Coletrain

I've probably said this before, but they just need to make good hardware that people actually want if they're gonna succeed. Right now you just sort of look at the landscape and say "Valve has steam OS to get a few people on board, Sony has the market position already, Nintendo has it's massive longstanding IPs, so what is MS gonna bring to the table?"

If the answer is what I think it is, which is the most flexible ecosystem, then hardware sales are never going to be a focus for them. It's a good ecosystem though, can't fault it from a personal standpoint

I expect Xbox to cuddle up to the new Steam Machine and whisper in its ear: "you do it so much better than me. Teach me how to dance."

It's been a strange old generation but I've never played as many games for a long number of years. And I'm still yet to play BG3, Elden Ring and Metaphor, so it's gonna be a golden few years

Yeah this looked petty by Eurogamer. I totally agree with their sentiment but to devalue the hard work of hundreds of people who probably had no choice in the use of some AI was a pointless statement and a low blow

Great article as others have stated. I use my ROG Ally z1e and XSX the same way, like a more powerful Nintendo switch setup. And I also actively look for play anywhere games now (really looking forward to remake intergrade for this.)

I haven't seen much online about this, but I'd assume for the best docked experience you'd use a power supply for one usb-c port and for the thunderbolt I'd imagine you need a usb-c to displayport cable (as well as a VRR capable monitor with a displayport or usb-c DP input)

Anyone had a try with this to see if the features work on a monitor?

@Fiendish-Beaver then colour me sold on this, sounds excellent

@Fiendish-Beaver what's the general tone of the game? I can't tell if it's a fun or a serious game! The graphics always look gorgeous though...

@themightyant this is the most likely answer. MS are not know for leaving money on the table recently, so Reggie perhaps forgot to take the dev kit situation into account

FFS Xbox players, will you stop buying games. You know we only stick to game pass!

I certainly hope we do. Do MS though? They certainly are doing everything they can to drive potential new customers away

Awesome machine. Actually tiny enough to fit in all setups, significantly lower power draw than XSX/PS5 and a fantastic option for 1080p TVs and monitors. Also responsible for some pretty cool performance improvements on Baldurs Gate 3, so there's a decent legacy!

@OldGamer999 I still hope there's a place for it. I haven't had chance to play it but astro bot is a shining example of making something bespoke to the hardware (obviously moreso the controller than anything else), and I count studios like naughty dog and insomniac amongst my favourite Devs ever.

But yes, homogenised hardware does seem like the main direction of travel, with small tweaks for ps6

@OldGamer999 yeah you have to accept Nintendo as an outlier, which I don't mind one bit as they produce great games at lower fidelity.

To be honest, I find myself actively looking for good play anywhere games now so I can use my Rog ally as an Xbox switch

@fatpunkslim overall? PC. AAA gaming? Playstation. That's what makes me so curious

Everything pointing to this PC in a living room box future. Starting to wonder what the more frictionless Dev environment will be: PC or ps6

@Duck_Farmer I recently finished GTA4 for the first time since 2008 (or whenever it came out, I forget the year...) It's the one I'd forgotten the most, and many oh man does the story hit better the 2nd time around

@Odium it looks like what I wanted Octopath Traveller to be when it first came out some years ago on switch. Love that HD2D art style. Glad to hear it's good, I'm even more confident in it now!

@themightyant haha 100% mate, I'm sticking with just calling it Elliot so that the awful name doesn't overshadow my excitement for it

Elliot looks incredible. I'm a big FF fan too (and JRPG fan in general) so I've been super happy since they started this whole push.

@Xavier1415 I mean that they're more successful when they do something. Not that what they do is technically more advanced. I don't know why they are, I don't personally think they have a better service offering than Xbox, but they just do better out of it when they copy.

So no, you stop it.

I always think it's funny when rumours like this happen and you get the usual twitter grifters saying "ps copying Xbox again but it's a dead platform lololol"

Yeah, but whenever ps copy something they always do better out of it than Xbox anyway!

And I'm in the "no point PS doing a PC launcher" camp, not sustainable cost wise. Partnering with someone like Epic for cross buy would be a competitive move though

@Fiendish-Beaver yes I have to concur with comment #13. You could say that FH5 is a system seller, but that's gone now. I'd have also made a fine argument for Indiana Jones but that ended up being a bit divisive too!

The simple fact is (bourne out by sales figures) great software sells the hardware, and MS have exited that race now so we will never know if they could have taken on Sony more meaningfully next gen.

Although PC stores on a console like device, that could still be a surprise hit, but does feel more niche than mainstream

@Titntin it's all just preferences isn't it mate! I play ps5 at my mates house sometimes and I never know where my middle fingers are meant to go on the dualsense, as well as my left thumb always aching afterwards. He absolutely swears it's comfortable for him though!

@Kramlar haha same dude. "Dear Sony, I hate the shape of your controller but some of your games look quite good. More money here for you if you need it."

@WildConcept6 yeah you're probably right, suppose I don't even have a clue what the measure of success would be in sales terms for this thing.

They've got to release the numbers on these things soon surely! With the price being so high these just feel like artificial stock shortages

@Kezelpaso I agree, the F2P model of infinite's MP would work well on PS5. I don't know where you go after infinite other than to say, take a massive risk, do something leftfield and see if it sticks!

Infinite's campaign did sort of set it up for a new story arc, maybe one where chief galvanises the United colonies (or what's left) and takes the fight to the brutes!

Unless these are being developed in conjunction with each other and release quite quickly after campaign evolved, I can't really see that the rub is worth the green. Why would MS commission a new studio and then have it just do remakes of old games?

This plus MS rewards is what's keeping me from switching right now. Love playing stuff on the go (that isn't Nintendo!)

@hbkay don't worry, copilot will fix it

@Kaloudz yeah £600 isn't happening man! But maybe if we trade our Series X consoles towards it then it'll be that price...hmm....

@Kaloudz you're not alone in your thinking, I think the hardware is going to be exceptional (the Series X already is the best console from a hardware standpoint, IMO) but the question marks are around MS delivering something compelling enough (and cheap enough) that both developers and consumers support it.

That's my worry, but I share your excitement too. It's going to be real interesting to watch it all unfold

@Fiendish-Beaver if I had to really call something a rival, maybe people watching let's play stuff on YouTube (especially kids, my friends all have kids that watch Roblox on YouTube) but that would simply be competition for all gaming devices!

Instead I just think they should do what playstation does and show us why we should buy their hardware and games, not why they haven't sold more in the past

@XxEvilAshxX I don't disagree that short-form media is a toxic cancer on humankind. I wish it would die.

But it's not any more of a competition for Xbox than work/school, playing sports, watching TV, talking on the phone, going to the park etc. Gaming is always competing for your free time, but using tik tok as an example of competition just because they can measure time used more accurately than other forms of free time is totally out of touch (in my opinion)

I don't like two of them saying that the competition is short-form media. I don't Doom scroll at night coz I can do that in the day, I play video games at night.

I sometimes wish that these execs would just shut up and talk when something exciting can be announced. So rather than say "we see our competition as this thing" just say "here's our freaking awesome hardware coming out, we hope you love it and buy it"

@OldGamer999 you'd hope they get it right eventually! Seems to be a massive problem on PC versions in particular

@Banjo- the Mark Cerny X AMD video was interesting, because they really leaned on on streaming compression. If Xbox doesn't have something similar then they might run pretty much identically, because that quick storage system was a killer feature for ps5.

But it's all about the games for me; show me a system that plays Xbox and ps games without having to sit at a desk (and isn't a handheld lol!) and it's an easy winner

@OldGamer999 from what I can gather the issue is memory streaming, it's using software ray tracing and GI (lumen) which has a cost on the frame time. So any time things get a bit hectic on screen, the GPU is struggling to stream things in quickly enough.

The series X has a mild advantage over ps5 because it has a greater number of compute units, but only on games that have been optimised for it. If a games lead design was for ps5, it's not always taking advantage of the extra grunt.

The ps5 CPU is clocked at a higher speed (which is why it uses more power from the wall usually) so fares better when there are lots of things animating at once.

At least, that's my limited understanding

@Banjo- it's certainly an enticing prospect, and I don't mind paying extra if that's what it will do.

As Mr Beaver is correctly pointing out, this open future won't come at cost, but I guess you can counterbalance that by saying you won't need 2 separate consoles to play 99% of games so is it any different to people who have bought Xbox and ps5 this gen

@OldGamer999 no, I think Nintendo will carry on as is and Sony might experiment with different SKUs but largely keep the same high quality (but low volume) output. Guess that's the gamble staying with Xbox though eh, you just never know what you're gonna get 🤣

@OldGamer999 I've been toying with the idea of leaving but I've a pretty decent library of unplayed games at the moment, and I've no issues at all with the hardware performance of my series x - it's been excellent. Ultimately, I think I'll stick around until next gen releases and the reviews are in

UE5 is a real bugbear for DF (and rightly so, their analysis always shows problems that you just don't get with most other engines), feel like it won't be at home until hardware can brute force the performance

@OldGamer999 I'm stuck on the same fence as you. Xbox ecosystem is my preferred one now, confirmation of how that future looks is what I'm most desperate for

Reports, leaks, everything points to this future for Xbox. Just got to get there without too much rake stepping now. Not a product that I think will outsell a ps6, but one that offers the most freedom you can have with a controller based system

Xbox biggest competition is it's own PR department

@Banjo- I can't think of any other good reason why they'd delay the ps5 launch. It's that big a game really. Not GTA VI level don't get me wrong, but whatever the next rung down on the ladder is

@OldGamer999 putting my tin hat in, Forza Horizon 6 will be by far Xbox' best launch in the last 3 gens, and it's designed to push a few last ditch console sales. There's no reason they couldn't delay the game slightly to finish a ps5 port, so what else can it be?

@Runex2121 yeah that would make more sense, do it as a F2P like infinite MP

@Runex2121 I can't understand remaking 1 like this without multiplayer. Given that MS just want loads of money, this without MP seems pointless!

@Runex2121 I thought 5 was a good game but not a good halo game. Of all the others I loved 3 and 4 the best (just based on campaign, not a massive multiplayer guy though I did enjoy infinite)

Anyway, that's the last plaster ripped off, now hopefully we can get some positive momentum for Xbox in the coming 2 years leading into next gen