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@GamingFan4Lyf please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying MS won't achieve a high profit, which they almost certainly will. My point is that revenue can not even be considered a strong indicator of profit in modern business (working at a loss to achieve high market share represented by unusually large number of sales and revenue is basically a standard strategy for growing businesses), and sales numbers/money-in flow can be very misleading without cost breakdown.

@GamingFan4Lyf as usual, I just want to point out that selling a mere 3,000,000 Xbox consoles, at average price of $400 a piece also brings in 1.2 billion in revenue. Revenue does not matter, profit matters.

MS is really embracing publisher, third party role. And in a very weird way, I think it might not be a bad move at all.

Slightly worried by this.. is MS planning on releasing a Pro console? They are literally handing them away here

Genuinely a nice surprise. I was holding back on cashing up for Remnant 2, but itch was starting to grow...

Hopefully, they haven't bought anyone new..
Seriously though, it's probably Activision Blizzard games getting dropped into GP. While it is a no-brainer, it still needs to happen and be treated like a big thing that it it.

Genuinely hope it's not another sequel. The first game was fun, but the second one got boring for me really fast.
However, the team seems exceptionally talented, especially with graphic design as they pull off impressive visuals on a budget. I feel it would be better used on new IP, envisioning a fresh beautiful world...

@BrilliantBill I would partially challenge that claim.
I do believe critics respect and reward graphics and gameplay/game mechanics as separate buckets. And the game being exceptional in either of the two will impress critics. Because looking only at graphics completely ignores Nintendo's return to fame and their recent appreciation and acknowledgment.
My point is, that creating a game that has good/decent graphics and gameplay makes the game good. Nothing sticks out. And that is the field MS has been sitting in for a rather long time. I'm hopeful the trend will change and there has been evidence to support so. But realistically, game in question here, Starfield does a lot decent/good, but is not exceptional at anything. Therefore it is reasonable for it to be treated and considered good (or great as in more than the sum of its parts) but not GotY material.
At least that is my reasoning which I feel applies to a lot of good/great games outside of Starfield, that might not be exclusives and don't have platform enthusiasts in their corner defending them.
(recent Lies of P comes to mind too)

8/10 decent game in a year as packed as 2023. does not net you a GotY nomination, and it shouldn't.
If anything, if Starfield was nominated it would seem bias/suspicious.
What I do feel great about is the praise Hi-Fi Rush is getting. Game doesn't have to be built by Bethesda with unlimited budget to be great

I knew they were desperate to increase number of paying GP subscribers, but this is ridiculous. 🤦‍♂️

Nice move, at the same time as they are trying to make their public image be "for all the gamers".
I'm feeling lucky I haven't invested in any peripherals for my Xbox. To think I thought about bridging a wheel to Xbox for Forza.. what a waste that would have been.

@Banjo- Starfield is best selling game in September, not year. It is the year that had some real heavy hitters that were not on any subscription, outselling that is going to be tough with GP model.
@Titntin absolutely agreed. On the offering side things have improved a lot, marketing and word of mouth could help raise awareness.

Very positive spin you put there. If I'm not mistaken, it is actually 35% down compared to September last year, which is bad given Xbox is actually putting out some games this year. Realistically, only thing it could be is souring people on the brand as product is finally getting there now.

Is this CMA's way of trying to make it look like they are not blind while still taking money from MS to let the deal move along?

Game felt good to me through my first 5-10 races. However, I have started to sour on it fast due to unexplainable mistakes that are all under nitpick category, but pile up.
Driving is a bit too arcade for my taste, dualsense has ruined me for any sim racer with a different controller (wheel is a separate category), HUD is useless when driving using top/bumper cam (speedometer is in corner where you can't see it at a glance, there is nothing marking middle of the car to help with estimating your car boundaries), I have all assists off but still feel I can make mistakes in corners (early acceleration on exit) and not pay the price, AI is not good...
I don't know, I hoped it was gonna be a killer game which it is not :/

@rustyduck one could even say it's double the game it once was with 60 FPS mode.

Finally got to play a few races! Seems good, different than GT7, which is a great thing as I needed a change.
Default handling (with heavy assistance) is terrible and people should just turn all of that off. But once you do, driving becomes way better and engaging.

I've put Redfall on cold storage post-release, waiting for a big patch to add 60 fps mode and improve gameplay.
Yesterday I got it running again, and man, it's better but still bad. Some issues have been improved, although I don't think any were completely removed. Anyway, that was my last shot with Redfall, deleted it and ain't planning on redownloading. Bigger/better games to be had on GP.

@ZuneTattooGuy I feel like this has to be said again... especially in light of an article you linked.
Real life, it takes 30 minutes for a mediocre player to finish a clean race with a 765000 credits reward. If they are selling 100000 credits for 2 dollars, let them. Always. If somebody is lazy enough to accept that pricing, f*ck them. They should be bleed dry.
Keeping in mind time/reward ratio I just mentioned, in my opinion internet really overreacted over nothing. So business as usual.

@Titntin spot on, everything you said is spot on. I'll enjoy both for years to come, and graphical details and nitpicks won't be an issue.

Most people seem to think GT7 looks better, but I wouldn't agree. Both seem to have pros and cons to me, GT7 has better looking cars, FM has more detailed foliage and side of the road objects.
However, one thing I feel nobody else is mentioning and is so annoying to me: FM tire tracks. Why, oh why, are there tire tracks on the road pointing in all unnatural directions, just to make track feel more realistic? There is no physically possible way car could take some of those trajectories while either driving or crashing!! (I'm used to looking at tire tracks as they indicate potentially good routes/trajectories to take, I know, I'm weird).

@iplaygamesnstuff in all honesty, this generation (if one counts Switch in) might be the greatest in history of gaming. It just so happens that MS hasn't really been competitive.

Yeah, I applaud them sticking to 60 on S, even if it meant significant visual cutbacks. It's a racer, I won't be slowing down to look at the fence reflections. However, I will need every one of those frames.

@Darude84 hard to say honestly, as I progressed slowly while it was changing. There are way more menus and cars to unlock (I believe 7 base menus, all extra menus, and 3-4 cars per month). I'm mostly spending my time in weekly lap time challenges (which there are 4 now, and they get to be fun) and licences (competing with friends scores, and times have been rebooted after they improved physics, your old medals stay but you can see new more aggressive targets).
Outside of that I play with friends or online.
I'm basically just waiting for FM to change status quo

@Sifi in the interest of being fair, as I think this story is greatly exaggerated online, there is not a single car or a track hidden behind microtransactions or DLC-s in GT7. Which I believe is not the plan for FM. Microtransactions are there to get in-game credit faster, which is totally not needed as through natural progression one can get any car they wish for in up to a few hours (or as little as 15 mins, depending on the price of a car ofc).
Again, fan of both games, but keeping it straight. No need for unwarranted bashing.

Well, I'll be trying it out, that's for sure. I logged an insane number of hours in GT7 and would love a healthy alternative, a fresh take if you will.
Also, I've been patient with GT7 updates (which in all fairness has become an excellent and content-filled game eventually) so I'll give FM time to grow too. As long as the fundamentals are good, it'll be ok.

Honestly, at this point in time, Cyberpunk 2077 feels like a much better game. But, I tried it on day 1, and I tried it before 1.5 patch.. and it was not in a good place. So much so I decided to shelf it. With patch 2.0 game has really came into its own, I'm doing a playthrough and enjoying it now.
All that said, Starfield has 3 years od patches and support to get to that point. If comparing day 1 releases Starfield wins on basically just working

Whatever happened to them supporting the game with free monthly content similar to GT7? I remember reading a dev interview a while back promising free content updates for cars/tracks..

Did they do any performance and graphical changes?

@S-Bacc that is true, I would assume mostly because Mark wanted to keep his freedom to explore other things if he chose to do so. Very common with engineers and creatives, does not mean they don't have loyalty to their primary client (eg. Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo)
But I understand your comment 👍

As a PS5 owner, I don't really care. And I wouldn't care if Phil left either actually, I'm feeling rather good about prospect of both of those.
Now, if Mark Cerny left I would be concerned..

Oh damn, again few games I've started and thought I would have forever to finish. I'll need to free up some time!
Prodeus and Moonscars are definitely worth a try while still around.

Few genuinely good games leaving. What can you do, you have to lose some to gain some.

Never been able to use Quick Resume reliably and therefore I don't use it. It's basically an extra step, a thing I have to disable, instead of a useful feature. But I'm happy for people with different experiences.

Well that's not very nice.
To get that out of the way, playing on all 3 systems. Starfield is not a perfect game or a master piece, but it is a very good, polished game. Fanboy-ism and 0-1 ratings are just ridiculous and immature. Internet needs to think of a better ratings system before people just start avoiding crowd-sourced reviews.

Finally tried the game, just for an hour, hour and a half. It has induced slight headache for me, although I did not tweak any settings or similar to mitigate it in advance. I might try playing around with those, but I'm not usually having such issues.
However, outside of that game started fine. It's a short time I admit, but I have not seen anything wrong with it. I also haven't had any wow/revolutionary moments, which frankly I didn't expect either. It's all just ok

I'm anxious to finally try it over the weekend. Might not be my thing (as I'm not the biggest Bethesda game fan), but I'll at least give it few hours.
However, these congratulations and outpours of love are just a bit ridiculous. It's a good, maybe even great game. As all games with time and budget Bethesda had should be. Starfield is not a miracle, Redfall and similar are failures. Such outcome should be demanded from other Xbox teams, not celebrated as an exception.

I'm a fool for thinking this comments section was gonna be about Starfield and not about which other games are trash, or which console is worse...

@Romans12 it was never going to be like Zelda level. I'm just happy it's decent. Xbox needed it.

@BAMozzy @Pimpernel MS has mostly moved away from the traditional sales model. Starfield is a game that would do great numbers under such a format, but it is also a big and secure investment in a subscription-based model (it will surely boost numbers significantly). I don't doubt Xbox bigwigs have taken that into account as early as when they acquired Bethesda.

I understand MS's decision, but maybe they should have done it earlier or something. Optics matter, and removing the trial offer at the same time Starfield hits service just looks "not great" in the eyes of many casuals.
I'll admit they are having a far more complicated problem to crack when it comes to AAA day one releases compared to video streaming services. Where they could make it episodic and introduce delayed seasonal parts, classic SP video games have failed in such format many times. It is the price of being a pioneer, you get to live or die by the rules you yourself make.

@Lightning720 precedent is exactly what it is. It's precedent that it is OK to miss a feature and promise to possibly add it later.
I'm not saying it is going to be exploited, as I can not know that without a crystal ball... but just as in legal terms, it does establish that it has happened once and all future cases will be evaluated with that in mind. That is unavoidable.

@trev666 I will most definitely not!! I won't play BG3 at all, as it is not the type of game I'm interested in. But I will be keeping an eye on the health of my investment (XSS), though.

@Lightning720 I wouldn't call it nonsense, I would call it a precedent. Especially as MS is backing this decision, after what feels like public pressure applied by a developer.

precedent - any act, decision, or case that serves as a guide or justification for subsequent situations.

There are no clear guidelines communicated by MS around what would be acceptable and what not.. which means any developer can try the same and use this case as an example, trying to steer public opinion in their favor.

@trev666 This is beyond the point.
I, and many others, have purchased Series S under the promise of feature parity. Making an exception and walking back on the policy only opens the door for future concessions.. and in a couple of years, games will ship without half of their content (and probably the ambitious half).

Would be a 436p game for me.. no, thank you. I might try it on GP if it ever gets added.

I don't see how this is a solution. I might not understand, English is not my primary language..
They just cut out a feature. As a Series S owner, I'm very worried by this!

Wasn't great, got bored through the show and stopped paying attention by the end. I gave it a D :/

Wow, creating the whole narrative around a menu screenshot.. nice, almost a new territory for internet.
Joking aside, there is no way to know how that menu scales with screen size. I'm assuming his criticism is based on menu not being front and center (as, khm khm, it is in D2) and items being relatively small compared to available real estate. Which might all be totally fine if this is taken from a 60 inch screen.
Also, you will spend literally 2 seconds looking at this everytime you boot. Nobody cares

@Bobarino as somebody very involved in UX and interface design, one of the indicators of bad design is that people have to learn it.
Good design feels natural and PREDICTABLE. By the way, MS used to know that, as it was one of their key principles when designing Office tools

Why somebody would defend using 60% of screen real estate for advertising is beyond me. Probably the same people not using ad block on their computers..
Changing the placement of the dashboard is the natural path of progress, and there will be slow adopters and people resisting the change. Some changes will succeed, others will not. But that is not the issue here. The issue is over-monetization and product placement all over the screen that BY PURPOSE is not a storefront.