stylon

If anyone is still visiting here take a look at thexboxhub.com. It's probably as close to PureXbox as we'll ever get, seems to be run by a small group of enthusiasts. No forum but there are comments on reviews and articles (of which there are lots). There's a review of Candleman for instance which only came out yesterday!. Deffo worth a look!

@SuperKMx Thanks for the lengthy explanation Ken, sadly I think I can understand how utterly frustrated and disappointed you must have been towards the end now. Sounds like an utterly soul-destroying experience.

Won't lie, I still miss the site greatly (there's nothing else like it) and as you can see I still pop by (increasingly infrequently) in the hope that something might change.

Checked out your new site... should have come with a health warning to wear sunglasses before viewing! Seriously though I wish you all the best in whatever you do next and hope to see some Xbox articles or reviews appear on there at some point soon

@jongred Late reply as I only stop by once in a blue moon these days. No problem adding me - you actually already have my Gamertag - it's stylon

@Tasuki You have given me a glimmer of hope that this site might be resurrected one day - would be awesome to come here and share the build-up to the Scorpio next year with like minded people!

@Gamer83 I quite enjoy the Outside Xbox Youtube channel but with it being YouTube I just don't even look at the comments section as my past experience is that they are pretty venomous at best... Might give the Push Square forum a glance too!

@crippyd - I'm a bit averse to chatting about xbox stuff on the PushSquare site. Kind of like discussing the merits of a bacon sarnie on a Jewish forum lol.

@jongred - Agreed. They seem to have bailed out just as the Xbox is gaining momentum again. Loads of great exclusive games being released, the Xbox One S seems to be going down a storm and the behemoth Scorpio looming on the horizon next year. Plus the whole PC play anywhere and unified Windows gaming thing going on. Such a shame. Even at this late hour I'm clinging to the hope that they re-consider and re-launch the site... I mean why else is the site still here?

Indeed. As has been said above there simply isn't anywhere else on the Internet that caters for Xbox users the way this site (and OXM) did.

I'm actually pretty disappointed by the way Ken handled this (as selfish as that may seem)... there was no warning that the site was in trouble, no chance for us to rally support or make contributions to help out. Just there one day and gone the next. Are we, the enthusiastic Xbox owners, really so rare that we cannot sustain a small site dedicated to our console of choice?

What was once a thriving little community has been fragmented so much that virtually non exists now. I still miss the site greatly - I was a regular visitor from day 1 and persuaded a fair number of old OXM refugees to make this their new home. Having a group of like-minded people to chat about your hobby and share your excitement about new releases or tips for beating difficult enemies adds enormously to the whole Xbox experience. Without it, it is greatly diminished, especially if you don't know many Xbox owners IRL.

Looks like the reply notifications aren't working any more...

Might give X-COM a go and have another stab at beating the Princes on Dark Souls 3... and probably buying a load of stuff in the Steam sale now that I've re-discovered PC gaming lol.

@crippyd @Captain_Chao5 @RustyBullet @Tasuki - Me too... I still keep coming back every day, mostly out of habit... However I confess that part of it is hoping for a new article or something to pop up because they've found a way to make it work again. Sad isn't it?

@Red620Ti yeah said exactly the same thing myself a few posts back... It's the age old "don't know what you have until it's gone" scenario unfortunately.

@Tasuki Fair point - never used it myself but I know some of my friends swear by it. There's a growing number of sites with incredibly annoying ads pushing me towards using it these days though...

@Vincent294 Had a look at that site but it's very US centric. With me being in the UK I prefer something a bit more... British. Eurogamer used to be OK but since the Xbox One came on the scene the site has taken on a pretty hostile attitude towards Xbox owners and even the editorial team seem to take delight in stoking the flames so it has fallen out of favour with me.

I think with the way MS are really pushing Windows 10 integration I'm reaching a significant cross-roads in my gaming anyway which may end up with me being more PC focused so who knows where I'll hang my hat.

@Captain_Chao5 It would certainly have helped I think. The repeat traffic you get from people commenting, discussing and arguing the toss drives up those page counts. People will revisit the same article multiple times to continue a discussion and others (lurkers) will come back to follow those discussions. If you look at the nintendolife site that's the main difference there... most of the articles have dozens, some even hundreds of comments, whereas on PX many articles would come and go with none. I'd imagine that was quite soul destroying for the authors too.

However PX is partly to blame for this too... I've always maintained that the comment section on here is rubbish... there's no way to subscribe to new posts and unless someone specifically replies to your comment or uses the @nametag reference you are never made aware of any potential replies so conversations/discussions wither and die.

Anyway, all academic now and it looks like the end of an era. I'm not really into forums as a separate entity, I prefer commenting on articles/news/reviews and I can't see anywhere like that catering just for us Xbox fans now.

The ironic thing here is that if there were this many comments on all the other articles PX would probably be thriving...

Wait, what???

Absolutely gutted if I'm honest... I've been coming to this site for many years. I used to flit between this and the Official Xbox Mag but when that folded this site became my new home and I visit it no just daily but several times a day. Great reviews from Ken and the team, friendly forum members (granted there aren't many of us) and unbiased news articles. I will really miss this site, in fact I just don't know where to go now for my daily Xbox fix now. I hate the negativity and snide remarks that are prevalent on other sites, even in the editorial stuff, never mind the comments and forums.

Have you considered a subscription based site? I would willingly stump up £10 for an online 'magazine' type site that is dedicated to Xbox. How can the Nintendo site with the miserable sales figures for the WiiU and game sales that are dwarfed by XBox sales thrive when Xbox sites keep falling by the wayside?

I do hope you reconsider but I genuinely wish you all the very best in whatever endeavours you choose next. RIP PX

Trials is an easy choice from what's available but I'm in no rush to get it and will probably wait until it's on sale if I'm being honest.

@ChopperCampbell Wow sounds even better now! Thanks

@sorethumbed Thanks for the inside info. I don't mind the toner being darker at all - the other two were a tad silly in places if I'm being honest so if that's been reigned in a bit then all the better!

I'll be getting Fable Anniversary if that is announced - I started the series at 2 on the 360...

Totally missed this last gen so I'll be all over this

There is actually a Windows 10 Forza Rewards app now which means you can claim your rewards in an instant on your PC/Lpatop/tablet now. I'm on Tear 7 too so looking forward to 6 sweet free rides

Intercooler Grip... at least the name is kind of cool. Nyko do seem to make a lot of useless tat... like the ridiculous cooling fans you can get to sit on top of your Xbox One because we all know that massive fan it already has is incapable of keeping it cool by itself... lol

I can't lie, I was impressed by this, even though the whole thing is very vague and we know very little about it. I was expecting some half-arsed Sony Neo matching Xbox 1.5 type announcement but they certainly surprised me (in a very good way) with Scorpio...

I thought it was terrific but I'm only going to give it a 9 because I was disappointed in Scalebound (looked garbage to be honest) and there weren't any new IP's announced that we didn't already know about. But Scorpio... even though it was nothing but a bunch of stats really grabbed me and put a much-needed buzz back into the Xbox brand.

It's a great looking little box (shame it's only in white) but not sure anyone would bother 'upgrading' to one of these when Scorpio is only 18 months away. Having said that it would make a good 2nd Xbox for the bedroom but I certainly wouldn't need (or want!) a Kinect in this scenario

Nice! Not got any of these...

@Gamer83 I admire your optimism! Lets see if it all comes true later today

Totally with you on the VR front... seems like everyone is clamouring for this as if it's the second coming. I've tried it and it's not for me. Ironically I got a lot more enjoyment out of 3D which has since flopped. Uncharted and Batman were terrific in 3D. VR just makes me (literally) want to vomit...

So many memories! I remember seeing the Life is Short ad so not sure where that would have been - cinema maybe? And the voice morphing thing, that was so cool initially and then become super lame. If you used it everybody assumed you were some kind of idiot for masking your voice and gave you a load of stick for it on Live.

Great to see the legendary Peter Molyneux long before he completely lost the plot and threw everything away to make a dumb mobile about chipping bits off a cube... and the DOA video that never ceases to make you feel like a perv for even watching it lol.

The original Xbox was a revolution - that hard disc meant you no longer had to juggle masses of stupid memory cards and you could rip your own music to it as well... and Xbox Live which let you play against other people and even talk to them - it made the PS2 look prehistoric...

The A Team, Knight Rider, ET, Gremlins, Goonies - so much classic 80's. They've definitely realised that a lot of their fans aren't kids! Can't wait

X-Com 2 for sure and I'm cautiously interested in WatchDogs 2 as well... That trailer is all CGI not gameplay footage. There is no way the game is going to look like that

Thanks for looking into it for me... It's rare for a game to only be discounted on one side of the pond only. Guess I'll have to wait for our turn

@SuperKMx am I missing something or is Tron Run/r not actually in the sale at all? Still showing as £15.99 for me and not listed in the DWG section either

A little disappointing to hear... coming from someone who does use their xbox extensively as a media hub and was looking forward to adding freeview PVR to its' repertoire. However I understand why they've done this... and why they've chosen to offload the news before E3 too...

Personally out of all the Toys to Life games there have been, Lego Dimensions is the best for me. I love that you get to build the toys and rebuild them as you upgrade them... they're more than just figures to collect. The sheer variety of gaming, movie and TV genres they cover also means the game stays fresh.

Infinity is dead and I lost interest in Skylanders when they released Superchargers. Amibo's are rubbish (sorry Nintendo fans - nice figures but no killer game to use them with). So that just leaves Lego for me to spend my hard earned on

@VanillaLake No it's gotta be a Kinect 2.0 but they're very cheap 2nd hand these days... I wouldn't want to be without one. The facial recognition to log you in is pretty cool too although hardly a necessity

You weren't kidding about the appalling pop-ups on that site!

Looking forward to this hopefully they've had enough time to iron out the terrible frame-rate issues the last game suffered from!

@SuperKMx Thanks - will probably give this a look in then but I'll steer clear of the season pass

@VanillaLake I know but I only use a headset if I'm playing online or late at night when I don't want to keep everyone awake... the rest of the time I just want to speak commands out loud to load a game or pause a movie etc. They're only £30 at CEX so I'll probably just buy another at the weekend

Ahhh... the HD-DVD expansion. I got one of those and was well pleased with it... came bundled with King Kong I think. At the time they were much better quality than blu-ray movies, especially the slick menu system they used. I bought a not inconsiderable number of movies for it too... gave the whole lot away to charity not long ago. Betamax is a very good analogy unfortunately

So Watchdogs is taking up the Assassins Creed slot this year...

I did quite enjoy the first one but got kind of bored with it after a while... too much repetition of missions and if I'm honest the main character was pretty boring and gruff... hope things are different this time around.

Dammit, my Kinect has just died (again). Guess I'm going to have to cough up for a third one now so I can take advantage of Cortana... I bet we still don't get the proper voice in the UK...

Not exactly thrilled at having to say 'Hey Cortana' instead of just 'Xbox' though. They could have maintained their 'consistency' and still kept Xbox users happy by allowing those hail commands to be interchangeable...

Really looking forward to the new collection sorting features and the smaller tiles option though - long overdue for those of us with large digital game collections.

I remember your review of Tron and it wasn't brilliant mentioning Micro-transactions and little season pass content. Do you think it's worth a go at this new price point and has the season pass content materialised to make that worthwhile now?

Way to raise our hopes and then dash them on the rocks... This is about as welcome as news of a new version of Crackdown... only as a Jigsaw edition!

I want the Classic tracks, drivers and cars back from the 2013 edition...

Stuff Azerbaijan's new track and all these new sterile tracks in the far east. Give me tracks like Brands Hatch, Nurburgring, an old McLaren or Williams and a bunch of drivers that actually had personalities and I'll be all over it.

Nice looking trailer but I really need to see some gameplay before I can get behind this one. I was really disappointed in the last Ghost Recon game... it was dumbed down so much that it was more like Medal of Honour.

The classic ghost combat system where you could plan and control the rest of your AI squad mates and tell them exactly where to go and what to do went out the window and the game just became an also-ran for me.

Syberia for sure for me... love Adventure games. Will look into Mahjong when there's more info available too. Used to spend a lot of time playing Kyodai Mahjong on my PC 10-15 years ago, still play it (still works even on my Windows 10 Surface) from time to time when I want to chill out.

@SuperKMx Thanks for the info

If all they've done is create a MAME emulator that runs all the old ROM's on the Xbox One then they really should be bundling the whole lot into one package. Even with my rose tinted glasses on a lot of these games are pretty ropey by today's standards and $40 is way too much for this sort of shovelware.
Of course if there's more to it than that then fair enough...

Great read and spot-on review. They totally nailed the single player campaign which was all that mattered to me. I've yet to try the snapmap feature though... neither the time nor inclination to do my own maps but playing other peoples might be quite fun.

XBox stick is a good idea, will probably pick up a couple of those. Slim also good idea for newcomers or whatever. As for the rest of it... my knee jerk reaction is one of anger...

I have no interest in VR... The devil will be in the detail but they surely risk dividing their user base (just like Sony) with this unless they handle it correctly. If all (non VR) games work just fine on the current console then I might be OK with it, but if they start bringing out 'Only Works on New Xbox' titles next year then I'll be pissed. Very pissed.

The release day info is wrong for the UK disappointingly... doesn't come out until tomorrow...

Anyone know how much this is on the store? Ideally I'd like to have this digitally but it just says 'coming soon' on the website... it's only £32.49 on Amazon which seems quite cheap given most games are about £50 on the store and if I order it now it'll arrive tomorrow... but if it's a similar price on the store I'll hold off...

@crippyd I'll be taking a break from the Dark Souls universe once I finish 3 to focus on some other games but if you're still playing it then, sure.