Grumblevolcano

Can't tell whether this is just normal holiday sales or a sign Microsoft is trying to get rid of stock fast to make room for the "adorably all digital" Xbox future that was leaked back in September being officially announced at the Game Awards. Hopefully it's the former.

Translation: Only reveal facts and figures when they show a positive outlook.

If console sales were impressive they'd brag about it, same with Game Pass subscriber numbers.

@Widey85 It felt more like a domino effect to be honest which started with the Halo Infinite disaster when the full launch happened in December 2021. The November 2021 beta was fun for a beta and there was a lot of hype surrounding it but when it turned out the beta was the final product, that's when things started to go wrong.

Halo Infinite disaster -> 2022 game drought -> Redfall disaster -> Starfield being just average -> Forza Motorsport disaster

@rustyduck There are actually rumours swirling around that Windows 12 is a subscription service.

I think it'll be sometime in the time window of January - March 2024 and that'll be Xbox's big game for the time window.

It's got to be Gollum and Rise of Kong for Game Pass

What I'm hoping for from XGS would be the announcement of that long rumoured Gears collection. The franchise has pretty much completely disappeared, 360 is on its way out (store is gone in July 2024, several games' online servers have been or are being shut down) and Gears 2/3/Judgment are still missing from PC. Though I get the feeling that collection rumour was fake.

What I think will happen is only updates on MW3 and Diablo 4 (Geoff's events always seems to have Activision stuff present) alongside your typical Game Pass ads that have no new info. December will probably be quiet like last year and then they do another Developer Direct in January.

I'd say the 1st party lineup of the first 3 years of XB1 was a lot better than the 1st party lineup of the first 3 years of Series X|S.

I wonder what happened to Gears, it's been a long time since anything's happened with the franchise. Is The Coalition a UE5 support studio now?

I think they'll just do the normal November 28th announcement for December Game Pass games and that's it outside of maybe BG3 given announcement of announcement of Xbox version at the Game Awards has already been made.

With all signs pointing towards GTA6 being at the Game Awards which would steal the spotlight, it feels more likely that the platform holders will save reveals that may have normally fitted in the Game Awards for their own events instead.

Games With Gold was rough in more recent years but it was better than the mess that is Game Pass Core.

The removal of Games With Gold also means that if you're a Game Pass Ultimate member, you're basically spending more money to subscribe to a service which has less content (the Game Pass Core games are already in Ultimate but lots of times the Gold games weren't).

While I think it's too early in the year to judge, I'd rank it D so far. This year seems to be a showcase of Microsoft's greed (greed being increasingly present as the year went on) but I have to give some credit to that short time period in January where they had the Developer Direct + Hi-Fi Rush + Goldeneye 007 + AoE 2.

While the FTC round 1 and CMA sadly lost (the Activision acquisition being blocked would've been fantastic for gaming as a whole), I still appreciate their efforts in trying to stop Microsoft. A lot of info came out of stuff like during the FTC trial and Microsoft wouldn't have accidentally done that Xbox leak if there wasn't a FTC round 2.

@Maddie47 Just Dance already has changed from the annual new game model (last year's game was the final entry in the franchise). Just Dance 2024 is an expansion for Just Dance 2023 rather than a new game. If you get the physical version it's just a code in a box for the expansion.

@InvaderFromSpace Ara isn't coming to console though, if they're to go in that direction (big game of the quarter doesn't have to be a Xbox console release) they'd be more likely to count CoD Warzone Mobile as their big Q1 release.

Weird to showcase this in the sphere if it's not the next big release.

Given Microsoft's moves during and after the Activision acquisition saga, it's pretty obvious that this is a cost cutting measure and they will use the AI partnership to layoff more people which is a disgusting move.

@Rmg0731 Yeah, I think what we're going to see is Octopath 2 flops on Xbox because it's not on Game Pass and FFXIV Xbox players stop playing after they've used up the free trial. That kind of situation repeats resulting in relations souring.

Not related to Forza Motorsport but still Forza, it was revealed that Forza Horizon 5 is getting microtransactions:

https://forums.forza.net/t/autoshow-car-vouchers-in-fh5/648679

Given the timing, this is no doubt a result of the Activision acquisition. Phil Spencer probably put extra pressure on all XGS to make up for the profit lost by putting CoD on Game Pass.

The 1st comment sounds like a threat like "put Game Pass on your systems or never see CoD ever again because we're leaving gaming behind".

The 2nd comment makes me think the next 2 years are probably this (calendar quarters, not fiscal year quarters):

• Q1 2024 - Hellblade 2 (the sphere marketing had this but not Avowed)
• Q2 2024 - Avowed
• Q3 2024 - FH6
• Q4 2024 - CoD 2024
• Q1 2025 - Indiana Jones
• Q2 2025 - State of Decay 3
• Q3 2025 - Fable
• Q4 2025 - CoD 2025

Wouldn't be surprised at this rate if within a few years because of the Activision acquisition being approved, the Xbox experience becomes like those mobile games where you have to watch a long, unskippable video ad to do anything.

Turn on the console -> watch a long video ad to get to the dashboard -> select a game -> watch another long video ad before it starts loading -> load your save file if a single player game -> watch another long video ad to get into the game -> you die ingame -> watch yet another long video ad to reload the last checkpoint or save -> process repeats throughout your whole gameplay session

@OldGamer999 FM4 was before FH existed (FM4 was 2011, FH1 was 2012). It just seems to be part of the general trend that Xbox 1st party releases were of higher quality pre-XB1.

It's a shame licensing complicates things so much because Forza's best outcome would be bringing back the old games. Like FM3 and 4 are considered the best Forza Motorsport games by far.

@InterceptorAlpha It's believable as it's the only Forza Motorsport that's been day 1 on Game Pass but day 1 player count is a rather meaningless figure for subscription models (you can just download the game, play for a small amount of time and then decide to just not play again), retention rate has a lot more meaning.

I'd say it's a weak lineup, especially as Forza Motorsport is a mess.

That Game Pass growth remains stagnant to teach Microsoft a lesson that they should put more resources into studios they own rather than constant acquisitions.

Imagine an alternate reality where Microsoft didn't acquire Bethesda or Activision but put resources into their existing studios and Halo returned to being more popular than CoD like in the 2000s.

It's sad that the UK government intervened and forced the CMA to approve the acquisition. At least the CMA and FTC were able to reveal the truth about Xbox, something that would not have happened if the CMA caved in and approved the acquisition back in April.

@AlwaysPlaying Announcing a major acquisition focused on exclusivity while fighting a major acquisition by a competitor likely wouldn't go down well with regulators and Jim Ryan did say nothing is more important than CoD. So if Sony were to announce a Square Enix acquisition, it would be after the Activision acquisition had either gone through or been blocked to the point that Microsoft walks away.

Hopefully they stay independent, their Switch support has been amazing so far and there's so much potential for Switch 2 to fill in gaps like FFVII Remake trilogy, FFXVI, native versions of KH, etc.

The impression I'm getting from this is a similar situation to Halo Infinite which is a shame.

I wonder how much of the info in these leaks the EU had when they made their choice to approve the Activision acquisition. Really all of this makes the EU look like nothing more than Microsoft puppets.

At least the CMA and FTC cares about consumers.

@InheritNegative In general Square Enix games that came to Game Pass ended up on PS+ Extra/Premium after the Game Pass deal expired so it's probably the same with Outriders.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Could also be iPhone 15 Pro judging by the Apple event earlier this week.

@RIghteousNixon I don't think it's safe to assume anything to be honest. Everyone expected CMA to approve the acquisition back in April but they blocked it instead, everyone also expected Microsoft to close the acquisition by bypassing the CMA in June/July but it didn't happen either.

The whole thing about Microsoft and Activision walking away from the acquisition if it wasn't approved by the July deadline turned out to be a lie.

@themightyant @Jimboss It reminds me of when Microsoft did all those ads in the UK (newspapers, London underground, etc.) about the Activision acquisition bringing CoD to more players soon before the CMA announced the acquisition being blocked in the UK.

So I wouldn't be surprised if the CMA either don't accept the new deal that Microsoft proposed (the one about Ubisoft having the cloud rights for 15 years) or announces a phase 2 of the investigation very close to the extension deadline in October.

This would've been the perfect place to announce a Series X|S version of Minecraft as Japan really likes Minecraft.

@Cakefish Microsoft haven't announced the full lineup for Core either.

After everything that's gone on these past few months, I think it's a safe guess that when Gold is replaced by Game Pass Core, the 3:2 upgrade conversation to Ultimate will be gone.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Microsoft expected to already own Activision by now so the plan was probably that all these anti-consumer decisions would be forgotten about in the midst of Activision games coming to Game Pass.

But then the acquisition was delayed long enough that Xbox players can see all the anti-consumer moves Microsoft are making. The CMA are doing Xbox players a huge favour by dragging out the Activision acquisition.

While dropping split screen for Series S specifically was the better option, it was a lose-lose situation whatever approach was taken.

• Dropping split screen for Series S -> there's now precedent that looking forward if you want the full experience of games you should not buy a Series S (it's no longer just a graphics and performance thing)
• Keeping the parity clause in place -> Series X owners miss out on loads of games over time because the Series S is holding it back

The only win to this situation would've been if in 2020 Microsoft announced a digital Series X instead of the Series S.

@SacredPYRO Microsoft doesn't really show up to Geoff events anymore, the most we'll likely see is a Samsung TV Game Pass ad.

Pathetic especially after them talking up about the importance of preservation for a long time. The vast majority of games and DLC on the 360 marketplace aren't available on the XB1/Series X|S store.

@InterceptorAlpha They have had problems but it's been becoming increasingly frequent at different stages of the Activision acquisition. In the early days of the acquisition (it was revealed to have started in November 2021), there was the infamous Halo Infinite mess where the game was forced to be released when it wasn't ready. Then there was stuff like the situations regarding Redfall and Starfield. At the end, a load of Xbox things made worse over the past 2 months while on the acquisition side of things there was stuff like the FTC trial, FTC failing to get an injunction and the CMA reopening negotiations.

It's like Microsoft sped ahead with making Xbox worse when it became very clear the acquisition was going through. Fortunately with the CMA taking their time, Xbox players are noticing these terrible changes to Xbox and voicing their problems with it rather than going "that's ok because CoD is on Game Pass".

@NEStalgia This isn't the first time an Xbox social account showed FFVII Remake by mistake. For example:

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/07/xbox_germany_mucks_up_by_announcing_final_fantasy_vii_remake_for_xbox_one

If FFVII Remake comes to Xbox then it means Phil Spencer lied to the CMA and in court about Xbox exclusion deals so I wouldn't take the image as definitive confirmation that it's coming in the future.

The Activision acquisition is no doubt to blame for all the recent bad changes to Xbox.

I think Nintendo handles it best to be honest. With Switch there is no such thing as party chat and game chat is such an obnoxious process to set up that people don't really use it. On the messages side, there's premade ingame messages (e.g. MK8 Deluxe has stuff like "I'm using tilt controls" in the lobby) but you can't make your own messages or send messages to specific users.

Social features as a whole are extremely basic and that's for the better.

@Cherip-the-Ripper Can't find an answer for Forza Motorsport (2005) as Google results keep showing the 2023 game instead but Forza Motorsport 2-7 all have splitscreen.

@abe_hikura It's not coming to XB1, just Series X|S and PC so much like Baldur's Gate 3 it looks like Series S is the problem again.

@rustyduck It does feel like Microsoft's getting ready to exit the console business. They keep reporting decreases in console sales in their earnings reports and console is seeming more like an afterthought.

@InterceptorAlpha I'd guess it's possible to beat Starfield in a month and/or something to do with the Activision acquisition.

If Starfield can be beaten in a month then all you need to is sign up for a month of GPU for £1/$1 and then let the subscription lapse because you're finished with the game.

Meanwhile regarding the Activision acquisition, Microsoft probably feel they can get away with making lots of things worse value because they'll own CoD.

It's a huge shame Microsoft gave up on it in 2021, finding out what games would be added to BC next was most of the time more exciting than the new game announcements at Xbox events.