Coletrain

@IOI massive agree on the $20 idea. Pay an extra 10 if you want CoD day 1 and fortnight crew, so only pay the current price for those behemoths but normal prices for everything else

Game looks incredible. Usually when Ryan McCaffrey likes a game in preview it turns out to be awesome too

After years of nothing, yes I'm very happy to see a renewed focus on basically anything. Still no idea if it's a smokescreen but Asha's reign has been tonnes better than Phil and Sarah

EDIT: mirroring above comments, achievements needs one step further. The best suggestion I've seen is to separate base game achievements from DLC ones, just like PS does

As someone who was new to Xbox just over 4 years ago I'd go MCC and Gears 1-3. Psychonauts 2 is a gem as well.

Of more recent ilk south of midnight is really unique, and obviously indy

@darylb24 yeah I'm good with 30 when the visuals at 60 are poor (or performance is too shaky), I'm just less certain that I'd want that in a racing game!

@Banjo- if a game is dropping from say 60 to 55 FPS in hectic content it's not too bad for me, but when it's all over the place I just have to change it. Hogwarts legacy without VRR I had to drop to fidelity mode almost immediately on series x.

@themightyant I'll have the 40 option one day...for now I'm a 60hz non-VRR pleb but I do 40fps on other devices and love it

@themightyant I had a good go with the 60fps mode and it holds up quite well for the most part. I don't know if it's age or exposure, but I've become quite sensitive to frame time issues so 30fps has become a good fall back for me

@Banjo- oh it's coming buddy, just need another 2 years until the smallest stops touching...

I do have a decent VRR monitor but it's not the same as a big telly, but my mate has a big VRR oled for his PS5 and it's gorgeous

@Banjo- put everything up high on a wall lol! The number of times I come into the living room after work and my series X has been turned on because the smallest one can't resist buttons...

@Banjo- ah to have a VRR TV in the living room, alas the kids are still at the screen touching ages so I'm not wasting my money on one yet 🤣

@Fiendish-Beaver I have no doubt that these things would have been in some form of development prior to her taking the helm, but I have strong doubts that all this positive console stuff would have seen the light of day under Sarah Bond. She just seemed so blinkered by the PC and cloud side of the ecosystem.

But whatever the behind the scenes stuff is, it doesn't matter because the very visible improvements and their delivery has been under Sharma. Even if it's just PR BS, she's bleddy good at it!

Yet more great stuff for Xbox owners under Asha's tenure. I already loved my Xbox but now I'm becoming proud of the brand

@Kezelpaso oh yeah no I meant no dig at you Ben, just a weird choice from Playground! Suppose it's for the YouTube capture

I love that you got a preview code but realistically who's gonna play this at 30fps? Anyway, sounds like it's shaping up to be exactly what we want it to be 😎

Any starfield afficionados got a preference on mode? I personally plump for the 30fps quality mode, super smooth and I can't deal with the frame dips in new Atlantis and akila.

@Weebleman yes it can get tiresome but I see the same on PS so suppose it brings some "balance" to my hookshot media consumption 🤣

One day, we might all realise that both PlayStation and Xbox make some exceptional hardware and games

@VisitingComet1 have to agree. The dualsense features are really cool, but it's the first pad I've ever held that doesn't feel natural out of the gate.

I'd love haptic feedback on the helix controller, adaptive triggers aren't as cool so not too fussed there

I agree, they're genuinely trying to give indie Devs some visibility. Not specifically an "indie" but look how this kind of partnership can turn out with something like Clair Obscur

Currently playing super meat boy on a mini holiday in lake district, must be one of the OG Xbox live arcade games

Keeper, get in my library. It was a price drop or a move to premium that was gonna make me play it, this'll do nicely

@Weebleman I've no idea what your deleted comment was but I've always found your posts to be balanced and sensible mate. Was it the ps5 pro call out?

I have not bought a ps5 pro but happy for people that have, PSSR 2.0 looks exceptional

@FraserG I'm not a learned scholar in this area, but it'd lead me to believe that ps5s VRR only kicks in on native ps5 apps, whereas Xbox having smart delivery gives VRR to Xbox one compatible apps. Just a guess but sounds most plausible

I can deal with Helix at a grand given the leaked specs. Ps6 can't cost that though, it needs a much lower cost for platform scale. Xbox can just reach people on all PCs, Xboxes and xCloud so hardware sales slightly less important

Darwin's paradox, replaced, Hades 2 and Mouse:PI for hire are all on my radar. All looks absolutely superb (Darwin's paradox demo was so pretty)

I have to say, since stopping using GPU I've been a lot happier, but it still has a place and the price does indeed need to be reconsidered and lowered. If that means stopping day 1 big releases then so be it, sales should be incentivised for a period of time (say, 3 months) before they drop on

@Fiendish-Beaver @fatpunkslim can you two please find something to disagree on, I don't come to these forums to watch you two getting along 🤣

@abe_hikura agreed. Whilst it doesn't make sense to me that they would need to again, it's well within their usual wheelhouse!

@fatpunkslim as above. And agreed, these new ps5 prices are quite frankly insane. Especially in the UK where we've been pretty sheltered from the extreme prices rises on Xboxes

My £450 XSX was a bargain.

If Sony is doing it then MS probably will, but it's a hell of a marketing boon if they don't and Asha Sharma starts a campaign about them being cheaper...

Hades 2 and Dispatch. Awesome.

They keep doing these really small, subtle things and my perception of Xbox has turned from "oh god, what now?" to "ok, things are looking up" since Asha Sharma started

Whilst we all wish the very best to the staff who have been laid off in these awful times we live in, I hope that the shared sentiment is "Fortnite has been a cancer on that which I hold dear in gaming, and can do one, the sooner the better"

No, no disc drive, the PC market has phased it out so at best an attachment for older Xbox games might be sold. I'd be lying if I said I cared, I've bought 2 disc games on XSX in 4.5 years.

I'd love to see them provide an option to digitise old disc purchases, but the logistics of having to prove you own the disc every now and then don't seem worth it

@themightyant yes they have to get the UX spot on for Helix to be a success, it's a very tall order! I'm still very, very interested but it's good to know that we will likely have ps6 to fall back on if Helix is somehow a disaster.

Quite a long term view there marketing wise and I agree in that sense, but as a quick, punchy little tagline I do think this one is a winner. I'm seeing XSX digital certified refurbished on my store for £344.99, not sure how well that's being advertised!

@Banjo- yeah exactly. And I've said this before, but at the time I was foolishly on board with the "everything is an Xbox" campaign.

In hindsight, I was miles out, and only an actual Xbox and a half decent PC are "Xboxes", everything else was a cloud dependent limitation to the real experience.

I do like cloud, I do like play anywhere, but they're complimentary, not the focus for me

@themightyant think about it this way. There was a disastrous marketing campaign that "everything is an Xbox", and now a campaign focussed solely on saying that "THIS (an Xbox) is an Xbox".

It's genius and a step above anything we saw with Sarah Bond at the helm

Edit: I do think she's quickly realised that Helix is dead in the water without a strong Xbox Series user base

This is incredible. No way this was a pre-Asha strategy. Love to see the fight!

@GeminiX53 no no you're right, it is a bit of a slur to be fair, I'll edit it. I don't find PC players insidious, takes a reasonable amount of research to get into it anyway. I'm a Rog ally owner, so I'm on the baby steps beginner programme 🤣

@GeminiX53 I didn't mean to be derogative, I meant for those that have really high end cards only. Sorry mate.

I don't like it. Can't deny how great it looks on the facial models, but it's still the kind of AI that I don't want. Plus, AMD aren't going to suddenly catch up with Nvidia and have this sort of thing ready for Helix so it's just a benefit for high end PC card owners

I'd held off on this because FF16 went on sale after about 6 weeks and that was newer. Today, I've bought this and pre ordered rebirth with some reward points. Very happy camper right now

I've been wanting this for the Amazon Luna app, pain in the backside going to desktop when I'm playing Dave the diver haha

Something simple, with prestige, and harkening back to their roots.. Xbox Halo

I'll hold my hands up as someone who was ok with the campaign at the time. But in hindsight, I was totally wrong to be. It's really clear how much it devalued the brand.

Hoping Asha Sharma is a bit more adept with messaging!

@BustedUpBiker sorry mate had the page open! Thanks, I'm 100% certain it'll be an all-timer for me

@BustedUpBiker I was gonna give fidelity with RT a shot with perf mode as a backup if it's unstable, thanks for the heads up! I can't wait to finally get round to it, been a backlog game for years

@Gemini53 re: comment 54. Yes, I'm currently about to start hogwarts legacy for the first time, tried to find the best graphics mode for series X and the DF video from 3 years ago is basically saying none of them. Obviously I'll just try myself and figure it out but I would love them to update on poor performers from launch (and I do enjoy their content in fairness, even if series consoles are getting much less coverage now!)

@TrollOfWar wouldn't solve my ergonomics issue unfortunately! But yep, I'd bet you can mate

I'm getting more and more excited for this hardware with each little tidbit. Looking forward to hearing how Devs are feeling about it too.

Also, would love haptic feedback on the pad. Love that on dualsense but not a fan of the ergonomics

Dear Xbox,

You keep raising the prices on Hardware and Game pass, and nerfing the rewards program. You made V bucks and Ubisoft classics a part of GPU. That's not a very useful move to actual Xbox players.

The things we "expect you to do" you keep doing and we're now used to getting screwed over.

I hope GDC shows everyone a clear direction so that I can go a day without reading that Xbox is dead!

Yeah I noticed this yesterday. Leave rewards alone MS, it's by far the most value added tool in your arsenal. People engage with your product, you can advertise to them and little old me gets discounts on his games

@Millionski I'm hoping for the following:

1. A design similar to series X with good airflow where you can barely hear the fans

2. A way of auto-optimising settings for TV friendly frame rates (probably just 60 and 120 FPS) that don't have VRR support

That's it. The rest is just access to the (frankly embarrassing) amount of digital PC and Xbox games that I already own