Balaam_

Isn’t Costco massively huge in the retail space? Like top 5 biggest in the world or something? Unless this is some computer hiccup, this news does not bode well.

For those that prefer the pay-to-rent business model, this has to be awesome news. That’s a 3 fold increase in the amount of partners they’ve invested with. No small increase, that. Let’s just hope the games that get added to the service are of decent quality and not the type of slop infesting the Eshop or PSN. If each Expedition 33 is accompanied by a dozen Jumping Taco’s, that’s a pretty damp squib

@RiverGenie in more narrative focused, slower paced single player titles I’d disagree. But for online competitive multiplayer oriented games with big lobbies I think this is absolutely the correct choice. No one is stopping to nitpick global illumination, the extent to which ambient occlusion fills interiors or the resolution of VSM’s when you’re trying to avoid getting blasted by try hards as you scramble for cover.

Gave it a try. Once it finished downloading, I booted it up only to find my EA account and password evidently expired. It was too much of a chore to bother recovering the password or making a new account, so I just bailed (pun) and deleted it.

Already got my fill of FF7 (heads up to any achievement hunters out there, the trophy list was absolute filth so unless they changed it be prepared for a tedious nightmare of a slog to 100%). But that Fatal Frame 2 remake definitely has my attention, can’t wait for that one. Been ages since I played the original.

The article title implies only the gamepass version of Silksong will get this patch—it’s available for those who bought the game outright too, correct? If so, why the exclusionary verbiage in the title?

This is why online achievements and trophies were a bad idea from the start, or at least their inclusion in among a game’s otherwise offline achievements and trophies.

Once those servers go down, full completion becomes literally impossible. Online stuff should have a separate sku, disconnected from a game’s core list and thus preserve people’s ability to get 100% (or platinum on Sony’s machines). I and many others simply won’t play a game if full trophy/achievement completion isn’t possible, and it’s a deciding factor when purchasing new titles as well. Devs ought to take the achievement and trophy hunting community into account when they design the lists for their games, as realistically we’re the only people who actually care about them to begin with. Or at the very least, if you know your game’s servers are going down, why not simply Auto Unlock any relevant achievements or trophies so as to not permanently screw over those desperately trying to finish them before the axe drops?

Always been curious about this factor whenever those ‘[Game] hit [x] million players!’ headlines make the rounds. Unless it’s regarding a free to play or heavily monetized game, I don’t see how it’s a relevant metric by any stretch of the imagination. If x amount of the x million players only played for 5 minutes and then bounce, that specific percentage is irrelevant. Actual sales figures are what matter, and it seems like corporations attempt to hide poor sales behind a mask of ‘hours played/players engaged’ metrics. Even Sony has their head in the sand now, focusing on MAU’s.

Is there a relevant portion of the quote above that was accidentally clipped out? I see nothing to indicate it was because of PC. In fact, no hardware was mentioned of any kind.

At a glance, the gamepass version seems to be identical to the regular Xbox version they have for sale.

What do I want to see? A firm recommitment to the backward compatibility/FPS boost programs, a doubling down on console hardware focus, and a promise under oath that all first party software will ship physically with the full game on-disc(s).

What will we actually get? Probably a Forza announcement, some dlc for various titles, maybe a new partnership announced with a different hardware manufacturer or some other vague hardware related corporate mumbo jumbo, and maybe if we’re lucky some Fable gameplay.

That visual aesthetic is awesome.

I’ll miss CDPR’s Red Engine. That produced some amazing visuals in its time.

Devs said the same thing about Starfield, Black Myth Wukong and other games, but they eventually found a way to make them work on series S. You can get anything running on it, it’s all about how severely drastic the cutbacks and downgrades need to be. Sometimes it isn’t worth ridiculous compromise to have a game look like crap but be 60fps~. Better to have a decent looking 30fps.

Silksong is the indie equivalent of the effect GTA6 has on AAA games

I wonder how they determine what is ‘personalized’ for a particular person. If they’re just using an ai algorithm like YouTube recommendations or Google or copilot use, I’m guessing the ‘personalized’ ads will be as equally irrelevant as the non-personalized ones.

I wasn’t too worried about this one. The pc port scales quite well across a wide range of hardware, some even weaker than series s. This is a pretty great turnout, all things considered.

@RiverGenie Same sentiment here. Actually, I take it a step further. I would have played both, but the acheivement/trophy lists are equally horrendous. In the time it would take to 100%/Platinum either game on either console, I could completely finish a number of games from my backlog. My time is valuable, so when trophy and achievement hunting I have to make wise decisions with the time I have available. If a game’s list doesn’t respect my time, I can’t really be bothered with it.

Once was enough. I didn’t even bother with the other portions of the game, any of the multiplayer stuff. They don’t respect my time as an achievement hunter, I don’t bother with their content. Promptly made a fresh account after that and chose my games/achievements much more carefully after that, looking up the lists well in advance. 100% completion rate or nothing.

Games like THPS 3+4 or Forza aren’t exactly great barometers to measure performance. They’re awesome games to be sure, but extremely well optimized. It would be far more enlightening to see how something incredibly poorly optimized, like say Starfield, ran on the machine.

I hope the image at the top of the article is blurry and low res because of the phone camera quality of whoever took the picture, and that isn’t actually representative of the image quality of the device, because…yikes.

A brilliantly designed piece of hardware that never even came close to seeing its full potential realized. This gen would need to last another 5 years before we’d see it pushed to the limits. Maybe in 20 years after it’s been retro for some time we will see someone squeeze every last drop out of it, like that one guy did with 3DO recently

Expect to see more and more of this type of advertising from Team Blue. Probably most of their GaaS titles from this point forward will get a similar push. My personal hope is that some experimental titles will finally cross the great divide, since that’s as close as we’ll ever get to ‘the full slate’. But hey, I’ll take what I can get.

One of the absolute worst achievement lists I’ve ever seen, and now PlayStation players will get to feel the pain as well. I’d estimate that instead of just the ‘Seriously…’ achievement alone, one could 100% (or platinum on PS) 5-10 average sized games. This is so laughably not worth the investment. I’ve played Gears once on 360, it was decent, but not taking this opportunity to correct a bad decision like this achievement which does not respect an achievement hunters’ time means they won’t get a penny from me on either platform.

Played a bit of it on PS5 already, really mediocre stuff. It isn’t bad, it just isn’t all that good. If you’re a die hard Chinese mythology addict and enjoy soulslikes I’d say maybe give it a try, otherwise you’d be better off choosing something a bit more polished and robust.

@rhyno_888 good luck with all that 😆

It’s getting an engine overhaul “in Xbox game pass”—does that mean if someone bought the game outright that we won’t qualify for the updated version? It’s only available through Gamepass?

Their next tv dinner will offer the largest caloric leap ever.

Eager to play these, but waiting on the LRG physical preorders to go live. Would rather not purchase from LRG, but in lieu of anyone else offering a physical copy with the full games on disc it’s either lease digital code on the console storefront or buy from them and own it forever.

I get that there’s a minimum character requirement for a comment, but I do wish I could simply post the smug ‘exactly what I said earlier’ smiley face 😏

Did we even know what this was supposed to be? I only vaguely remember a logo during a showcase and that’s about it.

Is the screen shaped like a trapezoid, or is that an optical illusion caused by the ergonomic slant of the plastic shell and handgrips? I could swear the bottom of the screen is ever so slightly wider than the top, but that doesn’t make any sense 😆

Phil’s looking trim. For awhile I was low key worried about his health, he didn’t look good. Glad to see he dropped some weight, I bet he feels better too.

8bitDo makes good stuff. This looks to be of good quality, and that D pad has got to be a noticeable improvement over the one on the standard oem controller.

“What are your first impressions of Grounded 2 on Xbox Game Pass?”

Probably the same as my impressions of the game if I played it on the console without game pass? I still don’t get these article titles—the platform is Xbox isn’t it? Game pass is simply a subscription service offered on the platform. It’s like asking specifically what someone’s thoughts are on the cloud version of Grounded 2 or the ‘Xbox on pc’ version. I’d save myself the time and just type ‘What are your impressions of [insert game title] on Xbox?’

@Banjo- they literally said cpu constrained scenarios are a rarity and that the gpu metric is more relevant in typical scenarios.

They’ll be either live service titles or smaller experimental collaborative efforts like Lego horizon. That isn’t a bad thing per se, but anyone delusional enough to expect Kratos or other sad dads to make an appearance will be disappointed.

This isn’t surprising. Most of these Xbox games are of outstanding quality, and also fill niches on that platform where games of their type are lacking.

The worst thing about all of this is the nagging thought, What if these titles, both new and old, had remained console exclusives? It’s like Xbox, after all these years, finally got to the place where great games weren’t just trickling in but were arriving with consistent cadence. Can’t help but wonder if the tide could have turned without sacrificing brand identity or setting a course toward end goals the hardcore user here since the beginning has no interest in 😞

The ‘Sony’s full slate going multiplat!’ hysteria that swept the internet over the weekend has already been debunked, clarifying this post was limited to GaaS type games, licensed stuff like MLB and/or more experimental stuff like that Lego Horizon game they tried putting on switch.

Operating under these terms I’m not all that interested in any more GaaS (although they’d be smart to port that stuff as they thrive on player counts). I’m actually far, far more excited by the prospect of something niche and experimental. I would love to see one of their 1st party IP’s used in something strange and unique that ends up on this console. Imagine how awesome an It Takes Two/Split Fiction style game would be where the two protagonists are an Xbox mascot and a Sony mascot. Master Chief and Kratos in a co op adventure, something along those lines.

I like to think of relevant Terminator movie quotes at times like these. For some reason the end of T2 popped in my mind; “Will this melt in there?” “Yes. Throw it in.”

No way this is a high priority, but I’d love a Quantum Break PS5 port. Having all the Alan Wake universe Remedy games all in one place with trophies would be awesome.

It’s like a stay of execution. Prominent, big budget games will rise in price eventually to be sure, but at least it isn’t imminent any longer. Yay.

Just as a side point, isn’t this ‘in line with market conditions’ verbiage the same wording the Moon Studios guy just got raked over the coals for when citing the reason why his (admittedly lacklustre looking) game is skipping Xbox for the time being? I guess there’s only outrage when it’s perceived as bad news, and the exact same reasoning is ok when it produces positive results 🤔

The DigitalFoundry coverage of this will be interesting. These are the guys that argued why 60fps couldn’t/shouldn’t/won’t be done on console when the game originally launched, so unless they decide to ignore their previous assertion it’ll have to be addressed.

Also, new drinking game: Every time John mispronounces the word ‘basically’ as “basely”, take a drink. Or don’t. Alcohol poisoning is a serious matter.

This looks legit pretty cool. Also, can’t wait for the sequel ‘That’s What She Said’

Keeper, easily.

CoD is a game suitable for the intelligence level of the people who play it, people who are mentally stimulated by running around in circles shooting, dying and repeating. Outer Worlds is just not my cup of tea. Too much ‘personality’ and not enough quality systems and gameplay design decisions. Ninja Gaiden 4 looks awesome, but I’m fairly certain the achievement list will not be catering toward acheivement hunters, so I’ll play that on my alt when I can pick it up for $5.

…yikes. I hope this isn’t true. For these prices you’d be better off grabbing a decent pc gpu, or if you’re set on a console just grab a series X or PS5 and a Switch 2 for about that price. That rog ally with an Xbox sticker pricing is just too high for what little you actually get.

According to Copilot, Microsoft is just an anagram for Skynet

sniff sniff
Reeks of 3DO.

Double Fine is one of the few studios I don’t even question if what’s coming will be of good quality. Which is an ever increasing rarity these days. I think it’s pretty clear to everyone that the ‘let them cook’ mentality has wrought catastrophe on both Sony and Microsoft’s teams this generation, but Double Fine is truly a studio where that sentiment applies. Let them be and we will get something genuinely entertaining and in a reasonable amount of time. I’m far, far more worried about the useless waste of carbon Neanderthal executives at Microsoft screwing Double Fine over with their own stupidity than for DF to do anything out of sorts.