theduckofdeath

@Fiendish-Beaver I am at the 139 hours in Metaphor and have just the Trials and the final mission to complete. I did have to redo the "Day of Calamity" after a major screw up.

@Ricky-Spanish Yes. Somehow people forget this. To rent a game $4-$6 for 2 days (return on the third). You have to travel to the store and back twice. Even with mailers, time is lost in transport.

I buy 1-3 games a month all the while having Game Pass Ultimate since 2020. Series X, One X, PC(s), Steam Deck are hooked up, though old One X doesn't get much attention. Not every game comes to Game Pass. The service is fantastic, though.

EDIT:

Just took a quick look at my purchase history for March:

Steam store - 5 games
CD Keys - 4 games
Greenman - 1 game
Xbox store - 1 game, 2 upgrades

So, I guess that is abnormal.

@dreadful Yes, hearing that some much has to be ripped out of a game drops even passing interest to almost nil. If the devs see fit to revive it, I would like to experience the game that inspired them.

This is another point against the leap of faith so many have taken that Steam will come to the next Xbox. Consoles are locked down with proprietary security (hardware and software), software qualification and censorship, their own digital stores and SKUs, reason not to allow just any .exe to be being run, etc.

Far Cry 5 on GP was a fun one to relax and cause a little havoc. Not sure if it is still there. I had completed all the others on PC and got burned out after FC4. Felt good to return after a long break.

@Kaloudz Yes, the payment method provider charges a fee for transactions. I imagine it varies, so the fee and the capabilities of the payment provider may be why MS is switching to another.

@Millionski Nintendo Switch is not only absolved scrutiny for poor performance, graphics, technical prowess, etc. Somehow, reviewers run in the opposite direction, with hyperbolic exaggerations and praise about anything they do. Instead of being knocked 2 points, you are awarded 2 points, for example.

Meanwhile, every other platform is held to performance scrutiny, or the graphics, performance, and several other factors are suddenly of paramount importance. Xbox games are judge with the highest scrutiny (and vitriol).

I will describe it in the following manner — Xbox games are judge within a 10-point container. A game can never score more than 10/10 or 100% (no matter how impressive a set of game elements are), so if there is anything "wrong", lacking, or to the reviewers subjective disliking in the game, that game will lose points at a higher rate of scrutiny (even by some "Xbox people").

Sony, and even more so Nintendo games, conversely, are seemingly judged with an overflow/reserve tank. Issues with the game are glossed over (and often buried) and the positives are fawned over. The overflow tank fills in the gaps.

@Kaloudz In the background, there are multiple available systems that handle credit card transactions. Stripe, for example. It is big business.

Companies need an accredited (if that is the proper term) organization to take credit card payments. You could not build a website tomorrow and start taking credit card payments. Companies that handle payments need strict approval. That companies API would probably have to be integrated into your website.

I'm a huge fan of this series and this game. Keep the fixes and improvements coming. Currently, I'm playing through on Series X (couch) and Steam. Separate playthroughs.

@Titntin I would go back and play this one through again, in time. There're many other games to complete. I do fire it occasionally to mess around in the final area. There is also that final big puzzle to complete.

Avowed right now. I plan to start Blue Prince and final finish (hope-hope) Metaphor Refantazio. This week I completed South of Midnight (coming away very impressed) and Sniper Elite 5 (great immersion on "Authentic" difficulty).

@Benjamin No telling if and when MS gets the Xbox OS or the compatibility thereof in Windows. No telling if all games existing would be compatible. We don't even have Steam integrated into the Windows Xbox app yet.

I was loving the challenges, then I had to take a break and haven't returned. This spring maybe. Right now, I'm about to complete Metaphor.

Xbox Phoenix
Xbox Legion
Xbox Armada

Provided any PC handheld is powerful and well crafted (ergonomics, control devices/surfaces, OLED screen), I would consider buying it. Some Xbox native compatibility could be added later. The Steam Deck is great, but I don't bother attempting to run many demanding games on it.

Another sticking factor is that I don't want to end up collecting these things. The Steam Deck count is already at two, and it is my first portable console ever.

@Millionski There are so many questions that arrive from this (e.g. what happens to the (Xbox store which helps to subsidize the console?).

YTubers have run away with this in a reckless fashion. The whole "the next Xbox can play PS games via Steam/PC stores" is routed as much in console war rhetoric as convenience. Instead of focusing on the most obvious product being a version (or mode) of Windows more akin to Xbox in interface and features. That could run on portables for Lenovo or ASUS. The more complex you get from there, the more unlikely it becomes.

We have PC available to play games on right now; we have for decades. This notion of "I don't want to install drivers" is absurd in this day & age. The rumors describe these people being spoon-fed a PC. They don't strike me as a reliable base you would want to gamble such a massive detour on.

PC becoming more like Xbox is the path of least resistance by far. Fewer constraints on power (electrical and performance), cost, heat, dimensions, and user competence.

@16BitHero My nephew tries to talk me into playing WWE games again ever year. The one I played was Smackdown 2008.

@Batfan2425 If you are playing on Steam Deck, you can setup XCloud through Edge browser and have it launch like an app. You can play Game Pass games, but not your own.

I think I played Watchdog Legion on Series X near launch. The framerate (to me) was so bad that I put it down.

I'm playing Avowed on PC at the moment, having not tried it on Series X yet. The game world looks beautiful, and the combat is really fun, providing challenge on the top difficulty.

Right now, I am also playing Metaphor (finally), just avoiding the "Calamity". Another challenging game — I love it. A couple of weeks ago, I completed NG2B. Got go for Master Ninja and the missions before losing my edge again.

Great timing on this update. I had been playing conservatively on Xbox and Steam (no play anywhere for the purchased). Just got out of the Lesser Zone recently. Had a harrowing firefight yesterday, in a new town where the enemies dropped the VSS Vintorez (Vintar?), GP37, the Super, another sniper rifle. All on one short block.

The game is live now in the US (Eastern).

Bought the upgrade. Looking forward to this one since the reveal years ago.

Last night I bought this ($39.99 on Xbox store sale). I'm on the last level of the Punisher game. Great edition to Series consoles. I have been playing SF3 on the 360 most recently.

@Juanalf I think MS wants some level of confusion on foreign consoles. You don't want them taking ports for granted. There could be new Xboxes in a couple years. Sony habitually obfuscates the exclusivity period of third-party deals.

@Isolte Yes, the media is digital. Could be if you buy the physical version, it is different. I'm not sure. The Starfield digital artbook was actually pretty large.

The DLC (missions, story, car packs), cosmetics/weapons, and early access are what mainly attracts me. I don't pay for Game Pass and even if I did, the price ($15-30 discounted) of these upgrades is fairly negligible.

@JonBoyJ I understand this sentiment. I'm older now as well, and while I am playing the game (Sniper Elite 5), I can't help thinking about the real-life counterparts. Or any human being shot and the damage that is done. It is the reality of the whole thing.

The entire effect is entertaining (slo-mo, silence except the gunpowder igniting and gas & projectile escaping from the barrel), but it does make me think. There are eye/headshots, livershots, limb-crushing shots, and the unsportsmanlike nut-shots. It can kind of feels like celebrating a bit.

I remember playing the "Soldier of Fortune" series back in the day. Those games were very graphic. While I still play many FPS games, I do wonder about how many times I aimed to shoot some other character, specifically in the head.

@Isolte You get the DLC, pre-order bonuses, artbooks, soundtrack, and additional items. All of which are more tangible than 3-5 access prior to the street date. If anyone wants to focus sole on when the game becomes active, that is on them. We all can buy the DLC early and play early or simply wait a few/several days.

SQUARE's deal killed the (sales) momentum for this game. Maybe they agreed years before Remake was released. Still, I don't know what they were thinking. Could be the projected cost of development was a concern, and they sold out. Take out a loan(s), in that case.

Each title was delayed for PC and in limbo for Xbox. Remake was a year late and Rebirth is a $40 preorder as a result.

@Sol76 That would be the XB1 for me. I've had at least two of every PS/Xbox console I've owned since the PS1.

The sales decline is not surprising, considering a full year of port rumors, made a concrete possibility by the business update early in the year. That was preceded by no exclusives at the Series launch, late Halo, delayed Halo content, and two Bethesda games being excluded from their owners console for a year (eventually turning up unoptimized).

@Major_Player Nintendo games don't compare in complexity to Sony, MS, or PC platform games (3rd, 2nd, or 1st party). There is no comparison. Sony does not have the output in recent years and much of those are cookie-cutter games built on gussied up PS4 skeletons. They don't attempt anything like what MS is publishing; little to no variety. To pretend all their releases are "optimal" would be disingenuous.

I'm not saying it is impossible for more titles to release in better condition. I'm saying it is easy to sit back and play "gamer-chair developer" when a release has bugs day one or is not fully to your particular liking.

@Major_Player These issues persist across the industry, so the causes and the development effort are far more involved than the average customer comprehends. We are pretty much sitting at the table with a bib on, slamming their knife & fork on table. I don't want to normalize every game, either; the development effort and technical complexity of many MS games (let's take FS) are considerable.

I am playing way more of FH5, unlocking all the new Porsches recently. That game is fantastic to this day. My newfound self-control may be in a state to keep me from bouncing off of walls in a return to FM.

Carrion was the first game I completed after switching over to Game Pass in 2020.

@BacklogBrad I'm coming for you! LOL

I was top three (I think) last week but had to travel for the holiday.

@BearFut_1800 I was not hearing much engine/aircraft noise when in the cockpit view. From the outside (3rd-"person") there are engine and air noises. Could be a bug.

I've had some basic performance issues on PC, other than that, I haven't no issues logging in and starting a flight or challenge.

@TeiGekiLord You are going to constrain the acquisitions of a $3 trillion megacorporation to those of a $100 billion corporation? Why don't you spend money like a paperboy, you show off? Microsoft's valuation swells and contracts by the degree of all of Sony from week to week. They bought ABK for 3/4 the valuation of Sony, in cash.

Part of Xbox's issue last gen is that MS would not give them the latitude to buy studios and exclusive publishing deals in the 360 era. Nobody saw Bethesda coming (although that one is a fitting marriage) and certainly not ABK.

However, here's the most pertinent issue this afternoon; you seem to be lost. Maybe you misread the sign on the way in. I'm not sure if there's a pureplaystation.com out there, regardless, please; go find it or something thereabouts.

@TeiGekiLord Or Bungie, Insomniac, Naughty Dog or the Spider-Man and X-Men licenses? MLB?

The NFL and NFLPA licenses? I could not resist tossing in an old EA grievance...

Sony has proven to be a poor custodian of FROM Software IP. Intellectual property not born from their intellect. However, I suppose they paid the price to abuse those properties, as you say.

@Weebleman I don't know which statement you are referring to.

@TeiGekiLord No platform holder should own or control FROM software, ideally. That has been my stance for years. Not that we have any say in the matter.

We have borne witness to what happens when Sony has any control over third-party publishing. Just examine the cases of FROM Demon's Souls being trapped on PS consoles and its cellmate Bloodborne not even get a remake or remaster.

This was a reasonable idea at the time — it was available at launch, portable/hotswappable, and matched NVMe prices. An access port to add NVMe to Series consoles would have been a good failsafe, even with the added cost.

I bought one in December 2020 for $187 total. The utility over time made it worth it. A few months ago, I bought the 2TB version for about the same price. I retained the original 1TB card for the time being.

@GamingFan4Lyf What's baffling suppose the FFVII remakes (and other SE games) sold twice as well on PS under exclusivity, would Square not realize there's far more profit to be had by going multiplatform? That does not change. Maybe they were cash-strapped near the end of last gen and signed their rights away.

@Ilyn Do you mean if MS had the lead in console installed base?

Let's be real — Microsoft's approach makes far more profit either way. Do you really think selling 15 million more consoles would be satisfactory to them? Thirty million? Most people owning those units sold don't buy a ton of games or from a wide variety.

Sony presents the alternate reality case for us. Sixty-five million consoles shipped and that does not bring in sufficient profit. Hundreds of millions spent to hobble the library of Xbox, annually. If Xbox sells more, that means PS sells less --according to the media, who beats us over the head with "the market isn't growing" gospel.

Sony are just psychopaths about exclusivity and the old Nintendo model. If anything, Sony is in a better position (regarding risk to console sales) to port their games to Xbox, Nintendo, and PC.

This has been a looming threat for years. Regulation won't be an issue for them. Needless to say, this would be a horrendous outcome for gaming. We have to wait and see.

My problem is not with Quick Resume, but devs that don't program their games to reconnect to servers after losing connection. Perhaps there is some reasoning that I am not aware of. I don't see why a player needs to go the main menu or title screen (or even quit the game altogether) just to reconnect.

MS/Xbox has a lot of games coming and Game Pass all set up with content. Looks like they're finally making a move.

@Vaako007 If UE is a Camry, there are a lot of Pintos out there. When a dev signs on to use UE, they get access to the C++ source code and dedicated support. They can rewrite sections, tear out and replace whole modules. The devs don't need to use the new GI that may be heavy, they don't necessarily need to use Nanite, either. Using UE gets the team to productivity faster, but that comes with fees and a learning curve.

@Ricky-Spanish They swapped engines because BLAM! had too much tech debt and not enough industry professionals experienced with it. BLAM! could be ported just like any other engine, any other code. t was not worth it when Xbox themselves have teams with UE expertise; why stick to BLAM!? 343 demonstrably could not iterate on Infinite.

Remember when season 2 or 3 was 6 months late and they put out a vidoc saying it takes 5 months to make a single map? That was unacceptable. Additionally, I believe that 343 ultimately revealed that some of the network issues were intrinsic the design and/or engine.

Now they can hire more widely from the industry, get engineers to productivity faster, and when people leave, they do so having gained more versatile skills and experience.