Coletrain

It'll be a niche product and I'm happily going to be in that niche

I've always maintained 2027 and I'm sticking to that. With a semi official announcement yesterday I think that makes 2027 pretty much a shoe-in

@PsBoxSwitchOwner pro was £700 (still is) but it's lower than that on Amazon and Very quite often!

I'll go for £800 as a hopeful price point for helix, but £1000 doesn't sound out of bounds either. State of the world right now eh

Hell yeah. Nice to have the confirmation. Could be an absolute game changer for me

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I'm not saying that to artificially inflate the number, but seeing as the PC push is for extra sales on PS published titles only that would be the apt comparison. Also, 2% of whatever the revenue is (it's in the billions of dollars, right?) isn't chump change.

Obviously this move is strategic and their prerogative, all I'm highlighting is this 2% of revenue thing is likely quite a decent portion of first party game sales. The way the narrative threads itself online is like Sony 1st party sales on console are massive.

@themightyant oh yeah I agree, they all have their own distinct direction, it's more curiousity as I'm sick of seeing the whole "it's only 2% of their revenue" argument online, when we know the vast majority of their income is PSN charges on 3rd party software.

Keep up the good work mate

@themightyant I suppose the most useful metric would be % of PC sales on first party output Vs console sales on first party output. So you know, if revenue of first party games on console is only 6% of total revenue, then 1.5% of total revenue on PC games is pretty good. But if it's much higher then not so good.

We're relying on you for the facts here as you have a decent interest in scrutinising the financials 🤣 which is much appreciated

@Millionski I agree that the "you don't need an Xbox" was a ridiculous misstep.

Further bleed? Yeah, maybe. Very price dependent of course. As I mentioned I don't think for a second that ps6 won't outsell a nextbox, I was just making points that Sony won't grow any further due to exclusives. If it can grow again, it'll be based on price and Xbox failures (fingers crossed they're not a failure!)

@DennisReynolds I'm not comparing a ps6 with a next box, it will obviously sell more, it'd be naive to think otherwise. I'm saying the exclusive thing isn't the needle mover given dev costs (and time) unless they improve it.

It's not going to attract new users, just existing ones. All the data and reports have consoles trending down. PS6 isn't magically immune to this.

@DennisReynolds next gen consoles are going to cost more than this gen, Xbox couldn't possible bleed any more users over to ps5 than they have already; the install base becomes lower by default. Exclusives aren't all going to sell Spiderman numbers. And they're costing more to make. You're looking at 4-5m copies sold at full price to break even on some of these projects.

1st party wise Insomniac and team asobi are the only ones coming up smelling of roses. It's been a weird time this gen for them

Sony better up their pipeline then because the current cadence of Sony 1st party titles won't draw in new users. That leaves two options: reduce scope & production costs, or raise game prices

I like gaming leaks, but I don't care about call of duty ones. It's the same game every year with a different skin.

@Gemini53 yeah I think that's exactly what she means. Not a return to console first approach, but that when you use the Xbox platform it feels like the series consoles do at an interface level.

To all the other comments about dropping the hardware prices from other users: I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE!

@Banjo- I 100% agree my friend

@Banjo- for sure. To be honest I find the Xbox "exclusives" more interesting to play anyway, they just don't hit that 90 on metacritic to sell the consoles as well as ps5 games do (although I do think some of them are a little overhyped in reviews, like Spiderman 2 looks good but not 90 good)

Give me more stuff like Keeper and South of Midnight and I'm a happy camper

@Banjo- could just do it case by case. Like Forza makes total sense for various reasons (mostly because it sells so well!) but it will have some exclusives anyway coz some games don't go to console, and the Xbox will run PC games!

I went with "pretty optimistic", some great games to look forward to and already signs that we will get hardware news this year.

I have mild excitement around what the ps6 will be like and zero excitement about the switch 2 unless they do an oled model. So Xbox is winning by default anyway!

@islandfishguy I like engaging in the internet BS but honestly, never had as many unbelievable games to play

@themightyant I'm already really caught up in the hyperbole but she is saying all the right things 🤣 perhaps she should take a run in Westminster

Timed exclusives (as in, not on ps5 and Switch 2 for 6m to a year) feels like the right play here for me.

But I'm not super bothered either way, if I wanted a ps5 or switch 2 I'd buy one, I'm just enjoying how frigging good the XSX is and I never run out of great games to play

I'd just reduce the console prices in key markets. The US price Vs UK price is silly. Oh and market them again for GTA 6 (and maybe fable...and FH6...and GoW:e day...)

@General-Foley Luna is much more stable than normal xCloud as far as my eyes can tell. Runs at the same bitrate as the 1440p games on xCloud but it's only pushing 1080p.

Remote play better than both for me though! Didn't know that you could do that on a fire stick either but redundant for me as the stick and the box are in the same room 🥲

@Sol4ris I definitely want that future too, but I agree with @fatpunkslim that a little fine tuning on the current console strategy could go a long way to building a positive brand for the future.

Despite all the issues with marketing and management this generation, the series x still stands proudly in my living room as my favourite machine since the PS2, and I'd love to see Xbox acknowledge that and fight a little harder for it

@General-Foley I agree with every word you've just written. Regarding cloud, I have found better quality with Amazon Luna than xCloud and I get a whole range of services with my prime subscription that make it a good deal. Xbox cloud gaming should be an extra thing, not a focus area for growth.

Here's the thing. Play anywhere as a concept is excellent. The marketing campaign however was short-sighted and was (as is always the case with MS) looking at the future and not the present.

They alienated potential console buyers, which is rather dumb when GTA6 is coming this generation, and constricted supply massively when their games cadence is the best it's been for 20 years. A child could have come up with a better strategy.

God speed Phil, I've only been with Xbox 4 years but it's been a hell of a ride 🤣

Umm ffvii remake up from 225th to 9th...wow and wow again!

Maybe MS could hire them on a contract rather than buy them. Might have to do some jiggery pokery and set up a new company name or whatever but I really, REALLY want this studio to live on

@themightyant what hurts from my point of view is that when Sony were funding them as an outside studio everything was smelling of roses, as soon as a bigger structure was put in place then expectations are different. Don't know how many more times were going to see this pattern but I'd wager it's not over for Sony or MS 🥺

@ilyn yeah something certainly doesn't add up does it, especially when Sony has other studios who haven't put anything out this generation.

Now come on Bluepoint and Arcane Austin, let's use that close proximity to make a super team that does multiplat remakes

@ilyn I don't understand why Sony acquired them at all. If it wasn't for the obvious (remakes and remasters, support studio) then it was doomed to failure from the start. As evidenced by Bluepoint being in business for nearly 2 decades and then hung out to dry in just 4 and a bit years.

Hope someone saves them. Some, like Firewalk studios, I couldn't have cared less about, but these guys have something special

@awp69 you know what, big daddy MS buying a studio this good to remaster some of the OG and 360 catalogue isn't the world's worst shout mate...

If the rumours that bluepoint wanted to start making their own games are true however, then they've lost their USP

1000%, this and rebirth are the two games I'm buying at "launch" and there's no way that gta6 won't be incredible. Such fond memories of Vice City and can't wait to be back there

Heck what happened here then?? I didn't play shadow of the colossus on PS2 but I did play the bluepoint version on PS4 and they made it gorgeous.

Didn't seem the kind of team you'd want to shut down with their remastering skills, especially not with how many Sony has pumped out this gen

Love my Xbox series X pro such a great machine. Also, who cares? It looks brilliant on all the platforms they showed, minor differences here and there, but a beautiful world

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