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I really loved this trailer, sniper elite 5 levels design was amazing! If they could bring that to this, maybe bump up the AI of your enemies from that with a less groundrd setting, it could be cracking.

@themightyant I dont think it's an EA game. Edit Oh I see what you mean, need more coffee!!!

I'd be interested in how unified the approach there is between larger microsoft and the gaming division. Seems like there were lots of leaks, if they are true then thats not a coincidence. Liking comments about handhelds when you know your every move on twitter is scrutinised. It just has a whif of politics and factions briefing against each other. The Jason Schrier book about this in 5 years will be wild!

Can we run a sweepie on what the inevitable "this thing on Phil Spencers shelf means x thing/franchise is coming to xbox" story will be, even in the midst of them shipping games to other platforms?? Hopefully get some ABK games on gamepass, Diablo here we go!

I own all three consoles and to be honest, this combined with what the first party output has been this gen, would be enough for me to drop the xbox console. I might buy xbox studio games and subscribe to gamepass as suits but probably from a handheld like an ASUS Rog Ally rather than an xbox console. Even then, if games like pentiment and hi-fi rush, which are the xbox studio games I have enjoed the most this gen, come to a console that im buying anyway because its got games that I cant play elsewhere, maybe I dont even do that. Gamepass as a monthly deal as a console player looks like a great deal, until you remember you've got the upfront cost of the console! You could have just used that money to buy the games you're interested in on another platform that has a wider variety of games.

@gollumb82 I think this is going to be my future too, something like a ROG Ally let's you do epic, steam, Windows store and gamepass.

Remember when nintendo had some poor results and Iwata took a paycut in response and refused to let people go as it would demoralise his staff and inhibit their ability to make games? How painful was it for big Phil to let people go when he's likely to collect a big bonus for it?? If he came out and made a statement now, people are so broken that they would care more about which t-shirt he wore or what was on his shelf incase he was teasing a new game. Acquisitions always lead to some job losses but the numbers here are bigger than you would expect, as its not just duplicate HR, admin, accounts etc. What would have keeping more of these people on meant, that you are worth 2.75 trillion instead of 3?? Gross

Both Sony and xbox already have a digital only console, they would love an all digital future. Like others, I think next gen will be digital but with optional disc drive. Nintendo will be last console maker with built-in media drive, physical games make better presents for kids!

I love the dualsense haptics so I'd be all in on an xbox version. Will be interesting to see if it's the new standard controller going forward or if the current controller will still be available and this is considered a premium product. If its the latter and its a process that requires separate work than devs already do on dualsense (already pretty patchy), I'd be worried about how well this is supported.

That blasphemous 2 art book would be sick!

Pentiment would sure work on a Nintendo switch and was in goty conversations the year it released, right?

Happy new year and all the best to everyone for 2024!!

It ended up being a bit of a disappointment given what it could have been. Hi-Fi rush is great, Starfield was uneven but at least had some moments. Forza motorsport lacked single player content, suffered from connection bugs which lost me progress in single player campaign and if I'm being honest, was a little too understated (no music in menus, tone etc). I never even bothered to download Redfall, proper disaster. Minecraft legends really didn't hit either. It felt like a year to make a real statement about first party games on gamepass. Again, I've largely preferred indie and 3rd party gamepass games. A C overall

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Baldurs gate 3, a game of the year winner, only has 3 reviews on series x? I know it came out only recently but I'm surprised it's not had enough reviews for a metacritic score.

The deluxe edition of Alan Wake at £52 is pretty tempting tbh!!

Shame his ass didn't get just straight fired and he likely walks away with fat stacks of cash. Just please let his exit from the games industry be final, horrible little *****

When it works, it's the best. When your game updates or something that goes wrong and it breaks it, its pretty frustrating!

@FraserG 2 points for blasphemous 2 for me bud, thanks!

@themightyant I came on here to mention blasphemous 2!! I'm playing just now and it's a cracker of a game. More metroidvania than 2-D souls (which is a change round I understand from the first game, which people feel was more the other way round). Great movement, fun bosses, brilliant art style, if anyone is fed up waiting for silksong and wanted a good metroidvania to keep them going, I would recommend.

Would love some emergent dialogue options in the style of hitman mission stories but with you able to choose bond dialogue options

Shame they made the single player rely on a constant online connection then!!

I'm about 40 hrs in and when it is at its best, it can be very good but its bloody uneven. Whilst the space combat is basic, I really enjoy it and the crimson fleet stuff is my favourite BGS questline. The AI is bad but if you get a decent enough gun to kill most enemies in 1-2shots then it's less noticeable. Some of the writing choices, particularly for persuasion, are not good. I wish they had taken some more cues from something like a forgotten city for their less action focussed quests. The structure of the game feels very dated, I'm running from one part of a map to another on the same planet to tell someone I've done something. Has the only reason humanity has survived the move from earth into the stars because we ditched mobile phones. I'm between a 7 and an 8. Don't get me wrong, I'm having fun but it's not a game that moves the medium forward.

I played some last night, surprisingly decent!! The nitro boost gives it a different feel from horizon. I might get this down the line. In a year with a forza motor sport dripping, they might struggle. I know they are very different games but there is only so much space for racing games. The racing game I want to play most just shadow dropped yesterday and is f-zero 99. It's soon much fun and absolute bat ***** crazy to have 99 folk on a f-zero track!!

If you get the chance, "play" immortality, you should take it! The fact they effectively made 3 movies for a fmv game blows my mind and really enjoyed the experience. On Netflix subscription still but would think this would work best with controller

Midnight fight express was cool, I only ever played a couple of hours but was a lot of fun and always meant to go back, ce la vie

I'm not OK with this decision. Until you have a mechanism to sell on a digital copy, physical discs are the only way to maintain a secondary retail market. I would rather not waste plastic to have a way to sell on a product I own but there is no alternative.

Tunic might be may favourite indie title of all time!! If you like the sense of discovery from the new open world zeldas, it's well worth a look

@HelloCraig Hardcore price tag but hardcore handheld! Great review and breakdown! Couple of quick questions, did you try outputting to a TV (and if you did, did the picture come across with hdr) or connecting another Bluetooth controller? When you tried steam games, can you use the recommended settings for steam deck as a guide? I won't lie, it's a lot of money but having gamepass on it makes it real tempting

He literally said in the interview he had been playing it. Have to say I'm interested, if you get a handheld that can manage to link into pc gamepass, steam and the epic store, I think that's pretty compelling. Specs look pretty beefy too, I'm waiting for the price though.

@Ralizah I don't think it's announced yet. I enjoyed what I played , especially after changing the control scheme (I just couldn't control the twin stick shooter style scheme).

Sounds rough, with so many games coming out round the corner, it's easy to pass and move on. The "hey it's on gamepass thing so I'll try it anyway" only goes so far. AI issues in an Arkane game is so much bigger than not getting a performance mode. It's a triple A release, day one on gamepass and I'm not sure i will even download it and worse, if i do it will be to check out how busted it actually is!!! Thats grim!! I hope there is enjoyment for some folks and I feel sorry for the devs, who probably had to crunch and will see their game getting dragged everywhere (though in fairness, a decent chunk of that might be justified).

Bethesda have had late reviews for a long time, maybe going back to Doom 2016. I hope I'm wrong but I suspect this game might be coming in very hot! If it needs lots of work, I'd worry it gets completely forgotten about. Next couple of months has zelda, street fighter 6, diablo 4, FF16 and we have already had some amazing games this year (including HI-FI rush as a kick-ass 1st party xbox release). I'm skipping good games I want to play as there is so many already this year. If your games bang average, broken or both I'm probably not playing it.

@Fenbops I've been playing it, picked it up for similar price and couldn't agree more! With so many game adaptation shows now (animated and live), having an integrated one feels ahead of its time.

@Odium if you've got a series x, there's always that second hand disc market....
I really enjoyed the open beta and it's how I plan to play that game.

@Grippie I thought the plan for ABK was games to be made available through gamepass day 1, as they would (and I think still will end up being) a 1st party studio. That 1 billion in 10 days has a large amount of folks paying 70 bucks day one. However, someone has sensibly replied with comment about how ABK would sit as an asset on the books and not be required to generate the price of acquisition back.

@Widey85 makes sense!

The two worst things about this, 1) I have to hear more about this and 2) Bobby Kotick keeps his job. At this stage, I'm pretty ambivalent about the news. The thing I've always been confused about is how Microsoft would make the 69 billion back. Current revenue for gamepass is 4 billion a year (revenue, not profit). I can't see gamepass making 6 billion profit a year, even at which stage it would take over 11 years to pay off??

I'm going to come back to it and check it out but I'm deep in RE4 and tears of the kingdom is round the corner. Hope its a sleeper hit and interested to see what coop in an arkane world looks like.

@Clankylad might the new metric be "how many additional gamepass subscriptions did we see in the following two months"? I thought this game ruled and was priced reasonably outside of gamepass. Would love to see more like it.

I've played a couple games on Netflix, I'm playing kentucky route zero on it just now but have played into the breach, spiritfarer and poinpy, which have all been good. There is a fair amount of rubbish but there are some decent games on the library. Worth checking out if you already have netflix.

Like a few others, I've never played Diablo before and enjoyed it. Looked at some pre-order deals and passed for now. I played solo though and wonder if I would feel differently if I had tried out the co-op

I never played Nioh but love me some souls! Can't wait to try it out

Looks good, the best bit of forza horizon is going sideways through a field with Skrillex playing so more of that is no bad thing!

Take care Fraser. I'm just waiting on my smart delivery upgrade for like a dragon ishin, which has arrived early!

Can't wait for my pre-order to land! So excited to see the blend of historical setting and yakuza craziness.

I buy very few games on the xbox, there's so much to play on gamepass, including the amazing variety of day 1 indies and broad 3rd party catalogue. Between that and ps extra, the only games I really buy anymore are nintendo and Sony first party titles. The only 3rd party games I've bought new over the last 12 months were rollerdrome, neon white and I've pre-ordered like a dragon ishin.

I've only played for 90 mins or so but ooft it's a banger!

Beyond parody, don't look up!

The series x/s base controller is brilliant, as is the base dual sense. Only thing I want all controllers to adopt is haptics and gyro