Coletrain

@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!

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!