FraserG

Let's keep it civil please! Everyone's entitled to an opinion 👍

@luke88 Yes, there's crossplay between all platforms!

(That's been added in now)

@Nintendo4Sonic Easily could be a 9 if you look at it a certain way. I just think it loses an extra point for some of the THPS4 changes and the soundtrack. That's just me though.

@General-Foley @Kaloudz I do have a lot of storage!

4TB is on a standard external hard drive though - and then there's a 1TB Expansion Card and 1TB on the Xbox Series X itself.

@Questionable_Duck 😁

@AlwaysPlaying I'm very real, I promise 😅

@Llamageddon You too!

@Llamageddon Oh yeah, I'm sure. It was the best possible time for the RROD to happen, let's say that.

Today, with the focus being on much more than just console, who knows whether they'd have taken that risk.

@Fiendish-Beaver Incredible! I hadn't looked into "Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway" before today, but it looks pretty decent.

@Llamageddon I mean, it was a great opportunity for Microsoft to say "no, we're not spending over $1 billion to fix this problem and give everyone free repairs". Solving the issue for the future is one thing, but fixing it for all your existing customers is another.

If that happened now, would they earmark that kind of money to fix everyone's consoles for free again? Maybe, but I'm not so sure.

Thanks all! Those have been added (aside from Tainted Grail, which seems to be very limited).

@Questionable_Duck @Balaam_ Yes, that's Replaced! It's still coming, but it's 2026 now.

@Coletrain It was the plan, but we've only just received a code in the past couple of hours. We'll see!

The Riffmaster for £84.99 is pretty decent, I really like mine:

https://www.purexbox.com/reviews/pdp-riffmaster-guitar-xbox-a-fun-option-for-rock-band-fortnite-festival-and-beyond

@willd05 If you have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate / PC Game Pass / EA Play, then it should still work, yes.

@Kaloudz Bit more context from their FAQ (also now in the article!):

"We are in favor of publishers ending support for a game whenever they choose. What we are asking for is that they implement an end-of-life plan to modify or patch the game so that it can run on customer systems with no further support from the company being necessary."

@Ricky-Spanish Sorry! If it's any consolation, we're totally drained by it as well 😩

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Not really, no. People are still digging to find out more, especially in terms of Contraband.

@Jenkinss I'd love to say we will, but there's so much happening right now and we've clocked off for the day (aside from major news) - so please forgive us if we don't get around to it.

We're also working a lighter schedule today and tomorrow to make up for yesterday's craziness 🥴

@Jaxx420 I think he's just annoyed by the idea that it's ALL fake when only part of it is. He's actually at Studio MDHR now I believe.

@Jaxx420 FYI this developer hasn't worked on Perfect Dark for a while now (hence why he says he'd heard the team had "turned a corner in recent months").

@awp69 That's been added for you

@Dan1283 Thank you very much! 🙏

@Decimateh Not heard anything to suggest it's coming to Game Pass.

@Titntin Good spot, I hadn't seen that yet. Hard to keep up with it all when Microsoft isn't saying anything publicly. 🙃

@Millionski I mean, it's terrible really. I have a lot of hope for the future of Xbox still, particularly when it comes to the portfolio of first-party titles for 2026, and yes - even in terms of hardware. I'm optimistic for what's ahead in many ways.

But this? Mass layoffs, major game cancellations and a studio closure? The five-year promise of Perfect Dark being taken away in the blink of an eye? It's awful.

There will be much brighter days ahead, but this is another low point - and we've seen too many of those over the past couple of years.

They'd been generating a lot of positive buzz in recent months too!

Another update to this - Xbox's head of communications has told The Verge that “'Phil is not retiring anytime soon".

@BaldB3lper78 We knew layoffs were coming (as of last week), and presumed they'd be pretty severe, but weren't sure of which studios and games would be affected.

Just thrown a little update in here from Windows Central - they're reporting "no plans" for Phil to step down as things stand.

Believe what you want to believe!

@BaldB3lper78 It's much appreciated, thank you 🙏

@HarmanSmith Heard nothing about Ninja Theory, news is trickling out all the time though. We'll have to wait and see.

@abe_hikura Agree with everything you said.

I don't believe there's a plan yet, as Jez says (even if there is, we all know that plans can change) - but it seems inevitable he's going to step down sooner rather than later.

Sarah Bond is getting way more time in front of the camera these days, and the fact she spearheaded the next-gen hardware announcement suggests she's going to be the face of the next era.

@BaldB3lper78 Well, I appreciate that you'll keep following us despite how you feel about Xbox! It's been a tough day

@Kaloudz Undead Labs is apparently safe (at least for now).

@fbnaulin It is OK apparently.

@fbnaulin Yeah, I'm watching it. They're not certain about this yet, so let's wait and see if anyone else can confirm / Windows Central finds out more information.

@Kaloudz Can never be 100% accurate of course! You never really know when they're going to remove anything 🤷‍♂️

@Kaloudz it seems most likely, yeah.

@awp69 Let's hope so 🤞

@awp69 That's very strange, many of those haven't been confirmed yet - so either they're mistaken or they've got some kind of inside source.

I'd be very surprised if College Football 26 is on the list though - it would be the first ever "day one" EA Sports title on Game Pass. They never add new releases to GP at launch.

I really struggled with this. Expedition 33 was my #1, but it could have been any of these three:

1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
2. Split Fiction
3. South of Midnight

@Simu001 You're right, my apologies! We're low-staffed this week so the odd mistake might slip through 🙏

@PsBoxSwitchOwner It's meant in terms of how the service changed compared to the PlayStation Now days.

Obviously both still have their differences (like the day one first-party games you mentioned), but they're much more alike than they were pre-2022.

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm not actually sure about that yet! They've only just gone live over the past hour.

@Zeta Enjoy! I'm sure it'll be great

@themightyant It's mainly just the display that's different. Worse resolution and different quality of lenses on the 3S vs the 3.

@Old_Man_Harper You and me both! Same thing goes for Police Simulator - I generally just prefer walking around and looking for badly parked cars 😅

@Seioni Yeah, the app is on the Quest 2 already.

Here are more details on it from 2023:

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2023/12/xbox-cloud-gaming-launches-in-vr-with-new-meta-quest-app

@abe_hikura I think you're right, yeah. I paid around £60 for my Quest 2 Elite Strap a few years ago.

@Fiendish-Beaver We don't have all the details yet, but they've suggested that you'll be able to see which platform each game is from, yeah

Way too early to say in terms of the next generation and how we'd focus our coverage, so let's see how things pan out. I can't imagine we'd change our name because our #1 intent is to be focused on all things "Xbox" and that encompasses a lot of things these days, but who knows what the future holds.

@Kaloudz Yeah, that's what it is. Just a big screen in VR and the Xbox Cloud Gaming app.

In terms of Xbox games with VR features, like Microsoft Flight Simulator, you can use Wi-Fi or a cable to hook up to your PC and play VR games that way as well. It obviously has to be a powerful enough PC in order to run those games though.