#cross-platform gaming

[techdriveplay]

The Most Anticipated Action Games of 2024

As we leap into 2024, the gaming community is buzzing with excitement for the plethora of action-packed titles set to grace our screens. Following a year that set an incredibly high bar for video game releases, 2024 is shaping up to continue this trend, promising a diverse range of games that cater to every type of action enthusiast. From heart-pounding adventures to strategy-driven battles, the…

[the-gamer-geek-lounge-blog]

The wait is over! XBox's Phil Spencer has finally given a response to the questions about the future of XBox, including their GamePass, Cloud, and Exclusivity!

On today's XBox Podcast, Phil informed us that XBox will have 4 games, each over 1 year old, going to other platforms. All other games will remain exclusives, including Starfield and Indiana Jones. Phil didn't update us on which games will be jumping platforms, but he stated that they are community driven games and the purpose is to reach as many players as possible. This is something I can completely agree with.

Phil went on to state that his focus is the long-term grown of XBox as a while and that they want to bring these 4 games to multiple platforms in order to help grow the franchises. I can agree with this statement and idea. Honestly, I think exclusives are great to bring more customers to your hardware...but overall, I don't agree with keeping former 3rd party games as console exclusives, such as the upcoming HELLBLADE 2.

The team made sure to tell viewers that their primary focus will remain on XBox (console and games), PC, and Cloud. The point of releasing these 4 games on XBox is in hopes to reach the biggest audience of players, while also sparking interest in XBox itself. Since GamePass will remain exclusive to XBox itself, all console and Windows PC owners can breathe a sigh of relief.

I agree with XBox's strategy of wanting to bring more cross-play, cross-progression, and cross-save to their games. I know that I am a huge fan of remote play services. If I can hop on my PlayStation from my vacation spot or visit with family, I'm all set. Same goes for if I have my PC...I can hit up my XBox content. I love being able to play on my iPad by connecting to my consoles, etc.

We even got an update on Activision Blizzard that puts Diablo IV on GamePass on March 28th. So with all of the updates, I wonder how XBox fans feel after weeks of discouragement and feeling betrayed by the XBox brand. Let me know what you think!

[virtualrealitynewstoday]

Meta Quest 開啟新紀元：Xbox 雲端遊戲（測試版）帶來革命性體驗

在虛擬實境界的一個重要日子裡，Meta Quest 迎來了一位強大的新夥伴——Xbox 雲端遊戲（測試版）。這不僅是一次技術的突破，更是遊戲方式的革新。現在，擁有 Meta Quest 2、3 或 Pro 耳機的用戶，只需透過最新的 Quest 軟體更新，搭配 Xbox Game Pass Ultimate 會員資格和適配的控制器，便能在高速網路的支援下，從 Meta Quest 商店下載 Xbox 雲端遊戲（測試版）應用程式，體驗在虛擬巨幕上暢玩 Starfield、Forza Motorsport 等數百款高品質遊戲的快感。 這項創新服務的推出，意味著用戶無需擁有 Xbox 主機，就能享受到 Xbox 雲端遊戲（測試版）帶來的豐富遊戲庫。從經典恐怖遊戲《失憶症：合集》到動作射擊遊戲《殭屍軍團…

[askagamedev]

From past responses you clearly have some experience with the console cert process. I was wondering: why do so few games offer cross platform play? Does the cert process become disproportionately more difficult when communicating to other systems becomes involved? Or is it just a difficult feature from a purely engineering pov? Thank you!

There are two major groups of hurdles to crossplay - technical and political. Both of these issues were primarily ironed out by Epic in late 2018, and then they opened up the doors for everybody else by releasing their set of crossplay tools and tech to the public for free.

On the technical side, the various walled garden networks - PSN, XBL, Nintendo Online - each have their own set of protocols, ports, technology, etc. They do not talk to each other or transfer information in the same way. There's a good reason for this - they weren't built by the same people or using the same technology, so their internal workings are all different. In order to solve this, the any third party developer needs to build a system that can take data from any supported service and translate it in real time so all players on other platforms understand what's happening in the game. This requires a fairly hefty engineering effort.

On the political side, console platform networks are walled gardens that generate a lot of revenue for the platforms. Every sale within that walled garden typically earns the platform owner a 30% cut. This is why they can afford to sell game consoles at a loss, they hope to make it back from their users. Allowing other players on other platforms to play with their users takes away from their exclusivity. This attitude permeates their certification rules, which are then enforced on all third party developers. Even now that crossplay is allowed, there are a lot of rules in place about things like communication between platforms (e.g. Rocket League was not allowed to let Playstation players communicate with PC players because of potential content ratings).

In 2018, Epic pushed to allow crossplay for their lifestyle game juggernaut Fortnite. Microsoft had already been dabbling in that arena by allowing Xbox to play with PC players (since most players ran on Windows anyway, so they were both Microsoft platforms), but Sony refused. Epic smoothed this over by paying Sony a significant sum of money to 'make up for lost revenue' and developing their own tools and technology to handle the technical issues of allowing crossplay. Sony begrudgingly agreed, so Fortnite went crossplay. Then, in typical fashion, Epic released their entire suite of crossplay tools to the public for free. Games like Dauntless and Rocket League soon followed to crossplay, and by 2019 Sony had changed their stance to accept crossplay.

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[ysolt]

did this 7 year old game fail or is it a 7 year old game and not all games are infinitely replayable

[mokeonn]

I fucking hate the tetris effect so much. Like oooh lemme play this funnie little card game rogue-like, ooh it's so fun it's gonna be the only game I play for weeks now, oooh what do you mean I'm fucking duplicating multi-card holographic sevens in my dreams

[lilbittymonster]

@ all my mutuals who are reblogging that discord server poll with various tags to the theme of "discord fucking sucks for socialisation" I see you and I am /rainbowdote at you we are all so correct

[phioneplatinum]

aka: I have now hopped on the funny!!! go find the silly tempo for silly shenanigans

[shinigami-striker]

Crash & Spyro Rumble!!! | Thursday, 11.16.2023

Season 3 of Crash Team Rumble starts on December 7, featuring Spyro & Elora!

[coffeetime88]

Nintendo Indie World Showcase April 2024

i can has video game? (Little Kitty, Big City)

Metroid Atari: Hack the Planet! (Yars Rising)

MBTI vs Enneagram (Refind Self: The Personality Test Game)

Etsy Shop: The Game (Sticky Business)

Wario Land HAMMER!!! (ANTONBLAST)

Frogwatch: Parkour Edition (Valley Peaks)

Silent Hill meets Myst (Lorelei and the Laser Eyes)

Journey 2: Fantasy Europe Edition (Europa)

TMNT Hades [but NO Couch Co-op!?! Then what's even the point of a Turtles game?] (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate)

The Legend of Kitty: Furball Waker (Cat Quest III)

Embroidery by Logic Puzzle (stitch.)

Infinite Dash Mode Unlocked (BZZZT)

"This episode of Bluey is called 'Shadowlands'" (SCHiM) [alt title: Dark Mode Frogger]

Strobe-imal Metroidvania (Animal Well)

MalL.A.rd Noir (Duck Detective: The Secret Salami)

Dark Souls 3's Swamp (Another Crab's Treasure)

"Somebody's Poisoned the Waterhole!" (SteamWorld Heist II)

[cahootings]

okay okay i built my long-running campaign sorcerer in bg3 and it was like COMING HOME... I MISSED YOU GIRL LETS GET SILLAY

[taintedco]

The first descendant

The first descendant has finally launched after beta and let me tell you this is a good game. I love this game. This game reminds me of Destiny 2, Warframe, Outriders and Hell Divers 2. It is a looter shooter game and if someone kills the enemies you can go around picking up the loot from the kills. This game is straight PVE and has a good story behind it. It is free to play on Xbox, Steam, PS4, PS5, and GeForce Now. It is a cross-platform game that is free to play and a third person shooter.

The battle pass and skins do not even cost that much and we noticed that this game became a cod killer. Just like in destiny, you can take your best weapon and compile the other weapons in your inventory into it and it levels it up. This game you do not get to play as one character forever, you can research other characters and once they are researched you can play as them.

I highly recommend trying this game since it is so much fun.

Use my creator link!

[dreamyintersexouppy]

how do you even play monster hunter with other people???

[threnodians]

it’s official wuwa will be coming to ps5 soon 😭 👏🏻

[askagamedev]

A podcast recently talked about how some games, like Contra Operation Galuga are struggling to run on Nintendo Switch, because they developed it for higher end systems(PS5, Xbox series, PC) first then port it to Nintendo Switch. They suggested it should have been done the other way around, so every platform has a version of the game that runs perfectly(barring AAA high quality titles like God of War and Spider-Man). How true is this?

There are always tradeoffs when making decisions like this. It's true that developing with the Switch as the primary platform would make it work well on the Switch and perform well on other platforms. However, the tradeoff is that the game would look like an upscaled version of a Switch game on the higher-end platforms. The source assets like animation rigging and motions, textures, character and environment models, and so on would be built at a lower fidelity. The world created using those assets would be built with those assets in mind, meaning that things would lack the sense of visual cohesion that one would expect, even if they built high resolution textures and ran at 4k instead of the Switch's native 720p.

Consider a game that launched on Switch first and later came to other platforms is Monster Hunter Rise. Take a look at that game and you'll see what I mean. Rise runs at a rock-solid 60 fps on higher end PC, but you can still see the kind of visual style built with lower poly models in place because we just don't have the time to rebuild everything. It really depends on the kind of game and visual fidelity the developer is aiming for - games with highly stylized visuals like Octopath Traveler work out just fine because of the visual expectations set, while MHR's more realistic visual style is what holds it back.

Comparison screenshot taken from [Digital Foundry's excellent comparison video].

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Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent Questions: The FAQ

[devileaterjaek]

Mr. Resetti "assist" trophy in Brawl