Coletrain

So (UK here) I'm currently NOT subbed to GP or GPU, and my daily logins to the Xbox app are lower (4, 8, 10, 14, 18) and daily play for console or PC has reduced from 10 to 5 points.

When I look on my rewards section on the mobile app it's basically showing a tiered structure, where "everyone" gets lowest rewards, "core" and "standard" users get more, and "Ultimate" users get the most by some distance

Oh look, the rewards were nerfed again without fanfare. I'm now getting less points for signing into the mobile app, and daily play on console and PC has gone from 10 points to 5

I feel for you Fraser, PES was incredible in the 00s and it had just hit form again in 2021 only to die out and become the awful eFootball.

FIFA (or FC whatever) lost me 6 years ago. It's a time hog with no reward, no payoff, and it "ultimately" took me away from actual good games. I'm much, MUCH happier without it in my life ha

Just waiting for the "due to macroeconomic conditions the price of game pass will now be one kidney per month"

EDIT: wasn't far off

Dammit. Bought this physical 2 months ago.

I'd be very up for this. It's struggled as a gaming IP, two towers and return of the king on PS2 were great, but since then only shadow of mordor has come close (and it's a spin off really)

@Sol76 🤣🤣 love this. "we wanted to but yeahhhh...nah"

@Bob_Tempura I personally think that, sadly, we're already at that point. First party releases should be fine, so at least that's something, but I really do enjoy seeing the DF comparisons where you can see a bit more grunt here, a bit less optimisation there etc.

Perhaps in a couple of years we will just be looking at ps5 Vs PC code in direct comparisons instead though, eh!

@Puregon that actually sounds like a really decent combo, switch 2 plus (probably) the best PC handheld on the market. Enjoy bud

@BattleMonkey haha mate I am UK, Yorkshireman here. We leave our butter out in the butter trays instead of the fridge, keeps it nice and soft 🤣 60fps butter or nothing for me

@Medic_alert very commendable mate. I think PC wise once you're comfortable with what framerate you like, what filters or upscalers you prefer etc. it's not so bad, but it's taken me about a year to even get to that point. Sometimes I'll go on a rabid optimisation session for 3 hours and barely play the damn game I'm trying to get running just right.

Then I turn on the Xbox and think "why the F did I just do all that"

I like that if you know a game runs well on XSS, then you know it's going to run like butter just about everywhere!

@Medic_alert I really enjoy handheld PC gaming, it's like "babys first PC gaming experience" for me. But I love tech, and not sure it's as fun a product if someone doesn't.

Hard to see a massive appeal for these and like you, I'd want to see the numbers!

@Lrapsody maybe we'll be able to take part if we let them scan our digital ID

@Gabrie it's all too confusing every time I try to think about it. In the here and now, I'm finding that Xbox support from Devs is really quite good so I'm not at panic stations, BUT you have to think that with lower stock, sales, physical games etc. that they're just done with this gen and ready to move to the next stage

Hang on, wasn't the growth thing discussed a while back and based on cloud/PC gaming growth for Xbox (mostly cloud)?

@OldGamer999 tell you the one thing I did notice, eBay prices for 2nd hand series X are up. They really may be collectors items one day!

@OldGamer999 you're missing the drama mate, it's gone from an underdog story to "Xbox owners are now an exclusive club" because they don't sell the beggars any more!

Where's @oldgamer999 we've been down this road before haven't we? 🤣

@GeeEssEff haha that's fair mate, SX it is! Have to say I've been having a blast with play anywhere, this game would be an incredible addition to it

@ilyn haha hell yeah, I reckon close to daily numbers during the start of lockdown grumbles bloody kids grumbles bloody job...

@GeeEssEff I do have a dock but I've found that unless a game is running natively at 1080p the results are a little underwhelming on my 24" screen. Everything else from 720p upwards is much more acceptable at 7"!

Thanks for the insight though, if I can YouTube some decent settings it might be worth a punt on the old M&K setup

@Questionable_Duck ah right, I didn't know that. FPS boost is such a great feature. God only knows how MS has managed to fall so far behind this generation when they've released arguably their best consoles yet

I think those hours reflect my weekly playtime better than monthly lol. I will say, having an Xbox has made me a more "hardcore gamer" than I was before, not sure why, but I'm more engaged and playing (and buying) more than I ever did on my PS4. So maybe there's something in these recent spates of Xbox ports...

@Kezelpaso I hope I speak for all of us when I say nope, we don't mind at all if you need to use another platform! I'd imagine if you don't then you lose all momentum on the review by releasing it a week late

So, I haven't jumped on this game yet (I will do in due course), and they've optimised it so much over time that I genuinely can't decide if this will be a better experience on my XSX or Rog Ally z1e.

Larian seems like a wonderful studio, always liked the way they interact with the public and their messaging

@Questionable_Duck so Xbox will be the best place to play all your Yakuza titles and Final Fantasy ones 😯

Wonder why Yakuza 6 never got a 60fps update on PS5, I'd imagine that's where it's sold the most!

This is awesome news, love Yakuza. If I remember right, when I played Kiwami 2 on Xbox couple of years ago it's still at 30fps so I'd imagine that'll be a really good update

This must be so frustrating for you as a reviewer Ben, both xboxera and DF have been vocal recently about Xbox review codes shipping later than ps5 and Steam codes.

@Chrisgamer yes, hence why I said fear of lack of support, not actual lack of support. I then said support from 3rd party Devs keeps rolling in.

@Pat_trick I must admit, I've pondered a few times about whether or not I should just move to ps5 based on fear of lack of support. But then despite the complete lack of backing from MS themselves, 3rd party Dev support keeps rolling in.

It's fast becoming my favourite console ever!

@FraserG mini typo in the article that says series s 1tb is down to 399, I can see from the links you mean X 🫡

@fbnaulin I've heard good things about xbplay, you have to wonder what MS are thinking when 3rd party apps outperform their own 🤔

@Nenoeil I use better xcloud but on a ROG Ally, can you even add that kind of plugin to a mobile browser? It is a heck of a lot better than the PC app though isn't it!

@Fiendish-Beaver you sir, are undoubtedly the man in this forum that plays the most games now, you've more than made up for your past indiscretions 😉 always trust your judgement when I see a comment.

As for the older ps games, what can I say, they're in the annuls of time now. One of the most pleasant surprises when I grabbed my SX was the back compat. Truly remarkable playing through all Halo and Gears titles for the first time.

@fbnaulin I've not seen any rumblings of the mobile app having higher res, but I'd imagine if you run it through mobile edge or chrome it's 1080p?

@Fiendish-Beaver I was much the same until this era, and haven't owned a ps5 unfortunately. Moved to Xbox on a whim and found the controller and ecosystem to be more to my tastes.

Now, PS1 takes me back, I can think of wipeout and crash bandicoot, final fantasy 7/8/9, perhaps Syphon filter was PS1 too...PS2 was the jak and daxter games, sly racoon, killzone and (still going strong) god of war 1 + 2!

It's a nice move forward, but until they unlock the bitrate a bit more and run series x versions then it's a fun way to play but not a serious one.

@Banjo- yeah I agree with both of those potentially being able to do well on xbox, especially God of War (What's the real GoW though, that or Gears!!). The ones I don't think would move the needle would be Ratchet & Clank and Ghost of Tsushima, great as they both undoubtedly are

@Fiendish-Beaver I had it on PS4, but I'd happily buy it again on SX with the increased framerate. Plus, we know from death stranding that the decima engine works really quite well on Xbox...

Yeah this one was vvverrrrryyy quickly debunked. Still though, out of pure speculation, this is a game that I think would do ok on Xbox especially if Sony is looking to put the IP on TV

@Jenkinss on point 2) I agree, I don't think this 2nd price rise is tariff related. Whilst we're all getting royally more screwed by every company we have any connection with, the tariff situation hasn't changed since the last price increase.

As a UK XSX owner (and a very happy one as I got it shortly after launch), where the tariffs don't really hit us the same way, this just seems like hardware suicide in MS biggest market. Which leads me to believe next gen is coming a little sooner than we thought, albeit likely through OEMs first

Anyone else think this is just a prelude to the "nextbox" in 2026? They have obviously given up on the X/S sales

@TrollOfWar nice. My assumption is this is all to be stored by MS, but you would assume they need some kind of security in place when accessing games that you start on steam first

@TrollOfWar well it's specifically where the cloud saves will be that I'm confused by. Are you saying that even if I'm playing a game on steam (let's say one not published by Xbox) it can use my Xbox cloud data on Steam (I.e. MS provides the whole infrastructure), or do you think it transfers to steam cloud and vice versa?

I did not have this being a good game on my bingo card, looks heaps of fun and dare I say it better than MKW

I'm glad this is happening, I just can't grasp the logistics behind it. Is it effectively MS and Steam allowing each other access to save data?

Really looking forward to seeing what this can do. Ideally, I'd like to see a combo, less ram and less total power draw. I know it won't perform miracles but with the ROG ally battery so small every little helps

@Ricky-Spanish yeah, I get that he's running a PS enthusiast site but you can tell which articles are his by the title before you even click in. Lot of Xbox news on push 🤔

(Still enjoy reading it though, the comments sections are gold)

@BattleMonkey oh mate I know. Even those that do have them though, I'm not realistically going to play cyberpunk or star wars outlaws on a switch 2 over a series x! It's all about the ninty exclusives baby

@Markatron84 day 1 games are extremely rare for me for this reason. Why pay more for less, when you can pay less for more a short time later