Cikajovazmaj

Seems correct. MS has seriously botched current gen (while at the same time having highest potential to succeed at it's beginning), to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if some bigwig heads started to fall soon.

@Spider-Kev at the time BotW was a weird game to get into. Everything else in existence was going for a tailored, limited, and directed experience. And here came BotW, a game with almost no limitations, no "invisible walls".
Also, story was told similar to how "kaleidoscope" series works, there is no "correct" order to consume it through. All of that brought on a choice paralysis to many gamers, myself included. It took me about 10 hours to get properly oriented in that great world, but once I did.. man. I played that game for 200-300 hours (which for me is about 6-8 times more than usual).

It doesn't feel reasonable to expect Starfield to be on Tears of the Kingdom level. TotK is a masterpiece followup to a masterpiece, in one of the greatest series in gaming history. Even if Starfield is a 10/10 game, it can't realistically achieve same amount of popularity and general acceptance.
Starfield should concentrate on delivering excellent Xbox experience, and the rest will come with time..

Funny, I was literally just watching Charlie play Redfall, exploiting poor AI, running next to enemies and talking to them without them registering him.. and then Phil says their games are judged differently. Yes they are. Because if they were judged as any third party was, there would have been nobody defending this dumpster fire.

Definition of insanity: promising same thing over and over again without delivering, expecting people still believe it.

@NEStalgia keeping inhouse technology up to date and fresh is studios responsibility. Getting stuck in a situation where you have not done so and are now "locked into legacy ancient tooling" is a sign of poor management and product prioritization. Just saying, these are patterns that should not manifest on such a high level as Bethesda is/should be.

What is going on with default latency settings on Xbox lately? Are they not testing games before releasing? When it was external studios, I believed it to just be lazy wrapping from other platforms, but this is internal game. Come on..

I felt like Redfall was not going to be for me from the initial announcement, so no surprise here. My only regret is that it shall become a permanent stain on Arkane's portfolio.
One thing to point out, Arkane was very capable of producing polished and entertaining experiences rather consistently in the past. I would look for a culprit in the circumstances that changed since their last success (hint: MS management) on how to right the ship in the future..

Honestly, I can understand the lack of reviews, as I have tried out the game and am not sure what to think of it. Setting and mechanics should be tailor-made for me, but there are performance issues and odd delay in controls.. it just feels off. Doesn't help that introduction to the world has been basically skipped.
Anyway, I found it hard to connect and immerse into the experience and everything else is irrelevant at that point. I might give it another go after few patches and tweaks

Force is strong with this one... (incoming tomatoes)

@themcnoisy I played all the games you mentioned, but I don't feel like those are even highlights of GP. There are some extraordinary games on service, don't get me wrong.
But indies are on every platform, and they perform pretty much the same elsewhere. What gives Big N the edge is a playful approach to first-party games (neither MS nor Sony will spend 5 years making a playground like Tears of the Kingdom).

@themcnoisy I am aware of it being a stereotypical claim, but there is more to video games than framerate and shadow quality. Personally, I would forgive MS any such issue if they were to create and innovate something on level and scale BotW was in 2017./2018.
If you are after graphics and bleeding edge technologies, you should sell your Switch while you still can. (full disclosure, out of my 3 current gen consoles, NS is my favorite)

Probably just a spin to get the ABK deal closed easier.
But I will say this, it is funny seeing all people in the comments section talking about MS making a play for cloud gaming and not caring about console sales. How many of you are actually using cloud gaming regularly? Or better yet, as your only option? I have not yet seen a poll/survey where happy cloud gamers represented more than a couple of percents..

Going over the number of negative comments on this thread, I kind of hope they deliver. It's really not for me (I believe I have been scared and worn out of zombies and vampires for life), but everybody has already moved away from this game, weeks before release.

Asking an obvious question, but which first party day 1 releases would that be? I don't feel like maybe 1-2 games per year would be the needle mover for me, but I'm out either way once my current sub runs out..

I don't understand Jeff's argument here.. the game was shadow-dropped to GP, and no sane company would expect it to make a high number of traditional sales.
Now, if it wasn't downloaded as many times as expected, or it didn't move the GP subscription needle as much.. I can see that perspective. But I highly doubt that (hands down best Xbox thing in 2023.).

Seems to me that Netflix blocking game from Xbox at this point would do them more harm than good.
And I have not seen a release saying Xbox will never be supported. It could be just the most obvious thing, small indie studio optimizing their resources toward realistic targets (something MS should try themselves, with all delays and late feature drops lately)
P.S.
This is a single, better than average, indie game. There have been few cases, that don't yet make a trend. Reaction here is completely blown out of proportion. Xbox has not been doomed. It's ok to not get all the games in the universe day 1.

@grumpypotato simplest solution might be the correct one..

Tried the demo on Switch, it's not bad at all. But I'll wait with my purchase for eventual GP addition.

Putting yourselves in the shoes of an indie developer, initially skipping Xbox makes perfect sense (unless you go GP day 1). Smaller install base, with users mainly consuming content through the service. How many people actually buy indie games day 1, with such a library already on GP?
Instead releasing later on for extra cash, and maybe even directly to GP, not delaying initial release is a sound business move. S*cks but also smart.

@NEStalgia I'm not sure about the details either, but I could swear XBX & PS5 are using the same CPU architecture, both supporting SMT. Difference is that XBX uses fixed clocks, while PS5 also choose to support Boost mode (temporary core boost/overclock depending on heat conditions).
I can respect not using that technique in home console though, as it is susceptible to unpredictable behavior.
P.S.
Boost mode and thermal throttling (dynamic frequency scaling) are actually dominantly used in desktop CPU-s, and are the future if you ask Intel and/or AMD.

@NEStalgia I don't get your 8th, 9th, 10th gen chatter, as it is an engineering fact XSX and PS5 are consoles based on similar components. Raw power, difference is almost negligible. Differences lay in extensions and software, and neither took a future proof or legacy approach.
From what my understanding is, based on developers interviews, MS toolkit is a bit more complicated and challenging to work with, which is what sometimes causes cases like Ghostwire. How much that can be improved and polished mid-gen, I do not know.
However, in case of Ghostwire: Tokyo it probably doesn't matter, as the game is mediocre on any platform.

For a first time in a while, games leaving are actually not bad. Shame. Hopefully replaced by some great ones in May.

Just copy Switch or PS5. Anything targeted primarily at the games, just not this bloated multilayered mess. And limit the customization options, with great power comes great clumsiness!

Omg, I thought this was being added as a perk to GPU. That is quite a price... Good luck Ubi, you'll need it.

@Kaloudz I feel it's mostly about definition of "done". If Redfall is released in such state, it sets an example of not implementing a promised FPS mode being acceptable for final "done" release. Which if successful can and will spread to other releases/products in the same space.

Ain't gonna play until they release 60FPS mode, so it's practically delayed already for me. It's just self-imposed.
I just hope 60FPS mode does not fall of the roadmap in post-launch support craziness, or even worse lack of mode in general somehow becomes industry acceptable compromise for the rest of this generation. That would be devestating.

@Widey85 @NickramCTID most likely not an age or PAL thing. You might just not be sensitive to it.
60 FPS (or 50 on PAL) was actually very common and almost universal up until PS3/Xbox360 era. That is when somehow 30 FPS became "good enough" and the rest is as they say "choppy history". So in a way, most older gamers are more sensitive to lower framerate cap.

Looking forward to 720p/60fps performance mode introduced in patch 1 on my Series S.

So, since it has been out for a while and issues are not Xbox specific, it's kind of a known by now this game is not great. Not sure why Xbox community was as excited about it, it's just hyping up expectations that were never going to be met.
Putting that aside, it seems like there is some real issues with integrating controls lately on Xbox. I've tried Guilty Gear recently, and it's unplayeable on my Series S. Controls are so lazy and dead zones huge, not sure how the game even passed QA. (similar for RE4)

Feels like a bad thing, Xbox 360 games are still selling because there is no new AAA games!

@uptownsoul agreed. And it will be interesting to see how many "fans" stick around for "unbelievable value" afterwards.

Don't really care about the rest, but I'm hyped for The Last Case of Benedict Fox!

It's hard to excuse MS here. They did not take anything away, but they did stop it from becoming available in the first place.
And they potentially did decide, 3 out of 3 times, to keep games exclusive on their platform, on a case by case basis. But it does look rather suspicious ☺️
Not saying Sony is any better, however neither is Sony (while MS is full of "for all gamers" PR nonsense).

Looking forward to upcoming DF video analysis. Hopefully framerate is stable enough, as studio seems to be concerned about that themselves.

It's mind blowing, the double standards at PureXbox and PushSquare comments.. somehow it is ok when MS uses "for all the gamers" argument and then immediately goes back on it?
(At the same time it is not ok when Sony did/does the exact same thing)

P.S.
On PushSquare it's just other way around, objectivity is just a lost art..

Not great, but not terrible either...

At this point, if you are interested you probably own this game (it has even been free for PC). But, it is an excellent game and one of my favorite strategies out there. Great addition to the service.

@Sebatrox I'm glad to hear that, and that you enjoy it. I'll probably not revisit unless there is a complete/remaster edition down the line, as it just wasn't what I expected it to be. But the idea and the setting were very appealing to me.

@Decoy_Snake agreed, playing it through GP saved me some money and disappointment. Deleting this game brought me joy.

@Dezzy70 to be honest, MS has not conjured a game on Metroid Prime Remaster level since forever. Literally, there is no Xbox equivalent.
And there probably never will be, as MS is not going for polished and revolutionary, they are going for "most value". Which attracts a user base of "I'll wait until it's on GP and get even more value out of it" profile.
Also, that is why they are selling S consoles better than X. Their user base is OK with compromises exchanged for perceived value. I should know, I'm one of them (Xbox is my "when it gets on GP" console).

I don't think they should drop features from Series S, and I'm not even sure how legal it is (as platform holder - MS - promises feature parity between the systems).
To be honest, I believe everybody has seen this as a future stumbling block MS will have to resolve, but played along with it. As a XSS owner, one of the reasons I bought in was because I expected MS to line devs pockets to keep that feature parity even if it wouldn't make financial sense by pure sales number. Backing out on that would be devastating now.

Good game, very fun through first half. Then it quickly gets samey and introduces required parries and QTE... And people drop off (including me). Shame, I would have loved if there was an accessibility option or something to just skip QTE.

@pip_muzz that whole section feels like an inside joke. And a bloody good one at that.
Anyway, my favorite game to hit GP in a while, very polished for AA release.

@Stnkygrngo I'm not sure that allowing this merger is protecting the consumer. Actually, I would say I'm pretty sure it isn't. No consolidation deal has ever benefited me as a consumer in a long run.
Either way, I just want games. I don't care who owns whom, as long as it doesn't produce price hike. I have my fingers in all the pies, so I just wànt/expect steady stream of games with stable or declining pricing.

I honestly just want good games. Don't care about anything else at this point. No deals, no trailers, no marketing, no monopoly accusations.. I just want games I feel like I would play even if they weren't "free" on GP!

Standards have really fallen off the cliff.. game is rough, poor performance, unbelievable control scheme, mixed visuals, and laughable voice acting and characters.
I'm about 2 and a half hours in, forcing myself to try more due to enormous download size I've stuck through. But I think I'm done.

Phil trolling.. meanwhile, his platform releases such GOTY contenders as Atomic heart directly to GP day 1.

Good luck to him, whatever he decides to do next. He might not be a youngling, but it would be foolish to ignore his contributions and value (which Bethesda and MS seem to recognize). On creative and leadership level, game design might not be as much of a young man's game as people think. Proper understanding of game loop and "what works and why" takes time and experience.

@tho_mi with Hot Wheels I believe it was an option to install Series or One version of the game (aka. circumvent smart delivery). Same for Maiden.
Either way, as a Series S owner I'm all for it, and have been saying that from the get go (having an option is way more valuable in the long run compared to training my eye during first time experience).