It does reek of desperation so shouldn't be done...
I like Starfield, it's probably going to be a comfort game for a long while to come, but I can't deny it's not what I hoped it would be.
The loading screens (although short) do my head in so much, having got used in Hogwarts Legacy to a true massive open world, and while individual storylines are as enticing as side missions have ever been (and the main storyline isn't to bad for once) there's just a lack of immersion.
With how many lines of dialogue they'd recorded, I thought there'd be a lot more context-driven reaction by the people around you - or at least they'd change depending on the star system or mission progress (the colony ship is a particular example, where you can have just massively helped them out but some dialogue still is the same as first contact).
Instead it just feels shallow - too much of identikit bandit hideouts on random worlds, the same lines over and over from the general population, very few follower / romance options (and followers you do have often don't react when you take them to their home planet?!) and some missions have so few ways out (again, the colony ship is a particularly bad example).
And some levels are just boring - Neon for example appears to just be an ugly oil rig while Cydonia much the same building blocks but underground - with only New Atlantis and Akila City being a bit prettier and more interesting, but that's still mostly surface-deep.
Given the depth of some areas (the terrormorph missions, designing your own spaceship, the overall world-building backstory) it's just disappointing and definitely doesn't live up to the hype...
I enjoyed the Kinect with friends but it was like the Wii, good with others a bit rubbish alone with dogs or family underfoot.
As for this, classic Peter Molyneux, always over-promising beyond current technology - he was best when pulled down to earth by some of his better collaborators, as proven by his later "games"...
Even a decade and a bit later, we're still not fully at a place this could be made immersive and believable - maybe another decade
@Fiendish-Beaver Every 10 weeks of Xbox weekly tasks - the big one as you go into the Rewards app on Xbox.
For example this week was view the deals, open the Reward app three different days and earn 200 points in any way (last week the third one was search on Bing for 3 days).
You'd get like 250 points at 3 weeks of completing the tasks without missing a week, 500 at 5 weeks then 2.5k every 10 weeks you kept the streak going by completing the weekly tasks without missing a week
@Romans12 I agree Microsoft are positioning themselves for a streaming future, but at the current rate I foresee the brand loyalty of PlayStation carrying on into the cloud even if Xbox can offer a better service.
Apple have often released overpriced, underpowered hardware but people buy it due to the brand - and I fear if Xbox don't seriously start to play ball then PS will become the default streaming service too.
Even the new Portal (which seems pointless to me) will increase awareness of streaming (even if local only for now) to PS fans, while Xbox have mothballed their Keystone device for now and just worked with a few third party ones...
@TakeItEasy I agree - I think the PS5 is far behind Sony's other consoles in looks, user experience and exclusives - plus the nickel-and-diming for every accessory etc.
Yet it's absolutely storming ahead of what I thought (when the XSX was unveiled) would be Xbox's strongest launch
@Kaloudz My fear is that in their eagerness to get the ABK deal approved and be "nice" to their developers, they've let their competition get too far ahead...
And I only ever see their marketing with Monster etc. when it shouldn't be - like when they ended up having products go out with Halo on it after the game got delayed!
@Sol4ris Yep that's what worries me - I saw the XSX and XSS, with Halo Infinite, FH5 and many other games on the horizon and Game Pass smashing it out of the park and thought "yes, finally with the huge ugly PS5 they'll have a chance to get a fairer market share".
Instead they've fumbled a number of games (including the 2022 desert), not marketed it very much (or Game Pass) and instead PS5 has raced even further ahead with more market share and more of a cult-like following than ever before...
It felt like they went radio-silent as part of a strategy to get the ABK purchase approved - but it wasn't worth it if the cost is having lost an entire year or two at the start of this generation and so end up losing it even worse than the last one.
Who knows, maybe they'll drop every ABK game on Game Pass this Christmas, do a massive marketing campaign and cut the XSX to £250 and the XSS to £99 and storm the festive charts...
But at this rate I don't see it - even their massive XSX deals are only around the price of the PS5, and as I said further up I can't even give my partner one for free so being close in price isn't going to work!
@StonyKL Yep I love my Xbox consoles, the 360 means I associate them with long nights of great gaming with housemates and I much prefer the controllers.
And I agree it's a disaster if they don't do something to start pulling back market share - they need to be making sure publishers aren't skipping Xbox even if it requires additional payments, they need to get the hit factory going, they need to bring some massive games to Game Pass and they need to market the hell out of everything.
I love my fat green spaceship in Starfield but the world isn't as engrossing as it should be and it feels shallow in how little you can do with some people / locations - like nothing has really moved on since Skyrim while other game worlds have become more realistic and immersive, while Forza Motorsport is enjoyable but it does feel at times like they forgot to include any fun when picking it up after Forza Horizon 5...
I'm honestly umming and ahhing over graphics cards and thinking if I get a 4070 or 4080 I can play in 4K with ray-tracing and DLSS on the same TV as my XSX, and play many of the same games, with the same controller and with mods if I like...
@Kaloudz Think it's the likelihood they'll kill the weekly streaks or reduce them in value that's particularly gutting.
They've been penny-pinching the rewards for a while - I'm a huge fan of them and do it across mobile, web and console but I'll admit it's only really the 2.5k points for 10 week streaks that's really feels like it's worth the effort anymore.
If they cut that back too, it becomes less worthwhile - I'm already less bothered if I miss the monthly Game Pass 500 points now it's not 1K.
The only plus side is it means the end of that truly awful app - it's so slow even on a Series X!
@Romans12 Consoles though provide a captive audience for Game Pass - they can hammer their promotion of it to you via the dashboard every day.
But even if Game Pass were the product, I've never seen an advert for it on TV or on bus stops / buses / billboards in the UK - just the odd advert in gaming magazines and websites.
They've got this top-value product and wonder why growth has stalled - it's because you've advertised it to all the gaming enthusiasts already, you need to get it in front of new eyeballs...
PlayStation on the other hand, I don't go a day without seeing them on TV, on every website (including non-gaming ones) and on billboards and buses everywhere...
@Titntin Agreed, I've never understood why for the second half of December in particular Game Pass is a ghost town.
I get more time off at Christmas than I do at any point in the year, but nothing gets added so I end up just playing the backlog I built up during the year - there's often not even a big holiday game like the other two consoles do either.
If I were them I'd have got a massive game or two for Game Pass, give a 3 or 6 month trial with new consoles, and do a TV blitz in all countries with GP shouting about buying an Xbox for just this amount means you can play all these games for free...
Instead I've never seen a "Play it on Game Pass" outside an Xbox live stream, and no huge "wow that's cool" marketing campaign in the run-up to Christmas - they rarely even played the Halo one I thought was awesome...
Guess there is one positive - the Rewards tab like much of the newer Xbox stuff that seems to go across mobile / web too seems to work 100% of the time.
Whereas the Rewards app has had truly awful performance (so many Service Is Unavailable errors!) for the last year or two - the Insider app isn't much better...
There's a big reason it's a problem though, despite them merging the development kit that PC and Xbox use.
If Xbox doesn't have much of a market share, publishers won't bother having the developers port to it - so PC and PS5 will get the games, Xbox won't.
At that point, I'll go back to playing more on PC - I'm already looking at upgrading my graphics card.
I've had some of my best gaming memories on Xbox - but the truth is after the upgrade if my PC can outperform my XSX, has Game Pass (and games cheaper to buy) then apart from ease there doesn't become much reason to turn on my XSX.
I might even end up like last generation giving in to market forces and getting the latest PlayStation, simply to play games when my friends are rather than waiting for the Xbox or PC ports - which sucks as I dislike the PS joystick layout and I really can't stand the nickel-and-diming of Sony (or their cult-like followers at times).
It's actually insane how entrenched PlayStation is now - I offered to buy my partner an XSX alongside their PS5 and got turned down as it would just waste desk space...
If I can't even get someone I know very well to play Xbox for free, what chance have Microsoft got?
I really, really hope they have a plan to stop being "nice" and start being cutthroat with marketing and exclusivity deals, releasing 10/10 exclusives (I'm enjoying the latest games but let's face it nothing has been truly awesome since FH5) regularly and hammering home Xbox as the best place to play, and trying to overturn the "cool" factor that PS5 now has...
Otherwise I hate to say it but I actually agree with those saying we could be in the last generation or two of Xbox consoles - short of a massive misstep from Sony...
I just got my latest 2.5k points for I think 120 weeks last week so guess I'm less annoyed than I would have been.
But no two ways about it - this sucks, and if they don't compensate with more points on the new Rewards tab then it's definitely a big reduction in what we're getting.
I use it to get Xbox gift cards I then use to buy games from the Xbox store rather than my old way of going to CDKeys - guess I'll be going back there more in the future...
@jedinite @__jamiie Yep the PS5 marketing machine is massive - I'm glad I've started to see some Xbox marketing since the ABK deal went through, but with many casual / non-gamers it feels like PlayStation is the default name for "games console" and for younger players the PS5 has an almost Apple-like cult around it now...
Hopefully the marketing machine for Xbox will start to kick into gear, particularly when they've taken over the CoD marketing and have Indiana Jones and other known IPs coming out...
As a teenager I loved my PS2, and I've loved generations since - but no console has better memories for me than the 360.
The wonder of Oblivion, the drama of Mass Effect, chilled Test Drive Unlimited drives to Comfortably Numb with drunk friends, manic Call of Duty 2 local multiplayer sniper / shotgun games in the student village and all night Halo 3 online team slayer with uni housemates.
The Kinect was a fun add-on that encouraged exercise like Wii Fit when it first came out for the 360 - a late stage accessory that was very much of its time and gave new ways to play.
I remember silly fun with housemates on Adventures and absolutely dying more than cardio at the gym when playing some dance game that I got free with it!
But it should have died with the 360, or yes come later as a much improved optional add-on for the One...
It was a disaster - Xbox should have been powering on from the 360 generation, proper competition for Sony that would have allowed us to have two strong companies fighting it out for our attention and us all getting the benefit of that.
The games were there - Ryse, Quantum Break and Forza Horizon 2 I remember being great - but the marketing / "always online" stuff and the TV / Kinect focus and the impact on price killed it.
Sony then proceeded to put its foot on Xbox's throat completely by starting to use its market share power to get exclusivity deals on the cheap and marketing deals that cemented it as "the place to play".
Pretty much everyone I know moved over to PlayStation - even I gave up in the end and got a PS4 - with only a few diehards of us staying as Xbox-first gamers.
Game Pass and other moves have started to help, but in truth the PS5 appears set to smash Xbox even harder than the PS4 did - so it's going to really take Microsoft at their most cutthroat over the next few years with some 10/10 games to boot to even begin to dent the popularity of PlayStation and Nintendo.
I say this as a gamer who loves my XSX, who refuses to buy the nickel-and-diming Sony's PS5 - but I can't ignore that no matter what Xbox does I see more and more family and friends get the PS5 even when replacing Xbox Ones they got cheap...
Think in recent years it's likely the voting public are more likely to have a PlayStation or Switch and not have played the Xbox ones.
The Xbox 360 year omissions are definitely stranger, but then I generally remember that a lot of the magazines and awards back then took a dislike to the "upstart" Xbox rather than the "winner of the last generation" PS - which seemed to reach a giddy height with the mis-steps around the Xbox One launch.
Fingers crossed, with the size of Xbox now and hopefully many great games to come, market and mindshare will follow and so Xbox will start to see greater representation...
If it's dusty it's more because I have it on the floor stood up, so more my fault - planning to give it a clean and move it into the cabinet led down now
I do love Spirited Away (even though my housemates and I all had had a few drinks before it which made it feel even weirder!) so will be giving this a go I suspect - and glad to hear Game Pass is helping indie devs!
@PsychatTheGray Had a 360 refurbished when it broke (and it's still running fine now!), and I've currently got a refurbished Surface laptop and had a few other refurbished devices before.
Usually the official ones like this have no (or very, very minor) wear and tear damage, a full warranty (or better in some cases) and while there could be the odd one where something wasn't fully investigated (so there's still some buried issue), I've generally found refurbished items to be very reliable.
That's because unlike a mass-produced off-the-production-line item, they've been refurbished / repaired by humans, usually with some engineering experience, and tested to ensure they're fully working...
I love a number of the games we've had in recent years and much prefer the power, speed and quick loading of the current generation.
But it'd take something very special to beat the 360 era for me - Mass Effect, Halo 3 (including lots and lots of online team games with uni housemates and friends that likely make me nostalgic), Oblivion, Test Drive Unlimited, Fable 2 and the best CoDs - even GRAW was fun with friends and Halo Reach and ODST added more fun such as firefights.
Xbox was truly on form, and gaming in general was innovative and gave us brilliant new experiences - much of what we get today feels like refinements of ideas introduced then...
Reminds me of the lag that was an everyday occurrence back in Halo 3, the amount of times I'd assassinate someone and then it would suddenly jump forward and I'd have missed them and instead been killed...
When I played MCC recently it was massively better, and not had too many issues with Infinite - so hopefully whatever 343 have done and are doing will resolve the final gremlins and be useful for future releases too...
@Cherip-the-Ripper Yep that's it, remembered reading the reviews but never got round to playing it - just remembered the boyfriends were weapons or something lol
That said, I'm someone who loves Game Pass and my Series X (check my comment history) and this seems a really dumb move - PS5 Digital is obviously more at the Series X level so to bring the Series S nearer to it in price seems self-defeating.
I really hope they'll be advertising the consoles hard this Christmas and doing some seriously good deals as the PS5 is starting to reach PS4 levels of dominance now stock is sorted and when that happens less developers / publishers think it's worth the expense of porting to Xbox...
Fingers crossed they're now in a position to start turning things around - decisions like this don't help though
@themightyant Revenue for ABK in 2022 was 5 times that though, so 20% staffing costs is actually not bad - probably better than much of the rest of Xbox Game Studios!
So while they'll no doubt rationalise some areas like publishing, management, QA and marketing (a few games have shown real weaknesses in Xbox about managing expectations, quality, marketing and delivery pipelines and dates so it may be a good thing) I hope they'll stick to a similar workforce in order to get the games out.
I think they signed an agreement with the main unions around keeping headcount pretty much the same for a few years anyway didn't they?
Think it's going to be my comfort game for months if not years - I've popped away to do a few Forza Motorsport races for example but like coming back to a game that's always got new things to discover...
That and I love my big ugly green spaceship!
On the Game Pass side, this game has already got some of my friends considering Game Pass Ultimate to try it out on the cloud and consider upgrading their PCs to play it which is something as console-wise they're hardcore PS5ers
Blizzard being freed from Activision can only be a good thing... Might mean they can finally go back to some of their franchises they've not touched in a while.
I'd definitely be up for a Warcraft 4! (I know technically WoW is that franchise too but I love the RTS side)
@BrilliantBill It's joining EA Play (included with Game Pass Ultimate) rather than Game Pass directly - so it'll be until the deal with EA ends I imagine or some licencing expired, as I've not seen any games leave EA Play except those like FIFA / NFL that have licencing issues after a few years
lol I'm a coward when it comes to horror, I may give it a try but I'm actually strangely excited for F1 Manager - it's often caught my eye but wasn't sure if I'd like it so now get to try it out
Think it'd depend if Xbox got to have a digital section rather than none at all...
If just digital, Microsoft might not mind too much - but if they had no presence at all it might be a bigger issue as it means no eyeball-space when parents are rushing out to buy Christmas presents...
Do wonder how that would work with them selling consoles though if they had no Xbox games at all?
@Deshalu Yeah I just wonder if he'd be upset enough to quit over it - particularly given Bethesda have always worked closely with Microsoft / Xbox.
I read it more as frustration that it restricts his job slightly so he can't get the sky-high sales figures he might get if he were able to include PlayStation too.
He'd have had to have been closely involved in getting the exclusivity deals with PlayStation for Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo though I guess, so if he does prefer to work with Sony then best of luck to him going elsewhere I guess...
@Nancyboy Buying an asset brings that asset and its value and revenue onto your books - even project costs around it are centralised and can be amortised over many years.
It's unfortunately accounted for very different to day-to-day spending - I say this as someone who hates accountants despite having to work with them.
I hate layoffs too, and do wish they'd use some of the cash pile to support the higher headcount instead of buying stuff, but unfortunately the gruesome side of capitalism is that shareholders won't allow for "high" costs to be subsidised by cash piles, and they favour things that increase value - whether that's buying an asset that generates income (compared to money just sat there earning nothing) or cutting "high" costs.
Until we fix capitalism by making customers / staff as important to companies as their shareholders and bottom line, something I'm very up for, this is the way it goes...
@Deshalu I'm not sure he's got that strong feelings about multi-platform, given only 2 Bethesda games haven't hit PlayStation so far and they still go to PC - despite his comment in the emails.
Do agree with the rest of your comment though.
I do wonder if in time Microsoft plan to centralise the publishing and marketing rather than having it spread across all 3 publishers (Xbox, Bethesda and ABK) - it makes sense as it stops them stepping on each other's toes and saves money that can be better spent on better promoting.
So it could be the eventual idea of that that's why he doesn't mention Microsoft or Xbox - or that he avoids them to try and stop the Sony console warriors using his resignation lol...
I'm guessing they'll carry on with SlipSpace for multiplayer for a while yet - given Forge and the sheer amount of stuff that can be built on it.
Would be happy if they concentrated on a single-player / co-op Unreal campaign, then after that began to re-do Forge and multiplayer in Unreal - and once both are finally in it maybe we can start to get more frequent releases?
Looking forward to this but happy for it to be moved out - I imagine I'll still be playing Starfield and will have started Forza Motorsport so this to move to a quieter time of year suits me
This game has always intrigued me so definitely up for giving it a go - may provide a nice colourful and relaxed interlude between by never-ending Starfield sessions
@Tharsman Yep I've no doubt over profitability and look forward to them using that income for Game Pass deals etc.
The reason I mention console install base is primarily getting more games released on Xbox - by their own numbers PlayStation had thousands more games released for it over the last generation because the PS4 was seen as the default console to develop for.
I want the Xbox install base to be big enough when I see a third party game announced I don't have to think "wonder if it'll be on Xbox", but know it's unlikely not to be
@Titntin You can dream, but you know this thread will descend into anarchy later today
Agreed on being glad it's almost over - it's felt like it sucked all the oxygen out of gaming, just hope now Xbox know how to use this asset to start to play catch up.
We can't lose this generation as bad as the last one, or the only way we'll guarantee games are ported to Xbox is Microsoft buying the studios / publishers - much prefer that Xbox becomes an automatic choice for platform worldwide, just like PlayStation is...
Glad it shows they weren't living on another planet, and were well aware what we all felt - that Xbox and Game Pass had a dearth of content for much of last year.
They're definitely doing better now - and the leaks while disappointing for them do at least show they're willing to investigate lots of different ideas for catching up, or for different games / controllers etc.
Mostly staying out of a lot of the comments for the leak articles though, as expected it brings the PS lot over looking for a fight - haven't got time for that rubbish, too busy with Starfield
Comments 1,046
Re: Bethesda Has Started Responding To Negative User Reviews Of Starfield
It does reek of desperation so shouldn't be done...
I like Starfield, it's probably going to be a comfort game for a long while to come, but I can't deny it's not what I hoped it would be.
The loading screens (although short) do my head in so much, having got used in Hogwarts Legacy to a true massive open world, and while individual storylines are as enticing as side missions have ever been (and the main storyline isn't to bad for once) there's just a lack of immersion.
With how many lines of dialogue they'd recorded, I thought there'd be a lot more context-driven reaction by the people around you - or at least they'd change depending on the star system or mission progress (the colony ship is a particular example, where you can have just massively helped them out but some dialogue still is the same as first contact).
Instead it just feels shallow - too much of identikit bandit hideouts on random worlds, the same lines over and over from the general population, very few follower / romance options (and followers you do have often don't react when you take them to their home planet?!) and some missions have so few ways out (again, the colony ship is a particularly bad example).
And some levels are just boring - Neon for example appears to just be an ugly oil rig while Cydonia much the same building blocks but underground - with only New Atlantis and Akila City being a bit prettier and more interesting, but that's still mostly surface-deep.
Given the depth of some areas (the terrormorph missions, designing your own spaceship, the overall world-building backstory) it's just disappointing and definitely doesn't live up to the hype...
Re: Talking Point: Remember When 'Project Milo' Was The Next Big Thing For Xbox?
I enjoyed the Kinect with friends but it was like the Wii, good with others a bit rubbish alone with dogs or family underfoot.
As for this, classic Peter Molyneux, always over-promising beyond current technology - he was best when pulled down to earth by some of his better collaborators, as proven by his later "games"...
Even a decade and a bit later, we're still not fully at a place this could be made immersive and believable - maybe another decade
Re: Talking Point: What Kind Of Reveals Are You Hoping To See At The Game Awards 2023?
BG3 shadow drop on Game Pass would be nice to make up for the delay caused by the S...
Re: Xbox Might Be Losing Its Microsoft Rewards App (And Weekly Streaks)
@Eejay Ouch fingers crossed it'll hang around long enough!
@Fiendish-Beaver No problem, and hopefully they'll carry it on in the new Rewards tabs, even if they end up reducing it a bit...
Re: Xbox Might Be Losing Its Microsoft Rewards App (And Weekly Streaks)
@Fiendish-Beaver Every 10 weeks of Xbox weekly tasks - the big one as you go into the Rewards app on Xbox.
For example this week was view the deals, open the Reward app three different days and earn 200 points in any way (last week the third one was search on Bing for 3 days).
You'd get like 250 points at 3 weeks of completing the tasks without missing a week, 500 at 5 weeks then 2.5k every 10 weeks you kept the streak going by completing the weekly tasks without missing a week
Re: Reaction: Should We Really Be Surprised By 'Declining' Xbox Console Sales?
@Romans12 I agree Microsoft are positioning themselves for a streaming future, but at the current rate I foresee the brand loyalty of PlayStation carrying on into the cloud even if Xbox can offer a better service.
Apple have often released overpriced, underpowered hardware but people buy it due to the brand - and I fear if Xbox don't seriously start to play ball then PS will become the default streaming service too.
Even the new Portal (which seems pointless to me) will increase awareness of streaming (even if local only for now) to PS fans, while Xbox have mothballed their Keystone device for now and just worked with a few third party ones...
Re: Reaction: Should We Really Be Surprised By 'Declining' Xbox Console Sales?
@TakeItEasy I agree - I think the PS5 is far behind Sony's other consoles in looks, user experience and exclusives - plus the nickel-and-diming for every accessory etc.
Yet it's absolutely storming ahead of what I thought (when the XSX was unveiled) would be Xbox's strongest launch
Re: Reaction: Should We Really Be Surprised By 'Declining' Xbox Console Sales?
@Kaloudz My fear is that in their eagerness to get the ABK deal approved and be "nice" to their developers, they've let their competition get too far ahead...
And I only ever see their marketing with Monster etc. when it shouldn't be - like when they ended up having products go out with Halo on it after the game got delayed!
Re: Reaction: Should We Really Be Surprised By 'Declining' Xbox Console Sales?
@Sol4ris Yep that's what worries me - I saw the XSX and XSS, with Halo Infinite, FH5 and many other games on the horizon and Game Pass smashing it out of the park and thought "yes, finally with the huge ugly PS5 they'll have a chance to get a fairer market share".
Instead they've fumbled a number of games (including the 2022 desert), not marketed it very much (or Game Pass) and instead PS5 has raced even further ahead with more market share and more of a cult-like following than ever before...
It felt like they went radio-silent as part of a strategy to get the ABK purchase approved - but it wasn't worth it if the cost is having lost an entire year or two at the start of this generation and so end up losing it even worse than the last one.
Who knows, maybe they'll drop every ABK game on Game Pass this Christmas, do a massive marketing campaign and cut the XSX to £250 and the XSS to £99 and storm the festive charts...
But at this rate I don't see it - even their massive XSX deals are only around the price of the PS5, and as I said further up I can't even give my partner one for free so being close in price isn't going to work!
Re: Reaction: Should We Really Be Surprised By 'Declining' Xbox Console Sales?
@StonyKL Yep I love my Xbox consoles, the 360 means I associate them with long nights of great gaming with housemates and I much prefer the controllers.
And I agree it's a disaster if they don't do something to start pulling back market share - they need to be making sure publishers aren't skipping Xbox even if it requires additional payments, they need to get the hit factory going, they need to bring some massive games to Game Pass and they need to market the hell out of everything.
I love my fat green spaceship in Starfield but the world isn't as engrossing as it should be and it feels shallow in how little you can do with some people / locations - like nothing has really moved on since Skyrim while other game worlds have become more realistic and immersive, while Forza Motorsport is enjoyable but it does feel at times like they forgot to include any fun when picking it up after Forza Horizon 5...
I'm honestly umming and ahhing over graphics cards and thinking if I get a 4070 or 4080 I can play in 4K with ray-tracing and DLSS on the same TV as my XSX, and play many of the same games, with the same controller and with mods if I like...
Re: Xbox Might Be Losing Its Microsoft Rewards App (And Weekly Streaks)
@Kaloudz Think it's the likelihood they'll kill the weekly streaks or reduce them in value that's particularly gutting.
They've been penny-pinching the rewards for a while - I'm a huge fan of them and do it across mobile, web and console but I'll admit it's only really the 2.5k points for 10 week streaks that's really feels like it's worth the effort anymore.
If they cut that back too, it becomes less worthwhile - I'm already less bothered if I miss the monthly Game Pass 500 points now it's not 1K.
The only plus side is it means the end of that truly awful app - it's so slow even on a Series X!
Re: Reaction: Should We Really Be Surprised By 'Declining' Xbox Console Sales?
@Romans12 Consoles though provide a captive audience for Game Pass - they can hammer their promotion of it to you via the dashboard every day.
But even if Game Pass were the product, I've never seen an advert for it on TV or on bus stops / buses / billboards in the UK - just the odd advert in gaming magazines and websites.
They've got this top-value product and wonder why growth has stalled - it's because you've advertised it to all the gaming enthusiasts already, you need to get it in front of new eyeballs...
PlayStation on the other hand, I don't go a day without seeing them on TV, on every website (including non-gaming ones) and on billboards and buses everywhere...
Re: Reaction: Should We Really Be Surprised By 'Declining' Xbox Console Sales?
@Titntin Agreed, I've never understood why for the second half of December in particular Game Pass is a ghost town.
I get more time off at Christmas than I do at any point in the year, but nothing gets added so I end up just playing the backlog I built up during the year - there's often not even a big holiday game like the other two consoles do either.
If I were them I'd have got a massive game or two for Game Pass, give a 3 or 6 month trial with new consoles, and do a TV blitz in all countries with GP shouting about buying an Xbox for just this amount means you can play all these games for free...
Instead I've never seen a "Play it on Game Pass" outside an Xbox live stream, and no huge "wow that's cool" marketing campaign in the run-up to Christmas - they rarely even played the Halo one I thought was awesome...
Re: Xbox Might Be Losing Its Microsoft Rewards App (And Weekly Streaks)
Guess there is one positive - the Rewards tab like much of the newer Xbox stuff that seems to go across mobile / web too seems to work 100% of the time.
Whereas the Rewards app has had truly awful performance (so many Service Is Unavailable errors!) for the last year or two - the Insider app isn't much better...
Re: Reaction: Should We Really Be Surprised By 'Declining' Xbox Console Sales?
There's a big reason it's a problem though, despite them merging the development kit that PC and Xbox use.
If Xbox doesn't have much of a market share, publishers won't bother having the developers port to it - so PC and PS5 will get the games, Xbox won't.
At that point, I'll go back to playing more on PC - I'm already looking at upgrading my graphics card.
I've had some of my best gaming memories on Xbox - but the truth is after the upgrade if my PC can outperform my XSX, has Game Pass (and games cheaper to buy) then apart from ease there doesn't become much reason to turn on my XSX.
I might even end up like last generation giving in to market forces and getting the latest PlayStation, simply to play games when my friends are rather than waiting for the Xbox or PC ports - which sucks as I dislike the PS joystick layout and I really can't stand the nickel-and-diming of Sony (or their cult-like followers at times).
It's actually insane how entrenched PlayStation is now - I offered to buy my partner an XSX alongside their PS5 and got turned down as it would just waste desk space...
If I can't even get someone I know very well to play Xbox for free, what chance have Microsoft got?
I really, really hope they have a plan to stop being "nice" and start being cutthroat with marketing and exclusivity deals, releasing 10/10 exclusives (I'm enjoying the latest games but let's face it nothing has been truly awesome since FH5) regularly and hammering home Xbox as the best place to play, and trying to overturn the "cool" factor that PS5 now has...
Otherwise I hate to say it but I actually agree with those saying we could be in the last generation or two of Xbox consoles - short of a massive misstep from Sony...
Re: Xbox Might Be Losing Its Microsoft Rewards App (And Weekly Streaks)
I just got my latest 2.5k points for I think 120 weeks last week so guess I'm less annoyed than I would have been.
But no two ways about it - this sucks, and if they don't compensate with more points on the new Rewards tab then it's definitely a big reduction in what we're getting.
I use it to get Xbox gift cards I then use to buy games from the Xbox store rather than my old way of going to CDKeys - guess I'll be going back there more in the future...
Re: 10 Years Since Its Release, Let's Celebrate The Biggest Turnaround In Xbox History
@jedinite @__jamiie Yep the PS5 marketing machine is massive - I'm glad I've started to see some Xbox marketing since the ABK deal went through, but with many casual / non-gamers it feels like PlayStation is the default name for "games console" and for younger players the PS5 has an almost Apple-like cult around it now...
Hopefully the marketing machine for Xbox will start to kick into gear, particularly when they've taken over the CoD marketing and have Indiana Jones and other known IPs coming out...
Re: Xbox 360 Took The Gaming World By Storm 18 Years Ago Today
As a teenager I loved my PS2, and I've loved generations since - but no console has better memories for me than the 360.
The wonder of Oblivion, the drama of Mass Effect, chilled Test Drive Unlimited drives to Comfortably Numb with drunk friends, manic Call of Duty 2 local multiplayer sniper / shotgun games in the student village and all night Halo 3 online team slayer with uni housemates.
Truly great memories...
Re: 10 Years Since Its Release, Let's Celebrate The Biggest Turnaround In Xbox History
The Kinect was a fun add-on that encouraged exercise like Wii Fit when it first came out for the 360 - a late stage accessory that was very much of its time and gave new ways to play.
I remember silly fun with housemates on Adventures and absolutely dying more than cardio at the gym when playing some dance game that I got free with it!
But it should have died with the 360, or yes come later as a much improved optional add-on for the One...
Re: 10 Years Since Its Release, Let's Celebrate The Biggest Turnaround In Xbox History
It was a disaster - Xbox should have been powering on from the 360 generation, proper competition for Sony that would have allowed us to have two strong companies fighting it out for our attention and us all getting the benefit of that.
The games were there - Ryse, Quantum Break and Forza Horizon 2 I remember being great - but the marketing / "always online" stuff and the TV / Kinect focus and the impact on price killed it.
Sony then proceeded to put its foot on Xbox's throat completely by starting to use its market share power to get exclusivity deals on the cheap and marketing deals that cemented it as "the place to play".
Pretty much everyone I know moved over to PlayStation - even I gave up in the end and got a PS4 - with only a few diehards of us staying as Xbox-first gamers.
Game Pass and other moves have started to help, but in truth the PS5 appears set to smash Xbox even harder than the PS4 did - so it's going to really take Microsoft at their most cutthroat over the next few years with some 10/10 games to boot to even begin to dent the popularity of PlayStation and Nintendo.
I say this as a gamer who loves my XSX, who refuses to buy the nickel-and-diming Sony's PS5 - but I can't ignore that no matter what Xbox does I see more and more family and friends get the PS5 even when replacing Xbox Ones they got cheap...
Re: Reaction: Looking Back, Xbox Has Had Some Strange GOTY Omissions Over The Years
Think in recent years it's likely the voting public are more likely to have a PlayStation or Switch and not have played the Xbox ones.
The Xbox 360 year omissions are definitely stranger, but then I generally remember that a lot of the magazines and awards back then took a dislike to the "upstart" Xbox rather than the "winner of the last generation" PS - which seemed to reach a giddy height with the mis-steps around the Xbox One launch.
Fingers crossed, with the size of Xbox now and hopefully many great games to come, market and mindshare will follow and so Xbox will start to see greater representation...
Re: Random: Xbox Fan Shows Ridiculously Dusty Series X Console After 3 Years Of Use
If it's dusty it's more because I have it on the floor stood up, so more my fault - planning to give it a clean and move it into the cabinet led down now
Re: Interview: Spirittea Publisher On Why Xbox Game Pass 'Very Much Works For Us'
I do love Spirited Away (even though my housemates and I all had had a few drinks before it which made it feel even weirder!) so will be giving this a go I suspect - and glad to hear Game Pass is helping indie devs!
Re: Black Friday: Xbox Series X + MW3 Refurb Bundle Slashed To Less Than £380 In UK
@PsychatTheGray Had a 360 refurbished when it broke (and it's still running fine now!), and I've currently got a refurbished Surface laptop and had a few other refurbished devices before.
Usually the official ones like this have no (or very, very minor) wear and tear damage, a full warranty (or better in some cases) and while there could be the odd one where something wasn't fully investigated (so there's still some buried issue), I've generally found refurbished items to be very reliable.
That's because unlike a mass-produced off-the-production-line item, they've been refurbished / repaired by humans, usually with some engineering experience, and tested to ensure they're fully working...
Re: Poll: Which Has Been The Best Generation Of Xbox So Far?
I love a number of the games we've had in recent years and much prefer the power, speed and quick loading of the current generation.
But it'd take something very special to beat the 360 era for me - Mass Effect, Halo 3 (including lots and lots of online team games with uni housemates and friends that likely make me nostalgic), Oblivion, Test Drive Unlimited, Fable 2 and the best CoDs - even GRAW was fun with friends and Halo Reach and ODST added more fun such as firefights.
Xbox was truly on form, and gaming in general was innovative and gave us brilliant new experiences - much of what we get today feels like refinements of ideas introduced then...
Re: Three Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (November 9)
@gravelmonkey Yep lol and when they were created they used to cackle mwahahaha that I can still remember all these years later
Re: Three Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (November 9)
Loved Dungeon Keeper when I was younger, didn't realise Dungeons was pretty much the same thing - might give that a go...
And LAD is a definite too, might try Wild Hearts...
Re: Halo Infinite's Networking Is Being 'Fundamentally Changed' To Address De-Sync Issues
Reminds me of the lag that was an everyday occurrence back in Halo 3, the amount of times I'd assassinate someone and then it would suddenly jump forward and I'd have missed them and instead been killed...
When I played MCC recently it was massively better, and not had too many issues with Infinite - so hopefully whatever 343 have done and are doing will resolve the final gremlins and be useful for future releases too...
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Think Of Day One Game Pass Release 'Thirsty Suitors'
@Cherip-the-Ripper Yep that's it, remembered reading the reviews but never got round to playing it - just remembered the boyfriends were weapons or something lol
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Think Of Day One Game Pass Release 'Thirsty Suitors'
Yep the title had me thinking it would be another one like that "boyfriend swords" one or whatever it was.
Actually sounds decent though so will give it a try
Re: Microsoft Increasing Xbox Series S Price In Brazil
@JayJ Think articles like this always will.
That said, I'm someone who loves Game Pass and my Series X (check my comment history) and this seems a really dumb move - PS5 Digital is obviously more at the Series X level so to bring the Series S nearer to it in price seems self-defeating.
I really hope they'll be advertising the consoles hard this Christmas and doing some seriously good deals as the PS5 is starting to reach PS4 levels of dominance now stock is sorted and when that happens less developers / publishers think it's worth the expense of porting to Xbox...
Fingers crossed they're now in a position to start turning things around - decisions like this don't help though
Re: PowerWash Simulator Studio Unveils New 'Lightning-Paced' Action Adventure
Hope this won't stop them doing a Powerwash Simulator 2, I still need my cleaning fix!
Re: Xbox's Leadership Team Visits Blizzard Post-Acquisition
@themightyant Revenue for ABK in 2022 was 5 times that though, so 20% staffing costs is actually not bad - probably better than much of the rest of Xbox Game Studios!
So while they'll no doubt rationalise some areas like publishing, management, QA and marketing (a few games have shown real weaknesses in Xbox about managing expectations, quality, marketing and delivery pipelines and dates so it may be a good thing) I hope they'll stick to a similar workforce in order to get the games out.
I think they signed an agreement with the main unions around keeping headcount pretty much the same for a few years anyway didn't they?
Re: Deals: All 30+ Backwards Compatible Games In This Week's Xbox Sales (October 24-31)
Only 20% off RDR?! Rockstar/T2 really are bigger crooks than their characters...
Re: Starfield Launch Set Record For "Most Game Pass Subscriptions Added On A Single Day Ever"
Think it's going to be my comfort game for months if not years - I've popped away to do a few Forza Motorsport races for example but like coming back to a game that's always got new things to discover...
That and I love my big ugly green spaceship!
On the Game Pass side, this game has already got some of my friends considering Game Pass Ultimate to try it out on the cloud and consider upgrading their PCs to play it which is something as console-wise they're hardcore PS5ers
Re: Xbox's Leadership Team Visits Blizzard Post-Acquisition
Blizzard being freed from Activision can only be a good thing... Might mean they can finally go back to some of their franchises they've not touched in a while.
I'd definitely be up for a Warcraft 4! (I know technically WoW is that franchise too but I love the RTS side)
Re: Microsoft 'Doubling Down As A Game Producer' After ActiBlizz Deal, Says CEO
@Mephisto2869 Please point to a recent game that was Game Pass fodder?
One of the few small ones recently Xbox made which probably may have not get made without GP was Pentiment, and it's anything but fodder.
Some might not like the game, but it's incredibly well built, clever and engrossing - and unlike anything else I've played.
Equally, HiFi Rush is a smaller release that was excellent - addictive, funny and with great gameplay.
If anything, if all of the Xbox-released AAA games had the same polish and ingenuity those two had we'd be on to a winner...
Re: These 20+ Games Are Coming To Xbox Next Week (October 23-27)
@BrilliantBill It's joining EA Play (included with Game Pass Ultimate) rather than Game Pass directly - so it'll be until the deal with EA ends I imagine or some licencing expired, as I've not seen any games leave EA Play except those like FIFA / NFL that have licencing issues after a few years
Re: Five Games Will Leave Xbox Game Pass In Late October 2023
Started P5R but bounced off a bit at times... It seemed good enough but didn't grab me like it has other people I think.
Now Starfield and Forza have most of my attention, I guess I'll buy it if it doesn't come back to Game Pass at some point
Re: These Seven Games Are Coming To Xbox Game Pass (October 19 - 31)
lol I'm a coward when it comes to horror, I may give it a try but I'm actually strangely excited for F1 Manager - it's often caught my eye but wasn't sure if I'd like it so now get to try it out
Re: Limited Run CEO Claims Walmart May Be Dropping Physical Xbox Games Soon
Think it'd depend if Xbox got to have a digital section rather than none at all...
If just digital, Microsoft might not mind too much - but if they had no presence at all it might be a bigger issue as it means no eyeball-space when parents are rushing out to buy Christmas presents...
Do wonder how that would work with them selling consoles though if they had no Xbox games at all?
Re: Bethesda's Longtime Publishing Head Pete Hines Is Leaving The Company
@Deshalu Yeah I just wonder if he'd be upset enough to quit over it - particularly given Bethesda have always worked closely with Microsoft / Xbox.
I read it more as frustration that it restricts his job slightly so he can't get the sky-high sales figures he might get if he were able to include PlayStation too.
He'd have had to have been closely involved in getting the exclusivity deals with PlayStation for Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo though I guess, so if he does prefer to work with Sony then best of luck to him going elsewhere I guess...
Re: 'Karma Is A B*tch'! Original Xbox Creator Talks Activision Takeover
@Nancyboy Buying an asset brings that asset and its value and revenue onto your books - even project costs around it are centralised and can be amortised over many years.
It's unfortunately accounted for very different to day-to-day spending - I say this as someone who hates accountants despite having to work with them.
I hate layoffs too, and do wish they'd use some of the cash pile to support the higher headcount instead of buying stuff, but unfortunately the gruesome side of capitalism is that shareholders won't allow for "high" costs to be subsidised by cash piles, and they favour things that increase value - whether that's buying an asset that generates income (compared to money just sat there earning nothing) or cutting "high" costs.
Until we fix capitalism by making customers / staff as important to companies as their shareholders and bottom line, something I'm very up for, this is the way it goes...
Re: Bethesda's Longtime Publishing Head Pete Hines Is Leaving The Company
@Deshalu I'm not sure he's got that strong feelings about multi-platform, given only 2 Bethesda games haven't hit PlayStation so far and they still go to PC - despite his comment in the emails.
Do agree with the rest of your comment though.
I do wonder if in time Microsoft plan to centralise the publishing and marketing rather than having it spread across all 3 publishers (Xbox, Bethesda and ABK) - it makes sense as it stops them stepping on each other's toes and saves money that can be better spent on better promoting.
So it could be the eventual idea of that that's why he doesn't mention Microsoft or Xbox - or that he avoids them to try and stop the Sony console warriors using his resignation lol...
Re: Rumour: Halo's Next Story Campaign Is In Development On Unreal Engine
I'm guessing they'll carry on with SlipSpace for multiplayer for a while yet - given Forge and the sheer amount of stuff that can be built on it.
Would be happy if they concentrated on a single-player / co-op Unreal campaign, then after that began to re-do Forge and multiplayer in Unreal - and once both are finally in it maybe we can start to get more frequent releases?
Re: Xbox Game Pass's Cities: Skylines 2 Delayed On Console Until Spring 2024
Looking forward to this but happy for it to be moved out - I imagine I'll still be playing Starfield and will have started Forza Motorsport so this to move to a quieter time of year suits me
Re: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy Is Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (September 26)
This game has always intrigued me so definitely up for giving it a go - may provide a nice colourful and relaxed interlude between by never-ending Starfield sessions
Re: UK CMA Grants 'Preliminary Approval' Of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Purchase
@Tharsman Yep I've no doubt over profitability and look forward to them using that income for Game Pass deals etc.
The reason I mention console install base is primarily getting more games released on Xbox - by their own numbers PlayStation had thousands more games released for it over the last generation because the PS4 was seen as the default console to develop for.
I want the Xbox install base to be big enough when I see a third party game announced I don't have to think "wonder if it'll be on Xbox", but know it's unlikely not to be
Re: UK CMA Grants 'Preliminary Approval' Of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Purchase
@Titntin You can dream, but you know this thread will descend into anarchy later today
Agreed on being glad it's almost over - it's felt like it sucked all the oxygen out of gaming, just hope now Xbox know how to use this asset to start to play catch up.
We can't lose this generation as bad as the last one, or the only way we'll guarantee games are ported to Xbox is Microsoft buying the studios / publishers - much prefer that Xbox becomes an automatic choice for platform worldwide, just like PlayStation is...
Re: Phil Spencer Pledged To Get 'Real Honest' About Xbox's Future After 'Disaster Situation' In 2022
Glad it shows they weren't living on another planet, and were well aware what we all felt - that Xbox and Game Pass had a dearth of content for much of last year.
They're definitely doing better now - and the leaks while disappointing for them do at least show they're willing to investigate lots of different ideas for catching up, or for different games / controllers etc.
Mostly staying out of a lot of the comments for the leak articles though, as expected it brings the PS lot over looking for a fight - haven't got time for that rubbish, too busy with Starfield