Widey85

@MSX Think I was misremembering five quid, must have been more like 10 - these are the ones I got, they're now just under 15 but I imagine there's others on Amazon too:

https://amzn.eu/d/gOvGzNM

@BAMozzy You can replace the ear pads - I've got two and my dogs chewed them on one of them.

About 5 quid on Amazon, they just stretch over the base of each ear

It's horrible news but given it's backend roles I'm guessing it's ones that are duplicated as part of the merger?

For example if you're now being paid by Microsoft's payroll you probably don't need a separate ABK payroll team once handover is done

While I loved the 360 games, I'll probably wait for a deep discount on this one - by then, server issues should be over, it should be more polished and it'll have stuff like buying houses and the Ibiza map.

Will likely enjoy myself - but thankfully enough games coming out to keep me occupied till then

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Scratch my earlier reply, I've found an article where they re-announced the Xbox version - although it shows it was the lowest priority which might be why they've had trouble:

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/05/enotria-the-last-song-delayed-to-september-19-restores-xbox-series-version-ps5-and-pc-demo-launches-may-22

They'd already postponed the Xbox release though?!

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/03/enotria-the-last-song-launches-august-21-xbox-series-version-no-longer-planned

Edit: turns out it was reinstated - although shows which version was the lowest priority:

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/05/enotria-the-last-song-delayed-to-september-19-restores-xbox-series-version-ps5-and-pc-demo-launches-may-22

@Ilyn That's the most likely - Sony paid for the PS5 console port to take priority and maybe helped out too.

So not a true exclusivity deal, more one to ensure it released on PS5 the same day as PC - but one that yes comes at a cost to Xbox owners as otherwise the dev may have focused equally on all ports and got them all out at the same time.

It explains why Xbox specifically mentioned "commercial deals" when asked about it, how IGN and Bloomberg have heard of a deal, and why the dev is now talking about work on the Xbox version (although possibly exaggerating a bit to cover up the deal rather than admitting to prioritising PS5 to avoid a backlash from Xbox gamers - as for example a memory leak isn't something you indefinitely delay a release for)

@Rob3008 The studio closed 14th June - and given the start date of this deal is 1st August, it's about 6 weeks so likely the studio head had already started those conversations before closure.

So guessing he let his team know, and those that could hang on for a bit without getting a new job waited for the deal to be signed

@Scummbuddy I suspect those Nintendo assets are ready for the Switch 2 version, which I've no doubt once that arrives HiFi Rush will be on it.

The Switch is nowhere near powerful enough to run the game - even the minimum PC specs are far beyond what the Switch can do

Just started it, I was one of the ones to buy it when it went on sale - seems an intriguing concept so far, with good back stories and narrative

Guessing something was worked out with Ubisoft then, given Crash is appearing on cloud too - think it's the first ABK title to do so

A lot of the games are actually cheaper digital at the moment - Robocop for example is £25 on Xbox store, and AC Mirage has been £25 before on it...

I generally get enough from the tasks I complete without trying plus from buying games to get a £5 voucher every 4 to 6 weeks so can't complain

@DarkTron Jez has been pretty accurate on Xbox stuff in the past - he's often listed games and their codenames long before other media, Pentiment is an example of one.

It's easy enough for the developer to give a comment - the fact Xbox are willing to suggest it's not optimisation but a deal would hint they're aware of something as otherwise it would damage the relationship with the developer, and the dev could easily say "not true".

It's definitely not beyond the realms of possibility given Sony has been moneyhatting games from China and Korea for a while now and have so few first party games on the horizon

That very much reads like an exclusivity deal - and Jez pretty much suggests that Sony have made the deal secret in order to throw doubt on the abilities of the Series S or Xbox optimisation in general.

If that's the case, I won't be buying a PS5 Pro like I was planning to later this year and I definitely will not be buying Wukong - as it proves to me despite it costing them so much in profitability Sony are still playing silly games and if this developer / publisher are enabling that then they can go rot too

@InterceptorAlpha I didn't mention the performance - the article says the map gets loaded into memory and specifically the RAM being only 25% more than the PS4 was the issue.

But the Switch has less RAM than the PS4, so either they've learnt to stream the map like every other game does, or the old game map fits the Switch memory.

Either way, a streaming map or fitting it in less RAM, doesn't mean the Series S holds back the map from being only 25% bigger (especially given there's 2).

I bet when the Switch 2 comes out and every publisher falls over themselves to have ports for it so they can reach its likely-to-be-huge playerbase not one developer will complain about that console like they have about the Series S.

They also don't complain about optimising for the PS5 as it's less powerful than the Series X - they just don't like optimising for the Series S as Xbox is the smaller install base and many in the industry (both developers and media) seem to have a bias against Xbox anyway which came out during ABK and other news

The WCCFTech article, as is usual for that console-warring pile of junk, is a deliberately mis-translated lie.

What others who've read the source article have said is KCD2 will have two maps, and they're 25% bigger as that's due to the RAM limitations - because Warhorse don't stream maps in like most studios (for example, Hogwarts Legacy runs on a Switch ffs).

So there's two maps, so yes it is a lot bigger - and no the Series S isn't really holding it back, it was just a design consideration, and given it's two maps I'm glad they've not gone twice as large on both of them as it'll be empty...

EDIT: Also, the original is coming to the Switch - so when they say "the Series S only has 25% more RAM than the PS4 so the map is 25% bigger", how do they take the Switch version into account?

Fingers crossed it lives up to the memories of Test Drive Unlimited 1 and 2 on the 360 - a mate and I put so many hours into those, particularly the first.

My fear now is Forza Horizon does everything they did but bigger and better - only thing I can think of FH5 doesn't offer is walking around the house you bought, and walking around the showroom with all the cars in it rather than just one at a time.

If Test Drive can keep that distinction, plus some of the other bits that made it so cool back then - and be a fun, scenic drive - then I'll bite

@Kidfunkadelic83 Pretty much lol, although simpler base gameplay so a bit more relaxing I find - although just as hectic when you're on a level with moving "trains" and you set off while your partner is still jumping on board lol

Moving Out 2 is great fun, it's got local co-op and is hilarious as you're throwing TVs out the window into the removals van as your partner's screaming at you to get the other end of the sofa they're carrying

Agree completely with those saying to stick with 343 and move to Unreal.

The "feel" of Infinite is just right - it feels gameplay wise (particularly gunplay and melee) like an evolution of Halo 3.

It goes to another studio you lose that feel - and that's Halo.

You put Doom Eternal or CoD's combat into the Halo universe and it's just Doom / CoD with Master Chief branding - it's not Halo.

343 have had a big overhaul, they're moving to Unreal where they can get support from the Coalition - and they had great ideas in Infinite just held back by an ancient engine and poor management / Covid.

I really wish we'd got campaign DLC for Infinite, I really enjoyed it and the multiplayer feels great.

I do agree maybe on a reboot though - the lore has now got so big that it's difficult for newbies. It's why the TV show has had to slowly introduce stuff (yes series 1 was just OK but series 2 was awesome).

Problem is they'll get massive blowback if they do just like the TV show did, as they'd need to simplify the story of the trilogy and could do better levels with modern tech so would be pointless to just do what would effectively be a remaster otherwise

I've had all PlayStation consoles until 5, but when I got my birthday and Christmas money in one go in 2005 PS3 wasn't out and I already had a PS2 so I bought a 360.

Loved it, played so much multiplayer with uni housemates but also the single player games were great - it had Mass Effect, GRAW, CoD 2 and 4, Test Drive Unlimited, Oblivion, Fable 2 and of course the amazing Halo 3 (which we loved playing online BTB etc) and its successors.

I eventually got the PS3 but sold it, as it didn't have much split screen multiplayer and most of the single player stuff was on the 360 anyway.

Since then, I did get a PS4 after the One, and I'll probably get a PS5 Pro, but I've always been an Xbox first gamer as I love the controller layout and ecosystem - and have found Sony often to be arrogant or take their customers for granted and nickel and dime them

Agreed it's one of those games I'd have no issue with going across - The Outer Worlds 2 and others where they're direct sequels to multi-platform games makes sense they stay multi-platform.

I bounced off the first Hellblade but a few people I know on PlayStation loved it, so feels weird they can't play it

Great game, it's a bit bleak at times so I've often taken breaks to play happier things but it's a clever and interesting story - the investigations in particular are a highlight

@themightyant More like CoD lol, do the Bobby thing of "throw more devs on the CoD bonfire! Sacrifice everything to the cash cow that is CoD!"

My biggest fear is "priority games" = CoD and the few Xbox games big enough to justify expenditure.

Really worried this means less small games and variety, and instead that ABK has almost taken over Xbox - that just like under Bobby, everything will get sacrificed at the altar of getting CoD out the door each year...

Also really terrible news for the developers affected - there's lots already out of work so it's going to be incredibly stressful for them until they're able to find another role

It's a stupid move - kills any goodwill in Japan, removes the foothold they had there and means we won't get a sequel to one of the best games of the last few years.

And it really, really sucks for the developers involved...

Seems to be quite a bit of DLC on sale too - annoyingly some of House Flipper's DLC is finally on sale, but now 2 is out I've bought that instead and moved on

Sad news, I bought Immortals on the 90% off deal for the deluxe edition, and now I've played it I'd have probably paid more than 8 quid for it.

The issue was a brand new IP at 70 quid was a risk - it probably needed a demo / free trial at a minimum, and preferably a cheaper starting price rather than spending hundreds of millions on marketing that wouldn't move the needle with it being such an unknown.

It's a bit of a mix of Immortals: Fenyx Rising and a classic non-open world game like Gears or even Halo - fun, cool powers and lots of secrets to find.

Overall been quite enjoying it

They got the feel right in Series 2, showing us Chief as this lucky, unstoppable hero which given the mythology around him and his kill count (as players play him through the games lol) fits well.

Reach was awesome as without his armour it introduced real jeopardy but showed he was still dangerous, and the Halo itself once Chief landed could have been straight out of a scene from Infinite (I loaded the campaign up again after to play to check, and as the show had me hyped for Halo again).

Biggest downside for me is no new campaign DLC to go along with the show, plus no idea when we're getting a new game

On a quick glance through, I'm really interested intrigued by Dustbowl, as the art style reminds me of Road 96 and it feels like a chill game.

Still Wakes the Deep is one of my most anticipated games so really glad it's quite close now, and Harold Halibut looks decent

The Quarry, Open Roads and Hot Wheels 2 for me, may check out the others if I get a chance - plus want to play Lightyear Frontier.

A great month

I honestly don't know how it has a metacritic of 99 - it was OK but I bounced off it due to dice rolls for absolutely everything, weird camera angle and too much missable stuff.

I'll probably go back to it at some point and maybe I'll love it then - although I'm currently enjoying Immortals of Aveum after getting it for 8 quid so maybe I'm not a good judge of games...

The second season has been great so far, much better than the first and if anything I thought the budget was bigger and better spent.

Yes a Game of Thrones budget with 24 episode series following the storyline of the games and expanded universe would be cool, but obviously for a TV series to work for non-fans too it was going to need to be more focused.

The first season was a bit scattergun but this series is really hitting the mark for me

Really hope they get to do Deliver Us Home, to finish the trilogy.

Loved the story of The Moon and Mars, so would love a third game - really hope they get a publisher

Bought it for 8 quid, the start level isn't super pretty but I appreciate the speed everything moves at - it feels really responsive.

Does seem much prettier once out of the start, and story seems decent enough - feel bad for the studio it didn't do well but it's got high production values, UE5 feels good on the Series X and not seen any performance issues

Not sure a DLC can sort my main issues with the game, despite 80 to 100 hours in it.

I think I persevered purely because it's an Xbox studio now - if it was still third party I suspect I'd have ditched it sooner like I did BG3.

Too many characters only have a few lines beyond quests, the engine can handle big open areas but forces a loading screen to enter a shop and too many quests have so few resolutions (either a few bad options or a baddie in a deep cave somewhere).

I loved the ship builder and some storylines like the Terrormorph ones were really good, but too often it feels like there's way too much "stuff" - planets, game systems, tat you can pick up - but not enough substance - the cities feel small, missions have variety but rarely feel impactful and if there were less locations maybe companions could give more contextual chatter.

I'll still give the DLC a go, I'm hoping for some tight, well-scripted missions in some decent sized places and maybe some cool new ship parts

Mass Effect 1 and 2
Halo 3, particularly co-op and multiplayer
Test Drive Unlimited
Oblivion

While I found MGS and Driver to be the games of PS1, and GTA3 the game of PS2, the Xbox 360 generation just had so many games that pushed the envelope, with either their scope, story or multiplayer abilities.

GTA3 felt freeing, a true advancement of gaming, but those 360 games (plus so many others on it) was when gaming really started to feel like it was becoming a phenomenon, where a true movie-like experience or online multiplayer fun started to be available and even become mainstream / cool

Yep really enjoyed it, nice puzzles that aren't too taxing when you're wanting a chilled out game, but it's atmospheric with a clever and intriguing story

It's weird my Xbox group haven't played either of the Titanfall games, while my PlayStation friends loved Titanfall 2 and got me playing it - but none of them even considered getting a One to play the first one despite all having 360s before...

OK so Josh Sawyer has tweeted the Xbox patch was meant to unlock it on Series too but there was a bug.

Shoddy QA but should help to put it to rest - I do very much understand the "Xbox constantly shoot themselves in the foot" though as they knew this would be a closely scrutinised release

@InterceptorAlpha Try it now, fingers crossed they're all back?

@FraserG mine is back

Playground are one of my favourite studios, I've loved every Forza Horizon even if the chatter can be a bit cheesy in the campaigns, it's goofy, fast, beautiful fun.

I do think they'll stick the landing on this one and go a bit darker like Fable demands - I look forward to it, and happy for them to have more support if it gets the game to us sooner

@themightyant Yes hence why I'm hoping they do bring that new controller out with the same features.

I've managed to avoid playing my partner's PS5 as I didn't want to find I really liked the DualSense features and feel I'd chosen wrong in which console to buy as this was back during the pandemic when it was impossible to get either so I couldn't have got one alongside my XSX.

Now, I'm realising that like last gen I'll probably have to get a PlayStation anyway so I can play alongside my partner and local friends, as it's my only my old uni group where we've carried on burning the Xbox flame since those glory Halo 3 nights.

It's made me a lot more "meh" about all this as I'll likely get the Pro (as might as well get the best PS5 I can this year if I'm jumping on board) and catch up on the exclusives I've missed - but I do want Xbox to do well as I much prefer the stick layout, the ecosystem and the value offering (I'll always be subbed to Ultimate and enjoying the GP games).

And I'm pretty determined to always play games the best way I can play them (outside of the expense and effort of a PC, as mine's due a GPU upgrade which will then soon need a CPU/motherboard/RAM upgrade etc.) so if they don't do a souped-up Series X I might end up playing third-party games on the Pro while I would rather do it on the Series X...

I'm reserving judgment until I've seen confirmation from Digital Foundry or someone that it's definitely happening - and it's not an accident.

It doesn't really make too much difference on Pentiment, but on HiFi Rush or other games they might port over it'll be more noticeable - and they're also supporting DualSense features I imagine too.

Unless they patch those performance increases into the Xbox version too (and give us a new controller with DualSense features, as is rumoured) then we get the inferior product - and even if they patch the improvements in we've still initially played the worse one and been beta testers for PS5 players...

It's going to get worse if they release a PS5 Pro and Xbox don't release a souped-up Series X against it - as by waiting for the PS5 version of some games you may get Pro-enhanced performance, DualSense features and all fixes / optimisations...

The file size issue is actually something I'm not so fussed about - I've no doubt Kraken is better but Xbox are forced to use the MS/Windows standard ones which often perform poorly due to their wide-usage and generic nature, and thankfully I've got the 1TB extra drive

Hope it's fixed by the next sale, as it's a pain to remember all the games I'm interested in but not full price interested in...

@FraserG My wishlist seems to have disappeared, and many people online saying theirs has emptied too - Xbox status page currently saying it's working fine.

Hoping it's a temporary bug as I've a bunch of stuff on it I was waiting for a sale on...

Got it a few days ago, played the epilogue so far and enjoying it - looking forward to the bit now where it opens up and I get more investigations beyond that initial one...

We're all aware that us Xbox players likely play more games digitally than any other console - physical is a tiny portion of Xbox game sales.

It's also the oldest version, where everyone who wanted to give it a go (me included) likely already played it on Game Pass - between the logo on the box and the "Xbox Games Studios presents" in the start up (just like at the start of a film) I think Pentiment has enough branding for us not to worry.

HiFi Rush I could understand a bit more worry about - it's likely going to be the most popular of the 4 games, but as it's a Bethesda-published title it's unlikely Xbox / Xbox Game Studios will appear anywhere on it, which isn't ideal if the purpose of this is "to promote the Xbox brand everywhere"