Topic: General Xbox Series X|S Thread

I saw on Push Square that Xbox has presence at Gamescom so it seems like Xbox is returning to the 3 major event setup in digital form. Pre-pandemic the major events were E3 in June, a bigger than normal Inside Xbox during Gamescom in August and X0 in November so I'd guess Gamescom has a digital event featuring stuff like more info on Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 (among other games) followed by a major digital event in November celebrating 20 years of Xbox and looking to the future.

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2021/07/after_e3_2021_no_show...

@carlos82 I would assume that is because the Bluray discs have limited storage capacity and with Series X able to use 'higher quality' assets which would obviously be 'larger' in terms of Data, its more convenient and cheaper to supply the Assets by download. Otherwise you would be having 2 (or more) discs to have ALL the data and have to swap discs etc.

The game code, the assets etc are 'supplied' on a disc so you have the 'software' BUT the only thing you 'need' is just the 'licence'. When you buy Software, you are NOT buying the game code, the assets etc you are ONLY buying a Licence to access that software. Before the option of 'downloading' the software, they had to supply the Software too with the License, but you 'never' own the software.

Whether you bought Cartridges, Discs or Digital software, you actually only bought a 'license' to play those games. On Xbox for example, you have various different Licenses, from a 'general' license which means anyone in possession of it can access the game - which you find on Physical Media and why, even if you have installed the Software on your console, you have to put the disc in to check you have a valid licence to play. If you buy Digitally, you have a personal Licence linked to your account. Games with Gold come with a Personal Licence for the 360 and older games, and a Conditional Personal License on XB1+ games as you need to keep your subscription active as the condition. Game Pass too has a Conditional Personal Licence - with the conditions that you must have an active Sub and the game must be currently in Game Pass. Let your subs go and you can't access any of those games regardless of whether the 'software' is installed or not...

When you buy a Disc, whether its for the XB1 or Series console, you are NOT buying software but a Licence to access that software once its installed. Whether its installed from disc or online is 'irrelevant', the important thing is the Licence. Of course that's the 'bigger' picture. I know that not everyone has a 'decent' internet and some have limits on data too so I do appreciate that its not 'irrelevant' to those in practice but in principal, it doesn't matter how you get the 'software' on to the Hardware but without a valid License, its just useless 'data' clogging up your Storage.

@Grumblevolcano Xbox haven't talked about ALL their games coming in the next 6-12months yet - despite having 30 games at E3. Games like Scorn, CrossfireX, Warhammer: Darktide, the Gunk, Bright Memory: Infinite, ExoMecha etc were all revealed last year as Xbox Exclusives and some are expected to release in the latter half of this year but were not at E3. Of course there were a number of other absentees - Fable, Perfect Dark, Avowed, Hellblade 2, Forza Motorsport etc and it may be 'too soon' to show anything from 'some' - although maybe Avowed could get some attention.

Sony seem happy to do more regular State of Play video's rather than spend a LOT of money renting floor space, setting up hardware, planning a presentation and all that goes with attending a big event. If you heard Phil Spencer's interviews lately, you will know that they have an 'idea' of what next years E3 will be (with some flexibility). I am sure Sony know their Roadmap too and doing things 'their' way and maybe they feel that those events puts 'pressure' on to have a lot of content 'ready' to talk about without some of it leaking with so many 'different' companies and people involved.

@BAMozzy you say this but Series X versions of games are smaller than Xbox One games and many games would still fit on it. I have Judgement for Series X as that's not on Xbox One and can be installed entirely from the disc. Most games have been fine in me simply downloading it from the app and then simply putting the disc in but those which treat it as an upgrade can be troublesome. Its not a huge issue in the here and now but can have the potential to be a problem in the future

@BAMozzy Sony's situation seems to pretty much be the big new games are all delayed so their lineup after Ratchet & Clank last month is Director's Cuts (just a fancy term for a port with extra content) and 3rd party games. Not really fitting for a big event hence the social media announcements for 1st party stuff meanwhile 3rd party gets State of Play presentations. Nintendo had a similar situation last year with the introduction of Partner Showcases.

The Xbox games you mention for the rest of the year that didn't appear at E3 like CrossfireX and Scorn is the kind of stuff I think would appear at the Gamescom digital event alongside Infinite and FH5.

@Grumblevolcano Sony haven't really done a 'big' show since their 2018 E3 show which wasn't 'full' of games and didn't quite go to plan with 'themed' rooms and trying to move people. 2018 and 17 for that matter didn't really show a LOT of 1st Party games but they did do more 'extended' game-play slices of those - pretty much what they have done with State of Play. Talking was kept to a minimum too.

I don't care whether Sony or MS actually attend E3 or other big multi-platform event. There are Pro's and Con's to each - sharing the focus of all you have to offer with ALL the other companies trying to grab the attention too. I couldn't care less Sony weren't at E3, we had two State of Plays either side - one focussed on Horizon:FW and the other on some 3rd party games inc Deathloop - Stitch those two together and you have about 40mins of the 'usual' hour they have at E3. Go back to 2018's E3 and Sony's show was pretty much about 4 games (LoU2, Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding - ALL of which were known about before but we did get some more 'deep dive' into the game-play. They could literally split that up into 3/4 State of Plays and skipped E3 and the 'confusing and disappointing' reception they got....

@BAMozzy I disagree, the 2020 showcases were big especially the June PS5 Future of Gaming one (the September PS5 Showcase one was smaller but still bigger than State of Play). Sony's presence at Gamescom in the past was the physical showfloor of which there isn't one so of course they wouldn't be there, the notable thing is that Sony hasn't had a major presentation at all since September 2020.

A look at some of the Places in Mexico from Forza Horizon 5....

The new Edge browser entered Omega ring for Xbox Insiders yesterday. Usually the time between Omega ring and public release for updates is around 5 days so it seems likely that it'll get a public release just in time for Flight Sim console release allowing XB1 players access to the game provided they have GPU.

https://twitter.com/IdleSloth84/status/1418616848837496835

If you wanted to see what the Coalition's GDC presentation...

Well worth a watch...

This is very interesting - a feature of DirectX12 and of course Xbox...

The issue of 'bandwidth' to get all those assets where they need to be as quick as possible has been an issue with both MS and Sony tackling this with their 'new' consoles. Sony's route is to increase the Bandwidth as high as they could - so they have the very fast SSD. MS's approach is quite different - optimise and only transfer the actual data needed and this talks about that...

“Watch this 4k video provided by Playground Games themselves, yesterday’s stream doesn’t do the game justice. The sounds are amazing, you can actually hear the environments!“

@Senua Flight Simulator has blown my mind, I never imagined I'd ever get anywhere near such photo realism for the entire planet

I've just got the Seagate memory expansion and I'm seriously impressed, a tiny little thing that I plugged in and didn't see a message on screen, just checked my storage and it had just accounted for it. I wish PC hard drives were like this