Coletrain

For pitys sake MS, can you go 30 seconds without doing something to damage your brand. Rewards is the thing that keeps me in the ecosystem the most BY FAR

@Gemini53 all this talk of ramageddon but nobody's talking about the price of beef here, must be using it in AI data centres too

I'm ok with it skipping Xbox physical. I've bought two physical games this gen, and this one is not really on my radar

As always, for MS it depends if this is intended as a massive market device or a niche product, but my opinion is that it comes in 2027 as a niche product with an OEM lineup to follow

Cheers insomniac kids are crying now what am I meant to tell them

Had a quick 30 mins on series X earlier. It looks gorgeous and plays smooth. HD textures on. Feels like I've bought a brand new game ♥️

Well deserved, definitely an underrated gem for me

Eff yeah! Only bought this 3 weeks ago for 8 quid, free upgrade and I already liked the visuals 🤣

@themightyant I have to say, the GoW 2D being super pixelated was not what I was expecting. I was hoping for more of a lost crown vibe

@wittedbugle I've been close a few times mate but the price of games and reward points (and now play anywhere) has been an effective deterrent!

That was the best state of play for years. Loads of games I was interested in.

Bravo Sony (and I don't own a playstation nowadays)

@themightyant couldn't have said it better than that. Too many games, too little time, a lot are going to fail and there will be tonnes more layoffs before things stabilise again.

This is sad but the game never looked like it was going to break through

Added to the backlog, first one was excellent and a breath of fresh air

Not played it yet but glad to see KCD2 on there a couple of times. Hoping the rumours about the next gen upgrade for KCD1 this week are true!

Obstacle course runs sound interesting, I got really burned out by the time I was about 30 hours into FH5 so anything to keep the formula fresh! Not that 30 hours is a bad return like

@Fiendish-Beaver then I propose we start a petition: the Xbox PC "beaver edition", a singly made product that is provided to you free of charge for your dedication to Xbox and delta squad, and which remains the most powerful PC hybrid for a guaranteed period of at least 7 years.

I think there would be many on here willing to sign that petition myself included 🫡

@Fiendish-Beaver I think sadly it's just the way that Microsoft are moving. If the growth is there to be had in a PC centric approach and that means you don't always have the best for a full generation, well that's the same dilemma people have who buy graphics cards.

I'm happy with the potential new approach but I'll make mine last whatever the weather. Heck, I still play some games at 30fps and it doesn't bother me one jot.

What I would say about the actual Magnus specs though, is that I don't think that they wouldn't become outdated too quickly as there will be a lot of hardware accelerated AI upscaling carrying the next generation

@FarmDog08 yeah I tend to agree. I presume this "chiplet" design for Magnus has support for ERA and Win32 APIs but that wouldn't necessarily work for cheaper SoCs.

Big fan of this approach. Of course it'll be the MS one that I really want but the idea of different specs for different needs is very consumer focussed

⬆️ what he said

Adding characters now so I can post...

REBIRTH WOOOOOO!!!!!!

@eduscxbox I don't see an incentive for steam to allow MS to take a cut, epic maybe.

I just think they make their money in content and services. When you see the argument "why would they move away from the traditional 30% cut it's suicide for them" well clearly that isn't working for them now, but having a wider reach is faring better. Profit on hardware sold and 70% or whatever on 1st party content wherever it's sold off-store. Plus game pass money and sales on MS store. Seems like it could work to me 🤷

No idea what it's about but wondering how a game called "I'm in love with your dead grandmother" got through 🤷

I can't wait to see what they've designed together. First time for years, maybe decades, that I've felt excited about what the new hardware might be

@darylb24 quite right. Businesses adjust profit goals every single year, but I'll bet you it takes longer than that for people to assume Xbox is asking any less than 30% from it's studios because it's popular to hate MS right now.

@themightyant it's not necessarily about that, the ally is limited by its power draw and thermal design. If memory alone was the contributing factor then series X would never hit 4k with 16gb.

Steam machine is aiming for 8gb VRAM dedicated and 16gb RAM so I think your point does stand on merit, 32GB does seem a better fit, suppose it just depends if it's needed (again due to the upscaler)

@themightyant I suppose it depends on the NPU side of things, obviously 24 or 32GB isn't crazy as shared memory, likely 48GB would be overkill though.

I'd personally think they will go with 24GB due to FSR 4 being a much better upscaler than FSR 3 and backwards, with higher memory variants from OEMs. Just to keep the costs down a bit.

Either way, until something concrete is announced I'll keep huffing my hopium 🤣

Still an announce this year and release next year for me, due to 25 year anniversary and also they would benefit from beating Sony to market, as well as offering a more powerful alternative to steam machine.

That's just my opinion though, there are plenty of solid ones on this thread already that make a better case for 2028.

@themightyant I'm hoping you mean shared RAM, that amount of VRAM would be crazy!

@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!