Rumour Roundup: The Hottest Xbox Rumours We've Seen In April 2021

So many rumours, so many haters wishing that it never come true.

Really exciting time to be an Xbox and even just a gaming fan in general. I don't suspect we'll hear anything 'big' until E3, but crazy enough, it's not really that far off!

@Arcnail I was thinking the same exact thing, crazy we're only 2 months from E3 time!! Lots of interesting rumors here and none seem too far fetched, exciting times ahead!

Im really enjoying all these rumours, Hopefully a few of them turn out to be true..

Exciting stuff.
Makes a huge change from last gen, when outside of Game Pass, had very little to look forward to.

Battlefield 6 on Gamepass Day One get it done Xbox

I'm pretty sure all are true. The dominos are falling fast and the industry is being moved into a new direction. Any multiplayer games with any microtransactions will be day n date in gamepass going forward, EA is definitely going to try and take some marketshare away from COD.

Nitendo will be fine with having gamepass on the switch as they will sell more units and still sell their full price N64 ports. I imagine that they will get a % of any purchases made as well through the Xbox ecosystem so I don't see the issue.

Japan has been a big focus for Phil so more Japanese games is a priority as is the collaboration with Nitendo.

Gamepass is the product they are pushing...to any screen they can. The whole argument of "I won't need to buy an Xbox now!" Yeah....kinda the point. Hardware development is expensive and usually is sold at a loss...to get you into the ecosystem where the money is made. If the can skip the part that doesn't really make money it's actually a win. I personally hope they make consoles for at least another generation before the internet structure can actually support buttery smooth streaming on a global scale.

I'm pretty sure most of these will end up being true

The only one that probably has the potential to break down is the Kojima stuff considering he did pitch his next game to Stadia but that got turned down entirely, so clearly he's not immune to talks breaking down but I think Phil probably knows better

I still don't know what to think about Persona though. Atlus' Xbox output has been infamously poor and their games just don't sell well on that platform so I wonder what SEGA had to do to convince them it was a good idea, especially if we're talking about a numbered entry like Persona 5

@Meehanuk I'll bite.. what's being an Xbox?

Switch Pro will have a 5G SIM card slot, xCloud support and analog triggers.

I just made that up but sounds cool

@Arcnail I think "being an Xbox" is when your experience and relationship with your console transcends the normal limits of modern gaming and you become one with the Xbox. Mind and machine converge and your consciousness exists only in the (x)cloud. It is a state that few attain and even fewer return from to tell the tale.

A few years ago I would of prayed that none of theses rumours were true, but tomorrow I will get my series S my first xbox console in 8 years and turn down my Sony fanboyism and see the bigger picture for what it is. So yeah I hope all these rumours are true especially the tales of Arise one (love jrpgs)

@UltimateOtaku91 hope you enjoy the S

@UltimateOtaku91 yeah how fun !

Let me guess The Medium is the first game downloaded ?

@mousieone it doesn't come until tomorrow, but yeah it will be one of the first games I download, I have been playing a couple games on Xcloud so I will try finish those first, do you know if my xcloud saves will be available for those games when I download them.

@GunValkyrie haha well I still love my ps4 and will get a ps5 when stocks available but yeah with everything xbox is doing this gen I'd be stupid not to get one

@UltimateOtaku91 should be. Always works for me. One of the nice things about the ecosystem is the save syncs. Granted it had to be the account you played xCloud with. But yeah it all should sync up

There are some heavy rumours around of Microsoft buying the entire MGS franchise from Konami as well. That might be the Kojima game.

@RadioHedgeFund Konami is WAY too stubborn to do that. There's no way in hell they're giving up any of their IPs to another publisher unless they're outsourcing to other studios for games like what just happened with that GetsufumaDen game that got announced

If Microsoft wants MGS, they'll have to settle for buying Konami as a whole

@TheFrenchiestFry I wonder if they haven’t already. Microsoft were supposed to be shopping around for a Japanese studio with some attached franchises and its obvious Konami have no interest in pursuing video games anymore.

Buying their games dev arm would be pretty lucrative given the franchises Konami sits on. Imagine Remedy doing a new Silent Hill!

@RadioHedgeFund Actually speak of the devil Konami literally announced a new proper console game today during the Nintendo Indie World Showcase

It's not related to the big 4 franchises they have but apparently they're collaborating with an external studio to make a sequel to Getsufumaden and it actually looks like it has a proper budget behind it unlike their last two games

I have a feeling that even though it might be a ways off Konami could probably pull a Capcom and come back to the games industry between what happened today and the persistent rumors of a new Silent Hill or potentially multiple Silent Hill games. I think now their solution is outsourcing projects to other people, so they're clearly not thinking about being acquired by someone else and having their assets absorbed into other publishers for future games

@TheFrenchiestFry well they do have an E3 presences this year....

But to add to your post, I also don’t think Kojima wants to work on any of his old projects nor do I think MS wants to try to sell a Pachinko business.

I think your right about the outsourcing though.

@Meehanuk lol I caught that

@RadioHedgeFund Konami licensing their own old IP to make X rated pachinko machines? Never!

@UltimateOtaku91 Congrats! I have to say that, while I was never a "Sony Pony Fanboy" in the true sense, I was definitely in the "all you need is Nintendo and Sony - Xbox is a joke and MS will get out of consoles next gen" camp from the time of the XBox Done disaster until X1X was announced. I had and liked 360, but the last few years of its life it circled the drain with bad OS updates and Matrick chasing Wii via Kinekt.

I didn't "get" Xbox until I actually had an X1X in my hands to "compliment" PS4 Pro as my all-digital console. There's not one thing I could name about it that I liked in particular, but the collection of little things, especially as a digital buyer, that made it so nice to use had me re-buying my PS4 digital library on X1 within a month or two.

It's hard to explain sometimes. You can go on Push Square and tell someone you like XB more for everything but PS exclusives and if people challenge why...there's really nothing I can come back with and say "because this" - their arguments make sense in a vacuum. But somehow the ownership experience of the post-X1X consoles is just.....nicer for all the small reasons once you live with it a while.

You'll reject the UI at first, but once you tune your folders (IT. HAS. FOLDERS!!!1 ) and set up your Guide Menu/Start Menu the way you want it, it's just elegant to use.

@NEStalgia recieved my S today and it was super fast and easy to set up and dobwlaoaded my first 3 games (control, state of decay 2 and medium), totally glad they have folders and the ui is actually easy and nece to navigate and the fact I can personalise it is nice, just wish I could have themes like on ps4. But yeah the last time I played an xbox was the month the xbox one came out and the ui has came a long way since then.

Only two gripes for me which aren't mega deals but just used to with ps4, first being adverts under the home menu and second being that I can only downlaod one thing at a time.

For playstation their ui feels like it's been roughly the same since the ps3 with a few tweaks here and there each gen, but I agree apart from thire exclusives theres not a lot going for them, xbox seems to have the better hardware and quality of life touches and a better plan going forward.

@UltimateOtaku91 Glad to hear you're getting along with it so fast. Pure speculation, but I would bet themes may arrive at some point during the generation. They seem to be into those little personalization tweaks on the OS (it's the home of the desktop wallpaper, after all), and they recently introduced that handful of pre-made default themes to toggle between, so it seems like a logical easy to add crowd pleaser at some point. Though probably not a high priority one as PS5 doesn't have them yet either. X1 introduced folders like 4 years into the cycle, so there's always time Either that or neither of the 3 "next gen" consoles will let you use your own wallpaper....

When you say "downloading one thing at a time" do you mean how PS4 would have two download threads simultaneously like a download manager in a browser? I think PS5 doesn't do that anymore either (I'll have to check that out again.) I always assumed that was a workaround to some limitation of the hardware IO or their servers. It didn't really make sense otherwise. If you're saturating your bandwidth and the disk I/O, downloading 2 things at once at half bandwidth isn't much more useful than downloading them back to back at full bandwidth.

The only download pet peeve I have on the XS|X is the fact that it needs to throttle the downloads to a crawl when a game is running vs PS5 which is annoying. Although it makes up for it by being able to copy between drives or delete in the background while games are running, and/or while in sleep, at all, while PS5 sticks you with that copying screen and no time estimate and makes you wait there with the console on, doing nothing, the whole time it copies like it's running Windows 3.1.

The ads, though, are one unfortunate holdover from Matrick that makes me sad. I remember when that was added at the end of the 360. Though at least the ads are most of the time for new game releases in the store or GP, or new accessories so it feels less like a commercial and more like a "what's new" block. Back in the Matrick 360 ads days you'd get more random ads for Old Spice or Doritos or something not really gaming related.

PS seems to be more interested in changing the UI to make it more visually unique each generation than adding useful features. PS5 took away a ton of usability in exchange for little more than a cleaner UI and more "social" connectivity....from the company that prides itself on the solo cinematic experience. Kind of a weird connection. It's probably just because I use my PS5 less than my XSX and Switch, but every time I pick it up I feel like I'm struggling with doing basic tasks. Like changing games, browsing games, or turning the darn thing off. I will never forgive them for not making long-press-PS the "power menu" button. That's Samsung levels of awkward changes. And even Samsung lets you set it back to normal in the settings.