Better not gatekeep achievements behind some arbitrary difficulty setting. That’s like only building a set of stairs leading to the achievement and saying ‘F anyone who uses a ramp’
There really needs to be some form of standardization implemented by both platform holders as to what is acceptable Achievement/Trophy criteria, and what is not.
Online, server dependent achievements shoehorned into otherwise single player games and without a built in backup method of unlocking them should be out.
Absurd, ludicrously difficult achievements the vast majority of normal gamers cannot unlock should be out. Remember, these aren’t actual trophies. Only one person/team can win the gold in an Olympic event, whereas achievements and trophies are fundamentally designed so that anyone who buys the game should—by rights—be able to unlock it. Gatekeeping them behind insane difficulties is offensive and borderline abusive.
Forcing multiple replays or overly tedious collect-a-thons should be out. Attaching achievements to game modes that are fundamentally different than the base game experience should be out. I loved Ghostwire Tokyo; I had less than no interest in playing a tacked on, low effort rogue lite mode designed to artificially pad out the experience and I should not be forced to play garbage like that just to obtain all achievements or trophies.
The ideal solution to all these issues is for both platform holders to enable the user to either opt out of earning trophies/achievements, or to have the ability to permanently delete games with partially completed achievements from their accounts. Not merely hide them; permanently erase all record of their existence, no matter if it’s 1% or 99% complete. No one should be forced to have a game sitting at an arbitrary percentage simply because it’s glitched, the servers are shut down, or because the trophy criteria is absurd.
Someone slap Todd Howard in the back of the head to get his attention. Doesn’t need to be UE5, but I’d like to play a Bethesda game made using a competently designed engine that isn’t 20+ years old.
It would be nice to play without falling through the map, getting stuck in environmental debris, or randomly crashing to the dashboard every 20mins. It would be nice to have competent ai pathfinding. It would be nice to iron out more than 20% of game breaking bugs prior to launch. It would be nice to see some granular details in the environments that help bring them to life, like, oh I don’t know, foliage that gently sways in the breeze instead of static, cardboard cutout trees. It would be nice to focus on story, gameplay and memorable characters instead of how many potatoes can be crammed into a vault before the frames start to chug. It would be nice to play uninterrupted by load screens for more than a few minutes at a time.
It would be nice, just once, to play a BGS game without constantly thinking ‘This is ok, there’s something here, but why doesn’t it look as good as [insert game]? Why doesn’t it feel as responsive to play as [insert game]? Why aren’t these npc’s reacting like in [insert game]? Why isn’t X, Y, or Z as good as in [insert game]?’
@GuyinPA75 You’re correct on all counts, but the game has so much to offer in other areas that it offsets the flaws. At least that’s how I felt during my playthrough.
It’s sort of similar to your run of the mill Bethesda Softworks game—a janky, broken mess glutted with endless glitches and unintuitive mechanics, but there’s enough ‘good’ to outweigh the bad, at least for a length of time. Maybe that’s not an ideal comparison, I don’t mean to imply KCD is anywhere near as fundamentally broken as a Bethesda game, but you get the point. At the sale price you really can’t go wrong. I recommend KCD
Absolutely disagree with Klobrille about the Avowed box art. The visual aesthetic pervading that entire game is an atrocious Lisa Frank parody—and that extends to the box art.
If I were to pick a few box art standouts, I’d go with the super stylized MGS2: Substance on original Xbox (Yoji Shinkawa is on the same ethereal plane as Yoshitaka Amano as far as I’m concerned), the clean and minimalist Oblivion on 360, and maybe Halo Infinite on Series machines—that art is admittedly pretty epic.
Games with graphical styles that make me want to take a cheese grater to my eyes (Fortnite, Diablo 3, Avowed, new Dragon Age etc) should not even have box art.
He gets a lot of flak, but Phil has a pretty awesome job. Who wouldn’t want to be in Japan at TGS playing the latest games with developers, industry veterans and insiders?
Is this still only playable online? I bypassed it like the plague at launch, just like GT7 and any other otherwise fantastic game that has the disgusting online-only anchor unnecessarily thrown around its neck. Just wondering if they corrected their mistake yet and patched in the offline mode that it rightly should have launched with.
As long as tencent or whoever picks them up continues to sell physical discs individually and not try to digitally lock everyone into a rental service wherein titles evaporate when your subscription does, that’s fine. Not that I particularly care for most Ubisoft titles; it’s more the principal of the matter.
Really hoping Bloober Team pulls off a miracle with Silent Hill 2, and it looks like they just might! Despite general apathy surrounding it, I enjoyed The Medium very much.
I’ve already played the blurry, Vaseline-filter game on base PS5 at launch and can say with utmost confidence the only decent ways to play this are either PC or possibly the PS5 Pro. I can’t even imagine what the series S version will be like.
This is next level stuff. I’m used to falling through the map, getting stuck in the stairs, inexplicably dying for no reason, random freezes, crashing to the dashboard, having my saves corrupted, collision detection issues, texture loading issues, broken dialogue sequences, laughably bad NPC pathfinding, and many other game breaking bugs far too numerous to list here—but I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see a Bethesda title glitch before you even get into the game
@Fishmasterflex96 I vaguely recall reading an article addressing the possibility of Sekiro as a gamepass drop. I do not recall the specifics, or even the source of the article, but I’m not sure it’s as simple as ‘Xbox owns Activision so that means they own Sekiro’. Publishing agreements are complicated. Unless someone can post a link to a definitive article and source, I wouldn’t count on a Sekiro drop.
Funny thing—it seems the worse the game, the more awesome the special edition controller for it is. Starfield is a dumpster fire and that controller is sick. Concord is…I don’t know, whatever is worse than a dumpster fire—a porta potty fire?—and that controller is freakin awesome. Shame we never got a Redfall pad, I bet that would have been amazing too.
I’d prefer the grand, full on remake treatment for RE:0 and RE: Code Veronica. RE5 and RE6 are rubbish, so hopefully they won’t waste the time or money on them and instead do something like Dino Crisis or maybe something a bit more obscure like Viewtiful Joe.
This is good news. I have less than no interest in a handheld with a tiny screen, cramped controls and compromised performance. I’m not addicted to technology, and I don’t have a 4hr commute. I don’t need to play Xbox on the toilet or on the go. A traditional, powerful, under-the-tv box is all I want.
This is so backward. With the way Microsoft and Xbox’s chain of command is structured, we really shouldn’t be reading articles about this sort of thing happening. It seems like a competent structure with well delegated roles and responsibilities. Instead, we should be reading articles like these about Playstation’s organization structure, which is quite literally like the Co-Manager episode of The Office.
If Xbox were owned by a different parent company that had made all the same decisions, it would undoubtedly have already exited the console business or be flatlining as we speak. But Microsoft does own Xbox. Yes, that same $3 Trillion Microsoft. They could keep Xbox afloat until the end of time…if they choose to. And that’s the predicament. Sony is not the threat. Government institutions (CMA, FTC etc) are not the threat. Microsoft is the threat. They have shuttered far more profitable ventures for far, far less.
Pretty cool! Always nice to see little optimizations here and there, and I’m sure countless fans’ SSD’s will be thankful. This is one of those games that if it winds up getting ported to PS5, I’d be very curious to see if any further file-size reductions would occur with the better compression tech.
I want to see some major improvements for ES6. I’d like basic character movement to feel less like the world map is a 3D treadmill under my character that I adjust with the right stick.
Better combat is a must. Less ‘Did I hit him? I think I hit him. I can’t tell if I hit him. Wait, did he hit me?’ and more tactile feedback reinforcement along with other subtle nuances like better lateral movement to tighten combat.
Better visuals. I don’t just mean higher resolution, I mean higher detailed models with higher poly counts. Maybe some actual facial capture instead of rudimentary animations from 20 years ago? Cloth physics, subsurface scattering, self shadowing, better PBR materials etc etc etc.
Better NPC/enemy AI is an absolute must. Maybe this game will have companions that can successfully navigate minor obstacles without having to hold their hand every step of the way. Maybe they’ll attack the enemy standing in their path and currently body blocking them instead of fixating on one hiding behind cover at the far end of the room.
For the love of god I would like to be able to play for more than 15 minutes without falling through the map, getting stuck in the floor, being caught waist deep in a staircase, clipping through walls, having enemies/objects randomly disappear or experiencing yet another crash and being booted to the dashboard. Maybe this time I’ll be able to complete all the quests, instead of only some due to game breaking bugs and glitches.
@GuyinPA75 It might be splitting hairs, but I’d argue it isn’t the Series S itself holding anything back, it’s the parity clause Microsoft has mandated that is the issue. Unless you’re a force majeure, out-of-nowhere GotY contender which took the world by storm like Baldur’s Gate 3, you get no special treatment and must abide by it, even if it hamstrings what could otherwise be a top tier Series X experience.
Glad to see this is at least something of a priority. BC is easily the best feature of the Series consoles and the one I use most often. It’s astonishing how trash Sony’s BC is, considering the treasure trove of older games at their disposal, just sitting there doing nothing. What a waste.
Mostly great memories of the original Xbox. So many unique gems, Japanese exclusives and fresh gameplay ideas during this time it was hard not to find something to like. The original controller was an abomination, and the type S wasn’t much better, but it hardly mattered when a good chunk of third party stuff looked and ran considerably better than on the competition. I was fortunate enough to have all 3 consoles of the era (minus the Dreamcast which I sadly never owned), so I had access to Nintendo’s S-tier first party stuff, PS2’s S-tier exclusives and Xbox’s S-tier third party ports. Great times, back before it all went downhill.
A little worrying to me, to be honest. Never cared for handhelds. They’re fine as a supplemental way to play games, as an add, but I genuinely hope this direction does not become the focus of Xbox going forward.
Why would I want to sit hunched over a tiny screen using cramped controls and a questionable interface to play a compromised experience, when I could sit in front of a glorious 77” OLED from the comfort of my armchair or a high refresh rate monitor on the most powerful hardware my money can buy? Does everyone else have a 4hr. commute on the Shinkansen or something?
@Markatron84 Maybe Phil was wrong. Maybe there is a world where a game is a 6.5 out of 5 and people start abandoning their PlayStations and flock to Xbox.
THPS 3+4 is all I really want, and hopefully it’ll be multiplatform. I cannot stand the horrendous, god awful Xbox Dpad, and the slightly convex face buttons also feel a bit awkward when trying to bust out combos in the tens of millions.
That’s a logical set of metrics if you ask me, right in line with the performance capabilities of each console. Yeah, 720p is a blurry mess, but if you’re still playing on an Xbox one it’s a safe bet cutting edge technology and razor sharp resolutions probably aren’t your biggest priorities.
$700 (or $780 to play all my discs…) is too much. But then again, so is $600 for the Series X refresh with just more storage and some speckles. Looking at that, $100 more for a considerably more capable machine actually doesn’t sound so bad. But it’s still, as the meme goes, ‘Too d*** high’
Statements like this make me think of all the pundits and ‘tubers using the angle ‘This is great for gamers because if the Activision deal goes through Microsoft will start reviving long dormant IP’s. Imagine a new Hexen/Starcraft/THPS/Spyro etc etc etc!’
Seems it was all about mobile and the CoD warmachine all along. Could all those pundits and ‘tubers have been wrong…?
I miss the days when the business model was ‘Make great games that are complete at launch, sell them individually, let the customer own them in perpetuity.’
@Markatron84 Good to meet someone with similar taste. I love Sonic, no doubt about it, but I am of the opinion there has never been a good 3D Sonic game to date. From abysmal control and basic movement to highly questionable character designs, I’ve been perpetually disappointed in Sonic’s foray into the third dimension. Thank god for fantastic 2D Sonic’s like Sonic Mania to carry me through.
The games given out were largely of poor quality, but I infinitely prefer the business model behind GwG. There is no world where I would rather rent than own. So in that sense it is indeed a step backward for gamers, but a step in the direction of more money for Micro$oft.
It’s situations like this that prompted me long ago to decide to play all my Japanese games elsewhere. Sometimes they eventually get ported, sometimes they don’t; rarer still is the simultaneous launch. It’s a hassle when you want to play something day 1. I just play Japanese titles on one of the Japanese boxes to ensure I don’t miss out. If a particular game is truly ‘that good’ I always have the option to replay it again on Xbox at a future time…if it’s one of the lucky few that get a port.
Wait, doesn’t Microsoft take a 30% commission fee for anything sold on Xbox…? I must be missing something, because that’s the most blatant ‘Rules for me, but not for thee’ I’ve ever seen.
I’d be thrilled if they put out a THPS 3+4 exactly like 1+2. Day one PS5 purchase for me (no way on God’s green earth I’m going to play this with the Xbox Dpad and triggers; as far as I’m concerned a PlayStation controller is required for THPS games).
I can’t say I blame him for passing on Guitar Hero—I still recall rolling my eyes when I first saw that big plastic guitar, thinking, ‘Yeah right, who wants that junk?’ Man were we both wrong.
Some of the other titles he listed though? How could you not know they’d be huge?
Comments 513
Re: EA Reveals Info On All Six Difficulty Levels In Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Better not gatekeep achievements behind some arbitrary difficulty setting. That’s like only building a set of stairs leading to the achievement and saying ‘F anyone who uses a ramp’
Re: Xbox Game Pass's Newest Addition Is Perfect For Achievement Hunters
There really needs to be some form of standardization implemented by both platform holders as to what is acceptable Achievement/Trophy criteria, and what is not.
Online, server dependent achievements shoehorned into otherwise single player games and without a built in backup method of unlocking them should be out.
Absurd, ludicrously difficult achievements the vast majority of normal gamers cannot unlock should be out. Remember, these aren’t actual trophies. Only one person/team can win the gold in an Olympic event, whereas achievements and trophies are fundamentally designed so that anyone who buys the game should—by rights—be able to unlock it. Gatekeeping them behind insane difficulties is offensive and borderline abusive.
Forcing multiple replays or overly tedious collect-a-thons should be out. Attaching achievements to game modes that are fundamentally different than the base game experience should be out. I loved Ghostwire Tokyo; I had less than no interest in playing a tacked on, low effort rogue lite mode designed to artificially pad out the experience and I should not be forced to play garbage like that just to obtain all achievements or trophies.
The ideal solution to all these issues is for both platform holders to enable the user to either opt out of earning trophies/achievements, or to have the ability to permanently delete games with partially completed achievements from their accounts. Not merely hide them; permanently erase all record of their existence, no matter if it’s 1% or 99% complete. No one should be forced to have a game sitting at an arbitrary percentage simply because it’s glitched, the servers are shut down, or because the trophy criteria is absurd.
Re: Roundup: Metaphor: ReFantazio Is An Xbox GOTY Candidate As Early Reviews Roll In
Removed
Re: Halo Dev Explains Decision Behind Ditching Its Old Game Engine
Someone slap Todd Howard in the back of the head to get his attention. Doesn’t need to be UE5, but I’d like to play a Bethesda game made using a competently designed engine that isn’t 20+ years old.
It would be nice to play without falling through the map, getting stuck in environmental debris, or randomly crashing to the dashboard every 20mins. It would be nice to have competent ai pathfinding. It would be nice to iron out more than 20% of game breaking bugs prior to launch. It would be nice to see some granular details in the environments that help bring them to life, like, oh I don’t know, foliage that gently sways in the breeze instead of static, cardboard cutout trees. It would be nice to focus on story, gameplay and memorable characters instead of how many potatoes can be crammed into a vault before the frames start to chug. It would be nice to play uninterrupted by load screens for more than a few minutes at a time.
It would be nice, just once, to play a BGS game without constantly thinking ‘This is ok, there’s something here, but why doesn’t it look as good as [insert game]? Why doesn’t it feel as responsive to play as [insert game]? Why aren’t these npc’s reacting like in [insert game]? Why isn’t X, Y, or Z as good as in [insert game]?’
Re: Lots Of Games Are Discounted By 90% On Xbox This Week (October 1-8)
@GuyinPA75 You’re correct on all counts, but the game has so much to offer in other areas that it offsets the flaws. At least that’s how I felt during my playthrough.
It’s sort of similar to your run of the mill Bethesda Softworks game—a janky, broken mess glutted with endless glitches and unintuitive mechanics, but there’s enough ‘good’ to outweigh the bad, at least for a length of time. Maybe that’s not an ideal comparison, I don’t mean to imply KCD is anywhere near as fundamentally broken as a Bethesda game, but you get the point. At the sale price you really can’t go wrong. I recommend KCD
Re: Talking Point: Which Xbox Games Have The Best Box Art?
Absolutely disagree with Klobrille about the Avowed box art. The visual aesthetic pervading that entire game is an atrocious Lisa Frank parody—and that extends to the box art.
If I were to pick a few box art standouts, I’d go with the super stylized MGS2: Substance on original Xbox (Yoji Shinkawa is on the same ethereal plane as Yoshitaka Amano as far as I’m concerned), the clean and minimalist Oblivion on 360, and maybe Halo Infinite on Series machines—that art is admittedly pretty epic.
Games with graphical styles that make me want to take a cheese grater to my eyes (Fortnite, Diablo 3, Avowed, new Dragon Age etc) should not even have box art.
Re: Halo Infinite Is Getting Third-Person Mode Later This Year
This sounds like something I’d try for 5mins for the novelty, then go back to first person and never touch it again.
Re: Xbox Japan Takes Us Through A Tokyo Game Show Journey, Featuring Phil Spencer
He gets a lot of flak, but Phil has a pretty awesome job. Who wouldn’t want to be in Japan at TGS playing the latest games with developers, industry veterans and insiders?
Re: Roundup: Diablo 4: Vessel Of Hatred Gets Great Reviews Ahead Of Xbox Launch
Is this still only playable online? I bypassed it like the plague at launch, just like GT7 and any other otherwise fantastic game that has the disgusting online-only anchor unnecessarily thrown around its neck. Just wondering if they corrected their mistake yet and patched in the offline mode that it rightly should have launched with.
Re: Report: Ubisoft Is Considering A Buyout From Tencent & Partners
As long as tencent or whoever picks them up continues to sell physical discs individually and not try to digitally lock everyone into a rental service wherein titles evaporate when your subscription does, that’s fine. Not that I particularly care for most Ubisoft titles; it’s more the principal of the matter.
Re: Metaphor: ReFantazio's First Review Is Getting Everyone Hyped For The Full Release
Really hoping Bloober Team pulls off a miracle with Silent Hill 2, and it looks like they just might! Despite general apathy surrounding it, I enjoyed The Medium very much.
Re: This Week's Xbox Deals Include A First-Ever Sale For Antstream Arcade
Control is phenomenal for anyone who hasn’t played it yet. Easily worth this price.
Re: Final Fantasy 16 Team Tells Xbox Players To Not Give Up Their 'Hopes'
I’ve already played the blurry, Vaseline-filter game on base PS5 at launch and can say with utmost confidence the only decent ways to play this are either PC or possibly the PS5 Pro. I can’t even imagine what the series S version will be like.
Re: YouTuber MVG Takes A Look At New Xbox One Emulation On Windows PC
Great video, MVG always puts out fascinating stuff.
Re: Getting A 'Lookup Failed' Error In Starfield Shattered Space? You're Not Alone!
This is next level stuff. I’m used to falling through the map, getting stuck in the stairs, inexplicably dying for no reason, random freezes, crashing to the dashboard, having my saves corrupted, collision detection issues, texture loading issues, broken dialogue sequences, laughably bad NPC pathfinding, and many other game breaking bugs far too numerous to list here—but I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see a Bethesda title glitch before you even get into the game
Re: Phil Spencer Congratulates Tokyo Game Show Host On Doing 'An Amazing Job' For Xbox
I suppose this is old school mentality, but I think the best hosts more or less blend into the background and let the games do the talking.
Re: Random: Xbox Extends Phil Spencer's PS5 Controller Joke
Cross button placement is fine where it is. I would, however, love to see Sony embrace offset sticks. Then it would truly be the perfect controller.
Re: October 2024's Xbox Game Pass List Is Looking Surprisingly Empty So Far
@Fishmasterflex96 I vaguely recall reading an article addressing the possibility of Sekiro as a gamepass drop. I do not recall the specifics, or even the source of the article, but I’m not sure it’s as simple as ‘Xbox owns Activision so that means they own Sekiro’. Publishing agreements are complicated. Unless someone can post a link to a definitive article and source, I wouldn’t count on a Sekiro drop.
Re: Konami Unveils Huge Metal Gear Solid Collection Update With Improved Resolutions
Hnngghhhh…That’s good, DAMN good. I want some more!
Re: Video: Sonic X Shadow Generations Story Trailer Released Ahead Of Xbox Launch
Yeah…I think I’ll just wait for whatever the next 2D Sonic game is.
Re: Xbox Unveils New Transparent Controller Along With Six 'Design Lab' Variants
Funny thing—it seems the worse the game, the more awesome the special edition controller for it is. Starfield is a dumpster fire and that controller is sick. Concord is…I don’t know, whatever is worse than a dumpster fire—a porta potty fire?—and that controller is freakin awesome. Shame we never got a Redfall pad, I bet that would have been amazing too.
Re: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Delivers 'Mixed' Results On Xbox One, Says Digital Foundry
I have a bad feeling about this…
Re: Capcom Asks Fans If They Would Like To See More 'Deluxe Remasters'
I’d prefer the grand, full on remake treatment for RE:0 and RE: Code Veronica. RE5 and RE6 are rubbish, so hopefully they won’t waste the time or money on them and instead do something like Dino Crisis or maybe something a bit more obscure like Viewtiful Joe.
Re: Xbox Provides 'Progress Update' On Its Carbon Reduction Goals
I think I’d rather be coughing from smog with a pile of great games waiting to be played…
Re: Rumour: Microsoft To Launch Next-Gen With Series X Successor & Handheld Xbox
This is good news. I have less than no interest in a handheld with a tiny screen, cramped controls and compromised performance. I’m not addicted to technology, and I don’t have a 4hr commute. I don’t need to play Xbox on the toilet or on the go. A traditional, powerful, under-the-tv box is all I want.
Re: Bizarrely, Minecraft Is Getting A Native PS5 Version But Not Xbox Series X|S
Mom, can we have a native current gen version of Minecraft at home?
We have native current gen Minecraft on PS5.
Re: Xbox's Sarah Bond Initially 'Clashed' With Phil Spencer When Working Together
This is so backward. With the way Microsoft and Xbox’s chain of command is structured, we really shouldn’t be reading articles about this sort of thing happening. It seems like a competent structure with well delegated roles and responsibilities. Instead, we should be reading articles like these about Playstation’s organization structure, which is quite literally like the Co-Manager episode of The Office.
Re: Xbox Series X|S Console Sales Estimated At Under Half Of PS5 In New Report
This is certainly a strange predicament.
If Xbox were owned by a different parent company that had made all the same decisions, it would undoubtedly have already exited the console business or be flatlining as we speak. But Microsoft does own Xbox. Yes, that same $3 Trillion Microsoft. They could keep Xbox afloat until the end of time…if they choose to. And that’s the predicament. Sony is not the threat. Government institutions (CMA, FTC etc) are not the threat. Microsoft is the threat. They have shuttered far more profitable ventures for far, far less.
Who knows what will happen years down the road.
Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Will Have Drastically Lower Install Sizes
Pretty cool! Always nice to see little optimizations here and there, and I’m sure countless fans’ SSD’s will be thankful. This is one of those games that if it winds up getting ported to PS5, I’d be very curious to see if any further file-size reductions would occur with the better compression tech.
Re: Huge 'Best Rated Sale' Highlights This Week's Deals On The Xbox Store
Glad they’re putting some Activision gems on steep discount. Spyro trilogy and THPS 1+2 are eminently worthy of owning, not paying a fee to rent.
Re: Bethesda Veteran Says It Will Be 'Almost Impossible' For ES6 To Meet Expectations
I want to see some major improvements for ES6. I’d like basic character movement to feel less like the world map is a 3D treadmill under my character that I adjust with the right stick.
Better combat is a must. Less ‘Did I hit him? I think I hit him. I can’t tell if I hit him. Wait, did he hit me?’ and more tactile feedback reinforcement along with other subtle nuances like better lateral movement to tighten combat.
Better visuals. I don’t just mean higher resolution, I mean higher detailed models with higher poly counts. Maybe some actual facial capture instead of rudimentary animations from 20 years ago? Cloth physics, subsurface scattering, self shadowing, better PBR materials etc etc etc.
Better NPC/enemy AI is an absolute must. Maybe this game will have companions that can successfully navigate minor obstacles without having to hold their hand every step of the way. Maybe they’ll attack the enemy standing in their path and currently body blocking them instead of fixating on one hiding behind cover at the far end of the room.
For the love of god I would like to be able to play for more than 15 minutes without falling through the map, getting stuck in the floor, being caught waist deep in a staircase, clipping through walls, having enemies/objects randomly disappear or experiencing yet another crash and being booted to the dashboard. Maybe this time I’ll be able to complete all the quests, instead of only some due to game breaking bugs and glitches.
Is that too much to ask?
Re: Rumour: Microsoft Employees 'Completely Confused' About New Xbox Strategy, Says Insider
@GuyinPA75 It might be splitting hairs, but I’d argue it isn’t the Series S itself holding anything back, it’s the parity clause Microsoft has mandated that is the issue. Unless you’re a force majeure, out-of-nowhere GotY contender which took the world by storm like Baldur’s Gate 3, you get no special treatment and must abide by it, even if it hamstrings what could otherwise be a top tier Series X experience.
Re: Xbox Dev Confirms Backwards Compatibility Issue, Provides Temporary Workaround
Glad to see this is at least something of a priority. BC is easily the best feature of the Series consoles and the one I use most often. It’s astonishing how trash Sony’s BC is, considering the treasure trove of older games at their disposal, just sitting there doing nothing. What a waste.
Re: Talking Point: What Are Your Fondest Memories Of The Original Xbox?
Mostly great memories of the original Xbox. So many unique gems, Japanese exclusives and fresh gameplay ideas during this time it was hard not to find something to like. The original controller was an abomination, and the type S wasn’t much better, but it hardly mattered when a good chunk of third party stuff looked and ran considerably better than on the competition. I was fortunate enough to have all 3 consoles of the era (minus the Dreamcast which I sadly never owned), so I had access to Nintendo’s S-tier first party stuff, PS2’s S-tier exclusives and Xbox’s S-tier third party ports. Great times, back before it all went downhill.
Re: Xbox Has Begun Including Handhelds In Promotional Images
A little worrying to me, to be honest. Never cared for handhelds. They’re fine as a supplemental way to play games, as an add, but I genuinely hope this direction does not become the focus of Xbox going forward.
Why would I want to sit hunched over a tiny screen using cramped controls and a questionable interface to play a compromised experience, when I could sit in front of a glorious 77” OLED from the comfort of my armchair or a high refresh rate monitor on the most powerful hardware my money can buy? Does everyone else have a 4hr. commute on the Shinkansen or something?
Re: Funko Fusion Hits Xbox Today, And Here's What The First Reviews Are Saying
@Markatron84 Maybe Phil was wrong. Maybe there is a world where a game is a 6.5 out of 5 and people start abandoning their PlayStations and flock to Xbox.
Re: Tony Hawk Confirms He's Working With Activision On 'Exciting' 25th Anniversary Plans
THPS 3+4 is all I really want, and hopefully it’ll be multiplatform. I cannot stand the horrendous, god awful Xbox Dpad, and the slightly convex face buttons also feel a bit awkward when trying to bust out combos in the tens of millions.
Re: EA Reveals Performance Targets For Star Wars Jedi: Survivor On Xbox One
That’s a logical set of metrics if you ask me, right in line with the performance capabilities of each console. Yeah, 720p is a blurry mess, but if you’re still playing on an Xbox one it’s a safe bet cutting edge technology and razor sharp resolutions probably aren’t your biggest priorities.
Re: PS5 Pro's $699 Price Was 'Easier Decision' Due To Lack Of Xbox Competitor, Says Analysis
$700 (or $780 to play all my discs…) is too much. But then again, so is $600 for the Series X refresh with just more storage and some speckles. Looking at that, $100 more for a considerably more capable machine actually doesn’t sound so bad. But it’s still, as the meme goes, ‘Too d*** high’
Re: Don't Get Your Hopes Up About Banjo-Kazooie, Suggests New Xbox Rumour
Statements like this make me think of all the pundits and ‘tubers using the angle ‘This is great for gamers because if the Activision deal goes through Microsoft will start reviving long dormant IP’s. Imagine a new Hexen/Starcraft/THPS/Spyro etc etc etc!’
Seems it was all about mobile and the CoD warmachine all along. Could all those pundits and ‘tubers have been wrong…?
Re: Xbox's New 'Standard' Game Pass Tier Is Now Available To Everyone
I miss the days when the business model was ‘Make great games that are complete at launch, sell them individually, let the customer own them in perpetuity.’
Re: Xbox Series X Is The Console Of Choice For Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, Says Analysis
Not anymore it isn’t. But the privilege of those extra frames will cost an eye watering $700
Re: Xbox's New 'Sonic Legacy Bundle' Includes A Recently Delisted Classic
@Markatron84 Good to meet someone with similar taste. I love Sonic, no doubt about it, but I am of the opinion there has never been a good 3D Sonic game to date. From abysmal control and basic movement to highly questionable character designs, I’ve been perpetually disappointed in Sonic’s foray into the third dimension. Thank god for fantastic 2D Sonic’s like Sonic Mania to carry me through.
Re: Soapbox: 12 Months Later, I Definitely Still Miss Xbox Games With Gold
The games given out were largely of poor quality, but I infinitely prefer the business model behind GwG. There is no world where I would rather rent than own. So in that sense it is indeed a step backward for gamers, but a step in the direction of more money for Micro$oft.
Re: Rumour: 'Whole Slate' Of Modern Final Fantasy Games Expected To Release On Xbox
It’s situations like this that prompted me long ago to decide to play all my Japanese games elsewhere. Sometimes they eventually get ported, sometimes they don’t; rarer still is the simultaneous launch. It’s a hassle when you want to play something day 1. I just play Japanese titles on one of the Japanese boxes to ensure I don’t miss out. If a particular game is truly ‘that good’ I always have the option to replay it again on Xbox at a future time…if it’s one of the lucky few that get a port.
Re: New Xbox Bug Causes Backwards Compatibility Issue For Some Games
One step forward, two steps back…
Re: Microsoft Says Native Xbox Cloud Gaming App Remains 'Impossible' On Apple Devices
Wait, doesn’t Microsoft take a 30% commission fee for anything sold on Xbox…? I must be missing something, because that’s the most blatant ‘Rules for me, but not for thee’ I’ve ever seen.
Re: Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP Is Getting An 'Original Mode' That Reproduces The Xbox 360 Experience
Never played this, no interest. However, I laud the addition of this ‘original experience’ mode. Every remake/remaster should include this bar none.
Re: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Socials Updated For 25th Anniversary
I’d be thrilled if they put out a THPS 3+4 exactly like 1+2. Day one PS5 purchase for me (no way on God’s green earth I’m going to play this with the Xbox Dpad and triggers; as far as I’m concerned a PlayStation controller is required for THPS games).
Re: Phil Spencer Talks About Two Activision Games That Xbox Missed Out On Signing
I can’t say I blame him for passing on Guitar Hero—I still recall rolling my eyes when I first saw that big plastic guitar, thinking, ‘Yeah right, who wants that junk?’ Man were we both wrong.
Some of the other titles he listed though? How could you not know they’d be huge?