RedShirtRod

It was a smart decision. The Gamepass app is pretty rough around the edges and will need to be improved as Xbox looks for a larger presence in the pc market. I'm hoping they take not only Activision's games over but they utilize the experience of the Battle.net team to make the Xbox app better.

Great review. I agree with your opinion that locking the existing car collection is odd. Wouldn't mind if they had done that at the start of the base game to give a little direction but many of those still playing have sunk 100s of hours into this game. Locking cars we've earned is just strange.

I also agree that the zones are pretty but unused. Reminds me a lot of Anthem. Great scenery but shallow in content. The lack of substantial accolades kind of proves it. I felt that adding a variety of accolades in the base game gave goals to keep players entertained but the Academy goals can be completed fairly quickly and with little exploration.

It's a good dlc but if you've been playing the franchise for the past decade it does seem to be lacking in creativity.

@sjbsixpack handling a plane is always harder on a simulator than in real life. You can feel when the plane is wanting to turn, hits of turbulence, and just normal action with the yoke in real life, not so much on a game. My first day we did a flight on a Glein Simulator and my instructor crashed landed. If you can keep a steady flight with Flight Sim then my opinion is you'll have a leg up on real life flying.

Disclaimer: my private is in a piper warrior and I don't dare assume I know everything about other single engine props.

Flight sim is all around awesome. When I just started off working towards my pilot license I used flight sim for hours to practice comms with ATC. With added equipment it helped practicing taxiing and traffic patterns as well. We have a simulator at the flight school and it's amazing how close flight simulator is to a professional one.

I have to think there is some truth to this from the consistent delays we are seeing from games. The overworking has gone down but marketing and scheduling hasn't caught up yet. Games are just going to take more time to develop than they use to and I think you'll start seeing less hard dates so early before release.

@Bleachedsmiles Agreed. I can't understand why it isn't all hands on deck for Infinite. Stop trying to milk the old games and ensure that people will give a care for the new ones. Saw that rumor that the first story DLC for Infinite will take 3 years to come out. This team needs to get their heads out of their rears soon or the only Halo games anyone will care about will be the on the MCC.

Very cool. Love Warband and have been waiting for this to come to xbox. Didn't see it in the article but is it coming to Xbox PC as well or just the console?

The show was dead on arrival when creators didn't play the games and the show was deemed non-canon. What is sad is that Halo could really use a show to expand its universe. We don't get enough dialog in the video games from chief to make a deep plot and books/comics don't cut it. They could have created whatever they wanted but they decided to butcher what little lore there actually is.

@awp69 Losing out on one game isn't enough to break Gamepass but it needs to be a wake up call for Microsoft. Last year their schedule was

July - Flight Simulator
August - Psychonauts
October - Age of Empires 4
November - Forza Horizon 5
December - Halo Infinite

This year has been nothing. Their pacing is off. Release a game a quarter. If you've got two then hold one back and either let developers work a little more on it or use it in case of a delay. Subscriptions are different than normal releases and Microsoft needs to figure it out.

This is the price of a subscription service. Content needs to be consistent and decent quality. I'm not advocating for poorly done games being released but as the consumer I need to justify spending $15 a month on a game service that isn't releasing games.

Yeah it's been rough the last two days. Got in this morning but I have one more challenge left in Halo and I'll be disappointed if I can't get it before it resets. On the other hand it was a beautiful day for a hike.

I'm in the negative fan boat. Already mentioned my dislike of last man standing so I won't go into again but I also agree the challenges stink as well. You get to decide on trying to win or trying to get that fifth backsmack. Want to play fiesta? Too bad, you'll only get rewards for stronghold matches (good luck finding one). It's random and it takes away progressive nature of the battle pass system.

We want to play your game 343. Stop trying to make it more difficult than that.

I've played probably two dozen matches of last spartan standing and I'm not a fan. It favors those that are really good which isn't too big of a problem except there already are modes designed for those players in mind. I honestly don't understand the difference between this and free for all except you're locked into specific weapons. Those that are good with the starting weapons are rewarded while those that aren't are getting stuck in leveling purgatory.

When the weekly challenges are this, tactical, and ranked matches it doesn't really inspire casual players to jump back in. Games like CoD and Fortnite stay relevant because it keeps the casuals entertained. No one likes getting brutally destroyed in games without any measure of improvement or reward.

It also doesn't help that 343i picked developing this over firefight. I would rather they brought back a fan favorite over another version of me getting creamed by one hardcore player five times in a row.

TLDR: If you're relatively good at Halo this version is fine, to all others it's a baffling decision.

It's a good sign for competition within the industry. I think the Series S was a smart move. More options from companies that are going to work harder for our business.

@101Force Probably because the United States is the second largest country by gaming revenue by a long shot and YouGov is a British company. Easiest way to find results that most readers will find relevant.

Hope this isn't too political but feel like I need to mention this as an fyi for those not living in the US.

These senators are a part of the majority party (Democrats) but it doesn't necessarily mean they can stop it. Signing a letter like this allows them to voice their opinion but any serious action would have to be done within the Senate or House.

@lolwhatno Sony had their fair share of gripes with Naughty Dog during TLOU2 with their 70% attrition rate and overworking employees. This trend of people speaking out isn't based against one publisher or company, but the industry at large.

My argument though is how these are being presented. Companies that are directly accused of enabling sexual assault need to be universally condemned. Complaints that of long work hours or not feeling like your voice was heard needs a little more proof and differing viewpoints before consumers can make an informed decision.

Microsoft just needs to do their own when the Activision deal goes through. Use the Blizcon expertise and make an Expo without paying for a middle man. I even bet publishers like EA would tag along.

Yeah, read the Kotaku article before making any judgment. I just finished it and it contradicts itself a couple times. Not trying to discount people's concerns but the article seems to say Microsoft was too hands off while also saying Microsoft removed Schlosser when issues came to light.

It's hard to support anonymous people's concerns when they aren't consistent on their examples.

@Kopite @Stocksy It's impossible to know for certain. Monthly service fees are always more popular than yearly ones and while there are always going to be people who go looking for deals, the $10 price is the low end, not the high end. Ultimate is $15 a month, which is why I assumed it offset those getting discount deals.

Once again, everything we have to go off is assumptions but I highly doubt the majority of players are going through the hassle of getting discounts. Forums like these are going to have a larger number of them because that's the kind of people we are. If the larger public knew about the deals (like the EA pass awhile back) Microsoft would just stop offering them.

@raftos Right? Microsoft is pulling in roughly $250M a month from Gamepass and they paid $5-10M for a game that is on there for multiple months. Doesn't seem like a bad deal at all.

I have no desire to ever buy another Playstation after the PS4 but I enjoy their change up by adding games to the PC. If their Gamepass competitor is added to the PC I would absolutely check it out.

Currently deployed where internet isn't great but xcloud has still been fairly good. Been rocking through ME2 again on my phone and it's pretty awesome. Hardcore gamers might not like it but then again this isn't for them. Options are rarely a bad thing. If more companies support xcloud then good on them.

@UltimateOtaku91 I think that's doubtful. Look at the merger between Sprint and T-mobile. Made US phone service effectively a three carrier market between them, Verizon, and AT&T. Same with Disney and Fox studios. Anti-trust laws in the US have changed drastically over the past century, heavily favoring mergers and buyouts when both of them are American companies. Microsoft has also changed their lobbying since their legal issues in the early 2000's. If they're putting games on playstation it's not to sway regulators, that's for sure.

@Tharsman Agreed. The merger is large for gaming community but not too unique for tech and entertainment business as a whole. I think most stockholders can see the writing on the wall and know this is the best way forward.

I don't think it would have been as big of a deal if the price wasn't as high and the patch that just came out. Most reasonable people understand games are different today and patches have a tendency to have issues. Games like GT7 have a singleplayer that ties into multiplayer so it makes sense you can't have people jump in and out of connection.

It's the other two issues that broke this camel's back. Breaking a game for 24 hours is bad but doing it to push microtransactions is unacceptable. Also don't charge $70 for game and break it within the first month. Just look at how Outriders was different. Only $15 on Gamepass and they worked their bums off to fix online issues from the get go. They didn't charge $70, wait for good reviews, and then start tinkering.

Of course it's disappointing but it would be even more disappointing to watch a half baked show with just cgi trailers. Hopefully they can have a game or two shown during Microsoft's event.

@Tharsman Agreed. Even though there is a stock shortage they are still impressive numbers if only from Microsoft resource allocation. The company sells a lot more than gaming hardware and could probably use those chips in other departments. The fact that they are still out producing Sony in both the US and parts of Europe is a good sign of how they view the Xbox brand.

@uptownsoul I'm pretty sure most people would agree that $10/15 a month to play Halo Infinite since November is better for sales than $28/45 for MM in Feb.

I still love E3. It has been a huge anchor for fan expectations and I personally haven't enjoyed the move away from it. People never use to ask about what is in the pipeline because you knew they would tell you during E3. Now people have unfounded expectations for State of Plays and Directs that we get questions all the time about what publishers are doing.

Super excited it is back this year and I hope most of the big publishers will make an appearance.

This is one of those things that missed the window of interest and now needs something special to get it back. It's going to have to be pretty unique as sea of thieves has really captured the pirate market and having a "better version of black flag" isn't going to cut it.

Seeing how Microsoft is in the process of owning what feels like half the major players of E3 whatever event they do will be expected to be similar in scale. Best they do their own event at the beginning of summer and use the other events to reveal more details on already announced games.

Loved my HTC one. Thing was a brick and simple. I think the Microsoft of today would have done much better at the Windows phones than the Microsoft of old. Kind of a shame.

If Microsoft was desperate enough to get more revenue they wouldn't have dropped over $76 billion buying Activision and Zenimax. Even by doubling the monthly subscription, it would take decades to make that back, and that's if everyone stayed. Anybody who thinks that's Microsoft's goal clearly doesn't understand business strategy.

If you want to know what their plan is look at the history of Internet Explorer and Netscape. Microsoft was ruthless in their takedown of Netscape and they did it by attacking at them sideways. That's the reason you don't pay for Chrome or Firefox. Companies like Microsoft don't need to raise prices to be competitive and successful.

For those who don't know, this is what this guy does. He has a show called "Adam ruins Everything." You can check it out on YouTube and it judges stuff throughout society in a rather negative light. Probably shouldn't take what he is saying seriously. It's just the character he portrays.

@UltimateOtaku91 @RevGaming probably not Warner Bros. At&t is too close in size of Sony for them not to push for a high selling point. Even Microsoft and Tencent probably would struggle getting a reasonable deal.

Sony has roughly $30B on hand but spending anywhere near that would be an awful idea. They have to still support their film and electronic divisions and any issues with that could be devastating without reserve funds.

If Sony is going for developers it will be single studios like Insomniac and Bungie.

People keep saying these companies should be investing in creating new studios but just look at how many acquisitions have taken place. If these major publishers weren't going doing this route I highly doubt there would be enough game developers to staff all these companies. Kinda how this has to go down.

@mousieone @Savage_Joe As much as we like to think Bungie and MS have a bond their partnership ended over a decade ago. I'd be interested to know how many that are working there now are from the time MS was their publisher.

The only bond they truly had was Halo. MS shouldn't feel any negative feelings about it.

Just super strange that the company that fought free of Activision and MS jumps in with Sony. Just shows how much the company has changed.

That's a weird choice. Bungie didn't do well with their last two publishers. 3rd time the charm?

For those questioning the market there are a lot of military members who take their consoles on deployment. TVs are already out here, but shipping the console to and from location is rough. First time ever seeing one of those older cases with a screen and console was during my first deployment. People get bored.

@StylesT Not really, no. Open conflict is bare bones, closer to Civ series. Like @Wanderhope said, this series focuses on forging relationships, espionage, etc. Big thing is it goes by generations. If you run out of heirs you lose. I found it much more complicated than Stellaris if that helps.

Yep. I really think King was the deciding factor. We all love AAA games but there is no way MS would pay anywhere close to $70B without a strong mobile department.

Anyone confused on how MS will make its money back should look no further.

It makes sense. I mentioned this elsewhere but a purchase like this isn't aimed at Sony. Not saying it won't affect them but there are better ways for MS to spend $70B if they wanted to "crush" PS.

MS has been honest that they see Tencent and Apple as their main competitors, not Sony. Activision was sinking and this kept Microsoft in the game. My guess is you'll see stronger build up of King compared to Blizzard or Activision main. And if selling games (probably at a premium) on PS helps MS, they'll do it.

That picture is the stuff of nightmares.

@Odium I hated the story but loved the naval combat. Felt the characters were forgettable and the plot pretty basic. I remember watching the last cutscene where he sees all those he lost and I couldn't tell who half of them were.

The combat was good in spite of being an AC game. Being able to assassinate people on a ship that you've been attacking for the last 3 minutes is pretty ridiculous.

Trailer made it look very Shadow of Mordor-ish with the resurrection and ethereal bow. Definitely need to see gameplay before buying but it seems like a good evolution for the game.

@armondo36 Same. I thought the first one was very underrated. I will hands down pay for more of that mindless fun.

Looks interesting. No reason not to give it a try. I know W40k is turn base but I would like to see more variety with their video games. Mechanicus and Necromunda (not hired guns) were pretty good but they haven't had a hit in the shooter genre in awhile.

@species8472 yeah I almost bit on the controller but I've had issues with the original elite controllers for the xbox one. If it was a standard one I would have bought it no questions asked.

Bought the limited edition halo 4 and 5 Xbox's when they came out. Just can't seem to justify it anymore. The color of my console hasn't really affected my enjoyment of games and the extra cost feels like a waste. Glad to pass so others who still enjoy that can have a shot.