Coletrain

@Fiendish-Beaver I suppose it depends how MAUs are counted. You could count me as one MAU for using all 3 but still count me as someone who increases overall cloud or PC usage. Who knows 🤷

@johnK I usually have 2 or 3 on the go from different genres. I'll have a main game like a big RPG, a shooter and then something more chill like a tony hawks or a platformer. I'll usually play the main game then switch to the others to head off any burnout before returning

Would be pointless, it's not an attractive enough IP to make a sales dent on xbox 6 months (minimum) after the fact. We got wo long and ninja gaiden stuff anyway.

Bit of R&C rift apart on the Rog and THPS1+2 on the box. Chilled weekend after paying for my honeymoon this week and being officially poor for a bit 🫠

I think the fact that under 50% of developers saying they have actually released on ps5 gives you an idea of the demographic at this event (I.e., around half develop for PC only). If this was the Devs that most of us play games from it'd be much closer to 90% or something.

@swedetrap hmm. Wonder if it struggles with higher Res environments. Hoping that eventually it becomes almost indistinguishable from native but I think it's a long, LONG way away

@swedetrap I've found cloud fine (UK) in some games and awful in others. Some art styles that are a bit more colourful or simplistic tend not to have noticeable artifacting for me, games with loads of dark areas can look borderline unplayable at times.

South of Midnight was really good on cloud, doom 2016 is pretty good (weirdly, but dark areas are hard to see), 2.5 and 2D games are great., isometrics like cocoon are great, etc.

Still, I enjoy it as an option and when I find games it works with I'll often split my time between native on Xbox and cloud on handheld, so I get your points

@IronCrow86 honestly I'm hooked. No idea how I missed this one! I got arrested playing dice at night because I put my torch away before I sat down, genuinely made me laugh in the room on my own

Sometimes revenue is up YoY, sometimes it's down, and the cycle continues. I feel no need to say MS are clueless every time it's down and they're the messiah when it's up. Affects my gaming not one jot

I bought this a week ago and I'm like 10 hours deep and loving it as it is. An upgrade would be an incredibly fortunate turn of events for me!

Great to see that it's such a good port for basically everything. FF16 was a bit of a weird port and graphics mode was a must for me because performance was too fuzzy and aliased, so this being so good is awesome.

Here's hoping that some rebirth optimisation magic for the S leads to better performance modes for the X and PS5!

@Millionski welcome back man! They're definitely up to something, I just hope it's the product I want. I'm an OG Rog ally z1e owner, and I found it horrible at first but now getting games to run how I want is 2nd nature. Crashes are USUALLY (but not always cuz muh) related to a lack of VRAM for the settings I'm trying to use, Rog ally life website helps me a ton with this.

@Fiendish-Beaver I do think the AMD contract is for a MS device that's already through R&D, however I'm not sure on whether back compat will be done well, or if play anywhere is the "future proofing" here. The key feature, I think, will be a GPU capable of using FSR4 (or 5 by then?) so that it doesn't necessarily need to be top of the line.

I haven't and won't stop buying games on Xbox, but worst case scenario will be to keep the series X as a back compat machine. Best case, the new machine does it all and I'm a very happy camper!

@fatpunkslim they do for the Xbox ally x, but that's working with a screen that competently does VRR and has LFC support. What I'm after is knowing if they would do a 30/60/maybe 120 FPS option per game, because TVs aren't usually using VRR and LFC and are typically 60hz unless you spend more.

Any game where they don't offer that type of setting leaves it to users to customise the experience and try to lock to an even refresh rate, with the right settings elsewhere, which is probably the opposite experience of what a console player would want. THATS the part I'm most interested in seeing if they solve

@Fiendish-Beaver I think ideally they need a team who does "console optimised" settings for users who don't want to mess around, and then the ability to mess around for those with VRR displays and the proclivity to do so.

It sounds like sky high hopium, but that's effectively what I'm currently expecting...

@Fiendish-Beaver yeah, you're right. I just don't think we can compare them as competitors any more. PS6, to my mind, will undoubtedly be the best home console on the market when it comes out. And with that will come all the trimmings we're used to: exclusive games (timed at least), online paywalls and free monthly games for subscribers.

I'm looking for a different experience now, so I'm very much hoping Xbox delivers on the hybrid. It'll be a good halfway house for a guy who grew up with consoles as the optimal gaming platforms for a lonnnnng time

@GeeEssEff agree, an early release, same as they did with 360, is more likely to garner some success then running on a competing timeline. If it goes toe to toe with a ps6 release date it's dead in the water despite what features it may have

Glad to see it doing well, looking forward to it when it goes on sale (although £40 isn't terrible considering you get the OG with it)

Props to squeenix for the play anywhere support too, makes the idea of getting it on Xbox so much more enjoyable for me

I'm mostly digital but I like having the option.

Side note, that attach rate on ps portal is impressive!

Let's not forget as well that FH6 could be in the running!

GTA wins it if it releases on time, no question and no doubt well warranted. But I don't care too much about the Geoffys, Fable is going to be amazing whatever the critics say

I just read it as sometimes teams don't have enough resource to do the ps5 port day and date, but where it's possible they will 🤷

Love this, FH5 it was too easy to end up with a beast early on and not really switch it up too much.

@Dm9982 oh no I think Sony partnering with AMD is all about back compat with PS4/5, I'd HOPE PS players are safe in that regard.

Again, I'm with you on the MS side though. If they can pull it off and make it controller friendly in the living room I'm all in. I'm not of the opinion that they massively care if people even use their storefront any more, just that people buy their games somewhere.

These are exciting times bud!

@Dm9982 you've hit the nail on the head as to why I don't think Sony will follow suit, the API. If they change to something compatible with PC like DX then all PS4/5 games that currently run natively will have to be emulated.

All their expertise lies in the console environment, with Nixxes being their porting specialists (I think they might have even acquired them recently?) and that presentation that Mark Cerny did with AMD last year hinted at project amethyst being an even better compression engine than kraken! Not sure you can leverage that for PC builds directly.

I'm sort of on the side of, yeah they will go full hybrid just not for ps6 I guess

@Dm9982 I agree with everything except Sony following suit. Maybe a PC launcher but not full PC yet...

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I really like XboxEra but the guy that reviewed this game frequently comes across as not interested in anything other than competitive multiplayer. This should have been a Jon or Jesse review

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm too impatient buddy, plus my gaming time is typically a couple hours tops a night when kiddies are in bed so need to get this done before rebirth arrives!

I'm waiting for the price to drop a little (it's an older game now after all), but the demo runs like a dream on both the Xbox and Rog ally on performance mode.

So happy it's here now.

@Fiendish-Beaver the PCBox is the one that stands out to me as having the most potential (in terms of what excites me, not so much in how many units it would sell) so that's the one I'd like too, hopefully a 25 year anniversary announcement later this year eh! (Although I'm not holding my breath...)

@Fiendish-Beaver ah I see, yes you're probably right if you're going to stay console only I think ps6 remains the only choice (switch 2 notwithstanding)

My incentive is based on a desire to move towards PC gaming soon anyway (plus my reward points pay for most of the games I buy), I've enjoyed the flexibility of the ROG Ally as a little taster. But for you, I feel like you're sorting of answering your own question in that PS5 is the safer place to buy to avoid the choice paralysis!

@Fiendish-Beaver I'd say my incentive when buying games on Xbox mostly now comes down to play anywhere, which I feel gives me the choice next gen of the NextBox or a normal gaming desktop.

If I were to buy games on a ps5 then the most logical step forward would be a ps6 because I can't move around to different types of device. I lose my perceived future freedom.

To be honest though, I don't think us as gamers can go wrong either way. I love my series x, and I'd equally have loved a ps5 if I'd gone that direction. The Xbox ecosystem has now become a preference for me, and that's my ted talk on why I'm still incentivised to buy games on it 🤣

I like play anywhere and check for it when purchasing too, which I'm sure is like many others. Those who don't find it useful or whatever, that's fine, but it means that if the nextbox isn't quite what I want I can go full desktop and still have all those games. It's brilliant future proofing

I use my Rog ally z1e as a PC in the day too, tonnes better than my old one. The flexibility is insane, and it's so good that I've not even been slightly tempted to get a switch 2 (until an oled model arrives...)

I love the customisation of these devices, I've set up several manual power profiles that I assign to different games and apart from changing the vram settings now and again it's pretty much spot on!

Create a brilliant and valuable subscription model, jack the prices a few times then introduce ad tiers. It's why I've gone back to the traditional buying my own games model.

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm certainly not one to get involved in the type of thing it was pushing in that one scene, but I watched it online and it would have in no way put me off of the game. Life is far too short to care so much about it. I haven't played veilguard but only because I haven't played the prequels, and I suspect as a fantasy RPG it would be right up my alley!

@Scrubchub veilguard was done over online for one specific scene, feel like this one was just knocked for being poor at launch but it certainly looks a load better now. Think your opinion on this one is very on the money bud

Storage is fine, play games and delete them. They'll still be there if I want them later. I think I have 19 games installed right now but only 3 AAA titles

You're pretty safe to play this one, then go back and play the OG (it's only a small part of the overall 7 experience), definitely gives it more weight!

I played it in 2021, a long time after I'd last played ff7, then played ff7 again on switch last year to warm me up for this and rebirth. I cannot wait.

I think control but more open world and with less guns could be really great, really looking forward to this one. Hopefully loads of points of interest on the map, and we all know remedy tell a great story.

Both Hellblade games are completely unique experiences and I loved what they did. Not every 1st party game needs tight combat, 20-30 hour length, upgrade paths etc etc. sometimes it's great to just get something different.

Hellblade 3? Yes please.

Nice. I wish this was an industry standard, would give so many games a late sales boost

@themightyant I sort of get what you mean. I love just driving around and listening to the music but needs some variety. Fh4 and 5 might as well have been the same game

@OldGamer999 ditto

MS and windows get a lot of hate and I get that it's trendy, but just specifically the FSE? I've used it and it's fine.

Obviously it's a first attempt and it will get slicker, more responsive and more intuitive over time. I'm still down for the pc console hybrid idea, could be spot on for me

Yeah given the big push to cloud on 2025 and X cloud coming out of beta a WiFi connected controller makes total sense. Bundle it with a few TVs and fire sticks to get people interested in game pass.

My dream however is the Xbox controller with the ps5 haptics...

@themightyant I think it'll have a decent enough price drop to say, £25 or less quite quickly. FF16 only held out at full price for about 6 weeks from memory? And this one is even older!

I'm really looking forward to this one, played in 2021 but not the intermission part. Graphics were gorgeous and it feels just right to me

@MagicCat I did not know that, thank you!

@FraserG oh balls. Well, I'm sure ultimate is still only £13 on Amazon so that might be the route instead!

@RentedPanda thanks, must have been my bad

Premium to quickly bash through outlaws is exactly how I wanted to use that subscription level.

Obviously this is by design, and we have all speculated different reasons why, but it'd be nice if MS just came out and said why they were constraining supply.

Surely, SURELY they will do a stock drive for gta6

Yakuza like a dragon. Love Yakuza, love turned based combat, should be a dream!