Microsoft Starfield - Information Thread, update (09/16): "Shattered Space" expansion deep-dive video

[stepee]

I think everyone knows what it means when MS says exclusive at this point :P

[Greatoneshere]

1 minute ago, stepee said:

I think everyone knows what it means when MS says exclusive at this point :P

 

Not according to this thread - otherwise why would @Ominous bring it up and question the marketing speak in the first place? Though to be fair he was responding to an article that was posted and not another user. But I've seen the term dropped elsewhere when it isn't true.

[Ominous]

They should just say "Not on Playstation" or "Not on Xbox"

 

At this point it's like "9th gen console exclusive for the next 14 weeks!"

[stepee]

4 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Not according to this thread - otherwise why would @Ominous bring it up and question the marketing speak in the first place? Though to be fair he was responding to an article that was posted and not another user. But I've seen the term dropped elsewhere when it isn't true.

 

I think it’s that most people know what the term means, but questioning the term is more about scoring points against Xbox like haha it has no exclusives etc. I think overall it largely doesn’t matter and I usually see console exclusive these days and that seems clear enough!

[TheLeon]

14 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

Console exclusive is a meaningless term when you can hook your PC up to your TV easily and play games through it with a standard console controller if you wanted to. GamePass works on PC, so you don't need an Xbox. Hence, not exclusive, and my PC is hooked up to my TV, so does that make it a console too?

You can’t play Starfield on any PC the way you play it on any Xbox Series. If it’s on the cloud gaming service, maybe. But I don’t think it’s useful to classify PC as a console, unless we want yet another gaming term to lose all meaning. 

[Greatoneshere]

15 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

I think it’s that most people know what the term means, but questioning the term is more about scoring points against Xbox like haha it has no exclusives etc. I think overall it largely doesn’t matter and I usually see console exclusive these days and that seems clear enough!

 

I'm with you but I don't get the sense everyone else everywhere understands this despite being seemingly a basic thing.

 

7 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

You can’t play Starfield on any PC the way you play it on any Xbox Series. If it’s on the cloud gaming service, maybe. But I don’t think it’s useful to classify PC as a console, unless we want yet another gaming term to lose all meaning. 

 

I think I'm misunderstanding you. What do you mean I can't play it on any PC the way I would play it on an Xbox Series X? Also I'm not saying to classify PC as a console. Don't classify anything as anything if there is no distinction to be made, is my point. I have family and friends who have dedicated PC towers hooked up to their TV's and even projectors, so they use their PC exclusively as a console. The bigger point is that since it can be used as such, "console exclusive" is a meaningless term. And I think a lot of gaming terms don't have meaning, and we should get rid of them as times change, so let terms lose meaning that have lost meaning. I don't make any distinction any more in my mind between "PC" and "console", I just see hardware that plays video games. Which hardware can play the most games at the best quality? My PC isn't locked to a monitor or a mouse/keyboard so any other distinction is pointless to me.

[Keyser_Soze]

24 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

Not according to this thread - otherwise why would @Ominous bring it up and question the marketing speak in the first place?

 

He's said the same thing hundreds of times, you all took him too seriously.

[stepee]

4 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

He's said the same thing hundreds of times, you all took him too seriously.

 

People take people too seriously?

[TheLeon]

12 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

I think I'm misunderstanding you. What do you mean I can't play it on any PC the way I would play it on an Xbox Series X? Also I'm not saying to classify PC as a console. Don't classify anything as anything if there is no distinction to be made, is my point. I have family and friends who have dedicated PC towers hooked up to their TV's and even projectors, so they use their PC exclusively as a console. The bigger point is that since it can be used as such, "console exclusive" is a meaningless term. And I think a lot of gaming terms don't have meaning, and we should get rid of them as times change, so let terms lose meaning that have lost meaning. I don't make any distinction any more in my mind between "PC" and "console", I just see hardware that plays video games. Which hardware can play the most games at the best quality? My PC isn't locked to a monitor or a mouse/keyboard so any other distinction is pointless to me.

I just mean that not all PCs are capable of running modern AAA games. You can’t just grab a $300 Dell from Walmart and play Starfield on it, but that is a PC. 

[Greatoneshere]

32 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

He's said the same thing hundreds of times, you all took him too seriously.

 

I wasn't aware. 

 

 

21 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

I just mean that not all PCs are capable of running modern AAA games. You can’t just grab a $300 Dell from Walmart and play Starfield on it, but that is a PC. 

 

Cost is relative even comparatively, to someone with almost no money all systems are expensive, just some more than others. That shouldn't matter in terms of discussing whether something is exclusive or not which are based on facts ("can this be played on more than just this one thing or not?"), not who can afford what situationally.

[TheLeon]

4 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Cost is relative even comparatively, to someone with almost no money all systems are expensive, just some more than others. That shouldn't matter in terms of discussing whether something is exclusive or not which are based on facts ("can this be played on more than just this one thing or not?"), not who can afford what situationally.

I’m not talking about who can afford it or not, just that “PC” covers such a wide variety of devices, a lot of them can’t play modern games, and that puts them in an entirely different category from consoles. 
 

But also, I’ll just stop here, because I’ve lost track of this topic like 5 times already, and I’m not entirely sure what point I’m arguing. And I ultimately don’t care. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

Console exclusive is a meaningless term when you can hook your PC up to your TV easily and play games through it with a standard console controller if you wanted to.

It just means it isn’t available on the other major console. Everybody understands this  

[stepee]

@Greatoneshere getting into semantics so much that even @sblfilms doesn’t want to engage hot damn

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, TheLeon said:

I’m not talking about who can afford it or not, just that “PC” covers such a wide variety of devices, a lot of them can’t play modern games, and that puts them in an entirely different category from consoles. 
 

But also, I’ll just stop here, because I’ve lost track of this topic like 5 times already, and I’m not entirely sure what point I’m arguing. And I ultimately don’t care. 

 

Sure, but that's true even between cross-platform releases (PS4/Xbox One to PS5/Xbox Series X) and is true even between a Switch release/port of a Xbox Series X/PC/PS5 game. It's also true even between Xbox Series X and Series S in terms of game performance, but we don't make any distinctions in any of those examples so why with PC in terms of its variability? And I agree, no arguing here, I think it's just about being clear. If you happen to own a working PC that can't run a specific or certain game that doesn't mean it's "console exclusive" objectively overall. It just means your PC can't play it, but that doesn't mean PC's in general can't. For anyone to then say because of that a game is a "console exclusive" seems extremely disingenuous to me.

 

26 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

It just means it isn’t available on the other major console. Everybody understands this  

 

Well this thread seemed to indicate differently but if so that's great.

 

15 minutes ago, stepee said:

@Greatoneshere getting into semantics so much that even @sblfilms doesn’t want to engage hot damn

 

I was just following up on what @Ominous and @crispy4000 were saying. If everybody understands this then I'm not sure why it was even brought up then.  

[Remarkableriots]

Todd Howard says Starfield's 1000+ planets won't be all boring procgen globes and contain more handcrafted work 'than Skyrim and Fallout 4 combined' | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

---

Bethesda's spacey opus will be chock-full of authored stuff, promises Todd.

 

[Kal-El814]

If Todd Howard says it's sunny outside, best bring an umbrella. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Uh-huh.  Sure.  Whatever you say, Todd.

 

[Kal-El814]

Back in the day, Niggles made is to that if someone typed the n-word, it auto inserted the Morgan Freeman video clip. We should do the same for when someone types out Todd Howard, and it links to that pic or the sweet little lies video.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

2 hours ago, TheLeon said:

You can’t play Starfield on any PC the way you play it on any Xbox Series. If it’s on the cloud gaming service, maybe. But I don’t think it’s useful to classify PC as a console, unless we want yet another gaming term to lose all meaning. 

I’m pretty sure everyone knows that when it’s said a game is on PC they don’t mean that any old PC can play it. Not even any old gaming PC game play some games. And it would just be silly list out every hardware permutation that could or should be capable of playing a given game. PC isn’t a console, but it is a platform that can function just about like one. 

[TheLeon]

6 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

I’m pretty sure everyone knows that when it’s said a game is on PC they don’t mean that any old PC can play it. Not even any old gaming PC game play some games. And it would just be silly list out every hardware permutation that could or should be capable of playing a given game. PC isn’t a console, but it is a platform that can function just about like one. 

I guess this is basically all I was trying to say. You can use a modern gaming PC like a console, but that doesn’t make it a console, so a game can be called a “console exclusive” and also come out on the PC platform, but again this is all just silly nonsense. Every mention of a game should be followed by every platform it’s available on. 
 

…Actually, does that solve it? Can we just refer to “platforms” instead of “consoles”? Is that broad yet specific enough? 
 

I have a headache. 

[stepee]

let’s just call them monos (microsoft or nintendo or sony) to simplify things 

[stepee]

Actually what rules is besides Microsoft being Windows, even Xbox is on Windows as the app where you play Gamepass/MS games, so you can’t even use Xbox exclusive if you want to get literal 

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, TheLeon said:

I guess this is basically all I was trying to say. You can use a modern gaming PC like a console, but that doesn’t make it a console, so a game can be called a “console exclusive” and also come out on the PC platform, but again this is all just silly nonsense. Every mention of a game should be followed by every platform it’s available on. 
 

…Actually, does that solve it? Can we just refer to “platforms” instead of “consoles”? Is that broad yet specific enough? 
 

I have a headache. 

 

If we want to be pedantic, yeah, call them platforms. Either way, my point is the "console" distinction is a distinction without a difference, ultimately.   

[skillzdadirecta]

So... um about that Starfield...

[Mr.Vic20]

38 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

So... um about that Starfield...

[Xbob42]

6 hours ago, TheLeon said:

You can’t play Starfield on any PC the way you play it on any Xbox Series. If it’s on the cloud gaming service, maybe. But I don’t think it’s useful to classify PC as a console, unless we want yet another gaming term to lose all meaning. 

It's not called Xbox Series exclusive, it's Xbox exclusive, so why can't I play it on my Xbox 360?!

 

4 hours ago, Remarkableriots said:

Todd Howard says Starfield's 1000+ planets won't be all boring procgen globes and contain more handcrafted work 'than Skyrim and Fallout 4 combined' | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

---

Bethesda's spacey opus will be chock-full of authored stuff, promises Todd.

 

Skyrim is about 15 square miles and half of it already feels like boring procgen stuff but is actually somehow handcrafted.

Now imagine taking that 15 square miles and making "1,000 planets" out of it and trying to convince literally anyone that 99.99999% of it won't be just absolute dog shit nothingness. Even the much maligned Star Citizen with its supposed endless feature creep only set out to do about 300 planets.

[Biggie]

21 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

It's not called Xbox Series exclusive, it's Xbox exclusive, so why can't I play it on my Xbox 360?!

 

Skyrim is about 15 square miles and half of it already feels like boring procgen stuff but is actually somehow handcrafted.

Now imagine taking that 15 square miles and making "1,000 planets" out of it and trying to convince literally anyone that 99.99999% of it won't be just absolute dog shit nothingness. Even the much maligned Star Citizen with its supposed endless feature creep only set out to do about 300 planets.

You don’t think it’s gonna be good? 

[Xbob42]

2 minutes ago, Biggie said:

You don’t think it’s gonna be good? 

I think the linear story stuff will probably be alright, and I bet in the immediate area around story zones it'll probably actually have a lot of handcrafted stuff. Beyond that? I dunno man. Bethesda's procedural generation has never been especially impressive and filling planets with content is an incredible challenge.

 

I can just see you exploring some uninhabited world, deep in a cave in the middle of nowhere, as some little British kid comes running up "Sir! Sir! A message from the space king!" Good ol' radiant crap.

 

I can see it being fun if they give you a lot of interesting tools to manipulate the world itself, kind of like how Zelda gives you a lot of tools that can make things more interesting, or even Minecraft, allowing you to build rail systems and whatnot. When you can't handcraft all the content, giving the player powerful tools and making using those tools in the procedurally generated world part of the content can help massively.

[TheLeon]

34 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

It's not called Xbox Series exclusive, it's Xbox exclusive, so why can't I play it on my Xbox 360?!

It’s available on PC, why can’t I play it on Windows 7?

 

(and again, I have to clarify, I really have no dog in this fight)

[Xbob42]

3 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

It’s available on PC, why can’t I play it on Windows 7?

 

(and again, I have to clarify, I really have no dog in this fight)

My point was that "Xbox" is no more telling of what you can play something on than "PC" is. 

[Kal-El814]

27 minutes ago, Biggie said:

You don’t think it’s gonna be good? 

 

I can appreciate people liking Fallout 4 and Skyrim and thinking they're good. But I categorically refuse to accept that anyone thought that the radiant quest system in either was good, and based on that I think it's reasonable to believe that whatever padding Bethesda has to do to fill out "1,000+ planets" is unlikely to be good.

 

Again there's also the notion that "1,000+ planets" and whatever other stuff Todd says on the campaign trail is likely... not completely honest.

[TheLeon]

15 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

My point was that "Xbox" is no more telling of what you can play something on than "PC" is. 

Right, all it really means is “not on PlayStation”, which we all basically understand, even if we don’t like it.
 

And speaking of repetitive, inane dialog… Bethesda games. 

[crispy4000]

9 hours ago, stepee said:

 

I think it’s that most people know what the term means, but questioning the term is more about scoring points against Xbox like haha it has no exclusives etc. I think overall it largely doesn’t matter and I usually see console exclusive these days and that seems clear enough!

The same could be said for Sony putting their games on PC now.  So it can't actually be that, because the shoe fits the other foot.

 

For me at least, its more about signalling where the games industry is headed.  Consoles used to be sold off the back of exclusive killer apps, having the biggest library of notable games, or having a significant difference in power and capability.  Today, Sony and Microsoft can't truly claim any of that.  This puts a greater emphasis on the price tag, the value of their subscriptions, and scheming to withhold content from the other company's console.

 

So when I question it, its to point to the changing terms of engagement.  These big 1st party games used to be developed squarely to prop up one platform.  Nowadays you just buy a developer, or a single game contract, to keep games from reaching more people. (ie: Starfield, FFXVI, etc)  And we're all supposed to be okay with that because subscription services are relatively cheap for now, cloud gaming is a thing, etc.

[crispy4000]

9 hours ago, TheLeon said:

You can’t play Starfield on any PC the way you play it on any Xbox Series. If it’s on the cloud gaming service, maybe.

 

Sure you can, it's called setting your monitor to 60hz, and enabling half-refresh rate vsync in the NVIDIA control panel.

 

Or take it to the cloud on a potato for the Xbox One console experience.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

Either way, my point is the "console" distinction is a distinction without a difference, ultimately.

 

It isn't, at all. The distinction between a console and PC is pretty clear. One is a closed platform with gatekeeping by the platform creator, and the other is open and has nearly unlimited uses. It really seems like YOU are the only person having a hard time differentiating between them