AccessibleDaydream

@Kaloudz The YouTube social media management for Xbox is similarly on-point and amazing!

@PsBoxSwitchOwner And unfortunately the PS5 version is bugged, so someone like me me who hasn’t bought it won’t be able to play it until it comes back.

@Gollum

https://youtu.be/XxbJw8PrIkc?si=PdepAWFN-q5zUkEJ

@ZuneTattooGuy I honestly have no idea what I was trying to say, sorry. I’m pretty sure I was half-asleep, lol.

@ZuneTattooGuy Off-topic, but your profile picture and username seem to be like the kind of consistent and creative assets that an empire of a brand (re: the about page on basically any startup’s website) is made of, but, like, actually original.

@Markatron84

Hutch Games: Yo dawg, we heard you like mobile games, so we put a mobile game in your mobile game, and now you can mobile game while you’re mobile and wanting to game.

Xbox Users: But does it [s]blend[/s] have achievements?

I realize this news is probably completely unrelated to the Warner Bros comments from last week, but every time I hear anything about the studio or their games, after their comments in regards to chasing live service, no news seems to be good news, and I’m continuously left with that yucky taste.

@Moby What about Threads and, by extension, Instagram?

@Smigit I believe @Gabrielmpf was referring to the prior PlayStation-Activision agreement from nearly 10 years ago, set to expire next year.

I’m aware it’s a cynical take, but:

Bundling in a subscription service instead of a retail game seems like just another way to decrease the objective value the consumer gets from their purchase, as instead of one game being playable for a long, long time, there’s a subscription with a time limit on access, and therefore a limit on the objective value. Not to mention that in the past these Game Pass codes have usually had set expiration dates, and eventually the average consumer is stuck with a normal console that won’t even have value added in the future, since the box is advertising a time-limited offer.

Is “workshop” their prefix for “experimental”? It sounds like it could be a good bit of consistency!

I was really into the new Forza Motorsport for about two weeks after launch, and it was fun when I would play, but it almost feels like the mechanics would be better suited for phones or tablets.

In fact, I can remember years before I had an Xbox playing Real Racing on the iPad. Obviously Xbox doesn’t have the best working relationship with Apple right now, but it would be so cool to get a Forza Motorsport game on mobile, since it would fill a void left by the aforementioned Real Racing.

@ParsnipHero Sometimes I notice that after an update some of the settings will occasionally reset, so that might be something for both of us to look into.

Also, as for GaaS, I don’t really like them because I tend to get bored of them. I’ll start playing a new one, get super into it, maybe even give it my all for one or two seasons, and then I tend to drop them as if I’ve never even heard of them.

I also tend to be way too competitive, because for whatever reason, my brain tends to think that if I’m not the best at something or if I’m not at least getting better, then what is even the point?

Battle Passes are an issue for me too, both in terms of financial issues and lack of income making it so that I have to sacrifice other things and/or overdraft my account like I do all too often, and in terms of time and effort being overwhelmed and getting nothing done, and then running out of time on the pass.

@GeeForce I would imagine it probably has to do with the profile-switching being more of an electronically-mechanical mechanism since the profiles are stored in some chip or something in the controller and if I recall correctly switching profiles effectively rewires the controller, as if you were using three individual controllers with completely different button layouts.

@ParsnipHero Yeah, I get that. I don’t know what it is about Infinite, but MCC seems to have aiming that’s less floaty and more sticky?

I’m really not sure if that makes sense, and I understand it was a intentional decision to ‘modernize’ Halo gameplay, but I almost prefer MCC (specifically Halo 3) at this point, and it saddens me that the servers seem to be barely populated compared to even a few months ago.

From the story timeline on the front page, the fact that the title of the article says nothing about which game the author is talking about makes this soapbox article feel like clickbait.

@GeeForce Maybe the ability to use it as a shift modifier as well?

@Kezelpaso What is the difference between “CEO of Microsoft Gaming” and “President of Xbox”?

@Utena-mobile I've noticed that too. Almost like the more I play the worse I do? Maybe the game needs better skill matching?

@ParsnipHero Oh, I totally agree! I’ve played regularly ever since the insider flights two years ago as well, and it’s difficult to not want to stop playing it at times because it feels like I’m constantly at a disadvantage.

At this point, I’ve all but settled for it being a skill issue on my part…

If Sarah Bond is now the ‘President’ of Xbox, what does that make Phil Spencer?

@ParsnipHero

It’s a double-edged sword:

The feedback from the sweats over the last two years has helped to keep the game relevant and ongoing, even while the rumors were circulating about the game being shut down completely, and that same feedback seemingly had a big impact on where the game is today and how it’s somewhat started to recover from its losses.

At the same time, however:

The sweats who provided the feedback and stayed with the game even when its future was uncertain, are the same group of sweats that are so good at the game, even when so many are getting back into it and are potentially a little rusty, that the skill barrier for enjoying multiplayer, or at least the perception of a skill barrier, is so high now that it puts a lot of people off from playing the game, especially since a lot of those original Halo fans were there for the social and/or party aspects of the trilogy.

@ParsnipHero

I’m not deep enough into the Halo lore to know the difference between the two maps. Are they not the same? What is different about the Banished one?

@BrilliantBill

Do they compensate creators for their time and effort in those cases? Wouldn’t that be an example of companies shifting the labor burden from employees to creators or consumers, kind of like self-checkout versus regular checkout? Do people just do this kind of work out of passion for the series and the good will of the community?

This is amazing! Probably time-limited though…

I’m honestly slightly confused about one thing: why did they spend time and resources on Empyrean back during the 'Winter Update' if they were just going to bring The Pit back, as they have now?

Also, are these maps remade in Slipspace, or are they using the Forge tools? For a moment there it felt like even the developers of the game itself were using the Forge tools for map creation. I guess that's a compliment to how advanced the toolkit really is? But it still feels strange to see a major company use the publicly available toolkit rather than anything in-house.

@matmom42 It seems like you might actually be onto something...

Isn’t there a profile background around this idea of dreaming?

@Zenszulu Perhaps it’s just something weird with my brain, but I struggle to feel like I’ve accomplished anything playing career modes, because I don’t have the skill to play on higher difficulties, and I end up judging myself harshly because I forget that I can just enjoy it how I want. I still find the games fun, but every once in a while I have one of these moments and I almost end up quitting.

@Kaloudz The pun made me smile. ☺️

@Fragslayer I never had an Xbox until 2021, so I never got to experience it. Now I’m sad :,(

The only thing I know about this series is that I somehow keep getting it mixed up with Kinectamals.

Why EA specifically? Was there a reason mentioned anywhere?

I was really looking forward to this, so it’s a bit of a let down for me. Hopefully it’ll be released in a better state thanks to this delay, so it’ll have more of a chance of succeeding!

@InterceptorAlpha

Apologies if I misread your comment based on the exact wording you used, but as far as I know, the US is not a third-world country?

@Kaloudz > I have Zombi but never really give it much of a go. Is it worth a shot?

I think so, if you like less action-horror and more true survival-horror with slow pacing, an incredibly atmospheric yet totally early 2010s esthetic, and a few jump scares here and there.

Like I said, I played on the Wii U in 2013, at the age of 12 (I think?) and it gave me nightmares such that I never could go back to it until I rediscovered it on Ubisoft+ Classics as a part of PlayStation Plus 10 years later, but that’s just me.

It doesn’t hurt to try! 🙂

@Kaloudz It’s crazy how growing up teaches us how to optimize our time spent on things, but also reduces our energy levels at the same time. 😔

Also, more on-topic, I played the beta for this game (First Descendent) yesterday for a little bit, and it definitely is more ‘Gears of War’ than ‘Halo’ and/or more “Destiny 2” than “Call of Duty”. Which isn’t to say it wasn’t enjoyable, but in both scenarios I’m more partial to the latter, so I guess I’ll keep my eyes peeled for XDefiant news. 😃

Speaking of Ubisoft though, I feel like I might’ve been the one person in existence who liked Zombi, on Wii U and on Xbox/PS4, even if it did give me nightmares…

@Kaloudz Regardless of if it actually does or not, I signed up for the beta. Last year with Modern Warfare 2, I had started creating a path forward for grinding weapons and equipment, but it quickly became overwhelming, so hopefully it’s a bit different from that…

I also wish more games would let the player keep each season’s pass after the season ends, like Halo does. I just don’t have the time to play so many games as often as I would need to in order to finish all the battle passes that exist in games these days.

P.S., @Kaloudz, I really like your avatar! It’s so cute!

With XDefiant being delayed, will this scratch a similar itch?

And I’m the third commenter on this article. And that’s over 15 hours after the last comment.

But also referencing the first comment, by @Maddie47, this seems to be a potential problem in the lifecycles of modern games:

People don’t want to pay for a game that isn’t going to last, and so there aren’t many people playing the game. And yet, as soon as a game decides to switch business models and become a “free” experience, those same people tend to get upset about excessive monitization, and so they stop playing the game. From then on, the developers see the declining player counts, and decide to stop trying to make a great game, as it’s supposedly not worth the effort. At that point, they now have alienated the customers who don’t want to pay yet expect great content, as well as the customers who are more than willing to pay for a complete experience. And eventually, whether due to the developer seeing a lack of revenue from the title, or players not being satisfied with the dearth of content in the title, the game is shut down. And because the game is shut down, the players are angry with the developers, yet the developers say they shut it down because of low engagement and/or lack of revenue. And the cycle begins again with the next announcement of a F2P/Live Service game.