitting family that are the Banished together with the disappearance of his protege Atriox, a warrior who was like a son to him, knowing full well he doesn't have Atriox's charisma and he can't maintain the cult of personality Atriox cultivated at the core of the Banished in the same way? Or a fireteam of Spartans, feeling lost and surviving without any real support, realizing that they'll likely die one way or another, deciding to risk it all on a single desperate all-or-nothing Hail Mary attempt at cutting the head off the snake, only to fail, with their only monument being their broken bodies, and their armor that Chief has to scavenge for gear with little if any knowledge of what happened to his comrades? These are plots TAILOR MADE for a spin-off novel. But instead a HUGE CHUNK of the total audio logs gets devoted to this kind of stuff, instead of explaining where Blue and Osiris are, if they survived, and setting up a reunion in a later story — you know, something actually relevant to Master Chief's story that connects with the plot players are already familiar with.

I get that 343 wants the Halo Universe to feel like this big connected thing while keeping the "mysterious" feel of the original trilogy, but for 343 that takes the form of locking players out of the loop: deny the players critical information necessary to understanding characters or the plot (even if the players can operate without that information) and then demand they cough up $8-15 a pop to gain access to that information (or just wait until Halopedia editors inevitably do). What they keep forgetting is that the original trilogy told players everything they needed to know as the game naturally progressed. The Bungie novels were interesting and sundry, but nothing they related was essential — not even The Fall of Reach (often considered the most important book in the expanded universe) was necessary to understand anything in the games proper. And then, when Bungie actually made a GAME about Reach, they made a point to showcase a separate cast of characters on a different part of the planet, playing a different role in the battle, with an entirely different team dynamic, all for the express purpose of keeping it so that the book wasn't essential to understanding what was going on. That's the secret that 343 just doesn't get: keep the books interesting, but keep them at arm's length — the GAME should tell the players everything they need to know.

More than game mechanics or graphics, if 343 can learn to tell stories in the games the way Bungie did, and learn to keep the books away from the games, then that alone will MASSIVELY improve Halo's appeal and bring back much of what was lost.

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Top 47K - Alan Wake (and Otomedius Gorgeous !)

Join the HG101 gang as they discuss and rank Remedy Entertainment’s 2010 action thriller about a guy who loses his wife on vacation. Then stick around for Otomedius Gorgeous, Konami’s parody shoot-em-up starring girls who wear/ride fighter jet skirts!

[koppashiren]

So I was playing this PS2 game called Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (零 紅い蝶) which is a survival horror game and a sequel to the first Fatal Frame game. The game was developed by Tecmo who also published the US and Japanese version, Ubisoft published the PAL PS2 version, and Microsoft Game Studios published the Original Xbox version, the game was released on November 27, 2003 for the Japanese PS2 version, December 10, 2003 for the US PS2 version, and April 30, 2004 for the PAL PS2 version. Meanwhile the Xbox version was released on November 1, 2004 in the US, November 11, 2004 for the Japanese Xbox version, and February 4, 2005 for the PAL Xbox version. Also I had this idea were Bitsy from SuperKitties and Koppa from Shiren the Wanderer meeting Mio Amakura and Mayu Amakura from Fatal Frame, mostly because I think it would be really interesting seeing Bitsy meet up with Mio Amakura and Koppa meet up with Mayu Amakura.

[martianmantakemebythehand]

Beat Blue Dragon! Lovely traditional JRPG, great soundtrack, I owed it to Toriyama to finally finish it. The boss themes are awesome.

[gamemories]

[disasterhimbo]

[ID: a screenshot of a section of the linked article, which reads,

“A statement from the BNC laid out the rationale:

Microsoft is perhaps the most complicit tech company in Israel's illegal occupation, apartheid regime and ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinains in Gaza which is why Microsoft is a now priority BDS target. Microsoft partners with the apartheid regime of Israel and its prison system. It provides the Israeli military with Azure cloud and Al services that are central to accelerating Israel's genocide of 2.3 million Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip. After 34 years of deep complicity with Israel's military, the Israeli army relies heavily on Microsoft to meet technological requirements of its genocide and apartheid regime.

The committee is asking all those who have taken its pledge to take three concrete steps, according to a statement provided to Drop Site:

1. Cancel your Xbox Game Pass subscription

2. Boycott Candy Crush, Minecraft, and Call of Duty — flagship videogame franchises owned by Microsoft

3. Boycott all Microsoft Gaming products, including Xbox-branded consoles, headsets, accessories, and all games published by Microsoft-owned publishing labels (such as Xbox Game Studios, Activision, Bethesda and Blizzard)”

End ID.]

for anyone unaware, BDS is calling for a boycott of Microsoft Game Pass, Minecraft, and New Xbox Consoles

[mvfm-25]

" Who you are is not always... Who you will become! " Game Informer Magazine n137 - September, 2004.

[vgprintads]

'Conker: Live and Reloaded'

[XBOX] [JAPAN] [MAGAZINE] [2005]

"Conker's Bad Fur Day was once released only overseas for the Nintendo 64, and became legendary (in a good way) for its blackness and vulgarity, which was nothing like its cute appearance. Now, the sequel is available on Xbox! As the subtitle suggests, the fun this time is playing against each other on Xbox Live. A total of 16 animals are fighting in an extreme battle that seems to say, "We're the best!" Let's take a look at the new scenes that have been released for the first time in about a year! The main feature of this game is the live battle with up to 16 players. Choose your favorite fighter (class) and fight with a brutality level of 120 or higher along the story and missions provided. The game will feature a variety of rules, including team battles in which players form a squad of six, and individual battles where survival is at stake. This game also includes a remake of the previous game, Conker's Bad Fur Day, as a single-player mode. Naturally, with the hardware now being Xbox, the graphics and sound have been upgraded to the point that they can be said to be completely different. It's a game that has had few opportunities to be played in Japan. This is quite a valuable piece. By the way, the original story is about a squirrel named Conker who gets drunk at a bar and gets caught up in various incidents on his way home. I'm looking forward to seeing how it's reborn with the expressive power of the Xbox!" ~Famitsu Xbox, June 2005 (Machine Translation)

Source: Famitsu Xbox, August 2005 || Internet Archive; phoenecia

[whichgreathousewouldtheybepartof]

Jack Joyce from Quantum Break

Ways to approach the poll if the character isn’t a royal:

If you think they’d be from a smaller house, go with the Great House that that smaller house is sworn to (ex: House Manderly —> vote Stark)

They don’t have to be a nobleperson, they can be someone working for the house or being ruled by them. Roles could be a sworn-sword, a septa, a butcher, a blacksmith, or even a lowly peasant.

You can consider the region itself. For example, if you feel the character would be from Dorne, pick House Martell.

You can consider the personality of the character. For example, if your character is all about honor, then consider either House Arryn or House Stark.

Last, but not least, be creative with it! For example, there was a comment I read that the character who was the subject of the poll would be pulling a Littlefinger, so they went with either Lannister or Tyrell as that would be that character’s target houses.

[lordnot]

Not many people know this,

But the text is only present on Developer Xboxes

that Microsoft gives to the studios they (currently) own.

[demifiendrsa]

Fable - Xbox Games Showcase

The Fable reboot is in development for Xbox Series X|S and PC. A release date has yet to be announced.

[bloodngames]

---#Mechassault & Lone Wolf---

One great blessing of growing up in the early 2000's was being exposed to so many spectacular mech/giant robot games.

However, I found that one franchise stood out more than the others: Mechassault.

My fascination for vintage robots led me to play a lot of MechWarrior and Mechassault during that time, and I felt a connection to the franchise.

While hanging out with my buddies using the system link allowed for cross-generation console-to-console lans which was priceless.

I'm glad the second game could be played on the 360, but I'm disappointed that it is not compatible with Xbox One and Series.

It was always a great time playing multiplayer! Climbing out of the mech to breach an enemies mech is something I miss more than anything.

Definitely wish this franchise got remastered/ported for the latest PC and console generations.