Coletrain

@OldGamer999 a stark contrast from earlier this year my friend 🤣 we will stay on Xbox watch though, the community needs us 🧐

@Fiendish-Beaver I suppose it depends very much on the feature set. If this console can genuinely run PC code at a TV friendly frame rate, then £800 (WITHOUT online fees for multiplayer) is quite compelling, and I'd wager there's enough gamers in the Xbox/PC market that would be interested in a homogenised PC console.

I wouldn't expect Xbox to be able to pry away people from the playstation fan base because they have their own thing in cinematic, polished games. But they already have probably 60/70 million people using series and xbone consoles regularly, so it's not too much to convert just under half of them.

All this with the usual caveat of whether or not they can deliver and more importantly market the damn thing correctly 🤦

@BaldB3lper78 it'd have to be a monumental piece of hardware next gen to turn minds away from PC and PS6. I really hope Xbox can just be happy in a hardware niche of selling 20-30m and not pivoting every 2 weeks

@BaldB3lper78 yup, undoubtedly not selling well. Shame, MS really screwed up with marketing and messaging

Xbox is very much in stock at the UK in the moment. Available at Amazon, Currys, Frazers (which is GAME) and Argos.

I do still think MS should tell the public what their plans are for hardware ASAP, to stop the rumour mongers for one, and also to give consumers a bit of confidence in the direction of the brand

Clair Obscur, but honourable mention to Blue Prince. Both utterly unique in their own ways

@OldGamer999 series x is my first Xbox and I fell in love with it very quickly. I actively did not get a ps5 as I was burnt out on the exclusives and wanted to try Forza, halo and gears (now played all halo games, first 3 gears of war games and Forza horizon 4 + 5, all excellent.) The controller fits my hands better as well which was a nice bonus.

But I will have no problem going back to a ps6 if it's purely and simply the better product. You're right, we need to know what MS is planning to make that decision. Until then, every game I could want to play I have access to, with the exception of astro bot(!)

@BAMozzy oh no, frame gen only works well in a specific subset of games I've tried and I generally avoid it as much as possible, I just meant FSR for the upscaling. When you combine a 720p output with RIS to a certain level it cleans the image up for me without looking too jagged

@Fiendish-Beaver yes you're right on that, 4k from a distance is probably as good as 1080p close up.

Probably another advantage of next gen then, either we will have higher pixel counts for upscalers to work with or upscaling will be so good we barely notice the difference. It'll certainly feel iterative though won't it

@OldGamer999 yes I agree, they're leaving the consoles to Sony and Nintendo. They make most of their money from services and software anyway, so I just assume they'll sell hardware at cost instead of subsidised, and sales numbers won't matter. The console wars will be over because it will play everything a pc can, and they'll rake in money hand over fist without their additional 30% cut and not care

@AverageGamer I fear for double fine. And I really shouldn't have to!

@OldGamer999 it can't just be a game pass machine again, it has to shake things up or daddy Microsoft will just can the whole thing I reckon. What's your thoughts?

@Banjo- I will say I want it to be Xbox that wins me over. They just need a good product with PC stores, it's really that simple this time out. Come on MS don't let us down...

The future is extremely exciting. Right now I'm not sure what direction I'd rather go in out of XextBox, PS6 or PC, but all options are going to be stacked

@AverageGamer I think from my point of view it's just the pretence of "you're in our stable now, you're safe and you're valuable members of the Xbox game studios team" when the reality was that it worked the same as it always has: produce games that make profit or you're gone

@Fiendish-Beaver I agree 60fps is enough for me as well. Although I don't think it's about what the eyes can comprehend, higher framerates are more about perceived smoothness and reduced input latency. I'm sure the PC gamers in the forum can attest to this better than I.

This is all buzzwords to me, but my interpretation generally is that more efficient data compression should allow for these higher framerates as standard, because the GPU load is decreased on a scene by scene basis meaning a faster rendering pipeline. Think this is what we all sort of expected from next gen anyway!

That's awesome, great work guys. MS need a timeout in the naughty corner for all the crap they've put Devs through

@BAMozzy yeah the ergonomics are actually a huge selling point and will make a massive difference.

This won't matter to you once you've got your new beast (!) but for AAA fare I always use 720p (900p if I can), fsr or rsr if needed and set Radeon image sharpening to 70-80%. Cleans up the image and looks 1080p-like (at least on a small screen, doesn't work on monitor). I find that usually gives me lots of performance headroom within the memory constraints of the device

@BAMozzy I'm a Rog ally owner myself, I've not felt a need to upgrade as I prefer games that I can fit in at 20w or below so newest AAA stuff is reserved for my XSX.

I like that play anywhere basically makes it an "Xbox switch" for some games too

@BAMozzy well, the good news is that all the specs you were describing are the ones that you're getting, so there's some happy gaming coming your way my man!

@BAMozzy ok I did a search of where you got this info I did a bing search. Copilot does indeed provide you with those incorrect numbers. If you click through you'll see it's pulling from a z2E to z1E comparison, not z2A

Even just Google z2A and you'll find the right specs dude

@BAMozzy I don't know if you're thinking of the z2e but the z2a is rDNA 2 and zen 2, 4 cores 8 threads. It isn't as efficient as the z1e

@BAMozzy the Xbox ally looks like a nice enough product, but it won't be more power efficient than a z1e device because it's using older architecture (rDNA 2 vs 3). The bigger battery helps, so running an easier game like hollow knight silksong it'll go longer than an OG ally, but anything that requires a higher power envelope just won't be worth running.

If you pop a 65w jsaux battery into the OG Ally z1e that'll be more efficient than Xbox ally in most gaming scenarios

I thought season 1 was cool, hoping to see season 2 make it's way to UK netflix in the very near future!

@Vandrid I hope they do revisions to the model, but I'm willing to see how the premium tier pans out too. I cancelled ultimate about 2 months ago as I've bought loads of great non-GP games this year and not touched them!

I'm not super interested in day one COD, but it'll be nice to play stuff like Keeper or Avowed at a cheaper tier a few months on

So many of these leakers are just grifters farming for engagement. Yawn.

OG Psychonauts was incredibly creative and is my pick. But 2 was pretty bleddy good too!

@Decimateh nice, is that UK or are you in EU?

@HeavyHoggJP I still can't tell how true or not the email is if I'm honest! But yes if true it's a classic backtracking example from MS again

@Kezelpaso thanks Ben, I can't see it being reported anywhere else and I thought it was madness!

@Kezelpaso have you seen the video what culture dropped on YouTube this morning? They're saying a staff member had an email that game pass ultimate was staying the same price as long as they kept auto-renew on!

@OldGamer999 cheers bud. That's the general sentiment of most reviews as well funnily enough, looks like they have another hit on their hands!

@OldGamer999 how are you finding GoY? I'm considering finally giving GoT a chance on steam, the setting looks gorgeous in the reviews

@Banjo- I've got to say, as someone who had a ps1-4 before this, I was blown away by how right the controller feels. I know we don't get the full dualsense features but man, it just slots into your hands like it was always there

BF6 released a great beta, told everyone they were focussing on performance over too much fidelity and now doing optional install packs (and 70gb isn't bad in this day and age!) - this really feels like it's going to be a return to form and a COD killer for a while

@Banjo- last week made me question my XSX purchase a lot. Then at the weekend I slipped into some GTA4, then FFXVI both on the TV and on ROG ally via play anywhere, and suddenly my worries melted away. Great ecosystem, all we can do is hope it keeps getting the support it deserves

@BethesdaBoyz I know what you mean. Sometimes it's hard to remember how good Xbox consoles are this gen when you get wrapped up in the news

Haha I wondered why mine had gone down to 110. That's outrageous that essential and premium subs still don't keep at least 150. Albeit that's worth about 3p but its still silly

I didn't believe the rumour when I saw it anyway (as DF sometimes say, single source reporting is rarely accurate), but I think what makes people so worried is that Xbox consistently shift focus and strategy to the point where it's hard to feel valued, or that your library of games is safe.

So yes, it's a crap rumour, but the fact that it's so feasible was an issue. I do hope next gen hardware is still happening for them, but the fact it's not an automatic buy for me yet speaks volumes about their messaging

I agree, SoM was such a fantastic audio and visual experience (just a tad repetitive in the combat), but some stiff competition for OST with Clair Obscur which I thought was hauntingly beautiful and stayed in my head longer

If they want to do an ad supported tier they shouldn't timegate it. They're already getting the ad revenue, no need to limit the user.

I will say (despite my overwhelmingly negative views on Xbox at the moment) that xcloud has been impressive when I've used it this year, in fact most of the services I've used have (including Amazon Luna for fellow Prime members)

It's a lovely idea, but unfortunately subscriptions are always more predatory than that! For the love of all things holy, Netflix and Disney + make you pay to upgrade from 1080p to 4k!

Now a reduced annual price plan, that would be a smarter move here. It's a common practice, gives perceived benefit from the discount and locks revenue in

"Hey, you got any feedback on how we can improve on what you want from Xbox game pass?"

"Nah I'm good dude, you guys are killing it, literally change nothing"

"So what you're saying is you want more v bucks, correct?"

"no, wait, that's not what I..."

"AND YOU LOVE OLD AC GAMES RIGHT? RIGHT!!??"

@Kaloudz I 100% agree. I'll be using the middle tier for Xbox games when they come later on. On the bright side, by the time we play em they'll have had all the performance patches that you don't get day 1 🤔🤣

I'd already let my sub lapse to play non-GP titles, so my plans haven't changed in that regard. However, it's a massive shame as the way I used GPU was to sub for a month when a cool game came to the service that I could beat in a month. Which means I won't be playing really cool games like Keeper for some time now, until it drops onto Premium.

Honestly, I feel bewildered, angry, and taken for granted as someone who truly loves the Series X as a piece of kit

@Kaloudz I don't know where the easy to read lists are bud, but on my Xbox console itself in the game pass section I was able to view the library of essential and premium. The actual library for premium is pretty good, problem is I've already played most of it on Ultimate in the past!

@ValentineMeikin it's cool that you see value in it but let's not pretend that including something that gives you Fortnite battle passes to jack up the prices isn't insidious.

How does that benefit gamers, developers, Xbox fans or the industry? Just because it benefits you in this instance, doesn't mean it's a good thing or worth it for a lot of people at all

@Gabrie get ready for artificial queueing to create demand for the higher tiers 👏

@PsBoxSwitchOwner usually I would try to think of a way to justify minor price increases as Xbox has been ridiculously cheap for me this gen, but this one feels like a step to far.

@FraserG ok now on my app GPU is going to be £22.99 per month...and they've changed the tiers...I know you'll report on this soon but holy hell!