Aha I see what you did there Ol' Micky Softy.

You increase the price of your games across the board and THEN announce a remake of your top franchises on Playstation. It's almost like you KNEW PS owners were going to buy this. Crazy hustle.

Game Pass has given more this month than Ubisoft+ gives in a year.

A lotta yall saying avowed, but I gotta say South of Midnight. Its reminds me of those early game cube / ps2 games like Beyond Good and Evil and Prince of Persia but with a completely fresh art style and setting.

What's interesting is that Cyberpunk runs notably worse on switch 2 than series S, which is surprising to me

I'm sure Spencer briefed Nadella on this reality. If they moved to a multi-plat model, console sales would plummet even further.

We all knew this, and I'm sure the Xbox team mapped out forecasts detailing this until their new "PC thinly veiled as an Xbox" generation gets released.

For whatever reason, they see more growth potential on this route.

I simply cannot wait to earn achievements for spell-checking my Word Docs.

I'm sure the story is good... but the constant load screens were just too much for me to really get into it

Heyo I was about to buy this later tonight, score! Thank you to my favorite coporate jargon dispenser: Phill Spencer!

Hear me out on this one–

Custom...gadgets. Have a gadget store, an R&D department, or whatever. Give me the option to build and upgrade HUNDREDS of traversal and combat gadgets.

So tears of the kingdom... but Batman

@TheEstablishment I totally agree with you, but I disagree with the full blast third party approach MS seems to enjoy. An exclusivity window of one year would be enough to boost game pass subscriptions.

Case and point–I subscribed to peacock to watch the super mario bros movie. It's on other platforms now, but I'm still subbed to Peacock because I came to like the platform.

Timed exclusivity works and I don't understand why MS seems to be ignoring that for major releases like DOOM.

@Prestige-worldwide I think it dilutes the game pass brand long term.

I assumed that halo would come to PlayStation eventually through a PS-native game pass client, but why would anyone sub to game pass without compelling exclusive content?

Like it or lump it, MS is the leader in games streaming services. They need to start acting like that and less like third in the console business.

Netflix doesn’t share originals because it dilutes their service value.

I'm curious about that skull and bones player engagement award–Does it have a dedicated fanbase of 5 or did the internet over-hate?

This won't be for everyone but damn it's for me. It looks SO good!

@TeiGekiLord which one?

South of Midnight and Ninja Gaiden 4 look great. Loved the day 1 shadow drop. Expedition 33 looks like a work of art. And Doom... Doom gave me testerone-inducing chills.

Gotta give it an A for the macho chills

Stealth Dropping a ninja action game is almost poetic. Well done.

If I were to bet–I'd say we see an "X-Deck" style portable device this year, but not a truly next-gen console.

Buh-buh-buh-blade perhaps?

South of Midnight just looks interesting,

Even if the gameplay is an assassin's creed-esque affair, I could look at the 15 on 30 on 60fps art style all day. I know it's not for everyone, but I love it.

Can you expand this list to include 2nd party studios and partner projects?

Toys for Bob announced a joint project with Xbox Studios for their next game

@Ricky-Spanish SAME. I'm one of the people who loved atomic heart, warts and all.

Atomfall looks to be in that same vein.

Aha looks like I'm booting COD up again to sleigh some zombies! 😏

(I'll see myself out)

I don't have a problem with "everything is an Xbox." I have a problem with them selling games OUTSIDE of their ecosystem.

If you want to focus on services, why get rid of your exclusives Nadella? Tell me now.

MS needs to invest in a support team that can help games across the finish line.

They’re biggest releases (Indy excluded) we’re all good to great games at their core, but we’re muddied down by bugs and technical issues.

Anyway, take your time and polish the game to a shine!

You want to know what’s crazy? When multi-play conversations began to happen, my first thought was a year of exclusivity.

If they don’t have any kind of exclusive offerings, how on Gods green earth can they expect game pass to grow?

Haven’t the other streaming giants shown us that content is King? (Nextlfix, Spotify both have compelling exclusive content)

@S1ayeR74 it’s the rug pull. When MS bought these studios, everyone thought it was to make their exclusive offerings more competitive.

Now that we’re seeing the fruits of these studios, they’re all multi-platform. It’s a bait and switch.

It’s fine, don’t get me wrong. I just wish MS was upfront on their strategy from the get go.

Sad to see outer worlds 2 is multi-platform.

“It’s actually great for gamers” yeah I know, it’s still sad.

Xbox had everyone excited 4 years ago when they bought these devs and it was all for a multi-platform rug pull

One big game per quarter.

It'll be harder to hate on Xbox if they're pumping out 8.5-9s every 3 months!

@GuyinPA75 Enjoyable? Yes. Extremely overhyped? Also yes!

Think about it:

Say the ABK deal was blocked... Would Indiana Jones and Doom the Dark Ages have been Xbox/PC exclusives?

Maybe.

Would Tango Gameworks have been dissolved? Maybe.

Would Xbox have more budget to put into Game Pass and internal game production without a massive ABK deal going through?

Possibly.

All of this makes me think that we're living in the dark timeline. Should Sony/FTC have won their fight to block the deal? Maybe.

With all of these updates, I'm sure this "generational" game will be an 8/10 one day

DO NOT sleep on Metal Slug Tactics. It's going to be soooo good.

Carrie Patel was the lead narrative designer for Outer Worlds. This is her first game, but when she says things like "Giving players things to dig into, that's what makes it meaningful roleplay"

I believe her.

If it can run 60 fps on Switch, it goes on Switch

I'll be honest, I was expecting worse... so well done box team!

@CenturianShark Agreed.

Craig Duncan's Rare has developed 2 games in 6 years (0 since 2020).

Mark Gordon's Treyarch has released 4 games in that same timeframe (6 if you count the zombies mode they wholly developed for other CoDs).

But sure–Hire Craig. Great decision. He's exactly what XGS needs.

The deal went to trial because the FTC claimed that ABK would give xbox a monopoly on the games industry.

Low and behold – That deal is exactly why Playstation will have a monopoly before long.

The deal was too large. It drilled a hole through Xbox. Now, Xbox is dying and MS is going third party to drive short-term revenue at the cost of the brand.

Just wait until the next gen, MS. When no one buys the nextbox, your carbon footprint will be virtually zero.

Everything's coming to PS5 eventually

Seeing as now Holiday 2024 is stacked with COD, STALKER 2, Indy and a slew of more niche exclusives, I get it.

...And out of all of that, MS delays the one I was looking forward to the most

I really like the "series" naming scheme. That said, they should have named the xbox one consoles family under the "series" moniker instead. Having "one" and "series" console families makes everything too confusing

The legend went from one PR dumpster fire to another

@Blaa Same. I've started Sonic Frontiers too. 60 fps. While there is pop-in, there's pop-in on every version of the game

Not to mention they've entered into a partnership with Toys for Bob, we haven't seen anything Everwild or Project Mara, and Xbox got another dozen or so studios with the ABK deal. Who knows what they can show!

Makes sense. We have no idea what Double Fine, Arkane Lyon, Beenox (assuming they're not on CoD watch again), and 343 have been cooking.

Sea of Theives dropping in the middle of a Playstation content drought was perfect timing.

I wonder if this was intentional on Microsoft's end...

I haven't even gotten to the deadspace remake yet. Too many good games on this service, too little time

Was it better than the Summer Games Fest showcase? Debatable (and that's a problem).

Did I miss the part where Xbox mentioned this deep dive in their games showcase? This looks great! It makes me wonder why they didn't highlight it more