Brilliant, haven't played a Kojima game I didn't love so if this gets rid of PS exclusivity for a Kojima game then it's great news to me

@CasualGamerFatigue online discourse is only interesting when speaking with decent people. If you want to argue nonsensically there's reddit

@CasualGamerFatigue I want to buy them cheaply (which I have), play them without the disc noise and they have play anywhere support for my PC handheld. Do you want me to walk you through why it's not pointless or can you figure it out yourself?

Hogwarts legacy, Metaphor and Starfield for me. But I'll be dipping into CEX whenever I get dragged to town much more often

I think this would work on me if they chopped it to about £13, but I checked and no such luck 🤣

@Evilinsane same, really hope that we get another "deal for you" for the new one at about £40, that would be "fair" for me

@Mr-Cage 🤣 if she puts up with Mary Jane you might be onto a winner, not touched Mary since I was 17

@Mr-Cage I only have one rule for her: the kids wear England rugby kits not Ireland 🤣

Otherwise what she says goes 😬

@Mr-Cage my wife is only 1/4 Irish and she gets fiery, I reckon you're knackered when Lucia hits your screen pal

🙏ING for you

Haha yeah I thought this was a bit tone deaf when I saw it. Really hope they reverse the decision on GP ultimate cloud hours

@fatpunkslim sorry, let me be more specific: Xbox cloud gaming has failed. Luna and GeForce now still have their places.

Here is why more subs matter: the content remains the same. Game output doesn't need to be higher than it is in gamepass. So if we double the subscribers and therefore revenue, then Xbox cloud gaming does not need to be subsidised by the user because it is profitable within the collective subscription revenue.

By adding payment options for game pass subscribers (non-subscribers is different and that's a cool addition) you're admitting that the cloud part of your subscription was not profitable as part of the package. Probably because data centres are a joke (that's a whole different topic) when it comes to efficiency.

Everything within any subscription is subsidised by the revenue. In this case, the revenue ain't good enough, chief

@fatpunkslim I'm not talking about profitability, just why cloud gaming has failed enough to need extra payments. I think game pass is likely going to be profitable this financial year.

Remember, cloud wasn't the main draw for most users, it's a benefit, and if sub count was higher it wouldn't need subsidising further by the user

@fatpunkslim none of this is true. Unlimited Cloud gaming on xbox failed because Xbox didn't get anywhere near the subscription numbers they had projected.

The failure of game pass to meet Xbox's expectations is why cloud now needs paid tiers. If they had the 70m subscribers they had projected by now, and the same games they currently have, then this would be a non-issue.

@Echtzeit it's not that it's likely to affect a huge amount of people, it's because it's shrinkflation. Somebody using game pass (whatever tier) is now going to pay the same amount and receive less. There is no perceived positive to be had with this for a consumer, it only benefits Xbox/MS

@cronogold it's £350, it's a poor conversion for me lol! Should be about £260 (in fact, I could just buy it American and have it shipped to England cheaper...)

That statue though...it would look pretty sweet on my desk...

@strzelec oh right, you just wanted to console war. Good luck with that.

@badboidre Sharma is making the brand desirable again, so let's just ignore that angle because it's not really connected.

It might be easy to say save up for it, but it's a lot easier to pay £17.50 a month than £500-600 in one go and then add the subs and games. Hell, I only got a series X I'm the first place because of Xbox all access, we'd just had our first child and I wasn't about to spend £450 plus games when I didn't need to.

It's not that I don't agree that cloud gaming is fairly bad or pointless, it's that Xbox made this part of their offering and now they want to monetise the benefit further. People with no active GP sub it makes sense as an offering and I think that's cool, but the ones already subbed? Come on

@strzelec I have a series x, I'm good, I'm just not seeing the positive angle on this news like you are...

@badboidre the whole point of the Xbox app on fire stick (or TVs that support it) was cloud gaming though. It doesn't matter if you or I think it's a poor way to play games, it makes it an objectively poor deal for those users.

I'll reserve judgement until we see the prices, but yeah, cloud is a cool addition to an Xbox setup but certainly not a great way to play every game.

Probably would have been an idea to keep ultimate unlimited or at 100 hours though, it's the only way someone using a fire stick can interact with it and that marketing campaign wasn't really that long ago

Can't believe it, I've already spent £65 on ff7 remake and rebirth and I could have had the whole lot for £80 😭

There are so many little steps that Xbox are taking under Asha that are leading to overall positive brand perception. She knows what she's doing this one

@Balaam_ for probably the first time, I 100% agree. Difficulty related achievements are good for short campaigns only, or the dustbin.

Sony actually does this commendably with their 1st party stuff nowadays, the platinums are the right amount of challenge and time.

I'm playing through Keeper right now. It's absolutely exquisite.

BUT I do agree with the sentiment that they did not a right lot with the time they had. And Kiln was a game that was created in some stoners mind and then shoehorned into a multiplayer template. Never looked worthwhile.

They've got their freedom back now, and I still love them, and they will probably get back to making cool games in a timely manner now that they have to keep the lights on independently

@Titntin push review echoes how I felt when I saw the gameplay deep dive. Serviceable but boring gameplay wrapped in an interesting (ISH) time mechanic.

It's a "wait for sale" for me, but a definite buy at some point. The demo looked and felt amazing. Didn't think the boss was a challenge though, some old Sekiro reflexes must have kicked in 🥷

@Millionski yeah I'm ready for a bigger return to focussed linear titles that don't want 90 hours of my time and take 4 years to make instead of 6. Long games can be fun but gosh there has been so many of them this gen

Perhaps it's time for alternative media forms. Flash drives with the licence key or something similar (lord knows Xbox discs don't hold most full games anyway) would be effective as they just need a USB slot

@LostInBlue0 it's like Hell blade 2 levels of fidelity but a massive world, I was blown away!

It's gonna be a locked, smooth AF 30fps on XSX. And it looks incredible. For anyone moaning that it should be 60, give your head a shake as it really doesn't matter when the game is this damn good

GTA 5 was like an 80 hour game for me. You live in these worlds, not rush the story. The longer the better.

@NeutronBomb I wouldn't mind the idea of paying a new one off over 12 months through Argos or Very, but not until I see a meaningful upgrade in efficiency.

Like, the Xbox ally x range looks great, but they're not actually pushing things much harder than the one we've got (they just have comfier handles, which I can buy on eBay!)

It's definitely going to be finance options; as long as they're interest free then dammit, I'm in

Ahhh my £15 metaphor refantazio physical purchase worked out 🤣

Currently hugging my z1e Rog ally that I paid £320 for...what has the world come to

I'm just saving up whatever points I earn until a few days before it comes out. Currently enough for a £25 saving. All I do is log onto bing mobile once a day, spend 3 minutes getting points and back to my day. Accumulated 37,000 points since Feb

I'll always love and keep playing double fine games. I'm happy they're independent again.

@Balaam_ you've been able to put points into user selected amounts for a while, but only very recently through the rewards section of the console itself.

I won't be buying it but not performance related. I watched the gameplay stuff on YouTube and it looks so boring.

I think it's a good PR move, but it's not one that I personally agree with. I prefer to see transparency in sales data.

Then again, I don't make a living by farming for clicks on social media like the insidious people that give it the whole "look how crap Xbox is why even put your games on there" crowd

@fatpunkslim to your really good point number 1, there were some figures last week about how high some physical sales were for select AAA games like requiem, Spiderman 2 etc. and they're much higher in Europe and UK. Albeit these were playstation figures, but it does say to me that physical has a future, even for Xbox

Looking forward to putting my details into Rockstar Social Club when the multiplayer element launches, they seem really tight with online security

@carlos82 yup, totally agree. The phone model is going to be the prevalent way to buy a Helix. As long as it's interest free then I'm actually happy with that.

I never played it, to my shame 😓 but yes would buy just to see what the hype was about

@Banjo- hope so man. I want to replay 1 & 2 on handheld but sort of have the option on the SX too

@Luigia I'm on the original z1e model with an upgraded battery, I wouldn't say I enjoy everything on a monitor (for example, FF7 rebirth is passable at best!) but I do love anything indie that runs 1080p 60fps natively! Awesome machines though, I would have got an Xbox ally if I'd not got this one 2 years ago

I'd be hitting the ROG Ally hard. Already got a huge backlog of indie games on there

Looks ok buuutttt I think I'd rather pick up Kena when it goes on sale than this. Art direction is gorgeous though

@oopsiezz yeah 3 was 10/10 atmosphere and writing, 4/10 poor gameplay for me. Still glad I played it though.

@Dodoo 🤣 no no that's too much like some kind of topless greek god. We might just have to take the long way around and say "got the emerald" instead of "emeralded"