Edit: It turns out I am not perfect and have holes in my knowledge. Games that are wrongly categorized are shifted over to the other list, but with a strikethrough to indicate a change, to preserve my original thoughts.

Games, brands and series associated with XBOX, compared to other console brands. The lists doesn’t mean exclusives or best games. It’s more of, what you think of games, when you think of XBOX.

Core brands created by XBOX

  • Halo
  • Gears of War
  • Fable
  • Forza

Secondary brands created by XBOX

  • Age of Empires
  • Sea of Thieves
  • Starfield
  • Hellblade
  • State of Decay

Purchased by XBOX

  • Age of Empires
  • Minecraft
  • Call of Duty
  • WoW
  • Overwatch
  • Diablo
  • Fallout
  • DOOM
  • Killer Instinct

Console exclusives with XBOX

  • Lost Odyssey

Associated with XBOX, but no longer exclusive

  • Ninja Gaiden
  • Titanfall
  • Star Wars Knights of the Republic (KOTOR)
  • Ori and the Blind Forest

I was thinking about XBOX and its future, and somehow I got tangled in history and what the brand recognition is. This is the end result of my thoughts.

  • Ephera@lemmy.ml
    2·
    1 day ago

    They always felt kind of weirdly similar to me, even the games that they just ended up buying. Hard to describe, but the games always felt rather ‘functional’, rather ‘game-y’. Kind of like what I think of as solid AA games, just scaled to AAA.

    Like, I don’t know, Hellblade is about mental illness and kind of made up to be this cinematic experience, so it should be a massive exception to this, but then it’s wrapped in this hack’n’slash gameplay and has the name “Hellblade”, as if they were afraid it might flop, if it doesn’t promise your usual dose of generic/violent gameplay.

    Hell, Minecraft feels like it got microsoftified, in that they just keep adding more and more stuff to it, with no clear direction. It’s just, oh, the community wants XYZ, let’s add XYZ.

    I guess, maybe that’s part of it? They have a lot of money, so game studios just add all kinds of features rather than making hard decisions on what kind of game they want to be.
    That’s obviously also very positive in many ways, but yeah, might ultimately lead to the sameyness…

    • thingsiplay@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      1 day ago

      It’s just, oh, the community wants XYZ, let’s add XYZ.

      Well, I wouldn’t say this is a bad thing. Unless you mean by they try to appeal to everyone, which results into appealing to no one. But the game is quiet popular, so I think in that front Microsoft did actually good job, seemingly. Online games like these with community building content lives and dies with their community engagement. And its also quiet modifiable, so I don’t have any problem with that. But I"m also not playing the game, so maybe my view doesn’t count much here.

      • Ephera@lemmy.ml
        1·
        23 hours ago

        Had to think about it for a moment, but I would say the fundamental problem with adding more content to Minecraft is this classic game design quote:

        Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.

        Source

        In early days of Minecraft, you would cut down a tree, then slap down 6 blocks of wood and that was your table. It looked fine, because everything was just blocks and the few available blocks all could be combined without it looking terrible.

        Now you’ve got a magnitude more blocks and the player looking to ruin their fun will spend far too much time:

        • Choosing colors to combine. It can’t just be wood, it’s gotta be jungle wood, to make it fit in with the orange color highlights.
        • Choosing block shapes. Can’t just be a regular 1m³ block, it’s gotta be an upside-down stair. And a carpet on top as a table cloth.
        • Farming those resources. You need to find a jungle and a sheep. And scissors to collect the wool. And then you need to craft those stairs and carpets.
        • Placing blocks. An upside-down stair can’t just be slapped down. Instead, you need some scaffolding against which you can place it from the correct angle. Nope, not that angle. Gotta remove the stair and place it anew. And don’t forget to remove your scaffolding afterwards. And place back those blocks you had to remove to get to the correct angle.

        There are folks that find it relaxing to mine for hours and to spend hours getting every detail perfect about their build. But even those folks presumably wouldn’t call it fun.

        But of course, your community will still ask for ever more hyperspecific blocks to be added, so they can optimize the fun out even more. Because your community are not game designers.

        • thingsiplay@lemmy.mlOP
          2·
          22 hours ago

          I can’t talk about the specifics, as I have no experience. But wanted mention that the community changes over time too, gets older, old players leave, new come in, even the game developers change over time. I think in a game like Minecraft adding stuff is not the worst thing that can happen, because people can mod the games and host their own worlds and game rules. So its more like giving more tools in the hand.