Grumblevolcano

I'd rank it D, there have been a decent amount of additions I would've played if I was a subscriber but Microsoft's approach of always heavily focusing on the holiday season for the 1st party front makes the rest of the year weak.

I already said this on Push Square but because of the rough state of the 1st party front for Xbox, the PS+ revamp actually looks more impressive than Game Pass even with the absence of day 1 releases.

I've checked the playlists and Last Spartan Standing playlist is gone but the mode also hasn't been added to any other playlists. So it seems to be a similar situation to Attrition last season.

@awp69 It's usually the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month so tomorrow. Recently though the list has leaked on the Monday.

@themightyant There's likely more to consider than just cost. So like security on 360 is weak enough that plenty of games' online are ruined by hackers. Also much like how Bungie were involved with the Halo 360 servers even after they stopped doing Halo, the same is probably true for Epic Games with the Gears 360 servers.

@themightyant I think the biggest reasons for a Gears collection would be about the 360 servers as well as the absence of 2, 3 and Judgment on PC. Microsoft shut down the Halo 360 servers earlier this year so they may also intend to do the same with the 360 Gears servers (or perhaps even a more general 360 shutdown like the original Xbox in 2010). Given Gears is more than just a solo experience, a lot would be lost from a server shutdown if there's wasn't a replacement in place.

I know Judgment wasn't anywhere near as well received as the trilogy but I hope a collection would have all 4 Xbox 360 games.

Regarding ports and remasters in general, I think there's a lot of potential. PC missed out on a lot of OG Xbox and 360 games, a load of PC games stayed PC exclusive and lots of 360 games have had their servers shutdown recently. So a good showcase would have stuff like:

• Gears collection (the 360 games) for PC and console
• Age of Empires Definitive Collection for console
• Age of Empires 4 for console
• Remasters for earlier Bethesda games (there's plenty for example that never came to Xbox or aren't part of backwards compatibility)
• Halo 5 for PC

I think Redfall will be March and Starfield will be June or 2nd half of 2023. From what we know about Redfall so far, it sounds like a live service game so it wouldn't be wise to launch it close to a Halo Infinite season. Unless the 6 month seasons continue after season 2, the seasons will be in early February, early May, early August and early November hence why I'm predicting March for Redfall.

As for Starfield, it feels like the kind of release that'll get 1 final pre-launch promotion push at Summer Game Fest and/or E3 2023. Also that way Starfield would avoid being buried by BotW 2 (I think BotW 2 will be March 2023 coinciding with new hardware around Switch's 6th anniversary).

@Ralizah Bayonetta 3 already has a 2022 release window, while it could get delayed I'm guessing it'll take the Halloween slot like Bayonetta 2 did on Wii U.

It's very good that Bethesda are being given the time they need, the state of Halo Infinite did make it seem like Microsoft may have forced Bethesda to release this holiday even if not ready but that's fortunately not the case.

@NEStalgia I really miss 2013 Sony.

This reminds me of Don Mattrick's XB1 vision to be honest. There were more digital options like this and the ability to trade digital games but at the cost of always online DRM and used physical games not working in the traditional way.

I think the best outcome for Battlefield would be to bring back the older games. Something like remastering Bad Company 1+2 and Battlefield 3, yes I know they're on Xbox backwards compatibility but someday Microsoft will shut down the 360.

Dragon Age collection does seem the most natural choice for the remake given what they did with Mass Effect. I definitely think the remake will be of PS3/360 game(s) given those consoles are probably rather close to their servers being shut down.

I'm not holding my breath but it would nice if Forza licensing ends up becoming longer than 4 years. On the current trajectory, Forza Horizon 4 will be delisted in 2022 and Forza Horizon 5 will be delisted in 2025. Xbox has also been without a purchasable Forza Motorsport game for 8 months and counting.

I think if Infinite's Forge is at least as good as Halo 5's Forge, we'll be seeing a huge amount of classic maps returning. Ones that 343 don't bring back themselves would be brought back by the community and then added to matchmaking.

Xbox sure is bringing back a load of things from Don Mattrick's vision of the XB1 recently. What's next, the return of the snap functionality?

@somnambulance I think it's more the live service model that's the issue. With almost all Xbox Game Studios games nowadays being live service, the similarities between them are amplified. Forza Horizon 5 also has a content problem when compared to Forza Horizon games that weren't live service for example.

@Bleachedsmiles Another key thing Nintendo does that I feel is important is heavily focusing on the next 6 months and that stuff after that is the odd tease here and there. Look at Nintendo E3 2021 for example, the stuff releasing 2022 or later present was:

• Life is Strange Remastered Collection (release window in the Direct was 2021 but got delayed)
• Two Point Campus
• Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp (release date in the Direct was December 3rd 2021 but got delayed)
• Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope
• BotW 2

The narrative event was cool, having a cutscene both at the start and the end of the event pass makes it feel more like your multiplayer matches contribute to the story.

Last Spartan Standing on Breaker is fine though I do think it'll be more fun once the other maps enter the rotation. I did stay in the lobby after losing all lives as I heard about the progress glitch if you leave early so waiting for the match to finish was sometimes very boring.

I played around with some of the other modes and they're ok but I feel mostly done with Infinite until the Fracture event starts.

@Zucaritas FIFA is PS+ for May so I could see it added to EA Play in June.

It feels believable given how some would be upcoming games and others would be upcoming content for existing games. For example with Playground Games, I really doubt we'd see anything on Fable but it's extremely likely that we see the first expansion for Forza Horizon 5. Similarly with Obsidian, the most likely thing to appear is Grounded leaving early access.

I remember someone saying in July 2020 that Microsoft removed traces of a XB1 version of Forza Motorsport and Everwild shortly after the showcase that happened that month perhaps as a response to Jim Ryan's "We believe in generations" comment. Maybe Microsoft decided to do the same as Sony and then we find out that all the non-Bethesda games get XB1 versions (Bethesda pushed for new gen only with stuff like Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo).

A remaster where the game plays the same but a few very specific songs from the soundtrack are removed would be fantastic.

This is a fantastic feature, I remember playing through Tomb Raider 2013 and I got all the single player achievements except a secret achievement which after beating the game at 100% map completion, I noticed I would've had to start the game again from the beginning to earn it so I didn't bother.

Redeemed Hydro Thunder Hurricane the last time it was part of Games With Gold and not particularly interested in the other 3. Will probably redeem Viva Pinata Party Animals to complete the collection (have the other 2 via Rare Replay).

@BAMozzy The 1 year timed exclusivity might be regarding talking about a Xbox release too so we may not hear about Deathloop Xbox version until September for example.

I hope it's a strong showcase. So far the E3 2015 press conference is still by far the most impressive Xbox showcase of the past decade, would be nice if a newer showcase got close to that.

On an offtopic note, I wonder what's happening with Games With Gold as May starts on Sunday yet an announcement hasn't happened yet.

My prediction:

• A bunch of 3rd party games being Xbox day 1 on Game Pass
• Forza Horizon 5 Expansion 1
• Grounded leaving early access
• As Dusk Falls
• Age of Empires Definitive Collection and Age of Empires 4 for console
• Halo Infinite Battle Royale
• Gears Marcus Fenix Collection
• Forza Motorsport reboot
• Redfall
• Starfield

Where the show starts with Redfall and ends with Starfield (basically reverse of last year).

@NEStalgia Xenoblade, Splatoon and Bayonetta franchises all got dedicated Directs for the previous new entry so I think it may be the only things that'll happen in June for Nintendo are a Pokemon Presents, a trailer for MK8 Deluxe DLC wave 2 and a Xenoblade 3 Direct.

Was hoping for May given all that's happening before that showcase for Xbox as far as we know is Halo Infinite Season 2 but it's still nice that we have an event confirmed to exist.

@FraserG Sonic 3 & Knuckles have been delisted early.

https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/sonic-the-hedgehog-3/c59c8g9pqn1d

https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/sonic-knuckles/bxpk5k67dlj4

Makes me further think there's a Gears collection coming this year. This kind of setup reminds me of 2018 when 343 ditched Halo 5 in favour of fixing up MCC.

@UltimateOtaku91 I think the Switch outselling both is a case of both hardware availability and strong software lineup. Series X|S doesn't have the latter (e.g. yet another drought for the 1st half of the year) and PS5 doesn't have the former.

@PhileasFragg Price, the 4 360 games combined is £12.06 meanwhile Origins is £32.99. It's the same reason Nintendo delisted the Wii U version of Tropical Freeze back in 2018 (and Pikmin 3 in 2020 but that got reversed over massive backlash).

So it probably changed direction around the time Hero Shooter didn't work for Gears 5 (there were gigantic content droughts in Gears 5 until the Hero Shooter side was dropped).

@RevGaming Yes there are exceptions like Nintendo acquiring Monolith Soft massively benefited the studio and Bayonetta 2/3 wouldn't have been made without Nintendo funding it but big acquisitions like Microsoft acquiring Bethesda and Activision serve only 1 goal and that's to take games away from competing platforms/services.

@RevGaming On the Xbox side you have the absence of games like FFVII Remake, FFXVI, Forspoken, Deathloop, Ghostwire Tokyo, etc. due to PS timed exclusivity. Meanwhile on the Playstation side you have Microsoft's constant acquisitions meaning plenty of games aren't coming to PS because Microsoft forces Xbox exclusivity.

So because Microsoft and Sony can't agree to ditch exclusivity and let platforms be judged by true 1st party games (rather than acquired 1st party games) and the ecosystem, you have Xbox and PS players wanting more acquisitions before the other one acquires and blocks games from releasing on their chosen console.

It's a huge shame, the future of gaming would've been a lot brighter if instead of Microsoft's acquisition sprees they bolstered their existing studios instead such that for example Halo Infinite exceeded the height of Halo 3's popularity.

It's probably Microsoft and would explain the recent increase in Ubisoft games on Game Pass. The FTC would be complicit in the acquisitions because they let Disney do acquisitions that were even more monopolistic.

Is this the 2nd time we've seen a Series X only game case? I know the first was Flight Sim and that was a better design than this.

Nice to see more clarity on campaign mission replay, the open world isn't interesting enough to justify replaying the campaign from the beginning but I'm missing a bunch of skulls from the linear missions. I'll do the same with playing the campaign on higher difficulties as just playing the linear missions counts.

As for the multiplayer side of things, it seems to still be rather rough especially with the 6 month long season. While the new modes seem interesting enough, I doubt it'll keep my attention for long though.

@uptownsoul Agreed, 17 months into the 360's lifespan would be April 2007 which was before the gigantic system sellers like Halo 3 arrived.

I do think we'll get that rumoured BR announced during Summer Game Fest, it fits the atmosphere of Geoff Keighley events.

@Bdbrady @KilloWertz With E3 cancelled, I'm starting to question whether Xbox will even have a showcase this year. Microsoft always puts a lot of focus on E3's existence but they had to do a showcase back in 2020 (first time E3 was cancelled) to showcase Series X as it was an upcoming console that year. This year it doesn't feel like Microsoft has any sense of urgency, they seem happy just drip feeding info on their live service games meanwhile there's the usual Game Pass info drops on the first and 3rd Tuesday of each month.

@RevGaming Seeing the Netflix news, it does seem like the future of gaming will skew even more towards the Fortnite model once the cheap Game Pass tricks (e.g. 3 months for $1, Gold to GPU upgrade being $1) are gone.

@Richnj Given Xbox's primary focus is Game Pass, I think they're adding ads to FTP games so that no ads is a Game Pass perk.

I think all future Xbox consoles will be under the Series branding in the sense that if Microsoft wanted to start it with the Xbox One branding instead, the Series X and S would've been called the Xbox One X2 and S2.

@GuyinPA75 Back in July 2018, 343 said the only BR they're interested in is the Battle Rifle. That was in the early days of battle royale games, Fortnite Battle Royale for example was less than a year old so battle royale could've become a very short term fad. As time went on, battle royale became gigantic and it's still very big even today so at some point 343 will have changed their mind which is understandable.

You're playing the new Halo Infinite expansion and there's a cutscene setting up an epic battle between Master Chief and Atriox, then suddenly a McDonalds ad appears.

Infinite is a free to play game after all...

With Persona 4 Golden released for PC in 2020, I could easily see a Persona 5 Royal port on PC happen. Increasingly in recent years PC has become this middle ground where console exclusive games come to.

I do wonder if there's more to it though given Persona 5 is leaving PS Plus Collection on May 11th:

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2022/03/persona-5-leaves-ps-plus-collection-in-may-for-unknown-reasons

It's all about content, MCC got a massive update this week (Flood Firefight, Halo 3/ODST crossplay campaign co-op, Customs Browser for Halo 2/2 Anniversary/4, etc.) meanwhile the last significant Infinite content was Attrition being a limited time mode back in January for 2 weeks which completely disappeared after February 1st.

People will return to Infinite when new content arrives (Season 2 in May).