themightyant

@Titntin Yes this is pretty much what I want. An under-tv PC that removes most of the faff of owning a PC (driver updates, shader compilation, fiddling with settings, bad ports) and just lets me PLAY GAMES faster and more smoothly. Convenience is a HUGE factor and a fixed spec PC has many advantages over normal PC. e.g.

• Devs can optimise the game for the hardware (like Steam Deck) rather than you wasting time fiddling with settings yourself.
• Fixed hardware means you can download precompiled shaders, unlike normal PC which requires you to wait 5-10 minutes to to compile shaders specific to your system, drivers and settings.
• Instant on and UI convenience designed around a controller not KBM
• Additionally Microsoft can make it as easy as possible to just pick up and play on whatever device you want to play on. Almost everything is an Xbox, just pick up and play on the go, like Switch.

It would take a lot to convince me not to be there Day 1, but i'll wait to see what they are offering.

Ew! That's nasty... but also great work. Looking forward to the gears collection.

Brilliant game, glad to see it get more players, well deserved for the devs and make bank for Microsoft.

Partnering doesn't sound like they will keep costs down. But i'm intrigued to see what they bring to the table. 2025 going up against Switch 2 is also bold if true.

2027 has always made more sense and I think it could do Xbox some favours as by then they SHOULD have had a long run with lots of quality games coming to Game Pass which could incentivise people to join.

2026 / Next year seems too soon, as much as I like new tech - I even bought a PS5 Pro - i'd be happier if both Sony and Microsoft slowed down the new consoles, game development takes so long nowadays and developers will barely get any experience at getting the most out of hardware before moving onto the next one. Many studios will release just one, or perhaps two games a generation.

In Europe and didn't have this problem this morning as I racked up my 15 minutes for rewards

Botany Manor is wonderful and not too long.

@dskatter Sure but you could say that about ANYTHING, there will always be at least a few people with an opposing view, that doesn't make it noteworthy. Additionally the Japanese market for most western games is pretty tiny and even if it sold zero copies there isn't going to dictate whether it's a success or not.

I suspect it will sell OK. It's unlikely to top Valhalla but will do well.

The noisy malcontents weren't very spot-on about Monster Hunter Wilds with it's apparent DEI with non-gendered armour, body types not genders, ugly characters (except one) and any other nonsense they whinge about... but they've now forgotten that was on their *****-list now it's a massive success. How convenient.

@dskatter Are Japanese fans actually pissed off in any great number? Or, like so many things online, is this just grossly exaggerated about a small number of noisy malcontents.

@Vordus 100% this is super exciting and the potential is huge. I just hope it doesn't get shut down. There's definitely concern it will be treading on Microsoft's toes, but i'd love to see Microsoft work with them.

@Kezelpaso Quite likely. I assumed due to the low buy in that the kickstarter is a marketing and promotional tool.
(And we are talking about it!)

Good for them, though €100,000 always seemed like a very modest goal for making a game of this scope.

Cloud gaming is expensive to run, I have no problem with them limiting use for players who may have never paid a penny to Xbox.

I’ve also experienced queues waiting for Cloud and as a Game Pass Ultimate Subscriber who is paying for the Cloud service we should have priority over free players

Expecting a new DLC and the complete edition to launch Day 1 on Switch 2 and PS5. I'd rather they were focusing on ES6 though.

This will be contentious. But personally I didn't like the format in THPS4, having to stop to talk to NPC's to get challenges completely broke up the lines, it ruined momentum and flow. Also stopping to get rewards, assign stat points, save etc. Just let me SKATE!

Obviously it will depend how they do this, it could be terrible, but i'm cautiously optimistic this could be done well and be an overall improvement. I'm willing to keep an open mind at least. But it's a shame they didn't include BOTH options. Choice is good.

@Rabid_Gamer there are always exceptions that should be allowed imho e.g.

• people that can’t get PSN or Xbox in their country
• people getting games that aren’t available in their country

I didn’t say there should be a blanket ban on VPNs, nor did Microsoft. They are specifically targeting people abusing VPN to get games that ARE available in their country cheaper elsewhere. They are not the same situations.

This is categorically FALSE, 10 seconds of research would have told you this was false.

Here is the global car index and here is an example of different regional pricing for cars. E.g. a VW Passat is £16k in Greece, but £36k in Brazil. Or average prices of all passenger cars in 2020: 25k in Greece, 46k in Switzerland.

The same is true of every product and commodity.

@TheGiraffe video games are a luxury, not a necessity. If you can’t afford something, you can’t have it. Expecting it is entitlement.

The beautiful thing about video games is that games prices fall off a cliff, all you have to is wait. Play games that are 1+ years old not the latest releases. Most 2+ year old games can be bought on eBay for around £20, often less, and then sold for a similar amount. Comparatively it can be an inexpensive hobby if you do this.

I have little sympathy for people abusing the system just to get cheaper games. Regional pricing exists for a reason, not to enable people in wealthier countries getting games for less. Hopefully a short ban will stop them doing it again in future, with the threat of worse.

@Ryu_Niiyama the best of us all ramble. lol.. Each to their own, you speak plenty of sense and rationally so anyone not listening is their loss. Happy gaming fella.

@IOI People have limited time, and games are often long, even something not that long like Avowed often taking players a few months. Most gamers don't put in the sort of hours many of us here do. I love Game Pass and get a lot of value from it, but I think it has limited appeal, it's just not how many more casual players want to consume games.

I was actually hoping Game Pass might lead to shorter games, but doubt it.

@Ryu_Niiyama Totally agree that often not knowing is more powerful, and what ISN'T said can be more compelling than what is. Intrigue, ambiguity and art that leaves something for us to discuss is usually far more interesting at the end of the day.

Wow! I'm glad i'm not part of the insider program anymore. But I was Alpha Ring for a while and never experienced a bug that bad.

As long as there's co-op I don't care. I also imagine it's quite hard to bring three different games PvP together successfully, it's possible but hard. Additionally it has the possibility of taking players away from other Gears 5 multiplayer which they may not want.

Looking forward to giving Road 96 a go this weekend.

@Ryu_Niiyama Thanks for sharing your view. I agree with a lot of that, and many of the points you mentioned was Starfield at it's very best. I replayed the Museum level with every character for example to get different perspectives on the history of our future.

But I also thought far too much of the plot felt pretty contrived and (no major spoilers) the Starborn answers were pretty unfulfilling. It reminded me a bit of the TV show Lost in that way, in that is seemingly had and teased these big greater ideas, but them flubbed the answers somewhat. Yet part of the journey was still great.

Starfield still baffles me a bit because I do have a complex love/hate relationship with it. Which ultimately makes it good art imo. But I wouldn't personally put it anywhere near "best single player narrative of all time".

At first I thought "What is Corey Barlog smoking?", but of course it's Jaffe... we all know what he's smoking as he gets baked live on stream and rambles even more than usual as he goes on.

But we all like different things and he's welcome to his opinion... though i'd posit "best single player narrative of all time" is a tough sell for most. Does anyone agree with him? I'd love to hear that argument.

@Trmn8r It is now. The price changed today, they're clearly listening in on us. lol

Not bothered by PvP muliplayer, i'd only be playing the campaign, but I do like to play Gears co-op. However a lot of people do seem to like the multiplayer element.

@ChrisDeku thanks for this, I’ve not analysed this slide in detail before. Though that chart is all about future plans, right? It’s an estimate of things that might come to pass (and in fact very little has, no universal controller, no mid gen console, no 60M GP subscribers by 2025, even next gen in FY2028 seems unlikely).

It’s not clear whether the start of the chart is also a projection, or when the chart was even made, there are no hard numbers, and it too might be an estimate.

EDIT 2: On review in fact it’s almost certainly an inflated estimate as they didn’t have anywhere near to 45 million total Game Pass subscribers in FY2023 as they later announced 34 million in Feb 2024 at the business update.

EDIT 1: I’d also agree that a 30% increase of a small number is still a small number… but it’s not the only quarter they have mentioned significant PC growth in the last two years, it seems like it has been an area that has been growing more consistently for a while. Though I think we don’t have enough data to make any firm conclusions. That’s kinda been my point.

Re: Series X v Series S. I believe the data Circana gives is US only, correct? Whereas the Xbox data from the leak was global. Additionally the Circana data is also not a running tally it’s only for each month, right? I agree it’s likely Series X is faring a little better now but considering how much sales have fallen off a cliff in the last year or two it’s likely still behind Series S unless Europe and ROW are disproportionately buying Series X over the S.

No thanks I’ll play Day 4 on Game Pass

It's currently the highest rated game of the year. Impressive work. That mad-lad Fares did it again.

@dskatter Yeah I heard about that, but I watched a video and until they slowed it down it didn't bother me much, it's visible for a tiny fraction of a second, maybe a frame or two. Many AAA games have some sort of frame issues on camera cuts which have never bothered me at all, so I figured this would be largely the same. It's a AA game, so I expect a bit of jank anyway.

@Titntin Love the films, well the first 2 anyway, it was seeing so many people praise the love they have for the source material that put it on my wishlist.

Also looking forward to playing Veilguard eventually. But it's a long way down my list, I often play games 5-10 years late and still haven't got round to Inquisition DLC. But this has pushed that up the list. Maybe in time for Mass Effect.

Highest rated game of the year so far. Lets go! Hazelight do it again.

Some great games in there, some at really good prices.

But agree with @dskatter Robocop was cheaper last week on Xbox at £16.49 and just £7.49 on PS5, where I picked it up.

We've been back and forth on this many times now. At the end of the day if it's a good system, with a lot of good games it will sell.

There's definitely pros and cons to getting the jump on PlayStation, but going toe-to-toe with them definitely hasn't worked. But I can't see it being the "biggest technological leap ever in a generation" in 2026.

Always felt like they bit off more than they could chew, especially the co-op aspect which wasn't Platinum's forte. But the ideas on show are still as interesting today as they were then. Fighting giant monsters even from the back of a Dragon. If not Scalebound, perhaps a spiritual successor from someone... although Crimson Desert might already fit this shoe.

@HonestHick It really shouldn't be that hard. Unofficial patches for modded PS5s already have RDR2 and other games locked at 60fps (see Digital Foundry) and XSX should be able to do the same. At this point all that is missing is the WILL to do it, I suspect Rockstar are waiting to resell it to us in some form.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I think you are mixing up a couple of stats here. That it was estimated 70-80% of users who had Game Pass were on Game Pass Ultimate. Though I believe this was from two and half years ago, before Xbox Live Gold switched to Game Pass Core which would likely have changed things. (edit - just seen your post above)

@OldGamer999 I've seen other people say the same, but still not seen any evidence of it, no one ever seems able to provide a credible source, which is why I asked. I accept it's hard to know for sure because Microsoft don't often put out numbers, but i'd take that with a heavy pinch of salt.

The last official Game Pass subscriber count was 34 million at last year's Xbox business update, including PC and Core (formerly Xbox live Gold) as they later clarified but it's likely subscribers haven't grown much, if at all since, as their revenue isn't growing much (only 2%) despite a Game Pass price hike.

As for consoles the last official split we had from the FTC leak 75% Series S, 25% Series X but that was data as of early 2022 (edit).

@PsBoxSwitchOwner 80% on console... Really? That sounds dubious to me. Do you have a source / link? I keep my ear to the ground on this, and don't remember seeing it being that high, even in rumours.

I agree Microsoft is very cagey about giving actual figures, but we can read between the lines of what they say, and often it's also clear from what the DON'T say. Currently it's likely console subscribers are falling. Why might we logically come to this conclusion?

Microsoft announced PC subscribers were up 30%, but they also announced revenue from services (Game pass) was ONLY up 2% therefore, logically, console subscribers are down or the numbers don't really add up. Additionally there was also a price hike that quarter so you would expect revenue to be up more than 2% if subscriber numbers remained constant, suggesting a larger drop off.

What is the source of this stat? And is it still valid and not outdated?

Argos has Series S stock for me, it's location based, but agree about Game.

That’s a lot of good games to lose all at once. Lies of P, MLB, Yakuza, Evil West, No More Heroes, SpongeBob and even Solar Ash. A shame, as there’s a few I haven’t got around to yet.

Only Atomfall and 33 Immortals announced for March so far, hopefully those are good, and fingers crossed there are many others added as that’s a pretty big net loss so far this month.

@IronCrow86 Rogue-LIKE is very simple. All it means is that you lose everything when you die and you have to start again from scratch each game. Usually each run is randomised through procedural generation to make the difference instead. Think Tetris.

Rogue-LITE is similar, but rather than starting from scratch every single run it means there is a mechanic to slowly increase your starting equipment, or odds, each time you play. Usually this is in the form of a currency that you get for playing where you can unlock rewards to improve your starting loadout each game, or you unlock shortcuts or other things that stay unlocked for future runs. Think Hades.

Re: Balatro v Cards. You were right when you said you know nothing about the game. They may have the same basis in Poker but they aren’t the same thing. What is special about Balatro is how it constantly cleverly twists that card game you know with interesting mechanics added, always keeping you on your toes.

The “just one more run” feeling on Balatro is one of the strongest I’ve ever had similar to Tetris, Vampire Survivors or Dead Cells - so addictive.

Definitely hard to describe and a video won’t show you much, you have to experience it yourself. Highly recommend giving it a go… unless you value your time.

Finished Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. I preferred the second. The first had massive difficulty spikes, tedious sections (piranhas, underwater, horses) a terrible camera and some bosses that seemed immune to most attacks except jump, slash, retreat. The sequel was much more fun, I even enjoyed the infamous staircase, but also pretty forgettable.

I'm now playing Braid Anniversary Edition. A timeless classic. Thankfully it's been so long i've forgotten many of the puzzles and am scratching my head figuring them out. Inspired design.

All it takes is enough time and skill. Refactoring code to make it more efficient, swapping out some systems that are computationally expensive for ones that are less so, or removing them altogether.

For most games that wouldn't be worth it, but there's probably enough potential players still on last gen that would buy COD to make them consider it.

@gollumb82 Might have missed the memo... Everything is an Xbox

@Prestige-worldwide @LogicStrikesAgain Mostly right, the engine is ForzaTech but it wasn’t developed by Playground games, it was developed by Turn 10 studios, makers of Forza Motorsport, not Horizon.

@Porridge2215 The trouble with streaming is it depends on so many different factors like distance to the server farm, what router you use, etc. You can have a really fast internet connection in terms of Mbps and it doesn't work well, or have an average one and it works great.

Hopefully as game streaming becomes more common these things will be ironed out, but it makes it very hard to diagnose what the problem is. Bit of a lottery imho. It's simple plug and play for some and a nightmare for others.

There's an interesting discussion with one of the Game's Director's Mike Laidlaw on the Play, Watch, Listen podcast this week. He's pretty open about the limitations with self publishing a game with a small team of around 60 (there's plenty of features they would like to add, but you can't do everything) and working with Microsoft to getting it on Game Pass.