GamingFan4Lyf

@16BitHero People act like the probably 30+ million Series consoles out there are "nothing". Sure, it's not selling like PlayStation, but it's still a considerable amount of players to appeal to.

This isn't a Wii U situation where it barely broke 13 million sales.

My all-digital "Xbox Series X" is also white...with a glass side panel...and has liquid cooling...and 6TB of storage. 😂

I do like the looks of that Elite Controller. May have to look into upgrading from my last-gen Cyberpunk 2077 Controller.

Fans really, really, really want a new game engine.

@SodaPop6548 Fortnite runs on UE5 and it's fast, but 60fps was probably the focus right out of the gate.

Part of the reason AAA UE5 games haven't been running at 60fps is because developers aren't targeting 60fps on console. Developers are pushing visual fidelity and effects for 30fps and then shoehorning 60fps modes.

Plus, we haven't seen a UE 5.4 game release yet.

Digital Foundry did a test-case analysis a while back on UE 5.4 using the Matrix Demo on PC and found that lower-spec CPUs got like a 50% boost in performance over the previous versions of the engine due to the multi-threaded rendering pipeline that was added to that particular version. That bodes well for consoles.

UE 5.5 does some even more impressive things with Lumen and was recently shown off running on a PS5 - and running pretty well for a tech demo (the person doing the presentation only said "PlayStation 5" and made no mention if it was a PlayStation 5 Pro).

I preordered through Green Man Gaming for $54 and I can't wait to play this on Steam!

I sold off my Xbox Series X and all the games and, after I finish Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, will be done with PS5 for the foreseeable future (perhaps permanently depending on how much more aggressive Sony becomes regarding its PC strategy).

It's a shame Xbox owners will miss out on Sient Hill 2 for at least a year because the reviews are very positive for the remake.

“Age hasn’t slowed you down one bit”

@GuyinPA75 I must have ideal hand size or something because I have only been bothered once by a controller in over 36 years of gaming across consoles:

The Switch Joy-Con cramp my hand if I play too long with it. Dark Souls Remastered was a nightmare on the Joy-Con when I didn’t have access to my Pro Controller.

I have switched to PC where I use the Xbox Controller to play Sony games. 👍

But, to me, a controller is a controller.

@Secryt I mean, I have seen Nintendo stuff, sure - and generic "I'm a gamer" type clothes, but I have never seen PlayStation-specific clothes or Xbox-specific clothes.

It's basically all Nintendo-specific or generic "gaming".

@OldGamer999 I don't disagree. I have no idea why Microsoft has such a low advertising budget.

@Coletrain I talked to a few of my "PlayStation" acquaintances about Series X|S and about the ecosystem vs Sony's approach.

They disagreed with what was Sony was doing and were impressed with how Microsoft was handling things.

Still bought PlayStation 5. 🤷‍♂️

PS: those people don't play Sony exclusives - they are the annual COD/Madden/etc. crowd. So, it's not as if they would be missing out on anything by switching.

@OldGamer999 Interesting.

Other than Nintendo character clothing in the kids section, the only place to find "gamer wear" in the US is GameStop or online.

If the majority of developers simply say "the sales of products on your console compare to the competition isn't enough to justify the cost of porting," I am not quite sure there is anything Microsoft can do about that.

Despite how things have turned on for the Xbox brand, MIcrosoft really did try hard this generation and it just didn't work.

Microsoft handled cross-gen way better than Sony
Microsoft provided a much better feature set for Series X|S over PlayStation
Microsoft released actual new games. Microsoft couldn't predict the reception of said games, but not one first-party game Microsoft released said "Remastered" or "Director's Cut" on the box nor did Microsoft charge $10 more for Series X|S upgrades.

People call the Series S a mistake, but Microsoft was trying to give people economic options. I am sure the thought was in the right place.

It certainly wasn't perfect, but it wasn't as if Microsoft didn't try to overcome the woes of last generation.

People just stuck to their PlayStations - just like people stick with their iPhones with every generation because it's too much hassle to change over to Android.

@smoreon Oh, I totally get the games locked behind exclusivity. But, looking at that video, whoever is working on this, isn't focusing on the games locked in those shackles.

I would think the first batch of games would be things like Halo 5 and not Sonic Mania, Limbo, and Minecraft.

Maybe it's a complexity thing?

That screenshot is amazing!

After Bethesda fixes this, they need to create an official "Lookup Failed" planet that is programmed to fail in random ways (but not crash the game).

Would be a nice way to own up to and having fun with having such shaky Quality Control.

I feel emulating newer consoles starts to become a waste as probably 95% of the X1 library has a PC version.

I guess with PC basically being digital-only, this helps should a PC game get removed forever - you can at least access the X1 version by either dumping your own copy (assuming you still have one) or getting it through more questionable avenues.

But otherwise, I don't see the point.

@NEStalgia Agreed. FSR, itself, isn't bad. How developers have been using it is the bad part!

This one certainly wears its influence on its sleeve doesn't it?

It almost seems like this was a Chrono Trigger remake someone worked on, proposed to Square Enix, got rejected, and was turned into its own game!

@bicbuck While it is annoying that part of the reason console Game Pass is more expensive than PC is down to paid multiplayer, another reason PC is cheaper is because the console library of Game Pass games is significantly larger than PC Game Pass - especially when you consider that some games on console Game Pass never released on PC plus there are developers/publisher who simply don't release their games to the Microsoft Store.

Heck, even DOOM (2016) isn't on PC Game Pass - and Microsoft owns it!

It's a good game.

I am off and on playing it. For me, I have to be in the right mood for this game. It's not that's necessarily hard, it's just that I sometimes don't want to fight multiple bosses in such a short amount of time during my gaming time.

There are just so many games at my fingertips on PC at the moment that I am all over the place with my playing habits - some are new to me, some I have played before on console but now seeing through an entirely different lens on PC (e.g. Alan Wake 2, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Lords of the Fallen, etc.), others are just stone-cold classics from my Steam library that have been sitting dormant for the last 12 years when I got off my PC (e.g. Half-Life 2, Portal - but now with RTX, Batman Arkham Asylum, etc.).

I really need to dial it in at some point or I will never finish anything!

"Kept you waiting, huh?"

@NEStalgia I read this in Barret's voice. 😂

NOTE: I am currently playing through Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

@Lrapsody Oh I won't play online - as lame as it sounds, I have zero interest in playing with people who sit around all day and play COD. It's just not fun dying every 2 seconds when I only have about an hour of game time per day.

I'd rather just play the campaign. If it stinks, I'll uninstall it with zero loss to my bank account.

My "git gud" tolerance really only extends to Souls-likes.

I may give this a whirl simply because I already have Game Pass Ultimate subscription.

Doesn't hurt to try - even though I know nothing of the backstory of this particular story arch.

I really wouldn't worry about this too much.

I mean, even some of those "native Series X|S" cross-gen titles are nothing more than last-gen code with a metadata change for the frontend to mark as "native" (and perhaps a small patch).

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the X1 codebase using Series X|S enhancements but is now marked as "Series X|S". I think the Quality/Performance display options were removed, but that was it. Like, one day it was marked as a X1 title and the next day it was a Series X|S title - no new game download needed.

The thing is, Sony treats releases and SDKs very differently than Microsoft does for Xbox. Plus, Microsoft can do significantly more with backwards compatibility patches than Sony as well. It's PC-like in that regards.

Mojang probably had no choice but to release a PS5 native version in order for it to match the enhancements that the game has running on Series X.

I mean, I guess Mojang could just update the games metadata to give it a "Series X|S" label just to say it's now "native", but they certainly aren't making a whole new build because they don't have to on Xbox.

@FatGuyInLilCoat Sure, if you define "Xbox" as the plastic box rather than the name of Microsoft's gaming ecosystem.

I don't think butting heads is such a bad thing as long as there is some overall successful result. Sometimes you need someone to give an honest truth when tunnel vision sets in.

Heck, the whole Xbox legacy was built because some engineers at Microsoft butted heads with Bill Gates!

@GADG3Tx87 ...and yet Sony still thrives. So that "strategy" didn't work either - probably because despite the fact Microsoft COULD spend Sony out of the industry, it knows it wouldn't get that money back. So, what would be the point - especially with regulatory commissions on its back left right and center?!

And I feel like that reality is starting to hit Sony. All this money it's been spending on domination isn't coming back like it wants to. Hence, PC releases, Switch releases, $30 console stands, $700 Pro console without a stand or disc drive, $80 mountable disc drives, $60 PSVR PC adapters, $200 streaming device, etc. etc.

@Tyrant_T103 Sony is spending its way into dominance. Unfortunately, it's also the reason PlayStation budgets are skyrocketing to the point that it needs to put games on PC in order to get a better ROI as well as continue to add more weight on the consumers back.

The funny thing is, it all gets defended because it's PlayStation.

"Sony cares about its platform."
Yes it does. It just doesn't care about the consumer.

It won't be so funny when Sony dominates completely, and people are paying $90 for PS6 games and $1000 on the console itself.

"Economic times," they say - while shareholders are collecting their record profits.

Not saying Microsoft is any better. It certainly has its share of blood collection from consumers. But Microsoft has spent its money to secure a future for Xbox rather than knock out the competition.

I'll be enjoying this game on PC, thanks!

@Nintendo4Sonic Multiplayer became the focus and the single player campaign took a back seat. There was like an intensity to the single player campaign that got lost to a brainless shooting gallery.

I did try Ghost when the PS4 released and I couldn't get into it.

Plus, it just turned into a consumer ATM machine.

@Nintendo4Sonic Just because I don't like it, doesn't mean I am not interested in knowing what's going on with it.

Who knows...maybe one day I will take a dive and play it again. I haven't played a COD game since Modern Warefare 2...on X360.

Love Art the Clown.
Hate Call of Duty.

I had zero doubt this game would be just fine on last-gen. Other than the larger environments, there really wasn't much of an improvement over the first game graphically.

Sure, some bells-and-whistles were added for current-gen release, but it's all window dressing that can be paired back.

Those load times on last-gen are insane though - and is really one of the biggest "game changers" for consoles this generation.

At least they're honest about it and don't come up with some PR song and dance to build up some kind of false hope.

@BacklogBrad Yeah, I foresee myself maybe getting a different motherboard in a couple of years (mine is a B650 and doesn't have PCIe 5.0 support). But my 7800X3D will probably last for quite a while before needing an upgrade.

I know AMD said that AM5 is support through 2027, so maybe a MOBO with PCIe 5.0 will be pretty cheap by then. But even still, I won't need new RAM or PSU, or Watercooler, etc. for quite some time. But I will at least have support for like a future Nvidia card should my 4070 Super start chugging (though I suspect it will be quite a long time before that happens).

I bought a $1700 PC to basically replace the Xbox Series X (and mostly PS5, too).

It's essentially my XSX Pro...and PS5 Pro...put together...basically a PlayNextBoxStation 6. 😂

This could benefit Series X.

Since PlayStation is the lead platform, perhaps developers will actually look beyond base PS5 and actually use that 20% extra power the Series X has over base PS5 during the process of tapping into the PS5 Pro - especially if the PS5 actually has true RDNA 2.0 support that the Series X has had...Day 1.

It won't move the needly in Xbox favor - unless of course it can somehow advertise that Series X can do almost as much as a PS5 Pro at $200 less - but at least it could mean that Series X actually gets "used" properly.

The only "deal" I foresee with Sony for this game is that optimization work was still being done on Xbox that would have resulted in a delay and Sony provided some kind of help or incentive that caused Game Science to simply put Xbox work on the backburner to focus on PlayStation (and PC) releases - which were already the closest to being finished.

This is why Microsoft can't comment on "deals" made because, honestly, Microsoft probably doesn't know what was decided between Sony and Game Science. All Microsoft can say is that it's working with the developer to get the game out and that's it.

I have slowly lost interest in the game (and I am only in Chapter 2). It was cool at first, but the whole "boss rush" nature of it is starting to get old. I still fire it up from time to time, but my hype has dissipated, and I find myself going back to older games instead.

I hope Microsoft is realizing that its support teams aren't as up to snuff as they should be - all this restructuring is causing balls to drop left and right.

It shouldn't take public outcry for Microsoft to step up and help developers when there is a team dedicated to helping developers - especially on a platform that is getting skipped by developers more and more often.

I tried game development once about 10-ish years ago. I was doing an XNA-based project (sprite-based schmup) and at one point it ran at like 10fps at 1080p. I don't remember how I fixed it or if I ever actually got it running right..the endeavor didn't last too long as I hate doing it!

The point I am trying to make...if people knew all the ins and outs of game development, they would wonder how games work at all on any hardware.

Eh, I'm not that interested in this.

Maybe if it ever goes on a very deep sale one day in the far future on PC (like $5), I could be tempted.

@Neither_scene When I got my gaming PC a few weeks back, I got a 27" LG Nano IPS monitor. It supports HDR10 (albeit "only" 400 nits - but HDR provides more than just peak brightness benefits), 165Hz, G-Sync, and is 1440p. It has 2 HDMI and 1 DisplayPort. The only drawback is that there are no built-in speakers.

I am seriously considering moving my PS5 into the computer room as I feel like games look better on that than they do on my 55" Vizio M7 Quantum 4K TV - then again, that could also be attributed to the fact I can run games on significantly higher presets on PC more so than the display itself.

Atomic Heart had promise, but man, was it tough (and not the fun kind).

Let me find my surprised face.

Just goes the show that even if a GaaS starts off with some popularity, anything can change to simply kill it off.

@NEStalgia Even with DLSS?! That seems...surprising. I mean, sure, one can argue it's not running "true 4K", but that was entirely the reason why DLSS was invented - because native 4K is also incredibly taxing on hardware (well, with RT enabled anyways).

@NEStalgia RT can be quite heavy but not “runs like hot garbage on a 4090” heavy.

I have a 4070 Super. I can run Lords of the Fallen at 1440p/DLAA/Ultra/no Frame Gen and get 70+ fps.

Control at 1440p native High preset (max) and High RT (max) can sits around 65fps (but can dip below 60). If I turn off MSAA (which isn’t really all that great in Control anyways) the framerate gets into the 75+ fps range.

No reason Avowed couldn’t run a decent framerate even with RT.

@ExtremeGamer I guess what confuses me is this idea of "end support"

The old games still work! So, the hardware can still translate MT Framework titles and run them with no issues in the backwards compatibility layer.

Does "end support" mean that Microsoft told Capcom they can't use it anymore?!

"end support" to me would mean, "It can't run games that use it." That is absolutely not the case.

So if "end support" just means "don't use it anymore", then, again, it's a policy change for Microsoft that can easily be rectified.

The whole situation is just dumb, really, and further solidifies my decision to ditch consoles all together in favor of the open PC platform where this kind of garbage either doesn't exist or is fixed by the community to ensure people can enjoy the games they love (where "support" ended - e.g. 3DFX, older DirectX titles, etc.).

@ExtremeGamer It is an odd state of affairs given that current backwards compatible titles using the MT Framework still work on Series X|S. Plus, only 2 years ago the Capcom Fighting Collection released on Xbox One using MT Framework.

So...something has changed in those 2 years...but what?!

@BlueSheepz Wow, rude.

There is a better way to saying "You know, I don't think what you are saying is entirely accurate due to [X]" without being a [expletive] about it - especially since I don't follow all the ins and outs of retro Capcom releases.

I thought I had read a few times that Microsoft required that all new releases had to have a "native" Series X|S version.

Since Series X|S don't natively support the framework - and Capcom has little interest in doing the work due to perceived little to no ROI - that was the reason why MT Framework-based titles are skipping the platform.

That was my basis of my comment.

Microsoft could fix this easily: remove the mandate that new releases require a Series version if the game targets X1.

Done.

@Fiendish-Beaver I wonder about Game Pass sustainability as well. I can actually take it or leave it. I have Game Pass Ultimate until at least 2026, but if it were to ever go away, I'd be fine with it.

In the meantime, I will definitely take advantage of it while I have it.

Personally, I'd love to see a day when no paid services are offered from platform holders and simply offer better game deals to entice people to spend.

I do feel bad for life-long and hardcore Xbox fans. It all must be incredibly frustrating to see this total lack of direction from the platform holder.

As for me, I am just looking for the best option to play the games I want to play and PC feels like the best route forward in today's landscape.