Coletrain

@Exerion76 such a great video, I've watched it multiple times since it came out and feel like I can totally relate 🤣

Finally some good news. Fantastic developer and I hope the game gets loads of praise. Nobody makes games quite like Obsidian

We get a lot of rumours and here say with Xbox, and it's generally easy to brush off, but when Jason Schrier reports unrealistic financial targets set by a woman who doesn't know the industry, it makes me question if I just need to rip the bandaid off and get a ps5 on black Friday.

What the heck is going on there that MS can't go a few weeks without a bad story

It's an embodiment of the Xbox brand as a whole right now. "We promise something really good is coming" then it never really does, and they tell us that again the next time 🤣

All seriousness though, cool product, not a price that will draw in big numbers, but doesn't stop me wanting it on sale someday in the future

The plans certainly don't sound mass market, but if it's an open platform then I'm sold.

Always said the same thing though, if they're gonna do PC stores on a living room machine, it needs to work with 60hz non-VRR TVs, and I'm still unsure how they can do that

@Fiendish-Beaver oh I'm certain that being the first blockbuster Xbox exclusive from Bethesda meant that it was going to get increased scrutiny. You only need look at the review scores for Keeper; it's functionally a similar "voiceless movement sim" experience to flow or journey but gets hammered in some reviews.

Anyway, with Starfield I've also seen it get hammered in forums, but I still don't see a world where it wouldn't sell like hotcakes on ps5 even after all this time. For RPG lovers it's great!

@Fiendish-Beaver the funny thing is it reviewed pretty well, it was just generally polarising. That's kind of reflected in steam user reviews too.

Mind you, it still sold well so I've no doubt that ps5 users will buy it in decent numbers too

@PressR2 it means I will buy a game when the price matches my perceived value, what isn't clear about that? And how else do you find out if you think you'll like something: reviews, videos, gameplay if needed.

Your snarky response was gratefully received, now run along child.

I'm indifferent to the feature. A game has always been worth what I'm willing to pay for it, but I can see how it's a useful feature purely for price tracking

@Weebleman I guess until they firmly announce their next piece of hardware the rumour mills of them not doing next gen will keep spinning, but I like hearing it from the horse's mouth too.

FWIW, I hope they absolutely nail next gen, because I prefer my sofa to my desk and I don't want an actual PC in my living room

I paid a total of just under £400 for a Rog ally z1e, with a dock, power bank and grip case. It does most of what this does. It's undoubtedly a cool piece of kit, but I don't see a good reason to upgrade. It's rare that I don't have enough memory to play the games I want, and using 720p with FSR and a bit of RIS tends to achieve good results on more intensive games.

For someone who has yet to get into handheld PC gaming and really wants to though, I think this looks like the best device on the market. But it's not priced to compete with a steam deck or a switch 2, so it really has to become your primary gaming device if you're not mega rich

@Sol4ris haha very good point bud! I've burned out on GP this year, finally going through my backlog and enjoying the heck out of it. I reckon keeper will go on sale down to £15-18 soon enough so I'll pick it up then, game looks so good and love everything double fine do

It looks very up my alley. Just seen that it's 25 quid, I'll just buy this one rather than sub on for 23!

@fatpunkslim ah right I hadn't seen all that, I'd seen something earlier where Herman Hulst had confirmed that hardware was still a big part of their strategy, and they would judge exclusives carefully.

I'm all up for Sony opening up, some of their games deserve a bigger audience

@OldGamer999 I don't think Sony needs to go fully multiplatform and that's my honest opinion. They sell on their own side first, then the biggest PC marketplace in the world with Steam (usually with quite good ports), and whatever they're doing is working for them.

I don't think they're blind though. If suddenly things go tits up for them, they've already done one Xbox port so they know what to do

@fatpunkslim huh? Of course Sony care about their hardware, they sell the VAST majority of their games on there.

@fatpunkslim there some truth in your statements here, but:

1) I don't think Xbox sales numbers for Helldivers 2 was released anywhere, was it?

2) I also seem to recall Sony reiterating that hardware was very important to them (after all, that is their key platform, right?)

I think the general sentiment you have is right though, in that there must be high levels of engagement on Xbox otherwise why even bother from a dev point of view. I'd imagine most of us forum dwellers help a ton with that!

I'd love BG3 to go play anywhere, been wondering where to get it for a while!

Does this auto set the right TDP?

@HonestHick hope so, to an extent they already have! When a game is out that I want I always check if it's play anywhere and buy it on Xbox over other storefronts if so.

Can't wait to see what the plans are, I just want to know if we're flogging a dead horse or if it's going to be epic

@BacklogBrad I use my ally docked (though not with a VRR dock) and it's good as a budget PC I think. So cloud gaming, remote play and Indies that I can lock to a fixed framerate are great, anything that can't run at 1080p looks awful on a bigger screen though and need to be run handheld for me, especially when VRR is needed.

I'm willing to bet that the Xbox ally x is a slight improvement over my setup as you can probably charge it though one port and use usb-c to displayport on the thunderbolt port to get the VRR working without a dock.

Awesome review, it's everything I expected it to be and glad you had a great time with it.

@FraserG What came in the box? Do you get a little stand so you can easily connect a wire to a monitor/charger and dock it??

Updated my ally and Xbox app this morning. Command centre looks so good now, simple to use and automatically recognises gamepad controls (before had to switch to controller mode to make game bar work)

Still not sure how the optimised for handheld thing works. For example, it says FF16 is optimised for handheld in my library but I can assure everyone here that it is optimised for nothing on PC!

@HonestHick well, Xbox gets gaming, MS doesn't! But I'm with you, the whole ecosystem has won me over. I play games on the Xbox, the Rog ally and even the firestick 4k max sometimes. It's an insane amount of choice in the way I want to play

@themightyant ok, thanks mate that's handy to know. Mine just went out of warranty although no stick drift to report yet!

@HonestHick I don't even think it's ignorance, it's just click farming for clout or money. Xbox hardware hasn't exactly been flying off the shelves for 2 years now, so these insidious fools start their rumours when MS does something dumb (like raise game pass prices lol) so that it seems believable.

Honestly, you'd think Xbox had murdered their family some of these clowns

I like playing games across different gens. I've just finished GTA4 after not playing since 2009. When ff7 remake is out I'll replay that at it's higher frame rate/fidelity.

A game has to be special though. I won't play something like South of Midnight again, even though it was wonderful

@Mastlander98 I never really thought about it but you're right. I have a Rog ally z1e and if the sticks break it's pretty much toast

I still haven't played this one (played most of insomniacs games on prior PS platforms) and I bet I'd love it. Anyone played it on series x? How does it hold up today?

@Banjo- @HonestHick the industry needs Xbox to stay in hardware. As much as we can point to MS penny pinching lately with price rises and GPU increases, the PS3 launch taught us everything that we need to know. Competition drives innovation and prices

@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!