Confirmed: PX staff reads the comments sections 🤣 rewards has been my favourite thing about the switch to Xbox (and the controllers that fit like a glove)

@Sol4ris I'm much the same about physical. Although the carbon footprint part doesn't bother me too much. I think it's just human nature to gravitate towards the path of least resistance. In this case, downloading is easier than travelling for a physical item or waiting for delivery.

Don't get me wrong, we've been had over a barrel with it because of intentionally strained supply, death of the high street etc. but it doesn't lose me any sleep

@Millionski I will say that I've found the Xbox mode on PC to be a lot better recently. But you're right it's nowhere near as good as the Xbox OS. Still too laggy and not very intuitive on the store section.

I don't personally think they would bother with the Xbox OS on the Helix, because of the lack of compatibility with PC games (and that's what we can play on it, apparently) but we can dream...

@Fiendish-Beaver I'll get the popcorn out and jump over there now 🤣

@Fiendish-Beaver yes I'm in agreement with your £800 disc-less prediction for a PS6.

Just to sort of pare back on all the negativity around pricing and capabilities though, I'm still incredibly excited to see what both MS and Sony are going to produce

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm HOPING that the rumours are a little exaggerated, because the comparison to a 5080 will always point to a stupidly high price. The truth should be that FSR4 machine learning should be making the biggest difference for a 4k TV set.

Bear in mind that also, TV gamers don't need stupidly high frame rates. 120 would be the max, with 60fps the norm. So we don't need a crazy SOC with a GPU that can match 5080 in raster performance at all. Probably closer to a 5070 would be ideal. Which brings the ballpark figure down considerably.

I would hope that's what Sharma and Ball are working through now...because over a grand and I'm back to ps6

@ZeD weird. A £25 voucher for me is 30995 points. Bit of the old dynamic pricing going on here, a la PSN store

Edit: £10 is the same for me. So we're both right haha

@NishimaruX re:#28 I hope they poke fun at everyone, that's the GTA way

@ZeD mine seems a little better value than that, think it's because I'm at level 2 on rewards or something?

@Fiendish-Beaver it's just over 30,000 points for a £25 voucher so about £75 by my reckoning! There are weird rules on pre orders with gift cards though so don't do it until under 3 months from the release date. If you do a mixture of cash and gift cards it delays the purchase until 10 days before release, and gift cards have to be used within 3 months of redemption

@Millionski Asha even at this early stage knows that's not a viable price point though. I know I wouldn't jump in at 1300-1500, it's simply not a good product at that price (given it's primary function is gaming)

Valve have priced it at what they have and you know, whatever, I'm hearing all the excuses and defences from them and (some) reviewers: "well it's a PC", "we can't get better deals on components" etc. but they can't seriously think we believe that they don't have the stacks of cash available to subsidise the product.

Xbox is different though. It has an ecosystem that is stagnating in comparison to Valve and Sony, so it's important that they price hardware aggressively

@Fiendish-Beaver there are some easy answers though, it's just whether or not MS have the foresight to execute them.

1) Don't sell Helix until 2028 (and pray that AI retreats slowly into the hellscape it crawled out from)

2) make sure all access is available so it can be purchased on an interest free monthly plan

3) Don't release it at an insane figure like £1500. It's DOA at that price point because, even if it is a "PC", that's not how consumers will perceive it

All comes down to being brave with it for me. If they're not prepared to challenge Sony then it's time to exit hardware and leave it to OEMs

@Skinny-Pete dropped quite a few on remake intergrade and rebirth so currently building back up! Up to 25k now so a decent discount incoming by November 🙏

I'll be pre ordering last minute with a rewards points discount. I absolutely cannot wait for this.

@Fiendish-Beaver even an expectation of 10-15 million units would still be a bulk contract though, unlike steam machine which will likely be priced to order and sell much less than Helix.

I think the reality is that yes, if the specs are set in stone, the BoM is still very high right now. But they will forecast for a few million first year, not to order, and probably already have contracts in place for storage and memory due to the crappy AI push that they've been so implicit in creating

@Runex2121 @Millionski I don't personally think that Helix will sit in the 1300-1500 region. Even if MS aren't likely to subsidise it, the key difference between helix and steam machine is economies of scale. You'd expect them to source most parts for a better deal than Valve ever could, and in bulk

Played the demo for this, absolutely outstanding. Good writing too

It means a massive opportunity to undercut the steam machine with tonnes more performance

I mean this is from the guy that thinks no rest for the wicked is going to become a platform.

He's sort of right about GP though, sub numbers weren't what MS thought they would be and here we are constantly watching Xbox changing the plan of attack. Clearly it needs to be pared back but it's a huge thing to take that away from gamers who use it

@Banjo- yeah I grabbed that a while back still on the backlog!

This weekend I'm having a rest from hogwarts legacy to play a bit of Dave the diver on the Rog. Too hot to play on the SX this weekend!

@Banjo- I think the service itself is likely quite profitable for sure, but clearly the strategy is causing layoff after layoff, year after year.

Sometimes I think well yeah it would be a good idea to get rid of day 1 games, but then Xbox loses it's USP. Guess it needs to find a new one!

Maybe just the campaigns should be on GPU. But I don't know what I think the right answer is any more. GPU is great for me as a consumer, but if it's ultimately hindering the viability of great games, just scrap it

I'm gonna see how many reward points I can build up between now and then and get it a bit cheaper just before release date

Well, I hope it worked. I enjoyed both Hellblade games and a more action focussed version sounds great

@Markatron84 I'd be just about ok with those being what's pumped out if they also did a bit of "2nd party" stuff for games I'm a bit more interested in.

@Schonks this. This is the point that so many commentators conveniently forgot now layoffs are due.

It's completely obvious that GoW e-day will make less money by being exclusive. It's a sacrifice designed to bring new users into the ecosystem

Well, I'm particularly surprised with Ninja Theory. Not just because Senua was just announced but because I thought they would be a good support studio for UE5 optimisation.

Hellblade 2 was beautiful. I'll treasure the memory whatever happens

Fantastic demo, it really is octopath meets FF meets Zelda

@Fiendish-Beaver those would be the two I'd have guessed at as well. If so, I'd really like double fine to find a way to go independent as they're a gem. Arkane Lyon I can take or leave, couldn't enjoy dishonoured or deathloop

I love that this game even exists. More like this please, and likely a rare day one purchase for me

Game looks super well optimised on everything, I'd definitely still be up for this one. I wasn't sure but the more I've seen of it the more it looks cool

@CoolDadTx yeah that's what I want. I think I read that ps5 sleep mode is similar to the Xbox shutdown mode in power consumption, and still supports remote waking. That's what I'm after.

@themightyant yeah, the option to choose would be a pretty good and easy little fix, like that idea

@FraserG it actually makes it sound like they want to get to remote features being available from shutdown mode eventually (which is something I've personally wanted for years!)

Thanks mate.

I don't get the benefit of the power option one. Is it literally just forcing users into shutdown mode, or does it extend remote features into? Anyone got the insider build?

From the XGS stable, there isn't a single studio that hasn't made (or is making) at least something I'm interested in, so I'll be sad whichever way this goes

I think it's going to work out long term, too many huge IPs to fail, but it's not something that's suddenly synonymous with the Xbox brand or anything.

@MrStark I'm optimistic about it all. Xbox has a great platform, just needed someone to understand how to scale the business which it looks like it does now

@themightyant I hope to god there's never such a thing as an ad funded model! Remember when Prime Video suddenly decided it was going to advertise its own products unless you ponied up another £3 a month? It's just obnoxious to watch things on there now.

Ad-funded game pass makes more sense to me, but I think even then it has to be light touch as nobody wants to watch a 90 second trailer halfway through a gaming session

I'm hoping they do another all access plan for Helix, I don't mind a monthly interest free plan where I get to own the hardware at the end

Yeah we're gonna need that first one before this guys...I would be somewhat interested in it

@datamonkey 100%. It has to be coupled with platform/hardware growth. I'd love to see the current Series sales figures and Xbox on PC numbers to see where they're at

Awesome announcement. My 2nd favourite one after P6. Love those old school 3d platforms like yooka laylee, it'll be fantastic this one

Whilst GoW is a bit of a sacrificial lamb, it's a huge positive to bring back exclusives IMO. If it fails as a strategy, it fails, but it's the right call to at least try.

Amazing. Only just started rebirth and still, this is the best announcement of the summer for me

I do not envy her this role at all. She did say exclusive content and services are important, so I guess that doesn't necessarily have to mean just games, but I don't know what else could be done?

The other thing that's worrying long term is that they probably won't compete on price. The specs of Helix are going to mean it costs more than a ps6, so even subsidised it's not cheap enough to hit mass market numbers.

I still think they'll be fine, but never will they be the number 1 platform

It's a silly move and will rightly garner bad PR for the game. Which is a shame, because it looks interesting

I'd already resigned myself to this being a 30fps game for me. I've seen enough ps5 footage (as well as had a little play on the ps5 version once) to know that the 60fps mode looks awful. DRS is too aggressive and upscaling is awful at 60

@Weebleman they do the fireworks at about 22:40 french time, and we got a spot about 40 minutes in advance. Didn't matter as everyone decided to watch the show through their 6 inch screens. I was the old man yelling at clouds 🤣

@Weebleman I still have to tell my own wife off for the posing she does in photos sometimes 🤣 we took the kids to Disney 2 weeks ago in Paris, and I was a real struggle to watch the fireworks as everyone around us was holding their phone in the air instead of EXPERIENCING IT!

Anyway, middle aged rant over. Asha is indulging some real morons on twitter BUT on fairness to her, it's working in a beneficial way for all Xbox fans