Grumblevolcano

There were some good picks (mostly 360/OG Xbox) but overall Games With Gold was a big disappointment this year.

@themightyant Pretty sure the timed exclusivity on FFXVI which ends on December 31st 2023 will be about PC later just like FFVII Remake. Such as: June 2023 (PS5) -> January 2024 (Epic Game Store) -> July 2024 (Steam)

@themightyant @NEStalgia Some of Sony's acquisitions like Insomniac and Housemarque have been about protecting studios that develop Playstation exclusives from being acquired by others. Mainline Final Fantasy seems to be heading in the direction where ports and remasters are multiplatform meanwhile remakes and new games are permanently Playstation console exclusive.

@Tharsman Most Square Enix games come to Switch nowadays, for example this year alone these came to Switch:

• Kingdom Hearts cloud versions (hopefully native versions come when Nintendo gets more powerful hardware)
• Voice of Cards The Forsaken Maiden
• Triangle Strategy (Switch exclusive)
• Chocobo GP (Switch exclusive)
• Chrono Cross
• The Centennial Case
• Live a Live remake (Switch exclusive)
• Various Daylife
• The DioField Chronicle
• Life is Strange Arcadia Bay Collection
• Nier Automata
• Harvestella (Switch exclusive)
• Tactics Ogre Reborn
• Romancing Saga Minstrel Song Remastered
• Dragon Quest Treasures (Switch exclusive)
• Crisis Core Reunion

Nowadays if a Square Enix game doesn't come to Switch, the vast majority of the time it's a Playstation exclusive. There are exceptions like both PS and Xbox got Stranger of Paradise and Star Ocean this year but it's less common.

@themightyant It'll have a domino effect like if the deal goes through then Sony will be allowed to acquire Square Enix which will hurt Nintendo a lot more than Microsoft's CoD deal will help (CoD is pretty much a no-name in the Nintendo space compared to Square Enix JRPGs). Microsoft have already said Activision isn't the end of acquisitions so it just basically confirms that Microsoft will only stop with acquisitions when forced to by regulators.

I think Microsoft did well with Inside Xbox and X0 pre-pandemic (2018/2019) in terms of style but usually didn't have the content to support it. If 2023 is a strong lineup for Xbox, a return to multiple announcement events per year would work very well.

@Green-Bandit There's still FH5 Expansion 2 in the mix, I really doubt Motorsport is releasing before that and we know expansion 2 isn't releasing until February at the earliest given both the December and January Series have already been detailed. Also the E3 trailer said Spring 2023 for Motorsport.

@BAMozzy Microsoft started all this CoD exclusivity stuff in the 360 era, every CoD from MW2 to Advanced Warfare had all its DLC 1 month exclusive to Xbox. It's very clear that at the very least there'll be some kind of Game Pass exclusive perks similar to the monthly Halo Infinite drops if the deal goes through.

@Kaloudz It said December 31st 2023, pretty much 6 months timed exclusivity but don't forget that a similar thing happened with FF7 Remake (Intergrade had 6 months exclusivity followed by 6 months Epic Game Store exclusivity, followed by Steam release and still no sign of Xbox release).

@Tharsman Probably remasters of the 360 games. While Alan Wake Remastered is a big mess on the Switch (isn't it a mess on all platforms?), most of the 360 games brought to Switch run well.

I think on the Xbox specific side we'll see a Redfall trailer with release date (hence the early announcement of $70 releases going forward), Goldeneye shadow drop (December doesn't have a NSO Expansion Pack game so Goldeneye would fit in) and some Game Pass ads.

No thanks, I'll wait for the inevitable sale. Microsoft should receive the same level of criticism that Sony got over the past 2 years.

@Green-Bandit I wasn't suggesting that CoD would leave PS as such, rather that no platform gets new CoD games outside of the ones already in development for awhile because Microsoft decides to make Warzone 2 the CoD platform like how there's no more Halo games until 2031 because Infinite is lasting for 10 years.

@Green-Bandit A time period doesn't give an indication of quantity. For example if you look at Halo in 10 year time periods you have the following.

• Decade 1 (November 15th 2001 - November 14th 2011): Halo CE (2001), Halo 2 (2004), Halo 3 (2007), Halo Wars (2009), Halo 3 ODST (2009), Halo Reach (2010)
• Decade 2 (November 15th 2011 - November 14th 2021): Halo CE Anniversary (2011), Halo 4 (2012), Halo Spartan Assault (2013), Master Chief Collection (2014), Halo Spartan Strike (2015), Halo 5 (2015), Halo Wars Definitive Edition (2016/2017), Halo Wars 2 (2017)
• Decade 3 (November 15th 2021 - November 14th 2031): Halo Infinite (2021)

So Sony could deduce that CoD under Microsoft is Warzone 2 being supported for a decade meanwhile the only new CoD ends up being the remaining one covered by the existing marketing exclusivity deal. Microsoft would still be keeping their word but Sony would be a lot worse off.

@NEStalgia Disagree, releasing a game when it's not ready just because of a console launch is bad. That said, delaying Series X|S launch to holiday 2022 would've worked though as almost everything released for Xbox since November 2020 has been crossgen.

I hope Microsoft have learned their lesson with Halo Infinite (that really should've been the big holiday 2022 title) and delay Starfield further if it needs more time.

@themightyant 2020 prior to Series X|S launch was packed:

• February 2020 - Wasteland Remastered
• March 2020 - Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Bleeding Edge
• May 2020 - Minecraft Dungeons
• June 2020 - The Bard's Tale: Remastered and Resnarkled
• July 2020 - Grounded (early access)
• August 2020 - Battletoads, Tell Me Why, Wasteland 3

There were also big DLC and content updates (e.g. Outer Worlds DLC and ODST Firefight for MCC in September 2020) in that pre-launch window. Also there was a lot of PC stuff like Gears Tactics in April , Flight Sim in August and most of MCC throughout the year (Reach was December 2019, the rest was 2020).

Honestly it seems like Microsoft's approach is:
1. Big game drought to convince regulators it's fine to acquire a big publisher
2. When acquisition seems likely to pass according to Microsoft, schedule the release of a load of content from existing studios to make room for the big publisher (e.g. January - June 2023)
3. Return to step 1 while putting the big publisher's legacy content into Game Pass when the acquisition goes through

Microsoft usually announce their games extremely far in advance so I'd guess Perfect Dark, Fable, State of Decay 3, Avowed and Everwild are all 2025 games. Hellblade II had actual gameplay last year so perhaps 2nd half of 2023 for that.

@Tharsman Wasteland 3 and Minecraft Dungeons were over 2 years ago (August 2020 and May 2020 respectively). The only ones missing from the list that did release since Series X|S launch are the Bethesda ones (Deathloop PS5 and Series X|S, Ghostwire Tokyo PS5, Quake Remastered).

I'd have to go for Gears Tactics, it was somewhat close between that and FH5 but the latter's focus on Festival Playlist (i.e. the live service element) brings it down.

I miss the times of FH3 where instead of the Festival Playlist existing, the base experience was a lot more packed and permanent.

@gamer5634 I never use Quick Resume, I don't like it.

@FatalBubbles I played 2 matches yesterday and desync seemed much worse than normal. I then proceeded to collect the rest of the skulls in campaign with mission replay and the game crashed requiring a restart when going for the penultimate one.

@Tharsman Intergrade was PS5 in June 2021, Epic Game Store in December 2021 and Steam in June 2022 so I'd guess FF16 and FF7 Rebirth will be the same gap between platform releases.

The first Sonic Adventure because it had more variety than the others like it's the only one with a fishing story mode.

I think it'll be a good game but performance issues will bring it down, especially on the weaker systems. So I went with 7/10 for my prediction.

Expansion 2 in early 2023 makes me think Motorsport will be June 2023 or later. Back when Motorsport and Horizon were alternate years, Horizon DLC 2 released 5-7 months before Motorsport.

• FH1 1000 Club was April 2013 with FM5 in November 2013 (7 months)
• FH2 Fast and Furious was March 2015 with FM6 in September 2015 (6 months)
• FH3 Hot Wheels was May 2017 with FM7 in October 2017 (5 months)

There's a November MCC update so perhaps there's some Halo 4 stuff in that update? Would be really cool if they added in Spartan Ops matchmaking like they had in the 360 version of Halo 4.

@Trmn8r It's not currently on Xbox (was only PC/Switch) so this is a situation of a game coming to Game Pass same day as the game comes to Xbox in general.

Forza Horizon 5 Expansion 2, Goldeneye and Age of Empires (2 and 4) are the things I'm most excited about regarding Xbox's future 1st party lineup.

@BBB I think they're keeping quiet because of the Activision acquisition, probably is also why there's lots of CoD ad spam on the Xbox dashboard. Much like a Playstation Showcase with lots of exclusivity may strengthen Microsoft's arguments in favour of the acquisition, showcasing a strong upcoming 1st party Xbox lineup may strengthen Sony's arguments against the acquisition. So you end up with a situation where both companies are being extremely cautious with what they announce.

Hopefully this isn't a repeat of January 2021 where they tried to price hike Gold in an attempt to force people to Game Pass.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/01/22/update-on-xbox-live-gold-pricing/

This is an exciting announcement. Hopefully 1, 3 and Mythology follow after for console meanwhile PC gets more of those essential 1st party Xbox exclusives like the rest of the 360 Gears games, Rare Replay and Halo 5.

Remakes would just end up in PS exclusivity nonsense like the FFVII Remake trilogy and the Silent Hill 2 Remake given the Core Design Tomb Raider games are very much associated with Playstation.

2 multiplatform collections (PC, Xbox, PS, Switch) would be a lot better. 1 being the Core Design Tomb Raider games and the other being the 7th gen Tomb Raider games. Jim Ryan pretty much said years ago that he doesn't care about old games, it's the remakes of old games he cares about.

I could see Series S going the cloud route, the Xbox streaming device even looks like a tiny Series S.

We're probably going to see a lot more of this where current gen only games are 30fps on PS5/Series X|S and 60+fps is only for the PC version.

@MattT3142 My prediction is similar:

• February - Redfall
• March - Ghostwire Tokyo
• April - Minecraft Legends
• May - Forza Motorsport
• June - Starfield
• July - Goldeneye
• August - Hellblade II

@CunningPig @S1ayeR74 The CMA are using official Nintendo comments, Nintendo's been saying for a long time that they're not competing with Sony or Microsoft.

@SplooshDmg Live service is the biggest thing to blame for the problems with Babylon's Fall and you can see the same damage with a lot of other live service games, even flagship franchise games like Halo Infinite.

With even Sony extremely eager for live service to be their focus, it feels like live service will eventually cause a gaming crash similar to the one in 1983.

Do note that 4 of these songs are unlocked via winning the weekly limited time Seasonal Championships.

• Week 1: Language - Porter Robinson
• Week 2: Nocturne - Keeno
• Week 3: Ingrid is a Hybrid - Dusky
• Week 4: A Moment Apart - ODESZA

I don't like the concept of limited time song unlocks and the overall setlist is too heavy on Horizon Bass Arena but it's nice having songs like Bored to Death back.

I hope Goldeneye drops next week as part of the Bond 60th anniversary celebrations. NSO Expansion Pack didn't get a N64 game in September which is a promising sign for Goldeneye.

If 2TB was at this price back at launch I would've considered getting it but 2 years later it feels like the Xbox lineup isn't interesting enough to justify any expansion card.

Games With Gold started in July 2013 after Don Mattrick nosedived the Xbox brand into oblivion with the XB1 reveal and E3 2013 making things worse with the infamous "buy a 360" answer to those who don't have internet access 24/7.

Given the state of Games With Gold now, I wouldn't be surprised if June 2023 is the last batch of games.

Will replay the missions I didn't get the skulls in but that's about it in terms of achievements I'll get associated with mission replay.

The stream showing off campaign co-op showed that mission replay is part of how campaign co-op works so if co-op is on time then so is mission replay. Both could be delayed, just not mission replay by itself.

Reach for sure. Pretty much perfected gameplay mechanics, the newer modes (Invasion debuting in Reach and Firefight which had recently debuted in ODST) were absolutely fantastic and the campaign is the best in the franchise (ODST is a close 2nd).

I would say Halo 5's multiplayer is slightly better in terms of gameplay as I really liked the addition of Warzone, spartan abilities and what promethean weapons add to the sandbox but the campaign is bad and microtransactions are microtransactions (though Halo 5's microtransactions are nowhere near as bad as Infinite''s microtransactions) so overall Reach is a much better game.

I think ODST would've been the strategy that would've worked best for Infinite. Instead of FTP multiplayer, the multiplayer being the continued support for MCC and Halo 5 (the ODST physical copy came with Halo 3 multiplayer) meanwhile Infinite's focus being on campaign and PvE.

It's nice that the update fixed the bug of delisted games not appearing in the library like Forza Motorsport 5.

Given what we already know about 2023 for XGS and that Starfield will probably be delayed to avoid clashing with TotK, I only think 1 or 2 of these will release in 2023. Probably Hellblade given it got actual gameplay last year.

I think looking at the NSO Expansion Pack timing, we can deduce that this releases in 2022. NSO Expansion Pack gets 1 N64 game per month, September's game hasn't been announced yet but we know the following games are coming later in 2022:

• Pilotwings 64
• Mario Party
• Mario Party 2

4 months, 3 games so from that it's pretty clear than Goldeneye is also a 2022 release.

I wouldn't be surprised if Deathloop doesn't appear this year given if the game isn't mentioned at all, the PS+ Extra/Premium presence next week would give the impression Sony had timed exclusivity for subscription presence on top of the 1 year normal timed exclusivity.

Both Halo Waypoint and the games' servers are down. I tried to play some of the Yappening event but server error messages kept appearing.

I think the surprise Game Pass reveals would be more Japan focused rather than Deathloop appearing. So stuff like MH Rise for PC Game Pass, Bravely Default II, Shin Megami Tensei V, etc.