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I would love to see Phil's retirement gig to be head or chairman of a smaller studio or publisher. He has more passion for gaming than most leaders in the industry and he genuinely understands what it takes to succeed. It would be nice to see him work in a less corporate/shareholder structure.

I was surprised she wasnt the one taking over. Best of luck to her as well. I liked her.

@swedetrap I'm certainly in no position to question her qualifications. Maybe the trillion dollar company she works for is better suited for that.

@themightyant you are free to make that assumption but there isn't much for factual evidence to back it up.

Phil did have one of the longest reigns as CEO for any of the console brands histories. I dont find it surprising that he is leaving after so long at the healm. A public job like that must be pretty taxing. Judging by the comments of the other article, it sounds like folks are blaming him for everything but their family dog running away.

@swedetrap I imagine she accepted this position weeks ago. Its not like they were just like surprise, you run xbox now. Surely they were interviewing internal candidates since whenever Phil let them know he was retiring.

@DennisReynolds yes I do think god of war will be playable on xbox. It has been all but confirmed that the next xbox will be pc based.

Wolverine (and spiderman) actually have a decent chance of getting official xbox ports since Disney owns the rights and could do what MLB did and force an xbox version.

Given the poor state of hardware manufacturing for every company right now (some analysts suggest it could last a decade or longer). The 'everything is an xbox' and the multiplatform releases look like a stroke of genius. Well done Phil!!!

@DennisReynolds no I understand. It was sony that said the profit margins on their huge AAA games was so thin that they needed to look at other markets. They then sabotaged their reputation as one of the best single player game makers to produce a bunch of live service crap that were lucky if it saw release. Now pc is expected for every release and switch and xbox are in play for a growing number of other games from them.

@DennisReynolds I remember the main complaint with xbox has always been they didnt have any games. Now that they produce a ton of games (thanks to the very successful Phil Spencer), the complaint is that non xbox users get to purchase and play them.

Why is god of war on pc? Its almost like Sony wants more sales or something....weird.

@SBandy1 as of early 2025 xbox has over 500 million active users, marking a significant increase over previous years.

Yeah "worst position xbox has ever been in". Okay bud

@DennisReynolds oh no halo will sell more copies. Even more people get to experience the franchise. What a "failure"

You realize xbox had almost zero studios and relied almost entirely on 2nd and 3rd party games until Phil took over? Xbox is one of the best videogame publishers (if not the best) right now. Very few are competing with the AAA output of xbox studios right now. That could not be said at any point before Phil had his very successful reign as boss.

@DennisReynolds simply not true. Phil Spencer is by far the best leader xbox has ever had.

Phil is the man. Xbox won't be the same without him. Well earned retirement after a very successful run as head of xbox. He gets to ride off into the sunset after a great career.

Hopefully this new person has the same passion for the product and industry as Phil did.

It just shows how meaningless call of duty campaigns are. Even the very well received black ops 6 campaign saw just 5% of xbox users unlock the achievement for completing the 8 hour campaign on any difficulty. This is a multiplayer game and we are lucky they still take the time to make a campaign when such a small fraction of the players bother to play it. Black ops 7 is a very good multiplayer game.

Im glad flight sim is in the top 20. That ps5 version must be selling well. I loved that game.

It will be at least until the pc release for me, likely much later than that.

I will probably end up buying it and playing it but I am fully prepared to wait them out for a decent discount price. When i see it for $20-$30 I will pull the trigger. If that sale never comes then I guess I won't play it.

I wouldn't be surprised if I play elder scrolls 6 before this game lol.

Im excited for this game. Bethesda is my favorite studio by far.

Good news! This game does not need to drastically change any of its core gameplay. It was and is a fantastic release. If you wish it was like some other game then go play that other game. I love Starfield and look forward to whatever they add.

I would rather they focus on pleasing us that love the game than overhaul the game in an attempt to please those that hate it.

The games are also available on epic games store which sounds like will have its own native app on the next xbox.

Hopefully xbox is looking to support a new crossplatform voice chat service now that discord is hot garbage.

I thought the first one was great. I'm looking forward to this one.

I like seeing grounded 2 on the daily active users list. That franchise doesn't get the recognition it deserves.

@fatpunkslim xbox isn't crowning a singular "winner". Every game on each list is winning an "Excellance Award".

Next they need to change up the achievement unlock graphic on pc. I have a desktop connected to a 65" TV and achievements take up roughly 1/4 of the screen when they unlock. And it is not low and centered like on console. It is the whole right side middle of the screen, It is insane.

This is going to feel exactly like 4 and 5 isn't it? Not a terrible thing by any means but probably not the step forward I was hoping for.

Hopefully it is much better than the nintendo partner show but im not going to get too excited for the show from xbox or a ps5 owner perspective.

The issue with showcases around this time is that we are less than 4 months away from the big shows. Unless a big game is releasing before June, it is probably waiting for those shows. These shows are often just a platform fulfilling marketing obligations with 3rd party games so there probably will be a lot of games releasing on xbox.

This is an exciting time for consoles where you can actually choose the right system for you. Having the Series s was a nice budget option but next gen we should see a wide range of options.

Switch 1&2 and low end pc will always be desirable targets for developers.

With the time and financial cost of making a AAA game and the number of people on the low end rigs like switch, it really doesn't pay to push the current gen. Rockstar will be the only publisher pushing limits but they are the only one with unlimited time and budget for everything they make.

The days of the previous gen being unable to run new games is pretty much over. Its now at a point where you only need the new gen if you want that slight increase to performance.

I imagine they will put the xbox logo on quite a few pre builds to cover many price points.

I look forward to the awful discourse around how many units the "next xbox" has sold when there are technically like 6 different ones and they are just pcs anyway.

If the next xbox is a pc hybrid then they kind of have to change the current configuration. I suspect pc game pass to be removed and they will still have some form of ultimate and premium. An extremely expensive tier with more benefits than 99% of us could ever expect to use and a still kind of expensive tier without the most sought after features like day 1 releases.

It should only be a matter of time until the paid online play is removed.

Menace is exciting. I will be playing that tonight and hopefully for the next few weeks. We are due for a good xcom-like experience.

My niece and nephew will be thrilled to see another paw patrol game too. Just wish it had steering wheel support but not surprised it doesn't.

@Fiendish-Beaver Since the Epic Store person said they will likely need to build a new app for this xbox, do you think purchases will even be possible in the app? Im guessing you will need to buy epic games through a webbrowser but your library will be fully playable. Which limits the number of people with the initiative to do that.

Xbox would be thrilled if a decent number of pc oriented users buy this device even if those users primarily use other stores. It doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of people on this xbox will just use the default xbox store. Xbox should not be worried about people going to cdkeys, then redeeming the code on the steam website, then accessing the game on the steam app of the xbox. Hats off to those smart consumers but the overwhelming majority will not do that. The whole reason steam doesn't care about sites like cdkeys is because the overwhelming majority of people still just buy directly from their store.

I dont think xbox has anything to worry about with people choosing epic over their own store. The reality is that the vast majority of people will only use the xbox store and never even install epic/steam/gog.

Any Android users out there that use the Amazon app store, galaxy store, etc exclusively or just more often than the default Google play? A research poll by Android Authority says 5% of users exclusively use an appstore other than the default Google play app.

And the trade off for the sales made on epic is that the xbox device will be more appealing by having access to games not on the xbox store. It will be a do everything box more than any other console available (depending on what the steam machine is like for other stores, it is kind of a pain on steam deck). Established Pc users should see this as a valid option for their living room too. I sure do, my library of about 700 games on Epic being playable makes me want one.

This would be awesome. My epic games library is huge, the majority from claiming every freebie for the last 5+ years. If steam and gog are easily accessible alongside epic and xbox libraries, then this will have a serious library of games waiting for me out of the box.

Im excited for a new xbox especially since the rumors keep piling up for full pc integration. It cant get here fast enough in my mind.

It will be interesting to see if or how playstation/nintendo respond to the emerging market of pc consoles. Nintendo seems comfortable being well behind on features but playstation historically hasnt. Maybe their much rumored pc storefront is part of the next ps as a pc hybrid.

This looks like a future bargain bin pickup to me. This will probably be $4.99 in steam sales within a couple years. I can wait until then.

Smoking/vaping inside is a wild decision. Every electronic device in this guy's home looks like this.

Always ask to look inside a used console before purchasing one.

Outer worlds 2 deserves more love. Incredible game.

Grounded 2 is great too but I haven't gotten to play it as much as I want to. I also really enjoyed Avowed, i am debating on a new game+ if i can find the time.

Maybe 3 major releases in 8 months was too many in too little time.

Avatar Frontiers of Pandora was unfairly brought down by the negative buzz around Ubisoft. That game is much better than the 72 it has on open critic (more like 87-89 IMO). I havent seen any of the movies and know nothing of the franchise other than this fantastic game.

It goes to show how bad the situation is at ubisoft, even when they release a great game, the bias against them will bring the game down. It would be great to see the game get a positive boost from gamepass.

I thought it was a really good game when I played it to completion at launch. I consider it a solid 85-90 score.

It does seem like a trend where the updates sound like really good improvements that I wish were there when I did my playthrough. But that's what I get for playing a game at launch.

This was a great month. Easy A for me. RE Village would have been the highlight if I didnt own it/beat it already. Space Marine 2 and the Sims 1&2 are my picks.

Steam deck and pc handhelds could probably be lumped into the pc category. Or the pc category should be broken into the actual pc platforms, steam/epic/gog/etc.

Sony leaders have surely noticed that boost. I still think it is very likely they pressure playstation leaders to go further into multiplat than they already have. I expect more switch and xbox ports in the future.

I haven't enjoyed too many AAA spaceship combat games I have played but maybe they could pull it off.

Speaking of Halo though, I got a chuckle when reading the latest Dan Brown novel, the secret of secrets. He referred to Halo as "the hugely popular computer game series." He went on to mention its religious undertones like the covenant so he must have researched it a little. The pc rebrand has already penetrated mainstream lol.

It shows they have a ton of games near release. Their output is unmatched right now.

Hopefully they would be able to balance adding another show with the other shows without over showing games.

As much as I enjoy collecting physical games, it really is the worst way to play games.

Xbox makes digital games way more appealing than physical with the play anywhere or cloud capabilities. It is creating a paradox where physical games are good for preservation but will also be much more challenging to access compared to our digital libraries.

I imagine nintendo will eventually change the cartridge shape/size and render backwards compatibility impossible for physical games on some future device. Digital switch games arent guaranteed to be compatible with future devices but more so than physical cartridges.

Xbox is the obvious choice for me with play anywhere. Hopefully the game reviews and sells well everywhere.

Since Outer Worlds 2 got no goty buzz, I am skeptical any xbox game will. OW2 was amazing. It is easily the best game i played last year and no one talked about it.

Apparently the game was delayed because xbox wanted to increase the budget substantially to make it a major release.

Expansions for fh5 are $20 each so that is at least 2/3 of the price right there. Car packs, VIP pass, early access, etc are making up the rest of the cost.

If the value isn't there for you, then you can simply skip the upgrade like I am. If an expansion looks fun then I will consider it then or wait until they are discounted. I dont see what is controversial about the bundle especially if the expansions end up being $25 or $30 this time.

@Fishmasterflex96 I would worry the campaigns wouldnt have the legs to stand on their own as full releases. AAA, story-driven fps games arent the draw they once were (I wish they were).