Regarding the cost of components such as RAM and SSDs, Microsoft are heavily involved in the circular ouroboros AI shenanigans, in terms of investment and services. They've at least in part made a rod for their own back here.
The internet here isn't very good, so expansion storage is very useful. The internal drive is predominantly for single player games, captures and apps; the expansion is for games that I'd want to take with me to another's house and multiplayer games as it is formatted to work with other consoles, not just my own.
I never let them get over 90% full as a rule of thumb. The performance can degrade if higher, so I occasionally shuffle things around if I'm downloading a larger game. Gives me a chuckle to see 5Gb/s on the queue screen instead of 50Mb/s 😄
I really enjoyed Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, but with other things taking up my time it seems like it spent more hours downloading patches than being played in the last six months.
Foreshadowing quote: "...its success was short-lived due to its high price of £999.99 (later reduced to £599) and a CPU that was outdated by the time of its release."
But seriously, about the only advantage of this scheme that I can think of right now is that "play anywhere" might actually become a proper reality for all Xbox games, if full-fat Windows 11 will be able to emulate console hardware or ideally run the software natively (which could already be possible, considering that the Series consoles use a version of Win11 and virtualisation).
Oh, and obligatory you can pry Win10 out of my cold dead hands etc.
@Jenkinss I'd surmise that by adding more of the lower impact, less demanding games they get to inflate "quantity of titles available" and "number of concurrent players" metrics. Such a game would demand a relatively small slice of server resources compared to a more demanding blockbuster title. For example, a server blade may have the capacity to emulate either one Series X or several One S consoles, and some of the games will only require the latter, so one server blade could serve multiple instances of an older, less demanding game to multiple users.
So his last startup, Humanoid Studios/Origin, was working on a character driven narrative sci-fi title before an "unexpected shortfall of funding" reportedly led to closure and layoffs. His current startup, Arcanaut, has been up and running for less than a year, perhaps? Even with a pivot of their cancelled game and the potential of Lucasfilm Games bankrolling, I wouldn't expect to see this within the next few years. Seems to me that this was a premature announcement for the benefit of TGA, and Geoff looked so stoked, bless him. Having said that, I'm quietly looking forward to it, if they can make it happen.
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 17
Re: Talking Point: Will The Next Xbox Console Be Revealed In 2026?
Ever hear of Betteridge's law?
Regarding the cost of components such as RAM and SSDs, Microsoft are heavily involved in the circular ouroboros AI shenanigans, in terms of investment and services. They've at least in part made a rod for their own back here.
Re: Talking Point: Xbox Series X|S Owners, How's Your Storage Looking In 2026?
The internet here isn't very good, so expansion storage is very useful. The internal drive is predominantly for single player games, captures and apps; the expansion is for games that I'd want to take with me to another's house and multiplayer games as it is formatted to work with other consoles, not just my own.
I never let them get over 90% full as a rule of thumb. The performance can degrade if higher, so I occasionally shuffle things around if I'm downloading a larger game. Gives me a chuckle to see 5Gb/s on the queue screen instead of 50Mb/s 😄
Re: Seven Games Are Leaving Xbox Game Pass In Late January 2026
I really enjoyed Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, but with other things taking up my time it seems like it spent more hours downloading patches than being played in the last six months.
Re: 50 Backwards Compatible Xbox Games That Are 'Disc Only' In 2026
Project Cars 2 on disc was one of the best fivers I ever spent. I know it was what, Xbox One? But used disc was the only way to find it.
Re: Report: Xbox Working On 'Major Updates' To PC App For Next Console's Dashboard
Hold up, let me dust the cobwebs off of the old memory banks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Mega_PC
Foreshadowing quote: "...its success was short-lived due to its high price of £999.99 (later reduced to £599) and a CPU that was outdated by the time of its release."
But seriously, about the only advantage of this scheme that I can think of right now is that "play anywhere" might actually become a proper reality for all Xbox games, if full-fat Windows 11 will be able to emulate console hardware or ideally run the software natively (which could already be possible, considering that the Series consoles use a version of Win11 and virtualisation).
Oh, and obligatory you can pry Win10 out of my cold dead hands etc.
Re: 50+ Games Added To Xbox 'Stream Your Own Game' To Finish Off 2025
@Jenkinss I'd surmise that by adding more of the lower impact, less demanding games they get to inflate "quantity of titles available" and "number of concurrent players" metrics. Such a game would demand a relatively small slice of server resources compared to a more demanding blockbuster title. For example, a server blade may have the capacity to emulate either one Series X or several One S consoles, and some of the games will only require the latter, so one server blade could serve multiple instances of an older, less demanding game to multiple users.
Re: Xbox Is Sending Out Forza Horizon 6 Gift Packages Ahead Of Its 2026 Release
I'm feeling a bit cynical today, so here's my finger in the air:
Re: Xbox Owner Thinks They've Found A 'Major Design Flaw' That Impacts Game Performance
Decades old legacy issues, quick and dirty bodged hacks, and counter-productive idiosyncrasies in MS software? You don't say...
Re: Star Wars: Fate Of The Old Republic Will Be Out Before 2030, Says Casey Hudson
So his last startup, Humanoid Studios/Origin, was working on a character driven narrative sci-fi title before an "unexpected shortfall of funding" reportedly led to closure and layoffs. His current startup, Arcanaut, has been up and running for less than a year, perhaps? Even with a pivot of their cancelled game and the potential of Lucasfilm Games bankrolling, I wouldn't expect to see this within the next few years. Seems to me that this was a premature announcement for the benefit of TGA, and Geoff looked so stoked, bless him. Having said that, I'm quietly looking forward to it, if they can make it happen.
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? 😬