Defining Duke, Episode 240: The Thread
Added 2025-08-04 16:32:46 +0000 UTCHey, all! It's time to submit your questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, and ideas for Episode 240 of Defining Duke.
Great ways to get your write-up used: Be pithy, be topical, and be insightful. Walls-of-text, posts littered with poor grammar and punctuation, etc., are promptly (though respectfully) ignored.
As this is an Xbox podcast, be sure your submission makes sense within that realm. You have until Wednesday, August 6th at 3 PM ET to make your submission.
Comments
G'day Dukes, This one is for Matty, or should I call him 'RPG Thanos', collecting 1-on-1 interviews with all the RPG titans of our industry like they're infinity stones going out of fashion! Congrats on the excellent interview with Brian Fargo. Just like the Todd Howard interview, it was a super insightful discussion into the mind of one of our industry's all-time great creatives. Now that you've collected two of the stones for your gauntlet, who would you say are the other four? Surely Swen Vincke and Feargus Urquhart make the cut. Who else? Just promise us that once you collect all six interviews, if you're gonna snap something out of existence, it'll be Don Mattrick ;) Much love from down under, Shane
ItsShaneBailey
2025-08-07 04:08:54 +0000 UTCGood day Dukes, With Xbox moving toward unification between console and PC, they need to seriously address their Xbox PC app game storefront. Simply put, it’s a mess in its current form regarding the various game “SKUs” ranging from no Xbox Live feature support (achievements, cloud saves, etc.) to full Xbox Live feature support. Some publishers release certain games on the Xbox PC store but not others. For example, Square Enix is not releasing an Xbox PC version of Final Fantasy Tactics remaster but is releasing Octopath 0 and Adventures of Elliot. Square Enix, in general, is inconsistent with its Xbox PC app support. I’ve identified at least five different types of SKUs based on the level of Xbox Live features. Although there are many examples in each category, here are a few: 1. Games missing from the Xbox PC app store: - Doom (2016). - Numerous third-party new releases (e.g., no Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound!!!). - Final Fantasy Origins. 2. No Xbox Live features: - Crash Bandicoot 4 (Battle.net SKU with no Xbox cloud, cross-saves, or achievements). - Assassin’s Creed Shadows or any other Ubisoft game (Ubisoft Connect SKUs). - All EA published games (EA Play titles). 3. Xbox Live features but not shared/synced across PC and console: - Wasteland 3. - Most pre-Bethesda acquisition titles (Fallout 4, Skyrim, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein). - Age of Empires: Definitive Edition and Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition. - Final Fantasy VII (original), Final Fantasy VIII Remastered, Final Fantasy XIII trilogy. 4. Non-Play Anywhere but Xbox Live features synced across PC and console: - Quantum Break. - Diablo IV. - Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition. - Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remastered. 5. Play Anywhere with full Xbox Live feature support: - All Microsoft Game Studios and first-party studio titles released in the last few years - A small handful of third-party titles. - Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, Final Fantasy XVI, Final Fantasy VII Remake. As an honorable mention: Forspoken exists on the Xbox PC app without an Xbox console version. The original release of Death Stranding also had an Xbox PC-specific version without a console release. This changed with the Director’s Cut release, which is Play Anywhere. Sorry for the long note, but Xbox should find a solution to make it clear to consumers how their PC titles work with their console counterparts. The Play Anywhere branding simplifies things for those titles, but it takes effort to understand whether non-Play Anywhere titles support cloud saves, cross-saves, or achievements across the thousands of titles available on the Xbox PC storefront. Now, my question: I understand this is a function of when a game was released and Xbox’s priorities at the time, but do you agree Xbox should make an effort to go back and clean this up to the fullest extent possible? Should they attempt to replace (delist) older non-Play Anywhere SKUs with Play Anywhere SKUs? Thanks for considering my write-in. Cheers, Tyson
Tyson
2025-08-06 16:29:56 +0000 UTCDukes The tenor of last weeks episode left a sour taste in my mouth. The conversation felt more like general Twitter bullshit negativity as opposed constructive criticism. Along those lines, I think it’s past time we stop parroting this “Xbox players don’t buy their games” narrative. It’s always backed up by feels and vibes but never by hard data. $23 billion in revenue for the year with almost $5 billion coming from gamepass subs suggests their selling something other than controllers and consoles.
Deonte Shepherd
2025-08-05 22:35:03 +0000 UTCHey Dukes, Regarding PlayStation, and considering Cog was doing the unspeakable in Ohio last week, I wanted to get your thoughts on the new scenario these three parties find themselves in. If Xbox goes the route of making their next Xbox a windows device, does that not mean their most relevant competitor is Steam? Both are platforms for PC and would have OS platforms for proprietary, partner, and custom made devices. Furthermore, Xbox may be forced to remove their charges for online play if you can just buy games from Steam and avoid the online fee considering the rumored Steam compatibility on the next Xbox . If you agree with that, wouldn’t it make more sense for PlayStation to only give Steam their first party games to drive a wedge between Xbox and Steam at that point? Xbox would have gamepass but this strategy would push people towards using or at least signing up with Steam to access these first party games. PlayStation could play these two against each other and try to make themselves a more enticing option that doesn’t have a 24 month (or longer) exclusivity period for first and second party games (Stellar Blade for example is published by PlayStation publishing on Steam). I think someone popularized the phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” or something like that. Have a “Brad might replace all of LSM if people don’t show up” kind of day.
Sam
2025-08-05 21:55:04 +0000 UTC
