electrolite77

@LoquaciousB

This is how I see it panning out. MS will have a very big war chest spare and a new found determination to go after Sony. Jim Ryan has been (typically it seems) a little bit short sighted in making such a fuss about COD.

FH5, Infinite. Flight Sim, 4K60 FH4, enhanced Gears 5, GPU, the massive amount of games on the system, the BC enhancements, the SSD, Quick Resume. Mine gets used every day.

Don’t know if it’s my favourite thing but the way MS has handled BC overall is excellent. FPS Boost, Auto HDR, the One X enhancements have all been very welcome.

Apart from playing games I missed out on originally it’s been great to go back and replay older games in hugely improved form. Like buying a new PC, which is what I want from every Console now.

@Agnostic

Well said. Devs are under constant time pressure to meet deadlines. Sometimes stuff gets missed/has to be sacrificed to meet constraints.

@Cherip-the-Ripper

Oh I know I’m an outlier. I’m not in any way questioning the quality of the game, it just doesn’t appeal to me, as is the case with a lot of Sonys recent exclusives TBH.

@Cherip-the-Ripper

Me. Glad it looks great and hope everyone enjoys it but I’m not a fan of the series.

Good to see. Wish we saw more stuff like this. The industry (or at least a lot of the industrys consumers) needs to grow up a bit.

Looking forward to Pentiment and Somerville

@Dezzy70

I’ve used my Switch a lot in the last year or so. From Wario Ware and Metroid they’ve been on a really good run. I’d be amazed if Xbox didn’t get some big hitters out next year. Starfield, Redfall, Forza and Hellblade 2 Id expect.

@Titntin

No problem at all. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve done similar.

73 is a crazy number. Was it a typo and they meant 37?

In reality 28% is a very big number in a year where most of their big first party hitters have been delayed.

@Titntin

Spencer never said they won't raise prices. When Sony announced their price rise MS put out a statement through a spokesman saying “We are constantly evaluating our business to offer our fans great gaming options. Our Xbox Series S suggested retail price remains at $299 (£250, €300) the Xbox Series X is $499 (£450, €500).”

Then in September Spencer said in an interview “We’re always evaluating our business going forward so I don’t think we can ever say on anything that we will never do something, but when we look at our consoles today, we think value is incredibly important.”

Not much has actually changed.

@Dezzy70

Agree on the Switch, Nintendo are doing a great job of maintaining a high quality stream of releases. They slowed down during 2020 like everyone else but last two years have been very solid.

Smart move would be to maintain the price of the Consoles and let the inflation eat what would normally be price cuts as the generation goes on. Keep Series X lower than the competition and Series S as tremendous entry level value.

I wouldn't be surprised if the cost of buying games outright goes up and they close the loopholes for cheap Game Pass. I do think along with that they'd be better ditching GWG. Making Online Play would be a phenomenal pitch in straitened times and line up a lot of future GP subscibers.

Oh great! Really interested in this.

@Kaloudz

“frodo's journey from shire to mt doom”
😀😀

Great news. Hope they get mouse support.

@Kaloudz

Yeah they’ll be the main 3. The US has been clamping down on tech takeovers and the EU doesn’t historically have a very friendly attitude to Microsoft so could be tight. I think others countries are investigating though, and those verdicts could have an influence on the big 3.

I was a student in 1999, me making the effort to write out and post a letter was an amazing effort. I think that was a full day 😉

@Kaloudz

I’m also glad it’s not just me! It’s the second time I’ve written to the CMA, the first being in 1999 about Sky TVs proposed takeover of Manchester United. Though then I had to make the effort to write it out and send the letter by post. They’re very unpredictable TBH. Back then it was the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and nobody expected them to say no to Rupert Murdoch.

I didn’t expect them to have bullet points that were basically ‘we can’t allow MS to do this because it would damage Sony.’ Who knows? I think if other territories have sided with MS it would be difficult to go the other way but they’re a law unto themselves.

@Kaloudz

I thought that. I have all the current systems as I usually do and actually made the effort to reply to the CMAs request for submissions. As far as I’m concerned this deal is in the consumers interest as it brings us closer to the dream scenario of Sony, MS and Nintendo having 33.333% of the market each.

@Snake_V5

I get the feeling the upgraded PS Plus is a bit of a rush job on Sonys part because they needed a response to GP. They’ve done well with Extra which I’ve subscribed to and is decent value. But their treatment of their Retro content is terrible. I’ve had every Sony system (yes even the Vita) and would be all in on paying extra for Premium if they were treating their retro content with the care MS do. But sadly they aren’t even trying.

Fantastic news and the App seems spot on. I use Apple Music because it allows the uploading of my own stuff (mainly live bootlegs) so this is very welcome.

I think we’ll get Starfield, Redfall, Forza, Ghostwire Tokyo, Stalker 2, Ark 2 and maybe Hellblade 2 in 2023

This sounds serious, hope everything works out ok for her. She’s had a helluva career.

Ryan’s assumption that Playstation was untouchable and he had a free hand to milk their consumers harder is under threat and he doesn’t like it

@Tasuki

Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s a clever plan to hook people in with Shredders Revenge who’ll then buy a copy of Cowabunga Collection.

If that is the plan it has worked on me.

Why did I think this was on Game Pass?

Good for them. Especially with the U.K. heading into a recession. Sony raising the price of the system is really bad optics that will hurt them once their hardcore/scalpers stop buying the PS5. Better to protect the long term brand image than chase a few quid now.

He’s right of course. Unless we’re talking about Nintendo. But he’s right, and it’s A Good Thing.

Looks a very shabby job all round

@NEStalgia

IMO PS4 generally was a pretty uninspiring Console-the hardware itself I mean. I loved the design of OG PS2. The OG Xbox and OG PS3 just felt powerful, whereas One S and X are gorgeous bits of hardware. PS4, meh. No eye catching design. Not a big leap from PS3, controller wasn’t great. Bit noisy. Obviously it deserved its success because of a phenomenal library of games but the hardware was very dull. And don’t get me started on PS4 Pro, I had one of the noisy ones.

PS5 is ugly and big but still somehow feels premium. Between the feel of the Controller, the clarity of the display, the really nice boot up sequence, it all works to create that impression.

That’s actually a decent result considering the disastrous start and launch. They had to work really hard to get that though, being very generous with price cuts (certainly in the U.K. anyway), getting One S out to replace the clunky original and then doing such a great job with One X and Gamepass.

I expect a slightly smaller gap this generation but with significant growth of Gamepass, Cloud and Xbox PC gaming.

“Game Pass is hurting right now”

Is it? Seems to me to have loads of games coming to it, and plenty I want to play.

“Well, we've noticed quite a bit of negativity out there recently regarding Game Pass”

That doesn’t mean a thing. Gamers as a group are constantly moaning.

“ the service's perceived downswing falls right in line with the rest of the games industry at large”

Well there you go. Unless you’re on the Switch it’s been a quiet year overall. Even allowing for that it’s had some really good additions and currently so many good games it would take me years to play through everything I wanted even if they never added anything else.

Just sounds like a poor quality port. Series S is a fine machine.

It doesn’t currently make sense to make COD exclusive. Having it on Game Pass will cause some of the COD market to bleed across to MS. If MS have the sense to ditch GWG and make Online free, that would speed the process.

But for now and the foreseeable future, pocketing all that cash from £70 Playstation purchases is the only way forward.

@Titntin

Erm, that’s fine. I never suggested anyone should do otherwise. I can afford to buy whatever games I want but I choose to chase the reward points. If others choose not to 🤷‍♂️

@BartoxTharglod

Yeah totally fair enough. Doesn’t seem worth it. I don’t understand why there are such regional differences come to think of it.

@BartoxTharglod

There are loads of ways to earn points. Daily Sets on the website, Game Pass Quests, the Rewards app on Xbox, daily searches on phone/PC/Edge, playing Game Pass games (both Console and PC) plus Jewel on the Xbox phone app.

That’s in the U.K. anyway, not sure about different territories.

PS Plus Extra is decent value. Premium is a joke with Sony treating their back catalogue with casual disdain. GP still better at this point.

@NEStalgia

Totally agree. Exclusives are only a small part of the equation when it comes to selling Games systems. Third-party support, services, Online gaming and the hardware all play at least as big a part.

Exclusives are very significant for Nintendo because they never carry the same third party support as MS/Sony and have no interest in getting their Online and subscription services to parity.

Sonys exclusives have become a big deal on Gaming forums. They mean a lot to Sony fans, and the corporation itself likes to use them as part of their marketing as they attempt to apply a sheen of prestige to the PlayStation brand.

I think they become significant later in a generation when the mass market might be looking to buy a system to compliment their first choice. It’s a circular thing as most systems that last 4 years have a worthwhile range of exclusives even if they’re slow in coming at the start of a generation. Yet as we see this generation, PS5 and XSX are flying off the shelves despite having very few genuine exclusives. That’s because they get everything else right.

@Fiendish-Beaver

Great post on every level. I’d much rather have the existing three platform holders hoovering up gaming companies than Ten Cent getting a major foothold.

@Titntin

It only becomes anticompetitive if they make COD exclusive, which I don’t think they will. If they don’t, it’s a fairly logical business transaction that gives Xbox a foothold in a few areas of Gaming where they don’t currently have one.

I’d love to see a new PGR, absolutely. Loved he first two games (and their predecessor, MSR on Dreamcast). Don’t agree on FH5 though, doesn’t feel off to me at all. I love it.

Not as good as last month but still a solid set of additions

Sadly for a lot of people the innovation remembered will be not working very well

@Bleachedsmiles

I’m not talking about Mattrick. I’m talking about their general strategy which had taken them from a strong position in the 360 generation to people seriously discussing them leaving the business. They were a joke.

The XB1 launch was more than a PR disaster, it was the worst in the industry since the Sega Saturn. The focus on Kinect and TV had cut ties with their core market.

They’d closed studios and cut back on development capacity which is something that takes years to fix. They were known more for anti-Consumer practices than their launch games

Spencer has turned the whole business around. Their hardware is better, Back Compatibility is superb, Game Pass is great, they’ve built a portfolio of studios that with patience (because they need he games to be good) will produce results.

Exclusive games are only a tiny bit of the picture, as we see throughout the history of Xbox and Gaming overall.

A stark comparison to what’s on PS Plus Essentials this month

@Bleachedsmiles

I think people like him because A)he seems a decent guy, and B)before he ran the show Xbox was an absolute disaster that was probably headed for oblivion and now it’s doing really well.

Not bothered about GOW myself but this is A Very Good Thing. Gaming needs to grow up. A lot.

B+

Lots of gameplay, lots of games coming in the next year and (for those who care) quite a lot of Consoles exclusives. A really wide variety of games too, and some nice surprises.