Elbow

It's so over. We're so back. It's so over. We're so back. It's so over. We're so back.

Asha's hiring was a hail mary play by Satya. One that maybe won't pay off, but I hope it does.

@Tasuki it's definitely not more important. Just easy to push out and makes people feel like this is the beginning of a new era.

I was certain they'd say something, anything about the return of the BC program at their showcase. Not necessarily even a whole breakdown, just even when or where to expect more info.

@Banjo- Yup! It's one of those times where being wrong is actually a relief!

Hm. The best deals are definitely games that have never had supermassive discounts. I'd personally not grab any of the games that have been as cheap as $2-3 during a sale.

Oh, wow. I'm glad I was wrong in thinking Sony still had publishing rights. Maybe it was a Death Stranding type of situation, then, since they're not outright shutting down port requests. Cool!

@mac_da_man Well it's been confirmed E-Day is a console exclusive to Xbox. If they buckle on that, I imagine they'd at least wait a year to release on PS5, but that's only if it doesn't perform well.

I just hope it's not a bloated length for the sake of being longer, and not surprised on the lack of talk about Gears 6. Even if it's being worked on, that would take away from the attention/hype/marketing push of E-Day.

Closures/job cuts are going to make Asha's shine dim a lot, even if it's not necessarily her fault that it's come to this. If further studio closures do come to pass, I don't want to hear a word about acquisitions.

@Banjo- Elsewhere Entertainment was founded before all those other studios got shut down, it predates the Bethesda closures by about three months I believe. Makes me wonder about some of the choices at the top of Xbox.

Awesome, Major Nelson is the closest thing Xbox has to a friendly, familiar face. Him and the (sadly ad campaign born) Kevin Butler from the PS3 gen were fantastic.

(Not saying the other top figures at Xbox aren't but Major Nelson showed up all the time for pretty much everything.)

@Banjo- For the Namco games, I doubt that will ever change unless Sony received massive PR backlash. For Stellar Blade, hard to say. I hope it changes, but their wording doesn't make me too confident.

So I'm not surprised they lost subs, but millions? That's an honest surprise, though I guess it shouldn't be. Stupid decisions reap stupid rewards. Now I can see where Satya's panic began.

@Banjo- I am wondering if Stellar Blade will be coming, if Sony still has publishing rights. They've licensed older games to Bandai Namco with apparent stipulations that the games Namco ports can go to anything... but Xbox. Examples: Everybody's Golf Hot Shots, Patapon 1+2 Replay, Freedom Wars Remastered. On everything but Xbox, when Bandai has a pretty good relationship with Xbox otherwise.

I'm honestly surprised, in a good way, that the Atelier series is still getting Xbox ports. I was worried after Atelier Yumia apparently performed very poorly on Xbox.

Tales of Eternia also getting announced is great. Lot of Japanese games coming!

Wait.. Acai? ACAI? The guy who does tons of Clone Hero and Fortnite Festival streams/videos? He's involved with Stage Tour? I didn't even know about the game before now but okay. Now it's on my radar. Potential day 1. (He's done stuff like full combo'ing the Shrek movie in Clone Hero, and some other stuff I'm definitely not allowed to mention by name here lol)

Some interesting games here outside of that too.

I think Blade was a case of them announcing something way too early, again. Again. Again. Not that I'm suggesting it's cancelled or in development hell, but I'm sure that extra layer of red tape from having to be in constant contact with Disney for approvals is making development take WAY longer than it normally should.

@AgentGuapo It's more about keeping Xbox around as a console manufacturer, and as an extension of that, competition for Sony. Exclusives are a necessary "evil". The Switch wouldn't have done as well as it had without exclusives. You can see the major loss Xbox has had since 2013 and their exclusives drastically growing shorter as they tank in playerbase.

With this said, I have said and I will continue to say that Bethesda and Activision MUST remain multiplatform. I do not see them as Xbox. These stay multiplat, but Xbox' first party studios stay exclusive with exceptions for multiplayer only games like Kiln and Sea of Thieves.

Just Axel is a choice, I guess he's going to have a large presence story wise. If he's not, then I will be very annoyed why hes the only playable character.

That said, HELL YEAH CRAZY TAXI IS BACK!

It's a good.. restart, I guess, but Fable and Halo still going to PS puts a sour note on this. We'll see.

It's good exclusives are returning as it shows they're serious about the console. They're still putting Halo on PlayStation and you can't put the cap back on that bottle once it's done. Same with Fable.

People will still believe they just have to ignore the exclusivity and wait it out for the ogames to release on rival systems, especially since this looks like a half measured response.

I'm not upset exclusives are back (I'm actually very happy personally as this shows a belief in keeping Xbox around), but this method is just going to prolong their efforts if they really do want to bring Xbox back. A good start though, but they're gonna have to prepare for the long game with this route.

The only point they made I can't argue against is live service games being multiplat. That makes sense.

Good God. There actually are TOO many games being announced. It's a good problem to have for us. I played the first Marsupilami a few years ago and was pleasantly surprised, it's a really good Donkey Kong Country Returns style game.

Arizona Sunshine being another game torn from VR and adapted into a regular game is not surprising. It seems like VR is starting to notably wind down, so I think more will follow. And here I am having just got a Quest 3 earlier this year...

@Markatron84 Not the worst news to hear, though it does make me sad. DKR and Crash Team Racing are the gold standards of kart racers for a reason..

Still, if it's fun then I can't complain too much. Those games will still always exist.

If Yooka Laylee Kart is aiming to be the Diddy Kong Racing of this series, I might just die of joy.

@Fiendish-Beaver OH you're right, I completely forgot E33 was last year, I thought 2024 for some reason. I felt that way about Stray from 4 or so years back, the game where you play as a cat. It wasn't the best game ever made but it was a really cool game that had way more than you'd expect going on in it. I also just really love tabby cats.

Of course it was never going to win GOTY but I think it got nominated at least which made me really happy.

Shame Cronos didn't even get a nomination. I don't remember what else came out last year though, I generally play games well after the release date.

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm still fairly early into it I believe, just reached the Steelworks, but it's very good so far. The only reason I can think that it was snubbed is because it might have been too difficult for the panelists to play.

I finally got started on Cronos The New Dawn, which has been interesting. It's definitely less horror and more tense/stress focused with inventory and item management especially during fights. The story is very interesting though, I'm enjoying that.

Otherwise, been playing very weird little side games. Cup Heroes which is a dumb little free to play game on Xbox. I don't understand why but it's very relaxing to play, so I've.. put way too much time into it over the last week and most certainly this weekend as well.

THE LAST RONIN! I never stopped believing in it still being worked on! What I didn't expect was it being given to Platinum and being worked on under Paramount directly. Black Forest Games wasn't up to snuff then, I suppose.

Finally. Ueda takes ages with his games.. I'm glad Epic was patient. This might be the game that equals that same sense of unease I got from Shadow of the Colossus!

I still wonder why GPU focuses so heavily on giving perks for free to play games. I suppose because they're cheaper to make deals for than other things, but it's odd lol

@Fiendish-Beaver I'll have to disagree with you on a lot of the Gears talk. The original is a huge reason why I finally got a 360, one of 3 games but it's THE game that pushed me over. I don't think I've ever seen anyone dismiss the fact that Gears had the same decline as Halo has. The first absolutely had horror elements in both Halo 1 and Gears 1, which were dialed down for the Hollywood/Michael Bay's wet dream action in both.

Gears 4 had a lot of excitement because of the way it was being marketed, and a direct quote of 'three people in the woods for one night' from Rod Fergusson, who oversaw the series when Microsoft acquired it. It turned out to be a fairly bog-standard action game choked to the gills with robots and explosives and destructive weather which was a far cry from what the marketing suggested. The multiplayer was also fun but poorly handled. Some old maps, tons of recycled base MP maps with a new skybox, and characters being trickled in over time, some just being reskins like Biker Marcus. lol

Gears 5 doubled down on the silliness, boiling away a lot of the heart. Marcus' rage filled cry about losing his last connection to Dom in that easter egg from 4 was just made into a silly 'tee-hee XD marcus luv tomaters eh?' joke by Del. The game buried a lot of character development and pure logic for the sake of having events happen. You're telling me after the end of 4, Marcus didn't check out the cave? Just gave 'em a thumbs up, "aight, awesome, nothing bad can happen from here" and just walked off? That's before getting to the trend chasing that chokes Gears 5 to death, too. Open worlds 'cuz they were popular, with nothing in them. "Make a choice" being shoved in to the narrative 'cuz that was also popular at the time with stuff like Wolfenstein and Telltales games.

Fortnite-tier emotes in multiplayer with truly atrocious pricing (this was fixed BUT it was there at release). Maps taking forever to release, some of them just re-releases of maps from 4, with them claiming "it'd take 6 months to make a single map for multiplayer". Characters being shackled to hero-shooter roles and even called Gears Heroes (as was the style at the time, too) AND massive resources being taken away by Escape Mode, while those said resources never ended up anywhere else as it died fast. Multiplayer characters also, again, being drip-fed in the same manner they were in 4.

The writing in 5 was bad. There was potential, but they made Kait truly unlikable as well as just kind of stringing along bits of plot, like finally giving Myrrah's origins a proper confirmation, while also just unceremoniously killing off one of the characters who canonically was strong enough to tear himself out of Snatcher's body just for a cheap emotional moment. If a better writer took a crack at it, I think the overall story could've shined a lot. The abrupt ending was also shocking, just a random big enemy made to go boom and ... that's it?

The campaigns are really watered down, multiplayer is still mostly fine. I also don't think the original trilogy is flawless; I can't stand actually playing Gears 2, but I went through the campaigns a ton and picked up all the Karen Traviss novels, to the point where I was actually super giddy to finally see the Boomer Lady as a playable character in 3. Gears 1's plot is also very sparse, but it at least gets a pass since it's building up a base for the future.

@FraserG Holy moly, I didn't realize how many events there were. Thank you for even attempting to keep up with them.

Ground Zero Hero (I swear it looks like a Simpsons alien at the start) and Toxic Crusaders are definitely on my radar. They look great. Go North is also a possibility.

Not dissing the other games listed, just doesn't seem like they're my kind of games.

I'm surprised anyone ever sees 48 hour early access and gets excited. These games rarely come out of the gate at their best anymore. And in a years time, the DDE will be 50% off. Early access ain't gonna mean much then.

I'm not trying to downplay it, just.. who really jumps for these early access releases when it takes months for modern games to even be at their best?

@smoreon Something like that would be a Nightdive hail mary toss. I believe they could do it, but the funds required and playing ball with Atari would make that all tricky.

I'm glad they at least are aware.. now so long as they eventually move past just being aware!

I loved Ignition. The writing and voice acting was funny, though it was just poking fun at Hollywood. The level that mocked the Dukes of Hazard reboot with Johnny Knoxville was pretty good, and I say that as someone who likes Johnny.

Looking forward to this. Hope they get the tone right.

Oh my god, this is exactly what I've been hoping for! I played the hell out of the SNES and N64 Toy Story games.

Oh wow. Shredder's Revenge finally leaves. It's been a good 4 year run. God, I can't believe it's been that long.

@Odium To be fair, Nintendo is just releasing a remake of a remake of a remaster of a remake. The only new "content" is online MP.

Edit: May have got the order backwards, but the point still stands.

@Bartig Holy crap, someone else remembers Vexx! I was looking around recently to find out why it never even got a barebones modern day port. Guess this game will just have to scratch the itch.

@Deshalu I'll say, as a super casual COD player, that ever since they switched to characters with "personality" in multi-player instead of nameless grunts, all their unique operators/playable characters have been dreadfully boring. There's not a single one throughout Blops 6 or 7 I found interesting, and I don't even particularly want to play as any of them as they feel worse than the nameless grunts of World At War, for example, because they try too hard.

Each Operator is trying SO hard to look marketable and cool that they all feel like homogenized gruel, and even the joke characters are too stupid or lean too far into "ayy weed lmao" that Seth Rogan has probably wet himself and passed out from laughing at them.

So when they offer something actually unique, which is a crossover skin... kinda hard to turn my nose up at it.

A lot of these are finally at a good discount, 67% turns into $1.70 (roughly) for some of these smaller XBLA games. Not a bad deal.

The good first step part is a relief to hear. I genuinely wondered if they'd just sit back, arms crossed behind their heads, and say "we saved it!" without doing more.

Exclusives truly will show where they end up heading. If they stay multiplat, the console is clearly just being given some easy changes while they wind down hardware plans.

Wow. That's very sudden. They're eager to finally rid the shackles of the 8th gen, which is understandable... though also a little questionable since Switch 2 is just a PS4 pro spec wise, right?

Here's to another 10 years of PS5/Series support!

...ahaha, the world sucks right now.

The end of an era! Now maybe the Xbone and PS4 can finally rest.

My poor, poor wallet..

Unfortunately the only one that will move the needle is exclusives coming back. If they don't commit, there's no real way to come back in any large capacity.

@SpecialT How is Mixtape? I've heard conflicting things. Also, love the pfp. Ghostbusters 4 life!

Finally finishing Silent Hill 2's achievements, and playing Spray Paint Simulator because it's leaving gamepass soon and I didn't even know it was on the service 'till I saw the leaving soon warning.

Maybe Cronos The New Dawn tomorrow.

@DennisReynolds Huh?? What the hell happened then? That's wild.

These sales have shown me some wild indie games/lesser known games that never got so much as a light nudge in terms of marketing push. I never knew Azure Striker Gunvolt had multiple sequels, let alone a spinoff series.

I also appreciate these curated lists. I've said it before, navigating these sales on console can be a nightmare. Thank you, PX staff!

Good Lord. I dread to think what the file size was before the optimizing...