Costs money.
Eats into profit.
That'll take more than a day.
Takes more than one temp / intern.
Too customer focused.
Ooh, we can charge more for that.
Goes back to browsing Porsche configurator and sites selling watches. Copilot pops up - "I see from your browser history that you're looking to buy a boat, can I help you with that?"
@themightyant It's very much a re-skin. It feels to me like they forked development of the new game before they implemented some major fixes to the code of FH5, and then didn't compare notes ever again. One example is cockpit view in certain parts of the map e.g. the snowy region, when driving uphill and you see more of the sky. The lighting is still all blown out, even in cars like the Ariel with no real windscreen. It was like this for a good while in FH5 until they eventually patched it.
The new setting is quality. There are shades of the best bits of previous games all over the map, and I'm really enjoying exploring it. Multiplayer is still savage though.
@Runex2121 The drivatars are more challenging, I agree. I started FH5 on highly skilled as well, cranking it up when I got more familiar with the circuits and the game kept nagging me to do so. I think the playlist Trials challenges were on expert anyway, so they felt much more doable when I was tackling that level or above regularly. I defaulted to the same difficulty setting for the new game.
It's certain races, I reckon, or certain car classes, that are disproportionately more difficult / unfair than others. Somebody somewhere is snorting and saying "skill issue", and it might well be, but there's too much in the way of shenanigans for it to be that alone. I experimented a bit by dropping the difficulty one level at a time, and at a level which I forget the name of the AI performance dropped off a cliff - there was no gradual or scaling decrease apparent to me.
The main difference was that on higher skill levels, the AI started racing as pointlessly dirty and annoying as a typical multiplayer racer, e.g. slamming you into a wall on a straight or wide of a checkpoint for no good reason, or brake checking you, and while not even contending for a win. You just can't give these people enough room, they murder you in cold blood anyway. It's the few ruining it for the many, who in my opinion should be shadow relegated to matchmaking only with each other 🙄🫤 Perhaps the safety and decency scoring from Forza Motorsport is there in the background invisibly, but right now in the early days, the majority of races are just nonsense online.
Tried to win the Colossus in the cheat mode car (AMG One, loyalty car, untuned) this evening, but the AI streaked ahead and third was the best I could do. I could only keep up on the straights when drafting, making up time on the bends. The car does 230mph.
So I set up a Lambo for 255mph and... it was even worse. The drivatars were so far ahead that several times they actually blinked out of existence and teleported closer to me. One of those times they ended up causing a pileup amongst themselves. I've never seen more obvious rubber banding and other jiggery pokery.
I don't really want to change the difficulty yet but it doesn't feel balanced compared to FH4 or 5. I use highly skilled at the moment. I'm thrashing the drivatars in dirt, even on the Gauntlet, despite them using cheat mode on asphalt sections. Street and cross country put up more of a fight but are still a little too easy. High level road races are a stiffer challenge, and a seemingly unfair one at that. Goliath (the twisty one) is tough but just needs patience until you take the lead two thirds in. Colossus (the motorway one) is brutal.
I'm really enjoying the game overall, it's great, and my favourite car in the world is just perfect. The AI could do with a bit of tweaking though. That mechanic guy keeps divebombing me during his story then berating me for scratching his Skyline. It's comical 😂
I'm hooked. It's a lot of fun, whether carefully threading down a mountainside in an B class GR86 or blasting around in apparent fast-forward mode in R class. A lot of the cars are great, the money just burns a hole in my pocket. The apparent emphasis on mechanical grip and braking is enjoyable, but ultimately means nothing when folks shoehorn the same old racing V10 or rally turbo engine into everything and collision-ghost their way through corners. Still, it's a major improvement over 5. Over 4 though, well, jury is still out on that one.
It has some weak points. Same old UI lacking some quality of life. One of the stories I did today was pretty poor. The AI can be an absolute shambles despite my every effort to race cleanly. I now have a stat that says maximum collisions in a race is 28. One of them was my fault. The rest were drivatars dive-bombing into my door on the hairpins. It's so blatant that when I rewind and take avoiding action the AI misses checkpoints without me there as a crash barrier. That was a long race.
By far the biggest issue is (at least where I am) server disconnection, especially in the evening UK time. It's very apparent that when the game says "saving" it's actually communicating over the network, and it doesn't half break when it doesn't get a quick response. For a flagship title, one would think they'd be throwing Azure resources at it like the way players throw twin turbos at old beaters.
It's an excellent game. Very compelling. Fabulous setting. Runs very well on console. The personalities are less grating. I'd highly recommend it.
But...
The asking price is disgusting. Some of the same old bugs remain, e.g. stuck in first gear on replays. The UI could still use some quality of life fixes.
I use multi factor authentication wherever possible. Yesterday evening a surprise "authorise login" notification appeared. I denied it, then changed my password as a matter of course.
However, when I then checked my account activity, it indicated that no-one had tried to access my account, failed or otherwise. Strange..
I did wonder if signing back into the Xbox might be problematic due to the Forza launch, but it went without a hitch.
Yo. So, like, I checked this game out and honestly, I was like, totally feeling it was just some pretentious tale of these rich kids from the burbs back in the day, you know? I mean, I get the vibes, tracks, and some of those mondo refs, but like, for real, it just thinks it's all that, so I was like, whatever, bounce. And to be, like, totally relevant, a CD held at least 650MB, duh.
@epidemikK On the other hand, it could be argued that there is collusion between the companies making, supplying and requiring solid state chips for RAM, GPUs and SSDs, especially among those heavily invested and influential in the AI space (e.g. Microsoft, Nvidia), which has driven up private enterprise demand while choking the regular consumer supply. Nvidia have past form with the crypto boom. Fabrication hasn't necessarily decreased, rather the supply has been diverted, concentrated, and hoarded.
They key question, as always, is who made money, both just before and immediately after the price hikes and directly related industry shakeup? Who had notice and made trades? When prices then continued to spike, who made out like a bandit? There was money to be made by investing in a glut of such hardware back when prices were sane, sure, but certainly not now.
It is possible that within a year or two (or even three at the outside) someone with enough authority will seek evidence and make moves to find that what has happened is legally questionable and maybe even put these orgasnisations in their place, and the price of the hardware will potentially fall again. I would say that prices have already started to dip as, by and large, your average consumer hasn't chosen to part-exchange their car or remortgage their home to buy hardware at ludicrous prices.
If we want to get really conspiratorial, we could speculate that competition to the parties involved has been hamstrung by the RAM "shortage" and price increase. Who else has been looking to make a challenger TV PC box, or a PC gaming handheld, using AMD chips and not based on Windows, and has had to delay rollout? One example that comes to mind would be Valve.
@Feffster Squadrons is great. One of the finest games I ever played on PSVR. One of the very few occasions where EA had good guy vibes, releasing a very good game with a defined scope at a cut price.
Transformers Devastation was a smashing little PlatinumGames joint in the Bayonetta style which was faithful to the original cartoons and comics, and only got better with replays. I think I had it on disc second-hand for PS3. I could be wrong but I thought it was delisted years ago, something daft like a couple of years after release. Now that MS have Activision though... bring it back digitally and make it cheap, yeah? As Optimus Prime said, "Just remember, there's a thin line between being a hero and being a memory."
@Scrubchub Critics liked it but it didn't get the sales it deserved. It had some really strong competition for people's hard earned. Just some inconsequential titles like (checks online) Red Dead Redemption, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Blur, Alan Wake... good times...
Disney published it amongst all that noise and then pulled the plug on the studio about a year later.
@Banjo- It is 30fps and very stable at that. As with many games from that era it's heavily post-processed but it looks fine, and as an arcadey racer it plays well too. If I remember correctly it was even capped to 30 on PC unless you cracked the DRM applied a user created mod.
Be quick on that LB button for the instant replays!
@FraserG Cool, I see now, I took the "full confirmation" in the article literally. From the additional part here it's apparent that they've done away with the £10 upgrade option offered in the past.
Thanks for replying, love your work, and it's a busy time Hope you enjoy a long weekend
Together with Windows, Xbox is taking everything we’ve learned about building a world-class operating system for gaming
I'd like to see a few very basic features from Windows make it the other way, to the Xbox OS, especially considering that it's underpinning is Windows 11. Scheduled automatic updates for a start - for the love of whatever you believe in, let us set active and non-active hours and therefore auto-update overnight. Genuine multitasking as well please.
More than a few times I've switched the Series X on to sit down with my tea and stream something only for it to hijack all the bandwidth to update a game and then kill the stream stone dead. Then, because of a lack of graceful task switching, the streaming app falls over after I jump out of it to pause the download queue. Often, the HDCP then ***** the bed and I have to swap to another HDMI port on the telly just to be able to view the Xbox dashboard instead of a blank, black screen. It would be fine if it was possible to pause a download from the home button side bar. And I'd still get to enjoy a hot meal.
Instead, I now keep automatic game and app updates off. If I don't remember to check regularly, the OS will trigger an update when I launch a game. However, unlike Switch which gives you a choice to update now or just launch the game anyway, Xbox locks you out of the game and makes you wait for the download, even on single player offline games. It's world class something, so it is.
@ElectricWizard I think it's roughly about the same? Huge footprint. It'll probably end up increasing in size over time as well.
It will take an entire day and then some on my connection!
With FH5 there were sizeable weekly downloads as well, playlist updates and patches etc. which alone would take at least an hour or two for me as they were several GB in size. I lived in a city when FH5 was released and they still took a good while on fibre. Fingers crossed they continue to make these updates available on a Tuesday, so I have the chance to download them before they go live on a Thursday. Don't see why not really, they tend to let YouTubers have them a week in advance anyway, so they can spoil it for everyone create content.
Split/Second is awesome. No framerate boost on Xbox, which is criminal, but it's a damn fine game and to my mind I haven't seen anything else like it. My brother and I spent many hours hunched over a keyboard having a blast.
It's a far greater crime that Disney closed the UK based Black Rock Studio down the year or so after release because a potential sequel didn't fit Disney's utterly nonsensical freemium business model. Black Rock / Climax made great games. The MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology games on PC were fantastic, as was Pure.
@FraserG I suspect that this isn't quite accurate. The spacer's choice edition was an upgraded native version for current gen consoles, so I don't think that it is available on PS4, Switch, or Xbox One. If I remember correctly it was an edition for PS5 and Series consoles, as well as PC.
I've seen several games on the Xbox store that have both Xbox One and Series versions available. I think at least one of the games I own gives me the choice of both to download.
So it's your statement:
If you end up buying the Xbox One version and all its DLCs after the 27th, you'll automatically get a free upgrade
that seems innacurate, as the announcement states:
If you have at least the base edition of The Outer Worlds in your library before May 27th, you will be receiving the Spacer’s Choice Edition free
(Emphasis mine, edited for formatting)
(Edit 2: I do enjoy this site, so not to be pedantic, but it's "bear with us", not "bare". To bear in this context is to tolerate or carry, as in cross to bear)
@datamonkey The Switch 2 pro controller is the best one I've ever used. Very comfortable, ticks all the boxes. From day one it felt like a favourite pair of slippers.
When looking for a replacement for the standard Series X one I chose an 8bitDo Ultimate 3-mode specifically because it doesn't taper at the top and flare out at the bottom so much. This new Steam controller looks very ergonomic in a similar way.
@Eejay That's the impression I got, heavy F.E.A.R. vibes from the ultra-violence, the special effects, the theme. Wow, I haven't played that since the mid-2000's on PC. However in a similar way to the recent Raycevick video essay on Wreckreation, to me it doesn't seem to have the same depth of character, or sense of soul, at least going only from the trailer.
The way things are going, it isn't just the silicon that will be the issue, but maybe plastic as well. Will the next console and controller be made from an ABS alternative like ASA? PIR? Will it be crafted from hardwood? Will it be compostable? Will it only power up on sunny days and windy nights? Tune in next week to find out, same bat time, same bat channel...
I'd like the dashboard reorganised a bit. With my grotty rural internet connection I have to wait before I can scroll down beyond the first two rows, because their OS makes me sit and wait for the second row advertising and promotions to refresh instead of doing it quietly and seamlessly in the background.
Recently played on top, then my groups please, I have one called A/V for streaming apps and so on. That would feel more personal. Then Game Pass new and coming soon. I'll never have to scroll down again 🤞
They've knackered the achievements list from the bell icon at the bottom when pressing the home button. I'm no trophy hunter but when they pop off I like to have a looksee when I finish a session, especially the diamond ones or those that I didn't read during the game.
You used to be able to select the notification then choose an achievement from the list, read it, go back, select the next etc. and it remembered your place. Now it defaults back to the top of the list and you have to scroll from the start again, further and further each time.
Typical MS BS, a step forwards (or sideways) is usually accompanied by a step backwards somewhere else. Standard. shrug
I was surprised to find that a couple of months ago I could convert my points into a specific value here in the UK. Minimum of a fiver, rounded to the nearest quid, same conversion rate as gift card codes (full fat, not auto redeem). I was able to convert £14 worth to pick up a £13.99 game in the sale.
I'd stopped taking interest in rewards points after the last nerf. Made enough for three months of game pass ultimate the day before they changed it, about 36K I think 😅 Did the same the time before, but then it was about 27K points that I squeaked in. Halcyon days indeed 😂
Thanks to a few months of dipping into a couple of meaty RPGs on an almost daily basis, I'm now two days worth of play away from having enough points to nab a game bundle that's on sale for four more days. The unexpected value of owning a game that hits game pass - a drip feed of extra daily points.
@themightyant Upon reflection, looking at this from a bird's eye view, it has become apparent to me that she is in fact advocating a more synergistic approach, recognising that there are many plates to keep spinning, and that by getting all their ducks in a row they'll be able to get this across the line by optimising their workflow, prioritising cohesion, and remediating where appropriate in order to meet their aspiration of reducing churn rate.
@TrollOfWar Thank you for taking the time to write a clear explanation and contextual analysis. I'd upvote it more than once if I could.
I'd add that they're probably also feeling an immense technical debt from many years of just bodging it together, more than likely siloed and without sufficient (if any) documentation on a widely accessible knowledge base. I'm implying both within the games division and also the wider Microsoft culture here. It'll take a determined and deliberate effort to correct, and a sustained one to then maintain better practices.
Typically someone high up makes all the right noises but then it's "hey look, a squirrel" or "shareholders are getting upset, quick, do something else" and nothing of consequence is achieved as the really difficult but ultimately beneficial work is lost by the wayside. To see it through, that is the real test.
The trouble is, and I may be wrong here so correct me if I am, that if you have banked pre-paid game pass time and you want to downgrade, nothing changes until your pre-paid term expires, so what's the point?
Their website states When you downgrade, there is no immediate charge. Your current subscription will continue until your next renewal date, and then it will change to the new subscription level, and you’ll be charged the new subscription rate on that date
So if I want to convert my remaining time on Ultimate to, say, 2x that time on Premium, I can't do that?
Also from their website: When you upgrade to a Game Pass plan that includes benefits of a subscription you already have, we’ll convert remaining prepaid time and apply it toward your new plan at the current conversion ratio
This seems to mean that they're quite happy to let you upgrade from 2 years worth of Premium to less than one year worth of Ultimate, but not the other way round.
@Gabe250 Right? And they state that the docked quality mode is 40fps... unless they know something we don't about docked VRR support, that sounds sketchy.
This is a big improvement from the time when Microsoft put up a fight before replacing the rechargeable battery that I'd ordered directly from them, which was dead on arrival. Took several phone calls to convince them to cover the shipping to Germany for them to test it, before they sent me a replacement a couple of months later.
Compare this to Argos at about the same time. They sent me a blue Series controller instead of the black one that I'd ordered. Oh well, I thought, it's nice enough, and it's here, so I'll just keep it. Within a week, unprompted, a brand new black controller was delivered to my door with a letter apologising for the mistake, and telling me to just keep them both.
Let's be honest, if it takes 10-15 minutes to drive end to end on roads, probably at an average speed of around 100mph, then it'll feel big enough. FH4 pulled that trick off quite well, even down to the truncated version of Edinburgh. It really is more about how dense and interesting the landscape is, and how it feels to occupy it.
FH5 seemed to be a step backward in that respect, seeming more like vast swathes of flat empty wasteland in comparison, artificially broken up with a mangrove jungle, a canyon and a town. I remember in the first minute of playing we were launched off of the highest point at one end of the map and then ta-da, there's pretty much the entire thing revealed on your screen. Before much longer it was possible to straight line across the thing cross-country in an 800bhp missile. If you can go wide on a corner at 200mph and end up in a different biome before the brakes bring you to a halt, then something isn't quite right.
What's more likely to feel short-lived is the way a player earns access to the festival. I'm concerned that it'll be a few tourist races in beaters then back to business as usual, but here's hoping for a genuinely steady progression up the car classes. Having the world go by a bit slower, sipping it instead of wolfing it down in one gulp, will definitely make it seem more sizeable.
Oh cool! Jetpac! Fight Night! Wait a minute... (checks notes)
Ah, already own these from Games with Gold giveaways.
Split/Second is great, but no framerate boost. The original Super Meat Boy is fun and I'd argue that it's more worth your time than the new one, if finger cramping controller snapping games are your thing.
@theduckofdeath I played 1-4 near launch. Kiddo had them for Xbox, so when it was bedtime I got my shot. By the time I played AC1 it was heavily overshadowed by a not too dissimilar game on my PC which I enjoyed a lot more, Arkham Asylum, which was superior to me in every way. The AC2 trilogy were better than the original in my opinion, but the native American one didn't really hit the spot for me as it felt lacking in focus. AC4 however was a lot of fun, me hearty. I think I played that on a Playstation.
It was many years after release that I played others, which was very beneficial as they were content complete. I bounced off of the London one which I tried either on a subscription service or due to a giveaway, so no loss there. Never tried Unity, didn't have the hardware at the time and haven't looked for it subsequently. I bought Odyssey gold edition in a deep sale and loved it so much that I followed it up with Origins gold edition, which for sure had moments but overall seemed not quite as polished or enjoyable as the Greek adventure.
Valhalla is where I fell off the ride. I broke my own rule and didn't wait several years for them to finish it. Instead I purchased the gold edition in an early sale, additionally discounted by cashing in all of my accrued Ubi gold coins or whatever, to then find out that in a break from tradition it would not include all of the expansions (Ragnarok, for which they were charging more than I spent on the gold edition). That game had its moments, running around Britain busting heads with Mjölnir was a lot of fun, however it was chock full of bugs and at the end of the day really didn't feel like it respected my time at all. I say this as someone who would very happily walk, not run, around games such as Breath of the Wild, Witcher 3, Baldur's Gate, or Cyberpunk, where the world is a mile wide but also more than an inch deep.
I might give Shadows a go one day if it's dirt cheap or appears on game pass, as like many others back in the days of early AC I thought how cool it would be if they set one in Japan.
Well, if you don't sleep a wink and keep comfort breaks to a minimum, you might just get through one of these from beginning to end in the next few days, two if you absolutely beast it.
@Old_Man_Harper That's great to know! I bought this game for pennies way back in early access alpha on Steam, when it had one or two regions and the story mode was but a glint in the eye of Hinterland. It was worth a go back then, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they've done with it in the last eleven and a half years!
It's all good useful stuff, kudos, but it's also an effective way of smashing out the low hanging fruit early for PR purposes.
I'd surmise that they categorised user feedback in an Excel spreadsheet, weighted it on ease of implementation, and went with that as a starter for ten.
Custom accent colours are already built into Windows, so knock that out relatively quickly. Extending the groups count probably only needed some testing for usability and memory usage. Letting users decide whether quick resume is available to make a RAM dump to a swap file seems like another quick win, a fire and forget way to deal with games that don't gracefully reconnect to servers or bug out in other interesting ways, bonus for the onus being on the end user therefore reducing some trouble ticket volume.
Allow some customisation and control and you're more often than not onto a winner. Let insiders do the edge case testing for you, and post it on social media. Pub, anyone?
Super sampling? Nice. Super slopping? Nope. This is awful. Sure, enjoy it if it's your thing. Personally I'd rather not use the extra ¾ kilowatt or so of power consumption, thanks very much.
Comments 81
Re: These Are The Top 25 'XBOX Player Voice' Requests After One Week
Exec ruefully looks at list and shakes head
Costs money.
Eats into profit.
That'll take more than a day.
Takes more than one temp / intern.
Too customer focused.
Ooh, we can charge more for that.
Goes back to browsing Porsche configurator and sites selling watches. Copilot pops up - "I see from your browser history that you're looking to buy a boat, can I help you with that?"
Re: Poll: So, Is Forza Horizon 6 Your Favourite Game Of 2026 So Far?
@themightyant It's very much a re-skin. It feels to me like they forked development of the new game before they implemented some major fixes to the code of FH5, and then didn't compare notes ever again. One example is cockpit view in certain parts of the map e.g. the snowy region, when driving uphill and you see more of the sky. The lighting is still all blown out, even in cars like the Ariel with no real windscreen. It was like this for a good while in FH5 until they eventually patched it.
The new setting is quality. There are shades of the best bits of previous games all over the map, and I'm really enjoying exploring it. Multiplayer is still savage though.
Re: 15+ Xbox Games To Buy In The Microsoft Store's Late May 2026 Sales
I'm in for The Expanse, having binged on the show in the last year. It's on my wishlist so I'm surprised that I didn't get a message on the sidebar.
Re: 15+ Xbox Games To Buy In The Microsoft Store's Late May 2026 Sales
@Artist7XIII I hope you enjoy it. I did, made me smile. Proper old fashioned movie tie in type game.
When you get to the bar level, be sure to punch the jukebox!
Re: Four 'Areas Of Improvement' Are Already Being Worked On For Forza Horizon 6
@Runex2121 The drivatars are more challenging, I agree. I started FH5 on highly skilled as well, cranking it up when I got more familiar with the circuits and the game kept nagging me to do so. I think the playlist Trials challenges were on expert anyway, so they felt much more doable when I was tackling that level or above regularly. I defaulted to the same difficulty setting for the new game.
It's certain races, I reckon, or certain car classes, that are disproportionately more difficult / unfair than others. Somebody somewhere is snorting and saying "skill issue", and it might well be, but there's too much in the way of shenanigans for it to be that alone. I experimented a bit by dropping the difficulty one level at a time, and at a level which I forget the name of the AI performance dropped off a cliff - there was no gradual or scaling decrease apparent to me.
The main difference was that on higher skill levels, the AI started racing as pointlessly dirty and annoying as a typical multiplayer racer, e.g. slamming you into a wall on a straight or wide of a checkpoint for no good reason, or brake checking you, and while not even contending for a win. You just can't give these people enough room, they murder you in cold blood anyway. It's the few ruining it for the many, who in my opinion should be shadow relegated to matchmaking only with each other 🙄🫤 Perhaps the safety and decency scoring from Forza Motorsport is there in the background invisibly, but right now in the early days, the majority of races are just nonsense online.
Re: Four 'Areas Of Improvement' Are Already Being Worked On For Forza Horizon 6
Tried to win the Colossus in the cheat mode car (AMG One, loyalty car, untuned) this evening, but the AI streaked ahead and third was the best I could do. I could only keep up on the straights when drafting, making up time on the bends. The car does 230mph.
So I set up a Lambo for 255mph and... it was even worse. The drivatars were so far ahead that several times they actually blinked out of existence and teleported closer to me. One of those times they ended up causing a pileup amongst themselves. I've never seen more obvious rubber banding and other jiggery pokery.
I don't really want to change the difficulty yet but it doesn't feel balanced compared to FH4 or 5. I use highly skilled at the moment. I'm thrashing the drivatars in dirt, even on the Gauntlet, despite them using cheat mode on asphalt sections. Street and cross country put up more of a fight but are still a little too easy. High level road races are a stiffer challenge, and a seemingly unfair one at that. Goliath (the twisty one) is tough but just needs patience until you take the lead two thirds in. Colossus (the motorway one) is brutal.
I'm really enjoying the game overall, it's great, and my favourite car in the world is just perfect. The AI could do with a bit of tweaking though. That mechanic guy keeps divebombing me during his story then berating me for scratching his Skyline. It's comical 😂
Re: Forza Horizon 6 Smashes Concurrent Player Record For Xbox Game Studios On Steam
I'm hooked. It's a lot of fun, whether carefully threading down a mountainside in an B class GR86 or blasting around in apparent fast-forward mode in R class. A lot of the cars are great, the money just burns a hole in my pocket. The apparent emphasis on mechanical grip and braking is enjoyable, but ultimately means nothing when folks shoehorn the same old racing V10 or rally turbo engine into everything and collision-ghost their way through corners. Still, it's a major improvement over 5. Over 4 though, well, jury is still out on that one.
It has some weak points. Same old UI lacking some quality of life. One of the stories I did today was pretty poor. The AI can be an absolute shambles despite my every effort to race cleanly. I now have a stat that says maximum collisions in a race is 28. One of them was my fault. The rest were drivatars dive-bombing into my door on the hairpins. It's so blatant that when I rewind and take avoiding action the AI misses checkpoints without me there as a crash barrier. That was a long race.
By far the biggest issue is (at least where I am) server disconnection, especially in the evening UK time. It's very apparent that when the game says "saving" it's actually communicating over the network, and it doesn't half break when it doesn't get a quick response. For a flagship title, one would think they'd be throwing Azure resources at it like the way players throw twin turbos at old beaters.
Re: Two New Xbox Series X|S Backgrounds Added To Celebrate The Launch Of Forza Horizon 6
That's really lovely, but the big neon drone 'H' detracts from it for me, feels unnecessary. Kudos for leaving space for game tiles though.
Re: 'Xbox Or XBOX?' - Asha Sharma Hints At Rebrand Based On Poll Results
Not fussed what they do with the name, as long as we don't start typing XBOX like we're shouting at people.
Re: Forza Horizon 6 Is Immensely Popular Already, Even In Early Access
It's an excellent game. Very compelling. Fabulous setting. Runs very well on console. The personalities are less grating. I'd highly recommend it.
But...
The asking price is disgusting. Some of the same old bugs remain, e.g. stuck in first gear on replays. The UI could still use some quality of life fixes.
Re: Xbox 'Investigating' Issue With Passwords Not Working On Consoles
I use multi factor authentication wherever possible. Yesterday evening a surprise "authorise login" notification appeared. I denied it, then changed my password as a matter of course.
However, when I then checked my account activity, it indicated that no-one had tried to access my account, failed or otherwise. Strange..
I did wonder if signing back into the Xbox might be problematic due to the Forza launch, but it went without a hitch.
Re: Xbox Has Just Discounted Another 1000+ Games On The Microsoft Store
@VeganH Maybe not. However at that price it's about 43p (or 52¢) per hour 👍
Re: How To Play Forza Horizon 6 Early With The Premium Upgrade Bundle This Week
4am UTC / 5am BST chaps and chapettes.
From the FAQ:
Yeah, I'm in.
Re: Poll: What Are Your First Impressions Of Mixtape On Xbox Game Pass?
Yo. So, like, I checked this game out and honestly, I was like, totally feeling it was just some pretentious tale of these rich kids from the burbs back in the day, you know? I mean, I get the vibes, tracks, and some of those mondo refs, but like, for real, it just thinks it's all that, so I was like, whatever, bounce. And to be, like, totally relevant, a CD held at least 650MB, duh.
Re: Forza Horizon 6's Full Resolution & FPS Details Revealed For Xbox Series X|S
Proximity radar will be very useful, especially online.
Re: Forza Horizon 6 Download Sizes Revealed On Xbox & PC, And They're Huge
@epidemikK On the other hand, it could be argued that there is collusion between the companies making, supplying and requiring solid state chips for RAM, GPUs and SSDs, especially among those heavily invested and influential in the AI space (e.g. Microsoft, Nvidia), which has driven up private enterprise demand while choking the regular consumer supply. Nvidia have past form with the crypto boom. Fabrication hasn't necessarily decreased, rather the supply has been diverted, concentrated, and hoarded.
They key question, as always, is who made money, both just before and immediately after the price hikes and directly related industry shakeup? Who had notice and made trades? When prices then continued to spike, who made out like a bandit? There was money to be made by investing in a glut of such hardware back when prices were sane, sure, but certainly not now.
It is possible that within a year or two (or even three at the outside) someone with enough authority will seek evidence and make moves to find that what has happened is legally questionable and maybe even put these orgasnisations in their place, and the price of the hardware will potentially fall again. I would say that prices have already started to dip as, by and large, your average consumer hasn't chosen to part-exchange their car or remortgage their home to buy hardware at ludicrous prices.
If we want to get really conspiratorial, we could speculate that competition to the parties involved has been hamstrung by the RAM "shortage" and price increase. Who else has been looking to make a challenger TV PC box, or a PC gaming handheld, using AMD chips and not based on Windows, and has had to delay rollout? One example that comes to mind would be Valve.
Re: 30+ Xbox Games Are Reduced By 90-95% To Kick Off The New Month
@Feffster Squadrons is great. One of the finest games I ever played on PSVR. One of the very few occasions where EA had good guy vibes, releasing a very good game with a defined scope at a cut price.
Re: Xbox Exec Invites Fans To Share Backwards Compatibility Requests On Special Website
Transformers Devastation was a smashing little PlatinumGames joint in the Bayonetta style which was faithful to the original cartoons and comics, and only got better with replays. I think I had it on disc second-hand for PS3. I could be wrong but I thought it was delisted years ago, something daft like a couple of years after release. Now that MS have Activision though... bring it back digitally and make it cheap, yeah? As Optimus Prime said, "Just remember, there's a thin line between being a hero and being a memory."
Re: Deals: 25 Xbox Back Compat Games That Are Ridiculously Good Value This Week
@Scrubchub Critics liked it but it didn't get the sales it deserved. It had some really strong competition for people's hard earned. Just some inconsequential titles like (checks online) Red Dead Redemption, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Blur, Alan Wake... good times...
Disney published it amongst all that noise and then pulled the plug on the studio about a year later.
Re: Deals: 25 Xbox Back Compat Games That Are Ridiculously Good Value This Week
@Banjo- It is 30fps and very stable at that. As with many games from that era it's heavily post-processed but it looks fine, and as an arcadey racer it plays well too. If I remember correctly it was even capped to 30 on PC unless you
cracked the DRMapplied a user created mod.Be quick on that LB button for the instant replays!
Re: The Outer Worlds To Be Partially Delisted, Free 'Spacer's Choice Edition' For Those Affected
@FraserG Cool, I see now, I took the "full confirmation" in the article literally. From the additional part here it's apparent that they've done away with the £10 upgrade option offered in the past.
Thanks for replying, love your work, and it's a busy time Hope you enjoy a long weekend
Re: Xbox Mode Has Officially Arrived, Aiming To Bring A 'Console-Inspired Experience' To PC Users
I'd like to see a few very basic features from Windows make it the other way, to the Xbox OS, especially considering that it's underpinning is Windows 11. Scheduled automatic updates for a start - for the love of whatever you believe in, let us set active and non-active hours and therefore auto-update overnight. Genuine multitasking as well please.
More than a few times I've switched the Series X on to sit down with my tea and stream something only for it to hijack all the bandwidth to update a game and then kill the stream stone dead. Then, because of a lack of graceful task switching, the streaming app falls over after I jump out of it to pause the download queue. Often, the HDCP then ***** the bed and I have to swap to another HDMI port on the telly just to be able to view the Xbox dashboard instead of a blank, black screen. It would be fine if it was possible to pause a download from the home button side bar. And I'd still get to enjoy a hot meal.
Instead, I now keep automatic game and app updates off. If I don't remember to check regularly, the OS will trigger an update when I launch a game. However, unlike Switch which gives you a choice to update now or just launch the game anyway, Xbox locks you out of the game and makes you wait for the download, even on single player offline games. It's world class something, so it is.
Re: Forza Horizon 6 Download Sizes Revealed On Xbox & PC, And They're Huge
@ElectricWizard I think it's roughly about the same? Huge footprint. It'll probably end up increasing in size over time as well.
It will take an entire day and then some on my connection!
With FH5 there were sizeable weekly downloads as well, playlist updates and patches etc. which alone would take at least an hour or two for me as they were several GB in size. I lived in a city when FH5 was released and they still took a good while on fibre. Fingers crossed they continue to make these updates available on a Tuesday, so I have the chance to download them before they go live on a Thursday. Don't see why not really, they tend to let YouTubers have them a week in advance anyway, so they can
spoil it for everyonecreate content.Re: Deals: 25 Xbox Back Compat Games That Are Ridiculously Good Value This Week
Split/Second is awesome. No framerate boost on Xbox, which is criminal, but it's a damn fine game and to my mind I haven't seen anything else like it. My brother and I spent many hours hunched over a keyboard having a blast.
It's a far greater crime that Disney closed the UK based Black Rock Studio down the year or so after release because a potential sequel didn't fit Disney's utterly nonsensical freemium business model. Black Rock / Climax made great games. The MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology games on PC were fantastic, as was Pure.
Re: The Outer Worlds To Be Partially Delisted, Free 'Spacer's Choice Edition' For Those Affected
@FraserG I suspect that this isn't quite accurate. The spacer's choice edition was an upgraded native version for current gen consoles, so I don't think that it is available on PS4, Switch, or Xbox One. If I remember correctly it was an edition for PS5 and Series consoles, as well as PC.
I've seen several games on the Xbox store that have both Xbox One and Series versions available. I think at least one of the games I own gives me the choice of both to download.
So it's your statement:
that seems innacurate, as the announcement states:
(Emphasis mine, edited for formatting)
(Edit 2: I do enjoy this site, so not to be pedantic, but it's "bear with us", not "bare". To bear in this context is to tolerate or carry, as in cross to bear)
Re: Steam Controller Vs. Xbox Controller: What The Critics Are Saying So Far
@datamonkey The Switch 2 pro controller is the best one I've ever used. Very comfortable, ticks all the boxes. From day one it felt like a favourite pair of slippers.
When looking for a replacement for the standard Series X one I chose an 8bitDo Ultimate 3-mode specifically because it doesn't taper at the top and flare out at the bottom so much. This new Steam controller looks very ergonomic in a similar way.
Re: Microsoft CEO Says Xbox Is 'Recommitting To Our Core Fans' As Revenue Falls In FY26 Q3
WTF is a "core fan and player" and why weren't you committed to every user all along?
Re: Xbox Is Kicking Off The Week With Two New Game Pass Additions (April 28-29)
@Eejay That's the impression I got, heavy F.E.A.R. vibes from the ultra-violence, the special effects, the theme. Wow, I haven't played that since the mid-2000's on PC. However in a similar way to the recent Raycevick video essay on Wreckreation, to me it doesn't seem to have the same depth of character, or sense of soul, at least going only from the trailer.
Re: Asha Sharma Explains Why Xbox Isn't 'Ready' To Share A Release Timeline For Project Helix
The way things are going, it isn't just the silicon that will be the issue, but maybe plastic as well. Will the next console and controller be made from an ABS alternative like ASA? PIR? Will it be crafted from hardwood? Will it be compostable? Will it only power up on sunny days and windy nights? Tune in next week to find out, same bat time, same bat channel...
Re: Xbox Engineer Hints At More 'Fun Surprises' And Features Based On Fan Feedback
I'd like the dashboard reorganised a bit. With my grotty rural internet connection I have to wait before I can scroll down beyond the first two rows, because their OS makes me sit and wait for the second row advertising and promotions to refresh instead of doing it quietly and seamlessly in the background.
Recently played on top, then my groups please, I have one called A/V for streaming apps and so on. That would feel more personal. Then Game Pass new and coming soon. I'll never have to scroll down again 🤞
Re: Xbox Unveils New Logo And Explains How To Make It Your Series X|S Background
@themightyant Yeah 😄 I was thinking Windows Vista.
Maybe "XBOX" cast as a subtle perspective corrected shadow in that green glow at the bottom wouldn't look too naff.
As for the theme, maybe it does in fact take "a shocking amount of work" 😁
Re: Xbox's New Dashboard Update Is Now Available For All Users
They've knackered the achievements list from the bell icon at the bottom when pressing the home button. I'm no trophy hunter but when they pop off I like to have a looksee when I finish a session, especially the diamond ones or those that I didn't read during the game.
You used to be able to select the notification then choose an achievement from the list, read it, go back, select the next etc. and it remembered your place. Now it defaults back to the top of the list and you have to scroll from the start again, further and further each time.
Typical MS BS, a step forwards (or sideways) is usually accompanied by a step backwards somewhere else. Standard. shrug
Re: Xbox Rewards Points Are Being Turned Into An Actual Currency For Buying Games On Console
I was surprised to find that a couple of months ago I could convert my points into a specific value here in the UK. Minimum of a fiver, rounded to the nearest quid, same conversion rate as gift card codes (full fat, not auto redeem). I was able to convert £14 worth to pick up a £13.99 game in the sale.
I'd stopped taking interest in rewards points after the last nerf. Made enough for three months of game pass ultimate the day before they changed it, about 36K I think 😅 Did the same the time before, but then it was about 27K points that I squeaked in. Halcyon days indeed 😂
Thanks to a few months of dipping into a couple of meaty RPGs on an almost daily basis, I'm now two days worth of play away from having enough points to nab a game bundle that's on sale for four more days. The unexpected value of owning a game that hits game pass - a drip feed of extra daily points.
Re: Asha Sharma Lays Out Plans For 'Deeper Investment' In Xbox's Platform Foundations
@themightyant Upon reflection, looking at this from a bird's eye view, it has become apparent to me that she is in fact advocating a more synergistic approach, recognising that there are many plates to keep spinning, and that by getting all their ducks in a row they'll be able to get this across the line by optimising their workflow, prioritising cohesion, and remediating where appropriate in order to meet their aspiration of reducing churn rate.
Re: Xbox Unveils New Controller And Headset For Forza Horizon 6
That pad looks like a running shoe. Priced like one too. Does it come with 16GB of RAM? Ptooey.
Re: Asha Sharma Lays Out Plans For 'Deeper Investment' In Xbox's Platform Foundations
@TrollOfWar Thank you for taking the time to write a clear explanation and contextual analysis. I'd upvote it more than once if I could.
I'd add that they're probably also feeling an immense technical debt from many years of just bodging it together, more than likely siloed and without sufficient (if any) documentation on a widely accessible knowledge base. I'm implying both within the games division and also the wider Microsoft culture here. It'll take a determined and deliberate effort to correct, and a sustained one to then maintain better practices.
Typically someone high up makes all the right noises but then it's "hey look, a squirrel" or "shareholders are getting upset, quick, do something else" and nothing of consequence is achieved as the really difficult but ultimately beneficial work is lost by the wayside. To see it through, that is the real test.
Re: Xbox Boss Declares Game Pass Is 'Too Expensive' And Needs A 'Better Value Equation'
The trouble is, and I may be wrong here so correct me if I am, that if you have banked pre-paid game pass time and you want to downgrade, nothing changes until your pre-paid term expires, so what's the point?
Their website states When you downgrade, there is no immediate charge. Your current subscription will continue until your next renewal date, and then it will change to the new subscription level, and you’ll be charged the new subscription rate on that date
So if I want to convert my remaining time on Ultimate to, say, 2x that time on Premium, I can't do that?
Also from their website: When you upgrade to a Game Pass plan that includes benefits of a subscription you already have, we’ll convert remaining prepaid time and apply it toward your new plan at the current conversion ratio
This seems to mean that they're quite happy to let you upgrade from 2 years worth of Premium to less than one year worth of Ultimate, but not the other way round.
Re: Mouse P.I. For Hire Performance Specs Revealed, 120FPS Confirmed For Xbox Series X And S
@Gabe250 Ah, yes, my mistake
Re: Mouse P.I. For Hire Performance Specs Revealed, 120FPS Confirmed For Xbox Series X And S
@Gabe250 Right? And they state that the docked quality mode is 40fps... unless they know something we don't about docked VRR support, that sounds sketchy.
Re: Xbox Offers Free Rechargeable Batteries To Fans Affected By Recent Controller Shipping Issue
This is a big improvement from the time when Microsoft put up a fight before replacing the rechargeable battery that I'd ordered directly from them, which was dead on arrival. Took several phone calls to convince them to cover the shipping to Germany for them to test it, before they sent me a replacement a couple of months later.
Compare this to Argos at about the same time. They sent me a blue Series controller instead of the black one that I'd ordered. Oh well, I thought, it's nice enough, and it's here, so I'll just keep it. Within a week, unprompted, a brand new black controller was delivered to my door with a letter apologising for the mistake, and telling me to just keep them both.
Re: Playground Games Reveals Forza Horizon 6 Map, Here's How Japan Looks In-Game
Let's be honest, if it takes 10-15 minutes to drive end to end on roads, probably at an average speed of around 100mph, then it'll feel big enough. FH4 pulled that trick off quite well, even down to the truncated version of Edinburgh. It really is more about how dense and interesting the landscape is, and how it feels to occupy it.
FH5 seemed to be a step backward in that respect, seeming more like vast swathes of flat empty wasteland in comparison, artificially broken up with a mangrove jungle, a canyon and a town. I remember in the first minute of playing we were launched off of the highest point at one end of the map and then ta-da, there's pretty much the entire thing revealed on your screen. Before much longer it was possible to straight line across the thing cross-country in an 800bhp missile. If you can go wide on a corner at 200mph and end up in a different biome before the brakes bring you to a halt, then something isn't quite right.
What's more likely to feel short-lived is the way a player earns access to the festival. I'm concerned that it'll be a few tourist races in beaters then back to business as usual, but here's hoping for a genuinely steady progression up the car classes. Having the world go by a bit slower, sipping it instead of wolfing it down in one gulp, will definitely make it seem more sizeable.
Re: Deals: All 140+ Backwards Compatible Games In The Xbox Spring Sale 2026
Oh cool! Jetpac! Fight Night! Wait a minute... (checks notes)
Ah, already own these from Games with Gold giveaways.
Split/Second is great, but no framerate boost. The original Super Meat Boy is fun and I'd argue that it's more worth your time than the new one, if finger cramping controller snapping games are your thing.
Re: Multiple Assassin's Creed Games Are Free To Play On Xbox This Week (April 2-6)
@theduckofdeath I played 1-4 near launch. Kiddo had them for Xbox, so when it was bedtime I got my shot. By the time I played AC1 it was heavily overshadowed by a not too dissimilar game on my PC which I enjoyed a lot more, Arkham Asylum, which was superior to me in every way. The AC2 trilogy were better than the original in my opinion, but the native American one didn't really hit the spot for me as it felt lacking in focus. AC4 however was a lot of fun, me hearty. I think I played that on a Playstation.
It was many years after release that I played others, which was very beneficial as they were content complete. I bounced off of the London one which I tried either on a subscription service or due to a giveaway, so no loss there. Never tried Unity, didn't have the hardware at the time and haven't looked for it subsequently. I bought Odyssey gold edition in a deep sale and loved it so much that I followed it up with Origins gold edition, which for sure had moments but overall seemed not quite as polished or enjoyable as the Greek adventure.
Valhalla is where I fell off the ride. I broke my own rule and didn't wait several years for them to finish it. Instead I purchased the gold edition in an early sale, additionally discounted by cashing in all of my accrued Ubi gold coins or whatever, to then find out that in a break from tradition it would not include all of the expansions (Ragnarok, for which they were charging more than I spent on the gold edition). That game had its moments, running around Britain busting heads with Mjölnir was a lot of fun, however it was chock full of bugs and at the end of the day really didn't feel like it respected my time at all. I say this as someone who would very happily walk, not run, around games such as Breath of the Wild, Witcher 3, Baldur's Gate, or Cyberpunk, where the world is a mile wide but also more than an inch deep.
I might give Shadows a go one day if it's dirt cheap or appears on game pass, as like many others back in the days of early AC I thought how cool it would be if they set one in Japan.
Re: Multiple Assassin's Creed Games Are Free To Play On Xbox This Week (April 2-6)
Well, if you don't sleep a wink and keep comfort breaks to a minimum, you might just get through one of these from beginning to end in the next few days, two if you absolutely beast it.
/s
Re: Three Final Xbox Game Pass Additions For March 2026 Are Available Early This Week
@Old_Man_Harper That's great to know! I bought this game for pennies way back in early access alpha on Steam, when it had one or two regions and the story mode was but a glint in the eye of Hinterland. It was worth a go back then, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they've done with it in the last eleven and a half years!
Re: Microsoft Adds Three New Dynamic Backgrounds For Xbox Series X|S (March 2026)
The Pentiment one is just too lovely to swap out.
Re: 'Keep The Feedback Coming' - Xbox Boss Says New Console Features Were Built Two Weeks Ago
It's all good useful stuff, kudos, but it's also an effective way of smashing out the low hanging fruit early for PR purposes.
I'd surmise that they categorised user feedback in an Excel spreadsheet, weighted it on ease of implementation, and went with that as a starter for ten.
Custom accent colours are already built into Windows, so knock that out relatively quickly. Extending the groups count probably only needed some testing for usability and memory usage. Letting users decide whether quick resume is available to make a RAM dump to a swap file seems like another quick win, a fire and forget way to deal with games that don't gracefully reconnect to servers or bug out in other interesting ways, bonus for the onus being on the end user therefore reducing some trouble ticket volume.
Allow some customisation and control and you're more often than not onto a winner. Let insiders do the edge case testing for you, and post it on social media. Pub, anyone?
Re: Bethesda Says Starfield Looks 'Amazing' With Nvidia's DLSS 5, But Don't Expect It On Xbox
Super sampling? Nice. Super slopping? Nope. This is awful. Sure, enjoy it if it's your thing. Personally I'd rather not use the extra ¾ kilowatt or so of power consumption, thanks very much.
Re: Talking Point: What Should Xbox Call Its 'Project Helix' Console?
New Microsoft Xbox Standard Azure Copilot ProPlus Premium Enterprise Service Pack 1 NT 365 (new)
Re: Xbox Reveals New Details On 'Project Helix' Next-Gen Console, Says Devs Will Get It In 2027
@Coletrain Hope you have a blast! I edited to add I was on Series X, in case that matters, but your reply was ninja quick!