Xbox One Killer Instinct will be a free download at launch

[Damnlag]

Last night, Phil Spencer, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Studios, took the stage on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to showcase two exclusive titles – “Forza Motorsport 5” and “Killer Instinct” – from Xbox One’s launch lineup of new generation games. Host Jimmy Fallon went head to head with Phil Spencer in an exhilarating (but one-sided!) bout of “Killer Instinct,” and then tore through the streets of Prague in “Forza Motorsport 5.”

Killer Instinct will be a Free download when the Xbox One launches in November.

 

[Team Vernia]

Yeah, it's coming with just one character free, Jago. You will have to pay to unlock each individual character, or pay a full price for the entire roster it seems. A retail version is supposed to come out as well, but no one knows if that version will be available at launch. I'm excited about this one for sure.

 

[Scottish Sin]

Making it free to the play seems like a smart choice because I think that guarantees at least an active community for the game. It would have been cool if you could pick any of the fighters as your first free one though instead of everybody getting stuck with Jago. It is going to be mirror match after mirror match.

 

[Chunkaroonie]

Hmm, not sure if I like this F2P yet riddled with fees kind of game or not. I suppose it really comes down to how good the gameplay really is though and I could see this working out for them in the end. I hate DLC and the idea of "pay to win" and I guess in some ways this is going to be like that but if you can just unlock the the entire roster with a full purchase or buy individual characters I guess it's all good, really. Hope this game turns out to be as amazing as the 64 and Snes versions.

 

[Damnlag]

How can you complain about free? lol The fee's offer a way for the developers to still make some money on a game they spent probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to develop. It allows someone who can't afford the complete game to get a taste of it and if they enjoy it, they can unlock the full game or characters that they want. How often have you played a game like this and not used all the characters? I thought it was a brilliant idea to do it this way, but that's my opinion.

 

[BlackSolaris]

Yeah, it's coming with just one character free, Jago. You will have to pay to unlock each individual character, or pay a full price for the entire roster it seems. A retail version is supposed to come out as well, but no one knows if that version will be available at launch. I'm excited about this one for sure.

Is it me, or all the fighting games are doing that nowadays? They are free, but you can buy each character separate, which in the end makes the whole thing more expensive than a retail version.

 

[Joker99352]

Yeah, it's coming with just one character free, Jago. You will have to pay to unlock each individual character, or pay a full price for the entire roster it seems. A retail version is supposed to come out as well, but no one knows if that version will be available at launch. I'm excited about this one for sure.

That's an interesting idea. It's sort of like how you can buy DLC for games, but people complain that they take too much out of the original game to use as DLC. This way there's really nothing to complain about if the core game is free; assuming, of course, it's a good game. I do love free stuff, though.

 

[Claptrap]

Sounds like the game will be sold as a full digital game but will also have a Free-to-Play "trial" with one character (Jago), allowing players to buy just the things they want instead of the full thing. Sounds good in theory, but I expect the prices for buying a handful of characters to be similar to buying the entire game anyway...

 

[FordGTGuy]

I think it's a pretty good idea, most people that I see playing fighting games usually play with a single character.

 

[cliverederson]

Ugh, this sounds like the F2P model that's running rampant on the Apple iPhone App Store for games, I absolutely hate it. I would much rather just buy a game than to have to have the game constantly try to sell my crap like extra lives and power-ups nonstop. I just find it to be a turn off, I much prefer just a demo/full-version model. I'm curious if this is an indicator that we will see a lot more of this F2P model coming to consoles now. I for one, hope not.

 

[AthleticTypist]

With this news, there are going to be a lot of people using Jago online . When I first read the title, I was actually commending Microsoft for trying to make up for the mistakes they made prior to changing Xbox One policy. However after reading more about this, I think it's going to turn into a system full of micro transactions that we see with DLC and mobile content., That has been my biggest fear for this future generation. It's bad enough currently.

 

[Claptrap]

Ugh, this sounds like the F2P model that's running rampant on the Apple iPhone App Store for games, I absolutely hate it. I would much rather just buy a game than to have to have the game constantly try to sell my crap like extra lives and power-ups nonstop. I just find it to be a turn off, I much prefer just a demo/full-version model. I'm curious if this is an indicator that we will see a lot more of this F2P model coming to consoles now. I for one, hope not.

But the thing is that the game WILL be sold as a full package, along with the "F2P" trial. So if you wanna pick it up, you can just buy the full game and then forget about the "F2P" kind of crap. I think it's a smart move to let people choose.

 

[sc_shark]

seems intresting.. im sure their wont be a free game fully unlocked.. but i still like the free 1 player demo idea.

i would thin most big title games will offer some type of launch demo. forza horizon(horrible game) offered a digital demo with a bonus for playing and buying irrc.. it also saved some of your acheivments in the demo/play and reconized them on the full title/buy.

 

[pojokers]

It's cool that this is free to play but is it true that you have to buy the other characters and that you only get one to use in the beginning? I'm pretty sure this is true (correct me if I'm wrong) and on paper this sounds like a scumbag move, unless I'm overlooking something...

 

[sc_shark]

So far thats a rumor about how many playable characters will be avaliable im not saying a scumbag move it did take development to build the game. its really depends how much for he characters. if its a 10 dollar dlc than no biggie but if its 40 than yea kinda sux.

 

[pojokers]

I think it also depends on how many characters are in the game. If the characters run for $5 a pop or 5 characters for $20 and there's quite a bit of characters then it's going to be rough. I just hope they know what they're doing.

 

[sc_shark]

lets say u payed 20bux max for the day one characters i dont feel it would be a rip off. (i dont know how many killer instint had ot begin with) if you have to pay 40+ than yea i feel its a **** move but i don't think that will be the case. most sytems come bundled with 1 game. my new 360 came with a 2 pack irrc. we are getting project spark and possibly killer instinct... how much of them we are getting is still an unknown..

with project spark it looks like we are getting a ton of stuff to be honest... watch the hr long dev chatt i posted end of last week. game actually looks fun and a ton of gameplay to me.

hear is the dev chatt about killer instint

 

[OniBlackMage]

This can be a good or bad experiment based on the unlocking criteria. If its full of ridiculous standards like Street Fighter 4 was, and that's for the entire roster, that's not cool. If its easy and just a matter of winning a number of matches or beating a difficulty or campaign like Soul Calibur, then that's great.

A full retail game for free, even with a lot of stuff to be unlocked (as long as it can be) sounds like a step in the right direction. Though as we have seen current day, its easy to pervert that model into "free-mium" or "pay-to-win".

 

[pojokers]

Well said guys, I'm just not holding my breath until we get concrete details. I have no problem with supporting a project I just don't want to get burned. I'm not worrying too much just a little skeptical.

 

[BitesizeCrayons]

I concede that it's cool that they're offering what should be a fun title at launch for free, but I also fear the slippery slope of microtransactions becoming more widespread. Maybe it could end up being a good thing; perhaps the base cost of a game could go down, and you could buy what you want and skip what you don't, but I have a feeling it will just go in the direction of devs and publishers attempting to line their pockets more.