Here's some feedback for Xbox:
Your "value add" means nothing to this GP Ultimate customer. I don't play CoD, I don't play Fortnite, and the Ubisoft "Classics" I would play have already been purchased for a song and played many years ago. Perhaps your metadata shows that I'm very much in the minority here, but the barometer of reading feedback online suggests this is not entirely the case.
For the (let's be honest) huge price increase here, perhaps you could have added one or more of the following, to the Ultimate tier at least, and some of it even to the Premium tier:
~ Ubi+, allowing access to e.g. Outlaws and Shadows, and for giggles the Ultimate editions of their games - that would have been a genuine addition of value.
~ An Xbox "expansion pack" a la Nintendo - include the DLCs for marquee releases e.g. Indiana Jones and Forza, for no extra cost.
~ A family subscription a la Nintendo - share the cost to take the sting out of it.
~ Include a bonus library of back-compat games that are no longer on sale, a la Sony and Nin... you see where I'm going with this yet?
As it was, I could spend some of my gaming time on a game that I've purchased, and feel okay with not playing something from game pass, with not getting any value out of it for days or even weeks at a time. As it is now, I'm much more inclined to feel like I'm burning money for no good reason, and that I cannot stomach.
So at the end of the day the CoD acquisition is being paid for by the ~50% price increase on Ultimate. The "value add" of CoD, Fortnite, and Ubi's bargain bin catalogue holds no sway with me.
To play devil's advocate, the potential of earning up to £100 of store rewards or whatever could, on paper, cover the price increase per year. Someone who thinks they're very clever but is in fact very cynical probably got a bonus for that. Place your bets on whether that scheme changes for the worse within 12 months.
When my prepaid sub is done (March '26) I will not be renewing Ultimate. It'll be middle tier at best, if anything at all. Happy to wait a year or so for the newest games, and thanks in advance to all of the early access testers on Ultimate. Happy to wait two years or so and just buy the GOTY edition of a few titles each year, the way I used to on PC before I picked up a Series X. I paid £300 for the console new a few years ago, and I've had good value out of it so far. The only way I can see myself getting good value out of it going forward is to drop a tier, or more likely to drop game pass entirely.
Nordschlieffe and Fujimi Kaido were the last tracks I played before uninstalling this yesterday and claiming back nearly 160GB. I hadn't played the game for a couple of months (after putting countless hours into it for a good long while) and was basically asking it to justify the storage space on the console.
The handling is tuned nicely for gamepad (trigger haptics especially) but is lacking in feel and feedback on a wheel. The physics - "built from the ground up" ha ha ha - just don't feel right at all. They may update more times per second but they're not otherwise improved as far as I can tell. Induce and hold a little too much slide and the tyres suddenly give up and let go, all grip suddenly going off a cliff no matter what you do, until you slow down enough to arrest the slip, then they're magically very grippy again. There are even design foibles and bugs apparently carried over from prior FM games. The corporate style menus and interface are still offputting to me. It just lacks soul. I'd imagine it would be difficult to get genuine heartfelt passion out of people contracted and crunched only to be let go at launch date.
All in all, one final blast around, one final rivals personal best set, and it's toodle-oo. When Assetto Corsa, Dirt Rally 2, Wreckfest, and even Project Cars with backwards compatibility are more satisfying to play, and to keep around, I still feel spoiled for choice.
ETA: I feel for the team who worked on this project. There was surely room in Microsoft's stable for both Horizon and Motorsport. I doubt that they expected this outcome. I hope they have managed to move on to better things, and to start afresh.
@Tasuki I'm wondering if they'll have both the Trueno (Thunder) and the Levin (Lightning) versions of the AE86, and even go as far as to make the Levin slightly lighter and more responsive at the front end (fixed headlights as opposed to folding) 🤓
Wasn't really fussed about these. When I did the obligatory first time settings exploration I chose a Forza 7 achievement background, because the 911 GT2 art was excellent, and it looked good even with all of the game tiles on screen. Then I saw the Pentiment (if I remember correctly) dynamic one a while ago - woods, babbling brook, wildlife - it's lovely, and I can't see myself changing that any time soon.
Comments 8
Re: 'Price Increases Are Never Fun For Anybody' Says Xbox Exec Defending Game Pass Changes
Here's some feedback for Xbox:
Your "value add" means nothing to this GP Ultimate customer. I don't play CoD, I don't play Fortnite, and the Ubisoft "Classics" I would play have already been purchased for a song and played many years ago. Perhaps your metadata shows that I'm very much in the minority here, but the barometer of reading feedback online suggests this is not entirely the case.
For the (let's be honest) huge price increase here, perhaps you could have added one or more of the following, to the Ultimate tier at least, and some of it even to the Premium tier:
~ Ubi+, allowing access to e.g. Outlaws and Shadows, and for giggles the Ultimate editions of their games - that would have been a genuine addition of value.
~ An Xbox "expansion pack" a la Nintendo - include the DLCs for marquee releases e.g. Indiana Jones and Forza, for no extra cost.
~ A family subscription a la Nintendo - share the cost to take the sting out of it.
~ Include a bonus library of back-compat games that are no longer on sale, a la Sony and Nin... you see where I'm going with this yet?
As it was, I could spend some of my gaming time on a game that I've purchased, and feel okay with not playing something from game pass, with not getting any value out of it for days or even weeks at a time. As it is now, I'm much more inclined to feel like I'm burning money for no good reason, and that I cannot stomach.
Re: Poll: What Are Your Plans For Xbox Game Pass After This Week's News?
So at the end of the day the CoD acquisition is being paid for by the ~50% price increase on Ultimate. The "value add" of CoD, Fortnite, and Ubi's bargain bin catalogue holds no sway with me.
To play devil's advocate, the potential of earning up to £100 of store rewards or whatever could, on paper, cover the price increase per year. Someone who thinks they're very clever but is in fact very cynical probably got a bonus for that. Place your bets on whether that scheme changes for the worse within 12 months.
When my prepaid sub is done (March '26) I will not be renewing Ultimate. It'll be middle tier at best, if anything at all. Happy to wait a year or so for the newest games, and thanks in advance to all of the early access testers on Ultimate. Happy to wait two years or so and just buy the GOTY edition of a few titles each year, the way I used to on PC before I picked up a Series X. I paid £300 for the console new a few years ago, and I've had good value out of it so far. The only way I can see myself getting good value out of it going forward is to drop a tier, or more likely to drop game pass entirely.
Re: If You're Dying To See Forza In Japan, Xbox's Latest Motorsport Track Is Well Worth A Try
Nordschlieffe and Fujimi Kaido were the last tracks I played before uninstalling this yesterday and claiming back nearly 160GB. I hadn't played the game for a couple of months (after putting countless hours into it for a good long while) and was basically asking it to justify the storage space on the console.
The handling is tuned nicely for gamepad (trigger haptics especially) but is lacking in feel and feedback on a wheel. The physics - "built from the ground up" ha ha ha - just don't feel right at all. They may update more times per second but they're not otherwise improved as far as I can tell. Induce and hold a little too much slide and the tyres suddenly give up and let go, all grip suddenly going off a cliff no matter what you do, until you slow down enough to arrest the slip, then they're magically very grippy again. There are even design foibles and bugs apparently carried over from prior FM games. The corporate style menus and interface are still offputting to me. It just lacks soul. I'd imagine it would be difficult to get genuine heartfelt passion out of people contracted and crunched only to be let go at launch date.
All in all, one final blast around, one final rivals personal best set, and it's toodle-oo. When Assetto Corsa, Dirt Rally 2, Wreckfest, and even Project Cars with backwards compatibility are more satisfying to play, and to keep around, I still feel spoiled for choice.
ETA: I feel for the team who worked on this project. There was surely room in Microsoft's stable for both Horizon and Motorsport. I doubt that they expected this outcome. I hope they have managed to move on to better things, and to start afresh.
Re: Forza Horizon 6 Devs Discuss Why Japan Was 'Right Fit' & When To Expect Gameplay
@Tasuki I'm wondering if they'll have both the Trueno (Thunder) and the Levin (Lightning) versions of the AE86, and even go as far as to make the Levin slightly lighter and more responsive at the front end (fixed headlights as opposed to folding) 🤓
Re: Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.31 Brings AutoDrive Improvements, Photo Mode Changes To Xbox
@Notmything It's not a new feature, it's a new bug, or sometimes both at once.
Re: Microsoft Rewards Might Be Ditching The 'Auto-Redeem' Offer For Xbox Game Pass
Well, at least the smattering of points over the last however long have "paid" for a year of extended security updates on Windows. Every cloud...
Re: Xbox Adds Multiple New Dynamic Backgrounds To Kick Off April
Wasn't really fussed about these. When I did the obligatory first time settings exploration I chose a Forza 7 achievement background, because the 911 GT2 art was excellent, and it looked good even with all of the game tiles on screen. Then I saw the Pentiment (if I remember correctly) dynamic one a while ago - woods, babbling brook, wildlife - it's lovely, and I can't see myself changing that any time soon.
Re: Review: Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 (Xbox) - A Brutal & Brilliant Medieval Epic, But You'll Need To Put The Time In
How's the lock picking? 😬