Rob Fahey (Page 3)

Opinion

What did Microsoft want from Starfield? | Opinion

Bethesda's latest is a bona fide hit, topping US sales charts – but for Microsoft's plan to use exclusives to drive Game Pass subscriptions, that success is a double-edged sword

Oct. 20, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Unity's crisis is much bigger than John Riccitiello | Opinion

What Unity's customers need isn't a sacrificial scalp, it's a clear plan for how the company they rely on is going to achieve financial stability

Oct. 13, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Resident Evil Village on iOS makes cases both for and against cloud streaming | Opinion

Capcom's impressive port shows once again that cloud streaming isn't required for high-end mobile gaming – but it might be the only path to commercial success

Oct. 6, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Meta's Quest 3 fires the starting gun on consumer AR devices | Opinion

Apple and Meta are betting big on augmented reality – but expectations of a revolution to rival the introduction of smartphones should be tempered

Sept. 29, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Microsoft's hardware strategy looks more and more traditional | Opinion

Xbox Series X|S once presented a radically different vision; a console platform that would evolve and improve, ending the hardware generation cycle for good. What happened?

Sept. 22, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

The pressure of expectation adds a sour note to Starfield’s launch | Opinion

Bethesda’s latest is exactly what the studio’s fans would expect – but deeply unsuited to carrying the weight of Microsoft’s ambitions

Sept. 8, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

PS Plus price hike: We'll all pay for a subscription-based future | Opinion

There's a flicker of Sony's old arrogance in the bump to its PS Plus prices, but it's also a reminder that current subscription pricing is a land grab, not a sustainable business model

Sept. 1, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Xbox at the crossroads | Opinion

Microsoft’s new ABK deal would set the company on a very specific path – can it also focus on the first-party pipeline Starfield is meant to exemplify?

Aug. 25, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Is any progress being made against online anti-social behaviour? | Opinion

Microsoft announced a new strikes system for policing online behaviour – but for the most part, it feels like we're treading water on this increasingly damaging problem

Aug. 18, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Capcom's recipe for success is simple: stay the course, ignore the bandwagons | Opinion

Publishers feel immense pressure to pursue new technologies and trends, but Capcom's decade-long rise highlights the importance of focusing on the fundamentals

Aug. 11, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Xbox' back catalogue isn't just a stopgap – it's a competitive advantage | Opinion

Maintaining great backwards compatibility shouldn't be seen just as a way to cover for a lack of exclusives; we're in an era where back catalogues are more valuable than ever before

July 21, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

We’re in the Wild West of generative AI: Beware the outlaws | Opinion

Technology is again out in front of legal and commercial frameworks – but those being taken in by the "this changes everything" hype could learn some lessons from the past

July 7, 2023 Rob Fahey

Feature

Redaction errors reveal the economics of exclusivity | Opinion

Badly-redacted documents from the FTC vs Microsoft show why platform exclusivity is such a big deal

June 30, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Nintendo Direct introduces the Switch's "sunset slate" | Opinion

A focus on remasters and remakes was a fan-pleasing move – but it's increasingly obvious that Switch software is in a holding pattern as we wait for a hardware refresh

June 23, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

FF16's demo is a masterclass in pre-launch marketing | Opinion

The choices that allowed the demo from Square Enix' latest to shine lie in the game's fundamental design

June 16, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

In defence of the cosmetic whales | Opinion

Expensive in-game cosmetic items are a contentious issue that many developers tiptoe around – but this is the most balanced and palatable option for a modern business model

June 9, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Do players now value performance over graphical realism? | Opinion

Conventional wisdom is that graphical quality is more important but expectations may have shifted

June 2, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Sony’s Project Q offers far more Qs than As | Opinion

Unless PlayStation's new device has very aggressive pricing, it’s tricky to see what problem it’s solving

May 26, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Will players tolerate Overwatch 2’s broken promises? | Opinion

By cancelling much of the sequel’s new content, and with other F2P options a click away, Blizzard’s choice is a huge risk

May 19, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Nintendo Switch gets its swansong – what about its successor? | Opinion

With Tears of the Kingdom launching with no spec-bumped Switch Pro in tow, it seems increasingly likely that Nintendo has dropped that idea for something more radical

May 12, 2023 Rob Fahey

News

Is Xbox's future brighter without Activision? | Opinion

Denied a shortcut to industry leadership, Microsoft's ambitions can be channelled into innovation and creativity – starting with the world-class studios it already owns

May 5, 2023 Rob Fahey

Feature

The CMA and Microsoft agree on one thing: the cloud gaming market is what matters | Opinion

For all the furore over Call of Duty, Microsoft would never have made a deal this big just to sell more Xbox consoles

April 28, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Could AI spell the end of the immersion-breaking NPC? | Opinion

The technologies behind ChatGPT et al could overcome some of the biggest problems with game world immersivity – but it's no plug and play solution

April 21, 2023 Rob Fahey

Feature

Could Sony return to the handheld market? | Opinion

The company has always seen PlayStation systems as part of a hardware ecosystem – but the business case for adding a new handheld to the family does not seem promising

April 10, 2023 Rob Fahey

Opinion

Fortnite's evolution is delivering on metaverse dreams | Opinion

More than just a buzzword to Epic, the evolution of Fortnite is on the cusp of creating a genuine metaverse-esque platform with many millions of daily users

March 24, 2023 Rob Fahey